“How’s it looking, Kaplan?” Commander Lee Adama craned his neck to see what the Petty Officer in charge of the repair team was looking at. They were standing in a long stretch of dark corridor, lit only by the dancing light of flashlights. Although he normally wouldn’t be personally inspecting a power outage, this one had occurred in a section of the Pegasus that had been giving them trouble for some time.

“Not good, sir.”

“How do you mean?” Lee squinted at…something…Kaplan was pointing to in the dim light.

The Petty Officer shined her flashlight at a bundle of wires. Lee could clearly see the copper core of several wires from where the insulation was missing.

“Looks as if somebody’s been slacking off in doing their maintenance work, sir. The claddings on these are completely worn through. This is probably why we’ve been getting so many faulty readings from the engines.”

“And how did the electrical failure happen?”

“Well, you see how the copper wires are actually touching, sir?” Kaplan jiggled the light of her flashlight at the wires once again.

“Yeah…”

“It looks as if the currents actually managed to jump onto just one or two of the wires and completely overloaded the circuit breaker. Normally, we’d just restart the system, but this time, we’ll have to replace the wiring first.”

Lee nodded in the darkness. The movement of his chin cast strange shadows against the bulkhead.

A voice deeper in the darkness suddenly called out: “Hey does anybody smell that?”

Kaplan was the first to realize what the smell was. “Tylium fumes,” she whispered.

Lee immediately snapped into action. “Alright everybody!” he calmly announced. “It looks as if we have a fuel leak back here. I want everyone to walk out of here in an orderly fashion. No panicking. First one out of the section calls the Chief Engineer and tells him to shut off the engines and close all fuel lines. Got it?”

A chorus of “yessir”-s answered him.

“Kaplan, get up there and tick off people as they exit.”

“Yessir,” Kaplan said crisply and took off at a brisk jog.

Lee pressed his back against the bulkhead and watched as the shadowy figures of his crew made their way out of the section in an orderly fashion.

Then a voice suddenly yelped “Frak!” The light at the very back of the line of people moving past him fell to the deck and the bulb of the flashlight smashed open, exposing the red hot filament to the air and the fumes wafting in it.

It was surreal. Lee could see the tylium fumes ignite in slow motion. The flames bloomed out like a bright orange flower. Dark silhouettes were highlighted briefly before being consumed by the explosion.

All he could do was watch on as horror gripped his heart. He desperately wished that this was all a bad dream.

And then it hit him, a solid wall of superheated air, sending him flying backwards.

---

“Galactica. Pegasus. We’ve had an explosion in our port stern near the engine room.”

“Copy that, Pegasus. Keep us apprised of the situation.”

---

He had been far enough away from the explosion so that the concussion threw him against a bulkhead so that it hurt but didn’t knock him out.

But how did it hurt. It felt as if his head was expanding and contracting with throbbing pain. The rhythm constantly sped up and slowed down as he struggled to stand, using only one arm to support his weight as he tried get his bearings. He was sure his other shoulder was dislocated, and the deep, grinding pain that he felt every time his useless arm swayed as he moved could only mean that his clavicle was broken as well.

The once dark corridor was now lit in fiercely flickering orange. He desperately prayed that the first crewmember out had managed to pass the word to the Chief Engineer and that the fuel lines had been closed.

He struggled to stay on his feet The heat and the fumes burned his lungs with every breath he took, almost but not quite masking the pain of his broken ribs.

He stumbled as he tried to walk. He needed to get away. Move away from the heat.

There was something off about each step he took. It felt as if his feet were…sticking to the deck. He looked down and saw a trail of black footprints following him. His boot soles were actually beginning to melt.

There were bodies around him. He couldn’t tell if anyone was still alive, but he was sure that he was the only person still on his feet.

Trying to make his way out of the section would be pointless. The hatches would be locked and sealed by now in preparation for emergency venting.

There was a walk-in storage locker nearby. It would contain emergency oxygen masks, placed throughout the ship for situations such as this. Although the hatch wasn’t airtight, it would serve as some measure of shelter when the atmosphere was vented.

If he could get to it.

He turned to walk back towards the heat when something tapped against his boot. He looked down to see that a crewmember lying on the deck was at least semi-conscious. Without thinking, he grabbed the man by his collar and began dragging him along.

---

“Galactica. Kat. Pegasus just shut off all of her engines, but her RCS thrusters are still firing. She’s coasting.”

“Pegasus to all vessels: stay clear. I say again. Pegasus to all vessels: stay clear. We cannot stop our forward momentum.”

“Pegasus. Galactica Actual wishes to speak with Pegasus Actual.”

“Stand by, Galactica. We’re trying to locate the Commander now.”

---

Step.

Drag.

Pause.

Step.

Drag.

Pause.

His feet grew hotter and hotter as his rubber boot soles melted away against the hot metal of the deck. Any moment now, his feet would break through the increasingly thin barrier, his socks would quickly burn off, and his feet would begin cooking.

Each movement that jostled his injured shoulder was excruciating, but he kept up his steady pace.

Step.

Drag.

Pause.

The storage locker was so close. He could make it there in a matter of seconds if he wanted to make a run for it. But there was no way he was going to leave behind the crewmember he was pulling along. Not while he could still feel the enlisted man’s hands weakly grasping his wrist.

Step.

Drag.

Pause.

He lengthened his stride, groaning at the additional strain it put on his battered body.

He needed to get to that storage locker.

Another step. And another…

There!

He quickly through the hatch open and dragged the crewman along with him as fast as he could.

The relative coolness of the storage locker was a welcome relief from the raging inferno that was outside.

He secured the hatch as well as he could and began rummaging around for the breath masks by the shaking light of the flashlight.

---

“Pegasus. Galactica Actual again wishes to speak to Pegasus Actual.”

“Would you shut the frak up for a minute Galactica? We’re kind of busy over here! Standby for emergency vent!”

---

He had put a mask over his face and start the airflow when his legs finally failed him.

The last thing he saw was the hatch handle quickly looming large as he fell towards it.

Then everything went mercifully black.

---

“Galactica. Pegasus.”

“This is Galactica Actual. Go ahead Pegasus.”

“It looks as if…”

“As if what? Pegasus?”

“I don’t know how to say this Admiral…”

“What is it?”

“It looks as if the Commander was in the affected section when we vented it.”