William Adama and Laura Roslin sat at the table in the home that had been given to her by the New Kobol Relocation Bureau.

While Earth Alliance might be in a civil war (with the Battlestar Pegasus commanded by Lee Adama providing a support role) the vast majority of survivors were much more concerned about where they would live, what they would do, and how they would deal with living in a new galaxy – or sector anyway.

"So, how many Cylons did we find in the population from Copernicus?" Laura asked. She was no longer President – she had happily given that up to be the Education Secretary. As such, not all details came to her, though she was cleared to know just about everything in respect for the position she had held.

"A few – not many. No copies of the Final Five – we're pretty much decided that they were sent in as a punishment for not supporting the war. At least that's the theory. But we have found a one, a two, the three that had a transmitter, two fours, and a six. No five, no eight."

"Are there going to be trials?" she asked.

"Right now, it's case by case. For the most part, they're prisoners of war. That allowed Grazier to put off making a decision until the Cylon conflict is resolved one way or another."

"But that could be years!" Laura protested.

Adama looked at her. "Grazier's a politician. He knows a hot potato when he sees it. As long as they treated as Prisoners of War, there are no ethical issues. And it keeps it out of the public discourse. They're much more interested in what's happening with Earth and our relationship with the Minbari."

"That's something it was hard for me to understand. The Minbari really seem to like us, but they've been working with Earth Humans, so we shouldn't be such a novelty."

Adama said, "I actually talked to Shakiri about that. The truth is, Marcus Cole really saved our bacon. His explanation on greeting Minbari warrior caste ships made them much more palatable to them. We aren't going to take Earth's place in grand scheme of things – we've 130,000 or so people and it will be years before we can even think about expanding out again. Earth's got 15 Billion. And despite having a few things that we do well, Earth has much better technology. We're actually the beneficiary of Earth's past mistakes?"

Laura considered that. "We didn't fight a war with them."

"Right. There are too many warriors still around in positions of authorities who remember the order to surrender at their big battle. It's not that they like us better – it's that they don't have cause to feel resentment against us. So the warrior caste kind of latched onto us as a 'Human we much prefer'. Most Earth tech is much better than we have, except the jump drive."

"I thought our engines were better. Isn't Tylium more stable and powerful?"

"Not really," Adama explained. "Actually, they have a much better process of using Helium-3 than we had. The plans we had with the Narns are being revised – we knew it would happen. We are much better at putting a ship together, actually. But that's a product of having gravity and the fact that we've been fighting a machine-intelligence. We had to learn to be far more maneuverable with our big ships. But their fighters are truly far more maneuverable. Ours are faster because theirs are much heavier. In the long run, they might have a better design."

"So are we going to try to get their tech?" Laura asked.

"The Admiral is leery. He'd like nice big powerful space lasers, but he's also thinking about the fact we're still operating against Cylons as we try to rescue more of our people. Some of our tech is better against Cylons, though big space lasers destroy basestars easier. Fighters might be too fast to catch with big single shots. A hail of bullets is better."

"I heard that the Nials did a good job."

"Yes. But that's a product of the Nials having stealth and the Cylon raiders are little more than controlled animal intelligences by comparison. It's not the weapons. It's the targeting.

"The whole reason they use superheated Helium in the sidearms is because it's less likely to damage walls and open up a ship to space. But slug-throwing is more damaging to metal centurions. Eventually, we'll have to use the tech that's available here, cause it's better for here. Getting all civilian ships off Tylium will be a nightmare that luckily is not my problem."

"Well, I'm all for getting the jump drive off of non-military ships. We're going to have to see if we can replace them with smaller jump drives for hyperspace."

"That's going to be a nightmare – that's one reason we can't just tack on hyperspace jump drives to Battlestars. The material that is used for that, something called Quantium 40, is highly radioactive, though it's shielded from harming the crew or tranportees. But tylium becomes inert if exposed to radiation. So tylium can't be used to power a hyperspace drive and, from what I understand, tylium is required for our jump drive."

"So we'll need a dual fuel method anyway if we want both abilities," Laura concluded.

"That's the current guess. We're going to have to put together an R&D department again – that's an area that we completely lost in the fall of the Colonies. Copernicus could only use what they had – they didn't have the resources to figure out better ways either. With Minbari and Narns and whatever else, and with Earth-trained engineers, we might be able to vastly improve. But their civil war has to be resolved first. Who in the hell knows how long that will take?"

Laura shrugged in response. Then she got a thoughtful look. "Your ships's not going for a while, right?"

"Galactica needs work. I'll be running the battlestars and gunstars, but that can be done from here or Lobo Negro. I'll be sleeping planetside for the most part, at least in the near future. And someone else is directing civilian traffic now. Thank the Gods."

Laura had a small smile. "And I'm no longer President. The Senate and the Quorum and the work to get everyone settled aren't my problem anymore outside of putting classrooms together."

Adama looked a Laura and said, "That's true. What of it?" He looked like he was hiding a smile.

"Well, since we're not likely to be interrupted, how would you like to come to dinner – and perhaps stay a little longer as well?"

Adama considered that. "I think I'd like that. I think I'd like that a lot."


A/N: That's the end of this story. Earth's Civil War was not really my goal, though that might be in a sequel. My story is how the Colonials got themselves out.

What happens next will take a bit of consideration.