The cylon's pursuit of the Colonials was rendered futile by one factor— space is infinite. Every jump, every day of flight, saw the volume the cylons had to search expand… and eventually expand beyond any hope of a successful search. But in a few cases, the refugees had another advantage based on where they chose to hide.

The Forging of the Modern Era. 120PF.

"So, the cylons are tracking us." James said. "Anyone else know?"

"Not many. Morale is too thin, even among the military," Colonel Tasmin told him. "Getting our battlestars and other warships crewed and even partially combat capable needs people who are focusing on training, not when they're going to die."

"Wonderful." James frowned. "Our crewed ships won't be enough."

"No, but that's why we're jumping so fast," his father pointed out. "The DRADIS returns we've gotten show that only a few raiders are popping in, then leaving. They have to be spread thin."

"Yeah, but how long? We've got enough fuel now, but the moment we have to stop, you know as well as I do that they're going to collect all those raiders and their base ships and come and kill us."

"I have a suggestion that might assist us there," Mara Cline had been head of the astronomy department on the Caprica and had been given the responsibility of trying to find resource bearing worlds, especially potential tylium sources.

"You do?"

"Yes. Our problem is that we cannot stop— as you've said, we would be caught and destroyed. We cannot settle on a world until we are certain that we have outrun the cylons not for a few months or even years, but centuries."

"Our ships ain't gonna last for centuries… especially if we have to keep running," Doeg growled. "All they have to do is knock over a few of our ships and we're on a fast spiral to nowhere."

"Agreed. We need to stop and yet we cannot stop at a planet."

"I-" James started but then fell silent as Mara continued.

"But we don't need to stop at a planet. If you'll take a look at the screen."

"Nice nebula."

"Far more than that, Mr. Kinkaid. That is the Sala Dwarf Cluster."

"And it is important to us why?"

"It might have had dozens, or hundreds of stars, but several million years ago we believe a neutron star passed through it and disrupted the formation process, leaving about two dozen brown dwarfs…and an absolutely huge cloud surrounding them— a cloud which includes literally millions of objects, some of them hundreds of kilometers in diameter."

"Okay, nice place-"

"Did I mention that it is believed that the radio emissions from the brown dwarfs and their interaction with the dust cloud makes effective long range DRADIS nearly impossible? That the characteristics of this cloud, which is about a light year in diameter, are quite similar in places to that found at the Ragnar Anchorage?"

Tasmin drew in a sharp breath. "How similar?"

"We do not know— similar enough to have the same effect on cylons? Maybe. But even if not, they would be nearly blind in this system and it has a vast number of places to hide…and live."

"Damn," James said as he flicked through the data. "No sign of tylium."

"They wouldn't be looking for it boss," Doeg said. "Nobody would be thinking of mining this far away. In any case, if we go and stop we cut our fuel usage way down."

"But navigating through there is going to be really hard…"

"An advantage," Cline said. "Yes, initially it will be hard for us, but we can always establish navigation beacons and calibrate our computers. The cylons would not be so lucky— and if worst comes to worst, they could not possibly patrol the entire perimeter, letting us jump out if we had to abandon the cloud."

James leaned back and tapped the desk.

It's not as if we have a choice. We don't have enough firepower to stand and fight and in the long-term, not enough fuel or resources to just keep running with no objective. I'd hoped that the cylons would let us go…but no, there's luck and there's unreasonable luck.

"Get the ships ready. The last thing we want to do is let the toasters know what we're planning before we get there. This place is about 350 LY's from where we are, right?"

"Yes."

"Doeg, if we push it…"

"25 days boss. The new battlestars could go faster, but not the logistics and support ships and given our maintenance situation, I'd hate to push 'em."

"You're going to have to since we can't stop the cylons from following us. That means we need to reduce the jump interval as we get closer. The last four jumps need to happen as quickly as possible— preferably in about four hours or less."

Doeg muttered under his breath at that one.

"And when we get there?"

"We go in." James raised his hands. "I know, normally you want surveys but this isn't normal. We go in and the cylons either have to follow us and risk losing their raiders or hang around outside—and by the time they move all their forces up, we'll hopefully be deep inside— and if it does cause them electronic problems…"

"What if they're already there?" Doeg asked.

"Likely, we all die… but I don't think so," James said. Looking at the others he grinned. "Oh sure, it could be that they have a billion factories churning out trillions of centurions, in which case we're dead— but if so, why pull what they did? They didn't beat us to death— they sucker punched us. Clever, but also indicating that they may not outnumber us as much as we think."

"Well, if that's your order Boss, I'd better check out all the iffy FTLs." Doeg shook his head. "And we'll need to get anyone with mining experience to evaluate any resource points."

"Let's try and get there alive first."

Todd was not happy.

"So they've been pushing forward with two jumps a day? And now they just bumped it up to four? They know where they're going."

"They could just be panicked," Six said.

Todd counted to 10.

"No," he finally said. "If they were panicked they wouldn't have set a trap for us like they did the last time before they left the colonies. They would not have gone shopping for seeds and books. They're moving fast because they've detected our raiders, but they can't keep that up. So they're going somewhere."

"Our information is not very detailed about this region," A Three pointed out.

No, because we were too busy preparing for war instead of looking around. The Cylon "Empire," especially after the Ones had taken over, had become largely restricted to the Colony, a few other mobile sites, and a number of temporary construction and resource extraction areas. Pure research was very low on the list of priorities, which was biting them in the ass right now.

So what are our friends looking for? Maybe I should start striking them now? Delay them?

"What an excellent idea!" an unwelcome voice said enthusiastically. Todd look over to where Baltar or at least the hallucination that looked like Baltar was leaning against a bulkhead. "You can do it Todd! You can show the world the superiority of the cylon way of life."

"Hmph."

"What?" The Six asked.

"Nothing. Keep the recon going. No attacks. We find out where they're going first and if we're lucky, we'll find that they've decided to ground on a planet where we can end this."

"God wills it!" Six replied.

I am growing to hate that. Of course, the Ones used the religious mania of the others…

"And used it well… but perhaps you should have sought to curb it?" Baltar asked.

But then they would ask questions, now wouldn't they? Todd looked over to where his personal demon was, but the figure was gone.

"Gods," James breathed.

They'd made the last jumps and now the glowing cloud filled the sky. Behind the fleet was the darkness of space, but here, there were vast clouds and banks of glowing matter. Occasionally a lightning bolt passed from cloud the cloud, the ionized gas showing its course.

"Fleet's ready to jump," Doeg said. "The raptors we sent in gave us a couple of decent destinations but I'm not…" He shook his head. "Boss, I really think we should take some time to-"

"DRADIS ALERT!" The sensor operator's voice stopped all activity. "Multiple-Four basestars, many fighters. Inbound now, ETA 2 minutes."

"Start the jumps," James ordered. Thank the Gods they waited. We're all spun up. If they had been able to hit us just after this last jump-

"Launch fighters?" Tasmin asked.

"So we can lose 'em? No, we'll just have to take whatever they can throw."

The sensors showed the first ships jumping, the recovered battlestars, still too low on crew to do any good. Then the Lybock Bays and other support ships. By that time the first fringe of raiders were in range and the KEW weapons of Big Stick the Archeron and the Athena reached out for them.

"No radiologicals on the first wave," the sensor operator said as the battlestar shook slightly from the first impacts.

They probably were the raiders out tracking us.

"Last of the fleet is away."

"Set the jump clock. Get us out of here." James gripped the edge of the CIC plotting console as the FTL drives started their jump sequences.

Moments later, the space was empty save for the frustrated cylon raiders milling about.

When the ship emerged it rocked, perceptibly rocked. James frowned.

"Told you boss," Doeg said. "The entire damned cloud is full of eddies." Looking up at the flickering DRADIS screen he muttered. "Doesn't look like we lost anyone though."

"Archeron Actual, this is Athena Actual," Tasmin's voice was barely understandable. "This is a hell of a soup you've dumped us in."

"Well, it's just as bad for the cylons," James replied.

"Hopefully. At least they don't know where we went for now, but we're going to have to find ourselves a bolt hole."

"We're sending the cutters out," James sighed. "They're going to have to make short jumps, but we should be able to find some asteroids that we can use."

"Better than just running blindly," Tasmin said. "If we're having this much trouble, I can imagine what the toasters are saying now…

Three Weeks, Todd thought. Three weeks, and we've done nothing but lose fighters in that God cursed nebula.

They were standing around the central command post of the flagship, the hybrid giving of its usual mixture of status reports and nonsense.

"It's like Ragnar," he finally said. "Worse the further you go in, but there are eddies—" he called up an image of the nebula, color coded, with huge parts blinking red for "no data". "In some places our raiders can last a few days, and in some places— well they must be dying within minutes because they don't jump back out. Or just maybe, they're jumping into the crosshairs of that fleet."

"We'll have to survey the cloud." His personal trial, Six said. "God brought them here so they will stay, thinking they're safe. We have them cornered."

Oh yes brother of mine, if we keep the other models focused on their make believe God, Everything will be just fine…

"That cloud is better than a light year in diameter, with fringes trailing off of the main body," Todd said. "It is nearly ten times as wide as the Cyrannus star system. It has hundreds of millions of objects floating in it, some of them the size of brown dwarfs, some of them merely the size of mountains, any one of which could be hiding our enemies. With the raiders we have, we could be spending centuries surveying it, and that doesn't include the fact that the FRAKKING NEBULA KILLS US!" The others backed off from Todd's roar. "And of course, unless we have a relay sitting right next to you, it also means there's no download. So be my guest Six, go forth and give up your immortality for God's greater glory. I'm certain He'll thank you."

"We can surround the nebula with sensor buoys," one of the more intelligent Threes pointed out. "It won't be a tight cordon, but it will give us warning if they try for a mass break out. For all we know, they don't have the equipment to make a long term stay in there."

"The people who appear to have large numbers of pirates among them, groups notorious for operating in the asteroid belt and halo." Todd pointed at the nebula. "No, they're going to stay in there. We have to go in and get them, and we don't even have decent maps. Hell there might even be habitable worlds in there."

"Unlikely. They would be young worlds, so life wouldn't have had a chance to develop," one cylon said.

"Unless the dear lords of Kobol were frakking around in there," Todd pointed out. "After all, it's not like 12 worlds with nearly identical ecologies are a natural phenomena, is it?"

"I do so enjoy watching these intellectually challenging meetings," Baltar said. "Or you could just let them go."

"And be boxed," Todd muttered. "No thanks."

"What was that?" a Five asked.

"Nothing," Todd replied. "Nothing that a lobotomy wouldn't fix," he said when he was certain nobody was listening to him.