Sometimes no news is bad news. It's been twenty years since the end of the Cylon war. The twelve human colony worlds are rebuilding, and the Cylons . . . the Cylons have been just too quiet. They are nowhere to be found. The robotic race that tried to obliterate their creators has gone to parts unknown in deep space. The aftermath of the war has created a new, illegal scavenger. Tom Zarek is one, scouring the outer settlements for valuable Cylon technologies and artifacts and usually returning empty-handed. But now, he and the crew of the Cruiser Lightning have found the Omega Station, a scientific station shrouded in secrecy beyond the edge of charted space. This is it, the big score, except something is wrong…the base is still occupied, not by humans, but by Cylons! The Battlestar Galactica, one of the oldest warships in the fleet, receives the Lightning's distress call, a cryptic one-word "Cylons." William Adama, newly promoted to second-in-command, is worried. Most of his crew are green, new recruits, not prepared for anything but the most routine missions. And, as Adama soon discovers, this mission is anything but routine. Omega is indeed full of Cylons, but also something much more disturbing . . .