Pegasus: Helena Cain's battlestar

Pegasus was a Mercury-class battlestar, one of the most advanced warships in the Colonial Fleet. Along with Galactica, it was one of only two Colonial capital ships to survive the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, serving under the command of Rear Admiral Helena Cain. It was destroyed less than two years later during the exodus from New Caprica. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica, "Exodus, Part II")

Construction and the Fall#

Little is recorded of Pegasus's earlier service. At the time of the Cylon attack it was commanded by Rear Admiral Helena Cain, and technicians from the Ministry of Defense and Integral Systems Engineering were aboard for its overhaul, among them the Cylon agent Gina Inviere, who had won Cain's trust. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

When the Cylons struck, Pegasus was docked at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards over Scorpia for a three-month systems overhaul, with parts of its Command Navigation Program taken offline. Nuclear strikes on the shipyards knocked the crew off their feet, blinded DRADIS and damaged the ship's computers, leaving it unable to fight back. Cain ordered a blind jump, which carried Pegasus four or five plotted jumps away from the Colonies. Roughly 700 of the crew were lost in the attack, along with Vipers and Raptors. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Cain's guerrilla campaign#

Once it was clear the Colonies and the Fleet were gone, Cain prepared the ship for a campaign of hit-and-run strikes against Cylon targets. With help from the Cylon agent Gina Inviere, she chose a Cylon communications relay as the first target. The battle went badly, Cylons boarded through the flight pods, and Gina was exposed as a Cylon. When the executive officer, Colonel Belzen, refused Cain's order, she shot him dead in the CIC and made Colonel Fisk her new XO. Pegasus destroyed the relay, but with heavy losses among the crew and the air wing, and it was the last Cylon target Pegasus struck on its own. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

About a week after the Fall, Pegasus came upon a small fleet of fifteen civilian ships. Putting the military needs of Pegasus first, Cain had the ships stripped for parts and drafted the people she found most useful. When civilians aboard the Scylla refused to leave their families, Kendra Shaw shot a woman dead and the marines killed more, and the remaining ships were left behind. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Reunion with the Fleet#

Several months after the Fall, Pegasus prepared to ambush a Cylon fleet it had been shadowing, but instead jumped into contact with the large civilian convoy protected by Galactica, an older battlestar that had survived because it was never networked. Initial rejoicing soured quickly. To the anger of President Laura Roslin and the civilians, Cain repeatedly diverted equipment to Galactica rather than the refugee ships. Friction grew between Cain and William Adama over command style and the reassignment of senior officers, and between the two crews over revelations that Pegasus personnel had tortured and raped the Cylon prisoner Gina. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

The dispute boiled over when Lieutenant Karl Agathon and Deck Chief Tyrol killed Lieutenant Alastair Thorne as he prepared to assault a Cylon prisoner aboard Galactica. The two men were arrested and transferred to Pegasus for execution. When Adama failed to persuade Cain to spare them and scrambled his pilots for a rescue, Pegasus launched its own Vipers in response. The standoff broke only when Kara Thrace returned from an unauthorized recon flight aboard the stealth Blackbird with photographs of a mysterious Cylon ship guarded by two basestars. Interrogation identified it as a Resurrection Ship, where Raiders and Humanoid Cylons were downloaded into new bodies. Adama and Cain declared an uneasy truce to attack it, even as each secretly plotted to assassinate the other. The plans came to nothing after the Resurrection Ship was destroyed, and Cain was soon murdered by Gina, who had escaped her cell. That run of events fills three episodes of season 2, from "Pegasus" to "Resurrection Ship, Part II", all in the full episode guide. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus", "Resurrection Ship, Part I", "Resurrection Ship, Part II")

A succession of commanders#

In the aftermath, Roslin promoted Adama to Admiral and Fisk to Commander of Pegasus. Under Fisk the ship became a hub for black market goods, and Fisk used his position to trade luxuries, among them liquor for Colonel Saul Tigh and cigars for Vice President Gaius Baltar, until the black market boss Phelan had him murdered in his quarters. (Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part II", "Black Market")

Chief Engineer Barry Garner took command next, his paranoid and domineering style terrorizing the crew. Against the advice of his XO, Major Lee Adama, and the Admiral's orders, Garner jumped Pegasus to a binary star system to search for a missing Raptor crew. It proved a Cylon ambush; Pegasus took heavy damage and Garner died performing maintenance only he was skilled enough to do. Lee Adama was then promoted to Commander. On his first mission, Pegasus searched for a missing Raptor science team and came under attack by Cylon War era fighters; it freed itself once its FTL fault was repaired, with Thrace downing an enemy fighter inside the landing pod. Learning of the Guardians, Admiral Adama joined Pegasus on a rescue mission that destroyed the Guardian basestar and the First Hybrid but cost the life of its XO, Major Kendra Shaw. (Battlestar Galactica, "The Captain's Hand"; Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

New Caprica and destruction#

When the fleet found and settled New Caprica, Pegasus and Galactica formed a skeleton-crewed orbital defense network above the colony. After a Cylon fleet rediscovered it a year later, both battlestars were forced to abandon the planet and jump away. (Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II")

When the rescue came, Admiral Adama ordered Pegasus to stay behind and protect the civilian ships. Commander Lee Adama disobeyed: leaving most of his crew, his fighters and all but four Raptors with the fleet, he jumped Pegasus to New Caprica and found Galactica under fire from four basestars. Pegasus destroyed one with its forward batteries and drew the others away while Galactica restored its FTL drive. Without fighter cover, Pegasus was overwhelmed, and Lee and his skeleton crew abandoned ship. Seconds later Pegasus collided with a second basestar, obliterating both, and its debris destroyed a third. The diversion let Galactica jump away. (Battlestar Galactica, "Exodus, Part I", "Exodus, Part II")