Red moon

After a Cylon attack, Viper pilot Kara "Starbuck" Thrace finds her fighter falling out of control into the atmosphere of an unnamed red moon (Act of Contrition).

With the Viper's electronics failing, her transponder out of commission, and the fighter in a unrecoverable flat spin, Starbuck ejects from the fighter and parachutes to safety.

The red moon is a rocky, barren world, with no discernable life, vegetation, or water.

The red moon's thick atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide, methane, with some argon. The clouds are composed of hydrocarbons and forms a thick opaque screen around the moon. On the ground with a moderate leg injury, Starbuck quickly determines through an emergency oxygen-checking device in her survival kit that the moon's air is unbreathable. She is left with the emergency oxygen of her flight suit, which will exhaust itself in 46 hours.

A series of SAR missions are conducted by Galactica to find Starbuck. The Vipers are buffeted by high upper-atmosphere winds and damaged by the hydrocarbon-rich atmosphere, which leaves a residue that clogs thrusters and engines. The moon's mountains are hazardous as their lack of visibility makes for collision threats for the SAR teams.

Eventually, Starbuck encounters the last Cylon Raider that she shot and disabled. While her shot kills the Raider's autonomous biomechanical pilot-brain, the fighter otherwise soft-landed. Starbuck removes the dead biological material from the Raider's interior, and, after some experimentation, flies the Raider to return to the Fleet (You Can't Go Home Again).

Notes

• One of Bear McCreary's music tracks for "You Can't Go Home Again" is titled "Starbuck on the Red Moon".