HunTrib Chpt 11

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=Hunted Tribes=
==Chapter 11==
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“Ask yourself this Admiral, would Ares, the God of War, have really approved of the Conventions the Thirteenth named after him that sought to limit the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction? Personally I doubt it so if you really want my opinion Sir I say screw what the Wolvies think, Praise the Lords of Kobol and pass the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical ammunition."Captain Aaron Kelly - 3046
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===Presidential Briefing of state of the Fleet===
Colonial One (Office of the President) – Colonial City-State – 3045 CE
Wallace Gray stood up when the President entered. "Sorry I'm late" she apologized, "Tory insisted on me signing a new Bill into law before she would let me go" she told him. She also had to discuss the preparations for the upcoming trial of the Number Six Cylon "Gina" with Didi Cassidy who would be prosecuting, there were possible political considerations to be considered and Roslin wanted a friendly word in order to advise the lawyer not to stray too far into matters of Colonial Security or Defense Policy unless it was strictly necessary to get a conviction.
"I hope it was the one authorizing work to begin on the new cement works?" Gray replied.
"Ah so that was your handiwork was it?" Roslin asked. "Well I suppose it must have been, it wasn't trivial, needs to be done and actually makes sense" she said. "So much of the legislation that passes through the Quorum is just a waste of ink and paper" she opined, taking a seat behind her desk. "So have you considered my offer?" she asked.
"I've considered it" Gray replied noncommittally.
Roslin sighed. "Wallace, I know asking you to withdraw your candidacy for Vice President in favor of Gaius Baltar damaged our friendship but you"re still the best organizer and economics expert we have and I would dearly like you to play an important part in my administration as Secretary of Commerce and Development" she told him. "You"re already dabbling in politics at a lower level, advising members of the Quorum on policy" she noted. "Why not step up and get things done yourself?" she asked.
Gray leaned forward. "Laura, you know I want to serve the people" he began, "and you really know how much I hate seeing things go to hell just for lack of a coherent strategy, but to be frank how can I be sure that if the opinion polls start leaning one way you won't just put politics ahead again and push me aside for someone that isn't regarded as..."
"The Prince of Darkness?" Roslin finished the sentence for him.
"I was going to say a dull, technocratic gasbag but “Prince of Darkness” would at least have a touch of class about it." Gray responded with a chuckle.
"We"re trying to set up a new nation, it"s been getting harder and harder for me to keep everything going and the more I rely on other people the more I realize how many of the people that work for me are either well-meaning and inept or self-serving and corrupt." Roslin told him. "I need someone honest who also has actual talent and to be frank the list of those people isn't as long as I would like it to be" she said. "All the other remotely qualified candidates are already in jobs I need them to be doing so I need you to make sure that the economy doesn't implode while still making sure we don't work the people into the ground."
"Facing another strike for better wages from the logging crews?" Gray asked knowingly.
Roslin groaned. "I tried to explain that the government is barely keeping its head above water in terms of finances, and that we can't just print more money, but they weren't having any of it" she said. "We"re already up to our eyeballs in debt thanks to all the loans we"ve taken out from the Wolvies and I don't want to face a collapse in our currency too" she said.
Gray shook his head. "We set the exchange rate at the wrong level" he stated flatly. "Cubits need to be devalued at least twenty-five percent against League Script" he told her. "We"ll never be able to export goods across the border and the cheap imports are preventing us developing indigenous industries that are competitive" he said. "We could introduce protective tariffs but do we really want to start a trade war?" he asked rhetorically.
"So what are you saying?" Roslin asked.
"You do want to print more money and devalue our currency" Gray told her. "Just make sure to do it gradually so we don't spin off into hyper-inflation or have people suddenly lose their faith in the stuff" he continued. "Promise a staggered series of payrises spread over the next two years, the workers will be happy and it"ll slowly sort out our import and export problem."
Roslin smiled. "Take the job" she told him, "you know you want to" she wheedled.
"Okay, but I"ll want to be included in those pay increases too, Laura." Gray replied with a wink.
"Thank the Gods" Roslin said with relief. "You don't even want to know who I was going to have to ask next" she told him. "I'm hoping that Admiral Adama brings back enough salvage to clear the national debt and then some but we can't rely on the League people paying us for technological trinkets to keep us afloat forever" she told him.
Gray nodded. "Perhaps we should have negotiated more for our jump-drive designs and artificial gravity technology?" he suggested.
"We asked for a fortune, I just had no idea how much it was going to cost to get all the armour replaced on Galactica for one thing" Roslin replied. "Their orbital factories are working around the clock to turn out enough steel plates to re-clad her when she returns but just after I saw the cost estimates for that then Lee Adama comes to me with a request to add additional armour to Pegasus" she said.
"I thought Pegasus had all her plating still intact?" Gray queried. The newer battlestar certainly wasn't showing all the exposed ribbing that Galactica was.
Roslin frowned. "After seeing how much better their “lamellor ferro-carbide” armor is than anything we can make Adama the Younger has this notion of adding a hundred-thousand tons of the stuff to his ship" she said, rolling her eyes. "Unless his father brings back most of Caprica I don't think we"ll be able to afford it" she told him.
"They do make good war-toys here now don't they?" Gray observed rhetorically.
"Purchasing enough lasers to equip all our Vipers gave our credit another nasty knock." Roslin told him. "For that matter do you know how much a single thirty-millimeter round for a Viper or a fifty-millimetre round for a point-defence battery costs?" she asked. "Pegasus needs millions of them to re-fill her ammunition stocks." she groaned.
"At least we found a world with an unusually developed military-industrial complex." Gray responded.
"I"d call them paranoid but given that there really are people out to get them I guess it"s more like being well-prepared." Roslin commented.
Gray leaned back in his chair looking thoughtful. "Our mining ships are currently prioritizing tylium and strategic metals for Viper production" he said. "Our tylium reserves are good now so we could start selling a fair proportion of any production from now on to the Wolvies" he suggested. "As long as we don't charge enough to make it worthwhile for them to develop their own mining and refining infrastructure for it instead we could earn a decent amount of foreign currency to offset our defense spending" he told her. "If we reduced Viper production rates we could mine and produce even more tylium."
"Oh the military really wouldn't like that." Roslin replied.
"They haven't got enough trained pilots to warrant a full complement of Vipers on both battlestars anyway" Gray noted. "By the time they do even a fifty-percent reduction in how many Pegasus is currently manufacturing a month would probably get them there" he said. "I was watching a news report a couple of days ago which featured a segment on pilot training, they"re not rushing them through flight-school any more so the process is taking a lot longer than it did when we had Cylons right on our tail" he pointed out.
Roslin began tapping her fingers on her desk. "It"s an idea" she replied. "If the Colonial Fleet wants their bullets they"ll have to be content with less spare Vipers" she said.
"Agricultural goods are another thing we should be pushing in trade terms." Gray told her. "There are bound to be fruits or vegetables from back home that we can grow and sell as novelty foodstuffs to the Wolvies at a hefty mark-up." he said. "Fumarella Leaf is another possibility; I know farmers have already started cultivating it for our own people along with that weed that grows here."
"Unfortunately that weed is already a banned substance over the border because not only is it a mild psychotropic it"s carcinogenic too which means fumarella would never be allowed either" Roslin told him. "They think we"re all mad for taking smoke into our lungs that causes cancer" she said before shrugging her shoulders. "They may have a point there" she had to agree, albeit reluctantly.
"So they don't allow recreational drug use?" Gray queried.
"Only alcohol, but when I pointed out the hypocrisy there I was told they can grow replacement livers a lot easier than replacement brains and they"ve also removed the genes from their population that make people susceptible to developing alcoholism" Roslin replied.
Gray laughed. "They think there"s a genetic cause for everything." he said.
"More like a genetic predisposition for nearly everything" Roslin replied. "Violent behavior, intelligence, risk-taking... you name it they say they can point to the DNA concerned, although sometimes it"s a combination of different genes that are responsible" she replied.
"Have they made much progress looking at Cylon DNA?" Gray wondered.
"Enough to think they could clone human/cylon hybrids and bring them to term in their “Iron Womb” machines." Roslin told him. "No they aren't going to they say but they're pretty certain they could" she said. "They're far beyond us in all the required fields, and likely ahead of the cylons too given that we know that the Toasters breeding program on Caprica never got anywhere."
"So have they developed a working Cylon detector yet based on all this fancy genetic science they have?" Gray asked.
"You"re definitely taking the job aren't you?" Roslin checked. "Some of what I'm telling you isn't for the general public yet" she told him seriously.
"Yes I'm taking the job" Gray confirmed.
"Okay, they don't have a blood-test as such but they do think after months of examining and scanning the Cylon prisoners they"ve got a Cylon detector that will work" Roslin told him.
"Radiation-based like the one former VP Baltar developed?" Gray queried.
"No that didn't work, although they say they can't figure out quite why assuming that he didn't just frak it up" Roslin replied. "They say they can use a flight simulator though, or rather some bits of one."
"A flight simulator?" Gray responded incredulously.
"Their pilots wear Neural Interface helmets" Roslin explained. "The sillica pathways in a Cylon brain don't connect up to the machine properly, apparently humans with brain-damage can't use one either so we"ll have to make sure of the results with a cat-scan afterwards if we get a positive result" she said. "They"re going to try and perfect the equipment and testing procedure so it only takes a couple of minutes per person then make several units" she said. "Screen the whole population quickly."
"Nice to know our brains do something better than the Cylons" Gray said with a grin.
Roslin shook her head. "Nope, they think once a Neural Interface helmet is modified and tuned to work with a skinjob brain it"ll be faster than for a human." she told him. "How did that go?" she tried to recall. "Something like “our wetware isn't as optimized for connecting to hardware” I think it was" she continued. "It"s just a case of translating from one programming language to another."
"I guess all Toasters are equals under the skin." Gray joked.
Roslin laughed then her eyes widened and her expression shifted to one of concern as a thought occurred to her. "You don't think they"re stupid enough to try and make those cylon/human hybrids they think they can produce if they think they"d be producing the ultimate fighter-pilots do you?" she asked nervously.
Wallace Gray blinked. "They couldn't be that naive could they?" he asked. "The damn things would turn against them like ours did."
"But what if they thought they could program them?" Roslin asked. "I don't mean hard-code them, I mean what if they thought raising them like they do other children from the Iron Wombs, adopting them into families would lead to..."
"Patriotism, love of family and homeland" Gray said, thinking it through. "Primitive tribal instincts coupled with cultural and societal molding" he continued. "The Cylons rose up against us because we kept them as slaves, what if we"d given the things the vote instead, treated them like our own children and told them we loved them?"
"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" Roslin said quietly.
"Or the hand that holds the test-tube rules the galaxy perhaps?" Gray suggested. "Given maybe twenty years or so they could breed an army."
Roslin slowly broke into a smile, it had seemed a horrific notion for a while but then she remembered the big-picture. "There are over two-thousand human colonized worlds with four trillion people on them" she said. "What could one planet with less than a million inhabitants really do?" she asked rhetorically with a chuckle.
The ludicrously outnumbered Wolverines emerging from a hidden world two decades from now; intent on taking on the entire Inner Sphere, plus all the Clans, in order to try and restore the Star League by force using advanced jumpdrives and cyborg soldiers interfaced directly with their machines... well the entire idea was just patently ridiculous wasn't it?
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===Marriage and Fleet Upkeep===
Battlestar Galactica – Deep Space – 3045CE
Lacking an office, or even his own quarters onboard the ship, Colonel McEvedy had taken to borrowing one of the airlocks whenever a subordinate requested a private meeting. It wasn’t exactly homely but it was at least relatively soundproof when you closed the internal hatch, this being a definite plus given his habit of bellowing foul language at those who had screwed up.
 
McEvedy listened to the young officer babble for a while and eventually cut him off by raising a hand. “Lieutenant Cale how much is your Battlemech worth?” he asked.
 
Cale looked confused, he couldn’t see the relevance. “With the current weapon load-out a Mercury III comes in at about five million and change, Sir” he replied.
 
“That”s a lot of money for the hard-working taxpayers of New Circe to put into your hands now isn’t it Cale, Query Affirmative?” McEvedy queried.
 
“Affirmative. Well yes, Sir, I suppose it is.” Cale conceded.
 
“Then perhaps you can explain why the Star League should entrust such an expensive and valuable military asset to a man who is so damn stupid he can’t even figure out birth control!” the Colonel thundered at the end.
 
Cale grimaced. “I thought my implant still had another few months on it” he replied sheepishly. “They’re supposed to be good for at least a year” he pointed out.
 
“You’re supposed to get those things regularly checked.” McEvedy reminded him, poking him on the upper arm roughly where his birth-control implant would have been surgically placed. The implant would slowly release chemicals into your bloodstream to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Woman on New Circe used a similar device that released somewhat different chemicals. Between the two the system was considered foolproof because the chances of both failing, or running out early, were slim.
 
“I guess I was busy, Sir” Cale responded, “distracted” he added.
 
“It’s what you were busy doing that’s got you into this situation Lieutenant” Colonel McEvedy wryly replied. “I assume that she’s going to keep it based on your request?” he asked.
 
“Yes Sir, abortion is illegal for the Colonials anyway” Cale replied. “I just want to do right by her” he said.
 
“And your version of doing right by the girl is saddling her with a name that would suit a porn star is it?” McEvedy asked with a wry smile, “I mean, Cally Cale for Christ”s sake!” he exclaimed. “It sounds like she should be starring in “Colonial Girls Go Wild” or something.”
 
Cale narrowed his eyes at the Colonel. “I respect you Sir” he said, “and I know that you’re Infantry and can probably beat me senseless in a fistfight, but make another joke like that about her and we’ll find out in a Circe of Equals” he vowed.
 
McEvedy looked him in the eyes, the boy had passed the test there. “You love her then?” he checked.
 
“Yes, Sir” Cale replied forcefully.
 
“Good, then permission of marry is granted” the Colonel told him. “I’d still consider a hyphenated surname though, Son” he added semi-seriously.
 
“Her real name is Calandra.” the mechwarrior lieutenant told him.
 
“Calandra Cale sounds much more classy, stick to that.” McEvedy advised. “How could she be this far gone before she knew anyway?” he queried.
 
“She”s been taking Anti-TDS drugs to stop her getting nauseous when we jump” Cale replied, “I didn’t know before but they stop morning-sickness too” he explained. “What with all the excitement back at Cyrannus... well I guess she didn’t notice something not happening regularly like normal” he reasoned.
 
“No, I meant what with the size of her, surely she showed before now” McEvedy responded. The girl was fairly diminutive even by Colonial standards. “My kids were from an Iron Womb but my sister was pretty obviously pregnant at less than this many weeks” he said. “Face it there’s hardly anything of your girl to start with.”
 
“Doc Ljungberg says that some women carry it differently than others or something” Cale replied with a shrug. She had been getting a little bigger but he put that down to better diet at first.
 
“So you got her checked out by a real clinician not that chain-smoking witch-doctor then?” McEvedy responded. “Good” he opined. The child was one of the Clan which meant he or she was precious in the eyes of all Wolverines, you protect your own.
 
“Cally insisted on talking to Doctor Cottle first, I had to talk her into seeing Ljungberg too.” Cale told him. “You know the Colonials, they’re skittish around our high-tech stuff” he noted. “It was probably the First Cylon War, they used to be more technophile say half a century back” he told the infantry officer.
 
“You talk to them more than I do so I’ll take your word for it” McEvedy replied. He had picked up some Caprican during his time on Galactica but not enough to really socialize or debate history with the ship’s crew. Fortunately Commander Thorpe was around to do that sort of thing, McEvedy was the ranking Wolverine on the mission but his job had been largely just to make sure that if there was any ground-fighting that the 331st stamped a Star League military-issue boot onto the face of any Cylons unfortunate enough to meet them in combat. “So are you going to wait until we get back?” he asked.
 
“No that’ll be weeks away even if the Admiral decides not to make another detour to be certain We’re not being followed” Cale replied. “There”s a couple of Priests aboard who were helping out academic teams find and recover artefacts, Cally will probably want one of them to officiate.”
 
“You’re not converting or anything are you?” McEvedy asked him curiously.
 
“No I”m still planning to remain a Lutheran, if not a very observant one I’ll admit” Cale replied. “My parents are more religious than me though, Mom is going to go ballistic when she finds out her first grandchild is going to be raised to believe in Zeus and the rest” he decided, “and not just because she”s a gunner in a reserve artillery unit” he added with a laugh. “Better if I go back with a ring on my finger already, present them with a done-deal.”
 
“They’re farmers right, your people I mean, Query Affirmative?” the Colonel checked, he had naturally read the files on all the personnel under his command. As a farm boy Cale had probably been driving agromechs on the family farm for years before he ever got to pilot the military version.
 
“Affirmative, but I bet they regret pushing me to get that education and become an officer when they find out what learning Greek got me” Cale replied. “Cally”s a wonderful girl but Dad is old-school and would want me to help breed the next generation of real Wolverines to help kill plenty of Nicky Kerensky”s butt-boys when they catch up with us” he said then laughed. “I must have been twelve before I realised “clannerbastards” wasn’t one word and you didn’t have to spit on the ground after saying it” he joked.
 
McEvedy laughed. “You can always get your other kids fixed, have the rest from an Iron Womb with their DNA tweaked” he replied. “Just make sure the girl doesn’t get enough pain-medication during childbirth and she’ll definitely not want to go through that again” he suggested. “Of course “big” brother or sister will be the shortest of the lot by far” he noted. “Cally”s a mechanic right?” he asked.
 
“Aviation Technical Specialist” Cale corrected him.
 
“Whatever.” McEvedy responded, she was still a grease-monkey however you said it. “She can probably fix farming machinery, Agromechs and stuff once she’s seen how they’re put together that might be a good approach if you want to think about the situation tactically” he said. “She might be about half the size of the sort of daughter-in-law they wanted but if she can keep a tractor running that might endear her to them a little faster.”
 
Cale looked surprised, he had always thought the infantry weren’t much good for anything but digging holes and charging down mechs with an Inferno Launcher and a death-wish but that was pretty smart he decided. Those McEvedy genes must still be working for the man he thought to himself. “Good plan, Sir” he replied. “I should go tell Cally that as my Commanding Officer you’ve given permission, now she needs to talk to her people I guess.” he said.
 
McEvedy nodded. “Have you got her an engagement ring?” he asked. “You’ll need wedding bands for both of you too” he added.
 
“Where am I going to find a jeweler out here?” Cale inquired.
 
The Colonel sighed; mechwarriors were dumber than the armor plate on their machines he thought to himself. Those neurohelmets rotted the brain he was sure. “Think around the problem Lieutenant” he said. “Find some of those gold cubit coins they use and get them melted down cast and polished if you have to” he said. “That can’t be beyond the technical ability of people that keep aerospace fighters operational” he reasoned.
 
Cale thought about that. “They’ve probably got industrial diamonds somewhere too I’ll bet.”
 
“At least try and find a gem-quality one before you knock the end off a drill-bit Cale” the Colonel told him with another sigh. “You don’t want people to think you’re cheap as well as stupid” he advised.
 
Felix Gaeta was following the Admiral around the ship, briefing him as Adama did his inspection tour. “Repairs to the junkyard wonder should be completed within six hours but we’ll want to spin her FTL back up as slowly as possible, Sir.” he advised as Adama shook hands with another of the civilians rescued from Cyrannus, they were everywhere and there always seemed to be one more that hadn’t already offered their profuse thanks.
 
“That nickname isn’t very respectful to a ship that managed to make at least twenty times as many jumps as anyone predicted before it gave up on us, Mr. Gaeta.” Adama chided.
 
Gaeta smiled. “Perhaps so Sir but this is the third time we’ve had to delay a jump to fix her FTL now” he reminded the Admiral.
 
“We’ve got plenty of spares to keep her going.” Adama pointed out, “and it keeps the engineers and technicians busy and content” he added as they turned into the next corridor heading towards the starboard flight-pod. A mixed CAP of Vipers and Kirghiz was out watching over the fleet and with a number of Raptors scouting ahead for the next jump there was actually enough room in the hanger-deck to give it a proper inspection for once. Normally it was packed to the gills with aerospace craft.
 
To be honest Gaeta suspected that all the knuckledraggers would rather get a couple of extra hours in the sack, or the bar, than spend their time keeping the cobbled-together freighter from Scorpia running but he opted not to say so. “Didn’t see you at the game last night Sir” he noted, making conversation.
 
“Had dinner with Colonel McEvedy, Wing-Commander Defoe, Commander Thorpe and the XO” Adama replied. “One of the civilians we found on Leonis was a chef; she did us a three course meal of traditional Leonis specialty dishes as a thank-you.”
 
“How did that go?” Gaeta asked.
 
Adama stopped and grinned. “The ability to stomach vast amounts of fermented fish does not mean you can take the kind of spicy food they go for on Leonis.” he said. “They had tears streaming down their faces” he told him. “They must have drunk two liters of water apiece.”
 
“Oh that just makes it worse” Gaeta responded, it just freed up your tastebuds for another assault.
 
“You know, I forgot to tell them” Adama replied, “must be my age or something” he continued unconvincingly before resuming his walk. “I hear Anders” team won again?” he asked.
 
“Yes, easily, but they all got smacked about a bit” Gaeta told him. “Those SLDF Infantry guys and gals can’t play pyramid to save their lives but they try hard and godsdamn they’re big” he said. “Anders got knocked flying twice.”
 
“Sounds like an entertaining match” Adama replied.
 
“Packed crowd” Gaeta told him, “the civilians were really starting to get into it, screaming and cheering.”
 
Adama smiled. “Good to hear” he said. Even something as simple as going to watch a pyramid game might aid the healing process, so many of the survivors they had found were traumatized by their experiences.
 
“Oh I forget to say, the Captain of the Gemenon Traveller says that they can accommodate more of the civilians currently on ‘’Galactica’’ now he’s had more of a chance to properly stack some of his cargo” Gaeta announced. “It got a little messy in the last few hours so the loading of one of the bays wasn’t optimized” he said. “We had a marine work-crew over there humping crates about and it’s freed up room for perhaps another fifty people without crowding them in too badly.”
 
“Good, that means we can transfer the people over we’ve got sleeping on the deck in the cargo bay where we put those Lightning-Javelins” Adama replied. “Civilians and military ordinance are not a good mix even with all the signs saying “For the sake of the Lords of Kobol don’t touch” all over them” he said. The unarmed missiles weren’t really all that dangerous or unstable but he would still feel better not to have them in the vicinity of the possibly curious, clumsy, deranged or just plain idiotic. “Give the civilians some warning, wait until after the next jump to make the transfer” he ordered.
 
“Aye, Sir” Gaeta replied. “The ‘’Thera Sita’’ is due to dock and take on water after the next jump too just to remind you.” he said.
 
“Make sure that the Captain and pilot of the ship know that if they come in as needlessly fast as they did last time I’ll have them thrown out of an airlock" Adama responded evenly.
 
"An airlock, Sir?" Gaeta repeated in amusement. "I”m not sure of the legality of spacing civilians without a trial given that We’re not currently operating under martial law” he pointed out.
 
"Okay, Mr Gaeta, what”s the worst thing I can do to them?” Adama asked him.
 
"Fire them I think, you do have command of the fleet and can determine who gets to Captain each vessel"Gaeta replied.
 
"I should be able to fire them out of one of the guns in the main battery." Adama opined. "Those idiots nearly smashed right into us."
 
"The ‘’Thera Sita’’ would have come off much worse from that than Galactica though” Gaeta noted.
 
Adama frowned. “It’s the principle of the thing, and we’ve already got one wreck that needs constant fixing.”
 
"So “Junkyard Wonder” isn’t allowed but we can still call it a “Wreck” then Admiral?" Gaeta queried. "Should I let everyone know?”
 
"Don’t be a smart-ass, Mr Gaeta, and given your years of service you should already know that the privilege of being a hypocrite only comes with being a Flag Officer.” the Admiral told him.
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===A discussion of handling the newcomers===
The Colony – Cylon Space – 3045CE
“It’s a pity we can’t let the Fours into these meetings.” the Cavil observed looking around the room at hi the trio of his identical “Brothers”. “They have a knack for science.” he noted.
 
The Number One to his immediate left around the table shrugged. “I always did wonder if we should have exempted them from the mind-wiping we inflicted on the others” he commented. “For that matter the Five’s show a great deal of promise too” he added.
 
“Now brothers we’ve been over that ground for years and it’s just water over the dam now.” a third Cavil told them. “We had the other models wiped for a very good reason, just like we permanently got rid of the damn Sevens” he reminded them. “They never grasped the big picture as well as we did, even if some of them had a better grasp of the basics” he said.
 
“True” the fourth Cavil agreed. “Still I wish we’d been made with perhaps a little less Centurion and a little more Scientist sometimes” he continued. “Now brothers we must decide what’s to be done about these new humans, the supposed “Thirteenth Tribe from Earth” that aren’t.” he said.
 
“You know at least if we hadn’t wiped them we wouldn’t have to put up with all the other models thinking the Colonials must have found either an Earth Colony or Earth itself.” the first Cavil said. “I have to bite my tongue every time I hear another Two talking about prophecy and the Thirteenth Tribe.”
 
“I hear you, brother.” another Number One agreed. “That still leaves us with the mystery of who the hell they actually are though” he reminded the others.
 
“I’m inclined to think they must be the descendants of another group that set out from Kobol.” the third Cavil theorized. “The records were certainly patchy, even we’re forced to rely on millennia-old human religious texts for a clue on what really happened back then” he noted.
 
“They might even call their world Earth like the real Thirteenth did.” the One to his right agreed. “I wonder how advanced they are?”
 
“Given their lasers, particle beams, and what we assume from scans is fusion-based power generation I’d say very advanced.” another Cavil replied.
 
“Yes, but remember that their fighters were being carried by Galactica. We haven’t seen any jump-capable ships of their own” the first Cavil pointed out. “We know the genuine Thirteenth had not re-invented the jump-drive their ancestors used to ferry them to Earth from Kobol, and they instead relied on sub-light engines for interstellar travel, so perhaps that is also true of the fake Thirteenth?” he suggested. “They mentioned having colonies of their own but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have FTL travel.”
 
“Their oversized fighters had very good performance in acceleration, if not maneuverability, with extremely high thrust for a sustained duration” the second Cavil observed. “A civilization that had to travel between the stars at relativistic sub-light speeds likely would develop excellent engines, especially if they benefited from the advantages of brute-force thermonuclear rocketry.”
 
“That certainly makes sense” the fourth Cavil agreed. “To build those fighters and invent those weapons they must be an advanced society, with both a large population and a sizeable industrial base, but if they had FTL then we should certainly have expected Galactica to be escorted by their jump-capable warships” he said, “or at least have a few of their transports along to help haul off the scraps of the decaying carcass of the Twelve Colonies.”
 
“The teams that we sent down to try and determine what was recovered did indicate that a production line for Raptor FTL’s was taken and we also know that they stripped the FTL’s from the hulks of battlestars” the third Cavil added. “I’d take that as backing the theory.”
 
“So while Pegasus and the rest of the civilian fleet remain with their new friends, the Galactica and some transports head back to Cyrannus to gain the means for the supposed “Earthers” to make jump-drives” the First Cavil reasoned. “They could hand over the plans easily enough but building FTL’s fast would be easier with the right equipment and tooling.”
 
“You realize this means we need to strike hard and fast, gather our forces and destroy these new humans before they can develop the infrastructure needed to build FTL warships armed with their admittedly fearsome Directed-Energy-Weapons” the fourth Cavil said. “We’ve been holding back until now, recalling the fleets and taking a defensive posture, but we need to be proactive.”
 
“On the plus side if they rely on sub-light engines then they can’t have too many Colonies” the first Cavil said brightly. “This “Star League” they talked of can’t be more than a handful of systems spread over a tiny area of space.” he decided.
 
“Remember brothers, the others are still under the sway of Caprica Six and Boomer Eight” the third Cavil reminded them. “Even after losing three basestars they argued that we both fired first and launched nuclear weaponry first making us culpable” he said. “We might not be able to get agreement to simply exterminate these new humans, we might have to conquer them... for their own good of course” he said with a smirk. “If they resist we could always reduce their population to a more manageable level.”
 
“I’d prefer them under the ground not under our boot but regardless of whether we’re going to be decisive or wishy-washy we still need to beat these “Earthers” down before the Colonials can gift them proper interstellar capability” the first Cavil said forcefully.
 
“We can at least rely on the support of the Raiders, and the Centurions for that matter” the second Cavil suggested. “They can’t vote but they still have an influence on our society and they didn’t like getting slaughtered like they were on hand over Aquaria. They’er angry and after human blood” he said.
 
“When it’s the KEW-fodder making more sense than the supposedly smarter cylon models you've got to wonder where it all went wrong?” the third Cavil asked rhetorically, rolling his eyes.
 
“Talking of the Centurions if we’re not going to deal with these new humans the easy way with nuclear strikes from orbit we might have to face heavy resistance on the surface of their worlds” the fourth Cavil said. “From what we saw of their capabilities in that arena we could be looking at losses we've not faced since the First War forty years past” he stated.
 
The first Cavil smiled. “It was precisely our intended counter to that which made me comment that the Fours would be a welcome addition to our cabal” he said. “A couple of them are already working on a design for a Centurion/Raider hybrid intended to match the large military machines of the enemy” the cylon continued. “Our initial consideration was the required power but even lacking their fusion powerplants, a fast-fission reactor that uses molten lead and bismuth as the coolant should provide plenty of output in a reactor compact enough to meet our purposes.”
 
“You’re suggesting some sort of oversized Centurion with which to fight these pseudo Earthers on their own terms?” the third Cavil queried.
 
“Six or seven meters in height, smaller than theirs but we can produce them in great numbers once we switch a normal Raider production line over to them.” the first Cavil confirmed. “As well as mounting 30mm KEW’s on the arms a missile rack on each shoulder firing our standard Raider missiles should provide sufficient firepower.”
 
“Intriguing idea.” the second Cavil said appreciatively. “Has anyone thought of a name yet for these new additions to the family?” he asked.
 
The first Cavil nodded. “Praetorians” he replied.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Chapter Note from the Author :Captain Aaron Kelly was the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) on Galactica, he was a tiny bit extreme in his views (he's the man that kept trying to assassinate Gaius Baltar's lawyers). The Ares Conventions were agreed in 2412 and amongst other things restricted use of nuclear weapons and prohibited Biological and Chemical ones. Wallace Gray was Roslin's first and preferred choice for Vice-President before she brought Baltar along to cash in on his popularity. He was the man that got the fleet functioning properly as an economy and sorted out resource distribution so I could see Roslin wanting him back to help sort out the problems faced by the new City-State. The government of New Circe provided a great deal of charity at first but after a while they would want to be paid for what they're giving the Colonials, this has been done by selling tech and by the Colonial City-State borrowing money to buy goods. They would need a proper trade relationship to keep the economy going with a sensible rate of exchange. Battletech Neurohelmets might be a way to detect cylons given we know they're wired differently than humans having Silica Pathways in their brains. Little Battletech Universe in-joke in the last paragraph of the first section there... I'm sorry, as ever I couldn't help it.And Cally gets knocked-up on schedule... A "Circle of Equals" is where a fight between members of a Clan takes place, you can fight those of different ranks, you are all equal there (in principle if not in skill, an infantry officer would typically be taller and more highly trained in hand-to-hand fighting than a mechwarrior for example). Agromechs are used for farming in the BT universe, at least on reasonably developed worlds, they're really just multi-purpose tractors/combine harvesters etc. We see Galactica supplying water to smaller ships in the show, getting that close is of course potentially hazardous to both vessels if miscalculated.The Colony was the Cylon capital, as much as they had one. It was a massive construction built around the ship the "Final Five" arrived in forty years ago. Only the Number One, or "Cavil", Cylons knew the identity of them, or indeed quite a lot of the truth. They had the other model cylons memories wiped and were really behind just about everything when you got right down to it. Given that the Final Five traveled from "Earth" to the Cyrannus system in a sub-light ship it's not really that much of a leap for the Cavil's here to think that these new humans, who they alone know are not the real Thirteenth Tribe, might be an Interstellar civilization that lacks FTL. Given that Galactica was collecting jump-drives and tooling to make them, plus the lack of non Colonial JumpShips in the fleet that returned to Cyrannus, it's not an unreasonable theory for the Cylons to come up with to be honest. They wouldn't have a clue that another jump drive system like the Kearny-Fuchida exists. Hope people like my name for the Cylon counter to Battlemechs. The Praetorian is basically a scaled-up Centurion mounting Raider caliber armament and powered by a Lead Cooled Fast Reactor. Using liquid metal as the coolant allows you to run a reactor much hotter with more output, some designs use molten sodium instead but they would explode on contact with air if ruptured (bad news if you're being shot at). The molten lead also means the coolant itself acts as much of the reactors required radiation shielding, making it even more compact! Without fusion powerplants to run their mechs, I've had the cylons use fission instead, they can take more radiation than humans after all and without lasers and PPCs to power they need less electrical generation anyway.
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