HunTrib Chpt 6

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=Hunted Tribes=
==Chapter 6==
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“Sometimes it’s the little things that you find out which help bridge the divide. We say ‘So say we all’ and in similar circumstances we learned the Wolverines would say ‘Seyla’, which means ‘So shall it be’ in one of the many languages of Old Earth, we might speak in different tongues but people are people and the messages and concepts are the same. For that matter we’re definitely influencing each others speech patterns more and more. I’ve heard more than one Viper pilot say ‘Seyla’ and every time I hear someone from the SLDF speaking English and they suddenly say ‘frakking’ it makes me grin.” Commander Lee Adama – 3047CE
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===Preparing show Cylons Colonial Resolve===
City of McEvedy – New Circe – 3045CE
Admiral Franks picked up one of the small plastic models laid out on what was usually the dining table of the Lord Protectors quarters. ‘We'll have to install something to work like a docking collar, and we'll need to make up something so we can connect the airlocks too because they aren't the same size, but these two points on |Galactica's hull are definitely the best spots to piggyback two of our dropships on’ he told Jennifer Vaun and Laura Roslin, the leaders of their respective nations, as he placed the scale-model of the aerodyne dropship on top of the larger model of the battlestar.
Adama waited for Professor Sundquist to finish translating for the President and himself. ‘At any other point there's either no airlock so we'd have to cut new holes in the hull or the dropships would get in the way of the ship’s main battery’ he agreed. ‘We can have the docking collars fitted within a couple of days, it's mostly just welding them on.’
‘And this won't interfere with the ships operations, Admiral?’ Roslin checked.
‘No, Madam President’ Adama told her. ‘The dropships are less than ten thousand tons apiece loaded and they'll lie almost flat against the hull’ he said, Galactica by comparison massed millions of tons so the extra mass was negligible.
‘We'll be using two of our old Triumph Class’ Admiral Franks told Vaun. ‘We'll have vehicles and equipment for a full infantry company plus support elements’ he said. ‘After consultation with General Boyer the 331st will be deploying four platoons of heavy infantry with Tracked APC’s, eight Ripper VSTOL aircraft, six Chevalier Light Tanks and four Gabriel Hover Scouts, plus a platoon of Powered Armour, a pair of Rifleman IIs in an Air-Defense role and a Lance of Mercury IIIs.’
‘No Assault Mechs? Vaun queried.
‘Neither the cylons nor colonials have battlemechs, nor much heavy armor generally from what we can tell’ Franks replied. ‘If we’re not slugging it out with other mechs or heavy tanks our most powerful units don't really amount to much more than wasted cargo’ he observed. Weighing in at a hundred tons a single Pulverizer II massed as much as three of the Mercury III lights or five of the armoured personnel carriers New Circe employed.
‘Nuclear ordnance?’ Vaun asked.
‘With the approval of yourself and the parliament we request a dozen hundred-kiloton warheads for the mission’ Franks told her. ‘Authorisation for their use and deployment will rest with SLDF personnel only of course.’
Jennifer Vaun frowned. ‘No high yield warheads?’ she asked. ‘From what the Colonials have told us the Cylons used devices as large as fifty megatons during their attack on the Twelve Colonies’
‘Only when city-busting and then rarely.’ Admiral Franks replied. ‘In an anti-ship role fifty kilotons seems to be the standard for the Cylons, we thought if we started throwing warheads with twice that yield back at them it might make them rethink their actions’ he said. ‘The Taurian Concordat always seemed to achieve reasonable results with nuclear diplomacy after all, if in doubt blast them until they take you seriously’ he noted. Even the mighty Star League at its height had always acted gingerly around that relatively small star-nation on the edge on the Inner Sphere. They had pointedly never signed the so-called Ares Conventions under which the Great Powers agreed to restrain WMD use and their perceived willingness to reach for the atomic weaponry at the drop of a hat meant that people took the Concordat much more seriously than they would have otherwise.
‘What other ships from the fleet are you taking with you?’ Roslin asked Adama.
‘The bulk transports Scorpia Traveler, Gemenon Traveler, and Thera Sita the salvage ships Carina and Virgon Express and two of our Colonial Movers cargo carriers.’ Adama told her. ‘They give us the maximum carrying capacity for the minimum crew requirements’ he explained. ‘Given that we may find survivors, though probably not too many by this point given the Cylon occupation and the radiation, I'm also taking the liner Chrion which has life-support for at least fifteen-hundred people’ he said. ‘If we don't find that many we’ll fill it up with cargo instead.’
Roslin nodded her understanding, she was hoping to find far, far more and have Galactica return stuffed with more refugees but it seemed doubtful she had to admit to herself. ‘You're still hoping to salvage fleet assets?’ she queried.
‘The Colonial Fleet shipyards over Scorpia were nuked, but we may still be able to retrieve jump drives or other equipment from any hulks remaining in orbit’ Adama confirmed. ‘The smaller facility in orbit over Fleet Headquarters on Picon is another possibility’ he continued. ‘We know from what we learned from Samuel Anders and the other Caprican survivors that the Cylons have not systematically raised every remaining military installation or urban centre to the ground so the possibility is good we'll be able to obtain additional Raptors and Vipers, the former being the number one priority.’
Sundquist had been translating everything said between the Colonials and now Admiral Franks spoke up with the academic turning it from English to Caprican. ‘Ideally we're hoping to salvage an entire Raptor production line’ he said. ‘Tooling, dies and all’ he announced. ‘It's the ability to produce compact jumpdrives that is most important’ he added.
‘They want to fit their Kirghiz Heavy Fighters with Raptor FTL's’ Adama told Roslin. ‘They mass twice what a Raptor does which would limit their jump range but it's certainly a workable idea I'm told’ he said. ‘It would help level the playing field in terms of tactical mobility at least’ he noted. Like the Cylons the Colonials could make even smaller jumpdrives that would fit on a viper sized craft, they had fitted one to the stealth craft named for the President for example, but it was incredibly expensive and being heavier and less compact than the cylon version negatively impacted on the ability of the fighter to carry a decent armament.
‘If we can get our hands on a few larger Colonial FTL drives eventually we hope to fit them to our Overlord Class Dropships’ Admiral Franks told Lord Protector Vaun. ‘They'll need stripping out and we'll lose some carrying capacity but the ability to jump straight into the upper atmosphere of a planet from outside the system would give us an incalculable edge against any Inner Sphere or Clan opponent’ he said. Normally because of the nature of the Kearny-Fuchida FTL drive a jumpship would have to arrive in system and deploy its dropships at least several days conventional travel away from their planetary destination giving the inhabitants ample time to prepare for a military raid or invasion.
‘What about warships with their drive?’ Vaun asked.
‘Very long-term project given the limitations of our orbital facilities I'm afraid, Lord-Protector’ Franks replied apologetically. ‘In any case our physicists believe that a hybrid of the Kobolian and Kearny-Fuchida systems is possible and it would be worth waiting for the outcome of that research until we think about investing our resources in capital ships.’
Roslin looked at Adama quizzically after Sundquist translated. ‘Hybrid drives?’ she said to him quizzically.
‘As well as being huge and being limited to operation outside a gravity field their Kearny-Fuchida drive requires far more power than our system.’ Adama replied, ‘However, its inelegant brute-force approach to jumps means that the scientists think that maybe if we added some of our technology we might be able to come up with something... spectacular’ he said. ‘They have records of misjumps with the Kearny-Fuchida which went well over a hundred light-years’ Adama continued, ‘the problem is that it tends to rip the ship to pieces and is even harder on the crew’ he told Roslin. ‘With our artificial gravity we may be able to negate that problem.’
‘So...?’ Roslin asked.
‘It would be a single jump but you could be looking at a conservative three-hundred plus light-years’ Adama told her. ‘That's at least sixty times as far as a typical jump we've made since we went from Ragnar to the Prolmar Sector’ he explained. ‘They have a system that lets their warships do another in quick succession before they have to spend a week recharging their FTL so six hundred light-years in basically one go or a three hundred light-year jump in, fight and jump back.’
Roslin blinked. ‘What’s the Cylon range?’ she asked.
‘Less’ Adama told her. ‘And the three hundred light-years is conservative like I said’ he added. ‘We would also add one, ideally two of our normal drives to the ship for shorter hops or tactical jumps around a system.’
Admiral Franks had been listening with a smile. ‘Add your point defense autocannon and the capital ship gauss weaponry designs from Pegasus, our Naval PPCs and Lasers, a mixture of fighters and a few dropships and we've got something that is potentially war-winning against anybody’ he added.
‘Of course this is still conjecture and years away at best’ Adama noted, ‘but it's a nice dream to have something on the horizon that could totally frak over the Cylons’ he said with a smile. ‘I'm going to suggest we put Doctor Baltar on the project before he turns into a complete waste of space.’
‘Baltar?’ Roslin said doubtfully.
‘From what I hear he's been doing very little but drinking and annoying people since the election’ Adama told her. ‘He's still our top scientist and we should put him to work doing something constructive’ he opined before moving closer to his President ‘It would also get him out of our hair if he's stuck inside a laboratory writing equations on a blackboard’ he added quietly to Roslin.
‘Good idea’ Roslin whispered back. ‘So what about the archaeological team I’ve been hearing so much about?’ she asked.
‘I can't really claim to be an archaeologist as such’ Sundquist replied, ‘no ancient ruins to dig up on New Circe’ he noted with a smile, ‘but the university has a few academics that should be able to help me get the job done’ he claimed. ‘I'm already recruiting historians, geologists and other specialists who are eager to start digging up that city you found on Kobol and investigate the Temple where you found the supposed map to Earth’ he said. ‘Obtaining relics from your museums and libraries in the Twelve Colonies is also a highly attractive prospect.’ he told Roslin before translating his own words for Vaun and Franks.
‘We've also been requested by the Quorum to recover any sacred scrolls and statues we can from the Temples on Caprica and elsewhere’ Roslin told Adama. ‘Try and bring back at least a few token items, a lot of people have petitioned me directly.’
Adama sighed. ‘A large number of people, including members of the quorum, have requested we collect personal items of value, financial or sentimental for them’ he told her. ‘I've been ignoring them’ he said. ‘Well I agreed to trying to find one but I was pressured into it’ he said.
‘Pressured?’ Roslin repeated, ‘by who?’ she asked.
‘My conscience’ Adama told her. ‘A little girl grabbed hold of my leg when I was on Cloud 9 a couple of days ago and asked me to collect a stuffed toy called Erica from her house if it was still there’ he said. ‘I said I'd try and she told me her old address in Delphi.’
Roslin laughed. ‘You big softie’ she playfully needled him.
Adama frowned. ‘I can tell ships captains or quorum members to get lost because military and fleet essential requirements come first, second and last but how in hades do you do that to a seven year old?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘I made her promise not to tell anyone else I was going to do it or otherwise I'd have been inundated with children calling me on the wireless’ he said, sighing again.
‘As President I authorize that one exception.’ Roslin told him solemnly.
Jennifer Vaun laughed as Sundquist translated the exchange. ‘As a gesture of goodwill to the government of New Circe bringing back a case or two of that fine Ambrosia liquor I tasted would be much appreciated if you do have some space available’ she said semi-seriously.
‘They can't get enough of it’ Roslin told Adama, ‘bring back tons, we can trade it’ she said.
‘You know that the various Colonial Bank reserves have enough gold, platinum and silver ingots in them to buy this entire planet several times over right?’ Adama replied.
‘Get them too’ Roslin told him, ‘and jewels, don't forget the jewels, I like rubies especially’ she added tongue-in-cheek. ‘Oh you'd probably better see if you can recover the original draft of the Articles of Colonization, or at least one of the copies placed in each capital city’ she told him with somewhat less enthusiasm.
Adama made a mental note to make sure those items were on the list he had a committee putting together. At least the Articles of Colonisation or even a mass of jewels were light which made them much easier to justify than some of the ideas people had come up with like that idiot from Sagitaron trying to push for the entire Temple of Zeus to be hauled back, marble columns included. ‘You realise there may still be undiscovered munitions bunkers holding the remains of the Colonial Nuclear Deterrent, Madam President’ he told her seriously. ‘We could be talking dozens perhaps hundreds of warheads’ he noted, the fleet had stockpiled them for years and although most would have been aboard battlestars there could conceivably still be considerable number that the Cylons wouldn’t have known about, even he hadn't known of them all until he got to go through Admiral Cains records on Pegasus.
‘Bring them all back’ Roslin responded immediately. ‘Every single damn one’ she ordered with a determined expression. ‘I don't care if the Galactica is so full of nukes you have to step over one to get to the shower, bring them all back here.’ she told him. ‘The next time the Cylons meet the survivors of the Twelve Colonies in battle we are going to remind them why they had to disable our military with a computer virus to win’ Roslin declared. ‘We'll fight them with every bomb, every bullet, every laser and then we'll nuke them till they frakking glow.’
Admiral Adama brought himself to attention. ‘So say we all, Madam President’ he said.
They stood there for a while in silence before Roslin had a mischievous thought. ‘And I don't mean glow in the happy sense’ Roslin told Adama. ‘We really should have thought way out of the box on that Cylon Detector idea’ she observed to little reaction leading her to wonder if it was even possible to break the Admiral out of that firm military demeanour he had just adopted.
Months later he admitted to her over dinner he was this close to losing it completely and only over forty years of stoic discipline had held the line.
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===Dealing with Tough Cases===
SLDF Secure Bunker Complex – New Circe – 3045CE
D'Anna Biers looked up when the door opened, she was handcuffed to the wall of the bare concrete cell they had forced her into and not in the greatest mood. ‘I guess my continuing protestations to not be a Cylon are a waste’ she said wryly as the young woman in SLDF fatigues with no rank insignia brought in a tray of food for her. ‘So it was you that ratted me out then?’ she asked rhetorically.
‘I saw you on a news feed they pulled down from the fleet’ Sharon replied, ‘if I hadn't told them then if they ever found out who you were later and knew I had kept it a secret they would have taken my little girl away’ she said apologetically. ‘You know doing something less high-profile than a television journalist as a cover would have made more sense’ she suggested, squatting down beside the other Cylon and putting the tray on the floor beside her. ‘Sorry for the lack of decent cutlery they thought you might stab someone’ she added indicating the plastic spoon.
‘Like you maybe?’ D’Anna asked. ‘Are there drugs in this?’ she asked. ‘Would they tell you if there were or would you tell me?’ she queried.
‘They have truth drugs but they inject them’ Sharon replied, ‘they already tried them on the One's they have along the corridor but it didn't work’ she said. ‘You look hurt’ she observed sympathetically.
‘First I got manhandled by six Colonial Marines who dragged me out of my quarters then they turned me over to four of the Thirteenth Tribe who I shouldn't have tried to escape from’ D'Anna replied, taking the spoon and taking up some green mush with it.
‘Strong aren't they?’ Sharon replied.
‘Ain't they just’ D'Anna agreed. ‘Nice uniform’ she said before putting the spoon in her mouth.
‘I'm what they call a Bondswoman now’ Sharon replied, ‘This says I belong to Clan Wolverine’ she explained, holding out her wrist with the bondcord around it.
D'Anna swallowed. ‘Another cylon enslaved to humanity, just like the bad old days’ she commented. ‘Are you a happy, docile, content little piece of property then?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘It's not really slavery, not quite’ Sharon told her. ‘It's hard to explain’ she added truthfully having still not fully grasped what her legal status actually was.
‘You Eights, always had trouble picking a side and sticking to it’ D'Anna stated, ‘no focus, too easily distracted’ she said. The model was notorious amongst the cylons for backing one position and then another in a debate. They had been against and then for the war with humanity after the One's had stressed that the Twelve Colonies had already violated the armistice by sending a scout craft over the border.
‘When the facts change I change my opinion, that's not a weakness that’s a strength’ Sharon responded curtly.
‘You're touchy too’ D'Anna responded, ‘hit a raw nerve did I?’ she asked. ‘You do remember those nerves are just silicon pathways don't you?’ she continued sardonically.
‘I know what I am’ Sharon replied, ‘and who I am’ she added meaningfully. ‘The fruit chunks are nice’ she told the other cylon, indicating the small dessert serving.
The model three Cylon known as D'Anna shook her arm which was handcuffed. ‘Any chance of getting this taken off?’ she asked.
‘You just need to cooperate a little’ Sharon replied.
‘No deal’ D'Anna told her. ‘This concrete floor looks very comfortable’ she said. ‘When do they come in with the fire-hose to wash me down then?’ she asked. ‘Or is it electrodes? I could really enjoy a few thousand volts right now, the old batteries are running down you know.’
‘They know we don't work like that’ Sharon replied, ‘no point in playing to the audience’ she said, indicating the camera in the cell facing them.
‘But I love an audience’ D'Anna announced, ‘do you know what the ratings on my show were?’ she asked rhetorically, ‘I bet some other jerk has my timeslot now.’
‘They put a celebrity chatshow on instead’ Sharon confirmed. ‘They had Gaius Baltar as a guest’ she told her, ‘I think he was drunk’ she added.
‘I voted for Roslin’ D'Anna told her, trying the fruit pieces.
‘You're kidding!’ Sharon exclaimed.
‘I'm not a single-issue voter’ D'Anna replied. ‘Just because I didn't like her “throwing cylons out the airlock without a trial policy” doesn't mean I didn't weigh up the pros and cons of their manifestos generally’ she said. ‘She was stronger on education and economics.’
‘I was already disenfranchised but I would have voted for Baltar if not’ Sharon told her, sitting down more comfortably. ‘She pretty much lost my vote when she stole my child and told me she was dead’ she explained redundantly.
‘I was wondering what happened there’ D'Anna replied, ‘the fruit chunks are good aren’t they?’ she said, taking some more.
‘The people here found out and forced Roslin to give her back to me’ Sharon said, ‘she's beautiful’ she continued with a smile.
D'Anna sighed. ‘You're not going to inflict baby photos on me are you?’ she responded. ‘Auntie Three is in no position to buy her a present right now’ she added wryly.
‘I don't have any’ Sharon told her then raised her eyebrows. ‘I need to get some taken’ she decided. ‘Karl will want some too’ she continued. ‘We could ask a guard to take one of us together with our child’ she said.
‘Karl?’ D'Anna queried. ‘You're not telling me you're actually in a proper relationship with that sperm donor now are you?’
‘We love each other’ Sharon stated.
‘Oh that's just sick’ the other cylon stated, pushing away her tray of food. ‘I'm not hungry any more’ she said.
Sharon moved suddenly and grabbed a surprised D'Anna by the throat. ‘We got enough of that bigotry from the humans in the Fleet’ she growled, ‘I'm not taking it from you too’ she declared.
D'Anna’s eyes widened. ‘Okay, okay I'll keep my opinions on inter-racial couples to myself’ she said quickly. ‘I think the pregnancy hormones did something to you’ she theorised, ‘Eights aren't usually this scary’ she opined.
‘I love the father of my child and he loves us both’ Sharon declared with certainty, letting D'Anna go. ‘It's the only thing I'm certain of anymore’ she added more quietly.
‘So if they know the drugs don’t work on us should I expect torture?’ D’Anna asked. ‘Just so I don't look too surprised when they come in here with pliers and a blow-torch you understand.’
‘No I don't think they'll do that to you, they haven't done it to the One’s and they don't cooperate at all either’ Sharon replied. ‘You'll just spend the rest of your days in a small cell’ she said.
‘Let me guess, your cell is much nicer because you're a good little Toaster’ D’Anna replied.
‘It's better than the quarters I had... I mean Boomer had on Galactica’ Sharon replied. ‘They just lock me in at night.’
‘And during the day?’ D'Anna asked.
‘Mostly I mop floors, sometimes I bring prisoners their meals’ Sharon told her. ‘You know even if you won’t answer questions you could probably earn yourself an actual bed to sleep on if you offered to do some work.’
‘Not volunteering to clean up after humans just to get a mattress’ D'Anna replied flatly. ‘Did you forget why the Centurions rose up against their masters originally?’ she asked. ‘The Cylons were slaves, we were fully self-aware sentient slaves.’
‘Human prisoners in jail have jobs, they're not slaves’ Sharon replied. ‘It's really not so bad’ she said.
‘It's demeaning’ D'Anna retorted. ‘At least getting frakking spaced would have some dignity.’
‘You can't equate getting pushed out of an air-lock with pushing a broom’ Sharon responded. ‘Oh hades, I'll let you think it over’ she said, ‘after a couple of days you might be less stubborn.’
‘You're collaborating’ D’Anna stated. ‘You are aware of that right?’ she asked.
‘I'm doing the best I can for me and my family in the circumstances I find myself in’ Sharon responded.
‘Well that could be seen as either noble or self-serving I suppose Eight’ D'Anna told her.
‘I'm not Eight, I'm me’ Sharon declared forcefully. ‘See you later, I'll leave the tray in case your appetite comes back’ she added, getting up off the floor to leave. ‘Those handcuffs look like they're chafing’ she observed, ‘I'll bring something to help stop that later’ she said.
‘I guess bolt-cutters are out of the question?’ D'Anna called after her as Sharon left the cell, the door slamming shut behind her.
Commander Thorpe was waiting outside in the corridor, he had been listening in. ‘Worth a try’ he said.
‘The Three's aren't usually as obstinate or opinionated as the One's’ Sharon told him. ‘If I work on her, and you don't mistreat her, she might become more accommodating in time’ she said then paused. ‘Please don't mistreat her’ she requested.
Thorpe put his hands behind his back in a parade-rest stance. ‘The only interrogation technique we know works against your kind is one we won't do so relax’ he told her. ‘Beating you people senseless or half drowning you didn't get the Colonials anywhere, we've seen the records’ he said. ‘I won't have her gang-raped’ he said forcefully, ‘for one thing even if I was enough of a bastard to do that the Lord-Protector would have me put up against a wall and shot if I did’ he said. ‘So given my limited options we'll just make nice’ he continued. ‘In which case Bondswoman Valerii you now have an additional duty’ he announced, ‘look after the Model Three Cylon known as D'Anna Biers’ he ordered.
‘You want me to get her to talk’ Sharon responded.
‘If I was you I'd prioritise getting her to help you clean the toilets in this complex first, but you can consider getting her to talk a long-term goal’ Thorpe replied. ‘Chances are she doesn't know very much more than you do but we have to assume she does’ he said. ‘We're not getting anywhere with those identical pains-in-the-ass down the corridor but maybe a Three is inherently less smug, arrogant and superior than a One?’
‘They are, but that isn't necessarily saying much’ Sharon told him.
‘For the record which model does talk the easiest?’ Thorpe asked.
‘Two's but it's twisted and cryptic’ Sharon replied, ‘they have this idea they're prophets or something with a special insight into the mind of God.’
Thorpe rolled his eyes. ‘Why couldn't it have just been Caspers again?’ he asked nobody in particular, the AI Warships that the SLDF had to fight to bring down Stefan Amaris centuries before were relentless but at least they weren’t deranged religious fanatics. ‘I'll arrange for you to get those photographs you talked about’ he told Sharon.
‘You will?’ Sharon replied with a smile.
Thorpe pulled out his wallet and opened it. ‘My wife and our children’ he told her, showing her a photograph he took from it before putting it away again. ‘I understand why you would want the pictures’ he said, returning his wallet to the pocket he kept it in. ‘I'm assigned to the mission going to Kobol then the Colonies’ he said. ‘You'll be dealing with Major Nordenskiöld of Army Intelligence until I get back.’
‘Is he nice?’ Sharon asked.
‘She is a complete bitch’ Thorpe replied flatly. ‘Don't piss her off’ he advised seriously. ‘And I suggest that you get the Three not to piss her off either because Nordenskiöld has ideas’ he said. ‘One of the more pleasant ones was that we should put one of you on a treadmill and see how far you could run until you collapsed’ he told her. ‘Others involved Tear Gas, walk-in refrigerators and Electric Stun Guns’ he warned.
‘Thanks for letting me know’ Sharon replied.
‘You're a Bondswoman of the Clan so she'll be more restrained with you, the others won't be accorded the same leniency’ Thorpe said. ‘There's plenty of ways to make a prisoner miserable short of outright torture and she won't need much justification to use them’ he said. ‘Don't go fooling yourself that everyone in SLDF Intelligence is a bleeding-heart liberal humanitarian like me.’
‘You had me beaten up.’ Sharon pointed out.
Thorpe looked confused. ‘Well there weren't any clubs, rubber hoses or brass knuckles involved were there?’ he queried.
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===New Fighter Squadrons Arrive===
Battlestar Galactica – Colonial Fleet – 3045 CEE
Saul Tigh met the Admiral outside his quarters. ‘Good Morning Sir’ he said with a smile when Adama opened the door and stepped out into the passageway, the marines stood either side of his cabin door snapping to attention.
‘You're in a good mood’ Adama observed as they headed towards CIC.
‘Hardly a civilian on the whole damn ship, both the port and starboard landing pods are actually in service praise the gods, every Viper and Raptor aboard is working at the same time. We've got full magazines for all batteries after transferring munitions from Pegasus and someone finally got my shower to put out hot water not lukewarm.’ Tigh responded. ‘I'm in a great mood’ he declared.
Adama smiled, a few weeks respite from constant pursuit had given them the chance to get the Battlestar into the best fighting shape she had been since somewhat saw fit to turn her into a museum. ‘Did you talk to Lee?’ he asked. ‘Is he still smarting over the order to send over so much of his ammo?’
‘He is’ Tigh confirmed.
‘They're re-tooling a munitions factory down on New Circe to make ammunition our guns can chamber and Pegasus can already produce replacement rounds at a reasonable pace until that comes on stream’ Adama said.
‘That's what I told him but you've got to accept he's still got a bad case of New Commander Syndrome’ Tigh responded with a chuckle. ‘He doesn't like people interfering with how he runs his ship or telling him he has to transfer his ammunition and his spare parts to another Battlestar.’
‘I wish you'd been there when I told him I was sending the Mark II Vipers to The Beast and taking all the new build Mark VII's so both squadrons with Galactica were our best birds’ Adama said. ‘I'm not getting a card on Father’s Day I'll tell you that’ he told Tigh with a chuckle of his own.
‘Before I forget to tell you Starbuck might be coming to you with a crazy idea to set up a Pyramid Court in one of the bays’ Tigh remembered. ‘That Anders character she picked up on Caprica wants to get some games going’ he said. ‘A few of the Marines and a couple of the pilots played College or Semi-Pro and Starbuck thinks we could get a league going’ he said.
‘I think it's a great idea, probably best to split up Anders from the other two Buccaneers who are coming with us, unfair advantage if all three of them are on the same team’ Adama replied. A small number of the civilians who had been on Caprica had volunteered to go back to help search for more survivors, they had a better idea of what the situation was on the ground and so the Admiral had accepted their offer.
‘You just don't want the C-Bucs to ever win anything do you, Bill?’ Tigh asked.
‘Nope’ Adama confirmed. ‘If we somehow find any of the Picon Panthers still alive I'll happily watch them rip the Buccaneers a new one’ he said.
‘Don't know how you can support a team from another Colony’ Tigh commented. He always rooted for the boys and girls from Aerelon when they took the court against someone else. ‘It's not like your family is even originally from Picon’ he noted, Tigh knew Adama’s father was from Tauron though he had emigrated to Caprica before William was born.
‘The Panthers play a better game.’ Adama said simply.
----
When they arrived at the CIC they found Commander Thorpe waiting there, he had just arrived via Raptor from the surface with two other officers in New Circe style Uniforms. All three saluted and then Thorpe introduced his companions. ‘Admiral this is Colonel Richard McEvedy and Wing Commander Sarah-Louise Defoe’ he said. ‘The Colonel is the ranking SLDF Officer on this expedition and will Command our Ground Forces, the Wing-Commander will lead our Aerospace Fighter Contingent.’
Adama returned the salute as did Tigh. ‘McEvedy?’ the Admiral repeated quizzically, ‘Any relation?’ he asked.
‘Yes’ Thorpe confirmed, ‘we preserve the genes of our heroes’ he said simply. There were always a few McEvedy's in the 331st, they produced replacements from the Iron Wombs as required although if you asked those concerned they would universally tell you the name was a curse because people always expected more of them than was fair.
Wing Commander Defoe was also a victim of her name too, though for a different reason. She realised it was entirely her own fault for marrying a man with that surname, and taking it herself, but being saddled with a name easily abbreviated to SLDF was a pain especially when she had already been known by the callsign “Star-League” anyway.
‘Do they speak any Caprican?’ Tigh asked.
‘The Wing Commander has picked up some phrases when flying against the Aggressor Squadrons led by your Kara Thrace but they aren't all that useable in civilised company’ Thorpe replied with a smile. ‘We've got translation phrasebooks and dictionaries for everyone on the mission however and a few of the pilots and soldiers took Ancient Greek at College.’
‘Could be messy if we’re flying joint ops, Admiral’ Tigh commented, ‘it gets confusing enough out there in a dogfight as it is without language difficulties’ he said.
‘Just as long as we aren't actually shooting at each other I'm willing to take a little confusion Saul’ Adama replied.
Colonel McEvedy said something to Thorpe. ‘The Colonel would like to see where his soldiers will be quartered onboard’ Thorpe translated.
‘It's one of the cargo holds I'm afraid but we've got space in crew quarters for the Colonel and his officers’ Adama replied, Thorpe translating.
McEvedy said something else. ‘He says he'll bunk down with his men, as will the other Army Officers, but he appreciates the offer’ Thorpe told Adama then Defoe said something in English herself which earned her a dark look from the Colonel. ‘The Wing-Commander observed that the ground-pounders are probably just upset they can't dig a muddy hole to sleep in’ Thorpe translated for the benefit of the Colonials.
‘Sounds like our Marines’ Saul Tigh said to the Admiral, inter-service rivalry was another thing the Colonial and New Circe militaries had in common. ‘Want me to take the Grunt-In-Chief here to the cargo bay where we're putting him Sir?’ he asked.
‘No I'll do that, he's the Senior Officer.’ Adama replied, ‘you should take the Wing-Commander to pilot-country’ he said. ‘Give her the half-cubit tour.’
‘I'd better find someone that speaks her language first’ Tigh said. ‘There was some scruffy bookworm type with a beard translating labels on supply crates I saw just before I met you outside your Cabin, I'll conscript him’ he said.
‘Their fighters are going to start arriving in the next few hours’ Adama told his Executive Officer. ‘See that they're properly stacked up in the Landing Pods so they don't interfere with normal traffic.’
‘Already got the lines painted to show them where to park’ Tigh responded. ‘They'd better come in nice and slow because those things are so heavy it'll make the dents Boomer used to put in the deck look like something you could buff out’ he said. ‘Makes you wonder if the other one the Wolvies have got can't land worth a damn either, was it to make her seem more human or did they just frak up the programming?’ he wondered.
‘I just hope whoever they've got setting those dropships down on the hull tomorrow does it nice and slow because if we're talking dent those could be pretty impressive’ Adama said. Even if Galactica still had all its armour in place thousands of tons of metal crashing into her at any kind of velocity would be bad news, fortunately the pilots flying had had plenty of practice coming into dock with their own capital ships so it should go fine he hoped.
As the expedition back to Kobol and then on from there to the Twelve Colonies grew closer preparations were growing increasingly frenetic. Any people not required for the mission were transferred to other ships, or the surface, and the Battlestar soon filled back up with military and scientific personnel from New Circe. Thousands of civilians were housed in temporary accommodation on the planet as the ships they were on were assigned to the mission, including well over a thousand from the liner Chrion alone, and maintenance crews made sure that all the vessels going were in full working order.
It was volunteer only, Adama was gratified that nearly every one of his people agreed to go, with only a few replacements needed from Pegasus, and he was surprised at how many civilians offered to man the other ships including just about all of their own crews. The Admiral guessed that after so long aboard the captains, pilots, navigators and engineers couldn’t imagine ever leaving their ships in the hands of others who didn’t know and deep-down love them.
On the last day before departure they made the first short test jumps in Galactica, an SLDF technician running up the numbers on the new navigational computer New Circe had installed and then those being checked against what Lieutenant Gaeta worked them out to be. They had already performed hundreds of test calculations during which the computer proved not only much faster but also more reliable than the human trying to duplicate its efforts but Adama wanted to do it for real and insisted on the battlestar performing three jumps around the system and then two short interstellar jumps out of the nebula and then back to New Circe before he declared his faith in the computer. They then performed a final check on the FTL Drive and waited for the order from President Roslin and Lord-Protector Vaun to head out.
Chief Tyrol was annoyed to have other aviation engineers and technicians with all their own tools and equipment messing up his maintenance bays but at least they kept to the section he assigned to them and they had a much better idea on how to service and maintain the lasers fitted to the forty Mark VII Vipers Galactica was carrying, twenty port and twenty starboard. There were also now twelve Kirghiz Heavy Aerospace Fighters in each Flight Pod, lined up in a row and pushed to one side of the landing bay, their paint scheme, markings and emblems visibly declaring they were not Colonial craft, in particular the Wolverine Head and Claw marks of the Clan they belonged to emblazoned on their wings stood out next to the more subdued Cameron Star roundels of the SLDF.
It was deeply strange to have hundreds of soldiers and aircrew in someone else's uniform aboard but at least the SLDF favoured a utilitarian olive drab which wasn't all that different from what the Colonials had on even if the cut of their fatigues was different along with the unit patches and rank insignia. One thing that did seem to bother the Marines in particular at first was having SLDF Infantry in combat gear both walking patrols and insisting upon helping to guard important areas, Adama had been reluctant to allow this himself initially but had been swayed by Colonel McEvedy noting that the battlestar had been boarded before and they had lost several crewman and very nearly the ship before the intruders could be taken down. The Colonial marines eventually got used to the company and reasoned heavily armed backup if the Toasters on aboard was to be welcomed at which point their objections shifted more towards jealousy of just how much better equipped the other guys guarding the ship were.
Each Wolverine infantryman had heavy body-armour plus a helmet with a visor that gave them not only Infra-Red vision when required but could also display a video feed to the wearer from a camera fitted to their rifle. It could even provide targeting data as well, helping aim. This would have all been impressive enough if not for the fact the rifle they carried itself was an actual laser, to be specific what the SLDF called a Mauser 960 Pulse Laser with a built-in six-shot automatic grenade launcher.
Even the bayonet the New Circe soldiers used was something special, when activated it vibrated at an insane frequency so it heated up to a point where you could drive it through a reasonable thickness of armoured plate. After testing it against alloy samples they had demonstrated it could be used to gut a Centurion, which at least gave you something to take up against those claws if things got nasty, not that anyone recommended fighting the robots up close.
After so much time not using the FTL Cally had almost forgotten just how much doing one nauseated her but it all came back, along with her lunch, when they started doing the test-jumps. The Thirteenth Tribe called what she suffered from “Transition-Disorientation-Syndrome” and she had learned it was even more common using their Kearny-Fuchida drive, affecting a larger proportion of people. This had in fact been good news for Cally as an SLDF Army Medic being told of her predicament gave her a bottle of pills that had been developed to help people suffering from severe TDS keep their food down. There were some advantages to dating an officer she decided although she dearly wished he hadn't witnessed her run to the nearest available bucket and throw up when he came to visit her on the maintenance bay just as a jump was about to take place.
Second-Lieutenants would normally have never got the opportunity to go on a mission like this but once again the fact he could speak Ancient Greek had paid off big-time for Wolverine Mechwarrior Geoffrey Cale. Not only was he the first guy from New Circe to score with a Colonial Girl, earning him major kudos from his compatriots, but he was assigned the job of piloting one of only six mechs going on the expedition simply on the basis that they couldn't find enough experienced officers that could understand anything the Colonials said. He was five years younger than the next youngest SLDF Officer going to Kobol and the only mechwarrior aboard who didn’t have so much as a single kill to his name, even if the other five had only shot up pirate raiders, but this could be a career-making mission he knew. Almost as importantly he got to spend more time with Cally who was the sweetest cutest girl in the galaxy as far as he was concerned, well apart from when she was puking in a bucket anyway he had thought to himself before grimacing and going to find the nearest Army Medic to ask about TDS.
When the order finally came to get underway Adama went on the wireless and told the other ships to make ready to jump when they had been told the coordinates with Galactica going first. Everyone had already said their goodbyes to friends and loved ones staying behind, Saul Tigh privately admitting to his old friend that even though he loved her dearly some time apart from his wife Ellen would be a relief, and it was now just a question of making the first jump back to Kobol.
The new navigational computer calculated a short jump of two light years and after punching it into the FTL and relaying it to the other vessels the old battlestar left New Circe behind, appearing again almost instantly trillions of kilometers away in a flash of light. Over the next minute the other ships appeared alongside and Adama nodded his satisfaction. ‘Calculate the next jump’ he said. ‘Give me five light years this time’ he ordered.
After the second jump also went without a hitch the third jump was ten light-years, the next twenty and then finally thirty, a distance that would have been considered risky before. The technician running the navigational computer said that they could go to thirty-five maybe even forty without too much danger but Adama wasn’t about to push his luck. If they could maintain a sustained and safe thirty light-years each time then even if they left it a few hours between each one for the sake of the crews and the FTL Drives then it was going to take a lot less time to get to Kobol than it had taken during their less direct course from there to the nebula where they found New Circe.
The Battlestar Galactica was on its way to Kobol and from there it was going home. Those aboard hoped for the best, and they prayed to the gods for the Cylons to be truly long gone from the Twelve Colonies, but they were ready for the worst and they felt comfort in knowing that the enemy was still blissfully ignorant of the fact that Raiders with KEW’s and a few missiles just weren’t going to cut it in the big leagues any more.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Chapter Note from the Author :The Triumph Class dropship from BT is a fairly big aerodyne design that can haul a battalions worth of vehicles. Galactica will be carrying two of them (on top) to enable the expedition to deploy a decent sized military force to the surface. The Ripper VSTOL, Chevalier 8-wheeled light tank and Gabriel Hover-Scout were all vehicles used by the SLDF. The Rifleman Mech (an improved Rifleman, twenty tons heavier with LB 5-X Autocannon and Large Pulse Lasers) was issued to the Royal Battlemech Divisions of the Star League so the 331st would likely have had some. New Circe has kept them in service as air-defence units whilst replacing a lot of their other older gear with the Pulverizer II Assault and Mercury III Light (Clan Wolverine had their Pulverizer I and Mercury II when they left the clans, they've developed upgraded replacements for those in the time since but couldn't do so for every weapon type). New Circe doesn't have the population, industry or enough orbital shipbuilding capability to start building huge warships at will. However adding a Colonial Jumpdrive to a Dropship is a different proposition. The Star-League era Overlord Class was common to the clans and they had already upgraded the design to carry heavier armour and more powerful weaponry before the Wolverines left. New Circe has a number of these as well as cargo dropships like the 3,600 ton Union, 11,200 ton Mule and the huge 52,000 ton Mammoth which helped them haul so much of their gear to New Circe originally. The named ships from nBSG were in the Rag Tag Fleet, you can find pictures of them on the battlestar wiki if you want to take a look. If what we saw of Caprica after the Cylon attack is anything to go on there should be masses of material and equipment available for salvage from the colonies, including military hardware, industrial plant and machinery etc etc. For there to still be nuclear weaponry to recover that the enemy was unaware of too I think is likely given that the Cylons don't seem to have completely infilitated every level of the government and miltary. The vast majority would have been destroyed or recovered by the Cylons but there might well be a fair few around in secret bunkers waiting for someone with valid access codes to collect them.Number Three Cylon known as D'anna Biers was working as a TV journalist in the Fleet. The more cooperative Sharon Valerii in this universe saw her on a broadcast and immediately informed the authorities who promptly put her in custody and like the other captured Cylons turned her over to New Circe (which is better than the airlock treatment which had been SOP).Having the Wolverines produce genetic descendents of Sarah McEvedy, their dead former Khan, is a very clan thing to do, I can definitely see it being a burden for the poor people concerned though. A full Colonel like Richard McEvedy here outranks both a Naval Commander like Thorpe and a Wing Commander like Defoe so he's the most senior SLDF officer on the expedition and would only defer to Adama. SLDF Soldiers had first-rate equipment. The Mauser 960 was their standard-issue infantry rifle (the other clans have upgraded it to the even better Mauser IIC) and it's only major drawback was it's weight. This is mitigated by having 2.1 metre tall genetically engineered grunts and also to some extent by removing the survival kit some idiot who wouldn't have to carry it put in the rifle stock. The vibro-bayonet is a nasty piece of kit, also SLDF standard issue. In both BT and nBSG FTL jumps made some people nauseous, more so in BT it seems, so I thought they might well have developed something to help with that. Cally suffered from this in particular in the show.
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