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Battlestar Galactica: New Beginnings

CHAPTER 1:WELCOME TO THE DEFIANT

07/06/55

09:42

48 days before the fall of the 12 Colonies

10 minutes sublight from Leonis

Orbit of the Nemean Fleet Shipyards

Raptor 312/Defiant

A calmness and strength seemed to radiate off the Colonial Officer sat in the co-pilot's seat of the bug shaped multipurpose Raptor as it shuttled its way as only a "glorified schoolbus" could towards the graceful shape of the Battlestar Defiant. Small on the grand scale of Battlestars and not as powerful as most, the Defiant was a Valkyrie class Battlestar and would be his home for the next two years.

"...Captain?"

Brought back to the present, the officer mentally shook himself saying "Sorry, what did you say?" The Lt. looked at him, her face slightly obscured by the reinforced glass of her helmet, yet even this wasn't enough to hide the slivers of gold in her hazel eyes or the agonisingly broken shape of the nose.

"I asked how come you're still flying birds instead of being sat in the CIC? Did your mother forget to pull some strings for you?" As she said this an almost wild grin creased her face taking away the seriousness of the statement, yet still the implications were there.

"She would've done. Frak when i was a knuckle dragger she almost had a fit. But...I cut pretty much all strings with her years ago. I got to where i am from the bottom without any 'friends in high...'"

"Raptor 312 this is Defiant, please state your intentions and transmit codes"

"Defiant/Budget. I'm on approach from Leonis Fleet Command with authorised crew replacement. Transmitting codes now..."

"Codes verified transferring you over to flight control".

The voice of the communications officer was replaced by that of the L.S.O. (landing signals officer). "Raptor 312, you are cleared for approach, walkers on the runway so reduce speed to one five zero, port landing bay ,pad 2, hands on...the checkers are green. Call the ball".

"Roger that, I have the ball" lieutenant Susan 'Budget' Williams replied taking full control of the raptor and complying with the landing instructions.

"Hands on, I love this Battlestar already", the Captain mutters. "Yeah it's a pain in the arse" the lieutenant replied not realising that he actually meant it.

Sweeping into the portside flightpod, budget eased the bug shaped raptor into a sweeping arc bringing her to rest without so much as a bump on landing pad two. The electromagnets built into said pad kicked in securing the raptor to the pad as it started its descent. Before the two pilots the starfield was replaced by the flashing red lights of the hanger airlock they were entering. Budget cleared her board shutting down the raptor's systems in the correct order while a roof closed over the lift sealing it from the outer vacuum.

The suited knuckle draggers then got to work securing the raptor to a tractor before opening up the inner doors to the hanger deck and leading the boxy Raptor into the vast hangar beyond. Helping Budget with her post-flight power down and checklist, the officer pushed up the centre console and stepped towards the Raptor's hatch while picking up his "sailor" bag in the process. Upon opening the hatch he was assaulted by dozens of competing smells of oil, tylium, coolant, smoke, bleach and ozone and those were just the smells he could identify, but to him, they smelt like home. Standing there on the wing of the Raptor the captain cast a keen eye about the deck, the last time he'd been on a Valkyrie class hanger deck he ran it. It was practically another lifetime.

The deck chief seeing the new arrival came over and saluted the captain which he quickly and precisely returned.

"Chief Lennox sir, I'll be your deck chief during your stay with us. I understand you used to be one of us sir, back on the Valkyrie". The chief was a thin middle aged man with immense upper body strength yet as the Captain looked him over, he could tell that the Chief must be fairly new to the job, he seemed to be edgy and almost as bad as a mouse after a bit of cheese but knowing that a cat could pounce on him. He wasn't used to responsibility, that much was clear

"I actually started off on the Perseus but yeah I was chief on the Valkyrie" the Captain confirmed as he picked up his pack and rucksack after shaking the chiefs hand and logging in.

"Yeah, one of my guys used to serve on your deck...Specialist Strombe."

"Strombe?...Fingerless Joe?" the Captain asked as he made his way to the closest hatch that led into the main Battlestar's body.

"Yeah that's him. He said you ran an easy deck...but one of the best in the entire fleet".

Shaking his head the captain replied "I had a good crew and was given pretty much free control over the decks by Adama. He even bent some rules to get us as good as we were".

"Nevertheless sir" the chief said as they reached the hatch "I would appreciate it if you could maybe pass on some advice when you're next free. Performance isn't exactly up to scratch".

Turning to the chief the captain nodded asking "How long?"

Answering, the chief replies "two months, before that I'd served three years".

The captain seeing how new to the job the chief was said "When I'm next free I'll pop by, if you'll excuse me".

Walking down the almost familiar corridors of the Defiant , she being so similar to her sister ship the Valkyrie, the captain was soon met at the CIC by two marines whom, after checking his I.D. allowed him to enter. Approaching a hunched over figure at the main console while ignoring the activity around himself, the captain placed his bags at his feet and held a salute to the figure saying "Captain David Cain reporting for duty sir".

The hunched over figure slowly straightened and turned to face him taking stock of the newcomer. The eyes of the Commander were tired grey orbs that hid the true strength of the man, his face looking like it hadn't felt the kiss of unfiltered sunlight in months and with an excess of fat as was the same with the body. The bright lights of the CIC blended with his thinning pepper grey hair. But when he straightened to return the salute, Captain Cain knew this man would be deadly in any type of fight.

"At ease captain." the Commander reached out and shook his hand. "We might as well take this in my office".

The Captain followed the Commander the short distance to his office. Smaller than those of a Mercury class it was still a reasonable size with photos mounted on the walls depicting family members, crewmates and ships.

While the Commander sat on the desk, Cain stood at ease in front of him as the Commander began, "It's been a while since I've had a member of Argos Squadron serve on my ship. The last one must have been five maybe six years ago, and from what I've read about you they just gave me one of the best". Picking up a tan manila folder the corners cut off as was the custom since Kobol, Commander Scott read out some facts;

"One of the top deck chiefs...you enrolled in flight school where you soon outclassed the other cadets, possibly due to help from your eidetic memory – a near photographic memory, it's quite rare son. Recommended by both Commodore Danvers and Major Taylor for transfer to the Argos Squadron training corps at Delphi where yet again you were consistently top of your class.

" So...they then stuck you with one of their best most uncontrollable fighter jocks, ah…not theirs... Colonel Sloan's report says seeing you two fly puts the rest of Argos Squadron to shame, and i quote here 'was like seeing two pilots born in the cockpit'.

"6 months later you graduate top of your class and are given 8 months leave..." the commander raises an eyebrow at Cain, he knows that this is a definite sign of a black ops assignment despite the thin cover of it being due to 'fractures of the collar bone, legs and other injuries resulting from an automobile accident'.

"...And choice on your new posting..." the commanders steel grey eyes bore right into Cain's emerald ones "If I didn't know any better i would swear your mother was pulling strings...but, I spoke to an old friend who vouched for you.

"But humour an old man...if, as this folder says you were given a choice of any posting, Why then did you choose my ship? It certainly isn't the Atlantia or the Orinico".

"Permission to speak freely sir?" At a nod from the commander, Cain continued "The Atlantia is all bells and whistles sir, she's networked throughout, she's a sitting duck if the Cylons ever do come back and decide to mess with our systems like the first war. So is the rest of the fleet sir, except for a handful of ships, yours included of course. Then there's the fact that if push comes to shove and the Cylons do return, you at least have experience fighting them. Invaluable experience. I've done my homework and I know that you were a pilot during the first war sir. You know you do not fly with people or equipment you don't trust if you want any chance of winning. Well I trust someone with experience a lot more than I would a political appointee with no experience both in combat and getting to their current position sir".

The commander listened to all this then closed his eyes squeezing the bridge of his nose with his left hand, before looking straight at Captain Cain saying;

"Bill was right about you. Welcome to the Defiant, Captain Cain".

First off I'd like to thank you for reading this far, hopefully you'll be willing to go a bit further.

A few points beforehand.

I wrote the start of this story before I saw The Plan so things will be different not to mention that this is a crossover with Caprica. I have also kept with the Colonials not having access to FTL communications (this is established in the miniseries when Billy informs Roslin that due to the position of Colonial One - Colonial Heavy 798 at the time - a roundtrip message to Caprica would be thirty minutes. Because of this I have assumed that due to the size of Colonial Space then they would have a network of thousands of Communications/position satellites across their space so that if Colonial Fleet knew rough position of a Battlestar (30 lightminute area) then a Raptor could jump to the closest satellite and either get the last known position of the battlestar from it and jump to the position it's likely to be at now OR the slower way of the Raptor having the Satellite transmit the message.

I have also made another assumption based off the fact that Adama had kept the Galactica network free that other Battlestar Commanders had some leeway in just how much was networked even if they all had to have the CNP (parts of which can be turned off as they were on the Pegasus. Because of this assumption the Colonial Fleet in this universe has 90% of ships fully networked with the rest being only partially.

Fleet Numbers prior to the Fall I am putting at 120 active Battlestars (26 Mercury Class Battlestars, 48 Valkyrie Class Battlestars, 7 Columbia-II class Battlestars, 10 Sobek Class Battlestars, 1 Columbia Class Battlestar (the galactica which I assume was still on the Fleet registry), the remaining 28 Battlestars are of various classes). In addition the Colonial fleet has 506 Support Vessels of varying classes in the Heavy Cruiser, Light Cruiser, Destroyer, Missilestar, Gunstar, , ECM Frigates and a handful of pocket battlestars similar to the Orion Class (Osiris blood and chrome) and the watersled. This is in addition to numerous other non-combative support ships. In this universe I am also assuming that the 12 Colonies also had groundside squadrons which due to the Adar defence cuts are the older Mk-VI and are Fleet hand-me-downs since they couldn't afford to pay for new Mk-VII Vipers. About 100 Support Vessels are part of the Fleet Reserves so weekend warriors and one thing to keep in mind is that a reserve vessel typically carries between 150-1000 personnel based on the size of the vessel with most carrying 250.

This universe also has a number of sub-colonies (less than a million people, usually a few hundred thousand) of mining outposts like what I assume Troy was.

The Colonial Fleet uses a 24 Hour time period centered on Caprica City time and uses the Roman Calendar of Romulus (check either wikipedia or BSGwiki) and has 52 weeks of 7 days which are named the same as ours (discovered in Caprica tv - information gathered from BSGwiki with a search for Colonial Calendar). Other Colonies systems of times will no doubt be different as some planets days will be faster than others just as their orbits are but since the Colonies must have some form of centralised economy then they would need a system of time that would work with the other colonies. The current year in this fic is 21355 meaning that the colonial calendar first started on Kobol and would have evolved differently on each colony but Caprica is the closest in rotation and orbit to Kobol.

The laws of the universe I am going to do my utmost to follow as did RDM's BSG, I may bend them as he did with the rule that you can't travel at the speed of light so he created the Jumpdrive but I won't break them with intention so if I do then call me on it. In regards to technology one thing I picked up is that the fleet must travel quite fast (Galactica was 30 million miles from Caprica in miniseries and Colonial One's travel time to the Galactica was five and a half hours, maybe six meaning that it had a speed of 4.5% Light. All this info can be gathered on BSGwiki under navigation and I am using the alternative calculations. Achieving this speed in such a short amount of time means that I am adding inertial dampeners to ships larger than a Raptor, they're just there in the background like the artificial gravity is.

Now in regard to Squadron formations I remember in The Passage that a squadron was broken down into about three or four groups of about 8 or 9 Vipers. Now despite searching I don't know what these groupings were called so I am going with Flights (Red, Blue, Green). As for Cain being the only Argos Squadron on the Battlestar Defiant I am going with him being an Argos Squadron pilot on loan to Sabre Squadron.

The Nemean fleet shipyards were to the best of my knowledge never mentioned, hinted, etc, etc in either Caprica or old and new bsg, and I am mainly introducing them because I believe that the Fleet would have both smaller and medium sized shipyards/stations/drydocks over all the colonies That way if Scorpia or Picon fleet shipyards are destroyed then the rest can share the burden. On a sidenote it's named Nemean after the Nemean lion killed by Heracles. And i will be describing the station at some point. In this chapter it was just a speck in the distance.

I also introduced Argos Squadron. This is an elite group of pilots set up during the last years of the first war. In peace time the pilots (Argonauts) are spread throughout the fleet in order to try and improve other pilots by example. If you're British think red arrows if you aren't think of your own countries display if you haven't picked up on it Admiral Cain is Captain David Cain's mother. I know she was a lesbian in the series but she could have been bi...she could've so I would like to think that at some point she would have had kids if only because it was a part of the Tauron culture.

The Caprica parts of the story are coming soon (if not next chapter then after). Some of this will be drawn from "The shape of things to come" at the end of apotheosis. The next chapter is the true beginning of the story.