While the PEGASUS was taking the time to extract the raw materials from the asteroid - the first amounts of semi-refined tylium ore sent up by the mass driver had been received and was now being loaded aboard the battlestar for final refining into it's volatile liquid state - another operation was under way - with the goal of extracting the equally important commodity of intelligence.
Commander Cain had reasoned that the Cylons occupying the colonies would be controlling the search and destroy mission for the GALACTICA from there and it's assemblage of mismatched refugee ships. The references on the previous intercepts regarding a command base star had made him draw this conclusion. So, he had asked several of his technical staff to come up with a means to find out what was going on back there.
As a result of this directive, a collaborative effort over the last few days between Krag's and Brubaker's technicians, with the additional assistance of a few engineers from Chief Engineer Wyatt Thyssen's department - had resulted in the conversion of a half-dozen short-range reconnaissance probes to an extended FTL range capability. These probes were programmed to jump to the Cyrannus System in order to ascertain the current status of the Cylon occupation, gather intelligence, and to see if they could find any clues to the location of the other group of survivors that judging from the earlier intercepts, were giving the occupation forces such a hard time. They would then jump back to the PEGASUS to report on what they had found. If a probe needed to return to the Cyrannus System for further information gathering, it could be quickly re-programmed by remote control by Core Command, then sent back. As the probes were not large, the fuel expenditure made such multiple back-and-forth jumps possible.
One by one, the probes were launched. Each of them headed away from the PEGASUS - well outside the trajectory area of the mass-driver on the asteroid - then activated their FTL drives. Each were programmed for specific destinations in the Cyrannus System.
"The last probe has just jumped", the Core Command duty specialist reported to Captain Sanders. Sanders nodded. He devoutly hoped that the probes could provide some good information to back up the decrypted Cylon communication intercepts - and not get discovered in the process.
"Are you sure that this is not going to compromise our security, Wyatt?", Sanders had asked Thyssen earlier, after seeing the first probe completed. As these probes were going into harm's way, nothing that could lead the Cylons to the PEGASUS could be found.
"Don't fret, Comms", Thyssen assured him, "The probes are designed to be as stealthy as possible. If one is unlucky enough to be detected, it will automatically destruct - and with the amount of explosive material packed in the charge, there won't be anything left to tell anyone where the probe came from". He then showed Sanders the specs pertaining to the destruct system. The destruct was tied into the proximity sensors, so that anything not classified as 'friendly' closing in on it would not be able to latch onto it before it detonated.
Sanders was reassured by this information. He knew that the Chief Engineer had really made sure that the possibility of probe capture was taken care of. Now, the six probes were heading back home to the colonies - or more accurately, what was left of them. Hopefully soon, they would return with a lot of valuable intelligence.
The probes entered local space at their precise co-ordinates. After verifying their respective locations by stellar fixes - the Colonial Positioning System of satellites was understandably no longer functioning - the probes started their programmed functions. They first did a close-field scan for any ships close by, then powered up the rest of their instruments.
Probe One had exited it's FTL-jump near the planet Caprica. It was programmed to emerge at a considerable distance from the planet in order to minimize the possibility of immediate detection. It was fortunate that it did so as it had immediately picked up the presence of a Base Star hovering in close orbit over Caprica. There was a lot of communications activity from this base star as well. The probe started it's wireless interception and recording protocols while other instruments took long-distance readings of Caprica itself. The results of the nuclear strike was plain to see to it's sensors, and the probe was recording all of the unpleasant details.
Probe Two had a similar mission to Probe One, but it's planetary goal was Picon. It too detected a Base Star in orbit there - and the Base Star was quite chatty as well on the wireless. This probe also started it's eavesdropping...
Probe Three was sent to Borallis. This was done as Borallis was a deep-space fleet rendezvous for the Colonial Fleet. If there were any fleet survivors, then this would be one of the logical places to find them. So far, the probe was only picking up large fields of debris and no wireless activity at all. Despite this lack of communications, the probes started recording the details of the debris, and the disposition of the planet itself.
Probe Four was sent to the Cimtar Military Range. This was done in order to see if anything of interest could be salvaged there in a future excursion. It could also serve as a possible return point for the time when the PEGASUS would return and strike back at the occupation - hopefully in company with the GALACTICA. So far, the probe was picking up nothing but old hulks and expended ordinance, but it was programmed to do a through sweep of the test range and it would do so slowly, stealthily, and methodically...
Probes Five and Six were sent to diametrically opposite positions at the extreme edge of the Cyrannus system in order to listen for any remote communications. It was determined that any human ships would come out of an initial FTL jump here for a quick check of the system before jumping to their intended destination, so these probes would be listening for colonial wireless transmissions on the secure channels as well as watching out for FTL entrance/exit traces. It was from Probe Five that something unusual had been detected.
Probe Five, as part of it's intelligence gathering, had been scanning the secure colonial fleet TAC-channel frequencies for some time. The TAC frequencies were a secure wireless channel as it used not one static frequency, but several. The TAC channel used these several hundred frequencies - never being on one frequency for more than a second. This meant that to a casual listener on a single frequency, nothing could be deduced. The frequency rotation was programmed in on a set 'pattern' of frequencies and was changed on a regular basis. Only those who had the same rotation frequency pattern would be able to receive a coherent message.
As an added feature of security, The rotation codes for the TAC frequencies were kept on warships only - not at any fleet bases or planetary surface installations so as to avoid the possibility of discovery through espionage (those installations used another communications protocol that Battlestars could also receive on). As an additional feature of security, if a battlestar was destroyed, special explosive charges in the safe containing the code cards would automatically detonate, throughly destroying them. The safe's contents were also set to be automatically destroyed if the safe was being tampered with, or if the palm and retina scan of the code officer AND the commander accessing the safe did not match the information in it's database. The safe could only be opened if both of those officers were present.
On the TAC-1 channel, a thrice-repeated signal was being detected. Probe Five was not programmed to reply to the signal, however. It's current function was simply to record such signals, then to FTL-jump back to the PEGASUS for further instructions. The signal was recorded, then after a few minutes - when it was certain that no further signals were being transmitted on the channel, it then powered up its jump drive and exited the system.
The signal was an automatic repeater and was coming from a Peregrine gunship which was more-or-less adrift in interplanetary space. This was not the one that Captain Logan Masters had brought aboard the Battlecruiser GOLIATH. This particular Peregrine was commanded by LT jg Walter 'Hondo' Hunter, the most junior test-pilot of the original Peregrine assessment team. His CSO, Ensign Calvin 'Coffin' Sims, had programed the wireless to send out a periodic distress signal on the TAC-1 channel. So far, there had been no acknowledgment.
This Peregrine was the one in the program that had been charged with the evaluation of the FTL and long-term deployment capabilities of the gunship. So while Captain Masters was doing the neat stuff blasting hulks and targets at Cimtar, Lt. Hunter was doing a far less glamorous job of seeing just how long a Peregrine could stay deployed for. Accordingly, the gunship's interior was loaded with extra supplies of food, water, and air while the external pylons were loaded down with drop tanks. As this flight test did not envisage using any weapons, no missiles, decoys, or bullets were loaded.
Hunter and Sims had both heard over the communicator about the Cylon attack approximately a week into their expected three-month mission. But before Hunter could FTL-jump back to Tarturas in order to arm up and help the fleet defend the colonies, a Cylon fighter had come upon them, which forced them to try and run on full sub-light speed. This, of course messed up the FTL jump co-ordinates, making a jump impossible. But both of them knew that the Cylon would have destroyed them before a jump could be made.
"He's firing multiple missiles!", Sims alerted Hunter as the Peregrine started to fly an even more evasive pattern. Sims had noticed on his console that the Cylon had first flashed some kind of beam weapon from the 'cockpit' of the scimitar-shaped fighter, but it had no effect that he could see on either the flight control system, or the other systems on board. Now, it was using a more cruder means of destruction with the missiles it had fired at them. With no weapons of their own, and no decoy drones, they were just target practice for the Cylon.
The missiles had closed in and just when he thought that it was all over, Sims had an idea. He immediately pressed a switch releasing one of the drop tanks. The first missile hit the drop tank - which was still full of tylium - and caused a massive explosion from the ignited fuel. The other missiles homed in on the fireball. Just as Hunter and Sims had breathed a sigh of relief, debris from the explosion had impacted at the rear of the Peregrine, knocking out the FTL drive and most of the sublight engines. The Peregrine was now helpless, but amazingly, there was no sign of the Cylon fighter. Evidently it must have FTL-jumped after shooting off its spread of missiles.
Hunter thought about that escape several times over the last few weeks. Perhaps it would have been better to have died quickly from a missile than slowly as the supplies were consumed. Sims had inspected the damage caused by the debris and immediately realized that it could not be fixed out here. With the FTL no longer operating and their only being able to fly at one-sixth of their standard sublight speed, there was no way now that they could get into the fight. They had heard over the wireless about the colonies being decimated and the fleet being destroyed, and there was absolutely nothing that they could do about it. With regular Cylon patrols now occurring in the system, they decided to stay off the regular wireless.
"There would have to be some fleet survivors, Hondo", Sims said hopefully. Sims believed that given the number of warships that the fleet had before the outbreak of hostilities, the Cylons could not have managed to destroy them all.
"I think that if there were any survivors, they would be having a lot more on their mind at the moment than search and rescue operations, Coffin", Hunter replied morosely, "but if you have an idea, I'm listening".
"Well, I can set up a message beacon on one of the TAC-channels. Brief bursts so as not to attract any unwelcome attention. Hopefully, it will be picked up by someone", Sims had suggested.
"We're two light-weeks from the colonies, as well as any of our fleet bases, Coffin", Hunter pointed out, "and if any of those have survived the war - which is unlikely given the dearth of wireless chatter on the fleet frequencies, it's going to take them a long time to pick up the beacon".
"We still have ample life support and consumables for two-and-a-half months, Hondo", Sims replied, "and if we maintain a course for the nearest colony, it will also shorten the distance some. What do we have to lose?" he asked.
"Ten weeks", Hunter muttered, shaking his head. Still, he couldn't offer much of an alternative, so he let Sims set up his beacon and he set his autopilot to head the Peregrine on a course to Sagittaria - the closest colony. And Sims was right; the lower bay which would normally hold the APC was filled with foodstuffs, water, and supplemental oxygen - just as if was a real long-range reconnaissance and survey mission. A lot could happen in ten weeks, he thought with cautious optimism.
Now, nearly ten weeks later, with their stored consumables rapidly running out, Hunter wondered if anything would come out of this survival effort. They were still a couple of weeks away from Sagittaria, and the wireless communications they had picked up indicated that the Cylons had won a total victory. It was certain that the Cylons would now be moving in to occupy the Twelve Worlds. With a crippled unarmed ship, what good could they do if they did manage to make it to Sagittaria alive?
The Peregrine slowly continued on it's course. Time was running out, and so was the hope of the two crewmen on board...