Fall-1 year.

"Mr. Kinkaid," The host said, "What do you think about your winning of the preliminary contract for the Legion Class multirole cruiser, especially given that you've managed to undercut and block out several larger aerospace concerns."

"Well Tom," James said, "I haven't actually done that. We're a small firm and while the design was accepted for preliminary usage, we've sold production rights to Consolidated Virgon."

"And yet you have some ships being built in your own shipyards."

"Being assembled in our own shipyards." Looking over at the camera, James smiled, "People must understand that as a multi-role ship, we're very involved with later lifecycle designs. While it's true that we could build them ourselves, our facilities are set up to produce short production runs, rather than mass produce ships or equipment. As part of that, we're keeping a number of hulls for experimental use. We have the basic module set up, of course, fleet transport, cruiser, carrier and assault ship, but there are other ideas out there, and of course we need hulls for them."

"Well I bet you're happy about the profit."

"I always am, Tom!"

"Haha, now for our next guest, It's Maran Page who just finished her newest book, "Channeling your Inner God, Mass Consciousness and the Lords of Kobol."

"Lords, if I have to go through that again…" James said as he got into the limousine.

"Still worried you're going to be arrested, boss?"

"Not so much," James answered his bodyguard.

And it's odd, but I really aren't worried. The world of major business had more criminals in it than James had ever encountered as a pirate and the truth was, so long as the Colonial Military didn't think you were too far off the reservation, they weren't about to damage a profitable business relationship. Heh, maybe we should abandon the whole plan and just stick here. On the other hand, here James would never be more than a very small fish in a vast pond. And there was the thrill of seeing how long he could keep everyone in the dark. He'd half believed that the whole thing would come down the first time they tried to convince the inspectors that the salvage they were selling came from the Defenders instead of older ships that had replaced the now rearmed warships, all stashed safely in the far belt halo of ice wordlets that orbited the system. Nobody went there, which is why Dad had chosen the region for his main base, and why James had made certain that their production gear was mobile.

"And Dad was right…" Every year pressure was rising. The cylons had never been seen, why not start exploring some of the old worlds that had been abandoned after the war? Any given day, he could read another editorial to that effect, and sooner or later the dam was going to break.

Carla gestured at her crew. "Let's finish this and go home."

The Rattletrap had been over the Line so much that Carla had almost blown the secret a few times simply because it was getting hard to remember that you weren't supposed to go over the Line. This would be her 30th trip.

"Got the list on this one?"

"One of the last fights— about a week before the Armistice," her copilot said. "Losses, but no real information about condition."

"Its a fraking waste of time," She muttered. 30 trips and all they had found had been some old shuttles, MKII vipers, and a cruiser with a gigantic hole in it. Space was big and in most cases, even if there had been something, it must have drifted away long ago.

"Jumping…now!"

A flash and they were elsewhere.

"I'm not-frak me sideways!" the copilot shouted. "BIG DRADIS return!"

Carla looked up at where the copilot indicated the return came from. "Anything active?"

"Negative. Metal, but it's cold."

"Okay, let's see…" There was a large ice asteroid, but Carla couldn't see…

Wait a minute. That thing half buried in the ice…no not buried, the ice formed around it.

It can't be…

"It's a battlestar." The copilot's voice was reverent. "It's a battlestar…and it looks intact."

"Mike, Jane, get suited up," Carla called back. "Don't get over excited. It may just be half of a battlestar."

"No, the ice formed around it."

Later, Carla waited, tapping her fingers on the console as they watched the worklights of Mike and Jane's suits move towards the dark mass. A wire controlled remote was with them— using radio control around a ship that might have boobytraps or live ordinance was a very bad idea.

Thirty minutes later, Mike was on the line.

"You're not going to believe this, but it looks intact."

"How intact?"

"REALLY intact. Theres' a lot of dead centurions and crew, but it looks like they came out of jump and got boarded before they could open up the flight bays."

"Wait-you mean?"

"I've only seen one sub hanger, but yeah, it looks like a pretty big chunk of the flight group is here. Boss, there's dead bodies— lots of 'em. Looks like the ship was depressurized and then the centurions hunted down anyone in a suit. Most of the air tight doors have been opened."

"Why didn't they take it?" Carla wondered.

"My dad was in the war," her copilot commented. "He said that when the Armistice was agreed to, the cylons just up and left. Didn't matter what they were doing. Maybe they did the same here."

"And the government didn't want to risk it by moving beyond the line. Lords have mercy." Carla breathed out. "And it's in a stable orbit. We're going home. Now. The Boss needs to hear about this."

"A battlestar?" James asked in disbelief.

"Yap," Thomas said. "Carla's people didn't go into it beyond the first few chambers, but it looks intact. Lots of boarding action. I've sent Doeg and his crew out to see if we can get it running."

"Damn." James paused and thought. "You used one of the civvie repair ships?"

"Damned right I did. People watch the others a might too closely."

James nodded. The Colonial Fleet didn't know what they were doing, or they'd all be in prison, but they did keep a fairly close track on the big refit ships and mobile dockyards, ironically to protect them from pirates. It was a pain.

"They know enough to be careful, right?"

"They've been doing it long enough son."

"Still, a full…that gives us two." James smiled. "If we can get it working, we won't have a problem with anyone else muscling in on our territory." Slowly James' smile turned to a frown.

"Son?"

"We're running short of crew, dad. Really short."

"Well, that's a problem, but we're not going to just suddenly need to go to war, now are we? We can't crew all those ships— there aren't that many people who'd tolerate being cut off from home, and someone would talk."

True, but it's still worrisome. There was no way they could get their hands on cutting edge military automation, which meant that most of the ships were crewed in the old way, lots of on-mount weapons stations and ten guys doing the job of one modern work station. They could operate the ship with fewer…but not well. And once we need to crew them, we can't exactly call up the local military academy…

Doeg Maska had been working in salvage for the last twenty years, much of it working for Thomas. After all, it was doing exactly what the big boys did, only when they wanted to steel something they passed a law and made it nice and legal. The grizzled engineer frowned as he looked in the shrouded depths of the Battlestar Athena. The main engine roomed looked largely intact. Oh there were bullet holes all over the place, and dead crew members, some of them dead from explosive decompression and others shot down in their vacuum suits. They'd found the damage control and life support centers, both of which had been taken by the cylons, the doors blown open and not so much full of mummified guards as they were the parts of mummified guards.

"Doeg, we've finished going through the ship and none of our sensors are coming up positive. If there's a boobytrap here it isn't using power and it isn't nuclear."

"Good," he replied. "Magazines?"

"Topped up. They hit the ship before it had a chance to do anything at all."

All your medals and honor, and where did it get you? Dying alone out here with a government that didn't even try and find out what killed you. Doeg shook his head. He was a practical sort, but the sooner they got the bodies out and the lights and lifesupport back on, the better he'd be. The shadows seemed oddly attentive to him, almost like ghosts watching to see who had taken their home.

"Okay everyone," he called out. "First thing we need to do is get the auxiliary power units up, then I want to pressurize the engine room. Forget everything else, because we need to get this bad girl into a cradle before we can even think about a full scale refit. Tonya, your people are on grave's duty. Make certain you get their medallions."

"Why?"

"Because the Boss would like it that way and if we ever get caught, 'recovering a ship to send the medallions to the loved ones of the deceased' sounds a lot better than 'chucking the bodies overboard in our haste to loot their home'."

"The Archeron is ready for FTL testing, sir."

James nodded. That had been a long-shot but the big battlestar was now back to its original glory, with the exception of the cannon barrels and missile silos that had been filled with concrete and the empty magazines and flight bays. Nothing that couldn't be fixed. Nothing short of incredible, actually that they'd been able to get so much done in a few years.

"Let it stay at our shipyard for now Timothy." Since we've so generously offered to go over it one more time. Of course, nobody knows that we're making certain that the FTL drive will 'malfunction' when we want it to, sending the poor ship and its skeleton museum crew to an untimely demise.

But not now. Having that happen ow would stink. So it would wait for at least a year. The Athena had been coming along well, as had their other ships. They now had a nice core of honest to god warships…and in a year or so they'd be positioned to become THE power in the new territories. Just a year since they'd found the derelict battlestar and it was already flight capable, if undermanned. The vipers had proven useful, since getting vipers and other fighters was always a bit dicey, given that there really weren't many legitimate roles for a fighter craft. But now they had their own supply and could focus on building up parts. They even had enough people to crew his personal Defender, running its 24 viper pilots through drills and preparing for action, or more likely to train other crew members when they finally made their move.

"Very good sir…ah, since we're a new company, I've got another request. You know the Galactica museum is opening this week and they were wondering if you could be a guest…"

"No, I'm just too damned snowed under with work right now," James frowned for a moment, then shook his head again. "They'll have to get along without me."

Next: The Storm Breaks.