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Defiant and the Courageous
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Chapter Two
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The Cylons were created by Man.
They were created to make life easier on the Twelve Colonies.
And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters.
After a long and bloody struggle, an armistice was declared.
The Cylons left for another world to call their own.
A remote space station was built...
...where Cylon and Human could meet and maintain diplomatic relations.
Every year, the Colonials send an officer.
The Cylons send no one.
No one has seen or heard from the Cylons in over forty years...
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Until Now.
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Deep space;
Five years before the attack;
CIC of the Battlestar Defiant;
It had been a busy year which saw the deployment of the dock, the seven underwater cities and the laying of several thousand kilometers of transit tubes as well as bringing Azure Station fully online. Inside the hidden pocket, the station stretched out where the three repair ships had been used to build the ships construction dock so they could build or scrap ships. The tunnels that weaved throughout the rings were mapped and several smaller pockets had been found and the transferred military ships had been stored there along with dozens of civilian ships that had been purchased from the bone yard. Some were scrapped while others were restored. These included the six remaining Lusitania class liners built by Virgon thirty years before. With all fourteen of the liners under their control, they had the ability to carry a hundred thousand people in one jump. These large liners were picked for three reasons, their large carrying capacity, their medical bays and their ability to land on a planet. Addition ships were either purchased from the bone yard or built to their needs like the ram scoop freighters that were even now bringing loads of precious gases to the refinery part of the station.
"Sir, dradis confirms ships jumping in," Ensign Lou Hanson reported from the dradis station.
Peter turned to the main screen and watched as the ships arrived from Milcove station. The first were four specially built Harvestor class Military Agro ships that had been built with special detachable domes. The four ships would land in the ocean on the planet and the domes would be swung out and lowered to the sea floor by special winches where they would be connected to prelaid transit tubes that would be built to connect all of them. Of the sixty domes, twenty had been set up for farm animals, twenty more for crops and the last twenty were set up as smaller cities that could hold five thousand families each. The other forty domes would have about five hundred hired employees to manage the domes and grow the food and raise the animals for the colony. The hulls of the ships would then be taken up to and attached to the new station to be used for housing for the workers that will be in charge of the shipyard.
"Send the orders to the Harvestor's, that they're to proceed to the planet and deploy their domes," Peter ordered as more ships arrived on the screen.
Eight Milcove owned Mule class freighters appeared. The military version of the standard freighter was carrying more supplies as well as five more construction submarines purchased from Aquaria construction station. The subs would be unloaded and loaded aboard one of the Ebba Maersk to be delivered to the planet. Beside them were three old Granit class mining ships to help mine the system resources. The Togo, Grim and Hondo turned and headed towards the rings and the tunnel that would take them to the space station to empty their cargo holds of the cargo they had brought from Milcove Station.
"Is that it?" Peter asked.
"No… Dradis contact," replied his second in command.
Six new icons appeared on the screen showing the new ships. They were more of the Octopus tugs (Finback, Blue and Coral) that would be used for hauling and tows once the station was up and running and a pair of foundry ships they had picked up for a song when their company folded. They even picked up the eight hundred crew members and families who worked and manned the two ships which had arrived on the Osiris one of the reconfigured Lusitania liners. The last ship was an old Gorgon class anti-Raider cruiser built for the first war. Decommissioned the warships were supposed to be scrapped but Milcove picked up five of them and had them rearmed and updated with modern weapons. The Kore had been the best of the five with the other four still in the docks at Milcove station. The light cruiser was to be placed in one of the secondary tunnels as a roadblock in case they were attacked. If an attack happened the ship would move into the main branch and sit there with all her heavy weapons point towards the incoming enemy.
Peter looked up as he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and saw his second and command coming towards him with a clipboard in his hand. With a small sigh he held out his hand for the reports he knew were coming his way.
"Why do you always hand them to me when we have new ships arriving?" Peter asked.
With a smirk, Colonel Howard Hanks replied, "Just seems to be the time I catch you."
"Yeah right," Peter replied as he started reading, "I know you like making my life hell… Ah crap, he said as he started flipping paged and then stopped as he snapped out an order, "Send a message to Milcove station and find out why there was an explosion in the number three dock. I want to know what just ripped apart that Gorgon cruiser. Bring all defense ships up to yellow status."
"Yes, Sir," came the reply from the communications station as Peter went back to the reports.
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Dock:
Planetary surface;
Command and Control;
Colonel Richard Grell watched as the first of the Harvestor's arrived over the floating dock and settle on the surface. The ship sank halfway into the ocean and then leveled off as the waves dissipated; she was followed by three more of her class.
"Sir, Harvestor One reports they are unloading the first dome now. Estimated time of completion is three days for all fifteen domes.
"Ok people, get me reports on all sections of the dock and any injuries of we have any. Get me a status report on the scrubber rooms and the intake vents for the filling of the tanks. I noticed that when we surfaced we had a slight tilt to port. Chief Hanson, I want all stabilization fans checked and make sure that all airlocks are checked and then double checked somewhere we have a leak or a stuck valve. Corporal Myers, get me that report on the escape capsules I asked for yesterday. I want to know if any need to be repaired before we submerge again. Lieutenant Zacks, send a message to Gryphon base. I want to know how the construction is going for the Raptor base and when we can send over those extra Raptors we're carrying," Colonel Grell ordered as he turned back to the main monitor.
Chief Julia Hanson twisted out from under the console she was working on it and replied, "Sir, I get right on it."
Corporal Tiffany Myers was already walking over and handed her boss the reports she knew he'd want, "Here you go sir. Escape capsule one-twenty-three and four are down due to an electrical short in their launcher the remaining capsules are working fine."
Over at the communications station, Lieutenant Anthony Zacks was sending out Colonel Grell's request.
One hour later, the main screen showed the first Harvester floating on the surface and Richard watched as the ship sank deeper into the sea and the first of the top three domes floating free. One of the subs had been maneuvered into place and a cable stretched out to the dome. The dome started pulling away from the ship as the engines of the sub went to full power. As soon as the dome cleared the ship, the ship surfaced and the crew poured out of hatches to start removing the first of the ten foot long support pins that held the dome attached to the ship.
"Follow the dome with the camera," Richard ordered.
The screen shimmered and settled onto the dome being hauled away from the ship by the submarine. Once it was five hundred meters away, the slowed to a stop and the tow cable that was attached to the bow was loosened to slide along the rail built into the deck to the stern. Once locked in place, the submarine used its bow and stern thrusters to turn the ship in place so it was pointing away from the dome. Inside the ship, power plants came up to full power and the triples screws started turning. As the dome started moving away from the ship, fins were lowered to keep it on course for its destination thirty-five kilometers away.
Richard watched as the dome was towed away at ten knots. It would take three hours to get to their target location.
"Dome one has been released from Harvestor Two," the com officer reported.
"On screen," Richard ordered.
The screen changed to show the second Agro ship and its released dome as well as a second submarine moving in to attach its magnetic cable to the dome. Once each dome reached its location it would flood their ballast tanks and slowly sink down until they were a hundred meters off the ocean floor. A cable would be attached to each dome and it would be drawn down to a set of specially designed blocks buried in the ocean floor. Each of the blocks had a ten meter around titanium bolt that would attach to the bottom of the dome and pull it down to the bottom of the surface. The bolts would keep the dome in place and prevent it from moving during an underwater quake or any heavy currents.
"Dome three released, third submarine is closing with the dome," the com officer reported.
"Very well…"
"Sir, we have a freighter approaching for landing," came a report from the Dradis station.
"Who is it? Ship class?" Richard asked as he turned towards the massive dradis station and the officer stationed there.
"It's the Concord carrying medical and surgical supplies for distribution to the domes hospitals. She's a Kimba Huta class freighter," Kyla McKinney reported.
Richard checked the ship class for the docks statistics and started issuing orders to the crew, "Alright people, let's get to work. We have an inbound freighter that needs unloading. Contact the deck officers and get their crews up and at their stations. They will need three rolling platforms to unload her and two hoists if her central bays are loaded as well. Kyle, set condition yellow throughout the dock let everyone know we have an incoming ship."
Alarms started sounding throughout the massive dock and the orders given to the crew. Out on the main deck, small hoists and vehicles darted to safety as the rumbling of heavy engines were heard by the deck crew. In the distance, lightning started flashing and thunder shattered the air and several crew watched the storm clouds roll in anger. The clouds parted and the hull of the freighter came into view as it split the clouds asunder. At two thousand meters, its thrusters started flaring as the ship turned towards the dock and lined up for landing. Steam burst from several points under the huge ship and its landing legs lowered from their bays. The speakers blared and the deck crew looked up at the nearest one.
"All hands prepare to receive the Concord. She is packed full of supplies for the hospitals. Teams one through three will work on the forward cargo hold. Teams four through six have the stern hold. Teams seven through ten have the upper cargo holds. All supplies are labeled to what dome they're supposed to go to. That is all."
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Azure Station;
Two weeks after deployment of the farm domes;
Upper tier Dock One;
Commander's Quarters;
Peter sat in his chair watching as the last of the freighters that had arrived headed for Azure station. Currently there were six passenger liners, fourteen freighters, and three ore haulers waiting to dock or preparing to dock. The Courageous was docked to the lower tier where her portside sub light engines were being repaired from a micro meteor hit that with a fluke of luck had torn apart one of the maneuvering thrusters. The rock had punched through the titanium screen and shattered the thruster including the igniter for the Tylium injector. The resulting explosion had shattered the engine and it was being rebuilt which would take a month as they manufactured the parts they needed.
Peter reached for his glass and took a sip of his tea. Setting it down, he turned to the next report and sighed as he read the report of casualties. Twenty-four personal injured, three critical with four dead due to the accident on the Courageous the wounded were being treated and the dead we're being prepared for burial on the Capri isle which was the largest island on the water world. There were also six injured on Azure station when a cable for one of the elevators snapped and a single death from Sagittaron River Flu. Sitting up, he read the report because the river flu was deadly.
Reaching for the handset, he pressed several buttons and said, "This is Admiral Gallant patch me through to Azure Station medical bay. I need to speak to Doctor Linda Drake."
"Yes, Sir, right away, Sir," came the response and the phone went to music.
Two minutes later the phone was picked up again, "This is Drake."
"Doctor, this is Admiral Gallant. I've been going over your report. How sure are you its SRF?" Peter asked.
"It's negative on SRF. Why she died, we don't know. I have ruled out several diseases that could have killed her... It's almost like radiation poisoning but it's not. The woman… A Tanya Έξι arrived four days ago aboard the freighter Goliath and was on day three of her quarantined for relocation to dome one. Two nights ago she came to medical complaining about an upset stomach and coughing at thirteen hundred hours. We checked her over and were going to release her when she started coughing. One of the techs handed her a cloth and when she lowered it, there was blood on it. Doctor Grange immediately ordered chest x-rays and by eighteen hundred hours she was delirious and sweating. Her temperature hit forty-eight Celsius. She was stripped and given an ice bath to bring down her temperature as more blood was drawn and her temperature continued to climb and reached fifty-three Celsius before she succumbed to whatever was affecting her. Now I need you to know, she was apparently healthy in her lifestyle her, BMI was on par with very few toxins in her system. She didn't smoke, but did indulge in Ambrosia for dinner that night before coming in. I am waiting on necropsy reports now, but Sir, it's starting to look like she was poisoned. When the reports get back I'll let you know if she was. She was also single, had no family and left no will. She was recently hired on Virgon as a system analyst to work in dome one's resource division. What should we do with her remains?" Linda asked.
"Well if it's not SRF, then I won't worry about it and leave it to the station security to figure out if she was murdered. As to her remains, since she has neither surviving family nor a will, have her prepared for burial and we'll send her body to Capri Isle to be interned with the rest of the dead we have lost while in the system... Linda, have the charges sent to me and I'll pay for them… it's the least I can do for one of my employees," Peter said as he hung up the handset and turned back to the stacks of reports.
"I really need some more aides," Peter said as he opened a report on fuel expenditures for the fleet.
Two hours later, Peter closed another of the folders and picked up his tea cup. Looking at the empty cup, he stood up and went into the small kitchen and checked the pot and saw it was empty as well. Quickly filling the pot, he poured it into the machine and filled the container with four tea bags. As the tea started brewing, he walked back out to his office, stopped at his desk and hit the recorder to record his thoughts. He then walked over to the bathroom door. Jumping up, he grabbed the bar and started doing pull ups as he thought of the mission and how it was going.
"Thought log, eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, day one hundred and ten, mission year five. Section one of the day log. The last of the Farm domes are in place and connected to the transit tubes with construction almost completed on the remaining apartment buildings in City Dome Two and Three. Dome One has a population of nine thousand seven hundred families of Milcove personal.
"We are expecting the delivery of ten million tons of Aerilon fertilizer which has been packed and bagged into two hundred and fifty kilogram bags in the next three weeks. The bags of fertilizer were packed aboard ten of the Milcove Mule class freighters. The fertilizer will be used to form the base of the farms. By this time next year the farm domes should be producing food crops. I have begun the purchase of cattle and swine to be brought in late next year and if all goes well, they should be harvesting their first beef and pork products in two years. I have also looked into bringing some horses.
"Section two of the day log. For defense, all the major islands have had several batteries of ground to space ship killer missiles installed or planned to be installed once construction of the silos are finished. The largest island on the planet we named Capri after one of the island chains on Caprica. I've planned for forty underground launchers alone with four missiles per battery. There will also be a hundred anti-missile batteries when construction is finished along with Raptor and Viper bases.
"Section three of the day log. The one thing that I had installed in the underwater domes was something that the Aquaria domes don't have. Each dome has been modified with defense shields that could cover every part of the twenty inch thick plassteal glass to give it a secondary defense verses the concussion of a nuclear hit on the surface. While not under attack, the shields were folded up inside the outer parts of the armored frame. But during the attack, they would slide out and cover the domes clear surface. Theoretically the armor which is as strong as the Mercury class Battlestar armor, should stop the concussion wave up to a fifty megaton blast and I pray that it will work, because the domes will be his people's salvation when the Cylons came back.
"Section four of the day log. For air defense, we've built or planned fifteen underground airfields that will house three hundred Mark IV Vipers while another ten will house the two hundred Mark II Raptors for planetary defense. Each airfield will have housing, mechanic bays, armories and a small medical bay to house the air wing. As to planetary support, I know it's not much compared to the twelve colonies, but it does add the equivalent of two Mercury class Battlestars to the equation. Hopefully we'll have time to add more and build more bases but deep down in my soul, I know we're running out of time. Why this feeling is hitting me? I don't know.
"Section five of the day log. I have ordered four more domes to be built out at Milcove Construction Station. Each of the new domes will be as large as one of our city domes. I want each of these domes to be used as warehouses for supplies for all the domes. With the layout of the city domes, which are laid out in a seven star formation with the sixty smaller domes scattered on the outside of the star I decided each of the warehouse domes will be inside the star Each dome has multiple under water tubes connecting transit tubes that will connect each of the city domes. These supply depots would hold enough supplies for years.
"Section six of the day log. I received the confirmation of new assets from Aquaria. We have successfully purchased, three old cargo subs used for the fishing industry and fifty fishing trawlers along with their crews and families. I have ordered the scrapping of twenty other boats, and the construction of twenty-eight new ones, each of the fishing trawlers range from one hundred and forty tons to seven hundred tons. I have also requested my agents to purchases the ship plans for all of the different trawlers used on Aquaria, Picon and Caprica as well as the cargo subs just in case we need to produce our own. The building of the docks for the trawlers will be completed in thirty days. The harbor we found, we found by luck due to a break in the canopy on Capri Isle. When I sent Raptors to scout the islands of the planet for defense bases, Captain Richard Dent from Caprica noticed that there was water under several parts of the canopy on the island. Landing on a small strip of sand, Richard realized that the area he saw overgrown with a thick overhang of vines and climbing trees. The entrance Captain Dent found was large enough for small ships to enter on the water or for three Raptors to fly abreast. Well Dent Harbor was found and named by the finder, the natural harbor I decided that the harbor would be the perfect place for a hidden fishing base. The harbor that was just over four kilometers wide and five long with small scattered islands that had the same tree growing on it. The docks took three months to install and with several transplanted trees along the center of each dock, they reinforced the canopy where it had to be hacked out to allow the ships to dock. We started building a road to connect them all together and last night the central dock was dropped off and towed into the harbor. The center dock is wide enough for six cargo subs to dock inside. Right now a thousand construction workers were covering the top of the reinforced dock with several thousand pounds of dirt for the planting of the trees to add to the canopy. The dock, once up and running will be used for as the pickup point for all the boats catches for transport to either to the station or the underwater cities. Capri Isle was in the northern hemisphere and about one hundred and seventy kilometers north of auxiliary dome fifty-three. One of the underwater transit tubes came ashore near the harbor and the entrance was heavily camouflaged to hide it. It was also mined to be exploded if the Cylons landed on the island. Dome fifty-three's population would consist of the fishing fleet's families or workers in the ten canneries that will be built in the dome.
"Section seven of the day log. Azure Station is now fully up and running. The refinery is processing Tylium ore into the much needed fuel for the fleet while the foundries are working twenty-four hours a day producing ingots of steel, titanium, copper and other metals to be melted down into the parts that will be needed. Currently they were working on building a large enough stockpile to start repairing the ships Admiral Corman had sent them to defend the system.
"Section eight of the day log. I was as going over the current tally of ships. We now had thirty-nine warships that were rescued from the reclamation yards of Picon and Scorpio and on paper, they were a formidable force, but that's just on paper. It seems that all of the ships had some type of stripping done to them. The fleet of ships consisted of two old first run Jupiter class Battlestars. Which have been partially stripped in the main hull while their flight pod launchers had been ripped out along with thirty percent of their heavy KEWs. Of the lighter warships, there were nine of the first series of Titan I Gunstars with no weapons or computers. The three old Alberio class cruisers from before the war were gutted. The two fleet tenders still had all their repair equipment, but their FTL drives were gone alone with two of their four sub light engines. There were fourteen old Apollo I class corvettes from Picon that had every weapon and mount stripped out of them along with their FTL drives/ The biggest gift from Corman was the two old Ballast III class fleet ferries that had been retired last year. Both are in mint condition with just needing new computers to run the main bay. There were also seven old Harrier class Marinestars that were retired three years ago. Note to self, have them checked to see their still atmospheric capable. Of the civilian fleet, there were over fifty different ships ranging from freighters to liners to agro to electronic to an old prison scow that was over fifty years old.
"Section Nine of the day log. Viper construction is proceeding smoothly on building the old Mark IV's, but the question is should dump the Mark IV Vipers and go with the newer Mark VI's. The only problem I see, is we'd have to copy the moulds for the Mark VI and ship them out here while we already had the old IV's. There's a report of a rumor that Picon Industries has been working on a new version called the Mark VII. Note to self, send a message to Nagala and ask if it's true. As to the Mark IV that one thing I like is R&D developed a version if it works that that can fly by wireless, which we cannot let anyone know about back in the Colonial Government because if they find out what we've developed, they'd have us in prison so fast that our asses would still be here on the Defiant while the rest of was shoved through the cell doors. That's if they didn't space him out an air lock…"
"Attention all hands, this is the executive officer speaking. Set condition Red throughout the ship, I repeat set condition red. Admiral please report to the bridge… I repeat… Set condition Red throughout the ship."
Peter released the bar and dropped to the floor as the lights turned from white to red. He was out the door and running for the ramp to take him up to the CIC before Colonel Hanks second set of commands was repeated.
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Special Note:
Έξι means six in Greek
Sorry its taken so long, but been having computer issues.
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