AN: So here it is, draft two of the second chapter, I've put back in a scene for the sake of plot that I had removed because of how poorly it came across in the first draft, I know a lot of characters are still just 'The Commander' or 'That person over there' but like I said at the beginning this is by me for you, I need OC's volunteered for places, I'm accepting PM's if you want to be a character involved in the story.
Athena's Vengeance, Joint Colonial Refugee Fleet.
Deep Space, +4 days since the Evacuation of New Caprica.
Council Chamber.
"It's been four days since the second exodus, the official census of our fleet's joint population confirms we now stands at a strong 191,535 people both civilian and military, to compensate ship wide populations are being re-organised still to reduce service stress aboard vessels suffering from severe overcrowding." Spoke one of the Councilmen beside Sofiya Pavlovna. "Any news on what's happening with the Galactica? Cradle Six is being unusually tight lipped about their progress." Asked a male member of the council.
"With good reason I suspect, morale would plummet like a sinking rock if word got around at how potentially bad off the old girl is, she'll pull through tooth and nail because she's more than just a ship she's a damn symbol. Without the Galactica the first fleeter's would probably give in." Sofiya stated. "Moving onwards, what's our fleet's stance on the Quorum of Twelve?" she continued.
"To be honest they are pissed, not so much with the structure, just those who are in the seats, for a fact we know that three of the twelve have taken bribes back on the twelve colonies, how the frak they haven't been removed from power I have no idea." Stated a female member of the council. "Also two are also known for having connections with the Picon black market, that being said they have been known to use police forces back on the colonies as their own personal grunts." The female councillor concluded.
"So is it agreed between us all here and now that we need to have these undesirable bastards removed?" Sofiya Pavlovna asked her fellow councillors, a chorus of aye's swept through the chamber.
Times were changing and so was the balance of power, plans were being made to better off the fleet behind closed doors, both in the civilian fleet and military, the council would stand behind Roslyn one hundred percent, the problem was she had become surrounded by a nest of vipers, vipers willing to wound her and her reputation to better their own positions, the vice president being the prime contributor.
"Somehow, some way, that bastard needs taking out of the equation, I need a frakking drink." Sofiya muttered to herself as the council dismissed itself from the chamber.
Cradle Six, Joint Colonial Refugee Fleet.
Deep Space, + 10 days since the Evacuation of New Caprica.
Battlestar Galactica CIC.
Adama stood beside the 'old girls' war table, it had taken several hours for the Cradle's yard dogs to clear the berth so the Galactica could proceed with mooring operations so she could parasite off of the Cradles power supply, the first thing the Yardmaster had on his list of things to do was to have the Galactica's reactors, FTL and engines serviced and that required that the old girl shut down completely and rely solely on the dozen or so umbilical's that would be attached throughout her superstructure.
The Following items of said list we're to comprehensibly check every lateral member and rib from fore to aft, rumour had it that the yard dogs suspected that some corners had been cut in both the Galactica's construction and decommissioning, well they suspected when the bow batteries had been recycled throughout those scant few years after the First Cylon War's end, they had rushed the job and lost the paperwork so to speak.
What Adama couldn't believe however when the hatches had been uncovered in the first two days of being docked and opened for the first time in nearly 40 years was the fact that the frackers had left the entire magazine fully loaded, the Galactica had everything still in place to supply the missing six bow batteries, everything from the lifts for the guns themselves to the racks holding the rounds and everything in-between.
If a single nuke or stray round from a Basestar had gotten lucky once, the entire forward quarter would've gone in the resulting chain reaction, the worst of it however wasn't over, massive failures in the power grid resulted in entire sections of the Galactica going dark, fires broke out in the secondary CIC and in secondary engineering, leading the senior staff of the combined fleet to believe that those stations had been sabotaged at some point.
Adama was truly fearing today of all days, on the old girls war table was a full and comprehensive report on just how much the Galactica's bones were suffering, a full technical drawing of the Galactica had been colour coded, black was compromised, red meant critical, orange was severe, yellow serviceable and green was structurally sound.
Needless to say the Galactica's report was colourful, most of her structural members were sound deeper into the core parts of the ship, however as the war dragged, desperation set in causing the quality of the metals to become compromised, additionally stupid mistakes had been made, insufficient welds, bolts too small to bare the weight they were holding, rushed cuts leaving gaps large enough a clenched fist through.
"People, I've seen cut corners before, whatever the frak this is it'd be insulting to cut corners to call them that." Adama growled out, Commodore Spruce, Cradle Six's Yardmaster, Saul the Galactica's XO as well as four other commanders including Lee, couldn't help but look appalled at the state of the Galactica. "It's a frakking miracle that her spine hasn't given out, she's a gods damned fighter no two ways about it, her Columbia pride is what's keeping the old girl from giving out." Spoke Saul addressing everyone in attendance. "Good news is most of these problems can be fixed, it'll take time however; what has me worried is the compromised metal content in outermost layers, that'll require facilities we do not have at our disposal…. Unless you can get it cleared by the civilian body to let me use anything from a half up to two thirds of 'that'." Cradle Six's grizzled Yardmaster who pointedly looked towards the Commodore.
"That? What's that?" Adama asked rather pointedly towards the Commodore who sighed. "Admiral the two Phoenixes of the 72nd R-BSG are carrying a supply of composite resin better known as."
"Living Metal." Adama interrupted in a mutter. "I thought that stuff was a gimmick?" Saul chipped in. "No, it's not a gimmick just really frakking expensive to produce, you could buy four Battlestar's for the same price it costs to produce what we have on hand." Spoke up on of the Commanders by Lee. "That and its one use only because once it sets, you won't be getting rid of it. It's just that tough." Prompted another to the other side of Lee.
"This stuff would've been real frakking useful back in the war if it was used." Saul reminisced. "It was." Commodore Spruce interjected. "Why do you think Phoenixes were targeted with such extreme prejudice, it wasn't just because of their carrying capacity, it was because they used the Resin on themselves making their spines nigh unbreakable." Commodore Spruce stated as a matter of fact.
Causing Saul to throw his hands in the air in exasperation. "Forty frakking years and the top brass was sitting on this information." The last of the Three other attending officers around the war table chuckled. "Not surprising considering the fact that, that the project should have been shut down for forty years, but has in fact been running since its conception. We only know about it because we were read in, after our battlegroup was selected to carry the majority of the stock."
Adama looked around. "So other battlegroups were selected to carry living metal?" Commodore Spruce nodded. "Three reserve battlegroups were selected, the 72nd R-BSG has two phoenix class support ships which have the resin stored in several WMD lock ups under constant marine guard, 21st R-BSG has an Asia class replenishment ship doing the same and the 88th R-BSG has the sole surviving Sulaco class support ship, which as we all know had that funky feature to blend itself into the background radiation of space, essentially making it invisible to Dradis." He finished.
The third Commander saw his opportunity to chip back into the conversation. "We do however have some good news, seeing as we overshot New Caprica by some margin before doubling back to find you, we have a lot of space mapped out making our next set of jumps far more efficient than anything else we've done since leaving the twelve colonies behind." Spoke one of the commanders. "What we need however is a baring, we've been following the first fleets trail to this point we have no collective clue what baring Earth is?" Adama moved about the CIC to the jump plotting table, pulling a star chart out, before laying back onto the war table."
"New Caprica. Kobol. The Twelve Colonies and our Baring reference point, the Lagoon M8 Nebula." Adama drew several circles pointing out each point on the map two lines connected the two furthest points to the M8 Nebula, this gave us an incomplete triangular shape. "Somewhere in this area of space is where Earth our last salvation is."
"That's a lot of frakking ground to cover old man." Commode Spruce stated. "Never said it would be easy." Adama retorted, with Commodore Spruce clapping his hands. "So the plan as it stands is for our boys and girls of Cradle Six, is for the repair and reinforcing of the Galactica's compromised superstructure. Any hints on how long it'll take?" Commodore Spruce asked. "Two weeks, we'll focus on the superstructure of the dorsal bow and work backwards, then downwards from there, and with it sufficiently reinforced I'll break off a team to re-install the Galactica's missing main batteries." The Yardmaster replied while flicking through a personal notepad.
The first of the three commanders caught everyone's attention. "What about the Galactica's operational flight pod?"
"What about it?" asked Lee as he looked towards the officer that spoke up. "Well I know you lot are operating the single pod on double capacity you have eighty vipers being launched out of forty tubes, which was done during the FCW. What I'm getting at is why not install one of the spare racks from their storage, free up some space."
"A good shout out to be fair, the Galactica's wings are made up mostly of mark two's." The others nodded while Lee looked confused. "I'm sorry racks what the frak are those." He asked the others. "A bit before your time son, racks weren't all that popular back in the war…. having another viper hanging over your head while you were on alert viper duty wasn't fun, however the Lions were known to operate with them and do it well. Just as an example it takes Chief Galen two minutes after the alert vipers are away to ready up the next set of vipers, which is the standard of the fleet, however with a rack installed, he could get it down to thirty seconds." Lee did a double take at his father's words. "That's one hell of a marked improvement, why aren't they a standard?" He asked.
"Racks were discontinued after introduction of the mark fives. Superior birds the admiralty said, not superior numbers." That left a sour taste in the former CAG's mouth, superior birds were the reason the Galactica's original mark seven wing had been butchered in the opening hours.
The Commodore clapped his hands once more. "Continuing on, our dear Admiral needs to convince our dear Madam President, that she needs to authorise our use of our resin, we need a formal written order from her to use it, I'll smooth things over with the council on my end, Pavlovna knows better than anyone that the Galactica is a symbol for the fleet, giving her a much needed update will go a long way to improving political agenda's for all parties involved and finally, with the addition of the Pegasus's and Galactica's viper and raptor wings we can re adjust the whole CAP schedule to even workloads, many hand and light work and all that. Anything you'd like to add Admiral?"
"Not at all Commodore as far as I see it until the Galactica is back in working order, I'm a guest along for the ride, still I want regular face to face meetings with the fleets entire senior command staff, I need to put names to faces, I need to know the 72nd's ins and outs of how this battlegroup works if I'm to take full command without any complications, in the meantime, Commodore I hear that the Lion has two spare officer suites and a good number of spare bunks to go around."
"Enough for another 700 bodies, yes sir she does, I'd recommend having the others either mingle with the Pegasus or have them take posts around the other vessels of the 72nd."
Battlestar Lion BS-106, Joint Colonial Refugee Fleet
Deep Space, + 17 days since the Evacuation of New Caprica
CIC
Admiral Adama had two things to say about the crew of the Lion, they were efficient and they were lazy, it was a very weird thing to see, never in his career as an officer of the fleet had he seen such blatant laziness on a ship, people slept when and where they could while on duty, entire ship shifts lasted sixteen hours a day without fail with half hour breaks every four hours, Adama first walk through of the Lion's hallways Adama noticed that cargo nets were bolted from the ceiling, he watched as crewmembers just forwent going to their cabins jumping up to the netting climbing up into the crawl space whilst kicking their replacement out of said netting, the crew just carried on as normal.
Turns out that for 32 hours a pair would run the post, using the netting as their sleeping quarters and would only go to their cabins when the replacement pair took over from them, whilst 'off duty' the pair were expected to do four hours exercise in total, and ten hours of light duties, the rest of the time was their own to spend as they pleased, Adama also appreciated a ship wide 'two can' rule while on or off duty a day.
Just enough of the stuff to get enjoyment from drinking with friends but not enough for it to impact their performance, something which Adama had noticed amongst some of his crew after they had one can too many, he thought he'd take a page from the Commodores book and enforce the same policy, hopefully keeping drink related incidents to a minimum.
Adama realised what the Commodore was trying to accomplish with his crew and their efficient laziness, fighting smart not fighting hard, their bodies had grown accustomed to the deprivation of sleep long before the attacks happened, cargo nets in the corridors allowed for crewmen to jump into a 'bed' within ten feet from their post getting the most out of their half hour break periods, the pair system made sure that one would keep an eye over the other in the pair.
In a way it was pretty ingenious how it all worked, the crew was expected to work their best or better at all times and through it all morale aboard the ship was at an all-time high.
And while standing at the war table in the CIC reading his daily reports on the progress of the Galactica's repairs amongst others Adama couldn't help but smile, the whole frakking battlegroup was the same, the regular fleet really could've learned a frakking thing or two from this one battlegroup alone. "Stupid simple common sense solutions." Adama truly felt as if he should take more than just a page from the commodores book and just take the book instead.
New Caprica, Former New Caprica City.
+ 17 days since the Evacuation of New Caprica.
Cylon Headquarters.
Cavil walked out from his improvised cell that accommodated probably the sole surviving human on New Caprica, fist's, clothes and face covered in blood, inside the room a beaten and broken man that was once Gaius Baltar, beaten within an inch of his life Gaius would be eating his meals through a straw for the foreseeable future, if he was lucky to survive till then.
For the first time in his pathetic life, did he truly regret his decisions, by aiding the Cylon's with their occupation, he'd signed his own death warrant, a warrant he truly believed Adama himself would be all the more willing to collect, if by some miracle he was able to return to the fleet.
"A third Frakking Battlestar! how many of these human cockroaches must I clean up seeing as you lot can't do it right!" Cavil exclaimed to the other six assembled human form Cylon's. "No doubt it is the one that destroyed our two first war era Destroyers over Kobol, but I want to know where the frak a second Columbia class Battlestar has come from?" spoke a five from his position. "It's not a Columbia, that's why, it's a Columbia sub-class." Six spoke up. "No, no frakking way, you're telling us it's one of them!" Cavil barked.
"It's a Lion... more specifically it's THE Lion." Cavil in that very moment, lost all composure throwing the steel table they stood around into one of the walls, with his face like thunder Cavil stormed out of room leaving the other six Cylon's to wonder what god awful plan Cavil was cooking up in his head. "We must keep an eye on One I fear this crusade is getting too his head." Four spoke up from his place.
"Agreed." the other five chorused.
To be Continued.