Courage of Virgon was one of the Virgon Defense Force's last attempts to try and maintain the primacy of regular fleets. It was also an attempt to capture military ship building contracts from Picon and other worlds. Although a number of Virgonese design traits found their way into Colonial warships, it failed on the first count. The cost of the warship nearly bankrupted the Virgon Defense Forces budget and while both maneuverable and somewhat more powerful than a Valkyrie class battlestar, the Courage of Virgon was no match for the Jupiter class or any later heavy designs. More importantly, the cost proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that no single government could hope to match Colonial military budgets and so the Courage remained a single class ship, contributing to the decision of most other Colonial Defense Forces to repeat such an attempt.

The Virgon Pocket Carrier design, often called "baby battlestars" proved more popular. Less expensive, while these designs were not picked up by the Colonial Navy, their combination of relatively low cost and combat and support capabilities led to them becoming a popular choice as the "flagships" for local defense fleets and even some private military contractors (PMCs) who were active in the outer regions. In fact, long after the cylons had effectively destroyed the Colonial Navy as an organized force, many smaller bands of ships fled or continued to resist, sheltering under the protective wings of these small but redoubtable warships…

A History of the Colonial Fleet: Glory to Destruction and Beyond. United Nations Defense Force Press, 2020.

Javin watched as the shuttle closed on Virgon Prime as the ship was described now. The commander had been coy in mentioning exactly what member of the royal family had survived, and Javin heartily agreed. He'd told the commander to watch for potential infiltrators.

And who the hells would have imagined that humans would decide to turn against their own people.

More importantly, why? What could the cylons offer? If they had been intent on conquest, it would make sense— Virgon's imperial phase showed that you needed supporters among the conquered peoples, but that was conquest, not genocide…so their human allies were either functionally insane, religious fanatics, ignorant or some mixture of the three. And that made them more dangerous than ever— just look at the ones who had infiltrated Intolerant. They had no fear, none whatsoever, of death. Unfortunately, the ship that Javin was approaching had no answer to those questions, although it had a comforting quality all its own.

Virgon Prime had been designed and built by the best architects of the Virgon shipyards, and had a more sleek look than most other warships. Advanced cannon and CIWS systems studded the hull as the port bay yawned before them.

I shouldn't be doing this.

Right now, Wilma and the other commanders were trying to find out exactly who they had rescued. Taking a cue from the Leonis situation, the Emperor had ordered ships to land at areas where there would be few Cylons and concentrated groups to rescue, but unlike Leonis, the cylons had increasingly sent raiders to hunt down those ships as the battlestars died one after another. All too many rescue ships fell back onto the atmosphere as shattered hulks. Others were crammed so full they were risking complete life support failure.

And then there was the Colonial component— the battlestar and single heavy cruiser might be outnumbered by the rest of the fleet, but they were Colonial ships and legally, Javin had no right to command them. He would have to deal with that soon.

And quickly. If it had been up to Javin, they might stay around…but not with the civilians. Civilian ships weren't warships and their hulls were designed to protect their passengers against the vacuum of space and do it at the minimum possible weight cost. They weren't designed to protect from cannon fire and nukes and a single raider could slaughter the civilian ships with ease.

More importantly, what can we do? Raid? Kill a few ships until we ourselves die?

No. The order had not been for vengeance, but for survival. Javin would carry it out.

Somehow.

"Admiral." The commander of the ship said with respect as Javin emerged from the shuttle. Javin nodded to him.

"Where is the Empress?"

"In her quarters." The Courage had a suite for the royal family, but in deference to tradition it was a far more austere suit than the royal yacht— in fact little more than the admiral got. Still, it was private and he needed privacy.

"Sir…Empress Celea is… not happy."

Empress Celea? He'd expected one of the older children-

"How many others of the royal family made it out?"

"None sir. There were conventional attacks on the palace and the routes in and out of the city…" the commander trailed off.

"Understood. And the Empress?"

"She was in the country working on her school project… I believe it had something to do with hybridizing grain."

"I see."

"Ah…sir, she didn't want to leave her family or the world…and so I, well…"

"Yes?"

"Compelled her to board the shuttle."

"Compelled? How? "

"I tasered her."

"In the stories, we traditionally use a right cross."

"The stories don't explore the possibility of a broken jaw."

"Good point."

Javin nodded at the captain and saluted the two guards standing at the door.

I hope I don't have to violate her privacy by having someone in with her, he thought. The fleet couldn't survive a suicidal Empress so it might come to that. Still…

Celea has a certain amount of mental fortitude.

"Empress?" Javin said through the intercom. "This is Admiral Lamb. Forgive me for interrupting your mourning, but we must speak."

"Come in, Admiral." If the voice had the sound of someone with a stuffed nose, it was clear and strong. That at least was comforting.

Javin opened the door and walked into the sitting room. Celea was standing in the middle of the room, looking at the place where her mother had often put the carrier for the family cat.

"The crew hated that cat," Celea said softly. "But bless them, they never let mom know— I suppose both are dead now."

"Yes, Your Highness," Javin said. "The city was totally destroyed."

"Was it fast?"

"I… believe it was. The multiple explosions were ground detonations and the shelter almost certainly would have been destroyed." Better than being buried alive or slowly roasting at least.

"Good. I wonder…if there are any cats here?"

"Your Highness?"

"I'm not going crazy…it's just that the children here may never see a cat again. This morning when I was leaving for my high school project, the news was talking about the need to spay and neuter…and now they may be gone." She sighed, "If I think about the people, I'll go crazy, so I'll start with the small tragedies first."

"Prioritizing?"

"Remember dad? Start with the small things if the big things are too intimidating— either way you're moving forward." There was a catch in her throat and then she flung herself on Javin. "Oh Uncle Javin…they're all dead— not just dad, but everyone!"

"I know, Celea," Javin said, "But at least you are not and we need to talk about that… Your Highness."

"Don't-"

"I can't spare you that— the fleet is in shock and more importantly, they have no leadership."

"They have you."

"Unless they are from that small subset of Virgonians who loved the royal military, they probably don't even know my name. They do know the youngest daughter of the royal family."

Especially if they're teenagers.

Celea wasn't the tallest of her family, but she had a statuesque beauty about her that combined with a sense of maturity that had made her very popular…and had enabled her to handle that popularity better than some of her siblings. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Jen, her older sister was a pleasant non-entity who would have been utterly disastrous in this situation. Granted, Celea's passion, ecological engineering, wasn't likely to provide much direct assistance, but the girl had shown the ability to master a difficult field by her own efforts.

"Remember the nude photos?" Javin asked.

"Oh Gods…" Celea blushed as the memory of the Caprican photographer who had managed to slip through her cordon and get pictures of Celea at a nude beach. The nudity hadn't been a problem, but Virgon society had firm notions about the respect due the royal family.

And the fact that she was fifteen might have also had something to do with it.

"I was actually thinking of the press conference," Javin said. "You looked like you were going to puke behind the stage but you didn't show it during the conference."

"I couldn't. There were people calling for that idiots head— they bombed the Caprica Times news office and they hadn't even been involved."

"You'll have to do the same here. The people need you, more than ever."

"I know." She laughed softly. "Well, at least I don't have to worry about the other."

"Other?"

"I'm blond, pale and don't tan well… in addition to getting my privates shown over half the system, I also manged to burn myself in sensitive places…"

"Ah."

Celea gestured to a seat. "I know you don't have a lot of time, but what is the plan? Do we even have a plan?"

"Running. The cylons dominate the system and since their raiders have FTL drives they can do a very good job of searching for us."

"And survivors in space or on the planets?"

"It's a no win situation— if we try and get them, we either commit our entire fleet, and likely lose it, or risk them being killed by a single raider as they gather… without any battlestars to worry about, the cylons don't have to keep their fleet concentrated. On world survivors would be better off hiding and I think most off world ships have scattered. We sent raptors out, but didn't find much."

"What about the fleet?"

"We have had very little— the cylons evidently knew all about FLTCOM and left it up just long enough to collect the fleet for their attack— we got a garbled message about Commander Adama rallying all fleet ships to him at Ragner Anchorage. Thee were unconfirmed reports of other ships, both government and military, conducting their own rescue operations and I presume most of them have made the same decision we did."

"Should we join Commander Adama?"

"No. I've deployed a raptor force, but…Celea, we can't win this. I don't know if Adama only has Galactica or other battlestars have joined him but at this point the war is over. We have lost. If he intends to continue the war, he's committing suicide. Honorable suicide, maybe, but suicide nonetheless."

"I see." Celea paused and looked at an expensive print of the now destroyed royal palace. "I'll have to put together a speech, but first let's see what the raptors find. Also, I'm assuming we don't know what we have yet."

"I was in the process-"

"Then what are you doing here, Uncle Javin?"

"Comforting the daughter of my friend."

"I am…comforted…as much as anyone can be. Dad always respected you and regretted that he couldn't stay in the service." Celea said softly. Then she frowned. "But you have work to do and so do I. Send Commander Larson in— he's been hiding from me."

"Since he tased you?"

"Yes. I'm going to have to forgive him or smack him with a flower pot."

"Competent Commanders are rare on the ground right now."

"Forgive him then. We probably don't have a lot of flower pots either."

TBC