Battlestar Farscape
I do not own Farscape or Battlestar Galactica. Writing this to entertain not for profit.
All power to Wikipedia and the Battlestar Galactica: Technical Manual for a lot of the Technical detail.
Chapter 10
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Battlestar Medusa, Matock, Redline System.
Captain Jody Yates adjusted the collar on her dress uniform, for the third time. She ran a critical eye over her people they were all presentable, in the dress uniforms they had dug out of the deepest recesses of their foot lockers. But the clean and pressed blue/grey material and gold sash's just made her troops look washed out and haggard. The lift finished its descent and the Griffin's Raptor came to rest on the Battlestar Medusa's flight deck. The small ship, which she had used to shuttle over from her Destroyer, was crowded. She'd left her Executive Officer, Major Breech in charge of the Griffin, but had brought with her the Griffin's Master Chief and two Marines, to act as an honor guard, her gun-captain, Lieutenant Sydney Macedonia and the Griffin's Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Paul Andrews.
The two Marines exited first, they turned sharply to take up station on either side of the Raptor's hatch. Giving it a second, Jody took a deep breath, she had talked to Commander Sun on the wireless over the last few hours, trust had been hard to come by, this would be their first face to face meeting. A meeting-taking place on a Colonial Defense Force Battlestar, something Jody had been convinced a day ago no longer existed. After the Holocaust hope had been very thin for Captain Yates and the motley group of survivors she led. It was all the veteran Captain could do to keep her emotions under control.
Captain Yates stepped out onto the Raptors wing and walked down until she could step onto the flight deck, with two long strides she was facing the dark haired women wearing the winged golden diamonds of a Battlestar Commander.
"Captain Yates, of the Destroyer Griffin. Permission to come aboard Sir!" Jody snapped to attention and saluted.
"Permission Granted Captain, Welcome aboard the Medusa." Aeryn returned the salute and offered the older women her hand.
Jody shook the hand held out to her, as the crowd of CDF soldiers broke into applause. She took a step to the side and started introducing her officers as they exited from the Raptor.
Briefing Room, Battlestar Galactica, Unexplored Space.
Lieutenant Mark Usen glanced around the briefing room. It had been less than a week since he had last stood infront of the leaders of the Galactica Fleet. Now he was back, this time thankfuly he was sitting beside Captain Carter and it was the Frigate Captain's turn to answer the questions or at least try to.
"Commander Critchon aboard the Helios, sent a burst transmission just before the Xiphos jumped. We have new rendezvous coordinates, which I'm to release as soon as the twelve affected ships have been screened for Cylon agents." Captain Greenbean Carter reported.
"To meet up with the Helios again?" President Roslin asked.
"No ma'am. I have been ordered to report to Colonel Torins on the Hades." Captain Carter responded thankful to have something positive to say.
There was a quiet moment as the President, Admiral and their staff's absorbed that. Crichton and his people had saluted in all the right places and paid proper respect to the Lady President. But the Galactica people had had a definite feeling of being on the outside looking in. A big part of that was the other Colonials control of when and where the two fleets would meet. Adama had heard Saul Tigh's report on his conversation with his old friend Greenbean Carter and he had spent time with Commander Crichton himself, even without all the bizarre reports about aliens and new technology he would have felt it prudent to be a bit apprehensive about joining the two fleets.
Laura Roslin was of two minds, on one hand she desperately wanted to see with her own eyes all that the other fleet had managed to save of the colonies on the other hand there was the coming political battle. The Quorum from the Galactica fleet, the Civilian Council from Commander Crichton's fleet and of course her in the middle. The political game was one she played well and one that she enjoyed, but there was so much at stake and her health was betraying her more and more.
"Fleet Admiral, how long until the sweep of the ships with tampered drives is finished?" President Roslin asked Adama.
"At least another 24 hours for a premiere sweep rounding up everyone who co-operatesand and testing them. Then four to five days to search the ships stem to stern, to be sure that no one is hiding. Even with enough R.E. grenades to outfit several teams of Marines it's still a slow process, Those are our biggest ships full of small spaces practically designed to get lost in. All the tests will have to be documented so no one slips through." Fleet Admiral Adama answered.
"So we have five days to prepare the Fleet." President Roslin said looking around at the people she and Adama had gathered. Her staff and the Fleet Admirals top officers including Doctor Cottle barely filled half the small briefing room.
"The press are out for blood, with what few facts we have about Baltar's murder, and so many of their colleges locked up, out of reach on the quarantined ships. A lot of them are panicking. Just about any rumor that you can think of is being picked up and run with as news." Tory Foster the young Piconian women said, she was becoming more at ease with her new position as a presidential aid.
"If they've have come up with anything, even half as frakked up as the truth. I'm buying for the next week." Kara muttered quietly to 'Apollo' Not quitely enough she found as half the room laughed.
"Well what do we tell them, I've been going over what Crichton gave us for hours and I cant make myself believe half of it." Colonel Tigh voice didn't contain half of the normal sarcasm the man could pact into a statement, Laura noted. All of the CDF officers were off their game, more than the civilians. Once she and her people had gotten over the Alien angle, it just became new personalities to work with. For the professional soldiers it seemed to be hitting them harder, every few minutes one of them would get a glazed look in their eyes as they realized another implication of the plans and schematics they had been reading.
"The medical files and blood samples they provided on these Sebacean's are damm convincing. Really there's nothing that couldn't be faked up with a few good labs back on Caprica, or something the Cylons could come up with. But it looks legit, amazing and mind boggling but real." Doctor Cottle stated. The Doctor was nearly, as bad as the soldiers with the information he had been given and he'd contact Billy to arrange an appointment with her. Laura was trying not to think about what that could mean. She suspected that a cancer specialist had made it onto Crichton's Fleet and was not looking forward to another round of being poked and prodded. Just to be told with even greater detail when she was going to die and how much pain she was going to be in.
"Ok. For now we will let the press know the bare facts, as stripped down as possible. No aliens, no man from Earth. As soon as we leave here we head to a press conference and tell them, that as soon as the ships are clear we will be joining up with another group of survivors. Then I want everyone to write up a comprehensive report for Quorum of the Twelve. I'm going to need each representative as on board as possible before we meet the Hades civilian council." President Roslin said, briefly meeting the eyes, of those gathered around her.
Battlecruiser Helios, Unknown System
John Crichton watched as Captain Siam and his crew worked to put their ship in order, after the brief battle and boarding action. They had had eight crewman wounded, three more had died before they could get medical attention. Once the Cylon Centurions had gotten inside they had fired on anything that moved, but the robots had thankfully been more interested in racing for the life-support hub, rather than chasing down fleeing crewmembers. The Pulse rifles and pistols he'd designed hadn't been quite as effective as the displaced Earth astronaut had hoped for. The new weapons had out preformed the conventional Colonial small arms, but had fallen short of the one-shot one-kill ideal he'd been aiming for.
That had just been one of problems, another that stood out in Crichton's mind was the crew's response. They had been on the edge of panic the whole time and quite a few had jumped screaming over that edge. The kids of his fleet were just too green, they had the training and bucket loads of motivation, but not the experience and the few dozen seasoned Colonial officers, Xarai and of course one John Crichton couldn't give it to them. That was one of the main reasons for Bo-peep, they needed more experienced CDF people to get the ex-cadets over there first few brushes with battle, otherwise the causalities would just get worse.
Crichton stood on the walkway overlooking the Helios CIC, the view screen now built into the bulkhead toward the bow of the Battlecruiser showed the stylized sun crest of the ship. Crichton and his teams were still working on a way to display space outside in real time on the view screens. At present they were only for communication but Crichton was hoping for something very trekkie in the near future. Three days after the battle and they had all but finished repairs. There was still the crumpled remains of a Heavy Raider wedged under one of the forward 22inch cannon turrets, but there was little the crew could do about that, until the could meet up with one of the support ships. That left the Helios with only two of the big guns on the ships blunt arrow shaped head.
The situation the displaced Moyan's had fallen into was grating on John's nerves. When he and Aeryn had sorted themselves out after Rovhu's crash on Cauldron they had found themselves responsible not only for their two blue comrades, but also 1200 plus Xarai Sebacean's who had little memory before waking up on the Builder artifact. Since then they had been forced to take on more and more responsibility and John had been looking forward to dumping some of it on the Galactica leaders. But having met them he could see that he wouldn't be able to just let them take charge. For all their losses they had no idea how big and bad the universe really was, and they had no idea the potential of the upgrades he and his people were introducing to the fleet. That left him doing three of his ten least favorite things, namely politics rating right up there with the Aurora Chair and just below those little umbrella things people insisted on putting in cocktails.
"Sir we're receiving a transmission!" One of the Techs reporting to Captain Siam down in the CIC caught Crichton's attention. The Helios was pretty much in the middle of nowhere with no one in range of the Colonial antiquated radio. That left two options either someone had snuck up on them, in which case he was going to have words with the Dradis operators after Bas Siam got through with them, or the call was coming in from a long way away.
Command Ship Hades, Rendezvous/Bug-out System.
Colonel Paula Torins IC of the Colonial Marine Corps and second in command of the Hades, paced along the central track walkway that ran through the middle of the cavernous bridge of the Hades. She'd been in sole command of the Fleet for over three days now and in the main it was going well. The Hades had experienced a few problems with the giant ships first FTL with its rebuilt jump drives. But those where fixed with a few re-calibrations, nothing like the near cataclysm that had resulted when they'd jumped the ship from the Cauldron System to the Nike Anchorage. They'd had to, all but rebuild the Hades drives after its first jump, since sitting abandoned orbiting the Cauldron artifact for fifty years.
No her ships were fine the Hyperion was finished with its repair and refit and now, next to the Hades itself, was the CDF's most combat effective unit, at least on paper. Its Heavy Pulse canons, upgraded drive and defense screen made it an order of magnitude meaner than any Cylon ship they had yet seen. Going over the specs of the new Dreadnought class Battlecruiser Paula knew the Hyperion could engage at least three of the enemy Basestar's and come out victorious. That was if the could find a crew to fight it, at the moment the ship was under the command of the CAG. They simply did not have any officer capable of taking command, or a crew to fly the ship into battle. Several of the older cadets looked promising, but they were too young and too inexperienced to place in command of a ship of that size. The evacuation of Artemis valley Academy had gone off without a hitch until the very end. When the final troop transport filled with the last of the cadets and all of the staff, who had waited until the last to make sure all their charges made it to safety, had been caught by the Cylons as it lifted off.
But that was a problem of long standing, and one she hoped would be addressed by Bo-peep.
No Colonel Torins problem was as always the civilians, as soon as they realized that the Commanders, Crichton and Sun were gone they had started circling like sharks. Even normally level headed and trustworthy individuals like Arthur Perseus the Major in charge of the Colonial Marshal's and Daphne Zurich the head of the labor unions had been pushing for more resources, and flooding her desk with requests. Requests that she knew had been turned down or were in the middle of negotiations by the two Commanders. The others on the Council had been barging in on her whenever she turned around with demand after demand, each more outrageous than the last. Ranging from more food and privileges for Council members to turning complete control of "Assets crucial to the Civilian infrastructure" meaning the Hades, over to their control. Finally she had banned them from the military areas of the ship. She would pay for it later, the politicians always remembered a slight, or an insult and having the annoying parasites thrown from her bridge by her marines had made enemies. They would find some way to get back at her, but for the time being she could work in peace.
Thinking of work brought the tall thin Marine to stand behind Master Chief petty officer Jarin, as she loomed behind the Xarai communications officer she frowned at the Vid display he was working on. Now that the new Com systems were up and running they were working on getting them integrated with the massive Cylon built sub-space Node. That would give them instantaneous communications over an unbelievable range, hundreds of light years at the power levels produced by the Hades huge tylium reactors. A pipe dream of Colonial scientists and administrators was about to become a reality; it would also give them parity with the Cylons. But the new hardware was being difficult they had been hoping to make the first test an hour ago, but all they had produced was a puff of smoke and the vaguely amusing site of Techs and Scientists running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
"How does it look Chief." Paula asked.
"We think we've got it Ma'am, the problem was in these old Cylon buffers. They were never designed for a visual component, we figured since they had such an outrageous capacity they could handle it. I've re-written some of the software and it should hold this time." Jarin didn't look up from his work as he answered. The Cylon's had used the Hades not only as command ship, in constant communication with its fleet, but also as a means of moving whole sentient AI programs, sending the early Cylon's instantly from ship to ship.
"There you go Ma'am, that should do it." Jarin announced, after finishing a last line of code and letting it compile into the system. After a bug check came up clean he turned to the officer.
Paula took a deep breath and looked at the screen infront of her, the ease Crichton, Aeryn Sun and the Xarai handled, talked about and used technology that to her had been science fiction four months ago, sometimes caught her off guard. It was a small twinge, which she ignored.
"Raise the Helios Chief." She ordered trying to dismiss the nagging thought in the back of her head that this was a 'historic moment' and there should at least be a band playing.
"Aye Ma'am." Despite what the Colonel thought Jarin wasn't completely blasé about what was happening. If only because most of what was about to happen was his work and if the new system somehow managed to fry the Hades computer he would probably be blamed.
"Transmitting now, connecting, exchanging security handshake, link is solid." The small screen at Jarin's work station flickered and switched from Hades armored fist inflame to Helios's sun symbol.
"Put it on the big screen Chief." Paula ordered as she moved toward the command podium.
Paula stepped up to the raised platform and gripped the handrail that ran around its edge, as the screen changed again. Now it showed the excited face of a young crewman. The Communication officer of the Helios turned away as soon as the Colonel saw him and Paula heard him shouting across the bridge.
"Sir! It's the Hades!" There was a murmur in the background, as the crew of the Helios sorted itself out and then Captain Bas Siam's face filled the screen. He looked ten feet tall on the monitor and Paula had to work hard to keep her face straight as she was presented with the man's giant nostrils. Captain Siam had been a squadron commander hoping to be promoted to CAG of his Battlestar in the next five years, before the Holocaust. Now after his drifting Viper had been picked up by the retreating Fleet he was the Captain of a Battlecruiser. But he was still working on his command presence and he couldn't quite keep a small grin off of his face, as he looked at the stern face of the Hades XO. Shown on the 10ft by 8ft screen covering one bulkhead of his CIC.
"Colonel! Its good to see you." Siam said, causing snickers from off screen.
"You too Captain." There were of course no comments or muffled laugh's from the crew of the Hades, no matter how funny some might have thought it. They all knew what would happen to the unlucky culprit, if they broke discipline on Colonel Torins Bridge. Paula allowed herself a small burst of pride at the professionalism of her people. Unfortunately even her authority didn't reach everywhere.
"My Paula! What big eyes you have!" John Crichton would be there at just the right time of course. Colonel Paula Torins winced as the camel's back was broken and the staff of both CIC's erupted into laughter.
Heavy Cruiser Trident, Matock, Redline System.
"You've done a remarkable job Captain Yates, your people would have had this ship operational in another week even if we hadn't shown up. With the resources you had to work with, it's a miracle." Major Hal Dies commented as he looked around the flight deck of the old Heavy Cruiser. With the extra hands and more importantly the right tools for the job, brought by the Medusa. Trident was starting to look like a warship again. The repair crews couldn't do much about the outer armor, but the hull patches were in place and the landing pod extended and retracted on command. Life support was up and running and most of the guns would fire, if they got some ammo for them.
Jody Yates just nodded in answer to the Majors comment. In her mind she took little credit for the work done on the Trident. Her people, both from the CDF and the civilians, had worked long and hard on short rations, to accomplish what they had. She didn't need someone coming in at the end, to give her a pat on the back to let her know what a remarkable job they'd done.
Hal withered inside, he saw the carefully blank look the Destroyer Captain was giving him. He knew he was making a complete mess of this, when he had heard that they were due to finish re-pressurizing the Tridents flight deck and that Captain Yates was going to do an inspection tour. To welcome the squadron sent over from the Serenity that was going to be stationed on the Trident from now on, Hal had invited himself along. He had hoped to get to know the women, Jody Yates was what he was being made into, since the Holocaust a line officer leading his crew into battle. Until Medusa had found the Destroyer group Hal had been the senior Navy officer among the Fleets command structure. Paula was a Marine, Aeryn's background was a mix of Special Forces and fighter pilot and Crichton had been civilian.
That had left him representing the vast majority of their forces in theory. But in fact he had mostly regarded the men and women of the CDF as a species apart, one that he had no hope of understanding. Hal Dies had spent his entire career in the Colonial Defense Forces in administration. The closest he had come to what most considered the real CDF, had been his midshipmen year on the Battlestar Athena. And he'd spent most of that working as Admiral Silver's secretary, once his skills with paper work had been seen. Since then he'd served on planet or on the CDF Anchorage's, ship duty was just not something Hal had been exposed to. Over the last three months he had worked hard and to some extent felt that he'd come into his own as Aeryn Sun second and Medusa's XO. But he still had doubts and the chance to talk to and perhaps learn from a 'real' CDF officer had been too good to miss. But the more he tried to talk, the more he seemed to alienate the women.
Jody was having a hard time deciding what to make of the Medusa's XO, for the last few days she had been in dozens of meeting with the man. Both with his Commander and without and he'd come across as a professional and they'd accomplished a great deal together. But since this inspection tour had started, his whole manner had changed and the Destroyer Captain was having a hard time deciding if Hal was a condescending egotistical fool or just really, really bad at asking a women out. And where in the name of the Gods had the Hal Dies she'd worked with gone?
Both officers were relieved as the tour came to an end and they took position on the flight deck waiting for the landings to begin.
The Trident could only support one oversized squadron, 58 Vipers and 3 Raptors were due to arrive; the Crete class Heavy Cruiser was a small ship by modern standards, barely half the size of the Dreadnought class Battlecruiser's that had replaced them in the CDF line of battle. With their off-set portside landing pod making the ships look unbalanced, lack of real ship killing power without the mass driver rifles which were the mainstay of the Colonials anti-capital ship striking force. The Crete's had never been a popular design. But even with its many defects the Trident would make the Destroyer groups civilian fleet's survival a goal to be planned for rather than a wish to be hoped for, even without help from the Hades group.
Aeryn thought the ship just looked ugly, like someone had taken a badly drawn picture of her Medusa. Ripped off her landing pod's and then as an after thought grafted one back onto the side of her head. The ex-Peacekeeper adjusted the Sundance's throttle again slowing down to keep pace with the Mk VII's of Platinum Squadron.
Aeryn had jumped at the chance to fly in the honor guard escorting the newly named Rogue Squadron from Serenity to its new home onboard the Trident. But now she wasn't so sure it had been a good idea, despite how seldom she got a chance to fly since she had taken command of The Medusa, this was not the type of flying she'd missed. Keeping to the loose, wide formations favored by the Colonials was child's play compared to lifetime training in the ordered ranks of the Pleisar Regiment. The low speeds she had to maintain however, was boring her to tears.
The Sundance, Aeryn's personal fighter, was the prototype for the Series II Viper. Crichton had used it as a test bed to help with the design for the ship he planned to give the Colonials superiority over the Cylons and at least match any enemy's they might encounter in the Uncharted Territories. It had started out as a Mk III, mothballed in a warehouse buried in the Nike Anchorage. From there virtually ever piece of the ship had been rebuilt and redesigned. Mostly hand built by Crichton and his team, it was faster, harder hitting and harder to hit than the production module. To Aeryn it felt like her Sundance was idling as she kept pace with Platinum Squadron and waited for Rogue to form up.
Finally the Vipers from Serenity finished launching and the mass of Vipers, 42 from The Medusa and 58 for the Heavy Cruiser, began their circuit of the Fleet, giving the Civilians a show as they made there way toward the Trident.
The small fleet was impressive in its own way, more what the people had indured and accomplished than the ships themselves but the ships were nothing to sneer at.
Nine Skylla class Destroyers, 185-meter long overpowered kinetic rifles fitted with drives and a broadside of cannon, with life support and living quarters squeezed into the gaps in-between, then the whole thing covered in armor. The twelve Civilian ships were a mixed bag; the biggest at just less than 2000 meters was the Archron. A decommissioned troop transport from the first war, it had been serving as an anchorage for a mining colony on the edge of explored space when the Holocaust happened. Over five thousand people were living on her and trying to keep the old ship going. The next largest was the 1450-meter long Firebird, Serenity. Then came the 1085 meter long cargo ship 0905 of the Star Carrier company, no doubt their load, millions of tons of wood would be extremely useful at some point and Aeryn was told it added flavor to the gruel produced by the Tridents food processors. Two 650-meter long Flattop cargo ships that had taken off from Aquaria each with several hundred refugees in their holds, which had to be hastily connected to the ships, life-support. The 630-meter long Stone family home, a twenty-year-old ex-CDF fleet tender, a flying general store where the 30 odd members of the Stone clan lived and worked. The 497-meter long Demeter a Colonial Marshal search and rescue ship. Three Intersun Passenger Cruiser's each 252-meters long. Then the Scorpian space-Tug an 80-meter long power plant drives and grapples with a cockpit. Last was the 63-meter long Planet Taxi Star Runner.
The Vipers paraded past them all, on the way to meet with the Heavy Cruiser.
Captain Jody Yates and Major Hal Dies escorted Commander Aeryn Sun through the Tridents corridors and into the empty pilots briefing room.
"Well I think your civilians are as secure as we can make them. With five of your Destroyers with minimal ordinance the Frigates, Serenity and now Trident at least partially operational, its time to start working on getting you to the Hades fleet." Aeryn stated.
"Even if you drain Medusa and the Frigates dry we still wont have the fuel to reach your people Commander." Captain Yates told the other women.
"So our own analyze surmised Captain, that's why I only mentioned five of your Destroyers the other four your Griffin included will be busy along with the Medusa fixing our problem. Major." Aeryn turned the conversation over the Hal Dies.
Hal inserted a cartridge into the hall projector and turned on.
"Here's what we have so far, if you think of something jump right in Captain."
Commanders Office, Battlestar Galactica, Unexplored Space.
Bill Adama tiredly rubbed his eyes as Lieutenant. Junior Grade Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson exited his office. While Tigh oversaw the search of the twelve affected ships, trying to dig out any Cylon agents. Adama was conducting his own search. Looking for his missing Raptor pilot Sharon Valerii, trying to dig out the truth. So far it had been slow going.
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A/N
(1)Helios, god called lord of the sun, hence the crest.
(2)The Skylla class Destroyer looks almost identical to the USS Sulaco from the Alien films, smaller though.
(3)Planet Taxi's a dead ringer for a Firefly class medium transport.
(4)Sorry for the delay I'll try to do better.