This was not beta before posting so all errors and issues belong to me. As always reviews are welcome. 4 May.
I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.
Chapter 11 Press Broadcast
Two days later
Laura was in one of the newly renovated side rooms of Colonial One. News crews were working in her office, getting ready for the big day. She had to use this room to get any work done. At least work, that she did not want to do in front of the working news reporters and support staff. This was going to be major fleet wide broadcast. She could have just used the normal podium in the "main cabin" for this speech, just like she had done a few dozen times before. That was the only way she knew how to do it. But now she had able to review several addresses from Earth leaders in their past, which she had been given access to by Bob and Max.
She like the way some of the Leaders from somewhere called the USA had been able to project power, from behind their wooden working desk. It had been when they had been addressing their people, about some major issue or an event that was relevant to them. This was a time to present and project power and confidence all the same time. That was why Laura had chosen to change how it was going to be done. Well at this time at least. If it proved not to have any advantage, with the people in the fleet. She would go back to the old way of giving her prepared speeches, with the podium in the press room. She was hoping that she was going to hit this one out of the park, with this change.
She was trying to calm down and center herself, as she reviewed her speech notes in an old coat and rain jacket closet. It did not take long for her to get the point again, about what questions might be asked. And she started working out a few answers for them or in needs be, a plan to dodge them for a while. Tory knocked on the door, with three sharp raps on the metal door. She did not enter, but the signal was to let her know that the news crews had finished setting up there equipment in her office. The signal also told her that it was time for her to return to her office and desk.
"Well it's go time now? Or they're going to think you are hiding from them, again." She said to the empty room, and let the words bounce back to her ears with the odd echo the little room gave her voice. She took a breath and exited the room, with a set blank expression on her face. Tory gave her a quick looking over from head to shoes, before she would let Laura returned to her office and the press crew waiting there.
The different Colonial news groups had set up against the far wall of her office, with their equipment pointed directly and supposable focused at her desk. She returned to her chair, and Tory did another check of her. She was making a quick adjustment to some minor flaws in Laura's makeup or adjusting her cloths to look just right for the camera. Some of this was done with just the right amount of clear sticky tape.
Laura had five minutes before the scheduled start of the broadcast. But she knew better than to assume that the imaging and recording devices, were not running as soon as she re-entered her office. She still just ignored them. She was looking at her speech cards again, make the odd note on them. She was also keeping an eye on Tory, who gave her thumbs up after what seemed like an hour of waiting and killing time that she did not have to waist.
That was the signal she had been waiting for. She now had sixty second, before they were to start. She turned in her chair a little, and faced the press reporters and gave them all a small smile. She made a small adjustment in the chair again, and then put her both of her palms flat on the desk top. One of the news crews had his hands up, with all of his fingers spread out in a fan shape. And then one by one, the fingers dropped, till only one was pointing upwards. With a flourish, he pointed to her with that one finger. She was on live to the fleet wide broadcast.
She gave the cameras a political smile, and started her well prepared speech. "Good day people of the Fleet. This is to both the old hands, and to the Earthers, whom have decided to join us in our quest. I am addressing the fleet, and all of the people who live within its great metal walls. I have to say will have an effect on all of us."
She kept talking in an even, but not a monotone voice. "I here tonight instead of the normal briefing room, because I have to tell everyone that something has come up. And everyone needs to know about it in some detail. No matter where you might be in this star system."
She gave the camera a sly grin as she continued talking in that easy way, which she had first developed to deal with parents. "Now I know that some out there, have been speculating for some time about how we knew about the cylons returning. I am her today to tell everyone, that we have been given intelligence about some of the cylons future plans. At least as they have to do with this area of space. We had no idea at the time, if it was true or not. But now it has been proven correct so far. But one thing we have learned, after the last cylon sneak attack. It is that you should always plan for the worst, and then make another plan. Just in case if it gets even worse, than you first thought it could possibly be. But as I have already said. It turned out the information was very accurate. And we were able to evade the cylons, twice now. Now for the bad news, that some of you must have been thinking was coming. I do not what to disappoint you, or lead you all down a rose lined path with bare feet." She stopped taking as one of the camera people puta free hand over their mouths to stop from making a noise.
It was known that over a dozen people, had the same event happen to them. That had happened to Dexter and Starbuck. It was exactly like them, minus the drawing the odd pair had drawn all night. These events had very few witness, but there had been more than enough of them for word to have gotten around. Nothing had been confirmed, by any Colonial. The Earthers had been more flexible with the information, and even if very few of the Colonials had believed them. Enough of the Colonials had started to come around in the last few weeks, to understanding the information. All of that was about to change, in a big way.
She took a breath and looked right in to the camera, this one was standing almost to the far wall of her office. She wanted there to be no doubt that she was serious about what she was about to say. "We have a pretty accurate timeline, on when the next cylon visit is supposed to come by this system. And this time it is going to be a massive fleet, when they come back in around two hundred and twenty days from today. I know some of you will think that we have beating them once before, and we can do it again."
Laura was starting to shake her head from side to side very slowly, even a soft chuckle left her lips. "The next return visit will have a fleet as large, as what the cylons used in the first wave of their surprise attack on all of our home planets all at once. Not even with the amazing weapons the Earthers, have, will not stop them next time. When the cylon land on this planet, they still will have that massive fleet in orbit. We know that if the cylons find any humans still hear in this system? They will just pound us with heavy weight nuclear weapons from orbit, until nothing will be left living on this planet."
Roslin knew that this statement was not a hundred percent true, but it was very close to it. Now she was about to lower the boom on more than a few egos, that were known to be in the fleet. More than a few of them had been starting to stir up trouble for both her, and Bill. He had been right not to delay this. It had only taken her a few hours to find out what some of the power players were trying to do around the fleet in the dark of night. Then it had taken less time for her to work out, what she thought of as the best way to crush their plans.
"All of the Earthers will be leaving with us, and we will be leaving this system in six months' time from now. To be more precise, the Admiral wants to leave this system in less than one hundred and eighty days. The Earther's leadership have had access to the same information, which we did. And they have deiced, on their own, that all of them will be leaving will us. They felt that any non cylon left on the planet will be destroyed, when this larger fleet of cylons returns. And I, whole heartily, agree with them."
Laura saw some looks be given between their fellow camera crews. She notice them, but she did not stop with her prepared remarks. "The next six months are going to be busy with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears spent like there is no tomorrow by both of our peoples. We need to collect, preserve, and store all food we can. While were are doing that, we need to as well finishes fixing our ships, to leave this system. We will also need all of the other resources we can, that we can gather and store in our ships. This is going to take a lot of very fast hands of our personnel to do all that needs to be done. I hope that you all, well do whatever needs to get done. So that we will be better prepared for upcoming trip. If any of you want to help out? You all know where to go, and who to contact. We have two goals right now. First is not being here when the cylons return. And the second item, is not to run out the things we need while we look for Earth and the thirteenth tribe."
She took a breath, "And now for the other bit of news, which I wanted to pass along". She knew that she needed to strike while the iron was still hot. "With the help of the Earthers, their books, data, and the odd tools at their disposal. That they supplied Admiral Adama and his staff. Between them, they have been able to plot a course towards our hopeful freedom."
That route was going to way longer than she wanted to let people know right now. They even were going to have to back track over a dozen jumps in the general direction of their home system. They were going to have to travel re rest of the way through the Outer Arm of the galaxy. Then they would have to pass through the massive almost starless Gulf to the Perseus Arm. They were going to have to travel threw that Arm and a smaller Gulf to get to the little known Orion Spur. It was going to be a long trip and right now they did not know how deep into the Orion Spur they would need to travel. They would not know that until they were a lot closer.
"It's going to be a long trip, but we have rebuilt our ships and we have stout hearts to crew them. We will get through this by hard work, and also working together as one people. Thank you for your time and good night
Laure stopped talking, and waited for the little red lights. That were only supposed to say on when the cameras were actively transmitting. One by one the cameras, which were transmitting lights went dark. She did not trust the lights, and more importantly. She did not trust the people who switched those lights off and on for a living. So she held her last pose for a solid two minutes, after the last light had gone off. When she felt that the time was right, only then did she move her notes to one side of the desk and activated her working on her old style desk top computer. When it powered up, and the application she needed had opened. She looked up to see the news crews starting to pack up there gear on the far side of her small office. They were talking among themselves in very shushed voices that did not carry audibly to her desk.
Laura gave the film crews a smile, when she looked up from her scheduling software. "Sorry for the change of venue guys. Maybe one of these days. We will have more than one place to do these short of things. And it won't be such a tight squeeze to get everyone in and out." She let her work face drop, and she put on her "I'm looking for your vote" look.
She was rewarded with not so soft chuckling, from the mixed group of men and women working on packing up the press equipment in the "crash" proof containers. She could not do some of the work related things, which she wanted and needed to do. Because she did not trust the press team, some of them were "real" reporters after all. More to the point, a few of them wanted to be "real" reporters. It had taken over an hour to set up all of the equipment. But she had been told that they would only need half that amount of time to break it back down, and move it back to the other rooms on this space liner. She had no idea how long it would take to re-set up the equipment back in the places it had come from, before the temporary move.
As she was working on a few low level task. She noticed that it seemed to Laura that they were taking longer than they had told her staff to finish their tasks. She was just about to say something at the forty-five minutes mark, when Tory entered her office with a sly grin on her face. She had been very careful, that the smile was hidden from the news crew still in her office. She did this by using her body to shield her face from being seen by them.
Tory was being very formal with her tone of voice, and word usage. And even the stance she was using in front of the news crew. Some among the fleet, still did not like the idea, of the cylons working with humans. No matter how much they had helped them in the past. There were an equal number of shows, which talked about the good the final five and a select few other cylons had help what remained of the human race. And the show that were all about the hell the cylons had done to the human race as a whole.
"Madam President. Admiral Adama asked if you would meet him over on the Pegasus, when you had some open time on your schedule."
Laura had been expecting Bill to contact her, but not like this. Was something up? Her mind went racing down a list of issues, which might have blown up so bad. That it would needed input from both of them face to face, to fix it. She was careful not to let any worry cross her face, while her mind was doing a few back flips. After a few long seconds, she worked up a safe question to ask her right hand woman.
"What does my schedule look like?"
Tory smiled a little broader, and with a few more teeth now showing to her boss. She was trying to give a hint to her boss. Without saying a word that might picked up by the others, and maybe used against Laura in the future.
"Nothing, which I can't do. And then send a copy to you threw the Earther information network later to you for review before publishing."
Tory let her face drop into a little frown, and her tone changed just slightly. "You do need to review those questions from the Quorum, for their meeting tomorrow." That a job that Tory could not and would not do, even if Laura had asked her to. When she looked back up to face her boss she had a little twinkle in her eyes.
Laura nodded at finally noticing the look and tone. She rechecked her computer. She review a few notes, that she felt were the most important. It all was a bit of acting, which she knew would get back to a few certain taking heads by the end of the day. Then she made eye contact again, with her aide after only a hand full of minutes passed.
"Well then. When is the next scheduled short haul Raptor supposed to be by?"
She did not want anyone to think that she was just going to fly over at the beck and call of the fleet commander. There had been restrictions on flights between spaceships, as a fuel saving measure for the last few weeks. Ships still needed to have items moved between ships, so all flights could not be banned. It would have looked bad, if it even looked like it had turned out. That she was not also fallowing those rules, which she had passed and very publicly supported.
Tory smiled a big white toothy smile, but had to do a quick side step out of the doorway. This was so an armload of electronics, could now be moved out of the Presidential office. When she was back to standing where she wanted. She did a little nod of the head towards her boss. She was starting to enjoy pulling something on the nest of vipers, in the press pool.
"The next Raptor is one that the Earthers fly. It was flying close by, on some kind of testing mission. When I contacted them? They told me that they could be here to pick you up, in about half an hour. But it will be after they finish whatever tests, they need to do. And that might delay them for an unknown amount of time."
Laura could not help, but let a sly smile come to her face. "So Tory was playing match maker again. I'm okay with it….this time," thought Laura in a quite part of her mind.
"Please let me know, when they are ten minutes out from landing. And Tory, be sure to thank them for the trip, when they contact us again." Laure put her head down a little, and pulled up two files of papers. These were files that she knew, that she had to do. Before she could have some free time with her man.
The news crew quickly finished the equipment break down, and left the room. Laura was so focused on finishing the two files full of boarding but also required work. That Tory had to clear her throat twice to get her to look up from the tasks.
"Roslin your ride is waiting in the hangar. You didn't respond to my notice that they were on the way, or when it landed. "
Tory made an odd facial expression, which was not normal to her. It was the look of concern for her boss. She knew that the cancer was supposed to be gone, but you never know with that kind of monster lurking in your body. After a hand full of seconds, she decided to push a little harder. Laura was not acting "normal", and she felt the needed to ask.
"Is everything okay? Do I need to schedule a fallow up appointment with one of the Earther doctor?"
Laura could hear the concern in her voice, and smiled back at the darker skinned human form cylon. It was with a smile, which reached all the way to her eyes for only the second time today. It was not a sad smile. It was one that you gave to a friend that might just be a little on the over protective side about your health.
"No I'm fine, and before you start moving things around in your mental calendar. Both doctors have given me a clean bill of health, as you well known three days ago. I was just reviewing some of the stories, which I got from Captain Kelly log files. And I didn't notice the time or you alert."
Laura gathers up a few things from around her office, and put them in her battered leather shoulder satchel. Tory had Laura's overnight bag already packed and by the door, for quick access or escape that might be required. The pair of them quickly walked to one of the docking hatches on the spaceship small hangar bay. It was a well-worn path by now, and one the designers had never expected to have been used this much.
The hatches were open between the two ships, and Athena was waiting by the airlock hatch on the space liner side. She was not happy to see Roslin, but at least she did not actively want to kill the President. At least not right now, anyway. Roslin offered pleasantries to the pilot, but the human form cylon just nodded her slightly back at her words. She still did not smile or say a word to the woman, who had order her new born child hidden from her. When Laura had entered the craft, Athena pulled herself off of the hatch and fallowed the older woman into the small craft.
As soon as Roslin was sitting in one of the empty seats at the back of the Colonial made craft. She was surprised, that the craft was not being flown by both Agathons today. They were the only fully qualified Raptor team that the Earthers had. Or at least the only ones that she or Bill knew off. The person in the EO's seat was someone she did not recognize, and with the limited number of humans know to have been left alive. That was very unusual for Laura, even with the few thousand new faces of the Earthers.
When Athena said something to the EO, in English in passing. Laura assumed that the stranger was one of the Earthers, who are being trained in how to use the Raptors Colonial built systems. For another time, in what seemed like a weekly event. She was amazed that such a small group in numbers, would be doing so many different jobs. All of which needed to be done, and done quickly. She knew that they still had their share of lagers. But it was a lot lower overall percentage, than what the Colonials had to deal with.
This subject had come up a few times in meetings among the Colonials in public and private meetings. The leading theory, was that all the people. Who were on those two ships, had volunteered for a dangers mission to reinforce an exposed colony on their planet. That takes a very special bread of person. One that does not like just sitting around waiting for things to happen to them. They were more proactive, or more willing to try something new.
Roslin had taken an open seat in the craft, and strapped herself in. Just like she did every time that she flew, since the cylon attack. Well after that one time, she had not, and it had turned out badly. She had been lucky that she had only damaged her pants in a few spots and ripped a hole in her jacket. She waited till Athena had taken the pilot or hot seat on the Raptor, before addressing her again. She had been told by Bill, that Sharon had been fully accepted into the Earthers military some time ago. And they like using call signs also. In fact. They preferred to be called by those call signs, instead of their real names, most of the time.
"So Athena, what were the tests that you were running? Before you came to give an old lady a ride to her next meeting?"
Laura was trying to keep the tone as light and friendly as she could. She was still working with Bill on patching things up with the couple. She did not regret what she had done, with the child and to them. At the time it seemed like the best plan to protect everyone, human, cylons or something in-between.
Athena stopped flipping buttons in mid-movement, and looked over her shoulder at the woman who had spoken to her. But her arm did not come down from the panel, which she had been working with. She used a measured voice to answer the question. It would not have been considered polite by her commander to not have replied.
"We were running a training mission. You know training up some of the Earthers, in how to use Colonial designed small craft." Athena's head turned back to the panel, and she went about finishing her pre-flight checklist. She did keep checking out the small mirror that let her seen behind her into the cargo area as those buttons and switches were activated.
When she was done, she did not look at her passenger in the mirror. She just called out over one shoulder. "Are you ready to go?"
Laura thought there was more to that story, than Athena was saying or wanted to say to her. "Yep, my life is in your hands pilot."
She was not going to push too hard. If had been someone other than Athena? She might have pushed a little more. Instead she just made a mental note to pass on that bit of information to Bill and his staff, later. There might be something in the testing that she was doing, that Bill might want to know about.
Athena's head snapped up so quick, that it should have broken her neck, from the Raptors read outs. But she did not turn to face the other woman, or otherwise address the statement she had been given. After a few seconds she went back to her work. If someone had not been in a few hundred Raptor flights? They might have missed the movement of the human form cylon, sitting in the pilot's seat. Laura did not however miss it, and made another mental note of the action and reaction of the pilot to what she had said. Maybe things between her and the mixed cylons family were changing after all.
The trip to the largest warship, which the humans knew about, was quick. And the small craft's crew did not talk to the only passenger inside the cramped little craft. Laura pass the time by watching out the massive window, which made up most of the front of the Raptor. She could see from her seat at the back of the passenger/cargo compartment without needing to move around too much. Laura tried not given anything away, as Athena made a shortest time course to the Battlestar.
A shortest time course? This meant that she skimmed the hulls of a few of the civilian, which were in the way between the physical location of Colonial One and Mercury Class Battlestar. The ship that they were supposed to be going towards. Laura knew without a doubt, that this was going to raise a few complaints from those ship's command crews by her close shave of a passage. But she did not say a word to the pilot, as the fleet little craft bobbed and weaved through the fleet at break neck speed. Athena made a quick approach to the warship, and sat down on one of the aft most landing pads built into the port side hangar pod.
The angled sided craft had only just come to a complete stop on the landing pad. Before the pad started to drop, into the hull of the massive human warship. Then it went through three different airlock systems, before it ended up on the main hangar that was the core of the port side hangar pod. It was a very busy place, and the landing went unnoticed by the hangar crew moving around the area. The only people, who noticed the arriving craft, were the ship's master and his father. That it would seem like they just happened to be on the hangar deck, when the Raptor in question landed.
Both men were near the access point from the hangar pod and the main ship access point, when the large hatch on side of the Raptor popped open in a silent grace. Soon the air from both craft, was mingling together. The two men walked quickly, but not quickly enough, to draw any unwanted attention from anyone working in the hangar. They were just coming to the low wing of the scout craft, when Laura exited the hatch of the Raptor with a smooth and well-practiced grace. With a hung to the older Adama and a hand shank to the younger man, then the three walked to the nearest exit from the hangar bay. They made small talk till a large and heavy metal hatch closed behind them. This cut off the bays abeyant noise and, any ears that might be too close for comfort. There were very few public areas in the whole fleet that would have allowed these three to have anything like a private conversation.
The trio of key leaders had not been gone for more than a minute or two from the Hangar pod, before the Earther controlled and crewed Raptor had started moving to the forward most small craft launch rail. It was the nearest one, which normally supported the warship's Raptor launches. Athena and her EO did not leave the craft as it was moved around the massive work area. They did not even exit it, when crewmembers of the Battlestar hooked up the fuel lines to top off the craft's fuel, air and water tanks. It was a quick fill for the hoses pulled from nearby metal walls.
After all, the system was designed to be used to refuel this type of craft while cylon missiles were impacting the ship at the same time as the support was happening. Athena and her Raptor were flung back into the cold of space again, before the trio of leaders had made it to the young ships masters' cabin. It would another short trip back to one of the twin launch/landing pad attached to part of the Lucky Find. Athena and her EO in training were not done yet. They had a lot of both testing and simulator time that had be completed, before they were allowed off of shift.
When the three had entered Apollo's command cabin, Lee did not sit behind the desk that was the center of the metal walled space. Instead they all moved to the entertainment area, which was a little farther back into the large cabin he had called home from almost two years now. After everyone had taken a seat, and seemed to be a little comfortable. Apollo was the first one to break with the small talk, which had dominated the conversation between them so far.
"Madam President that was a great speech you gave. But do you think it will work?" Asked the younger Adama to the elected leader of what remained of the Colonies. He was learning a lot for this pair of older people. A lot more, now that Baltar was no longer in a leadership position. Or maybe him working behind the scenes to get into a position. So that little fraker could get back into a powerful position among the fleets leadership.
"Thank you Lee. And I hope so. VP Gray has a by name list of everyone under the age of sixteen that is "working". We both want to get the list down to were the only jobs the young ones are doing. That is allowed below that line, should be only as a student and or a teacher. I know that the mining, refinery, and tankers all have gotten to that level. Beside now maybe it will keep Zarek on the defensive, for a little while longer."
Laura was talking as she shifted around a little and moved a little closer to Bill, on the well-used couch. Admiral Cain might have been off of her rocker, big time, at least after the cylons had attacked her ship while in dock. But she did know how to pick out some very comfortable furniture. How she got the Colonial navy to pay for it? Now that was going to be one of those mysteries, which never would have a resolution accepted by most people.
Bill, for his part, snorted at what Laura had just said. "That man is playing in a sand trap of stupidity, and he just can't stop himself from swinging away." Bill had kept his face still, and watched both of the other people in the room. He wanted to see how they would react to his last comment.
Apollo, who was taking a drink from a glass of water at the time, started chocking as the fluid went down the wrong pipe in his throat. He had not been expecting, something like what had just happened. At least he had not blown the water all of the way across the room….this time. After he was able to stop coughing, he could ask something between coughing fits.
"Dad, were did you come up with that one?" Cough, cough, gasp and them more coughing.
The older Adama smiled at both of them, as they sputtered fine drink mist into the air. He had been waiting weeks to have just the right time, to drop that line on someone. Luck just happened to have it, that it was going to be these two.
"It seems the Earthers and we share another game in common, between us. They call there's Golf and we call it Apocryphal. I was talking to one of the Earthers in the mess hall, and she dropped that line on me out of the blue. It had been while we were discussing Raider tactics, and how that cylon fraker John had been employed those craft against us so far. Before I had to leave to get back to the CIC. I had her write that phrase down, so I could memorize just. All just so, I could pass it along, when the time was right. It does sounds pretty good, if I do say so myself." Bill had a very self-satisfied looked, plaster all over his craggy face. There were some of the few people in the whole fleet that he could let down all of his walls.
Laura was smiling, and pulled up her legs onto the couch's seating area. She folded them up under her butt, almost shoemaker style. The way she was sitting, made her look 15 years younger. "Okay that was good one, and I have to agree. And it dose fits Tom pretty well."
She took another sip of her drink and her face was now serious. "I need to change the subject, before I forget about it. Athena brought me over in the Earther owned Raptor. It seems that they were running some kind of test, before they picked me up to come over. When I brought it up, she said that they were training some new crews on the Raptor systems. I think that she was not telling me, the whole truth."
She stopped taking for a second and looked down into her glass. "It was the way she said it, and how the other crewmember were acting when I brought it up. I think she was doing something else. And I got the feeling that they did not want me to know what they were up to, and they pulled this cover story out. Would one of you boys know, if I'm just being paranoid? Or did I catch them up to something odd?" She was hoping that she was just jumping to conclusions.
Lee made a face, and went to a phone mounted on the desk at the other end of the siting area. "CIC. Dee? It's the Lee. Check the DRADIS and the other logs, please. I want to know if we picked up anything strange over the last three hours. That might have been going on with ER 1. If you can go back and cover the entire time that it was out, that would be best. We need you to keep this as quite as you can, for now. I going to need to wait. Yes, I'm with the two of them. The President said they were acting a little off when they picked her up"
Lee sat on the wooden desk top, while he waited till his wife came back to the hard line communication device. It was taking some time, and he watched as Laura and his father that were almost snuggling together on his couch speaking in low voices. He was thinking that they made a good couple, when a voice came back to into the horn shaped receiver next to his right ear.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, just sat out there and did not move for half an hour. Can you send me the raw data to my system in the cabin? Thanks Dee, see you after shift."
Lee put the horn shaped device back into is holder, and then looked at the other two people in the room. "CIC did not pick anything strange on DRADIS, or any other systems for that matter. She was able to track if from the first launch off of the Lucky Find, all the way unit it docked back on the ship's forward landing and launching box pad. Dee is going to send the raw data to me, if you want to look at it. She is going to flag it for a more detailed second look."
He then focused back on to his father. His father had an odd look, made with his mouth, and on the left side of his face. It was doing an odd little twitch thing that said he was thinking. Lee's stomach dropped to his toes, as his mind put a few pieces of information together out of the blue. His butt hit the desk top with a thud, and he looked at this commander and father.
"Are you thinking, what I think your thing you are?"
Bill nodded. "Yes." He looked at Laura, as she shifted a little. She was curled up; almost cat like next to him. "We have been getting some hints lately. That the Earthers were working on a way to add there "Radar" based technologies into a Raptor. It might have been a one of those tests, which you got a peek of." There were not state secrets that he was talking about, more the results of a few late night bull sessions in the ships bar.
When Bill got the hint, that she did not understand the importance of a test like that? He had to back track a little to fill in a few of her blanks mental spots about military technology. "The Earthers "Radar" is so different from our systems, like DRADIS. That we can't detect the energy wave they produce, or know when it's being used against us. So far it's been what the Colonial Navy would call very short ranges system, say forty miles or so for the most part. In space combat? You have to be able to reach a lot farther than that, to be of any real use."
Laura blinked a few times. "That doesn't seem like friendly things to do, without letting one of you two know about it?" One part of her mind was always working on, what if an allied turned on you at the worst possible time. Her mind stop at the point that they might start working with the cylons against the Colonials.
Bill gave her a soft laugh, but it was not condescending. "I don't think it's anything nefarious Laura. They have a lot of smart people over there, with a lot of free time on their hands. They were the ones, to first to invest the time and resources. On the idea to up armor a Vipers, and after we saw that it worked. We stated the same thing, but they put in all of the blood, sweat, and tears that the ground work first required. If they want to spend the time working, and tinkering on things, even what we would think of as only military items?"
Bill did a shoulder shrug, and started talking again. "Then I'm fine with it. I wish more of our people had those kinds of skills. So far, they have been working out the bugs, on a number of new things that we know if. Most that, might even be useful to the Fleet as a whole later on down the road. They have been happy to trade them to us in the past, after they have done almost all of the hard parts. It's a good balance of trade. Think of it like they are a small prototyping company from back home on Caprica. They work on something, then they traded the idea to a larger company to make the products."
Lee pulled out a note pad from his desk, which everyone could tell was an Earther made product. That was because it did not have the cut corner look of a Colonial supplied product. He flipped threw a couple of pages rapidly. He was looking for some notes, and the pages finally stopped moving, when he found what he was looking for.
"We ran test on the MK VIII Vipers, and they are twenty percent harder to detect than a standard MK VII Viper with DARDIS The same is true with the same modification to the one MK IIs Viper that, we computer modeled. We have not tried to find out what Radar might be able to do against them. Cylons don't use Radar, as far as we know and have found out."
Lee looked up from his notes and at his father. "If the updated Raptor have the same capabilities against normal DARDIS. And then you add in a detection system, which has the same low ability for cylons to know they are being watched?"
Lee was tapping the pad of paper with one of his fingers. "That will make the prototype Stealthstars look like a second rate child toy." The stealth star was Tyrol's modification of a version of the Viper craft, which was bleeding edge technology in the Colonies before the attack. To say and have computer models, that proved that a group of people. That did not have a jump drive or even could lift a ship all the way out of their gravity well. But could make those craft seem like child's play, was a powerful statement. Those people were just made to wage war on someone, or more to the point. They believed in being to not only wage war on someone, but be prepared to win a war against any and all comers.
Before he could say any more, an alarm went off on a wall mounted Clock near the main hatch. Lee looked at it, and then back to the older people in the room. "Sorry, I have to cut this short." He patted his much flatter stomach, but still not to the way it had been before the cylon's had attacked his people.
"I have to hit the gym. Dad, I will be gone for an hour and maybe a little more. Before I have to get cleaned up, and check back in with CIC." Lee was already moving as he spoke. He did not know it, but he had smile on his face. Lee was looking forward to going to the gym, which had not always been the case.
Lee picked up an already packed gym bag near the left side of his cabin desk, and left the cabin with some pep in his step. As he left his cabin, he had a strange thought. His dad was happy, and that was not a common event. Not even before, the cylons sneak attack.
"How would I feel, if the old man remarried? He could do worse than Laura Roslin as a wife," he thought. As he made his way to the main ships gym, for his daily work out. Then he had a dirty thought, of what he and Dee had done on that same couch a few nights before. Well, it was a comfortable piece of furniture. And it was very well designed piece of furniture, on top of that.
Lee had to give himself a mental shake. He almost tripped over his own feet, as a very disturbing image came into mental view. Kids should not think about their parent or about parents having sex. It was scaring, and they were fresh out of qualified therapist in the fleet. When he made the last turn in the corridor, he was wondering if he was going to see a sock on the hatch door when he came back. Scaring, very scaring.
Lee might have been in a good mood, after being in the meeting with Laura. But the same was not true for someone else, who watching a still image of the female president. The hard faced, dark haired man was staring at the image on the screen. And then without a thought, the glass flew from his hands as if it had a will of its own. It flew in a straight line into the screen projecting the high definition image, which had offended him so badly. He was lucky that the screen did not break with the impact of the cheap glass tumbler sticking against the device. It was not like he would be not, able to find another one. But it would be expensive, because they had no way to get more from the corner Colonial Entertainment store. He knew that he could always have one hand built, from one of the electronics ships. That is, if he had to.
Tom Zarek was very upset, but he was not alone in the room. So he could not do what he really wanted to do, if he was alone. It would have been seen as a loss of control. And the members of this group were people, who did not like others that could not control themselves at all times. Since they were human, they could and did understand anger. They even like anger to a point, because it gave them a powerful lever to use against that angered person. It gave them power over that person, and the people in this room. Let's just say that they were in love with acquiring more and more power over any of the other humans.
Tom looked around the room, after his fit of rage. It held only three members of the governing body, called the Quorum at this time. There should have been more of them in this room, but he had been suddenly losing power after his release from a cylon cell. Tom looked from the now wet projection screen, to the others in various locations in his room. He hopped that he was keeping most of the anger off of his face, and out of his voice. That was going to be about the only way that he would not lose any more power points to these few people.
"She was not supposed to give that information out to the public. Not until the Quorum had given the go ahead, to release only the facts that they had agreed to. She had lied to us again!" A little bit of spit flew out of Tom's mouth as he finished the last statement.
Laura had beaten Tom to the punch, again. He was going to "leak" the news, himself the morning of the planned briefing to the Quorum. It would have made Laura look bad, for keeping something like that a secret from the rest of the population. At the same time, it would make him look like the savior, for finding out what she had been hiding. And then being brave enough to risk getting the truth out to the people, which would have added even more point in his column. That plan went into the trash bin, with all the other plans that she and both of Adamas had made worthless by their action.
"Why had it been so hard to get back on top, after the cylons had been defeated?" Tom had only just been released from prison barge a few weeks ago. Some thought, had had told him to his face. That it was only temporary, but Tom knew better.
From a dark corner, a voice carried up to the front of the room. "What do you thing, this setback is going to be?"
The setback, which he was referring to. It was the plan to get Laura and Bill Adama out of their positions of power within the fleet. With them out of the way? It would open the way for having one of their people to fall into their places of power and leadership with in the fleet. What Tom did not know, was that he was going to be the lamb thrown to the wolves. But only after they had taken the other people in this room had their hands on reins of power. After all, he had been caught rigging elections before.
"Well at least someone was thinking about their jobs," thought Tom and completely missing the subtext. "We are on the sidelines for the near future. If we called for a vote now? We will lose, big time. If we would have known about, the sixth month timeline for leaving before now? We would not have started talking about sending people back down to that hell hole of a planet, to live on. Now we will have to pay for that in political capital, which we are already short of, to cover up that mistake."
Tom shook his head, and started to pace around the small, dark room. "I bet Roslin kept that information close hold, just so we would walk into a trap farther down the line. Frak that woman is smart! I wonder, who she learned that little trick from. On second thought. I wonder if it was her or Bill's idea, to hold those particular facts back. I could now see how both of them, could have come up with that little twist to throw at us." All of the people in this room had known that they were going to leave, but the timing of the departure had never been talking about.
"If we don't call a vote soon? What happens, when the Earthers demand a say in our Government?" Asked the female Quorum member sitting in an expensive overstuffed chair holding a drink, she had not touched yet.
Tom was looking at the still image of Laura again, frozen on the screen. "I think that we can drag our feet on that one. Besides, I don't think the Earthers are looking to official join the Council of Twelve in the short term. We have six months left here in this system, and then we are going to be on the run again. What we need to work out. Is how long, it will take before our people get tired of the all of the jumping again?"
Tom snapped around snake quick, to face the rest of the people in this room. "We can put in a motion, to delay election. Let's just say for twelve months to eighteen months, from the start of us traveling between the stars. That should be around long enough, for the people to start getting tired of living in these Fraking ships again."
Tom had no idea, if it was a good delay or not. But he did not have that many cards, which he could play in this game as of right now. He had been counting on at least having few hundred people shifting back down planet side. He had felt that Bill and Laura would have sent armed marines down, to drag them back to the ships when it was time to leave. Now something like that? He could have used to start driving people and support back into his political track and away from Laura's control.
The people in front of Tom nodded their heads up and down, in silent agreement to the plan. It was not really a plan, and he had just pulled out of thin air right that second of him speaking. Tom was very good about thinking and pulling something workable out of the hat on little or very short notice.
A strong male voice spoke, but his face was all in shadow. He did this out of old habit, so it would have been hard to know who was speaking in a larger meeting. It lost most of the effect that he had wanted, but habits were hard to break.
"Now we need to figure out next. Is a way to stop this move, of having only real silver and gold cubits being used for all transactions around the fleet?"
This was very important issue, because these people in the room or who they were connected with. All had a lot of that paper money in their possession. The physical cubits, that were now being made and used more and more around the fleet. This had been driving down the buying power of that paper money at an alarming rate. And that rate had seemed to be accelerating with the ever increasing number of those silver and gold cubits in use by the average citizen of within the fleet. Without money? They were without one of the keys to their power and position, which they needed to keep a hold of.
This started another round of debating, on how they were going to try to stop another one of Laura's plans. They would come up with half a dozen different way to try to stop the current leader. Tom was not part of this debate. He could not tell anyone in this room, but he like the idea. It was giving power to the people he most identified with. He had a gut feeling that all the ideas they were kicking around were going to fail, anyway.
The next six months was a blur of work among the people in this hidden system. All most ever person that could help, did help out in some way, shape or form. Trees were selected, cut, dried, milled, and packed down on in cargo bays across the fleet. A long list of plants that had been found, that had a use. As many of them as could be found, were collected and stored. A special skills detail had been drawn up out of the Colonials and Earthers. They were to find and store seeds of all kinds from the planet for future use. While all of this was going on land. A different group were out collecting all of the sea food that they could catch, or find. The last week of work in this area, all most all of the rules were waved. It was judged that one week of over fishing, would not damage the local ecology in a long term way.
The Earther built facility to make plastic, was also work every hour of every day and night for those last six months. They had even added as many people as they could, to each of those working shifts. This production was augmented by what was being taken from the Algae vats, to make a well-known Colonial brand of cheap but very useful Plastic. Any of the plastic that was not being used or needed to protect the food and other items? It was packed down as tightly as they could. And it was stored along with the extra wood and leather going up to the little fleet of spaceships.
The clay storage area was filled, and even topped off as it was used in the production of ship killing nuclear weapons. When the fleet was about ready to leave, one last mission would be sent down to pick up the last fifty tons of the Lithium rich clay, what was sitting near the mining site. Besides picking up that last load of clay, there last task would be to then cover up the whole mining site. This extra detail was not going to be needed for the underwater mine, that produces the primary component for the nuclear weapons. That mine was able to pull out a total of 50,000 tons of the raw ores, from those hard to reach vines. The mine was nowhere near used up. Even on the last day of mining the ore was still almost as good as the first days of mining.
The ship and the crew of the ship refining the ores had enough ore on hand, for only about six weeks of high production. Admiral Adama had wanted to carry more, but storage space was starting to become a major issue all across the fleet. It was with a very sad heart, which he had agreed to shut down those important mines. He knew that they had pulled more out, than he could have ever hopped for. All in such a short timeline, that it was in bad form to want to much more.
When the last of greenhouses crops were ready, most were harvested normally. But a lot of the planets were allowed to go all the way to seed, before they were taken out of the ground. The seeds would be needed, to continue growing all of the fresh food needed for the fleet on the next leg of the trip. After each of the largest growing boxes was empty, it would be broken down into its recoverable parts. The key parts that could be reused, were salvaged and put pack in the dawdling amount of open cargo spaces. In the end, it took two weeks longer than planned to complete all of needed task. But soon everything was ready, for the next phase of living for everyone carried in the Rag Tag Fleet.