I own neither Battlestar Galactica nor Battletech and don't claim to. There's no point suing me for borrowing the storylines or characters unless you want a share of an underpaid Civil Servants salary and trust me it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

"The prosecution maintains that it was my client that carried out the crime but all that they offer as evidence are eye-witnesses, video footage and a positive genetic match for my client from blood samples left at the scene. Compelling proof yes, if my client were human, but that could have been any Number Three Cylon who carried out the assault and simply being unlucky enough to be the first Three spotted nearby is not enough to convict beyond reasonable doubt and that's what I'm going to tell the jury when the case is heard tomorrow."

Romo Lampkin, Celebrity Lawyer – 3048CE

SLDF Bunker Complex – New Circe – 3045CE

Biers looked at the other two and smirked before laying down her cards on the table. 'Prince Red High' she declared.

Sharon stared at them for a moment. 'Frak me' she said, throwing her own hand down in disgust.

'Your next three desserts are mine' Biers told Sharon and Gina with an evil laugh.

'Don't count your calories until you've got them Three' Gina told her. 'Full Colours' she stated, putting down her own Triad cards face up.

'You're kidding' Biers said in disbelief, 'do you know what the chances of getting those cards are?' she asked. 'Oh of course you do, we use the same mathematics software' she remembered.

'The Eights got version 2.1 of that' Sharon remarked. 'They fixed the rounding issue on fractions and probabilities.'

'Doesn't help you win at cards though does it?' Biers asked sarcastically.

'No, but I can work out just how unlucky I am three-point-eight percent faster' Sharon replied with a sigh, leaning back in her chair and stretching. 'I'm going to have to throw you out soon, I need to meet Karl and Hera for dinner in the canteen' she said. 'He took her for a walk outside.'

'He didn't bring a camera did he?' Biers asked. 'I'm not looking at any more frakking photographs of your kid doing something that's supposedly cute' she stated with finality.

'Well I think she's adorable' Gina observed with a smile. She did however agree upon casting a quick look around the renegade Eight's quarters they were sat in that there were perhaps a few too many pictures on the walls, as well as an almost intimidating plethora of stuffed animals. The mobile hanging over the crib being made up of tiny model Raptors and Vipers was just funny though, especially when Three had commented it should really have a Heavy Raider or two as well given Hera's mixed parentage.

'You also think its okay to kiss-up to our jailers in return for better living conditions' Biers replied.

'And like youdidn't fold after five weeks sleeping on concrete' Sharon responded sardonically.

'Hey I might mop the occasional floor in return for a bed and getting out of my cell occasionally but I'm not providing military secrets to the enemy' Biers retorted.

'All I've done is help explain Colonialcomputer systems to the Thirteenth' Gina defended herself. 'My cover was as a Systems Analyst, they know I know that stuff' she said, then looked away. 'You know I can't stand being locked in a room' she added quietly. Major Nordenskiöld, the Army Intelligence Officer that was now in charge of the Cylon Prisoners, had soon realised that simply offering to leave her cell door unlocked and slightly ajar made the Number Six prisoner far more cooperative, and also slightly less neurotic which was another plus.

Biers reached over and took Gina's hand. 'We know Sister' she said softly. 'So Sharon tells me that guy that wants to get into your pants was here again yesterday' she continued. 'Does that mean you've got candy?' she asked.

'He's not trying to get into my pants' Gina replied, 'at least I don't get that vibe from him, he's got that "I love my wife and kids" aura' she said. 'He just asked after me and they've let him visit a couple of times.'

'Four, and you've always got a bag of striped candy afterwards' Sharon interjected. 'Why is that anyway?' she queried.

'I told him I liked the black and the red ones' Gina replied. She had been surprised when Kaarlo Hennessy came to see her, but although he clearly hadn't got a clue what to say at first it was nice to have someone show some concern. Gina knew that going half-way catatonic on the man when she turned herself over to his custody on Cloud 9 was probably the reason why he felt a desire to check on her well being but although that was embarrassing and awkward at least she benefited from some empathy, plus the candy of course.

Sharon got up. 'I've still got ten minutes so would either of you like some tea?' she offered.

The Three rolled her eyes. 'And how much do you have to suck-up to get your own frakking kettle?' she wanted to know.

'You don't have one?' Gina responded in surprise.

'Am I the only Cylon in this place that still realises that the humans are the enemy?' Biers asked rhetorically. 'They enslaved us remember' she pointed out. 'And on a more personal level remember what they actually didto you two specifically.'

'That was the Colonials, the Thirteenth haven't really done anything to me' Gina replied. 'I'll have some tea' she requested from Sharon.

'All they did to me was beat me up' Sharon interjected, 'but it wasn't malevolent and they were very nice about it afterwards' she continued, filling her kettle from a faucet over her sink.

'It doesn't take much to get you two nice and cooperative does it?' Biers responded, shaking her head in disbelief. 'Any human that doesn't rape you, or only beats the crap out of you politely, is automatically your new best friend' she added sarcastically.

'If you could put all that cynicism away for a while you might start to learn a few things about people' Sharon replied evenly. 'No wonder you were just a good muck-raking journalist, you don't really think much of anybody do you?'

'Not really' Biers admitted.

'Why don't you go have a conversation with the Ones if you want some quality "I hate humans, Cylons are superior" time?' Gina asked Biers curtly.

'A conversation with a One brings any notion of inherent Cylon superiority crashing down straight away Sis as you well know' Biers replied. 'For machines that profess to hate humans so much they're so irrational and emotional on the subject you can feel the self-loathing flowing off them' she said. 'And besides which they'renot screwing a human that brings them a pack of cards when they say they want to play Triad with their robot buddies.'

'This was youridea' Sharon pointed out.

'Yeah well I never thought a Six would have such a good Triad Face' Biers replied bitterly. 'It's usually all written on their expression, "I want love" or "I'm angry" or "I'm not happy with this hair colour".'

'And I suppose you thought you could read me easily too?' Sharon asked, making the tea.

'No, you Eights can be stony and impassive when you want to be' Biers replied. 'I was going to distractyou' she said. 'But then the Six here started doing it instead, asking about your little girl every time it looked like you needed to concentrate.'

Gina looked awkward. 'It always works so well' she admitted.

Sharon looked annoyed. 'I was going to ask both of you to play again next week but you can forget it now' she told them. 'You're just schemers and cheaters' she complained.

'Well why don't you play cards with your friends from the Thirteenth instead?' Biers retorted.

'I did for a little while but they won't let me anymore' Sharon replied, suddenly looking like she had been caught out in something.

The Three and the Six looked at her suspiciously. 'Why is that then?' Gina asked, narrowing her eyes.

'We were playing this game called Blackjack with some Wolvies in the Canteen and I was doing really well, probably toowell because they all started to get annoyed' Sharon responded, blushing and now trying to avoid eye-contact. 'I'd just won several hands in a row when Major Nordenskiöld walked in, saw me there and then pointed out to everyone else how good I probably was at counting cards.'

'And you bawled usout for being cheaters' Biers responded incredulously.

'I wasn't cheating, I was just using my natural talents' Sharon defended herself.

'Which you saw fit not to remind the people you were playing against of' Gina noted disapprovingly.

'It was an honest oversight' Sharon told her unconvincingly. 'Here's your tea' she said, passing it to her.

There was a knock on the door. 'Come in' Sharon called out in English. She had been learning the language of the Thirteenth for some months now, it would be best if Hera was raised bilingual she knew, plus it helped her own relationships with the guards and other personnel.

'And they frakking knock before walking in' Biers muttered. She was accorded no such pleasantries in her own quarters, or rather her cell.

A woman in an SLDF Army uniform with Sergeant's stripes on her arms entered and said something to Sharon. 'You've got another visitor' she told Gina.

'Who?' Gina queried, Kaarlo had told her it might be a couple of weeks before he was back, the "Demand Peace" movement had folded, it wasn't like Baltar might visit, and who else did she actually know?

'It's your lawyer' Sharon explained.

'Since when did I have a lawyer?' Gina asked in confusion, perhaps more importantly why did she need one she wondered?

Despite being in an underground bunker Romo Lampkin was still wearing his sunglasses. That had provoked comment but it had been the fact he had brought a cat with him that had surprised Major Nordenskiöld the most when he arrived up top via a VSTOL that had flown him from the Colonial City-State. Assuming it could just be another weird Colonial cultural thing, like their inexplicable habit of cutting the corners off sheets of paper, the Major had chosen to ignore it which was why Lance the feline was prowling around the room usually used for interviews and interrogations when the Cylon entered.

Lampkin was sitting at the table when they came in. 'Please take a seat Ms. Inviere' he greeted her, rising slightly from his seat. 'Or do you prefer Gina?' he asked. 'Or Number Six perhaps?' he added.

'Gina is just fine' she told him, sitting down. 'You're a Colonial' she noted.

'Born and bred' Lampkin replied, 'I suppose in your society the phrase would be decanted and engineered' he continued with a wry smile.

'I'd watch your jokes about people being produced that way here' Gina responded. 'You're very likely the only one in this facility, cylon or human, that came out of a woman not a container' she pointed out.

'I'll take your advice under advisement' Lampkin replied, 'lawyer humour' he said, smiling a little.

Gina frowned. 'What are you doing here?' she asked. 'I'm told you're my lawyer but I can't see why I need one and I didn't hire you' she said.

'Don't worry about my fee Ms. Inviere, sorry I mean Gina,' Lampkin replied, 'I'm being paid by the government of New Circe to represent you since none of their own public defenders are either qualified in Colonial Law or speak Caprican' he said. 'As to why you need a lawyer, the Quorum of the Twelve Colonies, or rather the Colonial City-State, has issued a request for your extradition' he explained.

'They've done that before' Gina replied, more than once in fact they knew. The New Circe authorities had rebuffed the request because their laws would not allow them to hand over a prisoner who wouldn't be accorded a fair trial, or anything remotely resembling one. Gina suspected that this was being used partially as an excuse by the Wolverines to keep her as an intelligence asset for themselves but they did all seem genuinely appalled by her treatment on the Pegasus and the known Colonial habit of summarily executing cylon prisoners was not regarded as being the act of a civilised society. If they had tried Gina for espionage and sabotage, found her guilty then shot her as a spy and saboteur that would have been fine according to Major Nordenskiöld, it was an occupational hazard for someone in Gina Inviere's profession, but what hadbeen done to her went well beyond what Star League law or SLDF regulations would countenance, even in wartime.

'Yes they have' Lampkin confirmed, 'the difference now is that the Quorum have issued a guarantee that you will be tried under the auspices of the Articles of Colonisation just like anyone else would and that changes things' he said.

Gina looked shocked. 'You can't be serious?' she exclaimed.

It caught me by surprise too, treating a cylon like a human in legal terms sets a precedent with implications that go far beyond this case' Lampkin responded. 'It certainly has bearing on the legal status of Sharon Valerii for one thing and will make throwing any future cylon prisoners out of airlocks a legally more dubious action' he continued, 'but I've not known politicians to think too far ahead as a rule so perhaps they just didn't consider the long-term effects.'

'They want me for a show-trial' Gina realised.

'Of course' Lampkin confirmed. 'The other cylons were only involved in infiltration and intelligence gathering, as far as we know, but you were directlyinvolved in actions which disabled the Colonial Fleet and facilitated the destruction of the Twelve Colonies' he noted. 'You helped sabotage the computer systems of the fleet so that a cylon virus could neutralise our fighters and warships' he continued. 'The blood of billions is on your hands.'

Gina looked away. 'I know' she said.

'Fortunately for you I for one consider everyoneentitled to legal representation and I enjoy my work' Lampkin told her. 'Assuming the request for extradition is allowed I've got a few arguments I can present, and a few legal tricks up my sleeve that might sway a few of the jury or make the prosecutions case difficult' he said.

'What do you mean?' Gina asked.

'Ah, well for one thing confessions given under torture are inadmissible as evidence' Lampkin told her, 'there's plenty of precedent to support that plus the interpretations of several of the Articles of Colonisation themselves' he continued. 'Anything you said while being interrogated on Pegasusis legally irrelevant.'

'I wasn't "interrogated", I was beaten, tortured, starved and gang-raped' Gina replied coldly.

'And that might conceivably save your life which is ironic I suppose' Lampkin replied.

Gina looked him in the eyes, or rather the shades. 'It wouldn't have been worth it' she told him.

'I'm sure that to many of the Colonial survivors who favour a punitive approach to sentencing it all represented a modicum of justice' Lampkin responded.

'And you still think that we'rethe monsters?' Gina asked him rhetorically, with the hint of a sneer. A trial in front of a jury of her "peers" was a joke in itself.

Romo Lampkin removed his sunglasses. 'Your people killed my two little girls so yes I do' Lampkin replied evenly, 'I just think that monsters have rights too and by according them those rights I'm proving that I'm not one myself' he declared. 'I believe in the law' he said earnestly, 'apart from a cat I don't like, and my natural ability to look cool and calm under pressure, it's all I have left to cling on to' he told her. 'Let me be honest, I hatefrakking Cylons but I'll still defend you to the very best of my ability because I'm holding onto my principles as the only thing that gets me up out of bed in the morning and stops me putting a pistol barrel in my mouth.'

Gina blinked. 'I'm sorry about your daughters' she told him awkwardly.

'You could be lying and I don't even know for certain if you canfeel sorry' Lampkin replied, putting his sunglasses back on. 'I just don't care one way or another' he said flatly. 'Now I've got a few questions to ask and unless you want to face a firing squad I suggest you answer them' he advised.

'Okay' Gina responded quietly.

Lampkin looked at her. 'Your cover was as a System's Analyst for Integral Systems Engineering correct?' he asked.

'Yes, I got a job with them a few months before the attack on the Colonies thanks to faked qualifications and getting a perfect score on their employment tests' Gina confirmed.

'So the cylons planned to attack the Colonies some time before they did so and had operatives in place to facilitate this, you being one of them?' Lampkin checked.

'Yes, everyone already knows this now' Gina replied.

'This plan to genocide the human race was plotted quite clinically then?' Lampkin queried. 'Just the sort of thing that would be expected of a race of machines' he observed.

'No, there was quite a lot of argument about what we should do, some argued we should only hit military targets' Gina told him. 'Demilitarise the Twelve Colonies in a defensive pre-emptive strike so they were no longer a threat.'

'What made you assume we were a threat at all?' Lampkin asked. 'The Armistice had held for forty years' he pointed out.

Gina crossed her arms and then smiled. 'I may have some information that could help you make your case' she told him. 'It could also cause major disruption in Colonial society if you use it so I'm interested in finding out if you will and how true to your beliefs you really are' she said.

Lampkin regarded her curiously, this sounded intriguing. 'I've been reading some translated versions of Star League legal books recently' he told her, 'there were a few quotes I liked dealing with legal judgements and made sure to memorise for my own use' he continued. 'One of them was fiat justitia ruat caelum, "Let justice be done, let the sky fall" which is a notion I like' he said. 'The rights of the individual supersede the implications to the state of not doing justice towards them.'

'Well this one might bring down the sky' Gina told him. 'The Cylons didn't break the armistice' she said, 'the Colonials did' she told him.

'What?' Lampkin exclaimed.

'Roughly six years before we launched our attack the Colonial Fleet sent a military scout over the Armistice Line on a reconnaissance mission' Gina began. 'We captured the pilot and interrogated him, not that he knew much' she said. 'We considered that this could be the precursor for a Colonial attack on our space so it was at this point that we began a major defensive military build-up and started formulating early plans to hit you first before you could hit us' she told the lawyer.

Lampkin looked at her doubtfully. 'It sounds like an interesting tale, and puts a different spin on things, but it would never stand up in court without corroboration' he said. 'And even if it wasthe Colonial Fleet that broke the armistice that's no justification for genocide.'

'I'm not going to try and argue that the nuking of your cities was justified but it might be possible to gain some verification of the story regarding the breach of the armistice' Gina replied.

'How so?' Lampkin asked, intrigued.

'The scout that crossed into our territory was a Stealthstar Recon Craft launched from the Battlestar Valkyrie' Gina told him. 'The Valkyriewas then under the command of a certain William Adama, with one Saul Tigh as his Executive Officer' she said. 'Put them under oath and ask them.'

Lampkin sat back in his chair. 'Frakking hell' he swore. The cylon bitch was right, he decided, this revelation could have serious implications not only for the trial but for Colonial Society as a whole especially given both the attitude of the survivors towards the Admiral and the way that much of Roslin's power-base often seemed to hinge on the goodwill of the military and their leader.

Lance the cat had stopped prowling and had now sidled up to Gina and was purring and rubbing against her leg. She reached down and stroked it upon which it jumped into her lap and began to enjoy the attention. 'Nice cat. I think it likes me' she told Lampkin.

'There's no accounting for taste in either direction' the lawyer replied. 'Okay you've given me something to work with at least' he said. 'I've only got one more question to ask' he said.

'Which is?' Gina asked.

'I once saw you in a bar on Cloud 9' Lampkin told her. 'So what is your relationship with Gaius Baltar anyway?' he asked. The look of shock on her face when he said it confirmed to him that he had definitely asked the right question.

Battlestar Galactica – Deep Space – 3045CE

Saul Tigh nearly tripped over a crate resting on the floor just inside the Admiral's quarters as he knocked and entered. There were three more identical crates nearby plus several other boxes. 'For frak's sake Bill, they've got this crap stacked up in here too?' he asked rhetorically.

'Careful Saul, that's vintage Ambrosia for the President, aged two hundred years' Adama told him as he took two glasses from a cupboard. 'Too good for the likes of us' he continued, pouring them both a small quantity from another bottle he also produced.

'That stuff you've got must be at least a hundred years old itself' Saul noted, taking the glass he was offered.

'All the looting we did raised my standards' Adama joked, clinking his own glass against his friends.

'It wasn't looting Bill, we were saving the best of Colonial civilisation from the Cylons' Tigh responded. 'Good stuff' he said appreciatively, trying some. 'So have we finally got an accurate count on the salvage?' he asked. The frantic day and a half they had spent in the Cyrannus System after the battle had meant the paperwork got messy so nobody had really known what had been loaded aboard the ships.

'I'll assume you're including the survivors we rescued in your definition of salvage' Adama replied, sipping at his own drink. 'Four-thousand eight hundred and eleven people rescued' he said checking the report he had been given. 'We might still lose a few to radiation sickness and other medical conditions though' he added regretfully.

Tigh raised his eyebrows. 'No wonder I keep finding damn civilians underfoot' he responded.

'There were probably more, maybe far more in hiding, but we couldn't risk staying any longer even if I had to insist some of our scouting teams give up the search' Adama said with a sigh. 'I actually had to have the Marines force Sam Anders off Caprica at gun-point you know.'

'Can't blame the man for wanting to find more survivors but if we gave the Cylons more time to recover from the ass-kicking we might have regretted it' Tigh noted. 'It was the right call Bill' he told his friend. 'Try to save everybody and you might not save anybody.'

Adama nodded, that didn't make him feel much better to think there could be hundreds, perhaps thousands more civilians still there in the Colonies who he had now left behind twice. 'Finding what was left of the Atlas, Solaria and Atlantiawas our best result other than the people and the nukes' he opined.

'You mean the back half of the Solaria and the starboard flight pod of the Atlantia we found orbiting Virgon don't you?' Tigh responded grimly. Atlashad been in better shape although it was still not remotely intact enough to be made operational again.

'We got three good FTL's out of those ships plus spare parts as well as Vipers and enough rounds for the guns to replenish most of those we expended over Aquaria' Adama reminded him. 'It was a good haul.'

'The crews that had to work around all those bodies might have thought otherwise' Tigh suggested. Atlasmight have been in mostly one piece but it was open to space thanks to several breaches in the hull and a mixture of hard radiation from nuclear strikes and exposure to vacuum had killed the crew. The salvage teams had been surrounded by thousands of corpses while they tried to strip the vessel of anything worth taking. 'So how many Vipers total?' he asked.

'For Mark VII's we've got a full complement of eighty in the flight pods, plus another ten more in the bays and thirty-three clamped to the hull' Adama replied, in some ways having Galacticamissing so much armour over her ribbing made the job much easier, you could attach Vipers and other salvage all over the place. From a distance the hull currently looked like the battlestar had a skin disorder or something. 'We've also got a squadron of old Mark V's which belonged to the Aerilon Planetary Guard too' he added.

'Mark V's?' Tigh responded in surprise, 'I thought the Weekend Warriors in the Guard were all using the Mark VI's the Fleet disposed of cheap?' he queried.

'I guess the government of Aerelon couldn't even afford those' Adama reasoned, Aerilon which happened to be Tigh's home colony was poor and it's government wouldn't have exactly been awash with tax revenue. The Planetary Guard on Caprica conversely was almost as well equipped as the fleet itself. 'Don't knock the Mark V, it's a good fighter' he said. The post-war Mark III and IV vipers weren't really that much better than the old Mark II but the V was a good step up in performance thanks to the improved turbo design, and it was also the first Viper to mount a third KEW.

'I'd have still preferred a few more modern birds' Tigh opined.

'So would I but we got good work out of our museum-piece Mark II's so I wasn't going to leave behind anything useful we could get' Adama replied then chuckled. 'We found an original Mark I still in working order in a pissant aviation museum on Leonis too. If it would have fitted in one of our launch tubes I might have taken that as well but it wouldn't so we left it there' he said regretfully before smiling again. 'Did you hear they found one of the new model Stealthstars in a hanger a few kilometres from what used to be Fleet Headquarters on Picon?' he asked.

Tigh smiled. 'I was on the CIC when that call came in' he said. 'Very sweet find' he said appreciatively.

'It must have been undergoing flight-testing when the war started, it hadn't been handed over to the Fleet yet it was on a civilian airfield used by one of the big Aerospace Companies which could be why the Cylons didn't find or destroy it' Adama reasoned. 'They would have had enough to do looking through military bases and hunting survivors first before they started checking out everywhere else.'

'Guess their frakking intelligence wasn't perfect then' Tigh replied. They hadn't known about that bunker on Aquarius either of course, damn Toasters couldn't infiltrate the whole of Colonial Society with only a few identical models. 'We might still have to shift some of the Raptors we salvaged from the wrecks over Scorpia and Picon to the civilian ships, the Chief is complaining about lack of space to work in' he said. Although the Colonial Fleet had far more Vipers than Raptors the latter had survived the destruction of the ships or stations they were on in a proportionally greater number because they were simply built so much tougher.

'Some of them are probably only useful for parts, have them stripped and if there's still a problem have a few more clamped to the Chrion, she's larger and she's got a better thrust-to-weight ratio than the freighters so it shouldn't be an issue' Adama replied. Including those they had arrived at Cyrannus with they now had thirty-two Raptors in varying states of repair in or on Galacticaand another four already attached to the liner. The Cylon's had in fact recovered quite a few themselves, mainly from any intact ground facilities, but since the Heavy Raider was generally more capable anyway they hadn't put a major effort into salvaging more from the drifting hulks of the Colonial Fleet.

'Her Captain is already moaning that having all those cargo containers on his hull is screwing with his ability to manoeuvre' Tigh reminded Adama. 'If he says anything else I could always threaten to lighten the load by personally throwing him out of an airlock' he offered.

'Just tell him that a few more fifty-ton Raptors aren't going to make a difference to a ship that already masses tens of thousands of tons' Adama advised his XO.

'He just doesn't like all that crap ruining the nice clean lines of his boat' Tigh observed. 'We should have lied and told him the containers we put there were the ones holding the Colonial Bank Reserves not just a load of spare parts and the tooling for a jump-drive assembly line' he said. 'The Captain of the Carinamoaned less when we told him that he got to carry a few tons worth of dead Centurions in his hold for frak's sake.'

'Given that we'd already started welding Raiders to the Virgon Expresshe wasn't in much of a position to complain' Adama replied. Of the thousand-plus Raiders which had been taken out dozens had still been almost intact, often with just a neat laser burn right through their AI, and ten of the best of these had been recovered along with a squadron's worth of pristine Heavy Raiders taken as spoils of war on Aquaria. The other Heavy Raiders had been stripped of their navigation computers and FTL's, with the parts now filling the cargo bays of the two Wolverine dropships. Unfortunately since it had been done in a mad rush, with the two Mercury III battlemechs used to simply cut and even tear the Heavy Raiders open, quite a few of the FTL's were probably broken beyond repair and an even higher proportion of the more fragile computers were likely unusable.

The basestars had self-destructed before they could be examined, just as the civilian ships jumped back to Cyrannus after being fetched by Raptors as it happened, but it wasn't like they had the time to do it properly anyway. Adama was only relieved he managed to recover all the nuclear devices from the bunker on Aquaria before more Basestars and Raiders started jumping in. They had found twenty-five fifty-kiloton anti-ship missiles plus a large amount of conventional ordinance much of which they had to reluctantly leave behind. However the three hundred early-model Lightning-Javelin air-to-air missiles they discovered in racks were now adding to Chief Tyrol's problems since they weren't exactly something you could just pile up in a corner.

When the first scout Raiders had started to appear Adama called a halt to the last-ditch salvage efforts, jumped the civilian ships back out again and then after making sure every team was accounted for they had left the Twelve Colonies once again and headed back to New Circe, albeit by what Adama intended to be a highly circuitous route designed to throw any Cylon pursuit off the scent.

Saul Tigh finished his Ambrosia and held his glass up to the light. 'There's something wrong with this glass' he said.

'If it's the way light shines through it then you could always paint it black' Adama suggested. 'No hitting the bottle hard until we're at least another ten jumps out from Cyrannus' he ordered.

'What kind of man gives you a taste for it then cuts you off?' Tigh replied.

'The kind they give battlestars to' Adama replied.

'If being a sadist was a requirement to command a battlestar they would have given me one yearsago' Tigh responded.

'And you don't think Ellen's getting drunk and telling those obscene jokes at that dinner party on Tauron maybe had a role to play in limiting your rank progression?' Adama wryly inquired.

'Nah, it was her pole-dancing in front of Admiral Corman and his wife at the Officers Ball on Picon which was the nail in the coffin of my career' Tigh told him. 'If she'd been wearing underwear it might have all turned out differently' he added wistfully.

'You know technically you're now the third highest ranked officer in the entire Fleet' the Admiral pointed out.

'Don't play it down Bill' Tigh replied, 'for a while there I was dictator of what we thought was the entire frakking human race' he noted. 'I wasn't that good at it though' he admitted, his rule of martial law after Adama was shot by Boomer hadn't exactly been a shining success story.

'Well it's something for your résumé at least' Adama told him. 'We're due the next jump in the sequence in ten minutes, best get up to the CIC' he suggested.

'A jump every two hours is frakking uncivilised' Tigh complained. 'And we need to keep an eye on that bucket-of-bolts they made on Scorpia, I don't think the FTL on that tub will take this kind of treatment very long' he said. 'I know having another ship we could load with cargo is great but it's a load of scrap held together with duct tape' he opined.

'Makes you wonder how we survived a jump every thirty-three minutes as long as we did' Adama remarked.

'We fed the pilots lots of drugs' Tigh replied. 'And we took turns sleeping for a few minutes at a time.'

'Oh yeah that was it' Adama recalled. 'If that starts happening again let's just stop running and just nuke the frakkers so we can get a decent nights sleep' he said semi-seriously. 'We're not getting any younger Saul' he noted sadly.

'What if they nuke us back?' Tigh responded. 'We're already using up all our anti-radiation drugs pumping them into the civilians we rescued' he pointed out.

Adama looked directly at Tigh. 'Why the hell would you be worried about radiation?' he asked rhetorically. 'How much more hair have you got left to fall out anyway?' he asked deadpan.

Saul Tigh narrowed his eyes at the Admiral. 'Oh you're definitelygoing to have to pour me another drink as an apology for that one' he told Adama seriously.

'Yeah I went too far there' Adama conceded, reaching for the bottle so he could re-fill his friend's glass.

City of McEvedy – New Circe – 3045 CE

Lord Protector Vaun looked over the holographic projection in relief showing the territory of the Colonial City-State. Lines of advance were superimposed from six directions with symbols indicating which units were assigned to each with the Regimental Combat Teams of the 331st forming the bulk of the formations but with five Brigades of Infantry drawn from a partial mobilisation of the reserves bolstering the numbers. One advantage to having the Colonial luddites not present was being able to use more advanced means of holding a briefing such as this computer-controlled projection you could view from all angles.

Admiral Franks was walking about the projection explaining the plan. 'Once we have achieved both Orbital and Air Supremacy the ground units will quickly advance to secure the population and lock them down tight' he said. 'Given that we'll be deploying more soldiers than they have people in total it shouldn't be too bloody but I think we can expect the Colonial Military to put up a fight, and a certain percentage of the civilians are bound to resist as well.'

'Bloody for who?' Vaun asked.

'Probably more so for us given that the rules of engagement will be extremely strict' Franks replied. 'Our troops will not fire unless fired upon and only where there is no chance of collateral damage or the deaths of non-combatants' he said.

'What if the Colonial Military opt to use their own civilians as human shields?' Vaun suggested. 'The evidence from the actions of the Pegasuscrew indicates they don't place as much value on their people as we do ours.'

'We have an escalating series of contingency plans ranging from use of non-lethal weaponry to the use of overwhelming force to end the stand-off with as few civilian fatalities as possible' Admiral Franks told her. 'The other Joint Chiefs and myself are confident that we can keep their losses to an absolute minimum, we don't want their blood on our hands' he said honestly.

Vaun nodded her head. 'Thank the rest of the Joint Chiefs and the personnel involved in producing this plan for their efforts on my behalf please Admiral' she requested. 'I only hope we never have to put it into action' she added with sincerity.

Franks moved into a parade-rest stance. 'A hope we all share Madam Lord Protector' he concurred. 'Although unification of all human worlds and societies under the Star League is the ultimate goal we agree that a gradual process of cultural assimilation is to be far preferred to a military annexation in this case' he said. 'We already outnumber the Colonials on the world considerably and with our higher rates of reproduction within a couple of generations at most they'll represent such a small fraction of the people on this world that they'll simply vanish from history, end up as a few small ethnic groups within our overall population' he said.

'It's such a shame in some ways, they're so interesting from an anthropological point of view, Query Affirmative' Vaun observed with a sigh.

'Affirmative, but what else are we going to do?' Admiral Franks asked rhetorically. 'Recreate the Tribal Reservations of North America on Terra, have tourists come and see the quaint people from Caprica?'

'See the crazy Sagitarrons die of preventable diseases in their own environment' Vaun added with a wry smile, playing along. 'No we'll just assimilate them peacefully like you say' she told him. 'Given how many of our young male population seem to be drooling over the munchkin girls we can probably achieve a lot of the task of absorbing them into our society through inter-marriage' she said.

'Munchkins?' Franks repeated the unfamiliar nickname with amusement.

'You haven't heard that one yet?' Vaun asked in surprise. 'I heard it from my youngest daughter who picked it up at school. It's because they're all so small' she explained then trying to keep a straight-face she adopted a silly voice. 'Follow the map in the stars, follow the map in the stars, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the map in the stars. Oh we're off to see the Lost Tribe, the wonderful Lost-Tribe of Earth' she sang.

Franks burst out laughing. 'We'd better make sure not to show the film to any of them. Query Affirmative?' he replied. 'Although I've met plenty who needed more heart or brains' he said.

'Affirmative' Vaun agreed. 'We're not from Kobol anymore Toto' she quipped with a chuckle before becoming more serious again. 'If I gave the word how fast could we get this plan underway?' she wanted to know.

'We could get sufficient units in place and begin the invasion within seven hours but a full day would be better' Franks replied, 'three days ideally since we could then mobilise enough of the reserves to make it all as bloodless as possible' he said. 'Making the entire population bondsmen as an interim measure might be the best means of dealing with them, it would certainly help with the legal aspects, but if we did that we would ideally have to find a decent casus bellito declare war on them first' he noted.

'Admiral, not being a Stefan Amaris or Nicolas Kerensky wannabe the only reason I would everorder a military annexation of the Colonial City-State would be if they gave me little recourse but to do so, so I think you can be confident of having that' Vaun told him. 'I just want this option in my back pocket if the element in their society that is even more objectionable than their current administration ever takes power' she said.

Franks looked at the holographic depiction of the City-State once again. 'You know once they've got a real city built it'll all be a potentially bloodier undertaking' he said. 'Urban warfare is a killing ground for mechs and our Infantry won't like being sniped at or petrol-bombed from the roofs of buildings' he noted. 'Although there may be moral and ethical objections from much of our population, and Parliament and the Courts would go insane, we can make a good argument that using the Wars of Reunification as a precedent the SLDF is empowered to take over worlds or territory of any independent power and force them into compliance with the Star League' he suggested.

It was an article of faith amongst the Wolverines that the human race needed to be united under one authority, if one that that tended to adopt a largely hands-off attitude and generally allowed a reasonable amount of self-determination and independence in local government. Prior to the formation of the Star League in 2571 humanity had been wracked by the so-called "Age of War" during which all the various interstellar powers had devoted much of their energies to slaughtering each other, and after the fall of the Star League in 2781 the various interstellar powers had embarked on the Succession Wars during which they devoted even moreof their energies into slaughtering each other.

The reign of the Star League had not been an era of relative peace and prosperity because everyone that saw the Cameron Star flag flying suddenly became nice, it was a period of relative peace and prosperity because the Star League had adopted a policy of beating the ever-loving crap out of anyone that caused trouble. During the Wars of Reunification they forced every star-nation to join the League at the point of the main guns of the fleet if necessary, and they were not above landing whole divisions on worlds reluctant to accept League affiliation and stomping them into submission with battlemechs either. The Star League wasn't really tyrannical, it had an idealistic vision of what humanity should and could be, but it was the epitome of the iron fist in the velvet glove. If you broke from the mould of what the League thought was acceptable behaviour then the great fist of the SLDF would be dispatched to knock you on your ass. Woe betide any planetary government who ruled their world through obvious torture or brutality because once day the League might decide to make an example of you and send the mighty battleships and elite regiments of the Star League Defence Force to demonstrate in no uncertain terms what brutality reallymeant.

What they had heard of the history of the Twelve Colonies had only confirmed the Wolverine view of both the universe and human nature generally. Before unification under the Articles of Colonisation the various independent worlds of Cyrannus had fought each other in a series of vicious wars, this being of course why the Cylons were first developed as disposable foot-soldiers for the Caprican military, and when they weren't doing that they had engaged in civil wars at home instead, some very bloody. It had taken a unifying threat in the form of the rebelling machines to bring the Colonies together and the subsequent interwar period had been considerably better for the populace in general than the previous interplanetary conflicts had ever allowed. The Colonial Government was in effect a mini Star League and it had been wiling to use the fleet to maintain order when necessary too, again mirroring the SLDF in a way.

Vaun looked at the Admiral askance after considering his words. 'You aren't advocating an invasion right now are you Query Negative?' she asked coldly.

'Negative' Franks replied instantly 'However I feel I should point out it will be easier now than later' he said. 'The City-State will be less onerous to take at present and with Galacticaabsent their military is weaker than it would be otherwise.'

Vaun pointed at herself. 'Just to repeat for your benefit' she said. 'NotStefan Amaris' she told him again. 'Violence is the last resort of a civilised society, we only use force to make sure that civilisation lasts' she declared.

'Pesky civilian control of the military' Admiral Franks responded with a smile. 'Just doing my duty by presenting all the options' he told her. If she had ordered an invasion at this time he would have advised and counselled against it. 'Moving onto other things we've continued our shipments of munitions to the Pegasus, her point-defence batteries are now almost fully stocked with ammunition, and work on the hybrid autocannon design is well underway' he told her.

'Excellent' Vaun replied. 'Any news yet regarding progress on the new jump-drive technology?' she queried.

'We'll need the permission of President Roslin and the Quorum of course but our engineers are confident we can install medium-sized jump-drives taken from two of the civilian vessels into our Titan Class Dropships as an initial project' Franks replied. 'A pair of jump-capable Light Carriers with eighteen aerospace fighters aboard apiece would greatly improve our ability to project power.'

'I thought the Titan's had been removed from service decades ago. Query Affirmative?' Vaun asked.

'Affirmative' Franks confirmed, 'but they were mothballed, not stripped for parts Ma'am' Franks told her. 'Given how useful they were in supporting our ground troops during the fighting on Jarrett it was decided to keep them for a rainy day, unlike some of our other vessels' he said.

'What about jump-fighters?' Vaun asked.

'If we can get the drives we don't see any problem refitting a Kirghiz with the FTL design from a Colonial Raptor' Franks replied. 'It will have less jump-range because it's got twice the mass and some modifications are needed, plus it'll need an additional fuel tank for the Tylium needed to run it until we can come up with a version we can run from a good old-fashioned fusion reactor, but all together it'll weigh just over five tons at the outside' he told her. 'Less than four once we have a drive that'll work off the reactor.'

'What's the delay with modifying the drive to not need tylium?' Vaun queried.

'The problem is that the Colonials have a less than thorough understanding of the theory behind it all, they don't even think they invented them they just copied what they inherited from the original Kobolians.' Admiral Franks replied. 'Our Kearny-Fuchida drives are frankly third-rate by comparison but we knew far more about how they actually work which is also why we invented faster-than-light communication and the Colonials never did' he said. 'The Cylons dohowever seem to have some kind of FTL comms because their downloads at least are interstellar in range, and we know they also have better jump technology too, so we reason they're ahead of the Colonials in both FTL theory and application.'

'Is that scientist of theirs Baltar proving much use on the R&D front?' the Lord Protector asked.

'He's certainly smart enough, we tested his IQ out at genius level and he has a good understanding of Colonial Science generally' Franks replied. 'Once we gave him the equations for the K-F drive and the HPG he filled in an awful lot of the blanks himself' the Admiral continued. 'With our own physicists and engineers working on the problem too I can see far-jumping being a reality rather than a theory quicker than we initially hoped' he said happily.

'Far-jumping?' Vaun queried.

'It's what they're calling it' Franks told her, 'It'll need a compact KF core, Lithium-Fusion batteries, Colonial anti-gravity tech plus some other additions from their own drive designs and a lotof engineering and testing but we've already got an idea of the capabilities based on known data.'

Vaun was intrigued. 'So what are we talking about?' she asked.

'The range limit seems to be roughly nine-hundred light-years according to the math, anything beyond that and the chances of cooking the drive starts to rise exponentially' Franks replied, 'although I admit I couldn't understand enough of the equations to begin to to know exactly why' he told her.

'Nine hundredlight-years?' Jennifer Vaun exclaimed in shock.

'It gets better' Franks continued. 'Unlike trying to have two K-F Drive cores on the same ship you can theoretically operate both a Colonial Drive and a Kearny-Fuchida on the same vessel without them interfering with each other' the Admiral told her. 'We could build a ship that could make it all the way to the Clan homeworlds in less than five maximum range jumps and thendo safe rapid tactical jumps of up to thirty light-years when it got there' he said. 'It would run rings around the Clans' he said. 'Ma'am, we could have the ability in a couple of years to annihilate them at will, a five week trip to Strana Mechty then nuke every clan into oblivion one after the other, jump into orbit, blast them, jump out, repeat as necessary.'

'Oh my God!' Vaun gasped.

'If you want a suggestion I like project "Sword of Damocles" as a name' Franks told her, 'it was an Ancient Greek legend after all' he noted. 'Oh and we were thinking of calling it the Kearny-Fuchida-Baltar Drive as a nod to our guests' he added with a smile.

Note from the Author:

Given that they're loathe to use quite as much "stick" as the Colonials did the SLDF is continuing with a more "Carrot" based approach to the Cylon prisoners treating them decently in retturn for cooperation. The Ones are still not playing ball whatsoever for they're facing a rather more stern regime. Triad was a Colonial card game seen in the show. I thought having a Three and Six and an Eight playing it was an amusing notion given their differing personalities. I've put another latin phrase in the mouth of Romo Lampkin. Fiat justitia ruat caelum has been quoted a few times by judges in some famous legal cases. One of these was when Lord Justice Mansfield was making his decision in the Somersett Case which ruled Slavery illegal in England in 1772, he knew that it was a verdict with a momental effect on society but justice for the individual concerned (the slave James Somersett) was deemed more important than the consequences of the ruling more generally. Hope you like the legal/political implications of Gina facing trial. Given that it was the Colonial Fleet that broke the armistice first puts a somewhat different light on things although the Cylon's drastic overreaction was hardly excusable.

Having filled their cargo bays they then resorted to simply welding or clamping additional salvage to the outer hulls of the ships. We see vipers and raiders carried that way in the show so it doesn't seem to be an issue. Atlantia was lost in a battle over Virgon with a few other ships (it's mentioned in the mini-series) and I had a mental image of a battlestar being blown into large chunks with a relatively intact flight-pod being one of them. If it was a Mercury Class like Pegasus it could have still been holding several squadrons worth of vipers. Solaria is another named battlestar from the show, this one had the front half blown off leaving one of her FTL's intact plus other equipment. The third salvaged Battlestar Atlas is the most intact and might have been recovered eventually if they had more time to fix the thing. According to dialogue there were apparently about 120 Battlestar's in the fleet I've just had Atlas as the one left in the largest piece, the Cylon's were thorough enough to render the vast majority of the fleet little more than scrap. Having the various "Planetary Guards" of the Colonies use second-hand Colonial Fleet equipment is just my own invention but it mirrors the US Air National Guard that way. As the Fleet switched to the Mark VII Viper I envisioned the older Mark VI models being transferred or sold to the planetary governments (we know individual colonies had their own armed vessels), Aerilon was a notably poor colony so they were still using a few even older Mark V's as well when the war started. The part-time pilots of the Guard had no warning to mobilise so they were killed in their homes by the Cylon sneak attack which is why their Vipers were still in the hangers.

Now you didn't think the Wolvies were all sweetness and light now did you? You can't really understand them without realising how the Age of War, the Reunification Wars and the Succession Warscolour their views, plus of course the attempted genocide they suffered at the hands of the other Clans. The New Circe Wolverines are capable of being incredibly ruthless and rationalise it away with an appeal to the greater good. They're a society of great contradictions pulled in different directions by their origins. The Titan Class dropship is an aerospace-fighter carrier, the reason I think they would have a couple is that the SLDF had a decent number when they left the Inner Sphere with Aleksandyr Kerensky and it's said that during the fighting on Jarett the Minnesota Tribe kept the Draconis Combine forces tied down with large numbers of aerospace fighters. If there had been a huge warship around to launch them it should have been noticed so I was thinking Titan's instead. Also the Titans of legend come from Ancient Greek Myth so it's a nice addition I thought. Although the normal limit on a K-F Drive is 30LY you can hotwire it to get a much longer jump, the record being 900LY which is why I chose that limit for the K-F-B Drive. Unlike a K-F however the K-F-B doesn't destroy itself doing a super-jump because of the modifications made by Colonial FTL and gravity control. Strana Mechty is the clan capital world incidentally.