With that the two commanders got down to business while the members of both fleets celebrated the joining of there fleet and its increased chances of survival.

Admiral Adama spent the next few days reading the reports from Commodore Makay's Fleet. True to his word the The training ship offloaded its entire complement of raw personnel onto the Galactica and Pegasus thus bringing them up to a full complement of 5000 each as well as refilling their Viper and Raptor squadrons to full capacity with spares left over.

The crews of the 2 battlestars took turns on shore leave on the carnival ship in shifts of 2 weeks each suffice it to say the combined fleet moral was soaring to an all time high. However the Cylons had not been seen for some time and that was cause for worry for some and relief for others but both sides of the argument both agreed that the cylons would never give up chasing them.

When the fleet organizations began Commodore Makay accepted a demotion to captain of the Intrepid while his Second officer took over command of a cruiser after its commanding officer was lost to cylon combat.

The Galactica was chosen as the flag ship of the fleet with the Intrepid assigned as second in case the Galactica was lost in action. Once the fleet personnel reorganization was completed the fleet concentrated on repairing the damage done to the Galactica and Pegasus by the Cylons.

The Galactica went first as it was the most damaged and needed the most repairs. Then the Pegasus followed by several of the ships that were in need of serious overhaul. In all it took 3 months work to fix up every ship in the first fleet as Adama's group was starting to be called.

Captain Makay and his fleet had been dubbed the second fleet. Both groups were unaware of the existence of the Battlestars Helios and Calicos and the fleet they were protecting. On the 4th anniversary of the destruction of the 12 colonies came and the only memorable thing that happened was that a strange signal had been intercepted.

Unfortunately the signal was so garbled that the only thing they could make out was United Federation of Planets and a single word that caused many a head to shake in confusion. The word was Farpoint.

Over the next year the fleet intercepted more and more signals as well as something that brought joy to the refugee fleet it was a picture and description of the capital of the federation. Earth. Of the Cylons there were no signs and it was generally assumed that either they had permanently lost them or they were following the colonial fleet to its destination.

(Nebula class Starship USS Scorpion NCC 5092 A) Position .3 lightyears out from the border of the federation and the unexplored regions of the galaxy.

Captain Geordi McCaffrey was reading a report in his ready room about the latest security reports from his chief of security when the comm sounded. "yes?" The captain asked. "Captain we are receiving a code 40 signal from starfleet command" his XO said.

In a flash Geordi was up and heading for the nearest comlink. "understood patch it to my ready room" he then activated the viewscreen "Identification please?" the computer asked.

"Captain Geordi McCaffrey commanding USS Scorpion identification code Delta Omega Beta 5286 Gamma" he responded. After a moment the computer spoke. "Identity confirmed message coming through now " after a moment the federation standard screen vanished to be replaced by the image of Admiral Prabler.

"captain what I am about to tell you is top secret. For the past few months now we have been getting reports from independent traders and ferengi vessels operating in the unknown regions that a large group of unidentified vessels is heading in our direction from what we can tell of their makeup several of the ships appear to be military vessels and the rest are probably support craft of one kind or another.

We don't know what their intentions are. We are sending you the coordinates but for this you will need help. That is why we are sending you and several other vessels to investigate. We are placing you in charge of this operation because you know the area better than anyone on that section of the federation.

We have dispatched the USS Centurion, The USS Hood, The USS Phoenix, The USS Merrimac, The USS Robert E Lee, And the USS Tigershark to your position they will be arriving at your current position within the next 24 to 36 hours.

Once your fleet has formed up you are to set a course to intercept the fleet and ascertain their intentions.

If they are hostile report what you find to us and then engage them if not find out what they want and if we can help if at all. That is all for now. While you are doing this we are pulling every available ship we can from other duties so that if they are needed they can form a first line of defense in case of hostilities. Good luck Captain."

with that the comlink went blank. After a moment of thinking Captain McCaffrey was out of his chair and onto the main bridge. "Yellow alert i want this ship ready for anything conn keep an eye out for anything that should not be there.

Within the next 36 hours we will be joined by 6 other vessels once they arrive let me know. Lieutenant Gable start running combat drills for the crew and keep them on their toes but don't tire them out"

He then turned to his XO "have engineering do a full diagnostic of every system on this ship then if there is anything wrong i want if fixed by the time the other ships arrive." with that he sat down on his chair and looked at the viewscreen with a troubled look.

With a confused look at their captain the crew got working on their assigned tasks. The USS Phoenix another Nebula Classer arrived first 6 hours after he got the message from starfleet command. Followed by the Galaxy Class Starship USS Hood.

4 hours later the USS Robert E Lee and the USS Tigershark both arrived at the same time they were both Soyuz class starships. The USS centurion arrived 10 hours after that she was an excelsior class starship. The last starship the USS Merrimac arrived 2 hours after that she was an Ambassador class starship and the predecessor to the galaxy class starship.

Once the fleet was assembled and the ship captains debriefed the fleet crossed the federation border and headed for the last know position of the unknown fleet at warp 7. at that speed it would take approximately 3 weeks to arrive.