Neptune's Revenge

by cliff.west

What happens when the Battlestar Galactica from BSG 2003 finds another group of lost humans but these humans are from Rifts Earth? My first attempt at writing so buyer beware

25. Chapter 25 chp 16 Now its complicated

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.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

Chapter 16 Now it's complicated

New Caprica, 745 Days after the Fall of the Colonies, 3 years 5 month AT

It was late and well after curfew but that did not matter on bit, to the humanoid figure hiding in the shadows. It was waiting and watching, nothing would distract it from the job it had taken on tonight. He had suspected that something strange was going for a few weeks now. But never in his wildest nightmare, had it cross its mind that it would be this bad. He was fighting the powerful urge to charge head first into the building he was watching, and batter the door down with his bare hands. He needed to find out what was exactly going on in there, but that would have been suicide. Even as that thought cross its mind again, a half squad of five Centurions marched by his hiding place oblivious to the hiding human nearby. The shadow had first started to wonder that something was going on behind his back, when he found the empty bottle of 35 year old Ambrosia from a top end Caprica distiller. He could not have afforded something like that. Not even before, the cylons blasted his home planets to radioactive slag. While the shadow was thanking about the empty bottle, it started to rain harder and that did nothing to help his foul mood get any better. Not one bit, but the shadow just pulled the dark rain slicker closer to its body, and waited some more in the cold dark. Soon, very soon he would know what was going on.

Inside the building a blonde woman was making soft noises and moving up and down. From the back, you might not have known what was going on. That is if you were under the age of eight, anyone older than that knew exactly what was going on. Every few minutes a thin pale arm would each over to a nearby table, and pick up a bottle of amber liquid. She would take another pull out of the bottle. Them wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and placed the battle back on the table top without losing the rhyme of her movements. The level of the amber liquid, as now about a half inch lower than when she had picked up the battle.

After a length of time she slumped off the person she had been on, but she kept her back to the now the full exposed Number One model cylon, that called himself John. John had a sadistic grin on his face as he looked at the female's back that had just gotten off of him. He could see her trying to pull the thin blanket higher on her naked body. "I'm going to miss these little meetings of ours, when I'm gone." The cylon sound like he was enjoying himself, and the blonde human wanted to threw up.

Ellen Tigh rolled over onto one side, but only just enough to look at the cylon over her bare shoulder. "You're leaving? What does do for your agreement with me?" The tone of her voice was strained, and it was not because of the sex. It was more like life and death, and it was not a play on words. It was a very real potential outcome.

John's smile turned more into a sneer than a smile, as he looked at the naked woman stretched out besides him. "As agreed, I will leave your husband alone. I will even leave a notice for the others, to leave you both alone. That is until I get back, or one of you does something really dumb." He reached over with his off hand and tries to stoke a private place, but she tried move away from the wrinkled hand. It was just too bad, that the bed was so small. "Then all bets are off, just as we have talked about before." The sneer dropped from his face as he spoke those last words, and the threat was very clear.

Ellen turned over so that she not was facing the nude cylon at all, and was facing the wall of the prefab building. "So If I'm such good company, why are you leaving?" She hated the cylon like the very fires of Hades itself, but she also did not want to die. If things changed, then she might be caught in a bad way by them. Besides she loved her husband, for her value of love anyway. She needed information, if she wanted to live longer. Or so that the cylons would not torture, and then shot her husband in front of Colonial One just like John had said he would. That is if she did not comply with his every wishes.

John waved his hand between them, dismissing her concern like a fly at a picnic and even looked away from her body. "Oh it's nothing for you to worry about Ellen. The supply ship was only able to bring out Two Centurion Battalions on this trip as replacements for the units that have worn out." His sneer was back for a long second, before it turned into a scowl as he mind started working on a few problems he did not want to talk about in front of his human. "It I had my way, it would have been packed the fraking thing to the deck heads Centurions." John's tone of voice got very whinny, as he thought that he as mimicking one of the Three's or Six's. "But no, the others had stuff, which just had to be sent out on this trip. They acted like it would be the end of the world, if they did not get certain things brought all the way out here. So this trip I need to make? Is to make sure I get everything, I want and to bring back lots of it this time." John has lost the desire for sex now, so he left the wide couch almost bed area he was using for his entertainment. He started to walk around the room without any clothes on, he was very agitated. He was reliving every meeting, where one or more of the other cylons line's had disrespected him and ruined all of his perfectly laid plans.

Ellen turned back over and propped her head up on one arm and was watching the male cylon pace, or more accurately. He was storming around the room visibly upset. "I thought it was a very long way back, to Known Space. It is going to take even longer to get there in one of those little Heavy Raiders, you like to use so much." She was using a sweat sounding voice as she dug for any useful information that she might be able to use later.

John gave a soft chuckle as he worked down to a pacing rhythm, but still going around the brightly lighted room. "Yes it would, but that is not what I'm taking back. I'm taking my ship Basestar with me. I should only been only gone for about six months maybe eight at the outside, and only if things are not as stable as I think they will be. I hope you rest up for my return Ellen, You're going to need your stamina when I get back." He turned around snake quick, and leered at the married woman still on the bed/couch. He did not say more, and he did not need to. What he was implying was clear as day to the woman on the narrow sweat stained bed. He was expecting to see her, when he got back to the forsaken planet in less than a year.

"Keep him talking Ellen; just keep him talking for a little while more. He might give you something that Saul can use against these Frakers later." She thought to herself, and her heart skipped a beat or two and she felt warm all over. As she thought about someone shooting the cylon. "So when are you thinking about leaving, me?" She rolled around a little so that she could reach out, to make it look like she wanted to touch the devil wearing a human like skin. That was hard for her to do, because John made her skin crawl like it was covered in centipedes. It was only the large amount of very good Ambrosia that she had swallowed over the last few hours. That kept her from throwing up all over him when they had sex about every other day.

"Don't you worry, I can't leave until all of the Centurion we have left, have been transferred to the other three Basestars in system. So we can have a few more of our little private meetings before we will even start that." He was leering at the human women, and started to made his way back to the couch again. The reason why he as leaving this planet had moved to a different area of his brain, and now he was interested in sex again. John knew down to the second when he was scheduled to lift off the planet. He planned to use as much of that remaining time, to get in as much enjoyment as he could squeezed out of that remaining time.

Saul was freezing on the outside even under the three layers of outer coats that he had on, but he was still hot on the inside. He was not hot, he was burning with a level of rage, which Saul had not felt in a long time. He had been in his hiding spot for hours and hours now, and he had been over looked half a dozen times by the patrolling cylons. He had somehow fallen into the zone, of letting time and the weather pass him by with little notice, he was a fixture hidden under the Colonial spaceship. He had learned how to do this, during his time in the later part of the First Cylon war. He had unknowingly had slipped right back into to that training while he waited. Some new movement that was coming out of the cylon fenced off area brought him back to the real world, in a blink of an eye. He was watching threw the still falling rain an organic person walking away from the main entrance of the building. He could tell it was who he was waiting for by more by the way she moved, than by seeing her face. He could also see that she flanked by two hulking metal Centurions, as she was leaving the cylon ground based headquarters.

The three of them walked quietly in the rain, but the two metal war-machines stopped and opened the gate at the outer fence that marked the boundary between cylon and human dominated area. It would be up to the organic, to make its way back to the shack, which it called home. The two metal machines waited for it to clear the gate then swiftly closed it behind the human, and returned to the post inside the command building. They had been completely indifferent about the task; the Number One called John had given them… again.

The walking figure was looking down, and was trying not to drop her prizes or fall herself into the cold wet mud of the lane. All the while the figure was not using the little pocket light in one pocket of her heavier out coat. She did not want to be seen leaving the cylon camp, by anyone or anything if she could help it. Too many unwanted questions would be asked, and she did not want anything to get back to Saul. With him being the head of the rapidly growing underground Colonial Resistance, he had more eyes in the refugee camp than ever before. They were supposed to be keeping the cylons under observation for any weakness, which just meant they were always looking around. She was distracted by the thoughts of hiding, and did not notice the dark form had fallen in behind hers silent as death. It did not take but a few steps, and the shadow was in perfect sync with the woman's steps. It had matched her step for mud pushing step, as she went deeper among the grounded space ships and human homes.

Saul was stalking his wife like a lion going after a gazelle on some plain in faraway Africa that he did not know existed. He wanted to know everything she did, where she did it, and how she was doing it. Much to his surprise she was sneaking around trying to avert any eyes. When she would get close to a cylon check point, she would dodge around them in a way that seemed to Saul. That she did not want the cylons on guard to see her also. That was strange enough, to tickle and register in his hate filled mind. After spending hours and hours with the cylons and what he thought might be happening every few days. Why would she care if any other cylons saw her now if she was a cylon agent? He followed her all the way back to the run down shack, which they still shared. When she shifted the two bottles into one hand, so that she could open the flap of the residence. Saul silently reached around her, and opened the tent flap for her. The movement was like a thick snake striking out of the darkness right at eye level.

Ellen jumped when the dark clad hand came by the side of her face from behind, and opened the fabric tent flap to her shack with dirty fingers. She was so startled, that she dropped the bottles of old Ambrosia into the soft mud at her feet. She even let out a muffled shriek of first surprise, then in anger. "What the Frak!"

While holding the flap open, Saul was looking into the face of his wife illuminated by the white light now spilling out of the shack. He was studying ever line and hair of her face, and the heat got a few degrees lower at the sight of dried tear tracks running down her face. Saul had to force his face to be still, like when he played cards, so that he could hide what was going on inside deep with in him. "So out for a stroll tonight are you?" That might have worked on his face, but the tone of his voice, should have sent her running. In a year before, it would have cleared the CIC of his old Battlestar at the near the speed light. It was cold, and brittle as slate under the impacts of jack hammers.

Ellen knew subconsciously that she had been busted, but she was drunk. And her natural instinct kicked in, and instead of making a run for it she did what came natural. "Saul you Fraker." She made a short and soft punch motion, but missed Saul's arm by a mile. As she pulled her hand back from the missed strike, she was still talking. "If those bottles are broken, you're sleeping out here in the mud for the rest of the Franking night. And why are you out here anyway? Do some of that sneaking fraking stuff, for Roslin again?" She looked around very quickly to see if any cylons were around and realizing how loud she had been speaking.

Saul pointed into the shack, and his face was set stone and his arm flexed repeatedly under the stress of the situation. "The question should not be what am I doing out here after curfew, but where have you been Ellen?" The tone was as cold as a cylons heart, and his eyes were deathlike as they gazed at his wife.

Ellen still had not picked up on the tone threw the alcohol soaked brain, and bent down in the mud on very unstable legs. She was acting like she did not hear what her husband had asked her. The truth was she had heard, but she did not understand what was being said. Maybe if she had a few less drinks in her tonight. She picked up the two expensive bottles of alcohol, and wiped the mud off the labels. She shakily rose from the mud with both unbroken bottles in her hands, and started to entire to the shack on still very unsteady legs.

Before she could turn around and put her back towards her husband. Saul pulled the pistol out from under this Earth made coat with a smooth grace. He did not exactly point it at his wife, but it was not that far from her ether. However it was decidedly in the general direction of her. And close enough that now she could sense, that she was a few breaths away from death about to be given at her husband's own hands. She was running threw her head different options that she might be still open to her. She worked out that she only had two to choices to choose from. Did she want to lie, or tell the whole truth? It was not uncommon for her to have this problem, even before the cylons had drop a nuclear weapon on the city she lived in. She knew that the whole truth or even most of the truth would hurt Saul badly. She could not do that to Saul, she loved him, besides she was good at lying. She had done it most of her life. Are, at least in the parts that she could remember between drunken stupors? But did she think that she could snow the man, who also knew she was that good a lying? What would he do if he found out she was lying? She looked at the pistol in his hand, and knew what the cost would be if he caught her in a lie of any kind. She was impaired, but she was not so impaired as to not know what would happen to her.

Saul made a gestured for her to enter the shack and he followed her. When they had cleared the threshold, Saul made sure the entry way closed behind them. Ellen took the a few more steps into the main area of the shack to put some distance between her and her husband. When she turned back to look at her Husband, she did not like what she was seeing. He was looking at her with dead eyes, and the weapon was still pointed in her general direction and his finger was touching the trigger behind the trigger guard.

She looked at her husband, and started to cry very natural tears. Her body had chosen which way she was going to go, for her. "I was doing what I had to Fraking do, to keep the Fraking Cylons from sweeping you up and putting you in a cell. The one next to wherever they have put that crazy fraking Starbuck in." She folded up and went to the wooden floor with her butting hitting the wood decking with a splat and a rising a small cloud of dirt and dust. She did not lose the two bottles in her hand, as sat hard on the floor. She told her husband everything that she had to do, just to keep him out of cylon incarceration or to be shot outside of Colonial One. She did not leave anything out, and had not wanted to. But once she started talking. It just came out in a massive flood of words, one after the other oh so painful word. The bottle of ambrosia she had drunk already that night might, have had something to do with her confession. Or it could have just been the built up guilt she had, that needed to be purged from her soul. With her you just never could tell, what had caused the waterfall of words.

Ellen was completely wrung out when the flood of words had finally stopped. Without saying a word, Saul picked up his wife off of the dirty wooden floor. He easily carried her limp form to the makeshift bed and bedroom. Ellen was a very strong person, and for her to break down like this. Well let's just say that it was not normal for her, and it had not been an act. Saul knew when Ellen lied and even when she left things out. In all of their years of marriage together and before then, Saul had only seen it happen twice in all of that time. Saul pulled a threadbare blanket up to cover his softly crying wife. He was making sure she was warm and safe, at least as close as they could be in this refugee camp.

Saul could not imagine what she had been put through, for what had turned out to be weeks of terror. She hated the Cylons, and being forced bed one? That alone was almost enough to break him in both mind and spirit. On top of that, now he knew that she had done it only to protect him. That hurt in ways, which he did not know was possible. That is till right now. Saul picked up one of the two bottles of ambrosia that his wife had been carrying, and brought in to their home. He ripped the cork and seal out of one of the glass bottle with rage fueled strength. Then he threw it against the entrance flap, as hard as he could. The plastic and wood stopper hit the lose tent flap with an audible snap. Before the cork could hit the floor of the shack, he had tilted he bottle bottom up towards the tent roof. Saul took a long pull from the bottle as hard as he could, then he took a second huge drink from the bottle. Saul noticed as the rice amber liquid touched his tongue, that it was the good stuff. I might have been some of the very best, that he had ever tasted. He had not had any ambrosia that was this high-end, in a very long time. Like when got his last promotion, and Bill had been the one who had bought it for him. It was just too bad that by the time, this normally insanely expensive treat had hit his stomach. It was no better tasting, than the lowest grade of rot gut he made in his hand built still.

It also tasted like battery acid going down his throat by the second pull from the bottle's ornately engraved glass neck. Saul almost chocked when the liquid fire hit his empty bile filled stomach like a freight train. He was waiting for the numbness to start doing it magic, but he had a sneaky feeling after a few long minutes. That it would not be coming, no matter how much he drank tonight or how old it might be before they had put it in a lead glass bottle. He looked at the bottle in his dirty hands, and for a hand full of second he almost sent it the same way the cork had went. Then remembered that the Colonies were all gone, and would never be coming back even in a hundred lifetimes. It would be a waste, and he had developed an attitude of not liking to waste things lately, or willingly waste them. No matter how much pain it might cause. Saul walked over to the shack's entry flap, and picked up the damp ended stopper. He had a deep frown on his face as replaced into the bottle after cleaning off the wax top cork. He was reading the label on the bottle while he worked, then placed bottle back on the table with its unopened twin.

Saul spent the next few hours staring at the two amber filled bottles on the table, and thinking about the cost of them along with his freedom. In the dim light water leaked from his eyes, and down both of his cheeks in a steady stream of salt water. If anyone of the command deck crews had seen this display? They all would have died on the spot, with ether a heart attack or a stroke of some kind. Or they would have fell to their knees prying to the Gods to stop the end of the universe from happening. A man that was well known to be tough and unyielding as a Battlestar's armor belt, was crying alone in the night as rain drops beat on the fabric roof over his head in the steady drum beat of depression. Saul let the tears run freely down his face for hours, as Ellen slept off the shame in their bed in the next room of the three room shack. He could not bring himself to share that bed tonight, which would just be…wrong. He could not do that, after all the pain he had caused the woman he loved. He did not know it at first, but a heat was building up in his belly again. It was different than the anger that he had felt before, it was more elemental. It started slowly at first, but it was building with every tear that rolled out of his eyes. When he did noticed it, he knew deep in his soul that it was different. It a different type of heat than when he had thought that his wife had only been cheating on him. He had thought that it had been that or she somehow selling him out to the enemy. This heat was different, and the target of the heat was also different.

The heat was a rage that he had never really felt before, but he had heard about it. At first he started to direct it to his wife again without thinking, but he turned to focus the cause of his pain as well has all of hers on something else. Saul played every word that his wife had said to him in agonizing detail one more time. It was toward the end, and his eyes went wide and his eye brows went up. He reached for a glass of water this time, and as he took a sip he started working on a plan in his mind. He would soon get some payback for what the cylons had done to his wife, and by extension to him. Now he knew that the cylon called John was going to pay. And he was not going to stop there, when he gave out the rage he was holding in a cold part of his chest. It was just trying to work out the hows and the wheres. But he had something to work with, he knew it deep down. And he was not going to squander it, this time.

He was still wallowing in hate replaying again every word that his wife had told him in the flood of words she had given up. Then it clicked like Ares own spear in the heart, and in a blink of an eye the dots started to fly into place. One of the cylon basestars would be leaving this system soon. Four fully loaded modern Basestars going against one old Battlestar and one new Battlestar. Those were some long odds in a space battle any day of the week. That was not counting that both of those same two Battlestars. Had not been fully manned or equipped when they had pulled out on so short of a notice, because of the cylons surprise return. Now three vs two, that was a whole another ballgame all together. The Beast should be able to take on two of the cylon ships all by herself, even with a low skilled Battlestar commander like Lee Adama as her master. That would leave the Bucket only having to deal with one of the cylon capital ship. If the Oldman could not deal with one Basestar, than he was not as good as Bill Adama thought he was. Saul felt a very not friendly smile slowly form on his lips, as he reached across table and started to make coded notes on a handy pad of paper. It was going to be the first step, in paying the cylons back. As the smile went straight to evil on Saul's face, he thought that the good part was that they did not even know it, yet.

Saul did not get much sleep that night in the chair by the table, and when the sun came up again he did not need the alarm of the cylons announcing the lifting of the curfew to wake up. He was out into the human camp's early morning air, as soon as he could without the cylons picking him up for busting curfew. His first stop this early morning was to the school tent that Laure ran. He wanted to make sure, that she would know what was going on first. If this did not work the way he hopped it would, she would be in charge of the military part of the Colonial resistance. He was going to have to take himself out of the chain of command for everything for the near future. He had now been compromised, and his only play was to use this knowledge against the cylons as best he could. If this did not work, he had a backup plan. That would take him and his wife out of the equation permanently, if he needed to do it that way. He would not let his wife be forced to bed that cylon again, he would die first. He had what he need already back in his shack, and he was not afraid to use the knowledge to remove themselves from the chess board.

As it turned out, Saul was lucky that when he entered the opened tent that it held only the one person. Laura Roslin could tell that something was wrong, as soon as Saul entered the tent. The tent flap barely had time to close behind him in point, he had started talking almost too soon. She was not happy to hear, what his wife had been doing. But this act had given them some priceless information, as well as it had kept Saul out of a cylon prison cell or a bullet to the back of the head. At least for now and according to Ellen, she had not told the cylons anything about the tunnel. Or any other important bit of information about what was really going on in the camp, under the cylon's noses. Between the two of them, they came up with a few different plans that might work as fall back plans. In the end, all would use what Ellen had done against the cylons. When the first children showed up for today's class, Saul left the tent.

While Saul was getting some food in the large cook tent to try to fill the empty space in his body, one of the runners passed a note to him. It was a report from the non-13th tribe Earthers, which made Saul's eyebrow climb to the top of his bald head. They had found and marked enough hiding spots, which they and Chief Tyrol thought were safe for their suggested plan. They now had enough for all of the Colonial atmosphere capable transport craft, all in their small local area of the planet. Saul Tigh did not know it, but he had a smile on his face a mile wide. It was not a pleasant sight, and it disturbed a number of people that had been setting close to the table he had been using that morning. It even caused some of people sitting around him to physically leave the tables, even before they had finished their morning meal, with some haste. Saul did not notice the looks coming from the other long tables or that people nearest him had walked away.

Saul refolded the paper and put it in his pocket, and then quickly finished his fish laced soup. He made sure that he skipped out on the fruit they had put on his plate. On the way out of the tent he passed it to the first leg leach he passed. He need to address that note, but instead he and went first to check back in on his wife. He brought in a covered bowl for her to eat, but she would not want it for a few more hours at least. She was hurting both from the drinking, and the confession venting she had done in the night. Saul had been rewarded with a powerful hug when he returned to his shack.

While he had been out, she had woken up for some reason, and finding him not there not long after the sun had come up. She had not reacted well, and had emptied one of the bottles he had started on before passing back out. But not before she could start drinking the second bottle on the table, he again carried back to bed. Saul left a note on the food, telling his wife that he would be back around for the covered bow. He was hopping that he would be back around the time of the mid-day meal time. He made sure to write down that he loved her, and not to worry about the past. Deep down he doubted the words would work, but he felt that it was worth the effort. In the end, it was the thoughts which counted the most in the end. He had not even though about, what might have gone through her mind. When she had waken-up this morning, and found that he was not there. After the note was done and attached to the food, Saul still had his duty to perform. He next went to the transmitter cache that he had notified that he was coming over, and waited till the schedule contact by the Colonial Raptor.

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Out at the edge of the solar system there was a brief flash of light and energy, which was hidden from view by a conveniently placed nonmetallic rock body. Those types of bodies were very rare to find in this system for some reason. A boxy shaped Raptor settled into a low orbit of that same blocking rocky body, with a few puffs of gasses from different parts of the craft. This would bring the little craft into line of sight with the planet that was closer to the warm star, than the small Colonial made craft was. As soon as the built in systems on this craft told the two occupants that they were locked on. More small jets mounted around the small interstellar craft fired again, stopping it from moving outside of a very precise orbital path. This would keep the craft from breaking the faint communication lock, it had just made with the ground base systems on the life barring world but cool world fifteen AUs away. This task was workable only because of the skills of the crew of this Colonial craft.

Kat had just loosened her crash straps, and wiggled around in the chair to get a little more comfortable in the small craft's only pilots seat. She put her little to big boots against the side protective glass of the cockpit, so that she could stretched out her legs some more. She was getting ready for what normally was a long and very dull wait deep in space. Just like she had done on very third day, for the last few weeks. She did not even notice when, Skulls put his hand on the side of his helmet, while she had been getting comfortable in the small area of her cockpit.

Skull's hand flew up to his helmet as soon as his system found targeted area. He strained to hear what his Vox system was passing along. When he was sure that he was picking up a carrier signal, he let the pilot know. "Contact, we are going to receive a transmission." Skulls started to push buttons, so that his system could record whatever they picked up, or were about to pick up. Normally they would be on station for hours before they picked up the carrier waves, something important must be on the way to them. Both the EO and Pilot waited for the transmission to be collected by their systems, they were completely useless to do anything else. Before the coming of the cylons sneak attack, the pair of crew-members, would not have been able to know what was being sent up to them on the communications system. The Colonial military had been very concerned about anyone reading the mail, as it was called. Bill Adama and Lee Adama had decided that the pilot and EO should know what was going on around them. That way they could handle some of the simpler questions, which might be sent to them from Colonel Tigh or Roslin. It was not likely, but this was a more flexible system that what the book said they should do, or would even need. Sometimes the book just got stuff wrong, when compared to real life.

While Kat was listing to her receiver, her eyes just got bigger and bigger until the message had finally ended. She could hardly breathe. The information she had just heard was incredible, when she could breathe again she had something to use it for. "Holy Frak! Skull! Spin up the jump drive, we are out of here right Fraking now!" She should have waited for when her shift was scheduled to end, but this report was way over her pay grade and it did not need that much brain power to figure it out. She wanted to get this hot potato out of her bivouac, as fast as she safely could. If the Admiral wanted her to come back, she would and finishes her sift in nice and quiet. She was betting that the Oldman would not do that, and the backup crew would be sent out at worse. Skull's sent a message back to the ground station that they had received the data, and were doing the bug out boogie to get the message to base as quick as they could. After that was done, he made sure the recorded data was safely locked down, and then started to spin up the very small and powerful interstellar engine. His hands were moving faster than his mind could properly functions. It was all muscatel memory as his hands few across a dozen different areas on his combat position.

The Raptor's crew was doing two things at once. While Skulls was doing his job, Kat was doing hers in the front seat. As soon as she had finished talking or ordering Skulls, her own hands were flying across her own instruments. The boxy craft soon had small jets from around the craft started to fire, and it looked like the small craft went from seeming frozen in time to doing a high speed flip going end over end. That is until the craft was now facing the opposite direction, which it had been facing only a few seconds before. The big twin engines fitted between the twin tails of the craft were primed and ready then white and blue hot flame shot of them. The larger engines did not fire at anywhere near the maximum rated thrust, that they were normally rated for or excepted to use in combat. That would have been like sending a huge flare off right next to their hiding spot. That would have been seen by everyone look anywhere in the general location of the Raptor. This would tell them, being the cylons that they had been spied on by the Colonial Navy. As soon as the jump drive was charged, and the orbital rock was blocking any unwanted eyes or sensors. The little spy craft winked out of existence once more. That little energy wave sent from the planet, would start the ball rolling on the next phase of combat between the humans and cylons.

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While Saul Tigh was planning a future mission, something was happening not too far away in woods away that surrounded the camp that held him. Due to the increasing attacks on the patrols of cylons and the losses this has caused to the larger cylon units. The cylons had to change the routine for the human wood cutting detail. That the Colonials still needed to do just to keep warm as well as to make a few odds and ends out of the wood. If the Cylons had planned better, they might have brought enough supplies that they, could have forced the Colonials to stop without causing many issues. But they had not done that, and unless they wanted a large number of the groups of the last humans to die of hypothermia. They had to allow the wood cutting to continue for the time being. John was perfectly happy to let that fate happen to the humans, but the others had out voted him. It had not taken long to work out that whoever was attacking the cylons had not attacked a wood cutting detail directly. That peace had not happened to some of the guarding cylons, both human form and Centurion on the outer ring from the detail. Now, they had been known to disappear from time to time. This had caused the human forms to plan fewer, but larger details to fill the need for fuel and raw material for the detained humans.

Jason Adams had just been a scout when he had come to this planet, but he had slowly built up a nice little combat force over the time he had been on this planet. This combat force was now made up of even mix of people. Who had come to this planet on the same ships he had, and the Colonials that had escaped from under the cylons. He had liked scouting, and he even was pretty good at it. But the money and prestige was better for those that were more combat orientated, and less into just sneaking around unnoticed by an enemy. So he had gathered together this group of combat troops, all who accepted him as their commander.

They had a mix bag of weapons, a few loaned from the ships stores, others that they had brought with them, or bought on the open market. They also had some Colonial weapons that they had taken from the bodies of the human form cylons, instead of turning them in. These mainly went to the Colonials in his group. It was a hodgepodge of people, but they all had one thing in common. They wanted to take out as many cylons as they could, in the shortest amount of time. All without getting themselves shot up, it the process. They had been picking off cylons in the odd small group that might have gotten separated or out of support range from a larger group of cylons. But as the cylons started moving in ever larger and larger groups, things change again. They had been having more and more problems finding targets, which they could take down, without getting whipped out in the process. The new group only had weapons and armor that they had access to, or could afford. That translated to hand weapons and some unpowered armor for protection. Unless they could score something big that could let them trade it for a multi-million credit powered battle armor. Well let's just say that they were going to find it harder, and harder to do what they wanted to do, and live to tell about it. They might have to transfer over to fall under Major Weston's command, and be turned just into another unit under his slowly growing command. That was not what this group of independent minded people wanted to do, if they could avoid it.

That was why they were going after the wood cutting detail today. The detail had grown and now had to around fifteen Colonials. They would do the tree falling, and cutting the huge logs into more manageable size with power tools brought out to them by the cylons. The transports for the wood cutting detail personnel, and wood. Would be provided by three large six by six wheeled cargo trucks. They all were in the five ton cargo capabilities range. The fourth and last vehicle at least was a nicer armored wheeled transport, which would be used for the human form cylons. The transports had been viewed and imaged a few dozen times already. One of the Colonials had said it was an armored Sports Utility Vehicle normally used by the very rich or highly placed members in the entertainment industry. It most defiantly, not a military grade transports. The cylons who used this were the supervisors, of both the humans and Centurions. The ground mounted escorts was supplied by a full cylon combat company of Centurions.

The human attackers would be outnumbered, with about a hundred sixty cylons to be taken on by about twenty members of Jason's unit. And that number was not counting any of the human form cylons, and any of the Colonials that might be helping the other side. Seeing armed humans working with the cylons, was something that had already been noticed and reported back to Major Weston some time ago. Josh had not been surprised by this information, when he had been briefed about them. On Earth, it was not uncommon and they even had a term for it "Turn Coat". The growing number of Colonials that had joined the fight, had not been that understanding. When they had been told that some Colonials were helping the cylons. Jason and his closest command staff had already made notes on who to watch, if this became an issue.

Jason and his group had two things going for them on this ambush that they were planning. The first was that no one had attack the wood cutting detail besides one or two single culling's, and the second major thing. Was that each person in his group had heavier body armor than any Colonial had used or could dream of, before coming to his planet and meeting the Earthers Even the Colonial in the group, had the old homemade armored suits that had come through the rift with Jason's group, all of those years ago. Josh had worn a suit of that crap, back when he was younger man and in the town militia. And even back then, he had thought that they were death traps, if he got into any real combat. But against the lower powered weapons, so far deployed by the cylons? They should be okay for a few heavy battles, before he would start to worry about their usability to protect his people.

Jason idea was that after the battle was over. That they would be able to use two or three of the wood cutting cargo vehicles to load up salvaged metal. That metal would come from the hopefully plentiful Centurion wrecks, they were going to make in the attack. Also any type of larger cargo transports were in short supply on this planet, even back at the Settlement they could use more. Any that they could take, would be worth a fair price all by themselves. Then add in all of the metal they hoped they would be carrying in their open back cargo area. Jason was hoping that it could be the big payday, that his band needed badly.

The sun was now up and Jason and his people had been in position since local midnight. Jason was again idle thinking again about the low quality of the armor some of his people had to fight in. He hopped that they would not have to see firsthand, it those bits of crap could take the damage that a Raider or Heavy Raider might dish out. That is if they were caught in a ground attack run, from one of those flying cylon attack machines that had increased in number…again. Jason was pulled out of that line of thought, because the first of the wheeled cargo trucks made the turn on the well-used dirt road. Jason was waiting for the cutting detail to be as close to the planned attack point, than he could fire the flare tube in his right hand. That launch would only happen when the group of Colonials and cylons had set up in the center of the rough cleared area, just like always had done.

Jason waited and waited as the watched the cylon controlled humans pull into and then stop in the center of his kill zone. Even as the humans started to get out of the back of one of the cargo trucks, Jason fired the flare into the air. It went up at an angle away from his hiding position in the tree line and it was visible to the maximum number of his people. The firing into the group of cylons had started before the flare had reached the high point of its flight arc over his head, and Jason smiled. Threw the ION rifle in his hands he could already see the Cylons were falling to the mud. All before the flare started its fall back to the ground as gravity took over the control of that device. Surprise was total and complete on both the cylons, and the humans in the kill zone. The Humans were quick off the maker and were diving for whatever cover, they thought they might have from the incoming weapons fire or attack. The humans could not hear about the attack until the cylons started impacting the targets. The Colonial made weapons did not fire until the cylons started to fire back. By then the humans were not the only ones trying to find cover, any cover they could get.

The One was both scared and upset all at the same time, and rolled into one Fraking big emotion. He had volunteered to take this detail, because of the fact that it had been the quietest of all of the assignments open outside of the prison camp. He had a private project he wanted to work on, but his name had come down on the list maintained by the Hybrids. So he had to do go outside of the safety of the camp and into the tree line. John was not the only human form cylon that wanted to have a few quite meetings with a nice looking female human. The Number One had reasoned out that it doing this detail, it would buy him two weeks to what he wanted without interruption. Than it was worth the low risk of guarding the wood cutting detail. Besides the quite time on this task would give him time to day dream about her, and make a few more delicious plans.

The Number One was not that aware of what was going on after he exited the armored VIP transport. He had been so surprise by the surprise attack. That he had almost been taken out, when he did not dive for cover quick enough. Like the rest of the humans and human forms had done, at the first sign of an attack. He had read the reports that had come in from the limited survivors that had downloaded afterwards, or after a battle analysis had been done from a half dozen battle sites. But this had been his first time outside the confines of the human camp. He had been on the cylon resupply supply ship, to act as supervisor of the supplies in its hull. After talking to some of the other Number One's, he had decided to stick around. He had been even happier to stay, after he found out what John had been up to in person. Now that was not looking like it had been that good of an idea he had ever had, after all.

He ducked down on instinct, as something unidentified struck a massive tree next to him. The tree was blown in half at about his waist high. He had a bit of luck today and the impact energy, pushed the now falling tall tree away from him or it would have easily crushed him. With a quickly look up, he assess that he was safe, at least from that threat. The top part of the tree was falling away from him, and that as all that mater at the moment as the Number One. Now he tried to put some more distance between the attackers and his precious hide. He did this by first diving behind the tallish stump that had just been made by a silent weapon. This gave him time to think a little deeper, than he had for the last few seconds. Now he could see a possible way out of this mess, which he felt he never should have been near in the first place. He used those cylon augmented legs to good use, after looking around him and around the stump that was giving him some cover.

While he was running as fast as he could, through the woods his mind was still working as fast as his legs were moving. He was multitasking, and also thinking about the attack as well as his escape. He was a cylon. So he could multitask, like normal humans could breathe and see at the same time. The wood cutting escort detail had been going, just like it had since the last change to the SOP. The four wheeled transports had pulled into the slowly growing clearing, in the middle of a thick patch of softwood trees. Those trees that had turned out to have worked, so will for heating the human made shacks. All the humans had unloaded from the back of one of the trucks in a tidal wave of bodies. A Number Four had been talking to the group of humans, for an unknown reason. Then it had been comply blown in half with no warning, which he had picked up with his cylon modified ears. The One that had not picked out a name yet, had just happened to be looking that way. That had been when the human form cylon, had dropped to the muddy ground in two very messy parts right before his eyes. He did not connect what was going on for what seemed like a long time, at least for a cylons. He did notice that all of the humans had dropped to the mud, and were also crawling through the mud in all different directions. He had no idea what they were playing at. He turned his head to see more of the nearby Centurions joining the Four on the ground, then he heard what he could understand as weapons fire from somewhere off to one side. That had been when the tree was hit with a silent, but obviously very powerful weapon of some kind. It all had happened so fast. It was way faster than the Number One was used to having to deal with.

He moved from the new tree stump, and soon he was on the other side of the transports. He had stopped running, coming to a complete stop from a full run in only a pair of steps. He left a twin slide make the mud that looked like brown snow skies. It would not have seemed too be safe of a move, but he put an emergency call out to pull all of the surviving cylons on this detail toward him. That was not working out as well as he hopped, because when the surviving cylons started to move in one direction. The fighting seemed to be pulled right towards him, along with those same redeploying cylons.

When the Number One heard the acknowledgement of his orders, it took a few long second for him to understand that they were now bring the incoming fire right towards him! "That was not the way it was supposed to work!" He was yelling within the confines of his own mind. He was trying to figure out what to do next, when he saw it. It looked to his untrained eyes, like some kind of human shaped reptile skinned monster in the nearby tree line. The only reason that he knew, without a doubt it was a threat and not his mind playing tricks on him. Was the Colonial military rifle in its human looking hands attached to the odd looking arms? The muzzle looked large enough for the cylon to crawl down the fraking thing, and it was pointed at him! One part of its computer enhanced brain knew that was imposable, but it still looked that way to him. He froze like a deer spot lighted on a dark road by a sedan, and just waited for the reptile skinned monster to end his life with a single pull of the Colonial made trigger.

One of the Centurions must have noticed the movement at the edge of the tree line. It turned snake quick, and used its built in machine gun to stitch a line of bullets across the massive chest of the two legged animal. The human form cylon let out a breath, which it had not known it was holding. And turned to see which of the Centurions had saved his life. He would not be able to query the Centurion to ask what its number was, as he had intended to do. That was because its chest of the large Centurion exploded out wards, as something fast moving and hard, turned the metal cylon inside out. All in a flash of heat, light, noise and now slightly used parts were flying through the air. You know, used rifles only dropped once and great for resale.

When the One turned back around, to try to get a better look at the strange beast that he had seen a second before. He knew it would have been the closest that anyone of his kind had been able to get, since they had landed on this fraking god forsaken mud ball of a planet. Then he had another one of those awful human traits built into the human forms reached up and froze his spine, and that one was shock. The human shaped animal started to rise again from the mud, right before the Number One's eyes. The brain of the cylon was having a hard time possessing what he was seeing. There was no way something could do that. Not after it had taking a dozen or so hit from a cylon weapon at this short of a combat range. The Centurion's weapons fire should kill anything that it hit, that hard. The Number One had seen Colonial Marines and ground troops hit, with that amount of firepower. And they had never gotten back up after the event that is unless their body, was being carried off by a Centurion. As this monster was rising from the mud, part of the brain of the One was cataloging what it was seeing just like the machine it was. The other part of its brain, the human part, was frozen solid into inaction by another human trait… panic.

The skin looked reptilian, but different. The monster had human like hands, pointed ears like a wolf's or a daggit, and with a smooth armored like head of tan and green. What sent a chill through the cylon, was the eyes in the monsters head. They were black, glossy black, and triangle shaped and stared unblinking at the One. They were not the eyes of any living being that a One, or any other cylon had seen before this day. The cylons had another very human reaction. Its bowls let go inside of its cloths in one wave of stinking, wet mess running down both of its legs. Then like a bolt out of the blue, a long forgotten story that another One had read before the attack popped into his head. It had been in one of the old temples of Caprica scrolls. This was a thing from legions all the way back to Kobal. This did not look exactly like, what he had read and studied about it. But it was close enough for the One to connect all of the dots. He now knew the monster had a name and a name that come through time for all them, be it human or cylon. They must be some kind of griffin, or manticore, or chimera, or any of a dozen different names that came to the top of the One's head in a flood of matching images. This was something that the one god or any of the Colonial Gods, should not have let live. But somehow they were alive and well, and killing cylons in job lots. The One now noticed something that wet and warm running down both of his legs.

He would later clam to others. That he did not know what happened next, but the other members of his line would know exactly what he did. The One had used his quick reflexes to turn off to one side of the open area, and he started to run as fast as he could deeper into the trees. He would not get far, before he was helped along his running path. Suddenly the One flew through air for about four feet without his legs helping in the action, then he fall face first into the smelly damp ground of the forest floor. He had been shot in the back by five heavy military grade rifle rounds impacting within a quarter of a second in total elapsed time. All of those fire bullets had sharp and hard rounds, and had hit within a hand width of area of a woman's fist. Then more of those heavy projectiles hit other places of his body before it had stopped moving in reaction to the fall and the pain of the first bullets strikes. It had happened so fast that even the hyper quick cylon mind. Could not register that the hits had come not from the same area that the attackers had coming from. But they had come from the area of safety he had being running from.

The shooter would be the eighteen year old female Tauron. The one which this Number One had always wanted to spend some private time with, the since first day this cylons had been ground side from the supply ship. She had not like that idea, and for one of the few times in the last few years, she found out that she could do something about it to change the situation. After the third visit from this Number One, she had "moved" to a new living area. Now she had to do that every few days, and still the cylon had found her again and again. She had been contacted by someone of Saul's group, and they had helped her get on the wood cutting details. At least this way she could get away from the cylon's attention, for a few hours any way. As soon as they could arrange it. She would be going out the tunnel, even if they felt that it might be a risk to the movement. If that did not work, she could make a run for it from the detail. That was a risk also, with the increased number of cylons over watching them. She was getting a few things together, and she was more than willing to make her own way out of the camp if the resistance did not help her. Now it looked like she would not have to wait any longer, and it was going to be a lot sooner than she had even hopped for.

She was still standing or more apt, she looming over the fallen and still leaking multiple body fluid human form cylon. From her hip she lowered the weapon to where it was almost touching the back of the cylon and she pulled the trigger, again and again, and again. That had been when some of Jason's group had found her, with the still smoking but now empty rifle in her slightly shaking hands. The three of them had just passed a look between the three combat hardened veterans. They did not get any close to the strange woman with a weapon that might still be loaded. Not to mention she had just proved that she knew how to use the fraking thing. At least not before a female member of the group in the homemade armor joined the four standing over the One's prostrate bodies. The woman had been the one who had taken the weapons fire, before she could shoot the human from. She was the one to first approach the maybe not very stable armed younger woman. There were something's that you just did not want to ask questions about, and this looked to be high on that list for the three men. Sadly it was not an unknown accordance anymore, and deep down those men grew even angrier at the cylons. They were mad at the cylons, and they were mad at themselves for not having been able to stop it. They had no idea that this was a common response, given the situation they had just walked into.

One of the males in the group walked up to the body that had more a lot more holes in it, than it was every supposed to have. He was shaking his head from side to side as he searched the body of the human like cylons. He was not expecting to find anything useful, but he gave it a shot. To his surprise when he flipped it over, was that it did not have any body armor on of any known kind. But the twenty or so holes in the back would have made that any body armor useless anyway for salvaging. He made a note of the absence, because only a few of the human forms had been taken out so far. That did not have some kind of body armor on, when they left the safety of the compound they guarded. It was generally thought that any human forms without any body armor, where the true REMFs of the cylons race.

The target of the young woman rage still produced two double barreled pistols and a lot of ammunition for the pair of hand held weapons. The male started to shake his head before pulling out the ear mounted radio like device from what was left of the male cylon body. The man patting down the dead cylon, passed the device to a second person. This person had found two good palm sized rocks. With a hammer and anvil set up, the cylon device was smashed into small bits after four or five hard hits of the hammer stone. This little dance had become second nature to the humans, when dealing with the human forms carcass.

With the maybe tracking device being dealt with, the searcher was thinking. This human like cylon, must have watched way too many war movies or shoot'em ups before coming out into the forest for the first time. Very few people could or did used the two gun mojo in the real word. But it did look good on the entertainment show that is unless, you're where watching them with some real operators. This cylons firearm and ammunition collection added more items, to help the cause against the cylons occupation of this planet. He was thinking about those twin pistols so hard. He almost missed the leather like bag of for carrying large amounts of Colonial cubits tied under the jacket of the red leaking cylon. That is, it was almost missed. The people who did these types of searches, knew what they were doing. With a quick flick of a pocket knife from the 13th tribe, the nylon covered pencil thick steal core wire was separated and the prize into his waiting hand.

The man was still kneeling down and looking at the human like form, which was leaking out blood into the already saturated mud. He was shaking his head from side to side, and he had a full on evil grin plastered all over his face. "Bud, I don't know what you did, but I just wish she would have used something that would have stopped you from getting a new body." He wanted to spit on the ground, but that would leave a sign that might be picked up by the enemy. He swallowed the gathered spit, and he gave a smile that was by no means friendly and rose from his kneeling position. "We will see you again your fraker, and maybe next time you will put paid in full on your fraking ass." He collected anything that might be useful to the humans, and left the body to finish cooling in the mud. The young Tauron woman had heard her fellow Colonial addressing the face down cylon, but she did not say a word. She had not said much of anything since the shooting had started.

Jason was talking to the group of newly "Freed Colonials". While he was talking, one of the Colonials that had been with the group the longest, was acting as a translator for him to the gathered Colonials. "Okay if any of you want to join us, we will take you in." He stopped talking, and pointed to each of the four humans that were armed and armored but not his people. None of these pointed out armed humans had fired on or into the human attackers. Just like they had been told to do by Colonel Tigh before they took this job. "You do not have to join the fight against the cylon, if you leave with us. The people in the resistance would love to have you no matter what. Or you can just keep living the way, you have been living."

The four armed and armored Colonials had almost caused a problem, when some of the unarmed Colonials found them. They had wanted to take a few pounds of flesh from those four, even if it was with their bare hand. That group was not buying that the armed ones were on their side in real life, and not working for the cylons like they had been lead to believe by the mouth piece of Baltar. The group of four had been saying the password, which they were supposed to give to anyone after some shooting had started. They were yelling it to anyone within ear shot, so that they would not be taken as a hostile force in the middle of a firefight. It just was too bad that none of the unarmed Colonials, knew the password that had been set-up beforehand. It took a couple of members of Jason's group, getting between them and their fellow Colonials to stop any bloodshed. They even pointing there odd looking guns in a not so friendly manner at them, before they would listen to reason of any kind.

Jason continued talking in his even if loud voice. "You can make your own decisions, just let one of our group know. Right now you will have to walk back to you camp. We are taking all of the transports with us when we pull out." Jason waved his hands in the air. "If we need to change plans, I will get word back to you as soon as I can. We may ask some or all of you for help doing some manual labor jobs, before we leave. If you want to help out great. If not? Please stay out of the way till we leave."

He stopped talking in mid thought, when a young woman. That Jason could tell was a Colonial, came out of the woods holding a Colonial made battle rifle in her small hands. She was following on her heals, were some of his fighters. The one that happened to be a woman was only by about ten feet or so had a strange look on her older face. The pair were coming from the same general direction, that the last human form cylon had gone into forest at the run. It normally would not have caught his attention, but for the truly evil smile on the young woman's pretty face. Jason made a note to find out more, when he had the spare time. With that mental note made, he went back to talking. "If you would like to help, we need to clean up the battle site. We don't want to leave any more that we have to, for the fraking cylons to reuse against use or any of your people tomorrow or the next day. That includes any shell casings spent or not, that are lying around this field. I will ask that you, please do not start walking back to camp. Until my people are ready to leave. Thank you for your time." Jason smiled and waved to the group of open mouthed Colonials, which made up the wood cutting detail today. He had a lot of things to do, before they could start heading back into the "safety" deep forest. Jason looked around the wreckage covered field and smiled. Things looked to have gone as planned. That just meant that he was more on edge than normal.

He had just turned walk away from the large crowd, when someone touched his arm. He turned to look at the twenty something man who was speaking in what Jason knew was Caprican, but Jason did not have a clue what he was saying at that high rate of speed speaking. Luckily Jason was soon saved by his "Second in Command" that had been translating for him, to the rest of the wood cutting detail for his little speech. He stepped up, almost coming physically between the Colonial and the Earther.

"He is asking if you're really from the 13th Tribe of Kobal. And where is Earth, and her armies and ships." The other man was trying not to grin at the discomfort, he knew this was going to cause Jason. This was a pretty standard question, but that did not mean that it did not get old being asked it. He knew Jason was already way past tired, of this one question coming up almost every day. Besides sometimes you needed to poke at your friends to keep them on their toes. It was supposed to let your friends know that you still care for them. Even if they might be planning a little homicide in response to your poking.

Jason gave a tired smile back to the other young man, and reached into a small pocket fixed on the upper arm of his combat smock. With some flourish, he pulled out a plastic covered card, and handed it to the younger man still reaching for his forearm. Jason then waited for him to read text printed on it, and give some kind of acknowledgment that he could read standard Caprican script.

The Colonial at first did not know what to do with the card, until Jason tapped the card. Then the Colonial could see that it was printed letters in both Caprican and English. Even though the younger man did not know it was English. The card was a series of questions and answers. It stated that, yes they were from a planet called Earth, but that where many places called that name. And none of them know who, what, or where the Thirteenth tribe was. His people just wanted the cylons off this planet as fast as they could. And they were willing to fight, and help with the Colonials to see that goal happen. The card also covered the basic laws the Earthers worked under. Like freedom of speech, but you could not make threats to someone, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. It also told them, that if they had any more questions, to please wait till they were at a support site. That would be, where someone could give them a more detailed to answer their questions. Besides it would be in a safer environment. The last statement on the card said for the person reading this to nod their heads, to signal that they understood the printed statements. It also asked for them to please pass the card back to the owner, so that it could be reused to help other Colonials.

The stunned Colonial nodded his head up and down, and handed the water proof card back to Jason. With the handing off of the card, he was turning to rejoin a group of his peers about a dozen feet away. They were forming a line of bodies, to speed up the flow of used and damaged Centurion parts to one of the slowly filling up cargo trucks. The two men did not say anything as they watched the young Colonial leave, and found a spot in the line of his fellow humans.

The Colonial tiled his head to one side and kind of turned to the Rift Earther, which was his commander. "Jason that was a first time with the card thing? How did you come up with it?" This was asked by the Second in command of this group, in slightly broken English that was understandable by the members of this group and a growing number of the people from Earth.

Jason smiled. "I wish I could claim credit for that idea, but I saw Major Weston pull one out the last time we were at the support camp a few days back. He was nice enough to give me an extra, he had in his pocket. This was the first time I remembered that I had it, when it might be useful. He told me that it was modified of what the scouts had used for the first few weeks after contact was made with your people." Jason stopped talking, when they were joined by a third member of his combat group. Suddenly, the little flash card was not that important.

Jason smiled at the older woman that had come up beside him, and his second in command. Stacy was great at lots of things, but she could not lead a horse to water in the middle of a heat wave. However she was good with numbers, and that was what he needed in his group, more than another just another average shooter. "So Stacy? How are we looking at recovering some of our ammunition cost expenditures for this attack? Will we break even on is this one, or is going to cost us when it is all over…again? " The last four mission that Jason had run, the best one had been a little better then break even for the cost of ammunition replacement and armor repair bill after the attack.

Stacy moved a lock of medium length of jet black hair out of her face. "For our weapons, we are good. The trade of one of the trucks will cover most, if not all of the energy used and any repairs that we need to do after this attack and the others." She was referring to the Rifts Earths weapons and armor that over half of his group used. "For the Colonial junk, I don't think that we are not going to break even. Not by a lot. That is unless you want to strip the black shirts." She was pointing to the group of human armed guards that the cylons had thought were on their side. "That might get us up to par on reloads. The rest…. Well I don't count my chickens before they hatch. We will just have to see what we can get back to a collection point. It would have been helpful in one way, if the Centurions had been packing a few of the 15mm weapons."

Jason tilted his head to one side and was thinking about the numbers, then the corners of his mouth turned down. "Stacy you know that we can't do that. They need all the weapons and ammunition that they can get inside the compound. We will just have to make due, just like we have been doing all along. Too bad the cylons have not made a fly over, if we could take out one or two craft, which would be a huge boast." Jason gave himself a shiver, as his voice trailed off and Stacy starting making the counter hex horns sign in the air with her right hand as soon as the words had fallen out of his mouth.

Jason eyes went wide, when his words registered to his own hears. "I cannot believe, I just said that." All three of them did a quick scan of the sky without thinking about what they were doing. If they could have recovered even a larger part, of one empty hull of one of the smaller Raider class craft. They would rake in the chits, that is if they could successfully recover it. And that is, if they lived through the experience and that was not a guarantee thing on this world. Now that Jason was reasonably sure, that they were not about to be bombed. He looked back at Stacy. "Who would have thought that we could take out all of our targets so fast? That they could not get a call for help out. Not that I'm complaining, but it you all have to admit that it strange."

Before he could say more, they were joined by the young man that had searched the shot up Number One that had been running in the woods. That is until it had been put down like a rabid animal. Just like his line had been acting over these last few years. He nodded to acknowledgment to each of the people standing in the group. His command of English was considered to be the second best under Jason's command. "Hey Stacy you might want to add this to your little list, for your accounts receivables." He passed over the two over and under pistols that looked to be of Colonial manufacturer, but there was no way to know for sure. By now most people just said they were Colonial made to keep things simple. The young man then also reached into his many cargo pockets and handed over a dozen extra full loaded extended count magazines for the hand held weapons. He even had a dozen extra rounds for the big bore under mount high explosive launcher in two sleeves of six small cannon rounds each. Why a cylon would have a heavy weapon, which was designed to kill metal cylons? That was very odd, but not worth the energy to think about right then. The explosive round would have been major over kill, for even a body armored Colonial Marine.

Jason was watching him hand over loaded magazine after magazine, out of what seemed like an endless cargo pocket of his combat smock. Jason raised one eyebrow and could not help himself and asked what was on his mind. "Were did you get that?" It was the biggest haul, which had been recovered from any of the other human form cylons they had taken down today. Most only had one weapon with maybe two full magazines for weapon, and that was counting the one in the blasted thing. Most of time the weapons ended up damaged ether by the weapons fire or the cylon falling on the things after being shot.

As the answer to the unit's commander questions. The young man pointed toward the same young girl, that Jason had seen exiting the wood line with one of his people a while ago. "She took down an Old Man type, with a dropped rifle she picked up from somewhere. And when I say, that she took down the cylon, what I mean. Is that she put a bullet in each of his organs, and she did it in alphabetical order. Then she just walked away after steering at him some big daggers into him, so I checked him out. I don't know who this One was, but he was not wearing any body armor at all. He did not even have any of that undershirt crap on. He might have been a wannabe gunslinger packing two gun style, without a long shooter." He reached into his ammunition pack on his right hip, which had more uses than just carrying ammunition. Out of that one pocket, he brought out about a two foot long by six inch x three inch black bag. The ends were thin like metal reinforced leather like strips that had been cleanly cut near the metal belt like attachment device. "Oh and he was packing this under his outer jacket and shirt." He tossed it to the leader of the group with a large smile on his thin rat like face. He had already had just a little looked inside, and thought that Jason would be the best one to handle all of the problems. That the money belt might bring up in the very near future. With the items handed over, he step back and away from the group of leaders. It was time for them to do their jobs, and he had already done his for the day.

Jason caught the money belt toasted to him in midair, with the ease of someone with great hand eye coordination. He had seen this type of item before, it had been from one of the Colonials that had wanted help in buy some equipment. That one had been filled with mostly Colonial made paper money. Paper money was really only useful for one thing, now and that stuff was also in very short supply. When Jason caught the belt, it gave a soft jiggling sound of metal coin rubbing against metal coin. It was not the sound of a stack of odd cut rectangle bills, which you would expect in a money belt. He raised one eyebrow to both Stacy, and the younger man while he unzipped the belt down the center and flat side of the belt. He was not sure what he was going to see, but he had a mental picture of what might be inside the cut belt.

The group of three were now in a closer huddle. And three sets of eyes were focused down as Jason opened the fabric, to display the prize it held within. A set of low whistle came from one of the small group. That was as a row of twenty gold cut cornered rectangles and a row of twenty silver cubits coins shined in the light of day. Jason ignored the other sets of eyes, and pulled one of the gold rectangles out of its holder in the belt to get a little closer look at the rectangle. He tossed it a few inches into the air, and let it land in his out stretched palm with a soft splat sound. He did this three or four times, to try to gauge the weight of the gold colored item they were steering at so intently. "I would say that it's a little over an ounce or as close to an ounce as you could want."

Jason then handed the rectangle coin over to the only Colonial in the group. Now he could get a better look, and maybe tell them something about it. After all it was not like the Earthers would have any idea about them. That is without some lab equipment and some free time, which they would not have this close to a battlefield.

The Colonial flipped it over and over in his hand, so that he could read the engraving on both sides of the small brick of gold. His eyes went huge, and his head snapped up to look at the others in the little group. His eyes were wide as what he was holding sunk into his brain as he spoke it aloud. "Holly FRAK! It's a 5O Cubit gold bullion brick from Sagittaron, and the silver ones? I would bet are going to be 10 bullion Cubits bars. Every planet made their own, some were move collectable that others. They are trading at quite a bit more than fifty cubits, now. Well since the bombings turned all the paper money, into nothing more than waste paper."

Jason pulled out one of the silver cut cornered bars, but he could not tell what the markings meant. He also handed the cut cornered rectangle over to the Colonial after he had looked over the odd sized bar. The Colonial was not that impressed with what he was calling a cubit. That is until he flipped it over, then he started get excited, very excited. "By the Fraking Gods!" That part was in English. What fallowed later was not. He looked at the other people with wide eyes, and realized that they had no idea what he was going on about. He had to pull out his little book that had been written as an English/Caprican conversion dictionary. He flipped around to a few different pages, before stopping after finding the list of the right words he wanted to use. He used the time to get his breathing, and mind back under control. He had expected to see just a silver cubit, which is not what he got. Now that he has the right words. "This is not a ten cubit silver coin. I have never seen one of these in person before, but from the markings." He pointed to both sides of the sliver cut corner rectangle. "This is an investment type of high value cubit. I remember seeing them list the price for these types of cubits, on the financial news channels at the close of every trading day back home."

Stacy was not known for her long patience, and was getting tired of waiting for this man to tell them what this odd shaped metal bar was in basic facts. Much less why, it was worth getting so excited about. When he had stopped talking for a few more seconds to catch his breath, or something. She went in with a tone, which would have stripped paint off battle armor at ten paces. "Well, are you going to tell us or what? I have things to do, before more tin men show up." Stacy just did not work that well with others.

The Colonial was still getting his head wrapped around what he had in his hand, and what was left in the money belt his boss was holding like it was full of coal rocks. "Its face value is marked as a hundred cubit coin, but this one is made of 99.9999 pure Platinum. Do all of the bars have this marking on the back side?" He was pointing to an odd fluid like design on one side of the bar, which was in his hand. He was trying to keep his hands steady, but it was wasted effort. He was fighting a tidal wave of emotions.

Jason now could understand why the Colonial had been so distracted. The same thing was affecting him now, in spades. They might have just hit the jackpot so larger. That it would make Amazon and Eva reputation seem small in comparison. He quickly checked all of the silver color bars in the money belt. To Jason's surprise, all nineteen silver bars that were left in the belt had the mark that was on the cubit in the other man's hand. "Well that changes things." Jason had a huge grin on his face, and his tone carried his smile. They just might now have enough in trade value, to get something other than a few Chipwell Challenger suites. He was thinking the next time he talked to Major Weston, he was going to be in for a major surprise.

Stacy could do the math in her head and probably was better at it, then any of the others standing around. Then her eyes went narrow as she worked the angles of the problem. It did not take her but a few heartbeats to notice that something was wrong. She pitched her voice to carry to the young man who had dropped this maybe bomb on them, and was still standing about five feet away from them. "That girl took down the cylon that was carrying this stuff, right?" She wanted to make sure of what she had thought, before she went father and crushed Jason's dream. She could see what Jason was thinking as easily as she could see the mud on his combat boots.

The young man nodded and knew where she was going with the comment. He had thought the same thing while walking back from the body of the cylon. "Yes she picked up a rifle, I think from one of the other human forms that was shot down early in the ambush. And she used it to take it out, a lot. I don't know if she took out the other cylon or not, but she still has the weapon. Or she did when she walked away from the body. But I think it's empty. I would bet that, she might not know, that she is carrying around a useless weapon." He quickly pointed to the girl in question. She was at the edge of a small group of colonials. She had a Colonial military battle rifle over her shoulder, and a set look on her young face.

Those few sentences took some of the spark out of Jason's eyes, all in less than a heartbeat. Jason and his group had a rule that said anyone who took down a major prize. Then it would be him/her or them, that would have get the reward for their actions. If it was taken out by his team, as part of a large group attack, it would be a little different on the details. They would still get to keep what they killed. But Jason would have been okay, if he asked them give up half of the value to the rest of the unit. This would be so that the group could buy supplies, for the rest of the whole group. The girl in question was not a member of the team, so that added another layer of legal issues that Stacy and Jason would have to fallow. By Jason's groups own rules. That would meant that she would not have to give them on dime, if she did not want to. She could even ask for everything they had taken from that Oldman type cylon down to his underwear, if she wanted to. There was nothing legally that Jason could do about it.

Jason looked around the group, then first stopped at his second in command and then to Stacy. "Would you please go talk to her, and explain what is going on." He was now looking at the only Colonial in the group, his second in command. "You might want to be quick about it, because unless I miss my guess. I think that she has noticed, that we are talking about her. She has that look of someone who is about to rabbit on us." He waved, and smiled at the girl who was steering back at them with large deer eyes. She had to look of a city rat about to bolt from the police or a pimp.

Stacy looked over at the girl with the rifle and picked her voice low. "Yea, she is going to rabbit. If two people walk over there, she is going to bolt. Maybe I should wait, and you go over to her first, and I wait to be called over if you need me."

The Colonial nodded at Jason and Stacy, with a sly smile on his face. He held out his hand and took the metal heavy belt from Jason. As he started walking toward the girl in question, he put both metal cubits back into their holders in side of the belt. "Hey you there, girl." He did not have to yell, but the group that was helping loads the scrap metal, all stopped and looked first at him and then her. This did not help her fragile state of mind, and before she could find a good way out of the local area. He finished his statement in the same voice. "You're not in any trouble. Would you please talk with me? I think the loading crew can get along for a while without you" He added this part hoping, that it would delay the girl from making a break for the wood line for a few more seconds.

The young woman looked around real quick first left and then right. She was trying to figure out if she should make a run for it, or not. It did not matter what the man walking towards her had said. She had been lied to before. She had some major trust issues, when it came to males. At least the ones that came with two legs. What made her decide not to run, was that there were too many of the armed and freakishly tall 13th Tribers. Besides the number, they also were too close to her, and blocking off any possible escape routes that she could see. Finally she shrugged her shoulders, and left the line that was tossing Centurion parts into the back of one of the cargo trucks that had been on the wood cutting detail.

When she was almost to the man walking towards her. She started to feel the urge to run building up in the lizard part of her brain, again. She fought it down, like she had done a hundred times before and centered herself. She set her shoulders, and did what came natural to someone with her life experiences so far. She went on the attack, with her first words that came to her mind. "What do you want?" She put as much attitude into her tone as she could muster. It sounded about right to her own ears, and deep down she like the tone. The military rifle slung across her back, gave her some support to the tone making and delivering department. She had already noticed that the people from her camp, were treating her differently than before she had joined the detail. It was almost like the way they treaded a Colonial Warrior, after the cylons surprise attack. So she was trying to channel this new found attitude, the way she thought they would do it.

The stranger had a sly smiled, and held up one hand to the teenager. The tone rolled off his back, like water off a ducks back. Some of it had to do with he had been a real Colonial warrior almost as long, as she might have been out of short pants. He knew the attitude, and he could tell that she was new to it. "You're not in trouble, woman. We just need to talk about a few things. What's your name anyway?" He made eye contact and kept it, with every word that had come out of his mouth. The set of his shoulders, and the rest of his body language was the same that was used when talking with an equal warrior, and not a child. He was expecting that she would know the difference, knowing why might take a little longer for her to understand.

The subtle shift in how the now closer man posture, had worked on the younger female. Her chin when up and her feet were now planted shoulder width apart. "Elias Howard, but everyone just calls me Crow. And you are?" She raised an eyebrow as she finished her question.

Yep, a street kid or close enough to it thought Alane. "Okay Crow it is. If you like? The Earthers are pretty flexible, if you want to change what you want your given name to be. They will ask for your given name on most legal documents, then for what they call a nickname."

When Elias nodded her head and that she was okay, and even like being called by her street handle. Nicknames or handles were a sign of someone with position or power, where she came from even before the cylons had come back. So when someone in the combat class was okay with using hers, she was happy on the inside. She also thought that she was careful not to show that happiness on the outside. This was the one of the few times, that she had that particular feeling in years. She did make a note of the information about changing your name with this group. That was not the Colonial way, at least not the Colonial way that she knew of and had grown up with. Maybe some things were starting to change for the people of the Colonies.

"I'm Alane Vickers. Everyone, and including these people, just call me AL." He pointed to the armed people that were helping pick out the odd bits metal, and but were at the same time. They were still keeping an eye up towards the sky, and their heads were always moving around in two different dimensions. "Jason and this group do have a few rules, you need to know about." He pointed back to the small group that was still watching her, like a bird of prey looking at a rabbit.

When she looked back to Al, she had almost missed what he was saying. "When you killed that cylon. Without needing any help from us. Well, you were entitled to keep anything of value from that cylon. That means whatever it had on its physical body, at the time it was put down. Since you're not part of our group before the attack. It has put us, as a group in a bad position. If you had been part of our group. We could ask for up to half of the valuables pulled by our people from your part of the battle. Those valuables, we can have used buy supplies for the group as a whole." Al was playing with the money belt, shifting it up and down like a yo-yo in his left hand. "We already put the weapons and ammunition from the Number One, in with the rest of the stuff we picked up. But we can dig it out if you want it, or give you something like it later."

Al was thinking that his was a lot harder, than he had first thought it would be. He was looking down towards the ground at her feet, and then just as quickly looked back up to her face. He did not want to screw her over, but he also knew the state of his combat unit compared to the rest of the units fighting the cylons. "But what I like to know? Are you going back to the camp, or are you staying out here with us. You took out a cylon, so you have some fight in you. That's rarer than you might think. We could always us another fighter are just a person who wants to fight, in our group. If that is not your game of tryad. Then there are some jobs back at the support base, or even the Settlement. That is if you have the skills. You could start an almost completely new life, if you wanted to." Al was messing it up, and he knew it. He had never been good at talking to civilians, or kids for that matter. He was good at killing people and braking things, just not talking to people. Besides she was very pretty, even under the wet hair and a dirty face. He gave it one last shot, to save the situation, or he was going to have to call Stacy over to try to bail him out. "What I'm doing a bad job of saying, is that you have some options open to you. But you don't have much time to make up your mind. Frist I need to know if you're going back into New Caprica or not." Well, let's see where that goes? Then I can see what I have to work with and workout how to keep her in our group.

Al could see that when he brought up going back to New Caprica the last time, that she shuttered. But to her credit, she had kept it together and by the second time those words were said. She did not flinch a millimeter. She was ready to give a reply to the question that she had been asked twice now. "I want to kill cylons. Not kill them, so that they can come back. But I want to end them forever. Is it true that the people from the 13th have weapons that can do that?" Crow was hoping that for once a rumor would turn out to be close to the truth. There was a first time for everything, after all.

Al smiled a big grin, which had a few to many more teeth showing to be called truly friendly. "From what we have been able to find out." He held up his hand to stop her from talking. "We have good sources in fact. They are very good, and they are telling us and I believe them. That most of the weapons these newcomer have put into the field, seem to stop the cylons from downloading into new bodies. So yes they die, if a machine can die that is." Al was betting by the tone Crow had used, this news was the key to her staying with them. "This is yours, no matter if you stay or go." He did not want to give up the money belt, but it was the right thing to do. He knew that if they kept the money any longer, than they had to. It would get out sometime in the future, and then no one would trust them again. So he passed her the full belt of high value metal. That did not mean that his fingers did not linger on the belt, a little long than he needed to.

Crow took the offered belt and unzipped it without thinking twice about the actions. Of all the things that might have been in the belt, she never would have guessed what was actually in it. Now ti was her street wise instincts that betrayed her. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as she saw all forty of the gold and silver color cubit bars in the now opened money belt. She counted each of the different colored rectangles twice, before she looked back up at Al with a very quizzical look. To no one's surprise, she used a questioning tone. "Is this for real?"

Al was still smiling at the young woman. But it had turned to a more fatherly looking one than the one that had been on his face a few minutes before. "More than you know, Crow." He pointed at the silver bars. "These aren't made of silver bullion, but Platinum and four nines pure at that." He was watching the girl, and she only twitched an eyebrow at what Al had said. She had no idea what he was talking about, and after she did not say anything about the Platinum bars in her hands. Al started to fill a few of the blank spots in her knowledge base in very low tones.

"It's about three times the value by weight, than even gold." He was rewarded with the young girl sucking in a large lung full of air, threw her clenched teeth. Al pitched his voice a little lower, in case anyone might be trying to pick up on what was being said. "I would suggest you let Stacy give you a receipt from them, and let her take care of it for you. She has a very good lock box, which she has brought with us packed down somewhere. She will turn it and the belt back over to you, when you get back to the support base that has been set up for combat teams. You look like a street smart kid, so yes the receipt is legal tender for the Earthers. If Stacy or Jason do not give you your cubits back to you? Then, well you can take it straight to leaders over them. They are kind of like our Quorum, but all of them are like Adama with a tooth ache, for enforcing their laws. Or you can keep them, and don't sleep for the next few days or weeks. Only because you're worried someone is going to take from you, in the night. It's up to you. If you don't believe me ask around. Everyone will tell you the same thing, at least the ones that have a working knowledge of Caprican."

Crow was fast and smart, almost as smart as she thought she was. She had tested and had almost made it into the short Viper school program. That had been set up to replenish their depleted ranks. She had only been sixteen at the time and they had not given her a slot. Then when they had found this mud ball. They had stopped the training school, and she had to find other ways to make a living. She was good at evaluating any situation, but she needed to buy some time to let her mind work on the issue that was so far out of her normal life experiences. So she changed the subject at random, to give her that time to think. "You know that if this wood does not get cut. It is going to put a lot of people in a bad way, without any heat back in the camp. And with the way you took the cylons out today. They will not want to send anymore out for a long time to come, if ever. It's not like they going to let us out here again, without having some kind of huge escort or a lot more eyes on us. That is, if only to stop us from running away from them."

This made Al jerked up his head. He had been caught completely flat footed, with her counter question, and statement. He knew how much the results from wood cutting detail meant to the average Colonial. But he had not thought about, what would happened after if this attack had proved successful. "Frak. I did not think of that, when I told Jason about this." Al looked round the girl and then over one shoulder. "Do you mind if we talk later, Crow?" He was already turning while Crow was waving, and smiling at him. She now had the time to check some things out on her own.

Al was almost running to get back to Jason, who saw him coming with a very concerned looking face. After only about five minutes of talking, a plan was put together. The work detail, at least the only ones who had not seen these new comers' weapons up close. It was hard to notice the firepower when you are barring your face into cold wet mud. Now they could only watch as stunned inhuman trees, when the massive forest titans fell one after the other. Jason and Al had grabbed a pair of short Vibro swords, and made quick work of dropping half a dozen trees in less time it took to pee in the woods. The hardest work for the detail, was using mostly hand tools to drop the trees, while the few small power tools bucked the down trees of any remaining limbs.

The pair would have gone farther and chopped the fallen trees into smaller logs, but they were already short on time. And they knew at least one human form cylon would be able to download with word about the attack on his lips. It also would be able to report that they had not started working before the attack had taken them out. When Jason dropped the final tree, he checked his internal clock and frowned at the read out. This was taking too long, but they were not ready just yet, to pull out of the ambush site. Jason had a feeling that he was pushing his luck, but he was going to push it just a little farther anyway. He felt that he had no choice but to do so.

"People! We will be pulling out in Nine minutes. Let's get a head count done, people. But don't forget to keep an eye out for any visitors." Jason did not have normally use a loud voice, but he could project one when it needed to be done. Just like he needed to do right now. He had his own final checks to do, before he was ready to pull out. He had to fallow certain rules that Major Weston had put out weeks ago, before they could leave this battle site.

This started a final mad rush around the sites by all of Jason's unit. The four human guards were placed into position on the ground, and then give a shot in the neck by one of Jason's few First Aid trained troopers. That shot would knock them out for at least a dozen hours, and maybe a few hours longer for some of the smaller ones. They would be safe leaving them out in the open and on the dirt. There were no predatory land animals on this planet. Well that is unless you counted cylons, and humans in that category. This would also give those four a believable alibi, when the cylon response finally showed up. It was a risk, but the four guards were all willing to accept it. Saul had warned all of them in person, what the risk would be. When they had first signed up to be the "Cylon helpers or Baltar's Bastard".

The first group of civilians was moving out of the clearing begin lead by four of Jason's group best scouts. They would be taken to a hide location, which Jason's people had already set up for a few days before the ambush. They would rest up and keep a low profile, before moving farther down the chain of support to a support base. So far it looked like all of the detail personnel were going to be pulling out with Jason's people. That was good news for Jason and his group. They would get a little bounce for each of the Colonials, that he help get out from under the cylons thumb. It was not much but, every little bit help the bottom line. At least when you were taking care of a combat unit, during a time of war While he was scanning the area, he caught a glimpse of the now very rich Colonial girl talking with one of the Colonials that had been with his team for a while now. He had been with Jason a bit longer, than Al had been with him. But he did not have the language skills that Al had brought to the unit. He just was happy killing cylons, and not being in a leadership role of any kind. He only had to be told what to do and point in the right direction, and off he would go like a living machine. Jason thought that it was a good sign seeing her, talking to him.

Crow had found a person she knew a little better than just in passing, from the same ship she had been on. To her surprise he was now in the group of Colonials that were working with the Earthers. She was having a hard time thinking in that term, and not the 13th Tribe. But that was the way that they preferred to be considered, so she would do her best to think of them that way also. If something like that keep her out of trouble, then she thought that it was worth the effort to try.

Dal saw the young woman coming towards him threw a mixed crowd, it did not take long for him to remember her. He stopped cleaning his weapon, and rose to give her a hug. "Good to see you Crow." He tilted his head a little more than he need to. This was to let her know, that he saw what was on her shoulder. And it was defiantly not a purse of any kind. "Did not know you knew how to shoot, or is that thing just for show?" The tone was light, but it did not hide the question, he would like her to answer.

Crow subconsciously touched the butt of the military rifle, slung over her right shoulder with her right palm. "I learned back home how to shoot, when I was a kid from my Papa. These things are not that much harder to shoot, than his old hunting rifle." Elias did not want to think about her lost family anymore, and changed the subject. "So what is the deal with these Earthers? I helped take out one of the human looking Frakers. And now they told me, that I can keep all of its stuff if I want but, I should let them give me a receipt and turn it over to them for safe keeping. They said its legal, and I can go to their Quorum. If they don't give me, my stuff back. It's some kind of game, right?" She was looking a Dal. He had been nice to her, and had even had covered her back when she got into trouble. He was about the only male, that she would say that she trusted in any kind of way. She did trust completely, that she could tell when he was lying to her.

Dal raised an eyebrow, at the woman-child standing before him with a combat rifle over one shoulder. His mind was working quickly, on what had been said and combined that with his experience working with this group. "They must have pulled something really good of that body" thought Dal. Dal made sure to keep eye contact with Crow, but not seem like he as a threat to her. "That would be Stacy. She's good people. I let you know, that if they don't give you your stuff back. Yes, you can take the receipt to the other Earthers in leadership positions. They will take care of it for you." He gave the girl a slight smile, which did not show any teeth. "Jason, Al and Stacy will not like what the other Earthers would do to them, if something like that happened. I want to take a little advice from me, if you will. The Earthers do not put up with theft, and that is what they would call it. If they did not returning your stuff to you, when you asked for it." Dal stopped taking and still maintained eye contact, then pushed her by connect the dots for her. "You heard what Admiral Adama did to those two Ha'la'tha gangsters awhile back? They aren't that bad, but they are a very close second to that event."

"Well that settles it" she thought. As she was trying hard not to pat the money belt under her cloths, but it was very hard to keep her hand still. But she still had more questions, a lot more questions that needed to be asked. And some of them, she was sure she did not want to know the answers to. She was looking at the strange second hand looking clothes. She knew, somehow, that his clothes were not Colonial made. Then she looked at the Colonial weapon, he had been cleaning on his lap when she walked up to him. "Why do you have worn out cloths and Colonial weapons? Why don't you have one of those Direct Energy Weapons and body armor like the rest of those Earthers do?" She first pointed at the homemade body armor, and then the Colonial rifle on his lap, and pistol on his right hip in its holster. She then pointed a thumb over her right shoulder in the general direction of a group that where not Colonial born. She had already noticed the differences with this one group, and she was concerned that Colonials might be looked down on by the Earthers.

Dal shrugged his shoulders slightly, and wiped some excess oil off of his rifle. He knew that Crow was a very sharp girl, and she had asked equally sharp questions. He was wondering if she would understand how the world worked now, or not. "Money for one. The Earthers are somehow stranded here on this planet. So they only have some much stuff, and they will not get any more, and they can't make more with the machines they can put together. So you need money to buy the good stuff. If you join or allow yourself to fall under their military command? Then you can get better weapons, and body armor issued to you. Just like the Colonial Military would do. Down side is that you have to fallow there orders, and it's a fraking pain to get out it."

Dal did a circle in the air above his head. "If you join a nonmilitary group, you can come and leave as you please. You can also take a mission, or sit them out. It is all up to you. This group buys what they can, but they want everyone to have good body armor first, well second after food. When everyone has some. It will all be better than what any Colonial marine has ever been able to wear. Then they say, that they will try to buy some better weapons to replace the Colonial made ones." He patted his homemade body armor that kind of looked like a cheap plastic animal skin of a rain jacket. "Now, how about a second piece of advice. Don't under estimate anything about the Earthers. This might look like crap, and second hand clothes to you. But it's both lighter, and stronger than anything a Colonial Marine Boarding team would have been able to use. I have taken hits from those big hand carried cannon weapons some of the Centurions carry, as well as a High Explosive round from a Colonial rifle at point blank range." He rubbed his chest without thinking about it, as flashback rocked his world. "I won't tell you that it did not hurt like Frak. But I am alive, still kicking, and talking about it." He had a cocky little grin now. "I will say, that I was able to shoot back. And I knock down both of those Frakers that shot me."

Crow's mind was blazing threw all of the new information she was picking up. She was trying to see all the angles, that someone might us to screw her over. The first one she hit on, she asked about it as soon as it popped in her head. "So, how do you get paid?" That seemed like a good, but also safe question to ask.

Dal now let the grin on his face, become a little slyer. "So you're thinking about joining our little band of outlaws. And you want to know all of the ins and outs, before you jump one way or the other. Good for you. I always knew you were a lot smarter, than you let people think you were." He unzipped the outer layer of his body armor like animal skin, and pulled out a single sheet of paper. The paper looked strange to her eyes because the corners were not cut off, like proper paper did. Dal passed it to her with a smooth grace. One side was written in some kind of text she could not understand, but the other side was in Caprican. As she started to read Dal kept talking. "This should explain everything a lot better than I could. As for getting paid goes." He was not smiling now, but shrugged his shoulders slightly, his lips turned down, and his eyes grew cold. "I don't really much care. When I joined up, they gave me this armor, a weapon, ammunition, food, medical care, and a safe place to sleep. On top of that they let me kill cylons, whenever we find them. That is really all that matters right now, at least to me." The smile was back, but it was not friendly and Crow almost took a step or two back away from her "friend". Dal kept talking oblivious to her discomfort, as he repeated himself. "They help me kill cylons, and that is all I care about for right now. Now sometimes they will pass a chit out to everyone, when were back at one of the bases. Or if you done something above and beyond, it would be a reward type of thing. I could give a Frak less. The food, now that is a different story. We get dried fruit, and fresh fruit when we're near one of the Earthers support bases." He gave out a slightly crazy laugh. "Frak, I even get thick slices meat for every meal."

Crow's eyes shot open so fast, that she could not stop them from doing it. She had not had real meat in what seemed like forever, and to have some for every meal. Well, that was almost enough to get her to sign her soul away to the gods for something like that. "So I have to give up half of everything to them?" The tone has shifted somewhat, and Dal picked up on it right away.

Dal had a shocked exertion on his face then it settled back down, but his mouth was in a straight tight lipped line. Like that time she had told him about a gang of boys, which had attacked her in one of the ships corridors. He that same look, when he went looking for them, he even had the same tone of voice when he asked her questions. "Who the Frak told you that? No you don't. They will ask you, if you find something good. If you would kick in up to half the trade value to the group's general fund, but you don't have to kick in a tenth cubit. I won't tell you that you will get some looks if you don't kick in something, but you don't have to." He had an idea what her next question was going to be, but he saw Jason and Al coming out of the woods out of the corner of one eye. He suspected that they all were going to be moving away from this battlefield very soon. "Look Crow. You're lucked into meeting this group. They are good people. And let me tell you, there are some bad ones out there, if don't watch yourself. You can come and go as you please, and if you get into most of the kinds of trouble you're known for. They well help, as long as you are not breaking their laws. Frak I even know a few crazy Frakers that are killing cylons on their own, out in the woods. It's up to you Crow." Dal looked up when he heard the call to finish up, and to get ready to leave. He looked into the eyes of the girl in front of him. "I hope you stick with us, but it's up to you. I got to get ready. We are about to pull out." He stopped talking for a second, and did the head tilt thing again. "Why don't you stick close to me for the next few days, if you're not sure?" The old smile was back on his face, and it even reached his eyes. "It would almost be like old times again."

Crow watched the man as he walked away. She already knew what she wanted to do, talking to Dal had only reinforced to her that it was the right choice. She had already started down that path, when no one had tried to take her captured Colonial rifle from her. Now all she had to do, was see if she could pull it off. It did not take more than a few seconds, of looking to find Al. He was talking to the Earther female. The one she had been told, was called Stacy and she was there supply officer.

Al stopped talking when he noticed the girl walking towards him, with determined steps and her chin held high. She had a set expression on her face, almost like a Viper pilot tracking a Raider with weapons hot. When she was about ten paces away from him, she pulled the money belt out from under her coat with a smooth motion of her hands. What happened next, he had not expected. And it would have never made it onto any betting pool chart, ever thought of. He had hoped she would turn the items over to be locked up, but he thought she might need a few sleepless nights. Before she came to her senses. He did not expect to hear the words that came out of her mouth, as she closed the last few steps toward him.

Crow was unzipping the money belt, with a smooth motion without looking at what she was doing. "I want to join your group for now. You said that if someone in the group had taken down something of special value. That you would ask for up to half of the value. That money would be used to buy things for the group. Are you asking me now?" She did not know if they would take her on as a fighter, but if she acted like she was already to be a part of them. Then she was thinking that, it would be harder for them to say no to her. At least that is how she was playing it out, in her head. If they did not take her on as a fighter, than she would take her items, and find someone one that would. She had a weapon, funds to go along with her will to fight. That should be enough to carry her for a while down the road she was setting her feet to.

Stacy had only been about five feet away from Al when the young woman with the money belt walled up on him. She was trying to fallow along with what was being said. But the rapid fire Colonial words, was beyond her limited language skills. She just waited, to see what was going to happen next. She had to be quite and also still. These were two things that she was not exactly known for being able to do, for any miserable length of time.

Al looked at her, and then down at the belt in her hands. He made eye contact with Stacy, and then looked back at Crow. "Yes as a member of the leadership of this group. I am asking that you donate up to half of your win fall, to the general funds of the group. It will be used to buy needed items for this group, so that we all can fight the cylons better. You do not have to do this, but it will help in the fight against the cylons. It also might save the lives of the other members of the group, if they have better weapons, armor, or other things."

Crow nodded her head up and down slowly. "Fine. I killed that cylon Fraker. But I could not have done it, if your group had not started the attack. I will let you take half of the value of those cubits, and hold the rest till we get to a safer place." Crow's chin went even high, and fire lit her eyes. "I want to fight cylons. I will stay, if you let me kill them. Where can I get a better weapon, and some decent body armor?"

Al could barely breathe, and then started with the easiest part of this little dance. "Crow. If you want to kill cylons, you're just the type of person we were looking for. After we get away from here. We will work on that, and were you will fit in best with our little group."

Stacy watched was the girl or young woman pulled out first of ten of the gold bar shaped cubits and ten of the silver color ones. Then she passed them one at time over to Al, who still had a poleaxed look on his face as the pile grew in his hands. Twenty ounces metal should not have weighed that much, but soon it took both of Al's hands to hold them. While she put more and more bars into his hands, until it held all twenty of the odd shaped items were in his hands. He turned, so that he could hand off the items to Stacy, before his heart stopped. He had never seen this much physical money in one place in his whole life. He had written checks and digital transactions for his employer, before the cylons had come equal to the amount of cubits in his hands. Somehow this was different to have real value in his hands.

Now that Al was turned to one side, he let Stacy know what they had been talking about. "Stacy, Crow would like to donate half of her win fall to the general group fund. This is being done in accordance to the rules, as being a member of our group." He said it first in English, and then a second time in Caprican. Before he passed all of the twenty cubit bars. They were ten of each color to her, for her to deal with.

Stacy looked at Crow and said in passable Caprican "Thank you Crow. I will put it to good use, for the good of our group. Make sure you get me your clothes sizes from boots to hat as soon as you can. If you have any questions, please look for me or anyone you might already know in our group."

Crow was not smiling as Al passed the bars over to the older woman. Who would be able to smile at a time like this? When they had just given away more money in a second, than they would have made in three lifetimes? She did nod her head to show that she understood what the other woman had said to her. Crow pulled out all two of the gold colored bars, and one of the silver colored ones out of the money belt. Then she zipped the belt back up, and held the money belt out to the older women. In clear and steadily as she could she asked for something, she never would have thought to do before an hour ago. "Receipt please."

Stacy looked first at Al then back at the young woman in some visible shock. "You need to keep that, till we get back to our first stop. Then we will take it from there, and give you an itemized receipt for you. If something happens to me on the way, I don't want you lose everything you just won. That would not be fair for anyone. Besides I did not bring the strong box out on an ambush. We have never needed it before." She pushed the money belt back to the younger woman.

Crow had not thought about that, after making up her mind to pass these cubits over. That they would tell her, something like she would have to wait. How would she be able to protect herself, and her new found wealth when others found out about it? She had no doubt that someone would find out about it, and they would try to take it from her. From her point of view, that was just the way the universe worded. The strong took what they wanted from the weak, and she did not even have any ammunition for the fraking rifle she still was carrying on her shoulder. She had used up every last round on that Fraking cylon, to reinforce that she was not interested in him. No had not worked, but hot lead might have gotten the point across to him. "I should have kept a few bullets, instead of just blowing through the magazine." Elias thought to herself, but careful not to let it show on his face. "Maybe I can find someone like Dal to lend me some." She was trying to work things out in her mind, but there were too many unknowns for her to come up with anything concert. She almost did not notice when Stacy dropped the rucksack she had been carrying from her back into the mud at her feet. It was the movement that brought Crow back to the world moving around her.

Stacy was rummaging through the pack on the ground with both of her hands. She had to pass all of those bars back to Al, so that she could do something with them. She had not been prepared for anything like what had just happened. Frist she pulled out a thick folder that had a zipper on one end. When she had it open, Al passed her the cubits. Stacy counted each out by type, and id number that was stamped on each of the bar/coins. It was a steady pace, until his hands were empty again. After closing the zipper folder again, and replacing it into the correct location in her rucksack. She pulled out two more items from her rucksack. She made sure to make eye contact with Al first. "Crow, you might need these. You're a member of the team now. If you need anything let Al or one of the others know, and we will see what we can do." She handed the two full loaded magazines, which would fit the younger woman's weapon from her knelling position to the standing young woman. Stacy had been able to say the complete statements, in passable Caprican. Only because she had said those same words so many times by now. That she had been able to memorize the phrases, by simple rote experience. It was only one of about half a dozen statements that she could do that with.

Crow took the two loaded magazine and nodded to the women, still kneeling by her rucksack in the damp earth. She had no idea what to say, or do. So she just went turned and went to find Dal. She did not want to be counted in the wrong group, when it came time to separate the sheep from the goats. Even with her limited experience. She knew that, would have to happen sooner or later. When the group was getting ready to leave she still had not found him, and was starting to get worried. She was just started looking around to find another face that she might have seen before. That was when she saw Dal and Al heading her way. They were not running, but they were walking in the ground eating pace of people short on time. Crow altered her course, and quickly help close the distance between her the two men.

Al spoke first when he was only a few steps from her. "Crow, I think you know Dal from before. But you will be working with his team, for now. Stick with him, and he will keep an eye out for you until we can get you settled in. Do as he says, and keep an eye on him. He has done this sort of thing before for us. When we get back to one of the support bases, we can all sit down over a nice hot meal and workout where you might best fit in to our little band of happy campers. If you don't or can't fallow orders, then we will ask you to leave. We will talk about what you think about our little group other rules in more detail then. Dal will give them to you on the way, so that you have some time to think about them beforehand. Questions, comments, concerns at this time, No? It might be a few days to get this all worked out. We want to take out time, to make sure you're a good fit."

When Crow nodded that she understood. Al just waved and walked away, giving orders to others as he went by little groups of people. Some orders were in Caprican, and others were in a language she did not understand. Crow looked at Dal and cocked her head to one side. "So where are we going? And how do I reload this Fraking thing? I could work out were the safety, the trigger, and the sights, but that was about it." She pulled the weapon off of her back, and held one loaded magazine in the other hand. The looked she had on her face only held a little bit of confusion on it.

Dal took the weapon out of her hands and pulled a magazine out of a pocket out of one of the side of his body armor. He quickly showed her how to drop the spent magazine, and put a new one in correctly. This did not take long, and he used a few extra minutes to show her a few other quick pointers. "Make sure you keep you empty magazines, or any you might see lying around a battle site. This is not like the shows you might have seen back home. Out here they are in short supply, and each cost money to replace or repair. Don't waste your money and buy your own out of your own pocket, let Stacy do that." Dal made an odd face. "I did that once, and I think it was from a bad batch or something. But it could have be that some of them were not Colonial made. And the cylons skimped on the quality control to get the number of magazines in the supply system up. So you might have to drop the magazines out of your little friend, before its empty and replace it with a fresh one. If it jams up on you that is what you do. Don't think about it, just do it." He waved his finger at her, like a father to an errant child. "Even if you know it's broken, don't drop them and leave them behind. That is a big fraking no, no girl." Dal was always watching Crow as he was talking. This was a lot different situation than he thought that she was used to.

Crow took the weapon back, and repeated the loading and unloading motions a few times. She took some more direction from Dal on how to use the weapon, and it's built in systems. This only took a few minutes to do this, because she could not test fire the thing. And get a real feel for the new tricks she had just been shown. Right then it was not that big of an issue for Dal or anyone else in the group of fighters. She had proven that she could hit a moving man sized target, with that weapon already today. That alone was enough for most of Jason's group to accept her having a loaded weapon of her own. Besides she had brought it with her out of the woods, and by the Earther's laws it was hers.

Dal nodded and when she stopped the action, and went into and out of a hunter pose. He smiled at her with a fatherly smile. "Now my new young friend, we have some work to do to earn our meal tonight. You will be helping me heard and protect these four unarmed civilians. Until we get back to the main base camp some miles away. For now though, we are going to a hiding spot that is a bit of a walk from here. And before you ask. No we will not be catching a ride on one of the transports, which your group was so kind to bring out to us." He gave a slightly evil laugh. "No one but the drivers, and one armed escort will be on each of the three trucks that we will be taking with us. That way if we lose them, we won't lose too many people at the same time. It will Fraking suck to lose the prize and salvage money, but we can always get more of that. Finding any more good people? Well now, that is kind of hard to do." He did not have to add that it was hard to find any more humans, because of the cylons. That was just a given.

The six of them separated from the rest of the group, and went deep in the woods to find their assigned spot of hide out for the next few hours. In a matter of minutes after Crow and Dal's group had left the ambush site. The whole area was empty of any movement, except say the wind blowing slowly threw the tree tops. It stayed that way for over an hour. It was not common for the wood cutting detail to not contact base that often. But it had hard times, that it must make contact with main base of operation. It would seem that the human forms that had been acting as escorts had not gotten a message out after all. The Number One that Crow had shot down had been so new that he had not picked up the right type of coms device. He had only picked up one that the local detail would receive any messages it might send out. Then the Number One had a delay while ever line of his code was checked out, before it was allowed into a new body. All this took time, to do.

When the detail had not made contact at the appointed time, and had not responded to repeated attempts to contact them by the Number Two on duty. When they were already half an hour overdue. That was when a pair of Raiders made a low flying pass, over of the area that the wood cutting detail should have been. The low flying Raider transmitted live images of the clearing and the sprawled out bodies of the human police guards on display in the center of the clearing. Those images did not only go back to the building on planet, but to one of the orbiting Basestars as it was ordered to do. John was not happy when he was contacted, and informed of the situation from the operation center. Now reviewing the data in person, he was not any happier as he reviewed the images. It had been so long since the last cylon had downloaded, that he did not even check if one had. Now if a cylon downloaded it was a complete shock to the crew running that equipment. The Number One that Crow had killed was just lucky that it was a completely automated process if time consuming.

It had been on John's order, to conduct a second more detailed fly over of the area. And while he was waiting for it to report to come back, he used what he had learned to not just wait but to plan. He had already issued the orders to prepare the Quick Reaction Unit. And it was about to leave to check out the area when the second Raider report back in. The more detailed information led the human form to believe that it did look like an attack was still in progress. John on a whim confirmed the order to launch, and they left the nearest Basestar.

When the Centurions and their supporting Heavy Raiders of the QRU made it to the scene of the attack, it was not long after the last over flight. They deployed off the heavier craft ready for combat from any directions as they flowed out of the small craft like a flood of deadly metal. The only thing they found however were the four human "police", and the stripped bodies of the human form cylons on the ground. While they were moving around the area looking for any attackers, the one cylon that had been shot in the back by Crow had succeeded in completing downloading. It went into a new body successfully. It made his report first to his line, and then to the rest of the human forms about what had happened to him and the rest of the detail. At least as it remembered the events, and the other Ones agreed on how it was to be told to the larger group of human forms.

That second "real" report came down just in time to stop John from killing the human guards that had been on the woodcutting detail, and left tied up. That report proved that the human Police had not been involved in the attack against the cylons. But had been left unharmed, because they were simply human. It was assumed that they had been left behind when the rest of the human crewed word detail had disappeared, was because they had been working with the cylons. This added more fuel to the fire. That the cylons should leave the humans and this fraked up planet, behind as fast as the Basestars could move. This also did not make John happy, and he was determined to take it out on someone, or any one he could. When you added in the loss of the trucks, along with the armored VIP transport. All of which had been brought out to the end of a very long supply line, with the missing Centurions? This left John wishing he could vent somehow on the humans that were left in the camp under his thumb.

While John was handling that situation on the ground, and the massive amount of complaining coming from the other lines. He was "told" to bring back the one remaining cargo truck. What had almost made him lose his mind, besides being ordered to do something? Was that he had been told, to make sure it had a maximum load of wood in the back of the six wheeled cargo truck. When he sent it back to the human camp for offloading. That was how the cylons started to do work, to support the human's quality of life, again.

John would have repeated flashbacks for weeks of Centurions cutting and loading wood, which the human detail should have done, had they not gone missing. He even had to have half of his walking Centurions from the QRU carrying arm loads of wood back to the human camp. This was so that they would not have to make another run over the next few days. Just to get the wood the camp needed to live on this cool planet. On top of all that, John knew that the Colonials saw the cylons driving the cargo truck back to the camp. Along with the walking Centurions, who were carrying the arm loads of wood that the humans needed. He knew more than one of those human watchers would remember when cylons were their slaves, and did the biding of their human masters.

That had all been before the 1st Cylon war had started. John was not very happy, and it was getting worse the longer he could do nothing about what was driving his anger. When he went to look for something, and someone else to make him happy. It had turned out that it did not help his mood. He found that she and Saul, had moved out to their old shack during the day, and he had not noticed this little event happening. He started looking for them, but he ran out of time before curfew for the humans had started. He was short ground Centurion not currently on missions, until he could get some more sent down planet side. So his searching would have to wait till the next day to find Ellen Tigh and her husband. That is if nothing else went wrong on the god forsaken planet, between sundown and sunup.

###############

After Saul had taken care of starting his planning for the end of the cylon occupation, he pulled as many strings as he could and called in every favor ever owed to him. The hatch to the basement was fixed, so that it would not open from the top ever again. It would just look like any other part of the floor, under even very detailed inspection. The secondary access point to the tunnel, in another shack would now be the primary entrance and exit for the tunnel. The old entrance would be back filled and blocked, so that even if any intruders knew were the old access point in the floor had been. They would have to dig down and sideways, to regain access to the basement and tunnel. It would take a lot of effort and equipment to do this fast, even for cylons.

It was going to take a lot of work and man power, to get this all done. But it was that, or risk losing the only tunnel out of the cylon controlled camp. That was not likely to happen in the time, that they hope was left of cylon occupation. Saul was a military man, and for all his other faults. He knew how to make a Plan B or even up to a Plan K. All Saul had to do was issues a few orders, and a certain group of his people would fallow the direction he had mapped out for them already.

Saul and Laura had worked some quite deals, and after some shuffling around of some people who might not have volunteered. Saul and his wife were being moving into a cabin in the middle of one of the grounded Pan Galactic liners. That liner was almost in the perfect center of the field that had been turned into a refugee camp. The new living area was a lot smaller than the shack that the pair had left, with only what they could carry. But it would be hardened for anything to happen to them, without it being seen by sixty or more people. And one or more of those people, would be reporting it to a lot of others. His last act as the resistance military leader was to have a message passed to their contact near Baltar, in Colonial One. He was to get the codes to unlock the Jump engines, for all of the Colonial ships on the planet. If things went sideways, and fell apart in the worst ways they had thought of? Then at least they would be able to leave this system, and scatter to flee any pursuing cylons. It was always good to have a Plan F. This one was called, Plan "We are so Fraked". It was just too bad that Plan F, was also looking like "Kill as many cylons as possible, till all of the human fighters on the planet had died in place".

With Saul now out of the picture, hiding from the human form cylon named John with his wife. Laura would be appointing a new leader of the resistance for military operations. When she had time she would appoint a temporary replacement for Saul. That was a task both of them were not looking forward to doing. They were passing the odd coded notes back in forth, for now. If she was lucky. It would only be a temporary command of the military parts of the resistance, she would have to hold together or Saul's replacement would be doing that job. If things worked out any were close, to how they were planned out. Saul would soon be come out of hiding, and take back over military operation on the ground at least.

##########

A few days after Jason and his group had even pulled out of the wood cutting area, the leadership of the Settlement was on a conference call to deep space. It was with the leader of the only two space warships, which were under control of the humans that any of them knew about. They were working on the last bit of a very detailed and complex plan. Which later ether people would say that they were brilliant, or dumb as fraking rocks? It was however, the only thing they had to work with. Desperation is the mother of inventions, or the final refuge of the crazy.

Captain Kelly was getting tired it had been a long day for him already. And they seemed to him that they were just rehashing the same issue, over and over again and getting nowhere with it. He looked around the metal walled briefing room, and the other people in the room were looking like they felt the same way as he was feeling. He took it as his job, to bring it up to the others in this planning session. "Look Admiral Adama. Can your two warships take on and win against three of the cylon Basestars or not?" Kelly was rubbing his head with one hand, and looked to his left and right with blood shot eyes. The others in this room were looking at him with a mix of surprise and grateful looks, at what he had just said to the device that would transmit his words across this star system.

From the sound of the voice that comes through the device sitting in the center of the desk. It sounded like the older Adama, was also on edge of his last nerve with how this meeting had been going for a few hours now. "Captain Kelly as I told you before. It's not just the Basestars we have to deal with. It's all of the Raiders, Heavy Raiders, and the ton of ground base Centurions they are carrying. That we will have to deal with, on top of the three capital ships. If we were just talking about those three cylon Basestars, then yes we could do it. No major problem, besides the normal uncertainties that can happen in any battle. If they only had half of the Raiders and Heavy Raiders to launch against us, then again yes. Even if they had most of the Raiders available to launch against us, we could still win. But we do not have enough weapons to take on all of the cylons at once. That is with an even chance of us surviving the battle with them. We just don't have the firepower or numbers to win decisively, and without taking very heavy losses in both ground and space operations. Losses, which would leave us defenseless against any enemies in the future."

Kelly was now rubbing his temples with both hands. He had just decided that, this was worse than working with the Coalition State with a tooth ache. Kelly tried to keep his voice calm and level, even though he wanted to reach into the Colonial made device. And choke the person on the other end with his bare hands. "Admiral we know that they will be shifting very thing they can, when the fourth ship leaves. All of it will be going over to the three ships that are staying behind, because we have been taken them down to that low in deployable numbers." Kelly had not said that they had been able to do that without any warships in support. "How about looking at this way for a second, if you would Admiral? What if we change the dynamics you are used to fighting? Anything that the cylons have on the ground is going to be looking at my people and your people, which are also on the ground. The ones that have been taking them out. And will not be going at you, at least not in the early stages of the space part of the battle. I would bet if you attack them in orbit, after we start attacking them on the ground. Then they are going to be shifting assets toward us, and not be able to send most of them towards you. We have been taking out cylons, even air targets. All the way up to 4000 feet or so, of ground level without that much of an issue. If you take the high ground for us, we might be able to even the odds on the ground side of things. Would something like that be helpful in your planning?" He almost had said, "When you run your numbers" to the military man. That would have been tactless and border on rude. To tell another commander, that all he cared about were the win/loss column could have been taken badly.

For a few what seemed like hours, the device was quit on both ends of the conversation. It was quite long enough for eye to start to turn to Kelly. They all were wondering if even that little push had been enough to offend the Colonial space Admiral. Kelly was just about to say something again, and was already working up an apology in his mind. Then the crackle of a voice came back over the hand built device.

"Captain Kelly, are you telling me? That you think you and your people, can take on three Regiments of Centurions. That as well as any air support from Raiders and Heavy Raiders, which they might have in local space?" Adama was finding it hard to believe, what he was being told by people he had never met face to face before. He did not want to insult them, but he wanted to make sure that they understood the magnitude of they were saying. He had reviewed all the reports coming in about the combat, which had been going on ground side. But he still was having a hard time believing that that a population of less than seven thousand people and an even smaller military, said they could do. No matter how high tech they seemed to be. They should not be able to do that what he had read about. Now he was being told in a major planning mission, not some short of a hidden camera shows. That they truly believed what they were selling or shoveling.

Now that same small group of fighters, and now support with a growing number of Colonials. Now said that they could, not only take on three cylons assault Regiments, and could not only hold their own against them. They were saying that they could win against them. Bill Adama had seen whole Colonial Marine Regiments and Brigades wiped out to the last person, by a smaller sized cylon unit. And this had happened repeatedly, both during the first cylon war and this new war. But what if what they were saying, was true? Then it would give his plan a better chance of succeeding. As they had said more than once, they had the guts and more importantly they had the weapons to do it. He just did not know if he had the faith, that they could do all of what they said they could do. Now if they could delay, even some of the cylon small craft. At least until, he and the Pegasus took out the three Basestars in the solar system. Well that would be a big help in evening the odds. The ground combat would still be ugly, and cost a lot of blood. Then again, they already had taken out almost a full Basestars worth of Centurions. They had done this all in small to medium sized attacks to date. That was something that most Colonial military units could not claim to have done. That is, if there information was right and they were acting like Viper jocks and inflating their kill numbers.

Kelly was about to snap off a witty reply. And in one of the rare times, in years. He did not trust his mouth from going too far if he let it open. So he only said one word, and he tried to keep it in a positive tone, without any of his exasperation coming through. He was only partially successful. "Yes!" But the tone he used carried over the device, all the way to the very end of this solar system. Both Max and Bob cringed when they heard tone.

Then in the back ground something changed from the back and forth between the Settlement and the Admiral. The operator that was in the cylon control Refugee camp, jumped in on the conversation without an invitation to do so. "They have been doing it with four Basestars in orbit, alone so far. So why can't they do it for a little longer?"

The voice was faint, like they did not know they were actively transmitting to everyone much less the power players on line today. Kelly hoped that it would be good enough, to keep his people form coming down on the person. Which had blurted that statement out for everyone to hear. He had wanted to say the same thing for a while now, but he had not wanted to poison the well so to speak. With someone, who also just happened to command a pair of two million ton space base warships and a bucket full of supporting ships. That also could be the Earthers only way home and off this lonely planet. Or he could blow them all away from high orbit.

They could hear the other man, the Admiral, let out a sigh that carried the tone of a very tired man. "Okay we try it your way. We will take out all of the Basestars in orbit, and you will handle the ground war. I don't want you all to think, I don't trust you. But if you get in over your heads, please for frak sake call for support. We will send whatever we can, when we can. The earlier you do that. The better, that we all survive what is in our future. After all, we are an endangered species. With that in mind, what can I do to support you now?" Bill Adama stopped talking and waited to see what the others would say or ask for.

Kelly smiled, this was a major break threw and up until right then. He was not sure it was going to happen or not. The smile got a little bigger, as the person who was representing the supply department spoke up for the first time in the last few high level meetings. "Sir, I am Hugh Lloyd. We can't predict what we will need as emergency request when this finally kicks off. But right now, our top need right now is grow lights for the greenhouses. This will help us produce the fresh food we are all going to need. I have been authorized to act on supply issues to include selling, trading, or any other thing that might need to be done reference supply. Please pass along to whoever needs to know. That we have some excess armor plate we would like to sell or trade. They are three millimeters or .118 of your inches thick, and are four foot long by four foot wide. We rate them as good, as the current cylon Centurion armor. We are making more, but right now we have twenty sheets available for other uses, that exceed our own needs. We have other things. That we can use to open and keep open trade, with your group after things settle down with the cylons."

Adama sat straighter in the Raptor cabin seat, so fast that the EO for this mission eyes went wide. And he started looking for any threat, the Admiral might have seen and he might have missed. The Galactica had been stripped of almost half of the armor plate, she should be carrying. That was when there were going to make her into a museum piece of all things. Bill Adama understood that the armor had gone back into the Colonial supply systems. Bill had even read that the "recovered" armor had been used to finish up a brand new Mercury Class Battlestar, which was coming off the slipways soon. She still had the supporting heavy vertical and diagonal ribs, which had once held that protection in place. They were still almost all exposed giving the old warship the look of an animal with its ribs showing. Armor plate was hard to make, very time consuming to produce, and hugely expensive in every way a civilian could think of. That had been even before the Colonies had been attack, and wiped out all the large scale armor production facilities that the Colonials had.

In fact Adama had only been barely able to replace the worst battle damage armor plates on both of the warships. That had all he been able to do, since they had stopped running, and before they were found them again. They just had not been able to divert enough of their limited resources to fill that need along with everything else that needed to be done. Now Adama was given another surprise to deal with. On top of them being on planet hiding, and all of the other magic tricks they had pulled off. These people had been able to support all of their armor needs, and had been able to stock pile armor plates on the side. If what these Earthers had said is true? They did indeed have advanced technology in manufacture. That is to have about 320 square feet of battle armor plate, just lying around there little village. Bill was running numbers threw his head as fast as he could. The new Cylon armor, which had been found on their new generation of Centurions, had the best protection known to man. At least on per ton of mass based comparison. At least what was known to the older Adama, and anyone else he had talked to or who had looked a tested sample of the armor.

In other words, it was a lot better. Than what the Colonial tech base, was able to make in anything other than test samples in a lab somewhere. These strangers were able to reproduce the same grade of armor. But they could do it at almost half the thickness as what the cylons had been able to field, was borderline insane. That it was only being made in only four foot sections, was not great news in Adama's book. But twenty plates of that size would be a huge help, and they had said that they were making more. If they were wanting a bunch of grow lights, that his electronic repair ships could make in their sleep. That was impressive; he understood why they might need them. After all his people had been short food more than once, since the cylon attack. And it was not like this planet was the natural habitat, for growing the right grains for making bread or anything like it. He would make sure that the electric repair ship started a long run of grow lights, just to make sure that they had enough for trading to these Earthers. Besides you never know. They might have some good ideas, to help his people grow more of their own food instead of living off of vat algae. "Mr. Lloyd. I think we take that armor plate off of your hands. Please let us know when you have more. I'm sure we could find something to use it on." To Bill his voice sounded odd. Maybe it was just the subject they had been referring to.

Kelly smiled and it was matched the one on Max and Bob's face. It looked like that one project would turn out to be useful after all. Now Kelly wanted to know one more bit of planning information, before any more supply issues could be addressed. He had more experiences than the others in complex plans using large moving masses of metal, and he felt it was his lane to ask this question. "Admiral how long after you're notified that the fourth Basestars has left this system, before you can start your attack on the remaining cylon ships?"

Adama looked at the transmitter and he just blinked two or three times, before he started to give a reply. That was a very good question, and it showed that the person on the other line might be making contingence plans of their own. That was smart move, very smart in fact. Bill was wonder what they might be and made a note to bring this up later, after the cylons were taken care of. "Let's go with fifteen hours, after the report is sent to the Raptor. That should give us some planning room for any issues that might have changed at the last minute. It would also make it so, that the Basestar is going to be far enough away. That even if it comes back to New Caprica for any reason. It would be too late to help any of its friends that had been left behind."

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The meeting would go on for another few minutes, before the Raptor had to leave to get the Admiral back to his ships safely and with its planned contact schedule. While that meeting was finishing up. Another group conference was just starting to be held. This one was in orbit above the cold planet on one of the cylon Basestars. If cylons ever could get heartburn, this was going to be one of those times that it would have happen. At least for a certain one of the cylon line, it was having another one of those days which had become all too common.

The Hybrid in orbit had noted the report from the ground Centurions of more loses they had just taken place that day. As the numbers were compiled at John's reloaded orders, other programs were automatically activated. One of those programs updated the roster of all cylons available or capable for duty to all of the Basestars. The numbers were now below a programed point, even before the list was completely updated, with the additional lost cylons that could not down load. When that point was reached, the hybrid sent notices out to a list of pre-written programs. This activated a special mandatory group meeting to be called. Very human form cylon, what was not in direct contact with a human, or if they were doing something that was on the approved list as "A due not interrupt". They were all pulled into the massive digital meeting. To most of the human forms, this meeting was not a surprise. They were surprised that it had come this quickly, after it had been set up.

The avatars of all of the Hybrids were bobbing glowing balls of light in this digital space in the massive digital meeting. When it sensed that all were present that should be there, were in fact there. The glowing balls of lights gave their joint statement. "Combat power projections have now fallen to point noted for Operation Four. Orders to move all Centurions from Basestar 02 to the planet are ready. Orders to shift the needed Raider and Heavy Raiders to the rest of the Task Forces from Basestar 02 are ready to be sent. Orders must be approved by majority vote, before sending of these orders. End of line." The pulsing four balls of light stopped talking at once. As they waited the beat of the pulsing light slowed to the average resting heart rate of a human.

Each human form model sent its lines approval or disapproval, to the orders that had been just identified as needed to be sent out or not. Only one model voted "No" to all of the requested orders. But the others would never know that, because of the secret ballot used in this forum. They would never know it had been only the Number Ones, who had voted no. The Ones would know who had voted what way, with in an hour of the vote. As had happened an only a handful of times before, the Number One line had been shut out in a vote.

In a few hours, all four Basestars would start sending down all the Centurions that they had in inactive storage and active duty, down to what was called dirt side. They were to be reorganizing into three all most full strength cylon assault regiments. This would take a few weeks, even for cylons to complete this task. They also would need a lot of elbow room to do the job. This was left over codes and plans that the humans had put in a long time ago. It might have been helpful for the cylons to have remembered that, because Bill Adama had remembered that little detail.

After all of the Centurions had completed the deployment to the hastily prepared ground bases all around the little area occupied by the 12 Colonies little refugee camp. The Raiders and Heavy Raiders moved to fill the few, but recently growing loses for those types of units. The three remaining Basestars would have the same number of Raiders and Heavy Raiders, as they had when they first entered this system. Additionally two dozen Heavy Raiders would be posted, in a clearing right next to the human camp. This would open up more transport slots on the Basestar, which was now on an accelerated time line for the planned emergency supply run. There were a lot of moving parts to this operation, and none of them could have been hidden from any ground based watchers. That is if the cylons had even thought about hiding their movements from the people under their control in the first place. Hiding what they were doing in space, well that was a different story. It was one that they know how to write chapter and verse on how to do. Four hours after the last small craft had left Basestar 02, it prepared for a long trip back up the cylon supply line to refill its now almost empty hull. It was not defenseless. It still had full capital missiles magazines, as well as about half of the normal load of attack craft.