FOUR

The first 24 hours after they arrived on Menno Seven Three had been busy ones for the Breaker Castle's Engineer, Brad Westling and Load Master Greto Park. They had to off-load the two Vipers and the Raptor then move the two Pods to a holding area. Westling had given the BeeCee the once over externally and made sure she was ready for the next flight. Assuming that there would be a "next flight", that was. The way things were shaping up it was looking like this rock might be a permanent address for a while.

Captain Rohs' return from the buoy recovery mission and the orders to turn the BeeCee around for the Harlow rescue mission came as a shock. Not that they minded doing the mission, but the BeeCee was a freighter, afterall. This was going to be, for all intents and purposes, a tactical combat mission. Westling and Park had both served in the Forces at one time, but neither as combat crewmen, and certainly never under fire.

"Under fire…" Now THAT was scary.

Nonetheless, they'd make sure the Breaker Castle put in a good showing. They had crewed together for many years and now wasn't going to be the time to decide they had better things to do.

The really busy part right now was prepping the BeeCee's cargo pods for a new mission. They had to completely unload the pods and that meant finding places to put everything in Menno's warehouse. Luckily, Menno had a surplus of labor at the moment, and with the non-Tylium mining operations having been suspended, space was not a subject.

Ayellen Ballew, the housing manager, and David Garza from the messing facility, took charge of supervising the unloading and storage of the BeeCee's cargo. Storing the dry-goods and canned goods wouldn't be a problem. The tunnels along the axis of Menno Seven Three were each 20 kilometers long and growing. It would take one hell of a lot of canned goods to fill up that much space. Nonetheless they took the Pods a good half click down each tunnel and started unloading cargo flats there. Not only did it keep the center of gravity of the rock fairly even, if one end of the asteroid took a hit the opposite end would have some provisions laid up in it.

Don O'Banion and his longshoremen made short work of the unloading process. The beef that had been in BeeCee's refrigerated pod was now safely stowed in Menno Seven Three's deep freeze storage unit.

"I've been here three years and I can't remember that box having ever been that full," quipped Garza.

Don O'Banion let a slight sigh pass and looked over to his colleague. "This may be the last time it ever looks that good, too, Dave. At least for a while…"

The stockpiling wasn't the only activity going on in Menno's tunnels, either. Each tunnel had been designated as a "pole" for ease of direction-finding. From the hangar bay, the tunnel to the left had been designated the "North Pole" and the one to the right as the "South Pole". And it was at the far end of the South Pole that Sergeant Grant Lohan and Corporal Alvin Jarvis had taken the Marine Detachment, or "MarDET". The lack of mining activity and the remoteness of the site made it perfect for small weapons training and close quarter's combat drill.

The mission to recover Mr. Robbins and the people on Harlow's World was going to be a RUF mission, better known as Rescue Under Fire. Although it appeared as though the other asteroid was devoid of Cylons, Gunner Kells was going to make sure that any unexpected company was greeted by Marines.

Jarvis and two of the other Marines had set up an improvised close quarters battle trainer, or "CQB House". Some of the rooms had targets of Cylon Centurions, others were of civilians. A few of the rooms had Cylons using civilian shields. Needless to say, hitting the Toasters without hitting civvies was the goal. They'd also set up a small firing range with targets at a few hundred meter intervals.

Even with his left arm in a sling, Lohan was in the thick of things. He may not be able to go on this mission, but he'd do his damned best to make sure that all of his Marines came home in one piece.

Truth be known, the Marines themselves welcomed the drills. "Practice" on board a Battlestar, or any other ship of the line for that matter, always meant using blank rounds and having a very limited space to practice in. An assault rifle firing blanks was not the same as hot rounds. Menno's cavernous tunnels gave them both room to maneuver and plenty of opportunity to put some real rounds down range without the worry of puncturing a pressure wall. At its thinnest part, not including the airlocks, most of Menno's walls were several kilometers thick

With each evolution of disembarkation and assault on the CQB House, the Marines cut their times by a few seconds. Again and again Sergeant Lohan ran the teams through the drills until they were able to get from the door of the "Raptor" to the "house" in less than 90 seconds. He was fierce and he was stern. No one was going to get shot or hurt because he didn't train them right.

Time after time, each fireteam stormed the building. With nearly ballet-like precision, they advanced to the front door, clearing each hallway and room as they moved. One Marine would always be facing the rear to protect the team's "six" and watch for any threats from the rear. Lohan regretted not having a "real" CQB House with pop-up targets and ballistic walls for safety. It was hard to simulate the sudden changes in fortune of combat without being able to throw in unexpected twists to the exercise. For now, though, this would have to do.

As the teams moved in-and-out of the CQB, Sergeant Lohan allowed his thoughts to drift back to a place in time that he'd been only ten days ago. He was getting close to the end of this enlistment and he'd given a few civilian sector jobs some thought. He'd even considered a posting to a facility much like this one. Ironic, he thought, that he now found himself here and, for all intents and purposes, at war.

How quickly the fortunes of life can change.