I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.
Chapter 20 Aftermath
Some of the more powerful members of the "Undercover Council if Twelve" had wanted everyone just to board the ships as fast as they could, and leave this section of space behind them. It had been hard to explain to some of the less technically inclined power-brokers. That taking ships that had been shut down for over a year back into full use should not be done. At least not without taking the time of checking those systems out first, or it would lead to deaths on both a massive and spectacular scale. The only thing that had finally put this argument to rest, was when those power-brokers were face with experts. That latterly had gotten in there faces. That had been when a group of ships Captains had put there foot down, about using there jump engines without some tests being run first.
Only a small group of Colonials were told that there might have been a Plan F, but that was only on a need to know basics. The full loaded civilian ships rose one and sometimes two at time, for that muddy field to take up positions with the rest of the now rejoined fleet. It was the first time that all of those ships were together in one place. At least since that ill-fated order, given by the newly elected president Baltar to land on that muddy field.
It took hours into local night, to get all of the ships back into orbit. But they were lucky, and had very few mechanical issue, none of them had caused a loss of life. If they had just taken off for deep space, like in Admiral Adama's original plan. They would have had to leave almost a dozen ships behind on the ground or in orbit somewhere in this system. There just would not have been enough time, to make them space worthy. At least not in the time, that had been available to them in the original plan. Now every ship in the Rag Tag Fleet, was going to be able to leave the ground again. Another difference in the old plan was the number of people in those ships. With the combat loses to date, the people who were still fighting the ever smaller number of cylons on the ground. Along with the ones that did not want to return to the ships, and volunteering to help Major Weston's people. This meant that those ships had more than a little elbow room with their metal hulls. There was more room now than they had at any other time, since before this odyssey had stated.
In orbit around the planet, the civilian ships were clustered closer to the planet than would have been allowed by law in Colonial space. While the two massive, but battered warships rode in a higher orbit above the hodgepodge of smaller ships. The pair of warships were there just in case any more cylons showed back up, late to the party that the humans had just given them. Aboard the ancient flagship, Adama was moving from command position to command position, getting an update on the butcher's bill they had just paid. They had won the battles against the cylons, but not everyone under his command would live to celebrate the event.
While Bill was watching his people work, an update posted to the main light table. It was a damage control report, and it updated the damage done to his. As the report show up, the head of Damage Control stated to give a cliff's note version of the report. "Sir, all of the fires on the ship have now been extinguished, and all of the hull breaches sealed." The Damage control briefer, visibly relaxed as the word flee from his mouth. "We are airtight again. We have confirmed forty KIA and twelve are still listed as missing presumed died, when the hangar pod let go. SARs are still out looking everywhere. We have lost twenty-five Vipers, but fifteen pilots have already been recovered. You already know about the Raptors. We should get the damaged ones back up at least partial mission capable in a few days, if we have the parts. Pegasus reports seven killed, and thirty wounded, in addition to their Viper and Raptor loses."
Adama looked over the top of his glass in the direction that the voice had come from. He already had the more detailed report displayed on his command table. "Any updated reports coming up from ground side?"
It was quite for a second or two as the data was accessed by the right member of his staff. A different voice spoke up out of the low lights that illuminated the CIC. "Sir, all ships are reporting ready for lifting, or already lifted from the planet's surface. So far, we do not have clear count on casualties they took down there. But all of our ships report air tight, and okay for extended orbit operations if required. We are also getting a list of ships that are reporting ready to leave system, and the ones that are reporting that they are not safe for using there jump engines at this time." The workload of the "Flagship" was about to get a lot more intense, as more ships fell under her command.
Adama was looking at the map of the local area, when a signal was relayed to his command table. He felt his face turn into a smile, and inside he felt his spirit lifting for the first time since he had launched. Colonial One was finally lifting off of the planet. The only way that the ship's Captain would have reported "that" name. It would only be if Laura Roslin was on that ship alive, and well. It was only a slight smile, but with a rarely used light tone he addressed his staff. "Complete the SAR. Have them work with the small friends that are still out there. The Vipers don't have as good of DARDIS, but it should be good enough that it they can help in the searching for our people. See if we can start getting any hard numbers on the ground loses." When a Colonial commander used the term "hard numbers". He was referring to having a by name list of those dead and hurt. "Contact the Chief, and transmit the data for the next phase. When he is ready, start sending the ships down in the order he wants and only at his orders. If there are any issues let me know, but this is the Chiefs show."
After giving his updated orders, Bill looked down at a display. He started working on the letters for the dead. He was looking at the short list that they had already been able to come up with. And it hurt, most of those people did not have anyone to receive the letter that he was going to write anyway. It was a long list, but it should have been longer by a lot. If that list stayed close to the already reported numbers, then the mission was an amazing success. Three full cylon regiments along with three Basestars all removed from the battle, for what they knew were died of his people? It should have given the Admiral a happy feeling, but he knew each of those names on that list. Plus it was not like he could report to a replacement depot somewhere for new trained personnel coming out of a military training academy on one of the main planets anymore.
Admiral Adama was listening to the communication stations in the back ground, as they contacted each ship to give it its' assigned approach number and landing locations. The Chief and a handful of other Earthers, had come up with the plan. They had the measurements of each of the human ship, and they had selected a hiding spot for each specific ship. It was going to task the skills of each of the civilians ships command crews, and it would take time to get the next phase done without crashing the ships. But the sooner they started, to sooner they could finish this phase of the plan. They were lucky again about the timing, which was because of the location of the Settlement. The sun was just rising for them, so that they would not have to do this operation in the complete darkness.
########
The first ship to be sent back down to the wet planet, was a small cargo ship. She had a First Cylon War Raptor pilot with an impressive number of combat hours as her captain and master. She was considered one of the top ten with skills on the control sticks of a civilian ship. The small cargo ship made a slow approach over the wide grey wave tossed ocean. This was the easy part and the crew of the ships bridge was very relaxed. That is until she could make out the mountain range, which protected a nice deep water bay off the bow of the space ship. She was impressed with the site, and now understood why the Earthers had picked it. She was not able to do much looking around. Not after she had picked up the landing marker/lights. That was when she was about ten miles out from making landfall.
The landing markers let the captain/pilot refine her slow approach angle, speed, and glide path of her prepared flight plan. She kept slowing her ship down till she was almost at a hover, when the distance to the beach had closed to under two miles away. She could see the target clear as day, and she started to sweat. It was one thing to be told that you were going to enter a large cave. It was quite a different issue when you saw the "large" cave mouth. The mouth of the cave looked to have been so small, that she almost waved off his approach. After whipping off some of the building up sweat off of her hand he set her shoulders, she trusted the Deck Chief Tyrol. As planned and briefed, the pilot lowered and locked her landing gear. As soon as her ship had crossed the beach, at about ten feet above the ground and grey waves. Now she could see a light from somewhere inside of the cave, and she lined up on it. When her cockpit crossed into cave threshold, and it stated to get dark as the cold wet stone walls cut of the feeble sunlight. She started to get second thoughts as it got darker, but of course by then it was way too late.
With the dark wrapping around them, it was time to switch on the built-in landing lights on the small cargo carrying interstellar space ship. With the powerful lights now on, the pilot could tell that it was indeed a very large sea cave. And the interstellar cargo and personnel ship fit nicely threw the cave mouth with quite a bit of room to spare. With the powerful landing lights now on. The pilot could see that the cave opened up, getting wider as they progressed farther under the mountain range. The co-pilot looked out and down, from the front and side mounted windows on the craft. In the cast off glare of the powerful landing lights. The Co-pilot could see marks that were easy to make out outlines on the ground for different types of spaceships. At the far end of the cave was now softly glowing in the small ships landing lights, it started to get smaller again. The pilot started to sweat again, as her heart rate started to climb again. As her heart rate when up, they were at the caves was the widest, point. The space craft was directed to slowly turn around, and fallow a different set of markers on the wall. Soon the craft was almost back to the mouth of the sea cave again. When they were contacted by someone of the until now well hidden ground crew-members. You did not let something as soft as a human, get caught between a multi thousand ton ships, and something as hard as a stone wall.
The unseen ground guides used waving twin colored hand held lights, to direct the craft to its assigned landing spot. Over the next few hours, five more ships were landed in this one sea cave alone, filling all of the outlines on the ground. It was happening quickly, but it was clear that great care was being taken also with these strange maneuvers. It was not only stressful for those ground crews. The ship's captain had a hard time keeping their passengers on the ships, as soon as the ships had stopped moving. They had a few picked passengers working on those ships, and the normal crews of those ships. They would have to keep saying for the other passengers to stay on the ships, at least until they were given the go ahead to temporally disembark. The passengers were told in mass that it might be after night fall, before and that it was a "might happened" and that was the earliest. That they would be allowed to exit the grounded ships. The Earther and Adama, did not want a lot of people randomly walking around, without any supervision. Not when large landing spaceships were doing very complex maneuvers, in a very confined space. It was accepted that at first there were some problems, but after so long under the thumb of the cylons a few hours more was not going to be an issue.
It was a long and stress filled day for the ground guiding crews, and they had only two of those crews with the needed training. This translated that it was very slow going, but faster than anyone with half a brain could have had any right to ask for. Those two guiding crew would stop just before sun down locally. It was after Chief Tyrol had worked out that if the next ship came down, it would totally dark before the next ship was still ten miles out to sea. They could have continued during the night, after the sun had completely gone from this part of the world. But that would have been even more dangerous, than this task already was before you added the darkness to the tiredness. There are only so many hours a person can deal with high stress situations, before they start making mistakes. Mistakes with spaceships working near hard rock sea caves, means more of the few of the remaining humans would have died in a very visible and painful way. As it was they were able to nest fifteen spaceships into their hiding positions, all nice and dry and safe from the outside world. This was only about five less than what Tyrol had said that he was hoping to get done, before he had to shut down operations. When the Chief had contacted the Admiral about having to shut down operation. Bill said that he understood and would back-up the chief. He was just happy that the chief had the nerve to make the hard calls. Adama and his staff, would had to handle the interaction with the inpatient council members. Right along with the just as inpatient ship's captains that were left in orbit. Who only want to put their ships back down on, or in the safety provided by the hoped for hide sites. And they wanted to do it right the frak now. The rest of the fleet, minus the two warships, were feeling very exposed if the cylons came back.
############
Laura Roslin looked around the Spartan but clean cabin around her. By all rights, she could have been on the liner that had been called Colonial One for now going on a couple of years. That ship had just been another Everson designed star liner plying the interstellar dark. All of that had changed since they had found out one little fact. It was that she was the highest ranking member of the government left alive, after the cylons surprise attack. That was until she lost the last election, and Baltar had taken it over. Then he had his office, home, and den of iniquities located in/on that once proudly named vessel. Now she did not know when, or even if, she would say overnight on that ship ever again. She had ridden that particular ship up from the planet surface when the time had been right, according to her political sense. But she had transferred off of that liner, as fast as she could back aboard the battered old Battlestar. The old Battlestar did not have room to keep the ship, in the one damaged hangar pod the old warship still carried. As soon as she was off the ship, and a few other odd and ends were removed. The great liner left the landing bays, so that it could do its real job supporting Vipers and Raptors. Laura could tell that the Colonial One's captain, was not "thrilled" to leave the protection of the Battlestar. But he know the warship had a lot of business left to do, and carrying the liner would make that job a lot harder.
Her reason for being on the Flagship was not just for some personnel reason. She had wanted everyone in the fleet to know what had happened on the ground, and space battle that had happened in this system at the same time. She wanted the rest of the fleet to hear it from her and in person, as well as stop as many of the rumors as she could with one broadcast. So around the Battlestars briefing room, there were cameras that would transmit her message to all of the ships of this little fleet. It did not matter if they were still in space, and already on the ground in their assigned hiding spots. She was only wishing, that she had been able to get some much needed sleep before the cameras started transmitting her image. She has having a hard time remembering when she had last slept for a full night uninterrupted. She could feel her mind starting to wonder as she gripped the wooden podium that was a prop as much as a cane tonight.
She looked up with perfect timing as the little red light came on the top of what used to be a "field" reporters crammers. It was to tell her that they were now doing a live broadcast. She did not smile when she started talking to the small group of people in this room with all of their news reporting gear. This was not a joyful time, and it was time to pass information to those that had been starving for news of what had been going on around them. The uprising had been as much of a surprise to most of the humans, as it had been to the cylons. "To the people of the Fleet. We have had a busy day today, I am sure you all have noticed. I wanted to put to rest some of the rumors, which I have heard that have been flying around the fleet. Like some Vipers in hot pursuit, or something. The Admiral launched an attack that destroyed the three orbiting cylon Basestars that had been hanging over heads like the ancient sword of Damocles from the old scrolls. This attack would not have been successful without an attack on the ground to pull all of the Basestar's Raiders away from supporting their mother ships in time of their need. They also needed to take out the ground forces, which the cylon had deployed near our grounded ships for the last week. The cylons had deployed a full three assault Regiments near us, all coming out of the original four Basestar they brought with them. You all know how powerful a force that is, I know it was covered in all your classes back in school, and from all of the briefs on your ships books stores."
She took a breath to let this information set in on the listeners. She had just used a lot of numbers, and sometimes that would confuse people. Even people who watch a lot of news show, normally only remembered the sound bites or article titles. "As some of you might have heard already a few rumors floating around or prison. We had help in our struggle against the cylons these last few months. They are group, which has been shipwrecked on planet. They had been here even before we got to this part of space. And we unknowingly set up our little city on the other side of the planet from them. Their story is a long and very complicated one. But they have been on this planet about two years before arrived, near as we have been able to work out. We are still trying to working a lot of things out with them, and we have more questions than we have answers about them. The same is said for them knowing about us. First off, they do not speak any of the known tongues from the Colonies. And as you can imagine, that has caused some difficulty. However it has not stopped them from providing food, weapons, armor and quite literally taking out ship loads of cylons in deep forest of New Caprica. From what we been able to work out, is that they call themselves Earthers, and came from a planet that they call Earth."
She stopped talking and held up her hands, even though no one in the room had said a word. And the only six other physical people in the room, had not made a face of any kind at her words. She knew that last statement, would jump to the fore-brains of almost all of the people on those ships she was broadcasting to. After what she felt like was enough time, she continued with her prepared speech. "They do not claim to be the members of the 13th Tribe. They told us, that only they come from a planet called Earth. And that name is a common name for a home planet, to the best of their knowledge and that we can understand." Laura stopped talking and put both of her hands flat on the podium. She started to project all the power and authority that her tired body could handle.
She looked right into the camera with a hard gaze. "I know a lot of you have been wondering, why we went through all of that effort to put everyone on board a ships, and then stay in orbit. We cannot leave this system just yet. I know that is what a lot of you want to do, but that is not the right thing to do. Not just yet. The crews of most of our ships, which we have called home for so long. Have not been allowed to look after them properly." She did not bring up that this neglect had started even before the cylons had returned thanks to Baltar and his friends. "This problem has been planned for, by Admiral Adama and his staff. Our new friends and members from Adama staff, have found places for our ships. These area are places, that we can land repair and re-stock our ships for the next leg of our journey. I'm sorry to say, that we cannot stay for long. I think that the cylons will be back, and they will be stronger than ever when they do finally come back. Even with the help of our new found friends, and some amazing technologies that they have. And no doubt some of you, may have heard about them already. I know a lot of you are still trying to figure out if it is true, or not, or just plain magic. We will find out more, as we spend more time with them. All most all of the new hiding places are very close to the hidden village that they call home. This will make it easier for us spend more time with them, now that the cylons are not shooting at us. At least not shooting at us right now. We will be interacting and learning from each other." Laura rocked back her shoulders and her back was ramrod straight. "I will tell you this, with all of my heart. We will not be wiped off the face of the universes! I will not allow that to happen, not under my watch! We have escaped Hades and Charon twice now. And I will not risk this happening, a third time with the cylons."
She was not going to give out to much information about what might be in there future, not yet anyway. Too many things were still up in the air and if she said something, that later turned out not to be possible. She would lose the hard won authority she had been able to amass, no matter how minor of a slip it might have been. She let another dine drop, and went to another bit of information on her little list to talk about tonight. "Now I would like to address and rumor that I have been asked twice already today. Baltar was been taken alive, so no. I did not order him shot out of hand, when we rose up against our cylon overlords. He will face a trial for any crimes, which he might have committed against the human race. I will try to keep everyone informed of this status as time permits. We have stopped moving ships back down the planet. As soon as it is safe, we will be moving more ships into their hiding spots. Remember, all will be near the camp, that the Earthers call The Settlement. This will be a slow process, but we will be putting down all craft, that can make the trip back out of the planet's atmosphere after they land. All ships will stand down for a complete inspection. This will be done by teams of very qualified engineers, the best that we can find among us. I will ask that you have patience with them also. The Admiral and his two Battlestars are still with us, and looking after us. I also will be meeting with the underground council members, and set up a timeline for new elections. I am asking you all, to please stay calm and work together. We can get through this, and back on our way to finding the 13th Tribe. Thank you for your time, and good night."
Now she waited behind the podium. She was just standing there, and holding on to the sides of the wood and metal thing like it might try to fly away. She knew better than to do or say anything, until she had evidence that no more images were going out to the rest of the fleet. This had happened to her once, and that was twice too often in her mind.
The red lights went off the cameras, and she relaxed a little bit. She felt a smiled come to her face, as she made eye contact with Bill Adama off to one side out of camera range. They had spent some quite time together, when she had first arrived on board his damaged warship. One of the crew-members had taken upon themselves, to escort her to his private cabin. Almost as soon as she had exited Colonial One. She had waited there quietly while he finished making sure his ship was ready to fight again, if needed. It was good just to hold each other again, even if it was for only half an hour this time. The look in his eyes held the promise of more, and longer ones to come in the near future. She made a note to make sure no matter what. That they would by the gods, spend more time together in the future. The one thing that had been driven home, with the cylon occupation, is that you did not know what the next hour might bring. And you had better make sure, you had made the most of the minutes you have left. She was now a lot less interested, in how certain things might appear on some political poll. Only because he was the head of the military, and she was the head of the now smaller civilian government. She made a mental vowel to make sure she told anyone that might ask her about that, exactly what she thought.
She still had eye contact with the man, which she had now fallen in love with. Now that the cameras were "off" and she was pretty sure that they were. She left the podium, and regally closed the few steps to the man. She pitched her voice, so that it would not carry to the other people in the room. "Bill will you be able to come down with me, to meet the Earthers Leaders face to face?" She knew that his ship had been badly damaged, but even she knew. That the hangar pods were always subject to damage, and modification made during the First Cylon War had made steps to mitigate some of them. But she had taken damage, and more importantly to Bill Adama. He had lost crew, both things would be hard for Bill to deal with.
###########
Bill knew he was not needed in orbit for the next few hours. He also knew that at some time he had start being an Admiral, and not just a super Captain of for two battlestars. He had been planning on working the issues, but something seemed to have whispered to him that would be the wrong thing to do. Deep in his mind, he was betting that he was going to surprise Roslin with his replay. His son and bridge crew could take care of what eve needed to be done. Besides everything these Earthers had said, had turned out been true…so far. Any major cylon force should still be a month away. But it was going against his nature to leave his ship damaged. But he also knew that he had more at stake, than just one ship to worry about. He was already missing the time, that he was just a washed up has been of a Battlestar Captain. That had been a lot simpler time, and a few billion more people would have been alive.
He kept his face very still, and tried not give anything way non-verbally. Had already planned for something like this, before the battles today had even started it just needed a little modification lately. "Racetrack and Halo are refueling and re-pre-flighting their Raptor. Saul transfixed while you in my cabin. He had been in the hanger for a while, and keeping an eye on things while they prep. I let Lee know that he will be in command until I get back. We have enough room for you, and Miss. Foster on the one bird. I sorry, but I don't think we will be able to bring down any gifts with us, must less to many extra bodies." It has always been the custom of the Colonies for centuries. That you should bring and offer freely some gifts, all before a major meeting had started. It looked like that might have to change, for at least the near future anyway. Laura and Bill were both fighting to maintain every bit of the Colonial Culture, at the least the parts that they could afford to. But trying to save culture was not a suicide pack, after all. And some things would have to be placed on hold for the time being.
The pair had walked into an adjoining room, and sat down in the comfortable pilots chars that room offered. They had a whole fifteen minutes to spend together. And they did not say a word the whole time, during those fifteen minutes of peace. They were just holding hands, and memorizing each other face. Until they had to leave for the only hangar deck left on the old warship. They were acting like a pair of teenage love birds, it was cute. More so, because they had no idea they were doing it in the first place.
When it was time the door to the pilot's waiting room opened from outside the room on silent hinges. Bill rose from the chair that he had been using, and walking around the chair Laura had been in, before she started moving. Bill stood and held out his arm, so that the thin woman could slide her arm threw his hooking it tightly. She looked up at the weathered face, and for the first time in a while she spoke. "Bill I don't think they will mind too much about not getting the gifts. We can always come up with something later, if we feel like we need to. You never know it might be a negative issue for them to bring gifts to a major first meeting. What if they were thinking that we were trying to bribe them, or make them feel bad? They have a totally different culture, than we do. I would bet that there are going to be some land mines, which we both wind up stepping on no matter how careful we are."
The camera crews fallowed the interplay, and unknown to the two subjects. They were being recorded threw the opened door to the briefing room. Then they were fallowed all the way to the hangar pod, which was when Colonial Tigh shot them a look that should have made them turn to stone. It was called B roll in the business, but you never knew when something like this might come in handy in the future. The two people left the military briefing room, and walked to the only hanger bay left on the massive warship without say much to each other. It took longer than it should have had. Both leaders had to stop many times long the way, to interact with people in the metal corridors of the great warship. There day had already been long, and was not over yet. Over the last few months, Laura had finally and truly understood. Why veterans would just go to sleep anywhere, and anytime they could. They were stockpiling it for a time that they were going to need it.
###########
The old Lord of Kobal was watching and smiled at what had happened. It had been watching the entire battle unfold, and the reactions for almost a dozen hours. It so enjoyed watching the battles between the cylons and humans. And he absolute loved it when a plan of his came together, so well. This plan or more just a detailed idea, had been judged at a low probity for success when he had first started looking at it. In fact it had been judged that this phase of the plan only had about a ten percent chance of a positive outcome. But instead it had come together at what any of his peers would have called, a super optima level. Now that it had turned out so will, the next phase had a twenty percent improvement on the chances for success without any guidance. The phase after that had even gone up a few points. The old god from Kobal, was now very impresses with what the humans had been able to accomplish. He patted himself on the back one more time for thinking about casting an alarm spell, so that he could see the battle.
Now he could give them some additional information, as a reward for doing so well. To date all he had been able to do. Was to give them some small, but vital things or information. That was because the "Others" did not like it, if you interfered too much with lower races. Even Gods had to fallow some rules after all. That was how this whole mess had gotten out of hand the first time so many human generations ago. He made a few quick, but not simple spells and cast them about the area of space/time he was viewing.
He cast some of them on a few select people. But one took a lot of power, and he had to cast it over the whole group of humans in this solar system. The idea for that last massive spell. Was that It would only work when two people who were sensitive, or almost being one of what the Colonials called oracles, were close enough together. The nice thing about the last spell, was that he would not need to be viewing his project at the time, for the spell to work. This would give him some cover, if some of the "Others" got upset at him. Again.
Each time one of the spells was activated a little alarm would sound to alert him of the facts of the activation. He spend some time thinking, them made an adjustment, now if one certain spell was activated it would trigger a secondary spell automatically. Now he was stratified, with what he had done, then he noticed something odd. It was that after the casting of the spell, to cover almost 50,000 humans. It did not leave him as drained as it should have. He cast another one that was not that powerful but only a god of his level could do. The spell would generate information for him. In a flash he now had a display of all of the energy being directed away from this planet. It had lines for each of the Gods, and which were getting power from the prayers coming from this planet and in order of amount. He was pleasantly surprised that he was now the second largest benefactor from those prayers coming from these humans. It would seem that as more people found out the name of one of the Earth made ships, his power would grow. The formal holder of second place, had fallen off completely list.
This brought a smile to the old gods face, he had not even notice the change. Besides, he had always thought Ares was an arrogant, jerk. Having all of his most ardent supporters whipped out by the cylons Ares had help make. Well that was just poetic justice. If his prediction spell was close to being right, this time. He would finally pass Athena, in the energy he was getting from this planet, in a few weeks. All it would take, is for more of the humans to see the little ship, he had brought to this planet. No wonder he was feeling so good lately. The strange god like being smiling, and left this plain to do other tasks that needed to be done. He had plans to use this growing power sources.
######
Major Weston looked up as the last Colonial spaceship lifted off the mud field. It was the ship that was there flying center of government, going under the call sign of Colonials One. This left Major Weston standing in, now what looked like a trash covered muddy field after a music concert. He had teams of his people, mixed with Colonial fighters already working on their different tasks. Currently He only had fifty people that were under his command, but they were supported by about two hundred volunteers that had not left the Refugee camp today. The rest of his combat power, was out looking for and tracking down. Any cylon that was left alive or more to the point somewhat functioning on the planet.
Mike Weston was personnel in charge of the cleanup and staging of this and the other combat sites on this side of the planet. He had small teams collecting all of the tent fabric and bring it to his location, no matter how ratty looking or how bad it smell. He had to give that order, twice now. That they were to leave all of the wood that might be laying around this field were eve it might lay. The only Colonial or cylon craft left in the open, that might be operational. Were three larger ships, which he had been told was some kind of cargo ship. They were joined by half a dozen cylon Heavy Raiders, which had been on the little landing field. All of them had more holes blown into them, than solid ships. The Colonials had set up a few 15mm cannons, and had taken those craft in a deadly cross fire. Those cylon craft had been blasted into a non-flight statues within seconds of the start of the human uprising. Those two types of items along with any weapons, spent shell casing, Centurion hulk, or other unidentifiable bit of metal. Was being collected and put into centralized piles. Those piles would be sent on the long journey towards the Settlement, as soon as any transportation could became available. The long day of Major Weston's was not over yet. And he was feeling like it was almost time, to break into his collection of energy drinks.
