Neptune's Revenge: Sailing the Dark Sea

by cliff.west

INTRO: You need to read Neptune's Revenge before starting this book. The Colonials after joining forces with a group from Rifts Earth had thrown the Cylons off of New Caprica. Now they must repair, rebuild, recover, and then prepare for the future. The Cylons are gone, for now. The now mixed group must work together to find the planet that the Colonial are looking for along with th

44. Chapter 44 The Two Year Part

I would like to thank Sable Cold for taking on the impressive job of being the Beta Reader for this book. As always reviews are welcome. If you find this is easier to read and follow. Thank Sable Cold and all of his hard work

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 44: The Two Year Party

Earth June 2020

The population of the Trading Outpost was now just pushing ten thousand people living on both islands, mainly on the bigger of the two. Charles figured this number would not grow that much more over the next few years.

Work was at a standstill today, and most of those people were hanging out in large and small groups in the local area. The party to celebrate two years on planet now was in full swing, even if it was a little late. Speaking of looking ahead, they were already planning the five-year anniversary party at the island's command center.

What was left of the small boat marina that had been saved and repaired near the offloading pier was now full of non-cargo and fishing ships. The landing strip had almost a dozen mid-sized business jets parked near its center with only a guard force of half a dozen to be seen. Small groups of Colonials and Rifters were acting as escorts to small groups of new visitors to the islands. This was a by invite only party beyond those who lived on the island already. It was not that much of a security risk but the Colonials were not taking any chances. A few Vipers and Raptors were flying out of sight of those on the ground.

The first stop on the tour for the strangers was up the long and twisty road that the Colonials had finished and then had extended to go higher up into the main mountains of the island. They were showing off self-contained and independent homes that the Colonials had started moving people into. The 'big reveal' involved the two shops that they were finishing up higher and deeper into the mountain above the homes. At first glance, they looked like the homes closer to the main road that wrapped around the island. Except they were not homes at all. They were what the locals would have called small factories. It made the term cottage industry seem very fitting.

The Colonials had been selling off the less powerful Colonial tech weapons to the world for some time now. Now that the market was saturated by those types of weapons, the price had dropped by a huge margin compared to the first few items that had left the islands. The prices now were so low that more and more small governments and businesses could afford these weapons, at least in small but slowly growing numbers. Nowadays most of the richer countries could put a squad or larger unit in the field, all armed with Colonial tech level weapons. That did not count what all of the R and D departments in governments and corporations had access to. So many weapons had been sold to parties on this planet that the Colonial arms lockers were almost bare of their pre-Cylon attack devices. Even counting the captured weapons from the Cylons, the numbers were already used up as an income generator for the Colonials.

That was the reason for the first factory that was being shown off. They were going to start building new Colonial military tech weapons on the island for sale to the locals of this planet. The number of pure Colonial tech weapons off world would only be allowed to drop to about a dozen of each type and no lower. The rest of those types of weapons would be put away for a rainy day. Or they were marked for display, for when a proper museum could be built and maintained on their planet. The Colonial leadership was worried that sometime in the future, they might still lose their culture to the other hugely populated planet nearby.

This was not going to be a fully automated mass production facility. The products and components would mostly be built by hand. Only one of each type or class of weapon would be built in this little twelve hundred square meter building. They picked one pistol, one submachine gun, one rifle and one machine gun from all of the models left within the fleet. They had not been chosen because they were the best weapon in their class or type. Instead they were the easiest for the island to make or had a higher sales value to people on this planet.

Right now, they were going to be making the CP M45 pistol, PDW-I submachine gun, the CR M115 rifle and the CM M116 light machine gun. This list of weapons might change later on down the road, but this was what Charles had planned on when they first came up with the idea for this building. Charles's staff was not saying how many of what type of weapons were going to be made. They just put out that soon they would have new built weapons for sale, and to stay tuned for updates. The betting money was that the smaller pistol would be built in larger numbers. They just took less material to make compared to a light machine gun.

The second factory building was a bit farther away from the roadside than any of the rest the guests had been shown. It was also built a lot deeper into the mountain than even the other one. Unlike the other factory building, this one was finished and was already fulfilling the task it was meant for. In fact, it had already had a short test run of products to make sure it was safe for everyone.

What was the task for this building? It was to make ammunition to sell to the peoples on this blue planet. It was going to support all the weapons sold so far and the promise of more to come. Weapons lasted a long time but ammunition was always in demand.

All of these were shown to the visiting groups and what the Colonials were planning to do in the near future was explained in as much detail as needed. The only item not open for discussion was that almost all the parts and machines to run these to factories would be coming from planetside companies that the Colonials had been working with. It was a sign that the Earth was starting to come up to early Colonial tech levels in some areas at least.

Would it have been cheaper and easier to produce the ammunition in higher numbers off planet? Yes, but then it would have to be brought to this planet on spaceships. Of the old Colonial tech ordinance, the Colonials at this time were only using 30mm KEW. Everything else were weapons that the old Colonials and Cylons would have given their firstborn to have. Besides, making the ammunition would take up factory space that was needed for the production of other items that were better at killing Cylons. That did not even take into account shipping the ammunition almost a dozen light years.

When the show and tell around most of the rest of the island was done, Charles had the small group cycled through a presentation about the happenings off planet. They were shown images of the two growing towns on New Kobol and the one small town on the second planet in the habitable zone of the same star that the Colonials had named Midian. They were also shown the growing space station over New Kobol, though it was the mining support station in Alpha Centauri that got the most attention. Both had started life as Colonial ships of different types before becoming the core of those stations. It was easy to see that they were not finished but that did not mean that they were not being productive for the rest of the refugees.

The last item that was on the show and tell list for the visitors was the floating dry dock tied up to the massive large ship pier. Work had not started on the outside of the landing ship yet. That is, unless the number of holes cut into the side of the ship that was high and dry was counted. Those holes were being used to access the ship from the outside. The plan to scrap the ship had not gone as well as first planned.

After all, it was not like anyone of them had done anything like this before. Neither had the local born for that matter. Now, at the open front of the floating mobile dry dock was a little locally made wooden dam about two thirds of a meter tall. It ran the entire length across the bow of the floating dry dock from the port sidewall to the starboard sidewall. It kept water out of the work area and any fluids coming out of the ship from going into the beautiful lagoon's water.

The warship was now resting on metal braces welded to the hulls of both the warship and the dry dock. The first things to come off of the Chinese ship was anything not tied or welded down to the ship's deck. On Charles' orders, the anchor and its chain were removed in one piece from the ship. The ship's bronze naming or dedication plaque was then welded to the massive anchor with its still attached heavy chain and the three items were put on display.

The display started at the airport's main building and headed east from that location going down the main island road. Only one anchor and chain would be saved from each ship. Each anchor and chain from each ship would be daisy chained alongside the road as it went around the island. It was a monument to the people of the island, and a warning to those that visited the place. It was hoped that any visitor who did not want to have any of their countries' ships' anchors added to the growing length of this display would take note.

After that had been done, it was hailed as a major milestone but work was still dragging on scrapping the ship. It was clear that Charles was going to need more people on this task. There was a silver lining to this problem though, and it was that the new help did not have to have any special skills to be of use. They just needed to have hands and want to work and work hard. Oh, and they needed to be okay with living on an island that might be attacked on short notice by nuclear armed locals. It was a paradise, but it still had a few blast craters that the locals had to dodge.

Most of the stuff that came off the ship was, well crap. It was all gathered up in raw wood boxes and put in an available TEU. That TEU would be transported off the planet as soon as either there was room or the TEU had reached a maximum authorized weight. The next items to come off the ship were the ammunition and weapons it had been carrying to support the invasion or defend the ship from air or surface attacks.

The ship had been found to be carrying ten of the Chinese Type 99 54 ton main battle tanks within its hull. They had been emptied of any and all ammunition along with the magazine to support the bow mounted twin 37mm gun turret. Some man portable SAM's had also been found in plastic shipping boxes on the first day of work, and they had been moved to the warehouse nearby. The 125mm rounds and the 37 mm rounds were taken to the other side of the island for safe keeping in case they ever became useful for the Colonials' purposes.

The Colonials had better explosives, but this stuff was free and it was not like they could use it in any of their weapons or ship it off planet for the rest of their people to use. These rounds were to be expended on projects that needed some explosive force to get done. After a few weeks, the rest of the ammunition was just packed down with the salvage to be shipped off planet. There were not even any notes about the gunpowder in the shipping box.

What they were working on now was emptying the fuel tanks or fuel bunkers on the ship. It takes a lot of fuel to move four thousand tons of ship through the water at any speed above a drift. All of the ships had been using their engines to run their lights and provide fresh water while the crews waited for a release that had never come.

Each ship was kept topped off by fuel lighters in the American port at the request of the Chinese government. This fuel bill was passed along to the Chinese government and paid for before the manpower was pulled of the ships. Each of the twenty-four ships had at least half and as much as three quarters of a full load in their tanks when they were towed back to the Colonials. That was a lot of fuel to deal with, even for a ship that only a had range of about three thousand nautical miles at a steady speed of about fourteen knots.

---

Charles had received the test results from the Caterpillar people on that fuel. The fuel in all the ships' bunkers were safe to use in the equipment the Colonials had bought from that company. Finding that out was a very nice break for the Colonials. This meant savings regarding not only the cost of fuel but also because the fuel tankers took up some of the limited room on the support ships going between the islands. That now opened cargo space could be used for other more important stuff like meat, steel and half a hundred other things needed by the Colonials. Like the two hundred large Harvest Right freeze dryers needed for long term storage of the food that was being grown on the island and off planet.

Both fuel trailers on the island were now fully fueled, and over seventy-five thousand litres of the black gold had already been offloaded from them and used. That was great but it had left only four of the six fuel tanks on the smallish ship emptied of their contents of volatile liquid. Fortunately, they now had a plan that would soon allow them to empty those remaining fuel tanks on the LST, even if it had taken some out of the box thinking to come up with the idea. The first of ten heavy equipment tractors were already loaded on the cargo ships or staged and paid for to come out. It he had known that the fuel in those ships were okay to run in the local built heavy equipment, he would not have ordered four more trailer tankers, and he had already paid to have them filled with fuel. He could have just drawn the fuel off the ship that they were trying to scrap. Now he would have to wait until that bought and paid for fuel was used up.

The temporary fix had been offered by some of the contract employees born on this planet. He had to look up what roll around fuel blivets were but they were perfect, and they came in a five hundred gallon size, almost nineteen hundred litres, that the Colonials could easily work with. He had ordered a dozen from an American military surplus store, and they were hoped to be on the next cargo ship coming out. The hoses to support them were already in place on the pier when they finally arrived. All they needed to do was get the super large wheeled looking things and fill them up with the extra fuel from the LST.

What was now in the plans was to send the needed fuel to the two Colonial planets using those blivets. They would soon need that fuel to run the first earth moving machines going their way in the holds of the vessels of the Rag Tag Fleet. It would take up a lot less space on the ship to send the emptied drums back than say one of the more solid tanker trailers. Besides, the blivets stacked a lot better. Even going out, they would be able to ship more fuel per volume of cargo space with the blivets compared to a trailer full of fuel.

After all of the fuel had been drained off the warship, the plan was to rip off the nose mounted landing gates and extract the ten combat tanks from within her hull. They were not going to be that useful for the Colonials, but the first one was going to be put in a warehouse near the large vessel pier. Someone would be paying to ship that combat vehicle to their labs which decidedly were not Chinese. It was going to be used for testing here on the local planet. Charles was betting that at least one of the tanks was going to go off world to be a weapons target back on the warmer planet that was shaping up to be the Colonials' capital world. The rest were just metal to be reused to help build the support infrastructure the Colonials needed across two different star systems.

Charles was wondering what was going to happen when the Colonial Hoplites, homegrown powersuits based on the Chipwell Challengers, started cutting up the ships. He was also wondering what the locals were going to think about them. That was for another day. Right now, all of those walking armed and armored machines were locked away and out of sight from anyone that was not a Colonial or a Rifts Earther.

---

Charles looked around the group of local born until he found the person he was looking for. The captain of the cargo ship West Pac Express, Stephen Beattie.

Beattie was looking around the floating dock and back out into the lagoon at the other ships floating at anchor. He had wished that the Colonials were further along in the scrapping of the Chinese ships. Rumors had it that the Colonials had some neat tricks they were going to use break up the captured and now slowly rusting ships. As it was, he knew that one of the Type 99 Chinese made third generation main battle tanks was going to be loaded onto one of his twin hulled cargo ships soon. This was the top of the line main battle tank for the Chinese land forces. It would be a gold mine of information about the PLA.

He was mentally betting that the information he was going to be passing along about the weapons and ammunitions plants would be a big hit. The CIA might have 'found' the tanks, but the US Army and Marines would sure like to know about it. That was just going to blow some people away back home. Even he would like to know how good this tank was. It was starting to show up in half a dozen countries in slowly growing numbers across the board. They were in still low numbers compared to say the Russian T-90's but they outnumbered the combined numbers of M1's, German Leopards, and French Leclercs going to new buyers around the globe. There was also a growing chance that his countrymen might have to face off against them on the battlefield in the not too distant future.

Out of the corner of his eye. Stephen saw the island's commander walking towards him in an oddly roundabout way. For a second, the CIA man thought about running as the hind part of his mind picked up warning signs of some kind. The other man had that odd look on his face, and Stephen had a feeling his cover was blown. If he ran back to his ship, he knew his cover would indeed be blown sky high though. He put his survival instinct on hold, and forced his back to relax.

Charles smiled a little, knowing smile. He had caught the look before the captain's poker face dropped back into place. "Yes, we know who you're working for, Captain. And we have known for a while," thought Charles but he did not say it aloud. Saying it aloud would have been bad form, and might cause more and major problems down the road.

"Ah, Captain Beattie. I am glad you could make it to our little party. As a thank you, for bring the gifts to us. I will be sure to pass along your good will."

Stephen Beattie, yes, related to that other Stephen H Beattie, gave a polite smile. He was sweating but not because of the tropical sun. It was the tone he picked up from the other man that he thought confirmed his cover to be blown. He did not see a threat, so this was something different. The worst he might get was slapped with a persona non grata status added to his file for this local area but he did not think that it was going to break that way. It was just a gut feeling he had.

"Thank you for the invitation, Colonel. As for the gifts..." He gave an exaggerated shrug. "I understand that your people could use them."

Charles put his hands behind his back and rocked onto the balls of his feet some. "Time to throw the fish on the fire".

"Captain, I wanted to tell you face to face, rather than send something like this via a message. Or taking the risk of you finding it out on some news show."

Charles was still smiling but now that he knew what to look for, he could tell that the cargo ship's commander was a little on the nervous side. "We are going to be opening up the main supply pier in about six months or so. We will be able to get more massive supply runs in, but we still only want one ship tied up at a time. After we get used to this change, we might open up both piers but I'm thinking it is going to be on a case by case basis. I think the high priority market to our islands will still be there for you to service. It's just that I don't think you will need all the ships that your company has been diverting from... Well, let's call it 'their real owners' to meet our shipping needs. This has nothing to do with you or anything. It's just time to start moving on to the next phase of our operations. It was something that was planned out a year ago. We were just waiting for the right time. Now that things seem to have settled down, we are willing to risk a little more to increase the output of my command."

Stephen did not let his face change one little bit as the other man spoke. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what you mean by 'real owners.' I'm just the captain of a ship, and I just happen to be the senior captain my company has in the local area. If you're going to open this larger pier, we can still help. Besides, this whole area has been bombed, if you pardon the pun. I'm sure that any lift capacity that might be in excess here, we can find someone who can use it."

Charles just smiled. "Okay boy, let's see about being just a ship's master."

"Right. How about if I told you something to pass along to your bosses. Like, if your company wanted to open a small office on our island? My commander and I will be okay with that. We would have to have a little better talk, like when they pick up the tank, on some ground rules. It might make things a little easier if they are closer to our near-term operations. You know, so if they see something in the dry dock, then they can say something. Hopefully, before it's broken up and packed down somewhere. They won't be able to see it again in that current form after. You also will have to make sure certain people we don't like are kept off of my island."

Stephen was nodding his head in agreement, and it looked like he was as calm as a mill pond but his mind was blasting by at the speed of light. The leader of the Colonial local government had given verbal approval for a foreign intelligence service to set up shop on their land. Or it could be a trap. How does he work this?

This was happening too quick. It was like some of those old stories about Berlin during the early days of the Cold War. So, Stephen stayed in character. That seemed like the safest play he could make. He got along with Charles and most of the other Colonials he had dealings with. That did not mean that they were his friends yet.

"Sir, if my company opened an office here, I don't know who would be in charge of it. That is above my pay grade. But I will pass along that you would not mind having a shipping office from our company located in your territory. I will also pass along that you would like to set up a meeting to work out any rules and regulations that the shipping firm would have to operate under while they are here."

Charles had a devilish smile on his face. "Oh and one last thing. You might have to share your office building with a few others. Some of them might not have been born on this planet, but most will be people you have worked with before."

Stephen was struck dumb. There was little doubt now about what was meant. He needed to make a report tonight! This was going to be a huge change in operations. "I don't know about my company, but I think we can work something out."

Charles pulled one of his hands from behind his back, and the two men shook hands. They spent a few more minutes talking about the scrapping plans, and then the whole tour went to the main restaurant where the party was now in full swing. Stephen had only two beers all night, but he did have a lot of food. When he could come up with something good enough as a cover story, he went back to his ship tied up on the repaired smaller pier. Soon, his report was in the hands of the topmost CIA deputy director on the West Coast of the United States. It was full of little nuggets of information, with the promise of more after the West Pac had left Colonial waters. The Deputy Director took the time to think about the short decoded message on his screen. Then he picked up the phone to call his boss.

---

Three weeks later Charles was back at the floating dry dock. This time he was almost alone while he looked at the ex-Chinese landing ship tank. He had to climb up the tall walls of the device just so that he could look down into the dry well area of the construction. The bow of the floating dock was tied up flush against the side of the large vessel pier. This made the odd ship sit perpendicular to the pier but he wanted to have a better view. One that the pier did not offer him.

It was an impressive sight working below him. Four of the Hoplite powersuits, heavier versions of the Chipwell Challengers, were working on the hulk that had once been a military transport. All four of them were using modified handheld laser rifles on the defenseless hulk. The rifles had been modified for much lower output, but longer duration beams per pull of the trigger. At the power setting they were using, it would not have even scratched the paint on old style Colonial body armor. It was, however, perfect for cutting meters deep into the ship's metal hull, and it could do so without damaging the dry dock walls too badly if the cutter was not very careful.

The Chinese landing ship had been almost a hundred twenty meters long just twenty days ago. It had stayed that way, complete but empty and with a few holes cut in the side, until a little over a week ago. Now, the ship was down to only about thirty meters long at its longest point. What was left was the aftmost part of the ship with the helipad at the end. The helipad was the only part that someone still could have identified from the ship that used to be within the walls of the floating dry dock.

He watched as another three meter section of the ship fell off the hulk and was lifted down to the deck below. It was like a piece of bread cut off a fresh loaf. The two suits that had done the cutting now moved farther down the hulk while a second pair of suits went to cut the sliced off hull into smaller parts so that they could move them to the open topped TEU. This last step was done with a bit more physical work. They were using their armored fingers to tear and fold. If that did not work, they would punch, kick, or stomp the metal into more manageable pieces for the suits to deal with.

For now, the Earth made metal container van was waiting on the floating dock to be filled. When they started working on the larger ships, it would be left on the pier waiting to be filled with now very battered ship parts or hull. Once it was full, one of the two cranes would lift it onto a wheeled trailer. Then, it was a short trip for the loaded trailer to be moved down the road to the space field where it would be loaded into a waiting spaceship to be taken to off planet. Finally, it would go to the manufacturing ships for reuse and turned into items the Colonials needed. Or the products they made would be sent back to be traded on the planet where the metal had been mined in the first place.

Charles wanted to see the last bits of the first ship finish being processed with his own eyes. It was only going to be about two hours or less before the rest of the hulk was all cut up and packed into the modified container. As they learned from the job, and then while fixing what they had broken while learning, things would get faster and faster with that hard-won experience. He just hoped that those lessons would help with the other ships that were a lot bigger than this one had been. He had put in orders for more armor plates to be sent to him from New Kobol a few days ago.

He had two teams working on attaching those plates that had already arrived to the dock deck. He wanted a sheet of thick plate attached all along the entire inside of the recovery dock. It would help with damage from falling metal and the cutting lasers. So far, they had covered about ninety meters of deck. The armor also went up both metal walls, about halfway to the top walkway. As soon as this ship was done, the bottom of the dock where the current ship was sitting would get its layer of protection. As more plates came in, the rest of the walls would get the additional protections that he felt the working deck needed.

After the bottom deck was done getting its new skin, the second tank landing ship was going to be towed into the open space that currently held its sister. That movement would be at high tide, two days from now. That is, if everything went to plan. Which it would not, but that was life in the real world. He knew it, and his people knew it. The backup date for the move of the second LST was about twenty-four hours later. Delays were just part of doing business.

Charles was still lost in thought when someone came up beside him. He was not a local but Charles knew who he was even without seeing him. So when Captain Beattie spoke, Charles did not jump or have to make eye contact with the intruder. Both men were known to like using this spot to get away from it all. His company had opened an office on the island and he was the head man of the office. Even when he was out to sea on his ship, Stephen Beattie was the boss of this section. Charles had only had to make one suggestion on who he wanted to work with. Charles did not know who was more surprised, Captain Beattie or his staff, that it was granted without even a blink.

"Looks like you finally found a good-sized supply of steel on the cheap side. Has it broken even yet? Would you let me know when you do? There's a betting pool back at the main office. Most of the people I know have bought at least one block in the pool."

Everyone that had been watching this project drag on knew that the Colonials had invested a lot of time, personnel, and resources just on this one small ship. All one had to do was look out into the lagoon to know that this was only the first small steps of a very large plan. The fact that now the Colonials were letting outsiders see what had to be armored suits and powerful laser weapons being used as cutting tools was telling. By now, Stephan knew that the Colonials did not let just anybody see something unless they wanted them to. He had his own pet theories on why this was. Most of those he kept safely locked up within the confines of his own skull.

Charles had been thinking about the report he had read just the night before. He was down another Raptor with a bad jump engine. You did not want to use a jump engine that was not one hundred percent within specification. The Raptors were checked before every flight even before the Cylon sneak attack. It would seem that their last batch of spare parts had a few defects that had not been caught before leaving the factory on New Kobol. Charles shook his head from side to side but never let his eyes leave the work going on below him.

"You people forget that we're refugees, and a pretty small group at that. We have a different idea of 'breaking even' than your people do. When we use or break something, no matter for what reason, we can make some thing out of whatever has been damaged. We might not be able to make a perfect replacement part for what it used to be, but it will be recycled into something."

Charles tried to keep his tone light and he now looked at the other man. "How do you think we are going to replace all those missiles and their guidance packages that we had to use on the Chinese and a few others since we landed? Just so that they might not attack us again. At least, not for a while."

Stephen was a little taken back by the statement as well as the tone the commander had used. He thought that it sounded like a mix of tired, resigned and depressed. But the other man was right. He had assumed that the Colonials would just make more of everything they needed at the drop of the hat. After all, he had seen that on half a hundred science fiction shows and movies. If they had spaceships, then they must have everything they needed like Harry Potter with a magic wand.

"You're right, Colonel. I fell into that trap face first. Sorry."

Charles just nodded as they watched the manned dual legged machines work and let his mind wonder about other things. He had been reviewing the latest change to the support priority list that had come down from the Admiral. The electronics, manufacturing, mining, and refining ships all had first call on any spare parts for the near future. Second priority were to go to the two warships, third on the list for support were the civilian ships still in operation or being worked on.

Each civilian cargo or passenger ship was emptied only when permanent housing was available groundside for the population carried within that hull. The ship was then sent into as complete an overhaul as possible in the still growing station over New Kobol. After the overhaul was complete and the ship had passed all post overhaul tests and inspections, it was stocked with emergency items just in case and received a full load of fuel. Then it would be hidden on one of the two planets or somewhere within the two star systems that the Colonials were using. All this was done so that if they needed to run again, they would be a lot better prepared than they had been the last time. It just took up a lot of resources in the manufacturing department to do this one mission.

Not all of the Rag Tag fleet of ships were fit to be overhauled by the very well-trained crews. The one that had been turned into a counter missile and aircraft defense platform at the Trading Outpost was a case in point. As were the three ships that upon getting to the Alpha Centauri system were pulled close together and stripped of any usable jump engine parts. This had to be done before they could be turned into the beginnings of the support space station in that odd little solar system. The same thing had happened to the two ships, one a liner the other a very old cargo ship, that now were the starting point of the Colonial fleet orbital support base over New Kobol. There had to be some give and take, and right now it was the Raptors' turn to get the short end of the logistics stick. That had not always been the case, and it would not be long before they were moved back up on the need-top-level-support-or-we-are-in-deep-trouble list.

Was overhauling, and then hiding all those spaceships cost effective or a good use of their limited resources? No. Not when they only needed about twenty ships of all types not counting the warships. It was assessed that this number of ships would meet the transport needs of the much-reduced Colonies of Kobol. They did not want to just recycle the spaceships into other products because they did not know if they were going to have to run again from the Cylons. So the effort, time, and parts were invested in that mission.

As more and more ships went out of service and through the massive overhaul program, the need for spare parts across the remaining fleet was expected to decrease. With fewer ships working day to day for the Colonials, the time and machines could be used on other tasks that needed to be done. Things like items for supporting the building up of the new planets' infrastructure. The heavy investment then would have a long-term payoff for the Colonials.

Fifth on the list to support with their limited if growing manufactory capability was the supply of items for trade. That left the current last item as the support for the small craft fleet. This meant that the problem with the jump drives on the Raptors was going to get very bad for a while longer. The little jump drives were one of the hardest items to make for the refugees. It took a lot of effort to make only a few parts now that the supply of Cylon salvage had been used up.

One of the side notes on the briefing had said that only when the Raptor fleet was down to a dozen fully mission capable craft would they be automatically moved up higher on the list, not before then. This was considered a short-term problem that should work itself out in a few months. Then the Raptors would get bumped back up to near the top of the list along with adding more space combat power to the fleet.

Charles was worried that this was a mistake. Now, not having a jump drive operational in a Raptor-class craft did not mean that those ships could not fly in space or even support him in attacking anyone on this planet. That is, if he needs them to. It was just that they were more limited than the other fully functioning craft with working interstellar drives.

That was the big picture for the Colonials. Things were going a lot better than anyone had the right to hope for. The population on the two islands were a little larger than planned for after the first survey. At least this early in the updated plan, everyone could have a house if they wanted one. It might be a little on the rustic side. It was, however, better than they had on their ships or that other ice ball world with the wood and fabric shacks the Cylons found them in. The whole population of the Colonial refugees was rising at a rate that pre-Fall social scientists on Caprica would have lost their minds and caused political issues over.

Charles was now looking at the armor plates stacked and ready to be attached to the floating dry dock. They were in a nice neat stack of a few dozen tall in a short line. They were not the super strong armor plates that the Rifts Earthers could make but rather were good old Colonial tech armor plates. The Colonial armor was somewhat easier and a lot cheaper to make. And it was only made to support the export market that was on this planet.

While the start of small arms and ammunition manufacturing on the Trading Outpost was going according to plan, facilities would be set up on one of the other planets to make the armor plates. It was mainly used as a way to make jobs for the Colonials while not using items needed for other tasks. Soon, those plates would be going up for sale just as soon as they could get enough plates to cover the huge ship on three sides. That would increase the number going on the open market by a few dozen 4 foot long sheets of armor a week.

It would be a slow start and it will take a while to fully ramp up production, but it would be there soon. Charles was told that in six months, the factory on New Kobol would be up and running at a normal rate for both tech levels of armor. Then they could repair the lines that had been making Raptor parts for the last few years. Charles was just happy he was not the one on the blame line for that juggling act.

Charles' eye drifted across the Colonial owned ship and on to his right away from the dry dock. A second Type 072A landing ship was tied down to the long concrete pier. It was a lesson learned on the first landing craft that they did not need to wait for the dock to be ready for the new ship. A crew was going through the Type 072 ship from top to bottom now. All of the electronics and electrical items were being ripped out and that was not a figure of speech.

From the soon to be scrapped ship, those items were earmarked to go to the electronics ship in their own special container van. They were not going to use the local made systems, but it was great feed stock for that ship to make more easily produced, needed items for the Colonial fleet. And it would cut two whole steps out of that ship's supply chain. He just stayed still, watching as more pipes and lines were connected to the waiting landing ship tied up at the pier. These new lines, he knew, were already drawing off some of the fuel from the LST's fuel tanks.

The now expanded heavy equipment driving and maintenance school being run out of one of the warehouses on the main island had moved its fuel tanker trailer closer to the pier. Every night after a day of training, everyone would top off their fuel tanks before putting the thirsty heavy equipment away for the night. The massive work area in the mountain was not set up to move its fuel trailer, so the blivets would be topped off from the tanker on the pier. Once filled, they would then be driven out to that hard to reach main work site high in the mountains.

The round blivets would also be used for topping off fuel tanks every evening before stopping work two hours before dark. The flat bed semitrailer would sometimes have to make two or three trips out the work site to do that topping off, but it was only a few kilometers away from the pier. It was almost all uphill, but it was not that time consuming yet.

The BBC staff and the academics would also come up every few days to buy fuel from the pier tanker for their own power generators. With the growing number of people living on the two islands, the BBC TV station was now broadcasting eight hours day on what had been shipped in to replace the battle-damaged equipment. There was a rumor that the BBC was going to set up a full fledged station on the island within the next year or so. It would be powerful enough to reach a few hundred kilometers around the central island.

Stephan had asked if his ships could top off their fuel tanks from the salvaged fuel, but Charles said no. He did not want to go through all of his stock too quickly and then have to go back to importing more fuel at full or higher price. It might slow things down some when they started working on the larger and longer ranged ships waiting to be cut up in the drydock. He was hoping that it would not be that much of an issue now that more and more diesel powered heavy equipment was going off of this planet.

Soon a few Chinese built small trucks, clones of the American Humvee, along with some assorted cargo trucks and passenger transports would be leaving this planet to be used by the Colonials on Tau Ceti. It would be a few ships down the line, but they had already been marked for future use by Charles' command. The next Chinese LST to be cut up had ten Type 63A's in her hull. They were the only 20 ton tanks that could move over water, as long as the waves were not too high.

Those wheeled transports would be staying on the islands and checked out to make sure they would work out to meet the Colonials' current needs. The nice thing about liquid fueled transports was that they did not have the range limitation that the current battery powered transports the Colonials could buy on the market so far had. Charles remembered getting an email newsletter saying that the next generation of battery powered transports would fix that. So far, they had had been whistling in the dark about fixing the range issue for electric vehicles for a while now.

Speaking of marketing, a memory had popped into his head as he watched a pair of women carrying a large machine gun off the landing ship between them. They had no idea what to do with the lighter weapons they were collecting off of the ships. They had been left behind by the ground and security personnel the landing ship had been carrying. As they were cleaning out the first ship, they had just dumped them in a storage blockhouse near the end of the training warehouse. Charles had about a hundred in the first container van to go off planet, to be melted down for scrap metal with the rest.

Admiral Adama did not want them lifted off planet due to them being so underpowered as to be useless for the Colonials. There was not enough metal to make it worth the risk of losing control of them and it was not like they would be of any use against Cylons. Neither could they be used to hunt anything on the two planets the Colonials were slowly making into a new home. The land-based animal life on those two planets was only about the size of a large frog.

They were only good for killing humans and the Colonials were short on those for the foreseeable future. They were fun to shoot but that did not outweigh the issues of getting them out of the gravity well. So, they were collecting dust along with the ammunition for them in ever growing numbers. They also did not pack enough oomph to be worthwhile for blasting stone on the islands. At the moment, they were inventoried at the end of every week and again every time a new weapon was found. Then the lists were updated and posted online as being for sale.

Charles thought it would be some time before anyone showed interest in those weapons. He would not sell to an individual or small group. He did not want to start a civil war anywhere. His staff would only take bids or requests for information from UN recognized nation state entities, and not even from large weapons resellers. That idea and the possible issues of selling automatic weapons had also come out from one of the locals helping to run the heavy equipment.

This was not happening to all of the lighter weapons. For example, they were not pulling the 7.62 mm coaxial machine guns off the tanks. This was for the simple reason that no one knew how to do it in the first place, much less able to do so in anything like a timely manner. The ammunition was pulled out of the tanks though. They had started doing it on the second Type 99 MBT pulled off of the first landing ship and now were doing it on the ones aboard the second ship that was still waiting to meet the cutting lasers.

Charles knew that Americans and others were looking forward to getting one of the floating tanks off the islands and into their labs but that would have to wait until the Colonials were ready to work on that ship. He could care less about the combat vehicles on those ships. Compared to even the first Cylon war machines those things were death traps for their crews.

Charles's tablet beeped at him from his left hand. It was a simple notice from the command center, nothing life or death important. A ship had crossed the two nautical mile mark. It was one that had been pre-cleared to approach. Charles punched in a code that acknowledged the alert.

Captain Beattie's cell phone beeped at the same time Charles sent the message back to the command center. The West Pac Express was in port already, and she would be staying overnight again. He and his ship would be in port for the next few days. It had been chartered to support a group of scientists who wanted to spend a week studying the alien humans. Both officers were not enjoying them being around any longer than they could get away with. They had been spending more and more time at this location overlooking the dry dock.

The incoming ship was the M/V Bismarck and she was carrying what had been billed as Austere Environment Support Packages. Stephen had no idea what they were for, but he had been told that the Colonials needed two of them, and his company had hauled them. There was one for each of the planets that the Colonials were setting up homes on. They were coming with six contractors coming along with each package to help set them up and then run them. The pair of AESP's had put a big hit on the Trading Outpost's liquid assets but the Old Man had said they were needed, so Charles had paid for the rush job to have them put together and shipped out. Now they were here.

Charles looked over to the other officer and gave him a knowing look. "I guess we both have to get back to work." He could tell that the ship's master was not looking forward to leaving the high metal wall of the working ship. Charles could empathize with the sentiment.

Stephan put out his hand and the two men shook hands and smiled as they went back to work in the hot sunny day. This was the only time of the day that both men would be in anything like a low stress environment. That is, until they went to sleep too many hours from now. Stephan shot one last look at the ship being cut up below him. Normally he hated seeing a proud ship being cut up or scrapped after decades of service. Somehow this was different, but he could not put his finger on why it was different.

Charles watched the small cargo ship as it pulled up to the small boat pier. It was one of the few times that two vessels were tied up at the same time. The cargo and the first passengers going off of this planet were going to be on the ground for maybe a day. Charles knew that a cargo ship was due to land some time today but he did not know if the ship would be large enough to take everything that was waiting. The last two supply pickups had used some of the smaller Colonial ships, but they had left fully loaded.

When Charles made it to his office and got back to the waiting paperwork, he was almost knocked out of his chair. It seemed like his boss had decided to make sure there was enough lift on this trip after all. Charles watched as the largest cargo ship they had that could land on a planet settled in on its landing struts on the landing field. There was no doubt that it was going to be able to take the field hospitals along with every bit of cargo and every container van full of scrap that his people had been able to take off the captured warships.

---

Laura and the whole Quorum was watching as the large cargo ship named Aurora landed at the rough landing strip. The press reporters were all present as the ship unloaded its cargo for this world to see for the first time. This was big news and one of the few stories that anyone in the general public could point to as major support coming from the other human occupied planet. The Aurora had already made three stops before landing on this planet.

The ship had both picked up and dropped off cargo at the growing mining sites in Alpha Centauri. Then it had stopped at the cold planet that they had problems finding a name to fit. The first field hospital was being set up in the largest settlement on Midian. That had not been a popular decision but having a hospital on that planet would save lives. Even if it saved only one newborn, Laura was good with that and she knew that others would fall in line in time. The ship then had to stop at the main space station over this planet. It was there that the great ship had offloaded most of the refined metals like steel and copper. It had also unloaded the raw ores it had picked up at Alpha Centauri to be shifted to the nearby manufacturing ships. Within a few months, the end products would be shipped across all of the Colonial controlled areas.

Eventually the ship made its way down to the surface of New Kobol. She had just finished her prepared statement as the ship opened its cargo bay. It would take some time before it was set up, but Laura was looking forward to having a fully trained dentist. If not that, an obstetrician and gynecologist was a close second in her books. She could feel that things were starting to change for her people. In just a few short years, she could feel that her people were finally living again. As Laura watched the ship unload, she wondered when things would slow down. Then she got scared that they would slow down.

---

About three months later, Charles was in his office upstairs of the Command Center's main area. There was a lot going on, and it was not at all what Charles would have called productive. On one part of his desk, he was finishing up the paperwork for the latest stop work demand that had been sent to them from off island. This one was an injunction from an organization called the World Court. Charles had been blowing off the paperwork from this group for some time. That is until a senior member of the law firm they had been working with flew out to meet with him. He had taken two hours just going over it and explaining that it was a very bad idea to keep doing that sort of thing to the World Court. Someone had made a legal complaint to the effect that the Colonials were damaging the reef around the two islands.

The reefs marked the boundary between the lagoon and the ocean, and it had been listed as a protected area. That had happened before the Colonials bought the islands. That bit of information had not been noticed when the place was picked to be the Colonials' new home. And now because Charles had been dragging his feet for so long, a simple inspection was not going to cut it with the World Court. So, the Colonials would have to, as Captain Beattie put it when he heard about the issue, put on a massive dog and pony show. Charles had no idea what he had meant at the time the term was first used. Now he did, and it sucked as much as he thought it would.

It had been two weeks, that he would not get back... ever. And it was not over yet. He had even had to stop work on cutting up the 25,000 ton, over 200 meter long Type 071 Yuzhao-class amphibious transport dock that they had just started working and making good progress on. It was the first of the three they had and it had been next on the list after the four LST's had been chopped up. They had just started the process of turning it into stuff that the Colonials needed when they had to stop to focus on the inspection.

It had been carrying between five hundred and eight hundred troops, and between fifteen and twenty amphibious armored vehicles. It also had four of the Type 726 LCACs in its well deck. It even had two small flat-bottomed landing craft, mounted one on each side of the ship. It was the largest ship for them to work on to date. This alone made it a big deal, and long-ranged plans had been made on the lessons learned from cutting up the four smaller LSTs. Already there had been a few issues between Charles' command and the Admiral's office.

Working with the almost flat bottom landing ships had not really prepared the Colonial work crews for the larger ship, as it turned out. They had no idea what might be in the ship, and quickly found out they might be in over their heads. There was very little information about this military transport ship that his computer people had been able to find out so far. Charles had to contact the law firm for some help. A few weeks later they had some Chinese military experts coming in to help so that nothing would go to waste. Every one of them had a military intelligence background of some kind, and Charles was not very happy about that fact when he had been told. But in less than twelve hours, they had gotten the Colonials out of the blind lands.

They had been able to get the hover craft powered up and off the large ship... very softly. Those would be going off planet and they would be a great help on the warm waters of the planet New Kobol. That they could carry about seventy tons of cargo was just icing on the cake to the Colonials. They only had a few hover cars that Kelly's people had with them when they were stranded on New Caprica.

The new people had even been able to help the Colonials find and mark all of the supporting tools and spare parts needed to keep them in operation for months to maybe a year. If it came down to it, Charles' people should be able to get replacement parts for the hover craft shipped to them on the islands, and then send them off planet.

He was surprised to find out that the ships were supposed to have four medium sized helicopters on board. They were nowhere to be found. The spare parts and tools were there but not the hulls of the helicopters. The Americans did not have them and the data from Raptor overflights had shown that they had not been there when they were escorted out of this area of the South Pacific. This information was passed on to Pearl Harbor, but they had no idea of what might have happened to the enemy flying craft either.

Those craft would not have been of use to the Colonials, but they were a nice bit of kit that was missing from the ships. Still, it was a mystery that had a lot of people scratching their heads. The Raptors could do every job those things could have done. They also had a longer range and could go way past the speed of sound. What Charles was thinking was that they could have been sold each one of them for a nice bit of change on the open, grey, and black markets around the world. The Admiral's office thought that some of them had been used in Pearl Harbor to offload some of the ship's crews and that they were still on Ford Island. Charles passed word on the sly that if the US had them they could keep them, but it would have been nice if they had asked first. He was surprised at the reply that the Americans did not have them.

The pair of flat-bottomed landing craft they had first pulled from the larger vessel were on the beach near the large pier. A large, long, shallow angled ramp was there and it was perfect for the almost zero draft vessels to use. They could carry about twenty people, a few tons of supplies, and were still safe to use in the protected waters of the lagoon. It now looked like they would be the best way to maintain access to the island of Tahaa. No longer would they have to train people to use sail boats and those craft could even carry one of the two cars. Finding spare parts would be interesting after they ran out of what these ships had on hand but they could cannibalize a few of them if the Colonials could not find them from other sources.

Charles was smiling about those craft. He had not thought about keeping them. It was someone on his staff who came up with the of whys and wherefores. It was a very good distraction, thinking about all those who had gotten seasick riding on them. They were not a ride someone wanted to take if they did not have to in Charles' opinion. Then again, he was told that more than a few people living on the islands found the ride very enjoyable.

Then it hit him again on why he needed the distraction. The UN had started submitting the names and numbers of the main group of the primary 'inspectors' that need to come out. The first two lists to be submitted were not that bad but it had not stopped with those. The numbers kept growing every other day with more and more names being added to the incoming lists.

Then the staffs for some of those people on those still growing lists started asking questions or more like making demands on the Colonials. Emails had been sent about things like their hotel requirements to his staff. Those emails had gone unanswered because, frankly, the Colonial thought they were jokes. There had been a few dozen shows broadcast to the world already about the living conditions that visitors to the island had to deal with. That is, until the same questions were asked. This time adding that their bosses had some specific food requirements, along with a service standard requirement that must be met by the Colonials.

After another meeting with a member of the law firm, Charles had directed his staff to be honest with the replies. The rules were the rules for everyone to follow. There were no hotels on the island. Whatever food service they were going to want, they would have to bring with them or sleep on the bare ground. Those reply emails were leaked to the press, and to the surprised of the UN functionaries most of the US and EU press supported the Colonial stance on those demands. The way the press was carrying the story worldwide was that this was a prime example of fraud and waste of other people's money. Money that could and should be used in other places. Not so that a bunch of UN officers could go to a tropical island for a few weeks on someone else's dime.

When the visitor list hit over five thousand people demanding the use of everything from submarines, ground penetrating radar, LIDAR sets and MALE UAV's, that was when Charles hit the roof. When his staff had briefed him and asked for guidance, he had to get some advice from the law firm's public relations people. Finally he was able to get that number cut down. He had to do an interview about the subject, and it could not be Mell or Ruth. If one of those two had done it, it would have looked like a soft ball interview. so he had done it in Sydney.

It had gone over well but the other side had PR people also and they went to work mudslinging to counter the Colonials' point of view. Charles had to offer to four different news groups to come along with the inspection just to keep everything on the up and up. He could the each news groups off each other with hints about the other team doing shady stuff. It was a very risky plan.

That was a hard item to do, one upping the PR people of the UN. Somehow it had worked, so far, and when the UN showed up it was with only five hundred people who would be making landfall when all was said and done. The UN had chartered one of Cunard's small cruise liners to do the inspection. It had picked up everyone on Tahiti before bringing them the 170 miles to the Colonial controlled islands. The additional support staff were not going to land on the islands during the inspection.

The additional news crews were already on the island. They had been flown in on small jets paid for by the Colonial Government. They were calling the BBC Hut home for now, and they had some great shots of the super expensive cruise liner entering the lagoon. It would seem that their local guides knew all of the best spots to get great images of the liner. The large vessel would have to anchor in the area between the islands due to the water depth that the ship needed to avoid running aground on unmarked reefs or rocks. It would seem that the ship's captain did not trust the charts that had not been updated in a few years. And no one seemed to have been able to find any updated ones in time to make this trip.

Charles had to kick himself to get his mind back into the game as the first group of small boats left the cruise ship and headed towards him. The first meeting was held on the same pier that the Spearhead-class transports used to drop of cargos. When all of them were together, the problems started. It had taken four lifts of the small boats to get the right people to the pier.

The Iranian representative was leading the group, and he started to make demands as soon he was within earshot of the Colonials. "I demand that we should have free access to everywhere, and without being broken into escorted groups."

Charles had been ready for this and he had a few prepared statements that Boxey had been able to ferret out of the internet. Charles just looked at the oddly dressed man. One of Charles's staff had made sure that the nearest news crew caught the question.

"So, you or your government would do the same for me and my people? If we popped in on the Mehrabad or Bushehr bases? I can have a Raptor ready in about five minutes." Charles had a hard time keeping his face straight as he dropped his bombshell.

The Iran representative turned white, and he started yelling in his native language at an impressive volume. This tactic had worked against westerners before. It worked when they got their nuclear arms ban lifted, so the Iranian went for it with the usual rhetoric.

He had not expected that Charles was a different animal all together. The Iranians had only seen another infidel, like many others. Charles stormed into the crowd of visitors and got in the representative's face. It took a few seconds for people standing nearby to realize he had yelled back in perfect Farsi. All of it was caught on high definition tape, and would be making the evening news. It would have to be subtitled and censored when the language got too colorful for local viewers.

It took a lot of work for Charles and his people to keep the inspectors on the track that they had said they wanted to see. It caused some push back, leading to claims that the Colonials where hiding something. When he was asked about nuclear weapons on the island, Charles was not surprised even though it was not on the list of issues the UN was there to check out.

Charles kept a straight poker face on. Mell had been coaching him on how to use body language while being filmed and he moved so that he could glance at the filming team. "Yes, the Colonial Military has nuclear weapons. Uranium is not that hard to come by in most asteroid belts. Why is that an issue with damage to the lagoon's reefs?"

That statement started a firestorm among the UN inspection teams. They demanded that the Colonials remove the weapons at once. When Charles asked why, he was told that there was a ban on new nations getting the weapons. Charles just smiled and reminded them that they were not part of the UN and they had never signed any such treaty. And they would not sign such a waste of paper and ink in the first place. That stopped the gathered visitors right in their train of thought.

It was four days later during the out briefing held in the Restaurant that the inspectors gave a full-blown presentation to the news groups and Colonials. They discussed the damage to the reefs and a list of other demands. Ones that the Colonials had to fix, even if most of them had nothing to do with the reefs they were to have been looking at.

Charles started laughing very loudly. Sometimes he did it while speakers were still giving their statements to the larger group. It was just like they had done to him a few days before. Not surprisingly, the UN people did not like it when the shoe was on the other foot. The speakers did not see it that way either. It was amazing how something like that could happen to people who are used to having things their way.

Charles looked around and saw the cameras looking at him. He stood up from his chair and gave a prepared statement. "The Colonial Government will not sign your United Nations Charter because we are not from your world. Besides, we do not like most of your laws or the standard that they are enforced across the planet. We will not pay 'our fair share' of the UN Budget, as you call it. We would not have done that even before we saw how you spend your money."

Charles pointed to the cruise ship that they had come in on. "We will not give up the production of nuclear weapons. And we sure as frak will not say we will not use those same types of weapons. If we deem fit to use them, we will frakking use them. What? Where all of you dropped on your heads as kids?"

Charles looked around the room at the shocked faces. "Now if we could get to the part that you all were supposed to be here looking at according to your legal injunctions? If you want someone to repair the blast damage to the Reef, why don't you send the bill and statement to the Chinese? It was their weapons that they used to attack us that caused the damage in the first place. Not us. If they had not tried to invade our territory and they had not launched those weapons, there would not be any damage done to the reef."

Charles was pointing to the one Chinese representative who had a translator bud in his ear. He was trying to keep a poker face on at first. Then the red shot visibly up his neck and to his head as the Colonial commander's last statement was translated for him to understand. You had to give him credit, though. That red was the only sign he gave off.

Charles gave the other man time to say something but he did not make a move towards the microphone. China had started to break up since the attack. Current rumor had it that they had already turned to gunfire as each Chinese warlord tried to take what they thought they might be able to use later. It was still not making the news, but it was only a matter of time before the huge nation went balkanized on everyone. The Chinese central government was in no position to do anything privately or publicly. At least, not yet. But a wounded dragon is a very dangerous dragon.

Charles didn't want to wait too long and let someone else take a punch at him. After a few handfuls of seconds, he went back on the attack. "As for making environmental impact statements or reports on the risk and damage that we might be causing to our now home worlds, I would like to ask who here at this table has been to a different life bearing world?"

He looked around the room, and not one hand was raised after the silence carried. "I will not say that we know everything, but we do have a lot broader knowledge base on what can and should not be done on a planet. At least compared to what you all do. You have only one yardstick. I, on the other hand, have been on over a dozen life giving planets in my adult life. We have our own laws about things like this, and we will live by our rules not yours. I suggest that you fix your own lands before you start looking to others. We say one law, and one standard of enforcement. You might want to try that before you look our way and try to make demands on us." Charles was thinking about reports regarding the widespread abuse by UN troops in a half dozen countries that had come out a week ago to the worldwide press.

The UN now was fighting a rejuvenated backlash from the public. One that this time supported what the Colonials had to say. It was not just western countries that were driving this backlash. Countries that had UN forces acting as peacekeepers were also supporting the Colonials. Stories were being brought back up from the past and this time, they were headline stories about abuses the UN troops were reported to have committed over the last few decades. The ugly part was that they were naming names, and those names were still in the UN bureaucracy.

They had been right about Charles hiding something though. Any weapons tech that was not Cylon or straight up Colonial was mostly hidden in buildings around the islands. They also were under internal guard or in dugouts and holes blasted into the hard rock of the spine of the island. The four Hoplite 'heavy spaceship salvage exoskeletons' that had been the subject of a lot of interest these past few months, they were not anywhere to be seen by the UN inspectors and their hangers on.

When someone asked Charles or whoever about them, they were simply told that the suits were down for maintenance and had been shipped off planet for the specialized work to be done. Charles and the other leadership of the Colonials knew that the CIA and others had a lot of images of those suits working on cutting up the ships but full public close-ups by that many eyes were not wanted. At least, not yet, due to the arms race they might kick-start on and off this planet. The Admiral was not ready for the militaries of this world to waste money on things that were too far ahead of their base skills and technology to try to make. Bill Adama wanted them to focus getting the basics done to not only down pat, but also so the basics were not too expensive to mass produce.

---

Once the extra news crews and inspectors had gone back to their ship or otherwise off the islands, Charles ordered some of his people moved back into supporting locations in case of an attack. The cruise ship would be leaving the lagoon around midnight. That would let it make landfall back on Tahiti some time close to sunrise. This let Charles go back to the reports that he was reading this late in his office. Before the last meeting with the UN, the world court representative had withdrawn their injunction on industrial activities that might affect the lagoon.

Both of the reports he was looking at were from Boxey and his team of computer experts. The first report was maybe one of the nicer outcomes of letting those frakkers on his island. During the tour with the news crews, they had gotten close to an inventory being done of one of the salvaged weapons stockpiles. They had filed a story about the event the first day. Now it could be seen on the internet by those who did not see the buried story.

The captured infantry weapons were getting a lot of interest in a certain area. It was one of Charles' staff that had responded to an online inquiry. They asked about the weapons that were not being shipping off planet. The first report had commented that they seemed to have been surprised that the weapons and ammunition were still sealed in such a way as to protect them from salt and water damage.

The countries that seemed to have shown the most interest were smaller countries that might have been looking for a deal on secondhand weapons. So far, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, and surprisingly the small country of Israel were all showing interest. It would seem that now that the Colonials had pulled out a marine battalion's worth of weapons, it might be worth those countries' time to see more about them. Now those weapons looked to be a viable additional income source for the Colonials. Even though newer and more powerful weapons were coming onto the markets every few months, these were available and could be had at a good price. Maybe they could be held for a rainy day somewhere that did not have a history of staying peaceful for long.

Next on his list were reports on projects advancing around the world. One was from the same state in the United States that had won the first weapon for that country. The higher impulse rockets were coming out of the testing and limited use phase. They were an amazing improvement for only such a short amount of time. From what Boxey and his team had data mined, the rockets were a mix of Earth and Colonial ideas to make the rocket motors.

That would help this planet's space and weapons capabilities. The test results were still not up to Colonial, or even early Colonial standards but it was a good move forward. Adama had been concerned with the many vocal groups that advocated ending local production of large rockets to put items in orbit.

Those groups had advocated an idea that they just should have the Colonials and their small craft do the job of those larger, noisy and expensive rockets. The first time that Charles had heard this idea, he had not really believed that someone was that dumb. It was true that the Raptors were carrying small probes, ones that were for science based missions out of the blue planet's gravity well but that was it. They did not even have a rhyme or reason on why the Colonials picked certain payloads over others.

What his staff was doing was simply putting the tasks on a roulette wheel. Only when they had the time and space on a Raptor did someone from the staff spin the thing and drop the ball. Wherever it ended up, that was the mission they would take into orbit. The wheel was very well hidden and only the staff and Charles knew about it. It was an inside joke that might not be so funny if others found out.

Every time they were asked to lift a military system or land someone on one of the local system's other planets, the job request was returned with a no thank you attached to the paperwork. If it was a communication satellite, yep, it would go on the wheel. If it was an 'Earth observing mission', well not so much. The Colonial leadership wanted the people on this planet to push ahead in technology. Not just use someone else's technology because it was cheaper short term.

The bottom note on the report was what drew his eyes. It said that if they could get another forty percent improvement on the rocket motors then the Colonials might start buying some of them but only for use in training weapons and missiles. They still were not that great for combat against the Cylons but they were a lot better than what this planet could produce almost two years ago. Not having to replace training rounds would help the Colonials focus on other things and it would be another export from this planet.

The other item from the same state was a load of steel that they were advertising to be coming out soon in some measurable amounts. The specifications would make it the strongest steel ever made on the planet, hands down. They were saying that it was harder than cold rolled W2, but would still have some flex to it. Was it as strong as the Colonial made armor plate? No. Was it close to being that good? Not really. It was as strong as most Colonial building grade steel before the first Cylon war. It was in fact strong enough to make components for most Colonial military firearms. The amount this company could make was not that much. It was more or less kitchen sink type numbers but it was a start. If it did test out as good as the report claimed, Charles would be placing orders for it, even if it was only coming out in less than fifty ton lots. That way, they would not have to wait for the stuff to come to them from the other Colonial planets to make the small arms and ammunition that they were selling on this planet.

It looked like the first three batches were already sold to a gun manufacturer somewhere that was not disclosed, and not the Colonials themselves. That was fine, and it was working according to the Admiral's overall plan. Mell had asked one night what the target sell price was for the weapons they were now making. There had been a story about the falling prices the Colonials were getting for what they were selling. The two of them had been watching the show together, and she had noticed that he had not seemed that displeased with falling prices for the Colonial export.

He had told her that they were hoping to sell the new made CP M-58 pistols for as low as US$10,000 each. That was only 2,000 more than the TIKI-T Titanium was selling for now on the open market. The local made knock off of the Caprican made Freeman PDW-I submachine gun, now called CM SM 1, they were hoping would be okay to sell for as low as US$15,000 each. The new local built CR M115 assault rifle, they were okay to sell them for US$50,000 each. The CMG M116 light machine gun they were building by hand was hoped to go for US$150,000. Until more weapons came on the market by other manufacturers that were even close to being as capable, they were getting a lot more than that per weapon. In fact, they were still getting twice to three times those number even now. He was pleased with those numbers and he didn't tell her about Adama's larger plans.

That also did not count the sales of the five hundred rounds per day that they were putting out at the ammo plant. That number would get higher every week as they came up with ideas to add more automation to the processes that had been very manpower intensive. Right now, they were only putting out about two hundred rounds of various sizes per day on the market for sale. The rest was going into storage along with what was left of the older style large caliber ammunition that had been scavenged from the fleet. That was because on some days, they needed to trade more rounds than others. It was all about supply and demand and right now, no one on the planet could make the ammunition like the Trading Outpost could.

The ammunition factory sales were doing so well that they were going to have to add a new line soon. In fact, they were going to build a whole new building to hold that new line. This had not been part of the original plan. It would be using the base equipment that had come off of the Battlestar Galactica. This line was where they were going to make original Colonial 30mm KEW ammunition. This was for weapons that at one time had been ether mounted on Vipers or close in weapon mounts on the smaller ships of the fleet. They had an excess of supply of these weapons and ammunition now that pulse lasers had replaced all of the Viper mounted weapons and almost all of the close in weapons on the fleet. As the civilian ships went into the latest overhaul, most but not all of the KEW they carried were replaced with laser weapon mounts. As the ships were put in storage after getting their ammo bins filled, there were would less of a need for that type of ammunition.

The Colonial Fleet had even stopped production of the updated ammunition and had only been using stockpiled ammunition in training for the last year. Now the Colonial military only used upgraded AP rounds because the target they were shooting at with those classes of weapons were now expected to be a lot harder to kill. That was a little bit overkill for the targets that they had on this planet. What the Colonel had the head of the ammunition factory looking at was making an explosive round that would fit the weapon like the flak round for the bigger Colonial cannons. The warhead case and detonator would be made from local supplied tech, with the filler that went bang coming from the mix of Colonial and Rifter knowledge bases. It would give Charles another product they could sell, and they were going to need that money soon.

The price of gold and other metals the Colonials had to trade were still dropping lower and lower. This was even though they were not putting that much more on the market in any given month. This was on top of the number of weapons they were selling. The value of those weapons were dropping in price also. In one way that was bad, because the price of the items they needed was going up faster than anyone had thought they would. The campers they wanted had almost doubled in price, steel was heading that way, and food prices were all going up faster than their trade goods value was falling. People were starting to worry about China, and they were also starting to stockpile foods and supplies in case of nuclear war. That was why scrapping the Chinese ships was so important now. It was cheap refined metal. It still needed more rework than the I-beams and finished steel products, but it was also a lot cheaper and it had some other uses.

That was another reason to push up the test firing of the 30mm KEW cannons. They were still coming up with a suitable weapons mount. Charles wanted one that would let them show off the weapon from a vehicle, but only with one person pulling the trigger. Right now, the plan was to have a film crew that was putting together an hour long show on Colonial weapons for broadcast on cable TV to see it. Charles was counting on having people asking for the weapons' information including price not long after they finished airing the show.

The funny part was that the film crew had no idea they were going to see something that had never before been seen by the people of this planet in action. The problem was that they only had a little over two thousand of the KEW that were still serviceable in storage. They would not be making more of them, so it was going to be a fixed price for the weapons. They were going to hope that they would make more money on the sale of spare parts and ammunitions for these weapons than the sale of weapons themselves. At least for the next few years. That is, until the Colonials started releasing laser weapons for sale to the people on this blue planet.

Charles reviewed a report that the locals had not cracked the formula for the ammunition that made Colonial projectile weapons so lethal yet but they were getting a lot better. It was only going to get better in the next few months to years. The better metals they could make, if they could make enough of it, the faster the Colonials would rebuild. That did not even count the improved high durability concrete that was showing up on half a dozen different countries.

---

While Charles was reviewing the different projects that his people knew about, one project was moving along without that much notice. The Utah Steel Mill was a high tech firm but her management was more old school. They did use computers, but they were not networked to the outside world. This had been a hard lesson to learn after someone hacked their computers and stolen a new steel formula. Now they were more careful.

For the last six months this firm had been making as much new steel as they could but only about half to three quarters of the production was going onto the market. The rest of the product had been going into the tools that were needed to make new tools. Those new tools were then used to make a whole new generation of metal. This was the second run of the newest formula of metal. It was not a full capacity run, but it was the largest to date. And if it passed the test, it was going to blow the lids off the markets for metal around the world and off world for that matter.

The head of this project was all smiles as the flames and sparks danced across the room in a pattern that was recognized by people who had been in this type of work for generations. "Making steel is a lot like baking a cake. You have to know what order and how the ingredients are supposed to be prepared before you use them. You don't throw in frozen milk or hard-boiled eggs into the mixer. If you do, it's just not going to work."

The look the speaker got was not nice. Everyone in this meeting knew how to make steel. The speaker did notice the looks and he just smiled. "The key for this batch is all of that neodymium we bought. Now, it loses most of its magnetic effect when it's melted with a certain recipe. So you can then start working it and when the temperature's dropped to the right point, then we hit it with more of the magnets at the right strength. As the metal is being worked the magnetic line of force starts to align the crystals at the atomic level. We keep the magnetic fields on at the highest power setting we can until the metal is finished forming."

The head of marketing was looking as the metal was passed back and forth under the rollers below them. "And the results?"

The head of the development project smiled even bigger. "It will set world records for anything made on this planet. It's both hard and flexible. I don't think that we will be able to keep up with demand... at any price. Between the Colonials, the military, and any building in an earthquake zone, they will be beating down our doors waving checkbooks in the air."

This statement got the leadership of the company talking. They had been pulling a huge profit even when half of the production was being diverted for the company's own use. They were not a huge company and this formula was not that cheap to make. It was decided that if the sales figures matched projections, they would license it out to a larger producer. You only could get profits into your bank accounts if you had something to sell. Taking ten percent of someone's hard work was not a bad way to fatten up the company's bottom line for the next few years. If things worked out, in three to four months they were going to rewrite history books.

---

It was a few weeks later, and Charles was back at the weapons training range that had made the news not long after they came to this island. He just had to get out of the office or he was going to lose his mind. He was wishing now that all he had to do was put up with that crazy frakker Cain and running from Cylons. He was tired and he needed a break, but he knew he could not take even a long weekend off until after the big party they were planning.

The nice thing was that Mell had already cleared it with her company. So when her boyfriend left the planet to visit the rest of the Colonials on their newly claimed planets, she would be able to go and do a type of blog as she went, all on the company's expense. When they got back to this blue ball, she would be able to release the first ever images taken of a different planet in a totally different star system. The images would be from the surface. It was also something NASA had not been able to do and looked to be something they would not be able to do for the next several years. Charles was happy that her company was doing such a great job of working with her on this idea.

Charles had to force himself to get back to work. He was watching the film crew filming for their show from his air-conditioned truck. They had already been going a full two weeks of shooting both weapons and film. Today was the day they were going to get a surprise for their show. The new target was now being placed on the main range while they were filming to one side.

Heavy equipment was lifting the target off a flatbed trailer and dragging it to a wooden frame staked into the ground. It was one of the Type 99 MBTs that had not been taken off planet for recycling, Colonial style. This one had come off one of the RO/RO ships with the help of two robots and a hover craft. He did not need to use his field glasses to see that the movement had been noticed by some of the film crew already. All Charles could do was smile in the transport. He did not have to put his work face on.

When it looked like the production crew were taking a break in filming, he walked over and started making small talk with both the filming crew and his people who were helping out with the show. The nice thing was that his English was a lot better and everyone else was trying to speak Colonial, even the local born. He let the head of the filming project fish around in the dark for a while before he told them what was going on.

He told them that they were going to be testing a new weapon on the range. He played hard to get when they asked if they could film it. He told them he did not think that was a good idea at first. After all, if it failed the tests then the Colonials would look bad to the world. The Colonials' hard-won reputation for high quality weapons would take a big hit. Charles had to remind them that it would affect the value of their weapons, and what they could buy from those proceeds. This got the production manager thinking and talking very quickly. All the while Charles was biting his lip to keep from smiling.

He did not want to let them have any hints that this was all planned out a few days ago. When the flat nosed 6x6 Chinese cargo truck made it to the range marker, it was not the truck that was towing the flatbed trailer, but a second prime mover. The whole film crew was juiced up like a 2-year-old on a six pack of Monster energy drinks. They had not been kicked off the range so at worst, they would be able to witness a new weapon being tested. Even if they did not get to take any of the film with them, they would be able to do a write up on it for publication later and that was going to be worth more than a little change.

The truck backed up into its pre-marked out firing position, just as planned. Charles made a show of talking to a group ostensibly in charge of the testing about what they were going to do on this range. Then he came back to tell the film crew. He told them where they could set up their filming equipment for the test. While the film crew was setting up off to one side of the range, the fabric and wood covering on the back of the Chinese made truck was taken down. It now showed what they were going to be testing today mounted in the cargo deck area.

The long-barreled KEW had come from an old Viper MK II, at least according to the documents that tracked wherever these weapons went. It had a hand made mount that was welded to the open, flat cargo bed of the tall truck. Now it was pointing over the tailgate down range. The weapon had been modified so much that if the old Colonial military found out, they would have ended up with a boatload of people going into hack for a long time. That is, if they were not shipped straight to a prison barge for what they had done to the military approved weapon. The weapon had been originally made for only rapid fire and mounted on the wing of a deep space fighter. Or mounted as the last ditch weapon to stop Raiders or missiles from striking a Colonial ship. Now, it had a type of shoulder stock and a selector switch. This let the person fire either a single shot, a five round burst, and if that person was crazy enough there was even a 10 round burst mode.

The first set of tests was not that impressive for the film crew to record. With the modifications done to the weapon, they first had to go through each of the firing modes. They were using Colonial standard armor-piercing rounds fired into the hillside that was the backstop to the weapons range. The impacts on the hill were just puffs of dirt and rocks rising in the distance. Charles could tell the film crew was bored but he could really care less. AP rounds had no boom in them unless they hit something very hard, like a tank or something that they could transfer their energy into. They just punched through stuff that was hard and kept going until they slowly lost energy.

This film crew was used to filming weapons of different types, or at targets rigged to give a showier result at the impacts. To say they were not impressed even when the KEW fired two of the five round bursts into the hillside would be the understatement of the year, but they kept filming and waiting for something that was worth the film to happen.

It was after the second of the ten round test bursts that they started to see. As the last round from the second burst hit the hillside backstop, it started an avalanche of rock falling down the short hill from the line of impact points that had been put into it today. It was not that small or short of a rock fall. Charles had to admit that it was very showy. It could not have worked better if he or someone on his staff had planned for it to happen.

Charles was smiling from ear to ear. This was going a lot better than he had hoped it would. The weapon had worked perfectly so far. "So much for just a puff of dirt with each impact. Don't you think?" Charles' comment was loud enough that the head of the film crew could hear. He had just repeated what the other man had thought was his inside voice. The rock slide did cause the weapons test to be put on hold. At least until the rocks looked to have stopped falling. After all, it was almost a third of the hill that had moved towards the range side of the slope.

The film crew chief was a little embarrassed but he still smiled at the Colonel. When the range was called 'cold' after the last test firing, he and the rest of the film crew went to go check out the damage done by what was just a small caliber cannon. The hill was over 1000 meters down the range, and it was not set up for much road traffic to go that far back. So, everyone had to walk cross country to see the hill and check out the fallen rock mass.

Up close the damage was more impressive than had been seen from half a mile away. Some of the rocks that had moved were the size of a family SUV. Charles was enjoying a good cup of coffee while the film crew went to work documenting the damage the old KEW had done. They found a hole in a slab of heartstone that might have come from the single shot test. They ran a striped tree limb into it, to see how deep it went. It was an impressive shot to film as the host of the show stood with a 12-foot-long stick. The host made a big show of shoving the stick into the hole until it was out of reach. Still, the stick had not reached the end of the perfectly round hole.

It took the test control personnel some time to get the film crew back up to the firing line so they could finish the planned weapons tests. It was only after they pointed to the 50 plus ton tank that the film crew started to move with any real purpose to get back behind the safe line. They were ready to start filming again, not too much longer than the test crew needed to get ready to shoot at the new target. The target was at the same distance as the hillside they had shot at earlier in the day. It was just at a different angle to reach it, compared to the whole hillside.

An MBT is a large target but at 1000 meters even it is bit hard to see without help provided by optics or other types of support systems. The test crew wanted to make sure they hit the target the first time, so a local built laser range finder was temporarily fixed to the top of the Colonial made weapon. Also, the test was not going to use the standard Colonial rounds for this part. They were going to use one of the new explosives filled rounds made right on this island. There was a lot riding on this next shot, and the testing crew knew this.

The gunner took his time and with a nod to the film crew to let them know he was ready, he pulled the trigger on the long-barreled weapon. The 30mm KEW did not have that much of a report for a cannon but it was about twice as loud as the report from a 25mm Bushmaster auto cannon. That is, if you did not have a few inches of metal between you and the muzzle of the blasted thing. What it did to the target tank was something totally different from what the American made chain gun would have done.

The gunner had put the dot on the right side on the heavily armed hull, just under the 125mm main gun tube in the turret. The single shot left the barrel at a velocity that was near the realm of science fiction, and it did not slow down that much on its kilometer long trip down range. The nose cone of the conical shaped projectile left the barrel as the shell casing dropped out the bottom of the weapon, and it rolled around the metal made cargo deck.

The hard nose of the shell was made of Colonial grade material, but it was not up to armor grade metal. It did not need to be that hard to do its task. It just needed to be hard enough to survive the passage of projectile through the thick air around it until it hit its target. And the hardest thing to punch through was the air on the way to the target. The double conical nose cone shaped device hit where the laser had been pointed at dead on target. It struck the thickest part of the armored tank. The point detonating device worked, and the hard nose forced its way into the tank's armor for a split second before the payload of the shell went off behind it. The third generation fifty plus ton main battle tank came apart in a very bright flash of light and sound.

The film crew did not say a word as the tank disappeared into a cloud of smoke and fire. They were quiet even after the thump hit them, as the shock wave washed over them from the down range target. They had three high speed cameras that were there filming at different speeds. The fast one was shooting at 50,000 frames of digital HD every second. The dust was falling out of the air but the target still was not visible as the air became clearer and clearer to those at the firing line.

The host of the show had a microphone still on him and it activated at the sound of his voice. "Good god! It's gone!"

That statement would later become his signature when the show aired. The term the audience would come up with when this episode aired was that the tank was blown into dust bunnies. Captain Beattie had not been on the island when the KEW was tested but it was not long before he was getting a message from the people in his office about the test. Charles had fun with the tests, and he looked forward to the shows airing in a few months. The film crew could not tell him when it was going to air for the public to see. That was production's job but they were betting that it would be very soon. Maybe it would even be the season premiere or the sweeps time for the show. Charles was okay no matter what because it would give them time to modify more weapons and make more of the high explosive rounds ready for sale.

---

Before the film crew was finished getting filler footage for their show at the range, Charles had to leave. He hopped into the all-terrain electric car and headed out to check on the other projects going on around the island. The current top headache was the Jiangkai II-class frigate that was sitting in the floating dock, and that was his first stop after the range.

It should have been another ship like one of the landing ships docks, but a request from the government of Tahiti had changed that plan. They had already finished rebuilding the new stern for their flagship, the Type 052D now named Tahiti. The ship been working great after a few leaks were fixed and a few other odds and ends repaired. They had been training hard, but they felt that their ship was not up to full readiness.

They were having a problem rearming the nearly empty VLS cells that the ship came with. Without anything to refill the launcher, they only had been going through the motions of test firing. They were able to get enough 130mm rounds to fill out the magazine and replace any that was used for training without that much of any problem from a few different sources on the open market. They could not, however, get the Chinese to sell them the weapons that would fit in the 850mm VLS cells. What they got for their trouble when they asked was not weapons but instead demands for the return of the Chinese property from the nation of Free Polynesia.

Unlike the 130mm cannon, no one in the world that used these same weapons would sell them to the small nation. This was mainly because they did not want to risk their own supply of replacement parts and weapons from their Chinese suppliers. The Tahitians were freaking out and asked for help from the Colonials. Charles had first thought to just let them figure out their own supply problems. It had taken his staff a few meetings to convince him that he needed to keep his neighbors happy. The good will they had gotten from just fixing their newest ship was not going to last for long. They had the weapons even after they had shipped the first dozen out to the Tahitians. It was just that they were not ready to take them off the warships that were still waiting to be cut up. It was just a matter of timing because those frigates were going to be cut up, there was no doubt about it.

They had to stop working on the last Type 071 LHD. They had been lucky that they were only at the phase where the fuel was being stripped and pumped out from her tanks rather than the actual part where the the lower hull was cut up. So they towed the warship into the dry dock and left the half done project tied up to the long pier. They needed to pull off a list of items from inside without breaking them at the same time. This was the hardest part to do, and it took longer than their practiced method of rip and bash.

The cannon ammunition was taken off of the ship by hand, but the missiles were too awkward clear out the same way even with the help of the power suits. The dry dock had two heavy duty cranes, and the VLS system was designed to be reloaded by that type of crane or one like it. After some trial and error, it was found that using it and some straps to just yank the weapons out of their launching cells was faster and easier.

No one on the islands had any idea what the different weapons coming out of the VLS were. They only knew that they did not have nuclear warheads and they were mostly likely some kind of guided anti-air weapons. After each missile was pulled out of the 32 cell VLS, it hung in the air for up to ten minutes. It was then very slowly lowered down to the dry dock floor. From there it was put in a handmade wooden box that the Colonials were making for the Chinese made missiles. The length and width were set, and they only needed to put braces and blocks in the right places to keep the weapons from moving around during transport to their new owners.

The Tahiti government was footing the bill for the shipping, making the wooden boxes, and an hourly wage to everyone directly involved in recovering the weapons. The downside was that they were going to want fifty missiles and some extras. Tahiti was offering to transfer an extra two million US dollars per weapon into the Colonial Bank. That was on top of their expenses for each useful weapon that made it off the island. The last part was important to both the Colonials and the locals, and extra care was taken in moving the long weapons.

The new Colonial Bank had just opened its doors on the island of Tahiti a week ago. The cost of setting up the new bank was offset by a free 99-year lease of a huge building on the main island for the Colonial Government supported bank and new embassy grounds. The bank would not be protected by the same laws that covered the embassy, but it would open up a lot of new avenues for the future for both nations. Little things like opening up branches in other counties, just like any other first world nation on this planet.

Charles had sweated a little when the notion of opening up a Colonial Bank had first been brought up. He was just glad that he was not the one who had to write all those regulations that the bank was going to have to work under. He hated writing reports and he bet that setting up a new bank had been a huge pain to get right.

Not all of the weapons were going off the island, or more to the point, they were not going to the traditional planet bound powers. The two triple mount anti-submarine tubes all had full loads so all six YU-7 torpedoes on the ship were going off planet along with the 240mm rockets that were supposed to be some kind of anti-submarine weapon. They also had been put in their own specially made cases for that trip. The remaining Colonials did not have much in the way of a sub-surface warship presence until they met the Rifters. This was the first time that the Colonials would be able to assess the locals' ability to fight and defend themselves from an underwater attack. It was one of those times that having some local friends was extremely helpful. That was because it was they who had pointed out the weapons to the Colonial leadership.

It was the same group that pointed out something the Colonials had missed when they inventoried each ship. There were two of the four box launchers set to fire to the left and right of the warship's bridge. After being told what they were, a notice was posted to the web about them being for sale. Those helpers got a little bonus, though they did not know it at the time, and they would get 1 percent of the sell price of those weapons.

The eight C-308 anti-ship / land attack cruise missiles were being picked up by an Iranian ship. That news had not gone over well with some of the planet's powers but there was very little reason to say no to the public offer made by that government. The only thing the Colonials were going to do was just cut the missile and launchers off the ship's mounts. Then they would put them into two empty container vans that happened to be lying around not far from the work site.

It did not take long before Charles started getting a lot of emails and phone calls complaining about them trading those eight missiles to Iran. He would listen to the complaining then attach or reply with a pre-planned statement. That was also where he would ask them what they would do if they were in his shoes and someone offered them a hundred million US dollars on a simple cash and carry deal. So far to date, no one had come up with a counteroffer to the argument. Part of that was what had been said over drinks with Stephan one evening. In that private meeting, Charles put one card on the table that he had been keeping close to his vest.

He told the CIA man that it looked like the quad launchers had not been properly weatherproofed and looked to have not been stored very well. Sea salt and water did not work well with the delicate brains of those types of weapons. Charles was sure that information leaked out to his superiors before the sun rose over the islands again. Charles could tell when word had made its way up the CIA's chain of command. That was because within two days the tone of the emails and sat phone calls had shifted from full on mad down to just checking the box and thank you for taking my call. He was hoping that when the Iranians came on the next flight, they would not notice the rust stains on the tube launchers. He had discretely passed word that any damage be cleaned up before the buyers showed up.

The Iranians had even contacted Beattie's office. One of his company's ships would be carrying the two containers to some port in Indonesia that Charles had not heard of. He really did not care and he did not want to take the time find the offloading port on a map. Not only was the CIA going to get paid for these services, they were also going to be getting some close looks at key players in the Iranians underground network of weapons suppliers. That was worth the risk of the weapons making it to that not so friendly state.

Charles would just be happy when everything was stripped off of the four captured 4,000 ton warships and the fuel tanks emptied. They still had the two 75,000 GT Color Magic-class RO/RO ships, along with the two Type 075-class 40,000 ton amphibious assault ships, and then there would still be all those support ships from the three attack task forces. In short, they had all of the largest and longest ranged of the captured ships still to go through the recovery and scrapping process.

He had been getting a bit of push from the staff on a related subject. They wanted him to pay to have a massive fuel tank holding system built on the island. He knew that they had good reasons for wanting this done and it made sense on more than one level. It was just that he didn't like the eyesore those tanks would be for the long term. That was not counting the security risk of someone targeting them with heavy weapons. Right now, the offloading of the fuel from the ships was looking like it was going to be the slowest of the next steps to be undertaken.

He could not spend much time at the pier, so after showing his face and patting a few backs, he left the area for an early dinner. It was just too bad that he had to go back to work and not spend the rest of the evening with Mell. He had a lot of paperwork to do, mostly because of some other issues that had come up recently.

The other headache he had to deal with was that one of his best fighter jocks now had a bun in the oven. On top of that, she was looking towards marrying the father of the baby. Who was the father of said bun in the oven? He was an F-35 fighter jock called Karma. Not only that, he was also a military test pilot and an active member of the armed forces of the United States. Things were still early, but the couple was trying to figure out what was going to happen next in their private and professional lives.

He, as her commander, was now trying to help her figure out what to do from a political and military point of view. Would Karma leave his country's service and move here to the islands and maybe even move off planet? Or would she leave the Colonial military, move to his country, and live there? It was not going to be easy for both of them to decide what to do. And he was stuck in the middle of it all with a huge security risk about to hit him squarely in the face.

Charles was sitting in his office as he finished up a private report going to the Admiral. He had an idea on how to handle the issue but it was above his pay grade to make the final call. He could not help but smile as he thought back to the look that Hardball had on her face when she had to report to him that she was off of flight status and why. As he was rocking in his office chair, he was starting to think about kids.

With a snort he spoke aloud. "Well at least things seemed to have quieted down, so having kids make sense." Charles's feet hit the floor and his eyes went wide. He could not believe that he had just tempted the gods like that.