Preamble
The next few chapters are going to involve some decisions being made. And rather than a whole bunch of "as you know" type of writing I would rather explain what the Chiron and it's fleet has available and the (well my) logic.
Jasper and everyone else strongly suspects that the Cylons have attacked the Colonies. Since attacking a minor colony and a Battlestar on the edge of Colonial Space (especially on the opposite side of the border) would be pointless if the Colonies were not attacked. But the Chiron is unwilling to leave it's civilian fleet and bringing everyone closer to the Colonies where they are far likelier to run into Cylons seems dangerous.
The Colonial jump drive system that most of the ships in the fleet is a "simple and rugged" type design. It is not "fast" though. The mining and their support ships will jump to a system and then stay there often for years. There is no need to spend money on any "bells and whistles" because if it takes 3 hours to reach an outer colony from the Colonies instead of 30 minutes well who cares? And almost all the ships available are in this category.
The Libran Dreams is a hybrid cargo/passenger carrier. It made the rounds going back between New Hadrian and Virgon and also delivered the mail. It's slightly quicker but more importantly not anyone's "home" like the other ships.

End Preamble

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or any related media.

What if a smaller Colonial ship survived the Fall of the Colonies? Follow the Centaur Class Chiron

Chapter 9

Chiron Briefing Room

"Major I wanted you to stay so we could discuss a few things. We have more assets now so we should consider revising the previous plan" Commander Jasper said. The Cylon attacks were very worrying. It is possible that the Colonies were under siege or worse.
"Sir I see logic. Did you want me to work on this or let Anders know" said Major Marton.
"Have Anders take care of this on her own. I am curious how she will do" said Commander Jasper. "I would like you to go and spread your XO charm around and make sure that everything is stowed away and that we have found bunk spots for all our new crew. Expect a surprise officers meeting in a few hours."
"Yes sir" said Major Marton

CIC
Major Marton walked into CIC. People were busy rewiring and other electrical work.

"Sir the CNP and other programs have not only been removed from the system they have had their cables removed" said Lt. Anders. "We reset to the older non synched systems."
The CNP was the newest and "greatest" of the recent programs to increase efficiency (and remove some crew) from Admiralty. Luckily it was new enough that not much retraining would be needed. Still this will cause some delays as everything now has to be communicated rather then being automatically displayed.
"Thank you Lt. I wanted to let you know that you are come up with a plan for adding an additional ship to the survey and pick a crew. The Commander expects you to have a briefing ready for later today" said Major Marton.
"Yes sir" said Lt. Anders. As Marton was leaving the he heard her putting in a call to Captain Limaki.

Flight Pod
Major Marton was pleased to see that the people milling around had been moved off the flight deck. "Lt how is everything going" he asked Lt Greene.
"Fine sir. The new people have been helping getting the CNP program removed. All damage for the new birds have been fixed and they are all fueled and loaded. If we could just get this last Raptor's jump engine ready we would have all clear across the board" said Lt. Greene "We were even able to move some people around to give the Marines their own quarters."
"Lt. I would like you to have a new revised equipment usage. Assume no resupply for the near future" said Marton. With that Marton went to see his next victim.

CAG office
Captain Lamiki and Lt. Tonis were working on something. Marton motioned for them to continue so he could observe.
"Sir the Lt and I were figuring out flight duties for the pilots. We currently have 5 more pilots than Vipers but are missing 2 ECOs. I do have some Viper pilots ECO qualified but wanted the Lt's input" said Limaki. Qualified unfortunately doesn't always mean good and a Raptor crew needs to be working as team.
Lt. Tonis then said "we could send them out with Tabby to train them. Or Wombat."
Seeing the slight snicker from the XO and his Raptor Leader Captain Lamiki was a little confused. The XO decided to take a little pity on him. "Not sure what orders we are going to get but having a complete list of pilots would probably be a good idea" Marton said. He was impressed with Captain Lamiki so far. Little things like making Juno the Raptor Leader and changing his squadrons name might not seem much but it did show that Lamiki was thinking off all his pilots and not just his old command.

Engineering
Major Marton however was less happy about engineering. Granted Lt. Swanson was still off ship doing making sure all the civilian ships jump engines and other critical systems were working properly. Still Chief Deema had not completed the removal of linked systems. "Chief Deema do you find it all suspicious that the Cylons attacked the Kestrel and that their fire suppression system failed right afterwards? One of the most critical and basic system on the ship just decided not to work? Or that Dradis went down? Just pull the frakking system and unlink any hard wired systems. This is not a request."
The engineering Chief looked like he was going to have a stroke and the other "blackgang" didn't look this way. "Yes sir" Chief Deema replied. Need to keep an eye to make sure that other things are not falling behind with their division officer off ship.

"All senior officers report to the briefing room" said the intercom. Time to put all the pieces together.

Chiron Briefing Room

"Good evening everyone" said Cmdr. Jasper. She waited for the "good evening sirs" and then continued. "I would like to start this meeting by saying that we are revising the Libran Dreams plan. Lt. Anders If you would."
"Yes sir. With the extra Raptors and crew available to us I would suggest that along with the Libran Dreams that we also send the Epsiki. Both ships would jump to within a light month of the Colonies. The 2 Raptors would explore. If there is massive Cylon presence in the Colonies then the Epsiki would return here. Then the Libran Dream would use the Raptors to check the Colonies and a list of fleet assets" said Lt. Anders. "I have a list of crew and needed skills but we should be able to do this with our current military personnel."
Jasper thought this over. The plan was a mixture of the previous plans of getting word and heading back immediately and reconnaissance. There was one thing though she was curious about. "I see Lt. Is there a reason you decided on the Epsiki?"
"Yes sir. The Epsiki while slightly slower than the other small cargo ship it is currently unloaded. The cargo we have while not all of it immediately useful should be protected as best as possible" Lt Anders replied.
"I see your logic does have merit. I will consider it" Jasper said. Lt Anders might be good as a tactical officer but she doesn't know shit about politics. Actually it might be best to nip this problem in the bud. "How many crew would you need."
"Sir about 20. The biggest issues is pilots and navigators. I did speak briefly with the CAG and he has 5 extra pilots. If everything goes according to plan the first ship would be back in around 8 hours. The second ship would return in 2 days or so" said Lt. Anders.
"Do you see any issues with that Captain Limaki" said Jasper.
"No sir. I would like to talk to Lt. Tonis about which Raptors would be best but that should be fine" said Captain Limaki.
"OK everyone let's plan on doing this 24 hours from now. Have a list of crew and Raptors ready by tomorrow morning" said Jasper. "Major stay here and everyone else dismissed."
After waiting for everyone else to file out Marton asked "Sir did you want me to contact Maxon."
"No Major I think I have dumped enough on you today. And thank you for your help" Jasper replied.

Chiron Commanders Office

"Communications get me to the Respite and request a private meeting with Miss Maxon. After a few seconds the line went through.
"Miss Maxon I would like to request the use of the Epsiki to perform reconnaissance on the Colonies" said Jasper.
"Commander if I may ask why one of my ships" asked Jessi Maxon.
"We have decided that sending two ships will get us the information faster and allow us to also do reconnaissance on the system. Hopefully this will allow us to find help faster" said Jasper knowing that's not really the issue.
"And you think the Epsiki is the best choice? Not another ship" Jessi Maxon asked.
"No I think that is best for the fleet. Do you have any objections" asked Jasper wondering if she would actually say it. "If not please have the crew and their belongings removed from the ship within 12 hours."
"Yes Commander. We need to find out what happened and I would like help out" said Maxon.

Author's notes

Couple of things here. Marton is trying to give his junior officers here at least a little bit of a warning of what the Commander has planned. Marton didn't know the specifics but did know what would be needed.
I don't think Raptor Lead was an actual position but it kind of makes sense. The CAGs are always flying or whatever the plot requires. Helo seemed to be in a supervisory role or something for them at the end but the end of BSG the ranks of positions was kind of a mess. Also Juno/Lt. Tonis had the job before. She didn't really want it but was "OK" with it as the other option really didn't want it.
The joke about Tabby is that Tabby is kind of rude to anyone that does not fit her exacting demands. A poor Ensign Viper pilot who merely qualified for ECO wouldn't enjoy her. Wombat though is "weird" she talks very little. Good ECO but just as bad training a new person for the opposite reason.
What Marton and Jasper were tiptoeing around is that Marton didn't want to use HER ships. She was magnanimous when the Rollins ships were only 2 and she didn't lose anyone. Things though changed when the Chiron left for a few hours to get the Kestrel crew and the reports that a Battlestar was destroyed and lost most of it's crew scared her a little.
Right now it's been around a day since the attacks. Everyone knows something happened and that it's bad but there is hope that it was "merely" a massive Cylon attack and that the Colonial Navy stopped it. Or at worst that the Colonies are being sieged. That things are far far worse than that is something that no one would guess. That is why the plans seem to be short sided. They are thinking this will be a week long trip to get back to the Colonies or get an escort back home. When they find out about The Fall they will have to reassess.
Thank everyone for reading. Any questions of comments would be appreciated.