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 18

Cadmus Sector "Darkspace"
Day 19 After Fall of the Colonies

Chiron Pilots Briefing Room

"Thank you everyone for coming here today" said Major Limaki. "I wanted us to talk before the next squadron briefing."
LT. Hamlin, LT. Tonis, and CPO Glover were wondering why the XO (or maybe CAG) and especially the Commander had "requested" this meeting.
"First the Commander and I would like to thank you and also state we for now are going to stop stealing your pilots. Well unless we find a Warstar or something" said Limaki. "I know that we have raided your Viper pilots especially your senior pilots and taking the LSO probably didn't make things easier for you." As "Limes" Limaki felt kind of bad but as the XO needs of the ship (well flotilla) is more important.
"So we are going to make some things official" said Limaki. "LT. Hamlin you are hereby promoted to the rank of Captain." LImaki passed Hamlin his old Captain pips. "LT. Tonis you are also hereby promoted to the rank of Captain" while passing her a new box of rank pips. "I am staying as CAG and you will all report to me. Both the Vipers and Raptors have their own separate missions. Chief Glover you have already been promoted to CPO. For now the techs and petty officers will do the LSO duties under CPO Glover."
"Thank you sir" from the now Captain Hamlin and Captain Tonis.
"We are going to go back to full tempo scouting these sectors before we go to the next. We suspect there were some Colonial ships in this sector when the Cylons attacked" said Commander Jasper. "If we don't find anything we will then move to our next goal."
"As the Commander said back to work. If there are any issues try to figure them out. If you can't come to the CAG. If you can't work with him then you will have to deal with the XO and no one wants to deal with that" said Limaki. "Joking aside check your pilots logs and come back to me when you have a plan." Let's see if they can deal with the all the issues of being in charge of a squadron. More to the job than just doing the rotation schedule.
"Thank you everyone. Dismissed" said Milaki.

Chiron CAG's Office

"Wait I can see why you missed this. Look at this folder" said Hamlin. With the merging of the two crews and everything else that Limes was tracking this showed why he was the CAG. Both had looked over the files and then switched when they first missed it.
"Shit I was Raptor Leader. Should have been more on the ball. Still we have a few days" said Captain Tonis. "Thank you Warlock for figuring it out. Limes would have had our asses if we missed it."
"Let's make sure the Chief knows so he isn't caught off guard. Actually this might work as the pilots and deck crew could use the distraction" said Hamlin. This got him to thinking how to get morale up for his pilots. "Hey Juno I have an idea I want to run by you before we go to the CAG."

Day 21
Chiron Landing Bay
Raptor 5

"LT Brown report to CAGs office for debriefing" was heard over the PA system. 'What know we've been looking at every single pre first war colony, mining location, or whatever random spot in space for two sectors and nothing' thought LT. Debbie Brown (Slider). Walking to the CAGs office she noticed the other pilots and the deck crew with a banner that said "1000" and an empty wagon. 'Wait is this really my thousandth and I didn't notice?'
The other pilots picked up Slider and started chanting "Raptor Pilots Flying High" over to the wagon to take her over to the DCAG who had a helmet with 1000 painted on it.

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Author Notes

Sorry for the short chapter. I figured out the timeline (more or less) and there will be a "timeskip" in a few chapters. The boring part of "people get trained" and "parts get made" will be happening in that part.
However I did feel like the pilots needed a bit of explanation. Of the 14 Viper pilots 4 or maybe 5 have been taken from the Kestrels. Limaki isn't going to be flying any rotations anytime soon and the other 4 were all full Lieutenants. The ensigns were fairly knew and with the Kestrel being blown up and half the Red Talons dying unit cohesion kind of sucks.
The Raptor pilots though were left as is. As much as Jasper doesn't want to admit it if they run into a Basestar that outguns them 3 to 1 (or about that) and has 200 Raiders to 9 Vipers those are bad odds. Carefully scouting with Raptors is safer. Also they think/hope they have lost the Cylons. No "33" where they were relentlessly pursued.
I also at one time had every Raptor have a 5 digit number beginning with 3 that was that Colonial Fleet Raptor number. That makes sense for the Colonial Navy but "Raptor 36984" with all the new people and changes is just more trouble than it's worth. That is cuts down on me having to type and remember longer numbers of course has nothing to do with anything.
Lastly the scene where everyone is happy when Flat Top makes his 1000th landing is one of my favorites (before the God of Doom RDM screwed over the Galactica) and while this group isn't anywhere as "damaged" as the BSG fleet they could use the fun. That the Raptor pilots are flying probably 5 times more now and the other issues is why it was almost overlooked. Well actually it wasn't but "Limes" is trying to train his two underlings to "think like a CAG". That is also why Limaki pinned his old (from the ancient days of about 10 days ago) rank badges on Captain Hamlin. They are trying to give some "legacy" to the squadron.
Thank you for reading. Any questions or comments is appreciated.