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

Chapter 23
Day 51 (4 hours after Galactica lost it's fleet)

Battlestar Galactica Port Landing Bay

Jasper and her officers stepped off the Raptor. The Galactica even with being an older ship appears to have taken a lot of damage. There was a Colonel that must be Tigh.
"Commander Jasper. Thank you for coming to the Galactica and bringing your Doctor. Our Doctor was off the Galactica when we jumped last" said Colonel Tigh. "Commander Adama is in critical condition and Medic Ishay is not confident about her surgical skills."
"Dr. Andros please go to the medical bay and perform surgery on Commander Adama" said Jasper. Seeing the doctor depart she turned to Tigh. "Colonel if you would please lead us to wherever we are having our briefing so we can come up with a plan to find the civilian ships."
Tigh said, "Captain Kelly our acting XO has set it up. If you would please follow me." During the walk there was brief discussion. The Galactica had seen the Cylons much more times than the Chiron and they were the ones that had destroyed the Cylon mining base. The Chiron was the only Colonial ship that the Galactica and it's fleet had seen or even heard of since leaving the Colonies.
"This is Captain Adama our CAG, Captain Kelly our XO, you have already met Colonel Tigh. I am LT Gaeta" said a frazzled looking LT.
"Thank you LT. This is Captain Hamlin CAG of the Chiron, and Major Lamiki the XO, and Commander Jasper. I am LT Drakos Navigator and Tactical Officer of the Chiron" said Drakos.
"When the we jumped away from the Cylons we did not send the new spatial drift coordinates to the civilian ships" said Colonel Tigh. "LT Gaeta here has an idea of how we can find our missing ships."
"Yes sir. If we jump back to the original spot we should be able to figure out where the civilian ships are located. Problem is that the Cylons are likely still there and it would take an estimated 12 hours. We could network the Galactica's computers and I would estimate that we could find the coordinates in 10 minutes" said LT Gaeta.
"How long do you think it would take the Cylons to hack the Galactica" asked Jasper. That the LT had not confirmed that everyone had the same coordinates was a major error. Still before saying anything best to see what happens.
"That's the problem sir. Even with as many firewalls as we could put in we estimate between 8 and 15 minutes" said LT Gaeta.
"Now though we have another ship" said Tigh. "From what you have said you haven't seen the Cylons in two weeks and the Cylons haven't seen you in about a month."
"Let's go over our options" said Jasper. Seeing the Viper pilots put their heads together her, Tigh, and the two LTs. started to work on an idea.

"Well Colonel we agree to the plan. Let's all make the necessary arrangements and then we will proceed 15 minutes after I get back to the Chiron" said Jasper.

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Chiron CIC

"Sir Raptor 9 has reported that the Galactica has jumped in and that the Cylons appear to be in the same spot as before" said LT Drakos.
"All hands battlestations. We are jumping into combat" said Jasper over the announce system. "LT jump us to the coordinates and be ready to fire as soon as we land."

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Chiron CIC

"Jump Completed" said LT Drakos. "Frak the Cylons are close."
"Fire the missiles and then get some distance between us and the Cylons" said Jasper.
"Multiple Cylon Raiders are turning towards us" said Major Lamiki. "All weapons free to fire."
The plan that they had come up with would have been given a failing grade from any officer. It's the type of crazy recklessness that an Ensign fresh from the Academy would think was brilliant but had far to many points of failure. Switching all the Vipers to the Galactica to give them more Vipers to hold off the Raiders. Drawing out the Cylons to allow the Chiron to fire it's one barrage. Risking 2 of the 4 nuclear missiles that the Colonials had available. Problem was they had to win fast and cheap. If this works great. If not they were going to see if a Centaur and a Jupiter could take out a Baseship hopefully before the Centaur is destroyed.
"Sir both missiles have hit the Baseship. She's splitting apart" said Major Lamiki. "Cylon Raiders are jumping out of the system."
"Fine work everyone. Major get me a damage report" said Jasper. The CIWS had stopped most of the missiles but a few had hit the Chiron.
"Sir message from the Galactica. They say excellent work and order all Vipers to land on whichever ship is closest. They will then send a Raptor with the coordinates of where their civilian ships are located" said LT Stevenson.
"Reply message acknowledged to the Galactica. Let me know when all Vipers and Raptors are accounted for" said Jasper.
"Sir the Galactica has accounted for all Vipers. The Raptor with the rendezvous coordinates has landed. All small craft accounted for" said Major Limaki.
"Jump us to the new coordinates. When we meet up with the other ships we will contact the Aglaea and bring all our people together" said Jasper. Things had turned around and hopefully their problems were behind them.

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Author Notes

I did say this before but the Centaur design was multipurpose but it's main purpose was to provide a large amount of AAA (for a short period of time before they ran out of ammo) and add additional landing for Vipers. In a war with the Cylons this design is "passable" but limited for non war times. So four missile tubes were added that did not have anything approaching a fast reload system (that would have required more crew or an expensive system) was added because "it could also be a missile ship" (sort of but not really). This at made the Centaur class a passable "second line" type of ship for the outer colonies especially if given a extra Raptors.
The Colonial Admiralty had again been retiring older Battlestars or it's equivalents. Some of the First War designs were put in storage just "in case". Since everyone "knew" the Cylons would have to take months or years to attack the Colonies and humans suspected their existing fleet was better (it was) so having a hundred Artemis and Atlas ships in reserve would offset the issues that the various Guardian ships and other Faststars had. Unfortunately the Cylons understood the same thing so came up with a different "Plan" as we all saw.
Also the Galactica and Pegasus while both are awesome are freaking tubs who take about 2 light seconds to make a circle. The Chiron is smaller and much more maneuverable. This mission was "dumb and crazy" and relied way to much on luck and the Cylon's being idiots (which is also basically canon).

Thank you all for reading. Any questions or comments are appreciated.