Colonial Thunder
Sequel to 7 Points
By Chaoseternus

thank you to the reviewers, you know who you are

Chapter 39: Rising Thunder

“"Yeeeeaaaa-haw!”"

Bemused, Apollo glanced across at the darting shape that had just flashed past his cockpit,"“you want to watch the volume Kara? I didn't need the radio to hear that!"

Kara's only response was a rude noise over the radio, as she danced rings around Lee's mark II Viper.

Lee gave up, he was supposed to be playing aggressor against Kara's mark VIII to test its capabilities, but quite frankly they hadn't even reached the testing area and he already knew he was out-paced, out-gunned and out-ranged.

“"Fine, you want to play?"” Lee twisted his controls, turning his mark II swiftly onto Kara's surprised tail, "“let's play”"

Kara's delighted whooping laugh was his only response, as she opened the throttle wide, her VIII racing away from the older II.

“"Hey, I already know you can outpace me, no need to rub it in, I'm trying to test the VIII's manoeuvrability not watch your arse, lovely though it is”"

“"You watching my arse now Lee?”" Kara's voice lacked even the slightest crackle of interference, making it easy for Lee to hear the bemusement in her voice.

“"Well, you been making sure that I've got nothing else to look at all day"” Lee bit back as the VIII flashed past his old II once more, then his eyes went distant, his mind flashing back to their long over run from the destroyed colonies, “Kara?”

“"Yeah”"

Lee smiled, his mind still in the past, "“always”"

Kara caught his tone, and in the cockpit of her retrofitted mark II, now a mark VIII, she smiled, almost fondly, as she caught his meaning, "Always”"

-

Lee glanced across as his Viper dived back into freedoms atmosphere, the fiery heat of re-entry slowly dissipating behind his Viper , his eyes following the long line of Vipers diving into the atmosphere behind him.

Mark II's, all of them, the Viper complement Galactica had used for training purposes ever since she had left the Ravenbright shipyard of the Tau'ri was returning home, the Vipers scheduled for their own rebuilding into mark VIII's.

Lee grimaced, his mind automatically running through the process of landing as his eyes caught the unmistakable shape of Kara's furiously pacing around her somewhat dented Viper, oh joy, this was going to be fun. One of her favourite tricks, the old flip-end-over-end and fire whilst flying backwards was effectively no more.

Okay, so they had been warned that manoeuvrability at lower speeds would suffer slightly with the newer drives which weren't reaction based but still, to lose one of her favourite tricks, even if it was in the standard tactics book, was not making Kara a happy bunny.

Lee was forced to grin slightly, she couldn't deny that she had managed to ‘kill' him almost every time though, up till the point she had tried to flip end over end…

Lee sent a disgusted glance at his own battered wing, that certainly didn't go as planned. Still, it looked like the mark VIII was a go, which was certainly a good thing because they are unloading more at the hangers. Lee's eye flicked back to his controls, damn but they are moving fast getting those things out.

They keep that up, and Galactica will have a full operational squadron aboard within the week, and then they would truly be back in the fight.

Still, they did need to retrain the pilots in the new Vipers , and get an updated Raptor and even updated shuttles sorted before the Galactica would be fully operational, but even so, just having the Vipers back would make Galactica whole again, make sure that once more the grand old lady of the fleet was an effective warship, a vessel a war, a thing that was not to be trifled with, like the grand matriarch of a great family.

It was a much better fate for her than the retirement the old colonial government had planned for her, to live and fight for many more years to come, but still, Lee wouldn't have sacrificed the colonies to keep her in space and he knew that the Galactica , if ships could be said to have spirits, would much rather have been forced into retirement then see the colonies destroyed.

Still, you live with the cards you are dealt and in Galactica's case, the grand old lady got what she truly deserved, what any warrior deserved, the chance to carry on the fight.

Damn it, Lee thought as he parked his mark II outside the hangers, he was getting philosophical, he was a warrior, a fighter not a thinker.