"Short meeting," Heron said as the General arrived on the Pacifica's starboard flight deck. He didn't look particularly happy, but then, did he ever? She fell into step beside and behind him as the little bulldog of a Marine barreled his way across the deck toward their ride. The MD-43 looked out of place among the sleeker Vipers on the deck. It was a squat, snub-nosed ship designed for one thing, putting Marines on the hulls of other ships and on the ground. That it had excelled in so many other tasks was a bonus, part of the reason that the Corps adopted it.
"Tigg's got a wounded bird," Yeahrly said, "Got called away." The old man clambered into the Duck and spun his finger above his head at the pilots. Heron closed the side hatch as the pilots got things spun up. When she turned around the General was already strapping in. No mention of her extra-curricular activities in the Goat Locker. He had to know. She wasn't that worried though. Her divorce was final, there was no way they could slap her much other than fraternization, which probably wouldn't stick. Zach was in a completely different command.
"You got the post ex reports done?" Yeahrly asked.
"Dropped them with the S3 before we came over," Heron said. Something was bugging the old man. That much was obvious. He didn't usually talk this much.
The flight back was held up while the Pacifica dealt with it's wounded Viper. They sat in the starboard pod for a good ten minutes before getting clearance to depart. Heron was going over the next week's activities in her mind. Yeahrly liked to run a lot of ex's in his command. Heron's team, being the recon squad of the Special Ops company usually got to play the bad guy in Yeahrly's little boarding exercises. It was tough to play a Cylon Centurion when you were smaller than a door, but Heron managed.
"I hear that the 5th is looking for an S2," Yeahrly said over the noise of the Duck's engines. Heron resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The General had been trying to push her out of her spot in SpecOps for over a year now. He didn't seem to get the hint that she LIKED getting muddy with the guys.
"That's General Gacey's command isn't it?" She asked back.
"Yeah, Bill called me up asking for recommendations. I gave him a short list," Yaehrly gave her a look. "A very short list."
"That's great. I'm sure that Durac will fit right in," Michelle shouted. They'd played this game before.
"Damnit 'chelle this isn't funny." the Duck shuddered, a million little 'tick's sounded as they passed through the cloud of exhaust behind the Vanguard. That meant they would be aboard shortly.
"No, it isn't. You seem to think that I need a kick in the pants as far as my career goes."
"No, I think you need a kick in the ass, a good swift one. These opportunities are going to stop dropping in your lap if you keep turning your nose up at them," The General said. Sometimes Heron wondered if he did this to his daughter as well. Probably.
"Good. I like where I'm at."
"You know," he started. The Duck's engines wound down as it thudded onto the deck. "One of these days, and it's a day that ain't too far away, you're gonna wake up and realize that your knees are shot, it takes twelve aspirin a day to keep up with the kids and there's a bright young Lieutenant gunning for your job. You oughta consider that before you tell Gacey to frak off." Heron opened the hatch. The General hopped out. She just wasn't ready to give her possition.
"I'll think about it sir," she managed to get out. No sense in bantering with him any longer. They were both busy people.
"You do that Captain," He said and walked off to see what his yeoman had for him.
"How about jumping in, talking a peak, jumping back?" The engineer asked. He was the most junior of the officer's arrayed around the Athens' wardroom table. He'd been in Engineering most of his career too. Rains shook his head.
"We'd have to jump in too close to them. It'd be noticed too quickly."
"What if we just started heading toward them sublight?" Weps asked. "That would bring us to IP in what, half an hour?
"That's assuming that they are still fat dumb and happy," the EMO said, "The way they squashed the rece they know someone's out here. They may even have heard our flash traffic."
"We aren't out here to play it safe gentlemen," Rains said, perhaps a bit more quietly than he'd intended. This was getting them nowhere. They'd been brainstorming the problem for half an hour. It was doing nothing but hurting morale. Kurtz's looks at Rains told him it needed to be cut off.
"How about we mine their route?" Heinz asked. Rains sat up a little bit.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, say we jump a little closer, not so close that they see us, but close enough to drop a rece bird and send it on it's merry way sub-light? Set it to flash us if it's actively pinged?" The EM officer asked. The idea had merit. They were after all still in the 'listen and gather intelligence' mode.
"They'd see the rece before it had a change to send anything back, like the last one." The engineer countered.
"Not if we're not jumping it in," Heinz said. "Listen, the whole reason the zapped the last one is that the jump is a big assed flag saying 'here I am'. If we jump outside their range and shoot the rece off at sub-light there's no reason it'll look like anything other than a bit of space junk to them." Yeah. Yeah, that might do.
"Get three birds programmed Weps. I want them ready to go in 30," Rains said, bringing things to a close. "Dismissed." The kids filtered out of the room. Kids, Rains thought, hell at most there was five years between the oldest and himself. It was so easy to think of them as younger.
"Adam," Kurtz said closing the hatch after the last of the officers left. "You've gotta stop this command by committee." The XO was right of course. Their roles really should have been reversed. Rains just wasn't the hard ass that Kurtz was. It's like mom was running the ship instead of dad. He knew it wasn't ideal but he was working on it.
"I know. I know," Rains said. "I just..." He sighed. You look so weak, he thought to himself. It was a luxury he no longer had. He'd lost that luxury when they'd sniffed those Base Stars. "Thanks Paul, that's all. I'll be in my cabin. Buzz me when those birds are ready to go." The XO nodded and left. Rains shook his head, left for his cabin.
It wasn't much to look at really. The bunk was hardly any wider than anyone else's on the ship. It was his though, as was the desk and the door. He'd never really understood what they meant when people said command was lonely before, he was starting to now. He made a few entries in his log, and then stretched out on the bunk.
"CO to the conn, CO to the conn," the intercom practically chimed just as his eyes had comfortably shut. Rains practically jumped at the sound. It only took him a few steps to get to Control.
"We've got company," Kurtz said. Rains looked at his chrono. It had hardly been ten minutes.
"Conn, EM. New contact bearing 05 mark 02. Designate contact Echo 8." the intercom said.
"EM, Conn. Say type Echo 8." Rains said back.
"Working on it sir. It's small though, whatever it is."
"XO, set condition 1." Rains ordered. The alarms sounded briefly throughout the ship. He could hear people shuffling to their stations. He looked at the tactical display. Echo 8 was at the extreme range of their sensors. They had a directional bearing via EM emissions from the bogie, but hadn't gotten anything on them with IR or visually with the telescopes. Rains didn't have any hopes of a visual. They were in interstellar space, between stars. There wasn't enough light out here to let you see your hand in front of your face on an EVA.
"Condition 1 set sir. All hands are in readiness," the XO reported.
"Very well. You have to Conn. I'll be in the EMC," Rains walked forward to find out what was going on.
"What have we got?" He asked on entering the ears of the ship.
"Looks like a jump sir, followed by some encrypted radio chatter. The radio is too weak to identify. Whatever it was it's quiet now." Rains looked at the EM displays that the operators were working. It all looked like snow to him, nothing more than the sounds left over form the big bang. They'd seen something though. He hit the button on the intercom.
"Conn, Commander, what's the status on the rece shots?" he asked.
"Wait one sir," Kurtz's voice came back. They could use one of them now to get in closer to whatever had jumped in. Too bad they didn't have any decoys spooled up. Rains would have liked to drop one and slink off.
"We have one bird in the tube sir. The other two are in programming now." Kurtz came back.
"Launch that bird down the datum line XO. Quietly."
"You get a range?" Rains asked the EMO.
"No sir. We'll localize that with the rece. If we need anything faster we'll need to get an off-axis read." They could estimate range if they could triangulate the signals they'd heard. They could let the rece be the other point of the triangle or they could move the Athens to be that second point. It wouldn't do them much good at the moment. They couldn't hear whatever was out there.
"Keep looking," Rains said, leaving.
"Nav do we have a jump solution?" he asked back in command.
"Yes sir, three." Rains looked at them. One was off-axis that would put them across the Base Stars' projected path, one away from the Base Stars... and one that went closer in. Rains tapped his finger on the last plot.
"I can have a new plot from that point in ten minutes sir," Nav said. Of course he could, they'd be jumping back to where they'd been when they'd first spotted the Cylons.
"Get me a better option 3 Nav, and plot five micro jumps from there." Rains said.
"Rece is away sir," Kurtz said as Rains turned back to the conn. The wide circle that represented the bogie on the tactical suddenly shrunk to a point.
"Conn, EM. We've got a Search radar from Echo 8. They're painting us."
"Get us out of here Paul," Rains said. "Sublight," then turned his attention to the intercom. "They see us EMO?"
"Doubtful sir, he's a long ways off. He'll probably have the rece bird in twenty minutes. He looks to be a couplea light minutes away."
"Helm, come right to 270 mark negative 30, all ahead two thirds," Kurtz ordered.
"Get the tape ready to flash EMO," Rains ordered. Fleet wanted evidence. He'd give them evidence.
"Vampire!" he could hear one of the operators yell in the EMC. A chevron appeared on the Tactical display, representing the inbound missile. It looked awfully close.
"FTL?" Rains asked.
"Spooling up sir," The Navigator said. "Three minutes to jump."
"Gimme option 2 on that Nav," Rains said. He looked at the Tactical, did the math quickly in his head. That might not be soon enough. "All ahead flank," he ordered.
"All ahead flank aye," the helmsman responded. Rains could practically feel Athens strain under his feet. That missile was launched from a long ways off. It wouldn't have much fuel left for maneuvering when it got in close to the Athens. Putting on flank acceleration would force course corrections, burning that much more fuel. It might be enough to give them their chance to FTL out of here.
"Comms, flash what we've got to Fleet. No sense in being quiet now." Rains ordered. He exchanged a look with Kurtz. There wasn't anything else to do. They couldn't get the FTL's to spool up any faster.
"Two minutes to intercept," Nav said. That was a nice way of putting it. Intercept. More like 2 minutes until we're vaporized. More little chevrons appeared on the tactical. Ah, they figured out their mistake.
"Count me down from the new contacts Nav," Rains said. They wouldn't have fired off more missiles if they thought the first one would hit. That meant that they must have been on the ragged edge of detection range when the Cylon had fired the first missile. Either that or they'd fired the first on to flush the quarry.
"EMO, paint that bastard. I want a picture." Rains said, jabbing his thumb on the intercom. It wouldn't really be a picture, but they'd have a better idea of who this Cylon was. Part of Rains just wanted to let them know they weren't just running.
"Captain, we're starting to encounter relativistic effects," Nav said. Well, wasn't that great?
"Understood," Rains said. Time was passing more slowly for them than Fleet now. That would be fun to explain, if they made it out of this in once piece.
"Conn, Engineering," a semi excited voice came over the intercom.
"Go, Eng," Rains said.
"Sir, we're thirty seconds to thermal shutdown on the port engine."
"Understood. Helm engines to idle," he said. They wouldn't be doing any more accelerating.
"New contacts, four minutes to intercept," The Navigator called out.
"FTL?" Rains asked.
"40 seconds sir."
"Time to intercept on original Vampire?"
"50 seconds. It doesn't look like it has the momentum to intercept."
"How close?"
"Sir?"
"How close will it get?" Rains snapped. The last thing they needed was a proximity-fused nuke going off near them. The Athens was fairly new. Her armor plating was good at dealing with Alpha particles, beta rays, micrometeorites, but hard gamma rays would light his crew up like Colonial Day.
"Fifty kilometers, plus or minus twenty." That was a big margin of error. Hopefully they wouldn't be around to find out about it.
"Thirty seconds to jump." The jump klaxon sounded throughout the ship. Rains stopped pacing around the center of the control room and sat down in the center seat.
"Nav, Jump once we're spooled up," he ordered.
"Here's to the craziest frakin' Chief in the fleet!" Ramirez said over her ale, raising a toast to Mitchell. The Chief grinned a bit sheepishly. Mitchell tried to beg off the toast, but his team and another from the same shift all raised their glasses.
"Hey, anyone woulda done the same," He managed.
"We got you a little something Chief," Ramirez said. She pulled out an impromptu speech and jumped up on the table. "May I have you attention please!" She yelled. She held the paper up in front of her, "For performance above and beyond the call of duty and any semblance of sanity. First shift, Starboard Deck Team Charlie would like to honor you with this award," She held up an obviously painted brick of something, "The golden fruitcake!"
Mitchell just shook his head and sipped at his ale. He was tired. The adrenaline from the EVA had wiped him out but the team had insisted on this. The mess erupted with cheers. Mitchell raised his glass and tried to disappear. So far no one had said anything about the fact that Ravi had noted the thruster problem in 314. No one had said anything about down checking 309. The other shoe hadn't dropped.
Ramirez handed Mitchell his fruitcake, holding it on the bottom. "Careful, it's still wet," She warned over the noise of the crowd. He set it down carefully on the table.
"I'm wiped out. I'm outa here after this round," He said.
"Oh come on Chief! It's not every day you get to see someone pull some death-defying stunt. We gotta celebrate!"
"Wait. See? Whadda ya mean?"
"Didn't no one tell ya? They had you on the LSO camera the whole way in, humpin' on the nose of 314." Mitchell wanted to die.
"Oh, Gods," He groaned. He downed what was left of his ale. "That's it I'm outa here."
"Chief, you gotta..." Ramirez started then stopped. Mitchell's brow wrinkled. What was wrong? He looked at Ramirez, saw her staring at something. He followed her gaze to see Lt. Conners standing in the door to the mess hall.
"Ah huh," He said. "I guess I really do have to go." He walked toward the door, trying to prepare himself for what was coming.
"Chief," She said, not quite looking him in the eye.
"Evenin' Lieutenant," He managed to sound... what? Arrogant? It wasn't how he wanted to come off. He winced a little.
"I just wanted to..." She trailed off, looked down at the deck. "Look, let's not draw this out."
"Ooookay," Mitchell said. He sighed, ready to be yelled at.
"Thanks," She said, extending a hand. He stood there looking at it dumbly for a second. She looked up at him. He looked down at the hand. "Fine, have it your way." She snapped.
"Wait," He said, stopping her. "I'm sorry Lieutenant. I'm a little out of it. Uh... your welcome?" He managed. She gave him a look of semi-disgust, then walked off. What the hell had just happened? He heard someone chuckling in the corridor. He turned to see Master Chief Lewis grinning.
"Kid, you've either got big brass balls or brains of custard. I wasn't sure which until just now," The old Chief clapped him on the shoulder and laughed again. What was so damned funny?
"Rachel? Rachel, wake up," Someone shook her gently.
"Mrmmmm? Ali?" She asked, opening her eyes slowly. It was dark, she heard the sounds of a bustling starport outside and it all came back to her.
"James," he identified himself. Of course it was James. Ali was off planet. She blinked. "Hey slugger, we've got a boat load of cattle to get to market. Think we could spool up our bird and do that?"
"What?" She asked. She looked at her chrono. Frak! "Frak! Why didn't you call me?" She asked, sitting up on the couch she'd slept on. She was an hour to departure.
"Because an expecting Mom needs her sleep," James said. Oh no. She should have expected no less, rumors flamed through Picon Connection like wild fire. "I've pre-flighted the bird and filed our flight plan." He handed her a copy of the plan and the weather report for their clime out.
"I'm not pregnant," She said.
"That ain't what the Doc says."
"The Doc would have grounded me if I'd said anything else," She snapped.
"So why not take the grounding and find out what's up?" James asked. "What are you trying to prove Rachel? That you can hack it? That you can fly with your eyeballs detached?" There was an edge in his voice, almost as if... Of course he cared about her, they were friends but... Oh Gods, could her life get any more fracked up right now?
"I just need the money," she lied, grabbing her flight bag from under the couch. It was something he couldn't argue with much. All of the pilots for Picon Connection needed more money. That, or an in with one of the larger carriers that actually paid their pilots a decent wage.
"Here," he said, handing her a small cardboard box.
"What's this?" It was dark, but she could read the box.
"Pregnancy test," He said.
