by Chaoseternus Two
The First system we arrived at showed no signs of Cylon activity, but even so we ran a full sweep of the system logging planets, moons and signs of civilisation, the last part of the file simply reading none.
This was after all a recon into largely unexplored territory, sure we had star charts but little if any detail on the systems themselves, so a quick survey of the systems we passed through would be welcomed with open arms when we returned, even provide a very useful cover if we should find nothing Cylon wise.
We spent two days sweeping through the system before moving to thr next on our list.
Then the next.
Fifteen systems we surveyed before finding anything of interest, and our prize for the mission was a world that looked habitable when examined from orbit, a little cold perhaps but liveable.
It was a breathing green jewel floating in the vastness of space.
The Ambrosia flowed freely that night, a habitable world was a rare and extremely valuable jewel, the finder's fee just for the lowliest Crewman would be enough to buy the Mailman outright, and as Captain I would be able to buy myself a fully operational, armed and crewed Battlestar with change enough for a small tender to support her.
Assuming of course that the follow up survey confirmed habitable status, something we were not qualified to state for definite.
The morning after, our heads a little thick, we rigged a claim satellite and dropped it into orbit before jumping to our next target.
The next target system was dead, literally.
A dying ember of a white dwarf star, three rocky planets seared to a frazzle over millions of years, slowly radiating their heat into the universe and a smallish gas giant with two moons
The only exciting thing in this system was an abandoned Cylon mining outpost, buried beneath the surface of the second moon. There was no sign that it had been used since the Cylon war ended, indeed we saw Centurion models buried under old collapsed tunnels several times, giving us a pretty good idea as to why this place had been abandoned.
We used the opportunity to stock up on Tylium and grab a few spare parts that were hanging around and moved on, logging the location for our mission report.
Four more systems we systematically searched with no signs of Cylon activity and morale was starting to get low, despite the fact that we had searched barely ten percent of the systems on our list the feeling that we had failed, were going to fail just because we had found no definite signs of Cylon activity.
When morale starts to go there is little really you can do about it. Many Commanders talk of being strong for the crew, not letting their own despondency show but I wasn't one of those Commanders who kept themselves separate from the crew, I was with them, playing cards, shooting the breeze, good naturedly cursing the cooking of our chef, Petty Chief Ensley 'grease ball' Anders.
Therefore they knew me too well, I had no hope of hiding the fact that my own spirits were starting to get a little low too. Talk of spending finders fees for the habitable world had gotten old, discussions of the abandoned Cylon outpost were dead, rehashed to death. Even the usual card championships had little effect as we hit thirty-five.
Two Months and five days after the mission started we arrived at the Thirty-Sixth system on our search list, already well into the cone of worlds Baltars cylon contact could have jumped into.