The Mailman
by Chaoseternus
thank you reviwers, it really makes my day to see an email from
in my inbox telling me somebody has felt what i write is worth
commenting on
heres a few chapters to keep you going...
BTW, keeps stripping all the " marks from the html code i upload, dont know why, so i am having to re-add them manually in editor, dont complain if i miss one or two please.
Thirteen
Today, we were ambushed.
Well, technically we were ambushed.
The Mailman had become the official scout for the refugee fleet being heavily armoured, fast to jump and capable of defending herself to a point and we were two systems ahead of the Galactica, checking the system for hostiles and resources when practically every alarm on the tactical console began blaring. Proximity, fighters, capital ships, radiological, crash start the works was blaring in a loud screech of trouble from the tactical console, indicating to us, in no uncertain terms we were in trouble.
Our first, instantaneous response was to freeze. It was a bad thing to do yes, but not once had we heard all the tactical alarms light off at once. Maybe two seconds we stood their shocked, and then the training took over.
Helm began spinning up the FTL drives, tactical triggered the main cannon, the missile batteries and the railguns to go weapons free, and I shouted out loud that fighters were to be stowed, we didn't know whose capital ship it was out there, but frankly I didn't want to hang around long enough to find out, considering it was most likely cylon and certainly acting in a hostile manner. Besides which, Mailman may have painted up a few Basestar kills, but it wasn't something we wanted to make a habit off, a basestar outclassed us greatly, truthfully, any bar the oldest capital ships outclassed us.
Then, it got weird.
"Captain, I'm picking up chatter on Colonial frequencies, especially fighter to fighter frequencies"
"The fleet?"
"Negative, fleet inter-fighter communications are in the clear, these are encrypted"
This was interesting, whilst mark VII's Vipers came with the ability to encrypt and decrypt voice communications in realtime, it wasn't generally used, and if it had been mark VII's encryption scheme, then we could have read it easily, they might as well have been transmitting in the clear.
"Do you recognise the encryption tactical?"
"Negative, it's certainly not the mark VII encryption set"
Interesting, her thoughts were going the same place mine was. She would make a good CO one day, if only we survived long enough for it to become an issue.
"Try and get an ID"
Yes sir
"Jump in five... four ..."
"Captain! Reading Colonial IFF signals!"
"Three..."
"Confirm that!"
"Two..."
"Confirmed, BSG-3015 Excelsior"
"One..."
2Abort Jump! Abort..."
We jumped.
"Excelsior isn't in our records" Adama pointed out, quiet calmly, more then prepared to play devils advocate for this discussion.
"She wouldn't be; she was still in drydock when we left base for our failed probe into cylon territory, chances are she wasn't even commissioned by the time the war kicked off"
"Then how the hell did she survive?"
"Well, we know that at least one Admiral, Nagala, most likely more were beginning hasty preparations for the return of hostilities but obviously they didn't figure things out fast enough. All it would take is for the Commander of the Excelsior to have been briefed; maybe a few of her senior officers and you have a ship that despite having the yard boys putting finishing touches in place is somewhat ready for a cylon invasion. Being prewarned is half the battle after all"
"Actually, it fits"
I glanced at Roslin, a little startled at her support and more then a little worried at her condition.
"I remember Adar commenting on how quickly the Admiralty had pushed through the Excelsior design, sacrificing a few pawns in the process. He even commented on the strangeness of the design, like the entire class was designed as a long term deep space probe but in light of Nagala and Intel's foreknowledge, could we be talking a ship class designed just to strike back should the worst happen?"
It was Adama who asked the question, "Did he mention what kind of oddities there were in the design?"
"More fabrication facilities then usual, including a few items that weren't normally deployed aboard a ship, he wasn't too specific"
Adama nodded, "If that is another Colonial Battlestar, then we still have one important question to answer, why did she fire upon the Mailman, especially when her Captain would most likely have been briefed on her mission?"
"We don't actually know" I admitted, "lots of theories, but nothing solid"
"Then we need to try and fine something solid and fast"
Elsewhere...
"Frak it, frak it all to frakking hell!"
Ashamed, and disappointed, tears coming to the eyes of many, his crew ducked their heads, eyes firmly planted onto their consoles.
"We never even considered it, never!"
He grunted as a familiar hand grabbed his shoulder, his wife speaking reassuringly to him but loud enough for all to hear, "the chances of survival for the Mailman were always low, we both knew that risk when we put the idea to Nagala and suggested a crew. If they survived, then they have exceeded our greatest expectations and..."
"...and we need to find them, not only is their intelligence, the knowledge from their probe into cylon space valuable, buts its more survivors and another ship" the man sighed, finishing off his wife's sentence with the ease of long familiarity, but then he stiffened, "why here?"
"What?" for once, his wife was startled and the man pushed aside a flash of pride and success at having finally thought of something first. But then, whist she was the quicker thinker, he was the one who never forgot anything, and he knew what the stars were like in this area.
"the stars are spread thin, passing through here reduces their chances of finding resources and means that if the cylons know their general location, it means a lot less space to search so why here?"
"The Colonel is a good CO, he wouldn't come this way without a solid reason" his wife backed him up, but she couldn't spot the why.
"How far are we from..." she hesitated to say its name, but everyone in the room knew what she meant.
He stiffened, his mind pulling up the star chart, floating the image in front of his eyes, "off the direct route but not by much"
"They're heading for it" he glanced, nodding at his wife.
It was their tactical officer who voiced the questions floating in their mind, "how do they know where Earth is?"