by Chaoseternus Sixteen
Five days previous
"The Raptors are back" Sheba commented softly, her hand lying with reassuring calm on my shoulder.
"Mailman could pass through easily whilst they are here; refuelling and their pilots are resting"
"I know, but they must rest, they must have proper food..."
My eyebrow twitched, and I shot Sheba a sardonic smirk.
She laughed, "Okay, maybe not proper food but at least it isn't what passes for rations on those crates"
"I know, I know but I still worry, okay?"
She smiled at me affectionately, and my heart warmed a little as she replied, "I know you worry, I couldn't love you if you didn't"
"Geez, get a room you two"
I groaned, and then turned in synch with my Sheba to glare at our cheeky, young CMO, "Maddoc!"
"Yeah, I know I'm a mad doc, so what's new?"
I finished mouthing his usual response along with him, and sighed, "Certainly not your lines doc"
"Well, you know me, I like..."
"Jump Spike! Incoming vessel, grade twelve"
Grimly, I shouted for battlestations, mentally thanking once more the newest piece of kit in the Colonial armoury and one which only Excelsior had been equipped with when the end came.
A sensor that could read the characteristic surge of a ship about to arrive through jump that was small enough to be deployed aboard ship, the earlier models were the size of Blockade runners, like the Mailman
Still, all it gave us was five seconds warning and a guesstimate of size based on the power of the surge. Grade twelve meant it was large, larger than most civilian ships, and under the current circumstances, most likely cylon.
Frak it, they hadn't shown any interest in coming this far out of Colonial or Cylon space before, why now?
"Contact has arrived... Receiving IFF transmissions on Colonial frequencies..."
"What?! Repeat your last!" I took me a few seconds to figure out that it was me who had blurted that out. Nothing that size had survived that was Colonial, or so I had believed.
"Confirmed, Colonial IFF, reading now..."
A strange sound made me look more closely at my tactical officer. Her eyes were wide, her mouth was moving but making no sound and she looked as if she had taken a direct shot to the stomach.
"Tactical, report!" I barked, trying to remind her of her duty.
It didn't work, and Maddoc hurried up to check her over. I saw him glance once at the tactical display as Sheba hurried to take over the position, then stiffen himself as if shot, and make a classic double take.
"Lords of Kobol be praised!"
His eyes shone brightly as they had not done since the destruction, the look of hope something I had not seen since the end, "Confirm Colonial IFF, BSG Seventy-Five, Galactica"
Damn.
Well...
Damn.
I shook myself awake, and hurried up to the console, to see for myself.
Then nodded, and began barking orders.
"Make all Vipers ready to launch but do not launch yet, XO, prep us a jump out of here and load it into the jump computers. Tactical, get us a target lock on the Galactica and be ready to fire on command, helm," I took a deep breath, "make best speed for Galactica"
I had to admit, not only was I surprised, but also more then a little worried. The grand old lady of the fleet may have had an advantage against the cylons as her computers couldn't be infiltrated but she would have been decommissioned when the end came, her main guns removed, most of her Vipers redeployed and one of her launch bays converted to a museum of all the frakking things, so how in the hell had she survived?
It was entirely possible that she hadn't as such, that the cylons had decided she would be perfect bait to use in any area they suspected surviving Colonial units might be hiding, that was why I had ordered all guns readied and an emergency escape prepared. Yet, the very reason she would make such effective bait was the very reason I had to take the risk, to try and make contact.
Another surviving Battlestar was a greatly increased chance of survival, a greater chance of one day being able to hit back at the cylons. Yet, there was a part of me that was asking one simple question and was almost giddy at the possibilities it represented.
Galactica just happens to appear in the same system were we attacked Mailman within a day of that blue on blue incident?
That was just too cute to be a coincidence, okay, it is possible it is just random but the probability is vanishingly low. No, Galactica and Mailman were together, yet if you think you are heading into a potentially hostile situation you don't leave a known warship like Mailman behind unless either something is wrong with the Mailman, possible, we had fired on her after all, or you had something you needed to protect.
There were no Colonial bases in the area, that we knew for certain, which meant if they had something they needed to protect they had brought it with them. Which meant ships, and as Colonial Military vessels would not need any escort, excluding fleet auxiliaries of course, then that meant civilians, survivors.
I gestured Sheba, who like everyone else was looking slightly bemused at my giddiness, over and explained my thought processes to her quietly.
Seconds later, the bemused looks were being directed at the pair of us.