AN: Hello all, I am hoping to start another fanfic. This one will be based on the videogame Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock. It will be incorporating ships from both Battlestar Galactica Deadlock and the Battlestar Galactica Fanon wiki. But I will be making some very slight changes to ship names, mostly to prevent me from getting my ship classes mixed up when writing Order of Battles or referencing ships, while the Jupiter class Battlestar as it appears in the base game will be called the Jupiter class, the Jupiter Mk II class will be known as the Columbia class. Also in this universe, Battlestar Galactica, while she is a Columbia class, she wasn't the nameship of the class, the first ordered, but she was the first completed, thus the Columbia class is sometimes called the Galactica class.
Also, I will be throwing out the notion that the Manticore class Corvette and Adamant class Frigate are Capital Ships. In this universe, they are not. They are escorts and are deployed as such. In squadrons and divisions.
That being said, I will be casting aside the whole plot about nuclear weapons, mostly because conventional high-explosive warheads are absolutely useless in space; while nukes, unless they are something like Casaba Howitzers, are merely serviceable. You still need to get them relatively close, less than a kilometre, to have a chance at damaging, let alone destroying a target. I can go further in-depth if you want me too.
With that out of the way, let's get started.
"After Virgon buried their nukes, the leaders of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol rejoiced and made a promise the civilian population. A promise that foresaw a Golden Age for the Twelve Colonies and Mankind, an age where peace, not war, was the norm. An age where humanity could hopefully expand out beyond the Cyrannus System and settle new colonies in the light of new stars. An age that would last for the rest of our lifetime and our children's lifetimes.
They could not have foreseen that thirty-five years later. The worst war in all of human history, The Cylon Rebellion, would erupt. A war where nothing more was at stake then the very survival of the human race. We were at a stalemate for the first few years of the war, no foothold gained that wasn't lost again within weeks.
The Columbia Project was meant to be our Ace-In-The-Hole. The largest, most powerful Battlestar class ever created. Each of the Twelve Colonies was promised one of the magnificent ships for ratifying the Articles of Colonization.
The third ship laid down, but the first completed, Galactica, was Caprica's crowning glory. She went Missing In Action, two weeks after her first deployment started.
The Battlestar Athena, was the fifth ship in the class, and she belonged to Picon. We were just days away from delivering her when we heard the news." - Major Helena Agathon (ret.) The Cylon Wars - Published 20-Years Before The Fall
Local Picon space burned. The Cylons had attacked without warning, the various beacons and sensors meant to detect incoming attacks had somehow been bypassed. Indeed, in an incredible display of Astrogation, a group composed of eight Hades class Basestars, supported by two Cerberus class Battlecarriers, screened by a mixture of Ceraste class Firestars, Revenant class Gunstars, Wraith class Cruisers, and Nemesis class Light Techstars had burst out of FTL basically within the Piconian System inside the Helios Gamma Star System.
The lack of Archanie class Assaultstars and several other Cylon ship designs, most notably the new and terrifyingly capable Phobos class Heavy Techstar indicated that this wasn't an invasion, but most likely a massive torch and burn operation. Not that it meant much to the Picon Void Navy (PVN) or the smattering of Colonial Fleet ships that were in Piconian space at the time. There were just far too many Cylon ships and not enough Colonial and Piconian Warships.
Through this chaos that swirled around it was one of the many Artemis class Battlestars in service. This particular ship, bearing the name of Andrastate, had her various KEWs and missile tubes spitting death at the enemy. But there were too many Cylons and not enough ships to properly cover the kilometre-long vessel, she was taking hit after hit against her thick armor.
In an eye-searing nova-like flash, a nuclear blast blossomed along the portside flight pod. Inside CIC, the thudding of Andrastate's KEWs joined with the thumping of her missile tubes as they fired as fast as they could be cycled, but there was more noise. The near constant thunder and quaking of weapon impacts. "Report!" Admiral Mckinnelly roared as he pulled himself up off the deck.
His Flag Commander didn't get back up off the deck. Grimacing, he snarled "Corpsmen to CIC!" and he nodded when he heard the order repeated.
"Nuclear detonation, estimate two-hundred kiloton, portside flight pod, forward section. Forward launch tube section has been destroyed, sir. We have major fires, sealing and venting that area." The Damage Control Chief called as Andrastate lurched another hit, sparks blazed from the damage control board.
The DCC swore. "Function check on the damage control board!"
"Admiral, report from orbital control. The Cylons are breaking through in sector twelve!" Comms shouted and with a nod, the Admiral acknowledged the report.
He heard his Flag Colonel, now Acting Commander swear viciously. The area that was crumbling was just out of reach. He looked at the DRADIS plot and then made a decision. "Weps, which ships that are hammering Sector Twelve can we hit from here with our prow turrets and spinal battery? The ships in Sector Twelve need breathing space and almost everyone else is fully engaged!" He snarled, this was hell, almost all of the older Cobra fighters, twin engine craft that shared a number of similarities with the Viper, had been shotdown by the damn Toasters, and what few that remained along with the Raptors and Vipers were fighting tooth and nail against nearly thrice their number of Cylon Raiders.
There was a pause, Andrastate lurched as she took another set of hits, judging by the echoing boom of noise. Those hadn't been missiles but kinetic impacts, again clustered around the portside flight pod. The damn Cylons were trying to cave its armor and start ramming penetrations through it; they knew that there were all sorts of things in flight pods that didn't like fire or kinetic impacts. Like the magazines and fuel reserves for the Vipers and Raptors.
"Sir, we can hit these three targets. One Wraith class Heavy Cruiser, designated Sierra-Five-Zero and two screening Nemesis class Techstars, designated Tango-One-Five-Two and Tango-One-Five-Three." Weps replied, the icons for those ships highlighting on the DRADIS board.
"Hit Sierra-Five-Zero with the spinal guns, maximum charge. Have the forward batteries target the Nemesis class." The Admiral said and his Flag Commander nodded.
"Forward primary and secondary batteries, set full attack mode, engage Tango-One-Five-Two and Tange-One-Five-Three, fire as you bear. Helm bring the bow up by two-five degrees, spinal guns engage at will." The Flag Commander said as Andrastate shook from a massive hit, an alarm wailed.
"Hull breach, portside amidships, frame 180, decks five through seven. Fire, fire, fire! Portside, frames 170 through 165 and 190 through 210. Sealing bulkheads, routing damage control teams!" The Damage Control Chief (DCC - Dagco) bellowed as the Battlestar continued shaking and quivering from impacts.
Fire. That was one thing that on a starship could mean death in space. If a fire got out of control and you couldn't seal the affected areas and vent it to space. The flames would ravenously consume all oxygen inside the ship. It wasn't a particularly good way to go, he'd seen ships die in fire.
On the main view screen forward, he swore as one of the Piconian Void Navy vessels, the gunstar Kung, normally a quarter-million tons of bad news, took hammering impacts from the dagger shaped Wraith class heavy spinal batteries and began to break up. Then the decking thrummed under his feet and Andrastate avenged the dying Kung with two 1170mm spinal rounds weighing 20-tonnes each going several hundred kilometers per second. The rounds impacted the target with hundreds of kilotons of TNT, the Cylon bastard was briefly obscured by a blinding white flash. When the flash died away, cheers resounded through CIC as the shattered, mangled wreck of the Cylon warship appeared.
Then the forward batteries engaged, 80cm and 64cm shells streaked through the void at hundreds of kilometers per second. One of the Nemesis class Techstars broke immediately, its hull perforated by no less than eight of the massive seven ton shells from the primary batteries. The hull sundered, flames spewed from the hull, caused by ruptured Tylium tanks which, due to damage and arcing circuits, ignited said Tylium. The flames blazed white hot for only several seconds before extinguishing.
The other techstar shuddered under multiple impacts from the lighter 64cm KEWs, but none of the heavy 80cm rounds impacted. But while damaged, the remaining Nemesis class was very clearly still in the fight. It wheeled around with inhuman speed, pulling gees that no human ship could, bringing its weapons to bear and then its spinal gun fired.
Andrastate shook violently as the round impacted her alligator head bow. Hundreds of tons of material was blasted away from the battlestar as the multi-ton kinetic dart converted itself into plasma in a flash of energy. The blow left a deep gash in Andrastate's bow, but it hadn't penetrated.
"Vampire, Vampire, Vampire! Incoming missiles! Bearing 025 carom 045!" The DRADIS operator said in a cool voice, permetating the chaos of CIC. On screen, that Techstar's tubes had gone into rapid fire, quickly launching sixteen missiles. Strangely their icons weren't flashing with the standard radiological alarms. Their exhausts blazed with blue fire as the missiles screamed in.
"Point Defense and Tertiary Batteries, engage!" The Defensive Fire Control Officer (DFCO - Defico) barked and streams of magnetically accelerated 50mm slugs from the variety of sextuple mounts screamed into the void, along with burst of flak as 15cm guns went into full salvo fire, slamming out bursts of five rounds which burst spraying shrapnel everywhere.
The Admiral nodded, that seemed handled and if one got through, then well, considering that the Cylons seemed to have had a case of stupidity and were using HE warheads instead of the standard three hundred kiloton warhead that they typically gave their Techstars. Wait. He had heard rumors of a new type of warhead that supposedly used Plasma as its warhead. He had no idea how the armor of Andrastate would hold up.
Glancing at the DRADIS, he swore. Almost all of the escort formations were down now, the surviving Gunstars and Cruisers were fighting for their lives. The majority of the Piconian Battlewagons were down as well and, damn, another Artemis class just winked out on DRADIS. The sectors were collapsing left and right now. "Status on planetside evacuations?" he barked, Andrastate didn't have much time left, he could tell just by the noise passing through the ship's frame.
"Thirty percent complete sir! Picon Planetary Defense are ready to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the first few salvoes, but the hypersonic interceptors are almost completely depleted from the last few attacks and they haven't had a chance to restock. They might be able to stop only one or two salvoes from a fleet this large. Sir, they're requesting that Andrastate execute an emergency jump to Mobile Shipyard Daidalos to inform Admiral Cain of what's happened here and light a fire under the finishing touches of Battlestar Athena." The comms officer barked.
"Dagco, can the ship survive an emergency jump?" The Flag Colonel barked, a moment later Andrastate shook violently, a series of violent echoing booms echoed up through the ship's frame. The ship began to yaw alarmingly, McKinnelly recognized it immediately; they had just lost one of the main propulsion units. Something that was confirmed by the Damage Control Assistant (DCA).
"Negative, with the damage we've taken. A jump will tear the ship apart so violently that it's doubtful we'll survive." Dagco replied and McKinnelly bowed his head, he knew this was it. He'd been fighting the Cylons for almost three years now and now, they had finally managed to corner him and he had no way out. His eyes glanced up to the DRADIS screen, the incredibly advanced sensor fusion system told the tale. Most of those missiles fired by that Techstar were already down, but he had a bad feeling about them. Wait. There was a pair of Adamants trying to shoot their way clear, their IFFs were squawking Escortstar Fletcher and Escortstar Nicholas, they would do. "Comms, alert Escortstars Fletcher and Nicholas, they are to make an Emergency Jump to Daidalos carrying news of what has happened here, with personal orders from me to light a fire under the launching and commissioning of Battlestar Athena. Also, alert the Piconian Government, tell them that we've done everything we can, but it hasn't been enough. May the Lords of Kobol watch over us all."
There was a pause, the drumming of impacts on the hull continued along with the thudding of weapons. Admiral McKinnelly knew this was it, he had done everything he could. Fought tooth and nail to defeat the Cylons, yet it hadn't been enough. He hoped that rising star in the Colonial Fleet, his designated successor in case something happened to him and Admiral Sarkis, Admiral Stryker could handle being Supreme Admiral of Colonial Fleet (SACF). But he also knew that Admiral Cain had a rod up her ass when it came to following the book and she had seniority over Admiral Stryker by a considerable amount. He just hoped that both Admiral Cain and Admiral Stryker could properly delegate.
"Sir, Escortstars Fletcher and Nicholas have acknowledged our orders, they're charging their FTLs. The Piconian government is thankful, but also angry that we couldn't do more to prevent the damage to Picon that's going to occur." Comms said.
The words caused the Admiral to sigh, he knew that the Articles of Colonization in some political circles. Particularly on Sagittaron, the whole idea was hated, they saw it as Caprica extending their arm to govern all of the colonies. They saw it as tyranny, not something that they needed to survive. He glanced at the DRADIS display, ten seconds till those non-nuclear missiles impacted, out of the sixteen launched, three remained. They were burning hard and fast, covering kilometers every second.
"Fletcher is down!" someone shouted as the Adamant class, harried by Cylon Marauder Bombers finally broke, her hull erupting and spewing fire as something -probably her aerospace tylium store- ignited. The ship shattered into half a dozen large fragments, the aft pieces vanishing in a brief, eye-searing nova of light and radiation as her the magnetic bottle for her energizers burst.
"Nicholas has jumped!"
An instant later two missiles impacted, their specially designed noses allowing them to burrow through the various armor layers with ease. They just barely managed, with their heavily hardened nose cones, to fully penetrate the armor of the battlestar; indeed it's quite possible that damage from earlier played a part in this. Then their warheads detonated, a small fissile core surrounded by high-explosives which in turn was surrounded by an alloy of materials containing the by-products of Tylium refinement known as Torbite. There weren't many uses for Torbite, it was a material that was highly volatile, it didn't like being around explosions and it really didn't like the high-energy radiation. Thus the warhead when it detonated exposed the three metric tons of Torbite in the nose, to two things that it really didn't like. In the blink of an eye, the Torbite converted itself into blinding golden-white plasma.
Admiral McKinnelly and those in his CIC, along with nearly everyone else in the forward third primary hull of the Battlestar Andrastate, died in fire; they were the lucky ones. The plasma detonations ripped through frame horrifying speed, the alligator bow seemingly came unzipped, spilling shattered, semi-molten metal and a cloud of vaporized material in the void. Along with what remained of the crew, this happened in the span of less than thirty seconds, this catastrophic failure forward, caused a violent cascade of explosive decompressions rippling through what was left of the primary hull as it broke apart amid the large hole blasted in the ship's side by the earlier large scale nuclear blast. Thousands of men and women were cast into the uncaring void. With proper preparation, they, like most spacers, could maintain the ability to stay conscious for up to a minute, maybe two. They didn't have that preparation but there was luck involved, the luckier ones, due to either being outright killed or mortally wounded to the point that they lost consciousness by the violent breakup of the battlestar never knew they had been cast into the uncaring cold, black abyss of space. The unlucky ones were alive and aware, they were aware of exactly how frakked beyond any measure of doubt for at least ten seconds before darkness swallowed their vision.
Within minutes of Andrastate falling, the surviving ships either fell quickly or emergency jumped out of Piconian space. The Cylons took up orbital supremacy, the Colony's Surface-to-Orbit Kinetic Energy Weapons, Surface-to-Orbit Lasers, and Missiles began engaging the machines. Raiders and Firestars intercepted the missiles, but the heavy kinetic slugs and lasers were another matter. Ships began falling, then the Cylons retaliated, missiles tipped with nuclear warheads along with kinetic penetrators plunged into the atmosphere.
Piconian Wyvern Hypersonic SAMs and Stinger Atmospheric Fighters intercepted what they could, even as some of the heavier Cylon ships finally began succumbing to the orbital defenses. But it wasn't enough, nuclear ordnance and kinetic rounds impacted and people began dying by the thousands under the merciless hour-long orbital bombardment as the Cylons laid waste to the cities of one of the largest continents. The planet was shuddering and shaking under the bombardment, earthquakes erupted and in the aftermath, volcanoes would erupt.
The death toll would quickly climb into the hundreds of thousands, among the places hit would be Picon Fleet Headquarters.
Several thousand SUs away, in Geostationary Orbit above the Gas Giant Ragnar -a unique gas giant in that it orbited one of the binary stars in the dual binary star group known as Cryannus- loomed the enormous construct known as Mobile Dockyard Daidalos. It was enormous, the primary superstructure was conic cylinder shaped some twelve kilometres long, a two kilometers in diameter at each tip and five kilometers wide at its widest point, at the top of the structure was the primary habitation ring for the station's workers, contractors, crewmen, marines, etc. everyone you could ever imagine to operate this enormous city in the void, three kilometers below the habitation ring and then spaced out with one every kilometer were four rings containing both slipways and graving docks. But the most impressive aspect of Daidalos was that she could move and not just through FTL jumps of which she had multiple drives, she had an enormous Reactionless STL Drive System, similar to the ones used by the Cylon Gemini class Baseship. She couldn't move very fast, she could only achieve about five gravitas of acceleration running flat out, but it was enough that she could avoid the usual station busting techniques.
Surrounding the enormous edifice, a culmination of human achievement, was a dedicated defense group. The outer picket line was composed of squadrons of Manticore class Patrolstars, the screen of the formation as a whole was composed of divisions of Adamant class Escortstars and Wickes class Faststars, with the screens of the three individual battle groups dedicated to defending Daidalos to the last shell and breath was composed of Tiger class Gunstars. There were a number of Light and Heavy Cruisers as well as a few Missile Cruisers all organized into divisions, then there were the capital ships. The station had two Atlas class Heavy Carrier Battle Groups and the crowning glory of the fleet was an enormous Tempest class Dreadnought and its attendant battlegroup.
Wherever Daidalos went, at least one battlegroup followed, after dropping off Battlestar Solaria, and given how pear shaped that had gone, Lenois, in-exchange for the Columbia class, had given the fleet one its Dreadnoughts, under the promise it would be used to defend Daidalos.
Into this midst, with a flash of light, came the mauled Nicholas. Challenges were sent out, orders to heave to or be fired upon and to identify itself immediately. Mauled, its crew tired and considering themselves lucky to be alive, Nicholas did so. The news that they carried, was demanded to be confirmed and when it was. An escort of Mk I Vipers and Mark I Taipans was dispatched to escort the battered Escortstar to Daidalos for repairs and debriefing.
Two days later
Deep within Daidalos, a man walked briskly through the passageway to his superior officer's office. He wore the insignia of an Admiral. He was tall for an Aquarian, standing at 190 centimeters, due to the harsh environment of their colony they tended to be shorter around 150-centimeters, so their bodies could be more economical with how they used their energy. He had short black hair cut military short, with a notable mustache, with broad shoulders. His dark brown eyes gleamed with intelligence and sharpness. His name was Jonas Stryker.
When he got to the hatchway, he knocked. "Come!" he heard an authoritative woman's voice snarl. Inhaling briefly before sighing, he undogged the hatch, pushed it open and stepped inside the compartment beyond, closing the hatch behind him as he did so.
Admiral Lucinia Cain sat behind a wooden desk, she looked both angry and exhausted. "You wished to see me Admiral?" he asked.
Lucinia nodded. "I did, let's dispense of ranks, while we're not equals in rank. You are arguably one of the best commanders that we got." she said.
"I see Lucinia, so what are you saying?" Jonas asked.
A sigh came from the Piconian born woman. "What I am saying is that while succession is clear and that I should become Supreme Admiral of Colonial Fleet, but the previous SACF, Admiral McKinnelly, has you as his successor. To be frank, I will not dishonor a dead man by taking his position over his chosen successor, but there are pundits against Colonial Fleet who would leap all over the opportunity to show that proper chain of command isn't being followed."
"Frak, you're right. So how are we going to handle this, would the last wishes of the previous SACF override Chain of Command or should Chain of Command take precedence?" Stryker asked, he was in command of just a Battlestar Group, one of the big Avenger class Battlestars. Yet, he knew that Admiral McKinnelly had said time and again that he was one of the best tactical thinkers in all of the Twelve Colonies.
"That's the problem isn't it? Thus, I am going to be creating a new rank. Supreme Admiral of Colonial Fleet Operations, abbreviated SACFO. This rank has half of the responsibilities and privileges that the current SACF has. That being those which relate to the operations undertaken by Colonial Fleet, whereas the rank of Supreme Admiral of Colonial Fleet would have primarily the political side of things. That being said, I'll be your immediate superior. However, all of the various operations that Admiral McKinnelly oversaw, including the development of the Columbia Project is something you will have to oversee as well." Lucinia said and Jonas nodded.
"I see, does this include the newly formed Ministry of Ship Design and Construction?" Jonas asked, he had an idea to help with fighting the Cylons. The primary battlestar class, when the war had broken out, had been the Artemis class, with between the various Colonial Fleets thirty-six ships in service, with the first twelve having been built for each Colony having sent a delegation to Caprica for the First Colonial Accords which laid the groundwork for the Articles of Colonization. Then you had the large battlestars starting with the twelve strong Dauntless class Battlestar which had been built for each of the Twelve Colonies to convince each colony to send a delegation to Caprica for the Second Colonial Accords, which had expanded on that ground work and founded the Colonial Fleet. The Jupiter class had been the result of a project to bring the Twelve Colonies together as a unified entity, with each Colony promised one for signing the Articles of Colonization. Of course, then the individual governments had to ratify the Articles of Colonization, with the Cylon Rebellion, another big Battlestar, the Columbia class had been promised, in addition to the six enormous Avenger class conversions that had been crash built to as close as possible to the Dauntless class purpose built Battlestars.
"It does, Caprica is also asking for another Columbia class since they are beginning to assume the worst with Galactica. We haven't heard a peep from her or her battlegroup for several months now." Lucinia said and Jonas grimaced.
"I have a basic idea on how to help, an improved Columbia essentially, I'll have to run it by the Head of MoShips more than likely. But it could give us more battlestars to work with, if the reports are accurate, then the Artemis class is having major deficiencies that have resulted in ships being lost, they just aren't cut out for service as frontline battlestars, not against the Cylons. Also, both of us need to light a fire under Sinon so we can get Athena ready for action." Jonas said he had an idea coming together in his mind that could give them at least six more battlestars.
Lucinia leaned forward, obviously interested. "What is your idea?" she asked, her voice like that of an eager predator.
"Basically, we take a Columbia class and modify the hull, we add two more engine units aft, improve the Point-Defense Network, add a few more missile tubes, the flight pods will still be retractable in order to save production time. But here's where a major improvement comes in, when the pods retract the opening to the landing bays won't be sealed. This could allow the Battlestar to retract its flight pods then recover its Vipers rather than recovering the Vipers first then retracting the pods. We've almost lost Battlestars on several occasions because of that."
Lucinia nodded. "Could work, but there aren't many slips that can build ships of that size. The ones over Virgon and Picon were destroyed in the initial Cylon blitz, the ones over Lenios are busy cranking out those Cyclone class Battleships. Plus the ones here on Daidalos are busy building Columbias. So where would those slips be?"
"Aerilon and Aquaria, remember my first command in the Unified Aquaria Navy was a battleship that's about ten meters shorter than the Columbias." Jonas said, he paused then added. "But, we might need to start work with civilian contractors to get more battlestars out, particularly if we have to start lumping Artemis class Battlestar Groups together, we only have twelve Dauntlesses, twelve Jupiters, six Avengers, three Columbias, a dozen Delphi class Escort Battlestars that were converted plus eight purpose built ships, and twenty-five Artemis class Battlestars defending the Colonies. That's all that is preventing the Cylons from completely overrunning the Colonies. To make matters worse, at any given point we have at least five Artemis class Battlestars down for major repairs and we're beginning to lose them pretty quickly, to the point that if current losses keep up, the class will be rendered extinct in about a year and a half, if we're lucky. The Cylons have completely adapted to them, to the point that I am fairly certain that those new Wraith class Heavy Cruisers were designed by the Cylons to completely hard counter them."
Lucinia nodded. "I'll put that tender out, Picon Fleet Headquarters was destroyed in that clusterfrak that happened at Picon. How big should these civilian built Battlestars be?" she asked.
"At least the size of a Delphi class Escort Battlestar, so six hundred fifty meters in length with the ability to carry two squadrons of Vipers, a demi-squadron of Taipans, a demi-squadron of Raptors, and two Sweepers." Jonas said, thinking about it.
Lucinia quickly wrote that down on a pad of paper. "Alright, what should these new full-sized Battlestars be called and how the hell will we hide them from the Cylons?" she asked.
"The Victorious class and while they're purpose built battlestars, let's announce publicly that we're doing more conversions. The Cylons know that the Avenger class aren't the most capable, thus it's unlikely that they'll go after the yards producing them. In order to further the ruse, we'll buy several more tankers." Jonas said and Lucinia nodded, a smile crossing her face.
"Admiral McKinnelly was right to name you his successor Jonas, your quick and smart. Still, we need to increase the build speed on the Columbias, it's taking us nearly sixteen months to build one. The second batch is nearing completion, but at the rate we're going." Lucinia trailed off.
Jonas nodded. "I am going to tell Simon that I want him to find a way to shave at least four months off of building a new Columbia, but six or more would be preferable. I know that Lenois built the first 3.22-kilometer long leviathan that is the Tempest class Dreadnought in twelve months, if we can learn their tricks and apply it to our Battlestars which are half the size. The fleet will be looking much better if we can crank out a Battlestar in a year or less."
"You want to send a delegation so that our ship-builders can learn that?" Lucinia asked and Jonas nodded, at which Lucinia made another note.
Jonas then sighed. "Athena needs another three days or so and then we can deliver her. Picon isn't going to be happy though, but all things considered it's a good thing she wasn't at Picon, otherwise she likely would have been destroyed."
It caused the Piconian born woman across from him to sigh deeply. "Ain't that the bloody truth. The last thing we need right now is to lose another Columbia class, particularly if the worst is true and Galactica has been destroyed."
Each Columbia class Battlestar was, as far as Battlestars went, the most powerful ever devised by human hands. Although simulations showed that in a straight up gunfight with no aerospace craft, a Tempest class Dreadnought could handily outshoot the battlestar. Hell, the class had already gained fame around the Twelve Colonies for the actions of the name ship, Tempest, in its inaugural mission, Operation Anabasis, about a year and a half ago. An attempted Colonial Fleet operation against the Cylons had turned into rescue mission, in ten jumps, fifty civilian ships and twenty escorts of varying tonnages had made it from the frontier colonies back to the Twelve Colonies, on the last jump while waiting for civilian ships to overcome FTL Fever, four Cylon baseships with escorts had attacked. Tempest had been only the capital tonnage escort still in shape to fight. Tempest had been beaten to within an inch of destruction, had barely survived the final jump home, bleeding air from half her decks, had another outright vented due to an out of control Tylium fire from a crashed heavy raider, most of primary armament disabled, her secondary battery magazines practically exhausted, the nuclear silos expended, torpedo magazines empty ditto the missile magazines, and yet she had destroyed four Cylon Baseships and most of their escorts near single handed. It had made the ship Worlds famous and her Commander into a much needed propaganda darling.
Indeed, some priests had called her motto, Belli dura despicio or "I Despise the Hard Knocks of War" to be prophetic.
"One of the things though we need are better Vipers, the Mark Is are decent enough. But they're let down by their engines, they're just too heavy for it. I do remember putting in a request for better Vipers to the Ministry, anything in progress for that?" Jonas asked.
Lucinia nodded. "Yes, Scorpia Fleet Shipyards is building a new design of Viper that they're calling the Mark II. To save time and money it uses the same engine array and avionics package as the Viper Mark I, although they've done some changes to the fins. It will have better performance mostly because it swapped out the Mark One's seven centimeter thick cermet armored hull for a multi-layer stuffed whipple shield with a backing of three centimeters of cermet. Tests show that while this sort of armor can't take the sort of pounding that the armor of Mark Is can, its lighter and thus acceleration and maneuverability for the new Mark IIs is going to be superior to the Mark Is."
"Good, we'll need those improved fighters, the Prototype Raiders that the Cylons were starting to receive to replace their Taipans at the start of the war were bad enough. But their new Mark Is can handily outrun our Vipers. Hopefully the Mark IIs even the odds, what sort of ordnance can the twos sling?" Jonas asked and Lucinia blinked then smirked.
"They can be used for limited strike capability, while they use the same engines as the Ones, they changed the arrangement around to give a small internal rotary bay. Like the Ones, the Twos can sling ordnance from two hardpoints, although unlike the Ones, they can make use of Multiple Ejector Racks. Please note that these are essentially just heavily modified Mark Is though, the next production lot of purpose built Mark IIs will undoubtedly be sleeker in design. They might even use a whole new aerospace frame for it, if they do, I wouldn't be surprised if they call that the Mark III Viper or something." The Admiral replied and Jonas nodded.
The two continued talking for another couple of hours, working out finer points of what they had to do. Briefly, a mention about the IRDIS Network being oddly temperamental came up, but given how many ships were now using it more than ever before. The two admirals, while they didn't rule out the Cylons, there was a belief between them that it may have been strained from more ships then it was planned to ever handle accessing the network to do jumps.