Seeker
Part Three of the Mailman Saga
by Chaoseternus

Chapter 4: Missed Chances

To say the atmosphere on the bridge was tense was to understate the matter mildly, whilst I was lucky in that the individuals manning the reaction thrusters controls knew what they were doing, they weren't prime crew. In fact, they had been the second shift crew, thus in combat situations they were the ones manning the backup positions in secondary command whilst the now deceased main-shift manned the primary controls. It was I suppose the one blessing of my new command, that at least I had a competent command crew, even if they weren't as well trained or drilled as the prime crew.

Still, they were just ships crew and they were having to deal with the stress of both combat operations, knowing that an enemy is in the system and your sensors are compromised, a descent into the eye of a gas giant storm and now, a gun-fight right outside the doors to the secondary bridge.

It certainly wasn't a situation that came up in any sane commanders training drills.

I placed myself right next airlock through which the gunfire had sounded, my pistol out and ready, joined by the two marines that had been stationed inside the room. No-one else joined us, there was no-one else free, they all had to stay at their consoles otherwise a worse calamity might befall us.

I could vaguely forms moving the other side of the airlock through the blood-splattered glass windows, I was chilled to see them wearing crew uniforms, not those of the Marine contingent. There had only been five marines stationed outside the door true, there had after all been many other places to guard and every contingent on the ship was depleted, but still…

The ship shook, and then rumbled, forcing me to grab hold of the guard rail that ran the outside length of the room. Beside me, one of the marines tumbled, cursing to the floor, his rifle clattering its way across the suddenly unstable floor.

"Status?" I barked, grimly wishing for some sea-sickness pills, not a normal requirement aboard a battlestar and certainly not an E&E vessel.

"Crossing the outer boundary into the primary eye Captain, the Vipers reported it got a little rough then evened off as you entered the calm zone the facility is in"

I wasn't paying attention by then, indeed, my eyes were focused purely on the stuttering rotation of the airlocks flywheel, as whoever was on the other side attempted to open the lock whenever the ships movement allowed.


"Okay Sheba, I confirm three basestars in-system, two under repairs but no sign of the unidentified Battlestar"

"Shit, if they jumped in and saw that, they would have jumped right back out again, this time we will have no hope of a trace"

"Agreed, we've lost them"

"Cain isn't going to be happy"

"I know Cag, I know"

"Three basestars in one place is a major deployment though…"

"We should report back"


The airlock finally opened, and I waited, expecting the worst, my pistol held in my clammy nervous hands, raised, ready and safety very definitely off.

The form that walked first through the door with hands raised was not who I had been expecting however, it wasn't one of the mutinous members of the portside main munitions chain; it was Chief Petty Officer Hallesy of the flight crew. My relief and the relief of the bridge crew was palpable, the chief was an odd bird at times, but all you needed to get was his respect and he would follow you into the mouth of hell itself. My actions during the retaking of the ship had not only earned me the cynical, sometimes bitter mans respect but his somewhat rough affection and sympathy as well.

No-one doubted where his loyalties lay.

"Chief, report!"

"As usual Captain, situation normal… all frakked up! The Marines you had outside the door were just about overrun when I showed up, but it looks like this was the bastard's main point of attack. There's twenty bodies outside the door, including two marines. The other three headed for sickbay, I lost two volunteers too, both flight crew and four pilots are headed towards sickbay"

"Noted, good work, but I'm afraid I have more for you to do"

Hallesy just looked at me expectantly, so I continued.

"I need some work parties, no marines, I'm afraid this forces me to shift more of them back to security duties from shipboard. First off, inspect the portside gunnery chain, expect trouble, its entirely possible the rad-monitors down there have been fiddled with, but its not out of the realms of possibility that a genuine alarm was enough to trigger this shit-storm, if they felt they had enough…"

Hallesy nodded, disgusted.

"Also, if the station is still viable when we arrive, we will need work parties to shift as much munitions, and stores across to the ship as fast as possible, armour sections have to be a priority too. A work party will also be needed to inspect the station itself, it might be useful as a platform for future operations, doubly so with cylons in-system"

"That's a lot of bodies," the chief noted, "we're down to roughly 400 hundred bodies, fifty of which are gracing the medical centre and its extensions. We're going to lose most of those due to a lack of usable medical supplies… We're under one-fifth of normal complement captain and most of those are involved in repairing the damage this gas giant has wrought"

"I know…" I sighed, "But we have little choice"

"We need more bodies"

"We can't get them, not yet anyway, the ships not ready for a fight, not yet"

"Aye Captain," Hallesy frowned, "I'll see what I can scrape up"

One problem down, and several handed off the Hallesy, I turned back to the bridge and the job of getting my ship down to the station in time and in one piece.


To say I was devastated was to understate the matter; we needed the supplies the station held but just as we breeched the interface and entered the calm centre of thee gas giant storm, sensors recorded a sharp burst of radiation and coherent energies right beneath us.

That burst turned out to be the death of Commander Tobin's old cache.

Its stores of munitions gone, its armour sections gone, its supplies… and worse, I had lost thirty crew attempting to get to the station through one thing and another, and the ship had taken a battering. If we had moved faster, if we had gotten here just a few hours earlier… then most likely we would have been tied to the station when it died.

Still, we might have had a chance, but it's not good for a Captain to dwell on might have beens and should have beens, not after a blow like this.

Not really having any other choice, I ordered us to hold position and concentrate on repairs. The cylons couldn't find us here because of the surrounding storm and we were safe from the storm itself in its eye. At least now we knew how to find the safest route in and out, but that was scant consolation, we still had to safely escape the system and there was the minor matter of a cylon presence in the system.