== Part 44 – The First Victory ==
"Well, that went better than expected," Adama mused after the connection to Langhorne was cut.
He and Sharon were guests aboard the Vespa and were currently standing in its CIC. Sharon would have preferred to use the Galactica for this mission, but her battlestar had only just started its refit and Adama had seen no reason to wait for it when the Vespa was already fully armored and ready to go. In fact, the Vespa was more than fully armored. The armor on the Inner Sphere wrecks were surprisingly thin for their toughness, so the engineers had applied multiple layers of it as the Vespa's outer armor layer in hopes of making the battlestar tougher than those wrecks had ever been. Even then, the engineers estimated that the new outer armor belt was twenty percent lighter than the old one, which made the Vespa much more nimble to maneuver.
Being bigger than the Vespa, the Galactica was going to get an even thicker coat of Inner Sphere armor.
The engineers had recommended off on the weapon refits though. The battlestars didn't have the heat dissipation capacity or spare power generation to handle banks of the small energy weapons, let alone the capital grade ones.
The autocannons weren't too different from their Colonial equivalents, but the hair raising volatility of the ammo bought from the Hansa, their test firings of the autocannon on the one Vulcan they hadn't sent back home, and analysis of the wreck's time decayed ammo suggested that Inner Sphere capital grade autocannon would have much higher muzzle velocities than their Colonial counterparts.
The missiles and their launchers were pretty much the same story, but with the additional caveat that the Inner Sphere had come up with an innovative solution for dealing with Cylon grade ECM that apparently every combat platform in the Inner Sphere carried. They just spammed cheap missiles with the most basic, too-dumb-to-fool guidance systems on the theory that some were just bound to hit, and the Expedition's flag officers had wondered why no one back in the Colonies had thought of such a ridiculously simple and elegant solution when their combat doctrine already emphasized using volume of fire to overcome targeting issues created by enemy ECM. They wouldn't have been very effective against a capital ship's point defense, but they would have been absolute murder in fighter on fighter combat before the discovery of Inner Sphere armor.
"A conference with the Federated Commonweath ambassador to the Cylons hosted by the local Comstar station? I'd say so, sir," Sharon agreed. She didn't want to be here. Sharon wanted to be with her battlestar. But Adama had decided to take Alpha and Beta at their word, which meant when the Admiral went down to the planet, it would be Sharon and not the marine security detail that would be his real bodyguard.
Also, Sharon was the only trained pilot in the Expedition fluent in English, which meant she was the only one who could talk to Langhorne's orbit-to-surface traffic control.
"Contact!" one of Applebee's Petty Officers announced. "Cylon ship at two hundred thousand kilometers. Looks like another one of those Dropship transporter jobs, and it jumped in practically right next to the first one. Putting it on screen now."
One of smaller flat screens on the Vesta's sitrep display changed to show the new basestar. It was tiny compared to regular basestars and very odd looking. The lower assembly had three pylons which could hold up to four Inner Sphere Dropships each, nestled on top where they could get the basestar's artificial gravity. The upper assembly was a disc topped with a biodome similar to the ones found on higher end Colonial luxury liners. The screen next to it showed an identical basestar, the one that had already been here when the Vesta had jumped in.
Even as the Colonial officers watched, Inner Sphere Dropships detached from the new arrival, a mix of spheroid designs and sleek aerodyne shapes. Some headed towards Langhorne, one stayed attached to the basestar, but most headed towards the first basestar. And still more Dropships that had been waiting in the general area started maneuvering towards the new arrival.
"That is so weird," Applebee commented.
"It's because the Inner Sphere's solid core FTL drives are so massive, can't operate in gravity wells, and have such ridiculously long recharge times," Sharon explained. "So they designed a class of ships called Jumpships that do nothing but move other ships called Dropships between star systems, and the Dropships catch rides on Jumpships that are heading in the direction they want to go in. Since the Cylons won't sell them our own FTL drive or gravity manipulator technology, they've opted to corner the market on better jumpship services."
"I know that, but it's still weird," Applebee insisted.
"Admiral," Applebee's Petty Officer called. "The Cylons are hailing us. The speaker identifies herself as Red of Color Constellation. They're asking for you by name."
"Of course they are," Adama said. "Our entire call with Langhorne was done on an open frequency. Hmm, Color is the Cylon's transport focused Constellation, which I guess makes sense. So this is probably another of the Cylons 'unofficial' dialogues. Commander Applebee, since your contact with the Alphabets went so well, why don't you answer this one?"
"Of course, sir," Applebee said, clearly not liking that she had been put on the spot. She picked up her mic and keyed it. "Red of Color Constellation, this is Commander Applebee of the Colonial Fleet," Applebee began. "Admiral Adama is preparing for his meeting with the Federated Commonwealth representative right now. Is this official Cylon business?"
"It's less official Cylon business and more just private Color Constellation business, Commander," Red replied. She had more of what Sharon considered a "normal" Caprican accent that the officious Alpha or the country Beta. "Since you're here, we were hoping we could make a minor purchase. It's nothing big enough that would warrant official attention, just a small transaction between private individuals."
Applebee shared amazed glances with the Admiral and Sharon. The Cylons wanted to buy something from the Colonials?
"And what, Red, would you like to purchase?" Applebee asked suspiciously.
"Oh, nothing much," Red said far too casually. "Our ambassador came home from Armistice Station with some DVDs that had this alternate universe miniseries on it."
Sharon felt her heart sink. Not that stupid show again!
"It's become a big hit with us Cylons," Red continued. "We can't believe a Seven of all models made it. But the extras on the DVDs say that this miniseries was just the pilot for an entire running episodic show, so we were wondering if we could purchase a copy of the rest of the series?"
Applebee appeared to ignore Sharon waving at her with both arms and silently mouthing "NO".
"I don't know," Applebee replied slowly. "The Vesta doesn't have a hard copy of that series. We only have a digital copy on our entertainment servers that was licensed... by... the Colonial Fleet." Applebee trailed off as some flash of realization occurred to her, and a predatory smile slowly grew on her face. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I can't trade it to you because the standard terms for licenses the Colonial Fleet paid for shows like the one you want stipulate that these shows can only be viewed by Colonial Fleet personnel and civilians working for the Colonial Fleet and only inside Colonial Fleet ships and basing facilities and is not to be shared outside those venues without prior approval by the proper license holder or representatives thereof."
"Oh, that's too bad," Red said, disappointed.
"Also, didn't you say that all the Cylons have seen this pilot miniseries?" Applebee asked.
"Yes," Red said slowly, apparently realizing something unpleasant was coming. Sharon on the other hand was clueless as to where Applebee might be going.
"Well if I remember my Colonial intellectual property laws correctly," Applebee began, speaking in a casual, friendly tone that only got "friendlier" as she went on, "unless you only passed around the physical copy of those DVDs and played them to only a crowd of ten or less people at a time, you've probably violated those IP laws. It's a violation of the terms of service for those DVDs to be played to more than ten people at a time, and an even worse violation if you copied their contents for mass viewing. Why, I imagine the Cylons would be owing quite a bit of money to the entertainment company that owns the IP on that movie series based on how many Cylons have actually seen it."
"We didn't... We hadn't..." Red stammered, sounding not at all happy and more than a little bit desperate. "That's... interesting?"
"Now if you want, I can go get Admiral Adama for you," Applebee continued, sounding as pleasant as a feral dog circling and stalking a helpless song bird with a broken wing. "He's empowered to speak on behalf of the Colonial government. I'm sure Admiral Adama and the Colonial government would love to mediate the issue of monetary compensation between you Cylons and the company that produced this miniseries you love so much. Why, he can probably accept payment on the company's behalf, but since there's no actual trade going on between the Inner Sphere and the Colonies, I'm sure he can't take cash. But I'm sure payment in the form of hard assets such as finished, high tech goods and possibly information will suffice, and the government will happily handle the issue of monetary compensation with the entertainment company."
"That sounds reasonable..." Red began.
"Oh, and I just thought of something!" Applebee interrupted, clearly having thought of this something well beforehand. "Have you shown this miniseries to any humans in the Inner Sphere? Or worse, sold copies to them? Because if you have, I imagine the Cylons would be on the hook for the royalties from those sales plus whatever financial penalties for such blatant IP piracy that the courts might levy."
Red didn't reply, but didn't cut the connection either.
"What was the population of the Inner Sphere again?" Applebee asked blithely. "Wasn't it somewhere in the trillions? Profits from sales must have been quite a bit more than the value of a laser pistol, wouldn't you say?"
"Uh, yeah," Red said finally. "Commander, I have to go discuss some things with my brothers and sisters. We'll be in touch."
"Ma'am, the Cylons have closed the channel," the Petty Officer said.
"Darn," Applebee said, mildly disappointed. "I didn't even get to ask for a modern basestar or three."
The entire CIC burst into uproarious laughter.
"Well done, Commander Applebee," Adama congratulated with a smile.
"Selene, that was amazing!" Sharon said. "Where the frak did all that come from?"
"My husband divorced me because he wanted to make movies and he felt waiting on me all the time for me to come home was getting in the way of his career," Applebee said sadly. "He was always complaining about lawsuit happy IP holders..."
