In the void between stars
Meeting room on Mars

The attack on Ophion has been both wildly successful at liberating nearly 40,000 survivors but also costly. Repairs needed to be made, replacement Raptors and Vipers built and the crews rested. At last Mars and her battlegroup were ready to take action. In the meanwhile there was the civilian issue to consider.

Admiral Kahn had created a mess and from what they had been able to piece together he didn't intend to go quietly. Kahn had ordered a warning shot fired and that provoked those that wanted to surrender. A firefight on the Hermione followed between those loyal to the retired Admiral and those who wanted to surrender. An explosion had followed in the port side turret preparing to fire ready munitions cooking off. It was only by the grace of the Gods that the explosion hadn't gotten to the turret magazine. As it was 47 were killed and 12 injured of the Hermione crew. The damage to Hermione was bad enough but the real problem was the aftermath of Admiral Kahn's 'survival program'. Upon hearing the details Taylor's first reaction was to want to arrest everyone on the Hermione to sort out the mess. With the Cylon threat this wasn't a real option and several of the Captains of civilian ships rescued from Ophion had been fairly overtly hostile towards Taylor's instructions; screaming 'cover up'.

Admiral Kahn and Major Sarno the XO were both 'relieved' and now residing in Mars' brig. Colonel Allison who Kahn had arrested her for refusal to go along with his plan was once more in command of the Hermione. Just about every Master-at-Arms of BSG-38 along with the NIS agents and JAG officers of Mars and Herja were investing what happened. So far, another two dozen officers and ratings had been arrested on changes ranging between kidnapping, assault, rape and murder.

Taylor had assembled the commanders of his military ships along with the civilian Meredith Vickers for this meeting to talk over plans for the future. Once everyone was assembled Vickers jumped in, "Admiral if I may I need to bring some issues up that the Ophion civilians have been saying to me."

Taylor had intended to get into this but now was as good of a time as any. Also, her voice sounded concerned so perhaps it was more serious than he thought. "Very well Miss Vickers."

"I am not going to rehash what's behind this, the Hermione, but several ship captains are threatening to break off from the fleet and leave." More than a few eyes around the table went wide at that statement.

"I get their anger Miss Vickers; I am angry myself. Are they just threatening or they asking for something?" Taylor leaned forward.

"When I get back to the Eclipse, I will forward some of the choicer messages. In short, they want Kahn and anyone else involved from the Hermione spaced, some of the more upset ones want all of the Hermione's crew spaced. If they don't see something they are going to head off on their own." Vickers shrugged, "The ones I have had a chance to actually talk sound very upset and a some I think mean it."

Taylor leaned back having the civilians splinter the fleet wouldn't help. "Very well Miss Vickers you can inform the civilian Captains they will see something but we aren't going to just space Kahn." Picking up his data pad, "I have been in close contact with Major Pluto while she is conducting her investigation on the Hermione." Seeing the confusion on Vicker's face Taylor elaborated. "The Major is the senior Judge Advocate General, JAG for short, officer assigned to BSG-38 and she has told me that while the investigation isn't complete that she has enough evidence to file a number of charges against Kahn and those who followed his orders. The top bills will be Rape and Murder under the Colonial Articles of War those are capital offenses. You can tell the civilians that they will get justice, MILITARY justice and it will be soon."

"That will help a great deal Admiral."

Pleased at hopefully resolving the issue Taylor went onto the next item on his list. "Latest Raptors recon flights over the fleet anchorages at Hestia, Ragnar and Zeus shows three basestars at Zeus but nothing at Ragnar and Hestia. I want to add this is the second time we scouted Ragnar there was no blockade the other time. The third basestar at Zeus is new. There continue to be at least one basestar over the 12 colonial worlds. To change our operational pattern, I would like to do something other than hit Hestia and Zeus." Unspoken was the lack of blockade at Hestia that didn't bode well. Taylor could think of very few reasons why the Cylons were no longer blockading the anchorage; none of them good reasons.

One of the other ship commanders asked, "I take it that hitting one of the Colony worlds is still out?"

"You are correct Colonel. Besides the basestar at each colony their appears to have large number of raiders based on the planets."

Colonel Hera Graystone had been toying with an idea for a few days now, "I have an idea." After getting a nod from the Admiral to continue, "The dome cities on Troy and Pallas are in ruins so there is no one left there for us to find. Odds are survivors are in the belts; especially if you were smart landed and powered down the Toasters would have to do a close pass to figure you are not part of ice or hunk of rock. There are lots of asteroids to check and lots of installations out there the belts have been inhabited a long time. What I suggest is we have Raptors drop low power transmitters at various points in one or more of the belts. Something weak enough that can't be picked up much beyond a light minute or two in the hope the toasters won't notice. They activate in a day or two with a recorded message to rally at given points. Just in case the toasters do pick them we have powered down raptors set to coast by the habitable worlds in that system."

The light went on first with Commander Nickoline Hender of the battlestar Herja. "If any of the basestars holding over the Colony worlds jump out the raptors can follow and warn us. Excellent plan Colonel."

The colonial officers spent some time refining the plan. Any surviving ships that did show up would be sent to a rally point first to confirm the ships weren't packed with Centurions. The agenda then moved back to economics of the fleet. Vickers and Major Shimerman had come-up with the presentation. As the two talked it was clear to Admiral Taylor that the Major might be falling into the role of Vickers subordinate.

"Counting the hulk Diana, we have seventy-two ships in the fleet. The Deep Horizon is a major find she is a tylium refinery ship but she is are only one we have so far. We picked up a pair of Botanical Cruisers but they will not come even close to making us food self-sufficient. The five asteroid mine support ships were rescued at Ophion they have good sized fabricators but they aren't industrial scale like the Decent that was rescued at Hera. Even in her case the Decent has only a single industrial scale fabricator. Sooner or later, we are going to run into major spare parts issues."

Taylor had expected this from the reports that Shimerman and Vickers had been sending his way. "Options?"

Major Shimerman nodded, "We are conducting a search of the cargo ships; we added two more container ships at Ophion and seven cargo ships. So far, we have found several hundred personal fabricators and 3D printers but nothing larger. We have people looking into slaving them together to get increased scale. In meantime we could try to build our own industrial plant. We picked-up five bulk cargo vessels; three carrying refined metals, one has volatiles and the last ship was runny empty when the Cylon attacked. From these we have a good quantity of raw materials."

"What about the deep space anchorages or the POM storage sites?" Major Crosby asked. POM sites stood for Prepositioning of Materiel had war ready equipment such as Raptors, Vipers, Marine equipment and supplies. The idea was Colonial Military personal would be shipped in on transports and mate up the waiting material. There were a number of POM sites around the colonies. In deep space where anchorages to support colonial fleet in fighting the Cylons.

Commander Hender of the Herja shook her head, "I spent some time going through the reports we got from Hera and Ophion anchorage communications. The Cylons hit most of the deep space anchorages within a week of the fall. I don't think we will get much luck in that quarter but the POMs are a possibility."

Vickers then made her suggestion, "In purely industrial terms we have two major needs first is a mobile spacedock the mining support ships are nowhere near as capable as a proper dock. The second is a forge facility able to produce high strength items."

"I agree such would be useful and I take it Miss Vickers since you are pointing out the need you have an idea where we can get them?"

"A possible yes to both. As a VP of the Vickers Corporation, I have extensive files on the company assets aboard my Yacht; its more than just a rich woman's plaything." That got a few chuckles from the officers. "When your Raptors are doing their mission in the asteroid fields, I have some locations I would like to be scouted. The Cylons, odds are got all of the active sites but they might have not hit facilities were shut down for various reasons. One of our towing vessels could handle any of the sites I have in mind." Before Taylor could ask anything, Vickers continued, "Also I think we should scout Ragnar Anchorage itself."

"I intend but what do you hope to find there? I suspect there is nothing of use since the Cylon's are ignoring it."

"Daidalos"

The statement caught several of the Colonial officers by surprise. Taylor was first to put it together. During the first Cylon War Daidalos was a mobile fleet shipyard. Daidalos built the first Jupiter Class battlestars in addition to many other warships. "Of course, after she was decommissioned following the war and turned into the anchorage as a fuel and munitions storage site." Taylor gives Vickers a questioning look.

"One of my military prep school instructors served on Daidalos under Admiral Lucinda Cain and she would tell us stories. It made enough of an impression that I arranged a tour of the anchorage one summer when I was at university. My father's name had pull even if he wasn't willing to do much directly it was enough to get me in for a visit."

Taylor was hopeful but questioning, "If she is there you think she can be salvaged?"

"Her FTL drive is gone it was removed odds are decades ago but if we slave two of the towers, they would have enough capacity to haul her out and then jump her away. I hardly had time to inspect everything when I was there and that was 17 years ago but I didn't see anything that couldn't be fixed given time, resources and manpower. For the later we are starting to get a large number of people most of which have nothing to do but sit on their behinds."

It was all very theoretical but Taylor had some real hope.

XXX

Edge of 12 Colonies
Battlestar Pegasus

"Admiral Cain the latest Raptor scouts have returned. The first reports show Cylon units in several systems over the Red Line." The XO of Pegasus informed Cain...

The Admiral paused to look over the earlier reports from the colonies proper. There was something going on there. The Cylons were jumping all over the place. Heck one of the Raptor scouts claimed to have caught sight of another Raptor in the Ouranos Asteroid Belt. A voice in the back of Cain's head said to investigate the colonies but no there was just death there and too many Cylons. Deep space offered the chance of attacking Cylons in isolation.

"What is the status of supply requisition and manpower drafts from those six civilian ships we found two days ago Colonel?"

Captain Kendra Shaw leading the boarding parties reported she had things under control. Fisk kept an icy mask on his face. Shaw was a cold blooded and ruthless bitch, perhaps as hard as the Admiral herself. Cain had grown to trust the young officer a great deal. Fisk didn't want to see another decimation of civilians with Shaw lining them up against some bulkhead and putting a bullet into their heads one by one. "Loading is complete Admiral."

"Very well XO lets make our way to…." Cain consulted the deep space reports, "Canis 359… lets see what the Toasters are up to away from the Colonies."

XXX

Baseship in Orbit of Caprica
Helios Alpha

"We will need to wait for Mars to make a move but I expect they will figure out what happened at Hestia." The One announced, he was very happy at the results.

The Four frowns, "I hope it was worth it."

The Five smiled, "Don't worry brother those that were lost will be remembered as Hero's."

"We should use the basestars freed from watching Hestia for other missions like finding the other Colonial warships in the 12 Colonies itself." The Eight suggested.

The Five and One both nodded in agreement at the suggestion for action. The One as was common spoke first, "Pegasus is the most serious threat besides Mars. It would be best if we destroyed her before they find each other."

"Finding Pegasus is the best chance at rescuing our sister." The Six reminded everyone. A Six had been aboard Pegasus from the first attacks but nothing had been heard from her since and she hadn't resurrected. The yellow haired sultry Cylon had been pushing for more focus to be placed on finding Pegasus.

The Eight tried to get the council to focus, "Let us not forgot that there are other colonial warships still lurking around the 12 Colonies besides Mars with her growing civilian fleet and Pegasus. The biggest threat is the Virgon…"

The One couldn't resist laughing, "The Virgon is older than Galactica and she isn't even a battlestar. She isn't a major threat and the other two cruises we are aware of in bad shape. We nearly had those cruisers at Pallas the other day. At this point those cruisers have to be out of Vipers."

"Galactica is looking for something out there. If we loose track of her some day our descendants are going to regret us letting her get away. We should reinforce our scouting efforts for Galactica and her fleet. Enough time will allow the Humans to make good their losses even if takes thousands of years." Brining up Galactica by the Two didn't make anyone else happy. Hunting for her was taking dozens of Basestars to scout systems.

The argument continued for sometime on what course of action to take. In the end none of the Cylons were pleased by the compromise.

XXX