Chapter 17

Kiko Rodriquez landed the Viper behind all of the other Vipers which had invaded the landing bay. She had not radioed in for fear that her communication would be intercepted. She saw with relief that Chief Engineer DeSoto was waiting for her. As she climbed down the ladder from the Viper, she went up the superior officer.

"Sir, did we repel the invaders?" She asked.

"Kind of," was his reply. "Let me explain," and he filled her in on the plan. Kiko found that while she was shocked, she was not surprised.

The Kongo continued here course along the subspace eddy. Smith and Hasan realized quickly that without long range scanners, the exercise of finding them was trial and error and would take considerable time. At present, the Kongo was going to warp long enough to get into the scanning range for the unexplored area and ahead and then, when there was no finding on that attempt, go to warp just long enough to get to the edge of the next scan radius and repeat. Commander Hasan felt that they did not have the time to perform any type of lengthy search. He began to look for ways to shorten the process.

Smith had finally come up with an idea on how to shorten the intervals. After their fourth warp interval, he looked up in frustration at the Commander. All they knew was that they were still behind the battlestar and most likely the baseships as well. He rubbed his eyes and looked that the propulsion pattern which was still displayed over the science station. He then had we he felt was an epiphany.

"Commander, what if we extrapolate the propulsion dispersal pattern out on a straight line to determine their warp speed equivalent? It would give us a better target to reach for."

Commander Hasan looked in surprise at the Engineer, "Warp drive doesn't work that way, Smith. You should know that better than anybody."

"The only thing I think we are sure of is that this is not warp. I think is worth a shot." Hasan hesitated but realized he was right. This was taking too much time that they did not have.

"Computer," he said, "use the propulsion dispersal pattern indicated on the science station. Ignoring normal time dilation and tardyon limitations, what would the warp speed of the ship be."

The computer churned briefly when a female voice came on. "There is no warp speed computation capable for this scenario. The ship is not travelling at warp speed."

Hasan was irritated with himself for making an assumption. "Please derive absolute speed using the original parameters listed and convert into warp speed equivalence please."

Again the computer churned and finally responded. "Given the parameters, the ship would be travelling at the equivalent speed of warp 2.78546. Please note that there are no known phenomena which would explain this capability."

"Understood," he responded moving to the navigation station. He quickly looked at when the believe the ships had gone to warp and made some calculation. "At warp 8 we would overtake in 5 minutes," he stated.

Crewman smith looked at him in shock, "sir, I am scared to death of going to warp at all with as few people as we have. I would prefer to keep it to warp 6."

Hasan recalculated. "Two hours. That's a long time Andrew."

Smith nodded, "understood sir," he turned to the intercom and signaled the sparse crew in engineering to get ready. "We are getting ready to go to warp 8 boys. Let's be ready."

Lieutenant Pan looked in alarm at the captain as he held out his weapon. He took motioned for everybody else to put theirs on the table. He realized he didn't have the first idea how to set it but there was a trigger and a pointy end he knew had knocked out his entire squadron. Captain Berg did have the foresight to have all phasers set to stun, but he also knew he was taking a big chance. Oddly this was the first time he felt right about a major decision regarding the Olympus. He just hoped that this Lieutenant Pan would take the gesture the right way.

"Alright," he said, still not sure what to make of this, "I want my blaster, I want to see my crew."

Captain Berg nodded and opened his communicator. "Security, please bring the colonial viper pilots their weapons. Mr. Pan, please follow me."

He led the confused warrior down the corridor and into crew quarters. He saw soldiers dressed in red tunics handing out blasters to very confused colonials.

"Lieutenant, I would appreciate it if you would let your crew know what it going on to avoid a misunderstanding," even thought the captain had surrendered and was not armed, he had a sense of command that was hard to ignore. Much like Commander Abel, Pan thought to himself.

"Warriors, the captain has surrendered to us. Mimas, let's get to the command room and get a status. Warriors, prepare the Vipers for battle. Captain, if you are sincere than I expect your crew to confine themselves to the brig." He looked at the captain expectantly.

"Unfortunately, there are over 400 of us and we won't fit," responded the captain. "We will stay out of the way. May I join you and brief you and what we have done?"

Pan didn't like it but the request made sense.

"Alright, I want everybody in the hallways and unarmed," he answered and began walking towards the command room. The strange captain had made orders into this communication device. Men and women wearing gold, blue and red filed into the hallway. None of them appeared to be armed. The all stood at attention and made no move towards them.

Pan entered the control room and saw strangers sitting at the consoles that should be manned by his friends and comrades. "Everyone up, "he ordered waiving his blaster around but not in a particularly threatening fashion. The crew looked to the captain who nodded his head. Everybody stood up. Pan, still very suspicious, walked to the navigations console. They were moving at almost full speed. He saw that the baseships were in pursuit but had not launched their full complement of Raiders. He knew that many had been left in reserve when they thought the Olympus had no teeth. Now that they had seen the Vipers, the next attack would be an all out assault. Cylons were slow in adapting but their programming was ultimately consistent.

"Mimas," he said, "check our battle condition." Mimas walked over to the automated defenses. He saw that ten turrets had been knocked out and there were other system failures.

"Not optimal, Pan," he said. Pan looked at the Captain with a bit of anger in his glance.

"Alright, we go to the planet, offload our 'friends' and pick our crew," he looked at the Captain. "Your ship can meet you there," he saw the look of concern on the captain's face. "The planet has supported us for the last 20 sectons. You'll be fine for now."

Captain Hasan thought it was not an unfair offer all things considered. It would actually get them out of this unwanted battle. The Kongo should find them eventually. He was almost relieved to be given this type of out. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Would you like me to start making plans?"

Then Ensign Gravelson jumped up and looked at the scanner. "Sir," she looked instinctually to Captain Berg.

"I am in charge," said Pan authoritatively.

Samantha nodded at him. He recognized her as the woman who had spoken to him in his own language and distracted him while the blue man shot him. Oddly her accent was now completely gone. "The baseships have launched their raiders."

Pan turned to look at the scanner and convinced himself that is was accurate. "Frak," was all he said.

Captain Berg looked at the Colonial Warrior, "Mr. Pan, this is your ship. We acknowledge that. At this rate, you will never get back to your crew in time. I know you hate us being here. I would despise anybody that did this to the Kongo. But we can help. Together we might just survive this."

Pan looked at Mimas, "what do you think?" he asked.

Mimas shrugged his shoulders, "they had us dead to rights and had no reason to surrender. This captain is not wrong. Raiders will intercept in 15 centons."

"Frak!" was all Pan could think to say. He went to the shipwide communication system and said, "all warriors to Vipers. Incoming Raiders. Repeat, all warriors to Vipers. Captain I will stay here and take command."

Mimas looked at his friend and pulled his aside. "Pan we need every Viper we've got. If they want to betray us, it won't matter if you are here. Besides, while they fly this ship worse than 1st year cadets, they are obviously a crew. His crew."

Pan looked at this friend and then Captain Berg," try not to break anything else, "He ran to the Viper bay with his comrades.

Captain Berg looked around and said with an air of command they had heard before, "You heard the man. Take your station and be careful with the property."

He looked out the viewscreen and saw Vipers shooting out of the launch tubes on all sides. He noted that it just looked right and the Olympus seemed whole for the first time since he had been onboard. He motioned for the communications officer to open a channel, "Mr Pan, is your squadron ready?" he asked.

"Golden Star squadron is ready," he acknowledged.

"Any thoughts on how to approach this?" he asked.

"Do you know how to activate the forward weapons?" he asked. After receiving and affirmative, he added, "The Supreme Leaders have a stronger sense of survival than regular centurions. We'll try to establish a path. Take the Olympus to the rear most baseship and fire. If we can destroy that baseship or cause it to retreat, it will disorient that others. The fight won't be over but it will be a good start."

Captain Berg chuckled to himself thinking that had tried to do that two times so far. Third times a charm, I guess. "Sounds like a good plan. We will follow you in."

At that moment, he heard another voice come over the communication channel.

"Kongo to Olympus, can you hear us?" said Commander Hasan.

"Commander?" answered the Captain. "Where have you been?"

"Trying to find you sir. The eddy is making things interesting. Looks like you have your hands full. And are those Vipers? You'll have to fill me in."

"Later commander," responded the captain. " We could use the help."

"I could use a crew," he answered. "Not sure I want go into full battle with 6 of us."

"Understood. Hang on," he then realized his plan would once again need to wait. I swear I am going to do it. He thought to himself. "Olympus to Golden Star, change of plans. We have help but we are going to need to get closer to them. We are going to leave the subspace eddy."

"The what?" he asked.

Lieutenant Kiko who had just entered the control room and spoke up. "The path between the stars. We need to get the Kongo and it can't travel between the stars so we are going to go to her."