Sector Geitona
System 01551
Oort Cloud
19 Days After Cylon Attack
1626 People
Orion

Ensign Britney Rogers was thinking about her life. From the time she was old enough to understand she knew she would either end up in the Colonial Navy or the Cancerson SDF. The Rogers had been in the Navy for over 100 years and her great grandmother had been a Vice Admiral during the First Cylon War and then had been the head of the Canceron SDF. Join the Navy for at least 20 years and then take a high level corporate role at CAA Shipping (with the Rogers family as majority shareholder) the largest shipping company in the Helios Delta System. That CAA is also one of the largest suppliers of the Colonial Navy and the Rogers family has multiple relationships with military forces in the Colonies is a nice bonus but more importantly is maintaining the family image. The more cynical people from Canceron whispered it's to rectify the family's Virgon origins but from her viewpoint Britney doubted that.

Britney Rogers would have served anyway. The exploits of her great grandmother, grandfather, father, and two older siblings molded her into wanting to serve. Britney had been crushed when her grades were not good enough to get into one of the Colonial Naval Academies without having to have her family use their pull which a Rogers would never do. Still she had gone to the Canceron SDF Academy and then been assigned to her unofficial uncle's staff. Watching her family friend die right after knowing her grandfather, mother, and younger sister had died during the attack on Hades and then death of her older sister who had been the tactical officer on the Eros followed up with her father being killed on the Resolute had made for a tough day. Her oldest brother was serving in the Colonial Navy as the CAG of the Erasmus but since his Battlestar was in the Helios Gamma system and the Cylons had hit there first she had little hope.

Britney knew her tactical aptitude was pretty weak according to her Academy scores at least but being a gopher for the person in charge of logistics for the Orion and small fleet in general had been in her abilities. Checking with the senior officers on the Orion or taking a trip to the Dykstra or Pallas was much easier for her than LT Flacca who while no longer in medbay still had a badly broken leg that would take months to fully heal. Today was a "light day" which probably means LT Flacca would only work her for 15 or so hours.

"Ensign I have been checking over Admiral Barclay's papers hoping their would be anything useful. Except for the Resolute and the other ships I didn't find anything. Do you have any idea why the Resolute was in system 61128" LT Flacca asked. "That's pretty far out from the Colonies and the paperwork just shows that they were out there for a training exercise which seems like an odd spot and as for finding any CIF Captain Greer says they had nothing there that she is aware of."

"No sir. My father rarely discussed military matters" said Ensign Rogers. Mainly because her mother would get annoyed if they started talking about Vipers and mass drivers and other things. The rule was other than "how is it going" and upcoming promotions or transfers they were to avoid shop talk around her.

"Ensign one last thing for today. I want you to take all information we have and figure out if there are any uncounted for Helios Delta SDF ships" said LT Flacca. The LT felt bad for Ensign Rogers. And nothing to keep the mind from worrying like extra work.

"Yes sir" said Ensign Rogers with a repressed sigh.

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"LT Flacca how can I help you" said Colonel Gabrielle. The LT still grimaced with pain quite often but it did appear that she was getting better.

"Sir I had Ensign Rogers run a count of all Delta SDF ships more as busywork than anything else" said LT Gwen Flacca. "I think she might have found something interesting. From what we can tell is that Aquarion has a ship that was reported as scrapped a year ago but I think it might not have been."

Aquarion had the lowest population of the Twelve Colonies with only 25 million people. It is a fairly cold planet with no continents and only a hundred or so largish islands. They had a pretty small SDF force and had mainly put it's strength into the Aegis class. If a major war broke out they would have attached themselves to the Battlestars as extra defensive power. From their short battle before the Heim and it's sister ships had been destroyed they probably would have worked quite well in that roll as they were what allowed the Orion and the other ships to escape the incoming Raiders. "What ship are you talking about and why do you question on whether it was scrapped" Colonel Gabrielle asked. Mainly because after all their work getting the Helios Delta Armistice Day Celebrations (and boy did that not turn out as expected) him and the other staff members from the late Admiral Barclay probably could name every Delta SDF ship by heart.

"Sir the Perseus was a Berzerk class ship that was getting pretty long in the tooth and it was considered too expensive to upgrade" she replied. "However no one purchased it."

At first Colonel Gabrielle didn't really think too much of it. Then he thought a little more. A Berzerk was a "jack of all trades master of none" type of ship that ended up being middling at everything and expensive to operate. The Colonial Navy stilled had a few dozen but they were of the third generation and had some of their abilities stripped to make them less expensive. However a smaller SDF might not mind such a ship. That is one more Colonel (or "Commander"), one more CAG (if only for a single squadron), one more tactical officer, and etc. For a smaller SDF this would be good training and as much as he didn't want to admit it more sinecure for relatives. Not all of the "grand families" of the Colonial Navies were like the Atwoods or Rogers. There were a lot of "promoted above their abilities" that just happened to the grandchild of an Admiral.

"So why did Ensign Rogers notice this and we did not" asked Colonel Gabrielle.

"Sir the list of active ships on the Orion was two years old. The list we were working from was current" replied LT Flacca.

"Hmm. That tracks I guess. So what do you think happened to the Perseus" asked Colonel Gabrielle. "I know her Vipers were stationed on Aquarion". The Aquarion SDF still used Mk V Vipers due to their longer range which made sense as Aquarion was pretty far from the other SDF planets and only had a limited amount of Viper squadrons which were all accounted for.

"Sir I am not sure but I was thinking about the Resolute. The Makrino Sector is pretty far away and why would they be that far out there" she asked. "Especially with a few construction ships. So I reran the sensor readings. There was a very large amount of tyleum in system 61128 from what we could see. Or at least by where the destroyed ships were."

That would explain a lot. The reason the Resolute and it's supply ships were sent out there was because someone had found a massive tyleum supply. If they could set up mining stations there then it would be one of the Canceron megacorps reaping the profits. And Commander Rogers being from one of those families and being from a shipping family would make him a good candidate. One more Battlestar wouldn't have made any difference but still being jerked around for cubits was annoying. "So far I am following except where does the Perseus fit into this."

"Sir this is pure conjecture but what if the Perseus was used as an exploration ship" said LT Flacca.

'Frak that actually makes sense' thought Colonel Gabrielle. A Berzerk would make a good exploration ship. Long range, good sensors, and the ability to handle multiple Raptor and Raptors were common and a few missing wouldn't be noticed. Also along with fishing the Aquarions were known for being good explorers. This was all pretty thin guesswork here but no one had come up with a better idea. "Thank you LT I will take this under advisement.

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Thank you all for reading. Any questions or comments are appreciated.