The Chase

Lucky 9, Massena Fleet, Deep Space, 49 days after Second Cylon War

The Lucky 9 felt empty as Amelie Brand wondered about the former Colonial Postal Fleet vessel the Janus-class Transport Cruiser had offloaded two thirds of its passengers in the Vilnus Cluster with most of the people trying to rebuild their life on a new world. Instead of housing for refugees fleeing their homes the ship was filled with food, water, fuel, and ammunition which they would need during their new mission.

Now the ship was in formation with the Massena II, Caerphilly, Agosta, the Sun Bak and the Tauronese Gambling Frigate as they completed their eighth jump as they searched for the Battlestar Galactica and its refugee fleet. So far, their search had taken them far off the Exodus Road after each jump they encountered debris which was initially made up out of standard starship rubbish which the ships could not recycle but at their last jump had included the remains of two civilian ships and parts of a Colonial Naval vessel. Given what the ship was now seeing it looked like the Galactica was struggling to look after its civilian fleet.

Amelia walked into the Janus' CIC and glanced around some of them were her crew from the ship's Postal Service years while others were from Justin Wilkes crew who had remained onboard following his death. Quite a few of them Amelia included were glad that Matthew Boyle had suggested to the leadership in the Vilnus Cluster that they search for the Galactica and its fleet.

"Happy Colonial Day" Malcolm Brook said looking over at Amelia Brand as she entered.

"Thanks Brook, would be nice if we could let our hair down and enjoy it." She half joked seeing Brook glance at her hair she smiled as he noticed what she had done.

"I like it Captain" he said while Amelia's hair was tied up in the ponytail that she favoured she had put a blue tinge through it which caught the light.

"I thought we could relax a little now that we not running for our lives" she suggested, she also hoped Matt would like it, Brook nodded "anything happening around us?" She asked the wider room.

"All ships accounted for Caerphilly is moving ahead of the fleet" Lt Cabe Santora reported the Customs ship had been repaired in the Vilnus Cluster like all the ships with its sensor suite fully refurbished which meant the ship was best placed to scout the system. "DRADIS contact! Multiple DRADIS contact!" Santora called out as the Lucky 9 received information from the scout ship. "Oh no" he whispered "Captain, we have wreckage of multiple civilian ships and a single Artemis-class Battlestar."

"Set Condition Two, the Artemis-class is ancient it is even older than the Galactica and this ship! How in the name of Kobol did they get out here?" Amelia commented looking at the screens "what's the word from the Massena?" She asked watching as the Caerphilly arced around and returned to the formation. At the front of their ships the Massena began to turn showing its broadside to the Artemis. "Oh frak! Get me the Massena now!" She snapped reaching up grabbing a phone from a roof fixture. "So much for a happy Colonial Day" she said speaking on the phone to Matthew Boyle who was onboard the "maybe their communications array are damage?" She asked around the crew listened but could not hear the other side of the conversation. Amelia moved with the phone still in her hand "I'm not seeing any Cylon ship fragments and that ship's too old to be hacked…" she said "no, it can't be… frak…" she exclaimed looking at the DRADIS readings more closely "understood we'll be ready." She said placing the phone back into the roof housing. "Set Condition One" she said as sirens sounded throughout the ship. "Come about and set accelerate to remain on station with flagship" she ordered the five ships collectively began to turn with the Massena II remaining at the rear of the formation to cover the fleet.

"What is it?" Sandora asked looking at her, he thought he could see a tear forming in her eyes.

"The Caerphilly was able to gather enough data from their scans to reverse the debris field to the start" Amelia said wiping her eyes "from what they have been able to gather there is no Cylon ship debris in this area. And the ships were in formation around the Artemis when they were destroyed." She said looking at him more clearly "The debris suggest that these ships were simple passenger ships no Tylium ships or vessels with space for crops, Boyle thinks that they ran out of fuel or food… he thinks the Battlestar wiped them out so they didn't have to starve in space with no hope of escape." She said wiping her eyes again as she struggled to finish but she did not need to.

"Their own people…" Sandora suggested angrily looking at the screens himself "what the frak, we're all in this together, what are the commander's orders?" He asked Amelia an Artemis-class Battlestar was old but it was still a heavily armoured powerful vessel if she was able to get in between their ships she would tear them to pieces.

"Avoid conflict with them if we can, then we jump clear and we leave them with their debris field." Amelia said coldly

"We're going to abandon them, after what they did, we should…" Sandora did not get to finish his sentence as Amelia broke in.

"They had a duty to protect those civilians, leaving the colonies without the means to support them was a surefire way to consign them to a slow death in space." She said angrily watching the screens the Artemis was accelerating after them "We do not have the resources to put an entire crew in chains, we would have to allow them to remain in command of their vessel after what they did." She said looking at Sandora and then back at the DRADIS screen as the Artemis' position changed "well that rules out fuel, even if they have fuel to jump it will be impossible for them to chase us beyond this position."

"If the ship is capable of maintaining its maximum acceleration, they will chase us and catch us before we can jump, expected time of contact twenty minutes." Levison Wood said from the helm console at the front of the CIC. The fleet was limited to the top speed of its slowest ship in this case being the Sun Bak.

The minutes ticked by and the old Battlestar closed on the fleet the ship had not launched fighters but it still had enough firepower all by itself to engage the fleet. "We need to make them turn just long enough to buy time for us to escape." Amelia said watching the DRADIS signal update, the combined firepower of the Massena II, Agosta, Lucky 9 and Caerphilly would give them enough to destroy the ship but they would likely take heavy damage doing it. If only they could distract them, force them to break away from this chase so they could gain more distance. Amelia began clicking her finger excited as she had an idea "get me the Massena now!"

Several more minutes passed the ships began to reorganise themselves for battle with the Massena was still at the rear of the formation and had dropped back a little, the Agosta had accelerated to the front of the formation maintaining position on the Sun Bak and the Gambling Frigate while the Lucky 9 and Caerphilly were in-between the two.

"Missiles from the Battlestar" Sandora reported in space the Massena II began to turn its flak cannons putting up a wall of fire to stop the half dozen missiles or so. There was little to no chance of the missiles passing through the wall but the missile attack did mean the Gunship was now pointing away from forward flight allowing the Artemis to close range. It was also what they had planned on the ship to do.

"Set a course for the Massena, prepare the package." Amelia ordered the Lucky 9 turned to the port turning on nearly a complete reverse course while the Caerphilly turned to the starboard following the same course. Both ships were now on a collision course with the Massena II. Amelia grabbed the phone from the roof slot "get out of the way or we'll hit you" she said "we're ready…" she confirmed "I'll be fine."

The Massena II suddenly began accelerating forwards its flak guns ceasing firing as it cleared the way. With the gunship out of the way both the Caerphilly and Lucky 9 were now pointed towards the incoming Battlestar. "Launch torpedo salvo!" Amelia ordered both vessels had been restocked with munitions in the Vilnus Cluster, from the underside of both vessels two salvos of torpedoes were launched.

As the two salvos of torpedoes flew through space towards the enemy ship Amelia watched the DRADIS screens "Wood, whatever way they turn we go the opposite way completely reverse our course." She turned to Malcolm "fire as we turn if you need to."

"What if they don't turn?" Malcolm asked the question she did not want to face.

"Then they take twenty high explosives, fast moving, torpedoes to the nose which they don't want to do." Amelia said hoping she was right, a Battlestar could take a lot of punishment but it had minimal flak protection on its nose if they did take all the damage there the ship would be very vulnerable in a fight. As the torpedoes closed on their target, she saw the Battlestar commander blink and the ship begin to turn to port on DRADIS. "Hard to starboard increase spacing between us" as they turned the Artemis began throwing up a flak barrage of its own attempting to engage the incoming torpedoes.

Both the Lucky 9 and Caerphilly opened fire with their forward cannons as they turned but at this range there was little chance of meaningful impacts, not that it would matter they did not need to damage the ship if it was out of weapons range when they jumped. With the Battlestar turned away from the fleet even for the briefest of amount of time it allowed the fleet to reorganise and jump clear of the system leaving the renegade ship to its fate stranded in the system.

Upon reaching a new part of space the crew breathed a sigh of relief but also Amelia could sense her crew were deflated following the events they had just experienced. It reminded them all how lucky they had been to escape from the colonies with others who could support them and work with them for survival. "Get me the Gambling Frigate" Amelia said grabbing the phone clicking her fingers once more having another idea.

Tauronese Gambling Frigate, Massena Fleet, 51 days after Second Cylon War

Lighting on the Tauronese Gambling Frigate was lower than it normally was and Matthew Boyle squinted as he entered the main party room. As he and other members from the Massena entered the lights came up quickly with a gathered crowd shouting "Surprise! Happy Colonial Day!" Music, balloons, and streamers filled the air as Captain Amelia Brand approached, gone were her overalls instead she wore a stunning, shoulder-less, and low-cut blue dress with a golden belt. Behind her Boyle could see almost two hundred people were in the room with several refreshment tables on the far wall.

"What on earth?" Boyle asked as his crewmen were dragged into the party by various members of gathered party, Boyle smiled nervously as Brand wrapped her left arm around his right arm and drew him into the room. "If I'd known it was a party, I would have dressed up." Boyle was dressed in his Colonial uniform, many of the crew had begun wearing the uniform after the Massena had been reactivated to service.

"Exactly" she explained "you didn't need to know this was a party until two or three minutes ago." She said keeping her arm wrapped around his as they made their way through the crowd, Boyle noticed that there were crewmen from every ship present. "How did you organise this?" He asked as they continued through the crowd.

"Raptor flights between jumps." She said the fleet had made four jumps in the last twenty-four hours since their encounter with the Artemis-class Battlestar morale was at an all-time low.

"I thought you could barely stand the people on this ship?" He asked in a low voice as they moved towards the middle of the dancefloor with Brand slowly moving around him until she was stood opposite him.

"That is correct, I can barely stand them" she said drawing his hands up around her and putting her arms around his neck "but after what we found, I thought the team could use a happier memory of this journey." She said as they slowly began to move in sync with the music their eyes locked.

"I'm guessing this wasn't cheap?" He said as they danced, she laughed taking her arms away from his neck and with one hand in his she raised their arms and pirouetted under his arm before returning to him laughing. "Which I'm going to pay for?"

"That's not all you'll pay for Commander" she whispered as they continued to dance. "We all need this what we saw wasn't easy." She explained "tonight we remember why we are doing this."

"Thank you" he said as they danced, around them people enjoyed the music and the atmosphere, she had been right they did need this night. Tonight they would enjoy themselves and tomorrow they would begin their chase of the Galactica once more.