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Day 84
Omega Sector System 16471
Maxon's Respite
Governor Maxon's Office
3670 People

Carl was wondering why he had been requested to take part in this meeting by Commander Jasper. Probably because he was going to be used again to either calm his mother down or explain things to her. Which would mean that probably the military is going to tell them some news that won't be popular with the civilian "government".

Also with Commander Jasper was Colonel Marton. Usually it would be either just the Commander or the Commander and a Lieutenant for note taking. The trip to the Cyrannus System had left him with a good impression of Colonel Marton who was willing to listen to his experts (well as much as Carl and the others were experts) and showed to Carl's admittedly civilian eyes a good mixture of caution and focus on the goal.

"Thank you Governor and Mr. Maxon" said Commander Jasper. "The reason I wanted you two here is because we need to discuss our long term plans."

"In short we have as best we can looked at 3 different Sectors. There are 7 more that are outside the Cylon Zone that we could explore" continued Commander Jasper. The "Cylon Zone" was something they might have to go into but without a compelling reason they would rather avoid them. The Cylons probably would be in "Colonial Zone" sectors but would definitely be in the zones they had spent the last 40 years between the Wars. They had to have somewhere making their Baseships and Raiders after all.

"This will be the reason that I picked Major Limaki to the commanding officer of the Azeban even though Colonel Marton has far more experience and the Azeban even in it's current state has better defenses and weaponry than the Atlis" said Commander Jasper. "I think we need to consider leaving the "Red Zone".

Governor Jasper asked, "The Red Zone is the area that humanity has explored correct?"

"More or less. It's a sphere roughly 100 light years across" said Commander Jasper. "Actually we wanted to talk to you as Governor of course but Carl has a degree from Kobol University that might help us."

This surprised Carl. His major in business specifically to space mining and how to run a spaceborn company didn't seem all that useful here. Sure Carl was good at it but others were just as good (especially his wife). Heck his mother might not have a degree but she knew far more about the actual specifics than he did.

"When you went with the Atlis and Epsiki to explore the Cyrannus System you mentioned to me that you had a minor in Territorial Establishment History as well" said Colonel Marton entering the conversation.

Carl of course did know that. Planetary and Space Based exploration especially before the First Cylon War had some similarities. Carl actually only did his minor degree because it let him stay at Kobol University for two more years. Carl was just able to sell him staying in college longer to his mother as some "we might someday get a system with a planet and good tyleum" that his mother thought was just an excuse to stay away from the never ending fighting of his grandfather and mother.

"That is true" said Carl.

"Both Colonel Marton and myself have got a basic military run down of the Territories but it's more in the "keep them from rebelling" or "keep them safe from the Cylons". From our recent experience with the Faithful all I knew beforehand was that in the First War the Cylons had captured or killed the humans there. But that New Acheron was a barely habitable planet and that this apparently was not that uncommon."

Now Carl wished that he hadn't more or less half assed his minor degree to be able to hang out with his then girlfriend Amanda until she was able to graduate so that they could get married. Because he could see what she was asking or hinting at. New Acheron had been on the edge of failing but there were other failures or Territories that succeeded only because they had a planet with a billion people and an industrial capacity multiple thousands of times what this fleet had. One of Picon's Territories native life had the not so small side effect of causing sterility that was only fixed by a truly massive scientific undertaking that again is far outside their current abilities. A Tauron Territory had a plant that pollinated once every eleven years that caused the deaths of thousands from an allergic reaction. Many were fine but the native life that had the nutritional value of paper.

"Yes if we need to find a new planet there are issues we need to be on the look out for" said Carl.

His mother though asked the other question. "Even if we find such a planet what keeps the Cylons from wiping us or our greatgrandchildren out" asked Jessi Maxon.

"Honestly? Nothing. We will of course jump many times to hopefully lose the Toasters and look for some planet in a nebula or something that is hidden. Not saying it's optimal but our hardware will break down eventually and even ignoring that the Chiron and Azeban won't be able to stop several Baseships. Maybe we go 20 or 30 years before one of the hydroponic ships stop working or some other critical system that will slowly doom us" replied Commander Jasper. "We will of course keep looking for the Galactica, the Pegasus, or any other Colonial ships."

Carl thought that Commander Jasper had some good points. A planet after all (or at least a good one) should provide things like air, water, and livable temperatures for free but that the Commander seemed to be running out of hope. So far they had been reacting more than anything. Looking for help, looking for a missing Battlestar, looking for pirates, looking for a bunch of doomsday cultists. The Omega Sector in particular had been rough for everyone. They had rescued some people but more had been lost before they arrived. The stealth sensor buoys left behind when picked up had reported Cylons but no human presence.

There was some more back and forth but eventually a rough plan was worked out. The Atlis with 2 Raptors was to jump to the Makrino Sector. The Makrino Sector is the farthest out of the surveyed Sectors and has several good mining locations but only a couple useful planets. The rest of the fleet would jump to the Geitona Sector which had a large amount of inhabited planets. The hope was that by looking at two sectors at once they might find useful supplies, mining locations, and of course more ships and people. At the same time all of the other ships would be prepping up for what might be hundreds of jumps in a row to try to lose the Cylons. The refit of the Azeban would take 3 months so they had 90 days to either find something else or possibly try to leave.

Carl was now in charge of trying to piece together what information they had regarding the best way search for and problems to look out for when looking for a habitable planet. There might be some books or semi accurate historical novels to at least give them some ideas. Also he was to look for any information on where Kobol might be. The Galactica or other Colonial ships might be heading to the birthplace of mankind for religious reasons or possibly as a planet that should (in theory) be habitable. There is also the possibility of the 13th Tribe but there was zero evidence of where they might have went (if they even ever existed).

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Makrino Sector
System 63773 Planet 4
Day 125
Atlis CIC

Colonel Marton and his ship was 33 days into their exploration of this Sector. They had not yet ran across any Colonial ships but the Cylon presence here seemed very heavy. There were at least 3 groups of Baseships travelling in pairs. Question was why. That they are looking for a Colonials seemed to be the most likely answer and that they were travelling in pairs could mean it's a powerful force. That though could just be wishful thinking.

This particular system had a planet that had once been inhabited. The planet of Neo Mys was one of the highest gravity planets that could support humans but had a very thin atmosphere. This combination meant that only 40000 humans had lived in a single rift valley. The Cylons had showed their standard overkill of dropping dozens or more of nuclear weapons on a small target so they could then not have to worry about any surviving humans. One of the Atlis' mission goals was to try to grab some crop samples but any crops that might be alive were so irradiated that it is not worth the risk.

This system also has fairly large gas giant with dozens of medium to large moons. No space mining had been set up but if a Colonial ship had to jump somewhere then "here" is as good as any. The general problem was that for a ship to be found they had to be somewhere. The Chiron and it's fleet were currently hanging out in darkspace which would require one of the Lords Of Kobol personally leading someone to them because there would be frak all chance of coming across them by chance. This System was considered one of their best locations to find someone. Also for the same reason one of the most dangerous systems to run into Cylons. Nothing had been found on their previous trips but they had left stealthed sensor buoys to be picked up later by Raptors. When they checked in yesterday there appeared a flash showing that a Colonial ship jumped here 2 days ago. There were no signs (with the admittedly limited sensor buoys that they had left) of the ship leaving. The gas giant here was putting out a massive amount of radiation which unfortunately is not the type the Cylons couldn't handle (at least that was the theory they had regarding such radiation) but made dradis and other sensors "fuzzy". Colonel Marton was considering doing something that would have got him kicked out of Advanced Tactical Training for advanced stupidity. Going active and yelling "come out if you are human" might work. Or it might let hidden Cylons know they were here. The Raptors were not powerful enough to cut through the background noise and that left the Atlis.

"Sir I understand we can't prove the Cylons aren't here and I understand that this risk is worth it. I concur this is a possibly our best bet" said Captain Talbot his XO. The two Raptors had been fully loaded with tyleum and should just be able to make one of the rendezvous points if the Cylons destroyed the Atlis.

'No time like the present I guess' thought Colonel Marton. "Ensign Coulter hit it" he said to his tactical officer.

"It" was a command that would send a very powerful and very LOUD "ping" and at the same time sending out a message. For full measure they flared their sublight engines. Other than putting out a sign saying "free alcohol and triad" there was not much more they could do to be noticed. Now they waited to see if anyone Toaster or human noticed. The radius would be about 30 light minutes so if no response in an hour they would just leave.

It took 14 minutes for the Colonial ship to responded back "Colonial ship we are requesting help." So far no Cylons so he sent Matchbox and Silk to rendezvous with the human ship.

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Captain Aetos Nisus was the spokesperson for his ship the Bream a smaller passenger ship. It's immediate needs were they were critically low on tyleum and running low on food. They did agree to jump to deepspace so they could coordinate.

Colonel Marton took a shuttle over the Bream. The people on the Bream seemed pissed to see him in a Colonial Naval uniform. He had an escort of 4 unarmed but large crew members who looked eager to kick his ass if he so much as glared at anyone. 'What shit have I gotten myself into now' he thought.

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Geitona Sector
Darkspace
Chiron CIC
Day 126

Commander Jasper read over the report sent by the Atlis. The Bream currently had 862 people on board and was crowded, running critically low on tyleum, low on food, and had a very little in the way of trained crew members.

When the Cylons had attacked the Bream was part of a fleet lead by the Patrolstar Rhea and had an additional 4 civilian ships. Two cargo, one mining, and one water processing. The Rhea's Captain had been part of a pirate hunting exercise out here a few years back and thought this might be safer or at least more remote. They had a brief run in with some Raiders but they had jumped out before combat. Then about 50 days ago they ran into a Bezerk class ship that had 2 support ships and a Marinestar. The Colonials Naval forces had taken the mining ship and their water ship and the Rhea under "military necessity". The commanding officer of this fleet had also sent marines to take half the tyleum and supplies off of the Bream and the two cargo ships. This had ended up in a bloodbath when the people of the ships realized they were being abandoned, stripped of all their support, and losing much of their supplies so they had panicked. 14 Marines were killed along with 93 civilians dead in the riots the commanding officer of the Colonial ships had then ordered every crewmember hung for mutiny. "Captain" Nisus had been a passenger on the Bream but had spent over 20 years in space doing supply runs so was the most experienced person onboard the 3 ships. With little in the amount of supplies the two cargo ships the Minx and the Bantum were stripped of whatever supplies they had to consolidate down their very limited number of trained crew. Jumping to the system where Neo Mys was with what was very close to the last of their tyleum was the last idea Captain Nisus had been able to come up with. They knew the odds were unlikely that this planet was missed but they were going to be dead in less than a month anyway.

Colonel Marton had also sent the limited sensor data of the interaction of the Bezerk and the Bream. With all bridge crew dead and the Marines trying to wipe out the data it was fragmentary but there was some information mainly wireless communications picked up. The most interesting was "Perseus Actual" arguing with an Admiral Howard where the Admiral responded "you know our orders Commander Burian."

Looking over the records the Perseus was a supposedly scrapped Aquarian Bezerk class ship and Burian is one of the more political families from Aquarion and an Endre Burian was the XO of the Perseus when she was "scrapped". The Marinestar though did not have a name that they could tell and exactly who Admiral Howard was was uncertain.

This might be why there is so much Cylon activity in the Makrino Sector even if 3 pairs of Baseships seems overkill for a Bezerk. 'I am tempted to pull the Atlis from that Sector' but decided that for now at least it is better to keep checking.

The other issue is what to do with the Bream. According to Colonel Marton they seemed very hesitant about joining their fleet. Marton had decided that they would send the Apovlita their tyleum refueler and the Oliver with supplies. Captain Ifos had agreed to go along as she did have good things to say about this group of Colonial Naval personnel. Needing a more official "ambassador" Tomas Decat had agreed to go along. This is one of those "Carl jobs" but currently Carl was working on looking for potential issues and how to avoid them if they found a planet was considered more important. Whether the Bream agreed to join or not Jasper would refuel their ship (or possibly ships if the two abandoned cargo ships could be picked up) and to give them food. However if the Bream went it's own way she would not force them to join.

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Author notes

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