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Geitona Sector
System 01647
Orion Officer Staff Room
Day 107
Population 3803
Captain Sheila Kinis was ready to give her briefing to the "triumvirate" and later to Spokesperson Martel. Colonel Gabrielle knew that their civilian head of government (for now at least) was unhappy to be kept out of this meeting but Captain Kinis had quickly briefed Major Gobi that there was a message for the military and CIF Commanding officer.
"Colonel I talked to several military and civilian people in their fleet. There does not appear to be any major issues. No one forced into military service or ships taken against their will. The biggest issue with the people of the Shaitan and Aphid is the command issue. Battlestar Apis is not a Colonial or SDF Navy. It's a CSB ship" said Captain Kinis.
Captain Greer sat up as straight as she could in her chair. Colonel Gabrielle could not blame her as the CSB or Colonial Service Bureau or just "Bureau" had a bad reputation with anyone who has ever been on the outside of the good graces of the Colonial government. While likely a lot of their reputation was just everyone giving them credit (or blame depending on your political POV) things like the death of the nephew of the King of Virgon who had been a major agitator of Virgon independence was probably because he was an alcoholic moron who wrapped his sportscar around a tree due to drinking 3 bottles of ambrosia but for almost 20 years everyone "knew" the CSB had removed him. They also were the ones who had captured and killed several SFM members along with Tom Zarek. Anytime some 60 year old CIF or SFM ship blew up the vague thought that it was a Bureau ship was in the back of the mind of any rebels. They had become the bogeyman.
"Their Commander Tara Valdez has agreed to the full pardon offered by Colonel Gabrielle for any former CIF personnel and has agreed with the provisional ranks given" said Captain Kinis. This seemed to somewhat calm Captain Greer. "The Commander of the Shaitan is Major Charlette Atwood. They were both fully honest with me as they need our assistance or at least our ships would be very helpful to them. The command differences come from the mindset of the two senior officers."
Legally or at least officially legally Battlestars (even pocket ones) and other large ships were only allowed in the Colonial Navy or the SDFs. The "Stealthstars" while officially no longer in use were widely suspected that they were operated by the Colonial Navy probably the Military Intelligence division. That the Bureau would own anything bigger than an Escortstar was something only the most paranoid person had ever discussed. This was before the Attack something along with "who are the Precursors" and "Cylons are among us" were what whackadoos talked about. The problem that Colonel Gabrielle could see is that with Colonial or SDF naval ships he would know their training and what they would most likely do. A CSB ship could be moderately trained or some special forces ultra trained but either way would have their own agenda.
"Sir, Commander Valdez has offered to add our ships to their fleet but said they would have a mission that they would need for the Orion to complete. She acknowledged that you would need to discuss this in person and that things would need to be worked out" said Captain Kinis.
"Thank you Captain. What can you tell us about the civilian government" said Colonel Gabrielle. Whatever they were offering this Commander Valdez or at least from what he is getting second hand is not the overbearing senior officer type. Caution is wise but so far nothing obviously wrong like when they talked to the Perseus' Raptor officers.
"Yes sir. The civilian government is the Captains of the ships vote on fleet needs. A bit better organized than we were before we picked up the Bellot and the other ships. Not as complicated as what we have now" said Captain Kinis.
Gabrielle was actually looking forward to if things worked out to give Spokesperson Martel something or someone else to bother.
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Geitona Sector
Orion CIC
Day 110
It had taken a few days with some jumps back and forth between the fleets but they had agreed to meet. To be as cautious as possible the Vigilant and Zephyr were with the civilian ships while the Orion and the Sandpiper (hiding and observing as always) had agreed to meet the Apis and Aphid while the Shaitan protected it's own fleet.
"Sir we have two Colonial ships just jump in" said Ensign Rakesh. "IFF confirmed as friendly and they match the Apis and Aphid."
The Apis had agreed to let the Orion arrive first so they could scout. There were some minor blips that very likely were stealth Raptors from the Apis but caution is to be expected. Looking over the dradis sensors the Apis was definitely very stealthy. Even at this short range it was difficult to make out.
"Orion Actual this is Apis Actual" came across the wireless. The Apis agreed to send a Raptor (regular not stealth) so Colonel Gabrielle could talk face to face with Commander Valdez. As he got out of the Raptor he saw a Commander in not the dark blue of the Colonial Navy but in a jet black uniform. This seemed a bit to on the nose for a spy agency but whatever thought Colonel Gabrielle.
Colonel Gabrielle saluted first. Article 4 of the Colonial Code stated that all military ships in case of a Cylon attack would become under the command of the Colonial Navy and that should mean the CSB ship would be under the same rules making Commander Valdez his superior officer. Or at least that is what LT Flacca had come up with. Also no need to push it unless something changes.
"Colonel Gabrielle welcome to the Apis" said Commander Valdez. After some brief pleasantries they walked to Valdez's office closing the door with only the two of them there. "Colonel Gabrielle do you know anything about human form Cylons" asked Commander Valdez.
This question surprised Colonel Gabrielle. "No sir, as far as I knew they were still metal."
"We have found 3 different Cylons that look like humans. From their autopsies they have some silica pathways but they are almost indistinguishable from humans" said Commander Valdez. "Part of what LT Desmos was looking for in your fleet was to see if any of these things were on your ships." With this she passed him three folders and motioned for him to open and read.
Gabrielle took a few minutes to read and these Cylons did certainly all look like people. One was a blond woman around 30 years old. The next was a dark skinned man around 35 with in one picture a shaved head and another very short hair. Last was an older dark haired man probably in his late 60s. There were 4 of the human looking Cylons who had been in a Heavy Raptor that had attempted to board one of the ships in the Cyrannus System. That particular ship had picked up a company of Tauron army soldiers and the Cylons got a rude surprise in what they thought was an unarmed civilian ship. Apparently there were multiple of these three models (referred to as Skinjobs). The woman had two identical copies onboard the Heavy Raptor along with a single one of each of the males. They all had been seen giving orders to the centurions. This would have been bad enough but when the Anteros and Shaitan had rescued 23 ships civilian ships they had found that the CMO of the Shaitan was an exact copy of the younger male and the few survivors from the Anteros said the older male was an exact copy of their former Chaplain who had died during the Cylon attack.
This had started a witch hunt. The Shaitan's CMO had been killed while they tried to capture him. With the now 33 ships they had looked for copies. A pair of 4 year old twins who's family owned one of the mining ships for over 20 years were considered not a risk but the paranoia of not knowing exactly if everyone you knew was a human had been an issue.
"Sir this is a serious problem" replied Gabrielle. "None of these people look familiar but we have 13 ships and 4000 people."
"We will have Marines check your ships. I would like to start with the Orion. We will wait until you have returned to your ship" said Commander Valdez with a bit of a wry look. This makes sense as that after the actions of the Perseus sending Marines over might make Captain Dammers overreact especially if the Orion's CO was still on the Apis. "Once we know the Orion is clear we can check the other ships."
Both officers talked for a few minutes about how to check the ships. The plan was to check the Vigilant after the Orion as apparently the Colonial Navy had been fully compromised so best to clear them first. There was some discussion on what order to do the remaining with deciding the Dykstra was next most critical with the 3 passenger liners last as they would be the most difficult. After such planning as they could do was completed Commander Valdez said "Colonel there is another issue. Not as alarming but of a limited timeframe."
Seeing Colonel Gabrielle waiting Commander Valdez continued. "When our Raptors found your scout ship we were looking for some Colonial ships. Likely we were looking for you." This surprised Colonel Gabrielle but the simplified version was that they had came across a the wreckage of an Aerillion missile collier in a system 22 days ago and an emergency message drone. The drone's message was that the missile collier was the Yaxham and was part of a fleet headed up by a Faststar the Lamia. The Yaxham was one of the 3 ships that had supplied the late Admiral Kibby's fleet before their suicide attack. When the Aphid had found this drone it gave the information that in system 01728 the Lamia and a fleet of 10 civilian ships had been trapped by a Cylon Baseship inside the fifth planet which was an extremely large gas giant that put out a radiation type that apparently effected the Cylons. Something about being similar to planet Ragnar. The Yaxham had been outside and went looking for help as they had no chance to save the other 11 ships. The Yaxham after taking damage and being unable to jump out further had released the message drone that would ask help from any Colonial ships just before the Raiders destroyed the Yaxham. The information was vague enough if the Cylons found it (the Orion and Vigilant were not mentioned just "Colonials Ships") and the information about system 01728 was already known to the Toasters so it was a reasonable risk. The Lamia was of the Manticore 3 design and was basically a much bigger and meaner Escortstar but would not be able to by itself fight off a Baseship much less protect 10 civilian ships.
This lead into some of the issues the Apis and it's fleet have. The short and probably not classified version (if such things still mattered) is that the Apis was a heavily modified version of the First War Osiris class Pocket Battlestar. Gabrielle knew some about the old Osiris ships as it was one of his favorite models when he was a kid. This new version no longer carried Vipers only 8 Raptors. The space this freed up had been turned into adding more sensors and making it even more stealthy. When they had used their Stealth Raptors to survey system 01728 they found a Baseship keeping watch over what would be one of the gas giant's low density spots or maelstrom "eye". Similar to how Ragnar Anchorage was but even more challenging to get in and out of. The Cylons had stayed there for the last 19 days. Not entering the (likely dangerous to them) planet's magnetosphere but just waiting as ships would only have 30 or so days before being destroyed by either the pressure or corrosive nature of the atmosphere.
"And there is no way to coordinate with the Lamia" stated Colonel Gabrielle. He could see the problem that Commander Valdez would have. The Apis is a reconnaissance ship. It would have little in the way of fighting power probably not much more than a group of Raptors. The Aphid would not be much better. A Gunstar could stop a large number of Raiders or a large number of missiles but would be unable to attack the Baseship until very close range. It would almost certainly be overwhelmed before they got close enough. "But a Missilestar and a Gunstar together should be able to do this. Especially if the Missilestar has a single nuclear weapon and the Toasters don't know we are there" finished Colonel Gabrielle. The plan wasn't great but he would put the odds of it working at around 70%. And a chance to save people and hit the Cylons at the same time would be a nice morale boost.
"Sir we would need to discuss this with the CO of the Shaitan. It is possible though" said Colonel Gabrielle. The repairs to the Orion would have to wait as the Lamia and it's fleet are running out of time.
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Geitona Sector
System 01728
Orion CIC
Day 113
The Orion, Shaitan, Zephyr, and 4 stealth Raptors were about 5 light minutes outside the gas giant they had named Jumbo with the Baseship waiting outside the eye of the maelstrom. That would be where the Colonial ships would have to come out. The reconnaissance did not show any obvious signs that the Cylons were aware any Colonial forces were nearby. Just the standard CAP of Raiders you would expect from a Baseship.
After confirming no new information to the operation the Shaitan and two of the stealth Raptors jumped close to the planet. The Shaitan was attempting or appearing to attempt to draw off the Baseship. The thought was if the Shaitan was the only major Colonial asset it would know it could not defeat the Basehship. But if the Baseship left another smaller Colonial ship (like the Aphid) or even civilian ship could enter the eye and then bring the civilian ships out. The timing would be difficult but just possible. If the Cylons made this mistake Colonel Gabrielle would take advantage of it but did not expect them to. This is one of the missions the Zephyr had.
After 3 minutes one of the stealth Raptors jumped back. "Sir the Baseship has withdrawn but left 60 Raiders to cover the eye." That was the textbook answer for the Cylons to make.
"Weapons grid to full power. Standby suppression barrage. Proceed with missile layout firing order when we land" said Colonel Gabrielle. The two missile tubes were to launch 2 regular missiles, then 3 "dazzlers" to try to overwhelm the Cylon's dradis, then their only nuke, and then 4 more regular missiles. If those 10 are fired and the Baseship did not take serious damage they were to jump out as the reload of further missiles would take a few minutes and the one nuclear weapon they had would had been wasted. Going toe to toe with a ship 4 times bigger and able to fire more missiles would be a death sentence for the Orion and Shaitan much less the 200 Raiders that a Baseship carries. "XO jump now" ordered Colonel Gabrielle.
After the non measurable time but weirdly twisting nature of the jump they landed. The jump was not quite perfect. They were a little farther back then they had hoped and slightly "higher" than plotted. Still they were damn close to the Cylons. "Incoming 32 Raiders at 184 mark 9" said LT Berkins.
"Suppression fire all batteries execute" said Captain Dammers. The Cylon Raiders were all out of position. From the dradis and the quick report the Shaitan had sent them along with the 60 covering the Eye (and now heading here at full speed) the Cylons had sent over 100 to the Shaitan. Their suppression fire (much stronger than the Orion's) had held off the Raiders destroying over 30 of them. These Raiders would have to be the reserves leaving the Baseship just down to missiles. Problem was the Toasters could fire a lot of missiles. "Guns launch the missiles" ordered the XO.
The Cylons were unable to stop the first two missiles and wasted their time hitting one of the three dazzlers. Their one nuclear missile was able to hit just above the center axis. This along with the final 3 regular missiles destroyed the Baseship. Two of the missiles fired by the Cylons hit the Orion doing moderate damage. The dazzlers had left the remaining Raiders temporarily confused letting both Colonial ships picking them off. Seeing this the 60 Raiders coming from the gas giant decided to jump out.
"Orion actual this is Shaitan Actual. Damn well done" said Major Atwood. "Sir we took only light damage and are ready to proceed."
The Orion had taken 2 missile hits to it's top armor. Not major damage but would need to be fixed along with all the other issues. "Raptor order the Zephyr to proceed" said Colonel Gabrielle.
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Geitona Sector
System 01728 Planet 5 Jumbo's "Eye"
Zephyr Bridge
"Colonial ships this is auxiliary Naval ship Zephyr. We have two ships that have destroyed the Baseship and drove off the Raiders covering our retreat. If you ever want to leave get your ass moving" said Captain Greer. Probably not official language but it got the point across.
"Zephyr this is the Lamia. First ship will be out in 10 minutes with us bringing up the rear. 20 minutes to get everyone out."
This was better time than hoped. "Jumbo" was huge. Bigger than Zeus the biggest planet in the Cyrannus System and it's atmosphere made any ship movements very challenging because visibility sucked. Greer had done some trading in Ragnar and this planet was far worse to operate in.
The Lamia had been keeping an eye on well the "Eye" and when the nuke hit the Baseship and with the explosion the Lamia had decided "now or never" and was getting ready to get away before the Zephyr had contacted them. There were 7 ships not the expected 11 as some of the older or more damaged ships were unable to deal with the stresses of the atmosphere of Jumbo. Their people and supplies had been moved to other ships but the maintenance of the civilian ships was starting to become a major issue. The Lamia would have had to try to make a distraction against the Baseship in less than 10 days hoping to draw off the Cylons knowing this would not work. After that time the civilian ships would no longer be operational.
The CO of the Lamia had agreed to follow the Orion and Shaitan for obvious reasons.
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Geitona Sector
System 15228
Repairstar Sarek
Day 115
The Orion's and Lamia's fleets had both been checked. None of the known Cylon models were found on board. No twins or duplicates. The people on both of the new fleets were shocked and concerned that Cylons could look like people but the morale boost of rescuing the people from the Lamia's fleet had at least somewhat kept the paranoia away for now. The Orion and Lamia were being fixed up. The Orion would take 4 days total and their missing engine could finally be replaced. Also they would be able to add two missile tubes to the portside of the ship. These would not be of the "revolver" type that allowed the Orion to fire 5 missiles quickly but still this would add another 40% missile volley capacity. Also the damaged armor and missing point defense systems would be fixed. This would be the best the Orion was since "Armistice Day".
Commander Valdez had agreed to send the Orion and Lamia out scouting. Those two ships had the best offensive power of their small 6 ship flotilla. The Apis would probably have been a better choice to scout but it's lack of firepower would make dealing with any dangers harder and Gabrielle suspected that Valdez wanted both of them gone as they had spent time in charge of their own fleets and might be more restive under CSB orders. However they were ordered to look for the Perseus and with the repairs and it's own company of Marines (well the Tauron Army forces added to the Orion) and a pair of Raptors they would have a lot more flexibility along with not having to protect civilian ships.
Watching his ship from the view bay of the Sarek he was thinking on how to find and deal with Admiral Howard.
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Baseship Iota 2
The Iota 2 had been given new orders. The Orion had been found and had apparently merged it's fleet with the Shaitans and Lamias. This now meant that they were the third largest group of humans behind the Galactica and it's fleet and the Picon SDF and it's large remnant of ships. The Baseship that had been hunting the Lamia was destroyed. The pair of Baseships that were hunting the Shaitan and it's fleet were to be given 3 more Baseships but the Iota 2 had opted out. 4 Baseships should be able to deal with the 5 or 6 Colonial warships.
The Number 6 Kae Godfrey had opened up about what she did before the Return and why the Iota 2 would not take part in the hunt for the Shatain's now larger fleet. "The Prime 6 has asked me to check on some possibly dangerous issues" said Kae Godfrey.
The story was long. "Sister" Godfrey had along with a Model 3 been the ones who had infiltrated the UIA or "United Intelligence Agencies" on Libran. According to Godfrey the Colonials were not in the least united in their intelligence agencies with groups such as Naval Intelligence and the CSB especially disliking each other and hiding information much less the 12 individual Colonies with everyone having their own deliberately kept separate intelligence agencies. The Cylons had been considered the greatest threat but most Colonials had thought the much larger and better Navy (after the Cylon War had ended) would stop any Cylon incursion and only the Colonial Navy had put much effort into checking on the Cylons. Most of the Intelligence Agencies efforts had been spent on keeping the Territories deliberately at a lower level to avoid or at least delay what was considered to be the more likely threat a future civil war. Eventually a Territory would be independent enough to want to become a full Colony or even go their separate way. The next most likely threat was for one of the Twelve Colonies to leave the "Twelve Colonies of Kobol". Helios Delta was the considered by the others to be the most suspicious as Canceron's attempts to blame Helios Beta for their problems and become closer to Aerilion and Aquaria was considered by Virgon especially but also Caprica, Picon, and Leonis to be some multileveled program to split apart the Colonies.
In short there had been a lot of divisions in the Twelve Colonies. The Cylons had taken advantage of these but these divisions now represented a risk. The Colonial Navy was considered to have been fully compromised so it was thought that it would be unlikely they had any surprises at this point. However there were a lot of oddities. Take the 4 "missing" Battlestars. 2 were ships that due to the chaotic nature of the battles over Scorpia and Virgon the exact count of destroyed Colonial ships was uncertain. However much like how the Anteros was "confirmed" destroyed those 2 ships were probably dead but possibly they were not. The other 2 though were different. Most counts put the total amount of Battlestars both Colonial and the SDFs at 154 but there was some evidence of there being 156. Those two if they actually existed had no information like type or names. Then there were some missing ships that had been in reserve or scrapped but no proof could be found that they existed. That the Orion with a single nuke had been able to destroy a Baseship showed that humans could be very dangerous. The initial "Plan" (as Connell long ago had realized that Cavil did not really have one) was once the Colonies would be destroyed the remaining humans would be hunted down or die was both overly simplistic and wildly optimistic. Any secret ships or supplies that might have been in place needed to be destroyed or at least staked out as bait.
That is what the Prime Six had ordered Kae Godfrey and by extension himself on the Iota 2 to do. Now how to do this was a different thing but still more interesting than looking for 40 or so civilian ships. God had chosen the Cylons as his Chosen Children but hunting down starving humans in crowded ships was "beneath" them in a way.
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Author Notes
A lot of what might have been shorter chapters here. The "Bureau" is considered on the "shady side" of legality by most. The Twelve Colonies were becoming united before the Cylon War but now they are slightly fracturing after 40 years of peace. Think how the ARM (in Known Space) treated the outer planets or the CoDominium it's colonies (but like 1000 times less badly in this case). They both want and need to expand out of the Cyrannus System but can see the future issues that those "Territories" would cause.
Now did Canceron have some grand plan to become to take over Helios Delta to leave the Twelve Colonies? No but Virgon and the other "haves" would rather see nefarious things rather than admit (and far more importantly DO anything about) their past mistakes. It is a definite fringe theory but is able to keep that almighty government pork rolling.
And speaking of fringe theories the Precursors. They will not be in this story. I just find the Cyrannus System being natural to be so unlikely and that the Colonials "Kobolformed" 8 or 9 of the planets to be livable to add so many issues that I am just going with "some aliens a long time ago made the Cyrannus System and then turned into angels or whatever" to justify it. The Colonials know this system is weird but are unaware of how weird it actually is plus the "Lords of Kobol" give some religious reasons. Again there will be no mystical beings or anything like that mainly because it feels like at this time a cop out. I would have hinted at that in like chapter 2.
Thank you all for reading. Any questions or comments are appreciated!