Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale

by cliff.west

This is a spinoff story. It takes place after "But a somehow a most melancholy" and" Hunted Tribes". Please read those before this bit of work. I will not be recovering those stories, but re-reading them will help you fallow this story. This fiction also will be slow on the combat action.

64. Chapter 64 7 Mar 3051

Chapter 64

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

7 Mar 3051

New Circe

"The Station"

Robert Copeland was still in his full SLDF Navel uniform, and he was not comfortable in the hard to maintain clothes with all of it's accoutrements. Even someone not in the military would have been able to tell that he was not comfortable in this cut of uniform. Most officers with his time in the military or almost military service had come to accept this cut of uniform almost as a second skin, and they would even feel underdressed when they were not wearing them. The only time that Robert had been able to wear the thing, was before a supply mission or after one. All while dealing with top brass, which was not joyful memory making events in this type of uniform.

Normally he would only have to rarely break out his monkey suit outside of those few events, but those had been when he had been allowed to leave the after-mission warehouse and return to his home. Even after all of these years of him being in the military, the cut of these clothes didn't feel right when he wore them. Robert would have much preferred to be wearing a jumpship's crew suit for any meeting in the military fields or anything related to his missions. That uniform was what he had spent most of his life in, and while the full-dress uniform might look "sharp" to those that knew what it was supposed to represent. Even the people on the most backward of planets within the Inner Sphere, knew what a jumpship's ship suit was.

As Robert had expected, he had not been able to spend as much time as he had planned on at his own home or with his friends. Not when he had come home with the messages and the other information about the Clans invasion of the Inner Sphere, and that Clans were now a year less travel time to New Circe. Between meetings with Military officers, Parliament, and the News services from all over the planet. His free time these last few months had evaporated like a snowflake in hell.

Between that and Robert working on some secret projects, he was feeling every day of his physical age and then some. He was looking forward to starting another mission. All just so that he could get away from some of these people, and maybe get eight hours of sleep at least one night out of a week. The run through most of the areas spread out between New Circe and the Inner Sphere were some of his lowest stress days.

Robert took a deep breath before entering the office that he had more than half dreading being in for the last week and a half. By now he was not surprised that the whole station had been outfitted with Colonial made artificial gravity plates. He knew that by now even the latrines had been refitted with them. So, no more hard to explain butt hickeys for crew or visitors when they went back down the gravity well after a stay on the heart of the space asset that belonged to the SLiE.

Robert was moving just like as if he had been dirt side, and he had to fight to keep from thinking about how to move when he went back into the Inner Sphere. He knew that he was going to have to make sure he spent a lot of time in Zero G before they ran into any "friends". When he entered the office, which he had been directed to by his orders? Robert notices the way that the young officer stood, and just waves Robert toward the other door in this side office. The one door that would lead to the mistress of this massive and still growing space station.

Robert's face had been on the tri-vids enough for the last two months. That very few people did not know who he was, even if he was not in uniform when they saw him. He could not have hidden from the public, if he was dressed in drag or he had used some of the artist SLIC was rumored to have on the payroll. This was still a new enough situation for Robert to have to deal with, that it had caused him to react more aggressively when he had been blindsided on the streets by strangers. By now it had happened often enough that he could pull out the "no comment" card before he said something dumb and opened the opportunity for conversation with whoever had accosted him on the streets. Robert, as a rule, didn't like being rude. But sometimes you just had to put your foot down, when people took it too far.

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Admiral Xi looked up when a light on her office desk lit in a dull yellow tone and held steady. It was to let her know that her next appointment was on their way to see her. If it had been a red flashing light? She would have reached for her side arm strapped onto her hip. There were a few different codes that those two lights could pass to her, but those two were at the top of her mental list. When the door opened between her office and the reception area on the other side? She just pointed to the overstuffed office chair on the other side of her cluttered desk, and she went back to finishing what she was working on.

Xi knew who was supposed to be her next appointment, and the next three appointments for today after that for that matter. If it was not him? Then her aid would have let her know, and it would not have been by a light mounted on her desk. When she was finished with her current project or paper, it had gone flying into her out box. Then she had to pull out a standalone noteputor from out of a locked desk drawer in her desk. She used her biometrics and password to digitally unlock the device set for her to see the restricted data. She took a few more seconds to review the notes that she had already made, but soon she was ready for this meeting. The whole time she was watching the older man, as she played the delay game with him.

"Okay, Robert. We are at the last review stage of your proposed plan you were asked to put together. Let's start from the top and work down the list, query affirmative." Xi sounded as tired as Robert felt that he looked like. But there was a little spark in her eyes, which Robert noticed at the last second. In that split second, Robert knew that all of this was a game that she had been playing with him, and he had fallen for it.

Robert hides a smile and activates his own noteputor that he had carried all the way up from the planet's surface below. Robert was so familiar with the plans that he had been working on these last few months. That he did not need to look at it just yet for this roasting, that he knew that he was about to have to endure.

Robert kept his eyes on his boss, as he did as he was asked. Robert kept his voice level and went into briefing mode and his defenses were up and ready. Deep down, he thought that he was ready for this game. He had worked with Xi for so long, that he knew that she would not ask some of the dumb questions that the press, public, and political leaders were sure to do.

Robert makes his back go a little straighter and makes his opening move. "The two Project jumpships, have been checked out and made fully operational for the next run. The skeleton crews that were selected for them, are starting to work on running them and getting used to the individual ships. The Styx has had her interstellar engine and her station keeping thrusters serviced by a mixed team of SLDF and Colonial personnel. The paperwork for this work has already been filed with the safety board. I have a list of dropships, which I would like to use, but that is going to be up to you and Admiral Franks to give me a go or no go on any of them."

Robert smiles as he looks at the top of Admiral Xi's head. "That covers transportation for Phase One of the operation. If we need any replacement crews or a change of support ships after the final word is given? I will have the dropship's Captain notify the personnel department to work the issues. And if it's a major end item? I will contact your office and work with your staff on fixing the problem and minimize any delays."

Robert was not going to address how her staff would report any problems within their own chain of command. It would be like teaching his mother how to cook. He knows that you would do it exactly one time, and then spend the next few months working out the flying characteristics of a thrown cast iron pan. He had found out that one of those old things could not only make it around a corner, but they also seem to have their own on-board guidance package.

Admiral Xi looked at the list of dropships on her device. It was exactly the same list that she had seen before, and the last three times that she had reviewed the plans that Commodore Copeland had sent to her. They also were the same ships that had been already upgraded to the best weapons that the SLDF In Exile can make and or spare for this mission. The one thing that Margret knew was that Robert like to stick with what and who he knew could work to get the job done. But Robert was also smart enough and mentally flexible enough, to change things when something was not working for him to meet any given task.

Xi kept her face still like a stone cliff face. "I have already talked to the Admiral's staff, and he agrees with your top three picks. Looks like the White Rabbit 2, Hobgoblin, and the Hercules will be making another trip to see your old friends in the Inner Sphere. There are some that are not happy with you changing the name of the Trish, when they found out. But you were right that her original name might just stand out a little too much, at least to someone with access to a clan level military database. The weapons and support systems have all been upgraded, as per your suggestions, which were laid out in your last post mission out brief. How are your plans working out for Part 2 of this part of your mission? We need to come up with a better way to delineate these things." She had said the last part almost under her breath.

Robert still was not looking down at his noteputor as he spoke. He had been working on this plan for almost every day for more months than he had been back on New Circe. "We are having four different advertisements worked up, that we want to come out of Canopus IV. They are just doing the gross work to make sure it fits with what SLIC might have told any of the groups. All of them use the same musical recall code that the SLIC files told us about. We will buy time from ComStar, so that they are going to play on every planet in the Inner Sphere as quick as we can get the advertisements to them. Anyone who wants to be pulled out of the Inner Sphere will be told to come to Canopus, and they are to stay at a given Resort. That Resort data has not been worked out at this time. My people will have to modify the advertisements when we have the final data points or make any other changes, that might be needed due to unforeseen changes in the Inner Sphere. If my people don't have the right skill levels, we can always farm out the work to a local company."

"I will be contacting Lora and a few others that we know about, to get ready to move before we launch the ad campaign in full scale deployment. As the Styx's makes her rounds being seen and doing what we always do. We will stop by the capital of the MC for trade, and to get ready for the big step. We will use the capital from the sale of the two jumpships and use the funds to buy what we are calling a Resort. That is just a term that we are using. It might or might not be a Resort in the conventional sense. Canopus is well known for having Resorts of various sizes, and that is what we think will fit our needs the best. I spent some time thinking about this, but I didn't have the time or ability to get a lot of details on what the Resort availability was when we last left the area. I know that we will have enough money in the accounts that MMM is putting money in as payment for what was found on Cate's Hold, to pick up something that was listed as for sale."

"I just want to try to keep that separated from this part of the plan for reasons that SLIC might be better at explaining. We should be able to tap them at need for support on a resupply mission, but I had a talk with some of SLIC's forensic accountant people. And after about three hours of them talking about this subject using more slides than any sane mind would have made in the first place, that might not be the best idea. About all I can say, is that it could be bad field craft for our people. And it could go sideways, if certain types of people start looking too closely at the Resort and the money that came from MMM."

"We will keep buying ads to be posted and played in all of the drop ports passenger handling areas in the Canopus system, and they will be beamed to any visiting dropships or jumpship. Sending Ads to ships waiting at a jump point seems to be standard practice. This will work as the final check point and update any location changes that they might have to go through. This function will give us some flexibility that can be rapidly adjusted as we identify any issues, which might come up during this part of the operation."

Robert let a small smile come to his face. "The song in all of the ads will be working around the theme of "All of the lights are on in the house for you." When the Resort is bought and under "our" control? That is when we will release the ads to the whole Inner Sphere. While Lora and a staff that we will have to set up are managing the resort? I will continue my planned routes and trading around the MC and other points to best meet the rest of my mission statement. This also should keep any eyes focused on me and not the Resort and the people visiting it. I will stop by the resort before hitting my final stop or close to it. That will be before going back to the Split system for my first offloading. I will have to play it by ear on where I need to travel to fill my cargo bays."

Admiral Xi was marking off boxes on the items listed on her display, as Robert had spoken off the top of his head in reference to them. "Okay that is a good outline, but I want to cover some more of the Part 2 plans in more detail. Why do you think this Duke Terry will lift most or some of her people and join us? And what manufacturing assets do you think she can pull out with her?"

Xi knew that New Circe and the SLiE could not handle another Victorian level of influx of people, not so soon after the last major "dumping". The SLiE needed people that could be an addition to the war effort with very little lag time after arriving on New Circe. They needed more people trained in Colonial or better levels of technology, and less people who only knew how to work with steam age tech as a base of training and experience. Even people that were at the Age of War level of a tech base would be of some help in the fight against the Cylon Empire. Now the Victorians had uses like farming and ranching, but the planet and the war effort needed more than that.

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Robert was now uncomfortable, in the overstuff chair as the woman gave him a level look. He had been expecting this line of questioning, but that didn't mean that he was looking forward to having to deal with them. "She had talked to me, twice, about running away and joining my crew. The last time that we talked, it was not in jest when she asked about leaving Ltzehoe. She told me that she knows that ComStar is working to get her dead Ex-Husband second nephew to take over as the leader of the planet and kick her to the curb.

"She thinks, and I agree. That this was their back up plan all along when that councilman centric plan fell on its face. She had a very strong following among the population of the planet, and she thinks that she will be able to stay ahead of them for maybe as long as two years. But she knows, that ComStar can afford to keep dropping mech companies, or even full regiments, and their cost equivalent of financial support on their local allies. And they can keep doing that until she runs out of people that support her, and luck to beat them on both the mech battlefield and political battlefields. She does not want that much blood on her hands"

Robert shifted in his chair again and tried to get more comfortable, but he knows it's a losing battle. His discomfort was mental and not physical. "Also, on my last visit. She showed me almost all of the main production facilities that she had built or had inherited when she took over as the planetary leader. She also briefed me on her plans to evacuate those facilities, and all the people loyal to her. She is going to have to leave the planet, the only part missing in her plans is some place to run to after she evacuates. Her plan's basic outline is just to take over any dropships that she could, and then burn out to take over any jumpship that might be sitting there. She had no idea what direction to go after taking said jumpship. But she was thinking about heading away from any of the areas that are controlled by the House Lords, the Clans, and ComStar."

Robert let out a little of his breath. "But you asked what she might pull off the planet as far as production capability. She has half a dozen ammunition factories that are on the small size compared to some of the major companies in the Inner Sphere, but more than a few are what I would have called medium sized for us. On the plus side is that they are all complete and not that old, wear wise, compared to what we are dealing with."

"Along with those factories. She has also half a dozen mining operations that are up and running, and that she feels are loyal enough to her to join in the evacuation. Even if we could only get half of all of that infrastructure onto dropships? It would be a great help to us, and the war against the Cylons. If we have enough time, we can pull out more than just the trained workers. They also might be helpful in a future war against the rest of the Clans."

Xi was nodding her head in agreement without realizing it. Then her eyes got hard, and she looked down her nose at the Commodore. She was wishing that she could use the looking over her glasses thing, like Bill or Laura had used in some of the news shows over the last few years. Only the people with Wolverine's genes didn't need to wear corrective vision devices. She would just have to use her leadership skills that all of the years of serving in the SLiE military gave her.

"Those items will need to be listed in your appendixes, and another 50k to 100k trained personnel would be helpful to us. That is if they understand the rules that we have to live under. Once they are here? They are not going back to the Inner Sphere, and they will not be able to communicate to anyone that they might have left back there. This will be how it is going to be, for the rest of their lives. Not all of them will have a personal connection to keep them loyal to us for any length of time. You know what will happened to the ones that are like that, and they break the rules?"

Robert was eye locked on his boss, as she talked about some of the people that might change their minds. They would be more or less prisoners with a life sentence. A gilded cage was still at its heart a cage or prison. "I understand, and I will make sure, that Terry knows this also. I will cover it in as much detail, as I can while staying within the proper protocols. We will only help in bringing out people who agree to our terms and know that they might not be exiting a warzone. They are only changing who is fighting whom. That is if they want to join us in the first place. At this time, all we know for sure is that Terry wants to leave. We are just planning on others wanting to join her on a trip to a new home far from their local space."

Admiral Xi typed some more notes on her standalone little computer at blinding speed. Robert was saying all the right things in this meeting, and in other meetings, that he had to sit through after he had been given this mission. It was nice that those answers were matching up with what was in the plan, and also coming from half a dozen other people that were keeping an eye on things. Xi had no idea how much money SLIC was using to keep an eye on Copeland and his crew, but she was betting that it was not a small part of their "public" budget.

This was a very high-risk mission a lone, and that was not the only mission Robert was covering at the same time. Just calling back any of the Families was bad enough to plan on top of a resupply run of this complexity. Now they were talking about planning to evacuate up to a hundred thousand barbarians that would be leaving the Inner Sphere right under the very noses of the clans, ComStar, and the Great Houses all at the same time. She did not know if all of this was a good idea or not, and she changed the subject.

"Why do you think this Don person is worthwhile to bring back to New Circe?" Xi looked up from the data displayed on her screen with an expecting look. This had been a small side note of only about six lines on a plan that was measured in over two hundred pages, and it was still growing in the page count every day.

Robert smiled, it was a very sly smile at his boss, and again this was not a surprise to have to cover at this meeting. He had an idea of why names of Don and Terry had been brought up in this meeting. Robert knew that not all of the Wolverines were happy with the sudden increase in population of the planet that were not "true" Wolverines. There was a small but growing number of talking heads on the Tri vid that were bringing up this subject. Even when they were beaten over the head with facts, they would not back down.

The total population of the Colonial city state was now most of the way to 200k, and the Victorians were currently just over 150k. The total population of Wolverines on the planet had the baby making chains removed and they were just crossing the million soul mark, and that was after all of the casualties they had to deal with. Before the coming of the Colonials to New Circe. The population managers had planned on doubling the Wolverines population every two decades. It was a great plan, right up until it stopped working for the leaders of the SLiE.

Now those Iron Womb chains had been released almost 7 years ago. Soon they had run out of Iron Wombs, and by direct order of the Lord Protector more were built even if it meant that it was going to be a few less battlemechs walking off the lines. The limit was not the number of Iron Wombs that could be built, but the support systems that the Wombs needed. There were only so many trained people to do the required genetics or for the monitoring of the active wombs. Then there was the power, redundant systems and life support for the Wombs. They hit the upper limit of new Iron Wombs very rapidly. But as the supporting systems grew, the number of Iron Wombs started to slowly clime soon after.

Now the first huge wave of young kids was hitting the education systems, with slightly larger ones following right behind them in ever growing waves about every nine months. Thanks to gene editing and good healthcare (including clone and cybernetic replacements when necessary). The average age of a Wolverine was around 125 Terran years, and with many living longer than that. This would make for a horde of descendants for any family that made use of those Iron wombs, and even some issues for those few that didn't avail themselves to this technology. With a human generation of barely twenty years, it was not unheard of for a person to see six or even seven younger generations opening their eyes before they closed theirs. That had caused issues of names for those younger generations. Now it was popular to use a random name generator for first, middle, and other legal or just names used within the family and close friends. For her part Laura Roslin had herself once also been somewhat surprised to be invited to a party held by the Lord Protector at her home, and she ended up meeting her grandparents (both sets).

The issues with the Rebel and defecting human form Cylons was a totally different matter. When you were dealing with the other numbers of people, a few thousand is just a rounding error. One of the positives, from Robert's point of view, that adding all of those new people had done was force the SLiE to do something that was not on most people's radar.

They had updated the plan to increase the planet's average temperature a few months after the Colonials had found them. The additions also had increased the number of "real" if not large cities, then there was the number of towns popping up all around the planet. Now instead of only one area that could be blasted from space by Cylon or the Clans, there were many population centers to spread out the orbital fire love. The old murphy saw of don't be conspicuous, it draws fire was well known to Clan Wolverine.

These additional heat islands around the planet were pushing the "farm line" that allowed people to grow more food North, South, and at the same time higher in elevation. The plan to make the planet warmer was now over two decades ahead of where they would have been if the colonials had NOT found New Circe. Robert knew that the relevant department with in the SLiE were looking at keeping at this speed of warming for the next ten or more years, before they would even think about working on slowing it down.

"We have made contact with Don, a few times now. I believe that you have seen the reports that I had done by a watcher, which I had assigned to him for the last few years. He was the one, which we picked up the Wolfhound mech from on our first run to the Inner Sphere. He told us all the way back then, about his plans to get out of the war fighting business. He wanted to focus on building and rebuilding the damage done by war."

"He wanted to set up a fully functional workmech school of a modest size. One that could be moved around to different planets working on rebuilding local infrastructure and teaching students at the same time. But things have not been working out as he had planned, after his surgery. He has also asked to join our crew more than a few times. The last time I checked, and I don't have those types of details with me. I think that he has access or owns three workmechs, and all of the training materials to start teaching classes in basic, intermediate, and journeyman skills in their use outside of combat. I have no idea on the master level skills, that Don might have or if he will be able to come up with a program of instruction at that level."

"I think that having a new and dedicated workmech school ready to start up at the drop of a hat, is definitely something that we could use on this planet. Before we have relied on our battlemech school to provide the basics skills for workmechs. And then the operators would pick up the needed skills all on their own, or maybe at the home-schooling level. I was thinking that he could set the school up over within the Victorian City State, that is if he asked for any input from me. I think that it would help set the young pilots up with new skills as they build their own towns and other infrastructure. It would also allow for getting some of the better pilot trainees ready to move up into real battlemechs when they are ready to be plucked out of the trees. After all it is not like the Colonials are going to take those jobs of piloting workmechs in the near or middle term planning."

Both of them knew that they, the colonials, were now only up to the level of not demonstrating every time that one of the Battlemechs was spotted near the city. Or lord forbid when a local company would contract out for a workmech and pilot to do anything from helping build a building, dig a trench for a pipeline, or clear land for any of a number of reasons. That didn't mean that they like seeing them working around them in any kind of way. The last polling, that had not been released to the public, had shown that the anti mech attitude was "mellowing out". It was starting at about the teenage level on average. Within that group, there were people in that age group that were more willing to accept this technology. And then there were others, which hated them with a passion that borderlined on a paranoid level.

Admiral Xi was now looking down at her screen tapping away, and she was trying to hide a smile that she could not keep off her face. Robert had a good idea and he had made more than a few "game points" that had been overlooked by her staff. This one good idea had just covered a needed mission on New Circe that had not been looked at in any great detail that she knew of. Now maybe in the next two or three generations there would be a change. At least now this could be an opportunity for the ones that were not going to be mech jocks for long term military service, so that they now would have jobs that would be of a huge benefit to the SLiE.

The Colonials would need more time to come to grips to the current tech baseline for key warfighting ground equipment. Having more workmechs and a place that willing hands could go learn about them might glean a few of those more open-minded Colonials. That was not a total loss, after all they were good fighter pilots, spaceship's crews, and were developing a reputation as top-notch tank gunners.

During the last wargames, the York had taken a hit that had surprised everyone. It had come from a Colonial run Pollux ADA tank that no one had seen in hiding. Also, the company of Demon wheeled tanks of the colonials had won last year's sharp shooting contest. They were even filling out some new infantry units, they were replacing the lost Wolverine units as they were starting to field light powered battle armor to some SLDF formations.

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When Xi had the bullet points written down, she looked back to Robert. "Okay, now let us move away from Phase 1 Part 2, fully into Phase 2. Query affirmative."

Xi brought up this information on her small device in her hands and set up her screen, so that she could look at it and Robert at the same time. Unlike Robert, she always had a lot of different irons in the fire at the same time, and she could not focus only on one or even just three missions at one time. Lately she had noticed that her mind did not seem as sharp as it used to be due to stress. Things were so much simpler when she only had to worry about her next promotion, and she had only been updating plans to make a resupply run that might leave in a few years to half a decade in the future. But all of that had been before the Colonials had found them, and the war with the Cylons had added a new player on the board for her to have to deal with.

Robert now had to look at his noteputor for the first time in this meeting. He had been expecting that the first part of the plan was going to take the longest to walk through. Then he would be asked to leave the office and he would need to set up another meeting about the rest of the plan. He thought that this was not the end of the battle for that part of his plans, only the latest skirmish in a longer war. This fast pace might just be an attempt by Admiral Xi to distract him, and then she could launch an end run around him mentally to try to catch him off guard at a later time. That was not going to work against Robert, and he served up the data that his boss wanted.

"That is the part of the plan about setting up a forward base for more runs and with a more rapid turnaround of each mission into the Inner Sphere. Now we are working under a major modification of that base idea. This is based around a key fact; of that it is going to take more than just a few months for members of the Families to make it all the way to the capital planet of the MC during a wartime footing of most of the Inner Sphere. They will be coming from wherever in the Inner Sphere they might currently be residing. They could be coming from any area that is not under direct threat of occupation by the Clans. We would think that they would have fled that area by now, or we would have known that they had been found already."

"Now when they make it to the Resort on Canopus? They are not going to be coming empty handed…..you can bet your bottom Script on that. They also might have grown in number over the years, and that is not counting any of the Lost Ones that might still be around." He had been raked over the coals when he had reported that he had a meeting with someone "claiming" to be from a lost ship sent to the Inner sphere. It was just too bad that he had none of the answers that they seemed to think that he should have at the tip of his tongue.

Robert had to spend a lot of time in the early steps of this plan just countering ideas that the total number of family members that would want to leave, would be lower than the total number that had been sent back in the first place. Robert was betting that anyone waiting to leave the Inner Sphere were going to be bringing everyone that they were even slightly close to. That would be on top of them taking everything in their homes that they could pack into a dropship. Robert was thinking that this was not going to be a totally "a bad thing" for the overall mission to support New Circe.

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"When I had first come up with this base outline for this part of the plan on a support base. It was on the way back from my first run to the Inner sphere. I had thought about just using the Black Lion Rickenbacker for the support base. She had massive cargo bays, and she had done something like this mission on some of the other and larger resupply runs we have launched in the past. You know, it is too bad that we could not find one of those Corncobs that we can get back in operation for this idea. They would need the new drives and colonial made artificial gravity plates, and there is no way that those modifications can be made in time. One of those would have made this whole new mission a lot easier, and they would be able to carry a lot more cargo as well as everything else they could add to the mission. But I understand that they are being planned to support higher profile mission requirements." Robert almost did air quotes on that last sentence.

"Then again? Using the SLS Lyssa is crazy enough, that it should work just as well as using the Rickenbacker or the Egg Sac. That and she still looks enough like a normal Olympus class station to be useful if someone sees her. I thought that we could put her in close to the star. Maybe close to that Super Earth sized rocky planet, and not at one of the main or even common pirate jump point locations. A location like this will make her harder to find, and her crews can do some prospecting and mining in the local area on down times. I will admit that it took some of my people longer to come to that same conclusion, when it was first brought up and her name was thrown into the pot in the planning meeting."

Robert needed to stop talking and go to a different page of data on his digital device. The planning for this part of the mission was under someone else's direct command, but it was still under his control as the overall mission commander. He had only given an outline of the base idea, and then he had to delegate to others to plan around those limits.

Robert did not look up as he started referring to the data on his little electronic device. "Okay the SLS Lyssa will be "carrying" or acting as the tender craft to a Titan, or an Olympus class jump dropship, and the Blockade-runner warship. She also will be carrying three jump fighters and three "normal" but updated SLDF designed fighters. They will look like "normal" Royal SLDF fighters, but I understand that they are going to be referred to as what they are calling Royal + standard in the paperwork. To anyone that might stumble onto them out of the deep dark. They will look like old SLDF ships, but they will be outfitted with LR PPCs and when possible third generation weapons in case of conflict with the Clans. They will not have HODs cannon, Lightning-Javelin, Thunder-Javelin, or laser anti-missiles systems."

"They will also have three Raptor and three "normal" small craft of whatever type her Captain wants for this mission. The Lyssa will stay in the Split system until recalled by higher command threw the TacFax that she is being outfitted with in her main communication shack. She is currently not fitted with even a tactical HPG system, and I don't think that one is important to her mission. I have passed this idea over to SLIC, and we have washed our hands of those issues. We have it marked as not being under this mission statement."

"After the Lyssa arrives, any additional personnel will be transferred to her by the Styx on the first setting up in that location. Another option that we are looking at, has the ships that will be running the support missions from her and the Split system going back to New Circe to be added the job of supplying any additional manpower. She also has four operational dropship collars and large bays to hold areas that could be used for holding more passengers or cargo. Between the two collars that are not needed to dock one of the two escort ships, the others can be used besides the large cargo holds on the Lyssa. These options all work on her recall from the mission as well. Still, she will be able to carry a truly massive amount of cargo, when we wrap up these supply runs." Robert was working on the idea that the supply runs would have to end sometime. And when they rolled up this operation? They could use the Lyssa as a final collection point before everyone could come back home.

Xi was holding her head by her chin with one of her hands, as she listens to Robert and work down the list that she had been taking notes on. "Okay? So, let me get this straight commodore. The Lyssa would be your base for dropping off cargo items you pick up from the Inner Sphere, the recovered Families, Duke Terry, and those that will follow her. Query affirmative. You are that sure, that you can pick up that much additional cargo from her to carry in one lift mission. Even if they are fighting the clans query affirmative? What would you need to trade to accomplish a task of this magnitude? And how much cargo do you think that you will be able to shift to her?"

Robert did not flinch at the pointed question. He thought that Xi would have checked on that information before they had started this meeting today. "Yes, we could. And it would cut down on having to come all the way back to New Circe to drop off the load, do all of the paperwork, and then go back and get more. I think that we can pull out full loads for the Hercules every few months, as long as I have fresh trade items. What are you thinking about her bringing out? The same items as before?" Robert was not that worried about getting stale with his cargos, but there would be a point of market saturation for any one thing.

Admiral Xi's head comes up from her screen. She had an odd look on her face and then she looked out into space over Robert's head. She had expected Robert to have jumped on that bone that she had just thrown out, like a dog on a three-legged cat. He had not, and she was thinking about if she had missed something or not while dealing with him. After a few seconds of thinking her eyes dropped to Robert's face.

"You have been to a good part of the Inner Sphere, more than anyone else on the whole planet. And you have done it more often than anyone else on New Circe can claim, without being laughed out of the bar. And you have been looking around the Planet for the last few months, and I'm not going to reference what you have been up to after your other missions. If law enforcement is okay with your actions, who am I to judge. I think that you have more flight miles in atmospheric flights than most people had space miles. Oh, I wanted to ask! How was flying in the FB-335's? Is it as nice as they advertise that it is? Query negative."

Xi waves her hand in the air to wave off the last few questions and got her brain back into this meeting. "Never mind! What would you suggest, Commodore?"

Robert tilted his head to one side and shrugged his shoulders. He was about to tell a lie; it might be a little one, but it was still going to be one. He had been brought up that it was always a bad idea to lie to one of your bosses. "Admiral? I have had so much going on for the last few months. That I did not know about the Lyssa, or the updates being done to the Station until it was brought up to me. I also was told to check out what New Circe was making in a late-night meeting. I was told that the list was as long as the Zug, but I have no clue on the amounts that are in excess of military needs. I don't have a feel for what the Lyssa can do and what she cannot do, until a few months ago. I also do not have a list of projects or other major items, that our people might have available for me to take to the Inner Sphere." Robert was being vague because it was Admiral Xi's staff's job to know that kind of information and not your run of the mill Commodore.

Admiral Xi was blinking rapidly at what Robert had said to her. She had forgotten that Robert had been going at the speed of light, ever since he had dropped the bomb on them a few months ago. He had not even taken any vacation time of more than a day or two in a block, which was normal after a mission to the inner sphere. That didn't even count, that he had been running a very successful trading/spying mission for almost a year for her people. She should not be that surprised that he did not have time to know all of the ends and outs of everything, yet. She was not buying that Robert didn't have some idea of what was going on, at least in gross numbers. She also could not call him on the carpet, because it was not his job to know these things.

"You know that the Colonial City State is making some later Star League Tech weapons, along with the Blazers rifles and handguns. We have shifted all of our production into only at least third generation tech, or what has been called Clan tech by the lay person on our part of the planet. And the Colonials are also supplying many of the spare parts that might be needed to be used in most Late Star League tech weapons that we still have in operation. I would expect that the Colonials will go to higher tech level output in the next few years, but only as their education and experience increases. I know some are looking forward as it gets closer to Wolverine level tech of manufacturing."

"You will be given the last of the Colonial made ballistic weapons that our government owns or that the civilians are willing to sell. That is not going to be as large of a stock as you might think. I know that Callahan Munitions will be willing to help a close friend, like you, with any extra stock that they might have on hand. The Victorians are still wanting some of those for the war against the Cylons, and that is still driving active production. Those along with the Blazer rifles that are filling out the infantry and battle armor units of all three militaries on the planet. Callahan has been making them at rates that should be shocking, if I was not already used to seeing those production reports. I understand that the Colonial base facilities are still earmarking 20 percent of their total production of Blazers rifles for sale off planet, starting from the week that you came back. I do not know if they have many of the Blazer side arms that can be made in time for your next run. You will have to think about if they would be worth the cargo cubage or the stress of trying to get some for your mission."

Xi had a small smile on her face. "They are making extremely good extended range 8cm large lasers that any Royal SLDF unit would have loved to be supplied with before The Exodus. SLIC says that they will be able to start very low-rate production of second generation extended range 8cm lasers in less than twelve months, if they can find the tools. You will also have access to hundreds of early generation anti-missile systems. The laser version of that weapon has almost totally replaced the ammunition dependent weapons within both fleets and ground forces of the SLDF.

The SLDF Brain Trust that is SLIC also thinks that by now, the major powers within the Inner Sphere will be ready with a line of straw buyers on your next run. That is if they had not been buying some of what you have been selling already within the Inner Sphere. I have people working on a betting pool on if they will be emplaced and waiting on your return."

"As we replace the other older weapons on the oldest machines that we have on the planet. They will be sent to the Lyssa, but it might be a bit chaotic for inventories for the foreseeable future. And as you know, we have completely replaced the KWI type first generation ultra-cannons and early generation of ER PPC in our total order of battle."

Xi made a slight snicker that only a handful of people on this station had ever heard before, and a real smile came to her face. "I think we could start shipping the "Bear Killer" class weapons to the Lyssa in six months to a year, call it 18 months at the outside. It will be as the newer LR PPC replaces them even on the oldest battle units in our inventory. It is not going to make MMM very happy, but they will have had over a full year or two of production and profit making, all before we start competing with them in this one product. That is the suggestion that I am putting forward, if only to help with logistics of only supporting one type of PPC within our combat forces. I also know that there are many of the old-style high efficiency heatsinks sitting in storage around the planet. I will have an updated shopping list sent to your digital mail before you leave the station. I think that covers the "small" stuff that you might want to draw on."

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Admiral Xi could tell that this part of her brief was covering things that Robert had already known, and she mentally kicked herself at her verbal tirade for the last few minutes. The flat look on Robert's face was an easy give away to this fact. Xi worked quickly to gain back any lost mental points. "Of course, you know all of that. But what you do not know, is that we have been collecting what most people call working projects. Those two Invader class ships are perfect examples of Projects that are being actively worked on by my people at any one time. Most have turned out only to be useful for some spare parts or metals to be recycled into something more useful. Still, we have pulled out a few gems from the crap, so it has paid off very well for us. It was not just about the ones that you took to the Inner Sphere. It was with items like the Lyssa, and the other programs that are still being pushed by the Lord Protector."

"We have repaired or can have ready to be moved out of the system's cache site right now is limited to one more Invader, a Merchant class and a Star Lord class jumpships that the SLDF Navy as found and removed from their old hiding places. With the ships that the Colonials still have, we have an excess of transport ships, even with fighting a war that is spread out over a good part of the Galaxy. The Merchant class jumpship would have been considered to small anyway, and the same goes for the last of the Invader class jumpships."

"Why keep around any Invader class ships when you have Tramps, and even mid-sized Colonial ships that are not being fully used. Now the Star Lord? She was an old Rim World Military Ship, and many within the SLDF Navy do not want to keep it around due to her past. At least not if they don't have to by order of the Lord Protector. That is what you have to choose from Robert, for large ticket items that are at your disposal. Things might change without any warning, and they do from time to time for no apparent reason that my staff has been able to work out. I will make sure that I will keep an updated list where you can find it."

Robert took some notes on his own small device, but he was deep into his computer trying to work out all of the what's and how's that this information would impact his mission. "When we were on our last trip. I picked up that shipping assets were getting thin in my traveling area, even with the recovery of some of the ship building companies. A lot of the larger cargo shippers and even small independent jumpships crews were being hired to move military units and supplies around. That is not new for the Inner Sphere, but that was before more jumpships started coming off of the slips from all over the Inner Sphere.'

"That was why I have no issues taking the two Invaders back with me at the start of the run. They might take some time to move, due to the cost I will have to ask for them and not have people start asking questions. But they would move in the current market, as long as I give my contacts in the Families enough time to find buyers for them. I would like permission to be able to draw down the MMM supplied accounts to under 1 billion equivalents of C-Bills. It will be to run the mission and not for the Resort, until those two jumpships can find new homes. That will give me a lot of capital on hand, even if Heckle and or Jeckle do not sell as fast as I think that they will. I take it that we are not trying to move any dropships on this run?"

Robert knew that there had been rumors that some within the SLDF that wanted Robert to move some dropships like they had done with the Trojan class blockade runners. Robert was not a fan of this idea, only due to the problems it would cause him with his plans on the ships he wanted to use. The skeleton crew needs for an Invader without dropships was almost half of one that was carrying dropships. He had kept his ears open, but this subject had only been batted around lightly after his latest return from the Inner Sphere.

When the rumors had been stopped cold, he had not thought much about it. This would fall into a project that the Lord Protector wanted to keep a close tab on. During a recent wargame held at the highest levels. A Cylon force was able to force its way into orbit of the planet. It had only done so at a huge cost in Cylon Basestars, but they had done it. Now the senior staff was taking some of those cargo dropships and setting up hide sites. A cache was to store weapons to fight, these were for something else. They had just started but each Arc site was centered on a dropship and one of the recovered Oppie hazmat trucks.

Xi looked down at her notes and she had to move threw a few pages of data, which might have the information she was now needing. It was on the last page and the last lines of a report from her chief of staff that she found what she was looking for. She felt a frown come to her face, at what she reads, and she makes a note to do some more checking with her staff.

Without looking up Xi replies to Robert in a voice that Robert knows bodes ill for someone. "At this time. It looks like the Fleet wants to keep any capital assets like functional cargo dropships that are currently in our system for a secondary issue. It looks like the only problem dropships that they really wanted to get rid of were those Trojans or they have been repurposed, cut up, or recycled already. That is too bad."

"If the Inner Sphere powers are having shipping issues, some of those extra cargo movers might have sold for more than they should have. It would have only cost you some extra fuel to take a few back with you to dump on the market and then come home to pick up some more to sell. Water under the bridge, I guess. Still increasing the amount of jumpships in the Inner Sphere would be a great way to help the Inner Sphere fight the Clans on one level." Xi made another mental note to check on how MMM was able to leverage the shipyard she pointed them to. Then those thoughts came to a screeching halt.

#################

Robert's head shot up from his display and his eyes went vacant for a few seconds. Xi knew about Robert's heart condition and how close he was to losing his space papers. This was the first thing that popped into her head, as she saw the look on his face from across this desk. "Robert? Are you okay? Do I need to call a medico, Query Affirmative?"

Robert slowly shook his head from side to side, but his face still had the pale lost look on his face. He started slowly speaking. "No, I am okay. I just had a thought out of the blue with your last statement. I remembered that the Cylon made jump engines have an even larger jump bubble than the huge one that the Pegasus puts out. I think I can trade all of the jumpships you were talking about, and without coming all the way home to pick up the rest of the ships."

Robert's face and eyes now were back to normal, and the words fell out of his mouth like a firefighter on a house fire. "The Lyssa could copy how we are carrying the two Invaders, but with the Star Lord and an Invader or whatever else that might need to find new homes. All they would need to do, is put the longest civilian jumpships on each side of the dome area. It's the area that holds the green park when they took out the guts of the huge hamster wheel deck. Then they could attach the blockade runner on the bottom of her hull. That is near where the radiators for her updated heat management system have been placed."

"She also could just put the Merchant class jumpship in her hull, while she self-deploys to the Split system. I think that it could be carried in Bay 5 without too many issues with the jumps, but it would cut down on the cargo ability she can move out that way. That would be a good use of her total internal volume on her run close to the Inner Sphere, and they could finish any needed work on her before we put them on the market. If the numbers work out, the way that I think they will? It might save the need to run the Zephyr out with that warship strapped to her outer hull."

Xi's eyes went wide and soon both of their heads were down into their digital devices. Robert was the first to look up. He had his sly little smile on his face, that said he knew what kind of bombshell he had just thrown at her staff and the staff for the whole SLiE navy. Xi had forgotten that the Lyssa had a Cylon jump drive, and it was one of the largest classes of jump drive known to have ever been made. Xi had also forgotten that the Styx was not the only tow truck that the SLDF Navy had access to. Soon Xi had to activate her main computer to start looking for some information.

Robert saw her face and how she moved, but Robert was not going to stop just yet with his line of thinking. It was risky to overload her like this, but he needed to get some of this out into the air for the benefit of making sure it was a good idea, vs just a shot in the dark. "I do not have access to the computer testing data that they ran on the Lyssa. Admiral Xi? This is just an idea, but if any of the other jump craft had some small craft as part of their combat load out? They could stay with the larger mothership, the Lyssa, and they would be useable in that system for other missions. She does not have enough small craft bays, but they could be docked to any of the side hatches for short periods without any issues."

"Also, we did not have time to do any details scans of that local system for anything geologic, but it has those spies' satellites that we put at the normal jump points. They were not looking for anything but jumpships, dropships and any other type of trespassers. But they could have useful data points to start with on other types of scouting. That mission might be something that would keep the Lyssa's crews on their toes and fight any long term buildup of boredom. It is possible that they might find something useful, a star system is a large piece of real-estate."

"Now the two Invader jumpships that I am carrying at the start of this run. What if their crews could come back to the Split system, after they are sold? Then they can be added as crew for the other jumpships that the Lyssa or other updated jumpships can bring to the Split system at later dates from New Circe. Then they could begin ferrying the new arrivals from the Split system to the Inner Sphere, one jumpship at a time for sale, and not overload the local market. A major House would only be able to make about a pair to half a dozen jumpships a year. We will be doing many times that threw the Split System."

Robert had a predatory smile on his face. "Yea! That would be a good use of our limited manpower, all without increasing the number of people who have to pass the full set of Protocol tests to get the job done. I still would push that any crewmembers assigned to this mission have to pass all of those tests. But if we run short of people? Maybe a cut down versions of those test could be drawn up on a sliding scale of risk? That would be a good Plan B."

Admiral Xi now was visibly shocked as Robert verbally assaulted both her ears and mind with his rapid fire words. She had been thinking about one or maybe two of the excess old style jumpships being sent in after the first two jumpships the Styx would carry to market. Robert had just come up with a very detailed outline of a plan to get rid of all five ships, and then any more that were spread out in the four space caches around this system. There would be an issue about losing the easy source of Germanium for rebuilding battle damaged cores. But getting rid of any excess civilian jumpships would make the bookkeepers in the Navy very happy people. That is, if they could pull off this crazy plan in the first place.

#######################

Even if the SLDF Navy did not use the conventional jumpships in this war or between the resupply runs? They would have to have teams of highly trained crewmembers going to each of the jumpships every month. It had been once every few years, before the war had kicked off. That had changed after the reports on some of the conditions on those ships had been filed when they were moved closer to the planet for "safe keeping." Now they would have to go power the whole jumpship up and test every system and subsystem on those ships. They would note any issues that they found and pass along the data to The Station. They might not get the repair done by the next scheduled power run up, but it would have to be done at some time in the near future.

That did not cost that much in the overall big picture for the war effort, but money was very tight with all of the demands the war was causing the SLiE. It also didn't count all of the highly trained man hours needed to do this, that could be used in other missions to support the rest of the war effort. They had whole groups of bean counters that were looking for ways to cut that budget line from the Navy's overall budget, but without any notable success in the last half decade.

But now somehow Robert had done it. He also had come up with an idea on how to keep the numbers of extra crewmembers as low as possible for the overall mission at the same time. Xi could not help but think that maybe the SLDF Navy had messed up, when they had not offered Robert a senior command position before giving him his walking paper so long ago. He was in command of making supply runs, but what would he have been like if he had been walking a warship's deck to command a battle?

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Margret Xi got her face back under control, but her voice had a bit of a cracking sound when she first started speaking. "Okay, Commodore. I will see what I can do on my end to see, if we can get some traction on this idea from higher command. How many modifications will need to be done on the Lyssa? Do you have a timeline of those modifications to support these missions, as you have published in your report?"

Robert had to think for a second at the sudden shift in the meeting. "Not as much as you might think. Most of the work has already been done, just to make her useable by the Navy. All but one of the huge batteries has been removed some time ago. The last one was kept and completely refurbished. It is working as an emergency backup, just in case of power loss or for a need to increase power supply at short notice. The now opened space and the mass was used to add offices, workspace, living space, storage areas, and green living wall areas."

Robert flipped to a new digital page. "The armored skin has been replaced with updated and reinforced metal for the skin and structural support. It is not the most effective armor that "we" can make, but it's better and thicker than what she was built with a few hundred years ago. The weapons have been updated with at least Royal grade weapons or better, and that includes the heat management systems. I wish that we can go to full third generation on weapons, armor, and heat management, but I can't find a reason that is even remotely valid. The same is true about outfitting her with capital scale weapons."

Robert was on a role again, and he folded his hands into his lap and just went to work. "The main hamster wheel gravity deck was stripped and converted into a mixed use space that includes green and growing space to augment their fresh food supplies and to help recycle the air and water. I am told that they have even fitted a few walkways in the area to make it also a kind of a park area for the crew. They still have one of the small grav decks in operation to help with any cover story. I think that SLIC was the one that kept pushing to keep that one working. I am of two minds about its use versus cost and benefits."

The smile was back on his face, as Robert mentally patted himself on the back. "I also think that adding the tools from the small factory will help make them be more independent. It would seem that someone had read the notes on the Bivouac system, and that the repair bays can support an object like the Olympus class recharge station. But it would still need help to keep it fully in operation for an extended mission. It will take longer to stock the food and any needed spare parts that is above what is normal for something of her base class. I would think that they will need to plan for at least a two year mission with an extension of another year. They will get some support from my mission and from the ships that are coming out from New Circe. I think that with this support, the base could be viable for as long as we need her to be."

Xi asked something that she was hoping that she knows the answer to already, but she needed to make it official and on the record. "When do you think that you would be ready to go?"

Robert put his small computer into safe mode. They were back to the part of the plan that he knew by heart. "I want to leave by the first week of June. The two of the largest possible stumbling blocks, are when will the Blockade Runner be ready and how many supplies the plan will call for. I want to be in the Split System no later than mid-August, if not sooner. If I am not back to the New Circe system 30 days from that date, or I have sent a TacFax message to change the final plan?" Robert was alluding to any trouble he might run into of the ComStar or Cylon kind.

"Then the SLS Lyssa can launch and set up operations in the Split system as a support base. While she is doing that? We will be making the rest of our run in the Inner Sphere. We will set out two more spy satellites near the Split system before we start the new run. If they or the others find anything in the way of a threat, when the Lyssa checks them? The Lyssa can move to one of the other systems that we have labeled Bravo or go all the way to the Echo system, if we have to. If one of those systems turns out not to work? Then the Styx will pull all the way back to the Centennial System and leave a message for us. It should not take but a week or two to find a system that fits our needs, if for some reason that those other star systems don't work out for the Lyssa for whatever reason."

Xi was nodding her head in silent agreement, but she did not say anything as she worked with her little device on her desk. Robert sat straighter in his chair and then he knew that he was about to cause an issue. "The one thing that we have not covered, is the defenses or internal security for my run. I think we need to review it due to the increased threat."

Xi gives Robert a questioning look for a few seconds and then she almost did a little hand wave for Robert to continue. Then she stopped before her arm had started to move more than a few inches. With a level voice she spoke to the man. "What we are looking at, is updating all of the weapons to as top of the line equipment as we can talk the supply department into giving us. There is too much of a risk of running into the Clans or maybe someone else who has recovered weapons from them. They will be computer downgraded, as you are used to. You will not have jump fighters, Raptors, or anything that "looks" like it might be a Clan design Mech on your supply run. The fighters were already refitted with at least LR PPCs but no HOD's and you also will have the release to full capabilities codes like you had before."

"Each of your dropships, but the carrier, will have a full security platoon assigned to them. Each of them will be outfitted with a squad of Tornado suits, complete with a set of heavy weapons matched for each of their suits. Your ground support will be a full mech company, but we are not going to put the cubes back into the White Rabbit 2. The makeup of that company has not been decided at this time, but they will not be Rustys."

She stopped talking for a few seconds. "Frak most of the machines left are Royals, and they are slowly being updated with at least some Golden Age weapons. Do you have any suggestions on that matter?"

Robert nodded his head and passed over a small card, which had been slightly sticking out of the leather cover of his noteputer. He had already known "something" about high command giving him a dozen mechs for his next run. "These were the ones I was thinking about. I am not a ground commander, but at the bottom of the card. I have listed the reasons that I picked each of these machine types on the card. I need firepower, but I also need ones that are easily maintained at the end of a very long supply line. And there are a few other factors that we have found were very important on our other missions that drove my selection."

Robert stopped talking and waited for his boss to say something about the data he had just handed over to her. He knew that he had just let his boss know that he was not as totally in the dark as he had been letting on during this meeting and others. Robert had his working face on, so that it would be harder for his boss to know what he was thinking. He needs to keep as many of his remaining cards carefully hidden.

"Well, if I'm going to get a dozen mechs, then maybe it's time for the SLDF Navy to get their Union class tanker back, that is if I can find something else that would be better to take on the next run," thought Robert.

Admiral Xi was putting notes in her secure computer at a rapid rate, and when finished. She looked back at Robert again. She took the note and only glanced at it for a few seconds. She had less experience in ground combat than most people in the current SLDF Navy. She was not surprised in the least that Robert had an idea about the bump in his mech defense force. "I will pass this along with the rest of my report to Admiral Frank's staff along with your other suggestions. Keep working on your idea of an updated leave date, until I send a message that you are a No Go for some reason. Good luck Commander Copeland."

10 Mar 3051

New Circe

Colonial City State.

Laura Roslin looked at the report in her hands like it was some kind of Viper, and she wanted to be upset. But she settled on to be resigned to what was written in the poison pill of a report. She put the digital device down on the table at her knee. She was even able to do it without slamming it down or otherwise damaging it with her actions. She looked over to Bill and she could see some of the stress on his face that was caused by this report. "How bad is it?"

Bill could read a lot of what Laura was thinking after all of these years together. "The Ogygia is gone. She was modified to be a spy ship, not a warship. He got stuck in combat with a whole Cylon Battle Fleet, and he was out gunned by them."

He could tell what his wife was about to say, before her lips started to move. He needed to head her off at the pass, so to speak. "Now don't get me wrong. He did the right thing and taking out one of the few new style Cylon battle groups in the Cyrannus system and that is a good thing. It is just that a different designed ship would have done a lot better job and cost our people a lot less to do the same job. But she was the only warship that was there, and she did the job that you would expect of a Colonial Navy warship."

Laura still had that flat look on her face, which said she was thinking very hard about something. She could read Bill as well as he could read her. "I want to pull all of our remaining people back to New Circe. Why do you think I'm wrong?"

Bill was as still as a mountain that his craggy face made him so resemble. "First, they were able to get about half of her crew off that spy ship, after the battle. We just don't have a "real" warship to give the survivors for them to re-crew. It was not a total loss, and the recovered crewmembers are how we know about the battle in the first place. Second, we are outnumbered in this war. So, with the little effort that we can divert back to Colonial space. It makes the Cylon spend more time, effort, and more importantly a lot more resources to counter us by a few orders of magnitude.

Bill pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two of his fingers. His voice was a little muffled by the palm of his hand. "The more that the Cylons divert? The better it will be for us on this end of the war. Third is that those small teams are finding more survivors every few months. Even on planets that we thought the Cylons had completely wiped us out on. We have found some survivors hiding deep off the grid. At least some of those survivors that we are finding were fighting the Cylons even without our support to do the work. With the few supplies that we have been able to get to them. They have turned up the fire on the Cylons that are back there. Fourth, we have been scouting a lot of areas that we missed on the first and second time we went back to the Cyrannus system. Fifth, a lot of people that have at first refused to leave and would have caused problems, if we forced them, now they are willingly leaving the war zone. Soon even more will be leaving, but it could take some time to talk them into that final little bit of the needed push."

Laura now gave a little smile to her husband. "I hope you can write those points down. "We" will need those points if not at the next Quorum meeting, then one soon after it. I would like to increase the numbers of people coming off the planets. And I was thinking that we can stage them on the Sands and Ragnar, before bringing them all the way to New Circe. Now that the Sands is at Ragnar Station and is safer in the hiding spot. Why not use her? Do you think that we can repair her enough to transplant plants that are unique to the Colonies? Will one of them work as a storage area for cultural and other key items from that part of space? We later can bring them all the way back to New Circe, but only when there is space available on the scheduled ships. Or we can send more ships back to get the additional personnel and other items."

Bill pulled his glasses off his face one more time and rubbed his eyes, all of the sudden they felt tired. There was a good reason for this strain. "I will have to check on that, but it should only be a matter of having the right parts, trained personnel on site, and time to get the Sands ready to support a new mission. I will see if a report can be written up to give my people a heads up on the change of mission. But can you get me a letter with what you are expecting them to collect? I don't want someone coming after "us", when "We didn't plan right" from some talking head on a news talk show. After our first two runs back there in force, the Cylons made sure that nothing related to the Colonial military was recoverable. At least not recoverable quickly, while you were fighting off those Frakkers that just ambushed you. I also will make sure you get a copy of what happen with the Ogygia in what they are calling, The Battle of the Dark Reaches."

Battle of the Dark Reaches.

Captain Henry "HH" Hewitt looked across his command center of his warship. It was quiet, just like he had hoped that it would be. They were in an area called the Dark Reaches by those few that knew about this part of space around the area that had been called Colonial space. It was the small area of interstellar space that was the gravity balancing point or the barycenter for the four stars that made up the core stars of the Colonies of Kobal.

This area was not used much by the Colonials, at least not after the use of Jump engines became so common for civilian ships to use many generations ago. Then they no longer needed this little short cut between the groups of closely orbiting stars that made up the Cyrannus system. Even before the start of the 2nd Cylon War, the only ones that used this part of space were space Pirates and Colonial Intelligence. The Colonial Navy only came here to hut for the first, normally on guidance provided from the second group.

For the last few months HH had been doing more time running than he had been doing as a scouting mission. They had been running ever sense he had let the Cylons get a little too close of a look at his ship. It had been while he had been checking out a report that one of the few remaining pirate bases had picked up from their contacts. It had turned out to be both true, for the value of true, and at the same time it was a Cylon trap. It was supposed to have been about a small group of tramp ships, which had been working together after the Cylon surprise attack. There had been a surviving group of humans at that location. That is right up until the Cylons found them and killed them all, and then used their bodies as a trap to gather more human heads.

HH had "known" something was off, but he had gone in anyway. He just made sure that he could get out very quickly if things went wrong. Well, they had. And HH had been able to get his ship out of "the kill zone" just in the nick of time. But once the Cylons got the merest hint of a human warship in the area? They had been after him like the baying hounds of hell. They could have returned to Ragnar station for some reinforcements, but that would have led the Cylons right to that hidden base. The only "real" base that the Colonials had access to.

HH was not going to serve up the main Colonial base in this part of space to the Cylons on a silver platter. So instead HH had ordered the ship to this lonely spot to hide from the marauding Cylons. They had not made a bee or straight line here, which would have been bad for their long term survival. They had hit some empty spots in what had been Colonial space before they made the final jump to the edge of the barycenter, and only when they had not seen a Cylon in a while before they had come here. That last jump had been two days ago. HH and his XO Morton Deyo were planning on leaving the area, and then restart the scouting missions after they had a chance to catch their breaths at the latest close call the ship had lived through.

Morton turned and looked at HH, and he asked the million cubit question that was on the whole ship's mind. "So, you think we are good?

HH looked around the room one more time and then he pitched his voice a little lower. "We came in from Gamma. I think that we need to head for Alpha and find a rock out there."

He pointed to the far wall of his command center. "When we're ready? We can make a run around Caprica, Gemenon, and then swing by Minos before going back to Ragnar. We need to pick up some water ice before we start that run. There are some good sized snowballs in this area, and it's as safe of a place as any. I could use a nice long shower before we have to cut back on using the H2O again. I also think we can take the slow way across the Reaches. We are good on fuel, but let's give the jump engine a rest for a while."

Morton nodded and went to work on plotting up the course with the data they had in the ship's data base and to warm up the sub light engines for some long term use. He also let the ship's engineer know that they would not be using the jump engines for a while. It would take about 10 hours to reach the center of the area, which was called Deep Dark Reaches on the way to the other side of the null point. This area also was one that had collected a bunch of "rocks" that had been caught in the gravity barycenter for the last few billion years.

##################

It would take more than the planned ten hours to reach this point with a few of the right rocks the spy ship needed. The Engineering staff needed to bring the sub light engines down when they started to give off warning lights. That was a few hour break that no one had cared about having to endure, by now they were used to the needs of this old ship.

They had not seen any Cylons, so they took the time to rest and recharge both mentally and physically. It was almost a full day later, that the old warship slowly came to a rock that was about 100km across and had readings saying that it was full of water ice. It was the perfect rock to top off their water tanks and hide from the Cylons for maybe another day or three.

HH was looking down at the plotting table as it was updated with the intake coming from the spy ship's huge aft mounted sensors. Those sensors had been almost bleeding edge technology before the Cylons had attacked and tried to wipe out the human race. HH directed the helm to start orbiting the assigned rock counterclockwise at a slow speed. They needed to find a place to land and recover the water ice needed to refill their hygiene tanks was top on the list that they were looking for. Before the plotting table could be updated again, a voice yelled from across the room.

"Contact! Multiple contacts! They are Cylons! We have five Cylon ships dead off our bow!" That yell cut through the air like a knife.

Thanks to many years of training and a few more years of living threw fighting the Cylons. The CO and XO did not look at the speaker. They stayed focused on the hip high flat data table and the top mounted displays spread out around them. It was only a few heartbeats later that the data was visible on the large flat light table for the pair to see. By now this crew would have been able to win any E or Exceptional Award that the Colonial navy gave to the best handled ship in the fleet.

HH knew they were frakked, even before the data was displayed on the light table. Things were moving at the speed of thought, and the delay only seemed to drag out. "Action stations! Launch the Vipers! And don't hold back any of the Raptors! Helm, bring us to military power and plow threw them! All guns! Free to fire as they can. Let them rip! We are taking them at the run!"

The enemy were so close, that he could not keep the distance open until they could spin up the jump drive. He could try to pull back, stay at the best range and pound it out, or he could get closer to the enemy ships. All he really could do, was to get in close and try to get under the Cylon guns. Oh, and do what damage he could before his ship died. IF they lived? Then they can try to get past them, and back into open space for the jump engine to work without killing the crew of this ship. It was a risk, but it was not like they had many options. Still all of the training that the human crew had endured was going to pay off.

###############

The Number 5 was dozing on his feet and slowly rocked in a small circle around his planted boot covered feet. Cylon Quick Reaction Battlegroup 15 Alpha had been in this location for a few months now. They were in this location to react to any attack near Helos Beta. This was another new idea that had been developed to fight the humans, which had so far refused to just lay down and die under the Cylon's guns.

If this worked, then a second fleet would be built around some more modified Colonial craft and new and purpose built Cylon combat ships. Currently they only had five of the right ships to use as the task groups flagships. The third phase would have added landing ships so that they could counter any major attack against any one of the ex-human planets with Centurion ground forces. Still all of that was just in the planning phase, along with a dozen other ideas that were being kicked around by the key leaders of the Cylon Empire.

For this Number 5 human form Cylon, it meant a lot of time being board out of his ever-loving mind. The 5's were not known for being able to keep on track without constant stimulation of some kind. They also had as much of a dose of God Syndrome as the One's had taken, but in a bureaucrat's body. Well maybe not as much god juice as the Ones had taken, but they were a close second. Sitting in this dark point of space had not been enough to keep him and the rest of the 5s crewing the ships on their toes.

So, when the Colonial ship had come around the rock the Cylon battle group was "hiding" behind. It took him a few precious seconds to react to the changing situation going on around him as his sleep fogged mind fought to come back online. The bad part was that this was only the first delay in reaction to seeing the human warship this Cylon fleet was going to have to deal with. Where the Colonials had been close to battle stations already, and they were ready to fire in a few seconds after noticing any danger.

The Cylon commander and his fleet were not close to being at this same level of readiness as the humans were. The Cylons normally were quicker to react than humans, but they had not been expecting to run into humans all the way out here. Even just getting ammunition to the guns and missile launchers took time without ready ammunition being preloaded into the heavy weapons. This was time that the humans were going to take advantage of.

"All ships open fire!" This was more a waste of air, when it finally came out of the Number 5's mouth.

############

The Ogygia had reacted at the speed that only a well-trained and experienced crew could accomplish. Her rebuilt engines went to over thrust in a space of time that was best measured in heartbeats and not seconds. If those engines stayed at this high of a power level for too long, they would need to be rebuilt again. But it would have to have a live crew to do that engine rebuilding. Did you want good engines and a dead crew? Or a maybe damaged engine and live crew was better for the humans. This was not something that the command crew on the old warship needed to think about. They were reacting from muscle memory, and they were going to kill Cylons as fast as possible. Living afterwards could be thought about, well afterwards.

The huge weapons turrets on the Ogygia had come off a Jupiter class Battlestar before the breaker's torches had cut her up into cheap ambrosia cans. Those old cannons were about to reap a harvest that their makers had wished that they would have when they were first cast. The first two twin turrets filled with heavy cannons took the Cylon ship that was off of the port side of the Ogygia under fire. And then the next two twin heavy turrets took the starboard Cylon crewed ship under heavy weapons fire. Each of these eight massive cannons were able to fire twice before the Cylon ships could return fire. It should have been embarrassing for the Cylons to be out reacted like this by the humans. And it would, if the Number 5 made it to a resurrection ship and the other human forms found out what had happened to "his" battlegroup.

The 12 huge KEW firing cannons were not the largest in the Colonial Navy service when the Cylons had returned to nuk the Colonials back into the Stone Age. They were more than three generations old compared to what was being fitted to the latest block of Mercury class Battlestars that had been on the building slips. But the current targets for these heavy weapons were "only" a modification of the Astral Queen designed ships, and that was just a heavily made civilian ship at its heart. The huge High Explosive and Armor Piercing rounds tore into the side of the ship's added on armor, and they reached deeper and deeper into its hull as the softer metal parted for the shells to pass through.

Those heavy KEWs were almost too powerful for the targets that they had just been unleashed on today. If these Cylon crewed ships had held no additional armor? The shell's fuses would not have worked, and the speeding hard shells would have "only" blasted 1.5m wide holes through the hull. If those shells had not hit something fragile while passing through the ship. They would not have put those enemy ships out of action. But those ships DID have that added armor plate, and it was thick enough for it to activate the fuses on those freshly made Colonial cannon shells.

Before the first of the eight heavy weapons were able to track onto the next pair of Cylon ships that the Ogygia was splitting the hairs with. The first enemy missiles came crashing into the old pocket Battlestar like the hammer of an avenging god. It still would be a few long seconds before any other of the Cylon weapons was ready to join the battle.

But the reason that the Orion class ship was called a pocket Battlestar was not because of the number and size of the main cannons she carried, or the number of Vipers and Raptors in her launch bay. No, she was called a pocket Battlestar, because of the number of close in weapons systems meant to shoot down Vipers/Raider and missiles that her old hull was fitted with going all the way back to the 1st Cylon War. Now the huge number of updated weapons systems were designed to shoot down just Raiders and attacking Cylon missiles.

The first eight Cylon made missiles only made it within a hand full of meters from the hull of the colonial ship, despite the incredibly short range of the engagement. There was no way to stop the Light KEW shells that the Cylon crewed ships were now firing. The same was true for the 50mm cannons that the Ogygia was packing and not actively targeting the few Cylon missiles. When the missiles were taken care of, more of the gunners found larger targets to enjoy with their light weapons. Most of the time the lighter rounds did not make it that deeply into the targeted modified ship. That is unless the small shells found holes first made by the larger cannons. Then they would cut through meters of the ship like 50mm buzz saws with minds of their own.

As the cannon shells passed back and forth between the larger ships. The six Colonial Raptors and twenty Mk V and MKVII Vipers were leaving the embattled old Colonial warship. This advanced warning and quicker response had allowed them to be in position to kill the Cylon small craft as they were launched from the four Q ships. Each of the Q ships could launch eight small craft and most of them were the lighter and older models of Raider style class of craft. But the four Q ships had more attack craft than the Ogygia carried. But all of those Cylons attack craft had been delayed launching, and now they were making it into space more raggedly than the Humans had been able to.

The Cylon Raiders were meeting KEW rounds and Lightening-Javelins as they tried to kill each other. The Vipers and Raptors had the advantage in the opening moves of this battle, and they were not willing to let it go. Even the arrival of more Raiders coming in dribs and drabs from the back of the Cylon fleet was not enough to affect this part of the battle. The bad part was that the Human crewed Vipers and Raptors were also NOT in a position to help the Ogygia for the rest of the battle. But if they could "kill" all of the Raiders, it would improve the overall odds of the Ogygia surviving.

################

HH looked up as the data was updating on the systems around him at near the speed of light. "Helm! Keep threading the needle! Do we know what the last ship is yet?" He could feel that he had the advantage, and he needed to keep it, or they all were dead.

The person sitting on the tactical systems knew that this second statement was directed only at her. "Nothing yet, Sir! It's larger than the other four, but the last ship is being blocked by the last two ships. We just need another minute on our current course, and we will have hard data on it. Correction Data coming in from Raptor 3!"

The woman stopped talking, and then her voice went up so high in pitch. That daggits would have wondered what the frakk she was. "Oh Frakk! It's a Loki class heavy cruiser!"

HH didn't need any measurable amount of time to start barking out more orders. The game had just changed, and the chances of the Ogygia escaping had just drop to almost zero. But it was not Zero, and HH was not some green as grass spy ship commander in his first battle with the pirates or Cylons. "Helm! Course 98 and down 60! Take us under that rock!"

HH's head turned to look down at the still updating plotting table. "Morton! Have the helm pull us up, and then back over the top of this rock after we get under her. When we come back down on the other side. I want the turrets to fire into any Cylon ship that they see with everything but the ship's daggit."

At the last second, he changed his mind. "But hold the Nike-Ajax missiles for that Loki. When they have a clear shot at her, dump all the silos we have at her. They don't need to wait for any orders from me, just do it."

The ship's XO looked at his captain and then his eyes went wider in understanding of what was needed. "You think that the Loki is going to come charging up our frakking asses."

Morton didn't wait for a reply to his statement. Quickly he went about making sure that everyone knew the plan that the Captain wanted to implement. It would not take them long to get this simple plan into operation, they had implemented more complicated ones almost every week since the start of the new Cylon war. The only question was, if they could pull it off or if their commander had been getting into the ship's Chamalla supply.

Outside the old colonial warship turned and "dived" under the ice/rock asteroid, and she quickly got out of the line of sight of the last enemy warship. As soon as the ship was on the other side of the huge space rock. Its nose rose and pointed up, and the ship kept going up as fast as her now abused sub light engines could push her. The crew had no idea that the ice and rock body had been rocked by half a dozen missiles that had tried to cut the corner and hit the old Ogygia. But instead of hitting the fleeing human ship, they had slammed into the asteroid behind the racing human spy ship. Maybe the fire control system on that heavy cruiser could have used some work.

As the ship picked up even more speed, it pitched over the top of the ice and rock asteroid leaving a stream of unburned fuel and atmosphere behind her. The great ship angled a little to one side with the use of the powerful side thrusters mounted along her dark painted armored sides. This was to make sure that when she pitched down again, she would be coming down near the last known location of the four enemy Q ships. It was a gamble. It was a guess. It was a swag; serious wild ass guess being made by the command crew of the Ogygia.

When the Ogygia pitched its nose down one more time, to come down the other side of the rock? It was like it was a dive bomber from World War 2, and it was on the hunt for a member of the Imperial Japanese fleet to kill. The only thing that was missing from this picture was the screaming sound of the air going through dive breaks. There was not any air in space to make that sound. And just like no one can hear you scream in space; no sound alerted the enemy ships of their impending doom at the hands of the humans.

When the Ogygia crested the asteroid on the other side, it could see four burning and mostly wrecked Cylon ships "below" her. And all of them were modified Janser Kerr class ships, but the Loki class heavy cruiser was missing from the scene of this battle. Without needing a word to be given by the command center's fire control personnel. The weapons on the old spy ship went back into action at their maximum possible rate of fire. What was the use of not using ammunition that only the dead could count? Long streams of fire lanced out of the top, bottom, and sides of the old warship like arrows of Apollo. The command team had assigned each of the four suspected targets to the different turrets, while they had been acting like a very large Viper putting on a flying display for the adoring public.

#################

With the colonials coming down from the "Top" of the asteroid. They had again surprised the Cylons, and waves of a dozen heavy shells came crashing down on the four already wounded Cylon crewed ships. It was overkill, and even before the gun crews could stop firing, all four of the Q-ships were ripped apart to clutter this area of local space for the next few million years. The Ogygia kept powering right passed the now dead ships like the hounds of Tartarus were on her heals. To a point they were.

As the Ogygia was "diving down" the front side of the asteroid. The huge Alligator Headed and Tri-hull warship came into view coming up behind her. When the Loki was clear of the ice and rock asteroid, 35 capital scale missiles left the huge alligator head this class of ship was known for. At the start of this war, Cylon missiles had been some of the best in known space. After so many years of war with the humans, they had only gotten better. They had gotten better in both the guidance packages and in the warhead department of both the nuclear and conventional varieties. But the Colonials had not been sitting on their thumbs during that time either and the Cylons were no longer shooting at defenseless ships. Currently the latest update HH had picked up from Ragnar had pushed the Colonials ahead of the Cylons in the constant game of one-upmanship.

The Ogygia had taken hull damage and many of her close in weapons had been damaged in the opening stages of this fight. She still had a lot of them, and they took out twenty of the attacking seeking weapons out of the picture. It was just too bad that this left 15 more of the Cylon missiles closing in on the fleeing human ship. Only four of the remaining missiles were nuclear tipped, and they started hitting on the aft of the old warship. All of the others had been removed from space by the human gunners.

The close in weapons kept firing as the Cylon weapons were about to strike the colonial warship. The crews for those weapons were fighting for their lives, and by now there was very little giving up left in any of them. They knew that there were things worse than death, which the Cylons could do to them. They had seen and done too much to just accept that they were going to die at the hand of some Cylons missiles. This line of thinking might have just saved someone on that old warship. Well, that and stuck trigger fingers had a part to play. That kept the 50mm cannons firing until the weapons and their crews were wiped away in fire balls made by those weapons.

############

The old warship named Ogygia was slowly dying, and there was little that her crew could do to save her to fight another day. But they were not without options in how they were going to die on this day. When the Cylon missiles started to die? The fireballs of their destruction covered the emptying of all of the missile silos on the pocket Battlestar. Were the Cylons had used mostly "normal" warheads on their missiles in today's battle. HH and his crew had done whatever was needed to make sure every missile in the ready to fire missile silos were fitted with the largest nuclear warhead they could beg, borrow, or steel for them.

The Cylons might have been asleep at the wheel at the start of the fighting. They had been thinking that they would have picked up jump energy or some other hints that the human survivors were in the local area. The Cylons had also gotten used to being on top of the tech tree in this area of space. And now they were fully awake and active in this battle. That didn't mean that they would not fall for a few tricks that the humans might use against them.

The Colonials had timed the missile launch very well, and the heavy weapons were up to some level of speed. When they cleared the hot gasses made by the interception of the Cylon missiles? They had a bone in their teeth, and they were homing in on the only target they could "see". The six Nike-Ajax missiles were at below knife fighting range, and they were still building up speed as they closed in on their assigned target.

It just happened that the target was coming right at them as fast as the old engines could push the heavy cruiser at the on rushing missiles. That was a lot of Delta V to work with or against them, depending on your point of view. The gods of math play no favorites. The six forward close in weapons on the Loki class warship opened fire. But the closing speeds were so high, that they only had time to fire one burst from each of the cannons at the on rushing Colonial made missiles.

Four of the six Nike-Ajax were hitting their target after clearing the danger zone of the Loki's close in weapons. The first of those hits was rendered almost completely useless due to a near hit by a 50mm Cylon cannon shell. The missile from the Number 4 silo opened it's can of sunshine just short of the hull, but the energy release blinded the sensors on the Loki. The last two missiles made contact with the hull of the now enemy warship, and they each had released 75 kilotons of energy less than a heartbeat apart. The release fireball looked almost like a figure 8 laid on its side instead of one huge fire ball of Cylon killing rage.

Each one of those missiles had packed enough firepower to kill a Cylon capital ship, or if not, it would have put the Basestar into a shipyard for months of repairs. What two of these sized weapons did to the much smaller Heavy Cruiser class warship, after all of the explosions or "other secondary effects" were done? Well, it would not need a shipyard for the repairs. The largest pieces that were left of the Cylon crewed, but human built warship might have filled a pair of Raptors.

##############

HH picked himself up from the metal deck, and he tried to look around his command center. His eyes were burning, and he could not see that well. He pulls his hand down over his eyes, and now he could see a little better now that some of the obstruction is gone. But HH gets a little lightheaded when he sees that his hand was covered in blood. This was not the first time that HH had seen his own blood, and he knew that it would not be the last time. Well, if he lived for more than a few more weeks and had another battle with the Cylons.

With his eyes now clear of most of the blood running down his face. HH could now see what was left of the command center of his ship. It was a mess, with displays having fallen off mounts and smoke coming out of places that it should not have generated smoke. HH looks over to his left and he sees Morton pinned under a fallen overhead support beam. From his location he could not see if his friend and XO was alive or not.

While he went to help his second in command, HH started talking in a loud voice. He needed information on what was going on around him. "Damage Report. I need a damage report! Is there anyone that needs help!? See who needs help!"

HH had thought about one of the statements after it had left his lips. He thought about clarifying to anyone left alive in this room, that he meant the issues within the CIC and not the whole ship at large. At least at this time. HH heard two voices speaking at once, and then three as more people were brought out of shock by his orders.

There were at least two dead on the CIC, and everyone else was hurt in some way. One of the wounded might not make it too much longer with a part of the ship sticking out of his guts and leaking blood all over the deck. A torn intestine gives off a smell that few who had endured the smell before can forget it. With Morton pulled out from under the heavy fallen metal support beam. HH turned to his friend and a sad look took hold of his face.

Even HH could hear the sadness in his own voice. "We killed the Loki, but the old girl is done. Call back the Raptors on the emergency wireless. We need Ulysses 6."

Military Intelligence members were planners by nature, and sometimes more than a little on the paranoid side of the mental game. They made plans, even when they didn't know they were making plans. After the fall of the Colonies, HH and his crew had come up with dozens of plans or other ideas that were just short of a plan. After they found out that they were not alone, and that the other humans were fighting the Cylons. They had come up with more and different ones almost every few days. Those updated plans would change from time to time at a more or less random basis. HH knew that a lone Orion could not stand up to the whole Cylon fleet, at least not outside of a holo vid or some other entertainment device. They were living on borrowed time, but at least now they had a place to run to when their luck ran out.

One of those plans, was what to do if they lost the Ogygia to combat or mechanical failure. It was one of the reasons that all the family members had been left on Ragnar Station months ago. HH's wife and ship's doctor had not been very happy about this idea, and after "some private time" she had agreed with him and backed the plan. It also was why HH had been very keen on keeping all of the Raptors that he could operational and ready to use. Have a downed Raptor, by combat or mechanical reasons, was one of the key events that would force an unplanned return to Ragnar Station by the pocket Battlestar.

Outside of the spy ship the last of the 48 wrecked Cylon small craft were checked out by the Vipers, while the half dozen Raptors found areas to touch airlocks with the Ogygia. Each of the Raptors only held a crew of two for this battle, but a dozen fresh hands had started pulling people out of wrecked compartments and moved them to the attached Raptor. Normally the Raptor could "only" carry two crewmembers and eight fully armed ground troopers. The normal rule of thumb was that you could carry about half of the number of wounded than you could carry of fully able and armored troopers. That was not the case today. As soon as the wounded crew of the Ogygia were loaded cheek to jowl, into the small craft. The Raptor would cut loose from the wrecked warship and head to someplace that was at least a little safer.

The individual Raptors made the shortest possible route back to Ragnar Station. They could not have pre plotted these jumps, and the crew had to make their own way to "safety." They would end up taking slightly different routes as decimal points were shifted by each EO. A side benefit was also that different routes helped in case one of the Raptors ran into trouble of the Cylon type. HH was lucky, and that even six Raptors packed to the gills was not enough to clear all of the surviving wounded out of the now dead Ogygia. Being wounded in a wrecked warship sucked but being dead sucked so much more that it was okay just to suck a little.

When the last Raptor had left the area of the battle? HH had ordered the Vipers to use their magnetic landing pads to hold onto the outer hull of the warship to save fuel. There was nothing they could do to save that much of the life support expendables. And without a jump drive, they were as stuck as the rest of the wounded and the dead on the Ogygia were. They would add some firepower, at least as long as the pilots were alive to provide it. Everyone was still living, but they all knew that it would not last forever.

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HH closed the hatch behind him with a Clang, and he was once again in the CIC of the old warship. He had just finished making one more walk around the wrecked ship. He could not make it to every compartment, but he could reach most that was forward of were the engine block had been this morning. Now he was in the only location on the ship, that he knew of, that was holding atmosphere that would not outright kill you.

All they now could do was wait for the Raptors to return or die. They would wait for help to come from Ragnar, or they would be waiting for the Cylons to find them after they were downloaded into new bodies. HH sat down next to his friend and removed his helmet. He was now thankful that Ragnar had more or less made it mandatory for all ships to use what had been space suits reserved for Viper and Raptor crew before the war. He had no idea how many it had kept safe after this attack, but HH had no doubt that those suits had saved many lives. It was not safe to keep the helmet off for long, even in this room. You never know when a new leak might vent the air out into space or dump in something poisonous into the room.

HH made eye contact with his friend and let out a little sigh. "Well, we pulled everyone out at least what we can. I have to say that it was a good run, but I was hoping to get just a few more laps out of the old girl. What about you?"

Before Morton could reply, another tired voice came from across the wrecked dark room. "A ship is coming around HE 349768. Short range DRADIS contact."

Slowly HH and Morton rose from the deck to stand on the blood slick deck. They knew they were about to die, and they intended to die on their feet and not on their knees or butts. HH could feel that his friend had stiffened a little, but it was HH that was the captain. "Do we have an id on that contact?'

The voice from the dark came again. "Sir, those systems are down. And Viper 4 is an old Mk V with lower powered DRADIS and even older support systems."

A second voice came out from the other side of the room, and it held a little more energy than the rest of the people in this room combine possessed. "We are picking up something on the wireless! Putting it on MC1!"

Before HH could have a thought work threw his foggy brain, his eyebrows shot up at the voice coming over a half-wrecked speaker. "Ogygia, this is Rising Star Actual. Looks like you broke your ship. Do you need a ride or a breathalyzer?"

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Notes

old Orion Class Pocket-Battlestar Ogygia. Crew 150-200 and 20 vipers, 6 Raptors. 12 primary guns (larger guns from Jupiter class Battlestar refitted), 32 CIWS turrets (updated with late Jupiter class 50mm KEWs), 4 missile silos as built on Orions (updated from Valkyrie Battlestar with two more tubes total 6). Serving mainly as a light espionage or reconnaissance ship with updates to this technology every few years. Nike-Ajax missiles for a Valkyrie. Vipers VII and V, 1 Raptor from first Cylon war, 5 newer Raptors.

Cylon Q-ships fleet: Led by Number 5 Cylon. Quick Reaction battlegroup 15 Alpha. The 4 Cylon Q ships are the center of the mission. The flagship is a Loki class heavy cruiser captured during the 1st CW. She has 2 landing bays (20 Raiders, 4 heavy raiders that are for landing centurions on human ships. She has a Tri-hull design and massive dome on the dorsal side, with an Alligator Head that holds the 35 missile tubes. She has 9 sub light engines and two modified Colonial jump drive generators. 4 Janser Kerr (MAC Ship) modified Astral Queen (840x321x200feet) crew 75, passengers 150, and 8 Raptors/Heavy Raiders. 12 light KEWs (colonial) 8 capital missile tubes on all sides but aft. 8 Port, Starboard, ventral, dorsal, and nose.

See chap 39 Henry "HH" Hewitt CO, Wife is head doc, Morton Deyo XO Chap 42 for the spaceship Sand.

Personal note. I first wrote this part at the end of 2018 and used ideas from when I was able to talk with someone off of the USS Kirk. The evac song for Saigon was White Christmas played on AFN. It is crazy how this played out compared to the real world.

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