Bacrita Sector
Darkspace
Orion CIC
Day 138

After sending the Sandpiper to make sure there was nothing there Gabrielle had jumped the fleet to a new Sector that no one would expect him to go to. Gabrielle did not trust Valdez, Atwood, or especially Howard to let them go. If things changed they might decide to return with more ships and force them to join or if nothing else try to steal the Dykstra. Plus some of the civilians had been demanding answers and implying this was a mistake on Gabrielle's part.

Gabrielle again thought of his mistakes but right now he needed information.

"LT Barnes tell all ships they have 24 hours to report the status of their ships. I need to know of any mechanical issues, passenger and crew manifest, and a full invoice of all cargo and supplies the ships have." Most of this should be known but things change. Also this will distract some of the more strident complainers. "Also contact Colonel Lewis and request him to come to the Orion."

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"Colonel Lewis thank you for coming" said Commander Gabrielle.

Lewis could see the Commander was stressed which was of course understandable. The Commander clearly needed someone to discuss (the technical term was "bitch about") things with and Colonel Lewis knew he was pretty much the only one available. "Yes sir. There are a few things we need to discuss."

Commander Gabrielle blurted out "Oscar did I frak up?"

Colonel Lewis was not sure how to respond. Oh he knew the answer which was "no" but the problem was bigger. The Commander seemed to be having "Imposter Syndrome" which while understandable needed to be clipped in the bud.

"Commander I am going to be blunt here. You have done better than can be expected. You have jumped from a Major to the commanding officer of a Missilestar with an attached civilian fleet. You have kept your fleet intact and saved thousands of people including my own personal ass" replied Colonel Lewis. "You have been in three combat missions against the Cylons while I was out hunting pirates and didn't know about the Cylon attack until the Yaxham showed up with ten ships. I had no clue what to do and then managed to get the Yaxham destroyed and we had to hide in Jumbo where I knew we would all die either by being crushed in a toxic atmosphere or I would have to attack against overwhelming force and die. You have had to deal with integrating a CIF force and a career bureaucrat who is more interested in empire building than actually doing any work. I was able to more or less leave my civilian side as running themselves as they were all part of one corporation (not exactly true but close enough). I could not have done half of what you accomplished."

This issue had been noticed by Colonel Lewis regarding Commander Gabrielle but "Fleet Commander Valdez" and even that prig Commander Atwood had all "deferred" to him a bit more than his rank and ship warranted. Mainly because he was "old" (maybe wise and experienced is more accurate). Lewis had joined the Colonial Navy 38 years ago when everyone thought the Toasters would be back in a few years. His career had been "mixed" due to Lewis being a functional alcoholic for 30 years. He had stalled at Captain for a long time with reviews of "passable but not ready for further promotion at this time" on many of his performance reviews. If Major Gibbs hadn't been killed during an action against the Eastern Alliance (a grandiose name for a bunch of dipshit pirates) where he took command of the Lamia he would still be a Captain. Due to being a "hero" in that action he had finally been promoted to Major and when BuPers had seen that he had 3 more years left and the Lamia was due to be retired in 3 years they had taken a "leave him there because training someone else to run a Manticore is more work then we care to do" attitude. This had finally caused him to stop drinking in the last 14 months but Oscar Lewis was aware of his flaws and in no way wanted to run this fleet. Colonel Lewis "looked" (if not quite as attractive) like a holodrama Commander of a ship but he had zero political skills (this along with his drinking had stalled his career). Gabrielle was being groomed to higher rank due to his abilities before the Cylon attack. "Sir I am going to say this is your shit show and I will do everything in my power to help you but I will not take it over from you" said Colonel Lewis.

Commander Gabrielle paused after this. "Thank you Colonel. To business then."

Bacrita Sector
Darkspace
Orion CIC
Day 139

Logistically nothing was dire but they were looking at critical shortages in 3 to 12 months with their current supplies.

Tyleum is not yet a problem and with 4 mining ships they would have enough to keep the fleet going. Refined tyleum for the Raptors and shuttles however would run low in a few months unless they dedicated one of the mining ships for this purpose. This would be inefficient but more in the "you are wasting valuable tyleum ore" but for the current reality this matters little. Not that everyone wouldn't be overjoyed if they came across a refinery ship.

The Dykstra reports they could get food production up to enough to feed 5,500. However food while a long term concern wasn't an immediate problem. Luckily the cargo ships the Lamia had been protecting had been set to supply the Scorpian Territory of Kari. Kari had been an odd Territory as while nothing would kill you on that planet (unlike Scorpia at least according to all the jokes) nothing on Kari was edible or at least had any caloric value to a human being. The lumber from the Kari tree however was very valuable. It had been considered better to have the people cut down the trees and supply the loggers with food rather than growing food on Kari that humans could eat and risk a biological disaster to the Kari ecosystem. While the cargo ships had been just over a half full (the scheduled supply drop off/pick up date had been a week after the Cylon attack) there was enough food even after everything the Lamia and it's fleet had eaten in the last 4.5 months to keep the everyone going for at least 6 more months or around a year with the food the Dykstra was growing. Two of the emptier cargo ships could be turned into hydroponics ships (if they grew a couple staple crops they could feed everyone combined with the Dykstra) but the biggest problem with that is water. The Ruth had done some water processing a month ago so at least it was possible.

For the military ships things were "mixed."

Orion after the refit/repair by the Sarek had no issues other than down to 58% missile capacity.

Lamia no issues. The Lamia used the same type of missiles as the Orion (well the basic missile). The shells the Lamia use for it's "guns" were different than any other ship in the fleet. 'Add that to the list' thought Gabrielle.

Vigilant and Rhea. Major Gobi reported that while he would need time to train the ships to work together but that staffing was under control. Ordinance was passable. The smaller missiles were the same kind as the one used by Raptors. The point defense ammunition was decent (again thanking BuShips that at least that was standardized).

Zephyr no issues. The refit done gave them a slightly bigger punch. The dradis upgrade done by the Sarek (Gabrielle hoped the crew of that ship was not being mistreated as they had done amazing work) probably did more to increase that ships effectiveness.

Sandpiper no issues. The Sandpiper was not refit in any way as it would "die if hit" but had the various maintenance issues fixed by the Sarek.

Thalia had many issues. Rather than having a mix and match crew the Thalia was turned over to now Captain Samuel Dante and given or maybe loaned to the Leonis SDF. This allowed the crew of the Spry to remain together. The Thalia as a ship had enough crew. The Thalia as a repair ship severely lacked crew. If they were to do the needed refits to the fleet they would need the Thalia fully operational.

'Time to prioritize the issues' thought Commander Gabrielle.

1. They needed water. The Ruth had been used for this in the past. If the crew of the Oasis was moved to the Ruth this should improve the process.

2. One of the mining ships needed to start making refined tyleum to keep the Raptors operational. Move the crew of the Ginger to one of the mining ships that will be used for this purpose.
2.5 Move the crews of the Elena and Jellyfish that hadn't returned back to those ships to one of the mining ships.

3. Pick one or two cargo ships to turn into hydroponics ships.

All of these things would require a lot of things that the Thalia might be able to make. Some of the Canceron SDF that they had acquired were from the Thalia and would be reassigned (at a lower rank) to that ship. The remainder would kept on the Orion. The Aquarians some were from that ships Raptor groundcrews and were far better suited to keep the 2 Raptors going than the shuttle repair personnel that had been "temporarily" loaned to them. Most of the Colonial personnel were from the few survivors of the Anteros and seemed more pissed than abandoned. Some had been transferred to the Lamia as they felt being on Colonial ship was better but most had agreed to stay here on the Orion.

The Lamia had a full missile load due to not having fired any. However a Manticore only carried 20 missiles. They could fire 4 at a time and kept the others in the missile racks for quick reload. Since a Manticore had very little in armor a centralized munitions storage bay was just inviting a catastrophic secondary explosion. Still they could cross-deck 8 missiles which would get the Orion up to 62%. Still not great as anything below 70% (outside of combat) in the First Cylon War had been considered in critical need of resupply.

For munitions they could make them, find them, or steal them. Stealing them from the Cylons seemed risky and likely it would cost more than they would gain in exchange but worth a thought. None of the rebels or pirates would likely have them according to all the evidence they had (Greer, Gobi, and Lewis all seemed certain of this). Making them was possible if just barely but the basic ship missiles would considerably lower the combat ability of the Orion. In theory (and it seemed to have been accurate) the dazzler would explode and confuse the Cylons dradis and then the sprinter would "sprint" the remaining distance or a nuclear missile would hit. Making a dazzler, sprinter, or nuclear missile would be impossible with the resources they had.

'So find them' thought Commander Gabrielle. There would be a lot of destroyed Colonial ships and it is possible some of them would still have munitions that could be salvaged. 'Hmm the Cyrannus System is far too dangerous' he thought. Where would Colonial forces have been outside the System?

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I thought about adding this to the previous chapter but felt the ships list was needed and it felt "odd" to be in the middle. Commander Gabrielle feels he screwed up. Well he did sort of. More information on the whys of Admiral Howard will be added in future chapters. Gabrielle's main screw up is that until now had had in the back of his head always planned on someone higher ranking taking over. He now realizes he needs to be the person in charge.

Also a quick rundown of Colonel Lewis' career. He had seen the Cylon War being a teenager and lived for the glory of the "Ghost Fleet Offensive" and the heroics of people like Admiral Lucinda Cain. His career stalled because when it came time to join a "prestige ship" like a Battlestar the Commander naturally wanted someone with combat experience. This slowed down his career and Lewis reacted by drinking and became bitter but liked the Colonial Navy (or at least never bothered to figure out an alternative). He kicked around doing various Captain level jobs in the Colonial Navy and ended up on the Lamia. His varied skills and heroism (it was heroic however Lewis just thought of it as doing his job) made him a good fit for the being in command of the Lamia as they have small crews and someone who could be an engineer, tactical, navigator, or whatever was useful. BuPers was not quite as lazy and cold blooded as Lewis thinks (not quite as being the important term as this was a factor). Lewis much like Gabrielle is selling themselves a bit short but feels he would not be able to handle the job. If Gabrielle died he would try though.

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