Chapter 16: Additions to the Fleet

"The introduction of the Cunningham and her fleet of both warships and civilians greatly increased the capabilities of Galactica's fleet. Another reinforcement of this size would not come until the arrival of the Pegasus sometime later."

- The Untold Story: Galactica

A raptor from Cunningham's fleet was flown to the location that was once the Cylon mining facility to ensure that the colonials were not lying, and after verifying that it was safe then the rest of the colonial fleet arrived. Their numbers were exactly as the three ships that had been separated from the fleet had said the fleet was. The number of ships and people in the fleet was increased by about a quarter total which was a great thing in everyone's opinion.

Commander Garrett stepped out of her raptor and into the Galactica. The ship seemed to be operating well considering h that it was on its way on its way to becoming a museum.

Several faces that she had either heard about before or were ones that she knew would play a major part in the fleet's operations were in front of her. Commander Adama, a man she had met on a couple of occasions, was the one in charge of the fleet. As far as she was concerned he should be an admiral at this point, with his experience and skill in leading his ship. Why he wasn't one at this point was a complete mystery.

Next was Colonel Tigh, who was notorious throughout the fleet for being a drunkard but because Galactica had been about to be decommissioned and he was a friend of Adama he hadn't been kicked out of the fleet. Hopefully, he had decided to abandon alcohol but that wasn't a guarantee.

Then there was Commander Jake Hudson, a fairly young bug up-and-coming cruiser commander. He had been in command of the Galactica's escort group when she had last heard about him and it was clear that he had been an effective commander. She'd have to remember to thank him after what he had done for the fleet, as he had overseen the operations to go and find them. The last military official was commander Audrey Baker, who was an old friend of hers. There was a smile on her face as she saw her, and the two would like to see their friends catch up on matters related to both the fleet and her personal life.

And lastly was Laura Roslin, the current President of the Colonies. Being a commander of a Battlestar and therefore a tool of the state Amanda thought that it was her responsibility to learn about politics, even though she wouldn't play a part in it at least while she was a colonial fleet officer. She hadn't heard about Roslin except that she had been an ally of Adar during his campaign years and had been rewarded with the position of Education Secretary. That meant that she certainly was out of her skill set but the fact that she was still in power indicated that she had either the skill or savviness to stay in power. She decided to learn more about the situation before forming any opinions, however.

She and Major Hiro saluted as the two stepped out of the raptor. Adama smiled as he saw them.

"Welcome to the Galactica." He said. "I'm glad to hear that other ships survived."

"Well, we're glad to have found you, sir." She replied and followed Adama as he brought her to the CIC.

"We have the logs from our journey so far." She said and produced a copy on a small digital datacard. Unlike Adama who, although allowed his logs to be typed up on a computer, insisted that that was the only thing the computer was used for and had them kept printed, Garrett wasn't afraid to use technology for such a role. Adama motioned to Gaeta, who produced a thick stack of papers.

"If you want Commander, I can take these papers until you are ready to return to your ship."

"That would be good Lieutenant, thank you," Garrett replied. They soon made their way up to the second level of the CIC where the conversations often took place that were more sensitive. This had been where Adama had told Roslin about the Cylon detector.

They made their way to Adama's quarters, which was often used as a meeting place due to its size. It had several separate rooms including his desk and one where he usually slept.

"So what happened on your journey here?" Adama asked.

Garrett started in the beginning before the Cylons attacked. Cunningham and several of her supporting ships had been assigned a mission to investigate a potential pirate base several lightyears away from the colonies. They had found evidence of the base but received an emergency transmission about the attack on the colonies. They decided to not alert the pirates then and headed back to the colonies to try to respond to the attack. In the process, they rendezvoused with the rest of her task force and after stripping the CNP off of the ships engaged the Cylons over Gemanon, beating the small number of basestars back temporarily and salvaging numerous ships, to the point that all of the salvage and repair ships were filled to the brim, and some ships were temporarily relocated and left in hidden positions throughout the colonies to be picked up later. By the time they left the colonies, they had the Cunningham which was a modified Valkyrie Class designed for long-range independent missions with her support group, a gunstar, a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, four faststars, a fleet tender and resupply ship, a medium support ship the size of a heavy cruiser that could do most of the same things a larger support ship could do (like the one that Galactica's fleet currently has) and a marine assault ship that holds an armored battalion, an infantry battalion, and two companies of the elite Marines Special Naval Force. As for civilians, 28 ships were starting.

A raptor team returned to the pirate base to see what had happened. Colonel Hiro led the mission, and he recounted what had been said in the conversation.

About a month prior:

The two raptors emerged after their jump to the pirate base.

"This is Colonel Ken Hiro of the colonial fleet onboard Raptor 2732. We know you pirates are out here, but surprisingly we come in peace." He said. "I don't know how much contact you have with the rest of colonial society but the Cylons came back and nuked the colonies. They're committing a genocide on our worlds and organized resistance is collapsing as we speak. Most of the colonial fleet got disabled thanks to the CNP and the rest, if they're even out there, are in hiding. I'm the executive officer of the Battlestar Cunningham and we've gathered a few dozen ships both civilian and military. We plan on fleeing from Cyrannus and finding a new home to stay repopulate on and then return to the colonies to take the fight back to the Cylons. I know we have differences, a lot of them, but if you hear me out we can survive together. You'll be given full immunity from what you've done, so long as you don't try to pillage us. If we work together it's going to be easier for both of us to survive, and I know that you have armed ships that will be of use." Hiro said.

There were a few moments of silence. "Colonel, we know what happened to the colonies and have begun coordinating with our contacts throughout the rest of the pirate groups. A surprising proportion of our assets are intact, and we intend to fight a guerrilla war against the Cylons. We would join you under other circumstances, but even with the best efforts of both of us it might not end well." The unknown voice said. It couldn't be made out as it was using some sort of voice modulation program to prevent the detection of someone's voice. "We should be able to keep the Cylons occupied though, split their forces from totally fixating on you and the other survivors who are fleeing."

"I understand," Hiro said. "Good luck, and I hope you kill as many of the bastards as possible."

"Tell Commander Garrett I send my regards." The voice modulation stopped temporarily and a familiar voice appeared. It was Brigadier General Obe Belewa, a once prominent colonial marine officer who had left the service to try and start his colony on a planet without the consent of the rest of the Colonies, and began fighting against other colonizers who had legitimate claims to the territory. He also had stolen a fair amount of equipment from the colonial navy, army, and marines, and Cunningham had been sent out to stop him. Despite winning several major victories and crippling many of his best assets, Cunningham had been recalled to deal with what the fleet had thought were more pressing matters. There had been evidence that Belewa had rebuilt his strength significantly in the past few years since that had occurred, but he was keeping a low profile. Low enough to at least stay out of the attention of the colonial fleet. No one had any idea who was operating this base, with evidence pointing to it being one of the more well-known pirate groups in the colonies such as the Eastern Alliance, or terrorist organizations such as the SDU.

However, it is now known what he was a member of and Hiro thought about the irony of the situation. Would he have done something similar if he knew who this pirate was? He would later agree that he would have done the same thing because Balewa was a known quantity. He was pragmatic and reasoned, and would ironically be very useful as an ally in their survival.

"Good luck, General," Hiro said.

"Tell Amanda that I give my regards." He replied. "Godspeed, Colonel. I hope that you and your fleet reach safety."

The raptors jumped away and Hiro stayed silently in thought.

—End flashback—

"So what happened next?" Adama asked.

"We were too late for you at Ragnar. We engaged the remnants of the Cylon fleet that was there, destroying them entirely. After that we managed to take more of the supplies from the anchorage, about half of what remained, therefore leaving about 25 percent of it for anyone else who came later. We sent a raptor back there about two weeks after the whole mess began and he found that the place got stripped clean. That's given us evidence that there is someone else out there, and they are continuing to fight against the Cylons." Garrett said.

"That's good to know," Audrey said, with a smile.

"Moving on since that's happened we've been following what we roughly think is your path and while we've been trying to keep up there was a fair distance between us when I saw what was going on." She said, "We've had intermittent contact with the Cylons, mostly in terms of teams of raiders that we think are undertaking scouting missions. We didn't have many issues with this as we normally jumped out after defeating them, but a couple of times they got lucky and a basestar found us. We generally were still able to flee without issue. However there was one case where the FTL drive of one of the older civilian ships gave out, and I mean broke. The drive had been operating for about a hundred years and the ship was closer to 200 years old. It was a much older version of your Zephyr, I think that's what it's called. Since she had been developed before radiation shielding she had to use heavy armor to protect its crew, and therefore were able to get most of the small crew and fleet of passengers off along with some supplies. Its Captain then stayed behind and rammed a basestar, which had been too busy trying to take down the military ships. There was another incident where we had to stay due to our needing to have our mining ships disconnect from the asteroids that they were mining. A basestar jumped into the system and we then destroyed it in battle." She said, sighing. "The Cylons launched a surprise boarding party which led to them getting everyone on the three ships that you received. We didn't know that they had survived.

"With few casualties, we've managed to destroy four basestars and damage two more, and destroy about a thousand raiders," Garrett said. "We lost the one civilian ship we mentioned before along with 38 Vipers in the various battles, however, those vipers have been replaced by ones we built with our medium support ship, and been crewed with people we've recruited and trained from the civilian fleet." She said, "So moving forward we should be fine in terms of the number of vipers that we have, especially considering that your fleet has better industrial capacity than ours."

"What is the breakdown of the civilian ships in your fleet?" Adama asked.

"10 freighters, eight-passenger liners, two mining ships, two refinery ships, two botanical ships, a research ship, a factory ship, and a salvage and repair ship," Garrett replied. "Not exactly the largest fleet when compared to yours, but still one that can add a fair amount in terms of capabilities." She said,

"So then that comes to the matter of integrating the rest of the fleet with yours," Roslin said. "That's hopefully not going to be too difficult. Did you by chance have any form of civilian government that you had set up?"

"It was being worked on but we didn't have a President or someone in the line of succession like you madam president," Garrett replied. "That should hopefully make integrating the fleet easier, and I think that the population would be easily pleased by such a move."

"That brings us to command of the fleet," Roslin said, looking around at the officers. "Commander Adama is the superior officer in terms of colonial fleet regulation."

"I'm willing to surrender my command to the authority of Commander Adama, however, I would like to note that Cunningham and her battlegroup work well together and have been through more than a few difficult situations even before the fall of the colonies." She said, "It's not my job to tell you what to do of course, but as it's commander of the task force it is my responsibility to inform you of my capabilities."

Adama smiled. "Don't worry Commander, I don't intend on splitting up your forces. Commander Baker here operates her forces under the Valkyrie with a good deal of autonomy, at least in my opinion." Adama said.

"Indeed I do." She said, "As long as your task force is kept in shape, Commander Adama is going to leave you alone in terms of the internal running of your ships unless something important comes up. And I think you'll do fine considering that I know more than a bit about you and how well you'll do."

"I can corroborate this as well," Hudson said.

They then discussed a few more matters before it was decided that their fleets would be fully integrated soon enough.

"And just in time for Colonial Day, this truly is a miracle," Roslin said with a smile, as everyone parted ways. She was right, as colonial day was not far away from the

Garrett smiled as she walked back to the raptor that would take her back to her ship. She was glad that this meeting had gone well and that she and the rest of the crew would be well taken care of. Of all of the ships and officers that she would have to survive the fall of the colonies, this wasn't going to be a bad choice. It was one of the better choices.

"Well Amanda, do you want to come over to the Valkyrie and have dinner?" Audrey asked. "Just like old times?"

"That would be cool," Garrett replied. "Do you want to come, Ken?"

"I think that someone is going to need to watch over the ship." He chuckled. "And I know both of you are friends and don't want to intervene?"

"Can Christine come along?" Garrett asked.

"Oh sure, she's certainly welcome."

"Well see you then." Amanda then left in the raptor along with Hiro.

"So are you going to bring Vince?" Hiro asked with a smirk.

"I don't think so, since this is essentially going to be a girl's night out." She replied.

"You've brought up Commander Baker before, how did you get to know her?"

"We're the same graduating class at the academy, and we've been friends there from the beginning." She said, sighing with remembrance. "Both did flight training together and got posted to the same ship, the old Battlestar Poseidon, for a few years. I guess we just have similar personalities and similar ambitions."

"It's good to have people you know who survived all of this," Hiro said. At this point, he had accepted that his family was most likely dead. He had seen nukes fall on the city they were a part of on Gemenon. There wasn't much hope in what had happened.

"Well, I think you have an entire ship of them, though they might not like how you enforce regulations." Despite what was going on I got a laugh from them.

A few hours later after finishing her duties Amanda got dressed up and headed over to see how Christine was doing. The now captain Christine Rendino was an intelligence specialist who had been assigned to the ship a few years ago after Garrett had taken interest in it after hearing about her from a superior. She was rebellious but smart enough to not get brought up on disciplinary charges.

"Well well well, Amanda Garrett is bringing out her wardrobe for the first time since this conflict began, at least to the public." She said with a smile.

"As with most of the clothes I buy, I don't get much time to wear them with my job, and that's the case especially now." Amanda referred to the sparkling dress that she wore, one that she had been wanting to wear before but never got the chance to, especially with recent events.

"You know, if the colonies hadn't fallen you'd have quite the impressive collection to sell off, but I think that most of the civilians have more than a few more issues to deal with," Christine said with visible sarcasm.

"I'd still keep them," Garrett said. "Are you ready?"

"Almost." She replied, adjusting her simpler but still flattering dress. They were soon out the door.

"It feels weird to walk in heels again," Garrett said.

"You say that every time you wear them," Rendino replied.

They got to the raptor soon which took them to the other ship that they planned on going to, the Valkyrie. Once they were led through the ship to the Commander's quarters where Audrey was waiting.

"Hello, ladies." She said with a smile and hugged her friends. It was nice to see them again in a nonprofessional capacity. They came over to the food, and there was also plenty of ambrosia to go around for them as well.

"So how has the fall of the colonies treated you, Amanda?"

"Well, Christine and I are still here, which I can't say for most of the people from the colonies."

"I wouldn't say we've had it easy though, considering that the Cylons just pop up out of nowhere sometimes," Christine said. "Well, technically it isn't anywhere."

"Christine, leave the FTL dynamics back on the Cunningham." The three of them laughed. Christine was something of a nerd, and with her intellect was an expert on more than several topics.

"Christine, with that brain of yours you should be at my pay grade," Garrett replied.

"You see, being a Commander comes with a lot more responsibility and stress. After my tour finished with the Cunningham I was thinking about mustering out and becoming a reservist. I could find my way into some nice ass job with good pay, and find some nice guy to get a family with."

"Oh that brings something else up," Audrey said, with a big smile on her face. "Amanda, you're already taken assuming Vince is still alive."

Amanda nodded. "I'm honestly just glad that he's still alive. But being the CAG, he has a dangerous job. I guess that I've just gotten used to it, to be honest, I know that he could die just about any time now."

"Well, I haven't exactly been trying to find guys, though now that the fleet's gotten bigger I might have something of a look on my time off."

"Oh come on Christine, you have to be one of the pickiest women who's still alive when it comes to men," Audrey replied.

"Yeah cause I don't jump into bed with anyone and everyone I meet," Christine said before changing the subject. "Who have you found, Audrey?"

The commander chuckled. "Oh dear, well I've found someone, and I think I've made it clear that I like him, but he won't make a move."

"Ohh, who is this guy?" Garrett asked. She knew that Baker was generally pretty professional with officers under her command so that was probably not going to be the case.

"Well, he's another commander, and a pretty important one. And before you ask, no it's not Adama." All three of them laughed. "I'm too young for him, hell, I'm only a little older than his son."

"So who is this man…" Christine asked with a smile.

"Oh I think I know this one," Garrett said. "You don't happen to know a certain Commander Jake Hudson?"

Audrey blushed. "Well…"

"I think we got our target," Christine said. "Tell me, what's so good about this guy."

"Well, he's handsome and a strong, decisive leader. I'm surprised that he isn't married."

"Even if that were the case, there are a lot of single people in the fleet now," Garrett said to laughter. While perhaps not the best way of putting it it was an objectively correct statement.

"Well, what are we going to do about that?" Christine asked. "Has he reciprocated your feelings?"

"I can't tell but whatever they are he isn't making any moves. She said, "I've been flirting with him, and I hope that I've been making it obvious. He plays along and I think that he's smart enough to see what I want, but isn't doing a damn thing about it.

"Maybe he's just nervous." She said, "A lot of guys get nervous around attractive girls, and you are no exception to that." Christine said.

"Well, I guess that that's true." She said, "He isn't married according to the files that I have on him, and maybe he has a significant other which he's banking on being alive. Then what the files say at least." She sighed.

"Well, colonial day is coming up, which means that you'll have an opportunity to do something. There's probably going to be a celebration, so you could see if you can dance with him then."

"That's a good idea," Audrey replied. "I'll keep that in mind."