Chapter 8

Prolmar Sector "Darkspace"
Chiron

Everything was going well in the CIC with training the new Dradis technician thought Major Anders. Technician Krytos had found the hidden Cylon ships in the training exercise. Moving a former engineering crewman to tactical and then promoting her had been a bit risky but if nothing else that Krytos had helped fix the massive pain that removing linked systems with more skill than even Baines had showed the mechanical side isn't a problem for the diminutive crewmember. That she seems to have a good knack for the Dradis and is passable for the limited training she has got in the other systems it seems to pay off. Letting Captain Drakos know she would be back in a few hours she decided to leave the CIC.

For now there will have to be some careful scheduling to make sure that the newer members of tactical and communications (two departments that had been raided for personnel) were being covered when more experienced officers are there. With the Commander and XO not always able to fill in enough (remember I am XO of the ship not head of tactical now) that means that Captain Drakos and LT. Stevenson are going to be pulling longer shifts. Usually the officers in charge of tactical, navigation, and communications do the bulk of watch standing shifts in the CIC. Ensign Coulter from the Kestrel seemed knowledgeable about tactical but only having 6 months shipboard experience she was not ready to be a watch stander yet.

Major Anders was walking the ship. Both of her former XOs on the Sirocco and the Chiron were of the "keep an eye out and make sure people know you are doing" it style. Plus with all the changes checking on everyone makes good sense.

While the Chiron is "small" it's really only small by spaceship standards. With a total length of over 700 meters and about 150 wide it takes time to get anywhere. Still it is small as a ship to land for Raptors and especially Vipers. As more than one pilot has said about the design the entire ship is only slightly bigger than a Mercury class landing pod. Looking over the flight pod Anders saw that the landing bay appeared to be far less cluttered. The four Raptors not on the Chiron at least cleared out some of the space issues they were having. Currently there were 2 Raptors and 4 Vipers in the "ready" position with one Raptor, three Vipers, and the four shuttles including the big ass Marine shuttle in the "back" position. Doing basic match she figured out that there were 2 Raptors and 2 Vipers out. Deck Chief Glover was elbows deep in a Raptor so she left him to it.

Seeing the D-Cag and LSO in discussion she walked over to them. After the standard military pleasantries she asked "How is the training of the new Raptor ECOs going?" With currently only 4 Raptors available after sending the other 4 with Marton and Limaki they need all the Raptors available. The Prolmar and Bacrita Sectors had been explored and no surviving Colonial presence had been found. Some of the mining systems has shown no obvious debris so it is possible there are some surviving ships but if so they had not been found. However the confirmed group of pirate ships were a major concern. Such small weak ships as a couple of Barracudas couldn't hope to defend against any Cylons but would be able to force any surviving Colonial ships to surrender to their dubious mercy. Finding the pirates while avoiding the Cylons and hoping to find any surviving Colonial ships was the current mission of the Chiron's Raptors. So they needed the two Raptors that lacked ECOs out there immediately even if more training would be needed.

"Sir, we took two of the Viper pilots that have recent ECO training and they are working to get up to speed. Juno says to give them a few days and they will be passable" said Captain Hamlin "Warlock".

There were rumors that the two Viper pilots that were moved to being ECO officers on the Raptors were picked because they were just out of Flight Training and were considered to be the weakest of the Viper pilots. That "Wishbone" had said they have the piloting skills of Picon sea turtle was also a rumor. That Anders had been in the CIC when Wishbone had said this over the radio while they had got waved off landing 3 times by the LSO was again just a rumor. "I see" said Major Anders. "What is the status of the Vipers."

"Currently we have 6 Vipers that are fully combat capable and the available 9 pilots have all shown they can land on the Chiron in combat conditions" said Hamlin (Warlock). "The other 3 Vipers have damage and with the lack of parts they have been downgraded to emergency only. This let's us fly 2 Vipers at a time for a CAP."

Anders could tell that "Warlock" was not happy about that. That is half the CAP that you would expect for a Battlestar to run much less one protecting 20 civilian ships. Also this puts way more flight hours on the limited amount of Vipers they have. That they had 9 pilots and 9 Vipers wasn't a coincidence of course but maintenance is going to be a problem if they all need to launch. It's very likely that over time the 3 damaged if not inoperable Vipers and the Raptor will become scrapped for parts.

"And what is the status of getting our damaged birds up and running" asked Major Anders. As this was more a "deck issue" this time she directed the question to the LSO.

"Sir as the D-Cag said we have 1 Raptor and 3 Vipers down" said LT. Gavin "The Deck Chief and I have done a full survey and parts are an issue of course but there are a lot of other items we need."

The survivors of the Kestrel had enough people to keep the Vipers and Raptors running problem was the Chiron wasn't designed for Vipers. If they had been assigned Vipers they would then be given a bunch of parts. The Chiron due to it's intended mission did not have the capabilities to make the multitude of parts that Vipers require. Even just getting enough basic tools for the new deck crew has taken up the limited production ability of the Chiron. Raptors should be fine for a while longer but the blown jump coil on the 9th Raptor was outside their ability to replace.

"Draw up some long term plans with what we currently have" said Major Anders. Like everyone she was hoping that Colonel Marton would return with some good news. Like everyone she wasn't counting on it. Plus LT. Gavin "Melon" was going to be out as a pilot for at least 2 months. When the Kestrel was attacked he had broken several bones in his arm and foot. His combination of Viper knowledge and according to Limaki paperwork skills made him a good choice the job. PO Glover and the rest could handle the maintenance part and the fairly low "Landing" part of the LSO duties.

Seeing that PO Glover was now available Anders headed over there. "Deck Chief how is the crew fitting in" asked Major Anders. POs are far more likely to tell what the truth of the issue is other than Officers.

"Sir not bad. Everyone has their own bunk now and the food we are getting from the hydroponic ships is better than regular fleet rations" said PO Glover. Getting some fresh food grown the civilian ships was a easy morale boost and also let them save the packaged food for emergencies. Also that the need for no one to hot bunk was fixed just after a quarter of the crew was sent off the ship is typical Navy.

Anders asked a few more questions about long term needs. LT. Gavin is a good pilot (before he got injured at least) but didn't have the experience keeping a Viper squadron running that Glover did. A few more things the officers had overlooked were brought up. Talking to other "knuckle draggers" and some pilots everyone seemed focused. Not in great spirits which considering the situation would be actually a bad sign.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Maxon's Respite Governor's Office

'This being the first official meeting of the councilors that two of them not present means we are to an amazing start' thought Tomas Decat. Carl was off scouting the Cyrannus System and Security Chief Torin was dealing with an issue on the water ship (need to learn all their names if I am filling in for Carl). Justin Agios was filling in for his boss. Governor Maxon's aid James is taking notes.

Pual Andre might not have much to say but he didn't let that stop him from using a lot of words to say it. Mining companies often hired former Police Officers from the Cyrannus System as security. Now though without Virgon to drop off perpetrators after serious crimes how to deal with serious crimes is a complicated issue. Still how many ways is there to say "we need to come up with a plan" can the overly long winded lawyer use?

"Mister Decat what do you have to report" asked Governor Maxon.

Jessi or "Governor" Maxon was a tough person for Decat to figure out. She was smart and as a boss of a mining organization she would have been far better than his former managers at Rollins Mining. She was never outright rude about the stupidity that Rollins had been pulling with her ships and people but Decat couldn't decide if she was standoffish because of their past or just that he was not a Maxon Mining employee. "At this time the Quincy's refit should be done and able to meet the projected needs of the Fleet in about 10 days. We got lucky that the Oliver had most of the parts needed in it's hold and the Respite here is making the remainder." Best to remind her that he had given up "his" cargo to help out the cause while thanking her for their help.

The Maxon Mining ships (the Banshee was essentially empty) had large amount of tyleum ore. Tyleum ore even at it's richest is only parts per thousand and that means a lot of extra mass. The three processing ships they had were turning tyleum ore to refined tyleum that the ships ran on or tyleum fuel that the small craft ran on. Problem was tyleum ore is just a rock and safe if heavy. Refined tyleum is dangerous and tyleum fuel is very dangerous. Maxon Mining had a cargo ship that could store refined tyleum that was currently almost full. In theory at least they currently had decades of tyleum (in ore form at least) without having to mine more.

There were other questions but the refit of the Quincy was the main issue. Or the main issue that doesn't involve the last person in the "Council". Captain Krystis was now wearing a light blue Colonial Naval Reserves Captain's Uniform (no clue where that came from). The "Reserves" had 39 members. While no means all the Reserves often skewed higher towards the officers or senior ratings. An official training and repair program is certainly a good idea but currently the inefficiency of having to move people around is noticeable. Of the current 20 ships in the civilian fleet 6 of the "jump masters" were the ones taken to train people how to jump faster. Still though it's a good idea as from what Decat had seen with jumps being infrequent before they always had the best (or at least highest ranking) people on the bridge. Now the Cylons could attack in the middle of the night and having to depend on someone who knows how to jump the ship but hasn't actually done it in 4 years is definitely not a good idea.

"The crew that the Chiron has loaned us has checked the Respite and is now moving to the other ships" said Captain Krystis. Captain Krystis was more than a bit of an intimidating figure. Rumor was his scarring and missing arm came from his former Naval career and he gave off a strong "don't piss me off" vibe. Now he can channel his scariness for the greater good. The obvious annoyance is Krystis' voice that they had to have their ships checked out by the Navy was something Decat could sympathize with. Still some of the new Reservists might not yet be able to separate out their new jobs from their old ones and might have "blinders" on regarding issues. Still it was pretty obvious that Jasper was using Krystis to do the work she didn't have the time or people to deal with. Lastly that Krystis is also now the official "if the Chiron is destroyed you are now the head of the military" with zero military to help out would probably piss off anyone.

"Glad the the Respite has been checked out" said Governor Maxon. The Respite did have some issues it needed to work on but nothing critical. And since the Respite has almost 20% of the people (and worse only known humans remaining) in the fleet making sure it was able to jump at any given time and didn't have any other potential fatal flaws was reassuring. "This Petty Officer Deema and her crew should now move onto the hydroponic ships next." There had been some minor debate about whether the food ships or fuel ships should be next but since it might be possible to come up with a new tyleum refinery ship if needed they can't exactly make more food with a bunch of mining supplies so the hydroponics were prioritized.

"Alright everyone good job so far" said Governor Maxon. "Hopefully we will be able to turn this over to someone else when Marton gets back but we need the full inventory of all items and keep working with the Chiron and making sure everything is good."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Author Notes

This was more a background chapter. Some of the fleet supply issues I wanted to at least a little bit go over so later "where did all the tyleum" come from doesn't pop up.

Thank you for reading. Any questions or comments is appreciated.