I do not own Battlestar Galactica or any related media.

This is a reboot of my first series. Some of the issues as originally written seem unsolvable to me and I would like to redo this and try to fix or at least make what vision I am going for a bit more clear.

Chapter 1

Scorpia Naval Shipyards

Marcia Anders was glad to be out of "Command Training School." Anders didn't know if she ever wanted to become a Commander but like any officer she had thought about being in Command of a Mercury class Battlestar and stopping a Cylon attack. She knew she liked being in the Navy and planned on staying in for at least the next ten years. When her old CO on the Sirocco asked her if she was interested in Command Training, she was surprised. Commander Cantrell was always an old grouch and seemed to hate the younger officers. With her vast experience of 25 years, she now understood that he had pushed her to learn more and expand her knowledge. Dradis and tactical had always come pretty easy to her, but "Command" had never been her strong point. However, seventeen weeks of intense training helped her overcome that hurdle.

After graduation, she was given a 7-day pass. It was nice seeing her family, and while her parents were sad that she was probably going career they had always known that she wanted to be out in space rather than working on Scorpia. With the Fleet's main fleet base here on Scorpia, it should be easy to see them while on leave. Saying goodbye earlier today had been hard, but she could tell they were proud of her. The flight up had been the regular boredom that passenger liners always were. She had been hoping to see her ship, but it wasn't visible. Of course, only a Battlestar would be visible from this distance and she had seen two while on final approach.

Anders has been here before a few times, but the sheer size of it is astounding as it was one of the largest man-made structures ever made in the Twelve Colonies. The last time she had been here was when the Sirocco landed for replenishment. This time, she had departed from a midsized people mover that had dropped off 200 Colonial Naval and civilian personnel. Still, the signs saying "this way" pointing to the big flashing thing showing where the ships are docked seemed like an obvious place to start.

'Let's see. The Chiron is on lower level dock 18' thought Anders. The Chiron was completing a minor refit and had been here for the last month. Looking at the list there are 9 Capital ships and 28 smaller Colonial or SDF ships. Many were just there to replenish their supplies, but the Adar program of "better and meaner" might actually hit its goal of being completed by 2003. Not likely since these things always go over time and budget, but clearly, this was more than just an empty campaign slogan. 'Heading over to the sign that says lower docks should be my next step. I don't want to be late and make a bad impression,' thought Anders.

The signage was pretty easy to follow at least for her. Some of the civilians seemed lost but "go here and do this" isn't anything new to Anders after 7 years in the Navy. Dock 18 was a distance away and kind of annoying that the Colonial Military designed this huge station on "if it's not an emergency you can just walk because it's good for you" mindset but again nothing new after 7 years.

Stopping to look out the windows at her new ship, a couple of things were more noticeable. The Chiron might be a Faststar Centaur Class, but it's not only on the larger size for a Faststar, but there have been changes made. The single underslung flight pod being the most noticeable of course. Never having flown a Viper, but I can see why Viper pilots hate the damn thing. It is shorter than any flight pod on a Battlestar, and the lack of launch tubes would make taking off from the ship a slow process. The missile tubes that had been added for more punch were put in to offset the removal of half of the heavy guns that the design had originally. As a tactical officer Anders wanted as many weapons as possible but removing those guns had allowed more point defense weapons so all in all a fair trade and also this decision happened before she joined the Navy by officers far above her rank.

Anders knew all this from her briefings, but still actually seeing it made the whole thing clearer in her head. With the Chiron now "her" ship, so best not to mention any failings until she was sure how the crew would react. Still better than being on the Vindicator or a Mercury with 12 officers above you, and your "Command" experience is working the graveyard shift while a Major does paperwork making sure you don't screw up and best to make the most of her current situation.

"Captain Anders reporting for duty. Permission to board the ship," she said to the Petty Officer at the loading dock.

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"Well Dom what do you think of our squeaky new Captain" asked Commander Ronda Jasper after the light grilling traditionally given to new officers by the Commander and XO.

"She seems earnest and is hiding her disappointment for being put on a Faststar. She does fit our needs, or at least as close as we can get out of this current CTS crop. 24th out of 117 in her class isn't bad, and her Dradis abilities are top-notch. The poor thing is going to be surprised how much the new system interferes with Dradis" said Major Dominick Marton.

"Major Marton, I am surprised that you think BuShips would half-ass fixing the issues that the Centaur and the Pholus have both reported after their refits. This time, it will be as if the Lords of Kobol themselves blessed our systems, and no glitches will happen with the navigational or Dradis or whatever else," said Jasper jokingly. The whole Centaur design was only supposed to run for 20 years or about now before being sent to various SDF forces. The original idea was to make a smaller cheaper version of the venerable Berzerk class which had served well except for it's "no armor all guns" stereotype during the Cylon War due to it's glass cannon nature. Taking a Marinestar design and adding on a flight pod seemed to make sense when cubits were tight, but then longer-ranged ships were needed to patrol the Territories. With the Cylons seemingly withdrawn from contact, the idea of "do this one thing and only this one thing" didn't fit the new Naval needs. What was supposed to be a design with over 80 ships, only 7 had been completed. Still, the ships that were made fit into the Colonial Navy reasonably well. That they were never going to become SDF ships (which was where the money for ship class production was) due to the aforementioned issues but the Colonial Navy had done a major refit on the Centaur Class 10 years ago. This recent refit was not as extensive, but something kept causing issues and, at this point the Colonial Navy was not going to take one of the seven Centaurs out of active duty for possibly a year or more to figure out what was causing the intermittent and officially "phantom" glitches.

"Yes sir, consider me chastised for my lack of faith in the rear echelon gods. The refit seems on track and we should be ready for our shakedown cruise in a few days. After that is completed do we know what the Admiralty had planned for us" asked Marton. The same issues that kept the Chiron and it's sister ships to limited numbers made it popular for antipiracy duties.

"Not yet, but I am sure it will be the same old thing. Smugglers, pirates with 200 year old crap, and stopping ancient Colonial grudges outside the System. When done we will see what Admiral Logain has for us" said Jasper.

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Admiral Logain was annoyed that this issue ended up on his lap. That a Virgon Territory was having petty squabbles was nothing new. The Virgons always seemed to have issues with themselves or Leonis. Reading over the report in the binary Ofis system two mining corporations were feuding. Apparently, the smaller one had scammed the larger one with a fraudulent survey report. Usually, the larger corporation would just have their cousin or judge (and on Virgon, there's no difference, damn inbred aristocrats) pass some legal reasoning to steal back the mining colony. Apparently the founder of the Maxon Mining Corp was a smart old goat who got Gemenon involved by buying a bunch of old prewar ships. When an outside sponsor backed up Maxon Mining the other company Rollins Mining backed down. This was all around 15 years ago so things should have gone away. However both of the old guys had passed on and now things seemed to be heating up.

In the last few years a couple of breakdowns and missing equipment had happened. Nothing exactly exciting but enough for complaints to keep being made. However six months ago a few unknown ships had attacked Maxon Mining and killed a few of their people. What is worse they had some old Virgonian combat shuttles they used during the attack. Virgon, of course, swears that whatever material from before the War isn't their responsibility (or apparently defending their own Territory), but General Atwood, the person on site, has been making requests. And General Atwood happens to be an old Academy mate of Admiral Ngala.

That a Virgon is asking for Colonial help is surprising but since the Governor is part of the Rollins family but on his current "vacation" or "let's party on Virgon and make a quick visit every six months to my job" General Atwood saw an opportunity to do his duty but he can't officially be noticed helping. Also, Military Intelligence is reporting that Maxon Mining is attempting to buy their own less than legal military gear from Illumini Ships Inc (the same Gemenon corporation that they had a trade deal with), which means that this problem must end before it gets bigger.

Otherwise the Colonial Navy not Virgon will have to park a couple of Viper squadrons there for the next 20 years. And since there is frak all on Ofis B that means making a base to support 200 or so people and when all is said and done we could have had a new Valkyrie for the same price.

Or I could just send a Faststar and have them do some training exercises. They are supposed to get some Marines and a few assault shuttles in a month or so. I can just send them early and tell them to complete their shakedown crew outside the System.

"Commander Jasper, thank you for your visit. I wanted to discuss your orders with you" said Admiral Logain.

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Author's notes

Again this is an attempt to fix some issues. The original story kind of grew as being written and some things I didn't like much. Any questions or comments are appreciated.