Chapter 8 - Decision made
Leo entered the study and found Louise sitting at the desk looking through some sheets of paper with what looked like her hand writing on. Leo approached the desk and sat in the chair facing Louise but was hesitant to start the conversation he was dreading.
"So I had the night to think on all you said and I don't think I will get over it so easily" Louise told Leo. "But i am willing to stick with you through this as not only do i love you too but if what you said is true then its the only way i see in saving as many people as possible."
Leo knew it wasn't a full endorsement to what he was doing but it was a start and it meant he wouldn't lose one of the most important people in his life.
"I understand Lou and I'm doing it for the same reason as I sometimes wake up in the morning and wonder if it's all a dream. Then I remember it's not all the responsibility on my shoulders to save as many people as possible while at the same time allowing so many to die because it's what's needed to save ourselves as a race." Leo exclaimed
Louise looked at Leo and sighed as she realized that he was carrying such a heavy burden. She then stood up and went around the desk and pulled Leo into a hug and whispered into his ear. "I know what I said is not what you wanted to hear but I can't just abandon everything I know and believe on the drop of a coin. Then there is the fact that billions are going to die and we have to let it happen." she finished as a tear streaked down her face.
Leo hugged her a little harder and said "I can't say it will be easy or that we won't be changed after it but we need to do this as without doing what where doing only about 50,000 survive the attack and of those little more than half make it to the planet they find to settle at the end. But without effort and planning and a little luck we can save millions." He finished with passion and determination in his voice.
Louise took a step back and looked at him and realized why she fell in love with him in the first place. She then went back round the desk, sat back down and looked at Leo and asked. "If I'm to be your partner in this, I need to know everything including what you've done and what you plan to do."
"Ok I'll tell you everything i can." Leo then sat down and prepared for a long talk.
So they spent the next 8 hours going over everything from what they've done and all the plans he has in motion or he thinks will help.
It was during this conversation that Athena and her companions arrived and watched as Leo and Louise discussed all the plans Leo had in the works, completed or to start in the future.
Aries listened on and started to like Louise as she has a no nonsense attitude and the wisdom to back it up. He considered everything Athena has done for Leo and figured he needed some help so he decided that he would give Louise some knowledge to help her support Leo.
"Athena, I've decided to impart some knowledge to Louise to help Leo along as I think they make the perfect duo. With the knowledge ill impart will complement Leo and allow him to focus more on the military and technology side while Louise can focus more on the Politics and social side." Aries told Athena and Oma.
Oma also decided to speak. "I think that would be a good idea. I won't do anything as my focus cant be here as i have more obligations to help those in Avalona Ascend and join us than here so i don't want to start something i can't commit to." She said then she continued on. "But remember if you do this you will be committed to the outcome of this plan and will need to help them with more knowledge as they progress as if we want them to become similar to what we where we will need to guide them in the right direction."
Athena looked at them both and smiled. "Thank you both. Brother I think you should wait till she's alone and appear to her in her dreams and explain what you're giving her and why but I would wait till she and Leo have discussed some more and agreed on a direction as I wouldn't want to affect their relationship while it's on shaky grounds."
Aries agreed with her and they decided to leave and look around the colonies to see what their descendants have accomplished both the good and the bad.
It took Louise another 4 days to process everything and get over the shock of it all but she decided that to do what she could and to help as many as possible. It was 2 days before the end of their vacation and they were once again sitting in the study as Louise wanted to talk to him about some ideas she had when going over everything.
"Leo i think we can do more and not have to spend much more in resources in the short term. I know you wanted to focus on old timers and people with skills already but the problem with that is they already have loyalties and preconceived ideas. So what I want to do is buy a cloud type ship or two and collect all the orphans from the colonies and raise them away from the politics of the twelve colonies and make them more loyal to the new colony than the old ones. I know it sounds evil but it will give you a large future generation of labour who would have less aversion to leaving the old colonial system behind." Louise was very passionate in the way she delivered her small speech and this made it all the more convincing.
Leo looked at her and thought about how to implement her plan. "I think it's possible but to make it safe we would need to buy the ships and upgrade them to our standard as well as our hyperdrive so they can get away when the attack happens."
At his acceptance she smiled and continued with her second idea "Thank you for believing in me and i have more ideas that i think could help us. The main one would be to build the stations for the resupply points in parts and then ship them to where we need them and just attach them together instead of building them purely from scratch as there is no real need for them to be like the military anchorages as we won't be using them for more than a few decades and then either recycling them or abandoning them." She looked him in the eye and continued. "We could even use the same method with ships for transporting the survivors by building them in sections and then combining them together to speed up production as we need to have the number of ships to hold tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands."
Leo really liked watching Louise when she was on a mission as her eyes had a sparkle to them that just made you want to get lost in them. "Louise, those are good ideas and I will get our design teams on it and it might work for civilian craft but I can't promise anything on those ideas until the people who know how to design ships have had the time to think it over."
"I know that Leo." Louise said with a little bit of heat in her voice. "I don't plan to design the ships myself, it's just an idea of the direction they could go."
After that they devolved into Louise pitching ideas and Leo making decisions on which to follow, which to modify and which weren't plausible.
The last thing they talked about was Louise's father but Leo knew he couldn't do much to change his fate apart from maybe saving him at the end.
Louise knew that her father wouldn't want to run and would die fighting for the colonies so she was saddened by that fact but understood that if given the right information and the right prompts they could get his help in saving more people.
It was the night after Louise returned home and she had just drifted off to sleep that she was approached by Aries in her sleep.
Louise was startled at first then Aries told her who he was and what he was there for. She was amazed at what she would be receiving but a bit hesitant to accept it.
"Will this information change me as I'm happy with who I am and what I'm doing and if this new knowledge will change that i would rather not have it." Louise asked.
He laughed at that and replied. "No it wont change who you are, it will just give you access to more advanced knowledge about politics, social care, some medical knowledge just to even things out a bit with what knowledge Leo has." Aries assured her. "We are doing this to help you as we see Leo doing a lot with the knowledge he has but he's falling short when it comes to starting the colony because he doesn't have the knowledge to work around all the security and social rules the colonies have."
Louise was relieved that it wouldn't affect her and agreed with the fact that Leo was hesitant to start a lot of the plans due to being found out and forced to cut ties with the colonies before he could save anyone. So she eventually agreed to the download of knowledge.
Aries directed her to not fight the feeling of pressure she will feel to begin with as that's just the connection for the knowledge to be entered into her mind safely.
Aries spent the next 3 hours transferring knowledge to her and making sure it didn't overload her mind.
Louise woke up the next day as normal and didn't feel any different but when she started to think over the plans she had agreed to with Leo and what the problems would be she naturally thought up ways around the system to accomplish them without really breaking any laws.
At first she was surprised with how easy it would be then she was really happy that she will be able to do more to help Leo and she decided to go back over everything Leo is holding off on due to political pressure and see if she can develop work arounds to get the plans started.
It was 2 years later and Louise had accomplished a lot with their plans for the orphanages and they had a ship set up and were just going through the last of the safety checks and hiring staff who would follow them when they moved the orphanage to the new colony. They had also managed to start gathering the families of their workers for the eventual transfer to Altera within the next 2 years after the first wave of construction drones had finished building the homes and infrastructure needed for them on the planet in their capital New Haven.
They had also finished building 3 anchorages using the pre-fab method in nebulas and gas giants where the radiation effects cylons and not the colonials. All they need to do is install some defences and the actual supplies and they will be all set to do what they were designed for. They had plans for 4 more in the next 2 years to complete the planned route of any jump capable ships to follow when they flee the colonies. Lastly they had started on building 4 new Mars Battlestars for the defence of their new home in the orbital shipyards made out of some of the mobile shipyards they officially retired from the production companies and moved to Altera prime system with the mining and refinery ships they moved there 4 months ago.
Lastly they had ramped up recruitment of the older generation who have retired or have been injured as with Louise's new medical knowledge they were able to help a lot more of those who thought they had no future left. They were able to recruit them and move them to the colony ships for gene therapy and placement into the workforce that will be following the families to the new colony.
It was another year until Leo got his promotion to commander and given command of his own battlestar but it wasn't all smiles and handshakes as he was given a very crucial and time sensitive mission that will take him out of the communication range of his family due to mission security. Leo found himself sitting in the fleet admiral's room as he was directed to lead a small task force after a group of pirates who had stolen a recently decommissioned Jupiter class battlestar that was due to be parked with the reserve fleet.
It turned out that they were Sagittaron terrorists who had been planted into the fleet reserve waiting for the opportunity that was handed to them. It led to a massive overhaul and revamp of the fleet intelligence branch and several leading officers are now overseeing remote fleet stations in the middle of nowhere as punishment for being too lax with their duties.
Surprisingly this wasn't the only ship that they had stolen as reports stated they had managed to get a number of smaller craft from corvettes to frigates from scrap yards and depots all over the colonies. What really had the admiralty in a fit was that they had even scavenged and repaired several wrecks from battlefields designated as military graves.
It wasn't just the admiralty on the bandwagon either as a politician decided to put his own spin on the situation by campaigning on the fact that they needed to stamp out the pirate menace and that the fleet needed less big ships meant to fight a war and more fast attack ships meant to fight pirates and patrol shipping lanes. What was no surprise though was who the politician was, it was future president of the colonies Richard Adar who was instrumental in Hamstringing the fleet with smaller and weaker ships as well as forcing through upgrades before they could be tested and vetted properly through official channels.
So here Leo was in the middle of space as his blood pressure shot through the roof as he directed and coordinated not only his mars class battlestar but 6 heavy cruisers, 4 cruisers, 2 of the new Gunstars and 2 fully loaded marine assault ships. If that was it he could cope but he also had a small flotilla of support ships from supply ships to tylium tankers to fleet tenders all of which he had to protect while he ran offensive operations.
He had been ordered to remain out here in the middle of a deserted system close to the colonies that was close by the area where the pirates were reported to use regularly for the next 8 months hunting down not only the stolen battlestar but any other pirate or smuggler he could find.
He already had 75% of his raptor force out scouting all the nearby systems for any trace of these ships and all he had got back so far where ghost contacts that disappeared when they followed up on them which led Leo to changing tactics and going with leaving sensor buoys disguised as debris in the system doing passive scans of any ships that enter the system and record there course and heading. He then had raptors jump in every other day and download the information for the analysts to do over for any regular contacts.
Leo also had a back up plan in the works as he suspected that they were using some of the pre-war mining installations that have been abandoned since the war but so far he has had no luck with the ones they have searched so far. The only positive was that the marines were getting plenty of training in assaulting space stations and installations.
It was as he was contemplating all this that a raptor jumped in and reported that they had found one of the ships reported stolen and that they were docked to one of the old mining stations in the asteroid belt 6 Ly away. So Leo ordered the raptor to land and had the CAG send another raptor in the keep an eye on the station for any movement while he plans an assault to capture the ship and its records before they could be destroyed as he needed the flight data to find out where its been since it was stolen from the depot.
What had Leo in two minds was if he should wait to see if more ships turn up and risk losing the current target they did have or attack straight away and hope that they don't regularly wipe the navigation records regularly. So he decided to hold a meeting of his ship commanders, XO's, fleet CAG and the officers in charge of his marine detachment to come up with plans for either eventuality. In the end they decided that it was better to attack it now than to risk losing the lead altogether, so Leo ordered the marines to prepare 4 infiltration teams to secure the navigation computer and the command center of the mining station before they launched their assault in full force. He asked the Colonel to make sure his units were prepared to seize and hold their assigned targets within the allotted time as they couldn't afford a mistake.
They agreed to launch the attack in 4 hours giving the infiltrators 2 hours to take their targets before they would assault the ship and station.