Chapter 11 - Things not as they appear to be.

10 years before the fall

Leo had been busy for the last 7 months with the mission given to him by the admiralty and he was glad it was coming to an end soon. They had managed to use the information from the recovered cruiser to track down the majority of the ships the terrorists masquerading as freedom fighters had stolen from colonial depots and battlefields but haven't managed to find the elusive battlestar.

He had spent days going over charts of known space and even going so far as to look over some of the reports that his own scout ships had of the area but still come up empty when it comes to the location of the stolen battlestar. The only trail they had found that could point out where it went took it into Cylon space and Leo refused all his commanders requests to send ships beyond the armistice line to continue to track the ship and he had said as much in his reports to the Admiralty.

So Leo left his state room and made his way to the CIC after deciding that he looked over the map charts enough. He entered the CIC and walked over to the chart table while looking up at the dradis screen and took in the extra IFF's from the dozen ships he had seized over the last 7 months. He picked up the reports clipboard and took note that no problems have come up since he was last in the CIC.

"Lt Jones sent out a message to all ships that we will begin our return trip back to the colonies at 0800 standard and all ships are to be ready 30 min before jump." Leo ordered his comm specialist.

"Yes Sir." Replied Lt Jones. "Sir, Fleet tender Saving Grace has reported the cruiser they have in dock is ready to be crewed and launched and are awaiting your orders."

Leo took that in and thought that there wasn't really any point in crewing the ship at this point as they had no need for the ship. "Let them know that they will keep the ship docked until we get the colonies and find out where the Admiralty wants the recovered ships placed." Leo ordered.

"Yes sir." Lt Jones acknowledged and then got on with his work.

Orbit of Picon

Leo stood on the CIC as his ship jumped into the Picon system at the designated coordinates for military vessels to jump into the system at their assigned time. After a few minutes of flashing lights the rest of the fleet jumped in and they powered their way to Picon HQ.

"Lt Jones open up a line to Fleet HQ and let them know we have jumped successfully and request a flight path for approach." Leo ordered his Comm specialist who will likely be promoted after the reports on this deployment are analyzed and accolade's awarded.

"Sir, HQ has requested for you to report to the Fleet Admirals office ASAP to give your report in person." Lt Jones informed Leo.

"XO you have command, bring her in nicely and don't scratch the paint." Leo told his XO.

"No promises sir there a lot of traffic out there." the XO joked back. "I'll have a raptor made ready for you to take you to fleet HQ."

"Very good XO." Leo responded before leaving the CIC to his office to get his reports and collected intelligence.

Landing Field of Fleet HQ on Picon

Leo looked at the Coordinates he was given for touch down and pulled back on the thrusters as the ship came into range of the landing field and he looked at the assembly of raptors and vipers spread out on the ground ready to answer the call to arms at a moment's notice.

Leo landed the raptor smoothly with barely a bump and flicked a few switches to power down the engines.

"That was a nice landing sir, barely felt a thing." commented the raptors pilot sat in the co-pilot seat.

"I figured I'd be rusty but as soon as we launched it all came back to me and I should do it more often as the rush of being in control of a craft traveling at those speeds is just something I don't wanna give up." Leo responded with a smile on his face.

"I totally agree with you sir, I enjoy raptors but really wanna switch over to vipers as soon as possible as there is just something about the way vipers move that attracts me to them." The Pilot said with a passion not seen in many people these days.

Leo thought for a minute. "Well keep up the good work and i'll see what i can do when the next slot opens up as even though i command the ship i let the CAG make the decision's when it comes to anything to do with the airwing so keep up the good work and keep your nose clean and i don't see there being a problem with me at least recommending you to the CAG" Leo told the pilot.

Leo got up and left the raptor and came face to face with a straight backed Lieutenant who saluted Leo and said. "Welcome to fleet headquarters sir, If you would follow me i'll direct you to the fleet admirals office."

Leo saluted back and indicated for him to lead on.

Fleet Admirals office Picon HQ

Leo walks into the office outer room and the secretary looks up from her computer and says. "How may I help you commander."

Leo responds. "Commander Leonidus Kosta to see the fleet admiral."

"If you take a seat, the admiral is just finishing up a meeting and will be with you shortly." The secretary replied.

So Leo takes a seat on the seats on the opposite wall next to the door and waits. A little less than 10 min later the door to the inner office opens and an Admiral walks out so Leo stands up and crisply stands at attention and salutes.

Admiral Nagala looks at the commander who stood and saluted and saluted back just as crisply. He then realizes who the commander is and offers his hand to Leo for a handshake. "Commander Kosta it's nice to officially meet you, your reports the last 8 months have been some interesting reading and if i may say some of the tactics you have used opened up some new lines of thinking when deploying ships and people."

Leo was a little shocked then noticed who the admiral actually is. "It's nice to meet you sir and thank you for the praise sir it means a lot coming from someone of your stature."

"It's nothing, commander, I just wish I was out there with you. I spend more time in meetings with bureaucrats these days than i would really like to but that's the curse of command." Nagala replied with a little sigh but collects himself just as quickly before looking behind him and then continues. "Well I'll leave you to your meeting as I have work to do."

As he walks out of the office after saying goodbye to the secretary that looks strikingly similar to the admiral, he then realized that it could be his daughter which wouldn't be surprising given that even in the most strict of organizations some nepotism still exists.

"You can go in now, commander." said the secretary.

"Thank you." Leo responds and walks into the room.

Leo walks in and gives the room a quick scan with his eyes before they focus in on the person sitting behind the desk who looks up and smiles. "Not expecting me to be sitting here?" Fleet Admiral Corman says as he sees the shock in Leo's eyes. "A lot can change in 8 months of radio silence."

Leo nods and then recovers to say. "Apparently so Admiral, It's good to see someone competent taking up the role after Admiral Cain's retirement, I was more worried we would end up with one of those admirals who spent most of their career behind a desk kissing the ass's of the politicians." Once he said that he realized he may have gone too far considering he was only a commander and only for a short time at that. "Please forgive my candor sir, it's just something I was really dreading."

Admiral Corman just smiled and waved him to sit down in the chair on the other side of the desk from the admiral.

"It's fine Leo I know what you feared and a lot of us feared the same. That's why Cain retired a year earlier than he planned so that we could be sure that the new peace faction couldn't put a bean counter into the position instead."

Leo nodded as he sat down and handed his reports to the Admiral. "Overall I think we managed to recapture or destroy the majority of the ships they stole. The only problem we came across was the battlestar that crossed the armistice line and that is what worries me as why would they cross it with a ship that would stir up a hornets nest." He said with a frown upon his face.

Admiral Corman took the reports and put them on his desk and replied. "I have the same worry but you did the right thing in not following them as i hate to think what could have happened if you followed them and ran into whatever the cylons use for ships these days."

Leo nodded and said. "Yes I didn't think recovering one battlestar that's on its way to the depot was worth restarting the war as I don't think the cylons would take the actions of us crossing the line kindly even if it was to recover stolen assets."

Corman nodded and then he and Leo spent the next hour going over his reports and what the plans were for the recovered ships. In the end it was decided that the ships were to be moved to a depot and scrapped as even with the repairs done by Leo's fleet tenders they were too haphazardly patched to be safe for long term use and would cost too much to over-hall to be worth doing it.

Admiral Corman signed off on the reports and the promotions Leo recommended based on their performance during the operation. "Ok with that done i'll let you get back to your ship and give your crew's my compliments on a job well done. Also give my love to Louise for me and i hopefully be seeing you for a meeting after you've had some time to rest."

Leo looked at him with a questioning look but decided Louise will fill him in when he sees her in a few days and he stands up and salutes the admiral which he returns and then leaves the room and makes his way back to his ship to organize leave for the rest of the crew.

Virtual Space

John Cavil sat in a meeting with several of his copies as they discussed their plans to start the war and to convince the other models that the attack needed to happen.

"Richard what happened with the plan to get the colonial fleet to break the Armistice line?" Asked John

Richard looked at John and said. "They didn't cross the line. We had sensors on the area ready to record the data then jump in and destroy what they sent but they stayed a safe distance from the border and then left once they had scans confirming that the trail they were following went into our space."

John didn't look happy but understood it was a long shot and would only have worked if the commander of the chasing fleet was a hot headed shot first type.

"Ok we need to go with plan B then i want you to test a few of our bigger nukes close to there sensor buoys to encourage them to come and look. As for the battlestar, I want you to take it to the firing range and man it with centurions who are to act as a defending ship should and find out its weaknesses and the best way to destroy it with the arsenal we have." John commanded Richard.

He then turned to Michael Cavil and asked." Michael, what's the current progress with hunting down the last of those guardian Base ships that escaped during the coup?" John turned his piercing eyes on the copy sat to his left.

Michael looked back at him and answered. "We have managed to track down and destroy 3 out of 5 of the escaped base ships with little ship losses apart from raiders but we still haven't managed to track down the first hybrid and his command ship."

John smiled a little at the beginning then started to scowl when Michael told him he had no leads on the other missing ships. "Michael, I want you to find those ships no matter what as if the other models learn what we did to the final five and the first hybrids they will have to be boxed. "Now get to work, we have lots of work to do and little time to do it if we want to accomplish our plans before the others start questioning us."

At that they all left the virtual space to continue their assigned tasks.

High Rise Apartment Caprica City

John left the virtual space and walked to the window and looked out over the hustle and bustle that was Caprica city. He started to go over in his head all the things he needed to do before he left to head back to Cylon space so he could be in command when they attacked.

He had done well so far he had convinced an ambitious moron Richard Adar to run for president and if all went to plan he would win the election in a few months. They shouldn't have any problems especially considering that they have analyzed all the data and anyone who could have come close to beating him was either killed in some tragic accident or had their dirty laundry aired to the whole colonies ending up in either jail or in political exile.

John was happy with their chosen patsy as he didn't ask questions about where the money was coming from just that it was helping him. He had managed to convince him that the Cylons were not coming back to attack the colonies so they didn't need such a big military and that the money should be used for other things such as making life easier for the privileged.

John was also glad that Admiral Cain had retired but a bit annoyed that he managed to retire earlier than planned and put the capable Admiral Corman as the leader of the fleet with Nagala backing him up. If it wasn't for the fact that Six had managed to flirt her way into Baltar's confidence and get access to the areas they needed to eventually plant the virus they needed to completely eradicate the fleet and the defenses of the planets he would be way more pissed.

He decided he deserved a treat so he went to a hidden cupboard and poured himself a drink of the finest Ambrosia on the market and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Caprica City

It took Leo 4 days to finish arranging things and docking the ship for the crew to finally take at least 3 weeks of leave to be with their families and friends after a long deployment. He himself took one of his family's luxury shuttles to Caprica to meet up with Louise to go over what's been happening since their last meeting.

They spent the first 2 days just enjoying themselves and going to different events and shows that Leo hadn't had the chance to see yet. They also celebrated a belated anniversary dinner in the finest restaurant in Caprica City.

They were now sitting in Louise's office at Kosta Enterprises HQ sitting on the Leather chairs surrounding a coffee table which held their drinks and a high stack of paperwork that they needed to go through today.

"Leo, before we start I think we need to go over the offer from the colonial fleet to do with the colony building and helping them build their own." Louise didn't waste time and started with the most important decision to be made in this meeting. "Don't get me wrong we can't tell them everything but we can use their help and their contacts to speed up our development and access to resources, especially people."

Leo looked at her and smiled and responded. "I agree we need to make a decision and if I'm being honest I'm all for it but i need to know where we are as in our own colony before i can discuss with you on what conditions that will most benefit us and our new home."

Louise thinks for a minute and realizes he is right and she realizes she just wants to do whatever she can to give her father the best chance at surviving the attack. "Ok, I will give you an outline of what has been accomplished since the last meeting and since the rest of your family has taken the journey to New Altera."

Leo nodded and got himself a little more comfortable to listen to what he predicted to be a lot of information. Louise waited for him to get settled before she picked up a folder and took out the first sheet of paper. "Ok we will start with ships and upgrades. The good news is that they have finished upgrading all the military ships with the new technology and they have even built a few more of the scout ships and have started to map the surrounding systems to Altera Prime. The bad news is that we are running out of personnel to man the ships especially with the long vetting process so we have had to run some of the smaller ships on reduced crews."

Leo didn't like that and thought of a way to increase their pool of recruits for the ships they have. "I don't like having ships with less than full complement, so what i suggest is that we start recruiting younger people straight from school and use the next ten years to train them to where they need to be as i think we can start a large recruitment process on all colonies as pick up some of the talent that falls through the cracks of the fleet where they favor making officers of those from the more upscale colonies such as Caprica."

Louise took a moment to go over the idea in her head and nodded. "That's a good idea and would allow us to have a younger pool of talent for when the older crew members want to start retiring again as i think even with what we have given them with the gene therapy there is only so long someone wants to do what they already know when they have a few hundred years left to live." So Louise wrote down the idea and added a few notes with her own ideas about how they could implement it.

Leo then asked for the status of the civilian fleet. Louise answered. "As far as the civilian fleet is concerned we have split it into three categories. First we have the industry fleet which has been completely upgraded to aid in the prospecting and collection of resources. Secondly we have the resources fleet such as colony ships and agro ships that are at 80% complete with upgrades with the last 20% in stationary orbit of the new colony after being taken there the long way and will remain there till the planet is self sustainable. Lastly we have the transport fleet which is fully upgraded and being used when needed to transport new settlers to New Altera."

Louise then went on to give a breakdown of what types of ships they have and how many people they could transport at one time which turned out to be around 300,000 comfortably and if needed they could transport up to 750,000 with current ships.