AN: So, as I haven't started chapter 26 don't expect such a quick update on this. I am determined to finally give this story an ending though. Thanks to the reader who left a review! Glad someone is happy about an update even after five years. Enjoy!
Elbows resting on the edge of the computer console, Rebecca Lynn buried her face in her hands as her latest idea hit a brick wall. Though she had managed to reconfigure Pisus' internal sensors to only concentrate on heat signatures, she still couldn't differentiate between the corridors and the maintenance tunnels on the scan. She needed some way to make the scan more sensitive.
"What we need are some fresh eyes on this problem," PO Easton said from the console beside Rebecca Lynn. Pisus' computer specialist had been helping her with her idea to use the internal sensors for their search.
"Fresh eyes," Rebecca muttered lifting her head. She immediately knew just what set of fresh eyes she wanted on this problem. First she had to get permission from Admiral Adama.
Aware of Easton's eyes one her, Rebecca got up and took the few steps necessary to reach the shipboard phone. Placing a call to the War Room, Rebecca Lynn soon had the Admiral on line.
"Sir, I know you don't want personnel moving between ships in the current situation, but can I contact Lt. Gaeta via communications and bring him up to speed on what we're attempting. Easton and I are close, but I think we need a fresh perspective on things."
There was a pause before Admiral Adama responded. "Permission granted. Just make sure the line between Pisus and Galactica is encrypted. Doral may or may not be monitoring communications but I don't want to take a chance."
"Understood sir," Rebecca replied before signing off.
It wasn't long before Pisus' Communications Officer had Lt. Gaeta on the line. She brought him up to date on the situation and what they were attempting to do. She felt confident that with the three of them working on it, it wouldn't be long before they had a solution to the issue that was tripping them up.
After a couple of wrong turns, as navigating the Astral Ore by maintenance tunnel was proving to be more difficult than he had first thought it would be, Marcus Doral found his way back to the mining ship's docking bay. Along with regular docking bay personnel, he spotted three men in Colonial military garb. Two of them were positioned at the main door of the docking bay while the third was positioned by the Raptors that had brought the military personnel to the mining ship.
The three military personnel made his plan of trying to sneak onboard one of the Raptors or the Astral Ore's shuttles problematic. They would be more difficult to sneak past than the regular ship personnel.
~More difficult, but not impossible, ~ Doral told himself even as he started to run different scenarios through his head.
Before he thought of no more than three scenarios, all of which he considered more likely to end in failure than success, the doors to the docking bay opened up. As six more military personnel filed in, Doral knew he'd have to abandon the idea of hitchhiking a ride off of Astral Ore at the moment. Three military personnel was one thing, but nine were too many. He also didn't know when more might be showing up. Perhaps they were done with their search and would be departing soon.
Doral weighed his options. He could stay in his current position, and keep an eye on the changing situation. However, the more people who gathered in the docking bay, the higher the possibility that someone would notice him. The idea was to stay undetected until he could make his escape. Hanging around the docking bay if the military personnel were coming back to the docking bay did not lend itself to that goal.
As quietly as he could, Doral moved from the access hatch and into the maintenance tunnel. He would find a spot in the ship with low activity and reassess his options.
Lee continued to study the schematic that the captain of the Astral Ore had provided them as Lonewolf passed out the assignments. Though they were keeping most of their personnel in the docking bay, he and Lonewolf had decided to send teams to protect the entrances to the bridge, engineering, and the medical bay. They had also asked the captain of the ship to ask the crew that weren't essential personnel to gather in the mess hall or the docking bay so that if Phoenix figured out how to use the internal scanners to search for Doral, all heat signatures from the Astral Ore crew or the military personnel would be in certain areas of the ship as she had asked.
"Do you have that thing memorized yet?"
"Just about," Lee replied, not bothering looking at Belmont. "The better I know the layout of the ship, the quicker I can form a strategy to get Doral out of the maintenance tunnels if that is where he is at."
"And if he isn't on the Astral Ore at all?"
Lee finally looked up from the schematic he was studying. "Then at least I am passing the time."
A call from the Astral Ore's captain interrupted the conversation. The captain informed him that the entire crew was now either on the bridge, in medbay, the mess hall or in the docking bay with Lee and the other military personnel.
"Acknowledged," Lee replied. Closing the open line, he looked up at Belmont. "Now we wait to see if Rebecca figures out how to do a scan. If not, we might be crawling through tunnels no matter how dangerous it might be."
"You won't be leading any of the groups through the tunnel," Raymond told him. Lee opened his mouth to protest but his former flight instructor didn't give him a chance. "I plan on doing everything I can to make sure that I am not telling Laura Jean that the father she was just reunited with is gone. Now, you can do the smart thing and help me with that, or I can pull rank and order you to remain with the raptor with a guard until this is all over. The choice is yours."
"Fine, but if we search the tunnels, I am going with you even if you lead."
"I can live with that," Belmont replied.
Approaching steps made both men turn to see one of the engineers of the Astral Ore approaching.
"I had a thought I would like to share with you, if I may."
"Go ahead," Belmont told him, willing to entertain any thoughts someone might have had.
"Well giving that the maintenance tunnels are all interconnected, if someone was trying to hide in them, what if we somehow tried smoking them out. I would need to take the fire suppression systems off line or they would automatically start clearing the smoke, but if access points in places that the crew is in, was blocked off, and personnel creating the smoke or waiting at places for him to come out had gas masks on, it would get anyone hiding in the tunnels out."
"Can you assure that smoke doesn't overwhelm the crew on the bridge, medbay, mess hall or in here?" Belmont asked.
"Yes. My men and I could figure it out."
Lee looked to Belmont, the two men silently conveying to one another their thoughts on the subject by each giving a single nod. "Start making preparations. We'll wait to see if there is a way to use the scanners to see if he's in there. If we do and it is determined he's not there and is located on another ship, I don't think we need fill the ship with smoke. But if he is in there, flushing him out might be the best way to deal with it."
"I'll get my men started on preparations," the engineer said, giving a curt nod before turning and walking away.
"Looks like thinking outside the box is the order of the day," Lee commented.
"I think that has become a survival skill these last six months," Belmont countered. Lee nodded, thinking of his own close call with the Cylons on the newly minted Colonial One. The tactic he had used to fool the enemy that the ship had blown up had been purely theory but in that moment, it was the only thing he could think that might work.
Rebecca Lynn made changes to the coding for the Pisus' that Gaeta suggested over the open communication link. Easton stood behind her, watching over her shoulder.
"This might just work," Easton commented softly.
"Told you some fresh eyes were what we needed," Rebecca Lynn told the computer specialist.
"This is still just theory," Gaeta reminded them.
"This whole idea was just a theory but if it keeps our people from playing a game of cat and mouse in the maintenance tunnels of the ships then all the trial and error are worth it," Rebecca Lynn countered.
The three fell silent, the soft sounds of keys being hit as Rebecca Lynn worked seemed awfully loud in the silence. Soon, even that sound melted away as she finished her task.
Taking a deep breath, Rebecca Lynn let it out slowly. "Let's see if this works," she said, restarting the internal sensors. There was silence among the small group as they waited for the process to take place. When the internal sensors did come back on, there was much more detail than before.
"Those are the maintenance tunnels right?" Easton said, pointing to the screen.
"I think so," Rebecca Lynn said. Opening a channel to Sgt. Marks, head of the Pisus' marines. She instructed the marine to enter the maintenance tunnel even as Easton focused in on the place where the sergeant had been waiting. On the screen, the heat signature that showed up where Marks should have been waiting, moved into the maintenance tunnel. There was enough distinction to pinpoint that the signature was in the tunnel and not the corridor although in areas, like CIC, where multiple people were the heat signatures blended together.
"So what's the verdict?" Gaeta asked over the open line.
"It should be enough to tell if someone is in the maintenance tunnels, though whether it is one or multiple people couldn't be determined by the sensors," Easton said.
"Yes!" Gaeta said excitedly from his own ship.
"Let's just hope this Doral guy doesn't have friends with him we don't know about," Rebecca Lynn remarked.
Ending the call with Gaeta, she asked Pisus' communications officer to patch her through to the group on the Astral Ore.
Belmont had to remind himself to breathe as he watched as Mitchell, Astral Ore's chief engineer, made the changes to the ships internal sensors. It had to be done a bit different than with the Battlestars but the man seemed to understand what Phoenix wanted him to do. It was just taking time.
Behind them, Lee paced. As it kept both of them from looking over Mitchell's shoulder, Belmont didn't try to put a stop to it. Lee never had been one good at sitting around and doing nothing.
"Restarting the system now," Mitchell told them.
Those words stopped Lee's pacing as he moved to stand next to Belmont. As the screen came back on, it looked very similar to Pisus' CAG, though he hoped the information meant more to the engineer.
Without waiting to be asked, Mitchell started explaining what he was seeing. He pointed out the groups where crew and Pisus' personnel were gathered and then finally pointed to a red dot away from those spots. "As all of our people are accounted for in one of the other groups, this signature indicates someone who isn't with us. Whoever they are, they are in a maintenance tunnel near the aft storage bay."
"So, it looks like our stowaway came here," Belmont said. "So now, how do we get him out?"
There was silence for a moment until Lee spoke up. "Is there anyway to use your smoke idea, to get him to come out in the storage bay?"
Mitchell contemplated the question for a bit. "There is an entrance from the bay into the maintenance tunnel. It is against the outer hull wall about here," he said, pointing to a spot a short distance away from the heat signature they believed to be Doral.
"Looks like he's in a tunnel that only gives him two directions or that hatch to flee," Lee commented. "Do you think you can manage to flood the tunnel with smoke from both directions, forcing him to exit the tunnel into the storage bay?"
"We could," Mitchell said. "It would require us to be in the tunnels though to make sure we coordinate it right," the engineer said. "Those in the tunnels and in the storage bay will need to wear gas masks though as smoke will probably follow him into the storage bay."
"As we know where he is out, it does lessen the risk of those in the tunnels," Belmont said. "However, if he is armed and sees anyone, he may open fire."
"I'm willing to take the chance," Mitchell said. "I am sure I can find a couple others willing to volunteer as well."
Belmont looked to Lee. The younger CAG nodded his agreement, knowing that any attempt at capturing the fleeing Cylon was a risk. Next, Pisus' CAG looked to the captain of the astral ore.
"I want the guy off my ship. I'm willing to go into the tunnels to create the smoke myself," the man answered.
"Looks like we have our plan," Belmont said. "Let's execute and update Admiral Adama afterwards. No reason to risk the plan being overheard by the stowaway if he has a way to monitor communications."
"Agreed," Lee said.
A half hour later, all three groups were in place. Two groups of four, made up of two Astral Ore crew to create the smoke and two military personnel each, were in place in the tunnels. The engineer monitoring the heat signature of their stowaway had reported no movement. Belmont and Lee had the rest of the personnel from the Pisus set up in the storage bay. Though the cargo in the bay offered them some cover, it was still close quarters if their quarry came out of the tunnel and opened fired. It was the best they could do.
Beside Belmont, Lee glanced at his watch. "They should be filling the tunnels with smoke now."
Belmont nodded, his eyes focused on the panel that led into the tunnel. Soon, the panel was kicked out from the inside. Obscured some by the smoke, a figure emerged from the tunnel.
"Marcus Doral you are under arrest. Put your hands up," Belmont ordered though he could not make a positive identification through the smoke.
Instead of complying, the figure raised a gun in Belmont's direction. The sound of the gun going off, filled his ears, even as he ducked for cover, tackling Lee beside him as he did. More gunfire filled the storage bay even as Belmont felt a sharp pain in his upper left arm.