The UNSC Colonial alliance now controlling the space around Picon buried the hundreds if not thousands of Cylon and their flesh covered skinjob counterparts in a constant stream of Marines and Army personnel. Clearing the primary cities and their suburban surroundings over the next week. Survivors were even found in the mountains north of the capital Queensland a battalion of Marines and army had evacuated schools of nearly three thousand children and teachers hiding them in caves and bunkers from the first war meant to hold the president, their family and staff.

Using the massive dedicated shipyards over picon repair efforts were doubled as the overcrowded Scorpia shipyards shipped nearly three thousand surplus engineers to the Picon yards to continue where the Cylon repair crews had left off.

During this time the nearly six hundred Unggoy had picked up enough of the ancient Greek analog the Colonials spoke to pass along a message "we no like fight but we work hard fix stuff." Elizibeth Horner pushed for them to be given a test with a threat and a small corner of Scorpia Station E was given to them under the wary eye of both UNSC and Colonial Marines and a pair of Manticores and a Firestar all heavily damaged was given to them to repair on the clear understanding if one screwed up they all would suffer. The grunts seemed to understand their leader, a Unggoy named Bubbub nickname "bub" , made promises that no foul play was at hand; they just wanted the opportunity to save their brothers still held captive.

Every operational colonial raptor making use of their portable ftl blink drive was scouring the colonies and local space looking for the pirates UNSC forces continued their hit and run tactics to keep the cylons from attacking either Scopria or Picon.

As the Caprica evacuees were continuously sorted a group of them were recognized by a keen eyed Marine it was the Caprica Buccaneers apparently before the attacks they were in the mountains north of Delphi for some training when the bombs fell. They only survived because the first attack from the UNSC Able had allowed colonial marines and air force to pick them up along with thousands of other people fleeing the cities and radiation. Some of the 21st marines even spoke up how when they were rescued Anders, Jo man, and rally all volunteered to become militia members, and served honorably Sue joined the medical teams as a nurses aid helping the endless number of wounded. Other members of famous sports teams also threw their lot in helping anyway they knew how.

Throughout the colonies the Cylons were surprised and in a majority of cases overwhelmed by the lightning raids ships coming out of slipspace firing those monster guns that decapitated entire base ships or ripped the main body of a battlestar in half before disappearing.

On the day the UNSC recognized it as 30 November the frigates Minotaur and Centaur completed their maiden voyage around Scorpia and work was immediately ordered for six more Paris class frigates before the first of the destroyers to be ordered. Word was the shipyard workers were hammering a few details out but they think they can launch the next pair a few days earlier than predicted.

Pirate freighter

Mayhems Wish

Deep space 40 light years from colonial or Cylon space

Tau-cha launched on her throne overlooking the command deck of the freighter she called her flagship the Kig-yar bridge crew busy at their stations she could see the holographic markers of the six human and machine ships they had acquired so far thanks to the Assembler in the Dreams hold they had manufactured acceptable laser and plasma weapons to replace the horrid excuse for weapons these even more primitive people used.

Her beak grinded at the thought of the six UNSC human ships she had brought to this strange place, her ship's navigational systems still had no information on this area of space. She remembered complaining that the human ships were laughably weak and technologically inferior; their only redeeming quality was their robust nature: take parts from a dozen different ships and classes and throw them in one and it would work. The highly advanced ships she was used to each piece of equipment was robust but required time to calibrate to new ships it wasn't installed into.

Case and point she looked over the icons representing the four ships crewed by machines they had pulled and augmented with slipspace drives and many plasma and laser weapons the only thing missing was energy shielding. But the forge needed a particular element to produce shield generators called Chronusjim the covenant had entire mines of the stuff but here they had looked on dozens of planets and asteroids. Many of them had ancient ruins and strange writing on them but finding the Chronusjim was more important to continue their rebuilding efforts. Crew was of no concern for the moment thanks to the twenty thousand of her kind in human Cryogenic storage cylinders in a cargo hold.

She smirked when the thought of the cryogenic storage chambers came to mind. The covenant and her kind had access to faster than light travel for centuries and haven't used them since the time of ancient generational sleeper ships before the Kig Yar species joined the Covenant of species. Seeing their use in her operations she made sure to grab every cylinder from wrecked human ships as she could; they had also granted her hundreds of human slaves, some of which were still in their cylinders.

She looked over the six ships surrounding the massive human foundry ship and the steady stream of parts and machines being pulled and installed; most of the humans' internal machines had been ripped out and thrown into the resource hopper of the forge for processing. And every hour her subordinates installed new more advanced parts for a forge that would be big enough to produce Sinaris-pattern Destroyers. And put an end to these bad jokes these humans and robots call warships. The metal husk of the machines had been thrown into the hopper surprisingly full of useful materials. The human bodies were just thrown out the airlock.

She watched as the last of the new plasma cannons was installed on the Dreams hull above the open doors the ship had already had its inefficient drives replaced with a new manufactured one so it could now keep pace with the rest of her small fleet in slipspace.

A notice appeared on her display, opening it she read the forge has run out of material and the nanomachines have stopped production. She cursed and looked over to one of her corvette commanders "Flight Master Reth'bok the forge is in need of more material to use the Delight and…" she scraped his bottom beak both threateningly and possessive "...do not disappoint me."

Reth swallowed both aroused knowing she could awaken many of the females in the humans cryo chambers for his use. And terrified knowing if he failed she wouldn't hesitate to kill him. He bowed and said "yess Misstress" standing he turned and left the chamber looking at his pad. Drafting orders for the Delight.

By his order the Delight carried a mixed air wing to give the corvette a wide range of options both in combat and looting four Seraph space superiority fighters, a dozen Elsadda pattern space banshees and four dropships three phantoms and a pelican. However in the fight with the human supply fleet his pelican had been lost. He needed another dropship to tow in scrap.

Calling the flight master of Mehams folly Jeck'toh "Jeck mistress Tau'cha has given me an order and I need your assistance to complete it." Reth said "I lost one of my dropships, a human pelican and I need one of yours. I'll temporarily send you half of my Elsedda's for one of your Spirit or Phantoms."

The scared hologram of Jeck'toh thought about it for a moment "what's in it for me to assist you in granting the mistress's wishes?" he asked lazily

"What do you want?" Reth said heavily

"My…" his tongue peaks out over his scared beak "sources say you have twenty of what the humans called steaaak in your personal stash." Reths eyes widened in uncontrolled shock; he was supposed to be the only one in the fleet to know of the contents of his stash. Jecks beak snapped in a smile seeing the reaction "I see I was right. I want half of them."

"Two of them"

"Five"

"Four and I know you enjoy the savagery of human weapons. I have three of their sniper rifles and a full case of loaded magazines." Reth countered

Jecks eyes don't blink but Reth swore they twiched "deal, send them over with the fighters."

Twenty minutes later the half dozen fighter's, steak's, and weapons were transferred and the new dropship was loaded.

The Mayhem's delight jumped toward human space.

The Mayhems Delight appeared in orbit where they first arrived to see not much had changed. The planet was a radioactive hellscape and the orbitals were filled with vast swaths of debris both these colonials and the machines they had been fighting.

"Let's get to work."