Quarantined Holding Area, New Circe,[date], 3047...
"...Star League Defense Force in Exile, but they're obviously Clanners, I'm not sure I'm buying the 'we're the Wolverines' line." Seether listened as PO2 Carmins complained.
"They don't have a reason to lie about it." she said after a moment. this drew looks from the others at the breakfast table. "I mean, the Wolverines in our time went unfound, though some rumors had them under Blakist thrall. These guys aren't worshipping toasters."
"Some of the gear's different too." Riverson 794 mentioned, "Different emphasis on the tech-tree, some of those Nighthawk suits are new production, while one of the guards I spotted on my way to interrogation was wearing what looks like a different take on Elemental armor."
"Not on the rec books?" Seether prodded.
"not on the recognition guide, not Blakist style either, definitely gotta be Clantech based, just on materials requirements and the shape of the guy who's gotta be wearing it to be that big...and I think they know what a Blackbox is."
"How do you figure?"
"Interrogator steered me off it as soon as I tried to explain base technicals you'd need to build another one, means they already knew that part and wanted to know how much I know about the theory. also didn't sound Clanner to me-she sounded like maybe Greek, talked to someone on a mic in what sounded a lot like Free Worlds Navy code, espiclally the units flying out of Atreus."
"Clanners are all english, so we're in the League maybe?" Corpsman Phan asked.
"I don't think so, I tried to get someone to talk politics and he shut me down." the RTO stated. "Their relief guys don't shut up about politics when we're in New Capetown bars."
this got laughs around the table. "Where's teh CO, Seether?"
"She's meeting with someone with rank, supposedly." Sithers said, "How are your departments holding up?"
Meeting room, Joint Forces Command New Circe...
Nicole took the time to get her full-dress uniform back, and then to put it on. The wool scratched against bare skin, she'd never worn it without a skinsuit underneath, but the skinsuits weren't available to patients and they hadn't provided it.
she glanced uneasily at the windows on this floor. beyond them, the featureless blue and chaotic clouds of unending planetary sky hovered threateningly, and she whistfully wished Seether was here to distract her from the reminder that she was stuck on a planet. At least it wasn't local winter here.
Giao would be crawling the walls. she mused, remembering her old Patrol leader's deep and abiding fear of planetary surfaces-a diagnosed Phobia full-blown, that several of her own crew, including a few survivors, also would have to deal with once they left the relative security of the underground facility.
the silver 'oak leaves' of her rank were buffed, the flap-tab of Hauptmann's rank dangled from her front button-it wasn't entirely accurate, of course, she was in a 'promotable' status that technically allowed Kommandant's tabs on the leatherette, but she was used to, and comfortable with, the Hauptmann's equivalency badge and the nearest Post Exchange was somewhere on the far side of 300 Light Year's travel.
still, before this meeting, she had taken her time, shining the dress shoes, pressing in the seams and carefully placing her service ribbons, medals and other insignia as if she were going to meet the Archon himself.
thankfully, they hadn't crushed the cap. Not that she'd be able to wear it here, unless they wanted to meet outdoors.
She returned the salutes from the two armored men guarding the door to the meeting room, and, steeling her nerves, stepped through the portal.
"Captain Minh, We were just speaking about you."
"Commander, sir. I'm in the promotable range, but Commander is the correct rank, Sir." she answered. there were two distinct uniform styles here, one was almost familiar in one way, while the other was almost familiar in an entirely different way. "Captain is the position I held aboard KCGS Nueva Pueblo III and as my ship is sunk, I do not have that position beyond the disposition of my crewmen."
She noted with some surprise there were also civilians present. The woman looked...like she was the boss. Governor or President, the civilian man reminded her of an ambitious challenger. They stood with the smaller officers.
"I confess I don't recognize some members of this board of inquiry, sir." she directed at the Clan officer who seemed to be in charge, "Now I'm wondering how much damage we must have done in our misjump, and if there was an incident while I was unconscious."
There was a pause, and it was clear to Nicole that a translator was speaking to the half of the room she'd already mentally classified as 'not Clanners'.
They don't speak English, or they don't speak it well, but they're important enough to have someone translate.
"What makes you so certain this is a board of Inquiry into the accident?"
"Jurisdiction, you've been interviewing my crew for nearly a month, myself for almost that long, the next step per most nation's guidelines is to conduct the formal hearing and assign responsibility for the accident." Nicole said, "admittedly, I would have expected to be remanded to Lyran or AFFC authorities for this, but the table's a half-circle, and this seat?" she tapped the chair, "Is in the SLDF military manual as the requisite positioning for either a Naval board of inquiry hearing, or the courts-Martial that follows from a finding of gross negligence." she paused while the translators worked, "Given our arrival was due to a misjump, and said misjump was done under extreme conditions, with extreme results, it's fitting that a board would be convened...I'm a little unclear about the civilian officials present but am I incorrect in recognizing at least two national authorities are present?"
"The senior officer to my left, is Admiral William Adama, He is the senior commanding officer of the Colonial City State military-that's the closest we can come to translating the actual name of the agency. Behind him is Elected President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol, and the city state, Laura Roslin, and her senior Colonial Council elect-the equivalent of a second in command, Tom Zarek."
"Huh, representative democracy, I take it he's the minority party leader?" Nicole speculated out loud, "Like in a parliamentary system, senior loyal opposition party leader has to be prepped to assume the post if the government changes polarity?"
Roslin looked interested as the translators spoke, while Zarek looked...surprised.
[something unintelligible]
"Mister Zarek wants to know how you were able to identify him as an opposition candidate?"
"Obvious." Nicole said, "I've had to testify to the Oversight Committee a few times, Senior political officials don't like being left out."
[unintelligible from Roslin]
"So you have done this before?"
"The Coast Guard isn't funded with donations or lotteries, ma'am. Fifteen worlds in the zone contribute resources, plus we have supplementary funding from the Estates General, plus additonal funding aid from the Republic of the Sphere and bordering Inner Sphere states, I've done my turn of glad-handing for the sake of keeping the Quarantine funded, explaining to foreigners and people outside the Q-zone what the Flu is, how damned dangerous it is, and why the blockades have to continue. It's funny, once you stop being front page news, people forget the existential threat sitting on their doorstep."
"Your vessel was...relatively primitive, Commander." the SLDF officer notes, "Yet you say you're supplied by multiple nations?"
"We can't break treaties." Nicole explained, "The Republic treaty of '83 forced reductions in Naval spending across the human sphere, specifically it shuttered warship yards and warship production, set hard limits on vessels above one hundred thousand Hydrogen tons displacement, and we have more territory to cover than that-we don't have the luxury of relying on a Dropship force with lots of bases due to space being three dimensional. The Sampan III's are about as big as we're allowed, and they're about as big as can be produced to cover our mission, so yeah, it's relatively primitive tech, but it's tech we can afford and tech we can crew, sir."
"How many are in service?"
"I can't give you accurate numbers, my division alone has four Squadrons with three patrols each, but we're on the coreward/antispinward front mostly, dealing with containment and bandit hunting, there were two other Divisions assigned, but neither one is at full operational strength due to refit and repair needs, and we left the slips at Boojum three weeks earlier than planned for this latest cruise, hence, no Chaplain assigned and a slightly reduced crew-which was probably for the best, all things being equal. we would've rendezvoused with a Tender to top off our crew requirement if we hadn't been needed to chase down and intercept the MS Celeste Marie and her six dropships full of panicked civilians trying to flee a new outbreak-they sent the entire division out to find their course."
"An entire division?"
"Space is big." Nicole noted, which when it hit the Admiral, brought a chuckle. "Three dimensions-we were 22 Lights positive Z-axis from Melissia when we caught up to them on the old smuggler's route from the former Rim Worlds, a route that in the old days Pirates would use to bring goods and slaves to sell in the CapCon."
"Your log is unclear, how did you identify this route?"
"I identified the captain helming the Celeste Marie, one of Hopper Morrison's old contractors." she noted, "I figured he'd use routes he was familiar with, that are off the normal jump charts, I did NOT expect to run us into a storm of dark matter clustered around what my RTO thinks is a superstring."
"based on your sensor logs, neither did they."
"No sir, we didn't have enough delta-vee to get to a gravitically neutral point, we didn't have rescue boats deployed, and we don't have docking collars for the dropships. I had my RTO send the coordinates and a hazard warning...you know all this already...this a non-smoking room?"
"You smoke on a ship?"
"dirty habit picked up on shore missions." She confessed, "I"ll understand if the answer is no."
"Go ahead."
she shook out a pack, and snapped the end of a nic-stic. the tip glowed blue, but no smoke rose, "wasn't sure about the protocol." she admitted, "This is the weirdest accident hearing I've ever seen."
"You've been in a couple."
"Yes sir. First time, first ship, cut in half by Blakist missiles during their attack on Kowloon, second time was the hearing after my XO got our second ship impounded by the New United States, right after the war-they dismantled Nueva Pueblo Two and refused to reassemble it, said they wouldn't let anyone fly on a deathtrap like that. those were both Block 2 models, about fifty one thousand tons. Their signature as witness to the Coast Guard came with a demand that we get better ships-ships they designed, even if they're built at Boojum, because the block 2's were...not the greatest? The Block 3's come with better crew quarters and slightly heavier internal structure, and less explosive ammunition storage right next to life support and critical systems."
[unintelligible from the Admiral]
"The 'Blackboxes' on your ship...and on the smallcraft it carries, what is the purpose?"
"FTL commo." she answered, "since the Blakist War, it's not exactly secret, although the plans aren't generally for sale to the open market, we use them for FTL communication because we can't use the core for an HPG when a shuttle doesn't have one. On a system patrol mission, smallcraft are deployed with onboard commo units, the hub is located on the cutter, each cutter is tied into a comm hub to the patrol's assigned Tender vessel, which makes a relay link to Squadron, Squadron links to Division, and division passes reports to central command. it lets us coordinate everything from search and rescue to quarantine enforcement to military action. we have codebooks for most signatory nations."
[Adama mumbles something, Roslin replies, Adama nods.]
"Have you ever seen this?" an image in hologram appears in front of Nicole. The spiky image of a cylon basestar appears.
"That...is either an alien seed-pod, cover art from a Doomrock progressive album." she says.
"How about this?"
the image of an old-model, 1st Cylon war basestar appears.
"a very impractical space station, or a really weird piece of a satellite, or the cover-art of a spec-fic holoseries from last century?" she ventured, "it doesn't look like it should be able to move under its own power."
"how about these?" Images of all three major versions of the Cylon raider, the autonomous uncrewed, three seat, and heavy.
"Well...the middle one looks like something those imbeciles at Lockheed CBM would try to sell as a chippewa replacement, the guns are too small and that airframe is visibly unstable. the first one looks like some kinda fantasy space animal, maybe nautical? and the third one...******, how's it supposed to fly? That looks like some artist strapped engine nozzles to a burnt out APC hull for a holovid...what am I looking at here?"
"bear with us."
more images appeared.
"huh...okay, I give up, how is that supposed to walk without tipping over? Second guy is clearly wearing a light power armor with glazed plating, maybe something someone at GDI would sell on Solaris? vision's too narrow, and I can't imagine the guy inside is going to be able to move very well."
Finally a series of faces.
"Okay, Supermodel, supermodel from the capcon maybe? the old guy's kinda cute...I could imagine Seether bedding crew-cut there near the front, first guy looks like the platonic image of the creepy priest you don't leave kids around, and...I don't know? platonic average Lyran housewife?" she peered over the images, "are these supposed to be people I'd know?"
[greek speaking very fast, civilians and Adama, emphatic gesturing.]
"Those are Cylons." finally.
"What's a 'cylon'?" Nicole asked.
"That's a long and involved explanation. short form is, robots-Killer robots. intent on the extermination of the human race."
Nicole frowned, "you're ****** with me."
