CHAPTER 6 - PART 3
----------
Battlestar Galactica – New Circe Orbit – 3045CE
Saul Tigh met the Admiral outside his quarters. ‘Good Morning Sir’ he said with a smile when Adama opened the door and stepped out into the passageway, the marines stood either side of his cabin door snapping to attention.
‘You're in a good mood’ Adama observed as they headed towards CIC.
‘Hardly a civilian on the whole damn ship, both the port and starboard landing pods are actually in service praise the gods, every Viper and Raptor aboard is working at the same time. We've got full magazines for all batteries after transferring munitions from Pegasus and someone finally got my shower to put out hot water not lukewarm’ Tigh responded. ‘I'm in a great mood’ he declared.
Adama smiled, a few weeks respite from constant pursuit had given them the chance to get the Battlestar into the best fighting shape she had been since somewhat saw fit to turn her into a museum. ‘Did you talk to Lee?’ he asked. ‘Is he still smarting over the order to send over so much of his ammo?’
‘He is’ Tigh confirmed.
‘They're re-tooling a munitions factory down on New Circe to make ammunition our guns can chamber and Pegasus can already produce replacement rounds at a reasonable pace until that comes on stream’ Adama said.
‘That's what I told him but you've got to accept he's still got a bad case of New Commander Syndrome’ Tigh responded with a chuckle. ‘He doesn't like people interfering with how he runs his ship or telling him he has to transfer his ammunition and his spare parts to another Battlestar.’
‘I wish you'd been there when I told him I was sending the Mark II Vipers to The Beast and taking all the new build Mark VII's so both squadrons with Galactica were our best birds’ Adama said. ‘I'm not getting a card on Father’s Day I'll tell you that’ he told Tigh with a chuckle of his own.
‘Before I forget to tell you Starbuck might be coming to you with a crazy idea to set up a Pyramid Court in one of the bays’ Tigh remembered. ‘That Anders character she picked up on Caprica wants to get some games going’ he said. ‘A few of the Marines and a couple of the pilots played College or Semi-Pro and Starbuck thinks we could get a league going’ he said.
‘I think it's a great idea, probably best to split up Anders from the other two Buccaneers who are coming with us, unfair advantage if all three of them are on the same team’ Adama replied. A small number of the civilians who had been on Caprica had volunteered to go back to help search for more survivors, they had a better idea of what the situation was on the ground and so the Admiral had accepted their offer.
‘You just don't want the C-Bucs to ever win anything do you Bill?’ Tigh asked.
‘Nope’ Adama confirmed. ‘If we somehow find any of the Picon Panthers still alive I'll happily watch them rip the Buccaneers a new one’ he said.
‘Don't know how you can support a team from another Colony’ Tigh commented. He always rooted for the boys and girls from Aerelon when they took the court against someone else. ‘It's not like your family is even originally from Picon’ he noted, Tigh knew Adama’s father was from Tauron though he had emigrated to Caprica before William was born.
‘The Panthers play a better game’ Adama said simply.
When they arrived at the CIC they found Commander Thorpe waiting there, he had just arrived via Raptor from the surface with two other officers in New Circe style Uniforms. All three saluted and then Thorpe introduced his companions. ‘Admiral this is Colonel Richard McEvedy and Wing Commander Sarah-Louise Defoe’ he said. ‘The Colonel is the ranking SLDF Officer on this expedition and will Command our Ground Forces, the Wing-Commander will lead our Aerospace Fighter Contingent.’
Adama returned the salute as did Tigh. ‘McEvedy?’ the Admiral repeated quizzically, ‘Any relation?’ he asked.
‘Yes’ Thorpe confirmed, ‘we preserve the genes of our heroes’ he said simply. There were always a few McEvedy's in the 331st, they produced replacements from the Iron Wombs as required although if you asked those concerned they would universally tell you the name was a curse because people always expected more of them than was fair.
Wing Commander Defoe was also a victim of her name too, though for a different reason. She realised it was entirely her own fault for marrying a man with that surname, and taking it herself, but being saddled with a name easily abbreviated to SLDF was a pain especially when she had already been known by the callsign “Star-League†anyway.
‘Do they speak any Caprican?’ Tigh asked.
‘The Wing-Commander has picked up some phrases when flying against the Aggressor Squadrons led by your Kara Thrace but they aren't all that useable in civilised company’ Thorpe replied with a smile. ‘We've got translation phrasebooks and dictionaries for everyone on the mission however and a few of the pilots and soldiers took Ancient Greek at College.’
‘Could be messy if we’re flying joint ops Admiral’ Tigh commented, ‘it gets confusing enough out there in a dogfight as it is without language difficulties’ he said.
‘Just as long as we aren't actually shooting at each other I'm willing to take a little confusion Saul’ Adama replied.
Colonel McEvedy said something to Thorpe. ‘The Colonel would like to see where his soldiers will be quartered onboard’ Thorpe translated.
‘It's one of the cargo holds I'm afraid but we've got space in crew quarters for the Colonel and his officers’ Adama replied, Thorpe translating.
McEvedy said something else. ‘He says he'll bunk down with his men, as will the other Army Officers, but he appreciates the offer’ Thorpe told Adama then Defoe said something in English herself which earned her a dark look from the Colonel. ‘The Wing-Commander observed that the ground-pounders are probably just upset they can't dig a muddy hole to sleep in’ Thorpe translated for the benefit of the Colonials.
‘Sounds like our Marines’ Saul Tigh said to the Admiral, inter-service rivalry was another thing the Colonial and New Circe militaries had in common. ‘Want me to take the Grunt-In-Chief here to the cargo bay where we're putting him Sir?’ he asked.
‘No I'll do that, he's the Senior Officer’ Adama replied, ‘you should take the Wing-Commander to pilot-country’ he said. ‘Give her the half-cubit tour.’
‘I'd better find someone that speaks her language first’ Tigh said. ‘There was some scruffy bookworm type with a beard translating labels on supply crates I saw just before I met you outside your Cabin, I'll conscript him’ he said.
‘Their fighters are going to start arriving in the next few hours’ Adama told his Executive Officer. ‘See that they're properly stacked up in the Landing Pods so they don't interfere with normal traffic.’
‘Already got the lines painted to show them where to park’ Tigh responded. ‘They'd better come in nice and slow because those things are so heavy it'll make the dents Boomer used to put in the deck look like something you could buff out’ he said. ‘Makes you wonder if the other one the Wolvies have got can't land worth a damn either, was it to make her seem more human or did they just frak up the programming?’ he wondered.
‘I just hope whoever they've got setting those dropships down on the hull tomorrow does it nice and slow because if we're talking dent those could be pretty impressive’ Adama said. Even if Galactica still had all its armour in place thousands of tons of metal crashing into her at any kind of velocity would be bad news, fortunately the pilots flying had had plenty of practice coming into dock with their own capital ships so it should go fine he hoped.
As the expedition back to Kobol and then on from there to the Twelve Colonies grew closer preparations were growing increasingly frenetic. Any people not required for the mission were transferred to other ships, or the surface, and the Battlestar soon filled back up with military and scientific personnel from New Circe. Thousands of civilians were housed in temporary accommodation on the planet as the ships they were on were assigned to the mission, including well over a thousand from the liner Chrion alone, and maintenance crews made sure that all the vessels going were in full working order.
It was volunteer only, Adama was gratified that nearly every one of his people agreed to go, with only a few replacements needed from Pegasus, and he was surprised at how many civilians offered to man the other ships including just about all of their own crews. The Admiral guessed that after so long aboard the captains, pilots, navigators and engineers couldn’t imagine ever leaving their ships in the hands of others who didn’t know and deep-down love them.
On the last day before departure they made the first short test jumps in Galactica, an SLDF technician running up the numbers on the new navigational computer New Circe had installed and then those being checked against what Lieutenant Gaeta worked them out to be. They had already performed hundreds of test calculations during which the computer proved not only much faster but also more reliable than the human trying to duplicate its efforts but Adama wanted to do it for real and insisted on the battlestar performing three jumps around the system and then two short interstellar jumps out of the nebula and then back to New Circe before he declared his faith in the computer. They then performed a final check on the FTL Drive and waited for the order from President Roslin and Lord-Protector Vaun to head out.
Chief Tyrol was annoyed to have other aviation engineers and technicians with all their own tools and equipment messing up his maintenance bays but at least they kept to the section he assigned to them and they had a much better idea on how to service and maintain the lasers fitted to the forty Mark VII Vipers Galactica was carrying, twenty port and twenty starboard. There were also now twelve Kirghiz Heavy Aerospace Fighters in each Flight Pod, lined up in a row and pushed to one side of the landing bay, their paint scheme, markings and emblems visibly declaring they were not Colonial craft, in particular the Wolverine Head and Claw marks of the Clan they belonged to emblazoned on their wings stood out next to the more subdued Cameron Star roundels of the SLDF.
It was deeply strange to have hundreds of soldiers and aircrew in someone else's uniform aboard but at least the SLDF favoured a utilitarian olive drab which wasn't all that different from what the Colonials had on even if the cut of their fatigues was different along with the unit patches and rank insignia. One thing that did seem to bother the Marines in particular at first was having SLDF Infantry in combat gear both walking patrols and insisting upon helping to guard important areas, Adama had been reluctant to allow this himself initially but had been swayed by Colonel McEvedy noting that the battlestar had been boarded before and they had lost several crewman and very nearly the ship before the intruders could be taken down. The Colonial marines eventually got used to the company and reasoned heavily armed backup if the Toasters on aboard was to be welcomed at which point their objections shifted more towards jealousy of just how much better equipped the other guys guarding the ship were.
Each Wolverine infantryman had heavy body-armour plus a helmet with a visor that gave them not only Infra-Red vision when required but could also display a video feed to the wearer from a camera fitted to their rifle. It could even provide targeting data as well, helping aim. This would have all been impressive enough if not for the fact the rifle they carried itself was an actual laser, to be specific what the SLDF called a Mauser 960 Pulse Laser with a built-in six-shot automatic grenade launcher.
Even the bayonet the New Circe soldiers used was something special, when activated it vibrated at an insane frequency so it heated up to a point where you could drive it through a reasonable thickness of armoured plate. After testing it against alloy samples they had demonstrated it could be used to gut a Centurion, which at least gave you something to take up against those claws if things got nasty, not that anyone recommended fighting the robots up close.
After so much time not using the FTL Cally had almost forgotten just how much doing one nauseated her but it all came back, along with her lunch, when they started doing the test-jumps. The Thirteenth Tribe called what she suffered from “Transition-Disorientation-Syndrome†and she had learned it was even more common using their Kearny-Fuchida drive, affecting a larger proportion of people. This had in fact been good news for Cally as an SLDF Army Medic being told of her predicament gave her a bottle of pills that had been developed to help people suffering from severe TDS keep their food down. There were some advantages to dating an officer she decided although she dearly wished he hadn't witnessed her run to the nearest available bucket and throw up when he came to visit her on the maintenance bay just as a jump was about to take place.
Second-Lieutenants would normally have never got the opportunity to go on a mission like this but once again the fact he could speak Ancient Greek had paid off big-time for Wolverine Mechwarrior Geoffrey Cale. Not only was he the first guy from New Circe to score with a Colonial Girl, earning him major kudos from his compatriots, but he was assigned the job of piloting one of only six mechs going on the expedition simply on the basis that they couldn't find enough experienced officers that could understand anything the Colonials said. He was five years younger than the next youngest SLDF Officer going to Kobol and the only mechwarrior aboard who didn’t have so much as a single kill to his name, even if the other five had only shot up pirate raiders, but this could be a career-making mission he knew. Almost as importantly he got to spend more time with Cally who was the sweetest cutest girl in the galaxy as far as he was concerned, well apart from when she was puking in a bucket anyway he had thought to himself before grimacing and going to find the nearest Army Medic to ask about TDS.
When the order finally came to get underway Adama went on the wireless and told the other ships to make ready to jump when they had been told the coordinates with Galactica going first. Everyone had already said their goodbyes to friends and loved ones staying behind, Saul Tigh privately admitting to his old friend that even though he loved her dearly some time apart from his wife Ellen would be a relief, and it was now just a question of making the first jump back to Kobol.
The new navigational computer calculated a short jump of two light years and after punching it into the FTL and relaying it to the other vessels the old battlestar left New Circe behind, appearing again almost instantly trillions of kilometres away in a flash of light. Over the next minute the other ships appeared alongside and Adama nodded his satisfaction. ‘Calculate the next jump’ he said. ‘Give me five light years this time’ he ordered.
After the second jump also went without a hitch the third jump was ten light-years, the next twenty and then finally thirty, a distance that would have been considered risky before. The technician running the navigational computer said that they could go to thirty-five maybe even forty without too much danger but Adama wasn’t about to push his luck. If they could maintain a sustained and safe thirty light-years each time then even if they left it a few hours between each one for the sake of the crews and the FTL Drives then it was going to take a lot less time to get to Kobol than it had taken during their less direct course from there to the nebula where they found New Circe.
The Battlestar Galactica was on its way to Kobol and from there it was going home. Those aboard hoped for the best, and they prayed to the gods for the Cylons to be truly long gone from the Twelve Colonies, but they were ready for the worst and they felt comfort in knowing that the enemy was still blissfully ignorant of the fact that Raiders with KEW’s and a few missiles just weren’t going to cut it in the big leagues any more.
----------
Note from the Author:
The Triumph Class dropship from BT is a fairly big aerodyne design that can haul a battalions worth of vehicles. Galactica will be carrying two of them (on top) to enable the expedition to deploy a decent sized military force to the surface. The Ripper VSTOL, Chevalier 8-wheeled light tank and Gabriel Hover-Scout were all vehicles used by the SLDF. The Rifleman Mech (an improved Rifleman, twenty tons heavier with LB 5-X Autocannon and Large Pulse Lasers) was issued to the Royal Battlemech Divisions of the Star League so the 331st would likely have had some. New Circe has kept them in service as air-defence units whilst replacing a lot of their other older gear with the Pulverizer II Assault and Mercury III Light (Clan Wolverine had their Pulverizer I and Mercury II when they left the clans, they've developed upgraded replacements for those in the time since but couldn't do so for every weapon type). New Circe doesn't have the population, industry or enough orbital shipbuilding capability to start building huge warships at will. However adding a Colonial Jumpdrive to a Dropship is a different proposition. The Star-League era Overlord Class was common to the clans and they had already upgraded the design to carry heavier armour and more powerful weaponry before the Wolverines left. New Circe has a number of these as well as cargo dropships like the 3,600 ton Union, 11,200 ton Mule and the huge 52,000 ton Mammoth which helped them haul so much of their gear to New Circe originally. The named ships from nBSG were in the Rag Tag Fleet, you can find pictures of them on the battlestar wiki if you want to take a look. If what we saw of Caprica after the Cylon attack is anything to go on there should be masses of material and equipment available for salvage from the colonies, including military hardware, industrial plant and machinery etc etc. For there to still be nuclear weaponry to recover that the enemy was unaware of too I think is likely given that the Cylons don't seem to have completely infilitated every level of the government and miltary. The vast majority would have been destroyed or recovered by the Cylons but there might well be a fair few around in secret bunkers waiting for someone with valid access codes to collect them.
Number Three Cylon known as D'anna Biers was working as a TV journalist in the Fleet. The more cooperative Sharon Valerii in this universe saw her on a broadcast and immediately informed the authorities who promptly put her in custody and like the other captured Cylons turned her over to New Circe (which is better than the airlock treatment which had been SOP).
Having the Wolverines produce genetic descendents of their dead former Khan is a very clan thing to do, I can definitely see it being a burden for the poor people concerned though. A full Colonel like Richard McEvedy here outranks both a Naval Commander like Thorpe and a Wing Commander like Defoe so he's the most senior SLDF officer on the expedition and would only defer to Adama. SLDF Soldiers had first-rate equipment. The Mauser 960 was their standard-issue infantry rifle (the other clans have upgraded it to the even better Mauser IIC) and it's only major drawback was it's weight. This is mitigated by having 2.1 metre tall genetically engineered grunts and also to some extent by removing the survival kit some idiot who wouldn't have to carry it put in the rifle stock. The vibro-bayonet is a nasty piece of kit, also SLDF standard issue. In both BT and nBSG FTL jumps made some people nauseous, more so in BT it seems, so I thought they might well have developed something to help with that. Cally suffered from this in particular in the show.
