Storm Clouds
by AJ Marks
Part 2: Movement
Troy looked up as Captain Pratt entered the room. The normal rank would have been commander now, but with them adopting Earth military ranks everything changed. He had become a Lieutenant Commander, but Bri remained a Lieutenant.
“Ah, Troy and Bri, lucky to find you both in one spot,” Pratt said, approaching them.
“What’s up?” Troy asked.
“You’re to head over to the Sydney right away. You’ll be briefed once you get on board,” Pratt ordered.
“All right,” Troy said looking over at his wife then at Nall who seemed disappointed he wasn’t going.
“Get going, Ares wants it to leave right away,” Pratt said. “He’s also ordering all leaves cancelled, and reorganizing the fleet. Something big is going on,” Pratt said.
Troy understood that as he looked over at Nall. “Well, guess we’ll have to see you later.”
“Anything I should do?” Nall asked.
“No yet, but keep the squadron ready for anything,” Troy replied. “Not sure how long we’re going to be gone.”
“All right, we’ll keep things working while you two are gone,” Nall said. He would take over the squadron while the two were gone. “But, it won’t be the same with you two gone.”
“You have Rebecca,” Bri said.
“Yeah, but with only two of us, not quite the same,” Nall sad.
Finally making their way out of the rec room and towards the hangar where Pratt informed them their vipers were being fueled.
The entire trip went smoothly, landing in the smaller hangar bay and made their way to the briefing room where Captain Johnson waited for them.
“Welcome aboard Troy, Bri,” Johnson said, as they sat down at the table waiting for the mission briefing. “The Sydney is headed out to investigate some new contacts, a Colonial battlecruiser has been discovered on the last probe.”
Troy looked on in shock, not expecting to hear that. He assumed they were part of the closing Cylon signals.
“What about the Cylons?” Bri asked.
“Them too, we have no idea what to expect, only that the probe picked up some Colonial survivors,” Johnson replied.
Troy nodded in understanding. If they could make contact with this ship it might help discover where the Galactica might be. Had this group been with the Galacitca? So many questions in his mind and no real answers.
“The admiral wants you two here in case we decide to make contact,” Johnson said.
“We’ll be ready,” Troy said with the realization he would be the one making contact because he was from the Colonies.
“All right, settle in, we’ll be leaving shortly, they are a couple of days away at our fastest speed,” Johnson said.
Troy and Bri walked out and headed towards their new quarters. Being married had its advantages he thought as they made their way down the corridor.
“What do you think?” Bri asked.
Troy considered the question carefully before answering. “I’m not sure, they might know where the Galactica is, or were part of their group and they were attacked. Personally I hoping for the former.”
“They might not even know where the Galactica is,” Bri stated.
“Yeah,” Troy said, agreeing with her. He had a feeling in his gut, something big was about to happen.
*****
A single Cylon basestar sat silently in the midst of the asteroids. It watched and waited for its prey. On board the basestar commander looked down as two Centurions approached him.
“Speak,” the commander said.
“By your command,” one centurion said before continuing on. “We have updated information about the incoming Colonial fleet. Probes have discovered it to be a Colonial battlecruiser, an older design.”
“Not the Galactica?” the commander asked.
“No.”
“Our orders from the Imperious Leader?” the commander asked, knowing what the orders were going to be.
“One basestar should be enough to defeat a battlecruiser, we are to attack and destroy this small fleet,” the centurion said.
“Very well, how long until they arrive?”
“If their course remains constant, two days,” the centurion said.
“Then make the preparations to destroy them,” the commander ordered, knowing that while it wasn’t the Galactica, destroying a remaining Colonial warship would add to his prestige. He would not fail the empire.
*****
Adama sat on the bridge, a position that he forced himself to continue despite the fact very little required his attention these days. No, he was disturbed by his recent talk with Crystal. Her dream and mentioning they were being watched made him uneasy. There was someone out there, watching their movements, but who? He increased patrols today, and while it caused some concern among the regulars, he told them it was due to additional training. He felt sure Apollo and Starbuck were not buying the excuse.
“Sir, incoming message from the Hyperion,” Athena said.
Adama looked down at the screen watching as Omega’s face appeared.
“Wanted to let you know sir, we’ve finished our scans of the planet, send the supply ship. There is abundant water and iron deposits on the planet which we can use,” Omega said.
“Good news then,” Adama said. An increase in water was always good considering the strain on the water supplies on board the fleet and having extra never hurt. “How long will it take?”
“I estimate a day or two depending on how fast they can work,” Omega said. “The water will be easy, the tests came out very positively, we’ll just treat it for viruses and bacteria and it will be good. The iron deposits are on the surface so the ore should be easy to mine. Its quite rich.”
“I’ll inform the forge ship to prepare for the ore,” Adama said, making a note to himself for later.
“Any sign of civilization?” Adama asked.
“No sir,” Omega replied.
“Keep a look out,” Adama said, knowing the statement was unnecessary but said it anyways. He would continue to feel uneasy until he knew more.
“Yes sir,” Omega replied.
The conversation ended and Adama sent off a message to the forge ship to prepare for iron ore and to one of the supply ships to head out to the Hyperion. He paused in thought, knowing not long ago such an undertaking would have been impossible. Perhaps things were looking up after all.
*****
Tagget waited in the briefing room as Ben and Issac entered to debrief him of their patrol.
“So, what did you find?” Tagget asked, bracing himself for the worst.
“We moved as close as could, and the Cylon signals increased. There is most definitely some sort of Cylon presence ahead,” Ben stated, knowing the statement was not what Tagget wanted to hear.
“Great,” Tagget said, pondering his choices he could make. He had no idea what to do next. It seemed as if things were conspiring against him and any decision he might make. Buzzing the bridge he waited for Zaga to answer. “Come down to the briefing room.”
“Be right there,” Zaga said, realizing such a decision would need more than his thoughts. He considered even asking the other captains to join in, but dismissed that for now. He wanted to have some answers to the questions.
He only had to wait a few minutes before Zaga entered the room, and sat down.
“I take I the news isn’t good,” he said, running a hand through his white hair.
“Nope, we probably have Cylons ahead of us,” Tagget said. “I want to know what other solutions we might have at our disposal.”
“We could turn away from them,” Ben suggested.
“We can’t fight them,” Zaga said. “A full basestar is a challenge for our fleet.”
And that, Tagget considered, was the largest problem for what faced him. He had limited fighting strength, and while the Sunflare could easily exchange fire with the basstar, it was the raiders it carried that would cause the problems.
“I have to admit, turning might be the best solution,” Zaga said.
“Is there a direction we can take?” Tagget said, trying to recall the information they had of nearby systems. “We don’t have the supplies to go out of our way.”
And a second problem to their situation. Their supplies were so short, they were almost going from system to system to survive.
“It’ll be a stretch,” Zaga said. “We’ll have to ration food even more, but we do have the fuel. If we do this, we won’t have reserve food to make it to the next system.”
Tagget considered the problem before finally making a decision. “We turn.”
The other three looked at him, understanding the problems and the only real solution they had for survival.
“I’ll inform the other captains,” Zaga said.
“And I’ll inform the fleet,” Tagget said, it was his decision, he would take the responsibility. A decision he never wanted to make, but a choice between battling the Cylons and hoping the system held some life.
“Which system?” Zaga asked.
Tagget brought up the star map they had for the area, looking over the nearby systems. He noticed that one system had several planets and make his decision. “We go to the system with the most planets.”
“Very well,” I’ll get the ships on the new course, and inform the captains of the Cylons,” Zaga said, leaving the room, as did Ben and Issac who were dismissed leaving Tagget alone in the room.
The weight of command now weighted heavily on him. Had he brought them all this way only to die of starvation? He hoped not, and prayed to any god in the universe for some miracle.
*****
Ares looked over the latest intelligence from the probes and stationary scanners. A larger picture had started to unfold in front of him. They were now certain of Cylon basestars in a few systems. They were stationary, and one appeared to be powered down in an asteroid belt. What really concerned Ares was the sudden turn by the Colonial battlecruiser group.
What was the commander of the ship thinking? He turned the wrong way, instead of away from Cylons to more Cylons. Probes picked up Cylon radio traffic in that direction, even more intense than anywhere else.
“Looks like a mess,” Otto said, walking up beside him.
“Yeah, as you Earthers say, a clusterfuck,” Ares said, having adopted some of the Earth slang.
“Ahyep,” Otto replied. “How many Cylons?”
“We know of three confirmed basestars, here, here and this one here is powered down in the asteroid belt,” Ares said pointing to three systems. “Our Colonial friend is here.”
“Maybe we should destroy those basestars, they are getting close,” Otto said.
“There is something else going on out there, the positioning of the basestars is erratic,” Ares stated. “If they were looking for something they would be more evenly spread out.”
“You think somewhere in this area is the Galactica?” Otto asked, motioning to an area on the map.
“Possible, have a situation of several warships, this doesn’t seem to be only for the batlecruiser. If so, the Cylons would have attacked already. A basestar can easily overwhelm the defenses of a battlecruiser with raiders. And there could still be other basestars out there we don’t’ know about,” Ares said.
“Should we activate more outposts?” Otto asked.
“Yeah, activate them all,” Ares said after several seconds of thinking. “I’ll inform the president back on Earth.”
“I’ll leave that one to you then,” Otto said, heading off to carry out the order given.
Ares turned back to look at the starmap. Something was going on out there, and he wanted to know what it was. He wished he had more stealth warships, and decide on another course of action as well. He activated the communications waiting for Captain Gunther to answer.
“Commander, uh, I mean admiral,” Gunther said, having come from the Colonies.
“Captain, organize the Enterprise with a squadron of stealth ships, include the Hornet as well and prepare to move out,” Ares said.
“Yes sir, any word on where I’m going?” Gunther asked.
“Towards the Cylon communications, we’re going to use your stealth to figure out what else is out there, take a few supply ships as well,” Ares said. “Let me know what ships you include, I’ll sign off on it, take about ten warships and supply ships to support you.”
“All right, I’ll get on it now,” Gunther said, signing off.
Now all Ares had to do, wait for the report and hoping he was moving things in time. Looking at the map he still felt uneasy about it all. He looked down at the spot where the Sydney was. They would be the first out there, and hoped they found something worth reporting.
End part 2
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