Storm Clouds
by AJ Marks
Part 6: Relief Ship
Troy looked at his scanners for any further Cylons, not seeing anything and finally sat back in his seat. They had managed to win the battle. He had been Bri’s wingman during the battle but now he resumed command. He would have been foolish to take the lead when Bri was the better pilot.
“Sydney, this is Troy, come in,” Troy said, waiting a few seconds for the Sydney to reply and finally to get a hold of Captain Johnson.
“Yes lieutenant commander,” Johnson said.
“I’m going to land aboard the Colonial warship, it will get us contact, and I can adjust their communications with ours,” Troy said.
“That’s a good idea, I’ll inform HQ about the situation,” Johnson said.
“Then I’ll talk to you later,” Troy said, before turning his attention to his wife. “You heard that Bri?”
“Yeah, switching over to Colonial frequencies now,” she said. Troy reached down turning his own communications over waiting a second before it became filled with voices of pilots lining up and the control officer on board the Colonial warship.
“This is Lieutenant Troy to Colonial warship, requesting permission to land aboard your ship,” Troy said, hearing the sudden silence his comment made. He waited several seconds before repeating his request this time knowing they would hear it.
“Lieutenant Troy, hold,” the reply came back. Troy waited patiently knowing Bri was probably having a fit with the prolonged silence. “Lieutenant Troy, we don’t have you on our scanners.”
“Ah, sorry,” Troy said, flipping on a switch which turned on his emitter, as Bri did the same. It would allow the scanners to locate the ships. “There, you should have us on your scanners now.”
“Affirmative,” the reply came back. “Transmitting vectors.”
“Vectors received,” Troy said a second later, following the path given to him. Landing was easy, and seconds later Bri followed before he climbed out of the viper before looking around at the ship. He noticed everyone looking back at him. The crew finally managed to move the vipers out of the way so the rest could land. Troy was joined by Bri, and they shared a look. The people looked weary, beaten.
A man dressed in the blue bridge uniform appeared walking up to them. He had white hair and was about as tall as Troy.
“I’m Colonel Zaga, welcome aboard the Sunflare,” he said.
“Of course, well, we weren’t sure which one had survived, it’s been years, I mean yahrens since we left the Colonies,” Troy said, watching as Zaga blinked in surprise.
“You’re from the Colonies?”
“I’m from Caperica, my parents lived there as well, at least until they were destroyed,” Troy said, amending his statement from the past to the present.
“You survived?” Zaga said, obviously at a loss for what was going on.
“Um, yes and no, perhaps we can sit down somewhere and talk,” Troy said, seeing the colonel confused by the answer. He hoped his explanation sufficed.
Troy made his way through the corridors of the battlecruiser along with Bri, who remained quiet, as they looked at the people. He thought they appeared thin to him, and many looked at him in disbelief. Sitting down in the briefing room, he was taken back to another time when he served on board the battlestar Colombia. Zaga excused himself to get the commander leaving the two of them alone.
“Did you feel the atmosphere on board?” Bri asked, looking around again.
“Yeah, they are barely surviving,” Troy said, watching as a taller, bald man entered the room.
“Sorry for keeping you, I’m Commander Tagget, and welcome aboard the Sunflare,” Tagget said.
“Lt. Commander Troy, and this is my wife, Lt. Bri,” Troy said.
“Zaga says you are, or are not, from the Colonies?” Tagget asked, confusion in his voice.
“Yes, we were both born there, however, we left about twelve yehrens ago aboard a secretly constructed battlestar,” Troy said. “Our mission, given by Commander Cain, was to find Earth, the Thirteenth tribe.”
He watched Tagget take this in for a few seconds before saying anything. “You found Earth?”
“Yes, we came out looking for you in the Sydney,” Troy said. “It’s based upon the Tiger class.”
“It doesn’t appear on our scanners?”
“No, with Earth we’ve developed new stealth technologies,” Troy stated.
Tagget thought about something for several long seconds, almost as if he struggled with some question. “How quickly can you get us relief?”
The question caught Troy off guard. “Relief? The Sydney will help provide protection for your ships.”
“No, food, we’re out,” Tagget said. “Our food stores are empty, gone, this planet was our last hope.”
It explained the atmosphere on board and the reason the fleet attacked. Troy made a decision.
BSGBSG
“Speak centurion,” Phantom said, watching the gold centurion approach his chair. He expected news of the upcoming battle as his basestars closed in on the small human fleet.
“By your command,” the centurion said, before giving the report. “The Colonial fleet is not in the position they should be.”
The statement caught Phantom by surprise. “Explain!”
“Instead of moving away from the system, it entered and engaged our forces there. Basestar eight was destroyed.”
Phantom sat stunned. How could this have possibly happened? He calculated everything perfectly and yet, somehow, the humans surprised him.
“Damage to the human fleet?” he asked, hoping they at least managed to destroy something.
“Unknown, the last communication was it came under attack by an unknown, and unseen, enemy,” the centurion reported.
Nothing made sense here. The humans should have backed down, moved on, why had they chosen to fight? What did he not know? He paused to consider the situation, going over where his forces were.
“Inform basestars six and nine to converge and attack the human fleet in mass. They are to destroy the enemy in a massive attack,” Phantom ordered. The human fleet could not take on two basestars and win. He felt certain the Colonial warship had taken damaged, it only required a mere push to complete their destruction.
“By your command,” the centurion said, turning to carry out the order.
BSGBSG
Ares looked up at the screen on his desk when it flickered to life, showing the emblem of the Sydney. He felt relieved knowing the ship survived the battle, and saw Captain Johnson’s face appear on the screen.
“Captain, glad to see you,” Ares said.
“Same here Admiral, we’re going to relay a communications from the Sunflare, Troy and Bri landed aboard it after the battle to begin talks,” Johnson said.
“By all means,” Ares said, waiting a second as it switched, and Troy appeared on the screen. “Troy, how are things?”
“Bad,” Troy said, not something Ares expected to hear.
“Um, in what way?” Ares asked, unsure what bad might mean. Were some ships damaged?
“The fleet is made up of seven ships, five warships which were on patrol when the destruction of the Colonies happened, and two civilian ships, some thirty-five hundred people, and they are out of food,” Troy said.
“Um, by out, you mean,” Ares said, trailing off, waiting.
“None, zip, nada,” Troy replied. “Commander Tagget attacked the basestar because he no choice. It was either die taking the planet or starve to death. Now, I think we might be able to help quickly.”
“Supply ships won’t reach your position for a couple of days,” Ares said, already thinking about the logistics.
“No, but I have a plan which can help out until those ships get here,” Troy said, quickly explaining his plan.
“That can work,” Ares said. “Captain,” he said catching a nearby officer.
“Yes admiral?” the captain replied.
“Order the head of fleet logistics to the briefing room asap, there’s a lot of work to do,” Ares said.
BSGBSG
Starbuck and Apollo flew on patrol towards a system which had a known basestar in it. Starbuck protested it as usual, unsure of why they were heading into danger. Commander Adama himself had ordered the patrol, to check out the basestar, making sure it was still there.
Apollo was nervous about the patrol, but knew they had the best odds of surviving, and were veterans of such patrols. Both kept a close eye on the scanner not wanting to be caught unaware. Sheba had given them which planet the basestar was at, and continued on into the system still not picking up anything.
Closer and closer they went, and with each passing second the tension went up. Any second Apollo expected to see the basestar rising from the backside of the planet. However nothing appeared, which made him nervous. Where was the Cylon ship?
They reached the planet and Apollo knew the basestar had enough time to orbit as least halfway around. It should have appeared.
“Starbuck, you go one way, I’ll go the other,” Apollo said.
“Um, isn’t that dangerous,” Starbuck said.
“I have a hunch our basestar isn’t here anymore,” Apollo said.
“Oh, great, thought it was bad enough,” Starbuck replied, but followed peeling off to go around the planet.
Apollo only had to wait a moment before seeing Starbuck on the other side.
“Let’s do a quick search of the system and get back to the Galactica,” Apollo said, knowing his father would not like this development.
BSGBSG
Captain Scott O’Malley walked onto the bridge, having been summoned by a communications from HQ. He sat down in the command chair and pulled up the communications screen, surprised to see Admiral Ares.
“Admiral,” Scott said, wondering what happened.
“Captain, I have a new mission for the 1st scouting squadron, you are link up at the dock, take on supplies, and leave to the area of the Sydney at once,” Ares said.
“Um, supplies? What type of supplies?” Scott asked, unsure of the unusual order. The scout ships were not large, had a crew of twenty men and women and almost no supply holds. The order seemed strange.
“Boxes of MREs and water,” Ares said, confusing Scott before he continued on. “We have thirty-five hundred starving refugees from the Colonies who need immediate resupply, they can’t wait a couple of days for the supply ships to get there. Every scout ship not on a mission is to undertake this mission.”
“All right, I’ll inform my ships of the mission,” Scott said, ending the conversation. With the lightning drives the scout ships could be there in less than an hour. “Helm, take us to the supply area.”
“Um, captain, we’re getting orders to take on a lot of supplies, they won’t fit in our supply area,” his XO said.
Scott understood the situation, and activated the internal communications. “May I have your attention,” he said, waiting a second. “This is Captain O’Malley, we will be taking on supplies, a lot of them. These supplies are MREs and water for a fleet of three thousand five hundred survivors from the Colonies who are out of food. We’ll be putting boxes and bottles everywhere, for the jump to their position. I think we can all suffer slightly for a short time to help out those in need. I have every confidence in you that is all.”
He turned to a shocked XO who shook his head and became serious. “We’ll find the room sir.”
“Use my quarters as well, no spot is out-of-bounds.” Scott said.
“Understood.”
Scott relayed the message to the rest of the 1st scouting squadron.
BSGBSG
Tagget sat along with Sara, watching as she ate in silence. She had not even looked up from the moment the food was set in front of her. Looking around the room he watched as they all ate a full meal for the first time in so long, he could not even remember when. Troy had brought over something Earthers called MREs, or meals ready to eat. It seemed they developed this process for food where you only add water. There were a lot of choices, and it had been self-heating.
Reports came in from all seven ships are they received the boxes of the meals and water. The news that even more supplies were coming from Earth boosted moral more than anything else. He marveled at the technology the Earthers seemed to have. Ships which could travel so fast.
“Troy, why do the larger ships not have such drives?” Tagget finally asked.
“The lightning drives requires a tremendous amount of energy, and to propel a ship the size of a battlestar would require more energy than the entire fleet produces. The scout ships are the largest ships we can currently employ the drives on,” Troy replied, as he ate as well.
“I see,” Tagget said.
“I don’t know how you survived,” Bri said.
“Wasn’t easy,” Tagget stated, recalling everything which happened over the course of the past yahren. “Some days I’m not sure how we survived either. I can’t even imagine how many times we were close to mutinies on board.”
“Must have been hard,” Troy said. “Not knowing where you’re going to get food, and how far behind the Cylons are, glad we didn’t have that problem on the Argo.”
Tagget still found it almost impossible to believe a battlestar had been sent to find Earth. In fact, if Cain had not been mentioned, he still could hardly belief it. However, the proof sat before him.
“What happens now?” Bri asked.
“I guess we continue on to Earth with these supplies, and then get the Sunflare ready for combat again,” Tagget said. “She might be old, but she’s still useful, and the crew is willing to help still.”
“And the Galactica?” Troy asked.
“No idea, ran across a few areas where they might have been, but no sign of the ship or the fleet it was with,” Tagget said, having asked that question many, many times over the course of his travels. Troy appeared silent for several seconds before saying anything.
“The bigger question is what else were those tin cans planning,” Troy said, catching Tagget off guard. He had no idea if anything else had been planned. “There are more basestars around here, a lot more than just to destroy you.”
It gave Tagget something to think about. Perhaps the Galactica was nearby as well.
End Part 6
Continued in Part 7: Stealth Attack
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