1. Chapter 1

**-0048 Hours**

Having recently awoke; he stared out his small window. A part of a hanger pod floated past and gently collided with what was once an engine from a Mercury Class Battlestar. Realizing he was once again not going to wake up from this bad dream, Nikolai Belakov stood up from his bunk, grabbed a set of wrinkly duty blues and put them on. Not bothering to button up the jacket he left quarters and headed down the narrow corridors that lead to the CIC, if it could even be called that. It was more a room with a single small light table for maps or other documents and a few computers scattered around. The place would have been considered obsolete even before Graystone Industries uttered the word Cylon, let alone now, fifty odd years later.

"Morning Sir." mumbled the lonely Major in the room. Major Greene was once the CO of this facility, but since Nikolai's arrival, he was more the XO. "Coffee sir?" he asked.

"Yes please, I assume it's the normal watered down stuff?"

"Unfortunately. Monthly supply shipment is late, again. Not like we're part of the Fleet or anything." The major responded with a slightly bitter tone. "Should I have the sergeant spice it up for you sir?"

The commander knew he was referring to the bottle of whatever today's special was in the cabinet below the coffee pot. Once he would have been outraged at the breech in protocol of even the suggestion, but recently, he didn't care. Today he honestly considered the extra kick before saying no. At least one officer on base should remain sober. Just then, some larger piece of debris banged off the ceiling.

"What was that?" asked the commander, accidentally loud enough for others to hear.

"Who cares?" responded a marine corporal standing at the door. "Sir."

Everyone chuckled a bit at the response.

After getting his coffee and no new news, Nikolai took his leave and headed for the observation deck. About three hundred feet and four turns from the CIC, the observation deck was the only place on the facility that possessed large viewing windows. Standing at one of the windows, Nikolai gazed out over his command. He liked to think of it as his very own fleet: a collection of warships floating about waiting for his command. In reality, every ship there was waiting to be scrapped. Even still, the sight was pretty impressive. The large docking structures suggested the place was once a shipyard, and by the looks of it comparable to even those at Picon or Scorpio. Closest to the facility was a Mercury Class Battlestar. One of the FTL drives had malfunctioned and taken a pretty large chunk of the hull with it. With damaged flight pods, no FTL, all eight engines suffering some sort of damage, combined with the public outcry at the deaths of over a thousand fleet personnel, the entire ship was filed to be scrapped. Next to it was a much smaller vessel, a dilapidated Gunstar that saw a way too much action during the Cylon War. Hull breaches everywhere, no engines, and most of the armor had already stripped off. Past this was a collection of civilian ships, either impounded for piracy or smuggling, or damaged in accidents and hauled away with or without the owner's permission. On the other side of the docks was the ship that Nikolai most wanted; a Strikestar. It was named the Chimera and had obviously seen some heavy combat, but for the most part, it was in great shape. In the years after the Cylon War, the Fleet decided it was time to decommission some of its older ships. With the Cylons out of the way, the need for long-range strikes was deemed less important than the need to keep parts and resources for newer Battlestars. The Chimera had mostly avoided scrap so far though. All of her systems were operational, her armor was all there, and even her guns and missile batteries were left. The only real things taken from her were the general operating resources and her ammunition and air wing compliment. But the commander could do nothing more than occasionally walk her halls. Still, among all the ships floating out through the junkyard, she was the only one that could still perform her duties, if the Fleet saw fit to reinstate her.

The radio crackled and he heard a voice that he rarely ever heard outside of the small device.

"Actual, this is Cutter, just want to confirm today's agenda. We're harvesting comms units from some old vipers and then taking some more plates off the Merc right? Or were we going to remove one of the engines from that civvie ship and prep it for transport back to Tauron?" Cutter was his lead pilot. She almost always led the raptor teams through the yard on the scrapping runs. She'd been transferred to the shipyard after taking a raptor from the Atlantia on a joyride. That ride earned her ticket to the deepest pit in the Colonial Fleet. That and the several hundred gallons of paint she dumped on the first civilian ship she found. But for whatever indiscretion, they found it fulfilling to drop her on the edge of Colonial space.

"Cutter, this is Actual. Take the comms units and then the plates. Those civvies can wait. I doubt they're even paying for the engines anyway."

"Roger that sir." a moment of silence. "So when are you finally going to come out and join us Commander? We know you still have flight status. And even if you didn't, who'd tell?"

"Captain, you know I have to stay…"

"Yes, you have to stay in the base in case some all important message comes through. Commander, you work at a junkyard. You could take the day off and I doubt anyone would notice. So what'd ya say? Tomorrow you grab one of the raptors and go out to the Strikestar with us. We know how you look at that thing…"

Unfortunately, she was right. He could probably take the week off and he wouldn't even miss a salvage op of anything bigger than a few radios. She was also correct about the ship. The last time he'd been aboard, he nearly stayed there; the commander's quarters were nicer than his current ones.

"Sir, I know you're still there…"

"Fine. Tomorrow, we'll take a raptor out and check the systems. But that's it."

"Haha, whatever you say sir. We'd better make sure _all_ those systems are in order though right sir? Don't want to end up scrapping any parts that aren't worth anything."

"Actual out." He appreciated how Cutter was trying to cheer him up; she'd been posted at the yard for nearly three years longer than him and knew how hard of a blow it could be to someone who had a flourishing military career. Despite being stationed here for nearly a year now, he still held out hope that he might be once again assigned to a more prestigious post. With his orders out, he resigned himself to his daily tasks. Closing the door on his office, he continued the arduous task of transferring records from paper to digital of everything that had been brought to the yards since its induction as a scrap yard. Just another day in the Aeolus Asteroid Belt.


	2. Chapter 2

**-0024 Hours**

Suiting up for a flight was certainly more exciting than his usual day. Though he retained his flight status, he hadn't brought a flight suit of his own to his new posting. As a result, today he was suiting up in one that the crews had found in the Mercury and refurbished. It worked, but he doubted it had all the same safety specs he could expect the others had.

"Well, now that you're all suited up, I suppose we can go! And here I thought I'd have had to go to your quarters and convince you to get out there with us." Nikolai had no idea how long Cutter had been sitting in the corner of the flight ops room. Despite being such a cheery and loud person, she had a penchant for sneaking up on people when they least expected it. "Well sir, I thought I'd take the day off. I'll just sit in the back of the raptor and you can shuttle me around for a change."

"Oh? Is that right Sam? And since when did your job description include 'gets to order around the commanding officer'?" Nikolai hoped he didn't sound too sarcastic, but she laughed, so she caught that he was just teasing her.

"Since I'm working on my day off!" she quipped back.

He'd forgotten about that. He had given all currently on duty personnel a day off to take as they saw fit. He knew that they were already two weeks ahead of schedule, and it wasn't like they could damage anything if they took their new freedom a little too readily.

To get to the hanger bay, they had to pass the CIC. Nikolai stepped in to see if there was anything that needed, but there was only a young ensign with whom he hadn't gotten to know very well, and a marine sleeping in a chair. It was at least 1300. Major Greene was serious when he said he was going to be sleeping in. That was fine. It wasn't likely that either officer would be needed. Stepping out, he continued the same way that Cutter went and headed to the hanger bay.

Through the emergency airlock doors, Nikolai stepped into a crowd of most of his flight ops crew, pilots and a small group of marines. Confused he asked, "Where does everyone think they're going?"

Major Greene stepped forward and responded simply "The Strikestar is in better shape than most of this base. You said it was our day off and a couple pilots wanted to practice their combat landings. Well, they need a flight crew to get them back in the launch tubes, and if we're running flight ops, we need to have someone in the CIC to manage them. If you really want to stop your crews from practicing on their day off, please feel free sir."

It was pretty clear what Greene meant. They wanted an escape as much as he did. Almost everyone was as sick of being stuck in a base smaller than the hanger bay on the Chimera. "Very well. Everyone keep safe out there. And I know what you're going to ask eventually, so yes, you are weapons free on some of the free floating scrap so you can 'practice'. Good hunting."

"So say we all!" echoed through the small hanger.

The crews helped the pilots into their vipers and got them loaded onto the catapults. Within sixty seconds, the crews had launched all eight vipers that would be headed out today.

"Eight vipers in sixty seconds. If the other two pilots were here and launched just as quickly, that might have been a base record…" Nikolai murmured to Greene.

"Sir, vipers away! Requesting permission for the crews to board raptors." Chief Hollan was particularly professional today.

"Permission granted Chief. And what's the deal?"

"What do you mean sir?" he responded honestly a bit confused.

"My whole cadre and most of my flight ops group is practicing combat drills and apparently going for base records, all on their day off. Most days it's impressive when half of you aren't twenty minutes late to the hanger to go on milk runs."

"Well sir, with us transferring over, we're not a scrap yard crew today sir we're a Strikestar crew. We'd better act like it right?"

"Easy Chief, just because we're using a decommissioned ship to practice some take offs and landings doesn't make us a crew of that ship."

"Yes sir." The Chief was visibly disheartened.

"But I suppose military procedure does dictate that one must present themselves in a manner fitting to their post, no matter how temporary."

"Aye sir." Saluting, Hollan jumped aboard the neighboring raptor and the door closed behind him.

Over the intercom, "All raptors, this is Actual, you have a go." Turning around, he looked directly into his passenger's eyes and said, "Captain, you've got some explaining to do later." He knew she meant well, and he probably wouldn't do anything about it, but to have gotten the entire station involved, he had to at least talk to her about it. That aside, he had to focus on flying at the moment. This was his first time piloting a raptor since he was with the Yashuman. Within a few minutes, the raptor was being put done on the landing deck of the starboard hanger pod. Because there was no crew inside the Chimera to work the elevators, two crewmen had to leave their raptors and enter through an airlock. Fortunately they weren't on his raptor; he didn't exactly want to try out his "new" flight suit. Nearly ten minutes passed before the first viper started descending down the elevator shaft into the main hanger. Two more raptors and then his went down.

After the last raptor came down, he briefed everyone to be careful. He made sure to note there were forty-eight crewmen on board. He wouldn't allow a single ship to leave until all forty-eight were back and standing by their respective ships.

"Alright, pilots, you're here to practice landings and maneuvers. Get to it. Marines, you volunteered to look after the ship and see what could be collected and brought back for salvaging. And everyone else, you guys know your jobs. Check the systems; find out what works and what doesn't. Find anything this ship doesn't need and mark it for scrap. Today we just tag it. We bag it next time. Okay, move it people!"

It had been almost two months since he'd addressed more than only a few of them at once. It had been even longer since they'd all paid attention to him. Everyone broke up and headed off to perform whatever task it was they had come to do.

"Cutter, on me."

"Yes sir."

He started walking towards the CIC with the Captain in tow, silently at first. Once sure they were alone, he turned to her,

"Samantha, what is this?"

Feigning confusion she asked, "what do you mean sir?"

"I've got fifty members of my crew wandering around an old Strikestar on their day off. I know they didn't all just decide at the same time that visiting was a good idea."

A moment passed before Captain Barnes spoke again.

"No sir, they didn't. When I convinced you to go, I told some people that I was headed out here. The confines of the base… they just get to you. I saw it in you; you were getting worn down. You're one of the only officers left here that doesn't drink all day or gamble their wages away at Triad. You needed a change of scenery. And so did everyone else. So I know what you're going to say. I went above your command; I instigated action in the crew. But I did so to keep what little moral we have up. So if you need to punish me for it to keep face, I accept it. But I stand by my actions. Sir." She had stopped walking when he finished his question to answer it, and once she finished, she stood at attention.

Caught completely off guard by her sudden stolid professionalism, he barely managed to get out a professional sentence himself.

"I wasn't going to punish you Sam, I was just going to ask you tell me first before organizing something like this.

She relaxed quickly and dropped from attention. Back to how he was used to seeing her, she quickly avoided his gaze and whispered something he didn't catch. He put his hand on her shoulder and pointed down a hallway.

"Come on, the CIC is down here."


	3. Chapter 3

**-0018 Hours**

The CIC was larger than any on the newer Battlestars. Nikolai knew it to be large, and he'd heard about the old Jupiter Class CIC, but he always forgot just how large. In much the same fashion as a Jupiter, the Strikestar had a two story CIC, with most of the standard operating posts on the lower level. The upper level seemed to consist mostly of terminals for researching data and manual controls for most of the few automated systems. For just him and his small group of officers, it was way too large. To fill every station would have needed probably fifty men. And he had just six in there with him.

Currently, three were huddled around the Flight Ops station and the neighboring Landing Signals station. One more ensign was peering at the DRADIS trying to pick out the Colonial IDC's from all the debris floating in the space. The Commander and Cutter were standing over the Command Table watching the screens and monitoring all the progress. In a way to get around networking, the designers of this CIC had routed each station to display on a single monitor above the Command Table. It was simple, but effective.

For only eight vipers, they were sure creating a decent amount of chaos. As the electronics raptor called targets and marked on DRADIS, the vipers were circling the yard and would take targets in pairs. Most viper squadrons pair up and stay together to protect each other under the school of thought that, "four guns are better than two". At the yard, there was a different tactic however. The vipers would split up about halfway from the target, move to flanking positions, and catch the target in the crossfire. It put the individual vipers in more risk, but it forced the target to either pick one target and attempt to fight, only to then have turned its six on an incoming fighter, or to attempt and flee, with two fighters in close pursuit. Nikolai had brought this method to the scrap yard knowing that with only ten vipers, keeping them all together did not present the same effective screen that an entire Battlestar compliment did. Rather than put all his eggs in one basket, he'd prefer the vipers split up and work as individual hunters, all while supporting each other.

Today, it seemed that their practice over the past year was paying off. After twelve runs, the pairs had yet to miss a target; with some pairs having both vipers hit the target with kill hits. To make things interesting, the electronics raptor called out four targets at once.

"Okay people, multiple contacts, Pawn and Dusty, you take one. Hotshot, Fiddler, you take two. Wrecker, Nerd on three. Firefly, you're with me. We're taking four." Captain Jason "Riddle" Argos called out. The targets were well spread out but the vipers engaged their afterburners and got to their targets in what seemed like a matter of a few seconds.

"Fiddler, two is down."

"Dusty, one neutralized."

"Wrecker, three eliminated."

"Roger all, Riddle, four is gone. Good work people."

The electronics bird sent out the signal that the Strikestar was spooling up the FTL and all vipers needed to return to base. The fighters immediately turned tail and headed back to landing pod. In a combat landing, the birds hit the deck two at a time. Deck crew came up and assisted the vipers onto the elevators to head down for refueling and rearming. Once all the vipers were down, the pilots disembarked and gathered in the ready room. There was a buzz of excitement when Captain Argos walked to the front of the room.

"Okay, can anyone tell me what we did wrong?"

It was hardly the congratulatory speech they had been expecting. The atmosphere all but died instantly. No one said anything and a few even lowered their heads, hoping they wouldn't get called out.

"Well, I can tell you. There are eight of us. There were four stationary targets that couldn't shoot back. From an ideal circling of the battlefield, it took us forty three seconds to neutralize them. If those were pirates, they would have jumped out. And we would have been left with our pants still at our ankles wondering what the excitement was all about. And if those were Cylons… I don't even want to imagine what would have happened in those forty three seconds it took us." He hadn't changed his tone or raised his voice, but he didn't have to. The words struck the small group of pilots like a hammer. "So, I want us to get out there and keep working until we get our time down to thirty seconds an intercept run. Fleet standard is thirty-five; Battlestar Air Group average is thirty. If any one of you dreams of leaving this place for a better post, you'd better prove you're worthy."

The pilots grabbed their helmets and shuffled back to the hanger. This was going to be a long training exercise. When they arrived the deck crew was still prepping the vipers. Some of the crew looked up, a bit surprised that the pilots were done so soon. The pilots shuffled over to their respective planes got in.

"Chief! Why aren't my birds ready to fly?" shouted Captain Argos from three vipers over.

"Sorry Sir, we expected you would be taking more time…"

Argos cut him off, "Chief, if this were a real combat situation, the ship is sitting with birds on the deck and pilots with nothing to do! This could be costing lives. Now please tell me, if you knew the birds needed refit and refuel, why the frak didn't you do your job?"

Shocked by the sudden hostile attitude, Chief Hollan just stood there in silence.

"Well Chief? Any day now!"

Snapping back to it, Hollan looked down, grabbed a fuel line and ran it to the nearest viper. Everyone else seemed to speed up at the berating too. Crewmen were dumping the belts of training rounds into the vipers and doing last minute flight checks. As each viper finished its pre-flight, the crews loaded it into the tubes for launch. Argos was the last viper in the tube and called the CIC.

"Command, this is Riddle, permission to launch."

"Captain, this is Actual, permission granted. That was a quick post op."

Argos didn't want to explain, let alone do so right now, so he grunted and turned his attention to his squadron.

"Okay people, you remember what I told you. Launch."

With that, all eight vipers launched in a stair step cascade out of the tubes and back into the yard where a raptor was lying in wait to call targets. It was nowhere near the spectacle it would have been with a full complement, but it was still multitudes more dramatic than the normal take off from a flat deck on the surface of the base.

At Argos's secret request, the moment the vipers were out of the tube, the raptor called four targets, dead ahead from the vipers. All vipers went straight to afterburner in an attempt to catch the targets. Then the raptor called out a nuclear warning. The targets were arming nukes to launch on the ship. They had fifteen seconds before raptor declared the targets would be free to launch. Getting close to the targets, the pilots noticed something strange about the new targets.

"Sir, those look like Cylon raiders!" Hotshot called out what all of them were thinking.

"Copy that, all fighters, stay on target, we _can't_ let these ones through."

Argos smiled that they took the bait. Those were indeed Cylon raiders, but they'd been sitting in the junk since the war. And it was a good thing they were still far off, or his pilots would have noticed all the damage. He'd always expected they would make a good practical joke one day, he never thought it would be on most of his fighter wing.

"Argos, respond. Did your pilot say _Cylons_?" Commander Belakov thought he'd heard correctly, but that wasn't possible.

"Sorry sir, busy, will respond shortly." _Frak me_ he thought. The joke was one thing, and to use the raiders for target practice was another, but to announce 'Cylon' over an open channel and not have the CO in the loop on what was going on… _Belakov is going to have my ass._

According to the arbitrary number the raptor gave, they had four seconds to secure their airspace. Pawn took the first shots, but everyone opened up with everything they had. The spread made it difficult to accurately hit the raiders, but three of four were down. The last one though managed to launch a missile. Argos knew it was a missile with no warhead and the bare minimum fuel to get it to launch and fly in a path towards the Strikestar, but none of the pilots did. Argos took two pilots to neutralize the raider before it could shoot again, and the rest went after the missile.

Inside the CIC, the ensign watching DRADIS called out a new contact. "Sir, we've got an unknown headed out of one of the Cylons, collision course, speed makes it likely a missile. We've got incoming…"

Outside, the pilots were scrambling at max thrusters to get enough speed to intercept the missile.

"Actual, this is Hotshot, brace for impact, you've got a potential Cylon nuke headed for you, I'm not sure we can intercept."

"Hotshot, copy." Turning to everyone in the CIC, okay people, brace for impact."

Firefly was closing on target. She fired some shots to try and disable the missile, but she missed. She fired another volley, but this time her gun jammed. She was the closest to the missile by a great distance, so she made up her mind.

"Everyone, this is Firefly, clear my airspace, NOW."

Everyone threw their vipers into max reverse thrust and Firefly maxed out her turbo. She crashed sideways into the missile. It lodged itself in nose of the viper and much to everyone's amazement, nothing happened.

"Uhh, Actual, this is Firefly, I seem to have a _dud_ nuke stuck in my nose cone. Requesting instructions."

"Firefly, this is Riddle, that missile was never loaded. This was a training exercise. You performed excellently."

The wireless exploded with comms traffic as everyone tried to find out what had really just happened. Finally one voice broke through.

"Riddle, this is Actual. Land your viper and report to the CIC. Everyone else, continue training."

A good fifteen minutes passed before Riddle was in the CIC. Belakov told him to take a walk with him. They headed down the hall a ways, far enough to have some privacy.

"Captain. You have some frakking explaining to do. What in the name of the Gods just happened out there?"

Taking a breath, the Captain, made sure to pick his next words very carefully.

"Sir, I felt the best way to motivate the pilots was to convince them that they were no longer in a training exercise. I knew the facility had several old raiders stashed among the piles of junk, so I asked if the raptor could haul them out. I also felt that a nuclear missile launch scenario would motivate the pilots enough to work harder than they had before."

"Granted Captain, but didn't you consider that maybe the Commander, or ANY superior officer deserved the right to know of your little plan? Your pilots don't know what goes on in the CIC, so even if everyone in there knew, it would have been just as real for your pilots. Now, head back to the hanger and catch the next raptor out, you're done flying until I say otherwise. Is that understood?"

Grimacing, "yes Sir."

He wasn't expecting to have been taken off flight status. He wasn't sure what he was expecting at all actually. He felt he probably had more punishment coming, and he knew he deserved it, but he still didn't want to believe what just happened.

After having taken his time his time back to the hanger he walked in and realized just how empty it was in there. The only two ships from the original compliment left on board were the two electronics warfare ships. Maybe fifty meters in length these ships were designed to do everything a normal recon raptor couldn't. During the war, they were the only ships capable of actually jamming Cylon technology. After several of them went missing, it was assumed they were captured and the ships were immediately decommissioned. These ones looked like they had been upgraded a bit either during the end of the war or after it, because they had two missile pods on the sides and several small craft guns. The original AWACS birds were unarmed to keep the crew down and to avoid any more automated systems than necessary on board. They weren't supposed to operate outside of a Battlestar's protective zone anyway.

"Sir, you going back out? We've got your bird ready."

Argos turned around and saw it was one of the deck crew. He didn't know him by name, which by the size of the base was a little embarrassing.

"Negative. I will be leaving with the next raptor. The Commander will be flying my viper I presume." He gave the crewman no opportunity to ask a question and walked off to go wait in a raptor.


	4. Chapter 4

**-0001 Hours**

After the unexpected twist in the training the day earlier, Nikolai needed a normal day. Cutter was out in the yard harvesting the engines from a civie ship, the pilots were taking turns flying a two bird CAP and playing Triad in the officer's lounge. Everyone else was where he or she was supposed to be, that is, except for the supply ship. It still had not arrived. This made it now five days late. Even on sublight engines only, the ship should have been within communications range by now to explain their lateness. Nikolai understood that his command was not a top priority for the Defense Ministry, but they did exist. This formal complaint would be significantly stronger than the previous.

After much consideration and several less than appropriate drafts, Belakov finally wrote his final. He headed off to the CIC to perform his daily check in before heading back to his quarters to yet continue updating the data bank. He took the long way around the base to mingle with all the personnel. Passing by the officer's lounge he noted it was relatively empty. Fiddler was sitting alone playing a card game, and two lieutenants from the raptor teams were sitting having a quiet conversation near the coffee maker. Continuing his walk, Belakov got to the observation deck. Out in the yard, three raptors were wrestling one of the engines to the storage area to await the supply ship. He noticed one more raptor come out from the deeper parts of the yard and zip in right on top of the engine. It dropped a cable and took charge over the engine's direction. Walking on, he headed to the mess. The normal three crewmen were behind the counter serving the food and helping to prepare it. Further in the kitchen, the sergeant and corporal chefs were preparing tonight's dinner. About fifteen other people were around eating or getting food. Off alone was a brooding Captain Argos. The Commander walked to the serving counter and ordered a quick snack, just a protein bar. He stepped out and went to his last stop before the CIC, the medical center. Under staffed, ill equipped, and fortunately never filled, this space was off the main hall and rarely visited. When it was, it was usually a couple stitches and out. Dr. Lyons was sitting at her desk with her head down, apparently asleep. Her two orderlies were nowhere to be seen. He left her to rest.

In the CIC, Greene was with a group younger officers staring at the DRADIS. Walking closer, the Commander heard some of the conversation.

"It must be a glitch."

"That's one hell of a glitch ensign. That's an entire frakking fleet out there. And you're sure there's no Colonial IFF?" Greene had a very puzzled look on his face when he asked this.

"Sir, I've run the diagnostics twice. There is nothing wrong with the system."

"And you say they just appeared? They didn't move onto the screen?"

One of the other officers turned to Greene and responded, "They just appeared there. The same way you'd expect any ship jumping in to range would."

"Major, what's going on?" Belakov felt it was time to step in and find out what exactly was going on.

"Sir, we don't really know. We have eight contacts on DRADIS, all unknown."

"Could they be pirates looking for a place to loot?"

"Unlikely sir, they're not headed this way, and they're all the size of Battlestars."

"Major, eight Battlestars? Without an IFF? That's about as likely as a C-Bucs- Stallions game without controversy. Have you tried hailing them?"

"We sent a signal, but they're out of range. It'll reach them if they stay there a while, but the moment they jump they'll never get it." Greene looked over at the ensign who sent the signal as though seeking justification.

"What about a subspace message?"

"Sir, we've never had the equipment for that. It's one of the things that Fleet Command never gave us." The ensign looked disappointed at that fact.

"Okay, I need options. Rogue asteroids?"

"Negative, DRADIS would have shown them floating in, these just showed up."

As they were speaking, they DRADIS refreshed and suddenly the eight contacts were gone. The next sweep showed one contact. This time, it was bearing a Colonial IFF.

"Ensign, please confirm what I'm looking at." The commander was staring almost blankly at the screen, which in the last ten seconds had shown eight potentially hostile contacts, nothing, and then one friendly contact.

"Sir, it would appear that our scheduled supply ship is here. I have no other explanation than our DRADIS had a malfunction and read the one ship as eight total ships." She looked over at Ensign Morris who had first noticed the eight contacts and run the diagnostics.

Morris felt it was his duty to restate his position. "Sir, I respect Ensign James's opinion on the matter, but I would like to restate that I ran the diagnostics twice, there was no glitch in our system."

"Very well Morris, is the new ship in communications range?"

"Yes sir, it is."

"Get me on the horn with them, I need to straighten this out."

Ensign James grabbed the corded phone and handed it to Commander Belakov.

"This is Commander Belakov of the Colonial Scrapyard Orcus, please state your business in Colonial Fleet airspace."

"Commander, this is Colonel Harkin of the Colonial Fleet Supply Ship Ananke. We're here to supply your outpost if that is acceptable with you, _sir_." The last was added with an almost condescending tone. Belakov would put this Colonel in his place.

"Colonel, your DRADIS. Please tell me what you see."

"Well Commander, there is the expected number of raptors in the yard, but other than that it's clear out. Can't keep track of your CAP?"

"No Colonel, our sensors read eight unknown contacts in your vicinity just prior to your arrival." The Commander was getting very impatient with this Colonel.

"Well, we've got new sensors and they show that the space outside of your little playground is devoid of anything but rocks."

"Alright Colonel, get your ship in here and off load our supplies so you can go act superior to the next Battlestar you deliver mail to." The Colonel acknowledged with a mere two-click affirmative over the horn, letting Belakov know he was done.

"Ensign, keep checking that equipment. I saw the same thing you did. There was something out there, I need to know what." At that, the Commander walked off to the deck where the Colonel would be landing his transport.

He arrived just in time. Right as he stopped in front of the airlock, the door slid open and a group of people stepped out. The Colonel was not one of them; in fact, all of them were lieutenants or lower. The most senior of the lieutenants stepped forward and handed the Commander a note. It was marked with the Colonial Fleet insignia so he opened it. Skimming it he realized that they were trading half of his pilots for these new ones. On the list were Riddle and Cutter. With no reason given for the switch, that was unacceptable.

"Lieutenant, what is this about?" He looked the younger pilot right in the eyes.

"Sir, from what I gather, Command feels that these pilots would be better suited in other positions. I have no say, and I'd rather not be here either sir. No offense sir." The man looked uneasy but otherwise had a sort of confidence that impressed Belakov.

"Very well, I'll try to settle this." Belakov stepped aside and headed into the transport.

Mostly a cargo hold with a few gangways for the crew to walk through, the ship was more cramped than he expected. It was also had a much larger crew than he expected. This ship must have been forgotten when Command chose to partially automate ships in the fleet.

The crew was certainly efficient; he'd give them that. In less than five minutes of docking, they had already gotten the fuel lines attached and pumping into the base stock. The lower levels were loading the crates of supplies, mostly food and necessities onto a belt that took them to the main bay door, which was now open to the hangar. From there, they got lowered into the hangar and left for his crew to sort out.

The actual crew space of ship was quite small for the number of personnel onboard. Even the old Battlestars, with their six to eight thousand personnel crew weren't this cramped. Belakov pushed his way through to the CIC. Looking around, he wasn't sure he was even there. The space used for a CIC was almost as pathetic as his station's and consisted of nothing more than simple DRADIS console, a small navigation station, and a communications officer station. When he stepped in, it was dead silent. The officer that must have been Harkin was standing by the Communications officer with all of the blood drained from his face. The rest of the small cadre was also crowding around in silence.

"Colonel, I need a moment with you."

"Sir… We've been attacked."

"Excuse me Colonel?" Belakov hadn't a clue what the man was talking about. The ship or station was most certainly not under attack.

"Fleet Headquarters sent out a report in the clear. The Cylons are attacking us. We are at war."

Belakov stepped past him and went directly to the console. There had to be some sort of mistake. Some hacker got into the network and thought this would make a funny prank. But the more he looked at it, the more real it became. The message was verified. It carried all of the right subcodes to confirm it was real. He couldn't believe it.

"Okay, Colonel, we need to get out there in the fight. The reports say the Fleet suffered heavy losses in the initial strike. They're going to need every ship out there." Belakov turned to go prep his crew but Harkin stopped him.

"This ship is unarmed. We have one missile tube with four missiles for protection from pirates. We don't even have flak guns or viper tubes." Harkin had seen combat, but even he was taken completely by shock.

"Alright, fine. The Strikestar in the yard is still flight worthy. It needs some repairs before it's ready for combat, but it has weapons." Belakov turned and headed off the ship.


	5. Chapter 5

**0000 Hours**

"The Twelve Colonies have been attacked by the Cylons. At the present, all we know is that the Fleet is taking heavy losses and we need to do something. We are going to transfer all personnel and supplies to the Strikestar. We are going to war." The Commander hung up the intercom and turned to Greene.

"We need all of our ammo over there. But first, we need to get all of our deck crews over there to perform as many repairs as humanly possible before we head into combat. We've lost so many ships already; a full-scale war is already out of question. We're better late and prepared than on time and not ready to take a beating." He put his hand on Greene's shoulder. "We'll get through this."

"Yes sir, I'll make sure everything gets done over there. You just get us all the supplies. Something tells me we won't be coming back." He left for the hangar where he would take one of the first raptors over.

Down in the hangar, Belakov chose to reload the supply ship and move all of its contents on board the Strikestar. Ammo, food, water, and fuel were the top priorities.

"Chief, ammo. Report." Full sentences were not on today's agenda as every second was one more they didn't have.

"Sir, we have eighty anti-ship missiles from the defense tubes on the ship. We've got enough viper ammo to last at least a few heavy engagements. Four pallets of raptor missiles. Eight viper anti-fighter missiles. We managed to scrounge up some man portable weapons too. Two crates of a hundred fifty standard issue rifles. Two hundred rounds for each. Not sure where the sidearms went, only managed to find about fifty." The Chief didn't bother to salute and headed back to his duties of loading and launching the raptors.

A specialist from the Ananke passed the Commander.

"Specialist, do you have an estimate on the fuel?"

Stopping dead in his tracks and being pulled out of almost a trance, he turned and gave Belakov a blank stare.

"Specialist…"

"Uhh, yes sir. There should be enough fuel on board the Ananke to give the Strikestar about a five percent fuel level. Combined with the base stock, it should go up to about fifteen. Sir." He then continued on his original track.

Fifteen percent. That was enough for about a year of standard usage, about six months of combat. It would have to do. Belakov knew the water levels would last the combined crews several months, but food would be tight if it were to last more than two or three months. That was if they lived that long.

"Sir, you need to see these new reports." Ensign James was standing behind him. She handed him a collection of reports. All of them listed casualties, ship losses, and malfunctions. More than half the fleet had been destroyed.

Belakov acknowledged the reports and left to assist with other preparations. With the current situation, Riddle was back on flight status. He was coordinating the rallying of any and all fighter support. There were the ten vipers from the base, and two in the hold of the Ananke, but no more. They needed more, so they sought the yard. There were dozens of fighters floating around; the key was just finding ones that were still flight worthy. There were three main locations that were candidates for functional vipers. First, the Mercury might still have some MkVIIs in the pods. When the FTL went up, the radiation kept most salvage ops from ever occurring. It was possible that some, if not most of the vipers that were not able to be flown off in the immediate evacuation would still be in working condition, even if they were still radioactive. The second stop was the far side of the yard. Near a massive asteroid, most of the small junk collected in the gravitational trap. It was unlikely that any vipers would have survived that, but it was worth a shot. Lastly, the Gunstar. It was surely a false hope because the thing had been in the yard being scrapped for the last forty years, but if nothing else, the crew might be able to salvage some parts from the work areas.

Knowing their work ahead of them, Riddle and his crew set off for the Mercury. Having never actually been inside it before, they had no idea what to expect. Using space suits and magnetic boots, they headed down the flight elevator and into the pod. Geiger counters indicated that couldn't stay long, but they didn't need much time. Incredibly, stepping into the storage area, they found themselves looking down a row of MkVIIs, at least forty. Realizing that Fleet Command had not just left a few unreachable vipers but two whole squadrons brought up some new questions. Would there still be ammo on board? What about other supplies? The water and food would be radioactive, and the fuel was consumed in the explosion, but there could be tools or spare parts all over the ship.

Argos sent one man back to get all available pilots back here to fly vipers off. He sent one man to investigate the situation with the parts and tools, and he took one man with to check the weapons systems. The rest of the available crew members split off to gather applicable supplies.

Reaching the weapons center, Argos turned on all the monitors and began reading data. The main batteries were depleted, the flak was empty enough to be ignored, but then he saw it. Jumping on his radio.

"Actual, this is Argos. We may have a nuke."

"Argos, this is Actual, say again?" Belakov could think nothing else than hearing a near identical phrase the day before. In their present situation though, he must have been referring to incoming or sabotage.

"We decided to investigate the Mercury for ammo, and we found that there is a nuclear missile unaccounted for from the salvage. Reports say it was last seen sitting in the weapons bay. We're en route to investigate."

"Roger that, mind the radiation though. If the initial crews left it behind, then it was too dangerous to reach during peacetime operations with optimal gear."

Reaching the bay, the two men found that the radiation had substantially decreased since the initial accident, though that just meant it would kill a man in hours, not minutes. Opening the door, they were greeted with sight more beautiful than anything they could have imagined. The report forgot to mention that nearly twenty pallets of Anti-Ship missiles were also left behind. Next to them were probably ten pallets of ammo for the main batteries. There was no flak ammo, or viper ammo, but at least the Strikestar itself would pack a punch now. On the wall, there was a simple cabinet marked with the standard symbol for radiation.

Breaking open the door was harder than it looked. Slowly opening it, they saw it; one nuclear tipped missile of the fifty-megaton blast variety. The two lifted it down onto a cart and moved it to the pods for transport. The rest of the ammo would be right behind them.

Elsewhere in the yard, the Ananke was finishing off loading all of its supplies onto the Strikestar. They would last the ship for at least a few months. That would have to be enough for now.

Commander Belakov was finally on the Strikestar. In the CIC he was monitoring all of the progress occurring around him. Most promising were the weapons and communications stations. Communications was completely online. For the last six hours, they had been listening to the subspace messages being filtered through space. The battles were starting to die down. Most of the Fleet had been destroyed. There were no reports how many, if any, Basestars had been destroyed.

Two hours ago, Admiral Nagala had taken the Atlantia and a large contingent of the remaining Fleet to Virgon to attempt a counterattack. The last report from that attack reported that the Atlantia and several other Battlestars had been destroyed. After that came a report that Commander Adama of the Galactica was taking over the Fleet. Then, organized Fleet comms traffic ceased. Lost viper squadrons reported their locations in hope of rescue, raptors sought out survivors, civilians managed to get on to the official military channel and were pleading for assistance; all around the Colonies, confusion reigned supreme.

Belakov knew he was already too late to take to the fight. With the Galactica as the only ship still reporting, it was unlikely that anything Belakov did would do anything more than delay his own crew's destruction. He needed those weapons ready. Despite being a low priority target, the scrapyard was still military. They'd at least take some Cylons with them. All of the main guns were operational, though none of them had full ammo stores and had yet to be brought back online. For antiship missiles however, every tube was filled, and select tubes had a missile or two in reserve. The nuke was now loaded in its launch tube as well. There were nine empty slots next to it, but one was a step in the right direction. There was still the potential that they could reach Ragnar Anchorage and rearm.

Another hour had passed and Belakov was anxious. The fact that the facility was here was no secret, so the Cylons had to know they were there. It was only a matter of time before a few showed up and discovered what was going on. He'd only wait for Engineering and Flight Ops to report functionality before making a jump to Virgon. Flight ops reported that all the birds were loaded with ammo and fuel and that most of the launch tubes were operational, but the workstations were a mess. It would take several days before they were cleaned up enough to be fully useable. Engines reported that sublight was in the green, but the FTL Drives were still offline. One tested well, but wasn't spooling up. The other one simply refused to turn on. They only needed one to make the jump to Virgon, but without the other, long jumps were out of the question.

Nikolai made the call to move all resources to fixing the one drive. They would always be able to jump a short distance and keep jumping as long as it took to fix the second if they ran into trouble. If the Cylons found them here, they had no options but to stand and fight.

Time passed and Flight Ops had one more viper tube working, Damage Control had anticipated weak spots sealed off, DRADIS had been updated with the current Fleet IFFs, and the FTL Drive was online. Final preparations were being made. All personnel were accounted for, all munitions were secured or loaded, and all vipers were loaded into the tubes for an immediate combat launch. With everything as ready as it could be, the CIC went quiet.

Belakov looked around before saying simply.

"Navigation, set coordinates over Virgon. FTL, begin clock. Jump."


End file.
