What has come to be known as the Fall of the Twelve Colonies scattered the children of Kobol across the galaxy. Some of them remained alone, making their lonely way to new worlds, while others found allies— brothers and sisters in misfortune. One of the most unusual cases of this was the rendezvous of of the Galactica fleet and Markson's Squadron which found themselves coming together, almost by accident.

Of course, with what we now know, "accident" is hardly an accurate term…

Forging the Galaxy: A Record of the Activity of Post-Singularity Civilizations During the Colonial Era.

Fall-1day.

Colonial Heavy Support Ship Engineer Michelson

Commodore Tomas Markson smiled as he surveyed his domain. As usual, the CIC of the Engineer Michelson was humming along. As large as a Jupiter's CIC, the set up was considerably different— the weapons fit was lighter, and the flight control station was more concerned with handling the numerous repair and support small craft that helped the support ship assist other ships in its squadron.

"How's the rest of the Division shaping up, Diane?" he asked his new XO. Diane had a small frown on her face as the petite woman surveyed the icons representing the other ships.

"Our intervals suck," she said bluntly.

"Not at all," Markson told her. "Remember, we need looser intervals in case something breaks loose."

Poor Diane. We'll get you on a battlestar as soon as possible. Diane hadn't been at all happy to be transferred to a support echelon. She'd even tried to see if she could get on the Galactica. Markson carefully controlled his smile at that. Diane and Adama…would not have gotten on well.

For that matter, he understood why Diane hadn't been transferred. She needed a bit more seasoning, and maybe a tour of duty as an XO on a cruiser before she would be fully prepared for serving as a command track officer on a battlestar.

As he thought that, Markson checked the intervals himself and nodded. They were just in line for a support formation. First there was Engineer Michelson, while behind it, the heavy transport Lushan Bay kept station. Behind that, keeping to its larger safety interval was the fleet Tylium refinery Jamie Clintock.

"I'm surprised we don't have any escorts," Diane said. "This is some pretty valuable equipment."

"We've got enough firepower to stand off most pirates, and besides, where would you auction off the proceeds?" Markson said in a companionable voice. His ships had little in the way of ship to ship weapons— if an enemy was that close, things were very bad, but they were festooned with AA emplacements, to say nothing of the 12 MKIII Vipers the Michelson carried.

Diana nodded, albeit with some reluctance.

"In any case, we'll be picking up some support fairly soon, if only for a bit. SAG-12 is supposed to top off their tanks before they go on the line." He shrugged,"It'll be good for some drill."

"Sir?" Tomas turned to the rating.

"Yes?"

"Message from Fleet— about SAG-12."

"Let me see…well."

"What is it sir?" Diana asked.

"A bit more drill than I expect— Gilford Island has suffered a major FTL casualty. They need us to fix their engine," he chuckled. "Must be embarrassing for the captain— a nice new large cruiser and he goes and breaks it."

"Is the entire SAG staying with them?"

"For now at least. But according to the CO, the Gilford's FTL core isn't that badly damaged, should be a short patch job."

"Well, at least things won't be too delayed."

"True."

Conner's Dream plodded along through the asteroid belt. Once, it had been the pride of Caprica Spacelines, a luxury liner that would treat its passengers right on the long trips between worlds— trips that could last months in the days before cheap FTL. But then the first cylon war had resulted in breakthroughs, and suddenly Conner's ream was a relic of the past. The "Front" end of the Dream was a series of large rings, each one containing it's own ecosystem, with a slight bar running down the center. When the Dream had first been commissioned, the habitats had been rotated to produce the feeling of gravity, but later owners, hoping to keep the Dream competitive, had refit them with gravity generators.

It had been a doomed venture. The Dream was too expensive to competed with the Colonial Heavies and other FTL capable ships, and not luxurious enough to grab the high priced clientele it needed. So now it served as the core of the Davanian Family Trading Guild.

And doesn't that sound frakking impressive. James thought. He had plenty of time— the Family didn't run full crew shifts, not out here, and so he was alone on the bridge. If anything happened, he'd sound the alarm and the rest would come running, for what it would help. There was the Conner's Dream in the front position and behind it were the four ex-military transports, bought cheap off the Fleet in the drawdown after the war, and the closest thing he had to an escort. Right now the Conner's Dream was making its slow way to the Saphara Transit facility, one of the larger asteroid bases in the Aeoleus Asteroid Belt. There they would pick up the kids of the far flung asteroid colonies and transport them to Canceron for the start of the school year. Then the family would take the money and use it to stock up on parts and equipment, as well as trade goods that the various asteroid settlements would need, moving back along the line until they had enough money to return to one of the planets and pick up more trade goods.

For however long it lasts. After all, the growing numbers of light FTL ships were now competing with them in the asteroid belts— why wait for Conner's Dream when you could just go directly to the colony?

Nope, the end of the independent merchant was on the horizon, and sooner or later they'd have to scrap the Dream and invest in smaller ships…which would mean becoming a short duration shipping company.

Truckers.

"Well, it beats starving," James said to the empty bridge and went back to focusing on his work.

He wondered how the belters would handle it— most of them came from Aerilon dissidents, back a few hundred years ago and they still didn't like their old home. Of course Aerilon remembered and the government knew how to nurture old grudges. Oh yes, they could do that, for all that it was shitty at providing education or infrastructure. Those grudges were the reason he was moving students— Aerilon had managed to convince the Colonial government that off world schools had to be certified, and oddly enough, unlike every other belt community in the Colonies, Aeoleus had never been so gifted— the only thing the families could do was send their kids to Canceron, not Aerilon. But sooner or later, Aerilon would start extending its reach into the belt… and Aerilon did not accept the doctrine that the belters were anything other than its own citizens.

"Jump complete sir," Diane said, "We're picking up their transponders."

Tomas nodded, looking up at the display where the icons of SAG-12 were revealed in all their (no doubt embarrassed) glory. Four Thomas Burke heavy cruisers road on the outflanks. A multipurpose cruiser, the Burkes had been called "jacks of all trades, masters of none." Tomas preferred them to the more efficient designs, which were incredible in their niche and useless anywhere else, because for some strange reason they always tended to get called for jobs that didn't involve their niche.

Diane noticed his gaze. "Nice ships. Do you think the fleet's really going to scrap them?"

"I hope not— I saw the design for the new escorts…" Tomas made a disgusted sound. "They're half the size…you need mass, and lots of it to survive a nuke."

Diane nodded. After all, one thing civilians never seemed to understand was that battlestars and other military ships weren't so big because they needed the space for weapons and vipers, although that came into it, but because they needed the mass and room for the active and passive defenses that kept them alive.

The four cruisers were englobing the core of SAG-12, the large cruiser Gilford Island.

"Nice ships," Diane said.

"You might try for command of one," Tomas replied.

"No thank you sir," Diana said.

You really want to be admiral… Handling a cruiser required a different skill set than a battlestar, and for all their growing importance, it was an article of faith in the fleet that cruisers, even large cruisers, were dead ends— you might make it to commodore, but you'd never make it to Admiral. Tomas had his doubts, but he wasn't about to bring them up— after all, impossible or not, it was certainly harder. Shaking his head, he gestured at the com officer to open a channel.

"Gilford Island, this is Michelson actual. We're here to fix your FTL drive— care to mention what happened?"

"Fraked if I know, sir," the captain replied. "We think one of the primaries lost pressure in the lines— the computer was supposed to abort, but…"

"It decided to protect a 10 cubit seal by blowing a million cubit core— I know the drill. We'll have you on your way in a bit."

Moments later, several shuttles left the Michelson's vast bulk. The ship was, at least in cubic volume, somewhat larger than a Jupiter class battlestar. In fact, it had been built on the engines and internal frame of the battlestar design, enlarged and adapted to handle the multi-forge fabrication units that could handle repairing a destroyed cannon one week and rebuilding a viper the next. The ship even had facilities to create and form the incredibly tough (not to mention difficult and energy intensive to create) composite alloys that made up a warships armor. While the engineering corps claim of being able to build a battlestar from the keel up was an exaggeration, it was not as great a one as some believed.

For now however, the engineers would have to go over and find out what was wrong before any thing else could be done. The lack of any detailed diagnostic was not a good sign, Tomas knew. The computer should have been able to tell them what was wrong, after all.

Damn shame, that it's probably going to be a blot in the Captain's copybook. It wasn't supposed to be, of course, but the higher up in rank you got the more competition you faced for your next promotion…so even minor errors could hold you back permanently. All anyone wanted to do to understand that was to look at Adama's career. Still, he thought looking at the visual image on the CIC screens, that's a damned fine ship. The large cruiser class had been designed after the Valkyrie proved… if not insufficient, at least not suited to all of its suggested missions. At about the same size of the small battlestar, the Gilford Island was oriented around multi-role options. It's heavy weapons fit allowed it to match most other ships its size, while it's mission pods included both cannon mounts and a pair of small flight decks. Markson had heard viper pilots complaining about the cramped access way, but the fact was the large cruisers, at least this version, weren't intended to depend on vipers, but their cannon and missiles and the flight decks were smaller to make room for the pod's cannon armament.

Which is why the peacetime airgroup only includes 36 vipers. More raptors, gunships and shuttles, of course as befitted the class' general purpose function, but a combat landing of even 36 viper's could be… problematic, never mind the likely problems you'd face with a full warload of 72 vipers.

"Sir," Diane said, "Fleet also wants us to top off General Aland's tanks."

"A troop ship?" Tomas looked over at Diane. "That's a bit interesting. Why no warning?"

"They want them prepped— our friend Tom Zarek is going to get out in a few weeks and there's always the chance of…" Diane shrugged.

Tomas nodded. Tom Zarek was something of a notorious figure in the Colonies… but officially his parole hearing was completely ordinary.

So we're refueling a troopship here, so that it can jump in if need be, without making it seem obvious. Gotta love politics.

"Are they meeting us here?"

"ETA 12 hours."

"Well, hopefully we'll get our problems with the FTL ironed out."

TBC

Author's notes:

This story is the last in the three stories involving Colonial exiles. Each one will have a different ending, but fair warning, this one involves another group teaming up with the Galactica.