HYPERION TASK GROUP

Volume 5: Survival Instincts

By Jim Quigley

Spoilers/Disclaimers: This story begins on Day 211 (84 days after Volume IV)

It had been over seven weeks since the installation of the transitional government of the fleet. Tillman only agreed to the formation of a government if only two conditions were meet. One was he would have total control of the military and in the case of emergencies the entire fleet. The other was he could appoint the transitional council. Knowing that somewhere the President of the Colonies still existed. He modeled this administration after his hometown government establishing a temporary council consisting of seven members that would represent the men and woman of the fleet. Tillman installed Saul Blythe, Kendrick Ralls, Thomas Sylvan, and Amy Lorene as the temporary councilmen. He also appointed Paul Davenport of Delphi City and Emily Crimmons of Picon City who were sitting council members of their respective worlds. He then appointed Joseph Redman as the council's Chairman. This post would have the same duties as mayor of a city or town and leader of the council. The appointment of Kendrick Ralls over Lankaster Jorden was a very controversial due to Ralls previous association with the Black Market. Ralls' actions over the last few months had earned Tillman's trust. He had become something of a leader among the civilians that had been working on the MYSTIC and always volunteered for the repair details. Jorden was upset that he was not given one of the temporary transitional seats considering his previous experience in the government and he let it be known. Jason knew he couldn't put Jorden on the council, fearing he would try to regain control of one of the fleet's refinery ships. The government was being run from AULUS.

Amanda Walker who is five months pregnant had taken over running the fleet's new Logistics Office from Cmdr Roberts who finished his diloxin treatments. He decided not to retake the post but rather stay as an advisor to the Admiral. The office was in charge of handling requests and transferring materials between the military and civilian vessels. Walker recruited Kester Rhodes to handle and assign all repair details. Rhodes was best suited for this task as he was basically been doing this job anyway since TERTIUS joined the fleet. One task that Admiral Tillman assigned his former tactical officer was to evaluate existing Viper Squadron assignments and make reassignment recommendations.

HYPERION – WARDROOM (1700 hrs)

The senior staff had assembled for an extended briefing. Commander McKnight, Major Canton, Dr Keegan and Major Nix were there as usual. Also joining them was Commander Jones, Colonel Walsh and Tillman, Major Timlin, Lt Walker and Commander Roberts. They were waiting for Admiral Tillman who was still on the wireless with the CIC.

"How is Major Jackson's rehab coming?" Roberts asked Keegan.

"It's coming along. She still thinks she'll be able to fly again. But, I don't see it happening. I don't know if that rod will ever come out of her collarbone." Keegan replied as he sipped his coffee.

"I can talk to her if you think it will help?" Roberts replied know how determined Jackson can be.

"No let her rehab at this pace. It gives her a purpose." Keegan said before Tillman returned to the table.

"Sorry for the delay." Tillman said as he took his seat.

"Lt. Walsh, I would like a quick rundown of the fleet's amount of viper and raptor status" Tillman asked.

"Currently, we have one hundred and three mark VII operational and thirteen out of service, Eighty-six mark II's operational, six out of service and five unassembled in storage. Thirteen Raptors operational and two are offline, Three Prototype Raptors, Two Stealth-stars. I didn't include the two Mark One vipers or the Javelin class scout ship that are probably older than TERTIUS itself." She answered.

"How did TERTIUS get a hold of a Javelin scout ship? One was given to Commander Cain." asked Walsh.

"CEREBRUS traded it for a mark two emergency genny about a month ago. Colonel Tillman is restoring it to operational status. I didn't see a problem." Walker replied.

"Has there been any sign of Colonel Wright and CEREBRUS since they went AWOL ten days ago?" Timlin asked.

CEREBRUS was a sore subject with the Admiral. Wright had repeatedly voiced his displeasure not being released from the fleet as scheduled to search for GOLIATH. After their last disagreement Wright plotted to leave the fleet with or without orders. Wright knew he could count on just about all of his crew from TANTALUS to back him. The only issue would be the Black Knights, Voight and his crew was by the book. They would never support his decision to leave. Wright and Gale knew pilots from the different squadrons and felt that if they were presented with an option some of the pilots would join his cause. Wright then scheduled combat training between most of the viper squadron. That is when Wright made his move. He ordered an armed detail to escort the Knight's deck crew to a shuttle and told his crew his intensions. The only member of his crew to disagree was Petty Officer Paula Markesan who was then escorted to the shuttle as well. As CEREBRUS broke formation, they released the shuttle and warned Voight that if they tried to land he would open fire on the shuttle. A total of twelve pilots, mostly younger, left formation and joined CEREBRUS before jumping.

"We've sent out raptors to the surrounding quadrants with no luck." McKnight replied.

"They're on their own now." Roberts began knowing it was now a dead subject. "What about the civilian fleet?"

"MYSTIC's food and grain output is normal. The two refinery ships combined are at thirty-eight percent capacity. Captain Pyne of CARPUS thinks it's prudent to search for raw materials. He also is reporting that he has had some minor labor issues with some of the workers." Walker announced.

"Is it serious?" asked Jones.

"Its not right now. I will keep an eye on it and speak with the council chairman." Tillman said knowing Lankaster Jorden was at the root of that problem. Jorden still has a few loyal people onboard. But that would have to be dealt with later as he wanted to move on to other issues "I have authorized the creation of the Colonial Fleet Marshal Service to protect all members of the civilian government. Among the survivors were three Colonial Marshals. They have recruited a few former police and security members bring their total to fifteen. They were sworn in yesterday and answers solely to the Chairman of the Council."

"Are they armed?" asked Keegan.

"Yes, they were issued each a sidearm, communication gear and protective body armor." Walker replied.

"We're going to send out recon missions to the edge of the this sector. We need to find Tylium, other raw minerals and the possibility of other colonial survivors." Tillman declared. "ADELPHIA, and PROTEUS will be assigned to this task. Each Guardian will deploy two raptors to their assigned sectors to search for any and all resources."

"How long?" Walsh asked as she was handed the mission parameters.

"Plan on ten days." Walker began, "Each raptor with be assigned two crews on a rotational basis."

"Both your ships will be assigned a half dozen vipers for standard CAPs. You depart in twelve hours." Roberts added.

AULUS

Cassidy Tillman was eating dinner in the Colony Lounge with her boyfriend Lt Ryan McMillan who was in the middle of a thee-day furlough to celebrate Cassidy's birthday. Last night McMillan asked Cassidy to marry him, to which she said yes.

"Just remember, we won't tell anyone and you'll let me tell my father when the time comes." Cassidy demanded.

"I promise!" Ryan replied repeatedly.

Lankaster Jorden was meeting with Thomas Sylvan in exercise room. It was the only place they could meet without drawing a lot of suspicion.

"I think I've found someone who could help us. He was once Ha'la'tha." Jorden said.

"Ha'la'tha? They were nearly wiped out forty years ago during the first Cylon War. How did you identify him? If he's is Ha'la'tha, he must be close to seventy!" Sylvan replied.

"It doesn't matter how old he is. He has associates that will do what even he says. He was picked up off a shuttle the day of the attacks. He said that he has made connections on a few ships." Jorden said as he carefully looked around the room.

"Could Ralls identify him? Would he go after Ralls?" asked Sylvan.

"No. He said that he's had no dealing with any members of the Cyrannus Syndicate. I'm not sure who he'd go after at this point." Jorden said as he gulped water from his bottle.

"Just make sure that its not Redmond or Lorene! We don't want this to come back in our faces!" said as he got up and walked away.

TERTIUS – DAY 212 (0930 Hrs)

Colonel Braylen Tillman had just finished giving Admiral Tillman, Cmdr Roberts and Major Nix a tour of TERTIUS. Both men had never had the time to see the ship before now. They had made their way to the forward storage area on the hanger deck. It was converted to a machine shop. Inside Braylen's crew was repairing the old Javelin scout ship. They were waiting for Major Spencer to join them.

"I remember training in one of these." Roberts asked as he looked inside the two-person cockpit. What's her condition?"

"Her forward RCS Thrusters and main electrical system were junk. We rewired her and replaced her power plant with a newer one that had a FTL unit from a scrapped shuttle. We also updated her sensor package. We plan on testing her in a few days." Braylen said proudly.

Jason was amazed at the work his brother had done and that is why he was picked for the upcoming mission. "Braylen, we have a mission for TERTIUS." He said.

"Am I going after Wright?" Braylen asked.

"No, I'm letting that go." Jason began. "You're going to jump far ahead of us. Deep recon."

"At the time of the attack, elements of the 43rd and 56th Battlegroup were engaged in war game maneuvers in a sector not too far from the colonies. We want you to check it out and see what's there."

"What makes you think that they're still alive after seven months?" Braylen asked.

"We doubt they are but we need to be sure." Jason answered as he walked inspected the Mark I viper that was also nearby.

"At least four battlestars were part of those exercises. I know the tactics of one of the commanders, Elise Hedison commands the POLYCAON. I trained her. She would have shut down her network and gone manual during the war games. If the Cylons attacked at the right time her battlestar would have been unaffected by the CNP virus." Commander Roberts explained.

"All your going to do is send in the raptors to take a look and then jump deep into the Sigma Sector." Roberts informed Braylen as Spencer joined them.

"How deep?" Major Spencer asked.

"Deep enough. My father used to tell me about how over fifty years ago was part of a deep space expedition that charted a few quadrants of the Sigma Sector and noted several large asteroid belts." Roberts began. "They could contain tylium and other raw materials. Once the war broke out we never went back to this area."

"Because it was deep in Cylon controlled space after the armistice line was created." Braylen said as he opened up a chart Roberts handed him. "Why go now?"

"Two reasons, it would be the last place the cylons would look for us and those asteroid belts were part of a war college scenario from over forty years ago." Roberts explained. "My team used those asteroids to retreat from a cylon battle. Commander Joseph Massie who now commands the battlestar NEMESIS was part of my team back then."

"It's a big reach." Braylen began, "What do I have for resources?"

"Four raptors of which two are stealth, ten additional vipers and Commander Roberts." Jason said as Braylen turned towards is brother.

"I would only be an observer. I trained most of the officers in the 56th battlegroup. You need a friendly face." Roberts stated.

"Alright, it's going to be a little cramped but we'll find the space." Spencer announced.

"When do we leave?" asked Braylen.

"The vipers and raptors are prepped and ready, they can be here within the hour. TERTIUS can rendezvous with CARPUS and top off her fuel cells an hour later." Jason told his brother.

Braylen turned to Major Spencer and told him to bring Colonel Marcus up to speed. They would need to move fast to transfer the non-essential personnel and equipment to HYPERION. As the men were walking out Braylen stopped his brother and looked back at the two Mark I vipers.

"It just occurred to me that I need all the room I can get for this mission." Braylen began with a smile, "How would you and Nix like to fly them to HYPERION?"

HYPERION – CIC (1115 Hrs)

"Colonel McKnight, dradis identifies two Mark I vipers inbound from TERTIUS. No flight plan was filed." Major Canton reported from tactical.

"Ensign McCall, raise the vipers on wireless and ask them to identify!" McKnight requested.

"Colonial Mark I vipers identify! Repeat, identify!" McCall announced.

"HYPERION this is DODGER and THUMPER on approach from TERTIUS! ETA in thirty-five minutes, will contact on final, do you copy?" Tillman said with a noticeable joy in his voice.

To say there was surprise in HYPERION's CIC would be an understatement. After a moment McCall finally responded. "Um, yes Dodger, copy that."

"Why so long?" Major Canton whispered to Dyson (tactical officer).

"The last time the Admiral was in a viper cockpit was almost a three years ago. He'll give the fleet a once around." Dyson said knowing how much Tillman missed being able to fly every once and a while.

McKnight then told McCall to contact CAP three and divert from their interfleet patrol to tail the two vintage vipers in case any problem should arise. As word quietly spread about the special flight, people had gathered in the hanger bays and waited for the two vipers to appear from the flight deck. As Admiral Tillman disembarked for the viper people started to clap. Tillman jested for the crowd.

"Chief Perry, Make sure these your crew takes special care of these birds. I don't want to listen to my brother if something happens to them." Jason barked as spotted his wife among the crowd.

"Should I even ask?" Anne asked as her husband approached her.

"They needed to be transferred off TERTIUS immediately due to a mission." Jason responded as he handed part of his flight suit to a deckhand.

"Jason, those vipers are over fifty years old! What is something happened? Where's John?" Anne retorted.

"Actually they're closer to sixty." Jason said trying to hold the smile back. "Don't worry Braylen restored them personally. They handled beautifully." Before they could discuss this any further Captain Dyson interrupted them.

"Excuse me, sir, everything is a go. Everyone is ready on the other flight deck." He said.

"All right, I'll be there in ten minutes." Tillman told Dyson before dismissing him. After he left Jason continued.

"John is onboard TERTIUS. He's accompanying Braylen." Jason finished as he buttoned is jacket.

"You're searching for more survivors aren't you"? She said knowing her husband's methods.

"That's part of it. John's father charted the area and is familiar with the upcoming sectors." Jason said as they headed towards the other hanger.

A few minutes had past and Jason was entering the hanger as Colonel McKnight was finishing the mission parameters.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Colonel Tillman is in charge of this mission. Major Spencer is his CAG; Cmdr Roberts is an observer unless designated differently by Colonel Tillman. That is the command structure of this mission. You are going deep into cylon territory to hunt for more resources that this fleet needs to survive. Do your jobs and come home! Good luck!" Tillman said as he proceeded back towards the main doors.