12: Battlegroup
by Chaoseternus

In the shadow of the events and chaos of Disclosure, the first Battlegroup is formed...
And sent straight into action!

Twenty-Six

Five seconds.

Jump!

She jumped.

The prize was away.

Adama smiled broadly for a moment, and then schooled his expression, glancing around soberly at the cheers filling the room, "we're not done here yet. Order the Vipers to jump to the rendezvous. Turn main guns to starboard and wipe that Basestar out of my sky!"

He glanced towards the communications station, ignoring the slight wistful feeling that filled him as his brain overrode his mouth and stopped him barking a Dualla, she wasn't here anymore after all, minor though it was, she had a command of her own nowadays.

"Any life signs aboard the crippled Vipers?"

"Negative, escape pods have been picked up by the last SAR Paladins, just two SAR birds left on the scope and they are spooling up their FTL drives now. We also have one Viper trying to maglock itself to the hull. Apparently there are no parking spaces left."

Adama grunted, turning back towards the tactical display, his eyes darting sharply as icon after icon blinked out, Viper after Viper using their short ranged jump drives to move to the rendezvous a mere' 2 light seconds beyond the systems Oort Cloud.

"Turn suppressive batteries on the portside on the cripples, let nothing remain."

"Nukes sir?"

"Too many Raiders, not enough nukes. Let's not waste them."

"Raid warning! Three Raiders over Cherbourg."

"Radiological alarm?"

"Negative, no weapons fire. I think we've got a recon patrol here."

"Any assets in range?"

"Not immediately."

"Wait until they've gone then reposition every defensive platform. Let me know if the situation changes too."

"Aye Commander."

"Engineering confirms internal power online and stable," Enerist stated, "all stations report ready."

"Very good," Enerina smiled tightly, her hands resting lightly on the functional command seat and glanced around the tight confines of the bridge'. The Goa'uld, they would not have accepted a room so Spartan, so functional, having any space that did not obviously display wealth and power would have been seen as a sign of weakness but this seemed to be more effective.

Certainly less gaudy and overdone.

"Secure from shore power," the Goa'uld Queen turned Tau'ri ally stated softly, satisfied that all was ready, "disconnect umbilicals and Enerist?"

"Yes My Lady."

"Take her out," she leaned back in her seat with a satisfied sigh, glad to be in Command once more but knowing the major and hasty replacement of the main stardrive still needed to be tested.

"Aye My Lady."

"You know," Peters stated calmly as she watched the launch of Defiant through the viewing windows above Thundersdawn stations drydock One, "the Russians are still bitching about that."

Fleet Admiral Thompson snorted, "They can bitch all they want. We need more ships now. When the 1 st Battlegroup arrives home it will mean almost a full third of our warships and certainly our largest capital ship will be in the body and fender shop. We can't afford that. So, we borrowed' a hyperdrive meant for new construction of one of the ships they funded to get Enerina back into space. That means one Dauntless takes longer too build but we get another ship and another free slip now. I think I'll stick with that."

"Not arguing," Peters shrugged, "I agree, you know that, but the Russians are going to use it as an excuse to demand some form of concession or discount again."

"Needs of the service," Thompson shrugged, t"hat clause was put into the construction contracts for a reason and this was pretty much it."

"How far away is the group?"

"Two months. If they were fully operational it would just be a month and a half."

Peters nodded, "Okay, well, it is not going to take that long to prepare the slips to receive the groups warships and I'm not going to have my crews sitting around twiddling their thumbs so could you please have a word with supply?."

"Oh?"

"With Defiant launched we have three empty slips waiting for ships. At two crews per slip that means six crews who can be diverted to the other slips to hurry up work on the repairs to Liberty and Yorktown or hurry up the Dauntless II or Prometheus that are under construction or hell, we've even got those two Colonial Sentinals under refit in slips six and seven as well."

"Are the crews still under strength?" Thompson replied nodding, his eyes tightening on the Defiant as he saw her manoeuvring thruster's fire, nudging the ship around as she cleared the main doors of the dry dock.

"No,"

The Commander of the Royal Space Service sent his second a surprised look, but Peters just shrugged, "it is supposed to be three crews per slip but I had them compressed. Okay, so we get more dead time this way but fewer corners are being cut safety wise so we're losing less people to accidents. It seems to be balancing out at the moment."

"But it does mean an eight hour shift when no work is being done on the ships." Thompson noted.

"Yes, but we were getting a double hit there anyway, not just the crew but insufficient support form supply. Okay, I know the op the Colonials have launched has taken a lot of the ships used to keep us supplied but as soon as those are back we are going to need the backlog cleared ASAP and additional supplies to allow three crews to work on each of the hulls."

Thompson nodded, "I will see what I can do but I'm afraid the problem is as always too much too do and too little to do it with."

Peters smiled, "the crew chiefs finished their write-up yesterday. They estimate that if supply comes through, they can have at least four ships ready to launch..."

She turned to catch her bosses eyes, "in a month and a half."

His eyebrows rose, "really?"

Peters nodded, "an injection of warships just as the Battlegroup arrives home for repairs."

"I will certainly be having a word with supply," Thompson mused, a tight smile appearing on his face as the docks outer doors began to close.

"The poles are always going to be a weak spot," Samantha Carter shrugged, "no such thing as a geosynchronous orbit over the poles. Or at least, an unpowered one. Orbital physics are based primarily around speed and height to keep an object in orbit but the numbers get a little extreme"

"So when the days comes when we are able to cover those positions we are going to need to build special and it will require a lot more effort and expense, is that what you're saying?"

Carter nodded, hiding her surprise at the intelligent response from the politician, reminding herself that not every person who ran for office was another Kinsey, only out for themselves or a complete idiot.

"But still," the second member of the oversight committee responded, "we still need to get the rest of the planet covered before we can consider such useless and sparsely populated areas and that is not going so well."

"No," Carter agreed, "the donations coming in from the public are helping but it has to be said, the defences being constructed at the moment might be individually cheap but many of them are required and their utility against warships is minimal. They are only really effective against fighters and missiles."

"And only the Cylons really use missiles of all Earths enemies."

"But most, if not all, use fighters to some extent." Carter replied.

"I don't see why we don't just divert all funding from warship construction and focus on home defence," the 2 nd politician stated.

Carter resisted the urge to roll her eyes, of course, just because the Committee Chairman wasn't an idiot didn't mean every member of the committee had half a brain cell.

"Fixed defences can be out manoeuvred; mobile defences need time to get into position. This is why the safest defence is always a mixture of both." She responded, "But if the committee really want my opinion?"

"Go on,"

"Mass production," she stated sufficiently, "at the moment the satellites are made the same way satellites have always been made. By specialists using expensive often one-off equipment one at a time under full clean room conditions."

"You are saying money could be saved somehow?"

"Yes," Carter nodded, "but it would take investment first. We need to build a factory just for satellites."

"Jeez," the third committeeperson stated, "your talking billions of dollars. It would have to be designed, the equipment would all have to be custom made, no-ones even tried mass production of satellites before, personnel would have to be trained, you're talking full clean room protocol the whole time. Then we have to consider utilities and security..."

"That is exactly how the Paladin construction facility at Cape Canaveral will work when it goes online in a few days,"

Carter made a mental note of the Chairpersons name, this 'Evan Baxter', she now had a damn good idea who to talk to in future if she needed and intelligent decision, even if the guys rep was bit weird.

"Exactly," she replied.

"A lot of eggs going into that one basket,"

"We would have to push for the next type three to be stationed there but at least if anyone does take Canaveral out, we would still have the cottage industry' facilities to make the Paladins and the rest."

"The Royals wont like it that we've dropped what will be another strategic facility on American soil,"

"Screw them, they don't get to vote for us."