Fleet command lowed down from a frenzy during the run phase of the exodus to a slower pace. Few warships spent much time there unless they were waiting in line for the three mobile repair docks that did major repairs.
Assembled from the shattered pieces of the larger repair dock,some deficiencies had been corrected. All three were large enough to repair and overhaul a Mercury Class ship. When working on smaller ships scaffolding could be put up to enable 4 Valkyrie class ships to receive major repairs.
The number of shattered ships, needing complete overhauls had been reduced by the guerrilla warfare known as the logistics war. The rate at which ships were being damaged had been increasing with the operation cadence,but the extent of the work had been reduced by goin on the initiative and choosing where to hit the Cylon forces.
Every couple of weeks they picked up the three docs, the space equivalent of dry docks, and FTL’ed them to a location. Oe of the three docks had 2 Valkyrie class warships under construction. A couple of recently acquired Atlas class ships had been converted into factories. Mining expeditions unloaded raw materials into the landing bay of the first ship. At the end of the mining an manufacturing process came neat bundles of parts. Everything from the ubiquitous armor backs, used to patch up battle damage to the frames needed to build new ships.
At this point, only Valkyries were being built at the pace of one and a half per month, but this slow pace began to make up for the heavy losses during the exodus from the new Colonies.
Plans had been made to perhaps build another Mercury class after the tragic loss of the Acropolis. There were some issues. A new foundry had to be built to build the high caliber forward guns on this class. The manufacturing of the electronics and computer parts needed for any ship had been lost on the settlement of New Tauron.
Some industrious refugees from the outpost, descended from the original competitors of Graystone Industries, the infamous inventor of the Cylons had converted a trio of Celestra’s for the purpose of manufacturing, electronics, computer components, gin barrels and ammunition of all types needed maintain the war effort.
Working with a serious labor shortage, they were constantly warning off the military from stealing their key workers. All the mining, manufacturing and the ships to defend these operations added up to 25 military vessels.
Admiral Lawson handed over a request for parts and ammunition at the beginning of the month, and by some miracle, the request was mostly fulfilled by month end.
The supply of labor was always a problem. There were three or four jobs that needed to be filled for every worker. To retain workers, the various ships offered such perquisites as not having to share your bunk with 2 or 3 others who worked different ships. Vacation packages and privacy for couples wanting some intimacy were prized but offered after an actuary had predicted the extinction of humanity in 19 years at the current rate.
Any woman capable of having children was offered incentives to do so, and exempted from military service to keep baby and mother alive.
Admiral Lawson needed viper pilots now, however when she and Peoples Council Leader Cory Brooks read the scientific study, they reduced the size of the military to accommodate this urgent need.
The point of the logistics war was to make pursuing the Colonials so expensive for the Cylon’s that hopefully they would give up and pursue other objectives. Dealing with demographics would be easier on a peaceful planet on the opposite end of the Galaxy from the Cylons.
For her part, Cory Brooks had prepared negotiating protocols for making such a deal with the Cylons. A secret meeting by long range video conference had resulted in laughter and a clear rejection. Still the Council Leader believed that if Lawson
Emergency evacuation drills, held thrice weekly as table top drills, did little to prepare for an actual Cylon attack. Military forces at the enclave were commanded by a retired, cranky Colonel who made Saul Tigh look like a teddy bear in comparison.
Fleet command: “Cylon heavy fleet jumping in. 8 heavy ships launching raiders.”
Fleet Command: ‘Launch Vipers. Execute bug out plan. Warships screen the lighter civilian ships.”
Fleet Command: “200 missiles inbound. Send signal to the flag ship”
Fleet Command: “Some ships are reacting slowly.”
Leader brooks: “Come on! We practice this 3 times a week.”
Cylon Cavil: “Target the civilian shipswith frakking nukes. Why aren’t we able to hack more of them?”
Cylon Cavil: “Don’t we have any embeds?”
Model 8: “Nothing showing up on our network.”
Cylon Cavil: “Where is the frrakking model 3 working in their It shop?”
Model 8: “They are jumping away. They have integrated defense grid and we can’t break in or decrypt.”
Cylon Cavil: “Do you Cavil: “Do you know how much resources is going into this? Now they have invented encryption we can’t hack?”
Cylon Cavil: “Target the civilian shipswith frakking nukes. Why aren’t we able to hack more of them?”
MODEL 6: “They invented us didn’t they?”
Cylon Cavil: “They invented walking chrome toasters. We invented us!”
The model 6 looked at the Cavil who was engrossed in the reports of huge losses. “Cavil,” she said, “we’re losing.”
Cavil looked annoyed but did not answer or contradict her analysis.
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