Battlestar Argus

"Frak!! Frak!! Frak!! I would give my left arm for repair manuals and a wiring diagram!" Chief Forester vented, as he once again was forced to witnesses sparks, and smoke rising from the raptor's circuit board, he attempted to repair. After another sigh he wet a finger, touched the tip of his soldering iron and found it wasn't as hot as it should be. Sadly he got up from his chair, went to adjust the crudely fashioned portable heater and thought better of it, "turning up the heat will only use the fuel faster." Instead he resolved himself to changing the battery that powered both the soldering iron and the desk lamp. As he sat back down and waited for the iron to heat up, he heard the footsteps of two figures approaching.

"Hey Chief. Mind if we hide out here for a bit?" Major Lillian Assuras and Major Jim Ford entered the room. Welcoming the opportunity for some companionship the Chief responded that the two could park it anywhere they liked. "Are the majors having a hard time sleeping?" The two officers gave a slight chuckle and Assuras made it clear she thought that boot camp with a 10-day hike in the rain was more comfortable than sleeping on the galley floor. There were two officially heated and powered areas aboard the battlestar, CIC and the galley. The galley, designed for approximately 150 men to comfortably eat in, now served as sleeping quarters for the entire crew. No one would dispute the fact that, for the moment, the Argus was anything but a luxury ship.

After a pause, Ford finally spoke up, "When the hell are you guys going to get power restored to the entire ship?" The chief raised an eyebrow before responding, "Well sir, everything is hooked up. But in order to power the entire ship we need to run the engines and we can't spare the tylium; this old ship isn't exactly fuel-efficient. It was Captain Reeves and Mr. Lapointe who decided to turn them off." Major Ford shook his head when the Captain's name was mentioned, and he grumbled he was sick of hearing about the Reeves. Chief Forester gave the man an evil glare and Assuras demanded to know what his problem was with the Reeves. Clearing his throat, Ford gave his response. "I like the man alright, but no offense, he didn't exactly make any incredible command decisions when he rescued us. If you examine what he did, there was nothing special, anyone would have done the same." Forester slapped his knee and pointed a finger at the Major, "Excuse me Sir, but I take offense to your comments." The other major interjected and vocalized her agreement with the chief. Which only resulted in Ford reminding the enlisted man to watch his tone around an officer. Major Assuras looked at the man in contempt and refrained from comment.

Major Ford could have let the issue die but instead he was seeking to exert his dominance. "Look, Reeves is a fine man and I'm sure he did a fine job in the junk yard. But this is war and not a garbage pile." His chair fell over as the chief stood up and demanded permission to speak freely. But as Ford responded with his denial, Major Assuras granted it. "I have served under the Capitan for more than 10 years. He has always been an excellent leader and…" He was interrupted by the words "Blah. Blah. Blah… When you're an officer I'll listen to your drivel, but for now just go back to work." Drawing in a deep breath the enlisted man forced himself to salute and went back to repairing the broken raptor circuit board. As he tried to calm his anger and focus on his task, it was Major Assuras that got the last word of the debate. " Major you've overlooked the most obvious, the most extraordinary of all," she paused to verify she had his attention. "He made THIS scrap heap fly."With a cluck of his tongue and grinding his teeth, Ford hostilely left the room.

As the footstep disappeared down the corridor, it was the chief that spoke and offered his apology for what had just occurred. With a smile and a chuckle the major brushed away the incident saying that Ford has always been a good pilot but he is still a jerk. "His callsign is Dagget but his squadron likes to call him "Major A-hole." The two shared a snicker and the atmosphere relaxed considerably.

Extending his hand the Chief finally introduced himself, "I'm Chief Julian Forester; I was kind of second in command of the junk yard." Accepting his hand, the major returned the favor in similar fashion. "Major Lillian Assuras, call-sign Cupcake. I'm the CAG, but you don't have to salute me if there is no one else present." Julian looked up at the ceiling and bit his lip as he dropped the handshake. Lillian just groaned as she observed the man's reaction and told him to go ahead and laugh at her call sign. She had gotten the name when others found out she enjoys baking, sewing and other such womanly domestic things. "And yes, I even wear lace panties instead of fleet issued cottons." With a slight flush of embarrassment the chief returned to his work.

Cupcake was dozing in the corner, when the Chief grabbed two screwdrivers and proceeded to make a short drum roll on the table. The major stirred and sat up noting that it sounded like someone had finished his work. Giving a slight smile to his guest, he began to reconnect the power lead and explain that this was his 5th attempt to repair the main-board of the raptor and that 5 was always a lucky number. Having said that he flipped the switch and watched as the counsel light up without problems. "Fraking A! Who said you can't mix the old and the new." With a proud and satisfied grin he leaned back in his chair and told the major about how he would like to choke the person responsible for all the thumb sized holes in all the fighters' computer panels. It was Cupcake's turn to go red and she sheepishly accepted responsibility for the damage to the aircrafts.

"Things happen fast in combat. There we were floating dead in space, ready for the cylons to finish us off, when the Argus jumps in and clears the sky, buying us a few moments to respond. Nothing inside my viper is working, so I'm thinking maybe I should be outside it. Unfortunately, I can't get my canopy open because whatever the toasters did fraked it up too. For a moment I consider ejecting, but it occurs to me that I'm only going to eject myself half way across the universe. So I grab my side arm and decide to try to shoot out the canopy." Chief `s blank look turned to a smile, "You missed." "The gods were with me; the bullet ricocheted and went straight through my main panel. After a few seconds of me calming down, I noticed that I had access to my maneuvering thrusters. So I tried to fire up my main engines and they started without a complaint." She continued to explain how lights and hand signals were used to pass information from one plane to the next. And as each pilot regained control of his fighter, his com-systems were re-enabled, allowing them to contact the Argus and land.

Looking at her strangely for a moment, the chief thought about what she had just told him. He then put his tools away and shut off the heater before commenting. He fathomed that because all military planes have a tertiary back up system that reverts to manual control in the event of complete computer failure, shooting their main-boards was probably the smartest thing they did. But this brought a startling revelation to the major, "That means that they didn't damage our vipers. They just shut them off." And with a nod of his head he simply informed her that she should pass on the information to their superiors. It might not be much, but any information on how the cylons fraked our systems might be helpful. With that said, the pair headed back to the galley for some much needed sleep.

-----

Captain Reeves was tired, unshaven and appeared to be in a somber mood. The truth was he had many things to accomplish and found it uncomfortable to be around so many other officers. For most of his military career he was in charge of the scrap yard and the only officer stationed there for the past 12 years. He looked across at Lt. Lapointe, and prepared to speak to him when a loud crash came from the corner. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him Alana and Scuds were trying to clear the CIC of scrap metal and she was having problems lifting the load. Raising his voice he boomed, "Frak sakes, Alana put the stuff down!" He walked towards the pile, signaling the Lieutenant to follow. He locked his eyes in a cold stare with his young subordinate, then he calmly told her she looked green and to go see the doctor. However, she protested and proceeded to attempt to lift the heavy metal again. The expression on the Captains face was anything but amusement.

"This is not the yard; when I give an instruction to a subordinate I expect it obeyed." The woman put her face down and quickly apologized for her behavior. But Reeves continued to speak to her in a gruff tone. "You can resume your duties if the doctor clears you. And I want him to talk to me personally." With that he reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out a small handkerchief. "And you need this more than I do."Accepting the gift she looked at Reeves smiled and asked if that was all. To which he responded she was dismissed.

"Lieutenant, grab a couple of those boxes. We can talk and move some of this stuff at the same time." Captain Reeves bent down and picked up the end of the heavy metal that Alana had struggled with. "Now you were saying that I would want to know what happened to the Poseidon. Well, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I have it on good authority that the toasters blew it up." The crewmen chuckled at Lapointe's expense to let everyone know they thought it was a good joke. And weighted down by their loads, they proceeded into the dark corridor.

The brightness of CIC faded with each step, undaunted by the increasing reliance on Scuds' head mounted lantern, Reeves continued his speech, "Until further notice, everyone works two back to back shifts. There are exactly 926 people on this ship and everyone has to haul his own ass." Scuds grunted his agreement as they rounded a corner. "The Argus was 20 years old going into the last cylon war. She was scheduled to be decommissioned 15 years ago, not 5, and the brass kept her around a bit longer out of respect for her former commander. This ship had its wings clipped the week after the old man died." As the lieutenant listened, the Captain explained that no one aboard has served on a ship of this age. And furthermore, there were no manuals, diagrams or available logs. "We need to know everything about this ship and our best and only resource is the ship itself." With these words they entered a designated storage area and put their loads down.

"We have yet to identify what everything does on this ship, let alone the limitations of the equipment. Save for the FTL's random co-ordinate fail safe, something I want you to rectify." Scuds excused himself and asked if the two officers needed a flashlight to navigate their way back to CIC Letting the man know they were ok, Reeves continued, "When a ship is decommissioned the first stop is to a shipyard, not the junk yard. They give it one last physical inspection but also wipe the computer systems to make sure there is no sensitive data. You're first priority is to figure out how to resurrect that data. The only thing we have been able to access was the last jump she made to the junkyard.

As they made their way back to CIC, the problems with medical were made his second priority. Reeves explained that the doctor had next to nothing. And he expected that Lapointe could work with Chief Forester to set-up equipment. "I noticed you have a laptop. That's good, because until you hook up some sort of computer system for the doctor, you are going to have to share it with him." Beyond that, when he couldn't sleep or found himself with free time, he could go down to the landing bay and figure out what the toasters did to our planes and how to keep it from happening again. In CIC the two stepped around several workers, cleaning up and wielding in a chair. "Look we have enough fuel for 1 jump, almost no food and sleeping accommodations suck. But…" The enlisted men interrupted Reeves as they all spoke in unison, "If your hands are too occupied doing your job. Then they are too busy to get you into trouble." Despite himself the captain laughed and yelled out "Frak off!" Then shrugged and simply acknowledged that he has made that comment a lot over the years. With nothing more to add he dismissed the Lieutenant and went back to his own job.

-----

It was humid in the galley; the smell of sweat and stench from the bathroom permeated every molecule of the stuffy air. Another rough and crowded sleep was ending, but at least no one was cold, because with this many people, body heat kept the place warm. This was their fourth morning on the Argus, and as had already become routine, the women lined-up to use the bathroom, while the men started to gather their urine-filled containers. Faced with the daunting task of stumbling over the cluster of the bodies to reach the designated restroom, a few men had started peeing in bottles on the second night. Today, Mr. Lapointe noticed many of the female crew were now opting for this quick release. He shook his head and muttered to himself, "Modesty is disappearing, but it doesn't matter because everyone smells bad." As he put on his shirt, a commotion in a far corner caught his attention. Two officers had degenerated into yelling and shoving. He watched in disbelief, as Major Assuras, in the middle of voiding her bladder, bellowed out, "Enough!" It was so loud that she, not only gained immediate control over the situation, but the attention of everyone present.

Bottomless and with only one foot in her pant legs she pushed past the crowd and crossed the area to stand face to face with those involved. Her assault continued, "What is the problem here? Did one of you have a bad dream, and now you need a hug? You two are pilots under my command and I won't tolerate this sort of garbage!" She stood glaring at the two men for a moment as if to emphasize her authority. Finally after about 20 seconds of this tension, one of the men permitted his eyes to look down and allowed himself to smirk and wink at the major. "Good morning, Cupcake." Mr. Lapointe gasped at the audacity; however, if Assuras was shocked it wasn't obvious, "Oh, you like that! Is this the first time you've seen one?! Well take a good look Lieutenant!" Normally the ship's CAG was always calm and difficult to anger, but with sufficient reason or provocation, she could be ferocious. "In fact all of you take a good, long, hard look! Moving quickly to the front of the room her yelling was directed at everyone. "Yes, this ship is old! Yes, there is no fuel! And yes, there is no food! But we're soldiers, as such, if you need to be coddled, you should have never signed the damn papers and agreed to do this job!"

Everyone was focused on her and no one, not even superior officers dared interrupt now. "Tough times are in the job description and if you have a problem with them you should have stayed on your mother's breast!" Inhaling a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she finally stopped yelling. "So yea, take a good hard look. We are at war; there is no place for personal desires, comforts, or even dignity. Whatever it takes to get the job done, then that's the way it is going to be." Lapointe nodded and put his head down for a moment before he spoke, loud and clearly proclaiming the biblical "So say we all." To which the crew responded in kind. The major herself finally broke the tension by saying that she was in the middle of something and if there was no more problems she would be in the corner finishing her business

-----

CIC was a clutter of people trying to get work done when the Admiral and Colonel Bridgeford entered it. Today was the day that a complete assessment of their current situation would be presented and discussed. Admiral Hallis was quiet and appeared tired. In order to preserve a certain amount of what he believed was a necessary separation between himself and his people, he had taken to sleeping in a raptor in a spacesuit. On the other hand the new acting XO, a marine, appeared to be thriving under these conditions. With several saying "good morning sir," he approached Mr. Lapointe and asked if the conference room was ready. In affirmation Lapointe opened the door and ushered them inside. Already seated was Major Assuras and Captain Lewellyn, the ship's doctor.

"Good morning. Dismiss with formalities and lets get right to business." Hallis sat down at the head of the rectangular table with Bridgeford to his left and the Doctor on his right. Adjusting himself in his seat, the colonel noted that Captain Reeves was notably missing. To which Mr. Lapointe responded, "He should be here shortly sir. He is currently down in the engine room." The door opened and the captain walked in with apologies for his tardiness. With a scowl and a low voice, Admiral Hallis announced his displeasure at the man's actions. He explained that Reeves might have once been the junkyard dog, but as one of his command officers, he should leave the engine room problems in the capable hands of Chief Forester. With an apology and acknowledgement, the captain took his seat. Lapointe pursed his lips at Reeves and sighed.

"Sir if I may?" The Admiral nodded his accent to proceed. "Because of protocols implemented by both myself and Mr. Reeves, the men required command approval before attempting to restart the engines." Colonel Bridgeford furrowed his brow and demanded to know why they would be using the engines and wasting the precious fuel. Standing up, the captain spoke, "We needed to get the oxygen scrubbers working. Three days without clean air and the O2 levels were becoming dangerously low. But I'm happy to say, that, what should have been another 20 hours of work, has been completed. Hopefully with the fresh air, some of the smell will quickly vacate." The Admiral grinned and rescinded his admonishment. But the Colonel clucked and wanted to know how long they have before the engines ran dry and everyone suffocated. Reeves spoke again, "Actually sir, we didn't need to start the engines for electricity. Instead we constructed some crude solar panels and deployed them on the outside of the haul. They appear to be working adequately." Dr. Lewellyn chuckled and stated that if he ever needed heart surgery he wanted the captain in charge. At that the Admiral just smiled and said, "good work."

Without further commentary the meeting began, Mr. Lapointe led the dialog. "It seems appropriate to start with the assessment of our resources." Being handed small booklet of paper from Reeves, he continued. "Ok I'll begin with personnel. We currently have 926 men aboard the Argus of that there are 110 skilled tradesmen and 16 deck labourers. 100 came from the scrap yard the rest from the Poseidon. This means we are in excellent shape to restore or repair most mechanical functions on this ship." He paused for a moment and looked at the Admiral to see if he had any questions before he continued."We got lucky and 96% of our raptor and combat pilots made it as well. Including the Colonel's command we have 2 full groups of marine forces. Lastly the doctor, 2 marine med techs, various support services personal and the command officers." Rubbing his chin the admiral noted it was a good thing that the haulers could hold a lot.

"As everyone knows, the Poseidon was engaged in a transport operation from Ganameade Station to Picon. In addition to picking up the colonel and his men, we received a full squadron of vipers and raptors, along with their pilots. Giving us 3 squadrons- 75 Mach 8's plus 2 squadrons- 50 Raptors. " Hallis put his hand up and signaled Mr. Lapointe to stop for a moment as he looked at Bridgeford. "There is something I have wanted to ask you. What's the story with that civilian you're protecting? After all, the guy must be something special for the brass to send an entire group of marines and it's colonel to keep him safe." Casually stretching and releasing a yawn, the marine almost seemed condescending as he stated that it was a strictly need to know basis; but, he added, the old man at the top didn't think he needed to know much either.

Orders were to ensure his safe arrival at Sirus facilities and everything and anyone was considered expendable. The Admiral shook his head, "I have a scary thought. Taking on those extra planes cut Ganameade's fighter defenses in half. Makes me wonder if someone up high foresaw this attack." Uneasy glances were exchanged around the table, and then Lapointe cleared his throat to resume. Continuing with the equipment totals, he noted the 3 haulers responsible for bringing the majority of survivors to the Argus, and chuckled that the battlestar was virtually bursting at the seams with scrap and spare parts enough to fix or build anything. The colonel interjected with a question about the armaments. Major Assuras fielded the question.

"Well…" Her voice trailed off and she drew in a breath of air. "Our planes had just launched and none of us got off a shot; they 're fully loaded. But as for the Argus, not much." Defense was a major concern to the old marine and he demanded clarification on the comment. Captain Reeves replied, "Sir, don't forget this ship was sitting in a scrapyard." The Bridgeford struck his fist on the table, "I am painfully aware of that fact! I want to know how much! I certain you know how to think because none of us would be here otherwise. So don't get stupid on me now." As Reeves apologized for his mistake, Hallis looked at the Colonel with a questioning glance.

"We had several pallets and large containers marked ammo and weapons. All decommissioned ships undergo a final inspection at a dockyard before coming to me. What we had was stuff people overlooked. We loaded everything without sorting through it. I believe what we have can equip all the marines with small arms and about half with heavy weapons. Small ammo is plentiful, but stuff for the Argus, I think we need to do an inventory". His voice trailed off and Hallis simply asked for how long could they hang in a firefight. The response was not a pleasant one. "A few seconds at best, we already used most what we had trying to help the Poseidon.

Finished with personnel and inventory, Lapointe addressed the current situation, "Ok, the air problem has been surmounted. We have heat and shelter covered by our current arrangements. Which leaves water and food as our next immediate needs." Lapointe's synopsis was unsettling but expected and he explained that although the crew was on a 200 calorie a day diet, there would be nothing left in 2 days. Because what little they had, was from several cases of old MREs found in the Argus septic system. Obviously, years ago someone dropped them in there as commentary on their taste. With a few grins and chuckles, the doctor took his turn at presenting information. "We are all going to get a lot thinner. After a few days we can expect crankiness, short tempers, headaches and fainting but for the most part we have some time, the average human takes several weeks to drop off from starvation. The good news is we have been able to create vitamin shots to help offset this problem."

Everyone looked surprised when they heard there were vitamins and Assuras voiced the question on their minds, "From where?" With a big toothy grin, the man continued. "Well I'm working with a chemist and some of the things like zinc and iron, I'm able to get from the scrap. But I found a perfectly good source of nutrients. Everyone just has to plug their noses as they get the shot." Silent confusion was broken with Lapointe loudly proclaiming "Eeewww! I'm not getting that injected into me!" Lewellyn broke into a big laugh and told him it was doctor's orders, further embellishing the moment as he went on to say that human poop could do more than just provide methane for the generators and portable heaters.

In spite of themselves the cloistered group could still find humor with their present circumstance. "Ok, all jokes aside, this next problem is serious. We need water because we are going to start dying in 21 days without it." Smiles vanished, and Major Assuras protested, "No one washes and we are collecting every damn drop of urine, either by container or in those 3 measly stalls permitted. I thought we had a recycling system in place." The doctor assured her that they did. But that even if their equipment was state of-the-art, and not a small makeshift fabrication, they would always get back a little less than was being used. He punctuated his statement adding, " And major that's why I estimate 21 days and because without it we would only have a week." The Admiral bit his lip and sat in silence. It was Lapointe that finally stirred him to respond, "sir?" Looking at everyone he issued an order, "I understand Chief Forester has repaired 1 raptor. Send it out to look for water and keep it looking around the clock. - You're in charge of this Major."

The Doctor turned to the Admiral, "So there is no chance of getting the FTL fixed in the next week or so, and jumping back to the fleet to get the help we need?" Taking a deep breath, the Admiral laid the cards on the table. "It's not the FTL, we're lost." Reeves jumped in the conversation, to shoulder the responsibility he was sure was his fault. "We cut corners in starting the engines to get the Argus into the battle quickly, it seems to have effected her jump range. Hell, if the safeties didn't blow, we may have kept going until we ran out of fuel; as it is we only have enough for one jump."

With confusion still evident on his face, the doctor asked why they didn't just reverse their jump coordinates. "It is not that simple," Reeves endeavored to explain, "Any point in space is referenced along 3 axis, up-down, left-right, and forward-backward. This equates to six points of reference like the sides of a box. Connect the opposing points with string, and you have your location where those strings intersect. Then to plot a jump you need to use a seventh point, your point of origin. Since we are lost…." The doctor interrupted and stating that now they needed 6 points of reference to determine their point of origin. This said, the colonel emphasized the matter by proclaiming that they are basically fraked and the captain responded with a demur, "Yes sir, we're fraked."

Hallis looked at Reeves again and opened his hands in a questioning gesture as he spoke "Back to the water issue. Are the tanks on the ship good to go if by chance we do find it?" The captain nodded his head and assured him that the entire system was in excellent shape, having already had Chief Alana Cain perform a full inspection on them. "Cain?"

Bridgeford repeated and assumed there was no relation to Admiral Cain. But the captain responded that actually it was her youngest sister. With a disdainful snort, the marine commented how military genius doesn't appear to run in the family. The admiral focused his attention on the colonel and returned the disdain with a cool response, "She was part of the operation that saved your ass."

The meeting was quickly drawing to a close when the Colonel brought an issue forward before Hallis, "You asked me about my civilian charge, I notice you got one too." The doctor offered some clarification and admitted that this was the chemist he had been working with. But it was the Admiral who gave the most insight, informing everyone that the man was a drug dealer. " He had been sneaking onto military stations and ships for months, selling his crap and stealing stuff. He was arrested aboard Ganameade and because we were going to Picon, I agreed to do the base commander a favour and take out the garbage." Lewellyn was quick to interject that guy was more than a dealer; he was a chemical genius and he couldn't have made the vitamin shots without him. "The man is a regular alchemist, what you and I call crap, no pun intended, he can use to make all kinds of things." Hallis immediately saw the potential asset and told the doctor to have the man come and speak to him. "In a time of war regulations give me a wide range of power." Bridgeford smiled and softly sang, "You're in the army now."

Before calling the meeting adjourned, Hallis noted that both Reeves and Lapointe had a small booklet of paper. Then he went on to say how he had been keeping the ships logs on the back of some recipes found in the galley. So if either had a secret stash of paper somewhere, he would be grateful. The command officers smiled and everyone agreed that the Admiral deserved his gift. Major Assuras and Lewellyn reached under the table, hauled out a box and pushed it across to Hallis. He pulled from the crate a dusty logbook.

"They are the original Argus logs written by her Commander Isaac". Examining the journal more closely, the admiral thought what a great asset its contents could turn out to be. Then thumbing through the book he realized the true magnitude of the gift, Commander Isaac had only written on the front side of each page. Gently caressing the old texts Admiral Hallis thanked everyone and commented that for a cold ship he suddenly felt warm, but before there was another water problem, everyone was dismissed.