Part 5 Battlestar Galactica: Back To The Colonies: Homecomings

Chapter 2

II

The Battlestar Laura Roslin had been in orbit above Canceron for about fifteen hours. Commander Chase Carrico, in Command of the Battlestar, but not in overall Command of this half of The Fleet, was preparing for the first set of Landings to begin scouting this strange world.

The world was populated almost exclusively at the two poles, with the center of Canceron being a desert wasteland, pocked with volcanoes. The brains back on Earth-the scientists and climatologists and so forth had hoped to reclaim some of the desert areas through the use of subterranean irrigation. There wasn't a lot of water on the planet, except on the Southern Pole, but the hope was that what was under the surface, plus perhaps irrigation channels into certain areas would make the land fertile.

The big problem to recolonizing Canceron was that it had only one resource that it had been able to trade before The Holocaust, and that was Tylium. With the advent of clean, efficient EM drives, Tylium was now obsolete. An effort would be made to not only find a way to grow food, but also to turn the coastline of the Canceron Ocean in the South into a tourist getaway. The Southers, as they were called, had always been amenable enough when it came to making trades and deals, and if it would help them, they'd probably be for it.

It was the Norther's who would probably be the problem. Its history was not unlike that of Australia. Like Australia, there was a barren wasteland in the middle, and as the British had shipped so many prisoners to Australia for punishment, so The Colonies had shipped it's worst offenders to Canceron. That would have been fine, but prisoners had been given "freedom points" for good conduct, and when they got released, they had become street hoodlums, not unlike street gangs in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First Century on Earth.

It was here that they could have another Caprica on their hands. But Chase, along with Admiral Baltar, had a few days before they had to face that reality. They know they could be called to Caprica if things really got dicey over there.

For now, they went about with preparations to reconnoiter Canceron.

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Lee and the Bond Family touched down about five miles west of The Caprican Mountain Range about 1830 Fleet Standard Time that evening. The Caprican days were very long, and the sun wasn't to set for another five hours. They were ringed with MP's and Marines, who were in a mood to shoot to kill.

The Governor sought out the three women who he had met a week or so ago, just to get their views on what was going on. He doubted they knew very much, but they lived here, and he felt it important to get their ideas.

"Honestly, Governor", Channing Bree began, "I'm surprised that they fired and stirred things up so quickly", she said honestly. "I think eventually you'd have a fight with them, but this doesn't seem to be how they usually work."

"Explain, Ms. Bree?" Governor Bond leaned forward in his seat.

"When they went on roundups to grab men, and even a few women-they usually threatened violence and rarely used force against us. They had a nice arsenal of weapons, and that would intimidate just about anyone. I think I only heard of them using force once or twice. I get the feeling they want to have this power over people without having to really put their own necks on the line."

Kara looked at her father. "Sounds like a terrorist, dad", she said, not using military protocol, and not caring at the moment. "They threaten, but the big shots don't like to be where they might get hurt."

Judith Bond had been introduced to the ladies before the meeting, and she had a lot on her mind. "Ladies, from what you've told us, you never have been up there since these people took over, but do you have any idea what they might do if they had prisoners?"