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Episode 6:  Days without End

Senior Chief Petty Officer Daniel Sinclair shook his head.  “I don’t care if you have an entire ground wing of people assigned to pull maintenance on these, these . . . things,” he spat, waving a hand at the Thunder fighters parked on his flight deck.  “On my deck, everyone works on what needs to be worked on—that means my folks need to get up to speed, and that your ground crews need to recheck their certification on the Viper Mk VI!”

“Look, Chief,” Captain Simon Tarkin said through clenched teeth, “the Thunders are cutting edge—our people know the systems.  Yours don’t.  So there ain’t one of you who is pulling a wrench on these birds.”

“My rank is Senior Chief!” Sinclair bellowed.  “And this is my deck, Captain!  Down here, I’m in charge—and you bet we need to get up to speed so that none of my people are put in danger by an untested aircraft operating on this deck!  I want the aircraft maintenance manuals for these birds—and their maintenance logs—and I want them now, or this whole fracking squadron is grounded!”

“Like HELL!” Tarkin yelled right back . . . and he backed down as a third person stepped up between them.

Colonel Jayne glared at both of the men.  “You two want to settle this with fisticuffs, head on down the gym—but the flight deck is not a place for two senior officers and NCOs on this Battlestar to go head-to-head, gentlemen.  Now what is the problem?”

Both men began to talk at once.

“THAT IS ENOUGH!” roared Jayne.

“Senior Chief Petty Officer Sinclair, what is the problem?”

The deck boss worked his jaw and glared at the pilot that was new to the flight deck of the Scorpia.  “Captain Tarkin claims that my people aren’t qualified to do our job on those . . . imitation . . . fighters,” he growled, “that he landed on my deck.  My deck!”

“And he is right,” Tom said calmly.  He held up a hand and smiled as his hot-headed chief of the deck started to wind himself back up.  “YET, Senior Chief.  Captain Tarkin, I want the aircraft maintenance manuals and logs for those birds handed over to Senior Chief Sinclair ASAP—is that understood?”

“Sir, I,” Tarkin began, but Tom cut him off.

“The only words I want to hear come out of your mouth, Hunter, are ‘Aye, aye, Sir.’  Care to try that again?”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” he answered.

“Good.  Now, that being said Senior Chief Sinclair, until your people come to up speed—to MY satisfaction—they aren’t laying their hands on those new birds.  So I would advise you to light a fire under your people.  In the meantime, we do have personnel from Cerberus who are trained to perform maintenance on the Thunder Mk I—we are not grounding them so long as they can keep them flying.”

“And we need to have people cross-trained in these birds, Hunter.  I want you to make certain that Rambler gets several copies of the aircraft flight manuals—you have a simulator program?”

Hunter winced.  “We do, Colonel.  This isn’t a good idea—my entire squadron is built around test-qualified pilots, Sir.  The Thunder is going to be a good fighter, but it hasn’t been proven yet—nor have all the bugs been worked out.”

Tom snorted.  “I’m the XO aboard this Battlestar, Hunter.  That means my ideas are always good ideas—as far as a Captain and a Senior Chief Petty Officer are concerned.  Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir!” barked Tarkin and Sinclair in unison.

“Good.  Now, exactly how ready are your pilots, Hunter?”

“My crews,” he answered, putting stress on the second word, “are supposed to be testing this aircraft back on Picon right now.  They are 100% familiar with the aircraft, Colonel, and are all highly trained specialists.  They can fly CAP no problem, if that is what you are asking.  Heck,” and Hunter smiled, “we wouldn’t mind flying a strike against a Basestar to tell you the truth.”

“I don’t doubt that, Hunter,” Tom said quietly.  “Nor does Senior Chief Sinclair.  How long to get them back up to speed on Battlestar Flight Operations?”

“We’ll be ready by tomorrow—they all have at least five hundred flight deck landings on their jackets.  They know the drill, Colonel.”

“Good.  Senior Chief Sinclair, do you have any further issues?”

“Only that the damn birds are too wide,” he grumbled.  “There is just four centimeters of clearance between the wingtips and the launch tube—four fracking centimeters!  That’s cutting it a bit close, Sir.”

“They cut it close,” Hunter agreed, “but a properly aligned magnetic catapult will—should—still operate nominally and allow a launch without kissing the tube.”

“With no margin for error, Captain,” the deck-boss snarled, but then he sighed and scratched his scalp.  “We’ll make it work, Colonel.”

“Good.  See to it that both of you—and your people—do.  I’m not about to let twenty brand-new fighters rust and their pilots get out of shape because the squadron commander and the chief of the deck are at odds,” Tom said.

And then Sinclair began to chuckle.  “You find something humorous, COD?”

“I was just thinking, Sir.  How two days ago I was thinking how fracked we were with just fifty operational Vipers.  Now we’ve got seventy and twenty of these abominations.  Don’t worry, Sir—don’t let the Commander worry.  We’ll get it done.”

Tom nodded at the two men and then he headed back up the ladder, to complete his mid-watch tour of the ship.

Mathias sighed and he leaned back in his chair.  “You are sure about this, Hope?” he asked the pilot seated across from him.  “I mean, you’ve known this woman for only . . .,”

“Two years, Sir,” she said.  She nodded.  “I’m sure, Sir—we’re sure.  We were wanting to wait until this assignment . . .,” her voice trailed.

And Mathias nodded.  “And then the world ended,” he said softly. 

“I want to make it official with Irina, Commander.  I want to bind myself to her before the civil authority of the Colonies and all of the Gods—I want to make sure that if I die out there,” Hope said, as a tear leaked down her cheek, “that she knows I loved her, that she gets my flag and my wings.”

“Well, then,” the Commander said.  “You have my permission—and my approval, Digger,” he said with a wide grin.  And then he laughed.  “You know, I have never actually performed this ceremony—I can’t think of a Battlestar Commander who has.  You might need to give me a few days to reread the service; I’d hate to get something important wrong.”

Hope wiped her cheek and she beamed a brilliant smile back at the Commander.  “Thank you, Sir.  We had hoped to have a religious ceremony on Aerilon before . . . before we found out what had happened.  My parents wouldn’t have approved, you see—they might have been from Scorpia, but they were very conservative . . . about sexuality and station, both.  Irina being from Aerilon—and a woman—they . . .,” she sniffed, “in time they would have accepted it, but not soon.”

“Even with her being an accredited scientist?” Mathias asked.  He knew well that Scorpia’s hedonism wasn’t exactly as the other Colonies had portrayed it—no world fit every stereotype, including his own homeworld . . . and Hopes.

She smiled.  “In time, to be sure.  But that lower class twang in her voice, oh, I can see them in my mind just grinding their teeth.”

“Surely we have a priest or priestess among the civilians?” Mathias asked.  “If it is important to you—Hope, it is your day, yours and Irinas.  If you want a priest, I won’t mind.”

Hope sighed.  “There are four—all from Gemenon.  Two who worship Hera, and one each for Athena and Artemis.  They were attending a conference on Virgon and were saved by Captain Malcolm’s men.  Unfortunately, all four of them are from the strictest Gemenon sects—they absolutely refuse to condone a marriage between two women.”

Mathias nodded sadly.  “And I’ll bet all four of them are clamoring with their ship captains to see me and demand that stop this—probably citing that the marriage will remove two women of breeding age from society.”

Hope snorted.  “That was almost their words exactly, Commander.”

“They can moan and groan all they want, Captain, but I’ll be damned if let them turn back the clock and deny a woman’s rights—you have my word on that.”

Hope gave a small nod.  “Thank you, Commander.  So, despite what we want, it looks like you might have dust off that old manual of regulations, Sir.”

Mathias laughed.  “That depends, Hope—does your priest have to actually believe in the Gods, or is it enough that he has been ordained?”

“Sir?”

****************************************************

“You want me to what?” asked Brother Cavil a short time later.  He sat down in the small, but actually quite pleasant little stateroom that the Commander had moved him to.  Two guards were posted on the doors—and two more on those of the adjourning quarters assigned to Sam Anders—but those were more for Cavil’s protection than for anything else.  Cavil had been astonished, to say the least, when the Commander had come down into the brig and ordered that he and Sam be removed.

“Mister Anders,” he had said, “is an innocent in this and he will not be locked up with that . . . person,” pointing at Daniel Graystone.  “And you, Brother Cavil—I am giving you a chance to prove that you are willing to live alongside humans.  I think you have might actually have a soul; a trait that Doctor Graystone appears to lack.”

His wound had been treated, and the rations were certainly much better—the Commander had even sent him six bottles of Scorpia Necrosia after he had shut down Aurora and her fighters at Cerberus.  He had books, and a bed with blankets, and clothing that wasn’t bright orange; a head that was private, and he was not being observed every second of every unending hour in a room where the lights were never dimmed.

Cavil shuddered.  That was his first experience with a brig—and he hoped it would be the last. 

Of course, the computer station had been removed, along with the phone hard-wired into the ship’s internal communications.  But he had a music player and many selections—and it was better than that sterile brig, imprisoned next to Father Daniel who had tampered with Cavil’s mind!  He felt a chill at that thought—his mind was sacrosanct; how dare Father Daniel do that?  Now, he questioned all of his experiences, his memories, his thoughts, trying to discover what was true—and what was a fiction.

It was maddening.  And yet, he was still enough of a One that he found it amusing and ironic that his own line had chosen to remove the knowledge of the Lost Five from the others.  Perhaps he and Daniel were closer in spirit than either Cavil or Lorne cared to admit?

But, Brother Cavil shook his head again and he set aside the wool-gathering.  “You want me, a Cylon who doesn’t believe in a God or Gods, to conduct a religious wedding ceremony on a Battlestar fleeing the total holocaust of your Colonies?  Can’t you find a single surviving Gemenon priest?  They were like the most common profession on the planet.”

Mathias grinned at Cavil and then he nodded to the Marine standing inside the hatch.  He knocked, and the hatch opened, and Hope and Irina came in, holding hands.

“Ah,” said Cavil.  “I just bet the Gemenesse loved it when you asked them to marry two women.  Why don’t you do it, Commander?  That is a traditional power of a ship’s Commander, is it not?”

“These two want a proper ceremony—a religious ceremony officiated by a priest.  Even if the priest in question doesn’t appear to believe in the Gods or Goddesses after all.”

Cavil sighed and he shook his head again.  “Sit, you two,” he ordered and then he snorted.  “You two want an ordained apostate Cylon prisoner to marry you?”

“To conduct the ceremony, Brother Cavil—you aren’t our type even if a Scorpia-legal three-partner marriage would make the Gemenon priests even madder than they already are,” Hope answered tartly. 

Cavil snorted again. 

“The Commander says that you had nothing—personally—to do with the attack on the Colonies.  And that you seem different from the other Cylons in that you might be willing to let humanity live in peace,” she continued.  “You aren’t our first choice, but yes.  Irina and I are willing to let you conduct the ceremony that will wed us,” and she squeezed her fiancée’s hand, which Irina returned.

“Will it be a private ceremony, then?  Here?  Now?”

Both of the women looked shocked and Mathias chuckled.  “A few days yet, Brother Cavil.  And it will be a small ceremony—just a few friends and senior officers; that is, if I am invited to the festivities?”

“Certainly, Sir!” Hope answered quickly.

“We would delighted if you would attend, Commander,” added Irina with a smile.

Cavil sighed.  “You should know that I take my responsibilities quite seriously.  If you want the full ceremony,” and both nodded, “then it must be done right.  Which means, I need to interview each of you alone,” he sighed again and nodded to Mathias, “a guard can be present, yes, and determine for myself that this union is what you both want.  Demeter or Dionysus?  The Dionysian ceremony is certainly more exciting.  Especially when performed in the traditional nude.”

Hope and Irina looked at each other, and then Irina nodded.  “Aurora—the Goddess of the Dawn to signify that a new day has begun for us both.”

Cavil’s upper lip quivered and he canted his head to one side and nodded.  “I know her ceremony.  Very well, I accept.  I have one last question, however—which of you is dominant in this relationship?”

Irina chuckled as Hope blushed.  “That would be me, Brother Cavil,” the Aerilon scientist said. 

“Good.  Then I know whom to address the masculine part of the ceremony towards, and the feminine.”

“With the addition of Fleet personnel from Cerebus, we have managed to get fully trained crews aboard all ships,” Tom reported and then he grinned at Scorpia’s chief engineer.  “And Major Church has managed to get her people back aboard this vessel.”

Denise chuckled.  “It will be good to have a full crew taking care of the gripe sheet, XO,” she said.  “I was about to start impressing Deck personnel for maintenance.”

Mathias nodded from the head of the table.  “Getting back up to full strength is good, but we have problems on the horizon, ladies and gentlemen.  With the exception of this ship and Aurora, none of these vessels were designed for long-term deployments.  For the moment, we are good on fuel, water, provisions, and parts—that will not last,” he said in a sober tone.  “We need to start looking ahead.  Furthermore, we have a large number of civilians aboard this flotilla; civilians that need to be told everything is going to be all right, that we will one day return to life as normal, that have something to do.”

The Commander looked at the faces of his senior officers—including Sam and Mark Foeswan, as well those he had selected to command the other ships—and he sighed.  “I understand that we have had three suicides aboard Leonis Pryde?”

Namer scowled.  “One suicide—and two murders.  One of the civilians managed to get hold of a gun and killed his wife and son before taking his own life.  He left behind a long note ‘explaining’ how the future was hopeless and that it was better to end it now before they suffered more.”  He shrugged.  “Most of these people are not used to the cramped environment, the lighting, the odd smells—at least when they were fighting the Cylons on the Colonies, they felt like they a purpose.  Now?  They are cargo.”

“And we are going to change that,” Mathias said grimly. 

“How?” asked Paul Cook.  “Our ships have full crews—anything we give the civilians to do will be make-work, at best.”

“We will train those that are willing in operating these ships, gentlemen.  We will take casualties—that is a given.  And what we have here, today, is all that we are ever going to have.”

“Until we find Galactica, you mean,” Dr. Sarris added.

“If we find Galactica, Doctor,” corrected Mathias.  “It is a very large galaxy out there.”

“Commander,” Marius Tyche said, “not all of these people are suited to the Fleet.  Not by far.”

“No.  But those that are, gentlemen, we are give them assignments and we are going to teach them, and we are going to keep them occupied—keep their minds on doing and not sitting.   And for those who aren’t willing or qualified to learn electronics or mechanics or engineering; well, we need to have clothing cleaned, food prepared, compartments scrubbed—people, I don’t want anyone sitting around on their backside feeling sorry for themselves.  With this many people, there is no excuse for having any gripes on the sheets of your ships—NONE.”

“What about the children?  There are nearly four hundred children among the survivors.” asked Sam.

“They are going to school—starting in three days.  Vacation is over.  Doctor Sarris, between your people and the handful of researchers from Cerberus we saved, I think we have enough qualified academics to teach these children.”

“We don’t have text books, or assignment books, or . . .,” Doctor Sarris started to argue, but Mathias cut him off.

“So?  You have your minds—so do the children.  I don’t care if you use chalkboards—Scorpia has several hundreds of kilos of chalk aboard that we use for various purposes.  Major Caldwell and Colonel Foeswan have even more on their ships.  If we have to use slate and chalk they will be taught.  They will be educated.  In math.  In science.  In history.  In government.  In literature.  In the arts.  We will not condemn the next generation to grow up ignorant due to the needs of the moment.  Is that understood?”

One-by-one, the officers nodded.

“Good.  Now, next measure of business—currency.”

Jon Namer grinned—he had already had several rousing discussions on this very subject with the Commander.

“Mister Namer is correct.  Our people are used to have money.  Starting today, the machine shops will be minting our own cubits.  Every civilian will receive a stipend—those who are willing to learn will receive a greater one than those who aren’t.  Our crews will be paid with these faux-cubits.  And,” Mathias sighed.  “Those cubits will be used to establish a means of buying the luxury goods we seized from Mister Laveride’s little ship.  Get your people used to the idea because their pay is going to take a drastic cut—crew and pilots and officers will not have enough cubits to get cigars or booze anytime they want.  But hopefully,” Mathias nodded to Namer, who nodded right back, “this will manage to cut off the incipient black market at its knees.  Don’t kid yourself—it’s out there and if they don’t have money they will trade other things.”

“Guns, ammunition, sex,” said Tom in a sour voice.

“It’s human, and we need to cut that off before it begins, people,” added Mathias.  “On our ships, we will take a zero-tolerance policy to black market deals—I know that some of Laveride’s people are still aboard.  I don’t care.  There will be no loan sharks.  There will be no pimps.  There will be no drug dealers.  There will be no organized crime.  And if need be, we will enforce that with Marines.”

“I’m not sure it can be done, Commander,” Namer said, shaking his head.  “I ain’t gonna be fighting you on it, because I agree, but I don’t know if we can stamp it out completely.”

“If we don’t try, Mister Namer, then we will never succeed.  How is the search for Kobol coming, Doctor?”  Mathias asked, moving on to the next topic.

“Actually, we may have coordinates,” Neil answered.  “Sam Anders has begun working with us—he is furious that he is a Cylon; technically a Cylon.  But he has opened up with every bit of information that they downloaded into his brain.  Give us a few months and I think we might be able to double the range at which you calculate a jump.  But that is beside the point—Anders has been able to identify many of the local stars that the Cylons have explored and we have not.  Between his knowledge and the descriptions in the religious texts, we may have found the location of Kobol,” Neil paused.  “Mister Anders has suggested something that we might have to consider as well.  We are all aware of how Brother Cavil interfaced with our systems at Cerebus—according to Mister Anders, he is able to interface with a Basestar.  If we can manage to get him aboard one, we might be able to find out where Galactica and Pegasus are operating—and coordinates to get there.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Tom said in a sarcastic tone, “just find a Basestar, hold them and their Raider complement off long enough to board them, fight through their internal Centurion defenders, raid their computer databanks, fight their way back out again, recover the team—including one rather indispensible Cylon agent who will be the only one carrying the data we retrieve—, and get them back aboard to jump away before a single Raider can summon help.  Does that about sum it up, Doctor?”

Neil Sarris sighed.  “I did not imagine it would be an easy task, Colonel Jayne.  But it is my duty to bring up that it is a possibility that we need to consider.”

“And we will take it under advisement, Doctor Sarris,” Mathias said.  “If an opportunity presents itself, we may well take up Mister Anders on his offer—how far distant are those coordinates you have managed to discover?”

“Four—perhaps five—jumps.”

“That close?” Mathias mused.  “Very well, then.  Provide Colonel Jayne with the coordinates and we will get Navigation to give them a double-check.  If everything works out with the equations, then we will head for the home of the Gods.  Is there anything else?”

No one spoke.  “Then we are adjourned, gentlemen.  There will be a wedding ceremony in the chapel aboard Scorpia tomorrow at 1400 hours; dress uniforms for those attending.  Off-duty personnel only.”

And with that, Mathias stood.

"There will be no loan sharks.  There will be no pimps.  There will be no drug dealers.  There will be no organized crime.  And if need be, we will enforce that with Marines.”

Tiny proofing note in bold above. Unless you really meant the boss to say that he was getting into the Huggy Bear business.

“I know we haven’t much of a choice, Jon,” snarled one of the Saggitaron freedom fighters, “but working hand-in-glove with the Colonial Fleet?  And now you want us to become Marines?  Fracking Fleet Marines!”

Before Jon Namer could reply, another older man—a Tauron by birth, but a well-regarded member of the SMF regardless—snorted in derision.  “Kurt, look at where we are.  The Cylons have utterly gutted the Colonial government—including those tyrannical bastards on Saggitaron we fought against.  That government is dead and gone—and so will we if refuse to adapt.  We’ve got six hundred men, women, and children from the SMF left alive; six hundred!”

He glared at the individual leaders of the SMF cells that had gathered together under Namer’s command.  “Not all of them are fighters—heck, we don’t have a hundred fighters left, Kurt.  And we are divided between Anubis and Leonis Pryde.   Now, I don’t like the Fleet bully-boys any more than you do, but Jon has a point—this Commander Lorne has a point.  We need to police ourselves, both to make sure our people stay alive and to keep us free.  You don’t want to learn from the Marines?  Kurt, they don’t want to teach us—but they will, because they have been ordered to do so.  You don’t think there is anything they know that we can’t use?  And if we say no, if we refuse to cooperate, then others will form this new Fleet Police.”

“So?  We fight them if they decide to crack down on our folks,” Kurt said stubbornly.  “I’m not afraid of mixing it up, Callan; are you?”

“Callan has proven his bravery many times over,” Jon said as he stepped between the two men.  “That was uncalled for, Kurt.  And he is right—we either step it up and police these two ships ourselves or we get actual Fleet Marines in here to do it.  Which would you rather have?”

“I’m not arguing against that, Jon!  But we don’t need to have them train us—we’ve fought the black-legs for years and held our own!”

Jon glared the younger Saggitaron down until he subsided.  “So we don’t need to be taught how to use non-lethal tactics?  Close-quarters combat?  What you can—and cannot—safely shoot on a ship?  Folks, we aren’t on planet.  We cannot go around and plant bombs without killing ourselves and our people in the process!  We aren’t going to have the luxury of blending into a civilian population.  We are going to have to step up and lay down the law, or someone else will do it for us.”

He waited until all of his top leaders nodded—some grudgingly, others more enthusiastic.  And then Jon sighed and he ran his hand through his hair.  “I don’t like this more than you do, Kurt—but what other option do we have?  So far, Lorne has kept his word.  He has left me in command of Leonis Pryde and Sam Caldwell in command of Anubis.  He hasn’t split us up between the rest of the ships—with both these vessels, we are in the majority.  He’s even given me—me and Sam—authority to decide who he assigns to the ship’s crews.  But unless you want to see Laveride’s people get a stranglehold on ours again, what other choice do we have?  Scorpia can blow both of our ships apart in a single pass; hell, he can take us with his Marines if he has to.”

“We aren’t ending the fight by surrendering, Kurt.  The fight is over because there is nothing left worth fighting for—Saggitaron is gone.  All that is left of our people are here, now, aboard these few ships.  We’ve got a new fight, and for this we cannot rely on terror and bombs and assassination.  We need to prove—not to Lorne, not to the Fleet, but to ourselves—that we are not some nihilist group that only wants terror and bloodshed.  That we did all that we have done for a higher purpose.  That we are willing to step up and see to it that our people—all of our people—can raise their children in safety.”

“I won’t wear a Fleet uniform—I won’t swear no fracking oath to the Quorum,” Kurt snarled softly.

“Who the frack is asking you to do either?  The Marines are going to be training us—we aren’t going to  join the Colonial Marine Corps, Kurt!  We are going to be police, and if they need us to defend these ships from a Cylon attack, we are going to do that.  We aren’t going to be used to break people—I won’t let us be used to break people!”  Jon snapped.  And then he stood up straight.  “Unless you think I’ve gone soft?  That I am willing to sell out my people for three hots and a cot?”

Kurt held up his hands as he winced.  “Never said that, boss.”

“Fracking right, you never said that, because I’d kick your pale ass from one end of this ship to the other,” Jon barked and the compartment erupted in laughter—even Kurt chuckled and nodded in agreement.  “Folks, the movement has moved on.  We need to change—or we die out.  Now, I’ve fought too long and too hard and lost too many friends to see us die out because we could not take the last step and become legit.  Unless you want the Virgons put over us as police?”

“Frack no!”

“We step up, people, or we lose.  And here, today, stepping up doesn’t mean targeting the Fleet and government—we have to become our people’s protectors,” Jon continued.

And his fighters and leaders of fighters slowly nodded.  Even the hot-headed Kurt.

“Good.  To start, that means we are going to stop harassing the Fleet personnel Lorne has assigned to these ships—I’m not joking around here.  This cold war ends aboard our two ships.”

“Shit,” muttered one fighter, and low mumbles in the crowd showed that they didn’t like that.

“You want to add something, Jerem?” Jon asked.  But the young man didn’t answer.  “I thought not—this shit ends today.  Each of you has been entrusted with a group of fighters—make sure your people end this.  Fleet and Marines gets treated just like you would treat any good Saggitaron—you got that?”

Slowly each nodded his assent, and Jon did the same.  “Even if they are from Saggitaron, people—even if they joined the enemy, we start, today, cooperating and working with them.  Not fighting against them.”

Silence hung over the compartment, but they, one-by-one, nodded assent.

Jon sighed.  “Good.  Starting tomorrow, we begin training.  So get it through your people’s heads—the war against the government is over.  We didn’t lose, we didn’t win; the game got called early due to the Cylons.  And we now have a new game, with new rules—and I sure as fracking hell don’t plan on losing because our people won’t follow the rules.”

He looked at his leadership and nodded.  “Get on out of here, and get your fighters to understand what I just said.  And enjoy tonight—because tomorrow, Hell’s coming to the Pryde and Anubis.”

Next bit...

Very nice.  I like the way Sam & Cavil have only the knowledge available when they left.  And putting the civilians to useful work is a great idea.  That always bugged me in ToS and the Re-imagined series.