“manifest shows fourteen thousand two hundred liters transferring to your reserve tanks, Galactica.
Sign off and we cycle to the next hull on the list.” Marko counted scorch marks along the tanker’s transfer boom through the observation port in Bay 2, half-listening to the purser’s voice crackle over the hardline.
Three hundred meters off Galactica’s port bow, the converted hauler held station, hull plating that looked like it had survived two wars and a bankruptcy.
Felix Gaeta’s voice came back smooth and clinical from CIC.
“Copy, Herodotus.
Stand by for confirmation.” Marko wasn’t supposed to be on this line.
His job was monitoring the physical transfer connection making sure the fuel lines held pressure and didn’t decide to vent tylium across three hundred meters of vacuum.
But the hardline ran through Bay 2’s comm panel, and he’d heard the numbers, and the numbers were wrong.
Not wrong like a typo.
Wrong like the tanker’s purser was reading a manifest that didn’t match the fuel state in his own tanks.
The Board had woken the moment the Herodotus came into view, amber teletype scrolling across a wireframe overlay of the tanker’s hull.
Reserve estimates.
Fuel density calculations.
A burn-rate model that factored in the hauler’s ancient engines and the micro-jumps it had been making to keep pace with the fleet.
The tanker had fuel.
Just not fourteen thousand two hundred liters of it.
Closer to eleven thousand, if the Board’s read on the tank pressure and the transfer line’s backflow resistance was right.
And the Board was always right about hardware.
Marko keyed the bay comm.
“CIC, Dabrowski.
Request permission to re-check the transfer volume before we lock it in.” A pause.
Then Gaeta’s voice again, polite and faintly curious.
“Dabrowski, the manifest came from the Herodotus’ quartermaster.
Are you seeing a problem with the physical transfer?” “Not the transfer, sir.
The count.” Another pause, longer this time.
Marko could hear the ambient noise of CIC in the background DRADIS pings, low voices, the hum of a command center trying to coordinate forty-odd civilian ships on a fuel budget that didn’t close.
“Stand by,” Gaeta said.
Marko waited.
Through the port he watched the Herodotus hold station, its maneuvering thrusters firing in little bursts to match Galactica’s slow roll.
The transfer boom was already locked to the battlestar’s reserve intake a good seal, no leaks, exactly the kind of job that didn’t need a second opinion unless the numbers themselves were lying.
The hardline clicked.
Not Gaeta this time.
The Herodotus purser, and his voice had gone flat.
“Galactica, this is Purser Vinn.
My manifest is signed by my captain and countersigned by your logistics officer.
The count is fourteen-two.
If you want to re-check it, send someone with rank.” Marko closed his eyes.
Thought about letting it go.
Fourteen thousand liters versus eleven the difference would show up eventually, when some ship down the transfer chain burned its reserves dry and couldn’t make the next jump.
But that would be hours from now, maybe a day.
Someone else’s problem.
Someone else’s name on the manifest that didn’t add up.
He opened his eyes.
“Copy, Herodotus.
I’m just a deck specialist.
But I’ve been watching your tank pressure on the feed line, and the backflow says you’re sitting lighter than your manifest.
If we lock in fourteen-two and you’re only pumping eleven, that’s three thousand liters we’re gonna tell the next ship in line they’re getting when they’re not.” Silence.
Long enough that Marko wondered if Vinn had cut the line.
Then Gaeta came back on.
“Dabrowski, hold position.
I’m pulling the transfer logs now.” Marko heard keys clicking.
Gaeta ran CIC’s tactical board, but the man had a conversational intimacy with every data stream in the fleet.
If there was a discrepancy, he’d find it.
“Herodotus, Galactica CIC.
Your last fuel audit was” a pause “five days ago, pre-attack.
Your manifest is referencing a tank state from before the Fall.
Have you run a post-jump density check?” The silence this time felt different.
Heavier.
Vinn’s voice came back quieter.
“Negative, Galactica.
We’ve been running jumps every thirty-three minutes.
There hasn’t been time.” “Understood.
Stand by.” Marko heard Gaeta’s voice drop to a murmur, talking to someone else in CIC probably pulling up the Herodotus’ jump log, calculating fuel consumption across a week of continuous FTL burns that would’ve cooked a civilian drive if the Cylons gave them time to notice.
The Board scrolled a new line.
TANKER RESERVE 11,340 L.
MANIFESTED TRANSFER 14,200 L.
SHORTFALL 2,860 L.
FLEET RESERVE MISCALCULATION CASCADES FOUR HULLS IF LOCKED.
Marko didn’t touch the comm.
Didn’t need to.
Gaeta would get there.
“Herodotus, revised estimate puts your transferable reserve at eleven thousand three hundred liters.
Adjust your manifest and we’ll re-route the shortfall to the next tanker in the cycle.” A long breath on the other end of the line.
Then Vinn, sounding tired: “Copy, Galactica.
Adjusted manifest transmitting now.
Sorry for the we thought we had more.” “Everyone thought they had more,” Gaeta said quietly.
“CIC out.” The line went dead.
Marko turned back to the observation port and watched the fuel transfer begin.
The boom’s pressure gauge climbed, held, settled into the rhythm of a controlled burn.
Eleven thousand three hundred liters, give or take a rounding error, flowing into Galactica’s reserves while the Herodotus bled itself a little thinner and hoped the next tanker in the chain could cover the gap.
The fleet ran on optimistic lies.
On manifests written before the world ended.
On quartermasters who signed off on numbers because the truth was worse and there wasn’t time to re-check the math between jumps.
And now Marko knew he was the only man in the fleet who could see the real count.
Boots on the deck behind him.
Marko turned.
Socko leaned against the hatchway, arms crossed, grinning.
“Heard you just cost the Herodotus three thousand liters they were gonna skim into the grey market.
Vinn’s gonna remember you, brother.” Marko looked at him.
“They didn’t have three thousand liters.
They had eleven-three, and if we’d locked in fourteen-two, the next ship down the line would’ve burned reserves that didn’t exist.” “Sure,” Socko said.
“But nobody would’ve known till later.
And by then it would’ve been someone else’s paperwork.” He pushed off the hatch and walked over to the observation port.
“You know what skimmed tylium buys in this fleet?
Medicine.
Cigarettes.
Morale.
A reason to wake up tomorrow.” “It buys that right up until someone runs dry mid-jump and doesn’t make it to the other side.” Socko’s grin didn’t shift, but something in his eyes went cooler.
“You think I don’t know that?
I move what’s real, Marko.
I don’t invent fuel that isn’t there.
But when there’s slack in the line” he shrugged “someone’s gonna take it.
Might as well be someone who’ll spend it keeping people fed.” Marko said nothing.
Watched the fuel gauge climb.
“You’re not wrong,” Socko said after a moment.
“But you just burned a connection I spent two weeks building.
Next time Vinn’s got something to move, he’s not calling me.
He’s calling someone who doesn’t have a deck specialist with a good eye watching his count.” “Then find a different purser.” “There’s forty ships in this fleet, Dabrowski.
You gonna audit all of them?” The question landed harder than Socko probably meant it to.
Because the answer was yes.
If the Board kept reading fuel states and supply manifests and reserve margins the way it read frames and seals and burn calculations, then yes Marko was going to see every discrepancy, every optimistic lie, every manifest signed in hope instead of fact.
And he couldn’t cite a source for any of it.
Socko clapped him on the shoulder.
“I’m not mad, brother.
You did the right thing.
Just know it cost something.” He turned toward the hatch, paused.
“Oh and you owe me.
Again.
I’m starting to think you like being in debt.” “Put it on my mortgage,” Marko said.
Socko’s grin came back.
“Damn right.” He left.
Marko stayed at the port and watched the Herodotus finish its transfer, disconnect, and begin a slow burn toward the next hull on Gaeta’s list.
Somewhere in CIC, an officer was re-calculating the fuel chain, adjusting the manifests, deciding which ships drank deep and which ones ran on fumes until the fleet found another source or didn’t.
The Board said nothing.
The fuel count was correct now.
The transfer would hold.
No one would burn reserves that didn’t exist because a purser trusted a pre-war manifest more than the backflow pressure in his own tanks.
A quiet fix.
Unwitnessed.
Exactly the kind of save that kept the fleet alive one miscalculation at a time.
The comm panel clicked.
“Dabrowski, CIC.” Marko keyed it.
“Go ahead.” Gaeta’s voice, calm and filed under some mental heading Marko couldn’t see.
“Transfer complete.
Manifest closed clean.
Good eye on that count, Specialist.” “Thank you, sir.” A pause.
Not hostile.
Just… present.
The kind of silence that meant someone was deciding whether to ask a question or let it sit.
“Where’d a deck specialist learn to read a fuel curve off a transfer line?” Gaeta asked.
Not unkindly.
Just curious.
Marko’s mouth went dry.
“Old job, sir,” he said.
“Civilian side.
Lot of pump work.” “Mm.” Gaeta let it breathe.
“Well.
CIC appreciates the flag.
Out.” The line clicked dead.
Marko stood in the empty bay and felt the weight of the question Gaeta hadn’t asked and the answer he hadn’t given.
Somewhere in CIC, Felix Gaeta was turning over a fact he wouldn’t let go of: deckhand who corrected a fuel calc CIC missed.
The Hard Return, ticking.
The transfer gauge read zero.
The Herodotus was gone.
Galactica’s reserves sat eleven thousand three hundred liters heavier, and the fleet’s logistics chain had one less lie in it.
Marko turned away from the port.
The bay was quiet, the hardline dead, the shift winding toward its end.
The fix had held.
But the fleet, he was learning, ran thinner than anyone wanted to admit.
And now he was the man who could see exactly how thin.
He pocketed his hands and walked toward berthing, carrying the count in his head like a bill the fleet didn’t know it owed.