Grease-smell and ozone still thick in the recycled air, Tyrol’s hand found his headset, listened, then pointed at Marko without a word.
The gesture said everything: another hull in trouble, another problem the book didn’t cover, and Marko was the man the Chief sent when the problem needed solving.
He’d stopped counting jumps after the first dozen.
The rhythm was what mattered now the DRADIS alarm, the scramble to stations, the FTL spin-up that felt like it took forever and arrived too fast, the jump, the breathless silence while CIC waited to see if the enemy would follow.
They always did.
Thirty-three minutes.
Every time.
The Cylons always found them.
“Monarch’s reporting FTL trouble,” Tyrol said.
“Drive won’t spin up.
They’ve got maybe twenty minutes before the next jump window and they’re still cold.” Marko’s hands stilled on the Viper landing strut he’d been inspecting.
The Monarch.
Civilian transport.
Forty-two hundred souls, if he remembered the manifest right.
“I’m not on the Monarch, Chief.” “No.” Tyrol’s voice was flat.
“But you’re on the headset to the team I’m sending over there, and you’re going to talk them through whatever’s wrong.” The overlay flickered, amber teletype already resolving before Marko could argue.
REMOTE ASSET MONARCH, FTL DRIVE PRIMARY.
QUERY AVAILABLE.
He’d never seen that line before.
Query available.
The Read had always needed proximity, his own hands on the fault.
But the Board was offering, and the Monarch’s clock was running.
“Put me on the net,” Marko said.
Tyrol handed him a headset.
The line crackled open a voice, tense, clipped, Colonial-accented.
“Galactica, this is Monarch engineering.
We’ve got a spin-up failure on the primary drive.
Capacitors are charging but the coils won’t engage.” “Monarch, Galactica,” Marko said.
“Specialist Dabrowski.
Walk me through your pre-jump sequence.” “We don’t have time for a diagnostic, Specialist.
We’ve got eighteen minutes and we need this drive hot now.” Marko kept his voice level.
“I need thirty seconds of your time or you won’t have a drive at all.
Pre-jump sequence.
Start from capacitor charge.” A beat of silence.
Then the engineer’s voice came back, grudging.
“Capacitors at ninety percent.
Coil engagement initiated.
No response.
Field generators online, no magnetic lock.” The overlay pulsed, threading itself into the voice like it was reading the ship inside the words.
MONARCH FTL PRIMARY FIELD SYNC FAULT.
COILS INTACT.
QUERY: HARMONIC LOCK?
Marko closed his eyes and let the Board work.
“Check your harmonic lock on the number-two coil.
You’ve got a sync fault.” Static, then: “How the frak would you know that from Galactica?” “Because I’m right.
Check it.” More static.
Marko could hear tools clattering in the background, voices shouting over each other.
The Monarch’s engineer swore, loud enough to clip the mic.
“He’s right.
Number-two’s out of phase.
We’ve got a bad relay.” “Can you bypass it?” Marko asked.
“Not in eighteen minutes.” “You don’t need to bypass it.
You need to force a manual sync.
There’s a adjustment screw on the coil housing, left side, near the base.
Turn it counterclockwise until you hear the pitch change.” “That’s not in the manual.” “It’s in the manual I’m reading,” Marko said, which was close enough to true.
“Do it.” The line went quiet except for the sound of metal on metal, then a low hum building in the background.
The pitch wobbled, steadied, climbed.
“Got it,” the engineer said.
His voice had lost some of its edge.
“Coil’s syncing.
Field’s locking.” “Spin her up,” Marko said.
The hum became a whine, then the characteristic rising howl of an FTL drive coming online.
Marko felt the sound in his teeth, vibrating down the headset wire into his jaw.
“Drive hot,” the engineer said.
“We’re ready to jump.” Marko pulled the headset off and handed it back to Tyrol.
The Chief was watching him with an expression Marko couldn’t read part relief, part something else.
“Good work,” Tyrol said.
Marko turned back to the Viper, but the Chief’s hand landed on his shoulder.
“How’d you know about the screw?” Tyrol asked quietly.
“Read it somewhere.” “In what manual?” Marko met Tyrol’s eyes and said nothing.
After a moment, Tyrol’s hand dropped.
“Get some rack time,” the Chief said.
“You look like hell.” Marko walked toward the berthing hatch, his hands steady and his head full of the sound of a drive spinning up light-years away or whatever passed for light-years when your fleet jumped blind and prayed the math held.
The Bearing drain was already setting in a cold weight behind his eyes, heavier than it should have been for a Read that simple.
Distance had a price, and he’d just learned the overlay’s reach was longer than he’d thought.
Which meant the fleet could ask him to choose.
Not just which fault to fix, but which hull got his voice when two were failing and the thirty-three minutes ran out.
He pushed the thought down and kept walking.
The net crackled again six jumps later.
Marko was in CIC this time, pulled in by Tigh to monitor the civilian fleet’s status reports.
He wasn’t supposed to be there a deck specialist had no business in the command center but Tigh had made it clear that when hulls started failing, Marko’s ear was an asset.
The DRADIS alarm sounded.
Cylons, inbound.
Twenty-eight minutes to the next jump.
“All ships, prepare for jump on my mark,” Commander Adama’s voice cut across the noise.
“Sir,” Dee’s voice came from the comms station, calm and precise.
“Monarch reports FTL drive failure.
They can’t jump.” Adama turned.
“How long to repair?” Dee relayed the question, listened, then looked up.
“Their engineer says forty minutes minimum.
We don’t have forty minutes.” CIC went quiet.
Forty-two hundred people.
One hull.
Clean arithmetic.
“Patch me to the Monarch,” Adama said.
Marko’s headset crackled as the line opened.
He wasn’t on the command channel, but the overlay didn’t care about protocol it threaded itself into the signal like it belonged there.
MONARCH FTL PRIMARY COIL BURNOUT, SECONDARY RELAY.
REPAIR POSSIBLE.
ESTIMATED TIME: 12 MINUTES.
QUERY?
Twelve minutes.
They had twenty-six left.
Marko caught Dee’s eye across CIC.
She was already watching him.
“Galactica, Monarch.” The engineer’s voice was raw.
“We need more time.” “You don’t have it,” Adama said.
“Can you jump or not?” “Not in twenty-six minutes, sir.
I’m sorry.” Marko stepped forward before he could think better of it.
“Commander.” Every head in CIC turned.
“Specialist Dabrowski,” Adama said.
His voice carried no inflection.
“You have something to add?” “Let me talk to their engineer, sir.
I can walk them through it.” Tigh’s face darkened, but Adama raised a hand.
“You can repair an FTL drive over the wireless, Specialist?” “I can guide their hands, sir.
I’ve done it before.” Adama studied him for a long beat, then nodded once.
“Dee, put him through.” Dee’s fingers moved over her console.
The line opened, and Marko heard the Monarch’s engine room alarms, shouting, the whine of a drive trying and failing to spin.
“Monarch, this is Specialist Dabrowski on Galactica.
I need you to trust me and move fast.
How many hands do you have?” “Three,” the engineer said.
“Good.
One on the coil housing, one on the secondary relay panel, one ready to manual-sync when I say.
You’ve got a burnout on your number-two coil.
You’re going to bypass it and force the sync through number-three.” “That’ll destabilize the field.” “It’ll get you one jump,” Marko said.
“After that you can fix it right.
Right now you need it fast.” A pause.
Then: “Go.” Marko closed his eyes and let the overlay feed him the ship.
He could see it not with his eyes, but with something older and colder, the Board threading a map of the Monarch’s drive into his skull like he was standing in the engine room himself.
“Relay panel,” Marko said.
“Third row, second switch from the left.
Kill it.” “Killed.” Marko’s jaw was clenched so hard his molars ached somewhere between concentration and a prayer to a god he hadn’t believed in since Picon, the overlay painting the engine room behind his eyelids in amber wireframe while the clock in his head ticked off seconds like a detonator.
“Coil housing.
You’ve got an access port on the right side, near the top.
Open it.” “Open.” “Inside you’ll see three contact points.
The middle one’s your burnout.
Pull it.” Static, then a sharp metallic snap.
“Pulled.
Field’s dropping.” “It’s supposed to.
Number-three coil, same process.
Manual sync, counterclockwise, listen for the pitch.” The hum started low and wobbled.
Marko tracked it headset, overlay, the part of him that had learned to hear a ship dying.
“Steady,” he said.
“Hold it there.” Pitch climbed.
Locked.
“Capacitors to full,” Marko said.
“Spin her up.” The whine became a howl.
On the other end, the engineer laughed breathless, disbelieving.
“Drive’s hot.
We can jump.” “All ships,” Adama’s voice cut across the channel.
“Jump on my mark in thirty seconds.” Marko opened his eyes.
Dee was still watching him from across CIC, her expression unreadable.
The fleet jumped.
Fifty-three hulls, together.
The Monarch made it through.
Marko’s head was pounding.
The Bearing drain had gone from cold to hollow, and he could feel the fog creeping in at the edges of his vision.
He’d just guided a fix across vacuum and through another man’s hands, and the cost was steeper than any Read he’d pulled on Galactica’s own decks.
But the Monarch had jumped.
Forty-two hundred souls still breathing.
The DRADIS was clear.
The clock reset.
Same interval, same dread.
Marko pulled off the headset and turned to leave CIC.
Dee’s voice stopped him before he reached the hatch.
“Specialist Dabrowski.” He turned.
She was standing now, one hand still on her console.
“How does a deck specialist know the pitch of a drive he’s never heard?” she asked.
Her voice was level.
Curious, not accusing.
But the question landed like a hammer anyway.
Marko met her eyes and found he didn’t have an answer she would believe.
“Experience,” he said.
Dee tilted her head, like she was holding the answer up to a light he couldn’t see.
“Thank you for your help, Specialist.” “Just doing my job, Petty Officer.” He left CIC.
The hatch cycled shut behind him, and he stood alone in the corridor, tasting copper at the back of his throat the Bearing’s calling card.
The ventilation hummed low and constant around him.
The Monarch had jumped.
The save had held.
But Dee had heard every word.
CIC had heard every word.
The fleet now had a guardian angel, and Marko understood the way you understand a frame has cracked, not with thought but with cold certainty that angels got noticed, and noticed men got questions they couldn’t answer.
The Hard Return wasn’t just Kord anymore.
It was the whole fleet, listening.
He walked back to the hangar.
His hands were steady.
The Bearing would come back, in time.
The drive would hold, or it wouldn’t.
Everything else was just a story people told so they could keep jumping.
// FIELD BRIEFING Update cycle: 7 chapters every 10 days.
Public release: paced.
Choose your unit: Scout — $5 —
Vanguard — $9 —
World-Eater — $14 —
Both appreciated.
no clearance required.