Battlestar Dauntless (D19)

Battlestar Dauntless is the main Battlestar in Counter Attack by Robert Sharpe and in the Battlestar Dauntless's Universe. She is a Dauntless Class Battlestar and the last one of her class still in service.

Design And Build
Built after the Armistice at the end of the Cylon War, the Dauntless was built to be twice the size of a Battlestar of Galactica's type. Finished and completed after 10 years of work, Dauntless was a sight to behold and a sight to fear. During development of the framework, she was outfitted with a pair of Devistator cannons in her nose as a trial. Although the trials were sucessful, it was decided to place standard heavy cannons in the remaining Dauntless class Battlestars. Although much needed by the newly united 12 Colonies, each ship was expensive to build, and so many of the features of the Dauntless were unique to her compared to the rest of her class.

Service History
After finishing her working up trials and minor repairs, Dauntless went on to have a career that spanned over thirty years. Notable events included an Anti-Terrorist operation which involved the only time she ever fired her main Devistator cannons in anger, mappin surveys and numerous Anti-Pirate operations. She earned her motto of 'Run, Dauntless is here' after her second Anti-Pirate mission in which the pirates turned and jumped away as soon as Dauntless came within weapons range.

Another important event in her service life was the only confirmed communication between Cylons and Colonials after the war's end. Dauntless was on patrol of the Armistice Line when DRADIS detected a Cylon Baseship on the extreme range of the scope, but moving past her on the Cylon side of the line. Dauntless's then commander personally sent a greeting to the Cylons, and recieved the reply 'Stay on your side of the line. Message ends'. Dauntless launched a Raptor which shadowed the Baseship for several hours before it jumped away.

Planned Retirement
After many years of service, Dauntless was to be retired from the active fleet, and placed into storage as part of the reserve fleet before towed to the scrap yard. She had, ironically, out lasted her sister ships because of her Devistator cannons which made her valuble. She was due to go to Picon Fleet Shipyard for decommisioning at the time of the renewed Cylon attacks. Like Galactica, most of Dauntless's ammunition had been removed but all of the stocks for Vipers had been kept aboard.

(Note: Although an established history for Dauntless has been presented, the author has mentioned in online talks that he may talk about the service life of the ship in a later chapter)

Crew
When Sharpe assumed Command of the Dauntless few of the senior staff was present - having all been transfered to other ships in the fleet. Sharpe filled all the vacant posts with crew from ships that he had served on and knew personally. A number of them were what was known as 'time keepers'. They were officers and enlisted people that waited out their enlistment time for the maximum amount of pension money. Whilst this was not the accepted procedure carried out, Fleet HQ granted all of his requests. This explains why Sharpe knows the first names of most of the reguler appearing cast.