Book 4: Chapter 21 “Devine Povidence”
Make the combat jump now!”
The FTL jumps always made her dizzy and sick. Whatever was going on in her gut made them ten times worse.
The DRADIS contact chirping, which she expected immediately after the jump, did not happen.
“Jump complete. DRADIS is clear.”
“Is this the right jump point?” Lawson asked.
“We are checking the math. No it is not the right jump point. We have a text message from HG. He was able to divert Saturn with some kind of electronic voodoo. He will get to us with a new set of jump coordinates.”
“Contacts! Two heavy, five gun ships.”
“Launch the entire air wing. Move into formation. Have the two support ships try and stay away from the battle. Have them head with marines to that supply depot.”
Lawson stabbed her finger at the map before an NCO took the coordinates and transmitted the orders.
“Remind me to run a virus scan on HG’s code!”
The link to video segment #1 is next
“Make the combat jump now!”
The FTL jumps always made her dizzy and sick. Whatever was going on in her gut made them ten times worse.
The DRADIS contact chirping, which she expected immediately after the jump, did not happen.
“Jump complete. DRADIS is clear.”
“Is this the right jump point?” Lawson asked.
“We are checking the math. No it is not the right jump point. We have a text message from HG. He was able to divert Saturn with some kind of electronic voodoo. He will get to us with a new set of jump coordinates.”
“Contacts! Two heavy, five gun ships.”
“Launch the entire air wing. Move into formation. Have the two support ships try and stay away from the battle. Have them head with marines to that supply depot.”
Lawson stabbed her finger at the map before an NCO took the coordinates and transmitted the orders.
“Remind me to run a virus scan on HG’s code!”
Link for video segment #2 is next
‘“XO on the deck!”
“HG is probably so busy inside the Cylon networks, nobody is watching for their combat formation!” Major Stanley Jacobs took up his post in CIC, his face bent into an angry sneer.
“Missiles inbound.Guided. Some of them are going to get through.”
“Damage Control Teams, spin up. Check your breathing gear,” Major Jacobs ordered.
“Admiral Lawson, the two base stars have set up a choke point. They are blocking the only safe route to the supply depot.”
“Major Jacobs, what are your tactical recommendations?”
“Order the air wing on defense. Range them with battlestar artillery. Our longer range will allow us to destroy the heavies. Then we will deal with the stragglers and pull up to a full supply depot.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“The Admiral’s orders.”
“Those are your orders XO!”
“This is the XO. Execute operation choke point.”
“Contacts Two base stars just jumped in point blank range. CBDR!”
Next is the link to video segment #2
“All we have to do is follow the plan. Firing solution should lock in about another thirty seconds. Switch the bow batteries to salvo mode now!”
Next is link to video segment #3 of this chapter
Doctor Robert Pierce was a young doctor who had apparently skipped any medical school class related to tact or bedside manner. He was 28 years old, having finished his residency when the Cylons attacked and wiped out the twelve colonies.
His rank, which he cared less about, was captain. His build was athletic, though he was rarely seen in the gym. He was 1.8 meters in height. Clean shaven, his hair was mostly dark brown, had a sprinkling of white hairs that made him look wise and kind.
That impression lasted until he spoke to the patient. His “call sign” which followed him around since medical school was “Tactless”.
Captain Pierce never made house calls. There were two reasons why he was visiting the admiral’s quarters: first, the possibility of a good meal from the world class chef that prepared her meals. Second, pissing off Admiral Lawson risked drawing an assignment that was more risky than being Chief Medical Officer on the fleet’s flagship.
Stanley Jacobs tried to give a reason for his presence in the admiral’s quarters at 0700 hours ship time. A status report came to mind.
“We should make it to the depot in another seven hours, admiral. No further sign of hostile activity. The marines are reporting a sea of ammunition and supplies. The Celestra is being packed to take supplies for Saturn. The priorities have been set as you ordered. We have all the ore components we will need to conduct armor repairs.”
The fact that Major Stanley Jacobs, former squadron commander, was living in the admiral’s quarters was the worst kept secret in the Colonial fleet before Admiral Lawson registered the relationship with fleet human resources made his presence at this medical examination, expected.
Admiral Lawson was struggling to get her bra on, her back facing the doctor. With a facial expression that could have stopped a viper on full turbo, Jacobs turned away from his plan to assist her, instead scooping up the commander air wings report, which was her idea, of light bedside reading.
“For the God’s sake Stan, I registered our relationship with HR before we made the run to rescue the colonies we left behind. I heard all this status stuff before I collapsed and slept for 4 hours.”
“Why the frak didn’t you tell me?”
“Its actually quite fun, watching you squirm and try and hide your uniform in the back of my closet.”
Finally, she managed to get her standard issue brown sleeveless tee shirt on, checked her belt buckle and sat down next to Jacobs, across from the doctor.
“So what the hell’s the matter with me? My body seems to be falling apart after our 39 year nap.
Doctor Pierce looked unhappily at the empty dining table. “No breakfast?”
For some reason, he was being circumspect.
“Food before 1200 hours makes me sick.”
“The fact that you just had a wrestling match to get into your bra and tee shirt is not a clue?” Pierce continued.
“No,” Admiral Lawson answered.
“You never even considered the possibility that you were pregnant?” Pierce finally let on, his voice full of exasperation.
“I was told after taking shrapnel in a training accident that I would never be able to have a child. It certainly made my off duty activities more fun. I never had to worry about having a kid as a consequence of whom I drank and slept with.”
“Well then, surprise! Medical science misdiagnosed you. You are a healthy 43 year old woman, to quote my drinking buddy, Doc Coddle. Your “plumbing” is perfectly fine. You look pretty young overall. I bet you can have a nice family.”
“You aren’t going to relieve her of duty?” Jacobs asked. His right hand was shaking as he tried to organize the CAG report.
“Normally, I would immediately relieve you of duty Admiral Lawson. If I were inclined to take that suicidal action, you should relieve me of duty. I would like to get to New Helios, see if I can find a woman and start a family.”
“Well doctor,thank you for being reasonable. Any advice?”
“The morning sickness should pass after the first trimester. As to anything like a due date, throw a dart at the calendar. With the time dilation and such, it would not be unreasonable to describe you as an 85 year old, who has been pregnant for 40 years.”
“We need to get to New Helios sooner versus later. Your body is 43 years old. Being pregnant and dodging shell impacts is not likely to do you or the baby any good. I will actually run the urine and blood tests again. Then we will schedule an ultrasound and try to predict a due date.”
“First we are going to figure out where Saturn is and see what we can do about getting home.”
Next is link to video segment #4
Port hanger Viper Repair
Beth Vance was a proud Caprican, who could trace her roots back to the founding of that colony. She was now 47 years old and walked with a cane, injured in a heavy missile strike on the port pod.
Slightly heavy set, she walked the repair bay, tooling and metal shops like she owned them. She looked slightly younger than her years. She had managed to produce safe blond hair dye, which she used regularly once a month.
She was very familiar with Major Stan “Wheelchair” Jacobs, and spoke to him by his call sign. This visit was a first though. Throughout her command of the Battlestar Mercury and her journey to the fleet command, Eva Lawson had taken upon herself to walk the hangar space in the flight pods.
“Beth, I don’t want to disrupt the routine, but I am going to have to do the eyeball on the pods and the manufacturing space.”
“Whats wrong? Is the admiral okay?” Vance took on the expression of a worried parent.
“Doc Pierce, cut her hours, wants her to get more sleep and exercise.”
“Is there a due date yet?”
“Are there no secrets on this ship, Master Chief Petty officer?”
“Wheelchair, not once it hits the computer systems. How can we run a betting pool for the gender and birth date of the baby without some raw data?”
“All right chief, how about the report?”
“Call me Beth, wheelchair.”
“How about the report Beth?”
“Well I want to thank the pilots for pitching in with the supply offload from the depot. We have filled every storage space we can with supplies we want to offload onto the Saturn. We have been manufacturing armor packs and releasing them to the repair crews ever since we filled up the magazines and storage space.”
“Breathing gear and other protection gear?”
“Well Major, I don’t know why they bothered to do it, but there was several tons of protection gear for the knuckle draggers. I guess it was because the skin jobs need air to breath same as us. We have stuffed the Celestra and the Defender class ship with as much supplies as we can. We have some supplies stored temporarily in hallways.”
“It’s a shame we are leaving so much supplies behind at the depot. I wish we could find some other place to store supplies.”
“Well Major, we could leave behind a force to hold the depot and bring the Saturn back to load up when we find her.”
“The Admiral thinks that the risk is too high. We need the marines to defend against boarders.”
“I had another idea Wheelchair. We could put hundreds more pallets of non volatile containers on the dorsal landing pods. No ammunition or fuel. Armor repair kits and raw ore for the foundries.”
“How long would it take to load the two dorsal landing bays Chief?”
“Three hours per pod. The commander air group won’t like the plan very much.”
“We are at 57% of full flight capacity. The two extra decks do speed up combat landings. When we find Saturn, the extra supplies will be critical.”
“XO, loan me a hundred pilots and we can get the cargo tied up in 2 hours. Raptors can guide the pallets on the mag-lifters. You will need to lay down the law with the cag.”
“I will sign the digital order right now if it’s ready, Chief.”
The executive officer smiled, when she presented a handheld computer with the orders ready. With a smile, he put his forefinger on the reader. The order was given. “Need any help with the pilots?”
“Not after the bar is closed Sir.”
Battlestar Solaria
Commander Indira Modi in her quarters.
Before the Battlestar Galactica was due for decommission, this ship, the Solaria, was the prior fleet museum, having barely survived the waning days of the first Cylon war. Its last commander, Commander Green had refused two decades of requests for parts salvage.
The armor removal was halted on the first day when reports flowed in about pressure losses in nearby sections. This was of course an elaborate ruse from Commander Green, who was in cahoots with engineering and other crew members.
Because the museum was ordered to switch to a new colony every month, the slower than light and the faster than light engines were off limits to salvage. Commander Green’s mission during two decades of retirement service running the museum was to keep the ship as ready for combat as possible.
All the guns had been maintained to colonial fleet standards. The magazines had been empty since before his assignment to this sunset post.
Every 90 days enough live ammunition was dropped off to test fire the guns when the museum was parked at Picon fleet headquarters. This stealth delivery had cost Green some of his most precious whiskey.
Commander Green was a voracious reader. He had more books shoved into these quarters than there was space on the bookshelves. Commander Modi had wanted to clear some of the shelves, however every time she started putting books in a box, she was enticed to read one of them.
Now having commanded the temperamental ship for over two years, she had barely carved out enough space for family photos. Her mother, the retired and deceased rear admiral, her brother the Viper pilot, her father a retired vice admiral who had been in a nursing home on Picon the day the Cylons had nuked the colony.
The old fashioned buzzing communication system was buzzing. She pressed the button after getting her headset working.
“Commander Modi speaking.”
“Chief Petty Officer Vance from the Mercury is requesting we take some cargo pallets.”
“What’s the problem with that?”
“Every bit of storage is taken up. Any more pallets will have to be stored in the port or starboard landing pods. I’ve told them that we can’t safely do that on a battlestar that has to retract its pods to jump.”
“Well, I understand that, but Saturn has been involved in battles, and needs the supplies we are being asked to ferry.”
“It’s a violation of the regulations commander.”
“Well we have jumped FTL with small ships docked in the flight pods before, have we not?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Then let’s be cooperative and require them to lash the pallets together and secure them with the same standard as a docked ship.”
“Technically that is still a violation of the rules sir.”
“I think we will meet them half way. I do not want to explain to the admiral or Commander Ramirez why we could not fill up their magazines because we would not bend a few rules. Make that an order.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Make sure that order gets up here on paper so I can sign off on it.”
Next is the link to video segment #4
Command planning teleconference
Admiral Lawson opted for a mostly audio meeting with a few tactical and strategic slides.
“We have picked up a two day old tactical report from HG. I know that current data would be better for planning. We have six possible locations for the intercept of Saturn. Raptor recon has cleared the first two jumps.”
A pilot spoke up.
“Do we even know if HG sent the data? The report was one classic saucer base stars, not 4. That is a pretty bad estimate off by 400 percent.’
Commander Modi spoke crisply with her calm, steady voice.
“The data file is from HG. The code words are absolutely current. The delay has to do with how many hops were required for the packet to arrive.”
Major Jacobs spoke up.
“There is also some technical stuff about how much control HG has of the Cylon network. HG’s notes say to maintain stealth transmission size and frequency has to be limited.”
Lawson:
“Thank the gods he left notes. The tactical plan is for a modified combat jump. We jump with the tubes full. If there is immediate contact we launch. If there are no toasters, we signal to a recon raptor that jumps in 5 minutes ahead of us.”
“If there are no tactical contacts, we spool up and jump to the next. After six jumps if we find nothing, we regroup and plan the next operation.”
“Ideally, we find the Saturn, no toasters and we render aid and assistance. I want it understood that our combat capabilities are limited. As a finite resource, if it needs to be spent, it must be spent on protecting Saturn.”
“From any jump point on these six, we can conduct an escape jump from the massive rock field we have been trapped in the past few weeks. We jump in 30 minutes. Make sure you have tactical plan Sierra in your navigation devices. To every crew member of the 4 ships in this fleet, I wish you good hunting.”
“So say we all!’
Next is a link to video segment #5
Next is a link to the full youtube story video.
