It had not pleased anyone in the chain of command that Commander Lawson had ordered the ship yard moved. The location was picked to be convenient to the resources that were required to build ships.
The :big three” as Lawson, Ramirez and Cobb were referred to as were concerned that the Cylons had guessed the location of the shipyard by tracking the ships that brought in raw materials for ship building.
A worse possibility was that the Cylons were tracking the mining ships and other cargo ships that routinely visited the facility.
What put fear in their hearts was the possibility the Cylons were tracking the station itself. This jump was designed to eliminate some of the possibilities.
The facility has been designed to jump with ships under construction. All material shipments were stopped temporarily. Ship production suspended for a few days. Some retooling was necessary because they wanted to build civilian transports. The idea was to get the population of the colonies mobile so they could be moved out of the range of influence of the Cylon military.
The workers were happy for some time off building. They kept working but we’re dedicating themselves to maintenance of equipment. It’s been almost 6 months since the colonies have been destroyed and the shipyard have been running at full tilt ever since it was assembled. The workers needed some time to work on their tools and complete deferred maintenance.
The fleet that had beaten the Cylon force designated as the virus fleet run through the shipyard for a quick repairs on armor and major issues.
Commanders Lawson and Ramirez took the their forces out of DRADIS range of the shipyard. Their intent was to ambush the fleet that jumped in. For several days they continued doing maintenance and repairs inside most of the ships. They maintained a high level of readiness. Instead of the normal alert five vapors maintain an entire squadron flying combat air patrol known by the acronym CAP.
The Mercury and Saturn jumped away periodically to take on ore and raw materials.Staffed by nearly two hundred unhappy civilian draftees, the ships Viper manufacturing facilities were put to work, building Mark seven vipers for the entire fleet.
When five days after arrival the DRADIS began to chip, announcing the arrival of the Cylons, they were ready. Ramirez looked at her readiness screen, she had three Valkyrie class support battlestars and an aging Manticore in her fleet.
Lawson’s group consisted of the Mercury, the Solaria Jupiter mk2 ship, a defender and two Celestra;s equipped with extra ammunition an drones to strengthen armor.
Lawson and Ramirez were on the wireless chatting on the DRADIS announce the arrival of the cylon fight.
“That’s twice as big as the flight we took last week,” Ramirez warned.
“Natural vipers order the shipyard to jump immediately.” The commander froze for a moment as if she was not present. She quickly shook her head and she looked at Dr. Farragut who was in the CIC observing her price patient. “Second issue on throughout the fleet attack plan alpha. We’re gonna do this the same way that we did last time. I set up a flak wall for they’ve never imagined and let them waste their missiles on it.”
As well as their hair but they have the wireless transmission of the wipers and capital ships on speaker. They heard the announcement of the Valkyries formed up and began to target incoming cylon Raiders and muscles with a very solid defensive flak field.
At least 20 Salem squadrons what identified. Missiles came in by the hundreds missiles came in by the hundreds. Several points over 1000 missiles were inbound.
Nearly a dozen nuclear weapons came in, but with slight course corrections the colonial fleet managed to detonate them with their flag fields.
The fight or battle continued until most of the papers were out of ammunition. As planned they were recalled and that relaunched as the remaining Cylon Raiders were easy to pick off with the point defense guns.
Seven minutes into the battle one of the Valkyries was hacked. She began to lose defensive systems in Commander Ramirez did not hesitate. “Have that ship jump out of here immediately” she said emergency jump now!”
DRADIS operator reported. “Two Cratus ships spotted. They are targeting the Solaria.
“Turning on them for 90°. Port 90° bring the fruit cans to bear switch to salvo mode.” Lawson looked little bit confused as she was having trouble focusing.”
Minutes later the Solaria it was targeted. “Solaria reports heavy damage armor bravo in forward and several sections. There they believe they might lose the ship.”
“Execute emergency jump now. Solaria actual this is mercury actual jump now. Do not hesitate jump now!”
The commander began squeezing a pain in her right hand until it cracked in two pieces.
The destruction of the first gigantic base star was announced. Alone now Lawson ordered another gradual turn to meet the second beefy ship. She saw fire pouring in from the three Valkyries and the Saturn as seconds later the second giant ship not seen since the first Cylon war went up in a fireball.
Most of the Cylon fleet were out of missiles now. Two ships continue to pump out missiles educational nuclear weapon. Commander Lawson marked those two ships on her display. “Those would be Argos they seem to have a huge ammunition supply. All ships concentrate your fire and the two targets wee just designated. Priority one.“
“Splash Argos number one. “Someone in the CIC announced. A minute later at the second Argos and it’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of nuclear weapons and missiles ceased to be a threat.”
“All we have left our Cerebes carriers and base stars with no missiles. We’re taking heavy fire from the carriers sir. We’ve got a hull breach, scratch that several hull breach and internal casualties. Whole integrity 80% sir.”
Commander Lawson glanced at where Dr. Farragut have been standing. She noted that the doctor had the good sense to get a sick day or a casualties would be coming in by the dozens and she would be needed to do triage and what was described by many surgeons as a meatball surgery.”
Suddenly as it began the battle was over. The Cylon fleet was devastated and completely destroyed. Casualty reports came in. They have lost a Defender class worship and one of the Celestras. A few minutes later the report came in that the Solaria had suffered over 200 casualties when its armor had been breached. The ship was saved and undergoing emergency repairs.
* * *
Lawson and Ramirez watched the civilian chase camera feed of a battle. Two battlestar’s, Mercury class and seven relics Heracles class met in battle.
There were ten ships on the Colonial side. They were initially confused by the Colonial signals, but formed up and launched vipers when they realized the transponder codes were fake.
“Why the frak didn’t they jump. Our standing orders are to jump when faced with a superior force?” Ramirez lamented.
“They are taking the wrong course. The dive is good, but they need to remain out of the firing arch of the Heracles.” Lawson was angry. She had taught them better than this.
It was a spectacular end for the nine warships, three Minataur, three Adamant’s, three Valkyries and an aging Atlas carrier.
“Frak me! I want every ship pulled off the line and I want a meeting with every CO and XO in the fleet.”
“Stagger it?” Ramirez asked. “Three shifts.”
“Send my frakking orders. You see a superior force, you bug the frak out.”
* * *
The entire front calm down the next few days waiting for the official end of the cease fire.
Commander Eva Lawson shut her self up in her room.
She skipped duty in CIC for three days. XO Simmons gently press the door buzzer in quarters and surprisingly he was allowed in.
“Commander,” he said gently you have been missed in CIC.
She was dealing with the utmost concentration at the footage the civilians made of the battle that had destroyed 10 precious warships and several thousand crew. She went through the footage frame by frame looking for clues.
“Is this what you’ve been doing the past three days?” Simmons asked.
“Pretty much,” she said. “Dr. Farragut has been down to see me every day for an hour of therapy. She seems to think I’m kind of crazy.”
What was clear is that the commander was not taken care of herself. Her hair was not washed, meal set not eaten on the desk. The monitor showed several different angles from several different civilian ships that captured excellent footage of the battle.”
“Has this ever happened before? The Cylons using colonial worships?” My grandmother was an admiral in that fleet but I just don’t have a firm grasp on every tactical operation that was fought for a war that lasted over 10 years.”
“I minored in history of the Academy,” Simmons replied. They did use colonial vessels for a number of decoy operations some military some civilian. But they apparently never captured something on the scale like to Mercury class Battlestar’s.”
“Athena and acropolis were under construction at scorpion shipyards. So is the Saturn for that matter. None of those three shifts are ready for action. Therefore the reason we found the Saturn intact was because the enemy intended to use it. What if they plan to use all three?”
“What can we do about it now asked the XO?”
“Well I guess we have to destroy it, that entire fleet.”
“I’ve actually been wondering commander,” he thought out loud, “why has there been a standstill between our two forces.”
“Well,” Lawson said. “They may be licking their wounds. They did not expect our task force to take out five of those Heracles. I can’t give the order to start planning the destruction of those two ships. I’m not exactly sure why.”
“Well they’re not bothering anybody right now.” Simmons forgot himself and started to pace around the messy quarters of her of his commander. “I mean we could it would destroy them.”
“What are the alternatives to destroying those ships?” Lawson’s eyes lit up.
“If we ignore them they’ll use them again and ambush another one of our flights. So ignoring them is not an option. We can’t take the ships away from the Cylons we just don’t have enough Marines.”
“What did you say Major Simmons?”
“I don’t know what did I say?” The blonde 30-year-old looked dumbfounded.
“Repeat the last sentence you just said word for word.” She ordered. She began to pick through them play the food on her desk and start eating for the first time in days.”
“We can’t take the ships away from the Cylons we just don’t have enough Marines.”
“I just read a report that said we had two thousand marines. Was I hallucinating?”
“No Sir,” Major Simmons replied. “We have 2976 active duty marines scattered throughout the fleet.”
“Do we have enough raptors Major?”
“I know why I can’t order the destruction of those two Battlestars Bill.”
“Because you want them. In our fleet.”
“Because I want them in this fleet.”