Commander Maria Ramirez stood up straight as she walked into the pilots briefing room. Her ill fitting uniform was pressed and every crease was where it needed to be. Accustomed to working with a slide show, she walked up to the podium and was saluted by Roger Bishop, her CAG.
After a few seconds, she connected her tablet to a projection system. The logo of the Battlestar Saturn was replaced by a slide. Operation Exodus: Top Secret.
The next slide admonished everyone present that the contents of this meeting would not be discussed outside. Of this room.
“As some of you undoubtedly remember,” Ramirez spoke crisply, barely glancing at her notes. “Five years ago, the Tauron based Reclamation Partners went bankrupt when a journalist uncovered decades of fraud regarding the breakdown and recycling of the surplus warships from the first Cylon war. “
Instead of breaking the ships down and selling the valuable parts to industry, the ships were taken to a secret location and stored. The stated reason for this was the sheer volume of ships flooded the market, causing a price depression in the metals markets.”
“As a result, the CEO of Reclamation Partners was convicted of treason due to the security risk of such large quantities of weapons, ammunition and parts being available for pirates or the Cylons to steal. The problem was, Tubek Jarnock never revealed the location of the scrapyard to prosecutors. The government of the New Colonies has obtained the record of the investigation. After months of hard work, our crack team of hackers, cracked Jarnock’s encryption and revealed the location of the scrap yard.”
Commander Ramirez straightened out her back and took a deep breath. “We have a series of jump coordinates. At the end of this rainbow may be up to 500 scrapped ships. We are going to lead a mission to take the jumps and take the ships that are serviceable and destroy the rest. The investigation file does indicate that FTL and weapons components matching the serial numbers of the ships have from time to time showed up on secondary markets. It is not known if any of the ships are in flyable condition. But we are going to find out.”
“If this pans out, we may obtain enough ships to take our population and leave the Colonial systems forever. The concept, which is the recommendation of Admiral Lawson is to leave the Cylons behind and never look back. The mission is risky, and we may take casualties. Intelligence believes that the Cylons are aware of this scrapyard. They may attack us along the way. There may be an ambush at the yard. We are going to have to find out.”
A young pilot, looking like he was in his teens, stood up and saluted. “We are Saturn. We will succeed!”
Another stood up and shouted louder. “We are Colonial fleet. We will take our people to safety.”
Admiral Lawson, looking like she had slept in her uniform stepped out from the shadows behind the room’s technical closets. “So say we all!”
Everyone stood. The words “So say we all!” thundered through the pilots ready room.