<<<<<<<<<<<< Chapter 7 Chapter 9 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The military lawyer was one of the few that survived the attack on the twelve colonies. Viper pilots were needed. The Colonial military knew what to do with them. Lawyers were not really in demand.
Bernard Roscoe, was sixty one years old, stood nearly 1.9 meters tall. He was bald with a bit of white stubble around the edges. He had retired to private practice five years before the fall. He did not have a dress uniform, so he wore the greens of an enlisted person, despite holding the rank of Colonel in the Colonial fleet reserves.
In a power play, Cory Brooks had insisted on prosecution due to the events at New Scorpia. Concerning the hostage situation at the New Scorpia space port. Commander Maria Ramirez had been arrested at a military briefing.
Admiral Eva Lawson had been on sick leave with a serious case of the Sun Spot virus. Colonel Roscoe had convinced her XO that a fair hearing would be better for the fleet than sending in the Colonial Marines.
The chain of command was in chaos. Nobody was showing up in Mercury CIC to command the fleet.
Commander Steven Evans, Athena actual was on the stand.
“Commander,” Colonel Roscoe spoke with a friendly expression and a folky accent. “Commander Evans, what was the situation when the fleet approached New Scorpia space port?”
Evan’s who is command of the fleet was on video link from his quarters on the Athena. He had been sworn in by wireless, due to a new major outbreak of the sun spot virus.
“We had received orders putting Commander Ramirez in command. She ordered the task force be put together. We had defeated two Cylon task forces at the intermediate jump point.”
“Commander,” Roscoe asked. “Were the orders authenticated or verified in any way?
“Well no Sir,” Evans answered. He shifted nervously on camera. “CIC from Mercury sent out a status report that the Admiral was down with sun spot, we had written chain of command orders. It was quite clear to me that Commander Ramirez was in charge.”
“You did not insist on talking to the Admiral, you just took Commander Ramirez’s orders on faith?” Roscoe was smiling, speaking in his unassuming drawl.
“No Sir, I was satisfied that the orders were legal.”
“Where in the regulations did you determine that this was legal?”
“Common sense Colonel. We are at war, and delay costs lives. I’ve got 200 crew down with the Sun spot virus as well. The fleet could not wait for Admiral Lawson to get better.”
“So you assumed the orders were legal, because you were too lazy to verify them?”
“Exception,” a thin, straight haired young woman next to Commander Ramirez. “The Colonel is testifying.”
“Sustained,” the white haired older man, part of a panel of retired officers that included one woman and two men.
“Commander,” Roscoe said in a sliver, pleasant voice. “Tell us what happened next.”
“The order came through to recover our fighters and prepare to jump to New Scorpia,” Evans reported. “We had sustained some battle damage. Our birds needed repair. The battle against the base stars had been very fierce.”
“Did you send reconnaissance ahead Commander?”
“Commander Ramirez took care of that. While we prepared for the combat jump, they managed to tap the communications network of the space port and get us a good look at the possibilities of the marines storming the port.”
Two weeks ago—————————————————
CIC: Saturn: Jump complete.
DRADIS show several Cylon ships already here. More jumping in.
Major McKormick uttered a prayer after a very smooth jump. The CIC lighting always dimmed a bit due to the energy drain of a faster than light jump. The Mercury class, was the biggest warship ever configured with a jump drive. I was deliberately over engineered in an effort to make it durable, and so powerful tat the Cylons would not dare to attack the Colonies.
This of course had literally forced the Cylons to use CNP. In spite of a massive and impressive industrial machine at the end of the first war with the humans, much time an effort was spent on creating the 8 new human models.
The modern base star and raiders were impressive and powerful, but could not directly defeat a Colonial fleet led by the Mercury Class. The modern base star was designed to massacre the humans with nuclear weapons. Designed with plentiful missile hard points, the ship itself had no flak or guns.
For the latter of these two things, it relied on the modern, living raider. The design of this ship assumed the near total success of the CNP. The wireless access built into CNP was well hidden. It was only discovered in the final penetration test run against the orders of command. Doctor Gaes Baltar was a genius whose work was revered at the ministry of defense.
He was almost never challenged. The engineer that run the penetration test has been demoted for violating orders. This is happened in your days before the fall of the colonies.
The Cylons had decided after the start at the second war that it made sense to use their inventory of ships left over from the first war.
The stock pile of first war, centurions, and chips or enormous. Some of the ships were valuable, only have two meltdown, and made into modern base stars. Somewhere so well-designed, they were ready to go back into the war launch to track down the Galactica, and the larger enterprise at the new colonies.
Not a religious man, the major felt it was important to cover his bases after successful combat jump.
He looked over at Commander Ramirez, who nodded agreement to the order to launch all vipers and raptor squadrons.
The launch sequence was smooth. The chatter from the fighter pilots filled, CIC. They were new voices on the speakers as losses have been high in the past few days fighting off the Cylon invasion. Really was a delaying action designed to give the survivors a chance to escape. The operation has been very bloody and we continue to be bloody.
In fact, they were fortunate that the colonies were not already nuked. The settlement enterprise has been put together in a haphazard fashion, wanting to have the comfort and closeness other 12 colonies, these outpost were not as easily accessible is the four suns of Helios.
The vipers in raptor showed up on the DRADIS display. So did the Raiders. As usual the colonial forces route number in battle.
Commander Ramirez gave the order with a stern look, “Fire first offensive salvo.”
CIC Athena
Major Amelia Evans, XO of the Athena Unconsciously, they put a hand on her stomach. A few days earlier, she discovered that after years of trying she was pregnant. This would probably break up the husband and wife team that commanded this Battlestar. There had been no time to report the issue let alone replace a key person in the CIC.
“All Artemis class, maximum dive and execute a hard turn ever couple of seconds to evade heavy missile fire.”
Combat: “Cylon missile salvos inbound!”
CIC Athena:
The war of the missile hit was deafening for several seconds. The lights went dark. Some of the monitors with off-line the damage control board showed heavy damage to the port flight pod.
“Armor bravo. Just took a heavy missile salvo in the port flight pod.”
CAG: “All vipers they are targeting the Athena. Move to intercept inbound salvos.”
Viper pilot: “Frakin toasters.they just got another squadron commander.”
Squadron Leader: “Athena! Saturn, inbound missiles! Heading for the STL engines.”
Combat: “Cratus is history!”
CIC: Saturn “Another toaster on fire!”
Viper Pilot: “Every time I shoot, I hit one!”
Combat: “Pilots do not get overconfident.”
Raptor Pilot:
“Another base star bought the farm!”
Pilot: “Targeting a base star!”
Pilot: “We lost another Valkyrie!”
CIC Athena: “Cylons are powering up FTL drives, they’re bugging out.”
Commander Evans Athena Actual “They’ll be back.”
The damage control panel showed extensive damage to the port fight pod. There were a lot of red lights on the display. The left side of the engine section was also showing damage. Amelia Evans, took charge, “CAG order the air wing to land exclusively on the starboard flight pod. It’s gonna take weeks to fix this thing.”
Commander Ramirez, quarters: The video connection through the hacked Cylon data network. The video was choppy. Admiral Lawson was in the quarters the room was dark. She was breathing difficulty and coughing every few seconds. She had a very bad case of the sun spot virus.
Commander Ramirez had to shout to be heard over the poor quality of the audio. “The minute the silence jumped away, the idiots holding the space board, began making demands. They want a guaranteed spot for them, and their families on transport ships, we don’t even have!”
Admiral Lawson coughed for several seconds and paused to blow her nose. “Your orders are to begin evaluation of new Scorpia. You are to use any means necessary to get that station back into operation or operate the evaluation without the space station. Do you understand your orders commander?”
“Yes Sir.”
The call ended in a fit of coughing and a connection lost message on the monitor in Commander Ramirez’s quarters.
Full Chapter video:
Refer to this web page for story or continuity issues: