TF-7: “Six contacts. 5 forward. Launching raiders.”
TF-7: “We have weapons lock. Nuclear ordinance has been released.”
TF-7: “Yeah! we are smoking them!”
TF-7: “Targets destroyed. Resurrection ship is history.”
After action report
Day 681 of the second Cylon war.
Admiral Eva Lawson sat at her desk, going over the reports from task force seven.
The commander of the task force had noted that an extra modern Base Star have been assigned to his target squadron. Though it has been dispatched quickly, another Valkyrie Battlestar was badly damaged and the second was facing several weeks in refit. The mobile shipyard facilities have been moved, and we’re still working exclusively on the Athena.
The casualty levels among the Valkyrie battle stars were running very high. They could only build two of those battle stars a month, and it lost four in recent weeks. The attrition of these forces could not be sustained. Further of you sucking nuclear weapons was rapidly drive down the inventory of such weapons. This campaign could also not be sustained for very long.
Still, the mission is been a success. 20% of the local modern forces that would impede continuation of these logistical or we’re now destroyed. The time had come to bring him more survival platform has nuclear war campaign. Admiral Lawson decided that the Mercury will accompany the next strike. She issued the orders and informed her CAG that the next mission would be involving the flag ships flight group.
The animal ran a hand through her raven black hair. Do you notice in the mirror this morning? They were a lot of individual strands going white or gray. What is the course was inevitable. As she aged in this job, she could expect many more gray hairs to sprout up. These were a sign of wisdom in society. She wondered if she’s gonna grow old enough to go completely white like her grandmother.
Her grandmother, which I knew unusual he had the exact same name as she had recently had been moved to one of the Atlas class vessels that had been captured and converted during the exodus from the new Colonies.
The younger admiral, Lawson try to visit her grandmother, at least once a week. It was hard given her duties. Still, it was contact with a living person represented the past. Perhaps it was a simpler time, the time of the first war against the Cylon.
Her calendar told her that her flight via raptor was waiting for her. She donned a flight suit and headed for the launch bay. She intended to fly the spacecraft herself today. They were running post shakedown trails on the mercury a mere single jump away from her grandmother this week.
Her grandmother was in the throes of dementia. As noted earlier she could not remember what she had for breakfast most days. She often forgot how we had breakfast in order to the second meal. Conditions of grouting were very difficult I’m on the civilian population. It is taking a lot of strings to be pulled by the younger admiral Lawson to get quarters for her grandmother. These were private.
She gathered her briefing materials. The old woman was easier to talk to if you talk to her like she was an admiral. These meetings usually went with Admiral Lawson, doing a state of the war briefing and asking the elder admirals advice.
An hour later she was in the quarters assigned to her grandmother. The briefing went well, although the other woman was not very talkative today. She seems to absorb the materials that she was presented, which were cleaned and made in general nonclassified. On a good day she would ask questions. This was not Saturday. She just stared at the presentation on the tablet computer.
During a attacks on the colonies, the family decided that the old woman needed to be closer to the relatives that were responsible for her care. She had packed up that day for the trip from Tauron to Scorpia where that branch of the family lived.
Her grandmother I’ve been very unhappy with the move. She left all of her adult, life and childhood on Tauron.
“I don’t want to move to Scorpia,” Her grandmother blurted in the middle of a sentence.
“Tauron has been destroyed,” Lawson find her grandmother for the 30th or 40th time. Sometimes it was necessary to lie to the old woman to keep her calm. It was never something that Eva Lawson was comfortable with, however.
“Yes,” her grandmother side, and breathe more slowly. “We’re running away from the toasters instead of fighting them.”
“Take a look at this, grandma,” Lawson showed a few seconds of battle footage from the recent battle against the Cylon base stars.
“You were doing a very good job young Eva,” her grandmother raised her. “I never made fleet commander. I had to work for that despicable Admiral Cain for many years. Of course you do know I was never on the first war, right?”
“Of course, grandma,” the younger admiral, Lawson acknowledged.
“Did you know I wrote an autobiography?”
Of course, everyone knew about the autobiography of the elder admiral Lawson. As far as anyone was concerned, it was no copies of the book available in the exodus fleet.
The old woman turned to her left and took a key off the tiny desk in her tiny quarters. She shuffled unsteadily to a trunk. This was secured with a padlock. After several seconds working the lock, it opened in the hands of the old woman. She didn’t open the trunk and pull the book out from nearly the bottom of the outdated suitcase.
It was a copy of admiral Eva Lawson’s autobiography, published 10 years after the war. On the book jacket, with a smiling face of the young raven haired admiral.
“Thank you, grandma,” the younger admiral Lawson smiled and took the book.
Actually, she remembered, the book contain tactical analysis of several of the battle starting the first war they were fought by the elder Lawson. It had been required reading at the Academy. Some sections of it were actually required reading in the war College. There might actually be tactical value to this is the tactics, and not really change much does the first war.
Admiral Lawson hugged her grandmother and thanked her for the book.
“Just because I gave you that book don’t you stop visiting me, young lady. I still hold the rank of admiral and I’ve held it for 40 years longer than you have held it. Technically, I am your superior officer.”
Admiral, Eva Lawson, without a tear of sadness. The war was not going well. Would likely she would never get a chance to write her own autobiography. At least as commander this week. However, she will control her own destiny as best she could.
After she flew herself back to the Mercury, admiral, Lawson started scratching notes on the yellow legal pad. She wanted to change the deployment of the fleet she would be leading in the battle. Tucked under her arm was her grandmother’s autobiography.
She needed to find some time to read that book. As she recalled from her academy days itt was not exactly a page turner.
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