Soon after the fall of “The settlement”
CIC Mercury
Book flashback.
“Last turn coming up, Admiral.” Captain Stanley “Wheelchair” Jacobs reported. HE had been pulled out of his viper cockpit, kicking and screaming for this temporary duty as the XO.
“This is the admiral,” admiral, Lawson, said into her headset microphone. “Marine commander, standby for immediate launch.”
“This is the XO! Standby. All air wing fighters for immediate launch. Remember radiation is just as bad at Ragnar as you remember. Full safety protocols in force. We want no one left behind here.”
The Ragnar Anchorage, or, as it was known during the first war, Daidolus was sitting in the middle of a large radiation field that was deadly to even mechanical Cylon centurions from the first war. The colonial fleet had never develop the technology needed to jump inside the Anchorage. It was necessary to navigate a very narrow passage through the radiation.
“This soup is as thick as I remember it but my early days back when I was a smart assed lieutenant junior grade.” Jacobs reminisced.
“Marines are launched and on their way to the station.”
He stretched out his arm stiffly, trying to hide the condition that would some day cost him his flight status. He had been diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disease. It would not kill him, but rather would subtly and slowly make his quality of life very difficult. A pilot, his entire career, Stanley Jacobs was now the temporary executive officer of the Battlestar Mercury. Diagnosed by a private doctor, he had managed to hide this condition from military doctors.
The only reason he endured the humiliation of losing his flight status. Once they gave him the opportunity to serve the woman who had secretly admired and loved for over 20 years. He had never expressed it. Having served with her about 1/3 of his career, I’ve never taken advantage of the relationship. It was the man who is the designated non-drinker, who would make sure that the drunken pilots would get out of the current shore leave escapade.
Captain Jacobs pressed his right hand, which was shaking on his headset controls. He paused as he listen to the other end of the conversation.
“Launch, marine, reconnaissance, task force,” ordered Admiral, Lawson.
“This is an awful lot of combat power to deploy in one mission,” speculated, Captain Jacobs.
“Well, at the very least, we can fill up our magazines with ammunition. That does assume that the toasters don’t have a big surprise waiting for us when we dock.”
Flashback: Immediately after escaping from the New Colonies.
“Well folks, we have a problem. We are making a run for it. We have all the raw materials we need to produce a Valkyrie or two every month and make fleet repairs. We have salvaged a lot of the hardware from the first mobile shipyard. You are the smartest people available from what is left of our worlds. How about a creative solution. We already have a repair list that will take us a year to fulfill. How are we going to take care of this issue?”
The look on Admiral Lawson’s face was demanding. She had no good ideas herself and had arranged this in person meeting to brain storm.
“There is always Ragnar?” one officer quipped.
“Yeah that is going to be fun, fighting our way through the toasters to go back to Ragnar Anchorage. Then we navigate in there and hope the Cylons don’t set up a blockade and starve us out.”
The room erupted with laughter. “Ragnar is Daidolus, that is older than the Solaria and Galactica.”
“At least we know its there. We had the navigational data from that destroyed ship we found.”
There was more laughter and cat calls.
“That bucket of bolts will shake itself apart when we try and tow it out of its current location.”
“All right,” Admiral Lawson snapped, “We know the problems. We need all 5 heavy battlestars to tow the shipyard out. We are here to solve problems. We need to install a battlestar grade FTL drive into the frakking thing.”
“We have the FTL drive from the last shipyard. It was fifty years old and the red line was pathetic. How do we solve that problem?” she challenged.
“We stop using 50 year old hand me down FTL drives and we take what we need from the toasters.”
“Great idea, the thing would give away our jump destination BEFORE we jump.”
“Where would we get the technology?” asked a white haired man in the middle of the crowd.
People began to clap and shout remarks. Military discipline was lacking.
Two weeks later.
“This is operation Road Trip, Admiral Lawson announced. Every ship that can jump is in on it.”
She put the presentation up on the monitor.
“We need all five heavy battlestars to tow the station out of there. A task force of 4 Valkyrie support battlestars is assigned to keep the entrance into Ragnar clear. We are making feints on five large Cylon parts depots. If the marine strike teams finds they are not defended, they go in and take the location.”
“After we take the parts depots, we will jump the Solaria to the correct location to pick up the FTL drives.”
“Admiral Sir, why do we need to use the Solaria?”
Admiral Lawson clicked her mouse. It showed an animation which showed the FTL drives were stacked and stored in the flight pod. These parts were quite bulky. “Any other questions?”
“Where is the civilian fleet going to be while we are off on this adventure? Or is heist a better description?” Cory Brooks walked into the theatre room and addressed Admiral Lawson as she strode confidently into the room.
“The civilian fleet will be at a secure location, guarded by six warships.”
“Define secure location Admiral Lawson.” The leader of the Peoples Council demanded.
“A location where the Cylons would be too busy to discover, with the standard set of emergency jump locations.” Admiral Lawson looked angry, suspecting that one of her officers had leaked the location and agenda of this meeting.
“So this is about our survival, not an elaborate operation to get Admiral Lawson a new toy?” Brooks asked.
There were a few unkind murmurs in the crowded room. Cory Brooks would not win re-election if it were up to the persons in this room.
Mercury CIC
“This is marine strike team alpha. We have taken the facility. There is power and plenty of ammunition here. Hoo Rah”
“As you have heard, the Marines are reporting they have taken the station. There was no resistance.” Jacobs reported.
“I have to believe that the Cylons are going to at some point detect this intrusion and try and stop us.” Admiral Lawson spoke softly with Captain Jacobs leaning in to hear her.
“We are keeping the Cylons pretty busy with your other attacks, but the intelligence weenies are certain that there would be resistance.” Jacobs replied.
“Contact, looks like two dozen Cylon ships. These readings are all over the place. I think they are launching raiders.”
“Launch all squadrons.”
“I’m still not certain all this FTL gear we recovered from the first mobile shipyard can handle anything this big.” Captain Jacobs opined.
“Then of course there is the fact that this shipyard is fifty years old and may break apart the first time we try to jump it. Thats why we are trying to boost some Cylon FTL gear.” Admiral Lawson absently ran a hand through her hair.
“This also assumes she doesn’t break apart when we try and tow her out of her current resting place.” Captain Jacobs added to the sense of impending doom in the CIC.
“Lets just get on with it shall we?” Admiral Lawson started to frown as she saw the sensor readings jump wildly.
10:21
“DRADIS is pretty much useless in this soup Sir. All five battlestars report a motley crew of first war misfits.” Captain Jacobs referred and gestured toward a tactical display, which most of the time just showed snow.
“Lets crush them and get ourselves set up for salvage and towing operations. When its safe send a raptor to the exit to make contact with our Valkyrie escort. We might have a place to jump the Solaria so we can use her as a pickup truck and get some modern FTL technology into this beast and jump the frak out of here.” Admiral Lawson replied.
“Classic base star and escorts is attacking the Athena and Saturn. Missiles from several ships, not doing a lot of damage. Scraping the paint a bit.”
“This is Athena, we are taking moderate fire.”
“Classic base star Athena and Saturn are rolling them up. Significant firepower advantage for our side.”
“My concern is that this technology will have Cylon exploits in it, and they will be able to use this shipyard to track our exact location. I am also concerned about the levels of radiation in this area and the long-term impact on our ships and people.” Jacobs warned.
“Hell, this overgrown supply depot may have thousands of Cylon trackers built into it. We’re just going to have to go over the technology and this station with a fine tooth comb and make sure they can’t follow us.”
“This is Playboy. Lots of Raiders out there. They’re not communicating and coordinating very well. I think the radiation is already getting to them.”
“The Acropolis is taking some heavy fire. Guns and a rogue squadron of raiders.”
“Yippie! We got a ton of Raiders inbound?”
“This is Playboy. All nearby players concentrate on the slow carrier. For fracks sake stay organized. We are not a Tauron organized crime family!” This kind of remark before the war would get a pilot, or any member of the military in deep trouble. This kind of racism was not tolerated before the war. Now the pilots were in demand, Playboy could get away with it. It did not however go unanswered.
“What the frack Playboy? The Admiral was born on Tauron you know!” Lawson smiled thinking she recognized the pilot who was either angry or kissing the Admiral’s ass.
“Hey there is a whole salvo of missiles headed for the Saturn. Vipers intercept immediately!”
“Missile salvo heading for the Acropolis topside. Pink Squadron move to intercept!”
“Scratch another first war base ship!”
“Concentrating fire on the slow carrier. Forward guns have a solution. Switching to salvo mode!”
“Athena, taking fire bottom. Armor is holding up!”
“All right recover our birds. Solaria is going to go pick up our new FTL drives, if we have successfully taken them from the Cylons. Set up a CAP. After we take care of damage control we are going to start running towing simulations.”