“This is the executive officer. Launch all vipers and Raptors. Standard patrol. Keep your heads on a swivel and don’t like the lack of Cylon contact make you lazy or sloppy.””
“Day 37 of our long range patrol. Three ships alone, looking for toasters and finding nothing. It is day 1115 of the second Cylon war. Though I must say it does not feel much like a war at all today. This is commander Charles, Emerson commander of the Fearless. Call sign Pirate. As the saying goes in the colonial fleet: the threat board is clear. We remain vigilant, ready for action.”
“The air wing reports some fragments, possibly this was the site of a battle. I’m aware of the history. We have no record of a battle here. Perhaps it was Adama’s fleet. The raptor squadron wants to know if they should grab a couple of samples.”
“Wartime protocol. Max EVA 120 seconds.”
“Air wing reports samples secure sirs.”
“Another ordinary day at the office eh XO?”
“I pray for this three times a day commander.”
“Contacts! Six base stars, modern, launching raiders. Firing missiles. Over 1000 raiders!”
XO: “They’re right on top of us!!!”
“All ships evasive crash turns. Fire up triple A. Have our birds orbit above and prepare for combat landings.”
“Point defense guns open fire on the raiders. Top guns, set up engagement zones.”
XO: “Make sure the air wing knows the engagement zones.”
“Missiles inbound, evasive port! Evasive port!”
“How are we going to get the air wing on the deck with fire this thick?” asked Commander Emerson.
“We have six more base stars just jumped in. This is a fracking staging area.”
“Yes XO they do seem surprised by us being here.”
5:26
“More missiles inbound. We are bracketed.”
“Crash turn starboard. Can we calculate an FTL jump out of here?” ordered commander Emerson.
“It going to be difficult with so many toasters jumping around. It fracks with the star fixes.”
“Fire a missile salvo at them!”
“Seven more base stars just jumped in. We have twenty eight base stars at this location!”
8:56
“That’s ten more base stars. I think we have over fifty.”
“We need to jump the frack out of here!”
14:37
“This is the commander. All birds combat landings. Right fracking now. Emergency jump. Jump the frack out of here before we get turned into metal confetti!”
* * *
Commander Charles Emerson was surprised when he was greeted by Admiral Ewa Lawson, at the door of the fleet secure operation center.
“Welcome Commander Emerson,” she said, shaking his hand. Though the fleet was small, under sixty warships, everyone who had been promoted to commander had met Admiral Lawson, Emerson’s stomach still contracted into an “Brass ball” as some described it when meeting Admiral’s and politicians.
“Do you prefer commander or ‘Pirate’? Lawson asked, guiding him gently by the shoulder into a theatre sized room.
“Commander Pirate is fine,” he mumbled. His eyes fixed on a giant Colonial fleet logo, hung on the ceiling of the room. This room was bigger than even the CIC of the Jupiter class battlestar.
“Don’t you think that is a bit formal?” Lawson chuckled as she guided him to a checkpoint, stopping at a table with coffee, tea, a variety of interesting fruit. The shapes and color were not anything Emerson recognized from back home. He concluded that this food probably originated from the 4 new Helios colonies, embedded and protected by the massive, ionized gas cloud.
Emerson was still awe struck as he made himself a large cup of coffee with plentiful amounts of sugar and creamer.
The sign at the checkpoint was freshly printed: “Welcome to C F O C (Colonial Fleet Operations Center, formerly Daidalos.”
The husky woman at the checkpoint looked at Emerson’s coffee with a “No food allowed in the C O F C” “ sign on the table in front of the metal detector. There was a basket for mobile phone’s which were already in use in parts of thew New Helios systems.
The marine started to gesture to the sign, the admiral noticed it, gave a head shake that she was waiving the rule for Commander Emerson. Behind the marine was a stack of locking pelican cases for side arms and personal weapons. The dour look on the Master-Sargent’s face made clear that waving the weapons rule would require approval from an officer.
Commander Charles “Pirate” Emerson had already unstrapped the holster from his belt, handing it to the experienced marine NCO.
The center of the operation center was a 3-D printed map showing the charted routes inside this nebula, which had four suns, which heated and supported life in the four solar systems that made up New Helios.
Computer generated output tracked the various Colonial fleet units deployed within the nebula. There was only 1 Mercury class battlestar, the Athena, and 1 Jupiter class, the Demeter, which was at this headquarters, performing its old function as the “mobile shipyard”. Demeter was getting a well earned refit.
There were a dozen officers on blue tooth headsets, in communication with the various ships on the Helios operations table. Admiral Lawson guided the commander of the Battlestar Fearless to an unmarked room. The door was marked “E. Lawson” It was intended as a place for the Commander in Chief Colonial Fleet C I N C C F, to rest and relax during long stretches in the Operations Center
Upon arriving 3 and a half months ago, Lawson had vowed to shoot herself in the head before spending any time actually sleeping in this room. Her reaction had been predicted in advance, the room had been renovated and surrounded by several meters of faraday screens.
The point was to keep all electronic signals of any kind inside.
There was a room the size of the commanders office on a Mercury class ship, with an analog map. It showed the entire patrol route of the Battlestar Fearless, and several other patrols.
Commander Ramirez greeted the admiral with a salute and Emerson with a smile. “Thanks very much Commander,” she began, “for getting us the location on the Cylons attack fleet. As you see, we are leading the Cylons into an ambush. Nobody outside this room knows where it is.”
Emerson spoke without thinking. “That squadron of Orion’s is going to be outnumbered if it attacks the fleet we ran into,” he observed.
“Yes,” Admiral Lawson agreed. “We plan another couple of weeks to lead them to a choke point. The nuclear ambush is planned for their supply fleet.
The map indicated a series of small solar systems. A large region thick with dust and astroids “Huge Canyon Way.” Admiral Lawson pulled a pointing device out of her pocket. A red dot moved around an enormous field of astroids and dust. It was several times larger than the red line jump on the Cylon FTL gear.
“The safe jump points through this region are so small, the Cylons will have to split their fleet into smaller task forces,” Commander Ramirez explained. “When they are stretched out nice and vulnerable, we have a surprise for them. The toasters unveiled a new weapon that when powered up creates a Null F T L field. We press the button when their massive task force is spread out into smaller chunks. We have the lions share of the nukes the Saturn led task force captured six months ago.”
“We were at least three new plotted jumps away from Huge Canyon,” Emerson remarked. “How are you going to get the toasters to fly into that choke point?”
“Two way’s for redundancy,” Major Jacob’s Battlestar Mercury XO explained as the four of them opened another door and walked down another hallway. “The first as we have fake transponders, installed in berserk and adamant class chips. These are the transponder signals of the Mercury, Saturn, the Solaria, and several of our Valkyrie class escorts.”
“They look helpless and juicy don’t they commander?” Admiral Lawson asked.
“Indeed they do Admiral. So the plan is to slam the door, nuke as many of them as you can and crush the task force that attacks the decoys.”
Lawson led the group to another unmarked door/
The four officers stopped at the end of the hallway. There were two Marines guarding a door no label on it. “This is our second means of feeding false information to the Cylons. You are about to meet toaster model number three.
We know her as the Lieutenant D’Beirs. She was on HG’s information technology team. She managed to leak or location to the toasters.
You are about to help us feed the information to her before we take her to a Cylon resurrection ship and shoot her in the head. Do you think she’s cooperating with us and she’s fooling us. She is actually participating in Operation Vulcan Forge.”
“The sales pitch is simple. That fleet transponders composed of Adamant’s and Bezerk’s are actually the main strike force we intend to hit them with. You just have to continue to interrogate herand demand information and once you’re sure you’re at a Cylon resurrection hub shoot her in the head. You don’t have a problem with that commander?” asked Major Jacobs.”
Commander. Emerson’s face looked angry. “Not one bit. No problem at all!”
The model number three Cylon, known locally as a skin job was handcuffed on both ankles and wrists to a chair. In addition she was wearing a heavy metal collar. “You have to believe me,” she said, “I did not know that I was a Cylon. I don’t want to die away from a resurrection hub. I will tell you everything that you want to know.”
Four officers left the room. Admiral Eva Lawson handed a folder to Commander Emerson. “These are the operational orders of the fake fleet. All you need to do is make her believe you care about her. We want her to think she has fooled us. She needs to know the operational plans by heart.“
“Then you give her an opening, a chance to kill herself when she sees your fleet is at resurrection hub. If she kills herself, will know she is sold. If that doesn’t work, you are authorized by the commander of colonial fleet to reboot this Cylon computer node with your service pistol. Do you understand commander, Emerson?”
“Yes, Admiral Lawson, I understand.”
Commander. Ramirez guided commanders head down, so she can whisper in his ear. “The trick here is to think of it as a computer node that needs to be rebooted and not the human it pretends to be.”