Book 4 Prophecy: Chapter 3 Task Force Demeter

“Air wing is away. Fleet is reporting ready in 25 seconds for a fast spool quick jump,” Major Evans reported from DRADIS.

“This is Toddler, air wing is formed up, requesting combat landings. You gotta love this Cylon FTL gear.”

“Contact, three small ones. Hard to detect this far out. My guess is a couple of Nemesis class, they are going to hang back and try and slam a straggler with a heavy missile volley. We rate this 1.5 on a ten point quality scale.” Reported the CIC flight officer.

“Combat landings are authorized, Get the birds on the deck. Double check the jump coordinates and ring up jump thirteen.”

The Commander noted that an enormous amount of fuel was being expended in an effort to not give away the location of New Helios. It was a concern for the future, not today.

“FTL spooled, all ships show ready.” Major Evan’s re ported.

“Fire missile salvo number 1.” Commander Evans ordered.

“Black squadron this is catbird break, right let’s take care of those vampires!”

“This is Athena. Actual launch missile Salvo number two.”

“This is Pony commander air group. All squadrons move to your defensive asignment , intercept positions, Missiles first then prepare for inbound fighters!”

“This is tool. Port defense turrets target inbound raiders. Demeter you should have an excellent firing solution with your Point Defense Turrets as well.”

“Pony to all players. Set up on me and prepare to slam these modern Raiders.”

“We are directing heavy fire at the base stars.”

“Demeter port pod, taking weapons fire. Armor is holding up.”

“This is Athena actual. Maintain PCM firing rate we’re taking down a lot of missiles”

“Athena actual. Crash turn starboard, flack, left now, execute execute execute.”

“Valkyrie squadron maintain firing rate topside bias. Prepare missile Salvo.”

“Base star, number one just took a heavy Salvo. We may be detecting his FTL spooling up. He may be getting ready to jump out of here!”

“Athena just took a missile hit center bow. No internal damage armor is still solid.”

“Athena. Pony. More vampires and we can count we’re doing our best here!”

“Athena actual to Pony. Appreciated. We are winning.”

“Valkyrie squadron. This is Tool. Your engagement zone is effective. Maintain your current zone.”

“Athena this is Playboy. Commander air group from the Mercury is that you?”

“Comms. Priority. Comms boost that signal. Maximum gain on our transmission! Playboy this is Athena actual is that you? Report status!”

“Athena, this is Playboy. Base ships had to jump. Mercury, Saturn, Solaria mission failure. Emergency jump, executed! Many players left behind. Request, priority, routing we’ve got bent birds, hurt and tired pilots. We need to land some birds immediately!!!”

“This is Athena actual! Priority landing status to all birds with transponders from task force mercury. Air wing protect them. They’ve been out here for almost a day. Bring those birds into the barn high priority! ”

“Pony to all players. Priority bring in birds with task force mercury transponders we will protect their six. Gun engagement zones, IFF check. Do not target task force Mercury transponders. Head for all four landing decks of the Athena. Deck gangs be ready to take damaged birds! Medical team standby for injured pilots. We have a lot of bent birds coming on all four decks! Pony Commander air group acknowledge!”

“Athena. Actual. Those are my orders. Take all weapons off auto fire until those birds are on the deck. Playboy acknowledge. Make best possible speed for landing decks. All lights green. We’ve got your transponders programmed in. Athena actual to all ships all players no mistakes here bring those birds into the barn!”

“Playboy to Athena. Acknowledging your orders. Prepare for 100 plus bent birds and hurt pilots approaching all four landing decks. All birds form up on me we’re going home!”

“Amelia, he’s going to want to stay with his pilots and take care of his squadron. We need Playboy up here in CIC for an immediate intelligence briefing. Send a couple Marines if you have to we have got to know what happened to Mercury Saturn and Solaria. This needs to be handled with sensitivity. It requires your touch Amelia.”

“Steven. Our Marines, know exactly what to do. I’ve trained them well, please focus on the task force for now I will get you the intelligence you need. Playboy has been in the cockpit for 20 straight hours. I’ll bring him up here as quickly as I can.”

Major Amelia Evans waved her hand to one of the Marines guarding the glass doors that were the entrance to CIC

The tall, husky marine leaned down as she whispered in his ear. She spoke to him for several seconds and made him acknowledge her instructions. The marine brought a microphone to his lips and spoke his orders in a whispered tone.

The ships executive officer smiled up at the Marine, who stood straighter and turned back to watching the hallways for borders.

Commander Steven Evans was about to speak when he realized that his wife, the executive officer had handled the situation exactly as needed. Both of them were are needed in CIC to continue directing the battle. He thanked the gods, that she knew exactly how to interpret his desires, and how it improve the command and efficiency of the ship.

“This is Pony. All Mercury task force birds are on the deck. All players prepare to re-engage the Cylon missiles and raiders.”

“Demeter just took a barrage front and starboard flight pod.”

“Scratch a modern base star!”

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“This is Athena XO to Demeter. We have lost the wireless damage control stream. Can you switch the feed to a backup channel?”

“Pony. Commander Air Group. Taking down large missile salvo.”

“Task Force. This is Athena. Crash turn to port. Prepare to switch flak and open fire on the new firing solution.”

“This is Athena actual. Switch forward batteries to salvo mode. Bull doze the base star dead ahead.”

“This is Pony. We have them on the run. Bring it home. Concentrate fire in section 45.”

“Base Star scratch it!”

“This is see CIC Battlestar Apollo. We have an optimal firing solution on another Base star. We are breaking, left and taking the target. She won’t last long.”

“This is squadron Valkyrie. Mine some help Apollo?”

“Not at all. Join the party!”

Captain, Kenneth Barnes, callsign, Playboy was flanked by two bulky marines, one male, one female. He looked extremely unhappy being where he was. His flight suit was dirty, his forehead literally drenched.

He knew that he had landed on the battle star Athena but he was a little unsure of who was in command of the task force. Suddenly a look of questioning past over his face. Commander Evans turned to him, and took a few steps into the hallway and spoke softly with him.

“Playboy, Captain Barnes, we need the latest intelligence on the position of Mercury, Solaria, and Saturn. We have to know where to continue the search.”

“After we finished with the first fleet, a second feet jumped in immediately with fresh nukes. We were not able to contact the two Orion’s that were tasked to jam the FTL signal of the Cylons. Suddenly, the task force was trapped. I heard on the wireless that there was 15 minutes at full burn STL in order to get to a point where we could jump away from the toasters. Some of the air wing had returned to base. I was tasked with the mission of making contact with the Orion’s need be with destroying them in order to allow the fleet to jump.”

“It was a desperate fight. Both Orions were found in tact, emitting the jamming signal. Both ships were found to be completely hacked by the toasters. It took 15 minutes but I took the shot myself to destroy the second one. Then we received a signal from Mercury that they were conducting an emergency jump. They indicated that rescue forces will be sent back to pick up the stragglers. Then we heard nothing.”

“Are you telling me there’s been no signal from any of those three battlestars?”

“We have heard nothing. We are the rescue force. You were under the impression that they would refuel, rearm, repair their vipers, and jump back and pick you up?”

“It was very confusing. There was a lot of difficulty in communications. That was, however, the general expectation.”

As a level of combat wound down, Commander Evans started pacing around the CIC. He was jabbing his fingers into his tablet, computer.

The executive officer, Major Evans did not need the screen mirroring from the commanders tablet to her own, to know what he was thinking.

The first priority would be to pick up every single piece of useful debris in this battle zone. They should concentrate on the items that were larger or might have computer storage in them.

She saw that Playboy had already begun collecting some of this debris as part of standard mission protocol. They have managed to pick up black boxes from two of the destroyed Valkyrie class, battle stars.

She quickly created a database and consolidated the data on all the parts that have been collected into a central, shareable database. All ship commanders would be able to participate in this urgent task.

Either way it was a dangerous place to stay. She knew they needed to conduct a search with as many birds as possible and collect as much as they could before the Cylons tried the same thing.

They had brought a trio of Celestra class ships to carry supplies and also to speed up the collection of useful data. She clicked out orders for a raptor to jump back to the staging area and return with the three freighters.

Having accurately read her husband’s mind, the executive officer, prepared a 3 hour search plan. She had already collected data showing that the Cylons were jumping into the space area every 3 or 4 hours with a search pattern.

There was no question that fighting another battle it on the site was suicide for the fleet. It had to be avoided. She sent the plan outline to the commander, whose eyes widened as he stared at his tablet. He looked at the summary and smiled and nodded, giving his non-verbal approval.

Two hours and 45 minutes after the start of the search operation, Commander Steven Evans, reluctantly recalled all the search craft.

Then he ordered the first of five FTL jumps. From there, they would follow the evidence wherever it led.

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