Commander Green
Commander Jesse Green felt the deck shutter slightly as somehow shockwave came through. He walked over to the long-range strategic map. Half the time display was dark, showing no information at all. He looked at the planet Picon,
It was a radiological alarm. That was a little unusual, even if nuclear weapons or mishandled they were highly likely to not explode.
Since they were nearby, computer telescopes used to assess the situation at the fleet HQ.
There was a sinking, angry feeling in Jesse Green’s stomach when he saw the display.
The disturbance had clearly come from a nuclear detonation. The display showed more flashes. You press the button to turn on Fleek communications, what are you always monitored.
Within five short minutes it was obvious that the fleas and colonies were under major attack.
The situation was obviously very grave getting worse by the minute.
The Cylon’s had come back.
With a solemn look on his face, Commander Green straightened his uniform and walked into the CIC.
“Set condition one throughout the ship,” he ordered. There’s been plenty of drills. The museum staff came to enjoy the drills.
They did not believe the ship would see action, however, the guests enjoyed the theater.
This was a little different. At full strength, the CIC would have 30 or 40 persons manning stations.
As the museum, there were five or six people there to maintain safety. They’ve all seen the flashes and heard the com traffic. After a short pause, someone presses the alarm button.
“Recall all craft, both working raptors on the deck. Power up sublight engines. Power up sublight engines. Join the fleet network. Power up FTL.”
“Commander Green sir,” or younger civilian technician spoke nervously. This ship cannot survive an FTL jump. We are not even sure if the pods will retract.”
“Well we better fix that,” Green replied. “We have to take the ship with it’s civilian crew and prepared to fight and rescue refugees of this war. We need to be able to jump to avoid Cylon forces long enough to connect with another colonial unit take on supplies and crew and get into this war.”
“Yes sir,” said the technician. For a moment he looked ready to salute.
“All stations report action stations ready. We have no ammunition, nor enough men to man the guns. Engines are really on your command.”
“All ahead full, full burn for 90 seconds. Then shut down exterior lighting, power down systems, make it look like we were draft a draft. We don’t want the cylon basestars paying us any attention.”
“Engines for power burning now.”
There was a terrible racket and the of sound metal crunching and grinding as the engines went to full power for the first time in 15 years. The museum was once again a moving battlestar.
In the background, Picon fleet headquarters was burning. Several basestars were launching or recovering raiders.
Further off in the distance, there was a swarm of basestars in low orbit. They were launching hundreds of nuclear missiles at the surface below. The chances that anyone would survive this assault or very low.
Soon the exterior lights of what was once the Battlestar solaria flickered and went off. After a few more seconds the engines powered off. The Jupiter class ship appeared to be drifting just like the parts of dozens of other ships that had been annihilated in the past few minutes.
A raptor and two vipers lined up behind the drifting ship. They flashed lights and began to approach the Solaria.
In CIC, Commander Jesse Green chuckled softly. A video feed was streaming showing the planes approaching the starboard landing deck.
“Well get her done,” he smiled. “It looks like we got ourselves an air wing.”