Chapter 16: Commanders log

Battlestar Commanders log: day four of the second cylon war. Commander Jesse green recording.

We have picked up over 400 souls as we stealthily move about the battle wreckage

Of what was once the colonial fleet. Where there was once 120 battle stars there are now fewer than two. We may be the last Battlestar.

We have a new executive officer a colonel John Williams. He happened to be on leave on the cylons attacked. We picked him up in a small pleasure craft in orbit of one of Caprica’s moons.

He adds a measure of military discipline that we did not have before. As is the case on most ships the executive officer is not the most liked person aboard ship.

John thinks I’m an old fart and he’s right. I am years behind in Battlestar tactics. The ship is barely holding together. We have conducted several FTL drills.

Due to the limitations of the Jupiter class faster than light drive it is necessary to track the flight pods prior to making a jump. This has been problematic as the mechanical mechanisms that retract these pods suffered from years of no maintenance.

The entire ship shakes and there is a racket that lowers morale instantly when we run these drills. We need someone that can lovingly maintain these 50-year-old systems.

The civilians are doing the best they can under the circumstances. Their homes are smoking ruins. Their families are likely dead. The lucky ones escaped in civilian spacecraft that are probably being hunted down brutally by the cylons.

We have picked up some signals intelligence and use that for raptors to gather further intelligence. A large civilian fleet of over 100 ships was assembled and attacked by the silence the first day of the war. We have several seconds of footage from a small ship that escaped the attack. It shows ships with faster than light capability jumping away and ships without that capability being slaughtered by the silence.

What is obvious is the robots that once rebelled and made war on us their creators have decided to commit genocide. Apparently no human is going to be allowed to live. Therefore we have no choice but to fight even if that makes our death more painful.

Signals intelligence also tells us of a battle that occurred near Ragnar Anchorage. This is known to be an ammunition storage facility. Apparently some colonial ship attempted to pick up supplies there in order to fight the war.

We are considering a visit ourselves but it is all the way across the star system. To get there we will have to jump the ship. I am waiting in my office for a report from a raptor crew that I dispatched to do recon at Ragnar.

There was a knock at the door. Commander Green ran a hand through his snow white beard. “Come,” He answered.

A skinny, nervous lieutenant junior grade walked through the door and saluted.

“Enough of that son,” Green waved his hand did not return the salute. “What did you see?”

“We saw definite evidence that the Battlestar Galactica survived the initial attack on the colonies. They apparently went to Ragnar Anchorage, Took out supplies and then fought the Cylon when they attempted to leave the facility.”

The lieutenant opened a bag that was draped on his shoulder. He took out a piece of metal with the name Galactica painted onto it. “this is wreckage from a viper, Mark II that was destroyed in the battle of Ragnar. There were hundreds of Cylon Raiders destroyed at that battle.

“We took a little EVA and brought back some samples. There appear to be scorched pieces that came from the hull of the Galactica. Our indicates there’s not enough debris and at the Battlestar escaped.”

“Well good job son,” Commander Green complemented. “As far as I can tell the anchorage contained more ammunition than a single Battlestar can load. Although it may seem insane we need to consider going there to get more ammunition. We are desperately low on ammunition. We have one shipment that was being offloaded from the Galactica. We can fight approximately two battles with it.”

“One more thing sir,” the lieutenant reported. “There used to be a fighter base at the edge of the system of an astroid. “We picked up an encrypted message from her that one of the waypoints we stopped at on the way back here. It’s authentic they say they’ve survived the Cylon attack. The war book says they had a squadron of vipers and possibly two dozen Raptors. We could build quite an air wing off that sir.”

Commander Jesse Green slammed on his phone and fumbled with it for several seconds. “Get Colonel Williams in here right now. I won’t force recon headed to the astroid before I can say get her done.”