Twenty minutes later Commander Eva Lawson strode in to the command ready room. She was showered and her uniform was perfectly pressed straight from the cleaners. There was a spring to her step and she was ready for the first big operation in three weeks. It was well planned and would be a devastating surprise after three weeks of launching pin prick assault raptor attacks. Half of those micro-operations were aborted due to the presence of large, defensive Cylon forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Waiting in the planning room was Major Maria Ramirez, looking haggard as if she had stayed up all night. That was because she had, dealing with getting the starboard flight pod operational with a skeleton crew. Nobody wanted to transfer to starboard from the port pod, those that were forced were unhappy about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bottom line was that todays operation called for a fast viper launch after a combat jump and the starboard pod deck crew needed to get its act together. Two dozen civilians with no military experience had been drafted due to having experience as civilian flight mechanics. They were very unhappy having to work for their billets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou look like a raptor landed on you XO,\u201d Lawson commented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou look like you got laid last night,\u201d came the tart reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDon\u2019t I have any fracking privacy?\u201d the commander replied tersely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf I learned one thing from working for Martha Rogers it was she knew everything about Admiral Mueller. She knew every detail of his day and knew who he was fracking on the side behind his wife\u2019s back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYour point in discussing this Maria?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are no secrets on a battlestar. You showed good judgement bedding a civilian. We are going to do as thorough a background check on Brother John as we can under the circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not some cheap whore,\u201d Lawson blustered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPermission to speak freely and off the record?\u201d She left off the Sir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo now you ask permission? Granted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSir you are here today alive and commanding this ship because you are a slut.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lawson started to speak but was stopped by her XO\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not judging. You like sex. I LOVE it myself. You were assigned to this ship and survived the destruction of humanity due to a chain of events that included getting drunk and sleeping with Admiral Nagama\u2019s son. It is divine providence, the plan of the gods. Just understand we are going to keep an eye on him and anyone else that sleeps in your quarters. It is important to our relationship that you know what you can hide and what you can\u2019t. Though unrelated you making me XO has had a substantial negative impact on my pretty darned good sex life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMessage received. Do you know how we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo. There are no security cameras in your quarters. I had them removed two weeks ago. Next agenda item. Our very unhappy former CAG Captain Adkins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRoger that,\u201d Lawson opened a leather folder and began reading the mans jacket. An NCO walked into the room pushing a breakfast cart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOoo! Coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Captain Brad \u201cReptile\u201d Adkins wore a shoulder cast and walked with difficulty. His viper had taken a near direct hit in the big fuel operation. His ejection system had triggered, thrusting him into solid debris from his own viper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He knew he was lucky to be alive. He knew he could not fly a viper right now. He just did not want to get stuck babysitting two thousand whining civilians. A tall man he stood over 180 centimeters and had unkempt blond hair, curly and a bit too long for regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He walked into the commander\u2019s ready room and was shocked at how together the Commander looked. Every detail of you appearance was precisely up to date. She turned from Major Ramirez who took a clipboard from the commander after she signed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo you don\u2019t like your next assignment Reptile?\u201d she asked referring to him by his call sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m a pilot,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to get stuck on that oversized barge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat barge took out a Cylon base star with less than a five percent crew,\u201d Commander Lawson interrupted and stood shoulders squared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a battlestar Sir,\u201d Adkins replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is, and we are lucky we can house our civilians on a ship that can protect them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCommander even with the transfer\u2019s we have a ship meant to be crewed by 5000 being run by 150 Colonial officers and about 500 civilians drafted against their will. They\u2019ve lost everything and now we are making them join the military. They are not cohesive and there is very little chance they are going to wake up one morning and suddenly function like a team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYour job is to motivate them. To mold them into a crew.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCommander Lawson,\u201d he retorted. \u201cI don\u2019t want to command a battlestar I never did. I like flying Sir. Please send someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe only officer\u2019s with the rank and experience to take this assignment are in the air wing. We are down 50% and we can not afford to promote another squadron commander.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want the rank or the hassle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell,\u201d Lawson put a finger on her forehead for no particular reason. \u201cIt\u2019s a temporary assignment so you can do it without rank. I\u2019m sorry you were wounded, but I\u2019m glad you survived. We all have to make sacrifices. You have to deal with a couple of thousand civilians and hope they don\u2019t break anything as they have free run of the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adkins looked down, staring at his feet. He took a deep breath and looked up. \u201cI get the air wing back when I return? They really need me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs it stands now I would be inclined to put you back as CAG. I can\u2019t promise that three months into the future. I need you to do this Reptile. I\u2019d send Ramirez but we have things working pretty good here for a computer geek.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adkin\u2019s sighed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDismissed,\u201d Lawson said softly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twenty minutes later Commander Eva Lawson strode in to the command ready room. She was showered and her uniform was perfectly pressed straight from the cleaners. There was a spring to her step and she was ready for the first big operation in three weeks. It was well planned and would be a devastating surprise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-1065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book1","tag-book1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4646,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions\/4646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}