Chapter 60: The Cylon \u201cPeace\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The day after she was promoted to Admiral Commander Lawson, rather Admiral Lawson was greeted with a wireless call in her office on the Mercury. The buzzing was annoying so she answered it immediately.It was her executive officer Major Simmons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Do you have a conference call with Commander Ramirez and Admiral Cobb. Corey Brooks is also on the conference call.” He reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Who is it?” She asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s audio only but he says his brother cavil a model number one humanoid Cylon. Everyone is waiting for you to join the call.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Don’t let me slow you down put\nthem on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Them sir?” He asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“A little Cylon joke,” she smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have an announcement for you\nhumans. We have decided that the attack on the colonies was a\nmistake. We lowered ourselves to the level of humans and committed\natrocities. We are going to leave the colonies now. They are yours to\ninhabit again no harm no foul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Corey Brooks answered him, “No harm no foul? You exterminated billions and left our worlds to be irradiated for hundreds of thousands of years. You’re just calling that even?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
” Funny that’s what Adama and said when we told him. President Roslyn promoted him to Admiral weeks before you got your new job. Funny. I think he’s your senior officer now by a few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Are you in contact with him can\nyou take a message to them?” Asked Cory Brooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Well we’ve temporary lost track of them. They’ll probably do something self-destructive and put us back on the trail. We’d rather not they join forces with you. Five Mercury class vessels and 2 Jupiter battle stars is a little bit too much firepower for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Good try,” Ramirez said\nsoftly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnyway,” the model number one\ncontinued. “Just a some political crisis for you Baltar has been\nelected president of the colonies. You see they don’t know you exist.\nDo you think he’s going to be very helpful to us as your peoples\nleader?\u201d he asked. “I do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Well thank you for nothing,”\nAdmiral Lawson remarked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Please let us finish,” the\nhumanoid model continued. “There was a rebellion on all 12 of\nthe colonies. They no longer have us to fight. They also no longer\nhave access to anti-radiation medication. There were about 30,000 of\nthem are all 12 colonies. Are you going to let them die a horrible\ndeath of radiation poisoning? Or you could surprise us and rescue\nyour fellow humans.\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Why did you tell us this?\u201d\nasked Brooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Well we’re not as bad as humans\nwe can’t just leave them to be slowly killed. We prefer killing\npeople quickly with nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were some interference at some\ngrumbling on the human side of the conference call. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You should be careful we’ve lost track of some of our brothers in some relics from the first war with the humans. I now declare that the second war between the Cylon and human is over. Good luck and safe travels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Admiral Lawson,” the executive of the People’s Council ordered. I would like you to send recon into the colonies and validate this models words. We will prepare rescue missions as soon as you let us know it safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The intel did not look very good. It\nwould take ten jumps to get the refugees from their home colony to an\nassembly point where they could be transferred to other ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a convention of obsolete\nCylon ships jumping from place to place, looking for a fight. This\nwas peace, Cylon style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Admiral Lawson walked up to the lectern\nin the pilot ready room of the Athena. She had reluctantly given her\nXO command of the Athena. Crews were pretty thin and they were\npulling pilots out of training to put them to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though this was the pilots ready room,\nthere were several knuckle draggers present. This was acknowledgment\nof the important role that would be played by the maintenance team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDuring the first Cylon war, they\ncalled this the Anabasis run. Ten jumps to get refugees from outlying\noutposts back to Caprica. This time we will be taking them from the\nColonies to our new homes. It will take 10 jumps and it will be\nhard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Cylons left a large number of\nolder ships and Cylons behind, with the intention of making us spend\nresources of blood and treasure to recover these people. The average\nrun could bring us 15,000 refugees. These people have fought the\nCylons for nearly a year. A lot of them will be available for us to\ncrew some more ships and strengthen our defenses for when the war\nresumes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese people are running low on\nradiation meds. They need our help. We are going to do our best for\nthem and minimize our losses. It will be approximately one jump per\nday. We may have to keep this up for twenty or perhaps 30 days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYour are going to be exhausted. You will need to do more than your best. We have 318,000 souls under your protection. If we increase that a lot, we will get stronger. Any questions?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf the Cylons left the Colonies, why\ncan’t we just move back in?\u201d An orange suited viper maintenance\ntechnician asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe radiation from all those nukes\nhas left the twelve colonies uninhabitable,\u201d Ramirez took the\nquestion. \u201cIt may be a hundred thousand years or more before these\nworlds can be safe. They may never be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is going to be one jump per day.\nYou need to keep the freighters and the Celestra’s safe. You will be\ndrawing your supplies off one and parts needed for repairs off the\nother,\u201d Lawson said forcefully. \u201cJump off tomorrow 0600 hours.\nLets do this!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A chorus of \u201cSo say we all\u201d echoed\nthrough the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rose Carey was a level 6 maintenance\ntechnician, who had mustered out of the Colonial fleet two weeks\nbefore the attacks on the Colonies. She was on a cruise ship with her\nfiancee when it was damaged during the initial assault on Gemenon.\nThe ship managed with the help of herself and a dozen other former\nColonial Fleet veterans to make emergency repairs and reach a muster\npoint set up for refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After three months in a refugee camp,\nmoving twice she was more than happy to get into the service. She\nserved several months on a Valkyrie, before being promoted and sent\nto the Mercury. She was made an assistant deck chief there and\ntransferred to the Saturn when it was commissioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was bitter, her fiancee had been killed several weeks back and was glad to have a place to sleep and get three meals a day. Sleep was often forgotten during the high operational tempo that was maintained for months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She got up the morning of the first\njump back from Tauron and was very pleased. There was only light\ndamage to a couple of vipers. The enemy force sent to stop them was\nnot very strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She made a note in her diary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Day 310 of the second war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Easy day. Ten planes damaged, not big\ndeal. If this is all the Cylons can bring we are going to be okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bruce Jenkins was a 24 year old viper\npilot, having graduated from the VR school on the Saturn and doing\nactual flight training on an old Artemis class battlestar. He was\nassigned to the Saturn and then promoted to Lieutenant and assigned\nto help new pilots assimilate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On his first mission of the Anabasis run, he had intercepted some inbound ordinance and assisted on a kill in his Mark seven viper. It was a pretty good day. He did not keep a diary, but he made sure to give Rose Carey a high five as she checked his viper. \u201cNice one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n