{"id":994,"date":"2019-11-29T00:54:18","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T00:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/?p=994"},"modified":"2023-02-16T09:47:20","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T09:47:20","slug":"chapter-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/?p=994","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 15: Command"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Burden of command<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she leaned back in a chair that was much too big for her,\nacting commander Eva Lawson ponder her fate. She was in command of a powerful\nwarship. She did not think of herself as a commander. In her own self image she\nwas still a pilot, a major in the colonial fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The back of her neck felt like it was on fire. Her hair was\nwound too tight behind her neck. She reached up reflexively and undid the tight\nknot. Naturally curly hair, short curls tumble down her back past shoulder\nlength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had expected to be going to Battlestar command school at\nthe end of her current tour a year from now. She had the study materials in her\nduffel bag. Now she stared at a computer monitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the monitor or simulated conflicts with with what the\nfleet thought was a cylon warship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A familiar face, admiral Samuel Mueller was narrating the\nvideo. It spoke about angles of attack and difficult maneuvers to get the main\nguns of the mercury aimed at the center axis of a Basestar.  Based on the video coming in from the\ncolonies, intelligence had not had a very good idea of how sleek and\nmaneuverable this new cylon ship had become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dozens of the ships had jumped into close orbit of all 12\ncolonies of man. Then enter in orbit. They had entered a low orbit and rained\nnuclear weapons down on the human cities below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to successful combat according to the admiral was\nconstant maneuver. Making on self a difficult target limited damage from\ncounter fire. If the damage became too great the mercury class chef could always\njump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She picked up a mile of the mercury sitting on the table in\nthe office that was line of books lined with books, and pictures of various\nadventures taken while on shore leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This office was a man cave and it made her uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a light knock, a tapping sound on the outer door\nto the office. In the office was an anti-weapons case and several other signs\nof a colorful career. \u201cCome,\u201d she ordered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lieutenant was covered with oil spots and dust. She had\nforced her curvy body into some tight spaces to pull out computer modules and\nstorage devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCommander,\u201d Maria Ramirez stood stiffly in front of the\ndesk. Commander Lawson did not even get up. \u201cYou know all that even halfway\nthrough removing the virus from our air wing. That doesn\u2019t even mention what is\ngoing to take to eradicate it on the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can supervise this process in your new role as my\nexecutive officer,\u201d face Lawson studied the face of her new XO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What she got was shock, awe and the look of puzzlement. \u201cSir,\u201d\nshe said urgently, you know they were at least four squadron commanders on this\nyear with the rank of captain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commander Lawson folded her fingers into a tent and rocked\nin the oversized office chair. \u201cDo you want to know why Major Ramirez?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being addressed in this way caused her to stutter slightly\nand look behind her for another more deserving officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHalf of the air wing is dead or injured. The last thing I\nneed right now is to take a squadron commander away from his pilots. You are a\nreliable officer discovered the cylon hack. I need someone reliable to help me\nlearn how to operate the ship. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a control stick anywhere\nin the CIC.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI went to Officer school so that I could have the rec\nnecessary to running network on the Battlestar. I did not sign up for a suicide\nmission. Surely there are more qualified people on the ship to be our executive\nofficer!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI trust you,\u201d major Maria Ramirez. You are a hard worker\nand you will grow into the job just like I will.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to take four days to repair this ship. We need\nmore fuel supplies, ammunition and basic raw material.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI heard of the wireless that we are picking up stragglers. A\nfew raptors staffed with officers. There may be pilots out there we can rescue\nand put to work on the ship. But I am a basic question for you commander\nawesome, what is your strategy? What are we going to do with a single warship\nup against hundreds?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eva Lawson have been thinking about this question for hours.\nShe did not have an answer to this question and she needed one to motivate a\ncrew that was going to have bad morale because of the loss of their families. Then\nit hit her. The answer was in an animal you are video. Maneuver. Appear where\none was unexpected and weak. Get those mean guns focused for a few seconds on\nthe center axis of a basestar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst,\u201d the commander spoke with confidence, \u201cwe need recon. We need to know the military situation in the colonies and we need to rescue any officers we can they can join us in this fight. Send the captains in from the squadron we need to pick a CAG. What we are going to do is hit them in many places. We\u2019re going to give the impression we have 10 battle stars. Catch the thing is we\u2019re going to need ammunition, fuel and a lot of luck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we really need here is another Battlestar too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell major what does signals intelligence tell us about the possibility of finding another Battlestar?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only Battlestar\u2019s we know that are missing is the Galactica, possibly the Pegasus. The problem is the Galactica was nuked and we haven\u2019t heard from her since.  We have pretty clean footage of the Pegasus taking one or two nukes in Scorpia shipyards. We don\u2019t have a disaster beacon on either of those two ships. We have 95 disaster beacons confirmed. The second Cylon war has been lost.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell XO that is a downer.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Burden of command As she leaned back in a chair that was much too big for her, acting commander Eva Lawson ponder her fate. She was in command of a powerful warship. She did not think of herself as a commander. In her own self image she was still a pilot, a major in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-994","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\/994","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=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5062,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions\/5062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battlestarmercury.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}