[Adster94]

I was originally going to be submitting this in the short story competition, but now that it has been cancelled I might as well just post it here. Whilst it may not be the best work ever, I still wanted to share it with you all.

Fight or Flight:

The lighting had been dimmed, only the mere glow of the emergency lights and the monitors lit the compact, advanced command centre. Thomas looked up at his Executive Officer, Sarah Taylor, and nervously asked a question he already knew the answer to.

Thomas made a small gasp, “How long will our Tylium last with the lights out?” Whilst he lay his head into his hands, knowing the answer wasn't going to be good.

“Engineering says we have gained an additional... 2 hours…” she said reservedly.

“Right, we need to come up with another plan,” Thomas turned and faced his Dradis officer, “Lieutenant, bring up a map of all nearby Tylium storage facilities, we need more fuel.”

“Aye sir, map is now up on the centre table.” As he slowly turned back to examining the long-range Dradis.

Thomas bent over the centre table, and gave the map a long gaze, he knew instantly that they were in an even worse situation than he previously thought. Their current position put them just on the edge of the system, with the closest colony being Libran, but reports have stated that the Cylons have already launched their attack on Libran.

Whilst the Cylon attack has affected the entire crew of the Mercury class Battlestar Centaur, their current situation has deeply affected Thomas. He was born on Libran, and all he could do, was watch the ensuing battle in orbit, relayed from the orbital Dradis buoys.

“Right, it is clear to me, that the only option is the Libran Fuel Reserve, here,” as he pointed to the Tylium station in orbit of Libran's moon.

“Sir, that is dangerously close to the main fight, and we are in no condition to join our comrades in such a large battle,” Sarah quickly disagreed with Thomas’ idea, “surely it'll be better to go here, the Hades Resupply station, on the other side of the system.”

“And what makes you say that Colonel?” Thomas pondered, but knew damn well why it was a bad idea.

“It's far from the battle, on the other side of the system, and there has been no reports of fighting near the station, surely other survivors may be regrouping there?”

Whilst her logic wasn't wrong, the emotional state that Thomas was in did affect his command decision, but at the same time his logic wasn't flawed either, the expense of jumping to Hades is much larger, meaning less of a chance to defend if attacked. Whilst the Libran Reserve is closer to the battle, it is the best chance to allow the ship to join in the fight, or if in doubt…retreat.
“I will not deny, you are right,” Thomas pondered briefly, but always knew what he was going to do, “but we are going to the Libran Reserve, the cost of jumping to Hades is too large. Hades is also one of the key targets in the sector…we are going to Libran's moon, prepare the jump.”

“Aye sir,” Sarah reached for the intercom, lifted the phone and clearly announced hesitantly, “All hands, begin jump prep, prepare for FTL travel.” She placed the phone back on it's stand, and took a deep breath.

“Sarah,” Thomas leaned over the command table to reassure his Executive officer, and friend, “we will be fine, we can get our supplies, leave and regroup; like clockwork.”

The young officer nodded, and clearly was trying her best to stay calm, when Thomas turned round to face the tactical officer, with one quick and clear command. This was her first assignment as a command officer, only 3 months into the duty, and this happened.

“Action stations, set condition one throughout the ship,” he said decisively and confidently.

A moment followed, and the room filled with the intermittent red light of the condition one signal, and drone. Everyone rushed to their stations and prepared for battle, the CIC doors closed, the monitor above Thomas signalled to him the ship was ready for battle.

“Load all vipers into the tubes, I want to launch them as soon as we arrive,” Thomas quickly switched direction, to face the appropriate officer, “plot our jump to within 200 metres of the docking arm, I want to quickly jump in, jump out.”

The FTL officer reported, “FTL drive is spooling up , sir.” After a short amount of time, a small sound bleeped through the CIC, “jump drive is ready sir.”

Sarah turned to face Thomas, “All stations report ready, sir.”

“Very well, let's do this…begin the count…” Thomas put his hands onto the command table, to prepare for the jump.

“FTL jump in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Jump…” Sarah quickly counted, whilst checking everyone was secure.

The FTL jump was always accompanied by a odd sensation, a quick blood rush in the head, and a strong sickly feeling in the stomach. The majority of Centaur’s CIC crew had been through enough jumps, to be prepared for the feeling. The feeling quickly passed.

“Launch all vipers; prepare batteries for defensive fire; dock us with the supply station,” Thomas quickly fired off orders, “Dradis contacts?”

“Only the station, and long range contacts: 4 battlestars, 12 firestars, and 8 unknown enemy contacts; presumably enemy basestars, sir.”

“Good, begin the fuel siphoning process, we need to get as much as we can before we’re detec…”

“Dradis contacts! 3 Cyclon base stars just jumped in, their launching raiders!” The Dradis officer interrupted.

Thomas turned to the tactical officer, then to Sarah, “have all batteries focus fire on missiles, let the vipers take care of the raiders; how long until we have enough fuel to jump out of the system?”

“10 minutes Commander…I doubt we can hold that long Thomas…” She leaned over the table to him.

“Sir, a new message has come through, it's from Commander Adama on the Galactica.”

“Commander Adama, what does it say?” Thomas asked curiously, surprised to receive a message. A missile hit and shook the ship, the lights quickly dimmed, and brightened up again.

“He’s taking command of the fleet, and ordered all colonial units to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchourage immediately.”

"Right, we need to get out of here, regardless of how much fuel we have…disconnect the umbilical ports, and prepare to jump.” Thomas quickly snapped orders, jumping to the chance for survival, or at least counter attack.

A large explosion shook the ship, and flickered the lights. Alarmed started to ring throughout the ship. Thomas was knocked from his feet, and tried to quickly get back up to assess the situation. Clearly a nuke had hit the ship, and in a vulnerable spot.

“Damage report, what's the status of the FTL drive? Can we still jump?” Thomas loudly asked, praying that it was still possible to save his ship and crew.

“Yes sir, but only barely, we have red lights across the board, if we’re going to jump it has to be now.” The FTL officer, said in a quick panic, battle had rapidly affected the young male, breaking down his attention to protocol.

“Order our vipers to dock, we must jump, begin a ten second jump countdown, they have that long to get back on board.” A countdown began in the background, as well as more alarms.

“We have multiple nukes in bound, batteries four through sixteen are down, we can't shoot them down!” The tactical officer shouted loudly.

"Helm, emergency hard-starboard, bring our bow to bare on those missiles,” Thomas desperately grasped at a chance to protect the central chassis, which held the FTL drive. Multiple massive explosions impacted the ship, and overloaded multiple consoles in CIC. Alarms quickly followed, and Thomas looked up at his monitor to a clear red symbol: FTL OFFLINE. He took a long gasp, and then spoke:

"Well then, this is it…” Thomas browsed around the room, “it's been an honour…”

There we go, I hope you enjoyed it

[Kerry Malone]

Amazing

You should do this more often