Chapter 1

The end of innocence.

Commander Alexander Jones sat behind his desk and studied a proposal of new drills put forward by his XO, to test the crew ranging from personnel re-assignments to battle drills with computer failure, which with fleet command pushing newer technologies and more automated computer systems on board ships of the fleet. Training the crew to not be totally dependant on the computers could be a good thing.

A sudden bang on the door indicated an officer was waiting on the other side, broke his train of thought.

"Enter" He called.

The door swung open and a fresh faced Lt entered, Jones recognized her as a recently assigned CIC officer recently graduated from the academy, been aboard for only two weeks, along with over two hundred other graduates helping the ship to work up after a prolonged refit at scorpion fleet docks. With so many crew changes and graduates on board, Jones knew it take some time for the ship to be brought to the level to be referred to as a crack ship. As many other ships of her class were being de-commissioned due to budget constraints from the current administration, some of the ships had to be kept in commission to maintain numbers in the fleet. As such, several capital ships had been, or still were, in overhaul and upgrade.

For the last several weeks he had run the ship though a typical work up. Most of the crew were now aboard and the ship was nearing its first duty assignment. Which is why the XO wanted to truly test the crew with something other than drills aimed to get the ship to battle station quickly, in a familiar routine.

The officer approached the Commanders desk, trying to not be obvious at eyeing up the commanders quarters. As the commander of the ship, he was on of the few officers that actually had his own private cabin and the largest on board, which was a luxury as space is always at a premium on board fleet warships of every class in the fleet.

" We have received a classified transmission from admiral O'Suko's flagship, Sir " She said as she handed over a file.

" Thank you, dismissed"

As the young officer left the room, the marine sentry swung the door closed he opened the file. The only people to have read this before him were the comm specialist of the watch in the CIC and the officer of the watch. If it was a situation were instant action was required, then they would have contacted him instantly instead of sending the message in hard copy via messenger.

He was ordered to renedvous with the flagship in 12 hours, that was un changed from the brief he had received then they had left the dockyard. The admiral would come on board for a informal inspection and he would then receive new orders for detached patrol and extended work up to last at least three months.

Just before engaging the jump engines to take the ship to the admiral he would also received the last of his air wing, mainly superiorty mark seven fighters which were flying off a transport ship equipped with extended fuel tanks to make the 11 hour flight.

One of the problems with the latest generation of fighters was the fuel consumption. They had great improvements in the area of speed and maneuverability but at a cost of fuel economy. While they had been fitted with larger standard fuel tanks, they still did not have the range of the previous models.

Jones reached out of picked up a phone mounted in the bulkhead of the cabin. All commanders calls were routed to the CIC and instantly picked up.

"CIC Hocki speaking "

"This is the commander, have the XO report to my cabin within in the next hour. Have the chief snipe report at the same time"

Captain Sara Richards stood in the shower of the transport, enjoying the sensation of steaming hot water hitting her body. She was scheduled to depart in an hour for the transfer to her new assignment with the rest of the flight. 45 fighters and 8 support ships would leave the transport after that time. Moments later the transport would be gone, its own schedule top keep. The ships commander had been pleasant during the last two days, but she was very ready to leave her get to her new ship and report from her new command of an entire air group.

She quickly turned turned the shower off and dressed quickly, putting on the flight suit that she would be wearing for at least the next 12 hours at least. Quickly she headed down to the flight deck, the entire deck was teeming as the deck crew of the transport prepared the flight for extended transfer. As she entered the deck, one of the support ships eco's took her luggage and stored it in the cargo pod.

Fighters didn't carry any cargo space.

The deck crew chief approached Sara

" Hey chief, I hope everything's ready with the birds. " She said in greeting " If anyone cannot fly, its gonna be a long time before they will be able to catch up with the squadron, and its not the first thing I want to be able to report to my new commander!! "

The crew chief smiled back

"Don't worry Captain, the flight is ready to go. Ill wait for you to give the word in the control booth and then I will de-pressurise the deck and open the flight deck doors. You will then fly out one by one, just as the briefing described"

Thanks chief" Sara responded, before heading towards her own fighter. The craft was at the front of the deck, the crewman ready to run the checklist with her.

She settled into the small cockpit and watched as the deck crew cleared away the last of their equipment. As the last of the equipment was stowed and the flight deck emptied she powered up the fighter, and activated the comm system and called for a roll call of the wing behind her. After that she opened a second channel

"CIC This is Viper. Flight transfer 001 is ready to depart. Requesting depresurisation of the bay and door opening"

"Viper, this is CIC. Stand by for depressuration in 3 2 1.… Bay doors are opening now. "

As Sara sat in her cockpit the massive pressure doors in front of her opened and she saw the short flight deck in front of her light up.. Unlike the capital ships flight decks which seemed to stretch on, the small transports flight deck exited at the rear of the ship, in the distance she could see stars.

" Listen up flight 001. As you take off, make sure your at minimal power. We don't want the engine exhaust hitting the ship behind you. Once we have all got airborne, form up in your assigned position and settle in for the ride"

She once again swithed channels

"CIC, Viper, requesting permission to depart "

"Viper, CIC….. You are cleared to depart. Safe flying "

" Rodger that " Viper said, aware that if anything happened to any of the fighters all that she could do was order an ejection, and have a support craft collect the pilot.

Moments later the first of 53 craft departed the transport

Jones strode into the ships CIC. As he did, the marine guard swung the pressure door shut behind him.

As he approached the table in the middle of the room, he called

"Sound action stations, set condition one through out the ship"

Instantly the CIC lept into action with a bustle, the intercom blared into life in every section of the ship in response from the ships commanding officer.

" Action stations, actions stations! Set condition one"

" Helm, plot a jump to the rondevous with the Resolution. I want combat launches by the entire air group as soon as we complete the jump"

"Sir, the air group is only at half strength and we don't have a CAG yet?" The air group controller in the CIC stated, concerned

" If we came had to attack a target right now, we would have to manage, this is no different. "

" Aye sir " as the officer swung away the entire network system crashed on board the ship.

" What the hell has just happened " Jones demanded, as the emergency lights kicked in throughout the ship

" Stand by " Captain Rathes, the ships combat systems operator called as she frantically tried to get the ships computer network to respond.

" Can somebody tell me what the hell has just happened to my ship " Jones repeated to the CIC in general

Moments later the pressure door swung open and a squad of marines entered and took up their assigned positions in the event of an emergency.

"Sir, it appears the on board computer network system has crashed. The ship has full power to all systems, the only internal comm system is the old sound powered phones. All systems have been automatically released to manual control, as the back up system kicked in "

"Very well. Mr Kim, find out what has happened to the computer. Launch a double strength CAP, just in case this is an attack of some kind. Navigation, plot a jump manually for the rendevous with Admiral O'Suko's ship. If we need to, we will have to jump that way"

" Aye sir " Kim responded, leaving the CIC for the bowels of the ship where the computer systems were located. As she did, the navigation officer approached

"Sir, we haven't plotted a jump manually for the last twenty years, the chances of us jumping into another ship, planet or overshooting are"""

" When I first joined the fleet we always did manual jumps. Are you telling me, something the you cannot muddle through once" Jones replied

" NO Sir" he answered, before heading away to plot the ships jump.

" Commander " Jones looked up too se that he was being called over to the dradis table in the centre of the room by the officer of the watch

"Sir, the dradis is empty, but we are currently vunerable if a hostile should turn up. I think it would be wise to signal the admiral and have the Resolution join us here, just until we can get the computer network up and running.

"I will take that under advisement " Jones looked round as the XO entered the CIC, seeing Jones he headed straight over.

"Sir, the ship is holding at condition one until we have a better idea of how and why this has happened "

"Sir, the Cap has launched. Four vipers under the command of Sky, they are assuming a holding position fore and aft of the ship in pairs "

Jones simply nodded in acknowledgement.

"Very well… I want a report in 30 minutes "

"Commander Jones report to the CIC " the ships intercom blared " Commander Jones to the CIC "

Jones turned round before he reached his destination reflecting over the success of the surprise drill. The snipe had done his job well, and had taken the crew 8 hours to figure out what had exactly been tampered with. They had then given him a 2 hour repair estimate ( which the snipe had laughed at as it was a simply 30 second bypass that he had just rigged up which had caused the computer network 'problem')

He had been heading towards the ships gym, but with the call to the CIC by the XO himself

Within a couple of minutes he reached the CIC. As he approached, the sentry swung the door open. He stepped inside and headed straight for the centre of the room, where the XO stood with a printed out message in his hand. He was also issuing orders.

" Recall the Cap and get the them refuelled straight away. Get the air group ready to deploy. I want to jump with the fighters in the tubes and ready top launch whne the jump is complete. Tell the snipe he needs to get the ships network up and running right now!! "

"Xo, report" Jones said as he walked up realising by the way he was acting that it wasn't part of the surprise drill. In response, the XO simply handed him the printout. As soon as he glanced at it, he saw it was highly encrypted ship to ship message.

However, instead of the usual format it simply read

"To all fleet units. Am under attack. Ship suffering computer failure. Major damage. Requesting assistance soonest"

O'Suko. Commanding.

Even as Jones finished reading the comm. The XO picked up a ringing phone.

"What the hell do you mean ?………. Well, fix it. We have to go now"

He slammed the phone down.

"The snipe cannot get the network to respond"

Jones looked up in horror,

"We have to go help the flagship. But without the network, we wont have half the control over the guns A lot of our crews havent seen action, or melded into a cohisve team. Reaction times will be down, for both offensive or defensive firepower"

The XO looked at his commanding officer.

"Whoever is attacking the Resolution must mean business if they have got the better of O'Suko. If he needs help, we need to go. Now!"

"Sir, the air group controller called " We still don't have the transfer wing on board yet. They will be here in 90 minutes"

"The Resolution doesn't have 90 minutes " The Xo growled,

Jones looked down at the display next to him, which normally showed the ships systems status on the dradis table. It was still dark. The entire CIC stopped as they waited for him to make his decision. Moments later he looked up.

"Helm, have you got the manual jump plotted ? "

" Yes Sir, we estimate a 2 million km chance of error. "

"In combat, they will have moved past that now! Launch the refuelling tanker. They will await the relief flight at this location. If any need fuel, which they will, give them it. Then hold position. We will be back. If we haven't returned within 2 hours, assume we wouldn't be. We jump in five minutes. We are obviously going to be taking fire. Have the flak batteries realised to local control. Turrets to await targets from CIC"

As he finished giving his orders, and the clock started, he breathed a sigh of relief. He remember one thing he had heard back at the academy, that had always stuck with him

If you ever have to make a major decision , make sure it is one you can live with! "

He stood in the middle of the CIC as the crew hustled in the pre jump preperations, when the clock reached 60 seconds he ordered the ship wide intercom activated.

"Crew of the Battlestar Ajax. You will all know by now that we are jumping to assist the Battlestar Resolution. The admirals ship which is under attack by unknown assailants. You all also know that this ship isn't up to scratch. Our computers are down, we don't have a full crew or air wing. "

"However, the ship being attacked. Its one of us! it's a colonial Battlestar!! We can and must go to their aid!! They would for us! "

"Remember your training, stand to your post""

Jones put the phone down and looked at his XO, direct on the eye across the Dradis table. He simply nodded to his commander

" Jump"