Taylor pulled Lauren into a conference room and began laying out plans for the defense of the ship and the steps they could take to destroy as many Cylons as they could. Lauren was impressed with his capability to make it all look so easy, but then again she'd never been in a combat situation before. When they'd hammered out a decent strategy he took her down to the living quarters and began looking for an empty rack for her. They'd searched through several of the lockers looking for a suitable set of casual clothes for her and found quite a stash of tanks and sweats that would work.
Once that was accomplished Taylor led her to the officer's rack and pushed a pile of towels off one of the bunks to give her a place to set her stuff down. "You can use this bunk for now. The guy it's assigned to is long gone." To emphasize his point the pulled the small name plate down and tossed it on the bench in the middle of the room. "I'll try to rustle you up a flight suit and helmet. I'm sure there are a few around there that would fit you. Why don't you get some rest?"
Lauren looked at him gratefully and climbed up to the bunk. She'd decided that a few minutes of peace and quiet wouldn't hurt and before she knew it she had fallen into a deep sleep.
Taylor wandered around for a while, finding that his pilots were still in a great deal of disorder so he decided to fix that issue as soon as he could. He thought about the feisty Lieutenant he'd just left and for some reason he started smiling uncontrollably. She was certainly a spitfire and he wondered if she'd be interested in him. It had been too long between romances for him and he was starting to feel the ache of loneliness. If this attack from the Cylons meant what he thought it did, he and everyone else around here might be even more lonely very soon.
Once pilots were settled down and he'd given them orders he went back to searching for flight gear for Lauren. She shouldn't be too hard to find a suit for, she was pretty average in size. He made his way down to one of the storage rooms and found exactly what he had been looking for. Gathering the items up he wandered back up to the rack room he'd left her in and found her fast asleep on the bunk. Smiling at her he put the gear on the bench and wandered off searching for something to do.
Lauren woke up an hour later, feeling much better than she had in a while. She looked around the rack room and found the pile of clothes that Taylor had retrieved for her. She'd probably better get ready for the trip back to Caprica she thought as she hopped down off the bunk and began changing into her flight suit. She had just pulled the suit up over her hips when Taylor walked into the room. A little gasp of surprise escaped from his lips and she grinned at him.
"Thanks for the suit, and even more so, thanks for the nap. I was about to drop there."
"Not a problem. I was just coming to get you anyway. Um…we're going to have a pre flight in the port ready room in half an hour. If you're ready to go I'll show you the way down there."
Lauren wrapped the arms of her flight suit around her waist as most of the pilots did when they were on the ground and she reached for her helmet. "Thanks for all the help Cole, you've been really great." She turned back to him and noticed he was running his eyes up and down her body, his mouth hung open a bit. She knew exactly what was going on in his head and she walked purposefully over to him, reached up and pushed his jaw closed. "You're almost drooling there Cole. You might want to watch that."
He realized what he'd been doing and visibly snapped out of his daze. "Sorry, we don't usually have a lot of women on board. Shall we?" He wandered out of the room without waiting for her.
The pilot's ready room was filled to capacity and Lauren couldn't see a seat so she leaned against the side wall. Scanning the group of pilots she noticed that she was among only a small handful of women. Cole worked his way through the group to the podium at the front of the room.
"All right people settle down. The admiral will be here in a few minutes and I want you all acting like you understand orders. Admiral Cain has made me the acting CAG so you're answering to me now. You all know pretty much what's happened today and you know what we intend to do. I will not lie to you. We are very short handed. We have about half the pilots we usually have on board and some of them are actually people from Scorpion that are Viper qualified. For example, Lieutenant Lauren Baker over there has been kind enough to whip the deck crew into shape so we'll actually have some working ships to fly. She's going to be in a Viper with us so I'll assign her to one of the groups later."
"Attention on deck!"
Admiral Cain walked in from the back of the room. The air of superiority she exuded was almost unbearable. She strutted to the podium and looked around the room at her pilots. "At ease. You know what the situation is so I won't waste your time. We will be jumping back to Caprica in about an hour. Our goal is to retrieve information about the status of the colonies and to take out as many hostiles as possible. If there are any other Colonial forces in the area we will aid them in any attack that is currently underway and assist in any clean up or rescue missions. As far as we know right now, we are the only remaining Battlestar in space. We know that Scorpion yard took severe damage in the attack and we are unable to contact anyone in the colonies for more information or orders. This ship is fully armed and highly motivated so I can see no reason that we will not succeed. I'm counting on you and the fleet is counting on you. Good hunting!"
One the Admiral had left the room Cole returned to the podium and started handing out assignments. Lauren was paired with a tall man with brown hair and a grin that made her giggle. He shook her hand and introduced himself as Lieutenant David Carson. "My call sign is Thumper by the way." he said as the walked to the flight deck.
"Um I don't really have a call sign anymore. It's been so long since I've been considered a pilot. I guess you're just gonna have to call me Baker for now."
"Well we'll work on something snappy after we get home okay?"
Once they reached the flight deck Lauren was directed to a Viper that was powered up and ready for her. She smiled when she saw Sarah jogging to her with a neck ring and a pair of gloves. "I thought you'd need these sir and apparently I'm supposed to get you settled in."
"Sir huh? Yup, you're fitting in just fine."
Sarah grinned at Lauren as she got settled into the cockpit of the fighter. The jump alarm sounded and Lauren looked at Sarah who was still smiling, even though her eyes were closed. The shift of the jump made everyone wobble a bit but they recovered quick enough, the first in the line of Vipers locking into the Mag cats. Sarah locked the bubble of Lauren's Viper down and mouthed "Go kick some ass" to Lauren as her Viper was wheeled forward.
