Battlestar Galactica Fan Fiction Story
Battlestar Group 41
We jumped. I threw up. I have been in FTL jumps only a handful of times. They always make me nauseated. I looked around the room. I knew Michelle was dead. I crawled through the rubble in the tiny room to David. He was laying on his back next to the fire that was behind the bulkhead. As I crawled, sparks, ash, and smoke hit me and my lungs. The emergency lights were flickering. All I had were assumptions, and I assumed we would either decompress and die of asphyxiation, or die of smoke inhalation. I laughed in my head; either choke or suffocate? When I got to David, I could tell he was hurt pretty bad. While alive, he wouldn't move.
The ship vibrated and the sound of her keel buckling echoed. Thats when I got scared. I didn't want to die here. I made my way to my station. It took a good fifteen seconds of conscious thought to decide the appropriate sequence to restart the ship. She was banged to high heavens, but when us Colonials build a ship, we make them to last! First, I needed to put out the fires. Every room had an automated fire system. If that didn't work, we had fire response teams on board. I was located in a secure room, disconnected from all but one deck. I had to put the fire out. I looked around and saw it. Grabbing the fire extinguisher, I crawled back through the rubble, to the battery compartment behind the bulkhead and fired!
Now the fire was out, I needed to breath. I was choking. I looked across the path I just came back to the wall shelf that housed the extinguisher I just picked up. It had a Smoke Mask and Goggles. Back to my station. I donned the Mask and Goggles, and started the oxygen from the yellow hand held bottle. Luckily I was next to my station. I looked at all the connections to the C³, and attached the loose or disconnected ones, minus the CNP. Then I began what we call a Cold Start. I had to reboot each individual system by myself. This was going to take some time. Frak! It was going to take power.
I booted the Engine Systems, Power Allocation Computer, and FTL Computer (again). I saw the LED bar on the battery bulkhead. I was running out of battery power to boot the ship. I needed to transfer the computer to main power soon, or this would take even longer. All three computer boot screens scrolled over the remaining monitors at my station that were not broke. While that was happening, I made my way, one by one, to the other stations, booting up every system I could. When I made it back to my station, I saw the Engine Systems status screen. The core was on line! To this day, I don't know why, but after everything, thats what made me break down and cry.
I had to wait a few moments as all the other systems came on line. I brought up the Network Connection Status display. Slowly but surely, each system switched from 'OFFLINE' to 'READY'. All I had to do was connect them to the C³ in the appropriate sequence. Engine Systems was first, followed by Power Allocation. The lights turned on. As I kept connecting systems, various other things would turn on. Until finally, I had the computer up and running again. I heard the sound of the engines kicking on, along with the Fire Automation System. Smoke began pumping out of the room. I smiled and cried (again).
I saw a red status indication on the neighboring display. It was a readout of the ship. The Craton had violent decompressions all the way up to E section. That was over half the fraking ship! The automated systems just secured those sections and the decompressions stopped. But all those people? If I had to guess, a nuke hit us in the bow because the Internal Integrity Grid was showing red all over that section. What to do now? I needed to held David. I picked him up in a Fireman Carry position and hauled him outside the room. Surprisingly the hallway outside was clean and calm. I laid him down, threw off the smoke ensemble, then proceeded to the CIC.
The one ladder at the end of the hall lead right into the far side of the CIC. I reached out to climb when I got the sting of my life. I forgot my arm was broken, well that made me remember. Using one hand, I sort of jumped my way up the ladder. The hatch was closed that opened to the CIC. Not able to use one arm, and holding on to the ladder with the other, I used my nose to punch the code on the neighboring keypad to open the hatch. It worked. The hatch slid open and I crawled up and into the battered Command Information Center.
The handful of people left alive had already suppressed the fires. I saw they had already checked the injured and dead, and now they were in panic. Through all this destruction, I made an interesting note, the CIC looked like it was in pretty good shape. Sure glass was broken and monitors busted, but everything was working. I walked into the middle of the trapezoidal room when I noticed Commander Sheraton laying on her back struggling to breath. On my approach to her, I saw most of the senior officers were dead, including the XO.
I knelt down next to her. She looked up at me and smiled while trying to breath. "My. . . neck is broke. My offic. . . ers are dead. Who are you?"
I held my broke arm as I looked at her. "Ryan Cody. I'm part of the test crew for the shake down. I was down in the NAO."
"Why. . . did everything go off. . . line?" she asked with blood coming out of her mouth.
"From what I could tell, they accessed the Command Navigation Program and through that, shutdown our defenses. Sitting in the NAO, I was able to access the FTL system directly and jump us blind."
She smiled at me again through bloody teeth. "Viper wings? You. . . fly boy?"
"Just for a few years not my cup of tea." I smiled back at her and held her hand.
She began to cry. "I am about to die, along with my officers. . . I am giving you. . . field commission. . . as Commander. Take my rank off. . . my collar please. Its yours now."
"Ma'am, I can't-" she cut me off.
"Give them hope. . . fight the Cylons. . . find Water Bay."
With that, she exhaled one last time. I closed her eyes. Frak. More responsibility. Just what I didn't care for. I stood up next to the map table and center DRADIS console. Looking around the room I noticed people crying, panicked and scared. They needed hope. They needed direction. They needed a leader. Sadly, that was not me. I was never one for being a leader. I liked working by myself because I was the only one I could depend on to do it right. As I looked around the room, they looked back at me, the only uniformed officer at the center of the CIC. I looked down at Sheraton then up to everyone else. The room had grown quiet as they all looked, at me!
Dad walked with me to school. I was ten. I held his hand as we walked on the sidewalk. The roads were busy with early morning traffic. Town houses lined the tree covered streets all the way to school. Other fathers, but mostly mothers, walked with their children also. My book bag was heavy on my back, and I basically ran as I tried to keep up with my fathers stride. He had a slight smile on his face. Everyone was polite to him. It was his uniform that people responded to, at first anyway. Then when he spoke, his voice commanded loyalty.
My father was the Chief of Police for the City of Roma, the capitol of the Eastern Continent on Picon. When I was real little, he always worked long hours. We never saw him. Then when my mom died, he had to restructure his schedule. Even as Police Chief, he made time for my brother and I. I always sensed though, he loved me a little more than my adopted brother, Daniel.
We came to a busy intersection. The cars were stopping and going. Some were turning right on red, which made our crossing a little tricky. Other families were having a hard time getting across at the red light. People would yell profanities non befitting the way they were dressed. However, I saw in my fathers face he was not concerned with that. He stopped dead in his tracks on the crosswalk in the middle of traffic. His grip tightened around my hand. I gazed in his direction. He was staring at a man in a trench coat at the corner in front of us. The man was holding his coat closed and had something in his other hand. The cars honked.
The man was staring off to the adjacent crosswalk. Looking that way, I saw the Mayor, a man dad had introduced me to many times, walking my friend Jason to school. Dad put it together before I did. He picked me up and carried me back to the opposite corner, with cars honking and people yelling at him. Then he reached into his pocket and began to dial his phone. He looked me right in the eye, "Stay here!" He took off across the street to the anger of the people in traffic. "JIM!" The Mayor looked towards my father, so did the man. My dad pointed at the man. "Jim, get back!"
The man knew he was caught. He opened his coat and stretched his arms. The Mayor saw the man and I saw panic in his eyes as he picked up Jason. Other families stopped and stared in wonder at the situation before them. The man yelled over the traffic stopping, "The people of Sagittaron will not be abused by the Roman capitalist corporations!" My father was at a dead run at the man, along with two more uniformed police officers down the street. The Mayor saw what was in his jacket and ran away with his son in his arms, as did everyone else.
The man hit the trigger he was holding. My father jumped sideways behind a truck. The blast was loud. I was crying and holding my head. The explosion had knocked me back against someone's brick house. Dust was everywhere. People were yelling. I couldn't see anything. I heard firetruck sirens in the distance. Other kids were crying also. All the cars on the street were pushed out from the explosion, forming a wall of cars in a circle around the blast. Glass was covering everyone. Someone had fallen on their car horn. I was scared. I prayed to the gods for my father to come get me.
Thats when the breeze picked up through the intersection. The dust was blown out, and for the first time, I saw the extent of the explosion. The building the man was standing next to was gone. The cars nearest him were over turned. A crater was in the mans place. And in the center of it all, helping people, and directing everyone, was my dad. I immediately stopped crying. All I wanted was for us to go home. I didn't care about anyone but us. But, despite my cries, he stayed. I stayed at the corner and watched him.
When we got home that night, with all the overwhelming security he had, I asked him why he would do that, risk himself? Why would he stay and help even though there were others that could do it? He admitted to me, he wanted to leave, but thats not what he could do. He said that while he wore the uniform, he was expected to do what he did. "I understood a long time ago, this is what it is to wear the uniform, nothing more, nothing less."
I didn't want to be the guy in charge, but I understood, at that instant, I had to be. I never understood what my dad meant about wearing the uniform until that moment. I had to be their leader because it was expected of me, nothing more, nothing less.
My brain went back to what it does, it racked and stacked what we needed to do. "Listen up everyone!" I yelled. "I want fire response teams to go deck by deck ensuring the fires are out and hurt people are tend to." Three young officers inside the glass Damage Control booth picked up their wireless headsets and began working. "I need a full systems check of everything, starting with the FTL." Another young man next to the Engineering station picked up the wireless headset and began working. "If you don't have something to fix, I want you helping the wounded. Navigation, come over here please!"
A young Ensign walked over to me. His forehead was bloody, and he was twitching. It was clear to me his twitch in his eyes was from him being scared. I lowered my voice. "The Cylons got in through a back door in the CNP. I can't risk reconnecting the CNP to the C³, nor do I wish to operate the CNP on a non-networked computer. Do we have the old nav program anywhere?" The ensign twitched and stuttered. "What's your name?"
"Tom Stevens sir."
"Well Tom, I am Ryan Cody. I would shake your hand but my arm is broke. Do you understand what I just asked?" Tom nodded. "Do we have the old program?" Tom nodded yes. "Good, get it and upload it to the NAVCOM, after you erased the new CNP, understood?" Tom nodded yes. As he walked away another young kid got my attention. It was then I was sure I had absolutely no idea how to manage a Battle Cruiser.
I walked over to the Damage Control booth and looked at the Craton's status on the Damage Control Computer. The ship was in better shape than I hoped. I thought the forward hull was gone, but it was there, and full of holes. The fires were out and Sickbay had started triage. There were no green sections on the status, everything in the front of the ship was red, and everything else was flashing yellow. I noticed the CO2 recycle system was not functioning, neither was the oxygen generator. I spoke to the team in the booth, "Get a team to check the status of the Recirculation Units. I think we vented too much atmosphere in the attack."
"They already checked sir, thats not the problem," said the young lady with a finger holding the headset to her ear.
"Then tell them to check and see if the Environmental Computer is connected to those Units." I walked back to the center of the CIC. Ensign Steven's was at his station, deleting the CNP. I saw he had a Data Disk, that must have been the old CNP. People were working. They were totally capable to do this themselves, but for some reason they needed leadership. That was what I never understood about people. I walked over to Commander Sheraton and took off her rank. I put it on my collar. People saw, and stared. Her body was getting cold. Then I thought about David laying in the corridor below the CIC. "Get a medical team to the NAO corridor. I have a man down there."