Part 6 Battlestar Galactica: Back To The Colonies,: War On The Mountain

Chapter 1

I

Aboard the Battlestar William Adama

At seventy-nine years old, Justin Bond was still in remarkably good shape. But he was still seventy-nine years old. The former American President had accepted the position as Fleet Governor despite his age. Thanks to the continued leaps in science and medicine that had been made since Galactica had shown up in 2022, his physician on board the DSE Martin Luther King, Jr, didn't see why he might not have another twenty years left in him. The Doctor told him that could be conservative, with the medical advancements still taking place back home.

Still, he was beginning to feel time catching up to him. Today, however, he needed to shove that aside as his Military Commanders were forming what would most likely be a battle plan for the hills East of Caprica City.

"So we're planning to give them another warning, Governor", Lee Adama informed his Commander-In-Chief, finishing his brief, "and then the clock starts ticking."

Governor Bond nodded while reading his copy of the brief. "Do you feel we can take the mountains before Louis and Helo arrive here in about four months?"

"Take them?" Lee shook his head. "I'm not sure we can completely take them, but I believe we certainly can have them with one foot in the grave when Caprica, Libran and the rest of the second fleet join us here."

"Governor", his daughter, Admiral Kara-Thrace Bond added, "now that our initial scouting is done, projections are we can add an additional seven-thousand boots on the ground to the ten we have their now. It may only put us at even strength, numbers-wise with them, but they have no air support, and they don't have military-grade weapons."

"A good point, Admiral", her father nodded with approval. "We have pretty well kept them bottled up there since the unpleasantness a few years back. We haven't stopped them from feeding themselves. Just as with our fleet, the numbers go up and down with births and deaths."

"Sir", chimed in his son, Colonel Nicholas Bond, who was Senior CAG in The Fleet. He had been intimately involved in that unpleasantness, as his father had called it, two years earlier. The shoot-down of his Raptor, and the death of his two crewmates, and his subsequent desperate search to get to friendly lines, had set up what was apparently to come. "We've been gaming removing the camouflage netting over their compound, and we believe that we can do so with a combination of hooking some of the netting's with Raptors and using some low-grade incendiaries to burn off the rest, without setting the forested areas on fire."

"So we're sure now that this isn't one giant net?" Admiral Caprica Baltar entered the Conversation. "I'm assuming your test run in the Southeast corner of the netting last week was successful, Nick?"

The younger Bond nodded. "It was, Admiral Baltar", he said with a small grin.

Admiral Galen Tyrol would head to the surface in a few days, to meet with General's Grayson and Trevor as more troops were quietly landed far out of sight of the mountain and brought near Caprica City over the next few weeks. He would be the one to give the final warning to The Crown.

The Governor moved to conclude the meeting. "Lee, Kara, the mission is a go." He said calmly. "I want the final Op Plan on my desk in seventy-two hours if you please."

As the meeting disbanded, his son and daughter approached him about another subject.

"So, dad", Nick Bond began, "have you made a decision yet?" Kara was next to him and the expression on her face clearly said you're not leaving here without a decision.