The Light Cruiser Ares glided smoothly through space, the half-mile ship exhibiting all of its glory, name ship of the Ares class, the ship resembled a Valkyrie-class Battlestar but lacked the flight pods that characterized the former, instead it had a hangar bay amidships suited for Raptors and other small craft, following the warship were two small dart-like ships, the Patrolstars Delphi and Hypathia.
Onboard the CIC of Ares, forty-seven year old Colonel Sandra Walker watched the DRADIS screen, in which were two green dots that sat protectively near the Ares.
The ship and her escorts, known as the 3rd Heavy Cruiser group were on a deep space patrol mission, over the last two years the newly formed Intelligence Division of the Colonial Fleet, led by Rear Admiral Gaeta had ordered for a fleet Task Force to be sent towards the Lions Head Nebula, which supposedly was a waypoint on the way to Earth, the Nebula was over fifteen thousand light years away from New Kobol, even using the new Mk IV FTL Drives which had been developed by reverse-engineering the FTL Drives of Heavy Raiders captured during the war, the Colonial Ships would take over a year to reach it.
The ship had been built twenty years earlier at the New Kobol Shipyards, as part of the initiative to rebuild the Colonial Fleet should the Cylon threat return, the so-called 'Thrace Plan' that was designed by the ace Viper pilot and then Head of New Kobol Flight Academy Colonel Kara Thrace consisted of creating a massive net of over a hundred manned defensive satellites, each the size of a Raptor, in geosynchronous orbit around the planet, followed by the recommisioning of five Valkyrie-class Battlestars which had been disabled during the original cylon attack and were left untouched by the Cylons, the colonials then proceeded to reinstate the Colonial Army as a branch of the CDF, on one of the salvaging missions to the colonies a Raptor crew had discovered a Cylon-War era military depot at Gemenon which contained a hundred tanks, one hundred and fifty IFV's and forty artillery pieces, and an amount of ammunition that was sufficient to keep an entire division supplied during war-time, in an operation that lasted over a month, freighters brought all of the vehicles to New Kobol, these vehicles made the backbone of the Colonial Army, now fifteen thousand strong, that stood strong to protect the population of New Kobol, which according to the latest census was around one hundred and fifty thousand colonists.
Ares CIC.
"XO, Sitrep" she asked to her executive officer, Major Helen Shaw, daughter of newly-promoted Rear Admiral Kendra Shaw, head of the Colonial Fleet Deep Space Survey program.
"Everything as usual sir, although Delphi reports they have a problem with one of their Co2 scrubbers, but according to their crew chief they should have it fixed in no time" the young officer reported.
"Good, have the CAG task two Raptors and to have them jump to the next jump coordinates" Walker ordered.
"Aye aye sir" the major complied.
Twenty eight year old Major Helen Shaw had graduated from the Colonial Fleet Command Academy ten years ago and had been a rising star in the Colonial Fleet ever since, she first started as the personal aide for Colonel Thrace, she was then promoted to Captain and reassigned to the position of Fleet HQ Liason to the then-new Intelligence Division of the Defense Ministry, just six months ago she was promoted again and assigned to be the her XO.
One hour later
Lt. David 'Reaper' Thompson glided his MkIII Raptor though a thick asteroid field, he'd been doing so since four hours ago, as his ECO, Lt. John 'Gray' Cooper had missed slightly in the jump calculations and they had ended up in the middle of an asteroid field, millions of miles from they were supposed to have jumped, he would have to maneuver the Raptor outside of the field and to make small jumps to the planet they were supposed to scan.
"How long till we get out of this clusterfrak skipper?" the young ECO asked.
"Best estimate is another hour at sublight" Thompson responded.
The ECO cursed under his breath.
"Hey, you got us in this mess" the pilot complained.
"Yeah, but the Nav Officer gave us this frakked up coordinates" the ECO said.
"Okay, we have to get that long-range scan data or the CAG will have our ass"
"Yeah, I don't understand why we do this crap, even with the new recon cameras we have to get painfully close to get decent data out of planets"
Suddenly the DRADIS beeped once, making the hearts of the two pilots skip a beat.
"What do we have?" Thompson asked anxiously.
"One unknown contact, small size, holding still at bearing seven niner karom one nine, at two thousand clicks" the ECO reported.
"Has it detected us?" the pilot asked.
"I don't think so"
"Focus the recon camera on the target" the pilot ordered.
An image, first blurry as the million-cubit recon camera the Raptor carried, capable of spotting an human being tens of thousands of clicks away zoomed in on the target, the blurry image showed a small, metal glow near an asteroid, as the image cleared, the distinctive image of a Cylon Heavy Raider was shown, the pilot nearly had a heart attack.
"Spoil up the FTL, we need to get out of here right frakking now" he ordered urgently.
"FTL ready, jumping in five!" the ECO reported anxiously, seconds later the ship jumped.
Ares CIC
"Sir, DRADIS contact!" the DRADIS officer exclaimed.
"Identify!" Walker barked.
"IFF confirms as Raptor 119, the pilot requests to speak to you sir" the DRADIS officer reported.
"Pass him though" Walker ordered as she picked up the Wireless headset.
"This is Ares Actual" she said.
"This is Raptor 115, Code Blue, I say again, Code Blue" the Raptor pilot practically barked into the wireless.
For the first time in her life, Sandra Walker was scared shitless.
To be continued…
