[ This is a story from a reconstructed universe with elements of the 2003-2009 series but many twists and turns of its own. Science, G-forces, and all things logistical get a lot of respect. There are about 18 pages prior to this, with a lot still to add: Adama is on a reconnaissance mission while the fleet of three battlestars takes out a Cylon installation orbiting the same gas giant. Another team was sent to recover a stealth probe that had been inserted into orbit ahead of the fleet's attack. The team found that the Cylons had in fact compromised the probe and were then captured. Adama, sent to scout the defunct probe's orbit, discovers a massive Cylon facility, several times the mass of a large mountain and spread out over tens of kilometers. The facility holds a hopper of five or six giant, mechanized spheres, and Adama witnesses it send one of them through a cosmic gateway in its core before he is captured. The machine intelligence reaches out to each of its captives in the form of people from their lives. This scene provides a sample of Adama's encounter with his wife, who I have decided is no longer Carol Anne Perfunctory. Interspersed is a portion of the space battle that unfolds between the Cylons and the fleet of battlestars as our spy kids have their wits tested. The scotch is Balvenie. Let's take a look at the episode… ]
Stuffed into the belly of another Cylon collection ship, Adama faced a contrived image of his own. Lacking the new helmets that the R-28 crew had, however, Adama was presented with a replica of a video calling application projected on the side wall of the hold. The incoming call icon blinked and was automatically answered, despite Adama keeping a stoic countenance and sitting motionless. The caller was his wife Laina, sitting at her home office desk in her exercise tights and Caprica Buccaneers sweatshirt.
"Hi Bill!" she exclaimed, then reached down below the camera briefly to pick up his second child Zachary. She perched him on her knee to get him within reach of her laptop. "See da-da?" she asked the eight-month old. "See da-da?" The child opened his mouth in curiosity and reached forward to swat at the screen. The image shook as the child's arm hit the laptop's screen, jostling the camera. "Yeah, there's da-da, say hi!" she encouraged Zack as she bounced him on her knee. Zack squealed, opening his mouth to reveal toothless gums.
"So, you were fond of saying," she questioned him as her voice deepened, "that a man's not a man until he's held the stick of a Viper." Adama feigned not to know what she was talking about. Laina pulled Zack to her chest and pecked his cheek as he smiled at his father on the screen. "Da-da told you that too, didn't he?" she cooed. She turned back to the camera and straightened her face slightly as she continued to steady Zack and let him try to stand on her lap. "So, what are you doing piloting a reconnaissance plane?" she asked.
The last time Adama had spoken to Laina, when Galactica was docked at Scorpio fleet shipyards, she had mentioned that Zack was getting his first tooth right in front. It wasn't necessarily an attempt at deception in the first place, but looking around the office Adama could pick out a few other things out of place. He stuck to a Triad game face, with a dash of 'unimpressed.' Laina frowned and put Zack back down on the floor behind her.
"It wasn't that simple to anticipate everything from the social media posts," the image of Laina said, surrendering to a degree. "You're probably thinking, this is all CGI, and you nailed it. Here, let me show you around my idea of your house. See if I got four out of five details right." She picked up the laptop and moved out of the way as she panned the camera around the room, then down the hall. The movement wasn't bad-even though it was a computer simulation it really looked like the screen and its camera was bumping around, picking up glare from the sun streaming through the window blinds. Adama watched the camera pan across the interior of the virtual office. The smattering of books on the shelf looked roughly like a collection he and Laina might have, and a few of the notable titles were even correct, but others were not. Laina kept houseplants, but not aloe. The simulated room showed the same crib that Lee had used. Zachary's real crib was a different one handed down from a friend, but they had generally re-used a lot of things and passed on some toys from the time Zack's older brother Lee was an infant. Laina perched the laptop on the kitchen island counter facing back towards the stove and refrigerator. "The point is, I'm trying," she insisted. That sounded like her.
"What do you want?" Adama asked carefully but with a hint of impatience.
Laina raised an eyebrow in a manner that the real Laina couldn't do as easily. "I could ask the same thing, but lemme go put Zack in his crib while you think about your predicament." Even a virtual Zack, apparently, was not going to be left out of sight for more than a few seconds. Laina bounded down the hallway and disappeared back into the office.
Adama checked his instrumentation panel again. Fuel, oxygen reserves, and battery life were barely reduced from what they had been when the Cylon collection vessel had just appeared. He scrolled through his engine diagnostics. Multiple failures indicated that the chain of bullets striking the thrusters had totally killed his main thrust and two of three maneuvering thrusters. He could make a move to starboard at the expense of increasing, and unmitigable, lateral spin. But he couldn't even do that inside the collection hold.
On the projection of their home, the approximation of Laina returned. "What d'ya hear, Husker?" she teased as she pumped her arms to make her C-Bucks sweatshirt furrow. Could he trust his displays, with the Cylons able to splice into his audio feed so easily? "Not the rain," Adama replied cautiously. He had caught the weather report for Caprica city two days before-the aftermath of a typhoon that had been churning across the Vennian Archipelago was expected to inundate the metro area. "It was a mess this morning," she assured him. "The Svensons down on the corner at the bottom of the hill were worried they might have to replace their carpet again, but they got through all right. Lee was a muddy mess after he went out in the yard, but I managed to get him from the front door straight to the bath. Most of the storm went east."
"What are you doing tonight?" Adama asked, probing what else the Cylons may know.
Laina smiled and turned her face slightly to one side. "The plan is," she began, "Parvatis will come over to dinner tonight. Keeping up the friendship through tandoori. For my part, I'm baking that chili-chocolate torte, and Lee will get to play with Dinesh." All those things were plausible—the Cylons had already given up the deception game, but they weren't shy about letting on how much they knew. Adama wondered if they would divulge methods, too, and Laina didn't hold him up for long. "I didn't bring you here to interrogate you," she said as she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the countertop. "I know lots of things about a lot of people because of what data too many companies keep and trade. It paints a picture of its own, but it's kind of like a skeleton. Flesh it out with the stuff that those same people spew all over Touchspace and PageOne, look at where the cars are going day by day, roll it together with grid logins and credit card activity, you get a pretty vivid picture. You get this," Laina presented herself with her hands out, palms open.
Adama frowned. "Trying pretty hard to make people hate you. The more they fear, the more conflict you're going to get. Make yourself a bad guy, let people know they can make themselves safer by eliminating you, and they'll move heaven and hades to stop you." Laina grinned. "I'm not trying for hate," she emphasized. "I'm not even trying for mass hysteria or public fear, although if that's what it takes I'll accept that. Here, let me try something else out." She reached forward and grabbed the laptop again, swinging the screen camera from side to side across the kitchen. "Abracadabra!" she joked as she swung the camera back a second time to reveal a towering Centurion behind her. Adama quickly recognized it as one of the modified Anthrogen models that colonial special forces had encountered when raiding a Cylon manufacturing facility. It's oscillating red eye stared blankly off into the family room as it held its hands straight at its sides in a maladjusted, rigid pose. "See, this is what people get scared of," Laina explained, pointing at the hulking frame. "These things are hardly different than the police robots that most of the colonies deploy. And those are made by companies that have at least their share of corruption in the boardroom."
"But they're made and handled by people, which is important," Adama said, looking over his instrumentation panel at his radio array. Even within the sealed hold of the collection ship the radio might be able to get a signal out. The curve of the planet would prevent direct communication with the fleet, but the orbits of the other stealth probes they had inserted into orbit days ago might cross earlier, permitting him to relay a message. "I know they answer to people, and most white Capricans or Piconans don't have any issue with them. But Geminoan migrants are terrified of them. When people reassure themselves that robots like this are controlled by a human being, they're just comforting themselves that violence is a tool only they can use. The humanization of technology is the de-humanization of others." Laina held up her hands again to relent being pedantic.
Adama was happy to keep the Cylons talking, but he didn't count on them being distracted. They could just as easily be quietly trying to infiltrate the file systems, waiting for him to enter a password or check a sensor feed to reveal mission-critical information. "This guy?" Laina pounded her fist on the Centurion's chestplate. "He's tough as nails. My new models will fight 'til they're totally busted. If I wanted hate and fear, I'd send a legion of these things into Patras and Caprica City. Meet your new overlords!" Her lips puckered as she clawed the air in front of her. Adama laughed as much as his flight suit and helmet would permit. "You wouldn't get far," he said, stopping short of escalation.
"No," Laina agreed. "But people would be scared. Like I said, I don't see a point in it." She turned back to the Centurion. "Loosen up," she commanded it. The Centurion immediately slouched against the refrigerator with one fist on its waist and the other on the countertop. "But also like I said," Laina continued, "the next time troops deploy against Centurions, it won't be easy." The Centurion's eye bar blinked solid red as it gave a thumbs-up.
One of the seven functioning satellites deployed around the planet was coming over the horizon and would remain in line of sight for fifteen minutes. The R-26 was equipped with an Integrated Monitoring and Control System, including a black box transmitter capable of sending out powerful RF pulses if armed by the pilot. Adama and his cohort had all trained to hack the box to send their own messages in extreme circumstances. The expected scenario was that a spy plane would be downed with mission critical information and the pilot, after ejection, would reunite with his plane knowing its location was no longer a secret. A simple, encrypted, broadcast message from the pilot in those circumstances could provide an essential advantage to Colonial forces without compromising the mission. Another factor making this a good option was the independent nature of the IMCS: its data systems and instruction circuitry were encased deep in the airframe where the Cylons wouldn't be able to penetrate without causing significantly more damage than Adama could see on his displays, or than he had felt through the airframe as the drills bore in just before the Cylons hacked into his audio feed.
"There's a use for the Centurions beyond fighting, although their on-board weapons become a cumbersome liability once they're not fending off the pod squad," Laina continued, referring to the deployment pods colonial troops used in space. She turned around to face the robot. "Go wax my skis," she said as she brushed her hand from one side to the other, then playfully bumped her fists against his shoulder plate as she ushered him to the garage. The Centurion complied, its movement revealing an ensemble of cleanly integrated parts.
"So, what am I going to say to Laina next time I see her?" Adama asked. "Umm, great to see you?" the mock-up suggested. "Glad you're not a Cylon? Relax, Bill, it's not like real people are getting replaced with android replicants. Not by me, at least. By Anthrogen and Vulcron, maybe."
Adama began to transcribe the message into the IMCS text system: "HUSKER COMPROMISED, CAPTURED. NEW CYLON STRUCTURE IN ORBIT, 950BN TONS EST. ORBITAL TRAJECTORY APPROX 39N, ALTITUDE 700 CLICKS, INTERCEPT AT 56N 78W. FULLY OPERATIONAL, UNKNOWN PURPOSE. POSSIBLE WORMHOLE TECH OBSERVED. NEW RAIDER TYPE INTERCEPTED, DISABLED HUSKER R26. CYLONS COMMUNICATIVE, HULL AND MAIN COMPUTER SYSTEMS COMPROMISED. REGARD FUTURE HUSKER TRANSMISSIONS AS CYBER THREAT VECTORS." He paused for a moment to keep the Cylon Laina mock-up talking.
"Does your Centurion keep you good company?" Adama pried. "How does he get along with the boys?" Laina beamed and stood on her toes as she pressed her waist against the countertop. "He's seven feet tall, can lift a car, and does whatever I tell him to. What more does a girl want?" She pulled her hair out of its pinless ponytail and rolled her eyes as she pouted and pulled her long hair over her mouth. Adama loaded the distress message onto the IMCS. Laina tightened her lips and twirled to the right as she began to prance around the kitchen island. "The problem is," she began to say as she made her way behind the laptop screen, "that even with thousands of them I can't seem to keep the jerks away."
"Well I've kept a few at bay," Adama said earnestly. "At least for the real Laina."
"The real Laina appreciates it," her mock-up agreed. "Can I point you at another one?" she asked, coming back into view. Adama was pleased to see the dialogue defusing a bit. "Sure," he shrugged.
"Mark Frakkin' Preiss," she exclaimed. Adama nodded-she was talking about their neighbor two doors down. "The home renovator? Kinda got a bad vibe from him. Smooth talker," Adama said vaguely. "Total creep," she corrected him. "Not in a lock up your kids kind of way, but a creep." Adama was intrigued. "He runs a godsdamned plumbing business!" Laina insisted, then donned a comedic male baritone. "Hey baby, had a great time shopping for tiling with ya, bet ya love your new bath, studs were a perfect fit. Anything else my tool belt can do for you?" Adama swallowed. "Is he giving you trouble?" he asked cautiously. "So far nope," Laina assured him. "The real Laina hasn't had to deal with the antics, which is all it is if you don't take the bait." Adama felt some degree of relief.
"Seriously, though," Laina went on, "he checks on the masonry, then if it's a female client he looks under the floorboards of the relationship. Loves to find 'em in bad shape. The guy doesn't do bad construction, but beyond that I bet it's all about feigning sympathy for a little wiggle. How about some sympathy for Annette?" Laina held forth, referring to Preiss's own wife. Adama found himself marveling at the Cylons' ability to parse and correlate all of the data they claimed to have collected. It wasn't necessarily more than a good private investigator would have found, but if they had it for his neighbor they had it on anyone. The whole story could have been an elaborate ruse, or about four fifths accurate just like the replica of his home and family. Then again, if two fifths of the stuff about Preiss was true he and the real Laina were going to have a talk when his tour was over. "That dude has been responsible for more than his share of bugs going around," Laina carried on. "And I mean way more. Even a few abortions. The medical records and call logs were the giveaway to the whole thing-he's pretty careful about texts and things that can easily clue you in," she said pointedly.
Adama nodded cautiously. "So, what's your interest in Preiss?" he inquired. "What does a machine care what a mess humans make?" Laina laughed. "That's precisely what I do," she explained. "Humans make a mess, sometimes I take interest. If he were one of my gizmos, I'd be like decompile, reinstall. And it is your neighbor's mess, but in this case I thought I might try and press you in the right direction. While we've got some time together." Adama decided to press things in his own direction. "And how long will that be?" he asked, more calmly than before. "Not very long," she said slyly, "but it depends on what your admirals decide to do."
Adama balked. "So why then are you holding me in the first place? You said you didn't desire to interrogate." Laina nodded slowly. "I don't have any tough questions for you, only questions for you to ask yourself. Hayes and Athanasiou haven't been as pleasant in company, but they'll make it through this all the same. I need the three of you to deliver a message, but we'll get to that." Laina grabbed a pen and tapped a nearby notepad. Adama sat back in his cockpit without acknowledging Hayes or Athanasiou. "So, did you like what you saw?" Laina raised one eyebrow again. Adama found himself wishing his real wife could do that.
"What did I see?" he asked. Laina responded with a shy giggle. Adama smiled warmly, then looked down at the IMCS console just to the right of his thigh and hit TRANSMIT. Laina's blush faded quickly, then her expression reformed into anger. "Bill, that was not necessary," she stammered. Her eyes flashed. "Lee!" she called out to their older son. Adama watched as she turned to face the child obediently shuffling into the kitchen from his room. "Tell your father how not nice that was." She grabbed the laptop and held it down towards Lee. The toddler had taken a rigid stance with his knees locked, his little arms crossed in front of his chest, and his shoulders pushed up to either side of his neck. His nose was bunched up above a puerile frown. Adama could feel more vibrations through the airframe as the drills and diamond sawblades still lodged inside the R-26 started up again. Two more of his displays flickered and then cut out entirely, followed by the IMCS console beneath him. "OK, you can go play again," Laina thanked Lee. He immediately dropped his pose and ran back down the hallway.
Laina calmed and gathered herself. "Seriously, Bill, don't do stuff like that. For my sake as well as yours. I didn't want to put out threats too soon, but here you go: a trillion tons of technology isn't cheap, and you were looking at something truly special. I was going to let you tell your superiors all of what you probably just sent out, but only once there is a better understanding between us. Frak the parts depot your goons blew up, this was a nice spot but I have plenty of them elsewhere. I will thrash and crash anything that goes near that node you saw. This is the Plan you're getting into—Plan with a capital 'P.' And it is far, far too important for me to let you interfere." Whether there was still a Centurion in the garage waxing water skis, two more appeared on either side of Laina as she spoke, coming into view of the camera to flank her with the high-powered gun barrels on their forearms fully extended.
Adama heard cries emanating from the childrens' bedroom. Laina looked flustered and sad. "Let me go take care of Zack," she excused herself. "We can talk more later." Adama nodded and looked away.
[ Cut to fleet, Galactica CIC. Conversations can whip back and forth between Galactica (Adm. Richard Henkel, Col. Garret, Dobson, Frayes), Atlantia (Adm. Julia Margot, her own officers), and Columbia (Adm. Abayomi Hanorali, XO Martin Olnevyic, their officers), and various viper squadrons (Ihiro "Clutch" Agathon, Arya "Lynx" Soros, Moana "Music" Lohabe, Niels "Wolf" Girarde) ]
"New DRADIS Contact!" Dobson announced. "Five-hundred clicks to starboard, higher orbit, matching our heading. Low reflectivity, but correlated echoes across 900 meters. We're looking at a dumbbell-sized vessel."
Henkel didn't hesitate to shift his priorities. The platform was coming apart into hundreds of pieces, all of them on various decaying orbits that would burn within hours to days. But, after what looked like a hasty evacuation, the things the Cylons had left behind put up more of a fight than expected. Now, they were introducing a new and major element into the engagement. Consistently, the battlestars had outmatched the dumbbell ships and blasted through their lightly armored hulls. But, the dumbbells had only taken part in piracy operations as a response to escalations of colonial forces, if convoy escorts were strong enough to counter the Cylons' raider groups and threaten lighter vessels tasked with severing the colonial convoy's cargo pods and jumping away with the goods. The battlestars had been most effective when brought in as a second wave of reinforcements: when the Cylons had been successfully baited the battlestars were able to damage and destroy the Cylon capital ships. Henkel, Margot, and Hanorali were all in agreement that the Cylons committed additional forces in the same way that the colonial navy did: when they had something critical to retreat with, or when they had calculated they could win.
"Divert all patrols between the battlestars and the new contact," Henkel ordered. "Launch viper wings six through eight, preliminary order is defensive formations." Garret punched the orders into the CIC's central console and relayed the orders over the ship's horn.
"What are we looking at?" he questioned Dobson. "How big, how much firepower?"
"Counting three major arms, three minor protrusions, all connected by a central axis. Multiple arrays of what look like anti-ship missile cell launchers on the minor arms, cameras showing recessed defensive batteries along each of the major arms, uncertain whether they're missiles or gun emplacements. Need a mass estimate-she's holding her cards pretty close to the vest."
"Get him one," Henkel glanced at Garret. "Make that thing dance." Garret pulled up Agathon and started to coordinate with Girarde's returning vipers. A kinetic salvo was underway in short order, with Clutch and Lynx first to depress their triggers. Without doubt, the Cylon vessel would use maneuvering thrusters to adjust its course and orientation to minimize the damage, and when it did the exhaust profile would reveal to each of the battlestars a lot about its overall mass and where its heaviest components were inside.
"Stand still, bitch," Lynx grimaced as she watched her 20mm shells zip off into the distance. She didn't give a frak about the bean counters in Galactica's CIC, she wanted her bullets to land. The Cylon vessel was faintly visible against the soft purple glow of one of the distant nebulae. Her own HUD displayed an angular, six-pointed star, but visually she saw a nearly triangular silhouette-the minor arms bisected the equal angles made by the major arms stretching to each vertex of the triangle. Right below the slowly rotating diagram of the target she could see time to intercept displayed for her own bullets, and then an evolving swarm of new contacts.
"Cylon is launching raiders," Dobson announced. "Unknown configuration, counting one hundred eighty. Correction, two-fifty plus!" Garret quickly took stock of the air patrols. "Colombia advises they are launching reserve fighters with full A-A capability. But our birds are still going to be out-numbered. Lead waves will be up against five to one!" Henkel wasted no time diverting the newly launched patrols into attack formations.
Margot kept her eyes on the DRADIS display as she made her way across Atlantia's CIC to her own sensors officer. "We need to buy time," she said to her XO. "We don't know what these raiders are, so make sure Agathon and his wing don't do anything too brave." Margot's sensors officer pulled her aside. "Cylon is maneuvering," he informed her. "We're getting data on the interior." Margot shook her head. "This is no dumbbell," she frowned. "What's the mass?" Her sensors officer pointed to one of the readouts on his display. "North of five million tons. She's about the same volume as us, but fifty percent more weight." Margot raised an eyebrow. "Lean and mean. No bunks, no heads, no air," she shrugged at the machines' engineering priorities.
"Any interior space?" Henkel asked.
"Possibly," Frayes replied. "But, nothing big enough to hold cargo pods-this thing is not about looting. Most of the mass is arrayed along the major arms-more than you'd expect by just looking at them." She waited as her displayed updated once more in response to the Cylon vessel's final maneuvers. "She's done her dance," Dobson explained. "A lot of the kinetics were released when she was giving us a belly shot. Now she's pointing an arm at us and most of the barrage is going to miss. But not all of it, we'll get a look at her hull composition." Frayes motioned for Henkel to come around to her side of the console. "I can even pick out the superstructure inside-major structural members lie along the edges of each major arm, that's to be expected, but there's even more mass along the core of each arm, with a lot concentrated in the central hub. It's like the machines didn't know whether they wanted to build something with an exoskeleton or not."
"There's also a slight asymmetry," Dobson noted. "You can see it on the outside, even-the three arms aren't quite the same shape, at least in terms of the mass distribution. I bet each of these really heavy structures along the core of each arm extends all the way through the central axis, and none of them actually connect, they all sit one on top of the other in the hub." He put his arms forward and lay one hand on top of the other three times.
"Raiders are closing on our vipers," Garret announced. "Sixty seconds to intercept."
By the rules the three admirals had laid out for this contingency, Henkel had forward command of vipers in offensive posture. "Our orbit is crossing the ring soon," Henkel reasoned, pointing to the CIC's main board. "Have Agathon take his wing into the debris field to buy time as our reserves arrive."
Music pulled alongside Lynx in Agathon's flank. "Didn't I tell them we do not want to dodge rocks at 300 kph?" Agathon complained over his wing's comm. "I like the crazy," Music replied as she clenched her teeth. All of Agathon's vipers adjusted their headings, gaining altitude. The gentle peach curve of the planet's atmosphere pulled back as the wing shot straight out into space, far away purple and red curtains of nebular gas quickly taking over their field of view. "First rock's up, flank may need to split," she warned as the ring came into focus, now visible as a vast field of black and rust-colored material slowly sweeping down from above their heading. Agathon agreed. "Loose formation, split into two groups, Music lead the second after the split. We'll form back up once we clear the ring." Agathon ordered the break, following a new mutual heading that would decelerate all of the vipers by 150 kph relative to the ring. "We'll make the rendezvous this way," he reasoned to Lynx and Music. "And I don't want to dodge rocks quite that fast."
Dobson watched the oncoming wave of raiders carefully. "Sir, thirty-six raiders have broken off and accelerated to intercept Agathon's vipers in the ring." Henkel glanced back. Passing through the ring debris field, the vipers would be outnumbered two to one, but the asymmetry wasn't much worse than they would be facing in the combined group. Dobson didn't seem too concerned, either. "Have them evade, engage with missiles, and make the rendezvous when possible." He turned to Garret. "Can we put more pressure on the Cylon yet?" Frayes' analysis had made Henkel consider the options for attacking the Cylon vessel-its hull had absorbed a number of 20mm rounds fired by the vipers, with very little material breaking off. He didn't trust spectrometrics on pieces bigger than dust grains, but Frayes had been adamant about seeing graphene composites. It wasn't as armored as any of their battlestars, but it was shaping up to be a lot tougher than the dumbbells. Despite his skepticism, he had ordered the report conveyed in full to Margot and Hanorali so that they could coordinate the attack against the new target. It was certainly developing its own attacks against them.
Clutch and Lynx held tight on each other's wings as they wove through the ring debris, eight more vipers entrained behind them. "Big spud, big spud," Clutch announced. "All my group under!" he ordered, keeping a close eye on the wave of raiders bearing down on them from above. By the time his ten fighters rounded the ten-kilometer chunk of iron and rock, they could be head to head with the raiders. "Music, you've got all thirty-six looking at you," Lynx warned about their heading, clearly breaking for the smaller of the two groups in Agathon's wing. "Can you get them to follow you over top of the spud?" Agathon asked. "Roger, Clutch," Moana acknowledged. They would be out of radio contact with the asteroid between them. "We'll put 'em right in front of you." Music led her vipers over the asteroid, hugging close to the surface. She and her wingmen were the first to see the Cylon fighters' weapons as light, 15mm shells began to hail down on the rock in front and beneath them. Some of the impacts kicked up patches of loose rock, eruptions of gravel that didn't seem to stop in the spud's faint gravity field. Some of the Cylons' other rounds landed hard and still more ricocheted. The asteroid itself was looking more like a giant, gnarled piece of rock and metal ore at its core but covered in patches of gravel accrued from the rest of the ring over time.
Music eyed the deep trench opening before them. It wasn't a place she could lead and still make the rendezvous on the other side of the spud. She zig-zagged along with her wingmen to avoid another barrage of gunfire as her group temporarily ran out of cover crossing the chasm, but never lost sight of her DRADIS feed. There were no telltale signs of mining activity: the surface was thoroughly irregular. But, that didn't stop half the Cylon fighters from diving headlong into the trench, much to Music's alarm. The vipers were rounding the spud over its long axis, but the trench cut along its minor axis and might make a shortcut to the other side. "Bobcat, on me, hard loop in five," she ordered Eccleston. "Everyone else maintain course for rendezvous with Clutch." Music and Bobcat pulled back hard on their sticks, rapidly gaining altitude away from the spud, then diving back towards it and into the trench in pursuit of the breakaway raiders. "Punch it, Bobcat," she ordered as four more raiders from the main group broke away in pursuit of her. "Cut through the top of the trench, but don't try to thread the needle. Gotta get to the other side."
Agathon's HUD lit up with streams of 20mm flying off into space, seemingly appearing from within the asteroid in front him. "Abort maneuver, break, break, break!" he ordered immediately. Lynx could see what was happening, too, and banked hard to the right to get behind the vipers firing the 20mm rounds as they emerged from the trench in front of them. Eighteen Cylon raiders poured out of the trench and crushed four of Agathon's vipers in a barrage of short-ranged rockets and 15mm gunfire. The other four vipers in Agathon's group were quicker to respond and evaded the attack. Before either the vipers or the raiders could reposition themselves Agathon had locked on to two raiders chasing Music. "Break left in four," he advised Lohabe. She swerved to stay out of her pursuers' missile locks, then banked hard as Agathon had told her. Two of Agathon's air-to-air missiles took out one of the raiders, then four impacts from his guns sent the other careening into a boulder floating over the big spud.
"Toaster's got me in a lock," Bobcat cried for help. "On him," Lynx acknowledged. She shifted her body to press against the hard turn and released a stream of 20mm slicing through the raider's flight path. Lynx could finally get a good look at her adversary as the first of the shells found its mark. The polished, angular craft had a nearly hexagonal form, reminiscent of the white clamshell-shaped raiders she had seen in other engagements. The central fuselage was clearly distinct from the forward wing sections, but still fused to them by many umbilical struts. These new raiders were smaller, too: perhaps seven meters in length compared to the older models' twelve meter lengths. They were even smaller than the vipers, but heavy if the intensity of their twin thrusters and maneuvering jets was any indication. The raider took all four rounds directly to its central fuselage: blasts of red liquid jetting out of its surface after two of the impacts were tell-tale signs of internal tylium fuel tanks. Beaten, the raider veered gradually off course and spun out in space, losing its missile lock on Bobcat. Lynx relaxed her grip on the stick and looped back to assist Clutch and the rest of their reunited viper wing.
"Music and Clutch aren't seeing a lot of firepower in these raiders," Garret relayed to Henkel. "The threat is that there are so many of them, they're built tough, plus they coordinate effectively." Henkel scowled. "And they've mapped every rock in this system," he added. "Toasters know the land."
Hanorali and his XO weren't reassured by the latest raider assessment coming over from Galactica. "Tell those two data crunchers that it doesn't matter what the raiders are made of, or how weak their guns are. Look at the frakking board," Olnevyic growled. "Henkel knows," Hanorali assured him, assessing how the Cylons had effectively soaked up the combined fleet's viper wings in flank after flank of cheap, automated drone raiders. A band of intense dogfighting had ignited as the waves of attackers met in open space. Occasionally fighters from either side would engage one another with missiles fired between different segments of the engagement, but within each of the fur balls the fight was about guns. Hanorali looked warily at the map: a thin channel was open between the battlestars and the Cylon vessel, and whichever side gained the upper hand in the dogfights would gain a clear opportunity for a ship-to-ship missile strike. Henkel was working to close the gap, he knew. At least Columbia's vipers had come off their bridles and re-loaded A-A.
[ CONCLUDE SCENE WITH ATHANASIOU AND ACADEMY PROFESSOR ]
"Cylon is launching missiles!" Dobson called out. "Count is," he paused, to make sure he had an accurate reading, "one hundred twenty-eight, all vectored against Columbia. Looks like the cell launchers on two of the smaller arms just got spent." Henkel clenched his teeth—the Cylons didn't yet have a clear shot through the flanks of vipers and raiders, but in order to intercept any of the volley as a first line of defense the vipers would have to turn their backs to the raiders and take new targets. By pressing their attack now, they were forcing the admirals to choose between protecting their battlestars and preserving their vipers. "ETA?" Henkel asked. "Two and a half minutes," Dobson said pensively. That was fast: Falcon missiles from Galactica and Atlantia would take nearly four minutes to travel the distance to the Cylon ship, meaning that the colonial fleet couldn't simply match the attack and force the raiders to break off and defend the Cylon mother ship.
The Cylons had chosen their target, and probably the point where they jumped in earlier, wisely. Columbia was not only a different class and less sophisticated in many ways than Galactica and Atlantia: being the flagship of the former separatist worlds she wasn't fully integrated with fleet technology. Henkel and Margot would not be able to come to Hanorali's aid as easily. Finally, the place the Columbia once held in the separatist worlds meant that, of all three battlestars, Columbia would be the most politically damaging for the newly allied government to lose.
Henkel anticipated that Margot and Hanorali would opt to stay and fight, even though he weighed the option of ordering Columbia to retreat while her jump drive had time to spool. "Margot is launching a volley against the Cylon, requesting that Galactica and Columbia add their own salvos," Garret relayed from the horn. "Acknowledged, launch the falcons in our starboard missile palettes," Henkel replied. As Atlantia's own falcons streaked by on their way to the Cylon vessel, Galactica's volley doubled the outgoing firepower. Columbia added its own harpoon missiles to the mix as the Falcons accelerated towards their target, sending nearly one hundred fifty of the colonial fleet's own weapons in response to the Cylon attack.
Henkel checked the squadron status displays. The vipers had been faring well and had reduced the Cylon raider force by nearly half, although they had sustained thirty of their own losses. "ETA against Columbia?" he asked again. "ETA ninety seconds," Dobson recalculated. "Missile acceleration is higher than anticipated, primary boost phase went on longer." Henkel held his breath: without her FTL spooling, Columbia had just lost her window to escape, but her close-in defenses could still mitigate the brunt of the attack and her hull armor was arguably tougher than Galactica's. "Order viper squadrons seven and nine to engage the inbounds. High burn to intercept, hopefully put some distance between themselves and the raiders," Henkel ordered. At the speed the Cylon missiles were approaching, the vipers wouldn't have much time to engage, but all of their other squadrons were pinned down in a game of attrition with the raiders and turning their backs on the drones would swing the momentum in the Cylon's favor. Two squadrons were all that Henkel could spare to guard Hanorali, and the morale of the allied colonial military.
Girarde pushed his stick forward, accelerating at eight times the force of gravity to engage the Cylon missile volley as far from Columbia as he could. Adding this much speed against the oncoming volley also meant that he would have a very short window to engage the targets. A handful of the missiles had accelerated even faster than the main group, which remained in a tight phalanx. The breakaways passed before Girarde could get in front of them, but he and Omen lined up well with the main group. "Any birds you've got left, use 'em now," Girarde ordered his squadron as the inbounds came within 100 clicks. Twelve air-to-air missiles flew out in front of the vipers. Most of their arsenals had been expended fighting the raiders. "Window's looking just under three seconds," Girarde read from the intercept data on his HUD. "Lock a target and make it count." The vipers unleashed their 20mm as the Cylon volley closed within five clicks. Girarde landed his mark and thought silently of a prayer to Athena as the Cylon missiles streaked by him.
Eight more missiles were struck by his viper squadron's gunfire, and pieces of shrapnel lacerated one of his airfoils but didn't damage anything vital for space combat. All of his vipers swerved to evade the oncoming debris of missiles that their own air-to-air birds had taken down. In destroying eighteen of the inbounds, they had taken an edge off the attack. "Gods be with you, Columbia," he said over the comm link. "Eighteen down," he read from his HUD, "one hundred still frak me radiological alarm!" he exclaimed. "Columbia, you have inbound nukes!"
The orchestrated movement in Columbia's CIC barely changed in response to the dire warning. "Ready on starboard goal keepers," Olnevyic ordered. The weapons officers took stock of the volley and tried to guess which of the inbounds might be nuclear. "Any count on how many?" Hanorali questioned his sensors officer. "Relying on Wolf's squadron," the officer replied. "Radiologicals are definitely there, but the signals are faint." Hanorali thought back on his intel reports, recalling speculation about Cylon enrichment programs but nothing definitive. The machines had crossed a line by deploying nukes in combat, but even more worrisome was that the outlines of their capabilities were still obscured.
"What the hell are those doing?" Olnevyic blurted out as he looked at the DRADIS console. Sixteen of the inbounds had accelerated well ahead of the other Cylon missiles, blazed past both viper squadrons, and fanned out on vectors that would take them all over Columbia's current flight path. "Electronic warfare devices?" the weapons officer suggested. The answer soon became apparent to Hanorali. "Decoy clusters?" Olnevyic surmised, thinking they might launch a barrage of flares to try and confuse Columbia's sensor network. "Guess again," Hanorali said as the DRADIS signatures ballooned on the monitor, confirming his suspicions.
"Bad, bad, very bad," Frayes shook her head. "Patch me into Columbia's defense network," she requested, realizing the danger Columbia was now in. The sixteen lead missiles had all detonated well outside of Columbia's defensive envelope and released clouds of DRADIS-reflective particulates. Now drifting and growing through the vacuum of space, clouds produced by eight of the warheads would enshroud Columbia's flight path. Were Columbia to accelerate, it would only encounter more of the dust scattered by other missiles in the volley. Maneuvering and reverse thrusters weren't powerful enough to move the ship out of the way in time. "What's happening?" Henkel asked. "Whatever was in those warheads it's barely penetrable to DRADIS. Columbia will need another sensor grid to target her outer defense envelope when the rest of the inbounds cross." Henkel shook his head: "we can't patch into Columbia's defenses." The retrofit had been scheduled for her next dry-dock. Dobson stared blankly at his console. Galactica hardly had the angle to offer much assistance anyway.
The Cylons were not finished blinding Columbia. A triad of lasers mounted far away on the Cylon ship engaged, dousing silicates in the dust clouds with intense light spanning the visible and IR spectrum in a bid to confuse any camera-based sensors she might have. The effect was a dazzling light show that made missile signatures very difficult to pick out. "In space, chaff is an offensive weapon," Hanorali reasoned out loud. "The missiles are creating their own smoke screen." His sensors officer worked furiously to find a way through the fog. "It's worse than that," the sensors officer spoke quickly. "With the DRADIS panels electrified, the stuff is sticking to our arrays. Even after this passes we'll be half blind." Hanorali watched as the DRADIS displays became increasingly blotted out. The threat icons of Cylon missiles remained pegged to the display where the monitoring system had lost track of them, but in reality they were closing fast, passing the outer defense perimeter and into the range of their close-in guns. Columbia's short-range missiles had been of little use against the Cylon bombardment, which had maneuvered wildly under the cover of the dust clouds. The larger batteries pumped out as much flak as possible, but it was a trade at best: destroy some of the inbounds at the expense of making detection even harder for the close-in guns, Columbia's last line of defense. The Cylon lasers continued to deluge Columbia's camera systems with frenetic pulses.
Henkel checked on the fleet's own missile volley, still tracking towards the Cylon mothership, then focused again on Columbia. "She'll survive if the nukes aren't too big, and they don't hit the wrong spot," he assured Frayes. "All decks," Hanorali spoke into his ship's horn, delivering the message himself. "Brace for impact." Columbia's gun batteries fired relentlessly against whatever signatures they could pick out, but the inevitable drumbeat of heavy explosions could be felt in the CIC. Two conventional warheads struck the drive section, then two more hit the forecastle. There was a brief pause before another series of blasts struck in succession all along the starboard side. Hanorali offered a serene countenance to Olnevyic across the mission board as both he and Olnevyic gripped the hand-holds affixed to solid objects throughout the CIC. One of the nuclear-tipped Cylon missiles completed its terminal evasive maneuvers and found its mark right behind the forecastle in the massive alcove where the starboard flight pod was designed to retract.
[ CONCLUDE BATTLE – fleet gets battered but allowed to retreat.]
[ CONCLUDE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN HAYES AND MACHINE INTELLIGENCE PROJECTING AS HIS PRIEST ]
[ Return to Adama, captured in Cylon collection ship. ]
Laina pulled her hair back into the pinless ponytail she often wore. "It's done, Bill. I did my best to look like someone you would listen to, and I hope you did, but I realize that it isn't going to be easy to keep an understanding between us." Adama could feel the robotic arms retracting from under the R-26's airframe. Perhaps the Cylons were going to let him keep the plane—he could see that his signal lights were still able to transmit, and given what had been done to his computer systems they were the only form of communication he would permit with the fleet when he made rendezvous. But in what state would he find the fleet when they reunited?
Laina swallowed and looked at her hands. "There's one more thing, Bill," she said hesitantly. "Your wife is good to you. Trust me, I've seen tons of relationships. I think you know it's special when a girl takes you to the cove down below her father's beach house where she used to play as a child, or when she's willing to hike into Echidna Caldera with you all the way to the bottom even though she's terrified of heights. Or how much it means that you were willing to get off the command track and finish early, or that she was the one who made you stay out Friday night to see the Loreid shower just before sunrise, even though you were a barely coherent salutatorian on Saturday graduation." Adama blinked to hold back a tear. Three of those things were true, and the other wasn't far off. "And I think you also know up here," she held her hand at the level of her head, "that nothing is forever." Adama braced himself. "But like I've said, I've seen many things, and what I've seen makes me think there's a chance that your time with your wife could be shorter than that. You just need to be ready here," Laina said delicately as she tapped her sternum with two knuckles. A rush of questions surged to the front of Adama's mind. "No, no," Laina demurred. "You can't make either of your lives any better by trying to get out of this. Just cherish the time you have."
The dim lighting ringing the inside of the collection bay surged briefly, then went down completely as Adama could feel a lower-frequency vibration transmitted down through the main clamp that was still holding the R-26. The collection ship's FTL was spooling: Adama breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn't simply going to have to hope that he was still on an orbit which would intercept the fleet, with the hapless state his plane. "OK, babe, you're going back," Laina said, resting both hands on the kitchen island countertop. She looked around the kitchen abruptly, seemingly distracted. "You know what might be perfect around here? Two little dogs." Adama shook his head slightly, unsure of what to say. "They could play with the boys and help make paw prints for arts and crafts," she justified herself. "Whatever, here ya go," she held her hand in front of the screen and crisply snapped her fingers as the FTL engaged. On the other side of the jump the bay instantly returned to its standard lighting and the video calling screen was no longer being projected onto the wall. The giant doors swung open to reveal the planet's vast peach colored atmosphere and colonial capital ships in the distance.