CHAPTER TWO: The Cylon Trap.
Battlestar Pegasus – Silver Spar Wing Briefing Room
"A minefield. That's all we need", Commander Cain muttered, after hearing the report from Benson.
Benson had expedited his return to the Pegasus in order to report the existence of the disguised minefield. As a result of the notification, The Pegasus had been called to Condition One and the battlestar's speed heavily reduced. Now, in the wing briefing room, Cain had called Tolen and Syke in to listen to Benson's report in more detail and to make recommendations, while Captain Sanders monitored things from CIC.
"Why would the Cylons seed this sector of space with mines?", Tolen mused, echoing Benson's earlier observation, "There's no trace of planets or anything for this minefield to protect, plus, we could always FTL-jump beyond the minefield and out of trouble".
"No one has ever accused the Cylons of being stupid, X.O. They did this for a reason", Cain answered.
At this point, Syke, who had been looking over a printout from Benson's last scan, spoke up; saying, "It seems to me that given the fact that the Cylons can't be everywhere at once, they would want to cover as many sectors as possible by providing traps such as this. Those mines could very well have taken us by surprise, since one wouldn't think that a minefield would be placed in the middle of nowhere".
"If we had been damaged enough by one or more of these mines, we would stay stuck here, immobilized in this part of space until either our supplies ran out or until their base stars arrived", Cain commented, "Which either way is a pretty sound tactic on the Cylons' part".
"Commander", Benson spoke up, "Shouldn't we try to get Cooler back before we do anything else?"
"I'm ahead of you there, Growler", Syke answered, "A raptor crew is getting readied now to retrieve him".
"Which crew?" Cain wanted to know.
"Sheba and Newguy", Syke answered. It's their turn on the rotation, and in any case they are the best crew that we have. Their raptor is already being fitted with a grab so that we can tow Cooler home. As soon as it's installed, they'll be on their way".
"They'll need to be the best, and fast too", Tolen replied, "as pretty soon, the Cylons are going to find out about two of their mines exploding in this sector and will send someone along to check it out".
Cain looked at Tolen, and then turned his attention to Benson.
"Lieutenant", he said to Benson, "Did either of you get any indications whatsoever of FTL-entry on your sensors?"
"Negative, Commander", Benson replied, "My sensors were keyed to that and they definitely picked up nothing. No ion trail reside either".
"Then that means that this field did not have any drones", Cain deduced. Cain was referring to small automatic probes that would fly off and FTL to a base star to report on the detonation of the mines should one happen.
"Given that they were disguising the minefield, a drone could have been detected quite easily", Syke clarified, "but it would be safe to assume there would at least be a periodic signal check of the mines, and when the Cylons get a signal back from the field indicating that some of them had detonated, they will be coming to check it out".
"There has been no indication of any other ships detected on long range scan, so it will take a while for the Cylons to receive such a signal", Tolen said hopefully.
"But relying on sub-light signals means that they can't be all that far away, which means we have to assume the worst-case scenario", Cain replied, "Regardless, we have to get Lt. Blanke back. As the Deputy CAG of Silver Spar Wing, he is privy to a lot of information. If he gets captured, the Cylons will torture it out of him and that means not only revealing our presence, but also our current disposition".
Everyone nodded at that. Blanke had a lot of information in his head and that made it imperative that he had to be rescued. But there was one thing that has to be asked.
"Commander", Captain Syke ventured, "If the Cylons do intercept him before we can rescue him, what are your orders?" Tolen and Benson looked at Cain, awaiting his answer.
"If worst comes to worst, Captain", Cain replied slowly, "the Cylons must not be able to get any information from Lieutenant Blanke. Is that sufficiently clear?"
Syke looked ashen, but then he nodded his head. Benson had a harder time keeping stoic, because he well knew what Commander Cain had meant. He wanted to object, but he saw Tolen slightly shaking his head at him…
"Brief the rescue crew accordingly", Cain said to Syke as he stood up and exited the briefing room. Syke followed him out. Tolen turned to Benson.
"You are to mention nothing of this conversation to anyone else, Lieutenant Benson. Understood?" Tolen ordered.
"Having to kill him..." Benson blurted out before he could stop speaking. He looked at Tolen, whose facial expression was somber.
"Say nothing. That is an order", Tolen repeated, "You are to proceed to your action station. Condition One is still in effect", he reminded him.
"Yes, X.O.", Benson replied. He stood up and walked out of the briefing room.
Tolen stayed for a few seconds in order to regain his complete composure, then use his comm-link to call Krag in order to have the raptor armed with ship-to-ship missiles. Once he put down the communicator, he headed back up to CIC.
As for Syke, he was heading to the launch bay where Tricia's raptor was being readied. Commander Cain's order would have to be given face-to-face.
Battlestar Pegasus – Port Landing Bay – Hanger Five
As Syke rode the transporter down to the bay, both Tricia and Jason 'Neyguy' Gorde were watching some of the deck crew install the magna-grab underneath the raptor's belly. It was a device that could be lowered on a cable. When it contacted the viper's nose, it would lock into place and the raptor would then be able to tow Blanke's viper back.
Both of them had been given the co-ordinates of Blanke's viper and its drift trajectory. Tricia did not foresee any problems locating Blanke, but there was a problem: The minefield's area and concentration of debris meant that an FTL-jump directly to Blanke could not be done. They would have to approach on sub-light, and use manual control to avoid anything that could be a disguised mine in order to rendezvous and dock with him. Then, they would have to be just as careful in towing Blanke out of the minefield.
Tricia was musing about that problem when Gorde tapped her on the arm and drew her attention to the bay access hatch. Krag was with other members of the deck crew, pushing a dolly. The dolly had two high-explosive armor-piercing ship-to-ship Scarab III missiles placed upon them. Tricia frowned. This raptor was being set up for a rescue, not combat. Besides, a raptor was not the ideal craft for fighting, as it was geared more toward scouting and intelligence gathering.
"CAG's orders", Krag said, answering Tricia's unspoken question, "Midshipman Gorde, I'll need you to get the fire control panel set up to accept the weapons load".
Gorde looked at Tricia, who nodded. Gorde entered the raptor and began to power up the relevant systems, while Krag's armament technicians began to mount the missiles on the raptor's missile racks. At that moment, Captain Syke walked into the Hangar.
"CAG", Tricia said as she walked up to him, "what's with the Scarabs?" Syke did not reply directly, He gestured to an alcove at the far end of the bay. Tricia understood. Both of them walked on over there, where there was no one to overhear them.
"The commander ordered the arming of your raptor just in case the Cylons get to Cooler before you do, Sheba", he explained, " Cooler has information that the Cylons would love to have. If worst comes to worst, you must see to it that this does not happen".
Tricia's eyes widened as she realized the import of Syke's statement. If rescue was impossible, she would have to kill the Deputy CAG herself!
"I don't know if I can do it", Tricia objected.
"You're the best pilot we have. You are Blanke's best chance for a rescue, but if the Cylons locate him, you're his best chance to stop him from being captured, and you know what will happen to him if he is caught", Syke answered quietly.
Tricia had read reports from the First Cylon War about the finding of mutilated bodies. The Cylons had a penal colony that doubled as an interrogation center. The colonials had found the facility and captured it. What they found had defied description. Judging from the few survivors' accounts, The Cylons had used horrific – almost indescribable - means to extract information. It was this discovery that had galvanized the colonials to double their efforts against the Cylons, which later on led to the armistice. She nodded to Syke, indicating that she had understood, and then walked back to her raptor - looking pale.
Syke watched her go. He did not envy her task if it indeed came to that. He walked out of the bay and headed to the Launch Control area -where the Launch Control Officer, known popularly as 'the shooter' was located - to check on the readiness status of the wing.
Optus Sector - Cylon Minefield
At that moment, while adrift in the minefield, Blanke was trying to keep warm. He had pulled out a thermal blanket from his survival pack and had wrapped it around him. With tying up almost all remaining power in his damaged viper into the life support system, the heater was off and the temperature was down several degrees as a result. As his ship slowly tumbled, he looked out for any other boulders that may be disguised mines. The Cylons - who else could it be, he reasoned - had really planned this trap well. Seeding disguised mines in a large field of debris was a deception that could have spelled doom for the Pegasus. It was purely fortuitous that they had discovered it, although his ship got badly damaged as a result.
There were several large rocks floating nearby. Without his sensors, there was no way to know which ones were mines. He hoped that his drifting fighter would not hit one before the rescue craft made it, or that the rescue craft would be able to get to him without their hitting one either. His life support system was still good for several hours, but he was really living up to his call-sign as the frakking cold was starting to bite. The only other thing that he was putting power to was the passive sensor array. When his sensors detected a rescue ship, then and only then would he activate the transmit mode on his PSB - the personal survival beacon that all pilots carried as an emergency locator and short-range receiver/communicator. It was currently in receive mode, meaning that it was listening for any incoming short-range communications, but so far, no signal had been received, and until either a signal was received, or his sensors picked up a ship, all that he could do was wait.
Optus Sector – Near the Cylon Minefield
At that very moment, something else was biting, but it was something that Blanke could well do without. Commander Cain was right in his guess that there would be an alert signal sent out when those first two mines were hit, but that were no base stars nearby to quickly pick up the signal, according to the deep space scanners. But something else had picked up the signal instead.
When the base star that had laid out this disguised minefield - which was just one of several minefields in various sectors - had left, a routine patrol schedule was also set up, as an FTL-drone type of alert did stand a far better chance of being detected. Raiders in groups of two would make periodic FTL-jumps into the mined sectors in order to check on their status. If an alert signal was received from a minefield, then the raiders would check out what had caused the alert, and if it proved to be a hostile ship, they would return to their base star to sound the alarm. It was one of these patrols that had just FTL-jumped to the opposite side of the minefield from the Pegasus' position that had picked up the signal.
The two raiders were of the new self-aware (pilotless) scimitar configuration which had wrought so much destruction upon the colonial fleet. They had FTL-jumped just outside the sensor range of the Pegasus. As the received signal did report the detonation of two mines, the raiders went into their pre-set investigative mode. One would remain just outside the minefield while the other would enter the field and do a methodical search. With this directive now activated, the raiders proceeded to head to the edge of the minefield that was closest to the explosions...