As the last bastion of humanity leaves the Twelve Colonies, their Cylon pursuers attempt to hunt them down.

Inspired by Battlestar Prometheus.

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New Characters in Battlestar Phoenix, Part Three:

Respected Crews and Officers of new ships

Multiple human survivors

Crew members of the Tylium Digger

Day 9 after the Fall

Major Caleb Brewson of the Gunstar Reaper was heading to Taurus CIC for an emergency meeting. Everyone had their rumours and their ideas, but no one actually new the subject of the meeting or anything of it, apart from the fact that all major staff were to report to the Battlestar and that two Gunstars would temporarily escort the Taurus while this meeting occurred.

As he entered the CIC, he saw all the other commanders, as well as the officers from the five surviving Colonial warships, gathered around, their XO's also round the main table. General Krasniqi spoke up.

"We have all heard and seen for our own eyes what has happened. The total destruction of the Twelve Colonies, more than a hundred Battlestars and fifty Billion people burned up in a single daring attack. The Cylons can't have had this force without a backdoor, a hack into our systems or something else, or else we would've cornered them and nuked the hell out of them!" His anger was obvious, as the comms and FTL officers also pondered what had happened.

"If I may say something, General," Admiral Cayne, commander of the Athena decided to intervene, "You are not only stating that our entire fleet has been destroyed, but that the Cylons hacked into our network, or they were given our CNP passwords?"

The entire CIC was filled with murmurs, as the captain of a civilian ship called the Colonial Heavy 229 also decided to have his share.

"Why don't we all frakking forget about the past and look to the future? We have five Battlestars and multiple more escort ships, for fraks sake? Why don't we concentrate on finding a habitable planet of sorts, I don't know, maybe like Earth? Or, we could stop hanging around and take the fight to the frakking Cylons!"

Most of the CIC agreed with him, as the DRADIS scanner beeped. A red dot, followed by dozens more popped up.

"All ships, this is Taurus actual! Multiple DRADIS contacts bearing 110 carom 159! Reading at least three Basestars with Raider compliment! Wait a sec, radiological signatures detected! All ships, spool up FTL drives, nukes inbound!" the comms Officer shouted through the speakers.

The Basestars launched their raiders, which began to pummel the fleet with fighter rounds and light missiles. A luxury liner was attacked; it went down in flames and with a thousand people onboard. The Battlestars began to fire flak, as all Vipers were launched, while the Gunstars and other Escort craft began to cover the civilian ships as they jumped away, one after the other. Another volley of missiles came in and a quartet made it through to the Hawk, causing massive damage and ripping apart a dozen fighters. She launched the rest of her fighter wings and she too also jumped away, as a nuke hit a mining ship, which took out another 6 ships resulting in the loss of about 2,000 lives.

The Athena fired three of her nukes at the Basestars and a pair hit home, ripping one of the Basestars to shreds, as the blue-white explosion ripped apart space. Another pair of Basestars jumped in and the truth fell on Commander Connors. They're trying to destroy the civilian ships BEFORE ours!

And he was correct; the first hail of missiles hit three ships, which all were destroyed with all hands. As the confirmation came in that the last few civilian ships were jumping away, the armed cruisers followed their lead but as if they were caught between a rock and a hard place, a horde of nukes came at the Battlestars.

Battlestar Colonist went up in a ball of flames, as she sent out her sixteen nukes at the Cylons in a last dousing of hell, just seconds before the hull exploded. The alligator head was headed straight at the Taurus, who jumped away as another two Basestars were destroyed by the nukes, with a third crippled. The last one continued to rain down hell on the Battlestars, as Battlestar Imperial finally jumped away, leaving behind a battlefield of massive destruction.

-24 HOURS LATER-

Commander Connors went into his private quarters and looked at the files Major Joseph had left him. He opened them, expecting the exact contents of this report to be on the battle with the Cylons. Yet again, he proved correct, as he opened the file and it finally became clear the amount of men, women and ships were lost during that battle.

"12 civilian ships destroyed, 3 damaged, the Hawk temporarily crippled, the Colonist destroyed, the Imperial damaged and in need of repairs, 69 Vipers and 12 Raptors destroyed, and almost seven thousand dead? Can you bring me any more good news Joseph?" his anger was obvious.

"As a matter of fact I can, sir."

"What is it?"

"Imperial CIC has confirmed the destruction of two of the Basestars, and it is believed that the third has been crippled. Despite our losses, our best reports say that that was the main force of the cylon pursuers, and gun cam view from the birds shows that at least 300 kills were made by the pilots alone."

"And the one that the Athena destroyed, Joseph. Don't forget that one, so that means a fleet of armed ships the size of ours has been destroyed?"

"Yes sir."

Commander Connors put down the file and slowly got up, a glimpse of a smile beginning to unveil from the covers of his frown. He walked down the decks to the port hangar bay and called up Yellow Squadron. The pilots and deckhands immediately stood to attention.

"Yellow Squadron, I have come in person to praise you for your fantastic effort and contributions in the last battle with the Cylons. I have also come to congratulate you, as you made the most Raider and Heavy Raider kills since the fall, so you will each have double cubits for the next month!"

The cheers rand across the hangar bay, as the pilots and deckhands of Yellow Squadron awaited their next payday.

Day 11 after the Fall

Mining Ship Tylium Digger

The 85-strong crew of the Tylium Digger were not impressed at the command chain, as a new Quroum had not been elected, and there still wasn't even a new President. They were also running low on resources, as the 200 survivors it carried put a huge strain on survival storage. Today was one of the more eventful days, as the Botanical Cruiser Harvester had brought in enough resources to last the survivors onboard two weeks via shuttle, and the passengers would be a bit overeager to get their food. As always, a small detachment of marines, usually twelve men, would come down to instil order. Two crew members who had the job of receiving the shuttles and transporting the food across the ship were having an argument.

"Larry, this is the last frakking time."

"Harriet, just shut the frak up, it's your turn to use the machines."

"No Larry, it's your turn!"

"No, it's yours!"

"Why don't both of you frakking shut up and just halve the workload?" The captain of the ship had come down to see what the mess was all about, "You left the loudspeaker on and I decided to come on down and check on you."

The faces of Larry and Harriet flushed a strong crimson of embarrassment, as they began to do their job. Meanwhile, in the mess hall, the survivors began to eat their meals when all of a sudden a young man retched up and collapsed to the floor.

Many others soon followed, and the first man began to cough up blood. His became bloodshot and he clutched his intestines, as he collapsed to the floor with a last gasp of breath. Harriet knew exactly what had happened.

"Larry, the food's poisoned! Send an alert message to the fleet and warn the other crew members!"

Larry raced off down the corridor at the front of the mess hall, right to deck 2 and then a left to deck 1, where he sent out the message.

-4 HOURS LATER-

Onboard the Battlestar Phoenix

Commander Connors was at CIC when Major Joseph stealthily raced in, holding yet another folder of information.

"Ah, Major Joseph, is what I have been expecting?" Commander Connors was calm and composed, as he glanced back at the DRADIS screen, then down to the table where four Battlestars and a bunch of vipers and any civilian ship tokens that were found were positioned, and then back to Joseph.

"Aye sir, 82 dead and twelve in a critical condition. It's lucky that crew member sent out the alert when he did, or thousands across the fleet could've died!"

"Hmmm..." Connors began to contemplate the cause of this incident, "Do you think it could've been the Cylons? You've heard the rumours, sleeper agents onboard every Battlestar, Cylons that look like humans?"

"Sir, 'ave you gone crazy?"

Commander Connors leaned in and beckoned for his XO to do the same.

"When the Cylons boarded the Athena, we found some very disturbing specimens. Three "humans" were found with weaponry and reports from Sergeant Sharpov show that two of our men were killed by these humans. The lab boys conducted a test two days ago, and the results were like nothing we have ever seen before."

"Let me guess, the DNA was just like ours, right?"

"To the last frakking fibre, and you are the first XO to find out about this, so I want you to keep your mouth shut."

"Aye, sir."

"And one more thing, Adam."

"Yes, sir?"

"Admiral Cayne is running short on spare marines, so she's asked our boys to develop a counter-cylon group, an anti-terrorist force if you will." Connors began to think whether Joseph should know any more about the humanoid Cylons.

"Like a task force, aye?"

"Yes, and although we already have a company of marines ready, they need a battle trained commander, and I want you to become the commander of this force."

"Aye, I accept. Thank you sir."

"May the Gods be with you Joseph."

"You too Commander."