Battlestar Galactica: New Beginnings
Chapter 6: Conquest
25/07/55
16:35
Helios Beta System
13.2 AU from Helios Beta
Colonial Fleet Salvage Yards Alpha (The Boneyards)
BSG-16
Battlestar Defiant
Bursting into existence far beyond the warmth of Helios Beta came the battered and bruised fleet that was BSG-16. At first it was only the one ship, the Battlestar Talon still firing her guns at a now unseen enemy and hull plates crumbling off, it couldn't be denied that she had been in a tough fight. And then the other ships of BSG-16 started jumping in, some even worse off. Destroyers, Cruisers, Gunstars, Missilestars and Battlestars followed until all that was left to jump in was the Battlestar Hades.
Flashing into existence, fissures running along her starboard bow and flightpod, scorch marks running along her entire hull, Hades looked like Hell.
Leaning on the Information Management Table, a rough bandage held to his bleeding head, Commander Robert Hall tried to smile. The Colonials had gained a victory, but at too high a price he thought. His ships would need extensive repair to have another great victory, Vipers would have to be repaired, pilots would have to be trained. But most of his people were still alive for now, and that's all he could ask for. He couldn't fool himself though, he knew that Caprica was lost and that if Admiral Perry had any sense then he would see that and jump his ships to Virgon where Fleet Admiral Nagala needed them. Hall saw what needed to be done, pull the fleet together in orbit of one world and then send out balanced fleets to harass the Cylons, they needed to employ guerrilla tactics, the Fleet had lost too many ships to do otherwise.
"Sir, all ships except the Andromeda and Arcadia have reported in. We have confirmed reports they were destroyed. Damage reports from the Yarbrough and the Hektor are...its bad sir. The Chiefs believe they should be evacuated and scrapped. We're still waiting on reports from Memphis but we don't expect a good one".
It was all to be expected, the Commander thought to himself. You don't jump into the jaws of death and expect to escape unscathed but still, the Cylons had suffered a lot more than he had and they had more ships. "I would rather we didn't...frak we need every ship we can get...if there's no other way to get those ships patched up in the next hour, then the crews are ordered to evacuate them as soon as possible, spread them out among the ships that need them most".
"DRADIS contacts!"
"Our Raptors or the pickets?"
"Neither sir, transponders read as them belonging to Enterprise Solutions and..."
"And what?" If the Cylons were here then the 12 Colonies were well and truly fracked.
"Leonis Estates Sparkling Wines sir. There's 103 ships of various sizes. They're mixed in among the decommissioned vessels sir".
"Incoming signal, it's coming from the Medstar Panacea".
"They're reactivating the ships...Patch me through" after a nod the Commander spoke into his headset, "Panacea this is Defiant Actual. You are in a restricted zone, explain your intentions or be fired upon".
A voice came over the wireless, "Defiant this is Tamalyn Adams, I represent the Graystones, we all do. We're currently reactivating what ships we can to aid in rescue efforts back in the colonies. Firing upon us would be a mistake, we are loyal to the Colonies".
"While I respect what you are doing, those are Colonial Military Warships. Not some run of the mill transport..."
"We understand that Commander, 80% of our personnel are ex-fleet, we know how to operate these ships. And we fully understand that they're yours by right..."
"What are you taking and what do you intend to do?"
"We're requisitioning the Medstar Panacea and the Destroyer Achilles, along with a squadron of Mark 2 Vipers and Cobra Transports. We plan on getting as many people off the hit colonies as we can".
"Okay, I guess I can respect that. But I cannot allow you to take those ships... Frak, Gods help me...Ms Adams, I need you to transmit to me the personnel of all your people as soon as possible. I'm going to reactivate their commission".
25/07/55
16:42
Cylon Command Basestar
Border of Cyrannus Star Cluster
"IT'S A CLUSTERFRAK! THEY KNEW WE WERE COMING. WE'VE LOST HALF...HALF OF CAPRICA'S CLEANSING FLEET! THIS...THIS IS YOUR FAULT CAVIL, YOU PUSHED US WAY TOO EARLY" the voice of the Six, Natalie, bore into the room shocking the six other models present.
"We've been hit hard Sister, but we are still far stronger than the Colonials. Nothing they do can stop us now. We've taken out more than half their Battlestars and need I remind you, we were all in consensus about the course and timing of action", One, John Cavil replied, a smirk crossing his face as he steepled his crude organic fingers together.
"Sister, while they may have hit us harder than we thought possible, surely you must realise that we have broken them. Caprica, Tauron, Scorpia, Picon, Gemenon, they have all been cleansed. Whatever humans live on those planets now can put up no organised resistance..." an attractive 3 with a Picon, Queenstown accent, said.
"What about the Graystones? From our communications intercepts they're responsible for blocking the signal..." Natalie continued.
A number 4, Simon spoke in a deep but deceivingly caring voice, "The Graystones are dead, their entire family was wiped out in the first war. What I believe we are looking at here is a black ops military group or a terrorist org..."
"Terrorists? Really? From what I can see they'll be patriots to the Colonials. They warned them of our attack mere minutes before we were in place. They jammed our Signal. They damaged three...three Hybrids with a mental attack, something, need I add that should be impossible. That certainly sounds like the work of Daniel Graystone to me. Only he would understand us enough to hurt us so hard..."
Listening to this in his zoned out state, a 2, Leoben Conoy interrupted, remembering a fragment of their shared past, "No, you are wrong Sister, and yet oh so right at the same. The hybrids spoke of 'A thousand whisperers, Orchestrated by the Mother of Creation, Speaking from the minds world, Singing their chorus unto the heavens".
Exasperated John interrupted "Just what are you getting at Two?"
"What was Daniel Graystone's second greatest achievement? Holobands and V world".
"Outlawed technology" a 5 in a lime green suit, supplied.
"True. But a thousand whisperers could be a thousand Ciphers. The minds world, V world and their song, the interference. And what better name to call themselves than the Graystones if they are using holobands to send out their song".
Leaning forward Cavil asked "And just how would they know we were going to attack?"
"They hacked the defence mainframe from inside. As soon as we knocked out the ribbon they knew something was wrong, we waited too long after we took it out, we should have launched the attack immediately" Simon supplied, finally starting to believe that there was some truth in what Leoben was saying.
"Surely we would have known they were inside. Six went through the mainframe" Doral questioned.
"If there hacks of it were as good as their jamming's level of sophistication then we wouldn't have seen it unless we were looking for it which we weren't" Eight added.
"None of this matters. We need to stay focused on the matter at hand. The eradication of the humans. We shouldn't be hit as hard as we were at Caprica. It was a fluke, nothing more. No other planet was ever as closely networked as Caprica", Cavil said bringing them full circle.
"Then I propose we bring in our reinforcements. We're going to need every ship we can get to destroy the Colonial Fleet. We also need to change tactics" Natalie said.
"And just what tactics might these be, hmm. Hit and run?"
Shaking her head D'anna ventured "Instead of focussing on the Colonial Fleet. Take out their colonies. Deny them every bit of safe ground we can. In the end they'll pull all of their ships back to the last Colony left. And that…that is where we will bring our full strength to bare".
"Nodding Cavil said "We'll lose a lot of ships. They should find the backdoors in the next hour, now that they know of them".
Simon nodded "It will be a hard battle. Nagala is calling all ships to Virgon".
"Then he's making our job easier, just hit every Colony between here and there" Natalie replied.
Clapping his hands together Cavil asked "So are we in agreement?" After they all nodded they set to work.
25/07/55
16:38
The boneyards
BSG 16
Battlestar Defiant
Exhaustion pounced upon Cain the moment his feet hit the deck as the adrenaline that had fuelled his body slipped away as quickly as it came during the all too brief, but far too deadly battle he had just partaken. All around him on this crowded deck pilots were collapsing by their Vipers as they too felt what Cain felt...emptiness.
As great as their victory had been, they all knew that Caprica's chances were slim at best. And what was a victory if you lost the war, you couldn't celebrate it, you couldn't dance from the rafters in joy. Most of all you could not let the defeat control you.
Looking at his Viper, Cain knew that it would take hours to get it ready for battle again. The stabilisers were shot and the entire starboard wing would have to be scrapped. And that was just what could be seen, he dreaded to peek in the engines, he knew that the afterburn he used to destroy his last Raider had created a large blowback.
"Captain Cain" holding out a clipboard the deckhand asked Cain to sign his Viper back in.
Signing it Cain asked "Where do you need me Murphy" the deck crew all knew that Cain loved to repair and maintain his own Vipers and they also knew that he was fully qualified as a Deck Chief which was why he was not only more respected by them but appreciated especially during the current situation.
.
"Thank frak. We've got Mark twos and threes coming in the next quarter hour. We need to clear the deck and try to fix some mark sevens. Half our crew is working on patching up the ship".
"Don't bother with mine, it'll take too long", Cain replied before saying "Hang on" and stepping onto the wing of his Viper he shouted "LISTEN UP! ALL PILOTS ARE TO IMMEDIATELY HELP THE KNUCKLEDRAGGERS CLEAR THE DECK OF ALL VIPERS, WE'VE GOT VINTAGE SHIT COMING. YOU'LL BE FLYING IN STYLE GUYS BUT ONLY WHEN WE HAVE SOMEWHERE TO KEEP THEM". Looking at him it appeared as if the pilots were going to tell him to frak off as they were too exhausted yet they still dragged their asses up and started pushing their planes down the deck.
25/07/55
16:55
Virgon orbit
BSG 57
Battlestar Atlantia (Colonial fleet flagship)
36 mins after Cylon Incursion.
"DRADIS Contacts...reading Raptor 310/Galactica sir. Codes check out"
Letting out the breath he'd been holding every time a DRADIS Contact had been announced since he took command, Acting Fleet Admiral Robert Nagala spoke, "Open a channel...This is Atlantia actual to Raptor 310. What's the status of the Galactica?"
"Raptor 310 Racetrack, Atlantia. Commander Adama sends his respects and informs you that the Galactica is currently rearming at Ragnar Anchorage, he felt it best not to risk rearming over a Colony. ETA is 45 minutes", Racetrack replied.
"Thank the Gods. We could use Bill's help" the Admiral muttered, then speaking more audibly, "Very well, you're to land in the starboard bay. I'll be giving you new orders for Commander Adama".
Before Racetrack could reply the DRADIS operator called out "DRADIS contacts, I read almost 200 contacts. Read as raptors belonging to…BSG 16".
Oh gods another group destroyed thought Nagala as the Raptors opened contact "Raptor 205, Atlantia...Defiant actual sends his regards...", the hard as nails voice of Trojan said.
"By the gods...Raptor 205, Fleet Actual, where are they?"
"They should be at the Boneyards sir, ETA is one hour, the Commander wanted to pick up some Mk twos and threes sir. Be advised that BSG-16 made a guerrilla style attack on a reserve fleet of 98 Basestars holding position over Caprica with a Group assault down the centre of their formation and an Assault Raptor assault on the outer Basestars. This operation was highly successful and resulted in the destruction of numerous Basestars".
"Smart fracker".
" Admiral...Caprica's b...She's been nuked sir...", Nagala almost collapsed at the news as Raptor 205 continued, "...it was a full bombardment sir, a mixture of neutron bombs and thermonuclear missiles in the 25 to 50 megatonne range. We're currently carrying survivors and more made it off in civilian ships and 3 Marinestars. Her fleets were decimated sir. Before we jumped only a handful of Battlestars were left in orbit".
"Gods...Raptor 205, we ca...You are to jump to Ragnar Anchorage in 10 minutes. There you will meet the Galactica. You are ordered to offload the survivors onto the station and return to your ships. Was there any word on the President or the Quorum?"
"The President was in the Phoenix Lair. We don't know about the Quorum sir. But before we jumped the President...he...he surrendered sir".
"He did the right thing when it comes down to it. For now we all need to focus..."
"DRADIS contact. Reading one Civilian Raptor. Leonis Registry, Enterprise Solutions Raptor 2537-91-17" the DRADIS operator called out. This was one Raptor that Fleet Admiral Nagala was happy to see, over the past half hour he had come to associate the PMC Enterprise Solutions with the Graystones and it seemed that whenever they showed up, these Raptors brought valuable Intel as well as quick fixes for safeguarding their networks by isolating the wireless and DRADIS arrays should the Cylons be able to send their signal through the DRADIS.
"Enterprise Solutions Raptor is transmitting sir...the Graystones have found how the Cylons are getting in. There's a backdoor in the CNP. They said the backdoor doesn't look like Dr Baltar's work" the Wireless operator announced.
"Frak...that code's in most of our fleet"
"It's worse sir, it's in our satellites".
25/07/55
17:05
Cyrannus Trinary Star System
Pulling in the 183 remaining Basestars which had been deployed to Picon, Scorpia, Tauron and Caprica and an extra 200 Basestars from the border the Cylons went to work moving through the Colonial star system with virtual ease. Instead of attacking the fleets first as had been the original plan, and instead of splitting up the fleet into smaller groups of eighty odd Basestars and risking Nagala's growing fleet jumping in and destroying them. The Cylons regrouped their ships into one fleet of 383 Basestars, hitting the Colonial planets one at a time.
Jumping into orbit of what was seen as the 'bread basket' of the Colonies, the Cylon Armada overran Aerilon's meager defence of 20 picket ships and 1 Battlestar, the Helios (these ships had arrived after the Cylon guerrilla fleet hit Aerilon) with a full launch of tens of thousands of Raiders with close support from the Basestars themselves. However before the Raiders could close the gap, the Helios and 8 support ships seeing that the battle was lost, jumped to Virgon, the remaining 12 support ships were die hard Aerilons though, and so stayed to the very end. Standing as one as the Cylon Raiders stormed their way towards them the Commanders of these brave little ships calculated a series of jumps co-ordinated with the rest of their fleet via laser communications and then with the Raiders within weapons range and missiles being launched, the support ships jumped.
Appearing at six separate points deep in the Cylon Armada with two support ships to a Basestar (one on one side of a Basestar and the other support ship on the other side of the same Basestar) these Support ships started throwing out every shot they could into their targets central connecting pylon with plenty of crossfire withering away at the weak point. Knowing that they wouldn't survive the Raiders dropping from the surrounding Basestars or the missiles coming their way as the Basestars started spreading out after having learnt their lesson at Caprica, the Support ships kept up their fire while at the same time they were running against the clock as they had set their ships to self-destruct. Powering forward under an onslaught of deadly missiles crushing their far weaker armour, these ships started to crack open one by one until at the same time five remaining ships detonated with three of them within a kilometre of a Basestar. The resulting explosions and the rapidly expanding debris field tore through 3 Basestars in addition to the 3 Basestars destroyed in the crossfire. Nothing was left of the valiant fleet who stood alone against the Cylons. With nothing left in orbit to remotely threaten them, a complete bombardment of Aerilon began.
Thousands of Neutron bombs fell on the towns and cities quickly followed by dozens of Thermonuclear missiles striking the military bases, government districts and shipyards. Hundreds of thousands of colonials disappeared in bright flashes of light before the nuclear missiles. Within just minutes, out of a population of 3.2 billion, more than 1 billion were dead. It was a lot harder to eliminate the population of Aerilon than it would be the rest of the 12 Colonies primarily due to its economic position in the Colonies. Those who would survive out in the farmlands and beyond, IF they survived the nuclear fallout, would do so with the threat of a follow-on Cylon occupation hanging over their heads, as it had been during the first war. The only difference was that back then they got off lightly and had 11 other Colonies to rely on.
Leaving the graveyard that was Aerilon behind, the Cylon armada jumped towards Libra. With only picket ships to defend the planet the Cylon armada pretty much ignored them, only sending a hundred Raiders their way and keeping the rest docked as the Basestars started to break up into smaller groups, ready to spread across the planet.
Jumping in came four separate and yet coordinated strengthened Battlestar groups out of Virgon. Two streamed down the flanks of the Cylon Armada, hitting the Cylons as hard as they could without launching their Vipers. At the same time, recreating the tactics of Battlestar group 16, two more Battlestar groups jumped in towards the centre of the armada, losing a destroyer before they could fire when it jumped into a Basestar wiping them both out. Opening up with everything they had, the two groups stayed together and then diverged, confusing the Cylons.
Hundreds of Raptors, taken from every ship and base at Virgon, caused further mayhem by jumping throughout the Cylon fleet launching their full complement of tactical nuclear missiles and then jumping out before the hastily launching Raiders could strike at them.
Basestars were being crushed by the titanic forces being thrust against them and their reaction to this turn of events was expected as hundreds of thousands of Raiders were launched. Many of the nuclear missiles launched against the Cylon fleet were pounced upon by the Raiders. Out of the thousands of missiles fired, only a bare 48 broke through and hit the Cylon basestars resulting in only 23 destroyed ships and a dozen damaged ships.
The Battlestar groups started jumping away as soon as the Raiders started to throw missiles their way. Already the Battlestar groups were starting to falter, if they stayed any longer they knew that they would be destroyed. The great ships of the Colonial Fleet started jumping out in bright flashes of light. The purpose of these Wolfpacks was to confuse, disorientate and whittle away at the Cylons, wounding them but maybe not destroying them. The more wounded they became the easier a protracted fight would be for the Colonial Fleet.
However 9 ships were too heavily damaged to perform a jump, so accelerating to full power, the damaged ships stormed towards a Cylon Basestar each. Hundreds of missiles flared against the defensive fire of these valiant ships. Dozens of these missiles broke through, hammering against these ballistic ships, cracking open the hulls like walnut shells. Raiders turned into kamikaze runs, their missiles spent, aiming for the engine blocks, some managed to break through the flak fire, exploding into fountains of fire against the engines which split into two, releasing their pent up energy in huge, cataclysmic explosions. 2 Gunstars and 2 Battlestars died this way. The other 4 ships, a Battlestar, 2 Gunstars and 1 Missilestar stayed on course for their targets, all surviving gun and missile battery firing into the swarm that was the Cylon fleet.
Hulls splitting against the Basestars as they hit, the Colonial's mighty engines and the basic forces of the universe, forced the Colonial ships further on. Ruptured Tylium tanks and unspent ammunition bloomed into Gods almighty explosions destroying both the suicidal Colonial ships and the hit Cylon ships. Debris thrust away by the force of the explosions hit some of the surrounding Cylon Basestars, one being destroyed outright by part of one of the Basestars 'star's', half a dozen more suffered damage from smaller pieces of debris.
And then it was over. The colonial fleet was gone from the battlefield, and the quickly reorganising Cylon fleet continued in its advance on Libra.
Updated 22/07/14
Well I hope you liked this updated chapter, corrected a few mistakes in it and fleshed it out some more because it was lacking in detail. Have also added a full current timeline to the bottom.
Also when it comes to raptor designations, I don't know how they did it in Galactica, but in this story, the designation 310/Galactica translates as: 3rd Raptor squadron, 10th Raptor out of Galactica. There will be 12 in a full squadron. Galactica, as she was being decommissioned and only had one operating landing bay, only has one squadron left which is 3rd Squadron.
Hope you review, next chapter should be better. Will update next chapter by 24/07/14.
Below you will find the current ships in BSG 16 although this is only temporary and I should make clear that this is a reinforced BSG, normally they wouldn't have so many ships.
BSG 16
Battlestar Defiant. Valkyrie Class. 12 years old.
Battlestar Talon. Venus Class. Mid sized battlestar 20 years old.
Battlestar Hades. Olympic Class. Larger than a mercury class by 100metres. 35 years old.
Battlestar Hunter. Hunter Class. Prototype one of a kind 220 metres larger than Valkyrie. First class with four landing bays. 43 years old.
Destroyers
Useb. Trinity class
Arrow. Trinity class
Venturer. Trinity class
Yarbrough. Prophet class. to be evacuated
Light Cruisers
Honour. Knight Class
Strobe. Kelman Class
Raya. Kelman Class
Heavy cruisers
Icarus
Calypso
Gunstars
Ida.
Andromeda. destroyed
Heracles
Hector. to be evacuated
Sol Invictus
MemphisLoki
Missilestars
Kestral
Myrmidon
Arcadia. Destroyed
And below is the timeline so far as you will see one of the major developments from the Graystones actions so far has been the slowing down of the Cylons as the Cylons can no longer safely rely on their Blitzkrieg tactics and are having to find strength in numbers meaning they can only hit one planet at a time.
16:16 Graystones Omega protocol enacted and their Civilian raptors jump out across colonial space to inform Fleet of imminent Cylon attack
16:17 Galactica Graystone message
16:17 Caprica Admiral Perry deploys half vipers
16:17 Picon Fleet Admiral Corman recalls fleet, vipers deployed
16:18 Cylon guerrilla fleets of 3 Basestars vipers hit other colonies.
16:18 Cylon main fleets arrive at caprica, Tauron, Scorpia and Picon while guerrilla fleets of 3 Basestars vipers hit other colonies.
16:19 Raptors from Picon, Scorpia and Tauron arrive at Caprica and the rest of the Colonies reporting enemy contact and are soon joined by Raptors from the remaining Colonies reporting their own contact with Cylon guerrilla fleets
16:19 Picon Cylon virus hits planes, HQ launches nukes, raptors dispatched with Intel to other colonies with orders to break networks
16:20 Mainframes down Caprica
16:21 Cylon Guerrilla fleets. Canceron and Aerilon lose entire fleets. Other colonies either lose handful of ships or none (Leonis)
16:23 Tauron Fleet destroyed Cylons move to bombard surface
16:23 Scorpia Fleet shipyards destroyed Cylons move to bombard surface
16:23 Caprica President arrives in bunker
16:25 Caprica Hackers take control and send out signal to disrupt Cylons signal
16:26 Caprica Vipers sent out against raiders antivirus
16:27 Picon some orbital bombardment starts as part of fleet breaks away. Raptors dispatched with Intel
16:27 Caprica Cylon bombardment fleet jumps
16:27 Caprica Admiral Perry makes decision to engage bombardment fleet
16:29 Caprica Cylon reserve fleet prepares to jump
16:29 Caprica President prepares to surrender
16:30 Caprica BSG-16 arrive hitting the Cylon Reserve fleet
16:30 Colonial comm relays all destroyed
16:30 Picon HQ totally destroyed.
16:32 Caprica BSG-16 launches Raptor attacks
16:34 Virgon Admiral Nagala takes command of fleet
16:35 Caprica BSG-16 jumps out and arrives at the Boneyards
16:35 Caprica Cylon bombardment begins
16:35 Caprica President Adar surrenders
16:36 Battlestar Galactica Adama speech informing crew of war
16:42 Cylon leadership changes tactics
16:48 Caprica Crippled Battlestar Valiant crew tries to repair her
16:54 Galactica saves Vigilante Squadron with museum piece Mk-II Vipers
17:05 Cylon fleet having regrouped moves to attack Aerilon destroying her picket ships
17:12 Cylon fleet bombards Aerilon losing 6 Battlestars
17:27 Cylon fleet hit by four Battlestar Groups and mass Raptor Assault sent from Virgon at Libra. Cylons lose 24 Basestars, Colonials lose 3 Battlestars, 4 Gunstars and 1 Missilestar