Chapter 7.
Peacemaker fidgeted in the well-worn seat of his Mk VII viper. This viper was the very first one assigned to him when he was aboard the Pegasus prior to discovering Galactica and her civilian fleet. He carefully maintained what he could in perfect order, and meticulously supervised the deck crew on maintenance that he was not qualified to do himself. It was one of the best-kept vipers in the air wing, and never failed its master in combat. His wing man was tight on his port wing, and everyone else in the squadron was similarly formed up. Raptor 4 was flying point utilizing a deep dradis scan to try to pick up their missing Raptor.
"Peacemaker – Ares…you deep in thought over there skipper? You've been quiet since we departed the bucket." Said Lt. Tari Adams.
"Deep thought? Nah…just keeping my senses focused on the mission, I'll leave the jawboning to you guys. This should be a routine S & R mission, but let's not get lured into any false sense of security, I have no reason to doubt that the Cylons couldn't track us here." Replied Horlach.
"I wish those fraking toasters would show their sorry tin asses, I've got a viper full of 30 mm rounds to introduce them to!" Said Adams defiantly. "Can I get a fraking 'so say we all,' here guys?"
"So say we all, Ares!" replied Horlach. He was quickly followed by the rest of the squadron; Destiny, Mercury, Wizard, Roadkill, Ace of Spades, Mongoose, Rogue and Odysseus.
"Peacemaker – Raptor 4…we're picking up Poseidon and Hustler at their standby position."
"Message received Raptor 4; we'll split off to increase the range of an effective search now. Rogue, take your team and rendezvous with Poseidon, the rest will cover Raptor 4's search." Ordered Horlach.
The squadron split off and took position around each Raptor as they began their assigned search grid of the planet. Poseidon brought her Raptor down and felt the familiar tug as her ship breached the gravitational field of the planet. The ECO worked his dradis equipment in search of Raptor 1. "Are we still receiving the transponder, Hustler?" asked the pilot.
"Yes sir, I'm getting an exact fix now." He replied. As the search and rescue mission breached the ionosphere the vipers now flying in atmospheric mode spread out further in formation, there was at least twenty meters between wingtips now.
"All vipers – Peacemaker…keep sharp people, we have no idea what happened to our missing raptor, or what to expect from this planet. Keep the chatter down and eyes on the dradis!" Jon had a knot starting to form in the pit of his stomach, he learned to trust his gut feeling so to speak, and this was definitely a situation to mind his internal warning devices.
Lieutenant Adams was the junior pilot in Red Aces squadron; her viper was on the outermost tip of the formation when the blur streaked past the nose of her viper from above. Whatever passed her, did so at supersonic speeds creating wake turbulence or jet wash. Adams knew the feeling immediately as she passed through it from her time in the atmospheric flight simulator from the academy days. On-board computer warnings blared loudly as the viper nosed downward violently into a spin. She had just been looking at her Dradis screen moments before and there had been nothing but their own vipers there.
She fought for control of the craft that was now descending rapidly.
"Ares – Peacemaker…what happened, I can see your descent!" Tari's finger keyed the microphone control on her joystick as she struggled to bring the craft back under her control.
"Something blew right past me skipper, whatever the frak it was it I flew right through the wake turbulence, it damn near tore my nose off and my high engine has stalled." Jon knew that Adams was a decent stick, and the intensity of her voice was evidence that she was in a bad situation and shaken up by it.
"Poseidon – Peacemaker…I'm declaring an emergency for Ares, continue on with the search, I'm breaking formation…Rogue, regroup and take charge." Lt. Mick Rogue quickly responded and maneuvered into Peacemaker's vacant spot in the formation as Jon dropped out of formation in a steep barrel roll. He pushed his Mk. VII viper's three turbo thrust engines to maximum as he followed the vapor trails created by the hot exhaust of Tari's engines as she spiraled to the surface.
"Ares – Peacemaker, I'm on your six…we need to recover, the ground is coming up pretty fraking quick to introduce itself to you."
While Peacemaker tended to his troubled viper, the remaining squadron soon found itself in a situation of its own as other undetectable black aircraft started to buzz their formation.
"Mongoose, Destiny…tally on two bogeys. I'm not picking them up on dradis, but I can spot them visually." Reported Lt. Kara Fan over the comlines.
"Frak, where are they coming from," growled Mongoose as he scanned the skies around him. "Can anyone get a lock on these guys?"
"Negative, my dradis is clear." Responded Lt. Dave "Roadkill" Wright. The sky was becoming thick with these black unknown aircraft buzzing through their formation. Lt. Booster "Wizard" Antilles stayed close to the Raptor to protect it and witnessed two bogeys coming head on. He switched on his targeting computer only to find that he could not lock onto anything. The two black fighters were moving incredibly fast and flew by each side of the raptor and viper creating serious turbulence.
"Rogue – Wizard…these frakers are engaging us, request permission to go weapons free!" Rogue knew this was an unknown situation, and that caution needed to be exercised until they knew what was happening.
"Do not fire unless fired upon, these guys seem interested in busting our balls at this point. Keep your weapons hot but do not fire!" ordered Rogue. He soon called in the remainder of Red Aces squadron to their location and ordered Raptor 4 to jump back to the fleet to advise Galactica of the situation.
Miles away Peacemaker was talking Ares through the recovery of her viper from the spin she was experiencing. She repeatedly attempted to restart her high engine, and after the sixth attempt was successful. Within a minute of the restart, she was able to fully recover her viper, but she was shaken up pretty good over the episode.
"How you doing there Tari," asked Jon over the comline. "Do you need to set down or can you remain aloft?"
"I can remain aloft long enough to kick that fraker's ass that blew by me up there." Replied Ares angrily. Peacemaker could see the swarm of black planes in the distance and hear the commands issued by Rogue to the squadron. Sending off raptor 4 was a smart move for reinforcements, but the vipers would take an hour to get here under full battle thrusters in any case. He had to decide whether to flee or fight.
"You're going to get your chance Tari, kick in the burn and let's get back in there." Ordered peacemaker as he reached for altitude, his viper's three Voram engines on full burn.
Combat Information Center – Galactica
"Action stations, action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship. This is not a drill." Came the voice of tactical officer Lt. Felix Gaeta over Galactica's loudspeakers. Viper pilots raced to their assigned vipers and the ship was soon rigged for combat.
"Colonel Tigh, all stations report ready for action!" informed Gaeta. Tigh had walked the short distance to the plotting table beneath the Dradis screen suspended from the ceiling and repeated the message to Admiral Adama who nodded.
"Raptor four's report is unclear if these are Cylon forces, but what is known is that Red Aces squadron is heavily outnumbered, and the attacking craft cannot be detected by our dradis or establish a weapons lock on them." Said Tigh.
Bill had stared at the star chart on the plotting table before him, they had evaded the Cylons for some time now and there was nowhere for them to jump into this small system undetected. He made his decision. "XO, prepare the ship to jump into immediate orbit of the planet. The Astral Queen, Celestra, Striker and two Raptors will remain with fleet at our present coordinates with their FTL's spooled up and ready to jump if this is a trick to get us to leave the fleet." The three civilian ships had been retrofitted with point defense turrets and extremely limited heavy artillery. Not enough to take on a Basestar by any means, but enough to buy themselves some time against raiders until all ships could jump away.
Back high above the planet the vipers were being buzzed by all directions, yet neither side had fired a shot in anger, yet. Peacemaker was amazed at the speed and agility of these fighters before him. Each one of his pilots was being harassed, and each one had at one point or another requested permission to go weapons-free and to splash one.
"Peacemaker – Ares…this is fraking ridiculous, these guys are all over us, sooner or later one of us are going to be clipped, let's make an example out of one of these planes and get em to back off."
They could not keep up this game of chicken, and Tari was right, eventually one of his people was going to get hurt. It was not until Destiny had called out that her computer was warning her of a weapons lock on her viper by one of the black fighters. "Peacemaker to all vipers…weapons free, if you can obtain a good visual lock try and cripple one without destroying it. See if we can get them to back off." He was too heavily outnumbered to put up a fight unnecessarily, but this was getting too dangerous, and annoying now.
Wizard was elated, "About fraking time mate, enough dancing about with these bastards." He had two fighters on his six, and one dead ahead. He depressed his thruster pedal for more speed and squeezed the trigger. The rounds missed by four meters, but he adjusted his tail rudder, and walked the rounds right across the port wing, shearing it off completely. The black fighter spun about uncontrollably and lost altitude. Wizard followed the plane down and was surprised to see the canopy slide back and a human life form eject from the disabled fighter. Twin parachutes popped open and the pilot glided safely to the ground.
Road kill had teamed up with his wing-man and congratulated him on the first kill. "It looks like we just kicked the hornets nest over, Wizard. They're not going to take kindly to that."
"Frak them, it just goes to show that even without the aid of a targeting computer we'll still kick their ass!" replied Wizard.
The black fighters disengaged and soon regrouped into a very angry looking battle formation. Peacemaker did not like the odds and was soon hearing Poseidon in his earpiece. "Peacemaker – Poseidon, I have a lock on Raptor one's position and you are not going to believe what I found."
"I'm fairly busy up here Elyssa, spit it out!" replied Horlach.
"There is a massive city along the coastline, with an equally large airstrip housing the raptor. They've got it pretty secure I doubt we'll get near it without a fight."
"Get some digitals of it and jump out of there before you're engaged."
"Peacemaker – Odysseus…getting a new set of contacts from above. Colonial IFF's…the Calvary has arrived."