The Battle of Leonis Part 1
Caprica
A gunshot rings out, halting the onward push of a pressing crowd of civilians as they tried to force their way onto the lone Raptor.
"Step back, everyone stand back", Leiuenant Karl 'Helo' Agathon called out, his smoking gun pointing at the feet of a quickly retreating crowd of civilians. "We are not a search and rescue Raptor. This is a military vessel only".
At his back stood the fearful Leiutenant Sharon 'Boomer' Valerie, her gun also pointing at the crowd's feet.
"Please, what about the children, take the children", a pleading voice called out from the crowd amongst the shouts of anger plaguing it.
Looking at Boomer for confirmation, Helo nodded, "Okay, children only, children only".
The crowd was split between those who didn't have children being angered at their seats being stolen from them but too scared to say that out loud, and those who did, trying to put a brave face on themselves for their kin. Parents had tears freely falling down their faces as they hugged their children to themselves one last time, telling them that they would be okay and that they (parents) would come for them when it was safe. Some handed over the last of their possessions to their children before pushing them foreward through the press of civilians.
Boomer stepped forward, guiding them to the Raptor and letting a boy of 13 through. Seeing a young, blonde mother, her face scratched and her clothes ripped, a heavy green duffel bag bearing the Colonial seal over her shoulders, crying her eyes out as she cradled her newborn baby, Boomer stepped towards her.
Looking down on the red faced infant girl, Boomer asked, "How old is she?"
Tears falling onto the baby's forehead, the mother replied, "Two days...she's 6 weeks premature...here...t..take her...her father is in the fleet...he serves on the..."
Shaking her head, Boomer replied, "I can't...she's too young...Gods, get onboard". A look of hope and gratitude spread over the young mother's face as she heard this, but the crowd behind her, especially the parents started to hurl abuse.
Firing his gun one more time, Helo shouted "Enough, that child was way too young to be seperated from her mother and still survive".
The gunshot seemed to do it as the crowd quietened down to a reasonable level. However some still shouted that there was still room left. Counting those that had already got on board the Raptor, Helo called out, "We can take three more, and that is it, anymore and we don't take off".
"And who decides? You?"
"A lottery. We put it to a lottery", Karl called back.
Stood at the back of the crowd, hating his damned self preservation instinct, Doctor Gaius Baltar felt deep empathy and hope for the young mother. But that didn't stop the fact that he was still stuck in a nuclear wasteland.
Leonis
Dozens of singularities flashed into existence four kilometres ahead of Leonis' picket ships depositing the remnants of the Colonial fleet under command of Fleet Admiral Nagala, so as not to risk being shot at by their own people. In total there was 27 Battlestars and 82 support ships ranging from Ecostars (electronic counter/offensive ships) and gunstars to destroyers and heavy cruisers.
They all jumped in a near perfect formation 10 ships across, five high and two deep, with the ships behind being able to fire between the gaps. Twenty of the 27 battlestars stood in the front ranks, with those in the rear carrying some amount of heavy damage. Vipers and Assault Raptors took off splitting into three formations, the largest taking up position in a formation matching the fleet's formation, the second largest took up position at the rear of the fleet, and the third moved to between and the sides of the colonial fleet.
"Admiral, I have the Graystones on the line".
Activating his headset, Nagala spoke "Actual".
"Admiral, thankyou for coming. Now I need you to listen carefully. You need to at least double the guard in all sensitive areas of your ships. If what we have seen of the Cylons technology holds true, then the Cylons will have developed organic infiltration models that look just like humans. This will explain how the Cylons were able to place backdoors into our systems and take out the defensive mainfraims..."
Turning his attention to his XO, Nagala formulated his orders, "Paul, have the guard tripled in all sensitive areas of the fleet vital to our survival. There are possible Cylon sympathisers and terrorists in the fleet. Orders are to shoot to kill anyone who approaches these positions without prior notification from the CIC".
Reacting immediately, the XO handed out the , Daniel Graystone said, "I'm doing as much as I can to help you. We're currently spreading a virus throughout local space. It currently covers 1.3 light minutes, but is weaker at its edges. If you are to stand the best chance possible then you need to stay within 30 lightseconds of Leonis. However you may experience some interference from he Virus with your systems, it should only be minor interference at most, so if you do then notify me immediately. Also you may get headaches unless you increase the power of your Truman cages (colonial version of a Faraday cage built into secondary hull). What I need you to do is to make sure that the Cylons don't hit any of the arrays or power stations on Leonis, if they do hit them, then there will be holes in the virus' wavefront. I also suggest that you keep me on a background comm, I may have future updates to give".
Listening to all this and taking down notes, Nagala asked "Can you find any weakspots in the Cylons?"
"Just one major weakspot that you won't know about. I can't risk it over the wireless, but watch out for something strange if I do manage to exploit it. Good luck Admiral".
Turning back to the dradis monitors, Nagala saw that his fleet was still a minute away from the Cylon fleet, "Jamie, open up a channel, all frequencies", he said to the current wireless operator.
His XO turned to him raising an eyebrow, to which Nagala replied with bravado in his voice, "Might as well give them a chance".
"Channel is up sir", Ensign Jamie Drake called out.
Taking in a deep breath and putting the power of an entire fleet into his words, Fleet Admiral Nagala spoke. "You have failed. You have failed to wipe out the Colonial Fleet. You have failed to wipe out all our Colonies. You have failed to wipe out humanity. All you have done is woken a sleeping lion. This war ends here, today. You have a choice. You can agree to a ceasefire and an ultimate peace between us where we go our seperate ways and never meet again. Or we can fight it out. Trust me when I say, if we fight it out, it will be to the death of both our species. You couldn't beat us in the first war, and I'll be damned if you beat us now. So say we all!"
Echoing across the entire fleet, in every ship from Viper to Battlestar as wireless comms were activated came the words of almost every crewmember, rising like a tidal wave, buoying the spirits of all involved and driving a deep terror towards the Cylon race, "So say we all! So say we all! So say we all!"
And then the battle was upon them.
Moving as one towards the Cylon Armada, Admiral Nagala had the First Viper and Raptor detachment sent on ahead of the fleet to take on the Cylon Raiders. At the same time the much smaller Picket fleet was sent to flank the rapidly maneuvering Cylon Armada on its left flank.
Riding slightly ahead of the vipers, the raptors in the First Detachment fired out half of their missiles towards the raprors that had both survived the Graystones virus to a certain degree and had been ordered to engage the oncoming Colonial fleet. These scattered ranks of Raiders stood no chance and they knew it, but that didn't stop their insane rush towards the waiting vipers. More than two thirds (just over 800) Raiders were cripled or destroyed by the missiles impacting against their hulls. The Raptors seeing that their attack had not worked as well as they had planned, dropped back behind the Vipers and allowed the Viper Jocks to do what they do best. Knowing that they had limited fuel, and under fresh orders direct from Admiral Nagala, these Vipers stayed on a steady course towards the remaining Raiders.
"...Sections two, six, eight and twelve present outward facing broadsides. You're to allow momentum to carry them forward, but have engines ready for full thrust", Admiral Nagala ordered his leading Section Commanders over the wireless as he maneuvered digital representations of the fleet on the plot table.
A Battlestar Class ship is unable to use maneuvering methods like the gas propelled thrusters on a Viper or Raptor due to it's size, so instead it has the main fusion engines at the rear, a smaller amount at the bow which are usually running cold and a combination of small fusion thrusters and large scale gas propelled thrusters running along it's entire length (minus the dorsal section). By using a combination of these, the different ships in each section were able to precisely maneuver their broadsides towards the Cylon fleet within a maximum of 12 seconds for the slowest ships.
The Vipers on couse for the Cylon Raiders at only 1.4 km from engagement range, suddenly split into two along the horizontal axis, rapidly accelerating from one another. At the same time the seperate section sections in the Colonial fleet that had maneuvered so their broadsides were facing the oncoming raiders, opened fire with their point defences firing out an impressive wall of shrapnel into the faces of these Raiders.
Despite being a scattered formation, the effect of this barrage on the Raiders was still highly effective, taking down more than a hundred within just a couple of seconds, those that survived any longer than this quickly learnt to get out of the line of fire, breaking as they were for the periphery of the barrage and running straight into the oncoming Vipers which tore them to shreds with only a handful of casualties as they passed through each other.
Suddenly, near the centre of the Colonial formation, multiple internal explosions tore through the hull and armour of the Battlestar Hephaistion casting hundreds of bodies adrift. Flames licked their way out of the holes torn through the hull until they choked in space. Then the main Fusion engines stuttered and flared before dieing altogether. Seconds passed.
Space around the Goliath Class Battlestar lit up brighter than a dozen stars and a shockwave of energy was spat out as the breached main reactors expelled their contained energies. Debris shot towards the nearby Colonial ships causing minor damage to a nearby light cruiser and a missilestar. The wave of deadly energy, with nothing feeding it, died of starvation leaving behind a shocked and bewildered fleet.
"What the frak happened?" Atlantia's XO all but screamed at the tactical officer who looked bewildered, going as she was over recent data of the Hephaistion.
Nagala, dropping his head and holding himself up on the plot table, felt the true weight of Daniel Graystone's warning about Cylon Infiltrators, but he knew that he couldn't do more than triple the guard on the sensitive areas. Turning his head to the Dradis monitors that showed the Cylon fleet starting to try to envelop his fleet by sending the rearmost ships to the flanks, Nagala worked his way through the hundreds of different tactics devised in numerous battles and hundreds of ours of war college simulations. The facts stood for themselves, the Colonial ships in terms of firepower were outmatched at 8 to 1, the Cylons due to having more ships had much more maneuverability and would use that to control the battle, the Cylons were still out of weapons range. In fact it seemed the only advantage the Colonials possessed was that the Graystones virus was starting to give them the advantage in fighter support.
"Wait..." Nagala muttered, a thought spiking in his mind as he formulated a plan, "Paul, have all ships open fire on the Cylon fleet right now. All batteries, CD (contact detonation) salvo fire!"
Passing on the orders, Colonel Paul Danvers replied, "We're still out of range sir".
"Fire all batteries right now. We're fully stocked in ammo, we can afford to expend as much as possible if only 5 percent hit".
From the bows and backs of every Colonial ship guns blossomed and heavy anti-ship shells were fired out in controlled patterns. These shells crossed the vast distance between the fleets at a phenomenal rate, only slowing down slightly as the effects of Leonis' stronger than average gravity (1.4g) took effect, but even this wasn't enough. Passing the maximum engagement range, the shells didn't detonate, instead the miracle that was celestial mechanics, and the fact that each shell had been programmed to detonate on contact instead of detonating at range, meant that each shell continued onward towards the Cylon fleet.
In the time that it had taken to travel the vast distances involved, the Cylon Basestars had started to disperse as much as they could in order to avoid the incoming shells. Raiders were ordered forward and into the line of fire. Dozens of raiders burst into flame, guts and shrapnel as they were crushed by the shells that detonated as soon as they hit. But there was no way to stop the thousands of shots worth of explosive ordinanace. Rushing past the assembling ranks of Raiders, the vast majority of shots either met their end against the raiders or continued onwards into eternal space until a strong enough field of gravity took effect. And then it happened, the first shots hit the sides of a number of Basestars.
A loud cheer ran through Atlantia's CIC, quickly dieing down as the Basestars continued their maneuvers with the newer damage they were carrying. Thinking on his feet, Nagala quickly did some calculations on the damage the Basestars had taken against the amount of shots fired, "Fleet, slow to one third and focus fire towards the edges of the Cylon formation".
By slowing to one third, Nagala was extending the amount of time he could stay out of the expected maximum range of the Basestars missiles, based upon intel garnered from past engagements, thereby giving the Colonial fleet a chance to soften up the Cylon Basestars.
Instead of firing towards the centre where the Basestars were now maneuvering away from, by shifting fire to the edges Nagala was hoping to cluster the Cylon fleet back into the centre or risk them being torn to shreds. However there was a downside as the Basestars, seeing this change of tactic from afar, either sped up and forced their way further past the new shells or retreated back towards the centre. Over a hundred Basestars made it safely through before the salvoed shells started to block their paths. These Basestars, whilst giving the Colonial fleet a wide berth, accelerated towards their flanks.
"Tighten the net", Nagala ordered as he saw the readjusted countdown to the expected missile range, creep down to 8 seconds.
Snapping his head back as he heard the sounds of gunfire rour down the hall to the CIC, Nagala saw a marine sergeant drop his rifle as his hands reached for his own throat, blood was gushing out from his corotted artery, spraying the entire hallway and the glass doors of the CIC in blood. Just as the walking dead soldier collapsed to his knees, other Marines around him fired down the hallway at the attacker, smoke drifting from their barrels being torn as more bullets broke free to tear down the hallway.
A marine Corporal suddenly shouted, "GRENADE!" as a small ball came rolling down the corridoor, colliding with the glass doors to the CIC before bouncing to the ground and rolling backwards, stopping at the kneeling body of the dieing Marine Sergeant. Whether by his own action, his death or the will of the Gods, the Marine collapsed forward, his armour plated body falling onto the grenade just as a bright flash followed by a ball of fflame and shrapnel occured as it detonated, tearing the Marine limb from limb and throwing his lifeless and mangled remains upwards into the ceiling and outwards onto his fellow Marines and the walls.
The shockwave shattered the bulletproof glass doors, showering the CIC and it's residents in splintered glass fragments. Continuing down the hall the shockwave threw three blood and guts covered marines from their feet. The other 6 Marines somehow found the strength to carry on firing until the Master Sergeant called out, "All Clear! Hold your fire! Simms, Valker, check the target".
The tactical officer called back Nagala's attention as he called out, "Basestars have opened fire, reading...over 1000 missiles inbound on fleet...aproximately 50 are nuclear".
Turning back to the dradis monitors, splinters of glass embeded in his bleeding cheeks, Nagala was forced back into command as he saw the missiles inbound on his ships. "All ships, bring point defences to bear on the Cylon missiles, Battlestars Panther, Kobe, Ranger and Sterling, have squadrons focus on the nuclear missiles".
The squadrons from the four Battlestars broke away from the rest of the Vipers to accelerate over where the missiles would pass, aided by the Raptors of those same four Battlestars. "Paul, get me an image of the person that just tried to attack the CIC and have it transmitted to the whole fleet..."
Passing the order onto a Private, the XO moved to Nagala's side daring to ask, "What's going on? If he's a sympathiser then..."
Gritting his teeth and turning to his XO, Nagala replied, "There are no sympathisers. He's a fracking Cylon. A skinjob".
As the point defences opened up on the oncoming missiles, Paul swore, "Frak! Then there could be toasters on every ship and we wouldn't know".
Clouds of shrapnel and flame formed a barrier between the fleet and the 1000+ missiles, shredding many. "I'm hoping they're mass produced. It will make it easier to find them".
Hundreds of missiles broke through the wall of flak, some being taken down by approaching shots, and others slipping through. The squadrons of the four selected battlestars following the tracks of the missiles from above the flak field and shooting 'down' through it.
A young private in green fatigues came running back, "Colonel, Admiral the assailant was Corporal Conoy, sirs. His body is on camera 8-2 alpha 6."
Turning to his XO, Nagala ordered, "transmit his service photograph to the fleet. If they have someone like him, then they're either to be detained or shot on sight if it's not possible"
The CIC shook as the first missiles hit the bow of the Battlestar, bursting into small balls of flame as they did and centering their concussive force into the hull, a sight echoed throughout the fleet. The Battlestar Firebrand wasn't so lucky as a ball of bright white light burst forth from a nuclear missile striking her, but when the light withdrew, she still stood.
A thought came to Nagala's mind and so he ordered, "All commanders are to arm their nuclear missiles. However hold fire until either I give the order or your ships become too damaged. If your ships are too damaged to continue the fight, then you are to input a ramming course, set all weapons to auto fire and evacuate your ships". Auto fire in this case being preprogrammed targets.
"Sir, we're getting reports of multiple internal explosions and shootings throughout the fleet..."
"I want images of those involved transmitted to all ships. Shoot to kill".
"Admiral, Flanking Basestars are launching a new type of ship..."
Looking at the Dradis feed and the incoming image from the 3D imaging software of the hundreds of box shaped ships (on a 2D screen), Nagala said, "New classification, Heavy Raider. Expect them to carry Centurions. Redeploy 50% of rear and guard Viper and Raptor formations to intercept".
"Two incoming nukes, expected time to impact 5 seconds", the tactical officer called out.
"All hands brace for impact", the XO called into the internal communications system.
"We've lost the LC Steadfast".
Grasping tight hold of the plot table, Nagala felt his feet leave the ground as the first nuclear missile expelled it's contained energy against the hull of the Atlantia. The entire ship lurched as if caught in an Olympian's grip, consoles exploded in a shower of sparks stunning and sometimes killing their occupants with due to an overload of energy coursing through them. Hull mounts cracked, damaging the structural integrity and forcing a couple of oxygen canisters to explode as they were torn from the walls.
Before the tremors were over, the other missile hit the outer armour of the port flight pod, bending and flexing the armour to it's will and sending deep vibrations throughout the entire Battlestar. Safety cutoffs kicked in, shutting down an engine that threatened to blow when it's coolant pumps were damaged. And in the CIC a bank of hard drives exploded as a sudden overload ripped through their circuits, flames and rhick black smoke belching furiously from the hard black plastic. Then as fast as the shaking started, it stopped as the vibrations ran their course.
Miraculously though, as Nagala pulled himself to his feet, amid the chaos and balanced precariously on the edge of the plot table was his antique teacup, neither chipped nor fractured. Moving it back to the indentation meant for larger cups, Nagala looked about the CIC seeing everyone pulling themselves back to their jobs, a small group of three DC personel struggling with fire extinguishers to put out the toxic fire that had overgrown the bank of hard drives, the tactical officers and wireless operators trying to regain contact with the fleet and see what was happening in the space surrounding the ship.
"
The dradis monitors were just a shower of static as they struggled to recover from the first bout of radiation.
"Sir..." the secondary communications officer called out, the primary being laid out unconcious, "...message via the lasers from Furious, Vice Admiral Bacon has taken temporary command until full wireless is restored. He reports that we have five heavy en route to our location".
Trying to clear his head, Nagala replied "Realign laser and acknowledge receipt of message. Order Bacon to send a wing of Vipers on strafing runs throughout whichever flightpod they land in".
Typing in the message and then transmitting it, the young comm officer looked up at Nagala saying, "It's been received sir..." flicking her blonde hair out of her eyes, she continued, "...the Destroyer Charger has just been lost. Cause is unknown".
Coming up next to Nagala, Colonel Paul Simmons said, "I've moved everyone who can handle a gun to the flightpod airlocks, we've also lost 18 of our point defenses and 5 Cannons in that last attack. FTL is down, engineering reports it should be up in about ten minutes, maybe sooner..."
"Tell me when ten minutes have passed"
Snorting, the XO continued "...Yeah I'll do that. We've also totally lost Engine C, reports are that the engine is pretty much fine, but the coolant is fracked, it's an hours work at least. Other than that we've got damage across the entire ship, and gods knows how many dead and wounded, the infirmary is turning away wounded".
"Dradis is back", the tactical officer called out.
"So is shortrange wireless. Longrange will be up in 20 seconds".
Looking at the recently acquired dradis data, Admiral Nagala saw that only four Heavy Raiders were en route to both the dorsal port and starboard decks of Atlantia at 7 seconds range at current speed. Already the point defences surrounding the entrances to both flightpods had opened up on these intruders, but whatever armour they had seemed to stand up well against the ammunition. More heavy Raiders were both enroute to thirty ships throughout the fleet and had already landed on two Battlestars. A flight of Vipers had broken into two and had already taken up position inside the Atlantia's flightpods, the same type of action was taking place throughout the fleet, but there was only so many Vipers.
The flanking Cylon Basestars had passed over the fleet and were taking up position at the rear just out of weapons range, pressing the Colonial Fleet forward towards a now orderly spread out concave formation of Basestars, many of which were carrying some kind of damage from the still constant long range barrage. This formation had started pressing forward, trying to get into missile range. There was no way the Colonial Fleet in it's current position could withstand the Cylons
And then came the breakthrough.
Cylon Basestar Alpha-216
Hybrid's Chamber (Basestar MCP)
Deep within every modern Basestar sat a special room. From this room, every part of the basestar was controlled. Without this room, or more specifically without it's permanent occupant, the Basestar would fail to run anywhere near 100%. The room itself had a crisp, clean look to it, bright lights spotted the room, a red band ran side to side along one wall, like the heartbeat of the ship. In one corner stood a figure of polished steel and alloy, a centurion. And at the center of the room lay a depression that flooded the room with a bright white light. At the centre of this pool lay the true heart of the ship, the Hybrid.
"Overload of capacitor 36 Beta in deck 14 section 81...redirecting flow to capacitor 78 Theta on deck 12 section 81, End of line...Alone they came, five in total, their minds lost in the haze, following in the footsteps of their Ancestors, they watch, waiting until the time is right, things do not have to be the same. Hidden in battle they watch, saviours one and all, all this has happened before, all this will happen again, end of line".
Suddenly the Hybrid sprang forward, cables grown into her back following her and trailing an oxygen filled white goo. Screaming out loud, the Hybrid shouted, "Handshake accepted, handing over control, end of line". At the same time the Hybrid dropped back into her bath, all the lights except in her bath went dark, loud bangs were heard as the blastdoors throughout the basestar slammed shut, and a power conduit built into the wall of the Hybrid's chamber exploded, an electrical discharge struck the centurion watching over the hybrid, killing it's body.
In the command centre, all humanoid cylon eyes were turned to each other in question to what was happening before all the air was sucked from the room.
Across the main Cylon fleet the same was happening to 3 more Basestars. Hundreds and then thousands of missiles burst forth from these four Basestars, but instead of heading for the Colonial fleet, they instead turned towards the Cylon fleet, half a dozen Basestars being struck before they realized what was happening, two of which were destroyed in nuclear fire. And then these four Basestars dived through the Cylon fleet, firing out as many missiles as they could, throwing disarray into the Cylon ranks which returned fire, not beleiving what was happening.
Upon seeing the Cylon formation being broken from within, Admiral Nagala knew he had to act straight away, "All ships full speed. We're going in".
Well thats the first part of the battle, will update soon where we will see the full effects of Nagala's decision and BSG16 enter the battle. Sorry it took so long, had to do a total rewrite. Reviews appreciated.
