Battlestar Galactica, Leaving Ragnar Anchorage, 30 Minutes Later
The Galactica's newly minted CAG had just returned from checking on the refurbished mk2 vipers and was entering CIC to recall Galactica's CAP in preparation for the jump to the rendezvous when she heard it.
"This is the biggest frakking piece of shit I've seen since the armistice Bill" the unmistakable voice of Colonel Tigh shouted
"I know Saul" the much softer voice of the Admiral replied
The Admiral and the Colonel were standing by the plotting table under the DRADIS console and Starbuck would have put money on the possibility that whatever had been stupid enough to earn the XO's ire was probably described on the piece of paper he held so tightly his knuckles had turned white.
Saluting she asked "Sirs, whats going on?"
Handing her the paper Tigh replied with a small smile "Take a look, the politicians are back on top of my shit list, number two"
TO ALL COLONIAL MILITARY UNITS
COLONIAL FORCES IN ALL THEATRES ARE TO RETURN TO HOME PORTS. SHIPS BASED OVER PICON ARE TO MAKE FOR SCORPIA. AND PREPARE TO OFFER BEST DEFENSE.
COUNTER ATTACK AT PICON HAS FAILED. 18 SHIPS LOST.
CHIEF EXECUTIVE IS ASSUMING COMMAND OF THE FLEET AND ORDERING A REPLOYMENT FOR DFENSIVE OPERATIONS. ALL OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS ARE HEREBY CANCELLED.
CHIEF EXECUTIVE HAS BEEN ADVISED TO OFFER SURRENDER
CENTGOV SENDS
Placing the paper on the table Starbuck asked her superiors "They can't be thinking of surrendering, this is what, day two"
"We lost most of the fleet during the first few minutes at Picon" Adama told her "the message says we lost eighteen in the counterattack but it doesn't say anything about damage to the ships that got out, if the public knew how bad this was they'd probably be panicking"
"The quorum's got a few members who're made of sterner stuff then most but I bet some civie in the know is getting ready to clean an alien's flag pole" Tigh growled, the Colonel hated civilians interfering in military affairs but one thing he hated even more was the idea surrender.
"Then what are we gonna do Admiral" Starbuck asked
Adama grimaced "We're going to meet up with our battlegroup here then going to fall back to Caprica. Nagala pulled ships from their defence fleet for Picon and this counter attack probably used up even more, we'll be sorely needed. From there we'll see what hopefully we'll manage to work out a defence before"
Tapping the Admiral on the shoulder and handing him two sheets of paper Lieutenant Dualla said "New orders sir, Boomer's Raptor just picked them up they're from Vice Admiral Cain"
Bill took the message but didn't respond. Vice Admiral Cain was probably Helena Cain, the commander of the battlestar Pegasus, but he'd thought that she was a rear admiral. In fact he was positive she had been, Adama remembered the scuttlebutt, mostly about her supposed political connections, in the wake of her promotion to command of Battlestar Group Sixty Two, over about a dozen other commanders who were considered favourites.
Of course with all the losses the fleet had taken over the last two days he really shouldn't have been surprised that some people had received promotions. The Colonial Fleet's upper command structure currently had three full Admirals at the top of the chain, twelve vice admirals below that and a few dozen rear admirals below that. Bill knew that one of the fleet Admirals, Nagala, had been leading the fleet at Picon, Admiral Corman managed strategic planning and didn't command a ship so he might have been helping marines dig in at fleet HQ on Picon at that very moment and the final one, Minos, commanded the battlestar Kobol and the extra solar fleet units so he might have been at Picon with Nagala, leading the counterattack or he might have been in another solar system, organising defences at the deep space anchorages. Considering the fact that all the fleet admirals may have been killed it really wasn't a surprise at all that someone like Cain had been bumped up a rank.
Grabbing his reading glasses off the plotting table Adama turned his attention to his new orders.
TO HUSKER, COMMANDING OFFICER BSG-75
DUE TO COMBAT LOSSES YOU ARE HEREBY PROMOTED TO THE RANK OF VICE ADMIRAL AND GIVEN COMMAND OF THE DEFENSE OF CAPRICA, GEMENON AND TAURON AND THE COLONIAL 2ND FLEET. GREATER DETAILS OF COMMAND WILL BE RELAYED UPON YOUR REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE.
UPON RETURN TO CAPRICA YOU ARE TO ATTEND A 1340 MEETING AT YOUR HEADQUATERS FURTHER DIRECTION WILL BE GIVEN UPON ARRIVAL.
KNIFE EDGE SENDS
The fleet's losses in terms of Admirals must have been a lot worse then he thought if they were bumping him up to Vice Admiral as well and sending him to command 2nd fleet. In peace time it was considered a premier post, the three worlds under it's protection were home to a great deal of the Colonies' economic and political power and most of its commanders spent more time in Caprica City wining and dining with the politicians then in the impressive Olympus space station that served as the fleet's headquarters. And the second part of the message caused the Admiral's mind to wander back several weeks to a very similar message he had received aboard Valkyrie that had ended with a visit to fleet HQ on Picon and a little trip to the Armistice Line.
Of course if he received similar orders to last time and they discovered another alien artefact maybe they'd find something that would let them shoot down any enemy advances from Picon.
Turian Dreadnought Palveran, Over Picon, 6 Hours Later
The war in space was, for the moment, over and the battle for this rock had now moved to a ground operation.
To coordinate the invasion of the planet Septimus had moved to the Palveran's briefing room, he had found in the past that the larger hologram helped him get a better perspective of his force's progress and so far they were progressing well. Although he didn't have enough troops at his command currently to carry out an effective, by the book, occupation of the planet he did have enough to take the three largest cities and to establish a few dozen staging bases the countryside, in case any locals forgot that this planet belonged to the Turian Hierarchy now even if they didn't see a patrol on every street everyday.
The initial landings had been unopposed which was a combination of them landing far from any population centres and then advancing on foot and an orbital bombardment of any identified military bases on the main continent.
"General" the intercom squawked, the hologram above the speaker identified the voice as belonging to Commander Narek Piver, the leader of the ground assault on the city intelligence had indentified as Queenstown, the planets capital.
"Go ahead" the General said
"My forward elements have run into heavy enemy resistance near the city centre, I'd like to request a bombard across the following coordinates"
The hologram automatically shifted to a topographic map that had had an orbital photograph laid across it and it had the projected damage from the orbital bombardment highlighted in red, Piver wanted everything across a forty kilometre long and five deep area bombarded.
Septimus instructed the hologram to show him the known enemy positions, the blue icons that appeared ran in a thin, slightly crooked line for about thirty kilometres, Piver's requested bombardment would devastate that defence and everything behind it.
"Have you found any evidence that the hoomens are attempting to evacuate civilians" Septimus asked. Although his species normally preferred a "Shock and Awe" approach to warfare, by bombing nearly any threat that moved into the open, the General hoped to avoid harming too many civilians until he could get an idea of the hoomen's response to such an action. Some species would react to it by laying down their arms to avoid further non combatant deaths but when used on others it would drive even more sentients into resisting his troops and until he could confirm that reinforcements were on the way he'd prefer not risk sparking a guerrilla campaign.
"Yes, I have had men storm several homes behind our front line and we found that most of them were occupied but my forward scouts are reporting that unarmed and non uniformed hoomens are being loaded into large ground vehicles, it is my belief that we merely took our current holdings before evacuation forces arrived"
"Very well then, have your infantry dig in for now and we'll wait a few hours" Septimus ordered
"But sir I'd rather hit the enemy before they have a chance to properly dig in or bring up enough troops for a local counter attack" Piver replied
"If they throw all their available men and equipment into a defence then we will destroy it in a heavy bombardment and you and your men will be able to advance unopposed and if they try to launch an attack I will personally order the fleet to bombard their lines into rubble and our superior technology will allow you to repel what elements survive"
"Very well then sir, I'll start organising my troops" Piver said before signing off
With the conversation concluded Septimus turned the hologram to a view of a mechanised infantry company that were closing in on what had been a major military base on the planet.
Colonial Fleet Headquarters, Picon, That Same Time
What had once been a micro city of barracks, hangers, vehicle depots and armouries centred around one of the largest spaceport complexes on Picon was now a network of craters, fires, hastily erected prefabs and hundreds of men and women tending to all kinds of damage and casualties.
And amongst the chaos of what had once been fleet headquarters, a young boy called Jack Harper found himself trying to inject a syringe into a rapidly convulsing and screaming woman in a pilot's uniform.
"Frak it, get the damn tranqs into her" the woman who'd drafted Jack into her little operation, shouted as she readied a tray of surgical tools. He'd just been standing around, not sure what to do following the bombardment when she had dragged him into one of the few remaining buildings that the medics had set up as a kind of hospital
"I'm trying" Jack replied as he tried to make sure that he hit the vein she had told him to stab into and not something that would make the flyer's condition worse "Do you even know what you're doing, you don't exactly look like a doctor"
"Well technically I'm not, I'm studying at the Asclepius Institute in Queenstown I just come out here to visit my father" she replied before asking "Have you got that tranq in yet"
"Almost" Jack replied just before he finally managed to pin the pilot down for a moment, Jack moved quickly and jabbed the syringe into her neck and within seconds the patient's shaking had become noticeably less violent. So the sedative was either working or she was dying
"Try to hold still" Jack said and the pilot nodded weakly in reply as her eyes slowly closed
"Her eyes are closing is that a problem" he asked
"No that's just the tranq kicking in" the woman replied as she grabbed a pair of scissors and began cutting through the pilot's flight suit and the tank top underneath. Jack had seen breasts before but normally he'd try to look away if a girl suddenly found herself without her shirt, in this situation though he didn't really notice because of all the blood on her torso. The dark red liquid had been pooling inside the flight suit and now that the garment had been pulled to the side it flowed out and onto the two people trying to aide her.
It looked like she had three major wounds, two on her chest and one on left stomach
"Okay what do I do now" Jack asked
"Take this and press on that big wound on her stomach, you need to apply pressure to stem the bleeding for a few minutes" the woman replied as she injected another syringe, this time into the pilot's arm and handed jack a rag
"What's that" Jack asked and nodded at the syringe
"Coagulant, causes the blood to form clots faster which should help stem the bleeding a bit" the woman said as she began wrapping a bandage around a cut on the pilot's forearm that had been covered with quick-seal paste. Quick seal was like plaster for injuries, it went on as a wet blob and a bandage was wrapped around it, the tight bandage forced the paste deep into the wound which helped stop blood from escaping and when it was time to remove it the bandage was just pulled off, most of the blob of paste went with it and whatever remained was easily wiped away, whatever it was made out of didn't hurt the body and it was coated with a kind of disinfectant.
As Jack pressed the rapidly darkening rag onto the wound on the pilot's chest a man in blood splattered marine combat gear, with a name tag that said Maj. Theseus, came over to them and asked "Karen, we're evacuating the wounded to a hospital on the mainland, can she be moved?"
"Maybe, we'd need to keep her from bleeding out on the way and we'd need to get her properly checked out as soon as we arrived. Most of her wounds are skin deep but there's something metallic lodged just above her vagina, probably piercing intestine and I'm concerned about damage from the shockwave" the woman, Karen, replied
"Okay then, grab some bandages and go help Sam move his patient, we'll meet you outside" Theseus said as he grabbed another bandage and wound it around another wound covered in quick-seal and he said to Jack "Help me move this gurney outside, try to keep pressure on that wound as we go"
"Got it" Jack replied as he moved one hand from the rag to the rail around the edge of the gurney.
"And just slide it off the table here, the wheels pop out automatically" Theseus said and just as he said the gurney's wheels snapped into place as they slide it off the table it had been placed on.
Jack was afraid of losing his position pressing on the pilot's wound and tried to move slowly but surely, whereas Theseus was more concerned with getting her onto the truck and away from Fleet HQ before the aliens showed up. The marine platoon that had run into the enemy force had reported that the aliens were mostly vehicle mounted and advancing cautiously along a road that lead from their main landing area near Queenstown to the small village of Picis which was home to the bridge that ran from Picon's main continent to the island that Fleet HQ was built into. Colonel Maris, the highest ranking marine remaining at the HQ had sent the few hundred men he had available along with a few tanks, artillery pieces and any volunteers he could muster to Picis to try and halt the enemy there. But if the fleet battle was any indication the aliens would probably overrun them in short or and once the enemy held Picis there would be no leaving Fleet HQ.
"Okay Son just lift her up here, the wheels retract as you slide the gurney onto the tray" Theseus said as they reached the truck
"Got it sir" Jack replied as they lifted up the gurney
As the two of them got up into the truck's rear compartment next to their patient Karen came running towards them, carrying to large medical kits, there was no room in the back though so she ran around to the front of the vehicle and jumped in between the driver and a marine. With the vehicle full the truck started up and fell in behind another truck, whose rear tray had been removed and replaced with a large artillery cannon.
They stayed behind the gun until they reached Picis were it parked behind a building that was filled with marines setting up sniper rifles in the windows, not just regular sniper rifles though, the marines were assembling updated Apollo rifles, an anti-tank rifle that had been issued during the Cylon war to kill the toughest Cylon ground units. When it hit a person it typically left behind a smear and until the marines had heard about what the aliens had done to the fleet only a few of them had considered using Apollos, let alone the latest versions stocked at fleet HQ, against enemy infantry.
The truck carrying Jack, Theseus and Karen was far enough away from Picis that by the time the aliens arrived they couldn't see the fighting but they certainly heard the cracks of rifles, booms of artillery and the colossal roar of the orbital bombardment that ended the battle almost a minute after it began.
Onboard A Stealth Raider, In Orbit Of Picon, That Same Time
The One called Cavil laughed, nearly cackled as the humans were thoroughly whipped all across the planet, the aliens had swept away their fleet with a speed that even his people would have struggled and were bombing them with an efficiency he envied. Unfortunately though it was time to leave, his ship had been designed to fool colonial DRADIS and the alien's sensors were still an unknown quantity rather not test. He left his chair in the main cabin and sat down in the cockpit, the stealth raiders were heavily automated but they were home to AIs that still carried some of the extreme aggression of their fighter brethren and slipping in and out of Colonial detection grids was often a game of patience and restraint.
As he accessed the ship's flight controls Cavil was surprised to see that he was locked out, he queried the ship and found that it had been ordered to lock him out and initiate a self destruct. A suddenly worried Cavil, all of his elation evaporated, asked who had given the orders but before he received a reply he felt an immense stabbing pain in his chest, immense heat and burning all across his body then suddenly he was immersed in a thick, cold goo.
Cavil raised himself up, out of the tank he was in to take a breath to find two centurions and another One, like himself standing over him he also discovered that he had been handcuffed to the sides of the tank.
"Brother I like your style" the One said "But you are in serious trouble"
Turian Cruiser Renix, En Route to Citadel Shipyards, One Hour Later
"Captain Vakarian, we just hooked up to a comm buoy and the council wants to speak to you, do you want me to have them out through to your cabin" Vakarian's XO told him over the ship comm.
"Yes, thank you commander" Haren replied, of course the council wanted to speak to him, they couldn't wait for him to reach the Citadel to chew out the lowly subordinate they could get there hands on rather then the superior officer who was at this moments running off and kicking over alien governments over laws they'd probably never even heard of.
"The council, the three heads of Citadel space yes?" Doctor, a title hoomans apparently gave to their scientists, Baltar asked, they'd been in the middle of another of their discussions when Haren had received the message.
"Yes, that's right" Vakarian replied. They'd recently turned away from the basics of the galaxy and into a more in depth look of different species, from the perceived notions about the Salarians knowing everything everywhere, to the Turian system of government.
Haren had found it interesting to meet someone who after hearing his description of the Quarians had expressed outrage at the fact that the rest of the Galaxy had just cut them adrift, it probably came from their shared histories regarding artificial intelligences, the Quarians were a species that had developed a series of robotic workers, that they had called the Geth, that had eventually gained sentience and rebelled against them, driving them from their worlds and forcing them to live aboard star ships and always wear personal environment suits after their immune systems deteriorated in the sterile environment. But that was the price for violating perfectly reasonable Council edicts.
"Well then I suppose I you should get going, answer about this lovely state of affairs" the translator currently didn't carry hoomen sarcasm that well but Haren had become accustomed to the Doctor's various voice tones.
"Yes I should" Vakrian replied as he opened the door "Guard, please return the Doctor to the hanger"
As Haren made his way to his cabin his wondered what would make three of the most powerful people in the galaxy want to speak to him. He had expected a thorough debriefing by a representative of the council, maybe the Turian ambassador to the Citadel but not the Council themselves.
As he sat down at his private computer in his cabin, Haren was quickly becoming so nervous he thought he might not be able to speak but he managed to say without any indication of his fear "Accept incoming link".
