Chapter 8: Back on Track
Commander's Meeting
USS Hornet
In orbit over the Planet Pluto
72 hours after engaging the Cylons over Earth
Admiral Edmondson was meeting with her commanders once again to go over their after-action reports of the recent battle over Earth.
BSG-12 was now in orbit around Pluto. The strike group restocked on ammunition expended in combat from the Naval Logistics Station on Pluto's surface. Replacement pilots had also arrived from Earth as promised by higher headquarters. Admiral Edmondson wanted to get to the Cylon Colony as soon as possible and she wanted the strike group to go fully loaded.
At the moment the Admiral was going over casualty figures.
"This strike group's spacecraft destroyed sixty raiders and one Basestar in a two hour period. Not included in that figure is what the Chinese and British destroyed."
"Ladies and Gentleman let me tell you we got lucky. The Cylons had to have been testing our defenses. They jumped in five baseships just to make sure their missiles blew a chunk of London away and sacrificed two baseships in the process. They could have jumped in a hundred baseships and nuked our fleet and the whole damn planet. This makes our mission to destroy the Cylon Colony more crucial. As I told you before, mankind cannot afford to get involved in a long drawn-out conflict against the Cylons."
"From this planet it will take us a month to get to the Cylon Colony making a series of FTL jumps." Admiral Edmondson thought of the irony of that. If the Colonials had known where they were going when they arrived at the planet that would become New Caprica, they could have reached Earth's solar system in a month.
"We will leave Pluto in twenty four hours. Each ship will have the coordinates for all FTL jumps. Each ship's Captain and CAG has a copy of the basic mission plan. Once underway you will brief your officers. At the last jump point before the colony we will make final adjustments based information we'll get from a final recon."
"There will be a recon mission Admiral?" Captain Lawrence, Hornet's CAG asked.
"Yes there will be. A Marine Recon team has already left for the Cylon Colony. They will be inserted onto New Caprica before we get there. You weren't informed of this for security reasons naturally. Also another part of our mission will be the recovery of this recon team." The Admiral answered without any emotion.
"Captain Lawrence it is a good thing you asked that question because I've decided that when we get to New Caprica you will be leading the main strike."
USS Geronimo
Enroute to the Cylon Colony at New Caprica
The USS Geronimo had left Mars the day Admiral Edmondson assumed command of BSG-12. Geronimo was a Stealth Star Destroyer. Officially its mission was to combat pirates and smugglers in the outer system colonies. Unofficially the ship spied on the colonies of other Earth nations and occasionally slipped into Cylon space.
For this mission Geronimo was carrying a four man Colonial Marine Recon team and a stealth Raptor to carry them. Their mission was simple. The Raptor would deliver the Recon team on New Caprica. The Marines would find what the Cylons had built on New Caprica and set up some targeting sensors to hopefully guide the Super Vipers or nuclear missiles to a target. The Raptor would return, pick them up and then if all worked well There wouldn't be any Cylons left on New Caprica after that. It should be a piece of cake.
The Palace of the Empress
Cylon Colony (Formerly known as New Caprica)
Her Majesty Zoe, First Empress of the Cylons had returned to her palace on what was now the Cylon home world.
After the Humans attacked the Colony, the Three model now known as Zoe had moved the Colony from its location next to a black hole to here where the Colonials had built New Caprica. The location was a good one. The gas cloud would hide them from sensors and the humans would never think to look for them here. As far as they were concerned the Cylons had nuked the planet after the Battle of New Caprica. There was also plenty of Tylium to mine here.
The Cylons found the remains of the human settlement and some wreckage from the battle still floating in space. The Empress Zoe ordered the Colony to land on the surface of the planet and also ordered her palace be built where the settlement of New Caprica once stood.
The Empress also ordered the planet be heavily fortified. If by chance the Humans did find this new home world they would pay dearly if they tried to attack. Massive space stations had been put in orbit outside the gas nebula surrounding the planet and in orbit over the planet as well. New Caprica also became the home for the new Cylon fleet. There were dozens of basestars in orbit at any given time.
Eventually the damn Humans found the Cylons here. Their probes never got past the space stations. The Cylons did allow a probe to get through in order to let the humans see what waited for them and hopefully scare them. The scare tactic must have worked because the Humans never sent any of their precious Battlestars to attempt an attack.
The Empress Zoe was no fool though. In war you eventually had to take the fight to your enemy. The Humans would have to come here some day and try to destroy them. She also knew that human pride would make them want to attack here.
The Cylons made this human reaction part of their plan. Let the Humans come to them. Then the Cylons could destroy the human fleet at their leisure. Attacking Earth had been the bait. Now the question would the humans bite?
The new Cylon plan did not involve genocide. That plan had failed. Obviously it wasn't God's plan it had been Cavil's plan. The Cylons would make the humans re-boot. Destroy their cities and space ships and make them a primitive people again. Then the Cylons would show them the true path. They were halfway there. At least most of the Earth people believed in One God rather than like many like the heathen Colonials.
Weyland-Yutani Spaceport
Moon of Charon
Hera Agathon was being interviewed by a television reporter in a lounge of the Weyland-Yutani Spaceport. The Spaceport was in orbit over Charon, one of Pluto's moons. It served as a resupply/rest-stop for Weyland-Yutani ships entering and leaving the solar system.
When BSG-12 arrived at Pluto, a detachment of Super Vipers was sent to the Spaceport along with a platoon of Marines to provide security in case the Cylons made an appearance.
The four planes from VT-8 that participated in the attack on the Cylon Basestars made up the detachment. Two planes flew CAP around Charon while the other two planes sat on alert. One plane carried Mako Torpedoes while the second acted as a fighter escort.
There was another reason Hera and her squadron mates were at the Spaceport. When the air wing returned to Hornet after the battle, one of the Marine pilots confronted Hera and made comments about "her cousins killing a good Marine".
A fight broke out between the two pilots right on the hanger deck. The CAG decided the two groups needed some time away from each other and the VT-8 pilots went to Charon while the Marines went to the Naval Station on Pluto.
The television news crew had come out to the fleet along with the replacement pilots from Earth. They had interviewed the other members of the Basestar Strike aboard Hornet and had now come to Charon to interview the torpedo-bomber crews and wait for a return flight to Earth.
Hera Agathon was too a good a story to pass. The first half-Cylon child born and the first half-Cylon to enter the fleet had just happened to take part in a battle defending Earth.
The Interviewer asked Hera what she thought about fighting Cylons. Her reply was:
"To me it's the same as fighting people. It's not just another machine you kill; it's some poor bastard who is fighting you because it's what he does."
