To Hell and Back: Ultimate Rewrite Edition
Chapter 9: Reunion/Power Overwhelming
Over the four days the Fleet was split up, Adama had done a lot of thinking.
His new CAG was incompetent, as his actions almost got Hotdog to kill Kat and he nearly destroyed two ships during a bungled refueling operation.
He needed his son back.
And more to the point, he needed to apologize to Roslin for overacting prior to him being shot.
The Old Man walked into CIC with a purpose.
"Mr. Gaeta. I want to see all recon material on Kobol immediately in my quarters."
Although shocked, Gaeta hopped to it.
"Aye, sir."
Tigh looked at Adama.
"Kobol?"
Adama stared back, his eyes alight.
"Yes. I'm putting the fleet back together. I'm putting our family back together. This ends now."
He left CIC.
LACM-X01A Archangel
Murrue Ramius flipped through a book she borrowed from Admiral Adama.
He said it was a gift, but she planned on handing it back to him once she was finished.
The phone on the armrest of the captain's chair rang.
"Ok, now what?"
She picked it up.
"Archangel Actual. To whom am I speaking?"
"Murrue, this is Galactica Actual."
Murrue blinked.
'I was just THINKING about the man.'
"Admiral. What can I do for you?"
Adama sounded stronger then the last time she spoke with her.
"I need to transfer my flag to the Archangel for a special mission."
That worried her.
"Special mission?"
"I want to jump the Archangel to Kobol and take the ship into the atmosphere. We're going to make sure the President stays safe down there."
Murrue fought long and hard to keep from smirking.
"How many Vipers are you bringing with you?"
"Ten, plus two Raptors. After five hours, Galactica and the rest of the Fleet will jump into Kobol orbit." That was asking for trouble in Murrue's eyes.
Then again, the Cylons didn't stand a chance in hell against the combined firepower of Galactica, Agrippa and the Terran warships.
"Then the Archangel is yours."
"We'll be there in 45 minutes. Spin up your FTL drive and get ready."
FFHM-Y101 Eternal: Kobol orbit
Waltfeld shook his head.
Lacus was too easily swayed by Roslin's words.
Sure, he liked the singer (who didn't?) but this was an act of stupid that no one could forgive.
Then the radar and heat sensors started going off.
"Contact! It's entering the atmosphere!"
Lacus and Waltfeld hopped over to a window and saw their mystery ship.
It was the Archangel, and was diving into the atmosphere.
"Oh, shit."
Lacus looked at him.
"Why is this a bad thing, Mr. Waltfeld?"
"Easy. Murrue's still with Adama. And the Archangel easily outguns every ship in this fleet. Including us."
"I don;t think she's willing to fight us, Andy."
The Desert Tiger looked at the pink haired girl.
"Sorry, Lacus, but I have to be more realistic."
LCAM-X01A Archangel
Adama held onto the Captain's seat as the Archangel fell like a rock.
"Any signals?"
Miriallia shook her head.
"Not yet!"
The ship then tasted Kobol's air for the first time.
"Activating levitator! Vertical speed decreasing!"
The Archangel stopped falling, then began flying over the surface.
"Picking up radio signals."
Adama looked at the Archangel's communications officer.
"You know what to do."
Miriallia shook her head at being turned into a glorified telephone operator.
"You're on, Admiral."
He picked up the slim phone.
"Who is this?"
"This is Admiral Adama. Please patch me into the President."
He heard scuffling over the speakers.
"Admiral?"
He smiled.
"Madam President. I came to help you search for the Tomb of Athena. I think you would like staying on the Archangel better then walking all over Kobol."
The tired voice of the President answered.
"Yes. We've...we've lost people down here. I'm...I'm not willing to lose any more."
He looked at Miriallia, then covered the mouthpiece.
"Send out one of the Raptors to pick them up."
She nodded as the port catapult hatch opened and a Raptor flew out.
"Laura, we've just sent out a Raptor to pick you and your people up."
"Bill, there's something you should know. There's a Cylon down here. It's the same model as the one that shot you."
Adama pursed his lips, then calmed down.
It wasn't Boomer.
She was probably on the Cylon homeworld, living the good life for trying to kill him. (AN: We BSG fans know better, of course)
"Let it on board. But if it tries anything-"
"Bill, she saved our lives twice and she's guiding us to the Tomb. She's also pregnant."
At this, he dropped the phone.
"Frak me."
He picked the phone up.
"You're sure, Madam President?" "She's showing. I'm sure."
He wasn't going to bother asking who the father was.
Some idiot, probably.
5 hours later: Kobol orbit
The ships of Adama's Fleet jumped beside Roslin's.
Waltfeld had a tiny panic attack, but then noticed that while the civilian ships were joining them, the warships were holding position.
"It seems Admiral Adama's intentions were peaceful."
Then all hell broke loose.
"Contacts! At least 40!"
The bridge crew looked to their left, seeing Cylon Baseship after Baseship jump in.
All kinds of models, from the famous and familiar double discs from the First Cylon War to the modern double Y and everything in between.
"Jesus H. Christ. There is no way in hell we can hold off 40 Baseships!"
Lacus sat in the Captain's seat.
"We will try, nevertheless. Turn the Eternal toward them."
Waltfeld growled, but realized Lacus was right.
They needed to buy the civies time to get the hell out of there.
"Launch all Mobile Suits! Activate N-Jammers so they don't nuke us to death!"
Galactica and Minerva joined the Eternal on the line, the faster ship blasting away with her plasma cannons.
Galactica launched every Viper she had, but they were so outnumbered it was not funny.
To give you an idea, each modern Baseship carries at least 600 Raiders.
The older ones have been modified to carry four to 500.
Even with the lowest numbers, that's over 6000 Raiders against 57 Vipers and less then 40 Mobile Suits. (AN: My brother has a special word for how screwed they are: butt-fucked)
The Archangel jumped in, then deployed her two positron cannons, firing both in 15 second intervals. Two first two shots culled about 1000 Raiders each, but the next four only got a about one hundred apiece.
Missiles, 75 and 76mm cannon fire and fighters shot down as many fighters and missiles as they could, but they were getting encircled.
The Fleet was still spinning up their FTL drives.
And the Raiders were getting through Galactica's unholy flak screen.
Just as the fate of Colonial humanity seemed sealed, a massive wall suddenly appeared in front of the Raiders.
This wall was a modified Mercury-Class Battlestar that had just jumped in: the Battlestar Athena, assigned to the Colonial Corps of Engineers.
Tiny 55mm AA turrets opened fire on the Raiders, killing dozens and forcing them back while she launched her Mk VIIB Vipers: all 12 squadrons of them.
Four more Battlestars, Orion-Class, jumped in to cover the civilian Fleet's flanks.
These, again, were CCE: the Troy, Ourea, Echidna and Uranus.
They launched out all 20 of their Viper squadrons (five per ship) to assist Galactica's beleaguered Vipers.
The Cylon's nightmare wasn't over, though: a monster jumped in behind them: the Battlestar Dreadnought Zeus, the 90 kilometer long ultimate Colonial warship.
The massive BSD trained her giant 1200cm guns on the Baseships and fired one volley.
One of these rounds was enough to break the back of a Battlestar like Galactica, which had heavier armor then any Baseship.
And she just fired 80 of them at the Cylons.
One of the double disc Baseships was destroyed instantly, followed by three more of her kind.
As if to make things worse, another Zeus-Class Battlestar Dreadnought, the Macon, jumped in to keep them from running.
The Macon's older sister, the Akron, jumped in over them with all of their guns pointed at them.
At this point, the Cylons tried firing nuclear volleys at the Battlestar Dreadnoughts, but due to the N-Jammers, the nukes failed to go off. 9 of the Baseships were destroyed, 12 were about to explode, and 8 were scrap metal from the Zeus' opening volley.
The surviving 11 and any Raider had hadn't been destroyed jumped before the Colonials could destroy them.
On the Archangel, Adama looked at the massive BSDs as they rotated and entered defensive formation alongside the Fleet with practiced ease.
"Patch me into the Athena."
If he was right, the insanity was only going to get worse. "Athena Actual, this is Archangel Actual."
A stereotypical Indian war whoop was the Old Man's answer.
"Oh, dear gods, he's back."
"That's right, folks! Psycho's back and I'm crazier then ever!"
Battlestar Galactica: Port Flight Pod, 20 minutes later
A CCE Raptor landed on the deck lift and went down into the airlock.
As soon as it was pressurized, the Raptor was wheeled in.
The knuckledraggers looked in horror at the man piloting the machine.
It was the man they thought (and some hoped and prayed) was dead after that first disaster over Kobol: Major Ronald 'Psycho' Pinkerton.
He was, of course, grinning like a loon as per usual.
The Raptor came to a stop, and out came half a dozen Marines, the Major and two CCE officers.
Tigh, who was in command until Adama got back, gaped.
"How the hell-"
"Blind jumps suck at times. Not this time."
He looked around.
"So, what'd I miss?"
Tigh didn't bother dignifying that with a response.
"How many CCE ships do you have?"
The Major handed over a list.
Tigh, after looking at just half a page, fainted.
Battlestar Galactica: Admiral Adama's quarters: 1 hour later
After a rather eventual trip, Adama finally returned to his Battlestar.
Waiting to speak with him was Major Pinkerton.
"Major."
The Major stood and saluted.
"Admiral. Good to see you again, sir."
Adama shook his head.
"I'm not going to bother asking how you survived that ambush over Kobol. It'll probably be so insane my head will explode."
"Not really. Made a blind jump, somehow ended up over Gemenon and near a small CCE task force that survived the Fall."
Adama sighed.
"I'll be blunt. How many of your ships survived the Cylon attack?"
The Major chuckled.
"All of them. We also recovered about 200 civilian ships, about 10 reservist ships-transports, mostly-and 33 regular Colonial Fleet vessels, including the Atlantia."
Adama looked at the Major.
"She wasn't destroyed: she made a blind jump right in front of the Zeus. Admiral Negala was almost dead, though. He heard your transmission, and the last order he gave to his XO to give you these if they ever ran into you."
He handed Adama two rank pins.
They were Fleet Admiral's stars.
"Congratulations, Fleet Admiral Adama."
It was bittersweet for the Old Man.
He gave up trying to get any higher then Commander years ago.
Now he was the highest ranking officer in the Colonial Fleet, but all of his fellow officers were dead. "Why didn't the CCE follow us?"
This made the Major lean back with an embarrassing sigh.
"Admiral, my people are engineers, scientists. The only reason they have a military rank was Admiral Avalonia's edict that the CCE be a military organization. They aren't soldiers. Every time they picked up a Cylon Baseship, they gave the order to jump rather then stand and fight. It pissed off the Viper pilots and Marines-"
Adama understood that, at least.
While most of the CCE were civilians given military ranks and almost no training, the pilots, Marines, helmsmen, gunners, and most bridge operators were drafted members of the regular forces.
But it was the scientists and engineers that were technically in command, not them.
And the only one who had any real military training was the man sitting in front of the Fleet Admiral. "It was only logical for them to run. They were really happy to see me, so when I gave the order to follow you to Kobol, they jumped at the chance."
"Why didn't the regular Fleet personnel take command?"
The Major gave Adama a pointed look.
"Bill, you know damned well why. We have secrets that the rest of the regular forces cannot know."
Adama knew a few of those secrets.
And he was never going to tell anyone.
"Well, the Cylons will think twice before attacking us again. Especially with those Zeus-Class BSDs."
"Speaking of which, I have something for you to sign."
He pulled out a small stack of papers.
"The moment you sign these, all 10 Zeus-Class BSDs are under your command."
Adama fainted at the thought of having the most heavily armed ships ever built under his command.
Battlestar Athena: CIC
The Athena was a special Battlestar.
When the regulars started building her, the CCE took it and started modifying the ship. It was one kilometer longer, wider and taller then a normal Mercury-Class Battlestar by the time they were finished, and that extra space was a godsend for men like Major Pinkerton.
At the moment, though, Captain Ritsuko Akagi, the third most-brilliant person in the CCE (the top two spots, in order of brilliance, were her mother, Naoko, and the Major himself) was annoyed with it. She liked the smaller labs on the Corps' Orion-Class Pocket Battlestars. But now was not the time for that.
The Major had given her a job, and the beam turret in front of her was going to help her do it. The weapon had been taken from a barbette on Galactica (she didn't exactly need it at the moment, what with the huge number of warships covering the new flagship of the military fleet) and he had given her the job of reverse engineering the beam weapon and applying any knowledge taken from them to the plasma cannons still fit to the Athena's backside.
Those weapons, while one of the Major's crowning achievements, were also one of his greatest failures.
While, in theory, they could punch through any Cylon armor with ease, they simply didn't work.
It wasn't exactly the Major's fault: the beam cannons were simply too advanced and while he a basic idea on how they worked, he didn't know exactly how.
With the GaZuOOT beam cannons, now they had the opportunity to fix that problem.
She smirked at the thought.
She would be fixing the Major's mistake.
Well, not Major anymore.
Fleet Admiral Adama had seen it fit to promote the bastard to full-bird Colonel.
After all, he had been in the Fleet for a hell of a lot longer then most of them had been alive.
It was also a bad sign.
Every time he was promoted, something destructive happened.
The last time was when Zarek blew up that government building and killed 50 CCE personnel.
Ritsuko shook it off.
She had work to do.
And the new Colonel was counting on her to get those damned things operational.
Astral Queen: 28 hours later
Tom Zarek fumed.
The military, under now-Fleet Admiral Adama, had become more powerful and influential thanks to the Colonial Corps of Engineers.
"Hey, Tom?"
Zarek looked at one of his prison-mates.
"What is it?"
"The Athena's doing something. Not sure what, but-"
Those were the last words spoken on the Astral Queen, as the Athena opened fire with her newly-operational beam cannons.
Colonial One: 1500 hours, Kobol Time
Roslin looked at the smiling Colonel.
"Why did you destroy the Astral Queen?"
Ron scoffed.
"Why the hell are you looking at ME? I may have ordered Akagi the Younger to get those damned things online, but I never ordered her to fire. She IS technically the commander of the Athena. Go look at her if you want a scapegoat."
He produced a report out of his jacket.
"This was a case of incompetence on my part. The cannons were still in fire-mode. I simply forgot to safe them after the failed test 7 years ago."
He chuckled.
"Besides, think of it this way. Zarek is dead, and you no longer have to deal with him stirring up trouble in the Quorum or with the rest of the Fleet."
"Colonel, I will remind you that you had every reason to kill Zarek. He disrupted shipments of supplies to a CCE convoy for over a year, killed 50 of your people on Sagittaron during the bombing that landed him in prison-"
"He was a member of the Quorum of Twelve. That more or less makes a person untouchable."
He shifted slightly, making himself more comfortable on the chair.
"Besides, even if I killed him, I wouldn't've destroyed the Astral Queen. Killed the crew along with the fraking bastard, maybe, but I would have kept the ship intact."
He had her there.
While three much larger prison ships were in the fleet the CCE brought with them, (none of them were full, having dropped off their 'passengers' on a mining asteroid just before the attacks) they still needed every ship.
"Well, you've got two bonuses: we now have beam weaponry and you don't have to deal with attacks on you and your office. But I'm kidding myself: you want me to pay you and the civies back somehow."
He looked her in the eye, suddenly losing the joking tone he had been using the whole time and reminding the President that she was dealing with a madman in a military uniform.
"You tell me what you want from the CCE, and I'll provide it, to a point. And before you ask, the Articles of Colonization prevent you from charging Captain Akagi with launching a premeditated attack on the Astral Queen."
Roslin narrowed her eyes.
"The Athena destroyed the Astral Queen and killed 1510 people in the process."
She pointed at the whiteboard behind her.
The survivor count was 1595487, and did not count the destruction of the Astral Queen and the death of everyone on it.
"While I used to be a schoolteacher, I hate math, Colonel. You want to repay the Fleet? Fine. I want every ship in the Fleet given a complete refit. New FTL drives, better computers and life support systems, the whole works."
The Colonel's seriously face finally broke with a smile.
"Ma'am, that's not a punishment. This is what we do for a living."
"Second, you are going to show me and Admiral Adama exactly what you are doing on the Athena."
He pursed his lips.
"Again, not a punishment: it's your Presidential right. However, before you take even one step onto one of my ships, you must make an oath to tell no one of what you see."
Roslin held her ground.
"I think not."
He put a CCE-issue M29 magnum in her face.
"Then we are going to need a new President."
Before he could pull the trigger, the gun was taken out of his loose (for him) grip by Admiral Adama, who had arrived only a moment before.
"Colonel, you know better then that."
He looked at Roslin.
"Madam President, you don't have a choice. Anyone who goes to a CCE ship and doesn't join it has to sign a non-confidentiality order. No exceptions, not even the President."
She looked at the man who just saved her life, thanking him silently.
"And how do you know this?"
Adama sat down and gave the magnum back to the Colonel, who holstered the weapon.
"What I am about to tell you does not leave this room, Madam President."
Zarek, who I have HATED since the moment he appeared, is now dead.
And it was an accident. They DO happen.
What Adama is telling Roslin at the end is seen in the Season 3 episode Hero, where we see the Valkyrie for the first time.
If you're a Gundam fan that hasn't watched BSG, then I suggest you watch the show starting with the miniseries and watch it from start to finish.
I refuse to spoil the latter two seasons, because we're not getting to them in this version.
The reason is simple: the Eternal has hard drives from the three Heavy Raiders that rammed into her, and those hard drives have data that will eventually allow them to jump to GSD Earth.
Colonial Corps of Engineers fleet
90 x Hermes-Class police/AA frigates
75 x Spitfire-Class light cruisers
60 x Hydra-Class heavy cruisers
55 x Orion-Class Pocket Battlestars
40 x Valkyrie-Class Battlestars
25 x Galactica-Class Battlestars
20 x Mercury-Class Battlestars
10 x Odysseus-Class heavy transports (subtype of the Mercury-Class only armed with AA guns, but can carry 9000 men and women plus enough food and water to supply a BSG for 10 years)
5 x Demeter-Class heavy agricultural ships (picture a combination of the agro ship with domes the size of Cloud Nine's atmo dome. This allows them to raise livestock in space)
1 x Athena-Class Battlestar
10 x Zeus-Class Battlestar Dreadnoughts
1 x Vulcan-Class spacecraft construction/repair ship*
1 x Ishimura-Class asteroid mining ship*
1 x Cortez-Class tylium mining and refinery ship*
3 x Artemis-Class Mobile Shipyards (Watched Razor? Then picture Scorpion Fleet Shipyard, but a LOT bigger, fit with engines and turrets mounting anti-ship and anti-fighter weapons)
(asterisk (meaning this bloody thing: *) means: sub-type of Zeus-Class Battlestar Dreadnought)
Colonel Fleet survivors
6 x Hermes-Class police/AA frigates
2 x Hydra-Class heavy cruisers
6 x Orion-Class Pocket Battlestars
5 x Valkyrie-Class Battlestars (includes Valkyrie)
4 x Galactica-Class Battlestars
4 x Mercury-Class Battlestars
3 x Odysseus-Class heavy transports
1 x Prometheus-Class ultra-heavy transport (only Zeus-Class BSD sub-type to reach Fleet service before the Fall: carries over 150000 enlisted men, 1500 officers and 6000 Marines; only armed with AAA weapons)
You want gun? I'll give you gun. And that's not including the Avalonia Task Force, which has the OTHER HALF of the CCE.
How can they have that many ships, you ask?
Asteroid mining. And a LOT of it.
Next Time on THAB Ultimate Rewrite Edition: Roslin and Adama board the Athena, discovering a truth hidden from the Colonial public for 45 years while the Colonel begins his new project.
Ja Ne!