CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE IOTIA HOROLOGII STAR SYSTEM, 23 MAY 2064, 1300 HOURS
Captain Cole "Stinger" Taylor, at the controls of Blackbird One, was drifting in space, in visual range of the Cylon fleet which was sheltering here, in the Iotia Horologii system. Five Cylon Basestars, guarding one Resurrection Ship, still sheltered here, and he could see all of them clearly in the distance. He silently thanked the gods that the Blackbird was not only nearly invisible to DRADIS, but also to optical detection devices, as the black carbon composites from which it was constructed melded nearly perfectly with the blackness of space itself. Several patrols of Cylon Raiders had passed within gun range of his craft since his arrival here without seeing him. As he waited for the arrival of the rest of Task Force Bravo, he went over his orders, once again, in his head.
Taylor and two other pilots, who were now flying Blackbird Two and Blackbird Three, had been sent ahead and ordered to enter the Iotia Horologii system from Galactic East. Upon entering the system, they were to move in as close as possible without exposing themselves to the risk of discovery, and then halt, maintaining radio silence and running nothing more intrusive than passive scans, while they awaited the arrival of the rest of Task Force Bravo.
Task Force Bravo would enter the system from Galactic West at exactly 1300 hours, and upon its arrival would broadcast a code phrase to let the Blackbirds know that it had arrived and the second phase of the operation was to begin. Taylor frowned as he recalled the code phrase. He didn't understand the language and had no idea what the significance of it was, but he noticed that several of the Earthling officers with whom he'd been briefed had found it amusing. He assumed it was some sort of Earthling profanity.
It was expected that, upon detecting the arrival of the main task force, the Basestars assigned to protect the Resurrection Ship would move off to meet this new threat as they attempted to give the Resurrection Ship they were protecting time enough to jump out of the system. This would, hopefully, allow the Blackbirds to move immediately toward the Resurrection Ship, get inside it and fire their missiles to disable the vessel's FTL drive. Taylor looked at the wrist chronometer provided to him by the Earthlings, whose face used the Earthling time scale which he was still getting used to.
"Almost time," he said softly to himself.
He watched as the time on his chronometer moved to exactly 1300, and no less than a microsecond later, he heard a voice through the speakers in his headset.
"TORA, TORA, TORA."
Taylor quickly powered up his engines and prepared to move forward. As he watched, three of the Basestars moved off in the direction Taylor knew that the Task Force must be. But to his dismay, he saw that two others did not.
"Frak!," he cursed in frustration.
Taylor knew the Blackbirds were great at stealth operations, but even they could be detected if they came too close to a Basestar while under power. But he also knew that one of the three Blackbirds had to get past the two Basestars and inside the Resurrection ship. The success of this mission was critical.
He opened the throttle of his engines and gave them full power. Blue plasma flared from the tailpipes of his three engines, and as the black, nearly invisible spacecraft dashed forward, he armed his missiles. Watching as several of the Cylon Raiders flying patrol near one of the Basestars suddenly turned in his direction, he muttered to himself with grim determination.
"Come on, Stinger…do you want to live forever?"