XXIV
0500 The Next Morning
Captain Raekwon Abdullah, the Second-In-Command of the air wing aboard the William Adama, was in the command tent with General Grayson, going over the plan that Commander Nicholas Bond had sent out to the major field Generals the night before. Nick simply wanted to make sure he and Grayson were on the same page, and he trusted Abdullah to carry his message.
"Captain, from everything I see here", the General summarized Sandstorm's presentation, "this is our best chance to try and move Trevor's front forward. As I've told you, it's been a bitch gaining ground there. Taking the guns out should help."
"That's what we were thinking, General", Raekwon said evenly. It's just so goddamned hard to get fire down on their forces through that forest, it's better to try and locate the artillery and take out as much of it as we can."
"Who's going to be commanding that sector?"
"Captain Mathers will be, sir." He looked at the timetable in front of him. "When our guns start going off, which should be in about", he looked at his watch, "about seventeen minutes, her group will move in and start hunting for their guns as soon as they return fire."
"OK, Captain", the General said, satisfied with the air plan, "it looks good to me. I'll radio Admiral Adama and advise him it looks good. You want to stay around for some breakfast?"
Captain Abdullah smiled. "Thank you, sir, but I have to get back to the ship. I will have the afternoon shift when Cory clocks out later." That made the General laugh.
"Fine, go get your beauty sleep, mister", he said, continuing to chuckle. "That leaves more for me." He and Abdullah exchanged the salutes, Raekwon leaving the tent for the short walk to the Raptor Pad.
Brindy Malcolm had allowed herself a very short nap and had wakened some thirty minutes earlier. She was well camouflaged, the dark simply aiding in that effect. She quietly crawled about a hundred yards northward, stopping just inside the treeline, with the enemy base lit up in front of her. She turned on the NVG, hooking them to her Big-Eyes and began to scan the area. The NVG weren't nearly as sophisticated as those which her enemy had, but they did what they were supposed to do: make what was not visible to the naked eye visible to her, and with great detail for face recognition.
This was a game for someone with patience. She had an abundance of that. She slowly scanned back and forth in front of her, occasionally seeing someone walk about. She would zoom her hi-res glasses in to see if it was a high-value target. They had all just been average Joe's doing their rounds. That's not why she was here.
Fifteen minutes after starting her search, she caught movement from the largest tent, which she knew had to be the main command tent. She zoomed in on the activity. Brindy saw five people come out of the ten, slowly strolling westward. Glancing to the west, she figured they were headed to where the Raptors were parked.
She quickly moved her glass back to the right and zoomed in as far as she could go. The group was standing still now, talking and laughing. At present, none of them had turned to face in her direction.
"C'mon, you pretty boys", she breathed, "show me your faces..." She kept her focus on the group. Three of them did turn around. She had studied the faces and names of the potential high-value targets until she knew them in her sleep. One face caught her eye, and she quickly went through her memory.
Captain Raekwon Abdullah, Second-In-Command of the air wing aboard the Battlestar William Adama.
He was only a Captain, however, if he was the second fiddle, it meant he was probably one of their best pilots, and that was worth dispatching a round. Brindy was approximately five thousand yards from the subject. A long shot, but well within the range of this deadly weapon she carried.
She steadied herself into position.
Raekwon Abdullah and his left-seater, Lieutenant Robin Graystone were talking with two of General Grayson's aides after leaving the tent, the five of them quietly talking as they moved toward the Raptor.
"Robin, I don't know about you, but I'm not even gonna shower when I get back", Abdullah said with a grin. "I didn't get a whole helluva lot of sleep last night, and I have to take over for Sundown later on."
"Too much information, Captain", Robin "Smurf" Graystone laughed. "Just make sure you shower before we go on rotation? I don't want to smell you before I see you."
That made one of the aide's cough in laughter.
"You're skirting on the edge there, girlie", Sandstorm laughed. "I took a shower midday yesterday, thank you. I shall not be sneaking up on you."
As they said their farewells to the three aids, Raekwon, who was facing south was just getting ready to turn back to the west, Captain Graystone right next to him.
Without warning, Graystone saw Abdullah propelled backward some ten feet, hitting the ground hard.
Not knowing what had occurred, she hit the deck, the three aides that had just turned back doing the same as the noise from Abdullah hitting the ground startled them. She crawled over to her commander. "Sandstorm?" He was lying on his back as she got there, one of the aids chancing some light to see what had happened. "Oh, my God", the left-seater said in horror.
Captain Abdullah had a hole in his chest. When they rolled him over, half of his back had been blown out.
It was about at that moment that the guns opened up on The Kingdom from the west. Everyone on both sides was used to this drama starting up in the morning. Lieutenant Graystone and the aides to General Grayson had quickly called for a medic, as they didn't want to bother the General as the fighting had just commenced again.
He was taken to the permanent hospital that had been set up, yet as suspected he was dead the moment the bullet impacted his heart. It was at that point that she had to go to the General's communications tent and call the Adama.
General Grayson was in the command center, following the beginnings of the battle when Lieutenant Graystone appeared.
"General", she said with a quick salute, the older man noticing how ashen face the woman was, "I need to make a call to the Flagship." She could barely breathe at the moment. The damn bullet could have easily struck her.
"Slow down, young lady...I thought you and Abdullah were heading to your Raptor?"
She took in a breath and calmed herself somewhat. "I know sir. I think the sniper that got General Otter the other day just killed Sandstorm."
"He's dead?" Another cold ball of fear crept into the General. "Jesus."
"Sir, you have a battle to run, may I call the Flagship? I am next in command of that Raptor. It's my responsibility."
He quickly sat her down and had a communications expert get the direct frequency to the Adama.
"Adama, Raptor 447."
"Raptor 447, Adama Actual. Have you and Captain Abdullah left the surface yet?"
"Actual, Raptor 447, negative sir. A sniper killed Captain Abdullah. He was right next to me when it happened. General Grayson just dispatched Marines to search for the shooter."
Lee Adama ran a hand through his hair, realizing now that there was indeed at least one highly-trained sniper that was at large, and that the killing of General Otter was no accident.
"Raptor 447, Adama Actual, remain at Command until further notice. I want you to bring Sandstorm home when he's ready."
"Aye, sir will remain here at the Command Center."
"When you arrive back onboard the Flagship, report to me at once, Adama Actual out."
Brevin Cross looked over at his commander since the transmission had come over the open comm of CIC. "Jesus, Boss, they have themselves a real fuckin' sniper. I didn't think...I would never have never guessed that."
Lee shook his head. "Makes sense, XO. Many of these people had to live off the land after the Cylons came, shooting and hunting for food. And no doubt there's more than a few ex-military down there. Could be someone with a chip on their shoulder." Lee paused. "I'd hate to wake up Axman so early, but he needs to know this, XO, get him up here on the double."
Onboard the Laura Roslin
Captain Cory Mathers waited patiently in her Raptor for the music to start. The moment The Kingdom started firing their guns westward, General Trevor would call Admiral Baltar in CIC and give them the OK to head down to the mountain in search of some artillery.
It felt like an eternity since she had made the final pre-flight checks when it really was a matter of perhaps ten minutes before Admiral Baltar hailed her.
"Sundown, Roslin Actual, you and your squadron are free to depart. I repeat you are free to depart. Good hunting."
"Roger, Actual, Sundown out." She switched to the inter-squad frequency. "OK, ladies and gentlemen, we have a go. Again, we're good to launch. Let's earn our pay today."
Moments later all fourteen in her squad were heading toward the Caprican Mountains to seek out the guns that were causing grief on General Trevor's front. The conventional wisdom was that The Kingdom had the guns draped in camouflage, even when they fired, to keep the heat signature of the flash away from lurking eyes. This would require a very up-close visit to The Kingdom.
Cory led her group to the assigned jump-off point, as she would be the first Raptor to reconnoiter up close. You couldn't lead from behind. She wouldn't ask them to do more than she herself was willing to do.
As she snaked toward the north of Granite Peak, she swung the Raptor in a one-eighty turn, heading south to the area where it was thought the main encampment was for this group. Dawn was starting to make its case for another day, but would not be visible on the ground for another hour or so. She tapped in the coordinates and brought her bird in.
Her left-seater, Lieutenant Dobos Gyulia, a native of Hungary, call sign Cowboy, of all things,
was currently driving the ship while she scanned both electronically and with her Mark I eyeballs for anything that looked like a gun firing. In the rear, Lieutenant Chin Sung-Chul from Korea, call sign Sparrow, was also eyeing his instruments in case any SAM's were fired their way.
On Sundown's orders, Cowboy slowed the Raptor. Some small arms fire headed up toward them, but that wouldn't do more than scratch the paint on the bird. The first pass showed nothing conclusive.
As she swung back to the east, another Raptor behind her did the same thing, from a slightly different course and a slightly different area near The Kingdom. A pair of Raptors went next. After that, they searched in pairs as the day got lighter. So far, no SAM fire has come up to greet them. Must mean we're not close, Captain Mathers said to herself.
After a few more passes, she backed off her Raptors and had them hover about fifteen thousand feet above the mountain. She and Cowboy studied the terrain photographs while they were hovering.
"Captain", her First Officer began, "it would make sense for them to have the gun near their town, would it not? They cannot be far away from it when it needs to be manned."
"That's what the book says, Dobos", she responded with annoyance, "I got a pretty good glimpse of the town, or what looked like the town, but I saw zilch."
In the rear, Lt. Chin was looking over the same map. He hadn't spoken yet but was carefully going over the picture. After a few moments, he looked up, then back down at the photo. "Hey Cowboy", Chin asks, "do we happen to have a magnifying glass around here anywhere?"
Cowboy looked at Cory. "I don't know, Chin, why do you ask."
He moved forward between the two pilots. "I wanted to examine this photograph a little closer." He pulled out the offending picture. "This is north of the main town and above it. You can see the treeline going south-to-north", he ran his fingers along the area he was looking at, "but when you get here", his finger stopped, "the coloring of the trees is slightly different. It seems to be a little lighter, almost opaque. It could be simply sunlight or something innocuous, but as you move again northward on that treeline", and again his finger slid across, "the treeline becomes much darker again."
All three looked at each other for a moment. "That area is about a mile north of the main town, and I'd say, what six hundred feet up the hills?" The other two nodded in agreement. The two men looked at Captain Mathers, who came to an immediate decision.
"Let's go check it out, boys", she said with a grin, then dialed up her squadron. "Attention Tango Squadron, I'm transmitting new coordinates for us to check. We've got an idea. Ident when you receive the intel."
Within moments, the other six ships gave her an affirmative. "OK, Tango, I'm taking my bird down first to eyeball this. Everyone else follows me down but stay back until I give the OK, Mathers out."
Cory brought the aircraft down toward the surface, coming in again from the north over the immensely thick forest that populated those foothills. Sparrow had overlaid the image they had been looking at with the topography that was being fed live to him and his Boss. "OK, Captain, I'm lighting up that area so you can see it better through NVG and infrared."
"Got it, Chin", Cory confirmed, "looking for a flash."
She veered the Raptor a little toward the west, wanting to come down that side of the suspect tree line. "OK, Cowboy, the ship is yours." She looked at the real-time display as they approached, and then...
"Flash signature", she said excitedly, "I have a flash from a gun! You were right, Sparrow!" They all hollered for a moment as Cowboy began banking the aircraft back over the peaks to the east. Their ship was about five hundred yards south of where the flash had been seen. "All units, that's the spot, let's..."
"Missile Warning!", Chin screamed, "I don't see anything on Dradis!"
"Shit!" Cory tried a split-S maneuver.
Unfortunately, the SAM had been fired almost directly underneath them, from only a thousand yards below.
They never had a chance.
Yet Cory's squadron had gotten the word, and in the next five minutes, they had destroyed six of the guns, with one other Raptor hit but serviceable. There were still seventeen in the area that could hit the forces on the western slope.