I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.

Sable Cold thank you, for your review and please let me know whenever you spot something odd or not clear. It helps me, make the story better. The whole Kat/Racetrack flub is all on me. The CAG issue, well when the Battlestar wiki went down I lost my prime sources of BSG facts. I will add those other names to my notes. The whole Helo flying Vipers… well later in the story I "needed" Helo to have some Viper training. I think in in about 5 or 6 chapters from now. I have a one or two liner on why he is on the stick. I'm going to go back now and re-write that part, to make it clearer.

10 cylons to a Squad, 4 squads to a Platoon (40), 4 Platoons to a Company (160), 4 Companies to a Battalion (640), 4 BN to a Regiment (2560), 4 RGT to a Brigade (10240)

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Chapter 19 Exodus Ground

Jammer was in charge of four others that made up his little team of fighters. All three of them had been fighting cylons outside of the camp for some time, before being assigned to be his little fire team. The four of them all had been able to get Earther styled armor, and they even had Direct Energy Weapons to fight with. All of them had in fact, they all had more than one of those Earth made weapons. To most of the Colonials still living in the Refugee camp. Seeing them so outfitted, made them think that they were very well connected the semi mythical Earthers. That was true, somewhat. They all did have friends or even what they would call close friends, with some of them. What having all of that gear did mean, was that these four had been found to be. Both be good at killing cylons, and lucky to have been able to find all of those targets in the first place.

When word was sent out to gather any available combat forces, for a major shift in combat operation. They had come, just as they had been asked to. They were briefed in small groups about what was about to happen, and the risks that were already know and a few that were not fully known. Even with all of this information, they had volunteered to stay close to the refugee camp in cold campsites or damp caves until needed. And the night before, they had sneaked into the camp as soon as the sun had went down. It was hoped that little groups like this one, were going to be the heavy hammers of the Colonial military. At least for right now, on ground combat side of the coming events. He and Duck's group had been given the jobs that had to be done, but also had a lot of cylons standing around to get in the way of the mission. They were the bucket Brigades, and the cylons were the fire to be stomped out by those two brigades.

Both teams had rolled over there first set of targets without many issues or lose to their, small teams of fighters. The second set of targets they had gone after was a different matter. His team's last target had been the main gate, and guard points on both side and ends of the gate. Those four guard points had controlled access the outside word from the camp the humans lived in. Jammer was getting bone tired, but he knew that they still had a lot of work to do. Jammer put his hand next to his ear to listen to the updated orders coming threw his Colonial made ear bud. He smiled and looked at his group of combat harden Colonials. They were taking a break, after the last of the cylons had been put down by them.

It was not a nice smile, and his three compatriots were put on edge at first by the look. "Let's go people. We have an appointment to see the President. We don't want to be Fraking late, do we?" The group looked at him like he might need to see a doctor, and it was not the bone mending kind of a doctor. When Jammer stared to check his weapons and armor, they did the same out of habit more than anything. The four of them were moving in about five minutes, after notice being given to them of the new target. The grate would be covered a mixed group of Colonials armed with captured cylon/human rifles and pistols. Their numbers would grow until they had a dozen lightly armored fighters at that location. They were there, to make sure no cylons tried to use it as an entry or exit point from the camp.

The little group picked up two more Colonial's when they started to shift positions away from the smoking gate and guard points. Now the group of six moved as quickly as they could, and that was pretty fast compared to what most other fire teams could do. What added to their speed, was that they did not have to worry about cylons being around the interior of the camp. The ones that might be trying to intercept them as Jammer and his group shifted locations. This was because most of them had already been taken out in the first few minutes of the human uprising. What was left of the threats inside the wire, were thought to be already contained into isolated pockets, for now. That could change at any minute, but with the weapon and body armor this team was packing. If they ran into any cylons, it just would make the camp safer for the rest of the refuge fighters. The human uprising had used surprise to the maximum ruthlessly advantage that they could muster.

After about fifteen minutes of run/walking through the mud lanes of the camp. The expanded group was almost to the third target area of the day. Now that they were closer. The rest of them now connected the dots about their orders, which had not been explicitly told to them. They were going to Colonial One, and they were heavily armed and armored. It had all the makings of being a good time, a very good time. That is, as long as your last name was not Baltar. The team used a nearby set of shacks not far from the target, as cover to get their well-practiced formation setup in safety. The four of them had worked on this formation more than a few times, but it still took them some time to get it right today, with the two added new bodies. Luckily they did it without any noise carrying more than four or five feet, form where they were working up for the attack. Now ready, they made their way to the Eversun made passenger star-liner using as much cover at they could along the way to the target. The entry target for the assaulting group, was the forward entrance-way ramp. Which was always down for easy entrance, and exiting the ground VIP craft.

Colonial One was not set up to be a defensive position by the cylons or by the humans for that matter. Jammer and his team, had pretty good cover and concealment most of the way to the loading ramp of the spaceship. Jammer was leading from the front and turned the last corner slowly, which would put him only fifteen feet from the boarding ramp. This was when Jammer and his team ran into the first road bump to their mission. Jammer quickly pulled his head back around the corner, and almost caused a pile up behind him of bodies, armor and weapons. He listens as hard as he could, and he did not hear any sign. That he might have been spotted by the guards, which were not supposed to be there, had seen him.

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There were two human "Police" that were decked out in full marine style body armor, complete with rifle and a holstered pistol on their upper thighs were standing at the bottom of the stairs. Those open topped stairs, which you had to go up to reach the "living" areas of the ship. And these two "Police" were not part of Colonel Tigh's resistance force. Jammer and his group did not know how they were going to act towards them, when they came face to face with each other packing firearms. Jammer made a nod to let the rest of the group know that he was now ready. Then they were moving around the protection of the corner, and into the open space between space ships at a very quick walk. All the while they were shoulder to shoulder or back to front, like one massive and mean insect.

While Jammer and his combat group were still moving, all of the sudden. The nearest guard turned, and started to bring his rile up in there general direction. He might have seen the movement of Jammer, or maybe he heard a squish of some mud under one of their quickly moving combat boots on the lane they were traveling on. It did not matter, the guards were now aware that Jammer, and his little group of marry friends were there. The two guards standing outside of the grounded center of authority, were not military or even police trained. Colonel Tigh had called them "Want A be's" when he bothered to talk about them at all. But that did not mean, that they could not kill you or completely blow the mission for you. This group should have been off shift already, there replace would not have shown up for work today. That pair did report to Colonel Tigh, and he had given them missions that the body armor, weapons and ammunition were help out immensely.

Jammer knew he had to act fast. And he made a few long and quick steps, to close the distance to the nearest guard. He was now very thankful that he took after his father with very long legs, this had made it a pain to find pants that fit right. But now he had his slender Pulse Laser Rifle a few feet from the nearest guards face, and without yelling or getting aggressive. It was just as the books called for it to be done. He conveyed his thoughts to the two guards, and now it was just a matter which way they wanted to jump. They could do there "jobs", or they could allow Jammer to do his. It was only a question of how much human blood would be spilled.

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Richard "call me Rick" had been standing guard all day fully exposed to the hostile elements of this planet. He and this jerk with him, should have been relieved at noon. But no one had shown up, to relieve them of guard duty. They could hear weapons fire coming from what seemed like all over the camp. Never the less they had stayed on point, just as they had been told to do by someone who said that they were on Baltar personnel staff. They had even seen flashes high in the sky, that Rick thought might be signs of a space battle going on above them. When he had voiced his opinion. That it might be Adama coming back, and they should both go join the fight against the cylon. His assigned partner for the day disagreed with him, flatly and very vocally. Rick had only taken this job, so that he could put food on the table. He had lost all of his family during the cylon attack, and he had decided that he might be ready to start a new chapter in his life on this mud ball a few months ago. He could since that a lot of other people were starting to feel the same. He had no idea why, but somehow he had been caught up in the slowly changing mood of the Refugee camp. But to start this new life. You needed money, and there were very few constantly paying jobs out there. And there were no jobs that paid as well as this one did. It also paid you in "money" or other things that worked just as well from time to time. All he had to do was fallow orders, and stand around a lot of times.

For a time, he had thought he might try his luck and sneak out of the camp into the wood line. Rumors were going like crazy about what might be hiding there, but he knew that he was not really trained for combat. That is, besides what he had seen on all of those entertainment shows. The ones that he had loved so much, before the attack. He knew enough about guns to qualify on the cylon makeshift range, but that was it. He was only supposed to be a security guard, and personnel traffic control into or more often not allowing anyone into the ship called Colonial One.

The other guy with him who went by the name of Michael, and don't you dare call me Mike, Ancillary. He was a totally different sort of person all together, than Rick. He had failed out of both the police force training, and the military acceptance course. All between twelve and eighteen months, before the cylons sneak attack. He like the power this job let him think, that he had. He would go out of his way to make the others in the camp lives even harder, than it had to be already. Then he would brag about it to Rick during the duty shifts, or anyone else he pulled a guard shift.

In Rick's mind, Michael was a dumb bully. Which he would have placed a bet, would come to a bad end sooner or later. Michael thought Adama, and all of the others were dead, and he had told Rick this many times. He also thought that whatever was happening to the cylons outside of the protective fences, was bad news for them (meaning him) also. To pass the time on guard duty. He would quote from Baltar speeches, or anything else Baltar had said. All to explain what was happening, or whatever else he thought fit the current situation close enough. It was worse than those guys, who had always followed certain types of entertainment shows way too closely, back home. Today had been the worse day so far. It looked to be on the way to getting even worse the later in the day it got, and they were still on duty. Rick was already thinking that no amount of overtime pay, was worth dealing with this jackal in human skin.

Now Rick was just trying to be quite, and work out some way to sneak away from this jerk. That is without him maybe, shooting him in the back or something. If he was cough trying to sneak away from his "job". Then Rick thought he heard something that did not fit, and out of the corner of his right eye he saw a flash of movement that should not have been there. He turned and his rifle went from being parallel to the ground at his waist, to coming up to a better position to defend the ramp. It was all out of habit, and muscle memory. Beside it was what you were supposed to do, according to all of the movies he had seen.

Whoever it was, it moved like they knew what they were doing, one part of his mind noted. They had gotten within fifteen feet of him, without the pair of them even noticing them. All while in broad daylight, and they were not talking. These thoughts flashed through one part of Rick's mind. Then the leader of six oddly clothes individual was just there, and he did it within a flash too fast for Rick to process the increased speed. The leader or point man had an oddly shaped and unknown type of weapon in his hands. That now seem to be almost touching his face, and seemed to be very threatening without saying word or doing anything but pointing it for now. "Well I guess I am relieved." Rick thought to himself.

While he was looking at the barrel of the strange weapon a voice came to his ear. "Drop your Fraking weapons, or I will blow you into daggit food." Rick had no idea who it was ordering him around. This was odd, for such a small town as this camp had turned into while hiding from the cylons. Rick was focused on looking at the weapon, and not what was being said by the oddly clothed man standing in his teeth. The armed stranger was very much in intruding into his "personnel space" and sweat started to run down Rick's spine.

Rick had no issues with that whatever this man was saying, as long as he did not shot him in the face. "Let see outnumbered, out trained, and out gunned. Yep, time to drop the weapon. You can clean the mud off of your weapons later, if you are still able to breath. Besides that was what they had always did in the entertainment shows he had seen. When someone was put in a situation something like this. It was that or the good guy or bad guy, would shoot the person. That he had just gotten the drop on." Rick let the rifle slip from his hands fall onto the ground, and without orders or directions of any kind from his "senior partner". Rick slowly raised his hands palm towards his head, never making a sudden movement of any kind as he moved. He just looked at the set of eyes behind some kind of black, maybe armored mask, way too close to him. He made sure that the fingers did not go above his shoulders by more than a few inches. Just like he had seen done on the entertainment channels, back before the cylons had blasted it to radioactive waste. This set of movements, had so not been part of his short training he had taken for this job.

That was when Michael opened his big fat mouth, again. At exactly the wrong time, and Rick knew he was about to die. Michael was almost frothing at the mouth, about what was going on. He had seen his lazy, and dull whited partner make the odd move away from his proper guard position. He had been about to ask, what the frak he was doing. That was when he saw his weapon start to move from the approved "guard" position. Then his eyes were drawn to the movement of the six armed people closing in on them from that side of the field. His mouth started moving with a loud voice, with whatever popped into his small little brain. "What are you Fraking doing?" This had been addressed to Rick. Then he locked eyes with the person with the strange weapon like object. "I bet it you are the ones that are screwing up, what Baltar had been trying to do for us. You better drop your little toy, or I'm going to show you what a real rifle will do!" Michael has little balls of spit flying from his mouth on every angle possible, now that he noticed what was going on. It was just too bad that his brain did not tell him exactly what was going on. Then again, he was not known for having any extra brain power to spare after what was need to keep his heart going and breathing.

All Rick heard in his mind, was his death knell sounding his soon arrival at the river Styx. He wanted to close his eyes, but instead. He just keep them looking at the lead man of the strange group and hopped that, the masked man could see that he was not the threat. Since he did not close his eyes. He was able to see a quick movement, and an odd pistol looking device came up from the second person in line. Rick heard nothing but a faint whine from the odd looking pistol. A part of his mind, said that it might be a less than lethal weapon. The kind that someone might have rigged up in a ships small machine shop. There had been rumors and talk around the mess hall tables about them. He was thinking about that, right up until. He felt something warm and wet, splash on the back of his neck. And then he knew that his partners had just been taken down. And it happened by a weapon that sound no louder than your average case of gas.

That was too much, and his head turned to see what happened on its own accord and without the controlling part of brain giving the orders. As his head was still turning, his ears picked up the wet thud sound, of something large hitting the soggy ground to his left side. Rich eyes automatically track down, towards where the wet sound had come from. Mike was lying in the mud, without a head above the neck line, his body was still slightly twitching from the odd nerve impulse. The head was completely gone, along with his police issued cold/rain cap, ear, and neck guards. Either one of those items, should have stopped most pistol caliber round impacts. His head looked like it had been popped like a red filled zit from some teenager's nightmare. The warm and wet that had struck Rick's neck, had been blood and other soft parts of Mikes head flying through the air. Rick was covered from the top of the back of his head, to about the middle of his back. All with the questionable amount of white/grey matter from the second guard. There was no question about the amount of blood staining the back plate of his body armor.

Rick was staring wide eyed at the headless body in the mud, and amazingly his mind was still working. Well it was working somewhat, anyway. "What kind of weapon does not make a sound, and can still do that to a body?" That was a quick thought that ran threw his head. Before a voice got him to look back at the leader of this group, who was still standing in front of him. His mind was rebelling with everything that was going on, and compressed into such a short amount of time.

"I said! Are we going to have a problem with you to?" Jammer was still speaking through the open slits in his armored face mask. He took a half step closer, so now the Earth built weapon was almost touching the nose of the other man who had been on guard duty. This was not the correct way to do this type of action. Being that close, if Rich had wanted to. He could have made a move, to try to take the weapon way from Jammer a half a dozen different ways. It would have been a bad idea, but then again sometimes people had made a living of turning bad ideas into action. "We can always leave you, like your buddy over there. If you want?" Jammer did not want to do this. But he would, to protect his people and complete the mission.

Rick gave a cocky little smile, to the words that the stranger had just said to him. He had never like Baltar, and had even voted for Laura Roslin in the last election. "I am just here to keep everyone out that does not have an appointment, with anyone that might or might not be on this ship. That is all I'm supposed to do. I have been repeatedly told this by a few people who make more, than I do. Why change now?" He tilted his chin toward the odd rifle in Jammer's hands, which was still pointed at him. "I think I saw your name on the list this morning. It might have been under stranger, with strange looking guns, and with a party of five. You will have to check those weapons with the two guards', which are right inside the hatch at the top of the stairs. They will be setting or sleeping at the desk that will be on the right side, as you enter the hatch. The hatch almost will hit the desk, if you open it all the way real hard." Rick looked at his watch quickly, with a slight turn of his left wrist. "Baltar should be in his living area, with an afternoon girl or two." He made a slightly strained face. He did not want say the next part, but he also did not want to get shot. "Felix Gaeta could be anywhere, and I don't know if he has a weapon or not. That is all of the people, which I know were scheduled to take appointments today." This planet was cold. That did not mean that Rick was not sweating bullets in steams running off his face. Or they could have been tears, coming out of his eyes. He did not know or care to be honest. He just wanted to prove that he was being helpful, and to get the frak away from here. All without leaking any of his blood.

Jammer let his Earth made weapon drop some, and took one hand off the weapon. Then he pulled up his mask up off of his face, so that Rick could see his face more fully with his free hand. "Well Rick. It's nice to know whose side you're on finally. You could have let us known, before today. It would have save us all some trouble, and more than a little planning time. I don't think it would have helped that fraker." Jammer made a face, as he used his own chin to point to the headless body slowly cooling body in the mud at their feet.

Rick almost let his bladder go when the stranger let his weapon drop. And now that it was not so in his face, and then pulled the odd looking mask up. He had more than one meal with Jammer, and had worked on the wood cutting detail with him more than a few times. Before he had picked up this job, and Jammer found something else to do with his free time. "Well good to see you to Jammer." Rick started to shake his head from side to side slowly in disbelief. "I had no idea who I would talk to." Now that Rick, knew he was not going to die right then. His mind was free to keep up with the movements going on around him, and even let his head moved so that he could see better. "I take it there might be a place for me to report to, for possible reassignment?" If Jammer was involved in this uprising. Then it was a very good chance, that it was part of a bigger plan. Rick knew that Jammer would never risk his wife, if something like this operation failed against the cylons. "This had to be part of something the Admiral had cooked up," thought Rick.

Jammer was not sure what to do next. No one had talked to him about what to do, in a situation like this. Rick was a semi-unknown on whose side he might be on. He could be playing a game on them. Jammer quickly decided that it was best not to push his luck. He came up with only one option that seemed to him to be the safest for everybody. "Just go back to your place, and if you see any cylons on the way? Then use that rifle on them. I will word pass along, that you helped us here." He did not wait to get a reply from Rick. The protective mask was back down around his face, and the short line of people went up the space liners access ramp quite as a thieves in the night.

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Felix was setting on the empty bed that acted as the couch/desk/filing cabinet in the small cabin, that he had called his home for some time now. With the design of the room. His counter-terrorism training classes, had said that this was the safest area to be. Now all he had to do was wait for the next step to happen. When the time had come, that the attack was "supposed" to start. He made up an excuse. Something along the lines that he was not feeling well, so that he could leave Baltar's front official office earlier than was normal for him to do so.

Felix made sure that his hands were exposed, empty, and that there was nothing near him that even resembled a weapon of any kind. Now all he had to do sit on the bed, waiting, and try not to have a heart attack as he watched the clock slowly flip numbers. The door or hatch to his room was not even closed, but just cracked open a little less than half way. He was hopping that it would swing open at the slightest push by someone that might be in the ship's main longitudinal access way. Next to him on the bed was the final prize, which he had been asked to acquire by the Resistance movement. They did not want to risk it being found at the drop site, so he had been told to hold onto it. That is if he had found the data. Then someone would physically get the data from him today, at around this time. That was all the message had said, when he went to dead drop after pulling the last bit of needed data. He had worked all on his own that an uprising was in the works, from those few words.

Felix was very confused when he had read the note, at first. Holding onto the data was a risk with all the cylons running around Colonial One, but he had done it anyway. He only had needed to think about the note for a few minutes to realize that and uprising was coming, and Bill Adama was going to need him again. Now all he had to do was wait in his cabin, and not lose what was left of his mind as he waited. He had been just outside of Colonial One stretching and warming up his muscles, something he did almost daily. That had been when he, thought he heard the first sounds of faint weapons fire. Then he quickly returned to his main working area, he had fainted sick. He had a plan, but it was a very thin one. To explain the data he was holding, if it was found out by the cylons or Baltar. He hoped that he would only need it, if the uprising failed. Then again, he also had a backup plan for that one turn of events. If they, being the cylons, did not believe him. He hoped that the Number One called John would there, to take the one shot he would only have at revenge. It was not a great plan but he did not want to die alone, if he could help it.

Felix had to shake his head, to try to clear that line of morbid thoughts out of his head. He had to keep his eyes closed after only being seated for about ten minutes. That was just so that his eyes would not keeping going to the data storage device, sitting beside him on the bed. This also had the effect, of making him aware of every sound on the ship that had reached his ears. He could hear the faint rhythmic thumping of Balarts bed in the back cabin, with is afternoon plaything. He could even hear the snores coming from the two armored guards ten feet up the hall, at the only non-blocked/locked exit from the ship. This caused Felix to give sly smirk to the empty room. If Colonel Tigh or even if either Adama had been around. Those two would have been broken for the service so fast, that their snot would not have caught up to them for a fraking week. They should have been able to hear the sounds for weapons fire from their location, if they were not sleeping that it is. "Yep after Bill Adama had gotten done with them. They would have wished that they had "only" been blown out of an airlock." Felix's mind was trying to latch onto anything to distract him.

Felix was slowly breathing with his eyes closed, when he somehow felt or maybe heard the first change in his local environment. "It sounds like one of the exhaust air vent fans is overheating again. What? That last thump was not from Baltar's room." Thought Felix. Then he thought, that he had heard a foot come down onto very wet carpet not far away. The sly smile was back on Felix's face. "I'm about to be a hero, or I am about to be shot."

It was some time later. That Felix sensed, rather than heard the hatch open the rest of way into his room. The blood was pounding in his ears, and now there was no way to control his breathing for another second. "If they are my people, how did they get around the two guards down the hall? And do it without making any noise? They did not have any suppressed weapons that he knew of on either of the Battlestars." His quick mind was working as fast as it ever had. And each idea kept pointing to the fact that it was not a human on his side coming into his room.

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Jammer and his team stacked up on the main hatch, with his whole team stacked up behind him going down the stairs. He release the rifle so that the sling would retract the weapon back to his chest, out of the way for now with only a slight hiss of moving fabric to betray him. With both of his hands now free, he pulled his much loved ION pistol. He had the time, and he checked the output setting and charge remaining in the E-Clip concealed in the hand grip. Happy that it was good, he slowly opened the pressure hatch that would lead deeper into the ground space ship. Colonial One was a very well maintained ship, maybe the best maintained in what was left of the rag tag fleet of civilian ships. And the main access hatch opened without making a sound.

The hatch should have swung away from the desks that the two sleeping guards were supposed to be manning. The way they were set up the door would give any attacker come cover from any fire that might have come from the inside guard's position. It was another example of something being done for looks and not real use. A single sheet of paper that was the duty roster for the guards was posed near the hatch, Jammer matched the data and read the names on the page that were not marked out. He gave a sly smile at see who was still on shift. These two "guards" were part of a six man crew the resistance knew about. They were known to have reported on their fellow humans, many times to the cylons overseers for money or other things of value to them. They were two legged rats.

Jammer had been told to kill any of the people on that short list. If he could and no matter what the rest of the mission might be. He stepped over the hatch frame lip, and lined up the little hand held weapon on to the first human skull he saw. It was less than five feet away, and touched the button on the Ion pistols trigger, and gave it just a two pounds of pressure from his finger tip. The only sound audible that covered the distance back to Jammer's ears, was the headless body falling out of the chair. This sound did start to wake up the second man, but a second head shot made sure that he would never wake up again. At least not on this world or plain of reality, maybe Hades was open to them.

Jammer was now a battle hardened combat veteran. Now having seen more killing and death than most Colonial Marines, had seen before the cylons had come back. He knew he would pay for it later. He also knew that he had to live first, to be able to pay for it later. He had started seeing the faces of the first dead human forms cylons the last few nights, when his eyes closed for the night. He was already cursing the cylons for making themselves look so much like humans, that it was cause his flash backs and nightmares. He knew that he was not the only one and he had remembering hearing of this happening to some of the survivors from the First Cylon war. He had never understood, back then. Why they would get those flash back about dropping some machines, now he knew better. In as with many things in life, it was complicated.

Jammer had to blink his eyes a few times, after the second head went from human to a red mist almost between eye blinks. After his eyes cleared from those gory after images, he stepped around the bodies that were now bleeding out on the carpeted floor. There was not a need to check to see if they were still breathing or not. The blood was pouring out of the top of the two bodies in quiet waves of red, and soaking the carpet on the floor like a pair red colored twin rivers. Jammer led the way as they checked the first two rooms, after they passed the check in desk. Amazingly and much to the surprise of the six troopers, they were all empty of any human or cylon presence. They only had two more rooms to clear of any threats. Then they had the main seating area of the liner. After the seating area, there was the Presidential office, and at the end of the liner was now the Presidential residence or living quarters. They had only just started another long and very tiring job.

Room Number Three was also empty, but it had been tricky to clear to make sure that it was safe to leave behind the six fighters. That was because the room next to it, had a half open hatch. Luckily room three was the smallest room, and without any other door Jammer needed to open to make sure there was no one or nothing hiding behind it. By this time Jammer was sweating under the heat that was building up under this body armor, but he and this team kept moving very slowly down the hall. Just because you were uncomfortable, did not mean that you should rush the job. After being so long on this planet, sweating because you were hot was now a novel experience. The hatch to the fourth and final cabin on this side of the ship was cracked open. Jammer slowly pushed it the rest of the way open with his off hand. His shooting and aiming hand never left the Earth made weapon. He started scanning the room over the sights of the heavy pistol, as more and more of the room came into view, with the slowly and quietly opening cabin hatch.

Jammer saw a man sitting on a narrow bed covered in papers of some kind. He was not moving and with his eyes closed like he was sleeping sitting up, or deep in prayer to one of the Gods. Jammer knew that he was supposed to protect "a package", as well as try to take Baltar alive when he had been given "go" to do this over all task. He had been luckily the Laura had talked to him about this, before the events of today rolled out. And they could not delay long enough to get a complete or more detailed briefing on this mission. When Jammer stepped the first full step into the room, he already could identify the man sitting on the messy bed, as Felix Gaeta. He was one of the late bridge officers of the Battlestar Galactica, who had found other jobs after landing on this planet. Was this the package he was supposed to collect? Felix was on the suspected list of key supporters of Baltar. Jammer had been told the night before. That the Colonial underground had a spy inside the grounded and converted space liner, but they did not know who he might be. He was given a list of possible people, and a few other items that should help him out. That is if he had been told to execute this mission.

##########

Felix was half expecting the person or whatever was slowly entering his room to be one of the cylon coming to collect him. After all they had to have, found out that he had been passing information to Colonel Tigh and his group by now. He cracked open his eyes just enough to make them look like they were still closed. But in truth he could see well enough, to know who was standing at the door to his little home. Felix had never seen the cloths that this man had on, and he was literally covered head to foot in them. He took a breath, and gave the Challenge code word, in a voice just loud enough to carry the right distance. "Ambrosia?" He was hopping that it was just only just loud enough to carry to who was standing at the hatch way and not much farther.

Jammer stopped moving like he had slammed into a brick wall, but only dropped the weapon down a little. Now it was pointed more at the floor, and not the male sitting on the bed, with half closed eyes. Now Jammer used his off hand to pull up the covering mask on his face, to defuse the situation of waving lethal weapons around. Now that Felix would be able to see that he was not a human form cylon, but a human. He doubted that Felix would remember who he was, and he gave the counter sign he had been briefed on. "Dagget." Jammer said it only a little bit louder than the volume Felix had used. Then he fallowed it a little softer. "Frak, you're the package?" Jammer could see that the man had started to breathe deeper again, as soon as the counter sign had reached his ear. That was the only sign that Felix had been under any kind of stress. Jammer was impressed as all frak, at Felix's cool reaction to the stress he had to have been under. "You're one tough Fraker Mr. Gaeta. I think a lot of people are going to have to rethink, what they thought they knew about you lately." Jammer let his inner voice say, and he made sure not to get out of his mouth. He did not want to confuse any issues, the now reviled identity of the spy might cause.

Felix rose slowly and as just as slowly reached for the data storage device on his right side. The thin device was complete hidden from view by a few strategically placed printed out sheets of cut corner paper. "Sort of, the package you are to pick up. Is data. I have a copy of all the codes to unlock all of the jump engines, which Colonel Tigh wanted." He gave a sly smile, to the other member of the old crew of Galactica. "I might have been able to get a few other items, while I was in the some of the other files."

"Yep double tough, a spy right next to the setting President. And in an office were the cylons out numbering humans, every day of the week. Adama must have ship loads of trust in him, to give him this kind of mission. And he had been just sitting, like a spider in a web, ever since he had gotten out of the service." Jammer had never liked bridge crew, while had in the Colonial military. He had always thought of them as soft or lazy compared to the hard working deck crew. That had just changed, even though he did not have all of the true facts. He had only was jumping to conclusion, with what he thought had been happening behind the scenes.

Jammer's mind was going in hyper drive with all of the chemicals his body was still pluming into it. Jammer gave a slight smile and pointed his chin off to one side. "Looks like we had a good day already. We have another task yet to finish. Jay and Amber keep him safe." As he was talking he was turning, then he point to Felix over his shoulder. "If things go wrong, you have to get him back to the command post with whatever he needs to carry." Jammer stopped talking and turned back to face the spy that had been so helpful to the human resistance. He did not know if Felix would know where to go, if/when things went majorly sideways outside the walls of this space liner. "It's in the school tent, but you just don't want to walk up on it without and invitation." Jammer was rewarded by a slight head nod from Felix. Jammer nodded back, and then stepped out of the cabin. "The rest, let's go finish clearing the ship. Let's go see what Baltar has to say to us." He pointed to the back of the passenger liner. Jammer was focused on the mission, but a part of his brain was wondering what the Frak was going on with the rest of the plan.

The four remaining armed figures moved through the ship like lethal ghosts, but no one else was encountered all the way through the rest of the ship. It would seem that more than just Felix had felt the sea change, and left the "power center" of the refugee camp sometime after the fighting has started. Jammer and his group were all breathing hard. It was not from the work, but the stress of the action as they reached the last room in the modified liner. Jammer leaned closer and put an ear to the last door and held his breath, so that he could hear what was going on in the other room a little better. He could hear one male voice, and two female voices on the other side of the non-space rated ornamental wooden door. It sounded like the little group was having a fine old good time in the backroom. Jammer had a strong dislike towards Baltar, even before he had started helping the Earthers fight the cylons. That dislike had not gotten any better, with the passage of time. He did not like it when people used there position of power to get personnel advantage.

Jammer and the rest of the group had heard all of the stories about what was happening, in this room for months. When Jammer pulled his head back away from the door, he spoke in a very low voice so that only the team hovering over him could hear. "I wish I had a better idea of just when, it was the wrong time to interrupt them."

He had an evil grin as he looked around him at the others. He was rewarded with a few old looks at his statement. Then one of the others of his smaller group stepped forward, and put her ear to the door just as Jammer had done. She was quite for a bit, and then pulled away from the thin door with a slight shrug of her small shoulders. It was assumed that, she had no better idea of when entering would have the most dramatic effect either.

Jammer nodded to the group and the grin was replaced with a tight lipped look. It was going to be his call, so why wait any longer. "Okay on three. Remember we want him alive and with no injuries, at least none that might be used against us in a court of law or public opinion. The "real" President was very clear on that point, repeatedly. We all know how slippery this little Frak can be." He made eye contact with each of the three others that were left in his little group. He was now satisfied, that they would do their best to obey the orders he had given. He had been in enough combat by now, that he understood that sometimes Frak just happened. He was very okay with this rule of combat, especially today.

Jammer slowly reach for the handle and tested it the ornate door was unlocked or not. "The sick fraker probable would like it, if someone walked in on him during times like these. Well you won't like it this time, buddy." Jammer did not look around to check with the rest of his stack. He threw the hatch open with a hard shove, and like a tidal wave of bodies, armor, and weapons. The four of them rushed into the compartment, ready to take who they had come for. It would not matter if Baltar wanted to go with them, or not. The stack used for combat entry was mainly there in case they ran into any cylons that might be in the room. Jammer could have moved fastest if he was along, entering the room. But with Baltar, no one was sure what to expect when Jammer and his team entered the room. Jammer and his group were really going to enjoy this. They were all betting that one fact, and that one fact alone. It was when the story got out to the rest of the humans, it was all was a good bet that they would not have to buy any drinks for a while. That is if they lived long enough that is to tell the tail, and they were out from under the thumbs of the cylons.

#####

Felix heard first a loud crash, and then screams from both male and female throats. The sounds flowed through his opened hatched way to his small room like the sounds of Valkyries at banquet. He had been expecting to hear sounds of weapons fire. But there had been none that he could discern before the crash or before the yelling had started. Then Felix a heard a male voice carrying over, some of the more feminine sounding screams. He could not make out what was being said by that male voice, but he knew who the voice was coming from. It had command and it had the tone, which the owner of the voice was not going to be Fraked with today. In other words, Felix did not think that was coming from Baltar. Who, Felix was betting, had been latterly caught with his pants down today.

Felix looked at his two guards that were still standing in his small little cabin with him. He had thought at first that they would take him off of the grounded spaceship first, before they had gone after Baltar. Then he realized that, what if he was in the small access way when weapons fire was exchanged. He and his escorts would have been dead meat, without anywhere to dodge to get out of the line of fire. When he made eye contact with one of the mask covered escorts, he raised an eyebrow and gave voice to his mental question. "I was hoping that you all would just kill, that Fraker." The tone he used was dripping with disdain and venom. As he was referencing to the waste of skin, that had been the sitting President of the Colonies of Man.

One of the guards, he could not tell if it was the male or the female one, judging by the names Jammer had used. Just shrugged and popped there head out the open hatch frame. And looked down the hall towards, the sound of where the action sounded like it was coming from. The guard was only looking for a hand full of seconds, before armored covered head came back into the Felix's cabin. Now the whole group in the cabin could hear what was being yelled. And by now, most of them would know who it was coming from, even if they did not know who they had been sent to recover. Felix felt a smile come to his face as the yelling got louder and move…descriptive. Felix moved just a little bit so that he would have an unobstructed view of what he hopped he was about to see in the ships main access way.

"I say you can't do this to me! I'm the President, you all work for me! Let me go, this instant! I will see you all put in a cell for this! Let me go now, or you all will never see the skies of this planet again for as long as you live!" It was going on and on, as well as getting louder and louder at a steady pace. It was almost like a walking pace. It was that same grading voice, which more and more people had said that they had grown to hate over these last few months. But the guards that were still down from Felix's cabin stated to snicker like little kids. This just made Baltar get louder at the obvious insult that was being given to him by these four thugs. His will trained accent was also starting to slip just a little bit, the more he yelled at the people who had interrupted him.

When the voice was just outside his small cabin, Felix not hold himself back any longer and looked to see what was going on in the hallway. He saw for the first time. The most wonderful sight he had seen in years, maybe all the way back to a time before the cylons attack. Between two of the armed individuals that were wearing the same type of body armor Felix's escorts had on. Was a naked man, and he was being dragged down the hall, and also with his arms somehow cuffed behind his back. It looked painful, but very funny all at the same time. That is as long as you were not the one being carried that way, with your toes dragging in the short pile stained carpet. That would be a hard case of carpet burn to explain to anyone. Baltar's head was going back and forth to look up at his two escorts, demanding that they release them with each swing of his head along that arc. During one of the rotations that Baltar's head made demanding to be released, his eyes saw Felix. He was just standing in the hatch way of his cabin looking at him. But for some reason, not moving to come to his aid like he should have already done. Baltar was in such distress, that he did not put all the dots together.

"Felix, Felix! Tell them who I am! Tell them, that if they don't let me go. I will have them in chains, when I find out who they are!" When he noticed that Felix was smiling down at him, and not moving towards him fast enough Baltar started sputtering again if at a lower volume. "Don't just stand man! Help me, you lazy Fraker! This cannot be happening. You're all going to fraking pay. I promise you all are going to wish you were never been born." Baltar's voice went high, almost into the ultra-sonic ranges, as he raged against what was happening to him. He had never been man handled like this, not even when he was an overly smart boy of eight in a not so small town.

Felix smiled down at the naked man, and made eye contact with Baltar. "No. I think you have enough help. I just would get in the way, of them doing the right thing." He cocked his head one side but still looking down at the man. And he gave an evil smile, one he had been holding inside for a number of months now. "What? No cylons to help you now? My, that is a shame don't you thank." The tone was just evil, and it matches what his face was showing to everyone that could see it. Now Felix understood way his "escort" had kept their faces covered. It was to hide who they were from the target they had come to collect.

This final statement for Felix started another round of yelling, and cursing coming from the naked man. All the while he was being dragged out of the space liner, and into the cool wet air of the planet. When they could no longer hear the yelling, one guard turned and then pointed to the hall way for some reason they were still not talking to the spy. Felix understood what they meant. Besides maybe they were finding it hard to not open there mouths, and not start laughing at the scene that had just played out before their eyes.

Felix grabbed a few things that were in his rucksack, and he had pre-packed. Next he grabbed the data he had been asked to gather. When he was done, he looked at his own set of escorts. "I guess it's my turn to leave. Well, at least I have cloths on." This got a chuckle from the two, as they left the ship cabin started walking towards the ships exit. They made a quick walk, to where they needed to go. As it often happens in War, things change all of the time. While they were still moving towards the command tent. They had given new orders, and area to report to. They were also told to make it to the new location as fast as they could. Things were going a lot faster than anyone had hopped or planned for.

They were not to go to the main command post, but to one of the larger liners that the captain and crew were working with Tigh and Roslin. They were able to use the massive computer systems on this ship, to access and pass along. All of the codes, that would unlock the jump drives of each of the Colonial ships. Even with the powerful computers on that ship, it was a slow process. But they were making headway only minutes after arriving on the ship. That is until a mass and frantic transmission, was sent out on an open frequency to all of the human ship. One of the ships had gotten its long ranged DRADIS back up, and it was detecting a truly massive wave of cylons Raiders. And they were heading towards the planet, and their general location on the planet. It was the largest number of attacking cylons, which anyone alive had ever seen. At least sense the first cylon war, or had lived to tell about it during this new war.

This frantic transmission sent a wave of terror rippling through the grounded fleet of spaceships. The ships had not been able to run up there main engines, and most had not even been able to have any maintenance done on them after they landed on this planet. That is even if they had done that maintenance or could have made any spare parts on the few ships machine shops. It was not every shop that could make those parts. Besides it would have drawn too much attention to those ships with the right shops and the ones testing there engines. It might have tipped off the plan to some of the unwanted groups around the camp. Now, today, they had to bring up the large main thrusting engines very slowly. And with ever eye on the computer screen readouts, from the ship's bridges to the now very clean engines rooms. Not one of the captain's would risk overloading his engines, even if a wave of cylons were coming. They were not that close…yet to panicking. The Captains of those ships had been threw that game before, and that much panic had been worn out of the crews… for now. The mass of passengers that those ships carried, well that was a different story. As the cylons got closer, it was anyone's bet on how those crews were going to react to the two sources of external stress.

That did not mean that those ships were going to just sit on the ground, waiting for the Calvary to come charging over the hills. They had orders, that when loaded with noncombatants that they could somewhat safely carry, and had their jump codes verified for their ships. Each of the ships was to make it into low planetary orbit. This moved them out of the line of advance of the attacking Raiders and Heavy Raiders, at least for a little while. It was hopped that all of the attacking cylons fighters would be drawn to the ground combat, first. What the survivors from those attacks did, might make life hard on the civilian ships. That was why they had to make sure that the codes worked for their jump engines, before they lifted off of the planet's surface.

After making orbit they were only to watch and wait for further orders, oh and they were to keep an eye on their jump engines. If the worst looked to be happening. They could always say that they were staying out of the fight the only way they could. You know being unarmed or unarmored ships, in the middle of the largest battle of this new war. All they would have to do was lock there jump drives down again, by deleting the codes they had been given. Then delete and whip a few easily identifiable computer logs. It would be a believable story, and a lot of thought had been put into it. As well something called Plan F that had been brief to most of those ship's masters. It also was even a mostly true story, because those crews and the passengers they carried had no idea about the Earther Settlement on the planet. Much less its location, or the help they were providing the Colonials in and around this formally cylon controlled camp. Or the cylons would be so upset that they would just blow every ship that they found out of space, just like they had done in the first few weeks of this new war. It was going to be up to each ships master on what plan he would thank best for his ship.

#############

While Jammer and his team were finishing up on Colonial One, Duck and a team of five others were working their way through "The Building". They were the fourth group to be added to this particular task today. The first two just did not have the firepower, or armor to make it that far into the target. And there attacks had failed because of those deficiencies. Duck had no idea how many were killed or hurt in those two attacks. He had not been told, when he had been ordered out of the holding pattern his team had been in. And he had too much going on to ask that particular question, after the orders had been given.

"The Building" was very large, and no one had been able to get anything like a complete floor plan of the thing. No matter how hard they tried to get that kind of information for planning. Most of the humans, who had been able to get deep inside of this structure, were not trusted by the humans. Or they never left the building, after entering the ugly prefab from the insides. The command tent had thought that they had there was still three teams working clearing the building so far. Command had not been able to get all of the three over to this target at once. They simply had just too much to do, too few people, and more impartially too few weapons to do all of the jobs that needed to be taken care of.

It was only after the other priority missions Duck and his team had been done and things had seemed to have started to settle down. That they could shift his team over for their crack at the cylon ground based headquarters. Duck and his team were the Number four team, and this would be the last reinforcements to come to this task. Duck knew that Saul and Laura would not give any more support to this mission, until someone else finished whatever they had been doing. Or the ground battle was over, one way or the other. Duck was thinking that if anyone else came over this way. It would be to help the cylons out, and not his people. He made sure that he did not tell his team this, or even transmit it back to the ground force command tent. Some thoughts were best left in one's own mind.

When Duck and his team were diverted to the new target they found a building almost shaking in the light breeze, because of the damage being done to it. That damage was coming from the all of the hits coming from heavy weapons fire put into it, in such a short amount of time. It also was shaking, because of the outgoing cylon fire. At least by now, all of the exits were now covered by Colonial manned fixed positions. Those human manned guns were taking out any cylon that opened doors, are tried to come out them, or out the windows. At least the ones that could be seen from those few low defensive locations. They looked to Duck, like they were having a fine old time making cylons into small piles of spare parts. Take all you want, just don't mind the crossfire if you please.

Duck formed up his team under cover provide by a nearby space ship, and a Colonial manned but cylon built heavy weapon. When everything was ready, he gave the signal to run. And his team went in the same door that the first entry team tried to use what seemed like hours ago. It was a tactical risk to use this door. But it was less of a risk than going into a new door, and maybe running into an unknown amount of firepower on the other end of said door. From the number of cylons hulls lying around the doors, that were within the limited view of Duck. The number of cylon defenders in "The Building" had been great under estimated. Not every plan you make, will go as planned. The enemy always has a say in how things will turn out in combat. However this time, the humans had a lot more surprises than the cylon had in the cards.

The wave of attacking humans cleared the open space between the human areas, and the cylon building. Duck barely noticed the impacts of a few rounds around his feet in the mud as he made his way through the convenient hole in the fence. The next hundred feet were just a blur. Before Ducks mind could catchy up to him. Duck was crashing through the battle riddled door or access point. The door had looked to be heavy armor plate. As it turned out, it only had a thin layer of soft metal with a paint job that had only made it looked like it had been armored.

Ducks team was latterly on his heels, coming through the wrecked door. They quickly cleared each room nearest to the now full opened doorway. But all enemy units had been put down, either from the outside fire or the previous attempt to enter and take the building from its former owners. Duck was amazed at the massive amount of red on the walls, ceiling, and floor. Command had not been able to given them any real information on what was, or had happened in the building. Duck had no idea if the blood had come from human form cylons, or his own people. And right now he did not have time to find out or to care. That all could come later, after they had finished clearing the building. After about more about ten more feet into the building past the first room. So far they had only passed the fallen bodies of Centurions and human forms, and none of their kind. Duck was quickly thinking that all of the red spots or splashes must have come from the enemy, put down by his people.

They looked to be half way down the main hallway when they entered "The Bay" that they had been told about, and marked on the hand drawn map. "The Bay" had shown the signs of having been cleared of cylons already. It was where his team had run into the first confirmed "human" fatality. The Earthers body armor, most of the attacking humans were wearing was great stuff. It was also better than anything he knew of, before his people had come to this mud ball. Well besides the magical stuff form the scrolls or entertainment shows, he had watched when he was a lot younger and a thousand light years away. Some of the armor he had seen the Earthers used, was even better than the make believed items. It was not perfect body armor, and in this case. It had not stopped the human face from taking a hit almost square in the nose, with a cylon projectile weapon of some kind. They would have to come back later, and hopefully find something that would be able to help identify the faceless fighter that was died in the bay near a side stairwell. Duck stopped for a second and took a knee. He did not have to look to see if his team were covering him, and checked out the faceless body. The only thing he found was that whoever it was, their weapons and ammunition were missing from the body. He just hopped that it had been this person's team that took those items, and not the cylons.

After finishing checking the body, he stood back up and took the last steps to door that should lead out of the bay according to their limited map. Duck called his team to a halt and listen as hard as he could, to try to understand that might be happening around him and his team. For the first time today, he could hear firing coming from the floor above them. For whatever reason, the survivors from first or second team had decided to take the high road, and looked like they had went up the stairs to Duck's front.

That now only left the low road or first floor, for Duck and his team to clear of cylons. Duck's team stacked back up, and started the work of clearing the bottom floor of the building. The way they were moving, made this the slow way. But the safest way, that they knew how to do the job. They would be lucky, as the checked every room they came to one after the other. That was because as soon as a door opened into a given space. Any Centurions in that room the door had lead into, would want to join in combat. It did not take that much effort looking for trouble, to find plenty of it. The cylons would charge right into the waiting weapons fire of Duck and his team. In other words the cylons would charge into a door way that acted like a choke point. A choke point controlled by the humans.

#######

Starbuck was in position waiting for her intended victim. She was a very strong, very fit person, and she had been for all of her life. At least the parts of her life, which she could remember. She had been finding new ways to "kill" the Number Two cylon, which had decided to make messing with her mind his little pet project. Very rarely did the same move or moves work twice or even once as she had hopped. But it had worked more times than the Number Two would have preferred. She had been saving this one attack for the just right time to spring this one, and it was her hope. That this attack would allow her to finally escape this room for good. Now it seemed like this attack mode might now be the right time to use it. She had been kept working out a specific set of muscles, so that she could use this very attack. She only had to spend a little more time during her daily workout on those muscle groups. Besides it was not like she had much to "do" while she waited for the Number Two to show up again to play his little mind games.

After watching the group of Colonials entered the building, and living through all of the weapons fire they had thrown into the building. She had made her way to this hiding spot, she put her ear to the door and at the first sound of running feet. She shifted into final position, and waited for her prey to show up one more time. But the longer it took for her prey to show up. The more she was worrying that, she would not be able to hide in this location long enough to make her successful attack and escape. Even with the workouts she had been doing, she was still only so strong. She was not after all a human form cylons.

#######

Duck and his team were stacked up on another door, just like they had been taught with him as point man. He was trusting in the Earther supplied body armor to protect him, as he panted in the hot sweat soaked protecting helmet. With only one quick look backwards over his shoulder to double check that everyone was in position, he was ready as he took another deep breath. Then Duck opened the door to the next room for them to clear. As soon as the door opened Duck could tell this was a different type of room, than any of the others they had been clearing for what seemed like hours now. It looked to have been set up like an apartment, maybe of the type back on Caprica. Before Duck could even take a single step into the "room". He understood that the layout was pretty standard for mid income areas, almost like his parents old place before the cylons came back. He stepped across the hatch lip, and took a second step onto a landing that leads down to the floor set up as a type of Spartan living room. Then Duck hit the deck face first, hard onto the concrete deck of the stair landing. It felt like someone dropped a house on his head. Except a house, did not have arms and legs striking hard enough, that if he did not have his body armor on. He would have had to have been seen by the medicos. That is if he lived that long after some of those strikes. More than a few of those legs and arms were striking him with killing force.

Duck had been in combat long enough to let his hand to hand defensive skills kick in automatically, after being the subject of the surprised attacked. Now that he was able to block a few of the strikes. He caught a glimpse of a snarling face wrapped in blond hair, before it moved out of his field of view and maybe bites into his left under arm. After what seemed like minutes, he was finally able to get a hand around to the throat of the mad woman attack him. With this bodies leverage he was able to push her against the wall with a solid thud. It was hard enough that it should have knocked the wind of the attack blonde headed woman, or anyone else for that matter. Now they both would not go down the metal stairs, or over the railing to the hard floor below the high concrete landing.

Starbuck's arms had started to shake from the strain she was putting on her hand and arms to hold her mass above the odd and to her, fake apartment. When the door finally opened, and some or something walked into her line of sight, just like she had hoped. And just as she had hopped, the target had not looked toward the ceiling for any threat. Her quick mind told part of her brain. That her target did not look like any Centurion that she had ever seen. And she had seen way more than her fair share of the monsters in her short life already. Her target was painted and cloth covered vs the dulled metal finish, she had seen before or the "normal" street cloths the human forms liked. In the end, it was a target. And right now, that was all she needed to know. She was ready to act, and now she had a target. What more could she ask for, after all?

She released her weakening arms, and fell five feet to the metal covered head below her that was her target. After the impact of her falling mass drove her target to the hard concrete landing, she first tried to twist the head off the shoulders of her target. But the odd cloth but not cloth protection, was too great for her to overcome with some as weak as her bare hands. Then she went on pure muscle memory, and landed as many hits as she could in the shortest amount of time that she could. That was a lot more than you might have thought she could do. That is if you had forgotten about how all Colonial military were trained in hand to hand, and then added in how many fights she had been in during her military career.

Kara knew at one level in her mind, that she was not going to win. But giving up in a fight, was just not in her nature. That little bit of information just fed her soul and body, to fight even harder for as long as she possibly could. That was until a five fingered hand grabbed her by the neck, and lifted her off the ground like she was a rag doll. She was still landing punches, kicks, and even the odd bite, when the hand on the back of her neck let go all of the sudden. That was about a heartbeat before another hand was at the front of her throat and applying pressure, keeping her against the hard wall. This new hand pushed her against the one wall. The one that was the farthest away from the stairs, and metal railing with steady force. She did not stop fighting, until the helmet visor came up, on the thing she had been attacking with all the furry she could raise.

Now that the wild thing was off of him and a couple feet away, Duck could get a good look at this attacker from head to toe. Duck recognized Starbuck almost as soon as he had pushed her against the wall, and the flying hair had stopped cover most of her face. There were not many of the survivors of the human race left. Beside Starbuck just had a way of standing out, no matter how big the crowed was. When he could tell that she started to run out of juice for her wild attack. Duck popped his dark tented helmet visor up, so that she could see his face. As well as hearing his words, without having to use this speaker. "Gods damn it you Fraker, Starbuck. Will you just calm the Frak down for a second? If you don't. Then I will leave your dumb Fraking ass here, till the cylons come back to collect you!"

Starbuck was still trying to land a few more, but quickly weakling blows. Then in a flash she knew the human face looking back at her, surrounded by the cloth covered armored helmet of unknown design. It was not one of the cylons, and by now she had seen every model or knew the numbers that they went by for the cylon. She stopped the last kick that had been aimed for the juncture between his two legs and hips. "Duck?" With that one word question, she stopped the useless attack against him. It was like Starbuck lost all of her energy, with a flip of a switch. She was spent, and her muscles were little more than jelly under the hard outer layer of skin.

Duck smiled back at the woman, which no one had seen since the Cylons had picked her up on the first or second day of their takeover of New Caprica. He let go of her throat from the tight grip of his strong fingers, but he did not let go all of the way. Not at first, he had seen this woman fight before in the battlestar's only bar. With Starbuck, you could never be exactly sure she was finished fighting. Or about to go another round of fighting, just for the Frak of it. "If you're done lazing the Frak around, we are trying to kill all of the cylons. Before the old man comes by, to say hi to the rest of us. Do you want to help, or do you want stick around here and knit?" Duck used a head nod to the apartment they had been fighting in to indicate the area he was referring to.

Starbuck was stunned; it was too much to believe not all at once. Was it another type of game, the cylons had been playing with her? She just did not know, but Duck never would work with the cylons. She knew that he would rather die, before ever working for them of his own free will. Then her mind wrapped around the end part, of his statement he had given her. Her eyes went wide and her voice went high. "Adama is alive? Is it, an all-out attack? And where did you get the strange body armor? It's not Colonial military issue. Did you pick it up off a cylons or something?" Starbuck was looking at Duck so hard. That she did not notice the other guns, and people standing in the open entry way with strange weapons leveled against her.

Duck smiled, now that was the old Starbuck that he had heard all of the stories about. "Yes, and both of them were still alive. At least they were as of a few days go. One of the Four Basestars that the cylon came with, has left for a resupply run for those Frakers. So both of the Battlestars are taking out the cylons orbital forces, and we are working on letting those cylon Frakers on the ground. Know that humans are not going to lay down, and just die for them." He pointed to his body armor. "As for the armor. Well, let's just leave it at we have some new friends. Ones that we did not know we were sharing the planet with, and they don't like cylons that much either." He reached over and pulled a Colonial made Military pistol that he still carried as a backup weapon. He tossed the loaded weapon in into the air, and offered it flat on his palm to Starbuck. "I am thinking that you're done with your little vacation here? We can use all the help we can get. We could use the help of a Colonial combat vet in clearing the rest of this fraking building." He cocked his head and looked her levelly in the eyes. "IF you are not up to it, we will all understand. We can lock the door, and come back once we clear the rest of the building." Duck was trying to get any hints, if this was a good idea or not. "I don't think the cylons are going to have the time to come back here, after we have gone."

Starbuck was crazy, she had been technically that way even before the cylon surprise attack. She had not gotten better after the attack, and whatever had been happening here. Might have pushed her all the way over the line of workable crazy into something worse. Being some crazy was not a bad thing, to be found in the best Viper Jocks. Starbuck gave Duck a cocky grin that was almost looked like it used to have been. Then snake quick, she took the offered weapon and checked it for a proper ammunition load and safety. After she put the magazine back in the weapon, she check to make sure that it was in working order. Now that she had a loaded weapon, and possibly working weapon. She was thinking more and more, that this was not a game of some kind. Even Lebon was not cocky enough, to have given her a loaded weapon after how many times she had killed him with less orthodox weapons. Then she called out off to one side of Duck to something peaking at her. "Hey kid, we will be back in a few. Go back to the bedroom, and hide under the bed until we come get you. Don't worry we will be back. You know were the water bottles and food are put up."

Duck looked towards the direction the crazy woman was looking. He saw a young girl that was maybe three or four years old or so. The little one was standing wide eyed up at them, from the doorway to the kitchen (?). But she heard Starbuck, and ran for a back room in a blur of little bright colored dress covered legs. Duck thought that must be the bedroom. Duck looked back at Starbuck with a quick head turn. He should not have risked looking over his one shoulder. But he had, and now he needed to recheck on the crazy woman. Even as his head turned, one part of mind had already worked that there was no way that child could have been hers. Duck knew that dependents had not been allowed on the old Battlestar on the way for it to have been made a museum display.

Starbuck pushed passed Duck to one side, and then stopped dead in their tracks when she saw the rest of his team in the doorway. She had no idea who they were, but they all had what she thought must have been some type of body armor strapped to their bodies. But not one of the people standing in the door way were decked out in the same looking outer coverings. They looked like a bunch of escapees from a bad and/or low budget entertainment show of some kind. After a few seconds of blocking her way, they just opened up some space for her to pass through. Midway through the movement, she stopped and looked back at the still stationary Duck. She shot a look she knew would have the effect that she wanted. "Hey are you watching paint dry, or are we going to kill some fraking cylons? I thought you were in a big hurry or some Fraking thing like that."

Duck grinned back at the woman, and then pulled down his helmet mounted visor. He fallowed behind the best Viper pilot known to still be alive in the human race. He did not need to say anything to the rest of the team. Starbuck was legend among the refugees, in more ways than one. This had to be a good sign, sent down from the Gods that they had found her alive on this planet. Besides the uprising could always use another trained fighter now. And Bill Adama could also use another Viper trained person, after the ground battle was over.

Soon Starbuck was lost in an orgy of killing. She did not have the high tech body armor that the rest of the group did. And it had not taken long for that to develop into a sore spot, because they were leading the clearing and she was stuck at the back end of the clearing stack. Starbuck was upset that she was not allowed to be the point person for some of the clearing of rooms. That is until the point group walked into a well laid out ambush. A dozen human from cylons had set up both a well concealed defensive position, and heavily armed point. They had waited till the point persons, had walked all of the way passed them before opening fire. The fire had been heavy, very heavy and accurate. And it had the additional advantage of surprise working for it. And most of the rounds struck the two troopers that had been fallowing a few steps behind Duck. Those round had not been the softer "civilian" rounds but full on military grade loads and power.

Starbuck knew that they would have been killed, even if they had the super heavy and mobility killing boarding class Marine body armor the Pegasus had in her lockers. That kind of firepower would have killed fully armored marines in an instant of it sticking the front plates. Much less the thinner side plates that the cylon ambushers had been able to achieve. So when the two face covered troopers had not only got up off the deck that they had been knocked to, but returned aimed fire at the hidden cylons. Starbuck had been shell shocked into immobility, as she watched what should not be possible. But her eyes were telling her everything that was happening around her even if her mind was having a hard time possessing that incoming information.

Starbuck was standing guard watching down the hall behind them, after the ambushing cylons had been taken out. This was while Duck checked out for any wounds on his team fighters under that amazing body armor. She was watching out of the corner of her eyes every movement he was making, and taking as many mental notes as she could. After he seemed to be done with that important task, she walked up behind him on silent feet. Duck was about to send her back to the end of the stack, and he knew that she would go. For how long she would stay there, was a different story. Starbuck knew this also. But she had to ask something first, before she got a little further out of the line of fire. She had an itch that needed to be scratched.

She kept her tone light, but it did not reach her eyes as she tried to read the armed and armored Colonial standing before her. "Hey Duck. How do I get some of this Fraking type of body armor? When I'm not wearing it, I might have it to wrap my Viper up in it." The tone was joking, but it had a super sharp almost bridle edge to it, even to Starbucks ears. There were strange things going on, and Starbuck was not sure that her mental issues were causing her mind to play some strange tricks on her.

Duck stopped and did not send her back to the end of the stack, but waved the next two in line to move ahead of the non-moving pair. Those two people would be the point of contact for the time being, and the rest were the backup for them at least for now. The rest of the team started down the hall behind the new point, while Duck talked to the Viper pilot in somewhat privacy. "I don't know if we will be getting anymore body armor to borrow, after the ground fighting stops. Our new friends are shipwrecked on this planet, just like out of some entertainment show. And they only have what was on their two ships cargo holds, when they got stranded here a few years ago." He gave her a knowing smile, like a kid with a huge secret. "IF you think the armor is great? What to check out this little Fraker out. You know something about weapons, right?" He pulled out his other pistol that was a little odd looking, and carefully passed it to her. He was handling it like it was one of the original copies of the scrolls of Kobal or something of equal value.

When the Earth made weapon left his hands he started talking again. "Have you notices that my rifle is silent. It's not suppressed or just very quiet like a high end military rifle or heavily modified civilian weapon of some kind. But it's as silent as death, whispered from the lips of Hades himself." As he was talking. Duck was looking down at the weapon in his hands, with the love that was reserved for a man's wife or child. It should not have been given to a device that takes human life, or can maybe blow a small building apart with a burst of fire. Duck remembered what one of the Earthers had said. My tooth brush, sure. My spouse, maybe. Borrow my knife, never. This was the first time, he thought he fully understood the saying.

Starbuck was looking at the odd weapon. Then back to Duck, then back to the weapon in her hands. She knew weapons, for a female she was considered a massive gun nut. It did not matter whether it was mounted on a Viper, a weapon that grunts were slugging around in the mud, or what a counter boarding party might be packing around the access ways of a battlestar. She could use them, maintain them, and sometimes fix them. But only if it was something relatively minor. She took the offered weapon, and gave it a closer examination. "Yea, I thought you might have run out of ammo, but you just kept on going. After a few times, I just thought my ears were shot after all that the time in the Vipers on full turbo, or the explosion today." She gave Duck a half smile. "Then again it could have been all of those bar fights. Now I take it, that my ears are in fact just fine after all." Her head tilled a little on the last part of her statement. She had no idea how to file the information Duck was giving her. It was not making any since to her rattled mind. Soon she was going to go into new information overload, and there was nothing that she could do about it.

Duck gave a sly smile, all the time watching Starbuck handle the pistol like it was made of glass or maybe gold. He was looking forward to seeing how she was going take this next bombshell, he was about to drop on her now. "That Starbuck is a real Direct Energy Pistol, just like my rifle. It uses a type of battery to make it all work, and a bunch of other things that I have no idea how they work. You get anywhere from a dozen firings to two dozen shots. Before you have to drop the used battery, and replace it just like you would do with a battle rifles empty magazine during a firefight. One of the crazier things. Is that, it is really as fast as replacing a spent magazine for a trained marine for his battle rifle."

At his last words, her head jerked up like a snake. Her eyes were at first huge, and then they narrowed to a set of bare slits in her face. "You have got to be Fraking pulling my leg!" When she realized that he was not smiling, and that he believes the crazy stuff he was saying. "Really, how could they do that? Was the ship some sort Special Forces test unit or something?" For as long as she could remember. They had been talking about one day being able to field high energy, and the rumors that the highly trained and secretive SF always had the newest toys to play with first. She has always assumed, that they were just words to get more money into some ones hands for doing nothing work in some college somewhere. Now she was supposed to be holding one in her hands, in the middle of a firefight. While they were clearing cylons out of this building.

Duck knew that Starbuck would now not quit with the questions, and if he did not come clean with a few answers now. She would not trust him, or somehow someway later try to dig it out of them. And that distraction could happen at the worst time, knowing how Starbuck operated normally. Duck decided that he had only one option. "Look Starbuck we don't have time for this right now. Some of the down and dirty of it, is that, they say that they are from a planet called Earth." He held up his hand to stop her from interrupting him, he had been down this road a hundred times already. When her mouth snapped shut at the jester, and she gave him an evil look. "No they do not claiming to be form the thirteenth tribe, everyone asked that first. They say that there are lots of planets around, that are called Earth. They had never heard of Kobal or the Colonies when they made the first contact with us. They don't even speak one of the tongues of the Colonies. I know that, because I have spent a lot of time with them. So no, I don't think they are lying to us. Is that enough for now? After those normal first questions, the answers get really complicated. I want to get this building cleared of cylons, and we have a lot of work let to do. Besides, I would love to know what is going on outside with the rest of little uprising and how the fleet is doing."

Starbuck did not believe it, but she knew deep down that Duck would not lie to her. That is, if he did not have to. And the answers did get more complicated she was going to need a drink to hear them. "Frak no, but I wait till they aren't shooting at us anymore. I got to find out what they are really about, or it will drive me nuts. I can take some of what you said on faith, for now." She had not given any more qualifiers, after that short statement. But she knew that "for now" was a very time limited affair.

Duck nodded at the woman. This was a lot better than he had hoped, he would get from her. That is, if she kept her word for more than an hour or two. Duck knew that he did not have much of a choice, besides putting her back in her odd prison cell. "Good enough." He held out his hand and used his chin to point. Starbuck reluctantly gave up the magical Direct Energy Pistol back to its owner. Duck put it back into the hip holster, with practiced ease that showed that he had spent a lot of time using that weapon. Starbuck notice the smooth grace of the movement. Duck was just the average Viper jock, not any more. Soon the two Colonials walking quickly to catch up to the rest of the clearing team, before they cleared another room on this floor of the building without them. Then they were back to work as a team cleaning out the rest of the cylons in the building, with both glee and enjoyment. Starbuck was even able to shoot a few more with the borrowed Colonial weapon. It was not as many as she could have. Between keeping an eye on the strange weapons in her team's hands, and any threat from the cylons. She was a little over tasked mentally.

##########

High over their heads waves of cylon fighters were entering the thin upper layers of the planet's atmosphere at their maximum safe speed. They were supposed to be attacking in support of the few remaining cylons in the Refugee camp. This did not work out as planned, for the simplest of reasons. It was that none of the living cylons there in the Refugee camp, knew that they were available to come down and help them against the attacking Colonials. In the stress of the battle of the capital ships. None of the cylons in command positions had sent a message that help was still on the way, after the mess of the mass recall. They made a few high slowish overflights of the human camp. The overflying cylons craft took some random surface to air fire, which did little if any damage to the flying craft. Without out knowing where there people were on the ground, the overflying cylons were only using up fuel. This did not make the dog smart Raiders, and slightly smarter Heavy raider happy. Or the human forms at some of the controls of the missile armed Heavy Raiders. They knew that there had to be other cylons still in need of the help down there. And they were all powerless to do anything about helping them as they had been directed to do.

The waves of cylons craft could and did respond to the request of fire support coming from the two remaining Regimental Head Quarters Units on the planet's surface. These two were listed as first priority for any air support. But they also had two small Battalion HQ's that did not have a functioning higher headquarters that were also screaming for any fire support they could get. Before they could get into attack range one of those small unit headquarters went off the air. But only after reporting that their defensive line had broken by humans and metal skinned monsters.

The cylon numbers on the ground were dropping fast. After the first few hours of combat neither side knew for sure, about how many cylons were left functioning on the planet. It had not gotten any better by the time that a much reduced cylon space force arrived to help out. This was the largest cylon ground combat operation, since the end of the First War. The ground operations they had launched after the nuclear bombardment of the Colonies. Had only been low level clean-up operations made up of small units spread out over a whole planet. Not a major battle, with a force that could and did stand up to the might of the cylon in open battle.

Another one of the heavy defensive positions was under attack, that none of them had ever expected to deal with. Much less have to defend an attack launched on them on this scale. Not for the first time today. Another human form cylon was wishing that they had some of those old 1st Cylon War Heavy Battle tanks, with them on this planet. This was not how this new chapter in the war against the humans, was supposed to go. The last of those heavy combat tanks had been scraped years ago, when the newer Centurion model had been proven to meet all planned expectations of the designs. All of those three hundred ton fighting machines had been added back a lot of material, which was reused to make newer and more efficient weapons. That did not count all of the spare parts that could be re-tasked or recycled with their removal from the cylon order of battle. Those tank were well known for both there firepower, and for being major maintenance hogs. Even when they were just sitting in the motor pools for a few days, things just would break on them. Without having to support those tanks. It had also freed up more factories to build more Heavy Raiders faster, than had been first planned for. Now they were only a dream, to those few who remembered them. And now they all were missing all of that firepower and armor they carried to kill humans. The cylons had loved the idea that a heavy weapon, designed by humans was used to kill humans in whole job lots.

This cylons regiment had successfully beaten off the first attack made by the humans. There was no doubt, that they were Colonials this time. The cylons surveillance systems had been able to use its facial recognition software to full effect. It was able to identify six of the attackers, so far by name, rank, or given title even. That information had not been a great help in defending the base. But it was information, and every little bit of new information. Would increase the odds of the cylons figuring out, what the frak was happening. They might have been Colonials that had attacked, but they were harder to kill than any other combat group the human forms had heard of or read about. At least from before they started fallowing the old battlestar.

It had taken heavy weapons and lots of ammunition to get eight of the bodies to finally stop firing on the cylons. The Number One that was in charge of this base, had sent out two full squads of cylons to retrieve the bodies on the edge of the fighting lines. That had turned out, not to have been such a great idea and weakened the whole defensive point. That was because all twenty machines had been blasted into spare parts, as soon as they reach the first and nearest bleeding human body.

It would have seemed like the bodies were being covered by now human manned defensive control point. That was all the human forms in the headquarters bunker could work out. The cylon headquarters could see them on the surveillance systems, and try to direct suppressing fire on the occupied cylon made point. He was also working on a different plan, to retrieve some of the human bodies. He really needed to find out, why it was taking so much firepower to kill these normally weak meat bags called Colonial humans. The One fumed as he stormed around the tent covered command post. "It was easier to shoot down a Viper or a Raptor, than to put one of these two legged animals down." That should have been impossible, but the One's had already come to know that impossible was the middle name of the wet planet. And it looked like this planet was not done given the cylons more impossible to believe surprises.

#######

While the cylon was trying to figure out his next move, the human in charge of this attack. Was reset his captured cylon heavy weapon. Again fired short burst of 15mm round into the cylon base, with very little way of counter fire coming from the cylons. His group had the largest in numbers of Colonial fighters in the field, under one commander. However it also the least combat capable of all of the groups of human fighters. At least of all of the groups that were still outside of the refugee camp. They called themselves the Sons of Ares. Almost all of the fighters had been members of that club even before the cylons had shown back up. The rest had joined the Sons of Ares while they had been on the run from the cylons. They had quickly grown into a secret and powerful power block among the ships fleeing the cylons.

Once word had gotten around that the resistances had made contact with other humans, and they were fighting back against the hated cylons. They made a concerted effort, and had started to filter people out of the cylon controlled camp to join the fight to wipe out the machines. Things had gone well for them, at least for the most part after they had left the camp. The main reason for this. Was because they had weapons, ammunition, and military training of some kind for most of their fighters. That and they had a working command structure, and overall plan that they were briefed on. More importantly, they were all fallowing those outlines.

The trouble had started when they had grown into a larger group with almost all of the Sons group out from under the cylon's eyes, and had finely been able to make face to face contact with Earthers. They had been trading with some of the other small Colonial groups or teams for a few things, so that they could keep more people in the fight against the common enemy. But they had always felt like they were not getting a fair deal, with these trades they were making. So when a group of about fifteen "leaders" had shown up at one of the Earthers base camp to do the trading without any middle men bumping up the prices. Things had started to go wrong for both parties, and it had not gotten any better after these last few months. The Sons of Ares were a strong willed group, and were not that flexible.

More than a few of them had been briefed before leaving the camp. All about what to expect with that trading, and they had heard lots of rumors about these strange new people after leaving the camp. However nothing had properly prepared them for meeting them for real, in person, and in full proof of their strangeness. They had strange technologies, ideas, and they spoke a lot differently than anyone in the Sons of Ares had realized. The first time they had seen one of the wearable cylons, they had not reacted…..well to the sight. It was only the quick thinking on the part of the powered battle armor pilot, had stopped any of the Colonials from getting hurt. After a few of them had made some rather rash reactions to the sight. It had taken a few more hours to work out, and defuse the situation unfolding in the center of the Earther run outpost. Not all of the Sons had been that satisfied, with how that situation had worked out between the two groups.

The Sons had been able to trade the cylon salvage they had brought along for some Earth made items. But not for any of the crazy to believe Direct Energy Weapons, that everyone was talking about with strapped to their thighs. The Sons at first had demanded, that they be given the weapons out of hand. After all since they were fighting the Enemy, and they were the Sons of Ares. The most devoted to the god of war. It had taken some time for the Sons to regain some composure, after the facts of life were explained to them. This had been done in ways that were so blunt, that it had bruised more than a few fragile egos in that group. It was just too bad that the effect of those slaps on the wrist, did not last for long. The really big blowup, and the reason why the Sons would never trade with the Earthers directly again. Not surprisingly, had all been about religion. The Sons of Ares had demanded from the commander to the Earthers, force everyone to attend temple services for the Lords of Kobal. They did care which one of the Gods they prayed to, but they had to render honors to the Gods. They had not even gotten to the part that they would be required to do this every few days.

When they were not only told no, but then they had been asked what the Lords of Kobal were. This had been meant by the Earths as a poke in the nose of the Colonials. It had been, well Earth shattering to the Sons detachment to be told this not visible in jest. The Leadership of the Son could not fathom, what humans did not worship the lords of Kobal? Much less claim that they did not know about them. The group from the Sons did not have to be asked to leave the Earther managed camp. They were out of support camp ten minutes, before Major Weston and a heavily armed escort. Could come over to the disturbance they had caused, and kick them to leave in person. The Sons of Aires could not conduct any combat operations for several days, after the detachment had returned to their own command location. The shock had run deep. And for a while it was unknown if the Sons should launch an attack against this group of Earthers, the cylons, or maybe run operations against both of those groups. In the end it was voted on, to just not deal with them directly until the Cylons were whipped out. After that, they would review the information on the proper response might be. To what they thought, they might know about the Earthers at that time.

The remaining forty or so, depending on the weather group, still traded with other Colonial groups. None of the lower level members of the Sons did not want to soil their hands with such things as the Earthers. The ones that did the trading only did so, because the Sons needed the Earther built items. They needed them more, than they wanted to die uselessly fighting the cylons. They would not associate with heretics, at least not directly anyway. The direct effect on the Sons combat power, was very much in the negative range. At least when you compared it to the other groups fighting against the cylons. That was because none of the other groups of Colonials, would give up any of the high tech direct energy weapons. The ones that the Earthers had finally started to lend out to Colonial pure fighting units. They also would only trade the cheaper, and less effective types of body armor that they had access to the Sons.

The Sons of Ares, for all that they worshiped the God of War. They were not that well equipped or even the best equipped to fight a war against the cylons, despite their larger numbers. In fact they had only one set of Plastic Man body armor, four sets of medium homemade body armor, and the rest had only been outfitted with the lightest class of type of obviously homemade body armor. It all was a lot better than any Colonial made body armor. The sad part was that even the Medium class body armor, had been visibly damaged before it was traded to the Sons. That meant that it was not possibly be up to full strength, to protect it wearer from harm. The leader of the Sons did not like to admit it in public, but even what they called light homemade body armor. Was so much better than even heavy assault marine body armor, which it made the Colonial armor seem like cheap police grade crap. The good thing was that the Earthers were buying up any captured, even damaged body armor that was taken off of the cylons.

The one thing that they had going for the Sons, was that they had worked out how to use cylon mortars that had been left on the battlefield. They even worked out how to modify the built in autoguns of the Centurions into human usable weapons. They had a lot of smart people with experiences on weapons on their team, even if they were a bit narrow-minded on certain other things. These two items were there best trade items that the Sons had to offer, even better than captured body armor. It was just that so far, those weapons were limited use stuff, with everyone wanting the Earth made weapons if they could get them. Those weapons were rare, but still available for the right price most of the time. He had to trade four mortar systems for each of the damaged medium class homemade armor that his command had on hand.

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The leader of the Sons had to shake the memories of the past off. He needed to focus on today and this attack, which he had been planning for almost a week. He waved to his gathered troops, and then changed the motion to a fist moving in a circle over his head. The knowledge military hand signals had quickly been passed around to the few that hand not know them. They were going to fire off all of the remaining Mortar shells, which they had access to. They had brought in every mortar bomb, which had not traded off to other groups. He could not see a reason to keep any in reserves, this was going to be the last ground battle against the cylons. Then he was going to use their large numbers, and punch a hole into the lines of the next cylons defensive point. It sounded good in his mind, but only his. The others that were in his group just did not know any better. Bill and Lee Adama would not have approved of this plan, not even if Starbuck had thought of it. The Number Ones had studied the same books that the leader of the Sons had.

While the last mortar shells were impacting in and on the cylon's positions, and all of the Sons followers were assaulting the target with a yell on their lips They were well into the cleared area, that a justifiably called the kill zone outside of the main base and behind the thin outer line of foxholes. That was when a wave a missile armed Raiders and Heavy Raiders made a firing pass on the now very exposed Sons of Ares. The ground based cylons had been so concerned about the defensive capabilities of the attackers today, and what had happened to so many cylons on this planet. That they had given out a mass, and all hand orders. It was for all of the air support Raiders to use all of the missiles to defend the ground bases first. As each pair of Raiders came into range of the visible attacking humans flying just under the cloud cover. They rippled fired all of their missiles into the small group of humans in repeated launches of those deadly weapons. The attacking craft had no problem accepting those orders. Not after being unable to do anything to support the cylons at the human camp. They were looking for any reason to attack with everything they had.

Twenty cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders made firing passes on that clearing within the short span of only ten minutes. It was one of the few times that the term "Over Kill" would be used to describe the firepower used versus the target, and the term was totally true. The attacking air supporting Raiders of all kinds threw just over a hundred and twenty short ranged missiles at the narrow attack frontage that the Sons of Ares had presented. The warheads were not as powerful as a Rift Earth made weapon, of the same type and size would have been. But this was one of the few times, when that would not have been needed or for that point matter in the end. The repeated missiles strikes turned the humans into so much red high flying confetti. As the cylon missile impacts marched forward and back, across the little battle field called a kill zone. The attacking craft were able to use their high tech targeting system to the maximum effect. And they successfully fired their missile for the optimal damage potential. When they were done, the Sons of Ares most fervent supporters, and some that were not had been whipped out. When the smoke had cleared off at ground level. The Sons of Ares, now no longer a group or power block. At least they were no longer an effective group in this universe.

Even if the cylons had been able to find parts of the human warn armor, they would not have been able to know what it was. Any non-organic materials were thoroughly mixed with the cylon made missile supplied non-organic contribution. With this "Proven Success" of sending two overflying Squads of Raiders to ripple their missiles at any given area. It now became the standard tactic for the remaining supporting craft. That was until they ran out of missiles after only seven attacks total, or answered calls for fire support from those ground based units. The reward from those attacks was not as much, as the cylons had thought it should had been. That was because the other attacking groups were more spread out than the Sons of Ares had allowed themselves to become. Not to mention that they all had a lot better body armor, to ward off the damage those missiles could cause. With the arrival of the waves of attacking cylon fighters into the planet's atmosphere. Just as the humans had wanted them to, another surprised waited for them.

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Major Weston launched his own flying support craft into the still growing battle for the control of the planet. The cylon had thought the Mark VII Vipers were hardest human made machine to have to fight against. They were about to get schooled at a whole new level of trouble in fighting a human crew war machine. Not only were the flying units Weston had launched harder to kill, they all were piloted by people who had survived threw hundreds and hundreds of hours combat experience. They all might not have been in those machines, when they go the combat experience. But that had changed over the last few months. The Colonials often called cylons monsters, and they had used that moniker for years. The pilots of those craft had not only fought real monsters so many times? They had lived through the experience of doing it. What they were going to do the under armed and armored cylons craft, was going to scar any of the cylons that might have lived through these events.

A wave of SAMAS, Black Market copy of those suits, Flying Titans, Sky cycles, and everything else that could fly. These human crewed weapons were launched on command from Major Weston, from different areas. That the only thing these launch sites had in common, was that they close to the Refugee camp. This was the first time, which these assets had been used against the cylons. For all of the combat experience, these flying combat suits had. They never fought as a combined unit. There just was no way to hide something like that, from the cylons sitting in orbit. Only the units that had been flying off of the Revenge had fought together before. But even they, had not done so in years. The Raiders and Heavy Raiders could both fly faster, and could fly higher than anything that had come to his world from Earth. Not for the first time, did Weston wish that that a couple of Gray Falcon could have been salvaged from that first attack on the convoy. That or something like them, had been packed down in the cargo holds of the ships. You can only fight a battle with what you have on hand, and not with the dreams of what you wished you could have on hand instead.

Even though the cylons had those two important advantages of the human made weapons. They had to come down to give fire support to all of those cylons, who were latterly screaming for help quite nicely. What was working for the humans from Earth, was that the cylons were short in a few very important areas. One was the shear firepower, that each one of these Earth made craft carried in combat today. It was nothing short of what a small warship like a Colonial Corvette, could have brought to the battlefield in the past. The armor each Earth made craft was outfitted with, was also as strong as those same multi thousand ton warships. Without the missiles the cylons had already used up to support the cylon ground bases. The cylons had to enter the full weapons range of the Rift Earth's war machines.

Some of the cylons did try to make a high speed run back to orbit over the planet. Each of the cylon craft already knew that the Basestars had already been blown apart by the time. That they had spent the last of their missiles against the ground attackers. In less than five minute of combat with the earth made flying machines, the battle's tone changed again. Soon it became obvious that the cylon did not have a pattern of what they were doing. Some of them just would try to stop the rising human and there attacking war-machines in almost reckless abandon. And others would fly out of the planet atmosphere to jump away. Some of the Raiders would first head towards the human, and then change course for higher attitude only to turn around again to face the earth made craft. In one of the after battle meetings held later. Some would think, that some of the flying cylons might have had some kind of mental breakdown of some kind. That would have been understandable to the humans after seeing, say fifteen foot tall flying Centurions rising from the cover provided by the trees. Most sane people or machines, should want to get away from them as fast as they could.

If the humans would have been able to ask the dog smart Raiders after the battle. They would have been just as confused by the real reasons for the cylons confusion. They would have said that yes it had been what they were seeing. The fly giant Centurions that had mounted Direct Energy Weapons, and were as tough as a small warship. Yes, it had caused mental impact on some of them, and made some of them want to run away. But it was not the whole truth of the situation. As with dealing with human form cylons, dealing with any cylon was never black and white.

The Raiders and Heavy raiders had a god that they worshiped, only amongst themselves and in secret. He/It was a "higher" form of cylon, but the human forms cylons did not know about this. And if they did find out about this "god" of the flying craft, out later. The Number Ones' would not have been…..happy about finding out that bit of information. The Raider's god took the form that looked a lot like the old Centurion called Model 005. It was just more, in every way you could think of, than the standard Model 005. When reports of their god showing up in the real world, had not been like by the Raiders and Heavy Raiders. They were wondering why they were on the battlefield, and defending the humans on the ground? That was too much for some of them to handle in there very small brains. It had started when a single Raider over flew walking tank, that the Rift Earth people know as a Glitter boy and a newer femaleish Glitter Girl at its side. The small craft had passed along the images to every Raider and Heavy Raider within the range of its communications device, as fast as it could. This had proven too much for their small brain, so some of them decided to leave this world alone. So of the flying craft had also decided that it would be the right thing to resist as much as they could the Number Ones. It would be that they or their kind should not come back to this odd and scary planet. That is if the Raiders, were able to make threw the on rushing wave of very unhappy Vipers. The ones that were coming towards the planet, and some activate there jump-drives. In a spot that only Raiders and Hybrids knew about, was only a few earth sized megabits deep of memory. In that rarely used memory space, notes were made. The Heavy Raiders under human control did not have choice, and continued attacking as the human forms at the controls of those craft demanded of them.

The last cylon regiment fixed defensive were broken by those battle suites. And a wave of fifteen armed Big Boss ATV's that had captured cylon weapons mounted on the tops. They rushed through the breach in the lines made by the heavy robots and powered armor. It was not about who had most numbers in the field this day. It was about the amount of damage projection, and damage absorption of each of the units on the battlefield today. The cylons were on the lower end in both of those categories, to day. It took hundreds or even thousands of hit to stop a single human at the run. Even then, it might not kill them or even put them out of action for more than a few minutes. The humans on the other hand, only had to hit Centurions or Human Forms once or maybe twice at most. And that cylon would be down for the count, and forever. It was a slaughter of cylons, the likes of which was unmatched in Colonial or cylon memory. It was second in the total number of deaths in a given day. It was second only to the first day of this new war against man. However then, it was a slaughter of humans not cylons that had run those number so high.

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Back in the camp, the fight for "The Building" was a rat's nest of trouble. Two kids were found in "The Building" along with fourteen other humans in various stages of health or closeness to death. None of the cylons in the building "Gave up" to the Colonial clearing teams. It was only well after the fact. That this was questioned about why this was, but not too closely even years later. It was hard times and hard people, were the only ones to live threw the war with the cylons. A few bullets to the head, was a lot quicker death for a cylon. Than the ones that the cylons had been using, against the humans.

In the battles that were out away from the refugee camp, over a hundred human form cylons had given up to their attackers. Their survivors were a mix of Two's, Three's, Six's and Eight's. The lowest numbers of the human forms to give up successfully to the humans. Were the Two's, with only three giving up the fight quick enough not to get shot by other humans All of the Ones, Fours, Fives fought or tried, unsuccessfully, to run away from the combat. None had raised their hands in surrender to the attacking humans, either the Earthers or Colonials. Most of them stuck to their weak weapons, and thin body armor unit the very end. The human from cylons were handled like any other POW would have been cared for, it hey were back home on Earth. But after the briefing about being able to down load into new body's, they were bound very tightly. And they all were kept under a strict set of Suicide watch protocols….just in case. No one knew if a resurrection facility had moved into range or not, by the time of the end of the planet side battles. The POW's know had seen too much to chance then doing something drastic, and that information getting out to the rest of the cylons forces.

Major Weston pulled up to the Refugee Camp in the same Big Boss ATVs. The same one that he had been using leading the attacks on the cylon units, that had been out in the field. The human guards did not know who he was, but at least one of them knew something about Earth made equipment. She knew that the approaching object was a friendly vehicle. And she let them into the now free camp with out to much of a delay or other issues. Major Weston had been given directions to the main meeting point, after only a brief stop. That along with the images that had been taken of the camp, and input from Tyrol, Duck and Jammer. Weston's driver had no problem find where they needed to go. He had just arrived at the preplanned point for a few heart beats. That was when a flight of Vipers, made a very high speed, and low altitude fly-by of the camp. It was just as he was getting out of the high ground clearance transportation, and almost jumped with incredible level of noise caused by the over flight. The sound was undesirable, and with the force of the sonic booms. The pair were almost enough for him to lose his balance while exiting the ATV. Falling on your face in in the mud and in front of you newish allies. That would not have been a very good way, to start the next phase of getting to know each other. It was just a good thing that he was able to save himself, from that the little embarrassment. He only had to hop and skip once, to make sure his feet were centered under him. As he was looking up at the high speed, and deadly looking craft overflying the now freed human camp. He had to assume that they were checking over the camp for any surprises.

Major Weston walked up to the two leaders. He first stuck out his hand out to Colonel Tigh, and then to an older female that he assumed was Laura Roslin standing by his side. The noise leave picked up again while the handshakes were going on. Weston was not able use the translation software he had planned on, due the overwhelming background noise.

While he was there in the now Colonial controlled camp he unknowingly made history, again. He became one of the few living Earth raise human, to ever see a space capable ship leave the ground. It was moving slowly, and smoothly as it rose higher and higher into the sky. Until it was no longer visible to the naked eye any more, or to hear the laboring engines shake the air. Major Weston was suitably impressed with the sight.

The two Colonial misunderstood the look on the Earther's face, as he looked up toward the sky at the moving space liner. Even they were impressed to see a sight. Which they had not believed deep in their hearts, that they would ever see again. But when the noise level dropped off some, Colonial Tigh was speaking slowly and clearly. "As they fill up. We are getting them off the ground, and up into low orbit." He pointed to the now barely visible second space-liner, which had launched from the other side of the now visibly smaller camp. It was to help the Earther understand his words, and to make his point. He just hopped that the Earther was understanding his simple Caprican.

This brought Major Weston back around, and he refocused on task at hand. Now he used, his limited Caprican. He had rehearsed these statements with the translation computer, and a few of the Colonials for a few days. "We have hit all of the fixed cylon sites. The only thing left to do, is hunting down the moving groups, and patrols that were out before today. How did they do upstairs?" Weston pointed up towards the sky, and was referring to the warships battling in space. He had to use small words, and the limit of his Caprican without using the translation computer software now loaded on a few devices. He had a device in his ATV, but until the back ground noise was lower. He knew it was going to be less than useless.

Tigh made a sour face after he worked out what the Earther had asked. And Major Weston was now very concerned, but waited until the older bald man started talking again. "We lost a lot of people, but the last report that came in. Said that all of our warships are operational, for now. They also report, that all three cylon Basestars have been destroyed. Along with most of their support craft, along with them." The smile on Saul's face, was one of pure joy.

Weston thought that there was more to be said, but the other man did not want to cover it just yet. Weston understood the reluctance, in spades. This was a very public venue after all, so Weston looked at the woman standing next to the bald man. He pointed to his chest before addressing her, with his back ramrod straight. "I'm Major Weston, you must be President Roslin." Weston put on a friendly smile, he had heard a lot about this woman. Not all would fall under term of "good", but most of it had been squarely in that category. "It is nice to finally meet you at last madam President."

The woman went into full political mode at a flip of a mental switch. As she was verbally addressed, by the leader of the Earthers military ground forces for the first time. "Yes, and thank you for supporting us to get us out from under the cylons thumb." She pointed to a large tent on a wooden frame, she had copied how Saul had addressed the Earther. It was the school that was now the command post for the uprising. "Please join us, it will be quitter inside?"

Weston nodded his head in agreement. He told his driver, and gunner to stay alert for any threat while he was gone into the tent. He did not have to say, if it was human or cylon was going to be a threat. This people would be alert for anything and everything, which might be a danger to Weston. It would not have been the first time that allies had turned on each other after the common enemy had been dwelt with. With that bit of business was complete, and his translation computer in hand. The Major fallowed the two leaders into the shack/tent/school/command center.

When Weston entered the tent, he knew this had been the school tent, which had been the center of so many reports that had crossed his desk. He took a seat near the tent flap, next to two other empty chairs that were soon occupied by the two Colonials leaders. As said by Laura Roslin, it was quitter in this location. Mike Weston powered up a thin computer loaded with the latest updated translation software that his people had. Weston gave it a few test words then raised an eyebrow to the Colonial Colonel.

With the computer now in operation, they did a repeat of what had been said outside just in a little more detail. It did not take long for new information to start to cross the language barrier at an increasing rate. Laure looked at Major Weston with a level gaze, and still speaking slowly. "After we get everyone that we can onto the ships. What are your plans Major? Admiral Adama has not been able to fill us in, on all of the fine details. He only said that you and your people, knew what to do." When Laura had found out about this information, it had rubbed her the wrong way. She quickly found that she did not like to be in the dark, about anything. She was hopping that she was hiding, that she was not happy being kept in the dark about what was planned.

Weston smiled at the woman. He knew that they had been brought in on the major parts of the plan, and he knew that she was fishing. That was not a bad thing in Major Weston's book. "Anyone who wants to help can stay on site, and we will give them a lift back to the Settlement. We are going to clean up everything that we can, after the ships lift off from this field. The plan is such that we need the make it look like you left the planet totally. Without much in the way of letting the cylons know how, or why you would do such a thing. We want them to wonder, what happened before, you lifted off planet running for you lives?" Weston did not say that this people wanted to collect all the refined metal that was being left behind, for their later use back at Safe Port Bay. If these two did not know that, then they deserved to find out the hard way…..later. "Good luck, and I hope to see you again when everything has settled down some back at the Settlement." Mike, Laura, and Saul all had a lot to do, and very little time to keep things together. They also still had a lot do in the fading light of the day. The war might be won, but only the humans would accept that, for now.