Chapter 37.
Matt's knee was placed firmly down on the back of Boomer's legs, immobilizing her as a Marine and another crewman held her arms fast. She was now starting to scream 'what happened?' The medics with their wheeled stretcher arrived yelling to clear a path. Captain Aaron Kelly arrived, the third highest ranking officer aboard Galactica, he was soon informed of the situation by tactical officer Gaeta, and was now acting executive officer. Tigh had ordered Boomer removed to the brig, and a group of Marines soon dragged her screaming out of the CIC. Lee Adama had tried to follow the medical team out of the CIC when Tigh ordered him removed to the brig as well. It was chaos.
"Colonel, could this be a prelude to a Cylon attack?" asked Kelly.
"How would they know where we were?" he shot back. Racetrack who had been standing to the side stunned stepped up and spoke.
"Valerii could have told them, sir. When we were aboard the Basestar, she left the Raptor for a few minutes and came back without her helmet. She might have told the Cylons everything, our position, defenses..." Kelly cut in, strongly advising Tigh to order the fleet to jump to emergency coordinates. Tigh was mulling it over when the Dradis sounded.
"Single contact! Cylon Basestar, bearing 487-carom-015." warned Gaeta. Matt turned and ran for the launch bay, if they were going to launch vipers to defend the fleet he was going to be the last one out of the tubes being so far away from the flight pods. His heart pounded as his head tried to sort through everything that just happened. He was just reaching the the bottom deck when the shipboard P.A. announced the fleet would be jumping to emergency coordinates. Fellow Spar Mark Sarnex met him at the catwalk of the launch bay.
"What's the plan, skipper?" asked Sarnex.
"How the frak should I know, the old man has been shot!"
"What!" asked Sarnex incredulously. "What happened, who shot him, why?"
"Boomer! They're sayin she must be a Cylon agent. She put two 9mm rounds in his frakin chest, and now the toasters be showin up outta nowhere." replied Matt surveying the hanger beneath him. Okay, this is what we'll do, I want alert vipers in the air once we're on the other side o' the jump. Get on the line with Photon and the other squadron leaders, I want all their pilots in their cockpits." ordered the acting CAG.
Combat Information Center
"They're gone sir." reported Dualla softly. Tigh felt his entire world collapse, first his friend and commanding officer shot and hovering near death, now they just materialized out of the jump to find themselves all alone. The civilian fleet was not here, Dradis scans detected no Colonial transponders anywhere in the system. "Mr. Gaeta, I want the fleet found, gods dammit!" yelled Tigh. His hands were still wet with blood, and his uniform was saturated with it. "Captain Kelly, you have the conn...I'm heading to my quarters to get changed."
"Captain Kelly, Hephaestus reports all pilots manning their vipers, and the alert vipers have been launched." said Dee.
"Alright Dee, they're gonna be calling in any second to report that the fleet is missing. I want the channels clear... inform them that we're aware of the situation, and they are to maintain an enhanced CAP around the ship until further notice." ordered Kelly, now the XO.
After changing into a new uniform, Colonel Tigh made his way to infirmary where Medic Layne Ishay was monitoring the commander's vital signs. She had explained the amount of damage found, and inquired how soon Doctor Cottle would be aboard to operate. Major Sherman Cottle had been aboard the Rising Star when Adama had been shot, he had just been boarding his shuttle to return back to Galactica when the order to jump came down. Now only the gods knew where he and the fleet were. He stared at the unresponsive body of William Adama, a nasal cannula provided 6 liters of oxygen to the unconscious patient, while a heart monitor beeped in the background.
"...needs to get in there and stop the bleeding or we'll lose him." Ishay was saying. Tigh snapped back to the present. "He doesn't have much time sir."
"You're gonna have to go in yourself." Tigh announced. Layne was obviously taken aback by the statement. She shook her head and replied quickly.
"Me? I'm just a medic!"
"Today you're a doctor!" replied Tigh with finality, and then walked out of the room, destination the brig. Ishay was thunderstruck. Fellow medic Howard kim who had witnessed the entire discussion stepped up.
"Was he drunk?" Ishay wasn't sure if that was a serious question or not, but she didn't have time to be offended.
"Get me Cottle's green book on Thoracic Surgery, I'll need to brush up on a few things if we're going to undertake this."
"We?" replied Kim.
"Yes! I need you, so get over your fraking shock and move your ass to get that book." said Ishay sharply.
Pilot's Ready Room – Port Flight Pod
Colonel Tigh quickly entered the ready room with his Marine escort. Since the attempted assassination of the commander, a Marine escort accompanied Tigh and Kelly everywhere they went. His visit to the brig was an unsavory one, the Cylon prisoner, former raptor pilot Sharon Valerii, revealed little. His return to the CIC resulted in even a less palatable situation. Gaeta had found a way to possibly locate the missing fleet far quicker than previously reported. What was initially reported as taking a minimum of twelve hours in a Cylon occupied system to take new star fixes, could now be done in ten minutes. However, this could only be done by networking Galactica's computers, something both Adama and Tigh vociferously opposed. Gaeta assured him the firewall he constructed could keep the Cylon virus at bay while they took the star fixes. Captain Kelly did not share his optimism.
Matt Lensherr was standing at the status board, trying to plan a rotating combat air patrol for the current situation. "Captain, I don't have a lot of time to explain so I'm gonna try and make this short and sweet." began Tigh. "We lost the fleet!" Matt was speechless. We constantly update our emergency jump calculations, with new star fixes to compensate for inertial drift. And then we transmit them to the rest of the fleet. This time ours were updated, and theirs weren't. When the Cylons jumped on top of us, we had not transmitted the update to the fleet due to all the confusion with the old man being shot. They jumped to one location, we to another. The only way to find them is to go back to that sector and take an expedited reading of the stars, and then try to plot the correct jump to the fleet's possible location.
"I'm assuming we're going ta need ta hold off the Cylons while Gaeta takes the readings?" asked Matt.
"Correct. Look Hephaestus, the whole situation is fraked up, and I need every gods damned officer at the top of their game. I've decided that Apollo will be resuming the duties of the CAG effective immediately! This is no reflection on you," Tigh said reassuringly. "I need his experience in this difficult time, you will be his number two. Apollo will be on modified parole for the time being, when off duty, his ass will be back in the brig. I'm going to need you two at the top of your game. This is going to be a tough mission."
"You'll have me best, Colonel." said Matt. Tigh took his leave, and Matt let out a loud sigh of relief. He was shocked at getting tapped for acting CAG, there were other officers senior to him, but he was chosen by the old man himself. He felt relieved to have Apollo back in charge.
Combat Information Center
"We jump in, we hold off the Cylons, we crunch the numbers, and we jump out." announced Tigh. "That's it. Simple plan." he paused, "not so simple to do." he said almost to himself. Walking over to the tactical station he inquired on Gaeta's firewall to protect the computers against the Cylons.
"Best I can make it, sir. I wish Doctor Baltar was here." replied Gaeta going over the system one last time.
"To hell with that. I'll take your work over that shifty son of a bitch any day." growled Tigh. Dualla counted down the jump, inserting the FTL key, she jumped the ship back to their previous sector.
"Jump completed." announced Gaeta.
"Report!" demanded Tigh. Gaeta checked the Dradis screen to find that it showed red contacts indicating enemy forces.
"Multiple Dradis contacts, Cylon Basestar, and multiple Cylon raiders...bearing 487-carom-221." Action stations sounded as the ship prepared to defend itself. Gaeata immediately started to run his computations as the raiders bore down on them. Large dorsal cannons opened fire, as point defense turrets sent up a wall of impenetrable flack. Vipers exploded from their launch tubes in two groups, Apollo leading the first, with Hephaestus leading the other. This would be a race against time. Galactica's air wing was heavily outnumbered, and the Basestar was closing to missile range. A red warning light appeared on Gaeta's screen. A Cylon virus had been detected, the cyber attack had begun. "The Cylons are hacking our network! They're attempting to access our gateway."
This was exactly what Aaron Kelly feared, months earlier, the Cylons had completely overwhelmed the Colonial Fleet's defenses by accessing their networked computers through a backdoor program. Literally shutting down Battlestars and vipers, leaving them defenseless to attack. Now the race had begun. As brilliant as Lieutenant Felix Gaeta was, Kelly had no doubt that the Cylons would punch through his firewall quickly. Within 10 seconds the first of five firewalls were penetrated.
Matt was flying wingtip to wingtip with Mark "Nightstalker" Sarnex, their Thraxon Kinetic Energy Weapons known as KEWS lit up the skies, blasting whatever raiders were in their sights. The gods were surely with them during this battle, not one viper pilot had been lost yet. The raptors held back, closer to Galactica in case any raiders broke through. They were the last line of defense, armed with their Spectra Six missiles.
"Apollo, Hephaestus...picking up an inbound turkey, they aren't returning fire, and a large contingent of raiders are running a blocking pattern for it...they may be planning to ram." warned Matt over the comline. The 'turkeys' were in fact a heavy raider, a Cylon dual purpose attack and transport spacecraft, nicknamed "Turkey" by the military. Six large cannons fired 30mm shells at a high rate of speed, and was also capable of firing missiles. Apollo and Lt. Louanne "Kat" Katraine break off to intercept, picking off the protective raiders whose sole objective appeared to be to absorb Colonial fire and allow the heavy raider to get through. The turkey, and two remaining raiders got them, and they followed in hot pursuit. Lee lined up his targeting computer on the closest raider, stitching the raider across the top. It spun off wildly only to be destroyed by a nearby viper. Kat took care of the other raider and now the two concentrated on the heavy raider which unexpectedly flipped end over end and fired a heavy barrage of 30mm rounds at them.
By this time, the third of five firewalls had been breached by the Cylon virus, the vipers did their best to keep the raiders from inflicting any significant fire on their battlestar, but they were too badly outnumbered, and spread far too thin.
"Apollo, Kat...approaching Galactica's flack barrier. Cylon target within gun range." Lee was bearing down on the heavy raider, the flack from the point defense turrets were getting brighter and closer.
"Winged it!" yelled Apollo, as his KEWS struck the port side of the heavy raider. Kat's frantic voice filled the comlines as Apollo's viper started to get buffeted by the nearby explosions of the defensive fire.
"Apollo, we're straying into Galactica's engagement zone!"
"I'm almost there. I'm almost there. I'm almost there...come on!" yelled Lee. As he tried in vain to reach the heavy raider. He could barely see anything anymore, a large piece of shrapnel slammed off his canopy. Kat bailed out of the zone just as Lee yanked back hard on the navi-hilt, slamming the thruster pedal into the firewall to escape before his fighter was destroyed by friendly fire. The heavy raider sustained numerous direct hits, spiraling out of control and crashing through the pressurized dome of the starboard flight pod. The decompression was violent and immediate felt all the way to the CIC. Lee banked hard and brought his viper under and around Galactica's aft section to inspect the damage. "Galactica, Apollo... we have a decompression in the starboard flight pod. No explosion, no fire. Repeat no fire!"
Matt had evaded the pinwheel attack a trio of raiders had set up for him, he wasn't so lucky when he collided with a passing raider that sheared off his dorsal stabilizer. Damage alarms sounded throughout the cockpit, and Matt switched off the audio function due to the distraction. "Hephaestus, Hotdog...are you alright?"
"Console is lit up like a frakin Colonial Day fireworks display," replied Matt. The viper was reacting far too sluggishly to the physical commands of the navi-hilt. "Avionics failing, and I'm getting a fire warning in my high engine...shutting it down."
"Hephaestus, Apollo...get back to Galactica immediately!" ordered Lee. Matt wanted to stay in the fight, but knew his viper was falling apart quickly, the damage was severe, and he was controlling his course with maneuvering thrusters only at this point.
"Hephaestus receives..." acknowledged Matt. He keyedthe transmitter button once more. "Galactica, Hephaestus, I'm declaring an emergency, battle damage done shot away at me vertical stabilizer, and high engine, request emergency approach."
"Colonel... I have Hephaestus declaring an emergency with battle damage." advised Dualla. Tigh's eyes were glued to Gaeta's monitor that was displaying the progress of the Cylon virus on the makeshift firewalls to the mainframe.
"Bring the gods-damned farmer in, Dee...I'm a little busy right now." barked Tigh.
"Only one left until they've accessed our mainframe." said Gaeta trying to control the anxiety building within him. Seconds more passed as a new dialogue box materialized on the monitor screen indicating FLEET POSITION PLOTTED. "We have a solution for the fleet's position!" announced Gaeta.
"Break the network!" commanded Tigh. Gaeta reached under the console and started yanking cables out of their ports violently.
"Network is broken! Computers restored to local control."
"Tell the vipers to get back aboard!" ordered Tigh. "We're getting awfully lucky today, prepare to jump!
The cavernous portal of the port flight pod loomed before him, Matt's viper was starting to vibrate apart, and system failures started to occur one after the other. It took all of his skill to get as far as he did, and now he was wishing Galactica had its auto landing capabilities online to lock onto his damaged craft and bring it aboard. It was wishful thinking on his part, he knew full well that William Adama would never allow his ship's computer to be networked, and the auto landing function of a Colonial Battlestar depended on a networked computer. He was coming in too fast, and the aft end of the Mk. VII viper started to swing about with the nose dropping. He knew this was going to be a bad landing, and he would never have survived punching out at this point. He easily cleared the massive opening, but the nose struck the deck first, crumpling it almost up to the base of the canopy when it flipped end over end. Sparks flew as the viper cartwheeled across the landing bay, coming to a sudden and violent stop against the interior lateral wall of the flight pod. If not for the safety harness, Matt would have been thrown against the control panel, possibly impaling himself on the navi-hilt. He felt a searing, white hot pain to his left shoulder which he would later learn was dislocated.
The remaining squadrons all made combat landings amidst a brutal onslaught by raiders and their Basestar alike. "Vipers aboard, sir." informed Dualla. The ship had been prepped for jump, and with a brief five second count-down, the Galactica jumped to safety.