IMPORTANT: Just to give you a heads up, I am going away for a multiple day vacation in little bit over a week. I will try my best to post again before I leave but I cannot make any promises and I will not update while I am on Vacation so you may have to wait until almost October for the next update. Sorry but it cannot be helped. Now enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 51 Brighter than the Sun

Admiral Barker, the head of the task force carrying out the single largest attack by the Tau'ri forces in the Milkway galaxy, only the operation against the Wraith over Sera in the Pegasus galaxy had more ships. Admiral Barker moved toward the holographic command table that showed up to the second locations of all his ships along with the location of the Colonial ships.

The colonials outnumbered him almost 15 to 1, with his 26 warships going up against the almost 400 warships of the colonials. Now most of their warships where not battlestars and where instead the small Hoplite class ships but they all carried big guns and enough shells to fire at his ships.

The Admiral in command of the colonial forces had moved just as he thought he would do, the Admiral had moved most of his fleet to form a U shape around what he believed to be the target of the Tau'ri advance, Cancercon. Admiral Barker smiled as he saw that the Condor strike force along with the eagle fighter force was moving against only 15 ships protecting the dark side of the agriculture world of Aerlion. The only other populated world was the main target of the operation was Aquaria and that was hardly defended and the Ark Royal would push through them with ease.

He could see the Colonial's plan with ease; their ships had made a U shape with Concercon at the bottom of the U. They expected the Tau'ri to charge straight in to get hit from all side from the colonial ships. They would possibly close the top part of the U to surround the Tau'ri ships, it was not that bad of an idea but it was a plan that dated back to the Battle of Cannae between Rome and Carthage if not before that. Admiral Barker actually grinned as he realized that he knew more about the location of the Colonial forces better than the location of the Colonial high command.

"Alright we are going to split our forces in four groups." said the Admiral as he highlighted the ships on the map and separated them into a single force. "This group will move to the right and take on the Colonial forces here. A matching force will move to the other side and take on the matching colonial force."

Each of the two attacking groups contained seven ships for a total of 14 of the 25 ships in the main attack group.

"We will leave this group here," said the Admiral as he highlighted six ships "As a reserve force to respond to any movements, the remaining ships with the Britannia will move straight into the heart of the Colonial force."

"Alright sir." said the Captain of the Flagship of the fleet, the battleship Britannia.

The orders were sent out as once across the Tau'ri computer networks so every ship knew their orders and which ship and their captain was in command of each attack force.

The Colonial high command in the system was in overdrive as they attempted to respond to the Tau'ri. Multiple reports where being placed in front of the Admiral in charge of the 2nd fleet, he had moved his fleet in position to protect the main target of the Tau'ri Canceron. He couldn't let them attack the factories of that world without them they would lose almost a fourth of the heavy industry and production power in the entire 12 colonials.

"Sir, the Tau'ri have split their forces into four groups." reported the Dradis operator as he moved forward and moved plastic tiles which had the type of ship written on them. They had not had the time to get brand new tiles so they used Cylon markers instead of Tau'ri so a battleship was marked as a Basestar. With the markers down he drew a line of their current course across the glass top with a grease pencil.

"Four groups, with their battleship and four destroyers heading straight into the heart of our defenses. Two groups of seven are heading to take on our flanks, with a reserve force of six ships staying back." said the Admiral as he looked at his main target, if he destroyed the battleship then he would destroy their flagship. Destroy the flagship and he would take out their command and control. Then he could take on the smaller forces and destroy them one at a time. "We will focus on their flagship and make sure they can't fire biological weapons at Concercon."

"Sir flash traffic from Caprica!" yelled a wireless operator as she ran up with a piece of paper in her hands.

"I just sent flash traffic to them about the Tau'ri attack they can't have gotten back to us so soon." snapped the Admiral as he grabbed the paper from the wireless operator hands. His eyes widened as he read the short message.

"By the Lords of Kobol," whispered the Admiral

"What sir?" inquired the Commander as the Admiral handed the paper over before turning toward a nearby Colonel.

"Intelligence believes that the Tau'ri will carry out nuclear strikes on civilian centers in response to the attempted biological strike." reported the Admiral as everyone within earshot eyes widened. The Admiral picked up a wireless broadcaster located beside the command table. He pushed a few button and reach the command broadcast channel, with this he got ahold of every Colonial warship and military spacecraft in the system. His message cut through every channel and interrupted broadcasts already in progress.

"Attention, this is Admiral Ghazal we have just learned the high possibility that the Tau'ri are here to deliverer nuclear fire to the world of Concercon," said Admiral Ghazal as every man and woman in the military who heard his words eyes widened. "We will not allow this to happen; we will throw down our lives to defend the people of Concercon. We will make those false god worshipping scum the strength of the Colonial Armed forces and when we are done they will be screaming in Tartarus and those who lie down their lives to defend the innocent will be reward by the Lords of Kobol. I know you will do your duty and in the end we will be victorious."

The news of the possible nuclear strikes coming to Concercon filled Kara Thrace with rage as she and a flight of 12 vipers head up from the capital city of Aquaria, Heim. She was too far away to move to take on the forces attacking Concercon, she would have no part in this fight.

"Frak me." cursed Kara, she had the most advanced Viper in the colonies and she had nothing to shot at. Her spirits lifted a bit as she noticed a ship on the very edge of her Dradis screen. A single Tau'ri ship was heading toward her. "Well at least I can help destroy this fraker."

The Colonial Dradis operators where focused on giving up to the moment tracking of the fast moving Tau'ri ships which were heading toward Concercon. They were so focused on that that they did not notice when a large group of smaller spacecraft passed within range of their sensors. They were almost a quarter of the way toward Aerlion when they where finally noticed and warnings began to go out.

"Sir I have a lot of Tau'ri spacecraft coming our way." stated a Dradis operator on Aerlion.

"How many?" inquired his ranking officer

"Hard to tell they are flying in close formation, over 300 for sure." Said the operator as more blipps entered Dradis range "Make that 600, frak they are coming right for us. We need every Viper we can get here now."

The report went up to the planet's Admiral but he was under the command of Admiral Ghazal who was focused on the incoming Tau'ri capital ships. He looked down at the report, which had been made in a rush; it was made in such a rush that it had been reported wrong. Instead of a report saying that 600 Tau'ri spacecraft was heading toward Aerlion it said 60 where heading toward them. Someone had forgotten to add the final 0, with that information Admiral Ghazal only allowed 2 flights of Vipers, which had already left from Aerlion to support the defense of Concercon to turn around and head back to Aerlion.

Those two flights for a total of 32 aircraft was all the reinforcements that the 300 Vipers and Raptors had against the 3 Wings of Eagle Fighters, each wings was made out of a 100 fighters for a total of 300 eagle fighters. The rest of the attacking force was almost every single condor bomber the Tau'ri had and 144 of those 300 condor bombers where loaded up with newly designed and built Dragon Fire Bombs. The firebombers where in the last wave of the attack with the Eagles and the 1st flight of Condors before them.

The Eagles flew in ahead of the strike force as the 300 Vipers and the Colonial Warships moved to defend the higher populated cities on the planet. Believing that the target of the Tau'ri would be those cities they were going to do everything in their power to defend those cities and the people in them.

"Sir, we have confirmed Tau'ri fighters heading our way not just their bombers." said a colonel onboard the main battlestar left to defend the dark side of Aerlion.

"First time we have seen them here." said the Commander as he made sure that his Battlestars and smaller ships moved to defend the more populated cities. "Move our Vipers to stand back and cover the holes between the ships do not advance to contact we must hold the line."

In the Front group of the Eagles were birds off the Yorktown, they had taken off from their ship above the newly captured micro planet of Nysa so they had some of the most fuel of the other birds. Most of the other Eagles had taken off from Valhalla and would have to stop at Nysa to refuel before heading back.

"Alright looks like they are spreading out in a defensive formation we need to break them up." said Colonel Winters as he flew at the head of the first strike force. The American pilot began to run off target selected by the cloaked Owls, which severed the same purpose as airborne radar systems on Earth such as the E-3 Sentry and others.

As one the flights of Eagles opened fired their long range missiles at both the vipers, raptors and the battlestars themselves. When the missiles began to fly the battlestars opened up with their formidable missile defense barriers. Thousands of guns began firing and as they fired at a certain range they exploded sending hundreds of tinny shards of metal, these shards brought down the incoming Tau'ri missiles. The Vipers and Raptors joined the battle opening fire with their own guns forming a wall of lead in front of the incoming threat. The wall could not stop all their missiles as each Eagle carried 8 missiles and the condors carried 24 each. The missiles began to break through the defenses and began to strike the battlestars, Vipers and Raptors. Holes began to open up as vipers where destroyed and guns on the battlestars fell silent as they took missile hits.

"Constraint all fire above these cities, we need to protect them," ordered the Commander as the colonial shifted their defenses to focus on the defending the main cities. This was the logical defense, against biological strikes and possible nuclear strikes since that the main target of those weapons would be the population centers where they could do the most damage. This however was what the Tau'ri was planning on as the final flight of Condors moved into position, the 144 condors each carried 12 dragon fire bombs for a total of 1,728 bombs each containing thousands of small bomblets which contained Dragon Fire which was modified Colonial Hade's fire which was a descendant of the ancient Greek Fire.

"We are in launch position." Said the Weapon's officer onboard Elsa's Revenge as the Condor's wings moved out from its swept wing position into a position not unlike any atmosphere bound aircraft. She has two missiles on each wing and 8 missiles located in the bays. Those bays opened up as the missiles where lowered into position.

"Firing in 3…2…1." said Andrea as she pulled the trigger and the missiles began to fire one by one only seconds apart. Each one cleared their rails and headed toward their targets. The Colonials still focused on defending the population centers and since the colonial's did not detect any radiation coming from the missiles they did not focus on bring them down. Some of them where brought down but of the 1,728 missiles fired 1,597 of those got past the colonial defense line by going around them.

The missiles dove into the atmosphere as the Tau'ri turned to leave, for a moment it looked as if the Colonials had won. The Tau'ri had turned to leave and none of their missiles had reached the population centers on Aerlin, there would be no nuclear explosion of gas attack on those cities full of millions of people.

As a cheer went up from the colonials the missiles dove toward the surface and spread out to their different target areas. The missiles did not form a single solid area instead they formed multiple pockets over some of the most productive farm land in the entire colonies. When all the pockets where added up the entire target area equaled the size of the state of Nevada. At their target height the missiles bodies broke apart as hundreds of small baseball size bomblets each containing the dragon fire liquid began to spread out. Each of the bomblet had small wings attached which allowed them to glide randomly over great distances. Since the target of the attacks was the endless fields, which made up the bread basket of the colonies it was hard to miss.

It was the middle of the night when the bomblets reached their own preset height as small explosive charges exploded the casing, which held the Dragon Fire liquid. The liquid spread out over only a couple of square yards but whatever it touch turned into a massive fireball which then began to spread out as it consumed everything it touched.

Farmers in small towns began to panic as they attempted to throw water on the strange fire only to have the fire grow instead of shrink. A few combat veterans remembered Hade's Fire from the Cylon War and attempted to throw sand on the fire only to discover to their horror that the this strange green version liked sand and only grew in intensity. Whole fields of grain became fields of fire as entire harvest, which would have provided the surpluses that kept the people of the colonies well fed began to go up in smoke. Fields where not the only thing hit, homes where not spared and neither was livestock as they felt the horrible flames of the strange green fire. Even the small rivers were on fire as either the bomblets exploded over them or burning pieces of remains from other strikes moved down river spreading the flames.

Everything was going as plan expect for one place, one of the bomblets had fallen to the far north of Aerilon and had landed in the vehicle park of a local city government. The snowplows which sat waiting for winter began to burn and in their confusion one of the workers began to dump a load of Salt on the fire instead of sand. This caused the fire to go out leaving a blackened mass, which resembled thick black tar, the Colonials accidentally discovered how to put out the Dragon fire in a way that not even the Tau'ri knew about.

That discovery was unknown to the Tau'ri and it wouldn't make much of a difference, as the Condors and Eagles headed out of the system to make the hyperspace jump to Nysa and Valhalla the dark side of Aerlion had multiple green spots, which looked like glowing green scars across the surface. The Tau'ri attack on the breadbasket of the Colonies had been a total success.

At the same moment that the Eagles and Condors where carrying out their attack on Aerlion the Tau'ri warships where moving as fast as colonial Vipers. To the Colonial credit they did adjust the movement of the Tau'ri ships on their maps so they were not surprised as how fast the Tau'ri ships closed the distance.

To the surprise of the Tau'ri the colonials began to rapid fire cannons at a range beyond their normal range. The answer came soon the Tau'ri sensors detected the incoming shells, since there was no air in space to resist the shells as they traveled so they were going at full speed. The only reason why the colonial battle doctrine didn't call for shelling at such at distance was because most of the shells miss at far range. The Colonials seemed to have accepted that a large percentage of their shells would miss as they tried to hit the Tau'ri first. They did hit first as thousands of shells began to strike the shields of the Britannia and the four destroyers which had followed it into the heart of the Colonial defenses.

The shields took the blow with ease, there was so many guns firing at such a rate that the constant blows where beginning to lower the percentage of shield strength. The Destroyers and the Britannia responded by opening fire with their own rail guns. The computer control railguns began to pick off the incoming Colonial shells, not all of them but a large percentage, which allowed the shields more breathing room.

"Sir, we are in range," said the weapon's officer on the Britannia

"Fire," ordered the Admiral as the bow of the Battleship began to glow a deep green. Light gathered for only a few seconds before shooting out in a beam of energy, which cut through a Colonial Battlestar as if it was made out of paper. The battlestar held together for a moment before exploding in a giant fireball.

The Ancient Particle Cannon was the strongest single weapon on the Britannia it also had the longest cool down time at 90 seconds. While that was cooling down and preparing to fire again the four Asgard beam weapons went to work as they began to rapid fire at the Colonial ships. The Asgard beam weapons had a shorter range then the Ancient Particle Cannon but they could fire almost every 30 seconds and there was a lot of targets for the Tau'ri ships. The first surprise that came to the crew of the Tau'ri was when a beam strike hit one of the Colonial Battlestars but it did not blow up, it stayed in the fight and kept firing. A second strike did destroy the ship but when the event happened, again the Tau'ri began to figure out what.

"Sir, looks like some of their ships have been upgraded with heavier armor plates." reported an officer as the Admiral nodded his head.

"Very well, have those ships targeted with two beam strikes," ordered the Admiral as swarms of vipers came swooping in firing their guns and launching their missiles. They were nothing more them angry flies to the battleship but whenever a Rail gun shot them down a shell from one of the battlestars and other colonial ships hit the shields.

The Colonial forces where focused on the Battleship and destroyers in the center the two forces, which went up against the flanks of the Colonial line, began to do battle. The Daedalus class Cruisers and the Destroyers did not have the Ancient beam cannon that the Battleship did and they only had two Asgard beam weapons but they were still destroying ships with ease. The Colonial line which started out in a U shape was now forced back into a basic straight line.

"Order all ships to begin to fire NA-89s." ordered Admiral Ghazal as the 37th ship under his command was destroyed, it was time to go nuclear. "And every nuclear weapon we have."

Almost at once, the Colonials began to fire the nuclear shells out of their guns and battlestars began to fire every nuclear weapon they had at the coming Tau'ri. The shells themselves did not carry a large amount charge but with each of the remaining ships firing shells as fast as Tau'ri rail guns the impact the shells caused the Tau'ri to take notice.

"Outer shield down to 57%" reported an operator on the Britannia, the Britannia like all the other battleships and carrier had a duel shield system, the other shield was designed like a bubble like the Asgard had on their ships but under that they had a skin tight to the ship.

"Sir! The Melbourne's shields are failing!" yelled an other officer as the Australian Destroyer which was to the front right of the Britannia and had been getting almost as much fire as the battleship shield failed under the constant fire from everything the Colonials had.

"Beam the crew onboard!" yelled the Admiral as the Melbourne exploded and the Colonials claimed their first destruction of a Tau'ri ship in the war as the 48th Colonial ship went up in a fireball. The destroyer the smallest of the Tau'ri warships aside from the stealth ship Akula was gone as first the colonial nuclear missiles hit and then the reactor exploded with the force equal to multiple mark IX nuclear warheads. "How many did we get?"

"Just over half of crew." reported an officer as he lowered his head at the loss of almost 75 men.

"Alright time to take off the kid gloves, get me a targeting solution on the biggest military base on that world and launch the drones." ordered Admiral Barker.

Admiral Ghazal like so many other colonial officers and men cheered when the Tau'ri warship exploded as it disappeared from Dradis. Suddenly the cheers grew loader.

"Look the battleship is going!" yelled a voice as Admiral Ghazal turned to look at the TV screen that showed real time images from one of his flagship's gun cameras. The Battleship had multiple points of light coming from the ship but it wasn't the yellow light that had appeared when the smaller ship had gone up. Now this was a bluish color, the light turned out to be multiple small sources of light which began to flood out of the ship. For a moment they swarmed around the ship.

"It isn't going up it's a weapon." Snapped Admiral Ghazal as the blue sources of light shot out of the ship and began to take down vipers on their attack runs. They even followed the vipers as if they where missiles before slamming into them killing the pilot and destroying the fighter. The bulk of the strange weapon flew off into a task group of six battlestars and slammed into the first one. The blue lights tore into the battlestar and ripped it apart before splitting off into five separate groups and like a the fingers of on a hand it reached out and destroyed the remaining five battlestars.

"What the frak is that?" yelled an officer

"I have no idea, keep firing nuclear missiles," ordered Admiral Ghazal as the remaining members of the 2nd fleet held the Tau'ri at bay as best they could. They had gotten reinforcements from the task groups from other worlds in the system as they reformed their line against the Tau'ri. They were aided by the missile fire coming up from the surface of Concercon.

"Admiral, our ships shields are falling to dangerous levels they can't take much more of this fire." Said an officer on the Britannia

"Alright we have done our job, are we in range to target Concercon?" inquired Admiral Barker

"Yes sir, we have this base here within range looks to be similar in size to some of our sub bases on Earth." said an officer. "No special forces operating on base and it is within view of their capital city on the world. It also has what appears to be a command and control bunker under the main buildings."

"Very well, target that base and once we finish it we will fall back." ordered Admiral Barker as he sat down in his chair. He watched a greenish glow gather at the front of his ship before firing off.

"Tau'ri have fired again sir!" yelled a Colonial officer to Admiral Ghazal

"What ship?" inquired the Admiral

"Sir it is aimed at the surface." reported the officer.

"My Gods." Said Admiral Barker

The beam of energy shot straight through the atmosphere super air it as it went. Lightning bolts and instant rain began to fall as the beam of energy hit the center main control buildings of the Colonial base. The military buildings where instantly vaporized and the people in them felt nothing as their lives where ended. The beam cut through the ground to the command bunkers and destroyed them and the higher-ranking officers hiding in them. The civilians who had not reached the civilian bunkers watched from behind gas masks as the beam of energy spread out until it covered a part of the sky. Then as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone and left everyone who had seen it confused and frightened.

"Target destroyed." reported the weapon's officer on the Britannia as the sensors showed that they had scored a direct hit on the base.

"Alright, let's pull back." ordered Admiral Barker "As we pass the Melbourne beam onboard anything we can and leave a mark IX on a timer to destroy anything that is left."

They all knew that nothing of importance would have survived the explosion of the Melbourne's reactor but it was better to be safe than sorry a Mark IX exploding would remove any chance of that happening.

The retreating Tau'ri was a welcomed sight to the Colonials they had protected Canceron, destroyed a Tau'ri warship and forced the Tau'ri to retreat. The cost was great and would not be known until the number of Battlestars, other ships, Vipers and Raptors where totaled up along with the amount of people who had died. Then everything changed as the wireless came alive with screams.

At the same moment that the Colonial capital ships were, trading shots with their Tau'ri counter parts. A much smaller battle was taking place as a single Tau'ri warship powered toward Aquaria. The Colonial battlestars and the ground defenders opened up with guns and long missiles missiles. Unlike their brothers and sisters the ships who where protecting this ice world went straight to the nuclear option. To their amazement it forced the Tau'ri ship back but that is what the Tau'ri wanted. Thinking they had an edge they pushed forward in attempt to destroy the Tau'ri ship. They did not pay attention to the flight of fire spacecraft descending to the side of a normal approach to the city of Heim.

"I have contact at my four o'clock." Reported a Viper in Starbuck's flight, she turned her head to see that to her right and below her was a group of five Tau'ri spacecraft. She recognized four of them as belonging to the Tau'ri fighters but one was a type of ship she had not seen before. They were escorting the new craft; there was only one thing she knew that needed escort a bomber. Her fears where confirmed as the craft made a slight turn and she spotted a long pod under one of its wings.

"Tau'ri bomber, we have a Tau'ri bomber heading toward the surface!" yelled Starbuck as she turned her Viper around 180 degrees and dove toward the flight of aircraft. The other members of her flight followed her down but the Tau'ri where ahead of them and they were just as fast going into the atmosphere as the Viper.

"Once we get them in atmosphere we will have the advantage." said Starbucks over the wireless to her squadron of test pilots from the Viper factory at Heim. "They can't do the turns we can without ripping those wings off f and in atmosphere we being smaller can make tighter turns. Use our guns and get in close."

Ahead of them, the Lt. Rose Ryan noticed the Colonial Vipers chasing them as the dove into the atmosphere. They were nearing the break off point as she brought the Taita fighter-bomber into a level flight. The Taita was now similar to any advanced aircraft and had to follow the same rules. She leveled out the flight as the Vipers did the same above them. Lt. Ryan flipped a few switches as the scram just intact located behind the cockpit opened up and took a deep breath of cold air.

"Alright we are going to dive down on them from above," ordered Starbucks as she strained her eyes to see the Tau'ri spacecraft in the pitch-black sky. The Tau'ri had panted their ships black so they were only dark shapes in the sky. "Focus on the bomber and…."

Before Starbuck could answer the bomber, shot forward at such speed that not even a missile could have beaten it in a head-to-head race.

"What the frak!" yelled another one of the pilots.

"How could anyone take that speed?" inquired another.

"Where is it going?" asked another "Heim is the other way."

"Take down those fighters," ordered Starbuck as she dove on the Eagles which broke into pairs as a dogfight broke out in the midnight sky. The spun around and charged straight toward the flight of 8 Vipers, flashes coming from the wings of the Tau'ri fighters told her what was coming her way. She pulled the trigger as all five of her cannons fired, within moments a blinding flash of light happened in front of her. She had shot down the incoming air-to-air missile. Three other vipers where not so lucky as they exploded in giant fireballs, the other vipers where not upgraded like hers.

The colonial dove down on the Tau'ri their cannon shooting however, the Tau'ri fighters were painted black and they blended in with night sky. The darkness did not affect the Tau'ri as they opened up with their own guns and brought down two more Vipers.

"I got one!" yelled a voice over the wireless as Kara turned her head to see that yes, a Tau'ri fighter was smoking but it lite an orbital booster and shot out toward space and away from the battle. Now it was three vipers against three Tau'ri. Next thing she knew two more explosions filled the sky.

"Flight check in." ordered Kara but she got no response she was alone against three Tau'ri fighters. She turned her viper as she saw a yellow plum of light and shot down another missile. She fired her cannons at the Tau'ri fighter, which pulled a turn she did not think was possible in that large of bird. She missed only to have to jerk away as another black fighter dove on her from above. It over shot her, she spun and fired and was reward with seeing cannon shells strike her enemy but the bird kept flying and turned for another pass.

The Taita fighter-bomber roared over the ice and snow covered landscape, the white snow covered trees began a blur as everything else did at the speed she was going. The Taita's scram jet engine swallowed the cold air and threw it out of the back at such speeds that made the Colonial DRADIS operators believe that a missile was coming in instead of an aircraft. She was going at such speed that the sonic boom could be heard for miles around, she surpassed the record speed of the SR-71 blackbird by breaking Mach 3 before breaking Mach 4 and Mach 5. She felt her bird shake as it reached hypersonic speed, at this speed she could not do turn the bird in anyway without having the aircraft fall apart around her. At that speed, she was moving so fast that she passed from night to day within a couple of minutes.

Her heads up display showed her the distance toward her target, the intelligence photos did not show much a couple of low concreate buildings spread out over two hundred square miles. The largest buildings appeared to be a couple of giant communication dishes. According to the reports all those buildings where a linked together underground and had bunkers full of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. There were places in the base for both production and research into WMDs and because of this the base was spread out to make it next to impossible that a single accident could take out the entire base.

The Taita passed over the shoreline marking the slow down point as Lt. Rose Ryan slowed down the Taita as she neared the bomb release point. Alarms where beginning to go off in her ears but her heads up display told her she was not in too much trouble. She had flown past the colonial main defense line, the secondly defense line was now just getting a lock on her and had not even fired yet.

"60 seconds." reported Rose as she flicked a switch and the weapon bay under her opened up to show the Mark XVIII nuclear bomb. From the outside, it did not look like much, just a normal size aircraft bomb maybe slightly longer than normal with more warning labels across the side. She passed over the far coast and over the base itself, the ship on the surface was hardly of note and she paid it no mind.

Onboard the mining ships the crew looked up to see the roaring black aircraft past over their heads as it passed into the base.

"30 seconds. May God have mercy on them," reported Rose as she took a breath, if she was going to get a cancelation order this was the last point. It did not come as she reached the drop point she pushed a button on the stick, she felt the Taita lighten as the Mark XVIII fell away. She spun the aircraft 90 degrees and counted down from 10, this was to make sure the bomb was safely away from the sonic boom that was to follow.

As the bomb fell away, a large parachute deployed as death descended down toward the ice covered plant. The second she reached zero, she punched the Taita as the scramjet took a deep gup of ice-cold air. She held nothing back as she shot forward breaking not only the sound barrier within seconds but hypersonic barrier as well. She had less than 40 seconds to get as far away as she could before the bomb went off.

She ran down the seconds in her mind as her bird reached hypersonic speed at Mach 7, she ran like a frighten rabbit because she was afraid. When she hit zero she held her breath, nothing happened. She flew on for another few seconds worrying that she would have to turn around and drop the Mark IXs to destroy the Mark XVIII when suddenly a blinding flash of light came behind her and the noonday sun on Aquaria was lessened by the light of the bomb.

The heads up display on the aircraft was white out along with everything else, the atomic light adjusting visor she wore turned totally black in a vain attempt to compensate even then she was flying blind and her only hope was to fly straight and true.

Alarms began going off on the Ark Royal as the sensors detected the Mark XVII going off on the other side of the planet.

"We have detention," reported an officer as Captain Taylor stood up on his bridge and looked out at the planet. The Ark Royal was on the opposite side of the planet facing the sun, however the flash from the bomb was brighter than the sun and from its position Aquaria casted a shadow over the Ark Royal.

"I can see that," stated Captain Taylor as he looked at the flash, suddenly alarms began going off.

"Sir the detention is stronger than it should be," explained an officer as the sensors began to gather information about the massive nuclear explosion which was happening on the other side of the planet.

"How?" inquired Captain Taylor

"Unknown sir but the explosion is almost double the strength it should be." Reported the officer as the computer ran through the effects of the bomb on the planet. Captain Taylor's eyes widened as he saw what the effects would be.

"Get all our space craft off world now." ordered Captain Taylor

Above the city of Hein in the dark midnight sky Kara Thrace and the Eagles did battle, suddenly the sky turned a bright white. It was as if she was lying down in a sauna it was so bright it was hard to see her controls.

"A nuke?" said Kara as she turned toward the city of Hein as she did the light remained the same but even in that bright of light she could see no giant fireball rising over the city but the same bright light was coming from that direction too, it was coming from every direction.

A fireball was rising but not over the city but on the other side of the planet, the light from the blast was so strong and powerful that it was brighter than the sun on the other two worlds and for a moment there appeared to be two stars in the sky. In a normal nuclear strike the classic mushroom cloud was expected the mark XVIII was so powerful that it would never take the form of a mushroom instead, a solid dome of destruction began to spread out across the ice-covered world. Trees where first blown down, then burst into flames before finally vaporizing as the explosion radiated outwards. The ice and snow two things that were extremely common on the planet vaporized in an instant, any animal life it came upon were killed instantly by the explosion. The colonial base which was designed to take multiple nuclear strikes and survive was vaporized as the very stone melted and turned into liquid before reaching a gas like state.

Unknown to the Tau'ri they had dropped their bomb within a mile of the only deposit of Naqaudah in the 12 colonies and this had the same effect as a throwing a gar of gasoline on a fire. It increased the power behind the strike. Lt. Ryan was about to pull back on the scramjet to slow down when an alert came down from the Ark Royal.

"What do you mean don't slow down?" yelled Lt. Rose Ryan over the radio to the Ark Royal.

"The bomb blast is stronger than we thought a lot stronger you need to get into space now. The shock wave from the blast is coming toward you and if you run into it you will go down." Explained Captain Taylor

"I am in front of the shock wave!" snapped Rose before she remembered she was in front of the wave but the wave was going out across the entire planet so she would eventually hit it. She looked down at her sensors she was only just in front of the shockwave. "I can't change my course while I am at this speed and I can't slow down to make the turn because I will be cover come by the wave."

"You need to get into space," ordered Captain Taylor as an idea came into the American Navy officer head. She moved her hand to the weapons control pad and armed the two IX nuclear bombs located under her wings.

"I am dropping the Mark IX and firing my missiles if I lighten my bird I may be able to turn the bird," explained Lt. Ryan as she felt the Taita lighten as the two mark IX fell away, she fired the missiles as well. As she did she pulled up on the stick and to her amazement the aircraft's nose came up as she flew past her own slower missiles. The explosion of the two Mark IX were loss in the much larger explosion which was engulfing the entire surface of Aquaria.

"Die you Frakers!" yelled Starbuck as she fired her cannons at the Tau'ri fighters, they have brought down her fellow pilots but they had not brought her down even though they outnumbered her 3 to 1. She fired a long burst from her cannons; she was rewarded when the Tau'ri fighter began to smoke but it didn't go down. Then to her amazement, the fighter did a turn that should have caused the pilot to black out before shooting up into space. She turned toward where she knew the next fighter should be only to see that it too was heading up into space. Not wanting them to get away she moved up after them and as she climbed she began to receive multiple calls over the wireless.

"What the frak is that?" was the most common wording as Starbuck reached a low orbit that is when she saw it. A line of fire radiating across the planet at unnatural speed, it stretched from horizon to horizon as it gave off a sick reddish gold light, the light of a nuclear fire.

"How could that be real?" inquired Kara with a wave of fear as the saw that the light was slowly fading as the blast lost energy. She looked over her other shoulder to see a matching line of nuclear fire was coming from the other direction as well as from the North and South, all of them would collide somewhere near Heim. She tried to hit the wireless to get into contact with the people on the ground but by the time she did the first wave, the one from the west smashed into the city, followed seconds later by the other three. The waves of nuclear fire moved through each other losing their energy as they did and within a couple of moments the lights began to fade only to be replaced. Nearby Heim one of the national forests was burning as the trees became giant torches visible from space. Starbuck could even see the fires burning in Heim from orbit, she wondered how many people had died and hoped that since Heim was mostly underground that it took the hit better than most.

In her stunned wonderment she had forgotten about the Tau'ri fighters in front of her, only when her Dradis beeped did she noticed that the fighters where gone but another Tau'ri spacecraft few only a few hundred yards away from her.

"The bomber." Said Kara as she looked at the strange craft with the image of a woman dressed in black and red with a scythe painted on the side. Neither one of them moved to attack the other both pilots, a woman judging from the shape of the pilot where too stunned by the level of destruction before them. The two spacecraft flew around the planet toward the drop zone, Starbuck eyes widened as she saw what had become of the ice-covered world.

The massive seas had become seas of lava as it moved freely over the surface of the planet, judging by how fast her alarms where going off the lava itself was now highly radioactive. The ice had been blown away and not a single tree could be seen, the blue world had become a red one. That was not the most impressive massive pieces of Aquaria had been blown up into low orbit and it was not just some pieces of rock some of them where the size of mountains. She flew by what she though had to have been a part of the Ice Ridge mountain Range but she was not sure. As she got closer to the actual drop zone, she saw that the entire surface of the planet was gone and a massive crater that had to be at least a couple hundred miles across and gods now how deep was filling up with lava.

"The Tau'ri can do this?" inquired Kara as she looked at the destruction that spread out across the entire planet. She turned to look at the bomber. "They did this with only a single bomber, by the Lords of Kobol."

Lt. Ryan looked at her work, the planet was devastated beyond even what she thought possible the sensors on the Taita reported that the area of total destruction was over 900 miles radius compared to the planned 500 miles. At the point of detention, she had somehow made a hole that was almost 350 miles across and almost 50 miles deep. It actually breached the crust of the planet and reached deep into the mantle. No one could be living on one-half of the planet and the other half was devastated but there had to be people alive down there.

"My God," said Lt. Ryan over the radio not realizing she was broadcasting on an open channel, so everyone could hear her.

"You Damn Tau'ri Frakers! You will pay for this!" came the cry of someone over the radio as multiple flights of Vipers came toward the Taita fighter-bomber. Lt. Ryan did not want a fight and so sure turned and flew back toward the Ark Royal, she was the last bird back onboard and the moment she was onboard they turned and powered up their hyper drive. The Tau'ri ship disappeared leaving behind untold destruction on a level that none of the colonials believed even possible.

Well I hope you liked this chapter and the multiple battles which took place across the entire chapter, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Now I ask that you keep on reading. Thanks Wilkins75.