Shadow Fleet Part 3: Broken Arrow
VITRUVIAN EXPANSE
TITAN POINT FLEET ANCHORAGE
BATTLESTAR JUNO
CIC
16:34
Immediately upon arrival at Titan Point, war was upon them as the Battlestar Juno shook from a missile strike to the bow. A second later and it would have been far worse, but as it was, the armour protected the Battlestar from the munition. Around the Battlestar Juno, arriving within seconds of each other came the Adamant Class Skye, Kira Classes Hammer and James Atwood, Minotaur Class Caesar, Tachi Classes Ander's Dream, Siren Call, Firestorm and Caprica Rocket. Ahead of them to the left of the fleet stood six modern Basestars and a drifting cloud of wreckage belonging to the seventh, while to their fore-right stood another intact Basestar. From these Basestars hundreds of missiles were being fired at the defending fleet of the Leonis Defence Fleet's Minerva II Class Battlestar Renown and the sole surviving Defender Class Destroyer Jackdaw. With them were the Colonial Fleet's Berserk Class Mystic as well as the reserve training fleet's Jupiter II Class Battlestar Basilisk, Valkyrie II Class Battlestar Audacity and the Aeneas Class Battlestar Warspite.
It was a scene of barely organised chaos as the Leonis Defence Fleet's Admiral Kearns, in violation of a half dozen rules was taking command of the defence of Titan Point due to loss of contact with Admiral Nguyen combined with his own first war experience and rank far outstripping anyone else here in the Colonial Fleet. One by one he was managing to pull the newly arrived ships into a defensive formation between the Cylons and Titan Point's docks while sending as many of the older model Vipers as he could to engage the Cylon Raiders either between the fleets or around Titan Point itself. But it was not without cost. Due to the Cylons having positioned themselves near the usual FTL arrival point already the Defender Class Destroyer Cassandra had been destroyed by a nuke, and the training fleet's newest ships, the Defender Class Destroyers Indra and Barham - both of whom had recently transferred from the main fleet - had been disabled and then destroyed by the Cylon Virus upon arrival. The Valkyrie II Class training Battlestar Audacity was also taking heavy fire from three Basestars as she was trying to get to Kearns line formation, one of her thrusters was already disabled and her guns were being taken out one by one. The Audacity's current position was closer to Whitehall's fleet than Kearns.
Across the battlefield thousands of Colonial pilots were dead or dying, many having flown the ill fated Mk-VII before they realised the extent of the Cylons backdoor into their systems. Amongst them were pilots whom had flown the older MK-VI and V, these pilots having had a chance to fight but due to being vastly outnumbered had quickly fallen. Within this drifting wreckage though were a couple of hundred drifting Mk-VIIs with still living pilots that had been hit by the Virus but had been missed by follow on missiles with those missiles having collided with debris early. Many of these Vipers were damaged from debris or stray shots. As seconds turned into minutes an incredibly small few of those pilots with the most experience maintaining their Vipers, were able to work around the deactivated and locked up computer systems of their planes and get a small amount of very basic control over their ships. This control in the handful of cases where it was possible only really amounted to the use of the reaction control thrusters, and in the case of just three pilots, power to one of their main thrusters. It was however enough for them to limp back to their friendly Battlestars. Only two pilots that had been hit by the virus were able to completely bypass their locked up computers, initiate a purge and gain full manual control over their Vipers, the method for doing this going out over the wireless to the remaining drifting MkVIIs. Both of these pilots being the last surviving pilots of Argos Air Group's Kronos Squadron which had been permanently stationed at Titan Point. These pilots having intimate knowledge of their planes since part of their training centered around fully rebuilding and modifying a Viper and its computers.
Sporadically fresh Mk-VII's were taking off from the three training Battlestars, each one having been ordered to hold their launches until they could clear each Viper's network. Even with all the help from pilots - most of whom were nuggets in their last three months of training - as well as deckhands whom were equally trained, the Battlestars were still only managing to launch at best four Mk-VII Vipers per minute. However the longer the battle went on, the amount of launches per minute increased, yet still these were pilots who were only fully rated in the sky not in space and it showed. But right now the Colonials needed every plane they could get.
As this small force of formidable warships fired everything they had at the Cylon Basestars, those same Basestars launched as many missiles as they could, many being taken down by the fields of flak but some getting through and managing to strike against the Colonial ships. Amidst all this chaos, dozens of ships were constantly jumping in. Raptors, fleet transports, commandeered civilian ships - each one carrying trainees, military personnel, high ranking officers, or high value civilians from the various colonies and each one being targeted by the Cylon raiders. The defending Vipers were doing the best they could to defend these ships as they made their way through the maelstrom of the battlefield and towards the docks with the small collection of reserves docked there, but still it wasn't enough as many were falling. So deadly was the battlefield with the amount of Raider fire, that many Raiders had already returned to their Basestars in order to resupply their munitions.
Within seconds of their arrival, Whitehall had already taken in the full scope of the situation and had formulated her plan of action. Admiral Whitehall ordered "Comms, open a channel to Admiral Kearns and have them switch to our encryption. Commander, launch all vipers and command as you see fit." Activating the fleet wireless in order to better communicate with her ships as the wireless operator was contacting the Renown, Whitehall ordered her taskforce "We're going straight down the middle to join up with the Renown. Full military thrust. Hammer, Atwood and Siren Call move to cover the Audacity..."
Next to her, Commander Miller quietly spoke "We won't last long going through the middle."
Hermione shook her head, "Ordinarily we wouldn't but the Cylons have almost fully committed their Raiders, and thanks to the defending fleet taking out the Basestar ahead of us we have an opening."
Over the wireless, the voice of Admiral Kearns was heard "Admiral Kearns here, am I glad to see you Admiral. I've started evacuations and have people reactivating..."
"I'm sorry Admiral, I need to be quick," Whitehall spoke as the ship rocked under her feet as the engines jolted the ship. "My orders come direct from Admiral Nagala. I am taking command of all ships and defences here, no more Colonial Fleet reinforcements are expected due to a massive Cylon attack against our homeworlds, but I do have other reinforcements on the way. Right now I need you to hold your line, we are moving to join you. Continue with evacuating the civilian ships to the coordinates I will be sending to you...weapons target Basestar Delta's central section. Admiral I'm moving our Vipers to relieve and reinforce those between the fleets, once they are in position I need you to pull back another two squadrons to cover the docks. It is imperative that they focus on defending the docked Battlestars and Warstar, all other ships are secondary. Their networks need to be broken before they power up." Seeing the military transports and raptors arriving from the 12 Colonies, Whitehall made a quick decision and ordered "All military transports and arriving fleet personnel are to land at the docked warships and get them into the fight. Precedence on the Warstar Sword and the Battlestars." As the orders were being sent out, Whitehall muttered, "Corman you better get my message or this will turn into a bigger bloodbath than Prometheus."
On the DRADIS, Whitehall watched as the destroyers Hammer and James Atwood along with the Tachi class Siren Call which had broken left, finally closed in on the heavily wounded Battlestar Audacity. Every step of the way the two destroyers and the light corvette were trading heavy shots with the two Basestars which were flanking the Battlestar at fore and aft. The Hammer took to the rear of the Battlestar while the James Atwood had pulled up in relation to the Battlestar and was attempting to move to cover the front. The Siren Call however moved to cover the forward starboard side of the Battlestar and provide cover from the Raiders that were currently engaged by the defending Vipers. The light corvette proved itself a considerable asset as its PDCs which were considered too weak for Basestars, tore into the flocking Raiders, and its improved DRADIS and communication arrays helped to improve enemy tracking and missile interception for the defending Vipers and Raptors.
Despite the considerable assistance these three units provided to the Audacity, they were still vastly outnumbered as well as being hit by two Basestars with a third moving into support them. What was worse was that the amount of damage the Audacity was receiving was only increasing and her Commander knew that their chance of survival was diminishing every second, and with their jump drives down he had no chance of even jumping away. From the Audacity's flightpods, what Raptors and transports they had left were loaded with as many cadets as they could fit before being launched with what little Viper cover could be provided. Seeing this and knowing that things must be even worse than they looked for the Audacity, especially as Raiders were redirecting to swarm these departing transports, Whitehall ordered the transports to divert to her own much closer ships rather than risk flying through contested territory. Even so countless lives were lost even as the Battlestar Commander was doing everything in his power to save his once mighty ship.
Whitehall meanwhile directed the Tachi class light corvettes Anders Dream, Caprica Rocket and Firestorm ahead of her group along with most of her Vipers in order to clear the engaged Raiders ahead of them. Ahead they flew past the drifting flaming wreckage of an already destroyed Basestar, munitions being cooked off within the broken fragments as Tylium and Oxygen were consumed by errant flames. The Adamant Skye and Minotaur Caesar were moved to the starboard side of the Battlestar Juno in order to better intercept the missiles being fired by the lone Basestar Delta off to their right. Together with the starboard guns of the Juno, these three private military warships unleashed everything they had into the Basestar which was without Raider cover. At the same time the portside guns of the Battlestar Juno were firing at Basestar Epsilon which was at the rear of the Battlestar Audacity.
Around them the shells and missiles flew fast and thick, joined too by the flak fields of the Juno, and under Hermione's feet the Juno was rocked as missies broke through and rounds were fired.
Turning her focus from directing the assault, Whitehall turned to her comms officer and asked "Any word from the HQ?"
Looking up, the aging comms officer replied "None direct from the HQ sir, I am however getting weakened contacts from around the docks through secondary wireless arrays and some of the docked ships. Those there have no contact with command and are providing reports of distant gunfire towards the HQ complex. There's some kind of uprising or terrorist attack taking place there...I'm sorry the reports are confusing. Nobody is sure what's happening, the internal coms are down."
"Cylons?"
Shaking his head, the comms officer replied "Every report is saying they're human with some in Colonial Fleet uniforms and others being civilian personnel. The reports don't make sense. Why would anyone riot now?"
Taking this in, Whitehall ordered "Order whatever command unit you can get through to, that they need to get every marine they can spare between the docks and the HQ and block off every passage, destroy them if need be. If there are collaborators we can't let anyone get through to the docks from the HQ. Get through to the dock personnel that we need the docked ships cleared of networks, powered up and in the fight even if it is with skeleton crews or firing from the docks themselves. We also need as much ordinance as they can get to us, we're pissing bullets here and won't last long. I don't care if they have to stick a deck chief in command, or have the jocks load their own ships, we need ammunition and missiles to fire if we are to save them ships. I need nukes. "
"Right away, sir" the officer replied.
With every second that Whitehall stood there, she was watching the changing battlefield. She was in her element in a way she had not been since the end of the first war. She didn't know how the war back in the colonies was going, all she knew was her own small zone. All she could do was trust that Corman, Nagala and Gaeta would do their jobs while she did hers. Yet, as she directed the unfolding battle she knew that Nagala had made the right call; if there were 300 Basestars back in the Colonies combined with the eight which had appeared here, just how many were there across the rest of Colonial space. The writing was on the wall, this was the fall they had planned for and hoped would never come about.
Shaking her head as she saw first, the light corvette Anders Dream come apart as a missile broke through her defences and then the Battlestar Audacity take two nukes to her rear tearing her apart in a titanic explosion. Whitehall knew then that they hadn't planned for a fall this bad, close but not this. This was too fast, their plans had been for at least a few hours warning while the Cylons focused on the twelve colonies, not for the attacks on the frontier to be happening at the same time.
With no Audacity to either defend or to defend them, the destroyers Hammer and James Atwood were ordered to cut their thrusters and turn 180 degrees on their axis meaning that they were now flying backwards. This manoeuvre meant that the vital thrusters were facing away from the Cylon Basestars, while their stronger bow armour was to the enemy along with their heaviest guns. In hundreds of booming shots, the arms of the rearmost Basestar were pitted and cracked, with the majority of firepower being directed towards the central section. As the hull was hit in quick succession, the thin armour started to bleed red as the underlying structure was revealed within the splintered metal. Soon the deep Oxygen lines were torn into. Combined with the concussive force of the shots and the oxygen igniting, safety valves failed and a myriad of internal explosions belched throughout the enormous deadly ship before those small explosions combined and split the ship into three. Waiting for nothing, the attacking Colonial ships changed their focus to the next Basestar.
By now, just a few minutes after their arrival, the Colonial ships had already cut deep into the Cylon flanks and had opened up a large section of space between the six Basestars which stood together and the one on its own to the group's right. The Tachi class light corvettes pressed ahead under cover from the group's older model Vipers and Raptors. Each shot they fired out helping to clear the way for the group to get through to Kearns group, all the while the majority of his own Vipers were being redirected to clear the way from the other side. Behind his group though, several squadrons of Raiders had jumped behind his lines and were unleashing their munitions upon the docked Colonial ships despite the sporadic pockets of flak from the anchorage which was only being added to as those warships still at dock which were being powered up with their flak batteries being run off batteries and mark one eyeball. Still, lacking crews fully manning the defences, and with most not having been powered up as the networks had to be broken first, these ships were being whittled away despite the efforts of several of Kearns squadrons.
Just as Basestar Delta finally came apart at the seams under the combined firepower of the Juno, Skye and Caesar, a new arrival lit up the battlefield quickly followed by another. As the DRADIS cleared, Whitehall made out the identifications of the Hyades Class training Battlestars Leda and Freyr within close proximity to her own group. Immediately she was in contact with them and ordering them to join up with her own group while pulling their specs up on her Tac Pad. Seeing what she needed, she ordered "Commanders, hold your MK-VII's and strip them of their networks but launch your Mk-VI's and have half cover your ships and the other half are to move to reinforce our own engaging the Raiders. I also want your Raptors and Transports loaded with crews for the Battlestars at dock, I don't care if they are cadets. But hold their launches until you have a clear shot on the docks otherwise they will be swarmed."
Hermione allowed herself a brief smile at the arrival of these two ships. Prior to the creation of the Mercury class, the Hyades class had been the main line warship, and these two being amongst the oldest had been moved to the training fleet even before the Adar defence cuts. This meant they lacked the networks or even full complements of Mk-VIIs as Adar refused to further finance ships which he didn't see as vital in a battle situation. The Mk-VIs they carried were also most useful for teaching pilots how to fly without networks as was a required course.
Pressing the advantage they had, the combined group continued to push forward using every point defence they had to assist their heavily taxed Vipers in clearing the rightmost group of Raiders. Cut off from their Basestar support by this deadly force, many of these Raiders were rapidly running out of munitions with the chances of both surviving a run to resupply and return growing thinner by the moment. It didn't matter that these Raiders outnumbered the Colonial forces, as soon as they left the line the Colonials took their place meaning a harder fight when they returned. In comparison, the Colonial Vipers of Kearns group were finally able to start rotating for resupply as more Mk-VIIs were being cleared of their networks and sent to the line.
The Cylons however weren't taking this lying down. Even as the Basestars were moving to regain control of this changing battlefield, they were redirecting their leftmost Raiders around the left flank to further hit the docks on that side as well as to flank the Vipers there. In their push several docks went up in immense explosions as the warships and civilian ships docked there detonated. Catapulted away from the rest of the anchorage, this wreckage tore into defending Vipers and attacking Raiders alike. Closer to home, the Tachi class light corvette Siren Call was swarmed by dozens of Raiders and picked apart just before the destroyer James Atwood took 8 missiles to her back in rapid succession. Under such an assault with her weakened civilian armour, the once proud ship's back broke. Seconds passed and then the Tyium tanks detonated splitting the ship into two.
In the middle of all this, just 152km from the exploding wreckage of the James Atwood, fifteen Raptor Ultras and 26 Raptors started to appear from their FTL jumps. Seeing the expanding wreckage and the swarming distant Raiders, the pilots reacted immediately with evasive maneuvers. In the back of one Raptor Ultra, Admiral Nash held on tight as the Raptor Ultra spun on its axis before the thrusters kicked in at full power. Observing the battlefield on the DRADIS, Nash noted the Battlestar Juno being closer to them than any other Battlestar. Reacting to this, he shouted as best he could over the sound of the Raptor Ultra's chaingun, "Pilot, land us on the Juno. ECO, use a tight beam and inform them that I am on board and have the rest of our convoy move to follow us. They won't survive that shit out there without cover from the Juno."
Already the Pilot and ECO were acting accordingly as the Raptor Ultra manoeuvred again onto an intercept course followed closely by the rest of their convoy of Raptors and Raptor Ultras. A dozen of these ships had full assault loadouts and were using them to full effect as several squadrons of Raiders were moving into firing range. Dozens of missiles and chain gun rounds flew from the Raptors, and as soon as the first of the Raiders started firing out their missiles, the first of the decoys were launched. Within seconds it was obvious that the Commander of the Battlestar Juno had received their message as a squadron of Vipers were diverted from providing missile interception on their own ships, and instead moved as fast as they could to cover the newly arrived convoy. This was however only one larger convoy from Virgon, there were just as many from the rest of the colonies military bases and academies appearing elsewhere on the battlefield. There were even more being lost on the main route between the colonies and Titan Point as bands of Raiders hunted in the long established commonly known FTL waypoints.
From the docks across the battlefield, dozens of small transports and Raptors loaded with ammunition and both conventional and nuclear missiles powered their way through the swarming clouds of Vipers and Raiders, and past the still arriving military transports and Raptors. Around these vital ships entire wings of freshly launched Vipers from the Battlestar Warspite swarmed, each Viper fighting to defend these ships with their precious cargo. Despite their vital assistance, dozens still fell.
As they flew past each other, the newly arrived military transports tore their way towards the docks. These ships moving to land directly in the flightpods of the five surviving docked Battlestars and the docked Warstar despite the odd groups of Raiders which had jumped past the battle line hunting them before they could reach the ever increasing flak cover provided by the docks and the docked warships. Even with these Raptors and transports landing and helping to crew the warships, it would take precious time for these ships to come to full power without networks, time which was being paid for in lives lost.
With the rightmost Raider line finally starting to break under the Colonial assault, and the first of the resupply Raptors and transports touching down on her ships, Whitehall pressed her attack and moved her ships into this gap in the line and then past it. At six minutes since her arrival on the battlefield, Whitehall had manoeuvred the Battlestar Juno alongside Kearns Battlestar Resolute and had moved the severely damaged Jupiter II Class training Battlestar Basilisk and the equally wounded Aeneas Class Training Battlestar Warspite alongside them to create a battleline between the Cylons and the anchorage. With a relative safety reached, and with the amount of damage accrued, both of these ships were launching transports filled with cadets to help aid in crewing the docked warships. At the rate these ships were launching it wouldn't be long before these two Battlestars were running with a minimal combat crew.
In front of this line Whitehall had created another line composed of the Adamant Skye, Kira Hammer, Minotaur Caesar and Berserk Mystic. Between this line and the Cylon forces were the fighting Vipers and two Tachi, as well as the Hyades class training Battlestars Leda and Freyr which were moving to join the Battlestar line. Behind the Colonial forces, Whitehall had pulled back the heavily damaged Jackdaw both to protect her rear and to cover the rightmost docks where the majority of the surviving docked Battlestars were.
As the battle shifted to a long range one with the Cylons holding off on fully engaging their fleet as they waited for reinforcements, Commander Miller came over to Whitehall and announced "A Raptor from Virgon just landed. Admiral Nash is on board and coming to the CIC."
A hint of a smile appeared on Hermione's weathered face as she replied "Thank frak. What's the word from the Colonies?" All the while the majority of her attention was still on the battle.
As if on cue, the aging Admiral Nash strode into the CIC while being assisted by a marine. "Corman's dead, so is Picon by now. We got word just before we left Virgon. Nagala's taken command. We have lost all of Alpha, lost control of the defence satellites and the Cylons are nuking our homeworlds. They've also managed to take out pretty much every defence mainframe in the Colonies through inside sabotage. Along with that we've lost most of our satellites to Cylon hacking. With Alpha gone we've lost a third of the fleet, and what fleet we do have left is both outnumbered and fracked by their networks. Nagala had to jump away twice from a bunch of Raiders that appeared above Virgon in order to keep his ships in the fight. As it is he managed to keep most of his ships alive but lost the satellites in the process."
"Gods. The shadow plan is all we have left then. Any word from Ione?"
Shaking his head as he studied the DRADIS, Nash replied "None. She may be lucky, her ship wasn't fully networked but she was on the line. We have reports that many of those ships were ambushed by the toasters. Somehow the Cylons seem to know most of our deployments. The reserves?"
"Being powered up and cleared of their networks as we speak, but we have Raiders hitting the docks. I've got Vipers slowing them down but as it is, less than half of our available Vipers are in play, the rest are being stripped of networks. Plus the majority of the pilots we do have are green, most being late cadets. Group two should be arriving momentarily and I have a resupply in progress." Looking back up at the DRADIS and seeing the lull in battle, Hermione's eyes drifted to Titan Point and the docked warships there. "I need you to take command, I'm transferring my flag while I can."
Nodding and taking the missile launch key from Hermione, Nash replied "Good luck."
Minutes later as Hermione's Raptor departed the Juno under cover from four Vipers, and headed for the docked Warstar Sword, reinforcements arrived. Five reinforcing Cylon Basestars. Almost seconds later they were joined by Shadow Group Two just moments after runners from the Juno had jumped to their rendezvous point. Shadow Group Two came in the form of the Valkyrie Class Battlestar Loki, Cygnus Class Cadmus, Berserk Class Vorenus, Manticore Classes Sun Rider and Hypatia Defender, Impala Class Corvette Divine Consort and the Tachi Classes Rocinante, Ferryman and Pirates Ruin. Thanks to them having held off their arrival until directed to by Whitehall, these ships had been given precise jump coordinates for positions in the line so that the fleet was able to provide an unbroken defence of the docks. The Tachi class had been further positioned to disrupt the Raider attacks on the docks themselves.
Hermione's actions had been the perfect counter to the Cylons, even with their reinforcements. Her ships weren't meant to go toe to toe with the Cylons, just hold them off long enough for the heavy hitters to launch from Titan Point. The majority of those vessels at dock due to having been in the reserves for years had missed out on the various advanced network upgrades, including the CNP due to the cost involved. What networks they did have, the Colonials didn't realise weren't as susceptible to Cylon hacking. Right now with the loss of the majority of the reserves over Picon, Scorpia and Caprica, these docked ships were among the only reserves left across all of the Colonial domain, and as such, some of the only Colonial Fleet ships left without the CNP.
The Cylons seemed to hesitate, and if the Colonials had the ability to see into their opposing CICs, then they would have seen the various Cylon models in shock at the number of coordinated non-networked warships arrayed against them, even if they weren't Colonial Fleet ships. They knew they had a hard fight ahead of them despite all their advantages which was why minutes later more Raiders were dispatched to every single ship they had across the Expanse in order to bring them here. This fear of a hard fight was especially proven as the newly arrived Colonial ships didn't hesitate for a single second but instead launched their Vipers and struck at the enemy with all their available firepower.
The Battle of Titan Point had entered a new phase, the last phase having just been won by the Colonials.
VIRGON ORBIT
BSG 57
BATTLESTAR ATLANTIA
CIC
16:48
Just as he was returning to the CIC from the war room now that it was clear it would be less useful for hours until the networks had been restored, Nagala looked up as the wireless operator announced "Admiral, flash override tight beam message from a Raptor, your eyes only."
Moving towards her, Nagala looked down at the console and entered his id code and passcode to decipher the coded message. Reading its contents he visibly paled;
FLASH OVERRIDE EXTREME PRIORITY
FOR THE ATTENTION OF FLEET ADMIRAL CORMAN, ADMIRAL NAGALA, ADMIRAL GAETA.
TITAN POINT FLEET ANCHORAGE UNDER HEAVY CYLON ATTACK.
PRIMARY COLONIAL FLEET UNITS HAVE FALLEN.
IMMEDIATELY DIVERT ALL EVACUATING PERSONNEL TO SHADOW POINTS 16, 17 AND 18 FOR PICKUP THEN ROTATE TO THE NEXT THREE EVERY TEN MINUTES.
SIGNED: ADMIRAL WHITEHALL
Looking up at the comms officer while flipping through a recently printed off sheet of FTL coordinates, Nagala ordered, "I want Raptors immediately sent to all evacuating bases and sites throughout the Colonies, they are to pass along the following coordinates as rendezvous points. Titan Point is now closed." He was only thankful that they had created a list of 100 rendezvous coordinates in and around colonial space.
VITRUVIAN EXPANSE
SURTUR SYSTEM
BSG 33 Patrol 1
Mercury Class Battlestar Enterprise
16:49
With every second that passed the hostile Centurions pressed their attack onwards. Unable to meet the onslaught and yet unwilling to give even an inch of ground, the hard pressed crew of the Battlestar Enterprise unleashed all their aggression and fear upon these invaders. Already the Colonials had lost the entirety of the Port Flightpod including both hangar decks, and from there the Cylons had pushed further capturing most of the portside of the main body and were making strong advances into the alligator head.
Within the Starboard hangar the Colonials were fighting tooth and nail to hold on for as long as they could. Even so they had lost first section three and then section two of the upper hangar deck, and had lost the entirety of the lower hangar deck. With the lower deck captured it was only a matter of time before the upper hangar deck fell since now there were several more options for Cylon ingress (along the flight deck, along the upper hangar deck and now access ports between the upper and lower hangar decks).
With both flightpods almost fallen to the Cylons, the Colonials defence was quickly breaking down as they were hard pressed from both sides of the ship. The Cylons were making two major advances, the first to aft damage control and the engineering section, and the second deep into the alligator head towards the CIC. In this incursion, auxiliary fire control was a very low priority since the Enterprise was alone.
A storm of rapidly fired shells burst over the heads of the marines, pilots and deck crew holding on in the upper starboard hangar, and with those shots were the occasional canister which burst apart in midair with billowing black smoke and deadly shrapnel as the only evidence of their existence. Huddling behind a hastily erected barricade of overturned crates, broken Vipers and Raptors, the battered and bruised Colonials returned their equally impressive and yet discordant firepower. Ducking down as a shot almost took her head off, Gunnery Sergeant Roberta Draper spared a look behind her and saw corpsmen tending as best they could to the many wounded whom had fallen back to this last holdout. Behind them, more marines and crewmen were trying to hold the Cylons at other barricades surrounding the access ports between the hangar decks as well as the access ports to the flight deck above them.
As she watched, sweat dripping down her brow and her arms long dead from the recoil of her overheating CX4 assault rifle, she watched as a distant and well protected group of knuckledraggers pushed a Raptor into its launch tube. This would be the third Raptor launched since the incursion began, each one having been stripped of their networks. The crew had little idea that Raptors were far harder to hack. What's more this would be the last one which they would be defending, all other remaining Raptors either fallen to the virus, in enemy controlled territory, or too damaged to fly. Even so, with main power down and the Raptor airlock's systems damaged due to either the EMP from the Enterprise's nukes or from the initial attack, they would need to hold on a little longer while the airlock was manually operated.
Just before turning back to the fight at hand, Bobbie saw the corpsmen dragging the wounded towards an airlock which led into the main body of the ship, and with them were more deckcrew taking the last of the salvaged chain guns normally used as part of a Raptor's assault package. This lone access point was the defenders only means of evacuation.
Turning back to the enemy, Bobbie raised her assault rifle and added her own firepower to the roar of the remaining chain gun bolted to the deck near her. A wall of deadly firepower met the advancing chrome Cylons, taking down two in its onslaught and forcing the rest into cover. "MARINES, WE HOLD THE LINE! WE DO NOT FALL BACK UNTIL THAT BIRD IS LAUNCHED, THE SHIP IS COUNTING ON US!" Bobbie called out to her fellow marines. Looking down the sight of the CX4, she aimed for a Centurion taking cover next to a wrecked Raptor and unleashed a torrent of firepower into its head when it turned. Almost every shot connected but apart from pushing the Centurion back and close to cracking the head, the shots didn't down it. In return, a more distant group of Centurions launched a salvaged comm drone the length of the hangar deck. No bigger than a child, the drone tore ahead on a plume of vicious thrust constantly closing in on the defending marines. "COVER!" Bobby shouted out while diving for the deck, but it was too late for some.
Connecting with a collection of crates and Viper hull plating, the drone crumpled against the barricade before its tylium reserves burst into an ever expanding ball of shrapnel filled flame. Under its brutal concussive and explosive force, the barricade burst apart taking with it more than a dozen whom had been holding on behind it. With it the chaingun was torn from the deck and its operator degloved to die a bleeding, burning death. Then a cloud of billowing black smoke and dust filled the air obscuring the ruined defence.
Crawling forward, her vision blurred and her head ringing, Bobbie crawled towards her CX4 and just made out the once distant Cylons quickly advancing towards them. As she depressed the trigger and fired at the advancing enemy, those few survivors around her followed suit with their own firepower. A handful of Cylons fell to the chaotic defence, but their aim was better as they returned fire taking out many of those no longer in cover. Pulling herself behind the body of a fallen comrade, feeling his body taking the shots meant for her and seeing bursts of blood from those same impacts, Bobby kept on defending as best she could. Then somehow, through the pounding heartbeat in her ears, and over the resounding bangs of her gun, she made out a call "RAPTOR IS AWAY!"
The expected joy was not to be found as Bobbie called out to her fellow defenders, "RETREAT! FALL BACK TO THE MAIN BODY!" All the while she was rolling towards a better position to hold the Cylons just a bit longer. One by one the defenders fought a fighting retreat, utilising whatever cover they could, until when she reached the access hatch to the main body of the ship, Bobbie saw how few had made it; 21 of a rough 80 at the final defensive line. Throughout the entire flightpod from the very start of the battle until now, almost 400 marines, pilots, deckcrew and other crew had been lost. It was worse elsewhere.
Within the launch tube, the Raptor steadily increased its speed with its thrusters alone, that very action serving to damage the tube itself, and yet with the launch system inoperable, this was the only way it could launch. Steadily the speed increased until finally it left the falling Battlestar Enterprise and into the quiet battleground outside. All that remained were wrecks which were becoming ever more distant as the Enterprise continued on through momentum alone. The Raptor crew made out vast blackened patches on the hull, evidence of the nukes she had detonated so close to her skin, as well as the numerous missiles she had taken. With these scorch marks were several holed sections opened to space.
Double-checking the coordinates in the FTL, the pilot and co-pilot activated the jump drive, their destination not Titan Point or Picon as the first two Raptors had been and had since not been heard from, this one was headed to The Forge. Their mission was to announce a "Broken Arrow," a call that a ship or military unit was about to be overrun and to immediately send all available assets to support the unit. Little did the crew know that at the same time across the breadth of the Colonial domain, hundreds of Broken Arrows were being called.
TO BE CONTINUED…
A bit of a smaller chapter compared to the 20,000+ word ones but I broke a 22,000 word one in two so that I could more focus on three battles in the next chapter. I also hope you liked Gunnery Sergeant Roberta Draper's introduction.
The next chapter will be up in an hour or so once I have sorted out the spacing.
Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it's only a taste of things to come.