Man and machine 24
The alarm klaxon rang throughout the Battlestar Galactica. In the absence of Commander Adama, Col. Tigh was in command, and piecing together a plan that Adama would have approved of with the minimal amount of information that had been communicated to him from Earth.
Captain Xaviar, a young colonial warrior in Red Squadron grabbed his flight helmet and moved to the briefing section of the squad room.
Normally, there would be a briefing conducted by a senior officer in person, typically it was a short description of which direction the Cylons were approaching from. This time, Col. Tigh appeared on a monitor, while the status screen displayed a map of Earth with each of the known cities mapped out.
The rest of the pilots filed in and took their seats, but without the presence of a senior officer, the small talk and speculation continued.
"Settle down!" Xaviar said, his face was scarred from the fires of when Caprica fell, and his blond hair with bold eyebrows gave him a fierce appearance.
The rest of the warriors calmed down, and finally noticed the officer on the monitor.
"We are short on time, so this briefing is being held for all squadrons simultaneously," Col. Tigh said, his tones were soft, but all business. "Several, possibly all, cities on the Earth are under simultaneous attack by non-cylon machine forces, and we will assist with the defense. New Chicago is their primary settlement, and likely to be the main focus of the attack.
"Blue Squadron will pilot the shuttles and man the Landrams for ground defense. Silver Spar Squadron will provide shuttle escort. Red and Bronze Spar Squadrons will move in first to clear a path for the shuttles, and provide air support for the ground defenses, along with Silver Spar squadron, after the shuttles have landed. The operation will begin as soon as the Earth's defense shield has been lowered.
"We've spent a long time searching for this planet," Col. Tigh said, "We don't want to lose it now. God speed and may the Lords of Kobol be with you."
"You heard the man," Xaviar said, "saddle up!"
The members of Red Squadron stood and filed out, to the waiting tram that would rush them through the bowels of the ship, directly to their waiting fighters in their squadron's launch tubes.
Xavier nearly tripped over the feet of one of their newest additions to the squadron, he was thin with brown hair.
"Nash," Xaviar said, "Get a move on!"
0oOo0
Wilma Deering rushed into the central control room for the defense of Earth. Massive screens lined the walls displaying the various special approaches to Earth, and smaller screens were showing inner cities. The center of the room was dominated by equipment suspended from the celing.
"Lower the defensive shields," Wilma said, "and ready all fighters for launch."
"Are you crazy? We can't do that!" Lt. DeRosa said.
"This comes directly from Dr. Huer of the Directorate."
"I cant take the shield down without approval from the Computer Council as well and I've already received orders from Vangelous to keep the shields up at all costs," DeRosa said.
There was a rumble in the distance.
"Vangelous is the problem! The Council is with Huer on this. Lower the shields now," Wilma shouted.
"No."
Wilma pulled her pistol, prompting DeRosa to raise his hands and take a step back. "Damn it, Buck, you're a bad influence on me," Wilma whispered to herself and raised the pistol, firing a laser into the equipment hanging from the ceiling.
The lights turned red, sparks flew from random locations across the room.
"You—You've disabled the shield!" DeRosa exclaimed.
Another rumble sounded from outside, this one was louder, and easily identified as an explosion.
"I told you to lower it," Wilma said. "Get to work on repairing it, but don't raise them till I say so. What do the area scanners show?"
"All local sensors show clear," someone other than DeRosa said.
"Are the computers networked with the Council and the rest of the city?" Wilma asked.
"Of course," the woman answered.
"Then cut the network link, reboot and scan again!" Wilma said.
"But, sir—"
"Don't make me force the point with you too," Wilma said.
"Launching all fighters as they report ready."
0oOo0
"Core Command transferring control to Viper craft," Rigel's voice came over the headsets of Silver Spar Squadron. "You may launch when ready."
"You heard the lady," Bojay said in the cockpit of his Viper, "Lets get out there." He pushed his joystick forward, triggering the Galactica's catapult to send the Viper down the Launch Tube at high speed, throwing Bojay back against his seat. Once clear of the ship, he activated the fighter's turbos to quickly catch up to Blue Squadron's shuttles which were already angling to make their approach to Earth.
"Will the Galactica be okay with all her fighters away like this?" Bree, one of the veteran pilots asked, "I mean, this would be a lousy time for the Cylons to find us."
"Let the Commander worry about that," Bojay reassured his squad mates. "The Galactica's a tough ship, more than enough to hold off a few Cylons. Besides, we'll be close by if she needs us."
0oOo0
Buck felt silly, crawling along the sidewalk to one of his favorite vantage points in the city. He liked it because it afforded him a view of Old Chicago, even though Huer and Wilma didn't understand why he always wanted to look out at the ruins of the old world.
Normally he would just walk along to the end rail and use some binoculars he had gotten from the often mistaken archeological department to watch the old city, but today he was crawling on all fours to that same observation point.
He had already heard some explosions, so the precaution of crawling was justified, he kept telling himself.
He looked over the railing and brought up the binoculars.
Old Chicago was burning, and the ground in between Old and New Chicago was moving. Metallic squids, robotic skeletons, killing machines of every shape and description. So far the skies were clear, but it was simply a matter of time.
Simply a matter of time before the air support came in. Simply a matter of time before the machines completely overran both Chicago's completely. And who knew about the rest of the cities. Buck knew they had help coming, but he didn't know if it would be enough. These machines apparently had plenty of experience wiping out mankind. They had obliterate the weapons of the old world, his world, and left nothing behind but a false history. In order to do that, they knew how to combat EMPs, nuclear weapons, tanks, and all manner of weapons. When the situation became this bad, Buck always fell on a quick lighthearted quip, but nothing came to mind this time.
He saw Starfighters launching, and instead of flying out towards space as they usually did, they turned, and strafed the ground, making blacked scorch marks out of so many machines. It wasn't the best strafing run he had ever seen, but the important thing was that the pilots weren't relying on their battle computers. A good call, as in this situation, it wasn't clear whose side those computers would be on.
Above the sound of explosions, of battle, of the familiar sound of a Starfighter's engines, Buck could hear the distinctive sound of other engines.
Colonial Vipers. Three groups of three fighters each dove down and carved out a clearing with their own strafing runs. Their strikes were precise, aimed at the area just in front of the main entrance to New Chicago.
Another set of Vipers flew in, these were surrounding three shuttles. They fighters flew ahead of them, and their strafing runs added to the previous, carving out a clearing, although the clearing was already shrinking.
The shuttles closed in at a breakneck pace, and made a landing in the clearing that looked to Buck like it was as much a crash landing as an actual one. The very moment the shuttles hit the ground, tracked vehicles launched out the backs of them, lasers on their turrets already blasting out, forcing the advancing line back.
The side doors of the shuttles opened, allowing Colonial Warriors in their brown uniforms to step out, opening fire with their sidearms which were quite effective against the machines.
"This isn't where I need to be," Buck dropped his binoculars and ran to join the action outside.
oO0Oo
From inside his starfighter, Major Duke Danton watched as the Vipers made a dent in the machine's offensive line. They sure are good at fighting machines, he thought to himself. "Okay, Squadron, you all saw how those Colonials made those strafing runs. Now let's copy their approach so they don't outshine us."
He led his squad around again for another pass. This time they dove sharped, then leveled out slower at a more stable angle which afforded them a clearer and longer field of fire as their laser blasts tore through tanks, squids, and assorted terminators.
Danton's wingman vanished in a cloud of flack and fire. He realized their strafing run had made them easy targets for too long a time. He and the rest of his squadron quickly veered off.
The machines were now focusing as much fire on the ground defenders of New Chicago as they were the Starfighters and Vipers.
He spotted another pair of Vipers angling down, but this time they weren't making a strafing run, but taking pot shots at various machine targets that looked like they would pose a challenge to the ground forces.
A swarm of squids suddenly erupted from the ground in a reverse tornado heading for the approaching Vipers.
"Lets head that swarm off," Danton said, turning his Starfighter towards the squids. Their combined firepower served to thin out the swarm, but not enough. The lead Viper exploded as the passing squids shredded its fuselage
"Damn it," Dalton whispered under his breath.
"Major! There's another swarm coming for you!"
Dalton's first instinct was to bank to the side, but he knew that wouldn't work. "Get them off me!" he said, then he angled his Starfighter up. Maybe, he hoped, he could flight higher, faster than the squids could.
0oOo0
The rest of the cargo brought down by the Galactica Shuttles had been dragged into the city by Galactica Warriors and Earth Protectorate soldiers. Now empty, the shuttles lifted back off the ground behind the cover fire provided by the landrams.
Vipers flew back around to provide escort to see the shuttles safely away from the battlefield.
"These things keep getting closer!" Jolly shouted from the turret of the first Landram.
The pulsing sounds of their cannon turrets sounded nonstop as they constantly swept back and forth across the approaching mob of murderous machines.
"Gotta hand it to the Cylons on one thing," Boomer shouted back," they are a heck of a lot better looking than these things!"
"This was a lot easier on Carillon," Jolly said.
"You and I remember Carillon very differently," Boomer replied.
"You spent more time in the Casino than I did!" Jolly replied. "What are they shooting at us? Some sort of rapid fire numos?"
"This is an entirely different caliber of weapon from those old numo rifles," Boomer said. "They're starting to flank us. Time to get out of here."
While Boomer and Jolly continued firing from their turrets, the landrams themselves began retreating from the approaching machines back towards the city gates.
0OoO0
Buck found himself running along side Wilma, although he didn't recall exactly when they met back up. They joined the rest of the white clad Earth Protectorate soldiers as they unpacked weapon crates that had been offloaded from the Galactica shuttles.
Starbuck handed each of them a pistol. Apollo, who now wore two holsters, picked up one of many black boxes from the crate, each tiny box had a small light and a button on the top.
"Solinite charge," Apollo said, "Activate, throw, detonation in five milicentons."
"So, it's a grenade?" Buck said.
"Grenade?" Wilma asked.
"Not just a grenade, it's a general explosive with different triggers," Starbuck said, "for now, don't mess with the settings."
0oOo0
Admiral Asimov, along with Dr. Huer looked down from a balcony at the conflict unfolding at the outskirts of the city.
"A hidden enemy under our very feet," Asimov said, "but we have the people, and now we have the weapons we need to combat them. I'm confident in our chances, but it wont be an easy fight."
"Yes, but I fear the deciding battle wont be taking place here," Dr. Huer said.