I would like to thank Sable Cold for taking on the impressive job of being the Beta Reader for this book. As always reviews are welcome. If you find this is easier to read and follow. Thank Sable Cold and all of his hard work

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

Chapter 3 From Cold to Hot, Just Like That

Rex was high in the mountain range and he took some time to look around at the view that was spread out before him. It was pretty but yet somehow it was wrong to his eyes. Every time he looked around in the wilds of this planet, something always felt wrong in the back of his mind. And the less said about how he felt in one of the cities on this planet, the better. He gave himself a little shake to clear his mind of his last trip to the city called LA. He forced himself to think about what was going on around him. It was wet and cold up this high above the sea, even if it was listed as being near the local summer. It was not as cold as some places he had been to in his life but it was close.

Rex had a reputation for being a top scout back in the day. Now he was over a decade older, slower but not louder when he walked, even if he thought he was a bit rusty in his old skills in the darkest parts of his own mind. He had been back to this planet a few dozen times after the Colonials had found it. He had even gone back to the area of his birth once. It had been strange and a little unnerving as he walked around the area he would be born in. Some things were right, but most other things were wrong or just wrong enough to set off his internal alarms. It did not take him long to figure out that the area was no longer his home. He felt more at home on New Kobol than he did in the State of Missouri.

He had then gone back to the Colonial capital and signed back up into the military, who were very glad to have his famous butt back in a uniform. He now was a commander of deep scouts, or long range recon detachment. Every person in his unit had the best equipment that the Colonial military was fielding, or whatever the scouts liked to work with best. It was not cheap, and he had been given a few pointed reminders about budgets every few months. He knew what to do with those little notes from the bureaucrats. The latrine always can use more paper to wipe butts with.

That was why he now was walking up a huge mountain trying to be sneaky. He had been up here for a week already, and he would be up here for another four more days. He should have been back at the base, planning and just being the boss. Okay, and maybe showing off the latest modification to the second generation of Hoplite suits. Things between the locals and their larger neighbor were still tense, and he felt that he needed to use the time knocking off the rust just a little faster. He could feel that something was about to go down, so he wanted to be ready for whatever was going to happen. He also wanted the local ROC army commander and unit to know that all of his people were that good at their jobs. That might make the difference between life and death, and not just for his people either.

While Rex was walking up a tree covered mountain being cold and wet, he was thinking about a report that he had just read at his last stop. It said that a lot of ships had been seen leaving from a half dozen ports on the Chinese mainland. These same ships had done this before many times over the last few months but this time they were not empty or carrying almost worthless cargo to other ports in China. This time, they were filled with troops, tanks, trucks, and different types of artillery. They had made for the shipping lanes that ran between the two countries.

Again, they had done this once before, and neither this island nor any island nearby had been attacked. The groups of ships had not been attacked or even watched that closely then by the offworlders. The Colonials could not be everywhere on this planet all of the time. What was tracking these ships were hidden under the water, versus flying over them at orbital heights.

Deep under the water Chinese crewed diesel electric and air independent propulsion or AIP submarines were strung out in an almost complete circle of the breakaway island. They were operating as close together as they could with the limited number of vessels that would allow them to complete the metal noose around the island. It was easier to build submarines than it was to fill them with high quality crew and it was well known that they were the most challenging class of ship to build, right behind space shuttles.

Most non-navy people would say that this class of submarines were outdated and to a point, they were right to think that way. They were shorter ranged than their nuclear-powered brothers and could not dive as deep as those larger vessels were able to routinely do. These smaller submarines were not designed for that but they had their uses that the nuclear-powered boats could not do as well. They also liked to operate in water that was so shallow that the bigger nuclear boats would steer clear of it. They could get lost within the wave noise close to the surface or hide on the muddy sea floor equally as well.

The US Navy had even rented one of them from the Swedes, and it had sunk every high value target that went near shore in tests. They were great weapons systems with a very narrow use profile even if they were a bit short ranged and could only stay under the water for a few days at a time for the older boats. The newer ones could stay down for about two weeks. If they were one of the AIP boats coming into use with many navies of the more coastal countries, they could stay under longer still.

This attack was using up what was left of the PLAN subsurface fleet. They were using every boat they could both crew and put into the water in a surge operation. There was still a 60,000 ton Type 001B aircraft carrier in the Warlord's order of battle, but she was still not fully complete. Her crew had been turned to other duties the PLAN needed done. What most people outside of a few key staff members of the Warlord didn't know was that this ship would never be launched on a mission outside of the harbor. The key fact was that it was more of a showpiece. It also worked great as a shiny object to keep the different intelligence agencies focused on instead of looking for other things.

The fleet of submarines had sortied out of their hiding spots like ghosts a few days before the larger cargo ships had finished loading for their training mission. The oldest of the underwater boats were leaving from river ports. They were the hiding spots for a dozen Type 035G's, which were called Ming II's in the press. Another dozen Ming III's that the locals called Type 035B's were also sneaking out into the grey water. They were a much modified Type 035 design, and two of the class had been commissioned only a few months ago. These two undersea warriors had been put together from leftover sections and spare parts scraped together from the surviving building slips. They worked and they might even work for a whole year. Or they might just sink if someone sneezed at them very hard. All of these submarines would be working in boxed off areas called patrol boxes between the mainland and the island that the Warlord had started to covet like a three year old a colorful sucker.

The twelve Type 039 submarines, called Song-class, would be split up evenly. These more powerful boats were sent off to the north and south ends of the island. What the Central Committee and the Warlord had focused most of their efforts on with the submarine force was getting as many of the deadly and high-tech Type 039A off the construction slips and back into the sea as they could. Twenty of those deadly machines, code named Yuan-class, were on the east side of the island in two long lines of watch dogs. One was facing the island and the other facing away from it.

What could be the most dangerous submarine classes were not the Chinese built machines but the ones that they had bought from their large neighbor to the north, and they were all in the water. Before the Colonials came to this planet, the Central Committee had bought a dozen Kilo-class submarines. Two were the older Project 877-class, and ten were of the newer Project 636-class boats. Some of both of those classes had been lost to the Colonials' attacks on the Chinese navy bases. The Central Committee had paid for or worked out deals for more of them before they had died, or the news had leaked out about them being sent for or built. They had even tried to lease a few nuclear-powered boats like the one India had under their flag. Those deals had not been worked out to the required details before the Central Committee was wiped out. The Warlord had gladly taken those new weapons in hand, and he had sneaked them into small bays and under cover in areas that he controlled. By now, he had been able to acquire double the number of submarines that had been planned for before the civil war. They had not been cheap, but now eighteen of those foreign made dark sharks now were in the water looking for prey.

The Russians were still not happy with the Colonials for what they had done to them physically and what they were doing, or more to the point not doing, in trade. Russia had needed the money for the submarines they had been paid to build for the Chinese government. They had been open to all options for some time to get more income coming into their country. Also, those boats had not been built at cost, but the markup had not been as much as it could have been.

That was done as a reward to the Chinese people for standing up to a mutual problem, even if they had come off on the losing side of standing up to the offworlders. When Russian intelligence found out about what might be going on or was being planned by the Warlord's staff, they sent some more help down south. It was in the form of the last Kilo-class boat they had built. She was soon joined by the first of four Lada II or Kalina-class SSK's.

These boats were manned by the best crews the Russian Navy could put in their black hulls. They also started moving other items, like supplies of lethal and non-lethal items, to the Warlord planning the attack and also to two of the other Warlords that were friendly to him. The Russian government had to be careful that anything they sent south could not be easily tracked back to them. This was something that they and the Chinese had gotten a lot of practice doing in the last few decades all over the world.

Four of the five SSK's that were manned by Russian crews were listed as 'For Sale' in the appropriate journals. That was just in case something happened to them and enough evidence was recovered from the sea if they were lost. Even the crews' families would not be told of what they were doing and they would not know if something catastrophic happened to them. The one remaining boat was manned by Russian volunteers to help the Chinese. That one was a calculated risk if the attack worked and they made it home. They could always get away with one small rogue warship, more would have been pushing it.

When all of the ships had reported that they were within eighty to a hundred kilometers of their target beaches or harbors, the final die was cast. What they did not know was that the ROC military and government had not been as asleep at the wheel as they looked. After picking up the first six silent submarines in their waters, they had started taking quiet actions of their own. They had known that not all of the refugees they had taken in were loyal to the ROC. They also knew that they had many moles and spies on the island, and that some of them were deeply buried.

All of the island's warships that could be made ready or were even close to that status had already left their assigned ports without lights and under cover of darkness. This had been normal practice so it went unnoticed by the news reporters on the island. All of the aircraft were parked in underground caves, under heavy curved concrete bunkers, or moved to out of the way places surrounded by as many sandbags as they could fill. Small teams were sent out to dozens of places around the island on special roads. These spots had been set up as emergency air strips, and the military teams just looked like normal highway repair crews.

The ROC Army was already as ready as it could be without knowing where the threat was going to come from. Army units had been sent out of their home bases for some short notice field training exercises around the local area. It was just too bad that this could only be done with the active units. There was not enough time or security to get even a third of the reserve units ready. At least, not without word getting out to the rest of the world about the ROC's heightened alert. About the only thing that could be done was to get some of the key equipment under some better protection. It would not be much, but that would spread out the more valuable items so that they did not lose it all to one lucky hit. That was also why all of the Colonial teams were out in the mountains now.

The only group that was not ready was the fifth column. The Warlord's staff had decided not to notify them of the coming war. The Warlord and his staff feared that they somehow might leak the information about what was going on to the targets. It was a risk but it was more of a risk than the element of surprise being lost. The real surprise was going to be the scale of the attack that was coming. The saboteurs would have to take their own initiative after the bombs started dropping on the island. The Warlord and his staff figured that most would do their duty. The staff was not even sure about the loyalty of the fifth column that they had contact with. Many more had fallen off the books after the start of the civil war. They would turn out to be both right and wrong on that assumption. That was for the history books to work out later.

The tall Chinese Warlord looked around the room that was his command center. Each division head nodded that they were ready to act on his order. He did not have to say a word in reply to those head movements. He simply gave a short nod in agreement, and the deed was done. All across the military radio network a popular song blanketed the airwaves. The breakaway province's response would be delayed as they worked out why the Warlord had done this, consequently increasing the effectiveness of the attack. All across the area controlled by the Warlord, missiles that were liquid fueled and solid fueled were snapping out from under camouflage. They were being pointed to the sky as fast as the erector arms could operate.

The first missiles to leave the ground were the so called Guam Killers. The massive IRBMs were also called a DF-26C, and they leaped into the air on long pillars of flame and smoke. They were not carrying nuclear weapons at the top of those long tongues of flames. The Warlord had a few hundred nuclear warheads laying around different places but he did not want to use them just yet. He had vetoed their use for now at the tactical level. He did not want the world coming to the aid of the breakaway province and he thought using WMD's would do just that.

Soon over two hundred missiles of varying range capabilities were flying out of different areas under the Warlord's direct control. Most of these were not going to land on the breakaway island. These were ASBM or anti-ship ballistic missiles and HGW WU-14 or hyper-glide weapon fitted missiles. These were the first moves in a counter intervention plan, an area denial attack in the less flowerily language of combat. It was hoped that this would work to isolate the island from any possible outside help.

The ASBM had been devised as a way to keep the US Navy away from Taiwan while PLA forces took control of the island. They were thinking that this could be done by being able to sink their large aircraft carriers from a thousand miles away. The targets today were some of the same as had been planned for almost a decade ago when they started work on these weapons. Other targets however were a lot less well defended and were also attacked.

As it turned out, HGW's carrying high explosive payloads did work against the US Navy's ships. They proved too fast, too high, and too odd to be shot out of the sky the way ship crews had been trained to do against regular missiles. Within an hour of that massive wave of death launching, two American carriers were sinking into the Pacific Ocean. The USS Nimitz and her near sister the Theodore Roosevelt would never make it to their home ports again. They were not the only ships to be hit by the growing number of missiles and other weapons being launched from the mainland forces. Cargo ships, tankers, and smaller warships were all hit, one after the other in a growing circle of death and destruction. Some of those damaged ships would last for a few hours after the weapons strikes before slipping below the waves. Other ships would just be blown apart, and their crews for the most part with them. Most had never known they were under attack before they died under the high supersonic hammer blows of the weapons.

The long shooters were done after a few hours but more numerous shorter-range weapons would not be done delivering their payloads of death for a while yet. They started raining down death at near the same supersonic speed, if with smaller warheads. Heavy missiles were impacting at a rate of one every two minutes on the heavily populated island. Taiwan also was being hit with something different than missiles and heavy unguided rockets. The missiles and rockets were picked up first by overhead systems, then by ground-based radar stations around the island and off of it. The Colonials might not have helped put up military related hardware into orbit over the planet, but that did not mean that half a dozen other countries were not doing so.

In the first three hours of the attack, the people of Taiwan only could count ten of the very strange and unique events. Something was dropping explosive filled devices that were in the two hundred kilogram explosive range. They were pinpoint hits on major roads, intersections and bridges all around the island. Each strike was like an eight inch cannon round of force but with a huge range. They were not a barrage of hits, only a single crater was found at each of those locations and the craters were too small to be made by the still incoming missiles. Those were dropping two thousand kilogram warheads or larger on the island.

It was during the fourth hour of the attack that the tempo of the weapons falling on their heads went through the roof. The landing ships were now within sight of their targets, and the increase in the number of falling weapons were meant to keep everyone's heads down. The Warlord's troops were planning on taking key ports and beaches on the west coast of the island as fast as they possibly could. The axiom of possession being nine-tenths of the law was at the forefront of his brain.

As the landing ships closed the last few kilometers to the island, they were overflown by wave after wave of submarine launched YJ-18 missiles. These low flying small winged weapons were not your standard cruise missiles. They were launched out of what was pretty much the world standard 21 inch/533mm torpedo tube from underwater. Within a dozen or so meters of the launching submarine they would surface to fly at just below the speed of sound at sea skimming altitude.

When they got close to the target, the main flight engine body fell away to the ground and water six meters below the weapon. This let the small ramjet come to life, and the weapon went supersonic as it followed a preplanned course to target. The attack waves of weapons were hitting two types of targets: high value defense points near the landing zones, and air defense sites that might be within the range of these weapons.

The reason for the second set of targets was to help the incoming attacking aircraft which were only two to three minutes behind the last wave of sub launched weapons. The Colonials took out all of the highly trained aircrews and specialized aircraft of the PLAN in the short-lived conflict that erupted a few years ago. Over the last few years, it had not been rebuilt in any large numbers. The few surviving crews and planes had been turned over to be managed by the airpower groups of the People's Liberation Army Air Force. Still, these old navy crews and craft were the first wave of this attack.

That did not mean that the Chinese Air force was not in the game on this assault. They had hundreds of fighters and fighter-bombers that had not been lost in this renewed civil war. The Warlord had invested just under half of his surviving Air Force aircraft into this one attack. The attacking fighters supported by airborne radar jammers and command and control aircraft were coming in right behind the second wave of sub launched missiles and surviving naval aircraft. This was a picture-perfect joint service combined arms attack on a fixed target within easy range of their bases. It was rolling out just the way the book said it was supposed to be done.

It was an impressive show of firepower to anyone that could watch it from a safe distance. And it was all aimed at one little island and the people who lived on it. The Warlord should have been able to just blast the defenders into the sea in bite sized chunks no bigger than a child's finger. The Warlord had been thinking that this would be like the German invasion of Poland or Russia. Only the leadership of Taiwan and the military staff had read those same books and they had been planning for just such an attack... For decades.

When the missiles started flying, the small ROC Navy was able to quickly take out six of the submarine attackers in the first few opening hours. They had not needed any approvals from higher command once the firing had started. The ROC Navy had taken losses themselves in the opening hours of The Battle of Taiwan. Between the ASBM's, missiles, and torpedoes, most of their defending surface and subsurface ships had their hands full just trying to survive, much less protect the island from the massive attack.

The ROC had standing orders that the surface and subsurface ships were to only worry about self-preservation and not about the attack on the island before they left port. They were to survive and launch counterattacks or take out any enemy ships if they could, but some ships were not having to be defensive. The submarine Hai Hu was able to put six Harpoon missiles into the Chinese mainland port it had been hiding near for the last few days. They were small hits, but each one would divert the attention of both defensive weapons and other assets to those small hitters. Harder counterpunching would happen later, once the local commanders had a better idea of what was going on in the bigger picture.

The ROC Air force had about forty percent of its fighters in the air when the missiles started falling out of the sky. When the alarm went out, all of the flying craft, warplanes or not, had shut off their radars and anything else that might transmit data to the enemy. The updated F-16's and F-35's went out passively hunting any threats in the local area and quickly had a list of kills. The Chinese attack plans had taken into consideration that there would be some fighters on patrol, but not this many. Much less this many with weapons loaded onto their airframes.

The ROC Air Force was working its way through the cloud of attacking enemy fighters. Even the few Mirage 2000's and F-CK-1's that had been flying armed over the last few months were able to respond to the developing attack. The ROC's plan had been to take out the airborne command and control aircraft and other high value aircraft first but they could not make it through the mass of Chinese craft between them and the larger Chinese aircraft. The ROC Air Force pilots just started taking whatever shot they could while they had the gas and weapons. It was not a bad Plan B, and you rarely could go wrong by shooting the enemy.

Also, the numbers and skill of the ROC pilots had not been expected, and soon one hundred Chinese fighters, fighter-bombers, and refueling aircraft were falling out of the sky in flames or just smoking fragments. They did not die alone, and the ROC itself lost hundreds of sons and daughters in that one day of combat. Still the ROC Air Force and Navy could not stop the massive ferries which were the second wave of the landing fleeting making it to where they had been planned for. Soon the ground forces of the ROC were outnumbered in their own homeland, and the amount of Chinese troops landing was still growing with each passing hour.

The missile attack was hitting all over the island without any pattern in the fall of the large weapons. The Warlord's command center across the strait had great targeting data supplied by friends of the Chinese mainland over the years. They knew where to hit to take a certain type of target. Sometimes, they even knew how hard a given target would need to be hit to take it out of action. Add in the data that their cyber and orbital assets had given the planning staff and they had a very good idea where the ROC could be hurt the worst. China had been massing missile units in range of the island for a long time, even before the Colonials had come.

This also meant that the ROC leadership and military had a long time to work out counter plans for what the People's Republic might try. The first step in that counter plan was the multi-tiered missile defense system the ROC had set up around the island. One that was fully integrated with the chain of command at many levels. The highest and longest-range missile defense weapons were provided by the latest versions of the US made THAAD-ER missile weapons. That long ranged system was backed up by both newer and older models of the Patriot missile systems. Closer in, the ROC had the locally made Sky Bow III and IV model SAM's that had started taking over the defense of the island. All of this was known to the Chinese leadership and planners before they had pushed the button to launch the missiles. That was why they were throwing so many missiles at the island ahead of their aircraft.

As the missiles made their way towards the island and their assigned targets, they were hit by each layer of defensive fire and were attrited by the ROC controlled counter-missiles. The downside for Taiwan was that they only had so many counter-missiles that they could launch at one time. That is, before they needed to stop firing and reload their batteries from storage bunkers. When the last ready to fire short ranged Sky Bow quad launcher had lifted its last guided weapon into the sky, that should have been it. The attacking missiles would have had a clear line of attack the rest of the way to the ground.

That is when the PLA missiles ran into the last line of defense on the island. The ROC had spent a huge amount of money and trade goods for some special Colonial weapons, and they had quietly paid a little extra for help integrating them into the island's defense net. There were only four of these sites set up around the island, so far. If the Chinese had only waited another year before attacking there would have been almost two dozen little surprises waiting for them, but the attack had not waited that long.

The last lines of defense were four sets of fixed sites made up of two of the twin Colonial made 30mm KEW close in weapons systems. Each set of weapon sites were connected to both a Super Green Pine radar and an AN/TPY-2 radar set up not too far away from the weapons. The locations for the weapons were the Su-ao Navy base, the Longtan army base, the Taoyuan airbase, and the capital city of Taipei. Work was being done on the next two defense sites even on the day of the attack itself. Now those two additional sets of radars would be backups in case they needed to replace battle damaged systems at the four active defense points.

The main reasons all of the airborne assets of the ROC were ordered to stay away from the island was to let the anti-air systems have a clear engagement zone without worrying about blue on blue happening over the island. The Colonial made and integrated twin weapons system was not overloaded by the abundance of targets coming at them. That was a common problem for Earth built systems but Colonials systems were designed to be used against the Cylons. A group who did not believe in the word overkill or being stingy at firing missiles at a single target. With the help of the two different radar systems, the KEW turrets swept the skies of the first warheads dropping from the larger missile bodies. Then they went after the sub launched cruise missiles, the missiles launched from attacking fighter-bombers, and then the attacking aircraft themselves.

The defense turrets would fire five rounds for each cannon, then auto-track to the next target the radar and target management software had worked out for them. It would repeat this process until the area 8 kilometers in any direction of the turret was clear of threats. Wreckage was soon falling from the sky, some of it causing not a little bit of destruction upon hitting the ground. It was a gamble with the damage caused by the wreckage and what their weapons would have done with active warheads on a given target. The advantage was that any of these PLA planes that were shot down would not be usable for further attacks on the island in the future.

Not all areas or targets had this high-tech weapon to protect them from the People's Liberation forces. After the final missile was launched from the Earth-made system defending a given area, the only thing that the people there could do was put their heads between their legs and wait. Warheads from a few hundred kilograms to a ton or more hit the ground like hammers from the gods. Airfields, seaports, military barracks, and any other thing on a long list of targets were given the attention of these warheads. These places would keep getting hit until the more conventional anti-air weapons could be reloaded onto their launchers.

Thousands still died on the ground but it could have been worse. Civilian bunkers held up against the attack as well as most of the military manned ones. The attack had lulls and surges in the violence. It was just the nature of combat. When one of these lulls were detected to be coming by the radars around and over the island, the information was passed on to local command centers. Orders would be given and massive blast doors to underground installations would be opened for fresh fighters to do a speed roll out of them and down taxiways. The runways they were using were damaged, but the fighters were lightly loaded and this let them build up some speed inside the caves. That way they did not need as much runway length to get off the ground and back into combat.

Most of these windows were only about ten minutes long but during one of these windows, four damaged aircraft were able to land and be taken into cover before the next missile was predicted to impact the area. It was a dance, but the ROC had been working on the steps for this dance for almost two generations now. They were good people and training had been done to standard. Soon, other units would be putting their own skills to the test, like the crews in the Navy and Air Force.

Rex and his team were in the mountains when the alert went out that incoming missiles were picked up on long ranged radar. Rex hit his Colonial built communication device to alert the rest of his unit just in case they had not been told yet. This action also sent word of the attack back to the command center on the Trading Post. Rex, his training team, along with the ROC Special Forces unit they had been working with spent the next hour not hiding in the mountains. They all were moving as fast as they could down the mountains. Stealth no longer mattered. It was now all about time management and they were short on time.

When the first massive explosions reverberated off the nearby green mountains, it stopped all of the moving groups for a few seconds as their minds worked out what they were hearing. The pause was only for a few seconds, then they were running to the nearest trail head marker. It was from there only a short hop out of the training area but it was faster than going cross country. As more and more trails came together under their running feet, the group got larger and larger as they went downhill at a pace that only the most highly trained could manage without breaking their necks. They did not slow down as they got into the thicker and warmer air of the valley floor. They just kept whatever pace matched the slowest person in the still expanding group of troopers. They had no idea what was waiting on them, but most of them thought that they would need to have an energy reserve very soon.

Rex was not the first or even the twentieth man to make it all the way down the mountain. Then again, he was almost twice the age of the rest of the people in this field exercise. At the main trail head was where the trucks that had dropped them off at the beginning of the mission should be. Much to the surprise of the group, they were there as promised. After a quick head count and check in with the local ROC ground commander, a plan was made. Rex and his group were closer to the action but they needed to come back to a forward base to get ready for real combat. Rex also took the time to make contact with his boss and commander. Charles was still the commander of the Trading Post so many thousands of kilometers away. He authorized Rex under the defense treaty to defend the island from the Chinese in any way that he could.

It took Rex and his group eighteen hours to get from the mountain training area to the Su-ao Navy base. That was the home station of the Colonials attached to the island for training and other support. While the gathered teams of Colonial scouts were doing weapons checks and loading up again, Rex was looking out into the harbor that was the center of the Navy base. He was looking at what was left of the old DDG-995 USS Scott not that far from him.

She had been fighting under the name ROCS Kee Lung for the last few years. She had taken a torpedo close into her hull at the start of the war. She had been lucky that at the last second, it had gone for a decoy launched in the hopes of drawing the speeding weapon away from its target. That had kept her from sinking right on the spot of the attack. She had limped into harbor only in time to be hit by a pair of anti-ship missiles.

Six missiles had cleared the harbor entrance but only two had hit the already damaged warship. One had taken out the modified Sky Bow launcher and the other had hit just below it a heartbeat later. Even then what put the ship into the bottom of the harbor was a group of locals. The land-based attackers had been killed during the attack when they tried to pull out and retreat after damaging the warship again. Now a dozen bodies of men and women that had been involved in the attack were laid out on the pier next to the sunken ship.

Rex turned from the smoke shrouded wreck out the window and looked at the map of the island. Missiles were still coming in from the seaside and the mainland side of the island. Rex was thankful that he had been able to get some sleep on the truck ride back to base. Doing something like that was getting harder and harder to do as the years rolled by. The wall sized map of the island showed the latest intelligence on the invasion and it did not look bad. It did not look good but it did not look as bad as some of the projections he had seen before coming out here to help the ROC military.

From what he had been told, this attack was made up of almost the entire operational strength of the Chinese 1st Ground Army. In almost a day, the Warlord of Nanjing had landed almost all of the rebuilt 1st Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Division and the 86th Motorized Infantry Division. There were reports that said about half of the top of the line 10th Armored Division was also landed, along with some of the 91st Mechanized Infantry Division. Most of the last were only just starting to roll off the ships onto the beach. So far, the Chinese ground units had been rolling over every ROC unit that had been sent to or had attempted to block the Chinese military advance. They were dying, but they were slowing and bleeding the attackers for every inch of advance the Chinese made on the island.

Things were not going all the way that the Warlord had planned. About two-thirds of Taiwan's prewar SSM launch sites had been hit and destroyed or damaged in this first day of the attacks, but that was why they had backup firing points. The ROC had secretly moved some SSM's to a few of the other islands under its control. Those SSM firing units had taken some fire but not that much and they had been very quiet. They were waiting for orders, or updated target lists now that they had hard targeting data.

Now they were ready and in an hour or so, the ROC would start launching Brave Wind class SSMs and a few other surprises they had been carefully hiding. Anti-ship missile crews were finally getting into position to counter the landings or attack the escorting ships covering the landings. That would be the start, only the start, and it was to stay small while steadily bleeding the enemy. A death by a thousand paper cuts was the overall framework of this part of the plan.

They wanted the Warlord to have to pull back some of his forces to defend against these small-scale attacks, like the air support to the front line. Anything that would start to spread the attackers' assets into ever thinner lines was desired. While those assets were looking to counter the pinpricks, the real attack would go in. These would be done by a large number of small missile boats armed with anti-ship missiles of various sizes and capabilities.

It was a good plan but would it work? Rex thought it was too complicated. It also did not address the massive number of subsurface boats launching missiles that were so hard to shoot down or even have enough time to take cover from. More disturbing to both Rex and ROC command was the number of explosions that could not be attributed to aircraft and missile attacks growing at a steady pace. Besides, navy battles were not his cup of tea and he knew he could not do anything about it. He was a ground scout and attack force, and that was that he was armed to do.

As Rex was looking at the wall mounted map and working out what to do, he worked out that he had two main options. One was to keep all of the Colonials together in one group or combat unit. In their training with the locals, his team had acted as scouts against a simulated Cylon force. If they were fighting local humans, they had a different mission. It would be as a hammer to punch a hole into the emery's battle line. The problem was that although they did have Rifter tech weapons and body armor as well as lower tech weapons based on Rifter weapons, they did not have any heavy or fast weapons systems on this island. They were foot bound or maybe truck or local made APC bound after they broke a Chinese line. That would only stop that one line of advance, and only after his unit was able to get to the battle site.

So instead of a short-ranged super hammer, he was breaking up his force into smaller groups of fighters. With that decided, Rex had used the more powerful portable wireless set to reach back to the Trading Post Command Center to pass along a much more detailed report to his boss. He reported first that everyone was safe after the now second day of the attack. He was then given official orders, in writing, to help defend the island as he saw fit.

He was also told that there would not be any ground support that could be sent his way for almost a week. Rex had no idea why there was going to be a delay, but he had been told the news. Rex was told that it would be good if he could delay the Chinese invaders. He had accepted the orders, and then he gave his own orders out to break up his people into teams of two each. Each would be working with a six man team of Rangers from the ROC army, which they had been training with. The locals would help a lot in any dealings with locals, including communication, and they were equipped with and trained on Colonial made equipment. They were not fielded with near clones or close clones of Colonials weapons but real Colonial military weapons and gear. That was a major plus for working with Rex's teams.

Rex looked around and then his eyes were drawn out the window opposite of the harbor view. A group was leaving the area that his people had more or less taken over as their base. The ROC high command had assigned a special forces section for each of these teams to work with, and the first teams were only just leaving the area. Those teams were going to be away from base and any support for some time. And they were packing according to this fact of the upcoming mission.

The locals would be supplying food and what some might call low tech support. Rex knew that the low tech support might mean the difference between success and failure for their combined mission. Each Colonial part of the team was sporting Rifter tech level body armor, an energy based side arm, and a main battle rifle of some kind. Some pairs carried a heavier weapon, like a mini-missile launcher, but they could not carry much in the way of reloads for those very heavy weapons.

Rex could have sent them out in the battle suits, but all they had were basically knockoff Chipwell Assault suits. Without knowing how long they would be without support from the Colonial side, Rex had decided that they would stay in there shipping coffins. They were to be a Plan D if they ever ended up needing to defend this base from the Chinese military. As it was, they were going to be using mostly energy-based weapons for the near future. They would pack whatever they thought they needed in their packs but mainly they were carrying a dozen E-clips for each energy based weapon. Well, that and maybe just a few more.

Rex looked at the table near the door. It had his kit already to go, packed and laid out for him to strap onto the various parts of his body. The table was dominated by the old style Dead Boy armor, which had been his for so many years. It was not painted in the normal black and bone white scheme. This one had a custom paint job that would match the local plant life better than the black and white paint job that was intended to intimidate the locals.

Rex was not a fan of his old masters in the Coalition States, but they were on another planet and timeline that was well separated from him. They did have good weapons. There was no denying that. He could have taken one of the new C-14 Fire Breathers, but why carry the attached grenade launcher? Grenades, well good ones, were in short supply. So that would have added the useless weight of the heavy launcher he was going to have to haul around for who knew how long. His sidearm was a still new from the box NG-33 laser pistol made by Northern Gun. He had been issued the weapon as a gift from his commander before he had shipped out for this mission. After all these years, to have a new from the box weapon was a surprise all in itself. Besides it fit his old hands nicely.

Rex ran his hands over every bit of equipment that he would be taking to battle. With a shake of his head, he had to walk away from the table. He needed to get some sleep in a real bed before he started his own trip out to the front lines. Still, it would be hard for him to get any sleep. Missiles were still falling in and around the port, and they were being shot down by the defense sites. The Colonial made KEW turret was not that loud when it fired but the intercepted aircraft and missile warheads were a little on the loud side when the two different systems meet overhead. Rex had been in a lot of combat in his life. He only would come awake a little with every large blast of an intercepted missile before going quickly back to sleep.

The attack was into its 49th hour when a hard knock came from the other side of Rex's door. The knocker on the other side of the door was about to strike again, but the door opened just before the hand could strike the wood and metal frame. Rex was already dressed in his battle armor and ready to go.

Heather Stewart had a weather worn face, thin red hair, and bad skin. She had been on the prison barge for a twenty year sentence of hard labor. She was in that prison for both murder and for poaching on 'protected lands'. The twenty years was for the poaching. She was still waiting to be tried for the murder charge.

Everyone knew about the three law enforcement officers she had killed, but the details had been very sketchy. It took until after the Cylons had been thrown off of the New Caprica system that the details came out to the rest of the refugees. She had been living what some would say was 'off the grid' for some time. She didn't feel comfortable in towns of any size, and she had decided that she liked being alone. This had not gone over well with some of the local wilderness guides. She had been set up for the crime of predator poaching. When some questionable auxiliary law enforcement officers had shown up to her cabin in the middle of the night, she had killed three of them before the rest of them could knock her out. The weapons and cabin fire had brought out the Colonial Marshals, and she had been taken in before she could be killed for evading arrest.

She had been the tenth penal barge prisoner to be released, and the first who had what was most likely a life sentence. She had tested out at the top of her class in wilderness school, and even had a few tricks the primary instructor had not seen before. It did not take long for her to be picked up and integrated into the Rifter controlled ground units. Her leadership skills, they were just not there. She was a damn good scout though, and that was a job worth doing. She had been on some of the first teams released onto the surface New Kobol before rotating off and on to the Trading Outpost.

Heather was chewing gum loudly as she made eye contact with Rex. Gum was one of the most popular candy for the Colonials, and it was right behind chocolate. Both were items that were not available to the Colonials even before the attack. Chewing gum in particular was looked down on by the older generation Colonials. Heather liked it just to mess with those people. Rex could care less either way. Besides, he liked gum for much the same reasons.

"So, you ready Rex? Where is our area anyway?"

Rex had the helmet for his Dead Boy armor under one arm. He had his game face on but he still gave his teammate a predatory smile before dropping the news on her. "Our target area is wherever the 10th Armored Division is going to be. We get to hunt the big boys. Are you ready?" The last words were spoken with the addition of a raised eyebrow.

Heather snorted loudly and turned. She had her own rucksack across her back ready to go. Rex was just lucky he did not get an elbow in the ribs for his last comment. Then again it would have hurt her more than him thanks to the body armor. Funny bones and hard composite armor do not mix. The two of them did not talk any more as they left the building. Only four Colonials where going to be left on the ROC Naval base once Heather and Rex had left.

They would guard and defend the small and isolated two story building. If it came down to it, they would blow the building apart and destroy what equipment had been left behind. There were some mini missiles, grenades, and some other thing that could get very angry if treated the wrong way. The Chinese, or the ROC for that matter, would not have access to what was left inside. They were friends with the ROC, but they were not that good of friends.

Rex and Heather threw their rucksacks into the high cargo bed of the six-by-six five ton cargo truck. The truck and the six man SF fire team that had already been loaded belonged to 871 Special Operation Group (Assault). Normally an SF unit was not a frontline or shock troop unit. SF were a type of group sent out to take care of high value targets and some that were behind the battle lines. It could be a person or vessel or maybe a communication station that they were sent in to take out. They were very highly trained specialists.

The jobs for some of these types of groups changed when the Colonials brought side arms that could take out main battle tanks to this world. Now they added training as breakthrough units to go along with their normal jobs. The US and Taiwan military had the largest number of these specially equipped units, though by now most countries that had access to Colonial weapons were standing a unit or two of them up as well. This conflict will be the first test of the idea they had been working for years to develop the right skills to accomplish.

Charles was in the Command Center that had been moved from the old building near the space port into a deep mountain bunker last year. He was looking at the different readouts about the conflict going on a few thousands of kilometers away. He had wanted to send support in the form of Vipers and Raptors to his treaty partner. Unfortunately a random long-range missile was being launched their way with multiple warheads or targets every once in a while. He could not risk a nuclear warhead landing on the Trading Post, and close counted when you were dealing with nuclear weapons of a large enough size.

He was working on getting two Raptors freed up, but that would only be later today. While he was working on getting some kind of support to his people about a third of the way around the world, he watched as another dozen fighters with tanker support aircraft started coming out of one of the major islands to the north of Taiwan. After a few orbits over an unmarked area over the ocean, the airbreathers went south to attack the Chinese fighters providing cover over the island of Taiwan. He had no idea who the attack craft belonged to, and they were hard to track on radar, but DRADIS was having no issues tracking them. They were very quiet and very stealthy as they went south.

As he was watching, another missile boosted up from somewhere in China. It took him a dozen seconds to realize that this one was coming from Central China, and not even in the main warlord's claimed much less held territory. While he and his staff were watching, ten anti-ship missiles where picked up by the overhead Raptor, and they were not coming out of the mainland. It looked like 6 warships and cargo ships were hit, and two of the ships just attacked would not make it to port on the mainland ever again.

The Americans were still recovering from losing two of the largest warships that they had ever been able to build. The CINCPAC was shifting his forces around as fast as his staff could, but their big teeth were pulled for a few more days. The other local countries in the general area were trying to help, but they were being overpowered by the Chinese forces being used to support this effort. As a reward for their actions, those four countries had missiles land on their major cities. And that did not count the lost ships and aircraft that were both military and civilian.

That night Charles had sent word about the attack on an ally along with the number of Colonials at risk on the ground back to New Kobol. It would take a few more hours for a reply to get back to him. By then, he would have run at least one mission set of Vipers and/or Raptors to go help the other islands being hit by the Chinese weapons. There was no way for the Colonials to counter the massive number of submarines that seemed to be attacking the island of Taiwan. He only had a few of that type of craft under his command. What's more they were short ranged, and they were too slow to reach the threat area. One of the items causing the delay in sending Raptors or Vipers out to help was that they were rigging a few prototype systems for tracking underwater targets. No one knew if they would work or not but Charles was going to give them a try. If they did not work, well that just meant that the next mission would have them packing more weapons of known usefulness.

It was well after local midnight on the Chinese mainland. The Warlord of Nanjing was standing and looking at the massive screens that lined three of the walls in front of him. The opening moves of his plan had worked out even better than projections that he had thought were optimistic when he was first briefed by his staff. Well, they had for the first dozen hours of this new war. Then things started to happen that had not been planned for. Half of his submarine forces were now returning to port to reload on missiles and other expendables. There should have been more rotating back, but he needed to keep some on station as long as they had at least two weapons still on board.

He was losing more and more ships and submarines as time passed those first heady hours of his attack. Their deaths were marked by EPLRS that activated after getting wet by sea water in places that should not get wet. Now they were taking SSM hits from the main island and two other smaller islands that had not been known to have that capability. He had been briefed that some of his own bases and support areas were getting hit and shown the growing list of damages these strikes were causing. He was also losing more and more of his aircraft that he could not replace along with the trained aircrews on them. It seemed that no matter what he did, he could not take out the island's airfields while they were starting to affect his airfields.

That would hurt him, but even with the loss of the ships and aircraft, it would be another two days before the current wave of troops was entirely on the ground. He had just been briefed that some of the first wave of large landing ships were coming back into the mainland ports. It would take a day to two to get them reloaded with additional landing forces and then have the ships ready to leave their spread-out ports again. Only the number of ships coming back was a lot lower than it should have been. It would seem that the enemy was targeting the larger amphibious support ships even if they had already deposited their ground troops and equipment on the beach or small harbor on the island.

About the only thing that had still worked as planned into day two had been the counter-interdiction and area denial operation of the local seas. What was left of the PLAN controlled the sea and the PLAAF controlled the limited airspace over the strait and breakaway island. It was costing more than it should, but the job was being done. Deep down, he knew it would not last. If he did not have control of more than eighty or eighty-five percent of the island's area in two weeks, then he was going to start losing those points of control and maybe the whole island.