Leonis task force 2.1 detachment
Leonis Colony
+2hrs Attack
Khryselakatos and Claymore blinked into existence two hundred klicks above Leonis but only fifty kicks away from the bulk of the Leonis defense force. The flagship Artemis herself a Tempest Class Dreadnought built before the first war and retained after the colonials decided to make the backbone of the fleet Battlestars upgraded every five years she can go toe to toe with any Battlestar battle group by herself. Surrounding her was two of Claymore's sister ships Ranger and fougasse four Medusa Class heavy cruisers; Hoplite, Spartan, Warrior, and Peltasts five Zephyr Class light cruisers; Xiphos, Kopis, Javelin, Gladius, and Pugio and five Europa Class Escort destroyers; Argus, Charybdis, Scylla, Gorgon, and Hecatoncheires.
Before they could wonder why there were so few destroyers there had been ten before they left. The Gorgon had a nuclear fireball blossom in its center fracturing in half venting air, water…and crew into space. They were in the middle of a fight with over three hundred raiders. The enemy swarming the fleet with a pair of Basestars from forty years ago acting as carriers and long-range gun platforms. A third basestar was drifting dead with two explosive craters with a pair of barely recognizable destroyer engine clusters drifting nearby.
Before they could examine the battle further Fleet Admiral John Burke saw them "Welcome to the party Sam glad you brought friends" Denote grinned "Yes sir, I left some old friends and new back at troy to prepare for evacuees looks like you have your hands full." On the display, Burke looked at the drifting Basestar and the three wrecked destroyers. A look of sadness came over him "Yeah the toasters jumped right on top of Phoenix and Griffin before launching nearly a thousand raiders. A mixed bag of a new type and old ones from before in a single pass they destroyed the Marine and the Chimera before we could launch our vipers." He looked at the battle display "We are holding our own but from what I've heard all of the colonies are under attack, so even if we win we lose. So we are evacuating everyone we can, While we can." A look of determination flashed on his face. "Here are your orders; Assist in escorting the civilian ships and freighters to Troy. We must save as many of our people as we can before Cylon reinforcements arrive and we have to flee." As the admiral was talking. Denotes attention was drawn to the northern and southern poles.
Almost a hundred ships; freighters and Liners were orbiting there also easily seen were nearly three dozen domed agriculture ships under the protection of massed orbital defensive guns of the defense grid. It looks like the forty heavy and ninety light sats all armed with varying amounts of either anti-fighter or –ship missiles as well as railguns and even on the few super heavy sats that were made main gun batteries of scrapped Battlestars or main weapons of lighter units. As he watched dozens of raiders tried to push through to the lightly armored civilian ships only to met by dozens then hundreds of projectiles and missiles none of the enemy craft made it within a klick. What was allowed was the hundreds of orphaned raptors and planetary shuttles he could see dozens of Raptors and large shuttles moving in and out of the gravity well.
Only twenty ships were at full capacity right now rather than wait. As the assigned officer in charge of the evacuation efforts S. Colonel Denote puts in a call to Major Collins on the Claymore. "Steve, take the first twenty ships and get them out of here. There is no need to have them just standing here full. As soon as they are safe at Troy get back here for the next fleet." Collins nods. "Yes, sir ill be back as soon as I can." With a salute Collins turns and begins issuing orders as the line goes dead.
As the small group of twenty-one ships gathered a group of thirty new raiders disappeared in a flash only to reappear half a klick off the civilian flotilla's side well within the range of the carriers 150mm point defense batteries. While the DC, marines and engineering parties had been offloaded to make room for more refugees the gunnery crews remained at full strength and the guns proved it opening fire within a second knocking Cylon after Cylon down until none remained.
The civilian ships together now the Claymore and ships started their jump clock 05….04….03 twenty more new raiders made another jump hoping to get the civilians before being destroyed ripple fired their eight missiles radiological alarms went off as twenty of those missiles were identified as nukes. Defense guns opened fire as did claymore knocking fighters and missiles out of the sky by themselves and in groups but not fast enough. 02… The missiles and raiders racing in for the kill. 01 the closest missiles were engaged by PD batteries. 00 the group disappeared in a series of flashes before the missiles hit. The platforms retargeted the fighters leaving the missiles to streak into space knocking the last dozen fighters out.
Colonel Denote seeing the basestars as a tempting target with so many of their fighters either already engaged or destroyed calling to the gunnery officer "Release of nuclear munitions is authorized to load tubes one and two and prepare to launch the moment we come out of the jump." Walking over to the navigator Denote pointed to an area of space twenty thousand feet behind and in-between the two active enemy ships. It only took a few minutes to calculate the jump. "As soon as we jump I want a flak field set up at one thousand meters, Weapons I want to flush our silos as soon as we are there nukes and conventional warheads." In the two minutes, it took in the broader battle with the reinforcement of over a hundred vipers from the surface as well as dozens of raptors loaded with missiles slaughtering raiders both new and old but not before Javelin broke into several pieces.
"Jump!" Khryselakatos disappeared and reappeared twenty-eight thousand feet in-between and behind the Cylon ships. Then she disappeared again. This time behind dozens of missile launches and hundreds of weapons flashes. The Cylons had no chance to react as first a handful of shells and missiles started ripping holes in the armor of the old ships not designed to take the strength of modern explosives then the first nuke hit the left basestar and the top saucer just disappeared. The EMP of the nuke shutting down the weapons on the bottom, as well as a dozen nearby raiders.
The other basestar took the second nuke slamming into the center axis sending the saucers spinning off into space with the capital ships destroyed the remaining Leonis ships concentrated on blasting fighters apart until the new model raiders jumped out leaving the older non FTL fighters to their death. With all enemy forces destroyed the fleet moved to new defensive positions assisting in an accelerated evacuation. As it became clear they couldn't get off all the civilians as raptors and shuttles went down they were loaded with ground forces to secure bunkers and underground shelters to hold civilians for any future rescue operations.
With all enemies driven from the system for the moment and civilian rescue underway. Ships started filling faster. When the Claymore returned twenty-five ships were ready to depart this time however claymore would not be going alone or returning. Claymore along with Xiphos and Kopis and Charybdis and Scylla would escort the second fleet of overloaded civilian and military ships out of the over two point six billion people they had managed to get almost a million off world as it stands they would need several weeks to get everyone off they would never be able to get everyone. The second fleet jumped.
As the hour passed cylon fighters would jump in at extreme range flush their missile racks before jumping out again never causing more than light damage. Another group of twenty civilians escorted by five more warships left despite orders the Hoplite came back Admiral Burke called out over FLEETCOM "Hoplite why have you come back I gave you strict orders to not return Colonel." Colonel Kevin "Broadsides" Cooper looked slightly cringed "well sir, It occurred to me that we would need as many combat ready ships as possible to defend troy." Cooper pulled up an image showing Zeus in the background and a massive station orbiting the dead planetoid Nike, a quick zoom in showed the Nike ship depo and scrap yard. One of several salvage or reserve depos throughout the colonies they could make out the outlines of dozens of decommissioned ships.
"At last census there was almost a hundred ships military and civilian siting there. They were last serviced about three years ago and rated at 50-60% capability. At the moment im over loaded with nearly three thousand crew members as ships at troy were shut down and crew off loaded so we could grab as many as possible assuming I have your permission sir?" the Admiral looked thoughtful for a moment before agreeing. "That's command level thinking, Colonel go and hurry from what we have heard we have another hour at most before the cylons finish slaughtering the rest of the colonial forces and sends overwhelming force here."
With the latest group of twenty-nine more ships filled to the brim with people and livestock ready. This left this time with Spartan, Gladius, Argus, and the Hecatoncheires as escort. They departed just as alarms went off around the fleet.