Chapter 3
Flagship Artemis
Leonis orbit
+7hrs attack
The fleets DRADIS lit up in red as dozens of Basestars jumped in. "Well, looks like they have finished the rest of the colonies. Action stations!" Burke called slamming the Red button. "Set condition one" Fleet Admiral Burke sighed "Wish they had been able to hold out a little longer." Burke Remarked. "Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for us to go. LAND OUR BIRDS, combat landings are authorized. Set defense field at two thousand meters and order all civilians to jump the moment the last raptors and shuttles are docked." He paused then looked to the CAG "dispatch a raptor to the Nike yards. Tell them to get out with whatever they have and to hurry. If they can get out of there before the cylons notice there is ships there we may be able to grab more later." Hearing a stream of "yes sir's." Burke looks up watching the display. The last of the Artemis's six escorts as well as the Khryselakatos moved up ahead blocking the cylons approached nearly two hundred vipers all raced in making combat landing.
+4hrs attack
Heavy Cruiser Hoplite
Nike Reserve Depo
Hoplite flashed into existence above the Thor Anchorage. "Jump complete sir." The XO James Roslin reported "Understood XO. Dradis report" Cooper looked to the Dradis officer as she looks at her screen. "Sir we are one hundred klicks off the port side of the Thor depo station I have confirmed Dradis contact with the depo's ships im getting active contacts with approximately sixty-sev.." a few beeps caused her to pause. "Correction sir, eighty-two ships according to the records we have there are:
4 Medusa Class heavy cruisers
5 Prince Dalyn class heavy cruisers
7 Tenarph Class Escort Carriers
8 Zephyr Class light cruisers
11 Europa Class Escort destroyers
4 Galaxy class super liners
7 Everson starliners
1 Tylium mining/refinery hybrid ship
4 Colonial movers
5 Tanker ships
3 mining ships
2 Agro ships
7 Military supply freighters
5 Marinestar assault frigates
2 Firestar frigates "
The Dradis officer paused reading the list Cooper looked up at Dradis officers pause and she visibly flinched before reading the last ship on the list "Palace class fleet cradle…uh no names listed sir just general classes and models." The XO whistled and said "I know that ship it's the Kensington. I remember when Virgon was forced to mothball her last year after that bastard Adar forced the colonies to shrink their defense forces. Hell even Leonis was forced to send four ships here. Two of the Zephyrs Spearhead and Arrowhead and two of the Europa's Centaur and Lamian it would be nice to have the fleet back together."
Unsure of witch ships would be best to grab. With only three thousand crew to staff them. Cooper looked to Roslin "If it was my decision I'd grab the cradle, hybrid and two of the Medusas what do you say XO?" James took a moment to look at the list of ships "I agree the cradle and the hybrid is the most important however the Medusas are crew hogs sir. Even with a skeleton crew you need six hundred however for the Europa's need two hundred as things are we will need more ships so it's a numbers game. With the three thousand we brought and going down to skeleton crew ourselves we can easily grab the cradle and hybrid and maybe four more ships maybe five" Nodding and finding no reason to dispute them he agreed. "Helm plot us a course to dock with the Kensington then to the hybrid then to Spearhead, Arrowhead, Centaur and Lamian with no names he pointed and highlighted the last ship an Everson starliner.
The first six stops went by without a problem. As they neared their last target however they noticed the ship next to the one that was highlighted was different then the ones to either side. There were bulges where the others were streamlined as they got closer. They made out the bulges. They were clusters of 90mm quad defense guns looks to be two batteries to either side with a duel medium 100mm cannon on its spine. "Uh sir, I think we found a better candidate then the Everson you suggested." Roslin started chuckling as did the Dradis officer Cooper joined in on the laughter so hard his eyes watered for the first time since the attacks laughter rang from the bridge.
+6hrs attack
Depo Task force
Nike Reserve Depo
As they activated the ships starting up their reactors powering them up. Running down the start-up check list was pretty much identical across the board.
Arrowhead Zephyrs class Light cruiser
Reactor start up…..30…50...70…..100 percent
Coolant pressure- optimal
Hull integrity- 78%
Damage control – operational
Engine performance
Engine 1- 92%
Engine 2- 89%
Everything on the ships chosen to be reactivated was running perfectly.
Jr Lieutenant Mark "Freefall" Gann the commander of the light cruiser Gladius. One of several ships that were stripped of their crew for this mission was aboard the Zephyrs class Light cruiser Arrowhead when a thought struck him using the ships radio he called the cradle Kensington who was already moving toward the Hoplite.
"Kensington-Actual this is Arrowhead-Actual is your dock empty? A thought struck me that we could load a few ships into your dock space in order to free up crews to grab more, over." After a few seconds. "Arrowhead –Actual im not sure there is only seven-hundred of us over here most are in engineering getting a few kinks worked out but that's a good idea wait one." the signal cut off for about five minutes before coming back "Arrowhead-actual our dock is uhh..partially empty" Mark confused what they meant by partially…" what do you mean partially Kensington?" a moment later as the Arrowhead and Spearhead started moving toward Hoplite preflight checks complete.
The communication continued "Well sir it looks like the previous owners of Virgon decided they wanted a mobile shipyard not repair yard so they altered about forty percent of the internals and at the time they were forced to send the ship here they were almost done building a.." you could almost hear the excited energy in the man's voice "there is a nearly complete battlecruiser here sir." Marks jaw as well as almost anyone listening's jaw dropped before he could say anything else Colonel Cooper broke in "Kensington-Actual this is Hoplite-Actual Confirm there is a Battlecruiser in your hold." A second later the confirmation came in "confirm Hoplite fracking Confirmed battlecruiser in my hold. Sir"
Lieutenant Gann was the first to ask "Why would they abandon a battlecruiser inside the Kensington?" Colonel Cooper was the only one to answer. "Because they couldn't afford it their Royal navy almost bankrupted itself when they built the Courage of Virgon three years ago? They were trying to win shipbuilding contracts from Picon So they started to build them for home use if I remember right for nearly two and a half years Kensington and a small fleet of mining, refinery and factory ships were deployed to the Ouranos asteroid belt, Troy and several other areas where there was extensive mining operations continuously.. I guess they were planning on building them in secret."
Ship shopping and history lesson time was over it was time to start striping the station and other ships of munitions and fuel as they began to split up the Kensington just beginning to strip the mover and tanker it was closest to pulling them closer with its tugs. Dradis went off as a Leonis raptor appeared they began to immediately broadcast "Hoplite-Actual this is Raptor-031 call sign Raygun. Sir it's time to go im here under Fleet Admiral Burkes orders overwhelming cylon forces have appeared he wants you to leave immediately if they cylons don't detect anyone here they won't find out about these ships." They didn't waste a moment as Kensington three Octopus class heavy tugs pulled the Mover and a tanker inside. And everyone jumped back to Troy
+6hrs attack
Defense line
Leonis
The entire force of nearly sixty raptors and shuttles however were still busy moving in atmosphere getting as many civilians into bunkers, fallout shelters from the first war and cave systems that had been loaded with food, medicine and weapons all morning since the attack had begun. Those birds would remain on the planet to make evacuations for as long as they could. The planetary defense satellites all opened fire covering not only the civilian ships as they jumped away but the military ships. The raiders as they raced in were destroyed one by one as the fighters came into range then dozens as they also came within range of the fleets ships.
The Admiral looking at the red sea closing in on the ever decreasing green islands of his ships. "How many civilian ships left?" Burke asked as first one then four more Satellite weapons were taken out the Dradis officer looked back "sir, there are three shi.." paused as a green marker disappeared "two ships left sir." Nodding "Ready FTL drives for the fleet to jump the moment the last civilian ship is away." Burke paused it didn't sit right to just jump. "Tactical the use of nuclear ordnance is authorized two minutes before we jump I want twelve Class C nuclear warheads fired for maximum damage" Tactical called out yes sir they will be ready."
The last of the Satellites were putting up a valiant defense just out of range of the fleet. They were being knocked out one after the other a green mark disappeared just as the last three satellites went dark. One ship left, Hurry come on….. hurry. Burke feverously prayed The last light blinked out. "Last ship is away, all ships launch package Delta" the four ships carrying nukes launched the twelve missiles streaked out away from the Leonis ships racing into the cylons.
The first missile exploded taking a dark cloud of almost a hundred raiders out then the second and third exploded leaving a massive hole in the raider swarm a group of raiders opened fire destroying two more. The seven remaining missiles continued on racing for a pair of the modern double Y shaped basestars the basestars fired dozens of missiles hitting three of them the surviving four missiles slammed into the ships. Three into one destroying it entirely the other was split in half. The remaining cylons sped up firing their own missiles "to late toasters, jump."
The nearly intact Leonis defense force almost a hundred civilian ships were gone leaving the nearly two billion people left on the planet nearly defenseless. To protect them nearly seventy thousand Marines had been dropped off reinforcing the two hundred thousand ground forces already on the planet…for now the defenders had don all they could almost half the population had been sheltered in hundreds of bunkers or cave systems engineers had rigged to hold people. They would be back and soon.