+26 days after attack
One jump from Caprica
With a flash the raptor returned after the last scout of Caprican space with the report of seventy basestars in orbit and significant ground activity showing that someone was active on the ground and was giving almost as good as they got.
Colonel Jacob Ward, former Council member now, Fleet Commander of the consolidated Colonial military of fifty-two warships. As he sat aboard his flagship the Heavy carrier Maximus looking over Task Force Retribution witch contained every ship of the Colonial navy that had survived the attack where there had been once over twelve hundred Battlestars and another two thousand various support and escort ships all that was left was fifty-two. The largest of which was a trio of Heavy Carriers backed by five slightly smaller light Carriers and another four escort carriers. He looked down wishing that a few of the powerful Battlestars the colonial navy had relied upon had been able to be reactivated.
They had recovered two Battlestars the Aphrodite and the Hermes but those were still at least a year of dedicated work to get back into fighting shape. The council had decided they would rather have dozens of escort ships rather than a single Battlestar seeing as those were the ships the cylons had payed special attention to. During the attacks and the weeks afterward, they wanted to assure none of them escaped. From what they had been able to find out only four were never taken down; the Galactica was running as fast as they could with a fleet of fifty civilian ships. The Pegasus was waging a one ship war, they had come across a few basestar wreaks and a few wreaked vipers with a single surviving pilot who also informed the council had a small fleet of less than a dozen civilian ships with her and was now leading one of the attack squadrons on the Heavy carrier Imlay. The Battlestars Athena and Ares were defending the mining planet Aquaria without any real support word was as soon as this operation was over a task force would be assembled and sent to reinforce them but no others as far as they could tell.
Looking at all two hundred and fifty civilian ships now with their targeting programs updated simply started the timer at T-minus ten minutes the civilian ships jumped as the timer continued to count down every viper and raptor was fueled and maned to be launched the moment they arrived. Across the fleet sailors, marines and pilots all prayed checking weapons and ammunition supplies ready to see their capital and to free it. When the few of them that had been in orbit of Caprica the day of the attacks remembered the last few seconds before they fled to safety. The mushroom clouds over cities and military bases all over the planet as the cylons nuked them from orbit. The fleet around them shutting down and plummeting into the atmosphere without power to burn up and slam into the ground or oceans below. Watching the timer they steeled themselves knowing right about now the tables had turned. Cylons would be the ones becoming meteors this time around. Just before the timer hit zero for them to go he simply said "Good luck and May the gods watch over us."00… Jump.
+26 days after attack
Caprica
They arrived into a maelstrom of debris eight minutes after the civilian ships had jumped above Caprica and started ramming any toaster ship they could. Give the programmers their due sixty five were completely shattered. Three were severely damaged the last were untouched from the number of heavy raiders here and there looks like they were just getting started with SAR or salvage. At the sight of the colonials hundreds of raiders started launching from the five remaining baseships. The humans responded by launching dozens or raptors and the entire wing of every ship actually for a change outnumbering the toasters for a change.
Colonel Ward stood at the bridge table watching the tactical officer's move the models of ships and fighters around to give an up to the minute physical representation of the battle zones as they over heard the pilots racing toward the raiders
"Frakk there's a lot of them"
"Stay with your wingmen and remember to watch your six"
"Stick tight and stay out of the fleets firing solutions"
"Ready missile barrage 3…2…1… FIRE"
From over five hundred vipers and a hundred Raptors missiles and rockets were ripple fired streaking out using an older targeting profile one the cylons hopefully couldn't hack. Missiles streaked in as raiders attempted to hack them and finding nothing some began to move but not fast enough as a growing number exploded violently as the warheads slammed into them.
A few saved themselves as their guns flashed or evaded better than the others. By time the last munition expended itself on the engines of a heavy raider the machines were now even more outnumbered from 3-1 to 9-1 odds
Almost everywhere the Colonel looked the odds were increasing but the occasional explosion marked the death of not a machine but one of his pilots. Push through the loss mission comes first he thought with a sigh at the third viper exploding "Send 1-4 and 1-5 at the undamaged basestars and 1-6 through 1-8 at the damaged ships" looking over the board "we and 1-2, 1-3 will move forward between both providing fighter support."
As he spoke orders flew out to the assigned units who began to move to comply the fourteen heavy cruisers moved forward in a block firing their cannons at the pair of undamaged basestars. At the same time the eighteen light Cruisers and twelve Destroyers jumped forward and arched over to orbit the three heavily damaged stars firing their broadside weapons keeping on the move looking back at the now completed fighter dogfight and the hundreds of colonial craft moving to engage the remaining basestars.
Glancing away from the DRADIS, to the board to see the five models of the remaining basestars and three groups of colonial warships and fighters moving in, firing on the machine ships. "Order all Raptors and Half of the vipers to dock and rearm and refuel the other vipers will assume CAP on all one sections." As he watched the vast majority of colonial transponders broke off heading to the carriers that had launched them.
The cylons seeing this as their one chance to escape before they too were destroyed flushed their silos and jumped over six hundred missiles came screaming. Behind the contrails the two jump capable heavily damaged basestar disappeared followed by the pair of basestars facing off against the heavy cruisers. Leaving the most heavily damaged basestar, who was missing two of its three protrusions on the bottom, half of the Y shape alone to face the entire colonial fleet.
To say the base star put up a good fight was an overestimate with no remaining fighters and twenty working launchers. Colonel Ward saw this as a perfect chance calling out for the tactical officers. "Continue resupply landings but I want marines loaded on every raptor we have. This is a perfect chance to board and take control of that ship learning everything we can from its computers and any of those human form cylons that might be on board make sure to issue tranquilizers and tasers to the marines if at all possible I want the skinned toasters captured alive." As the colonial ships regrouped and moved toward the basestar taking aboard every fighter in the que.
The basestar started firing missiles twenty…four-five…sixty-eight. Then almost as fast they started going down as the closing destroyers point defense turrets tracked and fired. And other light cruisers fired claiming fourteen of the launchers. The last surviving missiles and launchers were claimed by vipers.
As the fleet circled the now defenseless basestar vipers started launching from their tubes and raptors loaded down with marines took off from the hangers. The other half of the vipers now took their turn to rearm and refuel as the two forces switched. Ward watched as sixty raptors loaded with nearly six hundred marines started attaching everywhere or coming to land inside the baseships main hanger at the center spire.
He lesioned in on the marine's radio chatter
"Watch your corners marines…"
"Man down! Take cover corpsmen front Jacksons down…"
"We have some of those human cylons here watch your fire we need them alive"
"Got some skin-jobs here too…
"All teams keep your eyes open we have some skin-jobs wearing marine armor
"Flash out!...MOVE I've got three skin-jobs secured"
"Taser Taser Taser I've got two skin-jobs secured"
"Moving onto the bridge"...several full auto gunshots "two chrome-jobs down GET DOWN NOW on your stomach hand behind your heads… we have five more here too and one inside a pool or something that is muttering nonsense mixed with damage reports"
A alert pulsed drawing Wards attention back the fighters were launching again "send those fighters to the planet to target any cylon ground forces and planetary raiders they might have left in reserve send the Imlay and the destroyers to back them up." He watched as the heavy carrier Imlay swing around surrounded by a dozen destroyers moving toward a high Caprican orbit. Going back to the audio of the marines who just reported the Baseship secure with a total of eight skin-jobs captured alive and a slightly frakked basestar "leave the heavy cruisers and carriers here to guard our new toy began salvage work on the other wreaks to get this one back up and running the Maximus and the light cruisers will head to finish off the enemy.
The battle in space completed Colonel Ward sent word and over a hundred freighters came dropping out of FTL and started dropping off their cargos of defense platforms of all sizes and models by time the deployments were finished you could arm a fleet of a dozen Battlestars with the weapons on those platforms
They arrived in orbit just as the planetary jammer was destroyed in a gun-run on a cylon base on the coast of Phoebe a coastal city a hundred miles from the capital city. And were flooded with hundreds of messages from Caprican guard, colonial military and civilian militia groups but one signal overwhelmed all others in ancient Trojan dash code every colonial officer memorized back in Basic four long beeps two short followed by three long the presidential distress code…
Colonel Ward almost collapsed to the deck Adar was alive… then the last month and billions dead reminded him of the years of budget cuts to the military. Forcing Colonies like Leonis, Virgon to spend so much of their own coin to fund dedicated defense forces. Loyal naval ground and marines sworn to defend none but their homes, their families, and their planetary governments. Even other colonies like Aquarius and Tauron seeing the decline of the colonial fleet to start up their own defense forces however they had largely fallen prey to the CNP virus adding more blood to that bastard Adars hands.
"Send word back to Troy and the council that Caprica has been secured with a Battlestar captured along with another eight of the skin-jobs and eyes only for the council the possible survival of President Adar"