2671.210 War-room on Battlestar Galactica: Fleet commander Apollo called the meeting to order.
"I want to thank all of you for coming today. We have just received the latest Intel from Terra, and it doesn't look good."
The people in the room looked at him, and they could tell that he seemed nervous.
"Our Intel people in the system have intercepted several unusual messages coming from the cylon home world. It seems that their empire is under attack from an unknown enemy."
Athena looked at him, "Who would attack the cylons?"
"We don't know Athena, but apparently they are winning. The intercepted messages indicates that the cylons have abandoned their home system and are moving their central government to Terra."
Admiral Eison looked at Apollo, "So when will their leadership arrive at Terra?"
"Because the cylons use Jump tunnels for FTL travel, it will take them about a year to reach Terra."
"Then that gives us a year to get there, wipe them out and then we rebuild and wait for their government group to arrive."
"Sorry General Dekker, but because of the time delay of the message reaching Terra, we have only five months before they reach Terra. Plus it will take us at least a month to reach the Terra system."
"So we'll have to move things ahead, not a problem Commander, the marines are ready."
"Good General, because we leave in two days." this bit of news caused the others in the room to just look at Apollo.
Julius looked at Apollo now. "Not all of the ships are ready Commander, do you still want to launch in two days?"
"Yes Julius. We'll have the work crews working on finishing the ships for the next forty hours. Any final details will be completed in flight to the Terra system. Any other questions?"
No one said anything. "Ok then, we leave in 48 hours. So get your commands ready."
Every one realized that the meeting was over, and they filed out. Soon Apollo and Eison were the only two left in the room, and Apollo leaned on the table with his head hung down.
Eison looked at Apollo, "Ok Apollo, what's really wrong."
"I'm worried William, we don't know exactly how many ships we'll be facing, and how much time we'll have after we do defeat them."
"Apollo, every commander throughout history has had the same problem. But that never stopped them from doing the right thing."
Both men looked at each other for a minute, and Apollo could see that William was trying to be a friend. "Thanks William, I know that, but it helps to hear it from someone else."
William looked at Apollo, "I know that we'll be alright. And remember that you have the best people behind you."
Apollo smiled and he knew that William was right; he only hoped that it would be enough. William left the war-room, and Apollo was left to consider the size of the fleet that he was taking into combat, and what they may be facing.
The Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Pegasus, Cruiser Adama, Destroyer Ares, Destroyer Gemon, Frigate Cain, and the gunboats Cheetah, Panther, Tiger, Leopard. He also had four Civilian Drayman cargo ships that they would leave in the system just before Terra.
"At least we'll have a chance to repair and refit before we take on any new ships." Apollo thought.
Two days later, the fourteen ships left on their mission to Terra. The work crews had done an excellent job in getting the major systems ready to go on the last few ships. Apollo and Dekker had already set the GroPo's to doing a lot of the finishing work with the engineering people on the ships. With any luck, they would be done before they arrived at the Terra system. Apollo had also left orders for the continuing construction of the ships that hadn't been anywhere near being ready, the Battlestars Atlantia and Pacifica, and the Cruiser Caprica and Frigate Borellian.
For the first week, the fleet made its way through the Confed systems, but then they were jumping into almost unknown systems. Apollo was proud of the way his people were handling themselves, even when something went wrong, they worked together to solve the problems. Morale wasn't even a problem, especially since the ultimate card games between Vagabond and Starbuck. Surprisingly each of them had their own followers throughout the fleet. Apollo decided that instead of discouraging them, he encouraged them to keep playing their weekly games. Even though their first two matches lead to some minor altercations among the crews. What really surprised everyone was when Col. Kirha asked to join their game, and he promptly wiped them both out in less than 2 hours. Only General Blair wasn't surprised, and he told Apollo that he had seen Hunter trying to teach Kirha the finer points of poker for months.
After three and a half weeks, the tension on the ships was almost palpable. The commanders on each ship knew that they were only one jump away from the last system before Terra. As the fleet made it's last jump into the system, Apollo made contact with the Confed Intel team that was in this system. An hour later, the commander of the team was onboard the Galactica and was showing Apollo and Eison the Intel that her people had collected.
"As you can see Fleet Commander, the cylons have slowed their construction of Base-stars and Destroyers, so they can finish building up their planet side facilities."
"So Major Riley, what are the numbers that your people have on cylon ships in the system?"
"Well sir, as of 0700 this morning, there are 21 Base-stars and 42 Destroyers completed and in positions around the system. Usually in flight groups of 3 Base-stars and 6 Destroyers."
William looked at her, "What about raiders and ground troops?"
"Well sir, there are at least 1000 raiders planet side, and probably close to 20,000 centurions. The chances of a successful ground assault are slim sir."
Apollo looked at her now, "What are the estimates as to when the cylon leadership will arrive?"
The major looked a little pensive at that question. "Our best estimate is 3 possibly 4 months sir. But even that is an educated guess."
Apollo dismissed Major Riley and Admiral Eison, and he had the comm. tech send the data coded to the ship commanders. He also informed them that there would be a strategy meeting on the Galactica at 0800 the following morning. Apollo then started pouring over the captured cylon transmissions that the Intel team had gathered over the last few months. Most of the reports were incomplete, but he was able to glean a small amount of useful information from the reports. It seemed that the attacks on the cylon worlds began just over a standard year ago. The ships that were attacking the cylons were obviously shielded, and they used missiles. But the one thing, which he found the most interesting was the long-range pulse weapons that, the main ship seemed to use. From the cylon reports, it sounded similar to the Ravashar pulsar. "Well the good doctor said he hadn't given the cylons all of his secrets."
The following morning, the ship commanders and generals Blair and Dekker were in the war room.
"All right people, we need to form a new strategy, because we only have a limited time frame in which to take this system and prepare for our other incoming guests."
Athena stood up, "Apollo, we have come up with an idea on how we can take this system rather quickly."
Chris brought up the system map in the monitor, and Athena continued. "We enter the system by the jump point and split into two wings. The first consisting of the Galactica, Adama, Ares, the Cheetah and the Panther. The second consisting of the Pegasus, Cain, Gemon, the Tiger and the Leopard. Each wing will circle the outer edge of the system and engage the cylon forces we encounter here, here, here and here. Once that is done, we will then meet up here and head into the system and hit the cylons here and here. Then all we'll have to deal with is the one flight group by the planet Terra itself."
Apollo looked at their plan, what's to stop the cylon groups from gathering together or calling for help."
Chris now stood up; "We launch a flight of Anubis stealth ships to take out the comm. relay satellites here, here and here before our main fleet jumps in system. According to the Intel team, theses satellites are routinely offline because of damage from small asteroid collisions all the time. So if the satellites go offline, a repair ship is sent out to the satellite and it is repaired or replaced. Once the Anubis teams have destroyed the satellites, they'll stay cloaked nearby and destroy any repair ship that comes to fix the satellites. And we launch jamming missiles before we go into combat, which are set to block all frequencies, except ours, which will be scrambled and encoded."
Apollo looked over their plan, and found that they had done a pretty thorough job of planning for contingencies.
"But what about the troops and raiders on Terra, and their orbital defense systems."
General Dekker stood up, "From the reports that the Intel team have gathered, we know that the cylon troops are pretty much localized around this industrial complex here on the Northern area of the western continent. The Main CNC bunker is here, and the power transfer stations are here and here. My marines will land on the planet using the Intel teams Paradigm. It will be a little cramped, but the Captain assures me that we can fit at least 500 marines on the ship. We'll go in at the same time as the Anubis flights, and land on the planet, and offload here, here and here. From these points, we'll attack their main power relays, and effectively neutralize their orbital platforms. At the same time as the fleet is engaging the cylons on the outer edge of the system, we'll be setting implosion charges on their CNC bunker. Then we'll fall back to the Paradigm and get off planet as soon as we can."
Apollo looked at Dekker, "General, why do you want to use the Paradigm?"
"Because it can cloak sir."
"You realize General, that this might be a suicide mission you're sending your people on."
"Yes sir, that's why I am sending only my very best marines. Besides sir, you don't expect us to let all you flyboys have all the fun now do you?"
Even though it was a grim joke, the people in the room laughed a little at his remark. "Alright people, I'll go over the plan and give my final yes or no in two hours. Dismissed."
Apollo sat alone in the war room, and again went over every detail that his people had submitted.
He had to admit that they had done a good job of predicting possible contingencies, but he was still worried about the number of people that they might lose. In the end though, he knew that they were sound plans, and that they had a better than 80 percent chance of working. He had Admiral Eison inform the commanders that Operation Terra would commence at 0900 hours tomorrow. Then he just sat in the war room alone and prayed silently.