Thirteen

Chapter Sixty-Four

Striking At The Last Colony

Admiral William Adama knew it was going to be a rough day as soon as the first Drakh ship jumped into normal space and hammered Galactica with a volley from her beam cannons. The ship was violently rocked as the beams impacted on her port side, and Adama barely managed to maintain his balance as he stood in CIC.

"Sir! The starboard landing pod's been hit and breached!" Lieutenant Gabriel Abernathy, who had taken over the tactical duties from Gaeta when he had been discovered as a Cylon, cried out.

"Send a damage control team to contain the breach!" Adama called out, then looked up at the new communications officer, Lieutenant j.g. Sabrina Mortimer, and ordered the Vipers to be launched.

Mortimer carried out the order, then alerted Adama, "Sir, Vipers are away!" Adama nodded and looked at the enhanced DRADIS display above his head. Sure enough, the alert Vipers were roaring their way towards the incoming Drakh fighters. He said a quick, silent prayer to the Gods to protect his son, then got back down to the business of fighting the battle.

Galactica fired her newly installed plasma cannons at the oncoming Drakh cruiser and scored a direct hit on her launch bay, which ripped a huge chunk of the ship off. "Press the attack! We keep firing, we might just hit the reactor!" Adama ordered.

Matheson, his second in command, spotted something on the DRADIS. "Sir, Cylon basestar launching missiles!"

"Fire interceptors! Set for long-range dispersion fire!"

"Aye sir!" Abernathy said, and went about carrying out the order. Soon enough, the enhanced interceptors began to open up on the incoming missiles. Vipers and Starfuries broke off long enough to take out some of the missiles before re-engaging with the enemy fighters.

"I'm hit!" cried out Hotdog, and Adama's eyes swerved over to the tactical display. Sure enough, it indicated that Hotdog's right wing had been severely damaged. He was turning back and trying to make it back to Galactica, and Kat was moving to protect him. "Hang on, Hotdog! I'll lay down some cover fire for you!" she yelled as she brought her fighter around to take out the Cylon raider that had damaged the young man's craft.

To his horror though, Adama saw that two Drakh fighters had come around and were now in position to shoot down both Hotdog and Kat. Their screams as their Vipers were hit were snuffed out when the wireless systems in their fighters were destroyed, but it didn't shorten the pain of hearing two young people full of life snuffed out so coldly. Adama squeezed his right hand into a fist, then released it, turning to Matheson and asking, "Backup Vipers ready to go?"

"On your order, sir!" Matheson said.

"Launch them!" Adama ordered, and soon the secondary Vipers were away, doing what they could to help his son and the rest of the Viper pilots out.

Lee "Apollo" Adama had no time to think of the deaths of two of his fellow pilots under his command. He brought his Viper around and splashed a raider, then turned his Viper around to attack more. "Apollo, we just lost Joker and Stinger!" George "Catman" Birch said over the wireless, then he screamed as his ship was hit. The scream was interrupted as the sound was cut off. Apollo's instincts took over and he went after one bogey after another, doing what he could until the inevitable happened.

Several Thunderbolts flew over towards his squadron, with one of the pilots linking in to speak to him. "Apollo, this is Spartan off of the Freedom. We've been ordered to head over here and give you a hand!"

Apollo shredded a Cylon raider with his pulse cannons on his Viper, then replied, "Thanks, Spartan! I appreciate the help!" He went on to find yet another bogey to splash, and it wasn't long until he had another enemy fighter in his sights. He was so concentrated that he barely could hear the screams of other pilots being shot down.

Starbuck had no time to worry about her old friend Apollo, as the Whitestar she commanded was several thousands of kilometers away, performing strafing runs on one of the Cylon basestars that had jumped in. Helo was with her, manning the combat station to her left. Already two of the Whitestars in her fleet were out of the fight, and two others were severely damaged but still giving the enemy hell.

"What's the status of the basestar?" Starbuck asked.

Helo scanned his console, then replied, "That last run kicked off a chain reaction! Better back off because that reactor's going to blow!"

"Okay, take us to the next designated target!" Starbuck ordered, and Helo sent the ship along with the remaining Whitestars in their fleet speeding away from the mortally damaged basestar, which went up like a gigantic firework in space as its reactor went critical. Her ships got away in time, but one of the Drakh motherships was not so lucky, as it was speared by one of the spokes flying away from the explosion, which breached its own reactor and sent it up like a Roman candle.

Just as they were approaching the Drakh carrier they were planning to attack, the ship seemed to have been violently kicked in its relative ass, and Starbuck was thrown from her seat. She scrambled up and got back into it; glad to see Helo had somehow managed to hang on. "What the hell happened?"

"Frak! A Drakh fighter snuck up under us and gave us a kick between the goal posts!" Helo said angrily.

"Then give that bastard one right back!" Starbuck yelled out, and Helo turned the ship around and pursued the fighter. It tried to get away, but a blast from the forward beam cannon turned it into a wide field of debris. Helo wasted no time in bringing the ship back around to head towards the carrier, managing to slide the ship to the right to avoid a beam discharged from the enemy.

They completed the first run and were just turning back when another blast spun their ship around. A Cylon missile that they hadn't seen coming had slammed into their port nacelle, and it was severely damaged.

"Can we maneuver?" Starbuck said.

"Yeah, but not quickly. Automated repair systems working to patch up the ship. We have weapons, but our engines are down to sixty percent. We need to drop back and get ourselves fixed up, Starbuck!" Helo said.

She didn't want to do it, but she had no choice. "Take us away for now, then get us back in the fight as soon as we're ready."

Helo nodded and dispatched another Whitestar to lead the fleet while their own pulled back to repair the damage. It wasn't easy, because they had to fight their way to get out of the line, but they managed to avoid the enemy long enough to get to a relative safe harbor.

From the situation room deep under Earthdome, Hollifield, Ivanova, and Cain were studying the battle as it progressed. "Starbuck's Whitestar has been severely damaged, sir. She's pulling back to get it fixed. Says she should be back in the fight shortly."

Hollifield nodded and went back to looking at the tactical displays on the main screen. "We're losing fighters hand over fist out there!" he said grimly.

"Independence and Freedom have been hit, but are still in the fight. Excalibur had had her forward cannons damaged, but she's still moving forward." Ivanova nodded. She was monitoring the Earthforce ships, as well as the other Interstellar Alliance ships that had come to help with the defense of Earth.

"We just lost Solaria." Cain said, "Poseidon had been hammered and may not make it through to the end."

"What about Galactica?" Hollifield asked.

"She's still in the fight, but she got hit on her starboard landing pod. Other than that, she's only taken minimal damage." Cain replied.

Ivanova slammed a fist into the table and exclaimed, "Ramses had been destroyed. That's one Warlock-class destroyer we didn't need to lose!"

Hollifield looked up at the main board again and sighed, commenting, "Better get used to it, Susan, because the way it's looking now, we'll be losing a lot more before this battle is done!"