by Chaoseternus Nine
We were high above the rings of a massively oversized gas giant, collecting water and tylium from the planets moons, which was a little more challenging then doing it from a planets surface but far more fuel efficient when we started to notice that something was off.
Actually, in all fairness Omega noted it first and had me woken up by the simple method of taking the ship to General Quarters.
I can tell you this for free, nothing wakes a Captain up faster than the General Quarter alarm, I was dressed and halfway to the bridge before my mind joined my body in the waking world
The first thing that greeted me as I strode onto the bridge was Omega's rather wide eyed expression.
Sir! I've got a possible location on the refugee fleet!
That stopped me short, had me blinking and asking the inevitable questions of where and how, after all unless they were in sensor range a definite location was pretty much impossible.
Other side of the gas giant Omega flicked a button on his console, and the bridge filled with the strains of a Command/Control Circuit in heavy use and under heavy attack
My eyes just bulged out; we had been searching almost a month or was that over a month? To be entirely honest, I wasn't sure anymore. But still we had been searching a long time without any indication of where they had gone and they show up and the only way we notice them is because they come under heavy attack?
IF they had stayed the other side of the gas giant, the bulk of the planet would have prevented us from ever noticing her, we could have moved on, our goal so close and never noticed!
Lucky for us, Omega had had a little more time to absorb the situation and was very on the ball.
We're picking everything up through a patch from a Red Squadron Raptor that diverted from their patrol route when they noticed some anomalous transmissions registering, they say it appears genuine
I nodded my mind frantically making and discarding plans.
I have also recalled the work teams acquiring water and tylium from the moons, ordered all squadrons to flight readiness and the fleet to General Quarters
Good work I frowned, we really had only one option if we wanted to get into the fight, Omega, plot us a course out of the giants shadow and into position to jump behind the Galactica, assuming it's her. Recall the Vipers, and have them refuelled while we manoeuvre to jump, and have that Raptor jump to join us as soon as we've jumped
I paused, keeping the thought I really didn't want to add buried in the back of my mind, and hope they don't jump out whilst we're manoeuvring, they should have jumped already'
Looking back on it now, I know how truly lucky we were that day despite losses, the odds that we would ever meet up with Galactica were astronomical but to meet up just in time like we did
Their were so many things that could have gone wrong, it could have been an ambush, plan and simple, Galactica could have fired on us, not believing our tale, only trusting of their own, she could have jumped whilst we were manoeuvring into position, leaving us under the ready guns of the cylons.
A thousand and one things could have gone wrong, most of which could have been discounted if we knew more of what we were getting into but we didn't and we couldn't wait.
There was a chance that our goal was not only in our reach but needed our help, we couldn't wait, we needed to move in then or everything else could have been for nothing. I really don't think my fleet could have survived that shock.
It took us fifteen minutes to manoeuvre into a position to safely jump into Galactica's position as reported by the solitary, vulnerable Raptor and I saw Omega's calculations, I know how close he was shaving it to make it that quick. We could jump through the bulk of a planet but Omega was certainly taking us close, almost worryingly so.
But we had little choice.
We jumped.
For the record, I am Colonel Tigh, XO of the Battlestar Galactica.
Roslin has insisted that the joining of the two fleets be documented into a nice little story for future generations to read, so I have been press ganged into telling Galactica's half of the link up.
For us, it couldn't have come at a better time.
Galactica herself was crippled; our jump engines had been taken down for maintenance when the attack, the first in a week, occurred.
The maintenance had been put off far too long already in the name of keeping the fleet moving but Galactica was the biggest ship, had the biggest jump drives and therefore serious maintenance, which they needed, would take far longer then they would for the civilian vessels.
The fleet wouldn't jump without us, it would leave them without any protection and if they were found before we could finish our frantic patch work fix to get the drives back on, then they would be dead, simple as that.
They knew that it would mean a full half hour under Cylon attack and quite frankly, surviving that was a wing and a prayer prospect. Our record, at that time, stood at twenty minutes.
We were counting on one thing, the Cylons had never once been reinforced during a battle, not heavily, a small handful of Raiders yes, but not significant numbers of them or by any capital ships. It was as if they sent everything they could as soon as they found us, not wanting to risk us jumping away before they attacked and leaving the rest of the ships on patrol just in case there was a second group out there or we escaped again.
Against one Basestar, we had a chance, albeit a slim one.
The game changed entirely twenty-one minutes into the engagement, by this time, the Caprican Voyager had already been destroyed, falling victim to several cylon nukes and her sister ship, Caprican Traveller had been strafed several times by raiders that had slipped past the cordon and was badly damaged.
The Old Lady had been damaged too; several rail guns had been caught in a nuclear blast and as far as we knew, were totally slagged. We had been forced to flip over, make an almost 140 turn on the y Axis to present our undamaged starboard hull and weapons to the cylons, whilst still allowing the topside heavy cannon to fire.
At 21 minutes exactly, Mailman and company arrived.
New Contacts!
Dualla's frantic shout had us, that is, me and Adama, at the Dradis console like a shot, this sounded to us then like our worst nightmare come true, Cylon reinforcements, but that, as you know, wasn't to be.
The first clue we had that something was off was Dualla's jaw dropping, followed by a look of pure shock directed at us.
Commander . I'm reading she swallowed nervously, and I had to resist the urge to throttle her, new contacts were too important to tip toe about, she needed to get it out! Colonial IFF signals from the New Contacts
Frak me was my response to that as I shared a quick shocked and incredulous look with Adama.
Adama, as always, got his head into gear first, Confirm that
The stress of keeping the refugees safe and alive had long ago added about twenty years to his face, but as he spoke those years seemed to lift from his face, a faint glimmer of what looked like hope flickered in one corner of his eyes.
I hoped it was true, Adama was a good man, and anything that brought hope to his eyes was a good thing for him and for all of us.
Commander! There was a genuine smile on Dualla's face now, I'm reading multiple Viper launches from two of the contacts IFF says CBR Mailman and CMM Transporter of the Books
A Blockade Runner and a Merchant Marine launching Vipers, it sounded so surreal and yet
Then the chatter on the Vipers frequency, always left open on the bridge whilst in combat, changed.
All Galactica Vipers, be advised Mark II's, VI's and VII's are joining you
I remember glancing around the Mailman's Bridge as I placed the headset back in its holder, impressing an image of the crew going about their duties, preparing to strike back with smiles on their faces, success and hope filling their eyes.
To the Captain of what had been a largely depressed and all too often suicidal crew, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
But still, there was work to be done.
Launch status?
Colonel, Mailman squadron has launched and has joined Galactica's Vipers, Red Squadron has formed up and is heading towards the basestar, and I'm getting radiological alarms off of their Mark VI's
My eyebrows certainly shot up at that, I knew VI's as Missile Boats, more or less, could be equipped with nukes, I just couldn't remember it ever being mentioned that they had any.
Captain Flynn later apologised for that, he could have sworn he had mentioned it but I knew he hadn't, I have a very good memory for details like that.
And Blue Squadron is waiting for their Cargo bay to complete decompression before they launch
That was slow, but inevitable, the launch bays weren't completed then and most of the Transporters Vipers had been forced to launch slowly through the Cargo Bay doors as usual, instead of the faster and more efficient launch bay route.
At this point we cleared the Civilian ships and took up position above the mighty Galactica herself, we had delivered the big parcels to the Old Lady and now we had a few more messages to deliver, these ones labelled for the attention of the Cylons
We opened fire, our Lone Heavy Cannon, the ten Rail Guns we could bring to bear joining the massed fire from Galactica. The missiles we kept, there were too many friendly's, too much chance of locking onto a Colonial.
We were in the fight but we had yet to make contact and that would no doubt be the fun part. That challenge was still to come.