Second chapter ready - it's a short one but pacey! Third chapter nearly there...

Come on and reviewpeople! Even if it's anonymous I'd appreciate the input!

Caprican space, 5 days since the Cylon attack

'Frak dammit! Sit still, you son of a toaster!'

The raider shimmied left, ducked and broke right, thin starlight limning the smooth, recurved lines of the wing. The light was cold out here in deep space, it lent everything an ethereal quality.

Major Agemnon had always hated the cold. It reminded him that every time he wedged himself into the cramped interior of his Viper, he risked being exposed to the numbing emptiness. The deep freeze. It would take so little to crack open this shell around him, one bullet was all that was needed.

'Wake up, Hunter!' Hot Soup's voice crackled over the comm. 'You've got one lining up on your six… I'm too far away to do anything about it.'

Damn kids! Agemnon thought to himself as he slammed the stick left and yanked his side-thrust to throw the Viper out on an unpredictable slide-spin. They just didn't get the whole, wing-leader/wing-man relationship. But then again, he supposed he'd been daydreaming himself.

'Alright, Hot Soup, I'm coming around towards your position.' He'd spent too long chasing that raider anyway, breaking the first rule of the dog-fight. Pick a target, take your shot, break off. Pick another target, take your shot, break away. It was too easy to stick on one, struggling for the kill-shot, only to pick up a tail.

Hot Soup shot past at close proximity, whooping as he wasted the raider chasing his wing-leader.

'Good shooting, buck, they seem to have taught you something in flight school.'

'Another seven and I beat your all time best, sir!'

'Cocky bastard!'

Agemnon picked up another target, scooting out low underneath him, homing in on one of the other rookies.

'Get on my nine, Soup, duck and dive, five by five!'

He dipped and swooped in on the raider, lining up the predictive cross-hairs on his HUD and constantly checking the range-finder. The mark-twos might be old, but they could fly some and they didn't seem to be vulnerable to whatever it was that had been screwing up the later model's computer systems. They were still no closer to confirming any of the Chief's theories, butyesterday they'd recovered a couple of mark-sevens so at least they could start working on them.

Back to thinking about the cold again. The pilots, cold and stiff, having to be prised from their cockpits.

He fired, letting the angry memories fuel his aggression. The raider exploded in a lazy fireball, quickly burning itself out and leaving nothing but a shower of metallic fragments.

'We've got company!'

'Break! Break! Break!' Hunter bawled as the alarm klaxons rang in his ears. Hot soup bugged out to the left, Agemnon spun his Viper about and let rip as he dragged his firing solution across the enemy formation. Three raiders in chevron formation, forced to break by Hunter's hare-brained shooting. Soup waxed one of them as he came around, Agemnon shot through their cluster, unable to draw a bead, and broke right, sighting on another two coming in head on.

'Come on you Frakkers, come and join the party!' he muttered, pulling on the trigger.

One of them wobbled, spun out and exploded after catching several hits to its forward pod. The second broke away and Hunter bore about to chase it up through Soup's desperate stand-off, forcing another Viper off his wingman's back in the process.

'Thanks, Hunter, I think I got this one.'

Sure enough, the kid blew out his third of the day. Hunter was still down on two, but he had this one. It took him two salvos, fifteen rounds of ammunition, to take down his third and he picked up another two on his tail getting it.

'I got you, Hunter, bear left and I'll break them up!'

'Roger, on your mark, Soup!'

'Mark!'

Another Cylon went to hell and the other got caught in the flame-out and went dark

'Over halfway there!' shouted Soup.

'Accidentals don't count!'

'Sorry, Major, but I think they do!'

'Alright, cut the chatter, we seem to be clear for the moment but I want to check on our progress. All wings check in!'

'This is Ringo, all's well, three kills and counting!'

'Papa Jay, signing in!'

'Streaker, a-okay!'

Three more wings failed to check in, but Greys and Joy 2 Kill were still out there, too intent on staying alive to be able to check in. That meant Jags must have bought a piece of the farm. Another name for the board.

'Alright, Papa Jay and Streaker, buzz in and help those two get clear, Ringo and Hot Soup, form up on me and we'll do a fly-by!'

The pilots gave their acknowledgements and went to it. Agemnon hit the burners and streaked out towards the still-burning hulk of the Atlantia.

'You think they'll find anyone?' asked Ringo.

'I don't know, buck, but we'll find out soon enough. Keep your eyes peeled for base-stars and cut the damn chatter. Jeez, how many times have I got to say it!'

Agemnon shook his head over the sorry wreck of the Atlantia. The chances of finding survivors were slim, but they had to try. And if there were more than could squeeze onto three Raptors then the Lords of Kobol only knew what would happen. Agemnon didn't want to lose any of his men to the Cylons, but he sure as hell didn't want to lose any more to their own kind either.

'This is Hunter to Search and Rescue, do you copy?'

'Hunter, we copy you, go ahead.'

'Give me a sit rep!'

'We haven't heard from the search teams yet, sir. The FTL core is pretty busted up and its giving out quite a lot of electromagnetic interference. I'm surprised we're even picking you up, sir!'

'Dammit. We don't have much time, be ready to bug out as soon as I give the word!'

'Copy, sir!'

'Ringo, Soup, set up a holding pattern around the starboard hangar deck. Don't let any toasters in. I'm going to help the others out.'

Kicking the burners in again, Agemnon was pressed back into his seat by the sheer G. The dogfight up ahead was pretty hairy, about twelve raiders to their four. About to be five, thought Agemnon, that should even the odds a little.

'Papa, you got one on your…' Papa Jay was beyond hearing. Maybe four after all.

Hunter decided it was time to live up to his name. On his attack run he waxed two and spun out, subjecting his body to incredible amounts of G before accelerating up through the cluster again, teasing a third out of its desired path and forcing it away from Streaker, who was trailing smoke. It jinked away after his first volley and he couldn't reduce his speed quick enough to correct and follow. He picked a fourth target, lining up on Joy 2 Kill, and forced it to break away with a solid stream of hard rounds.

'I'm racking 'em up, boys and girls, hasn't anyone got what it takes to beat my score?'

A round of derogatory remarks assaulted his ears and he laughed exultantly as he waxed another. Six down, another two to equal his all time best score. Of course, that had been forty years ago. Agemnon had been a rookie during the last few months before the amnesty was declared. He'd racked up an enormous tally of thirty-four kills in seven sorties. His last outing had been his best. Eight confirmed kills and three unconfirmed that he had sworn he could remember. Remembering wasn't proof, however, and the flight-comp had been inconclusive.

Now, at the age of fifty-seven, he knew he'd slowed down. His reflexes weren't as sharp and his vision wasn't as clear. But his instincts were still razor-sharp. He knew when to follow and when to break without even checking his dials. Despite his admonition of any pilot that stuck to a target for too long, he knew that sometimes you could get away with it.

There wasn't any substitute for instinct.

He thought Hot Soup might have it, maybe Joy 2 Kill, but the others were just damn good pilots. Skilled in their way, with reflexes and senses honed, resilience both physical and mental, but with no real feel for fighting in 3 dimensions.

'Hunter, we've got eyeball on a couple of nasty looking base-stars just dropping in-system. They're a ways off but they've got bogeys flying escort and those bastards can scoot!'

'Acknowledged, Hot Soup, stick tight and keep a low profile. We're just finishing up here.'

The rest of the nearby Cylons had broken for friendly space. There was no point pursuing them, that'd just burn up their reserves faster than was necessary.

'Alright, boys and girls. Welcome to the big time. I haven't gone toe-to-toe with a base star in forty years, let alone two of 'em. I've got a feeling we're all going to be aces after today.'

A chorus of cheers went up. Hot Soup was already there, five kills make him an ace. The others probably weren't far off.

'Gear up, get your shit together and fly like you got a purpose, children. I don't want to be posting any more names on that damn board, y'hear!'

'Aye aye, sir!'

The quartet of antiquated Vipers lanced back towards the burnt out monument to man's arrogance that was the Atlantia, to stand or fall in the name of defiance.

For Caprica.

For the Twelve Colonies.

For survival of the human race.