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Cj-cold

The fighters have been replaced with F-22. Another Triton is in the works, and things will change soon!

You'll get to see more of the PDO's inner workings next chapter, or the chapter after that… promise

Authors Notes

There's a new fighter that (has/is?) been developed that's meant to have VTOL capabilities and be as fast (or almost) as the F-22. I'm in Australia, and remember seeing something on the TV a couple of years ago, about Australia's gonna buy a whole heap from America. Anyone knows the name/designation for that kind of fighter, give us a yell.

In theory, the communications method I've devised in this chapter works, in theory. I've seen something like this on "Beyond Tomorrow", where they just align two infra-red/laser things and it allows communications… read the chapter to find out.

Chapter 6 – Protection

One Day Later

C-601 Baleen Class Cargo Ship - Chicago City

Sergeant Harrisman and Sergeant Smith were flying their Baleen class cargo ship towards Chicago city, with a full team of engineers and heavy equipment inside the container section of the ship. They were briefed today that an enemy ship had been shot down over the area and that their mission was to fly the engineers and equipment in to retrieve it. The cockpit was to be kept sealed at all times, to stop the radiation from reaching the unprotected pilots and crew. The rest of the engineers had to wear radiation suits, and all equipment was going to go through a cleansing process after its use. The ship was going to be kept in a facility near Area 51, which was supposed to have adequate radiation shielding. For Sergeant Harrisman and the rest of the crew of six were glad to finally get this assignment after doing twelve hour shifts running supplies back and forward to various parts of the world for the refugees from the attacks. They had an Osprey class cargo ship flying with them, which had the sensor data to determine the amount of radiation down there, as well to fly as escort. They had just come up to the Central Business District of Chicago now, and were hovering above it, using the cameras mounted over the ship to determine an adequate landing site near the crash. It was then that Sergeant Harrisman heard the alarm sound throughout the cockpit, and seconds later, his weapons officer said

"Something down there has a missile lock on us… incoming missile." Henry immediately twisted the lever which turned the two giant rotational engines attached to the side of the ship into a vertical position.

"Brace yourselves for turbulence," Sergeant Smith said into the radio to the crew of engineers. Almost immediately, the ship started to fly vertically upwards as Sergeant Harrisman put the throttles to full. He looked up at the monitor showing the crash site and could see an object coming towards them very quickly. It was then that he looked across to Sergeant Smith, a look of horror on his face. Seconds later, the Baleen cargo ship exploded in a giant fireball, one hundred metres above the ground.

Colonial Battlestar Galactica

They had been occupying this system for close to two days collecting resources and stocking up on supplies. They were recalling all of their shuttles and were readying to jump out of the system when a number contacts jumped in.

"DRADIS contact," Lieutenant Gaeta said to everyone in the Command Information Centre (CIC). He watched as Admiral Adama looked at the DRADIS screen. Gaeta could see that some of the shuttles were still coming up from the planet's surface.

"Dee, order all of the civilian ships to jump. Tell them that we'll take the shuttles and jump to their position as soon as we have them all," Admiral Adama said to Petty Officer "Dee" Dualla, the communications officer. "Set Condition One throughout the Ship and Launch Vipers," he ordered. Gaeta grabbed the handset and switched it to 'announcement'.

"Attention All Hands, set condition one through out the ship. Repeat, set condition one throughout the ship," he said into the handset, causing his voice to be played from every speaker system within the ship.

Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace sat within her Viper within the launch tubes of Galactica. The Colonial Viper was a tri-winged fighter craft, capable of remarkable manoeuvring. It was powered by three large engines, as well as two reverse thrust motors and a Reaction Control System used for manoeuvring. It had two rail-guns mounted underneath the two ventral wings, and was a one manned fighter. Instantly, Starbuck's Viper was shot out of the launch tubes lining the flight pods of the Battlestar Galactica. The launch tubes effectively delivered a Viper into space at a high velocity, much like a torpedo. Once the Viper was clear of the Galactica, the main engines would be fired and the pilot would take control.

Kara looked out of the front of her cockpit and saw the last of the civilian ships jumping to the emergency jump coordinates. It was just the Galactica, and the Cylons now. She spun her viper around so that she was heading along the vector which would take her to the Cylon ship, and couldn't believe her eyes. She could see a smallish, rectangular looking ship, which certainly didn't look like it belonged to the Cylons. But there were Raiders surrounding the ship, and more jumping in as she watched.

"Attention Galactica. The Cylon ship is an unknown, but there's Raiders all over it," she said into the wireless communications. She expected the Raiders to start to break formation from around the unknown ship, however they didn't. The Viper Squadron launched from the Galactica was closing in towards the enemy formation when at one; they all disappeared in the flash of an FTL jump.

"Attention Galactica. The Cylons have jumped away," she said.

Colonial Ship Adriatic – Alpha Centauri System

Riley Tuoa, pilot of the Adriatic double checked the FTL coordinates which his co-pilot had plotted for their final jump. It had been a very long three weeks aboard the Adriatic, jumping at least twice a day. They had only encountered the Cylons three times, twice they had jumped away before anything could happen. The last time, they had stuck around until the Cylon's Raiders had gotten close to them and had launched missiles. They had come across an unusual Cylon ship, with a Basestar escorting it.

"Do you think we'll find it?" one of the technicians which had been put aboard the Adriatic had asked.

"I don't know. We'll jump into the middle of the system and then use the raptor to look at each planet. Hopefully, we won't intimidate the people of the 13th Colony," Riley replied. The Galactica had given them a raptor to use to scout out any systems that they might have found interesting, and to scout out the Earth System once they finally got there. They been jumping three times each day for the last couple of days, as their food stockpile was running short.

"Begin FTL checklist, and start spinning up the FTL drives," Riley Tuoa said. They waited a short while, making sure that they were ready, and that they had reviewed their protocols that they had developed for any anticipated scenario once they reached the Earth system. "Jump in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…" the co-pilot said. Instantaneously, the Colonial ship Adriatic was transported from the Alpha Centauri System, to a location just outside the orbit of Pluto within the Sol. System.

Osprey class shuttle 062

Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson and the rest of his team, Lieutenant Sharon Valerii and Captain Organ were flying out towards the Asteroid belt, carrying a geologist and engineer from the three major mining companies which had been signed on to commence mining of Jupiter's moons and the Asteroid belt. They were flying towards the Poseidon class ship, the Prometheus which was stationed near the Asteroid Belt, releasing a number of new sensor and communication relay satellites which had been built. Their secondary mission was to test the sensor relaying powers of the satellites, as well as their communication ability. The new satellites would allow almost instantaneous communication from any point in the solar system, to Earth or any other ship within the system. Their inbuilt radar and sensor packages allowed a greater view of the solar system, as well as added security. They worked by having a number of laser-point receivers and laser communications devices mounted on each of them. Each ship was also equipped with laser-point receivers and laser communications devices. If a priority message needed to be transmitted, the ship would use it's sensor equipment to align it's laser communications devices with the laser-point receivers on the satellites. Data could then be sent in bursts of light to and from a ship to a satellite. The satellite would then store the data and align it's own laser communications devices with another ship, Earth, or another Satellite for relaying just in case objects such as planets were in the way. The benefits of the system, which had been in progress for years, were that there was no network required between satellites or ships, all data was transmitted in bursts of laser light, which could only be hacked or intercepted if something was in the direct path of the laser itself. The software packages upon each satellite were very complex. If a foreign object was detected on it's radar or sensors, it was programmed to automatically search for the nearest shuttle, Poseidon, or Triton class ship and then send an automatic communiqué to the ship warning of a foreign object, as well as pictures from the number of small telescopic cameras which were mounted on the satellite, as standard on all Earth ships, and to begin to relay real-time radar data to the ship. If it couldn't locate a ship, the coordinates for any existing laser communications array on Earth were programmed into the ship, and it would automatically send them there. This was done without any network on the satellite, or between ships and the satellite. The computer aboard the satellites was well in advance of many computers which could be found on Earth, and that had been the most difficult part of the entire process.

The last thing that Captain Organ, the communications officer aboard the Osprey expected to receive was one of these data bursts from a satellite that they had deployed in the outer solar system.

"Lieutenant Johnson, bring our ship to a full stop," he said to the pilot of the ship.

"What's happening?" the Geologist from BHP, situated near Captain Organ asked.

"We've received a communication from a satellite that was just deployed. There's an unknown ship in the outer solar system," Captain Adam Organ replied to the woman. He looked over the massive amount of data his terminal was receiving before the real-time radar came up on the main monitor. "The ship's near Pluto," he said to Johnson and Valerii.

"Why didn't the communiqué go to the Prometheus?" Valerii asked. Captain Organ looked over the digital navigation chart that he had on one of his screens.

"Jupiter is blocking the signal from reaching the Prometheus," he replied. "Relaying the signal to the Prometheus." Moments later, the Prometheus responded, saying that they would move into a better position. "The Prometheus is telling us to either turn around and head for Earth, or to try and hide within the asteroid belt," Organ said.

"How far away from the Asteroid belt are we?" Flight Lieutenant Johnson asked.

"Approximately half an hour," Captain Organ replied.

"That's it then, we're heading for the Asteroid Belt," Johnson replied.

Poseidon class ship Solaris – Between Earth and Mars

They had launched from a secret Air-Base Northwest of Calgary, Canada, no more than two hours ago after having gone through their flight checklists, when they had received the communiqué from the Prometheus, requesting that they make a jump out to Uranus to assist them with an unknown contact.

Commander Heidi Galtua couldn't believe that only a couple of hours after they had launched, the ship was going to go into a combat situation. She was both afraid and happy to be going back into combat. She was afraid that there'd be a repeat of the Arawan, or worse, but she was happy that she'd get to have some revenge on those who had killed most of her entire crew, and killed so many on Earth. It was only a minute after the Solaris had received the communiqué that it entered into Hyperspace, where it remained for an entire minute, before emerging in the orbital path of Uranus, where the Prometheus had requested. The radar officer immediately went to work, searching through their computer database for where the satellite should be, and after a minute or two, he had found it and established a successful laser-point connection with it. The satellite was stationary between the orbits of Pluto and Neptune and from the data coming into their ship; the enemy ship was located just about an equal distance on the other side of the orbital path of Pluto.

"Unknown ship type mam. It's about three quarters of the size of the Solaris," the radar officer said. "We're detecting a smaller object which is flying towards Neptune. It's a bit smaller than an Osprey shuttle."

"Deploy the Tiger fighter wing, and an Osprey to act as long range sensor platform," Commander Galtua ordered. This was a new tactic that the enemy was using. They had only encountered the large carrier class ships, and the smaller fighters and heavier fighters before, never a ship this size, and without a heavy escort of fighters. She had picked out their tactic, they were going to lure in one of the Poseidon class ships, and then one of their larger Carriers was going to jump in right on top of them. No, she decided that she was going to rely on the stealth capabilities of the Tiger fighters for this one.

Colonial Ship Adriatic – Near the orbital path of Pluto

As soon as they had jumped into the system, they had seen the small DRADIS contact, and immediately investigated. From what they could tell, it seemed to be artificial in origin, and relatively small, about the size of a raptor. So far, they hadn't seen any Cylon devices quite like it, and they had their hopes up. The raptor was immediately deployed to scout out the object.

Half an hour later, the co-pilot of the Adriatic announced that they had an anomaly on the DRADIS screen.

"There's an anomaly on DRADIS. It's disappearing and reappearing spontaneously," he said. "There's another one. And another one," he announced. He managed to count six of them between them disappearing and reappearing on the DRADIS.

"What could they be?" the pilot of the Adriatic asked.

"Stealth ships?" one of the technicians suggested from the rear compartment.

"Or an attempt to jam our DRADIS," the military advisor said who Galactica had put aboard the ship.

"We're putting weapons on standby," the pilot said. The Adriatic was equipped with two large turrented rail guns, one on the left and one on the right side of the ship. Riley Tuoa began to operate the flight computer.

"What are you doing?" his co-pilot asked.

"Plotting some more jump coordinates, just in case we need to leave," Tuoa replied.

Tiger 031, launched from the Solaris – Approaching unknown ship.

They were cruising on momentum only, trying to maximise their stealth capability to unknown, and probably superior, sensors. Lieutenant Commander Jack Nicholson was the lead pilot of the Tiger squadron, having survived the initial attack against their planet, and destroying the attempt by enemy fighters at entering their atmosphere. The enemy ship would soon be within visual range, and it was then that they would open up with their missile bays. Both his fighter, as well as three others in the wing of six were carrying at least one nuclear missile. They would destroy this ship before it knew what had hit them. Nicholson hoped that his co-pilot could feel the tension as well, that it wasn't just him who thought that the air could be cut with a knife. They continued cruising on for five minutes, when they could just make out the shape of a ship in front of them.

He looked up into the monitor, which was now showing the ship through one of the telescopic cameras mounted within the hull. They hadn't been able to zoom in on it before, as they were flying with passive sensors only, as active sensors could alert the enemy to their presence. He pressed a button, and a small laser unit on the top and on the bottom of the fighter emerged from the hull. One pointed towards Alpha Two, and the other Towards Alpha Three. The theory was the same as the communications satellite which had detected the enemy ship in the first place. Each small turrented laser located the laser receiving point on Alpha Two and Three.

"Orientate," Jack Nicholson commanded into the communications device. He then rotated the ship fifty degrees around their vector of forward velocity, so that now they were on the same orientation as the enemy ship. Alpha Two and Three almost followed immediately. A moment later, Alpha four, five and six spun around so that they were orientated with the ship. Jack Nicholson almost jumped out of his seat as he was startled when a voice came over the radio.

"Attention unknown ships. We are the Colonial Ship Adriatic. We come in the name of peace. We have minimal weapons and wish you no harm," the voice said.

Colonial Ship Adriatic

They had just sent the message over the airways, after guessing that the DRADIS anomalies might have been ships. They were waiting for a reply, confirming their guess that the anomalies were indeed ships. The entire crew of the Adriatic had waited for ten minutes, watching the anomalies close ever closer and closer to their ship, until they were finally on top of them. Riley Tuoa was looking intensely out the front viewport of the Adriatic when he almost fell out of his seat as a number of black, wedge shaped craft flew over and under the ship, appearing almost out of nowhere.

"DRADIS Contact," Tuoa's co-pilot called out. He looked to the DRADIS and saw that a large ship had appeared out of no where directly ahead of them. "DRADIS Contact," his co-pilot called again. Another ship had appeared directly behind them. "They're both a little larger than the Adriatic," his co-pilot said.

"This is Commander Galtua of the Earth ship Solaris. Stand down your weapons or you will be fired upon," a voice said coming over the radio. Riley Tuoa did just that, as he watched a black wedged fighter fly to the front of the Adriatic and face them. "Any attempts at weapons fire or movement of the ship of any kind will result in us opening fire. Recall your other ship, deactivate your shields and prepare to be boarded," the voice commanded them over the radio.