Author's Notes: This chapter's up now. Uni finished earlier tody. Expect some more frequent updates for the next coupla weeks until I go to the mine. This is a long chapter, and you get to learn a SMALL bit about the other Battlestars at the end of the chapter.

Next chapter will be good. Focusing on New Colonial Characters, as well as ones that we already know, and a couple of characters from earth.

Expect a new chapter every four days or so. I'm also going to update "War Cries", my Buffy series. So, I'm giving two days for a chapter from each story, so, yeah, four days or so.

Enjoy reading, and give lots of reviews, they're always appreciated

Chapter 12 - Infiltration

Two Days Later

Sergeant Henderson didn't know why he'd signed up for this mission, it was just crazy. He'd been asked if he wanted to partake in a very dangerous, but very rewarding mission. He'd been asked if he wanted to serve the PDO, and to do good for the entire planet. But, he hadn't been asked if he wanted to be dropped from the upper atmosphere into the Great Lakes of America and Canada in a tin can.

A day ago, a man had approached him while he was in his quarters in the Barracks in London, England. He had asked him all of the questions that had just raced through his mind, and he had said that the mission was going to be very rewarding, but could not give any details until he accepted it. So, of course, what did he do? He accepted it.

It was then that he had been briefed on the situation in Chicago; that the enemy had crash landed there, had set up missile batteries, and now more recently, anti-aircraft batteries; how they had been bombing the city, until these anti-aircraft batteries had been installed, and now none of their ships could get close enough. He had been briefed about how they were just considering re-nuking the entire city from orbit, but they wanted to send in a ground team first to try and decipher anything that they could about their enemy, and to destroy as many things as they could. Somehow, their enemy had survived in a highly radioactive zone for over a week, and they had no idea how they were doing it.

So now, here he was, strapped into the back of a Manta class ship, that hadn't been tested little more than a couple of days ago, with five other people. They were all wearing a suit that fully covered their bodies, as well as a special mask which would filter their air and prevent any radioactive substances from getting in. Before each of them had gotten into their suit, they had been covered in a paste-like substance which they had been told would help block out the radiation. After they had put their suits on, this paste-like substance was then applied to the outside of their suits as well.

"Everyone strapped in?" he heard the pilot of the craft ask as they dangled from a rail which was coming out of a Poseidon class ship in the upper atmosphere. They all nodded, and as soon as that had occurred, he felt the ship drop away from the rail, and he knew that they were starting to pick up speed towards the ground. The theory was that if the Manta craft could be dropped from the upper atmosphere, they'd be moving too fast for the enemies anti-aircraft batteries to hit, or their missiles to intercept. That was the theory of it anyway, and Henderson was hoping that it would come through. Once they reached the water, they were hoping that the enemy had no way of firing upon them while they were underwater. Then, they would surface and the Mantas would let the teams of soldiers out into the city. There, they would have a maximum of three hours before the scientists warned that radiation would start to seep through their suits. Four hours before they would suffer long term effects, and six hours before they would die slowly.

Henderson checked that he was securely in his seat, the secure padding all around him and the very tight straps across his entire body were making sure that he couldn't even move. He had been told not to eat much, as the impact of the Manta hitting the water might make them bring up their food, if their stomach was full.

He could now hear the large engines on the side of the craft spinning up. They had been briefed about the procedure of dropping the Manta from the upper atmosphere, and was guessing that they would reach a height of seven kilometres above sea level soon, as then they would activate the two turbines on the side of the ship to slow it down enough so that it wouldn't be shattered upon impact into the water.

"Detecting four missiles approaching," he heard through his radio from one of the pilots of the Manta. He hoped that now was the time that theory could be put into practice, and that the missiles would not be able to hit them. The time passed with agonising cruelty, but Henderson knew that it would have only been moments. "Missiles passed, missiles have passed us," the pilot said through the radio.

"Wait, they're coming around," the other pilot said.

"Don't worry. By the time they reach us, we'll be in the water," the first pilot said. Henderson heard the two turbine engines spin up and activate to slow their descent. According to him, they had only just started when he heard them spinning down, and sliding and grinding sounds coming from outside the ship. He realised that they must have done their job, and were now moving back behind the ship via a special rail-type system that had been installed on the ships.

"30 seconds until impact," the pilot said into their radios. Henderson knew that it was now or never, and that he didn't have much trust in the technology that they were using.

The next thing he knew was that the ship was stable, and that the people around him looked like they were coming down with the fever. He couldn't see any of their faces, but their heads were rolling around on their necks, like they were disorientated.

"What the hell," Henderson managed to say with great effort.

"Some of you lost consciousness upon impact," he heard through his radio which was embedded in his mask.

"Oh," was all that Henderson could manage to reply. They waited perhaps five minutes before the pilots spoke to them over the radio.

"We are now holding position on the bottom of the Great Lakes. We will be holding this position for approximately forty-five minutes until we begin to move towards Chicago," the pilot said to them.

Office of Bruce Miller – Planetary Defence Organisation

"…Under the rule of God

The Children of The Twelve Colonies of Kobol

They will venture out into the void in two great Convoys,

Where upon they will come across the lost Thirteenth Tribe

Delivering salvation and destruction to those they encounter…"

Bruce Miller was sitting back in his chair, looking at the text which was upon his computer screen. They had found various writings upon The Great Ship, and this was one of them. After a couple of years of study, they had managed to translate the language, after finding that it was a derivative of early Latin. They were still trying to crack the computer systems of The Great Ship, however they had very formidable defences and it was hard to try and create a common language that Earth's computers could talk to the computers of The Great Ship.

The text on the screen was pretty much self explanatory when taken in context of what they knew; that there was a planet called Kobol, which was believed to be the birthplace of human kind, and that they left the planet in Thirteen groups, Earth being the Thirteenth. They knew that there was some kind of disagreement between Earth and the other Twelve Tribes. They knew that somewhere along the line, if this was true, Earth had lost it's technology and had started again. They knew from the text that the other Twelve Tribes had come, and obviously the conflict that had made the Thirteenth Tribe go in the other direction, was still alive and fluid with the other Twelve Colonies. The only problem they were having with the text was the last line, "Delivering Salvation and destruction to those they encounter…". No one could see how any kind of Salvation could come out of what had happened on Earth, from all the deaths from the first, and now second, attacks.

Manta 004 – Underneath the Great Lakes of the US and Canada, approaching Chicago.

From what the pilots had said to them, they were now approaching Chicago, and were about five minutes out. So far, according to everything that the pilots could tell, they hadn't been detected. They had detected no sonar beams, or any other kind of active sensors which would have revealed their position.

Henderson could feel them ascending, and he heard from the pilots that they were now only a couple of metres beneath the surface, approaching Oak Street Beach. He could hear the sounds of the engines spinning up, getting ready to land the ships onto the beach.

"As soon as that hatch opens, we move out and form a defensive perimeter on the beach for the other Mantas to surface safely," he heard his commanding officer saying over the radio. "Keep low, and if you have to go to ground, make sure you don't land on any shells or anything. One breach of your suit, and you're as good as dead," the commanding officer said to them all. "We're ready," Henderson heard him saying into the radio to the pilots. In the matter of seconds, he heard the engines go from a slight humming sound to a roar, and they were all bounced around in their seats as the Manta surged forward and upwards at the same time. He could feel it as the Manta rose above the water, and started hovering up the beach. They surged forward, and with a thump, the Manta almost crashed into the beach as the pilots set it down. Almost immediately after, he could hear the sounds of air being pushed into the cabin as the pilots equalled the pressure with the outside world. Almost immediately after that, the rear hatch popped open, and the large harnesses that were keeping them all in place rose up upon instruction of the pilots. Henderson began to release the various buckles of other straps which were keeping him down, and within half a minute, the entire squad was up and ready to go. He reached into a compartment which was built into the walls of the craft, above where his head would have been, and grabbed his weapon.

Others of his squad were already at the ramp, and they were starting to move outside. He took up his position, raised his weapon, and moved outside. He went out the back of the hatch, and moved up along the side of the craft, his weapon pointing up the entire time as his eyes scanned first the beach, and then the cityscape beyond for any threats. He didn't have to wait long before one of his team mates moved past him. He looked across to his right, and he could see that another Manta craft had landed on the beach, and another squad was doing the exact same thing as his.

They moved up the beach until they were all crouching down behind a small concrete wall which had been put in place along the brim of the beach, to stop especially high tides from creeping over onto the road ahead. Henderson had his weapon raised, and slowly scanned the area in front of him, and couldn't see a thing.

"This is Henderson. Area clear, over," he said into the radio to his squad commander and he could hear others doing the same thing. They waited a couple of minutes, before they could hear the squad commander telling the pilots that everything was all clear. Moments later, Henderson could hear the other Manta class ships coming up from under the water, and hovering towards the beach. From his experience in the Manta, it was an extraordinary craft, although it paled in comparison to the Poseidon which they had launched from. Henderson wasn't a member of the PDO or IAO's ground assault teams, but he had been brought in on this mission, and compared to the technology that they had before the 'space revolution' as they were calling it on the News, it was very impressive. The only thing that could use improvement was it's noise. The craft made a hell of a lot of noise, and he guessed it was because of the nature of the large engines mounted on the sides. They were just simple turbines, in other words, large propellers mounted within the engine housing. That was what made it possible for the Manta to travel in an atmosphere, as well as in water. In the atmosphere, the turbines would have to spin extraordinarily fast to make the craft hover above the ground, while in water they could slow the engines down as water was a thicker medium than air.

There was no doubt that he could hear the Mantas once they came above the water. Once they had landed on the beach, it seemed like it was completely silent. It was then that Henderson realised, it was completely silent. There wasn't a noise around. He looked ahead, and he noticed that there were no birds, no movement, nothing. It was the first signs that Henderson got that the city had been bombed, by both nuclear warheads as well as conventional warheads. He looked past the immediate area in front of him, and he could see large chunks which had been taken out of skyscrapers, while he could see lots of rubble on the ground.

"Quiet," he heard someone saying over the radio, guessing that his thoughts were mirroring his own.

"Yeah, it is," he heard another voice say.

"Radio Silence!" Henderson heard the commanding officer exclaim over the radio. It was then that he remembered his briefing; they were uncertain of the abilities of the enemy, and they might be able to hack into their squad radio transmissions.

Ten minutes later, and they were leapfrogging along North Michigan Avenue, towards the remains of the Federal Reserve Bank, where the enemy ship had crashed. His squad was charged with the task of checking out that area, and seeing if there were any remains of the enemy ship to salvage. Charlie squad was also accompanying them, just in case they did find something to salvage which was small enough for them to carry back to the beach. They had covered about a kilometre before they were all ordered to stop and find cover by their commanding officer.

"I saw movement ahead," Henderson heard someone say over the radio. It was then that they began to hear the thudding sound of what sounded kind of like an automatic machine gun, except it was slightly off, in the distance.

"This is Delta Squad, we're under fire from an unknown location, and we're pinned down. Requesting extraction, over," they heard the commander of Delta Squad say over the radio to all units.

"Bravo Squad, movement two hundred metres South, along the road," he heard his own commanding officer say to them over their radio. Henderson had taken cover behind a doorway, and he raised his weapon, and looked around the side of the doorway. He looked along the length of his weapon, pointing it wherever he looked so that if he did see something that he needed to shoot, he could do it immediately. Apart from a large pile of rubble, and a couple of broken down, overturned cars that he could see in the middle of the road, he couldn't see anything. He was just about to look away, when he saw it. Something was moving around behind the cars, moving from car to car, using them as cover.

"This is Bravo four, confirmed possible hostile, south, three hundred metres, over," Henderson said to the rest of his squad. He could see someone else from his squad, who was only about twenty metres or so in front of him, using a parked car as cover, get up from his position and begin to scan the area in front of them. It was only moments after that had happened, than Henderson heard it, the sounds of gunfire, and they were close. He saw holes appear in the front of the car, as his squad mate ducked down behind it. Moments later, holes were being carved into the wall next to Henderson's head from bullets flying towards his position. Before he knew what was happening, he had rounded the corner and was now using the doorway as cover, as he could see chips being taken out of the corner of the wall, right near where he was.

"Under fire, under fire, under fire!" Henderson heard one of his squad mates exclaiming into the radio.

"Where the hell are they?" he heard another one asking.

"They're shooting out of the windows. Fourth floor, brick building on the right side of the road," he heard someone else say. He noticed that the fire had moved off of him, and Henderson poked his head and his weapon around the corner. He quickly looked for the brick building, and he almost immediately saw it. He scanned the windows, and could see the muzzle flashes of gunfire emanating from one of them. He aimed and pulled the trigger, letting off a burst of gunfire. It was then that he saw a movement out of the edge of his vision, near where they were scouting out the movement that they had seen before.

He looked and his stomach almost came up his throat as he saw what appeared to be a large mechanical robot, with a chain gun for it's arm, running up the street.

"Contact, South, One-Fifty Metres," he said into the radio. He shot off a couple of rounds towards the robot, and he watched as they had almost no effect. "Shit," he said to himself as he ducked around the corner of the doorway again. Moments later, bullets pounded into the wall around the corner, where he would have been moments before.

"This is Charlie Leader, requesting extraction for Charlie and Bravo Squads," Henderson heard the leader of Charlie squad saying into the radio.

"Bravo Squad, concentrated fire on street contact on Three, acknowledge. Charlie Squad, covering fire, acknowledge?" he heard his squad leader say into the radio. A series of acknowledgements came over the radio, and Henderson switched his weapon to automatic fire. "One, two, three," Bravo Squad Commander said.

Henderson rounded the corner and pointed his weapon directly at the contact which had now slowed to a walk up the street, firing as it went. He let off a couple of bursts of fire before the recoil ruined his aim. He could just hear sustained weapons fire around him, as both Bravo and Charlie Squads let rip. He readjusted his aim, and let of a sustained burst of bullets towards the glowing red eye of the robot on it's head, and to his surprise, the robot stopped moving and fell to the ground in a heap.

"This is Manta 002 and 003 to Bravo and Charlie Squads, ready for extraction," he heard a new voice say over the radio.

"This is Bravo Leader to Manta 002, we are recovering a downed enemy combatant, make ready for extraction, over," Henderson heard his commander say. Henderson could hear the screaming engines of the Mantas as they came towards their location. Seeing as they weren't even two kilometres away from Oak Street Beach, the Manta's wouldn't have taken long to get to them. "Bravo Squad, once the Manta's land, four of you are to move the enemy combatant into the rear compartment of the Manta while the other four provide cover. Charlie Squad will provide additional cover, as well as cover to the Manta craft. Once the enemy combatant is aboard, we pull out, over," Bravo leader said. They agreed that Bravo one to four would carry the combatant, while five through to eight would provide cover. Luckily for Henderson, he was number four.

He watched as the Manta moved up the street, hovering about four metres off of the ground. He was relieved to see that the enemy fire from the enemy combatant in the building over the road couldn't penetrate its armour. The Manta moved up to the robot which was located on the ground, and then spun around and ungracefully dropped onto the ground, the back hatch opening as it did so.

"Bravo squad, go, go, go," Bravo leader said over the radio. Henderson raised his weapon, fired a couple of bursts towards the window where the enemy fire was coming from before, and then sprinted across the road towards the Manta. He could see enemy fire being returned, but it wasn't near him, so he kept on going. He reached the side of the Manta and moved along it's length towards the back, which was facing southwards. The enemy would be able to fire towards the opening of the Manta as they loaded the robot into it. He knew that this was not going to be easy.

Colonial Battlestar Cerebus

Commander Ivy walked along the halls of the Battlestar, reading a daily report of the prisoner that they were holding in their cell. It hadn't shown any ill effects from the ionised radiation which they were pumping into the cell. She looked at the reports from the Pegasus and the Rycon, and the Cylons aboard both of those ships were either very sick, or dead already from the radiation. Theirs, however, had shown none of the same effects that the others had. They had intelligence from the Pegasus when it had run into the Galactica, that there were only twelve Cylon Models, but Commander Ivy was thinking that there were only twelve Cylon models, at that time, and since then, they could have developed new ones, immune to the effects of ionised radiation. Commander Ivy ceased reading the reports as she saw the chief science advisor of the fleet coming towards her. She was housed on the Cerebus, as it was the most advanced ship in the fleet, and was now housing the strange ship that they had managed to recover from the Cylons.

"Here's your report on our findings about the unidentified vessel," Myra, the science advisor said as she handed a clip board to Ivy.

"Would you mind summarising it for me?" Ivy asked her.

"We've found that the ship is not a Cylon ship. The technology on board is far, far, too primitive for it to be a Colonial Ship, and is far lacking for Cylon Technology," Myra said. "However, the technology is far different from anything we've ever encountered, and we've been able to conclude that it is not Colonial or Cylon in origin… however, we have discovered some Cylon Technology on board. We had to guess where the ship's own version of FTL system was located, and we were very eager to examine it, instead we found a complete, retrofitted Cylon FTL drive in it's place. It looked as if the ship's original FTL system had been ripped out and replaced," Myra explained. This got Ivy's attention.

"Have you been able to examine the Cylon FTL drive?" Ivy asked.

"Yes sir. That's the most interesting thing. If we can understand the workings of the Cylon's FTL drive sir, we should be able to update the FTL drive of all ships in the fleet. If it's got the same range as the FTL system that's onboard the Heavy Raiders we've captured, we should be able to jump the entire fleet back to the Colonies in about five jumps, if we want to sir," Myra said.

"I want you and your team to get on this right away. Use any personnel or equipment from any ship in the Odente project," Commander Ivy said to Myra.

"Yes sir," Myra replied. "It may take some time, we will need to master the ship's systems so that we can test the FTL drive and find out how it works," she added. Commander Ivy nodded and dismissed Myra. She was going to pay the XO a visit. Then, they would both go to visit this thing that they were holding in the brig, which liked to call itself Wotresser. For some reason, Ivy knew that there was much more to it that met the eye, and she had a small suspicion growing in the back of her mind, that she knew exactly who he was, and where he was from.