Sorry about the delay, but toughs off you who have read some of my recent posts will know that my home life has been somewhat hectic as of late…
When two Tribes go to war...(Part 16)
"The heavens burned,
The stars cried out,
And under the ashes of infinity,
Hope, scarred and bleeding, breathed its last."
Ulatempa Poetess
"FRACK! FRACK! FRACK! FRACK! FRACK!" Starbuck hissed as fire from the Pegasus started to zip past her Viper, threatening to do what countless Cylons had failed. The fight was fast descending into one hudge dogfight, as the Colonial warship started to fire upon one another.
Not since before the first Cylon war, when the humans of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol had made war upon each other, had ships from different Tribes fired on each other. It was somewhat fitting that the two Battlestars were the Galatica, embodiment of Caprica, and the Pegasus, personification of Picon.
A momentary thought flashed through the young pilots mind: it was almost like a fight between the Avatars of two High Guard ships.
She was brought back to reality when a High Guard slipfighter exploded in a ball of flame off her port wing.
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Beka watched as her wingman, a young Nietzschean she barely knew, was killed by the extensive fire from the Pegasus and her two escorts. Gripping her controls so tight her knuckles went white; she started to maker attack run.
Time slowed to a crawl, something Beka had not experienced without the aid of Flash. She could almost see the individual rounds leaving the turrets on the Pegasus, streaming towards her, only to miss. They came so close she felt like she could almost reach out and touch them.
The targeting radical on her crosshairs started to flash red, before glowing gold with a confirmed lock.
Pulling the main trigger, Beka sent pulse after pulse of laser fire streaming across the void, ripping into the Battlestars heavy armor. A flick of her wrist added a pair of kinetic missiles to the salvo.
Each weapon was made up of a ball of carbon and steel, roughly the size of a human head. Accelerated to near light speed by a powerful engine, each missile could hit with the force of a small nuclear device. Against the relatively poor Colonial point-defences, they were both almost guarantied to hit.
Both missiles struck the Pegasus along her broad back, each destroying a rail gun battery.
Not easy up for a moment, Beka set her fighter to fire all its missiles as fast as the tubes could be loaded. The outside hull of the slipfighter started to glow as the capacitors for the ELS tubes went into over drive, spitting out eight missiles a second, empting the magazine in less than five seconds.
Fire erupted along the back of the Pegasus as the missiles breached the hull and ignited the internal atmosphere. Rail gun batteries exploded when hit, reducing the amount of fire the might warship could put out.
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Apollo gasped as he watched the lead High Guard fighter led a truly devastating attack on the Pegasus, stripping it of almost a third of its point-defences in a single pass. He couldn't help but wonder just who the Commonwealth was enemies with if they needed that kind of destructing capability.
Movement out of the corner of his eye alerted him to a new threat: the Colonial destroyers Alexander and Mjolnir were starting to flank the battle, turning their missile batteries on the Galatica while the Battlestar engaged its counterpart.
A flash eliminated the bow of each ship as they opened up with their heavy rail guns.
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Rommie felt the deck of the Pegasus shudder under her feet as it started to take damage. She wished that she could tell just how the battle was going, but there was too much interference for her to connect with any nearby High Guard ships.
"You say the brig is this way?" She asked Helo.
"Just down there and on the right." The Colonial pilot nodded, "There'll be at least two guards…"
"You leave them to me. Can you get us a ship with an FTL drive?"
"My Raptor should be in the port landing bay, but with the hanger pods retracted, there's no way to take off."
"That's a bridge we'll cross when we get to it. You go prep your ship; I'll get Admiral Rhade."
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Dylan gripped the controls tightly as the Andromeda lurched under the sustained assault of at least two Cylon Basestars and countless fights. Spaces seemed filled with missiles that the stars themselves were blotted out.
Silent death and destruction filled all three view-screens, Andromeda herself too busy fighting to talk to anyone. Not since the cataclysmic battle of Witchhead nebula had so many High Guard ships seen battle at one time.
The High Guard fleet held the ground when it came to pure firepower and manoeuvrability, their sentient A.I. immune to the viruses the Cylons had used so effectively against the Colonials of Kobol.
But there were only five High Guard Warships in the system, and both the Cylons and the Nietzschean outnumbered them, and it became a battle of attrition, one the High Guard could ill afford to lose.
Dylan watched as Colonial ships started to make hyper-light jumps, using their strange FTL drives to escape the carnage. The Andromeda, Twelve Centuries and Wrath of Achilles lay down coving fire in a bid to allow as many of the civilian ships to escape as possible.
The Black Watch and the Zion's Victory seemed more intent on keep anyone from attacking the Kingfisher or Colonial One. Nietzschean and Cylon ship exploded in flames as the two deadly warships poured fire into anything in range.
Fighters by the dozen, from all sides, were blasted from space every second as they attempted to weave in-between the truant of fire put down by the larger ships.
A Cylon Basestar made the mistake of trying to close on the Wrath of Achilles. All three High Guard cruisers opened up with their devastating but short ranged Anti-Proton Cannons, ripping the enemy ship apart in a matter of seconds.
Return fire from an entire fleet of Cylon raiders ripped into the Wrath of Achilles, buckling armor along its flank. The Andromeda and Twelve Centuries also started to take heavy damage, the weight of firepower the Cylons were able to put out guarantying that something would get bust the point-defences.
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Commander Adama felt his ship lurch violently under his feet as the fire from the Alexander and the Mjolnir ripped into the Galatica, bursting armor plates and bulkheads. A shower of sparks erupted from the ceiling as the main console exploded, hitting the map table as it fell. Colonel Tigh pushed Adama out of the way, saving his old friend from being hit by a piece of falling debris.
"Damage to the starboard pod and thrusters." Lt Gaeta reported, holding onto his own console, "Fire on several decks."
"Retract the pods." Adama pulled himself to his feet, "Lock main guns on the Alexander and Mjolnir, firing point procedure: give me a shooting solution, engines only."
"Firing point procedure, Aye." Lt Gaeta nodded, "Formulating shooting solution now."
"The Pegasus has lost most of her point-defences." Tight looked at Adam, holding his arm, trying to hide the blood that was starting to seep through his uniform, "We have a clear shot at her…"
"I will not order the destruction of a friendly ship." Adama shook his head, showing to be heard above the constant sound of sirens, "We've lost too many people already."
"Cain's lost it. You're letting your emotions get in the way again: Athena joined the fleet of her own free will: she knew what she was getting herself into…"
"I'm not going to order the destruction of the Pegasus while there is still a chance!"
"Sir, we have a shooting solution on the Alexander and Mjolnir." Lt Gaeta reported, "All weapons report ready to fire."
"Fire as they bare!" Adama ordered, "Clear the tubes."
"Aye-aye, sir!" Gaeta opened a channel to the fighters outside, "Fire in the hole! Repeat; fire in the hole!"
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"Fire in the hole!"
The four bright flashes that illuminated the front of the Galatica as the mighty Battlestar fired her main guns, momentarily blinding Beka. Her slipfighter's sensors barely had time to register the massive projectiles before they hit the smaller destroyers.
The Alexander took both hits to her port landing pod, the shear force of impact twisting it out of shape, almost blasting it clear. The ship started to rotate uncontrollably as atmosphere vented fro dozens of hull breaches.
Less fortunate was the Mjolnir: one round struck the ships armor at an oblique angle and ricocheted of into space, doing minimal damaged. The second shot, on the other hand, struck the sturdy destroyer head-on, buckling several bulkheads as it buried itself into the ships prow. Her running lights flickered momentarily, before dieing completely as the ship lost main power.
A near miss brought Beka back to reality with a bump, reminding her that she still had to fulfil her mission. Reacquiring a lock on the Pegasus, she opened fire with her lasers, tracking a line of fire across the hull.
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Rommie could feel every bump and shudder that ran trough the Pegasus: from the constant hum of its powerful reactors, to the drumbeat of impacting pulse laser fire. She knew that her friends were outside, fighting for their lives, but she had to push that to the back of her mind and concentrate on the mission at hand.
There were, as Helo had warned, two guards outside the cells holding Admiral Rhade.
Drawing her forcelance, she set it to emit a low-level electrical discharge that would incapacitate without killing. Then, holding her weapon tightly in one hand, she started to make her way along the corridor, doing her best to look like she belonged there.
"Halt!" The first guard pointed his weapon at Rommie, "Name, rank and authorisation!"
"Don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you I left my ID in my other uniform?" Rommie asked, bring up her forcelance as fast as she could.
The guard reacted instinctively, pulling the trigger tightly. Rommie shook as the HE-AP rounds struck her torso, ripping her stolen uniform to shreds. Some threatened to penetrate her outer casing, but fortunately it held long enough for her to activate her forcelance.
Electricity leapt from the weapon to the two guards, sending their bodies into spasm. They fell like puppets with the strings cut, collapsing on the deck, out cold but otherwise unhurt.
Lifting a key card from the belt of one guard, Rommie used it to open the outer door. There was no sing of a guard inside the brig, but Rommie could see Admiral Rhade lying in a heap on the floor.
"Admiral." She moved over to him, "Can you hear me, sir?"
"Andromeda?" The Nietzschean officer asked groggily, "What are you doing here?"
"Rescuing you." Rommie lifted Rhade up; supporting his weight as best she could, considering their differences in height, "We have a ship waiting for us."
"You shouldn't have come."
"First rule of the High Guard sir: never leave a man behind."
To Be Continued…