+26 days

Occupied Leonis orbit

Recent Intel scouts had reported that there were thirty intact baseships in orbit and the drifting wreckage of four others. Two that had been targeted by ground to space cannons no one knew if they had been fired manually or by remote barely a week into the occupation. It had been quiet the last few days. Since the last attack over a week ago by over a hundred vipers escorting a pair of raptors loaded with nukes that flew directly into another pair of baseships before detonating.

With the rough targeting information the civilian ram and nuke ships needed the programmers worked quickly uploading target packages into the primitive non-networked computers that would turn the muli-tonn ships into some of the largest missiles in colonial history.

It took less than an hour for each of the hundred and fifty ships to program and run a simulation to assure the best targeting package was used. Before the last jump was given the go ahead by Fleet Admiral John Burke aboard the flagship of the Republics expanded navy Tempest Class Dreadnought LRN Artemis herself leading Taskforce Revenge the original LRN of twenty ships backed up with twenty-five others ranging from recovered storage ships to salvaged from one battlefield or another even a few that were new construction. As the technicians finished programing the last ships and left Burke activated a fleet wide channel

"To Taskforce Revenge this is the Fleet Admiral. I have just received word from our scout and our technicians. First our brothers and sisters of Leonis have not been cowering in fear they have been striking back and scratched four of the toasters shinny Baseships leaving thirty for us in two minutes they civilian missile ships will depart" nodding off screen a timer appeared 2:00..1:59..1:58.. "To begin the first phase of our assault on our homeworld this maneuver is also being matched at every colony with fleets being sent to Virgon and Caprica. A series of smaller assault on three others Aquaria, Scorpia and Picon but we will NOT be holding those we will grab every person and head of livestock and do what salvage we can before returning to our three worlds for the cylon counter-attack" :30…:29…:28 "so trust in your comrades and the lords of Kobol do your duty its time to retake our homes" :03…:02…:01 "Jump now."

A wide area of space lit up with dozens then hundreds of flashes as one hundred and fifty civilian ships appeared less than five miles off the cluster of cylon warships. Groups began lining up on their targets before throwing their drives past the redline achieving full thrust in less than a minute. The cylons ever efficient started firing missiles forty-five seconds after their surprise arrival. In less than two minutes the ramming ships started impacting the nearest cylons. When a ships target was destroyed any surviving rammers changed their targeting and diverted to an active ship.

Some of the cylons warships didn't even survive the opening impacts long enough to have the nuke ship slam home. Causing some cylons to take multiple nuclear blasts, one ship took as many as four. Within ten minutes all but a single baseship was left.

And it was then the entire reinforced Leonis Republic Navy of seventy warships led by the Tempest Class Dreadnought Artemis Fleet commanded by Admiral John Burke came out of FTL. On the bridge Admiral Burke looked at the DRADIS screen seeing the single surviving target surrounded by the huge debris fields of the civilian ships and their twenty-eight victims. Burke ordered "Bring the fleet to combat readiness one, launch all vipers. Surprise MOTHER FRAKKERS! Not so fun when it's your chrome asses getting surprised." A predatory roar answered him from the bridge crew. The entire fleet formed up and moved together towards the cylons last ship. Realizing the rapid change in strategy the baseship jumped. The cowardly machines did not even bother to pick up any of the fighters. Which blinked away a few moments later on their own, but not before they lost six of their chromie brothers to lucky Viper pilots.

As they entered orbit a staggered wave of missiles were fired from all over the fleet targeting identified chrome units all over the hemisphere steadily growing as the fleet englobed the planet. They came under fire from a hidden kinetic cannon from the surface. The Medusa Class heavy cruiser Warrior shattered under the massive impact. Its two halves unable to resist the gravity started belching escape pods however not enough a brief flurry of thirty-six pods launched before the ship shattered as it hit the atmosphere. The gun was located and four nearby light cruisers not even bothering with missiles rotated and fired their main battery. Five seconds later a mountain became a crater as the gun was destroyed. Reports became coming in moments later as the cylons planetary jammer was ground zero for a missile strike.

As soon as the jammer was destroyed and the last cylon ships had been destroyed. Burke called for the second wave of almost a hundred freighters each holding planetary defense Sat's over two hundred light platforms alone with another fifty or sixty mediums and the same in heavies and a new class of super heavy platforms but only three, doubling the number of defenses from before the fall. At the same time the jammer went down they were flooded with communications from the surface.

"5th Guards regiment in the Erwin nature preserve we are at 60% with almost four thousand civilians in need of urgent…."

"38th Marine Company 9 with five hundred civilians in need of medivac…"

"15th Air Guard squadron 3 in depo Ashguard in need of immediate reinforcement's chrome head ground forces income…."

"This is Mayor Even Kay our military guard is dead I have only eight police officers left please hel…."

"This is Roger Shoemaker im the sole survivor of the Redlands bunker half of the girls in here turned on us I can hear them at the door…."

The comm officer ripped her headset off at the hundreds of announcements came flooding in as the ground forces detected friendly forces in orbit. All over the fleet dozens of raptors loaded with marines and ground forces plummeted toward the planet heading for positions calling for help joining hundreds of missiles and shells fired targeting clusters of machines targeted by forces on the planet. While another group of freighters were heading down loaded with food and medical supplies after dropping off their external sat. platforms.

Slumping in his command chair the after effects of pure adrenalin the exhausted Fleet Admiral John Burke sighed and rubbed his suddenly tired eyes "After a month we are home, thank the lords." The entire bridge crew realized with this statement their home was free again and the cheers spread to every corner of the ship broken only by the sobs of crewmen who saw their homes were gone and with them their families. With only one job left to do Burke tapped the command for a single raptor to return to troy reporting his success

Destroy all cylon ships in the system (29/30)

Deploy defense platforms

Recapture Leonis

Liberate the planets remaining population

Report losses (Heavy cruiser Warrior) thirty vipers eight raptors