"The last of the raptors from the Solaria has arrived. Unfortunately only two made it", one of the crew in the Pacifica's CIC reported.
"Sir, the battlestar Columbia is taking heavy damage to her starboard side", another crewmember reported.
"Bring us in closer to the Columbia. We will guard her Starboard side", Commander Kronus decided."
"I think we should send our vipers to protect the Columbia instead of making ourselves a target, the Pacifica's XO Colonel Wellman suggested.
"We need all the vipers we have left to keep the raiders at bay", Kronus responded.
Wellman knew it was soon all going to be over anyway.
Colonel Ross Wellman had known for the past four hours that this was not his real name, that he was not born on Picon, he was not married, and he did not have two daughters. He realized that his memories were fake. They didn't even feel like his own memories anymore, more like scenes from a movie he had watched. Ross Wellman now knew who he was, a model 5 Cylon. And he knew what to do.
The Cylons knew that not all Colonial ships would be upgraded with the new CNP by the time they started their attack. For this reason, human model sleeper agents had been inserted into the crews of some of those ships in order to sabotage them. Other ships were selected as targets for boarding parties. Since the battlestar Pacifica had not been due for a CNP upgrade for another six weeks, the Cylons had reverted to this backup plan to take the Mercury class battlestar out of the fight. Two sleeper agents, who had been carefully inserted into the Colonial Fleet using fake service records years earlier, had been reassigned to the Pacifica as soon as the schedule for the CNP upgrades had been known to the Cylons. Their mission was to detonate bombs in key areas such as the CIC and the Tylium fuel storage to destroy, or at least cripple the battlestar. They would download into new bodies on one of the nearby resurrection ships if they were to be killed in the process.
Wellman flicked a switch on a device he had hidden behind a panel in the CIC earlier that day and the Pacifica was rocked by a massive explosion.
Major Sandra Robbins was standing in the middle of a corridor with a major headache. She was supposed to be on her post as Landing Signal Officer. She was confused. Part of her wanted to return to her post, another part of her wanted to blow up the Tylium storage tanks. She didn't know who she was anymore. The model 3 Cylon suddenly had two sets of memories and she couldn't tell which were real. It would later be discovered that the result of a head injury she had sustained in a training accident two years earlier was preventing her Cylon personality from fully reasserting itself over her cover personality.
In another corridor, John Crichton was moving past repair crews rushing to fix damaged sections of the ship and medics carrying wounded crewmembers on stretchers. His feet were hurting. The boots he had taken from Colonel Horten were a size too small for him. John needed a break, so he could figure out what to do next. He needed to get back to his family aboard Moya.
"Colonel?" a tall young man in colonial uniform asked.
Crichton realized that it was him whom the officer was addressing.
"Uhmm?" Crichton said and turned his head toward the young man.
"Sir, Lt. Thomas Hill, reporting our CIC has been destroyed. Awaiting orders."
"Who is in charge on this ship?" Crichton asked.
"Sir, most of our command staff is dead or incapacitated. You seem to be the highest ranking officer now. What are your orders?"
"Take me to auxiliary control", Crichton improvised. His experience from having been aboard Peacekeeper Command Carriers told him that a ship as large as the one he was currently on would have an auxiliary control room in case the main bridge was destroyed or disabled.
Crichton and the Lieutenant walked through the corridors of the Battlestar at a brisk pace.
"You must be from the Battlestar Solaria.", Hill assumed, since they had been picking up survivors from that ship.
"The Solaria was a good ship. What was your name again?" Hill asked.
"Uhmm, I'm Colonel John Crichton. And you are right about the Battlestar Solaria", Crichton answered. He fought back the urge to introduce himself as Colonel Sanders. This was not the time for jokes and decided to use his real name, since he might have to be around these people for a long time.
Crichton and Hill arrived in the dimly lit auxiliary control room. Several crew members looked up from their stations.
"This is Colonel Crichton from the Solaria. He is in command now", Lt. Hill announced.
"All stations, report", Crichton ordered.
"Hull breaches on several decks. We've lost power to our main forward guns. Several of our main systems are down and we are running on backups."
"Engines and FTL drive are operational"
"More than half of our vipers are reporting malfunctions."
"The Columbia has been destroyed and the Erasmus has lost both flight pods"
John Crichton quickly surveyed the situation. He had to improvise and act fast. He immediately realized that the Pacifica would not last very long.
"Recall all our surviving fighters and the ones from the Columbia and the Erasmus. We are leaving."
One of the crewmembers picked up the phone and recalled the vipers and raptors.
"I want you to get us out of the system as soon as we picked up as many fighters as we can. Take us right here." Crichton said, pointing at a spot on the map. This spot was close to the rendezvous coordinates he had given to Pilot in case Moya was detected by the Colonials and had to leave the asteroid field. In his mind he was already spinning a story he would feed the crew to explain Moya's existence.
"But sir, this will take beyond the red line." Hill warned him.
"You would rather die right here?" Crichton asked.
"No Sir", Hill replied.
"Then get cranking."
"Yes, Sir", the tall blond officer responded and began calculating the jump coordinates.
Crichton's ability to make the right decision under pressure had always served him well. It had gotten him into the astronaut corps and it had helped him survive in the uncharted territories for many years. He was hoping they would not find out he was not who he appeared to be. Fortunately, with a battle raging on and everyone under stress, nobody had noticed that his uniform did not fit him well. The sleeves of his shirt and jacket were slightly too short and his pants were somewhat too wide. He needed to get a uniform his size ones things had calmed down.
Vipers were landing in all of the Pacifica's landing bays while Hill spooled up the FTL drive and plotted jump coordinates. Most of the vipers were from the Pacifica, some were from the other battlestars. Many of the vipers were shot down by Cylon raiders before they could reach the safety of the Pacifica.
"Radiological Alarm. We have eight inbound nuclear warheads", a female crewmember reported"
"Hill?", Crichton shouted.
"I need 3 more seconds", the Lieutenant answered.
The flak fire sent out by the Pacifica managed to destroy three of the nukes. Five more were still closing in.
"FTL drive ready", Hill reported.
"Jump now", Crichton ordered.