Chapter 12

A/N: I am honestly trying to get this to a (hopefully) satisfactory conclusion. Work keeps getting in the way but I seem to have a bit of a lull so I'll see what I can crank out. I know where I want this to go so hopefully I can get it there.

The Mattuba and Viper approached the Kongo. She hung in space as they remembered but seemed even more desolate than before. The emergency batteries had given up entirely a few days before, and they had abandoned the minimal staffing they had. Now that they approached her, the crew had flashbacks to the glory of the Constitution class ship and the horror of the last few weeks that they had been onboard. Regardless of all of that, the crew was home and they were going to bring her back, get her her crew and hopefully go home. But first they had to deal with the Cylons. Everything they had seen led them to believe that the Kongo was more than a match for Cylon technology. No Warp Drive, Small attack craft and no shielding technology. The computers were both remarkedly primitive and amazingly sophisticated at the same time. A race of robots that they now understood were barbarians and killers. For most of them, doubts about simply engaging the Cylons were quickly dissipating. Commander Hasan knew that the captain was not as sure about an all out offensive but he felt that his duty was to give him the option.

Commander Hasan flew the shuttle to the rear of the Kongo and lined it up with the open hanger bay door. There were no guidance beacons for him this time so he came in much slower than he normally would. He carefully maneuvered over the gravity lip and set the ship down the right side close the interior door. Among other things, he wanted to make sure that Kiko had room to land. They looked anxiously as she lined up the Viper itself. Than much to everybody's shock, she spun it around and started backing in. She managed to miss the hanger door and brought the Viper down with a bit of a thud. She opened the comm channel, "I'll take a porterhouse, thank you."

"What was that?" demanded Hasan.

"It occurred to me that I could get in but had no idea how we would turn it around to get back out again. Should have warned you, sorry."

"Yeah next time you have to land an alien vessel onto a powerless hanger deck floor, make sure you follow procedures," he chided. "Good thinking. A heads up would have been nice."

The crew began to put on their environment suits. Kiko had an air mask to get her to the Mattuba to fully suit up. The air was taken out of the Mattuba and the crew went to the interior door. Kiko was much less comfortable but made it as well. Once inside, they closed the door and went into a small room which could be self-contained. Smith had brought a portable life support device and they filled the room for Kiko. She took a moment to gather herself and put her own suit on. They left and went to Engineering. On the way, they stopped by Andrew Smith's quarters and found the storage tape that had his dilithium academy project on it. Kiko gave him a dirty look about the state of things but he just shrugged and led them to Engineering.

Once in the Engineering, they went through the emergency airlock and activated the portable life support system. The took off their helmets but did not remove the outer garment. The warp core continued to glow red, almost in defiance of the lack of power.

"What's the plan?" asked Commander Hasan.

Andrew Smith was looking at his tricorder refreshing his memory about what he had done.

"Okay, we going to use a warp calibration meter and place the crystals in the dilithium and move the crystals around until it is balanced. We are going to use emergency reinforcement strips from the antimatter container to hold them in place."

"Sounds tricky," said Kiko.

"Oh that's not the hard part. We then have to divert power to the emergency batteries and flash charge them without blowing them out." The amount of power needed to power life support, the computers and even impulse power was trivial compared to that needed for warp drive, phasers, and defensive screens. The emergency batteries were designed to take an enormous amount of charge in a very short time that could be used years later. In theory the Warp Drive could charge the batteries inside of a minute. The danger was you could overcharge them and destroy them. "The batteries will run secondary systems while we work on the major power systems."

"Can't we just run everything off the Warp Drive? I know it's not ideal but it sounds a lot simpler than this?" asked one of the engineers.

"Well, normally but the power distribution system has been completely gutted to support power conservation while we were still onboard. Somebody, well me, did a real number on it and would take days to straighten out."

Everybody stayed silent for a moment until Smith spoke again. "Listen, I know how it's set up. We can divert power either to shields and weapons or warp drive. It will take me a couple of minutes to switch over. We will be dead in the water during the transition."

"It's a plan," said Commander Hasan. "Let's get going."

The flight leader of the Cylon combat wing watched as the alien ship grew closer. It was not a Colonial ship that he could identify. Much smaller and did not seem able to support Vipers. This probably meant that it was not a war ship nor much of a threat. He ordered to raiders to do some fly-bys and report on what they found.

This was completely unknown to the crew in the Kongo who were blind to the outside. Crewman Smith began fitting the crystals into the matrix. It took longer than he remembered at the academy and his hand shook slightly. He tried to calm his nerves. Not only did he feel the pressure of an enemy bearing down but if this failed, he didn't know what they would do next. He pressed one last crystal into place and looked at the meter. It seemed to be within his expected parameters (way out of what the Chief would have accepted.) He took a breath and nodded at the commander.

He had everything set up and ready to go. The batteries were primed to accept the charge and Smith had routed the power of the warp drive to it.

"There is not a good way to make sure this works without just trying it," he said to the Commander. Hasan nodded and stepped back so the young engineer could complete his work. Everybody held their breath and stepped back slightly even thought they all knew if something went wrong, anything within a thousand kilometers would be destroyed.

Smith eyed his setting again and satisfied that this was good as it gets, turned the flow of power on. Nothing seemed to happen except his instrument panel showed power going to the batteries. He smiled but dared not look around because his timing could not be off. After 30 seconds, the batteries showed to be at 87% and he turned off the flow.

"Commander, I think we can bring the Kongo back online now."

Hasan almost ran to the bridge with Kiko. The worked their way through the emergency airlock and turned on the portable life support unit. For the first time in 6 weeks, he saw display lights on the bridge. First step, get the computer back on. He went to the engineering station and typed in an activation code.

"Computer, initiation sequence. Hasan Alpha Omeg Beta."

"Working. Initiation sequence recognized." Since the computer had been basically off, it was working off its lowest level of operation. Quickly more and more systems started to blink on. The computer churned for a few minutes and then a mechanical female voice said, "initiation complete."

He looked and Kiko and almost hugged her. Instead he pulled out his communicator, looked at it for a moment and put it away to go to the intercom system. "Hasan to Engineering."

After a second, he heard Smith answer, "Engineering here."

"It worked. Let's bring her back online."

In space a dark starship that had boasted great power but who had been seriously wounded suddenly came to life. Exterior lights came on and a sense of power and wonder were restored. One light in particular lit up the front part of the upper saucer so all the world could see.

NCC-1710

USS KONGO

The Cylon Flight Commander was shocked by the turn of events. They had not yet determined if the ship was Colonial, human or other but Centurions as a rule did not handle surprises well. Without an immediate directive to fall back on it reverted to the one order that was always available. Destroy the ship. He ordered a full attack on the Kongo.

On the bridge of the Kongo, Kiko was beginning to bring up systems when the felt a jolt.

"What was that?" asked Hasan. She did not have an immediate answer but brought up the viewing screen. They saw 9 Cylon raiders in attack formation. "Oh crap," was his official evaluation of the situation.

"Smith, I need weapons and shields now."

"Fifteen minutes sir," he responded. Hasan did not chastise the crewman as he already had to know they were in trouble. The Raiders shouldn't be a challenge for the Kongo but she was completely immobile and defenseless at the moment. He looked to Kiko and saw that she had run out of the bridge.

"Kiko he yelled!" but to no avail.

Kiko knew she had to draw the Raiders away and the Viper would be the best bait. She now could take a turbolift and went straight to the hanger deck in record time. Once there, she found her breathing apparatus from before and fitted it. She looked at the interior door and knew that the room was still open to space. She braced herself and used the manual controls to over ride the opening mechanism. Air rushed out quickly. The computer, unable to seal the hanger doors, quickly sealed the surrounding corridors. As the air rush completed, the internal pressure and cold of space began to take a toll. She rushed to the Viper and climbed into the cockpit. She sealed it and turned on the internal life support system and had to adjust to yet another pressure change although the warmth made her feel much better. She punched up the systems and looked at the hanger deck. She realized she should not do a full turbo launch but rather get into space and try to draw them away. She felt more thuds and the Raiders continued to bombard the Kongo. Constitution class starships were tough but eventually they would do some damage. She eased the Viper through the hanger doors and as soon as she was in open space, hit full speed.

The Cylon flight commander saw the Viper almost immediately. That was a threat it understood but it also now had reason the strange ship was colonial. He ordered 6 of the 9 Raiders to continue the attack while his own wing gave pursuit against the Viper. The Viper was not flying as skillfully as it expected. No matter, they would Kill the Human.

On the bridge, Hasan was furious. He watched as the Viper took off on an arching path with three raiders in pursuit. He looked at the chronometer noting that only 7 minutes had gone by. In frustration he slammed his fist down on the helm and cursed. He went to the intercom system and said, "Smith get some of your men to the phaser control room. As soon as you are up, I need phasers, shields and impulse." He continued to watch as the Raiders worked to trap the lone Viper.

Kiko found herself being out maneuvered. I don't think this would happen to an actual Colonial pilot. She admonished herself. She was working to get the Raiders further away from the Kongo. She knew the firing control but the weapons were unidirectional and she had to get them in her sites. They seemed to know that too and were behind her. They had fired but fortunately had been ineffective. She tried some quick turns that caused the Cylons to lose track but they quickly got back into position. She looked down at the joystick and looked at the button the left. It was an oddity and seemed only intended for quick reversals. It can't be that easy. She thought but out of desperation decided to try it. She let up on her speed ever so slowly while continuing to zig and zag to avoid fire. When she felt they were close enough she pushed the button and the Viper lurched backwards. The three Cylons seemed unprepared for the maneuver and flew past her. You would have thought they would be expecting that by now. I guess they don't learn very fast. She reached down to the targeting computer and found the first Raider in her sites. She fired and it disintegrated on impact. The other two were attempting to flank her by turning quickly in opposite directions. She followed the one to the right and fired again. It also blew up leaving a rather pleasing cloud of dust for Kiko to see. She followed her path around to come face to face with the last Raider. It fired as she moved slightly to her right. The move was just enough for it to miss and she took her turn to destroy the last Raider.

Taking a breath, she realized that she had moved a considerable distance from the Kongo and that there were still 6 Raiders attacking the Kongo. She began to move back towards the starship when she noticed balls of light flying with her on all sides. In horror she realized these were the same ones that they saw right before the Event. The same sound began to overtake her. She tried to get away but as fast as the Raiders were, the lights were even faster. The started to dart around here and then she began to hear a high-pitched hum. It seemed familiar but she was not sure why. She did not see the ship of lights that had come up behind her. The lights got closer, the sound got louder and then, she lost consciousness.

On the Kongo, Smith finally called up the bridge. "Now," was all he said. Smith jumped to the con and initiated impulse engines in reverse to give himself some space. He raised the shields and looked at the remaining Raiders. As he had hoped, his sudden movement surprised them and they were now in a rough group in front of him. "Phaser room, maximum dispersal pattern. Fire!"

A conical beam shot out from the Kongo. Used against large warships, tight beam formations were always preferred to inflict as much damage on a small area as possible. Against small craft though, a dispersion rate as high as 45 degrees could be devastating. In this case 5 Raiders were destroyed. He did a quick search and did not find the 6th one. Maybe he retreated. He thought not convincingly.

Still the threat seems to have been averted for now. He took a quick breath, went to the communication station and punched in what he now knew to be the Colonial frequency. "Kiko come in. You and I need to have a talk." There was no answer. "Kiko, come in. It's safe to come back now. We need to get to the Olympus." Still no answer. She can't have died, he thought and looked at the viewscreen hoping to find what wasn't there.