SLSS Elphinstone
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
18 February 3046
Picket duty is fairly boring, Lieutenant Gordon Ringelli observed as he looked at the instruments again.
The Elphinstone was deployed in a high orbit around a gas giant that was - officially - codenamed Lizard. Most of the orbital defense platform's crew just called it The Iceball. Of course, since the Elphinstone had been artistically covered with ice and other debris from the Iceball's orbital plane until it looked like nothing more than another puny moon barely worthy of notice, it had promptly been dubbed The Icebox.
Lancea Orbital Defense Platforms were the backbone of the Star League in Exile's deep space infrastructure - dozens of them dotted the Sanctuary star system and probably almost as many were located in systems like this one, watching for unexpected arrivals within jump range of Sanctuary - either from the Inner Sphere, the Clans or...
Well, or whoever had killed the Icebox's namesake more than two decades ago in this very star system. Even after all that time there had not been even one more sighting and no analysis to date had given a name to them.
Since it was in orbit, there was always the possibility... Gordon straightened as the computer began to detail the differences between the parts of the sky that had been occluded by Iceball for the last few hours and what it had looked like on the previous orbit. Most of it was simply the predictable movement of the spare star system's other planets, moons and whatnot... three of them weren't.
After a moment's thought, Gordon was reaching for the communications panel - even if it just turned out to be previously undetected asteroids the Captain would want to know - when the computers pinged again and reported a fourth unidentified object. One that hadn't been there when the Elphinstone came around the Lizard.
Ping. Five objects. Ping-ping-ping. Ping.
Gordon didn't bother with the communications panel. Instead he flipped the cover off one of the least used controls available to him and hit the red button with relish.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
The lieutenant counted again. More than a dozen now, all in close proximity. Whoever was there was there in force and - he checked direction and estimated distance - nowhere near the jump conditions that a Kearny-Fuchida Drive was limited to.
"Well hello again," he whispered to himself. "I wonder why it took you so long to get here..."
"Situation?" Captain Arlene McEvedy asked as she entered the command centre. She'd been asleep but after two decades in the Star League Defense Force she'd gotten used to rising suddenly to deal with an incipient crisis. At least this time it wasn't two idiots on their national service tours beating each other up over a third idiot - she understood the need to run every able adult through the basics of military activity but for a woman from a military family, who'd served when the SLDF was a tight-knit body of professionals maintaining traditions that Sanctum could barely support, it galled to have half her command made up of short-term draftees.
Lieutenant Ringelli wasn't one of them, of course, and he snapped to attention as she entered the room, his eyes barely flickering from the displays. Of course, he was almost from a military family himself. "Multiple unidentified objects, Captain. They're coming out of nowhere - possibly jumping in. There are twenty-one of them by my count."
"Perhaps even probably," she muttered, looking at the imagery. Whatever they were, they were pretty deep into the system. "They've waited a long time to come looking for their friend, if they're who you're thinking Lieutenant," she added warningly. "Still, we can't take any chances. We'd need to send a warning to Sanctuary Command. Who's on the ready launch status?"
Gordon had already checked of course. "Sergeant Colman and Sergeant Swyley," he reported. "They are ready to launch within sixty seconds and the rest of the Cluster will be at five minutes readiness within."
"'Cluster'," Arlene said and shook her head. "Sounds more like it should have a Colonel running it, not Captain Hogan. No offense to the Captain, of course."
"Well if the Ghost Clusters all had Colonels in charge, the extra brass would probably slow Sanctum's spin," Gordon quipped.
"I'd take that in trade if it meant I got real pilots not those console jockeys," Arlene grumbled. "They'd be no less annoying and at least I could have them go after targets that aren't right on top of us. Alright, send them off. And have the damn ghosts go to sixty seconds readiness, they've no damn excuse for not being ready to go on that little notice."
Fifty-one seconds after Captain McEvedy's order was given, one of the hatches on the side of the Elphinstone slid smoothly aside and pair of fork-nosed aerospace fighters darted out, heading for the cover of the Iceball. It only took them ten minutes to be behind it and completely concealed from the newly arrived ships.
Two minutes later they were gone as if they had never been there.
.o0o.
SLDF HQ
Aleksandrburg, Sanctum
18 February 3046
"What is going on here?" snapped Octavia Ringelli, three seconds after she stepped into what was supposed to be the strategic command centre of the entire Star League Defense Force (all one Division of it). It had sounded far more like a barroom full of football fan advocating rival teams when she entered and the chastened looks on the faces she could see after she spoke looked entirely too much like those of scolded children.
"Well?" she demanded, looking around at the suddenly silent chamber.
Lieutenant-General Hercule Maclintock cleared his throat. The commander of Beta Galaxy was the most likely of all the 331st Division's General Officers to be found in the Star League Defense Force's Headquarters building - Beta Division was the primary response force after all. "There is a report from the Elphinstone," he reported soberly. "Several unidentified contacts appeared suddenly deep insystem. No details yet, but until further notice they are assumed to be hostile."
Octavia nodded, processing the information. "How did they send the report?" she asked.
"Two jumpfighters arrived, both carrying duplicates of the information," a Colonel that Octavia couldn't remember the name of for the life of her advised. "They handed the contents to Jellico ODP on hardcopy and Captain Ericsson sent it to us on tight beam."
"Good to hear someone kept their head," Octiavia grumbled. The last thing they wanted was someone panicking and sending major radio signals. Slow as such a signal would be, the risk of Jerome Blake's little band of acolytes damnable Explorer Corps - or worse, a far-ranging Clan jumpship - happening to pick up a radio signal was simply far too high for anything but the most desperate of emergencies. "Although we still don't know anything definite, do we?"
"Nothing but their presence," Maclintock confirmed, with a grimace at the implied criticism.
The Commanding General of the Star League Defense Force, such as it was, frowned. "Well, that's enough to get a few measures under way. Hercule, I want one of your infantry clusters embarked for immediate departure. Jaina -" Major General Jaina Hoshigawa, Commander of the Naval Division "- send a courier to intercept the Minnesota and her escorts. Order them to divert to Estevan Station - we'll use that as a rendezvous point."
"Just the Minnesota and one battalion?" Maclintock asked hesitantly.
"No," Octavia shook her head firmly. "I think we can spare the Manitoba as well, and pry one or two corvette squadrons to bolster the screen. Two destroyers, eight carriers and eight corvettes should be enough to at least withdraw if need be." She smirked. "And who's to say? Maybe they won't be hostile."
A ripple of chuckles went around the room.
"Right, I'd better go brief the High Council," Octavia decided. "Get the forces ready to move and send out a general war warning. We'll go to Defense Condition Amber until further notice."
.o0o.
Galactica
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"What do we do now?"
William Adama didn't look up from the desk he was sat behind. He wasn't sure he'd be able to look his son in the eye as he admitted: "I don't know, Lee."
He heard Lee exhale and then the sound of the other chair scraping against the deck as the younger Adama pulled it back and seated himself where Tigh had sat, Gods, was it even a day yet?
"You were right," Adama said and leaned back, looking somewhere in the direction of Lee's chest. "We're not in any shape to fight the Cylons. That has to come first. We don't have much in the way of crew."
"How about the rest of the ships?" Lee asked. "There must be a couple of thousand people on board them."
"Mostly people with enough pull over Baltar to stay out of the mud of New Caprica," his father said gruffly. "I don't believe I'd trust them even if I could get them to work. The crews... well, maybe. But they're shorthanded as well. They're all fairly spaceworthy though."
Lee stiffened. "You can't be thinking of just going on?" he asked incredulously.
"Hmm?" his father said, the tone surprised and he looked up for the first time. "Go on? No. Not without..." He flicked his hand, apparently unwilling to put the rest of the objection into words. Or at least, willing to let Lee fill in the blanks on his own.
"Then we have to go back."
"When we are ready to, yes," he agreed. "Even if we can't fill out our crews, they're rusty - out of practice. We need to blast that rust off. Work out a plan. But first we need to hold the fleet together, which means getting our people prepared. Let them know that we're secure here - which we are, unless the Cylons get luckier than they have any right to be -"
"They've already gotten lucky once," Lee pointed out grimly. "I know you said that it was too soon to stop running, but finding us in that nebula..."
"That's true," Adama conceded. "However, it would take a lot of searching to find us here. If they were going to chase after us - well, it's been more than an hour. It's taken them less time to find us that that. And I'm not planning to just stay here. We'll head for one of the gas giants and shelter the fleet in the upper atmosphere."
"A planet?" Lee asked curiously. "I would have thought deep space..."
I think they've gotten wise to that," Adama said. "They didn't give up on chasing us after a solid year - so they're probably patient enough to quarter everywhere within a hundred light-years of New Caprica if that's what it takes. But if we're in the atmosphere then they won't see us on DRADIS unless they're right on top of us - and since they know that we've previously avoided star systems when we're running..."
.o0o.
SLSS Elphinstone
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
The sensor station of the command centre, which had previously been chirping steadily as it observed the intruding fleet, wailed sharply, dragging McEvedy's attention away from the reports she'd been studying on the training cycle and back to Gordon, who had been playing with image enhancement to try to get a more distinct image of the distant intruders.
"What the hell!?"
Gordon studied the display. "Multiple contacts in high orbit of Lizard. Range one million kilometers. Twenty-one separate... waitaminute."
"We don't have a minute," McEvedy snapped. "All hands, battle stations."
The crew had been at readiness anyway, but now they stopped conversations, card games and whatever other pastimes they had been diverting themselves with as they sat waiting for the decision that it was safe to stand down. Dozens of turrets twitched as motors stirred, shaking loose the light dusting of ice particles that disguised them. Missile hatches snapped open and magazines opened, feeding the tubes with war loads.
"It's the same fleet," Gordon reported. "They micro jumped between us and the planet. The count and the imagery matches - and I've got a much better look now."
"What are we dealing with?"
Gordon grimaced. "Two battleships, captain. Big bastards - warbook says the smallest is as big as a McKenna. Several much smaller ships - they don't look military... I could swear one looks more like a liner."
Arlene's face paled and she reached out to the master weapons control, physically holding it in the safe position. It didn't actively prevent anyone firing - that would be one hell of a point failure - but it did mean they'd have to deliberately override it, which at least kept twitchy trigger fingers from being too much of a problem (or at least simplified things if someone with poor impulse control needed to be court martialed). "Are they moving?"
"Not right now," Gordon concluded, checking his reports.
Arlene exhaled slowly and then reached for the tannoy only then realizing that she hadn't switched it off. "All hands," she ordered. "Do not - I repeat - do not go active. They're out of range and we're probably just a little bit out-gunned here, so let's hope that they don't know we're here."
"Why didn't we get any warning when they jumped away?" one of the younger recruits manning a weapons station asked the next crewman over.
"They were a light hour out," McEvedy told him, puncturing his illusion that the officers hadn't been close enough to hear the whispered question. "It'll take most of an hour for the light from them jumping to reach us."
The crewman winced. "Sorry, Captain."
"On the one hand, Green, there's no such thing as a stupid question. On the other, learn to think. You had all the informa-"
Ringelli's console sounded off again.
"Oh what now!"
Gordon grimaced. "Two more contacts, low orbit of Lizard, far side of our mysterious visitors."
"Anyone we know?"
The lieutenant grimaced. "Standard approach zone and they're boosting towards our orbit. Ten gets you one it's couriers from HQ with a response to our warning."
McEvedy slammed one fist onto a bulkhead. "Of all the rotten luck," she cursed.
.o0o.
Pegasus
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
It was the worst moment for it to happen. Reasonably sure that there was no immediate danger of the Cylons appearing - or at least no more than could reasonably be expected under the circumstances - Admiral Adama had ordered every ship in the fleet to check their jumpdrives' condition after a year of disuse - which meant at least a two minute delay before the Battlestars could jump - and gods only knew how long it would take the rest of the fleet.
Dualla had been keeping a wary eye on the DRADIS screens ever since Cylons appeared over New Caprica. Apollo hadn't complained about her new paranoia. After all, out of the total population of the universe that they knew existed, just about everybody was out to get them. As a result, she was the first person to realize that they had visitors.
"Two unidentified fighters on DRADIS!" she snapped. "They're between us and the planet."
Lee's head snapped up to look at the display and then he grabbed a handset. "Action stations. Go to condition one," he told Dualla, who nodded and started giving orders.
"CAG," Lee said as soon as the station he was calling picked up. "Launch all fighters. We have unidentified fighters incoming."
.o0o.
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
Sergeant Nicola Colman didn't really mind making a round trip to Sanctum, but it would have been nice to stay there long enough to at least get a beer. The new jump drives might be superior in just about every way to the ones that had been in use for the previous nine hundred years or so, but one problem that still hadn't been fixed was the gut-clenching sensation of a jump. She'd met twenty year veterans who claimed that they weren't bothered by that any more, but she had a sneaky suspicion that they were lying.
Hell, even once she got back to the Elphinstone she wouldn't be able to get a beer because the whole station would be on alert. Some days it just didn't pay to get out of bed...
Crap. Who put an entire frigging fleet between the Iceball and the Icebox?
"Swyley," she ordered - the other pilot on this run being her junior - "We've got a problem. Close up on my wing."
"I see them, Colman," he confirmed. "We should probably be careful what we say in case they're picking this up."
Double crap. "Understood." Where's an officer when you need one to make a tough call, she thought. Can't head for the Icebox - that would let them know where that is. But we can't jump out until we plot a new jump and we might not have time. "One eighty, Swyley. Start plotting a jump for Estevan Station."
"Confirmed," Swyley replied and his Ironsides jumpfighter remained fixed behind Colman's left wing as she brought the fighter around in a sharp turn and brought the powerful thrusters up to full power. It would take almost a minute to overcome the inertia of the two fighters and start them moving in the other direction - a minute that would take them a lot closer to the nearer of those two monster battleships than she liked.
.o0o.
Eric Griffith, callsign Griffin, narrowed his eyes as he pushed his Viper after the two fleeing fighters. It was hard to get a visual on them but they didn't look like Cylon Raiders. "Pegasus, this is Griffin. We're gaining ground on the pair of them, but they don't look like Cylons."
Commander Adama's voice - his Commander Adama, the one they called Apollo - came back over the radio. "This is Pegasus Actual. Message received and understood Griffin. If you can disable them, do so. But don't take any chances. If they're about to jump destroy them."
"Understood, Pegasus Actual," Griffin confirmed and switched channels. "All Vipers, try to go in close and take disabling shots - but if they're trying to jump then take any shot you can." He could almost see the dubious expressions on the faces of the other pilots - it was a lousy solution to the problem they were faced with, but there weren't any good choices, were there?
"Griffin, this is Twister," his wingman asked in a concerned voice. "What if these are fighters from Earth? We could be shooting down the people we've been looking for all this time."
"That's a chance we have to take, Twister," Griffin told him with feigned confidence. "If they're Cylon scouts and they get away then what's left of the fleet is done for."
.o0o.
"If we only had rear-firing weapons..." Colman muttered.
The enemy fighters - lightweight models that looked to Colman as if one good shot would put them out of action - were steadily closing in - no great surprise since while the Ironsides wasn't exactly sluggish, it had the least powerful engines for its weight out of all the fighters in the Star League Defense Force. "I'm surprised they aren't already shooting."
"Either they don't have much in the way of long range weapons," Swyley suggested, "Or they're trying to capture us intact."
"Crap," she said, realizing that he was probably right. "How's your jump computer doing?"
"Almost done."
.o0o.
"I'm on the wingman," Griffin advised the rest of his understrength squadron and fired his cannon. The rounds chewed into one of the big fighter's wings without any noticeable effect. "What the frak is that thing made of?"
.o0o.
"Taking fire," Swyley reported coolly. "Jump calculations done, engine prepped."
"How bad is it?" Colman asked, watching the radar display of their pursuers as the jump computer on her own fighter began loading it's data into the jump engine's master control system.
"Nothing serious," the junior sergeant said. "Armour's holding. Some sort of autocannon from the looks of it."
Colman nodded. "Get out of here," she ordered. "I'll be right behind you."
.o0o.
There was a flash of light and when it cleared one of the mysterious fighters was missing.
"Dammit!" Griffin snapped. "It jumped. Stop the other one."
"Missiles," Twister responded immediately - a call echoed by several of the other Viper pilots.
.o0o.
"Oh shit," Colman said out loud to herself as the radar reported incoming missiles.
Explosions hammered into the rear end of her fighter and she kicked it into a spin, trying to break away from high explosive packages. In the ruckus she barely heard the chime that signaled the jumpdrive was ready to go.
See you later, suckers, Colman thought and thumbed the jump button on her throttle.
There was a distinct lack of gut-wrenching nausea.
"Oh shit," she repeated and pressed it again.
Nothing. On the systems display, her computer considered the situation and then highlighted the jumpdrive in amber.
The young woman closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. No jumpdrive. The Ironsides proved its name, shrugging off cannon fire from one of the enemy fighters with no more than a slight shaking.
"Alright," Sergeant Nicola Colman said out loud, finger on the transmit button of her radio. "Let's see what you can do in a real fight."
The Ironsides' engines roared and she spun it easily on its axis, bringing the jumpfighter's formidable weapons around towards the Vipers and one of them didn't scatter fast enough.
Twin particle beams wiped the luckless Mark VII Viper and its pilot from the universe.
.o0o.
Pegasus
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
Lee Adama grimaced. Things were going south about as badly as he had feared. Should I have just let them go? he wondered. "Get me Galactica Actual," he requested.
"He's on the line," Dualla told him, passing him a handset.
"Lee?" he heard his father's voice. "We need to leave as soon as the fleets jumpdrives are ready."
"I know," he replied. "You go first, then the civilians. Pegasus will watch the fleet until everyone's gone."
"It'll be seven minutes until the first civilian ship is ready," the Admiral warned. "I'll wait until then."
Lee grimaced. "We can't let that fighter get in amongst the fleet," he warned. "It's got some sort of directed energy weapon that ripped through a Viper nose to tail."
.o0o.
SLSS Elphinstone
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"One of our fighters got away Captain," Gordon Ringelli advised. "One of the enemy fighters is gone so I guess the other Ironsides is shooting back."
McEvedy rubbed her face. "Swyley and Colman are regulars," she recalled. "If they could get out, they would."
"Captain McEvedy," Green said, waving his hand slightly to get her attention. "Captain Hogan wants to talk to you."
The Captain rolled her eyes. "I wonder why?" she asked sarcastically as she picked up a headset from the console beside her. "McEvedy here."
"Captain," the familiar voice of Captain Henry Hogan, the Elphinstone's CAG, greeted her. "I request permission to launch fighters. That's one of my people out there getting shot at."
"Hank, the only fighters that can get there in time to accomplish anything are the Ironsides and you've only got eight of them left."
"If we can get in amongst the smaller ships then we might be able to draw their fighters off from my pilot long enough for them to get away," he argued. "And we can get a closer look at them - that would be valuable intelligence."
"That's true. Alright, permission granted."
"It would mean getting whatever message HQ sen- uh, say again Captain."
"I said you can go, Hank. I don't like leaving one of our pilots in the lurch either. Take your fighters after her. I'll send all our drones out as well, they can cover our lost duck on the way back here." McEvedy closed the channel. "Are you any closer to deciphering their radio signals, Lieutenant?"
Gordon shrugged. "Still brute forcing their encryptions, Captain. They don't seem terribly sophisticated but it's going to take a while."
.o0o.
Galactica
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"Multiple incoming," Captain Kelly reported from the DRADIS. "Thirty fighters, two small ships. They're coming from behind one of the smaller moons."
"How near are they?" Adama asked, turning from the main plotting table.
"Fifteen minutes out at current acceleration, sir. For the fighters - they're accelerating like Hermes in a hurry. The ships are slower, at least an hour before they're in range."
Adama frowned. "That isn't a moon," he deduced. "Whoever these people are, we must have stumbled across one of their outposts."
Kelly stiffened. "Multiple jumps, Admiral - right in the middle of the fleet."
"Get our Vipers out there," Adama ordered hoarsely.
"Sir!" one of the other officers shouted. "Space Park's taken severe hits to the stern. They're ejecting the wheel section and abandoning ship!"
Adama could see blood draining from Kelly's face. The Space Park was one of the largest ships in the fleet and even with most of the civilians in the fleet disembarked, there were almost five hundred left on the ship.
.o0o.
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
The Ironsides had taken more hits than Nicola could keep track of. The left wing was gone, almost from the root and repeated hits had savaged her armour. Somewhere along the way, damage to her fuel system had cost her at least a ton of reaction mass.
It had been a dance of death, the far more agile light fighters trying to stay behind her, out of the arc of her weapons and where they could rip away at her already wounded armour with those puny cannon of theirs. Sometimes they'd managed that, sometimes not - and it only took one hit from her PPC to total one of the dart like craft, one of her lasers to send it fleeing for the shelter of one of the battleships.
"It's like being nibbled to death," she complained as she boosted again, out of the line of tracers coming from one of the enemy.
A sharp spin put one of the fighters across her crosshairs and she hit the trigger for her missiles. Only one launcher locked and spat four missiles after the target and one of those died, picked out of space by a burst from one of the other fighters. It didn't seem to matter - the three remaining missiles homed in and the little dart careered off, engines blazing away, somehow finding sufficient air to burn.
Tracking that target had held Nicola's attention for a moment too long and more gunfire hit the belly of her fighter. It had happened before and the Ironclad had survived the experience, but there wasn't a lot left of the armour anymore and one high explosive round penetrated the internal racks of missiles.
Fortunately for Nicola, automatic systems detected the breech a tiny fraction of a second before the round could explode and reacted a tiny measure faster. The cockpit exploded away from the fighter and explosions tore open the fuselage from the stem to the stern as more than fifty missiles exploded inside it.
.o0o.
Colonial Remnant Fleet
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"There's something screwy going on here," Hank noticed as he streaked past one of the intruding ships. From the windows along the flank, he guessed that it was a troop ship of some kind. "That long drink of water came apart like it was barely armoured at all."
"I saw the same thing," his second-in-command, Pierre Lafayette. "And all the flak seems to be coming from the battleships."
There was a long, hollow moment as the two of them considered that and Hank's Ironsides skimmed between the now drifting wheel of his previous target and the slim central hull, that had somehow managed to back out from the wheel before the engines had died.
"Elpinstone fighters, this is the CAG," Hank ordered. "Concentrate on the fighters - and watch out for the flak. Those battlewagons are packing more point defense than a Minnesota."
"We've lost Adler," reported the bitter voice of another pilot. "She got too close to that bucket of bolts with half it's ribs exposed."
"It happens, La Plante," Hank reminded the younger pilot. "Don't lose your head. We just need to distract them long enough for Colman or Swyley -" he broke off momentarily as a Viper appeared unexpectedly in front of him. The other pilot must have been as surprised as he was because neither fighter fired. An instant later the were on top of each other, cockpits only meters apart, long enough to get a glance and then gone, out of sight. "- crap, that was close. Looked human though, so much for bug-eyed monsters."
.o0o.
Galactica
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"We have an unconfirmed report that the fighters are manned, sir," Kelly reported to Adama, who was watching as the fleet slowly scattered, Vipers hurtling around them, trying to catch the enemy without causing damage themselves. In an eerie way it seemed more like a game of tag than a deadly battle.
"Not Cylons then," Adama noted.
"I don't know, sir. Doesn't seem to make any sense."
Adama nodded. "Have some of the smaller ships head for Pegasus - they can land inside her flight decks and it's probably safer for them there. There aren't enough fighters here to threaten a Battlestar - not without nukes and if they had them, they would have used them by now."
.o0o.
SLSS Elphinstone
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"Call Captain Hogan back," McEvedy ordered.
"Captain?"
She indicated the computer generated imagery of the ongoing battle, an image where the location of their prodigal jumpfighter had not been represented for almost three minutes. "We don't have a pilot out there any more," she explained bitterly. "Which means we broke our cover for nothing, and we're killing them for nothing."
.o0o.
Galactica
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
Kelly studied the DRADIS in confusion. "They're gone, Admiral. They all jumped out of here - no, I've got them. They're with those little ships that are heading our way."
There was a half-hearted cheer from a couple of the less-seasoned crew borrowed from other duties to fill out the CIC crew, presumably under the misapprehension that those deadly tank-like fighters had been run off.
William Adama was under no such illusion. "Order all ships to maintain their best speed away," he ordered. "They should jump as soon as possible to the emergency coordinates." And thank the Lords of Kobol that past experience had had him pick a fallback location as soon as the much-reduced fleet had reached this damned system. "Order Pegasus to jump immediately - we'll pick up her Vipers and sort them out later."
Pegasus jumped within a moment of the order being relayed but Adama could almost imagine the hangdog expression that must be decorating Lee's face at being ordered away.
.o0o.
SLS Minnesota
Esteban System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
Colonel Daniel McGregor double-checked the tactical displays. Good - all ships were in position and reporting ready. "All ships, all hands," he ordered. "Thirty second countdown to jump." He paused, giving the little fleet time to register any objections. "Mark."
Now it was merely time to wait that last half minute. At his side, Major Digby - Fitz, as he was known from back when they did their national service together aboard the old SLDS Anastasia - watched his command crew go smoothly into action, voices barely rising as they prepared for the first real battle the SLDF had faced in more than two decades.
Outside the destroyer, the same actions were taken aboard other vessels - everything from Sabik escort carriers and Wolverine corvettes down to troop transports and jumpfighters double and triple checked their systems, formed up behind one tiny Ironsides whose pilot had insisted on going back after his missing flight mate, despite being over regs for time in cockpit as it was. Dan had authorized it.
"Three seconds," Fitz advised in an excited voice.
Two.
One.
The twisting sensation of a jump...
Within the span of a single second, almost half a million tons of military vessels vanished from the vicinity of Esteban Station and into the orbit of the Lizard - ironically, into much the same spot occupied a moment before by the Pegasus.
.o0o.
SLSS Elphinstone
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"Multiple new contacts," Gordon advised Captain McEvedy. He paused. "Receiving SLDF authentication codes - confirmed. It's the Minnesota and that's one hell of a task force backing her up. I've never seen that much tonnage in one place outside of a naval review."
.o0o.
Galactica
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
Adama didn't raise his voice as he responded to the new threat. "Roll us thirty degrees to port. All guns, prepare to fire."
"DRADIS confirms eighteen ships and over three hundred fighters," Kelly reported. "All of them heading right for us."
"That's good," Adama nodded. He looked up at the rather horrified silence that resulted. "Better us than the civilian ships. How long until they can jump?"
"The worst cases jumped out with the Pegasus," he was told. "Two minutes before the first ship can leave - three for the last."
"Then we just need to make them concentrate on us for three minutes," Adama said simply.
.o0o.
SLS Minnesota
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"Manitoba is taking fire," Captain Peabody reported from the tactical information section of the Minnesota's bridge. "Moderate kinetic weapons from the battleship ahead."
"Any sign of the other one?" Fitz asked warily. "Sergeant Swyley reported a pair of them."
"No sir," the blonde advised. "Just - thermal spike! Heavy kinetic weapon firing from the battleship."
"Brace for impact," the Major ordered and grabbed hold of his shockframe.
For a moment nothing happened and then... "Manitoba is out of formation," Peabody said, her voice breaking with horror. "Report from the Outreach -" one of the Sabik carriers that was escorting the other destroyer "- two lifeboats launching from Manitoba. Presume they carry the only survivors."
"Eh?" Fitz gasped. "In one volley!?"
"It's a battleship, Fitz. We're only riding destroyers," Dan told him coolly. "Corvettes and Carriers move forward to screen us. All ships are clear to fire."
Awaiting only that command, gunners across the little fleet who were already tracking the Galactica's movement opened fire. The first shots were from the Minnesota, her forward particle cannons tearing away more than a third of the armour on the left side of the Battlestar's crocodilian nose. A moment later, railguns spoke, ferro-nickel slugs shattering more of the armoured ribs and defacing the Colonial emblem on the Bucket's dorsal surface.
The next wave of attacks were missiles from the corvettes (the carriers lacking any armament capable to reach out to the Galactica at this range despite their exposed position). Wolverine-class corvettes had heavy loads of relatively crude missiles and despite determined efforts by the Galactica's secondary cannon, they were not going to stop more than a fraction of the missiles. More than two thousand missiles simply missed entirely, victims of their simple targeting systems weaknesses. Hundreds more were destroyed by the quick firing cannon. Less than half actually hit the oldest remaining Battlestar, the vast majority impacting on her - thankfully almost empty - starboard landing pod, tearing it open in several places and entirely severing the forward strut connecting it to the Galactica's spine.
.o0o.
Galactica
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
The displays in CIC were still flickering alarmingly, since those bizarre weapons raked across the nose of the Galactica. Like lightning in space, one of the Raptor pilots bringing pods aboard from the Space Park had described the much smaller weapons of the enemy fighters and this was presumably more of the same. In theory the Galactica was hardened against such strikes but theory and practice weren't always the same and Adama privately cursed the decision years before he took command to strip off some of the elderly battlestar's external armour for reasons that nobody had ever explained to him.
"Major damage to the starboard landing pod, Admiral," Kelly reported. "It's sheering - permission to eject?"
Adama didn't even look up from the plotting table. "Do it." He turned to the helm. "Try to keep the pod between us and the enemy fleet as much as you can."
"That'll block our own fire, Admiral," the officer, an almost painfully young woman, warned.
"It'll buy us time though. We need that."
.o0o.
SLS Minnesota
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"They're maneuvering behind the pod that we shot off, Colonel," Peabody reported. "Looks like they're trying to keep it between us and them."
Dan nodded. "Well, if they want to play that game, I think we'll let them, Captain. They can't use those cannon of theirs on us while there's an obstruction. Bring the carriers in close so we can overlap our point defense. Corvettes are to break out by squadron to obtain good firing angles. They can't hide from us and from them - and the Wolverines have better armour than we do."
"That's a bit rough, Dan," Fitz said quietly. "Those corvettes might be tougher, but not by that much."
The colonel nodded regretfully. "I know, Fitz. But the particle cannon don't seem to have done much - it was the missiles that carved into them. Their point defense doesn't seem up to handling that sort of barrage. If they're afraid of our cannon, then that'll leave them open to the Corvettes' missiles." He smiled. "Send our Hammerheads and Ironsides in behind the missiles, that should keep them busy."
.o0o.
Galactica
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"Those were the dumbest missiles I've ever seen," Kelly observed, taking a moment to replay the recorded DRADIS data. "Half of them didn't come anywhere near us."
"Even half of them was enough," Adama warned him. "It may be wasteful, but they overwhelmed our point defenses. And now that they're spreading out, we're going to have to deal with more hits like that."
"Incoming missiles and fighters," warned one of Kelly's team and the DRADIS went back to current display, two shoals of missiles coming in at the Galactica, catching the battered battlestar in a crossfire. Behind the missiles was the uncertain suggestion of fighters, the sheer number of missiles preventing the DRADIS from confirming how many enemy fighters were following them in.
Adama nodded thoughtfully. "Looks like some of those ships carry quite a few fighters," he noted. "Impressive given how small they are."
Once again, Galactica rocked under the impact of hundreds of tons of missiles detonating, ripping into the stalwart ship's armoured hull. This time the impacts were less concentrated and few penetrations took place, mostly inconsequential. In focusing on the missiles, however, the Vipers and the point defenses had had to neglect the fighters behind them and one squadron broke through to direct their full firepower into the deep wounds carved into the Galactica's nose. Individually, the particle cannon and heavy missiles were only a minor problem - but there were ten fighters there and the armour was already compromised.
"Major breech to the portside water tanks," the Damage Control Officer reported. "The leak's isolated but the armour's all but gone there."
"Seal off all compartments in that section," Adama ordered, not looking up. Kelly was doing his best, but Tigh would have handled that without needing to be told.
There was a faint shudder - not another impact but the muted recoil of the main guns firing.
The corvette Warrior staggered as two projectiles hammered into its armour, knocking out half her turrets and three missile tubes. Her sister ship Walpurgis was less fortunate - one minute she was ten thousand tons of warship and the next simply an expanding ball of fire and twisted, broken metal.
.o0o.
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"Goddamn, that was one of ours," Hank cursed as fire lit up space behind his Ironsides. He had jumped his squadron in close once the attack had resumed. They swept along the underside of the enemy battleship, the huge vessel left disconcertingly lopsided by the loss of one of the outriggers.
"Watch your own rear, 'ank," Pierre warned him from behind his wing, drifting back slightly to pick off a turret that was tracking it's tracer fire dangerously close to the pair of fighters. "The flak is so thick the infantry would need no jump packs, they could walk aboard on it."
"Copy that," the mildly chastised lead pilot confirmed, the two of them leaving the half-melted turret far behind them. Then he frowned. "Pierre, my radiometer's recording light interference. Nothing big but..."
Pierre's head didn't move but his eyes flicked automatically to the relevant potion of his HUD. "Mine also, 'ank."
"Break out buddy," Hank ordered, dragging on the control yoke. "That big bucket of bolts is about to jump - the radiation must be from their jump field forming." He switched channels to broadcast to all friendly units. "Captain Hogan to all SLDF fighters, break away from the enemy - she's going to jump!"
Fighters peeled off in all directions from the Galactica in response to the warning, much to the surprise of the gunners aboard who found the sky suddenly full of unending targets - literally unending as the fighters for the most part were still sufficiently armoured to survive as they clawed their way out of range of the battlestar's guns.
.o0o.
SLS Minnesota
Elphinstone System, Deep Periphery
19 February 3046
"They're going to get away," Fitz exclaimed as the report was relayed to him. "I think not." The slightly rotund Major barely waited for Dan's permission before ordering his command up and out from behind the cover of the drifting landing pod, the ship rearing up and turning to aim one flank over the obstruction.
"Broadside firing solution," came a shout from gunnery control where Captain Lex O'Malley leant over the shoulders of his team, the Galactica clearly visible in their scopes. "Now in laser range."
"We're being targeted," warned Peabody.
"Fire," Fitz and Dan snapped with one voice, a moment before the deck heaved beneath them and the lights in the command centre went out.
.o0o.
Galactica
Deep Space
19 February 3046
Kelly exhaled with relief as the display of hostiles vanished from the displays and sensors picked up the transponders of the Pegasus and the rest of their ragged fleet, forty-three light-years from the enemy that had done more damage to the Galactica than the entire Second Cylon War so far. Behind him William Adama did not give himself the same luxury. "Damage control?" he enquired.
The young woman manning the station didn't look up. "Minor damage except to the rear, sir. I'm diverting all crews to contain the damage to the port-side engines - permission to dump fuel?"
Adama grimaced. "Do it." Losing the tylium was bad, but having it ignite could finish the Galactica. As it was, he couldn't remember seeing the old bucket looking this badly off since the final stages of the Cylon War.
"Commander Adama is signaling, sir."
Adama lifted the handset, satisfied for the moment that his ship was still alive. "Lee."
"Admiral," Lee said formally. "Do you require assistance?"
He cleared his throat. "Yes, Commander. Order all ships to remain at a safe distance as we will be venting tylium shortly. Assign a raptor flight to assess our external damage. What is the status of the fleet?"
"The ships that made it are unscathed, sir," Lee told him. "We managed to bring aboard an escape pod from the fighter that we downed. The pilot is in the life station, under close guard."
"She's human, isn't she?"
Lee hesitated. "We haven't tried the Cylon detector yet Admiral. But as far as I can tell... yes, she is."