Disclaimer: I do NOT own Battlestar Galactica: 2003
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Hope you enjoy the revised edition.
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Reviews:
Cklammer: Glad that you liked the speech. About the hand salute-it was used in Star Trek before. Why can't I use it? *Grin.*
Don-Jam: Truth. I might have gone a bit over the top, but…
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Just a Crazy-Man: Here you go!
The Hidden Sith: Thanks!
CC: Thank you!
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Truth be told, I don't think it will be the best. I will revise this chapter, I promise you that, if people have any ideas. If you do, tell me on my Forum. Thanks!
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If you have any questions or suggestions or ideas, tell me on my Forum.
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For images, go to DeviantART, search up Lord-Lucifer1, click on Browse Gallery and then go to the Dominion Navy Folder.
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Valiant-class Gunstar Olympus
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The Gunstar emerged from its jump in a bright flaring flash, and moved into the star system, its engines flaring. Several Raptors launched and began their jumps to take a closer look at the new system.
With a stern look on his face, Commander Argos looked at the DRADIS console hanging above his head as his crew went about their hurried business. They were going to meet up with a Colonial Outpost in this star system, a routine check. They had done this so many times.
It was tiresome.
He thought back to the revelation about Earth and its insane monotheistic religion and Imperialistic-type government. The more he thought about, the more disappointed he felt for the Thirteen Colony and shook his head. How could a brother colony, a child of Kobol, turn so wayward from the path its sibling colonies had taken? It didn't make sense, but it didn't matter anymore.
No one wanted war. War was thrust upon them when the CIA (Colonial Intelligence Agency) revealed intercepted messages on a planned attack on the Colonies by the Thirteen Colony. So before their wayward colony would attack, they would strike first, a pre-emptive hit.
"And it worked…." He muttered.
They struck with great ferocity worthy of Ares. They destroyed so many Earth ships, caught so many worlds and facilities off guard, it was easy pickings. Admiral Cain had led the assault, leading a force of thirty Mercury-class Battlestars and two Prometheus-class Battlestars.
Of course, it was clear that they had to act fast. Surely Earth would retaliate, and they used fearsome and unnatural technology. Ship production had increased, and efforts were going into developing more powerful weapons, similar to those that the Earth ships used.
So far, nothing.
"Have we made contact with the Outpost yet?" Commander Argos asked.
"No sir… nothing."
He frowned.
"Hail them again."
"Noth-"
"Sir, 15 contacts approaching!"
Argos paled considerably. They were far from the Cylon-Colonial Armistice line… so it couldn't be Cylons, where ever they were. Logically then… and he hoped not being the short period of time… it had to be the Earthican's. "Sir, their ship profiles match that of Earth ships!"
Did the Gods have no love for him?
The CIC became deathly quiet.
"Perhaps they want to talk," Argos muttered, lying to himself, knowing the truth. Now the time for retribution had come. "Hail their ship, but get those engines ready and stand by to fire if they prove hostile," he added as an afterthought.
'Better be safe than dead.'
That was when it happened.
The group of ships swooped closer, blips on the DRADIS Console, when the Gunstar shook violently. The Commander staggered forward, gripping the edges of his roughly hexagonal information management table, gasping for an intake of breath as the edge crashed into his chest.
He wheezed.
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The largest ship in the force suddenly lunged forward and unleashed a barrage of their insane plasma weapons, boiling and snarling across open space as they flew and slammed into the Olympus with a terrible force. The armor boiled with each strike, glowing red with each hit, with each strike.
The armor that was designed to handle high multi-megaton nuclear warheads and missile strikes melted and proved useless against the terrible force it face now. The ship shook violently as the stream of energy weapons punched right through to the interior of the ship after the ship came back for a second pass, slicing beneath the ship and boiling apart the underside of the Gunstar.
The resulting attack set of a series of secondary explosions as the resulting volcanic temperature superheated the atmosphere and caused instant ignition. Bulkheads blown apart, vital components fell, and crew members were either injured or dead from high level burns or exposed to the vacuum of space. Power conduits and circuit breakers overloaded and blew out all over the ship.
The ship hadn't even fired a single shot.
Reluctantly, blood dripping down his arm, wiped the blood coming down his head as he picked himself of the floor. The CIC was lit up in smoke with crewmembers either knocked out or dead.
"Damage report!" he shouted, more of a cough.
"Give a report now Gods damn it!"
"We're dead in the water, sir. We've lost propulsion, almost all power, and the outer sections report multiple hull breaches," his XO coughed. "We're lucky that we have Life Support at all, commander."
"Jump drive!" Argos shouted.
He coughed.
Nothing.
With a look of despair on his face, he looked around the burning CIC. This wasn't good-his ship was dead. "Signal a ship-wide evacuation," he barked to his XO, "and launch the comm. buoys! If we have any guns still active, target those Gods-accursed Earthican ship and fire everything we've got!"
The XO nodded, a bit woozily and relayed the orders. Those that could move ran as fast as they could, picking anyone that can to evacuation crafts. The few Raptors that weren't damaged by fallen bulkheads or fire, launched as the guns erupted in fury at the Thirteenth ship.
In a few seconds, those Raptors were decimated by a smaller Gunship.
The few of the Olympus didn't get far.
As the fleet glided past the dying ship, their armor shrugging off the undersized flak cannons, three nuclear warheads, each fifty megatons, slid into the damaged parts of the hull and exploded. The fifteen ships vanished in bursts of light as a furious explosion roared out of the inside of the ship, a funeral pyre.
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Friday, October 15, 2643 (Military Calendar)
D.S.S. Avenger Intrepid-class
Orbit of Scorpius Shipyards, Cyrannus Star System (Scorpia)
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Several transport ships, carrying recruits from across the Colonies to the training facilities in the Scorpius Shipyards, exploded in a ball of fire as the brutal Avenger blasted them with explosive shells.
Their tiny and unheard shrills and screams were quickly extinguished by a quick and early death. Unlike the slightly superior Kobolian Direct Drives where their Sublight engines had to power up after a Jump, Dominion engines activated as soon as they jumped. So when the Force leaped into the far away star system, they went to their deadly work.
The force began to unleash righteous hell upon their targets. Their targets had been well-chosen. With a vengeance and carrying with her the memory of the dead from a unprovoked and cowardly assault, the powerful and unconquerable Challenger charged ahead of the Avenger, its lateral Plasma Pulse Cannons spitting out deadly bolts of high-intensity plasma at the Scorpius Fleet Shipyards, waves of bolts screaming across the hundreds of miles of vast space.
An uncompleted Battlestar, its superstructure uncompleted, was struck with the majority of the bolts; the metal hissed and burned away, explosions rippling at the edges of the reddish glow.
His own ship swooped below the Shipyards, and fired two nuclear warheads, each 72 megatons, from its pair of aft missile Launch Tubes, the two multi-megaton missiles tearing the shipyard in half.
It was a beautiful sight, he had to admit.
Multiple explosions spread far and wide on the facility, and the glass windows vanished. He saw the tiny shadows of figures vanish in an instant, and fragments fly far and wide, not slowing in the frictionless environment of space.
"Beautiful," he whispered.
The Pegasus, a Mercury-class Battlestar, was docked as were two other Battlestars and three Gunstar's, Valiant-class. The Battlestar didn't last long against the barrage of plasma bolts, and was seared apart, the metal glowing bright red before quickly fading away.
A Gunstar tried to flee, but was caught in the explosions from the warheads and the torn shards of the shipyard.
The Major General watched though, sitting in his chair, with great reluctance, his face devoid of emotion as the Avenger came up behind the torn Shipyard, and fired his ship's Railgun Batteries at the few surviving Fighters that actually escaped the destruction of the Shipyard, easily destroying them. Tiny explosions erupted as the Fighters were torn by the shells.
This was battle was too easy – far too easy for his taste.
It wasn't fair…
He withstood the urge to grin like a savage.
He led the Avenger away from the floating debris field that used to be a Kobolian Shipyard and glided above a lush jungle that covered a large percentage of the surface of one of the smaller continents. "Burn them," he ordered. "Codeword: Shiva; fire the HAVOK Warheads."
"Yes, sir!"
HAVOK Warheads were a new piece of technology the Dominion had. Essentially, though, all was it the warhead was four napalm missiles clustered around a nuclear bomb. Each napalm missile was guided to a select area and would burn the surrounding area for miles. In the center of the Ring of Fire would be a great radioactive mushroom cloud.
Streaks of light streaked downward to the planet, and then burst into multiple streaks of light.
The rules of war, the proper engagement strategies, had been declared temporarily null for the war, as declared by the Emperor himself. Nothing was illegal; there would no war crimes or trails if he bombed an orphanage, allowed the rape of woman, the selling of children to slavery (which was illegal in the Imperium, though it was legal in these bastardized worlds.) He had near free leash, and he would do that, he could to stab the Colonies in the back again and again…
As the Avenger curved and crashed into a pair of Kobolian Transport-Bombers, tiny explosions rippling on the ablative armor. Two Kobolian Battlestars, Mercury-class, rounded around the planet. The Assault Force bombarded Scorpia with HAVOK's, the surface burning away.
"Sir, they've begun to launch Fighters!"
The general wasn't worried in the least. Their Fighters were cheap and flimsy; they lacked the new (relatively new) technology of Inertial Dampeners. As such they, it took skill (which clearly they had,) to maneuver and control their 'Vipers,' he believed they were called, or was it Raptor?
Silly names.
"Those Mercury ships?"
"Yes sir."
He smirked. "Charge forward, and dive beneath the ships so their weapons won't hurt us. Arm Quad-Batteries, prep a salvo firing solution with burst shells," he ordered, reclining back a bit. Burst shells were shells that held a hundred miniature explosive shells in each. The Challenger and nine other ships jumped to other targets-they had to maximize the amount of damage they caused before reinforcement Battlestars arrived to stop them.
Only four other ships stayed in the star system, three Prometheus-class Gunships and an Intrepid-class Battlecruiser. A Gunstar jumped in system just in front of an Intrepid-class and was immediately bombarded by globs of blue plasma and explosive shells and missiles. In quick succession, the ship was turned into a molten slag, exploding into a ball of fire.
"On my mark… now!"
The powerful batteries scattered around the ship roared, spitting out shell after shell that streaked for miles. They broke apart into small shells and burst into flames as they smashed into the Kobolian space aircraft. The diminutive ship stopped firing as it crashed purposefully into the fighters, destroying a number as the few survivors swerved out of the way and gave chase. "Fire rear Railgun batteries, selected targets," he added.
"Yes, sir!"
Tiny explosions burst behind the ship.
Suddenly the Avenger quivered, and he covered his eyes as a missile struck the long neck of the ship. "Sir, the Kobolian Battlestars have begun to fire."
Obviously.
"Why are we still in their firing range," he demanded as he tightened his seat belt, "I ordered us to dive beneath their ship!"
"They dived first."
Damn it-they must have guessed what we was going to do. He had to give the Kobolian credit for that. Surely they weren't the great fools he believed to be, since they guessed his little idea. They were still, however, fools since they awakened the sleeping giant known as the Dominion. There could have been peace, they could have co-existed….
Now they would be slaves.
"Free reign with our nuclear devices," he declared, "contact loading teams and have them begin to replace conventional missiles with nuclear. Prepare a firing solution for their engines."
"Sir?"
He was going to take a risk.
"Go above the ships and behind them. Turn 90 degree's so our sides launch tubes will be facing their engines." That was risk-the Kobolian's had weapon emplacements scattered on their sides, on their hull and everywhere except their undersides. The Avenger would be pummeled. "Begin plasma bombardment," he ordered as the Battlestars turned, their oversized engines flaring as they sluggishly moved against him like a turtle. "See if you can destroy as many of those emplacements to minimize damage to us."
"Yes, sir."
The ship shook and an officer warned that a piece of the armor had been torn from the ship. Three PPC's were ripped from their places, and thrown into space. Pournel grimaced as his ship took a severe beating, calmed only as he knew the Kobolian's were suffering the same damage.
The remaining ships also joined it, although they assaulted the other Battlestar, the one bearing the name HYPERION. The ship's thick hull rippled with explosions as plasma boiled through the multiple sheets. After what seemed like an eternity of skimming the hull of the whale-likes ship, holding on for dear life as the ship was pummeled, the ship swerved and he saw a brief glance at the large engines flaring a blue light at him.
"Launch!"
Streams of nuclear warheads hissed out of the side launch tubes, and streaked towards the engines. "Execute jump," he said calmly.
The sensation of being stretched like a rubber band and being squashed hit the Major General, though it vanished at the same time it came. The ship glided past the large side Launch Bay of the Battlestar, tearing sheets off it with their remaining cannons and Railgun's.
On the other side of the Battlestar, the other Battlestar crumpled as waves of fire erupted from the rear engines, and expanded forward. The ship veered off course and narrowly missed the Hyperion.
Below the Hyperion, the Battlestar exploded. The Prometheus-class Gaia was sliced in half by a flying piece of the Battlestar, while other shards crashed into the Hyperion, explosions bursting between every contact, and sheets of metal torn from their holdings piercing the underbelly.
The surviving Earth ships bombarded the exposed interior with plasma bolts, hitting the Battlestar's Tyllium Fuel Source. As soon as the plasma bolt hit the Source, the ship instantly became a glowing ball of fire, the small group of ships narrowly avoiding being vaporized.
Suddenly though, the bridge was bathed in red light.
"Status report," the Major General demanded.
"Sir, we have hull exposures all over the ship though I'm seating them now," his Damage Control officer reported crisply. "We have a coolant leak that I've reported to our engineers, but the Reactor nearly went critical, and we'll have to wait at least 30 minutes before we can do anything. That burst also burned off at least a third of our total cannons, and we have a loss of light in several decks, as well as an explosion in an armory bay."
Damn.
"Contact the Cronus, Titan and Blackbird, have them proceed to other targets as planned," he said, a bit wearily. He knew that he would suffer damage, but he hadn't expected this much.