Title: Phythian Mission
Author: GEM
Date written: 3/8/08
Rated: T
Word count:
Story Timeline: Season 1
Category: Drama
Characters: General
Summary: If the want to survive this is the only chose the have. The story behind the Hand of God.
Spoiler: Season 1 Hand of God
AN: My take on the hand of God. I have wanted to write this since the first season and finally found the time. This story fills in some of the gaps of the Hand of God and has my own twist on the ending and my take on some of the continuity errors of the episode. A lot of the mission dialogue comes from the episode and the story also includes my OC Lauren "Wildcard" Myers from my stories Academy Days and Goodbye is the Saddest Word. Enjoy reading and as always Reviews are appreciated.
Chapter 3Adama and Starbuck entered the war room in front of them laid out on the big board was Captain Adama and Colonel Tigh's Combat plan. The Commander gave his son the go ahead and they began laying out the plan from start to finish. Apollo began moving the pieces around the board.
Lee looked across the table. "Now, if we do it right, there will not be any Cylon survivors. And the asteroid will be ours."
Adama studied the board and turned to Starbuck. He could already see the wheels turning. " What do you think, Starbuck?"
"It's a textbook-perfect plan. Which is why it won't work."
"Of course, we bow to your vast experience in strategic planning. Refresh my memory, what year was it that you graduated from War College?" Tigh taunted her.
Starbuck didn't miss a beat. "What's the matter, Colonel, married life not all you expected?"
Adama stepped forward and cut Starbuck and Tigh off before their argument went to blows. "That's enough, both of you. We're not going to win this one by the book. I let Starbuck in here because she's not weighed down by conventional thinking. All due respect, gentlemen, we're not as crazy as she is. Okay, so what would you do differently?"
Kara leaned on the big board and reached for the model of Galactica. "To start, jumping Galactica in behind the planetoid to hide it from the Cylon base is an obvious move."
She had picked up on the one thing that Lee didn't like about his plan. "You think they'll be covering their blind spot with recon patrols." Lee was pleased that she had picked up on that flaw in his plan. He had been convinced that the cylons would be waiting from the beginning.
"I would, if I were them. What we need to do is make their patrols part of our plan. You know, make their tactics work for us."
"Yeah, we thought about that but we can't figure out how to do that."
"You need to draw the patrols away. We need decoys."
"Decoys?" Adama was interested. He never could figure out how her brain worked but she was always one step ahead of everything.
"Civvies will never go for the that. Tigh said as he and Lee took a look at the new board. "The President will never allow innocent people to be put in harms way, even if it is for the good of the fleet."
"That way we relocate all non-essential personnel to other ships in the fleet. We could even use our own people to fly them."
"I like your thinking Apollo, but we may need to barrow and pilot or two."
"Present the plan as it is to the President. If I need to I'll talk to her about the mining ships in private. Is there anything else Starbuck?"
"Actually… she looked a the mining ships…I just got a wild idea, but I don't think we should show all our cards if you catch my meaning. Starbuck looked at Adama.
"The phone rang and Tigh answered it, he came back to the group a moment later. "The President is on her way."
"We present this plan as is." He looked over to Starbuck and Lee "We worry about the jack-in-the-box later."
--
All those involved in operation planning returned to the war room later that day. The President stood on one side of the big board while Adama, Apollo, Starbuck, and Colonel Tigh stood on the other. At the corners the strategic officers stood ready to put the plan in motion.
"Madame President, we believe we have come up with a plan to retrieve the tylium ore for the asteroid surface. Starbuck will now walk us through. If you have any questions or concerns we are here to help." Adama smiled cordially.
"Thank you Commander."
Adama nodded toward Starbuck who moved a model onto the board.
"At position code deacon, we'll need three civilian freighter ships to use as decoys." The models were moved onto the board.
"Which means those passengers will have to relocated, to other ships that are already overcrowded. " The President asked. Starbuck paused allowing Adama to answer as per the plan.
"Yes, if you approve."
Starbuck continued her explanation. "The decoy ships will jump into the enemy star system at extreme radar range from the Cylon asteroid. Galactica will jump here, close enough to launch its vipers at the base."
Apollo took over from here. "As soon as the decoy freighters arrive in the system, they'll break wireless silence. They'll be posing as a mine fleet coming after the tylium and pretend to be unaware of the Cylon presence."
"The Cylons will hear the messages and send a force of raiders after them. This will leave the base relatively undefended. We'll have raptors pre-positioned to keep an eye on the Cylons. When the Cylons move towards the decoys, Galactica's vipers will come in from behind and obliterate the base." Starbuck said as the vipers were added to the board.
Apollo continued the explanation. "Without the base they'll be unable to rearm, refuel..."
"We'll mop them up and then we'll take the tylium." Starbuck finished and looked at the President. The woman seemed to be in deep thought and Kara knew questions were forthcoming.
"What happens to the crews on the civilian decoy ships?"
Lee answered her question. "They'll keep their FTL. Drives spooled up and just jump clear, first sign of trouble."
"How many casualties do we anticipate?"
This was Tigh's area and there was no simple way to answer it, either way she wasn't going to like what he had to say. "It'll cost us."
Roslin thought about the answer. There was still one thing about this that was really bothering her. She looked to Bill to answer her next question. She knew he was a straight shot and to date event with their disagreements she valued his insight. "If you succeed, what's to prevent the Cylons from coming back with reinforcements?"
"Nothing. But if we get a chance to knock out that base, it'll buy us some time."
Laura had a difficult time swallowing these possible losses for 'time.' "Why?"
Bill pressed on, in an effort to help Laura better understand their reasoning. "If you keep running from a schoolyard bully, he keeps on chasing you but the moment you turn around and stop and you punch him really hard in a sensitive spot, he'll think twice about coming back again."
Laura understood the analogy and didn't see much of a choice. "So it's either this or run out of fuel and be annihilated."
"Sometimes you have to roll the hard six."
The President thought about what Adama said. It was worth the risk. They needed to do everything to survive and this was it. "Well, the freighters are yours. Good hunting, everyone." Laura began to walk out of the war room with her aides in tow.
Adama looked up at his senior staff. "Operation starts in 48 hours."