Daala and the Fleet Chapter 15: Contact, a battlestar galactica: 2003 fanfic

This is to adress what That Guy said, in case he reads this, or to anyone who shares his opinion:

I could go into the fact that the Gorgon has so much damage from barely escaping a supernova and the accidental messed up hyperspace jump that it is practically falling apart, and only running on one engine, but I won't. I also won't get into the fact that missiles can hurt a Destroyer (if a volley of proton torps can hurt it, dozens of nukes should do more that just "scratch the paint").

But the whole point of this story is to be a fun story. You're right, if the Destroyer could do what you said there would be no point. That's why in this story it doesn't do that. I bend the rules to make it a story that works. Once again, the point of writing or reading a story is for fun and enjoyment.

Now that's over, I hope this chapter is enjoyable. I tried my best to explain the part at the end, but I don't know if I made it clear enough.

Disclaimer: Don't own much here.

Spoilers: Flight of the Phoenix

Chapter 15- Contact

Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon

Talon and Sophie walked to the engineering room. When they got there she stopped, shocked. A creature that resembled giant insect walked right up to them and started buzzing. It had a green carapace and black eyes, with two antennae poking out of the top of it's head. He was taller that Sophie, at about six feet. Sophie was confused. What was this?

The insect bowed and made it's strange buzzing noises.

Talon smiled. "Zrizi, translator."

The insect buzzed a few times and fumbled with a mechanical device with his odd shaped hands, or more accurately, graspers.

Sophie looked at Talon. "What is it?"

The alien spoke in a incompressible buzzing voice that was translated into a harsh mechanical voice.

"Greetings. My name in Zrizi. Who are you, human female?"

"Uh," Sophie stuttered, confused at why a bug was talking to her. "Lieutenant, sorry, Captain Narcasa."

"I am Zrizi." He said. "Zrizi is a Verpine. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. May I fix something?"

Sophie thought that she could detect a hopeful tone in his mechanical voice. Unsure of what to say, she was grateful when Talon stepped in. "We have something we need help designing."

Zrizi looked even more exited, his antennae twitching and his short-snouted toothless mouth opening and closing. "Zrizi will get model maker."

With that, the Verpine rushed off to his tool kit.

Sophie looked at Talon. "What in the gods' names is he?"

"He's a Verpine, a alien. I should have realized you'd never seen an alien before. He usually refers to himself in the third person, but we've been trying to get him to use 'I'. Verpines have a hive mind, but since he's away from others he acts a little weird. He loves to fix and tinker with things. Five years ago, when one of my TIE's engines were only at 96 efficiency he worked on it. Not only did he fix it, but he also boosted up to 104."

Across the hanger, Zrizi called out, "104.63."

Talon smiled sheepishly. "He also has great hearing and memory."

Zrizi returned with a large box. He sat it down on a table on opened it. It was a large holo projector hooked up to a powerful computer. "Major Devruin, the work on the MCPS is going to take a couple of-"

Talon cut him off. "Stop! Zrizi!" The Meta Crystal Phase Shifter was supposed to be a secret from all Colonial personnel, including admiral Cain.

Sophie looked at him. "MCPS? What's that?"

Talon hesitated, and in his mind quickly made up an excuse. Unfortunately, he had never been good at making up excuses on the fly. "It's the, uhh, Mega Caf Personal Sifter." He resited the urge to wince, that was horrible.

Sophie blinked. "What?"

"It takes the beans for Caf and sifts them. You know. For better Caf."

Sophie knew she should be suspicious, but something had pique her curiosity. "Caf? As in coffee?"

Talon had never heard that word, but it was probably the same, and he needed a distraction. "Yeah."

Before they could talk anymore Zrizi started buzzing until they paid attention to him.

"Tell Zrizi what you want to make."

After about four hours they had a plan. Zrizi had pulled up a full schematic of the Mirage, turned it into a 3-D design, and added the large gun. He figured out how to convert two TIE shields into recoil dampers, took a couple pieces of scrap metal and TIE Starfighter cockpits into turrets, added engines from Colonial Heavy 535, and added even more, including what would be "optimal" to put in it's hanger bays. Verpines wanted to make any design as the best it could be, and he tried his best. With thanks, they took the design from Zrizi and brought it up to Daala.

Daala was still skeptical about the idea, but she gave the two pilots the benefit of the doubt.

"So. What do we have?"

Talon flicked on the projector. "The Mirage is 400 meters long. It will have a main battery of one of the Pegasus's guns. We can produce some special penetrating high explosive shells using either our fabricator, Pegasus's fabricator, or maybe the one on the Basestar. That will give it about a third of the Pegasus's forward firepower. A auto loading system can make it fire 35 rounds per minute. It has three laser turrets, each one is a TIE Starfighter cockpit. Those can be used against fighters or missiles. Eight CIWIS guns off the Pegasus can provide even better protection against missiles. Six proton torpedo launchers can either damage capital ships, shoot down fighters, or provide more protection against missiles. There will be one ship-to-ship missile launcher, for either conventional missiles or nuclear warheads. The hanger can hold two Raptors, eight Vipers, one TIE Interceptor and two TIE Bombers. That plus the engines on the 535 for speed."

Daala thought about that for a second. If it worked, it could be very valuable.

"And what would be loose?"

"We'd obviously have to take six torp launchers of our ship, one missile launcher, one nuclear warhead and eight CIWIS from the Pegasus. Besides that, and small craft that would be assigned to it, we would have to take apart two shielded TIE Fighters. The shields would be for the gun, and the cockpit would be a turret. We can salvage the other turret from the wreckage of a damaged TIE from the battle. The only other things would be 535's engines, which were not going to be used anyway. The rest we can just get from scrap metal."

Daala didn't talk for a moment. Then she spoke up. "Fine. Get the materials from our ship on my authorization. Then go to the Pegasus and grab them. I'll transit my authorization to Cain. I want that ship ready in twelve hours. Do it."

Talon and Sophie worked non-stop for the next eight hours. The commandeered part of the Gorgon's repair crew, along with Zrizi and some more engineers. They used the Lambda shuttles to tractor the main gun over to the Mirage, where they welded it on. The Mirage had never held many people; it was hauling cargo from Picon to Caprica when the Cylons attacked, and the only people on board were the crew. Colonial Heavy 535 had only had a few passengers, and they were being transferred to the moderately loaded Olympic Carrier. They transferred fighters from one ship to another, disassembled fighters, converted shields, took weapons and welded non-stop. They took some spare parts for Pegasus's CIC and installed them to make the ship more combat capable, and added two engines from Heavy 535. When it was finished they were exhausted. But it was done. They boarded a shuttle which dropped Sophie back at the Pegasus, while Talon was carried back to the Gorgon. As soon as both of them hit their racks they were instantly asleep.

Battlestar Pegasus, BSG-62

After a couple of days the repairs were almost finished. Sophie had taken on a class of pilots from the Pegasus's civilian fleet. Apollo was on flight status, but was the DCAG, not the CAG. He was helping her teach the nuggets. Some of them had callsigns, some didn't. They were taking a crash course in flying, because no one knew how much time they had until the Cylons came again. After her second day of teaching she flopped back in her bunk, tired. She had the whole room to herself. The lack of pilots meant that all of them shared one bunkroom, while the two senior pilots, herself and Apollo, bunked in the other one. She didn't know here Apollo was. To say that she had a bad day was a understatement. In addition to being mostly healed, the Basestar, which had been dubbed the Archer, had produced more fighters that they had expected. It now had a compliment of thirteen Raiders. Several fellow crew mates had been transferred to it, Kendra Shaw among them.

Apparently having the Raiders was a problem. The Raiders had been flying CAP when one of the nuggets got spooked. He had spent hours in the sims fighting simulated Raiders, and despite the warnings that they would be there, the friendly IFF signals emanating from the Raider and the blinking friendly icon on his HUD, he panicked and fired on the Raider, destroying it. The Raider's wing pair automatically fired back at the Viper, the sustained burst blowing his ship into little pieces. Her most promising student (although that really wasn't saying much) had been flying right behind the idiot's Viper, and had caught some shrapnel into the engines, blowing them with enough force to shred the entire Viper. Now they were down three ships, one pilot, and one idiot pilot. Frustrated, she pulled the covers over her head and went to sleep that way, in a little cocoon.

Red Lead, Viper Mk.VII

The day after the incident with the Raider, Sophie was flying CAP three other pilots. She had made sure that the paths they were patrolling were well away from the Raiders. She also had a remote control system that could allow her to order the Raiders around. went from the Pegasus to the Mirage to the Olympic Carrier. She was just turning in a long arc that would bring her to the Archer when her DRADIS went off like crazy. There were too many contacts for her to identify. She opened a line to the Pegasus.

"Pegasus, Deadbolt. Showtime, multiple bogeys, can not identify. Over."

After a moment of silence she received a reply. Cain's voice came over the wireless. "Roger that, we have over five-zero, repeat, five-zero large ships. They appear to be launching fighters. Launch all fighters. All available units, engage.

Sophie bit back a curse. All units meant the ridiculously inexperienced nuggets. But it wouldn't really matter, anyway. The Pegasus and the Gorgon were immobile while repairs were being completed, and could not jump. That meant that the only ships that could escape was the civilian fleet, the Archer, and the Mirage. The two main ships were helpless. Against a smaller enemy force they might have a chance, but 50 ships…They were dead. But if they could hold the Raiders off for long enough the ships might be able to evacuate or something. She did the math in her head. Lets see, each Basestar holds 792 Raiders. 792 times about 50 is 39,600. 39,600 Raiders, not counting who knows how many Heavy Raiders. Nope. No way out of this one. It was weird, because the ships had only scrambled about sixty fighters so far. Against their twenty three, plus 12 Raiders and what ever the Gorgon could launch. Oh well. If nothing else, this would be interesting. She waved to the launch operator and was pushed back into her seat as she shot out of the tube.

"All fighters, form up on me." She said. "Red and Blue squadrons, only fire on the enemy Raiders. Raiders one through twelve, form up on me. Let's kick some Cylon ass."

Battlestar Galactica, BSG 75

"So. Lee. Would you mind to tell me why the frak I'm sitting in this launch tube? I was in it three days ago. I'm not due to be in a alert Viper for a week."

From another tube Lee "Apollo" Adama could hear Kara Thrace. He could imagine the expression on her face and smiled. "Well, since it was the CAG's turn to sit in this launch tube while the fleet jumps, he thought he might as well bring the all-mighty Starbuck to suffer with him."

Kara "Starbuck" Thrace smiled into her mask. While she couldn't see Lee because he was in a different launch tube, she did enjoy teasing him. "How 'bout you tell the CAG that next time I see him I'm gonna kick his ass."

"Come on, Starbuck. Who knows, there might even be some Cylons out there. If you're a good girl, I'll leave one for you."

Kara felt her blood boil. No one called her a 'good girl', and Lee certainly was completely inferior to her in all matters, especially the ones that related to flying. "Frak you, Apollo."

"No thanks, Starbuck. You're not my type."

From the moment he said that, he knew it was untrue. He had accidentally told her what he felt when she came back, on the Astral Queen.

"I just want you to know, Kara, that I'm your friend. I love you. If there's anything you wanna talk about, anything you wanna get off your chest, then I'm here for you. Anyway... whenever you wanna talk, just let me know."

"What was that middle part again?"

He stopped and looked at her. "What do you mean?"
She had smiled "Did you say you love me?"
He laughed nervously "Well, um…:
"Lee Adama loves me."
"No, all I meant was-"he stammered.
" No. Seriously. Very sweet. You love me. You can't take it back. There's no take-backs."

He shook his head. He was pretty sure that she didn't feel the same way.

Kara rolled her eyes in frustration. For someone who could be a tactical genius, Lee was so dense. At Colonial Day, when she was in the dress, he had obviously been startled. He mumbled something about her knee. Yep, he had liked how she looked. She had traded one of her bottles of Ambrosia to get that dress, and went to all the trouble to find a place they could go to after the dance. But he had left, and after a few drinks, okay maybe a lot of drinks, she half thought she was with Lee when she was with Baltar. And then she was sure he wanted her, when he was acting like a jealous boyfriend when he found out. And the kiss on the Astral Queen had sealed that subject for good. She thought she was hung up on Sam, but maybe she was just trying to convince herself that. After all, she was a world-class frak up. She closed her eyes and looked at the time readout until jump that was displayed on her computer. Ten seconds to go.

Commander William Adama stood in the middle of the Galactica's CIC. He was completely distracted by the new he had just received. Laura Roslin, President of what was left of the 12 Colonies, had only a month to live. Optimistically. Her cancer was getting much, much worse. Of course, with the Cylons hunting them, they all probably didn't have long to live. The recent scare with the Cylon computer virus had made him realized that they all probably didn't have long to live. He was so distracted that he didn't notice his XO and long time friend, Saul Tigh, talking to him.

"Bill? Bill!"

Bill looked up at him. "What?"

"I've been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes. We're waiting for your command to jump."

"Right. Jump on my mark. Three, two, one, mark."

As the familiar sensation of everything stretching and then compressing happed, he wondered, Maybe they'll get us this time.

As soon as they reverted to space the DRADIS sensor started going off.

"DRADIS contact!" Gaeta called out. "Seven large vessels, unknown, presumably Cylon Basestars. They're launching Raiders!"

Adama started barking out orders. "Launch all fighters. Mr. Gaeta, plot a emergency jump for the entire fleet. Guns, find a firing solution.

Galactica's Apollo, Viper Mk.VII

Apollo was still sitting in the tube when he received a transmission. "Apollo, Galactica. We have unknown DRADIS contacts, assumed to be Cylon Basestars. Get in close and get a positive ID."

Apollo gave the signal to launch and rocketed out of the tube. All along the sides of the Battlestar, fighters shot out of their tubes. Apollo was in the Galactica's only Mk.VII Viper. He opened a channel to talk to the pilots.

"Alright, showtime. All Vipers, form up on me, we're getting a ID on some of those ships. Let's go."

He went to full thrust and zoomed along to intercept. When he got close enough he could get a positive DRADIS ID on them, had to take a second look at his DRADIS screen to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. He thumbed to comm on. "Galactica, Apollo, I need a private line with Galactica Actual."

He heard a click and then his dad came on the line. "Apollo, this is Actual. What is it?"

"Something's wrong here. Our profile matches both Cylon Raiders and Vipers. And also we're getting colonial recognition signals from both the Vipers and the Raiders. One sec, you're not going to believe this. I have a visual of Mk.VIIs flying in formation with Raiders. What are your orders?"

Bill thought that over for a second. It could be a Cylon trick, but the recognition codes…

"Hold fire and query them."

Drake Lead, TIE Interceptor

Talon had scrambled with all the other fighters. The Archer and the Mirage were turning around to engage the ships. His sensor was more advanced than the Vipers, so he was able to see that the 50+ ships were, much to his relief, civilian vessels and one Battlestar. He opened a line to the Gorgon. "Gorgon, this Drake Lead. I need to speak with Admiral Daala."

After a second Daala answered him. "Drake Lead, go ahead."

"The 50 ships are not Cylons, I repeat, not Cylons. They're Galactica and her civillian fleet."

There was a moment of silence. "Roger that. Comm the Archer, Mirage, and Pegasus. Inform them of the situation and have one of their people contact the Galactica.

Galactica's Apollo, Viper Mk.VII

The line of Vipers and Raiders in front of him and cut power and were coming to a stop. He took the time to scan the other ships in the area. What he saw confused him. A Cylon Basestar, just sitting there, not firing. Some civilian ships, and the Battlestar Pegasus. Wow. Someone else had survived. This changed everything. If the commander of the Pegasus was still Admiral Cain, they were in trouble. His dad had told him what little he knew about Cain, and it wasn't good. Saying that she ruled her ship with a iron fist was a understatement.

A unidentified contact, a huge white dagger just sitting there in space. It wasn't exactly white, it was blackened from charring and deformed in some parts. He looked closer at the display for one of the civilian ships. Oh frak. It was the Olympic Carrier.

He thumbed the comm switch. "I need a line with Galactica Actual right now!"

His father's voice answered him. "Go ahead."

"We've got a big problem. We have ships that aren't ours and aren't Cylon, a Basestar that is just sitting there, and the Battlestar Pegasus."

"What! The Pegasus?"

"That's not all. I took a look at one of the civilian ships. It's the Olympic Carrier."

His father was quick in replying. "This could be a Cylon trick. Let's make sure it isn't."

Apollo switched his wireless to broadcast in the clear. "This is Apollo from the Battlestar Galactica. Who are you?"

He heard a female voice come across the wireless. "Apollo?! What the frak? You're flying my win-"

Before she could finish her sentence Starbuck butted in. "Deadbolt? Is that you?"

The female pilot spoke again, her voice low. "Starbuck."

Suddenly Kara turned her ship around 180° and sped away at top speed. Not longer after that happened, Deadbolt's Viper flashed by him in pursuit of Starbuck.

Lee groaned. "Gods damn it, Kara," he muttered. "Why do you always have to do this. Kat, you have lead. Report back to Galactica, keep them informed of the situation. Apollo out." He then followed Starbuck and Deadbolt. It took him a second to realize that he had never heard of a pilot called Deadbolt. Who was she? And how did Kara know her?

He was so focused on tying to catch up with Deadbolt and Starbuck that he didn't notice another Viper pull up behind, him, into his kill slot. Lee Adama, with a scar running across his face, flipped off the safety. Maybe if he could kill the other Lee no one would notice. He lined up on the Viper pilot from Galactica and pulled the trigger.

This story could use a bit of beta-ing, so if anyone is interested in helping just let me know. Thanks!

I hope that the thing with two Apollos wasn't too consfusing. Please review, especialy if you didn't understand what was going on. Tips are awlays helpful, and reviews really help motivate me.

The Galactica's finally here!