==========Cylon Baseship (+853 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==========
"Leoben," Natalie shouted. "…Leoben!" She repeated, raising her voice.
The bio-Cylon's eyes opened, the reflection of red and blue lights which had been dancing on his face from the data stream suddenly stopped as he lifted his hand from the cold liquid. He let his breath escape in a long and quiet sigh as he moved his head slowly to look at the intruder.
He sat, opening his mouth slowly before closing it again. Leoben kept himself from acknowledging the Six standing in front of him.
"Where were you?" She demanded. "We were all there except you." His eyes were unfocused as he stared at the Six known as Natalie. He studied her uncharacteristically long hair, the glasses, and the dirty-blond hair. She wore tank tops and pants rather than the seductive clothes most of the line wore.
"Our race stands at the edge of an abyss and you are here… doing what?" She asked, pressing him for answers. She moved closer to him, her boot thumping quietly on the white, lit floors of Leoben's private sanctuary.
"I was researching… my obsession with Starbuck," he lied. His voice was laced with an equal mixture of sarcasm and contempt. They always accused him of being obsessed with the Colonial Viper pilot. He'd exploited that.
"Don't," Natalie warned. She thrust her finger at him aggressively, keeping one arm on her arm and stepping forward with her left foot. If Leoban cared about the signals her body language was putting forward he might just have given her a straight answer. But he didn't care. So he didn't.
"I've learned so much," he told her.
The Six was beyond annoyed at him. Her other models and the Eights had been arguing for hours over the situation with the Guardians and the Cylon God and the Colonials. So much had assaulted their beliefs over so short a time it was overwhelming. Even for a Cylon. She was on the verge of convincing the Eights to be more proactive in this investigation, but without the Twos they had faltered in their resolve.
She sighed and closed her eyes. Through clenched teeth she decided to play this game. She would play these games with Leoban. She questioned his sanity. But she would play.
"What have you learned, Leoban?"
He moved the data stream access forward. This was when Natalie saw that it was an isolated computer data port, a Cylon version of a human laptop or non-networked computer. She eyes him curiously. He only motioned slightly with his hand for her to access the data.
Careful she placed the tip of her fingers in, then her palm. The liquid turned colors and began to flash blue-red over her forearm. The colors played randomly on her skin. She withdrew her hand after mere seconds.
"Why didn't you tell us?" She couldn't tell if she felt betrayed or relieved. The Sixes and Twos had always been close.
"I did tell you."
"You told Caprica. Not us," she corrected.
"Caprica is unique," he responded. "Something about her changed. She changed after her infiltration," he observed. "On New Caprica I could see it."
"What?"
"Love, kindness, empathy... take your pick. Kind of clichéd isn't it?" He laughed and shook her head. "Love for a human. Despicable? Admirable? A miracle?" He shrugged. "I don't know. I could trust her, but no one else." He looked at her. His eyes focused on hers. She could see the little signs of moisture. "I am sorry for not trusting you, Natalie. But… you understand? I hope," he said meekly.
She tilted her head, opening and closing her mouth as the words 'I do' tried to come out. They didn't. She stood there with her mouth slightly open, her teeth barely visible.
"Do you know when I began to question?" He asked rhetorically, not looking at her or waiting for a response. "It's when Cavil told us Hera needed to be killed. That humans and Cylons breeding was an abomination to what we stood for. But that was just one thing which made me question who was in control. What was in control. There have been other times, too. The Number Sevens…"
Natalie thought back. They never talked of the Number Sevens. Never. "Leoban. The Sevens… this is dangerous territory-"
"If we're found out we will all be boxed. What would the hybrid report to the command hub if we are caught? And what would Cavil do?" He expected an answer this time to his question and waited patiently. "How can we fear one… man… if we are all supposed to be equal, Natalie?" He buried his chin into his chest; his eyes were at the top of his sockets with his eyebrows furled down. If he were not her friend she would say he looked like pure evil.
"These were never things we were supposed to discuss. These issues-" She stammered off, her words becoming incoherent.
He stood up, closing the isolated data port and placing it securely against his chest with his right arm. "Lied to by a construct from the Thirteenth. Manipulated by its pet Cavil. We may have agreed to the destruction of the Colonies but in doing so we offended God… did we even agree to it or were we manipulated? Did we vote or just believe our opinions even mattered? This is our punishment for our crimes." He walked slowly passed her, stopping when he heard her turn around. "We wanted revenge at such a price we were willing to accept when a… great deceiver offered it to us. We've been tempted by evil with power, Natalie." He sighed. "We can fix it… but the consequences will be extreme, the sacrifice will be great."
"Where are you going?" She asked.
"Caprica and I… hopefully she still believes in what I believe in. Like I think you do now. And hopefully they will believe her."
"Who?"
He shrugged. "The right people." He walked towards the entrance to his private room and placed his hand on the door and buried his head in his raised arm for a moment to catch his breath and calm himself. "I'm going on my patrol, Natalie. Hopefully she's succeeded. And hopefully we can free ourselves from the construct of the Thirteenth."
She stood there, replaying the conversation over in her mind again and again and again. Everything was moving so quickly now. In less than a month her world was crashing down around her. She looked down. Natalie could see the abyss, the darkness edging closer to where she stood. They were so close to falling in.
==========Deep Space==========
Leoben finished his fifth jump that day and began his patrols. This was his second to last route before he would begin to head back to the baseship.
For twelve hours now he had been flying in the blackness of space. This void of cosmic dust, radiation, and gas was his home. He had been born, created, in space. And he knew he would die in space.
He had connected his personal computer data port into the heavy raider. Nothing was ever recorded of his journey through space. He let the other six believe he was just doing 'the things that Leoban does'. Since resurrecting after his first meeting and death with Starbuck he had always felt a strange connection to her.
As he looked out at the stars through the heavy raider's narrow viewing slit he remembered when he was in love, truly obsessed with her. That was so long ago. But he wondered to himself if he ever loved her or just recognized something in her he found virtuous, noble… he wasn't sure. He didn't love her. Not in that way. Not anymore.
She was married. And he knew she was happy. He knew it would be cliché of himself if he said that he was happy for her. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. He wasn't sure.
He was shaken from his concentration when DRADIS alerts sounded. It was extreme range, coming in fast. The configuration brought a little smirk to his mouth as he grunted. He hadn't expected them.
He received a data burst. They had detected him. The data stream of the heavy raider fed him the information. Leoban knew Caprica had succeeded. She was a true believer like he was. God was watching out for them.
The data burst was authentic. He sent the return.
A wireless signal came in. "This is Commander Cyrus…"
==========BS-75 Galactica (+854 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==========
Commander Cyrus had contacted the Colonial commanders shortly after his baseship arrived. His quick departure over a week earlier aboard a raider gunship had been odd. President Roslin had informed Commander Adama of what had happened with Caprica's interrogation. Adama had expressed his concern and passed the information to Cain. A second interrogation of Caprica had yielded no useful information.
The three fleet leaders had decided to wait until Cyrus returned.
Two Guardian commanders were now present in Galactica's war room, aft of the C-I-C. Presently the elusive Commanders Cyrus and Thais were briefing a combined staff of the Colonial Fleet remnant on a target too large to ignore and too valuable for the Cylons to be left intact.
Commander Thais moved back and to the side, stepping out from in front of the large plasma screens mounting the bulkhead wall so all the Colonials could see the intelligence his reconnaissance units had gathered. To minimize tension and distrust he had transferred his MCP out of his gold armored Centurion body into an Interactive Lifeform-Synthetic unit.
"This is a major Cylon fleet staging area and resupply facility," he said, clicking through the dozens of photographs his raiders had taken. "There are five baseships currently guarding the facility as well as two entire wings of raiders inside the facility."
"How 'major' are we talking about?" Commander Adama asked, himself thumbing through a separate set of recon photos and tactical analyses of any assault. He was impressed at the thoroughness of the Guardians giving this briefing. They already had half a dozen assault plans in the briefing folders they had distributed.
"We believe it supplies nearly half of the Cylon armada hunting for our forces. Taking it out would force their ship-based supply lines to nearly double. Its destruction would be a strategic loss similar to the resurrection ship you destroyed."
"What about going after resurrection ships then?" Major Agathon asked.
Commander Cyrus answered the question by pointing out an observation he had made during the Battle of New Caprica. "Did you see a resurrection ship during New Caprica?" No one answered 'yes.' "The Cylons have changed tactics on their deployment of resurrection vessels. They no longer keep them with their fleet. They jump them much more often now. And they have enough resurrection vessels where we would have to destroy half a dozen to degrade their capabilities."
Commander Adama placed one of sheets detailing assault plans on the tactical console at the center of the room. "Commander, could you take us through plan three," Adama requested. He'd been through the assault plans, each utilizing the same resources but deployed in different manners.
The Centurion Thais nodded and quickly typed in commands on the computer console to bring up the next portion of the briefing on the large monitors of the ship's war room. "Plan three will utilize half a dozen ships. Right now we still wish to keep the Cylons uncertain as to our intentions concerning possible long term alliances with your Colonial remnant. We also do not want to divulge our full military capabilities. However, this is a significant portion of our offensive units."
A few Colonial officers in the room shot each other unappreciative glances at the second to last comment. 'Remnant.' The cool temperature in the war room plunged a few more degrees and the Colonials began to focus unnecessarily on that one word.
Whether intentional or not the Guardians had reminded them of their desperation. Even reduced to a handful of ships and not even an single percentage of their civilization remaining did a military officer in the Colonial Fleet want to be reminded of their precarious situation. The thought they were the last, the 'remnant' of a civilization was always in the back of their mind. But to say it out loud… one did not do that.
Even with little experience in interacting with humans Commander Thais could tell of the icy chill sweeping through the room as expressions hardened and bodies stiffened. He continued the briefing quickly to take their minds off of an offhand, but completely accurate comment his superior had made.
"The fleet will be commanded by Commander Cyrus while I command the raider and gunship squadrons," Thais informed them. He showed a series of images that the command ship would jump in on the central horizontal axis of the supply depot while five other Guardian ships would deploy in a half-sphere, with the 'topmost' and 'bottom most' ships bulged in almost right above the central vertical axis of the supply depot. "Once we jump in our fighters will provide a diversion and draw off the fighter defenses." An animation of the supposed attack and Cylon reaction played through.
Commander Cyrus took over from Thais. "My ships will begin to fall back. Our outer hulls have dead spaces in them which and we will set off explosions and make it appear that our ship is more heavily damaged than it is. My command vessel will begin to withdraw, feigning damage while the other baseships provide cover." He nodded to Thais, who activated the second part of the animation. "Commander Thais will finish the briefing," he stated dryly. The feelings of the Colonials didn't concern him. He wondered how the machines from the Thirteenth had managed to tolerate the Colonials for so long.
Thais looked over the Colonial military personnel there as well as the three Earth machines present. Somehow he realized he had been directing his briefing more towards them. His MCP registered this as an appeal for approval, but he filed away the data packet for analysis later.
"We will need to use the remaining Blackbird stealth fighters," he began. This illicited a few responses from the CAGs of Pegasus, Galactica, and Helios as well as mumblings from a few other officers. He knew what he would say next would illicit the strongest objections. "They will be placed inside our vessels and armed with two high yield nuclear missiles. They will perform an FTL jump from inside our ship," the murmurs already started before he could finish, "and jump fifteen kilometers from the facility, fire, and jump out."
Starbuck was able to speak up over the murmurs and conversations and debates which had immediately flared to life when Thais informed them they would be jumping while inside a baseship. "You want us to jump four Blackbrids from inside your ship? That'll rip its guts out," she told them in disbelief. She looked towards Commander Adama for support in her assessment. The other senior staff officers and pilots echoed their support of Starbuck's dire prediction.
"And they'll detect the FTL jump," Athena added in.
"The fighters will be positioned in a non-critical compartment of the baseship. And yes, they will detect the jumps. That is why we will have five gunships also jumping opposite the Blackbirds to the other side of the facility." Thais raised his voice over the Colonial officers and they began to quiet. "While they will detect the FTL jump it is highly unlikely they will know what we are doing. They will see the gunships and pick up the radiological signals from their nuclear missiles and shoot those missiles down. Combine this with the residual radiological affects from our initial nuclear barrage and the facility scanners should not detect your missiles until they are within its flak field. The yields are high enough three are needed to get through. Three will cause extensive external and internal damage and should ignite the tyllium fuel."
"Jumping from inside a ship? It's near suicide," Captain Shaw added in. "FTL jumps… the spatial distortions could cause mass to be sucked in, destabilizing the jump. FTL cores could overload. There are a thousand things that could go wrong."
"It's risky," Starbuck said, having to add in one final comment. Half a dozen new conversations erupted in a chorus about the foolishness of FTL jumping inside a ship, no matter how close to the hull or how far from a vital system.
"It's not just risky, its damned dangerous," Shaw expanded. "A thousand variables from electronic interference or power spikes in ship systems… you need to jump with as few variable as possible. If the baseship is hit-"
"It minimizes human loss," Thais flatly stated. "The only risk to you will be four pilots and any observers you wish to place on our ships."
Commander Cyrus also felt it necessary to defend this plan. Command had felt that the humans would not quite understand what was at stake here. As a Centurion he could override his emotional processors in the MCP in situations which demanded logic and rationality. If he did not have this ability he more than likely would have put his fist through the bulkhead.
"This is an extreme risk for us." He disconnected the link he had with other Centurions and his commanders on the baseship. Cyrus was not the senior military commander in the Guardian hierarchy, nor the most influential. Right now, he spoke from what humans would call 'the heart.'
He began again. "This is a risk for us. We acted over New Caprica partly over guilt from the first war and the cowardly attack perpetrated by our cousins." He waited until he was sure everyone was focused on him. "In addition, we were nothing more than a nuisance to the Cylons before New Caprica. Now they will be actively hunting us like they are you. We can either go our separate ways and fend for ourselves, and probably all end up dead or scrap, or we can fight this threat together. Except for Commander Thais here, no other Guardian can hear me. Our leadership is still unsure if it wishes to pursue this alliance. This is an opportunity I am presenting to you to show them you will work with us, rather than demand we only work with you and this assault posses risk to only four pilots. If you are not willing to accept even a small risk… my superiors will know you will not risk everything when the situation inevitably arises."
A few of the Colonials looked slightly indignant with his comments while many of them considered Cyrus's words. He knew many still thought and fought like they were part of the Colonial Fleet. He wanted to tell them there was no such organization left.
"Starbuck. You and Thais go over a roster of pilots for this mission. Everyone else, dismissed," Commander Adama ordered.
The Earth machines walked quietly through the corridors of Galactica. Jo's appearance had actually received far less scrutiny than John had originally believed. Now her skin was slightly lighter, a mix between what would be a Filipino and Scottish ethnicity back on Earth. Her hair was just above shoulder length, halfway between black and brown. Instead of the deep blue eyes the other two machines possessed her were very light, almost a mix with brown. The black form fitting jacket she wore did not hide her body outline.
After the Colonials had settled New Caprica the machines had began to speak out loud more in the presence of others rather than engage in private conversations over their wireless. It built trust seeing them speak instead of always walking quietly. Trust was necessary for successful completions of objectives.
"See, and you were worried, John," she said to him as the three machines walked through the corridors of Galactica. She looked at him, his face impassive. Carter looked somewhat amused. "Carter?"
"I didn't say anything. Whatever it is… I'm not involved," he pointed out.
"Maybe. We'll see," John half way and reluctantly conceded. After his game of basketball with Starbuck he'd realized most of his anger was not directed at Jo. But machines were by their nature, good or bad, stubborn and he had not admitted to his mistake in gauging possible overreactions. "Though you modified the uniform…"
"Yes," she acknowledged. Their jackets were not as loose as the Colonial ones. But they were not designed to be as form fitting as hers.
"Okay…" Carter could see the argument about to begin. "Just keep it down," he said under his breath.
John sent a point to point wireless communication request which Jo denied.
"Just keep it down," Carter repeated, aware of the request and denial.
"Is that all?" He asked her.
"What do you want me to say, exactly?" A slight hint of anger and annoyance appeared suddenly on the edge of her voice. "There was an opportunity so I took it. We've all had other appearances and bodies before," she pointed out. "Infiltrators. And why be ashamed of what our machine selves can do?"
"Vanity is not a trait we should emulate. We don't have that luxury," John responded. Jo had to smile at that and shake her head.
She saw a few crewmembers looking towards her. Most knew of the change in appearance, but not all. A few were curious, some scared, and a few others…
She recognized going from chrome skulled, grinning demon of death to this was a bit of a shock to some. The pictures after the bomb blast had somehow circulated in the fleet. Pegasus was studded with surveillance equipment with dozens of security personnel having access. Recalling the looks of fear and horror in the eyes of dozens of crewmembers as she made the long journey back to The Cave after the attack, she wondered why the free machines never redesigned the terminator chassis away from such a demonic, evil appearance. She filed that thought away for later analysis. It was not important to her.
"You can't pick and choose. That's hypocritical."
"She does have a point," Carter said defending her. "I can't remember any one machine ever adopting the appearance of a person humans would consider physically unattractive. Anyway, we're stronger, faster, more durable than them. Why not look better? …the human expression, 'doing it with style'?"
"This isn't Hollywood," John deadpanned.
"No. Hollywood is a Skynet slave camp," Carter responded in the machine matter-of-fact, state-the-obvious in-joke.
"Regardless… as the commanding officer of this team…" he trailed off. He used the 'as the CO' argument, an appeal to authority, rather than a logical, rational argument. One trait machines did emulate well was pride. This was John's way of admitting to being wrong while providing Joanne Soto a means to acknowledge she went against his authority. And machine-based ranks and command structures were much more fluid and dynamic than the strict hierarchies of human systems.
"You know this is different. We all trust each other, so just know I didn't make this decision lightly, John," he said quickly and quietly. Her arms brushed against his as she walked closer. "Three decades is a long time. We've been in worse."
"Not much," Carter offered. "I'd rather fight a platoon of Triple's then be chased thousands of light years by crazy robots."
A lone battlestar crewman standing off to the side and going over reports looked up baffled at that last comment.
John changed the subject back. "Maybe. I don't want to be standing here saying I told you this would be a bad idea," he warned.
"You worry too much."
"Someone has to," he responded, more to himself than the other two.
"What happened with Erica?" Jo asked. She artfully changed the subject. A skill she had learned after being sent back in time for the first mission.
There were very few things which could surprise a state-of-the-art free machine/Tech Com TK-950 infiltrator. That question had been one of them.
"Have you talked to her?" He asked slowly. Again, neural net signals overrode his attempt to keep his voice the machine-like monotone and his face completely blank. Humans couldn't read a machine with its emotions 'off' (which was a very simplistic interpretation of what a machine could do) but a machine could read a machine. Even without skin John could tell Jo had been upset. With synthetic skin John knew it was like 'wearing your heart on your sleeve' as the humans put it.
"You screwed up," she stated flatly.
The TK-950 kept his back straight and kept walking. They entered the internal tram system on Galactica and took one of the rear cars. Only a few other battlestar crewmembers were there and were slightly uneasy.
"We're infiltrators, we all have done… oh…," Carter said and understanding. John's friend took a moment to find the little humor.
A machine was not built to feel embarrassment. That was the common misconception.
"Yeah, walking out is a big screw up." She quieted her voice. "There was no problem after we got to '07," she pointed out. "Unless you… let's say, care for her."
"White Knight?" Carter asked.
"She's reacting to someone who saved her from the Greystone mansion." John wasn't sure if he believed that. In fact, he didn't.
"You always do the right thing, so your chip must be malfunctioning if you actually just said that," Jo said. "Human men and machine men…" She looked at one of the female crewmembers sitting there and obviously listening in on their conversation a specialist Anastasia Keikeya. "I don't believe human men or machine men will ever understand women. Am I right?" She asked her.
The specialist sat there with her eyes on the ground and softly shrugged, trying to keep herself from laughing at the ridiculous conversation she'd been listening to.
==========BS-75 Galactica (+857 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==========
Carter and Jo had already stepped into the Raptor prepped and ready on Galactica's flight deck. John and Sharon Agathon stood next to the wing of the Raptor as her husband came up.
He pressed in gently and gave her a kiss before turning to John.
"This whole situation… it has me nervous, John," he told him as he watched Athena walk up the wing, hop down into the crew compartment and take her seat at the pilot's position.
"Commander Cyrus was lacking in details," John responded. "He requested our presence. I see no reason not to doubt him."
Helo shook his head. The acting XO of Galactica was overprotective of his wife, John had observed, reminding him of a very similar relationship from the past. John didn't need to scan him to know he was nervous, anxious, and worried about the safety of his wife.
"I know you all have been through a lot, but I'm going to say it; she's been through enough. I don't want anything to jeopardize that," he said quietly. This wasn't meant as a warning. And Helo didn't invoke the proper tones and vocal pitch to imply that.
"You and your family have been friends with us for years and trusted us. We will do everything to keep her safe. But we need her. They trust her. They'll listen to her," he reassured his friend. John placed his left hand on Helo's shoulder. "She'll be safe," he said again, extending his right hand.
Helo looked him in the eye and grabbed his right hand, shaking it in a sign of trust. "I know. Thank you," he said, again softly. He nodded his head slightly before releasing John's hand and taking a step back. He clasped his hands behind his back. "Happy hunting," he said as John jumped onto the Raptor wing. The Earth machine began to close the Raptor hatch door when he heard his name called above the roar of engines and the commotion of the landing zones.
"Planck!" He heard. Helo turned to look at the new source of the voice then turned back to look at John. He saw his machine friend's face drop for a moment before contorting back to its flat, emotionless stare.
"Captain Shaw," he greeted her as she walked quickly to the Raptor. He was tempted to ask 'is there something I can help you with?' but he wanted to say as little to her as possible.
"Admiral Cain assigned me as a tactical observer for this battle," she told him. He hadn't even been aware she was on the ship. She stepped onto the Raptor wing and into the passenger bay.
Helo looked back at John and smiled while laughing between his closed lips. "Have fun," he said mockingly as he turned, giving a backwards wave to the machine as he walked away.
==========Guardian Command Baseship (Six Thousand Kilometers from Cylon Supply Depot +858 Days Post Cylon Holocaust)==========
The battle had begun quickly. As soon as the Guardian ships jumped in they launched their nuclear missiles. Unfortunately all but one was intercepted. One Type II Cylon baseship was hid mid-central axis, sending the ship spinning uncontrollable as secondary explosions rocketed the ship, causing explosive decompressions.
It was merely down, but not out of the fight. The Guardians did not plan on being in this fight long enough for the odds to again tilt in the favor of the Cylons.
Numerically, the Guardians were two ships the superior to the Cylons. But the supply depot had hundreds of raiders and heavy raiders, and a Type II baseship was fare more powerful than the unique hybrid the Guardians utilized.
The Guardians and Sharon and the Earth machines had all connected to a more primitive version of the Cylon data stream. The bridge was one of the few places on a Guardian baseship where a fluid-gel-like combination allowed the electrical signals to be converted for processing by biological or technological nervous systems.
Everyone in the command bridge except for Kendra Shaw had their consciousness linked to the sensors of the half dozen ships and hundreds of Guardian raiders and gunships.
To the casual observer nothing appeared to be happening. For Kendra Shaw the Guardians had put the view of the battle on a monitor screen for her to view. But she saw nothing more and heard nothing at all from the Guardians. The command bridge was completely silent. Only the casual hum of machinery or the thuds and thumps of explosions far away on the outer hall could be heard and barely felt.
For all the machines and the lone bio-Cylon, what they experienced in the data stream was close to a stream of consciousness as they watched the battle. Reports cycled in and orders cycled out overlaid on top of the tactical view of the battle at astronomical speeds.
…Cylon baseships Alpha and Bravo are realigning and spinning on their central axis, Commander. Order ships... One and Three to pivot to their ventral missile batteries… we need to close the gap between our ships Three and Four… realign on karrim 1-7-1-1... redirect axial fire to quadrant 3-A… Raider Wing One is to sweep up from position Alpha 7-3-4 karrim 9-5-1 and engage Cylon baseship Bravo… begin venting atmosphere at frames nine through twelve, ventral disc…
…Primary communications interrupted, switching to… they're attempting to hack our systems… deploying digital sentries. John, Jo, Carter, if you can defeat the intruders… intruders neutralized… Cylon firewalls are too powerful to penetrate… uploading virus… virus upload has failed. ECM and counter ECM initialized… new virus detected… virus neutralized…
"What's happening?" Captain Shaw asked. She felt a loud thud and a stiff vibration come up through the hull plating. Two command Centurions moved positions, placing their free hands into the conducting gel at their own separate stations. The three Guardians, three machines of the Thirteenth, and the lone bio-Cylon all kept perfectly calm as the vibrations and thuds intensified.
"Baseship Four has been heavily damaged. The Cylon raiders were able to make a hole in Four's fighter screen. A nuke has set off secondary explosions in the starboard hull," Sharon filled her in graciously. She kept her voice calm. The data stream kept everyone perfectly calm. "They attempted to send viruses. We defeated them," she stated. Sharon's voice was distant and cool, lacking any human inflection and changes in tone and pitch as she was connected with the Guardian data stream.
…We are beginning to fall back, Commander... good... I want baseships Two and Three to detonate the charges in their outer hulls and eject debris… excellent... begin the same on this ship… Cylon wings attempting to surrounding baseship Five… immediately redirect available raider wings to intercept… realign flak fields to dorsal quadrants beta three through beta seven and raider squadron twelve through fifteen redirect attack raiders on Five's dorsal disc.
Kendra Shaw couldn't see what had just happened, but she felt very strong thuds and poundings on the hull. "Was that the trick?" She asked quietly. No one answered. She took a step forward to the data stream gel and brought her left hand up. But her right overrode her left, grabbing it and forcing her hand back down to her side. She was there on Cain's orders… but she knew Cain wouldn't be made if she told her what was happening. To put her hand in that… fraking filth, she knew Cain would not be upset.
"We're about to launch the Blackbirds," Sharon informed her again.
…All vessels are moving back and retreated, Commander… Commander Thais is reporting heavier than expected loses to raider and gunship wings… explosive decompressions… secondary DRADIS array damaged… ship to ship communication arrays damaged… secondary online in twelve seconds… engaging laser point to point communications… three squadrons raiders lost… squadron twenty is done to half strength, breaks in missile defenses imminent… the supply facility is launching an additional wing of- radiological alarm!
Outside, missiles and flak and hot streams of engine exhaust littered the three dimensional battlefield. But even in nuclear fire space was still cold and lifeless. Two nuclear missiles were inbound. Thais's raiders were able to intercept one, but a proximity fuse led to the ignition sequence to produce a blast brighter than ten thousand suns, signaling the beginning of a catastrophic chain reaction which would result in the deaths of Centurions and the destruction of half a wing of raiders and gunships.
…We need to launch gunships and Blackbirds immediately, control... launch them… ship, prepare for spatial distortions… damage control reroute to sections three through fifteen beams nine to twenty…. signal Commander Thais to begin combat landing immediately… baseships Three, Four, and Five begin immediate emergency FTL jumps to rendezvous point Alpha Three… basehip Six begin missile firing pattern Delta Seven, fire for effect… raiders and gunships aboard…radiological alarm-nukes in bound…massive damage to outer hull…heat exchangers damaged…DRADIS inoperable…gravity offline in ventral disc…maneuvering thrusters fifteen through sixty offline…jump!
Captain Shaw could see the monitors cycling the external telescopes and video feeds from the baseships. The ones ordered away had suffered serious damage. The Cylons had been able to regroup and break out of the half-sphere. Baseships Delta and Echo had converged on two Guardian baseships, Four and Five and had dealt them significant damage.
Unfortunately the Colonial captain could not gauge the casualties reported from the quick scrolling data stream texts on the edges of the monitor.
Starbuck couldn't believe she was actually going to do this. She did think right about now it would have been great if she was painting kills on her Viper like Admiral Cain had ordered. And which she had conveniently ignored or forgotten. She forgot which. Starbuck knowing Starbuck she believed she probably ignored them.
But now all she could say out loud was "Frak me" as she sat in a poorly lit compartment on the outer hull of the baseship.
"Okay… we should be getting the signal any minutes…" she said to herself. The white lights would flash red when the signal was given. They needed to minimize any interference, any electrical activity, communications activity, everything to make sure a jump inside the ship did not end in disaster. "Okay… we should be getting the signal any minute now…" she repeated.
She felt the baseship rock violently and the compartment grew suddenly dark. Only the dim lights from her instrument panel and her helmet lights were the only functioning lights in the compartment. It was a nuclear explosion. A contact detonation on the other side of the ship.
"Frak me. Frak… frak, frakfrakfrak," she kept repeating. No light signal. No wireless or the Cylon may detect it. They couldn't take the-
The lights flickered back on and an instant later they were red. It was the signal; jump!
She and the other Blackbirds had come out perfectly. The powerful Blackbird computers had an exact jump point. The four ships were each three hundred meters from each other.
The Guardian gunships were more scattered but they fired their missiles. The swarm of raiders and heavy raiders intercepted their swarm and began destroying Guardian attack craft left and right before they could disengage and jump to safety.
Kara saw the blinding, illustrious lights of Guardian baseships winking out of existence as they jumped. She saw a long Cylon baseship gloomily drifting above her, a hundred kilometers away, fires and decompressions belching from her belly.
As time slowed she could see the carbons scorch marks on the other Cylon baseships. She squinted. The remnants of a destroyed Cylon baseship could be seen. It was short-lived as secondary explosions rocketed through the crippled, drifting hulk. The fragments exploded in a fury which would only be matched by the fury she and her Blackbird pilots were about to unleash.
As soon as they acquired their targets they all fired.
Eight high yield, compact nuclear missiles exited their cradles of death, streaking silently through the blackness of space. The small glimmers of light from their engines were only an infinitesimal portion of the light which would soon engulf the facility.
The other three ships burst out of existence in blue-white flashes of the brilliant expansive light of an FTL spatial distortion. Starbuck would time this perfect. She needed this rush. It was what she lived for.
One missile shot down. Her eyes focused on the others, looking at each simultaneously but at each individually. The second missile was shot down, but hers were still good. They were still good, she told herself. A third and fourth missile were shot down. But hers were still good. Everything was good, she kept repeating to herself.
Time slowed. She believed she could see the missiles right before impact. Hers hit first and the mere microsecond it took for the light to reach her she had thumbed the FTL jump switch and she vanished in the magnificent blue-white light of faster-than-light travel.
The Cylon facility was not engulfed in the blue-white splendor of FTL travel. It was instead engulfed by a light as bright as ten thousand sons and engulfed in a heat not even the cold and icy demur of space could ignore.
A/N: For the description of Jo… I chose Rommie from Andromeda as the new look.
And the conversation they were having in the tram (Galactica has to have a tram system, the ship is a mile long!) may seem a little "un-Terminator" or something but that's the point I am hoping I conveyed in that scene (and the stories). I'm also going to be incorporating some of the 'mystical/God-did-it' events into the story, but they will be based on 'science' or be explained logically as to how they occurred.
This is what Helios looks like (with permission): http: // www. action-stations. net/ images/ Bellerophon. jpg . For purposes of the story its guns make it roughyl 3/5 as strong as Galactica, but only has about a fifth/sisth of Galactica's air wing.