A/N: I tried a different naming scheme for the baseships. If the baseship squadron is under the command of Sonja (she was the Six who led the rebels after Athena shot Natalie in the series), the baseships are Sierra One, Sierra Two, etc. If they are raider squadrons assigned to Sonja, they would be Sierra Roma One, Sierra Roma Two, etc. The Roma is 'R' for Raider. All Cynet baseships and raider squadrons are designated Charlie-# or Charlie Roma-#.
==========Rebel Command Baseship (30 Minutes Prior to Battle of the Lion's Head Nebula)==========
Natalie recited the words of the hybrid one more time, slowly; "…three will walk in the fires of the furnace… gateway of the lost will lead to damnation and survival… from where the ground will shake the trumpet shall sing death… ". Looking down at the probe and the half dozen wires connecting it to the baseship computers and data stream, she couldn't help but wonder…
"The probe is emitting a signal, hard to detect. But it's there. Whatever its emitting… however it's emitting it… I have no idea," Miranda had said to Natalie fifteen minutes ago. Natalie frowned as she repeated those words, and the words of the hybrid.
"The probe is emitting a signal… from where the ground will shake the trumpet shall sing death…". Rubbing the right side of her temple Natalie didn't understand how the hybrid could have seen this. Was it… was it… she couldn't think clearly.
She ran her eyes along the access panels and bobbed her head down and crouched slightly to get a better view of the little bits of gel still leaking from the sides of the small probe. It couldn't be more than a meter and a half long. "The probe is emitting a signal, hard to detect… the trumpet shall sing death… the trumpet shall sign death…", was all Natalie could think about.
"Were these red lights on when you found the probe?" She asked, raising back to her full height. Feeling a chill she rubbed her forearms with opposite hands. Miranda kept her baseships slightly cooler than Natalie preferred. And the main computer/technical lab the probe was in was chilled for the computers.
She made a note to make sure she wore a jacket when coming aboard any of Miranda's three ships next time.
"Yes, Natalie, they were. But… we can't find a power source. We think it's in there," Miranda motioned with her hand at the center of the probe, "but whatever that gel is, we don't want to disturb it, not yet. Michael is analyzing a sample right now," she said.
Natalie nodded. Michael was an able-bodied Two, intelligent. With no Simons on board the science fell to three models not really designed for it. The Sixes excelled at almost anything they did, but the Simons had been built with a specific knack for technology.
Leoben leaned in close to Natalie. She could feel his hot breath on her ear and she looked over towards him with a wary glance from the corner of her eye.
"Natalie," he whispered. "We need to tell them about what the hybrid said, and what you saw in your vision." He leaned back, but his hand was still on the back on her upper arm. With a gentle squeeze of her triceps he tried to reassure her, tried to tell her it was okay to share what she had seen.
He thought it was wonderful, something new and exciting, a stage in the ever evolving relationship with God. But all she'd seen was death. The whole… wherever she had been was strewn with bodies; biological and technological alike. She'd been in such a daze, and it'd been so, so dark, she couldn't see anything. She didn't want to go back there.
Within a few seconds, and a brief fit of hesitation Natalie had turned and ticked her head to the side, indicating for Leoben to follow.
"Leoben, please… let's figure out what this probe is before I tell them. I will tell them, when the time's right." Leoben gave her a look. "I will. I promise." She smiled.
"I don't want to see you carry this on your own, Natalie." He said reassuring her. "We need to be as open as possible with our brothers and sisters," he said, concerned, and furling down his brow. His frown was telling of how much he disapproved of not telling the others immediately. "But I… understand," he said again, forcing a quick, though cautious smile.
"What have you decrypted?" Boomer asked, standing over the probe next to Miranda. She placed her hand in a connected data stream port and the activation colors flashed on her dark skin and eyes, illuminating them in a small bath of light. Sighing, she withdrew her hand. "Nothing…" she said, trailing off disappointed.
"Are you positive this was left by the Thirteenth?" Natalie asked, stepping back towards the probe, Leoben by her side. "Absolutely positive as in, this is not a trick by Cavil?"
She could already tell by the state the probe was in, the strange data encryption, and the even more strange and odd power source meant this couldn't be a Cynet/Cavil plot. The number Six just needed to hear it from her sister that it wasn't. She just needed the reassurance, something definite, something concrete after her existential, jarring experience with the hybrid.
This time, Rachel answered. "We're positive, Natalie. Our preliminary dating shows this is thousands of years old, at least four, maybe five. Once Michael is done analyzing the samples of the gel and the bit we nicked off, we should have a more definite answer."
"Why would they leave a probe here? Why not somewhere else as a marker? We're so many light years from Kobol, the chances of finding this were…" Leoben trailed off. He cupped his chin in his hand to think. Keeping his head still and his body stiff he ran his dark eyes up and down the small probe, starting at the 'fat', glowing end and working down to the 'tail', thinner end. There had to be a reason.
"Astronomically small," Boomer said, her voice low. "If this is a probe to Earth, why encrypt the data so heavily?"
Miranda shrugged and Natalie, Leoben, and Rachel just stood there, watching the probe like it was going to sprout legs and try and escape.
"Maybe this has something to do with the Earth machines?" Boomer suggested after a minute of silence.
Natalie's ears flickered when she heard that question. For some reason, almost beyond her control, she began projecting. She saw herself back in the hybrid's chamber, the hybrid laying still in her tub, reciting useless facts after the state of the baseship and blabbering about pi, trigonometry, other kinds of math, physics, and status reports on the baseships. She thought about what the hybrid said of the '…three…'.
"We shouldn't involve them," Miranda said divisively. She knew Natalie had pushed, hard, for an alliance with the Colonials and the Terminators, but Miranda had lost any faith in them over the past months. "They stayed with the humans. We can do this and find Earth ourselves." She waved her hand dismissively to show how little she cared for the Earth terminators.
"And do you think their leader… will… what?" Boomer began, "Just accept us? They find out we killed 20 billion humans they'll just what? Let us settle? Yes, let's fight them with millions of those terminators… we'll only need billions of Centurions to fight them," Boomer said sarcastically with an added huff and cross of her arms.
Miranda shot her a death glare. "We destroy Skynet infrastructure from orbit, let them use our heavy raiders for transport… they'll have no choice after we show them what we can do," Miranda shot back.
Boomer rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. Changing her weight between her left foot and right, then back again, Miranda could see the Eight was annoyed. She shot her a look daring her to object. As the 'leader' of the Eights Boomer had considerable leverage, but Miranda was a taskforce commander, and in the complicated internal political landscape and military hierarchy, was of a higher 'rank' than the glaring Eight.
Unexpectedly, Boomer held her ground and responded to Miranda's offensive pronouncement.
"You haven't live with humans, Miranda," Boomer said, her voice low but filled with anger. "I was with them for years… years." Images of the Chief flashed in her mind. "The Earth machines chose to fight with them because they-"
"You're constant reminder of your time in the Colonial fleet… and you're dislike of your own species is telling," sneered Miranda. "Of course an Eight would be the most sympathetic, after all with 'Athena' and-"
Boomer took a step forward.
"This is ridiculous… enough," Natalie ordered. She held out her hand and was pointing at Miranda and back to Boomer. "Whatever we decide to do doesn't matter right now unless we figure out what the probe says. We need answers, and we need them soon."
Rachel placed her hand in the data stream, but nothing happened. "What?" She withdrew her hand and looked at it curiously, flipping it between palm and backside, then palm again. She placed it back it and felt the cool conducting gel, and the red and blue lights flared in her eyes and danced across her face, but the cold sensation which should be running up her arm and into her mind was still absent. "What's the matter with this?" She asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not getting anything, nothing." She stepped back and let her hand hang limp at her side. She drummed her fingers against her pistol holster and stared down at the data stream port. It had gone back into standby. "This doesn't make sense."
Natalie cocked her head in confusion. Wanting answers she stomped to the data stream port, walking to the right of the probe, taking the 'long' way around so she would brush past both Miranda at the 'tail' end of the probe, and Boomer standing in front of the central portion. She looked each of her sister's over as she stalked over to the port and placed her hand in.
In the few minutes the bio-Cylons had been looking at the probe, debating what to do, and Six and Eight almost resorting to a physical confrontation, the power computers in the baseship had been slowly attempting to decrypt the signal and data from the probe.
"It's not finished… it's not even at a quarter of a percent," Rachel said, accessing a status update through the baseship. That information was so trivial it meant nothing. She tilted her head down towards her left shoulder and her left eye closed slightly. "I can't access the actual data over our wireless connections either…"
Miranda grimaced. Shaking her head she was about to speak, but bit down softly on her lower lip. She looked up towards the ceiling, mimicking the human mannerism of looking 'up' when searching or confused.
"It would have to be an overwhelming amount of data if we can't access it. The hybrid must be screening it, filtering it," she shrugged.
"But the data stream port not working?" Rachel twisted her body and held out her hand and arm, motioning towards all the other data ports in the room. "There's a dozen active ports in here. Why not this one? Natalie?"
A 'data dump' could overwhelm the silica relays and silica nodes grown into a developing bio-Cylon's brain during artificial gestation. A data dump could cause an overload and possible coma. Such occurrences had been common in the Ones and Twos before the process and filtering by the hybrid had been in place.
"Natalie, do you see anything?" Leoben asked, side-stepping closer to her. He made sure to step over the large data cables running from the make-shift connectors in the data ports of the probe, down and across the floor, and into the main conduits for baseship data flows.
Natalie's brow had furled down before arching back up, followed by a confused looked on her face changing quickly into intrigue.
She reacted slowly to Leoben's question.
"I… there is a word which keeps repeating in the Ancient language spoken on Kobol," she reported. She was looking out across the probe towards Miranda, but the bio-Cylon's eyes were glazed like glass, and her look completely blank. She was deep in the data stream, with the physical world only a shadowy representation.
She could hear and feel, but her other sensations were overwhelmed by the data flowing into her mind.
"The word… τάφος' πύ, it has different meanings in the context it's used in… 'temple' or 'tomb' or 'gateway.' But… that's all I'm getting. There's almost nothing else. There is so… there is so much but so little…" Natalie said, trailing off. She felt more information being sent from the data port into her mind, but she was so focused on the possible meaning of the word… she saw it as 'tomb'… the 'Tomb' of Athena?
"What do you mean?" Boomer asked quietly. She looked at Natalie suspiciously, believing she may be withholding vital information. "Natalie…"
"What do you mean there's almost nothing else? Just the quarter percent completed is almost overwhelming out computers!" Rachel protested. Miranda nodded her agreement with her soldier. "Natalie, what's going on?"
She withdrew her hand.
Leoben went over and placed his hand in after hers, but just like Rachel, nothing happened. The stand by lights flickered and reflected in his eye, but no data was downloaded through his silica relays into his mind. Shooting up, his mouth hung open slightly as he stared at his Cylon sister in confusion.
"I don't know… like I said… there was so much, but so little. I think the data just repeats, something about a temple or a tomb or gateway, some sort of… I don't know, a something." She looked down and shook her head.
"A tomb? A tomb?" Miranda said, picking up on the word Natalie had rushed over, and repeated in shock. "Like the Tomb of Athena? The tomb I destroyed with a hundred megatons of nukes?"
Natalie shrugged sheepishly, like her deepest secret had been exposed. Her face flushed red in embarrassment and regret over the orders.
"Wait," Boomer held up her hand and looked towards Miranda. "You destroyed the Tomb?"
"Orders," Miranda responded, fixing her eyes on Natalie.
Natalie looked up at them all. "Yes, I ordered it," she said definitely. The tone of her voice even surprised her. "We couldn't go back. Our destiny is with Earth, not the old worlds, not the Colonies and definitely not Kobol." She balled her fists. "I ordered it because it was useless," she said, doubting if she believed it herself. "We didn't have the Arrow of Apollo and we never would; the Colonials would never give it to us and would never return to Kobol. Cavil controlled it. You had only four baseships, we never could have gotten control. How could we use the Tomb?"
"But we destroyed the Tomb," Miranda repeated.
"The hybrid wouldn't've, didn't-"
"What? What hybrid?" Miranda asked, her eyes wide. She took a step forward and placed her hands down on the 'tail' of the probe. "What hybrid?"
Natalie looked over towards Leoben, searching his eyes for a quiet look of reinforcement. He gave it to her with a small, subtle nod.
"I saw the hybrid a few days ago."
"Now you're believing the Twos and their… radical dogma about the hybrids? That they commune with God?" Miranda accused, throwing up her hands in frustration. "God doesn't talk to us like that. Not like that," Miranda repeated with force. Her eyes darted between Leoben and Natalie.
Boomer and Rachel moved off to stand to the side, wanting nothing to do with this.
"I saw the hybrid… she told me things… things that… a trumpet would sound, she said." Natalie had difficulty repeating what the hybrid had told her. "I'll… send to you what the hybrid told me."
Miranda nodded and opened the locks on her mind. She felt the data and the slight cool tingle in the back of her mind as Natalie sent only the words of the hybrid, no images, no visions, to Miranda.
"You think this probe is it?" She asked, shaking her head. She was rubbing her forearm now, nervous over the words Natalie had sent. "But we're not on ground, we're in space. We found the probe in-"
"DRADIS contacts!" shouted a Six through the baseships wireless. "Cynet fleet detected fifteen thousand kilometers from fleet!"
"Launch fighters, order fleet into formation Indigo Three!" Natalie shouted back.
"We need to get back to our baseship," Leoben said.
Natalie shook her head, grabbing his arm. "No time. Sonja will take command of the ship," she said hurriedly. "Miranda, I'm taking command of the fleet from here." Miranda nodded. "Let's go."
The five bio-Cylons ran to the command bridge.
==========Cynet Baseship (10 Minutes Prior to Battle of the Lion's Head Nebula)==========
Cavil sat quietly in his personal office, snapping his fingers quietly. He sat back in his hard backed chair with his right ankle resting on his left knee and stared out at the opposite wall. The lights were low, and the sparse furniture was casting a long shadow from the red lights behind him.
He had a tickle on the bottom of his nose and brought his hand up to rub it then continued with the motion to rub his forehead.
"War… ninety-nine percent of it is hurry up and wait…" he said to himself quietly.
He accessed a limited amount of data, wirelessly, with his mind and let his brown eyes glaze over and become distant. He lost focus on his desk as he let the voices of the Centurions, the other Ones, the Fours, and the Fives flood into his mind. They were just whispers and were faint shadows of what was capable if he decided to reach out his hands, which were beginning to dry in the cool, but stale air of the baseship, and place them in the data stream port on his desk.
Bringing his hands up to his chest, he locked his fingers. He couldn't remember where he heard it, but he began humming something he'd heard in the Colonies. As he was dropping his deep hum to a mimic a dropped C#m, he felt the cold tingle of his overseer emerge. "… hm hm hm hmlief…"
"You're bored, Cavil," Cynet said as its greeting.
"It's war," Cavil responded dryly. Licking dried lips he brought a small glass up and took a sip of water. "I have fifty heavy raiders scouting for the rebels." He looked up and around the room and noticed some of the lights had increased in their intensity. The colored stripes were glowing brighter now.
"Of course. Soon the war will be over. The rebels are gathering their fleet and we'll strike. The Three will be dead and the rebels on the verge of extinction by the end of the day. And that will be their fate."
The pronouncement echoed in Cavil's mind with a strength and power he'd never experienced from his watcher before.
Cavil rubbed his thumb over his eyebrow and bobbed his head down.
"Once they're defeated, what do you plan on doing with the Fours and the Fives?"
"They will have their uses," Cynet replied ambiguously.
Cavil sighed at the vague response. For an entity which shared his mind, he could never know it like it knew him. And that bothered him. Just a little, but it did bother him.
The One felt a tingle, not from Cynet, but from a data report streaming into his mind. He placed his hand in the data port and felt the sensors and scanners of the baseship and saw through its telescopes as a heavy raider jumped in.
A Centurion was piloting.
"The main rebel fleet has been located," the Centurion reported over the wireless.
"Now it's time to end them Cavil," Cynet demanded. "We will end them together, Cavil, you will be my sword," Cynet pronounced. "It is time to end this piddling charade. Jump this fleet"
==========Rebel Command Baseship, Lion's Head Nebula==========
The hallways and corridors had dimmed. The silent alarms, blaring in the minds of thousands of Cylons alerted them all to the intrinsic threat materializing in space, readying for combat. The metallic boots of the Centurions reverberated through the cavernous passageways. Hundreds, thousands of bio-Cylons were arming themselves and preparing their sections for damage and combat.
Before Natalie had stepped foot in the command bridge, she felt hundreds of her raiders and heavy raiders departing from the small slits at the base of the central column and darting out from the central hanger bays. Her fleet was trained well, and their tactics and strategies were written in blood and imprinted in their minds.
She ran towards the command station and reached out with a flash and a blur of her arm as another Six threw her a gun belt. With an expert precision she clipped it around her waist. It was already a perfect fit. She decided not to clip the holster strap to her lower thigh. No time.
"What's the status?" She asked a Centurion, GY-X410.
"Fleet has assumed defensive formation Indigo Three. All resurrection vessels and supply ships are in the rear of the formation. Supply vessels will be jumping momentarily, resurrection vessels and Ida formation will be jumping in ten seconds," the Centurion responded over wireless.
Natalie gave a forceful nod as she marched towards the central command console data stream. Taking a deep breath she plunged her right hand into the cool, clear gel and let it seep into her pores and connect the console to her silica relays to her brain. The cold, tingling sensation of data began to fill her arm through the data stream and she could see the fleet.
Indigo Three was a hybrid formation meant for rapid offensive deployment. The fleet broke into three bodies, horizontal, three dimensional triangles with the apex pointed towards from the Cynet fleet and the ships arranged in three lines at congruent angles positioned behind the apex.
The center formation, designated Mike, was comprised of twelve baseships and three anti-fighter support ships, under the command of Miranda. The two flanking formations were commanded by the fierce and aggressive Sonja, designated Sierra, with nine baseships and two support ships and the cool and calculating Lacy, commanding eight baseships and three anti-fighter support ships, formation designation Lima.
Natalie focused her mind as she took overall command. Miranda, on her right, was one of her best Six commanders. Leoben, on her left she trusted with her life and she would rely on his keen mind and attention to detail to survive this battle and find any Cynet tricks. Across from her Boomer would coordinate fighter and heavy raider operations with another Eight, Mackenzie.
Isabelle, the fifth Six in command of formation Icarus, was now positioned twenty thousand kilometers in the rear with four baseships, two anti-support ships, and the resurrection vessels.
"…radiation waves detected twenty-one thousand to rear… supply ships have jumped to emergency jump coordinates… Isabelle reports no contact…"
Natalie nodded and pursed her lips. She wanted to order two resurrection vessels to jump. But if casualties were high, she'd need them all. And she knew this battle would be hard and long. The baseship resurrection capabilities would be filled to capacity by raiders and bio-Cylons dying on the heavy raiders within moments, and if two resurrection vessels jumped, the remaining ones would be forced to automatically purge downloads or face overloads.
She refocused her attention to the blackness of space, now dotted with the silvery-gray and black figures of baseships. Outside the baseship the scene of a once peaceful sector of space was devolving into a hellish nightmare. The raiders from dozens of baseships were on the verge of clashing in the largest battle the Cylons had ever engaged in. Under the watchful eye of the Lion's Head Nebula, within its gaping jaw, the fleets of the galaxy's two most powerful factions would decide their fates.
The star shaped, silvery-gray and black armored baseships of Natalie's rebels, slid into weapon's range of Cavil's opposing formation. He had opted to keep his forces in a wall formation of forty baseships and six support ships with a second wall of eighteen baseships and five support ships. His remaining five baseships were positioned twenty-five thousand kilometers behind his main formation, along with reinforced heavy fighter screens, in a flat square protecting six resurrection vessels.
Natalie swept her eyes over the Cynet formation and assigned the designation of Charlie, plus a number, to each of the Cynet baseships and support ships. She felt a rush and ping of cold in the back of her neck as she sent out the targeting packages and her attack plan, Ixion.
Her baseships, in their aggressive Indigo Three formation executed the first stage of attack plan Ixion and hundreds of missiles tubes propelled hundreds of conventional and nuclear missiles at extreme velocities and speed at the Cynet Wall of Battle.
As the missiles lurched forward the raiders and heavy raiders executed the second phase of Ixion. Raiders from the flanks swept in and accelerated to maximum as raiders from Miranda's baseships charged the enemy.
The raiders loyal to the Twos, Sixes, and Eights were on the heels of the sacrificial nuclear barrage. The Cynet raiders, even through heavy jamming, would be able to use Cuynet baseship targeting computers and intercept the missiles, launched at extreme range, before contact or proximity fuses would activate.
But Natalie expected this. It would force Cynet raiders out of position. Even with heavy flak and anti-missile missile batteries on the Cynet warships, they could not risk not diverting raiders to intercept nuclear ordnance.
Almost the entirety of first wave of nuclear missiles was struck down, followed quickly by the conventional missiles fired to confuse the Cynet baseships and raiders. In repositioning themselves the Cynet raiders left their dorsal aspects open to a charging run from thousands of rebel raiders, and with autocanons and missiles swarming in, hundreds of Cynet raiders and heavy raiders felt the strings and explosive grips of bullets and missiles. Red, frozen pellets of blood, fresh from the exploded and destroyed brains of Cynet raiders, now dotted and painted the rebel raiders as they sped through the debris field.
Of the dozens of nuclear missiles launched, two successfully penetrating the raiders and Cynet flak screen. Attempting to desparately dodge, two baseships were struck by a missile, one amidship in the central clumn and a second on the ventral disk. The first spun out of control and quickly lost its place in formation while the second was launched at an odd angle up, as its destroyed pylon flew down and clipped a second dorsal pylon. Still intact, the baseship began drifting and spewing debris as hundreds of explosive decompressions ripped through the hull, and thousands of biological and mechanical Cylon alike were flung like rag dolls into space.
The resurrection ships would be very busy that day.
Cynet fired its own missile barrages, concentrating on the center of the Indigo Three formation. The classic Cylon formation placed command ships in the center. And Cynet knew the Sixes. But it didn't know them well enough.
"Jump Mike formation… 3… 2…. 1… JUMP!" Natalie shouted.
The twelve baseships jumped.
"Jump Sierra and Lima formations… 2… 1… JUMP!" The Six commander shouted again.
She bit down as she saw the two formations, seventeen ships jumping in winks of blue-white flashes.
The missile barrages of the Cynet baseships flew passed and angled wide. Missiles cart wheeled and tumbled as their electronic locks were thrown off by the disappearance of their targets and the radiation waves from so many FTL jumps. Fail safes and backups resulted in them attempting to find new targets.
The next stage of Ixion was in effect.
Natalie held her breath as she saw the fleet's FTL signatures and DRADIS made contact with her forces. The baseships had all made the jump, though Mike-Seven and Lima-Three were five kilometers out of position. The Six commander tilted her head.
"Impressive," she heard Leoben and Boomer simultaneously compliment her.
She let a little smirk sneak on her lips before washing it away as she reassessed the situation.
Indigo Three had been aligned so the apex of the triangle would strike the wall of the Cynet baseships. It was slightly similar to an old, ancient cavalry charge to break formations. While a baseship could be considered the 'heavy cavalry' of space warfare, space was not the ground.
The manner in which the fleet jumped placed Mike formation with the apex of the 3D triangle/pyramid 'behind' the flayed out base of the triangle. This jump allowed the fleet to bypass the strong frontal wall and concentrate, for a few precious minutes, on the rear wall, while the front wall of Cynet was distracted with nearly three-quarters of the rebel's offensive raiders.
The baseships assigned to Lima and Sierra formation, instead of hitting the flanks of the wall, were now on its side, between the main wall and rear wall of Cynet forces. Seven of Sonja's ships were positioned 'behind' the rear wall, with two positioned at the extreme edge to provide anti-missile flak barrages. Lacy's ships were arranged in the same manner, with six primarily positioned to target the rear wall and two to provide anti-fighter and anti-missile flak protection from the main body of Cynet vessels.
Mike formation, with its three arms extending from the apex of the triangle flattened and expanded until her baseships were positioned in which any two rebel baseships could provide overhwleming fire on any single Cynet ship, while the majority of Cynet ships were cut off from receiving fire support.
Natalie quickly selected the target Mike-One and Mike-Two would concentrate their fire one. In a quick mental nod she ordered the missile batteries to empty their missiles into space, target baseship designate Charlie-50. With few raiders to stand between the baseship and nearly thirty missiles, a trio struck the central column, a pair struck the ventral disc, and a third pair struck a pylon on the ventral disk, shattering the pylon and sending it tumbling over the ventral disc as internal munitions exploded and tyllium stores ignited.
"Raider squadron Sierra Roma through Sierra Roma Nine are reporting heavy fire," Boomer reported quickly to Natalie.
"…Sonja, bring baseship Sierra-3 up two kilometers on X axis, heading three nine seven, carom five-three… explosive decompression detected along ventral pylon three… autoloader seventeen malfunctioning, dispatching Centurion repair crews… missiles inbound… six of seven missiles intercepted… energy buildup detected in Cynet baseships Charlie-23 through 31… Cynet baseships have performed tactical FTL jump… Lacy, redeploy Lima-Seven, Lime-Eight and raider squadron Lime Roma Seven, Eight, and Nine to engage Charlie-23, 24, 27, and 28… Mike formation realign twelve kilometers up across Y axis…"
Natalie focused a fraction of her mind on the engagement between Lima-Seven and Lima-Eight and the corresponding four Cynet baseships.
"…Mike Roma Nineteen through Twenty-three- anti-missile suppression formations for rear of main formation Mike…
Their tactical FTL jump had placed them 'above' and 'behind' the main rebel fleet three hundred kilometers and one hundred kilometers on the Z-axis from the center of the formation; Natalie's command baseship.
They would have perhaps three, four, more minutes before Cynet forces overwhelmed them. Tactical FTL jumps were being conducted by hundreds, thousands of fighter craft throughout the battle. But the baseships on both sides were becoming pinned down. As more FTL drives were knocked offline, as they were on six of her baseships, jumping in and out would leave significant holes in their defense screens, and allow Cynet to slowly degrade baseship auto-defenses until missiles broke through.
Concentrating on one part of the battle, Natalie began running through her tactical options.
Above the rebel fleet the Cynet baseship could spin forward on their X axis, like a horizontal wheel, and present a small silhouette to the rebels, and bring to bear their entire missile capabilities on the pronounced surface areas of the dorsal surfaces of the baseships. While the dorsal and ventral aspects were heavily armored in the glittering silver-gray bio-metals, important systems such as DRADIS, primary communications, and resurrection transmitters and receivers were positioned in the dorsal portions above the central column.
Jumping out would leave two ships in the main Mike formation vulnerable, as their FTL drives had been hit by raider missiles. While presenting tactical difficulties, Natalie considered it 'lucky' that the missiles were the smaller raider variants, rather than missiles a dozen times more powerful from baseships. The smaller missiles merely knocked the drives off-line rather than shattering them like anti-ship missiles would have.
Reports indicated that repairs would be complete in minutes.
"Lacy's ships are defending our back-sides perfectly, Natalie. But the right flank is in danger of falling. We need to redirect fighter squadrons or call in two baseships from the resurrection ships." Leoben offered as advice.
Natalie realigned her attention away from Lima-Seven and Lima-Eight, which were providing an excellent defense. Lacy's commanders were pivoting on their central axis, 'spinning' their baseships and 'wobbling' them to present the least damage aspects of ventral or dorsal surfaces and dancing around in a sphere of the Cynet ships. But with an additional baseship to provide flak suppression and anti-missile protection, Lima-Two and Lima-Three were forced to split their attention between anti-missile activities and anti-ship missile barrages. Their defenses would work, for a while…
Back and focused on the 'right' flank, a relative term in the three dimensional nature of space as the two fleets skipped around and twisted, Natalie assessed the situation. Lacy had already lost one baseship, and Natalie had been forced to reassign Lima-Three and Lima-Four to intercept the three Cynet baseships which had performed a series of confusing FTL hops which had brought them dangerously close to the resurrection ships, which had jumped back another ten thousand kilometers for safety.
The next stage of Ixion would proceed with a mass tactical FTL jump, but edited to take into account the three ships still without FTL drives- Natalie noted Sierra-Eight suffered cataclysmic power core overload and exploded- she edited the plan further to discount Sierra-Eight- an anti-fighter support ship exploded after a Cynet heavy raider was hit in the starboard engine, lost control, and slammed into the engine mounts. She further edited her jump orders.
At this point in the battle Cynet had lost three more baseships and two additional support ships over the rebel forces. But Cynet held the advantage of numbers, and Cavil was not to be underestimated. He was using small formation tactical maneuvering instead of larger formation maneuvering Natalie preferred. She jumped individual baseships in response to Cavil. He jumped his individual ships in response to her mass formation movements.
Natalie noted Charlie-7, 15, 34, and 45 of the Cynet fleet were crippled and spilling debris and exploding armored panels into space from fires which swept into the volatile munitions and fuel stores. Of those, Charlie-7 and 34 were still capable of providing significant fire support, and a half dozen missiles she tracked with a fraction of her aware mind, found their marks and destroyed an already wounded squadron of raiders.
A missile barrage made it through the raider screens, which were already being heavily exhausted. Nearly three-quarters of all serviceable raiders were in the fight, and Natalie was readying half of the remaining quarters to launch once Ixion reach its next stage.
The missile barrage Natalie was tracking hit central column, right at the armored seam where the black column met the gray-silver armor of the ventral disk of Mike-Three. She zoomed in for a damage assessment, and dozens of lines of information swept through her mind: four hundred and three assumed killed, one hundred and two wounded, missile batteries in ventral disk completely offline, fuel leaks reported in heavy raider hanger bays- three more missiles slammed into the weakened column-disk seam, the first sending more fire and debris into space, the second penetrating even deeper, causing secondary explosions throughout the closest pylon and central column, and the third missile streaking through the cloud of debris, the mist of organic residue and Centurion bodies, and struck a hundred meters into the ship through the hole.
The resulting explosion punched straight through the dorsal armor, blowing off shards of gray-silver armor like a shotgun blast- four raiders caught too close were vaporized by debris moving at thousands of meters per second. A secondary blast ripped off two ventral pyslon, the tip of one careening up over the baseship. Then a tyllium explosion blew off the third pylon. With catastrophic damage Cynet raiders concentrated their fire on the central column, launching dozens of missiles. No flak, no anti-missile missiles met the Cynet weapons. Mike-Three exploded seconds later, taking with it nearly twenty-five thousand Cylons and the raider fighters screens assigned to protect it.
Mike-Four was in danger of falling to the same raider swarms.
"…Mike Roma Seven and Eight, cover Mike-Four, ventral disk… infiltration attempt 1904 detected… infiltration attempt 1904 halted… sending backdoor worm via communications into Cynet baseships… worm detected and destroyed…"
"…missile battery three, four, and seven of Sierra-One disabled… Sierra-Two explosive decompressions detected in dorsal pylon one… Sierra-Three missile battery five, nine, eleven, twelve, and thirteen offline… Sierra-Three reporting successful intrusion of Cynet worm into firing computers, switching to manual Centurion targeting… Seirra-Three reports boarding actions by Cynet heavy raiders… Sierra-Four reports boarding by Cynet heavy raider forces… two hundred enemy Centurions detected in Sierra-Four…"
Natalie let her right hand fingers curl ever so discreetly into an almost-formed fist. She felt the status reports seeping into her mind at an increased rate. The data was-
"…radiological alarms!... Lima-Two destroyed, Lima-Three suffering heavy damage from nuclear detonations… radiological alarm!... three Cynet nuclear missile inbound, targets… Sierra-Five and Mike-Three… flak fire has successful neutralize nuclear… radiological alarm!... radiological alarm!... seven inbound nuclear missiles!... tactical FTL jumps detected… Charlie-19, Charlie-20, Charlie-23 repositioned and bracketing Sierra-One and Sierra-Two…"
Natalie gritted her teeth. "Order tactical FTL jump, ninety kilometers on carom eighteen thirty!" she shouted over the wireless.
"That'll leave our raiders out of position, Natalie!" Boomer protested.
"We'll launch our reserves. In Sonja's baseships are bracketed we're done…"
Natalie's eyes went wide as Tess's baseship, Mike-Two, exploded from sustained missile barrages and suicide raider strikes. Her breathing was hard and staggered as she saw the tactics Cavil began employing. Suicide was against God, but Cavil believed in no God. Cynet had assumed that role, and Cynet cared only for its own, inevitable victory.
The flak canons on Tess's baseship had failed as a trio of powerful and fast anti-ship missiles slammed into the central column. One missile impacted ever so perfectly as the hanger doors were closing after they launched a half dozen heavy raider gunships from the reserves.
Two of the missiles had hit above the hanger door, belching out fire, white lights, and yellow flames from where the oxygen fed the fire. The black armore of the central column had exploded outwards in a radiant spiral, pushing by the energies of the missiles and the decompressions of the baseship.
Natalie's attention had been split, the data stream allowing her to coordinate and manipulate a dozen baseships and hundreds of raider quadroons. But a part of her was still connected to watching the telescope of her baseship focusing on the damage, assessing the craters pocketing not only the central column of Tess's baseship, but the gashes and wounds in the six pylons.
Then she saw the third missile contact Tess's baseship. It had only been two seconds behind, but she had been watching everything with such a clarity that she saw the gray contrails of the missiles streak in past the closing, protective doors of the hanger bay, and a split second later, saw the baseship expand.
The expansion began in the middle column and spread up and down simultaneously. A rush of fire escaped from the top pole of the baseship, and silvery-gray armor tumbled and rolled from the baseship. A raider was destroyed by a large armor segment. Then a long, long second later a second geyser of fire, metal, and death shot from the bottom pole of the baseship.
Natalie could see the bodies of bio-Cylon and mechanical Centurion alike being exploded with an offensive, uncaring fury. Then she saw the ammunition stores in the central column begin to explode, pushing the seams of the baseship to breaking. In a white, blinding light the entire central column was pushed out, flung across space, and the baseship exploded in two.
The pylons were somehow still connected to the 'top' of the exploded baseship, and the uneven explosion pushed them, rotated them, and flung them away from the baseship spinning before the tyllium fuel and missiles exploded.
Missiles, aimed for Tess's baseship while it was still intact contacted the bottom piece and the pylons fell apart as minor explosions from the missiles began a chain reaction. A third blinding light, yellow and red from the tyllium flashed across the telescopes and optics.
While she had focused on one baseship, the data stream allowed her to split her attention, and her silica relays and nodes allowed her to concentrate on dozens of tasks at once. But the benefits of being a Cylon were far outweighed by the negatives of civil war and the death all around her today.
She grimaced and straightened her body and jutted out her left hand onto the command console to steady herself as a missile broke the flak barrier of her command baseship and rocked the vessel.
"…… Cynet infiltration attempt 2412 has failed… realign Z-axis three degrees… raider squadron Alpha-1-Bravo-3 cover ventral surface…"
"All ships, execute tactical jump in 3… 2… 1… JUMP!" Natalie ordered. Eighteen baseships made the jump. Five were destroyed and three were too damaged to jump.
An additional anti-fighter support ship was destroyed a millisecond before it could jump. Somehow, its rear portion had jumped, and the resulting spatial distortions had twisted the bow into a smoldering wreck, and the rear engine portion exploded as soon as it rematerialized out of jump space.
"Launch all reserve raider squadrons!" Natalie ordered.
She watched on the screen as the Cynet ships jumped to follow. Fifteen Cynet baseships jumped behind her formation.
Analyzing the situation, her jump engines would cycle soon, and the last squadrons of raiders were being fitted with nuclear ordnance. She could place nuclear mines then jump away, timing the detonations as soon as she jumped, and the radiation and EMP would temporarily blind Cynet DRADIS. She could jump in with raiders behind the fifteen baseships, launch nukes point blank… it was suicide for the raiders, but they could resurrect still.
It wasn't suicide, it was sacrifice.
As she was about to order the tactical FTL jump which could save her fleet when her mind froze.
A sensation of pure dread, hatred, and despair shot through Natalie's mind. She shouted and saw Boomer, Miranda, Leoben, and half a dozen other bio-Cylons on the bridge recoil.
Leoben was disconnected from the data stream, but was the first to recover.
He looked at Natalie and then Boomer. They both exchanged shocked, horrified glances.
Natalie looked over to Miranda, who had regained her composure quickly, but had drawn her pistol. Reflexively, Natalie had drawn hers as well. She had to look down and take a moment to feel the cool metal of the grip in her hand before she realized she had done it, though.
Leoben, unarmed, rushed to the command bridge's weapon's locker and retrieve two rifles and two bandoliers of spare clips. He threw one across the command console to Boomer, who caught the rifle in her left hand and aptly caught the bandolier in her right. Both Leoben and Boomer clipped the belts across their waists.
==========Rebel Resurrection Ship, Designation Alpha-01==========
Korben, a Two, and chief technician of resurrection ships Alpha-01 could see the magnificent yellow-white explosions as nuclear detonations, power core overloads, and conventional missiles detonated. Behind the thick plastic-glass mixture comprising the large, cathedral-like windows of the resurrection ship, the view was stunning.
A red flash, then a yellow-red, then a yellow and another red marked destruction on a scale which had not been matched since the Twelve Colonies of Kobol had been obliterated nearly thirty-two months ago. He'd watched the destruction and genocide of twenty billion people, but it had never felt as real as it was feeling now. Twenty billion strangers was just a number, even to the rebels. Twenty billion was too many to feel true sorrow and remorse. The feeling in him, at the sight of this battle and the remembrance of the Holocaust were complete opposites. Out there his brothers and sisters and friends were dying. His mechanical comrades were giving their lives for the defense of a mistake the bio-Cylon models had made.
He brought his hand down from the glass as he felt an… odd sensation in the back of his mind. He looked up, jamming his eyes to the corner of their sockets as he tried processing this sensation. It was danger… it was… he shook his head and bit up with his lower left jaw while running his tongue along his teeth. He couldn't place the sensation.
"Korben… Korben," a Six, Thora called from down the corridor.
Korben turned quickly, his boots making an almost ear piercing screeching sound on the polished deck plates. The sensation in his mind grew as he looked at Thora. From the distance he could see the look of utter dread on her face, the horror.
"Thora!" He ran to her, taking out his pistol. An explosion rocketed him into the thick plastic-glass of the cathedral sized windows of the resurrection ship. He felt a thud as his head hit the glass. Shaking, he reached up and felt his head. It was wet with blood. A second explosion rang through the ship and he blacked out.
==========Rebel Command Baseship Mike-One==========
"We had no idea, no idea they would do this Natalie!" Boomer shouted as an explosion and crackle of sparks flew down from the ceiling of the command bridge.
"We need to secure the ship from the Threes," Leoben said calmly. He came up to Natalie with his rifle pointed straight at the ceiling and inserted half his body between her and the command console data stream. "Natalie, Boomer and I can protect the bridge. The Centurions are here," he nodded to a dozen Centurions, three armed with large squad support machineguns, taking up positions at the entrances to the command bridge.
"How the frak does this happen?" She asked him, hissing her question. If words were venom she would have poisoned the entire bridge. "The Threes are on the resurrection ships… they… how did we miss this?"
Miranda had shifted her pistol to her left hand, and had her right in the data stream. Her eyes were rapidly moving up and down, side-to-side as she opened her mind to an almost comatose-level of data. A bio-Cylon's brain could process so much information at a time if a human did the same, it would send them into seizures a dozen times over before shutting down their brain. A bio-Cylon could handle immense sizes of data, but when the eyes began moving as quickly as Miranda's, that was a definite warning sign of overload.
Fortunately for Natalie Miranda had come back from teetering on the abyss of data overload.
Her eyes shot open.
"I don't know how, but the Threes somehow infiltrated our computers. During the whole battle the carbon dioxide levels were increasing, and the alarms disabled in their personal quarters. Nearly all the Threes on our baseships have committed suicide… suicide! They're resurrecting as we speak on the resurrection ships!" Miranda yelled. Her left hand gripped tightly over the pistol grip. "The FTL drives on half the remaining ships have been disabled!"
A victory had still been possible if Natalie could have use of tactical FTL jumping. But now-
"Focus on repairing the drives. Then we retreat," Natalie ordered. "Get Centurions down to the hybrids, immediately!"
She debated ordering her personal ship, under the command of Sonja, to jump immediately. Natalie needed the hybrid, and she didn't know if all the hybrids were the same, or if they were different. She couldn't take that chance.
Boomer shook her head, but pointed for Mackenzie, who was distracted and trying to follow the conversation between the Model commanders, to continue coordinating raider and heavy raider movements.
The dark eyes of the Cylon grew darker with a black fire igniting behind them. "Then we find the fraking Threes and we kill them!" She spat.
"This shouldn't be possible, this can't be possible!" Leoben protested. "We cleared Cynet programs on all our baseships when we left…"
Natalie shook her head and reholstered her pistol. With both hands, palms open she pressed in on her temples and rubbed hard enough the motion, meant to soothe her nerve, was now just hurting her. As she closed her eyes she felt a warm shower of sparks fall down and brush against her arm.
Status updates from the fleet were still downloading and being processed by her mind, which she had divided into a dozen tasks. But the majority of her conscious efforts were in processing what was happening here.
"Cynet must have hardwired something into the baseships during construction. Something we missed which let it take control of the threes… D'Anna would never willfully commit suicide. Never," Natalie said, trying to console herself that her friend, her former friend, was acting outside her control.
She bared her teeth as she thought of Cynet manipulating them like that, raping their free will, enslaving them. It hadn't done it to six of the seven models. As Natalie processed this she knew now that Cynet would never leave itself totally vulnerable. If the Threes took control of the resurrection ships under rebel control, or destroyed them, even a victory here would be defeat. Cynet, Cylons were patient. It could rebuild and spawn a new army. It could whittle down rebel forces. Wars were won and lost when personnel, soldiers were exhausted. Cynet outnumbered them in every way now, and it had taken from them the only way to maintain some parity.
Natalie punched down and cracked the thin plastic cover of the command console's edge. Bringing her fist up she flicked the blood off of her knuckles, letting it splatter over the floor. With her knuckles bloodied she jammed her hand back into the conducting gel of the data stream port. She felt the hot air of an overhead fire, and the blasting gases of fire suppression systems in the ceiling activate to put out the localized fire. Her hand throbbed, but she had a battle to fight.
With a distant, distracted, and emotionless glare she looked at Leoben and Boomer. "Find any of the Threes still alive. Kill them." She opened a wireless data link to the resurrection ships. "Isabelle… Isabelle! Report! Isabelle!"
"…Mike-Four has been destroyed… Sierra-Five is pulling back… missile batteries on dorsal pylon two completely offline… baseship is being boarded… radiological alarms!...radiological alarms!....radiological alarms!..."
Natalie watched as two baseships, Sierra-Three and Sierra-Four, their crews fighting with Cynet boarding parties and reeling from the treachery of the Threes, exploded as multiple low-yield nuclear weapons made contact with the hulls. In white light, then a gray-white cloud of vapor and debris, two baseships and over sixty thousand rebel Cylons met their death and stared into the face of God.
==========Rebel Resurrection Ship Alpha-01========== sabotague
Korben breathed in heavily, his breath uneven and labored. Screaming, he opened his eyes and immediately saw the object putting so much pressure on his chest. A metal strut had been knocked loose, had batted him into the side of the resurrection vessel, then had broken free and slid down the window until it had pinned him.
"God…" he muttered to himself as he put his hand under the scorched strut and pushed. He yelped in pain again, this time the charge not coming from his chest, but from his wrist. He took a deep, labored breath and cleared his mind. His mind told him his wrist was sprained. He ordered his silica relays to reduce the pain, and he released increased levels of adrenalin into his bloodstream with a moderate increase in synthetic morpha to reduce the pain.
"Korben!" He heard someone shout.
The Two looked up, raising his neck so he could look over the strut. Thora was standing, standling his lying body and reaching down. Between the two augmented bio-Cylons they lifted the strut off, and Thora held it steady until Korben could pull himself clear. He heard it clang two seconds after he cleared it, and after Thora was sure her brother was out of the way.
She brought her right leg over so she could be at his side and leaned down. "Are you alright?" She asked, her blue eyes dark with worry, and her face contorting with pain.
Korben nodded and wiped away blood from his lip. He was worried he was bleeding internally. Closing his eyes he shut out the world around him and sent pulses through his silica relays. He had a hairline crack on his sternum, two cracked ribs, and a seriously sprained wrist. Opening his eyes he smiled wide. "I'm fine," he grinned.
"Then get the frak up, soldier," thora said, instantly casting off the concern, shooting to her feet, and extending her right hand down to her brother. "The Threes have betrayed us. Their mass resurrecting and clogging the resurrection buffers... somehow they're overriding the signals from our brothers and sisters. Thousands of Twos, Sixes, and Eights are dying, Korben."
She reached to her side and grabbed her pistol. Her eyes drifted down to Korben's sidearm. Understanding, he nodded and pulled his out.
"I hit my head pretty hard, Thora. I can't hear our brothers and sisters. Who's still alive?"
Thora grimaced and looked down. Shaking her head she bit down on her lip.
"I don't know. The explosion might have been C9explosives from the weapon lockers. I feel the Threes already hacking into the ship. If they get to control they'll be able to jump the ships right into the battle and destroy us. Or they can space us all, open the airlocks and vent the atmosphere."
The Two nodded. Cocking his head he heard the mechanical clangs of Centurions.
"Centurions!" he yelled, as a pair came rushing down the corridor. They stopped; one had a large automatic rifle and the second already had its guns deployed, ready for orders. "All Model Threes are now enemy combatants. Kill them on sight," Korben said forcefully. "If you can contact any other Centurions, order them to control, engineering, and vital portions of this ship. We cannot allow the Threes to gain control-"
A massive explosion ripped at the resurrection vessel. Again, it was internal. Sparks and wires flew and broke free from the ceiling above, and an access panel was blasted loose and almost smashed into Thora's head, but the Centurion with the large rifle jumped forward and with a single motion pulled her into its metallic body and spun around. The panel struck the back of the Centurion with a loud bang, but otherwise did little damage other than a scratch and a small dent to the rear armor.
In front of Korben, he saw the second Centurion raise its arms over Korben's shoulders.
"Get down," it told him in its strong, monotone voice. Korben instantly complied, dropping to his knees and spinning, his pistol already aiming.
He saw four Threes, one of them completely naked, one wearing only a bullet-proof flack vest, and two with white bathrobes. He didn't have time to analyze the… strangeness of the sight.
Each of the Threes were armed. Two had pistols and two had automatic rifles. How they had gotten the weapons, Korben wasn't exactly sure.
In the blink of an eye on of the Threes had her rifle pressed into her shoulder, the naked one, and the second with a rifle began firing from her hip. The other two, the one with the flak vest and one with a white bathroom knelt down and brought their pistols up.
Korben was already firing, but felt a prick as a bullet grazed his left arm. The Centurion guarding Thora crouched down to protect her. The second Centurion fired its arm canons on full auto, spraying left and right and simultaneously moving its arms closer together.
A second bullet hit Korben in the side, and in a yelp of pain, keeled over and fell on his right side, right where the bullet hit. In the momentary rush of pain and excitement uncharacteristically cursed, but bit his tongue. He fire on the last remaining Three, the one with the flak vest, and either with luck or divine interference, put a bullet right through her throat, exploding her trachea and cracking her vertebrae.
In a loud, blood-curling gurgling scream, the Three collapsed to the ground and began to spasm as blood flew from her throat and gushed like a cut hose over the naked Three who was lying dead by her side.
Korben heard the mechanical whine of damaged servos and flipped onto his left side. He saw his guardian Centurion with four bullet holes, on in the center above the ground region, one in the left thigh armor, and two in the upper right chest.
"How are you?" He asked the Centurion, still standing guard with its left arm extended. It's right arm hung loose at its side.
The Centurion cocked its head and looked down. The roving eye continued its horizontal pacing as it answered. "Offensive capabilities have been reduced to fifty percent," it reported simply. "You are wounded."
Korben winced and let a sly little smirk come up on his face. His left eye reflexively shut as the pain was transmitted throughout his body.
"Thora?" He asked.
"I'm fine. HC-I saved me," she said. "Thank you," the Six said to the Centurion.
It nodded its head and stood up to its full height. Spinning quickly it brought its oversized rifle up to its shoulder and took a defensive position in front of Korben, allowing Thora to tend his wounds.
"You're going to live, right?" She asked, concerned.
Closing his eyes and performing a self-physical for the second time in as many minutes he concentrated on his body, dampening silica relays and focusing on the area around his wound.
Slowly, he nodded. "Yeah. Just a graze in the arm and the bullet went clean through. I think God's watching over me, it missed my organs," Korben said with a glare of his teeth. "Help me up?" He asked, extending his good arm.
Thora nodded and stood up and then reached down and with a huff and a grunt pulled Korben up.
The four walked over quickly to the dead Threes. One was still alive. Korben put one round in her chest.
"Grab the rifles," he suggested to Thora.
"Right," she responded. Crouching down she grabbed them both and holstered her pistol.
Korben grabbed the rifle Thora extended to him and checked the magazine. It still contained roughly eighteen, maybe twenty rounds. Kneeling down he checked the robed Threes for any spare clips but didn't find any. Frowning, he clicked the release for his pistol, let his clip fall and bounce on the floor, and slapped one of his three spare into the gun.
"We have to get to command," Thora said, breaking the silence.
==========Rebel Command Baseship Mike-One============
Natalie felt the walls of space beginning to constrict around her. A battle, being fought, in the gaping maw of a lion's mouth… the imagery was suitable. It would almost be poetic if the dying and the dead did not surround the Six.
She wiped the blood from an Eight, Mackenzie, off her shirt. A massive, well-placed missile barrage had impacted the command baseship, designated Mike-One, and a ceiling support girder had fallen and smacked Mackenzie in the back. Her body had flung forward and her head had hit the command console with a loud snap and thud. Her skull had cracked and blood had sprayed all over Natalie's front tank top and face.
She had lost three anti-fighter support ships and the baseships Mike-Two, Three, Four, and Five, Sierra-Three, Four, and Eight, and Lima-Two, Three, and Six.
Natalie traced back the sensor and internal data scans of the baseships. The Threes had been suiciding, undetected, for four minutes before the chill and the revelation came to Natalie and the other bio-Cylons. However Cynet had disrupted their systems, whatever backdoor it possessed, it had been effective. The Threes had disrupted operations on multiple baseships and were responsible, in some degree or another, for the destruction of four, perhaps five, of those baseships already lost. She had already lost a third of her offensive capabilities.
Of the vessels Cynet had committed, it had lost sixteen baseships and four support ships, with another six damaged and withdrawing to their rear.
Sierra Three and Four had been boarded by hundreds of Cynet Centurions, and had successfully fought their way towards munitions storage and tyllium fuel stores and had detonated bombs, incinerating those vessels if blinding lights and luminous fire.
"There's a gap in Charlie-9s raider screen," Boomer reported, once again concentrating fully on the battle. She still had a rifle with her, now slung over her shoulder. She didn't wait for Natalie's orders. "Ordering Mike Roma Nineteen to make a pass," she told Natalie.
The raiders spun on a hard six, and their blue engines flashed and flared. Twenty raiders, with fresh stocks of missiles dodged and weaved the flak screen and missiles of Charlie-9. Boomer watched and directed as one, then two, then three and four raiders were taken out by the baseships defenses. Her link with the raiders told her they were already downloading into the resurrection apparatuses on the baseships or resurrection ships.
In a display of what Boomer considered absolute glory the raiders broke through the defense screen, and in a display which shocked her, armed their missiles for contact detonation, fired their main auto canons, and slammed into the central column of Charlie-9, which subsequently exploded in a flash of light, with a storm of debris flying in all directions from where the baseship had made it last stand.
Natalie, distracted by the battle around her, and the Threes which had not suicide attacking the lower decks, combined with the degradation in data uplink capabilities, had to trust Boomer was making the right decision.
"…radiological alarms!... six nuclear missile incoming… raider squadrons ordered to break off an engage… heavy raider counter-boarding parties to depart and jump to resurrection vessel immediately… infiltration attempt 3416 detected… infiltration attempt 3416 neutralized… radiological alarm, nuclear missiles two hundred kilometers out and closing… insufficient fighter coverage… FTL distortions detected… three Colonial Raptors…. missile barrage detected, target Sierra Two…"
The battle, divided into dozens of sub-battles in Natalie's mind rushed and danced about for more attention in her consciousness. She kept her mind sharp and focused. The most obvious threat were the nuclear missiles. She ordered all available raider squadrons, now down to fifty-seven percent effectiveness, to concentrate on the missiles. She ordered a counter battery fire of two dozen ship-to-ship nuclear missiles…
Sierra-Two successfully intercepted the nuclear missiles and she ordered it to perform tactical FTL jumps. It jumped once, then reappearing, jumped again, and released a barrage of missile at Charlie-Two, which buckled under the sustained, point blank missile fire. A pylon broke free and a massive gash in the black central column resulted as internal explosions ripped through from ventral to dorsal disk. It lost power and using only maneuvering thrusters retreated from battle and headed down the Y-axis from the central plane of battle.
Refocusing on the nuclear missile strikes missile after missile fell to the swarm of raiders. Her raiders and the Cynet raiders were so intertwined, she had no choice but to set the missile to contact detonations. Proximity fuses would have vaporized hundreds of her fighters and left her ships vulnerable.
Natalie ran the data streaming into her consciousness. The amount of FTL jumps, the quick spooling of the engines, and the amount of maneuvering the ships were performing was taxing fuel reserves. The FTL engines on half her fleet were in the 'red' zones, in danger of overheating and entering automatic shutdown to prevent cataclysmic spatial disruptions during jumps, which would tear the ships apart.
By now, battle plan Ixion was no more. She was performing maneuvers on the fly. Cavil was still mostly responding to her offensive FTL jumps. He'd forced her to engage his ships one on one, or two to one. Natalie had to be careful in positioning her ships, so the FTL drives would be protected. Indeed, the seriousness of damaged FTLs had forced her to deploy multiple raider squadrons with the sole purpose of protecting the dorsal discs of each baseship, which housed the main FTL drive assemblies.
Cavil wasn't as cautious. He had numbers on his side, so he could sacrifice the FTL drives of dozens of his baseships and still maintain an offensive, tactical FTL-capable force.
Natalie watched as Cavil did such a maneuver, and jumped six baseships away from the battered Sierra formation under Sonja's command and right into the thick of Mike formation. His baseships jumped so close, Natalie could feel the spatial distortions. He was virtually point blank.
Her formation was down to eight baseships, with one of those suffering extreme damage and virtually unable to fire any offensive missiles. Mike-Eleven, the damaged baseship, was the focus of the six Cynet baseships, and it exploded as dozens of missile overwhelmed it, even as Mike-Ten had courageously positioned itself between its damaged brethren and three Cynet baseships to absorb the missile strikes on its dorsal disc.
The Six closed her eyes and rubbed her left hand over her face. She still felt the blood from Mackenzie splattered on her cheeks and forehead, though it was drying in the hot, stale air of the command bridge.
"Resurrection ship Alpha-03 and 04 have been destroyed!" Leoben shouted.
The resurrected bodies from half the fleet, if they had even been downloaded, were now lost.
==========Resurrection Ship Alpha-01==========
Thora ducked and Korben knelled as sparks and ping-ping-ping-pings of rifle fire hit metal bulkheads and flashed in vaporizing orange-red sparks. The Six and the Two responded to the gunfire with single-shots from their own rifles.
One Centurion was still with them, the one which had protected Thora, HC-I. The other had been killed by a C9 explosive mine. Thora, Korben, and HC-I had met up with a group of three Twos, a Six, and two Centurions two decks down and three frames back, but the group had split up to storm control from separate directions.
The fuzzy feeling, from Korben's mind repairing itself and reconnecting with a damaged wireless network within the ship, was telling him that group was most likely dead.
A ricochet and ping, and a flash of light of the floor reflexively brought Korben left hand up to shield his eyes. Motioning for the Centurion to cover him, HC-I let loose with a massive, prolonged burst of two dozen bullets from his assault rifle. The sound was deafening, but the deadly rounds kept the half dozen Threes in front of them cowering behind their bulkheads.
Korben rushed forward and used what little endogenous morpha he had left, numbed the pain in his sprained left wrist as much as he could. He grabbed the cylindrical shape of a grenade out of his pocket and wrapping the pin around his index finger of his right hand, pulled. He released the safety trigger and counted to two, then threw the grenade with a precision no human could ever accomplish.
Bouncing it off the wall at the correct angle, right on its top, it spun, and at an angle slid towards the group of Threes over the course of a second. Two second later it exploded. The overpressure wave popped Korben's eardrums and blew back Thora's hair.
He nodded to her, and she brought her rifle to her shoulder and slowly extended from one knee, to a crouch, to a hunched over walking position. As she stood, her knees cracked from the stress of the last few minutes; a dozen slams into deck plates or bulkheads. She didn't need to look to know her knees were black and blue from bruising.
Korben coughed from the smoke, and gagged from the smell of burned flesh. His boot slid when he stepped on a slick piece of intestine, but Thora was there to steady him. He nodded and smiled his thanks to her.
HC-I was walking slowly now, between the two and slightly in front. His oversized rifle was out of ammunition, and he had switched to his built in arm canons, which he kept at a forty-five degree angle pointed at the deck.
"Movement detected," he reported to the Six and the Two. They stopped and separate, each pressing up against the bulkhead and stepping over the dead, naked bodies of the Threes. HC-I pressed himself against a bulkhead and extended his right arm and clicked on his central canon.
A Two rounded the corner, rifle flailing at his side. Korben, Thora, and HC-I were about to step out when two Threes rounded the corner and opened fire with pistols. He was shot twice in the back, but pushed off on his right foot and spun, and as he fell to the ground and flew backwards, with his rifle outstretched between his legs he pulled the trigger and opened fire and hit one of the Threes with a burst right in the chest.
A loud 'guh' sound shout out from her lips and by the time the retreated Two hit the deck, dead, the Three had keeled over, fallen to her knees, her eyes rolled back into her skull, and she fell to her left side ragged and limp.
Thora, Korben, and HC-I proceeded to fire into the chest of the Three. Nearly a dozen rounds hit her, many of the larger caliber from the Centurions large central arm canon. Bullets tore through her chest and pushed her into the bulkhead. With each sickening sound of flesh being torn open, blood splattering and gushing out of her wound, a loud clink was heard as the bullets rushed through her body and impacted the bulkhead behind her. Finally, with Thora's rifle clicking from a dearth of bullets, the Centurion and Korben stopped firing.
The Three didn't even have any eyes left to roll back into her skull. In fact, the Centurion had destroyed her head with four well placed shots. All that was left was some sort of bastardized, grotesque stump for a head.
The smell of burnt brain matter from the hot bullets was sickening, and Thora threw up, and Korben coughed violently, but managed to push back the feeling. The Centurion looked on, its armored helmet not exposing its slight amusement at the scene.
==========Rebel Command Baseship Mike-One==========
The data stream was dark. Natalie opened her eyes. Her mind was black, blank. The dozens of events she had been watching were gone. A moment of confusion swept over her as she stared into the cold, lifeless pit of conducting gel standing slightly above waist height.
The blood from Mackenzie was still splattered all over the edges of the console, and the clear conducting gel was painted a thin red. Looking up, the Eight was still visible under the girder, her eyes were open, and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth, colored blue and black. Natalie could see her eyes were no longer dark brown, but red from ruptured capillaries.
Looking around she saw a Two, slumped against the far wall, black burn marks and scorched flesh evident. Next to him was an Eight, her legs pinned under a metal girder, her left arm with a compound fracture, and her head with a large gash, leaking blood into a growing pool on the floor. Behind her were the bodies of another four bio-Cylons and two Centurions.
She grabbed the console, a missile had struck the ship again.
By now, the twenty-nine vessels which had been her primary attack force were down to a dozen. Her resurrection ships were on the verge of destruction. She'd inflicted heavy losses on the Cynet baseships, but the sheer weight of numbers and the treachery of the Threes doomed the battle.
Clamoring hand over hand to brace herself, she used her strength and ripped open a compartment in the command console and pulled out an old headset. Somehow it was still working. Flipping up a portion of the command console's edge was a hidden display. She still had power and a connection to the surviving baseships.
"All baseships with FTL capability… jump to emergency fall back coordinates!" She ordered.
She watched DRADIS as one, then three, then four, five, and six baseships winked off. Hundreds of raiders and heavy raiders disappeared from view. Part of her wanted her commanders to refuse the orders and stay and fight to the last, but the rebellion couldn't be won by needless sacrafise. Though it might be unwinnable even know.
"Natalie, we have to go," Leoben said.
She hadn't even noticed he was still at her side. A brief flash of warmth enveloped her soul. Loyal to the last.
"Boomer is securing a heavy raider. Natalie, the ship is lost. There's reports over the sound-powered that there are boarding parties coming in. They're just flinging a few missiles at us to hurt us. They want us alive. Cavil wants you," he said quickly. He placed a hand on her shoulder, but she didn't budge.
She watched as a seventh and an eight ship jumped away on DRADIS. But she frowned as she saw Cynet baseships conducting tactical FTL jumps to the resurrection ships. But the Icarus formation under Isabelle could still hold them off, hopefully for long enough for her forces and counter-boarding parties to retake the remaining resurrection ships.
==========Resurrection Ships Designated Alpha-01==========
HC-I had stopped its horizontally pacing scanning eye and focused it on the center of the command and control blast door as Korben and Thora took positions behind. A fierce fire fight, between themselves and another group of Threes had resulted in Thora's new injury; a bad limp from being shot in the thigh.
Korben hadn't even suggested the Six stay back and let him and HC-I handle this. He knew she wouldn't have listened to him. Instead they'd strip searched the bodies of the Threes, retrieved more grenades, a few spare clips, and both now had flak jackets to protect their vulnerable torsos and chests.
The first group of Twos, a Six, and two Centurions they had met were now confirmed dead. The mechanical bodies of the Centurions were shattered into dozens of pieces, their meta-cognitive processors completely fragments, and the bodies of the Twos and the Six were splayed across the corridor, filled with bullet holes and dotted with shrapnel.
Even if the resurrection vessel could be retaken, the damage was extreme. The amount of C9 explosives the Threes had used in their sabotage had opened up nearly a quarter of the ship to space, and Korben and Thora had seen hundreds, maybe thousands of husks of Twos, Sixes, and Eights floating through space, frozen and blue.
And it wasn't just the Threes. The Centurions and the Twos, Sixes, and Eights had been liberally applying the use of grenades and armor piercing rounds, as well as their own booby traps of C9 explosives. If the resurrection ship survived, it would need months in dry dock to repair to full capacity.
But now Korben and Thora and HC-I focused their attention and their drive to rid the command and control room of the Threes they knew were in there. The blast doors were sealed, but even the augmented strength of a dozen Threes couldn't match the strength of a Centurion.
"Alright, HC, do you thing, we'll cover," Thora said, nodding towards the hatch released.
HC-I nodded back and flipped his arm canons to standby and curled back and retracted his razor sharp claws for a better grip on the hatch's spin wheel.
Korben and Thora were both pointing their rifles at opposite ends of the hall, in case a Three came rushing down the corridor.
"Done," HC-I commented. "I will open in four seconds," he stated simply.
Thora took one grenade and pulled the pin, Korben flung his rifle back on his shoulder, which clinked on the bulkhead he was pressing himself again, and took out two grenades, pulling both pins with a grunt. His left wrist was now bulging and red from the pain and stress he'd placed in under the last ten minutes.
The damaged Centurion opened the door, and immediately a burst of rifle fire struck him in the chest. But Korben and Thora were quick, and tossed their grenades in and HC-I shut the hatch. They heard three loud BOOM-BOOM-BOOM in rapid sucession, followed by screams. HC-I pushed the door open and immediately took cover behind the door frame, and Thora and Korben both threw in two additional grenades.
Two more loud BOOM-BOOM noises followed, followed by blood being projected out of the command and control room and splashing onto the wall on the other side fo the corridor from Korben and Thora. They both looked at it, wide eyed, before nodding to HC-I.
The damaged Centurion had half a dozen bullet holes in its chest armor, and the damage to its power fuel cell flashed 'critical-replace primary power cell immediately- depletion in twenty-three minutes'. Plus, damage from a C9 mine had fused the joints on its right knee and ankle, so it was dragging half its leg, sparks kicking up on the floor behind it.
"Contact!" Thora shouted, as she saw the bloodied and burned hand of a Three reach up for a pistol. She placed a well-aimed bullet directly in the center of the Three's back, severing the spinal column.
"Clear," Korben said quickly, as he scanned the left side of the room. HC-I indicated the center was clear.
"Clear," Thora confirmed. She spun and scanned over the control room. It wasn't large, maybe half the size of a baseship's command bridge, but it had much more powerful data stream stations. Stalking over Thora laid her rifle on the side of a station and placed her hand in. Cursing, she withdrew her hand, wiped the blood and grime off, and placed it back in.
Narrowing her eyes in frustration she shot her hand back out, balled it into a fist, and pounded it on the4 edge of the console.
"The data stream is down," she reported. Korben moved to a second console across the room and reported the same. "We have to jack in manually," she said reluctantly. "You have a knife?" she asked reluctantly as she bent over, opened an access panel, and disconnected a small optical fiber line.
"No," Korben said, shaking his head. He shrugged his shoulders and let out a deep sigh as he looked around the room for something to cut herhand with.
"You can use my claw," HC-I offered, retracting the arm canons from his left hand and extending the claw on his index finger. The Centurion stalked over, its metal steps dampened by the extreme amount of blood covering the deck.
Thora held out her hand, and in a quick motion the Centurion cut down, deep. Thora looked up, offering him an appreciative smile at the speed in which the Centurion had cut.
"Korben, can you put it in?" She asked.
"Of course," he answered tenderly. He slung his rifle behind his shoulder and kneeled next to Thora. He almost fell when the ship shook violently. "What was that?" he asked as he began threading the optical line into Thora's hand and up her forearm. The squishing noise from pushing it through blood and under skin, between fat and muscle, was always horrible.
Thora's eyes rolled back slightly in her head as she connected to the resurrection ship.
"The hybrid is dead… killed by the Threes… the Cynet forces are boarding. Natalie's heavy raiders aren't enough… there's hundreds of Centurions and Simons and Dorals boarding us," she reported with dread. Her breathing had increased as she probed deeper into the data stream which was still functional. Korben placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her, and she could hear his voice, remote as it was, as she guided her consciousness through the baseship.
She and Korben and HC-I were the only ones on the command deck. Most of the crew was killed, and many of the Centurions were already fighting the Cynet boarding parties, which were only three decks down and ten frames forward. The Threes had destroyed any internal defenses. They couldn't vent the atmosphere to space to kill the Simons and Dorals, and all the emergency hatches were either destroyed or disabled.
The FTL engines were offline.
==========Rebel Command Baseship Designated Mike-One==========
The resurrection vessels were lost. Icarus formation was ordered to jump and save themselves.
Natalie and Leoben were now the only two bio-Cylons left alive on the command bridge of Miranda's baseships.
Kneeling down, just to be certain, Natalie felt for a pulse on the bloodied and mangled body of Miranda. Checking quickly, she found no pulses, either on the neck, the arm, or the wrist. She scanned the body, focusing on Miranda's chest and couldn't see any sign she was breathing. Like a lead weight had hit her, she dropped down from one knee to two. She put her hand on Miranda's shoulder, and with sunken eyes, stood up and turned to Leoben.
The command bridge sparked and fires had ignited in the corners. The auxiliary data stream consoles were either shattered from falling girders and struts, or dark from loss of power, or stained in red blood or the red-black oils which circulated through the Centurions. Everywhere, the bridge, once a gleaming white and bright room, was polluted with black scorches, blood, broken bodies, and smoldering remains of Centurions.
The ship shook, violently, and Natalie slipped on a pool of blood and fell down, hard, on outstretched hands. She felt the radius in her left forearm break under the impact. Quickly, Leoben was by her side, wrapping his arm under her elbow and guiding her back up. He steadied her and handed her an assault rifle.
"Boomer's securing a heavy raider. We have to go, Natalie," Leoben said with an equal amount of force, resolve, and worry. "Cynet boarders are fighting their way and down from the disks. We have five, six minutes before they break through the Centurion defenses," he said, coughing the last words as black smoke filled his lungs.
Natalie began to nod, but stopped as her head began to throb, almost forcing her to loose the balance she had the most precarious hold to.
"I'm alright, I'll be fine," she said quietly, nearly absent-mindedly to Leoben. She gently pushed him away with her hand on his chest. She slapped the barrel guard of the rifle into her left hand, ignoring the searing pain, and looked up. "Let's go." She said.
The two walked quickly from the bridge, neither pausing to look back. The friends who were dead would stay dead, there would be no spacing of their bodies, no ceremonies to cast their bodies and souls into the void of space. If they survived, they'd each say a little prayer to God, hoping He would guide them to Him and forgive them for their sins of Holocaust.
Leoben and Natalie had rendezvoused with another Six and a Centurion, but they had forced Natalie and Leoben to go ahead and make for the hanger bay while they stayed behind to cover them from advancing Cynet Centurions.
Everywhere, all in the corridors were the bodies of dozens, hundreds of bio-Cylons and Centurions. The Cynet boarding parties had swept through here; they'd broken past the Centurion defenders and now there were dozens, maybe hundreds of running gun battles throughout the central column and six pylons of the baseship.
Natalie's ears flickered when she heard the crack of gunfire barely fifty meters away. It was rifle fire, but it was followed by sustained whirring sounds, Centurion arm canons, and then screams and moans. She felt her brothers and sisters dying around her as their feeble and weak connections to the degrading data and wireless links were severed.
Relying on instinct to guide her, and the training she had been thrown during her development, she let her senses wrap around the environment around her. She could hear the faint whir of Centurion hydraulic motors, and shakes and vibrations from exploding grenades and C9 mines, and the shudders from internal and external explosions.
Spinning rapidly on her heels she let out a single three-round burst, then a second and a third into the chest plate and right shoulder of a Cynet Centurion which had somehow crept up and snuck up behind Leoben and Natalie.
It fell to the ground with a loud clunk, it's head shaking violently as sparks jumped out and danced on the deck plates from where armor piercing bullet had struck motor and generator.
The trams and elevators were disabled, so Leoben and Natalie were forced to use the recessed ladders to descend from the command deck, two decks down to be level with the flight deck and main hanger.
Each of them jumped down in a crouch, facing opposite, rifles pressed hard into their shoulders waiting for Centurions or Simons or Dorals or even Cavils to stalk around the corner and try and shoot them. They each heard heavy machinegun fire, large caliber bullets. Most likely it was Centurions or bio-Cylons manning a defensive perimeter around the landing bays, trying to let as many rebels get to them as possible before departing the ship.
"We're five frames up," Natalie began when a violent explosion rocketed her and sent her flying into a bulkhead.
She didn't know how much time had passed, but she guessed no more than a few seconds, because the heavy machinegun fire she'd heard earlier she could still hear. Catching her breath, she ran her hand over her chest, looking for wounds. She wiggled her toes and smiled; she wasn't paralyzed. But then she screamed as the pain from her broken radius shot back through her body. She didn't have the concentration left to command her silica relays to dampen the pain, and she was too unfocused to force her body to release the needed adrenaline and chemicals to banish the pain.
It was sharp and shooting, like someone was ramming a knife through her wrist and up her arm to her elbow.
"Leoben?" She asked the darkened corridor. She lifted her head and looked for him. Her eyes could see so much better than a human's in the dark, but with all the smoke, blood, and bodies, she couldn't see him.
She stood up and cradled her left arm in her chest and shot our her right to steady herself on the walls of the corridor. She touched the walls and immediately brought her hand back, surprised at the warmth. Catching her breath she let herself breath in through her nostrils. The distinct smell, and the hot panels cued her in there were electrical fires throughout the access shafts before the halls.
With fire suppression systems disabled- she felt a jolt and shot her right hand out without thinking how hot the wall would be, and burned her hand- the fires could spread and could potentially reach the tyllium stores.
"Leoben! Answer me, please! We have to get to the hanger!" She yelled. She blinked. It wasn't just the dark keeping her from seeing. She should be able to see. She had oil in her eyes and everything was blurry. "Leoben!"
The baseship shook again violently and the corridor grew darker. She tripped at an odd angle and heard a crack at her ankle, and lodged her foot under a bio-Cylon, which disturbed the destroyed remains of a Centurion.
Natalie saw the light flicker and at the end of a corridor another began to approach. They were silhouetted at first, but began to come closer.
She remembered her vision, how she was stuck and couldn't move, how her leg was stuck under the weight of a Centurion, her ankle broken. Somehow her right hand was bracing her in the upright position against the bulkhead, ignoring the heat. Her lungs were choking and her eyes burning more and more as the smoke from electrical fires began filling the corridor.
"You…" she muttered.
She could see them now, and she could see the pistol.
"This has gone on long enough," they said, raising the pistol.
"You're… not who I saw," she said, wiping her eyes with her burned right hand and almost falling to the ground in pain. Shifting her weight to her left foot, if this was to be the end for her, she wasn't going to die on her knees.
"How quaint," it remarked, seeing Natalie's defiant face and her resolve to be killed on her feet.
"Do it," Natalie ordered. If she were to die at another's hand, then she'd order them to do it.
She heard a pistol shot, and she didn't flinch. She heard a second and a third and the figure stepped back. Their right hand fell and their hand went lip, the pistol only being kept from clanging to the floor by the index finger wrapped around the trigger guard.
Natalie looked down. Somehow, Leoben had been throw in front of her with the explosion, and was propped up under a body. He had a pistol in his outstretched arm, which quivered and wavered and fell to his side.
"Natalie…" he whispered.
Ignoring her broken ankle and forcing the last energy she had left, she reached down and pulled her foot from the ruins of the Centurions and staggered forward, almost falling but catching herself. She fell to her left knee, her right leg hanging limp by her side and she bent down next to her friend. Smiling at him, they heard the footsteps of soldiers and the mechanical steps of Centurions.
She searched desperately for a weapon and found a pistol and aimed down, towards the sound. She looked back at Leoben, and nothing needed to be said between the two.
Natalie's index finger tightened on the trigger when a wave of euphoria rushed through her. Trembling, she slackened her grip and fell forward, laughing.
"Natalie! Leoben!" Boomer shouted. She was decked in the black flight gear and had a rifle. Behind her three other Eights and five Centurions had taken up guarding positions. "It's time to go," she said, reaching down for them with another Eight.
==========Resurrection Ship Designated Alpha-01==========
Korben's rifle spat out its last bullet with a bright yellow-white muzzle flash before the disappointing click-click-click sound alerted him his magazine was empty. Sighing and with no spare clips left he ducked behind the data stream console, just in time as bullets whizzed by overhead. He felt the heat and the air separate as two bullets flew by, right where his head had been not even half a second before.
Breathing in and out, calming himself as much as he could he pulled out his pistol and his last grenade. Pulling the pin he counted to four, then threw it with all the force he could. The explosion happened before he could take cover fully and it pushed him back, and he could feel the heat on his face.
The grenade had exploded in the air, and had sent shrapnel flying in an expanding sphere.
He heard the deep moans of a bio-Cylon, one he knew was a Simon, and the curses of two Doral models. The hydraulic whines were from a Cynet Centurion.
Korben peaked over, but couldn't see. He realized his timing had been off, and the pressure wave had burst every capillary in his right eye. His left eye was already blurry from metal, dirt, and particulates, and the thick smoke was clogging his lungs.
"How's it looking, Thora?" He shouted over the moans and screams. He heard the clunks and clangs of more Centurions as they moved up closer to the control room.
Korben looked over and saw Thora shaking, shivering. She was positioned so he could see her face and her eyes, and like him, one was red from blown capillaries, and the other was rolled half way back in her eye socket, and moving around rapidly.
Down the side of her cheek, like his, was blood, dirt, and grime. His flak jacket was riddled with half a dozen dented ceramic plates from bullet hits, and his pants were torn. Somehow he'd lost he left boot in one of the firefights. His left wrist wasn't sprained any longer, but was now completely broken. The grenade toss has been the last movement he was going to force out of it.
His silica relays were shot and his enhanced physiology was not enhanced enough to deal with the pain. The pain from the bullet which had hit his side had increased, and he could feel the warm blood slowly dripping away down his side and thigh, and pooling onto the floor. He also believed his knee was sprained, and assumed if he did live, which he was not expecting to, he'd be effectively blind in his right eye.
But he could see enough of Thora to know she wasn't in anywhere near as bad as shape as he was. And at least he and she were still alive. HC-I was dead, his armored head having been riddled with bullets, and his torso caved in from a grenade. He sat in the very back of the control room, slumped against a wall, 'bleeding' the red-black fluid which circulated inside the Centurions. A few sparks here and there, and a spasm of the head or the arms or legs gave the impression HC-I was still functioning. But the bullet pattern and penetration angles told Korben the MCP was destroyed, shattered.
"Thora, how's it coming?" he repeated. He forced himself up when he heard metal footsteps and put four armor piercing rounds right into the center mass of a Centurion. He ducked down as a second Centurion's fire tore into the console again. Plastic and metal shard shot up, exploding out from the bullets, then fell quickly and rained on his hair and back. A few pieces stuck in his hair.
"I think we're the last ones left," Thora said, giggling.
"We're always late to everything, aren't we?" Korben responded, letting himself laugh at the inevitable conclusion of today's battle.
He took a calculated risk… more an emotional risk since there were two Centurions standing maybe six or seven meters in front of him, ready to kill him… and he squatted and launched himself sideways across the floor, firing as he did so. Somehow one of his bullets hit a Centurion right in the optical visor, and the bullet penetrated and ricocheted throughout the metal helmet. And two bullets his the second Centurion in the shoulder and chest, with enough force and at the proper angle, to knock off the Centurion's aim, so its bullets went wide and up into the wall towards the ceiling.
Korben smiled as Thora's eyes came down out of the eye socket and focused on him.
"A thing for theatrics, huh?" She asked playfully. "Always have to act like some action star," she laugh and coughed.
He grabbed her hand.
"We're the last one's left, Thora," he said, squeezing harder.
"I know," she responded quietly.
He leaned around the corner and shot three times more, forcing the Centurions back behind cover.
"At least we'll take the bastards with us," he said with a smile. She smiled back.
Her eye rolled back in the socket, and what little energy was left in the wireless com system in the ship, Korben could feel the shrill whine of the self-destruct. As a grenade rolled toward him and Thora, they both knew they won.
A/N:
I hope you all enjoyed that. It was the longest chapter so far. Please read and leave some constructive criticism, which is always welcome!
--The tune Cavil was humming was of course All Along the Watchtower. I just did a Google search about the C# thing, I don't play musical instruments, so if that is wrong, I apologize.
--As a fan of the Fifth Element, the Two, Korben, was inspired by Korben Dallas.
--The next chapter will have some of the reactions from Admiral Cain, Commander Adama, and President Roslin as they watch the battle.
--This was also not the only battle occurring.
--The rebels are not done for, but have been seriously weakened.
--An explanation of resurrection technology: In The Mission I changed it around so that the Cylons know and completely understand resurrection. Resurrection ships can 'filter' out different signals, that's why only Cynet resurrection ships resurrected Cynet loyalists only. The rebels still allowed the Threes to resurrect on their vessels because they were 'neutral' in the war up to that point, hiding away in their personal quarters rather than attacking.
--The rebels can build more ships, but they lack the facilities, so in effect, mass resurrection is gone. Also, there will be some issues later on about who will be granted the 'privilege' of resurrection because the baseships have resurrection facilities capable of a few dozen resurrections at a time. There is also a little twist to the loss of the resurrection ships which will come up later on concerning the Centurions.
--How much longer will Part II be? Well… I know where I am going to end it, how many words it takes to get there… I originally planned on this whole thing to be a 'short story'… and 270,000 words later… yeah…