||||||||||==In Orbit of the Algae Planet (30 minutes prior to Temple activation)==||||||||||
Circling around and tucking her chin she felt her body ripple back from the force of the blow. Diana Vansen grunted, letting spittle waffle from her jaw, and she rocked her head to shake off Gregory Avion's punch. Another blow landed and she felt that wave of kinetic energy ripple through her check and bones and drive her head back at an angle. The air rushed from her lungs but she recovered with an almost inhuman speed, side stepped to the left and jabbed the solar plexus and got in a mean upper cut.
He blocked her next right-left combination and countered with a quick thrust forward of his knee. She swatted it down and using her superior flexibility and to Avion came perilously close, within millimeters, of her foot smashing into the side of his head.
She lost her footing and had to pull back at the last micro second which let Gregory push at her shin with a block. Some of her long hair broke free of her scrunchy and whipped out, spraying sweat into Gregory's eyes.
"Ack!" He shouted.
She got in her hit while he was distracted and quickly went in for a leg sweep but as he fell reached up and grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her down hard onto the mat. She dug her shoulder into Avion's chest. Now she was on top and he sucked in a breath and ignored the pain rippling through his body.
Vansen's Fleet ground combative training kicked in and she went to grapple on the floor but Gregory wrapped an arm around her, pushed up and knocked her to her side. He swept his legs out and rolled onto her and pinned her left arm. She brought the right and got him on the cheek with her glove but he saw it coming from the corner of his eye and followed it out and using her momentum used it to flip her on her side. Now her left was pinned under her left flank and her right was firmly in his grasp and secure against her chest.
Gregory locked his eyes with her and let her have a victorious, toothy smile. She tried to break free, flopping on the map, and he held her there, pressing her down and pinning her, awaiting her admission of defeat, until he heard a slow, mocking clap behind him.
"So, you finally beat her, major?" Captain Nicholas 'Porker' LaFollet, the ship's senior Viper pilot asked. He took a step on the mat and sat on his heels. "I can't believe you let him," he said, frowning at her.
"Hey, no shoes on the mat, Porker," Avion playfully growled back.
"This is like the first time you beat her, congrats, sir."
"Well, Porker… no, I do beat her. It's about fifty-fifty." He said in his defense as he stood up, stepped back, and extended his hand to her.
"Sure, Greg… '50-50'… if you say so," Diana said as she was pulled to her feet. "Hey, Porker, what's up?" She pulled down at her work-out top, a black tank top, which had bundled up a bit and was showing her midriff. He threw a towel from the benches at them both and she and Gregory caught them mid-air.
She saw him pull out a small PDA.
"While I would be more than happy to handle this on my own… I think you might want to see some of this." He handed Diana the PDA and waited patiently. "And Commander Thais also called… something about Administrator Iblis coming over later today?"
The Helios CO toweled his face off and dabbed at his lip. He groaned when he saw a bit of blood on the towel, dabbed it again on his lip, but seeing nothing more just shrugged it off. "Oh, yeah," he chuckled, "I almost forgot. He actually has some game that's supposedly played on Earth he wants me to play."
"Meh," Porker said to dismiss it. "I never really got why you liked the robot. He's kind of an asshole."
Major Avion shrugged it off. "You just gotta get to know him. Diana likes him. Plus games of chance are supposedly the only ones they can lose at." He raised his eyebrows. "I don't know. They're fun."
"You want to go for a round, sir?" Porker asked.
He smiled back at Porker. LaFollet had been on the heavy side during his initial Viper training, right on the cusp of being Too Round to fly. While some pilots got call signs which were fairly praiseworthy a lot received call signs which poked fun at the less than stellar aspects of someone's personality or physical characteristics. Porker had fit and it stayed.
Porker's wasn't actually that bad. There'd been a pilot on Helios with the name Steeds. STDs. Even with Colonial medicine eliminating most of them Steeds always seemed to have one. Or so the rumor went.
"No, work to do," Avion reluctantly replied. "Algae planet stuff…" he looked at the clock on the senior officer's gym. "Actually soon." He looked over at his XO and nodded to indicate they needed to get going.
"Yeah, lots of work and it seems it keeps getting worse," she said, her eyes still scanning the PDA. "Anyway, you probably won't like this." She handed him the device.
He immediately saw the seal for the fleet police force and frowned. The major read it quickly and just sighed. "Yeah, somehow I doubt Zarek really cares… but it looks like it started non-violent and they arrested protestors on 9 for this?" He brought the PDA down and let it tap on his thigh. "They arrest those of us who believe in the One True God but let all the polytheists go?"
Zarek had been giving a speech on Cloud 9 to a crowd of roughly four hundred followers- fairly significant numbers for a human population numbering less than seventy thousand. The words of the speech, on cursory examination, were actually quite friendly to the growing monotheistic faith in the 'Helios Fleet'. The 'Galactica-Pegasus Fleet' was staunchly polytheistic, though there were rumors of small cults forming on some of the ships.
Major Avion had made it clear to some of the unofficial leaders he couldn't be seen as 'spreading' a faith seen as historical militant by the Colonial government. And he hadn't. But people did come to him asking advice.
The speech Zarek had given, as Avion read it, could be summed up in one word; patronizing. And that was what had caused the violence. Nothing major, fist fights and a few bruises and broken bones, but it certainly didn't help. Zarek's views on religion were well known and he held most of the faiths in contempt. In the report it seemed a passenger from Look Windward, a small cruise liner, had called out Zarek and Zarek's supporters had gotten upset, the situation intensified, and then spiraled out of control.
The Vice President had his own little cult of personality, courtesy of the Astral Queen, and the work released Major Adama had been able to push through. With the Astral Queen now a Q ship, a lightly armed anti-fighter defense ship, Zarek had no ship he 'owned' like the Queen and had been trawling for more support the last few months.
"Well…" Porker began, "they do see our faith as responsible for the Fall, Major… whether that's right or wrong, I guess for the bullet head Cylons it's right, but not ours." He nodded to himself and his cautious, scanning eyes caught a few people walk by in the gym. It was safe to talk about this on Helios but not too loudly. "Anyway," he looked Avion in the eye, "I think might be trouble if Zarek keeps antagonizing those he claims to want to help. Because I know some people are itching for fights after being cooped up on ships from almost three years, sir."
"He's a patronizing bastard," Diana offered as an insult. Avion and LaFollet both confirmed that sentiment with snickers.
Avion handed back the PDA. "I'll look into the situation, Porker, but just pass the word to not go to any political rallies. And Fleet personnel shouldn't be there anyway- participating or protesting. I know the captain of Look Windward so I'll have a chat with her."
"Understood, sir."
"Anyway, I gotta get showered. The work for a cruiser CO is never finished, and the excavation and temple stuff…" he looked off, half-rolling his eyes, and nodded back to Porker. "So… carry on, Porker."
"Aye, aye, sir!" Porker responded with a lazy salute and an exaggerated about face.
"Well… that's a way to ruin a day I guess," Diana said with narrowed and thoughtful eyes.
"Maybe… and as long as nothing else get FUBAR I think this day might actually go okay." He tapped her on the upper chest with a backhand, made a face as his hand got all sweaty, and wiped it off. She playfully hit him back. "Anyway, I'm going to get showered. I want to be in CIC when they activate the hybrid."
"The card game last night didn't go over too well," Hotdog said with a lazy shrug. "I think I lost twenty-seven cubits." He patted his fatigue pocket. "Yeah, it feels twenty-seven cubits lighter unfortunately."
Kat shrugged back, opened her mouth to speak, but had to jump back out of the way as a couple of deckhands almost rammed into her with equipment. "Hey, watch it!" She called back to the two. "Oh, yeah," she refocused on Hot Dog, "I just… well, what's there to spend it on? It's not like we have to pay for our food or anything."
Lieutenant Jerry 'Fuzzy' Keif, one of the Bucket's Raptor pilots, grimaced. "What's there to spend it on?" He asked rhetorically, knocking on Hotdog's elbow. "Tell her what there is to spend it on."
Hotdog snorted and shook his head. "You know exactly what there is to spend it on… all that black market stuff."
"You two use that?" She looked disgusted. "I know a guy- legit- on Cloud 9 who can get-"
"For ambrosia and hard to find things, Kat… like real books," Hotdog said in his defense. Everyone knew the black market was mostly a prostitution ring. It'd gotten a lot more 'clean' since jumping away from New Caprica after disappearing for a bit. "I read the Colonial Redoubt… I have a copy in my locker. Last copy in existence."
"Yeah, sure… 'books,'" Fuzzy joked.
"Not a great book," she countered. "Anyway, like I was saying, Cloud 9 is that I know a guy who can get ambrosia and he owes me big time. Eight or nine hundred cubits-"
"Are you kidding?" Hotdog gasped. He stopped and ran his hand through his hair. "I don't have that kind of cash."
"Well, it's authentic. Not the crap distilled on the ships. You pay for quality." She poked him in the arm.
"Authentic ambrosia like from Persepolis?" Fuzzy asked, eying the Galactica CAG like she'd grown a third eye. "Bullfrak." He countered.
"Authentic," Kat confirmed. "One of the freighters had an entire cargo container full of it… the guy doesn't drink, sells maybe four or five cases a month. His stateroom is filled to the brim. Guarded twenty-four-seven."
"What about real meat?" Fuzzy asked. "This algae stuff is sick and the vat grown meat isn't much better."
"Oh boy, meat grown in a test tube. Yum yum. I'll sign you up first big baby, Fuzzy. The algae almost… almost tastes better." Kat quipped. She rolled her eyes and grinned up at the much taller pilot. "Real meat," she scoffed. "It is real, it just never had feet or legs… or a heart…"
They stopped by one of the Vipers which had its guts strewn about and its vector thrust mounts open.
"Hey, Cali, have you seen the Chief?" Kat asked.
The small little Viper mechanic pushed herself back from the Viper and wiped her hands on her orange utilities. Black grease was smeared on her face and firmly entrenched under her finger nails were thick black lines of dirt and engine grime.
She sighed and shrugged. "I've got no idea, Captain, sorry about that."
Kat bit on her lower lip and shifted her weight. She'd needed to see the Chief about maintenance to a pair of Vipers. Cali looked pretty bad, very tired, and those bags under her eyes and how she was standing with her body shifted to the right, sort of concave-like, told the CAG this woman didn't want to be fraked with. She was being pushed far, but Kat needed the maintenance reports on the Vipers… and the maintenance done, like yesterday.
She understood they were behind, everyone was. A lot of the ships had been battered by their transit times in the star cluster and a dozen still had engineers and techs out stripping and rebuilding main FTL buses. Almost a fifth of Galactica's Viper were down for maintenance, which was Not a Good Thing in the opinion of the CAG. Another fifth were in need of some major overhaul. For the CAG every Viper should always be ready to go. Reality often contradicted those ideas.
The fleet almost being on the brink of starvation had brought much of the work to a halt as hundreds of flight deck knuckle draggers, engine room snipes, and everyone else had been too weak to work… and those who could work were jacked up on stims.
Vipers, a design dating back a little over fifty years, had been a gift from the Gods to the mechanics and knuckle draggers. From the ground up a Viper was designed to be an incredibly easy piece of equipment to maintain and it was. Old Colonial fighters before Vipers took hundreds of man hours to fix up after being flown on a standard CAP. Modern Vipers, even Mark IIs only required a few dozen. Viper mechanic crew sizes had been able to be reduced to less than a quarter of what they were with other Colonial space fighters from a century ago.
While that was a relief to the knuckle draggers it was hardly all easy comings. With the Viper factory on Pegasus in full swing (even the Guardians were helping produce Vipers) and the crew transfers from the Helios fleet, Galactica and Pegasus had full Viper compliments for the first time in three years. However they did not have all the mechanics and techs to go along with the increase load which forced the deck crews to work harder and longer…
"Listen, Cali, do you know anything about the two Vipers I talked with him about this morning? I need those done. We've got a bunch down and I was promised those yesterday."
While Cali wasn't the Chief's right hand, not officially, she was pretty much the go-to-girl if one needed information and as section three head, she had nearly fifty knuckle draggers under her direct supervision when on duty.
"Yeah, I know," she hissed. "The Chief has me working on this one for the last three fraking days, alright? Half the crew is out trying to fix the fraking civie ships and the Chief is somewhere, I don't know!"
"Whoah," Kat raised her hands and took a cautious, very cautious step forward. "I just need to get those Vipers up… you've got a job, I've got a job. We have a few nuggets we'd like to get some cockpit time now that we have the extra birds."
Cali wiped her forehead but only succeeded in smearing more grime on it due to the sweat. The hanger bays were notoriously hot, even if the ship could produce more than enough power to keep everything else cool. It was like the hanger pods had a mind of their own.
"Yeah, I think he's taking Niki to day care… now that I think about it."
"Yeah, how's Niki?" Hotdog asked.
Cali looked up at Hotdog but he already seemed bored and was staring off down the flight pod at a taxiing Raptor. He didn't see the look she gave him.
"Fine, he's fine." She said a little too quickly but neither of them were paying much attention to it.
Another pilot walked up and got Kat's attention. Cali tuned them out but it had to do with Racetrack picking up the President from Colonial One or something.
The young wife and mother closed her eyes and let her body rest against the gutted Viper. Wiping a dirtied thumb on soiled orange utilities she cleaned it off and rubbed her eyes. She winced as left-over engine grease stung at her eyes and silently cursed the gods for a shift which looked like it'd be a double... Just thinking the day couldn't get worse Lt. Gaeta's voice sounded on the ship wide, calling everyone to action stations.
Wallace Gray leaned back and crossed his legs. Inspecting the glass of ambrosia he swirled it briefly and took a slow, almost delicate sip. He let his eyes close as the powerfully seductive liquid coated his throat and settled in his gut.
It was a good, rich alcohol, ambrosia. High in alcohol and the authentic stuff, the good stuff from high quality distilleries on Persepolis added a little something extra in which gave it a good kick.
"Commander, I'm going to have to ask how you're able to consistently whip out the good stuff. Each time I've come to Galactica…"
Commander Adama chuckled. "As long as you're not giving me bad news," Adama pointed out, tucking his chin a bit into his chest. "I have my sources. Plus battlestars have their own liquor cabinets for their COs. For social occasions and whatnot." He waved back with his hand and took up his own glass. "The Fleet always wanted to make sure we'd be able to put on dinners and whatnot for our senior officers or VIPs."
Gray nodded his head to the side in recognition of the Admiralty's foresightedness.
"The one thing I will look forward to, Commander," Gray said as he leaned forward, "is when we can get back to actual tasty and real food."
"You don't enjoy the algae protein bars?" Adama asked, feigning shock. He took a bite of his. "The food techs say we can make pretty much anything with the chemicals and artificial things we have."
The other man sighed. "Yeah, but it's not the same. Well, it's not like the vat stuff is the same, either." He drummed his fingers on Adama's table. "Now on New Caprica I'd go hunting on the quote-unquote weekends and actually get some neat local wildlife. There was one animal, looked like a cross between a rabbit and a ferret. And it tasted like chicken."
"Everything tastes like chicken, Mr. Gray."
Gray wagged his finger at the Commander and chuckled. "Indeed, indeed it does. But I did hear there was some larger creature, like a large dog, real lean, and that was supposed to taste like some mix of fish, venison, and beef." He made a face. "I can't imagine eating that…" he shrugged again, "supposedly they existed. I, personally," he tapped his chest, "never saw one. And not to toot my own horn, Commander, but I was a pretty good hunter back home… in the Colonies."
"My uncle went on safari once, to Scorpia," Adama shared, "with his husband. I think when I was ten or eleven or so. Or so they claimed. I wasn't much of a hunter though. They went hunting for some small vermin creature… a treecat or something."
"Treecats?" Gray asked more in acknowledgement than actual curiosity.. "Oh yes… violent little beasts." He shuddered. "Very dangerous."
"I never saw one." Adama said. Gray shook his head in the negative as well.
"I saw a few in captivity… but if you ever saw the water deer on Scorpia…" Gray blew out, "dangerous, Commander, very dangerous. I don't even know why they call them deer because if they're supposed to look like the deer you find on Tauron or Caprica you've got me. They have teeth, razor sharp, and they'll strip the meat off your limbs if they grab hold. Nasty, nasty buggers, Commander."
Wallace Gray smiled to himself as his eyes drifted to a corner of Adama's quarter. His shoulders slumped down.
"Memories, Mr. Gray. Probably our most treasured items in the whole fleet, priceless, but for all the joy, a reminder of what we lost three years ago." Adama said quietly. His finger traced the top of his glass and he had to take another sip.
"That's true. My father, he loved hunting though. He told me when I had time he'd take me to Gemenon, the southern continent… er, I can't remember the name, but that supposedly had some challenging game." Gray added. "But um…" he rearranged in the seat and bent over and brought up his briefcase. "The reason I came, I know you're busy-"
"Never too busy to share a drink," Adama said. Gray smiled back. "How's the status of everything?"
Gray took out some papers- he knew Adama liked real paper instead of computers and PDAs- and slid them over.
"We're still another three months before we can reach critical mass to begin food production again. The good thing is the algae will keep nearly indefinitely if we seal the containers properly and we have plenty of storage room… so in three months we can start growing meat again and about four weeks after that begin to distribute it around." Gray sounded quite a bit happier reporting that bit of news.
"That at least gives us a back up. With everything we had to leave behind on New Caprica we were lucky this crisis didn't hit us sooner." Adama added.
He didn't add just how much of a coincidence all of this was. Wallace Gray was a special advisor to the President but didn't have complete clearance to know everything concerning the hybrid, and that was the coincidence. It just so happened to pop Pegasus right above a planet which was the saving grace for the fleet. Even if the algae tasted like salty mud, it was better, far better, than dying.
Adama's left eye closed and he brought the glass up, took one last drink, and set the glass back down quietly.
He said, "I am glad that the theft of food was taken care of. Those personnel will be punished… not firing squad punished like some more, uh, vocal members of the media want, but incarcerated." Adama looked to the side and nodded to himself. "Colonel Tigh is handling the preliminaries for court-martial. Thank you for alerting us to the situation when you did."
"Hmm," Gray hummed. "Well, it wasn't all my doing. You know Sam Anders, correct?" He asked. Adama nodded. "He's made a fine law enforcement officer. He was actually the one who tracked down the missing containers, using the serial numbers and weight scales or something…" he put his hands up in his defense, "I thought my method was complicated but his was genius."
"He's a good man," Adama said softly. He did like Anders and unfortunately hadn't seen much of him, not since his very messy breakup with Kara. "I'm glad he's-"
The ship wide interrupted him and Lieutenant Gaeta's voice boomed over the speakers.
"Action stations, action stations, set condition one throughout the ship…!"
"So, I have ten cubits-" Kendra Shaw looked over lazily as Lt. Havers leaned over the divider between their consoles and whispered"-that the game tonight will be a total wash for Bliss." He nodded in self-reassurance and his eyebrows shot up as he leaned over to the tactical officer. "So, who are you rooting for, captain, Cloud 9 or Bliss?"
Shaw dragged out a long 'ummmm' and then told him she wasn't sure. His shoulders dropped and his face went blank.
"Captain, ma'am, really? I mean… its Pyramid." He insisted with a slow annunciation of the game's title.
She tapped the side of her tactical console with her index and middle finger. A part of her was a little annoyed he'd rustled her from her work (not that there was too much at the present moment she admitted) but Havers had been her subordinate going on three years now. He'd been an occasional drinking buddy and she'd notice that sometimes he'd even come in to the officer's mess after hours late, when she normally ate and strike up a conversation.
The young captain realized she didn't really have many friends and even if she was reading too much into this… she mentally grimaced but shook the negative thoughts away and slowly lowered her mental barriers.
"I… don't… know." She admitted. He was shocked she didn't keep up on Pyramid or have an opinion on the showdown game between Bliss and 9.
The petite and battered captain rubbed her side as the bullet wound from Gina's pistol flared into a dull pair which radiated up into her shoulder. Before she could stop herself she was idling chatting with the older line officer seated next to her.
"Since when did you have time to catch back up on the fleet Pyramid circuit?"
"Since Anders joined the Cloud 9 team about four months ago… and it's not like they held very many matches while we were gone," he dutifully informed his superior. "Cloud 9 is favored but Everlasting Bliss has got a mean team with Erikson- built like a horse since he's a mechanic- and Bradley. But their rear guard center injured his ankle."
Shaw chewed on the inside part of her lower lip and sucked in a deep breath. Letting it out she answered, "Bliss." The assistant tactical officer sighed and shook his head. "Anders is out of practice-"
"I knew you kept up with it," he proudly, though quietly announced. He wiggled his shoulders forwards and backwards playfully in his little victory movements. Or spasm, as Shaw thought with a discrete eye roll.
"I've got fifteen cubits and-" her mouth snapped shut and back, hunched slightly went taut. Shaw watched as DRADIS contacts began flickering at extreme range onto her screen. Red klaxons began their loud, uncaring blare alerting Pegasus crew to battle stations.
"DRADIS contacts! Cylon fleet detected at extreme range!" Mr. Hoshi warned as his hand retreated from the 'Condition One' button after smacking it. "Cylon Raiders launching…" he yelled, "they're jumping right on top of us, sir!"
"Launch alert Vipers," Captain Shaw commanded. "All ready squadrons prepare to launch!" She barked.
"Colonel Tigh has ordered the fleet to jump." Hoshi quickly informed her with eyes locked on his displays. "Some ships are still reporting FTLs spooling or malfunctions. Astral Queen and Celestra are moving to provide covering fire for civilian vessels. Gunships Alpha and Bravo moving to cover Herndon, Look Windward, and Mycenae as the FTL spools up… fifteen… tenty-nine ships have jumped!"
"Roll the ships and put us between the Cylons-" she braced as the ship shuddered- "and the civies. All fire directed towards Raiders attacking civilian ships!" Shaw barked.
As Officer of the Watch she had responsibility for all maneuvers and responses until the Admiral got to CIC.
"Forty-seven ships have jumped!" Hoshi yelled out again. "Fifty-three!" He reported.
Shaw's ears ticked back as she heard the mechanical whirl off doors opening and then soft swoosh as the CIC doors snapped shut. Cain was already shouting orders, demanding sit-reps, and taking control of the defense of the fleet.
Radiological alarms went wild and the shrill whine sounded like beaten harpy's beneath the rough klaxons of the CIC. Captain Shaw's jaw clenched, her teeth catching a part of her inner lip, and she tasted blood as her eyes tracked the incoming missiles.
Her hands moved faster than her conscious thought. Military reflexes. Four years at the fleet academy and five years on a battlestar, almost three of them on the run from Cylons. Constant drills had honed her skills.
As her mind caught up it marveled at the speed her body reacted. Like a… she hesitated mentally but physically her fingers continued their precious movements… like a machine her reflexes were precise and direct. She activated defense grids and rolled the ship to present the maximum number of guns to the incoming onslaught of Cylon baseships.
Her eyes tracked hundreds of DRADIS targets and for a moment raced ahead of the computers.
Defense guns activated as if acting on premonition. Hundreds of flak bursts and anti-missile missiles erupted from the defensive batteries of Pegasus. She could feel the soft vibrations, even buried deep within the hammerhead of the battlestar, as the guns belches defensive fire and spat their missiles towards the Cylons.
The lights on her console flared red in three rapid blinks before stuttering and resuming three more times. Radiological alarms indicated nuclear ordnance… a lot of nuclear ordnance, incoming.
Her eyes watched as hundreds of contacts grouped into civilian, friendly military and enemy military formations were differentiated on her displays. Guardian Raiders and gunships were launching, forming up, and coming in fast on the negative Y axis relative to Pegasus.
Admiral Cain was now behind her, barking orders.
The discrete bumps, vibrations, and rattles told her body Vipers were launching; main batteries were firing and defense guns blazing righteous retribution into the Cylon onslaught.
Shaw hadn't seen these numbers since New Caprica. The Cylon-Cylon Battle of the Lion's Head Nebula involved nearly a hundred baseships. Lion's Head had been a class of titans. Not even the Battle of the Molecay in the Cylon War had been as colossal or as devastating as the opening salvo in the Cylon Civil War.
The battlestars, cruiser, and Guardian baseship had all moved to 'block' the Cylons from the civilian stragglers. She saw the reports- heard them, actually- of civilian ships frantically bringing their FTL engine online which had been down for repair, bypassing safeties, and praying to the Lords of Kobol their jump wouldn't rip them to pieces or toss them into a star or planet.
Soto entered the bridge and Shaw saw her take her own console in the corner and 'link in' to the controls. Her powerful neural net, combined with the Guardian MCPs, would keep out Cylon viruses as the human ships set up their own fire network, linked ships, and began to finally coordinate defensive battery fire.
Scores of Cylon Raiders vanished as missiles leapt out, streaked through the void, exploded, and shot shrapnel and flachets at the Raider formations.
Pegasus rocked, Shaw gripped her console.
Pegasus EW systems were sophisticated and with its upgrades, could divert the majority of anti-ship missiles away. They would scream harmlessly into space until they ran out of fuel. But the sheer intensity and density of the missile bombardment was overwhelming all the EW and anti-missile systems in the fleet.
Two dozen civilian ships were still in system. Old ships, Shaw whispered to herself. Three more jumped away as Shaw relayed the dire situation to the Admiral. A fourth and a fifth activated their FTLs. None of their ships were built to function this long and jump hundreds of times without major overhauls of FTL engines, she thought, and the drives from the first civilian fleet were all being used to… she slowly closed her eyes and stopped herself from letting her mind wander any farther than it had. She had a job to do as tactical officer, and by the gods, she wasn't going to die in orbit of some shifty, smelly, greasy slime ball of a planet.
She cursed as more missiles popped to life on DRADIS. The computers could track all the targets but humans could easily suffer from information overload. Her eyes glazed for a brief moment as her part of her mind asked for a brief respite only to be pushed aside. The first mass casualty of the confrontation flashed on her control screen: Colonial Movers 0401.
Colonial Movers 0401 disappeared from DRADIS and a scattering debris field occupied the DRADIS for the briefest of seconds until the computers filtered the signal. Seventy-nine dead and the attack was barely a minute old.
That was the first.
Three second later Independence, a small tramp freighter, screamed on her screen as its hull was shattered by a missile. Hundreds more were dead.
"Baseships have sustained damage from missile fire… only eleven percent of opening salvo made it through," Mr. Hoshi reported. "Guardian baseship has launched Raiders and gunships."
The doors swung open a second time as more essential personnel filed into the CIC.
Shaw praised the gods as her displays updated even as death unfolded around her. The baseships had jumped in at extreme DRADIS range and well out of range of even the largest missile on the battlestar. Hundreds of Raiders, like fleas, had detached from their hosts, swarmed into a formation and jumped abreast of the battlestar to near point blank range.
Three missiles caught her eye as defense screens switched to flak and kinetic kill rounds in a vain attempt to end their miserable, murderous intent.
But the third ship was already dead as the missiles successfully evaded a proximity tipped anti-missile missile, which exploded and spat its shrapnel too far 'under' the missiles… and the two entered terminal attack.
One of the missiles disappeared from her display- the gods seemingly had guided something into its path.
Two still head steady… they struck Astral Queen. Shaw watched as the DRADIS contact for the ship flashed brilliantly and faded from DRADIS. A white X marked its destruction. Four hundred. Dead.
Shaw thumbed the DRADIS display controls and cleared all contacts not, according to the ship computers, a threat to the civilian fleet. One missile caught her eyes and forced her to freeze. One missile defiantly evaded anti-missile fire; even a Viper attempted to shoot it down, and streaked towards the small ship perpetually at Galactica's side.
"DRADIS contacts!" Lieutenant Gaeta screamed out into the cavernous CIC. Half a dozen ECO and tactical consoles in the tiered command room beeped frantically as crew began racing to stations and coordinating defenses.
Green and blue uniforms were motioned blurs as they settled into their defense stations and took positions.
"Launch all Vipers!" Colonel Saul Tigh bellow. "Roll the ship!" He yelled. "Present maximum number of guns and put us between the fleet as the Cylons!"
Navigation responded with a distorted 'aye, aye' and rolled the ship to present broadsides.
Commander Adama quickly entered CIC, Wallace Gray on his heels. "Report."
"Massive Cylon fleet jumped in. Raiders launching," Tigh said as the Old Man walked up to him. He clutched the command console and studied the DRADIS. "Pegasus and Helios are launching Vipers; our Q ships are moving in to protect the ships with their FTLs still down."
Major Agathon, already anticipating his COs orders, was on the sound powered taking reports and ordering Viper launches.
They all felt the subdued shutter and vibrations of the heavy main guns under the bow, on the ventral aspect, and on the dorsal hull begin to fire in regular rhythm.
"Numbers?" Adama calmly asked.
"Nine baseships, sir," Agathon whispered across the command console at the Old Man. His eyes picked up the tri-circled DRADIS signature of Viper squadrons. "Vipers away." Colonel Tigh nodded curtly and leaned on the console.
"My Gods… nine!" Gray sounded, excited.
"We can take them long enough, Mr. Gray," Adama reassured him as he scanned the DRADIS, relayed ordered, and appraised the situation.
A hundred different contingencies raced through his mind. Chief among them one to rescue all the personnel- and his son- from the planet.
"We're still tracking a dozen ships reporting downed drives and three report spooling malfunction!" Dee shouted from across CIC. "Colonial Movers 0401 has been hit, Commander! It's gone, sir."
Tigh and Adama both grimaced. Tigh knew the deck chief on 01, Chief Fritz. He'd been a family man back on Canceron and a sixth generation space mariner.
Four squadrons of Vipers launched with two in reserves. The entire attack wing of Raptor gunships was being transported up the heavy aircraft elevators into the starboard and port landing pods with Athena as squadron CO.
Adama looked down and saw a quick flash and brought up the Blackbirds on the display. They were sitting the tubes but Kat was in one. He'd have preferred her out in the fleet, but the Blackbirds were needed for the contingency plan in case of Cylon attack- they're mission was the most pivotal. The Cylons had a weak spot and she was needed to exploit it.
"Gods damnit. How much of the fleet is still left?" The XO cursed.
Lt. Gaeta swirled in his chair. "Ten ships still present… Raiders approaching Silver Autumn… Silver Autumn has just jumped away! Nine left, sir! Independence has been hit! She's going down!"
Tigh snarled at the DRADIS. "We almost lost three hundred if they didn't get away." He said to the Old Man.
Simultaneously: "Sir, fast response Marine teams deployed in case of boarding," Helo reported. "Alert Raptor gunships will launch in forty seconds."
"Raider launched missiles inbound! Radiological alarms! Nuclear armed Raiders detected!"
"Sixty-eight Raiders approaching at zero-seven-three, carim nine-two-one!"
"Inbound anti-ship missiles! Thirty-seven!"
If they were in the outer hull they could hear the subdued whirl up and whomp! of the main guns and the clink-clink-clink of the PD turrets.
"Concentrate fire on those Raiders attacking the civies!" Adama barked. His head swiveled back quickly towards the XO "I want those Raptors up now…" his eyes searched, "there's an incoming Raider wing which will get here as they launch. Get Battleaxe squadron to target them and have Redwing and his tac squad tasked to provide escort!"
Viper squadrons numbered twenty attack craft. A tactical squadron was ten birds, organized for flexibility, and served as an offensive or escort unit to take advantages of openings during the battle while other squadrons assumed air defense formations.
"Our baseship is moving to intercept," Captain Lexi, the Guardian liaison cautiously informed the Colonel. He sneered to himself and looked down at his console and ordered Marine fast response units to form up.
"Redwing's Viper is gone… command transferred to Crypt, sir," Helo reported. He sidestepped over and past the tactical console and grabbed another report on the command console and confirmed with DRADIS screens above. "Crypt is splitting the squadron into groups of five and four to provide cover for Athena's Raptors," he said quickly.
"The President's Raptor-" Mr. Gaeta reported, shouting over his shoulder.
"What the hell is she doing out there right now?" Adama demanded.
"I don't know, sir, they logged a flight plan this morning-" Gaeta began.
"Why the frak aren't they on board!" Adama yelled. He picked up a phone and ordered Primus squadron to detach Vipers for immediate heavy escort.
"Get them on board now!" Helo commanded as his gaze locked on the same DRADIS blip as Mr. Gaeta's eyes. He picked up the sound-powered. "Flight deck, prepare for emergency landing by Raptor Zero-One…" his jaw slackened as the lone DRADIS missile contact flashed by Galactica's point defenses and a Viper pulled off from the attack formation to intercept.
"My Gods," he whispered as a single missile made it through. It tracked the Raptor carrying the President.
Captain George Catman Birch swore loudly as a missile streaked by his Viper and dodged his fire. Blue tracers from Cylon Raiders burned the empty void of space in front of him and he dove at a shallow angle- but just enough- to avoid the armor piercing, high explosive rounds. "Hotdog, one got by me!" He calmly reported with a strong sense of urgency.
His alert Vipers had been the first to launch from Galactica's tubes and engage the enemy. DRADIS beeped as a Raider swung under him and his feet manipulated the pedals, his Viper yawed but he felt the Viper jump and fall. An alert alarm wailed mercilessly until his finger jammed the release and it fell silent. As his pushed his Viper down on the relative Y axis he chanced a look over his shoulder and saw a small hole at the extreme tip of his portside wing stub.
"Oh, frak! Squadron, break off in pairs and engage!" He ordered as more Raiders came in groups of threes and fours. They were swarming his squadron from the positive and negative Y-axis and rushing in on the positive Z.
His cockpit sensor barked and whooped as a Raider painted him with fire control DRADIS. Two missiles detached from the recessed Raider bays. They jumped forward, blenching ion exhaust, and raced toward him with fury.
He thumbed the fire control for the kinetic canons and blasted apart a missile that had locked onto him and yelped in joy as an errant bullet struck a Raider in the pseudo-cockpit and sent in careening away from the planet, trailing its goopy, frozen blood and fire.
Catman hit the pedals and tossed the Viper into a corkscrew maneuver. Combined with the EW and his last-second maneuver the Raider missile stuttered, attempted to turn, then shot down and away from the battle, it's tracking systems confused beyond recovery.
He banked up, his wingman, Lieutenant Alice 'Albino' Winters following. Catman shot his nose down as a Cynet Raider ignorantly flew into his kill slot. His helmet HUD blinked and his thumb depressed the red 'fire' button. A single missile streaked out at thousands of gees of acceleration and left a white-gray contrail behind as its little overcharge tyllium engine brought it in for the kill.
It swept down and pushed back up as the Raider banked to port, rolled, and tried in futility to avoid the missile that had marked its target with an optical lock. The warhead reached terminal acceleration and jumped forward as its proximity sensor sent the single pulse of a cool, unemotional electrical signal down to its warhead: detonate.
The Raider vanished.
"Eleven o'clock!" Albino shouted. Catman's peripheral vision caught the nose of Albino's Viper move slightly out of parallel with him. The snake-like flexibility, the maneuverability of the Viper kept her acceleration up as she brought her kinetic canons to bear.
In two seconds over a hundred rounds raced through space and contacted the blue-gray hull of the Cynet Raider and pocketed the hull. Structural integrity failed as armor piercing rounds ripped into the precious innards of the Raiders and the high explosive detonated, severing connecting, pulping organic and technological components alike, cracking the tyllium core, and finally igniting the tyllium fuel. The ship exploded in a brilliant orange-yellow ball which was quickly snuffed out as the Raider's meager oxygen supplies were consumed
Catman's eyes had been split between Albino and a second missile he had launched the insant the Raider he had targeted exploded and an impish smirk graced his lips as the Raider impotently weaved and banked and even attempted to pull a hard six and shoot down his missile. It was too late. The proximity fuse activated, the warhead exploded, and thousands of shards of shrapnel pinged into the Raider and sliced it apart. One special piece pierced the reactor and the Raider exploded as a little twinkle in Catman's eye.
Laura Roslin felt her heart in her throat and her stomach in her chest as the Raptor weaved through a debris field of smashed and torn Raiders and enemy fire. She clutched at the cargo netting, refusing to take her seat. She had to see what was happening.
The aft section of Astral Queen split in two and then thirds. The engines ignited and exploded and Roslin shielded her eyes from the sun-bright flash. Racetrack snapped the Raptor onto a new heading as the small multi-role craft was pinged with fragments of the converted prison ship.
One pieces smashed into the nose, knocking the Raptor to the deck, and throwing Roslin off her feet. Her aide, behind her, absorbed her fall as the two smashed back into the ECO console.
The President felt naked. She was out in space in the middle of a battle which had already claimed multiple ships. She didn't have the armor of Galactica nor the comforting fall back of the FTL engines of Colonial One to shield here. Out in space, in this small sandy-brown Raptor she felt exposed, frail, and deftly mortal.
Not since her cancer had pulled her, dragged her to the brink of death had she stood so close to the abyss.
She cursed the Lords of Kobol in her infinite anger as missiles broke through and slammed into the starboard and dorsal armor of Astral Queen. The explosion was blinding and she yelped as her hands raced to cover her eyes.
Then she saw the dimming fireball of another ship as red and green and yellow and blue containers, scorched by fire and battered and dented, flew through space. A second ship had been destroyed and more lives lost.
The Raptor swirled and banked.
Galactica had repositioned to protect the remainder of the fleet. Helios moved up on the vertical axis, its massive ventral thrusters spewing flame. It rolled and presented its back and Roslin could watch it eat missiles, the yellow-orange impacts shined brightly through the black of space. Pegasus was presented its flank to the Cylons and firing with all her guns. Roslin could see the missiles from the side unexposed streak out and curve over and below the magnificent battlestar.
Hotdog thumbed the turbo and his Viper launched forward. He removed his finger and banked while manipulating the pedals, positioned his Viper perfectly, and pulled a one point one second hard six- a new record.
If he made it thorugh, he'd tell Starbuck. He'd definitely tell Starbuck and Kat and rub the two CAG's noses in it!
Scowling, a Raider raced by, one of his squadronmates in pursuit. The engine wash bumped his Viper but he had control- two and a half years of flying and constant drills over New Caprica kept his skill honed. The reason why he'd pulled the hard six was staring him in the eye. Two red Cylon eyes, one per Raider, looked right back at his cool, amber brown eyes.
He snarled and threw the Viper into a lateral maneuver, keeping his guns level he raked the two Raiders as blue tracers tore into space where he was. His red tracers and his HUD highlighted the Raiders and two seconds of burst fire tore them both apart. One of the Raider's wings separated and the second's 'cockpit' exploded, spitting out red goopy, pulped Cylon bio-computer brains which flash frozen on contact with vacuum.
He mentally whooped and turned his Viper and shot the nose down at a negative ninety on the Y axis and his HUD beeped twice and he fired a missile. Hotdog felt the vibration as it detached from his wing rails and he accelerated forward, the gees pushing him into his seat, as the missile streaked out, curved, and came under the belly of the Raider, sensed the Cynet craft's proximity, and detonated, sending thousands of shards into the bio-technological fighter.
"We need escorts for Colonial One!" A communication technician relayed through the wireless. "Viper attached to Red Three disengage and escort until Colonial One brings FTLs online!"
Hotdog nodded viciously as his tac squadron was called to task. He keyed back on the wireless to acknowledge and swept his Viper around, calling in his wingmen.
Colonial One was within visual distance and was maneuvering, its pilots former military, and dodged a stream of Cynet rounds. A Viper came up and blasted the Raider to pieces and a small anti-fighter missile made a hard kill on a second Raider coming in on Colonial One's dorsal aspect.
It had narrowly missed a Raptor and reacquired a lock on the President's ship!
His head, swiveling left and right and up and down to DRADIS saw the missile marked on the display before he saw it with his eyes. He hit his turbos again and frantically pressed the firing stud. Fifty, seventy, a hundred, one hundred fifty rounds were belched from his Viper's kinetic canons as a lone missile streaked towards Colonial One.
One hundred and fifty rounds kept missed and he felt his heart pounding in his chest the sweat drip down his neck, and he felt cold as he lost the missile…
"We can't make it to Galactica!" Racetrack yelled. "Frak!" Her hands danced over the controls and her eyes dared an incoming missile tracking the Raptor to attempt a kill. She licked her lips and her breath, heavy and moist, fogged the helmet. "Skulls! Start spooling the FTL and get us the frak to the civie fleet!"
"What's the Cylon fleet doing?" Roslin demanded from the cabin. "Where are they?"
"We can make it to Pegasus!" Skulls yelled. He wanted in the fight but his hands glided over the console and his fingers pressed the necessary combinations to activate the FTL.
"They're at extreme missile range, sir!" Racetrack shouted over her shoulder at the President.
"We need to stay-" Roslin started shouting.
"Frak!"
Roslin saw a missile in bound headed right towards the cockpit.
Racetrack pulled up and hit the turbo thrusters, then angled the Raptor down at minus seventeen degrees with a left axis tilt. The missile sputtered and swerved but she was faster, she swore to herself, than a fraking computer. She dropped the nose and spun the bird but overcompensated as the missile overshot her, inadvertently pointing her nose at Colonial One.
President Roslin had just looked up after being flung to the floor of the Raptor. She tasted the sour, hard taste of blood on her lip and her balled fist wiped away blood as she saw the missile streak by. A Viper rushed to engage, its red tracers tried in a vain attempt to swat the missile away from Colonial One.
As the Raptor turned Roslin pushed away the hand of one of her aides and rushed to the cockpit.
She watched the fireballs consume Colonial One and her knees gave out under her and slammed her into the hard deck of the Raptor. She pulled her up as her ship's back broke and she watched as the aft section exploded outward and the bow was pushed away, gripped by the planet's gravity, and began to fall towards the planet below.