"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Jess Dayton from the flight deck of the Venture, leaning forward in her seat as the data was replayed for her. They had just made orbit and, not surprisingly, had had to outrun a few of Leach's fighters to do it. To add to that their launch had been delayed for hours by technical difficulties that she suspected was sabotage. "And this came in when?"
"Not ten minutes ago," said Hayashi, back at the Guiana Space Centre. "Jess, it's huge. Bigger than I ever expected."
"Sure as hell is," replied Jess. She sat there stunned, as she tried to absorb the reality of what she was looking at while a chill terror wrapped its deadly grip around her heart.
They were here!
"Copy this to Kazakhstan, Borneo and the rest. They all need to see this."
"Right away," nodded Hayashi, as he sent the image of a Cylon Abaddon-class Base Ship to the rest of WASA to let them know that theyhad arrived. "At least we have a little time, Dayton. It'll take them a while to get here from Mars . . . and this might explain why we've lost contact with Barstow Station.Damn!"
"Oh, God . . . We need more time!" Jess groaned, rubbing a hand over her face. If the Cylons had already attacked their Mars outpost, there was little chance of survivors. From what the Guardians had shown them, a single blast from the Cylons' weapons could reduce the entire base to dust. She tried to force down the bile that was threatening to choke her. She had to talk to General Roach . . . but how to get through to him . . .
Beep.
"We've got a bogie, ten o'clock," said Carter. "Closing fast!"
Abruptly, a flash of light passed in front of the Venture, the shuttle shuddering in response.
"What the hell . . .!?" Carter shouted. "Taking evasive action!"
"I've lost Guiana!" Trent said, as the communicator crackled uselessly.
"What is it?" Jess demanded, craning her neck to look at the scanner. Whatever it was, it was moving too fast to lock on to.
Suddenly, a mechanized voice began transmitting over their communications system. The tone was curiously detached, but managed to fill each person present with a dread fear, even though they couldn't comprehend a single word.
Save one.
Cylon.
"What the hell is it saying?" Carter asked, a note of desperation in his voice, as another beam of light shot across their nose. The Venture shook again, as an alarm started screaming. The cabin lights died and one of the screens went dark amid a shower of sparks. The engines began to whine dangerously.
"I haven't got a clue," Jess replied, shaking her head in disbelief. Looking at the instruments she could see the ugly truth. They were losing speed and had lost communications with Earth. It seemed that the Cylons were jamming their systems. She looked out the ports and could see the alien killing machine heading directly at them. They'd escaped Leach's fighters only to end up as the Cylons' next victims. All that work and dedication only to find out it was too little, too late.
xxxxx
"Commander on the Bridge!" announced Pierus.
"Report!" Dayton demanded, as he entered the Control Centre of the Endeavour.
"Two things," Dorado replied. "One of those Earth probes just scanned us at close range and for almost a full centon. They've definitely spotted us."
"Bloody hell . . ." Dayton murmured. He crossed to the scanner station. Sure enough, the old probe had taken a good look at them before going dark again. "Why don't we just broadcast our arrival?"
"We just did," Porter told him wryly.
"Next, Colonel Apollo relayed a distress call from M . . . uh . . . Mars?" He looked at Dayton, who nodded. "We're just translating it . . ."
"What are you picking it up on?"
"A gamma frequency. We're practically in line with a relay satellite, Commander. The base is on the far side of the planet, just now."
"Porter!" Dayton snapped, already filing the first bit of bad news away as "too bad, so sad". He looked to his man, even as a huge swell of excitement swept over him. Mankind had actually made it to Mars!
"Their main power reactor failed, Mark. They're in big trouble," Porter told him, still listening in at his station. "The cooling system failed. A valve jammed and the pressure spiked, leading to a ruptured reactor vessel. Radiation has been released and while the reactor has been sealed off, it sounds like enough crud got into the Base through the air vents to cause some real problems. Radiation sickness generally starts to set in within twelve hours." Baker paused to look at his watch. "It all depends on how much exposure they were subject to before it was locked down, of course. We need to get them out of there while we can still do something about it."
"ETA to the Mars Base?" Dayton asked Coxcoxtli instinctively, realizing as the words left his mouth that it had to be negligible.
"It'll take more time to put together the team than to reach that position, Commander," replied the other, as he looked at his chrono.
"Of course. Dorado, I need our token Cylon shuttle prepared, a landing team and a med team. Quick in and out."
"Yes, sir," said Dorado. "Commander, I also recommend bringing Malus . . ."
"What's the progress on the Clavis?" Dayton asked.
"I am afraid I have not made much progress, Commander," the IL replied, voice like that of a guilty child. His shoulders even dipped a quarter inch in another totally human mannerism. "It continues to increase its power independently. And, despite bringing to bear every analytical technique we possess, the source of that power remains unknown."
"This mission shouldn't take long, Commander," Dorado inserted. "Coxcoxtli can keep working on the Clavis. Apart from Malus, he's the most familiar with it "
"Alright. Got that, Mal? Coxman?"
"Yes, sir!" the two acknowledged.
Dorado turned to Vesta, as she replaced Coxcoxtli at the helm. "Ensign?"
"Plotting the course now," replied the other. "Up and on the board, Commander." She dumped her data to Dayton's repeater array. Her voice was of one eager to show her CO what she could do.
"Excellent," said Dayton, concealing a smile. He turned to Dorado. "Have Doctor Ryan report to the Life Station sooner than possible. We'll need every qualified medic down there, even of the retro-hippie variety."
"Yes, Commander." Dorado quickly relayed the orders and then looked back at his commanding officer. "You'll be going as well, sir?"
"You know it, Captain." Dayton looked to the helmsman. "Ready, helm?"
"Ready, sir."
"Engage."
xxxxx
Three to one. Now that just wasn't fair. But since when had the Cylons ever fought fair? It just wasn't their forte. Starbuck closed in on the three Raiders flying in the usual chevron formation, as they swarmed the Earth ship, firing warning shots while herding her further out into space. Over the comm he could hear the Cylon flight leader demanding the shuttle follow them. Ten to one, the Earthlings didn't understand a word of the Colonial Standard in which the Cylons were issuing their demands.
If there were a combat patrol this close to Earth then it would follow that the Ravager had to be even closer by than they had first thought. Presumably, once they had assessed the military capabilities of the planet's inhabitants, the Cylon commander would think he had all the time in the universe to decide whether to attack, conquer or annihilate the human-populated planet below, before finally heading back for Cylon. After all, it was unbeknownst to him that a Colonial Covert Operations Ship was hunting him. The Cylon commander, Mendax, had tried to conquer the Angylions in Morlais with a single Base Ship at his disposal, and a damaged one at that. So just maybe this contingent of Cylons, presumably at full strength, would do the same . . . which would give theEndeavour enough time to arrive and blow the Cylon Base Ship to Hades Hole. If luck was smiling on them.
In the meantime . . .
Waiting until the last possible moment to activate the Dynamo, he sited the Raider currently trying to bully the Earth ship into complying. As soon as his weapons system fired up, they'd be able to scan the sudden surge in power. He gambled that their attention was fully focused on the Earth ship, so as to give him a few extra moments. Three, two, one . . . and now his only advantages were the quicker and more manoeuvrable Wraith, along with his superior skill. At least that was the way he saw it.
"C'mon," he murmured, waiting another couple of microns until the Earth shuttle was completely out of range. Meanwhile, his peripheral vision showed one Cylon turning about, heading back towards him. With yahrens of intuitive and practiced skill, he grabbed the firing stud and, adjusting his own course, cut loose at the enemy craft.
"What the . . ."
"I can't see anything!"
"Hurry. Get your helmets on! Now!"
Panicked voices from the Earth shuttle came over his comm, as the Raider was suddenly engulfed by the Dynamo's blast. Oh, he still remembered the blinding flash of light that could just about knock out a guy's eyeballs along with his motor function and consciousness and knew that while the Cylons would merely register the energy surge as a mixture of meson and tachyon radion, that the humans would still be seeing sparks. A look at the scanner told him that the Raider he hit and everything in her was dead in space, her engines and scanners useless. While not as good as "incinerated" in this instance it was a close second.
Slamming the stick forward, he adjusted course, beaming their scanners, just as the Raider charging him head-on sent a volley of laser fire towards him. He grinned as another salvo from the Cylon fighter cut through his ion trail, instead of him, before passing over him. Dang, he loved this ship!
"There's another ship out there! Helping us!"
"Are you sure?"
"Well, we're not dead! I'm sure as hell sure of that!"
"Where is it?"
"I can't lock on! Scope's dead, Jess. It's jamming us!"
"Then maybe it's jamming them too!"
"Who could it be?"
"God willing, we'll find out!"
"Yeah? What if they're worse than the Cylons?"
With the Goddess of Luck as his wingman, Starbuck quickly sited the third Raider that was turning about. In an instant, he realized it was just a little too close to the Earth ship for their safety. Even an indirect hit of the Dynamo could leave the shuttle's human occupants completely paralysed. He knew that only too well, remembering being caught by Torg and Bex over the pirate asteroid in that very same situation. Not for the first time he found that his goddess was fickle.
Stuck between two enemy fighters, it wasn't a position any pilot liked to be in. At least, relative to his position, they were above and below him. His old flight instructor would have additionally told him to keep the enemy on one side of his bird to keep them in his sights and to make it more difficult for them to trap him between them. Adjusting course, he did just that, keeping them on his starboard while moving them further away from the Earth ship. He hit his thrusters as they fell in, trying to get him in their sights. Then he broke left.
Cutting thrust suddenly, he turned his bird as tightly as possible, knowing that the Cylons could never predict his turn radius or rate accurately, having no experience with a Wraith. Thankfully, they'd programmed the Wraith's computer with all the data to hand on the Raiders of this period, thanks to both Jenny and Malus. No, they'd be calculating and responding to the data at hand, unable to predict where their target would end up. At the same time, he'd lay even cubits down that the centurions would get back in formation as soon as they rendezvoused.
Microns later, he had come about and was charging towards them, both of them just within his sites and in range of the Dynamos' blast. He fired the weapon, as his warning indicator went off. They'd locked onto the wavelons detected! Slamming the stick to the right, he jerked spastically as a current shot through his body and his ship rocked violently. Half the indicators on his helmet went out and smoke began to fill the cockpit. He coughed at the acrid stench, knowing he was in big trouble. Unfortunately, this ship—built purely for reconnaissance, as far as they could tell—was not technically a fighter and could withstand little in the way of an attack.
"Fr-frack!"