Battlestar Galactica: Wolfpack
Chapter 2: Fishing
Previously
"You've read Cain's psych profile; she isn't one to run and is most likely to stay in Colonial space fighting us every step of the way, so…why not offer her a tempting target"-Cavil
"…the Cylons had some kind of infiltration models which were among our fleets crews sabotaging our ships…"-Commander Burkett, Battlestar Therion
"The last thing we should do is underestimate the Cylons but in my opinion they don't have many ships left…"-Commander Burkett, Battlestar Therion
"He had me fooled for over a year. This one was adamant that he was a colonial officer…a human like you and me. At least that was until my XO showed him images of others just like him and even now he swears he didn't know"… "The only question is why wasn't he activated if h…it is a sleeper"-Commander Burkett, Battlestar Therion
"Codes are verified, they're Colonial, sir" Colonel Fisk, Battlestar Pegasus
Hudson announced "We can't take on the fleet"…" we evacuate the civilians to our Battlestars".
"The Academy made sure that there was a lot of rivalry between Ghost and Argos Squadron when we were both formed towards the end of the first war in an effort to see which training regime produced the best pilots" Fleet Air Marshal Lucy Hudson
"She's a Cylon. We have evidence in that folder, sir" Lieutenant Kendra Shaw, Battlestar Pegasus
"War is our imperative. For those on Leonis and for those in the evacuation fleet. And if right now victory seems like an impossibility, then there is something else to reach for…Revenge!" Admiral Cain, Battlestar Pegasus
A smile lit her face as her eye came to rest on the maps representation of the Armistice line and Cylon space beyond.-Admiral Cain
And now…
Four Days after the attack on the colonies (29/07/55)
05:28
Battlestar Pegasus
Solitary Confinement Brig 3
Stood stock still under the bright lights in this cold, sterile room, Admiral Cain didn't yet feel the cold or anything outside of the emotions raging inside of her. Fuelling those emotions was the betrayal she had suffered by the woman she had grown to love. No, she had to keep reminding herself, she hadn't loved a woman, she had loved a thing…loved a machine. The heart was a cruel instrument and that betrayal had meant that Helena's barriers had went up as she started to try and sever herself from her emotions. Emotions got you killed, emotions meant you made mistakes and right now she had to be a razor for the sake of the fleet which she now led. But it was harder to cut yourself off from feeling than she had thought it would be. It would be so much easier to kill It, to run her knife across It's neck until the blade bit deep into bone but sometimes emotions can be so powerful that death is not enough and Cain knew that she had to see It in order to constantly remind her just how vulnerable her emotions had made her.
Looking down upon this thing which had caused such a pain in Helena's heart, Helena was unable to realise that her thumb was slowly bleeding as it ran up and down the razor sharp blade of her knife. This thing before her bore a human face and as It sat chained hand and foot to the floor, dressed in a rough cotton shirt there was nothing to say that It was a machine and not a scared woman bearing a harsh blue and red lump across her left temple. The eyes weren't vacant and seemed to cry out a love and fear which had Cain wanting to believe that It was a human, but the facts didn't lie. She had the testimony of a pilot which knew another copy of this thing and she also had the service record of the other woman. Over the hours since the discovery of this infiltrator an investigation had been running at full steam using the fleet personnel databases kept on the various Battlestars and those refugee marines, crewmen and pilots whom had survived the Cylons and witnessed an infiltrator had been asked to describe or name the infiltrator they had seen and a small few of those named had bore a resemblance to the thing across from Helena, albeit with varying genetic differences like different coloured hair or eyes.
The door to the left of Cain opened up admitting the officer that Cain had asked for. Cain knew every man on her ship before the refugee crewmen came aboard and she knew that this man bore a cruel streak in his career. He was cold, calculating, ruthless. He was what you expected in an intelligence officer whom walked a fine line able to keep his perversions in check but always at the ready to unleash them should Command ever need it of him, there were men like him on every warship in the Colonial Fleet and although there were strict human rights which meant torture was illegal, there had been times in the past when men like Lieutenant Thorne were unleashed on captured pirates, albeit with a blind eye being turned to their actions in order to gain the necessary intelligence they needed. Turning to him, "Lieutenant Thorne", the bald, stocky man saluted as she said his name "I want you to interrogate our Cylon prisoner, find out everything it knows".
Turning to look down upon Gina, and giving it a cold, calculating stare Cain continued "And since it is so adept at mimicking human feeling I'm assuming that its software is vulnerable to them as well so…pain, yes of course. Degradation. Fear. Shame. I want you to really test its limits. Be as creative as you feel you need to be".
Looking upon his commanding officer, Thorne didn't even blink as she gave these orders and merely said "Yes, sir" before turning to enter Gina's cell. All Gina could do was to give Cain a look of shame as she knew what was to come, only she didn't know how far the Colonials and Cain in particular were willing to go to exact vengeance. Cain didn't even realise that what she had said to Thorne was the very feelings that she was suffering from right now.
It was with relief that the intercom blared signalling Admiral Cain to the CIC.
29/07/55
05:35
Battlestar Pegasus
Lab 1
Emptying out the crate that she had carried all the way from Gina Inviere's quarters onto a table where there was already an emptied out bag of clothing, a tired Lieutenant Kendra Shaw got to work with the two marines with her in sorting through Gina's possessions. Now that they knew that Gina was in fact a Cylon agent they desperately needed to know if she had some way of communication with the Cylon version of command or if she had any weapons or any indication as to a hidden objective.
As they checked each item of clothing- first visually, then with a metal detector and then with what was known as a sniffer which could detect pretty much every type of explosive known to the colonies- they carefully catalogued each item before moving onto the next. Nothing was safe from their checks, bras were taken apart and the underwire was checked with an electron microscope before being checked for any kind of signal it might be giving off. Finally moving onto the items deposited from the last crate, Kendra sifted through the various photos, magazines, letters and makeup that Gina had acquired in order to blend into colonial society before being piqued by two items. One of those items was one of the many commercial computer tablets available to civilians, the only problem was that they were still expensive, a low end tablet costing about a thousand cubits. However with Gina being a civilian contractor it was likely that this tablet which was a high end version came with the job of a network administrator.
Taking a brief glance at what was on it, Kendra came across a few dozen books, magazines and emails which seemed to be to friends and colleagues, then she came across plans to the Battlestar Pegasus as well as plans for the network that Gina was meant to install and update. There was nothing untoward about any of this but, Kendra knew that there could easily be some hidden information there, some plans or mission objectives which were hidden or even a virus or viruses which could be installed on a networked Pegasus. This tablet was just too dangerous not to be given a thorough detailed inspection and even then, from what they had seen of Cylon technology, they could still miss something important. Kendra put it aside for now with plans to have it sent to the Battlestar Arion which had better diagnostics equipment to check it over.
The second item which caught Kendra's attention was a circular wireless speaker which, if she was honest with herself, while it looked like a high end civilian speaker which could be used with the tablet, it just seemed out of place to her. Even after running the standard explosives tests and an x-ray which proved negative she couldn't quite place it but she had an uneasy feeling about it and so she placed the circular, white device aside.
29/07/55
09:35
Battlestar Pegasus
War Room
Within the room were Admirals Cain and Hudson, Commander Hudson, Colonel Belsen and Lieutenant Shaw. The purpose of the meeting was to go over what had so far been discovered in Gina's possessions as well as to address the fears that there were more cylon infiltrators in the fleet.
Standing opposite the group, Kendra began "As you all know, last night we discovered that a civilian contractor by the name of Gina Inviere is in fact a Cylon infiltration unit. At the time I was on watch when a pilot brought this information to myself and I took it upon myself to oversee the Cylon's capture, which I might add was successful. Admiral Cain later ordered me to oversee the inspection of the Cylon's possessions. While most of these possessions seem to be perfectly ordinary and not out of place, I believe that two items require further study because, although tests so far have not shown me anything that could cause concern, there is still a potential danger with them." Picking up the tablet, Kendra continued "The first is this tablet which could have some hidden coding and should be properly analysed by an expert and the second is this wireless speaker" she concluded as she picked up the speaker.
Seeing the speaker, Admiral Hudson held out his hand asking "May I?" Kendra handed the device over which he started checking from all angles.
Seeing how intently he was checking out the device and seeing a hint of recognition cross Hudson's face, Cain asked "Care to explain something, Admiral".
Looking up from the device in question, Admiral Hudson answered "This speaker looks almost exactly like one I have in my CIC. In fact I believe there will also be one in your own CICs".
Seeing the danger in this, Cain said "We need to remove them then as soon as possible. Whereabouts are they located?"
"Mine is mounted above the information table just below the DRADIS monitors. It's the main speaker used in conference calls but now…there's a possibility that the Cylons are able to monitor our systems with them. With your leave Admiral, I could have a full scan of the devices conducted on the Arion, I have at my disposal far better diagnostics equipment than was available in most of colonial space. I would also suggest the immediate removal of their power packs".
Cain nodded at the suggestion saying "Do whatever you need to do, I want a full report at the earliest convenience and at the same time I want you to have an analyst run a complete diagnostic of the tablet, line by line, component by component. Lieutenant, please remove these objects from the room".
Kendra complied, placing them both in the crate which was then electrically charged creating a faraday cage. She then gave the crate to a Marine fireteam which took them to the next door conference room.
Thinking that the meeting was over, the various officers were brought short by Admiral Cain saying "I have a plan that will enable us to strike back at the Cylons and possibly cripple them".
The faces of the various officers were highly surprised, any plan which could potentially cripple the Cylons was inconceivable to them in their current state. Nevertheless they were highly curious. Cain continued "The plan is three part. First, while we get the Battlestar Therion back on her feet, I intend to dispatch most of our Raptors and Transports to the shipyards at Picon and Scorpia".
While Cain paused, Commander Burkett said "Those shipyards were destroyed in the first fifteen minutes of the initial attacks".
"Not entirely" Cain answered as she started to spread out images taken from the recon Raptors she had dispatched to those worlds after first meeting up with the Battlestar Arion. "Enough remains that there is still plenty for us to salvage, although at this point I would say that there is almost no chance of survivors. In any case, survivors aren't my highest priority seeing as we are already at capacity with enough excess crew for another two Battlestars and then the civilians which we will be training. We need ammunition and we need every single nuclear missile that we can get hold of, we can't safely go to an anchorage due to the fact that every one of them is no doubt being watched by the Cylons, and although Admiral Hudson has coordinates for off the books anchorages it would be too much of a risk to assume the Cylons don't know about them, but these wrecked shipyards? From what the recon pilots were able to tell me there isn't any Cylon presence in the area around them, the closest known Cylon presence being Raiders within the planets atmospheres. Of course we will have to double check that but everything that we could possibly need is within the wreckage of those shipyards".
Leaning forward to look over the images, Admiral Hudson said "You could be right. I agree that there is a good chance that the ammunition stores are still reasonably intact, after all they are one of the most protected areas of any ship or station, but there is a rather large risk in any undertaking on the scale you wish. After all we need to consider the amount of shrapnel and wreckage around these locations, then there is the chance that we need to be especially picky about the ammunition we acquire due to the radiation in the area..." any ammunition exposed to the radiation lingering in the area would be too dangerous to handle. "You're right we need to do this, but I believe we should exercise extreme caution, the ships all jump in in one go and they all leave in one go. You do realise that performing this operation will leave us close to totally defenceless".
"I do, Admiral and I know that it will be at a time when the Therion will be most vulnerable however we can't allow this opportunity to pass us by, each second we wait is less time that we will have to salvage those battlegrounds, pretty soon they will all be burning up in each colonies atmosphere. We either put all our chips on the table right now or we don't and instead hand over the playing field to the Cylons" Helena nodded to the man before turning to Commander Burkett asking "Do you agree, Commander?"
Rubbing his chin while looking down at a separate sheet of sensor readings from the recon reports, Burkett looked up saying "It's a risk…an immense risk. But I suppose if we don't want to be watching every round we fire then this is the only other option available to us and it would help if we could get hold of some military grade armour and equipment if we're to get Therion back on her feet. I'm with you, Admiral".
Smiling, Hudson asked "What's the second part of the plan?"
Pressing a couple of buttons on the tactical table, Helena brought up a map of all known space saying "We send out Ghost squadron beyond the A Line and into Cylon space at the same time that we are conducting salvaging operations. Ghost squadron's mission will be to covertly recon Cylon space, jumping to every star system starting from 40 lightyears from colonial space and within a maximum of a hundred lightyear radius. They are to find every Cylon planet and installation that they can before returning to us with the data".
Looking up, Hudson had a kind of disbelief in his eyes as he said "A dangerous move but it could help when we link up with the rest of the fleet if we could pull it off. How many star systems are we talking about?"
"163. We are in luck that we are near the edge of a spiral arm and it also helps that we had mapped a lot of that territory before the first war. The reason that I'm starting the search so far from the colonies is…"
"…That if the Cylons had permanent bases any closer, then we would have heard something by now" Colonel Belsen finished.
"Yes. I'm also not going to wait until we meet up with Admiral Adama's fleet - which I might add, we can't be sure still survives - unless we are wrong and the Cylons have a superior number of ships than we believed. If it looks like we can't win then we wait".
"Wait to do what?" Commander Burkett asked.
"We hit as many Cylon positions with a nuclear assault as possible. One after the other. It won't be complete destruction but it needs to be enough so that they need to slow down their war production capabilities while they divert resources to repairing their infrastructure and divert their Basestars to protect those facilities thereby relieving Leonis of some of the burden. Essentially we are going to do to the Cylons what they did to us".
29/07/55
09:35
Battlestar Therion
Engineering "attic space"
With a dazzling white hot flame, a damage control technician started to burn through the first of many exhaust pipes connecting the severely damaged engine he was working on to the rest of the Mercury class Battlestar. Sweat and grime coated his face, and the heat in this crawlspace was intense and wasn't helped with the heat of the bodies of dozens of other technicians or their own burners. But this needed to be done. It's not an easy thing to remove a main thruster from a Battlestar or any ship for that matter, there's thousands of wires and hundreds of pipes holding anything from exhaust gases to coolant and propellant and then the stabilising connecting framework which ensures the thrusters does not tear itself free from the ship.
This had been going on for hours on end with not only the Battlestar Therion's two fractured thrusters but to the civilian cargo ship Scylla's own thrusters which were to replace the Therion's own.
Out on the hull of the Battlestar Therion there were many more fully suited engineers and technicians cutting away the fractured armour plating covering these deceased thrusters. This armour plating was so corrupted by nuclear missile strikes and wreckage tearing into them that they had been tortured into shapes never fated for a Battlestar, shapes made worse when the two thrusters exploded, firing out tons of raw energy into the corrupted hull plating and then the fractured Armour plating.
It would take many hours to fully remove the damaged armour and then the hull plating underneath but once that was done it was expected that everything could proceed much more quickly at that point. The thrusters would be cut away from their mountings and steadily pulled away by Raptors and Vipers then the mountings would be replaced and a full check-up of all connections would be made with some of them either being repaired or modified for the new thrusters. After that would be hard with the new thrusters from the Scylla being steadily brought down to connect with the new mountings before being mated with the Battlestar. Following that would come the connection of the main pipes and the replacement of the hull plating then the Armour belt. The thrusters while connected to the Battlestar, would still not be ready to be brought online as there were so many connections to be made but that could be steadily made over a few days of round the clock double shifts before the recalibration of all the thrusters would allow the Battlestar to function as if nothing had ever happened to it. It wouldn't be easy, but then you don't sign up to the fleet because it is easy. The Therion was a wounded beast, but she was a wounded beast being brought back to full health.
30/07/55
09:00
Battlestar Therion
Pilot briefing room 3
Space was at a premium in this briefing room as pilots stood shoulder to shoulder with one another under flickering lights and breathing in the stagnant, grime fuelled sweat of those around them since showers currently weren't on the list of repair priorities. Looking around it was obvious that they didn't belong together with many of them bearing the patches of different Battlestars and squadrons on their arms, many of which had been lost already in the merciless battles at the start of the war. A few of those pilots even had patches for groundside squadrons or the squadrons of space stations due to the fact that at the start of the war every pilot was needed and many were diverted from their groundside bases to the battles and Battlestars above their worlds to help in the deadliest carnage that the twelve colonies had ever experienced.
Mixed in with the pilots were more than two dozen marines now belonging to the Black-ops squadron, Ghost Squadron, one of the luckiest squadrons in that more than half had survived.
Moving to the front of the room and mounting the platform there, Fleet Air Marshal Lucy "Sassy" Hudson spoke to the group, "Alright, can I have your attention. Thank you". As the cacophonous talking in the room died out, a smile lit up Sassy's face as she announced "Two missions have just come down from command, one of these missions has been specifically designed for Ghost Squadron. I already know that Ghost Squadron is currently undermanned but I have already spoken to Captain Chen and he tells me that everyone in here who isn't part of Ghost Squadron is good enough to at least be part of this mission.
"Now the mission. You're going to like this. You are going to be sent scouting deep beyond the A Line into Cylon Territory searching a number of star systems for Cylon Strongholds. You are to maintain a low profile in a relatively powered down state as you jump in at the edge of each star system taking passive sensor readings there, then if there is a cylon presence in the system you are to proceed with extreme caution deeper into the system and take long distance visual scans of any Cylon Installation before retreating to the edge of the system and jumping to the next location on your list. If there isn't a presence but you pick up Cylon wireless traffic from another system then you are to jump to the most probable source and investigate before continuing on your assigned route". Taking a breath as she composed her next words and there was some excited muttering between the pilots and the marines, Sassy then continued "If you are spotted, then you need to perform an immediate emergency jump to your next location. Don't hang around, you're going to be alone out there with no support. Each Raptor-S will be given between ten and fifteen star systems to scout before returning to Rendezvous Point Alpha after 32 hours or Rendezvous Point Beta should you be at Bingo fuel for Alpha. If you are any longer than 34 hours you will be flagged as MIA and will be left to the vultures. If that happens then you should just have enough tylium to make a final emergency jump to Leonis where you will have to land and then join the Leonosian resistance providing all gathered intel to Leonis High Command. We can't risk this fleet's safety. Should you return to find that this fleet is no more then you are to share your findings with each other so every Raptor has a complete list of Cylon positions then you are to proceed to Leonis where you will land and provide all intelligence to Leonis Command before placing yourselves under their authority. But know this, if your mission is a success then the Cylons won't know what hit them".
There was a lot of grumbling at this as Sassy turned to Captain Chen and announced "I'll let you take over Captain" before she left the pilot briefing room and headed towards her next meeting on the Battlestar Arion.
30/07/55
11:02
Scorpia
Scorpia Fleet Shipyard
Just two minutes after a lone Raptor jumped out of the debris field surrounding the former location of one of the largest military anchorages in Colonial Space, 52 Raptors and 7 Military Transports jumped in at the edge of the debris field in a powered down state. All lights were turned off, any system which used power that they didn't need to use was turned off and the crew on board these ships, despite it being stupid when you consider the ships were in a vacuum and sound can't travel in a vacuum were at most just whispering.
There was a deathly silence as they crept forward and into the macabre scene that lay before them. This was no battleground, a battleground implies that both sides have the ability to fight, no this was a killing field, a massacre. The proud Colonial Fleet which had been at rest at this anchorage barely had any warning of an impending attack, they had no time to prepare and no defence against the Cylon computer virus which infected their systems as the Cylon Basestars and Raiders rained down their nuclear missiles against dozens of berthed warships. Tens of thousands of fleet personnel and civilians died here, their corpses left either floating about and constantly being torn apart and shattered by the deadly wreckage shooting about the debris field. Even just a single screw the size of a finger nail could impact a body at such a velocity that the frozen body would be pulverised. That wasn't the worst of it, if the vacuum and the debris didn't kill them then the radiation most certainly did. In a hundred tumbling wrecks - many of it parts broken apart from the warships and the Shipyard - the corpses of those lost choked the halls and compartments of the wrecks. It was a bloody scene, it was a deadly scene and in the darkest corners of a person's mind, it was a beautiful scene.
This was chaos at its most brutal and soon, within the week it would all come to an end. Already it was happening as the gravity of Scorpia reached out to pluck at the anchorage. The anchorage after taking so many hits to its dorsal side was now slowly tearing apart and falling from its orbit. Wreckage was already burning up in Scorpia's atmosphere like a thousand flares, and when it failed to completely break apart fast enough it became worse than a meteor shower as the wreckage impacted the ground and seas of Scorpia hour by hour, day by day, even if Scorpia hadn't been turned into a nuclear wasteland it would have taken decades maybe even a century before the effects of this crashing debris could have been corrected by the planets biosphere. Bodies which fell in just the same ways as the debris melted and were incinerated in the skies of Scorpia before with a final pop they exploded.
Yet that wasn't all that was both happening and will happen. Instead other corpses and wreckage had gained such a velocity that they were now breaking free of Scorpia's gravity field. Many would enter into a failing orbit around Scorpia to eventually come crashing back down in months' time or even years while others might be captured by another objects gravitational field. But there was that rare few which might never be captured and would forever voyage between the stars and into realms unknown, they would be an immortal testament to the massacre which had played out here, they would be the dying screams of those who had no defence against the eternal night.
Steadily moving into the debris field, shuddering with each impact against their hulls, the Raptors and Transports of the Wolfpack moved towards their objectives, the twisted hulls and tortured halls of the anchorage and it's docked and tumbling warships.
In just one Raptor a sliver of metal the length of a forearm speared right through the cockpit canopy, losing half of its velocity as it sliced through a support and catapulting through a marine's spacesuited neck before rupturing the sensors board and breaching the hull as it carried on its bloody way. The marine was dead before he could even register it and in the rapid dash of escaping air from the Raptor his nearly headless body was dragged against the shattered sensors board and pulled tight against the hull breach. The Raptor started to tumble before the shocked pilot was able to address their new situation and pull them back on course while the eco and two other marines inside the crew compartment fought to clear the breaches and properly patch them up.
As each Raptor and Transport proceeded deeper into the debris field, they started reaching points where the formation started to break down and they moved onto separate objectives. Transports and Raptors started to take shelter in torn apart flightpods as they attempted to dock with the corrupted Battlestars and Anchorage. The damage to some parts was so bad that you could literally see the very skeleton and guts of the lost warships and breaches were so large that were you to look at them, all you would see would be the tumbling wreckage on the other side and the stars beyond. There would have been a stink of death about the place if you could smell in space but instead, as the pilots, marines and knuckledraggers departed their ships, they felt only the ghosts of those lost in a battle not of their making. It was as if a strong electrical field had activated and hairs were standing on end with a seamless body of Goosebumps coating each person at the same time as the cold sweat as the ghostly presences screamed their agony adding their howls to the timeless universe and the ships and anchorage's own guttural screams. They would echo for eternity with only the soul to hear, no ear could encroach upon these howls.
On the twisting, fractured wreck of the Mercury class Battlestar Juggernaut twenty seven fleet personnel gingerly stepped through the deathly silent halls as they moved deeper into this deceased warship passing frozen crewman after frozen crewman. Some corpses were almost graceful as they lay at their posts perpetually conducting their assignments in death; while others were as twisted as the Battlestar they rested upon. Two marines leading a group of engineers stopped as they came across two corpses frozen in a lasting kiss immortalising their last moments as a hull breach sucked the last of the air from the hallway upon which they stood. It was too much for one marine as he broke down, snatched his sidearm from its holster and before anyone could react blasted himself in his helmeted head. The group crowded around him trying to help save his life but it was too late even before he took his life. As soon as he saw the eternal couple his soul died.
Deeper into the Battlestar, after many twists and turns along with the horrors they revealed and after doubling back at some points the group eventually reached the first heavy armament bunker which they had found seemingly intact. So bad was the damage to the ship though, the hull here had been compressed and the hatch refused to budge. It took the use of two ARC welders and fifteen minutes to melt through the thick hatch, the first cut nearly blasting the knuckledragger with the welder into a wall as the bunker let loose its trapped air. If there was anywhere even more protected on a Battlestar or Anchorage than the Disaster Pods it would have to be the Ammunition bunkers due to the fact that if even a single missile breached one of these bunkers then the resulting explosion could tear apart the entire ship from the inside out.
Levering the now free hatch from the newly created hole, it was with gladness and relief that the assembled marines and knuckledraggers set their eyes upon aisle upon aisle of secured ammunition, missiles and at the back behind an even thicker hatch dozens of nuclear warheads. This was only one bunker of many within this killing ground. The Colonials may have been defeated but with what they now had at their disposal they had the potential to exact a revenge sweeter than any that had come before.
30/07/55
11:13
1 Lightyear from A-Line
Raptor-S 452
It was with trepidation that this Raptor glided forward towards the forever invisible border separating Cylon and Colonial Space. Never since the end of the first Cylon war when Armistice was signed had any Colonial ship even dared to venture beyond the line, at most they skirted it. At least that was the official story but unknown to almost everyone in the 12 colonies of Kobol one Colonial ship had dared to venture beyond the line, and that single ship had been destroyed by its own carrier when the Cylons made their presence known.
The Cylons had repaid this single act with a hammer blow so crushing to the colonies that mankind had been separated and butchered but not before they broke down the Cylon war machine so much that they were close to being on an equal footing fleet-wise. The Cylons had went too far and Admiral Cain's stroke of genius was about to begin.
Double checking the jump coordinates for the first of many jumps, Captain Chen loosened his muscles, broke the kinks from his neck and jumped the ship.
Time seemed to stretch along with space as they both collapsed in upon one another folding space into subspace and then back into space 24 lightyears from its last position, deep within Cylon territory. But this was only the beginning. Admiral Cain, although she could not know it without having any doubt, was right in the fact that the Cylons didn't have any installations within a forty lightyear distance from the A-Line. If they did have then despite not being able to cross the border throughout the armistice, the Colonials would have eventually received years old wireless transmissions or had seen the growth of Cylon society and the construction of their fleets with the now destroyed Cyclops array of telescopes and radio telescopes which had spread the width of the Cyrannus system. No, instead the Cylons had kept a fifty lightyear exclusion zone from the border. This Raptor didn't know that for definite.
But there was a trick, a flaw to the universe that having ftl technology gave you if only you thought about it.
Activating the wireless on a receive only setting and adding extra power to amplify it and separating the cosmic background radiation then setting the wireless to cycle through frequency spectrum, Captain Chen listened to the crackle of the universe for more than 15 minutes. Then he heard it. This new noise was alien to the CBR, it was alive with electronic noise, it had structure, it was Cylon. Were he back at the A-line it would have taken Chen more than 20 years before he heard the signal at a far more dissipated level but in his new position he had cut out 24 years of lag due to having jumped 24 lightyears closer to the signal's origin.
Grinning a feral grin, Captain Chen started to steadily rotate the Raptor to bring its wireless array fully round to the source of the signal. This signal was incredibly weak, it had been constantly expanding and breaking down for years and was much, much less than a shadow of its former self. But it was enough. This signal could be tracked to its source. The Cylons had been a mistake by remaining too close to the colonies and by not using point to point, and for machines that saw themselves as perfect this would be a detrimental cost to them.
It took mere minutes for Chen to get the strongest source of the signal, and then looking through the star charts and his previously input jump coordinates come up with a star system where it was most likely that the signal originated from. Calculating the numbers, Chen realised that the source was merely 2 jumps further into Cylon space. He set about readying the Raptor for these jumps. The Cylons had been found, they just didn't know it yet.
And that source? That source had a name. Willow.
30/07/55
14:48
Scorpia Fleet Shipyards
Derelict Battlestar Juggernaut
"Captain, I've taken a look at the planes" Petty officer Travis informed Captain Martinov. Captain Martinov was the lead commander on this derelict ship in charge of its salvaging operation.
Turning to the Petty Officer, Martinov asked "What's the word? Last time I stepped in that hangar it looked like shit" He wasn't exaggerating, there had been multiple hull breaches right along the portside flightpod and enough missiles had made it into the hangar that it had been gutted by tylium fuelled fires and concussive shrapnel filled waves before the air all escaped choking out the fires. Where he had hoped that they might be able to collect this Battlestars Vipers and Raptors, he started to seriously doubt as he saw the mess.
Travis dared a smile as he answered, "I have some good news. 8 Vipers are relatively intact and we could possibly salvage another 9. We can also add 14 Raptors to our lists, they look ready to fly right now, we're just finishing off pre-flight checks. With the rest we're starting to strip the most valuable parts".
"That is good news. I'll see that those ships are loaded onto the transport and have a few co-pilots assigned to the Raptors. Keep it up"
30/07/55
15:05
Battlestar Arion
Admiral Hudson's office
Upon entering his richly appointed office Admiral Hudson started unbuttoning his tunic before rubbing at the angry welt which had started to form on his left shoulder, it always seemed to flare up when he was stressed and there is nothing like worrying about your children to make a father or a mother stressed. Slumping down in his recliner, Hudson cast his eyes over the veritable mountain of paperwork awaiting him, noting how a lot of them had a green sticker attached to them meaning they were to do with the civilian refugees. Letting out an exhausted breath, Hudson stood up and removed them from his desk before pulling a crate onto the desk and after inputting a pin number, extracting from it one of the Cylon devices they had discovered earlier.
Double checking that the power source had been removed he placed it on the desk and extracted from a drawer a spindly piece of apparatus which he unfolded into a three foot by three foot by three foot box and placed over the device on the left side of the desk above a slightly recessed grid. Running his fingers along a seam in the wood of the desk the large darkened glass top came to life with the logo of Vergis industries before finally settling onto a menu. Scrolling down this menu, Hudson came to a scanning routine and after running through a few more categories selecting the options he wanted started the scan of the device. The spindly apparatus lit up with a blue light which started sweeping over the device while underneath it the screen lit up a bright green and started cycling round. It took two minutes for the scan to be complete during which time Hudson poured himself a double finger of whiskey.
Returning to the desk, Hudson looked down upon the data which in its current form looked like an x-ray of the device. Just from a glance he couldn't see anything amiss, granted it helped that he had advanced degrees in advanced electronics, engineering, computing and Cylon engineering. Rotating the image and zooming in closer before cycling through the different layers of the scan, Hudson started noticing something…peculiar. If what he was seeing was correct then this wireless speaker had components which weren't needed or at the very least were outdated than the rest of the components. He knew that some manufacturers might mix in old components with the new in order to keep costs down and generate a maximum profit but if what he was seeing was right then these older components will have been more expensive than the newer ones if only because the newer ones were much more easily mass produced.
Going with this information, Hudson zoomed in even closer on just one of these components and started another much more detailed scan lasting 43 minutes. Had he had access to a network similar to a pre-cylon one or if he had been back at R&D then the scan would be over in less than a minute but as it was, all he could do was to trust in only his desk's computing power.
After a long wait during which time he assaulted the worst of the reports, it was over and upon an inspection of these much more detailed scans of just the one component, Hudson recognised that his hunch was right, what he had been seeing was merely a shell, camouflage, what lay underneath this shell was much too advanced for the Colonies to have produced. He saw how it had circuitry designed to do the job of the component but feeding off of this was microcircuitry of a level of detail he had never seen before, he couldn't even begin to guess what its purpose was. The detail involved was so intricate that even after such an extensive scan this microcircuitry was still blurred and out of focus, it was clear that an even more extensive detailed scan would be needed. Yet at least now Hudson had something to tell Admiral Cain even if it wasn't much.
Moving to the wall mounted phone, Hudson had the CIC connect him to Pegasus Actual.
"Pegasus Actual. Admiral Hudson, I take it you have something" Cain's voice asked of him.
"I do, Admiral. I've just ran a scan of one of the devices. If what I'm seeing is correct then there is Cylon microciruitry built into it. In my professional opinion these are definitely Cylon. Right now I can't hazard a guess as to what they do, I know I'm going to need to assemble a team in order to fully scan them but it will take time, I will keep you informed".
30/07/55
15:07
Raptor S-452
Chewing on the disgustingly sweet protein bar which was supposed to taste like strawberries but instead tasted like boiled sugar coated cardboard, Captain Chen kept a careful watch over his DRADIS board ready to punch it if the Cylons present in the system took any notice of him. He knew it was dangerous just having the DRADIS on sending out its pulse at random intervals but he needed some idea of the Cylons strengths in this system.
They had arrived at the very edge of a gas giant hiding within its immense EM field 2 hours ago in order to mask their presence. It was a dangerous choice, just one miscalculation and the Gas Giant could have crushed them or the EM field could have been a lot stronger than originally estimated but thankfully the calculations had been spot on. It seemed that as they sat there calculating a course out of the Gas Giant's gravity well which would allow them to go unseen that they were being bombarded by encoded Cylon communications traffic, it had to be Cylon since it was using the highly compressed machine code they had come to recognise. Setting course for a rapid flyby of the main source which seemed to be a small planet currently going through a harsh winter as it followed a hard elliptical orbit around its solar body.
Looking over the few screens on the sensor board that they had left active in order to conduct the intel gathering, Corporal Seth Hudson called forward to Chen "I've got the planet's orbital track up, it looks like it's entering into a five year long deep winter, it'll be worse than a snowball halfway through".
"Well isn't that nice, the Toasters have a ski resort" Chen exaggerated "How about some proper information there Hotshot. Save the BS for someone who cares".
Perturbed by the rebuke, but still getting used to how things were done in Ghost Squadron after just being brought in, Seth answered "Okay, there are 12 contacts in the system, only 4 of which appear to be modern Basestars docked at what looks to be a shipyard in sector Gamma-28-14. Those Basestars appear to be heavily damaged. The other 8 contacts look to be freighters or mining ships of some sort and are operating out of the asteroid belt. There are also roughly 80 smaller contacts moving about in the system most of which are Raiders and Heavy Raiders. The planet we are approaching has high levels of heavy elements near the surface and there is significant mining underway on the surface. I'm also reading large enough waste gases and enough electrical power over the northern continent to suggest that is the centre of their heavy manufacturing operations.
"The southern continent however looks to be a city of some sort, roughly twice the size of Cap City. Power seems to be primarily geothermal with the main site being a supervolcano but there is also a small number of Nuclear Reactors and Tylium powerplants…"
"Now you're talking" Chen called back "What about defences?"
Looking over the data, Seth answered "Looks to be 40 defence platforms similar to the old Catapult Class in orbit of the planet and I'm reading…just over a thousand nuclear launch sites across the planet that we can see, it's likely there's more on the other side. Also it appears that there are 5 major military bases with four on the Southern Continent and the last on the Northern. I can't tell much more without activating more systems but if I had to estimate the size of the Cylon population I would put it near 2 Billion models, both Centurion and Skinjob".
Grinning as he pulled his helmet back on, Chen said "Good work kid. Your scans done yet?"
Double checking them, Seth answered in the affirmative.
"Well let's check out that other system."
30/07/55
18:20
Scorpia Fleet Shipyards
Derelict Battlestar Juggernaut
Travis found it a miracle that there was still enough power in the old battered girl he was on to just power the grav plates, it certainly made it easier with the salvage operation, however he just wished that power was getting to every grav plate. As it was he was constantly stepping from one gravitated deckplate and seemingly floating about over the next one before gravity caught up with him as he glided into the zone above the next deck plate, he'd already had reports of dozens of marines and knuckledraggers upchucking in their suits, men and women whom had all been trained to work in zero gee environments without throwing up but couldn't get used to the stomach churning feeling of gravity, no gravity and gravity scenario which had befallen this once mighty vessel. She would never fly or fight again that much was clear to Travis but it was now obvious that even in death she could still be of service to the colonial fleet by giving up her last possessions.
Pulling himself through this ghost ship he was surprised at just how much she had endured and yet how seemingly intact she appeared when inside her battered hull. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised but he couldn't help it, a Battlestar was designed to be able to take hit after hit losing entire sections and yet keep on fighting but when a Battlestar was unable to fight to begin with, well that's what happened to the Juggernaut when the Cylons had attacked with their computer virus and rain of missiles, the Juggernaut had no defence, no way to fight back and so she was battered and bruised before being split open to the elements, her skeleton crew, those few not on leave had absolutely no chance.
"…telling you I heard something" a marine up ahead was saying to the two knuckledraggers he was tasked with protecting.
Pulling himself towards them, Travis made out over the short wave wireless one of the knuckledraggers replying "And I'm saying that's bullshit, we're in a vacuum, there is no way you heard anything. It's just your mind playing tricks on you".
Stopping himself in front of them with his left palm flat to the wall while his right reached up to the ceiling to brace himself Travis asked "What's going on?"
Unable to properly salute due to the lack of gravity where every move had to be calculated and precise, Corporal Grett merely nodded his helmeted head saying "I thought I heard some banging and voices sir. Marsh is probably right, It's just…it's too quiet here, Gods I feel like I'm being watched by a thousand eyes".
"I get what you're saying but we're on one of the lucky ships, I haven't seen many bodies on here which suggests that there were few crew on board. Just focus on the task at hand and pretty soon…" Travis trailed off as he too started hearing a banging and the calling of voices.
Grett noticed because at the same time he had heard them but he still asked "You heard it too?"
Double checking one of the two wireless sets he had (everyone on mission has two, one for long range and another for short range comms with team) which was set to open short range comms (50 feet) Travis said "Role call for anyone who can hear me". All he got back were the three in front of him. Thinking he too could have been imagining things Travis replaced his wireless and tried to brace himself again with his left and right palms.
Bang, bang, bang he heard yet again with another muffled call. Gods, I'm going mad he thought to himself but then Tomasz said "I heard that then".
Marsh looked at them all thinking they were all going mad stuck on this ghost ship, he saw Grett waving his flashlight around with his right hand while bracing himself against the wall with his left, Travis squinting around them while bracing himself against the ceiling and wall and Tomasz bracing himself against the wall, that was when Marsh had the moment of insight. "There's somebody still a-fracking-live…" the others turned to him like he was now mad but Marsh persisted saying just one word "Vibrations!" the others seemed to suddenly come to their senses as they realised they only heard the noises when they were pressing against the ceiling and walls.
"Where's the closest disaster pod?" Travis asked Marsh.
Pulling out his tablet, Marsh replied "Fracked if I know sir, I've only ever served on a Valkyrie but I can soon find out…it has to be close…" scrolling through the map on the tablet Marsh said "Found one, it's two decks above us, Life Station".
They started pulling together their bags and crates of gear leaving their current objective and started for the nearest stairwell but finding it completely caved in meaning they had to go back to another stairwell and pull themselves up and finally onto what seemed to be a fully gravitated deck. Stepping along carefully in case the gravity didn't hold out or just in case the next deck plate happened to be completely out of whack and at 10 gees, they moved through a gutted room due to an obstruction in the hallway before reaching the infirmary. The hatch was deadbolted shut and leaning towards the O2 sensor mounted next to it, Travis planted his hand firmly on the hatch before turning to the others saying "We've got live ones" before banging on the hatch then hooking up his suit to a combined headphone-microphone jack mounted under the pressure sensor. "This is Captain Travis, Battlestar Pegasus. Any survivors in there?"
It took a few breaths before the phone on the other side of the door was picked up and a chorus of cheers rang through Travis's helmet before someone spoke "Doctor Curzon here, I've got twelve survivors in here plus myself. Damn it's good to hear your voice".
Smiling, Travis replied "Okay Doc, listen up, this entire ship is open to space so you're going to have to sit tight for now but we will have you out soon. First thing we need to do is get an airlock fashioned on this side and get you some suits but there is something you can do for us" Travis waved to Marsh to get started on calling up extra personnel, the suits and the gear required to repair the closest hatch and patch any leaks as well as a battery and portable heater and bottle of air.
"Name it".
"We need you to gather all the medical supplies together and start on unhooking anything that could be of use in repairing a Battlestars Sickbay. We really need those items".
On the other side of the hatch the doc started everyone on the gathering operation before asking Travis "It's bad then? It has to be if you need that gear".
"Yeah, it's bad. Toasters hit every fracking colony and nearly wiped out the Colonial fleet. There's only a handful of Battlestars right now and we're in bad shape and unable to safely dock with any anchorage for resupply. But we're pulling together, we're getting back in the fight".
30/07/55
18:27
Wolfpack
Battlestar Therion
Very few Raptors had stayed behind with the Wolfpack, Raptors were desperately needed for the recovery missions which were ongoing in Colonial space but thankfully that still left plenty of Vipers and with them enough pilots to fly both an extended CAP and have a full squadron in the air should they need it, of course this wouldn't have been possible were it not for the fact that the Battlestar Therion had recovered many drifting pilots over Leonis. Now was the point however, when the Battlestar Therion was most vulnerable to attack, if an attack came now it would surely mean her death and the deaths of all those aboard her which was why the Battlestars Pegasus and Arion had manoeuvred into position over her dorsal hull in order to better protect her with their own guns at the expense of protecting the few civilian vessels they had decided to keep but this did nothing to lessen the danger as now all three Battlestars were vulnerable. Should a Cylon Raider jump into the middle of their formation it would be able to simultaneously launch a nuclear assault on all three vessels without them having much chance of stopping it. In the grand scheme of things though, this was a risk worth taking.
Looking up Chief Engineer Collins watched as the roof above him seemed to recede away from him admitting a glimmer of distant starlight to flicker across his faceplate and then illuminate the vast engine he stood upon. Flakes of metal and dust drifted into the gap and seemed to sparkle in an unearthly effect as the hull plate was steadily removed by the three Vipers above it pulling away on the attached electromagnetic grapples. Each second the velocity was steadily increasing centimetre by centimetre and it wasn't long before the 20 square metre hull plate was obscured by his thumb at which point another three vipers flying in formation and precisely coordinated from the Battlestar Arion fired their own electromagnetic grapples on the hull plate on the opposite side as the other three and started to steadily increase their own pull slowing the hull plate down. Through precise movements the hull plate was manoeuvred towards the Battlestar Arion to join the dozens of other Armour and hull plates which had been peeled from the Battlestar Therion. Once there they would be melted down in the Arion's small foundry before being reworked into the new shapes which a civilian aeronautical engineer by the name of Laird had come up with in order to better protect the new engines which were to be installed.
That was the last major hull plate to be taken away and as soon as it was removed it seemed like a hundred EVA technicians were on hand to start cutting away the thick spars which held the hull plates onto the ship, their ARC welders seeming to be competing with the stars above them as they cut deep into the metre thick ribs some of which were obviously suffering from being crushed, some which had splintered from being pushed far beyond their tolerances. These too would be melted down and reformed however there were a handful of immediate replacements available which had already been reformed. More Vipers were steadily moving in to take care of these now freed girders.
With that out of the way the real work could begin with the hundreds of technicians scrambling carefully down their safety lines and towards the cutting off points of the engine they were standing on. Two unlucky souls not connected to the safety lines started veering off and drifting into space with the first steps they took but thankfully the Colonial fleet was ready for incidents like this and of the three Raptors which had been at standby over the engine with their lights shining down and illuminating it, one moved off and took up position in front of a drifting technician matching speed as it did so but steadily slowing down with its hatch open so that the technician instead of slamming into the Raptor at an insane speed gradually drifted in at two miles an hour whereupon the ECO grabbed hold and pulled him steady while hooking him up. The Raptor then took off for the next technician, once it had both it would return to a section of hull nicknamed Starting Point Alpha, land and hook the technicians to a guide line where they would be left to pull themselves back to their starting positions a little wiser of where they had went wrong.
By the time they returned more than half of the connections locking the engine onto the Therion had already been melted through with those hardest to reach being around a nineteen foot outward blown crater where the engine had exploded. These connections were incredibly thick and dense at a half metre thick and were constructed from a steel-titanium-carbon alloy designed to flex and withstand high levels of heat. In the centre of each connection was a thick cone like shape which was where each cut was taking place since once cleaned up this was where the new connections with the new thrusters would be happening but due to the new shape of the thrusters only two thirds of the connections were to remain, more connecting points were to be installed further along the line once those deemed inappropriate to the new engines were removed.
With the last cut Chief Engineer Collins called out over the wireless "Back to your starting positions guys. Demolitions on standby. Arion we stand ready to receive the Vipers". Hooking up to his jetpack and double-checking he was safely locked in, Collins launched himself away from the engine and thirty metres into space before slowing himself with opposing thrust and manoeuvring along the thrusters watching those below him scramble along the lines tugging their tools along with them with those last to leave detaching the safety lines behind them. Once they had pulled out and back to the Starting position on the hull of the Therion a fair bit forward from the Engines, Collins gave one final flyby of the thruster looking over its smooth surface covered in ceramic plates where it tended to be hottest when powered up and the bulbous ridges of internal machinery which seemed to flow with the smoothness then he saw the melted pipes and the thousands of disconnected and severed wires which had once been its central nervous system to the Therion. It was almost obvious now just how much this engine wasn't a part of Therion any longer, this engine had now been amputated all that was left was to cast it away.
Landing back at the Starting Point, Collins received the attendance sheet from his second double checking that everyone was back while a flight of Vipers pulled into position above them and seemed to hang their before pointing themselves towards the thickly plated hook up points and firing their electromagnetic grapples. One grapple struck the engine and bounced off before being retracted and pulled back into the launch position and fired again for a hard lock. Using precise instructions the Vipers were ordered into position. "Collins/Arion. Tug flight stands ready".
"Roger that Arion. Demolitions in 3…2…1…fire". As soon as the order to fire was given six explosions shook the ship as a number of connections were destroyed, these connections were the last ones left hooking the engine to the ship, without them the engine rocked in its holster before the Vipers pulled taut to their lines and steadily and slowly pulled the engine out of its mountings and further into space. Light rippled over the immense object revealing glimmering surfaces and soot blacked plating, then the hundreds of points where items of worth had been scavenged as if by vultures, along one small part of its surface a gold plaque had been attached when it was first installed on the Therion, Collins already knew what it said;
Engine BTS-1365/85A-12
Model 17 Braxia 84
Production 82
Westcroft F&E, Scorpia
Construction date 07/05/32
Installed on Battlestar Therion 27/06/32
"The power to outrun the Titans,
The strength to outfight the Gods"
Signed
M. Harlow, S. Shaw, R. Cale, J. Pyotr, K. Lennox, F. Markez, E. Lupo, J. Carst, H. Arquez, A. Berger,
A. Taylor, H. Hernandez, P. Fox, W. Arcroft, D. Brasi, L. Thorne, T. Spader, A. Spader.
It was hard for Collins to see an engine being cut adrift as this one was being, to him this engine should always be a part of the Therion but before she had been cut free Collins had inscribed on the gold plaque;
Uninstalled from the Battlestar Therion 28/07/40
"This engine gave her life for the Battlestar Therion during the Battle of Leonis, we now set her free".
30/07/55
18:40
Picon
Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage
Dock 12
Despite having been both subject to a major Cylon Nuclear Bombardment and then the detonation of the Headquarters own nuclear missiles and powerplant Dock 12 was proving to be a veritable gold mine due to it having been on the outer edge of the Anchorage and been thrown from the station prior to the Anchorage's destruction. It was true that it had been holed in numerous locations and large parts were missing but backup generators were still running providing power to twenty percent of its systems, those that power could reach. So far almost 200 survivors had been found as had been a full squadron of undamaged Vipers and Raptors as well as entire magazines of ammunition from small arms to heavy antiship missiles and then the nuclear armament bunkers seemed to be fully intact and packed full.
This former Battlefield had at first seemed like a total disaster when the Wolfpack's scavengers had first arrived and dared to land on the drifting hulks which represented the Headquarters Battlestars, so thick was the wreckage that DRADIS was next to useless and the good old Mark 1 eyeball could barely see through the dense clouds of shrapnel. But thankfully at the far edge of the battlefield a Raptor had picked up a large contact which seemed to be intact which then turned out to be dock 12. This Raptor had first made a visual inspection of the outside which had sustained multiple missile hits and sported evidence of having been torn from the rest of the headquarters by a combined nuclear strike and tylium fuelled explosion. Upon landing though and a rapid recon of the dock and its facilities it became clear that this wasn't a pipe dream especially when they found the first of the survivors. It took only minutes for them to alert the rest of the scavengers that here was almost everything they needed to not only repair and rearm the entire Wolfpack but if need be construct a new very small Battlestar, not that they would, they didn't have the time or the ability but the point was made. Over the hours that followed the awaiting Raptors and Transports including Transports from Dock 12 and a handful of other sites around the battleground were steadily loaded up with everything from hull and armour plating to Vipers, ammunition, nukes, missiles, long life food, medical supplies, spare parts, wiring, clothing, booze. If it wasn't bolted down then it was taken and if it was bolted down then it was taken with force.
Space it seemed was at a premium on the Raptors and Transports and although Colonel Kelli had thought about returning early to the Wolfpack in order to drop off those supplies they had already gathered before returning for a second round or even jumping to Scorpia to rope in the aid of the scavenging crews there, he knew that it would be too risky, the Cylons hadn't taken an interest in what they were doing because they didn't know the Colonials were there but as soon as they started jumping around then there was a good chance that the Toasters would be all over them. And so these Colonials stuck it out cramming every ounce of supplies on board the transports and Raptors (strapping hull plates to the outside in some cases) and searching for more transports, raptors and pilots in order to gather more supplies. Kelli now knew that a former battleground could be a goldmine, you just had to know where to look and how not to look too carefully at your DRADIS when it's throwing thousands of contacts your way. But he also knew just how lucky they had gotten finding Dock 12, he'd even dispatched Raptors to push large pieces of shipyard and broken ships away from their collision paths with Dock 12.
In the sparse comfort of the Raptor he was passenger on , Kelli glanced towards Burn whom was manning the controls seeing how she was carefully drifting around the wrecks and deadly shrapnel in her path as if she had been born a pilot. He knew she was Admiral Hudson's daughter, he just thought she became a pilot out of respect for her old man and not because she liked it or was any good at it but he had to admit that he was pleasantly surprised in her ability, he doubted he could get as deep into the battlefield as she could without more than a heavy ding on the fuselage. It helped looking at Burn and concentrating on her ability he thought because when he looked out of the canopy and saw the mess around them with the torn apart blackened bodies being pulverized with shrapnel it brought it all back to home just how fracked the whole situation was. He knew that at any time there was usually between 150,000 and 250,000 people up here with the Headquarters Anchorage and its fleet of either docked warships or warships on patrol and that was without adding the fact that there would have been an even larger population on Armistice day of families meeting their loved ones, reporters ready to film the fleet remembrance flyby which was to take place here or just the civilian portion of the Anchorage which handled a fifth of imports/exports for those civilian ships not designed to land on a planet's surface. Adding it up Kelli realised that when the attack came there would have easily been upwards of 350,000 people on and around the Anchorage.
This had been more than just a major Anchorage for fleet and civilian ships, it had been THE major Anchorage for fleet and Civilian ships in the Colonies with 50 docks dedicated to military use and a further hundred smaller docking points for civilian ships. It was the single largest structure ever created in the Colonies and year by year it had been growing in spurts as new docks were added to accommodate the increasing commercial traffic and the increasing size of Battlestars. But it had also been more than a dock, this Anchorage had represented more than half of Picon Fleet Headquarters which when you consider how the military was built in the Colonies meant it represented a seventh of the entire fleet headquarters. The other half of Picon Fleet Headquarters was groundside and primarily dealt with admin and groundside training primarily of engineers and marines just like Delphi on Caprica was the major groundside training hub for pilots. Now though…now Picon Fleet Headquarters groundside was nothing but a glowing hole in the ground or holes if you're pedantic and topside with the Anchorage was little more than an expanding ball of shrapnel, pulverized flash frozen bodies, drifting wrecks and Dock 12.
"Sir…I think I have something…I can't be sure though" Burn announced as she pulled the Raptor away from a wall of shrapnel and then back on course after skirting a melted hunk of windowed hull plating complete with torn curtains.
Pulling himself from his reverie, Kelli stared out the window and then at the DRADIS which was going haywire from so many contacts before asking "Where?"
"About 20 degree to port behind that huge chunk of the station" she answered through gritted teeth as the engines started to struggle as a drifting cloud of ice particles got caught up in the afterburn.
Looking in that direction but seeing nothing Kelli asked "Maybe we should check out that piece of station, could be more supplies, but I can't see what you think you saw".
Without taking her eyes from the starred canopy Burn answered "I would leave that chunk of station alone, the things almost glowing in the dark, anyone sets foot on it and they would be cooking in their own juices in minutes. Hang on…"
Double checking the radiological readings Kelli saw that she was right, with such a high signature this part of the station must have been close to the centre of the blast but why it wasn't totally melted down…
It was at that point that Burn found a clearer path above the huge chunk of wreckage as it rotated on its path revealing that it was a false face it had been showing since on the other side it had been melted right down to reveal the internal decks and piping.
"There, what did I tell you…" Burn whooped aloud causing Kelli to look up.
"Oh my fracking Gods…how the frak…Burn get on the shortwave horn right now, inform them of what we have found, I'll pull up the readings. If this works out the Ambrosia's on me, all you can drink".
"I can drink a lot, sir" Burn grinned back as she started to patch into the shortwave marvelling at the sight of a severely damaged and severed Dock 42 and still hooked up with umbilicals and clamps with beautiful graceful lines on a lightly scored gray hull, a Valkyrie Class Battlestar…the Battlestar Praetoria.
30/07/55
19:42
Scorpia Fleet Shipyards
Raptor 112/Arion
18 km off Derelict Battlestar Janis en route to Derelict Battlestar Juggernaut
With the hull packed high with tightly sealed and even more tightly packed small arms and ammunition liberated from the gutted torn apart hull of the Columbia II class Battlestar Janis and unable to gather anymore supplies from that ship due to high concentrations of radiation towards her crippled centre Colonel Hudson had been left with little choice but to have one transport remain on location and strip the Janis's nuclear missiles from their launch tubes and to direct the rest of her Raptors (some of which had been liberated from the Janis or from the drifting torn apart hangers) and transports to other potential sites or follow her to the Battlestar Juggernaut which had so far proved to be a fairly good source of supplies. One thing which concerned her apart from the possibility of the Cylons jumping in was the possibility that if a piece of shrapnel tore through her Raptor's hull then it could hit the small arms ammunition in the back along with the explosives and possibly blow her back to Kobol. All through this short trip her sphincter was doing a constant nervous dance of opening and closing knowing that death was only around the corner.
Continuing on course through a patter of raindrop-like flakes of metal, something caught Hudson's attention in the corner of her eye. Turning and trying to work out what it was it didn't take her long, the tumbling half wreck of an indescribable Battlestar, it was in such a bad shape that she couldn't make out what class it was from its shape and seemed to have been snapped from its flightpods and rear third. Thinking nothing of it and glancing back at her fuzzy DRADIS, Hudson suddenly jerked her head back and extrapolated its rolling course before getting on the horn "All Juggernaut scavengers abandon ship, I repeat abandon ship. You have roughly 2 minutes before the ship will be impacted by a major piece of debris…"
30/07/55
19:21
Derelict Battlestar Juggernaut
Life Station/Sickbay
With the hallway patched and a hatch repaired two frames back since the closest hatches frame had been compressed the DC crew had wasted no time getting warm air pumping in the hundred metre long hallway albeit with a gradual loss since not all of the hallway had been patched only the major holes. 3 DC technicians stood ready with thirteen one size fits all EVA suits along with 5 marines with their weapons at the ready and Captain Travis. Sound was finally able to carry in the icy air that was flooding the hallway in drifting white clouds, it seemed like the attached heater wasn't working but Travis knew that it would be a lot colder than his suits sensor was telling him it was if that was the case.
Banging on the hatch and spinning the wheel before unclamping it, Travis and the three knuckledraggers put all their effort into pushing it open while on the other side some worked to pull it open due to the Sickbay being at a higher pressure than the hallway. After a lot of effort there was a stark three millimetre gap and some rapidly escaping hisses of air before a marine lodged a crowbar into the gap and with help from another marine started to lever the hatch open until suddenly with a pop the hatch gave way and Travis and the DC crew stumbled into the Sickbay. The other three marines were quick on the uptake and launched themselves into the room waving their weapons around searching for Cylons or potential Cylon infiltrators but seeing none.
Seeing the worried looks on the faces of those who had been trapped in here, Travis tried to reassure them saying "I apologise for that but the Cylons look like us now, we had to be sure".
"And are you sure?" the Doctor asked.
Shaking his head, Travis answered "Not really, but none of you look like you match the description of any Infiltrator we've encountered. I suggest you get into the suits. We've only got a few minutes of air".
30/07/55
19:40
Derelict Battlestar Juggernaut
Carrying 2 heavy bags of medical supplies, equipment and MREs on his front and back Travis lead the 21 people with him whom were also carrying more gear from the disaster pod towards the hanger deck and the waiting Raptors. He'd only just heard back from a couple of knuckledraggers that they had finally been able to break through to another ammunition locker and apart from being shaken about it looked intact.
"All Juggernaut scavengers abandon ship, I repeat abandon ship. You have roughly 2 minutes before the ship will be impacted by a major piece of debris…" suddenly burst out over the wireless.
Dropping his bags, Travis turned to the others around him and shouted "You heard her…drop your shit and RUN!" before he too started running down the twisted gravity, no gravity, gravity hallways while activating his wireless and in a ragged heart pounding breath shouting "ALL SCAVENGERS DROP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND GET TO THE CLOSEST RAPTOR OR TRANSPORT NOW".
Slamming into a wall as he skipped over onto a non-gravitated plate and around a corner, Travis started pulling those behind him around it before sending them off running over the flightpod arm towards the hangar before he followed fast on their heels. Dozens of marines and knuckledraggers started appearing from around seemingly every corner until it was like Travis was in the middle of a stampede or a marathon as they stormed down the immense hall and past dozens of crates which had been in the process of being moved to the hangar, some were even being trampled before being pulled back onto their feet. It was chaos where every man is out for himself.
Bursting out onto the catwalk above the hangar, Travis glimpsed almost a dozen Raptors starting to take off and fly through the missile created holes in the roof before he called out over the wireless "Head for the transports".
So caught up in the rush for their own lives few heard him as he took off for the stairs that would lead him to the runway and the waiting transports but when people saw that some were heading after him a herd mentality seemed to take shape as others started following their example.
Reaching the metal staircase which thankfully was without gravity, Travis started pulling himself up faster than he could have ran before slowing down with a tight grip on the bannister at the top and then gripping tight hold of the safety line connecting a Transport's hatch to the stairway hatch. Pulling himself along, Travis caught sight of others pulling themselves into the safety of other Transports before he too was soon in the Transport's safety and gravity. Racing for the cockpit, Travis asked the pilot "How long?" he almost shouted it, he was so out of breath though that he could barely gasp, his heart racing faster than he had ever felt it.
"45 seconds. We have to take off now!" the pilot shouted back as around them other Transports and Raptors were making for open space.
"Give me ten seconds, just ten". Travis pleaded as he saw a bare handful of stragglers pulling themselves along the line and others just kicking off and hoping they would land inside the Transport's hatch "Five seconds people…hurry" Travis called into the wireless reinforcing the danger to those fighting desperately for their lives. He saw as those last stragglers on the line just thought frak it and with sharp movements launched themselves at the hatch praying to the Gods that they made it.
The wireless was blaring to the sounds of those still trapped on the Juggernaut to just wait for them, to wait one minute but they were out of time, they had to go or they too wouldn't make it. Patting the pilot on the shoulder, Travis saw the video feed show the severing of the safety line and the closing of the hatch even as the Transport's engines kicked in and launched it at a rapidly increasing speed out of the flightpod and away from the Battered mass of the Juggernaut. Switching to external feeds, Travis saw the half wreck come tumbling towards the Juggernaut battering aside everything in its way before slamming into the Ventral surface of the Juggernaut, carving itself deep before the feed erupted in whiteout as the two wrecks detonated whatever they had left and sending out a rapidly expanding cloud of shrapnel. The transports and Raptors fought their way through the torn battlefield away from that deadly expanding cloud of shrapnel before taking cover behind whatever was large enough to shield them. Travis knew that men and women had been lost yet again on the Juggernaut, he just didn't know how many.
30/07/55
19:44
Picon
Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage Battleground
Battlestar Praetoria
Burn and Colonel Kelli had waited ten minutes for the first of the Raptors they had requested to reach their position of overwatch on the astonishing bulk of the Battlestar Praetoria and had been soon joined by a further two more Raptors. The four Raptors, three of them holding a marine fireteam and 3 knuckledraggers each then started to conduct an outer visual inspection of the drifting Battlestar and its conjoined fractured dock. Not much was left of the dock, it was clear the Tylium reservoirs had detonated taking a good third of its original mass and of the rest the signs were obvious that a either a number of small nuclear missiles had struck it or a single nuclear blast possibly in the 100-200kt range had struck in addition to a number of missiles melting through the armour of the dock and snapping the dock from the rest of the Anchorage then there was also the damage which had been caused by wreckage.
But the Battlestar Praetoria? The Battlestar Praetoria was like a miracle to the crews and passengers of those Raptors as they continued their visual inspection. Somehow against all reason this lone docked Valkyrie Class Battlestar had survived the destruction which had ensued around it. It hadn't just survived, the Battlestar Therion had survived the Battle of Leonis and she was on her last legs. No, the Battlestar Praetoria looked almost fresh. Her hull was merely marred by carbon scoring towards her bow and portside flightpod, thick scars and scratches covered the armour but did little to reduce its effectiveness but it looked like a handful of topside guns were out of action, possibly permanently and she looked to be without power yet there were no visible hull breeches, no heavy damage to the engine blocks, none that they could see. It was an immense mystery to those pilots as they continued their inspection as to just how this Battlestar had not only survived the battle in one piece but why it hadn't went to another of the colonies to help fight when this battle was over.
"Sir, I think I have something" Burn called over to Colonel Kelli whom was currently piloting the Raptor as he continued the sweep. Coming forward into the cockpit, Burn lifted the centre console and sat down in the left seat before lowering the console again and flipping a switch next to the screen before bringing up a schematic of the station. "This is only rough guess work right now based on what little we know from the last transmissions out of Picon and a number of schematics and projections we ran prior to coming here but its highly possible that the Praetoria was protected in Dock 42 by either a neighbouring dock or Battlestar. If you see on this schematic the Anchorage in the section where Dock 42 was located was part of a two level system…almost a kilometre below two neighbouring dock…Dock 38 and Dock 39. According to the schematics those docks were drydocks, totally enclosed in armour plating". Docks 35-40 of that section were all drydocks where new Battlestars were constructed. Despite it being easier to construct a ship in space than on the ground due to the lack of gravity affecting construction these docks were totally enclosed and provided safe warm air with little leakage so that construction crews could build the ship without needing to wear bulky restrictive suits. While few military ships were constructed at the Picon Fleet Anchorage since Scorpia was where the expertise resided, all colonies had at least one Anchorage where they could build a small number of Battlestars over a six month period of round the clock shifts, Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage at its height could still build 13 Battlestars every six-eight months if necessary.
Glancing to the schematic Kelli saw what she meant, this part of the Anchorage was built like a stack of shelves with the bottom level where Dock 42 was located having 10 docks connected to a central pylon called the Jameson Tower. The Jameson tower was five hundred metres across at its widest point and fourteen hundred metres tall and was one of five major interconnected towers on the station with the widest tower being the primary complex which was fifteen hundred metres across and 2500 metres tall providing quarters and all the comforts of home (it was even home to tens of thousands) to its visitors while also having a large construction and training capacity with more than ample armaments. A kilometre above this first level of docks the Jameson tower had a second level of 15 docks on the second level running off three central piers with five of those being the enclosed drydocks. Dock 42 was located off a pier connected to the first level about two hundred metres from the Jameson Tower.
Seeing this Kelli summarised, "so going by your reasoning then it's possible that the Jameson Tower protected the Battlestar Praetoria from attacks from one side like a shield protects against arrows in battle, above her the Cylons possibly didn't have a clear shot due to the upper drydocks…"
"Which if I was them I would hit first hoping that the wreckage would then impact the lower level softening it up for a nuclear assault. Hit the drydocks with enough force to crack them and the escaping air if it hadn't already been purged would propel them downwards".
"And…"
"And Corman had warning, all reports state that he ordered all ships into battle, he or at least those below him if they followed protocol would have safely expelled the air from those drydocks and those docked next to 42 would have launched every ship they held, the printouts we were given from Pegasus' database showed that 5 other ships, three of them Battlestars were logged in on the lower level two hours prior to the attack. Well if they launched they would have moved to engage the Cylons at the same time every other ship on the station launched, each one firing out all their available Vipers and Raptors along with the patrol fleets and the station's own complement…"
"But why didn't the Praetoria launch?"
"I don't know. It could be any of a hundred reasons, she was going through an overhaul and was without power, internal damage after all we know that there were Skinjobs in the fleet sabotaging our systems or…she had no crew, it would certainly explain why nobody thought to jump her out of here".
Kelli had to admit that she had a point but he wasn't yet willing to concede, this could easily be some elaborate Cylon ploy so that the Colonials bring in the rest of their fleet to recover this vessel and then the Cylons could launch an attack and destroy them all at once. "Couple of problems, first, we already know that the Cylon attack here was primarily Raider based, they could have easily flew under the upper level and struck the lower level or just fly under the whole station…"
"There is no way a Raider could survive going between the levels like that, the Jameson Tower was covered in point defences to make sure any assault by fighters between levels would only be met with metal death and below…frak, did you ever see the kind of firepower they had down there?"
"Once, but most of those defences would have been networked, the Cylon virus would have shut down at least three quarters of them".
"But think of it like this, the Cylons should have heard Corman calling for the launch of all ships if they had so much access to our systems as we assume and they were met with pretty much everything we had here. It's highly possible they thought the entirety of our docked ships were in the field or had jumped out to pass the word and once the Vipers, Raptors and missiles launched and wreckage started to break from the station unless they use something other than DRADIS then they would have been as blind as us plus the amount of flak flying about would be kicking back all sorts of readings like a blizzard" Burn wasn't giving up without a fight.
"Okay then why wasn't she destroyed with the rest of the station, she would have been what…4…500 metres from the tower's reactors?" as soon as he asked he answered his own question "By that point she and her dock had already been broken off and were already drifting away from the reactor".
Nodding, Burn then pointed out the canopy saying "Look at that dock connected to the Praetoria. It should be four hundred metres wide and two hundred tall. Right now I'm only seeing a hundred metres of width. When the dock and battlestar were drifting, the dock was possibly facing the tower's reactor wavefront when it hit saving the rest of the Battlestar which explains why one side is melted right down and the bow of the Praetoria shows the largest amount of radiation hotspots and scoring".
Nodding as he saw this in his mind Kelli then said "This is all supposition you know. The only way we can be sure is to board her and retrieve her flight recorder".
"I know sir, but it helps to have a theory ready when we write our reports if she looks worse inside".
Activating the shortwave wireless to the other three Raptors, Kelli said "Alright we're heading in. follow me into the portside flightpod, weapons hot just in case". Turning to Burn, Kelli said "Conn is yours".
Taking hold of the stick while Kelli tapped a button flipping control over to her seat, Burn replied "I have the Conn".
As Burn lead them towards the dark covered runway Kelli carefully watched the surroundings pass them "No runway lights, no lights whatsoever, not much sign of movement just debris from what I can make out". It was like they were about to land on a ghost ship, Kelli felt his hairs standing on end and under his breath muttered "Lords watch over us". Passing further into this cavernous space Kelli noticed something "The airlocks…Burn turn us ninety degrees starboard but continue on present heading and bring up the beam". Burn followed his orders firing a couple of jets of air to turn the ship right and allowing their momentum to carry them onwards while switching on the torch mounted just below the cockpit canopy.
As they continued going left in his perspective Kelli started to see what he had thought he'd seen "The airlocks are all open…Burn land us next to the next airlock".
Following his orders, Burn turned them back onto their previous heading before moving the ship to the right and hitting the deck with a small bump before flipping a switch pulling them down to the deck "Mag lock is secure, powering down engines". Behind them the other three Raptors had followed suit at the same time as Kelli was telling them to hook up lines to the airlock and to meet him there.
Pushing up the console, Kelli stepped into the back of the Raptor and pulled on a bandolier then a backpack before finally picking up an assault rifle while Burn did the same. Stepping onto the wing of the Raptor Kelli fired a cable at the wall next to the airlock close to another three cables before guiding himself along the line to meet up with the marines, pilots and knuckledraggers next to the hatch. Activating the flashlight on his bandolier Kelli glanced at the helmeted faces of those around him, all of them suspecting just what he was suspecting, there were only two reasons why all the airlocks would be open, either there was a fire on the ship that they had tried to put out by expelling all the air in a certain section or…it didn't bear thinking about.
Nodding to the men and women around him and activating the rifle's flashlight, Kelli raised the weapon to the ready position and took the first steps into the Battlestar Praetoria's hull and into its gravity. Daring to speak, Kelli said "The ship must be on batteries right now, power's getting to the deck plating from somewhere, a good sign".
A cold sweat covered his skin in a thin sheen as they continued further into the silent, dark vessel. The hallways were bare like nobody had ever lived here and it felt like he was walking through fields of static with each footfall he took. Bright white haloed light crisscrossed over the floors, the ceiling and the walls as the group continued onwards with their torches adding the only illumination, fingers never far from their triggers. Each step it was like a thousand ants were crawling under their skin, eating away at their thoughts, scratching away and twisting in their stomachs. These men had never known true fear until today, until stepping into the halls of this silent Battlestar, their breaths were like gale force winds and their footfalls - as quiet as they may be - were like the loudest thunderstorm on record.
Reaching a closed hatch, remnants of the Praetoria's first look before the upgrades began, Kelli checked the O2 sensor which was in the red and spun the wheel before counting down with his fingers for the marines. At zero he pushed open the hatch.
At first he didn't see them, none of the marines or knuckledraggers did. It was as if their brains had suddenly made them blind yet as they stood there, their harsh bright lights illuminating the hallway, in a flash they saw them. Men and women, easily a dozen, all slumped on the ground, some with hands tightly clenched to their throats and collars in an unearthly death grip. They seemed to glisten in the light and their skin was a mottled purple with frozen blood leaking from their crusted eyes and blackened lips. They were suffocated to death, killed when the outer airlocks opened and the fire suppression system activated starving the ship of air as it blew it all out to space. They died an agonising death.
All the collected marines, knuckledraggers and pilots could do was stand frozen to the spot staring…just staring.
Gently slipping between the marines, unshed tears glazing her eyes, Burn was like a ghost stepping through a corridor frozen in time. Stepping forward she knelt by a forever suffocating blonde woman still dressed in her shirt and vest, with a shaking hand Burn reached out and then momentarily stopped herself, took a breath letting all her shakes leave her before gently laying that hand down over the woman's head in peace. A moment of silence bled from her through the already deathly silent halls before, looking over her shoulder she announced "We have to move on…the ship looks intact…we…we need this ship and we don't have long to secure it and get her back up and running".
Kelli managed to break himself away from the death which surrounded him and nodded to her ordering "Riley, James head back to the Raptors and order everyone not currently needed on Dock 12 here. We need engineers and anyone with experience in a CIC and as many knuckledraggers as we can get. It doesn't look like they had any chance to strip the networks so it's up to us now. Dorian take your team and secure engineering, the rest of you with me, we're heading to CIC. And remember, don't lose sight of why we're here, we have more than 20,000 people back with the Wolfpack, we have two battle damaged Battlestars and one that's untested, Burn is right we need this ship. Once we're safely out of here we'll lay those who lost their lives to rest".
Leaving this ghastly scene behind and continuing through an even more hollow, surreal realm as they continued through the halls of the dead past hundreds of lifeless bodies deeper into the ship it was as if a hundred thousand voices were whispering into the darkness, assaulting them every step of the way with howls of agony and skin peeling death cries. These men and women, these scavengers were having to choke back constant tears at seeing these lifeless souls. Each one could so easily have been them and while they had seen many corpses of the fallen during the scavenging mission over Picon many who had died of suffocation due to suit ruptures or cracks in their ships or stations hulls it was nothing like this. With the ones they had seen previously there was almost a peace, when you work in space aboard a Battlestar or station you at least know that there is a chance you could die from being flash frozen and suffocation if your ship is breached but this, nothing can ready you to walk through halls and rooms filled with dead like this. On a Battlestar it feels like you are safe because of the thick armour and hundreds of weapons but you still expect an outside attack but an internal one that you have no defence against, there is barbarism and then there is a massacre.
It seemed like forever before they reached the outer hatches to the CIC and then from there the inner glass enclosed sanctum. Pushing the glass doors open which were unlocked due to there being a power loss (safety procedure to ensure nobody was trapped during a blackout) Burn led the way into the nerve centre of the ship. It was almost pitch black in this usually well lit room, the only illumination apart from their torches seemed to be coming from three separate consoles. Moving over to the first of these consoles, Burn was forced to step over a crewman and around a Colonel with fingers clenched tight around a fire axe before finding the Commander slumped over a chair at the console, his fingers still stretched out for the keyboard. Looking behind her as the others came into the room she saw what must have been the last moments of those suffocating in here, cables lay strewn about with the bodies of crewmen, console faceplates and floor panels had been torn free, mainline fibre optic cables had been severed likely with the axe the Colonel held tight hold of, he was likely the XO. "They were trying to sever the network even as they died" she muttered into the open wireless.
Turning back to the still operational console where the Commander was slumped in his death pose Burn read through the various lines written and the sequences on screen before clicking onto an open notepad app, probably written by the commander reading 'For the Colonial fleet'. Looking over her shoulder at Kelli, Burn said into her wireless "The Commander saved the ship when he knew he couldn't save the crew".
Intrigued, Kelli gently stepped over towards her asking "What do you mean?"
"Look at this, what must have happened is the virus infected the systems focusing on fire control shutting down life support and expelling all the air from the ship, the Commander had the crew in here cutting through the networks to their last breath but he knew they were dead already, the virus had already infected this entire section and he must have suspected that the Cylons would turn Praetoria's guns on the fleet so he initiated a hard shutdown of all but a few systems, three systems to be precise; Gravity, Tylium reservoir heater (stops Tylium freezing) and the disaster beacon. He probably only had access to a few systems, we already know from experience that the effectiveness of the Virus depends on how up to date the networks and software installed is".
Looking over the console Kelli replied "But the beacon didn't activate".
Shaking her head Burn said "Not yet. See this Commander was smart, he must have known that if this battle was this bad then the Fleet would lose a lot of ships and facilities and while he couldn't save his crew he could at least give his ship a chance if it survived the battle. The Beacon is set to go off in another three days time, he was probably thinking that the fleet…"
"…would send someone to investigate once the initial attacks were over and we had pushed the Cylons back and those sent to investigate would hopefully find this ship in a serviceable condition and would be able to have her on the line faster than they would be able to build a new ship". Looking up as the realisation came Kelli continued "His plan worked, even if we didn't hear his beacon we still came and with the ship being shutdown it should be easier to strip the network and reboot with the old software. Poor brave Bastard. I'll make sure he's buried with full honours for this. Get me a full list of what needs doing, the others should be arriving soon and hopefully if we get the Praetoria operational in time we'll be able to completely clean out Dock 12". Before he turned to walk away Kelli laid a hand on the Commander's shoulder and mentioned to Burn "I had doubts about you, but you're proving your worth".
30/07/55
20:32
Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage Battleground
Battlestar Praetoria
Two transports and fifteen Raptors coasted into the portside flightpod of the Battlestar Praetoria before the two transports swept in to land next to a cargo airlock each and the Raptors settled down with a few bumps further ahead of them. These newly arrived ships held just over 300 knuckledraggers, marines, crewmen and engineers some of whom had been rescued from a handful of drifting wrecks and disaster pods while others had been rescued from the drifting bulk of Dock 12, their mission here was a simple order; Clear the Battlestar Praetoria of networks, wipe the virus from her systems and bring her back to life within 12-18 hours. It was the execution of those orders which would be the most difficult due to the fact that networks on a Battlestar are highly extensive, there was a good chance of damaged components in the Praetoria, the Battlestar Praetoria had been put through a hard shutdown which meant any power up would take two hours minimum. All of these problems could be dealt with but it was the fact that they had to do their jobs fully enclosed in their suits since they couldn't yet depend on life support until they knew for sure that the system was clear of the Cylon virus.
As each of them made their ways along the guide lines and into the airlocks they all remembered the description that the two marines had reported back of the halls being filled with dead. They thought they knew what to expect, they had all seen plenty of dead bodies in the wreckage littering this battlefield so far but when they eventually encountered the first suffocated crewmembers they realised that this was nothing like anything they had seen before. It took a firm amount of will to get them back on track and heading to the locations they would be most needed, chiefly Engineering, the CIC and the main junction boxes spread throughout the ship. Nobody went anywhere alone and everybody was armed since they all knew a Centurion or a whole army of centurions could be waiting for them around every corner.
30/07/55
20:40
Wolfpack
Battlestar Therion
With a constant distant drone of angle grinders and hammering resonating throughout the battered ship as the engineers and DC crew fought to repair the engine mountings and repair the damage they couldn't reach before ready for the Scylla's engines to be installed, Commander Burkett was nursing the worst headache of his life. Even deep in the ship near the brig the sounds seemed to echo but Burkett took some constellation in the fact that even if he couldn't see it without going outside, at least his ship was being repaired but it would have helped if the internal repairs were ongoing but even though they had enough crew to double man every ship they had sent most of the engineers and DC crews to Picon and Scorpia due to their knowledge of what could and couldn't be salvaged. Showing his ID card to the fully armed Marine Fireteam holding court around the entrance to the Brig, he received their salutes and was admitted to see the prisoner. Dozil sat on the floor of his bare cell with his knees hunched up in front of him blankly staring into space. Next to him was a paper bowl with a watery soup in it, just a watered down protein block which hadn't even been touched yet Burkett thought as he stood in front of the glass partition looking down upon the former pilot now known as a Cylon Infiltrator, a Skinjob.
Finally seeing him there, Dozil struggled to his feet and with shackled hands gave the best salute he could, holding it until Burkett begrudgingly returned it. Burkett didn't see a traitor before him, instead he saw someone who still saw himself as a pilot in the Colonial Fleet yet he knew that any intelligence Dozil held on the Cylons was worth its weight in gold, he had to extract that intelligence somehow.
"I'm sorry you're a Cylon" Burkett spoke "I really am but you must have intelligence on the Cylons in that head of yours and right now we need all the intel we can get". Moving over to a chair in the corner of the room, Burkett took hold of its back and pulled it over to the window separating him from Dozil. Sitting down he asked "So…how many ships do the Cylons have?"
The question seemed to hang in the air as Dozil stood before the partition looking down at his bare feet before looking up saying "I don't know…300 maybe 400 I'm guessing".
It was clear to Burkett that Dozil was saying that number because that's what the fleet had previously estimated. Opening a folder and pulling out a star chart of colonial and Cylon space Burkett held it up and asked "Okay, that was a hard question I guess, how about an easier one. Where are your bases located?"
Looking at the map and hoping it would jog something in his mind, Dozil shook his head and huffed out "I don't know sir. If it's in my head it isn't revealing itself".
Burkett kept on holding the star chart up saying "Think. Where are your bases located? We need to know which systems to steer clear of." That was a lie, Burkett wanted those locations in order to pinpoint which planets to attack but he didn't know if the Cylons had some way of communicating with Dozil and he couldn't let on just what they were planning.
Pacing his cell and brushing his hands against his head Dozil replied "I don't know. If I did I would tell you but I don't".
Folding the map up and placing it back in the folder, Burkett stood up, pulled his tunic tight and placed the chair back in the corner of the room before returning to the glass partition and saying with regret permeating his words "Then I'm sorry for what is about to happen but we need whatever information is hidden away in that head of yours. If you truly see yourself as a Colonial and a member of the Colonial Fleet then please don't resist". Turning to the hatch Burkett banged on it then stepped back as it opened and admitted a new fireteam of Marines armed with non-lethal weapons designed to knock out or knock back a person, only the marine sergeant was armed with deadly ammunition.
The marines held their weapons ready as they moved to the entrance of the cell while on the other side Dozil seemed to fight all instinct and resided himself to his fate by moving to the centre of the cell and kneeling down and raised his cuffed hands to rest on top of his head. Seeing this and wary of attack the Marines were exceedingly careful as the door slid open and they carefully moved to surround Dozil, one marine kicking him so that he fell face flat on the floor breaking his nose in the process since he couldn't move his hands quick enough. Another marine then went and retrieved the chair and placed it in the centre of the cell hooking it up to a loop in the floor while Dozil was being chained to the floor hoop. Once he was chained up he was pulled onto the chair and his feet zip tied to the chair legs, at first he struggled but one marine wrapped a piece of ribbon around his neck and pulled him tight to the back of the chair while another hit his knees with a baton as his feet were securely tied. Once he was secure and his struggles died down the marine that was garrotting him let go and all the marines stepped back. What they didn't know was that if Dozil had been a totally aware Cylon with access to its entire mind he could have overpowered and likely killed them before being shot by the armed marine sergeant keeping his distance 10 steps away.
Turning to the marine sergeant Burkett handed over the folder ordering "I want these questions answered. If he dies or is beaten into a state where he is unable to function and respond to questions then you and everyone in this room will be court martialed and summarily executed. Am I clear?"
"Yes sir" the marine sergeant nodded.
Burkett nodded to the cameras mounted in the corners of the room saying "This and any other interrogation will be recorded. Disconnect those cameras and suffer the consequences. I expect hourly updates". With that Burkett glanced one last time at Dozil whose head was slumped forward as he struggled to breath with watery red plod dripping from his broken nose and cut lips but was still managing to look up at him with red rimmed glazed eyes before he left glad that the banging and grinding echoing throughout the ship would block out any of Dozil's cries of agony.
31/07/55
01:05
Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage Battleground
Battlestar Praetoria
"Things are looking up sir" Burn announced to Kelli as he moved through the CIC.
Standing next to her at the comm board, Kelli asked "How so?"
"Well the networks have finished being removed here in the CIC and word from engineering is theirs have been cleared for the past half hour. The only trouble we're having is at the junction boxes spread throughout the ship but they should be sorted out in the next hour or so".
Looking up with surprise on his face Kelli said with astonishment "It took us a day to totally remove the networks on the Pegasus and they weren't even all patched in yet you're saying we've almost cleared the Praetoria's in just over four hours?"
"Yes sir. The problem here is different to the Pegasus since we are currently without power and will be conducting a full wipe and uninstallation of our software once we start powering up key systems, you couldn't do that with the Pegasus since you needed to keep power running to essential systems so you would have had to have had to isolate each system from the network without damaging the other systems and you had damage to many parts of Pegasus. Give us half an hour after they are removed and we'll be able to start localised power ups to key systems ready to wipe them and install the archived software".
Leaning against the console and looking around the red lit room glad that they had hooked up the emergency lighting to the emergency batteries but wishing they could safely have air since his suit was starting to itch him and right now he desperately needed a piss but didn't want to go in the suit, Kelli was jumping inside at having found this ship right up until the point when he glanced through the open glass doors and saw the bodies of those crewmembers who had lost their lives in this room. "I don't have your expertise in computers but why wait half an hour after they're disconnected from the network?"
Burn replied "Before we even think of starting localised power ups we need to remove the components from these systems which the virus could use. Take the wireless for instance, we need to disconnect the transmitters and recievers before power up in order to make sure the Virus doesn't send out a signal alerting the Cylons to our presence or the ftl which we're having to disconnect the capacitors from".
Nodding as if he already knew that, Kelli ventured "What if the Virus had hidden part of itself in the hardware we remove?"
"Wouldn't matter, we are only removing those components which are not only vital but have no inbuilt hard drive. No, the virus is currently stuck in each systems hard drives. Plus we have experience on our side, we already know how to safely remove it".
"How long until a complete reboot and power up?"
Looking at her notes, Burn replied "Hopefully four maybe four and a half hours before everything's totally safe and operational. We're focusing on getting the engines, ftl and necessary systems for the engines powered up first since it will take almost two hours in order to fully power them, then we will be able to move the ship closer to Dock 12 in order to expedite the transfer of supplies while we get the other systems up and running. Since engineering has already been disconnected from the network they're already disconnecting the capacitors and will be running a localised power up in about ten minutes before starting the wipe. One of the engineers has already picked out the software we will then be installing down there since he already knows what software Pegasus, Arion and Therion have installed" a safety precaution that the chief engineers of those ships had come up with was that each ship would install different versions of archived software so that if there was a loophole the Cylons could exploit in order to turn a Colonial ship against another then only one ship would be affected. Glancing at the wall mounted clock which said it was 01:12 Burn said "We should be able to move at oh five fifteen and we should have the rest of our systems up and running by oh six thirty which should give us a good 12 hours to gather more supplies and run systems checks. However I would suggest holding off on fully powering up weapons, communications or life support until we get back to fleet and a specialist from the Arion completes a full check on them in order to make sure we haven't missed anything".
Nodding, Kelli concurred saying "It would have helped if they sent a few specialists with us" it was deemed too dangerous to send those with vital experience that couldn't be easily replaced, the Wolfpack had plenty of pilots, knuckledraggers and engineers but was lacking in network specialists.
As Kelli started to walk away Burn looked up from her notes saying "One last thing sir, the docking clamps are fused to our hull, we're waiting on a repair for a full HAZMAT EVA rig from Dock 12 before we can even think of cutting through them since they're highly radiated. It's either that or we fire missiles at them and risk damage to the ship".
"Understood, if you need me I'll be in the Starboard Hangar".
31/07/55
02:02
Scorpia
Scorpia Fleet Shipyards Battleground
Derelict Battlestar Tempest Bow Section
Drifting end over end miles away from the rest of the Tempest, the bow section seemed to be ready to fall apart with its armour plating bent and misshapen and its crumpled, fire blackened internal structure being revealed to prying eyes. On one side of it, docked against the only functioning airlock they had found was a heavily scratched Raptor, the canopy starred in numerous spots by tiny fragments and the rest of the body heavily dented.
Rubbing at the thick angry welts which had developed under her armpits where her suit kept on chafing against her sweat covered skin, Colonel Lucy Hudson looked down on the report she had just received before looking up at the pilot who had given it to her "You're sure you pinpointed the transmission's location?"
Holding tight on a broken pipe which had a frozen cascade of water forever spraying out of it while he floated in this compartment the pilot answered "We're sure. We've got a positive lock from seven separate sites around the battlefield and that signal, it's strong. We can pinpoint its location to within a few hundred miles although we don't have the apparatus on any of our ships to get a visual".
Two hours ago a Raptor conducting a search on the edge of the debris field started to pick up a heavily encrypted Cylon signal which seemed to vanish almost as soon as it appeared. Then at random intervals the other Raptors started to pick up the same signal but it was only in the last fifteen minutes when the signal had picked up again only this time it seemed to be continuous and far stronger than before. Looking at the Fleet Air Marshal the Ensign asked "Sir, do you know what it is? Is it worth checking out?"
Looking back at him while biting her lip Lucy answered "Under no circumstances are we to leave this battlefield except to return to the Wolfpack and only at our appointed time or if the Cylons find us. However with this strong an output I would have to guess at it being a Cylon comm array but…" something wasn't right with this, it just took Lucy a moment before she realised it "…they have to know that the Wolfpack is still in the area, they must know how low we are on resources so why would they even consider setting up a comm array just yet".
"Maybe to better coordinate the invasion of Leonis and Virgon" the pilot suggested.
Shaking her head which caused her entire body to move and start drifting, Lucy flipped herself diagonally and lodged her body in a hatch frame. "I don't think it's to do that, the toasters could just use raiders to send their messages plus comm relays while more reliable are far slower at getting messages out. Do you want to know what I see? I see a massive billboard screaming out 'attack me'. It's a trap, it has to be something to interest us making it seem like we can destroy something vital to the Cylons and then they jump in. Gods, I hope Cain doesn't go for it".
31/07/55
04:58
Battlestar Praetoria
"I'm almost finished with the last cut, just two more minutes…frak is it hot…shit, the damn AC's blocking up again" Petty officer Rieass grumbled over the wireless, his voice echoing with the sound of static and the fizz of an ARC welder as he cut through the third docking clamp. It had been slow going getting burning through the clamps which had been fused to the armour plating of the Praetoria by the intense nuclear blast which had struck the dock and the bow of the Battlestar docked to it, so strong had the blast been that it had melted more than two thirds of the way through the dock and the Armour plating towards the bow of the around was not only blackened but was now three inches thinner in most places.
Burn liked listening to the sounds of work underway outside the ship, it seemed to make her forget about just how many had died on this ship and the oppressive chill which shivered up her spine like she felt she was being watched. Pulling herself out from underneath the back of a console and then placing the backboard back on it and turning the locking pins, Burn pulled a clipboard over and marked off that the third clamp was now complete and it would be safe to move the ship. Normally there would have been six clamps attached to a Valkyrie class Battlestar but two had been destroyed, another was manually retracted and the other two had already been cut through. Looking back over the extensive list she saw that the engines and ftl had already been cleared of the networks and the virus they contained and within the next five minutes should be ready to work properly. Tactical's networks had also been removed, or at least the ones which were too dangerous, the virus had been purged from those systems and right now a set of archived software was currently being uploaded into the systems as they were being powered up to minimum power consumption modes. They were being careful to only power those parts of tactical operations that they absolutely needed such as the DRADIS array and manual weapons, automatic weapons such as the point defences were only to be powered up after a network specialist from the Wolfpack signed off that they were clear of the virus. After Tactical would come the rest of the Battlestar Praetoria's systems with a priority on necessary systems and even those systems deemed necessary like life support wouldn't be fully powered until a specialist had been over them.
Walking around to the information management table, Burn informed Kelli "I've patched the number three console but it's a mess right now, we need to get new wiring into it" the console she was talking about was part of Communications and it seemed like the XO may have went crazy with his axe in it in order to remove it from the network.
Nodding, Kelli wondered "Just how are we going to safely move the ship without DRADIS or visual feeds, it's going to be another hour or so before we have it up?"
"I guess we just fly by wire sir. It's been done before".
Shaking his head Kelli replied "Never in something as bad as the mess we have outside and what if the toasters jump in and hear our chatter?"
Leaning forward onto the dark console, Burn answered with confidence "We can move her, we just have to take our time and do it more slowly than we would normally and if the Cylons jump in and hear us, well, we jump. But you know as well as I do that we need everything we can get off Dock 12 and it will be a lot easier and faster to do it if we're closer".
"Not if we blow up. We shouldn't even consider flying Praetoria with so many safety features disabled".
"You've got me going over the networks, what's the worst that could happen" Burn chuckled as she backed away to return to the Communications consoles.
Seeing her leave, Kelli muttered under his breath "We're fracked then".
31/07/55
05:07
Scorpia Fleet Shipyards Battleground
Raptor 209/Pegasus
Struggling to fit past the piled up crates filled with salvaged medical supplies, small arms, small arms ammunition and explosives and into the cramped cockpit, Lucy slumped down in the co-pilots seat and handed over a vacuum packed high protein energy drink to Suzy while pulling her own straw into position on hers before letting out a deep breath. "We've lost another pilot and two crewmen".
Looking over at Lucy, Suzy asked "Who?"
"James. A fracking piece of debris struck part of the Destroyer Isen, well her guns weren't safe and the next thing we know they've taken down the Raptor that James and the crewmen were on".
"Gods. We should have left here hours ago, just quick in and out, there's no need to stick around any longer losing more people by the hour".
Pushing the straw into a small port in the bottom of her helmet and fiddling around until she managed to get it to her lips, Lucy took a strong gulp of the disgustingly sweet drink wishing she could have some proper food instead before saying "You know we can't leave yet, if we jump back to the midway point too soon then we are going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere until it's safe to rendezvous with the fleet. Plus there's still survivors here".
"Yeah, not many though and…DRADIS" Suzy called out as the DRADIS alarm started blaring and a red light started flashing in the cockpit "Contact one Cylon Raider on 127 karom 338 range 14 kilometres…"
Flipping a handful of switches on the board Lucy called out "Going dark" even as the soft hum of the engine died away along with the lights and most of the Raptor's systems.
"Initiating tumble" Suzy then called out as she used a small burst from the manoeuvring jets to start the Raptor tumbling through the outside wreckage as if it was now part of that mass, it was a dangerous choice, it seemed to make them more vulnerable but in the end it was the only one they had or risk being detected by the Raider. "The Raider seems to be coasting the border, it should be out…frak that's got to hurt. Scratch one Raider, a piece of wreckage just took it out…wait…frak it's under power, heavily damaged but under power".
As Lucy sat back down she caught the DRADIS reveal that the Raider had jumped "Well lets sit around for a few minutes and see if anymore Raiders show up, I doubt they will though" One thing had become clear to these scavengers early on, the longer they stayed the more deadly the outside edges of the debris field was becoming.
31/07/55
05:15
Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage Battleground
Dock 46 Sections 18-21
Dock 46 had been built in a similar way to dock 12 with large areas dedicated to storing cargo, ammunition, spare parts, water and tylium even its location on the station was similar in that they were both towards the outer edge albeit on different sides of the station since they were both seen as fast turnaround docks primarily designed for resupply rather than onsite construction not that they couldn't do both. But now, where Dock 12 had remained largely intact, Dock 46 was different and had been repeatedly smashed by dozens of missiles and nuclear missiles as well as hundreds of chunks of wreckage to the point where it was a disintegrating mass with a mere handful of reasonably intact areas.
Nevertheless the scavengers from the Wolfpack had still landed within these sections and had already managed to salvage some useful supplies as they moved further in.
Ducking under a collapsed beam, Petty Officer Jarvis shone his flashlight around the pitted torn apart corridor before helping Private Hallard through and stepping towards a locked hatch. Hallard started to spin the wheel while Jarvis stood there glancing around and not seeing anything of interest before returning to the door and suddenly bursting out "STOP!" Hallard immediately stopped spinning the wheel and looked back about to ask why when Jarvis said "There's air on the other side".
Looking at the gauge next to the door and seeing it in the green, Hallard struck three times on the hatch not expecting anything.
BANG, BANG, BANG seemed to reverberate up their feet and through the wheel to Hallard just as he was about to turn the wheel again stopping him.
Fumbling in his pockets, Jarvis pulled out a cable and hooked it into his suit and a receptacle next to the hatch before saying "Hello?"
A moment later a voice replied "You took your fracking time. Okay, listen up, there's 43 of us back here, most of us are civilians, the rest are either marines, knuckledraggers or retired. We have two pressurised sections and only 12 suits so you're going to have to get us 31 suits and we can use one section as an airlock".
Jotting that down, Jarvis asked "Alright we'll get the suits and get more birds ready for pickup. Who's senior in there?"
"That would be Corporal Garson but he's currently unconscious but I guess I'm kinda in charge, Commander second class, retired, the names Fasjovic, Coker Fasjovic".
31/07/55
05:26
Cylon Space Jump 15
Raptor S-452
"So do you want to talk about it?" Captain Chen asked from the pilot's seat as he waited for the results of the wireless searching to come up.
Sat in the co-pilots seat next to him Seth Hudson put down his sponge cake courtesy of his MRE and asked in a bitter voice since he knew what Chen was asking about "Tell you about what?"
Staring out of the window next to him Chen replied "Whatever it is that's crawled up your arse and sunk its teeth in? I already suspect what it is but it would help if I knew for sure".
Pulling the lone cigarette and sleeve of three matches from the MRE (colonial military morale booster since colonial MREs are disgusting since they're designed for maximum nutrition and shelf life), Seth struck a match so hard it snapped and fizzled into his lap before with a shaking hand he struck another match, the flame flickering as he brought it to the cigarette. Had this been back in the early days of colonial space exploration he wouldn't have dared strike a match and risk the then high oxygen atmosphere burning but now, now the atmosphere of colonial ships of almost all types was a steady mix of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and all the other gases you would have on a colony so Seth was able to take a ragged drag on the cigarette without worrying about his face burning off.
Seconds passed as Seth summoned up what strength he had to tackle his memories which still seemed highly vivid, he could feel the pounding of his MGAT, he could feel the searing heat of rounds bursting past his face and the warm blood of his friends splattering his cheek and slipping into his mouth and he could still hear their cries as they weren't outright killed by the Cylon Centurions but left to suffer, their voices crying out for their friends to come and help them not realising that if those friends helped them then they too would die. Forcing his way through this tormented chaos of memories and letting out a deep breath of willowy smoke, Seth spoke "You know I served on the Battlestar Atlantia? I…I was there when the Centurions boarded but before they ever set one foot on our ship, the old man…Admiral Nagala had beefed up security on all sensitive sections of the ship most notably Auxiliary damage control and secondary fire control. It was as if he knew exactly where the Cylons were going to be going…"
Listening intently, Seth put in "He likely did. The old man was part of the old guard, he fought in the first war and would have seen their tactics then and tactics like those don't change".
"Yeah, well…it was our job to either stop or delay the centurions as long as possible and by any means possible. I'm talking the use of explosions in confined spaces, detonating anti-ship rounds in corridors, even…" Seth broke off unable to speak.
"Even?" Chen pried.
Looking Chen in the eyes Seth continued "Even sealing off the bulkheads behind us, actually welding them shut. Nagala had to know that we wouldn't survive the battle and yet…when he gave the order to abandon ship…because of our actions hundreds weren't able to make it to the hangers. He gave those orders and we followed them to the letter and because of that we guaranteed their deaths…we killed them".
A silence hung between them upon that admission before Chen replied "You did what you had to do. If you hadn't have acted like you did then the entire ship could have been lost with all hands. You make the hard choices and then you have to live with them, they make you what you are today and if you let them eat away at you then their sacrifice would have been for nought…"
"They didn't sacrifice themselves".
"Really? You put on the uniform means that you have already sacrificed yourself for the Fleet and the Colonies, it doesn't matter if you live or die you have already made that sacrifice. Because of your actions thousands survived that battle and the Fleet was able to whittle away at the Cylons numbers. You did not kill them, the Cylons killed them, you just gave them a longer life than they would have had otherwise. Remember what the Cylons forced you to do and remember that for every life lost gave others a chance to survive longer. Just…don't diminish their sacrifice".
Seth listened until Chen finished before slowly turning away and half-heartedly saying "And what do you know about sacrifice?"
Closing his eyes with his head slumping forward slightly, Chen replied under his breath "Everything".
31/07/55
06:12
Battlestar Therion
Fear, that's what Chief Engineer Collins felt as he stood watching the first of the immense engines cannibalised from the Scylla descend towards the Battlestar Therion. One wrong move by any of the Vipers and three Raptors controlling the motion of the engine could result in it becoming permanently damaged or damage the Battlestar Therion or if the very worst happened it could crush the engineers and knuckledraggers waiting near the mounting points. There was so much that could go wrong which was why the replacement of engines on a ship the size of a Battlestar was supposed to take place in a Drydock under controlled conditions and here they were in the middle of space, not a drydock or even a dock in sight and with only two Battlestars for protection and not even being able to have the dozen or so Raptors they needed to guide the engine in.
All in all though it was working, the engine was only metres from the mounting points and then centimetres away before it was stopped there with mere centimetres separating them. At this point those on the ground took over as cables were hooked up to the engine and with that done winches were slowly set to reel in the immense structure millimetre by millimetre until with a small jolt and grinding the engine rubbed across the first of the mounting points. With the engine finally in place hundreds of knuckledraggers rushed into action and started to mate the mounting points together while other engineers struggled to connect the pipes and connections which they would be unable to do later. Those vipers and raptors which had transported this engine over now moved back to the Scylla to retrieve the other engine while another handful of Vipers started to bring over the first of the structural spars which would be installed once this engine was secured.
While speed was key to getting these engines installed, safety and structural integrity were paramount, nothing was being left to chance. The colonials knew that they would get just one shot at this since there were very few types of engines capable of both being installed on a Mercury Class Battlestar but also of being able to work in synch with the other engines, they knew just how lucky they had gotten to have found the Scylla.
It took just 2 hours of intense work by the army of engineers and technicians to mount the first engine and thruster assembly and then start on the structural spars for the hull which took another 2 hours to be installed. After the structural spars came the inner hull which took a further 3 hours 30 minutes and the outer hull which took a further 4 hours fifteen minutes. All the time the work on the second engine was almost an hour behind the first one and every half hour it seemed like 2 people were dying from their suits getting holed but it was coming together. Just 30 hours after the entire endeavour officially started when the scavenger parties left it seemed like the swarm of technicians were putting the last of their finishing touches to the outer hull plating with their last welds and a thick ceramic coating specially designed for application in space using harmonics to keep it stimulated, once those harmonics stopped vibrating through the solution it would take just 3 minutes for it to harden to the point where it was almost as tough as steel and able to withstand extreme temperature fluctuations. While they wanted to install the armour plating now there just wasn't the time since both Admirals Cain and Hudson and Commander Burkett all agreed that they couldn't risk staying in the same place too long.
They had almost 2 hours before both the scouting party and both scavenging parties were due to return from their fishing trips and since the Engineering and Mechanic crews had been on their feet for almost 27 hours they were all given a minimum of two hours rack time with a skeleton crew left over to restart the jump drive and the functional engines on the Therion. Some men and women crawled to their bunks, the rest just lay where they stood.
31/07/55
06:42
Picon
Battlestar Praetoria
Drifting end over end through the chaotic sea of wreckage around her, the Battlestar Praetoria looked like she was dead in the water, but she wasn't, she had never been dead, not quite anyway. With a cascade of flickers and then darkness, the six thrusters of the bruised Battlestar Praetoria coughed once more and then with a sudden burst and a flaring of blue flame the thrusters steadied as they breathed once more and once more started to try to propel the waking Valkyrie Class Battlestar forward and into the fragments of the dock it had once been connected to, however the reverse thrusters mounted towards the bow added their own thrust to the mix while the main thrusters were dialled back causing the Praetoria to reverse away from the wrecked dock. Positioning jets along the small Battlestar started firing in order to steady the Praetoria's drift while 4 Raptors and 6 Vipers hugged space around the wounded ship while remaining in constant communication informing the CIC of nearby wreckage, their positioning, the course they needed to take and any changes that may be required.
Still, steering a ship the size of a Valkyrie Class Battlestar through a dense wreckage strewn battleground – even if the wreckage was thinning out now – was an almighty task where no matter where you went there was some wreckage which would always hit you. Hull plates, girders, bodies, bolts, they all slammed against the hardened skin of this mighty warship as she continued to bully her way onwards towards Dock 12. Even as she moved more of her necessary systems were being brought back to life clear of the virus which had once infected them and with all new in certain respects operating systems. Nothing was going to stop this Battlestar, she had survived the attack on Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage, her survival had been paid in the blood of her crew and she had then gone onto survive the almost complete destruction of the anchorage. I say almost complete.
31/07/55
06:45
Picon
Battlestar Praetoria
CIC
The CIC was utter chaos with more than 2 dozen crewmen struggling to not only deal with the constant course corrections being relayed to them from the guiding Raptors and Vipers but to also reboot those systems that they could and wipe the rest of the systems. Orders were being called from one side of the CIC to the other against regulation, many in the CIC at that very moment weren't versed in operations in a CIC, many were trained to operate in other parts of a Battlestar like Engineering and while their training may be similar to those trained to work in a CIC there were some major differences in how you communicated and one of the things you didn't do was shout overlapping orders about the CIC, but they had no other option.
Flipping a couple of switches and typing on a keyboard, Burn quickly scribbled out a score of numbers while calling out "Ptolemy, whack these in" while tossing the clipboard over to him.
Catching it the Ensign gave his faceplate a wipe and then brought up the programme he needed and started to input the codes before calling back "It's done, 5 seconds".
Burn didn't have to count as right before her eyes a handful of logos started to flash across the previously black screen before settling down and being replaced by a menu. Using the touchscreen, Burn tapped her way through the menus and input a series of commands before turning away from the console and returning to the information management table. Looking up at the monitors, a previously dark monitor came to life as did the one next to it revealing the mesmerising view of a DRADIS display showing everything around the ship within a ten kilometre distance since the system was at its lowest power levels. It was an absolute mess though with thousands of contacts covering the screen and further limiting the range of the DRADIS. "Guys, we have DRADIS" she called out to the men and women in the room, those manning the portable wireless sets relaying instructions from the guiding ships let out a fractured breath, too exhausted to even cheer while the helmsman tapped a code on the console in front of him bringing a feed of the DRADIS up. They weren't out of the woods yet, but they were getting there and with barely 17 kilometres separating them from Dock 12.
Looking about her, Burn asked aloud "Where's Kelli?"
Fiddling with a bunch of cables a knuckledragger looked up saying "He left you in charge a half hour ago…hang on, you haven't heard?" Receiving a blank look he grinned saying "You're not going to believe it…"
Before she could ask what a marine came bursting around the corner and into the CIC before coming to a halt and leaning on the information management table while holding out a sheet of paper. Gasping for more air he handed the paper to Burn saying "New orders direct from Colonel Kelli. You're to make for those coordinates with all haste".
Looking at the sheet of paper, Burn looked up asking "What's going on?"
"The whole group is being redirected there, it's still there…the bitch is still almost intact" the marine had a feral grin plastered to his face behind the helmets faceplate as if he had not only just met the lords for the first time but Athena had seduced him in the process.
Exhausted and exasperated, Burn was getting annoyed at not being told what was going on "What's there? What's intact?" She received an answer this time.
31/07/55
22:20
Rendezvous Point Alpha
Deep space Colonial A-Line Border
This spot in space had been picked almost entirely at random by the scouting mission planners, it was close to the A-line or Armistice Line as it was fully known with a safe 4.2 lightyears separating them in case the Cylons had local sensors able to pick up on a jump drives emissions. This spot was far from any star most notably the stars that made up the Cyrannus system as well as any station be it military or civilian past or present, it was in a word barren or as barren as pretty much anywhere in space can get which was exactly what the mission planners were looking for. Of course they had dozens of locations to choose from and so this place was picked at random just like the fall back rendezvous points were, the location was only known by the pilots of the Stealth Raptors, Admirals Cain and Hudson, Commander Burkett and that was it, not even the Fleet Air Marshal knew its location despite her knowing about the mission. The reason for the secrecy was simple, the Colonials knew that the Cylons now had the ability to look human and there was a strong possibility that there were more in the colonial fleet that they didn't know about, should the Cylons have found out this locations whereabouts then they could deprive the Colonials from all the intel they may have gathered.
Appearing in an ultra-bright distortion of light, a pitch black Stealth Raptor continued forward before her thrusters were cut and after a burst of her forward jets her momentum was cut. The Raptor then sat idle for almost ten minutes before another Raptor appeared and then another until almost half an hour after the first Raptor's appearance all 14 Raptors hung idle in space transmitting the intel they had gathered to each other. All of these Raptors were low on Tylium since they had each made dozens of jumps but they had just enough left to perform another handful if needed. Minutes passed as they waited for their appointed time to leave and meet up with the Wolfpack, they would have jumped straight away if not for the fact that leaving early could endanger the Battlestar Therion. When the appointed time came they each spooled up their engines while increasing their forward thrust and jumped.
31/07/55
22:51
Wolfpack
Battlestar Pegasus
CIC
Admiral Cain stood ramrod straight, her hands behind her back as she watched the slipping seconds on the countdown clock and continually kept one eye on the DRADIS feed. Constantly going around her mind was the question of if they…if she had made a mistake. For all she knew Adama and his fleet were destroyed and hers was the last fleet left and she had risked everything, risked the lives of almost a thousand personnel on not just one but three deadly gambles in the scouting mission and two recovery missions. She knew that if she lost them then not only would she have lost valuable personnel and the Raptors and transports they took (which was pretty much every one the fleet had left) but she would lose something a lot more important, the initiative. Her only successes in this war she knew, could only be on her terms. But while she was fighting through this internal wall of doubt which if she took a step back she would see was being fuelled by the doubts which Gina had left her with, she still put on a stony, armour clad exterior to those around her. They would not know just how conflicted their Admiral was, they would not know because she would not let them, she would not betray her feelings to anyone, not again.
Walking over to her from the communications console with a stack of reports under his arm and a metal mug of coffee in his right hand, Colonel Belsen placed the reports on the information management table saying "The fleet stands ready, Admiral. Commander Burkett reports that he's still down three engines but the rest are now fully powered and all jumpdrives are spooled and all ships are in position".
Nodding, Cain saw on the DRADIS monitor how the three Battlestars had arrayed themselves into an equilateral triangle formation with their starboard flightpods facing outwards with a radius of 8 kilometres. At the centre of this formation stood the handful of civilian ships which Admiral Hudson had convinced to keep with them to be stripped of tylium and parts as needed. With this formation the Wolfpack was in an almost perfect defensive formation if the Cylons showed up since they could project walls of fire outwards on all sides as well as cover each other and the civilian ships on their port sides.
Double-checking the clock, Cain announced "XO, set condition one throughout the fleet and hold Vipers in the launch tubes".
"Condition one, aye sir", picking up phone, Belsen keyed it to fleetwide and ordered "Attention, set condition one throughout the fleet, I repeat set condition one throughout the fleet". Before he turned to Colonel Fisk ordering "Have all Vipers manned and ready but hold in the tubes".
The orders rapidly spread throughout the Wolfpack with tired personnel rushing to their necessary positions yet within the halls and barracks of the Pegasus and Arion thousands of Civilians trembled with fear at the thought of the fleet being under attack and some even screamed as emergency bulkheads were sealed into place as per safety regulations during a condition one scenario to prevent against decompression.
With five seconds left on the clock and a hush descending over the room, Cain kept her breathing steady and saw the DRADIS monitors flare with a host of new contacts.
"Contact...reading multiple DRADIS contacts on 287 karom 312 CBDR…Contacts read as colonial Raptors…it's ghost squadron" Colonel Fisk called out.
Before she even had a chance to ask, Lieutenant Hoshi announced "Codes are verified, sir. I have Captain Chen on the line".
Picking up the handset, Cain answered "Pegasus Actual…"
"Actual, be advised mission was a success. Our nets are full" Captain Chen reported.
Smiling, Cain let her smile seep into her voice as she replied "Good work, the barns are open Captain, I want you divided among the fleet".
"Roger that, sir. Ghost Lead out".
Placing the handset back in its holster, Cain watched as the clock was now over the mark and counting upwards. Almost a minute had passed with Ghost Squadron just starting to land on the three Battlestars before an alarm started blaring again announcing the arrival of a new set of contacts which Colonel Belsen announced as being verified as Scorpia flight albeit with a lot more Raptors and Transports than they had went out with.
Lieutenant Hoshi started to inform the Admiral "Sir, Colonel Hudson reports 52 wounded, 33 KIA but they've picked up almost 200 survivors as well as various requested items including category one stockpiles. They're requesting landing permission".
Nodding, Cain replied "Granted, I want them stowed as fast as humanly possible".
While Hoshi was relaying the order, Belsen patted Cain on the back saying "Just one more then".
Looking him in the eye, Cain replied with steel in her voice "Just one more if the Cylons haven't shown up".
Taking a sip of his coffee, Belsen said "There is that".
The seconds ticked by to be replaced by minutes. An eternity seemed to last since the time when all squadrons were supposed to return. First five minutes, then ten. Tensions were running high in the CIC, whispers going back and forth faster than bullets and their messages being far deadlier as hope was slipping away from these men and women.
Once they hit the fifteen minute mark, Cain knew they had been lost and if they hadn't she couldn't risk it "XO, ready the fleet for jump in…"
"DRADIS CONTACTS!" Lieutenant Shaw called out at the same time as the alarm started blaring "MULTIPLE DRADIS CONTACTS! Bearing 346 Karom 297 holding position at range 84km. Reading…Reading one unknown Valkyrie Class Battlestar…"
"Roger that, there's no transponder signal" Hoshi called out.
Shaw just kept on going "…also reading Picon Flight augmented with 9 transports various small classes, 6 Raptors and…I'm reading the Battlestation Orca", Shaw looked up at the Admiral as if she was mad for saying that.
Cain by this time was leaning on the information management table and already ordering "Mr Hoshi, get me Colonel Kelli, XO get me all information on the Orca and find out what Battlestar that is. Colonel Fisk set the Valkyrie as target designation Alpha and have the Arion train all guns on it". The last thing Cain wanted was a trap and right now that's exactly what this was looking like, never in her wildest dreams could she imagine that the recovery mission to Picon would result in them discovering another Battlestar to have survived the war so far let alone a Battlestation if that's what it was but the Orca was ringing a bell in her head, she just couldn't remember where from.
"Sir, I have Colonel Kelli on the line" Hoshi called out.
Picking up the handset, Cain said "Colonel Kelli, Pegasus Actual. You are ordered to remain at present location with all weapons powered down under risk of being shot at. Am I understood?"
There was a shaking on the line before Kelli replied "Yes sir, I understand. The weapons systems on both the Praetoria and the Orca have already been deactivated. We will maintain our present position".
As soon as Kelli mentioned the name Praetoria, an ensign realising the Admiral likely wanted all intel on that ship, quickly brought up on a display the most recent data while the XO brought over a handful of printouts on the Orca and set them out in front of Cain who was now looking at the Praetoria data. "Colonel, put Commander Lyle on the line".
"I…I can't sir. He's…he's dead".
Looking further down the data, Cain said "Then Colonel Grayson".
"He's dead too sir…they all are. The Praetoria was hit with the cylon virus, it opened all the airlocks and activated the fire suppression systems".
The admission seemed to hit Cain as she looked up from reading the first of the intel on the Orca. "Understood…wait one". Looking up at Belsen, Cain mouthed "a mobile dock?" The data in front of her referred to the Battlestation Orca having been incorporated into the superstructure of the Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage as Docks 15 and 16 almost 30 years ago. The Orca was one of only three mobile docks of its class produced with the other two having been the Nemea which was previously located over Leonis but was now reported as being possibly with Admiral Adama, and the Twins which was originally in orbit of Gemenon but was moved to Virgon 20 years ago but had since been scrapped in defence cutbacks.
This seemed way too good to be true, but she had to know for sure that it wasn't a trap "Colonel Kelli, be informed that I am sending over marine fireteams to verify that you are who you say you are. Make no move to interfere with them. Am I understood?"
"Yes sir, perfectly understood".
"Jack, get me ten marine fireteams in Raptors on the deck right now. Inform them that they are to secure the CICs of both the Orca and the Praetoria and verify that the crews aren't Cylon. They have fifteen minutes, if all is clear then we all jump in twenty".
While Colonel Fisk got to work dispatching the orders, Belsen muttered to Cain "If this all works out then I'd say the prize for the biggest catch goes to Kelli", Cain couldn't help but smile at that remark.
31/07/55
23:42
Battlestar Arion
CIC
Admiral Hudson could barely believe what he was not only seeing but hearing as the marine fireteams reported over the wireless from the Battlestar Praetoria and the Battlestation Orca their findings "…no cylon contacts, I repeat we have found no cylon contacts". A round of cheers was reverberating throughout his ship as crewmembers learnt the truth of what lay outside the hull of the Arion, if ever anything was faster than an ftl jump it would be news like this, but the only thing faster than good news was the bad "We have found no living Praetoria crewmen, Colonel Kelli reports that the Cylon Virus shutdown lifesupport and emptied the ship of air. Everyone's dead".
Picking up the wireless handset as soon as he heard this last, Admiral Hudson keyed into the frequency saying "Arion Actual. Recommend you begin immediate shutdown of the Praetoria until we have cleared their networks, Admiral".
Colonel Kelli came on the line before Admiral Cain had a chance to reply saying "Negative sir. We have already separated the networks, wiped the virus from essential systems and rebooted with old clean software. Lieutenant Hudson recommends that a network specialist double check all networks before they are fully powered up, fire control and long range comms have been totally shutdown for the safety of the fleet".
"Will you be ready to execute a jump within ten minutes?" Admiral Cain asked.
It was a moment before Kelli replied "The Praetoria will be sir, she's in near perfect condition, the only damage is to her forward armour belt and networks. However the Orca has taken significant damage and is currently operating with one jumpdrive, it's going to be another 20 minutes before she is ready to jump".
Pulling up the intel on the Nemean class mobile drydocks in order to refresh his knowledge of them, Hudson asked "How damaged is the Orca?".
After a few moments, Kelli replied "Significant damage to starboard dock with a full hull breach and high traces of radiation along the existing armour, losses of two of the six tylium tanks, significant damage to the number two jumpdrive and loss of a third of its coils with possible damage to its coolant tanks, permanent damage to the number three drive, shutdown of the number four drive due to sudden and extreme variance in its thrust, partial damage to portside armour belt as well as numerous small hull breaches. The Orca doesn't have…"
"Doesn't have central networks or the CNP, we're still going to need a network analyst going over every inch of the systems that were connected to the rest of the anchorage. Any damage to the portside dock?"
"Limited damage to dock functions we believe, we haven't had a chance to go over it yet, however we have numerous hull breaches on that side but the starboard side of the station must have been facing the Anchorage when it went up. You may be interested to know that we have also picked up large numbers of fleet and civilian survivors primarily from the Orca and Dock 12 but are going to need assistance".
"How significant and what assistance?" Admiral Cain asked.
"Approximately 500 fleet personnel, 300 contractors and almost a hundred civilians. The majority of them are trapped within the Orca unable to leave their compartments due to hull breaches".
"Admiral Hudson, are you or are any of your crew familiar with the Orca?" Cain asked.
"I am familiar with her class sir, as is a handful of my crew".
"Very well, I want you to work with Colonel Kelli on figuring out what the Orca needs to get back up and running, I need both jumpdrives working if at all possible. Cain out".
01/08/55
00:30
Deep Space
Helga Sector
Battlestar Pegasus
War Room
Barely two hours had passed since the return of the search party and recovery teams during which time significant manpower had been diverted to the Orca at the expense of on-going repairs to the Battlestar Therion with the focus being on patching up the holes in order to free those trapped on her, many of whom were contractors, engineers and knuckledraggers able to further increase the speed of repairs once they were freed. However due to the fact that the personnel which had been involved in the search and recovery missions had went more than 32 hours without sleep, it was primarily those who had stayed behind taking charge.
The Orca had taken highly significant damage at Picon, her class was designed to have two side by side fully enclosed docks accessible from the bow with the habitable section of the station where all the living quarters, factories, maintenance areas, cargo holds and engines being towards the rear. Originally designed to exist only on its own as a dock, the Orca had long ago been integrated into Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage just as Nemea had eventually become a larger dock over Leonis with gantries and static docks added over time. By integrating the dock to the rest of the Anchorage, costs were saved in the transport of materials and the status of the Anchorage was improved a lot faster than just building two new docks, however her jumpdrives were always left in place just in case the worst happened and a mobile dock was needed in the field.
With Admiral Hudson, Commander Burkett, Colonel Hudson, Colonel Belsen, Colonel Kelli and Captain Chen stood around a large under lit table, Cain got to work "Gentlemen, lady thank you all for coming at such short notice, I understand that we are all exhausted so I will keep this brief. It appears that we were right to send out the recovery teams, the Cylons got sloppy when they hit our shipyards, they got sloppy at Picon, the evidence of that is right out there to see. I wanted the recovery of as many nuclear missiles and ordnance as we could get. Granted, I didn't think it would be much, but even double our current inventories would have been worth it. Instead we now have enough nuclear missiles to completely hit almost all of the twelve colonies as well as having enough ammunition and ordnance to conduct between 3 and 5 years of warfare. We were short on Vipers and we now have more than 300 replacements as well as a further 100 Raptors and more transports than we can accommodate. We had limited ships and now we have another Battlestar in a better condition than the Therion. We had no safe ground and now we have the Orca. We had no idea where the Toasters were located and now thanks to Captain Chen and the rest of Ghost Squadron we know the location of possibly every one of their colonies. We had no hope and now…now the roles have been reversed" smiles were going round the room as each held a small glass of brandy.
"In 48 hours once we have dealt with the worst of the repairs, manned the Praetoria and rested, we will be launching a series of consecutive attacks on as many of the Cylon homeworlds as we can possibly hit. We are going to show those metal bastards that while we may be down we are not out, that we can hit harder, we can hit faster and we can hit further than they can possibly compute. We are the Colonial Fleet and I say that if we are going to go down then we are going to go down with style. We will go down swinging in such a way that the Cylons will follow soon afterwards. But we are not going down, we have went as low as we will go. The Cylons think they know war, they think they can just bombard our planets and that's it, the wars over. The war was not over 40 years ago and I'll be damned if it's over until every last godsdamn toaster is on the slagheap. We will show them a war of epic proportions, we will show them hell. In 48 hours people…in 48 hours we will have our revenge. So say we all".
"SO SAY WE ALL!"
01/08/55
02:14
Battlestar Arion
With exhaustion seeping throughout his skin and his head and feet feeling like lead, Sergeant Bastogne just wanted to crawl up in his bunk and sleep throughout the rest of the war. Still, he had taken the last hour to get a good couple of pints with his fellow marines in order to celebrate the successful op they had just been part of but he had also made a prior promise to Ensign Abigail Turner to meet up with her before he turned in for the night. For the past 3 weeks they had been involved in a steamy relationship which had involved them fracking pretty much everywhere on the ship with the craziest being the XO's own quarters when Bastogne was meant to be on guard duty outside.
Turning a corner, the almost seven feet Sergeant came face to face with Abigail. To say he dwarfed her 5 feet of height was an understatement but he had to admit that he had gotten exceedingly lucky when he had scored with her. With raven black hair tied in a ponytail, a tight ass and the most perfect breasts he had ever seen it was her beauty which pulled him in and just when he thought he had enough of her the wild child in her would come out to play. As soon as she saw him, Abigail rushed over and pulled him down to her, Her fingers clawing across his neck as she kissed him deeply while he pushed them both further back into the dark alcove.
They were so caught up in their passion for each other, with Bastogne trying to pull up her shirts while she was struggling to undo his belt that they were unaware of their surroundings, unaware that they were being watched. They were unaware right up until the point when a short sword crushed through Bastogne's skull and into the skull of his lover, their bodies shuddering as if in orgasmic relief on the blade before with a disgusting "shwick" the blade was pulled out and the two lovers collapsed on top of each other with all life leaving them. The murderer then bent down and removed Bastogne's weapon and spare ammunition before then removing both his and Alice's ID cards before then returning to the air duct.
Pulling the panel back into place a face of a Three was revealed before she turned and continued deep into the Battlestar.
Well that's it for now, I hoped you liked it. This has been by far my longest chapter in anything due to it covering four separate areas and ideally would have been two chapters but I just couldn't find the spot where I could place the cut off. The next chapter which I will try to get up soon and should be nowhere near 27,000 words long will be called Vengeance and will cover some spots I originally had planned for this chapter as well as round two of the war.
As you no doubt noticed I am going to be bringing in an elderly Coker Fasjovic in this story and may or may not have him as commander of the Battlestar Praetoria. As to any questions as to how the scavengers could stay in suits for so long, I decided not to include the rather boring act of them replacing oxygen bottles and peeing and eating only aboard Raptors and Transports and while it may seem impossible for so much to have survived at Picon and Scorpia, please remember that the Acheron was reasonably intact and had many parts which could have been salvageable. Granted I have messed around with the physics a lot but TV does that all the time.
For those of you familiar with the BSG comics, yes that three at the end was Teresa Manning, I couldn't include ghost squadron and not include her, as to how she is on board the Arion it does have civilians now.
And lastly, all reviews are appreciated whether they be good or bad.