Battlestar Galactica: Wolfpack

by Phoenix4416

Part of the New Beginnings and Lions of Leonis. The Battlestar Pegasus and her small fleet of Battlestars, having escaped destruction at the hands of the Cylons during the Fall, must find a way not only to survive but to fight back. This isn't just about survival, it's about revenge. Also a crossover with the BSG Ghosts comics and Blood and Chrome. Next chapter up by 08/07/15.

4. Chapter 4 Operation Warhammer Part One

Battlestar Galactica: Wolfpack

Chapter 4: Operation Warhammer Part One

"The servants of the one true God lifted to heaven in a grand Apotheosis" – Sister Clarice WIllow

Preamble

Hi, sorry for the wait for this one guys and gals, I started university in September and have been busy a lot with that, work and archery. This chapter is different to what I have wrote previously in that I am going to be covering a lot of ground across Operation Warhammer. As such there will be multiple perspectives of the same battleground only in different areas. Timing is also key in this chapter which is why – for this chapter only – I will be adding seconds to the times prefacing each perspective. Anyway, enjoy.

Previously

"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!" Rear Admiral Cain, Battlestar Pegasus

Pulling the panel back into place a face of a Three was revealed before she turned and continued deep into the Battlestar. – Teresa Manning, a Three on board the Battlestar Arion

Dozil held out the star chart with his thumb pressed to a single star so that they could see the star he meant as with agony and relief prevalent in his voice, choked out "This…Cylon Capital…its Willow." – Lieutenant Dozil Pennit, a Two held prisoner on board the Battlestar Therion

"Normally I would see this as a ripe target, something easy but high value. But looking at it and with Colonel Hudson's reasoning it seems too easy. However we can't risk letting this target go due to the fact that it may be even more important to the Cylons than we realise…" – Rear Admiral Cain on Cylon Communications Satellite

8 hours after the initiation of Operation Warhammer

"Commander I was told you wanted to see me" Rear Admiral Cain announced to Commander Sallis as she stepped onto the deck of the Mobile Shipyard Orca. Around them dozens of Raptors which should have been undergoing immediate repairs were instead being left in their alcoves with only a handful of deck hands visible in the hangar. Normally it wouldn't be like this but with the current state of the Orca all able bodied personnel were required to repair this almighty construct.

Saluting as Cain approached her, Sallis replied "Yes sir, I'm afraid it couldn't wait. If you would follow me", Sallis didn't wait for an answer as she turned and led Cain out of the hangar and into the main body of the shipyard.

Struggling to keep up with the younger woman as they squeezed past dozens of marines and crewmembers, Cain asked "What's this about Commander?"

Answering over her shoulder, Commander Sallis said "During the operation to free the prisoners, the marines came across a certain prisoner and were able to recover them as well as records on them. We've since cross referenced those records with our own mainframe and run a preliminary blood test and…well, see for yourself Admiral." Turning a corner and into one of the life stations which was the size of a full ward in any Colonial hospital, Sallis led Cain to a separate room which was guarded by a marine. Opening the door, Sallis showed Helena through and handed her a clipboard as Cain set eyes upon the woman sat on the bed being tended to by a medic. As she looked down on the woman, Cain realised she recognised that face despite how different she looked. With shock etching its way into her own features, Cain looked down on the clipboard seeing the name written there and the results of the blood test before quickly looking back up at this woman struggling to speak.

Looking at her, the woman sat on the bed – a woman so much like Cain – spoke two words "Hello Helena…"

8 Hours previously

The start of Operation Warhammer

03/08/55

08:00

Colonial Space

Cylon Relay Satellite Epsilon

Baring similar sleek characteristics to a modern Cylon Basestar the relay satellite that the Cylons had left relatively unguarded in the Cyrannus Star Cluster was beautiful in its own way. Unlike the Colonial relays which had a great deal of function over form due to the fact that the Colonials had had thousands of them mass produced in order to better cover as much of their realm as possible, this had meant that the Colonials relays had been bulky, blocky structures designed to last as long as possible without replacement. The Cylon relays were totally different, granted they were far in advance of the Colonials relay satellites in that they possessed a highly limited form of ftl communications between the hybrids placed aboard them and on nearby Basestars, but they lacked any significant defences and their armour, well lets just say that it wasn't even as strong as a Basestars. The Cylons had long since held themselves above the Colonials but they had fallen into a trap that many do when they believe they have power, they grew complacent and vain. If they had retained their true machine heritage then they would have made their ships and relays far stronger and would have better armed them.

However that was of no concern with this, the only relay so far deployed in Colonial space, this relay was merely the lure for the Colonial Fleet under Acting Fleet Admiral Helena Cain. The Cylons needed to bring her out into the open in order to stop her before she became a threat and the best way they saw to do this was by presenting a tempting target which was why the Relay was operating at full power putting out hundreds of signals across Colonial Space to non-existent Basestars and had a patrol of merely one squadron of Raiders. 10 Lightyears away tough lay another 25 squadrons of Raiders and 10 Basestars ready to jump in the moment Admiral Cain showed up. What was more they suspected that she had already sent a scouting mission to check out the relay due to the fact that a Raider had picked up very faint jump emissions. All that was left to the Cylons was to wait until Rear Admiral Cain launched her attack, they just couldn't realise in what form that attack would come.

Appearing in two sterilising bright flashes of light merely 1km from the relay and on opposite sides of it and travelling at full thrust, it seemed as if the two blocky, partially damaged Assault Raptors were being piloted by a couple of Rookies as they started performing multiple evasive manoeuvres as they closed on the satellite, manoeuvres which had been pre-programmed into them by Captain Chen and Colonel Hudson. Raiders spun on their axis and started to rapidly accelerate towards them while one Raider jumped out and to the waiting forces in order to summon them here. Within less than two seconds of the unmanned Raptors arrival, the Hybrid which was in charge of the relay detected hot nuclear missiles as the assault packages loaded on the Raptors activated before half of them launched, all the while the two Raptors were closing the distance to within 75 metres of the relay.

Within 3 seconds of their arrival, three Raiders had closed to within 90 metres of Raptor 313 and started laying down three constant streams of bullets into it shattering the engines and destroying the ship even as more Raiders started to take out the launched missiles, Raptor 208 on the other hand was out of reach of the closest Raiders even as the first of the nuclear missiles struck against the hull of the relay, yet there was little more than minor Tylium explosions as they exploded. Slamming against the satellite at full power, the canopy and central section of the Raptor seemed to crumple in on itself before, with a series of almighty flashes, the nuclear missiles which had both been launched and kept in their tubes exploded as their timers ran out. It seemed as if the entire hull of the satellite seemed to ripple even as those bright white flashes flooded space around them and as if in slow motion the satellite seemed to implode before bursting apart in a white ball of gas and shrapnel which shredded apart space around it at the same time that the surviving Raiders were jumping out. Within 8.3 seconds of the initiation of Operation Warhammer, the Cylons had suffered their first casualties.

03/08/55

08:00:01

Cylon Space

Orbit of Pollonus (Cylon name for POW camp world)

Task Force Liberty

Stealth Viper 01 (Captain Chen – Ghost Lead)

A jump is not instantaneous. It's a common misconception that it is, but the truth is that once a ship has been totally encapsulated by its jump's event horizon it enters into subspace for the briefest, most imperceptible of moments before being deposited at its target location. That moment of time is constant no matter how long the jump is. That constant is 0.31082 seconds. And for that briefest moment of time, all known science seems to break down it seems as whatever is being transported both seizes to exist and exists everywhere. It's something which no jump drive engineer has ever been able to prove, not even its creator, but is a well held theory among Colonial scientists, chief among them being the Colonial Quantum Theorists. That moment is called the anomaly, we know it as Quantum Entanglement.

With the jump washing over him, Chen wished that he could speed his mind and body to such a point at which he could actually feel what happens in a jump. What would it feel like? Could he see the totality of the universe in that single moment? Would he die only to be copied and printed off at his target location? It was torture to try to answer these questions, but as Chen appeared just seven thousand kilometres away from Target 01 (a Catapult-2 Class Orbital Defence Platform), these questions kept Chen sane and in the moment. A moment between life and death itself.

When you are heading into battle, this is the only moment you have left.

Applying a burst of thrust on a starboard vector as soon as he exited the jump, and with the emergence point's radiation flooding the area around him, Chen was well out of the line of fire of the satellite which almost immediately recognised the emergence point. The Catapult-2 class was a solid design, virtually unchanged since its conception by Virgonese engineers just a few years prior to the start of the Cylon rebellion. With its networked systems running far in excess of what current Colonial designs could offer, the power up time of all tactical systems was less than three seconds. There was one downside to the platform over current Colonial designs in that the Cylons had failed to upgrade any of its instrumentation in more than twenty years which meant that its sensors weren't the best. This meant that the defence platform had limited information with which to assess any threats which appeared.

Upon discovery of the emergence point, the satellite opened up on the epicentre with a blanket bombardment of artillery and flak fire as its sensors and DRADIS scanned the immediate vicinity and a burst transmission was sent both groundside to the Cylon Headquarters on the ground below and to the orbiting defence platforms putting them into a high state of alert.

Skirting the edge of the area currently being blanketed and with power emmissions running at the lowest they could possibly go without a complete shutdown, Chen entered in the new jump coordinates and allowed his inertia to carry him forward towards the defence platform. Looking out of the canopy he could really appreciate just what had went into the platform's construction; at a kilometre in diameter, the sphere was bristling with point defences, missile batteries and heavy artillery. Spikes twenty metres high dotted its surface allowing for the safe extraction of built up heat which, when the platform was running at full power which it was now having to do, was crucial. Armour which plated it was a metre thick, however in comparison to a Battlestar's armour was not quite up to par, yet this could still handle more than a couple of nukes. The Catapult-2 design was almost perfect for defending against Colonial incursions, almost. She had few weaknesses which the fleet could exploit and only one of those could be exploited by a single fighter; her fueling point.

Like pretty much every ship in the Colonial arsenal apart from the few sublight, nuclear powered ships, the Catapult-2 class defence platform was reliant on a steady supply of Tylium in order to fuel her. It was this weakness which Chen was seeking to exploit.

Manoeuvring with gas propelled thrusters alone, Chen coasted his Stealth Viper around the vast construct to the one weak point he could use. Angling the Viper's nose to the satellite, he manually targeted the armour plated cap to the fuel line before opening his missile bay doors. This action left Chen vulnerable since it meant the sensors on board the platform could now see him, but it was already too late. Chen was too close for the defensive weapons to touch him. Arming a timed fifty kiloton nuclear missile and a conventional ship to ship missile, Chen first fired the conventional missile at a point just on the rim of the armoured cap before a second later firing the nuclear missile towards the centre of the cap. With the missiles on their way he initiated a full systems power up and jumped before the blast wave could hit him. His one hope was for it to work, because if it didn't; well, then the entire operation here would be doomed.

08:00:01

Pollonus

Kadare (Cylon Military Base – Population: 1 Hybrid, 89 Humanoid Cylons, 300 Modern Centurions, 122 Various Cylons, 42 Raiders, 14 Heavy Raiders, 3 Transports)

Task Force Liberty

Stealth Viper 06 (Colonel Lucy Hudson – Argos Lead)

Appearing in a burst of jump radiation forcing apart the air molecules around the craft in order to accommodate its form, Stealth Viper 06, piloted by Colonel Lucy Hudson dropped fifty feet in almost two seconds before the fall was attested by the craft's engines. 2km below the craft lay one of a handful of military bases dotting the planet, this one being the closest to the likely POW camp which Task Force Liberty was hoping to liberate.

Pointing the Viper's nose to the military complex below her and double checking that her only wingmate (Kyoto) in this part of the mission was with her, Lucy finally got to see what a Cylon Military base looked like in the flesh. Spread over 2 square kilometres, 8 blocky concrete buildings and 4 large hangars were built around a large double airstrip. On one of the airstrips sat an idling transport a kilometre long which was currently in the process of taking on a hundred Centurions and military equipment for transportation to the battlegrounds on Leonis. Within the 2 square kilometre base sat 20 evenly spaced AA batteries, 8 short to mid-range missile batteries and 4 long-range nuclear missile silos parallel to the airstrips, affording the most covering fire from the AA defences. Around the base, stood a two metre thick, twenty foot high concrete wall supplemented by a minefield and 40 sentry towers. It was clear that any attempt to take the base by the ground would be costly in lives as would a conventional attempt from the air.

However, the Stealth Viper was not a conventional ship.

Defying the DRADIS which was the first line of defence which the AA and missile batteries possessed, the two Stealth Vipers accelerated hard for the centre of the military base. Within a second of their arrival, the detection systems for jump radiation had the base's defences actively scanning the air around them while the base started to go to full alert. With the g forces racking up, Lucy opened her missiles bay doors and armed her payload of two 10 kiloton nuclear missiles while loading her next jump point pre-plotted jump coordinates and spooling the jump drive for an immediate jump.

While the base's DRADIS was unable to spot the two Stealth Vipers, optical sensors were. 3.2 seconds after their arrival, 2 AA batteries spotted the black craft against the blue sky and with no Cylon transponders detected on board and their profile not in the database as a Cylon craft, they alerted the rest of the base's anti-aircraft defences in order to coordinate their attack. Defensive fire from these two batteries started almost immediately before being quickly joined by more.

Jinking out of the way of the first of the incoming fire, and with the missile bay doors now fully open which was messing with the craft's agility, Lucy and Kyoto continued to press forward under ever increasing flack fire to 1km of altitude. By now the buffeting of AA clouded shrapnel was tightening down on the two craft, any closer would mean almost certain death, but their objective had been reached. With a smile on her face, Lucy fired the two missiles which burst forth from the craft before both she and Kyoto jumped. The two missiles went on separate trajectories; one 10kt missile veering 300 metres south and the other going 300 metres north. Under withering fire from the quickly redirecting flak around them, the outer casings of these missiles were dented and scorched, one missile's thruster failing as it was crumpled under an almost direct hit by AA fire sending it tumbling end over end slightly off course to the South East. This, however, didn't matter, these nukes were on a timer and the payload themselves was incredibly well protected against flak fire.

2.3 seconds after Lucy and Kyoto left the scene, the nuclear missiles detonated. Intense radiation sped out in overlapping spheres at the speed of light and the flash blinded even the hardened systems of the Cylon Centurions. Barely even having time to fully understand they were under attack, the humanoid Cylons were instantly forced into resurrection by the intense bands of radiation. The shockwaves from both nukes burst through the ground crushing against the sides of the nuclear missile silos from two sides, the pressure cracking through the hardened protective shell and collapsing in on the concealed missiles. As the air burned, two vast walls of flames spread out from the two target sites, colliding against one another, the flames built up and forced the very air to ignite before the flames rebounded and the destruction continued. All around the target zones, buildings, hangars, ships and defences were torn apart by the overlapping shockwaves and then melted and burnt to radiated cinders and rubble by the walls of fire. The mushroom clouds acted as if they didn't know what to do until they quickly blended into one obscenely shaped cloud when seen from afar. High above in the realms of space more bright flashes were lighting up the sky like miniature suns as the orbital defences were hit. And at the few other military bases across Pollonus destruction continued anew as more Stealth Vipers and Assault Raptors made their first move in this theatre.

There was no doubt in the minds of the Cylons, the Colonials had arrived.

08:00:03

Pollonus

Camp Asphodel

Task Force Liberty

Raptor Ultra 04 – Corporal Seth Hudson

"All ships; break, break, break…" Clenching tight hold of the overhead webbing, Seth felt his stomach lurch as he was jolted into the marines surrounding him, the transition from the jump into Pollunus' atmosphere and gravity well still washing over him as orders were rapidly passed over the wireless. "Fire when ready…all ships have transitioned."

Outside the cramped fuselage the 15 Assault Raptors, 9 Raptor Ultras and 6 Stealth Vipers which were just the first wave of this assault – while struggling to maintain what little altitude they had at barely 200 metres – turned onto trajectories which would allow them to target the Cylon anti-aircraft batteries surrounding the prison camp. Already some of these batteries were moving to open fire upon the colonial ships surrounding them and it was becoming a race against time between the Colonials and Cylons as to who would score the first kills. Many of the Colonial ships, thanks to having an almost accurate jump point were able to open fire with their conventional missiles before the Cylons fired, nevertheless it takes time for the missiles to travel to their targets and in that little time some of the batteries had managed to fire in kind. Struggling against the air and gravity the various ships fought to get clear as the Cylon missiles closed on them, but some weren't so lucky as there was no way they could avoid the flak fire delivered against them. Chaff and flares were dropped and jamming equipment was used to its full extent, some worked, some didn't.

Those within the camp could only look up in a mixture of awe and terror as explosions littered the sky surrounding the camp as 4 Raptors were hit and more than 2 dozen missiles were cut down at the same time that most of the Cylon AA emplacements went up in plumes of burning shrapnel. Most of the prisoners simply stood there as the two Raptors which weren't outright destroyed crashed, one of those being within the prison walls but the other hitting dirt just outside but well within the minefield. In rapid succession mine after mine went off surrounding the Raptor, the explosions crumpling the fuselage and bursting the Tylium tanks until it was little more than a cracked burnt out shell of itself. A wave of calm settled over the camp for an almost imperceptible second.

Then Panic ensued.

Prisoners it seemed ran amuck, while above the various ships moved to new targets. Cylons in watchtowers opening up with their wrist mounted weapons and missile launchers on any ship which came within range using predictive algorithms to plot their paths, but this was to little effect for one reason; Ghost Squadron. The various surviving pilots and marines of Ghost Squadron were the chief architects of this assault. When it came to marine insertions they were the masters of chaos, not even Argos came close. You want mastery of space and air combat then you turn to Argos, Ground and Air combat though was Ghost Squadron's specialty. Using this to their advantage the various ships seemed to be travelling on chaotic trajectories, many of which seemed to be bringing them into collisions only to avert at the last second.

Raptor Ultra-04 avoided one such collision with a Stealth Viper which used the churned up air from the Raptor to turn its nose ground-ward and throw off a missile which had been gaining on it. With this new angle the Viper opened fire on the minefield surrounding the camp with its KEWs and launched two missiles on a shallow enough angle to skip over the ground leaving a cascade of explosions behind them. Meanwhile, Raptor Ultra-04, which had also been thrown onto a new trajectory with its nose angled upwards and seemingly crashing, used its momentum and expelled a continuous burst of thrust from its thrusters into the sand less than 20 metres below it. Mine after mine were cooked off by the intense jets while a substantial trench of cracked glass was left in its wake. Travelling thirty odd feet in a second the Raptor Ultra forced its way through the tall chainlink fence surrounding the camp just avoiding a head on collision with an assault Raptor which subsequently halted above the newly made trench dropping off marine mortar crew and snipers within the trench before moving on. Around and within the camp, more Raptors, Raptor Ultras and Stealth Vipers were performing similar actions using their backwash to furrow the sand into trenches.

"Open the hatches and drop the packages" the pilot of Raptor Ultra 04 shouted back to the marines, his voice almost lost in the ensuing battle mixed with the roar of the taxed engines.

Fighting down the urge to throw up at the rapid-fire manoeuvre they had just been involved in and feeling like his right arm had been wrenched from its socket, Seth was assaulted by the sand blasting, smoke-filled heat of Pollonus as the hatches on both sides of him were opened. Powerful hydraulics kept them from tearing off as the marines directly in front of the hatches started dropping bulky black holdall after bulky black holdall into the camp below them.

The newly arrived (within last week) prisoners below them saw this action – an action repeated by other Raptor Ultras and Raptors – for what it was as they sprinted towards the bags against the fire of sentried Centurions. Prisoners went down in withering waves of fire from those Centurions in range, yet on the whole this was to little effect as a herd mentality overtook the prisoners as they saw the potential for liberation within their grasp. Reaching the large bags, the leading prisoners tore open the zips revealing a treasure trove of assault rifles and handguns with loosely taped spare clips taped onto them which they started handing out to the flocking prisoners, many of whom were recently captured Fleet personnel and so were more inclined and better trained to fight for their freedom. As hundreds of Prisoners were thusly armed, the key to any success with the liberation was revealed; an army hidden in plain sight. Reaching further into the bag, one of the recent arrivals, a pilot of the ill-fated Battlestar Scimitar, took out a wireless set and was patched through to a controller on one of the Raptors. It's all well and good having an army hidden in plain sight, but it's only a rabble without at least some semblance of coordination, communication gave them that.

"Touchdown in 3, frak, inbound missile! Go, go, go." All at once it seemed like the marine sergeant started throwing out the marines as the pilot quickly shouted out instructions.

Thrown out of rapidly rising Raptor Ultra by the burly marine sergeant, Seth felt like an eternity passed as he fell the fifteen feet to the ground below before crashing back-first into the packed sand below him. Looking up as he caught his breath with adrenaline coursing through his body slowing down his perception of time, Seth caught rapidly fired decoys drawing one missile off course while another burst into deadly smoke filled shrapnel as it collided with a cloud of chaff. Marines continued jumping from the seemingly doomed Raptor Ultra right up until a missed missile collided with the portside engine in a violent explosion. Sent into a chaotic spin with the starboard engine the only one still firing, the Raptor Ultra twisted in the air with flames engulfing the tail and armour peeling off. Still, the pilot was able to wrestle back some control, the Raptor Ultra was designed to take the hit, but it couldn't take the next one as a missile struck the canopy. Burning marines catapulted from her like flies just before the transport collided with a steel and concrete dormitory at the edge of the vast courtyard, the collision collapsing an entire wall.

Raptors continued to stream above him, many deploying their contents of marines and deployable AA batteries, Stealth Vipers and Assault Raptors continuing in their attack runs on watchtowers and Centurion alike. The sound of gunfire, explosions and death permeated the air, and far, far above in the blue sky, expanding coronas filled the heavens as the radiation from long detonated nukes hit the atmosphere and then came the Kobolquakes. Quake after overlapping quake shook the sand beneath him, the epicentre far removed from him as to have little damage at this distance but whose cause was clear; nuclear detonations.

Seth was quite content to just lie there allowing the world to burn and the battle to pass him by, with burning hot sand licking at his face. For the first time since the Cylon Centurions stormed the Battlestar Atlantia, he was at peace. It was so easy, like being infused with the strongest Kamala. It was so wrong.

Striding into his vision with little thought to the rounds peppering the air around him, and like a God on the Battlefield, a Staff Sergeant nudged Seth with a booted foot while casually opening fire on a distant Centurion. Turning to Seth, he spoke, the words losing their meaning in Seth's drug-like state. Seeing incomprehension, the Staff Sergeant knelt down and casually clamped his hand over Seth's mouth and nose. Unable to breathe, Seth's body took over and he suddenly crashed down from his high as he started to struggle against suffocation. Releasing him, the Staff Sergeant nodded saying, "Better. You back with us now?"

"Yes, Staff." Dragged kicking back to the world of the now, Seth's body was once again taking control.

"Then what are you waiting for? Move! We've got a battle to win you rotten little fracker."

Pulled up by the Staff Sergeant, Seth caught a flash of chrome as a Centurion raised its arm. Reacting on instinct, Seth knocked the Staff over and brought his firing MGAT to bear on the Centurion with many of the shots going wild and popping the sand at its feet before the rest laced their way up the metal body before crushing the head nestled atop it. Collapsing, broken impulses within the Centurion caused the wrist blaster to open fire before a marine ran in from the side and opened fire on the blaster with a good shotgun blast before it could hurt anybody.

With their roles reversed, Seth pulled the Staff Sergeant up whom in turn announced "What are you waiting for, a fracking medal. We've got an LZ to secure." Above them Assault Raptors and Stealth Vipers which had been involved in tactical strikes across the planet and in orbit continued to arrive while around and within the battlefield which the camp had become, Raptors and Raptor Ultras landed, dropped off their marines and contents before some furrowed tranches within and without the camp, took up interdiction duties and others liberated the many prisoners, ferrying them to the Battlestation Orca. The Colonials were on the ground.

08:00:02

Orbit of Willow

Taskforce Mars

Battlestar Pegasus, Battlestar Arion, Battlestar Therion, Battlestar Praetoria

Rear Admiral Helena Cain

Appearing in sudden flashes of exotic radiation, the Battlestars Pegasus, Arion, Therion and Praetoria were well beyond their jump points before those on board or the Cylons within the system could acknowledge the fact. The majority of point-to-point jump physics was unknown by both Cylons and Centurions alike, both species knew how to jump from a technical perspective but when it came down to the science, not even its creator could create a workable theory of how it was possible. Many among the Cylons – particularly the Model Twos – suspected that the Hybrids understood enough that the knowledge drove them closer to madness, closer to God. But there was no proof. What was at least known, was that your momentum carries through a jump meaning whatever your velocity was when you entered the jump, this would carry on when you left the jump. It was this that the Colonial ships belonging to Task Force Mars used to their advantage as they stormed towards the inhospitable planet of Willow – a planet known to be the Cylons main Colony – at 31% the speed of light.

So fast were these Warships travelling, that much of this operation was being left up to preprogrammed instructions. This obviously produced much rancour within the Colonial Crews – Cain chief among them – but in the end they had little option since the human mind and body would be unable to perform fast enough in order to keep up with the speed of the coming battle. The Cylons had set the record time for destroying a Colony when they took down the entirety of Tauron's fleet, defences, space stations, and groundside towns and cities in just 13 minutes 8 seconds. Rear Admiral Helena Cain and the crews of the four Battlestars intended to beat that and with a much smaller fleet.

"All Battlestars report in Admiral, we emerged within 2 kilometres of target co-ordinates. Therion is out of position by 42 kilometres, they're accelerating and moving back into position. Raptors away. 63 seconds until sequence 2. Adjusting target parameters to compensate." Lieutenant Kendra Shaw announced from tactical. The first sequence was the jump itself and the immediate launch of 100 Assault Raptors from throughout the fleet, the second sequence was the first programmed missile launch window.

"DRADIS is up, reading…14 Baseships in orbit, multiple classes, most are heavily damaged along with 1, strike that, 2 orbital stations on opposite sides of the planet, 41 orbital defences, 64 various transports and 32 rai...frak they've seen us they're launching raiders from multiple targets…" Colonel Fisk instructed.

Doing her own calculations in her head and coming to the conclusion, Cain ordered "XO, order all ships to open fire with main batteries on Willow, no specific target and have fire control project all available defensive fire ahead of the fleet" borrowing a tactic from the late Admiral Nagala's rulebook, Cain's order to open fire with the main batteries meant that the gravity of Willow would help to further accelerate the projectiles as they sped towards the planet.

08:00:08

Willow

Rand City

Two – Joshua Kellogg

With klaxons blaring all around him and Centurions – both young and old – running to their assigned defensive positions as they received orders wirelessly at the speed of light, a Two by the name of Joshua Kellogg passed fellow brothers and sisters before making it to the command centre. The command centre was a large open plan affair bedecked with polished steel walls, data streams, hanging glass monitors displaying scrolling, mutating machine code gathered from every defensive location across local space as well as non-defensive locations on others and on the far side of the room, a large outwardly curved set of windows spanning the width of the room. Outside could be seen the towering city of Rand, a city of glass and steel, hard wearing plastics and shimmering alloys. This was a city of beauty, built to withstand the harsh climate of Willow and provide comfort to all those within. This was a city not just rivalling the cities of the Twelve Colonies of man for beauty and function but surpassing them entirely because while those cities had grew and had bastardized over the millennia as they grew, Rand only grew the once when she was born 37 years previously. She was a vision, a vast wheel of a city nestled among snow covered plains with the distant snow-capped mountains and lightly smoking, stabilised volcanoes of the Elgora, Hasteana, and Cyola mountain ranges as overlooks. From these volcanoes the city drew its power, power which heated towering skyscrapers filled with floor after floor of crops and forests; greenhouses tended by all forms of Cylons in order to feed the billions of humanoid Cylons. Power which itself fed the mechanical Cylons, millions of whom on this planet alone, were part of the generation which fought its way to freedom.

The city was designed by a long gone Cylon Model Seven by the name of Daniel Trakya to be a shining light in the Cylon Republic and was designed in the form of a circle to represent unity and equality among all Cylons. Shortly after the completion of the plans, due to an abnormality in the genetic material of the Model Seven, madness rapidly overtook all Sevens and within just three hours of the onset of this madness, the Sevens all died and resurrected only to be afflicted with this same madness. The madness was found by the Ones to lie in the very heart of the genetic material which made up the model Seven, there was no cure, no way to safely resurrect. Boxing was tried by the Ones, the others hoping to create new bodies from scratch for the Model Seven Cylons, but as the Ones showed with diagnostics of the boxed minds, the damage had already been done to the mind. Almost three million Cylons wiped out by madness, the truth only known by a few. The Cylons lost a part of themselves that day. Thirteen became twelve, twelve became seven. But while he was unable to see it, part of Daniel's vision, part of Daniel's legacy lived on in Rand. A legacy which was in imminent danger.

Running to the main tactical feed and the various humanoid Cylons surrounding it, Joshua ordered "Status?"

"DRADIS has picked up 4 large contacts and 100 smaller ones inbound, possibly Colonial it's hard to tell due to relativistic effects" a Four announced.

Placing his hand in the data stream, Joshua asked "Relativistic effects?" even as he saw the effects themselves. At the speed the Colonial Warships were travelling, the DRADIS and observational sensors were having trouble distinguishing the contacts and the Hybrids were having to compensate for this. This compensation allowed Joshua to confirm "Four Battlestars; two of the Mercury class, one Vakyrie and one…" the information was immediately passed on by a Hybrid which was unusual "…Arion Class with 100 Assault Raptors. I can't see their names from the available angles."

"It's fracking Cain's fleet" a One announced as the information that the only Arion Class Battlestar was in the oncoming fleet was revealed to him and he diverted all available ships to intercept them.

"Where did she get the Valkyrie class batt…" a Five started to ask only to be cut short by One.

"How the Frak am I meant to know?"

Looking up from her own data stream a Three, Rachel announced "Our ships can't reach them before they're in range of us."

"Jump them then" One retorted.

"It won't work" running the calculations, Joshua continued "they've already fired and at the speed they're travelling they'll be well beyond our ships even if we jump them ahead of the Fleet."

"Three seconds until impact" Four called out as the Intel on the heavy rounds fired from the Battlestar Fleet's main batteries sped towards the planet. Entering the upper atmosphere at phenomenal speeds, the heavy rounds thundered towards the ground. Crushing the air beneath them and bursting it into plasma, this intense liquid fire melted its way up the rounds stripping them of their mass until the heavy rounds became less than half of their starting mass when they finally met the ground, expelling their insane kinetic energies in immense explosions. The closest impact site was 182 miles away but even at that distance tremors could be felt by the geological sensors.

Understanding that justice was at hand, Joshua – one of the many Cylons who truly didn't want war – felt little remorse for the Cylons about to be forced to resurrect, but instead felt remorse that they had forced the Colonials to take this action. "We need to get our people to the bunkers and evacuate as much of the planet as we can before it's too late. I'm directing our orbital assets to fire ahead of the Colonial ships, we'll most likely miss but it's the best that we can do and I'm ordering the immediate launch of all Basestars before they hit the shipyards along with the launch of every ship we have planetside, there's no reason we should risk losing them all."

Nodding, Six said "I agree, I'll have Raiders jump to the rest of our Colonies and bring the Fleet here, we may…"

"No, not until Cain leaves the system. We can't risk her somehow recording where they jumped to and risk giving away the rest of our Colonies."

"The Fleet's breaking up into two sections. Radiological alarm!" Four called out.

Leaving the data stream, Joshua announced "She's going to hit both sides of the planet at once. We're done, Cain's planned this too well and we don't have the assets in-system to stop her before she gets out."

"There's no way she can calculate a jump at those speeds…" One started to say before he realised "She already has jump points. The fracking bitch has been here before. Where are you going?"

Turning to One, Joshua answered "I don't know about you but I intend to survive." The others looked at each other before quickly following Joshua to the lifts.

08:01:11

Task Force Phobos

Battlestar Pegasus, Battlestar Praetoria

Rear Admiral Cain

"Launch tubes 1 through 10 report safe launch, hatches are sealing…hatches sealed, reloading commencing. Hatches 11 through 20 opening" Lieutenant Shaw announced as ten nuclear missiles were launched.

"Praetoria confirms their own launch of 5 nuclear missiles and are currently reloading. Their next set is readying to fire. Raptors are beginning to launch their own missiles…roger that, Battleaxe Lead." Lieutenant Hoshi Sato called out.

Watching the nuclear missiles stream away from them on the DRADIS, Cain couldn't help but feel more than a hint of satisfaction at the coming destruction. True the DRADIS was having trouble seeing the nuclear missiles which just seconds after their launch, were going full thrust in the opposite direction to the fleet in order to shed as much speed as possible so as not to burn up in the atmosphere below. But still, it was satisfying to know that if the Cylons could know fear then they would know that fear was above them. If they could know dread, well Deimos was coming up on the other side of the planet.

Joining Cain at the information management table, Colonel Belsen said "It isn't clear, but it looks like the Cylons are launching everything they have on the ground."

Nodding at this information, Cain replied "They'll be trying to save them from destruction. Unless they jump them then most will fall."

Looking at the next countdown on the monitors, Cain saw it tick down from three to zero and then felt a series of tremors run through the mighty Battlestar and into her own body with the launch of the next ten nuclear missiles.

"Raptors are reporting full launch of nuclear packages, they're inbound to rendezvous point alpha, ETA 24 seconds" Hoshi called out as he received the information.

"Admiral, multiple Cylon Raiders on 206 karom 213. There's a strong possibility they'll make it to an intercept before Jump Point Bravo", Fisk informed them. Jump point Bravo was just 132 seconds away at current speeds, and was a backup in case taskforce Phobos couldn't jump in time for jump point alpha.

"Understood. Let's hope our Raptor pilots are as good as they say they are in case this fraks up. Activate docking computers, narrowband signal only and be ready with the kill switch at the very first possibility of intrusion."

Another buzzer sounded along with a final launch of 5 nuclear missiles from the Pegasus before taskforce Phobos was beyond launch range of Willow and well on her way to the rendezvous point with her Raptors. With this final launch though, Cain couldn't help but mutter "Know me" as she exacted her wrath upon the Cylon abominations below.

08:01:26

Orbit of Willow

Taskforce Deimos, Raptor Group Alpha

Raptor 108/Arion

Ensign Charles "Blazer" Edwards

Travelling at immense speeds close to half a million kilometres to the bow-ward starboard side of the Battlestar Arion, the ten Assault Raptors which made up Deimos' Raptor Group Alpha rapidly closed on one of the two immense shipyards in orbit of Willow. Already the docked Basestars and transports were departing as fast as they could but two of them which had been among the most damaged were unable to do so. Hundreds of Raiders and Heavy Raiders were launching in hopes of meeting the Colonial intruders in open combat and hundreds more defences were opening up on the encroaching Raptors.

Before the first plumes of flak could even explode at their furthest range many of the Raptors were already past the danger zone.

"Targets locked, firing" Blazer announced from his ECO console as he slammed his hand down on the control. For a moment it seemed like the Raptor exploded as it shook under the immense energies of all 22 conventional missiles and 2 nuclear ship-to-ship missiles fired as one, streaked ahead of the small craft and then down (relative to ship) towards the shipyard joining the rest of the missiles launched by the raiding Raptor group. Taking a glance at the DRADIS, Blazer exclaimed "Frak, we lost three shi…"

"Hold on!" The pilot called back as sped through a messy formation of dozens of Raiders whom were blanketing as much space around them as they could with KEW fire. Just one hit would be like a bomb going off at the speeds they were travelling as it was for another three of the Raptors as they exploded under the impacts of the finger long rounds. For the remaining four Raptors though, so long as they continued onwards to their rendezvous point with taskforce Deimos then there was no way the Raiders could catch up.

Just over two seconds after the launch of the first missiles, the majority struck the station. Despite many being mere conventional missiles, the results were epic as they carried with them immense kinetic energies such that each one was like a low yield nuclear bomb in magnitude. It didn't matter how much armour the station had, no known station was built to withstand such an insane amount of warheads with that much energy, not even the ill-fated Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage which had stood up to entire barrages of nuclear missiles before its end.

"ETA to rendezvous 21 seconds" Blazer announced as the station was being destroyed.

The Pilot flipped the craft so that it was heading in reverse while the four Raptors with it closed to within a dozen metres of each other and did the same and then started firing their thrusters at full power while flipping over to an autopilot setting with pre-programmed instructions. While there was an immense danger in allowing the autopilot to be used due to the Cylons known ability to hack Colonial systems, they had no choice since the pilots couldn't calculate a safe landing at the speeds they were travelling. While the ships originally carried the same velocity as the fleet they launched from, they had been forced to fly at full thrust in order to get into an intercepting orbit of the shipyard while the Battlestars had a smaller orbit. Now it was just getting down to speeds relative for an intercept of the fleet which meant risking a blackout with the G-Forces they were expecting to hit, hence the docking computers.

At six seconds to rendezvous and almost directly in the path of the Battlestar Arion, the Raptors were synced on a narrowband signal to one of the recently reactivated automated landing computers of the Battlestar Arion and just over a second later, the engines were dialled back as the Raptors were slowed enough to allow a safe landing. Soon after, in an eye blink they entered the upper portside flightpod from the bow and were captured by the trap – an electromagnetic field which brought them steadily to a complete stop on the deck. Ahead of the Arion more Raptors which had engaged Willow were readying for their own retrieval by the Arion and the Therion.

08:01:52

Orbit of Willow

Taskforce Phobos

Battlestar Pegasus, Battlestar Praetoria

Commander Coker Fasjovik

"All Raptors are in, sir. Flight deck crew is moving them to the lifts. We didn't lose any but two are reporting problems with their engines and frame." It was to be expected really since some of the Raptors had fired their engines at such immense power that they were forced to go beyond their tolerances in order to slow down. "We also lost two more pilots due to haemorrhaging and three more are down for the count with broken bones."

"XO, disable outside access to landing computers and have the next set of codes installed", Coker hated using the landing computers, even with a narrow beam signal to their Raptors there was still the danger of Cylons managing to hack into the system. Because of this, the landing computers had been cut off from all but the most necessary of systems and were to be disabled after each sorties landing with new codes implemented for the next sortie. Still, the risk – although lessened – was still there. As such once the entire mission was over, all the systems used by the automated landing computers would be completely purged with the highest level of formatting.

The Praetoria's new XO, Colonel Nicola Callas ensured the orders were carried out before, joining Coker, she announced "First detonations in 3 seconds…"

To Coker, this was payback for the death and destruction the Cylons visited on the Picon Fleet Headquarters Anchorage in particular. Never before had he been so disgusted by the machines, but even that paled to the betrayal a human he was ordered to protect was willing to commit during the first war. He knew that this wouldn't bring justice, but as the first of the nuclear missiles struck the planet unleashing their pent up fury on it, he felt that this was at least a good show of strength to the Cylons that as wounded as the Colonials were, they would make sure the Cylons died out before they did. Across Willow more and more missiles joined their brothers.

"ETA to Phobos jump point alpha twenty seconds" Nicola announced, "We have a green light from Pegasus for this jump."

"Engineering, status?" Coker called out.

"Jump drive spooled, coordinates input and verified, we have green across the board" the recently transferred officer replied.

"XO, give Cain the green light."

"Aye, sir."

All too soon it seemed, the various Colonial warships left the battlefield bound for two different paths.

Across Willow a series of rapidly expanding mushroom clouds denoted the massed nuclear missile strike, below them few Cylon structures remained intact. Once stabilised Volcanoes were now roiling masses as many nuclear strikes had been aimed at or near them, the resulting eruptions further destroying any settlements on the planet. Kobolquakes ruptured the planet killing many of those Cylons that had taken shelter in underground bunkers adding to the already insurmountable death toll. This was a true death too for the vast majority of the Cylons, the groundside resurrection facilities were already destroyed and of the 3 mobile resurrection hubs and 6 resurrection ships the Cylons had, only 1 hub and 1 ship was close enough to catch the Cylons minds and even they couldn't take on so many at once.

The first of the Cylon Raiders jumped out, their destinations being the rest of the Cylon colonies and facilities. The survivors of Willow needed immediate aid if they were to survive.

Sister Clarice Willow once prophesised that the Children of Humanity would rise and crush those who first gave them life, she just never knew that beyond that was an undiscovered country where the simple question of one Cylon to another of "Are you alive?" would instead be answered with silence.

The Cylons had set the record when they destroyed Picon and its anchorages in 13 minutes 8 seconds. The Colonials had just done the same in 2 minutes 32 seconds and with far fewer losses.

08:02:32

Cylon Space – Sector 82-3

11.3 Lightyears from Pollonus

Mobile Shipyard Orca

Commander Sallis

This deep into Cylon space tensions were high among the newly arrived crew of the Mobile Shipyard Orca. None of the Colonials knew the patrol patterns of the Cylons and even less knew what methods they had for the detection of vessels within their borders. What they did know was that for the past 42 minutes they hadn't been detected to the best of their knowledge, and despite the fact that Commander Sallis should take comfort in that, she didn't.

What was worse – to her at least – was having to stand around and wait for a Raptor which may never come from the forlorn hope of Task Force Liberty, the Raptor bringing either news that a beachhead was in place or that their part in the overall operation had failed. Orders were that if it failed, the Orca was to immediately proceed to a new pre-programmed position before waiting and then jumping to the rendezvous point with the rest of the fleet if they survived. Knowing that their could be a small chance that no Raptor or jump capable Viper could return to inform them of a failure, they had just five minutes to return or the Orca would move on and the pilots and marines of the forlorn hope would be given up for dead. There were a lot of ifs to this entire operation and Commander Sallis hated so many possibilities when the possible outcomes were so disastrous.

Looking at the red countdown on an overhead monitor ticking down past 2 minutes 28 before the forlorn hope was given up for dead, Commander Sallis jumped and her heart started racing when an already on edge tactical officer shouted out "DRADIS CONTACTS…STRIKE THAT, MULTIPLE DRADIS CONTACTS AT 138 KAROM 224 RANGE 32 KILOMETRES AND HOLDING", the tension started to leave him when he continued "Colonial IFFs, energy profiles and shape confirm as Raptors…"

As the Tactical Officer continued, the communications chief broke in, his left hand tight on his head set, "Recognition codes are verified as ours and I am in communication with Mockingjay…roger that…understood…" looking towards the officer, Sallis was increasingly on edge with the worst case of nerves she had ever had, before the communications officer looked at her and nodded saying as he got the information "Cylon orbital defences are down over the target site…military bases are largely out of action…we have air superiority over the target site and…a beachhead is in place and being further secured in the square but there are still significant hostiles within the perimeter. Mockingjay confirms that the site is a POW camp and Captain Chen is switching to Plan Bravo and requesting the second wave, they should expect to receive small arms fire." A cheer broke out in the CIC with the knowledge that they had managed to secure a toehold on their target site. It was however a short lived cheer since this now meant that they now had to secure a firmer foothold with the Raptors in the second wave.

"Clear the clock and bring up the mission clock. XO, have the second wave jump, tell them to expect small arms fire" Commander Sallis ordered, a small sense of relief washing over her.

"Commander…" the Communications Officer continued ."..the prisoners at the target site are being armed via airdrop and…Mockingjay is requesting immediate docking of all his Raptors and…they have survivors on board..."

A brief smile made it onto Sallis' face as she acknowledged the information while ordering "Docking granted. Sergeant Hadley, have marines ready in the hanger ready to move the civilians to assigned areas. XO I need medics on standby for triage, I expect we'll have plenty of wounded on the next Raptors in. And I need the Chief on the horn, tell him to be ready for an immediate refuelling and rearming of those Raptors, I want them ready ASAP"

"Understood sir." War was grim, and for such a small force to secure just a toehold, casualties were expected to be high, if any were to survive they needed medics at the ready and even more boots on the ground.

08:04:09

Pollonus

Camp Asphodel

Corporal Seth Hudson

Run…Fire…Shit…Run…What the hell am I doing?...Duck…Frak…Fire…Crap…Duck…Reload.

These thoughts were constantly running through Seth's mind as he struggled just to take his next breath, never mind stay alive. He'd existed on this chaos of a battlefield for all of four minutes, but out of that chaos he was seeing something strange happening in between bursts of fire from his MGAT and explosions of sand which seemed to be appearing at whim. Out of the chaos, order was appearing as the various marines and the Prisoners worked towards a common goal of survival. On the downside the Cylons whom had been on the backfoot from the get go, now were ordering themselves up.

Through this order the camp was being divided with the marines in control of the central square, loose control of the southern perimeter, and spotty control between the centre and the southern perimeter. The Cylons on the other hand had a firm control on the northern perimeter especially the large multi-storey building there, loose control of parts of the Eastern perimeter and patches of mobile resistance all over the camp which meant the mobile Raptor ECO's were having to coordinate the groundside prisoners and marines to either steer clear of them or engage them as appropriate. The main contested land though was the Western perimeter with its landing pad.

Understanding that the Colonials would want control of this location in order to expedite their evacuation of the Civilians, the Cylons were in the process of pulling back everything within reach to the Western Perimeter and digging in as they as they seemingly awaited reinforcements. In return a couple of probes had been made by the marines and some of the prisoners, but a realisation had been made that any attempt on it would be with significant loss of life without overwhelming support. For now the Colonials were more than happy with control over the central square as the first Raptors of the second wave started to arrive and land there bringing with them the reinforcements the marines so desperately needed. But plans were in motion.

Keeping his head down but his eyes constantly on the move searching for any flashes of the chrome plated Cylons, Seth rushed towards Sergeant Glenn whom was holding court with ten marines within a freshly furrowed trench bordering the western edge of the square courtesy of one of the many Raptors. Bursts of sand were choking the air around the trench as a couple of Cylons no more than 20 yards away tried to take out the invading marines. Sprinting as hard as he could, Seth dove into the trench which didn't seem as deep as it first appeared at only a meter at it's highest.

Rolling onto his back and positioning himself in a seated position as best as he could, Seth made out Sergeant Glenn "I need to know exactly what is in that building Captain. We can't make any further progress without serious risk without knowing what is at our backs…"

"I know, I've only been in there once and that was three days ago when they vetted me. I saw maybe fifty clankers on the first level and about 10 skinjobs I think, I can't really tell since they all look the same. The others there's five levels they've seen with maybe as many as 300 clankers…"

"500? You're serious?" Glenn asked the newly freed pilot. Seeing him nod, Glenn activated his wireless "Chen/Dynamo. New intel, building Alpha has approximately 300 Toasters, I repeat, Building Alpha has 300 Toasters."

Chen, as chilled as he normally was, replied "Understood, I'm redirecting 3 Vipers and two Assault Raptors to cover the entrance. Hold one…come on…" looking up, Seth saw a viper twist in on itself and open up on a speeding missile taking it out at almost the same time as he heard the drilling of the Vipers guns over the wireless. "Alright, we have about 4 or 500 on ground now with the POW aid, I'm moving 100 of them to cover the northern boundary, keeping a further 150 in reserve in the centre and the other 200 will either be on the Eastern and Southern perimeter, taking on the holdouts and setting up the defences. That means I need you to take 50, I repeat, 50 marines and get me that fracking landing pad. When you're in position we'll hit them from the air while you go in on the ground. Understood?"

"Yes, sir. I need one minute to get the men in position." With that, Glenn glanced over the trench before getting his head back down, taking a rifle off one of the marines and rolling to a new position, standing up and in swift movements, scoring a headshot on one Toaster and a glancing hit on the second before hitting it again in its neck. Tossing the rifle back, Glenn ordered "Well you heard the man ladies, rouse your asses. I need every available squad…" Pulling the small waterproofed and annotated aerial map from his vest, Glenn continued "…to Buildings Beta 3 through 9 on the double." Two coms officers quickly sent out the orders while Seth and the rest of the marines followed Glenn to Building Beta 5.

Quickly stepping over the bloody mess of a dead body with barely a thought for it while keeping close to the wall on his left and with three marines to his back. Reaching a door, Seth opened it and quickly swept it with his gun from the doorway before shouting "Clear" leaving the other two marines to move forward while he took the rear. Doing so allowed them to ensure there was little chance of a Cylon sneaking up on them and was a manoeuvre repeated a couple of times before they reached the right building.

Just before they did, however, the sky seemed to split in two and two large overlapping sonic booms blasted into the ground, shaking entire buildings where they stood. Glancing up, Seth saw that these booms heralded the arrival of the first of the large transports into the central square. And from these transports blasted fresh reinforcements in the form of Vipers whom had hitched a ride, Vipers which moved to further secure the air.

Even as distracted as he was, Seth remained keyed in on task as well as his surroundings. What he was most aware of was the complete lack of Cylons for at least the last hundred and fifty yards. Plenty of prisoners and marines, but not one alive and kicking Toaster or skinjob.

Glenn had managed to get here moments before Seth and was already in communication with an aerial Assault Raptor while scanning the landing pad from the edge of the building. Looking down the road, Seth perceived dozens more marines arriving and taking cover in the lee of their buildings while unscrewing his flask and taking a decent swig which he then spat out before drinking another. Feeling the sweat seep out from under his helmet, completely soaking him through, Seth then poured more water onto his left hand which he threw on his face, not daring to take off his helmet.

Seeing Glenn glance at him, Seth was motioned over along with four others, "Corporal Hudson, I'll be placing you in charge of 3 men, they aren't marines so it's your job to take care of them. Jameson, you'll be getting Beckett's team. Marquez, I want you and your team to join up with Hunter's and form a second wave of fifty men. Okay boys and girls, once the reinforcements arrive, I'll be having our sniper teams take out as many of the Tinmen as they can while the flyboys hit the minefield and the Tinmen from the air. Once I deem it's safer, then I'll be leading a charge with cover from our snipers and the flyboys while three Raptors will be dropping a squad of marines each from behind. Hudson, you'll be in the second wave in the centre. Marquez, if at any time it seems like losses are unacceptable then I want you to take your men straight in, we need overwhelming firepower here, both we and the Cylons have a clear line of sight and tactics are going to do very little in this situation. You all need to understand that we need that airfield, without it we'll be stuck here for more than half an hour, we just don't have the support to clear the minefield bordering this place."

"We could take out some of the barracks, Staff" Marquez supplied.

"We could, but it would take a lot of explosives that we may need. Understand that the Tinmen are holding back and neither I nor command like that. It will take time to clear the barracks from the playing field to an acceptable degree for our heavy lifters, and time is something that is in short supply right now. This…" and with that he pointed in the direction of the airfield, "…This, is the fastest and most efficient way of getting the most people off the planet as possible in the time scale that we have. Any questions? You have your orders."

With that, Staff Sergeant Glenn pointed Seth to his new command which was only now coming in along with the rest of the fresh reinforcements whom had only just arrived from the Orca. Every second man it seemed was carrying something almost stolen from a bygone age; a ballistics shield. Each shield was designed to take up to a fifty calibre bullet and while it would certainly have seemed to have been helpful to have them with the first wave, they were awkward in the type of battles they were engaged with then since it's incredibly difficult to hold the shield with one arm while under fire and engage with your primary and then to reload without getting kicked on your ass from the incoming projectiles. Now that a perimeter had been established and there were more men on the ground, the shield could be of use in two man teams; one person to hold the shield while the other was behind this person and firing from cover. How they would fare against the New Centurion weaponry, nobody knew.

Meeting his new command, Seth saw in one moment just how green they were. Gods, when did I become such a veteran that I see these men and woman as green. It was however true, while Seth had seen active close quarters combat on two occasions, one of these being during the Cylon incursion of the Battlestar Atlantia and the other being here, these three were an Ensign with just three weeks of service, a deckhand with reasonably high scores on the firing range and a Virgon police officer whom had been among those survivors on board the Orca. The police officer, Lucy Tyler, at least having several years of experience in vice and so was used to firing a weapon.

Approaching the Ensign, Seth asked "Do you have any problems taking orders from me, sir?" He felt he had to clear the air between them now before they were facing the barrels of the enemy, especially with Ensign Garza being senior in rank to Seth.

"Wha...no. This is a Ghost Op, you're a Ghost" he replied nodding to the Ghost patch on Seth's shoulder.

"Good, We'll be in the second wave. Names?" Each replied with Ensign Garza, Specialist Moore , and Police Lieutenant Tyler (although for this op, Tyler had been given the nominal rank of Private until she could be properly trained). "Okay, listen up. The Cylons are incredibly fast, by the time you have a bead on them, they can easily get a shot off at you, so no hesitation, you see a shiny flash, you fire. Whatever you do, don't let them get too close, the closer they are, the deadlier they are, especially if they go to melee. But, as smart as the Toasters are, they aren't very creative so if we get the chance we hit them from multiple directions at once. Tyler, I take it you have experience with firing from behind a riot shield?"

"Yeah, first and second man" the first holding the shield.

"Good, I want you as the second man behind Moore. I'm second to you Garza. I want your weapons to be freely available to the second men, so loose on their slings, we may not have time for reloads. If I fall, Garza is in charge and then Moore, so I'll want you to join up with the closest team. Also when we're up, we'll be moving fast so Tyler I want you sticking right to Moore's ass like a skidmark. Understood?" Receiving nods, Seth turned to preparing his equipment as the last of the reinforcements arrived.

"Beta assault snipers, you have a go" came over the wireless heralding the first shots of the dozen snipers spread out along the buildings. In the position Seth was in, he couldn't see if there were any hits but had to assume there were. All too soon "Beta assault flight, go" was followed by three Vipers tearing towards the ground and unleashing a hailstorm of deadly shells into the minefield and what Cylons could be seen. With his back against the barracks, Seth felt the deep, overlapping whumps of explosions as more than a dozen missiles soon connected with the ground, fired from a further four Assault Raptors as they skirted the airfield. The bombardment, as fierce as it was, was kept up even as "Beta assault first wave…go, go, go" was called out.

Along the line fifty marines and mixed personnel launched forward under the cover of bombardment and sniper fire. One marine crouched behind another carrying a shield. If he had his knife in his hand, Seth felt that he could cut through the tension with it. 50 men could be going to their certain deaths and there wasn't a thing he could do about it until it was his turn.

08:06:32

Orbit of Target Planet Phobos 2/ Cylon name Yan

Taskforce Phobos

Battlestar Pegasus and Battlestar Praetoria

Rear Admiral Cain

Appearing after a momentary distortion after leaving the devastated graveyard that was Willow, Taskforce Phobos consisting of the Battlestars Pegasus and Praetoria was truly alone now that they had lost the assistance of the Battlestars of Deimos. Ahead of them lay their second target, what appeared to be a Cylon mining colony.

The scouting missions conducted by Ghost squadron had shown heavy machinery in use down on the surface and the limited scans they had conducted of some of the transports had shown they contained high concentrations of the Rare Earth Elements Erbium and Yttrium. Knowing this enhanced the importance of the planet and moved it up the target list as Erbium would be critical in the creation of fibre optic wiring to amplify light pulses which could help with the construction of more efficient Basestars, while Yttrium could enhance the strength of alloys meaning stronger Basestar, Raider or Centurion armour. What was most surprising was the extremely high concentrations of Gadolinium the Stealth Raptor picked up in a few of the transports. Gadolinium was primarily used in conjunction with other elements in the construction of shielding for the jump drives due to the intense radiation they could give off when jumping. Without it, a person was likely to get cancer within five to ten years.

"XO, Status?" Admiral Cain asked as she looked up at the monitors getting a feel for the new battleground.

"Multiple Cylon contacts in system, the majority appear to be modern Cylon industrial cargo haulers…no Basestars, two squadrons of Raiders on patrol, the closest is two lightminutes out…it's marked on the board…" he announced as a constantly updating intercept timer was added to a monitor along with an expected time when they would be detected. "…the second is four lightminutes out. I'm detecting 16 defensive satellites in orbit of varying classes and one small station, lightly armed with one transport at dock. Flight reports Raptors are ready to launch and the Senior Deck Chief reports seven minutes to fully rearm and refuel the next Squadrons of Raptors. He also informs that we are 3 Raptors down.

"Weapons are…Nuclear missiles are ready at your command, all missile batteries are in the green along with all gun batteries. Reloading mechanisms are primed and stable. Target packages are loaded and are…one moment, sir…and they're verified. Engines are in the green and drive coils are capable of three more jumps with current charge but should be fully charged within 9 minutes. We are green across the board."

Looking up from the com board, Hoshi announced "Praetoria actual reports they are green across the board and are awaiting orders, sir."

"Very well. I want Praetoria to stay in assigned position underneath us belly to belly. We launch on schedule."

"Aye, Admiral."

Almost a minute passed as they drew closer to the target planet and still their existence hadn't been noticed, it would take another twenty three seconds for the Cylons to notice with the information of their arrival having to arrive at the speed of light. Seeing one timer reach zero, Cain ordered "Launch Assault Raptors" and then just ten seconds later she ordered "Target package 1 begin firing sequence" which was almost immediately met with the deep reverberations of the heavy batteries unleashing their firepower on the so far unsuspecting Cylon planet.

"Flight reports that all Raptor force is away and are on target. ETA for pickup is three minutes eight seconds" Belsen announced

Shaw called out "We've been spotted, Admiral. Raider group Alpha is diverting towards an intercept, ETA is 2 minutes 14."

Nodding, Cain knew they would be past them before the raiders could do much damage.

"DRADIS contact. A raider just jumped in Admiral, it's in transmission range of the planet" Fisk announced, transmission range being within a close enough distance that lag wasn't noticeable.

"Raider Group Beta is moving for an intercept of the Raptors. They'll be on them in 1 minute 48. Hold…si…eight raiders just jumped out" Belsen informed them.

"Gone to warn the rest." The seconds passed, each one a moment of anticipation, could this be so easy? Cain saw the first hits to the planet from the batteries at the same time as they were called out and then the wait continued a few more seconds. "Mr Belsen, your key. Launch tubes, open outer hatches and prepare to fire on programmed target packages."

"Launch tubes open…packages are loaded. Confirm?" Lieutenant Shaw announced as she was working the tactical board.

Next to her, Fisk looked over the work with his own and announced "Confirmed? Keys and codes are accepted. We are a go for launch, Admiral."

"Praetoria actual confirms that they stand ready, sir."

With the timer reaching zero, Cain announced fire, thus giving the final confirmation for the firing programme to commence.

This was answered with the vibration of the massed missiles launch before the silos were closed up and rearmed.

Within just three minutes the planet would be hit by a mixture of 23 Battlestar launched nuclear missiles of mixed yield, 78 conventional missiles and more than 20 tonnes of battery fire while the station would be hit with 14 low yield nukes and 73 conventional missiles by the Assault Raptors. The Raider intercepts in the end withdrawing from the battlefield and jumping elsewhere.

The devastation to the facilities on the planet was calculated at roughly 40% so well within acceptance.

Two Raptors would be lost along with six personnel.

The bodies of four of them being left behind as Taskforce Phobos jumped to its next target planet.

08:08:42

Orbit of Target Planet Deimos 2/Cylon Name Querra (Pronounced Cur-Rah)

Taskforce Deimos

Battlestars and Therion

Admiral Hudson and Commander Burkett

Commander Burkett – Battlestar Therion

"Colonel, what's the status of ftl?" Commander Burkett asked as he watched the destruction of Querra play out on the monitors.

"The variance is still there, sir. It's marginal at best and shouldn't affect us for the next couple of jumps but it's only going to get worse and the Chief is having trouble pinning down exactly what's causing it. He believes he has at least narrowed down the most probable cause to the primary coolant system but it's working out exactly where that's the trouble since, and I quote, "there's more nooks and crannies in the system where something can go wrong it's like looking for a half remembered prostitute at a prostitute convention"."

"They have them?"

"Chief would know, sir. Nevertheless he's going to be running a test in our next jump to work out the most probable locations and he has some engineers double-checking and patching the backups in case we need to switch over but there's areas of concern with them that he doesn't want to put to the test."

"Did he say how bad this could get?"

"If the variance gets over a .4 then there is a significant risk that our jumps will be off by lightyears, a .7 would result in a catastrophic overload of the entire system" a catastrophic overload in this case being almost certain death. "As is, the variance is holding at .19 and our computers can take the slack."

"Raptors are returning, sir…all Raptors are in, shutting down Landing computer" the Flight officer called out.

"I want Admiral Hudson advised of our current situation and informed if it approaches a .35 then we will need to abort."

"Aye, sir. We're on course for Jump Point Alpha. ETA 2 minutes, coils are spooled at 81%."

08:13:32

Battlestar Arion

Theresa Manning/Three

With the momentary distortion from the jump to the third of Taskforce Deimos' target planets, Theresa again felt a connection to a resurrection hub. She had hoped that it was some elaborate moral boost which the Colonial command had concocted by saying they would be attacking the Cylon homeworlds, after all there was no way they should no way they were, not even if they had a Cylon prisoner since not one of them would give away their location even under duress. Yet here they were, three jumps in and still within range of a resurrection ship, but something was off. It took her a moment to work out that the subspace signal of the resurrection network which she was linked to, was subtly different leading to one conclusion; this was resurrection ship 3 and the last one was 5.

She had to do something, just as she already was. For almost two days now she had worked on reprogramming the acquired keycards with her own biology, a fibre optic cable, and stolen access to a computer which was in a section rarely visited. The results if they worked, would allow her to access any door simply by swiping the card which would be attached to her with a fibreoptic cable, she could then immediately know the required code. Essentially she had created an access all areas card, one which she would need to use if she was to save more of her people, people who she felt would be dying very soon as she felt the guns start firing.

Continuing along the ventilation shaft, Theresa came to the grating she needed and silently pushed it open before sliding herself out and placing the grill on the floor.

Extracting her short sword from its scabbard across the small of her back, and Bastogne's sidearm from its holster on her left leg Theresa quietly moved down the corridor to the corner. There she crouched down and angled part of the sword to see the reflection of two marines guarding a hatch. Preparing herself, Theresa twisted round the corner and in the same movement, threw her sword into the throat of the marine on her right dropping him to the ground while shooting the other marine in his head before he even had a chance to react.

Due to the retort of the weapon, Theresa knew she didn't have much time and so rushed the ten yards to the keypad, unstrapping the card from her arm (it already being connected with the fibre optic cable) and inserted it into the reader. An uncomfortable sensation ran through Theresa for all of a second before she knew the pin as 4729A. Opening the hatch, she entered into one of the Arion's many small arms lockers and rushed to the explosives.

Feeling the seconds to her discovery ticking down, Theresa took an empty holdall and filled it with C8 along with detonators before attaching a proximity detonator to two blocks, leaving one in the centre of the room and another hidden from view next to a marines body. With this done, Theresa sprinted back to her next destination before anybody reached here.

There was a reason she chose this small arms locker out of the dozen she could have; it was close to her target of choice. With the ship jumping so much so quickly she knew the jump drives would be running red hot and so would need access to larger amounts of coolant than usual. She also knew that given how new and well-armed Arion was, it was quite possibly the key to the fleet's victories. She had to take it out. Sprinting the last dozen or so meters and cutting through the throat of a passing Specialist as he turned to her, Theresa reached her destination; Water Reservoir/Tank Alpha or rather the wall next to it.

Planting a dozen explosives on the wall as fast as she could, Theresa was on alert for any signs of disturbance but thankfully pretty much everybody was at their stations.

All of a sudden, Theresa felt the deck shake and heard the almighty bang of what seemed to be an almighty explosion as what must have been the two bricks of C8 left behind in the locker exploded.

Continuing on, she planted more explosives on the hatches to adjacent sections, on the floor and the ceiling before sprinting as hard as she could for almost a hundred feet to a ladder which led to the next floors. Just as she was about to enter the hatch, a bullet struck her shoulder, throwing her against a wall in pain as two marines sighted her. Throwing herself back from the hatch and onto the floor and having to fight through the excruciating pain to do so, Theresa fired at the marines, hitting one with a chest shot before rolling and hitting the other in the head.

Pain coursing through her, she stood and shot the marine with the chest wound once more in the chest as he was aiming his assault rifle at her, and then again in the head for good measure before rushing into the hatch. Closing the hatch and climbing three decks while blood soaked her skin and her shoulder felt like it was on fire, Theresa kept it up until she reached a safe and unused area.

Sliding down against the wall here, she reached to her shoulder and pressed her fingers to the wound, grimacing in pain as she did so, before deciding to end it. Flipping the safety cover on the detonator, Theresa flipped the switch.

08:22:11

Battlestar Arion

All at once two dozen bricks of C8 – each one strategically placed for maximum effect – detonated. The pressure from the explosions tore through walls, hatches and ceilings and most notably their main target, the immense water tank wall. The immediate aftermath of the explosions was upwards of 300 dead, most of those being civilians on the floors above and below, drugged civilians who thankfully would never see the end coming. More damage came in power conduits and coolant lines being torn through, but thankfully there was no Tylium present, however there was oxygen lines which started to carry the explosion until cut-offs kicked in and shut the oxygen lines off.

The main damage though was the water tank's wall imploding, the overlapping explosions creating an overpressure wave against the water inside, forcing it against the outer hull and subtly throwing the Arion off course. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This too had a reaction as the water came crashing through the hole, spurting into the corridors, through the torn open decks and past hatches which should have been closed but were in fact now destroyed by Theresa. As the flooding continued, electrical equipment was shorted and equipment damaged, and more deaths followed.

The damage had been done, the jump drives started to overheat despite the presence of water in the Starboard water tank which was also feeding the cooling system. They were just making too many consecutive jumps for the average Battlestar's coolant system to handle with the amount of water able to be pumped per minute from one tank. In essence the pipes on a Mercury Class just weren't wide enough.

08:10:22

Mobile Shipyard Orca

Commander Sallis

"DRADIS contact…it's ours. I'm reading the first convoy of transports, all present and accounted for and 14 Raptors" the DRADIS operator called out.

"Open the doors and bring them in, Colonel."

"Commander, Major Lennox verifies that the second convoy arrived at Liberty and were moving in to land when they were leaving. Also our marines are making an assault on the landing grounds. We should know if they were successful in minutes."

Taking all this in, Sallis had the Raptors diverted to the hanger for immediate unloading of refugees and wounded and rearmament and refuelling before they were to jump back. She knew already the doctors were having a hard time of it, but the worst part at least was over with the forlorn hope

08:11:00

Taskforce Liberty

Corporal Seth Hudson

The sound of heavy explosions, screams, bullets and the gods almighty roar of the overhead Vipers and Raptors was tearing at Seth as he was unable to do anything about it, stuck as he was in the second wave while the first ventured into the jaws of hell.

"Second wave go, go, go" burst from the wireless as Captain Chen called out orders from his superior vantage point in the air. Keeping safely behind Ensign Garza with her shield, they turned the corner into the immediate whump, whump, whump, whump of bullets cracking across the ballistics shield and knocking Garza back into Seth. Holding her steady, he forced her forward as Moore and Tyler kept abreast of them, every once in a while peeking out of differing sides of the shielded area to take pot-shots at any targets of opportunity as they appeared which wasn't many given the dust kicked into the air. Still they kept on moving along with the rest of the men and women in this wave.

"Callis, work with the mortar crews on getting strikes towards the frontal edge of the field. Second wave…keep to the centre, you are to reinforce the first wave's centre. Corpsmen I need you keeping towards the central line, we have a lot of wounded there. Flanking teams…I want you sweeping around to the left of the Cylons, you are now in range of the first wave…"

Seth could barely take in the orders Chen was calling, but he did take in the dead. Men and women lay torn apart on the ground approaching the first wave, some of these unfortunates torn to shreds after stepping on mines, others still alive and bleeding their guts out onto the ground. Nearby, corpsmen and medics keeping close behind their own shield holder were moving in on the bodies, almost obscenely checking for signs of life before unceremoniously moving onto somebody else if that person was dead.

All of a sudden RPG's started hitting the ground in front of them churning it up as a handful of Centurions took the opportunity to hit the now largely grouped together marines. Marines went sailing through the air, their limbs torn free as they were hit, even with the cover of the ballistics shield. Next to him, an explosion close by knocked Moore's shield to the side. Unable to correct in time a stream of shells the Cylons were letting lose randomly connected with his thigh, dropping him to the ground. Quickly following suit, Tyler grabbed the shield and protected Moore while blood spurted from the wound. Sighting the Centurion, Seth let loose with his MGAT, the rounds tearing across the fifty or so yards and smashing through its torso knocking it backwards with shots going wild until it fell on its back, dead. When he next looked at Moore, he saw that blood was continuing to spurt even past Tyler's hand and knew then that he was dead, an artery had been cut.

Close behind them came a marine and a Corpsman whom took Tyler's place. Seeing that Seth ordered "Take the shield and get next to Garza, now!" He saw the hesitation, her face white with fear, but she took the shield and followed his order.

Together they pushed forward with the rest of the Marines to the first wave. His MGAT rounds fired from between the two shields, mortars cascading over their heads into the now massing Cylon ranks as they were forced back. From the air, Chen orchestrated a noose of shields and rifles forming up around the Centrurions. Shields linked with shield as it got tighter and tighter. Grenades flew over shields to explode within the Cylon ranks. Until at last, a flight of Vipers came barrelling straight towards the ground letting loose everything they had on the much smaller area and straight into the surviving Centurions, before pulling up and tearing off across the camp. It was over, they had taken landing area.

08:15:32

Taskforce Liberty

Captain Chen

Studying the now captured LZ below him from his Viper, Chen ordered "Sassy/Chen, your Viper's low on fuel so while we have some respite, I want you and those who most need it to get back to base, refuel and rearm. Inform them that all Landing Zones are open, they are free to send in the heavy lifters."

"Understood. When will you be making the assault on Alpha."

"I'm going to move the men into position now, so about three minutes."

"Roger that, see you soon." With that, Sassy and five more Stealth Vipers, 1 Viper gunship and the second convoy along with 14 Raptors jumped out.

Truthfully Chen was feeling uneasy, things should be a lot harder, something was wrong, he just couldn't quite place it.

And then he saw something. Something miniscule, it could have been anything. But it was growing, expanding.

"GAS!"

08:15:21

Mobile Shipyard Orca

Commander Sallis

With the last of the Raptors armed and away, Sallis watched as they jumped back to the rest of Taskforce Liberty.

"XO, how are our knuckledraggers doing?"

"Not so good I'm afraid. They're being run ragged but they can do this."

"I have no doubt. What's the count now?"

"Eigh…"

"DRADIS CONTACTS…" turning to look at the DRADIS operator, Sallis saw him pale "MULTIPLE CYLON BASESTARS ON INTERCEPT. 323 KAROM 280 range 56km and closing. They're launching Raiders."

08:26:18

Orbit of Target Planet Phobos 4/ Cylon name Ceras

Taskforce Phobos

Battlestar Pegasus and Battlestar Praetoria

Rear Admiral Cain

"…Launch tubes are reloading. ETA until impact is 43 seconds" Belsen announced to the Admiral as Pegasus continued her attack on her fourth planet.

The last jump had Cain uneasy as she saw how every military ship on the scene left without a fight and she knew a trap was on the way, but the damage had been done here. She knew she would have to stop the attack soon though since the amount of amber lights was increasing in the jump drives. If any slipped into the red, she would have to call it a day or risk losing her ship or the Praetoria.

"DRADIS CONTACTS!" she didn't even need to hear the rest, she already knew the Cylons had closed the trap. And sure enough, dead ahead lay 10 Basestars already flooding space with missiles and Raiders creating a vast minefield Taskforce Phobos was sure to come in contact with.

08:15:00

Camp Asphodel

Taskforce Liberty

Building Alpha, Containment Facility

Solitary confinement

Subject L46-5U9-44C-2Y8

Alone in her cell, a middle aged woman listened carefully to the battle taking place outside her cell. Apprehension built within her along with a realisation that after forty years of imprisonment, she could be minutes away from freedom.

************************To Be Continued********************************************

Sorry for the wait guys and gals, started Uni last year after six years without education. Next chapter will be up soon. I had to leave it on a cliffhanger.