Battlestar Galactica, Approaching Ragnar Anchorage, Five Minutes Later
"Well this is seriously fracked up Bill" Tigh muttered without looking up from the report they had received from Picon "It's just like the war all over again"
"Yeah, only this time we have ships that aren't carrying mechanical time bombs" the Admiral replied, referring to the Cylon units that had been onboard warships that had proved resistant to hacking at the start of their rebellion that then proceeded to massacre the human crews, as he picked up the phone that had been linked to the PA systems on both Galactica and Leviathan. Currently only a few onboard the two battlestars had any knowledge of what was going on but rumours were already circulating and Bill thought that the disaster over Picon needed to be known.
"This is the Admiral" he began "Several minutes ago, this ship received word of an attack against our homeworlds by an alien fleet of unknown origin. They were detected en route to Picon with a large force and the majority of the home fleets under the command of Admiral Nagala moved to engage them. However reports indicate that the enemy has managed to disable most of the ships present."
Adama took a breath then continued, it was so quiet you could probably hear a micro meteor strike the hull "Although many of our comrades in arms have fallen before our new enemy, we have not. Within the hour we will have ammunition and then it will be our mission to launch an offensive against our enemy's closest known position at the edge of explored space. We are now the first line of humanity's defence against the god's knows what. You've trained for this, you're ready for this, further updates as we get them, that is all"
As he placed the phone back in its cradle the Admiral eyes wandered over the CIC crew, all of them were staring at him, probably in shock or fear and looking to him, the old man, for guidance. What guidance could he give them though, if this had been the Cylons, an enemy that the entire fleet had spent forty years preparing for, he could at least say something like 'Trust your shipmates and aim the red eye', but he didn't even know what these aliens looked like and beyond the knowledge that they had some kind of shields and were apparently good at cylon style cyber warfare he knew very little about their military tactics.
Luckily though Saul was there, as always, to pull him out of the fire, shouting "What, is everyone off duty all of a sudden, we have a war to prepare for, let's move it people"
As the CIC's usual din resumed, the Admiral whispered "Thanks Saul"
"Eh, this is why I like being XO, I get to boss the lowers around but I don't have to make speeches and write the condolence letters" the Colonel replied with a grin.
"Sirs" Lieutenant Gaeta interrupted "We're entering the eye of the storm"
Battlestar Chimera, Forming A Perimeter, That Same Time
"All heavy batteries, engage four round volley, try to focus your rounds on specific areas but I want a nice even spread" Neros spoke into the phone.
As soon as he put it down the dull rumble of heavy gun fire reached the CIC, on DRADIS the small symbols representing the Victory and Olympia had small flashes to show their own guns firing at the hostile vessels. Although the aliens were out of the range required for accurate shooting this volley was mainly designed to test their reaction times, speed and DRADIS range.
And unfortunately the alien ships began to scatter at twice the range a battlestar would have detected incoming fire at and when they scattered they moved like a well drilled viper squadron, with what Neros assumed were individual battlegroups breaking off from the main fleet in formation although to his surprise one of the escorts was destroyed by the volley, perhaps it didn't have it's shield up. However the surprising thing was the speed at which they moved, if they chose to approach Picon at that speed they'd be over the fleet within three minutes, instead they were choosing to approach at a more leisurely pace, but why, perhaps they were gathering intelligence or trying to find out if any ships were still active after their hacking, or maybe their dodge had made use of some kind of manoeuvring burn that taxed their engines.
"Commander, Raptor two has managed to manually open an airlock on the Manticore and make contact with the crew, they are requesting shuttles to start evacuating" Colonel Ellis
"Dispatch them and send the rescued crews down to the planet" Neros replied then turned to the helmsman, who was actually a woman, "Bring us to a full stop and prepare for manoeuvring burns"
"On it sir" she replied
"Shuttles away commander four minutes till they reach the Manitcore, six minutes until the begin evacuations" Ellis told him. Neros nodded, but it he knew that the Chimera's small complement of shuttles would be unable to evacuate even half of the Mantocore's crew before the enemy was upon them.
"Energy spikes, enemy ships are firing, no rounds are heading for us it's all aimed at the rest of the fleet sir, Atlantia and her group are going to take the brunt of it," the DRADIS operator said
"Get our Raptors out of the impact area and stand by to return fire. Initiate suppression fire with all defensive batteries. Heavy guns stand by for fire mission, relay to the other battlestars" Neros ordered. Looking at the DRADIS
"Sir enemy fleet will be in range in five minutes, fighters are launching from enemy mediums and the flagship sir" the DRADIS operator reported
"Well they're in a large enough group that we'll be able to hit them at this range" Neros replied as he picked up the phone "all guns begin fire mission, primary targets are the medium vessels, all defensive batteries are to engage in a saturation barrage"
Turian Dreadnaught Palveran, Moving To Engage Enemy Battlegroup, One Minute Earlier
As the frigate Discovery went up in flames General Septimus shook his head, he had placed that ship at the back of his formation simply because its shields had been suffering malfunctions lately. Normally he would have sent the ship back to a shipyard to get it checked out but after he had received Captain Vakarian's report from the interrogation of the human prisoner he had merely shifted it to the back of the fleet's formation, close to the Palveran, to serve as a rear echelon bombardment platform, a mistake that the ship's crew had paid for with their lives. Fortunately he would have a chance to pay the hoomens back in full.
The size of the hoomen vessels had been quite the surprise, his race had the largest number of dreadnaughts in the known galaxy in their fleet and that force numbered at only thirty, yet here were over eighty contacts, each of which ran from just under one kilometre to two that measured a colossal three kilometres and this was just the one world, the hoomens couldn't know of his plans, so this couldn't be their entire fleet. But if this was just one world, who knew what the rest of their fleet was like? Their economy couldn't be large enough to support such a fleet, although twelve worlds within the same star cluster would be considered the crown jewel of any species' empire, twelve worlds within the same solar system, well he had never even considered the possibility that such a marvel could exist. Control of such a system could make any species a major economic power.
"General, only three contacts appear to be active, we may have stumbled upon some kind of scrapping yard" a sensor operator reported
"G-Good" Septimus stammered before composing himself "continue to monitor. Communications, vector four flotillas onto those targets, I want them destroyed by the time we're ready to begin our full scale assault"
As soon as the sensor operator had said "three" Septimus had breathed a sigh of relief, around then three large dreadnaughts he could actually fathom a race maintaining and fielding. The young officer was probably right about this being some kind of scrapping yard, after all, Septimus himself knew that if you took all the old unscrapped dreadnaughts the Turians had at their disposal and put them on top of their current vessels then they could possibly field more then a hundred dreadnaught type ships.
"Attention All Crew, Brace For Firing" the PA system announced, most of the crew would have already been ready for the vibrations and shocks the main gun produced after combat alert was sounded, but regulations were regulations.
Grabbing the railing that ran around his raised platform, Septimus braced himself as a trio of thumps, rang out and the ship shook. Had he looked out the window he would have seen several cruisers performing a similar manoeuvre.
"Rounds on route to targets, Alpha and Delta groups report ready for their speed run" the Communications officer reported
"Very good" Septimus replied, his voice once more full of confidence "Inform the fleet to prepare to…"
"Incoming rounds, everyone brace for incoming fire" the Palveran's LADAR operator yelled, moments before the ship shook twice from the hoomen's heavy shells.
"Report" Septimus yelled to no one in particular
"General, it appears to be another diversionary barrage" the LADAR operator replied "trying to make us break formation, however we've lost and a frigate and a cruiser is damaged, shuttles are moving to evacuate, several other vessels have been hit however they only took shield damage, no hull impacts"
Turning to the Palveran's defensive systems operator he asked "How are we holding up"
"Our shields were drained by almost four percent, somehow though they're still draining, slowly but they're draining" he replied
"According to a frigate commander it's some kind of projectile based point defence system" the communications officer interjected "we're taking only a few impacts, but it's hitting some of the forward pickets quite heavily, several fighters have already had their shields downed"
Septimus just nodded and said "Shuffle the current pickets regularly with cruisers using full power shields, the hoomen's weapons are exceedingly effective at ripping apart unshielded targets"
Septimus had found hoomen weapons quite interesting, although at first glance they appeared to be simple, primitive ballistic weapons after taking one of their pistols, which mounted some kind of explosive munitions launcher, apart he had discovered that it used a small magnetic accelerator to give their rounds an extra boost of speed as they left the barrel. It was a most interesting design that had given their soldiers just enough firepower that, when working together, they could bring down shielded Turian troops. He had ordered an examination of the cruiser… no escort, he reminded himself, that Captain Vakarian's group had destroyed and the engineers had discovered that the vessels main guns operated on the same principle. Although the rounds achieved nowhere near the speeds that his vessels' main guns could and didn't deliver half as much kinetic energy onto the target, their weight and sheer numbers made up for it although, according to one of the engineers he had questioned, a single round from the Palveran's main gun would punch straight through an unshielded frigate, but a hoomen round would probably snap it in half.
"Sir, the flotillas are about to engage the three enemy targets, the frigates are reporting numerous fighters" the Communications officer reported
Battlestar Chimera, That Same Time
"Raise our starboard side eight degrees, prepare to engage enemy escorts, heavy guns only and point defence, once our third barrage is away, vector fighters to engage with strafing runs only, no nukes at this point. One pass each, then head for the main body of the enemy fleet and fire every nuke they have, combat raptors are to assist them" Commander Neros told his crew
"Sir, enemy escorts are now in accurate fire range" the DRADIS operator reported
Picking up the phone, Neros said "Engage fire mission"
"Affirmative sir" the soldier on the other end replied "engaging targets"
Turning to Colonel Ellis, Neros said "Put the feed from our forward cameras on the table"
Ellis nodded and the map of Picon that had been on the table moments before was replaced by a view of the incoming alien escorts, as seen by Chimera's forward cameras. Dozens of glowing cannon rounds shot onto the screen from behind the camera's field of view from the three defending battlestars, impacting on the targets but causing no kind of visible damage beyond a slight blue shimmer around the tiny vessels. After a few volleys though the shields of five ships collapsed and another volley put those few out of commission entirely.
"Commit vipers" the Commander ordered
Moments after he said it the few remaining vipers and combat raptors available appeared on the screen, visible only because of their glowing thrusters and exhaust trails. Pressing a few keys, Neros zoomed in on one small groups of Mk7s as they began firing their cannons, most of their rounds missed at first but as the fighters got closer more and more began to hit home. As the vipers swarmed the enemy vessels, several of the escort's shields began to fail and after that they quickly began to sprout holes in their thin hulls, however enemy defensive lasers pulsed out and managed to claim the lives of several pilots, the energy weapons destroying their fighters so quickly that only three of a few dozen pilots managed to eject.
"Sir, enemy escorts are firing on us" the DRADIS operator said
"Sound impact alarms and have DC teams standby to respond" Neros replied "As soon as our birds have finished their strafing runs, resume hitting those escorts with our cannons"
The Chimera shuddered as enemy rounds impacted on the hull, about a dozen of them, a second later the mighty ship shuddered again as all her guns fired off their response, only this time they didn't let up, the crews would keep firing until either the enemy retreated out of range or they went up in a fireball.
"Damage report" Neros shouted as a few computer screens, including Damage Control, exploded in a bright display of sparks and glass or shut down.
"One second Jim" Ellis replied as he picked up a phone "This is the XO, what's the DC team's assessment"
The Colonel nodded twice then turned back to the Commander, a scowl on his face "Five sections on A deck completely exposed to vacuum with no survivors, they've been sealed off, three sections on D and four on B with minor breaches, Chief Panaka has his team working to seal them, and the bastards hit a pair of defensive cannons, both are write offs. The entire starboard side looks like someone took a huge jackhammer to it"
"What about Olympia and Victory" the Commander asked
"Olympia is pretty much the same as us, but Victory took the brunt and apparently it shows, one of their flight pods is completely wrecked and they lost half of their main guns in that one salvo, added to that they lost both FTLs and their main reactor may have sprung a leak"
Neros pinched the bridge of his nose, those kinds of losses were too extreme for what they were facing, although he had had some small trace of hope up until now, they simply couldn't hold out any longer. Without serious reinforcements they were well and truly frakked unless… no, he couldn't do that, he probably end up condemning thousands, however he might end up saving thousands more, it was probably the better course to take then just slugging it out at these ranges.
"Sir, our planes are reaching their launch point" an officer behind the Commander said, interrupting his chain of thought
"Good, are any enemy fighters moving to intercept them" Neros replied, his mind still half focused on the beginnings of a proper strategy
"Yes sir, however our birds will have launched and fallen back before they can intercept, the only danger is from the escorts between us"
"Once they've launched bring all of them back to the ships and load their standard fighter combat packages, if they have a chance they can strafe an enemy escort but tell them to watch for those lasers" Neros said as he glanced at the camera display, none of the enemy escorts appeared to have any shields left and although they were attempting to avoid the firepower the battlestars were throwing out, the defensive batteries, with their high velocity rounds, were slowly ripping them to shreds, most had exposed decks and only two were manoeuvring with the same gusto they had been previously, the enemy's first thrust against Picon seemed to have been repelled for the moment. Then the Victory started to drift quite rapidly out of formation.
"What's going on with the Victory" Neros asked no one in particular
"One moment sir" the Lieutenant running communications replied as he pressed an earphone against his head "Victory suffered a massive power surge from their damaged reactor sir, it started several fires and their XO was forced to vent several sections they'll be back in position soon"
Neros nodded in acknowledgement then, one eye on the display, he grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a quick series of numbers. Pressing a few keys, he switched the display back to its regular DRADIS mode just in time to see the lead squadron, a reserve unit if he wasn't mistaken, launch it's first missiles. Seconds later more Vipers began to launch, followed by the Raptors spread out amongst the large formation. Within seconds hundreds, probably over a thousand, nuclear warheads were speeding towards the main body of the enemy fleet, the tracks on the display leaving the Commander's view of the battlespace a confusing mess of lines as the missiles continued towards their target.
As they closed on the main alien fleet missiles began to drop off the DRADIS, probably from the enemy's laser defence system. It started with one or two at a time, but then the missiles began to disappear by the dozens, luckily for the human's though dozens more got through, like with the intercepts it started with the ones and two before dozens of nuclear missiles began detonating along the leading edge of the alien's formation at once. As the heat and radiation began to spread out it obscured the Chimera's DRADIS readings and hopefully the enemy's sensor system as well, it ought to with all the radiation and vaporised metal that the warheads would have thrown in between the two forces.
Although the Fleet had never developed its military lasers to the point that they could be deployed on warships, as before the Cylon war a lot of the experimental laser control systems had relied on primitive AIs, the number of missiles dropping off the screen was remarkable if it was combined with the Fleet's current missile defence system, filling the space around a ship obscene amounts of high explosives and metal, it would make quite and effective defensive barrier.
"Helm" Neros said "Move us behind the disabled ships then kill our engines, Comms inform the Olympia to do the same then prepare to transmit a message on the universal military channel"
"I, ah, yes sir" the helmsman replied as Neros walked over to the communications station
"Lieutenant" Neros said as he handed the young man the scrap of paper "Inform all vessels within one jump of Picon to jump to these coordinates exactly, and emphasise the exactly part, five minutes after receiving this message, with the majority of their guns angled towards Picon. Tell them not to wait until they've established contact with us, just acquire targets and fire"
"Yes sir but sir are you sure this is the best thing to do, I mean, there's a frackload of things that could go wrong with that kind of plan" the Lieutenant replied
"I didn't ask your opinion Lieutenant" Neros replied, his voice low "now we're operating on a time table here so if you don't mid following orders"
Battlestar Galactica, Docked At Ragnar Anchorage, That Same Time
"Roger that sir, we show a hard seal as well" Crew Chief Galen Tyrol told the Old Man
"Go find me some bullets Chief" the Admiral replied
"Copy that sir" the mechanic said before turning to his team "Alright we're secure, let's move out"
A marine spun the flywheel and the airlock door opened, with a groan that was common on Galactica, to reveal the rust covered walls of an installation that probably hadn't seen any kind of serious maintenance work since the Cylon war.
Spreading out quickly through the station, the party made their way to the main magazine, Ragnar's main reserve of munitions. The door was old and rusted, but once unlocked two marines were able to easily swing it open.
Quickly looking the room over, the Chief said "Alright people let's be quick about this, Cally find a genny get some lights on in here"
"Yes Chief" she replied
"Let's find out where the lift is, get it fired up and someone check the internal communications, see if Leviathan's guys are on their way here"
As the team began to spread out through the room, Tyrol's light flashed against what looked like a pair of shoes, focusing his light back on them he found that it was indeed a pair of shoes, attached to a pair of legs which were connected to a torso which had arms that were currently holding a gun which, although shaking was pointing squarely at him.
Almost unfortunately for the mystery man though the marines noticed him as well and raised their rifles, however Tyrol raised and hand and yelled "Everybody hold fast"
"I don't want trouble" the blonde man, who was sweating profusely, said "But I'm not going to jail you understand me, I am not going to jail"
"Nobody's taking you to jail, just calm down" the Chief replied
"Fracking right you're not" the man muttered
"Look we're not the police we're not here to arrest you now put your gun down"
"Yeah, maybe so who the hell are you"
"We're from Colonial Fleet, we just came to get some equipment from the station, to get back in the fight"
"What fight"
"You don't know"
"Know what"
"There's a war on, give me your weapon"
"You think I'm stupid or something is that it you think I'm stupid you expect me to believe that" the man said before screaming "I want passage out of here, on a safe transport ship, with an untraceable jump system" he then took a deep breath and said "Okay" then again screamed "Now"
The man was obviously a nut, and the Chief had seen enough crime shows to know that at this point he'd either give up or he'd pull the trigger and unfortunately he was right in the weapon's sights and Tyrol did not plan to die before he even got into combat.
When the Chief replied his voice was low but as he went on his voice began to rise and his anger rose to the surface "Look I don't have time to argue with you, so here's the deal we've got over two thousand people on that ship now you think you can shoot every single one of us fine but if not, get the hell out of my way"
The man did nothing for a moment and Tyrol prepared to meet the ferryman, then the man pointed his weapon at the ceiling. Two marines ran forward to grab him and Tyrol told a marine sergeant next to him "Take him back to Galactica and chuck him in the brig, if he tries anything shoot him"
"Got it Chief" the Sergeant replied as he and two others pulled the blonde man out of the armoury.
Turian Dreadnaught Palveran, Approaching Picon, That Same Time
As the sensor operator had screamed about the huge amount of incoming nuclear ordinance, Septimus's hands had gripped the railing so hard that his knuckles went pale. On the main display he watched as GARDIAN lasers picked off enemy missiles by the dozens but it was not enough and Septimus's grip only grew tighter as bright flashes cluttered the display, hiding ships from view, blinding sensors with heat and vaporised metal and filling communications with static as their tiny section of space was flooded by electromagnetic energy. The Palveran rocked for almost ten seconds but the crew within felt nothing as its mass effect fields compensated for the shockwave of dozens of explosions along the front of the Turian fleet.
After closing his eyes for several seconds, Septimus took a deep breath. He should have realised that those fighters would have nukes aboard, they had after all been the primary means of delivery against the scouting group near the mass relay.
"How long until we can get a damage report from the forward sections of the fleet" the General asked
"Within a few minutes sir, but we won't have an accurate count until this clutter clears and we can get clear readings from our sensors", some of the forward elements may have had their comms arrays taken out" an officer replied
"Very well then" the General said. Looking at the hologram, Septimus realised just how vulnerable they would be to a follow up strike in this environment if the hoomen's sensors were good enough to sort through this mess faster then his ships', they could probably get in a few volleys from their main guns before his fleet could react, of course this time he wouldn't launch a feint with frigates. This time he'd overwhelm them with numbers and crush them, a thought that caused Septimus to form the Turian equivalent of a grin.
"General, radiation appears to be clearing" the sensor operator said
"Alert all vessels to prepare to move in" the General replied, it was time to end this threat before the rest of the enemy responded and he would not be caught like this again.
Author's Notes
Well here's the latest chapter, I took some of the feedback about the last battle into account and comments about the quality of this battle compared to the last would be appreciated. As to review responses.
Hang Tuah: Yes the Turians reason seemed kind of ridiculous when I wrote it however there is a reason for this. The Turian excuse is just that, an excuse, similar to how the people say that WMDs was just the official reason the US invaded Iraq. Although when you consider what happened with the Krogan you could say that they have a precedent, although it's not a very good comparison.
M4 Sherman: Your battle fleet has just been reduced from over eighty top of the line warships, to two outdated battlestars and a Valkyrie, even if you were feeling confident before hand wouldn't you feel even the slightest hint of doubt in that situation.
Genesis: One of the things I've always thought about the fall of the Colonies was that there probably were more then a few ships that were resistant to the Cylon's cyber warfare, but they were destroyed by the Cylon's surprise attacks. Galactica itself would have been destroyed if they hadn't had any ammo for their mk2 vipers aboard and Pegasus was pretty much on the chopping block before Cain ordered a highly risky blind jump.
Anyway, as always read, enjoy and please review.
