Plans in Motion
Olympia Station Meeting Room
Five days after Operation Firestorm
There were dozens and dozens of officers sitting and waiting for the important meeting to start in the Olympia station meeting room. The commanding and executive officers from all the military ships were participating in this meeting. The only civilian present was Jason Campus from the Quorum of Twelve.
Admiral Stryker entered the room followed by Admirals Thorn and Sounders. After they sat in their places, Admiral Stryker started speaking, "ladies and gentlemen, as you all know by now, the Cylons destroyed Caprica: whether it was by mistake, or on purpose we don't know. They are aware of our military strength in ships, but not of our plans. Our losses during the evacuation of our people from Aerelon and Caprica were thankfully minimal with the loss of one Gunstar. We saved over a million people, including a large amount of colonial fleet personnel, and we recovered several military assets; including two battlestars, various support ships, and the defense grids from Caprica and Aerelon."
Admiral Stryker stood and started walking around, "now, the question is what do we do now? What is the next course of action? The answer to that question is this; we will proceed as planned to Avalon. We must move our main civilian fleet out of here to safety. After many hours of discussion and planning; Admiral Thorn, Admiral Sounders, and I came up with this. Twelve of our Battlestars and both of our Warstars will stay behind to do one last attack in colonial space on the Cylons. We will attack the Cylon forces at Picon, which will strike into the heart of the remaining Cylon forces in colonial space. If we succeed; we will destroy their secondary resurrection hub and their command basestar, hopefully this will cripple the Cylon forces in the colonies for some time to come and maybe even keep them from sending a large force to try and follow us to Avalon. The rest of our military units will proceed together with the civilians, shipyards, and our other assets to Avalon.
"Twelve of our Main line Battlestars and our only two Warstars? Are you mad Admiral?" Delegate Campus asked angrily sputtering in shock at what he was hearing.
"Yes, Delegate Campus, I am. I also forgot to mention that we will take all three of the Cradle mobile docks, one of the Hephaestus docks, the re-captured troop transports, and the Eleventh Marine Expeditionary Division as well," Admiral Stryker said.
The face of Delegate Campus lost all of its color after hearing that. It was quite obvious that Delegate Campus was furious.
"The quorum will not allow this Admiral!" Delegate Campus said loudly.
"Delegate Campus, I do not have time to argue with you or the other delegates. You are here only because I allow it, and you will not interfere with a military decision," Admiral Stryker said calmly and unblinkingly.
"No, but if military decisions put the civilians into danger, then yes!" Delegate Campus said.
"I assure you delegate, you have more than enough military ships to be protected; hundreds and hundreds of vipers and raptors. There's Unity and Eternity, the strongest and largest units ever built by the Colonial Navy which are fully armed, and besides Admiral Sounders will lead all of you back to Avalon safely. Once we are done with the attack on the Cylons, we will rejoin the civilian fleet," Admiral Stryker said.
"And what if the Cylons attack the main fleet, and the military assets assigned to protect the fleet are not enough?" Delegate Campus asked.
"They will be enough. This mission is very dangerous; we saw that they had over fifty baseships in one fleet, plus two or three command versions and that big one, but we planned this operation very well Delegate Campus. Add that to the fact that our attack will draw all available Cylons forces to us and away from you," Admiral Stryker said, and then turned to address all those in the room.
"We know that the entire Picon defense grid survived the attack, since the Cylons shut it down with the CNP virus. This fact also gives us a surprise for the Cylons that they will not be expecting. The Cylons do not believe that we could possibly reactivate the defense grid, since there is no way that we can get near the mainframe on Picon; not that it matters since Picon control was nuked during the attack. However, with the help we have received from our Cylon agents, we can now use the back door the Cylons used on the colonial fleet in order to hack the stations and place them back under our control. With the program they have helped us develop, we can bring them back online in auto mode; thus eliminating the need to crew them. Remember that these stations were constructed to be used in automatic, or under manual control when they had a crew on board. So when the stations reactivate the IFF software, they will lock onto the Cylon ships and attack. With the entire grid activated we can decimate the Cylon fleet. Now our latest recon identified that there are 22 modern Basestars, 1 Command Basestar, 10 Patrolstars, and the Resurrection Hub. And of course there are a lot of raiders and heavy raiders patrolling the area," Admiral Stryker said, addressing the meeting room at large.
"If I may Admiral, there were also some other assets at Picon identified by raptor scouts," Admiral Thorn interrupted.
"Go ahead," Admiral Stryker said curiously, wondering what Admiral Thorn had found out.
"From our interceptions of Cylon communications over the last few days, thanks to our Cylon guests, we now know that the Cylons have moved all captured colonial assets to Picon to keep everything in one place and minimize their need to place basestars across the colonies to protect from raiding parties they expect from us," Admiral Thorn said.
The crowd of commanding and executive officers murmured loudly after hearing that, wondering just what assets the Cylons had in their possession.
"Our raptor scouts recently confirmed what the translated Cylon transmissions told us. We know there's a large amount of captured colonial assets that were moved to Picon; including several civilian ships, military support ships, all the wrecks from colonial fleet ships that were salvageable, the Libran shipyard, and Aureoles station which we left behind unfortunately. From the Cylon transmissions we've decoded, we also know that all the POWs from all the colonies, numbering approximately one million people, are now on Picon," Admiral Thorn said.
The entire room went silent at Admiral Thorn's description of the developments on Picon, a few people drew their breath sharply after hearing the number of POWs moved to Picon.
"So the Cylons have moved pretty much every captured colonial asset to Picon? Wouldn't that mean they would move all their basestars to Picon as well?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"Other Cylon transmissions we decoded mentioned the Cylons intention to move the defense platforms and stations from all the defense grids around the colonies to Picon. Given all the other captured colonial assets that were moved to Picon and a few that are still being moved now, it would seem that the Cylons have not managed to move the planetary defense stations as of yet and might not be able to do so for a few more days. Our raptors have confirmed that the Cylons have kept their current fleet deployments throughout the colonies, and we believe that this will continue until after the Cylons have moved the defense stations and satellites to Picon. There shouldn't be any additional baseships at Picon if we strike at Picon, quickly, within the next few days," Admiral Thorn said confidently.
"Very well. We will proceed with our current plan for the strike at Picon unless our scouts determine there are more baseships at Picon before our attack commences," Admiral Stryker said, then looked over the file in front of him, his notes, to get back to his previous line of thought before Admiral Thorn's interruption.
"Under normal conditions, 12 Battlestars and 2 Warstars would be more than enough to deal with twice that number of basestars, but since we do not know how fast they can redeploy reinforcements, this attack must be made with a degree of caution. The plan is to surgically strike from two different sides. We will be pushing them slowly and deliberately back against the defense platforms while allowing our Raptors to get closer to the defense platforms and turn them on. We can do that from our Battlestars, but there will be a good chance that the Cylons will jam us just as much as we will be jamming them. We have already used stealth raptors to infiltrate into five of the command platforms, and we have teams getting them online in secret. With those five repaired and reprogrammed, they can be ready at the same time we attack Picon. The fleet will hit the Cylons from the front, and the platforms will hit them from the rear.
A selected group of raptors will be deployed to disable the resurrection hub as soon as the battle starts. The ships that will participate in this mission are the Battlestars Atlantis, Polaris, Vanguard, Chimera, Theseus, Athena, Titan, Freedom, Minerva, Hades, Pleiades, Victorious, and the Warstars Argona and Daedalus. The rest of the Battlestars, Gunstars, and other warships will stay with the fleet, and the Battlestar Rycon will lead the civilian fleet to Avalon. Until Atlantis and the other Battlestars return; presuming that we survive. That is all for now, any questions?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"What are the chances that we can win this fight against the Cylons at Picon?" Commander Elkins asked nervously.
"As I said, under normal circumstances we would have at least 30 Gunstars that would provide us with superior anti-air and missile defense. But, since the civilian fleet is very large, it needs a lot of support ships to protect it. So the Gunstars are going to be left behind with the fleet. So to answer on your question Commander, I cannot guarantee that all of our ships will return. If we strike them as planned, we should have the upper hand and blow them to pieces fast, presuming we jam them right away and no reinforcements get to Picon in time. In a fight, a Battlestar is much stronger than any Cylon baseship. But their heavy raiders and raiders can be a pain in the ass if they are armed with nukes, and I bet that some of them will be. Once the attack starts; our ships will be moving in groups of five. Daedalus and Argona will lead the attack together with Theseus and Atlantis in a third group, with the intention of targeting the Command basestar and its surrounding escorts from the start of our attack. We will have several stealth raptors moving in and attacking the Cylon baseships with nukes as well. The majority of our fighter squadrons will be engaging Cylon raiders while the rest of the fighters, and raptors armed with interceptors, will stay near the Battlestars to provide suppression fire against missiles and raiders," Admiral Stryker said.
For another half an hour, the Admirals shared their plans and after all questions were answered, the meeting was finally over and the officers dispersed to return to their ships.
On the way to Olympia's CIC
"Well that wasn't so bad, with the usual exceptions from Delegate Campus," Admiral Thorn said rolling his eyes.
"I'm not surprised; he has the right to be concerned about this plan. If we fail and we lose our attack force, the civilian fleet will have a much smaller military fleet to defend itself. I know there are a lot of assets in still in the fleet, but he is still a civilian and has a right to be scared after what happened to the colonies," Admiral Stryker said.
"Are you planning to cancel the mission?" Admiral Thorn asked.
"No. No, we will proceed with the mission as planned. With the Warstars and all those Battlestars, we might even succeed in bringing the Cylons to their knees, in the short term at least, and this should buy us the time we need to set up the colonies defenses and start building a fleet of ships," Admiral Stryker said.
"Does my new report of the newest Cylon developments change our plans?" Admiral Thorn asked.
"I was surprised you waited to tell me this. Yes, I do believe this changes things. We will proceed with the current attack plan, but assuming we kick the Cylons away from Picon long enough; we will be able to retrieve some more people from the planet and even put some unexpected fleet assets to use. I certainly didn't think the Aureolos station would survive after we decided she wasn't worth saving, but we might be able to use it for bringing more survivors to Avalon if there's time, or otherwise we'll leave it to be fixed at Picon. There's the shipyard there now which will be difficult to move, but we could always leave it behind to benefit the group we leave behind at Picon. Unfortunately, the majority of the survivors and POWs must hold on as best as they can for now, and remain on the surface of Picon. Right now the fleet is overpopulated so if we want to save more people, we'll have to place some on the military ships, and even that may not be possible. We'll have a clearer idea of where we stand after the attack at Picon. Once the fleet reaches Avalon and unloads the survivors we've recovered on the surface, we can prepare a fleet that can come back and try to save more of the remaining survivors. The only thing I can do for those on the surface, if we have time, will be to send them all the weapons, food, and medicine that we can spare in order to give them a better chance to fight back until we return. I will need to talk to the General to see about leaving some marines to assist those on the surface of Picon," Admiral Stryker said.
"Yes, about that. We only came to our conclusions about the Cylons moving everything to Picon today, after spending the last few days decoding their latest transmissions with the help of our Cylon guests. Also, you are aware that more than half of those we leave behind would die before the fleet returns?" Admiral Thorn asked.
"I know and we cannot do a thing for them. We simply don't have room, and even if we made the room; basic human needs that each person needs like food, water, and hygiene, would not support them all. We have over 2.5 million people in the fleet, and it will be a miracle if all of them get to Avalon safely," Admiral Stryker said sadly.
"I understand, it's just that it is hard to leave them to die," Admiral Thorn said downcast.
"As I said, we can't do anything for them; we must concentrate on what is in front of us, and that is saving our people in the fleet by getting them to Avalon, as well as kicking some Cylon ass at Picon. We are giving the people on Picon their best chance with the marines we will leave behind, as well as weapons, food, medicine, and the damage we may be able to do to any Cylon bases on the planet. It will take the Cylons many months to just replace their losses and restart their attacks on Picon. If we time this right, we can return before they get too far," Admiral Stryker said.
Before Admiral Thorn could reply, a Lieutenant ran up to them from the corridor leading to C.I.C.
"What is it lieutenant?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"Sir, we received word from the station's brig that two of the Cylons are dead, actually they killed themselves," the Lieutenant said quickly.
"What? How is that possible?" Admiral Stryker asked angrily.
"Apparently sir, they awoke earlier than usual, so they did not get the sedatives in time, and they got a chance to kill themselves before we could stop them," the Lieutenant reported.
"My, gods… We must act now," Admiral Thorn said.
A few minutes later both Admirals entered the Olympia's C.I.C.
"Ensign, put me through fleet wide," Admiral Stryker said grabbing the communications microphone, "This is Admiral Stryker, to all units in fleet. Initiate Code Black, I repeat initiate Code Black."
"What is going on sir?" Commander Corgon asked.
"Two Cylons just killed themselves; meaning when they resurrect the Cylons will know our location, so prepare all ships to move to the evacuation exit of the nebula, and then have our fleet start jumping to the alpha escape coordinates," Admiral Stryker said.
"What about the rest of the Cylons?" Admiral Thorn asked.
"Dump them out an airlock, but do it fast! Only leave those alive who are actively working with us," Admiral Stryker said.
Code black was an order used in case the enemy was overrunning, or had compromised, the defending position of the fleet. It compelled a retreat of all surviving units, military and civilian, from the battle zone. Although their position had not been attacked yet, it was compromised. While the tunnel that led to open space is the only open way into the nebula, it is not the only way out. Admiral Stryker knew this was where the Cylons would attack directly, so as to destroy the fleeing ships. Evanesce Plato was the only cleared zone inside the nebula from where ships could jump in or jump out. Only Colonial Fleet Command knew of it, since the knowledge was intentionally never placed inside any of the defense data bases.
It didn't take long before ships of all sizes started moving toward the Evanesce Plato, surrounded by military units for protection. Hera station was attached to the Eternity, becoming part of it for the entire journey back to Avalon, and Olympia station was scheduled to go last together with Battlestars Atlantis and Theseus acting as the fleet's rear guard.
Thirty minutes later
More than half of the ships had already jumped to the Alpha coordinates, and the rest were following. All the perimeter defense stations were picked up and stored on Unity and Eternity, and only minefields in the tunnel were left behind. The Battlestar Valkyrie, the guard for the entrance to Red Horse Nebula, started slowly moving to the Plato while leaving behind sensor buoys at the very edge of the entrance to watch for the Cylons.
ATLANTIS C.I.C.
"Sir, 60% of the fleet has already jumped, and it will take at least 10 minutes for the rest of the fleet to jump. Olympia station is also now moving towards the Plato," Commander Haller reported.
"What about the shipyards?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"Both Unity and Eternity are moving toward the Plato; they will be in place to jump in the next 7 minutes. However, due to the large amount of ships being repaired, refitted, and stored, along with bringing along Hera station; Eternity is moving sigificantly slower, and both shipyards will need at least 10 more minutes to have their jump engines 100 percent," Commander Haller reported, working with the CIC officers to manage the fleet evactuation.
Unity and Eternity both had enormous jump engines, but it took almost five minutes to charge for a single jump. While Olympia needed at least 20 minutes to charge for the jump. All three Battlestars had already charged their FTL engines while on the way to Plato, so once they arrived there they could jump instantly.
"There is also an incoming message from the Valkyrie sir; they reported that 20 baseships just jumped in near the entrance of the nebula," the communications officer said.
"Hmm, already? We don't have much time. Tell everyone to boost their engines to maximum. I want Theseus, Valkyrie, Vanguard and Hades to form a defensive formation once they arrive at Plato. We will do the same, nothing gets through until the last ship jumps out, is that clear?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"Yes sir," the communications officer replied, relaying Admiral Stryker's orders.
"We know that radiation from this nebula is poisonous for Cylons, do you think they will attack?" Commander Haller asked.
"Hmm, I don't know. They could wait and blockade the entrance, or they could send raiders in to chase us out. It's most likely they'll send in their raiders first, so let's launch our vipers to say hello to them if they do. Have all other ships do the same. How we are proceeding in the evacuation?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"Well, the majority of the fleet will be out in the next ten minutes, but Olympia will need a little longer," the communications officer reported.
"Sir, our sensor buoys in the tunnel are detecting a large number of raiders entering the nebula sir!" the dradis officer reported.
"Blast, Commander Haller, what military ship besides the defensive formations are still here?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"There's the Assaultstar Forseti and two Titan class Gunstars, but they will jump in a few minutes," Commander Haller replied.
"Hold them. Tell them to connect with Olympia, and tell the Valkyrie to do the same. We will use their engines to boost Olympia into being able to jump sooner," Admiral Stryker said.
"Yes sir, relaying the orders now," the communications officer said.
The Assaultstar Forseti and the two Gunstars started moving toward the station, joined by Battlestar Valkyrie. It took almost ten minutes for them to reach the station and connect to her. In the meantime, the enemy raiders were already fighting their way down the tunnel toward the place where the colonial ships had been for the last few months. After a short scan, they picked up the colonial ships near the Plato, and started moving rapidly with orders to destroy everything in their path.
But they didn't get far; they were engaged from both sides by vipers that were deployed there to attack them from the flanks once the Cylon fighters passed. A major dog fight started. Sensor buoys at the entrance again sent a warning signal that more raiders were coming through the tunnel, and this time baseships as well.
Baseship 114
"So we have found where they have been hiding," one of the number fours said.
"Yes, but it looks like they are escaping. If we only had known there was a zone in the nebula for their ships to jump out, we would have had them," a number six replied, "Jack won't be happy when we tell him the colonials escaped."
"They won't escape," a number three said confidently.
"It appears you're wrong; they are escaping. They have left several Battlestars to confront us and give time for their remaining ships to escape. The raiders won't be able do much, and our baseship won't get there in time. Also, did I forget to mention that this nebula is deadly to us, so we can't stay long," a number two Leoben said, rolling his eyes.
"At least we will try and destroy some of those Battlestars," a number four said persistently.
Atlantis C.I.C.
"Sir, Olympia is closing on the Plato; they will jump in several minutes, and all other ships are gone, including the shipyards," Commander Haller reported.
"Good, signal to the rest of the ships; we are falling back to Plato," Admiral Stryker said.
Atlantis and her escorts started turning towards the Olympia, which had just reached her destination and in blink of the eye jumped away. Only the defensive forces were left behind, and now it was a battle to escape and reach the safe spot to jump away from the nebula. Vipers were still engaged in deadly dog fights with the raiders, but were also covering the fleeing Battlestars, until finally Admiral Stryker gave the order for all vipers to return to their ships and make combat landings.
"Sir, we are approaching the Plato; commencing jump countdown, T-minus 1 minute," Commander Haller said.
"Good, Commander, please inform missile bay two to launch our little surprise for the Cylons," Admiral Stryker said.
"Surprise?" Commander Heller asked.
"Yes, a little gift for the Cylons, a 25Mt nuke," Admiral Stryker said with a vicious smile.
Commander Haller realized what Admiral Stryker was doing; all around them was the deadly and explosive gas of the nebula, and once they trigger the bomb to explode all the surrounding gas would ignite with deadly consequences. It would destroy all the raiders, and maybe even a baseship or two. Commoner Haller had known that this sector of the nebula was extremely dangerous, filled with unstable gases, and that it might destroy the ships that entered the nebula if they were not vigilant, and it would detonate every mine in the nebula as well. Clever indeed.
Baseship 114
"We have 5 baseships in the nebula including us; we've passed their location where they've been for all this time. We're on course to the safe jump spot," a number three said.
"Good, what's the status of our raiders?" a number four asked.
"Almost half have been destroyed, but the others are pursuing the colonial forces. The raider's report that all the enemy vipers have landed on their Battlestars, meaning they are preparing to jump," the number three said.
"It appears we lost this one," a number six said.
"Jack will be very angry that we didn't stop the colonials; we didn't destroy a single ship. How the hell did they know that we were coming?" a number one said.
"In my opinion, as soon as they realized that two of our brothers killed themselves, Admiral Stryker ordered the retreat. If we hadn't waited for additional ships, we might have been able to intercept them before they escaped," a number two said.
"At least three additional baseships have entered the nebula, the rest are trying to encircle the nebula," a number five said.
"Pointless, they are not going out of this nebula, they're already jumping away," a number four said angrily.
Atlantis C.I.C.
"15 seconds to jump," Commander Haller said.
"Alright, give the order Commander," Admiral Stryker said.
"Yes sir," Commander Haller said.
A few seconds later, a specially designed Viper was launched from one of the launch tubes, and headed directly into the nearest gas cloud.
"Jump in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, now," Commander Haller said.
All colonial ships disappeared in bright flash. The special viper continued on its way; as soon as it came near a Cylon Basestar, it exploded. A large nuclear explosion engulfed the Basestar and ignited the gas cloud with a fiery explosion that increased the blast of the nuclear explosion. Raiders were engulfed instantly as the chain reaction started all the way back to the pursuing baseships, and before they could even react all of them were destroyed in a fiery blaze. Half of the sector was in flames, and the mines that were left by the colonials also self-destructed taking out at least another two baseships; leaving only one heavily damaged basestar able to escape.
Command Baseship - In Orbit Of Picon
"What the hell happened there?" Jack Cavil asked, walking furiously all around the CIC.
"The colonials escaped. We didn't believe they could escape so fast with so many ships and they tricked us, again!" Jeremy Simon said.
"Really, and they blew up ten baseships using a god damn nuke and the gases of the nebula, not to mention the mines," Jack Cavil said. Jack was furious over this disaster, he had hoped to at least destroy half of them, and then slowly continue to kill the remaining colonials until the survivors lead him to that mysterious colony, but now, he needed a new plan.
"From what our brothers said after they resurrected, the colonials kept them sedated all the time after they realized who they were. They also said that Kathy, Leoben, and one more six supplied the colonials with a lot of information; about our ship capabilities, numbers, and god knows what else," Jeremy Simon said.
"Wonderful, when John returns and finds Caprica destroyed, 2.5 mil survivors, and two dozen Battlestars along lots of support ships, he will kill us all," Jack Cavil said.
"I think this is your mistake not ours," one of the sixes said.
"Really sister, well he won't be pleased when he returns. As I said, he will kill us all; no matter who made the mistake, or who didn't. We need to take this problem and fix it before it gets out of control," Jack Cavil said.
"They're probably fleeing Colonial space and heading to their secret colony. That would be the logical course of action, with all those civilians Stryker rescued," one of the number twos said.
"Spare me your logic please. I want a scout sent out in all possible directions, and all around the Cyrannus system. I want them found. I think we cannot allow them to live any longer, we will swarm them in one attack attack and kill them all," Jack Cavil said.
"What about the colony, if we kill them all who will give us coordinates to its location?" a number five Doral asked.
"Well we can leave a few survivors of course. But the majority of them must be destroyed and especially their military units and shipyards. This must come to an end fast before John returns. If he returns that is," Jack Cavil said with a trace of hope in his voice.
Rally Point Alpha - Atlantis C.I.C.
"Jump completed," Commander Haller said, after Atlantis finished the jump.
"Ships?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"All accounted sir," the dradis officer reported.
"Good, it appears we will start our attack on Picon earlier than planned," Admiral Stryker said.
"Sir?" Commander Haller asked.
"Well Commander, right now, we need to move our fleet as far from the Cyrannus system as possible. But we need a distraction, and our attack on Picon is perfect for this. They will concentrate on us instead of the civilian fleet. Right now they do not expect any attack as the Cylons believe that we have escaped to leave the colonies, and by now they must know that we have a colony somewhere. They do not know where, and that is a piece of luck. But we need to ensure that we destroy or damage as many of their baseships as possible," Admiral Stryker said.
"And that Dreadstar? What should we do about her?" Commander Haller asked.
"Right now, nothing. Patience Commander, we will deal with her one day soon. We need to concentrate on our mission now. Get a message to Admirals Thorn and Sounders to meet me in the Atlantis' conference room in 30 minutes," Admiral Stryker said.
"Right away sir," Commander Haller replied.
"And by the way, how many fighters did we lose during the fight in nebula?" Admiral Stryker asked.
"Twelve in total, no survivors," Commander Haller said sadly.
After hearing this, the Admiral turned and left C.I.C. More deaths on his watch, but he knew it could happen and there will be even more in the next battle. Is it a good idea to attack the Cylons right now? Should he be sending his ships into a battle that could lead to the possible destruction of his main Battlestars and the death of his crews? Maybe not, but he must give the civilian fleet more time and demoralize the Cylons. Admiral Stryker thinks about this all the way to his ready room. One thing he knew for sure is that even if they survive and get to Avalon, one day they will return in numbers and eliminate all Cylons they find. Stryker was not a man full of revenge, at least not before the attack. Now, when human race was facing extinction, he would do anything to protect the fleet and its survivors. It's his way and his decisions, and those decisions kept this fleet in one piece.
A half an hour later...
Atlantis Conference Room
Only Admirals were inside the room, discussing and planning the fleet's next move.
"I cannot agree, you urge this, but we need more time to prepare and all of the ships need to be ready," Admiral Thorn said.
"We are as ready as we can be, we cannot delay this for much longer," Admiral Stryker replied.
"And what if they get more ships there? You will be overrun," Admiral Sounders said.
"Overrun but not outgunned. Kelly, your job is to get our people out of here; we cannot stay here. Sooner or later, the Cylons will look around and find us. This fleet is not so small that it can hide. And no, you agreed to lead the civilian fleet back to Avalon, so I do not want you to go with us. Somebody needs to lead the fleet away to safety," Admiral Stryker said.
"At least take a few more ships with you," Admiral Sounders pleaded.
"Absolutely not. We are already taking 12 Battlestars and both Warstars, as well as the eleventh marine division. We cannot take any more ships; already Delegate Campus is doing all he can to stall or stop our mission. In his eyes, and the eyes of the quorum, there's no point in attacking the Cylons at Picon. But it is simply the thing that needs to be done. And I will not argue about it," Admiral Stryker said determinedly.
"When do you plan to start the mission?" Admiral Thorn asked.
"Five days I think, I would like to go in three, but five days is necessary to complete preparations. I have already ordered additional viper squadrons on each participating Battlestars. We will double the number of viper squadrons in our attack fleet, and this should prevent the Cylons from overrunning us with their raiders," Admiral Stryker said.
"Hmm that will help, but it will make our flight deck a little chaotic if we need to retreat in a hurry," Admiral Thorn said.
"Maybe, but let's stay positive on this. As we planned; two fleets attacking from two sides, and once we attack we will start jamming from all ships. I have been informed that our stealth raptors have made it to the defense platforms unnoticed. The engineering teams have already started fixing the platforms and when we arrive, we will send the signal for them to turn them on. And the attack might be even easier than we hoped for," Admiral Stryker said.
"How so?" Admiral Sounders asked.
"The resurrection hub is located near two of the platforms, so when they come online during the attack they can disable and destroy the hub. Unfortunately half of the Cylon fleet is outside of the platform's firing range. So we will need to push them back into range of the platforms. The latest count on the Cylons places their ships at 24 baseships, 1 heavy baseship, and 10 Patrolstars. We must destroy these ships soon," Admiral Stryker said.
"What about the surface?" Admiral Thorn asked.
"Nothing, we can do about the surface unless we are fast and the Cylons are destroyed quickly. The original plan was that once we dealt with the guarding fleet; if we were be able to, we would to land on Picon and see if we could help any of the defenders and possibly take as many survivors as we can, but due to pressure from the quorum I may have to cancel that part of the plan," Admiral Stryker said.
"Why?" Admiral Thorn asked.
"Because right now we do not have room for those survivors. We already have people living in small and not too comfortable spaces, and I cannot force them to give more space for any newcomers. If we get the time we might be able to land the 11th Marine Division and use the space they free up to pick up some survivors," Admiral Stryker said.
Gemenon's Sky Freighter
In a dark corridor near the engines, two men stood in the shadows.
"So we cannot do anything to stop Stryker from continuing with this mission?" Delegate Jenkins asked.
"I'm afraid we cannot, the rest of the quorum is divided, but a majority of them agreed with every decision that Stryker has made so far and are not willing to oppose him," Delegate Campus replied.
"He is after all a capable man; so far he has led the fleet very well and under less than ideal situations," Delegate Jenkins said.
"Maybe, but he is risking the entire fleet with his military plans. Is this attack on Picon really necessary?" Delegate Campus asked.
"And what would you propose Jason, Mutiny? It would not be wise if we as members of the quorum were known to be having secret meetings and planning mutiny, at least not before we get a lot more supporters with our point of view," Delegate Jenkins said.
"I guess you're right. We will need to keep a low profile for now and wait for him to mess up. If the military starts to endanger us more we will act, but in the mean time we will need to find as many supporters as we can that do not agreed with military decisions," Delegate Campus said.
"Will do, but be careful. I would not be surprised if Stryker assigned somebody to follow you. After all, you are a pain in the ass for him; constantly arguing against his plans and his decisions, which could lead you to a messy end. So be careful with what you are doing," Delegate Jenkins said.
After they finished their conversation, the two men split up and each went on their own way. They were unaware that they were observed by someone deep in the darkness of the corridor.
3 Days Later
Cylon Command Ship In Orbit Of Picon
"Nothing," Jeremy Simon said while entering the main command room, "There has been no sign of any colonial activities for now."
"Hmm, they must have retreated and started their way to their secret colony by now," a number two said.
"Probably, but something tells me that they are still here or at least somewhere nearby. I think Admiral Stryker is not somebody who just retreats at the first sign of trouble. No, he is planning something," Jack Cavil said.
"His fleet's hiding place has been found, and he was forced to retreat. Don't you think that with all those civilian ships he has that he has to do his best to avoid us? To go as far as he can from us?" one of the sixes asked.
"Yes, I would expect that from any other colonial officer, but not from this man. I read his file, and it was lucky we saved some parts of the colonial defense mainframe. He was not a man that quits so fast, and remember that he was one of the youngest Commanders in the Colonial Fleet prior to the attack, and now he's an Admiral. He also beat Cain. So if he has the support of so many other officers, he has to be up to something," Jack Cavil said.
"Or he is simply scared by the power of our Dreadstar, and after losing his last place where they hid he was forced to withdraw from this system," Six said.
"If that is the case, we are all in trouble," Jack Cavil said.
"Your brother told you not to keep those disabled ships. Not to wait so long, but you did anyway. And look what's happened. We lost a lot of ships, but the colonials have over 20 Battlestars, between 60 to 70 support ships, and over 600 civilian ships with possibly over two million survivors. They even have a station and maybe even more that we do not know about since so much of their fleet had already jumped before the raiders could get close enough to scan them. All that you said was that there is no way they could have. They are more than ready to attack us despite the Dreadstar. And with Gary's incompetence that lead to the destruction of Caprica, the humans are in even more of a rage and looking for pay back," a number two said.
"If they are in a rage, these primitive barbarians as we think of them, then why the hell would they not attack us? Why would they not openly attack our ships? Instead they were hiding in a nebula. Tell me why Leoben, why?" Jack Cavil replied.
"Maybe they were preparing for something, a possible counter-attack. Maybe they're planning where to hit us," a number two said.
"And maybe they weren't. With so many ships, they need every military ship to protect their civilians. I doubt they would risk sending ships to attack us with the possibility they could lose them," number six said.
"Why not, they have a shipyard station, and they have more than enough people to crew new ships they could build. And they rescued over 30,000 of military personnel in that last raid on Caprica," one of the eights said.
"Cut the crap all of you!" Jack Cavil said banging his fist down on the operations table, "We will find them, but if we don't find them in a week, we will send ships in all directions and into the all sectors that surround this system."
"You are mad, we don't have that many ships!" Doral protested.
"I am not interested in excuses. I messed this up, but we will all fix it," Jack Cavil said.
"Finally, we agreed on something," number six said, "but don't count on me, you started this and you can fix it."
"By now we already have two traitor sixes, so do not force me to box your entire line," Jack Cavil said.
1 day before attack on Picon
Atlantis C.I.C.
"Communications, get me the Rycon," Admiral Stryker ordered.
"Rycon on the line," the communications officer replied.
"I'm transferring fleet control to you Kelly, lead our people to Avalon. I will catch up with you as soon as we finish with the attack on Picon," Admiral Stryker said.
"I will Admiral. Good luck and good hunting," Admiral Sounders said.
Several minutes later, twelve Battlestars, two Warstars, and the rest of the ships for the mission at Picon broke from the main fleet's formation and jumped away.