Battlestar Galactica: The Lions of Leonis

by Phoenix4416

Spinoff from Battlestar Galactica:New Beginnings covering the war on Leonis. Without a fleet to protect them, with a world torn apart by a nuclear bombardment and with their people forced to survive in vast underground bunkers, this story covers a deadly, harrowing war from the perspectives of its leaders and its soldiers and civilians. A war of Stalingrad proportions.

3. Chapter 3: Raging Thunder

Chapter 3: Raging Thunder

The Shape Of Things To Come

"Have the Legions already out there prepare themselves and ready the defences, the invasion is about to begin. Operation Raging Thunder is a go…"

It was hoped that Raging Thunder would allow them not to stop an invasion of Leonis but instead to control it…

Raging thunder could do this not with one tremendous move but a series of small and large moves

"Ten transports are heading for Terragus, 10 for Eastwich, 12 for Pollonus, 5 for Hemlington, 10 For the Peragus plains and the remaining 18 are heading for Luminaire".

Standing there he felt the landing struts hit the ground before compressing as they took on the weight of the transport as she settled and he could barely feel the vibration as the other four transports touched down as well. Victory is ours, he thought.

"…We shall defend our planet, whatever the cost may be. We shall force the Cylons onto our planet and we shall fight on the landing grounds…" – Field Marshall Montgomery during the Cylon Bombardment.

3 days after Cylon Bombardment, 7 hours after departure of Battlestar Pegasus fleet

Leonis

Luminaire

Central Business District

"Back it up slowly" Major Natalie Ford ordered through her throat mic to the tank driver. Inch by solid inch the fifty odd ton heavily armoured Rhino class tank was reversed into a formerly glass covered clothing store. The solid roar of its R60 multi-fuel 2 stroke engine with its 3600 rampant horses like the guttural roar of the wildest of beasts seemed to comfort the Legionary. It was apparent that the tank was just barely squeezing in due to the few light fixtures that had remained being knocked from their mountings by the 190mm main armament. "Slow, slow" Ford ordered as she stood towards the rear of the tank watching it cover the last four feet until she finally ordered "Halt…youre there even if you do drive worse than my grandma. Alright let's get you covered".

Her squad quickly started moving the debris and stock they had cleared from the store and onto the street back into the store only this time stacked a foot in front of the tank. This was only the second line of cover. In the background over the heavy equipment being used by over a thousand squads throughout the city could be heard the chug, chug, chug of a farming tractor driven by Jammer moving towards them and then you had the harsh scrape of its scoop as it was pushed along the road building up a wall of rubble. As he neared the kerb he raised the scoop a couple of inches to clear it further pushing the mounted rubble forward until he finally reached the front of the store and stopped before reversing again to repeat the process further along. After two minutes of this all that was left behind was a large wall of rubble banked just inside the shop front making it look like the ceiling had collapsed. That and the debris free lines of road that the rest of the squad were quickly trying to cover by sweeping rubble into its place until after a minute you would never suspect that a tank was within this former shop its main armament pointing towards Keera Park and its burnt trees and large fields.

Western Luminaire city limits

ARC-43

West of Luminaire were the first of many farms which dotted Leonis. It was a common misconception among the colonists that had never visited Leonis or seen the documentaries on this planet that it was all just rolling fields for hundreds of miles. The Planes of Leonis they call it. In fact a quarter of those planes were in fact vast pastures dozens of miles wide where Cattle and livestock could roam free and some of the most fertile farms and vineyards on any planet. Roughly twenty percent of these farms were owned and operated by the Leonis government with military and former military personnel working with the farmers. Roughly sixty percent of Leonis landmasses were relatively flat due largely to the increased mass of Leonis generating a gravity of 1.6g (1.6 times the size of Kobol and Caprica).

The idea was a simple one which came about more than forty years before. In order for the military to remain as large as it was, costs had to be cut and one of the best ways of cutting this budget was for the military to produce their own food. Some of this food was traded, especially the wine produced at the vineyards which while not the best quality on Leonis (Leonis was well known as having the best vineyards in the twelve colonies thanks to its calmer climate which was due to its stable axis) was a good, cheap alternative sold to the masses. Also because the military and former military (20% of all profits went to the Colonial Heroes charity) ran the farms costs could be kept down, a solid sense of pride could be established, the units learnt how to work as one especially during the harvest and they would learn the lay of the surrounding land while also learning how to construct fortified locations in the surrounding land and dig new irrigation ditches. It was a good life whenever your posting brought your unit to one of these farms and it helped to reaffirm the locals belief in the solidarity of the Legions being the peoples army. But all that had changed.

Time was slipping away as the soldiers of the 18th Legion which had been posted to this area were struggling to fully evacuate everything they would need. Land Rangers (vehicles similar to Land Rovers) were carefully corralling a herd of cows towards a large trailer, it's entrance already open. Barriers had been set up in order to funnel the cows onto it but the problem was these cows roamed a pasture 2 miles wide. Thankfully though with the twelve Land Rangers working as one the cows were steadily moved forward and onto the trailer before the doors were quickly slammed shut and the driver got the green light. In other farms sheep were corralled in a similar way only this time by dozens of sheepdogs, legionaries and farmers. Similar ways were being used with pigs and poultry.

The idea was that the ARCs would need to be as self-sufficient as possible and in order to do so they would need the produce and protein that an animal can provide with the manure being prized for its fertilising qualities. Hundreds of trailers were driven to each ARC from the various farms and their livestock was led into massive underground hanger-like spaces where dried straw and hay was provided and an calming sound was playing through the speakers courtesy of the governments animal psychologists. Even while a census was being compiled, vets were being highlighted and drawn away at least temporarily from the population to be brought to these hangers so as to fully care for the livestock and check them for radiation poisoning. The majority of the cows would likely be culled first since they required a larger amount of feed for a smaller return but the pigs and poultry were almost worth their weight in gold.

Luminaire

Beneath Dragonville Industrial Zone

ARC-16

CIC

"Well it looks like we got lucky" General Marx mentioned to Field Marshal Montgomery as they looked at the data provided by The Leonosian Intelligence Agency (LIA). "We've done a DNA comparison to be sure but apart from what I have been told are minor, cosmetic differences in the DNA, black hair instead of blonde for instance, there are seven distinct models of Cylons. To be honest they had spread themselves that far apart that we may never have gotten to them before they acted if it wasn't for Vergis' Facial Recognition Software. As it is we have captured a total of 217 skinjobs as of 0800 and our outer security markers are focusing on these faces. It's the same with the other ARCs…"

"The intel package that the Graystones sent…" Montgomery began before Marx interrupted.

"Don't you mean the group claiming to be the Graystones?"

"No, they were definitely the Graystones. I don't know of anyone else who could have done what they did. Anyway, the intel advised that the Cylons likely have a way of transferring their minds to another body when they die which does pose a bit of a problem for us".

Nodding Marx said "If they die then they can reveal our location, how deep we are and preliminary defences. We need to keep them alive, but what's to stop them committing suicide?"

"Us" Montgomery answered "We can place them into a chemically induced coma or any other number of drug induced states. We do however need to interrogate them, any informa…"

"Dradis contacts! Reading 20 more Cylon troop landers. They're moving to link up with those already in orbit" the tactical officer called out.

Taking a hot gulp of coffee from his mug, Montgomery moved to the central information table looking upon the patchy DRADIS views getting an eye for the Cylons positioning and movements. The movements were carefully coordinated causing Montgomery to call out "The Search and Rescue is over people. Have the Legions already out there prepare themselves and ready the defences, the invasion is about to begin. Operation Raging Thunder is a go".

Folders were quickly handed out each with a bold black line running around the edges and with a black seal of the colonies. In Bold black lettering read "BLACK REPORT. UNAUTHORISED READING IS SUBJECT TO THE DEATH PENALTY. OPERATION RAGING THUNDER" and then a code to decide who should be reading the contents, A1 for the mission controller, B3 for the tactical staff etc.

Out of all the well thought out contingency plans Raging Thunder was one of the best for the situation they now found themselves in and it was hoped that Raging Thunder would allow them not to stop an invasion of Leonis but instead to control it. Granted that was extremely difficult without adequate air and orbital support but it could in theory be done if you had overwhelming firepower on the ground and were ready to cede areas of your own territory so that you could better protect the rest. Most of all though, if you could make the enemy feel fear by taking out the beachhead or significantly depleting it while losing as few of your own people and assets as possible then you could determine the course the war would take. Raging thunder could do this not with one tremendous move but a series of small and large moves beginning with the anti-air batteries and point defences which had been set up all over the city. Montgomery was proud of the ideas thrown together to make Raging Thunder a viable option and so he should be, he was one of the people who had formulated the plan.

The Dradis operator started calling out the Cylons positioning data as the 65 first war troop landers started to break up into 5 distinctive groups. Each of these transports could hold 20,000 Cylons thanks to them not needing life-support and had the internal mass of a marinestar while still having the distinctive Cylon Basestar shape. In addition to the Cylons they also held up to fifty 30 foot high tanks and the supplies that they would need to construct an on world base of operations, have ample ammunition for both the first and second wave and anti-air batteries to secure their positioning. "Ten are heading for Terragus, 10 for Eastwich, 12 for Pollonus, 5 for Hemlington, 10 For the Peragus plains and the remaining 18 are heading for Luminaire".

"Transfer command of the territories targeted to the senior Generals in the vicinities. What's the ETA on those heading for us?"

"12 Minutes sir. The Cylons are also dispatching a squadron of raiders with each transport and 4 full squadrons of heavy Raiders are flying ahead of each transport and if they maintain their present speed will be on us within 7 minutes. There's also 10 full squadrons of Raiders heading for our territory, eta is 4 minutes".

"Have all men still out in the field take cover when they are in range, and all batteries are to remain hidden and are not to respond to the raider threat until I give the order" Montgomery ordered as he watched the positioning of the Cylons ships and saw on the Dradis how the attacking Raiders seemed to disappear as they entered the atmosphere and the heat building up around their hulls, plasma really, seemed to block the Dradis.

"What if those Raiders are on a bombing run?" General Marx asked his superior as he worried about letting the Raiders getting in too close.

"They are, but we don't want them to see what our defences are like until it is too late. If they can't see our defences then they will just blanket bomb the areas near where they will land".

"You can't know that" Marx said.

"I can. It's the logical step. Secure your landing ground before you land with both a bombing run on the surrounding areas before landing your forlorn hope in order to delay our troops and you have a greater chance of more of your troops surviving and I need to know for definite where they are going to land. The problem is though, what if they bluff. There is at least one conciliation; I don't believe they are going to nuke us"

"Why they've already done it the once?"

"Because if they were going to nuke us again then they would have already done it over the past three days when we weren't ready. They have to know that we are ready now".

"2 minutes to contact with the Raiders" the DRADIS operator called out "More transports arriving in orbit. I'm reading a further 7. They're maintaining position with the Basestars". Undoubtedly the second wave would be ready by the end of the day.

Behind Montgomery, his staff were busy relaying orders to the personnel still out in the field.

Luminaire

8th Avenue passing by Acheron Memorial Park

Raven (L21C1)018 en route to Linthorpe (district at eastern edge of Luminaire)

Flying at barely 30 foot off the ground and travelling at speeds in excess of 150mph the tried and tested VTOL tore down 8th Avenue racing against time to get its occupants to Linthorpe (a district of Luminaire). At such speeds and as low to the ground as it was while travelling between more than 10 storey high buildings was dangerous to say the least. Just one wrong flick from the pilot on the controls or one dangerous updraft and they could plough into the side of a building, but they had no choice and neither did the other Ravens rushing throughout the city. The Cylon Raiders were just over 3 minutes away from the city and the passengers needed to be in position and the Ravens hidden from view.

Looking out from the hatches window, Major Natalie Ford watched the world pass her by, watched as those legionaries and auxiliaries below them rushed to their assigned positions or covered their defences with a grey material which was designed to be obscured to the first war Cylons roving red eye and was hoped would work with the modern day Cylons. The roar of the engines would have been deafening if it weren't for the ear pieces she wore. Behind her Pauli and Jammer were loading up a couple of bags with the heavy weapons they would need while Sam was double checking his own weapons to make sure there wasn't anything that could jam which was unlikely due to how well made they were but was always wise, the last thing you needed was for one round to get jammed in the barrel and the second to slam into it which could blow your own head off. Three other squads from their century were going through similar experiences all the while their stomachs were churning as they readied themselves for battle. Lighting a cigarette and withdrawing the nerve reducing smoke in a deep breath, Natalie felt it tingle its way down her throat. Turning her head to Sam, "Hand me a pack of ammo".

Sam grabbed a pack labelled "5.56mm. 10x30" from his under seat storage locker and handed it to Natalie. Clipping the small bag to the side of her backpack, Natalie made sure she could easily reach back into the satchel while also retaining as much movement as possible before she reached onto a storage rack on the back wall of the Raptor and pulled down a Primus 12 heavy sniper rifle with an attached wind and range scale and an attached satchel of five 20 round clips which she clipped onto the other side of her backpack and slipped the rifle crossways over her shoulder before getting a grip on her standard assault rifle which was hanging on a sling attached to her flak jacket. Seeing her, Simon the leader of her centuries 8th squad and the second in her Pincer (breakdown of a legion is at the end of Chapter One) asked "Are you sure you have a big enough load out?"

With barely a smile, Natalie replied "If we get bogged down I intend on staying alive".

"Ten seconds and we are there. 2 minutes 30 until Raiders are in range" Ruskie, the co-pilot called back "Bligh's already on the ground".

Grabbing a tight hold of the overhead webbing, Natalie was ready for the sudden deceleration as the VTOL jets faced in the opposite direction at full blast before they repositioned to turn the Raven and bring it down into a large alley. Pulling the hatch open Natalie was the first on the ground with her squad and the rest of the squads jumping down just behind her. A shadow passed overhead as a waiting auxiliary in one of the upper windows of the building on her right through a grey tarpaulin over the top of the Raven, legionaries quickly moved to each corner as it settled and grabbing hold pulled it to cover the transport while being careful to ensure it only touched the cooler ceramic coating of the VTOL jets rather than the much hotter it would burn metal. Natalie was already moving by the time it was fully secured.

Approaching her at a jog, Colonel Bligh her commanding officer ordered "Ford, Simon, get your teams over to that building…" he pointed behind himself and continued "9th floor east side windows, take your meds and await my orders". Bligh ran over to the other two squads ordering them to another building before waiting for another Raven to come and land in the alley.

The two squads raced towards the building in question, Natalie sliding over the bonnet of a car which had either been ploughed into the side of the road by their roadplough armed APC convoys or the less unlikely bad parking of their owners and ran over the gravelly road to the other side. White flakes like snow were starting to flutter down around them as they covered the distance, likely radioactive ash from the fallout. Running into the lobby of the building they bounded through the door blocking the stairs and ran up the flights. Before they were even three quarters of the way up, Pauli called out "The Raiders should be onto the city by now". If it weren't for how fit they were they would have been out of breath by the time they reached the door leading to the 9th floor offices.

Barging through, the two teams ran down the Corridor towards the East side of the building breaking into two teams when they got there so as to cover more windows. Moving past the dozens of desks and their frazzled, dead computers with their minutiae photos, coffee cups and folders, Natalie and her squad reached the windows which had somehow mostly managed to survive the shockwaves of the bombardment. Smashing one open with the butt of her assault rifle, Natalie left the vertical cloth blinds hanging and made sure her sightline was good before sitting back down at the wall next to the window. "You heard Bligh, top up on your meds" she ordered as she got her own anti-rad injection out of the steel case and injected herself. Replacing the spent needle back in her case and covering it with a red sticker so that she knew not to use it, she put the case back in her pouch.

Standing she moved to a desk and pushing the computer and the rest of the rubbish off it she pulled it over to the waist high window and crouched down behind it while pulling her newly acquired Primus sniper rifle from behind her back and extended the legs before settling it on the desk so that she and the rifle were obscured by the blinds from those outside.

Awaiting her orders, Natalie heard felt the distant rumble of the Raiders bombing the areas surrounding what were going to be their landing grounds. Jammer asked "Do you think they spotted our assets?"

Shaking her head, Natalie replied "Maybe, but I doubt it. They're probably just bombing where they think we will be". A distant drone of a group of Raiders answered Natalie as they increased in volume.

Jammer in his nervous way asked "Why aren't our guns firing?"

"They've been ordered not to" Natalie reasoned "The Cylons must want to know their location which is why they sent these Raiders ahead. Now quieten down. Looking through a gap between the blinds Natalie saw the obvious outline of a legionary in a south facing window down the street and noticed the barrel of his rifle sticking out of the window making him a target for the approaching Raiders. Opening the shutter on her scope, Natalie centred the sight on the inside edge of the wall next to the Legionaries head before flicking on the red dot sight and moving it back and forth before finally having to shine it in his left eye to get his attention. The rifle quickly moved back inside as did the Legionary as he got the message and hid from view. Clicking off the red dot, Natalie felt the table shudder and saw the blinds flutter as the Raiders tore by heading further east.

Watching them, Natalie saw as their bay doors opened and 10 missiles apiece were fired out and towards the ground in front of them before the Raiders pulled into a tight climb. Natalie could just barely make out the missiles as their thrusters fired and they accelerated forward while branching out. Looking through her scope allowed her to see right down the 3 mile long road and to the distant Rose Hall Parade Grounds, a vast 4 square mile stretch of Tarmac and an already destroyed fleet barracks. The majority of the missiles hit the ground up to four blocks before the Parade grounds, some released an immense shockwave while the others released a vast stretch of Napalm-like fire which tore through the mostly residential blocks which were struggling to stay standing against the shockwave. The shockwave took precious seconds before it finally hit them, dust and ceiling tiles fell and Natalie could make out the crashes of cups and Computers as they were rocked off the desks. The remaining airborne missiles slammed into the already destroyed Barracks reducing it to nothing more than a vast rubble strewn mound. The Raiders banked and started to patrol the destroyed four block radius doing scans for movement. Thankfully no one had died yet.

Minutes ticked by before she heard the louder engines of the Heavy Raiders closing in before she saw them come into view heading for the area which had just been bombed. There must have been over a hundred maybe even a hundred and fifty she reasoned as they broke into two groups. The largest heavy raider formation landed just at the outer edge of the four blocks which had just been sterilised while the smaller group of only twenty heavy raiders landed on the smoky red Parade Grounds themselves. The rear hatches on all of them opened and the tightly packed Centurions were deployed. Natalie detested how Daniel Graystone had named the Cylon combat models Centurions mainly because it spat in the face of the rank of Centurion within the Legion. Decades ago there had been a court battle over the use of the name but the name had stuck and ever since had caused confusion. You might ask why the Leonis military didn't rename their rank but why should they when the Legions in one form or another had existed for thousands of years, long before the exodus from Kobol.

The Centurions started to spread out searching for any Leonosian combatants and further securing the landing grounds for the incoming landing craft.

ARC-16

CIC

Montgomery had watched on the DRADIS and the footage taken by the few security cameras they had managed to set up after the initial bombardment as the Cylon Raiders had made their intentions clear and attacked the areas around their intended landing grounds. Most of these areas had already been suspected of being used while others hadn't but support was nearby all of them. He watched as the Raiders continued to patrol their assigned areas as the actual invasion force neared to one minute away.

General Marx tried to casually take a cigarette out of a silver plated tin his wife had gotten him on their tenth anniversary while willing his hand not to shake. He held the still open tin out to Montgomery who in turn took one out. Marx couldn't help but note just how calm his commander looked in the face of attack. Montgomery lit his with his solid forces lighter which had survived the past 46 years and held out the open flame to Marx before putting it away.

"30 seconds on closest transports. Two minutes on furthest" the Dradis operator called out.

"The Legions are standing ready and I have ground units covertly moving to cover those areas not accounted for" Colonel Regis called out.

"Now?" Marx asked Montgomery, wondering if they should open up with their defences.

Carefully looking at the DRADIS overlay on the tactical map, Montgomery replied "Not yet" before he flicked some ash into a metal ashtray.

"Five Transports are moving to land at the Rose Hall Parade grounds. One at Regents Park. One at the Acheron Memorial Park…Two at Queen Tamara II Spaceport, four at the Northgate Spaceport, two at the Romulus fleet landing grounds…One at the Jupiter Stadium, and two at the Silverwood Memorial Park".

Montgomery waited, they only had one shot at this.

Rose Hall Parade Grounds

Lead Cylon Transport

Standing on one of the only areas of the ship with life-support, the CIC, William Doral, the Cylon in charge of the invasion of Luminaire watched on the antiquated monitors as the transports closed on their landing grounds. As expected their Raiders earlier bombardment of the surrounding areas of each landing ground followed by the deployment of the Centurions aboard the Heavy Raiders had been enough to quell any resistance before it appeared and now they were free to land without trouble in order to disgorge the awaiting Centurions and the Heavy Armour. So old was this ship that it didn't even have a mnemonic palm interface or even a Hybrid which meant that the Piloting was done by a two. But at least the transport flew and they had air cover.

But, he thought, we shouldn't even have to be amassing this invasion if the others had done their jobs properly and actually infiltrated everywhere they needed to infiltrate. If they had then they would know of the defences that Leonis military had set up years in advance and they could have dealt with them. Pondering that thought, he wondered if maybe Montgomery was lying and the worst they would have to face is a handful of Legions when they took the city and then the planet because surely if they had what they said they had we would be being attacked right now. They can't have, he reasoned although they did a pretty good job of clearing the roads as he thought on the pictures the Raiders had relayed back.

Standing there he felt the landing struts hit the ground before compressing as they took on the weight of the transport as she settled and he could barely feel the vibration as the other four transports touched down as well. Victory is ours, he thought.

Linthorpe

Major Natalie Ford

Natalie didn't need her scope as she watched the transports touch down. The vast star shaped vessels stood out like a saw thumb against the city. Burning black smoke from the Napalm-like missile strikes were wafting into the air though and so were slightly obscuring her view but the constant back and forth flights of the numerous Raiders were counteracting against the heated smokes rise and tearing it apart. As she watched, Natalie heard Jammers trembling voice state "We can't take that many on".

Natalie was about to say something when her radio activated "All units take cover" it was Colonel Bligh's voice. The four legionaries immediately moved so that they were blocked by the eastward facing wall.

ARC-16

CIC

"The Rose Hall transports and the Silverwood transports are starting to deploy their Centurions. Same model as the fleet faced" Colonel Regis informed Montgomery.

"All global transports are in position" the DRADIS operator called out.

Montgomery waited another ten seconds as every eye in the room seemed to look at him before he was ready. His heart had accelerated and his hands were freezing cold, the cigarette with a trail of ash hanging off of it. Looking Colonel Regis dead in the eye, Montgomery in a strong voice spoke just one simple word "Now!"

Flipping a master switch on a console next to him a signal went out globally to almost all of the sites the Cylons had chosen.

Rose Hall Parade Grounds

Target Codename AP-3

At the centre of a cold, dark hemispherical chamber 10 metres in diameter sat a large metal device. Trailing away from the device and towards a socket in the wall was a copper cable through which a signal was being conducted until it reached the device. On the faceplate of the device a previously amber LED turned red and the Parking Warden was no more.

Rose Hall Parade Grounds

It happened in an instant, a scene which was playing out at that very moment across the planet. The Cylons felt safe in their deployment, they weren't being attacked, they had defeated any form of organised effort which had the possibility to derail their plans and soon they would have their beachhead set up. So sure were they of their victory. You can never be sure in war.

Within less than a second the rapture seemed to come about as the 9 parking wardens which had been set up just hours after the initial Cylon Bombardment released their pent up energies like a volcano suddenly bursting to life. The solid parade ground erupted towards the sky in a cataclysmic explosion tearing through and around the Cylon Landing Ships while the nuclear fires of these Parking Wardens melted through the now torn apart hulls of the invasion force, dissolving any chance of the invasion coming from here or anything surviving the blasts. Raiders which were too close were wiped from existence, and those that looked like they might be safe were speared by the volatile chunks of tarmac which had been erupted from the blast zone. And the shockwave…

Linthorpe

Major Natalie Ford

The shockwave which seemed to result from the detonation of the parking wardens was enough to throw Natalie and her squad to the ground despite being miles away. They all crawled underneath the desks for cover. It was as if a powerful Kobolquake (Earthquake) was shaking the building like a baby shakes a rattle. Ceiling tiles, computers, desks, shelves, everything was shaken loose to crash to the ground. Windows shattered as if they were the shells from a shotgun, walls cracked threatening to topple the building. And the noise…there was a reason that this operation was called Raging Thunder. You literally could not hear yourself even if you shouted, it was like you were in the strongest thunderstorm to ever exist and even as the gods almighty blasts tore by it was like you could hear the patter of a rainstorm against a canvass tent as the distant chunks of debris catapulted out of the ground of the Parade Grounds crashed to the ground like thousands of small meteors. It seemed to last forever before it died down.

ARC-16

CIC

Despite being miles from the nearest parking wardens, Montgomery felt the tremors of each one pass through the ARC wiping 16 of the 18 transports from existence. You could actually feel each explosion as those furthest away took the longest time to arrive. His face didn't smile but his eyes did as he considered just how many thousands of centurions had been wiped from existence thanks to the Parking Wardens.

The first act of Raging Thunder was the denial of all spaceports and territory within the cities which would allow the Cylons to deploy a sizeable army within the borders of the city. Allow them to land outside the city limits, yes, but not inside. The second act was completed with the first which was to strike one solid blow against the Cylons in order to make them question their next actions and to remove as many Cylons from existence with as little effort as possible. The third act which was about to start was to deny the Cylons airborne support and already there were plenty of Raiders and heavy Raiders hanging around over the cities.

Leonis Orbit

Cylon invasion Fleet

"Multiple nuclear detonations detected across the planet" a Three called out.

A Six looked up at the other Cylons with a clear sense of shock over her face as she announced "56 of the 65 transports have been destroyed. The Colonials detonated a number of nuclear devices beneath the landing grounds. They were weak enough to have a small area of effect but strong enough to totally destroy everything within that area". All the models in the room were shocked by the numbers, at most they had expected to lose up to thirty percent of their landing forces but this…this was the very worst possible outcome.

"Our Raiders are taking fire" a four called out.

Luminaire

Linthorpe

"Alright, that's us. Let's get these guns uncovered and take down those Cylon frackers" the gunnery chief called out to his men as he stood in the stairwell of the apartment block. Opening the metal door, Chief Lewis and the men assigned to him ran towards the covered anti-aircraft battery. Lewis wasn't a Legionary or even an auxiliary but was in fact a 38 year old father of two. He was a Colonial Fleet gunnery Chief who had been on leave from the Battlestar Chimera when the Cylons attacked. Shortly after arriving at ARC-16 he had volunteered himself and had been assigned to command one of the thousands of anti-air batteries which were being set up right across every city on Leonis.

Dragging the grey tarpaulin cover which was called an Opus Blanket after the lead scientist who had designed the material, he started calling out orders to his men to properly load the guns, remove the safeties and select a target and then he waited the order to fire.

"All batteries, fire at will" came over the wireless. Making sure his ear and eye protectors were properly in place he slapped the lead gunner on the shoulder as he sat in the seat behind the quad mounted barrels in a go order. As soon as the trigger buttons were depressed by the gunners thumbs the quad mounted anti-aircraft battery came to life spurting out hundreds of rounds per minute from its belt fed ammunition at the rapidly closing and yet still distant raiders and heavy raiders. The vibrations of the guns send clouds of ash into the air and shook the men where they stood readying the next belts of ammunition and checking the coolant levels. More than a mile and a half away which was the furthest the explosive shells could go, golden black clouds of shrapnel burst to life adding their fury to the onrushing Raiders.

It was commonly known that in the hours leading up to the initial bombardment of Leonis hundreds of anti-air and missile batteries had been set up across Luminaire as they had been set up across every other town and city on Leonis to reduce the amount of missiles which would hit the cities. They only had hours to prepare back then and since the majority of the troops were needed to safely evacuate as many civilians as possible they didn't have the time or the manpower to set up a larger defence.

This time was different. True just as many troops as had been involved in the evacuations, more even, had their time taken up conducting search and rescue operations and setting up the assets, locations and traps they would need. But this time they were able to call upon the reservists, those on leave and the former military whom had volunteered their expertise and were called back into service. They also had a lot more time to set up more batteries than in the initial bombardment, thousands more. In Luminaire alone there were more than 6000 batteries set up on and in buildings, in streets and at the entrances to numerous subway tunnels. Each one was manned by a team of four men and women and each one was just as ferocious as the next.

The heavens seemed to come alive as those that were in range of the Cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders opened up on them forcing these enemy ships from the skies in fantastic gouts of fire to either explode where they flew or crash to the ground. Some Raiders which managed to avoid the explosive shells and were able to close to missile range let loose with whatever missiles they had left and attempted to close even further to the manned positions before they too were torn asunder or were forced into a retreat. Their missiles carried on towards the manned positions, however the majority were crushed by the rapidly fired ammunition of the batteries, their electronics scrambled by the electronic warfare apparatus built into a fifth of the batteries which extended 500 feet (could be up to a kilometre if power restrictions weren't in place) or were in a handful of cases able to successfully take out the gunnery positions. Either way it was plainly obvious that the Leonosians were successfully winning this round.

Luminaire

Linthorpe

Major Natalie Ford

Crawling out from under the desk which had threatened to snap under the blows of the ceiling tiles and masonry which had crashed against it, Major Ford was careful not to cut her protected hands on the broken glass and the jagged metal which littered the floor. Her ears rang from the explosions of the Parking Wardens but the ringing was thankfully dying down now. Looking around herself, she struggled to make out anything further than a few metres in the thick dust which obscured the room. She called out "Sam, Pauli, Jammer, sitrep". A moment passed before she heard over the subdued ringing each one answering back that they were good. Checking the Geiger counter on her watch and seeing that the radiation levels weren't as high as she expected and then double her radiation disk which had barely changed over the past hour, Natalie thought that Command must have developed a way to reduce the amount of radiation their nukes released or had chosen to go with a much smaller nuke not realising that they had done both. The demolition teams and the command staff which had developed Raging Thunder had carefully calculated the safe distances for each site based on a variety of factors including wind speed and direction and the age of the buildings (buildings built within the past forty years had a far stricter building code than pre-war buildings and were required to withstand at least a moderate earthquake). But still it was hard to believe that their calculations had been so perfect.

Going back to the window and seeing that the blinds were no longer there, Natalie could barely make out anything in the streets. Quickly clearing the desk of debris, Natalie laid her sniper rifle down on it before pulling her electro-binoculars from a pouch and selecting an infrared filter before she again looked out of the window. In the distance she could make out the heat blooms and the weirdest shaped mushroom cloud that she had ever seen (not realising that it was actually nine mushroom clouds which were blending into the one and had been warped by the dome shaped chambers each nuke was kept in which thanks to the armour involved had over pressurised the nuclear blasts into an upwards direction). Zooming in she could just barely make out a few Centurions which had been just outside of the nukes radius struggling to stand. Then she saw flickering blossoms in the air at the edge of the electro-binoculars field of view. Shifting focus she made out the thousands of anti-aircraft rounds attacking the remaining Cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders.

"Natalie, more Centurions which were at the edge of the nukes radius are getting up. There must be a few hundred at least, maybe even a thousand that we can't see" Pauli spoke into his throat mic as he too surveyed the devastation.

Colonel Bligh must also have been aware of the amount of Cylons still active as his crackly voice thanks to the EM interference came over the wireless "All ground units, Bligh. We have Cylon Centurions still on the ground. You are weapons free, choose your targets carefully and take out as many toasters from a distance as you can. Bligh out".

"You heard the man. Pick your targets and fire when ready" Natalie ordered as she stowed her binoculars and picked up the sniper rifle before setting it up. Changing the filter on the scope to a powered infrared filter (this filter was also interchangeable with the scope on her assault rifle), Natalie laid down on the desk and took up a firing position, carefully adjusting the scope.

"Pauli was right, the Cylons deployed by the Heavy Raiders must have been just out of range of the nukes" Sam informed her as he made out what must have been a hundred Centurions forming up and marching down the street in scattered ranks. Out of the entire squad Pauli was the best sniper however at the moment with so many Cylons down range of the Century deployed in the surrounding buildings and given how fast the Centurions were able to move in their assaults on the fleet Battlestars, the various squads were having to temporarily do away with their spotting techniques in order to have overwhelming firepower. However the handful of squads which were specialised sniping squads and so were faster than their counterparts and were able to continue using their spotter techniques. The truth was that the majority of the legions squads were trained for all round performance with only a handful of squads per century being specialised as snipers or demolition teams.

Peering through the scope Natalie was able to make out the distant shapes of the Cylons. Centring on chest of the nearest one gave a range of 1818.55 metres. Raising the angle of the rifle so as to allow for the distance and windspeed (which was shown at the edge of the lens and was 94% accurate) so that it looked like the shot would miss in the scope, Natalie fired just as she was letting out a breath, and was pleased to note that the armour piercing explosive round hit the Cylon just to the upper left of its centre mass causing that part of the Centurion to explode and throwing it to the ground. Changing her aim to the next, Natalie noted that this one's head exploded as another Legionary took it out forcing Natalie to yet again change her aim before she could take out another attacking centurion. As soon as the first Centurions came under fire the rest quickly moved to opposite sides of the street and started sprinting down the road rapidly covering the distance to the defending Legionaries and making Natalie's job just that much harder. Still she continued to carefully choose her targets and take them down as did every other Legionary with a sniper rifle.

Changing her clip as the Cylons closed to 600 metres, and it became clear that at least 500 Centurions remained, Natalie called out "Sam, get the machine guns set up", she was referring to the heavy weapons which Pauli and Jammer had packed on the Raven. She heard him shuffle about to her left as he moved over to where Pauli was set up and heft the two heavy bags which held the weapons before he moved behind her and to her right, placed the bags on the floor and dragged two desks over to two windows before he started setting up each gun.

Luminaire

Linthorpe

8th Avenue

"Toasters are 200 feet away. Remember wait until the first ranks pass" Sergeant James Elmos ordered his men as they waited inside the first floor of a brick house 200 metres down the road from Major Ford. There were two machine guns set up in both of the front facing bedrooms while downstairs another squad under the command of Sergeant Damien Long was covering both the front and rear entrances. Standing next to the shattered window with his back against the wall, he peered out watching the Centurions on the opposite side of the road as they sprinted onwards coming under fire now from the machine guns which the rear squads like Major Fords had set up. In the distance on the nearby parallel roads he could make out the other centuries taking on their own Cylons.

The first toasters passed by their position and it was a further thirty seconds before he felt like enough Cylons were together now to even risk revealing their position. Evidently those squads positioned over the road felt the same as they opened fire on those Centurions under his windows at the same time as he gave the order to fire. The staccato continues rhythm of the Machine Guns split the air as they spat out round after round into the dozens of Toasters passing into their kill spots before Elmos started firing out with his own assault rifle splitting the heads of two Centurions which had been too close together. One went down firing its arm mounted guns taking out or damaging a further three more Cylons before it went quiet. The Cylons were quick to react though as they sent Centurions of their own to storm the attacking houses.

As he continued to fire a heavy blast cleared the front steps as a Claymore mine which had only been set up minutes before went off destroying and damaging the Cylons that had dared risk entering their buildings. Then the cracking blasts of the downstairs machine guns came into the mix as the Cylons reached the doorway.

Those Cylons on the opposite side of the street opened fire on the upstairs windows of the house, the rounds flashing through the windowless openings to slam into the plaster of the opposite walls which burst into hundreds of clouds of dust. Of those that missed even getting through the opening you could actually feel the rapid thunk, thunk, thunks of them slamming into the solid brick walls next to the windows. Popping the clip out from his assault rifle and slamming in a second one before he chambered a round, he was just turning to fire out of the window again when in a flash Private Merdrin's head burs open under the titanic pressure of a Cylons round, the blood stretching out on the ceiling behind him. There was no way he survived, Elmos knew that but he hesitated at seeing the 19 year old legionary collapsed on the floor, the machine gun draped over the body.

In that moment of hesitation the Centurions rounds tore through the brick wall behind him and the rounds hammered into his armour plating. Each one fired in quick succession broke down the meagre defences which the armour offered, forcing Elmos off his feet. As he fell one last succession of rounds tore through the space between his body and neck where his armour was at its weakest, the rounds tearing through his spinal column and out of his neck in a bloody explosion. He was dead before he ever hit the ground.

Childs Bedroom

Corporal Taggart

His body reverberating under the rapid, successive recoil of the machine gun, Taggart kept his head as low as he could without burning himself on the rising mound of shell casings which were threatening to burn his face so as to not be shot by the hundreds of rounds bursting through the window. He had no way to know if he was killing any Cylons outside but he had to at least be hitting something.

"Merdrin's went quiet" Private Gastogne shouted over to him from his position next to the window as he noticed that there was no machine gun fire or fire whatsoever coming from the next window "Same with Elmos".

Continuing to fire, it wasn't long before his gun ran dry and he was forced to go through the horrible task of opening the heated chamber, feeding in a belt of rounds he pulled from the metal tin at his side before closing the chamber and resetting the gun ready to fire and then he noticed the smoke rising from the scolding barrel. Reaching towards his bag he pulled his canteen from his backpack and poured the water over the barrel causing a rapid cloud of steam to form as the barrel was forced to release its pent up heat.

Without warning the floor of the room rocked under a massive explosion from below them before Phillips came on the wireless "Elmos, we can't hold them any longer. Pull out now".

Activating his throat mic while pulling his backpack on and crouching, he wrapped the belt of rounds loosely around his left forearm while saying "Phillips, Taggart. Elmos has gone quiet. We're checking on him now before we ready the escape".

"Roger that, be advised we can only buy you 2 minutes at most".

Going into the master bedroom, Taggart saw the horror of his two buddies lifeless corpses and despite seeing so many dead in the past three days this was more horrific in how they were personal to him. Gastogne on the other hand was so shocked that he was like a lifeless statue. Seeing him like this snapped Taggart out of his reverie and forced him to slap Gastogne's cheek "Fraking snap out of it and double check the charge". Gastogne barely responded before he walked back out to the hallway.

Moving over to the headless body of Private Merdrin, Taggart looked at him for a moment before resting his machine gun on the floor and rifling through Merdrins pouches pulling out his letters to his loved ones along with photos, ammunition which he placed into a popup satchel along with basic medical supplies, his sidearm, map (none of the ARCs, safehouses or bases were on this map, it was mainly a military street map of the city) and basic rations. He then took one of the soldier's tags before pacing a brick of C8 on his chest. Moving onto Sergeant Elmos, he did the same here and after picking up both of their backpacks he called back Gastogne and handed him one of the backpacks telling him "We can't strip the packs here. Is the charge set?"

Struggling momentarily under the weight of the back and surprised that Taggart was able to not just carry his own and this second backpack with ease but also pick up the machine gun one handed, Gastogne answered "Its set".

Speaking into his throat mic over the chaotic battle going on downstairs and the handful of bullets which were starting to burst through the floor, Taggart shouted "Long, charge is set. We're pulling out in 10 seconds".

Over the solid thunks of rounds and the heavy crashing of Cylon carapaces, Sergeant Long shouted up the stairs, "Roger that. Everyone pull out".

Counting down from ten, Gastogne depressed the trigger on the detonator when Taggart ordered it, the explosion more of a muffled bang which shook the house than anything else. A cloud of dust like the densest fog flooded the room from the hallway before Taggart strode out and inspected their exit.

Small breaching charges had been drilled into the supporting wall separating the two houses as soon as the two teams had arrived and while it was dangerous blowing a hole through a supporting wall, it was felt that this might be necessary if they were surrounded and they only used enough placed in the right spots to do so. Bricks fell along with floorboards as he approached the wall before the dust barely cleared enough for Taggart to see that the wall had been successfully breached. Ducking through the hole and checking the room for Cylons, Taggart called Gastogne through and then ordered Gastogne to detonate the next set. Changing to the assigned frequency on the detonator, the next wall detonated safely and they continued through to the third and last house of the block before Sergeant Long and his two surviving squad mates caught up with them.

As soon as they had arrived, Long detonated the third frequency. The entire building shook as if a giant had slammed his fist down upon it but it was in fact the original house they had been in detonating and the bodies of Elmos and Merdrin moving onto Elysium under the power of the C8 bricks which had lain upon them.

Leonis Orbit

Cylon Fleet

Cylon Command Basestar

In a move that spoke of the desperation that they were now in, a three came forward and in her sultry accent which now flared with rage announced "We need to pull back those unaffected transports to the outskirts of each city…"

"They're there now, and they haven't been hit. If they stay where they are we can create bases of operations within their city limits and destroy them from the inside" a four broke in, he really believed in this plan. Yes they had been hit, and hit hard but he believed that they could and should stay the course, if they did then they could turn the tide of this fiasco.

"Are you really that stupid?" a Six replied "they have more anti-aircraft fire than they did when we first bombarded them, they have men in position at all our avenues of ingress. Don't believe me? Look at Linthorpe in Luminaire or Badon Hill in Pollonus. We have no air cover, we can't land reinforcements close enough to where they are needed and the Centurions on the ground are being wiped out. If we want to take each of these cities then we need to rethink our strategy. Three is right. I move to make her leader of all of our forces on Leonis".

A two answered "I agree" before an Eight followed suit and then a five and a one until the Four was forced to admit that maybe Three was right.

Three stepped forward and announced "We pull each transport still on the ground back three miles from each cities limits and setup our bases of operations there, same with all the supporting vessels. The Centurions on the ground within the Cities need to go into retreat and secure a more confined area around where there former landing grounds were and are to dig in for a protracted fight. The truth is they have all lost, they cannot win and will eventually be resurrected but they can take out a lot more Legionaries and bog down the Leonosians efforts the longer they can hold those areas which will make our next invasions of those cities easier.

"Those transports arriving in orbit are to further secure the new landing grounds and the bases we will be setting up. Then we take the cities block by block until we eventually secure them all. We cannot win this fight overnight, this requires a protracted effort which will need a lot more resources than we had planned but the facts show that it is the only way apart from constant bombardment of the cities and might I remind you just how well we did last time and this time they are even more prepared. We also need to start proper war production. I'm talking about handheld weapons here not just the inbuilt blasters and we cannot, I repeat, cannot underestimate Field Marshall Montgomery. He has just proven exactly how far he will go to secure his Homeworld" The four summed up.

The others were quiet for a while before One said "It looks like you are right. Give the orders Louise".

Louise Macedon got to work issuing the necessary orders.

Leonis

Luminaire

ARC-16

More than half an hour had passed since the Cylons had begun their assault on his Homeworld and he had been forced to retaliate when the thankful news came in "Sir, the Cylons are pulling back".

Turning to look at his chief tactical officer, Montgomery asked "Where?"

"All over the planet, sir. The surviving transports at the QT2 (Queen Tamara 2nd spaceport whose nuclear charges had failed to detonate) are moving north by north west past the city limits (QT2 was located at the edge of the city anyway) and their heavy raiders are moving to secure an area 3 miles outside the City limits. The surviving Cylon transports in the other affected cities are doing likewise".

Colonel Ibis another tactical officer whom was covering the ground effort announced "The Centurions are also pulling back. Those in Silverwood are digging in around their former landing grounds…"

Montgomery saw the meaning and announced "Then they mean to keep our forces occupied for the next few weeks while they hit us from their new bases", looking at General Marx, Montgomery announced "Let's not give them that satisfaction. Marx, prepare a gunship assault on those positions".

"What about the new landing grounds?" Marx asked.

Montgomery smiled "Why would I kick them out of the places I want them. If we do then they will be forced to bombard us again. Plus any assault we attempt will be under the guns of the Cylons Raiders. No, we leave them for now but have artillery moved towards the bordering streets".

Nodding, General Marx went about issuing orders.

Luminaire

Linthorpe

Major Natalie Ford

Shaking under the constant pneumatic drill-like vibrations of the machine gun, Natalie kept on gunning down as many toasters as she could. The Cylons had been stalled just a hundred feet from her position and were taking cover behind what cars they could. She knew that the Cylons had managed to make it slightly further up a parallel road before being stalled but the very fact that they had managed to stall them was one of the best signs possible that they were winning. The best sign however came as those Cylons at the rear of the scattered formation went into retreat back to the destroyed landing grounds leaving fifty centurions to cover their retreat.

Over the whoops of joy of Jammer feeding a new belt of ammunition into the other machine gun, Natalie continued to gun down those Centurions left behind. Soon all that was left as the dust settled were the mangled remains of hundreds of Centurions and a half dozen collapsed buildings. She was momentarily grateful that she couldn't see her fellow legionaries whom had been lost.

The voice of Colonel Bligh came over the wireless "First and Fourth Centuries, Bligh. Get to the Ravens. All other centuries are to hold position. Good work, we might just win this yet".

"Leave the ordnance and get moving" Natalie ordered her squad before they took off towards the stairwell meeting up with a dishevelled looking Captain Simon Harris and one member of his squad. As they moved down the stairs, Natalie huffed "Where's Blake and Harrow?"

Rounding a landing before continuing down, Simon replied "Blake took a round in his chest. A through and through but we think it went through his right lung. Harrow's treating him right now and waiting for a medevac".

As they neared the ground floor, a lot more vigilantly now than they had been, they were forced to pull their neckerchiefs over their mouths to block out the thick cloud of dust which was blocking the foyer. Opening the door, Natalie quickly glanced down both sides of the street seeing the destruction clearly evident from the drawn out battle before being reasonably assured that it was clear. Spotting a Sniper in a third floor window over the road give the all clear, Natalie and the squad and a half behind her raced over the road at a crouch and into the alley where they had first landed.

The Ravens were now uncovered and Natalie made out four crammed into this alley all being boarded by a handful of squads from her century. Boarding her own, she pulled each member of the squads up behind her before she slid the hatch backwards into the closed position. Pulling two levers on the top and bottom of her hatch she then slid the hatch backwards into its next locking position while the engines started up. Doing this allowed the chain gun which had been compacted in an upright position in the front starboard side of the cabin to deploy out of the now open hatch.

The Raven took off rising between the buildings as she set up the chain gun on her side and Simon set up the opposite one, meanwhile Sam and Pauli went forward to help with the rear gun targeting computers while the remaining two legionaries stood ready in case their help was needed.

Once the Raven was in the air and had joined up with nineteen other Ravens from differing cohorts and centuries they all accelerated forwards and to the outskirts of the now desolate and destroyed Rose Hall Parade Grounds in order to destroy every Cylon which was taking cover there.

The jets buffeted the clouds of dust and smoke which had been dispersing and the Raven was rocked from side to side as it passed through hotter and cooler areas. It was…strange to Major Ford to see the results of the deadly battle from this elevated position. While the only missiles fired had been the Cylons own ones mainly at the four block thick area surrounding the landing grounds there were hundreds of craters in a vast area surrounding the former Parade Grounds. Roofs had been caved in, potholes that even a tank would struggle to get through were all that was left of some of the roads and within a 1 mile radius of the parade grounds all that remained of the house, apartments and shops were flattened piles of rubble as if they were wooden buildings which had faced the very worst tornados. And then there were the Cylons.

Many Cylons were still struggling to return to the areas they had been ordered to hold and it became clear to Natalie at least that no more than a couple of hundred could have survived. Aiming her mounted chain gun at the closest Cylon, Natalie depressed the triggers (one for the rotary mechanism combined with the coolant and the other for the actual firing). A slot opened up at the base of the chain gun to accept the spent shell casings and store them unless the co-pilot ordered them to be ejected from the Raven. Powerful stabilisers took effect as the rounds left the rapidly rotating barrels and tore towards the Cylons in her path and then the already desolate road exploded as these high explosive rounds tore into it and then the Centurions. Behind her Simon repeated her actions just as every other airborne Raven was doing.

Some Centurions realising that they wouldn't make it to their assigned areas turned to engage the airborne multi-purpose gunships but their rounds were unable to breach the armoured undersides of the deadly Ravens, Still they continued to fire at their pursuers until they were taken care of with the highly volatile, explosive rounds. A couple of gunships took fire at their VTOL jets and suffered some degrees of damage which forced them to break off their pursuit and land so as to avoid crashing but as soon as this happened twice, the remaining Ravens simply increased their height.

Within twenty minutes of bombardment to the point that the Ravens were running out of ammunition the last of the active Cylons went down and the order to return to base was called since these pilots and legionaries had been closer to the radiation surrounding Rose Hall and so needed to be checked out at the hospital before they could be cleared for combat.

Returning to ARC-16 at a more sedate pace, the Raven circled Dragonville industrial estate before it was cleared to land in a carpark near to a lightly damaged warehouse. The wheels were deployed and the Raven gently touched down before a group of auxiliaries and Legionaries opened the doors to the warehouse and rushed out along with a handful of vehicles so that they could bring the Ravens into the disguised hanger.

ARC-16

Pilgrims Hospital, 6 Hours later

Queen Alexandria, a chief doctor by training in her early years as a princess stood over the female officer in front of her looking over her chart. The officer, Major Ford had passed out as soon as she had lain on the bed when she came into the hospital more than five hours ago, she hadn't slept more than a few hours over the past three days and this lack of sleep had finally caught up with her. A drip had been set up which was steadily releasing a strong course of anti-radiation medication into her bloodstream and her results looked like she would be combat ready within a couple of days.

So many wounded Legionaries had come in that the medical staff were momentarily overwhelmed until they had performed triage and realised that the majority could be treated by corpsmen, but still more than a thousand Legionaries and auxiliaries had came in wounded to some degree and it was known that on average each legion had lost about 100 men and women each.

As she moved to wipe a spot of dirt off Natalie's forehead, Natalie smiled at the touch and then opened her eyes. There was a look of momentary puzzlement on her face as she thought she recognised the woman treating her and then this puzzlement passed into shock as she realised just who it was and she blurted out "My Queen…I'm…"

"Hush. You're okay, well you will be in a couple of days. You took a large dose of radiation which we are clearing up right now, thankfully the radiation hasn't affected any of your internal organs and your electrolyte levels were right down. You need to rest, we need alert soldiers".

Natalie was struggling to remember what had happened and hadn't heard any news of the other landing sites so asked "Your majes…"

The Queen smiled and interrupted "Call me Alex".

"I couldn't be so informal, your majesty".

"Okay, then Doctor".

Smiling at Alexandria's smile, Natalie replied "Very well, Doctor. Can you tell me what happened at the other landing sites?"

"Men and women like you drove the Cylons back from every one of them after Monty destroyed the majority of their landing craft. Right now the Cylons have set up bases outside of the City limits which is what Monty was aiming for. We won. Now do you want something to eat or drink?" Alex asked her patient.

Feeling the hunger pangs descend on her, Natalie replied "Both please, your Ma…Doctor. Although I do feel like I should be the one getting you the food".

Turning to leave, Alexandria said "You've already done your duty today. Now it's my turn to mine" before she left with one of her ever present and ever vigilant guards taking up position behind her. Queen Alexandria could never know just how much her reassuring presence meant to Major Natalie Ford.

Turning her head as she rested it back on the soft waterproof (with a pillowcase) pillow, Natalie saw the dozens of Legionaries and Auxiliaries laying in their own beds or sat by the side of their comrades and what was worse was the man who lay in the next bed being treated by a female intern no older than twenty. The entire left hand side of his face was blotchy, seeping and bleeding with radiation burns which the intern was tending to with an anti-radiation cream. Facing the ceiling and closing her eyes, a tear crept down Natalie's cheek as she remembered all the corpses that she had cremated, swearing to herself that she would make every Cylon pay that she could.

ARC-16

Alpha Command Staff Quarters

Field Marshall Montgomery's Quarters

You might think that the head of all Leonis armed forces would have one of the grandest quarters in the whole ARC and in a way you might be right. Field Marshall Montgomery did have an entire room to himself, it was however a room which measured 8 foot by 10 foot, barely bigger than a broom closet really. The hatch slid open on runners and could be locked in place, to the right when you entered was his closet and to the left of that was a combined bunk bed and desk (bed on the top and a workstation below it holding a computer, books and mementos). In front of the desk part was Montgomery's main comfort, a reclining padded black leather office chair which could just barely recline in the cramped quarters and to the left of that facing those who entered was a book shelf holding over a hundred books (mainly crime thrillers, histories of wars, survival books and psychological textbooks). To the left when you entered was a wall of framed photos of family, his second family in the military, Leonis before the fall, and his family crest (a Lion on the left and Lioness on the right guarding three cubs in the centre under the Constellation of Leo. Below it was his family motto in ancient Kobolian; Strength through Honour, Honour through Family).

Finishing off reading and signing off on the reports which had mounted up over the past three days, Montgomery drank from his goblet of wine before standing and rubbing at the tight knot which had developed in the back of his neck before he scanned through his bookshelf and pulled out Cyrus Roselyn's first volume of the history of the first Cylon war before he sat back down and got to reading. Roselyn's books on the Cylon war were perhaps the most comprehensive books on the subject and covered what he saw as the development of the Cylons psychology before the war even started. This was of course compiled after the first war had been complete but it was believed by Roselyn at least that the major problem was that of religion and the Cylon adoption of the monotheistic beliefs spread by the Soldiers of the One under the tutelage of a Sister Clarice Willow. Clarice was known as a terrorist who had been behind the STOs attempted bombing of Caprica City's Atlas Arena but had somehow escaped justice. Through eye witness accounts, Roselyn had learnt that Clarice had preached monotheism to the Cylons in V-world and had later fled to Gemenon when the GDD were closing in on her.

It was perhaps, Roselyn had surmised, Clarice's teachings which had led to the first Cylon war and the truly horrific violence which the Cylons had turned to. Montgomery took it all in, it always helped to know your enemy and he suspected if he knew them well enough then he might just be able to anticipate their next moves. Raging Thunder might have been the Leonosians first strike but it certainly wouldn't be their last. The Leonosians would fight for every inch of ground that they gave if they had to but eventually the Cylons would more than likely win out if only because they could manufacture their army and they had orbital supremacy. The Cylons would learn from their mistakes and would eventually get a foothold within the city and when they did the Leonosians would be in for the war to end all wars.

But it would not be today. It wasn't long before sleep caught up with Montgomery as he slumped in his chair.

Well I hope you all liked this chapter and the first major ground offensive of the war. It may have become clear that Im definitely not in the army although I will strive to make this seem as realistic as possible. If you are wondering why the Cylons wouldn't have seen the Legions from space then please remember what Caprica looked like in the weeks following its bombing, dust clouds would block almost everything.

The Cylons original plan for the invasion had been setting up fobs in each city and then sending out their Centurions to secure each area but now thanks to Raging Thunder destroying their landing grounds they have been forced to create their bases outside each cities limits.

The Raven will be the UH-1 of this war and is based on the aircraft that the Cylons under Daniel Graystones command used in Capricas last episode Apotheosis at the Atlas stadium. The Raven is a multi-purpose transport able to hold a maximum of four squads (16 men plus pilot and co-pilot) and has side mounted chainguns, a rear chaingun, a gun similar to those found on a Viper below the nose and can be equipped with four missiles on each shaft leading to the VTOL jets on the sides. Raptors, while good don't look like they have been designed for a ground war.

I should also point out that Colonial Battery technology is a lot better than ours (based off of Caprica tech).

All reviews are appreciated and feel free to ask any questions.