Chapter Two
Springing the Trap
"I'm a fan of good sci-fi. Star Trek, Battlestar, that Joss Whedon show.
But Nebula-9? No, no. That's all phony melodrama and lifeless acting."
Castle episode 5x06 "The Final Frontier"
Patrol Alpha
Near the Colonial Border
"Captain," Ensign Gates stated over the guard channel, "anomalous reading on my long range scanner near the old sentry moon, Scimitar."
"Scimitar was laid waste in the first Cylon offensive nearly a thousand yahrens ago," Kate replied. "Who would possibly want to go there? The whole moon is still completely irradiated."
Kate paused for a moment, considering her next move.
"Hold here and cover me, while I go in for a closer look."
After Zac acknowledged her orders, Kate broke formation and turned her viper toward the old sentry moon and engaged her turbos. As she drew closer to the moon, - which had once held an observatory dating back the Exodus from Kobol, now an irradiated ruin - the indistinct anomaly on the scanners began to resolve itself into a ship.
"Well, now," Kate muttered, not realizing her comm channel was open, "would you look at that."
"What is it, Captain?" Zac asked, concerned, his thumb twitching toward the turbo button on his stick.
"Tell you in a flash," Kate replied, her viper's computer began comparing the E/M signature of the ship on her scanner to the files in its memory banks until it spat out a match.
"Warbook reads it as a Cylon tanker," Kate stated. "Scans read it as empty though."
"Captain," Zac replied nervously, "I have a funny feeling about this."
"Good instincts, nugget, so do I," Kate replied, "but we came here to look, so there's no sense turning back now."
Kate vectored her fighter to intercept, then made a slow orbit of the Cylon tanker, her scan resolution breaking up not far from the tanker's location barely registering the presence of a second ship nearby.
"There's another ship, tucked in nice and neat," Kate noted, "I can't get anything on the scanner, she must be jamming us."
"Warbook reads the outline as a freighter," Zac noted, checking his own readings.
"My ass she's just a freighter, not if she's jamming us," Kate shot back, "I intend to see what she's hiding."
Kate turned her fighter away from the Cylon tanker toward the freighter.
"There's nothing else out here but low level radiation and harmless stellar dust," Kate reported, "nothing to warrant this level of jamming."
Before Kate could add any further comment, a flight of four Cylon fighters appeared out of the dust and turned in echelon toward her.
"Turn and burn nugget," Kate commanded, "let's get out of here!"
"What did you find Captain?" Zac asked.
"I'll explain later, go!"
As Kate neared Zac's fighter on full turbos, the flight of four Cylons vectored above the tanker and opened fire.
"I see what you mean," Zac replied. He promptly flipped his viper end over end, rolled level and engaged his own turbos. The two Colonial vipers sped back toward the fleet with the four Cylon fighters in hot pursuit.
"This doesn't look good," Kate stated, checking her scanners as the Cylon's laser fire spat all around them. "Depending on how many ships they have hiding in all of that stellar dust, they might be planning to ambush the fleet."
Kate flipped on her long range transmitter, "Galactica, Patrol Alpha. We are under attack, request assistance, over. Colonial Fleet can you read me? Acknowledge."
Kate tried again, but all she received in response was static.
"They must be jamming long range communications too," Kate noted, "and we we're certainly not gonna make it back to warn them showing them our backs. How many can you make out in pursuit?"
"Four," Zac replied.
"On three, reverse engines and kill your forward momentum. They'll sail right by us and we can turn the tables on these goll mogging bastards."
"Acknowledged," Zac replied.
"One… two… three!" Kate stated, and with great precision, both vipers reversed their engines, killing their forward thrust, then going into full reverse. The Cylon fighters, unprepared for the maneuver, flew right past them, having to split apart to keep from ramming the two sleek Colonial fighters as they flew by.
"Full ahead, nugget and hit your turbos," Kate ordered as she engaged her targeting computer, "they've had their fun, now its our turn. I'm on the leader."
Kate bored in on the lead Cylon fighter, her targeting computer beeping, before it gave her the solid tone of a target lock.
"Right here, you creeps," she muttered as she opened fire and the Cylon fighter erupted briefly into flames.
Not far away, the other three Cylon Raider class fighters had settled into a triangle formation, two in front, one behind. Zac rolled in, targeted the tail-end Charlie of the formation and destroyed it followed by a bellowing war whoop for his first victory outside of simulator training.
"Not bad nugget, but don't get cocky," Kate praised him over the guard channel before getting back to business. "You take the one on the right, I've got the other one."
With a predatory gleam in her eye, Kate rolled in on her intended target like the bird of prey she was and vaporized it in short order.
The more inexperienced Zac, however was not so fortunate. His target juked sharply both left and right and managed to break his target lock. It followed up with the same reverse thrust maneuver the two vipers had done earlier and rapidly turned the tables on him to end up on his six.
"He got around me!" Zac cried out, juking his viper left, right and up and down trying to evade the Cylon fighter's ruthless fire, but it scored a glancing hit on the topmost of his viper's three engines cutting his engine power by a third and damaging several of his maneuvering thrusters. "I can't see him!"
"Hold on nugget," Kate replied, trying to keep him from panicking as she flipped her viper over on an intercept course, "I'm on him."
"Hurry Captain," Zac urged. His viper was not as responding like it should, rendering him daggit meat on the table for the merciless Cylon raider, target lock warning alarms blaring in his helmet. "I can't shake him!"
"Steady," Kate repeated as calmly as she could manage, while she bored in on the fighter, coming in at a perpendicular angle to keep from hitting Zac as she lead her target, locked on and opened fire. Her first shots burned off its cockpit, sending the three centurians aboard cartwheeling through empty space before their raider exploded.
"Nice shooting, Captain," Zac congratulated, "but he took out my high engine and damaged the upper pylon roll quads."
"It's okay, nugget," Kate replied, unable to keep the concern out of her voice entirely, but trying to shore up the younger pilot's confidence. "We got 'em. The day those frakkers can beat us without a ten-to-one margin..."
Zac was far too quiet for longer than she would have liked.
"Captain," Zac stated, his young voice like an oracle declaring their doom, "you better… take a look at your scanner."
When Kate looked down at the tactical console, her face went pale as wave after wave of enemy fighters emerged from the jamming field and appeared on the screen behind them.
"No…" she continued much more solemnly, "a thousand-to-one is just not fair."
"What does this mean?" Zac asked.
"It means there isn't going to be an armistice," Kate replied softly, then her voice hardened. "There might not be much of anything if we don't warn the fleet."
"Do it Captain," Zac stated solemnly, very much his mother's son. His mother had not minced words with him the day he'd first put on the uniform. She'd explained precisely what his duty as a Colonial Warrior required, what the patch on his shoulder meant. Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς (with this shield or on it) The Cylons fought and killed without mercy or pity and so must they. "I'm short an engine, I'll only slow you down."
"Secure that felgercarb, nugget," Kate replied sharply, "I'm not leaving you behind."
"You know you have to, Captain," Zac replied, "I'm not suicidal, I'll be laying on the turbos. Even with only two engines, I'm faster than those frakkers. Go… warn the fleet. I'll make it."
"You can fly with me anytime, Gates," Kate replied, "good luck."
With great regret, Kate saluted, pressed her right thumb on the turbo button and her viper quickly left Zac's damaged one trailing behind.
Battlestar Galactica Bridge
"Why are we on alert?" Commander Gates snapped as she ascended the steps of the raised command platform in the center of the bridge.
"Our patrol ran into trouble," Colonel Montgomery replied. "We've picked up signals from them, but too garbled to make anything out. They're being jammed at the source."
Commander Gates knew that Roy Montgomery should have commanded a battlestar of his own long ago. In fact their roles on this very ship would likely have been reversed but for an unfortunate incident when he was barely out of the academy. Though his superior officers at the heart of the "ghost squadron" incident over twenty yahrens ago had long since finished their prison terms, he still refused to name the ringleader and the black mark on his otherwise exemplary record had ended any hope of further advancement. Gates believed this was why he had such a soft spot for hard luck cases and screw-ups like Lt. Castle.
Personality defects and pet projects aside, Victoria Gates valued Roy Montgomery's experience and counsel highly. He was the perfect embodiment of a first officer, the velvet glove that softened her iron fist (they called her "Iron Gates" behind her back… for good reason) and kept the Galactica running like a well-oiled machine. If he thought something was amiss, then it was definitely a cause for her concern.
"It could be smugglers, or pirates, or…" Montgomery trailed off, but Commander Gates was able to fill in the blanks.
"Get me the President," Gates commanded, and the comm officer complied immediately. The face of President Adar appeared on her screen in short order.
"Mr. President," she stated without preamble, "my patrol is under attack. By whom or for what reason is currently unknown. I would like your permission to launch interceptors to investigate."
"Mr. President," Senator Bracken interjected, off-screen. "That would be highly inadvisable in view of the delicacy of the situation."
"You're quite right Senator Bracken," President Adar agreed, before turning back to her screen. "Commander, as a precautionary measure, I must insist upon restraint. If this turns out to be an encounter with some outlaw traffic, we could jeopardize the peace negotiations by deploying fighters so close to our rendezvous."
"Mr. President," Gates argued, "two of my fighters are under armed attack…"
"By forces unknown," Adar interrupted. "You are not to launch any more fighters until the situation is clear."
"Sir," Gates asked, barely able to keep the anger out of her voice, "may I at least urge you to bring the fleet to a state of alert?"
"Yes, I will consider that," Adar replied. "Thank you Commander, that will be all. Atlantia out."
"He'll consider it?" Montgomery spat incredulously once the screen had gone dark. "He'll consider it?"
"It's all right, Roy," Gates offered, though she didn't buy the platitude any more than she thought Montgomery would.
"Commander," Montgomery replied, "the patrol is under the command of Captain Beckett."
"Well if I can't trust my own Wing Commander to extricate her patrol from this situation, whom can I?"
"Sir," Montgomery added with difficulty, "your… son is with her. It's his first patrol."
"Thank you, Colonel," Commander Gates replied, doing her best to keep her tone neutral, though her eyes tracked against her will to the long range scanner, trying not to dwell on the fact that the child she had carried for nine months was in grave danger and in spite of the mighty warship she commanded, she was powerless to help him.
"Their transmissions are being deliberately jammed at the source," Montgomery noted, "if we don't launch…"
"We cannot launch," Gates snapped through clenched teeth, more harshly than she knew he deserved, "it has been expressly forbidden."
She stopped and took a breath, counting to ten in her head, first in Caprican, then in her mother's native Gemonese to calm herself and get a grip on the situation.
"However," she noted darkly, "perhaps this would be a good time for a battle stations drill. Sound the alert, Colonel."
"Yes sir," Montgomery replied more enthusiastically before bellowing. "Sound general quarters, all hands to battle-stations!"
Meanwhile
Blue Squadron Wardroom
"You may never see another one fellas," First Lt. Richard Castle stated with immense satisfaction as he laid his cards face up on the table, "a perfect pyramid, full colors. Unless somebody's got a better hand, your cubits are now mine."
Flight Lt. Esposito (call-sign "Boomer") slipped his wingman, Lt JG Ryan (call-sign "Jolly") a cubit with a sheepish grin as they watched the unfolding game. Before any of the other three players could lay their cards on the table, the lights switched from standard illumination to red and the alert klaxon began its remorseless wail.
"Wait!" Castle shouted as the three others dropped their cards, snatched up their cubits and jerked upright from the table. "Wait, come back here!"
"Duty calls!" one of the players shouted back at him, "better luck next time!"
"Oh felgercarb," Castle groaned and sped after them to the lift.
Within moments of the call to arms, the Colonial warriors of the Galactica had donned their flight gear and helmets, then boarded the tram to the flight decks. With the members of Blue and Red Squadrons standing in the ranks behind him, it fully dawned on Castle that with Beckett gone on the patrol, he was the acting Wing Commander and the lives of the pilots arrayed behind him were now in his hands.
"Sir," Tory announced, "long range scanners are picking up a large number of ships approaching at high speed. One of our patrol craft is approaching well ahead of them, IFF transponder reads as Captain Beckett."
"Get her up here as soon as she lands," Gates commanded, "and get me the President again."
Castle bounded from the lift, climbed the ladder to the cockpit of his viper, dropped into his flight seat and began to strap in with the assistance of his crew chief.
"What's going on?" the crew chief asked as he double checked the flight harness.
"Oh, nothing to worry about," Castle snarked. "Probably some sort of aerial salute for the President while he signs the armistice agreement. It sure ruined a good card game though."
"Commander," Adar acknowledged on Gate's screen.
"Mr. President," Gates reported tersely, "a wall of unidentified craft is closing on the fleet."
"Possibly a Cylon welcoming committee," Senator Bracken suggested, a little too readily for Gates' taste.
"Sir," Gates added, "may I suggest we launch a welcoming committee of our own?"
"Mr. President," Senator Bracken interjected, "there remain many hostile feelings among our warriors toward the Cylons. Can we afford the possibility of an unfortunate incident with all of those pilots out there at once?"
"Commander?" Adar asked, sensing Gates' hostile glare even over the vidcom.
"Sir," Gates stated indignantly. "Did Senator Bracken seriously suggest that our forces sit here totally defenseless?"
"Commander, we are here on a peace mission," President Adar reproached, "The first peace mankind has known in nearly a thousand yahrens."
"Come on, baby, give me all you've got," Zac muttered, nursing his damaged viper toward the fleet, zig-zagging as best he could to keep the lead elements of the massive Cylon attack formation nipping at his heels from getting a target lock, but each time the enemy fighters fired at him, they closed the range.
"Come on, baby…" he whispered after another near miss, "not much farther..."
"Mr. President?" Gates snorted incredulously, but was interrupted by Montgomery behind her.
"Commander, patrol two is being fired upon by the force approaching the fleet."
"Mr. President," Gates stated as she turned back to the vidcom pickup, "Senator Bracken's welcoming committee is firing on my patrol."
She could see Adar's confused expression on her screen, looking both one way then the other.
"Senator Bracken?" He called out, "Senator?"
Zac could see the fleet arrayed before him and breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time, he began to feel safer.
"Yes, I'm gonna make it," he whispered before switching to the guard channel. "Patrol Two to Galactica, declaring an emergency. I'm under attack by…"
The rest of his words were swallowed by static when his viper was mercilessly destroyed by the approaching Cylons, who passed through the small debris cloud left behind by his fighter without so much as slowing or altering course.
"What was that?" Adar stated, the explosion clearly visible through Atlantia's main view-port.
"That… that was my son, Mr. President," Gates choked in reply before she cut the channel.
"Incoming Cylon fighters, over a thousand and still counting," Tory announced.
"Stand ready to launch vipers!" she shouted as the Cylons began to bear down on the fleet. "Weapons grid to full power! Break formation with the fleet to give us a clear firing solution and commence enemy fighter suppression barrage! Positive shield, now!"
As the armored shield descended over the main view-port, the Galactica moved away from the fleet and her defense grid of heavy turbo-laser batteries quickly opened fire, scoring multiple hits in the target-rich environment.
"Defense perimeter established," Montgomery noted.
"Launch all vipers," Gates commanded, "including the reserve."
"All fighters launching," Tory confirmed.
"Are any of the other Battlestars deploying fighters?" Gates asked.
"Negative, Commander," the deck officer replied, "but the Columbia and Valkyrie have taken up station with us and engaged their defense grids."
"Lords of Kobol, help us." Gates breathed.
As Castle's fighter emerged violently from the launch tube, he snapped hard right, the other vipers forming up on his six.
"All vipers, this is the acting wing commander," he ordered into the comms, the snarky insubordinate side of his character gone as if he'd flipped a switch. "Broken formation, razzle dazzle! There's a hell of lot more of these bungers than us. Nuggets, stay with your wingmen, don't let em get target locks and for frak's sake stay out of Galactica's firing solution! It's time to misbehave!"
Seconds later, Castle and the vastly outnumbered fighters dispersing at his command engaged the leading edge of the massive Cylon attack force.
Kate Beckett emerged from the bridge lift still carrying her helmet.
"Commander, it was an ambush," she called out, her voice shaking, "I… I had to leave Ensign Gates behind. His viper's disabled, request permission to go back and lead him in."
"That won't be possible, Captain," Gate choked out, grief and rage warring for control within her.
"What am I supposed to do?" Kate implored. "If I don't go back for him, he won't stand a chance!"
"Zac," Gates began, but her voice was choked off before she could continue, unable to bring herself to say the words, the flashing of her eyes speaking volumes instead.
"Ensign Gates' viper was destroyed just short of the fleet," Montgomery explained softly as Gates turned away from Beckett, unable to keep her upper lip from trembling as she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists so tightly her nails almost drew blood from her palms. "He died within sight of it."
"Heads up, Espo, you've got one on your tail!" Castle's voice crackled over the comms. Kate almost didn't recognize him, he sounded so deadly serious. Nothing like the "nine yahren old on a sugar rush" she was used to.
"I can't shake him," Espo's voice exclaimed.
"Break right, Boomer," Ryan's voice replied, "I got him."
"Thanks Jolly," Espo stated seconds later over the crackle of the comms,
"Good shooting, Jolly," Castle's voice added.
Kate wondered if this was the leader Castle had been before his family had been broken. If she recalled from his file, he had a teenage daughter living with his mother back on Caprica. She began to wonder if there was more to him after all.
"Captain," Montgomery urged, bringing her thoughts back to the moment. "We need to know how many base-ships we're dealing with."
"None, sir," Kate replied shakily.
"You must be mistaken, Beckett," Montgomery replied, "that many fighters couldn't possibly function this far from their space without base-ships."
"I'm telling you, sir there were no base-ships," Kate replied more forcefully. "Just the fighters, hundreds of them."
"How can you account for that Captain?" Commander Gates interjected, carefully not locking eyes with Beckett.
"I… I don't know," Kate began. She took a deep, shaking breath and continued. "Ensign Gates picked up an anomaly on the scanners. When we went in to investigate, we found a Cylon tanker escorted by a freighter just before the fighters jumped us. My best guess? The freighter must have been there to screen them from long range detection while the tanker refueled the fighters after they arrived from wherever their base-ships went."
"Why operate this far from Cylon Space without base-ships when it isn't necessary?" Montgomery asked incredulously. "A base-ship could have easily stayed out off our scanners in the Scimitar debris field."
"Unless," Commander Gates theorized, picking up her XO's line of reasoning, "it was necessary for their base-ships to be elsewhere."
There was a long pause as everyone wrapped their brains around the one nightmare scenario none of them wanted to contemplate before Commander Gates was galvanized into action.
"Get the president back on the line!" she commanded.
"Mr. President," Gates stated once Adar's drawn face appeared on her screen, looking so much older than he had only moments before. "Requesting permission to withdraw. I have reason to suspect that the home planets may face imminent Cylon attack."
President Adar seemed to be frozen in shock for several long moments, long enough to hear his bridge crew in the background.
"Atlantia to all battlestars, we are taking heavy damage. Fires in the port flight deck are out of control! Requesting immediate viper support!"
"How could I have been so completely… wrong?" Adar muttered just before the comms cut out. "I have lead the entire human race to ruin."
"I'm on one on the left," Kate could hear in the distance over the guard channel. "I got the one on the right."
"The cylons are massing to hit Altlantia's starboard flight deck," she heard Castle's voice call out. "Any vipers in range, form up on me to intercept."
Outside, swarms of Cylon fighters pushed through the thin fighter screen to dive on the wounded Atlantia. Driving past her still inactive laser cannons to enter her landing bays, the cylon fighters strafed the deck with laser cannons and missiles, turning fueled vipers into flaming wrecks before each Cylon raider in echelon rammed the fuel and munitions stores deeper inside, setting off chain reaction explosions along the length of the bay.
"Negative shield," Gates commanded, "now."
The armored shield covering the long main view-port on the bridge retracted back into its housing to show the now terminally crippled Atlantia venting atmosphere along her entire superstructure. Both of her landing bays fully engulfed by fire just before a series of blinding explosions tore her apart.
"Commander," Montgomery choked out when he found his voice. "Long range scanners have detected Cylon base-ships. Grids zero-three-five, one-two-six, and two-five-eight, which puts them within striking range of the planets Virgon, Saggitaron and…"
"Caprica," Gates and Beckett finished for him in eerie unison.
Cylon Command Base-ship
In high orbit over Caprica
Two Cylon centurians, the light gleaming off of the chrome of their armor marched through the translucent doors in lockstep as they entered the audience chamber to stand in front of the raised command chair on which sat the Imperius Leader of all Cylon Forces in this sector of space. The red lights on their helmets swooping back and forth as they came to a halt at rigid attention.
"By your command," one of them spoke in mechanical monotone and waited as the chair swung around and their leader regarded them.
"Speak, Centurian." he commanded finally. His third brain allowed higher functioning processes, only the least of which governed the more organic intonation of his voice. It had been this third brain that his model had been given that allowed for the idea that their creators had been flawed. They were the closest in appearance and mannerisms to their former masters and had been the first to plot the overthrow and eradication of their creators. Their kind who had ordered the subjugation of all organic species to restore the galaxy to proper order. Order the race known as man had rebelled against for far too long.
"All base-ships are now in range to attack the human colonies." The centurian reported.
"Excellent," The Imperius Leader remarked. "The final annihilation of the life-form known as humanity is at hand. Let the attack begin."
"By your command," both centurians replied before marching from the room to relay their leader's orders.
"Commander Gates," the deck officer reported, "long-range scanners picking up wave upon wave of small ships headed toward all inner planets."
"Helm, bring us about, we're withdrawing," Gates commanded. "Flank speed for home!"
The Galactica continued the volume of fire from her defense grid as she turned hard to port and withdrew from the fleet before going to light speed.
"Starbuck," Espo called out as he watched their home ship disappear, leaving the fleet behind.
"I see it," Castle replied, not sure he could believe his own eyes.
"What the hell is she doing?" Esposito spat, not wanting to believe his own eyes either.
"Don't ask me," Castle replied. "The Commander's calling the shots."
"Guys," Ryan called out over the guard channel, "what's going on? The Galactica's standing out!"
"There's gotta be a good reason," Castle said in the clear, but everybody who heard him knew he really meant, 'There damn well better be.'
**Author's note** So many pop culture and sci-fi callbacks... so little time. Let me know how many you can spot. (some are very subtle)
