Chapter 5
Backs Against the Wall
***Milky Way Galaxy (Local Spur Arm)***
**Dead Space (Colonial Fleet)**
*USS Odyssey (Bridge)*
Marks had been staring at his screen and pushing buttons all throughout the 'negotiations,' which were sounding more and more like Adama and Mitchell butting heads by the second with Daniel left sitting on the sidelines. Finally, nearly twenty minutes into the 'arguments,' as he had started calling them in his head, the calculations finally started to make sense.
Eyes widening as understanding dawned on him, Marks hit the button that opened a direct line to the earpiece Colonel Davidson never took out and said, "Sir, we've got a problem!"
Just as Marks was making his exclamation, Sam was finishing double checking their math. Hitting the ship-wide comms she said, "All hands prepare for battle." As Colonel Davidson ran back onto the Bridge from his hourly check on the repairs, she added, "Sir, long range sensors just detected an energy signature comparable to records of Galactica's jumps into FTL."
"So they're leaving?" Davidson asked in a confused tone.
"No, sir," Sam replied as she pointed to the small group of blips moving closer to their location. "We never would've seen this coming if Gabi hadn't fixed the sensors…"
"The point, Colonel," Davidson interrupted.
"The Cylons are about to attack!"
*Battlestar Galactica (Combat Information Center)*
The comms channel between the two ships was still open when two unnamed people started yelling over Mitchell's rant about… well, Adama didn't really understand what it was about. Something regarding what his 'Great Aunt Emma' used to say. No, Adama didn't understand that, but what he did understand was that these people believed the Cylons were about to attack, and that threat, real or fake, was something he'd take seriously no matter how many times these people cried 'Toaster.'
As Adama turned to order a scan of the area, Dualla, back to manning the DRADIS station, confirmed his suspicions by announcing, "DRADIS contacts! Five Cylon Baseships bearing down off the port side of the fleet."
"Commander, we haven't finished the fleet's jump calculations yet. They've caught us with our pants down!" Gaeta added.
At that moment another officer shouted, "Incoming missiles. Frak! Two of the Baseships are swarming us with nukes!"
"Target the…" Adama started before being interrupted by the same officer.
"Third, fourth, and fifth contacts are targeting civilian ships. Nukes mixed with standard ordnance."
"Gods help us," Saul gave a whispered prayer.
Adama's mood instantly switched from hostile negotiations to hostile live-fire combat. "Target the missiles headed toward the fleet, launch the Vipers, and evacuate all the outer sections of Galactica. We're about to take a beating!" Turning to Tigh he added, "I want the fleet's jump coordinates now!"
*USS Odyssey (Bridge)*
"Sir, the Cylons are firing nukes at the civilian ships in the Colonial Fleet," Marks reported form his station.
"Colonel," Sam said in an informative tone, "those ships won't survive so much as a glancing hit from one of those nukes, regardless of how low the yield is. Even if, by some miracle, they survive the initial impact, their armor won't protect them from the EM pulse or the radiation. One missile detonating close to those ships and the entire crew dies. If this really is the last of their people…" Sam trailed off as they all heard Commander Adama's orders to his crew. The situation sounded grim.
"Shields up, press the attack!" Mitchell ordered.
With a look on his face that said, 'This is my ship' Davidson switched out those orders for his own. "Then we follow the Commander's lead. Target the missiles headed toward the civilian fleet first, Galactica second, and let the shields handle what the guns can't." The tone of finality left no room for argument. Not that anyone would argue with the man. Davidson had earned their respect even if he was a replacement for the deceased Colonel Emerson.
"What about the nukes? Can we beam them into the enemy vessels?" Vala asked.
"I don't see why not," Marks replied.
"Yeah, but the problem there is that we don't want to waste all of our nukes. If the Ori find us and we don't have any left… well, an already desperate situation gets a hell of a lot worse," Sam countered.
"This mission just keeps getting better and better," Davidson responded with an exasperated roll of his shoulders. "Prep the guns for a sustained, rapid-fire sequence. We'll think of a plan between now and our eventual destruction."
"Hopefully one that avoids the 'destruction' part. I really don't want to die in space," Cam added with a shudder. "Too damn cold."
*Battlestar Galactica (Combat Information Center)*
"Missiles will enter firing range in ten, ni… hold on," Gaeta reported, the tone in his voice showing his obvious bewilderment.
"What's going on, Lieutenant?" Adama asked.
His answer came from Dualla. "Sir, the Odyssey has engaged the enemy and is intercepting the first wave of missiles… on their own."
"Where the frak are they?" Tigh demanded in an outraged tone.
With a look of pure confusion, Dualla replied, "They haven't moved yet, sir. They're still sitting right beside us."
Starbuck's awed voiced broke the silence over the radio as her Viper group flew past the far smaller ship. "Frak me! Those guns are firing from the turrets I saw earlier. It's not a special cannon, it's their main weapon!"
"Frak we need some of those guns!" another of the pilots said in an identical tone as the last of the first wave of missiles disappeared off of the DRADIS screens. The second wave quickly launching from the Baseships as their Raiders closed with the Colonial Fleet and added their own missiles to the mix cut the celebration understandably short.
The already outrageous number of missiles filling the space between the two fleets was multiplied by hundreds of Raiders adding dozens of missiles to the mix a piece, yet the Odyssey's guns continued to fire a steady stream of orange light that cut through the masses with disturbing ease. Everyone in the CIC was shocked into silence until Gaeta said, "The Odyssey missed part of the second wave. Missiles are now headed towards both the civvies and Galactica. Entering firing range in five…"
"I guess we can't just expect people to handle our problems for us, huh?" Saul asked, more to himself than to anyone else in particular.
"Four…"
"Target the missiles that are heading towards the civilian ships, we can take it, they can't," Adama reiterated in a solemn tone.
"Three…"
"Are the outer sections clear?"
"Two…"
"Yes, sir," Dee replied.
"One…"
"For the Fleet."
"So say we all!" the CIC crew agreed in unison.
Outside of the giant warship, the guns lining the length of the ship's dorsal structure swiveled and turned, tracking their targets until they had a lock on the fast moving missiles and Cylon Raiders. Then they fired. Space around Galactica was filled with silent bangs as the guns recoiled from the force of firing their munitions at the enemy. When the explosive-propelled projectile reached the end of its range, it exploded into a cloud of short-lived heat, concussive energy, and shrapnel.
One such round fired flew through space before detonating its payload. The concussive force washed over a missile, the metal frame crumpling under the impact and its internal system giving out as it did. The now dead missile then tumbled through space, undetonated, but no longer lethal. The shrapnel from this round also played a lethal roll as a large chunk of its metal casing, accelerated by its detonation, flipped end-over-end until it pierced the roving red eye of a Cylon Raider and embedded itself in the machine's brain. The fighter veered off course and drifted aimlessly through space just as dead as the missile the round had also claimed.
Time and again this same act was repeated to varying degrees of success. Some rounds claimed more missiles and fewer Raiders. Some claimed multiple Raiders but no missiles. Some missed their targets altogether. Time and time again the Galactica would fire shot after shot in a seemingly endless pattern and yet more and more Raiders and missiles kept coming. By the end of the fourth wave nobody could keep up with the kill count, the number was simply too large. Their only saving grace at the moment was the advantage the Odyssey's range and extra guns were giving them, though the small ship seemed to be incapable of hitting the rapidly moving, highly maneuverable Raiders. That left the Odyssey targeting the missiles, the Vipers handling the Raiders, and Galactica picking up everyone else's slack, all without any order being given.
Davidson never commented on the Raiders' maneuverability. Adama never ordered the Vipers to engage the fighters. Nobody told the gunners what to target. Everything just fit together like a well-oiled machine. The tides had turned and now it was the Cylons who were stuck in a meat grinder. That thought brought a smile to Saul's withered old face, but it didn't last long. He still didn't trust these people and he wasn't going to let this trap claim them. The Cylons planted that ship in their fleet, he was sure of it. This was just a show to gain their trust, and he wasn't buying it.
Galactica continued to fire. Despite the fact that her teeth were getting dull and her meat was only getting tougher to chew, the Old Girl handled her task well, but not well enough. Seven waves into the bombardment, the one thing nobody wanted to hear was shouted over the clamor of their efforts to defend the fleet from such a heavy Cylon presence. After all, a Mercury-class Battlestar is only worth three Cylon Baseships and they were staring down the barrels of five.
"BRACE FOR NUCLEAR IMPACT!" Gaeta shouted just before a nuke detonated on the Port side of the Old Girl. The floor shook under their feet and the lights flickered and dimmed before regaining their full glow. "Fire in Section Fourteen."
"Damage control teams to action stations. Seal off the affected area and vent the atmosphere in the unoccupied rooms," Tigh ordered, fulfilling his duties as XO so that Adama could focus on the task of fighting the battle.
In a voice of mild concern, Dualla shouted over the noise, "Sir, the Odyssey has moved into the combat zone and is launching fighters. What are our orders?"
Adama was so caught up in the calculations of the fleet's jump and the endless waves of missiles that he didn't register her words. Tigh, on the other hand, did. "Keep an eye on them! This could all just be a trap."
Another pair missile impacted Galactica's hull, but the Old Girl shrugged off the minor blasts generated by the conventional missiles with ease and kept firing. Nukes might rattle her old bones, but missiles were just drops of water on an umbrella to such a thick-hided predator. Even with her armor being as outdated as it was, the Old Girl was a tough nut to crack, and the Cylons didn't bring a big enough nutcracker to get through her shell.
Wave eight began with significantly fewer missiles coming from Raiders as there were significantly fewer Raiders to fire missiles. However, they were far closer to the fleet now, and a few had even made it through the Viper screen. They were being chased down, but already three of them had unleashed a hailstorm of bullets into a passenger liner and pierced the hull in over a dozen different places. If they joined in on the missile swarm at this range…
"Frak! A missile made it through. Nuclear ordinance impacting Colonial One in ten…"
"Intercept it," Saul ordered.
"Nine…"
"If we do we're dead," Gaeta countered.
"Eight…"
"They're targeting our engines."
"Seven…"
"If we divert weapons fire to take out that missile…
"Six…"
"We take seven to our Tylium reserves."
"Five…"
"May the Gods see fit to have mercy on their souls," Tigh swore.
"Four…"
*USS Odyssey (Bridge) [a few moments earlier]*
"Marks, take us forward and launch the fighters. We're in this fight to win it so let's get it done," Davidson ordered.
"Aye, sir," Marks replied before easing the accelerator forward and taking the Odyssey closer to her prey. They didn't need the reduced range for targeting thanks to their sensors, but the sooner their bullets hit their targets the further away from the Colonial Fleet the danger was.
"That one's going to make it through," Gabi observed in a tone of finality.
"What do you mean?" Mitchell asked before a nuclear warhead detonated against Galactica's hull. When the light cleared, Mitchell had to admit that he was impressed by the minimal damage the nuclear strike had caused.
"That," the short woman replied. "Those ones will too," she added with a nod toward two missiles on the screen that were clearly going to make it past the flak field surrounding the massive Battlestar. It was then that Mitchell saw what she did. The turrets in that area swiveled to intercept missiles that were going to make it past Galactica and, in doing so, opened up the ship itself for an attack. Both missiles impacted Galactica's hull and three of the turrets were taken offline by the damage, but, again, the hull held. "The Cylons know the Commander's mentality. They're purposefully targeting the civilian fleet just to open up a hole in Galactica's flak field. Smart. Very smart. Disturbingly so. Makes me wonder what the Cylons are."
"You scare me sometimes, you know that right?" Sam asked in a distracted manner as she continued working in the chair next to Marks'.
Sam had taken over the Tactical Officer's duties if only because the officer's systems had to be recalibrated after the sensors reboot and Sam knew how to recalibrate the system while accurately firing the guns at the same time and the man in question didn't. It wasn't a question of competence, it was a matter of programmer versus operator and the programmer was always more qualified than the operator.
"Take this setup for example," Gabi continued as she pointed to a cluster of missiles headed for Galactica and a single missiles headed for the fleet. "That cluster will strike Galactica when these turrets divert fire to shoot down the nuclear missile headed for that civilian ship. Because of how they placed it, the turrets there will have to move, and, in doing so, leave a large portion of the ship's engine couplings unprotected. If Galactica intercepts that missile, they risk everything from losing their engines to being blown up depending on how bad the damage is, and, because of where the nuke is, we can't shoot it down for them without hitting the same ship we would be trying to save," Gabi said as she pointed to a small passenger liner that was slowly falling back with the rest of the Colonial Fleet. The Cylons' push was steadily overtaking the civilians and that ship's engines weren't fast enough to keep them behind friendly lines.
"Sir, what are our orders?" Marks asked with a look at his superior officer.
With a determined nod, Davidson replied, "I've already given you your orders, Major. Let the shields handle what the guns can't."
With a nod of acknowledgement, Marks grabbed the accelerator and threw it forward. Until now the Odyssey had been coasting along under the power of her two primary sub-light engines at roughly ten percent of her maximum sub-light speed. When Marks punched the accelerator, the other eight engines flared to life and sent the ship hurtling towards the missile at eighty percent max speed. The acceleration, without proper dampening, was enough to knock Daniel off his feet. Mitchell and most of the other crew members, being former fighter pilots or used to this type of thing, took a single, stumbling step then regained their balance.
An outside observer would've seen nothing more than a missile headed right for the engine coupling of a sizeable spacecraft only for the missile to be intercepted by a rapidly moving blur of motion. The Odyssey's vector brought it around the massive Battlestar, her guns firing the whole time, through the side of the fleet where they gunned down a pair of Raiders being chased by a trio of Vipers that couldn't catch their prey, squeezing between two ships with barely an inch of clearance between the other ships and their shield bubble, through a tight turn to avoid hitting another ship, up a strangely empty corridor that took them the full length up the center of the civilian fleet which was slowly falling back more and more with the Galactica following in its wake, and, weaving between a cluster of five civilian ships that were firing anti-fighter missiles at a Raider swarm, to crash head-on into a nuclear missile.
Because the battle took place in space, the fire and mushroom cloud couldn't actually form. As a result, the explosion was nothing more than a blindingly bright flash of white light so bright that the Odyssey's viewports automatically polarized to protect the crew's eyes, coupled with the release of a high level of radiation, and, of course, a powerful concussive shockwave that was absorbed, for the most part, by the advanced shield protecting the small Earth vessel. From this flash of light and EM energy came the Odyssey, shields shimmering as the last testament to the deadly explosion that hadn't claimed the ship, though the small portion of the shockwave that her shields hadn't absorb did manage to shatter one of the windows on the ship they had just saved from utter destruction.
*Battlestar Galactica (Combat Information Center)*
"Bill…" Saul began before Gaeta interrupted him.
"The missile was intercepted… by the Odyssey?" Gaeta reported with a look of puzzlement clear on his face.
"What do you mean 'by' the Odyssey?" Saul asked.
"I mean they rammed the missile. They took the hit and came out untouched," Gaeta responded, his reply making several of the CIC crew question his sanity. There was no way a ship that small could take a direct hit from a nuclear weapon and be 'untouched.' Maybe they were all more tired than they thought.
"Keep targeting those missiles, maybe we'll get lucky and these frakking Toasters will run out," Adama ordered after a moment of thought.
"We're being hailed," Dualla reported.
"Put them through," Adama replied gruffly.
"Commander, I don't know about you, but we don't have the ordinance to destroy all of these ships. I suggest you pull your fleet out," Adama was half-surprised to hear Davidson's voice come over the radio. He was actually expecting the Cylons to demand their surrender.
"Believe me, Colonel, I'd love to, but we don't have the course set yet. We need to hold them off for five more minutes," Adama replied in his normal commander's tone.
"Well, at least they're still talking to us," Daniel muttered under his breath, the man's words barely being picked up by the smaller ship's microphone.
"Five minutes can be a long time, Commander…" Davidson started to say.
He was cut off when one of the voices from earlier said, "Sir, I've got it! The outer lair of their armor can withstand a direct nuclear impact, but the insides can't. I know that we can't…" at this point she muttered something under her breath before speaking loud enough to be heard by all, "but, if we focus the railguns on one point and blow a hole in the armor big enough to squeeze a missile through the gap…"
"It'll tear them apart from the inside-out no matter how good their armor is. The only problem is there are five ships and we don't have enough nukes to kill them all," Adama finished for her. Why Adama believed this could be done could be summed up quite easily; he needed it to work.
"Sir, scans indicate that the insides of the Cylon ships are composed of cybernetically enhanced organic polymers. If they're anything like the Wraith, and I'm willing to bet that they are, the inside will be weak enough for multiple conventional missiles, or a well-placed shot from a kinetic round to do the trick," Marks informed them.
*Colonial One (Waiting Room) [a few moments earlier]*
Gaius Baltar looked out of one of Colonial One's many view ports and onto the battle raging outside. He watched with fear as the Odyssey intercepted a missile right before it impacted his ship and heard the final scream of a woman being sucked into space before something clogged the hole shut behind her. As the flash cleared and revealed the results of the kamikaze run, what Baltar saw amazed him. The Odyssey emerged from the nuclear cloud covered in a shimmering glow. It was like an angle descending from heaven, a Phoenix being reborn from its ashes. Without so much as a scorch mark on her black armor, the small vessel shot forward at an incredible speed as it raced back into the fray.
A few moments later, he watched as the strange orange bullets the Odyssey fired, turned towards one of the Baseships, the Galactica keeping up the pressure on the Raiders and remaining missiles of the thirteenth wave. The Odyssey's weapons' fire was like thin orange beams of light connecting the ship to its target. Less than a minute later, when the guns had had ample time to borrow a hull through the Baseship's armor, a missile volley was sent roaring through space from the launch tubes on the Odyssey's neck while the small ship's fighters formed up around the missiles as an escort party. Soon after the launch, their plan became clear. Even with a few of the missiles being intercepted by Raiders, the lack of anti-missile defenses on the Cylon Baseships allowed the missile volley to fly directly into the hole that had been blown into the armor by the strange weapons of the strange ship.
In a series of explosions, both intentional and secondary, the Baseship was torn apart. The best part of the plan was that the hull of the Cylon ships worked against them. Most of the explosive energy was contained by the Baseship that was hit so that the explosion built up pressure until it blew the Baseship apart in a rather spectacular show of force, one that, however lightly, damaged the Baseship beside it. After the Odyssey finished putting holes in the Baseships, she circled around, took up position beside the Galactica, and took to destroying the Raiders as best she could while Galactica finished off the Baseships with missile swarms of her own, the Battlestar having far more missile launchers so as to strike the whole formation at once, and fighters escorting the missiles past the Raiders.
*Battlestar Galactica (Combat Information Center)*
After Galactica's last volley disappeared into the bowls of the final Baseship, Tigh said, "We have the coordinates for the jump."
"Your timing couldn't be more perfect. Begin jumping the fleet," Adama ordered.
"What about them? I can't believe I'm saying this, but they could prove useful," Saul reluctantly admitted.
"We need to get the fleet out of here. We will deal with them afterwards. Now, jump the fleet," Adama ordered again.
"With pleasure. Jump the fleet!" Tigh ordered in a booming voice. As the order and coordinates were transmitted, the ships in the civilian fleet started jumping.
*USS Odyssey (Bridge)*
"Colonel Davidson, the Colonial ships are leaving," Marks reported.
"Once again without a thank you," Mitchell added with a huff.
"We're being hailed by Galactica," Marks added, giving Mitchell a taunting look.
"Colonel Davidson, it will take us approximately five minutes to recollect all of our fighters. You have the same amount of time to recollect yours as well as assemble a team of delegates. You want to talk? Here's your chance." Adama spoke once the channel was open, not even waiting to exchange post battle congratulations.