I do not own Battlestar Galactica

Another character from the original series

Chapter 5 – Action Stations Part 1

It had been a week since the asteroid field and Telamaya's fleet had swelled considerably. Fifteen civilians led by a transport named Scylla that had been wandering since the attack had rendezvoused with their own fleet.

Scylla and its own ships had had a narrow escape when they'd ran into the Battlestar Pegasus, they'd thought that the Battlestar was there to protect them, but Admiral Cain's intention had been strip the ships for her own gain. Fortunately there had been an officer on Pegasus with a conscience and he'd radioed them before the evil officer's boarded to carry out their insane acts. The civilian ships had jumped away, but not before hearing a hail of bullets coming from the other side of the comm. The officer who'd warned them was almost certainly dead.

That raised the stakes for the Telmaya, now there was a mad Battlestar flying around, so it was imperative that they got to the remaining civilians before Pegasus did.

The news had had a definite effect on Sheba though, the knowledge that your mother had gone completely crazy and was now more of a threat to the few remaining colonials than to the Cylons. She had become overnight infamous on some of the civilian ships.

There hadn't been any noise of the radio for quite some time, soon they would move to another area of the core systems to look for more survivors.

They were now coming close to Virgon were they were hoping to send some people to the surface and gather supplies from the wreckage of the once great world, maybe even pick up survivors, if there were any. Caprica was being occupied but it was the only planet that was, but that could change.

Then the fleet flying at sublight speeds came upon something

A battlefield

Or at least it had been a battlefield; wrecked Battlestars and vipers, alongside a couple of wrecked Cylon raiders and even a wrecked base ship.

Clearly the fleet didn't go down without a fight after all.

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Telmaya CIC…

They all stood silent as Dradis reported the ID beacons that were still transmitting

"Atlantia…Solaria…Triton...Universal…Valkyrie" Kendra read the names off the screen and the crew quickly settled into a sombre mood.

"Wait" said Lieutenant Archibald, who was manning the comms today "I'm picking up a non-repeating signal from within the debris field, it cycles every five minutes but its wording is different each time"

Seth went over to the comm. station and peered over the Lieutenant's shoulder and looked at this signal, it was using a genuine Colonial band and protocols but it could be anything

"Lieutenant, trace the source" Seth ordered stepping back to give the young fair haired young man space to work.

After a couple of minutes of working with the comms and Dradis, Archibald reported back

"The signal is coming from what looks like the broken off port pontoon of the Battlestar Columbia sir"

Seth paused for thought, he'd read from the documents left in Willis's, no his office now he'd mentally corrected himself, he'd learnt that the Columbia had been involved in an experiment.

Basically the two pontoons had strong vacuum sealed blast doors between them and the main hull, so that in an emergency the two pontoons could be jettisoned and act like survival pods till they could be rescued.

The pontoons had an independent power and life support system so that any crew inside could live for awhile.

"Find the starboard pontoon" Seth asked and the crew went to work with Dradis

"The starboard pontoon's in pieces" Archibald said and he located it

Damn, Seth thought "Alright have a Raptor with a medic and marine detachment prepared" he ordered and Kendra went to get it done and he turned to Archibald who tried but failed to get a response and confirmation of people inside the heavily armoured pontoon.

So the marine and medic raptor led by Tyber Jones went over to the pontoon an hour later and came to the airlock on the heavily armoured pod and docked. Using EV suits just in case there wasn't atmosphere. They airlock granted them access.

The marines raised their guns and pointed them at the entrance as it opened

They were met by the sight of colonial engineers, pilots and a couple of marines pointing their guns right at them

"Friendly! Stand down! Stand down!" Tyber Jones yelled and they all lowered their guns

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Two hours later the leader of the survivors inside the pod was on Telmaya, a Viper pilot named Lieutenant Bojay. He was waiting in his very dirty flight suit for the Commander to arrive and debrief him.

Seth walked in and shook Bojay's hand and gestured to a chair were he sat down opposite Bojay

"Well Lieutenant, you're lucky we picked up your signal. Now best tell me what happened"

"We were ordered by Admiral Nigala to rendezvous with the majority of the fleet for a stand against the Cylons after Picon Fleet Headquarters was destroyed in the Cylon's first wave. It was a massacre and we were the ones slaughtered, Columbia was destroyed at 1400 hours by multiple nuclear and non-nuclear ordinance hits from three base ships. But prior to the destruction we jettisoned the pods and the main hull's shockwave from the explosion pushed us away. We used inventory supplies to keep alive and managed to knock together a short range wireless beacon, we changed the signal everyday so that people realised it wasn't an automated beacon, by the way, when could I speak to the commanding officer?" He looked around as if expecting someone to enter

"You're speaking to him lieutenant" Seth said, even though about ten or fifteen years younger than the lieutenant, still towered over him by a foot and a half.

"But you look only about twenty, way to young to be a commander" Bojay said thinking this was a joke

"I was appointed to this position by Commodore Willis upon his death" a little lie but he was still put in command by Willis so it wasn't that much of a lie

"Well then I will take command until further notice" Bojay said and both Tyber and Seth raised an eyebrow

"On what grounds?" Seth asked in a cold voice that made Bojay visibly shudder

"I'm a fully trained Colonial Officer, and your just a cadet" Bojay replied sounding a bit more sure of himself and before Seth could respond Tyber did

"You're only a flight lieutenant whereas the commander is a near fully trained officer with command training that has been leading this fleet for two weeks very well and kept this crew from falling into chaos" surprising both Seth and Bojay with his defence of Seth's command

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Bojay had stormed out the room in a huff, resigning in protest but that suited the crew of Telmaya just fine. He found a home on the garbage scowl Tish which needed a pilot. The support Bojay had hoped to get from other Columbia survivors didn't come, as they were sick of his over bearing and annoying ways.

The rest of the survivors had no problem with the chain of command and were integrated into the Battlestar's crew, all 56 of them, filling some of the gaps left by the first Cylon attack. Any supplies and parts that survived were transferred to the ship, engine components, small arms and large weapon components with a small amount of ammunition, a few Type 7 Vipers, a raptor or two, parts for the two aforementioned types. Not much, but it helped.

So the fleet began a salvage operation in the debris field, some people said it was grave robbing but they needed parts.

But the civilian ships were doing this with some personnel from Telmaya and raptors. The Battlestar meanwhile was setting up a perimeter and keeping an eye out for Cylons. Just in case they had set a rendezvous point if the fleet had to scatter.

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Three days had passed and the salvage operation was winding down, the parts they retrieved would keep them going for awhile and a couple of the Cylon raiders for study.

In CIC all was calm with Seth and Kendra discussing the operation

"All right; what have they got?" Seth asked while reading a report by Serina on the Viper training program's progress

"Seven FTL Drive units, seventeen oxygen recyclers, fifteen" Kendra read off the list but she never managed tell what they had fifteen of because at that moment to their horror, a Cylon Base ship jumped in.

There was shock and silence in the CIC for a moment before they shook themselves out of it, so Seth began giving orders

He picked up the inter ship speaker and said "Action Stations, Action Stations, Set Condition One throughout the ship, repeat Action Stations, Action Stations" and the crew dashed to their battle stations while pilots dashed to the ships.

Next he turned to Kendra "Send message to fleet, as soon as possible jump to prearranged co-ordinates and launch Vipers"

The crew went about their orders and the pilots braced themselves as their ships rocketed along the launch tube and into space.

The squadrons formed up in formation above Telmaya as the great ship angled itself to face the Base star head on.

In CIC Kendra checked the ship's alert status "All decks report combat ready"

"Right lock in forward batteries on Base star and get me CAG" he issued his orders calmly and the crew proved him proud by responding calmly despite their nervousness.

"Siren here" Serina's voice sounded on the wireless

"Siren, this is Telmaya Actual leave Base star to us, your job is to keep the raiders from getting to civilian ships, when they've jumped out you come on straight home, understood?"

"Yes Actual, Siren out" Seth turned to Kendra,

"How long before civilian ships jump?"

"5 minutes sir"

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The Base star fired first, launching multiple warheads towards the Battlestar which slammed into the ship and she shuddered but her new armour held

Then the great ship started firing back, opening up with her main forward guns sending her own ordinance at the Base star which lit up as soon as they hit.

While the two capital ships duelled, the fighters flew towards each other, from the cockpit of her Mark 8 Serina instructed her pilots to stay in formation.

The Colonial Mark 8 was faster than a Raider and matched it for manoeuvrability. The Viper's weapons included three cannons like the Mark 7 but they also included a missile launcher under the main fuselage which launched small missiles unlike other Vipers which had to be fitted with missiles. The Mark 8 was the same size of a Mark 2 but the aerodynamics were similar to the Mark 7 but with more like a curved blade on the fins.

(To be continued)

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