Battlestar Wasp
Chapter 2
Plans
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The Cylons were created by Man.
They were created to make life easier on the Twelve Colonies.
And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters.
After a long and bloody struggle, an armistice was declared.
The Cylons left for another world to call their own.
A remote space facility was built...
...where Cylon and Human could meet and maintain diplomatic relations.
Every year, the Colonials send an officer.
The Cylons send no one.
No one has seen or heard from the Cylons in over forty years...
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Until Now…
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..
…
Crispin Nebula;
Bridge of the Gunstar Strike;
"Sir, I'm receiving Colonial responders from the ships. It's the Battlestars Hornet and Royal Sovereign, along with the Gunstars Aspen, Wilkerson, Granger, and Hudson, plus the armed fleet replenishment freighters Griffin and Sortie as well as the tankers Lipson and Hyperion," shouted the sensor officer over the cheers of the CIC crew.
We're being hailed from the Hornet, Lieutenant Commander McGuire is asking for you Admiral."
Joshua picked up the handset and said, "Mike, this is Admiral Anderson. Where is Commander Mathews? What is the ships status?"
"Sir, Commander Mathews and most of the CIC crew are dead. We had a saboteur onboard. She killed three quarters of us before I was able to take her down with my pistol. The ship has taken heavy damage from six nuclear hits. Starboard landing bay is gutted. We lost half our heavy KEWS and thirty percent of our point defense. We suffered seven hundred and thirteen dead, four hundred wounded and thirty missing in action, presumed dead. We recovered two hundred and sixty Vipers from the battle group. We lost the Battlestar Aspen, and Mineral was broken in half when they were shut down and hit with multiple nuclear warheads. We jumped to the center of the Cylon battle fleet and took out all three of them while suffering heavy damage. The Royal Sovereign took three nuclear missiles to her bow, and sixty conventional missile hits. The Gunstars Alpine, Murdock and Zephyrs were crippled in the attack. We recovered over nineteen hundred from the wrecked ships along with as much supplies as we could. We then left the battlefield and followed your orders to jump here. I left the Gunstars Hype and Homes with sixteen civilian ships at the last jump, while we checked out this system. I request you dispatch a Raptor back to them and have them join us since we lost all of ours."
"Mike, send us the coordinates, and we will send a raptor back. You can send your wounded over to the Kiel for medical treatment. As to your damages, you're going to have to wait until the Hephaestus finishes the repairs to the Astral. Estimated time is three days until…"
"FTL signature," shouted the dradis office.
"Report?"
"Sir, it's huge, but I am receiving colonial recognition codes from several ships that appeared with the main contact…"
"Sir, I have contact with Raptors 232… It's Hoops, sir! She reports the successful FTL jump of the Calypso mining facilities," came the report from the communications facility.
"WHAT!" Joshua gasped out in surprise.
"Sir, Hoops reports that the facility has FTL engines as well as maneuvering engines. Director Mallow wants to know what your plans are?"
Grabbing the handset, he said, "This is Admiral Anderson. Whom am I speaking with?"
"Sir, this is Lieutenant Charlene Macmillan of the Kiel. We found the Calypso facility under attack by a single Cylon Baseship. We were preparing to FTL out to get you when the facility blew the Baseship apart. We made contact with Calypso base and landed inside where we found the facility on the last stage of an FTL count down. I notified Director Mallow of your location, and we jumped here. He now wants to know your plans, as he thinks the Cylons may have a way to track FTL jumps, because he sent out several Raptors to find out what was happening in the colonies, and none have returned."
"They were probably destroyed by the Cylons. How many people can the facility take on and support? I would like to free up some of the ships for Search and Rescue if possible."
"Sir, Director Mallow says if he puts his people right to work, he can have housing constructed into the upper half of the asteroid. He estimates he could turn out enough units in ten days, to house roughly ten thousand. A month and he could have enough room for a hundred thousand, but it would be communal living until they could build individual apartments. In six months, he says he could have housing on twenty levels, as long as supplies held out… by which he means building materials, not food or water. He has plenty of those in his reserves."
Joshua rubbed his chin as he thought. The problem he saw was finding a place to hide while he repaired his ships… 'Wait a minute. We could hide in the nebula! The Cylons would never find us, because they cannot enter there, due to the way the radiation affects them … but, what would it do to us? I know the ships have radiation shielding in the hulls to protect the crews,' he thought as he looked at the dradis screen.
"Hoops, ask Director Mallow if the facility can handle the radiation of the Nebula," Joshua asked.
The speaker went dead for a moment, and then came back to life, "Sir, Director Mallow says the facility would be fine."
"Fantastic. Put me on to all ships in the fleet," Joshua ordered.
"Sir, you're on."
"To all ships, head for the nebula. Dispatch Raptors to find us a place to hide inside the nebula, where we can rebuild. Also dispatch several raptors to the asteroid belt to find us several large asteroids that we can mine for minerals and Tylium. When suitable asteroids are found, we well have the Calypso tugs tow them into the nebula.W There we can start tearing them apart while we rebuild and repair our ships. We also need several large asteroids we can turn into habitats for our people until we can defeat the Cylons and take back our worlds. I swear to you we will take back our homes! Not today, not tomorrow, not even by next year. But I swear to you we will take them back one day. So say we all!"
The crew swore with their admiral as the ships started moving towards the nebula while Raptors jumped away on their missions.
"Deploy three stealth raptors to stay behind to guide our people to us, and to keep an eye out for Cylons. If any show up, one of the Raptors is to jump to point Reno to notify the Raptor there to send any civilian ships to Point Arthur. Once a ship arrives at Point Arthur, send it into the nebula to join us," Joshua said as he looked once more at the Dradis board in time to see the mining facility vanish into the nebula.
Once the station and its escort of civilian ships and tugs vanished, the Kiel followed her into the gaseous space, with two crippled Battlestars as escorts.
"Sir, we're entering the nebula… now!" came the report from the helm station.
"Very well, notify the fleet to step down to condition two, and land all but ten of our Vipers for repairs and refueling. Have all pilots get some food and sleep while they can," he said as he was handed a clipboard from one of the marines.
"Sending now."
Joshua took the clipboard and read off the reports on the ship's status. Quickly signing the report, he handed it back as the ship shuddered from small micro meteors hitting the armored hull. They headed to the center of the nebula, where the mining facility came to a dead stop with the civilian fleet around the station. The tugs turned and headed back the way they'd came and took up position at the edge of the nebula so they could head out to gather the resources they needed.
Over the next few days, ships would arrive and be directed inside the nebula where the crews were processed. Most were civilian, but some like the fleet hospital ship Gullwing with her five thousand bed ward was one of the lucky ships. Built on the hull of a Mercury class Battlestar, she was converted in the middle of construction to act as a fleet hospital ship. Her Vipers had been removed and her raptor and shuttle fleet had been increased tenfold. Her main guns had been removed and hundreds of point defense weapons had been added in their place, to help defend her. With over a thousand medical personal, she was a gift from heaven for the fleet.
The biggest find was over four hundred Vipers and one hundred and ten Raptors from the Andraste battle group by the Heron when she jumped away from the Scorpio shipyards with her repair group. After recovering all the disabled Raptors and Vipers they jumped to the patrol zone of the Andraste group, and recovered the broken hull of the Andraste. She would eventually be rebuilt, but currently she was in mothballs, after her surviving crew had been recovered and the dead removed from the ship.
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1*1*1*1
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Day 30 ATF;
Crispin Nebula;
Calypso Refinery;
Admiral Joshua Anderson looked out the massive window on the refinery and at the nine Battlestars that had been recovered from the battlefields, as well as the Wasp, Hornet and Royal Sovereign that drifted in formation above the damaged ships. All three had been repaired but the crippled Mars along with her sister ships were still in dire straits. He watched as the Mars was being pulled into the massive bay of the Kiel to have her broken back repaired. Just past the Kiel was her sister ship Heron which was repairing the recovered Gunstars Galina and Tips. The three mobile yard ships had several of the civilian ships tucked up inside them doing maintenance on them.
Five asteroids were under construction to turn them into living quarters and two more were being turned into habitats to grow the food they would need. Two more had been turned into Viper and Raptor facilities while the last two he had ordered turned into massive fighter bases. They had recovered eight flight pods from several battlefields and they were in the process of mounting the first four on the far asteroid. When completed, each asteroid would have two thousand fighters to protect the station as well as fifty heavy KEWS and hundreds of point defense weapons.
Joshua turned and sat down at his desk, he picked up the first packet of reports and started reading them as the doors opened and his daughter Samantha walked in with more. With a groan, he took the papers and set them to the side.
"Sam, what's the status on those Cylons we found in the fleet?"
"We have identified six models of them and have dispatched their pictures to every ship in the fleet. We have arrested over ninety of them and they are currently in the brig of the Kiel waiting on your pleasure. Some have offered to help us while others have to be kept in padded rooms so they cannot hurt themselves. The one named Mary Six has reported that if they die, they will be resurrected in another ship with all their memories intact. Commander Vickie Nigel of the Heron says we cannot allow that to happen so he is suggesting we build some hibernation pods, install them in a liner with extended fuel tanks. We then pre-program it to jump out into deep space and keep going until the ship finds a planet that can support life and then wake them up."
"Sounds like a plan to me. Have Commander Nigel set it up and start the modifications on one of the liners. He has my permission to pick whatever ship he wants. Any word on the rest of the Andraste battle group?"
"Not at this time. We have two Gunstars out looking for them. We know that the four Pandarus Light Strike Star's Rowan, Oak, Saber and Swift jumped away. The Saber and Swift had heavy damage while the Rowan and Oak were unscratched and carrying the surviving crew of the Bengal. The Battlestars Whisper and Hope are confirmed destroyed, along with three of the Titan Gunstars the Pan, Admiral Gallant and Falk. The fate of the remaining three is unknown. Then we have the Andraste which is missing her bow up to the CIC. Estimated time of repair is going to be a year on her, if you want to commit the resources of rebuilding her. The good news is her bays are intact, and we have been able to recover her stored Vipers."
"We have no choice, to build a Battlestar would take two years until we can get a dock and the resources to build new ones. So after all the repairs to our other ships, we'll have the Heron take her in her bay, and start rebuilding her. For now, she can be used as a fighter base until we can start repairs. What about our intelligence assets from the colonies. What do they report?"
"The Cylons are continuing to round up our civilian population on the planets and putting them into death camps. Estimated at this time in the camps and still free are roughly six hundred thousand on Caprica, two hundred thousand on Picon, one hundred thousand on Virgon, and of them there are thirty-five thousand POWs from the fleet and Picon. We estimate there are fifty thousand survivors on Scorpio many are survivors from the shipyard. The rest of the colonies, we estimate around ten to twenty thousand scattered on the planets. As to ship assets, we found three of the old Jester class Marinestar, two older Berzerk support ships, six military Mule ships and a dozen old Crisper class tankers out at the Farris decommission yard that look like they are in usable condition. The biggest surprise is the Leviathan that is there. She is partially dismantled, meaning her main guns and some armor plating have been removed, but otherwise she looks intact. I think we can grab her if her FTL drives are still aboard.
"Captain Charlene 'Hoops' Macmillan arrived back from scouting Virgon twenty minutes ago. She reports that the Cylons have towed all the wrecks from the Colonial fleet to Virgon's moon and left them there. Estimated count, are six Battlestars, nineteen Gunstars, six Patrolstars as well as many civilian ships. All are damaged, ranging from mild to major damage. Raptor teams have detected single Baseships at the following coordinates," Cadet-Commander Samantha Anderson reported as she tapped the star map mounted on the wall.
"Thanks, Sam. I have an idea about those ships at Farris," Joshua replied as he picked up the handset and said, "Have Commander McGuire, Commander Walters and Commander Strut to come aboard for a strategy mission in thirty minutes. Notify all ships to go to yellow alert."
Hanging up the handset, Joshua turned back to his daughter and said, "Is Commander Olives still on board?"
"Yes, she is, she is due to be released from medical soon. I still cannot believe she fell and broke her arm while getting out of a Raptor," Samantha replied with a grin.
"Well, you can't really blame her. I forgot about her artificial leg or I would have had a ramp for her. Send a message to her to have her join us for the meeting," Joshua ordered as he pulled a thick binder off his book shelf, and started flipping through it.
"Yes, Sir," Samantha replied as she pressed her hand to her ear piece and started talking into the microphone.
Joshua went through the ships schematics for the Berzerk support ships, and looked at the minimum crew requirement for FTL jumps. Then he went to the Marinestar followed by the Mule class ships. For the Crisper class, he knew they needed thirty people minimum to operate a ship so that was three hundred and sixty crew, there. The Mules needed ten each for another sixty. The Marinestars were heavily automated, due to their atmospheric ability, and could run on twenty crew, each. The Leviathan was the bitch, she needed two hundred! He was going to need around eight hundred people to man the ships. Fortunately, he had crewmembers in spades, because of all the recovered crew from the nine Battlestars they had recovered, plus the other ships.
A knock on the door caught his attention as he was writing up the orders and he ordered, "Come."
The door opened and Commander Mike McGuire came in. "You asked to see me, Admiral?" Mike asked as he saluted.
"Yes, I did, take a seat Mike," Joshua replied as another knock came and Samantha opened the door to show Commanders Walters and Strut into the room.
Commander Yuri Strut was fifty years old, and was truly an 'old hand' to Battlestars. Originally from Scorpio, he had fallen in love with the fleet while visiting his father at the shipyards. He joined the Scorpion home guard, and eventually rose to rank of Lieutenant Commander, where he was given the old Columbia class Scorpio before she had been retired. Transferring to the fleet, he was given the new Mercury class Battlestar Royal Sovereign as his command. During the attack, the Royal Sovereign lost all power and was spiraling out of control. Without losing his composure, he whipped his crew back to duty and while he brought the ship back up and running, coming to the aid of the Hornet, under Mike McGuire, he had covered her taking several nuclear warheads that would have blown the Hornet apart.
Commander Isis Walters was in command of the Leviathan class dock ship Kiel. She was thirty-nine years old, with double masters degrees in ship's avionics and engineering. A widow of ten years, she had put everything into her work, and her twelve year old daughter Lisa.
The last to arrive was sixty year old Commandant Margret Olives, who was a thirty year veteran of the Colonial Marines. In her last mission, her Raptor crashed and she had lost her leg. Forced to retire, she was hired by the Marinestar Academy to command the Vengeance. Her ship had taken some damage but the classes had already restarted for the lower years while the upper years were being accelerated to help fill the gaps in the fleet.
"Thank you for coming, everyone. Please take a seat," Joshua said as Samantha placed a full pot of coffee in the center of the table along with a water pitcher.
"I have a mission drawn up for us. Commander Olives, your job is to strip the Farris decommissioning yard of all available ships. I am giving you six Gunstars; along with three transports, all three of the mobile dock ships, and two tankers. During the last check we found three old Jester class Marinestars, two Berzerk support ships, six military Mule ships and a dozen old Crisper class tankers. The biggest surprise was the Leviathan. She is there, as well. She has been partially dismantled with her main guns and some armor plating having been removed. Our biggest worry is if her FTL drive is intact. If not, you're authorized to use one of the mobile docks to move her. We need all of these ships, but we need your ships and crews, more. So if the Cylons attack, jump out, right away."
"While we're salvaging the ships, what will you be doing, Admiral?" Margret asked as she wrote down the specifics for her mission.
"We will be taking the war to the Cylons. We have pinpointed a dozen Baseships that are scattered across as many systems. I will be taking the Wasp, Hornet and Royal Sovereign with me along with the minelayer Gorgon. As you know the Gorgon is a modified Valkyrie class Battlestar, fitted with rapid mine launchers instead of viper tubes. She was in the process of being decommissioned at Leonis when the attack happened and Lieutenant Maria Howards emptied the station of all personal and jumped away with five cargo ships and two liners when the Cylons showed up and started nuking the ships in the depot. I plan on having the Gorgon to lay the five thousand mines she has onboard and deploy a pair of Raptors in the center of the mine field. They will jump away to the asteroid belt to hide. They will have the transponders for the Hornet and Royal Sovereign sending 'need assistance to repair their jump engines' messages. I am hoping the Cylons jump in and their Dradis will show two disabled Battlestars. When they close into attack range the Raptors will jump away while the mines detonate, and kill them.
"While the Cylons are under attack in the minefield, I will take the Wasp, Hornet and Royal Sovereign into knife range, and take out those individual Cylon Baseships. I hope to keep the Cylons off balance while you get as many ships as you can out of the depot, and salvage whatever supplies they have on hand. I plan on quick fast strikes, as I hope to catch the Cylons with their fighters in their bays. If not, three Mercury class Battlestars should be able to deal with anything they launch. At the same time, Raptors will be keeping an eye on all the colonies. If any of the Baseships leave, a single Gunstar, thirty heavy lifters and a pair of liners will FTL in and try and rescue as many people on the surface as possible. The heavy lifters will be raiding libraries for their books as well as food from the distribution centers. Some of the cargo containers on the heavy lifters have been modified for livestock, and they have orders to hit farms for livestock. We hope to pick up breeding stock from Aerilon, as well as agro seed stock. Chief Isaac Garner from the Kiel comes from Aerilon, and knows where the emergency seed bunkers are. I have ordered him to make sure they get as much as they can."
"What? How will you contact the people on the planets?" Commander Walters asked.
"We've kept in contact with them using Raptors. We know of several guerrilla groups that are active on all the planets. The problem has been getting them out. We've been concentrating on children and their mothers at this time, because without the children, there is no hope for our species. We have rescued over thirteen thousand families. Some of the children are as young as six weeks of age, and the oldest at fourteen. I have reinstated Director Mallow back into the colonial fleet, and promoted him to the rank of Commander. He is in charge of the refineries, and housing for all civilians. He has his construction teams working overtime to get more housing ready. Now, to the mission! Remember, all of you are important, so are your ships. If it comes down to you and your ship, versus casualties and a crippled ship, then get out. Any questions?" Joshua asked.
For the next twenty minutes the five of them hashed out their missions. When finished, Joshua watched as they filed out. Picking up his coffee cup, he drained it as Samantha came back in and set a stack of folders down on his desk.
"Sir, all the commanders for the snatch teams have been given their orders. They will start their jump to the staging areas at 0300 hours tomorrow. Commander Olive's group will leave with them. When do you plan on taking the battle group out?" Samantha asked her father.
"In three hours, I want to get to the far side of those Colonies, so we can deploy the space mines we'll be carrying and set up the trap," Joshua replied as he stood up and removed his jacket. Slipping the body armor on, he put the jacket back on and picked up his gun belt. Wrapping the belt around his waist, he checked his pistol and said, "Let's get to the CIC."
Seconds later they walked onto the bridge and heard one of the marines shout out, "Admiral on the bridge."
"As you were! Notify the Hornet and Royal Sovereign to form up on our flanks, and tell the Gorgon to fall astern of us. Helm set course to leave the nebula. As soon as we're clear, we're jumping out to point Revenge. It should be in your navigation computer," Joshua ordered as he came to a stop next to the Dradis board.
"Aye-Aye, Admiral," came the replies from several locations.
Joshua picked up a red handset, and flipped the switch on the base to ship wide.
"This is the Admiral speaking. The battle group is setting out on a series of raids to strike back at the Cylons. I know all of you will step up to the plate and put one hundred and ten percent in all that you do. So at this time, I'm setting condition one throughout the ship. All hands man your battle stations. All Viper and Raptor pilots report to your birds for deployment. Gun crews, I want you to check your weapons and ammo, as we cannot afford a misfire. Check all ammo lifts. If we're attacked I want to get OUR rounds off, first! Deploy medical teams throughout the ship for fast response. Marines, man your checkpoints and stay alert. Check all magazines, and make sure the outer doors are secure. Missile rooms, check all ready missiles for immediate launch. DC units, prepare for damage to the ship. Check all fire suppression systems. That is all," he said as he turned the handset off.
The ships engines rumbled as they engaged and the four giant ships started moving through the gaseous clouds. Ten minutes later they came to a stop and a stealth Raptor slipped out of the nebula to make a quick scan. When no Cylons were detected, they exited the nebula and the Raptor landed in the Wasp's starboard flight bay.
Picking the handset up, Joshua looked at the Dradis board and said, "All ships, engage FTL engines for the jump to Point Revenge. We are a go in three minutes."
On the wall, the counter counted down from one hundred and eighty. Seconds slid by and the counter reached zero and the four ships vanished into FTL. Everyone waited with baited breath as the long jump past the ten minute mark and then the ships dropped out of FTL. The Dradis board was cycling through its systems when the Wasp shuddered as something hit the hull.
"What was that?" Joshua asked as the ship shuddered again.
"Sir, something hit us or we hit something, waiting on the Dradis to settle… Sir, we appeared in a debris field. I'm detecting the remains of twenty colonial ships… three Battlestars, several Gunstars and dozens of civilian ships. Dradis contacts at extreme range," the Dradis officer said.
"What…"
"Incoming contacts! Seventy plus contacts, closing…"
"All ships launch the ready Vipers, all batteries prepare to open fire when they're in range," Joshua ordered as he gripped the rail of the Dradis table.
"I have Colonial signatures!"
"Confirm!" Joshua ordered.
"Confirmed, it's the Battlestar Allegiance."
"Contact the Allegiance, and tell them to recall their fighters. Send in my name," Joshua ordered as he looked at the screen once more.
"Sir, the Allegiance is a Jupiter class Battlestar, commanded by Commander William Carron. The Allegiance is twenty-three years old and was on a long range survey mission with several Gunstars when the attack started," Samantha reported from her station.
"Thank you, Sam. Get me the Allegiance. I want to speak with Commander Carron ASAP!"
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First Edited By
Final Edit By TeNderLoin
Battlestar Galactica™ is a registered trademark and copyright (©) Glen Larson & the SciFi Channel. Thank you to the Battlestar Wiki and The Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game, Battlestar Prometheus have proven invaluable for the information they contain. All material found in this story is for entertainment purposes. No copyright infringement should be inferred or is intended. Battlestar Wasp and all its original characters and story lines presented here are the copyright (©) of their creator (©) 2010.
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