Chapter 9:
Battlestar Hyperion CIC, Draconis Star Cluster
Day 2, 06:02 PFT
To say the first day since the Cylon attack had been tough falls far short of the confusion, paranoia and grief that was felt all over the Fleet. From the reports John had been receiving from ship captains throughout that first day told him no less, with passengers full of questions and anger, along with ship crews who knew no more than their passengers.
Since the discovery of the human-like Cylon imposter that had presented itself during the Centurion's boarding, John had restricted almost all information to a strictly need-to-know basis. The people of the Fleet had been told simply what had happened to the 12 Colonies and that they were now safely away from their home systems.
However, while that basic level of information satisfied the people of the Fleet for a while, it wasn't long before people began to get angry. A couple of carriers had reported violence between crew and passengers, as well as between passengers themselves. On every ship, uncertainty was building to a climax that John knew could lead to riots or worse, however by ordering the Fleet to make FTL jumps every 9 hours meant the people began to get the sense that something was actually being done.
Their current position in the fairly distant star cluster was no random guess by John, as some in the crew and greater Fleet had assumed. The distance from the 12 Colonies and the obscurity proved by such a stellar phenomenon allowed them a place to hide from the Cylons for the time being.
While they hopped between stars within the Cluster, John covertly sent Raptors out on short-range recon missions to nearby systems whose findings were reported back only to either John or Commander Virgon.
Having just returned from the hangar after meeting with about half the Raptor squadron that had just returned from their recon jumps, John stepped back into CIC for the first time since he took his first 3 hour break. Two hours sleep was all he had managed in the time since arriving in the Draconis Star Cluster as he had been up in CIC almost constantly, monitoring the situation for any hint of Cylon activity or involvement.
Around the CIC itself, the crew did not look much better than John felt. Hunched over in their seats or leaning against tables and walls, everyone seemed completely and thoroughly exhausted. The three-hour rotation policy John had enacted the day before when they had arrived in the Star Cluster was starting to be questioned by the crew, especially as there had been no sign of any ships, Cylon or otherwise to arouse suspicion.
John had got the call from Lieutenant Colonel Jartell that that Fleet was ready to jump again and had made his way straight from the hangar to the CIC. As the Admiral entered at took his place at the centre of the CIC in front of Commander Virgon, who still held the floor from John's break.
"Admiral!" Emily called to him as he entered. John looked over at her and she indicated to him to come over. John did and stood close to her while she told him quietly that: "All Raptor teams have reported in, except one." None of the pilots he had spoken to had reported any missing birds, although at the time there were still a few who hadn't yet returned. At the time the Raptor pilots simply told him that some recons would take longer than others, but now it seemed there was no sign of one Raptor pair at all.
"Which pair's missing?" John asked, equally as quietly as Emily was.
"Flight 3 sir. They jumped to system IE82R," Emily replied, handing him a flight list.
"Right…" John said, carefully considering his options. "Do you think we have time to go find them?"
Emily mulled for a minute and checked the clock on her console. "The other captains are waiting sir, but we can't risk taking them with us,"
"Agreed, Hyperion will go alone. We'll have to tell them to delay, I'm not leaving anyone behind, not yet." John told Emily, a stern tone entering his voice as he finished. Humanity had already lost too many, he would no risk losing anymore if it could be presented. Not only that, but as a Raptor pilot himself during the first war, John was all too aware of the feeling of loneliness of being in a Raptor alone in an entire star system, let alone this many lightyears from home.
Viper 327, Draconis Star Cluster
Day 2, 06:06 PFT
The familiar but somewhat muffled whoosh of the FTL drives shook the Hyperion and Hera's Viper as the ship made the jump to the next system. Through the open launch tube Captain Gemini and her Viper were sat in, Hera could just make out a flash before the few stars she could see down at the end of the launch tube switched places ahead of her.
Instinctively, Hera looked to her right and gave a thumbs-up to launch control before being thrown hard back into her seat as her fighter was magnetically fired out of the Hyperion and thrown out into the cold vacuum of space. Below her, her DRADIS blipped with both the launches of Green squadron as well as 3 unknown contacts to their left. "Hyperion, Hera: Three unknown contacts on DRADIS bearing 019, carom 131,"
"Hera, Hyperion: Investigate with caution," The voice of Hermes Yo told her after a short pause.
"Tally Hyperion. Green squadron with me, tight formation," Hera swung her Viper left and blasted the engines to send her along Hyperion's alligator head at the front of the huge ship. Checking over her shoulder, Hera again pulled left, this time combined with a pull up that sent her over the top of the Hyperion and towards three small shapes she could make out a few clicks up from Hyperion's bow.
As Hera and her squadron approached the contacts, she could immediately recognise a pair of Raptors drifting lifelessly alongside one-another. "Hyperion, Hera: We found alright. But I think we have an issue," There was another pause before she received a response during which she could make out a shiny, metal, horse-shoe shaped object only a bit further on from the two Raptors.
"Hera, this is Hyperion Actual. What have you found?" The Admiral's crackly voice asked.
"Admiral both ships seem down, not getting any pings from them. And there's something else with them," Hera sped past the Raptors as she spoke and started slowing as she reached the third object.
"Something else?"
"Aye sir, looks like… oh frak me!" Hera slowed enough to get a clear look at the object but lost her train of thought as she got close and realised what it was. "Sir it's a Cylon Raider! I'd never seen one this before,"
"Gods, Hera. Is it online?" The Admiral asked her, a slight bit of panic audible in his voice.
"Hera, Oddball: New contact, close. Came out of nowhere!" A voice cut suddenly through the conversation as Hera's DRADIS bleeped again.
"Hyperion, Pinky: I'm taking fire! I repeat I'm taking…" Radio chatter from Hera's squadron quickly filled up the frequency as a new Raider appeared and claimed its first victim.
"Hera, this is Actual: What's going on?" The Admiral shouted, trying to be heard over the chaos that was beginning to unfold.
"A new Raider, Actual. We just lost Pinky, I don't know if he ejected," Hera replied as she spun her Viper around and kicked in the thrusters at full.
"Green Squadron you have permission to engage the enemy but bug out if you need to. Actual out," The Admiral cut himself off as Hera scanned the sky for this new Raider.
"Copy Actual. Hear that boys and girls, let's give this toaster a run he'll never forget!" Hera called out to her fighters as she caught sight of the Raider ahead of her, diving towards one of her Vipers, a trail of rounds spewing forth from it.
"Hera, Oddball: He's all over me!" Came the pilot of the Viper who had become the Raider's new target.
"Oddball, Stickers: I'm on him,"
"Stickers, Hera: I'm with you," Hera said as she followed Oddball, the Raider and Stickers down into a dive that brought them ever-so-slightly closer to Hyperion "Oddball, Hera: Draw him towards Hyperion then break on my mark. Stickers, be ready!"
"Tally Hera, wilco." Oddball replied as he pulled up and blasted back towards Hyperion. The Raider followed swiftly, along with Stickers, Hera and soon after the rest of Green Squadron.
"Hera, Hyperion: Red Squadron are almost ready to launch and assist," Hermes called over the wireless, interrupting the pilots' chatter.
"Negative Hyperion, we've got this," Hera said, hoping to the Gods she'd be able to take out the Raider without needing Spinner's help, knowing if she did that she'd never hear the end of it. Focusing her mind back on the task at hand, she watched as Oddball – in the lead with a cloud of fighters pursuing him – zig-zagged his Viper around to avoid the onslaught of Cylon rounds headed right for him. As they flew back along the Hyperion's port side, they began to align themselves towards the hangar, just as Hera had hoped.
"Hera, Oddball: What are we waiting for?" Oddball called out in panic as his ship got grazed by a couple of the many rounds that shot past him. Hera waited just another just few seconds before responding.
"This! Oddball break, break. All birds fire!" Hera shouted as she pulled the trigger on her joystick as hard as she could. The other pilots clearly did the same as a wave of fiery orange rounds filled the sky and cut through the side of the Raider, sending it spinning into the Hyperion's flight pod.
"Ha ha! Great call Hera!" Stickers shouted as he and Hera followed the Raider into the flight pod and shot past what was left of it as it scraped to a halt along the flight pod's interior runway.
"Hyperion, Hera: Target destroyed," Hera said triumphantly as she flew out the other end of the Flight Pod and pulled up, away from the Hyperion.
"Copy Hera, good flying. Recovery teams are on their way, cover them until they are home safe," Hermes told her.
"Wilco Hyperion," She replied, taking a final breath before turning her Viper around to head back to the Raptors that they come for in the first place.
Battlestar Hyperion CIC, Draconis Star Cluster
Day 2, 06:22 PFT
John drummed his fingers on the table that sat below him in the centre of the CIC. Around him, CIC was abuzz as the crew prepared for a quick turnaround jump they would have to complete now they had recovered their birds and arrived back with the Fleet.
While their excursion out for the SAR mission was neither a failure nor too costly for the Hyperion and her crew, John couldn't help but feel as if he had risked too much by going out so far without the Fleet. The Fleet itself was well defended of course, but without John and the Hyperion the plan would be lost and they would be stuck out in this distant corner of space alone. However, while they may have lost a couple of birds in the engagement with the Cylon Raider and damaging a couple more, they did return with both their lost Raptors and a highly valuable new asset.
As John lent pondering in the middle of the CIC, behind him the revolving doors of the Hyperion's command centre spun open and an older, rounder man than John in greens walked in and up to the Admiral. "Admiral," Chief Walker said, giving John a quick salute that he returned in kind. "We've finished disassembling the package sir. You won't believe what we've found,"
John stood up straight and took note. The Raider that had crashed in the battle had been too badly damaged through impacting into the flight pod for it to reap much information about the Raiders and the Cylons at large, however the second Raider that was shut-down before their arrival in the system was almost perfectly in-tact, save for a mangled engine and power system. "What've you found Chief?"
"Me and the guys cut it open under the 'chin' – if you want to call it that – to check out its interior systems. But as soon as they open it, Specialist Agebe shouts to me, he says: Chief, I think this thing's alive! I say nonsense and drop what I'm doing to see for me-self and you'll never guess what. The inside of these things are alive, like that man-looking one you said you found," The Chief explained.
John was taken aback and didn't respond straight away. Around him, he could see the feeling was mutual as Commander Virgon and a number of the other CIC crew stopped what they were doing and started paying close attention. "They're… alive?"
"Looks that way John, blood, guts and all," The Chief replied. The crew were still stunned and all of them were now paying attention to the Chief and the Admiral.
"There's got to be some way we can weaponize this," Commander Virgon piped up after a few moments.
"Why would they risk putting something alive into a ship like that?" John asked the Chief as the crew around descended into whispers and speculation.
"I don't know sir. I'll get the Specs running tests on it after they've fixed our birds back up," The Chief replied, turning to leave.
"Thank you Chief, that information is invaluable," John said. The Chief gave another quick salute to John before stepping back through the revolving doors and heading back to the hangar, leaving John and the CIC staff alone with the information he had given them.
The CIC's usual level of bustling noise returned as an Ensign approach John, an octagonal piece of paper in his hands. "We've plotted our potential jumps points and the Fleet is ready on your order Admiral," Emily told him as an Ensign handed John a star chart and list of destinations, all of which were within 5 light-years of their current location.
"Thank you, Colonel," John said, taking the charts from the Ensign and giving him a salute. Placing them down on the central table, John mulled for a minute over the cart, trying to get his bearing before picking it up and carrying it over to Emily. "This one Emily, ID32M. Lieutenant Yo, get on the horn and tell the others,"
Emily took the octagonal sheet from the Admiral and handed behind her to navigation. On the other side of CIC, Hermes quickly connected himself the other ships and alerted them of the jump over the wireless. "All ships, this is Hyperion. Begin jump prep for star Icon-Delta-three-two-Meteor,"
"Commander alert the crew and get Red Squadron ready to launch as soon as we drop," John told the Commander calmly. The Commander nodded in reply and picked up the nearest cord-phone.
"Attention all hands. Prepare to jump in three minutes. Red Squadron prepare to launch Vipers after drop," The Commander relayed, his voice echoing from the speakers around them.
As the Commander put the phone down onto the table, he looked back to John and the screen above as the FTL drives began to spin up below, the sound rumbling through the decks. For three more minutes the crew in the CIC stood mostly silently as the ship readied itself. "Jumping in 5…" Emily said after what felt like an eternity as the noise built around them. "4… 3… 2… 1…"