Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale

by cliff.west

This is a spinoff story. It takes place after "But a somehow a most melancholy" and" Hunted Tribes". Please read those before this bit of work. I will not be recovering those stories, but re-reading them will help you fallow this story. This fiction also will be slow on the combat action.

40. Chapter 40 1 Feb 3049

Chapter 40

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

1 Feb 3049 launch of the rescue mission.

New Circe

The fleet was gathered around the planet, and they now were ready to go. It was mostly a Colonial fleet operation. The SLDF did not have enough ships fitted with the very capable Colonial drives to significantly increase those numbers. They were still launching combat operations against the Cylons, and they could not do two things at once. The few SLDF ships that were on this mission? They were just the most combat capable of the ships in the fleet. The heavy lifting would be done on the Colonial built hulls.

The heavy hitters were the Zughoffer Weir and the Nike, as escorts to the fleet. Most of the transports were going to be Colonial, but there really one-time big lifting came from the SLDF. It would be done by the Styx and the three specialty ships she had strapped to her sides. If Admiral Adama had access to something like her, when the Cylons had attacked his people? The City State would be a lot bigger, and the Cylons would be regretting their actions in the next few years.

The first trip out that far had taken months for the Inner Sphere limited travel technology to reach Nike's World. Most of the ships in this fleet on this mission would cover that same distance, in less than a week. They would have to push the engines, but they did not have to push them that hard to cover that distance in that short a time.

In a quick set of flashes, one by one and faster than the eye could follow. The ships disappeared out of orbit over the planet of New Circe. The last one to leave this system was the Styx herself. Between the first ship leaving and last ship winking out of the system, was only 45 seconds. The mission was gone from the home planet. The only ships, which were nearby to the evacuation fleet that did not leave with the others? They were the local press craft, which had only been given one-hour notice about the mission about to leave New Circe.

It was a fast trip, even for the Colonial trained crews. The only ship in this little fleet, which had covered these types of distances in the last year. It was the crew of the SLDF vessel Styx. Only eight hours was allowed to be use for a stand down for maintenance, a day. All of the ships were ready after the 8-hour break, and the maintenance tasks were done. Even if it put their crews through the restricted timeline under insane pressure to get the work done. Seven days after starting the run, the fleet was in the system that needed help. So far, they had not seen any Cylon forces. But very few within the fleet expected that to last the whole mission. The fleet broke into two parts as soon as they had appeared in the system.

8 Feb 3049

Nike's World

The now lightly crewed Nike and the Battleship Zughoffer Weir moved away from the oddly looking convoy of ships. One of the Warships leaving the area near the rest of the fleet was okay for the Colonials. Not only was the SLS Nike, an AI like a Cylon. Word had gotten out, before they had left New Circe, that she was being refitted with salvaged Cylon drives. That had not sat well, with the Colonials. The two warships, armed dropships, fighters, and jump fighters would be the protective wall, which the evacuation would take place behind.

On the Ground, contact teams had been set up a few months ago. All so that almost 100,000 people would be ready to leave when the convoy arrived. Well, as ready as you can get with a planet with over 380 thousand people living on it. Not all would be leaving this planet, but over 90 percent of the population was planning on leaving at some level of understanding. They also were taking as much as they could, when they left this world. The cargo and passenger ships started falling from high orbit to different locations around the globe in a pre-planned pattern.

The two massive infantry transports landed at the two largest population centers on the planet. The livestock lifter was set up at a third point, which just happened to be between the other two large dropships. All manner of small craft, from Raptors to Star League landing craft, were landing in other places around the planet. Those smaller craft would fill up, and then take their live cargos to the nearest spaceship. Sometimes they would fly to either one of the Generals or to a landed Colonial ship, and then take off again to gather another group of living cargo.

The first few hours after landing were a mad house, as was expected by the crews on those ships. Some of the areas were already at local dark, when the spaceships taking them to their new home had landed. That did not mean that a few thousand people and animals, were not loaded by the time everyone was into the rhythm of getting the job done. The rescue ships worked their crews in shifts, to maximize the number of hours they could work before needing to stop the loading for sleep. This race was planned to be a marathon, and not a sprint. That was the plan anyway, and as with any plan. The enemy has a say.

They were three days into the evacuation, when the Cylon Heavy Raiders jumped into the system. It was not alone, but one of a dozen like craft spread out in a wide arc that covered a few thousand miles. The idea was that they could lose one or even four of the Raiders. Then at least a few of them would get word back to the nearest Cylon Basestars. In this case, only one of the up armored craft was able to make it out of the system, in one piece. Captain Ferry was still flying his flag on the Zug, and he issued an order that he had hoped that he never would on this mission.

Now all of the ships that were filled with evacuees from the planet, would leave the system as soon as their drives were spun up. Each ship would make a fast trip back to New Circe. As any new ship was filled with its living cargo, it would launch and leave the system on its own. The idea was to pull out as many people, as they could. All before the hammer of the Cylon fleet fell onto their heads.

It took four more days for the hammer to fall on Nike's World. In that time? Almost two dozen of the smaller Colonial spaceships were filled to the gills of living cargo, and they had successfully fled the system. The original plan had it, that the Styx's dropships were going to be the last ships to get off of the planet. That changed now that Cylons were almost there. There now were two Unions, one Lion, one Confederate, and a small Fury class dropship on the planet. Those would be the last ships, to leave the planet. It was hoped that if the Cylons landed forces on the planet's surface? Those forces would be able to slow the attackers down. Each of the combat dropships would land near one of the higher capacity ships. They would act as a speed bump to any Cylon forces, which might try to cut off the fleeing humans.

15 Feb 3049

Nike's World in Space

SLS Nike was out at the edge of the fleet, when her upgraded sensors started passing warnings to her small crew. She was faster at getting ready for those reports than her biologic crew. All around the ship, she spoke to each crew member that needed just a little more push. On the command center, the holo deck showed a woman with black eyes.

"Okay people! We have Cylon jumpdrives. I have ten Basestars and one that is odd. Second group jumping in, and I'm passing along what I'm getting to the flagship. The second group is different from normal Cylon ships. They look like Colonial civilian ships."

Alan Gibson was still putting on his uniform top. The holo projection of the avatar of the ship's "person". Threw his ship's top, he more or less mumbled. It was loud enough for the "ship" to understand and to pass it along.

"Launch the fighters and get yourself ready for skeet."

Nike was giving an evil grin threw the projection, and her solid black eyes almost glowed. "They will not like seeing me, this time. I was getting tired of running out of autocannon ammunition."

When the SLDF had finally started working on the hulk, which had been the outer shell of the Caspar known as SLS Nike. They had made some modification to what the Star League had thought was appropriate for a weapon like her. They had not done all of the modifications, that she wanted them to do. But even she knew that money did not grow on trees. That didn't mean that she was not going to complain about it at every opening she could find.

They first had updated her armor plate that wrapped her hull, and it had been missing in more places than she wanted to think about. It had been for the simple reason, that they did not have time to make the old-style armor she had been "born" with in any large amounts. By the time they started working on her. She was missing more armor poundage, than she had left fixed to her outer hull. Besides, she had really liked her new dress. She had also liked the artificial gravity plates, so that she could jump anywhere she wanted. That had been the second major upgrade, after her armor had been stripped off.

With the delay due to her trial that had left her unfinished, the locals had advanced a little when the work had restarted. This had been long enough, for the new high rate of fire cannons to be around to replace most of her close in defense weapons against fighters. They even gave her deep magazines to support the ammunition hungry weapons. The last had cost her a few missiles reloads for her long shooters, but she could live with two less Barracudas. All of her remaining nuclear warheads had been removed and recycled into newer weapons. She now had only a dozen "real" ship killers in her magazines, but at least these were not likely to just "fizzle" if they hit an enemy warship. She was pushing as hard as she could, to get more heavy warheads. She had even sent a copy of the classified SLDF Navy doctrine report, on how to use ships of her class. It clearly stated that between half and two thirds of her missile magazine should be filled with nuclear tipped weapons. So far, she had not gotten a response to that email.

During her second major refit, they had made more changes. At first it was mostly to fix issues left over from the first refit. After the first month, those plans were again changed. They had not been able to give her the new laser anti-missile systems in any numbers, but they had replaced and updated all of her secondary weapons with clan tech. She was looking forward to seeing what those 32 second generation medium pulse lasers would do to any Raiders or Heavy Raiders. But the prize was the 32 LR PPCs they had sprinkled around her hull. She was betting that if she came in just right, she could take out a Basestar just with them.

She was always seeing room for improvements, like having to leave three weeks early for the big push they were still planning out. If that planning failed to be done in time. Her orders had been to take up position in the system named after her and take out any Cylons that might show up. She was one jump from this system. The Zug and her convoy of Colonial ships caught up to her, just as she was about to finish her last double jump to get to her end point. Nike was not happy about trash haulers being able to get someplace faster than she could. She made a note to address this issue the next time she was in the New Circe system.

The lack of major numbers of laser anti-missile systems, had caused some problems on some of her later missions. That had been fixed with her last refit. She had been given 24 more laser anti-missile systems. She could not "super jump", but she had tested some of the theories using her old drive and the artificial gravity deck plating she was now packing. In this case the rumors were wrong. She did not have a salvaged Cylon jump drive. She was scheduled to be given a civilian jump drive recovered from Admiral Adama's second run back to old Colonial space. She just had to wait for her turn to come up, to get the yard time. With all of the battle damage the fleet had been soaking up, that might take a while to get her that drive to replace her current one.

The Number One called John was on the Dreadstar. He was taking in the data from the modified systems spread out around him. The sensors were a mix of Colonial hard tech and current Cylon wet interface. He had just noticed that his fleet had not jumped into the right location he had expected. They should have jumped in close to the planet, but for some reason they were over 24 AU from that expected location.

"The ferryman is here! The Dragon is here! It's time to pay the ferryman, but we do not have any Drachma. We will have to pay in blood and fall to the Dragon's fire. End of line."

John had to look around to find out what the hybrid was mumbling about. He had wanted to use this modified Basestar without one of those things, but he had quickly found out that he needed their management ability to handle all of the new systems. He was thinking that somehow the skittish bio matter was able to get into the navigation system, and it had shifted their entry point into this star system. He made a mental note in the interface to check on that.

All thoughts of that note were lost, when he recognized what he had heard and what his systems were telling him. He had come up with this modified Basestar to fight one ship, and he had spent over a year tracking down any report of a Cylon seeing that one special human vessel. Now it seemed that being forced to support this cleansing mission was going to pay off.

John gave a few quick orders and all thoughts of the hybrid were forgotten. He had something he wanted very badly to kill or otherwise destroy. These human ships were not his white whale. But there were two large human warships in this system, and he had the right harpoon to take care of them. When this was done? He could go look for his true target but if he caused enough damage, and he spread it out long enough. Then maybe it would come to him. He could work with that, and after all. All that truly mattered was that all of the humans died.

It did not take long for the Cylons small craft to decide that getting as close as they could to a SLDF ship, the better it was for them. They could jump almost close enough to touch her hull, if they were in a small enough ship and were a good enough pilot. It had not taken the Nike long to have run up an impressive kills totals, now that she was back under the flag of the SLDF. Today was only going to add to that list of kills, and not just in small craft. She was interested in collecting a few new capital kill markers to be painted in her wardroom.

Nike and her now two dozen attached fighters had blown away a few thousand raider and heavy raiders. It had started climbing faster after she had been sent on her first mission after her trial. Now the Cylons did not even use "normal" Raiders but for anything but scouting. They had proven to be a waste of metal, fuel, bio matter, and time for any other missions in this part of space. What the humans did not know, was that the Cylon fleet still held a few thousand "normal" Raiders sitting around. They normally were used well away from this area of space.

The joint Colonial and SLDF forces had not seen a full squadron of Raiders in almost a year and a half. The Heavy Raiders were now also harder to kill, with a second upgrade package being seen in the last few months. The most obvious was that they had added a second engine to the large craft. It was center mounted over and on top of the aft center engine. This raised the total number of power units to four on those large craft. The reports coming in from Ragnar had said that an even newer version of the Heavy Raiders were starting to come off the lines back in old Colonial space.

The reason for this new engine? It was not for speed, but to overcome the mass they were adding in weapons and a lot more armor plate to the craft. The newest upgraded Heavy Raiders only carried two KEWs, in place of the six in a nose pack on the earlier upgraded craft. These were now mainly missile boats. Cylon missiles packed a lot of firepower, and they were true fire and forget weapons on today's battlefield. Also, nuclear weapons were coming more and more commonly use for the already nuclear weapons happy Cylons. Even the Cylons could not invent nuclear weapons out of thin air. Every time they launched one that did not produce a kill? That was one nuclear weapon that they did not have for later use. And the humans had suddenly fielded systems that could sweep the sky of missiles. Even their shuttle sized fighters could take out capital scale missiles, before they were close to a targeted human ship.

Nike was working out a dozen different plans to fight this current battle, but in the end. It was her Captain's job to come up with a plan, and then execute it. Gibson was reviewing a list of ideas, which she had come up with. Some were very good, and others? They were right out of old TV shows, and not in a good way. Then his eyes floated to the main display, it showed the enemy capital ships. Something was off, in the data he was seeing.

"Ah Nike? What is that odd one doing? It looks like he is trying to hide behind the rest of the other Basestars."

Nike played with her passive scanners and let her backup core have some fun killing the Cylon small craft with energy and shorter ranged missile weapons. She could have used her active systems to get a lot more data, but that would have blown her cover. She was acting and looking like the Riga Class ship. She, if not the rest of the SLDF Navy had found out, that if the Cylons knew who she was? They would go after her, above any other target in a whole star system. That might be useful, later on. It was always best, when the enemy was reacting to you. It helped to control the battlespace, but it still had a downside.

The avatar winked out for a second and then came back on. "Well Frak! Your right. It's a new type of Basestar. It looks like they put on a thicker outer coating of Colonial armor, and it looks like they have mounted almost twice the number of engines found on a Jupiter class Battlestar. They have them all mounted on its backside, and they are hard to get a reading on how powerful they might be. I'm looking at its flight path since they jumped in. It looks to be trying to work around the edges of the fleet. It could be trying to spring something on the Zug."

Gibson nodded. That was new, and he hated it when Cylons did something new. "Okay Nike let the chicks know, that we are changing plans. Let's start working on one edge of their fleet, and start taking out Basestars. How is your play list?"

The avatar was jumping up and down on her display table. On the nose of the warship her two twin 60cm laser turrets were twitching left, right, and up and down in time to the display on the bridge. "Oh! Do I get to make their ears bleed? Query Affirmative? I hope they don't like it." She stopped moving and folded her hands behind her body of light, and she tried to look ashamed. "Does that make me a bad person?"

Gibson could not help but smile. Nike had gotten less crazy, after she got to kill a lot of Cylons. If they spent too long in port? She reverted to her old ways, after a few months. "No, Nike it does not. That is unless your taste in music is as bad as your taste in video entertainment. Then I would say that all bets are off. Query Affirmative."

Now Nike was defensive, while she multi tasked as she bantered with her captain and fought the battle outside her hull. "Evil Dead was a very interesting show. All ten movies and remakes were worth the time to watch. I am ready to go active, Captain." The last statement was a little waspy sounding, but Alan didn't mind.

The Cylons had found a way to block Nikes transmissions months ago. Before she had been able to short out their systems. So the Cylons had put in a special circuit, which would activate when it picked up a power surge of her transmitter in the general area. It would cut the communication lines, and the Cylon would stop receiving any outside signals for about ten seconds. After the break, the Cylon craft would try to activate its network capability. It the new circuit found her transmissions in the general area again. The special circuit would activate again. It would keep doing this until the battle was over. While it was "offline" they tended to fight dumb. But between close contacts with Nike? They would fight like "normal" Cylon raiders and heavy raiders. This was going to be the first time for a new tactic, to be used by Nike. She was going to blanket the radio range all up and down the spectrum, with her collection of "music" that she had in her archives. The term was from 20th century earth, was called active broadband jamming.

The AG plates let Nike put her rebuilt plasma throwing sub light engines to full power without killing her limited crew, and she flooded the air waves. Gibson's ears felt like they were about to start bleeding, as something called "Teen Spirit" came through the speaker mounted on the Bridge's or CIC walls at an incredible volume.

Gibson had to yell to hear his own voice. "NIKE! THE IDEA IS TO DISTRACT THE CYLONS. NOT US!"

Nike was smiling and as the word Cylon passed Gibson's mouth, the music cut off. "I'm sorry Captain. Did you say something?"

Nike could tell from the look, that she had scored a point in their little on-going game. "On the other hand, Captain. The second group of Cylons just performed a micro jump. They are in the planets high upper atmosphere and dropping quick. I am tracking six Intersun or Olympic Carrier class Passenger Cruisers. They are the ones that are just under 835 feet long."

Alan Gibson's mind was going in about a dozen different directions. Then he stopped on one item from a history book he had just finished. "A landing ship, like an LST or assault ship of some kind. Nike, how many Centurions can they put on something like that?"

Nike's head looked up at her Captain, and again she was surprised that he had come up with something she had not. Well that was not totally true. In one of the ten thousand scenarios she had run, landing ships had come up. It had only taken the equivalent of half a human lifetime of thinking to come up with that idea. Her captain had come up with it in less than ten seconds.

"They could put between 2,000 and 3,000 Centurions on something that size. It will depend on how many human forms, Tinmen, or Praetorians they are carrying along with the Centurions." Nike was speaking with a very dull tone. It was the tone that she used, when she was being tasked heavy by what was going on around her. Computers only had so many resources. That was true even for a Caspar.

Alan nodded. "Fight the battle, pass to flag what we think is about to happen dirtside. As soon as the Admiral gives the word to let the nuks go. Do not wait for me to say go, just do it Nike. Query affirmative."

The little black-eyed female projection now rubbed her hands together in mock glee, or maybe it was not so mock. "Oh Good! I cannot wait to see how those new Barracuda Ns will do. We need another five minutes to get the nose and forward lasers onto the nearest Basestar. We may have to go to reduced firing on the autocannons. They are starting to overheat, and we will need them when the Basestars start to fire."

The Cylons were not the only ones who liked throwing magic mushrooms around. The current extended ranged anti-fighter missiles of the SLDF had been fitted with a "light" nuclear warhead, only about 15ktons worth of explosive. This had been done with the mixing of Cylon, Colonial, and some ideas that Nike had found somewhere. This might be the first battle that these long range, hard to hit, smart, and small missiles might get a kill against a Cylon capital ship.

Back in the days of the old Star League. They had used massive waves of Barracuda type missiles to keep fighters away from their main battle fleet of Warships, and to a lesser extent their fleets of dropships. Killing a Cylon 1.8km long Basestar was not easy, and it could not be done with just a handful of conventionally armed missiles. Cylons could take out a sky full of missiles and throw an equal sky full of missiles back at an attacker. That is if the Capital ship and her swarm of smaller craft were working together in a seamless fashion. That was what the book said, and sometimes it was right. But the book had not thought about SLDF, energy weapons, and a ship called the Nike.

The Captain of the Caspar ship SLS Nike, felt the ship go to past full power and into over thrust. He could feel the shaking of the ship's frame as cannon shots and missiles were launched from her. And again, he was thankful that it had been fitted with Colonial made artificial gravity plates. But when her plasma engines went to that level of power? There was a so slight of a lag, before the Colonial systems kicked in. For just a second, everyone in the very small crew felt all 4.5 g's her engines were putting out. It was just long enough for the biologics to know someone had spurred the horse and be equally thankful that those plates were active.

Nike grayed out for a second, and then came back as bright as ever on her display. The twin heavy laser turrets on the nose of the ship fired along with the single heavy triple turret on the forward left and right sides of her ship. "We are taking them out by the boat load with the HOD and LR PPCs. And they just walked into my laser anti-missile system. You know, that if you hit one of those new heavy raiders with enough of them at one time? They would die, and you can take that R and D! I was right again."

She gave a slender one finger salute to something not in the holo display. "Target one just folded up. She could not handle that many of my 55 Lasers. That Odd One is now heading our way. It's moving about 10 percent faster than the Pegasus can in normal space. I think they know that I'm here. I told you that they would get wise after I fired my nose bays."

Gibson grunted, and shook his head from side to side. He had a slight smile on his face, as he went to score a point in their game. "I thought we kill that thing already. Are you having a bore sighting issue again, or is it your age causing your eyesight to fail?"

Nike had a matching look for Gibson at the age comment, and she made a note to adjust his shower water temperature in the common latrine. "I know that I took it down, last time they threw a modified Basestar at me. Do you think they have a whole shipyard up and running? That would suck, if they are mass producing those things. This one looks more finely fitted, than that other Frankenstein we ran into. We only had to use my old fraking aft thruster assembly, and it died. This one seems to be wanting to keep the range more open. Do you think this is commanded by a Number One? I would bet that the first Frankenstein had a 5 or a 2 at the controls. They kind of have one-track minds, and the Ones are different."

Outside of the 670,000ton ship. She was moving and now acting more like a large fighter, than a huge warship. She was rolling, diving, and doing anything that her warped mind could come up with. If she thought of it, she did it. All the while she was targeting the closing wave of missiles and Cylon heavy raiders. She was not taking them all out of play, but she was thinning the crowd by both weapons fire and using her thick hull armor to detonate the warheads or crush the small craft hulls. Sometimes she would fire one of her massive naval lasers. She would play it across the sky dust, like the flashlight on a god sized scale. Sometimes it would turn half a dozen or more Cylon small craft into flash fried droplets of organic and inorganic material. Most of the time it would miss, but even then, if it flashed close to some of the Cylon missiles. They were taken out of the battle just due to the "flux" the energy weapons left in their wake. After all they had never been designed to deal with energy weapons.

Her mix of class 5 HOD, pulse lasers, Anti missiles systems, LR PPCs and long ranged sub capital missiles were in rapid fire mode. They were laying out an interlace pattern of destruction, but sometimes you had to hit your targets more than once in a very short amount of time to take them out of the battle. Also, her suite of her capital weapons, besides the lasers. They carried names like Killer Whale and White Shark, and they were in play today.

Those same weapons, which had just killed its third Cylon Basestar in this battle. Three of the missiles had come from the nose bays and had made it through the crossfire. It was just by luck that they had followed a strike by the NL-55s on the central hub, that held both halves of the semi organic Basestar together. The flaming pencils of death had only been a pair of seconds behind the laser blast, and they entered the ship while it was still outgassing from the focused energy. The clouds of organics were the final mask that had protected the diving weapons. The weapons had no idea that they were behind the hard-outer layers of the target. The three weapons hit three different areas within that small cross section of the ship. Two "only" put a few tons of explosives on different main support members that ran between the two Y sections. Even without the third missile, that would have hurt the great Cylon warship. It was the third weapon that killed it. It was just by luck that it hit the jump engine. That was bad enough, when it released its pent-up energy. But the auxiliary fuel tank really did not like the visits the Killer Whale had paid this area.

The top of the Basestar started to come apart. Two of the three arms were still attached and moving away from the central hub. The great warship could have continued the battle missing those two arms and the bagel toaster like launching bays. But when the jump engine and the fuel tank exploded? That was the end of the warship. It was now just a blast cloud that only Zero G could make, and a short-term navigation hazard.

One of the nearby Basestars had to make a sudden course change, just to avoid one of the arms of the ship as it came speeding by. It was just unfortunate that this course change put the ship in the path of a quartet of HNPPCs that had missed its intended target. Those four powerful beams of purple energy were not enough to "kill" a ship of that size. But this ship had been hit by rounds fired from Colonial made Coil guns as well as "smaller" Capital scale lasers. It was too much, and this Cylon ship would not be able to support the cloud of Heavy Raiders with rearming or covering missile fire on their attack runs.

On the Zug, Captain Ferry was looking at an enemy ship that he had not even targeted be destroyed by his ship's weapons fire. There were good and bad things that you had to deal with, when you fought beside the Nike. One bad thing was having to deal with crews that did not like or trust the AI. Another bad thing was having to read all of the reports she would turn out. Then there was having to deal with her "in person". It was like dealing with one of his teenage granddaughters, but one that was a few hundred years old.

One of the good things about fighting alongside the old AI warship. It was watching her fight like a fighter. He could only shake his head as the over half a million-tons of warship stood on its tail and spin around on her main axis like it was on ice skates. She also had a habit of spending more time in the repair yards or needing extra crews to repair damage, both directly and indirectly related to combat with the Cylons.

Captain Ferry had to smile, and it was not just on the insides. "You have to admit that the Cylons have a hard on for that girl." He had secretly enjoyed some of the music Nike had used during training. He liked it more, when she used Immigrant song to fill the radio waves. She would loop it for two or three iterations. Just as he thought about that song, it started coming over the speakers.

The XO of the battleship heard his boss say something, but he did not catch it. "Sir?"

The tall thin officer turned slightly to see his second in command. "I was just noticing that over half of the firepower coming from all of those Basestars, and about two thirds of the Cylon small craft have been giving Nike a lot of attention."

More than a few heads turned to see the data on some of the nearest displays. Captain Ferry made a face, as he noticed that not one of his senior officers had noticed this fact. "Contact the Nike. When she is ready, she can launch level one nuclear weapons, but only level one. Then let the supply department know that we might need to shift part of our stocks of class 5 autocannon ammunition to her."

That was all of the orders that needed to be given by the human that the Cylons called the Ferryman. The bridge and the rest of the staff didn't even notice when four heavy missiles hit across the top of the great battleship. By now the SLDF had worked out a way, with a lot of help from the Colonials, to work out what missiles were packing nuclear weapons. They were not up to a hundred percent on picking them up over 100km out. But they were very good.

More than one idea had been passed around to make an "Escort" for the big guns. They ranged in ideas of using a heavy fighter outfitted with a dozen Laser anti-missile systems, to converting a combat dropship in the same fashion. He had even seen an idea to convert one of the Colonial cargo ships into an "escort" to handle the missile and Raider wave attacks.

In a flash Nike launched five very small, well small for capital weapons, missiles out of her forward tubes. As soon as the weapons left her AR-10 multi missile launcher, she was acting as fast as her ancient computers could. She flashed out of existence in a burst of radiation, which would have fried any computer that was not made in the "Age of War". Some would have thought that she had just been blown-up by a major nuclear strike, that somehow had made it threw her defense. Or maybe a weapon had malfunctioned or something like that?

What had happened? It was that she activated her jump engines, and she had done her own micro jump. It was used as a tactical maneuver to help her set up for the next part of the battle. It was just like what the Cylons had done to the Colonial navy, at the start of the war to wipeout the human race. Because it was done by such a large ship, and her drive worked a little differently than Cylon and Colonials systems. She was a ship that was almost the size of a Battlestar, and her engines also had a slight secondary effect in the area she had just left.

Her fully charged K-F Drive used a staggering amount of energy to rip a whole in the universe, and it was given up within a nanosecond. This energy wave was a lot less stable than a Colonial or Cylon made system, and a bubble of destruction moved out at the speed of light from the Nike. The energy wave wiped out ever Cylon Heavy Raider and Missile within 500 miles, of were the Lola III class hull had been until only a hand full of seconds before. Nike had only waited until her own weapons were outside of the area of effect before, she had jumped. Those five weapons would kill two more Basestars, but the third would still be in the battle. That was thanks to the salvaged colonial made armor plate lightly spread on most of the surfaces of the Cylon ships.

With the loss of over half of their fleet. The Cylons started to pull back further from the planet and away from the star. The heavy Basestar now was in the front of the Cylon battle fleet. It was exchanging cannon fire from her Mercury class bow weapons and a new heavier class missile. The McKenna class ship was the center of John's attention, but he could multitask. When the Nike "popped" back into space. She was hit with a dozen heavy rounds as soon as she was "fully" in the star system. It would seem that the Cylons had figured out where she was going to be, after her jump.

Gibson was rocked in his command chair, and the hologram of the black-eyed woman flickered and almost went out for a second. She looked back at him, and he could see the concern on her face. "We just took half a dozen very heavy KEW's. It seems that all of the Cylon Basestars have added some heavy weapons, the damage profile is that of a Colonial coil gun. I am engaging the nearest target with my bow and port laser turrets. They seem to be pulling back. I think they wanted to take a break from combat. Do you want me to let them pull back?"

The Captain of the vessel took in the information. "No, Nike. That is why you have all of that thick and expensive armor. If you can take out the nearest Basestar, go for it. Then let them pull back but put as much damage on them as you can, while they are in range. The more time we can give the people on the ground. The more people they can evacuate, the better for the clan. Our mission is to get those people, not take out major Cylon fleet units."

Nike did not argue with her captain. Letting an enemy ship pull back was not a normal action, not for her or the SLDF. Then again, this was "her world" and she had wanted to protect them as much as any bio form that reported to the SLiE. She would do what needed to be done to protect them. She had a slight smile, as another one of the Cylon capital warships fell to her guns. As long as an enemy ship was within range of her guns? She would launch her rage against them, and maybe if they saved enough. She would be able to "sleep" without dreams of her past failure.

The two fleets now were out of range of each other for anything but human jump fighters and Cylon Heavy Raiders. The humans had now centered all of their forces and attention on the planet, after the enemy battle fleet had disengaged. The Cylons were holding position further out from the liquid water zone of the Star. They had not expected to fight so much firepower, when they planned this mission. They were okay sitting and waiting for their second part of the fleet to show up, and then the battle could be rejoined. This was only the first part of the battle that the Cylons had planned. It was just going to be more expensive, than the Cylon Empire had originally planned for.

15 Feb 3049

Nike's World on the ground

On the ground things were not looking…that great. As the population groupings had lifted off of the planet? There were fewer points to defend around the planet, but also there were fewer defenders to be able to degrade the Cylon's number of ground forces. And still not everyone was willing to leave the planet. That is until things started to explode over their heads as proof, that some very bad guys were coming. This was the last straw and many more of the locals had suddenly decided, that maybe finding a new home was a very good idea.

With combat units of the Cylons in the system. It was now proven, that Colonel Gao had been correct about demanding ground forces to accompany this mission. When Colonel Gao landed her forces on the planet? They went about setting up defensive points, which experience had proven to have some effect on the Cylon ground units. The SLDF did not deploy any combat engineers on this mission, which might have been an oversite in the planning. Now was no time to cry over spilled milk, and the ground forces would just have to improvise.

Captain Roberson was looking into the sky and frowned. She was supporting one of the modified Mammoths infantry carriers and the Bovine. She had deployed her unit in a thin circle around the grounded dropships. The idea had been that, if a short notice attack happened. She would have some firepower to slow them down, so that the rest of the company could come running to support the beleaguered unit.

Now that the attack was coming, in the form of what might be ex-Colonial made passenger liners. This had made her change her deployment. Now her whole unit now was aligned on the most likely avenue of advance the Cylons might come up. There was a big difference when you had to deal with small groups of Cylons coming off Heavy Raiders. This was looking like the Cylons were going to use those liners like the SLDF had used dropships. They were going to land their troops in one or very few massive localized assaults against the humans.

She looked around at her first defensive line. It was thin, but it was only the first line of defense. The second line was even thinner held, then the first line. The last line was defended by about the same number of defenders, but each machine was heavier than what the other two lines were made up of. It was not much, but it was all she had. No one had thought that there would be this kind of ground combat. To date? All of the ground fighting outside of Colonials space had been in small groups or on small bases. The mass landing of those liners was going to be something new, for the ground forces to have to deal with. It was looking like keeping up on the counter clan and inner sphere tactics was about to pay off.

By now, all the 835-foot-long Colonial liners had dropped out of her line of site. You could not hide a Mammoth. At least not without using a lot of time and even more time, when you needed to get the massive beast off the ground. That time had not been spent on hiding, but on loading as many people as they could. The defenders now needed to buy some time with their blood, sweat, and in a few cases tears.

For half an hour, all she could do was stew in her own juices as she waited for the hammer to fall on her command. That changed when her scout had fallen back far enough from the enemy landing site to transmit his report. Now she was wishing that she didn't know what was coming for her. Over her encoded radio, a recorded image was playing again. It was a good and high definition recording of all six landed ships. She had not risked a scouting mech that close to the threat. That was what you had technology for. To take the risks you did not want a person to have to deal with.

Off of those ships, had landed and unloaded an army. It was not just Centurions and human forms coming off of them, but a massive number of Praetorian combat mechs. Then came something that had only been reported from places a long way from here. It was the largest deployment of those machines, which anyone had been alive to report about. She watched the massive machines roll out of the cargo holds and landing bays of those ships. As she saw each one, she wished that the rest of the Battalion was not scattered across the rest of the planet.

They were massive, chunky, and moved on four sets of mid-length heavy metal tracks. They were large machines that were reported to mass about 75tons. They were slow and heavily armored, for a 1st Cylon war tank. The Colonials called them Rhinos and not tanks. They didn't have the history of using the 1916 cover name. They were called Tinmen by SLDF and that name had migrated to be used by the Colonials.

As Captain Roberson watched the massive T structure on top of the armored base move. She could now see the six heavy cannons, and they were short almost stubby looking things. She knew that each of the tubes were a 180mm Recoilless Cannon. The Colonials said that they used a 60kg shell to fire a 28kg HE or HEAT warhead. They were great bunker or building busters, as the Cylons had shown in the first war.

Those were not the only weapons the Tinman carried. On the nose was a twin turret that packed a pair of long barreled 25mm KEWs. They were different from the Viper and Raider carried 30mm KEWs. These hit a lot harder thanks to the heavier propellant charge and the longer barrel. On Viper and Raiders, you had to trade off on every kg of weight. That was not so much of an issue with a ground unit. How would those rounds stack up against Battlemech armor? Now that was the Million-dollar question.

As Captain Robinson watched more and more Tinmen rolling onto the flat ground. The real worry was the two strangely placed ready to fire Gorgon long ranged Anti Air missiles on each tank. They could mount a 10kton nuclear warhead, and they might have a limited ground attack capability. Even if they were "only" packing a 200kg "normal" explosive warhead. That could hurt most of the light mechs under her command. These last weapons were ones, that the SLDF currently didn't have an answer for. Well other than add more armor and more anti-missile systems to anything that might run afoul of them.

Nike had been right. They could have carried almost 2500 Centurions in each of those ships. On two of these converted Colonial ships? They had carried almost that number of walking metal death, but the rest of the space was used to carry human forms to command them after they landed. On the other four ships? 6m tall walking forms came walking off of the ships, one after the other. They were joined by 4 Tinmen coming from each of the converted Colonial ships. 24 of the ugly tanks slowly moved away from the landing area.

It took them some time for the bipedal Cylons to form up. The Converted passenger ships were not designed as combat assault craft, and modifications can only go so far in a given length of time. They were picked, because they were available and for the mass they could carry to a planet's surface. Still it would not take long, before all of that combat power would be heading towards the human defenders like a god sized metal walking hammer.

The seismic system tripped on Captain Robinson's machine, and her head came up from dozing in her cockpit. Her eyes focused just in time to see the Clan tech modified Spector, come running threw her defense line. Its ECM and Beagle systems along with its very rare Chameleon Light Polarization shield and Null signature system, all had made this old machine a top of the line scout and headhunter for her people. Normally this specialized and in high demand machine was not assigned to her unit or even to her Battalion. It was normally a division level unit and had been loaned to her company for this mission.

The mech jock at its controls would not stop, until it reached the third and last line of defense that was nearest to the evacuating dropships. If things went bad? It would be the first mech to reload onto the Union class dropship or the Confederate that had dropped it on this planet. Its three energy weapons would not add that much to the battle. At least not enough to risk the loss of this machine, anyway. It would not stay out of the battle, but it would have to be looked after.

All down the line, to her left and right, the rest of the lance made slight adjustments to get ready to greet the enemy. This lance was a proven killer of Cylons, and a lot of work had been put into designing it that way. It was made up of two 25ton Locust IIC, that were more or less hand built by a custom shop in McEvedy City. They currently had only eight of those machines in the whole SLDF ground order of battle.

The SLDF had the plans for them for over a hundred years, but they had not needed them. The machine had been in Clan use since 2832. Clan Wolverine already had the updated Sling and other machines, that could do the same job for the clan before the coming of the Cylons. Each of the 25ton Locust can be built in a handful of small shops and supplied by parts from around the planet. All parts were built on the operator's free time. Then the finished mech would be sold to the military. They each were fitted with eight clan grade ER Small Lasers, 1 second gen medium pulse laser, and ten second generation of high-efficient heatsinks, to keep it cool in extended combat. This pair had recently replaced two 25ton Sling class omni machines under her command for testing.

The rest of the lance was rounded out by another pair of 30ton Mercury III omni mechs. The back stop for this light lance, was her ancient 90ton modified Emperor. It had been pulled out of the cache site two years ago. They had taken off the two old class ten LBX cannons, and the same happened to the two large lasers. They moved the head mounted medium laser to cover her back from any Cylons that wanted to climb up her rear.

In place of those missing main weapons, was a pair of Class 5 HOD, with ten tons of ammunition to feed those very hungry beasts. The hard part had been fitting five of the new laser anti-missile systems onto the machine. The lasers AMS were mounted on each of the arms, on each of the shoulders and the last one was mounted on the back of her machine. To keep the machine, cool for the longer combat time they had been experiencing. They had put in thirty of the most top of the line heatsinks that New Circe could make. It was made to fight the long battle and to try to counter the larger numbers that the Cylons would throw into a battle.

She loved the machine as soon as she had seen it. In a top of the line unit, like hers. She should have been sitting in at least one of the new Riflemen III Omni 80 tons mechs or one of the massive Pulverizer II omni. The Riflemen was a new machine, only about a year old, but it had been designed to fight the clan decades ago. They were being outfitted to fight this new enemy with new weapons options, but she had liked "the lines" of this older machine. So, when she had seen one being worked on? She had asked for it to be her ride. The nice thing about being in a first-tier unit. You had a lot of leeway in what you could take into battle. Your commander could veto what you wanted, but that was rare.

In front of the line of the SLDF mechs, which was blocking the valley, was a kill ground that had been specifically picked by the captain. This valley was one that the Cylons needed to advance up to reach the crowd of civilians and the dropship they were boarding. The only thing that the books said the SLDF needed, and they did not have were mines and field artillery.

Around a turn in the steep sided valley, to the front of the defenders. A wave of almost 500 Centurions and a dozen Human forms riding the backs of the metal machines made the turn. They came into view at the full charge of metal legs moving in a blur of motion. There was a clear line of fire from the SLDF line, to the wave of on rushing metal. Not even a tree or rock was higher than knee high to a Colonial. It had taken the locals and SLDF a few hours to make it this way, and it had only been done a half hour before the lone Scout mech had made it back to the defense lines.

Captain Robinson sighted down the valley and pulled the trigger for her mix Colonial and SLDF tech autocannons. Five hard metal darts that came out of each arm at a huge rate of fire and speed. When each of those darts hit a metal Centurion? They were blowing them apart and then they could go on down range to take out a few more. All before they ran out of energy or stopped skipping after they hit the dirt. The term was called grazing fire and it had been around since black powder cannons had first been put on the battlefield.

The current generation of Centurion was over twice as hard to kill, as when the two sides had first started to clash. The human forms had added more armor all around the machine, but the most obvious addition was a thick metal shield that a real roman Centurion would have had no problem recognizing. This added protection, but only on the battlefield. This added protection would not add to the increasing issue of wearing joints and day to day operational issues, that the up armoring of Centurions was already causing.

The Cylon line kept coming towards the defenders like the waves in the ocean. They would just jump or walk over their fallen fellows at the run. They kept closing until just after they hit the engagement range of the second-generation medium pulse lasers. As soon as those energy weapons started striking the Cylons. They finally decided that they were not going to blow through this line of defenders, and they started pulling back. They left almost 300 metal or bleeding bodies on the valley floor, before they had come to this conclusion. When they had started to pull back out of the line of fire, the defenders had kept the fire up. When the fire had stopped, another 50 Cylons were added to the nonfunctional list on the valley floor.

Captain Robinson saw the Cylons start to pull back, and she came off the defensive line. She pulled back about a quarter of a mile and behind a small hill. She would be reloading her machine at the forward support point hidden behind the hill. This attack had only been the scouts, or first echelon forces of the Cylons. The heavy hitters were slower, and they would take longer to get to her firing line. She had gone through a lot of her cluster rounds, and she needed to top off her ammo bins and to cool her machine down.

One of the lessons learned about fighting Cylons, in the early days of the war. It was that you reloaded whenever you might possibly could, even if you only had used three or four rounds. You used any free time to top off your ammunition. You might not have time later. Fighting waves of Cylons hand to hand, because you had run out of ammunition sucked. After she was done, and the other machines got a chance to pay the area a visit. She ordered the trucks and loader mechs to fall back to the nearest of the dropships. When the Cylons breakthrough, and they would, it was just a matter of when. Those units would be dead meat for anything more than a few dozen Cylons. She had no doubt that they would fight, and they would take down more Cylons than they would lose humans to them. They still would all die, and the Cylons had a massive numerical advantage without throwing their lives away due to bad planning.

The Captain had only just returned to her primary firing point, when she noticed small rocks slides starting down each side of the valley. They were not major slides, and they did not move far down the high sides of the valley before stopping. They were just rocks moving down, stopping, and then maybe sliding some more. Sometimes they would not move until more rocks fell down on them. When she looked down at her mech's systems that did not display on her HUD. Her seismic detector was erroring out, due to the inputs it was having to deal with. There was not a point source for the vibration, the Cylon main army was near. She flipped her radio to short range, just in case the Cylons tried to jam the Radio waves.

"All right people! The metal heads are coming. Stick to the plan. Remember you are faster than they are, and your weapons are better. Do not let them get to close. Query Affirmative"

The wave of Cylons that made the turn around the bend of the valley, was nothing like the first wave had been. This wave was led by a wave of six meter tall walking machines. The arms did not have blades or hands like the Centurions. In their place. Each arm had a KEW cannon of the same type that Vipers, Raiders, and Heavy Raiders carried. Those weapons fired as fast as a SLDF machinegun, but they had both a longer range and hit a little harder.

On the shoulders were missile racks, which held over a dozen missiles on each side. Cylon cannons were crap, but their missiles were another matter. They had the range, in the atmosphere, of a Star League extended ranged large laser. When a Cylon missile had a lock on? It was going to hit, and not even the best generation mech mounted ECM would help in any measurable amount. The only way to deal with them, was to take them down with an AMS or have thick armor. The other way to handle them was very popular by the ground pounders, that might be around to support the mechs. That was to take the Cylons out first, before they launched the missiles into the air.

So far, the SLDF had been lucky. The Cylons had not figured out how to target the cockpits of the mechs, like the old headhunter missiles the old Star League was known to have used for a few generations. They would just randomly hit you. If you were lucky? They hit you on the front arc of your machine. But a lot of the times the misses would loop around and come back at you from behind. That was why they were putting more and more of the laser based anti-missile systems on each machine. They didn't need ammunition, but they had mass and they generated a lot of heat. Those were both issues with a war-machine. Everyone you added, was one less weapon or ton of ammunition that you could not carry into battle.

Behind the walking mini battlemechs came the Rhinos or Tinmen. The range of the heavy cannons was longer than the Raider based KEWs. But how much longer? No one knew, and there was a big difference between maximum range and effective range on the battlefields of the 31st century. Very few within the SLDF military were going to take most of the reports from the Colonials at face value, even if they were only recounting reports from a war that few of them had fought in.

For the start of this battle, it would only be Captain Robinson firing. The light machines were out of sight in different firing positions than what the first wave had seen, waiting. The company commander had the thicker armor and many AMS to handle the attacking weapons. All of the light lance machines were on radio listening silence, and no one wanted to break it. They all could "see" what was going on. They had seen and lived through many Cylon attacks over the last few years, just not with this many heavy enemy units.

Captain Robinson took a light breath and then leaned forward in her command chair. She moved the manual feed switch, with a flip of a covered switch. This switch would lower the "rounds" each cannon could fire. She was packing a prototype of the next generation of HOD. It could have been set as high as four times, but now she lowered it to half that. Each weapon was "only" going to fire two rounds, per weapon, per pull of the trigger. She was going to need to slow down her rate of fire. This was for two main reasons. One was heat, and the other was so that she could stick around on the battlefield longer. The heat from all of the AMS's systems was going to start climbing any second. She was the only target that the Cylons could see, and soon they would try to remove her from the battlefield with heavy weapons fire.

A clock was counting down, and when it told the Captain that the enemy was within range. She pulled up both arms and turned to fully expose her upper torso to the approaching enemy. She lined up on two of the approaching Pretorians as her first targets. One for the left arm, and one for the right arm. With one pull of the trigger, the battle was started.

The 6m tall Cylons were harder to kill than any other Cylons, besides a Basestar. The walking 40ton machines were not that fast, heavily armed, or as heavily armored as a SLDF machine of the same mass. It was just that there was a metric frak ton of them coming at her. And you had to take out the chest on each one of them, to take them out of the battle. The Class 5 HOD would take two or three solid hits, on average, to bring one down if they were using solid shot.

Her solid cannon shells were going down towards her targets, before she felt the recoil of the four rounds leaving her machine. The Cylons were quick off of the mark, and they sent a bunch of self-guided missiles back at her. She was working on taking out her third and fourth walking tank, when the first missile fired to hit her machines arrived. The Cylons could not or did not, fire their entire shoulder mounted rack at one time. The most anyone, which had lived, after having been fired on by one of them. All had said that they would fire no more than two missiles per rack per time. What would get you, was when 6 or 8 of the mini mechs fired 12 to 16 of them at you. All with only a pair of seconds between each groups of flying death.

Her laser AMSs covered her machine in an invisible grid, and they would try to take the missiles out of the air as they were picked up. It was always hoped that if the AMS could take out one of the attacking missiles? That the explosion would take out any nearby enemy missiles. Sometimes it did, and sometimes it did not. Her Modified Emperor started to shake, as the Cylon weapons removed bits of armor plate off of her machine. She was doing her job of being a missile magnet, while she took out most of the long shooters. To date no one had seen the Cylon Praetorian leave the battlefield to reload its missile racks.

The Emperor was moving left, right, forward and back as it fired its arm mounted cannons. She was always under partial cover of some kind, as she pulled the cannon trigger on her control stick. None of the other four mechs were seen or had fired into the closing wave of Cylons. When the Cylons were at the point, which the last attack wave had stopped and started to fall back. The Emperor started slowly walking backwards. She was trying to keep the distance open between her and the Cylons, but not get out of protective cover. She had already put down a dozen Praetorians that would not be getting up in the near future. At least not without a recovery vehicle.

The commander of the Cylon force might have thought, that the one machine was a delaying rear guard unit. With the mech starting to move away from the firing line it had been defending. The Cylons rushed the old defensive line with its fastest units, the 2.5m tall Centurions. The Cylon Centurion was not as obsolete as you might think, when it came down to fighting against battlemechs. They were an armored infantry unit from Hell. More than one Wolverine mech jock had died, when a metal Cylon had ripped open the hatch into their mech's cockpit. The blades would come out, and then so would the mech jock or tank crew, just in very little wet pieces. Then the Centurions would be turned into small pieces as the anti-tempering charge would blow the mech, tank, or aerofighter apart.

When you stepped on a "normal" PBI, with a mech of any size to include the small industrial mechs. It would stop attacking. Normally they would just sit there and bleed out on the ground after even a graze. When you stepped on a Centurion? It still would try to climb up your mech's foot and legs, to get to the human pilot. Even if it did not have anything left below the chest. Seeing this happen, had sent more than a few mech jocks and conventional vehicle crews to have a few long talks with the mental counselor.

With Captain Robinson's pull back to a prearranged point. The smaller Cylons started to run, just as she had planned. The light lance came up to fire from their hidden positions into the wave of over man sized Cylons. The smaller mechs swept the battlefield with small laser and machine guns weapons fire. While the light mechs targeted the smaller and unsupported Cylons. The Captain still took on the larger machines with her heavy weapons, and she was still be the blunt of the incoming missile fire. She had taken down two more Praetorians when she was reminded that she had forgotten something.

That little problems showed up, when a Tinmen fired and hit Captain Robinson dead in the chest in a crash and massive flash of light. Robinson had been looking at lining up her solid shooting autocannons. She was trying to remember if she had shot at one of them before, when her cockpit was awash in glare. Whatever had hit her had opened two of her autocannon ammunitions bays to the sky, and at the same time it removed about a third of her armor over her left chest. She looked up just in time to see one of the Tinmen that she had not noticed coming, fired all 6 of its turreted mounted heavy weapons. She only had time to flinch, and only 4 of the heavy shells hit her chest. The other two hit her right arm in a flash of weapons impact and shower of blasted armor plate. She looked at her armor schematic and winced. Those 180mm shells packed a Frak ton of a punch. Not only could they crack mech armor, they could damage internal components that did not have compromised armor.

"Sweep Lance! Do not let those Tinmen lock up on you. Those turret mounted cannons will put one of you down. Tinmen are Number One targets."

Captain Robinson put her words into action, and she lined up to put a pair of double rate fire Autocannons into the last tank to fire at her. She was rewarded with getting a pair of hits on the front and a single hit on the T shaped turret with the solid rounds. She had to keep moving and that was the only thing that saved her. The tank that she had just hit with three solid rounds, had fired 6 more heavy cannon rounds and sent a stream of rounds from the twin turret mounted low on the forward hull. The heavy rounds missed, but the twin KEW stitched a line of impacts down her right arm from elbow to fingers.

She switched to cluster rounds and jacked up the rate of fire. When she went to aim, her first target was still there. But a new Tinmen was a lot closer, and she took the new and more threatening tank under fire. When she pulled the trigger? She was rewarded with cluster rounds going down range, and that changed when a stomach turning Thunk! sounded threw her cockpit. Her right arm cannon stopped firing just a heartbeat before the left one.

In between the time it took her to look at the display, to find out what had happened to her right arm and look back up. The Cylon tank was a huge ball of flame. She had gone to cluster rounds to see if all of those hard darts could find a soft spot in the tank. And as it worked out, she found one or two. The targeted tank had been turned just slightly towards her, and three of the hard and fast metal darts had found one of the massive Gorgon Ground to Air missiles. It was not surprising that the fuel for such a large weapon did not react well to incoming enemy fire. The long weapon detonated under the abuse, and it both flipped and broke the tank into three parts. The forward and aft hull were now about 4meters apart, and the T turret was sitting on it's top hidden from view behind a wave of Praetorians and smaller Centurions.

When the wave of the faster Cylons was almost at the feet of the 90ton mech. The Lance would fall back and keep the 2.5m tall machines off of the company commander. The Mercury IIIs were able to do this with the pair of "hands", so that they did not have to "scratch" the armor with their smaller class weapons. Enough papercuts could still kill you. The Centurions had proven that time and time again. While the reinforced lance pulled back, the Captain activated and reactivated the "charging" arm to try to clear the jam in her Right Arm. So far, she had not been successful in getting half of her firepower back online.

It did not take long before the Mercury III's were out of machinegun ammunition, and then they had to fall back on their pair of second-generation medium pulse lasers. It had been found that the heavy MGs projectiles were the best way to take on and take out the massive numbers of smaller Cylons, and it was low heat. The Locust IIC's six arm mounted extended ranged small lasers did not run out of ammunition, but they could only take out one or two Centurions per hit. They did generate heat, and lots of it. Between that, and battle damage caused by the KEW's and the odd missiles to their thin armor. They were not putting out their maximum firepower after a short amount of close ranged combat. All the while, the group of five mechs was slowly falling back towards the grounded dropship. They were still loading people and animals as fast as they could, as the sounds of combat slowly got closer and closer.

All five mechs made it to the second line of defense. One of the Locusts was dragging one of its legs, like a person after a very bad snow skiing accident. One of the Mercury IIIs was missing an arm, after a Tinmen had been able to lock it up with its turret cannons. But they all made it to the next line of defense. The line was invisible, at least until you crossed it. This line had more people working on it, and they had longer to do the job. The time that the first line had bought them, was well spent.

Captain Robinson was the last one to cross the line, and she was only about five minutes in front of the remaining Cylons. She had just taken out the last of the Cylon tanks, only to see another dozen make the last turn into the valley. She was out of ammunition and almost out of armor plate, but she made it to the second line. The five machines took up a very visible, but effective defensible line behind the hidden line of defenders.

This line of defenders was heavier and with a lot more firepower. They would to be more than a speed bump for the Cylons. The lights were a pair of Mercury IIIs, then to one side was a 55ton Wolverine II or a real Wolverine IIC. It was not the underweight Conjurer that the clan used as a second line unit. Those 5 tons had been used to increase the survivability of the pilot. This machine was a replacement for a battle-damaged Wolverine III omni, there were never enough of the new omnis. The Wolverine IIC was an odd duck, which had been in production before the SLDF in Exile had left the rest of the Clans. In a few years it would be called Hellhound, by the militaries of the House Lords. All of those names fit the fast and tough machines.

The heavy hitter on this listed medium lance, was a modified Riflemen III omni, gone were her beagle probe and medium lasers. In their place were more heatsinks, so the assault mech could fire its laser weapons and autocannons longer, before heat became a problem. The smallest in mass of the combatants, but the largest in number had not been there when Captain Robinson had passed through the area. There were a dozen Colonials and SLDF army troops with SRM launchers and Mauser 960s. They were right on the front line and they had come off of the Fury class dropship. Not too far behind them, were four cargo trucks with mounted 12.5mm machine guns. They had brought the ground troops here, from a security detachment somewhere behind them.

The mission for the Colonials and SLDF army troopers, after they fired off their hard-hitting shoulder launched pair of short-range missiles. They were to help the pair of Mercury IIIs, to keep what was left of the Centurions off the other two mechs on the main line of defense. They could be like an ant swarm on an elephant. The trucks were there, for when it was time to pull back the slow-moving ground troopers of this line of defense. It was a well-known fact that you can't outrun Centurions on foot. This line of defense needed to remove any remaining heavy weapons from the Cylon part of the battle.

The Riflemen was still scanning the skies, but reports coming in from the dropships on the ground and the Styx over their heads made the scanning irrelevant. All of them had said that so far, all of the Cylon air support was busy fighting the SLDF navy out in deep space. That was okay with the Air Defense mech. They could use its giant shot gun cannons on ground targets even better than against skeet. It was just a matter of finding the right angle, to get the grazing fire just right. Or just the wrong angle, if that fire was coming your way.

When the Cylons showed up. They were again in one wave of death, but it was moving more slowly by now. The Cylons had learned already, that their larger Praetorians needed support from their smaller centurion and larger Tinmen. This played right into the hands of the second line of defense. The Wolverine IIC second generation large pulse laser, and the Riflemen's twin class 5 ultra LB-X and Clan Large pulse laser mounted in each arm far out ranged any weapon that the Cylons had left on the field today.

In English, this meant that the Cylons were in the kill box longer. Then they found out a new surprise that the humans had waiting for them. This was one of the few times, that all of the infantry could play their games. Land mines started to explode along the front of the attacking wave of Cylons. It did not slow the attacking Cylons down by even a half of a step. What it did do? It was to thin out the Centurions and human forms even more while they were out of range of even the SLDF weapons.

After the Cylons had entered to a distance, that they could fire their KEW's effectively. The battle changed again on them. Where the first line had been more static, in depth of the defense and one that Cylons had seen before. This lance used its speed to shatter the attacking Cylon machines. The battlemech broke into mixed pairs and jumped or raced across the battlefield. The larger machines were taking out the larger Cylons, and the light mechs were machine-gunning down the smaller Cylons in job lots. The first line of human defenders had taken a lot of missile hits, but the number of Cylons meant that they still had a lot more to have to endure.

While the SLDF was taking on the main body of attacking Cylons. Captain Robinson sent the damaged lance of light mechs farther back. They only took out one probing attack of Cylons on this second line. Only two sets of attackers could cover only so much terrain. She had a feeling, that she was going to need them down the road. Besides the light lance had taken enough damage, that they all were now moving a lot slower than they should.

She was about to close in on a mixed group of Cylons making another break for the defensive line around the edge of the heavier defending lance. She had forgotten about the ground pounders, but she would be glad that she had her battle recorders playing. A large group of human forms and Centurions supported by a few Praetorians and by a lone Tinman charged the line. And all looked good to them, that is until two dozen rockets came out of hiding on smoky trails.

Each of the ground personnel had picked one Pretorian and had used the laser designators to mark or claim their targets. Not all of the missiles hit, but the Colonials and the Army had spent a lot of time training with their weapons. They were not going to have a repeat, of under trained personnel dying to defend the fleet. Every one of the dozen or so 40ton machines was hit with at least one of the short-ranged rockets. The Tinman had taken hits from 3 of the 4 missiles launched at it. Recent history had shown that those few missiles should not have taken out something that large fighting for the Cylons.

The rockets that the ground pounders were using were not filled with explosives, but something a little bit "hotter". Just like the Raiders and Heavy Raiders, the Cylons had been using since the surprise attack. The walking tanks were known to have a good-sized biological section, as its controller. The liquid lead cooled fission reactor was hot, and it was not just radioactive hot. It was cooking an egg hot, not long after it was fired up. There were reports that said they would reach almost 500 degrees C only an hour after starting up. If that engine was hit the wrong way, and it was breached? Well, let's just say that this event was best seen from a distance and with a very well-made lead lined suit. The Tinman had an internal combustion engine, and every good Finn knows how to take something like that out on the battlefield.

A biologic life form can only "live" below a hard-sustained temperature number of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. They can live above that temperature for a limited amount of time, before it needs to find someplace to cool down after prolong exposure. After so long in combat or running their machines at or very near the maximum output of those machines for over two hours. The heat in those machines was already a little over 100 degrees F in the cockpit sections, and alot higher in other areas of the machines. That was why the Colonials had used inferno rockets instead of explosive ones. This was the first mass use of those warheads, and it was a test to see how they would work in a mass setting.

The white smoke rockets corkscrewed to impact on the 6m tall war-machines. Waves of flaming liquid covered the machines from each of the weapons strikes. It did not take long for the heat to be transferred, first to the delicate electronics near the flames. Then the heat started to be spread to even the more sensitive, biologic control center.

The Bio forms in the Cylons mechs were dog smart, just like the Raiders, and just like dogs. They did not understand why they were in pain. It was just that they were in pain, and it didn't know what to do to get the pain to stop. One by one and then two by twos. The Cylon mechs fell to the ground, some would thrash around, and others would not. This attack was supported by an upgraded Resurrection ship, so almost all of the Cylons would be saved that died in combat. That group of Cylons would carry the horror of being cooked to death, into their next lives and the ones that followed. In less than a year after this battle. They all would be boxed and replaced in other mechs or bodies, due to some "issues" with higher Cylon command.

The Tinman tank's bio from was better protected from fire, more by accident of a long dead human design team than any real plan. The three SRM's loaded with flame jell left three small flame lakes or pools of blue and orange fire. They spread around by gravity, and motion of the tank as it covered the ground looking for humans to kill. It looked like the flames were not going to stop this beast. Then on the back deck one of the flaming pools started to be pulled by the air rushing around it. Almost slowly the flames were pulled across the metal hull by an invisible hand.

At some magic point that was defined by high-level math, the flaming liquid jumped up off of the deck and was sucked into the engine compartment. As any mechanic will tell you, open flames of any kind are not good for an engine. Most engines can handle heat up to a few hundred degrees, but flames add a second design challenge. Computer controls, plastic ducts, and rubber lines started to melt. It didn't take long for a hydraulic line to start to spray a fine mist. Even Iron will burn if it is in a fine enough form. This type of hydraulic fluid did not need to be in that fine of a mist to react to the open flames. The whole back of the tank turned into a massive fireball. It would only take a few more seconds for those flames to reached something a lot more energetic than hydraulic fluid. Maybe it was a design flaw to have those two large missiles exposed on the outside of the tank ready to fire.

There was a massive thunderclap of an explosion that announced a massive red, orange, black and grey cloud. The 75ton tank was blown in to slightly used parts, only dropped once. That drop might have been from a few thousand feet in the air, but they only were dropped once. The energy of the Tinman coming apart was enough to take out the last two walking few Praetorians in that group of attacking Cylons.

The ground troops had not just been setting and watching, what their paired missiles had done to the enemy. As soon as the missiles had left the tubes, the launchers hit the dirt. Then up came the Mausers, and they started firing pulse laser blast into the still closing normal sized Cylons. It did not take long for those dozen men and women to use lasers blast and grenades to wipe out three times their number of Cylons. It would be they, who stopped this breakout attempt of the Cylon ground forces. They were the ones that stopped the Cylons advance for another two hours, the mechs just took out the larger and slower types of Cylons.

When the next attempt of the Cylons to break the line had been stopped, and after a long break of no shooting. The Colonials and other ground troopers had made a break for the nearby trucks. Captain Robinson thought they were pulling out. It was the logical move, and it was according to the orders that she had reviewed. After she had found out they had deployed to her area, she had made sure that they knew were the Fury class dropship was located.

That was not what she saw them do. Empty missile launchers went back into the cargo trucks, and out came more launchers along with what looked like battery packs from her point of view. Before she could contact them on the radio, to find out what they were doing. They had broken up into two-person hunter killer teams and were moving towards the Cylon's lines. They were not done with this battle, even if the Cylons wanted to take a little break.

Adie Hermes was one of the orphans in the fleet and was now eighteen, or he could pass for eighteen anyway. That was all that matter to him, that and a full stomach. He had killed his first person not long after the fleet had finished that special kind of hell, of jumping every 33 minutes to keep away from the Cylon fleet. It had been a predator, and it targeted the weakest among the human race. It would not be stocking the fleet anymore, and that was thanks to Adie. By the time the fleet had found New Circe. He had killed two more people and hurt a few more, which needed it for the betterment of the human race.

Now, no one messed with him. He could have led his own gang in the quickly growing city, but he did not want to prey on his fellow humans. He had a strong almost overwhelming desire to kill Cylons, and to kill lots of them. He had tried out to be a Viper pilot, just like everyone else had in the Fleet and City State. He had failed badly. He just did not have the school background, to compete for those few slots. And he did not have the natural skills, to get one of the few waivers that the Admiral made sure were available to all of those who had broken families but the right natural skills.

He had taken to any military training, like a fish to water. After he "finished" the minimal education requirements, he had joined the military full time. He had just been mad as frak, that they made him wait that long. He turned out to be great with heavy weapons, and he took to the new shoulder launched short ranged missile with glee. The City-State was copying the design of them off of a set of hardware, which had come back from the first supply run. He knew with pride, that he had hit his target, with both missiles. Now he and one of the Marines that had been on the Battlestar Pegasus, were teamed up to go forward in front of the SLDF Mechs. They knew that they were called hunter-killer teams, and the thought made Adie smile.

The older woman was packing one of the few SLDF pulse lasers the City State had access to. She would keep the Centurions off his back, while he hunted for bigger game. It was a good team, and they worked very well together, in all the training they had undertaken before coming to Nike's World. Now with a fresh set of launchers, he turned to her with a smile and threw her a thumbs up. In his mind he didn't know what he wanted to try for first. A Rhino or Praetorian, that was going to be hard to decide on what to "look" for.

They were moving off at a dog trot without a word being said between them. It was going to take them some time, to catch up to the slowly pulling back enemy. When they were close enough to a target. Adie would motion to his partner, to let her know that he had a target worth their time. When he was ready? He would put two inferno missiles as close as he could to the biologic control center or onto the shoulder mounted missile racks. He would just need to see what got him the best results.

On their third return to the truck for this team. They found that all of the missiles had been used and only the empty launchers were in the missile boxes. That did not stop Team Hermes in the hunt to kill more Cylons. He took a rack mounted Blazer rifle, and they went out again. That weapons choice was going to affect them hunting large Cylons, but they had three kills so far. The targeting the missile racks had been effective and very satisfying.

Captain Robinson reported back to the flag ship, that the Cylons were pulling back to their landing area. They had stopped the first attack, but she did not think that this would be the last attack on her second defensive line. She ordered the lance to pull back, to their now visible defensive line that the scout lance had used to draw the Cylons in. It was harder to pull the Colonials back to the main defensive line, than she could believe. They had a bone in their teeth, and they were not going to let it go as long as they could see Cylons.

At least most of them would come back, but not without a lot of yelling. The foot infantry made it about a mile deeper into the Cylon's lines, before they realized that they were without support from the mechs. Then they started to drift back to the SLDF lines. Now they were not happy, about being left out on their own. The mech company commander had simply told them next time? They needed to pay better attention to their comms, and then they would not end up flapping in the breeze in front of the enemy.

Now with the local area under control of the SLDF. She was able to think, and more importantly she could plan. She first pulled further back the Colonials, after telling them what a great job they had done. They were going back to the next line or third line of defense, that had been planned for. Next to pull back was the slowest mechs, hers and the Riflemen. When the heavy metal had reached the new line. The Wolverine IIC would start its move back. The last two machines to shift position, were the light machines. By then It was dark, and they pulled back without the Cylons knowing that it had happened. A few decoys were left behind, that made it look like a lance of mechs were still blocking the valley.

When the battle had started today. This last line of defense had only been held by three Riflemen IIIs omni set up for counter ground operations and the Scout Spector. The line was now thickened up and then spread out, as more and more units were added to the defensive line. Captain Robinson's whole command, except for the pair of Locust that were under repair in the Union, were on the line. Even the ground troops were in defensive points spread out with a fresh load of ammunition for their pulse lasers and SRM launchers. After a few hours of nothing going on. She stood half of her people down, so that some of them could get some sleep. It had been a long day, and she was thinking that tomorrow was going to be just as long. A set of techs flowed over her machine replacing damage armor and broken weapons, as soon as she settled into a position on this third line.

When the sun came up the next day over the local area, and a second attack did not come. Captain Robinson was ordered to send out her scouts. They needed to find out what was going on, it was not like the Cylons to delay in attacking known human location. It anything they kept attacking, until they ran out of lower units or all of the human forms had been killed.

She sent out the newly repaired Locusts, both of the pilots had the most sleep of anyone in her command. The Spector went looking a few hours later, and quickly reported a group of humans hiding in the nearby woods. No one knew if they were humans, or if they were some human form Cylons setting up some kind of trap or ambush. A ground team would have to be sent out to check on them later. The fast laser armed machines went out on three different bearings, but the end point was the same for all three machines. It was going to the field, which the Cylons had landed the converted colonial liners in.

The pair of Locusts had been gone for only a few hours on the second mission of the day, when they reported contact. The Cylons were hunting down humans. The little scout mech had run into one group, and they were being hunted by a mixed team of male human forms and metal Centurions with fire support. There were not that many people, that had planned on staying. And they were spread out over the whole planet in small groups. The single Locust had been able to take out the single praetorian, and a half dozen Centurions, but not before they had killed a homestead that four people had called home for who knew how many generations.

Before she could be ordered, to send all of her scouts out, she flushed everyone. She kept all of the heavier machines closer to the still loading dropships, in case this was a lure to leave the dropships and still loading cargo open to attack. The war now shifted from a large set piece battle, to a war of scouts and small units of Cylons. In one of the footnotes of the War of Nike's World. It was noted that even the Colonial born tech crew went looking for Cylons when they were off shift. The Ground Commander broke up Colonial and SDF ground units into four teams. Each team was centered around a truck, and out they went to do battle with the Cylons and try to save or recover as many of the locals as they could.

When she did report the news of the attack on locals, and that she had sent out her scouts to counter this. She was told that the last Colonial ship had launched with a "full" load during the night. During one of these lifts of the Colonial ships, one of the modified Cylon controlled liners launched into pursuit of the Colonial ship full of new refugees. That attacking landing ship had run right into the guns of the Modified Tramp Class ship named after a river, used by Hades. Tartarus was were the modified liner had ended up after that run in.

Notes

Cylon tank, rhino, or Tinmen. BAR 7 or 8, and around 75 tons with ICE powered. Turret mounted 6 x Heavy recoilless cannons on main turret, 1 x Twin ground based long barreled 25mm KEW on forward hull, and 2 ready to fire Gorgon long ranged Anti Air missiles. Armored as hard as a Scorpion tanks, 30kph cruising speed. 180mm RCL with 48 rounds. Each round massing about 60kg to fire a 28kg HE or HEAT warhead.

Why all of the unique mechs? I got tired of waiting for TRO Golden Century.

Locust IIC. I would have preferred to have a Piranha, but the Wolverines do not have the resources to invent it. It is still a few years away, even in Clan space.

Sling omni. 25tons Clan XL 175, Clan grade Ferro-Fibrous armor, Clan Endo-Steel and 10 DHS. No fixed jump jets and the rest is open mass.

Rifleman III omni. 80 tons Clan XL 320, Clan grade Ferro-Fibrous armor, Clan Endo-Steel and 10 DHS. No fixed jump jets and the rest is open mass.

Wolverine III omni. 55tons Clan XL 275, Clan grade Ferro-Fibrous armor, Clan Endo-Steel and 10 DHS. No fixed jump jets and the rest is open mass.

SLDF BN (reinforced): 2 Unions, 1 Lion, 1 Confederate, and 1 Fury class dropship. 36 battlemechs, 12 light vehicles, 4 inf platoons made up of a mix of Colonials and Clan Wolverine personnel. (random rolled on Dropships SLDF)

Prototype 2nd gen LBX Ultra 5. It takes the HOD but adds revolver tech, like you would find in the US M39 or GIAT 30 to boost the rate of fire. It's a RAC without the added long barrels. But it will jam more at the higher rates of fire.

The Spector: It is based off of a SPR-4F, only with clan tech weapons. It is a first line mech and would get first crack at any updated weapons. They did not want to risk all of those stealth systems, so the old armor would stay the same.

The makeup of the lances. First lance was randomly rolled with 4 light mechs. The second one also randomly rolled with 1 Assault, 1 Medium, and 2 Lights. The last lance is an assault Lance with 4 Assault weight mechs.

Nike as I see her: This was done by someone else and it was posted to the original AU.

Model/Name: M5 Caspar Drone (Wolverine) SLS Nike

Tech: Clan / 3025

Vessel Type: WarShip

Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Rules Set: AeroTech2

Mass: 782.000 tons

K-F Drive System: (Unknown)

Length: 653 meters

Sail Diameter: 1.127 meters

Power Plant: Standard

Safe Thrust: 4

Maximum Thrust: 6

Armor Type: Lamellor Ferro-carbide

Armament:

20 NL55

20 AR10 Launcher

2 Killer Whale

2 White Shark

32 LBX Ultra AC/5*

32 LR PPC*

32 Medium Pulse Laser

32 Laser AMS

8 Barracuda

40 LRM 20+ArtIV

8 NL45

Class/Model/Name: M5 Caspar Drone (Wolverine) SLS Nike

Mass: 782.000 tons

Equipment: Mass

Power Plant, Drive & Control: 187.680,00

Thrust: Safe Thrust: 4

Maximum Thrust: 6

Kearny-Fuchida Hyperdrive: Compact (Integrity = 16) 353.855,00

Lithium Fusion Battery 7.820,00

Jump Sail: (Integrity = 4) 69,00

Structural Integrity: 70 54.740,00

Total Heat Sinks: 2.200 Double 1.543,00

Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 10.200,00

Bridge, Controls, Radar, Computer & Attitude Thrusters: 1.955,00

Fire Control Computers: 2.418,00

Food & Water: (271 days supply) 193,50

Hyperpulse Generator: 50,00

Armor Type: Lamellor Ferro-carbide (1.246 total armor pts) 1.094,50

Capital Scale Armor Pts

Location: L / R

Fore: 232

Fore-Left/Right: 207/207

Aft-Left/Right: 207/207

Aft: 186

Cargo:

Bay 1: Fighters (12) with 4 doors 1.800,00

Fighters (12) with 4 doors 1.800,00

Bay 2: Small Craft (4) with 2 doors 800,00

Cargo (1) 4.316,00

Bay 3: Distributed Dataprocessor Core (1) 50,00

Distributed Dataprocessor Core (1) 50,00

Bay 4: Distributed Dataprocessor Core (1) 50,00

Distributed Dataprocessor Core (1) 50,00

Bay 5: Advanced WarShip ECM Suite (1) 5.000,00

Bay 6: Nuclear Weapons Locker (1) with 1 door 4.000,00

DropShip Capacity: 2 Docking Hardpoints 2.000,00

Life Boats: 12 (7 tons each) 84,00

Escape Pods: 12 (7 tons each) 84,00

Crew and Passengers:

5 Officers (51 minimum) 50,00

20 Crew (196 minimum) 140,00

50 Marine Battle Armor Troopers/Elementals 350,00

68 Bay Personnel ,00

Weapons and Equipment Loc SRV MRV LRV ERV Heat Mass

4 NL55 Nose 22 22 22 22 340 4.400,00

4 AR10 (10 KW, 10 WS, 20 B)Nose * * * * 80 2.500,00

2 Killer Whale(20 msls) Nose 14 14 14 14 40 1.300,00

2 White Shark(20 msls) 30 1.040,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundNose 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 4 52,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundNose 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 4 52,00

4 LR PPC* Nose 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 72 24,00

4 LR PPC* Nose 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 72 24,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser Nose 3(28) 3(28) - - 16 8,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser Nose 3(28) 3(28) - - 16 8,00

4 Laser AMS Nose - - - - 48 6,00

4 Laser AMS Nose - - - - 48 6,00

3 NL55 FL/R 17 17 17 17 510 6.600,00

2 Barracuda(20 msls) FL/ 40 1.560,00

4 AR10 (20 KW, 20 WS, 30 B)FL/R * * * * 160 7.400,00

10 LRM 20+ArtIV(1002 roundsFL/R 16(160)16(160)16(160) - 120 454,00

4 NL45 L/RBS 18 18 18 18 560 7.200,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundL/RBS 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 8 104,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundL/RBS 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 8 104,00

4 LR PPC* L/RBS 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 144 48,00

4 LR PPC* L/RBS 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 144 48,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser L/RBS 3(28) 3(28) - - 32 16,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser L/RBS 3(28) 3(28) - - 32 16,00

4 Laser AMS L/RBS - - - - 96 12,00

4 Laser AMS L/RBS - - - - 96 12,00

3 NL55 AL/R 17 17 17 17 510 6.600,00

2 Barracuda(20 msls) AL/ 40 1.560,00

4 AR10 (20 KW, 20 WS, 30 B)AL/R * * * * 160 7.400,00

10 LRM 20+ArtIV(1002 roundsAL/R 16(160)16(160)16(160) - 120 454,00

4 NL55 Aft 22 22 22 22 340 4.400,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundAft 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 4 52,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundAft 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 4 52,00

4 LR PPC* Aft 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 72 24,00

4 LR PPC* Aft 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 72 24,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser Aft 3(28) 3(28) - - 16 8,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser Aft 3(28) 3(28) - - 16 8,00

4 Laser AMS Aft - - - - 48 6,00

4 Laser AMS Aft - - - - 48 6,00

1 Lot Spare Parts (1,00%) 7.820,00

1 Colonial FTL drive 78.200,00

1 Colonial Grav Plating 150,00

TOTALS: Heat: 4.170 782.000,00

Tons Left: ,00

Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: C-Bills

Battle Value: 135.177

Cost per BV: 88.210,2

Weapon Value: 91.955 (Ratio = ,68)

Damage Factors: SRV = 4.021; MRV = 3.582; LRV = 2.276; ERV = 783

Maintenance: Maintenance Point Value (MPV) = 439.188

(63.122 Structure, 230.216 Life Support, 145.850 Weapons)

Support Points (SP) = 30.385 (7% of MPV)