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.

41. Chapter 41 15 Feb 3049

Chapter 41

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

15 Feb 3049

Nike's World Back in Space

Robert has had very little sleep for the last few days. By luck? His ship had been on the other side of the planet, when the Cylons had micro-jumped into the very high atmosphere/low orbit of the planet he was orbiting around. Robert had not been able to do anything, as the Cylons maybe landing ships popped into existence. What he could do, was use his two small craft. They had been able to keep an eye on the enemy landing zone from the safety of high orbit. They did lower overflights every few hours, and the data was pumped to the flagship of this operation. The Zug and the Caspar were hunting down the Cylon Basestars or groups of Cylon small craft that tried to interfere with the evacuation. It was not going as well as Captain Ferry had hoped. This new class of Basestar was a whole new type of warfare. So far, the Caspar was doing better than the larger McKenna about scoring hits on the beast. Still none of those hits had been a knockout blow.

Robert felt helpless and he knew his crew did also. When the massive number of ground base Cylons started to move, his reports reached the Flagship before the ground-based commanders had. It was not as detailed as the ground force, but it was there first. This just meant that he had longer to stew on not being able to do anything about it. If he had the Hobgoblin? He could have launched a few airstrikes against the masses of Cylons moving across the open fields. If he had trained attack crews, for his 2 small craft? He would have sent them down to see what trouble they could cause. Instead all he could do was sit in orbit and wait for the dropships to launch.

All day he had watched and into the night, but he still could do nothing. He was missing more and more not having the Hobgoblin around, to use its fighters to launch a few attacks. The one bit of good news was that the next grounded Colonial ships had started to report that they were nearing to be full. It was not long after these reports came in, that those same ships were lifting off the planet.

The Colonial ships had by in large not been able to pull everyone from their home worlds, when the Cylons had launched the surprise attack. Without talking to any of the other ship's skippers, to see what they wanted to do. They had decided, on their own. That they were not going to lift off this planet unless they were taking fire or were filled to capacity at the red line level of their life support equipment. So far, the only areas threaten by the Cylons were the ones defended by the SLDF ground forces with the three large dropships. By midnight on the Styx's ships clock. The last interstellar Colonial ship had lifted off the planet. It was the last ship that launched, that things had changed on the ground.

One of the Cylon liner/landing ships had lifted off in pursuit of the fleeing Colonial crewed ship filled with the families of the locals. The nice thing about being in high orbit? It was, that it was hard for anyone at the bottom of the gravity well to surprise you.

Robert had no idea that he was sleeping, until the Radar operator sounded off and he almost jumped out of his seat. "Radar contact, a lift off from the Cylon landing zone."

Before Robert could ask a question, or for his brain to fully come online, more information comes into his command center. "Sir! We have an Olympic Carrier class ship lifting. It looks like she is trying to close in on the Astral Queen. She just lifted off with a full load of civilians and local cargo!"

Now Robert's mind was going at full speed. He was a combat trained SLDF Naval officer after all. He just played a Merchant convoy commander for the Inner Sphere. "Put it on the plotter! And get the Landing Boats ready!" He might not have a heavy fighter squadron, but that did not mean that he didn't have some teeth in a purely space environment.

Robert rose and walked to the main plotting table, as the information was plotted. His eyebrows went up and he did some heavy math in his head. Then he reran the numbers on the computer near that station, and they came up almost exactly the same. He picked up the phone and contacted the fleeing Colonial ship. It took about five minutes, but he convinces the other ship's master to follow along with his rudimentary idea. It was not even a real plan, but it was the best shot he had to do two jobs at once. And you never know, it might just work.

The ex-prison ship shifted its course by just a few degrees when the radio meeting was over. It was so small of a course change. That it was not very likely, that the human forms at the controls of the converted liner knew why the course had been adjusted. Or it could have been that they did notice the change, but they felt that it was not something to worry about. The Queen went to full power on her plasma engines and she went "under" the SLDF vessel, and then it jumped away from this star system. It could have jumped out well before this point in space. What did this delay accomplish? It was that this left the Tramp class dead in front of the on rushing Cylon piloted vessel.

With the ship load of civilians gone and out of the line of fire of the Cylons, Robert was ready to act. From behind the long ship, two Mark VIIs landing boats flew out of the shadow of the jumpship. These Mark VII landing boats were not the same vessels, which the Styx had carried closer to Earth. These craft were newer, and they were built to a full clan standard of weapons technology. They might mass 150 tons and carry 31 tons of cargo in its protective hull. But they each had the weapons load out, that was better than most medium class fighters the House units had access to even to that day.

The pair of craft came burning out from behind the Styx. The jumpship fired off its nearest facing second generation extended range large lasers at the enemy vessel. The fire control systems on the modified jumpship, was able to target the on rushing converted passenger liner with ease. Just as fast as the computer had the information. The weapons fired and they were able to strike the liner at long range for these types of weapons. The Styx was just lucky that the Cylon ship was not packing Capital scale Cylon missiles. That would have cut down on the amount of forces the converted liners could carry to the surface.

This was when the battle computers on the Styx and Battleship found out some more information about the Cylon manned liners. The Liners had not only been converted to carry a mixed Cylon landing force, but they also had put some additional armor on the outer hull of the liners. They had also added four box missile launchers. They might have been taken from old Raiders, which had been lost or otherwise not in service. When the Styx fired on the approaching ship. It had quickly returned fire on the odd-looking ship off of the Cylon's bow. The missiles were only the same size as what the Raiders could carry, but Cylons made very good missiles.

Deep in space. The Number Two at the controls fired his entire load of missiles, at the craft that had blocked him from reaching his prey. Clouds of particles were left behind the missiles, as each missile decided how best to kill their assigned target. There were limited choices and soon the missiles "clumped" together, and this was okay by them. At least as far as the weapons systems of the Styx were concerned.

While the missiles were still closing on the human ship. The Styx was able to hit the Cylon controlled vessel, with three more raking attacks by the clan tech lasers. Now after about a dozen hard hits from those laser weapons. The Cylon modified ship was starting to vent atmosphere, and other loose items from within her hull. One laser strike had hit something flammable, and it looked like a massive fire was burning in the 800foot long vessel. Now it was the turn of the two attacking small craft, to see what they could do to the Cylon vessel with their weapons. They had been in a loop, building up all of the speed that the fusion engine could turn out. This built up speed made them faster than any Cylon missiles known to exist.

The twin craft had to get very close to the converted liner, so that the second-generation medium pulse lasers could hit with enough force to do "real" damage on the vessel. This also had brought them into range of a dozen 30mm KEW's on the modified liners. The soft and slow rounds didn't do that much damage to the heavily armored SLDF small craft.

It only took one pass, before the liner was dead in space as a spaceship. It was soon in small pieces, after the laser fire had set off the ship's thinly armored covered fuel tanks. This area of the liner had been up armed as well. But it would seem, that the Cylons had not learned that much about the power of human made DEWs. Now all that the two craft had to do, was see if their ride out of this system was still there for them.

The dozens of Cylon missiles came slashing into the old jumpship at high speed. They had not been affected by any of the SLDF ship mounted jamming systems. But to contact the hull and do any real damage? They had to pass one last bit of a hurdle, which the old SLDF made sure this ship had been equipped with. That was in the form of a half dozen old style ammunition fed anti missiles systems. When the self-contained radar on those systems told them to fire? They did, and streams of hard metal bullets flew away from the armed ships in short streams of heat and light. It only took one bullet from all of those bullets in a stream to take out even a Cylon missile.

The missiles were flying very close together, and when one missile was hit by a hard projectile? Its fuel and warhead would detonate as only Colonial and Cylon missiles could. This would take out any missiles around it. This depleted some of the firepower of the attack, but it did not stop them all. Eight missiles struck the long vessel, in a rippling attack. Robert had been lucky that among the missiles that were taken out, were the two nuclear tipped weapons launched at it. They had been hidden in the missile wave attack, hoping that they would survive any counter fire. Luck was on the human's side, this time.

Robert and his bridge crew were strapped into their chairs, with the helmets down and locked on their spacesuits. They had been watching the wave of missiles closing, and it didn't take much brain power to know. That it was going to be hard to stop all of those incoming messengers of death. When the numbers started falling as the AMS did their jobs, the crew breathed a little easier. Just when the missiles reached their target. They were hit and hit again, and each one shook the people inside the metal can of a ship.

Warning lights brightened up all over the place around the bridge, as the hull was cracked. If this ship had been a Star Lord or other "normal" civilian jumpship, she would have been in trouble. The Styx outer hull held; unlike the liner they had targeted. The Styx, when she had been first built. They had foreseen the possibility that ships of her class might be fired on. These little things were what protected the ship, from the pinpricks of damage all along her length.

Robert was looking around the different readouts, when the shaking stopped. "Contact Flag and let them know about the modifications on those tubs. Also tell Captain Ferry, that we will pass along an updated damage report in an hour. Right now? It looks like we are good to go, when the dropships are ready to blow this fruit stand." Robert had given his orders and now he only needed to wait to see what was going to happen.

Robert was reading a report, when he overheard one of the bridge crew asking a question. "So when was the last time, a civilian jumpship was able to sink another jumpship?"

Robert's head snapped up and looked around the bridge. It didn't take but a second of looking around to figure out who might have spoken. The red face, neck, and ears was a good giveaway. "That is a good question. And as far as I can remember, right now. It was during the run from clan space. Don't count on getting a line in the Remembrance, for just doing a good job." He let his voice get lighter, to take the sting out of his words. 99.9999 percent of his people would do anything to be granted a line in the oral and written history of their people.

For three more days, this system was a battleground that stretched from the ort cloud too deep into the planet's forest. More people were pulled off the planet, than had been in what the first plan had called for. Being invaded by thinking machines? Ones that wanted to wipe out all your family and friends, has a way of doing that. Also, people running for their lives tended to have less baggage and want to board ships a lot faster than normal. They also stopped hiding their real population numbers from the SLiE

No one that wanted off this planet and made it to a human ship, was left behind. It had not been a bloodless campaign for the humans. The SLDF ground forces losses were right at forty percent, in personnel and machines. Every wrecked body and mech was recovered from the planet before the last ships lifted off the planet. The light mech forces had been almost wiped out, with only one Mercury III still functioning under its own power propelled on two more or less functional legs. Not one of the mech or light vehicles in the four companies would be truly listed as combat ready. Many were reported as only being good for parts donors, and they would need to be sent back to the main depot for complete rebuilding.

The light and medium weight machines had been operating alone over a broad arc, and they had been swamped in a sudden wave of Cylons. One Locust and one Mercury III had their anti Cylon device fired, before help could arrive for the pilots. There was nothing to be recovered from those two mechs, but information. That information? It was that the anti Cylon capture device worked…very well against the pair of nearby praetorians. There were also losses for the conventional ground forces in the form of infantry, 4 light tanks, and two hover trucks with their crews. All of the bodies were recovered, but it still hurt the small units the Fury had dropped.

The space battle had also taken its toll on the SLDF aerofighters. But they had taken out a huge number of Cylons, before they had died or were rendered combat ineffective. Almost all of the craft had been recovered, but not all. The SLDF was bleeding equipment, highly trained and irreplaceable personnel at a steady rate. All to recover a few hundred thousand Victorian era steam powered personnel and ranch animals. And every member of the mission was proud of what they had been able to accomplish. This was an expensive mission so far, but maybe it was about to change.

After the first Cylon converted liner had tried to take off. A few bombing runs had been made by two pairs of jump fighters on the landing zone. The Cylon liners were not going anywhere, for now. The downside was that it was notice that the Cylons did not seem to mind about the loss of these craft. The only functional Cylon ships that were still in system, were the now much damaged Basestars that were left operational at the edge of the system. They were staying well away from the Nike and the Zug. Colonel Gao and Captain Ferry had worked out that they were waiting on something, and they had pulled all of their ships back in very close to the planet to support the evacuation.

The Two Mammoths and all but one of the Unions had left the planet by the third day. Now the Bovine was not just carrying livestock. Now she also carried a mix of humans with the four-legged animals she had been modified to carry. The remaining Union was using the open space of the emptied mech bays and depleted repair parts storage areas, to carry anything that could be packed into them safely. The Colonel and her senior staff could read the numbers, and they were not likeing that they were going to have to leave all of this good salvage behind. But it was a question of people or salvage. All of the data and updated briefings had been sent back to higher command via the HPG built into both of the large warships. The Colonel and her staff had worked out that getting all of the unarmed people out of the Cylons way was the most important. This plan had won out, hands down when High Command replied. Metal was something they could get lots of places.

The little fleet of three SLDF ship's crews had a collective heart attack, when the modified sensors on the Zug detected an incoming jump. The little SLDF fleet only had 60 seconds warning, but it was enough to at least get the weapons ready to fire, and to have the fighter crews running toward their craft. With luck it was not a Cylon fleet jumping into high orbit around the planet, but two more SLDF ships. The two ships were the most massive warships that the SLDF Navy had left to field.

The Bis and the Beast were the two ships nicknames. The Beast had been working on the reputation that Cain had ruined, but she still had an uphill battle. The Beast had come along way under Captain Adama. Taking a few nuclear hits on the nose of your ship tends to do that, or it was radiation sickness from the radiation enhanced weapons used against the rest of the human race. The Pegasus had taken those hits to protect one of the shiploads of civilians that had volunteered to leave the planet before this last effort.

Colonel Gao had been keeping SLDF Command informed about what had been going on with the built-in HPG on the massive ship. She had no idea what was being done with the information, but now it would seem that it had not fallen on deaf ears. Before the two warships contacted the local Flagship, six of the eight dropships that were carried on the great battleship Bismarck and Pegasus started burning towards the planet.

Gibson was looking at the read outs and he could not work out what was going on. Out of the corner of his right eye, he could see that Nike was looking at him. She was tapping the toe of her left shoe at a steady rate. It was a sure sign that she knew something, but she was waiting to be asked what she knew. That meant that it was not life or death information, but it could be important. Alan let out a breath and shakes his head.

"Okay Nike, give. What are they up to, I have no clue?" Gibson even threw his hands up into the air to show his frustration.

The Avatar gave a sly grin, the waiting had been killing her. Now it was an okay time to make her Captain work for it. "I should make you beg."

Alan let his voice go hard. "Bondswoman!"

The female with black eyes smiled and she tried to look apologetic, and utterly failed. "Okay, the six dropships are burning towards the Cylon landing field. The dropships are mostly cargo ships, but the upgraded Triumph can carry a mix of mech and vehicles. I think that they are carrying heavy salvage equipment. If they can pull even one of the jump drives out of the liners? This mission would be gang busters successful. Currently, there are not any major groups of Cylons within 400kms of the wrecked Cylon landing ships."

She stopped talking, looked down for a second and then looked back up at her Captain. "We are being sent a message from flag."

Even with Nikes computers. It took a few seconds to run the complicated decoding software, and to put the message through its paces. "We are being ordered to cover the operations on the planet below." The tone she used let Alan know, that she was not really happy with those orders.

Alan's eyes flew to the damage diagram on one screen. There were not any red zones, but they were more than a few amber ones spread out on the ship's armor schematics. "Did they say how long they were planning on taking for this operation? query affirmative? It's not like we have been in a running battle for almost a week already, are anything like that."

Now Nike could have used this opening to pull his chain, but she quickly decides it was too much of a risk. She just lets it slide. "No data. It's a "until mission complete" or until the Flag calls it." She stopped talking and raised her eyebrows.

Gibson could tell that Nike was holding something back. "Okay, Nike. Use that second core of yours and run the numbers. When was the last time you had some down time? You seem crankier than normal."

Now Nike raised an eyebrow. "I am counting the transports as one of the upgraded Triumphs. It's one of the ones that the Galactica took on her first run back home. The other dropship the Beast carried is and older style Triumph, she does not have a name but a hull number. The Bismarck dropped off the mule class called the Lisbon Maru and a second Mule that is also just using a number. By the way Alan. Who names a cargo ship after a floating war crime, like a Hell ship?"

Alan had no idea what she was talking about. "Nike…What is a hell ship? Never mind. What else are you tracking?"

Nike was about to go off track, but she came back online. "They have that cargo modified Union White Rabbit 2, and a Mammoth class that wants to be called Hercules. It kind of seems, like they jumped out here with whatever they could scrape together. The only ships that are "normal" are the Olympia and Zeus. They are the only real combat ships among the dropships."

Gibson nodded, and he was trying to run the numbers for all of the ships that the AI had identified. "They probably grabbed every large off-road cargo transport they could get, along with any loader mech within a few hundred miles of any drop port on the planet. They must have jumped every hour, to make it out this far so fast. What do you think they are going to do?"

Nike waited for a second. She knew that when you replied to quickly, it made the biologics nervous. "Each of those Colonial liners comes in about 20,000 tons fully loaded and fueled. If they have a few dozen Colonials with them? They could rip the engines out of all five liners they have left on the ground, and just cut up the rest around the lift points. The Mammoth could carry two hulls, just by itself. After that? It will just be a matter of how fast they can pick up the different battle zones and not glow in the dark. There is a lot of metal in those Praetorians, it might be a little hot. But the Tinmen, Centurions, and the weapons from the human forms won't be an issue."

It took SLS Nike almost half an hour to get moved out of low orbit using her massive nuclear fueled engines. She was keeping an eye on what was going on the planet below. After a few hours of watching. It was threw intercepted messages between the dropships and the massive battleship in orbit that they found out what was going on. Nike smiled at her commander. It looked like she was right… again. She made a note to remind her captain about it later.

Down on the ground of Nike's World. Out of the dropships poured out wheeled, tracked, and walking machines of various types. They were followed by groups of humans and three human form Cylons. Those three were the ones in charge of this part of the operation. It was in a bid to avoid what had happened on that first attempt to salvage jump drives ripped out of Heavy Raiders. This group knew how best to take what was needed in working order, and about how to do it. The last part was very important, they had a "loss" rate of over 80 percent on the field recovered jump drives on first testing after recovery. Only about a quarter could be repaired after they were recovered from those Heavy Raiders.

By the time Nike could not "see" what was going on. The first liner was being cut into with laser cutters attached to work mechs, and the first cargo trucks were at the nearest battle site collecting and filling removable cargo containers. In less than six hours. Four jump engines that looked repairable, were pulled and packed into a special container brought just for them. One drive was deemed good for spare parts, and it was also pulled out of the converted liner's hull. Those four good engines were split up after leaving the landing field. They were loaded on the Union, each of the Mules and the Mammoth. The Mammoth would also carry the parts donor engine. Every shipping container that could be emptied on short notice in the New Circe system, had been collected and loaded onto the cargo dropships before coming out here. Now those containers were quickly filling up with Centurions, Tinmen, Praetorian parts, and anything else that looked worth the mass and was metal.

At the dozen hour mark, things again changed with jump signatures coming into this system. This time it was not Colonial or SLDF ships, but Cylon reinforcements. Ten normal Basestars and three more heavily modified Basestars, now called Dreadstars joined the damaged modified Cylon ship. The Cylons had sprung their trap. Now all they had to do was kill what the trap had caught. It was like the dog who caught the car.

The Cylons were still working out how to use their "new" systems effectively. Too few had been able to "share" most of the knowledge on this subject. They were learning, but right now they still were thinking that a "new" toy would fix everything. The only thing the Cylons knew, was that two more human ships had arrived in system. The Cylon spy ship had been too far out from their arrival point, to get a good reading of what was going on. They would get better information, as the now reinforced Cylon fleet advanced.

The SLDF had centuries of space combat experience under their belt, and they knew some tricks that the Cylons and Colonials never had thought about. One of those was called "Deception mode ECM". The SLDF had been working now, for years, with a lot of help from the Colonial navy. They both had been able to modify their existing tactic techniques and procedures, on how to fight a larger Cylon battle fleet. It had started as ideas on how to fight the combined Clan fleet, so they did not have to start from scratch with the plans or training.

If the Cylons did pick up any information about the two new ships? They would look like a pair of Colonial ships. They also would look like they were smaller than a Valkyrie class Battlestar. It was hoped that the two smaller ships would look just like the beginning of a new ship construction program the humans were working on. This was something that would have to be done, before the Colonials could put a full sized Battlestar in production.

The head of this part of the Cylon fleet was a Cylon human form known as a Number Two. The Number One's had come up with the idea to make this generation of Basestar, but it had been the number Two's that had been able to get the required production facilities up and running this quickly. That did not mean that they had that much experience in commanding a space fleet, much less a space fleet in combat. The Number Two had an easier time taking control of the remaining fleet, than he had expected. That was thanks to John's powerful Dreadstar taking a hit, which sent him all the way back to the Hub to get a new body along with the rest of the Command staff of that ship.

This Number Two thought he understands how to use a big hammer. He made sure that he had all of his ships together in one fist from around the system, now that the reports had come in that Daemon had been found again. He had wanted to wait longer before closing this trap, but he had a feeling that the Earth and Colonials ships were going to leave this system. If he waited for another day, before launching his attack? He would have another five Basestars and one more new generation Dreadstar. All of them also would be full of Heavy Raiders.

The first thing, after getting all his ships on hand and into the system in conflict. He formed his big hammer. He first launched all of his small craft at the damaged and war weary human fleet. They were to put a lethal, but ablative buffer, out around his capital ships. With the first part to his plan now done. Now he started moving his capital ships towards the only planet that could support life. This was done in two steps. First the second generation Basestars would move forward, with the Heavy Raiders acting as a screen. Then the older generation Basestars would micro jump to the other ships. It was a game of leapfrog, only with capital warships.

This was going to use a lot of fuel, but it was worth the risk to kill the Daemon and to finally capture a few examples of new technology the humans had been using against the Cylons. The civilian power plant had been a huge help in opening the door of fusion power energy supplies. Still it was understood that they needed a military grade plant, to start leveling the battlefield. Then again, if he could only take out the ship called Daemon. That would be worth losing every ship in his expanded fleet. The old prison power plant was being copied in some of the larger ground Cylon bases stretching back to old Cylon and Colonials space. It was looked at as a steppingstone of knowledge, and a way to cut down on the fuel supply line issues.

Captain Ferry was looking at all of the information coming into his McKenna Class ship's CIC. They knew already that these new class of Basestars were missile boats with thick skins. But they also packed a few dozen heavy cannons. On top of that? It was fast, for its size. Ferry was looking at all the data, to include what was the current situation on the surface of the planet. He had just ordered the Styx and its three dropships to leave the system, as soon as they could. He had been surprised when he had read the report that the merchant ship had burned down a Cylon crewed ship. Still he knew that there was a big difference between a modified passenger liner and a Cylon Basestar.

That would be in less than two hours, before the Tramp would be leaving. His dropship commanders wanted more time to load out everything they could. That was as of the last briefing, they were just over the halfway point in the amount of useable cargo space left open on the newly arrived dropships. His eyes shot open as he was multi-tasking. That was the key, and his hand struck out snake quick. He hit the replay, and then the fast forward on the data display of the movements of the Cylon fleet. The Cylon commander had fallen into a pattern, and it was a pattern Captain Ferry could leverage against them.

Captain Ferry gave an evil grin, as a modified battle plan popped into his head. He needed to either wipe out the Cylons quickly? Or he needed to drag out the battle for about six more hours. The problem was that he needs to make sure the Cylons did not just decide to jump into high orbit, and rain down hell on the planet. He was going to play a card he did not want to, but the Cylons seemed to be very interested in one ship under his expanded command. He had noticed that the whole Cylon fleet was moving more towards one line of travel. Now he needed to "block" that line. It was not something that was easily done in three-dimensional space. That is unless you had the right bait.

Ferry looked around the CIC and waved for his staff to come over to his location, and again was thankful for the gravity plating. It had been retrofitted onto his command, the Flagship of the whole SLDF navy, sometime ago.

"This is what we are going to do. I want to keep them in system, for as long as we can. First, we will be moving out in two by two cover formation. Leading our group will be the Bismarck and the Caspar. They are about equal in firepower, and the Cylons have a good idea of how hard they have been hit. The Pegasus and the Zug will be tail end Charles. Query Affirmative." When no one spoke up he continued as the plan fully coalesced into his brain.

"We will be moving out at 2gs of acceleration, when we break orbit. Now when the screen and Basestars reach this point in space?" He was pointing at an empty spot on the holo projection. "We all will jump, the Bismarck and Nike will exit here, and take on the Basestars. They are to delay them from jumping to support the rest of the screen and the new style Basestars. The Pegasus and Zug will jump in here and take on these Dreadstars. Our fighters are to keep the little fish off our hides, while we take the larger ships out."

Admiral Franks nodded; he had taken a shuttle over from the Bismarck after jumping into this system. He might be the head of the Navy, but Captain Ferry was the warship commander. Now he felt it was right to step in and back up the captain with some public support. "Yes, they are. And now, we will see how they will react with a full broadside of Heavy Naval PPC's. I think we will jump in between each of the ships, fire one or two full volleys. Then all ships are to jump all the way to the old style jump point. We can dump the heat while the Cylons work out what happened, and where we went."

That was the end of the meeting. The right hand of god had given his directions, and it would be so. A more detailed plan was worked up, but the base idea was the same. It was just that some of the numbers were a little more refined. Nike was not that happy with the plan, when it had been transmitted to her. After all? She would be outnumbered five to one by the Cylon capital ships. She did not bring up any issues to the two senior SliE naval leaders. That was not her mission. Gibson approved of the changes that the Nike would be making to her part of the plan. To many times in the past, they had been pulled out of the battle or used "in a supporting role".

When the Cylon "fighter" screen and its Basestar support reached a point in space, and it was about four minutes from when the rest of the Cylon fleet would jump in and join the screen. The humans joined battle against the Cylons. The two newly arrived battle wagons jumped to within 100 kilometers of the upgraded Cylon base ships and screening Heavy Raiders. At this range it did not take but a heartbeat to target and fire the ship's massive weapons. The humans were taking a page from the Cylon play book in the early stages of the war. The Heavy Naval PPCs fired from both sides of the ships into targets off her port and starboard. The Battlestar Pegasus did the same, but her nose mounted heavy cannons and a few of the attached Star League lasers were fired at a third Basestar. The Pegasus broadside weapons generated a lot more heat than the old but heavy coil guns, and she could then use the powerful nose weapons without risking overheating.

The humans might have had the element of surprise with the two battleships, but the Cylons were very quick off the mark to reduce the surprise. By the time the second volley of weapons fire was coming off the human ships. A huge tidal wave of missiles was starting to come at them from the Cylon ships. The anti-missile systems on the two warships went into overdrive trying to take on the wave of high-speed guided metal. As soon as the jump drive built into the two human ships was ready? They were ripped out of local space and put somewhere else. Just has planned, all without anyone needing to push a button.

Admiral Franks and Captain Ferry were looking at each other, but they could not say a word as they fought to keep their food down. Two jumps within 60 seconds? That was not good for the ships, drives, or the people carried on them. It was a lot better than death, but some would argue that it was as close as you could get without meeting Saint Peter. It took a solid three minutes, to get to feeling "normal" after the last jump. They did not have three minutes to waste.

"What is the status of our ships, and how did we do?" Admiral Franks was able to croak this out, but he was now thinking that he needed to find someone else to do missions like this. There were just somethings, that should be left for the younger generations.

Ferry was looking at the data on half a dozen screens spread out around him. They were replays of the last action going about half speed, but some of them were going a lot faster. "We took out the cripple and had solid hits on the other three Dreadstars. Those six NL45's were a nice addition to the Colonial's firepower. Pegasus got two solid hits from her nose weapons on her target."

As a long stream of sweat rolled down Captain Ferry's face, and he wiped part of it off before continuing to talk to the head of the SLDF navy. "We got good hits. But man, even with the missing HNPPCs we gave to the Galactica? We are still dumping too much heat into the main heatsinks and were still overheated, but they are working."

The ships XO came over and started talking, as new information started coming in. "Sir, the Olympia and Zeus have separated and have started launching the CAP. The Bismarck and the Caspar just reported after jumping in. It looks like the Bismarck took a small nuclear weapon close on her starboard side and mid-way down her hull. She would have taken a second one, on that side. If the Nike had not came flying in and took it instead, after the Bismarck lost most of her anti-missile systems on that side. She has started fast charging her jump drive and LF batteries." That was the first time that anyone could remember Captain Ferry's XO using the Caspar's chosen name, in public.

Admiral Franks was reviewing the data, himself, on his own screens. "Looks like the Nike did her torch of the god's routine again. She burned two of the Basestars into ash, before she got her guns into play on the other "normal" Basestars."

The Head of the SLDF Navy was humming to himself. "Looks like she took out two more Basestars and damaged another one with her own guns. The Biz took out two all by herself. That is the quick way to go from ten, to down to three capital ships. Just too bad they could not get their fighters launched into them. Query Affirmative. They might have been able to take them all out, if they got them into the battle. Then again? They had all of those Heavy Raiders to deal with. No, it was a good idea to keep them under armor for now." Franks and Ferry could not help but admire the combat capabilities and the skill the AI warship was showing.

The Admiral was playing out a dozen different variations to this main plan, but each one didn't work out as he needed them to. That just meant, that he had to come up with a new plan. That was the life of a navy commander. The enemy just would not lay down and die in the way and in the numbers, you wanted them to. There was a reason that they were called the "enemy" after all.

Admiral Franks stopped that line of thought for a few seconds. He would have plenty of time to work on those "what ifs", later. Right now, he needed to finish this fight. And then if he lived? He would refight the battle in his head, when his people were not dying. "Okay, get all of the jump fighters out on the outer edge of our screen. I want the rest of the fighters closer to their carriers. When it's time to go? I want the non-jump fighters brought back on board right then, and I don't care what carrier they land on."

Franks gave his aid a sly grin. "I wonder how long it's going to take those silicon monsters, to figure out that we are using Cylon tactics against them. All the while, they will have to switch back to the half remembered Colonial ones to fight us."

The human fleet shook itself into a different formation, and fighters that ranged in size from the 11ton Vipers MK VII to the 100ton monster that was the Kirghiz jump-fighter flowed out of the four human ships. Each of the space launched fighters had as many Colonial made Lightening-Javelins Mk 2's as they could safely carry out of the launch bays and tubes into space. They would not be carrying them for long. Those weapons would be used, as soon as the Cylons light speed scanners picked up where the human fleet had gone to. They were going to mouse trap the Cylons, when they reacted to the move the humans had just made against them.

It did not take the Cylons but a few minutes to get a reading of the human's new location. It took them longer to work out what to do about it. The first move of the Cylons was to regroup their spread out and different combat groups into one fleet again. When they split their forces into one spread out wave of leapfrogging? This had given the humans a chance to defeat them in detail. With them in one fleet, again. They jumped out to the edge of the solar system, and the fight quickly resumed. Cylon Heavy Raiders mixed it up with human piloted ones. The three Dreadstars and three remaining Basestars went after the human warships.

Nike stuck to the weak side of the Bismarck, like a tick on a butt cheek. Her weapons took out another Dreadstar. But it seemed not only to her, and to both senior leaders. Then again, the Dreadstars and Basestars were also sending more fire her way, than any other human ship. The fighting was well balanced between the two fleets without either side being able to force anything. Then an HPG message arrived from in system, and it caused a change to happen about how and why the battle was being fought at the very edge of the star system.

One word was sent out to all of the fighters, the smaller Vipers and Avars, and non-modified Visigoths started breaking off combat and going full power towards the nearest friendly carrier. As soon as the light friends were in the closest nest. The rest of the fleet jumped. They were first going further out system, and then back to the planet closer to the star. The first jump would lead the Cylons away from this star, and it would have them looking in the wrong place. That would buy some time, for the second part of the plan to gain traction. The human warships didn't join them on this part of the run, but they also jumped away from the battle with the Cylon fleet. Very soon the only ships left in that part of space, were the Cylons, scratching their heads trying to figure out what the humans were up to. It would take some time for them to realize that they had just been left with the bill. It was a case of ding, dong, and ditch on a star system scale.

The HPG message had come from one of the dropships on the planet. They had been packing everything down as fast as they could and as completely as they could, given the battle taking place over their heads. Now as each of the dropships that had been left behind, was filled to capacity with Cylon salvage and any last-minute evacuees that had come out of the woodwork.

When full? They had lifted off the planet's surface and went into a very low orbit over the planet. When the last dropship had cleared the atmosphere? The faster than light message was sent that said they were ready for a ride home. Unlike the two Olympus class ships, these dropships did not have a colonial jump drive modification. They were stuck in this system unless someone could come back and pick them up.

They were on a very tight timeline. It would not take the Cylons long to realize that they had been played. The first ships to dock were the two aerodynamic style Triumph class dropships onto the top and bottom of the Colonial Battlestar. While that was going on in high orbit. The Mammoth and the two Mules full of Cylon salvage started to attach themselves to the Bismarck and the Zug. The last dropships to attach, were the Modified Union and the two 40,000ton carrier/escort/jump warships that had been defending the fleet. The jump fighters and small jump dropships were landing, as the area that needed to be covered got smaller and smaller. Jump fuel was hard to come by, and this would save a lot of fuel. Plus, it would lower the chance of a miss jump and lose of pilot, or crew, and ship.

In less than half an hour, after the recall message. There were only the four large warships in orbit of the now mostly abandoned planet. Even they were gone, before the Cylons returned to this deep in the star system. Eight more jumps later, with only ten minutes between jumps. The hulls of every ship, to include the fighters, were put under a very detailed inspection by ships crews.

First, they ran a high voltage charge threw the outer hulls of the warships that was safely carried through any attached dropship. The support crews for the fighters and small craft were doing a more hands on inspection of those craft. "Only" a few dozen Cylon tracking devices were found, all on the hulls of the warships. They were put into lead lined boxes and taken over to the SLS Bismarck. She would be able to jump faster and farther, then any other ship in the Universe. It did not matter if it had been built by the Clans, SLDF, Colonials or Cylons.

She would return to the rest of the fleet in 48 hours, after dumping the devices into a micro black hole next to a gas giant that was not on any star map. This locations data had been pulled from the Nike, and it had been added to the navigation data that the Colonials and SLDF had been able to acquire in all of their travels. The Nike and her small crew were on their own after leaving the space around that green world. They would make the best time they could to get back to New Circe, but they would have to do it all on their own.

Notes:

Total Population of Nike's World? It was a world with 1890s tech. Even the people who lived there, did not know exactly how many people were on the planet. They were not inclined to tell or track those numbers, just so that a slaver could capitalize on that information.

Why leapfrogging? The new Dreadstar have ex or recovered Colonial warship engines, but the older Basestars don't have them. That is a major difference in how you can use the ships in one fleet. It would be like mixing Mustangs and Gloster Gladiators in the same flight.

Oddshot. I have no idea what is wrong with your guest account, but I only get some of your messages before it is truncated and then goes away. PM me from the BattleTech site, if you can. Reference the Elephants. Hotpoint has to approve any new ships.