"This base was originally built in the first war as a massive underground arms factory that could produce anything from small arms to entire Vipers, should the Cylons ever be able to gain air superiority and bomb our industry to ash. After the war ended and something like this wouldn't be needed the army refitted it. Turned it into a massive survival shelter with everything needed to sustain 50,000 people for up to half a decade. Food, water, medical supplies, weapons, hell most of the factory should still work. There are others like it, and hopefully, more groups could get to one. This place even has an underground railroad and road network to other similar bases that can be blown up if necessary to prevent one base from compromising every other one."

General Kathrine Spooks of the Colonial Army

Chapter 11: Convoy Raid

"What happened?" Helo asked Sharon as the raptor took off. "Did you make it to Galactica?"

"Yeah, they sent raptors back out to take as many people as possible. I went back for another round but when I jumped back, the Galactica was gone. She wasn't at any of the fallback coordinates. So I came back here and found some more survivors."

"What's going on with the rest of the planet?" He asked.

"The Cylons have been invading, and while the colonials have been fighting back hard the Cylons nuke any large concentrations of troops. They've hit most major military bases as well, and there are millions of centurions being landed across the planet. Our troops are fighting back but suffering large casualties, and I don't know how long organized resistance will last."

"Where are we going?" Helo asked.

"We have an old first war base where some army units are held up. They're supposedly a bunch of these that were kept secret since the end of the first war, and were taking as many civilians as we can find with us." She replied. "The officer in charge is planning on launching a guerilla war to disrupt the galaxy, and we've managed to keep ourselves hidden from the Cylon advance."

"That's good, well at least considering the circumstances," Helo said.

The raptors and vipers flew low to the ground to try and avoid detection which would make it difficult for them to be detected by DRADIS. Due to this, the Cylons didn't notice them and they headed towards one of the more remote places on Caprica, the Linebacker Mountains.

A large hangar door, shielded by the rocks, opened up and the five small craft flew inside. Once Helo got inside he realized that it was a massive base, with rows of vipers, raptors, shuttles, and several other small starships and aircraft lined up in rows near the walls. There was an entrance down below for ground vehicles where a good chunk of the people had also arrived from, and in a concealed position Help could see several tanks and IFVs ready to fire on anything that came near. Several observation posts stood up from the ground along with several medium and long-range surface-to-air missile systems and radars, which would allow the base to shoot down anything hundreds of miles away from it.

With the world ending it was once the best place to be, at least on a planet. And supposedly according to Sharon, this wasn't the only one and the Cylons had no idea that they existed in the first place.

"Supposedly there are more of these." She said, "And other high-ranking military and civilian officials know that there are these bases, and many of them are connected by tunnels."

"So what is going to happen to us?" Cadet Jerry Hicks asked.

"We'll get you a place to sleep and talk to the commander about what he wants you both to do. But regardless I'm glad to have my ECO back." She said,

First, they went to what was essentially the CIC of the facility, passing through large armored doors that looked like they had been ripped straight off of Galactica.

The CIC was busy coordinating the survivors, as several brigades worth of troops had made their way to the base already and it appeared that more and more were trying to be saved. The situation across all of Caprica and the rest of the colonies was being monitored closely and it continued to look worse and worse.

"This is General Kathrine Spooks of the Colonial Army," Sharon said and saluted. She then explained to the general who these people were and where they had been found.

"You two have been assigned to one another in the past so I hope you two work well together. Because we need to perform scouting missions around this area and pick up surviving military units and civilians. The satellites up in orbit have all been destroyed by the Cylons and communications with the outside world have been severely limited. We need a better idea of what's going on if we want to save people and supplies, and eventually strike back at the Cylons." She said, "We have a good idea of what's going on about 400 kilometers around us in all directions in the air due to a DRADIS array but not much of an idea of what's going on on the ground. We can tell that the Cylons are advancing on multiple fronts however and that isn't a good thing. But we have only a limited number of resources to scout the area. Take a few hours rest and then I want you in the air." She then turned to the ROTC cadet. "You were receiving training to be an ECO, right?"

"Yes ma'am,"

"You report to one of the raptor crews who lost their ECO, and you'll be promoted to Ensign (Navy). Since I'm an army officer it's probably outside the scope of my authority to promote you but there isn't a colonial fleet admiral around. Go get some rest as well."

A few hours later Sharon and Helo were back in their raptor on their way to scout for more survivors, both civilian and military. Work needed to be done and they were going to pick up some of it from the other strained raptor crews.

They had told the general about the crashed heavy raider, which would be loaded into a shuttle and taken back to the base to be analyzed. There was plenty of information that could be gained from it.

Their first mission was leading a shuttle to the location of the heavy raider. His raptor received weapons for this mission, mostly air-to-air missiles but also a few air-to-surface ones and rocket pods for dealing with enemies on the ground. In the raptor, Helo carried a small team of marines in addition to the ones carried in the shuttle. They were also escorted by four vipers

The raptor went first, checking to see what was going on around the downed Cylon raider. He couldn't see anything or anyone nearby and therefore gave the all-clear for the shuttle to land. It did, and a lot of people soon rushed out of it. In less than a half hour they had finished loading it into the shuttle, albeit in multiple chunks. Flying low to the ground to obstruct DRADIS, they successfully got back to base where they were ordered to rest and relax for a few hours.

With other raptors out searching for what was going on a better idea of the unfolding situation came to be. It had been known from almost the start that the Cylons had genocidal intentions but it had never appeared as if they would make humanity nearly extinct, but as time went on it looked like they would get their way more and more.

For the next week, they were busy conducting reconnaissance and finding and rescuing survivors, though this generally meant putting down the position for larger shuttles to come and pick up the people. They also scouted out areas that had a lot of equipment that could be picked up and sometimes took small amounts of it. The raptor wasn't designed as a cargo-carrying vessel so they were generally limited to small but critical pieces of supplies such as a computer retrieved from near the president's office that had information about what had happened in the early Cylon attack and a black box from the Battlestar Yashuman, which had fallen from orbit into the planet it had been defending.

They didn't go on any strike missions, however; only a few of the raptors were being used for these missions. The vipers could do a similar job albeit with a smaller payload, and a bit less diversity in the weapons that they used.

General Spooks had a mission for them and nine other raptors, along with a squadron of 20 atmospheric Vipers.

"There is a long Cylon convoy of armored vehicles and trucks, including some captured from us. All of the information that we have indicates that they have significant logistical issues; their ground units don't have that much in the way of logistical abilities on the ground and they don't have lots of ground-based support assets that are independent of their divisions. In the air, they have decent capabilities, but they travel in predictable patterns that we've managed to intercept on multiple occasions. It appears that they have been sending supplies out of the cargo bays of their ships in orbit and letting them fall to the ground by parachute. If we can destroy or cripple the convoy, we can disrupt their operations in the region quite severely." She said.

"The convoy is escorted by raiders, anywhere from four to eight. These numbers will certainly increase as time goes on however as they attack them. On the ground, we've noticed several DRADIS vehicles for their air defenses, though since the Cylons don't have much in the way of air defenses we can take those out easily.

"Vipers, your goal is to secure local air superiority and intercept anything that comes too close. Additionally, some of you will be outfitted with anti-radiation air-to-ground missiles and bombs to take our several important vehicles. Air defense systems, mobile DRADIS units, and command and control vehicles. Anything that could pose a threat to the raptors." She then turned to the raptor pilots.

"Raptors, you will be delivering troops nearby, along with a few shuttles, and then killing as many centurions as possible. Your goal is also to cause as little damage to the vehicles themselves as possible as well, with exceptions of the ones at the beginning and the end of the convoy." She said, "The goal overall is to capture as many of the vehicles as possible, which means that Centurions are the target, not the vehicles. From the intelligence that we've gathered, the Cylons won't be able to reinforce the convoy on the ground, at least before it's gone and under our control.

"Won't the Cylons see where we are going?" He asked?"

"The weather in the area is going to have heavy cloud cover in the hours after the operation." She said, "So it won't be that much of an issue. There are also a lot of trees that provide cover to the roads that we are planning on using, so the Cylons will have trouble tracking us. We'll also be destroying anything that comes close in the air, and I don't think that they will dedicate the numbers of raiders to deal with us." She said, "The convoy will then proceed to an extraction point where it will enter the network of tunnels in much the same way that we do to enter and exit this base. The Cylons appear to be ignorant of where it is, and we have a perimeter of dug-in troops to respond if they do so."

A few questions were asked but overall it looked like the mission could easily succeed. The raptors and vipers flew low, practically pretty much at treetop level to avoid detection by Cylon DRADIS units.

Helo heard over the radio as the vipers made the attack. The raiders hadn't been expecting an attack and were destroyed by missiles before they could even react. A few of the raiders rushed forward, managing to survive the incoming missile volley and engage in a close-range dogfight, with their guns. One viper was shot down and another was forced to return to base due to damage caused to a raider, however, they managed to fire their air-to-ground weaponry before being forced to return to base.

The vipers then made their first attack on the convoy as Helo and the other raptors began landing ground troops nearby. These were men and women of the 61st Airborne Division, one of the colonial army's more elite units. Several heavy lift shuttles carried their Rattler Infantry Fighting Vehicles, which would be a large force multiplier with their close support 105mm main guns, 40mm dual autocannons, Missile system that could carry several weapons system including anti-tank guided missiles and unguided cluster rockets, automatic grenade launchers, and machine guns. They were perhaps some of the most formidable infantry support vehicles in the colonies. In addition to their armaments, they could carry a dozen soldiers with three crew members. It also had formidable armor, though not enough to survive direct tank hits.

There were some tradeoffs, however. It was heavier and larger than most other IFVs in the colonies, but due to doctrine still was shafted into airborne units and ones that were supposed to be able to be transported to other planets. Impressive airlift capabilities made that a lot better, however. There was an entire company of them here today, with 10 IFVs in total, with three in each platoon, along with one command vehicle that the commanding officer rode in.

Several miles from the convoy that was under attack, the IFVs had been dropped off and were on their way to make their attack. Captain Fredrick Johannesburg, the commanding officer of the company, surveyed the nearby area to determine if it would be a good terrain for his vehicles. Ultimately if it wasn't the decision was already made. There was a combination of dense forests and open hills near the road, and he would split his forces up to converge on the convoy. He took a platoon with him down the road and sent one platoon to each side of him and his form. The Cylons had conveniently been stopped next to a field on either side, but with the field being hilly and therefore giving the IFV's cover and a place to hide if they wanted to or a clear line of sight if they wanted that as well. Both would be useful at certain times,

For this battle, their goal was to take out Cylon infantry, their centurions. Vehicles were to be captured in as large enough numbers as possible, and so would only be targeted if there was clear evidence that the Cylons had them operational. So the IFVs carried fewer anti-tank missiles onboard their launcher and more personnel ones. In addition to the troops that each IFV carried, there were more than a few that had been landed by the raptors. Many of these were support troops, technicians, and drivers who would be driving the heavy vehicles that they captured.

Meanwhile in his raptor Helo and the other raptors were approaching the convoy. There wasn't much in the way of vehicles that they needed to destroy, but each raptor carried two anti-tank guided missiles if the necessity came along for them. Most of their armament was made up of guns and rocket pods. The rockets meanwhile had rudimentary guidance, meaning that they should be able to hit where the laser designator on the raptor targeted.

The Vipers had taken down the Cylon air defense, meaning that they would be blind to the approach of the raptor. However, approaching low would have its challenges. While the raptors would be able to resist the fire of essentially any machine gun, larger autocannon rounds in large enough numbers would be able to severely damage or destroy them. And the Cylons were known to have MANPADS; also known as man-portable air defense systems. One of these small missiles could be a bad day for a raptor, and realistically any small ship or aircraft.

It appeared that with the convoy stalled, the centurions were exiting it and taking up position to defend it while others began trying to remove the wreckage from the road.

And in their clusters, they were easy targets.

Explosions rippled throughout their ranks as the raptors dived on their targets. They tried to return fire with their arm-mounted guns but they were mostly ineffective, causing little damage throughout the raptors. One did manage to cause light damage through a lucky hit but that was about all. The centurion's armor might be able to shrug off some small caliber ammunition, such as .22lr, but there was no way it was going to shrug off autocannon, minigun, and rocket fire. They tore through the convoy, leaving every centurion that they could see dead. It wouldn't bring back their loved ones or unnuke the colonies, but it would let out the rage, anger, and sadness. It would prove that the Cylons were not unbeatable and that resistance against them was not only possible but effective. A few Cylon vehicles returned fire, but these were easily destroyed from the air with missiles.

Meanwhile, the ground forces began advancing towards the now halted convoy, mopping up the remaining centurions who had not been killed by air attack. As the raptors returned to base to rearm and refuel, they took on the brunt of the work. Captain Johnasberg now noticed that the IFVs were now redundant, but still useful as they poured down fire on the remaining clusters of centurions. With an armament meant to deal with infantry and light vehicles, they proved effective at the task. Colonial infantry soon made their way down the convoy, moping up the remaining soldiers.

As they approached the convoy, Sergeant Castilla Roberts checked her rifle one last time. She would be leading her squad of men and women, who were sitting in their IFV right now. The squad, including her, was glad to have the protection of the infantry fighting vehicle. However, they needed to disembark and begin clearing the enemy vehicles.

They began advancing towards the convoy on foot, mopping up the few Cylons the squad encountered. Most had been destroyed by the air strikes or the IFVs who had just advanced, so their primary goal was to shoot any that they found in enemy vehicles. This they did, finding most of the vehicles simply unoccupied. There were a couple hundred in the convoy, and began to be cleared one by one. Many didn't need to be, as they didn't have anything in them.

After a half hour, they had cleared all of the vehicles, finding relatively few Cylons in them. Most had exited and been destroyed in the air strikes. Soon crews of the vehicles began entering them, driving them towards their objectives: one of the tunnels in the mountains that would lead to the hidden base. Vipers patrolled the skies above, ensuring that any raiders would not get anywhere close to the convoy, and therefore have any idea where it was headed.

The path that the convoy was taking had been spelled beforehand. They traveled down back roads under both heavy cloud cover and foliage, meaning that even if the Cylons were looking for them, finding them would be difficult. Maintaining secrecy was essential for the raid. If the Cylons managed to find their base, the survivors would be essentially done for. While it was deep enough within the mountain to survive being nuked, eventually the Cylons would be able to blow open the gates to it and destroy them. So above all else, secrecy was paramount.

Helo and Sharon returned to the base to celebrate. The mission had been a resounding success, demonstrating to the Cylons that colonial resistance was not completely done for.

Author's note: I won't be making any changes to Six Degrees of Separation as I wouldn't add anything to it. The same goes for the next episode Flesh and Blood, which plays out with minimal changes compared with canon. Some will be replaced by another story that we haven't seen yet, with characters that we haven't seen yet but also ones we have, and a plot line that we see in these few episodes.