- William Adama
Chapter 14: The Hand of God
"The Tylium situation is starting to get critical," Hudson said. "If we don't find more in a bit over a month we're going to have to take the military ships and the mining ones back to the colonies to grab some more. We've found very few asteroids that have any in them so we need to find a large source soon, commander."
"I will have raptor scouts intensify their operations across this area of space," Adama said.
"We know that the Cylons have refueling ships, could we maybe steal from those?" Bakerson asked.
"Potentially, but I don't think that it will be enough to meet our needs," Hudson replied.
A few hours later after a raptor had returned, Adama began sharing the news with the other senior officers throughout the fleet who had returned from their other ships along with the President.
"The good news is that one of our raptors found tylium in an asteroid one to top off our tanks and have enough reserve supplies for two to three years. The bad is that the Cylons are also there, and have a significant mining complex protected by a basestar and a large number of raiders, along with some other contacts that we can't make out. We can't use nukes on either the Cylons on the asteroid or the basestar because it will irradiate the tylium and make it useless."
"One good thing however is that it looks like the Cylons might be out of communications range of the colonies because of a large communications array. If we can destroy that we knock out their ability to call in reinforcements unless they jump out. Additionally if anything from what I can tell it would be nice to capture the facility as intact as possible. I'm sending raptors out to try and find out more about the facility, and we need to find a way to attack it."
"It sounds like a landing operation to take the facility is going to be needed so I'll call together our marine officers to help with the planning," Adama said. "And I have another officer that we could use. A certain viper pilot."
Kara Thrace was giving a lesson on viper tactics to a combined class of reserve pilots and nuggets who had recently joined, with a few of the more senior pilots serving as teaching assistants. Many of the reserve pilots would be sent to squadrons as soon as they were getting to be proficient in the skills needed to fly effectively in combat. Some of them however along with the nuggets would need more help, however, but eventually, they would make good pilots.
"Attention on deck!" Thrace said and everyone stood at attention. Adama walked up to the podium at the front of the room.
"Starbuck, what are you teaching the nuggets today?" He asked.
"The Jameson maneuver sir."
"Ahh, one of my favorites." He replied with a smile. "Puts some stress on the airframe and pilot though, but if it gets you out of trouble it's worth it."
He walked up to her. "Are you going to be busy with the nuggets much longer?"m
"No sir I was just finishing. "Class dismissed, the old man has something important for me to do, more important than you nuggets." There were a few chuckles from Adama.
"Looks like you've been having a fun time with the nuggets."
"They're getting better sir." She looked at him with concern. "Do you need something, Commander?"
"We found a source of tylium that can last us for years. The bad news is that the Cylons got there first. Captain Adama and Colonel Tigh are working on the plan now and I need some serious out-of-the-box thinking."
"Out of the box" is where I live." She replied.
"The problem isn't the number of marines, it's the fact that we can't get many of them to the surface effectively. It's a bit of a challenge to do a stealth insertion with marine assault shuttles and while it's certainly possible with raptors that cuts down the number of personnel significantly."
"So why don't we send a team of marines in by raptor followed by a bunch more later in the dropships." Colonel Sarah Green said.
"That sounds like a good idea," Bakerson said. "We need to take out that basestar, but also deal with its raiders. We don't have the first strike capabilities without nukes to render them ineffective."
"We should wait for the second recon mission to get back, they might have a better idea of what to do." Hudson. "We don't have a good idea as to what the situation is in the facility."
Soon however Sharon got back with a more detailed recon mission. There was one regular basestar along with an old First War one that was being filled up with fuel on one side of the mining facility.
"It's probably a tanker now," Hudson said, pointing out several specialized pylons that protruded from all directions on the ship. "If we can either destroy or capture that we have a good chance of crippling their fuel supply in the area, potentially giving us a little breathing room from being chased."
"There are some interesting ships here though," Apollo said. "Those two contacts look like old First War Cestares point defense gunships. And that looks like a Talon Frigate." He said.
"Based on the basestar, support ship, and facility itself, there are probably about 1200 raiders in the area. Of course, the Cylons won't deploy all of them but that still leaves us at a numerical disadvantage even if we were to use all of our vipers. We could win a fighter battle but it would be pretty damn costly." He said.
"We can sneak in and take out several of the positions with explosives. I'm thinking of these big fighter towers that deploy raiders. Along with the point defense turrets and the missile batteries, along with the comms relay of course. That should mean that we can land more troops there."
"What about raiders from the basetar?"
"They'll be occupied by the two battlestars and other ships. They do have flak, you know." Adama said.
"I know just the Marine officer to lead the first wave of the raptors," Jamestown said
Colonial Marine Captain Cecil Marks was on his way to inspect the marine cadets who had been recently transferred to the ship. He was responsible for training them along with the reservists, and several other marines had been brought over to the ship to help with training.
When he arrived at the barracks that were going to be used for training, General Jamestown was waiting and he saluted the senior officer. He hadn't known what was going on yet but knew that the General sometimes visited the troops.
"Captain, I need a word. Your office." He said and the Captain saluted and led him in.
"We found a source of tylium that can last us years. The bad news is that the Cylons got there first. The fleer's senior officers are working on the plan now and I need someone who has experience with zero g raptor landings into contested territory. Can I count on you, Captain?"
"Yes sir." He said.
Not long later the Captain was on his way down towards the surface of the asteroid in a raptor, the leader of a dozen that would pull off the first phase of the mission. They had flown a roundabout course that had taken a long time so that they could avoid detection by the Cylons on the base. Their goal would be to destroy critical targets in the base and help support the main landing force when they arrived. They would need to be quick about it as in 15 minutes Galactica, Valkyrie, and some of their escorts would arrive to take out the Cylons in the basestar and launch marine assault shuttles to help reinforce his men and him.
After they landed the soldiers trekked towards the facility on foot. The strength of the enemy was not fully known and the armor of the Cylons was as well. H therefore everyone had been loaded with high explosive and armor-piercing rounds to take out the Cylons even if they were heavily armed.
Soon they arrived at a hill around the facility where they could overlook it. The teams of soldiers began aiming their weapons at their targets. They would be supported by the raptors which were armed with a combat load. Normally carrying troops and this equipment would prohibit them from doing so but that was only a consideration in an atmosphere where the raptor would need to have enough thrust to stay airborne in a gravity well. However, this issue was not the case here in deep space.
The soldiers soon arrived and began setting up the heavy weapons that they would use to attack the Cylons. Many of them carried anti-armor weapons designed for destroying fortifications and armored targets. Bunkerfaust 3 systems would be launched at the large racks that held hundreds of raiders and large communications arrays. Certain areas like several regular hangers were not going to be targeted however as they might hold valuable intelligence.
"We wait for the fleet to arrive." He said.
Galactica, Valkyrie, and several cruisers emerged near the Cylon facility, though relatively far out to avoid detection on DRADIS. Three civilian ships however emerged and began broadcasting their location.
The Cylons took the bait and sent a large wave of raiders out toward what they thought were defenseless civilian ships, which turned and began flying in the other direction to avoid the raiders. They kept pursuing, however, and while that was happening Galactica's fleet got closer and closer until they realized that they had gone after the wrong target. As the Cylons turned around, however, the cargo bays of the civilian ships opened to reveal vipers and missile launchers. The launchers fired a volley of anti-fighter missiles which eliminated about 50 of the surprised raiders before jumping out while the forty vipers began their journey to the base. Apollo led two squadrons that were made up of pilots experienced in SEAD and DEAD missions and had been trained for them extensively. SEAD or suppression of enemy defenses involved denying the enemy the ability to operate such defenses by destroying DRADIS and command and control networks. DEAD involved destroying the air defenses entirely. They would do some of those missions but probably mostly provide close air support on the targets
On the ground, the large columns of raiders were preparing to launch to intercept the oncoming forces. Having selected their targets, the few dozen troops began firing anti-armor weapons at air defenses and a large comm array while the raptors launched missiles as well from beyond visual range. The communications array was rendered useless before it could send out any messages while the anti-air gun and missile systems were largely destroyed. Marine snipers took out Cylons who were patrolling the facility and when it was clear to advance they began handing down to the rest of the facility.
Galactica, Valkyrie, and the eight other ships began advancing on the one basestar. It launched its remaining raiders to try and intercept the several hundred Vipers that were bearing down on them. The basestar had no chance and as the raiders were busy fighting the vipers the marine assault ship entered the battle and began launching several dozen heavy assault shuttles that carried several marines and their vehicles and equipment escorted by the two atmospheric viper squadrons on the ship. While these vipers wouldn't be as good as regular ones in a dogfight in the vacuum of space they would be sufficient for the escort mission and the necessary close air support.
The Raiders were fighting a losing battle against the Vipers. They had over 400 to begin with that were deployable but there had been a couple hundred of them to begin with with about half of their numbers deployed to go and attack the civilian ships which had jumped away. Therefore they had half their strength and most of the ones at the base had been destroyed on the ground, with the few that survived ordered to provide air support to the centurions defending the base. Being out of communications range the basestar was unable to call for help and the base down on the surface had had its long range.
In the CIC of Galactica Adama stood firm as the Galactica shuttered from a missile hit. The Cylons were deprived of their greatest advantage in ship-to-ship combat: nuclear weapons.
"What's the status of the basestar?" He asked, looking at the DRADIS screen and the various cameras that showed a visual of how it was doing.
"It's putting up a fight but most of its missiles are being absorbed by flak, and therefore not able to dish out that much damage," Gaeta said. "And it's also surrounded by our ships, meaning that we can focus fire on it from all angles."
The basestar was met with a bad situation. The ship could fire and all of the targets as fast as the missiles could be loaded into the tubes but this would cause minimal damage to multiple targets. Or they could focus on one target and send all of the damage to one while not having any on the other. Either way, it wasn't going to be a good prospect. Eventually, the base tar was destroyed, leaving only a chunk of one of its six prongs to float through space slowly.
Now the focus was on the ground installation. Vipers mopped up the last of the raiders and then were recalled to be rearmed for ground attack sorties and a couple of freighters that had been requisitioned for taking supplies along with many of the fleet's salvage ships soon arrived to begin salvaging the ground installation after waiting for a few minutes to ensure that the area was safe.
Meanwhile, down on the surface of the asteroid, Captain Marks was pinned down with several of his men behind a storage shed as the Cylons began mobilizing centurions. They had managed to secure a lot of the facility, more than they had initially believed that they could have.
"I need some air support." He said over his encrypted radio he had. He threw a laser designator over into the group of Cylons nearby. Under other circumstances, he would have used a regular grenade but all of the ones that he had had too high of a yield for the volatile tylium nearby it was too much of a risk. What he needed was the precision that laser guidance offered.
A nearby raptor saw the call and found the laser designator. Firing a laser-guided rocket with a variable payload at the group of Cylons they were obliterated before they could do anything, And the small payload of the rocket meant that no damage was done to the sensitive facility around the place. The Captain and the troops he had with him continued to advance, killing more and more centurions as time went on. As time went on fewer and fewer centurions remained until they abandoned the facility and scurried into a long tube that served as an airlock with the old basestar.
The two gunships that had been with the Cylons had also been destroyed as they had essentially no anti-ship weapons. But it was clear that one would not want to try and send small craft anywhere near them.
But there was another Cylon ship in the area, the old basestar that was probably being used as either a freighter or some sort of supply ship. It had launched a few raiders but not that many, even though it appeared to have some very large hangers. It was decided to board it from the other side which would create a second front for the Cylons to deal with.
Captain Marks looked on as his troops advanced through the long corridor. They had only been able to do so due to intense suppressive fire, liberal use of grenades, and a few bulletproof shields that had been built for this exact role of pushing through a large hallway. Some of the centurions had been diverted to the other ends of the ship to protect against more marines that were landing there. Soon they burst into the ship proper, fighting through dark corridor after dark corridor.
"Frank, I'm almost out." He said, popping the last 30-round magazine into his G36 rifle. He had started with 8 of these mags. He'd have to resort to his secondary M9 pistol soon, which lacked the AP and HE rounds that he had access to. The centurion at the end of the corridor returned fire but his heavy rounds were cutting through them like a knife does bread. There had been several theories as to what the armor of Cylon centurions was capable of withstanding and some of the ones he had run into were very heavily armored and only capable of being pierced by explosive or AP rounds while others didn't have so many armor and most rounds in the colonial arsenal could destroy them. Some centurions that appeared to be designed for non-combat roles had even lighter armor specialized for their role and often wielded a variety of firearms as they didn't have mounted machine guns on their arms. His theory was that while the heavily armored centurions would be more effective they also would have a significantly higher cost due to this armor. His regular rounds from the M9 seemed to be doing just fine, though they were difficult to evaluate under fire as lots of other marines were also shooting as well.
It took several hours but finally, all Cylon resistance on the ship was subdued. The colonial victory had come at a price, however, with nearly 300 marines dead or wounded during the battle. More than 2/3s of them had happened when storming the basestar. But the price in material gained was certainly worth it, as not only would the fleet be able to top off all of its tanks for two years, but the amount of equipment and intelligence captured from the Cylons was immense. The mining system would be restored to functioning condition in mere hours and would be joined by the colonial mining ships that should be able to mine enough ore to provide the fleet with two years of fuel.
Fuel wasn't even all of it either. There was a lot of intelligence captured on the Cylons as multiple centurions had been captured intact. They would be taken apart and analyzed for their strengths and weaknesses. And in terms of ships, the numbers were even more significant. The basestar, four fuel tankers, and several dozen raiders and heavy raiders had been captured along with what looked to be a small general-purpose freighter and some mining and salvage small ships that were the size of fighters. However for some reason, there were a few colonial ships, and they revealed some fascinating and terrifying implications.
In one of the large hangars, there was a moderately sized passenger liner like the Olympic Carrier, with its name banner showing it to be the Sunland of Eversun Lines. Behind it was a small freighter that had several boxes on it like many from before the First war. And behind it was a colonial navy faststar, the Confluence.
Faststars were small fast attack craft that had been designed to be the successor of fast attack craft such as the missile boat and gunboat while also being able to fulfill certain patrol missions. They were only about a hundred meters long and didn't have a large crew though the ones they did have were faced with cramped conditions. As such they had light armor but a high speed and heavy armament consisting of unusually large guns for their size and large missile tubes that could take a variety of conventional and nuclear anti-ship and land attack missiles.
Teams of colonials soon boarded the ships to try and find out what was going on this ship. Logs and other information were soon revealed about the three ships.
The three ships had managed to survive the Cylons by hiding and joined another fleet made up of the decommissioned Battlestar Cunningham and several other civilian and military ships, about 20 or 30 strong. They had been trying to follow the Galactica and had gotten to Ragnar mere hours after the fleet had left for the Prolmar Sector. They had been following but the three ships had been separated during the process only a week ago, and from the information given on the ship they had a rough idea of where the fleet would be.
"Cunningham was one of the newer model Valks," Hudson said. "Hell, that's Garrett's ship. She's seen a fair bit of action in the various small conflicts before all of this went down."
"This Cunningham is a lead that we can follow, the decommissioned one is probably already back in the colonies."
"These logs mention several civilian ships with inefficient FTL drives. We're not looking at a massive deviation from where the ship was when it was captured."
"Sir," Gaeta said, drawing attention to him. "The marines have been conducting mop-up operations on the lower levels of the facility and found survivors."
In all nearly 600 survivors had been saved but this number was only half the number that had been a part of the three ship's total before. A hundred would need intense medical care and a hundred others would need moderate levels.
"So how did you get separated from the rest of your fleet?" Adama asked the captain of the faststar, Chloe Davis.
"We only got part of the FTL coordinates. We had to guess the rest and do it under fire as well. Once we found out where we were we got attacked however by the Cylons. Before we could do anything they launched heavy raiders and boarded us. There was nothing we could do and we were unprepared. They then took us to this base."
"Can you get us back to your fleet?" He asked.
"With enough scouting raptors, I most certainly can." She said,
"Commander Hudson will take a force along with your ships to find them and they will carry extra raptors. I want a search pattern to be carried out of all the space that they could be." He turned to the captain. "How far could they be away from where they had been before you were separated?"
"At most five light years, probably in this direction."
"We're going to need to be here for at least another week to mine and salvage," Adama said. "In a week if we aren't here we'll be at the backup coordinates in one week. Check in with the fleet then and then I'll reevaluate." Adama said.
There was more salvage that would be valuable to the fleet. The large sensor complex that served as an early warning system for the base would be disassembled and taken to be studied as it was known that Cylon sensor systems were superior to those found in the colonies. The fuel tanks were being drained into any ships that could take it, and dozens of ships would get their fuel tanks topped off.
It was decided after much debate to take the old basestar. It wouldn't be much use in combat but it would be able to store a lot of resources. It would hold a lot of the stuff from the base that had been captured and generally serve as an armored supply ship. A bunch of the computers on it had been disconnected to prevent infiltration and hacking by the Cylons but it still didn't require a large crew. The same could be said for the cylindrical cigar-shaped refueling tankers that had also been captured.
Everything that could be of value was stripped from the base to be either put in storage or scrapped and stripped for parts. The entire facility itself would probably one day be melted down into the metals that the fleet would use to repair its ships and build new ones. Lots of missiles and other ammunition were recovered as well. Many of these could be readily used in both colonial small arms and vehicles, which helped replenish their stocks.
The Cylons didn't return in force but more than a few tankers and raiders came back from wherever they had been from before. They were then either destroyed or captured by the combat air patrol or standby marine teams which pounced on the refueling ships, quickly boarding them with their raptors.
Soon a week passed and nothing was remaining of the base. The colonials had stolen or destroyed all of it.