Roads Paved in Shadow
Book II
Chapter Two
Cyrannus Star System–Earth Date: December 2020
Planet Caprica, Caprica City
(Earth Time 1:35 AM)
Four Months post Tok'ra attack
Sixty-seven-year-old Richard Adar, three term President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol was sound asleep when the first nuclear bomb detonated a half mile above the surface, forty-five miles west of one of the most densely populated cities on the planet, so being asleep, he didn't see the flash that lit up his bedroom in an ugly, whitish light. It was the deep rumbling vibrating the Presidential residence that woke him. Like so many others, he'd never personally experienced an actual detonation, but he didn't have to witness one to know what had just happened. He used to be the President, by the gods! All those demonstrations of nuclear power coupled with the responsibility to destroy with a flick of his finger was enough to frighten any sane person. It was this cold, constant fear of having to go to war with the Cylons that gave him ulcers at night. He hated them, but he didn't want to go to war with them either because he didn't think he could live with the aftermath of billions of people dead, wounded and suffering from radiation poisoning, starvation, loss and who knew what else war would bring. He was pragmatic though. The Cylons were machines with no concept of what it was to live. They could only survive and that was the difference between living beings and a machine. Living life and simply surviving were contradictory terms and this was the reason Humanity would always be at war with the so-called intelligent machines. This constant weight on his soul and that continuing raw fear caused a barely conscious man to become wide awake and in full control of his faculties in less than ten seconds after the residence began shaking.
Adar quickly turned towards his wife Mathia, shaking her violently, forcing her awake–gods, she was a heavy sleeper! –when the entire night sky turned to daylight as another mushroom cloud appeared somewhere west of the first one. A rumble stronger than the earlier one shook the building once again. The shaking lasted longer this time and several panes of the reinforced, bullet-proof glass windows splintered in their frames. Walls cracked and crumble as plaster, wood structuring suffered under the stress.
His wife's eyes barely opened in confusion when the bedroom door was literally kicked open by Presidential security personnel. Three men and a woman entered. All of them were continually scanning the room looking for possible intrusion as they literally grabbed the soon-to-be ex-president and his wife.
"Come with us, sir."
Their expressions were so serious, Adar didn't even think of resisting.
The four large security personnel unceremoniously grabbed the President and his wife and man-handled them towards the door and to the private elevator that would take them a mile underneath the Presidential mansion. Adar and his wife were still in their bed clothes, but it barely mattered as the horror of a nuclear flash directly over Caprica City seemed imminent. The rush towards the elevator was a nightmare that he'd never forget. His wife, still confused and being rushed to safety was too much in her half -wakened state. She was screaming. Personnel throughout the building were running around confused as to where to go and what was happening. Regular illumination was gone, replaced by regular lighting which only served to increase overall panic.
All of them were ignored by the Presidential group as the lead security in command punched in the security codes. The elevator opened immediately, and the half dozen people quickly stepped inside. The elevator descended some twenty stories below the home while all the while Adar yelled for answers.
His first questions were of upmost concern. "How bad is it? Is President Goesel safe?" he all but demanded. Antonius Goesel had just won a hard-fought election and as President-Elect was slated to take over the duties of the Presidency in less than thirteen days. "Did he and his family get to the shelters in time?"
The security detail was silent as they weren't informed about everything. But they did offer some information.
"The city of Meletis was hit ten minutes ago," Agent Knight gruffly said. Although the voice held no emotion, Adar saw the rage in her eyes. "President-Elect Goesel and most of the Cabinet-Elect were there when the bomb went off." There was a moment of silence. "You're still the President of the Twelve Colonies, sir."
"My gods. I thought we were prepared for a Cylon attack. How did they get through our defenses, or was it terrorists?"
"I don't know, Mister President."
The Colonial defenses were upgraded significantly since the aborted Cylon cyber-attack was discovered and nearly started an intergalactic war years earlier. The infiltration code that would have crippled the Colonial military was discovered days before its activation. With its discovery, the Cylon plan to cripple the Colonials' military and then wipe out the Colonial population was thwarted. The debacle went public two days later and the population went crazy. The calls for war were nearly irresistible and Adar was almost forced to retaliate using the full force of the Colonial Defense forces in a devastating counterattack against the Cylons. Fortunately, cooler heads on Caprica and Picon prevailed against the religious insanity of Gemenon and the overt hostility of Sagittaron people that were screaming for war. However, the damage was done and the once, almost lapsed attitude against the Cylons turned into something deadlier.
Until a few minutes ago, there existed a state of cold war status between the Cylon nation and the Colonies of Kobol. Each were in a heightened state ever since with both sides playing cat and mouse with one another near their borders. Despite their fear and hatred of each other, neither side had aggressively attacked one another, despite some serious provocations originating from both sides.
Apparently thought Adar, the cold war just went hot. How many people have died already?
"I don't have much information, sir," Agent Rinhardi answered. "The only thing we know so far is that at least four nukes hit the surrounding suburbs close enough to make the city feel it. But nothing's hit the city proper," he finished while struggling not to add the words not yet. "You will be briefed by Colonial Command when we arrive at our destination. What I do know is that the radiation profile is a lot less pronounced than expected. Initial reports suggest that they may using some type of clean bomb."
"Clean nukes?" asked Adar. "That's impossible. Are the Cylons using neutron bombs of some sort?" Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer to that question better than his protectors. Hydrogen, uranium, or plutonium based weaponry were all dirty in one form or another. Unless it was something new that the Cylons developed, there really was no such thing as a clean bomb. The military had drilled that little truth into his psyche.
Adar didn't ask any more questions because his wife demanded attention. She was fully awake and demanding answers from him that he didn't have, and she wouldn't accept. Anything he said only made things worse. So, he remained silent which only served to make things tenser.
It took another two minutes before they small group reached the uppermost level of the huge underground bunker that was rapidly filling up with military and civilian officials, specialists, scientists, and technicians. Still clad in their sleepwear, the President and First Lady were somewhat self-conscious but most of those in the room, out of respect, avoided looking directly at them. Two officials came over quickly and provided some outerwear which were gratefully accepted.
"What's the status?" Adar asked, now in full Presidential mode. "How many ships have they allocated?"
"We don't have that information yet, sir," one of the commanders answered quickly.
"Sir, we need to get you to the Athena Complex, now." The lead agent said as he and his team surrounded and almost shoved the President and First Lady through another secured door leading to an underground sub-railway unit that would take them to military base Athena One, the most secure bunker on the planet some twenty minutes away and two miles deeper than the bunker.
Warstar Zeus
"Break off Destroyer Group Persiades. Have them support our left flank!"
Those cruisers couldn't be allowed to hit Picon again, Admiral Tyslo Nagala didn't focus on the loss of the battlestar Atrum to the beam weapons that gutted her and killed her entire crew just a few seconds ago. He didn't dare allow it to distract him as he was too busy trying to save one of the premier battlestar groups from being wiped out in this surprise attack.
The enemy appeared from nowhere and wreaked havoc on the unprepared Colonial fleet, until three hours ago the idea of an attack force penetrating and striking at the heart of Colonial defenses was unimaginable. Every single defense corridor was bypassed with impunity and the enemy made the most of it. Eight out of the fifteen capital battlestars had been caught in a crossfire and cut to pieces by energy beams no less. "They are authorized to use nuclear ordnance both tactical and anti-capital at their discretion, have Gunstar group Radance support them and keep those fighters from breaking through. That is their priority."
The gunstars, and cruisers were not faring much better against the larger capitals, but surprisingly against the smaller ships it was another story. The enemy used some type of energy shielding, or as many had nicknamed the blisters because of their shape, to protect themselves but massed Colonial firepower could blow through their shields given time. As usual though, time was the enemy. It took three CDF ships pitted against one of the of the enemy vessels to take said ship out, but the price was appalling. The losses they were experiencing was completely unacceptable and any rational military leader would have left the field long ago with whatever was left of his forces.
Except, there was no place to go. The enemy had struck the very heart of the Colonial system meaning that there was no retreating from the fight. If they did, then the consequences of those actions were too appalling to even contemplate. The enemy would establish orbital supremacy over Picon and Caprica and nuke the planets' population into submission. Scorpia hadn't suffered any attacks but all reports indicated that the enemy was massing for a strike.
He dared not dwell on that, he couldn't be at this moment. He trusted his commanders to do what was necessary to protect those worlds. What disturbed Nagala the most was the advances in weapons technology both offensive and defensively. The Cylons had energy shields!
That was undoubtedly the first surprise in a nasty series of shocks that every commander and officer was slapped with. The Cylons had energy shields and what did we need to get through them? The Cylons had broken the cold war stalemate and had finally attacked with a vengeance after forty-six years of festering hatred. During those first few hours of confusion and unconfirmed reports it was obvious to everyone who was attackers were.
In another few hours, it was obvious that everyone's assumption was completely and utterly wrong.
Nagala almost wished it had been the toasters. His fleet was being cut apart at range making it painfully obvious that this haphazard, defensive approach wasn't working. The lines needed to be redressed and quickly as the defenses were too uncoordinated to be effective. "To all ships of the Ninth fleet, call back to position Archimedes. Repeat, fall back to position Archimedes. Acknowledge Actual."
The confirmations started coming in. Colonial battlestars began falling back in order firing missiles, primary and secondary armaments saturated the space between them and the advancing enemy. The Minoan class battlestar Handros shook violently as another series of beam weapons that Nagala had come to hate slashed across its port side. Crippled by the strike the Colonial ship countered with alpha missile strike. A few seconds later the stunned and demoralized Colonials watched as the enemy vessel eased out of the nuclear fire unscathed, half of the missiles couldn't lock onto the target going off course and the few that got close enough were either shot down or deflected by the energy blister. But the missiles that got through apparently had some effect as the enemy's ECM failed. Finally, able to see their enemy, the Colonials' main guns spoke again, supported by missiles from two gunstars and a strikestar. The large shells crashed into the enemy shields warship dead on and this time, the shields flickered for a second before sparkling like an electric arc, the shield collapsed allowing Colonial main guns to shred the thick crystalline armor. Several small explosions were seen coming from the damaged ship as it slowed down and started to turn to move away from the battle, unbelievably it still survived even after enduring such brutal punishment.
It was a short-lived victory. Before the battlestar could capitalize on its enemy's weakness several enemy gunboats joined in the defense of its fellow warship, attacking the wounded battlestar with nuclear missiles, neutron based laser and fusion particle beams, cutting the now helpless to pieces. The besieged vessel died in a series of intense explosions, killing all hands as its weapons stores and fuel storage cooked off before the crew could even begin to evacuate. The Colonial cruisers and destroyers, unable to do anything for their dead comrades fell back but not before they got a solid sensor reading on the damaged enemy warship.
Another gunstar, already damaged by enemy fire suffered catastrophic engine failure, the oxygen-fueled fires spreading so throughout the superstructure that it took barely a minute for the tylium fueled flames to melt through protective bulkheads, Nagala heard the screams from the doomed crew as they begged for assistance from their fellow ships. Two, perhaps three, Nagala couldn't tell, escape pods made it out. For the rest of the crew there were only agonized screams coming from communications that suddenly turned to static then silence as the gunstar crumbled into itself and then blew itself into fragments. The enemy gunships didn't even pause in their advance as they took out the pods.
"Pegasus Actual," Nagala yelled over the wireless over the increasing din. The noise in CnC was so loud that he could barely hear himself think, alarms and emergency sirens blared for attention, communications were almost overwhelmed with reports coming in. Two of the Zeus' engines were inoperable, destroyed by those energy beams which no one was sure were lasers or not.
"The Ninth fleet is pulling back to your position. You have to hold them before they hit Picon again."
"Understood," Admiral Helena Cain answered immediately. "I must inform you that Picon military and civilian targets were hit by several small nukes. They've hit us twice using their strange jump drives, coming out on top of us. Their exit tunnel is deadly to our ships and will rip us apart in their wakes, you must keep the fleet mobile and evasive. A static defense will leave us vulnerable, but it takes them time and energy to decelerate. So, we have a small window of opportunity there to attack."
"I've seen that tactic. We're passing that info to all ships and Home Command; all signs indicate that they want to incapacitate and takeover our shipyards. You must protect them at all costs, if they destroy them we won't have a chance in Hades to fight back effectively." He yelled through communications trying to make himself be heard. "Cain, the Seventh, Third and Fourth heavy squadrons were attacked first, they knew where to hit us, so they've been planning this for very long time." He grimaced at the thought of losing a fifth of the fleet before they even knew we were in a fight. "Commander Adama used a short-ranged jump to hit an enemy formation from behind, they have shields but a spread of nukes from behind can overwhelm them."
"The blisters aren't the only problem," Cain said. He could see her ship vibrate from a strike, probably nuclear. "That crystalline layer over their ships armor is almost as strong as their shields. Their capitals can take on three battlestars and come out the winner, the only weakness we've seen so far is to hit them hard and fast from behind.
"We can use Adama's technique a few times to hit them back. Cain, we need to find more weakness, or they'll burn us out of the sky."
"Not on my watch," Cain hissed. "Did Adama survive?"
"The Galactica's starboard bay was cut apart like cheese just before she jumped. I don't know if she made it. Adama did take out two of their destroyers by hitting them at point blank range, seems their ECM couldn't protect them from that distance."
"Understood." The Galactica was an old ship, the probability that it survived was remote at best. But it was also true that the commander was tough and if anyone could survive this, then it would be him. Yes, he was a fighter and he showed them another way to fight back against these invaders. "The Second fleet just jumped in to re-enforce our position."
"We're abandoning this front now. We'll be…"
The rest of the message was lost as the Zeus was hit by multiple strikes...
CDF Battlestar Galactica
"We're dead in the water," Colonel Tigh yelled as he ran to and all but yanked Lieutenant Gaeta off the floor. The brown-haired man screamed in agony as the pain asserted itself. "Man up, Lieutenant. It's just a broken arm. Better pain than dead!"
Gaeta glared at the Second-in-Command in a haze of pain and utter contempt. He never liked Colonel Tigh and Tigh didn't like him. The man was an ill-tempered drunk with delusions of being a semi-competent officer who usually bullied those under his command in alcoholic stupor, Gaeta tried to reign it in, but his pain was too much, and his real hatred was beginning to leak out at the worst possible time. He liked his position but working underneath that man was slowly wearing him down. Reeling in pain it took a few moments before he could concentrate on the situation and not the object of his personal hatred. Two medics were already working on him, administering drugs that would allow him to stay on duty but would make him regret it once it wore off, if they survived.
"Saul!"
By his tone of voice and the way he had said his name, the colonel from years of experience that the commander wanted a strep. He answered instantly.
"Bill, the starboard bay is gone," he answered. "Sections sixteen though twenty-nine is closed off and," he paused as his face turned grimmer than it was a few moments earlier. "It's open to vacuum. We lost a little under four hundred of our finest."
Commander Adama didn't bother looking at the other man to see the strain he as well as everyone else was going through right now. "What's our engine status? Weapons?"
"Engines two and four are gone, engine three is damaged and one of our jump drives is shot to Hades. Port weapons and missile launchers are still green, the main gun can fire maybe two shots before we run out of ordinance."
Adama looked up from DRADIS in frustration. It was sporadic. A Cylon armada could be right in front of them and they'd never see it. "What happened? Why can't we fire our main weapons?"
"Ordinance transport system is down. What's already there is all we have until we fix it."
"I want all the vipers we have left launched. Mix ordinance, anti-capital and anti-fighter, I am authorizing them to carry nukes."
"We have sixteen vipers, and three raptors," Tigh was more strained than usual. "We lost too many pilots in the last fight."
Adama nodded. "Get them out ASAP. Scan the area for our forces. I want to know who is out there now."
"Yes, sir. I'm on it."
Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace made a hard turn to port in her viper as she and two escorts did an observational run down the length of the Colombia class battlestar. "Galactica Actual, we have hull ruptures across the length of the ship, starboard side. If you try to move too fast, the stress will tear the ship apart. I am not sure the old gal should move at all."
"Understood. DRADIS picked up three sporadic signals. Can you identify?"
"I have them. Three Colonial cruisers, repeat. There are three Colonial cruisers, six hundred klicks and closing. They are trying to contact you, Galactica Actual."
"We are not receiving transmissions. We need to use you as a carrier."
"Understood Galactica Actual…"
As a true professional Kara didn't show it but she was very worried. So far, this as of yet unidentified enemy had hit Colonial bases with impunity with both nuclear ordinance and some type of beam weapon, they were also using some type of lasers modified like no one had ever seen before as main weapons. Offensive laser was a science that that her people had never properly developed for use on capital ships, the weapon was highly effective and combined with some sort of scattering field that interfered with DRADIS tracking and target lock, it was nearly impossible to accurately hit back. Not only that they had another type of beam weapon, slower in speed as compared to the lasers but just as deadly and when hit it, turned armor into puddles of molten slag. That made at least three different kinds of beams that she knew of so far. One was laser-based, one composed of some type of plasma and the third, only the gods knew.
Her wireless sprang to life as the Colonial cruiser Unidynal started transmitting. She set her own wireless to pass the message along to her battlestar.
"Galactica this is Unidynal Actual. Please respond."
"This is Galactica Actual. It's good to hear your voice, Commander."
"What's your status?"
"We're dead in space. We've lost the starboard bay and have multiple breaches throughout the ship, casualties are at forty percent, multiple injuries many serious to critical. Partial weapons capability on the port side only with limited main weapon capability. Life support is working but just barely and we have very limited mobility. What's the status of the fleet?"
"We're in bad shape. Caprica, Scorpia, Picon, possibly Tauron… they've all been nuked. We've confirmed reports of at least twenty military groups bases being hit on Picon, some type of gunboats with stealth capabilities entered the atmosphere and nuked us before we knew what was happening. Planetary defenses took two of them out, but we can't accurately lock on to them with DRADIS, right now the best we can do is approximate where we should shoot."
"Where is the enemy concentrated now?" Adama demanded. "We need to get back into the fight."
"Commander, the Galactica is in no shape to fight. We're at the edge of civilian traffic lanes near Picon. There are roving bands of enemy fighters and gunboats in the area. We have civilian friendlies all over the place and no one here to protect them, it's our responsibility to protect our civilians."
"No," countered Adama. Kara could hear the anger in her commander's voice at the insinuation that he didn't know his duty. "It's our responsibility to fight our enemies so that the civilians can be protected. We need to get back into the fight. Now."
There was a moment of silence before the other commander spoke once more, Kara knew what Adama and every other Colonial was feeling at this moment, she wanted to get into the fight as much as anyone but the Galactica was in no shape to do anything and she knew it. If they encountered the Cylons now (and that was a very big question because she wasn't sure if these really were Cylons), the battlestar wouldn't stand a chance and would stand out as one big fat target waiting to happen. With a grim resolve, she kept her mouth shut.
"What is your jump status, Commander?"
"We can make one jump back into the fight, do what we can with what we got."
"If you jump again, the there's a good chance that the Galactica will rip herself apart. We're sending raptors to you now to evacuate your ship. You'll be able to fight back soon enough, Commander."
The commander of the Unidynal sounded young but he hadn't backed down an inch and still he remained respectful.
Commander Adama didn't say a word, but Kara Thrace knew that the old man was trying to keep from giving himself a stroke. He needed to be in this fight and fate seemed to have decreed otherwise, at least for now and if he was mad, then Tigh would be a bigger pain than ever.
It took the Commander a full minute to respond. "Unidynal Actual, we await your raptors. Thank you for the assistance," the Commander gritted out. "Enter using the port bay."
"Acknowledged. We'll be there in a few."
TBC