The Final Circle

by Sufficient Velocity

This is a Babylon 5 centered tale. It explores a BSG style exodus due to the loss of the Earth Minbari war. It becomes a crossover with nBSG as of Interlude 1, and crosses with Firefly as of Interlude 2. Most B5 and BSG canon should remain unchanged, including EU. However, Firefly will mostly use series and film canon. Its EU began to expand after I had already merged the plots.

43. Chapter40-You Can'tTake theSky FromMe(2)

Chapter 40 - You Can't Take the Sky From Me (II)

Deep Space, Above the White Sun Plane of the Ecliptic - May, 2250
Garibaldi and Bester strolled onto Serenity's flight deck as though they owned the place, much to Mal's long simmering aggravation. He was far less pleased to see the Operative follow them. Still, he was a professional, and would have either kept his concerns to himself or simply told them to leave.

Jayne felt far fewer compunctions. "Gorram it, Mal! Bad enough you lost your damn head and accepted this suicide mission, draggin' the rest of us along. Did'ja have ta saddle us with snakes and madmen in the process?"

"And am I a snake or a madman?" the Operative asked unflappably, the tiniest of grins curling the corners of his mouth.

Grumbling disconsolately, Jayne stood up to leave. "Maybe I'll go check in on Major Resting Bitch Face. See if she needs anything."

"If you're referring to Major Shaw," Bester advised, "she's working with young River in the commissary…"

"Galley," Mal corrected automatically.

"...and is quite capable of seeing to her own needs without your interruptions, and certainly without your ogling."

"Hear that Jayne?" Wash cut in, smirking from the pilot seat. "No ogling. You'll have to bring it down to a leer. Or maybe crank it up to a lech. Either way, call her Major Resting Bitch Face. Very endearing."

"What exactly are they doing down there?" Mal asked, ignoring Wash.

Bester looked to Garibaldi. "Yes, I wouldn't mind knowing either, since I've been ordered not to interfere or interrupt. Not even to simply scan for what they are doing. Just what are they getting up to down there?"

Michael considered Bester for a long moment before turning back to Mal. "She's trying to help her. Teach her how to use her latent abilities…at least the ones they share…while also removing the programmed blocks and commands that were placed into her subconscious." He sighed. "As I understand it, and I'm not at all certain that I understand it, progress is…limited. They've made headway, and River herself has fought hard to take control of her own mind. But…there's only so much you can do when some of the trauma and the programming was literally carved into her brain."

Mal shrugged noncommittally. "Any progress is better than no progress, I suppose." He chose to change the subject. "Where are we, Wash?"

"A long way from nowhere, and movin' fast. I really don't like being this far off the normal travel routes. Not after what happened last time."

"We're fresh up with shiny new parts and a ton of spares. Ain't no breakdowns happenin' this trip. And seein' as how we're public enemy number one, I want to minimize our time in Alliance space as much as possible."

"And what better way to do that than to take a trip to Londinium?" Wash quipped sarcastically.

"That's the job, and the pay's good. Like as not, it'll be our last for a while, so let's do it right. Has Alliance traffic control spotted us yet?"

"They don't usually scan this far off the ecliptic. Not much anyway. And we're just a teeny tiny fish in one terrifyingly massive black ocean. It won't be too much longer though. We're way past the apex of our route. I'm going to have to slow down soon, or they'll be suspicious when they do finally spot us."

"Couldn't we just sneak in? Avoid being spotted at all?" Bester inquired.

"To Londinium?" Wash asked acerbically. "You do know that's the capital of the whole gorram Alliance, right? One of them, anyway. A flea doesn't land on Londinium without their traffic control being aware of it."

"Our best bet," the Operative cut in, "is to not appear as though we are skulking. To appear just like any other of a thousand vessels that come and go from that world every single day. They don't have time to closely investigate every single visitor. Most of it is done via automated routines. We've arranged and implanted a cover identity which should get us through. But then, getting onto Londinium was always going to be the easy part."

"I expect security will be a bit tight," Garibaldi offered drolly.

"With Commodore Sheridan and President Roslin both coming to this notional peace summit?" Wash replied, wide eyed. "And the forces they'll be bringing with them? It's gonna be insane. Which is what we are, for going into that voluntarily."

"We'll avoid the worst of it," Mal replied in his best 'stoic captain' voice. "We'll do our best to keep the entire planet between us and either Parliament or New Cardiff. Touch down at the port in New Inverness."

"Never heard of it."

"It's rather small and remote, as towns in the Core are measured, sitting at the intersection of the Tocs and Appalach Highlands," the Operative offered. "But it can offer us the two things we need…access and cover. There's a small UAP Naval Reserve armory in town. It's a real facility, but it's concealing a signals intercept and decryption center run by the Ministry of Intelligence. Captain Reynolds was correct. New Inverness sits very nearly on the antipode of the Parliament. By placing their receivers here, in conjunction with those built into the Parliament building, they get a view of very nearly the full sky. Not that they need it of course. There are sensor stations all over the planet and throughout the orbitals. But they like to be fully prepared. And since they've given us a nice, neat intelligence data center, which of necessity is networked directly to the main Parliament intelligence servers…"

"If we can break in, we should be able to pull whatever data we want," Mal summarized.

"If we can get in," the Operative cautioned, "you'll only be past their physical safeguards…most of them anyway. You'll still have to deal with all of the digital security."

"Which is why D'Anna is with us," Bester reassured.

"She sure pulled off a miracle last time," Wash recalled. "And what was that about cover?"

"You're gonna love this!" Garibaldi asserted with a mischievous grin.

"I find that highly unlikely," the Operative replied through a pained expression.

Now Mal was grinning. "Ever heard of the New Inverness Highlander Skirling Festival?" At Wash's blank look he explained. "It's the Union of Allied Planets' premiere pipers pageant. Commodore Sheridan set the date of the summit to coincide with the festival. New Inverness is going to be awash with tourists and barely controlled chaos. Perfect cover for our presence. Should be a pretty good show as well."

"Captain," the Operative sighed, "I've been there before during the festival. You must believe me, if you've never before heard forty thousand bagpipers trying…and failing… to play in unison….count yourself lucky. It is the stuff of nightmares."

His shudder was interrupted by an insistent beeping, welling up from Wash's panel. "We were just painted by a radar pulse out of Londinium," the pilot advised them.

"Did they detect us?" Mal asked sharply.

"I don't think so. We're still too far out. That pulse didn't have enough juice to make it back. But it won't be long now." He kicked in a bit of reverse thrust, applying the deceleration he had promised earlier.

"Alright people. No turning back now. Time to get your crook on."

---

EAS Nova, Approaching Londinium, White Sun Plane of the Ecliptic - May, 2250
"Passing fifteen light seconds to destination, Commodore," came the report from Navigation.

"Have the Task Force begin deceleration," Commodore John Sheridan replied, almost absentmindedly. "We don't want to alarm anyone down there."

"Heaven forbid," Lieutenant Commander Laurel Takashima, his XO, quipped.

John looked up to share a grin and a moment's eye contact, but then went back to reviewing his station display. It was keyed into a live feed from the CAP, as they swept around and back towards the Task Force, providing an excellent view of the fleet. It was quite the sight. A standard diamond formation with the Nova in the lead, a single Basestar sat behind and slightly above to either side, making up the wings. And bringing up the rear, tucked in tight to the 'slot,' came the Midway. The wide variation in ship morphology made for an exotic and dangerous looking formation. He hoped the Alliance took themselves a good look. Maybe a little posturing would get them to finally sit up and pay attention. Maybe even question their own assumptions and listen for a change. "Nah, we'll never be that lucky," he muttered to himself under his breath.

"Sir?" the sharp eared Takashima enquired.

"I said it's time to test our luck," he responded in a louder and more commanding voice. "Have Captain Sinclair launch another wing into space to link up with the CAP. Have the Midway do the same. I want our Starfuries in tight. If this goes south we might need the additional interceptor capacity."

Laurel relayed the orders, but then added a couple of her own. "Sensors, keep an eye on every ship, station, and rock within spitting distance. I don't want any surprises. Display forward camera feed to main viewscreen…magnification five." The image of Londinium, their destination, came up on the display. At this distance the field of view was wide enough to also display her two moons, Colchester and Balkerne. Disconcertingly for anyone not born in the Verse, all three bore the blues and greens and hazy atmosphere of habitable worlds, despite their massive size differences. Londinium looked particularly Earth-like, more so than any place else they had visited in the Verse. But even Balkerne appeared Earth-like, despite probably massing five or even six orders of magnitude less than the planet she orbited.

Sheridan let everyone take in the view for a minute, but then gave another order. "Tactical view. Set radius to fifteen light seconds, and shrink it as range to the planet decreases. Designate all military vessels please, Commander." While his orders were being carried out, he glanced around at the flag bridge, marveling at how clean…almost pristine…it was compared to the rest of the ship. Of course, they'd only recently taken up occupation. During the retreat from Earth he had commanded as Captain from the primary bridge, and then turned it over to Sinclair when he'd finally taken full command of the fleet. But even then, he'd flown his flag from the Midway, which had lacked a dedicated flag bridge. Only now, when the potential need to make a sacrificial play with their heaviest ship against Minbari pursuers had finally abated, was he able to take up residence within the Nova's facilities designed to allow an Admiral to properly manage fleet command.

"Commodore, we're not currently tracking any warships. Just a dozen or so space fighters and a handful of large space stations, including one which is truly massive. Quite a few smaller ones as well. Oh, and a very large number of sats, some of which may be armed. Most everything we're seeing appears to be civilian, however."

"No military ships at all?" he asked, chasing the oddity. "You're certain?"

"There's a lot of freighter traffic, Commodore. Perhaps there are some Q-ships amongst them."

"Still…there should be something out there to counter us. You don't just let a potentially hostile fleet approach your capital world with nothing in their way but fixed assets. Keep those sensors sharp. I don't like this."

"Maybe they just didn't want to alarm us. Minimize any possibility of a misunderstanding or unfortunate incident."

"Maybe," he offered, noncommittally. "Still, this doesn't feel right. Have we had any contact from the Alliance?"

"Just their traffic control advising that they see us and to maintain course."

He scratched his jaw in thought for a moment. "Get all pilots to their ready rooms and prep for launch. No getting caught with our pants down. Oh, and keep the Cylons in the loop on every step. We don't want them getting jumpy or going their own way."

"Aye, Sir."

For the next hour they passed closer and closer to the Alliance capital, gently decelerating the whole way. Tension on the bridge was steadily rising, especially as they passed within a hundred megameters of Colchester and it swept into their rear view. They weren't terribly far off from Balkerne for that matter, half a gigameter off their starboard bow.

They had just passed one light second to Londinium when the Alliance finally deigned to contact them. Comms had been under orders to immediately play any such transmissions, so the message played immediately across the flag bridge's PA speakers. "Rebel fleet, this is Londinium Space Command. Maintain current course without deviation. Hold for Speaker Zhang of the House." Orders having been given, the official on the other end of the line simply cut it without ceremony.

"Pleasant one, isn't he?" Sheridan mused, mostly to himself.

"About what I've learned to expect from government bureaucrats," Takashima replied with a smirk. "Present company excepted of course, Madame President," she added with a nod to President Roslin, who had just strode through the hatch.

"Of course," Roslin replied expressionlessly. "Commodore, any sign of hostilities?"

"Not yet, but give it a minute. Something feels off about this. I'm rather glad we agreed not to bring Colonial One."

Roslin grimaced, but nodded her agreement. She stepped back, doing her best to keep out from underfoot. A task made far easier by nearly every officer being belted into their stations. Then they simply waited for Speaker Zhang to make himself known.

They didn't wait long. Without the staticy crackle Roslin was used to from the Galactica's analogue systems, the Speaker's voice was suddenly broadcast over the Nova's flag bridge speakers. "This is Speaker Zhang of the House. Do I have the honor of speaking with President Roslin and Commodore Sheridan?"

"You do," Roslin spoke first, as she had worked out with Sheridan in advance.

"Then allow me to extend my welcome to the great world of Londinium. I was…surprised…and yet pleased that you suggested we hold negotiations here."

"Thank you for having us Speaker Zhang. We look forward to fruitful negotiation. There is much to discuss, but with hard work and persistence, I'm certain we can cement a lasting peace."

"Yes…of course. Be aware, we've arranged an honor guard to meet you. You should see them shortly."

The words were barely out of his mouth before Laurel turned to Sheridan. "Commodore, we've got fighter craft breaking through the cloud deck above Londinium. Accelerating towards us at high speed."

"How many?" he asked, keeping his rising blood pressure strictly out of his voice.

"A lot….eleven…twelve…fifteen hundred Commodore. Still accelerating."

"Is that really necessary, Speaker Zhang?" Roslin was already asking.

Sheridan pulled Takashima close and spoke to her in a quiet yet urgent voice, clearly intending for the conversation not to be carried to the Speaker. "Get the rest of our Starfuries into space. Emergency launch. The next couple of minutes will tell whether this is a trap or not."

"Well," the Speaker was responding in an oily voice. "You understand politics. I have to appease the citizens and my peers, who are concerned that you might be here to launch a surprise attack. I managed to arrange for our naval vessels to be elsewhere…we didn't want to scare you off, afterall…but protocols must be maintained…appearances kept up. You can't expect us to have no forces in the area. Not when you've brought such large and impressive vessels of your own."

"Fifteen hundred fighters is more than just an honor guard, Mr. Speaker," Sheridan cut in brusquely. "And they're accelerating towards us rather…aggressively. I'm going to have to insist you order them to maintain ten thousand kilometers separation from our fleet. Then we can both rest easy."

Zhang scoffed. "Our fighters can hardly be considered any form of protection at that range…Commodore Sheridan I presume? Their impact would be negligible, either in defending the capital, or in defending your fleet against the actions of any…understandably upset, yet rogue elements."

Sheridan shared a look with Roslin. "That's quite the statement, Mr. Speaker," she cut in. "Were you expecting any of your people to go rogue?"

"Expecting? Certainly not. And yet it is prudent to take every precaution, is it not? Your people have, after all, murdered quite a number of our soldiers and civilians, and released a massive plague upon our 'Verse. The cries for justice for the people of Beaumonde ring out across the 'Verse. This is, after all, part of the reason for having an honor guard. To protect against such…unexpected and unforeseen contingencies."

"Alliance fighters now passing ten thousand klicks," Takashima noted professionally, though softly, during the Speaker's disclosure, not wanting to interrupt high-level discussions.

Roslin's face had flushed a ruddy hue at the Speaker's ridiculous accusation and she angrily began to rebut. Sheridan cut her off by gripping her arm, and offered in a steely voice. "Pull those fighters back, Speaker Zhang. This is your final warning. If they come within eight thousand kilometers of this fleet, we will consider them hostile and act accordingly."

"Really, Commodore?" Zhang asked, voice heavy with derision. "You would throw away this opportunity for understanding, just over the presence of a simple honor guard? This is a peace summit after all. Don't you want peace?"

"Passing nine thousand kilometers now, Commodore," Takashima noted tensely. A shrill, warbling alert went off on her console. Her eyes went down to check it, then snapped up immediately. "Radiological alert!" she snapped. "Some of those fighters are carrying nukes!"

"Pull them back, Zhang!" Sheridan snapped.

There was no reply.

"New contact!" came a new cry from the tactical officer. "We've got movement on Londinium."

"Show us," Laurel commanded tersely.

The primary display switched from a view of the onrushing Alliance fighters, zooming in beyond them to the unusually dense cloud deck above one of the planet's continents. The continent that held the Parliament, if Sheridan recalled correctly. Up and out of that cloud deck now rose warship after warship, effortlessly raising themselves rapidly against the gravity well in a feat no Earth Alliance naval vessel could possibly replicate.

"They were hovering in the clouds?" Takashima muttered in astonishment.

"We've got more Alliance ships lifting from both Colchester and Balkerne," the tactical officer reported again. "They appear to be accelerating to intercept. Multiple Crete class Carriers coming off of Colchester!"

"Get me a count!" Sheridan barked.

"Don't do this, Speaker Zhang," Roslin tried one more time. "Peace is still possible! We don't have to keep killing each other!"

"All communications from Londinium have ceased, Madame President," the Comms officer advised softly.

"Alliance fighters passing eight thousand klicks," came yet another tense announcement.

"That's it then," Sheridan said, standing up to address his crew. He looked around, rapidly meeting a sea of tense yet professional gazes. "The Alliance never wanted peace, but we've bent over backwards trying. They wanted us here, wanted themselves at their strongest, and us divided and surrounded. They didn't even do a bad job pulling it off. We didn't want this fight, but it's here now. Remember your training, follow your orders, and we will get through this. They've had their surprise. Now it's time they saw ours." Hey keyed a switch, opening up a command comms channel. "Basestars…launch all Raiders. Intercept those Alliance fighters. Terminate with extreme prejudice. Nova squadrons, follow the Raiders in. Backstop them, and hunt down any fighters carrying nukes. Do not allow them to pass. Midway squadrons, stay tight. Maintain point defense for the fleet. Alright people, time to earn our pay. The Alliance chose to frag around. Time for them to find out."

---

New Inverness, Londinium, White Sun System - May, 2250
Sirens wailed in the streets and chaos reigned, as tourists and military and government personnel ran madly through the congestion of bodies all trying to be somewhere else. Malcolm Reynolds led the team through all of that chaos as they headed towards their objective. He glanced up as another pair of reserve Alliance Gunships lifted off from the local base and went roaring towards the darkening, yet still blue sky. A sparkle of flashes could be seen coming from the other side of that blue veil. It was almost pretty, but he knew what those sparkles meant…spacecraft being blown to bits. Human lives ended in the cold vacuum of space or the fires of detonating drives and munitions.

The cacophony in the streets only grew as they approached the military end of town. Mal lead the group wide around the next corner, looking askance at the company sized force of military bagpipers and highland drummers, skirling defiantly at the skies, as though sheer volume would carry their defiance past the sky and intervening vacuum, past combat and ship hulls, and straight to the ears of the invading Independents. They wore bizarrely archaic military garb and flourishes, with ruddy faces beneath black wool glengarry hats, and hairy male legs (and the occasionally shapely feminine ones) peeking out from beneath tartan kilts. Their Pipe Major gesticulated wildly, exhorting them to ever greater volume and stridency. The Operative was right, Mal thought, glancing over at the man striding along beside him. That noise is like to give me nightmares for the rest of my days.

Ahead of them, military police were setting up a blockade. It seemed largely occupied with directing and reassuring befuddled tourists….many of whom were also playing bagpipes loudly into space, though very few in unison or even with the mildest of collaboration…but it was clear they were also attempting to restrict access to the military region surrounding the naval reserve base and armory. Mal looked down at the hated uniform he had forced himself…and the rest of them…to don. Uniforms appropriated from the Crete. The group of them, basically the entire compliment from Serenity, made an interesting and not entirely unnoteworthy sight, striding along together as they were. Even amidst all this chaos. "Where's this alley a' yours?" he hissed at Inara. "These disguises ain't gonna stand up through an actual check point."

"It's just up ahead," she reassured confidently, striding forward to take the lead. About a block before the checkpoint, she led them towards a narrow street…or perhaps a broad alley…running between two tall buildings, one brick and the other concrete. Fronting the alley was a large Chinese paifang, painted in darkest purple with silver gilding. Inara hesitated for just a moment before the arch, before striding purposefully ahead. The alley beyond was extremely dark. Large cornices and extensions on the buildings to either side very nearly closed off the sky, with only patches of dark blue appearing here and there. Within, the bulk of the illumination was provided by a row of oriental styled lamp posts, also painted dark purple. However, instead of bearing gas lamps or natural or electric candles, they instead provided black light illumination. A series of bay windows ran down either side of the street, lit with additional black light from within, to illuminate the wares on display.

"Whores!" Jayne blurted in excitement. "You didn't say we'd be seein' more whores. This's a good plan."

Inara pursed her lips briefly in disapproval, but when she spoke she did not chastise. "It is a good plan. Companions choose whom they take on as clients, and provide a service of culture, not just animal lust. Which means that every significant military establishment…within the Core at least…is accompanied by a Black Light District. They service the civilian population as well, of course, so these streets will always run from a commercial civilian sector right into the military district. This is the civilian entrance. Which means the other end of this street should let out practically at the doors of the base."

"Won't they just have another MP squad blocking that end?" Garibaldi asked.

"It's an emergency, remember?" the Operative pointed out. "Half of their officers are probably stumbling out of one of these buildings or another, and racing back to their posts. They wouldn't want to do anything to slow that down. Besides, it's the military's unofficial policy not to take note of these…leisure activities."

"Maybe I shoulda joined the army," Jayne wisecracked with a broad grin, elbowing Bester, who had been walking next to him, in the ribs and turning to share his humor. The telepath gave him a withering stare. Major Shaw, just beyond him, simply glared daggers. "Hey. You guys got no appreciation for the finer things in life. If ya can't enjoy a good whore, what can ya enjoy?" As this comment seemed to appease neither Shaw nor Bester, Jayne simply turned to follow Inara once more, as they all set off briskly down the alley.

Whores under blacklight and behind glass called out to them from either side through speakers mounted above their windows. There was even one wrapped in sheerest tulle, standing atop a three meter column in the middle of the alley and playing a set of bagpipes, erotic figures carved into the bass and tenor drones. Inara set her jaw and strode past, gaze fixed firmly straight forward. Jayne, and to a lesser extent Garibaldi, both chose to take in and enjoy the view. As did River. Simon and Kaylee both stared straight ahead, blushing brightly. As did Wash, exquisitely aware of his wife's glare on the back of his neck. Shaw's glare at Garibaldi's open gawking seemed to bother him not at all. Only Bester, Mal, and the Operative moved ahead with nothing but professionalism, a fact which seemed to strike D'Anna as hilarious. All told, they should have stuck out like a sore thumb; especially given the neon glow shining off the insignias and piping of their stolen uniforms under the black light. But the whores' alley was indeed nearly filled with officers in similar uniforms spilling out of various doors along the street, and straightening those uniforms as they rushed back to post. Mal actually had to speed up the group, to blend in better.

After what seemed like a ridiculously long stretch, the alley finally spilled out into the military district, near the naval base. There were a pair of MPs there, but they were neither checking IDs, nor even watching particularly carefully. Their only job was to apparently chase away any civilians who might have wandered this far. Mal strode right past them without hesitation, and the rest of the party followed.

"Well, that was easy," Wash noted.

"Dear," Zoë replied, "if you ever again note that something is easy mid-mission, I may be forced to strangle you. Do not jinx us."

"Oh, come on," Wash chuckled. "We're not that superstitious, are we?" He paused looking around. "Are we?" he asked more nervously.

"Alright," Mal said, cutting off that line of discussion, "we're close. Time to split up. No time for questions, so you better all remember your parts." There was a brief series of confirmations, and then they broke into their assigned teams, heading off in different directions. Just in time, as a new siren began to wail.

---

EAS Nova, Londinium Orbitals, White Sun Plane of the Ecliptic - May, 2250
Commodore Sheridan watched the opening stages of the battle unfold. "Bring the fleet around ninety degrees to port. Accelerate to flank speed," he ordered. "Let's try to keep the distance open. Give our crews more time to deal with these bogeys. And give our point defense a better shot against any nukes which might slip through."

"Aye, Sir," Commander Takashima acknowledged, ensuring the orders were carried out. "At that heading, we'll pass into range of their Battlestation."

"Good." He keyed open his direct channel to the main bridge. "Captain Sinclair?"

"Commodore?" Jeff's voice came back across the channel.

"That station offends me, Commander. Remove it from my sky."

"As soon as we get into range, Sir," he acknowledged, the grin evident in his voice. He cut the line, and they all refocused on the main screen, as the Cylons engaged.

Just over five hundred Raiders had been launched from what the Earth Force crews were calling 'toaster slots,' despite the unfortunate potential slur in the name. It didn't seem to bother the Cylons, so why should they care? That wasn't enough Raiders to fully stock even a single Basestar, but it was all they'd been able to produce over the last few months. The frames, engines, and avionics of the new Raiders were more or less identical to those which had been used in the attack on the Colonies so many months before. But the insides were completely changed.

When the Cylons had stated they wanted to rebuild their fighter force, the Colonials had almost immediately objected. Sheridan and the Earth Force officers had also expressed major reservations. It wasn't the idea of rearming the Cylons. Their Basestars and Heavy Raiders were all back up to full strength, barring jump drives. No, it was the idea of reintroducing a non-human intelligence, and where these creatures would reside in the social hierarchy. Would they be citizens? Slaves? Some bizarre creature counting as three fifths of a 'proper' sapient? The philosophical and moral quagmire was one no one was quite ready to dare.

Understanding their concern, it had been Caprica who suggested the solution. All of the biological systems were removed, replaced by purely electro-mechanical mechanisms. The Raiders would not be living at all. But neither were they a proper fit as a manned fighter. The ergonomics were simply all wrong. Instead, the Cylons made use of their greatest strength…their data systems interface capabilities. The Raiders were built as drones. Instead of being filled with biological entrails, sensor feeds and control feedback was broadcast to and from a biological Cylon pilot back on the Basestar. They hadn't been able to produce jump drives anyway, so the Raider would largely be staying within a near zero lag range of the ship. And the lack of those jump drives had allowed them to sandwich in twice as many missiles to the internal bays. Of course, it didn't hurt that they were now using Earth Force missiles. Far better to have them than to have to dodge them.

As the Raiders closed into weapons range of the Alliance fighter swarm, they were followed by a couple of dozen heavily laden Heavy Raiders, and finally by the Starfury squadrons from the Nova. Silently, the Raider formation unleashed their first missile salvo. And as before, they discovered that the Earth Force missiles were significantly longer ranged than their Alliance counterparts. At least, mostly. A few hundred of the top tiered Alliance fighters seemed to be armed with missiles, new or at least not previously encountered, which matched the range of the Earth Force munitions. It was only one or two apiece, but it was still a shock to the crash-trained Cylons when they salvoed long range missiles only to have a comparably sized return salvo immediately hit space.

The Raider pilots had been drawn from the ranks of the recently awakened blanks, on the theory that their greater mental plasticity would allow them to soak up the required training within the foreshortened timeframe, whilst also not possessing existing habits and muscle memory which would need to be deprogrammed. Cylons with actual programming and life experience, who were, it had to be admitted, in somewhat short supply, were reserved for crewing the Basestars and flying the Heavy Raiders. Tasks for which they possessed the necessary expertise. However, the drawback of this scheme quickly became apparent. The Raider pilots, for all that they had indeed soaked up their training in record time, were entirely green. The surprise of the Alliance counterlaunch led to wholly predictable results.

Sheridan, seeing uncertainty and chaos sweep over the Cylon formation, keyed into their comms channel. "Flush your racks, but make certain every missile has a different target. Remember, you're flying drones. The Alliance can't hurt you. Just take down as many of their craft as possible." The command seemed to firm up the Cylon spines, and soon they were firing off missiles quickly, their targeting rapid and precise.

The first missiles began to impact the Alliance formation, and that formation blossomed, fighters spreading out and going evasive. And yet…the formation didn't collapse entirely, even with missiles impacting and their compatriots snuffed out by the detonation of a missile strike, or sent spinning away in terminally damaged craft to choke on vacuum and blood. Nor did it lose all momentum. Slowed, yes, but it still steadily closed the distance even while maneuvering desperately.

Neither were they spendthrift in the use of ECM, flares, chaff, or other countermeasures. These systems were significantly less capable than their Earth Force counterparts, but their effect was still significant. Particularly given their near complete and total absence during the prior battle. So too were the maneuvers and tactics being employed by the Alliance a step above what had previously been demonstrated. Clearly, the Alliance military had been preparing assiduously for this confrontation. By the time the final Raider missile impacted, over half the onrushing force still remained. And it was the older, more primitive fighters which had borne the brunt of the assault.

The Cylons did not fare quite so well. The mere presence of a long range salvo from the Alliance had shaken them. Maintaining the courage to follow Sheridan's instructions and fire off their full arsenal, their will then broke and the formation dissolved into chaos as each Raider began their own independent maneuvers, attempting to stay alive. Their native mental ability of Projection… which allowed them to subsume themselves into a fully and perfectly detailed and delineated world within their own minds, transmitted and even networked to be shared between Cylons and compatible network systems…got the better of them. They existed in a world so real…a world in which it was themselves, and not drone Raiders, who whirled and spun amidst the vacuum and starfire in mortal combat with their opponents…that they fooled themselves into believing it was all real. And in their inexperience they panicked. Forgot their limited training. They maneuvered chaotically to avoid the inbound barrage. Used their own countermeasures, superior in all respects to the systems of the Alliance, haphazardly and without systematic intention. And for that reason they died in droves, shattered and burst upon weapons which should have far less effect.

Less than half…the weaker half…of the Alliance formation had been destroyed by the Raider salvoes. The Purple Bellies' limited return fire, on the other hand, had taken out just over two hundred of the recently constructed Cylon force. And the Alliance racks were still nearly fully laden with their normal, shorter range munitions. Fortunately for the Raiders, though likely unfortunately for the fleet, many of those racks were taken up by antiship munitions rather than the lighter and far more nimble antifighter missiles. Still, many of the Raiders were visibly on the verge of panic as the Alliance closed to the range at which they could fire off their next batch of weapons.

Their elder brethren came to their rescue. The voice of a five crackled over comms. "This is Councilor Doral. Raiders, reform ranks and form up on our wings!" The Heavy Raiders were charging ahead, and had opened fire from their much more voluminous missile bays. Those bays were capable of carrying antiship nukes, but when stocked with the smaller antifighter missiles, as they were now, they could pack in substantially greater numbers. A fact which only partially made up for the fairly small number of Heavy Raiders.

Sheridan motioned for the Comms officer to open a channel. "What are you doing Mr. Doral? You were supposed to stay in the second rank. Those Heavy Raiders are much easier targets…larger, slower, and less maneuverable. Stick to the planned order of battle."

There was a momentary pause before Doral replied. "Commodore, if we don't exert some leadership, the Raider formation is going to panic and break. If you want to stop the Alliance before they can launch nukes at you, you'll need us to take out a lot more fighters. We can do that, but not if these…children…don't see us leading from the front."

Sheridan sighed. "I don't suppose I can change your mind by reminding you that Resurrection isn't an option."

"You just might, so please don't. The kids need me."

"Alive, Mr. Doral. The kids need you alive."

"Then wish me luck."

John sighed. "Fine. Good luck. Now, your orders are to empty your racks, use up whatever countermeasures you have to stay alive, then a single gun pass and return to your Basestars. That should reduce their numbers enough to let the Starfuries handle the rest. Got it?"

"Yes, Sir!"

Sheridan sighed, then killed the channel and returned his attention to Laurel. "Status report?"

"We're on course and will be within firing range of their Starbase in…two minutes, seven seconds. Aside from the ongoing fighter battle, we have enemy fleets forming up above Londinium, Colchester, and Balkerne. They are moving into interdiction positions, and the vessels from Balkerne are at least closing the distance, given they are the farthest out…Colchester's are now closing as well. But none of the forces seem to be in any hurry to move into engagement range. "

John nodded. "They just need to tighten the noose. Keep us from escaping. But they'd much rather let their fighters do the dying against our guns. Are the clouds still disgorging ships? Do we have a count?"

"No new ships have been detected within the last minute. That's probably the last of them. Though we have another thousand fighters forming up over Londinium. Whether to guard their fleet or to join the current furball is…uncertain at this time. And they seem to have concentrated their Cretes over Colchester, their Tohokus over Balkerne. Both groups are now doing a mass fighter launch of their own." She hesitated. "That's gonna be a lot of fighters, Commodore. The correlation of forces seems somewhat…disadvantageous."

"Numbers, Commander. I need a count. And I need it yesterday." Nodding, Takashima bent to her station to retrieve the required details…only to be knocked to the floor as the entire ship lurched violently. "Report!"

The Commander was still picking herself up off of the floor, but Sinclair's voice suddenly crackled over the intercom. "Commodore…reports indicate we just lost the number seventeen turret."

"What? How!?"

"Kinetic impact, Sir. Looks like…it came from that Battlestation."

"That's a hell of a lot more firepower than we've seen from any of their ships. Can we return fire?"

"Negative. We're still forty seconds out of range."

Takashima was back at her station. "Commodore…kinetic impacts on Basestar Two." She switched the main display over to an alternate camera, one looking back as the Task Force. The Cylon vessel designated Basestar Two was trailing debris from a rash of holes two thirds of the way up the forward pointing spine. Secondary explosions crackled within the gaping wounds, until suddenly the end of the spine simply snapped off and went spinning into space. The remaining stub bled energy and atmosphere."

"Evasive maneuvers!" Sheridan snapped. "Spread out the Task Force. All ships to maneuver independently, but stick together." He paused, considering for a moment. "Did those shots come from the station as well?"

Apparently Laurel had been following the same train of thought, as she had the answer almost immediately. "No, Sir. It came from the fleet advancing from Londinium. Longbows and Trebuchets firing their heavy cannon."

"How the hell did they hit us at this range?"

"Kinetic weapons, Commodore. It's like they used to say in the old BiLPro days," she added, referring to the earliest incarnations of Earth Force, when ship mounted weapons mixed a pair of liquids in a cannon's firing chamber and detonated them to propel a slug to enormous velocities. This 'BiLiquid Propellant' technology was still in use in the shotguns favored by many Marines, as well as the tanks and artillery in use by the ground forces. But it had long since been superseded within the Fleet by plasma, pulse, particle beam, and laser weapons, as well as the occasional railgun, all of which delivered greater energy to the target at higher velocities. "'Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space.' Our fire would dissipate at this range. But slugs just keep on going until they hit something." She was scrolling through the various data feeds as she relayed this information, and apparently found something additional. "Commodore, it looks like they've modified their guns as well. I'm reading a four…maybe five fold increase in velocity. Rate of fire has been reduced to a third of what it was in our last engagement, but that's likely still an impressive increase in firepower."

"So they've overclocked their guns somehow?" he asked, nodding thoughtfully. "Kinetic energy uses the square of velocity, so even with the decreased rate of fire, we're still looking at about eight times the energy output. That is impressive." Then his eyes narrowed with a momentary thought. "But at our current range, those shots had to take…a minute, minute and a half to reach us. Top notch targeting, but we became effectively immune the moment we started maneuvering."

The words were barely out of his mouth before the ship heaved again, ringing like a massive bell this time. Takashima stumbled, but managed to keep her feet. "That station's a hell of a lot closer though. Glancing hit across the upper deck. We've got reports of blown pressure seals and ruptured power runs all across decks one and two. The Captain has his damage control parties responding." She made eye contact with Sheridan. "That shot would have gutted either of the Basestars or the Midway."

"Captain Sinclair," Sheridan ordered calmly, keying open his direct line once more. "You're almost in range. Flank speed. We need to deal with that station. But I have to have the rest of the formation pull back. The Nova will be on her own." Muting the channel on the expectation that Jeff would simply acknowledge affirmatively, he eyed Laurel sideways. "I'm still waiting on that ship count, Commander. I don't intend to ask again."

Laurel checked the data she had already been retrieving. "Four Crete class carriers above Colchester. They must have pulled the Cuba directly out of drydock the moment it was possible," she offered, referring to the ship which had taken a direct ramming from a massive Reaver vessel during the same battle in which they had rescued Serenity. "I can't imagine she's fully operational, though. That had to be a hell of a crash repair program. Twenty Tohokus on their way from Balkerne. Twenty-five Trebuchet class battlecrusiers, a dozen Longbow class cruisers, nine Victoria class corvettes, and another…thirty-two Ocula class corvettes, between us and Londinium. Oh and about a hundred patrol boats scattered between the three groups, but those aren't much more than enhanced fighter-bombers. Looks like the Alliance has pulled out all the stops, Sir. That's over ninety percent of their hulls, and easily ninety-nine percent of their tonnage. They came armed for bear." She paused for just a heartbeat. "And we are now within range to strike the Station."

Nodding, he unmuted his line to Sinclair. "Captain, you may fire when ready. Fight your ship." No longer in a position to do anything more than watch, John felt somehow impotent. All he could really do was sit and project confidence to the crew, attempting to appear as fully in control as possible.

Still, it was a relief when he heard Sinclair's voice, through the comm line he had left open for just that purpose, projecting the order he had been awaiting. "All guns, open fire!"

---

New Inverness, Londinium, White Sun System - May, 2250
Alfred Bester and D'Anna Biers walked nonchalantly down the avenue towards the entrance to the Naval Reserve base. Aside from the landing fields and maintenance sheds, much of the base technically resided under one roof; a large metal edifice towering up several stories, and down many more. Many more than appeared on the official blueprints, certainly. The lesser structures which fronted this building tended to be personnel residences and support structures for the military…medical and mental health facilities, postal services, base shopping, etc. And as such, the demarcation between the Military district and the Black Light was not quite so sharp as it first appeared. The pair in their liberated Alliance uniforms passed by soldiers and sailors and civilians lazily kissing…or even taking it several steps farther…right out in the open. There were more than a few prostitutes in the mix. It made for an odd juxtaposition with the large number of officers rushing back to base.

But there was another element as well. More and more squads of security officers, as well as pairs of individuals, were spreading out on some sort of patrol or search pattern. They were hurried, but not frantic, and were neither directing pedestrians nor making any visible attempt to secure the area. They seemed almost to be searching for something.

Or someone. Three took a sidelong glance at the data pad in the hands of one of the security officers as they passed. Without actually changing course, she slowly edged Bester over to the side of the road, along the building fronts where the crowd was a bit more sparse. He gave her a sidelong glance, questioning, but didn't argue. Once they were far enough from anyone else to not be overheard, she leaned down and murmured, "We're frakked! They've tightened security and are circulating pictures of the entire Serenity crew. They must have picked us up on some local security camera and pinged a facial recognition algorithm. Those miscreants probably still top the most wanted list."

"Are they looking for the rest of us?" he asked, nonplussed.

"I didn't see anyone else's images, but it's entirely possible. Likely even. You, I, and Garibaldi were all part of the infiltration team that grabbed Marshal Roberts."

Bester surreptitiously triggered the comm device hidden on his forearm, beneath the sleeve of the uniform. "All parties, be aware, we've been made. Alliance security forces are circulating images of Serenity's crew. They may or may not have images of others."

"Shiny," came back Captain Reynolds's quiet voice. "Time to get our precious posteriors out of here?"

"Negative," Garibaldi's soft reply cut in tersely. "We continue the mission. The only thing this changes is that we switch from subterfuge to stealth, as necessary. Those that don't need to be interacting, find yourself a nice dark hole and prepare your contingencies. Make sure you have more than one exit strategy."

"Yeah, about that," Wash spoke up, not nearly quietly enough. "I just picked up our automated security beacon. The Alliance has boarded Serenity and is locking her down."

"We'll figure it out," Michael shot back. "Now focus on the mission. And break radio silence only for emergencies. Garibaldi out."

Sharing a look of equal parts trepidation and determination, Bester and D'Anna turned and continued their approach. They were the entry team, theirs the core of the mission. And while everyone else's roles were crucial, they weren't the ones tasked with entry. With retrieval of the data that was their mission.

The foot traffic got noticeably thicker, and more purely Alliance military personnel, as they approached the looming edifice which was the primary structure of the base. Concrete planters and the planted shrubbery that was both heavily flowered and thorned and tangled made for tasteful yet effective barricades to funnel everyone down towards the trio of security gates which were the primary entrance to the facility.

Gates which were completely inundated. Each gate had enough room for a single individual to pass before it would close up again. But before the gate would open to allow that individual entrance, they were first required to pass vocal, handprint, and retinal biometric scanners, as well as provide an up to date passcode. This was not a rapid process, but during normal times, and even during shift changes, the three gates were more than enough to provide adequate personnel flow.

But apparently this facility had not expected to become embroiled in the current hostilities occurring within the system, nor planned for three shifts worth of personnel to be attempting to get onto base all at once. The trio of gates had become a hazardous choke point, and some courageous soul had made the decision to simply prop them all open.

Still moving toward the entrance, now amongst a flow of bodies, and some few snarling traffic by trying to head the other way, D'Anna spoke sotto voice to Alfred. "Have these idiots never heard of OpSec? It's like they've never even considered the possibility of a shooting war before."

"They probably haven't," he quietly responded. "At least not within the White Sun system."

It was at that moment that D'Anna realized that Alliance Security hadn't completely dropped the ball. There was a team of armed MPs, equipped with what appeared to be mobile biometric scanners, moving back and forth through the crowd, attempting to scan as many entrants as possible. One of them was headed right for the pair. Without a moment's hesitation, the Three whirled and grabbed Bester, slamming him bodily up against the nearest column. All of the breath left his lungs in a whoosh. Before he could so much as take a breath or squeak out a question, she pressed herself up firmly against him…toe tips, thighs, hips, and chest….and then pulled him up onto tiptoes and sealed her lips down firmly against his own.

Bester bleated in surprise into her mouth. Alliance officers flowing around them threw out catcalls, or told them to get a room. They were far from the only pair snogging in the group. There were wives, girlfriends, and even a few prostitutes who had made it this far. And even another pair or two of dual Alliance officers. D'Anna felt someone swat her ass as they pushed past in the crush of bodies. She just pushed in tighter to the kiss.

Until the Alliance biometric scanning team had passed them by. Then she dropped Alfred back onto his heels, pulling back from the kiss. He stared at her in wordless shock. "Seemed like the right thing to do," she offered nonchalantly, her words belied by the glowing heat infusing her cheeks. "Come on. Now's our chance." She pulled him along, and in less than a minute they had passed the security gates and entered the building.

If anything, at first the lobby and hallways beyond were even more crowded than the streets outside. But that quickly alleviated as the streams of people began to diverge towards their individual areas of responsibility. They stuck with the largest concentration of moving bodies at each divergence, on the theory that the thickest stream provided the most cover and would take them deepest into the building. Which, incidentally, would afford them the most time to find a secure and unobtrusive location to hack into the building's network.

They went up escalators and down corridors, and past multiple security posts. No one seemed to pay them any mind. But the group was rapidly dispersing now, and they'd yet to find any convenient access points. They'd passed office after office; cubicle farms and large control rooms. They were either too open, too occupied, or simply locked up tight. Finally they found themselves with the last few individuals in a corridor heading towards a security checkpoint with several heavily armed individuals, carefully checking access badges and biometrics before allowing anyone to pass. There was no way they were getting past that.

Eyes alighting on a small, unused conference room off to one side, Bester hooked his companion's arm and drug her into the side space, closing the door behind them. Looking out the large window next to the door, he waited for a gap in the traffic flowing down the corridor, and pulled shut the blinds when no one could see who had done so. He then killed the light and locked the door.

The light seeping in under the door, and between and around the closed blinds provided adequate illumination to review the contents of the room. An oblong, polished wooden table sat in the center, with six padded but stiff backed chairs surrounding it. A small screened network terminal sat at one end, with a multidirectional speaker in the center of the otherwise unadorned table. A large display screen filled the wall opposite the computer terminal; while the red, white, blue, and yellow of the Union of Allied Planet's flag filled the wall behind it. The wall opposite the door was little more than poorly textured and painted sheetrock. Clearly the room was meant for teleconferencing.

Alfred rounded the table, then sat down on the floor, indicating D'Anna should sit next to him. Hopefully anyone with a key and a need to open the door wouldn't spot them behind the table. D'Anna located an access port on the network terminal, then unwound a familiar data cable from around her forearm. Lips pursed in concentration, she connected one end to the access port, then used a small pen knife to cut into her arm and feed the other end of the data cable inside. A moment later, she looked up at Alfred and grinned. "I'm in."

---

EAS Nova, Londinium Orbitals, White Sun Plane of the Ecliptic - May, 2250
The smoke and smell of burnt insulation and electrical fires, recently contained, filled the flag bridge; backed by the susurration of overworked environmental scrubbers trying to clear it all away. But neither the sounds of purification nor the crackle of remaining electrical shorts could be heard past the strident cheers of celebration as the Alliance Battlestation finally began to break up.

Commodore John Sheridan allowed them their moment of jubilation, but kept his own face entirely passive. He knew all too well that the initial confrontation had gone incredibly poorly. At this stage of the game, Alliance assets were supposed to be incredibly anemic in comparison to Colonial and Earth Force vessels. Instead, the battlestation had boasted massive slabs of armor and guns far more powerful than anything else they had encountered in the 'Verse.

The armor had been bad enough. Enormous, meters thick bricks, canted at a forty-five degree angle and emplaced in a double ring, interleaved and intersecting, encircling the station like some ridiculously oversized whipple shield. Those bricks had been capable of soaking up the vast majority of a full broadside of the Nova's guns, and the fact that the entire ring was spinning both diluted the point of impact and brought fresh armor into place to withstand the next salvo.

Worse had been the guns…both gravitically accelerated kinetic impactors and an array of high energy lasers. The lasers had come as a surprise, but the Nova's armor had been more than up to the task, though numerous surfaces had gotten a little…melty. What they had done was introduce sufficient heat to significantly slow the cycle times on the Nova's own energy weapons. Which gave their other weapons…those grav-cannon…more time to fire. And fire they did.

The heaviest shells seen on any of the Alliance's warships to date weighed in at measly ninety-point-seven kilos…two hundred pounds in the local parlance. The Battlestation's projectiles were at least an order of magnitude heavier than that. And while the Pegasus carried projectiles two orders of magnitude heavier still, the station's grav guns got their shells moving one hell of a lot faster than the Beast's two stage chemical/electromagnetic accelerators.

When dealing with kinetic energy, speed trumps mass. After being shocked by the power of the first few hits, Sheridan had split the Task Force, ordering the Basestars and Midway to pull back to a safer distance, while Sinclair maneuvered the Nova into a broadside on attack posture. This had the benefit of bringing more guns to bear, and allowed for a simple roll maneuver to bring a fresh broadside into firing position. John hadn't had any part in the decision, but he certainly approved. He'd understood the Captain's hope that it would allow them to outrun the station's ability to target them, reasoning from both Earth Force and Colonial experience with similar weapons that the cannon might just be axial. If so, and if the Nova could sail a tangent faster than the station could rotate to bring their weapon to bear, they'd be able to burn down the station more or less with impunity.

It hadn't worked out that way. The grav cannon may not have been axial. Or perhaps they were and they simply took advantage of the fact that any line bisecting the circle of the station provided a maximum length axis to emplace a weapon. Regardless, attempting to sail around the station had merely exposed them to more guns, and it had become a pure slugging match. As the Nova had slowly slagged the armored perimeter of the station; despite all the maneuver and evasion her helmsman had attempted, she'd taken more than a few hits.

Hits which had spread damage throughout the ship. Glancing blows which cracked armor and burst power runs. A pair of really solid hits which had shorn two more irreplaceable turrets from the mighty dreadnought. And one center mass bullseye which had punched right through the port side armor, wiped out an entire engineering section, inflicted structural damage to the vessel's spine, then bounced off the starboard armor belt and come within a hair's breadth of penetrating the armored containment shell around one of their four primary fusion reactors.

Had it managed that last indignity, that one shot would have reduced both power output and acceleration by a quarter, and forced the Nova…and the rest of the fleet as well…into an ignominious retreat. This single fight…with an enemy who until recently didn't even seem to know how to wage a proper battle…had done more damage to the Nova than anything the Minbari or Cylons had managed to accomplish since their retreat from the Earth Alliance had begun. And through it all, John had been forced to simply sit back and watch, hands that itched to take over the fight instead clamped tightly to his command chair. Of course, Sinclair and the Nova crew had won their fight, but even though their remaining plasma cannon had finally slagged the armored shield and burned the station down, John was staring at the very real possibility of having to withdraw from the battle anyway.

"This battle isn't over," he reprimanded the crew mildly. "It's just beginning. Commander, status report."

As everyone quieted down and refocused on their tasks, Takashima switched the primary display from the view of the brilliantly dying station back to a broad display of local space and the current tactical situation. Her face fell and skin paled as she took in the larger battle. "The noose has tightened, Sir. We have massive fighter swarms closing in from three sides. Three respective Task Forces following them up. We'll be badly outnumbered and out-massed shortly."

"Break it down, Commander. One threat at a time."

With a nod, Laurel zoomed in the display towards the forces approaching from Londinium.

"Surprisingly, that single Raider gun run broke the initial Alliance fighter attack. The force fell into disorder and pulled back to their Line of Battle to reform. But they've been reinforced by another thousand or so fighters streaming up from Londinium. That flow has more or less stopped, so we should be looking at the last of their small craft forces in-system, but it's a powerful force, and we're still reading radiologicals, so nukes are still on the table.

"The good news is that their retreat meant that the Starfuries didn't have to engage at all. They've pulled back and have been sniping the long range missiles and shells heading for the fleet. It also allowed us to land and rearm the Raiders and Heavy Raiders and reform them into scratch squadrons. Only eighteen squadrons, but more or less all at full strength.

"In the interim, the Basestars have been trading long range missile fire with the Londinium task force. And it's a good thing we helped them extend the range of their missiles, because the Alliance also seems to have increased their shipborne missile range. The Alliance force has also spread out their cannon fire, bracketing our ships instead of aiming at them. Which means they never hit with a full salvo, but at least they get some hits. Damage on the Basestars and on the Midway has been steadily increasing, despite the Starfuries best efforts. And now that fighter swarm is advancing…slowly…and the task force is advancing right behind them."

Taking a deep breath, Laurel switched the display to the forces approaching from Colchester. "We have a wing of four Crete class carriers coming up our rear. Transponders pinging the O'ahu, the Hokkaidō, the Britannia, and the Cuba. Between them they've launched nearly five thousand fighters and assault craft…more than came off of Londinium. It's only four ships, but given their size it's actually the bulk of the Alliance tonnage. I have no idea how we stop that many fighters. No radiological readings, but given the mix of Tillium and Q40 they use for fuel doesn't ping our radiological sensors; they could easily use that in their warheads to achieve nuclear level effects and we wouldn't know. That's a fleet killing force coming at us, Commodore."

She may have been expecting a response, but Sheridan merely nodded for her to continue. She swung the display to the final approaching task force, inbound from Balkerne. "The final force is another carrier force. Twenty Tohokus. Between then they've put forty squadrons into space, which is large but still the smallest of the three fighter forces. They're the farthest out, but also approaching at the highest velocity. The Tohokus carry plasma weapons, more powerful but shorter ranged than the kinetics or lasers the rest of their fleet carry."

"Like us," Sheridan noted with mild interest.

"Yes, Sir. Any of these three forces pose a serious danger to the fleet. Together…I just don't see how we can beat these kinds of numbers."

"By not allowing them to be together, Commander. The Alliance has gone and split their party. Now we just need to defeat them in detail."

"Divide and conquer?"

"Now you're learning. Have Captain Sinclair set flank speed back to the Basestars and Midway. Have them form up on us, and then we attack. Send the fighters after the Londinium force, and we'll charge in right behind them."

Despite their nervousness, having a solid plan of action kept the crew's spirits high. John chose not to advise them that this battle had already proved that no plan survives contact with the enemy.

---

New Inverness, Londinium, White Sun System - May, 2250
D'Anna's jubilation was short lived. After a few interminable minutes of searching, she looked up at Bester. "Frak! They've air-gapped it. This terminal only has access to the systems meant to run the base. And that doesn't include the hidden cryptography unit. Everything else is cut off."

"Can't you get past it?"

"Past an air gap? I'm a machine, not a telepath!"

"We know that signals intel unit has access to the Parliamentary mainframe. There has to be access somewhere!"

"Sure," she agreed. "Probably just on the other side of that security checkpoint we have no chance of passing."

He looked at her squarely. Openly. "Decision time. Do we pull out? If we can't get what we came for, there's no point in being here."

Meeting his gaze for a moment, she shrugged. Furrowing her brow, her eyes took on a distant look for several moments. Returning suddenly to awareness of her surroundings, she grinned and stood up. Bester quickly followed her. "This whole building is hardened against chemical attack. It's got a high end HVAC, Filtration, and air handling system because of it. A single system." She picked up a chair and held it upside down above her head. "Which means that these ducts," she pushed the chair up, using it to swing open a ventilation grid in the drop ceiling, "lead everywhere in the building. Including past those internal security bulkheads. No blueprints or schematics of the internal layout though, so we'll have to hunt for an access point." She set down the chair and then looked back up, focusing on the now open vent.

Bester interlaced his fingers into a stirrup and held them low. "Here," he offered. "I'll give you a boost."

"Please," she scoffed, without even looking at him. Then she leapt straight up and grabbed the edge of the vent, hauling herself up with apparent ease and disappearing into the vent until all that was left visible were her dangling hindquarters.

Bester stood underneath, looking up. To keep her from falling, he told himself. He neither bothered to explain nor was even aware of the silly grin plastered over his face. As her legs disappeared into the vent, there was a noise in the corridor, just beyond the door. He began to worry that they might still be discovered, but there was little he could do but wait. And wait. And wait, for what felt like an eternity, but was probably less than five minutes. Eventually, her head reappeared and, grinning, she extended down her arm. "Found something. Boost you?" she offered.

Grumping to himself, Alfred extended his arm and allowed his Cylon partner to haul him up into the vent. They closed the grate behind them. What followed was a couple of minutes of them moving as silently as possible through the ductwork. D'Anna had already scouted ahead, and so led the way. The view of which plastered that silly grin back on his face. Eventually they came to a similar grate, looking down into a shadowed, though not entirely darkend, room. D'Anna moved past it, then spun herself around in the cramped confines so that they could both look down through the grate. "What are you grinning about?" she enquired.

"Why on Earth would I be grinning?" he replied. "We're on a mission. Focus!"

The view through the grate was limited, and all they could see below was a line of active but unmanned computer stations in a single conjoined bank. D'Anna slid the grate aside and went through head first, gripping the edge with her hand and flipping right side up only once her hips had passed through the opening. She dropped gracefully to the floor. Then held up her hands to catch him.

Bester had no intention of being caught like a child. So he moved past the opening until he could lower himself through, feet first. Then he realized how long the drop was. He had forgotten how much taller than him she was. D'Anna reached up and grabbed him to steady him to the floor. She certainly didn't carry me, he harrumphed to himself. Then he got a look at his surroundings, and immediately dove to the floor behind the computer bank, pulling the Cylon with him. "Are you insane?" he hissed.

They were in what appeared to be a small control room, currently dark and unused, all of the computer stations arranged so that the operators were facing the same direction, towards the room's far wall. A wall made entirely of glass, and looking out over a much larger operations center, containing banks of dozens of work stations, most of which were currently manned. Fortunately, those stations all faced in the opposite direction, towards a massive holographic display along the ops center's far wall.

A display which currently highlighted the evolving battle in space. Icons for scores of warships, hordes of satellites and fighters and missiles, and even Londinium's moons were all displayed. And in, amongst, and between those solid icons were ephemeral vector graphics. At first, Bester assumed they were meant to designate delta V. But something about what he was seeing was off.

"They're communications markers," D'Anna explained softly at his ear. "They're tracking all radio emissions from either fleet. It is an intercept and decryption center, after all."

Recalling why he was upset, Alfred repeated himself. "Are you mad? This room is one giant window. We'll be seen!"

"That's why we're hiding behind these computer stations," she reminded him. "And everyone out there is looking the other way anyways. Besides, these terminals are exactly what we need." She underscored her point by jacking in once more to the system they huddled behind, and gave him a grin. "Try and try again."

---

EAS Nova, Londinium Orbitals, White Sun Plane of the Ecliptic - May, 2250
The clang and crack of Alliance long range kinetic attacks against the onrushing Nova was starting to get under Captain Jeffrey Sinclair's skin. He maintained his calm command demeanor where he sat upon the primary bridge. Those weapons didn't really threaten the Nova. Unfortunately, he also knew that those weapons were doing more than just making distracting noises to the Midway and the Basestars, whose armor was far lighter. As the range to the enemy fleet had closed, the time to target for those weapons, and thus their own ability to evade, had continually decreased.

But that was a concern for later. The fighters had just engaged, launching salvoes of their longer ranged missiles into the Alliance formation. Given the closing speed, the Alliance were already launching back before the Raiders and Starfuries had finished flushing their own racks. The Alliance pilots were smarter this time, less flustered. They spread out, making better use of their countermeasures and their numbers. But it only went so far, and their losses rapidly began to mount…bodies and machines sent spinning, shattered into the void.

The Raiders and Starfuries had learned from the prior clash as well. Instead of wild, uncoordinated evasions, this time the Alliance missile barrage was met by a wall of advanced Cylon ECM. ECM informed by intel pulled off of the captured Crete, as well as by the prior mass launch attack. Large swaths of the onrushing missiles lost tracking, spinning off into the depths of space. Others jumped their target lock, their IFF spoofed into locking onto other nearby missiles, and banking wildly to slam into them. Given the density of the missile launch, these detonations frequently took out more missiles than simply the two involved. Sometimes cracking an additional two or more inbound vampires.

And two or three percent of that missile swarm turned right around, tracking back towards the waves of the inbound Alliance fighters. As their own missiles detonated hard amidst the ranks of fightercraft, cracks of uncertainty and indecision once more showed within the Alliance formation. Yet they remained driven onwards by the commands of their superiors.

Of course, not every Alliance shot was led astray by Cylon ECM. A sizable percentage continued on unmolested, or even managed to fight through the cyber attacks and misdirection to continue onwards towards the Cylon and Earth Force squadrons. As they entered energy weapon range the Starfuries, this time flying close behind the Raiders, opened fire with precise, controlled single shots, popping one missile after another, continuing to thin the herd. Only at the last second did the Raiders break formation to maneuver and try to avoid the final terminal intercepts.

In the end of course, the numbers the Alliance had put up were simply far too great to defeat entirely, and holes were blown in the Raider formation. Well over a hundred Raider drones were blasted away, further deteriorating their already greatly reduced numbers. But, having already experienced battle and ingrained their own invulnerability, the Cylons resumed their formation and continued to close against the Alliance lines, both formations rapidly moving headlong towards what might likely be a very deadly merge.

The speakers on the bridge crackled, drawing Jeff's attention, as well as that of every member of the bridge crew. "This is Commodore John Sheridan," came the voice through the speakers, addressing not just this bridge, but the entire ship and the entire fleet as well. "I don't normally make addresses mid-battle. But we have a few moments before our fighters get into gun range. It's no secret that this battle hasn't exactly gone as planned. Hell, we were hoping not to have a battle at all. The Alliance has pulled one surprise after another on us. Hidden fleets. An encirclement. Improved guns. Nuclear armed fighters. An actual proper battlestation. These aren't things which were unexpected. They simply weren't expected quite so soon. And in return, the surprise we managed to spring on the Alliance was the presence of an understrength force of Raiders. Well, that changes now. We didn't come to this fight unprepared. We've got more surprises of our own. Captain Lochley…let slip the dogs of war."

Elizabeth's voice took over, crackling across the line; the lower transmission quality indicating to all listening that she was currently occupying the cockpit of a Starfury. Lochley, currently the Captain of the Midway, had temporarily delegated those responsibilities to her XO, so she could take over as CAG while Bester was off on some secret mission. "He must be talking about you, Hot Dog, because he'd certainly better not be talking about me. All Starfuries…weapons free and advance."

Jeff and his crew watched the ensuing furball with far more than just professional interest. "Be ready to provide support if needed, people," he reminded them.

As though they had practiced and polished the maneuver…which quite possibly they had…the line of squadrons from both the Midway and Nova slipped forward and through the depleted formation of Raiders, pulling ahead. Now on point, they sprinted towards the onrushing Alliance formation. The squadrons of that formation tightened up, the threat of missiles now apparently gone, as they rushed towards the merge, prepared to stampede over the top of the smaller Earth Force and Cylon lines. Their job was still to get past the enemy fighter screen and close to deliver their nuclear payload upon the ships of the Task Force.

Well before the Alliance fightercraft entered what they considered to be gun range, the Starfuries opened up with pulse cannon fire. But they were not firing out of either the standard quad Copeland JC466A pulse discharge cannons, nor the pair of slower firing but significantly heavier Copeland JC44 pulse discharge cannons. No, all six weapons had been replaced by the only slightly modified Colonial Thraxon MEC-A6 30mm Mass Accelerator Cannons, standard armament of the Viper. Each of the JC44s had been replaced by two of these weapons, meaning the Auroras had traded out six guns for eight. However, even with the increase in both the number of weapons and the rate of fire, this change should have led to a significant decrease in firepower.

Except, of course, for the fact that access to the unique fuel of the 'Verse had allowed Baltar, Tyrol, Laird, and Drake to finally make their pulse autocannon idea work. And the foundries on the Pegasus and now starting up down on Miranda had labored for the past two months to produce the guns and ammunition to equip them. The Midway and Nova crew had 'just' had to make the modifications to get them all mounted, integrated, and tested. Additionally, the fusion engine of the Starfury, no longer having to provide the power for the actual plasma pulses, now had more than enough energy to meet the reduced needs (there still being demands for magnetic acceleration and active cooling) off all eight guns simultaneously, rather than having to choose one set or another. Which meant that rather than doubling the available firepower, the conversion had actually quadrupled it. And that still left sufficient excess power to enhance both inertial dampening and sensors, comms, and ECM systems.

What erupted from the Starfuries looked less like the pulse cannon fire they were known for, and more like some sort of demonic energy scythe. One which reached out and simply cleaved apart the large fighters and assault craft of the Alliance. But it didn't stop there. The Starfury crews had been training to use this new weapon, and as they fired they used bursts from their attitude control thrusters to make minute, precise adjustments to their orientation. This allowed them to sweep their bursts across multiple Alliance fighters, within their newly tightened formation. Pulse cannon fire punched through Alliance fighters to reach their compatriots behind them. Or swept across formation, taking out two, three, or even whole wings at a time. The Starfuries burned like a blowtorch deep into the Alliance lines.

Lines which froze momentarily in shock and horror, at the carnage the Earth Force pilots were wreaking upon them. But then they broke, lacking all coordination, save that granted simply by their numbers. Some swerved wide, hoping to get around the Starfuries and continue their run on the motherships. Others swerved in, attempting to bring their guns to bear on the dangerous fighters. Those which had been directly ahead of the Starfuries simply crumbled away under the storm of plasma.

"All squadron leaders," came Elizabeth's voice again, "break, break break!" The Starfury formation blossomed like a flower into individual squadrons, spreading out to tackle the Alliance fighter craft now desperately trying to engage them. And they wrought more carnage, though now the Alliance was spreading out and going evasive, lowering the rate of loss. Still, those powerful yet rapid fire guns the Starfuries now mounted simply shredded anything that got in their way. At least, while their ammunition held out. A worry with which they had never before had to contend. Huge magazines had been mounted port and starboard of the cockpit, nestled between the dorsal and ventral wings, but their capacity was still limited. As much as possible, the Aurora pilots fired in controlled, precise bursts.

And now the Alliance pilots…those still attempting to close with the Starfuries…came within range of their own guns and opened fire. They couldn't stay on target for long, having themselves to fire rapid bursts and then maneuver away. Any that maintained a heading for too long found themselves eating plasma fire. A short, brutal process of Darwinian selection ensued, as pilots too foolish or confident or merely insufficiently skilled were rapidly removed from play.

And yet, there were now enough guns being fired at the Starfuries that some, despite their own evasions and countermeasures, simply had to get through. One Starfury after another began to pop or crumble or burn.

And finally, the merge happened. Lieutenant 'Hot Dog' Costanza, his boss being elsewhere, led an as yet untouched Black Omega squadron, which had managed to stuff itself aboard the Nova for the mission. The squadron, glad to be free of those cramped confines and now doing what they did best, howled in glory as their closing velocity led into and through the onrushing Alliance squadrons. Immediately, the Alliance fighters began maneuvering to come around to get behind the Starfuries and get their guns back on target. Whipping his head around, Hot Dog saw a chaotic maelstrom of various offensive and defensive maneuvers; from Immelmanns to Yo-Yos, Wingovers to Split S maneuvers. Costanza snorted right into his open mic. "These idiots are flying like they're in atmo! They need a lesson on what close range space combat looks like. Flip!"

As one the squadron simply spun about their axis, not bothering to change their heading at all. They began burning down Alliance fighters, halfway through their various circle maneuvers. Of course, there were more targets to service than time available, and several still managed to get around for a gun run. Black Omega lost a single Starfury to these attacks before they had cleared the nearby vicinity of enemy combatants.

Looking around, Hot Dog saw the other squadrons engaged in similar combat. Many had drawn more opponents, or weren't quite as skilled, and the furball was getting nasty. Pointing the squadron towards the densest of the nearby combat, he took a moment to look beyond. The Alliance fighters which had attempted to swing wide past the Earth Force fighters, and make a run at the Nova and her escorts, had been immediately jumped by the remaining Raiders. Unfortunately, those craft still mounted their original kinetic guns and ammo. Weapons which were optimized for shredding the small, lightly armored Vipers were now struggling with the far larger and much more heavily armored Alliance gunships. Rounds bounced off, or buried themselves in the internals without doing adequate damage. Raiders would have to hold their fire on target for several seconds in order to get a kill, and it wasn't like the Alliance didn't shoot back. The continued numbers advantage of the Alliance wasn't helping matters either. The Raiders began to dwindle, only surviving on the strength of their superior maneuverability.

Looking in the other direction, he saw the mass of the Alliance fleet rapidly closing, rushing up from Londinium. He quickly switched his comm to the fleet wide channel. "Nova, this is Black Omega Leader. That fleet's getting awfully close. It won't be much longer and their guns may become relevant to this dogfight."

Jeff saw that Sheridan's comm channel was currently busy conversing with other commanders on the battlefield, and chose to respond himself. "Roger Black Omega Leader. We see them. And their guns are currently plinking away at us…not entirely ineffectually."

"Are you not planning on burning them out of the sky?"

"We've taken out a few, Black Omega Leader, but we have to be careful. There are all these little Starfuries currently in between us and them. We've had to defer to the Base stars, let them engage with missile salvoes."

"Well, I can appreciate not being burned to a crisp, but I also don't wanna be holed by their PD!"

"Not to worry, Black Omega Leader. The Commodore has it covered. Maintain suppression of enemy fighters. Sinclair out." He looked around the bridge. The air was considerably lighter, given the show the Starfuries were putting on. Still, there was a concerning number of nuke armed fighters and gunboats headed their way, which the Raiders seemed incapable of stopping. But Lieutenant Constanza was correct. Those ships out there needed to be dealt with, before they had a larger impact on either the fighter battle or the fleet. He pinged his channel to the flag bridge, awaiting a moment of Sheridan's time.

It was not long in coming. "Captain?" John's voice, sounding confident and calm, echoed across the bridge.

"Sir, we just heard from Lieutenant Costanza. Hot Dog sounded rather concerned about that oncoming fleet. A reasonable concern, don't you think Commodore?"

John, intent on balancing the mass of data being fed to him from every ship in the fleet, replied with audible distraction. "I suppose that's understandable, Captain."

"Perhaps, then, we had better relieve his anxiety, Sir".

That seemed to gain Sheridan's full attention. Jeff could practically feel the full weight of his consideration through the comm link. Finally, he responded with a single word. "Agreed." The line was left open, but Jeff could tell that the following words were addressed towards John's Executive Officer. "I've just loaded a data packet to your station. Please transmit it along tachyon channel Alpha."

Hearing Takashima's reply of, "Transmission sent, Commodore," in the background, Jeff terminated the Comm link himself.

He addressed his own XO. "Give us a wide view of the Londinium fleet."

Lieutenant David Corwin, Jeff's only recently assigned Executive Officer, switched the primary display from a wide ranging battle simulation to a zoomed view of the onrushing fleet. A mass of Trebuchet class battlecrusiers and Longbow class cruisers, some thirty-seven ships between them, made up the center. A ring of over forty Victoria and Ocula class corvettes surrounded them. There appeared to be nothing new about the scene. "Sir? Was there something specific you wanted to see?" Corwin asked him.

"Wait for it."

For several long moments, nothing more seemed to happen, save the continued flash of guns and the blast of the occasional hit. And then, with a tripartite actinic flash, the Galactica, Pegasus, and Lexington jumped in, bracketing the Alliance fleet. Vipers already launching. Guns already aimed. Opening fire practically from the moment of transition. Starbuck and Ruski's twin whoops of joy as they hit the black echoed over comms

The Alliance vessels didn't have a chance to respond, their guns all pointed in the wrong directions. Their sensors too, for that matter. They quite likely had no idea from where the death raining down upon them originated. The hundreds upon hundreds of rotary cannon aboard the Bucket and the Beast were usually used for point defense. But they'd been fed the coordinates of the Alliance fleet. And while the individual shells weren't as fast as the newly upgraded Alliance main guns, they were every bit as large. And the rotary weapons pumped out one hell of a lot more of them. And the Galactica and Pegasus had jumped in positioned to bring their full batteries to bear.

One moment the defending Alliance corvettes were largely unscathed. The next they sailed through a hell of flak and flame; shot full of holes with debris and atmosphere expanding from both entry and exit wounds. A moment later, they were little more than fiery detonations with expanding clouds of flotsam. The cruisers and battlecruisers were far larger, though not armored terribly much more heavily. But the Longbows and Trebuchets weren't just serviced by the rotary guns, but by the primary dual mounted cannon of the Battlestars. And the plasma cannon of the Lexington.

It had taken months, and nearly all of the available scientific and engineering talent the Cylons, Colonials, and Earth Force had to throw at the problem, but the Lexington's original jump drive had been converted to the Colonial device with the same name. And now the value of that investment proved itself. Whereas the turrets of the Battlestars were blowing large holes all over the Alliance vessels, the high powered guns of the Lexington reached out with both power and precision. And at the current range, that precision was extreme. A couple of shots could sever the spindly neck of a Longbow, sending the over two kilometer long ship spinning out of control. Those Alliance ships which reacted the most quickly to the surprise attack were also the first to receive specific attention from the various Colonial and Earth Force gun crews. Not a single Longow, in all their awkward, slow turning glory, survived to bring their main guns on target. The Trebuchets, better designed for such a battle and in higher numbers to boot, fared far better. The Pegasus garnered the most attention, which was probably for the best. Three separate battlecruisers managed to turn and get off shots at the Beast, their missiles having already been expended in the long range duel with the Basestars. One of the Trebuchets was already aflame, and only a single cannon spoke before the ship immolated itself. But the other two managed to fire a full salvo of their ten heavy guns on the Pegasus. One of them managed the feat twice. None of them survived the attempt, the Pegasus gun crew gleefully blowing them straight to hell. And for all their valor, they merely managed to add some cracks and dents to the Beast's heavy armor.

The lone Trebuchet to fire on the Galactica managed to hole her much thinner, Battleplate missing armor. But though the salvo hit and penetrated, all ten rounds struck the Galactica's port water tank. Hundreds of tons of water flooded into space, but not a single system was damaged, nor a single crew member injured. The Bucket's heavy guns ensured there was not a follow on salvo.

The Lexington actually got the worst of it. A lucky round cracked open her secondary plasma pulse cannon turret, knocking out both guns and initiating a wave of plasma feedback that killed every member of the gun crew. And yet when all was said and done, and all that remained of the Alliance fleet was just so much drifting wreckage, the Lex had taken only that single hit, and remained otherwise entirely combat capable. Meanwhile, the newly launched Vipers and Starfuries raced to join the nearby furball, turning that battle into yet another lopsided route.

Aboard the Nova, Corwin and the rest of the bridge crew looked on in astonishment. "The Commodore called in the rest of the fleet," he stated the obvious, turning inquiring eyes on his Captain. "I thought that was…too risky?"

"Do you recall our sensors being dedicated to locating and identifying every single Alliance asset present? Why do you think Commodore Sheridan was so insistent on getting an accurate fleet count, Lieutenant? The Alliance can't strike Miranda if their entire fleet is here. Besides, we left three Basestars and Locarno's Cutters on Homeguard. That should be sufficient to contend with any surprises the Alliance tries to spring in that area.

Corwin was saying something in reply, but Jeff tuned him out. A command channel to all friendly vessels had just been opened. Sheridan's voice echoed across it. "Admiral Adama, Commander Adama, Captain Levitt….thank you for joining us. Your arrival was most timely. I would appreciate it if you would join our formation. We still have Alliance forces to deal with in system. In the meantime…we still have a number of nuke armed fighters closing on us. Any assistance you could lend in this department would be appreciated."

"Nova," came the Admiral's gruff response. "Galactica actual. Understood. Friendlies inbound."

Jeff refocused on Corwin. "Prepare to adjust the formation. The Commodore is gathering the fleet, and we'll need to make room. And in the meantime, don't slouch on the point defense." Orders given he refocused on the furball. A fair number of Alliance fighters had broken through the Raiders and were racing towards the taskforce. The newly arrived Vipers and Starfuries were on the wrong side of the furball to intercept them. Indeed, even the Nova's and Midway's own squadrons were now too far behind to be of use.

The Nova was a Dreadnought, designed for big gun brawling. She also carried a fighter complement fully half the size of that aboard a dedicated carrier like the Midway. But a ship simply couldn't be good at everything. In order to allow for these two strengths (three if you counted guns and armor separately) some sacrifices had to be made. One of these was in the Nova's onboard point defense, which was anemic at best. This wasn't generally considered a problem, as her Starfury squadrons were highly skilled in interception and point defense duties. Unfortunately, those squadrons were depleted and on the wrong side of the onrushing force. The Midway's PD was roughly on par with the Nova's own, and for much the same reason; and the Basestars didn't mount point defense at all. Under normal circumstances those Basestars would each carry over a thousand Raiders, which generally alleviated the threat of enemy fighters. But these were far from normal circumstances.

Their final line of defense now stepped up…a few dozen Heavy Raiders, heavily laden with missiles and held in reserve. They were large and heavily built, but even less maneuverable than any of the Alliance fighters. They wouldn't last long in a dogfight. But their missile complement was plenty potent. They once again opened fire well before the Alliance could do the same. And Alliance fighters began to die. It wasn't quite enough.

"Nuke in the air!" Sinclair's tactical officer cried. "And another! We have launches all up and down the line!

The Heavy Raiders switched their targeting to the inbound nukes…heavy weapons that wouldn't survive against their nimble interceptor missiles. But they were already running low on those weapons. Running dry, in fact, when the Raptor complements of both the Pegasus and the Galactica arrived in all their stroboscopic glory. And they'd been similarly armed for interception. These fresh missiles would mean the demise of the fighters which had launched those nukes, but there was simply insufficient time for them to stop all of the missiles. They were too close. The available reaction time too short.

"Hard to port!" Jeff ordered from the bridge as the Nova's and Midway's limited point defense weapons opened up. "We need to cover the Midway." The PD shattered a nuke. And then another. Another. "Brace for impact!" Jeff shouted. And with an eighty-five kiloton flash of fury, a nuke detonated just off the starboard side of the Nova's forward bow. The ship heaved and groaned like a wounded animal. Crew were thrown hard into their restraints and Sinclair, having left his seat to get a direct view of the tactical officer's station, was forced to clutch at the young officer's chair to keep from being hurled to the deck. The whole ship seemed to flex slightly before righting itself. "Damage report!" he snapped. He could smell smoke in the air.

Corwin was bleeding profusely from a fresh gash on his forehead. "Damage reports coming in from all decks, Captain," he advised professionally, appearing only mildly concerned about the wound. "We have plasma fires in several locations. Multiple forward compartments are in vacuum. And we've lost two more turrets on the starboard side. Damage control teams responding. Reactors stable though. We have access to seventy-five percent power." He looked up suddenly, his face pale. Rather than saying anything, he merely adjusted the display on the primary monitor. The view was of the Midway, floating safe and secure in the foreground. But in the background floated the shattered debris of a dead Basestar. A nuke had apparently punched right through into her heart, leaving no chance for the survival of any of her crew. Her nearby sister ship was shorn of all three spines on one side,and left charred and blackened to boot, but seemed otherwise intact.

Sinclair grimaced, taking in the scene. He opened his direct line to Sheridan. "Commodore, are you alright?"

"We're here Jeff. No injuries on the flag bridge."

"Sir, the Basestars…"

"I see it, Jeff. I've advised our squadrons to finish up with those Alliance fighters as quickly as possible. We have more swarms on the way, and those that can need to return and rearm. This fight isn't over."

"Commodore, I need to focus on damage control for a bit."

"Understood Captain. I'll let you know when we need you. Sheridan out." John looked around at his own flag bridge, smoke wafting through the air. Smoke drifted through the air, and a small electrical fire burned in the corner, being extinguished. But he hadn't lied to Sinclair. They'd sustained no injuried. He turned to Takashima. "Commander, as soon as the Lexington and the Battlestars have joined our formation, we are to make best possible speed to engage the Balkerne task force."

"The Tohokus? Commodore, the Cretes…and especially their massive fighter swarm…are a lot closer. And likely a greater threat." She switched the main screen to a display of the four enormous vehicles, sailing in a diamond formation, to emphasize her point. As the Alliance vessels were still broadcasting IFF, the screen helpfully displayed the names of each vessel. The Britannia flew lead, with the O'ahu and Hokkaidō taking up the starboard and port wings respectively, leaving the questionable Cuba trailing in the slot. Clouds of Alliance fighters could be seen in the foreground, closing the distance.

"Ah, yes. Them," Sheridan replied nonchalantly. "Comms, open a channel, broadcasting in the clear towards that formation." He waited for the Comms officers nod before speaking. "Marshall. Whenever you're ready."

There was no response, and nothing seemed to happen for a long moment. But then, astonishingly, the O'ahu veered to port, cutting slowly across the formation. The sparkle along her flanks showed that her tiny guns were blazing. And the burst and flare of impact on the flanks of the Brittania and Hokkaidō proved just what they were firing at. Those guns were too small to do any serious damage to something the size of a Crete class…but they clearly weren't attempting to. Instead, the carefully prepared and preaimed weapons were shearing their counterparts. Simple geometry required that they could initially only fire on the starboard weapons of the two ships…at least until the ponderous vessel had fully crossed the formation, allowing it to bring its weapons to bear against the opposite sides of the two target vessels. But the surprise was complete, those little detonations probably not even being felt on the enemy bridges. The starboard weapons were completely deleted by the time the O'ahu passed between the Brittania and Hokkaidō, crossing the T and allowing her guns to resume their task on the port side weapons of the two Crete class victims. And the surprise was still so total that many of those weapons were wiped away before return fire erupted.

Uncoordinated fire that wasn't attempting counter battery but simply aiming at the massive ship sized target before them. However, the impact of those shots was substantially greater…and slower…than that to which they responded. Proving that the Brittania and Hokkaidō had received the weapons upgrades the other Alliance ships had demonstrated earlier, while the O'ahu had not. Flame and plasma began to vent from gaping holes in the hull of the O'ahu, but it was far too little, too late. And without the order to respond to counter battery with counter battery, before long both vessels had also lost their port side guns, completely defanging them.

The O'ahu, continuing her slow yet graceful turn, now switched her fire to the trailing Cuba. A ship which had witnessed the entire scene unfold, and was prepared to meet fire with fire. But a ship, unfortunately for them, which had been rushed through repairs after its disastrous battle with the Reavers. Apparently just getting the vessel spaceworthy had taken up all of the available yard time. Not only were her guns not upgraded…most of them weren't working at all. They did their best, all the same, and now the O'ahu lost many of her guns in the strange duel. But it wasn't long before the Cuba was similarly disarmed. Allowing the now solely armed ship to switch her remaining guns to the engines of her three victims.

The fighter battle which erupted at the exact same time, between the Cretes and Sheridan's fleet, was far more spectacular. Somehow the O'ahu's fighter complement had managed to position themselves in the rear portion of the onrushing fighter swarm. Without warning, they flushed their missile racks right into the asses of their compatriots. Missiles that had been sneakily locked on with passive targeting sensors. Missiles fired at point blank. The surprise was total, but even if it hadn't been, at that range there was simply no time for countermeasures or evasion. A deadly storm of fire and vacuum embroiled the unsuspecting three quarters of that swarm. The thousands of fighters from the Brittania, Hokkaidō, and Cuba weren't just decimated, they were eviscerated. Whole squadrons were wiped away without a single survivor. Of course, in such a multitude of fighters, there were bound to be survivors. Bits and pieces of squadrons, surviving in ones and twos, recovered from their shock and spun in their fury upon their attackers, and a massive furball erupted. But the ratio of the O'ahu's fighters to those of the other supercarriers had been neatly reversed, and more.

Aboard the flag bridge of the Nova, shocked cries rang out. Jonesy actually uttered, "What the frag?!" drawing an irritated glare from Sheridan and Takashima both.

But Laurel quickly turned her gaze back to her Commodore, searching his face with questioning eyes. Light quickly dawned behind those eyes. "That's…that's the Crete!"

John smiled. "Correct, Commander. It's amazing what a little paint and IFF programming will do, particularly in chaotic times such as these. Also, I believe the," he held up his hands to perform air quotes, "O'ahu was the last of the Cretes to arrive."

"But the real O'ahu…" she half questioned, half protested.

"Received clearly valid orders from Alliance command for a recon in force of the Heinlein system to root out suspected Independent activity. I believe those orders specified a complete radio blackout in no uncertain terms."

"We cracked Alliance comms encryption," she realized.

"We cracked Alliance comms encryption," he agreed, turning back to watch the ongoing battle.

The furball wasn't going so well. Despite their overwhelming numbers, the Crete's fighters were dying at an alarming rate. Marshall Roberts had probably had to grab any old bush pilot she could get her hands on to crew her new Alliance built fighters, and the lack of training and experience clearly showed. They were probably excellent pilots…mostly…but aside from one carefully planned sneak attack, they simply had little to no ability to work together. They'll probably still carry the day, John thought to himself, but Marshall Roberts won't have much of a force left on her carrier, after this.

And thinking of that carrier, his eyes drifted over to the Crete. She had successfully shot to pieces the engines of her three sister ships, and now a new swarm of vessels launched from her hangars. Earth Force assault shuttles, packed to the rafters with Marines and GroPos John had truly hoped wouldn't have to be deployed. He'd really hoped for a peaceful, diplomatic meeting. But having cracked, as he'd confirmed to Laurel, the Alliance's encryption on their command and control communications, he'd been well aware that a trap was in the works. A secret he'd kept from most of the crew, shared only with the ship Captains and Roslin herself, knowing such unsecured knowledge would almost certainly find its way to the civilian and Cylon populations. And who knew how either group would react to such knowledge. Someone might have even tipped their hand to the Alliance. No, despite the unpalatable nature of keeping secrets from the majority of his people, the need was clear.

Jeff and Elizabeth had objected to the secrecy. And Lee had backed them vociferously. But though the Admiral had been silent on the issue, Roslin had actually come in on Johns side. Not that it mattered. The Council of Captains days were long past, and the Colonials weren't going to buck Sheridan's decisions. They had too much to lose. But even if several of them had disagreed with him, they'd all at least understood his reasoning.

The Earth Force shuttles, beginning their assaults against the supercarriers, were followed by dozens of tugs. Tugs that had practically carried his civilian fleet out of Earth Alliance space, and all the way here. Tugs Captain Gideon had used so brilliantly to save the fleet. And now those tugs latched onto the trio of immobilized vessels, beginning their long journey home and almost certainly the largest salvage job in which they had ever participated. Even if the Alliance crews held out against the initial assaults, he should have all the time in the world to crack those nuts.

Hell, if need be he could set the Reavers loose on them. Shuddering at the thought he turned his attention back to the task at hand. "As I said, Commander. Reform the fleet, and make best possible speed to engage the Tohokus. We're not done yet."

---

New Inverness, Londinium, White Sun System - May, 2250
"Are you done yet?"

"Lower your voice!" D'Anna hissed back at him.

Bester peeked his head up over the terminal and spied into the room beyond. The activity in that room had risen to a fever pitch, and the displays above told the tale of an incredibly brutal battle being waged above their heads. Part of that activity includes added security now circulating about the room, keeping an eye on things. Bester quickly ducked his head back down.

"We aren't safe here," he insisted.

"Do you want to do this?" she hissed acerbically, waving her arm and the bloody cable protruding from it in front of his face. Closing her eyes to concentrate, she continued, "We're definitely in the right place, because I'm running into multiple firewalls, antiviral and malware subroutines, and a host of other active and passive cyber-security safeguards. And serious stuff, too. Not like the garbage we've had to deal with so far. This is a properly secured network. It's a hell of a challenge."

Now that he looked, Alfred saw that there was actually sweat breaking out on her brow. "You can do this," he reassured. "Weren't you the one just telling me you're a machine, not a telepath. You Cylons shut down the entire Colonial fleet, cyber-security and all!"

Not opening her eyes, she grimaced and replied, "We had an ace in the hole. You should know that. Direct access to their newly deployed Command Navigation Program. Six…Caprica was frakking Baltar, and he let her right in. It's astonishing what human males will do to get their dicks wet. And for a man who's such a genius, Gaius seems to do most of his thinking with his other head."

"I know," Bester agreed, though he chose not to specify which part he was agreeing with. "But I still have faith in you." She gave him a smile, but went silently back to her task.

A commotion broke out in the far room, and an alarm began to blare. Taking another quick peek into the far room, Bester saw an additional squad of security, going from console to console and inspecting the work done there. They were also beginning to search the various rooms surrounding the central hub. A new red light was flashing through the area.

"Frag," he hissed, ducking back down. "We must have been detected. Time to go."

"I need more time," D'Anna hissed, her face now dripping with sweat.

Vacillating for just a moment, Bester finally brought up his comms unit to his mouth. "Mr. Garibaldi…we need a distraction." The delay was nearly imperceptible. The words were barely out of his mouth before the building was rocked by a massive explosion. The flashing red light doubled in tempo, and now alarms began to blare. Risking a peek, he saw chaos erupting in the room beyond. Technicians hunkered down at their consoles and security…security raised and cocked their weapons…and went running from the room. The sound of distant gunfire could be heard faintly via the now open door. "That won't buy us much time," he advised.

Despite the encouragement, it was still another minute before she finally opened her eyes and looked up, panting. "I'm in. But I'm not sure for how long. Keeping the intrusion undetected is taking a lot of effort. And we hit the frakking motherlode. Some of this stuff is marked restricted even to the Prime Minister. I'm not even sure who has access."

"Warm up one of these terminals. We'll download it to data crystals and then get the hell out of here."

She shook her head. "There's way too much data here."

"Can you transmit it to the fleet?"

"There's no way they wouldn't notice that." She thought for a moment and then said. "I'm gonna download to Serenity. They've land-locked the ship, which means there's now a direct physical connection right to her computers. And I helped Kaylee enhance those systems, so there should be sufficient space." She muttered under her breath, "I'm sure I was gonna get asked to hack the land-lock anyway."

"Will any troops that were stationed to guard the ship detect the data transfer?"

"Only if they're actively reviewing the data systems. Maybe you should tell Captain Reynolds to be more distracting." As he passed on the message, she added, "I'll make sure to free Serenity after the data dump is complete."

Finishing his message to Reynolds, Alfred nodded his acknowledgement. "Can you transmit orders to have anyone guarding the ship pulled away as well?"

D'Anna glared at him. "Oh, sure. Certainly. It's not like I'm currently managing a covert multi-exabyte data transfer while simultaneously fending off dozens of cyber-security subroutines, disabling a military spec land-lock, and, oh yes, generating an extraction path for us to get out of this death trap. All in a computer language I've had to learn to speak in the last few months. Is there anything else you can heap on me? Any other loads you'd like me to carry? Perhaps you'd care for some donuts? Can I offer you fries with that? Hot apple pie?"

Unperturbed, he simply replied, "I guess we can handle the guards ourselves." Taking a quick peek into the other room again, he muttered under his breath, "Donuts would be nice." Seeing that security was gone, he ducked back down and asked her, "So what's your extraction plan?"

With the strident blaring of a fresh new alarm, the sprinklers above them, and throughout the rest of the building as well, suddenly burst open, soaking them in deluge of water and foam. People in the far room could be heard shouting and dashing for the exits. "Bombs and gunfire," she replied with a grin. "A fire is only to be expected. I've also filed several false reports of expected intrusion points. That should pull most of the security away from our path out."

"But it will also put everyone on their guard. It's a good idea, but the danger's still very real. Watch your six."

"Watch your Three," she replied with a smirk, standing and pulling the cable out of her arm, then striding confidently through the door.

---

Londinium Orbitals, White Sun Plane of the Ecliptic - May, 2250
"Starbuck, watch you six!" Russki shouted. "You've picked up some trailers. I'm coming in!" She snapped her Mark II Viper around in half a second and went blasting away after her wingman. They'd gotten separated in the fight. Despite all of the lopsided fighter combat earlier in the day; despite the full force of Vipers, Starfuries, and Raiders now being unified for the final fight, the forty squadrons…over six hundred Alliance gunships…launched from the Tohokus were nothing to sneeze at. As it turned out, despite flying some of the oldest fighters the Alliance fielded, they were also generally the most experienced pilots the Alliance had. And they were coming in fresh, while the Earth Force, Colonial, and Cylon pilots were already doing their best to fight off exhaustion. If the Alliance had thought to give these pilots their nukes, rather than that first wave, the battle might have gone very differently.

The enemy had spread out, staying coordinated but coming in on a very broad front. Not so much to try to envelop the Sheridan's forces, but to give themselves plenty of room to maneuver and avoid having multiple fighters taken out by single missiles. What had ensued was the largest, most chaotic furball Susan had even participated in. There were bogies like fireflies, all over the sky. Superior hardware and ace pilots gave the Earth Force and Colonials the advantage, but this was no one-sided stomp. The kill ratio favored the Colonials and Earth Force, but numbers favored the Alliance. And the Raiders were getting the worst of it. She doubted many at all would survive the battle. They'd already withdrawn the Raptors and Heavy Raiders from the fight, in order to preserve the hardware and crews. This wasn't their kind of fight. Which of course, increased the Alliance's numbers advantage.

Russki and Starbuck and a host of other pilots had done their best, fought their hardest, to overcome that imbalance. "Starbuck, on my mark, break right."

"Confirmed. Get these assholes off of me!"

"Three…two…one…break right!" As she watched Kara flip her Viper ninety degrees to the right and apply thrust directly perpendicular to her prior heading; Susan lined up her own Viper, knowing that the trio of gunships on her tail would bank as though they were flying through atmosphere. They banked, just as she had predicted, moving right through her gunsights, and she depressed the trigger.

The twin trails of twisted energy blazed from the Viper's autocannon, loaded with the new ammunition Chief Tyrol and his compatriots had provided. With only the meerest twitch of the nose, the energy fire scythed through all three craft, not leaving them any time to evade. That ammo had made an amazing fighter even better, providing a ten-fold increase in the potency of the guns. Still, although she'd never admit it in a million years to her new shipmates, Susan would have preferred being in a Starfury. Certainly, it wasn't quite as nimble. But it now packed eight of these guns instead of the two the Viper Mark IIs carried, or three mounted by the Mark VIIs. When it came right down to it. She was a firepower girl.

Of course, Kara knew. There were precious few secrets between telepaths who lived and worked as closely as the two of them did. And speaking of Kara…

Starbuck flipped her nose end over end and snapped off a quick burst of her guns. The flotsam of a shattered gunship went tumbling past Susan's canopy. "Keep your head in the game, Russki! This fight isn't over."

"Isn't it?" she asked, looking around. Indeed, the Alliance fighters appeared to have broken. So too had their fleet.

The Tohokus had, most unwisely, chosen to pursue the battle rather than to break and retreat to preserve their combat capability. Likely they'd still had confidence in their numbers advantage and their upgraded guns. And those guns had proven quite the surprise. The only Alliance warship to mount plasma cannon, they'd apparently been upgraded even more than their kinetic weapon equivalents on the rest of the Alliance fleet. Of course, with their significant range advantage, the Nova and Lexington had shattered a third of the task force in their first few salvos, before the Tohokus could respond. Whatever their firepower upgrades, their superstructures were still fragile and horribly designed, their armor far too thin. But the enemy fleet had been accelerating to the intercept, and had built up sufficient steam that they'd blown through that zone of invulnerability into their own weapons range before they could be fully annihilated. After that, the battle had turned quite ugly.

Sheridan had immediately separated off the Midway and their remaining Basestar, trying to keep them out of the firefight. Of course, that had made them vulnerable to fighter strikes, and forced Starbuck and Lochley to spread out their already limited fighter resources even more.

The Nova, Pegasus, Galactica, and Lexington all blazed with exterior, and in several cases interior, plasma fires. Only the Nova had escaped the barrage mostly unscathed…at least, not any more scathed than she had been at the start of the fight with the Tohokus. The armor of the Pegasus and Lexington warped and ran in places from the energy they had absorbed, and the Lex had only gotten off that lightly due to her excellent point defense. The Galactica had taken by far the worst of it. She blazed nearly stem to stern with surface plasma fires, and her damage control parties were still struggling to contain several internal ones. Whatever happened next, she was done as a combat unit…at least until she had spent several months, if not years, receiving extensive repairs in a spacedock. Of course, that was no longer the absolute disaster it would have been only the day before.

For the Tohokus, for all their surprise firepower, had been utterly annihilated. Their silly towers shorn off. Their primary hulls holed, cracked, and shattered. Only debris remained. Which, to the best of their knowledge, left the Alliance with a single solitary Crete class Supercarrier, to defend her planets and space lanes. Which most certainly was not enough.

Russki shot down a couple of more Alliance gunships, then watched as a wave of Raptors, no longer threatened, flew past on their way down to Londinium. She opened her comms. "Starbuck, let's wrap this up. I wanna get the hell out of here."

---

New Inverness, Londinium, White Sun System - May, 2250
"Let's wrap this up. I wanna get the hell out of here." There was something tickling at Kendra's nerves, and he couldn't quite figure out what. So she'd snapped at Garibaldi.

He nodded over at her, from where he was speaking softly into his comms unit. "That was Bester. They've retrieved the data and are on their way out. All teams have checked in, and we've begun exfiltration. We might need to provide cover, but otherwise it's time to leave." He stood up from where they'd both been crouching, inside a small shadowed nook between two adjoining buildings, halfway down a darkened alleyway. It gave them a nearly direct view of the base's central building, as well as the main thoroughfare surrounding it.

They hadn't seen any sign of the other teams since watching Bester and D'Anna disappear into that massive edifice. Darkness and clouds of acrid smoke, backlit by street lights, now obscured much of the view. Captain Reynolds had taken Garibaldi's decision to blow the one significant explosive they'd smuggled in as permission to engage in all sorts of mayhem. They'd lit off several smoke grenades, and the immediate hacking and coughing of those unfortunate enough to be caught within the dark clouds they'd released had immediately sent the Alliance personnel into biohazard protocols, which had further complicated their efforts to track down the infiltrators. Kendra had watched those devices being assembled. A combination of black and red pepper, and a compound Dr. Tam had extracted from the skin of some amphibian. Irritating but perfectly harmless. But the Alliance didn't know that.

They could hear the other teams though. Every once in a while a flurry of the odd dissonant pops of gravitic firearms let loose in the distance. Shaw was pretty sure that Reynolds wouldn't risk a direct confrontation. This wasn't a combat mission after all. So they were probably just firing into the air from hiding, trying to draw off and confuse the purple bellies (a derogatory phrase she'd taken to instantly). But she couldn't be certain.

She stood up to follow Michael, when her senses went wild. There was someone coming down the street. Two someones. Two someones with power, and using that power to enthrall and focus, and incidentally shield, the troopers around them. She grabbed the wall to steady herself, reaching out with her other hand towards Garibaldi. She couldn't call out either verbally or telepathically, lest they draw the attention of whomever that was.

A squad of purple bellies broke through the smoke, striding down the street in wedge formation. Moving within the protective cover of that wedge was the squad's CO…and a pair of men in business suits rather than military garb. Men with power. Men with hands of blue.

Kendra momentarily considered attempting to replicate with Garibaldi that Cylon's trick from earlier. But it seemed less likely to work now that the streets were far more empty, what with bombs and chemical weapons and gunfire in play. Besides, he'd probably take it the wrong way. Or the right way. Either way, it was more drama than she wanted to deal with right now. So instead, she reached out, grabbed him by the shoulder, and attempted to drag him back into the shadows.

The movement caught the eye of one of the purple bellies, who gave a shout and pointed. The formation swiveled and headed their way. Frak! No help for it now. She tossed her only smoke grenade, an act which immediately caused the entire squad to ready their weapons. Fortunately, a cloud of smoke from her grenade cut between them, obstructing view. There were a number bright flashes in the smoke, accompanied by loud cracking sounds. The purple bellies must have been carrying laser weapons which, amazingly, were blocked by the smoke.

Of course, it also meant that smoke was absorbing a lot of energy, and wouldn't last long.

Garibaldi had drawn that ridiculous, pearl handled pistol, and was popping away through the smoke. A cry through the murk indicated he had indeed reached out and touched someone. He spun on his heel, shouting, "Run for it!" They both took off at a sprint, back towards Serenity.

Maintaining a steady breath, she pulled her comms unit up to her mouth and barked, "A little cover would be appreciated!"

From a nearby rooftop, an assault rifle opened up on full-auto, along with the louder, lower pops of a long gun. Glancing up, she saw Jayne and Zoë on a nearby rooftop, trying to slow the pursuing troopers, who had already passed through the smoke cloud. Another trooper or two took flesh wounds, the entire squad tumbling for cover. But a moment later Jayne and Zoë were forced to dive for cover as the squad returned fire. The building facade was blown to pieces in the storm of laser energy, the entire upper floor set ablaze.

Garibaldi led them into a cross alley, trying to keep some form of cover between them and their pursuers. He banked hard as they burst back out onto another major street, looking back to ensure she was still behind him. Between one breath and the next, Bester and D'Anna were next to them, panting and running just as hard.

"Leave it to you to blow our cover," Bester snapped at Garibaldi.

"Quit complaining," Michael replied. "You're still breathing."

"And I'd like to keep it that way!"

"Less complaining, more running," Kendra snapped, lengthening her stride and outpacing the men. D'Anna kept up with her, neck and neck. Cutting through another short alley, they burst out onto the fully civilian areas past the edge of the base. The crowds were thinner now, but the streets were still filled with people making the most of their vacations by nervously staring at the skies with telescopes or binoculars or just the mark-one eyeball. Staring at the flashes of vessels dying, or the brilliant streaks of fire as debris or spacecraft or bodies, caught by Londinium's gravity, fell back into and burned up in the atmosphere. Some of the larger pieces were apparently making it all the way to the ground.

The largest streaks were met with murmurs of wonder, and even cheers, proving that these idiots had no idea what they were looking at. Those were their countrymen…perhaps even friends or relatives…being burned to ash in a veil of plasma as they plummeted towards the ground. Bagpipers skirled with the inspiration of the sight…some sad and mournful, others hopeful and upbeat. And not one in unison. The large ensemble from earlier in the day had apparently already packed it in.

Reynold's voice crackled over comms. "Everyone get back to Serenity now! We've got Alliance fireteams closing in from all sides!" A few streets down, Kendra spotted Simon and Kaylee hurriedly walking back to their ship, but doing their best not to appear to be running. She spotted Wash and River next. The two had stolen bicycles from somewhere. The disparate teams ran onto the landing field upon which Serenity parked with other visiting craft, all surrounded by thousands of milling tourists and yet more bagpipers.

Shots rang out behind them. Screams and stampeding tourists and screeching bagpipes turned the field to pandemonium. An Alliance trooper appeared right before Kendra, weapon raised. Before she could think to even slow down, a sword erupted from his chest. The Operative, standing behind him, yanked his weapon free, then gestured for them all to get low and use the crowds as cover. A barrage of laser fire went by over their heads, accompanied by more screams of the terrified mob. The purple bellies were certainly trying not to hit their own civilians, but they weren't above terrifying them in order to get them out of the way. Kinetic shots rang out from a half dozen different directions, clearly a response from the Serenity's crew. Both the Operative and Garibaldi also stood up to return fire. Somehow D'Anna and Bester had become separated, nowhere to be seen.

They resumed their path to the ship. And there stood Serenity, primary hatch welcomingly open, perhaps a hundred meters away. It may as well have been a thousand. An entire platoon of purple bellies was marching into place to cut them off. Kendra heard something crackle over comms, but she was too distracted to follow it, searching for some hope of getting through.

"Get down!" Garibaldi shouted, tackling her to the ground. Just as a pair of Raptors went roaring by overhead, pulverizing the platoon with rocket and chaingun. A temporary flagpole standing nearby, erected for the ceremonies, snapped and toppled to the ground, burying the Alliance colors in the dirt. The pandemonium of the civilians redoubled, but the path was momentarily open for them to get onboard. It would not stay open for long.

Kendra sprang up, dragging Michael with her, and unsurprised to find the Operative already on his feet. They ran for the hatch. They had just hit the foot of the ramp when a pair of purple bellies appeared, weapons already raised. They opened fire…burning down another set of Alliance troopers who had been right behind Kendra. Glassy eyed, they continued down the ramp, continuing to fire on more of their comrades attempting to close in. It was then that Kendra noticed Bester, sheltering within the airlock at the top of the ramp, speaking to the Cylon at his side. "I told you I'd take care of any guards left on the ship."

"I guess you've earned your donuts then."

Neither knowing nor caring what the two were talking about, Kendra nevertheless joined them in the airlock to lay down suppressing fire on the steadily growing ring of Alliance troops closing in. Jayne and Zoë were the next up the ramp, displacing her further back into the cargo hold, as they had better weapons for holding off the enemy. The last to arrive was Reynolds, limping on a wounded leg and being half carried by Inara. Kendra darted in under his other arm to help him hurry. Never stopping, he hammered the button to raise the ramp and close the hatch with the heel of his fist. Then he snatched up the intercom handset from where it hung on the wall. "Wash! Are we ready to get gone?!" They heard the engines wind up as Serenity prepared to leap spaceward.

"We're good to go, Mal," came Wash's response.

Mal pulled his arm from around Kendra, but gave her a grateful nod. "Sure hope the Cylon got that land-lock out of commission, or this is gonna be a real short trip." Keying the line open to Wash again, he simply said, "Hit it!"

With a roar, Serenity rose to the heavens on a pillar fire, a pair of Raptors flanking her wings. Leaving the corrupt land behind, she once more danced among the stars.

---

New Dunsmuir, Beaumonde, Kalidasa system, The Verse - May, 2250
Doctor Stephen Franklin danced among the stars on a dying world. Well, he more stumbled around amongst them. Hands jittery and eyes blurry, he meandered down the street, looking for someone. Exhausted, he took another pull from the long cold coffee in his mug. As black as it was, it barely scratched the bone deep weariness he now felt. And exultation as well. He almost wished is was beer or wine. He should be celebrating. But he generally avoided alcohol, and, in his current condition, he doubted drinking alcohol would go at all well for him.

He'd done it! The cure. It should have taken a decade of work, and somehow he'd done it in months. Of course, all of the other doctors and scientists and staff had contributed. They all deserved credit. But it had been his project. His responsibility. His drive. His achievement? Well, the result was the important thing. Not the credit. And he'd worked so hard, sacrificed so much, for this result. His relationship with Tessa was a shambles. There probably wasn't a single member of his staff who didn't probably hate his guts. Even Ghawran had told him he was being an asshole. And of course there were the stims… But the result was the important thing.

The data and formulation of that result sat in a data crystal in his pocket. Which was why he was stumbling down the street, looking for someone to give it to. Someone to take it away and distribute it to the teams. To have it mass produced and distributed and administered. To cure the catatonic. It was the achievement of a lifetime.

Wondering where everyone was he glanced blearily at his chronometer, trying to force his eyes to focus. Three AM. Well…somebody had to still be up. He continued his way up the street, hearing only the echoes of his footsteps, listening only to his own thoughts and he forced his body to plod along. Forced his eyes to remain open.

The past few months had been awful. Despite all their efforts, the death toll had continued to rise at an alarming pace. They simply didn't have the bodies to give water to all of the apathetically immobilized all over the planet. And even for those getting water, the number of nutrition shakes they were able to produce, much less administer, was quite limited. Millions were dying from simply dehydration.

And then came his first discovery. That up to ten percent of the population carried the Reaver genes. That they could activate those genes, and change them from apathetic manikins to active Reavers. He'd begged Sheridan to allow him to do it. He had only the barest inklings of the political firestorm this had unleashed, but eventually he'd gotten his permission.

Of course, even while producing that first treatment, he hadn't administered it right away. No, he'd been far more cold blooded than that, in the interests of saving the maximum number of lives. Without any permission at all, he'd gone to Ghawran and made a deal. Ghawran would get tens of millions of new Reavers…and in return, the Reavers would do the leg work of administering the treatment, as well as ensuring these new Reavers were properly vegan before they awakened. And they would also employ their full manpower afterwards to keep the rest of the nonReavers alive. To the full extent of their capabilities, planet wide.

Ghawran had agreed. And lived up to his end of the bargain. Deaths planetwide had dropped precipitously. But even that could only keep the remaining survivors alive for only just so long. As one month passed into another, the daily death toll began to rise once more. Faster and faster, the progression becoming geometric. At this point, people were passing away from infected bedsores, still never so much as moving to relieve the pain. They just didn't…couldn't care.

And as thousands of deaths daily became millions…with each passing day…Stephen became more desperate. He pushed himself harder. He allowed less time for his own rest or nourishment. And as friends and colleagues warned him…or begged him…to take care of himself, he'd put them off or smacked them down. Even relocated them. Whatever it took so that he could focus.

And finally, he'd done it. It had taken so long, he knew there couldn't possibly be more than a quarter of the original population left. But at least that was something. Something to allow him look himself in the mirror late at night.

Where the hell was everybody? He stopped and looked around. Where the hell am I?

Finally, he spotted something. A fire in the distance. A campfire. Several men standing around it. Those would be the Marines, guarding the perimeter. Sheridan had pulled much of their guard force away…some special need for the diplomatic mission into the Core Worlds. Stephen didn't know why he needed them, and he didn't care. The Reavers had proved to not be a threat, and indeed had been critical to keeping as many alive as possible. But those Marines left behind had seemed resentful of the fact. And perhaps less professional than they ought. Even Stephen had noticed that, despite his all encompassing preoccupation.

But that wasn't what raised his ire. No, the attitude of the Marines, his weeks of growing exhaustion, his overexposure to the stims…even his long stumble through the night…no, all of those were merely contributory factors. The core of what drew forth his rage was that damned campfire. They were supposed to be more professional than that. There were no firefighting companies or even gear present. Hell, the water was becoming spotty at best. If a fire got out of control, it could easily rage through buildings, blocks, neighborhoods. The entire city could potentially go up in flames. Millions more dead, who now had the possibility of life in front of them…just because some damned Marines didn't want to be cold.

Stephen stormed right up to the campfire. He opened his mouth to give them a piece of his mind, and only then did the reality of the scene burn its way past the fog in his head. That was a fire, but not merely an open campfire. There was a device above it, soaking up the heat. A mass of brass and copper; tanks and coiled tubes and pressure gauges. And hanging upside down from a pole next to the fire were the bodies of four Alliance soldiers. Their throats had been slit, creating a massive second smile between their chins and their chests. The tops of their skulls were removed, their brains missing. The little blood still oozing out of their horrible wounds dripped down into the largest of the copper cisterns. A bubbling sound came from within that tank.

Taking his eyes off of that horrific sight, Stephen only now looked around at the men he had seen standing around the fire. Not Marines. Not at all. They were Reavers. Reavers staring in incredulity at the incomparable idiot who had just wandered up to their…still?...with the intent to dress them down.

The thought hit him far too late that maybe he should run. Reaver hands had already shot out, latching painfully onto his arms and shoulders, and dragging him forward into the firelight so that they could get a better look at him. He might as well have been a baby, for all the good his struggles did against their might. They hissed at him, all torn skin and razor sharp teeth. There was another sound too. A sound he'd never heard from the Reaves before. It took him a moment to place it.

Laughter. They were laughing at him. Laughing at the fool who had just thrown away his own life. Stephen thought belatedly of the cure just sitting there in his pocket. It would never get out now. He'd thrown away tens of millions more lives in his stupidity and vanity. Everyone had been right. He should have taken more time. Taken care of himself. Kept his head clear. Maybe the cure would have taken longer, but at least it would have gotten out. He cursed himself. He wept. He knew he was damned, and knew he deserved it.

He gabbled, trying to get their attention. To make them understand. To get them to do something with the cure even if they still chose to kill him. They weren't listening. One of them reached forward, grabbing his mouth painfully and squeezing, and forcing his jaws apart. "This one won't shut up. Let's remove its tongue before we scoop out its brain. I enjoy the howling, but have no need of the words."

The comment elicited more laughter. One of the Reavers drew a knife from the fire, its blade glowing red hot. It approached to excise the specified organ, and Stephen howled in terror.

"Wait," one of them barked in command. If he wore rank of any kind, Stephen couldn't detect it. "I recognize this one. Don't you see?" he asked his compatriots. "We are honored by the presence of a celebrity!"

The other Reavers seemed to pause studying him. The glowing knife was held just inches from his face. Stephen could feel the heat radiating off of it. Finally, one of the other Reaver said, "It's Ghawran's pet! His human plaything!" The Reavers burst into laughter, and the knife was plunged back into the fire. Stephen himself was tossed down painfully onto the stones before the fire.

The one seemingly in command strode up before Stephen, looking down at him impassionately. "And what should we do with him, I wonder? What are you doing here, little pet? Have you come to give yourself to the Shine?"

Rolling onto his back, bracing on his elbows, Stephen found himself looking up, not just at the Reavers, but at the bodies dangling above the tank. No longer in control of his terrified mind or mouth, he heard himself saying, "You weren't supposed to be killing."

That drew more laughter. "We have kept up our end of the bargain, little pet. We have not slaughtered your people, easy though it would have been. But you tasked us with protecting this world. Protecting your people. From the Alliance. They've been sending spies to this world for quite some time " He swept his arm up towards the draining bodies. "You did not specify how we were to do so. Nor place any restrictions upon us. Not that we would have listed had you tried. This is our world now. And we….appreciate," more raucous laughter, "...your efforts in increasing our numbers and our strength. Though there are more than a few who are a bit…resentful…of what you did to us before that." He bared his teeth in a snarl that caused Franklin to go numb from head to his toes.

"I'm….I'm trying to help you."

"Oh yes. You want to cure us. Do you think, foolish little pet, that any of us would want your cure? Actually, we've made our own cure, in a way." He swept his hand out to indicate the device. "Do you know what this is?"

Breathing rapidly, uncertain of how best to bargain for his life, Stephen merely said, "It looks like a still."

"Ah…just so. And we use it to make Shine. The BloodShine. You have taken away our ability to eat our prey. But not, as it turns out, to drink them. We take their blood. We mash their brains and glands…anything that produces those lovely hormones…and add it to the mix. And we allow it to ferment."

The scientist in Franklin took over. "The alcohol. The alcohol from fermentation would…would break down the proteins…"

"Break down the proteins to which you made us allergic, little pet. And so now we no longer eat our prey. We drink them." He grabbed up a pair of tankards from a nearby table, and plunged them both into the open tank at the far end of the contraption. They came out brimming with a foul smelling liquid that appeared black in the firelight. The Reaver guzzled down his tankard, to the shouts and cheers of approbation from his fellows.

He lowered the drained flagon, and glared at Stephen from above for a long moment, almost seeming to snarl. Then he squatted down and thrust the remaining tankard into the recumbent doctor's arms "Drink!" he commanded.

The fumes off of that foul brew very nearly made Stephen sick up right there. "I can't," he gasped, attempting to offer back the drink.

"You drink the BloodShine…or you become the BloodShine." There was no mercy, no give at all in the Reaver's eyes. Terrified, not knowing what else to do, Stephen slowly stood up. Taking the mug, he did his best to suppress his gag reflex and tried to pour it directly down his throat.

Good God, how can it taste so much worse than it smells? He had no idea how it was possible, but he managed to drain the goblet down. Coughing and choking, he dropped the empty container, grasping at his throat and gasping for air.

The Reavers erupted into cheers and laughter, as the world began to spin around him. The fermented fluids of homosapiens struck his stomach like a wrecking ball. It hammered into his blood, and thence into his brain. It combined with all of the exhaustion and guilt and stims…especially the stims…and simply shut the place down. Eyes rolling back in head, Stephen allowed blackness to consume his mind, as his body pitched forward into the fire.