A Chance Encounter Version 2
Disclaimer: I do not own most of the characters, and definitely not the universes as things would be seriously different if I did, that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own amusement. Sadly, all Robotech and Battlestar Galactica concepts and characters remain the property of Harmony Gold and Ronald D Moore I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Chapter Eight
Alarms wailed throughout the Galactica triggering a literal explosion of activity. Viper pilots raced to man their planes while hangar bay crews hurriedly prepared them for launch. Marines suited up, grabbed automatic weapons, and headed to various checkpoints and chokepoints throughout the vessel ready to repel any boarding attempt by the Cylons while all other personnel from gunnery crews to damage and fire control crews raced to their own station. All determined to, once again, face their relentless biomechanical enemies and ensure that the Colonial part of the greater human race lived to see another day.
Among those racing to his post was one Admiral William Adama. He had been in his cabin doing some of the mountain of paperwork that came with not just running one battlestar but all of the seven ships that were all that remained of the once proud Colonial Fleet. Much as he hated doing it, honestly in his experience nobody in the military really liked the Hades spawned demon that was paperwork, it had been a good distraction from worrying about Laura on the Terran flagship. Over the last two years of their flight from the Cylons his feelings for the former education secretary had changed considerably as he had gone from being very dismissive and even outright contemptuous of her to someone who deeply respected her both for her quiet dignity and immense strength. Strength that never stopped being tested as she faced two never ending battles, to keep the remains of their civilization from collapsing into anarchy and a deeply personal battle with cancer.
If he was honest with himself, he was starting to fall in love with her. Hence why he was worried while she was on the Terran ship. They still knew so little about the Thirteenth Tribe, beyond the fact that technologically they were scarily advanced. They knew nothing about their culture or society or even why they and the other twelve tribes of Kobol had parted ways in the first place all those millennia ago. Thus, the leader of what was left of his civilization going aboard one of their warships – a warship that he didn't doubt could destroy even the Pegasus without breaking a sweat – was a dangerous risk.
He put aside those thoughts and worries as he arrived at the CIC. It was immediately obvious that the situation was far, far more serious than it normally was. There was an atmosphere in the CIC that he had never felt here before, or at least had not felt for a very long time, an atmosphere of fear but also determination that the enemy wasn't going to win.
"How many ships," he asked as he walked up to the main situation/map table where Saul was. He could already tell that he wasn't going to like what his old friend had to say as Saul was pale and for one of the few times since he'd known him utterly terrified. "Saul how many ships?"
"Fifty-five baseships Bill," Saul answered after a moment, "and that's not all they've got another class of ship with them that we've never seen before. From its size though I would guess it's a cruiser. They've got twenty of them so seventy-five ships in total."
Adama froze for a moment staring at Saul in a combination of shock and horror. Seventy-five Cylon warships! Twenty of them a cruiser class that they had never seen before today, which in itself would have been terrifying as in the First Cylon War the toasters had had a bad habit of springing deadly and powerful new warships on them when they least expected it. He still had nightmares about some of the battles with the Cratus-class baseships which could ruin anybody's day with its tactical jumping, heavy cannons and rapid reload missile launchers. Seventy-five ships were more than enough to destroy the entire fleet in very short order as there was no way their ships would survive the weight of missile firepower the baseships would put out to say nothing of whatever weapons the cruisers had.
Though he had to wonder why the Cylons had chosen to strike at them with such a massive now? Why spring these new warships on them as well? The only thing he could think of the only reason that honestly made sense, was they were worried about what would happen if they linked up with the thirteenth tribe. That the machines were worried that they would convince their cousins to turn their massively powerful, far superior weapons upon them. Thus, they had come to wipe them out now before that could happen. Not if I can help it, he thought shaking off his shock.
"Cylon ships are launching raiders," Gaeta reported as the dradis screens began to come alive with hundreds and then thousands of raiders coming from the assembled Cylon fleet. "Strange we're not picking up any missile targeting locks yet though we are within their range."
"They're trying to terrify us," Adama said in realisation, "give us time to realize that our doom is upon us. That's going to cost them. Dee instruct all the civilian ships to jump to emergency coordinates immediately. We will join them shortly. Send those coordinates to the Terran ships."
"Yes sir."
"We're not going to be able to jump yet Bill," Saul pointed out, "a number of the civilian ships took their FTL drives offline for urgent maintenance and repair, it's in the fleet status report from last night. It will take them at least ten minutes to get their drives back online."
"Frack how many," Adama demanded even as he mentally kicked himself for not having read that report yet.
"At least twenty of them including Cloud Nine, the Rising Star and the Athena's Grace."
"Frack." Those were the three biggest civilian ships in the fleet with the first of the latter two being a second luxury star liner – indeed she was of the same class as Cloud Nine – and the other a hospital ship. Both had shown up with the Cerberus a few months ago. "Okay Dee tell all civilian ships with functional drives to jump. Send one of the cruisers with them for protection. The rest will jump as soon as they are able to. All other ships launch Vipers and brace for heavy attack."
"Yes sir."
"Mr Gaeta what are the Terran ships doing?"
"Nothing at the mo…. Wait. Terran ships are launching fighters. Sir Cylon raiders are closing, weapons range in sixty seconds."
"Sir we're picking up a transmission from the Terran flagship to the Cylons," Dee reported.
"On speakers."
Immediately the overhead speakers crackled and began to hum right before the voice of the Terran admiral came through. "Attention Cylon vessels. I am Admiral Christian Haywood of the United Earth Expeditionary Force. Your conflict with the Colonials is over, they are no longer a threat to you. I give you one opportunity to withdraw continue to advance and we will be forced to open fire. You have one minute to comply after which we will begin burning you from the stars."
"That's going to go down well," Saul commented knowing the Cylons likely had little to no use for diplomacy. Not to mention they were kind of fanatical about wiping the human race from the stars. "Any response from the toasters?"
"Negative sir," Dee replied.
"Sir Cylon raiders have reached weapons range. Half are heading for the civilian ships that aren't able to jump yet. Viper squadrons moving to intercept. The others are moving towards us."
"All ships commence enemy suppression barrage. Begin moving us towards the Cylons. All main batteries prepare to engage enemy baseships."
"Yes sir," various tactical and navigation officers acknowledged.
Space near the Galactica suddenly resembled a firework display as the elderly, but still formidable, battlestar once again unleashed her fury upon the approaching Cylon raiders. Defensive batteries opening up sending a rapid storm of autocannon rounds – of both the starburst flak and direct impact type – at the raiders. Dozens of raiders disintegrated immediately under the barrage, simultaneously the other Colonial warships including the marine assault ship opened up with their own suppressive fire barrages turning even more raiders into plumes of shattered metal and freezing fluids – including blood – from their organic systems.
Undeterred the raiders continued to close with their hated enemies. Missile bays opened and anti-ship missiles were launched into space towards the Colonials. The Colonial warships immediately redirected some of their defensive fire to the missile salvos while the rest continued firing upon the Cylons. None of the Cylon missiles made it through all dissolving into plumes of shattered metal as they were hit and shredded.
It was at this moment, when the raiders were essentially stalemated by the defensive batteries of the Colonial warships, that two things happened virtually simultaneously. First the Terran flagship Procyon opened fire upon the Cylons with her two bow mounted superheavy particle beam cannons, the beams travelling at eighty percent of light speed striking two separate basestars virtually simultaneously. Both baseships erupted into titanic fireballs immediately as the beams simply tore right through them as though they were made of paper, igniting everything in their path instantly including stored fuel and munitions.
Even as the two basestars died, consumed by the energies of weapons whose power was almost beyond comprehension to Colonial and Cylon minds, the second event occurred. With the brilliant acrid flash of nuclear energy, the luxury liner Cloud Nine, the home of the majority of the Colonial government well those not on Colonial One, exploded. Debris and a wave of superheated plasma – all that remained of the atmosphere that had been on the liner – accompanied by a storm of high energy x-rays and gamma rays blasted outwards from the former location of the vessel. Eight smaller Colonial vessels were caught in the blast zone, unarmoured civilian hulls offering little to no protection against the sudden onslaught. Three of the eight exploded as they were enveloped and consumed by the plasma cloud. The other five lost power – the EMP from the explosion crashing their computers and power systems – and began drifting trailing debris and venting atmosphere from where hypervelocity fragments had torn into their hulls.
Colonial Viper 2101
A Few Moments Earlier
Starbuck grunted slightly as with a surge of acceleration her Viper was shot clear of the Pegasus. Manipulating the control stick she brought her Viper around and as her entire squadron had been ordered began advancing to engage the raiders heading for those civilian ships who were still working to bring their jump engines back online so they could escape like the other civilian ships. The defensive batteries on all the warships were already firing tearing raiders from the stars in an orgy of destruction but which seemed to have only limited effect to the sheer number of Cylon strike craft.
"Frack I've never seen so many before," she muttered even as she started firing herself. The refitted Mark VII's triple autocannons opened up her guns immediately striking one raider on its port wing. The wing snapped off immediately and the sentient space fighter began to spin out of control, until that was a second burst of fire from her guns sent it to its doom. Well temporary doom as she was well aware that like the humanoids, raiders resurrected.
Bright whitish-blue light suddenly caught her attention and she looked to see what was causing it. To see two massive energy beams – each one was thicker than a Raptor – streaking across space from the bows of the largest of the thirteenth tribes warships to the Cylons. Holy frack. Lee was right these guys have energy weapons, she thought recalling the briefing Lee had quickly given her on the new arrivals even as she watched the beam strike two basestars at impossible range. Both baseships going nova almost instantaneously as the beams swatted them from the stars as if they were mere toys.
"My gods look at that," she heard another Viper pilot say, "I'm glad there on our side."
Starbuck had to agree with that assessment. From what she had just seen those beams do to the Cylons she guessed that they really would have no chance against their cousins if they chose to fire upon them for any reason. The thirteenth tribe was clearly way more advanced technologically than they were and had access to some unfathomably powerful energy source – a source capable of powering such lethal energy beams. Beams that she didn't doubt would go through even the heavy armour of the Pegasus like it was wet tissue paper. She certainly wouldn't want to meet whoever the thirteenth tribe had to have been at war with in the past to create such advanced and lethal weapons.
Another flash – one whose colour was far too depressingly familiar – caught her attention. She looked over, even as she idly shot down another raider, to see Cloud Nine exploding from within. A wave of superheated plasma, radiation and debris expanded outwards from where the liner had once been claiming three more ships and disabling five more.
"NOOO!" she screamed knowing that there had been over nine thousand people on that ship and who knew how many more on the ships who had been killed by the flying debris and immersion in the plasma cloud. Her own scream of horror and rage echoing across the communications lines as every Viper and Raptor pilot who had seen the blast reacted the same way. "You dirty fracking toasters. You'll pay for that."
The plasma cloud that was all that remained of Cloud Nine – well anything that wasn't bigger than a playing card – dissipated all that was left was open space. But only for a moment as in simultaneous flashes of FTL light four ships appeared right where the liner had been. Each was clearly Cylon being Y-shaped and clearly made of the same type of biometallic alloy as the bigger double Y baseships. Though it was darker and thicker looking. There also bristled with cannons and in the bows were the clear openings of two gauss cannons identical to the four the Pegasus had in her bow.
Immediately the four new Cylon ships – cruisers perhaps? – opened fire. Each launching thirty-six missiles a piece from launch bays on the two smaller secondary arms while dual heavy and standard kinetic energy cannon turrets began pumping out tungsten shell after tungsten shell. The unexpected wall of fire tore into several nearby civilian ships and simply ripped them to pieces the ships either exploding or tearing apart spewing the bodies of their dead and dying passengers into space.
An almost incoherent roar of pure, unadulterated rage exploded from Starbuck's throat as she brought her Viper around and moved to attack the new ships. Simultaneously the Pegasus lateral gun turrets began peppering one of the cruisers with heavy rounds. Explosions rocked the Cylon vessel, but its armour seemed to hold as it turned and pointed its bow mounted cannons at the Mercury-class ship and fired. Two large projectiles striking the side of the Pegasus almost immediately violently rocking the entire vessel as two sections of hull armour – each the size of a three story building – dissolved into a blizzard of hypervelocity fragments.
Thankfully the cruiser didn't get chance to fire again as three dual streams of blue energy tore into it. In moments it broke apart and detonated consumed by the particle beams almost as easily as the two baseships she'd seen destroyed had been. It's three companions fared little better as all of them were speared by dozens of either blue or whitish-blue beams each and quickly reduced to clouds of debris and burning plasma. She quickly looked around to see where the fire had come from to see that all eighteen of the thirteenth tribe capital ships were now firing upon the Cylons pounding out blue and white-blue beams of searing energy as well as streams of yellow energy bolts. The effects on the Cylons were devasting as any raider or missile hit by the pulses would be instantly reduced to a cloud of vapour. The beams were if anything even more lethal steadily carving through the hulls of the Cylon warships and either sending them to their doom or inflicting absolutely brutal amounts of damage.
Of course, the thirteenth wasn't getting everything their own way. Each of their ships had swarms of Cylon anti-ship missiles – which were nearly continuously streaming from every one of the baseships – closing in on them. While their defensive guns knocked missile after missile out of the sky it was only a matter of time before one impacted. As Starbuck watched one did just that, or rather it impacted a glowing green wall of some type of energy that appeared right in the missiles path. An energy shield of some kind? Several more missiles impacted, and the energy tile dissolved in a blaze of photons allowing the next two missiles to impact the hull. The Terran ship visibly rocked but otherwise seemed to weather the hits and continue firing both at the Cylon capital ships and at their missiles.
"Starbuck look out," a voice said over the radio, she vaguely recognised it as Racetrack's voice. Kara's eyes snapped back to her screens and with a jolt she saw a raider almost had her dead in its sights.
"Oh no you don't you frackers," she growled as she jinked to avoid a burst of autocannon fire that would have punched right through her cockpit windshield and into her fragile human body. She quickly returned the favour punching rounds through the helmet-like head at the front of the raider to rip apart the brain inside. The rest of her rounds exploding out the back as they sawed the offending raider in half.
Even as the two pieces of the raider spun away from each other – trailing a cloud of rapidly freezing red mist – she spotted three lining up to lob missiles into the side of the Athena's Grace which was being fiercely defended by the destroyer Cassandra. A destroyer that had obviously taken a few hits already as she was listing slightly to one side – indicating damage to her attitude control system – and some of her starboard autocannon turrets weren't firing and indeed appeared to be missing. Oh no you don't, she thought as she fired upon the offending toasters, shredding one of them and making the others break off. To be swatted from the sky a few seconds later by the Cassandra.
A moment later with a flash of FTL light the hospital ship disappeared into a jump.
Starbuck quickly glanced around to see that most of the remaining civilian ships had managed to get their jump drives back online and we're now disappearing into FTL – fleeing to the emergency coordinates. Thank the Lords, she thought a moment before her radio crackled to life.
"Starbuck this is the Pegasus come in," she heard Hoshi say,
"Go ahead Pegasus," Kara answered, frowning slightly as she clearly heard hissing and crackling in the background of Hoshi's transmission. The kind of hissing and crackling that accompanied damaged conduits and electronics. Clearly there was mounting damage aboard the Pegasus, which given the absolutely hellish battle raging around them was not surprising. What was frankly surprising was the fact that so many of them were still alive and she knew that was only because of the Terran presence and their superior firepower. Had they been facing this Cylon fleet alone they would have been dead a dozen times over by now.
"Starbuck grab some Vipers and head over to the Galactica. They've lost power to their port amidship defence batteries, get over there and cover them until their damage control crews can repair them."
As Hoshi spoke, no doubt relaying orders from Lee, Starbuck felt a cold knot of dread form around her heart. She knew that the port amidship defence batteries covered the Galactica's solo operational flight pod. With those batteries down – likely due to shock damage from missile hits breaking a couple of power cables – that part of the aging battlestar was dangerously vulnerable. Indeed, the whole damned ship was dangerously vulnerable without those weapons operational.
"Will do Pegasus," she replied immediately bringing her Viper around and heading for the Galactica. She quickly checked her screens. "Racetrack, Kat, Stinger. Galactica's in trouble, you're with me."
The other four pilots hurriedly acknowledged and fell into formation with her all of them streaking towards the old Jupiter-class ship. Dozens of raiders were in their way, but they didn't let that stop them, they simply blasted their way through and passed over the shattered, burning remains of the cruiser Vigilance. Kara winced at the sight of the broken in two Medusa-class ship. From the damage, and the fact that her radiation detector was frankly going nuts, she had clearly been hit by a Cylon nuke. A heavy one at that which had punched through the relatively thin armour covering the hull and torn the ship in half. The six hundred crew aboard her would never have had a chance.
It was yet more evidence, if she had ever needed it, of just how big the butchers bill from this fight was going to be.
Then the Galactica herself came into view and, if anything, the knot of dread around her heart got colder and harder. The elderly battlestar, the very last survivor of the line that had defeated the Cylons over forty years ago, was clearly in far more trouble than Hoshi had initially told her. Even from here she could see that one of her four sublight engine nacelles had been blown away and that she was venting atmosphere from at least one of the engineering bays. The unused starboard flight pod – which was still set up as part of the museum that the Galactica would have become had the Cylons not hit the Colonies – was shattered halfway along its length spilling its contents into space and the entire vessel was listing badly to the starboard side indicating major damage to the attitude control systems.
Yet most of her cannons and defensive batteries were still firing defiantly at the Cylons. The shattered and burning remains of three baseships – who were no doubt responsible for the damage she'd sustained - showing the ferocity of the battered, bruised old war horses' ferocious resistance. Fresh explosions near the Galactica marked the final resting place of a squadron or raiders that had been aiming to get around her and take advantage of the massive hole that had opened in the old ships defences and lob missiles into the hull. More raiders were angling for an attack run…
…she and the others didn't let them. Instead, they blew in unleashing a ferocious blaze of autocannon fire that tore six raiders from the sky and sent the remains of the shattered formation scattering in confusion. Then they were passing over the Galactica and Starbuck was just about to let herself relax slightly – knowing that now they were here they would be able to protect her former mothership and all the friends she had who still served aboard her until damage control got the port defence batteries back online – when it happened.
With brilliant flashes of FTL light two of the Cylons cruisers appeared directly off the Galactica's port side. The battlestars dorsal heavy guns started to turn to fire upon them but they could only traverse so fast. They were not fast enough as both Cylon cruisers pointed their bows at the Galactica…
…and sent a full salvo of gauss rounds, heavy kinetic energy rounds and a salvo of missiles into her side.
Authors Notes: Dun, da dun, dun, dun I know evil aren't I for that little cliffhanger ending. I hope you have all enjoyed the battle with the Cylons so far. It is far from over and will be completed in the next chapter which I am already working on. The battle was just getting a bit long, and I felt it best to split it into two parts. The final fate of the Galactica and the crew aboard her – including Admiral Adama – will be revealed in the next chapter and I will say now that while some of them will survive many will not. Who will live and who will die well you will find out in the next chapter – before you ask its already being worked on and should be ready sometime in the next few days. Until next time.