Captain Brian Jackson paced the deck on the bridge of his destroyer UNSC Able. his mind whirling it had been just over a week since they had found themselves in this uncharted area of the galaxy far beyond the borders of UNSC controlled space. He wondered how the UNSC was doing. Thanks to the report from Corporal Hills on the fall of Reach and the near annihilation of the UNSC fleet stationed there even reinforced with several task forces from the Home fleet the planet had still fallen.

He had to hurry and get these Colonial's war to end.

He had to hurry to get them ships capable of fighting the Covenant

He had to find a way back.

He had to see his family again.

"Emergence to real space in five seconds." called Lieutenant Amanda wilks. Breaking Jackson from that line of thinking.

He looked out the armored glass of the bridge as the Able left slipspace above the farming planet of Aerilon.

In orbit the five massive space stations that had been in geosynchronous orbit around the planet's equator had been shattered. Pieces of the stations formed a loose ring around the planet in orbit was eight Cylon base ships.

"Try to line the Bogies up Lieutenant Wright." Brian ordered the Navigation officer before turning to the weapons officer "Connors let Wright line them up before knocking them down."

The young woman grinned "yes sir."

The Cylons turned toward the UNSC Destroyer and began launching fighters and missiles.

"Take us right at them Wilks" he watched the approaching horde of fighters and missiles just as they entered the howler missile pods they fired. The four pods locked onto the incoming fighters and fired each pod containing sixteen missiles smaller and more nimble then the heavier Archer they were perfect anti fighter missiles. Proving their design only one of the sixty four missiles missed slamming into Cylon fighters decimated the first wave.

The first wave of missiles entered Rampart range and likewise began to explode in droves as the thousands of 50mm shells reached out and slapped the missiles apart.

"firing " Ensign Conners suddenly and the Able deck jumped launching the five ton MAC shell right through three base ships and severed a pilon on a fourth.

"Great shooting Conners!" Brian praised the woman who didn't respond fully focused on targeting the enemy as a single pod of Archers launched their thrusters forcing them onto new vectors avoiding raider's attempts to kamikaze into the missiles, they slammed into the damaged basestar whos reactor went critical and detonated damaging two nearby basestars.

The cylons force cut in half in a matter of minutes the damaged base stars jumped first followed by the two lightly damaged basestars the dozens of surviving raiders jumped away as the last basestar departed.

Brian looked at the mission clock that had started counting the moment they dropped to normal space 06:41 "four destroyed in seven minutes" he said into the ship's intercom "excellent job Able crew lets do it again. " he cut the intercom and said to Wilks "set course to Canceron."

And beginning a series of lightning raiders on four other colonies. Canceron had six baseships; three were destroyed and the others fled. Just before they Jumped Brian saw four freighters take off from the snowy white southorn pole and sent them a message Scorpia is safe.

Geminon was next only three Base ships stationed there. They never lined up for a multi kill hit from the MAC but Able got another kill after firing three dozen Archers into the ship causing the others to flee as more Archers came screaming in. seeing no ship launches they continued to the

The last stop was Caprica to check on the two Colonial army and lone Marine battalions that had remained behind to collect more civilians. Since none of the marinestars or firestars had arrived in the week since the massive raid they were either trapped or possibly dead. And Brian wanted to know which.

The Able dropped out of slip again in between Caprica and Copernus to see nearly three dozen Cylon ships in orbit occasional sparks of fighting could be seen as Basestars were launching hundreds of missiles into the Ocean for some reason

"Conners" he said to the weapons officer " empty our Archer magazines, this is our last stop but we cant handle all of those ships at once.

She grins "thank you sir i've never had an opportunity to launch a code orange on a Destroyers full magazine." As she spoke she was imputing targeting data into the missiles and just as the base ships noticed them and began to spread out in case they launched another nuke launched fighters.

On either side of the Ables hull twenty large missile pods opened inside each pod were twelve individual missiles as Ensign Conners hit the enter key every missile launched. As more then two hundred missiles sped towards their assigned Baseships splitting up into groups of twenty the pods closed as the crews raced to reload the pods from the eternal magazine of Archers.

The first volley screamed into a dozen baseships here and there a Archer was destroyed by Raiders either shooting it or slamming into them but it didn't matter as the vast majority slammed into their targets Able's silos opened again.

The closest ten of the targeted dozen base ships detonated as the heavy anti ship missiles slammed into the comparatively weak armor and detonated the remaining two were heavily damaged and set adrift. Brian looked at them and made a mental note to finish them off later since this was their last target it would be fine.

The Able turned toward the next cylon ships and again opened her missile pods.

Fourteen minutes later with another fourteen cylon baseships destroyed the remaining weapons Able had to fight with Brian was happy Midway had started this operation with eight MAC shells and five hundred missiles. He had Seven….missiles… left

"Sir we are receiving messages from the 21st and 32nd Colonial Army Battalions as well as the 19th Marine battalion." Lieutenant Wright said from communications "they are requesting that we hold our position. They are evacuating their facilities other than the civilians on their Marine and firestar's there is no one left they are evacuating seven hundred and eighty thousand people and eighty thousand military personnel."

"Let them know, lieutenant." Captain Jackson said "we are almost shot dry but we will cover you."

The four Marinestars escorted by half a dozen Firestars formed up beside the massive protecting bulk of the Destroyer and together they jumped

Brian sat at his desk in his state room compiling Cylon losses over the four Colonies as well as his own expenditures so the Artemus can get started on new munitions to rearm the Able

Cylon base ships destroyed 25

Raiders destroyed 3,482

Munitions expended 8

Archers expended 473

Howler missiles 106

The rampart and sentry munitions were of no real concern for resupply.

Aboard the a Cylon resurrection ship a meeting of several hundred human cylons was wrapping up

The lead one Cavil looked over the mass of his fellow human cylons it is decided Scorpia must fall before more of their ships fall to these strangers.

Ready the fleet everything we can spare not chasing the galactica or the pegasus."