Captain Eric Howler sat in the command chair of his Hillsborough class destroyer Midway looking over the small fleet of colonial ships he had been given to lead to this colony of Virgon.
The Colonial ships better suited to defense were positioned in a defensive array around the half dozen civilian ships The Beserk class cruisers Rhode and Aurora were positioned to either side. While the Minotars were likewise paired up beside. Typhon and Hydra to one side. Griffin and Scyllia to the other.
And just the same as the Able taskforce the Midway jumped first however Midways navigational officer Jacobe Cole living up to her brother's legacy of being better at quantum math then most UNSC officers, had the colonial ships follow only four minutes behind for the first of twenty one jumps.
They too encountered Cylon ships positioned along the standard quarter lightyear jumps of the Colonial FTL drives. With careful targeting using the quartet of Sentry autocannons and Ares missiles they were able to destroy the two pairs of Cylon ships they encountered in the first eleven jumps.
However the nineteenth jump Is where it changed, up until that point when the Midway returned to normal space Captain Eric Howler and his crew would be submitted to a floating graveyard of Colonial military and civilian shiping caught fleeing the colonies.
As they emerged the Midway came face to face with the usual pair of Cylon base ships and dozens of raiders. What they were not expecting was the eight civilian ships huddled under the protection of a half dozen COlonial warships.
A Beserk configured with a heavy gun pod, a pair of Firestar Frigates, three Marinestars were doing their best to keep the Cylons at bay.
"Launch all fighters!" Howler ordered "and get us a MAC vector on the big basestar."
"Yes Sir" Commander Elizabeth Wheeler said, passing the word to the light squadron of six Longswords the Midway carried.
"Open a channel to the colonial ships." Howler ordered "tell them to get behind us we will shield them from the Cylons."
The Sentry autocannon started spewing their armor piercing 200mm shells at the center of the closest cylon warship, Just as the Longswords roared out of their hangers.
First lieutenant Jane Conners announced from her communications station the colonials have responded.
"This is Commander Sarah Cain of the Firestar Tyche, I don't know who you people are but if you're offering help I'll take it if it means the civilians we are attempting to escort survive."
The eight civilian ships as she finished speaking turned and began maneuvering to get behind the Midway.
"MAC charged sir!" Lieutenant John Geary called out "Firing."
The Destroyer came to a momentary stop as the recoil of the ship's MAC threw out a twenty ton shell at four percent the speed of light.
The shell punched straight through the armor of the top disk of the old cylon baseship before converting itself from mass to heat and light. The ships remaining complement of raiders and missiles went up like a string of children's firecrackers and then the ships five thousand gallons of liquid tylium heated to flashpoint and caused the remaining half of the ship to erupt into a fireball as the fire consumed every iota of oxygen before being snuffed out by the vacuum.
"Lock Are's pod's A1 through B1 on the other basestar and remove safeties." Howler ordered as the destroyer's autocannons shifted target to the remaining ship just as the first Rampart point defense battery opened fire on the incoming raiders.
As the pods hatches slid open the remainder of Midway's colonial escorts arrived to see the battle going on. But didn't have time to react as the Ares missiles found a guidance lock and forty three missiles fired from the six pods.
The Ares missiles screamed in avoiding floating debris and raiders who tried to shoot them down until they slammed into and set aflame four of the six pylons along the two axis. Followed by the secondary explosions as the fire spread to other parts of the basestar setting off munitions and fuel magazines until itself detonated in a cascade of debris.
The main combatants destroyed the surviving colonial Vipers backed up by UNSC longswords and started hunting down raiders one after another. Until the last few fighters jumped away.
The battle over Eric breathed a sigh of relief but before he could issue orders to continue "Sir?" Lieutenant Conners said "Commander Cain of the Tyche is on the horn."
Howler looked to the XO Elizabeth while we caught our breath to order the pelicans and our colonials to start SAR operations. This happened recently enough there may be survivors, also inform that Freighter, what's its name, figured they have fifteen minutes to grab what they can."
"Yes sir, I'll notify the fleet and the freighter Wanderer to have a look around." Wheeler replied.
Taking the small headset Conners was holding for him "Commander Cain this is Midway Actual Captain Eric Howler."
"Captain Howler of the Midway?" She repeated "Where are you from Captain? I've never seen a ship or weapons such as yours."
"Well Commander, to be perfectly honest the best my navigational and engineers can tell me they have no idea." Howler said honestly "All we know is we were enroute to reach to joint the rest of our fleet to attempt to repel a Covenant incursion and before we knew it we were in orbit of Scorpia seeing a dozen of these cylon ships nuking the hell out of the planet and orbital shipyards. My commander decided to help so here we are." he finished.
"Reach? Covenant?" she inquired "who and what are they?"
"It's a long story." Howler said with a dry chuckle "but to be honest we are on a combat mission to VIrgon to evacuate as many people as we can before they die of radiation poisoning right now you can either join us under my command or head back to Scorpia it's safe there for your civilians."
She thought about it for a few moments "the combat capable ships will join you if you give us ten minutes the Marines of the Hawk can transfer to the Hound and we can bring the Marinestar Hawk with us she can carry ten thousand evacuees."
Eric ran the numbers the passenger liners he had been given could get three hundred each for a total of 4,500…."deal you have ten minutes."
As they waited for the marines to transfer Eric watched the freighter Wanderer latch onto a large piece of debris using her thrusters to stabilize it before sending EVA teams aboard. As he stared at it trying to remember the colonial ships he had been shown and seen during their two days at Scorpia it hit him a Defender class light Escortstar that reminded him of the old Orion class Carriers.
"Thank you Captain." Commander Cain's voice came over the radio and we are ready to go." she said as the eight civilian ships escorted by the overloaded Marinestar Hound blinked and jumped away
"Open transmission Jane." Eric said as she held her thumb up indicating he was good to go.
"Listen up people." Eric started "we have some new arrivals but that just means we can kick the Cylons shiny metal ass even harder. These are your brothers, your sisters, friends, and family. The cylons' heavy use of nuclear weapons have polluted the planet and is poisoning the people trapped there. I don't know how many of you have seen people die of radiation poisoning. But let me tell you it's not a good way to go. So let's kick some shiny ass and save as many as we can. This may not mean much to you Colonials but the UNSC teaches us this phrase.
"Per Mare, Per Terras Per Constellatum"
"Which means By sea, By Land, and By the Stars. He said his voice taking on a more somber tone "we go out among the stars to defend humanity. Defend the innocent. And to stand as a shield against anyone who threatens us." he finished "Prepare for jump!"