Day of the attack
Scorpia Shipyards
Battlestar Pegasus
"Ship secured Admiral" Colonel Jurgen Belzen the ships Executive officer reported as the shipyards docking arms clamped the battlestar securely on both sides of the mighty Battlestar "reactor is down and we are now receiving shoreside power from the shipyard."
"Excellent Colonel Belzen." replied Rear Admiral Helena Cain "ensure the crew finished their duty before heading out on their rotations home. The station crew has it but I want them to know why the Pegasus is the best battlestar of the fleet." she said with a professional smile.
"Yes Admiral, I will ensure the crew leaves the ship in top tier shape." affirmed Colonel Belzen with a curt nod.
The CAG Major Jack Fisk looked up from his manifest of upgrades to the Pegasus's twelve squadrons of mark Vll vipers and mark lV Raptors as well as the four mark ll Octopus heavy tugs that rounded out the battlestars air group."how long is this refit supposed to take? Five, six months?"
"Nice to see you too Jack." replied Belzen "but yes about that."
Belzen nodded and tapped the confirmation sending the invoice to the engineers and shipwrights of the shipyard seeing the DRADIS sweeps slow and stop as the DRADIS is deactivated.
Over the next three hours eighty percent of the Pegasus have already departed heading home to see their families and loved ones. In their place several hundred technicians and engineers are pulling panels and wiring from all over the ship.
The Pegasus' most prominent upgrade was to the series of close-in weapons systems dotting the hull. According to the head system analyst, a blond woman named Gina code updates will increase targeting and reload efficacy as well as effective range of the targeting computers.
As Helena looked out the armored observation blister above the CIC most of the view was blocked by the massive shipyard facilities of Scorpia's shipyard F station. She can see several of Scorpian guards Berserk carriers with supporting Firestar class frigates on their normal patrol routes. She remembers the Scorpian flagship Berserk Osiris was docked right next to them if she remembered right her commander was Lieutenant Jerimiah Kay a friend of the Kain family dating back to the first war.
It's been months since they last got together. As she is preparing to call him she sees dozens of flashes as strange ships appear. Putting her hand to her ear to hear the communicator better she hears the Scorpian Berserks issue standard challenges to the intruders "Unknown vessels in near Scorpia orbit Identify yourselves immediately or be fired upon you are interesting restricted Colonial Na…." the transmission dies and as she watched the four Beserks and their escorting dozen frigates engines go dark.
She can feel something stirring in her stomach as she watches the five strange ships launch a dozen missiles each. She doesnt stay to watch, running back to slide down the ladder into the corridor just outside the CIC. The Marine standing sentry goes to open the armored airlock but is too slow as she pushes the heavy door out of the way and enters just as the first missiles hit the Pegasus' armor.
"Power up DRADIS and CIWIS we are under attack." she says seeing Colonel Belzen picking himself up off the deck before another barrage jolts him.
Before he can speak, the blonde analyst Gina looking around in a panic says "we can't the upgrade has everything offline!" she hits her head and when she looks around again a small stream of blood trickles down her face. "It would take twenty minutes to reinitialize everything."
A larger shockwave knocks everyone to the deck when the Lieutenant at the internal security station regains his seat he calls out "the Osiris just took a megaton nuke." he looks around with the early look of panic in his eyes "she is gone."
Before the Admiral can respond, another security officer calls out "Radiological alarm!" He transfers his screen to the overhead monitors above the tactical board showing footage overlooking the shattered and burning remains of the Osiris of four incoming missiles, one of them marked in green indicating traces of radiation.
"Can we get any weapons online?" Cain yelled out her eyes not leaving the video "what about our vipers?
"They're down too Maam." Lieutenant Fisk said pulling the internship phone away from his ear "the ready fighters tried to take off a few minutes ago but their vipers won't even start. It's like the computers are keeping power from being sent to the engines."
"What about a Jump?" Colonel Belzen suggested. "We jump, get our systems back online and then return to aid in the defense?."
"We will not flee and abandon nearly half a billion people to die." the Admiral said
"And if we die here while we are unable to fight back." Belzen said looking Helena in the eyes "then we won't be able to save anyone and more people will die."
Major Fisk nodded "he is right Admiral if we survive we can save more people then dying needlessly unable to fight back."
She looked at the countdown until impact
08
07
06
"FRAKKKKK" she yelled "jump the ship lieutenant just get us out of here."
05
Small flashes on the surface marked raider launched nukes hitting cities
04
03
02
The pegasus blinks and makes the blind jump dragging the umbilicals and a small chunk of the shipyard's superstructure with it. The cylon nuke slams into the ruptured shipyard and the three megaton warhead explodes gutting the shipyard's most critical systems.
Helena Cain had squeezed her eyes shut but as time went on she opened them looking around slightly dazed Scorpia was gone the shipyards the cylons everything. And everything on the ship came online dozens of surviving weapons sweeped the sky looking for targets. A half dozen Vipers rocketed out of their tubes searching for targets.
"Ship status?" Admiral Cain coughed out spitting a glob of thick blood from her mouth.
A damage control officer holding a hand to his head to slow the bleeding tapped into the computer that was likewise working now "we have hull breaches on decks three through forty one and most of the ship is in vacuum. Ma'am" the DC officer said, his voice shaky. "I've issued orders for DC teams to get to work but only twenty four crewmen are responding with most of the crew gone for the refit. I'm not sure how many there are."
Over the next hour a headcount is done and the twenty nine members of the ships primary DC team gets to work backed up by the two hundred civilian computer specialists that survived. On the two fifty foot sections of the shipyard that had been tugged along another forty six shipyard engineers were found and immediately put to work on repairs.
Lieutenant Ashi Hoshi brought three printouts forms the communications station to the attention of the Admiral;
The first confirmed it was indeed the cylons and apparently the CNP update was the cause of the cylons' overwhelmingly successful virus assault.
The second was widespread reports of bombings of the colonies in a massive strike everywhere at once along with the notice that the picon fleet headquarters and orbiting fleet shipyards had been hit with neutrino bombs.
The third was the widespread unencrypted message from President Adar of total and unconditional surrender that was cut off mid plea as Caprica City was hit with several warheads and the president died.
As Helena Cain was reading the printer started to decode another message and another communications officer stood by to immediately bring the new message to the Admiral but before it could finish printing the panel exploded in a shower of micro debris and sparks. Once she recovered she picked up the scorched paper to see only two words had been decoded and printed
"Battlestar Galactica…"
Wasn't the Galactica already decommissioned? Old man Adama had soldered on since the war
…. first war she corrected herself. She turned to the second communications officer to ask if there was any more information on the Galactic But the inquiry died unspoken. The lifeless eyes of the technician stared back at her, a chuck of paneling embedded in his throat.
Turning to Ashi "lieutenant." She didn't respond looking at her subordinate. With a shake she tore her eyes away and looked at the admiral. "See if you can find anything more about the Galactica there will be time to mourn later."
Ashi nodded and with a glance at the body started looking over the wrecked console. Cain turned towards the navigational section of the CIC and asked "Where are we?"
Lietuentant Robin cradling a broken arm histed in pain as he slowly typed with his one hand after a moment the answer popped up. "We are in the Zeta sector on the armistice line," he says, shock temporarily overwhelming his pain.
Cain did a double take "are you saying we jumped nearly twenty light years?"
"Yes Ma'am" he said "it looks like it."
A annoyed and disgusted sigh brings Helena's attention back to Ashi "it's completely wrecked Ma'am looks like the induction transceiver superheated and exploded we are radio silent."
The next several hours fly by as the ship's multiple breaches are sealed and a general inventory is done. Weapons wise the ship was critical the three of the four heavy forward cannons were trashed little more then slagged metal from direct missile hits. Eighteen of the thirty four smaller dual batteries were also destroyed leaving the massive battlestar with the same armament of a old Beserk class assault carrier. With a smaller air wing.
The Mercury class is rated to carry a massive air wing of nearly four hundred vipers and they had over three hundred flight worthy mk lV Vipers however they only had twenty pilots. In the raptor department they had all twelve of their birds but only one crew, both of the Pegasus Octopus tugs and mining shuttles had survived along with their crew.
The problem was of the original twenty eight hundred crew and an additional five hundred marines the Pegasus was crewed by less than three hundred naval personnel about the same number in civilian technicians and shipyard workers. And exactly forty eight marines.
Before they can even think of helping people they must be at least minimally combat capable both Colonel Belzen and Major Fisk had verbally pounded into her. Reluctantly she agreed but only for three days they had to get back into the fight before the fight was over.