2 days after the attacks
Admiral Helena Cain watched the DADIS screen sending its pulses into the void around the planet Djerba. After five minutes of nearly holding her breath she relaxed. Followed heartbeats later by the remaining bridge crew.
"Ma'am." said Lieutenant Robin Pirelli "that double jump appears to have gotten rid of the cylon fleet pursuing us. But I can't say as to how long that will last. And we are effectively dead in the water our FTL coils have fused together."
"Well the gods must be watching over us." Colonel Belzen said with a small smile as he pointed to the old debris "while almost ancient by current standards the Osiris class battlestars FTL was rugged and simple. Given time we could salvage her drive and maybe some of her armor to patch the holes in Pegasus."
As the rescued crew and pilots of the Atlantia and other ships got their feet under them they pitched into the salvage work, their rage and frustration driving them into long hours before collapsing into their bunks.
On the third day they had stripped enough of the Osirus's belly armor to pull the entire FTL drive and transfer it over to the Pegasus. The more modern Battlestars FTL engine was protected by only a few inches of armor on the underside of the ship. It had not taken long to cut the armor away and jettison the fused drive.
Over the next few days salvage work was started on the Osiris. Not much was left of the iconic alligator head or neck but the flight pods were surprisingly intact as was the old ships airwing of eighty old Mklll vipers and fifteen Mkll Raptors that would be stripped and recycled to replenish the processed raw material bunkers that had been emptied repairing the ship after the initial attacks.
Whole sections of the Osiris armor plate were bolted over portions that had been patched with normal steel from the shipyard pieces. A handful of the Osiris weapons were installed along the top of both flightpods and engineers were in the process of removing the ammunition production equipment and stocks of supplies the bodies were ceremoniously stored in a barracks area.
During the entire four days of salvage and repair work Gina Briar was constantly at the Admirals side telling her people are dying while she is hiding here she is a member of the COlonial military it's her duty to fight to defend the helpless people across the twelve worlds and the thousands of ships that must be out there running trying to hide and survive.
The fifth day came and they received a weak long range distress call.
"...res ou.. Aqui…..lp….lons….200…board."
Gina hearing this used the close relationship she had built with the Admiral over the last three months since she had come aboard"Admiral the two hundred and eighty six civilians aboard have elected me as their spokeswomen." her face looked determined "and they are willing to strike if you do not begin some kind of rescue operations immediately."
Admiral Cain kept a poker face but inside she was furious the civilians represented almost half of her workforce if they were to strike…. "Very well we do what we can. But let me tell you one thing mrs. Blair." her poker face slipped, allowing a fraction of her rage and annoyance to show "We are in a state of war, what you just threatened aboard a military ship could be considered mutiny."
Gina didn't back down and met the Admirals gaze without flinching.
"Prepare to jump to the distress beacon." Cain said looking at Colonel Belzen "Recall all salvage teams we jump the moment they are aboard.
The last three Vipers of the skeleton CAP landed after the other raptors and shuttles landed.
3
2
1
JUMP
When the Pegasus reappeared at the distress beacon there was no civilian ship under attack but a free floating asteroid with a transmitter on it and nearly two hundred raiders.
"It's a Trap!" Shouted Admiral Cain. "Open fire with everything that can bear. And launch all Vipers."
Only a handful of the cannons spotting the hull opened up and they quit after a handful of shots.
"Ma'am." called the sensor tech who had located the CNP backdoor virus Lieutenant Kendra Shaw "our systems are hacked i don't understand this, they have been reprogrammed for over a day to not open fire."
A security officer called out "port and starboard pods have been boarded." The main monitor showed a four split screen showing heavy raiders in all four flight pods discorging nearly a dozen heavily armed Centurions.
"Disconnect the guns from the network and manually open fire." called Cain as the ship lurched. "Shaw heads to the main computer and figures out what's going on. The lieutenant doesn't even respond as she runs out of the CIC and towards the main computer of the ship
Watching the raiders outside the ship and the Boarders inside her eyes narrowed this was a well thought out trap.
Kendra runs down halls bypassing occasional groups of Marines or naval personnel setting up barricades to fight the boarding cylons. Quickly making it to the heavily armored and guarded computer core and runs down the coding to find it was her personal code that had been used to….she would figure it out later she deletes the code preventing the ships networked weapons from firing.
Almost instantly she feels the deck beneath her feet begin to raddle as the Pegasus guns come to life spewing hate and death at the cylons attacking them. On her way back she heard a familiar voice and followed it.
Kendra ducks behind a corner when she sees Gina in a Marines BDUs ... .but Gina was in the CIC. and then the Cylon machine walked around the corner. Drawing her service pistol and ensuring the HIEx round was loaded into the underslung launcher she watches in amazement and confusion as the notGina orders the Cylon to continue. And the thing obeys
They look like us now….
She takes aim and fires the explosive into the machines chest showering the human robot in shrapnel
The hack removed the advanced point defense outside and quickly began picking raiders off and inside the ship marines who had been manning weapons surged to wipe the assaulting machines out. Gina's identity is discovered and after killing the marine sent to arrest her is quickly subdued by Lt Shaw who knocked her unconscious with a butt stroke from a rifle she had taken from another marine killed by Gina.
The Boarding taken care of and the remaining raiders escaping into FTL the decision was made to start attacking lightly defended Cylon territories in the hopes that the CYlon fleet would be deployed away from the Colonies to protect their rear area facilities and give whatever remained of the Colonial or Colony military a fighting chance.
It took a day of Raptors scouting to find their first target, an aging shipyard over the former Colonial planet Oceania.
Before the planet had been overrun by the cylons in the opening days of their rebellion it had hosted nearly four million people living in a massive orbital ring. The planet's sole Continent had been a resort world hosting nearly two million vacationers every year.
The Cylons had turned the orbital habitat into a shipyard and stripmined the landmass. In the shipyard's embrace was a pair of baseship superstructures not even half completed. In orbit on patrol was one of the old double saucer baseship from the first war and a half dozen smaller Arachne and Talons.
The cylons detecting the Colonial Battlestar intruder began launching a mix of first war and modern Raiders. With a feral grin Admiral Helena Cain ordered "Open Fire."
—-
And thus ends the three part story of the Pegasus who will continue for the next five months attacking rear area locations and drawing Cylon forces away from the Colonies until they meet up with the Galactica in cannon. It's fair to say we have no idea how far BSG humans spread before the original rebellion of the Cylons so I will be going under the impression that the humans controlled several hundred systems and lost the vast majority of them before holding the line drawing the cylons to the negotiation table.
Now to answer a few of the reviews
Azai Jin-Yes the battle for Scorpia is over for now however building ships take time so the main issue they face is trained personnel to man warships. As to the Pegasus damage we have no idea how hard they were hit. We didn't get a chance to see the ship until about 7 months after the fall. Lots of repairs could be made in that time. Even now there are parts of the Pegasus in my mind's eye still covered with salvaged hulls from the shipyards and weapons not repaired; some of the insides that had been ripped apart for the refit haven't been gotten to yet.
Northrigg ships and equipment are not the issue, they can build new ships in as little as a month however its trained personnel to man and build the ships that is a choke point. Look at the average US navy boot camp and that's mostly physical over 10 weeks (70 days of intensive work) for bare minimum figure double that for space operations so 20 weeks (140 days) for example i found in halo cannon the best shipyards of Reach and earth could build a Paris class frigate from keel to bow in 30 days at the height of the Covenant war
Guest the Osirus much like the Pegasus FTL is under the ship barely protected by some thin armor so it's reasonable that a few cuts and the FTL could just drop out. (using the spirit of fires or Savannah's FTL as an idea.)
Darkfinder- Use what? The nukes? Or the Pegasus air wing? It narrows down to the crew; most of the crew had already left heading home to be with their families. As to why the UNSC hasn't seen the pegasus, they don't have FTL sensors.
Ok guys hope you enjoy and continue to follow the story