Derelict. A Stargate - nBSG crossover
Moderator: LadyTevar
That will give him a reason to drinkArrow Mk84 wrote:Excellent work. The story is gripping and its a great way to spend a couple of hours. I can't wait for the BSG viewpoint - I already have images of Tigh's jaw scraping along CIC's floor!
I want to see Six's reaction. Whatever she had planned, I don't think that was .....
oh. shit. Six's god is an Ancient, or she herself is. How better to explain Six's little games with Gaius?!
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
I second Arrow's comment! Update, please?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
-
Chris OFarrell
- Durandal's Bitch
- Posts: 5724
- Joined: 2002-08-02 07:57pm
- Contact:
Of course, I understandChris OFarrell wrote:All things being equal M'Lady, I have three days off after tommorow, so It'll appear sometime there. It's really already written, but I want to go over it a few times.
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
-
Chris OFarrell
- Durandal's Bitch
- Posts: 5724
- Joined: 2002-08-02 07:57pm
- Contact:
Chapter 6.
Ok. Sorry about how long it took to get this out, but I really wanted to wait for Resurrection Ship before posting this, to see Battlestars in combat. Of course damn More left us another cliffhanger, so I flipped a coin and it came up ‘screw it, post it now’.
This chapter is just the same battle from last chapter, just from the other side. I decided to split it in half to keep each chapter somewhat sane in size and not bore everyone to death. But I think it works.
The next chapter should be out much quicker.
Enjoy.
Chapter 6.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“Enemy Raiders forming into strike groups on inbound vector” Lieutenant Gaeta called across the bustling command centre. The steams of red icons pouring from the Base Stars rallied and clustered into tight formations that marched across his screen. Most registering as nuke carriers, all heading straight for Galactica.
“Overlay effective firing ranges on the tactical display” Adama ordered, not looking up from the main tactical plot as his mind ran through the numbers, not liking what he was seeing. “Has the Presidents ship launched yet?”
“Hanger reports Raptor three is starting its launch cycle, they’ll be away in ten seconds” Dualla reported as she checked the hanger deck status screen.
“After he drops off the President and Vice President, have him stay with Colonial One. If the Cylons so much as looks at that ship, have him start popping decoys everywhere”
“Aye sir” she nodded, then adjusted her headset to relay the orders as Adama turned to Tigh standing next to the helm consoles.
“How long until we jump?”
“Fifteen minutes” the Colonel answered with a sour look on his face, clearly not happy with the idea of sitting within spitting distance of five Base Stars for that long.
“Alert fighter scramble complete” Gaeta called as the last of the green icons formed up into a loose double squadron around their home. Setting his hands onto the gleaming white plotting table, Adama mentally calculated acceleration rates, distances and weapons ranges as an idea slowly took shape in his mind.
“Range to the raiders?”
“Range is twenty five thousand and closing on the lead group. Additional groups are at twenty eight and twenty nine thousand” the sensor officer responded as he tracked the incoming enemy groups. “The base ships however are maintaining a constant distance from us”.
Tigh crossed his arms and glared at the screens.
“So does that mean they’re happy to just send their raiders to do their work or that they’re getting ready to destroy us from way out there?”
Adama suppressed a smile at his XO. The man was probably taking the Cylons presence as a personal insult.
But the man had a point. Looking around the plotting table, he found a black marker and waved Tigh over, the smile in his mind dying as the only option to get out of this situation became clear.
“They’re playing at siege tactics” Adama said as his XO arrived, uncapping the pen and drawing a long curve against the side of the table to represent the planet. “We’re here” he commented, drawing a rough rectangle above the middle of the curve, then sprinkled a group of dots under her to represent civilian ships, “blockaded by three Cylon groups here” he marked two X’s to the extreme left and right, “and here” he finished, drawing three directly above Galactica that set the scene. “They’ll have the Raiders swamp us with ordinance to use up ours, overheat out weapons, kill our fighters, but mostly their job will be to keep us pined in place as a shield protecting the civilian ships”.
Adama’s voice remained level, but his expression started to turn bleak.
“The Base Stars will then close from all sides, firing everything they have and wipe us out. Our only chance is to break out at their weakest point, here” he said as he drew a circle around the fleet and, then an arrow to point at the extreme left Base Star.
“But we can’t be in two locations at once” Tigh protested, making sure to keep his voice low. “We have to knock out that Base Star” he pointed out, tapping the X on the left, “or the fleet will be nothing but target practice as it runs past. But we can’t cover the back door and protect the fleet at the same time. Not against that many Raiders and Base Stars”
“That’s where the Vipers come in” Adama agreed, adjusting his glasses slightly before sketching in a triangle behind the representation of the Galactica. “They’ll form a screen behind us and hold the line until all fleet ships are away. Then they’ll make a combat landing and we jump out”.
Combat landing and jump out? Has the old man finally lost it? Tigh asked himself as he looked at the hastily scribbled plan on the plotting table. The Vipers, assuming they even survived more then sixty seconds against the combined Raiders of four Base Stars, would be unable to disengage and return to the Galactica for any landing, combat or otherwise. If Galactica tried to cover the Vipers, the Cylons would probably send a barrage of nukes at close range and overwhelm Galactica’s ability to deal with them, leaving the civilian ships easy pickings down the line.
The only logical course of action would be to abandon the Vipers as soon as the last of the fleet was away in order to preserve the Galactica…assuming there were any Vipers left, an assumption he considered somewhat unlikely. Tigh opened his mouth to say as much…then shut it as he noticed a look in the Commanders eyes.
He had known William Adama for years of course. The two of them had been through hell and back starting from Adama saving his ass in a bar fight, through to him getting him reinstated into the Colonial Fleet and then the chaos of the current war.
Well more accurately, Tigh had consistently dragged them into hell and Adama had always been there to pull them back out. They could read each other like open books, most of the time.
Today was no different.
The Commander knew exactly what he was doing. He was sending his son and two dozen selfless men and women to their deaths.
Because it was the only way to win an unwinnable situation.
“Yes sir” Tigh simply said through a suddenly tight throat. He couldn’t think of anything to say…
So he didn’t try, switching tacks rapidly.
“Well, it’s about time for me to poll the batteries” the Colonel stated, turning away from his CO without even waiting for an acknowledgement.
“Very good’” Adama said picking up a handset as Tigh stepped away from the main command station.
Adama would have given anything to swap places with him at this point in time.
As the ships CAG, Captain Apollo deserved to hear these orders from his commanding officer.
“Petty Officer, put me through to the CAG”.
Dualla nodded and started to work her console as Adama tried to understand what twisted pantheon of Gods would have him order his only son on a suicide mission.
Mark VII Viper # 263
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“CAG this is Galactica Actual, secure”.
Apollo glanced down at his communications board to double check that the wireless system was secure and toggled his transmitter.
“Galactica Actual, this is the CAG, secure”. Apollo replied while he kept an eye on the formation of Vipers cruising behind the massive starship and finished checks on his own weapons systems.
“Apollo, I’m moving Galactica to engage the Base Star designated Alpha. The fleet will be tucked in right behind, I’m going to kill it, then it slingshot around the planet and out into space. Hopefully, we’ll buy enough time to charge the jump drives.”
“Roger that Galactica. We’ll be in position to screen in twenty-”
“Lee” Adama cut in, bringing Apollo up short. His father was nothing if not military, calling him by his name, even on a secure channel…
“We can deal with the first Base Star, but we need the fighters to hold the back door shut for as long as possible. If these Raider packs get a clear shot at the fleet…”
Then it clicked.
Apollo didn’t have the natural talent of Starbuck, who could fly fighters like they were wired directly into her body.
Nor did he have the shear presence of his father.
But he was a good solider and an accomplished tactician.
He understood exactly what his father was ordering him to do.
“Acknowledged” Apollo said simply. “We won’t let anything by us”.
“I know you won’t” his father replied, then paused. They each knew what the other wanted to say, but it had no place in a combat zone with Raiders steadily closing in.
“I’ll see you on the flip side” Lee finished it for both of them, the underlying meaning of the standard fighter pilots farewell clear to both of them. Switching frequencies on the wireless back to squadron, he put all thoughts out of his mind bar survival.
“All Vipers, go max thrust and come to course four one one, carom two niner. First squadron, give me a line three hundred long centered on me. Starbuck you’ll take the second squadron behind us and catch anything we miss. Target enemy ordinance first, raiders second, we’re holding the line right here. Nothing gets past”.
“Hold the line?” Starbuck instantly blasted in his ears. Biting his tongue only because Starbuck had protested over a private wireless link and wasn’t disputing orders in public, Apollo switched to the command frequency he shared with her.
“Those are the orders Lieutenant” he replied, stressing her rank in what he knew was a vain hope that she would shut up and get back to work.
“We have two squadrons, half of which are rookies, we can’t hold against three Base Stars worth of Raiders!”
“Starbuck…”
”Either Tigh is half drunk-”
“Starbuck…”
“Or Boomer did a hell of a number on your father’s brain-”
“Kara” Lee said switching tacks and shutting her up long enough to get a word in. “In case you haven’t noticed, the fleet is running towards Base Star Alpha, Galactica has to kill it, but she can’t watch the back door at the same time. Those raiders are packing nukes, if we can’t hold them, if they get a clear shot at the fleet-”
“-They’re fraked. Got it” Starbuck said with a slightly embarrassed tone in her voice as she glimpsed the big picture. Calming himself down, he realized he had been within a few seconds of chewing her out on the edge of a battle. A bad sign, he forced himself to calm down and push everything out of his mind but the impending firefight as he switched frequencies again.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
On board the Galactica, Lieutenant Gaeta frowned at his displays. They differed from those displayed at workstations around the bridge and to the commanders at the plotting table. Those displays were programmed to focus on the immediate combat situation, displaying only targets that were an active participant in any combat situation.
The weakness with this system however was that it all depended on the officer managing it to keep an eye on the wider picture. Gaeta’s job was to make sure no-one got tunnel vision, focusing on the immediate threat so much that they ignored others forming further away. To that end, his station was equipped with a half dozen other screens which showed unaltered 3D short medium and long range active and passive readouts, along with a list of every single sensor contact in the area. His only job was to bring to the attention of Commander Adama anything that was relevant, watch everything else and ignore the incidentals.
The reason for his frown was a steady signal of EM energy that had been teasing the ships passive DRADIS receivers almost since they arrived. Triangulation by the paired receivers at the front and rear of the ship had finally crunched down the numbers, the computer guessing the source was ‘relatively’ close, anything between ten and sixty light seconds away from their current location. To be receiving a signal at this strength from a distance that long meant it clearly had to be artificial if it wasn’t a stellar body. And even then, it was clearly seriously powered. But with the Vipers starting to approach outer firing range on the raiders, now wasn’t the time to investigate. He transferred the sensor contact to one of his secondary screens and then returned his attention to the more important contacts.
Like the hundreds of nukes heading this way inside enemy fighters…
Mark VII Viper # 263
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“All fighters, break by pairs. Keep the formation loose, I don’t want any nukes to take out half a squadron”. Obediently, the drive flairs of the Vipers broke away from his own, except for Kat who stayed glued to his wing as if she had been driving Vipers her entire life.
“Missile launch, missile launch!” an excited shout came from the units sensor specialist, but the warning was hardly necessary as Apollo’s own DRADIS display updated tracks for over a hundred missiles heading towards the fleet. Grimly setting his face, Apollo opened the throttles and steadied his aim point on the closest enemy missile.
“Galactica, Apollo. Multiple missile tracks, dead ahead and level. Range eighty, weapons free. All Vipers, engage at will!” Suiting action to words, Apollo waited a half second as his computer chewed on the firing solution, then hit the trigger.
A hammering noise echoed though the cockpit of Apollo’s fighter as the Vipers paired cannon opened fire. The stream of shells was dead on, detonating a pair of missiles but he barely registered the explosion as he switched targets and fired again. In his peripheral vision, another dozen streams of fire poured into space, the white flashes of successful intercepts illuminating space as each fighter worked to clear its assigned firing lane of incoming warheads. Another hail of slugs shredded two missiles as they raced at him, then Apollo pulled into a roll to dodge the last missiles near him as they flashed past, then reversed his roll and got ready to dive into the swarm of incoming targets only thirty seconds away.
“Starbuck, plug the leakers. Everyone else, straight down the middle. Break up the enemy formation and-”
“Lead, Hotdog, the enemy formation is turning away”
“What?” Apollo demanded, switching his DRADIS back to long range. Hotdog was right, the huge wave of Raiders the Vipers had been closing on was breaking, squadron after squadron turning away at maximum power and heading back to their base stars, leaving only a few squadrons still burning for the Vipers. Apollo stared at the display.
“What in the hell…”
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“…are they doing?” Tigh demanded as the Galactica’s tactical displays showed the Cylons strike force breaking up. Starbucks squadron was killing the last of the incoming missile tracks as Apollo reformed his unit. But the incoming fighter counts had dropped to only thirty five according to the sensors…and the question on everyone’s lips was why…
“It makes no sense” Adama commented, staring at the displays intently. “Why wouldn’t they engage our fighter screen in full force?”
Tigh thought it over. The logical answer was that they were going to tangle up Galactica’s fighters with a small portion of their own, then re-engage with the rest from another vector. But the Cylons didn’t have the time for such games so he dismissed that possibility. More worrying was the possibility that the still incoming Raiders were bobby trapped somehow and were going to take out the Vipers in suicide runs. Tigh opened his mouth to say as much, but Gaeta broke in first.
“Sir, DRADIS reports a new sensor contact that the Cylon raiders are pursuing, repeat, Cylon raiders appear to be disengaging and pursuing an unknown sensor contact”.
“Put it up right now” Adama ordered as a buzz brought out in the CIC. The display tracking the breakup of the Cylon strike force shifted slightly and zoomed in on a new target flashing yellow for unknown that was rocketing way at incredible speed from the swarm of threat icons.
“What the hell is that?” Tigh demanded.
Mark VII Viper # 263
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“Lead, we’ve picked up a tail”.
“Copy Kat. Break Port-Starboard, now”
The two Vipers twisted and banked, Apollo to port and Kat to starboard, rocketing around in a high velocity turn. The Cylon raider chasing them hesitated for a microsecond before deciding to turn and follow Kat, spitting blue bolts of cannon fire after the venerable Mark II Viper.
Big mistake.
Apollo fired his RCS thrusters and flipped his Mark VII around end for end, bringing his guns to bear on the Raider at point blank range. Kat reversed her turn, throwing the Raider into a clear shot and one messy explosion later their part of the battle was clear again.
“Thanks lead” Kat said in relief. Apollo swung back onto her wing, giving her fighter a brief look. Luckily neither of them had taken hits in the last exchange and Kat was holding together remarkably well.
He remembered when he had first met her; during Starbucks…colorful…attempts to train new pilots to replace the losses Galactica had suffered. On her first flight, she landed a Viper horribly; damaging it to the point that Apollo had feared Chief Tyrol was going to throw her out the nearest airlock in revenge.
But fighter combat was a lethally evolutionary process. The strong survived, the weak did not. Kat survived mission after mission, even a drawn out gun battle with a Centurion boarding party, not something a pilot would exactly be expecting when they signed up. She had turned into a seasoned officer and as much as Apollo loved having a wingman who could look after herself (and follow orders, a novelty after flying missions with Lieutenant Trace), he was going to move her up to a flight leader position.
Or hell, perhaps even a squadron command if the second batch of pilots starting flight school eventually got into Vipers.
All assuming they survived the battle of course.
“Starbuck, you finished yet?”
“Hang on, I’m – stay STILL you fraken stupid thing” Kara snarled back at her commanding officer, clearly changing topics in the middle of the sentence as a Cylon Raider desperately tried to shake Starbuck from its six. It failed of course, nothing could shake Starbuck in a Mark VII Viper and two seconds later, the Raider was a rapidly expanding fireball, accounting for the last of the Raiders in the immediate area. “Sorry, you were saying?”
“Can you see this unknown contact on your screens?” he asked as the Vipers reformed into a loose double squadron. He didn’t hold much hope that Starbuck would see the contact, but she was closest to the Raiders chasing it. A few seconds later, she answered in the negative and Apollo sighed. It wasn’t surprising; Vipers had been designed to work in unison with Raptors, which were equipped with much more advanced and powerful sensors. And without a Raptor in the area, the Vipers were flying half blind.
Apollo didn’t like flying half blind when outnumbered probably ten to one.
“Ok, everyone pull back two hundred, I don’t want the screen to get too far from Galactica. Watch the wreckage as you go”, Apollo cautioned his pilots as they flipped their fighters around and goosed the thrusters, falling back towards Galactica. Apollo switched his wireless over.
“Galactica, Apollo, first fighter wave neutralized, pulling back to match your-”
And behind them, the Cylon Base Star shadowing Galactica’s orbital plane detonated in a massive explosion.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
A Stunned silence prevailed through the Galactica’s CIC.
Predictably, Tigh broke it.
“Would someone like to tell me what just happened?” the Colonel asked in a deceptively mild voice, directed at the ring of technicians around the ships command centre. They collectively wilted under his glare and hurried back to work.
“Preliminary indications are that the unknown contact fired some kind of weapon that completely destroyed the Base Star” Gaeta said, confirming what the senior officers had already guessed. “The Raiders appear to be attempting to reform and englobe the unknown target”.
“Do you have a profile on the target yet?”
“Yes sir” Gaeta acknowledged up as he finished working up a basic sensor model for the unknown contact. On the screen above Adama and Tigh, a wire frame image of a cylindrical ship with two extended nacelles appeared, rotating slowly.
“That’s it?”
“Yes Sir” Gaeta apologized, cringing as if expecting Tigh to shoot him. “The DRADIS data is incomplete, but this ship just…appeared, from nowhere”.
“Appeared” Adama echoed, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“It’s the best word I have Sir” the Lieutenant apologized and a second screen was replaced by a crazy tangle of lines and icons. “These are the tracks of the Cylon force as they launch their missiles. The data isn’t clear, but it looks like one of the Cylon missiles impacted something here” a new line blinked as one of the missile tracks vanished towards the tail of the Cylon strike force” and after the impact, this new ship appeared.
“It jumped into the middle of the engagement?”
“That’s just it sir” Gaeta said in a helpless tone. “There wasn’t any sign of a jump…it just…appeared”.
“So. We have an unknown ship that appears out of nowhere, moves faster then missiles and blows up Base Stars for kicks” Adama summarized, trying to keep the disbelief out of his voice, pretending not to hear Tigh mutter a comment about getting them in the stores in time for the next Colonial Day.
“Time until engagement range with Alpha?”
“Forty five seconds”
“Have the Vipers keep their screen in place, but keep them close. I don’t want them to engage unless the Cylons make a push against the fleet. This new ship appears to have their interest, we can get the hell out of here while they engage it”.
“We’re not going to help it?” Tigh asked in surprise. Adama shook his head.
“We’d just be trapping ourselves here with them” the Commander grimaced, completely unhappy with running away from the battle, but knowing he didn’t have a choice.
“Raiders! Launching in large numbers, dead ahead” Gaeta warned.
“And here they come” Adama muttered. “Weapons, prepare to engage”.
Cylon Base Star designated Alpha.
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
Squadron after squadron of raiders streaked out of the vast hanger bay lining the interior of the Base Star, forming up into a swarm that circled the huge ship, waiting for the right moment in time to attack the closing Battlestar. Off to their left, the constant flashes of nuclear detonations lit up the sky as more Raiders attempted to knock down the strange ship that had obliterated one of their Base Stars.
The Cylons carefully planed attack against the civilian ships with Galactica had been thrown into complete chaos by this ship that had come out of nowhere. The bulk of the raiders were containing it in an escape-proof globe of ships, trying to carefully place nuclear missiles close enough to destroy or disable the strange ship, but so far having little success, the impossible maneuverability of this strange ship vexing the units trying to take it out.
Then the engagement changed. Again. With a huge surge of energy neither side would detect for some time thanks to the light speed barrier, a new player interjected itself into the battle, one that would forever change the destinies of two universes.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
Galactica rocked to starboard as a high explosive warhead detonated on her bow armor, not quite breaching it, but leaving a hell of a scorch mark that couldn’t easily be repaired in the field. In the ships command centre, Colonel Tigh picked himself up off the floor, noting in exasperation that Adama hadn’t even moved a centimeter from his position through the concussion, he was still standing tall and straight with a phone to the side of his head watching the engagement as Galactica drove at the Base Star. Shaking his head to clear the ringing, Tigh staggered over to the damage control board.
“Well?” Tigh asked to the impossibly young petty officer standing there.
“Frontal armor took a heck of a hit, no penetration” the nomcom said, holding a headset to his head with one hand while working the display with another. “But the concussion knocked out one of the forward nuke launchers” she finished, tapping a pair of flashing yellow LED’s.
“Well its not like we have any of those lying around” Tigh groused, rubbing his head and half wondering if the fuzziness was because due to the drink he had taken before coming on duty or the impact with the deck.
Probably both, he decided.
“Weapons reports total ammunition expenditure on portside railgun positions six and nine” one of the technicians reported as Tigh turned back to the command pit. The Colonel frowned in confusion as he stared at the technician.
“How the hell is that possible? They couldn’t possibly have run out of ammo already?”
“Sir, they report that hit knocked the autoloading systems out of alignment in their sector”.
“Well please tell positions six and nine to use the hands and legs the Gods gave them and get back to work! I don’t give a frak, if they have to load the damn things by hand from the magazines, just get their weapons shooting!”
“Sir!” the technician gulped and keyed up the inter-ship comm system.
It always amused Tigh what a little shouting and cursing could do. The Lieutenant screamed over the inter-ship link to the damage control officer, who in turn screamed at the weapons officer for that sector, who in turn got on the horn and yelled at the gunnery commanders.
Within fifteen seconds, the screaming was being done at the Deckhand level. Within sixty seconds, the railguns would be active again, albeit at a reduced rate of fire.
Walking back to the plot, Tigh opened his mouth to report on the damage, but stopped as Adama held up a hand, then stabbed at the computer readout of the Base Star.
“There! It’s starting to pull back. Weapons, keep up your fire. Helm, give it all you’ve got, but roll us to present the ventral surface as we pass”. The Commander turned to the Colonel.
“We might just make it out of here”.
Another hit rocked the Battlestar, causing the main lights to flicker for a half second this time.
“Assuming they don’t finish us first” Tigh muttered, staring at the real-time camera footage of the Base Star. The once gleaming white ship was now pitted and scared, slashes in its hull showing where the heavy duty slugs of the Galactica’s main weapons had punched through starting internal fires, or shattered a hundred meters off one of the stately white arms on the ship.
However despite the appearance of taking a hell of a beating, the Base Star wasn’t out of the fight yet. Rolling to present less damaged arcs, the Raiders scattered away from Galactica, looping around back towards their Mothership as the alarms at Gaeta’s station buzzed.
“Weapons lock, Base Ship is firing!”
A quartet of flashes rippled over the surface of the Base Star, followed seconds later by another four. Eight black dots circled in flame and tracing thick white exhaust ripped from their tubes and punched across the steadily closing gap between the two ships. A second alarm started to sound on the Lieutenants station, sending Tigh’s blood cold.
“Radiological alarm! Nukes incoming”
Without having to be told, dozens of railgun batteries turned and fired, sending yellow bolts ripping towards the missiles, eating up ammo but more worried about immediate survival then longer time concerns.
Besides, the backdrop for their targets was the Base Star after all. None of their shots were likely to be wasted.
Explosions started to blossom on the display, but far too soon and too many for the missiles.
“Son of a, they’re using raiders to shield the missiles” Gaeta said in disbelief. Tigh frowned and the earlier pattern of Raider movement suddenly became clear. They were using their fighters as a disposable shield, letting them take the impacts to protect the missiles as they came in close. In response as Galactica turned to present the ventral surface, more and more railguns joined in, pouring dozens of streams straight up towards a single point, constant explosions of light and energy closing rapidly on the incoming. Raiders dropped by the score until finally the last of the ‘human shields’ disintegrated and the missiles were exposed. With half the Galactica’s weapons blasting at them as they approached danger-close range, they lasted approximately one second before thousands of explosive projectiles detonated them with enough energy to overload the ships sensor systems.
A half cheer (more like a muted sigh of relief) wound across the Bridge for a half second before a shout of alarm from Gaeta cut through the noise.
“DRAIDS is still tracking FOUR missiles on a new vector, they’re heading for the fleet!”
Adama and Tigh’s heads both snapped around at whiplash speed to stare at the tactical display. Four of the missiles had just been reacquired, having used the explosion of the first missiles to hide themselves from detection. Diving under Galactica’s bow by a safe distance, they accelerated straight for the civilian fleet in an erratic corkscrew.
“Missiles have locked target…it’s Colonial One” Gaeta shouted, the fast moving nuke icons on the DRADIS display now connected by red lines to the transponder tag simply designated COL-1.
Galactica Raptor 3
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“Gods, four missiles slipped past, their moving right for the fleet!”
The alarm in the Lieutenant Margaret “Racetrack” Edmondson’s voice chilled Lieutenant Karl “Helo” Agathon, even more then the four red icons on the ships DRADIS display heading right for them. Racetrack was one of those rock solid soldiers who, in combat, even when the best laid plans fell completely apart kept her cool.
So it said something for their current situation that she was a little upset.
“Do we know which ship they’re-”
“Colonial One, has to be, the missiles track takes them right at her, impact in twenty five”.
“Get ready on the Decoys” Helo ordered, swinging the Raptors nose up and back towards Galactica and the incoming. “We’ll have to try to decoy the missiles”.
“From head on? At this range?” Racetrack sounded more then a little skeptical. “At the speed those missiles are going, there is no way the decoys will be able to get in close enough to divert the -”
“Well we have to do something, I’m not going to sit here and watch them fraken die!”
Racetrack remained silent, holding her peace for now. Helo bit back a profanity, then stopped for roughly half a second as Racetracks words sunk into his brain, triggering a memory of gun camera footage he had seen yesterday of Galactica’s attack on a Cylon tyliam refinery. He remembered how the flack suppression unit’s air to ground missiles had gone crazy, chasing after phantom targets thanks to the massive ECM from the targets defenses. The drones carried by his ship worked on the same technology, but lacked the power to draw off the missiles, except at close range. They were defensive countermeasures, nothing more or less.
The jamers built into his ship on the other hand…
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
An icy ball of dread settled into Adama’s stomach.
If on one hand he gave the order for Galactica’s railguns to open fire and try to shoot down the rapidly moving missiles on a poor deflection angle, there was an excellent chance weapons would miss and impact on Colonial one…and probably other civilian ships. The civilian fleet could no more withstand strikes from Galactica’s heavy railguns then the human body could hold off military firearms. Putting nuke warheads on them was frankly complete overkill.
On the other hand, if he did nothing, Colonial one and anything near it was dead anyway.
“Weapons, target the enemy missiles and-
“Wait!” Tigh suddenly broke in, Adama stared at him in amazement. They didn’t have time to debate the issues-
“Missiles radically changing course” Gaeta called out, tracking the four targets as they smoothly arced away from their course to head away from the fleet.
“What the hell are they doing?” Tigh asked in complete bafflement. Were the missiles actually going to target Galactica after all?
“It’s Helo” Adama breathed, stabbing his finger at a green icon pulling away from the fleet and steadily accelerating, the four red icons closing on it as he pushed his Raptor for all it was worth.
“Thank the Gods for him” Tigh responded. “So what’s he doing”
Adama looked at Tigh. “Trying to be Starbuck is my guess”.
Galactica Raptor 3
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“Uhh, Helo, our four friends are closing in on us.”
“Loosen up Racetrack, we’ll be clear in plenty of time”.
“Yeah. I hope. Assuming Galactica doesn’t blast us in the crossfire, the toasters don’t shoot us down…and you didn’t make a mistake in those calculations”.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Helo demanded, appreciating the light banter given that he was doing his best to get four missiles carrying enough firepower to wipe out a major city to follow him.
“Oh I just remember how much you suck at math-”.
“Oh for fraks-, just get the damn pods ready”
Racktrack worked her controls, arming the quartet of decoy pods the Raptor was carrying. As each was designed to make itself a target, they carried a powerful transmitter capable of sending a false image on all manner of frequencies. Selecting that of the cylons missiles seeker heads, the drones, in theory, should look like rather inviting targets for the relatively ‘dumb’ missiles chasing them.
“They’re up. Engines are hitting redline, Tyrol’s going to have your ass when we get back”.
“The chief was born pissed off, he’ll get over it”.
“That’s the truth- Beak left!”
Helo jerked the raptor to port. A salvo of blue bolts zipped through the space they had just vacated followed by the blur of a raider that filled the cockpit window for a micro second before vanishing under them.
“That was close” Helo muttered.
“Two point zero two meters to be exact. You do realize this plan is completely spaced?”
“Yup. But if we pull it off, we’re heroes”.
“Assuming Tigh doesn’t shoot us for going off mission like this”.
“Knowing Tigh, he’ll find a way to do both”.
“Shoot us, then give us medals?”
“No, he’ll shoot us with medals”
Explosions started to flicker around the Raptor as the Cylons remaining defensive weapons opened up, bursts of blue tracers shattering around Helo as the quartet of missiles continued to chase the huge EM signature his ship was projecting. Despite looking like their ship had run through an asteroid field at ludicrous speed, the Cylon Base Star still had teeth, a half dozen weapons emplacements spitting fire into space forced Helo to start pitching and rolling in evasive patterns. Each juke slowing their forward progress just that much more.
It wouldn’t take much more for a Cylon gunner to-
A loud bang echoced through the cramped raptor flight deck followed by the screaming of metal giving way and the ship starting to shake heavily.
“What the frak was that?” Racetrack demanded, but a high pitched whistling cut him off.
“Hull breach!” Helo shouted, feeling the air roaring out into space and cursing the lack of a third crewmember that could lock down the breach.
He did however thank the Gods for their sealed flight suits.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine” Racetrack dismissed the damage as Helo’s damage control board lit up like a Colonial Day fireworks display. “We need eight more seconds then we’ll be in position”.
“The engines are overheating, we may not BE here in eight seconds” Helo shouted, alarms buzzing as more lights turned from yellow to red. In that instant, a salvo of blue bolts slashed in, ripping through the starboard wing of the Raptor and blowing it half off, sending burning fuel pouring into space.
“Oh FRAK. We’re loosing the starboard engine-”
“In range, DO IT!” Racetrack demanded as they passed a hastily calculated waypoint on her screen.
Helo tightened up on the triggers, sending a quartet of drones out at the Base Star which was starting to fill his window, then pulled into a crushing eight G turn as Racetrack switched jamming frequencies to the Cylons standard search wavelengths.
This would have the effect of hiding the missiles behind the drones for roughly four point two seconds.
Within two seconds, the few remaining defensive guns on the Base Star had identified and ignored the drones, swiveled to track the rapidly turning Raptor and managed to tag it and send it spinning off into space.
By three seconds, the incoming missiles hidden in the electronic noise from the Raptor and its decoys caught up to the bait they had been chasing. The missiles, designed to breach heavy naval plating didn’t even register the impact of the lightweight drones and simply crushed them without registering the impact.
In three point nine seconds, said missiles automatically determined they had run through a phantom image and so their sensors swept space looking for a new target, finding one closing dead ahead at extreme speed Automatic IFF systems pinged the target, looking for the telltale signal of a Cylon transponder which would tell them to immediately self destruct.
Not that the missiles, in the second left in their short lives, would ever know, but one of Galactica’s railgun batteries had blown the Cylons communication systems clean off the hull of the Base Star thirty seconds earlier.
At four point one seconds, a Cylon humanoid saw the exhaust flair of the missiles from the Base Star. A normal humans mind couldn’t possibly work fast enough to interpret the image and correlate it, but a Cylons brain worked much faster. Leaving the Cylon enough time to frame exactly one thought.
Frak-
At four point two seconds, the quartet of warheads impacted on the ship that had launched them, triggering their fission warheads, which in turned powered a fusion of Deuterium and tritium, squeezing the mixture into a smaller and smaller area of space-time until the laws of physics reached their predictable endgame.
The nuclear detonation half blinded Helo and Racetrack, even though their considerable inertia had carried them safely out of the blast zone and rotated mostly away from the glare. Getting some control of their tumble, Helo managed to coax a low burn from the engines and started to slow the ship down, trying his best to shut down the alarms screaming in his ears including one or two he barely remembered from extreme training exercises back at the academy.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
Cheering broke out across the CIC as the Cylon Base Star disintegrated into glowing debris from the nuclear detonations. Across the fleet, half terrified civilians also broke into celebration, many of them watching feeds from their ships external cameras were delighted to see a ship full of the Cylons who had killed countless billions of humans turned into a rapidly expanding cloud of debris.
“Alright people, get back to work” Adama said, intent on keeping his people focused until they were out of here. “Mister Gaeta, what is the status of our fighters and the rest of the Cylon fleet?”
“Commander our fighters are still unengaged and pacing us as ordered. Helo’s raptor is heavily damaged but slowly making its way back towards us. The Cylons are-” Gaeta broke off as a new alarm started to sound. “New DRADIS contact, it just…well…appeared on the other side of the Cylon force”.
“Identify!” Adama demanded.
“No IFF detected, but I’m finding it hard to get a sensor return through that many Cylon ships. Best guess is Capital, size A” he responded, placing it in the same size range as something like Colonial One.
“It’s gotta be a Cylon support ship” Tigh speculated. “But why the hell did it jump in all the way out there instead of over here?”
“Sir…that sphere of Raiders around that unknown contact is dissolving” Gaeta said in disbelief. “Most of them are actually heading towards this new contact…wait…yes, the Base Star designated Delta is turning towards it as well”.
“Time until the fleet jumps?” Tigh glanced at a status display.
“Ships are spooling up their FTL drives now, the clock is at fifty five seconds”.
Adama bit his lip. The fleet was out of danger, there weren’t any Cylon ships except a few scattered raiders from the destroyed Base Ship anywhere near by and they were flooring it back towards their friends. The smart move would be to jump out ASAP. But if they jumped, they would leave behind too many unanswered questions.
Why did the tomb on Kobal tell them to come here?
Who and what was this first ship which destroyed a Base Star?
Who and what was this second ship?
Why did the Cylons attack them here? Now? In such force?
Adamas first duty was to ensure the safety of this fleet and the remainder of the human race. But if they left this system and didn’t get the answers to these questions, the Commander had a horrible feeling that he would be signing the death warrant of the human race.
Once again, it came back to the nightmare.
Not that the human race would be wiped out in some final battle with the Cylons. No, this nightmare was that humanity would wander the Stars without any hope for salvation. Earth would once again become a myth as the years passed, the population dwindled, their ships failed and their hope vanished.
Until the last remnants of humanity died somewhere in space, having only postponed the death sentence the Cylons had visited upon the 12 Colonies.
Straightening up, he noted Tigh was staring at him with an expression he knew well, one that said his XO knew exactly what he was thinking. The Colonel gave a tiny nod which Adama returned, appreciating his support and confidence.
“Signal to the fleet, hold jump repeat hold jump. All ships are to keep their FTL drives ready but they are to hold their current position. Tell the Vipers to remain where they are, then bring us around and hold our position right here” Adama ordered…causing half the personnel in CIC to stop and stare in amazement at the two officers.
Tigh narrowed his eyes.
“Are you all deaf? Move!” Tigh demanded and the personnel scurried back into action. Tigh glowered at them for several seconds to ensure they were focused, then turned his stare on the ships communications specialist. “D, do you have any chatter from this new contact?”
“Actually sir, I think I’m getting something, but its not very clear thanks to all the Cylon ECM out there. I think I’ve cleaned it up as best I can though”, the petty officer apologized.
“Push it up on the speakers, from the start” the Commander ordered, crossing his arms and leaning against the plot table.
“Yes Sir” she nodded, then a hissing mixed with buzzing and humming, though thankfully at softer volume levels, filled the room. The voice sounded male, but was constently washed out by static. Adama closed his eyes and tried to focus on it.
“….vessel Promet….have engaged in hostile actions……..peaceful exploration and…….have no quarrel with……no harm……respond with deadly force…..cease your attac…..mmediately”.
Tigh and Adama exchanged a look as the static message vanished.
“Are the Cylons sending a reply?” D simply shook her head.
“Figures” groused Tigh. “Damn toasters never want to talk anyway. So the million cubit question is, who is this? Some lost fleet unit?”
“Would a fleet unit talk about being on a mission of peaceful exploration to the Cylons?” Adama asked dryly
“Point” conceded Tigh. “So if it’s not Cylon and not ours, then what the Frak-”
The tactical display thankfully chose that point to light up with flashes of energy radiating out all over the place from the new unknown contact.
“What’s going on?”
“Massive jamming from the unknown contact sir, I can barely see it on DRADIS anymore” Gaeta said in irritation, trying in vein to coax more resolution out of his sensors.
“But I am getting a signal” Dualla cut in.
“From the unknown?”
”No sir, It’s Colonial One. The President is asking to speak with you immediately. Adama blinked. It wasn’t like Roslin to but in during a military engagement, but she was probably wondering why they hadn’t jumped out.
“Inform the President that we’re busy, but there is no immediate threat at this point from the Cylons”.
“Galactica, Apollo” a new voice interjected, causing Adama to blink. He had forgotten about his Son and the rest of the fighters out there and quickly picked up a phone, gesturing for D to direct the transmission to the speakers.
“Apollo, Galactica actual. What do you see?”
“The Cylons left us to go and play with someone else minutes ago” Apollo replied, his voice filled with the usual distortion of the ships communications scramblers. “But there are nukes going off around this first unknown target like its colonial day right now. They are really trying to – wait….Galactica, Starbuck is detecting more nukes going off, this time the Raiders are taking it. Frak, the Raiders are dropping like flies! Galactica, are you seeing this?”
Adama looked at Gaeta who nodded then frowned. “Sir I can see the Nukes, I can see the Cylons, but I can’t see what the hell is doing this too them. It’s almost like – Fraking hell!” the young officer suddenly swore. Adama turned back to the display just in time to see a massive energy burst appear where the lower Base Star had been, which faded to nothing.
Not even a debris field was left!
The electronic noise on the display cut off suddenly, revealing the two remaining Base Stars both moving towards the newcomer as well as all the remaining Raiders, which while reduced in numbers was still a powerful force.
What Adama and Tigh didn’t know however was that the ships DRADIS system with the cessation of jamming from the unknown, had detected between five and seven other targets, ghosts which it wasn’t able to get any kind of consistent sensor reading on. Given the amount of Raider and Base Star debris in the area, combined with Gaeta’s busy job, it was understandable that the computer simply tagged these contacts as non threats and deleted them from the ships tactical display.
Even if they were very much not space debris.
“If that ship doesn’t get out of there it’s going to get blown to hell” Tigh said, tapping the icon. “Gaeta, what’s the course between this newcomer and the Base Star designated Delta?”
“Course is six one three, CBDR” the officer reported, meaning the two ships were heading right for each other, the swarm of Raiders powering on ahead of their Mothership, clearly going to take the first shot. They were almost in their ideal firing position when the unknown opened fire with some kind of rapid fire weapon, swatting them out of the sky almost as fast as Galactica could.
Which was more then a little impressive given that Galactica is an order of magnitude larger then this ship, Tigh thought.
“Radiological alarm, those raiders are firing Nukes” Gaeta commented as his sensors slowly came back online after the energy overload from the explosion that had destroyed the previous Base Star. Tigh gripped the plotting table with white knuckles watching as the fast tracks of missiles converged. The unknown ship knocked off a few of the Raiders, then switched to the Nukes as they got close.
Too late
Another brilliant white flash obscured the DRADIS display at the location of the hard charging target as a swarm of nukes detonated on target.
“Damnit” Apollo swore over the speakers in the CIC.
“Well so much for that ship. I guess the Cylons were not impressed with the ‘we come in peace’ line and they….”
Tigh’s voice trailed off as the screen cleared once again…showing the ship still there…and Cylons still dropping off the screen all around it”.
Tigh’s jaw dropped open as this ship waltzed through over five megatons worth of firepower without even loosing velocity.
“That’s not possible!”
“Apparently it is” Adama responded, staring at the yellow icon, watching the red icons representing raiders clustering around it and steadily vanishing from the tracking display.
“No ship that size can survive a nuke let alone a half dozen of them at once!” Tigh protested, his mind working in small circles.
“Base Star is firing all missile batteries!” Gaeta put in, two dozen new tracks rippled away from the Base Star. All registering as carrying heavy duty city killing warheads.
“Lords of Kobal, that’s enough firepower to vaporize a Mercury class Battlestar!” Tigh exploded. “What the hell is this thing?”
Any of the bridge crew not having to do something critical at this point in time were staring at the nearest DRADIS repeater around the bridge…meaning near everyone saw what happened next.
The unknown vanished…just vanished without a trace. Tigh felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up straight as Gaeta refocused the display and the unknown icon reappeared suddenly, it had somehow moved in seconds to within point blank range of the Base Star! A cluster of sensor tracks which could only be missiles rippled from it and arrowed right from the Cylon ship-
And the Base Ship’s sensor profile flashed with the distinctive signature of a jump drive and vanished, the icons of the few raiders left around the planets orbit also expanding then vanishing into nothing followed by the last Base Star which had never even fired a shot.
Adama slowly let out a breath, hissing through his teeth as the tension of battle left him. Mostly.
“Signal the fleet, stand down to condition two, but remain ready to jump. Recall the Vipers and get Helo back on board ASAP”. Adama raised his head and looked back up at the two yellow unknown targets on the DRADIS display, the first clearly on a course to return with the second. “Then get the President and Vice President back over here ASAP”.
“Sir. What should I tell them?” D asked as she flicked open a channel.
“We need to talk. Now”.
Next chapter, the real crossover
This chapter is just the same battle from last chapter, just from the other side. I decided to split it in half to keep each chapter somewhat sane in size and not bore everyone to death. But I think it works.
The next chapter should be out much quicker.
Enjoy.
Chapter 6.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“Enemy Raiders forming into strike groups on inbound vector” Lieutenant Gaeta called across the bustling command centre. The steams of red icons pouring from the Base Stars rallied and clustered into tight formations that marched across his screen. Most registering as nuke carriers, all heading straight for Galactica.
“Overlay effective firing ranges on the tactical display” Adama ordered, not looking up from the main tactical plot as his mind ran through the numbers, not liking what he was seeing. “Has the Presidents ship launched yet?”
“Hanger reports Raptor three is starting its launch cycle, they’ll be away in ten seconds” Dualla reported as she checked the hanger deck status screen.
“After he drops off the President and Vice President, have him stay with Colonial One. If the Cylons so much as looks at that ship, have him start popping decoys everywhere”
“Aye sir” she nodded, then adjusted her headset to relay the orders as Adama turned to Tigh standing next to the helm consoles.
“How long until we jump?”
“Fifteen minutes” the Colonel answered with a sour look on his face, clearly not happy with the idea of sitting within spitting distance of five Base Stars for that long.
“Alert fighter scramble complete” Gaeta called as the last of the green icons formed up into a loose double squadron around their home. Setting his hands onto the gleaming white plotting table, Adama mentally calculated acceleration rates, distances and weapons ranges as an idea slowly took shape in his mind.
“Range to the raiders?”
“Range is twenty five thousand and closing on the lead group. Additional groups are at twenty eight and twenty nine thousand” the sensor officer responded as he tracked the incoming enemy groups. “The base ships however are maintaining a constant distance from us”.
Tigh crossed his arms and glared at the screens.
“So does that mean they’re happy to just send their raiders to do their work or that they’re getting ready to destroy us from way out there?”
Adama suppressed a smile at his XO. The man was probably taking the Cylons presence as a personal insult.
But the man had a point. Looking around the plotting table, he found a black marker and waved Tigh over, the smile in his mind dying as the only option to get out of this situation became clear.
“They’re playing at siege tactics” Adama said as his XO arrived, uncapping the pen and drawing a long curve against the side of the table to represent the planet. “We’re here” he commented, drawing a rough rectangle above the middle of the curve, then sprinkled a group of dots under her to represent civilian ships, “blockaded by three Cylon groups here” he marked two X’s to the extreme left and right, “and here” he finished, drawing three directly above Galactica that set the scene. “They’ll have the Raiders swamp us with ordinance to use up ours, overheat out weapons, kill our fighters, but mostly their job will be to keep us pined in place as a shield protecting the civilian ships”.
Adama’s voice remained level, but his expression started to turn bleak.
“The Base Stars will then close from all sides, firing everything they have and wipe us out. Our only chance is to break out at their weakest point, here” he said as he drew a circle around the fleet and, then an arrow to point at the extreme left Base Star.
“But we can’t be in two locations at once” Tigh protested, making sure to keep his voice low. “We have to knock out that Base Star” he pointed out, tapping the X on the left, “or the fleet will be nothing but target practice as it runs past. But we can’t cover the back door and protect the fleet at the same time. Not against that many Raiders and Base Stars”
“That’s where the Vipers come in” Adama agreed, adjusting his glasses slightly before sketching in a triangle behind the representation of the Galactica. “They’ll form a screen behind us and hold the line until all fleet ships are away. Then they’ll make a combat landing and we jump out”.
Combat landing and jump out? Has the old man finally lost it? Tigh asked himself as he looked at the hastily scribbled plan on the plotting table. The Vipers, assuming they even survived more then sixty seconds against the combined Raiders of four Base Stars, would be unable to disengage and return to the Galactica for any landing, combat or otherwise. If Galactica tried to cover the Vipers, the Cylons would probably send a barrage of nukes at close range and overwhelm Galactica’s ability to deal with them, leaving the civilian ships easy pickings down the line.
The only logical course of action would be to abandon the Vipers as soon as the last of the fleet was away in order to preserve the Galactica…assuming there were any Vipers left, an assumption he considered somewhat unlikely. Tigh opened his mouth to say as much…then shut it as he noticed a look in the Commanders eyes.
He had known William Adama for years of course. The two of them had been through hell and back starting from Adama saving his ass in a bar fight, through to him getting him reinstated into the Colonial Fleet and then the chaos of the current war.
Well more accurately, Tigh had consistently dragged them into hell and Adama had always been there to pull them back out. They could read each other like open books, most of the time.
Today was no different.
The Commander knew exactly what he was doing. He was sending his son and two dozen selfless men and women to their deaths.
Because it was the only way to win an unwinnable situation.
“Yes sir” Tigh simply said through a suddenly tight throat. He couldn’t think of anything to say…
So he didn’t try, switching tacks rapidly.
“Well, it’s about time for me to poll the batteries” the Colonel stated, turning away from his CO without even waiting for an acknowledgement.
“Very good’” Adama said picking up a handset as Tigh stepped away from the main command station.
Adama would have given anything to swap places with him at this point in time.
As the ships CAG, Captain Apollo deserved to hear these orders from his commanding officer.
“Petty Officer, put me through to the CAG”.
Dualla nodded and started to work her console as Adama tried to understand what twisted pantheon of Gods would have him order his only son on a suicide mission.
Mark VII Viper # 263
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“CAG this is Galactica Actual, secure”.
Apollo glanced down at his communications board to double check that the wireless system was secure and toggled his transmitter.
“Galactica Actual, this is the CAG, secure”. Apollo replied while he kept an eye on the formation of Vipers cruising behind the massive starship and finished checks on his own weapons systems.
“Apollo, I’m moving Galactica to engage the Base Star designated Alpha. The fleet will be tucked in right behind, I’m going to kill it, then it slingshot around the planet and out into space. Hopefully, we’ll buy enough time to charge the jump drives.”
“Roger that Galactica. We’ll be in position to screen in twenty-”
“Lee” Adama cut in, bringing Apollo up short. His father was nothing if not military, calling him by his name, even on a secure channel…
“We can deal with the first Base Star, but we need the fighters to hold the back door shut for as long as possible. If these Raider packs get a clear shot at the fleet…”
Then it clicked.
Apollo didn’t have the natural talent of Starbuck, who could fly fighters like they were wired directly into her body.
Nor did he have the shear presence of his father.
But he was a good solider and an accomplished tactician.
He understood exactly what his father was ordering him to do.
“Acknowledged” Apollo said simply. “We won’t let anything by us”.
“I know you won’t” his father replied, then paused. They each knew what the other wanted to say, but it had no place in a combat zone with Raiders steadily closing in.
“I’ll see you on the flip side” Lee finished it for both of them, the underlying meaning of the standard fighter pilots farewell clear to both of them. Switching frequencies on the wireless back to squadron, he put all thoughts out of his mind bar survival.
“All Vipers, go max thrust and come to course four one one, carom two niner. First squadron, give me a line three hundred long centered on me. Starbuck you’ll take the second squadron behind us and catch anything we miss. Target enemy ordinance first, raiders second, we’re holding the line right here. Nothing gets past”.
“Hold the line?” Starbuck instantly blasted in his ears. Biting his tongue only because Starbuck had protested over a private wireless link and wasn’t disputing orders in public, Apollo switched to the command frequency he shared with her.
“Those are the orders Lieutenant” he replied, stressing her rank in what he knew was a vain hope that she would shut up and get back to work.
“We have two squadrons, half of which are rookies, we can’t hold against three Base Stars worth of Raiders!”
“Starbuck…”
”Either Tigh is half drunk-”
“Starbuck…”
“Or Boomer did a hell of a number on your father’s brain-”
“Kara” Lee said switching tacks and shutting her up long enough to get a word in. “In case you haven’t noticed, the fleet is running towards Base Star Alpha, Galactica has to kill it, but she can’t watch the back door at the same time. Those raiders are packing nukes, if we can’t hold them, if they get a clear shot at the fleet-”
“-They’re fraked. Got it” Starbuck said with a slightly embarrassed tone in her voice as she glimpsed the big picture. Calming himself down, he realized he had been within a few seconds of chewing her out on the edge of a battle. A bad sign, he forced himself to calm down and push everything out of his mind but the impending firefight as he switched frequencies again.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
On board the Galactica, Lieutenant Gaeta frowned at his displays. They differed from those displayed at workstations around the bridge and to the commanders at the plotting table. Those displays were programmed to focus on the immediate combat situation, displaying only targets that were an active participant in any combat situation.
The weakness with this system however was that it all depended on the officer managing it to keep an eye on the wider picture. Gaeta’s job was to make sure no-one got tunnel vision, focusing on the immediate threat so much that they ignored others forming further away. To that end, his station was equipped with a half dozen other screens which showed unaltered 3D short medium and long range active and passive readouts, along with a list of every single sensor contact in the area. His only job was to bring to the attention of Commander Adama anything that was relevant, watch everything else and ignore the incidentals.
The reason for his frown was a steady signal of EM energy that had been teasing the ships passive DRADIS receivers almost since they arrived. Triangulation by the paired receivers at the front and rear of the ship had finally crunched down the numbers, the computer guessing the source was ‘relatively’ close, anything between ten and sixty light seconds away from their current location. To be receiving a signal at this strength from a distance that long meant it clearly had to be artificial if it wasn’t a stellar body. And even then, it was clearly seriously powered. But with the Vipers starting to approach outer firing range on the raiders, now wasn’t the time to investigate. He transferred the sensor contact to one of his secondary screens and then returned his attention to the more important contacts.
Like the hundreds of nukes heading this way inside enemy fighters…
Mark VII Viper # 263
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“All fighters, break by pairs. Keep the formation loose, I don’t want any nukes to take out half a squadron”. Obediently, the drive flairs of the Vipers broke away from his own, except for Kat who stayed glued to his wing as if she had been driving Vipers her entire life.
“Missile launch, missile launch!” an excited shout came from the units sensor specialist, but the warning was hardly necessary as Apollo’s own DRADIS display updated tracks for over a hundred missiles heading towards the fleet. Grimly setting his face, Apollo opened the throttles and steadied his aim point on the closest enemy missile.
“Galactica, Apollo. Multiple missile tracks, dead ahead and level. Range eighty, weapons free. All Vipers, engage at will!” Suiting action to words, Apollo waited a half second as his computer chewed on the firing solution, then hit the trigger.
A hammering noise echoed though the cockpit of Apollo’s fighter as the Vipers paired cannon opened fire. The stream of shells was dead on, detonating a pair of missiles but he barely registered the explosion as he switched targets and fired again. In his peripheral vision, another dozen streams of fire poured into space, the white flashes of successful intercepts illuminating space as each fighter worked to clear its assigned firing lane of incoming warheads. Another hail of slugs shredded two missiles as they raced at him, then Apollo pulled into a roll to dodge the last missiles near him as they flashed past, then reversed his roll and got ready to dive into the swarm of incoming targets only thirty seconds away.
“Starbuck, plug the leakers. Everyone else, straight down the middle. Break up the enemy formation and-”
“Lead, Hotdog, the enemy formation is turning away”
“What?” Apollo demanded, switching his DRADIS back to long range. Hotdog was right, the huge wave of Raiders the Vipers had been closing on was breaking, squadron after squadron turning away at maximum power and heading back to their base stars, leaving only a few squadrons still burning for the Vipers. Apollo stared at the display.
“What in the hell…”
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“…are they doing?” Tigh demanded as the Galactica’s tactical displays showed the Cylons strike force breaking up. Starbucks squadron was killing the last of the incoming missile tracks as Apollo reformed his unit. But the incoming fighter counts had dropped to only thirty five according to the sensors…and the question on everyone’s lips was why…
“It makes no sense” Adama commented, staring at the displays intently. “Why wouldn’t they engage our fighter screen in full force?”
Tigh thought it over. The logical answer was that they were going to tangle up Galactica’s fighters with a small portion of their own, then re-engage with the rest from another vector. But the Cylons didn’t have the time for such games so he dismissed that possibility. More worrying was the possibility that the still incoming Raiders were bobby trapped somehow and were going to take out the Vipers in suicide runs. Tigh opened his mouth to say as much, but Gaeta broke in first.
“Sir, DRADIS reports a new sensor contact that the Cylon raiders are pursuing, repeat, Cylon raiders appear to be disengaging and pursuing an unknown sensor contact”.
“Put it up right now” Adama ordered as a buzz brought out in the CIC. The display tracking the breakup of the Cylon strike force shifted slightly and zoomed in on a new target flashing yellow for unknown that was rocketing way at incredible speed from the swarm of threat icons.
“What the hell is that?” Tigh demanded.
Mark VII Viper # 263
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“Lead, we’ve picked up a tail”.
“Copy Kat. Break Port-Starboard, now”
The two Vipers twisted and banked, Apollo to port and Kat to starboard, rocketing around in a high velocity turn. The Cylon raider chasing them hesitated for a microsecond before deciding to turn and follow Kat, spitting blue bolts of cannon fire after the venerable Mark II Viper.
Big mistake.
Apollo fired his RCS thrusters and flipped his Mark VII around end for end, bringing his guns to bear on the Raider at point blank range. Kat reversed her turn, throwing the Raider into a clear shot and one messy explosion later their part of the battle was clear again.
“Thanks lead” Kat said in relief. Apollo swung back onto her wing, giving her fighter a brief look. Luckily neither of them had taken hits in the last exchange and Kat was holding together remarkably well.
He remembered when he had first met her; during Starbucks…colorful…attempts to train new pilots to replace the losses Galactica had suffered. On her first flight, she landed a Viper horribly; damaging it to the point that Apollo had feared Chief Tyrol was going to throw her out the nearest airlock in revenge.
But fighter combat was a lethally evolutionary process. The strong survived, the weak did not. Kat survived mission after mission, even a drawn out gun battle with a Centurion boarding party, not something a pilot would exactly be expecting when they signed up. She had turned into a seasoned officer and as much as Apollo loved having a wingman who could look after herself (and follow orders, a novelty after flying missions with Lieutenant Trace), he was going to move her up to a flight leader position.
Or hell, perhaps even a squadron command if the second batch of pilots starting flight school eventually got into Vipers.
All assuming they survived the battle of course.
“Starbuck, you finished yet?”
“Hang on, I’m – stay STILL you fraken stupid thing” Kara snarled back at her commanding officer, clearly changing topics in the middle of the sentence as a Cylon Raider desperately tried to shake Starbuck from its six. It failed of course, nothing could shake Starbuck in a Mark VII Viper and two seconds later, the Raider was a rapidly expanding fireball, accounting for the last of the Raiders in the immediate area. “Sorry, you were saying?”
“Can you see this unknown contact on your screens?” he asked as the Vipers reformed into a loose double squadron. He didn’t hold much hope that Starbuck would see the contact, but she was closest to the Raiders chasing it. A few seconds later, she answered in the negative and Apollo sighed. It wasn’t surprising; Vipers had been designed to work in unison with Raptors, which were equipped with much more advanced and powerful sensors. And without a Raptor in the area, the Vipers were flying half blind.
Apollo didn’t like flying half blind when outnumbered probably ten to one.
“Ok, everyone pull back two hundred, I don’t want the screen to get too far from Galactica. Watch the wreckage as you go”, Apollo cautioned his pilots as they flipped their fighters around and goosed the thrusters, falling back towards Galactica. Apollo switched his wireless over.
“Galactica, Apollo, first fighter wave neutralized, pulling back to match your-”
And behind them, the Cylon Base Star shadowing Galactica’s orbital plane detonated in a massive explosion.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
A Stunned silence prevailed through the Galactica’s CIC.
Predictably, Tigh broke it.
“Would someone like to tell me what just happened?” the Colonel asked in a deceptively mild voice, directed at the ring of technicians around the ships command centre. They collectively wilted under his glare and hurried back to work.
“Preliminary indications are that the unknown contact fired some kind of weapon that completely destroyed the Base Star” Gaeta said, confirming what the senior officers had already guessed. “The Raiders appear to be attempting to reform and englobe the unknown target”.
“Do you have a profile on the target yet?”
“Yes sir” Gaeta acknowledged up as he finished working up a basic sensor model for the unknown contact. On the screen above Adama and Tigh, a wire frame image of a cylindrical ship with two extended nacelles appeared, rotating slowly.
“That’s it?”
“Yes Sir” Gaeta apologized, cringing as if expecting Tigh to shoot him. “The DRADIS data is incomplete, but this ship just…appeared, from nowhere”.
“Appeared” Adama echoed, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“It’s the best word I have Sir” the Lieutenant apologized and a second screen was replaced by a crazy tangle of lines and icons. “These are the tracks of the Cylon force as they launch their missiles. The data isn’t clear, but it looks like one of the Cylon missiles impacted something here” a new line blinked as one of the missile tracks vanished towards the tail of the Cylon strike force” and after the impact, this new ship appeared.
“It jumped into the middle of the engagement?”
“That’s just it sir” Gaeta said in a helpless tone. “There wasn’t any sign of a jump…it just…appeared”.
“So. We have an unknown ship that appears out of nowhere, moves faster then missiles and blows up Base Stars for kicks” Adama summarized, trying to keep the disbelief out of his voice, pretending not to hear Tigh mutter a comment about getting them in the stores in time for the next Colonial Day.
“Time until engagement range with Alpha?”
“Forty five seconds”
“Have the Vipers keep their screen in place, but keep them close. I don’t want them to engage unless the Cylons make a push against the fleet. This new ship appears to have their interest, we can get the hell out of here while they engage it”.
“We’re not going to help it?” Tigh asked in surprise. Adama shook his head.
“We’d just be trapping ourselves here with them” the Commander grimaced, completely unhappy with running away from the battle, but knowing he didn’t have a choice.
“Raiders! Launching in large numbers, dead ahead” Gaeta warned.
“And here they come” Adama muttered. “Weapons, prepare to engage”.
Cylon Base Star designated Alpha.
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
Squadron after squadron of raiders streaked out of the vast hanger bay lining the interior of the Base Star, forming up into a swarm that circled the huge ship, waiting for the right moment in time to attack the closing Battlestar. Off to their left, the constant flashes of nuclear detonations lit up the sky as more Raiders attempted to knock down the strange ship that had obliterated one of their Base Stars.
The Cylons carefully planed attack against the civilian ships with Galactica had been thrown into complete chaos by this ship that had come out of nowhere. The bulk of the raiders were containing it in an escape-proof globe of ships, trying to carefully place nuclear missiles close enough to destroy or disable the strange ship, but so far having little success, the impossible maneuverability of this strange ship vexing the units trying to take it out.
Then the engagement changed. Again. With a huge surge of energy neither side would detect for some time thanks to the light speed barrier, a new player interjected itself into the battle, one that would forever change the destinies of two universes.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
Galactica rocked to starboard as a high explosive warhead detonated on her bow armor, not quite breaching it, but leaving a hell of a scorch mark that couldn’t easily be repaired in the field. In the ships command centre, Colonel Tigh picked himself up off the floor, noting in exasperation that Adama hadn’t even moved a centimeter from his position through the concussion, he was still standing tall and straight with a phone to the side of his head watching the engagement as Galactica drove at the Base Star. Shaking his head to clear the ringing, Tigh staggered over to the damage control board.
“Well?” Tigh asked to the impossibly young petty officer standing there.
“Frontal armor took a heck of a hit, no penetration” the nomcom said, holding a headset to his head with one hand while working the display with another. “But the concussion knocked out one of the forward nuke launchers” she finished, tapping a pair of flashing yellow LED’s.
“Well its not like we have any of those lying around” Tigh groused, rubbing his head and half wondering if the fuzziness was because due to the drink he had taken before coming on duty or the impact with the deck.
Probably both, he decided.
“Weapons reports total ammunition expenditure on portside railgun positions six and nine” one of the technicians reported as Tigh turned back to the command pit. The Colonel frowned in confusion as he stared at the technician.
“How the hell is that possible? They couldn’t possibly have run out of ammo already?”
“Sir, they report that hit knocked the autoloading systems out of alignment in their sector”.
“Well please tell positions six and nine to use the hands and legs the Gods gave them and get back to work! I don’t give a frak, if they have to load the damn things by hand from the magazines, just get their weapons shooting!”
“Sir!” the technician gulped and keyed up the inter-ship comm system.
It always amused Tigh what a little shouting and cursing could do. The Lieutenant screamed over the inter-ship link to the damage control officer, who in turn screamed at the weapons officer for that sector, who in turn got on the horn and yelled at the gunnery commanders.
Within fifteen seconds, the screaming was being done at the Deckhand level. Within sixty seconds, the railguns would be active again, albeit at a reduced rate of fire.
Walking back to the plot, Tigh opened his mouth to report on the damage, but stopped as Adama held up a hand, then stabbed at the computer readout of the Base Star.
“There! It’s starting to pull back. Weapons, keep up your fire. Helm, give it all you’ve got, but roll us to present the ventral surface as we pass”. The Commander turned to the Colonel.
“We might just make it out of here”.
Another hit rocked the Battlestar, causing the main lights to flicker for a half second this time.
“Assuming they don’t finish us first” Tigh muttered, staring at the real-time camera footage of the Base Star. The once gleaming white ship was now pitted and scared, slashes in its hull showing where the heavy duty slugs of the Galactica’s main weapons had punched through starting internal fires, or shattered a hundred meters off one of the stately white arms on the ship.
However despite the appearance of taking a hell of a beating, the Base Star wasn’t out of the fight yet. Rolling to present less damaged arcs, the Raiders scattered away from Galactica, looping around back towards their Mothership as the alarms at Gaeta’s station buzzed.
“Weapons lock, Base Ship is firing!”
A quartet of flashes rippled over the surface of the Base Star, followed seconds later by another four. Eight black dots circled in flame and tracing thick white exhaust ripped from their tubes and punched across the steadily closing gap between the two ships. A second alarm started to sound on the Lieutenants station, sending Tigh’s blood cold.
“Radiological alarm! Nukes incoming”
Without having to be told, dozens of railgun batteries turned and fired, sending yellow bolts ripping towards the missiles, eating up ammo but more worried about immediate survival then longer time concerns.
Besides, the backdrop for their targets was the Base Star after all. None of their shots were likely to be wasted.
Explosions started to blossom on the display, but far too soon and too many for the missiles.
“Son of a, they’re using raiders to shield the missiles” Gaeta said in disbelief. Tigh frowned and the earlier pattern of Raider movement suddenly became clear. They were using their fighters as a disposable shield, letting them take the impacts to protect the missiles as they came in close. In response as Galactica turned to present the ventral surface, more and more railguns joined in, pouring dozens of streams straight up towards a single point, constant explosions of light and energy closing rapidly on the incoming. Raiders dropped by the score until finally the last of the ‘human shields’ disintegrated and the missiles were exposed. With half the Galactica’s weapons blasting at them as they approached danger-close range, they lasted approximately one second before thousands of explosive projectiles detonated them with enough energy to overload the ships sensor systems.
A half cheer (more like a muted sigh of relief) wound across the Bridge for a half second before a shout of alarm from Gaeta cut through the noise.
“DRAIDS is still tracking FOUR missiles on a new vector, they’re heading for the fleet!”
Adama and Tigh’s heads both snapped around at whiplash speed to stare at the tactical display. Four of the missiles had just been reacquired, having used the explosion of the first missiles to hide themselves from detection. Diving under Galactica’s bow by a safe distance, they accelerated straight for the civilian fleet in an erratic corkscrew.
“Missiles have locked target…it’s Colonial One” Gaeta shouted, the fast moving nuke icons on the DRADIS display now connected by red lines to the transponder tag simply designated COL-1.
Galactica Raptor 3
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“Gods, four missiles slipped past, their moving right for the fleet!”
The alarm in the Lieutenant Margaret “Racetrack” Edmondson’s voice chilled Lieutenant Karl “Helo” Agathon, even more then the four red icons on the ships DRADIS display heading right for them. Racetrack was one of those rock solid soldiers who, in combat, even when the best laid plans fell completely apart kept her cool.
So it said something for their current situation that she was a little upset.
“Do we know which ship they’re-”
“Colonial One, has to be, the missiles track takes them right at her, impact in twenty five”.
“Get ready on the Decoys” Helo ordered, swinging the Raptors nose up and back towards Galactica and the incoming. “We’ll have to try to decoy the missiles”.
“From head on? At this range?” Racetrack sounded more then a little skeptical. “At the speed those missiles are going, there is no way the decoys will be able to get in close enough to divert the -”
“Well we have to do something, I’m not going to sit here and watch them fraken die!”
Racetrack remained silent, holding her peace for now. Helo bit back a profanity, then stopped for roughly half a second as Racetracks words sunk into his brain, triggering a memory of gun camera footage he had seen yesterday of Galactica’s attack on a Cylon tyliam refinery. He remembered how the flack suppression unit’s air to ground missiles had gone crazy, chasing after phantom targets thanks to the massive ECM from the targets defenses. The drones carried by his ship worked on the same technology, but lacked the power to draw off the missiles, except at close range. They were defensive countermeasures, nothing more or less.
The jamers built into his ship on the other hand…
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
An icy ball of dread settled into Adama’s stomach.
If on one hand he gave the order for Galactica’s railguns to open fire and try to shoot down the rapidly moving missiles on a poor deflection angle, there was an excellent chance weapons would miss and impact on Colonial one…and probably other civilian ships. The civilian fleet could no more withstand strikes from Galactica’s heavy railguns then the human body could hold off military firearms. Putting nuke warheads on them was frankly complete overkill.
On the other hand, if he did nothing, Colonial one and anything near it was dead anyway.
“Weapons, target the enemy missiles and-
“Wait!” Tigh suddenly broke in, Adama stared at him in amazement. They didn’t have time to debate the issues-
“Missiles radically changing course” Gaeta called out, tracking the four targets as they smoothly arced away from their course to head away from the fleet.
“What the hell are they doing?” Tigh asked in complete bafflement. Were the missiles actually going to target Galactica after all?
“It’s Helo” Adama breathed, stabbing his finger at a green icon pulling away from the fleet and steadily accelerating, the four red icons closing on it as he pushed his Raptor for all it was worth.
“Thank the Gods for him” Tigh responded. “So what’s he doing”
Adama looked at Tigh. “Trying to be Starbuck is my guess”.
Galactica Raptor 3
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
“Uhh, Helo, our four friends are closing in on us.”
“Loosen up Racetrack, we’ll be clear in plenty of time”.
“Yeah. I hope. Assuming Galactica doesn’t blast us in the crossfire, the toasters don’t shoot us down…and you didn’t make a mistake in those calculations”.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Helo demanded, appreciating the light banter given that he was doing his best to get four missiles carrying enough firepower to wipe out a major city to follow him.
“Oh I just remember how much you suck at math-”.
“Oh for fraks-, just get the damn pods ready”
Racktrack worked her controls, arming the quartet of decoy pods the Raptor was carrying. As each was designed to make itself a target, they carried a powerful transmitter capable of sending a false image on all manner of frequencies. Selecting that of the cylons missiles seeker heads, the drones, in theory, should look like rather inviting targets for the relatively ‘dumb’ missiles chasing them.
“They’re up. Engines are hitting redline, Tyrol’s going to have your ass when we get back”.
“The chief was born pissed off, he’ll get over it”.
“That’s the truth- Beak left!”
Helo jerked the raptor to port. A salvo of blue bolts zipped through the space they had just vacated followed by the blur of a raider that filled the cockpit window for a micro second before vanishing under them.
“That was close” Helo muttered.
“Two point zero two meters to be exact. You do realize this plan is completely spaced?”
“Yup. But if we pull it off, we’re heroes”.
“Assuming Tigh doesn’t shoot us for going off mission like this”.
“Knowing Tigh, he’ll find a way to do both”.
“Shoot us, then give us medals?”
“No, he’ll shoot us with medals”
Explosions started to flicker around the Raptor as the Cylons remaining defensive weapons opened up, bursts of blue tracers shattering around Helo as the quartet of missiles continued to chase the huge EM signature his ship was projecting. Despite looking like their ship had run through an asteroid field at ludicrous speed, the Cylon Base Star still had teeth, a half dozen weapons emplacements spitting fire into space forced Helo to start pitching and rolling in evasive patterns. Each juke slowing their forward progress just that much more.
It wouldn’t take much more for a Cylon gunner to-
A loud bang echoced through the cramped raptor flight deck followed by the screaming of metal giving way and the ship starting to shake heavily.
“What the frak was that?” Racetrack demanded, but a high pitched whistling cut him off.
“Hull breach!” Helo shouted, feeling the air roaring out into space and cursing the lack of a third crewmember that could lock down the breach.
He did however thank the Gods for their sealed flight suits.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine” Racetrack dismissed the damage as Helo’s damage control board lit up like a Colonial Day fireworks display. “We need eight more seconds then we’ll be in position”.
“The engines are overheating, we may not BE here in eight seconds” Helo shouted, alarms buzzing as more lights turned from yellow to red. In that instant, a salvo of blue bolts slashed in, ripping through the starboard wing of the Raptor and blowing it half off, sending burning fuel pouring into space.
“Oh FRAK. We’re loosing the starboard engine-”
“In range, DO IT!” Racetrack demanded as they passed a hastily calculated waypoint on her screen.
Helo tightened up on the triggers, sending a quartet of drones out at the Base Star which was starting to fill his window, then pulled into a crushing eight G turn as Racetrack switched jamming frequencies to the Cylons standard search wavelengths.
This would have the effect of hiding the missiles behind the drones for roughly four point two seconds.
Within two seconds, the few remaining defensive guns on the Base Star had identified and ignored the drones, swiveled to track the rapidly turning Raptor and managed to tag it and send it spinning off into space.
By three seconds, the incoming missiles hidden in the electronic noise from the Raptor and its decoys caught up to the bait they had been chasing. The missiles, designed to breach heavy naval plating didn’t even register the impact of the lightweight drones and simply crushed them without registering the impact.
In three point nine seconds, said missiles automatically determined they had run through a phantom image and so their sensors swept space looking for a new target, finding one closing dead ahead at extreme speed Automatic IFF systems pinged the target, looking for the telltale signal of a Cylon transponder which would tell them to immediately self destruct.
Not that the missiles, in the second left in their short lives, would ever know, but one of Galactica’s railgun batteries had blown the Cylons communication systems clean off the hull of the Base Star thirty seconds earlier.
At four point one seconds, a Cylon humanoid saw the exhaust flair of the missiles from the Base Star. A normal humans mind couldn’t possibly work fast enough to interpret the image and correlate it, but a Cylons brain worked much faster. Leaving the Cylon enough time to frame exactly one thought.
Frak-
At four point two seconds, the quartet of warheads impacted on the ship that had launched them, triggering their fission warheads, which in turned powered a fusion of Deuterium and tritium, squeezing the mixture into a smaller and smaller area of space-time until the laws of physics reached their predictable endgame.
The nuclear detonation half blinded Helo and Racetrack, even though their considerable inertia had carried them safely out of the blast zone and rotated mostly away from the glare. Getting some control of their tumble, Helo managed to coax a low burn from the engines and started to slow the ship down, trying his best to shut down the alarms screaming in his ears including one or two he barely remembered from extreme training exercises back at the academy.
Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 103 days.
Cheering broke out across the CIC as the Cylon Base Star disintegrated into glowing debris from the nuclear detonations. Across the fleet, half terrified civilians also broke into celebration, many of them watching feeds from their ships external cameras were delighted to see a ship full of the Cylons who had killed countless billions of humans turned into a rapidly expanding cloud of debris.
“Alright people, get back to work” Adama said, intent on keeping his people focused until they were out of here. “Mister Gaeta, what is the status of our fighters and the rest of the Cylon fleet?”
“Commander our fighters are still unengaged and pacing us as ordered. Helo’s raptor is heavily damaged but slowly making its way back towards us. The Cylons are-” Gaeta broke off as a new alarm started to sound. “New DRADIS contact, it just…well…appeared on the other side of the Cylon force”.
“Identify!” Adama demanded.
“No IFF detected, but I’m finding it hard to get a sensor return through that many Cylon ships. Best guess is Capital, size A” he responded, placing it in the same size range as something like Colonial One.
“It’s gotta be a Cylon support ship” Tigh speculated. “But why the hell did it jump in all the way out there instead of over here?”
“Sir…that sphere of Raiders around that unknown contact is dissolving” Gaeta said in disbelief. “Most of them are actually heading towards this new contact…wait…yes, the Base Star designated Delta is turning towards it as well”.
“Time until the fleet jumps?” Tigh glanced at a status display.
“Ships are spooling up their FTL drives now, the clock is at fifty five seconds”.
Adama bit his lip. The fleet was out of danger, there weren’t any Cylon ships except a few scattered raiders from the destroyed Base Ship anywhere near by and they were flooring it back towards their friends. The smart move would be to jump out ASAP. But if they jumped, they would leave behind too many unanswered questions.
Why did the tomb on Kobal tell them to come here?
Who and what was this first ship which destroyed a Base Star?
Who and what was this second ship?
Why did the Cylons attack them here? Now? In such force?
Adamas first duty was to ensure the safety of this fleet and the remainder of the human race. But if they left this system and didn’t get the answers to these questions, the Commander had a horrible feeling that he would be signing the death warrant of the human race.
Once again, it came back to the nightmare.
Not that the human race would be wiped out in some final battle with the Cylons. No, this nightmare was that humanity would wander the Stars without any hope for salvation. Earth would once again become a myth as the years passed, the population dwindled, their ships failed and their hope vanished.
Until the last remnants of humanity died somewhere in space, having only postponed the death sentence the Cylons had visited upon the 12 Colonies.
Straightening up, he noted Tigh was staring at him with an expression he knew well, one that said his XO knew exactly what he was thinking. The Colonel gave a tiny nod which Adama returned, appreciating his support and confidence.
“Signal to the fleet, hold jump repeat hold jump. All ships are to keep their FTL drives ready but they are to hold their current position. Tell the Vipers to remain where they are, then bring us around and hold our position right here” Adama ordered…causing half the personnel in CIC to stop and stare in amazement at the two officers.
Tigh narrowed his eyes.
“Are you all deaf? Move!” Tigh demanded and the personnel scurried back into action. Tigh glowered at them for several seconds to ensure they were focused, then turned his stare on the ships communications specialist. “D, do you have any chatter from this new contact?”
“Actually sir, I think I’m getting something, but its not very clear thanks to all the Cylon ECM out there. I think I’ve cleaned it up as best I can though”, the petty officer apologized.
“Push it up on the speakers, from the start” the Commander ordered, crossing his arms and leaning against the plot table.
“Yes Sir” she nodded, then a hissing mixed with buzzing and humming, though thankfully at softer volume levels, filled the room. The voice sounded male, but was constently washed out by static. Adama closed his eyes and tried to focus on it.
“….vessel Promet….have engaged in hostile actions……..peaceful exploration and…….have no quarrel with……no harm……respond with deadly force…..cease your attac…..mmediately”.
Tigh and Adama exchanged a look as the static message vanished.
“Are the Cylons sending a reply?” D simply shook her head.
“Figures” groused Tigh. “Damn toasters never want to talk anyway. So the million cubit question is, who is this? Some lost fleet unit?”
“Would a fleet unit talk about being on a mission of peaceful exploration to the Cylons?” Adama asked dryly
“Point” conceded Tigh. “So if it’s not Cylon and not ours, then what the Frak-”
The tactical display thankfully chose that point to light up with flashes of energy radiating out all over the place from the new unknown contact.
“What’s going on?”
“Massive jamming from the unknown contact sir, I can barely see it on DRADIS anymore” Gaeta said in irritation, trying in vein to coax more resolution out of his sensors.
“But I am getting a signal” Dualla cut in.
“From the unknown?”
”No sir, It’s Colonial One. The President is asking to speak with you immediately. Adama blinked. It wasn’t like Roslin to but in during a military engagement, but she was probably wondering why they hadn’t jumped out.
“Inform the President that we’re busy, but there is no immediate threat at this point from the Cylons”.
“Galactica, Apollo” a new voice interjected, causing Adama to blink. He had forgotten about his Son and the rest of the fighters out there and quickly picked up a phone, gesturing for D to direct the transmission to the speakers.
“Apollo, Galactica actual. What do you see?”
“The Cylons left us to go and play with someone else minutes ago” Apollo replied, his voice filled with the usual distortion of the ships communications scramblers. “But there are nukes going off around this first unknown target like its colonial day right now. They are really trying to – wait….Galactica, Starbuck is detecting more nukes going off, this time the Raiders are taking it. Frak, the Raiders are dropping like flies! Galactica, are you seeing this?”
Adama looked at Gaeta who nodded then frowned. “Sir I can see the Nukes, I can see the Cylons, but I can’t see what the hell is doing this too them. It’s almost like – Fraking hell!” the young officer suddenly swore. Adama turned back to the display just in time to see a massive energy burst appear where the lower Base Star had been, which faded to nothing.
Not even a debris field was left!
The electronic noise on the display cut off suddenly, revealing the two remaining Base Stars both moving towards the newcomer as well as all the remaining Raiders, which while reduced in numbers was still a powerful force.
What Adama and Tigh didn’t know however was that the ships DRADIS system with the cessation of jamming from the unknown, had detected between five and seven other targets, ghosts which it wasn’t able to get any kind of consistent sensor reading on. Given the amount of Raider and Base Star debris in the area, combined with Gaeta’s busy job, it was understandable that the computer simply tagged these contacts as non threats and deleted them from the ships tactical display.
Even if they were very much not space debris.
“If that ship doesn’t get out of there it’s going to get blown to hell” Tigh said, tapping the icon. “Gaeta, what’s the course between this newcomer and the Base Star designated Delta?”
“Course is six one three, CBDR” the officer reported, meaning the two ships were heading right for each other, the swarm of Raiders powering on ahead of their Mothership, clearly going to take the first shot. They were almost in their ideal firing position when the unknown opened fire with some kind of rapid fire weapon, swatting them out of the sky almost as fast as Galactica could.
Which was more then a little impressive given that Galactica is an order of magnitude larger then this ship, Tigh thought.
“Radiological alarm, those raiders are firing Nukes” Gaeta commented as his sensors slowly came back online after the energy overload from the explosion that had destroyed the previous Base Star. Tigh gripped the plotting table with white knuckles watching as the fast tracks of missiles converged. The unknown ship knocked off a few of the Raiders, then switched to the Nukes as they got close.
Too late
Another brilliant white flash obscured the DRADIS display at the location of the hard charging target as a swarm of nukes detonated on target.
“Damnit” Apollo swore over the speakers in the CIC.
“Well so much for that ship. I guess the Cylons were not impressed with the ‘we come in peace’ line and they….”
Tigh’s voice trailed off as the screen cleared once again…showing the ship still there…and Cylons still dropping off the screen all around it”.
Tigh’s jaw dropped open as this ship waltzed through over five megatons worth of firepower without even loosing velocity.
“That’s not possible!”
“Apparently it is” Adama responded, staring at the yellow icon, watching the red icons representing raiders clustering around it and steadily vanishing from the tracking display.
“No ship that size can survive a nuke let alone a half dozen of them at once!” Tigh protested, his mind working in small circles.
“Base Star is firing all missile batteries!” Gaeta put in, two dozen new tracks rippled away from the Base Star. All registering as carrying heavy duty city killing warheads.
“Lords of Kobal, that’s enough firepower to vaporize a Mercury class Battlestar!” Tigh exploded. “What the hell is this thing?”
Any of the bridge crew not having to do something critical at this point in time were staring at the nearest DRADIS repeater around the bridge…meaning near everyone saw what happened next.
The unknown vanished…just vanished without a trace. Tigh felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up straight as Gaeta refocused the display and the unknown icon reappeared suddenly, it had somehow moved in seconds to within point blank range of the Base Star! A cluster of sensor tracks which could only be missiles rippled from it and arrowed right from the Cylon ship-
And the Base Ship’s sensor profile flashed with the distinctive signature of a jump drive and vanished, the icons of the few raiders left around the planets orbit also expanding then vanishing into nothing followed by the last Base Star which had never even fired a shot.
Adama slowly let out a breath, hissing through his teeth as the tension of battle left him. Mostly.
“Signal the fleet, stand down to condition two, but remain ready to jump. Recall the Vipers and get Helo back on board ASAP”. Adama raised his head and looked back up at the two yellow unknown targets on the DRADIS display, the first clearly on a course to return with the second. “Then get the President and Vice President back over here ASAP”.
“Sir. What should I tell them?” D asked as she flicked open a channel.
“We need to talk. Now”.
Next chapter, the real crossover
-
Agent Fisher
- Rabid Monkey
- Posts: 3671
- Joined: 2003-04-29 11:56pm
- Location: Sac-Town, CA, USA, Earth, Sol, Milky Way, Universe
-
NecronLord
- Harbinger of Doom
- Posts: 27383
- Joined: 2002-07-07 06:30am
- Location: The Lost City
Excellent as ever. MORE! 
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
I also echo NecronLord's post.
Great story
Great story
Last edited by Xon on 2006-01-11 12:11am, edited 1 time in total.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
MORE! I SAY MORE!
Damit that had me as much on the edge of my seat as the last TV Episode!!
Damit that had me as much on the edge of my seat as the last TV Episode!!
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
-
Darth Yoshi
- Metroid
- Posts: 7342
- Joined: 2002-07-04 10:00pm
- Location: Seattle
- Contact:
I assume the ghosts are the F-302s, yes?
Keep it coming, Chris.
Keep it coming, Chris.
Lore Monkey | the Pichu-master™
Secularism—since AD 80
Av: Elika; Prince of Persia
-
technomage
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 357
- Joined: 2003-04-17 12:41pm
- Location: Somewhere beyond the Rim
Alright! The part of crossovers I love most, the two groups meeting, shocking each other, and coming to terms with each other. Gratuitous ass-kicking is always a plus, though.
IMHO, there are few things more disturbing to me in a crossover fic than having one of the universes being some kind of entertainment/pop culture/well-known stuff in the other. For me, it kind of destroys the entire point of the crossover. Throw in a few sickening "OMG! It's Luke Skywalker/Capt. Kirk/Duncan MacLeod!! Squeee!!" type fics I've seen in the past, and you get turned off that sort of stuff real fast.
I've seen exactly TWO fics in my life that handled the idea well, and in one, the one being pop culture in the other was the whole point of the fic. In the other, it's a major part of the story. The first is a Farscape/ST:TNG crossover by Aesop (it's over on FF.net), and the other is NecronLord's SG:A/Star Trek fic here on SD.net.
Oh Hell, PLEASE NO.LadyTevar wrote:Wow. Just... Wow. Chris, as a fan of both shows, this is fantastic. You have the SG's dialogue totally in tune with the show, and I hope you can do the same with the BSG crew.
Although I do happen to agree with whomever suggested that their be a fanboy of the Original BattleStar Galactica onboard. For 30-40yr olds, that was THE show on TV, and one that many of us fell as deeply in love with as we did StarWars.
Hell, make Mitchell the fanboy. Or have Sam remember a crush she had on Starbuck. Whichever's more fun.
(Nit reads the part about Sam & Starbuck. "That's Disturbing"
"But Starbuck was a GUY on the original! EVERY girl my age was in lust with him!")
IMHO, there are few things more disturbing to me in a crossover fic than having one of the universes being some kind of entertainment/pop culture/well-known stuff in the other. For me, it kind of destroys the entire point of the crossover. Throw in a few sickening "OMG! It's Luke Skywalker/Capt. Kirk/Duncan MacLeod!! Squeee!!" type fics I've seen in the past, and you get turned off that sort of stuff real fast.
I've seen exactly TWO fics in my life that handled the idea well, and in one, the one being pop culture in the other was the whole point of the fic. In the other, it's a major part of the story. The first is a Farscape/ST:TNG crossover by Aesop (it's over on FF.net), and the other is NecronLord's SG:A/Star Trek fic here on SD.net.
"Mother, implement Case Omega."
-the last time Colin MacIntyre gives an order without thinking it through.
-the last time Colin MacIntyre gives an order without thinking it through.
There is a precident for StarGate members knowing SciFi pop culture. Jack wanting to name the Promethius "Enterprise". The 'Red Leader' run on Anubis' mothership. The original BSG did not have as big a following as StarTrek and StarWars, but it did have fans.technomage wrote:Alright! The part of crossovers I love most, the two groups meeting, shocking each other, and coming to terms with each other. Gratuitous ass-kicking is always a plus, though.
Oh Hell, PLEASE NO.LadyTevar wrote:Wow. Just... Wow. Chris, as a fan of both shows, this is fantastic. You have the SG's dialogue totally in tune with the show, and I hope you can do the same with the BSG crew.
Although I do happen to agree with whomever suggested that their be a fanboy of the Original BattleStar Galactica onboard. For 30-40yr olds, that was THE show on TV, and one that many of us fell as deeply in love with as we did StarWars.
Hell, make Mitchell the fanboy. Or have Sam remember a crush she had on Starbuck. Whichever's more fun.
(Nit reads the part about Sam & Starbuck. "That's Disturbing"
"But Starbuck was a GUY on the original! EVERY girl my age was in lust with him!")
IMHO, there are few things more disturbing to me in a crossover fic than having one of the universes being some kind of entertainment/pop culture/well-known stuff in the other. For me, it kind of destroys the entire point of the crossover. Throw in a few sickening "OMG! It's Luke Skywalker/Capt. Kirk/Duncan MacLeod!! Squeee!!" type fics I've seen in the past, and you get turned off that sort of stuff real fast.
I've seen exactly TWO fics in my life that handled the idea well, and in one, the one being pop culture in the other was the whole point of the fic. In the other, it's a major part of the story. The first is a Farscape/ST:TNG crossover by Aesop (it's over on FF.net), and the other is NecronLord's SG:A/Star Trek fic here on SD.net.
On the other hand, I don't think there's been any injokes for oBSG on SG1.... but it would still be amusing to get the Starbuck jokes, dammit!
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
-
Chris OFarrell
- Durandal's Bitch
- Posts: 5724
- Joined: 2002-08-02 07:57pm
- Contact:
:nibbles chocolate: Apology acceptedChris OFarrell wrote:Sorry LT, it won't happen
Apologising for that, here is a box of swiss chocolate
When's the next update?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
-
technomage
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 357
- Joined: 2003-04-17 12:41pm
- Location: Somewhere beyond the Rim
As in.. 'within the last 5 years?' Oh yeah, it's wonderful what having Powerful Friends does for your space program. Especially when you can reverse-engineer your enemy's ships as well.Vianca wrote:Nice shock to those Colonials, if they hear how long Earth has been in space (with spaceships).
Ferrell? We're waiting anxiously for the next chapter in this fantastic story.
Not that we want to rush genius, but when something's this addictive, we gotta have our fix.Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
-
MKSheppard
- Ruthless Genocidal Warmonger
- Posts: 29842
- Joined: 2002-07-06 06:34pm
Some comments:
1.) Galactica won't even notice a large HE warhead hitting the bow; or even have the CIC shake from it; this is a very large and heavy ship about a kilometer or mile long.
2.) Why are they even using Naquadah as filler for 12.7mm Slugs? I did some calculations using a 800 grain .50 BMG round accelerated to 2 km/sec, it came out as 133.8 kJ of power, versus a 20mm Oerlikon's 43.6kJ.
Also, since you're firing these railguns at thousands of rounds per minute; the chances of more than one 12.7mm slug impacting are very high; and since this is a space weapon system; you can make the 12.7mm round as blunt-nosed as possible (making it weigh even more and being able to transfer more power), as opposed to a pointed boattail shape.
You're running into the same trap that John Ringo did when he designed the railgun 2mm rounds on his ACU suits; there's no need to put little points of antimatter or naquadah into the shells themselves; that just makes them cost more.
3.) “Massive jamming from the unknown contact sir, I can barely see it on DRADIS anymore”
Actually, Jamming doesn't work like that IIRC; you know that something's out there; but the probability zone is greatly expanded; instead of being able to localize something down to say, a few feet; you've got to deal with a probability zone several kilometers in area.
1.) Galactica won't even notice a large HE warhead hitting the bow; or even have the CIC shake from it; this is a very large and heavy ship about a kilometer or mile long.
2.) Why are they even using Naquadah as filler for 12.7mm Slugs? I did some calculations using a 800 grain .50 BMG round accelerated to 2 km/sec, it came out as 133.8 kJ of power, versus a 20mm Oerlikon's 43.6kJ.
Also, since you're firing these railguns at thousands of rounds per minute; the chances of more than one 12.7mm slug impacting are very high; and since this is a space weapon system; you can make the 12.7mm round as blunt-nosed as possible (making it weigh even more and being able to transfer more power), as opposed to a pointed boattail shape.
You're running into the same trap that John Ringo did when he designed the railgun 2mm rounds on his ACU suits; there's no need to put little points of antimatter or naquadah into the shells themselves; that just makes them cost more.
3.) “Massive jamming from the unknown contact sir, I can barely see it on DRADIS anymore”
Actually, Jamming doesn't work like that IIRC; you know that something's out there; but the probability zone is greatly expanded; instead of being able to localize something down to say, a few feet; you've got to deal with a probability zone several kilometers in area.
The series itself shows such things happening. Everytime we see a missile impact in the series, people in the CIC fall over or grasp hold o something as the room shakes.MKSheppard wrote: 1.) Galactica won't even notice a large HE warhead hitting the bow; or even have the CIC shake from it; this is a very large and heavy ship about a kilometer or mile long.
Naquadah is a super-dense super-strong material.2.) Why are they even using Naquadah as filler for 12.7mm Slugs?
The Prommie feature actual energy shields which can handle high energy EM radiation without any problems. You would not get any type of radar return from such a shield if it was properly configured.Actually, Jamming doesn't work like that IIRC; you know that something's out there; but the probability zone is greatly expanded; instead of being able to localize something down to say, a few feet; you've got to deal with a probability zone several kilometers in area.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
-
technomage
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 357
- Joined: 2003-04-17 12:41pm
- Location: Somewhere beyond the Rim
Umm, I thought Ringo's ACS used antimatter as the propellant/power source. And only in the M-200 grav guns, at that. They stuck a tiny bit of AM on the base of the round, and when the shot was fired a forcefield cracked the containment. The AM hit the round, some mutual annihilation created a burst of energy and the gun used that to fire the bullet.
I can't remember ever reading about antimatter-loaded railgun rounds in the Alldenata books. Though I've yet to read The Hero or Cally's War.
I can't remember ever reading about antimatter-loaded railgun rounds in the Alldenata books. Though I've yet to read The Hero or Cally's War.
"Mother, implement Case Omega."
-the last time Colin MacIntyre gives an order without thinking it through.
-the last time Colin MacIntyre gives an order without thinking it through.