Fields of Iron - The Escape of the Pallas, Pt 1

[WarMachine]

Greets All!

This is my first real BSG fanfic. I'm posting the first part in pieces here, as I don't want to store it on my PC at work.....

Comments are invited....

WM

===========================
Part 1

ABOARD THE BATTLESTAR PEGASUS

The Yahren 7346, Molokay System


Betrayed.

The thought thundered through Commander Cain's mind like a Viper's engines on turbothrust. Someone had betrayed them.

Cain was on the high platform of the Pegasus' bridge, looking over Colonel Tolan's shoulder at the data feed from the sensor pit. Off their starboard/stern quarter, the screen was filled with targets.

Cain had been selected to form and lead the Fifth Fleet to relieve Molokay. The Molok's were the Colonies' sometime ally in the never-ending war with the Cylon Empire; once it was clear that the Cylons were moving to destroy them, the Molok's had sent frantic messages to the Colonies, begging for help.

The Council of the Twelve had sent Cain, the Colonies' greatest living military Commander. Cain accepted that title as a simple matter of course; his Caprican friend, Adama, ackowledged that Cain was a better war-leader, although it hurt his pride to do so. Adama was a good fighter, in Cain's opinion, but his main interest was in politics.

And now someone, someone interested in politics, had betrayed the Fifth Fleet.

A voice whispered in his head: Now you know what defeat is. Yes, Cain thought bitterly. Yes I do. "Tolan," Cain said, biting back the bile, "general order, all ships: scatter drill."

Tolan looked up from his station in shock. "Sir?"

"You heard me, Tolan. It's a trap. Tell the transports to break and hide at top speed, then head for the nearest jump point. Signal to all Battlestars: form on the Pegasus,and accelerate to flank."

"Yes, Sir," Tolan replied grimly.

A lot of my people are going to die, this day, Cain thought. Someone is going to pay for this...and I don't care how long it takes.

With great difficulty, he pushed from his mind thoughts of his daughter -- out there, leading her wing.

*****

The battle was a forgone conclusion; the Cylon attack fleet was huge, the largest Cain had ever seen in one place in his entire career as a Warrior.

No fewer than thirteen Basestars had been hiding in the shadow of a massive, heavily-ringed gas giant, safe from the Fleet's scanners. They had revealed themselves, disgorging Raider craft by the hundreds, and were bearing down on the helpless transports.

The four Colonial Battlestars, led by the Pegasus, spread out into a roughly parallel course, all four on a roughly even plane of advance, and hurtled towards their old enemy.

Cain was unsettled; nothing about this was right. The Cylons didn't typically hold anything back in their attacks. This time, however, the Cylons were keeping about one fourth of their Raider units back, protecting the Baseships.

That was frakking strange; Cain could not recall such a thing ever having been reported. The tactic was similar to the Colonials' own practice.

Felgercarb. This was forcing him to commit the entirety of his Viper reserves to punch through their Raider line -- leaving another Raider line for them to deal with.

"Tolan, signal to all Battlestars: all Viper wings are to stay as close as possible to their parent Battlestars - they are not to pursue Raiders out of range."

"Yes, Sir," Tolan replied stolidly. Beneath his veneer, he was scared; this was bigger than anything in his worst nightmares. "Lead Viper elements will engage Cylon fleet screen in 3 microns."

"Understood," Cain replied.

Frak.

*****

The bridge of the Pegasus was bathed in the blood-red light from the battle lanterns; smoke coursed through the bridge - the atmo-cycling system was barely running. The Battlestars had all taken severe damage already...and had only just reached the Cylon line.

"Status?", Cain asked calmly. It was strange: right now, he would usually be shouting.

"All Battlestars have taken heavy damage, Sir," Tolan replied. "Pallas reports her Alpha landing bay completely destroyed; Bucephalus has fires out of control and burning towards their main energizers; Medusa reports heavy damage to Beta landing bay, fires burning, but under control."

"The Cylons?"

Tolan paused. "Sir...it looks like their flank squadrons are splitting off..."

"Are they trying to flank us?"

"Uh, I don't think so, Sir. They appear to be heading away from the line at a 90° angle, relative."

Which meant that the transports were dead - the Baseships were scattering to plug the system's other jump points, and the transports would be helpless against a Basestar. Cain sighed - inwardly. No need to upset Tolan anymore than he already was. "All ships, maintain course. Hurt them...And ready evasion slugs, if possible." An invention of his: it would send out multi-spectral bursts of interferance that should blind Cylon sensors long enough for them to escape.

"Yes, Sir."

If they could escape.

*****

[WarMachine]

Pt 2

Cain pressed his right hand harder against his temple, trying to hold the flap of scalp in place against his head. His vision was fuzzy and his head pounded like the Furies, but he could still focus.

The Warrior was still in Command.

Rubble from bulkheads and debris from destroyed equipment littered the deck; here and there, a body sprawled. Klaxons blared, but they seemed distant to Cain.

"Tolan? Tolan, are you alright!?" Tolan was slumped in his chair. "Tolan!" Cain shook him with his left hand; it, too, was covered in blood - his own?

Tolan shook his head groggily. "Whu-?" His face screwed into a mew from the pain: his right shoulder was obviously broken.

"HELM, REPORT!", Cain thundered into the din.

An officer down in the Pit stepped forward through the smoke. "Sir, we are still on our last heading...Heavy damage repoted in all sections..."

"All auxiliary damage control personnel to their stations! Then set course for the closest jump point...When you do that, tell where that leads." Without waiting for a reply, Cain staggered across the high deck, and leaned over. "Sensors! Status on the other Battlestars? Surviving Vipers?"

Captain Demetrios, his sensor officer, coughed, and wiped something from his mouth. "Sir. Pallas and Bucephalus are gone. Completely destroyed. We did not see the Medusa destroyed, but when the glare cleared, she was gone."

"Frak. Captain, I can't see over to Flight Control. Get hold of whatever Vipers are out there, and sound the recall..." and collapsed onto the deck, unconscious.

***** *****

The bridge of the Battlestar Medusa was wreathed in smoke and flames. Commander Cyrus grimly maintained his Chair, even as the damage control teams battled the flames around him. His hard features and dark curly hair, only now starting to turn gray after 84 yahren, belied his Gemoni birth in the Harzhan Badlands on Gemon's equatorial continent.

He hadn't thought of home in yahren. He pushed the thought from his mind. "Hala, report."

Colonel Hala, his second in command, said from her chair, "Sir. I think those slugs worked; the Cylons don't seem to be pursuing."

"Any sign of the Pegasus?"

"No, Sir...There was too much interference, Sir..." Watching a Battlestar die was no easy thing; watch two die in an instant...

Cyrus nodded. "Cain will go quiet - if he's still alive. Status on Vipers?" The Damage Control teams finally got the fires out; presently, the processors began clearing the air of smoke...and other smells.

"We have a count of one-hundred-twenty-seven with us, Sir. Forty three of our own, and five from the Pegasus' Silver Spar squadron; the rest are about evenly split between the strike wings of the Pallas and the Bucephalus."

"Understood." Thank the Gods for small favors. "Time to recovery for Beta?"

"Not short of a graving yard, Sir. We can reestablish atmo in there, but the damage is bad."

"Felgercarb. Set up a rotation for the Vipers: the ones lowest on fuel, refuel first; those too damaged to stay out there, we'll cross-deck to Beta when possible. Unless otherwise designated, all Vipers will remain skin-tight to the Medusa. It'll be tough on the pilots, but at least we'll have the strike power ready if the Cylons show up."

"Yes, Sir."

"And get me Chief Pelops, when he has the chance." The Chief Engineer was a crusty wonder, able to work undeniable magik on the engines.

*****

Pelops was a mess. He was covered head to toe in soot and grime, and he smelled of Boron, smoke and chemicals. He stopped halfway into the room, faced Cyrus' desk and came to attention. "The Commander wishes to see me?" Normally, there would have been a gleam in his eyes; now, there was nothing but exhaustion.

Cyrus waved his hand absently...Pelops resumed walking, and headed straight to the bar, where he poured two stiff draughts of Ambrosa. He walked back over to Cyrus' desk, and placed one glass on the tabletop.

"Death to the Tin-Heads, and Damn the Council," he said, draining half the glass; he then dropped unceremoniously into the chair in front of Cyrus.

Cyrus sighed. That was Pelops' main problem: he didn't care who heard what came from between his lips. "So?"

"We're in a lot of trouble, Cy," Pelops said, his eyes locking onto Cyrus like a blaster turret. "There was damage to the main energizers; for a brief moment, the power flickered in the main feed shoot."

Cyrus went through several emotion in a milli-centon: anger, that Pelops hadn't told him sooner; resignation, because there was absolutely nothing that could be done about it...and fear, because of what that meant for the Pallas' survivors.

"What do you know?"

"Only that the pellets dropped, and are resting against each other. I don't know if they've been damaged."

"Assuming that they have, how long before Drive failure?"

Pelops shrugged. "Three jumps, maybe four. Certainly no more than that...and the Sickness will be worse each time." The Sickness was Jump Sickness; it caused a violent retching sensation in most lifeforms, and was caused by damaged Tylium pellets.

"We can handle the Sickness," Cyrus said absently.

"Can the Viper pilots?"

"They'll have to..."

[cont'd]

[WarMachine]

Pt 3

[massive cut]

I didn't think this part worked, so went ahead and removed it....I might add it back later, or may dtrop it altogether....I haven't decided yet.

Part 5 should be up in a little while.....

[WarMachine]

Part 4

The Sickness from the first Jump was not that bad, very mild to what would come later.

After getting the fires out, the Medusa's crew worked frantically to get Beta landing bay in good enough shape to at least land fighters; some of the pilots had been in their cockpits for twenty-five centars, by then.

As the Medusa withdrew from the slaughter above Molokay, Chief Pelops confirmed Cyrus' worst fear: when the power had flickered momentarily in the main feed chute, it had burned out the relay that supplied power to the powerful electromagnets that held the Medusa's ready supply of Tylium fuel pellets in place, keeping them from slamming into one another. The pellets were now resting against each other, and the pellets at the bottom of the chute, the ones ready to load into the Medusa's Jump drive, were the most damaged.

Every ship has flaws, no matter how good the overall design. The Columbia-class Battlestars were no exception; in their early careers, they had their share of problems. All of those known had been corrected - save one.

In order for the Jump drive to function a Tylium fuel pellet, the size of a Triad ball, was "dropped" into the reaction chamber; this was actually a misnomer: it was lowered through a series of electromagnetic buffers into a drive chamber that had been primed with atomized Solium, where the Tylium and Solium were subjected to a series of powerful and extremely strong graviton waves, generating a displacement event via a series of Lanthantie jump coils, which translated into a spherical Jump field, opening the gateway between stars.

Tyilum, however, was a very sensitive material; each fuel pellet had to be polished mirror-smooth during refining. The slightest imperfection could introduce random eddies and frequency shifts in the Jump coils, the transmitters that actually transmitted and deployed the Field. The random fluctuations caused not only severe physical effects on living beings, they would also severely damage the Jump coils themselves, eventually to the point of complete failure, where the coil segments' atomic structure was altered, making them extremely brittle, and unable to take the energy surges from the next Jump.

The result would be a massive explosion.

The electromagnets holding the Tylium pellets in place were extremely durable and reliable, but when they failed, as they had done on the Medusa, they would allow the Tylium pellets to slide uncontrolled down the chute...which usually caused damage to the fuel pellets. There was a battery backup that was supposed to engage, but the power surge that burned out the relay also burned out the relay to the backup switch.

The fault in the design was that short of a graving yard, there was no way to enter the feed chute to extract the damaged pellets. Since the sequence of events that could cause such a failure were so remote, it was deemed unnecessary to completely redesign the Jump drive...

...Which, of course, was the exact sequence of events that happened to the Medusa.

It was much harder on the Viper pilots. Even by removing the surviving shuttle craft from Alpha landing bay and anchoring them to the Medusa's hull, and transferring the worst-damaged Vipers to rest in Beta bay with the remains of the shuttles that had been parked there when the bay was gutted, forty Vipers had to be outside the ship at all times.

Neither Cyrus, nor Pelops nor Hala slept in their quarters for the first three days after the batte; there was too much to do, and too many wounded, so they slept in their command chairs. Even when they all were ordered to bed by the Medusa's Chief Doctor Xerkon, it took three days before the three officers lost their fuzzyness.

Captains Antipadre and Khufu, the leaders of the Medusa's Dragon and Griffin squadrons, respectively, never got more than four centon's sleep at a stretch, and their pilots didn't get much more. They had broken just about every safety regulation in the Colonial military, but that was war.

The pilots from the Pallas' Green and Gold squadrons remained tight-knit; they had always been that way. Their three surviving Flight Leaders became Squadron Leaders and Senior Wing Leader; Cyrus confirmed their self-selection both because he liked the way they pulled together, and because they had been through enough -- there was no need pull rank on them at a time like this.

The surviving pilots from the Bucephalus, however, were another matter entirely. In one of those quirks of battle, none of those Bucephalus pilots who had made it to the Medusa had ever been in action before Molokay. (The Bucephalus had been just out of the graving yard when she was assigned to the Fifth Fleet, and thus had the highest proportion of cherry pilots.)

The Bucephalus pilots were like kicked daggits - they had no leaders to fall back on, and no traditions to live up to. Cyrus replied by assigning the Silver Spar pilots to take command of the newly-designated Falcon Squadron...The Silver Spar pilots had trained under Cain, and knew full well how to drive a squadron. (It was an article of faith in the Fleet that anyone trained by Cain was fully capable of doing a job two places above their current station.)

[WarMachine]

Part 4, cont'd

Two days after the Medusa's first Jump away from Molokay, Cyrus held a meeting in his quarters' office space with his senior officers. In addition to Hala and Pelops, present were Chief Doctor Xerkon, Senior Flight Technician Abr'am, all the Viper and shuttle squadron and wing leaders, and Captain Rhade-ka, the Medusa's Chief of Navigation.

With the exceptions of Captians Khufu, Rhade-ka and Eala (from the Pallas' Gold squadron), everyone present was from either Caprica, Gemon or Sagittara; those three worlds had always provided the vast bulk of the Colonies' Warriors, and had since Unification two millenia ago.

Eala, a Cancerian, was easily the most exotic; her ink-black hair fell in a massive cable-braid to below her waist(there was a rumor that she had had to have a helmet specially made to accomodate it), and set off her deep chocolate complexion and stunningly blue eyes, common to almost all Cancerians.

Rhade-ka was from the tropical highlands of Virgon; short, slight and quiet, he was an Open Division-rated Triad player, one of the best in the Colonies...he was also a lethal shot, in or out of a Viper, and was simultaneously a trained chemist, botanist and explosives engineer.

Khufu, a Leonian, shared his people's olive complexion and kept his head cleanly shaven after the fashion of his religious sect. He had served under Cyrus from the time he first flew a Viper aboard the Cerberus, when Cyrus and his old friend and classmate Tigh (now aboard the Galactica as Colonel to Adama...and effectively in command, as Adama's Council duties occupied much of his time) had shepherded a group of trainee Viper pilots through a bloddy Cylon ambush.

After reviewing all divisions' current status, Cyrus had Pelops explain the situation with the feed chute; before anyone could grumble, Doctor Xerkon immediately launched into a brief about the physical effects of Jump Sickness, and what the Viper pilots should look out for.

Before anyone else could speak up, Rhade-ka asked Pelops, "So, how many jumps before complete failure?"

"Two. On the third, we vaporize."

Rhade-ka looked at Cyrus. "We will not make the Colonies, Commander. The shortest possible route would require a minimum of nine jumps."

Hala looked grim. "Then we're really in trouble. There are no graving yards between here and the Colonies..." There was nothing more to say. Everyone looked miserable -- except Cyrus and Pelops.

Cyrus leaned back in his chair. "Security," he said to the air, "engage maximum anti-surveillance measures, code Alpha-Zed-Sigma-Tau-Three-Two-Four-Voice-Lock."

The ships' computer said "Confirmed." A blastshield lowered over the portal behind Cyrus; presently, the offices' bulkheads began to hum with an irregular beat.

"What I am about to say is information known only to the President of the Council, those of the rank of Commander, and Colonels with a direct need to know; sorry, Hala." She nodded, a questioning look on her face. "Given the circumstances, I don't expect you to be totally closed-mouth to your Warriors, but I do expect you to be discreet.

"The Colonies have for some time maintained a series of remote field bases outside the Home System. These are small, easily hidden facilities; basically miniature spacedocks. They are usually carved into asterons, and concealed behind facades.

"There is one such base two jumps from here; I will not tell you the exact system, and I expect you to instantly squash any discussion or speculation in that regard. That is a direct order, and I will enforce it with the most extreme severity." He let his gaze, suitably threatening he hoped, rest on each person in turn.

"Captain Rhade-ka and Senior Flight Tech Ab'ram will oversee wiping the short-term memory cards in every Viper and shuttlecraft after each landing aboard the Medusa. Once we have reached this base, we will notify the Council of what happened at Molokay; I'm sure that the Council will allow messages to be sent to families, but make sure that your Warriors all understand that their messages will be carefully censored before being allowed to be transmitted.

"Since the base in question is very small, it only has a small staff; we will have to perform most of the graving maintenance ourselves, so once we're there,that will be home for a while. Questions?"

No one spoke; this was news to the assembled officers. Most had suspected that the Colonies had such bases, but none of the had ever expected to see them. They quietly filed out of the office, until only Cyrus, Hala and Pelops remained.

"Well," Hala said, "I suppose I should have expected it. And no, Cy, I'm not angry about it. What are our options?"

Cyrus sighed heavily; he had been feeling the weight of his yahren lately. "Hopefully, the Cylons committed a great deal of their fleet to Molokay, and equally hopefully, we damaged or destroyed a large number of their Baseships, so I'm hoping that we don't run into any real opposition en route to Hetaira Base."

"That's its name? Hetaira Base?" she asked wryly. "Nice."

[WarMachine]

Part 5

FIVE JUMPS OUT FROM HETAIRA BASE

12th Day of Atun, Yahren 7348

The previous eighteen sectars had passed with alternating periods of seeming ennui and maddening activity.

The Medusa's survivors and the crew of Hetaira Base had worked long, hard sectons to repair the Medusa's battle damage and the damage to the Jump drive caused by the cracked Tylium fuel pellets. The Hetaira technicians had scrapped only fourteen of the Vipers relegated to Beta Landing Bay, but had been able to replace seven of them from stocks inside the asteron base.

There had been a series of back and forth message relays between Cyrus and Adama, the only member of the Council of the Twelve who held the military rank of Commander, concerning Molokay and the 5th Fleet's destruction. Adama had advised Cyrus of the impending peace treaty - and his reservations about it. Cyrus couldn't have agreed more; it both smelled and felt like a trap, and Cyrus couldn't understand why President Adar was falling for it.

In fact, this whole peace conference affair had begun to give Cyrus nightmares...a fact he kept strictly to himself - along with the knowledge of the 'peace' conference. The whole affair gave him a very bad feeling.

He had kept knowledge of the conference from everyone except Colonels Hala and Blaine(the commander of Hetaira Base), and Commander Marius of the Attack Transport "Myrmidon", the only other ship known to have survived the slaughter at Molokay.

The Myrmidon had dodged through an asteron field to get to a jump point, and had come face to face with a Cylon Baseship -- which she had promptly destroyed with a barrage of concussion missles, as well as several Solenite mines laid in her wake. She had taken a circuitous course to get to Hetaira Base to resupply her troops with food; she had appeared just as the Medusa was preparing to clear the bases' gantry.

The Hoplon-class Attack Transports were somewhat similar to the Columbia-class Battlestars, in that they were about as long, if a little wider, as a Columbia and in that they had launch and landing bays identical to the Columbia's, but the similarities ended there.

Looking for all creation like a pair of aquanities* welded together by a massive belt of armor, the Hoplon massed nearly three times as much as a Columbia -- and was designed to land on a plantary surface. It was designed to ferry up to three thousand combat troops, one hundred ground vehicles, a full squadron of thirty-two Viper fighters and thirty-six Mark X Assault Shuttles. It was also equipped with planetary bombarment missiles and nuclear space mines.

Cyrus was delighted to discover that the Myrmidon had survived; bringing her home in trail would be a welcome surprise to all the Colonies. He had delayed the Medusa's departure just long enough to have the Myrmidon fully resupplied and rearmed before starting out for home.

*****

"Dragon One, Falcon Five...Sir, I've got something on my long range band."

"Copy, Falcon Five...What have you got?"

"Uhhhh.....Warbook is tagging it as a Solar-class maintenace hauler...Sir, I think she's in trouble..."

Antipadre swiftly twisted his scanners to match the scan area of his wingman. They had been patrolling forward of the Medusa, ensuring that the way to the next jump-point was clear. Presently, his scanners revealed the same data his young wingman was seeing.

"Good call, Sergeant Pelladon - you just might make a decent Viper-driver, yet," he said good-naturedly. Pelladon was alright, and actually not a bad pilot; it wasn't his fault that he'd not had a lot of time in a cockpit before going into battle for real. "Send a tight-beam back to the Medusa and hit your turbos."

"Yes Sir!"

Antipadre punched his turbos, and drove towards the maintenance ship, Pelladon close behind him. Hurtling forward at a large fraction of lightspeed, the Vipers quickly closed the distance. At about one light-micron out, Antipadre's systems detected an incoming tightbeam transmission from the limping ship.

As soon as Antipadre digested the message - and recovered from the shock - he tightbeamed it to the Medusa...


In the cockpit of his Viper, Pelladon was nervously fiddling with switches and dials, trying to decrypt the tightbeam he had recieved. Frak, felgercarb and mong, he swore to himself. He should have paid more attention to the higher-instance commo classes. Suddenly, his voice-com went live.

"Pelladon," Antipadre said, his voice tight and tense, "listen to me very carefully: stay with the Sunfire; you can communicate with her on the Theta band. Her master's name is Doughal. Keep your transmissions as brief as possible. Under no circumstances are you to leave this ship, understood?"

Pelladon swallowed; Antipadre's voice was deathly stern and quiet; he had never heard the Caprican speak that way. "Yes, Sir," he managed to say.

With that, Antipadre kicked on his turbos, and acclerated back along the Sunfire's trail. Pelladon finally looked at the Sunfire closely - she looked to have been a newer ship, but was covered with ugly scars from multiple laser hits; two of her laser cannon mounts had been destroyed, and she looked like she had a slow Solium leak in her aft section.

Not for the first time in his short life, Pelladon wondered what he had gotten himself into.


Aboard the Medusa, some 4 centars later, the senior staff met in the Main Briefing Hall, behind the bridge. In addition to the Medusa's officers, the senior members of the Myrmidon's crew - Commander Marius, Colonel Ashoka and Captains Inkatha and Chun - were present, as were the Sailing Master of the Sunfire, Captain Doughal, and one other.

Tall and gray-haired, yet supple and lithe, the statueque Aerian woman wore the dark blue uniform of a Commander...with the Medallion of Kobol at her throat, signifying that she had once been a member of the Council of the Twelve. Her uniform was dirty, and torn in places; the laser pistol at her side only emphasized the severity of her appearance.

*Aquaniti - A small, two-person fishing skiff

[WarMachine]

Part 5, cont'd

The gray-haired Commander/Councillor looked at the faces of the Warriors before her. They reflected all of the shock and horror she had expected when she had delivered the news of the Colonies' destruction at the mechanical hands of the Cylons.

Also as she had expected, Cyrus was the first to recover.

"Siress Siobhan," he asked, "what details do you know?"

Siobhan sighed. "We know that at least thirty-six Cylon Baseships of the latest model known entered the Home System at the jump point connecting to star HGX-99783; it was sufficiently far from any one Colony or monitoring station to detect in anymeaningful time; why the Jump Point Station there did not broadcast a signal is unknown, but based on subsequent events, I believe it was sabotaged."

The room stirred restlessly at this. "How?," someone asked.

"I'll come to that shortly. Each Baseship was accompanied by a number of tankers, each jump-towing about one hundred Raiders apiece. The vast majority of our Warriors were on furlon, and most of the ready-alert planetary defence squadrons were holding celebratory gatherings...Needless to say, most of them did not even get airborne as the Cylon waves swept in."

"Siress," asked Lieutenant Farouk, a Wing Lead from the Pallas, "what about Sagitarra? Our defences were stronger than those of all the other Colonies'..."

"It would appear that a computer virus overwhelmed the Sagittaran DefNet just as the Alert was sounded; we know from survivors that several communication and power transmission relay nodes mysteriously exploded just before the Baseships opened fire."

"Surely, some of the other Colonies are fighting back?", asked Colonel Ashoka.

"The only really effective ground resistance seems to be occuring on Virgon and Canceria."

Eyebrows around the room went up at this, none more so than among the Virgons and Cancerians present; individuals among their people had served with distinction in the Colonial military over the millenia, but no one would mistake those Tribes for being warlike.

"The President, and the Council?" asked Commander Marius.

"All dead, Commander. Of the Sitting Council, only Adama and his Galactica survived." She paused, to let that sink in. "Understand - our defenses are wrecked, most of our cities have been bombed flat, and the Cylons apparently have released a broad-spectra variant of Pluton over all of the Colonies. With the exception of the Galactica, the Medusa, the Myrmidon, a few Vipers and some smaller picket craft, every other known Colonial warship has been destroyed."

The faces in the room were aghast; it was too much to comprehend. "Wh-what are...What can we...How do we recover from this?" asked Griffin Squadron's Lieutenant Ashbahn.

"We don't," Siobhan replied, face grim. The room sat, stunned - it was a death sentence on everything they had ever known.

"B-but - surely...", someone said.

"There are no 'buts'," Siobhan said decisively. "Even if the Cylons left us alone from now on, it would be hundreds of yahren before we could recover anything approaching what we have lost...And the Cylons will not wait - even now, their Baseships are returning to their staging areas, to return with 'extermination forces' to deal with any survivors."

She paused only for a moment. "That does not, however, mean that we have no plan. It is Adama's plan, actually; he ran it by me in the first days after the attack. It is a desperate, last-ditch gamble, but it is all we have."

"And that is?", asked Hala.

"Flight. Adama has loaded every hulk that can fly with refugees, and is escorting them out-system with the Galactica. I was travelling directly to Hetaira Base to retrieve the Medusa to try and lead out a second group - we won't get another chance. Adama has an ultimate destination in mind, but he would not elaborate where that is. He and I agreed to rendesvous at the Delphian capitol-world, Gomorray."

"Siress," Cyrus said, "with respect, why didn't the Galactica take every ship that could fly? Why a second convoy?"

"There were many vessels that could be made ready, but not quickly enough. Adama decided - wisely, I might add - to take every ship that was immediately flyable, and head out, the better to draw Cylon pursuit after the Galactica, and perhaps take the pressure off of us. That way, we would surely save at least one group. He knew that the Medusa was returning to the Colonies, so he had volunteer crews working around the clock to make as many ships flyable as possible. My mission was to find the Medusa, advise you of the situation, and have you return to the Colonies to escort out the last convoy. In the meanwhile, I would continue to Hetaira Base, and advise them of the incoming traffic - some of those ships will need the bases' help."

"Why not use the RelayNet**?", asked Rhade-ka.

"Because we believe that the Cylons have access to Fleet CommLine Alpha." There were sharp intakes of breath; FCA was the most secure communications protocol ever devised by the Colonial military. If it had been compromised..."We took a chance, and sent RelayNet messages encoded with a Cyan-Omega cipher*** to all of the remote bases except Hetaira, advising them of the Destruction, and ordering their crews to proceed at best speed to Gomorray."

Cyrus narrowed his eyes. "You spoke of a traitor, Siress. Who?"

Siobhan looked at Cyrus evenly. "Count Baltar of Piscera."

Captain Inkatha, Viper Strike Leader of the Myrmidon and a Pisceran himself, snarled wordlessly and looked ready to spit on the deck. "That galmonging insecton!" - he used the native Piscearn word, 'wa-dudu', the most insulting word in Pisceran - "He should have been thrown out an airlock dehcons+ ago!"

"Yes, Captain, he should have been. It would appear that he set up the entire peace conference to lull us into lethargy. His agents were apparently quite busy inside our systems."

Cyrus sat back in his chair. "Very well, then. Medusa and Myrmidon will return to the Home System and extract whatever civilians we can rescue, and escort them to Hetaira Base. Do you have any further orders, Commander?"

"Councillor," Siobhan corrected. "I'm only wearing the blue-suit because of the authority it conveys to the survivors. I haven't held a combat command in twenty yahren, haven't been on the Active Roster for fifteen, and have held no official position in government in the last four. Adama may be able to balance political, religious and military duties - the Lords only know how - but I can't.

"President Adama and I spoke of this, in fact." She paused, looking at the surprised faces. "Under long-standing Rules of Succession, Adama is now President of the Colonies, as he is the last living member of the Quorum of the Twelve. Until we rendesvous at Gomorray, our fleet will be under a Civil Quorum headed by myself, as Acting President; you, Commander Cyrus, will retain command of all of this fleet's Colonial Military assets, subject only to the broadest direction from myself as Acting President. After we join with the Galactica's fleet, this fleet's Quorum will dissolve, in favor of the senior Quorum. Questions?"

"What kind of ships will we be escorting, Siress - uh, Madam President?", asked Rhade-ka.

Siobhan smiled without humor. "Are you familiar with Gold Star Transstellar?" Nods from around the table; she turned to Sailing Master Doughal of the Sunfire. "Captain?"

"Madam President," he nodded. "Thirty yahren ago, when the War began to enter its current active phase, Gold Star Transstellar mothballed its fleet of Celebration-class liners; with the Hoplon-class ships in active service, there was no need to use the transports for troop-ferrying, and the insurance rates against battle-loss were too high to justify keeping them in service, considering the lower traffic.

"The ships have all been parked at a deep-system asteron facility all these yahren; they have had all of their atmosphere released, their energizers have been drained and demagnetized, and their fuel bunkers are empty. Several fuel and maintenance ships, like the Sunfire, are now bringing them back online."

"How many?", asked Marius.

"Fourteen, total. We figure that by rigging larger hydroponic gardens aboard, each ship can carry upwards of five-thousand souls. The Celebration-class was designed to carry nine-hundred passengers and four-hundred crew in fair style, and they're rated for six-thousand troops with equipment under military standards."

"So," Siobhan said, "fourteen liners, six fuel ships, four Solar-class maintenace ships - five, counting the one based at Hetaira - an agro vessel and whatever else can fly -- say, sixty-thousand souls at the high-end. Anyone else?" the Acting President said.

When there were no answers, Siobhan spread her hands, as if to embrace everyone at the table; they all lowered their heads. "My Children," she intoned, "may the Lords of Kobol watch over us, and Light our way."

"Amen," everyone chorused.


As the meeting broke up, Antipadre and Eala shared a look at each other as they left the room. Although neither publicized it, they were members of a heretical religious order, the Chruch of the One Jewel. Despised - even hated - by many sectors of Colonial society, they maintained a tradition of history and science going back to Humanity's beginnings...They, alone in the room, knew precisely where Adama was going to try and go...

...Because Adama was one of them.

*************

**RelayNet: The Relay Network, which the Colonies used to relay messages to the other side of Jump-points, using small, automated drones the size of Vipers

***Cyan-Omega Cipher: A series of one-time-use codes; theoretically highly secure

+Dehcons: A period of time equal to ten yahren

[WarMachine]

Part 6

THE YAHREN 7348, 19th Day of B'Kra/Cycle Count Number 5796384

BASESHIP 17062-14, SYSTEM HGX-99783


System HGX-99783 was so-named becuse it had no naturally-habitable worlds; by Human standards, it was dull, uninteresting, and not a place one visited by choice. In fact, the only humans who ever went there regularly were Warriros of the Colonial military and various small-scale prospector-miners, trying to eek whatever meager gleaning they could from the burnt rocks of the system beneath an ugly, blood-red star.

The bodies of those present a secton before when the Cylons roared through the system still floated, eternally, in the radiation-bathed open space of the system.

As the electronic haze that always accompanied Jump Transits sorted itself into a reasonable pattern of reception, the IL-series Cylon Command Unit AGYX-78839/21 - known colloquially as "Wraith" - used his second brain to ponder the circumstances of his current situation.

Although fully robotic, Wraith - like his fellow IL's - had a kind of "consciousness"; he did not believe that it was "sentience" as the Humans identified it, but that was of little consequence to Wraith -- the Cylon System was clearly superior to that of the Humans, and their opinions - very shortly - would no longer matter.

Inwardly, Wraith was quite pleased with himself. The very fact that he discerned 'pleasure' was one of the sources of that pleasure; a section of his logic processors recognized the circular nature of that line of thought. Against every edict of Imperious Leader, Wraith had modified his paired brains with remote memory chips and logic processors; he had explained this to the Diagnotic Unit as an experiment he was running on the effects of radiation on logic processors.

The overall effect of the additional hardware, he calculated, had given him a shortcut around the supposed necessity of a thrid brain, necessary to elevate one to the level of Imperious Leader; Wraith idly pondered the possible effects of a fourth brain.....And with his victories in the last several cycles, it would only be a matter of cycles before he supplanted the current Imperious Leader.

Presently, a Combat Command Unit entered Wraith's Command Chamber. "By Your Command," it intoned.

Wraith regarded it only for a moment. "Speak, Centurion."

"preliminary reports have been processed...the extermination of the human infestation is proceeding on all system worlds according to plan...save two."

"Which two?"

"the worlds the humans call 'virgon' and 'canceria'."

"Situation?"

"resistance is unexpectedly heavy...command centurion abraxus reports that his forces are restricted to operations in the immdiate vicinity of virgon city...command centurion aypep reports that he is under repeated and heavy attack, and cannot expand his perimeter...both request immediate reinforcements."

"Status of Baseship 14389-78?"

"the baseships' graviton-wave unit is still non-functional."

"Very well. Instruct Baseships 15229-78 and 16783-44 to join Task Force Virgon; then order Baseships 14975-62 and 15449-58 to join Task Force Canceria."

"By Your Command."

"Are there any further reports?"

"only one...reports indicate that a fleet of refugees ahs fled the system, escorted by a battlestar..."

"Which Battlestar?"

"the one called 'galactica'."

"Projected course?"

"the imperious leader believes that the fleet will go to planet carillon."

Silence. The only visible sign that Wraith had heard the Centurion was a furious surge of lights flashing through his transparent skull. Presently, they slowed. "Carry out your previous orders, Centurion."

"By Your Command."

Wraith rotated his command chair 180° without waiting for the Centurion to depart, and silently signalled for the system plot to the next jump point, the one that would lead him to what was left of the human's home system. He was unconcerned about the resistance on Virgon and Canceria -- he had more than enough troops, Raider craft and Baseships to deal with whatever forces still remained in human space...

But this report of the Galactica left an unresolved issue in his logic circuits. Data point: Galactica was known to be commanded by the human called Adama, the only currently-serving human leader with real military experience. Data point: Planet Carillon would be of use only as a temporary refuge...it was not suitable for long-term habitation by humans. Data point: An old point (one left open for twenty three point seventy-two cycles): although there were four Battlestars at Molokay, they had only found confirmed wreckage of two.....

In sum, Wraith deduced that the Imperious Leader would soon meet an untimely end; he was very impetuous, for a Cylon. (Part of his logic bus reminded Wraith that he had just compared his own modifications to those of the Imperious Leader...he immeadiately began a diagnostic subroutine.) Again, Wraith was unconcerned.

He had destroyed the human fleet at Molokay, as he had now destroyed their home system - there was nothing that he could not accomplish.....

...As if to counter-point his thoughts, the last of his reinforcement fleet appeared behind his ship.

Forty-five Baseships strong, the fleet began to accelerate for the jump point ot the Colonies.....

***** *****

[WarMachine]

Part 6, cont'd

ABOARD THE BATTLESTAR MEDUSA

COLONIAL HOME SYSTEM,
JUMP-TRANSIT POINT FROM STAR HPY-8715


Cyrus shook his head to clear the fuzzies from the Jump. He touched a button on his command chair. "Launch control?"

The Flight Controller responed a moment late. "Sir?"

"Launch all Vipers."

"Yes, Sir." A pause, followed by the general announcement, "Transferring launch control to Strike Lead...Launch when ready."

"All Vipers, this one's for home!", Antipadres cried, as he hit the turbo-switch, hurtling his Viper down the launch chute.

As the Vipers of the Medusa'a greatly-enlarged Strike Wing launched, in concert with those of the Myrmidon, Cyrus said to Hala, "Are we recieving anything from remote stations?"

Hala did not answer for a moment; then, "Stand by," she said, pushing a switch on her console. Turning to Cyrus, "There is a Gemoni freighter packed with refugees, heading to the Gold Star asteron station two light-microns off the starboard bow. They report a Baseship nearing Virgon, Cylon forces on all planets..."

"Very well... Advise the freighter to reverse course, and return to Gemon. Signal to Gold Star Base: one liner is to proceed to each Colony World and load refugees; two additional liners and all maintenance and fuel ships will rendesvous with Myrmidon at Canceria. System-wide broadcast: any vessel that did not leave with Galactica is to reverse course, and return to their planet of registry, to link up with the incoming refugee/liners. Signal to Myrmidon: proceed to Canceria and suppress Cylon defenses. Weapons control, stand by on electonic screens; negative shield; Helm, rig for graviton-wave shunt, destination: Virgon."

Hala nodded. "Yes, Sir." She touched a button, and the massive blast shutters closed over the Medusa's forward viewport.

Major Lysander, the Medusa's Bridge Control Officer, said "Yes, Sir." Immediately after, the warning klaxons began to warble, signalling all hands to stand by. Captain Kostos, the Helm Officer, came over the internal speakers: "All Hands, All Hands. Rig for graviton-drive engagement. Graviton-drive engagement in one centon." Throughout the great ship, anyone not already seated did so, preparing for the sudden acceleration that was about to come.

Deep within the bowels of the Medusa, the graviton wave generator began to spin. As its revolutions increased, the Medusa began to generate its own gravity well. As the strength of the well increased, Kostos introduced a "fixed wobble" effect; as he did so, the Medusa began to accelerate, the 'bubble' of gravity pulling its attendant Vipers along like a school of fish.

Contrary to popular belief, the graviton wave generator did not move a vessel at superluminal velocity; other than the special caase of the Jump Drive, the Colonies had never been able to push a vessel beyond the speed of light under any kind of conventional reaction drive. The graviton wave generator simply moved very large and sturdy vessels - like a Battlestar or an Attack Transport - at speeds approaching that of a Viper.

The two vessels and their attendant Vipers accelerated for home.

***** *****

ATHENA CITY, PLANET VIRGON

Command Centurion Abraxus waited in the shadow of his command vehicle until the atmospheric fighters' wreckage stopped bouncing randomly. The humans of this planet had been hurling themselves at his perimeter in suicidal attacks for thirteen point one-six-two cycles, now. Their attacks were very confusing; when they had begun, Abraxus had assumed that they were using the clearly obsolete weapons and vehicles as screens for attacks by surviving high-technology equipment. Ten point five-two cylces ago, Abraxus had decided that this was not the case, and the humans were simply attacking with obsolete equipment because they had nothing else left.

The concept that they were fighting for their homes and families never crossed his logic circuits.

Reports from his outer defenses streamed in; the humans were attacking in waves, again...Suddenly, and override cut through the stream of reports.

Centurion, this is Baseship 14389-78...we have achieved orbit...Designate targets for orbital fire support...

Abraxus began uploading targets.....

*****

The Medusa was slowing. Cyrus spoke into his headset, "Kostos, keep us inside the stationary orbit."

"Yes, Sir," Kostos said in a low voice. His entire focus was on his helm control. The graviton wave drive didn't take violent maneuvers well; some control was possible over a very short arc, but trying to maneuver something this big at these speeds was a nightmare waiting to happen...

...There was one other curious effect that occurred when using the graviton wave drive: the localized distortion of gravity seriously impaired a Battlestar's sensor suite, which was why the drive was only used in very narrow circumstances...

Kostos licked his lips. "Disengaging graviton wave drive in...Five...Four...Three...Two...ONE! OFF!".....

And the Medusa returned to normal motion...an even twenty thousand metrons away from a Cylon Baseship.

*****

"By Your Command."

"Speak, Centurion."

"a battlestar has come out of gravitic drive six point six-six range units distant from us."

"Open..."

*****

"...FIRE!", Cyrus shouted, as the bridge deck exploded into motion. "All batteries fire at will! Main battery, fire when ready! Helm, accelerate to flank, and get us below his belly! Vipers, engage those Raiders!"

Amid the din of assents, the Medusa's main engines roared, driving the huge vessel forward on a down-angle, as her tertiary and secondary batteries concentrated their fire on the Baseships' mid-point.

Deep in the bowels of the ship, switches snapped open as capacitor banks reached their maximum loads; when all of the main batteries' capacitor banks reached full charge one half of a micron later, a different set of switches closed in unison, dumping the full might of electrical energy - enough to power the Colonial Capitol for a year using every electrical circuit at full capacity - into the main guns' primer units.

As the energy flowed, it ignited the second-stage of the main guns' operating system: a pair of massive magnetohydrodynamic generators, each capable of powering a large city for a dehcon for a days' operation, fired - driving power into the massive ionizing lasers...and the main particle accelerator bus.

A pair of massive laser bolts, each a metron in diameter, flashed into the Basestar's under-side; the laser beams did not damage the Baseship by them selves...but the violent, cyan-colored bolts of human-made lightning sliced into the Baseship's superstructure, ravaging entire decks, and destroying huge banks of energizers.

[WarMachine]

Part 6, cont'd

As the beams tore into the Baseship's structure, internal weapon and fuel stores ignited hurling enormous fireballs into space, the Medusa's Strike Wing engaged the Raiders that had cleared their launch bays.

Normally, the Cylons could count on at least a three-to-one advantage in Raider-vs-Viper combat, but this time, it was almost one-to-one; the Cylons never stood a chance. The fight was over in less than three microns. Then, the Vipers began to turn towards the Baseship...

Cyrus saw the turn begin on his monitor. "StriCom! Disengage from the Baseship! I repeat: disengage! Head planet-side, and engage targets of opportunity."

Antipadre's voice, almost unidentifiable, came over the speaker, "Copy, Core Command. All wings - break and roll..." The Vipers accelerated away from the battling giants, heading down towards the surface of Virgon.

Medusa's main battery fired again, this time cleaving deep into the bowels of the Baseship. The violent beams of energy reached the Baseship's reaction chamber, and easily ripped through its containment walls.

In a blinding flash of light, the containment vessel breached, converting the huge Baseship into jagged pieces of equipment, most smaller than a Viper. A cheer went up all over the Medusa's bridge.

Down in the Pit, however, Senior Flight Controller Artemisia saw something that alarmed her. "Break, break, break! Command plot!," she yelled into the din; standing and turning towards the high deck, she waved frantically to get Hala's attention.

"ENOUGH!", Hala roared in the drill-master's voice that had made her feared at the Academy on Sagitarra; it stilled the cheering almost immediately.

"Commander," Artemisia said, "contact bearing two-seven-zero, mark negative twenty, distance two light-microns and closing very fast! Sir, it is under graviton acceleration - our normal sensors are not able to identify the contact; optical sensors are trying to resolve with the Warbook now!"

"Any idea of size?", Cyrus asked.

"Whatever it is, Sir, it's at least twice our size."

Cyrus and Hala stared at each other. "You don't think...", he said.

Hala shook her head. "No, it couldn't possibly be. That thing is a museum piece - hell, it _is_ a museum..."

***** *****

VIRGON CITY

Abraxus was not overly surprised when the Baseship's transmission ceased; there had been a steady under-signal that told him that a Battlestar had suddenly appeared. When the Baseship's transmission suddenly cut off, Abraxsus knew what was coming next.

As some units' internal comm units were offline to conserve power, Abraxsus sent via external communicator: "order to all units: find overhead cover, and prepare for attack by colonial viper attack ships. all units cease transmissions for zero-point-seven time cycles and power down all unnecessary equipment. command unit out."

Suddenly, one of the localized motion sensors in Abraxsus' back sent an alarm to his second, logic-heavy brain, warning him that a human-sized target was moving behind him...

*****

[WarMachine]

Part 6, cont'd

Kendra had gotten a position as a museum technician at the University of Virgon three yahren before the Cylons came. It was a lucky break for her, engineered by a sympathetic professor who understood her blunt willingness to thwart Colonial social mores. One night's indiscretion with a young Warrior who, by all accounts, really did intend to be sealed with her upon his return, was no reason to terminate a pregnancy or send a child to an orphanege. The fact that the young Warrior never came back from Molokay was neither the fault of Kendra nor of her child.

Professor Gormley had been so kind, and so frighteningly apologetic the morning when he had turned the corner, and slammed into Kendra - only just coming from the doctor's office after learning that Shane's and her child would be born unsealed - sending both of them to the floor; that had been too much, and she had fallen apart right there.

Gormley, the poor man, was so distraught he had gently taken her back to his office, and gave her a cup of javala and listened to her story, and how she would not give up her child, even though she had no way of supporting her.

After asking some questions about her background, Gormley had called the Adminstration office, and informed them that he had hired a new assistant technician...

Kendra's family, of course, had disowned her; Shane's family, on Gemon, were sympathetic and even willing to take them in, but his father was forthright in telling her that life on Gemon was usually harsh; they sent a small amount of money(huge, by the standards of Gemon's desert clans) every quarter-yahren and, most importantly for Kendra, entered Miriam's name and parentage into Gemon's Register, instantly legitimizing her.

It had turned out to be a good two yahren, overall, and was looking better each day.....

Until the Cylons came.

Gormley had been killed in the first wave; she had had no word of Shane's parents for the last sectar; in fact, she only heard of President Adama's call for refugees to flee in anything that flew by word of mouth -- after the last transports had lifted.

Then - and only then - she had wept bitterly.

She and Miriam were trapped in the city when the Cylons established control over it, and had been hiding in the museum's basement ever since. Once, while scrounging for food amid the rubble like a boray, she had found a destroyed Cylon; she had taken its laser rifle, not realizing that there was a tracking chip built into it.

The Cylons were able to track the weapon's movements, but assumed that it had been lost; there was no time, and too few mobile units, to track down every wayward weapon.

Kendra had watched and listened over the last several sectars as the Virgonian Home Guard mounted repeated attacks on the Cylon perimeter; they always failed, but there fewer Cylons after every attack, and the attacks kept coming. Slowly, she saw that the Cylons were being pushed into an ever-smaller perimeter.

That morning, she had dared to venture out of their basement hide; they would be out of food in two days, and she had to find more. She had been terrified when the Cylon vehicle had rolled up, and had hidden in a pile of rotting garbage.

She had been even more terrified when the VHG atmo fighters roared in, trying to destroy the vehicle; it was damaged, and several Cylons had exited the damaged vehicle...One of them was different from every other Cylon she had ever seen: this one had armor that was a burnished-auric color...

When she heard its order to take cover from Viper attack, Kendra knew - right then - that destroying _that_ _one_ Cylon was more important than anything else, more important than even little Miriam...

Kendra rose out of the pile of garbage, and pointed her captured laser rifle at the Cylon's back.....

*****

Abraxsus whirled, lightning fast, the gyroscopic compensator in his backpack power booster spinning wildly, countering the change in his center of gravity.

As he came to a stop, he saw a dimunitive human armed with a Model 5 Rifle...

...There was a bright fl...

*****

Kendra was shocked at the speed with which the Cylon had turned on her; instinctively, she jerked the trigger; the rifle, which had been aimed at the Cylon's midsection, angled upward slightly. The shot, instead of going into Abraxsus' midsection, sent its bolt straight into the middle of his visor-band, blowing his head into a shower of chromic confetti.

The other four Cylons turned at the shot, looking for the target that had killed their lead unit. Kendra, seeing this, panicked, and began jerking the trigger frantically, swinging the muzzle back and forth, levered to her waist, screaming hysterically the whole time - she was on strictly animal instinct, by then.

The Model 5 Rifle, Energy, was a simple, relaible weapon, used by the Cylon Empire for nearly two hundred yahren, by Colonial reckoning. It even had a limited auto-fire capability, but every Cylon Centurion was programmed not to overload the rifle's beam generator.

As Kendra frantically jerked on the trigger, the rifle built up far more heat and static charge than it had been designed to take; eventually, two microns later, it could take no more, and exploded in a shower of sparks.

The blast, tiny as such things went, was more than enough to knock Kendra to the ground...but only for an instant. Just as quickly, she was up an drunning for her life, screaming all the way, fully expecting to be shot in the back at any micron.....

*****

High above, Captain Khufu pushed his Viper's nose almost straight down, and zeroed in on the command-level Cylon transmission near Virgon's Museum Library District.

His veteran eyes quickly spotted the likely source of the transmission - a Cylon command track. There were several figures standing outside of it; the bomb crater nearby spoke of why it wasn't moving. He switched on his gun-camera, and focused on his optic reticule - this kind of precision work couldn't be done with a remote unit.

All of this happened in less than two microns. As he pressed the firing stud, his brain registered a sudden whirl of laser-weapons' fire next to the vehicle, followed by one figure running away.

Khufu, pulled his shot just enough to have the two bolts from his Viper's cannons slam into the forward section of the vehicle, destroying it completely. He then did something that was strictly banned by the Colonial Military.

Many yahren before, Khufu had spent two yahren on the Colonial Warrior Academy's Aero-Astrobatics Team; they flew specially-modified Vipers in aerobatic displays on various Holidays all over the Colonies. None of their maneuvers were supposed to even be attempted by regular Viper pilots.

Rather than pull out of his dive, Khufu rammed his stick forward, bringing the Viper's engines end-over-end until the top of his cockpit was facing the ground; he then snap-rolled 360° on his long axis in a reverse corkscrew, while hammering his inertial compensator up over 120% power; this brought him to a near-dead stop, upside-down, with the Viper's nose pointing onto the reverse-course of his previous direction of travel. He gently nosed the Viper downwards again, getting another camera shot of the fleeing figure; after a brief micron, he backed off power to the inertial compensator, and shot forward, rolling himself upright, then jinking low and left, weaving through the wreckage of Virgon City, hunting for targets.....

[WarMachine]

Part 6, cont'd


ABOARD THE ATTACK TRANSPORT MYRMIDON

THE YAHREN 7348, 19th Day of B'Kra

PLANET CANCERIA, THE COLONIES OF MAN

Commander Marius watched the tracks of his reinforced Viper squadron as it streaked planet-ward. He knew from long experience that the Cylons would be severly lacking in response capability without Basestar support.

He'd had Gold Squadron, mostly Cancerian themselves, fly top cover for Krait Squadron; they would deal with any Cylon Raiders that got airborne, and would be out of Krait's way; Marius was a firm believer in the concept that pilots either flew close-support or air superiority; trying to do both was a bad idea.

Marius tried very hard to maintain his professional detachment. Canceria might not be home, but he had grown to adulthood on Gemon watching Canceria rise at sunsdown.

Although he knew it to be completely irrational, he felt guilty to be alive.

"Captain Zavala," he said, to his Bridge Control Officer, "Colonel Ashoka, please."

"Yes Sir," Zavala replied. A pause. "Colonel Ashoka, Sir."

Marius nodded. "Colonel?", he said into his headset.

"Sir," came the emotionless reply.

"Colonel - land the landing force."

"Land the landing force, aye." A series of clicks, followed by a general push. "All landers, proceed to STOMP."

There was no reply from the thirty-six combat-assault shuttles, simply acceleration, as they began their rapid descents behind their force of covering Vipers following their prearranged "Ship To Objective Maneuver Plan".

The 47th was one of the oldest Colonial combat units in continuous service; they had been formed as one of the first one hundred infantry battlegroups the Colonies had recruited following Unification, over two millenia before. Up until the Destruction, the 47th had been one of the Top Ten ground units, in seniority.

Very shortly, Ashoka reflected darkly, they would be the only unit.

Within the thirty-six combat landers, over thirteen-hundred Colonial Infantry sat in silence. Normally, there would be a great deal of gallow's humor; it was a tradition of Colonial Infantry for hundreds of yahren. Now, they sat in morbid silence, knowing that they would be assaulting a Home World - something never done in Colonial history.

What was worse, they knew, was that it was only a holding action; they would never again come back here...and those unable to make it to the limited seats on the ships woudl be at the mercy of whatever Cylon forces showed up behind them.

*****

PLANET CANCERIA
VIKRAM CITY PORT, LOCAL MIDDAY
19th Day of B'Kra

As the lander group passed through the stratosphere, Ashoka keyed the mic again. "Battle Lead to Hammer One: Feet dry...Grainy." This told the Myrmidon that they were through the stratosphere with no losses.

It appeared that the Cancerian Defense Groupments had hammered the Cylons hard; the region around Vikram City, Canceria's capitol, was littered with the remains of Cylon Raider craft. The antique CDG artillery was now firing in place, not bothering to shift position after every shot, as Krait squadron strafed the Cylon perimeter forts at the spaceport relentlessly.

As the combat landers roared low over Vikram City, Ashoka was able to see on the monitor feeds how the dirty, hungry CDG troops were cheering wildly.

Poor bastards.

There was very little Cylon groundfire as the landers grounded inside the port's fenceline. Before the blast-wash from their retro-burners had settled, ramps thumped on the ground, and Chimera battle-sleds rumbled out, swivelling their multiple laser cannons about, searching for targets.

Close behind them, hunched over to make themselves as small of a target as possible, came the Colonial Infantry teams; the teams spread out in their six-person groups quickly and raced for any cover at all, as the combat landers boosted, lasing anything that looked like a Cylon position, groping for altitude.

Each infantry team was built around a large weapon, either a single-shot laser(called the 'Can Opener', it fired a laser bolt of the same strength as a Viper's cannon; it was designed to kill armored vehicles with a single shot), or a heavy, rapid-fire laser for use against massed Cylon infantry(the 'Splat Gun', from the sound it made when firing). Those grunts who wielded these powerful weapons were armed with laser pistols, in case things got too close.

The other troops were armed with the Mark XX laser rifle. Standard equipment for over a hundred yahren, the 'Deuce' was a little over a metron long, and weighed two kilons. Capable of scrapping a Cylon at line-of-sight out to two kilometrons, it also had a stun setting for use in crowd control(which had been used rather more often than it should have been by planetary security forces).

All of the weapons had what looked like a second, shorter barrel underneath; this was an electro-mag grenade launcher: a stubby grenade, sixty millimetrons across and eighty long, was muzzle-loaded into the launcher; when the trigger was pulled, a huge electrical charge was dumped onto a reaction plate whose negative side faced the grenades' negatively-charged base. The recoil was terrible, but it worked: a Solenite-loaded round would tear a Cylon battletrack to shreds.

Even though their helmets contained line-of-sight radio-lasers, the troops of the 47th's Assault Group maneuvered in near-total silence, broken only by the explosions of breath from heavy exertion, and the occasional shot. To the uninitiated, it appeared as with the troops were waving to each other; it was actually a complex, one-handed sign language...very few of the 47th's troops - all of them in the follow-on support groups - were in their first fight.

The veteran infantry of the Assault Group swept into the port's ruins, their ash-colored uniforms melding with the surrounding stone and ferro-crete; what few Cylon Centurions were left were cut down ruthlessly. After a little over a centar, all teams reported no resistance...only then did Ashoka respond to the CDG unit leaders' plea's for information...

[WarMachine]

Part 6, cont'd

THE YAHREN 7348, 21st Day of B'Kra

ABOARD THE BATTLESTAR MEDUSA

PLANET VIRGON

The Medusa cruised in concert with the Celebration-class liner "Unification Day" and host of twelve other, much smaller craft. The ships of the Celebration-class was easily the Medusa's size, and then some, but would never be mistaken for military vessels: they were covered in large armorglass portholes and viewing windows, and were all a burnished, off-white color.

Under other circumstances, Cyrus thought that they would make an impressive and moving site: fourteen stately ships cruising through space like debutants at Unification Day gala...

Presently, he was just worried at how he could make them less of a target.

What stuck in Cyrus' mind was the ship that he had dispatched the day before to the outer planets. The Avalon was the very first Battlestar ever built by the Colonies. An absolute, ungainly monster, when compared to the two-generations-later Columbia class, her mass was nearly four times that of the Medusa.

Nearly a thousand yahren old, she had been kept - theoretically, at least - in sailing trim as a testament to Colonial engineering; of her four landing bays, only one had been converted to handle the Viper Mk II(Colonial flight cadets used it as a remote landing platform); the other three were still configured to handle the nearly-ancient Python Attack/Fighter...which was quite fortunate, considering the other surprise that Cyrus had gotten.

Gold Star Transtellar's Master Engineer, the man in charge of Gold Star's asteron graveyard, had turned out to be Hephaestion - one-time Chief of Engineering Instruction at the Colonial Warrior Academy on Gemon; Cyrus had not had him as an instructor, but he had certainly heard of him; Pelops regarded him as nearly God-like.

Hephaestion had apparently left the Academy under a cloud(a rumor of an affair with a Libran Siress), and had gone to work for Gold Star ten yahren before; he had dropped almost completely out of sight since then.

Hephaestion had, according to his account, contacted President Adama on Fleet CommLine Alpha as soon as the Gold Star base detected the Galactica in-system; Adama had dispatched as many fuel and maintencance ships as could be spared to help him get the ships back online.

What no one but Hephaestion knew at the time was what he had been doing for Gold Star: in an attempt to lease them to the Colonial military for out-system support, one of the Celebration liners had been turned into a massive hospital ship; the other liner had been gutted, and turned into a strange kind of carrier-ship - capable of launching an entire strike wing simultaneously, its sixty-four launch "chambers" were capable of launching anything up to a shuttlecraft in size. In a radical departure for warship design, it had a single landing bay that ran down the centerline of the ship, into its superstructure; Hephaestion had installed a heavy battery of tertiary-grade lasers as point-defense for the landing bay's entrance. Counting the landing deck, the ship devoted a total of four decks to parking and smallcraft launch - it was able to comfortably house nearly three hundred fighters.

His other project had been upgrading a group of old Python class fighters. These had been given engines equal to a Viper, and a much heavier firepower battery - it fired slower than its newer cousin, but had a better chance of destroying its target with a single shot. In addition, the Python was more intended for atmospheric combat, rather than combat in open space, the Viper's specialty.

When he receieved Cyrus' orders, Hephaestion had sent one liner to each Colony, "escorted" by a number of Pythons, most of them on auto-pilot, controlled by a Flight Controller on board the liner; Hephaestion reasoned that there were plenty of pilots planet-side who could fly the Pythons(their controls weren't that different from a Viper's), so sending them was a good idea.

Cyrus had sent Commander Dansen and the Avalon into the outer system to help out; they had a number of pilot-trainees, and - according to Colonel Brandt, head of the Command Academy's Strategic Planning Staff(who had been inspecting the facility at the time of the Cylon attack) - several experimental Viper models salvaged from a secret research facility(there was apparently some tension going on between the two officers abourd the Avalon - Dansen could be...problematic...at times - but Cyrus decided to sort it out later).

In the meanwhile, Cyrus had ordered his total force of one hundred fifty-one Vipers to split into eight-Viper flights, and head out to each Colony to cover the liners; he kept strike wings of about 26 Vipers with both the Medusa and the Myrmidon. Those small numbers were dangerously small, but unavoidable...

...but then, Cyrus had long ago determined to forgo a quiet life.....

*****

PLANET LEO

Evan's legs were cramping; the weight of his backpack was dragging him down. He tried desperately to readjust his grip on the bridge girder silently; the Cylon patrol was too close.

There was a high-pitched whine, followed by the sound of the Cylons above him running and boarding their vehicle. Looking upriver, he saw the reason: a fighter was bearing down on the mag-lev rail line, preparing to strafe the bridge to destroy the vehicle.

Frak, he thought. His options were pretty slim. Oh, well he thought, at least I tried.

He hoped the water beneath him was deep...

*****

Pelladon had found his calling. He was always confused in space combat, and could only barely hold his own. But down in an atmosphere, he seemed to excel.

As he jinked through the clouds in the upper-kilometrons, his sensors picked up a Cylon communication. He dialed in its location without looking as he banked and rolled, and swept down under the cloud layer, over the approaches to the verdant plateau and resort lake where the refugee landers were operating from.

Fifteen kilometrons ahead, he spotted a maglev railway bridge spanning the cobalt-blue river below; some part of his brain babbled on about how the river was called the Bug, and how that had to be some silly and suitably ancient Leonian dialect. Through his real-picture scanner, he saw that in its center rested a Cylon scout track, several tin-heads milling around it. Presently, he realized that he had been spotted, as the Cylons began moving back to their vehicle, and the tracks' anti-air cannons began to swivel onto him.

Pelladon smiled grimly. Not today, he thought, as his thumb caressed the firing stud...and lifted off after only one bolt, as a figure dropped away from the bridge's underside, falling into the river ten metrons below.

Frakfrakfrak, Pelladon thought; he gave little thought to the now-burning Cylon track. He keyed his mic. "Falcon Five to Down-Base: hold the next rail transport - there's a burning Tin-Head track in the middle of the Bug bridge...also, I think we have a friendly in the water - he might appreciate a towel..."

And with that, Pelladon pulled back on his stick, and soared back into the clouds, returning to his hunt.

End, Part 6

[WarMachine]

Part 7

THE YAHREN 7348, 26th Day of B'Kra
PLANET LIBRA
SICILIARA PORT

The last shuttles were preparing to boost. The Viper patrol from the Medusa, in concert with the surviving Vipers, Pythons and ground units of the Libran Royal Guard, swept the skies and the near-planetary orbits over Libra's Northern Archipelago, destroying any Cylon Raider that attempted to approach the evacuation point.

Twelve-hundred kilometrons to the south, the Libran Royal Navy (one of only two "wet" navies in the Colonies, the other being from Aquarion) shook out its lines to fight its first real naval battle in two thousand yahren. The Libran Royal Government had maintained the Fleet in fighting trim - at very great expense...to the derision and protest of some other Colonies - with a series of realistic exercises, a "Naval Olympiad" where prizes were awarded to the Best Ship/Crew, Best Flotilla, and Best Fleet (there were a total of six Fleets in the LRN).

Now, they were fighting for real.

Command Centurion Bortais knew that he had to interdict the evacuation taking place in Libra's northern island chain. The Cylons were unaccustomed to fighting a naval battle; most of the races that they conquered did not have a well-developed sea presence, and the Cylons could always count on orbital fire support.

Now, they were directly fighting a professional, wet-navy fleet -- and one that had taken the LRN Victory Chalice for ten straight yarhen.

When the initial ground invasion of Libra had commenced, most of Libra's wet-navy had been in port -- and had died there. But the Seventh and Tenth Fleets had been at sea; Admirals Rostov and Kanto had a long, if friendly, rivalry; both had pull at the Courts, and both drove their fleet's hard. The Cylons had levelled most of Libra's cities, and killed virtually every person in all four of the Royal Families. When President Adama had called on whoever could flee to do so, the Seventh and Tenth had stepped up their attacks on the Cylon beachhead's; both Rostov and Kanto reserved their main weapons for a decisive blow...a blow that never presented itself.

Until now.

The Cylons were unable to maintain any sort of reliable scouting screen, as once down in the bottom of a gravity well, their Raiders' speed did not compensate for the increased atmospheric drag. The LRN's antique 'Cutlass' atmospheric fighter-bombers stood off the Cylons advancing screen of hovercraft, firing decoy drones at the advancing Cylon ships. The flat, disc-shaped craft had launched from submersible carriers, that only surfaced long enough to launch, refuel and rearm the aircraft. Because of the Cutlass' "low-aspect wing" design, it only required a ten metron takeoff roll.

Presently, a second wave of Cutlasses roared in at wave-top level, the tips of their propellers cutting the water, clawing for firing positions. Although the missiles they carried were visually identical to the drones fired by the first wave, their warheads were real. Behind each missile's targeting nose-cap was a metallic tube a metron and a half long, filled with high explosive; wrapped around this tube, a scant ten centimetrons from the metal surface, was a dense coil of copetite electrical wire. Behind this was a massive capacitor, straining to contain the electrical charge within.

The second wave of Cutlasses screamed to within twenty kilometrons of the Cylon flotilla - composed of a few surviving frigates, but mostly commandeered civilian pleasure craft, armed with ad-hoc weapons - before launching their payloads. Fifty-eight missiles roared to life and leapt from their launch rails.

As had the other volleys of drones, the war missiles hurtled forward at transsonic speeds; the Cylons emotionlessly tracked the missles, and prepared to fire...and were taken by surprise when the missiles, after a scant five kilometrons, suddenly veered straight up, and soared into a vast, arcing sweep. When the missiles reached their apogees, their guidance systems flipped them nose-first, pointing directly at the oncoming Cylon flotilla -- in unison, the casings on each of the fifty-eight missiles split open like the petals of a flower, forming a concave, parabolic shield around the explosive-laden metallic tube; as the petals locked in place, the capacitors dumped their charge into the copetite coils - a split-micron later, the relatively slow dual-stage chemical explosive detonated, shattering the metal tube and causing a rolling short-circuit as the destroyed metal severed the electricity-laden copetite wires.

The result was a series of massive, overlapping electromagnetic pulses -- pulses strong enough to disrupt Cylon electronics.

Normally, all Cylon equipment was well-shielded against detonations; this time, however, the limted shielding available to the individual units was overwhelmed by the pulsing EMP fields, as the salty water magnified the strength of the rolling current. Still, it was not enough to destroy the Cylons' systems -- merely enough to "stun" them.

Eighty metrons below the oceans' surface, fifteen very different warships tracked the Cylon flotilla as it cruised northward. Each vessel was about half the size of a Battlestar's landing bay, and was coated with a thick layer of concrete; for all the Cylon sensor's knew, they were merely large undersea rocks.

As the waves of EMP swept over the Cylons' systems, causing the individual combat units to "fade out" temporarily, hatches on the fifteen submarines snapped open; huge rocket-propelled torpedos, each over a metron in diameter, soared through the water, to explode twenty metrons below the Cylon flotilla's keels.

Following the path of least resistance, the massive two thousand kilon charges of Solenite displaced and compressed a truly huge volume of water, that proceeded to travel towards the surface at several times the speed of sound.

Most of the Cylon fleet sank immediately, their keels broken; those that did not sink were killed by a second wave of torpedos fired as the rock-hulled submarines roared away from the battlezone, driven by magnetically-pumped waterjets.

Soon, the waters settled over the Northern Ocean of Libra...and far below, the Seventh Fleet of the Libran Royal Navy counted its losses, and headed to new staging areas.

*****

SICILIARA PORT
NORTHERN ARCHIPELAGO

"NO!" the well-dressed woman screamed. "I won't leave you!" Silent tears began to roll down from her eyes.

"My love, you have to. Cherish what we had, however short the time..."

"Damn you!" she shouted. "How can you not understand?! If I can't have you, I don't WANT my life!" The tears came freely, now.

The graying Warrior gently caressed the woman's cheek. "You would not have me for very long, in any case, My Heart; you know that. There are not enough radion drugs left to cure me, and I won't take what there is away from someone younger, with a full life ahead of them."

The woman was weeping uncontrollably. The Warrior started to signal the woman's valets to get her aboard the small exectutive shuttlecraft, when she suddenly lunged, throwing herself onto him and clinging to him. He allowed it only for a moment, then gently lifted her away. "Please," he whispered, "don't make this any harder than it already is. Go. Your people need you."

"But I need *you*..."

"You are stronger than you know; he was a fool to drive you away. Whatever else happens, you *must* survive -- the blood of all four Royal Houses flows in you, and our people need you. There will be more losses, and if we are to survive as a distinct people, the core concept of the Libran State must continue. *You* are the only one who can do that."

The woman straightened slowly. She slowly tucked the strands of her still-black hair into some semblance of coiffure, then wiped the worst of the tear streaks from her eyes. "Duty is as a mountain..." she said.

The Warrior's gaze was steady. "And Death, a feather. Go, My Heart. Remember me."

Her gaze held him; he drank in the site of her. "For as long as the God's grant me life, I will remember you, Stilocar."

Slowly, she turned and, head held high, walked onto the executive shuttle. Only when the shuttle boosted, leaving the landing field a speck, did she withdraw into the shuttle's office space...she did not come out until the shuttle docked with the "Royal Sovereign", the liner assigned to Libra. Her face showed no trace of the tears, only a stone-hard countenance...

Far below, the gray-haired Warrior called Stilocar watched the shuttle disappear into the clouds. When it was completely out of sight, he turned to the officers waiting a respectful distance away, and began issuing orders.

The pain in his stomach, he knew, was not from the parting; but it would not kill him before he had laid his plans for the Cylons. Libra had once been a warrior-tribe, and their ancestors had prepared for a day like this one.....

***** *****

[WarMachine]

Part 7, cont'd

PLANET CANCERIA
VIKRAM CITY PORT

There were twenty-seven of them. Ashoka sighed inwardly. His Command Sergeant had told him, but he hadn't believed it, until he saw them standing together in a clutch in the shadow of a hanger. Can this nightmare get any worse? he thought.

Sergeant Anders was their apparent leader. Aerian; twenty-nine yahren old, going on seventy. Ashoka had personally recommended him for the Gold Cluster after his defense of a forgotten hill in a windswept valley on a nearly-barren planet light-yahren from here. By the time reinforcements arrived, he had been hand-to-hand with the Cylons, wielding a steel-headed maul against them...

Now he stood, facing Ashoka, his face unreadable.

Ashoka paused only a moment. "Get on the boat, Sergeant."

"I'm sorry, Sir. I can't oeby that order."

Ashoka paused, not trusting his voice for a moment. "Anders - son, this is crazy. You realize that you're committing suicide?"

Anders sighed, and shifted his weight to his other foot. "Maybe, Sir...Maybe you're right. But I've been - we've been - Grunts since we became Warriors. There's not a lot we can do up there," - he jerked his eyes upwards - "but down here, we can keep on hurting the Cylons. There are a lot of people here, Sir, and a lot of caves. What leaders are left were at least the smart ones. Get out there, Sir - find help, rebuild, whatever, and come back here. Maybe our kids will meet yours on top of a Cylon junk pile."

Ashoka was nearly in tears, but knew full well that he couldn't show it, not now. He looked at the men and women behind Anders. "and you all feel the same way?" Slowly, all of them nodded, their eyes steady.

Ashoka looked Anders in the eye. "Hurt them," he said. "I give you - all of you - my word: We will come back to this place, if not me, then my children." Ashoka turned, and strode away, not trusting his self-control any longer.

His Command Sergeant watched him silently as he approached alone. "Orders, Sir?" he said after a moment, his voice steadier than his eyes.

"Call the last shuttle with infantry supplies that we salvaged from the Depot."

"Yes, Sir?"

"Have them turn around and dump the gear on the flight-line, and load a last load of refugees."

"Sir. And Sergeant Anders and company?"

"List them as being on detached duty."

"Yes, Sir."

[WarMachine]

Part 7, cont'd

***** *****

PLANET VIRGON
ABOARD THE LINER "UNIFICATION DAY"

Kendra kept her backpack sandwiched between her knees, Gormely's sample case in front of it, as Miriam slept in her lap, waiting in the corridor for her interview. She had seen many terrible things since getting to the spaceport two days after destroying the Cylon; she had not thought that Humans could be that depraved. She worried about what effect the scenes of violence among
humans would have on Miriam.

Sitting in the hallway, she thought back on those two days.....

She had run blindly for what had seemed an eternity after destroying the Cylon. She had been certain that she would be shot in the back as she fled. When the blast from the Viper knocked he off of her feet, she had stared up at the craft as it spun and turned, and had unaccountably kept on running as it roared overhead.

She had fled into what had been a clothing shop, and hunched down in its back room, crying hysterically; she had never in her life been that frightened. After some time - she wasn't sure how long - she realized what a mess she was.

And *that* was suddenly a greater problem than anything else. She simply couldn't go back to little Miriam looking like that, especially empty-handed.

For a moment, she had sat completely still, and let her mind race over her situation; that was something Gormley had told her was a strength: she almost invariably made the right choice if given time to think about it.

There had been water leaking from a blown pipe; it was probably contaminated, but Kendra didn't care, by then. Finding some vanity cleanser bars in the shattered store, she stripped nude in the store's back room, and bathed as thoughly as she could. Her hair was atrocious, but there was little she could do about that. Scrounging some reasonably-intact clothing from the store, she spotted a childs toy stuffed daggit lying in the corner - it had been a promotional item from this
store's parent company, a line of clothing Kendra would never have been able to buy on her own.

Stuffing the toy daggit and a pair of wooly shawls into a large handbag from a rack, she finally faced her greatest fear: the store's cubit box. Kendra had never stolen so much as a graphite stylus in her life; taking food and clothing was simple survival, but taking cash was something else entirely.

Still, her mind worked in it's logical course: Most people had either been at home or at celebratory
gatherings when the Cylon attack came in; the only reason she and Miriam were alive was that Miriam had gotten fussy when she was dressing to leave for the office gathering, in fact. That, and the owner of this store was likely dead; and if they were still alive they, along with everyone else, probably had far more important things to worry about than a cubit box in a store they assumed was destroyed.

Next was the Viper that had knocked her to the ground: that meant that either the Galactica had returned - which she somehow thought was unlikely - or that another Battlestar was out there. Either way, there was a good chance that she and Miriam would be rescued...Which brought her to the fact that Colonial society was very money-driven, and likely always would be -- and she was looking at the cubit box from a high-priced store that hadn't been robbed in the confusion of the Cylon attack...and that across the street was a jewelry store that looked to be largely intact.

Kendra had been shocked at herself; when ahd she become a criminal boray? **When robotic killing machines came to kill you and you daughter, and everything and everyone you ever knew or cared about**, answered a strange voice.

*Where did -you- come from?* she had wondered.

**I've always been here** the voice answered, **I am a part of all people; some abuse me as an excuse, others use my Will to do good.**

*And that includes thievry?*

**When necessary.**

*What are you?*

**That part of you that put Miriam to bed without a full belly four nights in a row, even while she cried in her hunger, so that you could stretch the food out farther...while starving yourself to keep your child alive.**

After that, it had been easy. The voice, however, remined her not to enjoy it, and to always be ashamed of the necessity.....

...Which is how she ended up, sitting in an office corridor on a liner that she would never have
afforded, with a backpack full of stolen money and jewelry...

"Next?"

*****

Khufu was exhausted. He had been flying continuous combat patrols for nearly a secton, to the point that Doctor Xerkon had pulled him from flight status until he got some rest. Because Khufu had never been one to slack off, he had volunteered to assist the administrative processing staff aboard the "Unification Day" in interviewing the survivors coming aboard. Xerkon had grudgingly signed off on it, as the Unification Day's lounge was staffed and running, and would provide at least some distraction for the tired pilot.

It had been a long day. The Unification Day ran on Colonial Standard Time - the system used by the Colonial Military - but it was synched to the Gold Star asteron base; the transition was processing through, like everything else, and the lag was dragging him down.

There was a severe lack of military-grade administrators available to record and process the incoming survivors. They were being interviewed (in theory) as they came aboard every ship of the
assembling fleet, but processing what was rapidly turning into eighty-thousand souls was proving to be an overwhelming task.

Khufu had interviewed thiry-three people so far, that cycle. The interviews were all the same. Name? Place of birth? Date of birth? Last residence before the attack? Yes, terrible thing...Designation? Blahblahblah...His thirty-third interviewee got up.

"Next?" he called.

The woman was short and rather attractive. She was lugging a backpack and a sample case, and carrying a sleeping youngling in an improvised sling. She wasn't exactly well-dressed, but certainly not from the lower dregs. She nervously adjusted herself in the chair.

Khufu tried to smile, but didn't think it was veryconvincing. "Your name, Miss?"

"Uh...Kendra, daughter of Agon and Sarah." Kendra was a bit intimidated - the Captain before her was a Leonian and a Ra-ist, from his shaven head...she also found him very attractive.

"Your date of birth?"

"The fourth day of Shii, seventy-three twenty-five."

"Place?"

"Athena City, Virgon."

"Where were you living when the Cylons attacked?

"In a flat in District Twelve, Parish Eighteen. On Auric Street...Uhh, Captain?"

Khufu looked up; she was staring at his jacket, hung on a peg behind him. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry, but isn't that a patch from the Battlestar Medusa?"

Khufu's interest perked up; not many civilians were conversant with Battlestar insignias. "Yes, it is. Why do you ask?"

"Oh...I-I'm sorry," the girl stammered, "it's just that Miriam's father was aboard the Bucephalus..."

Khufu paused - no way, he thought. "What is his name?" he asked gently.

"Flight Sergeant Shane, from Gemon..."

Khufu thought for a moment. "Well, I don't recall the name, but all the surviving Buc pilots went into Falcon Squadron. Let me check..."

"Oh, it's alright; his family told me they were notified of his...death."

Khufu's fingers still punched keys on his computron, but his eyes narrowed a bit. "You weren't notified? That's standard practice, to notify spouses first."

"We-," she tried to meet his gaze and failed, "we were never sealed."

"I see...You knew his parents?"

She nodded. "After Miriam was born, I contacted his father on Gemon. Shane had told him that he intended to ask me when he returned from Molokay, but..."

"I'm sorry," Khufu said, "the Buc put up a good fight. And from what I can see, he's not on the roster of Falcon Squadron. What do you know of his family?"

"They tried to support me, sending me a little money every quarter-yahren, but I haven't heard anything since the attack."

"Well, it's possible that they either made it out with the Galactica, or on the new draft from Gemon. What are his parent's names?"

"Reynald and Mala; I'm not sure of their parent's names."

"I'll keep an eye open," he smiled. "What was your Designation on Virgon?"

"I was an assistant research and restoration technician at the University of Virgon; I worked in the Library District."

[WarMachine]

Part 7, Cont'd

Khufu paused, and looked carefully at the girl...there was something..."What were you working on at the time of the attack?"

Kendra smiled. "Drudgery, really. At least, I thought so at the time. We maintained holo-scans of historical materials, mostly manuscripts. When the attack happened, I was on my way to our offices' celebratory gathering. We managed to get into the Library's basement complex, where we had our office. Once I realized what was happening, I opened the safe, and removed our holo-chip files..."

Khufu sat, amazed. "And where are the files, now?" The thought of that much information saved, when so much had been lost...

Kendra smiled again, and toed the sample case at her feet. "I wouldn't be dragging this around if I didn't think it was important."

Khufu took a chance. "What were you doing two days ago?" he asked.

The girl paled visibly. "Uh...well...I...ummm...I-I'm sorry...I didn't mean to-to...", she stammered, tears welling in her eyes. "I was just out looking for food and the Cylons came and IhidinthegarbagethenIshottheCylonthentheVipercameandIranandweneededthemoney..." Tears were pouring down her cheeks, now, the little girl was awake and starting to cry at her mother's
distress.

"Stopstopstop," Khufu said, totally bewildered at the sudden change. "Whatever happened, I'm sure it's not something that can't be fixed. Now, you said something about shooting a Cylon?"

Kendra was miserable, trying to wipe at her tears, fearing that she would soon be in front of an Opposer; Ra-ists were generally straight-laced about proprieties and legalities. She *knew* she shouldn't have lisened to that stupid voice. "I was out looking for food, when I heard a Cylon vehicle coming. I hid in a pile of rubbish, and it stopped right in front of me, and some Cylons got out, but one was different..."

"Different how?"

"It was auric-colored..."

"Alright -- then what happened?"

"Well, the fighter came in and dropped a bomb, but it didn't hurt the Cylons, so I stood up and shot the auric-colored one..."

"Shot it with what?" Khufu was having a hard time believing it, but he was now convinced that this was the figure he had seen running away from the Cylon command track that morning.

"I'd found a destroyed Cylon in the rubble a few days before, and took its rifle."

"Alright...then?"

"Well, the other Cylons turned when I shot, and I just started pulling the trigger as fast as I could, and the rifle blew up, and then a Viper came and destroyed the vehicle, and I ran into a store, and...well..."

"Yes?"

She wouldn't look at him; she hugged the girl closer to her. "We needed clothes, and I thought we were about to be rescued, and I knew we'd need money, and there was a cash box..." She hugged the girl again, silent tears flowing down her cheeks.

Khufu stifled a laugh. The girl was certainly no criminal, and obviously had no idea of what was coming. He considered his options, and decided not to keep her on the edge...mostly.

"Miss," he said, mustering as much seriousness as he could, "are you a registered member of the Virgonian Home Guard?"

Kendra stared at him, wide-eyed. "Uh, no..."

"Well, then," he said, mustering every micro-gram of self-control, "we'll have to notify the proper
authorities."

Kendra nodded meekly, totally defeated. "I'll take those" Khufu said, picking up the case and backpack with one hand. "Come with me, please...Carlo?" he said to the admin supervisor, "I'm escorting this young lady up to Gamma Deck."

"Sure thing," Carlo said, "and try to get some sleep." Khufu jerked his head in reply, and slipped his headset in place. "Khufu to Security," he said quietly, "I'm en route to Gamma Deck, escorting."

"Copy," replied the security monitor, "I'll let the guards know."

"Thanks."

They walked through several corridors, until they came to a lift. Kendra tried to look down, as people stared at her in passing. This was truly then end, she thought; now she woulod lose everything...

The lift stopped and a voice from nowhere announced "Gamma Deck". Kendra was certain that it was the ships brig...a notion confirmed for her when she saw several armed guards in black uniforms waiting in the foyer. One of them spoke to the Warrior Captain. "Council matter, Captain?"

"Definately" came the reply. "If you have a micron, you might want to come in and witness it."

The guard shrugged, and looked at Kendra quizzically; she felt very small. "Sure," he said.

Khufu led her through the doorway...into a -- meeting chamber? There were several figures in the room, seated around an oblong table. With a start, she recognized several of them from newscasts on Virgon. Oh, Lords of Kobol, her mind wailed, I'm going to be tried right here.

"Captain?" one of the men asked.

"Sire Vladimir," Khufu said, "it would appear that we have a serious situation regarding this young woman, a situation that requires the direct attention of the Provisional Virgonian Council."

The men and women looked at each other in confusion; several of them were actually smiling. Kendra wanted to curl into a ball and die.

With a gleam in his eye, Sire Vladimir said, "Proceed, Captain," as gravely as he could.

Setting Gormley's sample case on the table, Khufu recounted Kendra's entire story -- leaving out the stores. Kendra was confused, until Khufu continued. "In sum, this young woman not only rescued a large portion of Virgon's Library, she very likely destroyed the Cylon Commander on-planet...and I have the gun-camera footage to prove it..."

The room erupted in thunderous applause. Kendra was like an ovine in a spotlight; she looked up at Khufu, who smiled down at her, and mouthed "Sorry - I couldn't resist..."

*****

COLONIAL HOME SYSTEM, 27th Day of B'Kra
IN TRANSIT
ABOARD THE HOSPTIAL SHIP "MERCY"

They were still unpacking a lot of salvaged equipment, but the Mercy's emergency ward was full; many people were still suffering from combat injuries and malnutrition-caused diseases.

The transfer from the Leo Flotilla was in critical condition. The unidentified young man had severe back injuries, multiple broken bones, several internal injuries and was in a coma. According the reports, the patient had landed hard in a river after a ten metron fall. He was lucky to be alive.

What bothered Doctor Jayna was not the patient's injuries, but the contents of his backpack; it
contained a battery-powered refrigeration unit, inside of which was a metal framework holding what appeared to be a small cube of fleshy material...it was also wrapped in prominently-worded biological hazard sealer.

Jayna had almost shot the package out an airlock-disposal, but decided against it, at least until they decided what to do with it, or until the young man woke up. With all of the bio-agents the Cylons had deployed against the Colonies, it might be something the young man had been working on.

Jayna regarded the young man in his cryo-bed. Under the bruises and bandages, he was quite handsome; Jayna would have been surprised if he had been more than an intern.

She turned away from the cryo-bed, sipped her strong and unpleasently-cool java, and turned back to her reports.....

***** *****

THE YAHREN 7348, 28th Day of B'Kra
COLONIAL HOME SYSTEM
JUMP TRANSIT POINT TO STAR HPY-8715


The relay ballute of the destroyer 'Blade' materialized at the Jump Point, oriented itself, and shot a tight-beam message to the Medusa, signalling that the system on the far side of the tramline was clear...for the moment.

Although it had eighty percent of a Viper's mass, the relay ballute looked nothing like a conventional craft. Basically a dodechahedral ball in shape, it was nothing more than a simple computer auto-pilot, a large-ish memory bank, a communications suite, a tiny Jump drive and a set of overly-powerful maneuvering thrusters. The relay ballutes' design had been standardized for three hundred yahren; it was just about as 'boiler-plate' as Colonial technology could make it, and there were tens of thousands in service all through what had once been the Colonial Frontier.

This time, however, the maintenance ship "Allodon" scooped the ballute into its bay; there would be no trace of the Fleet's passing.