Fields of Iron

8/6/2019 Fields of Iron

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Fields of Iron

A Battlestar Galactica Short Story

By Michael A. Cessna

2005 2010 Floating Badger Productions

Note: Battlestar Galactica, in all its forms, is variously copyrighted to Glen A. Larsen,

Universal Studios and certain other parties. No part of this product is for sale. No part of

this product may be reproduced without the express written consent of Floating BadgerProductions, the author, or the various copyright holders. This is a work of fiction. Any

resemblance to persons living or dead is unintentional.


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that there may yet be, brother of Man

Battlestar Galactica, 1978 Opening Narration


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CChhaapptteerr 11

EEssccaappeess

ABOARD THE BATTLESTAR PEGASUS

The Yahren 7346, Molokay System

Betrayed.

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

Cain was on the high platform of the Pegasus' bridge, looking over ColonelTolan'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 CylonEmpire; 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, acknowledged 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 thoughtbitterly. 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 topspeed, 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 topay for this...and I don't care how long it takes.

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

*****


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The battle was a forgone conclusion; the Cylon attack fleet was huge, the largestCain 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 roughlyparallel 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 onefourth of their Raider units back, protecting the Baseships.

That was golmonging strange; Cain could not recall such a thing ever having beenreported. The tactic was eerily similar to the Colonials' own practice.

Felgercarb. This was forcing him to commit the entirety of his Viper reserves topunch 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 totheir parent Battlestars - they are not to pursue Raiders out of range."

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

fleet screen in 3 centons.""Understood," Cain replied.

Frak.

*****

The bridge of the Pegasus was bathed in the blood red light from the battlelanterns; smoke coursed through the bridge the atmo-cycling system was barely

running. The Battlestars had all taken severe damage already...and had only just reachedthe Cylon line.

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

"All Battlestars have taken heavy damage, Sir," Tolan replied. "Pallas reports herAlpha landing bay completely destroyed; Bucephalus has fires out of control and burning

towards their main energizers; Medusa reports heavy damage to Beta landing bay, firesburning, 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,


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maintain course. Hurt them...And ready evasion slugs, if possible." An invention of his: itwould send out multi-spectral bursts of interference that should blind Cylon sensors long

enough for them to escape."Yes, Sir."

Ifthey could escape.

*****

Cain pressed his right hand harder against his temple, trying to hold the flap ofscalp 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!" Cainshook 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 thepain: 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 reported in all sections...""All auxiliary damage control personnel to their stations! Then set course for the

closest jump point...When you do that, tell me where it leads." Without waiting for areply, 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 andBucephalus are gone. Completely destroyed. We did not see theMedusa destroyed, but when the glare cleared, she was gone."

"Frak. Captain, I can't see over to Flight Control. Get hold of whatever Vipers areout 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 teamsbattled 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'sequatorial 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 thoseslugs worked; the Cylons don't seem to be pursuing."


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"Any sign of the Pegasus?""No, Sir...There was too much interference..." 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 ourown, and five from the Pegasus' Silver Spar squadron; the rest are about evenly split

between the strike wings of the Pallas and theBucephalus.""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 thedamage 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 thepilots, 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 magic on the engines.

*****

Pelops was a mess. He was covered head to toe in soot and grime, and he smelledof 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 havebeen a gleam in his eyes; now, there was nothing but exhaustion.

Cyrus waved his hand absently...Pelops resumed walking, and headed straight tothe 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 powerflickered in the main feed shoot."

Cyrus went through several emotions in a millicenton: anger that Pelops hadn'ttold 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 ifthey've been damaged."

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


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Pelops shrugged. "Three jumps, maybe four. Certainly no more than that...and theSickness 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..."

*****

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 intheir cockpits for twenty-five centars, by then.

As the Medusa withdrew from the slaughter above Molokay, Chief Pelopsconfirmed 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 thatheld 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 thepellets 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. Allof those known had been corrected save one.

In order for the Jump drive to function a Tylium fuel pellet, the size of a Triadball, 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 beenprimed with atomized Solium, where the Tylium and Solium were subjected to a series of

rapid and extremely strong graviton waves, generating a powerful displacement event viaa 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 introducerandom eddies and frequency shifts in the Jump coils, the transmitters that actually

transmitted and deployed the Field. The random fluctuations caused not only severephysical effects on living beings, they would also severely damage the Jump coils

themselves, eventually to the point of complete failure, where the coil segments' atomicstructure 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 durableand 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


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fuel pellets. There was a battery backup that was supposed to engage, but the power surgethat 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 enterthe 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 theMedusa.

It was much harder on the Viper pilots. Even by removing the surviving shuttlecraft 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 hadbeen 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 battle; there was too much to do, and too many wounded, so they slept in theircommand 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 fuzziness.Captains Antipadre and Khufu, the leaders of the Medusa's Dragon and Griffin

squadrons, respectively, never got more than four centar's sleep at a stretch, and theirpilots 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 SquadronLeaders 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 therewas 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 ofthe graving yard when she was assigned to the Fifth Fleet, and thus had the highest

proportion of cherry pilots.)TheBucephalus 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 Sparpilots totake 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 faithin the Fleet that anyone trained by Cain was fully capable of doing a job two places

above their current station.)

*****

Two days after the Medusa's first Jump away from Molokay, Cyrus held ameeting 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


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Viper and shuttle squadron and wing leaders, and Captain Rhade-ka, theMedusa's Chiefof Navigation.

With the exceptions of Captians Khufu, Rhade-ka and Eala (from the Pallas'Goldsquadron), 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 millennia ago.Eala, a Cancerian, was easily the most exotic; her ink-black hair fell in a massivecable-braid to below her waist (there was a rumor that she had had to have a helmet

specially made to accommodate it), and set off her deep chocolate complexion andstunningly blue eyes, common to almost all Cancerians.

Rhade-ka was from the tropical highlands of Virgon; short, slight and quiet, hewas 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 andexplosives engineer.

Khufu, a Leonian, shared his people's olive complexion and kept his head cleanlyshaven 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 traineeViper pilots through a bloody Cylon ambush.

After reviewing all divisions' current status, Cyrus had Pelops explain thesituation 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 Viperpilots should look out for.

Before anyone else could speak up, Rhade-ka asked Pelops, "So, how manyjumps 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 lookedmiserable except Cyrus and Pelops.

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

The ships' computer said "Confirmed." A blast-shield lowered over the portalbehind 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 theCouncil, 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, Idon'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 miniaturespacedocks. 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


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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 theMedusa.

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 makesure that your Warriors all understand that their messages will be carefully censoredbefore being allowed to be transmitted.

"Since the base in question is very small, it only has a small staff; we will have toperform 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 them had ever expected to see them. Theyquietly 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 angryabout 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 thatwe don't run into any real opposition en route to Hetaira Base."

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


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CChhaapptteerr 22

DDiissccoovveerriieess

FIVE JUMPS OUT FROM HETAIRA BASE

12th Day of Atun, Yahren 7348

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

The Medusa's survivors and the crew of Hetaira Base had worked long, hard

sectons to repair theMedusa's battle damage and the damage to the Jump drive caused bythe cracked Tylium fuel pellets. The Hetaira technicians had scrapped only fourteen ofthe 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 ofCommander, 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 haveagreed 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. Thewhole affair gave him a very bad feeling.

He had kept knowledge of the conference from everyone except Colonels Halaand Blaine (the commander of Hetaira Base), and Commander Marius of the Attack

Transport Myrmidon, the only other ship known to have survived the slaughter aboveMolokay.

The Myrmidon had dodged through an asteron field to get to a jump point, andhad come face to face with a Cylon Baseship which she had promptly destroyed with abarrage of concussion missiles, 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; shehad 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 similaritiesended there.

Looking for all creation like a pair of aquanities welded together by a massivebelt of armor, the Hoplon massed nearly three times as much as a Columbia and was

designed to land on a planetary surface. It was built to ferry up to three thousand combattroops, one hundred ground vehicles, a full squadron of thirty-two Viper fighters and


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thirty-six Mark X Assault Shuttles. It was also equipped with planetary bombardmentmissiles and nuclear space mines.

Cyrus was delighted to discover that the Myrmidon had survived; bringing herhome in train 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 maintenance 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 hisfault 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, Pelladonclose 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 anincoming tight-beam transmission from the limping ship.

As soon as Antipadre digested the message and recovered from the shock hetightbeamed it to theMedusa...

*****

In the cockpit of his Viper, Pelladon was nervously fiddling with switches and dials,

trying to decrypt the tightbeam he had received. Frak, felgercarb and mong, he swore tohimself. 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'sname 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. "Y-Yes, Sir," he managed to say.


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With that, Antipadre kicked on his turbos, and accelerated back along theSunfire'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 lasercannon 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 gottenhimself into.

*****

Aboard the Medusa, some four centars later, the senior staff met in the MainBriefing Hall, behind the bridge. In addition to theMedusa's officers, the senior members

of theMyrmidon's crew Commander Marius, Colonel Ashoka and Captains Inkatha andChun - were present, as were the Sailing Master of the Sunfire, Captain Doughal, and one

other. Tall and gray-haired, yet supple and lithe, the statuesque Aerian woman wore the

dark blue uniform of a Commander...with theMedallion of Kobol at her throat, signifyingthat 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 herappearance.

The gray-haired Commander/Councilor looked at the faces of the Warriors beforeher. 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 any

meaningful time; why the Jump Point Station there did not broadcast a signal isunknown, 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 ourWarriors were on furlon, and most of the ready-alert planetary defense squadrons were

holding celebratory gatherings...Needless to say, most of them did not even get airborneas the Cylon waves swept in."

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

"It would appear that a computer virus overwhelmed the Sagittaran DefNet just asthe 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 occurring on Virgon andCanceria."


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Eyebrows around the room went up at this, none more so than among the Virgonsand Cancerians present individuals among their people had served with distinction in

the Colonial military over the millennia, but no one would mistake those Tribes for beingwarlike.

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

"All dead, Commander. Of the Sitting Council, only Adama and his Galacticasurvived." She paused, to let that sink in. "Understand our defenses are wrecked, mostof our cities have been bombed flat, and the Cylons apparently have released a broad-

spectra variant ofPluton over all of the Colonies. With the exception of the Galactica, theMedusa, 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 LieutenantAshbahn.

"We don't," Siobhan replied, face grim. The room sat, stunned it was a deathsentence 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 anythingapproaching 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 dealwith any survivors."

She paused only for a moment. "That does not, however, mean that we have noplan. 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 escortingthem out-system with the Galactica. I was traveling directly to Hetaira Base to retrieve

the Medusa to try and lead out a second group we won't get a third chance. Adama hasan ultimate destination in mind, but he would not elaborate where that is. He and I agreed

to rendezvous 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 theMedusa 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 theincoming 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 protocolever devised by the Colonial military. If ithad been compromised..."We took a chance,


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and sent RelayNet messages encoded with a Cyan-Omega cipher to all of the remotebases 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 oursystems."

Cyrus sat back in his chair. "Very well, then. Medusa andMyrmidon will return tothe Home System and extract whatever civilians we can rescue, and escort them to

Hetaira Base. Do you have any further orders, Commander?""Councilor," 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 andmilitary duties - the Lords only know how but I can't.

"President Adama and I spoke of this, in fact." She paused, looking at thesurprised 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 werendezvous 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'sColonial 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, infavor of the senior Quorum. Questions?"

"What kind of ships will we be escorting, Siress uh, Madam President?" askedRhade-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 Transstellarmothballed its fleet ofCelebration-classliners; 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 tojustify 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 atmospheres released, their energizers have been drained and

demagnetized, and their fuel bunkers are empty. Several fuel and maintenance ships, likethe 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


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carry nine-hundred passengers and four-hundred crew in fair style, and they're rated forsix-thousand troops with equipment on short runs under military standards."

"So," Siobhan said, "fourteen liners, six fuel ships, four Solar-class maintenanceships 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 embraceeveryone at the table; they all lowered their heads. "My Children," she intoned, "may theLords 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 theyleft the room. Although neither publicized it, they were members of a heretical religious

order, the Church of the One Jewel. Despised even hated by many sectors of Colonialsociety, they maintained a tradition of history and science going back to Humanity's

beginnings...They, alone in the room, knewprecisely where Adama was going to try andgo...

...Because Adama was one of them.


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15

CChhaapptteerr 33

BBaattttllee

THE YAHREN 7348

19th Day of B'Kra/Cycle Count Number 5796384

BASESHIP 17062-14, SYSTEM HGX-99783

System HGX-99783 was so-named because it had no naturally habitable worlds;

by Human standards, it was dull, uninteresting, and not a place one visited by choice. Infact, the only humans who ever went there regularly were Warriors of the Colonial

military and various small-scale prospector-miners, trying to eek whatever meagergleanings 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 thesystem still floated, eternally, in the radiation-bathed open space of the system.

As the electronic haze that always accompanied Jump Transits sorted itself into areasonable pattern of reception, the IL-series Cylon Command Unit AGYX-78839/21

known colloquially as "Wraith" used his second brain to ponder the circumstances ofhis 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 tothat 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 ImperiousLeader, Wraith had modified his paired brains with remote memory chips and logic

processors; he had explained this to the Diagnostic Unit as an experiment he was runningon the effects of radiation on logic processors.

The overall effect of the additional hardware, he calculated, had given him ashortcut around the supposed necessity of a third brain, necessary to elevate one to the

level of Imperious Leader; Wraith idly pondered the possible effects of a fourthbrain...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 humaninfestation is proceeding on all system worlds according to plan...save two."

"Which two?""the worlds the humans call 'virgon' and 'canceria'."


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"Situation?""resistance is unexpectedly heavy...command centurion abraxus reports that his

forces are restricted to operations in the immediate vicinity of virgon city...commandcenturion aypep reports that he is under continuous 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 has 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 outyour previous orders, Centurion."

"By Your Command."Wraith rotated his command chair 180 without waiting for the Centurion to

depart, and silently signaled for the system plot to the next jump point, the one that wouldlead 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 andBaseships to deal with whatever forces still remained in human space...

But this report of the Galactica left an unresolved issue in his logic circuits. Datapoint: Galactica was known to be commanded by the human called Adama, the only

currently-serving human leader with real military experience. Data point: Planet Carillonwould 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-twocycles): 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 hehad just compared his own modifications to those of the Imperious Leader...he

immediately launched a diagnostic subroutine of his modifications). Again, Wraith wasunconcerned.

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

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

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

*****


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17

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 onhis command chair. "Launch control?"

The Flight Controller responded a moment late. "Sir?""Launch all Vipers."

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

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

As the Vipers of the Medusa's greatly enlarged Strike Wing launched, in concertwith those of theMyrmidon, Cyrus said to Hala, "Are we receiving 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 Starasteron 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; twoadditional liners and all maintenance and fuel ships will rendezvous with Myrmidon at

Canceria. System-wide broadcast: any vessel that did not leave with Galactica is toreverse 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. Weaponscontrol, stand by on electronic 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 theMedusa's forward viewport.Major Lysander, the Medusa's Bridge Control Officer, said "Yes, Sir."

Immediately after, the warning klaxons began to warble, signaling 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 theMedusa, the graviton wave generator began to spin.

As its revolutions increased, the Medusa began to generate its own gravity well. As thestrength of the well increased, Kostos introduced a "fixed wobble" effect; as he did so,

theMedusa began to accelerate, the 'bubble' of gravity pulling its attendant Vipers alonglike a school of fish.

Contrary to popular belief, the graviton wave generator did not move a vessel atsuperluminal velocity; other than the special case of the Jump Drive, the Colonies had

never been able to push a vessel beyond the speed of light under any kind of conventional


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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 thisplanet 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 cyclesago, 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, an 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 possibleover 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; his throat was desert-dry. "Disengaging graviton wavedrive in Five...Four...Three...Two...ONE! OFF!"...

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

*****


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"By Your Command.""Speak, Centurion."

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

"Open..."

*****

"...FIRE!" Cyrus shouted, as the bridge deck exploded into motion. "All batteriesfire 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 theirfire on the Baseships' mid-point.

Deep in the bowels of the ship, switches snapped open as capacitor banks reachedtheir 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 fullmight 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 alarge 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 themselves...butthe violent, cyan-colored bolts of human-made lightning riding them sliced into the

Baseship's superstructure, ravaging entire decks, and destroying huge banks ofenergizers.

As the beams tore into the Baseship's structure, internal weapon and fuel storesignited 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 achance. The fight was over in less than thirty 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 battlinggiants, heading down towards the surface of Virgon.

Medusa's main battery fired again, this time cleaving deep into the bowels of theBaseship. The violent beams of energy reached the Baseship's reaction chamber, and

easily ripped through its containment walls.


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20

In a blinding flash of light, the containment vessel breached, converting the hugeBaseship into jagged pieces of equipment, most of them 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 on

her chair 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 atthe Academy on Sagitarra; it stilled the cheering almost immediately.

"Commander," Artemisia said, "contact bearing two-seven-zero, mark negativetwenty, 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 aretrying 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; therehad 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 comingnext.

As some units' internal comm units were offline to conserve power, Abraxsus sentvia 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-seventime cycles and power down all unnecessary equipment. command unit out."

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

him...

*****

Kendra had gotten a position as a museum technician at the University of Virgontwo 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 socialmores. 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


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21

send a child to an orphanage. The fact that the young Warrior never came back fromMolokay was neither the fault of Kendra nor of her child.

Professor Gormley had been so kind, and so frighteningly apologetic the morningwhen 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 hisoffice, 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 herthat 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 forKendra, 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 parentsfor 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 overit, 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 itslaser 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 hadbeen 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, butthere 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 Cylonvehicle 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 todestroy 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 onehad armor that was a burnished-auric color...

When she heard its order to take cover from Viper attack, Kendra knew rightthen that destroying that one Cylon was more important than anything else, more

important than even little Miriam...


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Kendra rose out of the pile of garbage, and pointed her captured laser rifle at theCylon'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 diminutive 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 - she

was strictly on animal instinct, by then.The Model 5 Rifle, Energy, was a simple, reliable 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 couldtake no more, and exploded in a shower of sparks.

The blast, tiny as such things went, was more than enough to knock Kendra to theground...but only for an instant. Just as quickly, she was up and running 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, andzeroed 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


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23

spoke of why it wasn't moving. He switched on his gun-camera, and focused on his opticreticule 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, hisbrain 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 cannonsslam into the forward section of the vehicle, destroying it completely. He then didsomething that was strictly banned by the Colonial Military.

Many yahren before, Khufu had spent two yahren on the Colonial WarriorAcademy's Aero-Astrobatics Team; they flew specially modified Vipers in aerobatic

displays on various Holidays all over the Colonies. None of their maneuvers weresupposed to even be attempted by regular Viper pilots.

Rather than pull out of his dive, Khufu rammed his stick forward, bringing theViper'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 inertialcompensator 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 shotforward, rolling himself upright, then jinking low and left, weaving through the wreckage

of Virgon City, hunting for targets...

*****

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 itstreaked planet-ward. He knew from long experience that the Cylons would be severely

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 outof 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 badidea.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 atsunsdown.

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."


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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; simplyacceleration, as they began their rapid descent behind their force of covering Vipersfollowing their prearranged "Ship To Objective Maneuver Plan".

The 47th

was one of the oldest Colonial combat units in continuous service; theyhad been formed as one of the first one hundred infantry battle groups the Colonies had

recruited following Unification, over two millennia before. Up until the Destruction, the47

thhad 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 gallows humor; it was a tradition ofColonial 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 shipswould 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 werethrough the stratosphere with no losses.

It appeared that the Cancerian Defense Groupments had hammered the Cylonshard; 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 toshift 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, he thought.

There was very little Cylon ground fire as the landers grounded inside the port'sfence line. Before the blast-wash from their retro-burners had settled, ramps thumped on

the ground, and Chimera battle-sleds rumbled out, swiveling their multiple laser cannonsabout, searching for targets.


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Close behind them, hunched over to make themselves as small of a target aspossible, 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, lasinganything 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; itwas designed to kill armored vehicles with a single shot), or a heavy, rapid-fire laser foruse against massed Cylon infantry (the 'Splat Gun', from the sound it made when firing).

Those grunts that wielded these powerful weapons were armed with laser pistols, in casethings got too close.

The other troops were armed with the Mark XX laser rifle. Standard equipmentfor 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 astun 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 electromag grenade launcher: a stubby grenade, sixty millimetrons across andforty 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 thegrenades' positively-charged base, reversing the polarity. The recoil was terrible, but it

worked: a Solenite-loaded round would tear a Cylon battle-track 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 ofbreath 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 signlanguage...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 ferrocrete; what few CylonCenturions 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 forinformation...

*****

THE YAHREN 7348, 21st Day of B'Kra

ABOARD THE BATTLESTAR MEDUSA

PLANET VIRGON

TheMedusa cruised in concert with the Celebration-class liner "Unification Day"

and a host of twelve other, much smaller craft. The ships of the Celebration-class wereeasily 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 wereall a burnished, off-white color.


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Under other circumstances, Cyrus thought that they would make an impressiveand moving site: fourteen stately ships cruising through space like debutants at a

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. TheAvalon was the very first Battlestar ever built by the Colonies. Anabsolute, 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 insailing 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 remotelanding platform); the other three were still configured to handle the nearly-ancient

Python Attack/Fighter...which was quite fortunate, considering the other surprise thatCyrus had gotten.

Gold Star Transtellar's Master Engineer, the man in charge of Gold Star's asterongraveyard, 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, buthe had certainly heard of him; Pelops regarded him as near to God-like.

Hephaestion had apparently left the Academy under a cloud (a rumor of an affairwith 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; Adamahad dispatched as many fuel and maintenance 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, oneof the Celebration liners had been turned into a massive hospital ship; another liner had

been gutted, and turned into a strange kind of carrier-ship, capable of launching an entirestrike wing simultaneously from 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 thelanding bay's entrance. Counting the landing deck, the ship devoted a total of four decks

to parking and small craft launch it was able to comfortably house nearly three hundredfighters.

His other project had been upgrading a group of old Python-class fighters. Thesehad 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 singleshot. In addition, the Python was more intended for atmospheric combat, rather than

combat in open space, the Viper's specialty.What made it important was that there were four hundredof them...Cyrus really

needed to ask Hephaestion about that.When he received 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 FlightController on board the liner; Hephaestion reasoned that there were plenty of pilots


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planet-side who could fly the Pythons (their controls weren't that much different from aViper's), so sending them was a good idea.

Cyrus had sent Commander Dansen and the Avalon into the outer system to helpout; they had a number of pilot-trainees aboard, 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 salvagedfrom a secret research facility (there was apparently some tension going on between thetwo officers aboard 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; hekept strike wings of twenty-six 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 wastoo close.

There was a high-pitched whine, followed by the sound of the Cylons above himrunning 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 thevehicle.

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

He hoped the water beneath him was deep...

*****

Pelladon had found his calling. He was always confused in space combat, andcould 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 aCylon 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 andresort lake where the refugee landers were operating from.

Fifteen kilometrons ahead, he spotted a maglev railway bridge spanning thecobalt-blue river below; some part of his brain babbled on about how the river was called

theBug, and how that had to be some silly and suitably ancient Leonian dialect. Throughhis real-picture scanner, he saw that in its center rested a Cylon scout track, several tin-


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heads milling around it. Presently, he realized that he had been spotted, as the Cylonsbegan 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 Cylontrack. He keyed his mic. "Falcon Five to Leo 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 afriendly 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.


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CChhaapptteerr 44

LLeeaavviinnggss

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's Fifth Fleet

(Libra maintained one of only two "wet" navies in the Colonies, the other being fromAquarion) 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 greatexpense...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, BestFlotilla, 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 navalbattle; 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 Fifth and Tenth Fleets had been atsea; Admirals Rostov and Kanto had a long, if friendly, rivalry; both had pull at the

Courts, and both drove their fleets hard. The Cylons had leveled 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 Fifth and Tenth had stepped uptheir attacks on the Cylon beachheads; 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 oncedown in the bottom of a gravity well, their Raiders' speed did not compensate for the

increased atmospheric drag. The LRN's antique Cutlass-class 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


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carriers that only surfaced long enough to launch, refuel and rearm the aircraft. Becauseof the Cutlass' "low-aspect wing" design, it only required a ten metron takeoff roll.

Presently, a second wave of Cutlass roared in at wave-top level, the tips of theirpropellers 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 halflong, filled with high explosive; wrapped around this tube, a scant ten centimetrons fromthe 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 captured LRN frigates, but mostly commandeeredcivilian 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 transonic

speeds; the Cylons emotionlessly tracked the missiles, and prepared to fire...and weretaken 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 theirapogees, their guidance systems flipped over them nose-first, pointing directly at the

oncoming Cylon flotilla in unison, the casings on each of the fifty-eight missiles splitopen 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 theircharge 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-circuitas the destroyed metal severed the electricity-laden copetite wires.

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

Normally, all Cylon equipment was well shielded against such detonations; thistime, however, the pulsing EMP fields overwhelmed the limited shielding available to the

individual units, as the salty water magnified the strength of the rolling current. Still, itwas not enough to destroy the Cylons' systems merely enough to "stun" them.

Eighty metrons below the oceans' surface, fifteen very different warships trackedthe 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 Cylonsensors knew, they were merely large undersea rocks.

As the waves of EMP swept over the Cylons' systems, causing the individualcombat units to "fade out" temporarily, hatches on the fifteen submarines snapped open;

huge rocket-propelled torpedoes, each over a metron in diameter, roared through thewater, to explode twenty metrons below the Cylon flotilla's keels.

Following the path of least resistance, the massive two thousand kilon charges ofSolenite 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 torpedoes fired as the rock-hulled submarinesroared away from the battlezone, driven by magnetically pumped waterjets.

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


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*****

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, Idon't WANTmy life!" The tears came freely, now.

The graying Warrior gently caressed the woman's cheek. "You would not have mefor 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 fulllife ahead of them."

The woman was weeping uncontrollably. The Warrior started to signal thewoman's valets to get her aboard the small executive shuttlecraft, when she suddenly

lunged, throwing herself onto him and clinging to him. He allowed it only for a moment,and then gently lifted her away. "Please," he whispered, "don't make this any harder than

it already is. Go. Your people needyou.""But I needyou..."

"You are stronger than you know; he was a fool to drive you away. Whatever elsehappens, 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 hereyes. "Duty is as a mountain..." she said.

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

Her gaze held him; he drank in the site of her. "For as long as the Gods grant melife, I will remember you, Stilocar."

Slowly, she turned and, head held high, walked onto the executive shuttle. Onlywhen 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 "RoyalSovereign", 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 arespectful distance away, and began issuing orders.

The pain in his stomach, he knew, was not from the parting; but it would not killhim before he had laid his plans for the Cylons. The Librani had once been a warrior-

tribe, and their ancestors had prepared well for a day like this one...


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*****

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 aclutch 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, goingon 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-yahrenfrom 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 obey 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...Maybeyou'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 onhurting 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, andcome 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 heavily. "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 take on a lastload of refugees."

"Sir. And Sergeant Anders and company?""List them as being on detached duty."

"Yes, Sir."

*****


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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 hadseen many terrible things since getting to the spaceport two days after destroying theCylon; 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 her 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 backroom, 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 thatwas 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

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Fields of Iron