The wounded Battlestar Gallactica finally appeared at the rally point. Scorched armor showed where the tactical nuke had battered its armor. Commander William Adama on the bridge looked over the gathered ships with a taut frown. "So few ships. Any word on the Pegasus?"
"They are finishing up with the computer debugging. Commander Cain says that he should be arriving in just a while," the communications officer said.
At least they aren't totally vulnerable. We need some ammunition, Ty. What depot do you think would be safest to hit?"
"Ragnar. Everyone hates going into that nebula that they hid Ragnar in."
"Battlestar incoming!" called out the radar station. "It's the Pegasus, sir!"
"Thank god. Get Garris Cain on the line." Commander Adama felt a release of tension. With the Pegasus here, they had a fighting chance now."
"More incoming ships. Oh my god! What is that monster? It's bigger than anything hyper capable I've ever heard of!" The radar operator almost yelled.
"Message from the Pegasus. Incoming ships are friendly. Repeat, incoming ships are friendly!"
"Get me Cain!" Adama commanded.
--------
"You need to calm down, William." Probably not the wisest thing to say, Garris Cain thought to himself a moment later.
"Commander Cain, you bring a totally unknown ship with you to the rally point of every surviving human and you expect me to be calm?" Adama snapped back.
"What was I supposed to do? By the way, William old buddy, I'm bringing an alien warship that happened to save me and my crew from the Cylons?"
"You are just lucky we didn't have any ammunition or we might have fired on them before you gave the all clear." Commander Adama started to pace to the limit of the cord for his radio handset.
Cain cleared his throat. "Speaking of that, since your ship was in the process of being decomissioned-"
"I'm in charge, Cain. I have seniority and the Galactica will be battle ready. We will be jumping to Ragnar station in twenty minutes. I will leave the security of the President and the civilians to you until I get back."
"Even the Pegasus isn't going to be able to stave off the entire Cylon fleet! Once they get off their asses, they are going to be gunning for us with everything they have!"
"Then hold out as long as possible and then rally at Ragnar with the fleet. I'm going to be taking the Sea Wraith and the Unicorn with me. I've got battle damage that I have to get repaired."
--------
Newly sworn in President Rosalin just stared at her aid. "What do you mean the Galactica is leaving?" she asked.
Her aid shrugged. "I guess they need ammunition. And with the Battlestar Pegasus here, we're technically safer. I haven't got a good answer out of either commander about what that other ship is. It's a monster. It's twice the size of a Battlestar."
The pilot of their space craft came from up front. "President Rosalin? I've got Commander Cain on the line."
"Thank you." With that she followed him back up to the crowded cockpit. "Captain Adama? What do you make of that ship?" she asked while pointing at the oddly colored blue and white behemoth.
"Please, call me Apollo. It's not one of ours or one the Cylon's. It's just... alien."
The pilot handed her a radio handset. "Commander Cain?"
"Yes, Madam President. I've been ordered to prepare to leave this area if the Cylons appear in force. I don't have the manpower or authority to order the civilians to follow, so I'm clearing that with the civilian authority." Commander Cain was writing down some orders on an instruction pad. He handed it off to his exec.
"Commander, you do realize almost half of the ships here have no FTL drives?"
"Yes, Madam President. I do." Cain clenched his jaw. Damn the Cylons.
"I will get back to you." President Rosalin pushed the button to disconnect the channel. "How can he ask me to do that?" she whispered.
"He didn't have any choice. There's no way we could defend this many ships here." Apollo pulled himself out of the cockpit and headed out.
"Where are you headed?" she asked.
"I've got to get back to my ship and my men. There's a war on."
"Of course."
--------
President Rosalin stared out the window at the Battlestar Galactica. It snapped out of existence, on its way to Ragnar. "Order all ships to prepare to move to Ragnar."
The Battlestar Pegasus slowly hove into view. It's docking bays were extended and it launched all fighters.
"Madam President?"
"We don't have a choice either."
--------
"So we have a new location to prepare to fold to?" Captain Gloval asked Lisa.
She looked up from her console. "Yes, sir. But we are getting a lot of unprofessional chatter from about one half of the ships. They seem to be yelling that they are being abandoned."
Captain Gloval's blood ran cold. "Are they not FTL capable?"
Lisa just shook her head. "I don't think so, Sir."
Claudia grant looked over from her on station. "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"Possibly. We did drag Macross Island all the way here, after all. Get me Doctor Lang on the line." Captain Gloval sat in the Captain's chair and unhooked the phone from its hand rest. "Lang, I need to know how large an area the fold encompasses and how many ships we can drag along."
The rest of the bridge waited impatiently for the Captain to tell them what Lang was saying.
"I see. Well, you need to undo those changes. There are thousands of civilians out here that can't retreat if the robots attacks. I want it done in half an hour. Gloval out." Captain Gloval put down the handset. "Lisa. Get me Commander Cain. Tell him we may have an answer for the non-FTL capable ships here."
--------
"He's serious?" XO Richards asked.
"He seemed to be. Now that I think of it, I should have asked Dr. Grentwe about that," Commander Cain said while rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. "It might take a lot of work to change our engines to do the same thing. But think of the tactical advantage to appearing with your entire fighter wing already deployed. Or being able to retreat without having to land them."
"Good point. Shall I inform the President?"
"Nah, she's about to jump. Let's make sure it's doable first. It'll be a nice surprise when we show up with all of the ships. Order all non-FTL ships to within ten kilometers of the SDF-1."
"What about us, sir? We going to hitch a ride or go it under our own power?" Richards asked.
"We've got perfectly adequate hyper drives. We'll leave after the last ship has jumped.
---------
A Cylon Raider appeared in the distance. It noted the ragtag fleet and flashed back out.
"We've been made!" the Pegasus radar operator called out.
"Battle stations! Send out the alert. Tell the SDF-1 that we will try to give them their ten more minutes." Cain looked up from his central plotting screen. "Launch all Vipers with anti-missile loads."
Marck VII Vipers streaked out the launch tubes, raring for battle. Captain Jane "Artemis" Jones winced at a sudden headache. She shook her head, then grinned ferally. Time to kill the badguys.
With shocking suddeness, a Cylon Basestar appeared in the far off distance. It immediately launched fighters.
All of Pegasus's Vipers rocketed around to start shooting down missiles and Cylon fighters as they closed. This seemed to disconcert them, as this was the first real battle of this war.
Artemis whipped her Viper around. It didn't look like these new Cylons were really that much better than the old sims she trained against. They didn't seem to be the most imaginative flyers, she thought to herself.
Commander Cain lifted his radio handset up. The other officers on his bridge worked with tight efficiency behind him. "All Viper pilots! Push the Cylons back away from the SDF-1. We need a cleared buffer zone."
The pilots went to it with a will, even as another Basestar appeared in the distance. "Commander, it's going to be really tight here soon!"
Suddenly, the SDF-1 started to emit a weird glow. Soon the bubble expanded to encompass all of the close in civilian ships. With a sudden silent snap, they all disappeared.
"Jackpot! Let's load up people and get the hell out of here! Prepare for combat fighter recovery!" Cain shouted.
Artemis pulled her Viper in a tight spinning corner to lose the Cylon that was trying to kill her. "Commander! I'm reading a lone civilian ship that was transported!"
"We see it, Artemis. Not much we can do. He failed to follow orders and tried running. Return to Pegasus."
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See other episodes by Arthur Hansen
(Posted Sat, 22 Jan 2005 00:19)
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