Chapter 49

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

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1 Nov 3049

Unknown system on the edge of MC patrolled space

By Hotpoint.

Maureen Farren expected that her second visit to this particularly off-the-grid destination would go in much the same way as the last. Jump in, get hailed by some particularly mysterious people that wanted to exchange cargo in an extremely shady fashion that verged on a cloak-and-dagger operation from a pulp novel and after the cargo was transferred jump back out.

It therefore came as a big surprise when the Pampanito, her Merchant Class jumpship, arrived and she found another vessel already there openly waiting for her and which hailed her with the correct pre-arranged introductory code. As it turned out however that was by far the least surprising thing that happened to her all day.

"What have we got?" Farren asked her sensors and navigation officer.

"Unidentified jumpship Ma'am"

"Not close enough to get a good look at her?" Farren queried.

"It's not that, it's that I've never seen a jumpship of that class before. Big though, not much shorter than a military Potemkin but it's a lot skinnier kinda like someone stretched out a Leviathan maybe?"

Farren frowned. "Is her jump sail run out?"

"No. I guess she got here earlier and charged her core before we arrived. She certainly hasn't got all the docking collars of a Potemkin, no idea why anyone made her so damn long. Biggest gravdeck I've ever seen by far too, take a look" he said, sending the image he was looking at on his own video screen over to the main screen on the bridge.

"Wow. Almost looks like something built by aliens" Farren observed humorously.

"Yeah, but at least they haven't got artificial gravity" the communications officer chipped in from the other side of the bridge, grinning broadly. "We're being hailed Captain. Voice comms." he added.

"Let's hear it" Farren responded as the loudspeakers crackled to life.

"This is Captain Felix Gaeta of the jumpship Zephyr hailing Captain Farren of the Pampanito. We have the cargo you're here to collect. With your permission we'll send over a dropship to offload."

Farren scratched her nose absent-mindedly, the other Captain's accent was a little strange but she had heard reasonably similar in the Free Worlds League, particularly when visiting the worlds near Oriente. "Permission granted Captain Gaeta" Farren responded. "If I may say that's a mighty fine looking ship you have there. What class is it? I've never seen one before."

"It's actually a Zephyr class, only one was built before the Daussalt-Shimmon shipyards over New Earth were blown all to hell during the First Succession War" the captain of the eponymous vessel replied. "Somehow in all the confusion, and with half the old Terran Hegemony being nuked to oblivion, it ended up in the Periphery" he explained. "I know it's pretty but let me tell you it's a bitch to keep running, no replacement parts on the market so you have to custom make everything yourself."

Farren laughed. "Yeah, that's one good thing about operating a Merchant Class, buying the spares won't break the bank" she replied. "You don't act like the people we traded with before, if you don't mind me saying."

"Yeah, they're paranoid until they get to know you. We've hauled stuff for them before, I usually follow a trade route way rimward of here but I got offered a premium to do this run and hopefully it'll turn into a regular contract. Head up here every six months or so, find a free port where I can fill up my cargo hold before I head back and maybe I'll be able to afford to eat after covering my overheads."

Captain Farren sighed, yes that was the life of the Captain of an independent cargo jumpship alright. Just because the ship itself was worth a fortune in C-Bills that didn't mean you were rich in the sense you lived a life of luxury. "Hopefully we'll see each other again in a few months then Captain Gaeta, steady work for both of us. I might even buy you dinner if I think you're looking thin" she joked.

"I might take you up on that Captain, our dropship is on its way, Zephyr out"

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Aboard the Zephyr Felix Gaeta turned to his SLDF liaison officer. "Verdict?" he queried.

"Well your English is more than adequate although your accent still needs work" the other officer replied. "I'm pretty sure we can count on the crew of that old tub to spread the word of a one-of-a-kind jumpship that's started to haul cargo out of the Deep Periphery. Sailors stories wind their way from bar to bar like drunks."

Gaeta laughed. "Shouldn't be too long before the Zephyr is well known enough that we can trade openly with most of the ports in these parts. I guess that orbital shipyard you told me to mention was a real place?"

"Yep. The Mariks hit it first back in 2789, then the Federated Suns totalled what was left" the SLDF officer confirmed. "New Earth in the Tau Ceti system had already been fought over during the Amaris Coup" he said. "The Rimworlders completely devastated the place, mostly out of spite, and later Jerome Blake and his newly acquired goons arrived and hoovered up most of what was left of planetary industry so nobody having records of a new jumpship prototype shouldn't provoke too much suspicion" he said. "I mean everything was such a mess back then that entire colonies were forgotten about, like Niops."

"Good thing that the Zephyr pre-dates gravity plating. It certainly looks a lot more like something that came out of the Inner Sphere than our other big ships" Gaeta noted just before the ship's sensors sounded an alarm. "What's going on?" he wanted to know.

The AEW Officer looked up from his screen. "Incoming jump signatures Sir, Kearny-Fuchida type" he reported. "They're big" he added as the emergence wave continued to expand in size and intensity.

"Has the dropship carrying our cargo delivery already detached?" Gaeta checked.

"Yes. Sir, she's accelerating towards the Pampanito, underway at standard thrust"

"Damn" Gaeta said under his breath. "Recall her" he ordered, wishing not for the first time that spaceships could just stop in their tracks. Unfortunately momentum was not to be ignored. "Launch the ready Raptor according to protocol, have them conduct their jump with us between them and the civilian jumpship."

"Right away Sir"

Gaeta turned towards his SLDF liaison. "Any ideas who our new guests are?"

"Well whoever it is at least they're not Cylons" the officer replied. "Out here I'd guess pirates, they might have been tracking the Pampanito, or maybe someone aboard tipped them off."

The AEW officer stared at his screen and blinked. "They've arrived. And I don't think they're pirates."

"What have we got?" Gaeta wanted to know.

"Three warships, the tactical computer is identifying one as a Lola III Class destroyer, it cannot identify the other two. I'm not receiving any IFF signal from them."

"Frak me sideways" Gaeta swore. "Since when were there warships around here?" he asked the SLDF liaison.

"As far as I know there haven't been any since the early years of the Second Succession War before they were all used up, I mean not counting the times the Rickenbacker came up here to escort supply runs" the officer replied. "According to intelligence the only people that might still have warships in the Inner Sphere are…" he trailed off. "Okay, if it's them they're a long way from home but I think we may be about to get our ass kicked by Jerome Blake's weirdo fan club" he theorised. "So… did anybody not pay their telephone bill?" he asked wryly.

"Spool up the FTL" Gaeta ordered.

"It's completely powered down" the officer sat at the helm noted. "That will take us twenty minutes Sir" he added with obvious disquiet at being stuck there. You couldn't keep an FTL spun up ready to jump continually, especially a civilian one as mounted on the Zephyr which wasn't as sturdy as the military version, it would strain the drive leading to eventual failure. Standard-operating procedure if you had several Raptors or jumpfighters aboard was to keep one of them with an FTL spooled up and ready just in case, rotating which one that was every hour or so.

"I know, helm" Gaeta replied flatly. "And if we're still alive in twenty minutes we'll be grateful we started now."

"Sir. The Captain of the Pampanito is on the horn and she's freaking the hell out" the comms officer informed Gaeta.

The liaison chuckled mirthlessly to himself. "Tell her if they want her to change her data plan to what they say is a better tariff just to sign whatever they want" he advised sardonically as the three as-yet-unidentified warships swung around in their direction, directional thrusters flaring.

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Expeditionary Squadron Gamma-Three – Com Guard First Fleet

ComStar proudly boasted the most powerful navy in the Inner Sphere. Or at least they would boast about it if its very existence wasn't a closely kept secret. With over two dozen warships in service, ranging in size from corvettes all the way up to battlecruisers, the sheer firepower available to ComStar was unparalleled, particularly when you considered that nobody else had any warships at all.

In reality this situation caused something of a problem for the naval arm of the Com Guard when it came to procurement. While they could obtain funding to build their Faslane Class yardships, justified in large part in order to assist the ComStar Explorer Corps in their long-range operations outside the Inner Sphere, trying to get the First Circuit to agree to divert funds to actual warship construction was often stymied by the question 'What do you need them for exactly?'

In the early years of ComStar the answer had been simple, 'In case Kerensky's people return with their warships' but that argument had lost its impact in the decades, then centuries, since the bulk of the SLDF set off in the rough direction of the galactic core never to be seen again.

For a while those seeking greater funding for the fleet attempted to spin the fleeting appearance of the so-called Minnesota Tribe as a means to loosen the purse strings, but even they were regarded as a mysteriously interesting quirk of history by the early thirty-first century.

Most of the fleet were therefore centuries-old SLDF relics, with the notable exception being the Dante Class Frigates which had been designed and built from scratch by ComStar. The first coming off the slips in 2941. The Dante was an excellent design, one better suited for the likely opponents it would face than the older vessels it joined in service. Com Guard had wanted at least a dozen, in the end it only got three before the C-Bills dried up again.

Opportunities to flex their military muscle were vanishingly rare. Even seventy years later the surviving veterans of the operation which came to be known as the Tripitz Affair in the Inner Sphere still managed to get drinks bought for them at bars frequented by the fleet because they had actually seen action under the ComStar banner. In large part this was the reason the fleet embraced the current mission so enthusiastically, not only could they demonstrate to the First Circuit what they could do, it represented one of the few opportunities to do anything at all.

The flagship of the mission was the Lola III Class vessel Divine Wisdom which launched its single squadron of some six aerospace fighters. Massing some 678,000 tons it was the largest of the three vessels now bearing down on the two civilian jumpships which had rendezvoused near Magistracy space, although not the most heavily armed. Her companions were both of the Dante Class, these being the Montpellier and the Bordeaux and as they went they both began to launch their own complements of aerospace fighters, some twelve each.

It was all very much like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but with luck a good effective showing of the Dante's that demonstrated their capabilities practically might lead to them being put back in production, the fleet leadership hoped. There were already plans underway to surreptitiously hint that a few of the older SLDF warships were run down and would need replacement sooner or later. Why not do it sooner while they were still fit enough to be mothballed for emergency use rather than fit only for the scrapyard?

They could have just simply blasted the jumpships from extreme range but that would have robbed Expeditionary Squadron Gamma-Three of the opportunity to obtain some really good up-close and detailed recordings of the action. Divine Wisdom, Montpellier and Bordeaux had orders to collect as much exciting video as they could of the mission although if the targets made to jump away they should cripple them immediately.

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Captain Maureen Farren over on the Pampanito would have loved to run away but her ship had only just arrived and lacking the fancy Lithium-Fusion batteries you typically only found on warships she was stuck until she could recharge her jump core, and that took days.

Whoever these warships belonged to they hadn't tried talking and they weren't responding to hails.

"Okay so I think I'm gonna die and I don't know why" Farren said to herself fatalistically.

"We've got another emergence wave Boss" her navigator and sensor officer reported.

"Let me guess. It's the undead spirit of Stefan Amaris risen up from the depths of hell and here to kill us personally" Farren replied sardonically.

"Dunno, does he ride what I think is a Riga II Class destroyer?"

Farren rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Jesus. You don't see a single warship your whole life and then four come along at once" she muttered.

"We're picking up a wide-band transmission from the new ship to the other warships, unencrypted" comms announced. "Putting it on loudspeaker."

"I could try and say this more diplomatically but let me be absolutely clear. The first one of you assholes that opens fire gets my boot up their ass" the accent of the man talking sounded a little like Rasalhague mixed with Hegemony English.

Farren blinked. "What the fuck is going on?!" she asked of a largely indifferent universe as the latest warship to arrive seemed to be moving to intercept the others, launching its own fighters as it came.

The captains of the three Com Guard vessels would have dearly loved to know what was going on too. Felix Gaeta on the Zephyr had some idea at least, the Raptor he had sent off to summon his escort arrived back just before the SLS Yukon.

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SLS Yukon – Wishing that SLS Rickenbacker was here instead

Captain Walter Mroczkiewiz sometimes regretted the sheer utility of his ship. It mounted enough naval grade weaponry to readily hammer Cylon Basestars into the ground in a major fleet action, it carried enough aerospace fighters to ruin the day of a whole heap of Raider squadrons and most recently the Cylon-tech upgrades to her Colonial jump drive meant that she could safely jump further and more frequently than the rest of the fleet while burning less precious tylium in the process too.

Even when the engineers eventually got around to upgrading the drives on the battleships Bismark and Zughoffer Weir, the addition of Cylon tech could triple how far you could get on a metaphorical tank of gas, it was still going to be less extravagant in resources to dispatch Yukon so Mroczkiewiz fully expected the rest of his career aboard to be charging around the galaxy arriving just in the nick of time like the frakking US Cavalry.

The end result of all her inherent advantages was that any time there was some kind of perceived problem or job to do the solution all too often was "Send Yukon to sort it out".

A few years ago the time taken for Yukon to reach Magistracy territory from New Circe, in order to act as an escort to the Zephyr, would have been unfathomable. Even at a leisurely three 30LY FTL jumps per day, one at the end of each duty shift so everyone got a chance to sleep, you could make the journey in less than three weeks. If nothing else it shifted your perspective of how far away the Clans were, Strana Mechty was no longer a couple of years away but a couple of months.

If the Lord Protector ever decided to make the Kerensky Cluster glow in the dark Mroczkiewiz strongly suspected that Yukon would be handed the job. Well unless they perfected the Long-Jump drive, in which case Strana Mechty would be only weeks away for any of the warships of Clan Wolverine in which case the mighty Zug might get the job instead. It could carry as many fighters and more cargo.

This time however Yukon had likely bitten off a lot more than it could chew. While the first batch of the Riga Class had been line warships, designed to slug it out with other capital vessels, the so-called Riga II's like Yukon had scaled back on the Naval Lasers and NPPC's in favor of carrying a lot more fighters. A partial conversion to match that of the Clan refit Riga's known as the York Class added even more fighters but no more capital ship grade weaponry. The myriad LRPPC's, medium pulse lasers, anti-missile systems and LB-X UAC's Yukon now boasted for point-defense were pure murder against Raider swarms but they weren't nearly punchy enough to help take on a Lola III, or likely whatever the hell those other two warships were.

On the plus side the fifty Kirghiz and Visigoths that had been launching from her fighter bays were going to eat the Rapiers and Spads the opposition seemed to be using, even if they were the SLDF Royal version. Clantech with a few special Wolverine upgrades was well ahead of anything even the Star League employed at its height and it was unlikely the opposition had heavily genetically-engineered pilots all with plenty of combat experience.

Those new model warships were sure disquieting though. If someone was building new capital ships then they had an awful lot of military-orientated industrial production at their back.

Of all the times for Rickenbacker to not be around after all those years it had carried the role of the ship which flew the flag of New Circe, albeit secretly of course, up here in the Inner Sphere. Well sort-of secretly anyway, the 'Black Lion of Merope' wasn't exactly unknown, just unexplained.

"Transmission from the Lola III, text only. They want to know who we are and are ordering us to stand down Sir" the Comms officer reported.

"Tell them to identify themselves first" Mroczkiewiz ordered. He needed to stall here to give the Zephyr enough time to retrieve their dropship and jump away.

"Lola III replies that we are outnumbered three-to-one, this is not a fair fight."

Mroczkiewiz smirked. "Tell them that we concur with their assessment and are magnanimously willing to delay initiating combat until they can obtain sufficient reinforcements" he responded, I always wanted to use that line he thought to himself happily.

"Signal incoming from the Zephyr, Wolverine codebook with added Colonial encryption. Their FTL is spooling up but it will be some time before they can jump to safety."

"And the good news keeps right on coming. I doubt we can stall very long, if they weren't so surprised to see us they'd be shooting already" Mroczkiewiz surmised.

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Expeditionary Squadron Gamma-Three – ComGuard First Fleet

"Does anyone else think that the First Circuit knew more that they told us?" a junior officer suggested. "I mean they only sent fighters to deal with the Tripitz, is this the reason why they sent three warships out this time?"

"It is not our place to ask such questions Adept" the Demi-Precentor in command responded sharply. Himself inwardly wondering if the story he had been told by the commander of the First Fleet regarding wanting to get more of the DanteClass was just a cover. ComStar was hardly an open organization, even internally it was secretive as hell.

However, since ROM was the finest intelligence agency in the Inner Sphere, and the Primus and First Circuit were the unparalleled political intellects of our time, the people at the top must have been aware of this rogue warship. The mission brief to destroy the ERPPC shipment was therefore merely a cover, the Demi-Precentor reasoned. If they hadn't wanted him to destroy this unidentified Riga they were have surely given instructions to 'take prisoners' rather than giving express orders to 'take no prisoners'.

"Prepare to open fire on the Riga on my command, have Montpellier add her weight of fire to ours against the enemy warship and instruct Bordeaux to first disable the engines and jump cores of the enemy transports to prevent their possible escape before engaging the Riga II" he ordered.

Although outnumbered his aerospace fighters should be enough to hold off their opposite numbers long enough that they couldn't effectively interfere in the warship fight, especially if he softened them up with a few anti-fighter missiles. "Target the enemy fighters with missiles. We'll volley them off first and then get to work on the Riga" he said, fully confident of what the outcome of this battle would be now that he had decided to initiate it. "Missiles away!" he ordered in what he hoped was his most commanding tone of voice.

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SLS Yukon – Now too busy to wish the SLS Rickenbacker was here instead

'Detecting multiple missile launches from the Lola III, none from the unknown warship types' the tactical officer reported. "Looks like Barracudas and White Sharks."

Mroczkiewiz nodded, standard armament for a Lola III. The class lacked fighter-scale weaponry to deal with threats smaller than another warship so it used anti-fighter missiles instead. "Missiles closing on our fighter screen."

"Not exactly like facing a missile barrage from a couple of Basestars is it Sir, Query Negative?"

"Negative" Mroczkiewiz confirmed as the missiles closed on his Kirghiz and Visigoth squadrons that were heading towards them, engine thrust well below maximum acceleration so the opposition would not know their capabilities.

Being hit by a Barracuda was like getting clobbered by a class twenty autocannon, not something you wanted to happen in an aerospace fighter. The White Shark carried an even more powerful warhead but the guidance system wasn't nearly as good so missile aficionados often argued as to which was the superior weaponry.

It was someone's abstract debate in the current circumstances because as soon as they were close enough Laser-Anti-Missile-Systems on the SLDF fighters effortlessly shot them all down.

The Com Guard aerospace pilots had just enough time to be more than mildly confused by what they had just witnessed before they ran head-long into a return volley of Colonial-designed Lightning-Javelin Missiles that completely ignored their Electronic Counter Measures and could turn tighter than they could.

The warhead on a Lightning-Javelin was pitiful compared to that of a Barracuda, or especially a White Shark, but a hit with a small laser is better than an outright miss with a PPC.

The pilots of the Com Guard Rapiers and Spads shook off the hits they took, few had suffered more than minor damage by the strange missiles that struck them, but then things got very much worse when they got lit up by some new kind of particle-projector-cannons that hit harder and started hitting further away than anything they had ever encountered in the very worst scenarios played out in the fighter simulators they had trained in.

Naturally once the Naval Lasers and NPPC's on the warships opened up the officers on the Com Guard warships largely ignored what was happening to their fighter squadrons, there were bigger things transpiring, but to the poor sons-of-bitches in the Spads being hit by LRPPC's that was by far the most important thing going on in their severely curtailed lives.

Yukon could not possibly take on three warships alone so the orders were for the Kirghiz squadrons to blast straight through the enemy fighters, literally in some cases as they opened up with everything they had going past, and start hitting the closest warship as hard as they could while the Visigoths dealt with the Rapiers and Spads.

With the closest warship being one of the previously unencountered type the Kirghiz wondered what to expect and to their annoyance they soon learned that unlike the Lola III these new warships were equipped with an impressive array of anti-fighter-defenses including literally dozens of pulse-lasers and a surprisingly large number of LRM batteries. The Laser AMS fitted on the Kirghiz could shoot down a lot of LRM's, but was not guaranteed to get nearly all of them, and the pulse laser batteries forced the fighters to keep their distance and plink with LRPPC's only.

Quickly the order came to go hammer the Lola III instead where they should be able to achieve better results. They did at least get close enough to the new warships to determine their weapon complement and lay-out concluding that they were actually quite well suited for fighting Cylons oddly enough.

"If we live through this I'm going to request a couple of Heavy Naval PPC's from Zug, they gave a few of them to Galactica" Captain Mroczkiewiz declared as the enemy naval lasers and autocannons pulverized his poor ship. Yukon's own batteries were returning fire but she was extremely outgunned in this engagement. "No, scratch that, I want Enhanced Heavy Naval PPC's" he corrected himself.

"Jumpship Pampanito is dead in space and venting air, jump drive and thrusters knocked out. Zephyr has also been hit several times, her FTL is still operational, weapons fire on both vessels has ceased" the tactical officer reported. "Guess the enemy assumed that Zephyr had a standard jump core too."

"It's a reasonable assumption on their part" Mroczkiewiz responded. "Are the Raptors ready?"

"Yes Sir we have two unmanned Raptors with nuclear strike packages launched and ready to go. Autopilots and FTL's programmed"

Mroczkiewiz frowned, orders were to avoid using colonial drive systems when possible for fear of revealing the existing technology to the Inner Sphere. A Raptor could jump in right next to an enemy warship and blow it all to hell but if a craft that small was seen making a jump… "Screw it! Tell the Kirghiz squadrons to break away from the Lola, let's nuke the frakker" he decided as yet another salvo of naval autocannon against the hull stripped away more armour and rattled the 600,000 ton warship.

"What about the other warships Sir"

"Hold on that, the close-in weaponry on those things might take out a Raptor that appears next to them" Mroczkiewiz responded. "We might need to soften it up first" he added. Even Cylon FTL's weren't accurate enough to jump you close enough to reach out and touch another ship so with the even less precise Colonial drives you had to jump as close as possible then kamikaze in.

Nuclear weapons were truly powerful but in a vacuum you really needed a contact detonation to get the full benefit of one. If you managed a contact detonation however it would potentially send pieces of ship in all directions, like enormous shrapnel, which was why you wanted to be nowhere near such an event.

"Kirghiz squadrons are clear."

"Do it" Mroczkiewiz ordered.

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Aboard the Divine Wisdom the Demi-Precentor and his bridge crew had just enough time to register the flash of light half a kilometer to starboard before the fighter-sized craft which had suddenly popped into existence there took a sharp turn towards their ship and accelerated right at them.

The much brighter flash that occurred shortly thereafter only briefly held their attention as a hole considerably bigger than a Union dropship was blown through her, triggering a wave of secondary explosions right along her hull and venting a tornado of gas, debris and crew into space.

"Zephyr reports that her FTL is spooled up and ready, requesting permission to jump out. Her airlocks and bulkheads are holding but she'll definitely need serious time in the yard."

"Tell her to jump away" Mroczkiewiz responded, heralding another large bright flash in space, this time non-nuclear, as Zephyr engaged her FTL drive. "Status of our own FTL?"

"Incoming enemy fire has knocked the synchronization coil out of alignment. Engineering is trying to get it running again."

Mroczkiewiz only had a vague idea what that actually meant but trusted that his engineering team were considerably better informed on the matter.

"Enemy Naval Lasers have just knocked out two of ours and one of our NPPC's Sir"

"Looks like Zephyr won't be the only ship that'll be spending plenty of time in the yard" Mroczkiewiz wryly observed.

"Well our squadrons are winning the dogfight at least" one of the junior officers said brightly. The casualty ratio there was skewed very heavily in favor of the SLDF-in-Exile judging by the incoming data arriving on the bridge.

Mroczkiewiz sighed. On the plus side his Kirghiz and Visigoth fighters had jump drives of their own so if Yukon went down they wouldn't be stranded.

"We're picking up an incoming jump signature. Emergence wave says it's a K-F type drive"

Not the Zephyr coming back then, Mroczkiewiz thought to himself, though why would they?

"We have another warship arriving, edge of the battlespace, no IFF, computer indicates another Lola" the tactical officer inform the bridge.

"Right. Let's nuke this one too then" Mroczkiewiz said decisively.

"Computer is updating analysis, ship is heavily modified, OH HELL YEAH!" the tactical officer suddenly exclaimed. "Lola II hull, modified M5 Caspar design… it's Nike!"

Mroczkiewiz suppressed the wave of elation that ran through him, a ship's Captain needed to maintain at least a little decorum. "Send Captain Gibson my complements by encrypted tightbeam and request that he gets his pet AI to stomp all over the people presently trying to kill us forthwith."

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SLS Nike – AKA "The Daemon", "The Caspar with the Bondcord"

"I'm not your frakking pet" the holographic representation of Nike's persona growled. "You and the rest of the crew are essentially ballast" the AI complained as the ships bow swung around towards the enemy.

"Behave" Captain Alan Gibson; former fighter-pilot turned ship's captain, Nike's bondholder and occasional conscience (devil or angel on her metaphorical and/or holographic shoulders, depending on circumstance) chided. "Any ID on those warships?"

"Nope" the tactical officer replied, Nike shaking her head to indicate it was a mystery to her as well.

"I guess it doesn't matter. Scramble fighters to support the Yukon's airwing and then go kill them" Gibson ordered.

In her original configuration the Caspar designated TQF 162M5D had carried drones. Now her aerospace fighter complement was a mix of Avars, Visigoths and a pair of Kirghiz all equipped with cutting-edge weaponry that her drones could not have matched, not to mention miniature jump drives. They were certainly more capable than the drones but at least the latter did what they were told and didn't talk back or argue when receiving instructions (or rather what Gibson preferred Nike to call 'suggestions').

Both squadrons away. "Permission to stomp Captain" Nike requested happily.

"Stomp away"

"All hands brace for acceleration" Nike's voice boomed from loudspeakers all over the ship.

"Ah shit" Lieutenant Sheffield Binkley the ships Electronic Warfare Officer (and resident hacker) swore as Gibson grinned. It was alright for the boss, he benefitted from the genetic engineering New Circe used to create future fighter-pilots and could happily take several more gees than a baseline human. Binkley was not so fortunate.

"Floor it" Gibson said gleefully as the fusion engines at the back of the ship flared to life. It wasn't quite as much of a boot in the ass as his old Kirghiz had been on max overthrust but for a full-size warship it was pretty damn spectacular. With the Yukon in trouble Nike needed to get into the fight quick and that meant a few of the crew were going to take a battering.

Fortunately Nike's arrival had already resulted in one of the enemy warships turning to face her, helpfully reducing the volume of fire directed at Yukon, and Nike used directional thrusters to jink any incoming long-range naval autocannon fire as the two ships entered effective combat range.

Nike reduced thrust and opened up with her batteries of Naval Lasers achieving the first hits of her fight with the unknown warship type thanks to superior gunnery and timing.

Her first refit after arriving at New Circe had seen her original armor, much of it already stripped anyway after centuries without repairs, with superior Lamellor Ferro-Carbide and this was one of those occasions when a tougher skin was going to come in extremely handy. It wasn't like 'cracking starfish' as Nike called slugging it out with missile-spamming Basestars, todays foe was a proper warship and apparently a well-designed one. It was even quite attractive to look at, sleek but without lacking too much of the menace a warship's appearance should aspire too. "I've requested any data the Yukon has already collected on this thing" Nike informed the bridge crew.

"Please don't contact other vessels without my approval Nike, or at least tell me first even if you're going to do it anyway" Gibson complained.

"Ain't nobody got time for that" Nike replied, holographic image grinning broadly. The ship was clearly enjoying itself immensely, as a warship probably should. "Sir" she added as an afterthought.

"Wetware's kinda slow" Binkley spoke up.

Gibson turned and glared at him. "Don't encourage her" he requested in a tone that indicated it should be taken as an order.

"Oh wow! I've just been sent a data package from a Kirghiz routed via the Yukon" Nike said gleefully. "I'm so glad we made that last jump with the K-F Drive and the rubber band is still wound up on my FTL."

"What are you doing Nike!" Gibson wanted to know. One of the slang replacements for spooling up an FTL drive was 'wind up the rubber band'. Supposedly it had to do with an analogy Gaius Baltar liked to use when explaining for the Colonial jump-drive worked.

"They don't have any capital ship weapons facing aft. I'm going to give them an enema" Nike replied gleefully.

Nike disappeared in a flash of light then flashed back into existence directly behind the enemy warship shooting at Yukon. Nike was close enough to use her close-in armament as well as her naval guns.

"Anal, no lube" Nike said cackling to herself as she opened up with all the gun batteries she could bring to bear into the rear of the undoubtedly very surprised enemy warship that was still taking fire at the bow from Yukon.

A plethora of Naval Lasers, LRPPC's, Pulse lasers and an absolute storm of 50mm cannon shells fired at ultra rates from two dozen autocannon slammed into the enemy ship with the vessel unable to fire back with more than her anti-fighter weapons. The ship eventually tried to turn to avoid but Nike had better maneuvering thrusters and moved to keep at the rear of her prey. "Who's my bitch? You are" Nike said, laughing like a super-villain from a Saturday morning kids holoshow.

Not long afterwards both Nike and Yukon ceased fire from what had quickly become a tumbling hulk venting gas and unable to respond.

"Oh, this isn't good" the Senior Adept commanding the remaining ComGuard warship stated flatly when the badly damaged but still operational Riga II, and what he thought was some kind of Caspar with a science-fiction jump-drive, both turned in his in his direction.

He was right, it wasn't.

############################

New Circe.

SLS Lyssa.

Major Kumar hated living in a construction zone. He nearly lost his mind, when his wife had decided to remodel their home while they were living in it. It was four weeks of hell, that he could never forget. Now he was living in another one. This time the construction zone was on a moving space station over his planet. They were still trying to work out what was the best use of the ship he was now living on. One modification was that they had pulled out 2 of the worst damaged battery banks and replaced them with living, storage, and workspaces. And no, they could not have removed them at the same time. No, they had removed one, done some work, and then decided to remove another one. Rumor also had it that they might be removing another one of the massive energy storage devices. The sound of cutting and bending metal could be felt deep in your bones every second of the day and long night.

Major Kumar was a supply geek, and he had been moved to his "New" office from the ground base that supported the resupply missions. It was a sudden move due to the classification level of this last mission, and he hoped that the move was going to be very temporary. It had been a surprise when the Colonial ship Zephyr had returned to New Circe. The ship had to be emptied quickly so that it could be inspected, and any repairs and upgrades could be made. An old plan was dusted off and the modified Olympus class space station was put to a new use.

Within hours of the Zephyr's return to New Circe, he had been moved to his new office. Every dropship that had been on the Jess's Toybox mission was going to have to be cycle threw the SLS Lyssa. The Zephyr could not land on the planet, that huge rotating ring mounted on the aft of the ship precluded that kind of operation. To help speed up the unloading of the surprising amount of "stuff", the long Colonial ship was docked nose first into one of the Repair bays of the converted station. This made moving the "stuff" faster and easier off the long and thin ship. All of the cargo was pulled off those ships and put into storage on the Lyssa. It was up to the Major's team to get a base idea of what it might be before it was sent to the "normal" Wearhouse on New Circe. It also would not draw so much attention, if it was moved in smaller shifts of cargo instead of one huge landing.

All of the crew from the Colonial ship and the dropships had been sent "down the gravity well" to start their post mission interviews. Those interviews had been done very quickly, thanks to the many missions that had been run back to the Inner Sphere. Even the Colonial ship had been inspected and returned to service before they had even made a small dent into sorting the recovered items.

Some things that were transferred to the station were easier for the Major's 20-person team to deal with. Items that had been left over or things that were bought in bulk, could easily be identified and sent dirt side. The same was said of the items found in the smaller and better prepared SASs tunnels and bays. They had sent down the Tanks, repair bases, repair bays, Mechs, LAMs and other recovered items at a steady rate, but not a flood.

The problem started, when they started working on the items pulled out from what might have been part of the main base or the other outside defensive points going around the castle. Maybe it was because the base was larger, or maybe the unit had left in a hurry. But even the recovered armor hatches were in poor repair, compared to those items recovered in the SAS area. As it turns out, even Improved Ferro-Aluminum armor hatches can age if it is not protected from the elements for a few hundred years. Everything that had been left in that part of the base had been left for a reason. Most of the time, the items looked to have been damaged even before it had been left to rot for a couple of hundred years.

Nothing that was pulled out of the Toybox was just going to be quickly turned over to a combat unit to use. The next few loads sent back to New Circe had carried 5 Chevaliers, 3 Korvins, 4 Bulldogs, 4 Royal Von Luckners, and 6 Pollux heavy ADA tanks. Sometime later they sent down the 3 recovered LT-MOB-25b mobile long toms and 2 towed Sniper class artillery systems. The Major knew that the reserve units were going to get those 5 artillery units, and they were looking forward to it. The barrel wear gauge had said that they were almost factory new. If they had a hundred rounds down the barrel? He would be very surprised. It was just too bad that the drive train and suspensions were a totally different story, they were totally fraked up.

####################

Major Kumar was reviewing and signing the shipping documents for the next lift going dirtside. This one was carrying 3 Turhans, 2 Command Fury tanks, 2 Demons, and 7 totally waste of space 70ton tanks called the Magi. His head came up when someone knocked on his door, and it opened. In walked in Captain Hennesy, his second in command.

"Hey boss, you got a minute?"

The Major could tell that something was up, just from the tone his second in command used. "Yes, Captain. What can I do for you?"

Captain Hennesy took three more steps into the office and then waved for a young spaceman to follow him into the Major's office. "Sir, this is Spaceman First Class David. He has an idea that might help with that maybe APC design that was brought back."

Major Kumar sat taller in his chair. They had a few dozen hulls of something, that no one could identify. "Really? That could be helpful." He looked over to the younger man. "Please, Mr. David. What the frak did they dump on me."

Spaceman David looked down at his feet. He had been a late addition to this team, mainly due to his boss on this ship knowing something about his family's history. It took him a minute to focus in on not thinking about the rank of the person he was talking to. "Sir, they are called Ritter's."

Major Kumar was about to say something, but Captain Kennesy beat him to it. "Okay, and tell him how you might know something like that. Query Affirmative."

The young spaceman turned a deep shade of read. "Oh, right sorry, Sir. Well you see, my mom works as an account manager in our village bank. But on the weekends, she still helps out at the local militia and Army Reserve depot. She loves working on the Chevaliers. She really loves them! We have design prints of every version of the Chevalier that you can think of, and even a few that never should have been thought of. The family made a game of trying to find different design prints. Those things are framed right next to the family photos all over the house." He gives a soft snort. "She was so fraking pissed when I joined the navy, and not the ground forces. She did not talk to me for months after I signed the papers. Anyway, one of the plans my dad found, was of a APC version based on the Chevalier hull and turret."

You could have knocked Kumar over with a feather, and all he could do was look at the younger man with wide eyes until his years of experience kicked in. "Okay, why did they call it the Ritter? You were in the cargo bays, how many and in what condition are they in. Query affirmative."

David forgot who he was meeting with for a few long seconds. "Oh! Ritter is the German word for Knight, just like Chevalier is a French word for the same thing." He got a little lost look in his eyes. "They all are in pretty bad shape. I think that you could get six or seven working with some re-conditioning and some parts that should be in the warehouses. Four of the others would need some major re-fit time, a couple more might be salvageable, but you would need to talk to someone from the Depots. I saw a few more that just need to be stripped down, maybe they can be used for parts donors for the best six or seven."

Major Kumar's eyes moved from the young man to the Captain. "Please take Mr. David down to the main cargo hold. Have these Ritter's marked, then have them put on the next cargo run to the main warehouse dirt side."

################

It had been a long few weeks after the meeting with Spaceman David. Major Kumar looked on as the last loads from Cate's Hold came off a Colonial made cargo ship. They could have used a "Normal" dropship, but this craft was available, and it worked just as good. This was the last of the heavy equipment to be brought back from Jess's Toybox. He was not alone, as he watched the items coming off of the ship in a long line of prime movers and trailers. Those items would only stay in this Wearhouse that Copeland had used on his supply runs, until they could be moved onto their "final" destination.

Kumar took a few steps forward and looked down at the moving ants below him. He was very tired, and it could be heard in his voice. "Admiral Xi, that is the last of the major end items. Will any of it be useful to fight the Cylons?"

Xi looked down, but her mind was elsewhere. This run from the Inner Sphere had brought back more than any of Roberts runs, but most of it was not as useful as the smaller amounts of cargo. She did not say anything as the line of 6 Torrent hulls moved below them. This part of the load were all items that could fly, after they had received a lot of work and some key items from the spare parts store houses. They had already unloaded the 2 Meteors and 3 Mosquitoes airframes from the Colonial ship. Behind the old bombers would be the only "real" aerospace fighters that they had found. They were not much to look at, and she doubted that they would even be issued to third line units around the planet. Still she thought that she could find some use out of a pair of Tridents and Hellcats II space fighters.

Xi did not let her eyes leave the landing and loading field. "The 4 Chameleons are earmarked for the mech training school. The same for the six Wasps, after they are rebuilt. But the 2 Ostoc were missing all of their legs. So, they are just going to be turned into simulators for the school being set up over in the Victorian City State. I have a memo sitting on my desk from the R and D department requesting the Hoplite and that pair of Mercuries."

The Major had to put his hands on the small wall between them and a long fall to the ground below. "Well that is good news. I was worried that we just had junk after we kept opening all of those shipping units of Voxx 25 and Omni 10 fusion engines. I know some of the Voxx engines can be used in our Gabriel hover scouts. But what the Frak used a 10 rated engine? If that is the only real junk in all of that cargo? Then maybe it was not a waste of my time. Query affirmative."

Xi smiled, but she had to be careful what she said. Somethings were not allowed out to the general public, just in case it could be used in courts over favoritism. "Who knows, but I'm sure someone will find something to use those small power plants." She was thinking about trucks or even distributed power grids. Then again, someone else might have a different and better idea on what to use those small engines for. She staid overlooking the ship, until it took off for orbit high over their heads.

####################

Helios Delta

Canceron

John Basilone was looking over a package of supplies sitting almost out of sight from his location. This was the third package that had been left in this exact spot. One of the ideas for his role in watching these drop offs, was to get an idea about the field craft of these humans picking of the supplies. This had been the first real world test of that theory. The theory went that If they had bad or very bad field craft? Then it was a good chance, this all might be a Cylon trap.

Lieutenant Basilone had not been happy about Van letting both the humans and the Cylons, know that a new player was active on the planet. Late at night John would have to admit, that he would have done the same thing if he had been in Van's shoes. Besides the young Sergeant had a great idea about leaving his extra supplies behind as an offering for the first test of the humans. It had been even smarter of him, to keep an eye on them while he was hidden under a couple of meters of water. He had both watched and recorded the whole event.

They had only left a field pack on each of the other drops at this location. Those civilian grade backpacks had held mostly food, a pistol, and a box of 50 rounds for the sidearm. They also had exchanged notes with the other scouts, and everything seemed to be working out. John let is eyes fall to the road below him without moving his head.

The remains of the Centurion Platoon were still evidently spread out on the hard and weather worn surface. John also could see were the humans had come out and removed parts of the fallen metal Cylons. It was just another example of the differences between humans and Cylons. The human form in charge of the metal forms did not care about them, or when they fell. Most of the time they were just left on the battlefield like any other battlefield trash. The humans were slowly picking it over, to find useful items to help them survive against the invader.

Basilone moved his head incased within his clone of the ComStar made Tornado suit, until he was looking back at the package in its hiding place. This one was larger, than any other package that they had dropped to date. The scouts had been able to get some of the supplies from the Sneaky set up someplace safe. This package was only about 25kg worth of supplies, but thanks to the exchange of notes. It should have a larger impact than a pistol, some ammo, and a few dozen days of meals that had been in the other drop offs.

This pack still had some long shelf life meals protected from the elements, but most of the mass in this drop off was made up of medicine in thick field packing. The medicine was not as old as the food, the medication had been shipped in from the City State on New Circe. About the only area of medical tech that the Colonials had a lead over the SLiE, was in anti-radiation treatments. They still could only make them in kitchen sink scale labs. But they had already made enough to replace the Colonials stocks, on the ships and to have a little stockpile spread out between the two governments. The SLDF even had standing orders for some more of them. That order was still waiting to be fully filled, and it might not be filled in the near future.

As far as John knew, all of that ready medication was already at or on its way to Ragnar Anchorage. From there, John knew that it would find a good use on the planets that the Cylons had paid a visit to with nuclear weapons. While he was thinking about those meds, a red dot appeared on his display as data was forwarded to him from one of the other scouts. John took a steadying breath and was again thankful for the time he spent trying to work with the Colonials.

################

Hacket was one of the best scouts in the area. He had been asked to take these missions, to pick up "New" supplies being dropped off at this point. He had thought his life was over, when he had been asked to do the mission the first time. Then he had found the first package, just where he had been told it would be waiting for him. It had been a nice sized field pack of a design, that he had never seen before that day. He had made sure that no one was around the local area, and he had quickly and quietly grabbed the package. He had to admit, it was a nice over watching position of the coast road and not be seen by Cylons. He had been paid in three of the full day meal packs and the pistol with a full magazine of military grade rounds, for the risk he had taken on that first mission.

He had undertaken each of those other drop off and pick up of supplies. Each time he had been told to look to see if anyone was there before he made the grab. Like he would need someone to tell him that after all of these years living under the guns of the human hunting Cylons. Each time he had not seen anyone. And he was confident that no one had been around, when he had made his pickup. He even had been collecting a few things from the fallen Centurions in the local area between pickups, so by now he knew the area well. He had not gotten, what you would called "used" to the area. Doing something like that would get a scout dead very quickly.

Hacket reached down and pulled up the package, and he left behind another letter in a weighted down pack just as he had been instructed to do. Just as he was about to turn to leave the area one last time, he froze. Something was off. He had no idea what was off, but he could feel that something was off in the area around him. He slowly put the heavy pack down on the ground, and he reached for his thigh holster for his new pistol and anti Cylon ammunition. Then his eyes came to a rest on something in full shadow. It was not standing by a tree, but a closely growing clump of trees was behind it. It was something to provide concealment if not some cover. Sweat started to bead up on his forehead, as his heartrate shot up to and past dangerous levels. Then his eyes went to his right, and he almost dropped the heavy package he had been sent to collect. He thought he was going to die. He had missed something, lots of somethings.

The tallest and biggest person, he had ever seen was standing in front of another tree not 5 meters away from him. He was not moving and the only real part of his body, that he could see were the eyes and a round green and black face. Hacket was about a hair away from pulling the trigger at one of the two strangers, but his mind could not workout which was the primary target.

###################

John could tell that the other man had seen him, as soon as he stopped moving mid step. The scouts had been impressed with how the Colonial's had collected the first package. They had only noticed him once he was within a dozen steps of the overwatch location. Every report the lieutenant had received all had said the same about his skills. They had kept someone in the local area even when they were not dropping off a package. It didn't take long for the SLDF scouts to realized that it was only one person picking up the packages and some parts from the Cylon hulks. That still didn't mean that this was not some kind of Cylon trap, but it was not very likely.

John slowly raised one finger to cross his green and black painted lips, just as he had been shown to do by some of the Colonials before they had taken on this mission. It was a sign to keep quiet, and everyone had been surprised that it matched the one that the SLDF Recon teams had been using for centuries. When the Colonial's head nodded in understanding at the sign he had just seen. John pointed up and to one side of the tree line. It was on a line, that the Colonial had not thought to try to make it to this point by.

John slowly moved away from his hiding point and walked in front of the Colonial scout. He was moving in slow and steady steps, just like it was any other day in the hiking trails. But the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end as soon as his back was to the Colonial. There was a stranger, that was armed walking behind him. And Miss Basilone's little boy was not in heavy enough body armor to stop the round that weapon could fire.

Hacket was following the huge man, as he glided through the tree line like a ghost. Hacket had always enjoyed, that he was almost 1.8m tall after the first few months of the new Cylon war. As far as he knew, he was one of the tallest survivors on this planet. But this guy was a full 2 meters tall and looked to be almost third wider at the shoulders than he was. And the way he moved? It was like a huge cat moving through the trees seeking his next meal. Hacket had to almost double time to keep up with the gliding steps of the massive man. He also was making a lot more noise and leaving a lot easier trail to follow than the tall man was doing.

They kept going deeper into the woods, until they reached a spot that was flat and clear. But it still was covered by tall trees around them. Hacket had never even known this location was here. He assessed that it made the perfect meeting place. He also noticed four large bushes, that formed an outer ring near the surrounding trees. Hacket was led to the center of the clearing, and when the huge man stopped and pointed to a bush. His eyes naturally followed the pointing tree limb of an arm. When the bushes started to move, he wished that he had not looked. He was really starting to dread that he had agreed to do this mission.

##############

Near Sundown

Hidden human camp

Tiamat was again on his way to the village bar, and not for the reasons most people would want to go to that location at this time of day. Everything had been going great over the last few weeks, and he should have been expecting the next shoe to drop on his head. At least this time, he was only going to be responding to a note that had been passed from the gate guard to meet Hacket at the bar. At least, that would keep whatever had gone wrong from the rest of the community. Tiamat knew something had gone wrong, because Hacket had not just walked over to his "office". You know like he had done on the other two pickups from that point.

It was a bright and nice day, so Tiamat had to stop at the door for a few seconds to let his eyes adjust to the darker interior. Before they had fully done so, the head bartender was pointing him towards a table that was so far at the rear of the bar that it was almost outside again. It was rare that this one door was open, and then only when the whole place was packed with humans being humans. As Tiamat walked over, he exited the building to be under a covering with a few empty tables.

This area was a covered and concealed patio, that was only used by people who were still comfortable to be exposed to the open air while they relaxed. The only table that was occupied on the whole patio was the one holding the scout, a bottle of something amber, and a larger pack held in a crescent armed low backed chair. Tiamat had to admit that it was a nice place to have a meeting without drawing a lot of attention from the members of the little village.

Tiamat was confused by the scene in front of him and the note he had been given. "So, you were able to meet with them after all?"

Hacket used his glass holding some amber liquid to point to the package across from him, but he didn't smile. His face was so pale that he looked more like a ghost than a man. "They were waiting, just as you said they would be. Only I didn't fraking see them, until I had the bag in my fraking hands. I followed one of them into a little clearing to have a private talk away from the highway and any wondering Cylons."

Tiamat felt his eyebrows closing together, he knew something was off with his scout. "Really? So, they were human after all and not some ghost or something sent by the gods." The last part was more than a little sarcastic sounding even to his own ears.

Hacket choked on his drink and patted away the droplets that had fallen onto his shirt. He took a few minutes, before he said his next carefully chosen words. "How tall am I, Tiamat?"

Tiamat quickly concluded that this was going to take a while, and he took one of the empty seats before addressing the question. "I don't fraking know, 1.8 or 1.9. Why? And what does this have to do with anything?"

Hacket put his drink down and gave the older man a level look, that was just on the other side of being borderline hostile. "I am 1.8, in my shoes. The guy I talked to today? He was every bit of 2.2 and he was one of five others that I saw at the meeting. Each one of those Frakers was at least that tall. And oh, one more thing. They were in metal suits like a Centurion but way, way more powerful than anything I have seen or even heard about them using. So, I don't know if I would call them Fraking human or not. I about put a load in my shorts, when I first saw him. And I would bet that Caprican is not his birth tongue. I don't fraking know why I think that, but I just would bet on it. They did give me these for you to look at."

Hacket pushed over a thin stack of pages with images printed on them to the man sitting across from him. "We knew that the Cylons were human looking. These are the ones they have seen, and they did not tell me where all they have been found. The ones with red circles around the images, are the ones who want all of us dead. They said the blue circled ones mostly want to just be left alone, but to be careful with them anyway. Just to be on the safe side. They all come back after they die, with all the knowledge that they had when they died. I think that is what explains what happened to Jerry's group, after they hung that one old looking Cylon. They got a new body and then came back to the camp looking for some payback."

Hacket spent the next few hours talking with the local leader all about the meeting he sat through under the covering trees. After the first half hour, Tiamat joined him in drinking from the bottle of recovered ambrosia. There was some give and take about the human forms. Tiamat knew of two human form Cylons in the stack of images, but this new information was going to take some spreading out to the other camps. The medicine was going to be a great help around the camp starting tonight. The promise of 60l of fuel was also very nice, if it ever got to them. More long-term storage food would have been nice, but they had crops planted around in spread out patches for a few years now.

What had caused Tiamat the most issues? They were the parts about how his best scout had talked about, how he had seen bushes that had turned into over 2m tall metal suits as if they were magical. Then how those metal suits had opened, and 2m tall men had exited, what had sounded to him that they might be like Centurion hulls or skins. This story did connect a few dots on why this group had not just come out to meet them, at the first agreed supply drop point.

He had liked it, that this group was not claiming to be anything related to the gods. They were just there to scout and maybe kill a few Cylons, if they walked into the opportunity. He could understand and relate to both of those missions' statements. Whoever they were, they were letting the Colonials control any contact that might happen between them. That was not something that the Cylons would have done in the same situation. Cylons would have pushed to be taken to a camp of survivors. They had seen it happened before, and now most camps had a trust but verify policy anytime they came across a lone survivor.

Tiamat about came out of his chair, when Hacket told the leader more about what the strangers wanted. The tall men had asked for Hacket to point out any bases that Cylons might be working out of. They also wanted to know about any major Cylon supply lines in the local area. The first thing that popped into Tiamat's mind was that this new group was going to hit a base, and then the Cylons would come rolling out looking for them. Only they would be finding any humans, that might be in the now hot area and not these tall men who had attacked the Cylons in the first place. Tiamat brought this up to Hacket, and he was quickly relieved that although he was not asked about human settlements in hiding. The scout had only pointed out a few known Cylon routes and bases, that were well away from any known group of hiding Colonials.

Before he went to bed that night. Tiamat suggested to the defenders, that they post a few more guards further out from the camps. He only told them, that he was worried that it had been to quiet lately. And he was worried that the Cylons might start becoming more active, to make up for the break the Colonials had been enjoying.

################

SGT Van Barfoot and the rest of his scout team were moving quietly threw the tall green trees of the local forest. The four man team were using the data that was based on what the Ogygia had been able to pass along to them. It was mixed with what the few locals in contact with them have passed along. As more data came in, and then checked out by the other scout teams. Maps would be updated for their use and sent back to Ragnar.

There should be at least one Cylon ground base somewhere in this valley. It was listed as being a Colonial wildfire fighting base, until it was taken over by the Cylons not long after the nuclear weapons had stopped falling. Now it was the center of most Cylon ground operations in this local group of large islands. They were not to attack the Cylon base, only do some recon of it. The LT had been very pointed about, that they were only to recon the area.

The SLDF scouts were moving slowly under the cover provided by the tall trees, just like they were trained to do. They would move and then stop for a few seconds checking out the local area before starting to move again. You could not be next to a tree, when they dropped to a knee and stopped moving. The instructors back on New Circe would berate you, if you did something dumb like that. If you did something like that while on the mission? You made it look like the tree had cancer or other diseases, and you could be spotted all because the bump looked out of place.

Van suddenly stopped moving, and he went to one knee with his non shooting hand coming up to make a fist all in one fluid motion. Something was moving along the nearby game trail that the scouts were paralleling. His whole team went to a knee and then after the other team members had picked up on the movement, they went on edge. Now that they knew were the threat might be coming from, they slowly moved around a little to find better concealment.

With the advance warning from Van in the point position. The whole scout team had a few minutes to wait until the source of the movement reached them. As Van watched from concealment, a Number 4 led a group of 10 Centurions going down the game path. Van's breath caught in his chest as the last Centurion stopped, and it started to scan the local area of the forest. One part of Van's brain screamed that the battered metal beast was an NCO, and it had detected that something was wrong or out of the ordinary. Van had his weapon ready, but not pointed at the enemy only 50 meters away from his hiding spot. He was just starting to think that his team was spotted, when the moving red eye shifted, and the battered Centurion moved to catch up with the rest of his unit.

Van kept his detachment in place for a while, just in case the Cylons returned. When it was clear of threats, the team started moving again. The scout team was moving just a little slower and they were a little more aware of what was going on around them, than they had been before the close call. With such a close call, the team did not stop for anything to eat or rest until they were over watching the Cylon base. They would be in this location for a few days as they mapped out what the Cylons were doing, what their defenses were, and any patterns that the humans might exploit against the Cylons. It was about as by the book recon mission, that you could ever asked to be given.

It was around midnight when the whole team went on alert, and they pulled up and checked their weapons for combat readiness. Moving out of the wood off towards the left of where the scouts were hiding, came a group of Cylons. Thanks to the night vision devices built into the SLDF suits. They could see that it looked like the same group of Cylons, that they had passed in the forest hours before. This time the Cylons were not alone, as they walked towards the Cylon base. Between an outer perimeter of Centurions, were walking scarecrows that were not human forms Cylons. The whole team watched with their eyes, as the group of Colonials were moved towards the Cylons base. It did not take long for the screams to reach the team on the little hill, after the last Colonial had disappeared into the Cylon base. No one got any sleep for the rest of the night.

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28 hours later

Lt Basilone arrived with the rest of the team after a long hard run from their own patrol and scouting areas. For the first time on this operation, the whole scouting team was together with only one mission to complete. After Van had passed an audio file with two hours of screams to his LT and the rest of the scouts. John had the whole scout team move at their best speed to Van's location after only listening for ten minutes of the whole audio file. Lt Basilone knew that he was risking his orders, and he was just as willing to face the music when he got back home. He even had kept a copy of the audio file, just in case he needed to play it at his court martial.

Basilone was the last one to make it up the hill, but only by about a minute and a half. While the team was being gathered, Van came up with a base plan for an attack on the small Cylon base. The Lieutenant was able to flush it out with an updated supply list, which he and his group had brought with them on the run to this position. While the Sargent and the Lieutenant worked on the plan, the rest of the team tried to recover their strength for the upcoming attack. It was not easy for the gathered scouts to do, with the screams still coming from the Cylon Base.

Ten minutes before the Lt wanted to launch the attack, the pair did a short pre-mission inspection of the rest of the scouts. Everyone had some water and changed battery packs for different weapons. No one even thought about trying to eat. They were just ready to get off this little hill and cross the 300 meters of open ground to reach the Cylons and to stop the screams.

John gave Van a little head nod, and the commands were sent out to each suit. The last part was done more for the expected inquest when this mission was over, than for the need to inform each of the scouts to attack. With the word given. The 8 man team launched off the little hill, like 8 manned missiles of vengeance on a full hate afterburner.

The Tornado and the Weasel suits that were based off that ComStar design didn't have jump jets built into them, but they could run. The Cylon base had a metal fence running around the whole perimeter of the base. The main gate even had a vehicle barrier as well as a solid looking gate, that matched the 3 meters tall perimeter fence in height.

The point man of the attack did not even try to make it over the access gate. She just lowers her head and pushed off with her legs at just the right second, to put her right shoulder into the gate. And as it turned out, the gate was as solid as it looked. But the locks and hinges on the gate and anchor post were a totally different matter. They shattered like glass, and the gate fell to the ground. As soon as the next member of the SLDF scout team made it into the compound. A rain of destruction started to flow out of them in a growing fan of death. They started with a flight of grenades, that went into the heavy weapons emplacement meant to cover the inside and outside approaches to the solid gate.

#############

The Number 4 was still washing his hands in an old stainless-steel apron sink. He had loved being a doctor before the war, but not for the reasons most people would have chosen that line of work. He "liked" causing others pain, he like causing lots of pain in others. He had no idea, that this was the results of careful programing done by the Ones. It had been done on select members of his line and a few other select members of the human form Cylon's other lines. He was mesmerized for long minutes by the swirling red and brown blood being drawn down the drainpipe by the flowing water. His mind started replaying everything that he had done, to get that blood on his hands. A smile came to his face has he remembered each scream.

He was brought back to the world, as a flash of light and a thunderclap of sound echoed in his washroom. With his mechanical augmented muscles, he was able to quickly make it to a nearby window to see what was going on. He got there just in time, for the glass to be blasted into his face by a nearby 30mm KEW emplacement having its ready ammunition react in an unfriendly manner to a SLDF explosive charge.

Cylons are very strong and very resistant to damage, but that didn't mean that they were indestructible. He was out like a light, even before the back of his head hit the hard and unforgiving floor. He was not dead. But the lights were on, but his brain was definitely out to lunch. The head of this base was not going to take charge of the defenses, this time. The head of the snake had been cut off and the humans had not even been trying to target him.

The Number 4 opened his eyes to first look at the ceiling of his living quarters, and then some movement draws his eyes towards the door. He lets out a little moan and he quickly finds out that he cannot get his body to obey him. Just when he thinks that he can move again. A metal foot is planted hard on to his chest. Slowly he gets his eyes to focus. He looks up at first the metal leg, and then he tracks up the whole body standing over him. One part of his mind notes that it is the oddest-looking Centurion he had ever seen. He even notices that the lines were all wrong for it to be from the Colonial's new allies.

The growing pain in the Cylon's chest brought him fully back into the moment. Both of his hands fly to the metal leg holding him down, and what was now causing him extreme pain. He finds that he is powerless to move it even a millimeter. It took 15 long seconds, for the metal foot to be pushed through his rib cage and crush his heart against the spine and hard floor. It was 15 seconds that the Number 4 will remember every time he was brought back into a tank of goo for a new body. He would re-experience those 15 seconds 8 more times, before the other members of his own line voted to have him boxed. It was considered something that needed to be done, for the betterment of the whole Number 4 line.

############

The scouts were spreading out as they cleared the base of Cylons. This was marked as a Cylon ground company outpost, and it would outnumber the attacking humans by a large margin. If the humans lost the initiative? They would quickly be overrun, by the Cylons. Each member's path was displayed on their HUDs, so that the rest of the team could follow. But it also would let them know what had not been covered or cleared yet of possible hostile forces. Van had put his planned path into the system before they had even launched the attack. He had spent the most time watching the base, and he had some things he wanted to make sure were done right.

Van fired a fragmentation grenade into a known Centurion maintenance shop building before he looked into it. With that threat axis taken care of, he went into the next building. With a solid kick to the door frame, the whole door and frame came crashing down into the room. This time, he did not put an explosive round into this building before he entered. It had been noted that Colonials had been taken here. None had left, so they might still be there. When Van's head entered the room, he knew that there were not any humans left alive in this one room building. The room was dominated by a tall metal table in the center of the room. Van knew the body was dead at a single glance. You cannot live that long with your small intestines being pulled out and wrapped around one of the overhead roof rafters. The open but none seeing eyes would haunt his dreams for years to come.

Van turned and went to the next building on this little list of targets. He had not been surprised that he found a dead Colonial in that building, but he had to try just the same. Now he was going to find the Number 4, that he had seen entering and leaving this building. It was only a few meters to his right, and he made the quick steps towards it at the dead run. He did not even slow down when he hits the door. He was not even trying to use the "right" way of entering a hostile building. He just went through the thin wooden door with his heavy armor in a shower of splintering wood acting like a light brown cloud around him.

Van looked down the barrel of his weapon, but he didn't see any threats in his field of view. Besides the door only the window seemed to be damaged. His internal warning system had him look down after his first scan of the room. That was where he saw the thing he had been wanting to find. For a heartbeat he thought that somehow the human form had been killed, until his built-in mic picked up his breathing. Then the monster made a louder sound and started to move. Van took a step closer and put his right metal covered foot on the Cylon's chest.

As Van looked down, he saw that the Number 4 could see him. Inside of his metal suit, Van smiled and that was a smile that should have sent chills down the Cylon's spine if he could have seen it. He slowly shifted weight over from his left leg to his right one. He did this very slowly, until all the mass of his 2.2 meters tall body and the over 400kg of suit and weapons was almost all on his right leg. Not for a second did his eyes leave the Cylon laying on the floor of the cabin. He had to shake his foot a few times to get it untangled from the broken ribs and organs of the now very dead Cylon, so that he could finish clearing the room.

Van knew that the Human form would be back, and that he would remember what and who had killed him. That had been thought about, while they had planned this mission back before they had gained access to the ex ComStar battle armor. They had been working on ideas on how to conceal the fact that the SLDF was now operating in Colonials space. The Cylons had seen the Nighthawk suits, but the Tornado looked a lot different than that old SLDF suit.

The suits the scouting team had been using had been Vis-mod or visually modified. They didn't look like Tornados or even Weasels, with the later having a more animal look to the head, legs, and arms. What the scouts were wearing looked more like something a Shogun on ancient Terra would have warn into battle. It was almost like something the Combine would have loved to have been able to issue to their most elite troops. There would not be much of a risk of the Cylons knowing who was behind this attack. Confusion can be an effective weapon, if it was used correctly.

###############

It didn't take long to clear the small base of any threats. The attackers had surprise, speed, armor, and weapons on their side. The small team of scouts ran a second sweep of the old forest base, but no active Cylons were found. That had only left going deeper into the building that held the detention cells. Only one of the team had gone into that building while clearing the base of Cylons, but it had only been to make sure that all of the threats had been taken care of. The scout team didn't have the time or personnel to handle what would happen, if they tried to free the Colonials in the middle of a pitched night battle.

The officer looked at the room and he could not help but wince. There were only a dozen Colonials left breathing. Van had reported that over twenty had been brought into this camp. He only stayed in that little window into hell for a minute. All of the Colonials were trying to hide or be small targets in the cells, at the same time being as far from the cell's doors as they could get. He received the heartbreaking news that this was all there was to recover, human wise, from this base.

John could only come up with one plan, and it was not what he would call a good one. "Victor team. Sling arms, and each one will pick up two of the smallest Colonials. Bravo team will put the four largest Colonials into fireman carries. We will keep weapons out and cover any issues we might run into. We fall back to the OP. Victor team will uncan and do a quick medical check at the OP. We do not have time to play around, keep a hold of them until we get to the cover of the OP. If they want to bug out on us after that? Well that is their call. Oh, and use your bayonets on the bars, don't use the doors to get them out."

He had no idea why he added the second part to his orders, but later it would make his team think he was a genius. The Colonials had been watching the huge new style Centurions enter the room that was holding their prison cells with dread. Their crying could be heard threw the armor when the bayonets were attached to the rifles, and the SLDF troopers' hearts sunk.

Those cries were cut off like a switch was flipped, when the humming blades had cut the hard iron bars like they were warm butter. The shock of seeing those bars being cut that way, left the Colonials so stunned. That they didn't put up a fight when they were picked up by the metal suits and carried out of the building over metal shoulders. The shock didn't start to wear off until after they had left the outer gate of the Cylon base.

The stop at the small hill at the edge of the cleared area was quick and the renewed shock of seeing a real, if large, person exit the metal suits. That had almost caused the Colonials to bolt for the wood line on their own, but they were too weak. They did not even put up that much of a fight when they were lifted off the ground one more time.

The "run" to the next stop point was over 8km away deeper in the woods. This time the stop was going to be longer, the sun was starting to rise over the treetops. John called a halt when he could see the sky starting to lighten. Only two scouts would be in the main rest point out of their combat suits at the same time. Van was on the first rotation out of the suits in the small camp. It was not due to his rank, but due to his medical skills. If they had not needed the attention after their stay with the Cylons, they would need it after the effects of the run from the Cylon's base.

Food and water had been stored at this point, and the dozen Colonials were only given enough of each to make them sleep. They were thin but they had not been "starving", so Van didn't have to keep that close of an eye on them as they were eating a field meal. Still he only let them eat half of a Colonial day ration pack. They were told that they could eat the other half, when they woke up from a nap. The Scouts had no problem noticing that one or two of the Colonials were awake watching the scouts, while the rest of them got some sleep.

When the sun was starting to go down again, the whole camp was awake. Now only two scouts were on guard duty. The Scout's commander had a lot of questions to be asked, and thanks to the translation software in the suit. He was able to get his basic idea across to the scared Colonials. Some of them got a little agitated, when the tall man would not tell them everything they wanted to know. They didn't push too hard, not when someone is over 2 meters tall and your tallest compatriot was barely 1.7. That gave John more than a little advantage.

The one area that the locals were not game for, was to be carried around like sacks of potatoes for another night of bruises. The ones that were able, would be moving on their own power. But the suits would help with the four of the Colonials, that were the weakest of the Colonials for whatever reason. This would slow down the whole movement, but after a few hours of moving through the dark forest. The Colonials called for a stop, but only to move the line of travel to a side trail that was just little more than open areas created by the tall trees.

The expanded scout force made it to the second site so quick, that they only stopped to pick up supplies before continuing moving through the night. The group kept going after only an hour stop at sunrise. The way looked clear and John had them moving again, and the Colonials were eager to put more distance between them and the Cylons. They made it to the cove that held four boats and a major stash of supplies for the scouting mission. One of those stash items was a SLDF radio. On the second try, the Sneaky was raised on the device.

She would be able to pick up the recovered Colonials and take them back to the island. Doing something like this was a risk on many levels. One was having more people on the island would increase the risk of the Cylons finding them. The other was that the Sneaky would have more Colonials in her hull than SLDF personnel. They were lucky and that the last group from the dome had just been picked up, so the island house was empty for now. That would change with the next load coming from the underwater dome. No one knew when the next load would come from the dome, or an exact date of when the next or how large the next supply run would be.

Van and John were up on an overlooking cliff of the cove, when the Sneaky surfaced. It was only visible through the night vision devices built into the suits. The rest of Van's team would ferry out the survivors into deep water using the small boats. It would take only one trip for all four boats to get the dozen survivors off the beach. The ship was rated to carry 40 of his Light Battle Armor suits, and now that extra room was going to come in handy. The Lt didn't want to risk a "social" issue by splitting up the group into smaller lifts off the beach. The rest of the scouts were spread out keeping an eye out for any Cylon patrols. After the Colonials and Sneaky were gone, he was going to stand down his people for a few days. It had been a bad few days, and they all could use some rest.

####################

Helios Beta

Not far from the Ouranos Asteroid Belt

The old Raptor left over from the first war with the Cylons popped into real space, and it quickly and skillfully went into passive mode. This craft had been working with a pair of new production Raptors running supplies to different spots around what had been once called Colonials space. The three craft had just dropped off supplies to the scouting and submarine operating on Canceron. This was one of the craft that had dropped off a full load of refined hydrocarbon fuel generated by the Ragnar Anchorage.

It had been quickly found out that besides medical supplies, weapons, hard ammunition, and food. The survivors of the Cylon occupation needed fuel to run everything from electrical generators, water pumps, ground and even light air transports. That had been overlooked by the planners back on New Circe, and it was only by luck. That the hydrocarbon recovery system on the anchorage had not been scrapped and replaced with living or more storage space. Now those systems were earning their setup cost.

There was no way that the crew on the Ogygia or the Ragnar Anchorage could supply everything that was needed by the survivors, but they were trying. This run had two of the Raptors carrying nothing but fuel for the people on that planet to have some access to. The other Raptor had been carrying food, medical supplies, a few weapons and a few boxes of anti Cylon ammunition that would fit on the floor of the craft. The rest of the space had been filled with supplies that would fall under "general survival gear" by the public. Ragnar Anchorage had a lot of stuff within its rusty hull, but more had come from New Circe. It amounted to only a trickle, but it was a trickle that had not been there before.

But the cargos were not just running one way around old Colonial space. After the pocket Battlestar had stopped by each of the areas that had held survivors. Raptors had started making runs to those locations that had wanted to join a larger cause. It was a lot easier to hide a 50ton Raptor, than it was to hide a tens of thousands of tons of warship. On each run of those small craft, volunteers would be pulled out. Most of them were people who needed some kind of medical care that the local group could not provide. It was hoped that this would change in the near future, but right now all that mattered was that Colonials were being pulled out from under the Cylon's thumb.

The exception to this rule had been Canceron. They had been pulling out a half dozen healthy survivors per lift, until this mission. On this one run, they had pulled out almost twenty people at one time. The new Raptors had a longer jump range, and they did not have to cool down as long after a set of jumps compared to Old Number 6. So, all of the recovered personnel were packed into the new pair of craft for the right out to Ragnar. That that turn of events had left Old Number 6 to make her way back to Ragnar on her own in hostile space. This was nothing new for her to do, and you got use to that kind of stress with enough exposure to it. It was not that great for your health, even if you didn't run into any Cylons or any other hazards.

#############

Raider 45698 was leading a group of 6 other Raider class Cylon combat craft. They were short 3 craft in being a full squadron of 10 combat vessels. With the latest round of "upgrades", it did not know that it should have had 3 more "normal" raiders or one more Raider and 2 Heavy Raiders assigned to this scouting mission. By now it also didn't know that the reason for this increase in firepower for a "patrol", was due to the sudden increase in the number of scouting pair and single Cylon craft being lost to the humans.

Raider 45698 was scanning the local area, and it just happened to be looking right were the old Raptor came back into normal space. It sent a short-ranged burst of information for the rest of the unit to follow him to the strange craft. The new craft did not match anything in its warbook, but the drive was not reading as a Cylon type drive. So, the instruction built into its new "upgraded" support systems told it. Any non Cylon engine was an enemy craft, and that it was okay to kill it.

Raider 45698 quickly worked out the distance to the "new enemy". Raider 45698 had not been around for a long time, and its bag of tricks was not that deep. But it had learned a thing or three while it had been "alive". One of those things that it knew was that humans could detect jump drives, if the Cylons were not careful. With this information Raider 45698 used his twin large engines to push it closer to this new enemy.

Soon it could "see" the craft centered between the points of its forward mounted almost C shaped wings. Now all it needed to do was close in on the "humans" and kill it, without letting it escape. The nice thing was that the Raider class craft was very fast, even if it didn't need to use its jump engines. It just needed to shut down all of its active systems, so that it could get closer to the target without being seen. That was another trick it had learned while it had been trying to kill humans.

###################

Connie (Con) Weber let her eyes scan over the read outs on the display around her. The first large display she looked at, was to see if there was anything near her. The next screen told her what the status of her jump drive might be. Now that display made the corners of her lips drop. She looked into the small mirror mounted high over her head. It was perfect to see her EO. Not for the first time, she thought that the old guys who had made this craft had known what they were doing. "Toe, how long until we can hit the next jump."

Chris "Toe" Pusher had gotten his handle after a bad mix of laxatives, brownies, a shower stall, and his big toe. He looked down at this screen at the glowing bar high into the red zone. "We can jump in 4 minutes, but it would be better if you can push it to 10."

Con looked back out her view screen and did a soft sigh. "Well, 10 minutes is not that bad. Let me know when we are at 4 minutes, just in case."

Chris didn't bother with a reply; he just went about the normal task for an EO. At least this craft had been outfitted with the current generation of electronics. It had not been that way when it had been first traded to the warship. It had been a slow process, but as they were able to trade with a growing number of groups. Newer parts were found, and then refitted into the hull of Old Number 6. The systems didn't fit perfectly, but they did the job. Maybe that was why Toe did not pick up on the threat as soon as he should have.

Toe's eyes went wide as the data on his screen finally registered in his brain. "Oh Frak! 7 Raiders coming up on us from 87 down 45. They have to have us on passive systems. I have zero active emissions!"

Con might have been dozing, but her hands were moving before her eyes were open. "How long until we can jump!"

Toe was working his systems and sweat was pouring off of his face. "2 minutes 30-seconds, and it is only going to be a short one! They will be on us in less than 2! You need to do some of that Fraking pilot stuff."

Con was already putting more power to the twin engines that were low mounted on the aft part of her craft. "Punch something in, then pass the Fraking button to me! Get on the stinger, and keep them off my fraking ass!

Toe was already moving to the back seat, as the pilot was speaking. "I have a jump to Hera loaded, and then we can jump back to a spot deeper into the Ouranous belt. That should keep them guessing where we went to." He finished his words as his butt hit the cushion of the tail gunner position.

Con saw a red light turn green on a screen and she knew that Toe was in the seat. Both of her hands, arms, and feet went into action at blinding speed. Her craft when from slowly accelerating to moving in three dimensions all at once. The craft spun and 3 anti-raider missiles left from under each wing on the old craft. The seeking weapons were not the reason for the maneuver she had just performed.

Con also had launched half a dozen decoys at the same second, that she had fired the homing weapons. This generation of decoys had not worked that well at the start of this war. They had been better than nothing, but they had not worked out nearly as well as they had been advertised. That was because the systems didn't have enough data to work against the improved Cylon systems. They had worked very well against pirates, Colonials and 1st Cylon war systems, but they had not worked that great against the new generation of Cylon systems. That now was not an issue, with so many years fighting the Cylons. The Colonial decoys also were a lot better if they were used correctly and for specific missions and not out of desperation.

#############

Raider 45698 processed the information that was coming into it. It had wanted to get closer, but somehow the humans had detected them even in passive mode. The first hint of this discovery had been when the odd craft had started to increase its base speed. Just as his unit went active with its systems, the craft had gone from running away into attacking the Cylons. His unit went from 7 Cylon units to 4, as his sister craft were plucked out of this universe. That was not bad shooting, to lose 3 craft to 6 enemy missiles. It was a lot better than the 14 missiles that his unit had launched at the one enemy craft. Only to have them sucked onto the Colonial decoys, that the attacking enemy weapons had hidden the launching.

The small missiles might have been decoyed by the Colonial weapons, but Raider 45698 had been able to keep track of the enemy craft despite the decoys. Quickly the Raider used its amazing acceleration and top speed, to first pop its nose up and then it does a spinning push over dive. Now it could start working on coming up behind what must be a type of Colonial Raptor. At least that was what the "updated" systems were telling Raider 45698 that was what he was facing. Even Cylons systems were not magical, it took them time to work out new things.

Toe was working the controls on his rear mounted weapons systems, and for once the fact that he had not been in the Colonial military before the war was paying off. He didn't have all of the bad habits, that a "normal" EO would have to break to be good at this part of his job. He was holding his fire, until the Cylons were as close as he thought that he could get them. All the while he was practicing putting his "Crosshairs" where it needed to be to the nearest Cylon Raider. He had been told in training, that as soon as he went active. That the Cylons would start jamming his weapons systems, just like they had done in the last war. Until that jamming kicked in, he was going to have the advantage over the Cylons.

Raider 45698 "saw" that one of the other three Raiders fired another pair of missiles at the enemy craft. It was not surprised when they were drawn off by a powerful jammer, that had not been used until the weapons were almost to the target. Raider 45698 decided that it was not going to waste any more missiles, and it started to try to close within KEW range of the maneuvering target. Seconds later, it was aware that it was in a Resurrection Unit.

##########################

Toe had to smile as the Raider started to close in with him. The twin KEW's under his feet were the same type of weapon, that was still found on Vipers. And it had been proven to be able to kill Raiders, a few hundred times. The closing speed of the KEWs with the on-rushing Raiders, was going to make it a bad day to be a Cylon. He pulled the trigger and aimed where the crosshairs said to, then he sprayed a line of rounds first back to his right and then hard to his left. If the crosshairs were wrong, he would get at least the Raider following the leader. It was something he had worked out to do in his limited gunnery training, that he had undergone between missions.

Toe let the corner of his lips drop at what he saw. The crosshairs had been right, and he had put the first 8 rounds right into the "face" of the closest Raider. The spraying of KEW rounds only used up some of his limited ammunition, and he thought that he had just wasted a twelfth of his supply. He let out a yell as the second Raider, that had been blocked by the targeted Raider also came apart under the hammering of the old Colonial weapons. Now there were only 2 Raiders vs the one old Raptor, and he knew that he had not waisted his ammunition after all.

This was a late 1st Cylon war craft, and it had a lot of odd little things that were a little different than the Raptors that had been around for the Cylon surprise attack. One of them just showed the reason it was there in the first place. Old Number 6 had two bays that were mounted facing towards the top of the craft. Each of those two small bays could only hold one decoy and one "real" missile. Each one of those weapons was mounted on a spring like device, that seemed to use a thick plug of metal to push them up and out of the craft before the rocket motors activated.

With Colonial missiles in such short supply, but slowly growing in numbers, those bays had not been loaded with weapons of any kind. But as a cue lined up on Con's screen. She knew that they were meant to be used by the tail gunner, to fire at targets that were outside of the range of his twin popguns. Now all she had to do was live long enough to pass on this information to higher command. After all, it was not like this craft had come with a user's manual or dedicated training syllabus on how to leverage them effectively in combat.

Con gave an evil smile as a half-remembered conversation popped into her head. She knew of another way to take care of unwanted guest that were riding your butt. She had picked up the idea after a short little hook up with a pirate a few stops before. This was going to be the first time, that she was going to try what he had been talking about. The old guy could drink, and she smiled, and he was still in good shape.

With a friendlier smile she launched two more missiles, but these were only on passive mode when they left from under her crafts' wings. The missiles only did a short burn to clear the wing and launch bays before they did a radical pitch up. Con over ran the "smoke trail" as the weapons went over her cockpit glass and were out of sight behind her. The two weapons then pitched over to now be 180 degrees off of their launch path. The old pirate had called it an over the shoulder launch, and now it made perfect sense to her why. Now that the Colonial missiles had two larger targets in their attack envelope, they were ready to get to work.

The two remaining Cylon Raiders didn't notice the launch and the pitching up maneuver the two missiles performed. They had only seen the weapons as they cleared the top of the Raptor, but they were not assessed as being a threat to them. It was only when the kicker motor started firing back up, and the two Colonial missiles started coming towards them. Then the Cylon craft knew that they were a threat, but by then it was too late to do anything about them. Between the high speed of the attacking missiles and the forward speed of the attacking Raiders, it was over. Even Cylons could only react so fast, and by the time the craft knew about the threat. The weapons were only two human eye blinks away from hitting the Cylons

Con looked at her screen to look for any signs of damage. She only now noticed that they still needed to be in this area of space for 15 more seconds, before they could make the short jump. "Toe, get back in your seat! We are so Fraking out of here!"

Notes

What were the combat units pulled out of the main base and small sally ports of Jess's Toybox? 5 Chevaliers, 3 Korvins, 4 Bulldogs, 4 Royal Von Luckners, 6 Pollux ADA, 3 LT-MOBb Long Toms, 2 towed DAT/96 Sniper Cannons, 3 Turhams, 2 Fury command tanks, 2 Demons, 7 Magis, 6 Torrents, 2 Meteors, 3 Mosquitoes, 2 Tridents, 2 Hellcats II, a Hoplite, 4 Chameleons, 2 Mercuries, 6 Wasps, and 2 Ostroc (missing all legs). Ritter APC used Chevaliers as base. 7 that mostly just need a re-conditioning and some parts. 4 more that need a major re-fit, a few more that might be salvageable. The rest are fit only for stripping down for base metal and providing much of the spares needed for the first 7 APCs. All of these items will need work before they can even be put into Cache sites. Most of the tanks will be picked up by the Victorians or Colonials over the next few months. The Chevaliers and Ritters will go to the SLDF ground units.

Parts pulled from Jess's Toybox. 100 mech bays, 100 heavy vehicle bays, 50 light Vehicle bays. NO aerospace fighter bays were recovered. After those bays are refurbished, they will be repaired and be moved around the planet to the distributed hidden support bases. The hulks of aviation assets were found in major repair shops. 200 tons of Star League tech weapons are all that are useable, 1000 tons FF armor, 500 tons standard armor plate, 500 tons of endo steel, 500 tons normal internal structure. 200 VOXX 25 fusion engines and 1,000 omni 10s fusion engines. Tons and tons of scrap.

Chevalier Light Tank (Royal) The Ritter by Maingunnery
Mass: 35 tons
Movement Type: Wheeled
Power Plant: 190 XL
Cruising Speed: 64.8 kph
Maximum Speed: 97.2 kph
Armor: Ferro-Fibrous
Armament:
2 LRM 5
1 ER Large Laser
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 2690
Cost: 2,637,679 C-bills
Type: Chevalier Light Tank
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Movement Type: Wheeled
Tonnage: 35
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure 3.5
Engine 190 XL 6
Cruising MP: 6
Flank MP: 9
Heat Sinks: 12 2
Control Equipment: 2.0
Power Amplifier: 0.0
Turret: 0.5
Armor Factor (Ferro) 107 6 Internal Armor
Structure Value
Front 4 26
R/L Side 4/4 20/20
Rear 4 16
Turret 4 25
Weapons
and Ammo Location Tonnage
2 LRM 5s Front 4.0
ER Large Laser Turret 5.0
LRM 5 Ammo (24) Body 1.0
Infantry Body 5.0

48