Battlestar Chiron

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WAR

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Chapter Four

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The Cylons were created by Man.

They were created to make life easier on the Twelve Colonies.

And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters.

After a long and bloody struggle, an armistice was declared.

The Cylons left for another world to call their own.

A remote space station was built...

...where Cylon and Human could meet and maintain diplomatic relations.

Every year, the Colonials send an officer.

The Cylons send no one.

No one has seen or heard from the Cylons in over forty years...

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Until Now.

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ooOoOoo

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Battlestar Uranus;

Gamma Ray One;

Battlestar Uranus drifted in space, around her the remaining surviving warships gathered in the civilian ships. Across from her, her sister ship bled air into space as explosions detonated out of her portside landing bay. Commander Lydia Homes watched the main monitor as her ships sister ship tried to get the fires under control.

"She's going to have to open the airlocks," she said aloud and just as she said it, decompression came from the ship as eight airlocks on the flight pod opened and the air was sucked out of the ship along with the fires.

"Dradis contact, twenty-one ships… I have Colonial recognition codes. It's the Leviathan and Hephasetus repair ships, five Titan II Gunstars, two Theda class manufacturing ship Mystic Rose and the Aldington along with the Gander class utility-carrier Harpy escorting eleven civilian ships," the com officer reported.

"Tell them to form up with the fleet. Repair ships in the center with the civilian ships. Gunstars are to take formation on the left flank," Lydia ordered as her aid handed her a clipboard.

"Dradis contact. Thirty plus…. Holy shit!"

Lydia looked up from the clipboard she was reading and snapped out, "That is not a proper repo…" as her eyes settled on the dradis screen and the huge target that appeared, "What the frak is that?"

"I have IFF on the target… its LaGrange Station," the com officer reported.

"How the frak did the jump here? Who's in command over there?" Lydia asked.

"Ma'am, its Commander Roland Bal. As how they jumped her, I have no idea," the com officer reported.

"Ok, send all the new ships the coordinates to the next jump, and have them start warming up their engines. Any word from the Chiron?"

"Ma'am they report the fires are out and Admiral Griffin has been made aware of the damages to his ship. He says to start jumping all the ships to the coordinates he relayed an hour ago. Half the escorts are to go first then the civilian ships followed by the rest. Two Raptors are to hide in the asteroid field and relay the new coordinates to any colonial ship that jumps in," the com officer reported.

"Very well, start sending them out," Lydia ordered.

The fleet started jumping, first the least damaged Gunstars went, and then the civilian ships powered up their FTLs and followed by the LaGrange station. Then the remaining ships including the three damaged and two undamaged Battlestars jumped to the new system.

The fleet arrived at the Stellar Depot, a depot only known by the top brass and a few military cargo ships that stocked the station with the supplies for the fleet. The station sat in part of the Zodiac belt that was covered by a small nebular and far away from the main colonies. Inside were enough supplies to keep a dozen Battlegroups going in a fight. As the ships closed, giant slaps of rock slid out of the way and gantries slid out of the asteroid that would allow the Battlestars or any other ship to dock with it. Originally built thirty-six years before, it was updated and modified over the years.

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ooOoOoo

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Battlestar Chiron;

Stellar Depot;

Battlestar Chiron drifted around the fleet of ships as repair parties tackled the repairs the massive ship needed. Admiral Griffin had finally reached the CIC and picked up the handset and nodded to the com officer who put it through fleet wide.

"This is Admiral Griffin aboard the Chiron. We have suffered mightily in the last few hours. Our home worlds destroyed. Our fleet mostly destroyed but we prevail. I want you to know I have long range Raptors and Heavy Lifters out looking for surviving ships. Once they have gathered at a way point, they will be told where to jump to, to rejoin us. Right now, we need to empty the Stellar Depot of all supplies, vipers and Raptors as well as munitions and fuel. I want all ships to top off their fuel first including the tankers. No one but the top admirals of the fleet knows of this station along with a few ship captains that were used to keep her stocked up. Marines will go in first to secure the depot and then the work crews. We have to work fast, so let's get it done. Admiral Griffin, out," Walter said as he hung up the handset and turned to his CIC crew, "You heard me. Let's get to it. We will rotate the Battlestars and repair ships through the station on the top docking points. Merchant ships and support ships through the middle tier docks and escort ships through the bottom tier.

Walter sat down in his command chair as his ribs were killing him and he was handed a clipboard of items that needed his attention. The first item dealt with ships in the fleet and he quickly read over them. There were five Battlestars, two repair ships, thirteen mixed bag of Gunstars, eighteen Tigerstar Gunstars, eight Titan II Gunstars, six missile Destroyers, eight Fast Frigates, seven Patrolstars, two Theda class manufacturing ship, one Gander class utility/carrier, three civilian repair ships, seven mining ship, five tylium tanker, two refinery ships, thirty cargo ships of various makes and models, twelve large freighters and eighteen smaller ones, twenty-five different types of passenger liners, three large Agro ships, three medical ship two civilian and one military, twenty-five octopus tugs, and two water tankers. A good size fleet on paper, but all the warships but two were damaged not counting the ships docked to or in the station or jumped with the help of the tugs which consisted of the Queenstown Carrier, the replenishment ship Caprica, thirteen freighters, two mining ships, a small botanic cruiser that had been used for the station, a small repair ship, four Albatross large liners, a recently decommissioned hospital ship and two trillium tankers were formed up with four partially decommissioned Patrolstars of the Swift class, nine Starfire class Gunstars all but three could be reactivated in a few days. Four large botanical cruisers, eight series 300 Intersun class passenger liners were almost completely reactivated for a new company on Caprica had been towed into the stations docks. The liners were set to be converted before they launched. The two flight pods that were taken off the decommissioned Jupiter class Battlestar Python were in the station and he had no idea on what to use them for at this time. In all two hundred and fifty eight civilian and military ships were all that he knew was left of the twelve thousand military and nine hundred thousand civilian ships in the colonies.

Outside of the fleet sitting at Stellar Depot, Raptors were looking for any ship they could use as what they had that was running was overcrowded. The fleet would spend ten days at the depot bringing six of the Starfire's back online along with the Caprica and Queenstown which opened eight slots in the station for some of the older ships to dock for repairs. While this was going on, Walter had the CAGS of all five Battlestars sorting out the three thousand Viper pilots, six hundred Raptors, two hundred and ten Heavy Lifters, seventy shuttle and fifty-eight refueling crews. The Depot gave them an additional eight hundred Vipers, two hundred Raptors, sixty Scimitar bombers, twenty heavy lifters and fifteen medical shuttles. All were obsolete designed but Walter wasn't going to pass them up so they were unloaded aboard the station.

Fifteen civilian ships were found plundered by Admiral Cain and thirty heavy lifters were dispatched to jump them to the evacuation fleet where their testimony was given and Fleet Admiral Walter Griffin issued to all commands orders for her arrest. Later another five ships were found that she had plundered as well. Eighteen more ships were found, four liners, eight freighters, two mining ship, an electronics ship, a flattop repair ship and two tankers and guided to the fleet but after that, nothing but wreckage. Six ships were found that were important and could be brought back on line. One was a Construction Platform Tantalus at one of the storage yards. She had been hit by several missiles from the Cylons but when they checked her out, her engines and FTL were working so she latched onto a crippled decommissioned Jupiter Battlestar and jumped them both back to the fleet. The third ship was the Grapple class salvage ship Blackbane that had jumped from the Black Lion salvage yard with all their people and a deck full of cargo containers. Two Ebba Maersk class Supper Freighter freighters were found hiding in the edge of the belt trying to find a safe haven along with the Colonial Fleet Harvestor class Military Agro ship from Aerilon when the attack happened. The ships domes were fully stocked and her holds full of supplies meant to keep the domes going. She would be a great asset for the fleet. The lists went on and on and Walter suffered with headaches through the whole thing. He finally had to call a halt of the rescues because the Cylons were getting smarter to trap his Raptors. With the help of two of the tugs, they had grabbed the stern and midsection of the destroyed Jupiter class Battlestar Diana that had been part of Battlestar group eighty.

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ooOoOoo

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Battlestar Chiron;

Stellar Depot;

On the morning of the eighteenth day after the attack, three hundred and two ships powered up their FTL drives. The route had been scouted by long range Raptors for ten jumps of forty light years each but they would do twenty so they wouldn't damage the FTL engines of the fleet. During the waiting for the start of the jumps, the Chiron, and the Uranus would cycle through the repair ships Leviathan and the Hephasetus for repairs that would seal up the outer hulls and restore the weapons while internal repairs would be completed by the crew. Next was the Atlas class Battlestar Atlas and two of the Gunstars on the Hephasetus as she could repair two at once. The station and the civilian repair ships using FTL drives recovered at LaGrange depot were installed in the ships that Admiral Cain had plundered. Then the ships were refueled and provisioned for the long journey.

With all five Battlestars back in fully working order, they formed a stacked formation above the civilian fleet to protect it from all sides while Gunstars covered the bottom of the fleet and the sides. The repair ships and the station were in the center of the fleet with the tankers and agro ships while the rest covered the area around the fleet to help protect the ships inside the center. Inside the fleet of ships, one hundred and forty-seven thousand civilians and ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty Colonial personnel huddled in apprehension of the journey to come. The question on all of their minds was where to go.

For the next few days the fleet jumped away, not knowing that there was once Cylon skinjobs in fleet but had perished from the radiation of the nebular where they had been buried with the other colonials who had died. The fleet kept sending out stealth Raptors, scouting the way while other raptors would stand ready to jump with nuclear missiles and ship killing missiles. They knew they were eighteen days behind Adama but they had no idea that they had fallen way behind due to them jumping every thirty-three minutes. They were behind by thirty-five hundred light years with the Galactica jumping fifteen light years at a time.

Walter kept the fleet going, made sure everyone had enough to eat even if it was rationed and worked on restoring the ships in the station to full working conditions so they could ease the overcrowding on the ships and even had schools set up on the station to continue the teachings to the children. The four Albatross class 800 series heavy liners that had been stored on the station would be the first civilian ships to leave the station but they wouldn't leave until they had been fully converted. Each was turned into housing for those who had children as dozens of large compartments were turned into classrooms for the children. The hard part was finding enough qualified teachers for all the classes. With two hundred and eighty thousand people in the fleet and fifty-one thousand of them under the age of eighteen, they needed schools and homes for the children desperately. Some people would complain but the children were a vital resource and more of the scavenged liners from the depot were destined to become ships to carry students and their families. Some ships had only fifty people on board but some like the huge liners were at nine thousand or more. Even the station had eighteen thousand people aboard, a gain of nine thousand since they jumped the station. He knew he should just scrap some ships, but he had a feeling every ship would be valuable when they found a new home so he refused to do so.

Walter changed the jump schedule from one jump a day to three so they could try and find the Galactica but they had no idea they were far behind them. One day they found the wreckage of ship that had been destroyed. Walter had the wreckage gathered up and examined and it was determined it came from a ship called the Olympic Carrier. How the ship was destroyed, he didn't know but records from the fleet data based said the ship was a commercial liner and had a crew of two hundred and the passenger ability to carry eleven hundred passengers. Several of the ships computers hard drives were recovered and turned over to the NIS units aboard the Chiron to go through. The rest of the wreckage once it was gone over was sent to the smelters aboard the station to be remelted down.

On day forty-seven of the journey or day sixty-five after the attack, the fleet jumped to a new system that had an asteroid field and four uninhabitable planets. Wreckage of several destroyed Mark III Vipers are found and identified as part of the Galactica air wing. Raptors reach out looking for the Galactica or the Pegasus or even the Cylon fleet but nothing is found until the last raptor found a pair of Baseships guarding what looked like a Cylon resupply ship but they were not sure. The ship was long and slim and mostly heavy glass as used in the Argo ships so they assume it's some type of Agro ship but why would the Cylons need food.

Walter quickly devised a plan using the Chiron and five Gunstars. The Chiron would jump between the two Baseships that were guarding the third ship with four of the Gunstars as escorts. The fifth Gunstar would jump right behind the third ship and take out her engines so their marines could board and find out what the ship was used for.

Walter checked the dradis board and said, "We jump in thirty seconds. All batteries don't wait for my order. If you have a line of sight on your gun cameras of the enemy Baseships, fire. Concentrate all firepower on the midsections of the two Baseships. Vipers, your job is to take down any Cylon fighters. Do not let them jump away."

"Thirty seconds to jump."

"Get ready everyone," Walter said to his command crew.

The giant ship, the Titan class Battlestar was twice the size of a Mercury class Battlestar with four times the firepower and over eight hundred Vipers alone vanished in to FTL. Ahead of the great ship was the Titan II Gunstar Thor's Fist with its modular bay set for heavy combat with two giant four hundred mm main cannons, the same as the ones used on the Titan's main batteries. The Titan IIs were designed to be escorts for the giant Titan class Battlestars and the fleet had thirteen in the fleet all in heavy gun support mode. The Titan II Gunstars Anderson and Slammer were above the Chiron while the Hound and Majestic werebelow.

The second the six ships appeared they opened fire as soon as the targets were insight. Walter was watching the Baseship to port take hit after hit to its central section of its hull and the forty portside duel and triple mounted Heavy KEWs ripped it apart in second. It exploded into a giant explosion and a few seconds later the starboard Baseship followed its sister while the Thor's Fist pumped four rounds into the stern of the four hundred meter long ship in front of it, blowing its engines apart along with the giant antenna that extended from its rear. Two hundred Vipers went after the forty Raiders that were trying to defend the resurrection ship but they were quickly wiped out by the Vipers and defensive fire of the six ships. The battle lasted less the five minutes and then the Marines aboard Raptors and Heavy assault shuttles started landing on the ship. A fierce battle was taking place aboard the ship and what they thought were prisoners soon turned to be humanoid Cylons. Within forty minutes resistance aboard the ship had been crushed and electronic teams made sure no beacons and trackers were on the ship before the tug arrived to take the ship back to the fleet. The surrendered humanoids were gathered in one of the larger area of the captured ship and separated into their models to be questioned by NIS. No warning was sent to the rest of the Cylon fleet and they did not hear about the capture because all the Cylons that were destroyed downloaded into the captured ships mainframe.

What Walter would learn about the Cylons troubled him deeply but that was in the days to come. For now the fleet was ecstatic that they had struck back but Walter warned them not to expect more as the Colonial Fleet had a civilian fleet to protect first. Four days later and eight jumps the fleet was hiding in the rays of a white dwarf star going over their intelligence while Cavil was learning about the missing resurrection ship and Baseships that were guarding her. When they investigated they found the wreckage from the three ships including the engine compartment of the resurrection ship. Cavil threw a temper tantrum and ordered the fleet to find out who did it, but assumed it was Cain and the Pegasus.

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First Edited

Final Edit

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Battlestar Galactica™ is a registered trademark and copyright (©) Glen Larson & the SciFi Channel. Thank you to the Battlestar Wiki and The Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game, Battlestar Prometheus have proven invaluable for the information they contain. All material found in this story is for entertainment purposes. No copyright infringement should be inferred or is intended. Battlestar Chiron and all its original characters and story lines presented here are the copyright (©) of their creator (©) 2010.