Black Alpha One – Part 6

Black Alpha One

By AJ Marks

Part 6

Jack made his way through the hallways towards the Presidential office knowing they were not expecting him at this time of night. He also knew what he had to say would shock her.  Black Alpha One had only been initiated only thirty minutes ago and he wanted to give her enough time to prepare.

Walking up to the office he noticed the President’s aide look up at him, then down at his computer, frowning at what he didn’t see.

“Um, I don’t see you scheduled,” he said, confused.

“I know,” Jack replied walking right past the aide and barged into the room taking a second to see who the President was with. Senator Aymil was in the room, and normally Jack would have been a bit more tactful, but he knew the time for such pleasantries was over.

“I see the military has no respect for anyone these days,” Aymil said, looking at Jack in disgust.

“I need to speak with the President now,” Jack replied even as the Senator stared at him, Jack didn’t back down and the President seemed to sense the urgency.

“And what could possibly be so important to barge into a scheduled meeting,” Aymil said. “You can wait until I’m done.”

“Code Black Alpha One,” Jack said over riding the Senator, and watching as Angie absorbed the code and looked back at him in shock.

“Code Black Alpha One, are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am,” Jack replied back to her. She shifted slightly and seemed to be worried about what would happen next even as she seemed to understand what the code meant.

“Sorry Senator, but I have to take this,” Angie finally said, and they both watched as the Senator turned red in anger at being dismissed. Jack wondered if it was from being dismissed, or that a woman had done it.

Jack hesitated only for a second before deciding to include the Senator as well. He would need to know eventually, especially as the information was scheduled to be released now and he turned back to the President.

“What happened?” she asked.

“The battlegroups Kiev and Seydlitz, patrolling the Black Zone, have encountered and engaged hostile forces. Reports are still coming in, but from the looks of it, at least two large warships,” Jack said, recalling the brief report despite the fact the battle was still going on when he left and he didn’t have the results yet.

“Hostile forces, more like trumped up forces to prevent the reduction in military spending, a scam of the worse kind,” the senator said, almost shouting at him.

“You have no idea,” Jack said looking at the senator then back to the President.

“What other preparations have been made?” Angie asked as Jack shifted gears to give his report.

“Standard, leaves cancel along with the Ark Royal and Bismarck battlegroups are taking supplies right now to move out, and we’ve moved to Defcon 2. I also started Operation Nevada,” Jack told her, of course almost everything was set in place in case Black Alpha One was declared, all but Operation Nevada.

“I see, well, I guess there is little for us to do, what about the rest of the fleet?” Angie asked.

Jack pulled out his tablet and brought up the file in question which showed the position of all the ships at the moment. “Admiral Anders, in the Seydlitz, is here,” Jack said, pointing to a spot in the Black Zone.  “He is also engaged with Cylon forces there, when I left there was a report of Colonial ships so the odds are good there are Colonial warships there as well.  He engaged because they were being overwhelmed.”

“Then you admit to bringing us into a war we are not involved in. Such recklessness is typical of the military and you will be punished for this, your career is over admiral,” Aymil said to him, almost looking ecstatic at the fact he thought he had something on him.  “These Cylon and Colonials, made up names.”

“No,” Jack said calmly. “You want to know the truth, have a seat.”

He waited a few seconds watching the Senator war between racing out and wanting to know more. He finally sat down.  “Well, go ahead and lie, this should be good.”

“Ten years ago the event which rocked our world wasn’t an asteroid, but a large space ship,” Jack said watching as Aymil rolled his eyes even as he brought up the file and turned the tablet a bit. “It was unlike anything we had ever seen before, almost a mile long.  Our top scientists went to work on it, and we kept a secret from the population, because the crew had been human.”

“Human, I doubt that,” Aymil interrupted obviously unimpressed by the explanation.

Jack brought up a few of the pictures and flipped through them so Aymil could see them before continuing. “As you can see, the wreck looks very similar to our battlestars that is no accident.  Didn’t you ever wonder how we managed to boost our technologies so quickly after the event, we reversed engineered the ship and even learned their language.”

He watched as the Senator seemed to scoff at the information Jack gave him.

“There is more,” Jack said. “We learned from their computers that they were fighting a war against a race of machines called Cylons.  They were focused on the goal of destroying all organic lifeforms.”

“A well-rehearsed story and lovely doctored pictures you have here, something anyone with a computer could do, and probably from some conspiracy website,” Aymil said. “It doesn’t change a thing, and only strengthens my resolve to make sure those cuts go through.”

Jack watched as he stood up and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Jack turned back to Angie waiting to see what she would say.

“I doubt anything you could have said would have changed his mind. He would have warped anything you said to fit his disillusions,” Angie said to him.  “I wonder if even meeting a Colonial would change his mind.”

“Probably not,” Jack said.

“So, anything else going on?” Angie asked.

“We have a meeting with all battlestar commanders in thirty minutes,” Jack said.

“I’d better grab something to eat then if I want to stay awake for this,” Angie said with a sigh. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Jack had to agree. Things had escalated quickly from the last time he met with her.

*****

Nick pulled another tight turn before catching another Cylon from behind and watching it explode. He forgot in that moment he had taken a life as he was in survival mode doing everything possible to ensure he would not die.  Training had taken over the moment the shooting started and he never stopped to think.  Stopping could cost you your life in this situation.

“Slim, watch it, you’ve got two on your tail,” he heard Twitch say.

“Get’em,” Nick said to James, turning to avoid their shots. The warning had been in time for him to evade.

“Splash one,” James said.

“Splash two,” a second voice said. Nick now had a clear tail, for now.

“Thanks,” he said to the two pilots and went back into the fight.

He had four kills already as the battle seemed to be winding down a bit. He took a moment to look at the scanner to get a better look of how the battle was going.  He saw the fleet engaged with the Cylon capital ships, along with a new warship he was not familiar with.

“Angel squad, stay here and mop up, the rest of the squadrons line up with your squadron leaders,” Nick heard Skull leader say.

Nick turned and lined up with Twitch and then the rest of the squadron which survived the battle. A few were missing and he realized they were either destroyed or damaged and had to return.  He decided not to dwell on it too much as his squadron headed away from the combat zone.

“We’re covering for another squadron so they can rearm and refuel,” Skull leader said.

He wondered if it had anything to do with the fact there was another battlestar and other humans out here. The question came up, who were they?  He had so many questions and no answers and hoped everything would be explained to him.  The scanner picked up a fleet of ships, a lot of them and his computer identified a few of the ships, mostly civilian as a squad of unknown fighters headed towards the new battlestar.

*****

Adama looked up from his command chair on the bridge of the Galactica hearing the latest reports. Silver Spar squadron was headed back to the battlestar to refuel and rearm even the basestars were engaged.  They had received reports of damage to the basestars with little damage in return, which relieved him a bit.  The unknown help still puzzled him and he hoped to get some answers soon.

The three basestars were overwhelmed by the firepower of the combined effort of the new fleet of warships and the Galactica. The Cylons had lost a lot of raiders in the first part of the battle and now the vipers were swarming in to help damage and destroy the basestars.  Even as he watched one basestar started to go critical and exploded.

“One basestar destroyed,” Tigh said to everyone on the bridge.

Adama watched as the mood on the bridge lessened from the tension at the beginning of the battle. The crewmembers could see themselves surviving the battle, something few were able to see at the beginning of the battle.  Adama ordered a new course which would allow them to engage the second basestar.

He watched on the scanner as the Galactica moved into a new position to engage the basestar. The other two battlestar were closing in as well, engaging the Cylons and taking them on as the smaller ships were busy as well.  He figured they were warships but none of them were recognized by the warbook.

“Damage report?” Adama asked as the second basestar exploded leaving everyone to focus on the last one.

“All sections report operational, repair crews are working on a few areas, but we are battle-ready,” Athena replied.

“Damage to the fleet?” Adama asked, hoping no raiders made it past them and into the fleet.

“Receiving no reports of any damage to the fleet, seems like the raiders were occupied with destroying us first,” Tigh said.

“Good,” Adama said, knowing that the Cylon strategy was sound, destroy the defenders the rest would be easy prey.

“Silver spar squadron had finished refueling, launching to cover the fleet,” Omega said.

Adama nodded, relieved that the battle had gone so well and they had managed to survive, something he did not expect at the beginning when he was outnumbered three to one. Now he could focus more on who their new ‘allies’ were and where they came from.  He started to ask Athena to contact then when she said a message had come for them.  He motioned for her to put it on his screen and the blonde appeared again.

“Commander, I’ve been asked by my superiors to meet with you,” she said to him.

“Sounds good, I think we both have some questions,” Adama said to her, she said nothing but he didn’t expect her to at that. “We have some things to take care of first.”

“We can come over there, or you can come over here,” she said to him.

“I’ll make arrangements and then head over to your ship,” Adama said finally.

“Understood,” she said.

The screen went blank and Adama knew he had some people to inform considering what happened. The council would want to know what was going on, and at least one would want to come over as well, and he wanted to have Starbuck and Apollo go with him.  He motioned for Tigh to take over the bridge as he headed off to get prepared to head over to the Seydlitz and a meeting he hoped would answer some questions.

End part 6

Continued in part 7