To Stop Running
by AJ Marks
Part 7
Commander Tigh watched the Cylon basestars in front of him now number four. He knew there were at least two behind him. Six basestars against two battlestars. The odds were not good in their favor anymore. He quickly ordered the Pegasus to the rear instead of fighting the four in front of them.
He gave the order to the captains of the fleet to head towards system, and he hoped that whatever military Earth had would protect them. The battlestars would delay the Cylons as much as possible.
The viper pilots were fighting well, and despite the latest reinforcements from the basestars they were holding their won quite well. However, with the addition of the new raiders there were no additional vipers free to attack the basestars.
He saw little way out of the battle they were engaged in. He had to hope for some luck, and quickly.
The Cylon commander felt pleased with how the battle went so far. The odds were now calculated to be in their favor. One battlestar had fled to the back as planned, and with each ship outnumbered victory was assured.
He watched a centurion walk over to report.
“Speak Centurion,” the commander said, awaiting good news.
“There has been an unexpected development in the battle,” the centurion said, pausing before continuing. “The rear basestars report an incoming wave of unknown ships heading towards them. A mix of fighters and larger ships.”
“Where?” the commander said, not liking this bit of news.
“They appeared from behind our rear basestars,” the centurion stated.
“Any identification?” the commander asked.
“No, what should I order the basestar commanders?”
“Recall their raiders to protect themselves, we have more than enough to destroy the human fleet,” the commander said.
“By your command.”
Apollo watched in disbelief as the Cylon fighters turned around heading back towards the basestars. He had a feeling he was heading into a trap, and perhaps there were more than two Cylon ships in the area.
He was deep in thought when Athena called up telling him a communications had come in. Apollo figured it was a captain of one of the ships wondering about an order.
“Put it though,” Apollo said, watching as the face of Admiral Percy White appeared.
“Looks like you could use a hand commander,” Percy said as a welcome, shocking Apollo.
“You could say that,” Apollo stated, unsure of what the man could do.
“We have moved to engage the Cylons, the two large ships that you are currently heading towards. We noticed them right after you left, our fighters are about to engage,” Percy said, and it made sense now why the Cylons retreated.
“You’re the reason the raiders suddenly turned around,” Apollo said, putting it all together. “How many ships do you have?”
“Twenty-one warships, all ready to fight,” Percy replied.
“hen you should have enough to beat the basestars,” Apollo said, unknown about how strong the weapons were they had. He began to get an idea in his head. “Tigh,” he said, switching his communications over to the fleet line, waiting a moment for Tigh to appear. “Do a stalling engagement, don’t directly attack. We have reinforcements from Earth.”
“Reinforcements, already?” Tigh said, shocked at the news.
“Yeah,” Apollo said, quickly outlining a battle plan watching Tigh’s face.
“Should work, provided their ships are advanced enough,” Tigh finally replied.
“I hope they are, not that we have much of a choice,” Apollo stated, recalling the ships. He now wished he had done a detailed scan of the Earth ships.
The Cylons had turned to find an unknown enemy engaging them from behind. Their weapons appeared to have no to little effect due to some sort of energy field. However, the weapons of the new enemy were not anywhere as effective as the Colonials were.
The Cylon leader watched as the centurion walked over to report the news.
“Report centurion,” the leader said.
“Our forces approaching the rear are heavily engaged and outnumbered by a ew force,” the centurion replied.
“Explain?”
“The new forces are human, but their technology is very different. Their fighters are protected by a sort of energy field our weapons have trouble penetrating,” the centurion said. “Their weapons are not as good, but our raiders are outnumbered. It is advisable that we retreat before we lose all ships in the area.”
“How many human warships?” the leader asked, wondering how outnumbered they were.
“The basestar commander reports at least twenty human warships,” the centurion said.
“Order the recall, we’ll wait for the new Pluto class basestar to catch up to us,’ the leader said. “Retreat back to sector 389.95.”
“By your command,” the centurion said.
The Cylon leader would report this information back to the Imperious Leader for further instructions.
Apollo watched on the scanner as the Cylons began to retreat. The raiders left the battle before he could put his plan into action. With the arrival of the human fleet it must have thrown the Cylons off guard.
“Do we pursue?” Bojay’s voice said, leader of the Pegasus Gold Spar squadron. He felt glad he had survived.
“Negative,” Tigh’s voice said. “There is a lot to do, and I doubt this is the last we’ve seen of them.”
“Return to base, you’ll get another shot at them,” Aoollo sad, watching the vipers break away and head back to the battlestars.
He looked around the scanners taking in everything. The position in the rear where the Earth forces were fighting, he noticed only one baseship retreating, but it was damaged. So they had managed to destroy a Cylon warship that was good news. He hoped they did not suffer much in return.
“I see you survived, they are tough bastards,” Percy said over the communications.
“Yeah, been fighting them for a long time,” Apollo said, glad to hear the fleet had survived. “I do want to thank you for coming to help. Without that, I shudder to think what might have happened.”
“No problem, call me Percy, I think we’re going to be working together for a while,” he replied back to Apollo. “Although my actions might be tougher to defend back home.”
“Why?” Apollo asked, knowing little about the politics of Earth.
“We have some politicians who won’t want to get involved in another war. They easily forget that we didn’t start the last war, and wanted no war, they started it,” Percy said. “Some lessons have to be continuously relearned.”
“Sounds like typical politicians,” Apollo said, when Tigh interrupted him.
“Apollo, I’d like to request to be able to bring the fleet into their system if they’ll allow it,” Tigh said, making the request.
“Did you hear that?” Apollo asked seeing Percy nod his head.
“I can allow you into the outer system, any closer though would require approval of the council. I’ll talk to the President and see what he says,” Percy said.
“Then we’ll wait for their reply,” Apollo said.
Steven Hiller sat at his desk, he had been woken up early in the morning with news that the second fleet had left the system. Since then they had not been any contact with the fleet, and that made Steven nervous. What was going on out there in space? He privately wished David was here, his intellectual brilliance could see things others did not. Instead he was on Mars investigating some interesting structures.
“Sir, Admiral White is on the line,” his secretary said making him jump slightly. He quickly picked up the phone.
“What’s going on up there?” Steven asked, waiting a second for the reply as the communications had a bit of a delay.
“Sorry sir, but you did give me free reign to do what I thought was right,” Percy replied, frustrating Steven, but he knew it was the truth. “The Cylons attacked, this time the human fleet outside our system. I order the fleet to help, they were outnumber badly.”
“So, you’ve gone and started a war?” Steven said, rubbing his forehead at the statement. “You know many in Congress won’t like that.”
“They attacked first sir, Jupiter base,” Percy said. “And I couldn’t stand by to allow potential allies be killed when we had a chance to help.”
“I know, I think its inevitable from what I’ve read, but others won’t,” Steven said, despite the harsh truth of what happened twenty years ago. Some people never learned no matter how many times it happened.
“They’ve asked permission to come into the system, I’ve allowed them into the outer part of the system. They also want to talk to Congress,” Percy said.
Steven had to think about that for a few seconds. For them to enter the system, Congress had little authority over that, but it was nice that they asked.
“I’m talking to Congress soon, I’ll let them know that we’ve welcomed then into the outer system for now, and we should meet with them soon,” Steven said. He wondered what might happen next.
“I’ll let them know,” Percy replied.
Tigh watched Terrance walk back onto the bridge. When the attack happened he left, heading to a safe area on the ship. Now that it was over, he had come back to see what the damage was.
“We survived, how close was it?” Terrance asked. Tigh had a thought to not say much, but also understood that this councilman was on their side.
“Too close,” Tigh finally said, looking over the bridge. “We received help from Earth’s military. Without that, we might not be having this conversation. And that was only because Apollo took the Pegasus into the system.”
“That close,” Terrance said.
“We were up against six basestars, four attacked from the front, two in the rear, a classic strategy,” Tigh said. “Even with the Pegasus, things were bad. If we had not been on alert, they would have come in even closer before we could react.”
“Ziers and his supporters have been taken down a peg,” Terrance said. “Though for how long, I don’t know.”
“His zealous attitude almost cost us everything,” Tigh said, not thinking about how close the battle had been, especially if Apollo had followed orders, they would have never had any help in the fight. “We’ve been given permission to head into their system, only about half way. It will provide some protection for the fleet.”
“I have no problem with is, but not sure about Ziers. I can stand up to him now, his recent defeat in the council cost him a bit, especially not telling us everything,” Terrance said.
Tigh looked out the viewport at a couple of ships in front of him. Terrance was younger than most on the council, yet had come confidence about him now, not part of the old school that made up most of the council. Another thought came to him. “We should get ready for whoever will go down and talk with them.”
“That will include several council members, and hopefully either you or Commander Apollo,” Terrance said. “And it will probably include Ziers.”
“Probably, see if you can get some others who are not on his side,” Tigh said, the last thing they needed was everyone loyal to Ziers to head down. Who knows what might happen then. “I’ll have a shuttle standing by ready to go.”
He watched the man walk off the bridge and back towards the council room.
Steven Hiller walked into the larger meeting room, several senators and other military commanders were waiting for him. They had been briefed a bit over the situation, but this meeting would bring them all up to date. He noticed Senator Mitchell made it, and felt a bit relieved for that, taking a seat along with the others.
“Okay General Retjters, inform us all of the current situation,” Steven said, looking over at a general nearby sitting at the table who stood up.
“Thank you sir,” the general said, walking over and activating the screen on the wall. “As many of you know, one of our outposts was destroye by an unknown force.” A picture of the unknown ship appeared on the screen for them all to see. “Captain Johnson was sent out to investigate. He found two fighters and one large ship approaching him. He turned and ran back towards the fleet under Admiral White. This ship is almost a mile in length.”
The screen switched over to the picture of the battlestar Pegasus and a viper. Several people were seeing the picture for the first time.
“This the battlestar Pegasus, a warship seemingly built by humans. According to Comamnder Apollo, they are searching for Earth,” the general said. “We have learned from him that the group who attacked us are Cylons, the first picture. If what Apollo said is true, the Cylons are a race of robots who they have been fighting for over a thousand of their yehrens, we don’t know how long a yahren is so it could be any number of years.”
“You say they are human, how is that possible?” one senator asked.
“They claim we are the thirteenth tribe from a planet called Kobol,” the general said. “We have no records of such a place.”
“Preposterous!” more than one senator and military official said. Many scoffing at the mention of humanity coming from another planet.
“It might be, but the fact remains they are human, and these Cylons do exist,” the general stated. “Now, they are fleeing the Cylons after their world was destroyed in a peace attempt to end the war. Now, Admiral White has actively engaged the Cylons and destroyed one of their capital warships. They helped defeat the Cylons who were engaged the human fleet.”
Steven watched as several people started talking all at once. Many were voicing their displeasure at the fact the military was involving them in a war they were not involved in. He even heard one yelling that Admiral White be stripped of his command and put on trial.
“Silence!” he yelled, gaining everyone’s attention at last. “That’s better. It no longer matters what the reason were, the action is done. The Cylons probably already know we’re here, and have probably considering how to attack us. It won’t matter if we help them out or not.”
“If the admiral had not interfered we might not be in this situation.”
“Yeah, like the last group that came here,” Mitchell said, silencing the group. They all understood what happened back then. They were attacked with the single goal of being destroyed for no other reason than the resources of the planet.
“Intelligence says our shields give us a bit of an advantage, our weapons are not as powerful, but with the help of our new allies that can be fixed. If we press the advantage now we can win the war,” the general said.
“War?”
“Gentlemen,” Steven said sharply, sensing the meeting about the head off in another tangent. “We need to address the fleet of ships coming into our system. What do we do?”
“We meet with their leaders?” Mitchell said. “There are questions, they probably have the answer.”
“I have to agree,” another senator said.
“Admiral White expressed the same feeling from those he met. I shall inform him of this decision,” the general said.
“We will continue this at a later date, I have a press conference to attend, some information leaks on the web over this have to be addressed,” Steven said. He still did not know what he would say to them.
End part 7
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