HunTrib Chpt 9

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=Hunted Tribes=
==Chapter 9==
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“Dodging a laser beam is not necessarily outright impossible but if you were a Toaster you would want to try a few other tactics first because the laws of probability, as well as the Lords of Kobol, are definitely on our side there.”Kara Thrace, Battlestar Galactica CAG – 3046CE
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===Battle over Aquaria===
Aquaria Orbit - Cyrannus System – 3045CE
Directed Energy Weapons such as Lasers or Particle Projection Cannon are distinctly unimpressive to see used in a vacuum. Without an atmosphere full of particles to light up even the usually quite spectacular whitish-blue lightning effect of a PPC is invisible so the typical exciting sight of tracer fire and missile trails that were a normal feature of fights between Raiders and Vipers were utterly absent when the fighting began in earnest above Aquaria.
There is in fact only one place you can be to see a Laser or PPC beam in space and that is directly in front of it. Thus it was that the AI's controlling the first Cylon Raiders to be struck did get to see what hit them, albeit extremely briefly because a microsecond after everything went very bright it all went very dark. The visuals however were really a moot point because from their point of view they were then resurrected an instant later universally thinking “What the frak was that?” and hoping that the Hybrid controlling the Resurrection Ship might be able to explain.
Sitting in the cockpit of one of the two dozen Kirghiz aerospace fighter the Galactica had launched, Wing Commander Sarah-Louise “Star League” Defoe fired her second LRPPC, then when another Raider exploded she fired her two Large Pulse Lasers in relative quick succession taking out two more enemy fighters. The Raiders were still so far away they weren't even visible as tiny dots yet but they were nevertheless well inside weapons range and with the fighter’s sensors and computers doing most of the actual work of tracking and aiming all Defoe had to do was fire and wink another Cylon out of existence before selecting her next victim.
Piloting a Kirghiz was very different from sitting at the stick of a Viper. For one thing the SLDF pilots were actually interfaced directly with the machine via a neurohelmet that both translated their brainwaves into something the fighter could understand and also fed information far more directly back. You didn't so much merely sit in an aerospace fighter so much as you became part of it, the technology being much like that used by mechwarriors on the ground to control their machines. That revelation in itself had caused a few disparaging comments from the more technophobic elements in the Colonial ranks, the news that a battlemech basically read your thoughts and actually used the mechwarriors own sense of balance to stay upright when moving at speed blurred the man/machine dividing line a little too much for comfort.
Facing three Basestars, the Galactica had now orientated itself so that it could bring its port and starboard gun-batteries against the Raiders which would soon be coming from the two more distant of them, leaving only a limited number of forward guns to support the fighters engaging the Raiders launched by the closest Cylon Capital Ship. Although an older design Galactica still carried a formidable arsenal of weapons, twenty-four heavy gun turrets mounting two large cannon apiece, that could be either used to pound a basestar to scrap with conventional rounds or could fire flak for anti-aircraft suppression, plus a vast array of hundreds of smaller fully-automatic guns for point defense. Because the basestars had jumped in so far away their Raiders had yet to enter effective range of the battlestar's guns and so Galactica was currently stood idle, waiting to unleash a torrent of munitions at the horde of approaching foes her DRADIS was tracking, until then it would be up to the aerospace fighters of the SLDF to thin out the enemy ranks with weapons that couldn't be avoided.
‘This is almost too easy’ Wing Commander Defoe thought to herself with an inward smile of satisfaction as her pilots and fighters continued to lay waste to the incoming Cylons. It was in fact going even better than had been predicted so far, with the worst case scenario having been that the Raiders would all immediately got to full thrust and charge down the guns, cutting down the range to where they could fire back as fast as possible, but instead they had initially continued at the same steady velocity towards Galactica seemingly mindless of losses. Then even better as the numbers of destroyed Raiders passed a hundred and fifty and kept on climbing fast they had all begun making a series of sharp evasive maneuvers as they would if under regular KEW fire, a tactic that worked much better against projectiles going less than three kilometers a second than it did with a laser traveling three-hundred thousand kilometers in the same time span.
The Wolverine LRPPC's were massive overkill for the job they were currently doing. Being intended to be fired at targets which often carried considerably more weight of armor than the Raiders actually massed in total the beams were quite simply instant death. On striking the Cylon fighters the Particle Beam Cannon would almost instantaneously convert a fair percentage of the craft to vapour and then what was left tended to promptly explode as both the stores of 30mm KEW ammunition and the Tylium fuel aboard voiced their stern objection to that kind of treatment, expressing their feelings on the matter as shattering secondary detonations.
Given the close-packed formations some of the LRPPC and Large Pulse Laser fire was occasionally achieving multiple kills per shot as either lucky beams went right through one target to spear another or else in many cases pieces of one exploding Raider took out others. Eventually the Cylon Fighter AI's collectively realized that they weren't going to manage to avoid what they now knew were beams of energy, since the things were occasionally visible amongst the vapour and debris, and given the choice between retreat and headlong attack they launched into the latter finally doing what the SLDF pilots had feared they would have done several squadrons worth of destroyed fighters earlier.
Despite their Raiders being hit hard the three Basestars and their nonplussed crews and Hybrids had not acted decisively in the meantime, they were simply too shocked and confused being too used to having a plan which allowed for almost every eventuality and then sticking to it. In fact the trio of Cylon Capital Ships had made no offensive action themselves ever since the closest to Galactica had launched a single missile that had been subsequently shot down by point-defence guns before it got anywhere near its target. Their problem wasn't just the utterly expected new weaponry being directed against them, it was also partially that they just weren't supposed to be here to destroy the Colonial warship anyway, with their orders being to capture it with minimal human loss of life in the process. In the end the Number One's, often called Cavills by the Colonials, had snapped out of their own particularly deep sense of shock and mystification and ordered a full barrage of long-range anti-ship missiles to be launched at Galactica because this was clearly now a real fight in earnest.
On the CIC Gaeta reported the inbound missiles and Adama ordered the batteries to open fire on both them and the approaching Raider squadrons from the second and third Basestars that were finally coming into range. The two dozen main turrets began to fire salvos of flak rounds and then shortly afterwards the hundreds of dual-mounted point-defense emplacements opened up with continual streams of shells fired at what the SLDF considered a staggering sustained rate-of-fire for a fifty-millimetre autocannon. With full ammunition stocks Galactica could afford to be profligate with her munitions and her guns kept firing continually, shooting down the incoming anti-ship missiles and holding back the hundreds upon hundreds of Raiders approaching from either side.
With missiles on the way, Galactica spewing death and the closing Raiders now eventually large enough to see with the naked eye, especially when they exploded into tiny short-lived stars, Kara Thrace now felt that the game was really on. Until now all she and the thirty-nine other pilots sat waiting in their stationary vipers formed up behind the Kirghiz's had known of the distant mayhem was by listening into the comms-chatter, with Gaeta keeping an increasingly excitable running tally of Cylon losses which were already quite simply ridiculous if his numbers were accurate. ‘This is Starbuck to all vipers’ she transmitted. ‘We'll be in range for our own lasers soon and we should be able to get in at least two volleys into them before they can shoot back so make them count’ she ordered. ‘Don't get in front of Galactica’s guns and don't get in front of the Wolvies either’ she told them seriously. ‘When we're mixed up fly loose’ she advised, ‘don't fly predictable so they can use their targeting computers and remember that when your laser is charging you've still got your guns’ she said. ‘I want kills people’ she told them. ‘I want so many dead frakking Toasters that they'll still be resurrecting them this time next year.’
‘We've got large numbers of Raiders and most of the Heavy Raiders heading towards the planet Boss’ Hotdog noted. ‘Want a few of us to go stop them?’ he asked.
‘Negative’ Starbuck replied. ‘We kill or drive off off the main pack first and make sure Galactica is secure then we can mop up what's left afterwards’ she said. ‘Okay, my DRADIS says we're nearly in range, choose your targets and start zapping them’ she ordered lining up her own first shot, the red LED indicator telling her the laser slung under her Viper Mark VII was ready to fire.
‘Wish I had the fancy targeting gear those Wolvies do’ another pilot commented. ‘Could have already racked up some kills’ he said.
‘The Mark I Eyeball has always worked good enough for me, Redwing.’ Starbuck told him.
‘Yeah but ignoring their sensors even their actual eyeballs are Mark II’s’ Kat interjected. The Wolverine's all had eyesight which was far better than what the Colonial's deemed twenty-twenty vision so it was true as well as funny.
‘I'll have them gouge yours out and replace them then’ Starbuck replied in as serious a tone as she could muster. ‘Here we go, good hunting people’ she said.
‘Eat hot laser death robot scum’ Hotdog yelled gleefully as he squeezed the new additional firing button on his joystick.
Only just over half the vipers scored a hit on their first shot but that still meant seventeen dead Raiders, five more crippled and two badly damaged as the Medium Lasers sliced through the Cylon hulls they struck. Causing barely half the damage of one of the Large Pulse Lasers mounted on the Kirghiz could achieve, less than a third of what an LRPPC could do at an inordinately greater distance, the old Medium Lasers which the SLDF had dug out of storage for mounting on the Colonial fighters nonetheless gave them the ability to score kills at better than ten times the normal combat range they were used to. Even that limitation was only due in the main to the viper pilot's inability to actually hit something any further out and the accuracy climbed fast as the distance closed down. When the lasers indicated they were charged again, with the Raiders considerably closer now, the second volley from the vipers killed thirty-three raiders outright and disabled five more.
Not one of the forty vipers missed the third shot they managed to get off before the Raiders could fire back and it was at this time that the two dozen Kirghiz fighters switched from firing their LRPPC's and opened up with their autocannon en-masse.
Aggressor squadron training and simulations had revealed what appeared to be the most devastating close-in armament the SLDF could carry on their aerospace fighters for use against raiders as yet, these being two of their smallest LB-X autocannon on each wing.
Although they lacked the rate of fire of either the Viper KEW's, or the Wolverines own Ultra Autocannon, they had a much higher muzzle-velocity than the former and unlike the latter they were capable of firing cluster rounds. Eschewing actually aiming for the most part the Kirghiz pilots simply held down the triggers and opened up with what amounted between them to ninety-six fully-automatic, 30mm shotguns right into the path of hundreds of Raiders. To the Cylon fighter-aircraft the effect was somewhat akin to running headlong into a cloud made of high-velocity steel shards and they just weren't armored for that sort of thing.
‘Lords of Kobol’ Starbuck exclaimed as what must have been the equivalent of two or maybe even three squadrons of Raiders were instantly shredded within the space of what seemed like just a few seconds, the ones behind them forced to take high-gee evasive action to get out of the path of the storm of cluster-rounds. She soon got over her shock and realised the chaos might give them the opportunity to get a fourth, maybe even a fifth free shot into the Toasters whilst they wildly manoeuvred. ‘Keep zapping the frakkers!’ she practically screamed over the wireless as the vipers struck down more Raiders with their lasers.
Wing-Commander Defoe couldn't quite believe what both her computers and her own mind was telling her, they couldn't have already killed that many enemy aircraft already surely? In any case it was about to become a real dog-fight not an exercise in long-range marksmanship from a stationary Kirghiz and they didn't want to be a sitting duck when those Cylon fighters opened up with their guns. ‘Let's get into it’ she ordered her pilots. ‘Ride you Wolverines’ she cried out and put her engine to full power, everything the Kirghiz had, the fusion powerplant putting out enough thrust to slam her back in her seat at a brutal four gees of acceleration. She soon cut that back to a more tolerable two-point-five after cutting the overthrust but by then the aerospace fighter was already moving fast.
Still firing their autocannon and pulse-lasers the two-dozen SLDF aerospace fighters accelerated straight towards the enemy. Soon they and the Vipers were involved in what amounted to a vicious point-blank dogfight with several squadrons of Cylons who had managed to make it this far, with lines of Tracer fire from Raider and Viper KEW's arcing off in all directions as everyone got tangled up. Lasers burned through metal and 30mm cannon fire blasted airframes to pieces as a confused and unpredictable mess of a fighter battle ensued.
Two Raiders managed to get on the tail of a less manoeuvrable Kirghiz, they opened up with their guns and watched the rounds impact on thick heavy armour to little initial effect as the human at the controls tried to break away from them and failed despite his every effort. One of the Cylon fighters shifted position to target the engines of the aerospace fighter, closing in for an easy shot but then to its short-lived horror it discovered the strange craft had a nasty sting in the tail when a small rear turret on the Kirghiz mounting a Medium Pulse Laser got a lock and promptly shot the Raider right in what was sometimes referred to as its “Face”, killing the AI directly behind that location instantly. A few seconds later the Wolverine pilots calls for assistance were answered when a Viper flashed past the nose of his fighter and fired a burst from its three KEW's into the second Raider on the Kirghiz's tail, blowing it apart. The viper then tilted its nose up and fired its laser into another Cylon for another kill within a couple of seconds before banking away sharply to avoid a line of tracers.
Kill ratios between the Colonial Fleet and the Cylons had always favoured the former quite heavily, which was why Basestars carried so many times more fighters than even a Mercury Class like Pegasus, but this action was already by at least two orders of magnitude the worst hammering the Cylons had ever taken to a force they outnumbered so heavily. Although Vipers were finally starting to go down the addition of a single laser to the Mark VII meant that if the frakker was charged and ready when the Raider ended up in your gunsights you could simply kill the Toaster bastard regardless of what fancy moves it tried to pull and the Colonial pilots were loving it so far.
With hundreds more Raiders being lost to Galactica’s own guns as the other two waves tried to charge down the battlestar it was becoming apparent that the Cylons were going to run out of fighters before too long if this kept up. Maybe if they had jumped in only a handful of kilometres away they could have simply overwhelmed the humans but by arriving hundreds of kilometres away they had given the Colonials and their inexplicable new weapons the opportunity to grind the Raiders down to a manageable number by attrition long before battle could be joined properly.
‘We can't win this fight’ a Six decided, most of the other cylons agreeing. ‘We should jump away’ she said.
‘We need information’ a Cavill responded flatly. ‘These new weapons are a major threat even if this talk of the Thirteenth Tribe and this “Star League” or whatever is only a ruse’ he stated. ‘There are humans on the planet below and we can capture them, load them onto the Heavy Raiders and then jump them away for interrogation later’ he said. ‘We just need to keep Galactica busy in the meantime.’
‘Sacrifice the remaining Raiders to buy us time for the Centurions and our brothers and sisters now landing on Aquaria to accomplish their mission?’ an Eight queried.
‘Correct’ the Cavill replied. ‘All the Raiders will be resurrected in time, we're not throwing lives away only material resources which can be replaced’ he pointed out.
‘I agree then’ the Eight concurred. ‘We will seize the humans down on Aquaria then jump away’ she said. ‘We stay and fight.’
‘If we bring the basestars in closer to Galactica we might be able to draw fire from the Raiders and have more success with our missile strikes too’ another Six suggested. ‘We should be able to survive her main guns for long enough to aid our new primary objective’ she said. Although less heavily armoured than a battlestar a basestar could take a reasonable pounding before coming apart.
‘Agreed, move us in’ the Cavill responded.
As the fighters dueled and the Cylon Capital ships began to accelerate towards Galactica the Heavy Raiders which had headed for Aquaria were landing troops which then began marching towards the nearby valley where the humans were known to be. As they did so those very same humans were unloading the last of the weaponry from the Triumph Class Dropship landed there and were preparing for battle.
If the Cylons had been surprised by what they had already come up against in space then running into the ground combat capabilities of even a tiny fraction of the 331st Royal Battlemech Division was going to be a real eye-opener.
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===Meeting the enemy in hills and valley===
Eridanus Valley – Aquaria – 3045CE
The military base that covered much of the hills and valleys of this part of Aquaria was deliberately isolated, far from any main roads or population centers. Often used for live-fire training exercises that in itself meant that even the more curious had always tended to keep clear of the base, and the gravel road in poor condition that snaked up from the highway, winding around snow-covered hills and through wooded valleys, certainly didn't indicate the existence of a sizeable underground complex hidden there.
The massive steel door set underneath a rock outcrop in a valley deep in the heart of the base was only visible when you got near to it. It dated from just after the First Cylon War when the Colonies were justifiably paranoid of a rematch and were still devoting a very large percentage of their wealth into defense spending in preparation for another conflict that was bound to come one day. Behind the door a large network of tunnels and chambers had been constructed in secret to hold a stockpile of both nuclear ordinance and other military supplies and they had waited there ever since with only an occasional visit from an Inspection Team to disturb them for the last thirty years.
A tracked Armored Personnel Carrier was parked up next to the door, thoughts of cutting or blasting through it had been replaced by the more pressing problem of the large number of Cylons now supposed to be heading this way and as Cally was passed a standard-issue Colonial Assault-Rifle and a bandolier of ammunition clips she was once again regretting her tendency to follow the Chief on these gods-damned ground missions. ‘I'm not very good with one of these’ she admitted, indicating the rifle.
‘Maybe I should just give her a pistol, every Number Eight skinjob that sees her will crap themselves’ the Colonial Marine who was handing out weapons joked. He had been right there on Galactica when the diminutive Specialist had gunned down that Toaster-Bitch Boomer.
‘Hey if Centurions had ears they'd really be in trouble’ Tyrol said with a grin.
Cally looked from the Marine to the Chief. ‘Don't frak with me’ she told them with a glare, putting the ammunition harness over the olive-brown combat jacket an SLDF Infantry corporal had dug out of the APC for her. The damn thing reached almost to her knees and she had to roll the sleeves up several times to see her hands but it was helping to keep her warm.
‘The Toasters shouldn't get this far, we're forming a line to hold them a klick and a half down the valley’ the marine said, ‘but if they do you might want to use the APC here for cover, Centurion rounds will bounce right off this sucker’ he told them, slapping the side of the armoured vehicle.
‘You could have left us more ammo for the machine-gun’ Tyrol complained, indicating the only weapon the APC carried, the belt-fed 12.5 millimeter being set in a shielded mounting on the roof. A hatch there allowed it to be fired by someone still half inside the vehicle.
‘We need the stuff more than you do’ the marine replied. The spare boxes of ammunition had been taken for use by the SLDF Infantry who used the same caliber for their own Heavy Machine-Guns. ‘If the Cylons do get past us another couple of hundred rounds isn’t going to help you much anyway’ he noted.
Tyrol and his team of engineers watched the Colonial Marines and Wolverine Infantry jog back down the valley to where the rest of them were already preparing to fight the Cylons. They had chosen a position where the valley narrowed for a shorter defensive line with the dropship five-hundred metres behind them shielded by a turn in the valley that meant it couldn’t be seen by the advancing enemy ground troops. ‘Gods watch over them’ he said, looking to the sky.
Sergeant Allan Nowart of the Colonial Marine Corps had never seen a defensive position set up quite so quickly. Lacking the time needed to dig decent trenches a trio of eight-wheeled Light Tanks known as Chevaliers had rolled out of the dropship and had quickly provided the basis for so-called breastwork fortifications, piles of logs and rocks, by cutting down the most conveniently placed and shaped trees with their laser cannon, the other tracked APC not up at the bunker helping to drag them into position afterwards when necessary.
In terms of infantry manpower they had five squads, four SLDF and the one Colonial Squad under Nowart which had been accompanying the engineers. While a number of them set up their two 12.5mm HMG’s the rest were digging in as best they could, piling up rocks and earth in front of the logs. The crews of the Chevaliers had dismounted after knocking down enough trees, and were helping out with the work, once battle was imminent they would get back in their vehicles and would provide support fire from the rear but for now they were most use helping out the footsloggers especially as the spades and pickaxes they unclipped from the sides of their tanks were a lot larger than the entrenching tools the grunts carried.
One sight that was disquieting to Nowart and the other Marines was the squad of four Wolverines in their Nighthawk XXI Powered Armour that was also working alongside them. Although they knew there were people inside those four-hundred kilogram armored suits they looked far too much like robots for comfort, he did have to admit however that they were great if you ever found you needed to roll some heavy boulders around or help push a couple of tonnes worth of log into the right place.
‘We've got Toasters coming’ a Marine called out, looking through some binoculars. They had seen dozens of Heavy Raiders come into land a few miles off and with an estimated ten Centurions carried each that meant a lot of robot heading in their direction.
An SLDF Captain started barking orders and the Wolvies stopped working and got ready to fight, the Tank Crews sprinted back to their machines and pulled them back out of sight behind the turn in the valley the APC and the guys in Powered Armour following, they wanted to spring a nasty surprise on the advancing Cylons before they sprang the really nasty one.
A minute later finding himself lying prone behind a pile of logs next to an SLDF Corporal doing likewise Nowart made to stick his head up to take a look but the Corporal stopped him. As the Marine Sergeant started to protest, knowing he wouldn’t be understood of course, the Wolverine Infantryman who had been wearing his helmet with the visor open now closed it and raised his Mauser 960 rifle slowly over the top of the breastwork panning it back and forth.
‘Camera on the rifle, image projected on the visor’ Nowart remembered, talking to himself. ‘Damn that's useful’ he decided as from his vantage point he could see the other Wolvie Grunts doing likewise. ‘Those lasers don't have recoil either’ he realised a split-second before the SLDF Captain gave the order to fire.
The scouting party of ten Centurions had run for most of the journey from where they had landed, they were surprisingly swift machines, especially over distance where the fact they didn’t tire or slow down gave them an edge over humans in endurance, but they had slowed to walking pace once their optics detected the signs of recent activity ahead. Automatic weapons deployed on both arms they moved more cautiously getting within a hundred and fifty metres of the staggered line of minor fortifications before they were all simultaneously shot to pieces.
Testing of the alloy the Centurions were made from in Colonial hands had indicated that although naturally optimised for protection only against projectile weapons it was still resistant enough to infantry-scale lasers that a Mauser 960 was best used at under two-hundred metres. Multiple hits further out could still bring one down readily enough, especially if you hit the right places, but for best results the closer the better. The other advantage to them being close was that with the benefits of computer-assisted aim you could shoot them right in the head even without shouldering the rifle for a steadier firing platform which was exactly what the SLDF Infantry had done.
‘What the frak just happened Sarge?’ a Colonial Marine asked loudly from the dug-out to the left.
Nowart noted that the SLDF Corporal next to him seemed to be laughing quietly to himself and this time when he went to put his head up to look out the Corporal made no effort to stop him. ‘A bunch of Toasters just got zapped’ he replied after looking out and then ducking back down.
The scouting party having been in constant radio communication with the other Centurions the main group was well aware of their sudden demise but it had all been a little too sudden to know what happened. Regardless the mission was still to proceed regardless and with a number of biocylons acting as officers, leading from the rear of course as they were far less expendable than Centurions, the Cylons continued their advance.
Sixty Centurions, roughly ten percent of the full force broke into a run themselves and moved towards the human positions, they slowed to a walk once they saw the remains of their comrades and then began a cautious approach guns trained on the obvious human locations.
This time the Wolverine Infantry Captain didn't let them get quite so close ordering his men to open fire at two-hundred meters, as the first Centurions fell the others began to open fire, pouring rounds into the breastworks with good accuracy but with the humans hunkered down all they managed to do was shatter some rocks, blow chunks of wood off tree-trunks and kick up a lot of dirt while the numbers of Cylons hitting the ground climbed fast.
Nowart head an almighty crack and bang and the Corporal next to him flinched and pulled his rifle down snapping his visor open as he did so. ‘Shit, frakkers hit your rifle’ the Marine Sergeant remarked in condolence as the Wolvie corporal unleashed a steady flow of what Nowart was willing to bet were expletives as he looked at the shattered remains of his Mauser 960. ‘Hey man, better that than getting your brains blown out’ he told the Corporal with a shrug as the man dropped it to one side.
The firing dried up once again as the second group of Centurions was eventually taken down. ‘Next time they'll send everything they've got’ Nowart reasoned, ‘try to overwhelm us’ he said, getting his own far less sophisticated Assault Rifle ready as the Corporal gave his wrecked Mauser a final despondent look and drew his pistol, this being a slug-thrower much like the Colonials used rather than a laser.
This time, with the engagement lasting long enough for proper observations to be made and radioed to the others the Cylons knew what the weapons being used against them were, though they could hardly believe it. Laser Rifles! Not just Directed Energy Weapons you could mount on something the size of a small shuttle, the humans had an actual compact hand-held laser weapon in service and they were powerful enough to bring down a Centurion with a few shots. They simply had to seize a few of the things for analysis and if there was one saving grace to the situation it was that there didn’t seem to be very many of the things, perhaps twenty or so.
If they had been programmed that way the five-hundred plus Centurions that now came charging at full speed would have yelled a battle-cry, as it was they instead heralded their attack with a the thunderous sound of so many of them on the move echoing up the valley.
The SLDF Infantry raised themselves and shouldered their rifles, they needed to start hitting the enemy as far out as possible needing a steady aim to do so, hoping to thin out the ranks as they approached. The smaller number of Colonial Marines did likewise, rising and aiming their own weapons in readiness and the two machine-gun crews pulled back the cocking handles of their weapons, the heavy 12.5mm slugs expected to punch right through a Centurion and likely the one behind it.
As soon as the onrushing mob of Centurions came into sight the defenders opened fire at extreme range, bullets typically bouncing off the Cylon alloy and laser hits searing though not penetrating the metal at that range. As they neared the Centurions opened up with their own guns en-masse, forced to slow up to walking pace when they did so for the sake of accuracy.
Centurions started to fall, the Heavy Machine Guns scything back and forth wreaking havoc in particular but the rate of fire wasn't enormous and every hundred rounds they had to replace the ammunition belt. The six-shot grenade-launchers fitted to the Mauser rifles did good work up-close, a hit would blow a Centurion nearly in half, but the sheer weight of numbers was too oppressive to hold back. ‘Bring up the tanks’ the Infantry Captain ordered on the radio built into his helmet, it was time to put some serious firepower into play.
The three Chevalier eight-wheeled tanks swiftly rolled into view, turrets already taking aim as soon as they entered line-of-sight. Thirty-five ton machines they carried an Extended-Range Large Laser as the main gun but this was also backed by a pair of Streak Guided-Missile Launchers which began firing into the midst of the Centurions, the missiles hurtling over the heads of the Infantry positions to explode amongst the enemy, sending both trees and pieces of robots in all directions.
Although the possibility of the humans having heavy-armor support had not been envisioned any more than the lasers had the Cylons did have a counter available, moments later a squadron of Raiders which had been flying a protective Combat Air Patrol over the landed Heavy Raiders were re-directed and began screaming towards the battle, heading up the valley intending to perform a strafing run.
They were almost there when something titanic stepped out behind the Chevaliers and raised its arms.
The biocylon officers commanding the Centurions, a Six, two Fives and a Four had moved up to observe the fighting through binoculars from a safe distance. As they had watched the Raider Squadron hurtle overhead with satisfaction they then collectively proceeded to gape as a ten-metre tall bipedal behemoth appeared and opened up on the Raiders with weapons that weren't so much built into its arms they actually were its arms.
The original "Rifleman" battlemech had been first introduced over five hundred years before as a dedicated Anti-Aircraft platform that employed the excellent Garett D2j Targeting System to detect and track inbound enemy fighters. Two centuries later an updated version, the Rifleman II, had been issued to the elite Royal Divisions of the SLDF, being increased in mass to eighty tons and carrying two fifty-millimetre LB X Autocannon and a pair of Large Pulse Lasers as its main armament. With the former loaded with cluster rounds and the latter firing as fast as possible it was quite simply death incarnate for any airborne target as flimsy as a Cylon Raider. The mechwarrior at the controls of the machine now in Eridanus Valley regarded the Cylon fighters as skeet as his targeting system indicated how far ahead he needed to lead his shots before opening fire.
The first Raiders flew directly into the path of the cluster rounds and began to explode, pieces of airframe tumbling to the ground as the Rifleman II blasted at them before they could start their strafing run. As the rest of the squadron pulled up out of the valley the Pulse Lasers started taking them out as the huge battlemech shifted targets, a grinning human at its controls, this was far more fun than it had been in the simulator he decided happily as the surviving Raiders managed to pull out of his line-of-sight and he lowered his aim to fire into the Centurions instead.
‘We're frakked’ one of the Number Five cylons observed flatly, lowering his binoculars.
‘There is no way that the Colonial survivors could have built something like that’ the lone Four stated flatly.
‘We need to get back to the Heavy Raiders and jump away’ the Six advised.
‘I don't think that might necessarily be an option’ the Five who hadn’t spoken before responded as he watched two more machines come running into view, weapons firing as they came storming into the fight.
Sat in the cockpit of his Mercury III Second-Lieutenant Geoff Cale made sure not to accidentally trample his own people as he brought his own battlemech into the fight, the old joke “Oh yuck, I stepped in infantry” was only funny if the grunts were from the other side. Moving at a run alongside the other identical thirty-ton machine which the dropship had been carrying Cale's Mercury III carried two Medium Pulse Lasers plus four 12.5mm machine-guns on its arms and the ever popular head mounted flamer for social occasions.
As the pair of light battlemechs ran past the much larger Rifleman II they made certain to stay out of its line of fire as they poured large-calibre bullets and laser fire into the mass of Centurions, initially they simply relied on firepower but then Cale and the other mechwarrior began stomping the Centurions underfoot like insects, realising it would be a great deal of (admittedly quite twisted) fun.
‘Cale, stop screwing around’ the annoyed voice of the Captain at the controls of the Rifleman II interrupted his merriment. ‘We'll handle the robo-crunchies, you collect the Nighthawks and go get those grounded Heavy Raiders’ he ordered.
‘Yes Sir’ Cale responded, he turned back towards where the Chevaliers and the Rifleman II were and saw the squad of four men in Powered Armour on the way, he jogged towards them and using the small jump-jets fitted to their armor they jumped onto the back of the Mercury III when he turned to let them mount. The other clans had invented this tactic first with their own superior types of Powered Armour but the Wolverines having learned of it adopted the technique quickly, welding simple steps and hand-holds to their battlemechs for the Powered Armor guys to hold onto. This had of course also led to a few jokes about mechs needing to be sprayed for ticks and the ever-popular sign painted on the back “If you can read this my Nighthawk Squad fell off”.
Taking his Mercury III into a steady run, simply stomping through the remaining Centurions, ignoring any that shot at him although incidentally crushing a couple underfoot as he went, Cale began heading back down the valley. He spotted a few figures in the distance and recognized a few of them from pictures when he upped the magnification of his neurohelmet display. ‘Get ready to dismount guys’ he radioed his passengers, ‘we've got a few of the other kind of cylons up ahead.’
‘Oh shit! It’s coming our way’ the Six declared in panic as the enormous machine headed towards them. ‘Scatter’ she said, running away.
As Cale reached where the humanoid Cylons had been he stopped and looked around. <<‘I saw you, and I've told my friends’>> he said in Caprican over the external speakers, his voice heavily amplified and electronically distorted. <<‘Don't make us hunt you down because we'll flush you out with a flame-thrower’>> he warned, firing a warning jet from his flamer as the Nighthawks jumped off, their Mauser 960s ready for action.
The Six stepped out into the open from where she had been hiding, Cale turning his battlemech to face her. She drew a pistol and fired several bullets at one of the Nighthawks which ricocheted off before she put the pistol to the side of her head, four laser-rifles now leveled at her. The one who she had shot was now at yelling at her in a language she couldn’t understand though there was clearly both a human in there and he was understandably irate. These suits were another revelation, all this advanced technology couldn't be of Colonial origin the Six knew for certain, the cybernetics and electronics required wouldn't have been particularly easy for even the Cylons to reproduce and they were well beyond the Colonials in those fields.
‘No need for that, my people are not from the Twelve Colonies, we don't torture or execute Cylon prisoners’ Cale told her. ‘These soldiers from the 331st Royal Battlemech Division of the Star League will accept your surrender and take you into custody’ he said, then added something in the language the Six didn't understand. The men in the big armoured suits lowering their weapons slightly in response to his words as a obvious gesture that they weren’t going to kill her out-of-hand.
‘When I die I get reborn and I get to tell the others what I've seen’ the Six responded, the other Cylons now emerging from cover with pistols to their own heads also, the soldiers in the Nighthawk suits turning to face each of them, Mauser 960’s levelled once again. The cylons wouldn’t be taken prisoner, and getting back to the Heavy Raiders didn’t seem too likely a prospect, but resurrection was still a means of escape if one that got more painful and disturbing each time it was used.
Cale thought about that one, after this he and the Nighthawks would go onto the Heavy Raiders landed nearby sans pilots. If they could take even a few of them intact then it would be a triumph for the Clan and the Star League, promotion and maybe even a line in the Wolverine Remembrance beckoned. ‘Then if you're all intent on suicide you might want to pass on this message when you get resurrected.’ Cale announced.
‘What message?’ the Six asked, looking up at what was obviously the cockpit of the huge machine.
‘Do not meddle in the affairs of the Thirteenth Tribe for you are easily scrapped and a convenient source of high-grade alloy’ Cale advised deadpan, knowing that line would be earning him a few drinks at the bar later as the Cylons looked up at him nonplussed before blowing their own brains out.
One of the Wolverine Infantry in the Nighthawk suits turned to look up at the Mercury III. ‘What the hell did you say to them, Sir?’ he queried not having understood any of the Caprican.
‘I don’t think they appreciated my sense of humor’ Cale replied, ‘Mount up, spoils of war beckon’ he added, turning his battlemech so they could jump aboard once again.
‘But how bad could a joke actually be?’ one of the other Wolverines asked his friends in confusion once they were back underway, the journey now teeth-rattling as the Mercury III engaged its MASC gear and began to sprint.
----
===Different Kinds of Withdrawals===
Aquaria Orbit – Cyrannus System – 3045CE
Gaeta looked up from his console with a concerned expression on his face. ‘Sir, we’re getting radiological warnings on DRADIS from some of those incoming missiles’ he reported.
Tigh growled. ‘Bastards must have been trying to run our guns dry with the conventional warheads and now they're starting to throw the dangerous stuff at us’ he reasoned. ‘How are the guns?’ he asked.
‘We're running down our ammunition stocks fast’ Gaeta responded. ‘I'm more worried about the heat build up though’ he continued, ‘we've been using the water tanks as a heat-sink but they're starting to boil and the point-defence batteries are running red-hot’ he said. Although they could be fired continually for a very long time they were getting close to their limit. ‘We might have to reduce our rate of fire or we could be looking at rounds cooking off prematurely, or maybe even the barrels melting’ he advised.
Adama looked thoughtful. ‘Vent the water tanks into space’ he said. ‘Dumping steam and water-vapour should cause rapid cooling’ he said. ‘We can re-fill them from a comet later.’
‘The guns still won’t take much more Bill’ Tigh pointed out to him quietly.
‘We can't stop firing if there's nukes inbound’ Adama replied. The majority of the Raiders had been eliminated, with the Viper and Kirghiz fighters now mainly mopping up, but they were both almost out of KEW and autocannon rounds respectively and for the Vipers at least the rate of fire for their lasers was woefully low. Shooting down the remaining Cylon fighters and trying to assist in knocking out down the missiles coming in from the approaching basestars was a tall order for them if Galactica had to shut down her point-defence guns.
‘Sir, nine of the Wolverine fighters have veered off and three are heading towards each of the basestars at maximum acceleration’ Gaeta announced.
‘Colonel McEvedy just authorised nuclear strikes on the basestars Sir’ Dualla reported, the Wolverines had their own command channel but she could listen in.
‘About frakking time’ Tigh grumbled.
‘They have their own Rules-Of-Engagement from their government and were told they were operating under a No First Use policy for nuclear weapons’ Adama noted. ‘The Cylons just gave the Wolvies the excuse to take the gloves off’ he said with some satisfaction.
Wing Commander Defoe let the other two Kirghiz's pull slightly ahead of her, the three aerospace fighters forming an inverted V formation with her in the rear as they accelerated towards their basestar target. She had chosen to be one of those carrying nuclear weapons and as they pushed up to two and a half gees worth of thrust she started to run through the launch procedures.
There were still better than two hundred and fifty Raiders in the fight, these being all that remained of the twelve-hundred plus the Cylons had started with, but although several pulled out of the engagement and began pursuing the SLDF fighters they soon discovered that although they lacked manoeuvrability in terms of sustained acceleration the Kirghiz was damn hard to chase down especially when the Wolverines put in a short burst of overthrust cranking the fighters up to four gees long enough to build up a nice lead.
Knowing that one day they would likely face an overwhelming number of Clan warships the Wolverines had developed a nuclear-tipped missile to be carried by their fighters, a salvo of dozens of hundred-kiloton warheads would be a nasty threat to even a mighty McKenna Class Battleship. This attack was rather more restrained with a mere two missiles apiece to be thrown at the Basestars but that should be enough, the Cylon Capital ships had considerably more missile-launchers than a Colonial Battlestar, and they carried far more fighters, but they didn't boast the same formidable point-defences.
‘I think we just got painted by their RADAR... I mean DRADIS or whatever’ one of Defoe's wingmen announced over the radio.
‘Confirmed, I am tracking missiles inbound’ the other added. ‘They've got nice missiles Ma'am, we ought to copy them’ she opined. ‘ECM unable to break missile lock’ the pilot continued. ‘VERY nice missiles’ she said appreciatively.
Defoe noted the missiles closing fast, or rather than they were as much closing fast with the missiles the closing speed between them very high. ‘Cut acceleration escort one and two, target the inbounds’ she ordered.
The three Kirghiz aerospace fighters cut their engines and kept going on momentum, they had already built up plenty of speed and the pursuing Raiders would take a while to catch up. They targeted and started to fire on the missiles with their pulse lasers, eventually starting to score hits although more missiles took their place and the time available to take them out was getting shorter every second.
On board the Basestar the Hybrid reported a radiological alarm as the strange oversized fighters neared, the only thing was the Raiders had been reporting that continually for every one of the Kirghiz's ever since the fight began and it had reached the point where the warnings were ignored. It seemed that the craft reputedly belonging to the mythical Thirteenth were powered by nuclear rather than tylium engines and that meant their exhaust kept triggering the DRADIS sensors intended to detect nuclear ordinance onboard enemy craft.
‘Hit that big bitch with the LRPPC's and your Lasers then fire off the last of your cluster rounds’ Defoe ordered, turning the nose of her craft so it was pointing at the now looming Basestar. The trio of fighters fired their Directed Energy Weapons in a ragged volley, the beams slicing through the relatively weak hull of the Cylon warship and then the Wolverines held down the triggers of their LB X autocannons dumping what little was left in their magazines after the extended fight.
When her four cannons ran dry Defoe waited a second then making sure the other two strike missions were ready she gave the order and launched her two missiles, the cloud of shrapnel moving ahead from the cannons would act like a shield ahead of the nukes it was hoped, and maybe even confuse their DRADIS, whilst opening up with the DEW’s first might make the Cylons think they were just going to try and shoot up the Basestar. ‘Veer off’ she said, turning her Kirghiz ninety degrees to port and pushing her thrusters to maximum.
The missiles used a passive optical sensor rather than active radar to recognize their target, they had simply programmed the things earlier with what a Basestar looked like and the missiles having one directly in front of it when launched they went to full thrust and came barrelling in like a bat out of hell.
Already going at a high speed even before they kicked in their own engines, thanks to the momentum they had inherited from their launch-aircraft, the missiles hurtled towards their destination. The Hybrid controlling the basestar had just enough time to realize what was about to happen, start desperately calculating an emergency jump and think nasty thoughts about the almost entirely organic and completely moronic Cylon models in charge when the two missiles contact-detonated a hundred metres apart on the thin neck that separated the two Y-shaped halves of the ship.
The strikes had been timed to be simultaneous, six thermonuclear warheads detonated against three Cylon Basestars within the space of a couple of seconds. Two of the ships were blown clean in half, their top and bottom sections sent tumbling away as they vented atmosphere, wreckage and Cylons into space. The third was not so fortunate since its tylium fuel tanks and several missile bays blew in a titanic ripple of secondary explosions that shattered the ship into nine major sections and myriad pieces of debris.
On the CIC the flashes of the nuclear strikes were greeted with whoops of joy and triumph. ‘I am showing three good kills on the Basestars’ Gaeta reported, grinning broadly. ‘We still have Cylon missiles in flight but we are taking them out.’
‘Raiders?’ Adama asked.
‘We're down to seventy-five and they're getting cut to pieces by point-defense and lasers’ Gaeta replied, checking his board. ‘Make that seventy-one’ he added. ‘Sir, the Raiders are starting to jump out.’
‘You bet your ass the cowardly son-of-bitches are jumping out!’ Tigh responded. ‘We've kicked the frakking crap out of the gods-damned Toaster bastards’ he declared with a satisfied and somewhat vicious smile on his face.
‘What's the count on our losses?’ Adama asked flatly.
Gaeta's smile vanished and the sounds of celebration ended abruptly. ‘I make it fourteen Vipers destroyed and according to a report I got from Starbuck it looks like two Kirghiz as well. One of the Wolvie pilots took a couple of bursts into the cockpit and his, sorry her, bird is drifting, and another smacked straight into a Raider going the other way at high speed’ he said. ‘That pilot managed to punch out and so did three of the Viper pilots.’
Adama nodded and turned to look around the CIC. ‘We won the battle but we lost twelve good men and women doing it’ he said. ‘Cylons come back but human-beings don't, remember that’ he told them seriously.
‘Sir, all Raiders have jumped out’ Gaeta reported.
‘Three basestars nuked, and we must be pushing thirteen-hundred Raiders taken out’ Tigh whispered to Adama, ‘I hate to say it with a few of our people floating out there dead in space too but this is the greatest victory the Colonial Fleet has ever achieved, considering how light our losses really are’ he noted.
‘Light, Saul?’ Adama responded. ‘Are the loved ones of those pilots supposed to think so?’ he asked rhetorically before eventually smiling. ‘Feels good to be back in the Colonies and winning not running though’ he admitted.
‘So what now Bill?’ Tigh asked.
‘We gather up all our people, grab everything we can in as short a time as we can and get the hell out of here before the Cylons can get their heads straight and their shit together’ Adama replied.
‘So we are running?’ Tigh queried.
Adama looked thoughtful. ‘This time it's more like a strategic withdrawal after a tactical victory’ he replied eventually. ‘Actually running away, like we did the last time we were here, feels a lot frakking worse than this’ he said with satisfaction.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Chapter Note from the Author :Aerospace Fighter weaponry in Battletech not only vastly outranges that used by nBSG Vipers and Raiders it can score hits far further out than we ever saw even the battlestars managed with their main guns. Next time the Cylons will know exactly how not to fight against an enemy with long-range Directed Energy Weapons because they've found out the hard way. 
Viper/Raider combat in the show was basically a knife-fight between aircraft within spitting distance of each other, here the Raiders got hammered all the way in starting so far away they weren't even specks in the distance, they won't do that again!
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