Phoenix Rising

Chapter Six: Eviction Process

Phoenix Rising

Chapter Six
Eviction Process

   
One jump from New Caprica
Earth Date September 11, 2214

    It was an ironic date, as far as Derek Wildstar was concerned.  Two hundred and thirteen years ago, a terrorist attack was launched upon the American cities of New York and Washington, resulting in the deaths of over three thousand people.  Derek had learned about it in World History II class in high school, and had found the event bizarre given the toll that the Gamilon offensive against Earth was taking upon the human race.  For a moment, Derek wondered what Osama bin Laden would have made of Deslok, leader of the Gamilons. 

    It had been a decade since Derek had seen any Gamilon ships.  The last time was when the water world Aquarius was approaching Earth, thanks to the Dinguil, who had lost their planet and had decided to take over the Earth by flooding it. 

    If Osama, or his American adversary, President George W. Bush, had known about the five years of fire that the Star Force had went through, they’d have forgotten about the whole war on terror and readied themselves for the terror of Gamilon planet bombs raining down upon Earth.  To Derek, that was real terror.

    In a way, the same thing had happened to the Colonials, with one exception: the Cylons were of Colonial making.  It was as Adama had said last night: their own sin of playing God had come back to bite them in the ass.  That was why the Colonials had been wary of IQ-9, and especially of IQ-9000, the latest model of robots. 

    Derek had a problem seeing the 9000 series as a person; unlike the way he viewed IQ-9.  The 9000’s were without personality and obeyed ordered without question, and never misbehaved.  The same could not be said of IQ-9, who had a penchant for wanting to lift up the ladies’ skirts until Dr. Sane had (finally) managed to stop him from doing that.  Which, considering the way the Galactica and Pegasus crews viewed the robot, was a very good thing, as Derek had no doubt that Lee Adama would have taken the biggest wrench he could find and whack IQ-9 over the head if the robot would have done something like that to Dee, Lee’s wife.

    That inevitably brought him back to thoughts about his own wife.  They had finally managed to make contact with her and find out what had happened.  Sure enough, they had landed on New Caprica, and had met up with the Colonial resistance planning to attack the Cylons.  Adama had been close to tears after seeing the message come in from the person he called Starbuck, while Derek had been close to his own.  He’d come far too close to losing Nova over the years to ever take something like this for granted.

    Adama made one last trip over to the newly reborn Yamato before the final jump to engage the enemy.  When he entered the bridge, the first thing Derek noticed was that the mustache was gone.  Derek asked about it, and Adama replied, “I said I’d shave it off if a miracle came along, and, since it did…” He shrugged and left it at that. 

    They went back to the planning room to discuss the final plans for the attack.  Galactica and Pegasus would jump in and lure the Cylon basestars one way, using drones to simulate battlestars that would be launched by all the Raptors they had.  Then, as the basestars moved to intercept the phony battlestars, the real ones would jump in and engage them. 

    The original plan that Adama had come up with was a bold and daring one: have Galactica jump into the New Caprican atmosphere to launch her Vipers and jump out before she hit the ground.  Neither Galactica or Pegasus were atmosphere-capable, but Yamato was, and Adama and Wildstar had adjusted the plans to have the old ship land on New Caprica and aid in the rescue. 

    The EDS Algeria, which was also capable of atmospheric flight, would join Yamato on the invasion, while the other EDS ships (Mizutani, Gideon, and Yamanami) would warp in opposite the Colonial battlestars and attack the Cylon basestars from behind.  Once that happened, the battlestars would jump to low New Caprican orbit and assist the fleet in jumping to the rendezvous coordinates.
    All was ready, and they were just hours away from jumping.  Derek hoped that Nova would be okay, as he knew that she was planning an attack on the settlement to distract the Centurions and to try and free the prisoners in the detention facility.  Word had reached them that the Cylons had arrested Laura Roslin, the former president of the Colonies, along with Cally Tyrol and Sam Anders.  This clearly worried Adama, but he didn’t hesitate to move ahead with the plans.
   
New Caprica (under Cylon occupation)
Resistance base camp