Breaking the Veil (Commissioned NuBSG/BT crossover)

[Sogen]

How many prisoners did Taurians take in New Vandenburg?



You are never ready for the upcoming war.

Click to shrink...

Welp, that's going to make the Feddie's lives easier, now all they have to do is not pick up the Idiot Ball and stay out of the ensuing dustup between the Cappies and the Taurians. Or they could hit the Cappies as well from the other side, though that does run the risk of running into the Taurians depending on their line of advance.

 

[Radek]

So what does the newly restored Taurian Concordat Navy plan on doing in this war? Play Grand Theft JumpShip? Orbital bombardment of select targets? Securing the orbitals? Something else entirely?

 

[Baldrick the Wise]

Welp, that's going to make the Feddie's lives easier, now all they have to do is not pick up the Idiot Ball

Click to shrink...

Something tells me that the ''independent intelligence agency'' will do its worse to enforce the idiot ball.

 

[Sogen]

Something tells me that the ''independent intelligence agency'' will do its worse to enforce the idiot ball.

Click to shrink...

That's probably the plan but it looks like they've got a splendid little civil war about to kick off and give them something else to think about.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Due to something that's come up IRL, I'm not going to be updating this or any of my fics the rest of this week or next week.

 

[NitroNorm5688]

Due to something that's come up IRL, I'm not going to be updating this or any of my fics the rest of this week or next week.

Click to shrink...

Hope things go well. I wish you luck on your endeavors.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 26

Date: June 28, 3000/1990C
Location: Taurus, Taurian Concordat

"Be advised, Starbuck, enemy fighters have entered your AO," the air traffic controller briefed the Caprican pilot and trainer. "Bearing is 320 degrees."

"Any idea of their weight class?" Kara asked, flipping through the instruments that she was unfamiliar with on the Centurion the Concordat was using as a training bird."

"Looks like a solid mix," he replied. "Be careful out there and get your squadron back in one piece."

Gripping her stick loosely, Kara changed communications channels to the squadron's frequency.

"Alright, nuggets," she hoped her English was passable enough without a translator. "Looks like Maverick's group is headed our way. Stick to the basics, cover your wingmen, and let's kick their fraking asses!"

"Yes, Ma'am/Understood/Copy that!" Filled the airways, and each pair split off to begin heading to intercept the enemy squadron.

Her fighter was the lightest and most maneuverable of the fighters that were amidst her squadron. Everyone else was in heavier birds because she wanted the nuggets to have the best chances of survival.

So, checking to make sure her wingman was behind her, she slammed her feet down on the pedals and kicked on the afterburners. She felt the G-Forces for a brief second before the inertial dampers kicked in and melted said forces away from her chest and head.

One second, two, and the other squadron appeared on the edge of her sensors.

"All pairs, split off and engage by wing, play it safe, don't get fancy," She repeated her advice. They were just too green to be pulling anything beyond the basics.

Thankfully, even in these situations, fuel was so cheap on these birds compared to what it was back home that they were able to run multiple sorties a day. Sure, it was exhausting, but it gave everyone valuable experience they couldn't get from simulators.

"Arming weapons," Kara reported, flipping the safeties off of her lasers and lining up with Maverick's Eagle. "Come on, you bastard, lets see if you can outfly me."

He could. It was like the older man had sensed her and twitched out of the way before moving with a prescient grace through the skies. Weaving around a pair of missiles in a textbook maneuver, he spun his fighter around and arrived on Kara's tail.

"Starbuck, your computer is reporting that it's been shot down," the controller informed her. "Please remove yourself from the combat and observe for further debriefing."

"I knew I should have stuck to the plan," Kara muttered.

"You're good," Maverick's voice was calm. "But I've been doing this for longer than you've been alive. You've got a lot of catching up to do before you can dogfight me."

With that, his fighter banked away and found itself targeted by three of the nuggets. Instead of trying to outmaneuver him, they simply launched missiles before turning away to engage other units.

The pair of wingmen and Kara's own wingman were a deadly trio, handily working together to team up on one plane or pair of planes at a time. Unfortunately, they'd only barely nicked Mav's Eagle and he came down in a spinning dive that separated them long enough for him to take them out one after another.

"Exercise has been completed, please return to Base for a debrief and to allow the next group to take off."


—

—

"So, it seems that neither of you understand the purpose of the training exercise," Colonel Martinez glared at both Kara and Pete. "We all understand that the two of you are some of the best pilots we have here," he tapped the desk. "We have other trainers that aren't as good as you are. But you know what they have that you lack?," the Colonel sighed. "The ability to teach. At this point, I'd take a dozen more less skilled pilots that can teach than another person like you. We don't need egos here. We're trying to speed up our pilot program and get better at an area that we've lacked for hundreds of years. So, I've got two options here. I give both of y'all one more chance to figure this out and start teaching. Or, I kick you back to the Colonies of Kobol and let them figure out what to do with you. Choice is yours."

"We'll take the chance, Colonel," Pete replied. "It won't happen again."

"See to it that it doesn't," Martinez said. "We have enough showboats walking around in mechs. I don't need them in the skies."

"Understood, Sir," Kara nodded, Pete remaining silent and simply nodding along with her.

"You two are grounded until you can demonstrate the ability to teach in the sims," Martinez paused and observed them. "You can get back in the skies next month. Provided I'm satisfied with your performance, you're dismissed."

The two Kobolians turned smartly on their heels and walked out of the room, leaving the Colonel to his paperwork.

"Bar?" Kara asked.

"Bar," Pete agreed, the two of them had a lot to talk about and work through if they wanted to keep this posting. After all, neither of them were ready to leave just yet.

---

"Present, arms!" a voice barked and Alice obeyed instinctively as she raised the old, traditional rifle to her shoulder. "Firing party, ready! Aim! Fire!" she pulled the trigger, feeling the soft recoil of the blank round push into her shoulder.

"Ready, aim, fire!" she squeezed the trigger again. "Ready, aim, fire!" the last of the shots exited her barrel and the twenty-fourgun salute(1) coming to an end.

"Port, arms," the voice of the funeral commander was quieter now as the echoes of the gunshots continued to resound throughout the funeral grounds. It was shocklingly silent, most of the families of the dead Marines that had been buried today were veteran families, and they'd experienced the worst of the Cylon War and had fully expected their loved ones to not return at all. Still, after the noise from the rounds finally finished resounding, the soft and quiet weeping began.

Alice had done her best to remain stoic throughout the funerals. A good Cylon needed to remain detached from the people she might eventually have to make war against.

She failed. There was no way to maintain and objectiveness here. She had just buried people that she had lived, breathed, ate, shared jokes, and fought alongside. They weren't going to be coming back. No resurrection, no secondary body. Just death and the grave.

The finaly funeral for the day was the one that she wasn't attending with a rifle in hand to salute. Instead, she was responsible for the part that she had been dreading. There hadn't been anything but ashes left of Sergeant Rawley. Alice still couldn't remember exactly what had happened, but she knew that her survival had been due to his sacrifice. So, she swallowed down the wave of emotions that threatened to make her vomit and went to her position, standing next to the children and wife he'd left behind.

A group of eight Marines stood at attention and went through the motions, their salute echoing through the clearing yet again as the CO and two others folded the Colonial flag into an octagon before handing it to Rawley's widow.

Said widow was stronger than Alice was. While there was a sadness in her eyes, there wasn't a tear that dripped from her face or that of her children. Instead, they all seemed to simply accept the Sergeant's death with a calm that Alice didn't really understand.

Alice closed her eyes, trying desperately to force the tears to remain behind the fleshy eyelids. Wishing for once that she had a vessel out of metal like the older Cylons instead of the fleshy material that refused to listen to her.

Opening them, she felt a few tears trail down her cheeks that she refused to wipe away. Maybe, just maybe, with the newly found humans and everything that had occurred. There was a way for the Cylons and Humans to coexist. The old, metal Cylons were content to simply leave things as they were, they didn't want to fight another war where their brothers or sisters were eliminated. But they also didn't want to be slaves again.

She just had to find a balance and see what efforts she could make. It was what Rawley would have wanted. After all, there was plenty of space in the 'verse for all of them.

1. Salutes are a common practice among military funerals. Twenty-one gun salutes are a common practice for any Terran-Born militaries or descendents thereof. However, the Kobolians, while sharing a similar tradition, do not use a twenty-one gun salute. Instead, favoring a twenty-four gun salute. This seems to line up with their use of paper that is eight-sided instead of four, as is common in the rest of the Inner Sphere outside of the occasional outlier or artistic choice.

Author's Note: This felt like a good place to end this chapter. I almost shifted POVs to the Comstar guy, but it didn't feel right.

 

[Radek]

The best laid plans... more cases like this popping up would force Cavil to seriously reconsider just how he'd go about dealing with humanity.

Guess we'll see.