Skirmish Over the Red Moon

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Skirmish Over the Red Moon
Starbuck's damaged Viper and the Cylon Raider are caught in the Red Moon's gravity field
Starbuck's damaged Viper and the Cylon Raider are caught in the Red Moon's gravity field
Starbuck's damaged Viper and the Cylon Raider are caught in the Red Moon's gravity field
Summary
Conflict: Second Cylon War
Date: Day 14
Related Episode(s):
Place: An unnamed red moon
Result: Colonial victory
  • Patrol destroyed
  • Capture of a Cylon Raider
1 Viper damaged7 Raiders destroyed 1 disabled and captured"
Combatants
Remnants of the Colonial Fleet Cylons
Commanders
Lieutenant Kara Thrace None
Strength
2 Mark II Vipers 8 Cylon Raiders
Materiel Losses
1 Viper destroyed

1 Viper damaged

7 Raiders destroyed

1 disabled and captured

Casualties
None 8 Cylon Raiders
Battle Chronology
Previous Next
Battle of the Communications Relay Skirmish Over the Red Moon Skirmish With a Raider


The Skirmish over the Red Moon takes place when eight Cylon Raiders surprise a group of nugget Viper pilots, under instruction by Lt. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, in orbit of an unnamed russet moon (which in turn cycles a gas giant).

Background[edit]

After an accident on the flight deck, Lieutenant Kara Thrace is assigned to train new pilots to replace those killed in the accident. Although she at first allows her feelings to get in the way of training, she eventually reinstates the pilots and takes them on a training flight. During the flight, a patrol of Cylon Raiders is detected.

Skirmish[edit]

Upon coming into contact with the patrol, Lieutenant. Thrace orders her squad to return to Galactica while she engages all eight enemy combatants simultaneously. Disobeying direct orders, and adhering to the general rule that a pilot must always have a wingman, Cadet Brendan "Hot Dog" Costanza reverses course, and follows her into combat. His tactics disorient and scatter the enemy, opening a window for Lt. Thrace to shoot down six Raiders. Additionally, Costanza manages to destroy one Raider (his first kill in a Viper), before suffering damage from incoming fire, forcing him to pull back from the engagement. His Viper gives out shortly after.

With only one Raider remaining, Lieutenant. Thrace re-orients herself into a combat position and charges the enemy. As the two combatants close in on each other, Lieutenant Thrace's Viper experiences sudden electrical problems that cause her communications and transponder to go off-line. Still, she manages to exchange fire with the Raider and finishes it off with a direct hit to the head-canopy.

The disabled craft immediately spirals out control, and eventually collides with the Viper. Damage inflicted by the Raider's impact disables the Viper's flight controls, and both fighters tumble into the russet moon's gravity well. The Raider crashes intact upon the moon, but Thrace is forced to eject from her Viper after it goes into an uncontrollable flat spin towards the satellite's surface and disintegrates.

Aftermath[edit]

After successfully ejecting, Lieutenant Thrace lands by parachute on the moon. However - just as she makes contact with the surface - fierce winds heave her parachute laterally, drag her over a jagged bed of rocks and severely injure her knee. The gusts nearly haul her off the edge of a cliff, but Lieutenant Thrace manages to cut herself loose moments before hitting the drop-off point.

As this is happening, a SAR Raptor deployed by Galactica recovers Costanza and his critically damaged Viper in the moon's orbit. Subsequently, SAR teams are sent out to retrieve Lt. Thrace, but the moon's thick atmosphere prevent them from making contact with the downed pilot. On top of that, organic deposits along ship engines cut short the rescue effort, and force the various rescue craft to hastily return to Galactica for repairs.

On the moon's surface - with a broken wireless handset and no other means of establishing communication - Lieutenant Thrace wanders over the rocky terrain, looking for higher ground to await rescue. Eventually she comes across the downed Cylon Raider and finds a way inside the ship. Crawling into the belly of the beast, she discovers that the Raider is bio-mechanical in nature - it is "piloted" by an organic brain that interfaces directly with the internal machinations of the craft. The rounds that she fired during their confrontation penetrated the Raider's brain, thus "killing" the vessel.

Inside the Raider, Lieutenat Thrace finds oxygen to replace her flight suit's depleted reserves, and re-pressurizes the Raider's interior by using a portion of her flight suit to seal a fist-sized gash in the hull. Lieutenant Thrace's test-pilot savvy allows her to determine the basic mechanics of the vessel quickly and she learns to control it by manipulating the various internal actuators, eventually flying the Raider off the moon and into open space.

At the same time, President Laura Roslin has convinced Commander Willian Adama and his son to call off the search and the fleet begins jumping away. A tense situation results when she approaches Galactica, while Captain Lee Adama is sent out to intercept what CIC believes is an enemy fighter. Adama attempts to shoot her down while Galactica attempts to send out another fighter to help, but Thrace's piloting skill allow her to avoid destruction and she enters formation with Adama than flips so he can see her Raider's underside where she has written her callsign "Starbuck" in yellow tape. The jubilant Adama informs Galactica then escorts Thrace into the flight pod where she is taken to sickbay to be treated for her injured knee. (TRS: "You Can't Go Home Again")

Impact[edit]

This is the first time Colonial forces are able to capture and examine the updated Cylon Raider. Chief Galen Tyrol and his deck crew spend the next several weeks analyzing the fighter, eventually returning it to flight status with significant internal modifications for effective human control (TRS: "You Can't Go Home Again", "Six Degrees of Separation", "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down", "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I", and "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II").

The Raider is later lost on Caprica during the events to retrieve the Arrow of Apollo, when Caprica-Valerii steals it from Lt. Thrace at the Delphi Museum of the Colonies. It is unclear what she does with it as its not seen again.