Battle of the Guardian Basestar

Battle of the Guardian Basestar
Battle of the Guardian basestar
Battle of the Guardian basestar
Summary
Conflict:	Second Cylon war
Date:	Roughly 9 months after the Fall of the Twelve Colonies
Related Episode(s):
Place:	In jump distance of a supernova event
Result:	Colonial victory
Combatants Battlestar Pegasus Guardians Commanders Commander Lee Adama First Hybrid Strength 1 battlestar, Viper squadrons, Raptor, and strike team Guardian basestar Unspecified number of Cylon War-era Raiders Centurions Materiel Losses 1 Raptor Various Raider losses. Guardian basestar destroyed. Casualties Dasilva and Kendra Shaw Various Centurions First Hybrid
[[Colonial battles chronology ({{{series}}})|Battle Chronology]]
Previous Next Battle of the Binary Star System Battle of the Guardian Basestar Battle of New Caprica

The Battle of the Guardian basestar is an engagement between the battlestar Pegasus and the Guardian basestar, in which the main goal is to rescue a captured civilian science team.

Pegasus jumps into the area of the basestar's location and launches an attack that draws off its Raiders. Additionally, Pegasus shuts down its FTL drive and simulates engine damage, ensuring a concentrated attack by the Raiders that leaves the basestar's immediate perimeter unguarded. A Raptor then jumps in behind the advancing Raiders, with a rescue team and a nuclear weapon to destroy the basestar. However, two nearby Raiders spot them and the crew fakes an engine malfunction and abandons ship. The Raiders destroy the Raptor and break off believing the crew to be dead. The team continues on its way by means thruster packs. Meanwhile Pegasus successfully fights off the Raiders, albeit taking some damage.

Upon successfully boarding the basestar, the rescue team locates the room where the captured science team is held. In the process of freeing them, the rescue party is ambushed by Centurions, and Dasilva is critically wounded. As Centurions drag him away, Major Shaw shoots and kills him, thinking it will spare him inevitable suffering. Shaw is subsequently shot in the abdomen by an attacking Centurion.

The basestar jams wireless communication, and not knowing if his boarding party is still alive, Commander Lee Adama orders a nuclear missile to be fired at the ship. Admiral Adama countermands the order and while the two are trying to figure out what to do, communications are restored and Starbuck reveals that the warhead's remote detonator is damaged. The only way to set it off is to do it manually. Lee Adama thinks of evacuating the team and then launching the missile, but his father points out that the Raiders will probably destroy anything they shoot at the basestar. He realizes that the someone will need to stay behind and detonate the nuke. Reluctantly, he orders Starbuck to fulfill this role and she complies.

Pegasus launches a rescue Raptor which jumps close enough to the basestar to land in its hangar bay. The team prepares to leave with Starbuck staying back, but Shaw forces her to leave at gunpoint with the intention of remaining in her place. The Raptor heads back to Pegasus as Shaw makes her way through the ship and comes across the Hybrid's chamber. The Hybrid knows she wants redemption for her past actions and tells her to come closer as he has something he needs to tell her. He tells her that Starbuck will lead mankind to doom and they must not follow her. Shaw attempts to contact Pegasus and warn them, but can't deliver the entire message due to the Cylon jamming. She detonates the nuke and the Guardian basestar is destroyed along with Shaw, the Hybrid and the entire crew of Centurions.