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
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 Pegasus 's main goal is to rescue a captured civilian science team.

Pegasus jumps near the basestar's location and launches an attack that draws off the vessel's Raiders. The battlestar then shuts down its FTL drive and simulates engine damage, ensuring a concentrated attack by the Raiders that leaves the basestar's immediate perimeter unguarded. Pegasus successfully engages the fighters, taking only minor damage in the process.

While this is happening, a Raptor carrying a rescue team and a nuclear weapon, jumps past the advancing Raiders and heads for the basestar. When two enemy fighters spot the Raptor, the crew fakes an engine malfunction and abandons ship, taking the warhead with them. The Raiders subsequently destroy the Raptor and break off, believing the crew to be dead. No longer pursued, the team continues on its way by means thruster packs.

Upon successfully boarding the basestar, the rescue team locates the room where the science team is being held. In the process of freeing them, the rescue party is ambushed by Centurions, and Dasilva is critically wounded. As the 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 one Centurion.

The basestar begins jamming wireless communications, and not knowing if his boarding party is still alive, Commander Lee Adama orders a nuclear missile to be fired at the ship, but Admiral Adama countermands him. As the men attempt to figure out a decisive plan of action, communications are restored and Starbuck reveals that the warhead's remote detonator was damaged in the firefight with the Centurions; the only way to set the warhead off is to do it manually. Lee suggests evacuating the rescue team and then launching the missile, but his father points out that the Raiders will destroy anything they fire at the basestar. Ultimately, a member of the rescue team will need to stay back and detonate the nuke. Reluctantly, Lee orders Starbuck to fulfill this role and she complies.

Pegasus launches a second Raptor, getting it close enough to the basestar to land within a hangar bay and evacuate the rescue team. Starbuck is ready to stay behind when Shaw orders her to leave at gunpoint, intending to detonate the warhead instead. The two argue but Starbuck eventually concedes, boards the Raptor, and returns to Pegasus with the others.

With blood streaming from her open wound, a delirious Shaw descends deeper into the basestar, eventually coming 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 explains to her that Starbuck will lead mankind to its end and they must not follow her. Shaw attempts to contact Pegasus and warn them, but can't deliver the entire message due to Cylon jamming. As Shaw prepares to destroy the ship, the Hybrid calmly states that "all this has happened before, and will happen again" repeating "again...again" over and over. Shaw detonates the nuke, destroying the Guardian basestar along with herself, the Hybrid and the entire Centurion crew (Razor).