Skirmish Over the Red Moon

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
Summary
Conflict:	Second Cylon war
Date:	Day 14
Related Episode(s):
Place:	An unnamed red moon
Result:	Colonial victory, capture of Cylon Raider
Combatants Remnants of the Colonial Fleet Cylons Commanders Lieutenant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace Unknown † Strength Viper 1104, 1 other Viper MkII 8 Raiders Materiel Losses 1 Viper destroyed, 1 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 Battle for the Tylium Asteroid

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).

Upon coming into contact with a Cylon patrol, Starbuck 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 pursues her into combat. His tactics disorient and scatter the enemy, opening a window for Starbuck to shoot down six Raiders. Additionally, Hot Dog manages to destroy one Raider (his first kill in a Viper), before suffering damage from incoming fire, and pulling back from the engagement. His Viper gives out shortly after.

With only one Raider remaining, Starbuck re-orients herself into a combat position and charges the enemy. As the two combatants close in on each other, Starbuck'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 Starbuck is forced to eject from her Viper after it goes into an uncontrollable flat spin towards the satellite's surface and disintegrates.

Aftermath

After successfully ejecting, Starbuck 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 Starbuck manages to cut herself loose moments before hitting the drop-off point.

As this is happening, a Raptor deployed by Galactica recovers Hot Dog and his critically damaged Viper in the moon's orbit. Subsequently, SAR teams are sent out to retrieve Starbuck, 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 satellite's surface - with a broken wireless handset and no other means of establishing communication - Starbuck 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, Starbuck 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, Starbuck 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. Starbuck'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.

A tense situation results when she approaches Galatica, and Apollo is sent out to intercept what CIC believes is an enemy fighter. Some creative thinking on Starbuck's part (i.e. printing her name on the wings of the Raider, by means of a brightly-tinted track sealant) permits Apollo to identify her. He subsequently escorts her into Galactica's landing alcove.

Impact

This is the first time Colonial forces are able to capture and examine the updated Cylon Raider. Chief 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 ("Act of Contrition", "You Can't Go Home Again", "Six Degrees of Separation", "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down", 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 Starbuck at the Delphi Museum of the Colonies.

Re-imagined Series definition: the act of finding missing persons in the hopes of their rescue, see: SAR (TRS: "Fragged")

Original Series definition: marriage

Re-imagined Series definition: initial skills training; can refer to basic military indoctrination, and arms and ground training (TRS: "Fragged"); and basic flight training (TRS: "Miniseries")