Skirmish Over the Red Moon
| Skirmish over the Red Moon | |||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict | Second Cylon war | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | Day 14 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | An unnamed red moon | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Marginal Colonial victory | ||||||||||||||||
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A skirmish that occured when a scouting group of 8 Cylon Raiders surprised a group of nugget Viper pilots being instructed by Lt. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace in the orbit an unnamed Red Moon orbiting a gas giant. It was the first time the Cylons were able to find Battlestar Galactica again after it's escape in the Battle of Ragnar Anchorage (and subsequent chase in "33"). Starbuck ordered the trainees to leave while she took on all eight at once, but Cadet Hot Dog disobeyed and followed her to cover her wing. This succeeded in dividing the Raiders enough between them that Starbuck now had a chance to take them down. Hot Dog succeeded in destroying one Raider (his first kill in a Viper) before suffering damage from incoming fire and having to pull back from the engagement. By this point all but one Raider had been destroyed, and Starbuck and it made a run at each other.
Both the Raider and Starbuck's Viper were critically damaged as a result; the Raider was shot in it's bio-mechanical brain and Kara's Viper was bady damaged. Both spiraled out of control descending through the Red Moon's orbit and crashed onto the moon, though Starbuck was able to eject from her Viper first.
Hot Dog and his Viper were soon after recovered by repair crews from Galactica (his damaged Viper was later repaired).
Meanwhile, Starbuck's Viper was a total loss. After ejecting she wandered on the moon until she found the crashed Cylon Raider, braindead from its wounds. Starbuck was then able to find a way inside, and discovered for the first time the bio-mechanical nature of the new generation of Raiders. Inside, Starbuck had enough oxygen to stay alive, and began figuring out how to control the Raider by manipulating its internal organic actuators (aided by the fact that Starbuck used to be a flight instructor and could determine the basic mechanics of flying a craft fairly well). Starbuck sealed up the hole the Raider received when she shot it by using her emergency kit, then flew it off of the moon, and returned to Galactica.
This was the first time that Colonial forces were able to capture and examine a Cylon Raider. Chief Tyrol and his deck crew spent the next several weeks analyzing it, eventually returning it to flight status. ("Act of Contrition"), ("You Can't Go Home Again"), ("Six Degrees of Separation"), ("Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II").