Battle of the Guardian Basestar

Battle of the Guardian Basestar
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 Twelve Colonies of Kobol Guardian Cylons Commanders Commander Lee Adama Major Kendra Shaw Captain Kara Thrace First Hybrid Golden Cylon Strength battlestar Pegasus, approx 80 Viper , approx 30 Raptors, 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 Rescue on Caprica

The Battle of the Guardian Basestar is an engagement between the battlestar Pegasus and the Guardian basestar.

Events leading up to the battle

When a Raptor with a civilian science team goes missing, Admiral William Adama orders a search and rescue mission - Lee Adama's first mission as commander of Pegasus. After jumping to the Raptor's last known location, a Viper patrol encounters Cylon fighters of an unknown configuration. Pegasus fights off the attack and eventually jumps out again, but not before a Raider is shot down in one of the landing bays. The wreck is discovered to be a Cylon War-era Raider crewed by Centurions from that time, its navigational records pointing to the possible location of their home base.

Remembering Cylon experimentation on humans during the first Cylon War, Admiral Adama transfers his flag to Pegasus, hoping to rescue the missing people and maybe learn what exactly he witnessed over forty years ago. Not wanting to risk both battlestars, Pegasus is dispatched alone.

Confronting the Cylons

Pegasus initiates the confrontation by jumping to the basestar's location, then commencing an attack that draws off the vessel's Raiders. The battlestar 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 with the warhead in tow. The Raiders subsequently destroy the Raptor and break off their attack, believing the crew to be dead. No longer pursued, the team continues on its way by means of thruster packs.

Upon successfully boarding the basestar, the rescue team locates the room where the science team is being held and works to free them. The rescue party is ambushed by Centurions, and Dasilva is critically wounded. As two Centurions drag him away, Major Kendra Shaw shoots and kills him, believing that he would have been used by the Cylons for experimentation. Shaw is subsequently shot in the abdomen by one of the Centurions.

The basestar begins jamming wireless communications, and not knowing if his boarding party is still alive, Commander Adama orders a nuclear missile to be fired at the ship, but Admiral Adama countermands him. As the men attempt to determine a decisive plan of action, communications are restored, and Captain Kara Thrace 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. Commander Adama suggests evacuating the rescue team and then launching the missile, but the admiral 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 warhead. Reluctantly, the commander orders Captain Thrace to fulfill this role, and she complies.

Pegasus immediately launches a second Raptor, getting it close enough to the basestar to land within a hangar bay and to evacuate the rescue team. Thrace is ready to stay behind when Major Shaw orders her to leave at gunpoint, intending to detonate the warhead instead. The two argue, but Thrace 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 Thrace will lead mankind to its end, and that they must not follow her. Shaw attempts to contact Pegasus and warn them, but cannot deliver the entire message due to Cylon jamming. As Shaw prepares to destroy the ship, the Hybrid calmly addresses 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 (TRS: "Razor").