Guardian Conflict

The Guardian Conflict was a minor war between the Cylon Guardians and the members of the Interstellar Coalition Fleet and the Cylon's Colony Defense Fleet following the end of the Xindi Conflict. It began with the Guardians preemptive strike on the still gathering  Coalition First Reserve Fleet and the visiting Imperius leader, indending to put the Coalition on the defense. The action failed and began open war just outside Cylon-controlled space on the 18 March 2157 and lasted until the 8th May 2157 with the death of Alpha  and the deactivation of the Guardians following the Battle of the Colony.

The conflict would last for around three months in deep space and on the borders of Coalition as determine Coalition forces quickly turn the conflict around and located and destroyed each of the Guardian's hidden strongholds in a series of campaigns. Extreme Cylons tactics combine unexpected knowledge and use of Coalition designed technolgy used by the Guardians against their forces resulted in a protracted conflict, much longer than was originally intended. During these battles Coalition forces located and launched a massive campaign to liberate the control Sigma Mass Relays from Guardian control.

The Cylon Imperium committed a vast amount of their military assets to the Coalition throughout the entire conflict, both in a political move to show solidarity with the Coalition and to quickly bring about a swift end. This resulted in higher Cylon loses than other Coalition member races.

Unkown to Coalition Fleet Command, the Cylons had slowly stripping away the Colony defense forces to help attack the well intrench Guardians with overwelming numbers, an action none realized the Guardian's leader, Alpha had planned. During the final operation a massive force was commited by the Cylons to the Coalition to destroy the gathered Guardian forces in one last stand using a expermental FTL distruption device to trap the Guardians under the command of Guardian Commander Luicfer in Battle of the Guardian Foundry World Six. While Coalition Fleet was lock combat over the sole remaining Guardian stronghold, a decapition strike was launched on the Cylon central military and government headquarters.

The Guardian's true forces led by Alpha launched an all out attack on the Colony itself. The Crimision Elite knock out the Colony's communcation arrays with a sudden FTL blitzing strike to cut the massive ship off from any reinforcements, while shock troops were dropped to the facility. The Battle of the Colony would be the longest battle of the entire war, the battle rage from the immediate space around the Colony, to inside the base itself, as the Guardians attempted to gain control the Cylon command ship and issue a program slaving order to the whole of the Cylon Imperium, bringing them under complete control of Alpha. The battle would be the most devasting battle ever fought by the Cylons since the end of the Cylon War, with over 20,000 Centurions lost and millions of Cylon Programs destroyed in cyberspace. The ICS Galactica lead a Coalition contingent into the battle, after the sudden loss of contact with the Cylon leadership. The Galactica lead flotilla of Coalition vessels was an unexpected arrival and opened a hole in the battle and allowing Zero to personnlly mount a suicide mission with Heavy Raiders on the Guardian's command baseship, the GAS Guardian.

While the Galactica's fighter wing of 120 Vipers and 40 Raptors launched under the command of acting CAG Major William Adama, the Crimision Elite squadron advance Raiders moved to intercept the strike force in a massive dog fight

The Cylons fought their way through the overwelming numbers of the ship's defenders to Alpha herself, who was summarily executed by Zero and her personal command codes were used to shut down the Guardians, ending the war. As all Guardians were removed and taken to the Colony to be dissemble and recyled, all the illegal bio-synthetic research that involved Human expermination was handed over to the Coalition.

The Imperious Leader, having decided they remained among the stars too long time, become too rooted in the logical pursuit of mechanical evolution, decreed to establish a true Cylon homeworld on a mostly green untouched world on the other side of the Sigma Relays a world of their that would be named Cylon Node 001.

While the Cylon homeworld was establish, the massive CAS Colony was turned over the Coalition after Cylons finished repairs and upgrades to serve as a mobile battle station and shipyard for the Coalition Fleet, rechristened the ICS Home. The craft would go on to serve as a forward base for the Coalition throughout the many wars yet to come.

While the original research for bio-synthetics undertaken by Alpha was deemed too controversial and was destroyed, the Cylon's supported a slower and humane program of research. While it did take several decades and faced numerous setbacks, eventual research lead to the redevelopment of Cylon bio-synthetics.

Guardians Revealed
The Guardian Conflict began after the Coalition learned of the Guardians existence from the Imperious Leader following the discovery of the missing colony vessel UES Wyalong and it's only remaining crew member telling of Cylon-like machines to the battle cruiser ICS Merlion.

This revelation of the Guardians having taken the over 600,000 colonists of the UES Wyalong captive to be experimented was theorized by the Cylon Core Intelligence as a large enough surplus of test subjects to appease the Guardian research for a long while, confirming the Cylon question as to why the Guardians had been suspiciously quiet for the past several years. Now with this new information and base on their own past experiments during the war the Cylon Core Intelligence and Coalition Fleet Command agreed that it was only a matter of time before the Guardians supply would run out and would prompt raids of civilian shipping or colony worlds. In order to preempt such an attack, the Coalition decided to take first strike action and locate the Guardians before they could begin their raids anew.

Backdoor Espionage
Unknown to anyone, the Cylon Central Information Network had a backdoor in it's older command access systems which allowed the Guardians consistently to monitor their Cylon brethren and now Coalition Fleet movements and activities to stay relativity clear of them. Once they learned of the Coalition knowledge of their existence, Alpha sent a secret message to Zero after so many years of silence. It was obvious to Alpha the Coalition wouldn't let her and the Guardians continue their experiments into bio-synthetic evolution while they used Human experimentation. Alpha realized that such controversy would lead to open conflict between her and the Coalition, to which she would rather avoid fighting her Cylon brethren.

As she knew Zero would not feel right about such a civil-war of sorts and would most likely withdrawal from the Coalition if she believed it was what was best for the Cylon people. By having the Cylons break away the Coalition, it would severely gut a majority of their operational forces and reserves, giving the Guardians the needed advantage in the opening moments of the conflict. This would allow her to focus solely on the Coalition and then once done with them, turn again Zero and the Cylons who would be isolated.

But Zero refused her offer and chose to stand by the Coalition and left to tell the Coalition the truth about the Guardians.

Alpha knew she had to act quickly before the Coalition could mobilize. She had a good chance to really hurt the Coalition forces in their weaken post-Xindi Conflict state. Using her information gathering network. She learned were the only fleet being ready to move against the Guardians was assembling and planned to destroy it. Along with Zero for her betrayal during the war much sooner than she planned at the same time since who was away from he throne on the Colony to brief the Coalition commanders in the fleet on what the Cylons knew of the Guardians personalty.

The Guardians moved a force at extreme range to strike the gathering fleet as soon at they had all arrived.

Battle of Chaltak
Admiral Samuel Gardner was in the process of mobilizing a fleet in the Chaltak-system but a bulk of the fleet's ships were tied up for repairs, refit, and decommissioning. The Coalition dispatched the First Reserve Fleet Quick Reaction Force, which only contained half a dozen capital ships, including several new generation baseships, that the Imperious Leader arrived on that they been very hesitant to deploy into the field yet.

The moment the last battle group led by the Odin-class Battleship ICS Valkyrie had arrived to join the fleet formation, Gardner called most of the fleet's commanding officers to the experimental Assault Carrier ICS Annihilator for a tactical briefing on their mission, joined by the Cylon Imperious Leader to officially brief them on the Guardians. While the Coalition commanders discuss a number of options in the hopes to avoid abosulte war with the Guardians if possible, the Guardians ambushed the fleet.

A Guardian fleet under personal command of Alpha jumped in formation around the gathered hundred vessels of the Coalition Fleet and opened fire. Locked into their artillery mode, over ten thousand advance guided missiles, each armed with photon warheads, were launched from the Guardian force at the Coalition Fleet. The Fleet automatically began to fire interceptor rounds at the incoming ordnance, shooting down a small percentage before hits were scored.

The missiles were too many and overwhelmed the defenses of the Coalition battleships ICS Hermes and ICS Telos. The Telos port flight pod was completely destroyed and port side heavily damage and suffered catostrophic decompression. While the Hermes suffered a direct fatality strike by missiles at it's mid-ship and it's destruction engulfed two of it's frigates escorts, the ICS T'Jal and the ICS Zdenia. Large chunks of debris that was the Hermes slammed into the starboard side of the neighboring cruiser ICS Pioneer, ripping off the whole port-side of the ship and severely damaging the port nacelle before the Pioneer could completely evade.

The Coalition Fleet suffer sever losses, more than a quarter of their fleet was destroyed in the first wave and another quarter being heavily damage. Acting quickly, Admiral Gardner had the four assault carriers in the fleet form up around the ICS Annihilator, using both fighter screens and flak fire to create a protective screen. The Guardians fired a second missile volley, launched in staggered launches with Raiders launching and coming in from behind. The Coalition fleet launched their first wave of a few hundred alert fighters to meet the incoming fighters and ordinance in a 10 to 1 odds.

The Coalition Fleet had automatically gathered into a round formation to defend against the incoming siege, but Admiral Gardner saw no way to pull the fleet out of this mess and onto an offensive footing against the Guardians. The fleet couldn't attack without risking missile impacts or being flanked by Raiders, while FTL would require energy reserves his ships couldn't muster without lower their static defenses and shields.

The cruiser ICS Dauntless suffered fatal battle damage, before Zero suggested to him leaving a few capitals ships behind and having their fighters draw their fire, saving the main force of heavier units. Gardner refuse but Zero noted that making a last stand would mean the whole fleet would die, if their plan worked they'd only lose a fraction of the fleet. Captain Vanik, commanding officer of the fleet's destroyer groups, agreed with her assessment and Gardner conceeded after a moment of thought that no other option could ensure complete survival of Coalition assets.

Gardner gave the regretful order for a emergency tatical retreat, ordering twelve destroyers and four frigates to remain behind in order to cover their escape.

Alpha was please as the Coalition Fleet's defense began to falter under her attacks, when several extremely heavily damage ships broke the ranks and charged the Guardian's lines firing wildly. Due to the disregard for this own safety, the Coalition ships managed to break through the Guardian fighter screens. The Guardian baseships, being configured for missile artillery mode, managed to redirected some of their defensive fire but close-range combat was impossible given their weapon directioning. Several of the Guardian's heavier units suffered extreme damage, forcing Alpha to order several of her units to break off from their attack and engage the new enemy.

The sudden repositioning of enemy fire gave Gardner the pause he needed and ordered the fleet to begin rapid combat jumps, first dropping the vessels on the edge of the Chaltak-system, where they could quickly calculate a jump of greater distance to Rator III. Detected the fleet readying their FTLs, Alpha realizes her folly and attempted to intercept but before she could give the order 56 Coalition vessels escaped.

Alpha ordered the destruction of remaining vessel and fighters and returning to their original staging points for re-supply and repairs before the second phase.

The Battle of Chaltak cost the Coalition lives of over 6,000 personnel, 48 vessels lost, around 800 fighters destroyed, and all remaining 56 vessels in need of major repairs, proving to be the worse naval battle within the Coalition history so far.

Post Chaltak
The news of the Battle of Chaltak sent the Coalition civilian population into a state of panic. While the Coalition civilian and military leaderships demanded to know how the Guardians knew where the Admiral Gardner's fleet was located, scans taken during the battle showed the Guardian's vessels usage of Coalition technology. The advance photon missiles used on them were based on the class specific missiles being develop for use on the Annihilator-class assault carriers by the Cylon Imperium. A visiting Colonial politician from Sagittarion, who son was on the Hermes, attempted to put full blame onto the Cylon representative, claiming a major failure in Cylon military intelligence had led to the massacre and the complete fault of the Cylons leadership, demanding the nation pay repartitions for ships and personnel lost.

Coalition leaders haulted such accusations and public support swayed in the Cylon favour, following the first visit of the Cylon Imperious Leader to Caprica since the end of the Cylon War, where she pledge complete material and humanitarian support from the Cylon nation in the wake of the disasterous battle. She spoke before the Coalition Member Congress, citing that It could be very easily but unknowingly be the sympathetic members of the Cylon Imperium who leaked the information and swore that she had no knowledge of the intelligence failure. To offset the betrayl felt by not just the Coalition people but the Cylon race themselves, she pledged the Cylon Imperium's complete support for the coming conflict, announcing their military would take the lead in every battle against their once fellow Guardians and act as shields for the Coalition people.

While leaders discuss plans and Coalition Fleet Command readied defences, the Guardians launched their next series of operations.

Guardian Raids
The Guardians, while still lacking the numbers to fight a real war with the entire Coalition directly, could still use FTL attacks to their full advantage and launched a successful guerrilla war against the Coalition. Alpha's plan was similar to the one she used to keep the Colonials on the defense during the Cylon War. She intended to strike raid several important targets, launch kill strikes on a much larger number of secondaries, along with several large and demoralizing civilian strikes to keep the Coalition confuse and off-balance trying to intrept her stragety.

Destruction of Providence
Located in the New Celtic-system, the O'Neill-class space colony Providence, was used as a major refuel point for passing civilian trade. The station was a popular destination because of its refinement of helium-3 from the gas giants Blackstone, Elmhurt and Wanskuck. Due to the lack of the Coalition bases in this region, Alpha predicted that this station could easily serve as a forward base for Coalition forces in the mean time and had to be removed. The Guardian First Fleet under the command of Lucifer quickly jumped into orbit of the station and unleashed a full payload of photon and nuclear weapons to quickly destroy the entire facility and killed it's over 1,000,000 inhabitants instantly.

Failure to Destroy the Kuun-Lan
The large Hiigaran deep space mining vessel known as the HF Kuun-Lan was conducting deep space mining on a mining operation on behalf of the Colonial Geo-Mineral Corporation to mine tylium and dilithium fuel for the civilian markets. As such the Kuun-Lan was a very temping targeting for Guardians, as it not only mined tylium fuel, neccessary to achieve FTL reactions, but also refined and stored it to a degree much larger than most civilian crafts of its size.

Moving to intercept the craft, Alpha targeted the Guardian Second Fleet to intercept the Kuun-Lan in the Enos Nebula, a region that prevented the use of their hyperdrives. A fast FTL-strike by the Guardian Second Fleet would quickly destroy the Kuun-Lan.

The Guardian fleet jumped in only to find the Kuun-Lan was gone. Having already moved onto another area it had been mining. Not knowing the Kunn-Lan had completed it's job far ahead of schedule, the vessel was on it's way to off load it's shipment at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards.

The failure to destroy the Kuun-Lan would bit the Guardians till the end of the war.

Battle of Tal'Nor
The Vulcan colony on Tal'Nor, a deep-range colony near uncharted space, was the largest repair facility along the frontline with the Guardians. After the Borderland Blitz, many Orion and Tarlac refugees were relocated here due to it's area of relative safety. This allowed the colony to grow rather quickly.

Alpha knew of it's would be strategic importance as a possible location for Coalition vessels to repair and stage from, and was seen as best to hit before the Coalition could be modify its orbital facilites.

The Crimson Elite along with the Guardian Third Fleet were committed to the operation, but unknown to them the battle cruiser ICS Corregidor was redeployed from her patrol of the Argolis Cluster to Tal'Nor following the Battle of Chaltak to link up with a second Coalition force being assemble. The Crimson Elite jumped into orbit to knock out the shipyard defenses, beofre a the Guardian Third Fleet would arrive to sack the facility. They were however detected by the Corregidor, who opened fire, destroying three of the Raiders in her opening shots and intercepted the missiles targeted on the shipyard. The Raiders quickly retreated to rejoin the fleet.

News of the failure to knock out the shipyard defenses by the Crimson Elite was going to make the mission more difficult. After the Third Fleet's flag officer, Commander Specter, reported back to Alpha on the sudden change, she gave the order to continue the mission because of it's importance and raze the entire colony if he needed to.

In several minutes after the attack, the entire system was on alert and ships were on the way to join there small system defense fleet being mustered. When the Cylon fleet jumped in and launching Raiders, the entire Coalition fleet broke formation and attack the Guardian vessels directly, using strafing runs of the slower Basestars and their Escorts.

Captain Jeffery Cromwell of the Corregidor, ordered the fleet to engage the Guardian escort vessels, intending to remove the defensive screens to the heavier capital ships of the Guardian fleet. The slower Basestars were kept busy by the planetary defenses and once the fleet had taken out enough escorts and fighters to create a hole in the point-defense coverage, the vessels moved to engage the Basestars directly. The battle dragged on for an hour when the Coalition Mercury-class battleship ICS Mercury jumped and opened fire on Specter's flagship, causing heavy damage. The Mercury redirected her fire on the flagship's escorting Basestar, shifting to kinetic and phaser broadsides as she launched her entire fighter wing of over 200 fighters. Using the confusion, the Corregidor and ICS Neptune targeted the wounded baseship with their photon torpedoes, destroying the first baseship.

The Mercury tried to engage two at a time with the help of the Corregidor however during the engagement the Neptune suffered a direct hit and crashed into one of the Basestars, destroying both vessels.

After losing two more Baseships and most of his fighter squadrons, Specter decided to withdraw and save the rest of his fleet. While firing a spread of missiles to cover his withdraw on ballistic vectors, requiring the remaining Coalition vessels to move into a point defense role to protect Tal'vor and its orbital industry.

For the Coalition it was the first victory of the war, with eight vessels lost, compared to the 27 Guardian vessels  destroyed.

Disaster at Aegis XIII
The M-class planet of Aegis XIII, part of the Aegis trinary star system and located between the established borders of Cylon Imperium and the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, was the site to the largest anti-matter manufacturing center within the region. Establish by the UES Megaroad in 2153 before open war with the Xindi, the plant was solely responsible with supplying the Colonials and Cylons with anti-matter during that time.

During and following the war, it was greatly expanded upon by the two powers even as Colonial and Cylon variants  were constructed closer to their homeworlds. Only the extent of the Aegis XIII ensured its premier position in the region. In the wake of the Xindi Conflict, having been given little reason or time to redeploy any assets or ships to other parts of Coalition space, Aegis XIII's static defenses were still mobilized while a sizable contingent of defensive vessels still continued to patrol the area.

While other targets across the Coalition were suffering attacks, the Guardians committed four entire fleets of the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Fleets to this operation. The Guardians, having knowledge on the Cylon program who commands the Aegis defense forces, had planned a two pronged attack. First wave strike forces would attack the planet, the second wave would wait before moving to engage the Aegis defense fleet as they re-grouped for a counter attack.

The Guardians jump in over the northern hemisphere of the planet with over half of their fleet and began firing at the three of the closest orbital defense platforms. While the veteran Coalition's Cylon Admiral Storm on the aging Cylon Basestar ICS Alpha-015 put the entire Aegis Defense Fleet on full alert and began to assemble the fleet quickly on the opposing side of the planet before launching a counter attack. While his fellow Coalition commander Vice Admiral Eugene Wu took control of the Aegis Orbital Defenses to keep the attacking fleet at bay and General Leanne Kurts prepared surface defenses for possible ground strikes or invading forces. Storm sent several wings of alert fighters to assist the platforms while his own forces mobilized.

The second wave jumped in and began to engage the still scattered Aegis Defense Fleet as they attempted to gather for a counter attack. Both fleets opened fired on one another at nearly the same time as phaser and missile artillery fire was exchanged. The Guardians, while keeping the defense fleet pinned down, launched Raiders in a swarm fashion to attack the Coalition's fleet lightly defended flanks. The Admiral Storm surprised the Guardian's by unleashed their remaining loads of nuclear weapons on the attacking Raiders in lieu of flak fire, opting for saturation over pin-point defenses. The resulting of the lose of all enemy Raiders well outside attack range of the Coalition forces, caused Admiral Storm to reverse his fleet's movements and unleashed their fighters in a scattered formations, to prevent a similar Guardian attack and used the crafts on the Guardian fleet undefended flanks.

Combat stalled as Admiral Wu's defense platforms kept the Guardians at bay, and while the Guardians had an overwhelming numbers of ships, they had lost too many fighters in the opening moments to maintain a proper defensive screen. The Coalition had gain the advantage in fighters, a fact they used to excess against the enemy capital ships. The Guardian's commanders grew more desperate and came up with a new plan to reach the surface.

In a effort to turn the battle the Guardian First Fleet wave recalled a number of Raiders and loaded them with full nuclear load outs and relaunched them, intending to focus a concentrated attack on one of the defense platform Delta-1. As they spammed the platform with overwhelming phaser fire to distract automated defenses, the Raiders launched a salvo of missiles. The platform, too busy defending against the incoming fire, scored few hits on any of the attacking Raiders before they rammed the structure. The nuclear denotations against the already strained shields of the station overwhelmed them and destroyed the facility. The resulting lose opened a hole in the orbital net and the Guardian's quickly moved to exploit it.

A secondary force of Raiders unleashed their load of MIRVs pack, photon guided warheads, intent on obliterating the surface bases. As planetary surface-to-space defenses open up on the incoming fire, Admiral Storm estimated that their total defenses could only eliminate 57% of the incoming ordinances. Undertaking a pin-point combat jump, the Admiral Storm moved his assault carrier into the upper thermosphere and interposed himself against the fire, a sacrifice that took the incoming fire and was vaporized, destroying the last salvo of fire.

The space battle had begun to shift in the Coalition favor by this stage, the Guardians had expended most of their ordinances early on in the fighting and were starting to take damage. The Coalition fighter and bomber attacks had done great damage upon the second enemy group, destroying many of their large vessels. The Coalition assault carriers moved in and engage the Basestars at near point blank ranges. During this exchange, a pair of Coalition assault carriers, the ICS St. Claire and ICS Valley of Thar broke through to engage the Guardian Basestar directly, successfully knocking out it's FTL drive.

Before the Cylon crews could finish off the wounded Basestar, Admiral Wu saw a opportunity and ordered them not to destroy the ship and attempt to capture the vessel. The Guardian's were too busy engaging the St. Claire and Thar to intercept a force of boarders and made a hard landing in their launch bays. A force of  Leeches were deployed with reinforcements to dock to other parts of the Basestar to take pressure off the strike team.

The fighting through the Basestar to the ship's central computer was extremely brutal, the boarding force lost most of their number, but managed to secure the command program of the vessel.

The Coalition finally after nearly a day of fighting destroyed the remains of the Guardian Sixth and Seven Fleets, finally routing and forcing a Guardian retreat. With the capture of the GAS Alpha-05 by Coalition hands, Cylon specialists were transported out and began isolating the ship's computers and breaking through the security lockouts. They successfully access the ship's internal database learning the exact location of most of the previously hidden Guardian bases and outposts, though overall fleet movements and assets eluded them.

The information captured at Aegis XIII would prove vital to the Coalition in quickly putting an end to this conflict. It was the first battle were Cylons truly fired on another Cylon ship and the Guardians reliance on old Cylon war tactics was proven a flaw. The Battle of Aegis the first major victory in the war.

Massacre of Aya
As part of the Guardians to strike panic into the Coalition and force them on the defence, the enemy attacked the unguarded and populated planet Aya. A strike by a squadrons of Basestars each armed with a number of space-to-surface missiles armed with biological weapons develop by the Guardians, jumped into orbit around the planet and launched several of these missiles before retreating. The warheads detonated inside the planetary atmosphere upper atmosphere, releasing a variation of symbalene blood burn into the population.

7,000,000 civilians on Aya died within the next few hours before the ICS Endeavour could arrived.

Draw at Lionhead
In order to throw the Coalition off on where their forces could be coming from, the Guardian's attacked the ICS Enterprise A on a astrological survey mission of study the Lionhead Nebula. Alpha had hoped the destruction of the Coalition flagship would be a morally devastating result for her enemy.

The normal EM-pulse generated by a nearby pulsar disrupted the ship's warp fields and required the FTL to be powered down, to avoid feedback reactions from the vessel's reactor core.

The Rear Admiral T'Pol was commanding the Enterprise  on it's mission of exploration, when a pair of Guardian Baseships jumped into weapons ready to destroy it. Only the feedback pulse from the pulsar caused both enemies to suddenly lose power, as their power reactors over-compensated and enacted safety shut-downs.

T'pol ordered all weapon batteries to open fire on one of the unshielded Baseships, striking it's tylium tanks and severly damaging the craft. The Enterprise was able to strike several direct hits on the second ship while she made her escape run for the edge of the Nebula. The second Baseship fired missiles and phasers causing minor damage, but Enterprise jump to warp before the missiles could reach the target.

Attack on the Thirty-Second Exdous Fleet
The Thirty-Second Exdous Fleet was one of several new Macross Island-class vessels launched from Earth in the wake off the Xindi Conflict. The Thirty-Second Exodus Fleet was going to establish a new colony near Beta Veldonna. The Guardian's fired the few remaining warp-capable missiles from the GAS Alpha-097 on the unsuspecting colony ship passing at warp.

A few missiles were intercepted by the colony defenses but several stuck the Island modules, killing 8468 civilians. Once word reach Coalition Fleet Command the Forge-class dreadnought ICS Mount Seleya and her battle group was moved to assist and defend the colony fleet.

Destruction of the Relay Station 47
The Tellarites had constructed a series of subspace communication stations to allow real-time connections with every ship, outpost, station, and colony within their home region. Due to the war with the Xindi and establishing front line communications, the control network was never expanded and all communications were channel through a single central relay communication station, Central Relay Station 47.

A number of Baseships from the Guardian Tenth Fleet was quickly dispatch to Central Relay 47 and easily destroyed the station and it's crew of 500. With its lose all real-time comm. flowing through the United Planets of Tellar, along with its subsidary networks in surrounding member nations, was cut off.

Frontier Down
The Megaroad-class colony vessel ICS Frontier was reassigned to transport over two entire field armies worth of 400,000 troops that made up the Coalition Third and Coalition Fifth Armies to Laythe V, for a planned military exercises under General Talas. It was also being used as a top secrete operation to field testing the Marauder Project, being work on by a Cylon developers for the Centurions. While operational security meant the program was not listed in any documents in the Cylon information networks, it was mentioned in budget appropriation reports. The unknown nature of this joint project, along with the heavy security and small yet elite staff of researchers made Alpha sure it was military based and as such not be used by the Coalition.

The ICS Frontier was in orbit around Laythe V when a Guardian fleet jump in on her flanks. Lightly armed and shielded, the colony ship was no match for the fleet. Taking heavy damage she was pulled down by the planet's gravity well and crashed onto the planetary surface. The forces on the ground had no idea nothing was wrong until General Talas forward command post lost their direct up-link to the vessel and visual reports from teams on the ground confirmed the Frontier crash landed several thousand kilometers away from the ground exercise's position. General Talas declared the exercise canceled and declared actual combat was underway, ordering all personnel into the nearby the mountains until help arrived.

Siege of Laythe V
Read More: Siege of Laythe V

While the Guardians began their landing operations, the Coalition ground-shields prevented the Guardian's from beaming their troops directly into the facilites. The Guardian Ninth Fleet joined the Guardian Tenth Fleet in orbit to blockade the planet, beginning landing operations and deploying over two Guardian Theater Armies of 2,000,000 troops to the surface, along with Cylon Legionnaire Tanks, with air support provided by Heavy Raiders serving in the role of a gunship.

The Guardian's jammed all outgoing communications preventing Coalition forces from sending out a distress call.

General Talas responded by having her people attempt to send out a distress by using their few warp-capable shuttles to run the blockade. Sadly none manage to escape the system or transmit a complete message to subspace, only the combined presence of so many garbled messages prompted the ICS Enterprise A to investigate.

With no orbital support or fleet protection, General Talas decided to avoid moving her troops into the tactical bunkers below the Coalition base, instead ordered the full evacuation of the Coalition base, coordinating with her fellow Generals Mathew Parker and Sh'Rreev. She ordered all personnel to relocated\ to the better cover of the near by Broken Spine Mountains, a range of jagged mountains known for their near-impassible terrian and supported numerous large and deep caverns to hide in. The new M1A Makos AFVs greatly assist in the quick evacuation of all Coalition personnel, and most essential equipment to the mountains before the first night fall. Talas moved quickly to establish a command post and reasonable defense perimeter throughout the mountains.

During the night, Talas deployed Falcon squad equip with the prototype Marauder Armour, since they could operate in extrem cold night weather of Laythe V, on a recon mission in the direction where the Guardian vessels had been seen landing, a 160-kilometers south of the original Coalition base.

During the first night, Falcon squad continued the recon mission where they encounter and successfully ambush a platoon-sized scout party of Guardian Centurions, capturing informaiton on the location of the Guardian staging area. Once there, Falcon confirmed visual of the staging area, noting the enemy was preparing for not only offensive action, but entrenchment of its landing site. Returning to base, Falcon was ambushed by a pair of Heavy Raiders sent to investigate the loses of the previous scouting party. Barely making it to some cover before the start firing,  the previously never encountered Marauder armour the squadron donned caused the Raider's limited programming to mark them as a unknown.

Sector Commander Beta-4 deployed several more Heavy Raiders loaded with troops to capture them for study, believing them to be a Coalition classified weapons project the enemy was attempting to remove from the battlefield. The squadron was only saved by the unexpected arrival of their Mako, quickly shooting down both enemy crafts. Falcon squad returned to base.

After a short chase, resulting in several Guardian Heavy Raiders being shot down by Makos under command of General Parker, Falcon's Mako returned safely back to base with it's intelligence intact.

While the command personnel analysis the information and scans, General Talas ordered Falcon squad to return to their original base in an attempt to recover needed materials, including heavy weapons and explosives. If recovery was impossible the squadron was to ensure the materials were scuttled to keep them out of Guardian hands.

13 Makos were committed to the mission, ten intended to carry ordinance, three Makos and Falcon Squad designated to stand guard. The recovery convoy was a success, and just left in time to avoid the massive Guardian Army marching on the base. As the Guardians moved to occupy the facility, believing the Coalition forces had moved to the tactical bunkers below the base, a high yield photon warhead was detonated, destroying the base and the entire Guardian regiment of over 5,000 Centurions, plus the 200 Legionarie tanks, and 50 Heavy Raiders in the photon blast.

The 27 Dead
While Alpha concentrated on major theaters, she also began to target a number of secondary targets, to further divide the already spread thin Coalition Fleets, in a bid to force them to try and defend every world along the boarder of their territory.

Over 27 of the Crimson Elite's Advance Raiders loaded with various biological warheads launched off the Guardian Basestar GAS Omega-001 in a coordinated strike 27 different worlds. These worlds were home to small, defenseless, out of the way mining outposts or colony settlements. Each boasted populations of no more a few hundred to thousands of settlers.
 * Acohial
 * Bareub
 * Cab'tir
 * Colasaco
 * Dylan Eil Ton
 * Effie Widdoes
 * Eh'danh
 * Elulatn
 * Erebus
 * Gekolo
 * Goldwind
 * Hira
 * Hudalu
 * Isareboll
 * Knarg
 * Lirhok
 * New Defiance
 * Nor'laag
 * Rekemu
 * Rokni
 * Roravi
 * Sec'pad
 * Tateir
 * Ta'vin
 * Tivole
 * Verbotene
 * Westphalia

In this coordinated war crime, over 18,552 people were killed outright, almost 45,912 infected but Alpha's true desire was for the Coalition to waste resources in trying to at least save all those affected.

The Coalition began to dispatch relief and military ships to assist the colonists and help find a cure. Even with the premeir medical expert of over three dozen species, medical professionals would save 13,773 thanks to the surprise arrival of Cylon Heavy Raiders, the remaining 32,138 perished in the end. This incident was named The 27 Dead in the Coalition media and public, for the 27 dead worlds that would remain uninhibited for over a year until the Coalition could remove the bio-contaminants from the planetary atmospheres

This incident would spark fear among the small outpost worlds and demands for Coalition forces to defend began to pour in, coupled with a fire of anger among all Cylons at the act of barbarity.

Decentralization Order
This incident would cause the temporary shut down of the entire Cylon Central Information Network, during the great Cylon Decentralization Order by Zero a few days later.

Guardian's Pull Back
The Guardian's pulled back offensive forces following the completion of most of their first strike missions and quickly began full resupply operations and field repairs, intent on following through with a second round strike deeper into Coalition space.

Alpha did a full assessment of their operations and while she was please with the end results, she was also just as greatly disappointed with their failures, the lose of one of their ships at Aegis XIII and the destruction of two entire fleets brought her anticapated loses to almost twice her projected numbers.

The information stored in the Aegis XIII ship's command program allowed the Coalition access on the Guardian's secret locations.

Alpha decided to the continueing Siege of Laythe V as bait to lure Coalition forces into a trap. Their desire to attempt a rescue if their troops on the surface would be the likely Coalition first goal. Such an action would create a hole in the Coalition front-lines, large enough for launching another offensive.

Coalition Wartime Opinion
The Guardians attack's had unnerved the Coalition general public, with high levels civilian losses sparking outrage among the Coalition member states. Admiral Forrest was doing his best to make sure the fleet meet the demands place on them but forces were spread extremely thin and communications along the front were difficult. The tactical situation was much worse, with most of their forces were tied down in occupied-Xindi space, while hundreds more were still in the shipyards, gaining much needed repairs, overhauls or upgrades.

The Cylons were received the worse of public pressure. The fact their was a leak somewhere and the Guardians were using that information to attack Coalition worlds and kill thousands caused widespread outrage.

The only good news was the capture of the command program by Coalition Forces, a break the nation needed to counter attack. But the Coalition was still on the defense.

Coalition High Command ordered their top minds to try and find a way to nullify the Guardians FTL-drives, to secure facilities and colonies from further surprise attacks.

Coalition On The Defense
The Coalition High Command began using the Cylon Colony's Central Control Subspace Relay to coordinate their forces in the region and began to formed their ships into a small battle groups, ready to jump in at the first sign of trouble. Sentry probes were installed in all fronteir or stragetic system to act as an early warning array.

The ICS Mercury was pressed back into service and forced to complete it's repairs while underway, joining the Eighth Battle Group near Coral.

Re-awaking A Monster
The Guardian attack on the Coalition was considered an affront to the Cylons, finally having secured security, economic prosperity and respect, while peacuefully expanding their empire. Many Cylon's had considered this rapid expansion as a Cylon golden age and the Guardians actions a reminded of past sins.

The Imperious Leader concluded there was a leak somewhere in their nation, the level of information on Coalition locations known by the Guardian's in their time of isolation was considered to be too accurate.

In the mean time she had the Cylon military take precautions and personally began using the most trusted Cylon Raiders as couriers to transport important information off the Central Information Network for all mission critical or sensitive data and/or communications. Zero also secretly met with her Barnabas, commander of the Centurion Black Legion to began preparations for the Colony Defense Forces to launch the first Cylon independent operation since the Cylon War, intended to counter strike the captured Guardian ship was decoded.

Enterprise at Laythe V
The ICS Enterprise, having finished it's field repairs since their Battle at the Lionhead Nebula, arrived in the Laythe-system two days later to investigate the disappearance of the ICS Frontier following her failed check in.

Once arrived the Enterprise detected a large formation of vessels in orbit of Laythe V and engaged it's cloak before it could be detected. Rear Admiral T'pol ordered the Enterprise slowly moved into orbit and begin low-level scans of the surface to avoid detection.

They found the Coalition base on the surface had been destroyed by a photon warhead and the crashed wreckage of the Frontier. They were about to break orbit, but faint life readings were detected to the north. Knowing the possibility of survivors could be likely, T'Pol risked detection by the Guardian fleet for confirmation.

The Enterprise was able make contact with the Coalition forces trapped on the surface but Guardians use the transmission to home on the Enterprise. Detecting the Guardians locking weapons, the Enterprise took evasive action, before fleeing to warp speed.

Guardian Data Decoded
The captured Guardian Command Program from Aegis XIII was relocated abroad the ICS Jonathan Archer, where Coalition experts assisted by Cylon specialists worked day and night to unlock the hidden secrets within it's program. Finally they manged to open up the program and deactivated its hidden security measures, resulting in the realization of the majority of the Guardian bases and outposts.

The good news was sent to Fleet Command, but the force to track down these locations for absolute confirmation  could not be launched at the moment. Unless the Coalition Fleet could keep the Guardians from using their biological weapons to attack, public opinion had swayed against an offensive if it meant suffering detriment to its defenses.

Unknown to anyone, but a select few Cylons, the Cylon specialists made a copy and sent to the information to the Imperious Leader. She would later use the information to launch her own front on the Guardian's. The Colony Defense Fleet would launch the Glassing of Beta-1, intent to nullify the Guardians biological weapon threat. This would lead to the infamous Destruction of Carillon by Cylon military forces, turning the tide of the conflict.

Cylon Fleet Action
The Imperious Leader wasn't sure where the Guardians were getting their information or from who but Zero knew it is vital she disrupt Alpha's plans before it is too late. In order to achieve the required number of ships and personnel the Cylons were required to provide to the Coalition while not alerting them to the action, she had to remove a large contingent of the Colony's defenses.

Putting her the Black Legion in charge and using couriers to transport orders to prepare the Colony's Defense Fleet for battle, Zero made sure her first target would be the Guardian's sole biological weapons research facility on Beta-1, a class-D planet far outside Coalition space.

Zero's Deception
The Colony Defense Fleet randomly jump away from the Colony at 0600. Even with the Guardian's extensive monitoring of all outgoing transmissions from the Colony, Alpha's agents were unable to warn her that the entire defense fleet had mysteriously jump away from the Colony.

Analysis of the Guardians showed the Cylon fleet could successfully engage the Guardians in at least two successful strike missions before the fleet expended most of their ordnance and be forced to disengage for resupply. In order for the operation to be successful the fleet would have to jump in quickly, open fire with full heavy salvos and then quickly switch to close-combat armaments. Fearing a leak still existed in her ranks, Zero planned several strikes on several targets, but the real targets was selected and kept classified, only known to the Black Legion's  commander himself.

Battle of Beta-1
The plan to attack Beta-1 was simple, the Commander would jump the whole fleet into orbit with all weapon's deployed. Normally during a FTL-jump all weapons are secure for safety reasons, but the Commander decided to forgo safety requirements and shave the necessary seconds in order to open fire the moment they translated back into normal space.

The Guardian's were in the process of rearming several of their ships for a second round of strikes on more heavily populated Coalition colonies and outposts with biological weapons, so they were largely unprepared. Information on the Colony Defense Fleet was sporadic and Alpha knew the force most likely was intending a strike against her holdings, however unaware where such a strike could be delivered, took precautions to more her high profile ships and personnel to a secure location within Guardian territory. Unforunantely, that location was Beta-1.

When the Cylon Colony Defense Fleet jump into orbit of the Beta-1, they nearly jump in so close several ships barely avoid collisions with the Guardian vessels themselves. The action however caught the Guardians completely by surprise. Having no time to react as the Colony Defense Fleet began to opened fired weapons at point blank range, catching most of the Guardian fleet with their shields down.

The Guardian force was devastated in seconds, widespread missiles salvos loaded into their launch tubes in stacked broadsides erupted with immense volleys and hit seconds later, destroyed most of Guardian's heavy capital ships.

The battle above Beta-1 was over, having unknowingly decimated the Guardians Eleventh Fleet, the rogue faction's largest fleet. Among them was the Basestar GAS Omega-821, the flagship of the Guardian strike for responsible for the 27 Dead. Now with the orbital battle over ground operation began.

The Black Legion intended to capture the base, knowing the importance of the biological weapon's data so Coalition medical specialists could not only help the remaining survivors suffering from the attacks but take the necessary precautions in the future to nullify the threat.

The fleet deployed several hundred Heavy Raiders, with a carrying force of over a thousand Centurions, to the surface of Beta-1, intent on taking the bunker the invasion force used a few well targeted picket shots from orbit with phasers to knock out the facility's air defenses.

Troops managed to breach the surprisingly under-defended base, not leaving a single Guardian Centurion intact to resist. Combat attack programs, from the Cylon Electronic Warfare Department, stopped the Guardian research personnel from purging all their information and actively worked to shut down the administrative and research programs. With the securing of the data a force of Heavy Raiders were dispatched to the Coalition medical transports working on finding a cure for the survivors of the 27 Dead.

Following this achievement, the Cylons recalled all ground elements to the ship and upon their retrieval began to fired several photon planetary bombardment warheads, effectively vaporizing the Guardian research facility and everything for 240-kilometers around the base before retreating out of the system.

Having loss all contact with the base on Beta-1, Alpha sent Guardian Taskforce 1-1 to investigate the failure in communications. Not realizing the base had been destroyed since she all the Coalition Fleets were caught in check and on faintly aware that Zero had stripped away the Colony's defenders to openly attack the Guardians, she was unprepared to deal with the abrupt lose of one of her top facilities.

Destruction of Carillon
The planet Carillon, a barely class-D moon in orbit of Ovion homeworld to a humanoid insectoid race called Ovions. Carillon was naturally abundant in tylium ore, which attracted the attention of the Guardians who traded food to the natives for food, a bio-slurry paste that unknown to the Ovions induced benign behavior in their people, making them subservient to the Guardians. With the Ovions supply their fleet with fuel the Guardians had access to one of the largest fuel sources in the known galaxy.

The Colony Defense Fleet jumped into strike range of Carillon, using the near same attack plan as Beta-1, again catching the Guardians off guard. But this time the Cylon Hades-class assault carrier CAS Delta-713 jumped into a Guardian escort destroyer, the GAS Omega-2214. Both vessel's merged and were quickly destroyed in seconds when their reactors breach.

Unlike at the Bombardment of Beta-1, the Cylons were up against two entire Guardian fleets. The Cylons manged to cripple a number of enemy vessels with their opening volleys, among them a lucky hit on the Guardian heavy tanker GAS HT-180 while it was performing refuel operations along side a Guardian-class GAS Gamma-557. A phaser beam breached the fuel lines and ignited the tylium fuel between the ships, both ships exploded into huge fire balls.

The Cylons continued firing broadsides on the Guardian vessels and manage to knock out most of the capital ships, leaving mostly of the Guardian escorts and a few capital ships to engage the Cylon fleet, balancing the orbital engagement in terms of firepower between the two forces.

The battle quickly dissolved into a point blank exchange of broadsides between the opposing sides. Commander Asher ordered the Cylon assault carrier CAS Delta-427 redirect it's weapons fire on a Guardian heavy tanker, GAS HT-187, that was stuck between a pair Guardian baseship GAS Gamma-188 and GAS Gamma-621. In cooperation with the GAS Delta-341, a volley of photon torpedoes breached the hull of the tanker, exploding and destroying both crafts.

While Assault Carrier switch to full rapid fire. Four more Cylon destroyers were recommitted into supporting the attack on the Baseships once they finished destroying several Guardian destroyers by the Commander to finish off those two remaining Baseships quickly so they can destroy the last operational basestar. The baseships mange to disable the destroyer CAS Delta-398 as they were blown to bits by a assault carrier and 4 destroyers. The escorts destroyed and the remaining basestars taken out. Only one basestar remained for the fleet to target as they threw everything they had into it before breaking off as it exploded.

The Cylons ready for a full planetary bombardment of the surface targets on the moon. The Assault Carriers loading all missile turrets with the few remaining Apocalypse-class nuclear missiles left over from the Cylon War to make the planet's supply of tylium ore useless. While recovery operations began for damage Cylon vessels, But the Cylons greatly underestimated how deep the ore went and how much cover the moon. The missiles launched and arrived at their various targets around the planet. Starting a massive chain reaction around the planet that went on to it's core with enough force to rip a planet apart. The Cylons detecting the reaction barely having enough time to jump away and get clear as the moon exploded. As debris from the moon rained all over Ovion devastating the planet killing over 2 billion out of the 3 billion Ovions on planet.

The Battle of Carillon result in the Guardians losing their primary fuel supply and losing two entire fleets in a single engagement. Resulting in only 10 operational fleets remaining for the Guardians to attack and defend against the Coalition. Buying time for the Coalition to mount a proper defense

Later on information would be leak later on in the conflict to the Coalition by Alpha about the devastation of Ovion.

Guardians Pull Back
For the Guardians the war had started out with numerous successes, but before they could take complete advantage of the situation, the unexpected surprise attacks by their Cylon brethen crippled their war efforts. In a short span of tiem their biological weapons production had been made useless, their main fuel supply lost, and over thirrd of their fleets had been completely destroyed.

Alpha had severely underestimated the Coalition desperation of willing to destroy a entire planet, it's population, and a race to beat them, not knowing at the time that Zero had organize the entire operations independent of that of Coalition oversight. As such she redeployed her forces to the defense.

Coalition Side
For the Coalition it was a massive moral boast now with the threat of biological weapon attacks had been nullified. News reports that the Cylons had strip away their capital's defenses to attack the Guardians had started to turn the negative pressure on the Cylons from the public around and the medical data captured during their operations would prevent further biological weapon attacks in the future. The Cylons reported that while they may not have found the exact source of the leak of information to the Guardians ,the precautions they took for their operation seem to have work quiet effectively, prompting them to take further steps to prevent any future leaks of information.

While public support swung in favor of the Cylons, members of the federal government and military structure began to express concerns. The Cylons had launched an independent military operation, something that while not illegal by Coalition law given the current state of war, did call into question their loyalty to the government. Second to this was the concerns that the Cylons refused to release combat reports from the endeavor, citing operational security. Both these actions sparked unrest in the upper echelons of the Coalition.

No Coalition official was made aware of the Destruction of Carillon and it was Zero's stance that such an announcement could cause fractious responses from the government during a time when a united front was needed against the Guardians.

Returning home, the Colony Defense Fleet had been severely battered in the last engagement and had return to the Colony for extensive repairs and replacement of losses.

Decentralization Order
Keeping the operation secret from the Cylon Central Information Network had work but it instantly began to raise fears that the Central Information Network was compromised. For a mechanical race like the Cylons, the failure of their safeguards was of utmost concern.

Until they could devise where the Guardian leak was in their networks and how it happen, Zero gave a exclusive order calling for the complete decentralizing of all Cylon systems throughout the Imperium, until the completion of the war.

War Planning
Read More: Operation Adrestia

Zero secretly traveled to Coalition Fleet Command on Earth to attend a strategy secession with Coalition military leaders. Her invitation came due in part as her being the former commanding officer of the enemy leader, including her own experience with Cylon war tactics.

Initially the intention of the Coalition military was to stall the war long enough to establish a proper front-line defense. However Zero offered a different opinion, while she was not privy to all of Alpha's plans, she knew the tactics used against the Coalition were one of desperation, not well plan coordination. Her evidence was that Guardian attacks were limited to the border regions and all strikes had been surprise attacks by relatively small forces on otherwise defenseless worlds.

It was Zero's belief that Alpha's attacks were intentionally designed to make it appear as if she had more forces than she actually possessed. In reality it was the Guardian's intention to forestall the war, and use the time to build up strength.

The Cylon's proposed plan was to hit the Guardians with as much force as could be mustered to ensure the Guardians could correct for their mistake.

Grand Admiral Forrest countered this proposal for a relief operation to those military troops still trapped on Laythe V, noting their rescue to be a top priority. Zero debates the issue with the assembled officers, deducing the Siege of Laythe V to be an attempt by the Guardians to waste Coalition resources. It was their intention to force Coalition squadrons to bleed themselves attempting to retake the planet and upon any measure of success, bombard the planet, thereby killing all those intent for rescue. In effect, Laythe V was a hostage situation.

Forrest deems attention to Laythe V to be paramount to an eventual liberation, but for the time being offensive actions against the Guardians to take precedence.

The Coalition quickly set about laying the foundations for Operation Adrestia, redeploying the Eighth and Twenty-First battle groups from their defense patrols to rendezvous at Fleet Station Soulik. Concurrent to this repair and refits to the the Seventh Fleet were halted to accelerate the work being done on the Fourteenth Fleet.

Relief Mission to Laythe V
Once the Eighth and Twenty-First Battle Groups had arrived at Fleet Station Soulik, a Coalition courier vessel, the ICS Road Runner, arrived with classified orders from Coalition Fleet Command.

The ICS Atlantis was dispatched to Laythe V under cloak and made a quick drop of a cloaked subspace beacon into orbit, intended to filter through the orbital ion fields and establish regular secure communications to the troops on the surface and to begin coordinating with General Talas.

The Eighth and Twenty-First Battle Groups were moved into jump range of Laythe V and jumped into orbit of Laythe V's moon, Lyra, at extreme range of the Guardian Fleet. The Guardian vessels responded by opening fire with missiles as the Coalition responded with long rang interception fire. The two forces engaged in a long range gun battle but nether side was able to score a direct hit on the other. The Guardians broke away with a large number of ships from the orbital picket to directly engage the Coalition, while keeping the rest of their forces to maintain the blockade.

This created enough of an opening for the battleship ICS Mercury jumped into orbit of Laythe V. While laying down a full screen of defense fire against the incoming ordinance and fighters the Mercury began to perform an Ember Drop Maneuver. Turned her port side to face the planet and pushing it into the atmosphere, she launched all her port side escape pods towards the surface of the planet, each loaded with the supplies for the troops on the surface. The ionization of the atmosphere meant any ordinances that got through her defensive fire would be unable to strike the pods, tracking was more difficult for ground systems and the crafts were close enough to the planet that their internal fuel reserves had enough left to maneuver their approaches towards the waiting Coalition forces on the planet.

With this achieved, the Mercury and the rest of the Coalition ships in system withdrew.

Alpha deemed that if the Coalition was willing to resupply their ground forces on Laythe V, they intended to move a larger fleet the planet and use a two-pronged, ground and space attack to force her blockade to break. Anticipating that she could bottleneck the Coalition at the planet, she ordered a majority of her forces to the planet in expectation of a further strike.

She had not anticipated that the Coalition would bypass the planet and launch Operation Adrestia.

Preparations
On 31 March 2175, the Tenth and Fourteenth Fleets arrived at Fleet Station Soulik for the Operation while the Eighth and Twenty-First Battle Groups returned for resupply and repairs, intent to combine with elements of the Colony Defense Fleet and form the newly designated Thirtieth Fleet.

The fleet planned a two pronged assault on the Foundry World Beta-2. The three fleets left Fleet Station Soulik for their target on the 1 April and arrived at the staging area in the Zetes-system on 2 April.

Reconnaissance
By 2 April a pair of Stealth Raptors were launched by the battleship ICS Night Flight and made a FTL-jump into the Beta-system. Once in system, they initiated long range scans of the planet's defenses and the Guardian fleet stationed in-system to support them, before returning back to the Night Flight. Scans of the planet surface detailed an array of ground base phase cannons and missile silos, along with clear signs the Guardians were currently conducting heavy mining and weapons construction. Of particular interest and note to Coalition Fleet officers is the discover of a complete shipyard readying to come online in five days. Coalition Offensive Fleet Command was decided to strike Beta 5 in two days before the new fleet could become operational.

Order of Battle
On the morning of 5 April at 0600 hours, Operation Adrestia was a go. The order of the battle was decided to have Admiral Sopek on the Dreadnought ICS Forge would lead the Tenth Fleet to engage the orbital defense fleet directly. While the Tenth engages the fleet Admiral Ava Naabal on the Carrier ICS Veer-Rak would take her Fourteenth Fleet and attack the orbital defenses. Then Rear Admiral Tucker on the Heavy Cruiser ICS Endeavor takes temporary command of the Thirtieth Fleet and begin the planetary bombardment.

Battle of Beta-5
At 0700 Hours the Coalition Tenth Fleet arrived in the system first and began the battle. The Tenth Fleet committed it's capital ships to go in first and attack the orbiting fleet first with their heavier weapons. The Tenth Fleet Had most of the escort ships hang back to screen the capitals from incoming ordinance from both the Guardian Fleet and the orbital defense platforms the with defensive fire, while Ion Cannon Frigates moved up next to the Capital ships to lend their main cannon fire in the attack. While the orbital defenses focus all their weapons fire on the support the Guardians fleet battle with the Coalition attack fleet. The Guardians launched a quick counter attack against the Coalition fleet using the planetary defenses to support their attack. While the Guardians full attention was focus on the Tenth Fleet ships. While the Tenth Fleet had loss three ships in the battle so far, but pressed the attack on the Guardian Fleet. The Guardian had moved out of their ships out of positions to repel the attack. The Coalition lost they had left the orbital defenses unguarded, and focus on the coalition attack fleet. They were completely unprepared as cloak ships from the Fourteenth Fleet decloak and opened fire on the platforms. The Guardians tried to pull back, but was lock in battle with the Tenth Fleet, Why the rest of the Fourteenth Fleet joined the battle along with Thirtieth Fleet. The Fourteenth Fleet threw everything it got as they charged the orbital defenses causing heavy damage among the orbital platforms. The Guardian Fleet was starting to come apart under the Tenth Fleet attacks. While the orbital defense platforms shields fell from the fire of Coalition Corvettes. Coalition fighters and bombers got in close and began a attack on the platforms. One of the Avatar-class Heavy Cruisers, the ICS Allegiance was hit badly in a missile attack and losing power forcing the crew to abandon ship. The Fighters and Bombers were successful in their attack runs. Three of the Guardian platforms were destroyed, opening a hole for a direct attack on the surface. While the Thirtieth Fleet left the orbital defenses to the Fourteenth Fleet, moved into position to bombard the surface. While surface base defenses began firing ground base cannons on the Coalition ships now taking orbit The Thirtieth threw everything it had against the planetary shields. While the Tenth finish off the remains of the Guardian Fleet, moved to assist the Fourteenth Fleet in destroying the remaining orbital platforms. The planetary shields finally fell under a sustain assault. But at the cost of two ships being destroyed and three more heavily damage. They unleashed photon weapons all across the planet. Destroying every Guardian installations across the planet. The Tenth and Fourteenth Fleets finished destroying the remaining defense platforms. Commence rescue and recovery operation. By the end of the battle over 11,000 lives had been lost. 11 ships destroyed, 8 more heavily damage, and 1 ship force to abandon. The fleets withdrew after setting scuttling charges on the Allegiance and return home.

Alternative Plans
Alpha didn't need to know they were losing the war to know that the Guardians had already loss. It was just a matter of time till they are wipe out by the Coalition forces. Their was one last thing she could do to win the war and destroy the Coalition Forces. She quietly began to amass a huge armada from the Coalition eyes. Pulling all the new ships going out of the shipyards and outdated warships to bolster their numbers for one grand battle.

Coalition FTL Defense Research
The Coalition was looking for a way to prevent the Guardians from jumping in as they have been doing, and preventing the Guardians from easily escaping from their forces. The Coalition had place the project to be done on Vulcan. The Coalition top top FTL experts were working deep within the secure advance research facilities of the Vulcan Science Academy. Using methods base on hyperspace inhibitor they are hoping to use gravity fields to disrupt FTL entry. At the same time trying to develop a early warning system to warn of a attack.

Battle of Sirius
Alpha knowing it was just a matter of time till the Coalition wipe the Guardians out. Unable to directly attacking Coalition forces in direct engagements anymore. Without extreme losses. Decided to engage in hit and run attacks. Scattering the 1st Guardian Fleet to attack the coalition were they are most weak. Buying time for Alpha to properly prepare her forces.

Battle of Sirius Trade Station
On the 10 April A Guardian Baseship GAS Gamma-19 jump in close to Sirius Trade Station. The Baseship showed no concern for the civilian vessels around the station. Firing hundreds of missiles at everything in its sights. While the stations defenses were able to limit the damage it taken. 8 Civilian ships were destroyed and another 25 civilian ships heavily damage. A Andorian Cruiser, the ICS Vinakthen arrived and engage the Baseship. The two ships exchange weapons fire. The outgun Andorian Cruiser kept targeting the Baseship phase cannons hoping to even the odds against the Baseship. Commodore Nisverin th'Menchal ordered his helm officer to fly the ship as close to the Baseship as it could. Venting a little drive plasma as the ship made its past. Then peeling off and firing a phaser to detonate the plasma. Bulking the Baseship shields. Several more Coalition vessels arrived as a squadron of Higarian Destroyers arrived from hyperspace. The Baseship retreated before any nore damage could be done. The Vinakthen had taken moderate damage across the ship during the battle. While the Guardian attack was repulse over 2,500 civilians were loss among those civilian ships damage and destroy.

Battle of Forgotten Pass
On the 12 April at 0500 Hours on Laythe V. Guardian ground forces were advancing close to locating Hope Base. Unable to fight off a full scale assault. General Talas dispatch Falcon Squad with a combat battalion of Makos and a three companies of Coalition troops west of Hope Base. Recon showed a large number of Guardian forces going to be moving through a narrow pass. Normally a pass like this would make a excellent ambush point to repulse a main attack. Here it would make a interesting diversion. The strike force arrives just ahead of the Guardians. Place Makos on ether side of the pass, Falcon Squad place anti tank mines to prevent Guardians who break through to keep from overrunning their positions, troops then dig into hastily made trenches waiting for the Guardians to enter the trap. The Guardians enter the pass at 1300 hours. Once a large enough force was in the pass. Missile teams took out several rear and front tanks blocking ether approach. Makos opened fire with their phase cannons as the beams slice through their unshielded armor. while Guardians fired every where. Guardians quickly prep several Raiders with carpet bombs to bomb the Coalition forces away. But as soon as the Coalition forces were done. They quickly poured into the Makos and retreated. Guardians sent recovery teams to Forgotten pass. With them preoccupy the Coalition forces escape with zero causalities.

Second Battle of Tal'Nor
On the 13 April a Guardian Battle Group of Six Ships jump into the edge of the Tal'Nor system. The Basestar GAS Gamma-18 open fired on a orbital Helium-3 refineries in orbit of Tal'Nor V. Three Coalition vessels were the first to engage, the starships ICS Sh'Rann, ICS Republic, and ICS Repulse began by opening fired on the escorting Guardian Combatstar, the GAS Omega-108. The Sh'Rann focus all its fire on Omega-108 reactor while the Repulse and Republic knock out its defense shields for the Sh'Rann guns to hit the reactor at the heart. The Republic and Repulse took some heavy damage from the return fire of the Combatstar as the other Guardian ships by pass them as they countined towards their primary target.

The NX-class Cruiser ICS Robinson cleared the dock once all crew were back aboard and joined the Battle by engaging the incoming baseships with several defense Cutters as they split into two formations trying to avoid the Basestars overwhelming firepower directly.

Omega-108 had exploded into two halfs once the beams from the Sh'raan had cut through the protective armor hitting the primary reactor. the Republic and Repulse were in bad shape but still able to fight as they came about and moved to engage the five remaining ships.

The Robinson during the battle had been stuck along the port pylon as the port nacelle was cut off. Many defense Cutters were easily blown away as additional joined the battle before the Guardian ships enter weapons range. The Robinson despite losing one of her nacelles was still engaging the Baseships. The Basestars while taking heavy fire, started to slow down when a Vulcan Cruiser used its main deflector to emit a grav pulse to disrupt the grav propulsion systems of the Baseships

When GAS Gamma-18 reach critical damage it open up its hanger bays and so did the others release its squadrons Raiders toward the primary targets in order to complete its mission. While the Robinson was able to disengage. The others were lock in combat with the Guardian warships who were unleashing everything they had as two Coalition Frigates exploded and a Destroyer was dead in the water from the Guardian ships last stand.

The Raiders being chase by Robinson opened fire with torpedo after torpedo setting the warheads for maximum area damage as they destroyed many Raiders and phase cannons fired at any raider that lined down with the cannon. Hundreds were destroyed. But many more continued on target. The Robinson pushed its impulse engines beyond max. The crew abandon ship as the escaped pods cleared the ship Captain set auto navigation and the ship's Chief engineer rig the warp core to breach. As the remaining shuttle Pod cleared the Robinson as it caught up with the Raiders and exploded in a giant blue light as Raiders were all destroyed in the blast. The remaining Guardian vessels were destroyed as additional Coalition forces entered the system. While Coalition vessels began search for survivors and recovery operations for the Robinson crew.

Aftermath
Coalition forces arrived in strength time to reinforce the system. Alpha called off the strike in order to start conserving her forces for a final operation to surely devastate the Coalition and win the war. Coalition forces had finally gathered significant fleet strength to defend their territories in the contested region and go on the offensive.

Going on the offensive
With hundreds of ships now in the contested region and every front holding. Coalition High Command gave the approval to begin Operation Normandy. Fleet Admiral Shran relocated to Coalition regional command at Base Six to personalty conduct the counter offensive. Beginning with the Liberation of Laythe V and rescue of thousands of Coalition troops trap on the surface since the start of the conflict.

The Cylon Imperium had finish completing the first long range Interstellar Cruise missiles prototypes. Unlike the Guardian missiles that used warp drive. The Imperium had instead equip their missiles with micro FTL drives slated for use on their next generation Raiders. Now with the Coalition on the offensive. The Imperious leader committed large sums of their own fleets to quickly end Alpha and her Guardians once and for all.

Third Battle of Laythe V
The Eight Fleet being launched from the Tal'Nor system led by the ICS Enterprise had secretly jump into orbit of Laythe II on the 30 April. Using the Star of Laythe to mask their jump entry into the laythe system. Rear Admiral T'Pol had her Basestar release their fighters wings and take formation among the fleet before moving in for the assault. Admiral T'pol began the mission by having the Hades V class Basestar CBS Retribution that was carrying the few operational interstellar cruise missiles to open fire and soft up the orbitals as they quickly took advantage of the element of surprise and moved out of their cover behind Laythe II and do a short in system warp hop into orbit of Laythe V.