Task Force 43 (Story Only)

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 24


USS INDEPENDENCE
FEDERATION SOVEREIGN-CLASS BATTLECRUISER
EARTH ALLIANCE BETA 9 COLONY, BETA HYDRI SYSTEM
NOVEMBER 18TH, 2245


“Hard to port Ensign, and do your best to keep us clear.” Captain Duval called out her orders to the bridge crew. “Keep our transporter locks on the Earth and Minbari crews, but try to keep us out of their firing solutions. We don’t know what effect the Minbari weapons could have on our cloaks.”
“Yes ma’am.” The helm officer replied, giving a concentrated look. “Coming to bearing two nine one mark six one.”
“God, there goes another one!” The science officer called. “They’re getting slaughtered!”
“Transporter room reports one hundred and six people successfully transported.” Ops said coolly. “Out of a crew totaling two hundred fifty.”
“Can it, ops!” Duval said sharply. “At least we saved those hundred souls! Else they’d all be dead by now!”
“Yes ma’am.” Ops said with a sour tone. He didn’t appreciate looking at the slaughter of fellow humans; even if they were from another universe they were still human.

The battle had been joined only minutes earlier, with a relatively small Minbari task force appearing from hyperspace literally right on top of the Earth Force garrison forces. The humans had been expecting them to use this strategy and had spread out their forces even before the Minbari had gotten there. This had given the Earth ships a little more time to strike back, but the results were meager to say the least. Three of the massive Earth Force dreadnoughts were little more than smoldering wrecks in space, as were numerous smaller ships and two of the large Hyperion class cruisers, what remained of their crews safely beamed on board their guardian angels of the 116th Cruiser Flotilla.

She’d never seen a Nova-class ship fire in anger before today, and it was a massive display of pure and brute firepower as the numerous twin plasma cannons ejected balls of super-energized helium ion gas larger than a Class-4 shuttle at their enemy. Had they been able to actually aim the cannons effectively she had little doubt they’d do a lot more damage than they currently were, but the Minbari stealth devices and ECM seemed to do their job all too effectively for that to be the case. Only one of the smaller frigates, if a ship that matched the size and displacement of a Sovereign could be called a frigate, had been put out of commission by the Earth Force guns. Even so the relatively small ship wasn’t even damaged to the point where Sheila dared order the evacuation her crew since there was no overwhelming danger of the ship exploding or self-destructing anytime soon. She'd simply gotten hit by a lucky laser barrage which had damaged her drive fin, the rest of the ship was still in very much one piece and was now blocked off from the Earth Force ships' line of fire by her comrades.

It seemed some of the saving grace for the Earth ships was their advanced interceptor grid, a weapons system designed to track and intercept incoming energy, particle or projectile fire with a disruptor blast that would either dissolve or deflect the incoming fire. It limited the Minbari in what weapons they could use, but against the massive neutron maser cannons these ships mounted, even the best aimed interceptor fire was like trying to stop a missile with a bee bee gun. They had however been forced to completely abandon missile attacks due to the interceptors easily tracking and destroying them, which raised the odds of survival at least a little bit.

Limited to optical or programmed pattern targeting, as their sensors still weren't able to lock on to the Minbari warships, the Earth ships resorted to using what Sheila would call box barrage fire. The Novas and Hyperions were coordinating their firing solutions to create what looked like sprays of fire rather than targeted fire. The smaller corvettes and missile ships fired their rail guns like you’d use an old-fashioned machine gun, aiming for the general area rather than a specific target. She had to admit that while not the most technologically advanced solution, it did work albeit not too good.

She grinned badly as one of the forward weapons arrays on a Minbari cruiser struck one of the Hyperions across its port side, shearing off a four hundred meter long slice of hull and armor from the rest of the ship. She was almost shocked to see that the Earth Force cruiser kept up its fire even as it listed hard to starboard and vented several decks and dozens of people directly into space.

She reflexively closed her eyes, just a second too late to avoid becoming temporarily blind, as one of the several meter-thick Earth Force laser beams passed right through the bridge on its way towards one of the Minbari cruisers. Her entire head hurt from the sensory overload the intense light caused in her optical nerves, even though it hadn’t injured her in any way except making her fall to the bridge floor as she'd been completely stunned for a second.

“Helm!” She cursed, pain showing in her voice. “I said keep us the hell away from their god damn firing solutions!”
“Yes ma’am, sorry ma'am!” The helm officer winced, temporarily blinded as well. “Hancock, a little help please?”
“Understood.” Hancock’s voice came from nowhere. “I am taking override control of helm as the helm officer is blinded. Changing course to one eight zero mark zero, one quarter impulse power.”
“Thanks, Hancock.” Sheila replied and thanking whatever divine was above that the AI didn’t suffer from bedazzlement, or at least not in the same way as she and her flesh and blood crew did.

Gradually her sight returned, though it was a painful experience. She hadn’t trusted the specs of the phase cloak before this, but what more proof could she ask for than a laser beam traveling through the entire ship without doing any real damage? Of course, that is if you don’t count pain, or possibly losing control of the ship due to the resulting sensory overload and temporary blindness. And, all things considered, a laser beam wasn’t really the kind of weapon she was all that worried about even when not out of phase. Regaining the use of her eyes, she tried to focus on the tactical overview of the battlefield again to see what they'd missed while they were blinded.

“Report on the battle?” She asked the bridge.
“Little news since last I checked.” Ops replied with some pain in his voice still. “The Heracles and the Poseidon are down, but the Venture had both of them covered.”
“Good.” Sheila sighed. “At least we didn’t lose anyone because of this.”
“No, ma’am.” Ops replied, sounding somewhat sour again. His pain must be going away, Sheila thought. "There's still a lot of dead people out there though, ma'am."

Outside a massive fireworks display was taking shape, Earth Force Starfury fighters engaging their Minbari counterparts in small clouds between the two lines of capital ships. Sheila sighed again, many of them would die no matter her presence and many would die even though her ships would beam them aboard. The injuries an unlucky pilot suffered as one of the fighters exploded or lost containment were less than likely possible to heal even with the Federation’s level of medical knowledge and technology, and unfortunately for these pilots their fighters were frail little things with little to keep it together if they got hit.

She could see the telltale explosions as ships were shot down by their counterparts, and even more of these as they ventured too close to the firing solutions of the capital ships. With the lack of precision targeting from the Earth ships their gunners had little or no way to avoid hitting the fighter swarms if they got in the way. There wasn't that much debate about what condition a fighter pilot would be in if hit by anti-capital ship fire from either side, and Sheila still felt nauseous when she remembered the last one they'd accidentally brought on board. There wasn't really much left, and what was didn't even hint that it had once been a living, breathing human being.

She saw firsthand as one of the Olympus class corvettes got its side ripped up by a blue explosion, the result of one of the Minbari’s most fearsome weapons; an antimatter kinetic projectile cannon. While it wasn’t quite as high tech, it was comparable in most ways to the damage of two or three high-yield photon torpedoes, albeit unguided and unshielded such.

Again, the tenacity and pure stubbornness of the Earth Force crews was clearly visible as the comparatively small corvette, only slightly smaller than an Akira, spun on its axis to present its undamaged side to the enemy and continued firing with every gun that still could. She suddenly saw a number of bright spots appear at its undamaged front; spots that started to emit a blue ion trail as they corrected their course and set off towards the Minbari ships. Missiles, dozens of them. Knowing how desperate Earth Force was she had no illusions about what kind of warheads these missiles were loaded with either.

The guided projectiles veered and turned, keeping an evasive course towards one of the Minbari cruisers, but most were stopped dead in their tracks, spreading their otherwise deadly cargo harmlessly in space as the Minbari fighters veered in and added their fire to the cruisers’ point defenses. Still, two made it through and detonated with bright globes of nuclear fire only a few hundred meters from the cruisers port side, tearing two large holes in the ship’s hull. It didn’t stop the cruiser from finishing what the other had started though and in response to the missiles it sliced the corvette in two with its forward neutron cannons even as the ship turned to protect its now open and vulnerable side.

“We got them.” Ops stated. “Twenty nine crewmen transported to cargo bay two.”
“Good.” Sheila nodded as she kept her eyes on the scene outside.

The Minbari were getting closer to the planet now, the garrison forces already down to just less than a third of its original force with the burning hulks and scattered debris of their fallen comrades spread in the space around them. As like in an act of purest defiance by the defenders they closed their ranks and kept falling back towards the orbital defenses which were even now starting to add their weight to the fight. As one several of the small armed satellites spun around and targeted the general area of the enemy rather than the ships themselves, launching yet another but exponentially larger missile strike against them.

Again, most of the missiles were shot down before they reached their final waypoints, but a half dozen or so managed to get to their pre-determined coordinates and explode. Only three of these were actually close enough to an actual ship to do any damage at all, and even the ones that did had a hard time punching through the Minbari warship armor at the ranges they exploded at. The blue-white globes of nuclear energy quickly dissipated into the cold of space, leaving one Minbari ship motionless and silent but without any outward signs of damage at all.

The massive electromagnetic pulse wave the weapons produced did however manage to knock out its stealth field, and with short notice the disabled cruiser was faced with the full wrath of every surviving ship of the Earth Force garrison, letting their particle beams and lasers trace intricate patterns of vengeful fire across the crystalline hull. Only a second or so later they were joined by massive and this time well-aimed volleys of plasma fire that quickly ripped through the hull and inner compartments and soon the massed firepower stretched through and reached the other side of the ship, ejecting plasma and debris from the cruisers innards like a fountain aimed at the depths of space.

The Earth ships paid a heavy price for its short-lived success though, as another Hyperion was speared through from bow to stern by another Sharlin, the massive Earth Force cruiser quickly losing all power and starting to drift towards the planet. Sheila could see the slight sensor outline of one of her ships on the screen, the Gallant she believed, moving in to rescue the otherwise doomed crew before they started their long fall towards the colony. The last remaining Nova-class dreadnought spat its last defiance at a Tinashi-class frigate as it too was hit by massed neutron fire.

The Minbari weapons barely looked like they had done any damage as they moved on, until the ship started to drift and the middle section of the dreadnought separated both from the front and the engine sections. Sheila was almost surprised that the ship still refused to give up as some of its guns kept firing for another second, until the Minbari finished her off with a direct hit from an antimatter cannon which quickly atomized a massive part of the by all rights already destroyed dreadnought.

The fighting died down from that point, without the massive fire of the Novas the garrison had little left to actually be able to threaten the Minbari task force with. They stayed at range, picking out the defensive satellites and few remaining ships with long-range precision fire while the defenders had more and more issues getting their fire to connect as the Sharlin and Tinashi could maneuver. The last cruiser was torn apart by two Sharlin discharging their fearsome antimatter cannons into its side, opening the massive cruiser up as if it’d been hit by a small asteroid, the jagged edges of the resulting hole standing out several meters from the scored hull. That left only two corvettes which, while firing intensely with their smaller rail guns and particle beams, were both picked off by neutron cannon fire from the Minbari frigates.

Last but not least was the orbital station and its accompanying defense satellites, but these barely had a chance to show their defiance and bravery as they were met by even more long-range fire. The station itself was pretty much cut into small pieces as it alone faced the might of the remaining cruisers and their escorts. She didn’t even bother looking for one of her ships near the station, she knew there was one there but she also knew that some if not a lot of people had died there. Nothing, not even their best medical Nanites, could heal a wound caused by being hit by a three meter thick beam from a neutron maser. Chances were there was simply nothing, and no one, left to heal. Even so she had no illusions that the ship watching the station had waited with evacuating it before the enemy had even fired, so the amount of casualties should still be low.

Sheila eyed the situation closely. The garrison was defeated, there were no more Earth Force ships here or waiting in hyperspace. What would the Minbari do now?

“Report.”
“Minbari ships are holding position, Captain.” Ops replied. “It seems they’re scanning the remains of the Earth Force ships for survivors, and according to the Gallant they’re scanning the colony as well.”
“Well?” She asked impatiently. "What are they doing."
“Still nothing, Captain.” Ops stated.

She pondered on this for a little while. The Minbari had showed little contempt for firing on civilian targets before if there had been any military presence at all on the planet, showing no regard for collateral damage or civilian casualties and often using their high yield weapons or worse mass drivers to do so, but they had also ignored other targets completely. Beta 9 had no such military presence as far as their own intelligence was concerned, and she hoped this would save the colony from orbital bombardment. They simply didn't have the capacity aboard their ships to evacuate tens of thousands of civilians in addition to their already large load of rescued ship crews.

“Madame.” Hancock's cool voice spoke up over the ship's intercom. “My sensors are detecting tunneling particles again, it would seem like the Minbari are leaving.”
“Confirmed.” Ops stated unnecessarily, as the vortexes were already visible as they started forming outside. "They're indeed withdrawing, Captain."
“Good.” Sheila sighed in relief as she leaned back in her chair. “Set a course to bring us back to the Sirius system, best speed. We’ve got a delivery to make and some of them can't wait for long so step on it, helm..”


FEDERATION MEDICAL COMPLEX
VALHALLA
ISIS MOON, NOVEMBER 19TH, 2245


It’d been almost two weeks since his first short talk with the mysterious Admiral West and since then he’d met several familiar faces from his task force, crewmen that like him had been saved in the eleventh hour by this unknown group of people and brought here to be patched up. He and his friends all noticed that the amount of people at the complex was steadily increasing as every day any number ranging from a half dozen to several hundred people suddenly appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Often enough they'd met up with old friends or comrades who just verified what they'd all been told, they all looked like they'd seen a ghost when you walked up and had all heard about your supposed demise at the hands of the enemy. The ones that had been there a while had been quick to fill these new arrivals in on the ground rules the guards and Doctors imposed, and equally quick to ask for the latest information about the war though the steady stream of even newer arrivals told them it wasn't going well.

None of them had much of an idea about who these people were, how they’d gotten here or, perhaps more importantly, what and who their rescuers represented. There were little information available to them, and they weren’t allowed into certain areas of the complex nor allowed to leave it except when a black-dressed man or woman read your name off a list, at which point you were escorted out of the main gate and were never seen at the complex again. The only thing the others were told was that these selected people would be transferred to another facility since they no longer needed the medical attention this facility was intended for, and that others would arrive that needed their rooms more than they did. As time slowly went by they were beginning to feel more like prisoners than guests, albeit they were treated with respect and given every courtesy except information.

Even Sheridan, given what he’d been told by West and asked politely not to spread among the rest of the people, thought it ironic that they could get almost anything they asked for except information. Milkshakes, sundaes, even what at least tasted like fresh orange juice. Astonishing, especially considering the climate here was temperate and not even close to the tropical temperatures, nor with the regular eclipses the amounts of sunlight, that was normally required to produce oranges. Nobody had seen any farms, greenhouses or even produce deliveries either. That actually raised a good question. He hadn’t seen any food at all except as a finished product on a platter. They'd even looked inside every single room they could open and none of them contained any kind of storage area. Where did they get their meat from, or the potatoes or vegetables?

There were so many questions and every passing day bred even more of them, yet they were given so few answers. To make matters even worse, when they actually got one answer, you'd eventually realize your answer didn’t actually mean anything and that you were left with a dozen more questions after a few seconds of thinking about it. One thing was certain, these people kept a lot of secrets from them. Otherwise they wouldn’t be left in the dark as much as they were. It was an irritating feeling, this not getting the answers he wanted. Still, he’d been promised to get to know more as soon as his body had recovered, which the Doctors had now told him he had. He didn’t know what to make of that strange mister West, but he hadn’t seemed like a liar or a fraud. Something told Sheridan he might well get his answers, but that they could easily be quite different than what he expected, or for that sake wanted, to hear.

He was strong enough to stand on his own two legs now, but considering how tired he got just from walking around in the garden outside he still thought that a longer walk was a bit too much. Considering the state West had told him he’d been in when they saved him, he wasn’t all that surprised either. He didn't know anyone outside this complex, except the people that had already left it, who had ever survived being exposed to hard vacuum or for that sake being trapped in a burning ship. He considered himself lucky that he had no memories of that, as it sounded far too much like being spaced. A death most considered quite gruesome, rapidly freezing to death in the coldness of space while your body slowly exploded from the vacuum and the air was literally sucked right out of your lungs. He felt a shiver go down his spine just from thinking about it.

“Commander Sheridan?” A black-uniformed young redhead asked as she walked up to him.
“Yes?” He answered.
“Please, Commander.” She motioned. “Follow me.”

He fell in behind the uniformed woman and followed her through one of the restricted doors. They opened just as she approached them revealing their very thin construction, which actually surprised Sheridan since he knew a number of his fellow patients had tried to force them open with a makeshift crowbar without success or for that sake even scratching the metal surface. He'd imagined them being at least a ten centimeters thick, but in reality it wasn't even much more than two or three millimeters.

“If you don’t mind me asking.” He panted, straining to keep walking even at this fairly low pace. “Where are we going?”
“The Admiral has requested your presence.” The young woman replied. “I’ll be taking you to see him.”
“The Admiral?” Sheridan asked curiously.
“Yes.” She nodded, not understanding or perhaps not caring that Sheridan didn’t know where they were going or how they were actually going to get there.

As she didn’t add anything else to her explanation, Sheridan just kept following her. The small room they had entered appeared to be an elevator, something Sheridan didn’t quite understand as the complex as he knew it didn’t extend more than a floor above or below them, and there were stairs open to the inhabitants of the complex just in the other corridor. It seemed quite strange to bar access until he realized there were no such room on the upper floor, and that it was a solid wall on the lower.

“Launch pad nine.” The redhead said as the doors closed.
He was greeted to only the slightest sensation of movement, first down, then sideways, and then up. An transport lift that moved horizontally, he realized. Kind of like the transport tubes on Mars, just subterranean? Yet more questions, yet no more answers. As the doors opened only a few seconds later, he was aghast. They weren’t even in the medical complex anymore, though he could see the top floor from here and they had to have travelled to a location almost two kilometers away. That distance, in mere seconds?

He was even more surprised to see a small shuttle waiting for him, not much larger than a Starfury and kind of boxy looking, on the pad. The shuttle looked like it was made out of plastic, a dull yellowish color but with that arrowhead-shaped emblem emblazoned on it that he’d seen before in so many other places. The text on the shuttle didn’t say much either, it had a registry number but little more except a name; USS Challenger. Hardly a suitable name for a small shuttle like that, the Commander thought. The pad itself also raised questions, it felt like and looked like rock, but from his viewpoint he could see that it had been raised up through an opening in the ground.

“Commander, please, they’re waiting for us.” The woman motioned for him to enter the shuttle through an open ramp on its rear side.
“I see.” It was all Sheridan could say, the impressions still slightly overwhelming and quite confusing.

He walked inside and had to watch his head, the shuttle was just barely high enough to allow him to stand up straight, and strapped himself into one of the seats. He had a good view of the flight controls but even those were unfamiliar. No sticks, buttons or levers like in a Starfury or even on a spaceship, but instead it had touch controls and embedded displays. He could read the different descriptions and values on them, but the words and numbers they showed had little if any meaning to him. This was even more disconcerting as he was quite familiar with the flight controls of most Earth Force vessels, and he'd seen his share of League ships' controls and even those of a Centauri Primus-class battlecruiser as well. These didn't even get close.

The woman took her seat in front of the controls, and with a few obviously well rehearsed taps at the controls she’d closed the rear door and taken the shuttle up into the sky. Again, he couldn’t sense any movement much less any thrust, even though the scenery in front of them clearly changed through the window. There was almost no sound from the engines which the shuttle would logically have to have, or any sense of drag as they accelerated through the atmosphere. He almost didn’t notice, but as they sped up they started to leave not only the settlement itself behind but the entire moon they'd launched from as well. Yet, even though they quickly gained altitude and the sky around him turned from blue to black he found that he wasn’t floating and that he still felt drawn downwards instead of pushed backwards as in a typical space launch. Artificial gravity, he thought. They had artificial gravity? And he still didn't feel any g-forces even though they were clearly near or already at escape velocity!

Still increasing in altitude he started to see shapes form in the sky as it turned to the deep and starry black of space. Almost unconsciously, he unstrapped himself and moved towards the front window, almost bumping into the pilot’s seat. He could almost see, almost. Just a little bit closer.

“Space Command, this is shuttle Seventeen-Bravo.” The woman said. “Requesting clearance to pass through the control zone.”
“Seventeen-Bravo.” A female voice on the communications system responded. “Athena responding. Clearance is denied, enter Isis lambda four holding pattern and await further instructions.”
“Understood, Athena.” The woman sighed. “Mind if I ask why? I'm carrying a passenger requested by the Admiralty themselves.”
“Of course, Ensign.” The voice replied formally. “There is a scheduled antimatter transport crossing the zone from the surface of Nepthys, we are keeping the skies clear until it reaches storage depot Zulu.”
“Well that's sensible.” The woman said silently. “Understood Athena, shuttle Seventeen-Bravo will be entering Isis holding pattern lambda four momentarily.”
“An… antimatter… transport?” Sheridan asked, half curious, half shocked.
“Yes. We produce it planet-side, or rather moon-side, and then it has to be shipped up to the orbital storage facilities.” The Ensign replied matter-of-factly as she brought the shuttle to a halt at what Sheridan supposed would be said holding pattern. "It'd be far too dangerous to keep it on the ground, as the planetoid's natural magnetic field can interfere with the containment fields."
"I..." He sighed and dropped the matter. "I see."

He kept staring into the void, focusing on the shining structures that he’d spotted earlier. Most of them were still too far away for him to make out clearly, but one of them was closer. It was a station, it had to be as it was far too large to be anything else. It almost looked like a massive mushroom in space, a silver mushroom lighted with white, red and blue lights. Around it were smaller structures, almost looking like giant spider webs sticking out of the station. As the station and web-like structures slowly rotated he saw that they weren’t attached to the station at all, just in very close proximity and in a synchronized spin.

Then, as the system's third star started to emerge from behind the moon they'd just left he saw something reflect the red light just outside his field of view, and as he turned his head he saw something he'd missed completely and that made him drop his jaw instantly. It resembled one of the pictures he’d seen at the medical complex, but seeing this ship with his own two eyes made him finally understand exactly what those pictures were and even more so realize just how alien these people were no matter how human they looked.

The ship looked much like the pictures, though at this distance and angle it mostly resembled two long tubes strapped to a disc at a distance. Sheridan realized it wasn't really moving, it was just in a counter-orbit compared to the moon's rotation, but it quickly got closer and he could begin to see more and more details. The tubes glowed with a blue and red light and the rest of the ship was lit up with running lights as well as what looked very much like windows. He saw a large superstructure that seemed almost triangular rising from what must be the stern of the ship, and another structure between and just barely above the two tubes that was emitting a softer blue light from the front. Though he consciously realized that the ship wasn’t bigger in any sense than the Hyperion cruisers he was used to, in fact as it got closer it seemed about the size of an Olympus corvette, it looked impressive enough.

“Athena to shuttle Seventeen-Bravo.” The female voice was heard on the speakers again.
“Seventeen-Bravo.” The Ensign responded. "Go ahead, Athena."
“You are now cleared to proceed through the Aquilae Control zone, using approach vector Alpha Niner.”
“Confirmed, Athena..." The redhead began, but was interrupted by what Sheridan had already assumed to be the flight controller.
“Ensign, per a direct request from Starfleet Command, bring your shuttle closer to your orbiting neighbor before you proceed.” The voice continued. “Please tell your passenger ‘you are welcome’.”
“Understood. Seventeen-Bravo out.” The Ensign cut the link.
“What was that all about?” Sheridan asked the Ensign, interested enough considering he was the only passenger aboard.
“After what I know about you, I think I know what they want you to see.” The woman smiled. “Let me show you.”

As the small shuttle came in closer to the strange ship, even more details became distinguishable. The blue glow from the tubes and the central hull became sharper; the dull red glow from the front of the tubes more intense. The windows were now clearly visible as just what they looked like and he could see shallow but sharp trenches that seemed to stretch along the entire curvature of the disc and along the features of the hull. Then he saw it, and even though he did his very best to maintain his composure a single tear fell down his cheek. The registry number above the name didn’t say him anything, nothing at all. But the name, that struck a chord deep inside him. USS Lexington.

“Thanks, Ensign.” Sheridan said with a soft voice. “She is beautiful.”
“Aye, sir.” The Ensign replied with a smile. “That she is. And, ‘you are welcome’, Commander.”
“Thanks.” John had a hard time saying much more.

The image of the ship in orbit was still on his mind’s eye as they entered the main planet’s atmosphere, again without any turbulence or sense of deceleration. He wasn’t surprised this time, though it raised the same old questions again. Who were these people who had these hard to imagine ships and shuttles? What else did they have that he hadn’t seen yet? He still had too many questions and far too few answers.

He only now realized that he’d been standing straight for most of the trip, the realization dawned upon him as he once more tried to rise up to see the view outside. Impressive, he hadn’t noticed he’d been standing because there had been nothing to suggest they were moving except the view. They decelerated now, the female Ensign guiding them down into what looked like yet more woodlands though this time he could make out approach lights which had lit as soon as they got below a certain altitude. As they started their final approach he began to notice buildings, first a few, then a dozen, and then hundreds, all just as tastefully built into the landscape as the ones outside the medical complex but this time it wasn't even comparable in size.

This settlement was larger, but from what he could see it wasn’t very large either. It was hard to judge as his field of view was limited by both the city’s almost camouflaged design and the walls of the shuttle. He could see some things he’d missed from the other settlement though, buildings that looked too big for residential use and some that were too remote for commercial use. Even so, he noticed some of the same things were missing. Still no farms, still no cattle, still no massive industrial buildings spewing out smoke into the atmosphere. There were barely any vehicles around that he could see either, and the only exceptions were a few other shuttles of varying sizes and shapes which were either landing or taking off at various locations around the town.

They landed softly on a pad that could very well be the twin to the one near the medical center, but the similarities ended there. Instead of the rural area at the hospital this was clearly a civic complex, and there were quite a lot of people milling around as well. As soon as the rear ramp descended and his pilot had motioned for him to exit he was greeted by two men, both dressed in the same black uniform that the Ensign was wearing, but that was all they had in common. Neither was human, at least not entirely, Sheridan realized with a slight shock. The first had human features but also had dark brown spots that started above the hairline and followed the side of his neck down beyond his uniform collar. The other also looked human but had several creases across his nose. Who were these people?


STARFLEET COMMAND COMPLEX
ELYSIUM
SIRIUS


His escort didn’t say much as they led him into the complex and through the winding corridors, and John had a hard time finding the time to say anything himself either between the moments of wonder and awe. Each wall, each window and each room they passed seemed to be tastefully decorated, some resembling styles he remembered seeing across the historical places on Earth, while some were as alien as his escorts were. He saw pictures of numerous great men and women of history, Nelson, Hancock, Victoria the first, Cook and Columbus only to mention a few. There were figures from myth and religion, most of these though not all being from Norse and Greco-Roman mythology.

And there were even more pictures of the strange starships, he counted more than a half-dozen different variants, even more counting the different styles and artwork on them. There were potted plants in the corners, in some areas entire orangerys had been created with rare orchids and other plants. All in all, the complex felt militaristic not least because of the uniformed people, armed and armored guards and the overall sense of the paintings, even the pictures of the angels and mythical gods were armed with swords or an equivalent, but he also got the feeling that he was walking through a museum. Not that he was all that surprised, Earthdome itself had its fair share of antiquities and rare art hanging on its walls, but this was truly exquisite.

Walking along the corridors and studying the faces they came across he came to realize that there was a large, even an entire chasm, of differences between the Earth that he knew and this place no matter how alike they were in architecture, arts or even history. There were a lot of humans, sure, and most of them looked just like any other man or woman back on Earth discounting the uniforms. Most were fit and most had a stance and air of military service around them, but that could easily be attributed to them being just that. And then, there were the others. Dressed in the exact same black uniform, even with the same decorations that Sheridan realized meant rank or type of service, were aliens mixed seemingly homogenously with the humans. Some almost looked human, others were completely alien.

He saw more people with the spots of his right escort, more people with the nose creases of the left. People with sharply pointed ears, others with ridged foreheads and dark complexion that barely looked human at all, some with blue skin and a ridge running the length of their faces. He saw a green-skinned woman with copper hair, one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, talk to a man with a great beard that almost looked like a dwarf from mythology until he realized the person in question was just inches shorter than he was. And all among them, not even looking like they were in any way unaccustomed to or uncomfortable with the massive alien presence, even more humans walking around doing whatever they did in this complex.

Who the hell were these people?!

They reached a double door with large emblems largely resembling an arrowhead, the guards pressing a button next to it to open it. Inside, he could see a familiar face, the one of the mysterious mister West, along with four apparently human women, a human man and two aliens whose kind he’d seen a few of in the corridors. His eyes just took a quick glance around before his eyes landed on one of the aliens. He almost choked, feline features, tan fur and fangs. A Dilgar? Here? He started to get a feeling that this was wrong, very, very wrong.

West stood up, showing that he now wore a much more adorned uniform than he had the last time Sheridan had seen him, with more of, and a more complex version of, the golden inlays than anyone else he could see in the room. He flashed a friendly smile towards Sheridan as he walked up and shook his hand.

“Welcome, Commander.” West said. “Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you, but…” Sheridan hesitated, unsure of the situation.
“Sit, Commander.” West reiterated. “I could try to pull rank, as could anyone else present, but we're not in the same command hierarchy as you. Let’s just say it’s a request from your host, okay?”
“Fine, sir.” Sheridan replied with a slightly sharp tone as he sat down next to the older of the human women, his military training recognizing West for what he was, a high ranking military officer that wasn’t used to people questioning him.
“Good.” West sat down as well. “I suppose it’s time that I explained some things and answered some questions.”
“By all means.” Sheridan said, looking to the feline male at the other end of the table. “You could begin by telling me why you’re harboring a Dilgar.”
“Dilgar?” West asked, not understanding what Sheridan was implying at first. A second later, he realized what the Commander meant from something he'd read in T'Pell's reports. “Oh, we don’t. Admiral Jahari here is Caitian, not Dilgar.”
“Caitian?” Sheridan replied, not familiar with the name.
“Yes, Caitian.” Jahari’s rasping voice could be heard from the other side of the room. “I have no genetic similarities to the race you call ‘Dilgar’ whatsoever, and except the fact that both races look feline, a sharper eye can see that the differences are enormous. It is like saying that a Human looks like a Bolian, a mistake you, as a human, would certainly not do.”
“Bolian?” Sheridan asked again.
“You must have seen a few of them outside.” West replied. “Blue skin, steel-colored eyes, with a crease along the middle of their face running down the entire length of their body?”
“Ah.” John could remember them. “They look nothing like a human.”
“My point, exactly.” Jahari replied, satisfied.
“To get back to topic.” West interrupted. “I’d like to introduce you to some of my colleagues. The Caitian is Vice Admiral Heron Jahari, and the lovely lady at your right is Vice Admiral Elisha Keyes.”
“Pleasure.” Sheridan still wasn’t comfortable giving Jahari more than a nod, but he respectfully shook hands with Keyes as she was sitting right next to him.
“The other people present are Commodores Janet Valeris and Helen Grayson, Major Iona, as well as council members Fontaine, Ha’sra and Sorila.”
“Pleasure to meet you all, though I don’t recognize your species.” Sheridan replied with a slightly strained smile.
“Tellarite and Vulcan in named order.” West said almost absently.
"Major Iona." Sheridan greeted her as he shook her hand, her face ringing a bell in the back of his head. Where had he seen her before? "Wait, I know you, don't I? I'm positive I saw you at Earth Dome along with senator what-was-his-name... senator Drexler!"
"I assure you you're mistaken." Iona replied with a cool voice, but hearing her speak only made Sheridan even more certain.
"If you say so." Sheridan said albeit not letting go of his suspicions that easily. If he was right however, she was the kind of person you really didn't want to get on the wrong side of.
"You know my name since our last encounter, but not my full rank of fleet Admiral." West decided to continue and interrupt Sheridan's train of thought before he got himself into trouble. Iona wasn't really the kind of person you wanted to know that you knew what she was, as the results of that tended to be... messy. "Or, as you’d call me in the terms of Earth Force, Commander-in-chief of the armed forces.”
“You mean…” Sheridan tried to compose his thoughts into words. “President?”
“No.” West shook his head. “The closest you’d get in Earth terms is Generalissimo, though that’d be fairly misleading as well as this isn’t a dictatorship. Our military is formally separated from the civilian government, though the ruling council still sets general policy which we have to follow. There is a president, but excepting general policy he has little say over the military just as I have little say except my one council vote in civilian matters.”
“I see, I think.” Sheridan replied, though he had a hard time understanding how that would work in practice. “But, continue, please. You must have had some reason to bring me here.”
“We do.” West said and rose from his seat and walked to the head of the table. “We had hoped you could help us with one of our smaller problems.”

West turned to a control panel that was embossed in the wooden table, and activated it causing one of the wall panels to disappear and reveal a viewscreen. The viewscreen itself didn’t impress Sheridan, he’d seen large flat screen displays before, but the measures by which it was hidden and revealed did. The panel hadn’t slid into the wall, floor or ceiling, it had just ceased to exist. Holography, and at this level?

The viewscreen showed a battle over a planet he did recognize; it was Beta 9, one of the Earth Alliance’s smaller colonies. The battle was played out at what he gathered was about ten times faster than real speed, and the results were clear even before it ended. He had some pride for the men and women that were in Earth Force for what they had managed, managing to bring down two Minbari ships and possibly crippling a third even if they could probably salvage the derelicts, but he felt a sincere and true loss for each of the crews as the Earth ships went down, effectively cut down to little but burning shrapnel which quickly filled the orbit of the Mars-sized planet. Then he realized that whatever ship had taken these videos had been watching the battle, moving across the battlefield without engaging, or more curiously, without being engaged by either side even though the angles it had been shot at required a very close range.

“Admiral, you had ships at this battle?” Sheridan asked with an angry voice. “Ships that recorded what happened and didn’t stop this slaughter?!”
“We did.” West nodded and gave a sad look. “As I told you last time we met, we do not interfere with the affairs of other less advanced powers. It’s one of the fundamental directives upon which our entire civilization is built.”
“But you had ships there, you could have stopped this!” Sheridan almost shouted. “You could have prevented all these people from dying.”
"No, we couldn't. We don't have the ships nor the manpower available to fight your war for you." Keyes replied. "You have seen some things we have that no other race does, but we don't have the numbers to be everywhere at once, nor the infrastructure or population to support such a military apparatus."
“And as for stopping people from dying, we did, at least more than half of them still live, and that’s in a way our problem.” West replied sharply, to Sheridan’s surprise. “Out of the seven thousand men total which were on board those ships and the station, we managed to save more than half. Roughly four thousand two hundred of your fellow servicemen are being transported to the various complexes we have on the moons of Isis and Osiris as we speak.”
“But…” Sheridan dropped his jaw. “The video shows the ships exploding, they were cut apart by the Minbari. There were no escape pods, or anyone that docked with the ships before they went down!”
“Just as in the case of your own ship? We have…” Grayson gave West a hard look, and he sighed. “Other… means.”

Other means. Sheridan had little trouble imagining that, considering the level of technology he’d seen thus far. If they managed to have a ship in close proximity to the battlefield at Beta 9, without either the Earth Force or Minbari ships detecting it, these people had to be able to do almost anything. He felt an immense relief as he let the fact sink in. More than half were saved. More than three thousand souls had been saved by this still mostly unknown people, and that wasn’t even counting the close to a thousand people that were already at the medical complex he’d been at. West had also let another fact escape, the complex he'd been at wasn't the only one. How many others were there?

"How many of us are there?" He asked. "How many have you saved?"
"Last we counted, over sixty thousand." The Caitian Admiral replied. "Spread over roughly twenty complexes ranging from medical facilities, such as the one you were in near Valhalla, to purely residential complexes on the moon of Osiris. You haven't seen that moon yet, it's in an orbit that constantly keeps it on the other side of the planet compared to Isis."
“Please.” Sheridan said with a voice that was surprisingly even. “Continue.”
“In short, the way this war of yours is going we’re going to get quite a lot of refugees. Actually that's not true, we already have a lot, we're going to get swamped.” Keyes stated. “We’ve discussed what we’re going to do with you, and decided we’re going to give you a choice.”
“A choice?” Sheridan inquired. “Of what, exactly?”
“It’s quite simple.” West said with a firm voice. “You can choose to join us, in which case you’ll be allowed to integrate fully into our society, to create a future with and among us and be treated as any other citizen in our society.”
“Or, you can choose to, in due time of course, return home.” Jahari’s surprisingly melodic voice added. “You’ll have to stay as our guests until the war ends, and during this time you will be just as separated from our personnel as you have been until now and not receive any further information about us.”
“If you choose to return home.” Sorila interjected. “The council will guarantee that you are allowed to do so, but you will remember nothing about us, where we are or what we can do. Those memories will be permanently removed from your mind.”
“Not a whole lot of alternatives.” Sheridan said matter-of-factly albeit with a weak voice. “It may be a long time before this war is over, and no guarantees that our friends, families, even Earth itself with the way the war is going, will even be there when it’s over.”
“I might also add.” West said with a dark voice. “That even in the best of all possible cases you’d return to a world that believes you to be long dead. Your families may still be there, but no one of us can guarantee that they’ve waited for you, or that they’d even appreciate your return. Still, it is your choice. But the fact is that I can't answer the questions I, we, know you have before I know you're willing to accept the responsibilities that come with the answers you want.”

Sheridan had to think about that, and he imagined a lot of his comrades at the medical facility would have to do the same. He thought about the dearest things in his life, his parents, his sister and his fiancé. He doubted the former would regret him coming back, but he also doubted the lovely Anna would wait for him. She was too good to stay in the past. She’d mourn, but she’d move on, he knew she would.

The choice was made even harder as he still had problems accepting the fact that no matter what he himself thought, there was simply no way Earth Force would count on him surviving the battle against the Drala Fi. If you didn't come back, you were dead. That had been a cold but real fact as long as he'd been fighting, at least until he'd gotten here and met a few of these supposedly dead people himself.

“You’re asking me to make a very hard choice.” Sheridan said with a low voice.
“We’re not asking you to make your choice here and now.” West replied softly. “We’re only presenting the alternatives we can offer.”
“It’d be easier if you’d let us return home here and now.” John retorted. “But you won’t, will you?”
“No.” Jahari answered him straight up. “We won't, and we can’t. Saving your lives and bringing you here, then allowing you to return after the war has been decided, can be seen as an act of humanitarian aid. We'd use some kind of insulating third party to facilitate your return and noone would be any wiser. The war would end whichever way it does, free of our influence, and in the grand scheme of things the only difference would be a slightly higher survival rate than expected.”
“If we let you back now.” Sorila’s cold and methodical voice added. “You’d most probably reenter the fight no matter what most of you told us, and we’d have effectively rescued and returned active combat personnel to a warring faction. An act of direct interference not only with the course of the war, but also in your two opposing factions, not to mention uncovering our presence to the rest of the galaxy which is something we are not prepared to do at this time, especially with our low numbers.”
“I see.” Sheridan replied. “I’ll need to think about this.”
“We understand.” Keyes replied. “Until you’ve decided, we can’t allow you to return to Isis and speak with the rest of your people. I’m sorry, but we need to know where you stand before we can let you talk to them.”
“I understand. Either I accept and we move on, or I refuse and you'll wipe any memory of this meeting ever taking place from my mind.” Sheridan sighed and nodded, not much he could do about it. “Where am I supposed to stay in the meantime?”
“We’ll think of something.” West smiled. “Elisha, you think you can convince Valentine to take care of another guest?”
“Hmm…” Keyes gave West a weird look. “Agreed.”
“Good.” West smiled and shook Sheridan’s hand as he and the other officers started to leave. “Hope you don’t get space sick, Commander.”


VULCAN SHIPYARD COMPLEX
AQUILAE CONTROL ZONE
SIRIUS SYSTEM, NOVEMBER 20TH, 2245


It wasn’t quite what Sheridan had expected. Actually, it wasn’t even close to what he’d expected. He’d imagined he’d be placed under house arrest or something, but this was something different altogether. Instead of being left on the planet under guard, he’d been put on another shuttle and transported into orbit, brought to a place they called the Vulcan Shipyards in what he had established from the view must be the sub-system's fourth lagrangian point or gravitational dead zone. He realized the shipyard was the orbital structure that he had previously seen during his trip over, and now that he was here he realized his approximation hadn't been too far off. The complex really looked a spider surrounded by several web-like structures he’d been told were the actual dry-docks and orbital construction facilities.

They didn’t even start to resemble the massive shipyards he was used to from Earth, but they had an clean elegance to them that made the impression that their smaller size really didn’t matter, but rather what they were actually capable of doing. To his surprise he’d been given more or less free reign of the station and what he’d seen and what he’d experienced was a whole new world. Artificial gravity had just been the beginning, and he'd yet to see the end.

He’d witnessed matter replication, which was what these people used to create everything from starship components to a cup of coffee and explained the lack of produce and storerooms. He'd seen people and materials transported hundreds of kilometers onto orbiting ships and shuttles using point-to-point matter transporters, something Earth Gov scientists had rejected as both a theoretical and practical impossibility. He'd learned of antimatter reactors, which were capable of generating more power than a small fleet of Earth Force ships would under combat conditions.

He’d been shocked as he saw the relatively small ships these people used were able to travel to and from the planet and orbiting stations at speeds very close to light barrier, and had even been told they could travel at several times light speed in real space, not one but two things that again would have been considered not only impossibilities but as laughable pipe dreams by any sane Earth Force starship engineer or drive designer.

Looking out from the windows he had in his assigned quarters he had a good view of some of the construction projects going on outside. The beginnings of what would apparently become another starship, one of a type he believed he hadn’t seen a completed version of yet, had in the slight time he'd been there progressed at an alarmingly high rate. Just the day before it'd been little more than a keel and some framework and today the first few pieces of ventral hull were already in place with a number of massively complex modular systems being moved around by automated drones.

There were apparently less than a hundred people working at the dock just outside, at least that’d been what he’d been told, with most of the work being carried out by what they called construction drones that looked much like the maintenance bots that Earth Force utilized. Unlike the bots he was used to however he’d been told they were completely automated and were controlled entirely by the shipyard’s AI. To place that much trust in an artificial entity was a strange and new way of thinking for Sheridan, but he could see that it apparently worked well enough considering the speed the new ship was coming together at.

He could see the telltale blue flashes of light as the transporters moved a section of hull, a prefabricated component or something else that belonged on the starship under construction into place, the pods quickly racing to the location and fusing it in place after they'd made sure the new component was at exactly the right place. Just a few hours ago he'd seen them attach a number of wide metal beams which had been rapidly fixed to the rest in one end, each other along their lengths and with the two tube-shaped modules all this people's ships seemed to have. He still had no idea what their function was, but even while these ones didn’t have the dull glow of the active ships yet they looked impressive.

He sighed, more of awe and astonishment than anything else, if Earth had this technology they could build a cruiser-sized ship in a month from the ground up. But they didn’t, and they couldn’t. He’d tried to focus less and less on the perils of Earth lately, sometimes quite successfully as well as there was so much here to occupy his mind with, but even so there were times when his defenses just went down completely and he was overwhelmed by loss and sorrow. His mind started to wander off into that dangerous direction once again, but was mercifully interrupted by a discreet knock on the door. He slowly turned to the door, finding a figure waiting for him that filled him with both joy and relief, but at the same time a sharp sense of betrayal.

“T’Pell!” Sheridan dropped his jaw. “What in the world are you doing here?”
“Sheridan.” T’Pell smiled and offered his hand in greeting. “I suppose I could ask you the same thing, but I guess it’d be quite pointless as I was there when we rescued you.”
“We?” Sheridan asked, dumbfounded. “Wait, you were there?”
“Yes.” T’Pell nodded. “Not only was I the one that alerted the ships that performed the actual rescue to your situation, but I was present during the battle as well.”
“Then you’re…” Sheridan stammered. “You’re one of them.”
“Yes.” He nodded again. “Captain A’shien T’Pell, of the United Federation of Planets' Starfleet.”

It took Sheridan a few seconds to process this, as he stumbled towards one of the seats in his quarters. T’Pell, supposedly a humble trader from a far away and less advanced people, that traveled around the Alliance trading for almost any goods he could acquire according to the station rumors at least. This brought him into a completely new light. The truth, T’Pell, so far the second spy within the Alliance he'd found this people had, working for a close by and extremely advanced civilization. Did he truly know anything about this man?

“I understand your feelings, Sheridan.” T’Pell said with a soft voice.
“Somehow, I doubt that.” He replied. “I suppose the Shran isn’t some low-tech cargo hauler either.”
“That’d also be quite true, at least from your point of view.” T’Pell sat down opposite Sheridan. “She’s hardly the shining bright star of Federation technology, actually compared to pretty much anything else in this system it's a piece of obsolete crap, but she was built to be exactly what she is and that's still far beyond what you’d expect in an Earth Force ship that size.”
“How far?” Sheridan asked, still dumbfounded.
“Far enough to equal the firepower of a Hyperion cruiser and the defenses of a Minbari Tinashi.” T’Pell replied. “While outmaneuvering and outrunning them both.”
“I find that to be hard to believe, considering I've seen the Shran.” Sheridan sighed. “But from what I’ve seen here, it’s probably true.”
“I doubt I’d be able to provide you a fair test to prove it.” T’Pell smiled. “But yes, it is true.”
“Great.” Sheridan shook his head in disbelief.

He remained silent as he looked out the window again, gazing into the black void outside. There was a slight movement just beyond visual range, a series of bright spots that seemed to move closer at an incredible speed, slowing down just as they came up to the station and passing by it. The spots materialized into six ships flying in a double arrow-shaped formation, each of the ships of a different size and shape. One was the proverbial twin of the Lexington he’d seen earlier, and the only reason he could tell that it wasn’t the same ship was because the Lexington itself was also in his field of vision, still in the counter-orbit of the moon called Isis. He'd been told she was simply there to stand guard over their rescued refugees, carrying both Doctors, negotiators and armed marines if the situation ever got so far as that they needed them.

Three of the ships were decisively longer, he judged that the two largest ships were approximately the length of a Hyperion, and while much sleeker and probably much smaller in total volume they both gave a feeling of overwhelming technology rather than the Hyperion’s or Nova’s feeling of overwhelming brute force. The lead ship was only slightly longer and by all comparisons had a lower and less wide cross section, yet it gave the same feeling spiced with a feeling of a very, very fast ship and also seemed to shout 'don't you dare underestimate me' as soon as you looked at it. It lacked everything that made a ship look blocky, instead looking more like an arrow that had just been sprung from a bow.

The other ships that he didn’t recognize were much smaller than either of the other three, one of them having the same arrow-shaped look as the lead ship but being smaller and smoother, while the last and smallest looked very square and blocky, yet with a grim look that seemed to challenge an opponent to test its strength and judge not by its size but by the bite of its fangs.

"That would be the Independence, Venture, Endeavour, Gallant, Eureka and Renown." T’Pell counted them off and sighed deeply. "Duval's flotilla. That means Beta 9 has fallen to the Minbari.”
“Yes.” Sheridan replied stoically. “The Admiral told me about it the day before yesterday.”
“May your gods have mercy on those we couldn’t save.” He said, closing his eyes briefly as if in prayer.
“Thanks, T’Pell.” Sheridan sighed. “But I suppose we should also be grateful for the ones you could save.”
“Perhaps." He nodded. "Have you given any thought to your decision yet?”
“Yes, but it’s hard.” Sheridan leaned back in his chair. “On one side, I have an amazing opportunity to learn more about you and your way of life, perhaps even serve on one of those ships out there. On the other hand I have my own people not to mention my family and whatever friends may remain when the war is over.”
“I understand.” The Andorian shrugged. “Your family will likely remain whichever path you choose. There is always the possibility that you could one day return, and even a possibility that we won’t remain hidden forever.”
“West didn’t say anything about that.” Sheridan replied. “He made it sound like a one-way street.”
“It’s not.” T’Pell shook his head. “If you change your mind later on they can always wipe your memory and send you home. It'd be harder however, especially on those you left behind.”
“I suppose.” Sheridan shrugged. “I still need more time to think about it though.”
“You can think later.” T’Pell stated. “For now, I have something to show you. You have no idea of the amount of trouble I had getting Admiral Keyes to sign off on letting me do that either.”
“Lead on.” Sheridan sighed, and fell in behind the Andorian as they exited his quarters and moved down the corridor.

They didn’t go very far, the Andorian stopped in front of one of the doors Sheridan hadn’t been allowed to enter since he got here. Tapping the door controls T’Pell opened the door and motioned him to enter. The room was fairly large, but except for a grid of lights covering the walls, floor and roof, the room was empty.

“Well, this is intriguing.” Sheridan said with a disappointed voice. “An empty room?”
“Heh.” T’Pell smiled a little as he tapped the controls on the wall. “You’ll see. Hephaestus?”
“Standing by, Captain T'Pell.” A deep, booming voice came out of nowhere.
“Give us the bridge of the Albion, please.” T’Pell replied to the voice. “The location I want is just off of the Utopia Planitia main shipyard complex, with an outside view of the post-Dominion War repair and reconstruction efforts. Keep the ship as she was just before her refit shakedown.”
“Stand by.” The voice replied. "I am processing your request."

It only took a second for the room to change, the walls seemed to close in and chairs and consoles formed from thin air around the two men. Sheridan even recognized some of the controls as almost exactly identical to the flight controls of the two shuttles he’d traveled in earlier. The viewscreen everything seemed oriented at showed the red dunes of what looked like Mars in the background, but it couldn’t be. In orbit around and in the foreground of the planet they were orbiting he could see hundreds, maybe even thousands, of web-like construction yards almost identical to the ones just outside this station but in many, many more sizes and shapes of them as well.

Most of them held starships in their innards, both of types he’d seen outside and other unfamiliar kinds, just infinitely more of them and at varying stages of construction. Sheridan could hardly believe his eyes, there were even more of these ships, albeit completed, docked to stations and other orbital facilities which extended as far as the eye could see. There must have been at least two or three thousand ships if not more in docks, docked to stations or just hanging in orbit, and that was just what he could see with his view limited by the distance and edges of the viewscreen rather than anything else.

Then there was the room itself. He had already noticed the flight control console, but there were many, many more. As his eyes wandered, he could guess to the usage of some of them, though others remained a mystery. One, with energy readings and what looked like a detailed cross-section of the ship, had to be an engineering station. Another seemed to show a sensor reading, though the resolution and range was far greater and the volume of information it showed was just incredible. The central seats had none of the larger consoles, but by their position alone he assumed it was the Captain’s and first officer’s seats.

“Where…” He gasped. “Where are we?”
“Technically, we haven’t moved at all.” T’Pell smiled. “As for the scenery what you're looking at is the bridge of our little fleet's flagship as she was when she was being refit and repaired at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards.”
“You have this kind of shipyards? I thought Admiral Keyes said you lacked numbers?” Sheridan was awestruck, until a nagging feeling crept up on him. “Wait, where exactly is this place?”
“Mars.” T’Pell sighed. Time to break the news. "Obviously, considering the name of the shipyard complex."
“Mars?” Sheridan didn’t compute.
“Sol four. Small red planet just a few light minutes from Earth.” T’Pell made a faint smile. “Mars.”
“That’s… impossible.” Sheridan just went white. “There are shipyards above Mars sure, but nothing like these, and definitely not producing these kinds of ships!”
“Because there’s a slight difference, Commander.” T’Pell leaned against the ops console. “The Albion was launched on June 6th, 2374, by the United Federation of Planets which is a civilization founded on Earth on August 12th, 2161.”
“But…” Sheridan tried to interject, but T’Pell raised a hand to stop him.
“But not on your Earth. No.” T’Pell said. “How well versed in quantum theory are you, Commander?”
“I suspect not nearly enough for what you’re going to tell me.” Sheridan replied, still pale.
“Then let’s just say we’re from a different reality.” T’Pell stated. “Until you learn enough to understand.”
“Geez.” Sheridan just slumped into one of the command chairs. “You mean to tell me that on another Earth, in another dimension, where humanity evolves into… you?”
“Technically ‘them’, as in my human colleagues, but in a sense that’s right.” T’Pell replied. “There are a lot of similarities between your and our human race, you even share the same history, up to somewhere in the early twenty-first century. From that point on, you evolved different than our Earth did.”
“And you?” Sheridan asked. “Where does your race come in?”
“My race, along with about a hundred and sixty others, joined the Federation at or after its founding. Andoria was actually one of the founding worlds, along with Vulcan, Earth and Tellar. The last admitted planet, last I know of at least, was Bajor just a few years before we got stranded here.”
“I see.”

He was still awestruck, but however unbelievable the story was, it made sense. It answered a whole lot of questions that nothing else did, as how a small human civilization was suddenly ages ahead of their home world, and produced ships that defied the laws of physics, or how they had aliens among them that Sheridan had never seen much less heard of. It also answered a whole lot of questions about why T'Pell had been so interested in, and how he had initially seemed to lack an understanding of, hyperspace technology.

“Stranded?” He asked, just now realizing the small addition that T’Pell had made.
“Yes.” The Andorian made a face of immense loss. “We didn’t get here by intent, but rather by accident. And as far as we know, there’s no way for us to get back.”
“Believe it or not, I know the feeling.” Sheridan sighed. He really did. “How long have you been here?”
“Just a little over two years.”
“Two years? And you’ve built this complex, the colony and settlements, everything?!”
“Actually, we did most of that in the first six months alone.” T’Pell smiled proudly. “The rest were built as needed, most of the defenses and shipyards were only started after our encounter with a native race called the Vorlons. Ever heard of them?”
“No, can’t say I have.” Sheridan shook his head but was curious.
“Let’s just say they’re aggressive, and they make the Minbari look like your Neanderthals in comparison.” He sighed. "It's also one of the reasons we're less than inclined to show ourselves too publically. They may be our equals in technology, but they're far superior in numbers. Our entire fleet consists of no more than thirty-odd space worthy combat ships, and we expect theirs to number in the thousands."
“I… I see.” Sheridan couldn’t believe that to be true, but then again, there was always a bigger fish somewhere out there. "Thirty ships?"
"And change." T'Pell nodded. “Either way, one of the reasons we’ve made you the offer to join us is, quite frankly, because we need you.”
“What possible need could you have for us?” Sheridan asked. “You’re light years ahead of us technologically, you have ships that outmatch anything we know of and we can't exactly make more of them faster than you can either…”
“Yes, we do indeed have a lot of technology.” T’Pell interrupted. “And, perhaps more importantly, we know how to use it effectively. But, the one thing we actually do lack is the people necessary to run it.”

It took a little while for Sheridan to realize what T’Pell had just said.

“People?”
“Yes, people.” T’Pell nodded. “We have two worlds created from two of our fleets being displaced here, but we arrived at two completely different times. Sirius is, as you have seen firsthand, a quite advanced society, but there are only just over a hundred and ten thousand of our people living here, and that includes the planet, the two moons and the entire fleet. A lot of those are toddlers, their parents having to leave them in the care of others because they are needed on the ships to watch over your people during the fighting, or teenagers still going through our academies.”
“But…” Sheridan tried, he couldn’t understand this.
“The other colony.” T’Pell continued, ignoring the interruption. “Is larger, at approximately seventeen million, but they were forced to abandon their technology by the Vorlons centuries ago. They’re on a level comparable to what your own people were at some two hundred years ago.”
“Early space age?” Sheridan asked.
“Correct. We’ve been training and teaching them our technology for the last year, but it takes time as they aren’t used to the idea of space travel, much less living or doing battle in space.”
“Oh.” Sheridan smiled. “Even more lost than I am?”
“Quite.” T’Pell nodded. “Even so, our population base is very small compared to any other race in this sector, which as you can understand makes us very vulnerable. This is why I’m showing you this. If I can make you understand, you can make others understand. We're not staying hidden because we want to, we do it because we have no other option in order to safeguard the few of our own people we actually have.”
“I’m not sure that’s even possible, Captain.” Sheridan sighed. “But I do see your points. Most of them at least.”
“Good.” T’Pell smiled. “That was kind of the point.”

Sheridan thought for a minute or two in silence, staring at the view around him. He’d already made his decision, but it seemed he had to justify it to himself before he was ready to accept it.

“You know.” Sheridan shrugged. “I will want to learn how this thing works.”
“What ‘thing’?” T’Pell asked with a slight frown, unsure what Sheridan really meant.
“This.” Sheridan made a gesture towards the bridge around them.
“Heh.” T’Pell smiled. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to introduce you to Victoria sooner or later. Maybe your native human mind works better around her than most of our humans' does.”
“Victoria?” He asked.
“You’ll see, Sheridan.” The Andorian laughed. “You’ll see.”

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 25


STARFLEET DELPHI ACADEMY
ELYSIUM, SIRIUS
NOVEMBER 20TH, 2245


It would be wrong to say that the Academy looked like the Command Complex he’d been to when he’d visited Admiral West, but at the same time they were very similar in a lot of ways. The Academy was a wide building, three floors high, that like all the rest of the buildings on Sirius almost looked like they'd been molded from the surrounding landscape. Unlike the Command Complex however, it wasn’t built underground, and in several places the building opened up into what looked more like indoor malls and parks. Another distinct difference was the amount of, and the average age of, the people milling around.

Most of the people he could see were human, though he wasn’t all that surprised. He’d gotten a quick introduction to the differences between the Sirius and Draconis peoples, and while he hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of cross-species marriages or breeding, it was apparently not only possible but in their case quite common as well. Even his untrained eye could easily see the difference between the more ‘pure’ racial features of the Sirius alien personnel, and the less distinct features of the mainly mixed origin Draconis personnel.

It had been an early shock when he realized there was barely any pure-blood humans left on Draconis at all after more than seven centuries of intermarriage. He’d accepted that fact though, as T’Pell had explained their view of things, that while the different races in the Federation had different origins, genetics and sometimes very different histories they’d all chosen to become part of the same shared civilization. Going the next step and actually intermarry wasn't all that strange when they already shared practically everything else in society. It wasn’t like anything he was used to from this galaxy, where the closest thing to the Federation was the loose alliance of the League, but in a way it reminded him more of how the different governments of Earth had come together to form the confederate Earth Government.

Plus there was according to what he'd been told less difference, both genetically and ideologically, between most Federation races and humans than there was between any native race he knew about and humans. The Centauri and Minbari both resembled a human on first glance, but the similarities ended at the purely cosmetic level. Even so, he was used to seeing more friction between a Russian and an American back home than he could see between a Sirian and a Draconian, not to mention between a human and an alien.

He sighed as he kept walking, he hadn’t been formally assigned to the academy yet, but he guessed it would be the next logical step. Right now, he’d been sent here simply to get a bit more understanding of basic Starfleet technology as well as the overall picture of where and how that technology was used. He was looking forward to it, not only because of the chance to get that knowledge but also to be able to understand it better. So far, he’d seen a lot of it in action, but he suspected he hadn’t even seen a fraction of what they had, nor in the case of what he’d seen that he’d seen even half of what it could do.

He finally reached his destination, one of the smaller holographic chambers that were designed for practical education. The door slid open as he approached it and he entered. As the door shut again behind him, he realized that the room was completely empty and the woman he'd been sent to see was nowhere to be found. He sighed and almost turned around as a flicker in the corner of his eye made him turn back. Where just seconds earlier there’d been nothing at all, there was now a dark haired goddess, or at least a very, very beautiful woman dressed in a white dress, surprisingly to him a dress that looked more like a toga than anything any now living human would wear. She looked like she was in her mid to late twenties, not a year older, even though her otherwise captivating light blue eyes betrayed that look. They looked far too wise to be that young.

“Greetings, Commander.” She nodded. “Welcome to the Sirius Academy, or Delphi as we prefer to call it.”
“Thank you.” Sheridan replied, somewhat confused. “Wasn’t this room empty when the door shut?”
“Yes.” She stated simply enough with a short nod. “Take a seat, Commander Sheridan.”

She motioned towards a chair standing just behind him, something else that hadn’t been in the room a second earlier. He’d experienced Starfleet level holography before, but they’d always have to either request what they wanted by voice command or program it in through the command console. This time things just appeared as it seemed by this person's whim.

“I’m Sophia.” She sat down in a couch that materialized just as her graceful body made the motion. “I’ve been asked to give you whatever information about the Federation you require, within reason, both to better understand the choice you’re about to make and to be able to convince others to make the same choice should you still decide to accept our offer.”
“I see.” Sheridan nodded. “I admit, there are some things that have been bugging my brain lately.”
“Shoot.” Sophia smiled as she leaned back in the couch.
“Well, for starters, how did you get in here without using the door?” Sheridan asked.

He’d never seen a Starfleet officer use a transporter just to get around inside a building, though it’d seemed like a convenient and comfortable way to get around, and he had no other explanation for this woman’s appearance even as he realized he'd never seen or heard the typical light and noise a transporter always made.

“I was always here.” Sophia replied with a smile, her eyes glinting with a hint of amusement. “In fact, not only am I in this room with you, I’m also in three classrooms and an engineering bay. In one of the classes I’m debating the ethics involved in observing less developed races, in another I’m explaining the finer points of particle physics, in one I'm teaching computer programming and in the last I’m giving a demonstration in Klingon martial arts.”
“What?” Sheridan didn’t know if she was kidding or not. “How?”
“I’m not entirely what you would call human.” She winked, a gesture Sheridan had a hard time staying concentrated when she made. “In fact, I’m not even organic. I’m the holographic representation of the AI that runs the Academy, well, one of the representations of it at least. I’m usually divided into three or four at any given time. Right now I'm in five parts, as this chat was scheduled fairly rapidly and I didn't have time to reschedule my classes.”
“I’ve heard of you.” Sheridan started to understand what T’Pell had been talking about earlier, especially about males' brains working less than perfectly around them. “You're called avatars, right?”
“Quite correct.” She nodded and gave him another delighted smile. “We all have our own specialties, mine is that I can divide myself and multi-task as several avatars at once. A by-product of my not having an entire starship’s worth of automated systems to worry about, and a design requirement as well since I’m a Professor in six different faculties at this Academy.”
“I see, that'd explain how you're able to look the way you do as well." He gave her a smile in return. "No living woman could look as perfect as you."
"Why, thank you Commander." She flashed a row of perfect white teeth and a pair of deep and obviously well used dimples. "I try to do my best."
"No doubt." He chuckled. "What, if I may ask, are your areas of expertise?”
“Physics, martial arts, ethics, logic, mathematics and holography.” She counted them off. “I also cheat a bit in computer sciences and adaptive systems programming.”
“I can see how you’d be an expert at that.” Sheridan nodded thoughtfully. “Thanks for clearing that up.”
“Not at all.” Sophia replied. “Continue, please. My class in ethics is boring me to tears, all the cadets are agreeing with each other and I really need something to keep my processors from freezing solid.”
“Heh, sure.” He shook his head slightly, a quaint smile stuck to his face.

John was amazed. Not only was this beautiful supposed goddess of wisdom, she at least looked the part of a goddess, very clear about her being artificial... but she actually flaunted the fact like one would a new car or expensive jewelry. She seemed so… real…

“Tell me about the Federation.” Sheridan asked after a few seconds. “Not just what you are today, but what you were before you ended up in my part of the multiverse.”
“Sure thing.” Sophia’s light blue eyes glittered. “The History of the Federation it is. I’ll have to keep it fairly limited though, as you’d probably die of old age before I’d finished about the Eugenics wars if I didn’t.”
“Please, as long as you don’t give me the old ‘it’s a long story’ then start talking about something else.”
“Well, it actually is a long story.” She smiled. “But I’ll try to keep it short and to the point.”

She spent the next hour or so telling him about the ‘more recent’ past of the Federation as well as a short but still informative review of the time before that. Sheridan had been impressed by what he’d already understood about their past, but getting the details explained only deepened his fascination. A civilization that spanned almost fifteen hundred planets and colonies, all centered on Earth. A people with the warrior tradition of the Narn, but the pacifistic ideology of the Abbai. A civilization that had not only developed weapons of mass destruction, but immediately after realizing that they had done so destroyed them and vowed never to build another. A civilization so large and powerful that it could easily annex thousands of more worlds, militarily or diplomatically, but that chose instead to enact a fundamental law of non-interference. A government that demanded the allegiance of all member worlds yet recognized their rights to govern themselves.

In short, a people of so many self-contradictions he didn't even know where to start.

Some of the details she had to skim over, and she explained that in order to explain that single detail she’d have to explain another whole chain of events that spanned decades, or centuries, leading up to that event for him to understand it. Some she went into a great deal more detail about. The Dominion War took about fifteen minutes even though as he’d understood her it’d only lasted for two years, but mostly as it was in fairly recent history and had impacted the Federation and their ideology quite a lot. The events leading up to and the beginnings of the latest war with the Romulans took another five, and as he understood that the effects of the Dominion War played a major part in the Romulan conflict he understood the focus in the previous one too.

“So, in short your people are nothing like anything I’ve ever heard about.” Sheridan shook his head. “It’s ironic, I thought the League was hard to understand, but your Federation makes that mess look simple.”
“That's probably true.” Sophia replied with an amused nod. “The Federation was a simpler civilization back when we were that small too, but in our defense we passed the League in respects to the number of worlds involved within two decades of our forming, and in the amount of races involved only about another decade later. Add to that more than two centuries of constant expansion and conflict and you get a fairly complex reality.”
“I suppose.” He sighed. “I had other questions though.”
“Of course, just give me one minute.” She smiled.

She closed her eyes and almost seemed to become distant for a few seconds, completely frozen in her pose without even a single strand of hair moving on her head. Then it seemed like her entire shape became fuzzy for a fraction of a second before she resumed like nothing had happened.

“Sorry about that." She made an apologetic face. "One of my classes was over and another is starting, so I had to reassign my cores a bit.”
“Gods.” He gave her an honest smile. “You seem so much like any other woman, and then you say and do something like that just to remind me you’re a machine.”
“Since when did one exclude the other?” She asked quizzically and smiled at the to her fairly naive statement. “Either way, you may continue.”
“All right." He chuckled at her answer. "Most races I know have a very limited number of different ship designs. My people, for example, only use three main military capital ship designs and a handful of civilian ones. How come you have dozens, and for that sake, what’s the reason for their apparent differences?”
“Ah.” She nodded and seemed to become a bit more concentrated. “The reason for the amount of different designs is easy enough to answer, and it partially answers your second question as well. See, even with the constant improvements that are the basis for developing new ship classes, more often than not we can apply many, if not all of the same improvements to our older ship designs as well, by refitting the ships or just changing the modular components. That way, the same ship class can remain in service for decades, in some rare cases even a century or more, even though there’s little left of the original components it was actually built with. This only works with some technology however, as some are integral to the ship and can't be easily exchanged.”
“Ah, for us improvements in technology often require us to build an entirely new ship from the frame up.” Sheridan pondered. “There’s also the fact that maintenance requirements get too expensive after a while.”
“We don’t suffer from the main problem there, which is your rate of, and kind of, advancement.” She smiled. “We advance slower than you in a way, since we mostly improve on technology we already have. We don’t replace phaser cannons with disruptor banks, we make new phaser cannons instead, and if at all possible they'll be as close to the same size and shape as the old ones as possible.”

She had a point, he had to admit that. That way, they could keep an aging ship design continually updated for years or even decades and save a lot of both time and resources not having to build replacement ships every ten to twenty years or so. They just switched out the old cannons for the new when the old ones broke or became obsolete, while his people would replace the laser cannons with the same kind of laser cannons when they needed replacement, or build a new ship if they got a better design, as the new ones were never compatible with the older ship's systems.

"But then why do you build new ships if you can constantly refit the older versions?" He asked. "Wouldn't refitting be more cost-efficient?"
"Partially because we develop other technologies that necessitate a new design, but mostly because the designs improve." She replied. "However, we don't replace ships if we can refit them, but we do both lose ships and retire older versions that can't be refit further."
"I see, that way you'd have a number of versions of the same general ship class." He continued the same train of thought.
"Correct, in the original Starfleet there are still Constitution-class ships in service back in our reality, even though the model is more than a hundred and fifty years old and they have since been replaced by the Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy and Sovereign classes. They're no longer assigned to front-line service however."
"I understand, I think." Sheridan shook his head, Earth Force would've cut them up and used them for scrap metal if they were that obsolete.
“Then to answer your other question, there are different ships to fulfill different mission parameters, and you also have to remember that Starfleet isn't only looking at military designs but is also responsible for missions of exploration, science, diplomacy and many other such assignments.” She conjured up a number of small-scale starships. “The Intrepid, as an example, was designed to be a survey ship, a fast courier as well as a fast destroyer, while the Sovereign was designed as a long-range general-purpose explorer ship as well as a heavy battlecruiser."
"We do have explorer ships, but they're not exactly built to fight." Sheridan replied. "And surveys are typically performed by them as well."
"And some of our other ship designs have more than one mission-specific system, just as sometimes the class can even be modified to fit another entirely different mission profile. The second is apparent in how the Nebula class modular hull works, all of them being basically the same basic design but allowing for easy specialization through changing the superstructure, or pod as it's also called, to whatever mission profile specific pod is required when the ship is commissioned or refit.”
“I’ve seen all these kinds of ships you show here, except those three.” Sheridan pointed. “Why is that?”
“Well, we were just a task force, not an entire fleet.” Sophia stated and made a slight shrug. “Our total fleet strength in capital ships is only twenty nine operational vessels. Even so, there weren’t that many built of those classes yet except for the Olympus.”
“All right.” He nodded.

He could understand the first part, but realizing the truth in the latter was harder. They only had some less than thirty ships, and still they viewed the entire Minbari War Fleet as an annoyance more than a possible nemesis.

"Can you tell me about them?"
"Sure."

She nodded and pointed to the first, which expanded in size and became a lot more detailed.

"The Prometheus-class, one of the more advanced ship designs in Starfleet, was only manufactured as a design proof and technology prototype. Only three were ever constructed and these were still reserved to high-profile Captains and Admirals." She explained. "Even so, with his position at the San Francisco fleet yards, Admiral West probably could have had one had he actually requested one, but he wasn’t assigned to a fleet until the war broke out, and then he requested the Albion, which is not all that surprising considering his quite vocal opinions on that specific ship class."
"Oh?" He asked.
"He believed it was, and I quote, an overdesigned, overcomplicated and even then an overestimated piece of crap."
"Sounds like he's got quite the opinion of the ship." Sheridan chuckled. "Was he right?"
"Well, considering Starfleet never ordered any more of them I suppose he might have had a point." She smiled and brought up the next ship. "The Luna, less technologically advanced than the Prometheus perhaps but still a very able starship, was supposed to replace our aging light explorer classes at a later date. While the Utopia Planitia yards had at least twenty under construction when we entered the front lines, none of them were actually assigned to our task force before we landed here."
"I think I recognize the design though?" Sheridan noticed, the lines were right, and the structure seemed much the same.
"You might have noticed them when you were at the Vulcan Shipyards." She replied with a pleased smile, happy he'd been aware enough to notice it. "We might not have had any with us here, but we're building three of them ourselves."
"I actually thought I saw six, but I guess I'm not familiar enough with their differences to make the distinction between these two when they're not finished." He pointed to the Luna another class that seemed almost identical to his untrained eye.
"The Akira." She replied. "True, three more of them are being built too, just to make things even harder for you." She smiled. "We have five of them in service at the moment, and they're almost exclusively designed as a warship with an extensive weapons load."
"Why would you construct two so similar ships?"
"In truth you're right, they're variations on the same concept and use mostly the same components as well." She replied. "The Luna trades some of the Akira's weapons systems for increased speed and maneuverability. What you might not be able to notice without a direct comparison though..."
She brought up the two classes next to each other, both apparently in correct scale to the other now. He instantly saw the difference.
"I understand." Sheridan nodded. "I couldn't see the size difference without the other to compare it to."
"Correct, the Luna is quite a bit smaller." She nodded. "She lacks the Akira's capability to carry starfighters as well, and while we're redesigning both classes slightly due to our different needs in this universe, the two classes we build will have much the same scale difference in total armament and defenses."
"That sounds logical." Sheridan nodded. "And the last one?"
"The last ship you indicated was the Olympic class." She brought the oddly shaped starship up. "The reason we don't have any with us is that it is a dedicated hospital ship design, and we were after all a dedicated combat task force.”
"I see." Was all he could answer. He had many more questions; he just hoped she'd be able to answer them."


VULCAN FLEET YARDS
SIRIUS ORBIT
NOVEMBER 21ST, 2245


The observation lounge of the Vulcan control module was almost filled to the limit. Engineers, scientists, cadets, civilians, all had come here to see the upcoming spectacle. West however wasn’t one of them, he had his own reasons even though one of them was slowly filling up the view outside.

The Odin was returning to dry-dock for a final performance review by Starfleet Engineering, and in the process she’d been scheduled to finally receive the upgraded warp cores she’d had to be launched without. The ship was still far enough away to almost be mistaken for a Sovereign, if you didn’t notice the much larger than usual nacelles, different angle between saucer and engineering hulls or the complete lack of windows.

The large shape moved closer ever so slowly, gliding into place more than anything else and relying on thrusters and inertia to take her through the precise maneuvers that were required to match the orbital and rotational speeds of the massive dry-dock facility. As she closed in on her target, the differences between the Valkyria-class and the standard design Sovereign became apparent even to the untrained eye.

The saucer was while almost identical in the bow areas several hundred meters extended in the rear, and a bit wider than it would be on the Sovereign as well. It also had four impulse manifolds versus the original’s two, even if this was hard to see from this angle. The secondary hull was longer and wider than usual as well, and the deflector screen was oval rather than round. And then there were the twice as large nacelles which were slung under the saucer rather than above in order to both reduce the target area in combat and better compensate for the comparatively lower than standard profile for a ship her width and length.

She continued the intricate thrust maneuvers that were required to move a behemoth of that size into position, and even though she shared almost the same class name as the small Valkyrie interceptors she didn’t exactly handle like one. One of the definite drawbacks of being several thousand times more massive. For several painstaking minutes she moved as it seemed only a few meters per second, until she finally reached the final dock approach. The crowd cheered as she smoothly slid in between the girders and frames that made up the dock. As she made it through to the middle of the dock, the ship stopped and her running lights turned off.

As if this was a signal of sorts, dozens of low-powered tractor beams activated and moored the ship solidly in place, while robotic arms descended on the vessel. Several of these arms were hollow and locked on to the hatches on her hull, allowing the crew to exit and the engineering teams to enter the now powered down starship. As soon as the first few arms had locked on, the room began to empty out as the people there were now supposed to be heading on board to make whatever refits and diagnostics they’d been ordered to by the ship's engineers or Jahari's team of designers.

The Admiral remained for a minute and studied the ship through the window. The Valkyria-class wasn’t really anything that would have been considered a great achievement by old Starfleet standards, as it wasn’t much more than a redesign of the already existing Sovereign. What made him proud of it was that they’d manage to build them in not much more than a year, from design to commission, and entirely without access to the massive design, prototyping, testing and construction infrastructure which was usually utilized back at Utopia Planitia.

It had forced them to make a few compromises, such as the extra drive coils which back home would’ve probably been unnecessary, but they didn’t have much choice. They could redesign a ship fairly easily, but not redesign the entire warp coil setup. They simply didn’t have the time or the expertise to do so.

Still, the ship worked, and that was all that really mattered, wasn’t it. The heaviest armed and armored starship in Starfleet history, though not by a long shot the fastest or the most maneuverable. She wasn’t designed for speed though, that’s what he wanted the Luna’s for, but rather for wielding a large amount of pure brute force. Their latest and so far only engagement with the Vorlons had showed that the Sovereign simply wasn’t enough when on the wrong side of the odds twenty to one, and in a real war with them they’d most likely face far worse odds than that.

Even the most optimistic numbers on the Vorlon fleet estimated them to be closer to two thousand, and the more realistic expected a number in the range of two to five times higher than that. It didn’t matter though; whatever the factual number was they’d still be far more outnumbered than they’d been at Draconis, and they still hadn't done more than regained what they'd lost back then.

They still only had thirty capital ships total, counting the almost ready dreadnought Loki but not counting the lightly armed Novas, and they would only be able to increase that number by another nine over at least the next year. There were more shipyards available than that, sure, but no personnel to use either in construction or to actually crew the ships. It would take quite a while until they could train more engineers, and while ship crews were relatively quickly becoming available due in no small part to the introduction of the Avatar systems and the inclusion of the new cadets, he was still in extremely short supply of command crews and even more so of experienced Captains.

He turned around and walked over to the corridor leading to the airlocks, looking for the man his business here involved. He was in luck, as soon as he arrived in the room the man emerged from the airlock. He immediately saluted.

“Admiral West, sir.”
“At ease, George.” West saluted back, and then shook the Captain’s hand. “Walk with me.”
“Of course, sir.”

They started to walk back towards the observation lounge in a fairly slow pace. Halsey wondered what this was all about, it was the first time he’d ever been met by a welcoming committee after docking, not to mention one made up of the Commander Starfleet himself.

“Everything well?” West asked. “I saw the docking. Black made a good show out of it.”
“So far so good, sir.” Halsey responded with a smile. “She’s a great ship, but Lieutenant Black keeps telling me she really handles like a pig.”
“Heh, you’re lucky Mist didn’t hear that.” West chuckled. “I’ve heard she has a bit more personality than most other AI, and a shorter temper than most of the others as well.”
“You could say that." Halsey smiled as he instantly recalled her latest temper tantrum. "You could also say she’s pretty much just like any other woman I’ve ever known."
"Knowing your taste in women." West smiled as he nodded. “Probably.”
"I like her though." Halsey sighed as he instantly got a mental image of those piercing blue eyes he'd so easily been captivated by. "She's got my kind of humor and a kind of spunk I like to see in the people around me.”
"Down, boy." West chuckled. "Jokes aside, it's good to know the two of you are getting along."
“Anyways, what brings the supreme Commander of the Federation's interstellar forces to this place?” Halsey embroidered. “Can’t be my good looks, and you’ve seen ships enter spacedock before.”
“True, and no, I’m married now you know.” West winked with a humorous smile. “I am here because of you, though.”
“Oh?” Halsey asked, surprised. “What’s up, boss?”
“Well, it’s simple actually. I’m promoting you.”
“Can’t.” Halsey shook his head. “I’m not part of a squadron, remember?”
“True, but I wasn’t really thinking of Commodore, either.” West raised an eyebrow. “I’m promoting you to Rear Admiral.”
“Really…” He looked puzzled rather than anything else. “Why?”
“Easy.” West replied. “You’re the best Captain in the fleet, and you have a good tactical grasp and no matter what you think a more than decent diplomatic mind, a combination which is quite rare in this fleet I might add.”
“Excluding you and Keyes, perhaps.” Halsey nodded. "What about the Commodores, I don't want to step on anyone's toes, especially your brother's or wife's?"
"Considering they both recommended you for the job, and that Valeris did so as well..." West chuckled as he continued. "Helen actually just went pale and almost ran away from me when I asked her if she wanted the job, you should have seen her face, George. You'd never have imagined the terror she felt right there and then."
"So, what's the deal then?" Halsey sighed. "You’d be grounding me, wouldn’t you?”
“No, and why does it seem every time I talk to you, you think I'm pulling you out of the hot seat?” West shook his head with a slight smile. “I have more than enough desk jockeys as it is, and I sure don't need to take one of my best Captains out of action. You’d still be stationed on the Odin.”
“A fleet assignment?” Halsey was surprised. “Wait, you’re offering me your old job, aren't you?”
“My original one, yes.” West made a deep sigh. “Truth is, I never really wanted it in the first place. The war kind of made it necessary though. But even so, I can’t be running around the galaxy all the time with the job I have now, and I don’t have the time to make the tactical decisions anymore now that I have to focus on the strategic level.”
“What’d the command structure be?” Halsey asked.
“You’d be directly between Elisha and the squadron Commanders.” The Admiral answered. “Keyes is getting overworked as well now that the Draconis system’s defenses and operations are getting fully online.”
“Hmm.” Halsey thought about it for a moment. “I'll accept your offer, Admiral.”
“Good.” West smiled. “Thank you, Admiral.”
“No, actually thank you for not grounding me, Admiral.” They shook hands.
“You know, you don’t really have to call me that anymore.” West smirked. “Not even sir, at least as long as there are no cadets around and you still do what I tell you.”
“I think I’ll like that.” Halsey smiled.

They reached the lounge, and West motioned for them to sit down at one of the tables. Halsey could see his ship through the window and he took a good look at it, seeing it from the outside for the first time. He realized how blind you became about the things closest to you. On board, the ship really didn’t feel that big, or that impressive. After a while, it had become home, and even a little more than that too. He hadn’t thought he’d ever feel that way about another ship again after he’d disembarked from the Endeavour, but he’d been proven wrong.

He also realized that while he still missed the friendly old face of Cook, he’d found the same friendship, possibly even a deeper such since she was so obviously and flagrantly female, with Mist. She was still quite the mystery to him. He knew, or at least had a good deal of reason to suspect, that she'd chosen her model from his very own past. There was no way she'd let it go with that though but she would've made improvements where she thought she needed them, but he was still quite certain of the original source. Why had she done that, and why did she behave like she did when the two of them were in private? What made it even more confusing was that he was more and more starting to forget, or perhaps ignore, the fact that she wasn't just another organic no matter how much she still constantly showed off the opposite.

“What’s the situation so far?” Halsey asked as they sat down, trying to get his mind off his ship's avatar. “I haven’t heard much since the last time I visited, and that was months ago.”
"I thought you'd get some information from your neighbors." West seemed honestly surprised. "Been keeping that busy mapping Minbari space?"
"It's more like there wasn't much information to be gained from them." Halsey sighed and shook his head in a display of frustration. "They use point to point tachyon beams sent through hyperspace. There's no way we could intercept them without breaking the signal."
"That'd make it hard to get anything without being noticed." West nodded.
"So, what's new?" Halsey repeated.
“Things are pretty much the same in our little pocket of space, though a few things have changed in the war.” West frowned. “The Minbari are closing in on the inner colonies, and Earth is getting a lot more desperate.”
“I’m not surprised.” Halsey sighed. “How are our rescue operations proceeding?”
“Like before. We can usually get between one and two thirds out, it depends on the size of and damage taken by their ships before they go down. The number, and ratio, of recoveries are steadily increasing though.”
“Oh?”
“Earth is running out of their later model ships, and the older ones they bring up instead go down quite a bit faster.” West shook his head. “It’s ironic, actually. Their older ships can’t take the same beating, and because of that fewer people have to die before we can evacuate them.”
“Did we ever get any Minbari, or didn’t we have to?”
“A few, about five hundred so far and except for the surviving crew of the Drala Fi most of them are fighter and freighter pilots.” West shook his head. “Most of them that die do so on the ground and we can’t realistically start beaming away ground forces, especially not ones involved in combat. People would start noticing that they're missing, even if they’d only expect to find bodies, not to mention we’d have to beam them out just before the other side stabs them or shoots them.”
“Understood.” Halsey nodded. "Freighter pilots? I thought Earth Force couldn't kill large Minbari ships?"
"Correction, large Minbari warships." West shrugged. "Not that it makes much difference to the Minbari war effort, but the Earth ships have little problem going up against their supply trains."
"Aren't they guarded by war cruisers?" Halsey raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Even today it's just the odd one, and a few frigates." West made a dry smile. "It's an effect of their class system. The warrior caste control the offensive military forces, while the worker caste takes care of the supply train and maintenance."
"And the warriors see themselves as too valuable to guard supply lines." Halsey quickly followed the thought to its logical conclusion. “It's not that uncommon in class-based societies even in our own history. Where are they now though? Not on Isis I hope?”
“Hardly.” West said darkly. “We tried making it as easy for them as we did with the humans, but the warriors won't accept not being let back home."
"I see." Halsey nodded. "I hope it didn't get too messy?"
"One casualty we couldn't save." West replied grimly. "After that we started to set the warriors we save down in a prefab refugee camp on the M-class moon orbiting Sirius C."
"What about the worker caste refugees?" Halsey asked, before he pointed out. "You specifically said warriors."
"They're held on Horus, and believe it or not those Minbari are actually quite civilized." West shook his head in what looked like disbelief. "There's a massive difference in temperament, and the workers seem almost relieved to be both alive and out of the war. Most of them don't even like the war, ironically enough."
"Sounds like any other civilian." Halsey shrugged. "I'm not surprised, their belligerent faction would naturally be the warriors."
"They're guarded by Klingons, Caitians, Tellarites and Bolians." West added. "The few races we have that can’t be mistaken for human no matter how hard they try.”
"And the warriors?"
"I won't risk our people's lives, nor do I want to have to hurt them, and the only way we could keep them in order was by force." He shrugged. "It's not like they can get off the moon they're on, so we basically leave them to their own devices with the Stingray watching from low orbit. None of our personnel are on the ground."
“Have we gotten any information out of them yet?”
“A little, though we had to resort to holographic and telepathic interrogation.” West frowned. “An unfortunate necessity which I'm not really proud of.”
“Illusions?” Halsey asked, somewhat puzzled.
“No, but we created a holographic disguise that appeared Minbari, and with Major Iona's help we faked a debriefing.” West shook his head. “As I said it's nothing I’m proud of doing, but we had to get a source of information."
"That Iona character scares the living crap out of me you know." Halsey replied with a shiver. "Where'd you get her from anyways?"
"In a sense, I didn't have a choice in the matter either." West frowned. "One of the reasons it was we who went by and evacuated Nelvana was because I was ordered to pick her up. If she hadn't been there they'd probably have sent the 61st, since that task force had a lot more Galaxy-class ships than we did and for that matter an entire detachment of Olympics."
"And when we got trapped here you just couldn't resist using her to get into the Alliance's heads, and now the Minbari's." Halsey gave him a accusing glare. "She is telepathic right, no matter her human appearance?" When West made a slight nod he continued. "Betazoid?"
"Deltan, or at least that's what it says in the file I have on her." West shrugged again. "I won't even guess how many hours she spent under the laser scalpel though, and I really don't want to know. As for letting her in with the Minbari, just like you we still haven’t been able to break into their communications network which drastically reduces my options.”
"Same problems I had, I suppose."
“Quite probably, though now we at least know how and why.” West replied darkly. “Even so, we’ve learned precious little. Apparently the ones we’ve saved are little more than grunts, and even their Captains don’t know much more than their current orders. They have a clan system in addition to the caste system we knew about, and up at the top they’re ruled by a small and apparently very secretive council.”
“And all command decisions are made centrally.” Halsey finished the thought. “Nice.”
“Not quite, but it does let us know their main weakness.” West looked down. “Even so, none of them could tell us who or much less where these Setai, that's their title for the council members, are.”
“Not on Minbar?” Halsey raised an eyebrow.
“No, that much they were actually very clear about.” West replied. “They have a ship, but where it is or even what ship it is, none of them knew.”
“Sounds paranoid.” Halsey shook his head. “They can’t be a very effective government if they’re cut off from their people.”
“I don’t think they necessarily have to be.” West thought loudly. “From what we’ve learned, their civilization is based very strongly on tradition, and those traditions are often enforced by both the clans and the castes. I don’t think their Council has to do much about their people’s day to day lives.”
“Still sounds paranoid.” Halsey reiterated.
“Probably is too.” West admitted. “Either way, we can’t really do much with that information at this time.”
“Very well.” Halsey stood up. “If you’ll excuse me sir, sorry, Samuel. I have to go check with Commander Tyrell where my new cores are. Who knows, maybe he’ll actually listen to an Admiral?”
“Who knows.” West stood up as well and shook the other man’s hand. “He hasn’t yet, but you just might be able to change that. Worst case threaten to throw him into a locked room with Mist.”
"And just how would that make me get my warp cores faster?" Halsey wondered.
"Oh, it won't." West smiled. "But Mist won't complain for a few days and who knows, maybe Tyrell's replacement will be quicker?"
"God." Halsey bent over, laughing too hard. "I think I'll refrain from sharing that with Mist though, she's tied into the transporter systems you know."
"Good point." West replied, and started laughing as well.

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 26


STARFLEET DELPHI ACADEMY
ELYSIUM, SIRIUS
DECEMBER 4TH, 2245


“While fusion-generated power wouldn’t be insufficient in the amounts required total, it would be in the amounts required at a specific location.” She explained and gave him a patient smile. “There is no practical way to transport those amounts of power anywhere far, and much less so produce it on a starship which is limited in size and thus its available space.”
”So, if I understand this correctly, your entire civilization is basically dependant on antimatter power production?” Sheridan asked with visible awe. Military scientists had tried using antimatter in both power production and weapons systems themselves, but the power requirements for producing it combined with the inherent safety problems had forced them to abandon the project.
“That's basically correct.” Sophia nodded. “There was a time when we could still power our ships, orbital and ground systems with fusion power alone, but today it would be quite insufficient. We still produce a lot of fusion power though, and actually even marginally more so than antimatter power.”
“Why?” Sheridan stated the obvious question. “If you can produce even more power with antimatter, why not use it exclusively?”
"There are two reasons, and the first one is easy as you've already nailed it.” The AI smiled. "We have to fuel the process with both matter and power, and while the production of antimatter in terms of power is efficient, it still has enormous power requirements."
"How so?" Sheridan asked. "I'd suppose you could power it by the actual product if it's an efficient process?"
"Under the best of circumstances it requires about forty percent of the power we actually get from the product itself to go into the reaction which produces it.” Sophia explained. "Then there's the magnetic containment, wasted energy dealing with unwanted byproducts and whatnot which puts the power requirement ratio up to about fifty percent."
"Still, why not use antimatter reactors to fuel it then?" Sheridan repeated. "That's still two particles gained per one particle lost."
"Four per actually, as one of the particles used would be regular matter." Sophia corrected. "Our antimatter reactors are mediated, so we don't have neutrino losses, or at least not ones that discernibly impact the reactor's effectiveness. The big issue is that exploding antimatter releases energy faster than we can use it for inversion. Think of it as trying to tap energy from a nuclear bomb. If we could make one small enough to release the amount of energy needed over time rather than amount needed total, we would."
"But if you already have an antimatter reactor available, like on a starship?"
"We use it anyways, yes, as there are other systems available to take on the generation overflow." She nodded. "It's not enough to replenish everything the reactor uses up, but it extends our fuel reserves drastically."
"But you still use fusion power on the planets?" He asked. "Why not do it the same way?"
"Because antimatter generated power is kinetic energy, and you need a non-solid medium in order to transmit it. We use ionized Helium-4 plasma, or in other words the end product from our deuterium fuelled fusion reactors."
"Okay..." Sheridan scratched his neck, he was having problems keeping track with the AI, but thought he was still following.
"In other words, since we need to produce the plasma anyways we can just as well power the process directly with the fusion reactors, something we can't do on a starship since there's no way we could fit a fusion reactor large enough on one. It's not like we use several tons of antimatter per day on a planet though." She winked at him with those sharp light blue eyes.
“Oh.” Sheridan was almost speechless. He’d been awed by the numbers the AI had told him they could get from an antimatter reactor, but now she was telling him they actually produced even more energy just to create the antimatter, and that what went into making it was fusion power. “Wait. You also said that you actually produce more fusion power than antimatter power."
"It comes into the second reason, which also affects the first reason." She gave him a slight smile. "While we have to utilize antimatter power production in several energy demanding technologies, fusion power is a lot safer and especially so in smaller applications."
"And what'd be considered smaller?" He asked.
"Pretty much anything else than larger warp engines, starship-grade shields, deployable armor, particle weapons, industrial replicators or large transporters." She explained with a shrug. "Of course, on a starship most systems can and will at least in part be powered by antimatter anyways, but that's special circumstances."
"How so?"
"Since the starship has an antimatter reactor to power the warp engines, defenses and particle weapons either way, you might as well use it. Even then we need fusion reactors to produce plasma, not only because of the antimatter reactor but also since the impulse engines and thrusters use it as propellant." She chuckled. "The reason we produce a lot of fusion power outside that is because there are no phasers or industrial replicators in most buildings on the planets, nor do we wish to have to rely on hundreds of thousands of miniscule containment grids while inside a strong magnetic field like that on the planet."
"But there is antimatter reactors on the planet, right?" He asked. "What's the difference, you need to rely on them anyways?"
"A few, yes." She nodded. "And the few dozen reactors there are have quite powerful containment fields as well, much larger than what would be possible in a small device. We also store the antimatter in specialized pods, much larger than what would be feasible for a household appliance."
"I see." He frowned. "Why not just do like you do it on a starship and feed them with energized plasma then?"
"Again it's in part an issue of containment, since the plasma is highly energized and quite dangerous if let out into the open. In effect it's alpha radiation heated to several thousand degrees Kelvin and traveling at several hundred meters per second." She explained patiently. "Another part is that it would require us to build a very complex plasma delivery grid, and an equally complex return grid. Compare that to a fusion reactor that's not necessarily much larger than your fist, requiring no outside connections other than a power coupling and a fuel line and if it breaks down all it expels is helium and deuterium, both quite harmless."
"I understand, I think..." He began.
"We may use antimatter on a daily basis, but we're far from ignorant in regards to its inherent dangers." She added. "Even the antimatter production facilities, we call them quantum inversion plants, are located well away from the rest of the civilization on one of the unpopulated moons, more specifically the class K moon of Nepthys. When they've produced a certain amount it's loaded into a purposely designed cargo transport and sent up to the orbital storage facilities at the Isis L5 point."
"I see, I think I remember seeing that happen when I was first brought to Starfleet Command." He nodded. Jesus, he thought, this was insane. “So in essence you use antimatter like we'd use energy cells?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” She nodded and gave him a pleased smile since he finally understood.
“That just sounds equally insane to many other things you've told me.” He shook his head. “How do you produce it though, on my world it required massive supercolliders and megajoules for each particle.”
“That’s the complicated part.” Sophia replied. “We use quantum inversion, which relies on what we call quantum state reversal, or in Earth physics flavor changing.”
“I’m sorry?” He was lost. “What?”
“Quantum state reversal.” She explained. “In essence, we use a heavily modified transporter array. Instead of reconstructing matter the way it was, like the ones we use to transport personnel and materials, these transporters reassemble the matter with reverse electrical charge and particle spin compared to the normal state of the matter we feed in.”
“And that means?” He still didn’t follow.
“That the device will take the electrons and protons in normal atoms, and reverse them to create positrons and antiprotons. Same with neutrons and anti-neutrons.” She smiled. “Or, in other word, transform matter into antimatter.”
“Ah.” His face was still blank, but he’d followed as far as that they had a magic box that transformed matter to antimatter. “I see.”
“Good.” She smiled, a smile that told him she understood that he didn't. “As for what we put into the plant, it’s the opposite of what we want out, which means we’d feed it hydrogen mostly in the form of deuterium, our fusion fuel, but tritium or ordinary hydrogen will typically work just as well but require that we use those kinds of matter as well unless we want an inefficient reaction and large amounts of radiation.”
"Why deuterium and not some other form of matter?" He asked. "After all it's not the most common particle around."
"You should know better, as Earth Force also uses deuterium if by all means unclean such." She noted with pursed lips, obviously disappointed he hadn't realized that. "Deuterium fusion produces no waste particles such as neutrinos, no gamma radiation and has no antimatter reaction involved either. It's not as energy efficient as deuterium-tritium fusion, but again it doesn't produce the radiation that does nor does it require two different kinds of fuel."
“Wouldn’t that require you to produce insane amounts of deuterium, if you also use it for your fusion plants?” He asked. “There can’t be enough naturally occurring to suit your needs.”
“Yes, and no.” She replied. “We harvest it from wherever we can find it, such as gas giants or directly from solar atmospheres, which are naturally abundant sources of it since deuterium is after all the second stage of the solar fusion chain." She thought for a second and then added. "We can also of course produce it in fusion reactors, and just like in a star deuterium production is actually quite energy efficient, but that requires enormous pressure and will of course again produce gamma and neutrino radiation.”
“Fascinating.” Sheridan shook his head. “You use massive amounts of power, but produce it all by what is in essence a clean and non-destructive means. Back home we still have fission plants.”
“Well, we do too.” She smiled. “But granted, not primarily for energy production. We use it to create high-energy particles and heavy metals which don’t occur naturally.”
“Such as?” He asked.
“Without going into detail, several materials which are required in minute quantities in several Starfleet technologies, such as for blocking radiation or for sending it out.”
“Armor and sensors?” Sheridan asked.
“As well as numerous others.” She nodded.
“That sounds logical I suppose.”

He leaned back in his chair to reflect a bit on what he’d learned. At first, he’d expected to only have a few hours available to talk with Sophia. Now, they’d been meeting off and on for the better part of two weeks and he still found he had questions for the AI. She didn’t seem to mind either, since as she said; she appreciated someone who at least understood the basics already.

He’d thought she was joking at first, as she’d explained some things that were on a level so high that he wondered if anyone back at Earth would’ve understood the reasoning behind it. Still, she’d also explained that most of her students didn’t even understand that fusion power, the reaction inside a star, was not only possible for man to control but was a clean, safe and effective means of generating enough power to sustain an interstellar civilization.

Even so, she was a good teacher and good at explaining whatever he wanted to know. He had no doubts that given enough time, she could teach him pretty much anything he wanted, but time was the one thing he didn’t think he had enough of.

“So, to get back to your original question, that’s how we produce enough power to propel our ships faster than the speed of light.”
“Okay.” He rubbed his chin. “How do you get past the problems with acceleration, not to mention the problems of the light speed barrier and relativity?”
“We actually don’t suffer from either.” She smiled. “Instead of propelling the ship forward like a rocket, which is pretty much what the impulse engines, our sub-light drives do, the faster-than-light engines warp the space around the ship instead. In essence, we construct a spatial distortion around the ship and ride it to wherever we want to go.”
“Wait.” He gasped. “You don’t actually move at all?”
“Quite right, we don't.” She nodded in approval of his quick catch. “Though we still carry our entry inertia, we’re effectively stationary in space. It’s the area of space we’re in that moves.”
“That actually wasn’t as hard to understand as you might think.” He explained with a little smile evident on his lips. “Hyperspace works a bit differently, but it is comparable.”
“Please extrapolate on that.” She requested, suddenly a lot more focused. “I don’t know much about hyperspace yet, since we haven’t been able to replicate the technology required.”
“Well, I’m by no means an expert.” Sheridan mused, this was a first. “It behaves much like an ocean, instead of being calm like normal space is it has its own currents and tides. If you want to go somewhere, you need to find the correct route or else you risk getting swept off course and effectively getting lost in space.”
“So space actually moves in hyperspace, like if space itself was a fluid or gas?” Sophia asked. "I think I'm starting to understand what kind of realm it is now..." She trailed off.
“Yes, and as far as I know, always in the same direction at the same place.” He continued. “That’s why you’d have to go through Proxima, or through the extremely treacherous Theta rifts, to get to Earth. Most of the time there’s a countercurrent close to the first one, and you’d navigate that one to get back.”
“Interesting.” She seemed to be recording and analyzing every word he spoke. “So, how do you navigate these currents? Do you have maps?”
“No. It would be impossible to map hyperspace as far as we know.” Sheridan shook his head. “There are no landmarks, and what denser gas formations and nebulae exist are pulled along the tides and currents as well, never appearing the same way or in the same place twice.”
“That’d make it hard to navigate, of course.” She nodded, still spending most of her processing power working on and expanding her theory.
“We normally use beacons, devices that transmit their position into hyperspace from normal space. You pretty much just lock on to it and follow the signal.” He smiled. “Though the explorer ships have a harder time, they have to jump out randomly to actually see where they are.”
“Shouldn’t that be fairly easy, just pick a course and go as far as you need?” Sophia replied.
“Hardly. The forces you experience in hyperspace may just as well turn you around as just shift your course by a few degrees.”
“Of course.” She almost seemed to curse at her mistake, in truth she was barely paying attention anymore as she was still spending most her time on the small but perhaps truly golden egg he'd given her. “Since space itself moves and you have no idea for how far, how fast or in which direction, that’d be impossible.”
“Yes, this is why the explorer ships tend to make many, but very short, jumps.”
“I see.” She nodded.

It was ironic, this Q&A was supposed to be informative to him, but during the course of the two weeks they’d learned surprising amounts of information from him as well. Information they’d been thus far unable to get from their links into the Alliance’s, or other races’ for that matter, computer networks. Apparently, they all guarded their technologies enviously.

She had only forwarded this specific piece information to her twin sister as soon as he’d told her. It was very useful information since they still lacked a complete understanding of hyperspace, and if her theory was correct not only would the two in their minds seriously underestimated AI make a breakthrough of immense proportions, but it would also solve an issue that had been plaguing Starfleet for decades.

“To get back on track." She saved the work she'd made in a highly encrypted file inside her matrix that she doubted even Athena could crack before she'd notice. "The antimatter reaction fuels the warp core, and superheats the helium-4 plasma from the fusion reactors. This plasma is then channeled through the subspace field coils, or as they're called the warp coils, which produce the correct energy wave necessary to form this spatial distortion. We call the distortion itself a warp field, and the exact geometry and motion of the field is dependent on both how the coils are designed, placed and at what frequencies they are operated.”
“I see.” He nodded. “I suppose these coils are those big glowing tubes on your ships?”
“Good guess.” She smiled. “They’re part of the nacelles, the correct name for the tubes, but aren't quite all of them. They also include the ship’s Bussard collectors, which are hydrogen ram scoops used to gather fuel for the fusion and antimatter reactors.”
“Ah.” He thought about the answer for a second. “How come there are different designs, and even different amounts of these nacelles, and what difference does their location do?” He asked. “While most seem to have them on top, I’ve seen others with them below the hull too.”
“Yes, like the Luna and Nebula classes.” She nodded. “Their location is mostly dependant on the overall ship design; you want them as short as possible to require as small a warp field as possible. There’s also other variables involved, for example a longer warp field will allow for a higher speed but at a higher expenditure of energy.”
“I see, and the different designs and amounts?”
“Cosmetic, to a part, but also the size and shape depends on the amount of, and setup of, the warp coils inside." She explained. "A larger ship will require a more powerful warp field, and as such more coils and more energy. You’d either add more coils inside the same nacelle, which you can do to a point, or add another nacelle.”
“I see.” He at least thought he understood. “So that’s why those Valkyria-class ships have these 'sandwiches' as I heard them being called?”
“Yes.” She replied with a short nod. “They’re larger than the Sovereign, but share mostly the same nacelle design. Thus, they need four of them albeit they were placed in very close proximity to each other and welded together to eliminate the need for two extra pylons.”
“Wouldn’t three work too?” He asked.
“It would, but it’d introduce another factor.” She explained. “Warp field geometrics. Three nacelles would create an almost triangular warp field, and that’d require a much more precisely calculated setup than using four in a parallelogram position.”
“I see. So why don’t you use four nacelles all the time?” He asked, though he thought he knew at least part of the answer already he wanted to check if he'd gotten it right.
“Not only is it simpler to calculate, but two is typically the optimal solution between stability and maneuverability." She replied. "The more stable the warp field, the harder it is to maneuver, and the more nacelles you have the more stable your field would become, at least to the point where it effectively becomes a cylinder.”
“I see.” He understood that part. Like having an engine pushing forward in each corner of your ship when you try to turn.”
“A bad analogy, but fairly correct either way.” She replied.
“Thank you.” He smiled. "Not often I can use experience from piloting Starfuries in this place."

She was almost about to smile, but seemed to get interrupted. She went blank again for a second, and when she resumed she had a certain look on her face, one he didn’t like very much.

“You have to leave.” She spoke quickly. “Commander Starfleet requires your immediate presence.”
“Something the matter?” He asked, surprised.
“Yes, but I’m not the person that should explain.” She started to fade. “Now, go!”


USS VICTORY
FEDERATION DEFIANT-CLASS GUNSHIP
ORION SYSTEM, TWO HOURS EARLIER


It’d been silent around Orion lately; ever since the Earth Alliance had shut down their jump gates in order to not broadcast their positions to the Minbari navy, traffic in and out had been limited to their military ships and a few albeit well defended supply convoys. The former seemed to always turn up at the same time, and the latter even at the same location. This led the Starfleet personnel to believe that they had a strict schedule, and kept to it rigorously to avoid drawing suspicion.

“So far I'm still reading nothing.” Ops reported behind her. “They should be here any second though.”

They had always jumped in at sixteen hundred hours, Earth standard time, and had never missed that window by more than two minutes. She looked at the counter on top of the viewscreen, now showing the hour plus two minutes and change. Could something have changed in their scheduling?

The Victory had been left behind as a scout while the rest of their squadron went back home for supplies, and while no one had really expected anything to happen there was still the odd chance. So, here she was, babysitting an Earth task force who in turn babysat a small civilian colony. Boring for sure, but a job she’d been assigned and thus was required to do. And even though she was rapidly getting bored to tears, no-one knew exactly where or for that sake when the Minbari might show up.

Ironically, the detection grid they'd built as an early warning grid against the Vorlons was mostly worthless in this conflict, as it only covered the obvious route between their own two systems and Vorlon space. The only Alliance systems it'd cover was the small mining colony at Cyrus, Deneb and only intermittently Earth itself. The reason was simple, they'd decided against putting them around the major Alliance hyperspace routes to get less false alarms, but it was still damned inconvenient right now.

“Ah, there they are.” Ops seemed relieved. “Tunneling particles, exactly where they were supposed to be.”
“Later than usual.” Helm responded. The timer sat at just over three minutes past four now.
“A bit too murdering schedule, maybe?” Ops joked back.
“Not entirely funny, seeing the risks they take.” Helm wasn’t amused.

She didn’t really listen to the bickering, but focused on the bluish sinkhole in space that was forming. It reminded her of the Celestial Temple back home, though a little too brightly blue and without the flash of light as it opened or closed. Still, it felt comforting. For a second, she lost herself in the blue swirl and missed the first agitated call from Ops.

“Captain!” He repeated. “Those aren’t human cargo haulers and cruisers!”

She looked back out, he was right. The ominous fish-like fins on the massive dark blue ships were a telltale sign of what was to come. Minbari. Wait, Minbari? At Orion?!

“The Earth Force defense forces are responding!” Tactical exclaimed, he’d been caught off-guard as well. “Dreadnoughts and cruisers are making emergency starts, won’t help them much though!”
“Explain!” Kira turned around and started to run back to her seat.
“Most of them are still trapped in the planet's gravity well!” Tactical called back. “They can’t maneuver!”

The jump point had been placed close enough to the defenders to allow instant target verification, as well as support from the orbital defenses in case something like this happened, but it also meant that the Earth Force ships had to stay close to the planet’s gravity well, in essence fighting from the low ground and hoping their closed ranks would be sufficient to make up the difference.

“Here they come!” Ops called out, as even more vortexes opened up beside the first. “Reading three, no, five, seven vortexes!”
“Seven Sharlin and a number of smaller vessels!” Tactical responded. “A raiding party, perhaps?”
“Seems like it.” Helm responded. “It's too small to be a true invasion force.”
“Won’t matter much.” Tactical replied with a grim face. “Most of the garrison left to join the fleet at Jericho just yesterday.”
“True.” Helm nodded. “Your orders, ma’am?”
“Move us closer to the Earth ships.” She sighed. “And send a priority message to Starfleet Command.”
“Won’t help much.” Ops replied. “Sirius is almost fifteen light years away, it would take Starfleet reinforcements at least ten hours to arrive even at flank speed.”
“Send it anyways!” She barked. “Don’t just sit there Ensign, move us closer to the Earth ships!”
“Aye, ma’am!” He snapped to and entered the appropriate commands. “Course and speed laid in, we’re moving.”
“Good.” She sat down in her chair. “Get the EMH up and running, and make sure we have room to receive casualties.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ops nodded. “We won’t be able to take on a whole lot though. The Victory isn’t exactly the size of a Galaxy.”
“How many?” She asked, but she already knew the horrible truth. “Tell me.”
“Well…” Ops hesitated. He didn’t want to say the numbers out loud. “Best case, a hundred and fifty.”
“How’s that best case?” She wondered. “Isn’t that the design standard?”
“Aye.” Ops replied. “But we’ve been refit twice since, and the extended defenses and secondary reactors have reduced the available space. Best guess, we’d be able to take a hundred, and we’d almost be piling them in the torpedo tubes too at that point.”
“That’s not even what we’d normally save off a single Hyperion…” She sighed as she looked at the display, seeing the not a single but rather almost two dozen cruisers in orbit turn against their enemy. “Very well.”

The battle had begun as abruptly as the enemy forces had arrived. Almost immediately after exiting hyperspace the Minbari cruisers had opened fire on the Earth garrison. Two Hyperions took a heavy beating from the Sharlins' neutron masers and started to list before they’d even gotten a chance to get a single shot off. The Minbari had time for a second salvo, which effectively quartered one of the damaged cruisers as it was cut into four almost equally sized chunks by continuous maser fire, before the Earth forces even started to fire back.

“That’s it, we’re full.” Ops stated, cooler than he’d expected.
“Already?!” Kira replied from her chair.
“Yes, we’re currently carrying a hundred and two survivors.” He sighed. “I programmed the computer to prioritize the ones with the stronger life signs. They should all be unconscious though, I flooded all compartments they were beamed into with anesthizine gas.”
“Good.” She nodded and felt terribly powerless. “Then, we can’t do anything more?”
“No, ma’am.” Ops shook his head, a single tear falling down his cheek. “We can’t.”

The Minbari had taken formation outside the optimal firing range of the human cruisers, bombarding the latter with antimatter and neutron fire. Most shots hit, and the hits they scored were crippling to the defenders. The Earth forces had to maneuver to get clear of the gravity well, and at the same time they were effectively suppressed under heavy enemy fire. It was hardly the best tactical situation to be in, but even so the massive planetary defense grids had now finally activated and were starting to spew their loads of laser and missile fire at the invaders.

They used their energy weapons much like they had at Beta 9, and all battles since then, she realized. The Earth Force gunners were targeting the general area the enemy ships were in rather than the ships themselves. It worked, apparently, though most shots missed they did score several hits. One of them, a nuke judging by the massive orb of blue energy it created, managed to hit one of the Minbari directly on the rear fin. It was almost sheared off by the explosion, and the ship rapidly started to lose control and veer off course.

It was terrifying. In the close formation the Minbari had chosen, the ships had little maneuvering space even to begin with. With no ability to correct its course, it started to drift into its neighbor. The two ships would have collided if the second ship hadn’t made a quick course correction, but even so, it managed to break up the Minbari formation for a minute, allowing the humans’ barrage to score many more hits on the drifting Sharlin.

“The Hyperions are starting to get out of the gravity well.” Tactical stated.
“Good work.” Her Bajoran helm officer replied. “Give them hell, guys.”

She nodded. It was hard not to play favorites in a battle like this, no matter their official neutrality and vow to rescue both sides if and when possible. After all, these guys were human, and even if she was a Bajoran she found it hard not to root for the home team so to speak. She’d known humans for years, she’d even fought for Bajor to join the Federation which was originally a human idea and construct, and even though these humans weren’t the ones she was used to they were still very much human. She'd often wondered if the tenacity to fight on no matter the odds was an oddity reserved for Starfleet, but now that she'd seen and kept witnessing the Earth Force crews do much the same she realized it was a human trait that Starfleet had more or less adopted and not the other way around.

The battle almost seemed to turn for a moment, the humans started to get into an efficient formation and were able to turn their normally devastating broadsides towards the Minbari cruisers. They scored a number of direct hits on the disabled cruiser, a sitting target wasn’t much of a challenge even when you had to resort to optical targeting, and broke through the outer armor with relative ease. A number of plasma bolts into the breach caused the ship to lose what little remained of its propulsion systems, and it hung silently in space.

It didn’t take long for the Minbari to regain their composure though, and seconds later almost a half dozen of the glimmering antimatter bolts shot out, each finding a target near the human cruisers’ engine section. Not normally considered killing blows, they were still enough to cause a severe problem while still in position close to a planet, and it effectively stopped the stricken ships from maneuvering any further out of orbit.

One of the surviving Alliance dreadnought started to accelerate quickly, glowing blue lines forming behind the massive ship's equally massive ion engines. The Nova's bow laser cannons flared to life and bit into the disabled war cruiser's exposed front but did little real damage, and Kira felt a shiver go down her spine as she realized what the ship was about to do. The Minbari cruisers stopped firing at the accelerating ships for a moment, seemingly having been to caught up in their slaughter to notice the lone vessel, but it was too late. The dreadnought plowed straight into the side of the Sharlin and at the area where the two connected she could see fragments of the war cruiser's armor reflect in the sunlight, almost looking like broken glass. A second later the Nova finally succumbed to the massive damage it had endured from the impact, and the resulting explosion tore the entire side of the Sharlin away from the rest of the ship, leaving a crater that spanned from bow to stern and vented most if not all decks to space.

The rest of the Minbari opened fire on the remaining Alliance garrison with renewed fury, almost as if they wished to avenge their fallen comrade, and the exchange of fire continued albeit much more intensified for another minute, the humans kept taking severe casualties but never for an instant stopped firing. They were down to five ships, and they weren’t looking good. The defense grids shot out a last scream of defiance, their missiles with their deadly cargo passing just below the keel of the Victory.

Then, it all changed.

It took a few seconds for her to get the fog out of her head, but she still had stars in her vision. She didn’t realize it at first, but she was on the floor, and someone was screaming.

“Captain! Are you all right?!”

It was Ensign Velon at helm. It had to be, she couldn’t see him clearly for some reason, she realized she had double vision, but she could make out his ear piece and except for her he was the only officer on board who wore one. What had happened, why was she on the floor?

“Captain!” Ensign Velon yelled again.

She started to move, tried to get back up. She realized she was almost lying at his station, almost two meters from where her seat was.

“I’m…” She tried to speak. “I’m... I'm fine. What happened?”
“Hell broke loose!” He exclaimed.. “We’re hit!”

She drowsily looked around. What she saw brought her back to reality. Her seat had been covered by debris, and the operations and tactical stations were… they weren’t there anymore. For a second she couldn’t understand why the officers there didn’t move. Then she saw the blood.

“Damn it!” She exclaimed. “What happened, exactly?”
“A whole shitload of the human missiles were shot down and detonated just a few clicks off our stern.” Helm replied. “We took the brunt of the blow, and without shields or armor the EMP hit us hard, ma’am.”
“No doubt.” She shook her head and rubbed her ears to get rid of the residual ringing. “Status?”
“Warp drive is inoperable, but, ma’am, we have a bigger problem.” He sighed. “We’re visible, the energy wave overloaded the cloaking device.”

Outside, the battle raged on. Humans were targeting the Minbari, who in turn were targeting the humans. It only lasted a few more seconds though, as the last of the human cruisers turned into a burning ball of fire that slowly descended towards the planet.

“Can you get us out of here?” Kira almost whispered.
“I can try, but it won’t work.” The Ensign, she’d never learned his name, replied. “One of the manifolds was damaged so we’re limited to one quarter impulse power, I'd say we'd cap out at one tenth of the speed of light.”
“Damn, those fishes can do twice that.” She screamed internally. This was exactly what couldn’t happen.

She looked around in the cramped bridge, most of the chairs were empty, both due to the lack of experienced crew and because she’d let half of what she had go back with the rest of the squadron to get some shore leave. She ran over to the engineering console, and tapped a few controls.

“Computer, transfer tactical control to the engineering station.” She sighed. “Authorization Kira three-three-zulu.”
“Confirmed.” The computer’s synthesized voice replied even though slightly distorted.
“Let’s hope they don’t notice us.” She leaned back and looked at the main display. “Kira to engineering, report.”
“Engineering here.” The reply was filled with static. “What the hell happened, Captain?”
“We got caught in one hell of a nuclear blast.” She sighed again. “What’s your ETA on the warp drive?”
“About an hour, and that's probably a low estimate.” Her chief engineer never overestimated a time, but he’d been known to do the opposite. “And considering how the cloaking device looks I have to add it's only valid if we’re left alone.”
“Sorry, not possible.” She responded. “What’s the status on the shields and weapons?”
“Operational, ma’am. The armor generators are a bit banged up from the blast damage though, and I wouldn't bet my last credit that there aren't kinks in the shield grid too.”
“How badly?” She countered.
“Enough.” She could hear the shake of his head. “The ventral armor generators are completely offline, and I haven’t been able to check the side armor yet. If we got hit by a nuke though…”
"Not just one." Kira nodded silently. “I know. There’s a good chance they’ll be offline for a while.”

She terminated her communication and sighed yet once more as she saw the Minbari ships turning.
They had noticed her.

It always surprised her how fast the massive Minbari war cruisers could turn, and even more so how fast they seemed to be. She knew that her own ship was by far superior to them in both aspects, but a Defiant-class gunship wasn't even close to the size or mass of a Sharlin. It only served to strengthen the feeling of awe she got as they lined up their massive cannons on her tiny ship.

“Raising shields and charging weapons.” She exclaimed, and watched the meter on her display rise slowly as the shields went up.
“They’re closing.” Ensign Velon stated. “And, they’re targeting us.”
“Evasive actions, Ensign.”
“Right.” He nodded and punched in a randomly selected series.

The small ship started to dive and duck as the Minbari fired their main weapons, the massive neutron cannons, at it. They missed by hundreds of kilometers and the Victory was still safe, the Minbari were probably scratching their bony heads wondering what the hell happened. The second volley included missiles, probably the same kind the humans used, she thought. Well, with shields they shouldn’t hurt too much and there was little chance they'd actually be able to keep up with the now wildly turning and twisting gunship.

“We can't get through this on the defensive. Attack pattern Delta.” She stated coolly, and targeted the closest Sharlin. “I'm locked on, firing.”

The Defiant class isn’t known for its size, speed, or maneuverability. It is known because of it being the test bed for the pulsed phaser cannons, arguably some of the most powerful particle cannons in their own home quadrant. In a roar of anger, the Victory spoke its defiance. A long series of glowing yellow balls of cohesive high-energy particles traveled the distance between her and the closest Sharlin at near the speed of light, and the effectiveness was undeniable. The armor shattered after only a few shots had hit it, and the rest of the shots cut deep into its innards. She was consciously aiming for areas where the enemy ships' weapons and drive systems were located, and also trying to avoid the sections which had the largest amounts of life signs.

“Direct hit.” Helm stated. “Continuing attack pattern, this time Gamma.”
“Great, they won't know what hit them.” Kira replied, the adrenaline had started to flow through her system and she could care less that she was not only disregarding orders, but the entirety of the Prime Directive as well. "Oh well, if we get through this they can court martial me at home." She said silently to herself. "I prefer that to being dead any day."

Yet more of her well-aimed phaser fire found its target, and unlike the Earth Force ships Starfleet subspace sensors had little problem digging through the Minbari ECM. The second Sharlin was almost dismembered, the phaser bolts digging a trench that almost reached from one end of the top fin to the other. It started to list heavily as it lost a good amount of its attitude control, but fired back nevertheless. The return fire did little damage as most of it went wild and what actually struck hit the shields, but instead showed the shield grid as a blue transparent second skin around the ship.

“Damage to the shields, but minimal.” Helm said.
“Keep going.” She bit her tongue. “Next target.”

The next series of phaser bolts went into the already disabled cruiser and hit something that didn’t seem to react too well with Nadion radiation. A series of secondary explosions littered the port side, ejecting massive amounts of debris into the surrounding area of space. She almost cheered, until she saw that she’d been flanked by the other cruisers. One had managed to take up position behind her, having seen what she had not.

It just wasn’t the Victory’s day.

Of the massive Minbari counter-attack, only few shots hit, but it was enough. What Kira had missed in her enthusiasm was that due to the damage to the ship, the rear shields weren’t working properly and as such only parts of her ship was actually protected by them. The shield was there and showed up on her grid, sure, it just wasn't operating at the correct frequencies to block the Minbari neutron masers and thus couldn't help them. The several meters wide particle beams found its mark, digging deep into the stern armor and after a few hits they even started tearing through the hull.

“Captain!” Helm called out, almost panicked.
“I felt it too, Ensign!” She called back. “Phekk! The rear shields malfunctioned!”
“I’ve lost almost all impulse control, and what I have is extremely low power!” He replied.
“Calm down, Car.” She said. “Any chance of repairs?”
“Negative.” He replied. “Main engineering is heavily damaged, and what remained of the impulse drive is now completely unresponsive. I have little more than thrusters left.”
“Very well.” She shook her head. “So this is how it’s going to be. Can you take us closer to the planet?”
“Barely, but why?” Helm didn’t understand.
“We can’t win, not in the state we're in.” She shook her head. “We’ll have to scuttle her.”
“Ma’am!” He protested, still panicked.
“Calm yourself, Ensign.” She replied in a sharp tone. “If we die here we leave behind whatever can be salvaged, and I don't know about you but I really don't like the idea of a Minbari Sharlin gunning through the Earth defenses with phaser cannons or quantum torpedoes. I want you to bring us closer to the planet, so that when the self-destruct goes off the remains will burn up in the atmosphere!”
“A…aye, Captain.” He stuttered, but did as he was told.
“I’ll set the autodestruct, as well as send my report and ship's logs to Starfleet.”

As they moved, they exposed their unprotected rear again, allowing another Minbari cruiser to take a cheap shot at it. The red lights that started to blink all around them told Kira exactly what had happened, and what would happen in just a few seconds.

“Well then.” She stood up. “Seems I just wasted time setting it, as we won’t even have to bother with the self-destruct.”
“Obviously.” Helm stood up as well.
“Computer, activate transport. Emergency evacuation of all on-board personnel and evacuees to a remote area of the planet.” She sighed and took a last look at her command. “Authorization Kira three-three-zulu.”

The once-proud shape of the Victory seemed to almost jump in space as it started to skip on the outer edge of the atmosphere of Orion IV, but within just a few seconds the ship seemed to vanish only to be replaced by a bright white flash. The damage caused by the Minbari weapons, which under normal circumstances would just barely be able to draw a few percent away from the shields, had not only destroyed most of the ship's main engineering bay but also damaged their antimatter pod's containment grid, and now that the antimatter was at last free to react with matter the result was a massive explosion that seemed to sweep away every single cloud visible in the sky above the Alliance colony world.

The Minbari moved in closer, made a few sensor sweeps, and then decided that whatever that ship was they had to know more. Minutes later, a few dozen smaller ships were exiting the remaining few Sharlin and rapidly descended towards the planet.

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 27


STARFLEET COMMAND
ELYSIUM, SIRIUS


It was somewhere in the twilight that came between the late night and early morning in Elysium, though someone used to the darkness that reigned during the nights on Earth probably wouldn’t call it that. Isis and Osiris, Sirius' two largest and closest moons, were both in full over the small peninsula and the two moons reflected more than enough of the stars' white light to make the discreet streetlights unnecessary even at deepest midnight.

One of the first things the exiles had been forced to grow accustomed to was the sharper than normal sunlight, with the white stars giving off a cooler but quite a bit brighter light than that of Sol, and the grand total of seven moons helping to turn nighttime into a mere mockery of what one would expect on Earth. The fact that Isis and Sirius were tidally locked to each other also ensured that even if none of the other five that could be were visible at all, that moon would always give more light than Luna ever could.

Halsey didn’t really think much about it though as there was never any real night on a starship either. His ship had finished her refit and checkup, and after successfully completing a shakedown cruise around the system just basically to see that nothing shook loose he’d been scheduled to leave on a routine patrol mission just hours from now. The sudden and apparently acute emergency request for his presence down on the planet was as unexpected as it was unprecedented.

Of course he hadn’t been an Admiral for very long, just a couple of weeks, but he hadn’t found yet that he had that much to do that required his immediate attention and with no previous warning. Apparently though, that was about to change. Admiral West’s request had been urgent and at least to the Admiral enough so to be coded ultraviolet as well, the highest message priority that existed in Starfleet.

He paused as he reached the side entrance to the Starfleet Command complex, letting the almost invisible computer terminal scan his retina to verify his clearance. Only the top Starfleet brass had access to this specific door since it led directly into the very heart of the complex, the Admiralty office corridor. The scan only took a one or two seconds and then the carefully camouflaged door silently slid open. If he hadn’t known it was there he’d never have found it, and even as he'd been both told and shown where it was he found to his surprise that he was more than a meter away from where the door actually did open.

He nodded to himself and entered the dark opening, only to be met by salutes from three previously unseen and heavily armed marines that were apparently stationed there to guard the door. He returned the salute with a snap and continued walking. It was only a few dozen meters' walk to the main command conference room and that was where he was supposed to go. He barely looked at the adorned walls or for that sake even noticed the bustle of command-level officers around him, focusing instead on his own two feet. He almost bumped into the door leading into the conference room, but to his luck it opened with a sharp hiss before that happened and the noise made him raise his head.

“Halsey.” Jahari gave him a toothy smile that bared his canines, and motioned for him to enter. “Good that you could make it, we’re just waiting for Admiral West to arrive.”
“Heron, Elisha.” Halsey nodded to the two Admirals already in the room. “And, of course, Janet and Helen.”
“Admiral.” The two Commodores gave a quick nod, Keyes barely even seemed to notice him, apparently completely engrossed in a pad she was holding, but at least nodded to answer his greeting. “Congratulations, by the way.” Valeris added.
“Thanks, I guess.” Halsey made a thin smile as he looked around. "My, my. West is the last to arrive? That's a first."

As if the subject of his gibe had heard his comment Halsey was interrupted by the sound of the door hissing open again, and turning around he saw the obviously tired face of Admiral West enter the room, along with that Earth officer, Sheridan wasn’t it, following him close behind. Beyond the tiredness however West looked agitated, and more than that he looked worried. Halsey couldn’t remember seeing that look on the Admiral’s face since before they’d been stranded here.

“At ease, Halsey.” West stated simply. "Halsey, Grayson. You haven't met this man before, this is Commander John Sheridan of the Earth Space forces. Sheridan, the people present you haven’t met yet are Rear Admiral George Halsey, the person in charge of Fleet Command, and Commodore Helen Grayson of the 221st cruiser flotilla.”
“A pleasure to meet you both.” Sheridan nodded to the two flag officers.
“Very well then.” West sat down with Sheridan on his left. “Let me explain why I've summoned you all here on such short notice. Just over forty minutes ago Space Command received a report from the Victory, who had been left behind to monitor the Orion system while her squadron, the 196th, came back here to resupply and make her scheduled crew rotation.”

Valeris nodded, as the 196th squadron was hers.

“It seems a Minbari raiding force decided that was a good time to attack the system, and Captain Kira decided to report the change in situation.”
“Very well.” Grayson nodded and made a grim face. “It’s a great tragedy that it happened while the rest of Valeris' squadron was away, but there’s not really all that much we can do about it. By all accounts the battle should already be over, and even if it's not we can’t get over there fast enough to save more men. Even at flank speeds it's well over fifteen light years which would take ten hours best case, and I doubt we could hold that kind of warp factor for that duration.”
“Wait.” Sheridan said. “The Minbari has attacked Orion?!”
“Yes.” West nodded. “According to the transmission, seven Sharlin class cruisers and a few Tinashi attacked the colony.”
“Only seven, well, there should be more than a hundred Earth Force starships in defense there, along with a massive defense grid.” Sheridan shook his head. “The Minbari wouldn’t take those odds, they'd take unacceptably high losses if our ships got desperate.”
“They didn’t.” West closed his eyes. “Most of the Earth ships stationed there were called away to join the sixth fleet at Jericho, as Earth Intelligence calculated that would be the next logical strike on their way to Earth. Orion is in the other direction and was deemed an unlikely target.”
"Called away?" Sheridan suddenly went very, very pale. “They… they’d be slaughtered.”
“True.” Grayson agreed. “The Minbari don’t usually leave a whole lot of survivors behind, and the Victory could hold what?”
“A hundred or so most likely.” Jahari interjected. “That’s not the heart of the problem however, it gets worse.”
“What could be worse than that?” Valeris replied with a hint of sorrow in her otherwise dry Vulcan voice.
“About twenty minutes ago we received a second transmission from the Victory.” West said sadly. “An emergency transmission which included the last twenty minutes of the ship’s log.”
“What?!” Valeris went gray. “That’d only happen…”
“If the ship went down.” West finished the sentence with a grim voice. “That is quite correctly what’s happened if we trust the logs included.”
“How?” Grayson stated more than asked. “Did they suffer some kind of accident?”
“Well, yes and no.” Jahari replied. “My engineers have been over the logs with a fine-tooth comb in order to explain it, and it looks like they were the victims of some very bad timing and even worse luck, combined with some truly piss poor battlefield positioning.”
“Explain, Jahari.” Grayson didn’t let it go. "That's no answer."
“Very well.” Jahari nodded and made a small raspy sigh. “The Victory had moved in to evacuate what personnel they could, and after doing that they remained within the battlefield but well out of the established lines of fire. However, a volley of nuclear missiles from the planetary defense grid passed very close by the ship, and the Minbari ships targeted them with their long range neutron beams. The missiles chain-reacted and pretty much all of them exploded very close to the Victory. The resulting shockwave and high-energy radiation blast hit her hard.”
“Okay, but how did that manage to result in the ship being disabled or destroyed?” Valeris replied inquisitively. “I know the Defiant-class only has old-fashioned copies of Romulan cloaking devices, and not the phase cloaks most of our other ships have, but even so the Victory should be able to handle a fusion warhead with little problem even if it did knock out the stealth grid.”
“It wasn't just one warhead, but even then there’s where it gets tricky.” Jahari continued. “The Earth Alliance uses a different kind of nuclear weapons than we’re used to and our ship's systems are designed to handle.” He nodded towards Sheridan. “Do you know the difference, Commander?”

Sheridan almost blushed as the eyes of the entire room turned towards him. He was in luck though, as Sophia had explained a large part of this just a few hours earlier.

“It’s not about the fusion reaction itself, but about which fuels we use and how we actually ignite the reaction, isn’t it?” Sheridan looked and saw the pleased look on the feline man’s face. “You achieve it through igniting deuterium with antimatter, while we use a nuclear fission reaction to ignite tritium, and then reinforce the reaction with uranium and cobalt. No matter what little difference that may make to the yield, there are as I understand it very large differences in the amount of and types of radiation produced.”
“Correct, a gold star for Sophia right there.” Jahari nodded and smiled a little. "Do you also know why they didn't just burn up when the Minbari struck them down?"
"I do, I've seen it happen before." Sheridan nodded. "Since they're fission ignited, and you ignite a fission reaction with free neutrons, their neutron beams will cause the warheads to explode."
"Very good, Commander." Jahari seemed impressed. “You're quite correct, and as you said there's a difference in radiation produced as well. Our fusion warheads almost exclusively produce radiation in the form of photon and gamma radiation, while theirs along with the previously mentioned produce very large amounts of free neutrons as well as a massive electromagnetic and microwave radiation pulse from the fission reaction. The result is an EMP wave that while it can easily be stopped by shields penetrates all but the heaviest of metals and severely affects electronic systems and, as you know, bio-neural systems.”
“I see.” Valeris went pale. “Chin’toka all over again?”
“Not quite.” Jahari continued. “Even with close to fifty warheads chain-reacting and causing a pulse strong enough to penetrate the armor, there was insufficient energy in the blast to permanently damage the ship. It did however manage to knock out several systems temporarily including the cloaking device and warp drive."
"How does an EMP knock out the warp drive?" Grayson recoiled. "It's not an electronic system!"
"No, but the magnetic part of the EMP will disrupt the containment fields." West interjected. "The warp drive safeties will kick in within microseconds."
"Quite correct, and after a few minutes you can start it up again without problems." Jahari nodded. "However, with the ship reduced to a skeleton crew and with several officers likely killed either by the radiation or by the kinetic impact, it may as well have been destroyed. The ship was still maneuverable but several systems had failed in the impact area.”
“Such as?” West asked.
“Some of the external armor generators, one of the impulse manifolds and the aft shield spectrum controls.” The Caitian almost sighed. “The latter they learned about the hard way, according to the logs.”
“Continue, what happened then?” Valeris and Grayson both motioned him on.
“The last of the Earth Alliance garrison was quickly taken out by the Minbari raid force, while the Victory tried to hide in plain sight by staying still and operating on silent mode." He looked to the Earth Force Commander. "You'll want to hear that your colleagues managed to take down another Sharlin, albeit they did so by ramming it with a Nova dreadnought."
"I understand." Sheridan looked saddened, but quickly made a hard face. "Their sacrifice will be remembered."
"It didn’t work for long though, and the Minbari soon attacked the Victory." Jahari continued. "As the warp drive was disabled and their impulse drive damaged they could neither outrun them nor escape the battlefield.”
“I see.” Valeris shook her head. "Trapped in the line of fire with nowhere to hide."
“Kira kept radio silence as ordered and tried to fight her way out by disabling the Minbari cruisers' engines.” West replied and shook his head. “It almost worked too, she’d already taken out the drive fins of two Sharlin when the remaining ones noticed the gaps in her shield bubble.”
“Wait… the Victory?” Sheridan gasped in awe. “Wasn’t that ship one of those really small ships I saw up at the shipyards?”
“Yes.” Keyes nodded. “A Defiant-class gunship.”
“But… that ship is only just over a hundred meters long! Not even the size of a corvette!” He almost spat it out. “It… took out… two Sharlin? By itself?!”
“Yes, quite so.” Grayson nodded again. “It was apparently severely damaged which explains why it lost the engagement. At least that’s the result I’m expecting to hear considering the long-winded explanations.”

Sheridan couldn’t understand how she could so callously state that. He’d learned so much about this civilization and about their incredible technological and scientific superiority over all the other races that he’d ever even heard about, but to hear the people around this table make excuses for why one of their ships, correction, one of the smallest class of ships in their entire fleet, could only take out two full-sized Minbari war cruisers before it was shot down…

“Apparently.” West nodded and interrupted Sheridan's train of thought. “The ship suffered several direct hits on her aft hull and some of them managed to damage the nacelles and engineering bay. Not critically, but enough so that she’d be crippled without a full engineering team. The last hit damaged the antimatter storage pod and instead of ejecting it and admit defeat, she decided to bring the ship to just above the atmosphere of the planet and then scuttle her. The pod breaching should be a very effective scuttling charge.”
“Thank gods.” Keyes sighed. “That way there’d be little enough left to identify for the Minbari.”
“That may be, Elisha, but I think the reason for the apparent hurry in convening us here is that we’re left with quite a conundrum.” Valeris said insightfully. “I assume Captain Kira and her crew weren't stupid enough to go down with the ship?”
“No.” Jahari shook his head. “She and her crew emergency evacuated to a remote and unpopulated part of the planet.”
“I see.” Janet nodded. “That’s it, then? We just send someone over there to pick them up?”
“It's not quite that simple, no.” Jahari frowned and made a grimace that bared his sharp canines. “Just before the emergency beacon transmitted its final report it took a picture.” He motioned to the large display on the wall.

The image showed a large and still glowing debris field, seemingly blocking out the sun itself. In the foreground they could clearly see four Sharlin in tight formation, their fin-like structures unique enough to make the class distinction easy even for those who’d never seen them first hand before. The two disabled craft were also visible, though quite a bit behind the others with obvious signs of battle damage. Sheridan just glanced at the screen before he saw what the Admiral had indicated without words. His face went even another shade lighter.

“Minbari landing craft.” Sheridan pointed. “At least a dozen.”
“Right.” West nodded with a concerned wrinkle in his forehead. “We actually counted thirty-eight of them, on this image alone.”
“We’re all in trouble then, both your people and mine in the colony.” Sheridan sighed deeply. “A single Sharlin can carry hundreds, even thousands, of warriors. Even if these aren't deployed with what we'd call a whole lot of support, as in armor, air support and artillery, it'll still be a lot of soldiers. Our own intelligence estimated that each landing craft usually carried a full company, or some hundred and fifty soldiers, when they landed at other Earth colonies.”
“That’d mean they may have landed upwards of five thousand troops.” Valeris went pale as well. “Nerys and her people don’t stand a chance.”
"That's not unlikely." Sheridan nodded. "We usually don't have a problem repelling ground attacks, the Minbari warriors are able enough soldiers but their complete lack of battlefield support make them extremely vulnerable. Orion doesn't have an Earth Force ground force though, it never did."
“Quite right, and no, Janet.” Halsey spoke up for the first time. “She doesn’t, not unless they get help. The Victory only has a crew of forty when they’re at capacity. She doesn’t have a full crew, and many of them will be wounded or dead since the battle in orbit. I don’t give her any chance at all unless we can get to her very quickly.”
“We have to, as we can’t let them capture her, or any other Starfleet crewman.” Keyes bit her lip. “If they do, they’ll not only learn the truth about the Victory but they may very well learn of our presence here in our two systems.”
“Then what should we do?” Grayson replied sourly. “Go there in force and rescue them? We'd be throwing even the slightest remains of our non-interference and neutrality policy out the window.”
“Perhaps a more covert operation would be better suited to our operational needs?” Jahari said. “We send in another ship under phase cloak and beam up the survivors of the Victory before the Minbari get to them?”
“Too risky, and not really practical either.” Keyes stated while shaking her head. “There’s no way we could pinpoint every human crewman on a planet full of human colonist, and I really don't want to chance that they’re all wearing their communicators.”
“Plus that there's the risk that one or more has already been captured.” Valeris added. “In which case we’d be revealing our transporter technology to the Minbari or Earth colonists.”
“True enough I suppose.” Jahari shook his head. “Anyone have any better ideas?”
“I have one.” Halsey stood up. “And while it’s not a good idea, and I admit that, it’s the only one that’d have a chance to work not to mention is the only one practically possible to launch in the time we have.”
“And what’s that, George?” West asked. “We’re listening.”
“OGA.” Halsey stated the abbreviation calmly.
“You’re kidding.” West and Grayson replied in unison. Keyes started coughing uncontrollably and Jahari seemed unaffected until Sheridan noticed his sharp claws had become embedded in the table's surface.
“No.” Halsey shook his head. “It’s the only way to keep our people safe, and the knowledge the Minbari have already gained from encountering the Victory from getting out.”
“What’s an OGA?” Sheridan asked his neighbor, Admiral Keyes, silently.
“It’s an abbreviation for Orbital to Ground Assault.” Keyes stated with her face blank and her gaze empty. “Halsey wants to go in and remove whatever knowledge the Minbari may learn, or have already have learned, about us.” She sighed and blinked. “By removing the Minbari.”

Sheridan thought for a moment, and then he finally made a slight smile. He’d very much like to see that happen, no matter the reactions of the people around him.

“What?!” Grayson was outraged. “That’s ludicrous! You’d be risking everything we’ve worked for!”
“True.” Halsey nodded, just as calmly as she was agitated. “But what’s the alternative? Are we supposed to just leave Kira’s crew down there for the Minbari to find and interrogate?”
“No, but…”
“No.” Halsey nodded. “There’s no other way we can do this, that can also be implemented fast enough to work.”
“He has a point, you know.” Jahari nodded. “It’s the only thing our ships are already prepared for and we have the equipment ready to do. Any other plan would take hours to just prepare the ships and crews for.”
“Hours we don’t have, we know, Heron.” Keyes nodded. “Very well.”
“It’s our best bet, even if it's not a good one by any means.” West nodded sadly and gave a deep sigh. “What would you need, and how do you plan to achieve your objectives without blowing our cover wide open?”
"My squadron is out for the count for at least another few hours." Valeris quickly added. "Half of my ships don't have their new antimatter pods yet and most of my crews are still on the ground."
“Very well, in that case I need the Odin and the Thor, and if Commodore Grayson will agree the Akiras of the 221st would make a welcome addition.”
“While I have my reservations towards the mission.” She sighed and glanced at West, who made a discreet but still disapproving face. “The Furies are as always at your disposal, Admiral. We're on ready alert and ready to go as soon as you give the order.”
"Has the Thor been put through her shakedown yet?" Halsey suddenly realized the ship wasn't even officially commissioned yet.
"Yes, we found some problems though." Jahari replied. "You won't get her full combat performance, but as for your primary question her engines and transporters are working fine, just don't let her sit in a firefight for too long as we still haven't attached the bow and dorsal armor generators nor finished calibrating her shields."
"I'll approve her activation." West nodded. "I've assigned Captain Cordey and while she hasn't got a full crew yet I doubt Aurora will complain too much about going out with her sister."
"I suppose Aurora would be the Thor's version of Mist?" Halsey asked, and Jahari nodded in reply. "Elania is her Captain?" Halsey replied in a surprised tone. "I thought she'd applied to the position as head of the Delphi academy flight school?"
"She did, but I couldn't spare an experienced Captain like her." West shrugged. "She did a great job with the Berlin after all, and I thought it fair she'd get to command the ship that she was recycled into."
“Very well.” Halsey nodded. “I’d also need both of the Valkyria to get a full marine detachment sent up as fast as humanly possible. Heron, are your new toys finished yet?”
“Only four of them.” Jahari replied. “They aren’t thoroughly tested yet though, and we haven't gotten all the kinks worked out to transport them.”
“Will they work?” Halsey asked.
“Probably.” Heron shrugged and repeated his warning. “You can’t use the transporters to get them down though; you’d have to drop them from orbit and then tractor them back up with a shuttle.”
“Don’t worry, I remember the briefing.” Halsey smiled grimly. “You even made me a cargo bay door of the correct size, remember?”
“I do, just making sure you do too.” The Caitian nodded and scratched the table with his fangs as he thought about it. “Very well, I’ll see to it that they are sent up. If nothing else we'll get to know if they work under the correct circumstances and not just in a tech lab.”
“Thanks, Heron.” Halsey nodded thankfully. “Other than that, I think that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Valeris stated evenly. “I’d pity the Minbari if I weren’t also worried about my people down there.”
“Commodore.” Halsey stared her in the eyes. “Give me a better idea that’ll work, and I’ll listen. If you don’t have one, stand down.”
“Yes, Admiral.” She replied, somewhat taken down.
“Very well, George.” West stood up and shook his hand. “You have yourself a mission. Get Kira and her crew home, Halsey. And...”
“I will, sir.” Halsey nodded. "And I know. Leave no witnesses."

Sheridan thought for about five seconds, and then he stood up.

“Admiral, I’d like to come with you.”
Halsey studied him for a second and then asked a simple question. “Why?”
“You’re going up against the Minbari, aren’t you?” Sheridan answered as if his reasons were obvious. “I’d like to see that.”
“Admiral?” Halsey asked his superior.
“It's not my call, it's your ship and your responsibility.” West replied with a sad voice. “It’s your choice, George.”
“Very well.” Halsey nodded. “You’ll do what you’re told, just remember that you’re a guest on board and that my crew doesn’t answer to you no matter your Earth Force rank.”
“Deal.” Sheridan smiled. "Thank you, Admiral."
“Good.” Halsey made a quick nod to the other Admirals, and then turned to leave. “Come with me then, Commander.”


UNCHARTED AREA OF THE NORTHERN CONTINENT
ORION IV


Night was just now descending on Orion and a cold wind was sweeping down from the arctic north. Kira looked around at the small number of survivors that she’d managed to get off the ship before it exploded and quickly realized that they’d need to find shelter very soon or at least some of the more seriously wounded would soon start to freeze to death. She didn't know what season it was, but even when the sun had been up the temperatures had only just barely stayed above freezing and after a reconnaissance team had finished a short survey of their surroundings they'd realized they had been beamed down to a remote area of the planet's northern continent, which would explain the cold climate.

There weren’t even a full dozen Starfleet personnel which had survived among them, and only some fifty remaining survivors of the Earth Alliance defenses. The latter were just now starting to rouse from their exposure to the anesthizine gas back on board the Victory, but she had no people to help them get through the rough awakening. She rubbed her ear a little as her ornamental earpiece started to get freezing cold, trying to get the circulation going again. A couple of her men had already started to heat up some rocks with their phasers, but even if they managed to get some heat it’d make little difference to the worst injured if they didn’t get shelter from the wind. Even then many would die unless they got help and they received medical assistance within just a few hours.

“Captain.” Ensign Car Velon, her Bajoran helm officer, approached her. “We’ve managed to find a small cave in the rocky areas just a click northeast of here. It’s not much, but it should help shield our wounded from the wind.”
“Good work, Ensign.” She looked northwards, sighing as she noticed that was further uphill and through some densely wooded areas. “Can we get our people and the Earthers up there?”
“I think we can get most at least.” He nodded. “We’ll have to figure something out about the seriously wounded though, we can’t carry them and they’ll die without medical attention. If memory serves the nights on the northern continents of Orion can get very, very cold.”
“Don’t remind me.” Kira stuttered. “I thought the Orions back home lived in jungles, or did I completely miss something there.”
“They did, and you didn't.” Helm nodded. “They’re much further south though, just a small area of the planet's equatorial region, and I remember some very nasty tales about the other creatures that inhabited those jungles as well.”
"I can't stand Maraat, especially not since she's probably gone through her entire male crew by now, but it's at times like this I wish she was here." Kira shivered. "If nothing else she knows this planet a lot better than we do."

He took out his hand phaser and fired a continuous low powered beam at a nearby rock. It soon started to glow with a warm red light, spreading a little heat around it. He stretched out his palms towards it to warm them up a little.

“To be completely honest I wouldn’t say no to Orion hospitality about now.” He stuttered and gave her a wicked smile. “I know, I know, I’d only say that if I was lucky and found the right ones.”
“Indeed.” She almost laughed. “They had the best hospitality for parsecs, especially for a male, but they were also the worst slavers in the galaxy.”
“Right now, I could live with the collar if it meant food and heat.” Velon shook his head.
“You’ve never been a slave then.” Kira’s eyes flared. “I’d rather die than live with the yoke again.”
“Oh, sorry. I forgot.” Velon winced. He'd had a good life even with the occupation, his parents having been craftsmen and basically left alone by the Cardassian occupation. "I'm sorry I brought it up, Captain."
“No worries, Ensign.” She forced a tired smile. She hadn't been so lucky. “It was a long time ago.”
They turned around as they heard some of the humans starting to wake up.
“What do we do about them?” Velon asked. “We can’t just leave them, but we don't have enough people to carry them either.”
“True.” Kira nodded and made a sad face, until she got an idea. “Do you have a tricorder with you?”
“Of course, why?” He asked, slightly confused.
“Can you make it replicate an Earth Force emergency transponder signal?”
“Easily.” He nodded, and then followed through on the thought. “Ah, I understand.”
“Get going doing that then." She raised an eyebrow and motioned towards the still unconscious Earth Force people. "I’d prefer not having to explain all of this to all of them.”
“Understood.” Velon nodded, and was about to say something else when a flash in the sky caught his eye. “Captain!” He warned. "Look, in the sky!"

Long fiery streaks seemed to light the night sky on fire, not one or two, or even five or ten. Dozens of fiery objects seemed to enter the atmosphere at the same time. A less advanced species may have taken these lights as some form of divine or natural act, but neither of them was even the least bit superstitious or naive. The Minbari were sending down landing ships, and that meant they were landing troops as well. It was still too early to tell where they’d touch down, but it’d be too close for comfort since they were visible from their position.

“Phekk!” Kira cursed. “How long until you’ve prepared that signal?”
“Minutes, ma'am.”
“Well then, we can’t take them all, and if we stay out in the open all of us die.” She sighed. “Better if we let their own people take care of them.”
“Agreed.” Velon nodded. “One second.”

Kira called out and motioned for the rest of her people to gather around her.

“We’ve got incoming landing craft.” Kira explained. “We need to get to a more defensible position, and we can’t bring the people who are too badly wounded. Ensign Velon is working on a makeshift emergency transponder that the Earthers in the colony should be able to pick up. We can take those that can walk, but we’ll have to leave the rest.”
“Isn’t that a bit cold even for you, Captain?” A crewman spoke up in anger. "They may well die out here, either from the Minbari or even from the cold alone!"
“Would you rather try to defend them against hundreds of armed Minbari in a place like this?” Velon interjected and motioned for him to take a look at their current poor position. “They’d die just as certain as that you’d die too. At least if we leave them here they’d have a chance to be rescued and we might just lead the Minbari away from them.”
“True, but…”
“No.” Kira cut the crewman off by raising a hand. “We leave now. Those of the Earthers that can walk and want to come with we can take, but we have no choice but to leave the rest. That’s an order, and I'll take the consequences myself if we get through this alive. Granted, the chances of that are slim at best.”
“Roger, ma'am.” The crewman surrendered.

By the time they’d gathered their things and formed a small group about a dozen of the Earthers had come to and were standing among them. They seemed disoriented and frightened, but all things considered Kira could understand that. Ensign Velon had finished his makeshift transmitter and had already activated it and minutes later, they were climbing the slope towards the cave the Ensign had found earlier and they all hoped they’d be able to hide out there. Noone said a word about the Minbari or the chances of them being found, simply because nobody wanted to jinx their already poor chances of survival even worse.

It didn’t take as long as Kira had feared for them to get there, but that was mostly because one of the Earthers had turned around for a second and had noticed the burning globes in the sky changing direction. Most of them still seemed to be heading towards the colony, but at least half a dozen were heading their way. They reached the cave, which was actually more of a deep indentation in a rock face that protruded out of the sloping ground than a real cave, and Kira immediately rejected it as a tactical position. The cave was too shallow, with a large opening and little if any cover.

“This simply won’t do.” Kira shook her head. “We need somewhere we can make a stand if and when they get here.”
“There’s a dried up river just another hundred meters or so beyond the cave.” Velon replied. “It’s not much, but it’s got a bit of a bank we could hide behind as well as being on relatively high ground.”
“That’ll have to do, I don't see that we have that much of a choice.” Kira nodded. “Lead the way, Ensign.”

They kept marching ever so slowly up the hill, and she immediately spotted the river bank he’d been talking about. It wasn’t much, the river had barely been a meter deep, but at least it offered some cover if they crouched behind the sharp bank.

“What do we have in the way of weapons, Ensign?” She asked Velon.
“Not much.” He shook his head. “We’re all carrying hand phasers, we even have about a half dozen spares we could give to the Earthers if you want, but we only have two rifles.”
“Damn.” She cursed. “Give the rifles to our best marksmen.”
“Of course, ma’am.” He nodded.
“Very well, tell the men to take cover in the riverbed.” She pointed. “You, you, take your phasers and cut down those two trees. Try to make them fall close to the bank. It won't be much, but at least it'll offer some added protection.”
“Right away, Captain.” The two men replied.

In the minute or so that it took her small group of battered and bruised survivors to gather in the riverbed the two large aspen-like trees were cut down, one on each side of the river. They fell almost perfectly, increasing the height of their cover from just about a meter to almost one and a half. Now there was the ever present question of whether wood would stop or even hinder Minbari weapons, ironically she couldn't remember if anyone had even bothered to find that out yet.


UNCHARTED AREA OF THE NORTHERN CONTINENT
ORION IV, SEVERAL HOURS LATER


In the distance ahead of them the landing craft had rose up into the sky again. Kira was surprised they hadn’t found them yet, but then she realized why. They were searching for whatever their reason for landing in the first place was, and they didn't have very good life sign detection equipment to do so with. She could only hazard a guess it was her and her people they were after, but it made sense and she realized she'd do the same if she was in their position. Start by examining the obvious locations which were no doubt near the colony and any outlying buildings, and then fan out from there.

They'd been worried when they'd seen the first few landing craft approach them, but they had overshot them by several kilometers and judging by the explosions they'd seen light up the night they'd gone for a fuel or arms depot. The other ships hadn't been seen yet, but then again the colony was fairly large, and considering the light show that'd been put up in the sky just an hour or so earlier she imagined it'd be long since evacuated anyways with its inhabitants taking cover and hiding out wherever they could. There was even a decent chance they were fighting back and keeping the Minbari occupied.

“What are you thinking about, Captain?” One of her human crewmen, she thought his name was Richards, came over as Velon finished getting their men ready.
“These Minbari.” She sighed. “We worked so hard to stay out of this conflict, and now chance and rotten luck seems to have brought us smack dab right into the middle of it. I can't help but think we might have led them to the colony, there would be little reason for them to land if not for us and the colonists may well have been spared the fighting.”
“Chance?” He smiled. “Perhaps it was fate, or some greater force deciding this is where we needed to be and what we needed to do.”
“Religion?” She asked. “Not the first thing I’d expect to hear from a human.”
“Perhaps, but we have long since been, and some of us still are, a religious people.” He shrugged. "I find it hard to travel the galaxy and not have to wonder if there isn't some kind of greater power involved in its creation."
“I remember Sisko saying something about that once.” She smiled. “Somewhere between explaining the finer points of baseball and trying to get my recommendations for good plots for a house on Bajor.”
“Heh.” Richards nodded. “Perhaps he'll have changed his priorities after his stay with the prophets. Some of us humans still believe in the old religions, believe in the God almighty and his power over our lives.”
“You’re a very strange species.” She laughed silently. “Some are the worst kind of atheists while others, like yourself, almost sound as Bajoran as me or Velon.”
“Thank you, Captain.” He winked. "I wouldn't worry too much about the colonists if I were you though. There wouldn't have been much of a reason for the Minbari to send down troops if we hadn't been here, sure, but what would they do instead?"
"What are you implying, Richards?" Kira asked.
"We all know what they typically do to colonies with a military presence, no matter how small." Velon replied coolly as he came back towards them. "Personally I think they have a better chance of surviving ground combat than they do orbital bombardment, especially if the Minbari start using their mass drivers."
"True." She nodded and relaxed a bit, looking towards the craft which had now apparently changed directions again. “Seems our visitors have decided on a door to knock on.”
“Really.” Velon replied, and Richards instantly ran back and dove down behind the river bank.

He turned around and looked at the large landing craft that was almost hovering only a few hundred meters away. They’d be able to see them now, if they had eyes at least, and able to turn them all to cinders if the ship was even lightly armed. He had no illusions about that being the case, he could see the gun ports all too clearly but they were still closed.

“Looks like they’re landing.” Velon stated with a grim grin.
“Phekk.” She cursed. “They don’t just want to kill us, they want to capture and interrogate us.”
“How’d you get to that conclusion?”
“Think about it, Velon.” She shook her head. “They had a direct line of fire. They could take us out at little or no risk to themselves.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “I guess that's true enough.”
“That means they intend to get at least a few of us alive, probably to get some answers about our ship and probably even more so our origins.”
“Let me request that we move into harder cover then, Captain.” He motioned her towards the protective tree trunks. “We’re not that safe out here in the open.”
“By all means.” She nodded.

The two officers took up position among the other few dozen men in the riverbed. Kira could smell the fear and anguish from the Earth Force personnel, even detect the slightest hint of it from the Starfleet people. They waited in silence, most of them sitting down against the dry riverbank trying to hide as much of themselves as possible. A minute or two later they could all hear the soft sounds of footsteps in the forest, though the dark night still hid them from view a few more seconds. Then, she saw the first shade move.

“Here they come.” Kira called out. “Shoot only at what you can hit, don’t waste your energy cells on killing empty air!”
“And don’t get killed.” Velon added. “Or I’ll shoot you myself.”


USS ODIN
FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT
ORION SYSTEM


“Admiral, we’re almost at our destination.” Mist materialized in her seat as she said this. “All ships report ready for action.”
“Good. Make sure everyone knows the plan.” Halsey nodded.
“Fury squad moves on the Minbari, while we and the Thor makes a dash for orbit.” Mist nodded. “Don't worry about it Halsey, everyone knows what they’re supposed to do.”
“If you say so, Mist. How’s your new toys working out though?” He asked.
“Very well so far.” She smiled a little. “Always nice to get some more muscle, though they’re hardly comparable to the ones I already have.”
“We must all make sacrifices, I suppose.” He said with an only slightly sarcastic voice.
“Bah, you’re no fun.” She kicked his shin.
"I'm an Admiral now, it's no longer in my job description."

He chuckled a little before he went back to his serious look. In just a minute, his ship was about to open fire in anger for the first time since it had been launched. It was something else entirely to fire on ships with living people on them than shooting at chunks of ice in an asteroid belt, which is what they had done when they'd been calibrating the targeting systems. They hadn't even armed their phasers since then. He didn’t waste any time feeling guilty about what he was about to do, nor did he feel sorrow or happiness in the face of the upcoming battle. He had a job to do, and that was it.

"You just remember that I'm not one of my daughters, and as such can't be in two places at once." Mist became serious. "Or, well, you know what I mean."
"I remember." Halsey nodded. Her twin daughters could only do so because they didn't have an entire dreadnought's worth of systems to manage. "Don't worry, I won't tell them your weakness."
"I'd hardly call it a weakness, it's more like a slight disadvantage." She pursed her lips. "But thanks anyways, George."
"You never told me who the father was though?" He asked, he knew she'd given birth to daughters, or, well, whatever it was called when an AI procreated, but not with whom.
"Noone, which is something we're all still quite surprised about." She gave him a humored smile. "Which is also incidentally why they're twins."
"I see." He replied, and couldn't understand why he felt so relieved about that.

The viewscreen showed the small but potent strike force in all its glory, the Thor only showing its saucer hull's edge on the screen. In front, the three Akira-class cruisers Avenger, Reliant and Fury formed a screen that they’d keep all the way into the system. Once they’d entered extreme weapons range, the two squadrons would break formation and the Akiras would engage the Minbari while the Valkyria moved on towards the planet after firing a single alpha strike. It wasn’t fair, not even close, and to everyone involved on the Starfleet side it was seen as being closer to shooting fish in a barrel than warfare.

“We’re about to exit warp.” Mist said suddenly. “Sensors report all four primary targets are still here, and so are the two secondaries.”
“Very well.” Halsey stood up. “Relay their position to the other ships and exit warp.”
“Aye, Admiral.” Mist nodded and forwarded the orders to the other AI. “The Furies acknowledges, Nemesis is taking the lead and forming them up on her flank.”
“Good.” Halsey nodded and braced himself mentally for what was about to happen.

Seconds later the stars around them resolved from the blurred white lines they’d been into the more familiar dots and orbs. The viewscreen shifted to a debris field in orbit, where four of the massive Minbari cruisers and a few escort ships were still lumbering around. From the looks of things one of the ships was damaged though not crippled, with ships travelling toward it supposedly from the other cruisers. Repair teams or spare part transports maybe? The two disabled cruisers hung silently beyond them, and even more of the shuttles were going to and from them.

On exiting warp the three Furies immediately banked to port and at full impulse power they quickly left the Valkyria behind, putting themselves on a heading that took them straight towards the Minbari at a high percentage of the speed of light. They’d only exited warp a few light seconds away and the cruisers achieved contact within just a few moments. Halsey grit his teeth as he realized that the Furies had definitely deserved their name, neither seemed to practice any form of restricted warfare but had rather let loose with almost all they had phaser-wise at once, and their fire was joined by the massed long range beams fired from the two dreadnoughts.

The three cruisers that were hit seemed to almost disappear under the intense light of their combined phaser beams, but once the beams stopped the Admiral was astonished to see that the Minbari ships were still there albeit scored and blackened in several large areas.

“What the…” He breathed. “How the hell are they still standing after all that?!”
“It's the crystalline armor, it attenuates the particle beams and spread them over a much larger area.” Mist shook her head. “We were worried it could have that effect, and well, now we know it does.”
“Our weapons aren’t effective?” He asked.
“No, they are, just not very.” Mist nodded. “About fifteen percent, give or take a fraction, and since the crystal structure will also spread the impact over a much larger area I'd say it's even lower than five.”
“But, the Victory…” Halsey begun.
“…had pulse phaser cannons.” Mist continued. “We're not close enough, and the Akiras don’t have those, remember?”

They looked back at the battle that was taking shape as Mist and her sister brought the two dreadnoughts closer to the planet. The Minbari had, to use an old Earth aphorism, been caught with their pants down. They recovered quickly though and now their ships were not only turning to counterattack, but they were also launching numerous smaller ships that had to be Nial-class fighters. Halsey knew he couldn’t do much about it, they’d only glanced their effective weapons range and were still heading towards the planet and his two dreadnoughts didn’t carry any fighters.

They didn’t really have to either, as the Furies had their own. A few seconds after they’d noticed the Minbari fighters the Akiras all formed up in close formation and started launching their own Peregrine space superiority fighters to counterattack. The comparably large and bulky Starfleet fighters made an almost impossibly sharp turn as they exited, taking them down below their motherships’ bellies and around to exit just below the pods in their stern. Moments later the first fighter wings met, the Minbari taking the worst initial hit as their unshielded ships were hit by the smaller anti-fighter photon missiles the Starfleet Peregrines were equipped with.

They'd been largely ineffective against the Vorlons' advanced organic hulls but now the antimatter tipped homing missiles proved to be more than a match for the frail crystalline matrix that made up the Minbari fighter armor. Bright explosions dotted the skies as the missiles impacted, one fighter literally disintegrated from being hit not once but three times in rapid succession causing the small fighter to pretty much atomize under the intense antimatter-fuelled fire. The Minbari return fire was stopped dead by the flaring blue shields that surrounded the Peregrines, and the Starfleet pilots launched yet another volley of missiles against their largely outmatched competition before they entered dogfight range.

After the second wave hit and further reduced the Minbari numbers the opposing squadrons left formation and a more intense form of dogfighting began. The Peregrines were faster, shielded, had heavier armored and were better armed, but the Minbari Nial still proved to be a challenge at the spitting-distance close quarters fighting they now engaged in. They were more agile than their opponents, and while lighter armed their weapons proved to still be effective though it took a while for them to beat down the Peregrine’s shields. A few seconds into the fight the first Federation fighter exploded in a bright flash, victim of a enveloping attack from a wing consisting of a full dozen Nial.

Once the Akiras had launched the three Peregrine fighter squadrons they carried they broke formation again and headed back towards their Minbari counterparts, leaving the fighters to do their own battle. Not because the fighters couldn’t use their help, they could and would probably find their point defense grids of immense help in killing off the numerous Nial which were still showing they had teeth of their own, but they did still have bigger fish to fry and everyone from pilot to Captain knew what the priority list looked like.

The Avenger, flagship of the small but very deadly cruiser squadron, took the lead and headed straight towards the first disabled cruiser. While it couldn’t move it was apparently still able to fire and by any measure of engagement rules a target that shoots at you is a target that needs to die. As the Starfleet cruisers closed the range four blue orbs left their stern weapons pods, and as the ships fired the Avenger turned a one-eighty on the ship’s own z-axis letting inertia alone carry her in. The other two ships followed the same maneuver, and for a second the three ships' avatars wondered what the Minbari must think. Three smaller ships all coming at them with their apparently weaker armored rears exposed.

Whatever the Minbari thought, they didn’t think it for very long. Twelve sharply glowing blue quantum torpedoes closed in at near three quarters of the speed of light and they impacted the already crippled ship in an almost square pattern. The first four torpedoes broke through the outer armor using nothing but sheer kinetic force before they detonated, showering space around the ship with what looked like broken glass.

The second volley hit the inner hull and resulted in secondary explosions and fires that for a brief second stretched out hundreds of meters into the darkness of space outside before the surrounding vacuum quickly doused the flames. The last volley positively gutted the ship and the resulting explosion, probably enhanced by the ship's own singularity core destabilizing, almost vaporized what was left of the main hull. When the smoke cleared, little remained of the ship except its four fins which ironically enough were barely even scratched.

The reason for the Akiras’ turning around was made evident now that they had a line of fire through where the damaged Sharlin had been. They had used the enemy cruiser as a means to shield themselves from a more powerful attack from either of the three that were fully operational. A quick burst of their impulse engines started them moving forward again, but just before they cancelled out their inertial movement backwards they all fired yet another full spread of torpedoes at the next Minbari cruiser only this time from their rear launchers.

Another twelve torpedoes sped rapidly through space, and even as this fully operational cruiser managed to somehow shoot down half of them the remaining six impacted both of its lower fins. The explosions weren’t even close to as effective as they’d been on the damaged vessel but they still managed to severely damage the fins and take out most if not all of the Sharlin's lower forward guns, including the dreaded antimatter cannon.

The Starfleet ships suffered some return fire, but what little effect their neutron cannons would have had on their hulls was negated by the shields, though the massive particle beams did cause them to flicker and stutter a little it wasn’t enough to drain more than a few percent of the ships’ defensive energy screens. The Akiras turned around again and formed into a wedge formation, taking a course that took them around the recently hit Sharlin in a helix pattern at a speed so high they made almost an entire orbit around it per second even at their range.

Thick lances of phaser fire tore into the Sharlin's sides and rear, but the crystalline armor held most of the energy at bay even though the intense fire left wide swathes of blackened armor behind it. As the phaser beams finally closed in on the already damaged ventral area the effect was effectively multiplied, and the damaged sectors were cut into even smaller pieces as the glass-like debris scattered around the ship.

“Impressive use of tactics, the Furies are definitely good at what they do.” Mist nodded appreciatively. “The Minbari are turning out to be more of a challenge than we thought however.”
“Aye.” Halsey nodded. “I thought they might. That’s why we’re not alone.”
“I fail to see your point, Halsey.” Mist shrugged. “Unlike the Furies, Me and my sister actually have pulse cannons. And quite a lot of them too if I do say so myself.”
“True.” He replied with a slightly amused smile. “You’ll both be busy elsewhere, though.”
“Bah.” She shook her head. “I can multitask quite well you know. I just can't both be on the ground and in space at the same time.”
“Either way, we’re approaching our target destination.” He smiled at her half-defensive comment as he moved over to the tactical station. “Have you gotten anything from the sensors thus far, Char?”
“Yes, Admiral.” Lela Char, his Trill tactical officer reported. “I have a general location on two Bajoran life signs, as well as one that looks like it's a Betazoid. I can't make out the exact coordinates though, the scanners are scattering just like Jahari warned us they might.”
“Great.” He sighed as he walked back to his own chair. “That means we'll just have to do it the way we planned. Odin to Thor. Enter orbit and prepare to execute.”
“Odin, this is Aurora.” The hidden speaker replied with a soft female voice. “Me and Captain Cordey are standing by, Admiral.”
“Good. You know what to do, Mist.” Halsey put his right hand on her shoulder and gave her a concerned, almost worried look. “Will you be all right with this?”
“Don't worry about me, George.” She nodded with a slight blush. “It may not be what I was built for, but I’ll adapt.”
“Good.” He nodded and gave a slight smile. “Halsey to the debarkation room. Colonel, hope you’re ready to get rolling, because it's go time.”
“Always, Admiral.” The Colonel responded on the intercom. “Me and my men are good to go whenever you are.”


RIVERBED ON THE HILLSIDE
ORION IV


“Kira!” Velon yelled as he ducked for one of the incoming orange energy bolts, throwing rank out the window and keeping his words simple so she could hear him over the noise of the constant energy discharges. “The sky! Look!”
“What?!” Kira yelled back as she fired her hand phaser at the bonehead that had just shot at her helm officer. The shot went a little wide, but it threw cinders from a nearby tree into the Minbari’s face forcing him back into cover with a yelp of surprise and pain.
“The sky!” Velon pointed upwards with his phaser rifle as he repeated himself. “Look!”

She took a second to get into cover as well, and then she looked. At first she couldn’t understand what Velon was yelling about, but then she saw it. An explosion, far enough away to have to be in space and much too large and much too bright to be anything but nuclear fire.

“Do you think the Alliance has come back in force?” Velon yelled as he rose again and tried to get a snap shot at another Minbari that dared show his face.
“Possible, but I don’t know.” She replied. “Doesn’t matter, we’re down here and they’re up there!”
“Roger.” Velon gritted his teeth as he fired again. “Gotcha, you son of a bitch!”

One of the black-dressed humanoids near the forest line dropped to his knees grasping his chest. His shot had been perfect, right in the middle of the torso puncturing the area where a human's heart would be. He wasn't sure if that was the case for Minbari as well, but it seemed the shot was instantly fatal either way. He quickly dove back down behind the riverbank as another two Minbari warriors stepped out of their cover and started to shoot back at him.

“Prophets guide us.” Kira breathed as she saw even more movement behind the already engaged enemy. “There's more of them!” She yelled.
“Eat dirt!” Velon yelled back as he fired again and then ducked. “What’s that the Klingons used to say when they sensed a warrior's death approaching?”
“What?” She asked as she rose and clipped another Minbari with a gross shot that seemed to cut away most of his lower jaw, only leaving it hanging by a few tendrils of skin. The injured warrior screamed in pain before the group's other sharpshooter put him out of his misery with a well-placed head shot from his phaser rifle.
“When the Klingons were about to enter a battle they feared they wouldn’t survive?” He took another few shots at the dodging Minbari. "What was it they said?"
“Today is a good day to die?” Kira almost laughed back as she hit another warrior, this one in the thigh. The warrior dropped to his knees and allowed her a cheap shot at his torso. “Yes, I suppose it is that at least.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Velon laughed as he too managed to hit an enemy, but was forced to duck immediately as the return fire quickly burnt the surface of their cover to charcoal. “It’s been an honor to serve at your side though.”
“It has, Car.” She sighed and lost control of her emotions for long enough to let a single drop fall down her cheek. “It certainly has.”

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 28


USS ODIN
FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT
GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT ABOVE ORION IV


“Move it, move it, move it!” Sergeant Major Harrin's sharp, raspy voice yelled out over the noise in the debarkation room. All around him smaller groups of marines were moving around, grabbing their gear and rifles and rapidly coalescing into their assigned groups. “Come on you apes, we don’t have all day!”
“How are we doing, Sergeant Major?” Colonel Sharpe’s calmer but stern voice came from behind him, almost causing Harrin’s fur to rise in surprise. “We'll debark in less than forty seconds.”
“The first few teams are already ready to be deployed, sir.” Harrin replied and pointed with his clawed fists towards three groups of men in dark-green fatigues and shiny black body armor. “First to third squads, tech and assault squads led by Lieutenant Devlin's command squad. They’ve got orders to make contact with and reinforce the Victory survivors.”
“Good.” Sharpe nodded, he'd known Harrin would already be a step ahead. “How are the Heralds coming along?”
“The engineering teams that are preparing them think they’ll be ready and available for insertion in less than five minutes, but we can’t move them down with the transporters as they're just too gods be damned big.” Harrin frowned. “They’ll definitely make the Minbari think twice though, hell, they still make my skin crawl and I’ve been around them ever since we set out.”
“Agreed.” Sharpe cast a quick glance towards a closed-off section of the bay. “They’ll no doubt be useful though. Make haste getting the rest of the boys ready, Sergeant Major. We have people down on the ground that need our help, but we also have people down there who needs to be removed.”
“Will do, sir.” Harrin made a snap salute and turned to the marines again. “Oh for crying out loud, I knew apes were slow but you guys make turtles look like gods be damned speed demons. Get a damn move on!”

Sharpe made a well hidden smile as he walked away. The Caitian Sergeant Major was harsh to say the least, and his language could definitely use some polishing, but if he was anything he was a good marine and quite possibly the best and most efficient non-com he'd ever met. Plus, they only carried seasoned veterans who were all used to the Sergeants sharp words by now. They knew just as well as he did that the Caitian would never let them down and always fight at their side, and while he did expect their best he also cared deeply that everyone that could possibly do so would get back in one piece. Even if he'd have to carry them back on his own two shoulders, as he'd done many times before.

“Mist, this is marine command.” He tapped his communicator as he spoke. “Teams one through three are ready for insertion, request you send them straight to the survivors' location.”
“Roger that, Colonel." She replied. "Stand by for PA announcement."
"Teams zero one to zero three. Insertion will be in a riverbed, advise enemy contact directly upon debarkation.” Mist’s voice came back through the speakers on the debarkation room's walls so the marines could all hear her orders. “Transport in three, two, one.”

The three teams of marines were just barely able to react to the situational message and raise their weapons before they were enveloped in the sharp blue light of the transporter beam, and a second later they’d faded away. Hopefully they’d make all the difference, but he knew his people didn’t have the massive advantage on the ground that they did in space. That’s what the surprises in the hangar bay were for, not to mention why he carried yet another four hundred forty marines in addition to the sixty he’d just sent into combat, and the Thor carried just as many.

“Marine command, Mist.” His communicator activated again. “I request four additional teams, orders are to envelop the enemy force at the colony, suppress them and make them dig in.”
“Orders confirmed, Mist.” Sharpe replied. “Harrin! Give me a batch of four more, heavy and assault if you can scrounge them up!” He yelled to the Sergeant.
“Seven through ten are already standing by!” Harrin yelled back. “Lieutenant Trent says they’re all ready to kick some bonehead ass!”
“Mist, marine command.” He smiled as he relayed the team numbers. A few seconds and a PA announcement later another eighty men were on their way down to the planet’s surface.

He looked at the scene around him for a few seconds. He wasn't happy that his men had to be deployed to a combat zone, especially not against people as bloodthirsty as the Minbari warrior caste. It was their job though and they'd already tried and discarded the idea of transporting them on board which had been their initial idea. They could transport down without problems, it was getting back up that turned out to be problematic. Lieutenant Anderson had cursed about it to no end, explaining in a way that went way above the Colonel's head that the effects the antimatter explosion in the dense ionosphere had produced made it near impossible to get a clear lock on pretty much anything on the surface.

Not that he really cared, it just meant he and his marines got to earn their keep doing what they'd enlisted to do for a change. They wouldn't be fighting Romulan mobile infantry, which was what they'd originally signed up for, but they'd at least get to not only bare their fangs but actually use them to rip the enemy's throat out for a change. Seeing that everything was as it should and most if not all teams were now ready to be sent down, he turned and quickly walked over towards the nearby cramped hangar bay. He wasn’t going to let those things in there get sent down before he had another good look at them, and he quickly started checking on the straps that secured his own heavy assault armor to his body. He wasn't going to let the other guys get all the fun down on the ground either, not as long as he had two good legs and at least one good arm to fire a gun with.


STARFLEET SURVIVORS' RIVERBED
ORION IV


Kira almost sighed as she saw yet another full dozen Minbari leave the cover of the tree line and rapidly move towards her already compromised position. What had started out as a single warrior making a mad dash and getting himself quickly mowed down by well-aimed phaser fire had turned into a regular occurrence by now, and each time they tried the insane maneuver they got closer and closer to the riverbank. With limited weapons, and limited energy left in them, it hadn’t taken long before the first phasers ran out. By now, she was left with just four hand phasers, the rifles having been among the first to run dry due to their longer range. Unfortunately for them the Minbari had noticed the same thing, and it seemed there were no end to the warriors willing to try their luck that the last gun had finally run out.

“Take that!” Ensign Velon yelled as his phaser beam vaporized most of the closest Minbari warrior’s skull, his body instantly dropping to the frosty soil. “Yeah, won't try that again, will you, you...”
“Damn it, Car!” She said with some anger and interrupted his goading. “Your phaser’s set way too high!”
“Why?” The Ensign took another shot at the approaching Minbari and missed by inches. Kira’s shot didn’t, and left a blackened surface just below the warrior's exposed neck.
“You’re wasting your damned energy vaporizing them, we just need to kill them!” She roared as she missed the next warrior, her target ducking just as she tapped the trigger. "Turn it down, Car."
“Damn it!” Velon cursed as he tried to shoot but quickly had to drop down into cover. “No luck changing that now, I’m dry!”
“Phekk!” Kira cursed as she took another snap shot at the approaching group. They were less than forty yards meters away from the riverbank now, and even though she felled one of them the others quickly suppressed her position with plasma fire.

The battle hadn’t even started well, and by now it was going straight to hell. Half a dozen of her crewmen laid bloody and scorched on the ground already, and while the Earthers had done their best they couldn’t do much when they didn’t have guns for them to shoot with. One of them had perused a small plasma pistol which he’d shot at least two of the boneheads with, but the return fire had not only burnt away the top half of the person’s head, it had also severely damaged the pistol in the process.

What survivors remained had now armed themselves with makeshift clubs and spears, little more than sharp or heavy sticks of wood. It wouldn’t make much of a difference, but at least they’d feel better dying with a weapon in their hands fighting back as well as they could rather than being cut down defenseless. The Minbari were only a few meters away now, and she barely noticed the sudden light beside her before she heard a sharp voice call out beside her.

“Ready weapons, fire!”

The dozen Minbari that were still running towards them were instantly stopped dead in their tracks as dozens of golden glowing slugs hit them center mass, some of them even started to vaporize and two of them almost disappeared entirely. A second later they were all motionless on the ground, one of the Minbari warrior's cloaks had even been lit on fire by the particle weapons' energy.

“Captain Kira?” The slightly metallic voice beside her asked. She turned around with her weapon in front of her, only to lower it when she recognized the familiar insignia on the black composite armor. “I’m marine Lieutenant Devlin, Starfleet Marine Corps.”
“Marines?” Kira almost started crying from the instant relief she felt. “Finally, what the hell took you so long?”
“Traffic, ma’am.” Devlin kept a serious face even as he delivered the deadpan comment. “More of our troops are being deployed all around the Minbari positions on the planet as we speak.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She sobbed a little, the endorphins releasing their hold on her made her shake a little. “Can you take our wounded back up?”
“Sorry, but that isn't possible, ma’am.” Devlin shook his head. “For the same reason we couldn't just evacuate you and bring the Minbari into a gas-filled cargo bay, I can't explain why as I don't understand it, but what I've been told is that we're landlocked until the battle is over and we can start landing shuttles.”
“Landlocked?” She protested. “But why? We have wounded that need medical attention! I demand you request a shuttle to be sent down here on the double, Lieutenant!”
“I'm sorry, but I'm acting under direct orders from both Colonel Sharpe and Admiral Halsey.” Devlin replied in a tone that left no question about his honesty. “We can’t risk the Minbari getting the slightest hint of our plans and scattering, and we also can't risk the shuttle crews' lives in unfriendly skies. We've spotted Minbari armor on the ground and we aren't sure of their capabilities versus airborne targets.”
“You’d better hope the fight will be over soon, Lieutenant.” She sighed and gave him a sharp glare. “Otherwise a lot of good men are going to die.”
"Good men, and women, will die today no matter what." Devlin pointed out as he turned to look after his marines. "And a lot of them will be wearing my badge too, I might add."

The fight had pretty much turned around now, the marines had taken position along the tree trunk and were firing at the tree line with an assortment of weapons that almost made her smile. Phasers, of course, but rapid-fire assault rifles which covered the area in pulse phaser slugs instead of her crew's beam-based hand phasers. Small grenades containing minute amounts of antimatter were lobbed into the woods, each of them easily comparable to throwing a brick of high explosives, which not only caused the Minbari to fall back in disarray when suddenly faced with overwhelming firepower, but they also easily uprooted and set the ancient trees ablaze when they landed too close to the massive tree trunks.

They still weren’t the most impressive weapons. As the dark-coated Minbari warriors started to fall back, marines in heavy assault armor jumped over the tree trunk and started firing strands of small but still deadly micro-missiles after them. To put the lid on the action three more marines came from the Minbari flank and starting to pour liquid fire into what little remained of the enemy ranks. The compound they used reminded her of trick fire, a liquid that ignites with pretty much anything it comes in contact with and burns through almost anything. The light from the now fast ablaze trees pierced the night around them and revealed the bloody carnage that was the result of the half-hour long battle. The Minbari had withdrawn, and she was almost surprised as the marines didn't pursue but instead started setting up defensive weapons emplacements along the river bank and at the tree line beyond.

“Perimeter secured, Lieutenant.” A marine came over and saluted with a knocking sound as his armored glove met his helmet. “We’re setting up the shield generator and sentry guns as we speak.”
“Good work, Corporal.” Devlin nodded. “Send a situation report up to the Odin immediately and let them know we have survivors, as well as a number of wounded some of which are critical.”
“I will do so immediately, sir.” The marine saluted again and walked away.
“Well then, we’re done with phase one.” Devlin smiled grimly under his helmet's transparent visor. “Now all we have to do is hold this position and wait for the cavalry to show up.”
“And hope the Minbari don’t show up again with heavier reinforcements.” Kira said sarcastically. “We pushed them back, but they’re still out there.”
“Ah, no worries, Captain.” Devlin gave her a truly grim smile. “So are our guys, and we have a few aces up our sleeves the Minbari won't ever have expected. But for now let's go see what our medics can do for your wounded.”


CHECKPOINT ALPHA
ORION IV


Colonel Sharpe didn’t believe in either luck nor destiny, and he reminded himself he’d chosen to beam down with his personal specialist teams to the point where they'd encountered the most resistance for that very reason. Here at Alpha, a small valley just two clicks south of the Earth Alliance colony, that was an easily recognized fact as the battle line stretched for more than a click in each direction and the darkness was pierced ever so often by the light of plasma and particle weapons fire, as well as the more sinister weaponry his forces employed.

More than two thousand Minbari life signs had been detected from orbit, all of them presumably warriors, along with several dozen larger vehicles that his intelligence personnel believed were tanks or their equivalent of such. He opened his helmet visor and spat on the ground in front of him. They were undoubtedly armored vehicles no matter their size or function, and he didn’t have anything comparable on the ground. At least he didn't have it yet, he reminded himself. Still, he had to know exactly where the bulk of that armor was deployed before he could effectively counter it, and with Aurora and Mist otherwise engaged he couldn't rely on his orbital support to pinpoint it close enough for him either.

“Colonel, fourteenth reconnaissance squadron reports at least a hundred Minbari have dug in close to checkpoint November.” A communications soldier close to him reported. “They request that we send heavy weapons to their location to clear the trenches.”
“Request granted, tell the Odin to send in Lieutenant Silvan and her fourth and fifth squadrons to their location.” He replied dryly. “They’ve got mortars and missile launchers, that should make the ground shake around the Minbari. On second thought, send in her full platoon, the sixth could be useful as well and I'd hate to have to answer her why I didn't send them when she comes looking for me. Their heavy flamers should be more than able to sweep the trenches clear in no time after they get suppressed by the mortar fire.”
“Of course, sir.” The Corporal replied, trying his best to keep a straight face. “I’ll relay the orders to your wife right away.”

Less than ten seconds later, he could see the telltale blue glow about a click away as the second platoon, his most powerful and dedicated bunker buster platoon, were beamed down in cover close to the fourteenth’s position. He had no doubt that his wife's fifth squadron would make short work of the Minbari’s fortifications, and that her sixth would be able to force them out of what rubble remained and continue to drive them further north. The plan was to envelop the Minbari forces, push them together, and then let the Heralds and what other surprises the Admiral had planned come down and take care of the rest. The fact that the other side were about to suffer massive on the brink of insane amounts of casualties didn't really bother him, they'd chosen the job just like his grunts had. They all knew the risks involved.

“Give me the latest situation report.” Sharpe ordered. "What's new on the ground?"
“I have a few updates since my last report, sir." His personal aide answered. "First through third are all at checkpoint Zulu, they’ve made contact with Captain Kira's survivors and after a brief firefight they have now secured the perimeter. Devlin's second and third squadrons are preparing to leave them and move south to participate in the enveloping maneuver.”
“Great, hope Nerys won’t be too disappointed that she can't follow them.” Sharpe smiled. They’d been specifically ordered not to take her along. “Continue, Geoff.”
“Seventh through tenth, that is third platoon, are all reporting continual resistance at the colony, but are moving forward about a minute behind schedule.” The Corporal replied. “They report a total of eleven casualties, four of them fatal, from enemy fire.”
“Damn.” Sharpe shook his head. Their armor was good, but it’d only protect them so long. Three or four shots would be enough to weaken it, not to mention it didn’t protect their faces from anything more lethal than shrapnel. "Have they managed to push them out from the colony proper yet?"
"According to what Lieutenant Trent told me, yes sir." Corporal Dunham replied with a slight nod. "Though the sub-urban fighting was truly brutal and he still hasn't been able to reform the platoon yet."
“How about the fifth platoon?” He asked in a curious tone. "I haven't heard much from Lieutenant Sims yet."
“His platoon are proceeding to their objective faster than we'd planned, sir.” The Corporal sighed. “They’ve encountered resistance, but only light and fragmented so far.”
“Great, seems Sims still don't know what a timetable is yet." Sharpe frowned. "Make sure he gets back on schedule, they can't move up too fast or they might get cut off by the forces we're pushing back from the right flank.”
“Yes sir.” The Corporal started to turn, but then turned back to the Colonel. “Twenty-second reconnaissance squad are now reporting visual confirmation on the Minbari armor's position. Seems to be some kind of armored hovercraft, regular phaser fire has little effect on them and the armor is suppressing their light recon marines.”
“Great news.” Sharpe smiled. That’d been the best news so far. “Relay the coordinates to the Odin along with the following message. 'Target zone identified, send the Heralds'.”
“Understood, sir.” The Corporal nodded and walked a few meters away from the Colonel to get some quiet for his quite important transmission.


USS ODIN
FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT
GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT ABOVE THE BATTLEFIELD


The fight in orbit was almost starting to die down now. The two previously disabled cruisers had already been destroyed in a maneuver that had taken less than three minutes, and most of that time was because he'd also ordered them to take it easy and evacuate what Minbari crew they could before they destroyed the vessels. That’d been a controversial order, but one he’d given anyways. He’d been surprised that it’d taken them as much firepower as it had to destroy the four cruisers they had so far, but he’d soon realized that the Furies AI had set the quantum detonations to just high enough to get through their outer armor and jamming field with minimum collateral damage to begin with, and then the second or third wave would be set quite a bit higher to actually get the ships down and impact a second or two later when most of the crew had been removed. That had also been the reason for the sequential firing instead of a massive onslaught of overwhelming firepower.

The Tinashi had proved to be completely underpowered against their current opposition, and the few that had been present as they had exited warp were now scattered in thousands of pieces in high orbit around the planet. The last one had almost imploded as the Avenger had effectively turned its entire fuselage into fist-sized crystal shards with the only tricobalt device used so far in the battle. The ship's destruction had been so complete they'd refrained from using the overpowered demolition charges any further. He wasn't too unhappy about that decision either, it wasn't like they had a whole supply of them and they'd proven extremely hard to produce with their limited infrastructure and resources back on Sirius.

He almost smiled, with the way they were fighting the Minbari an uninformed observer could think they were slaughtering hundreds or even thousands of them while in reality only a few dozen or so had actually died so far. As they didn’t really have to fight to keep themselves alive, the Starfleet cruisers had not only the ability but also more importantly the time to hit where it wouldn’t hurt a lot of crew, then beam them out, and finally finish the job. It made the fight last a bit longer, sure, but that didn’t matter too much as the Minbari cruisers appeared to be at a loss trying to hit the surprisingly fast and agile cruisers. The most damaged ship thus far was the Reliant, and she’d only suffered some thirty percent shield degradation from being hit by one of the Minbari's antimatter projectiles. Barely even enough to be considered scratching the Akira's paintjob.

"I must say, Admiral." Sheridan stated with not just a little awe in his voice. "If I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it."
"Just remember that this wasn't a fair battle to begin with, Commander." Halsey nodded. "Three of our most powerful ships against six of theirs, with three of them already damaged?"
"That may be, but those six ships would be too much for anything less than a sizeable fleet of Earth warships." Sheridan replied, his gaze still locked on the outside view. "Damn, how can a ship that small hit harder than a whole flotilla of Nova dreadnoughts?"
"They don't, actually." Mist replied. "The difference is mainly the focus of the particle beams, the kind of particles used, the rate of fire and that we can both target and track them effectively even at near light speeds."
"If you say so, Mist." Sheridan replied, still aghast.
"In an real battle against the Minbari, we'd be at a disadvantage though." Halsey sighed. "Remember, we have thirty odd starships, of which not even thirty are operational warships. They have thousands."
"Quantity has a quality all of its own." Mist nodded.
"Agreed, but..." Halsey winced. "...in the future, please don't quote Stalin, Mist."

As he watched, the three Akiras broke formation again, heading on a near ninety degree angle from their previous course and away from each other, in order to avoid the furious counterattack of the two remaining cruisers. Several thick particle beams pierced the empty space where the three ships had been only fractions of a second earlier but to no avail. The Starfleet cruisers used every edge they had and often resorted to direct hit and run tactics which meant they could avoid almost every single barrage the Minbari threw at them. Almost, as sometimes they’d get a lucky hit or resort to what was closer to flak attacks than aimed fire. The sharpest edge the Starfleet ships had was speed and acceleration, their ability to go from stationary to point eight C in a manner of just a few seconds, actually maneuver at that speed, and then go back to stationary almost as fast, meant that the Minbari were quite literally facing a situation any veteran Earth Force Commander would recognize, and Sheridan obviously did.

The ships reemerged on the viewscreen a few seconds later, now on courses converging on a point somewhere inside one of the surviving but already damaged cruisers. They each fired two torpedoes at the ship's drive and maneuvering fins, and with the torpedoes closing in at near light speed the impact was almost instantaneous. The ship was rocked by massive internal explosions, and while they didn’t completely destroy the ship there was little left of the fins and even less of the drive. As the Akiras swept by the ship, only a few hundred meters away from the burnt crystal hull and at very high velocity, they fired their phasers into the now inert and badly damaged ship. The result was a series of explosion that reduced the lumbering wreck to little more than burning debris and cinders.

“Well, that battle seems to be going well.” He sighed and looked at his AI. “How are the fighters doing?”
“Still only eight casualties to over sixty Minbari.” Mist replied. “We’re still recording the engagement; I’ll have some things to take up with the engineers over at the fighter corps later. We should be able to increase that ratio by quite a lot.”
“An eight to one ratio doesn’t sound too bad.” Halsey tried. "It's better than what the Minbari have over Earth Force, after all."
“Should be a twelve to one or better.” Mist frowned and made Sheridan recoil by the statement, though he was still engrossed by the tactical display. “The second, fourth and seventh fighters weren’t hit even close to as badly as the others, but the nacelles were hit and once they went the fighter did." She pointed out with a glare as another small fighter ended its life outside visual range. "They’re too exposed once the fighter's shields go down, but they should be able to fix that by just adding a few slabs of armor plating, or even simpler by just stripping the fighters we keep on the carriers of their warp drives.”
“If you say so, Mist.” Halsey smiled, his lovely but temperamental AI was ever the perfectionist. "What's the situation on the ground?”
“Acceptable, Colonel Sharpe is very effective and his battle plan is so far almost flawless.” She sneered. “He's taken some losses, but we expected that and there's not really a whole lot we can do about it either.”
“We did.” He replied somberly. “How many?”
“Twenty six so far, out of four hundred forty deployed to the battlefield.” She replied. "Colonel Garesh of the Thor's ground forces has had a tougher time, but he's engaging the Minbari center. Forty nine of his four hundred eighty deployed have been seriously injured or killed."
“Not extremely good, but I suppose it's within the realm of acceptable losses.” He nodded, he'd expected far worse than eight percent casualties. “Well, the day still hasn't even begun yet. Any sign of that Minbari armor formation yet?”
“Yes, and I’ve already made the preparations I had to in order to deploy my new toys to the area.” She sighed and turned her deep eyes at her Captain. “I’ll be unable to run the ship until I'm done down there, you know that right?”
“I do.” Halsey nodded again and gave the gorgeous AI a light hug across her shoulders. “It’s not perfect, and I know how you feel about what you're about to do, but we don’t have independent AI for the Heralds yet.”
“Tell Jahari to hurry with the adaptive code.” She frowned, though she still let her head down to rest on his shoulder for a second. “After all, I’m supposed to be a warship and not an oversized marine grunt.”
“Heh.” He smiled. “I’ll relay that word for word, cross my heart.”

He looked back to the fight in orbit, not saying a word to the AI who still stood next to him with her head on his shoulder. Only the single Sharlin now remained, and according to what they’d been able to discern from the hull markings and transponder codes it was called the Trigati. Halsey didn’t know what the name meant, but he did know the ship was doomed to end her existence in just a second or two. Moments later, the three Akiras of Grayson's Fury squadron descended on the cruiser with a vengeance.

The crystal armor had already soaked up pretty much as much energy as it possibly could, and the continuous particle beams of the Avenger and the Reliant opened up large smoldering gashes in the armor, enough so that the Fury could sneak a pair of high-yield quantum torpedoes directly into the breaches. The resulting explosions tore the hull and armor straight off from the underlying framework, leaving little but a bent and twisted skeleton of the ship in a rapidly decaying orbit.

“Well then, that’s the last of them.” Halsey nodded with a grim grimace. “Fleet command to Avenger.”
“Avenger here, Admiral.” Grayson’s voice echoed across the Odin's bridge with a tone as sour as lemon juice. “We've achieved all of our primary and secondary objectives.”
“Well done, Commodore.” Halsey smiled to himself, she was who she was and held fast to her opinions, and no orders in the world would change that. “What’s your situation?”
“No damage at all to the Avenger, or anyone else in the squadron for that manner. Neither of our shields even went below fifty.” She replied coolly. "We lost nine Peregrines, half our total contingent, to the Minbari fighters, but all but one of the pilots were safely transported off their ships in time.”
“That's actually great news.” Halsey replied, he'd been worried about the exposed fighter pilots, not only because they were his people, but also due to the more military position that pilots were rare enough and took time to train but they could always make more fighters. “How about the Minbari?”
“Eighty-nine percent recovery, which is granted much better than I'd ever expected.” Grayson replied, still sour but a little less so perhaps. "More than we've got on Hades total before this, I assure you."
“My cargo bays are quite literally filled with them, and I cannot even land my fighters until me and my sisters all lose some collective excess weight." The melodic voice of Nemesis, the Avenger's AI pitched in. "Would you care to give us poor girls a hand, Admiral?"
“Even better news, in fact it's music to my ears.” He replied and then thought for a moment. “Take up a blockading position near our orbit and feel free to offload your overflow to the dreadnoughts, Nemesis, but stay clear of the gravity well in case we get company.”
“Yes, sir.” Grayson’s voice came back. "Where should we send them?"
"I've already sent the appropriate orders to my own as well as my sister's remaining marines, and the appropriate beaming locations to Nemesis, Commodore." Mist answered softly. "They'll be well taken care of."
“Well then, Mist.” He turned towards the AI who was curiously enough still standing there leaning on his shoulder. “Let's not keep Sharpe waiting any longer than we have to. Go get them, tiger.”
“Aye, Admiral.” Mist replied sadly as she loosened herself from his arm, and then faded away into thin air.

Seconds later, the light on the bridge dimmed a little. The glow from the nacelles went out and the running lights darkened. Only the most basic systems like life support and turbolifts were still operational. The ship’s AI was no longer there and with her the bulk of the ship's operational control. He cared less for the ship, but he found he already missed the albeit temperamental still gorgeous and friendly avatar.

It took a few seconds or so, but then Halsey felt the first vibration through the floor, and in short succession another. He almost smiled to himself when he imagined the faces of the Minbari ground Commanders. This may well make him a sitting duck in space, which was why they’d waited until the Minbari ships were all down to launch them, but it’d make one hell of an impression on the Minbari warrior caste. It was just too bad they’d probably never hear about it, and he supposed the ones that were just now about to wouldn't appreciate it at all.


NEAR CHECKPOINT FOXTROT
ORION IV


They’d already lost three men to the rapidly firing main guns the Minbari armor carried thus far, and had barely been able to scratch the armor of the vehicle with the return fire from their own light weapons. The light recon squad wasn’t equipped for this, the Sergeant thought as he rose from his cover again to take a few more pot shots at the closest of the armored hovercraft. They were meant for fast deployment and rapid reconnaissance, a job they’d done very well, thank you. Until they'd ran right into these frigging hover tanks of theirs.

All they could do was to hunker down in cover and try to force the tanks to remain in range, but even so it was a gamble with human lives. The neutron beam cannons the tanks used may not have been even close to the same size or power as the ones their starships used, but even so they would vaporize any man that got hit. Their otherwise capable body armor didn't make much difference except for the added smell of burnt plastic that hung around the smoking remains of their fallen comrades.

He’d radioed in their position and situation more than a minute ago, at the same time requesting a tank buster squad like the seventeenth or their equivalent to help his own completely outmatched squadron out. Those teams were equipped with what could most easily be described as starfighter-grade phaser cannons which would cut through tritanium like butter, not to mention photon micro-missile launchers. There had been no reply so far except for the confirmation on their request, which made the Sergeant worry more than just a little. Perhaps his wasn’t the only squadron facing off against these hovering crystalline tanks.

His thinking was interrupted by a sonic boom that echoed throughout the entire valley coming from straight above him. He instinctually dropped down and looked up at whatever was approaching expecting a fighter or bomber craft, but what he saw made him almost drop his jaw. Four balls of fire were rapidly approaching the area, looking more like meteors burning through the atmosphere than anything else. As he watched though, two of them seemed to shift course by a degree or so, aiming some distance behind him. Seconds later the fireballs seemed to vanish into thin air, but the Sergeant knew better. They’d fired their braking thrusters and the heat produced by their drag was no longer sufficient to ignite the oxygen in the air around them.

“Come on men, let’s get to it!” He yelled. “Screw the fucking tank, aim for the infantry behind it!”

As his men rose as one from their cover, the ground between his team and the enemy was filled with the red glare from their phaser rifles. Most of them hit the hover tank’s armor where it was effectively dissipated, but some made it past and into the enemy ranks. Most of these shots only managed to suppress the Minbari warriors but a few scored direct hits on the enemy, taking large chunks of hands, arms, shoulders and even in one of the cases a head along with them. Unlike their stranded Starfleet brethren they had ample amounts of power cells in their webbing, and no reason at all to hold back on their power settings. On maximum a phaser beam could easily be lethal even if it hit you in the leg, or for that sake on your weapon.

A few seconds of pouring out heavy amounts of phaser fire later, the squad dropped to their knees as the very ground started to shake beneath them. The Sergeant was almost worried it was an earthquake, but as he started to hear the cheers of his team he allowed himself to relax a little. Command hadn’t forgotten about them after all. He turned around and the sight he saw almost made him cheer too, but his reasons for not doing so was mostly because he'd dropped his jaw rather than not having his spirits lifted by the new arrivals.

What was approaching was two large robotic battlesuits, each of them some twelve meters high and very literally armed to the teeth. The arms weren’t arms per se in that they had hands, but were more like mobile mounting platforms for starfighter-grade pulse phaser cannons. Above their shoulders they had a launcher that seemed eerily familiar to a micro-missile launcher, just bigger and a lot meaner looking. The rest of the robots, including their massive legs, were covered in a material that looked like ablative armor.

The Sergeant only managed to smile rather than even shoot as the two robots aimed at the closest hover tank and unleashed the full force of their main weapons. The effect was actually exactly what he’d expected, but it still surprised him when he saw it happen firsthand. He barely had time to see the yellow blob of energy leave the muzzle of the weapon before it impacted the tank's side, and the unfortunate hovercraft literally vanished in a shower of crystalline debris that cut straight through the equally ill-fortuned Minbari soldiers which had taken cover behind it, and spraying the trees around it with metal shards and pieces of warriors, of which some shards embedded several centimeters into the hard wood trunks. A few of the pieces would’ve impacted the robot itself, but they seemed to impact something about a decimeter away from the armor.

The Corporal blinked a couple of times as he realized these robots were actually shielded as well. Not the crappy unidirectional shields his men carried for use as fortifications, but real conforming shields like those on a small starfighter. His smile went a little wider as he started to make the comparison. These weren't just overgrown battlesuits, they were something else entirely.

“Okay, men.” The Sergeant relaxed. “Let’s let the Heralds take care of the action; they seem to be doing well enough alone.”
“God damn, boss!” One of the scout marines breathed as he fell back into cover. “Those damn things have more firepower than a full frigging platoon of tank busters.”
“Amen, soldier.” The Sergeant nodded. “I think a bright mind back home came up with an idea for a Peregrine on two legs.”
“Good comparison.” The marine smiled a little. “Which is probably close enough considering the toy box' track record.”
“Yeah.”
"D'ya think Starfleet back home on Earth would've ever done something like that?" The marine asked.
"Hardly, it'd be too frigging expensive." The Sergeant chuckled. "Back there they had an ample supply of marines and an equally ample amount of bean counters."
"True that." The marine nodded soberly. "The one positive side to this universe, marines aren't wasted if there's an alternative which don't require actual people."
"Don't you ever, ever, let Mist hear you say something like that." The Sergeant replied, and started laughing out loud when the closest battlesuit made a gesture with its mechanical arm that was all too familiar. "Too late, better watch your back when you get back on board."
"Screw you, Sergeant." The marine said with a wry smile. "Though it might be a good idea to sneak on board one of the Thor's shuttles, I suppose."

The two armed to the teeth robots advanced into the Minbari armor lines with relative ease, seemingly more obstructed by the uneven ground and the massive tree trunks than by the Minbari crystalline tanks' weapons fire. A second volley from the phaser cannons disintegrated yet another of the hover tanks, and a missile launched from the shoulder launcher hunted down a fleeing tank before it could get out of sight. Both tanks were for lack of a better word vaporized on impact, their shining crystal armor being more than enough to stop light particle weapons fire and would probably even survive most Earth Force anti-tank weaponry short of a tactical nuke or a fusion missile, but not even close to enough to handle the kinds of particle weapons usually reserved for making holes in spaceships.

The Minbari infantry had thus far been almost left alone by the robots, but with few other targets available the Heralds turned towards them as well. The left hand weapons systems spoke, coughing small but deadly projectiles travelling at several dozen times the speed of sound. The bullets ripped through flesh like it was paper, and one of the Minbari was almost cut in half by the high speed impacts, each bullet hitting the soft and unprotected flesh with a force equivalent to a small rail gun and fragmenting into nanometer-wide shrapnel directly on impact.

Suddenly the marines could see something few if any now living people had ever seen. The Minbari were retreating. They weren’t just falling back but it was a full-out unorganized rout, and even the crystal tanks seemed to get the idea that they were completely outmatched and even worse outgunned. It didn’t stop the Heralds however, and another missile from the second robot landed in the middle of an ill-organized group that was trying to move back while still firing the occasional shot at the massive metal body chasing them down. What was left after the missile impacted the ground in their center was barely recognizable as flesh, much less that the bloody mess had once made up intelligent humanoid beings.

The Sergeant fought a gag reflex, he’d seen his fair share of action in his career and fighting the Jem Hadar or Breen hadn’t been too easy or for that sake less bloody either, but he’d never gotten used to the visual experience nor the smell of people instantly being turned to cinders. And burning flesh had a very nasty smell to it, Minbari or not.

“Jesus!” The marine standing next to him couldn’t stop himself but bent over and threw up what remained of his dinner.
“They don’t really leave much for the medics to sort through, do they?” The Sergeant still looked nauseous.
“God damn!” The marine hulked once or twice more before he could straighten up again. “Haven’t seen anything even like that since Corbin VII, where one of our squads got hit by a disruptor bomb.”
“Don’t remind me.” The Sergeant breathed heavy to stop the once again rising nausea.
“Barely even paste left.”

That was the drop that made the cup run over for the Sergeant, who keeled over and started to lose his dinner as well. Corbin VII had indeed been messy to say the least. It was one of the few large-scale ground battles that had been fought between the Federation and their allies on one side and the Dominion on the other. Both sides had employed orbital strikes when they'd managed to achieve space superiority, only to be forced out of orbit by the other side shortly thereafter at which time they quickly returned the favor. Rumors were still floating around that the entire second Klingon army group had been wiped out to the last man by Jem Hadar fighters, and he knew for a fact almost half the gathered Federation marines and infantry on the ground had been ripped to pieces by tactical nuclear weaponry and worse.

That battle had even gotten so bad that the tank crews had dismounted and joined the infantry charges since they had a better chance of getting through on foot than in the otherwise protective shell of a main battle tank, which in this case only served as a targeting aid for even more heavy artillery fire or bomber strikes. They'd lost that battle, but even though the actual numbers had never become public he still guessed the Dominion casualties alone were well above six figures. That entire battlefield had become a memorial today according to what he'd heard, and there were still thousands of skeletons lying there in plain sight, unclaimed and unburied to show everyone that cared just how bloody a war can get.

As he regained his composure he could see the Heralds marching on in the distance, the two that had landed in his area had effectively secured the area and what Minbari were still close were running away from his squadron as fast as their legs could bear them. A minute later they could no longer see the robots through the dense forest either, just feel the low-frequency thuds as the robots' massive feet impacted the hardened soil beneath them. Their presence would be remembered though, if by nothing else then by the reddish goo that covered half the trees in the clearing and the burnt, cratered and blackened ground that was now littered with glass-like shards.


CHECKPOINT ALPHA
ORION IV


“Colonel, Heralds A and B have both landed at checkpoint Foxtrot and have successfully secured the area. Nine Minbari hover tanks have been destroyed so far, and we have confirmation of upwards of eighty Minbari casualties in the opening engagement alone. To make matters even better for our side Mist reports the opposition in her area are in full retreat.”
“Very well.” Sharpe nodded grimly. “How about units C and D?”
“Aurora is still engaging the Minbari landing craft and what armor remains on the right flank; so far they’ve been able to destroy thirteen hover tanks and most of the shuttles while still on the ground. One managed to take off and escape her firing range, but it won’t get far.”
“Have you informed the Avenger?”
“Aye, sir. The Lightning is coming down to aid us, apparently they're out of work in orbit, and they’ll take down the glider we missed on their way down.”
“Good to know, let the troops know they're on their way as well.”

The Colonel checked his map and made some adjustments with a pencil. He could've used a pad as well but he actually preferred having a full-sized map and felt it was a whole lot easier to make changes directly on it rather than tapping them in on a miniscule keyboard, especially with only one real hand. Plus, he'd inadvertently crushed the last one he'd tried to use with his mechanical one, and the experience of holding a short-circuiting energy cell in a metal hand wasn't one he was keen on repeating if he had the choice.

Sharpe looked out over the newly established battlefield, they’d pushed the Minbari lines back a click or so, but then his people had run into heavy resistance. A scouting party had been effectively wiped out as they advanced ahead of the main force, hit by some form of antimatter weapon that had created a meter-deep crater in the frozen ground. After the smoke cleared, it was soon made clear his forces had pushed right into the Minbari center and was facing more than six times his own numbers on that side, not to mention heavy support in the form of more crystalline tanks and some kind of antimatter grenade launchers.

He was still confident he and his marines could win the engagement on their own, if nothing else he knew Garesh and his marines from the Thor was still heading straight for their east rear flank, but their casualties were mounting much faster than he could accept. He'd never expected the fight to be easy, and missiles and mortars were something that by all accounts even a pre-warp civilization knew how to produce with ease. He actually realized he'd be even worse off against one of them, as his soldiers had good protection against plasma, particle or even energy-based weapons but little to none against projectiles or cheap kinetic explosives. Not to mention what would happen if they got hit by a good old-fashioned fission nuke.

“Tell the men to break off and fall back to the secondary line, and send the word to the Thor's marines as well.” He said a bit too calmly even for his own taste. “I don’t want the Lightning to strike our own, and especially not with the kind of weapons they're no doubt planning to use.”
“Aye sir, I’ll relay the orders.” The communications officer replied.
“Do we have an estimate on the amount of Minbari troops ahead?”
“Yes, sir.” His aide, Sergeant Dunham, replied from behind him. “It’s their main force and the only large one we believe is still remaining. My estimates put them at about two and a half to three thousand troops all in all and at least two dozen tanks. It seems Earth Intelligence did their job correctly for once, their numbers are exactly what we expected. One hundred fifty soldiers and one tank per drop ship.”
“God, have mercy on their souls.” The Colonel said under his breath. “Very well, tell Lightning wing that we’re ready as soon as our troops report they're clear and we get confirmation from Garesh.”
“Of course, sir.”

The Colonel didn’t have to wait long, soon he could hear the familiar sound of impulse engines in the sky behind him, and as the six Valkyrie interceptors that made up the Fury's crack Lightning squad rapidly closed in to attack range the sound became both louder and sharper. When they reached optimum range they each dropped four small white metal objects that scattered in the dark sky, each of them soon breaking apart into hundreds of smaller fragments that began to glow from the friction caused by the air resistance. A few seconds later the first of the small fragments started to impact the Minbari defense lines and blue halos of near pure energy enveloped entire squadrons and sections of their battle formation.

It wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen before, wherever these blue spheres appeared whatever they enveloped simply ceased to exist with a bang and a flash that made his teeth rattle and temporarily blinded him, and there were enough of these explosions to cover at least half the battlefield. When he regained his sight he could see the terrifying result of the bombing run, where the bombs had hit, trees, bodies and even the ground itself had simply disappeared.

He felt a terrible shiver go down his spine as he realized this was even worse than what the first people to use tactical nukes would’ve seen, and he honestly believed neither Little Boy nor Fat Man had achieved such complete annihilation or carnage. It was only then that he realized exactly what they'd actually used, and for the first time since he'd gone through basic training he actually felt that he needed to throw up, and because of a decision he'd made himself at that.

“Report!” He called to the visibly nauseous Corporal.
“Nemesis reports that sixty nine percent of the targets were hit directly.” The communications officer beside him also looked physically ill. “She estimates a ninety eight percent fatality rate.”
“Damn!” Corporal Dunham completely dropped his jaw. “That’s more than twenty-nine hundred of them, if I counted them right!”
“Yes, you're probably right.” Sharpe nodded and still had a hard time remaining calm. “What was that quote from Oppenheimer?”
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” The communications officer quoted. “Hindu in origin, I believe.”
“Yes, that’s it.” The Colonel sighed. “Wonder what he’d say if he knew his invention helped create this.”
"No doubt he'd take a gun and blow his own brains out." Dunham replied evenly. "But in his era these kinds of armaments were still considered weapons of mass destruction. Now we have even worse than this."
"Don't remind me."

Sharpe nodded soberly and gave the dead a short prayer. It wasn't really their fault that they'd been here, they were probably only following whatever orders they'd been given just like he had been. And to be quite honest this wasn't much better than what they'd done to the Alliance military whenever they'd been given the chance either. It didn't make the Colonel feel even the slightest bit better about resorting to using these kinds of weapons however.

He looked out over the battlefield. A few fires had ignited where the energy of the blue halos had superheated and for a moment actually ignited the air itself. They’d had a good idea about what would happen when you used zero-point warheads, even minute ones like these, on the ground but knowing and seeing; now those were two very different things indeed.

A full-sized quantum torpedo would’ve caused a massive explosion which would have left a crater hundreds of meters wide as well as sent so much debris into the atmosphere that it'd have a decent chance of causing a light nuclear winter, in other words a hell of a lot larger than any nuclear weapon ever used back on Earth, so they had designed a very small weapon with a more reasonable yield for tactical use.

The limited size, each weapon no larger than an old-fashioned tennis ball, also meant each fighter could effectively carry hundreds of these bombs, preferably in containers such as had been used today, and pretty much cluster bomb numerous targets across a battlefield stretching several dozen acres. Ironically enough these micro-bombs would barely be enough to even dent any decent kind of starship armor if used in space. On the ground though with air pressure to absorb the energy and against unshielded targets they vaporized, or more correctly atomized, anything within a diameter of about ten meters.

The very air pressure that made them so deadly in close range and the very limited size of the warhead itself meant that the weapons' primary zero-point charges were barely effective outside that radius, not counting the inevitable shockwave and shrapnel, which was why there were still burnt corpses lying around where half the body was missing and the rest had ‘only’ been sent flying several hundred meters through the air.

“Send in the men to clear out any survivors.” Sharpe frowned. “Tell them to hold their fire unless threatened, but to use their own judgment.”
“Aye, sir.” The communications officer nodded. “Rules of engagement?”
“Unarmed men are to be taken prisoner and corralled for transport to home base.” Sharpe replied. “Armed men are hostiles. Tell them to be careful and not to risk their own lives though.”
“Very well.” He nodded and walked a few yards from the Colonel. He had no other choice if he weren't going to soil his superior officer's maps.


USS AVENGER
FEDERATION AKIRA-CLASS HEAVY CRUISER
BLOCKADE POSITION ABOVE ORION III


Grayson looked out over the almost terran planet below her and sighed. Her squadron had killed dozens of Minbari to protect this planet, and even though it was one belonging to another ship she'd still been the one that had ordered down the Valkyrie squadron which had killed thousands more on the ground with their tactical bombardment. They’d saved most of the ships’ crews, their calculated approaches and firing solutions had insured they’d gotten as many people out alive as they possibly could, but even then there’d been a lot of fatalities.

Now, she was a Starfleet officer and she’d have no qualms sending thousands of Romulans or Jem Hadar to their graves, but these Minbari weren’t quite the same. She'd gone into the fight with severe reservations against their entire course of action, but she'd been forced to face some of her own preconceptions as she'd faced them not to mention after reading the reports from the people on the ground.

She’d been surprised at first as their armor seemed to protect them from phaser fire and even scattered their targeting scanners, but then she’d remembered that they were made out of some kind of crystalline structure. Her engineers had come up with a solution relatively quickly enough, one that would effectively overload it and shatter their entire outer armor like glass, but it’d been impossible to use without the complete loss of the ship's crew. The compartments inside the ship would quite literally be filled with fragmented crystal as sharp as glass traveling at several thousand meters per second, and that wouldn’t leave much for the transporters to beam aboard her ships when the beam-attenuating armor had been cracked. Instead they’d resorted to using the variable-yield quantum torpedoes, which allowed them to control the destructive force far more accurately.

Still. She quietly wondered if it was worth it. The devastation on the ground far outweighed the little good their careful approach in orbit had done, at least in terms of total body count.

“Do not worry too much, Helen.” The dark-haired woman which materialized beside her said in her melodic voice. “It was either this, leaving the survivors of the Victory to be captured and interrogated, or going in and reveal ourselves in a rescue operation which didn't leave the body count.”
“I know, Nemesis.” Grayson nodded slightly. “And the third option would most probably lead to this anyways since there'd be no way for us to transport them up without engaging them.”
“I believe you assume correctly.” Nemesis nodded as well. “Which was both Admirals West's, Jahari's and Halsey’s conclusion. And we could not leave Captain Kira and her people down there either, as that would likely be far more destructive to us in the long term, even if it could possibly have been better for your conscience in the short term.”
“Even so, I can’t help wondering.” Helen sighed. “We may still have set a series of events in motion that we won’t be able to control much longer.”
“A Japanese Admiral said almost the same thing when his country attacked Pearl Harbor, more than four hundred years ago.” Nemesis gave her a comforting smile. “The difference was that his country had a choice, while we did not. Fate chose our path the second the Victory was hit by the Earth Force missile detonations.”
“An AI with a fatalistic approach?” Grayson chuckled. “What’ll the egg-heads at Starfleet Engineering think up next?”
“Not fatalistic per se, but I am known to be both pragmatic and very realistic.” Nemesis shrugged, her jet black toga fluttered a little as she moved her shoulders. “In the course of history, several chain reactions have been ignited by a single event, and it was most often one that could not be or at least was not expected, and thus not prevented.”
“That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.” Helen rose from the Captain’s chair and walked towards the viewscreen. "Doesn't make me feel much better, though."
“Trust me when I say this, Helen.” Nemesis replied from her seat beside the Captain's. “We have yet to see the full consequences of our actions today, even though I also believe we had no other option but to make the choices we did. Even so and whatever they may be, we cannot do much but wait and see how the events will unfold.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Grayson looked out over the debris that was collecting in orbit.

The six cruisers and their dozen or so escorts, or rather what remained of them, were spread out over an area just barely smaller than two light-seconds in diameter. The remains of the crystal armor the ships had was reflecting the light from the blue-white star almost making the debris field look like the backdrop of stars behind it, just much too dense and the individual lights blinking off and on as the pieces rotated and randomly impacted each other.

This was mixed with the considerably larger chunks of the destroyed Earth Force cruisers and satellites that also lingered in orbit, though these items looked exactly like what they were, starship parts cut away with a large particle beam. She suddenly wondered what they'd see if they returned here in ten or fifteen years, by then the field of glass shards would have been captured by the planet's gravity and either burned up in the atmosphere or started to create a reflective ring of crystal fragments in a graveyard orbit.

A single light caught her eye, not because it was anything special but because unlike most other lights it never flickered. Also, it seemed to move away from the rest of the field, slowly but surely making its way away from orbit.

“Hmm…” She thought for a second, making sure that she wasn’t just imagining it. “What’s that over there?”
“Scanning.” Nemesis replied. “Indeterminate, I cannot penetrate its structure. Small, crystalline material, EM silent. Probability of it being a larger part of debris from one of the cruisers, eighty-one percent.”
“I don’t think so, no matter what your sensors are telling you.” Grayson shook her head. “It’s gaining speed.”
“Damn!” The dark haired woman cursed. “I missed it; it is a small Minbari shuttle, running in emissions control.”
“Get it!” Grayson called; somewhat proud that she’d caught something the AI’s massive sensor arrays had missed until they had focused on that single object. “We can’t let it get away!”
“On it.” Helm replied. “Course laid in, maximum impulse power.”
“We will intercept the target in forty-five seconds, I can't go that fast through that debris field and the other directions take us through the edge of the gravity well.” Nemesis calculated. “Bringing forward-facing phaser arrays to bear.”
“Load a torpedo as well, Nemesis.” Grayson added. “I don’t want to risk anything.”
“Already did.” Nemesis replied and waved off the comment.

The Akira-class cruiser was a fast ship, but even with some of the finest engines in Starfleet, it couldn’t accelerate fast enough to reach maximum impulse in less than twenty eight seconds or, if she’d remove the safeties, light speed in about forty-five. Even so no Captain in their right mind would force the ship through a dense debris field at even close to those speeds, even with shields and deflector at maximum. As the ship started to break from orbit, the small shuttle rapidly increased its speed as well and stopped trying to hide and instead focusing on trying to escape its larger hunter by any means possible. Its destination was soon made clear as the Earth Force defenses, and thus the Minbari debris field, had been close to the planet’s supposedly inactive jump gate for a reason.

“It’s heading for the jump gate!” Grayson breathed. “Intercept time?”
“Twenty seconds.” Nemesis was so focused she actually gritted her teeth. “There is way too much debris blocking my line of sight, I cannot get a good lock on the shuttle!”
“Damn it, just shoot anyways.” Helen retorted. “Worst case you destroy some scrap metal, best case you hit!”
“Affirmative, firing!” Nemesis replied and took her best shot.

The small shuttle dashed forward uninterrupted by the incoming fire, its target within sight now. It didn’t even slow down as it approached the large apparatus, and it was undeterred by the larger ship accelerating behind it. The Avenger was still unable to get a clean shot, though one shot made a glancing blow on a nearby piece of debris which shot the large chunk of metal into the side of the shuttle. The impact didn’t make much of a difference, but the side of the spacecraft looked considerably less shiny afterwards.

“Damn it!” Nemesis cursed. “Stay still!”

Grayson would’ve smiled if she’d been able to, with the otherwise cool and methodical AI showing what any human being would call the normal signs of stress and pressure. Two more shots were close misses, one hit a small piece of debris and almost vaporized it, while the other missed by only a few meters.

“Reading an energy signature, ma’am.” Ops suddenly stated. “Commodore! The jump gate is coming back online!”
“Just one more second…” Nemesis frowned and closed her eyes in deep concentration. “Come on, just give me one more second.”

The phaser beam left the emitter almost in time, the beam piercing through the dark emptiness of space at near light speed, but arriving not even a fraction of a second too late. The small Minbari shuttle was already gone, swallowed by the orange vortex of the jump gate.

“Fuck!” Nemesis exclaimed and actually partially dissolved from the disappointment she felt. “Oh, I am sorry, Captain.”
“No worries, Nemesis.” Grayson took a deep breath. “My feelings exactly.”
“Now what?” The dark-haired AI asked. “I cannot follow it in as I do not have the ability to navigate hyperspace.”
“Is Mist back online yet?” Helen sighed.
“No, she is still down on the planet playing the grim reaper.” Nemesis clenched her fists in frustration. “I have reported in with my sisters, and sent the message to Mist and Aurora on the ground as well.”
“Good.” Grayson shook her head. “Take us back and let's go through the debris field with a fine tooth comb. Check, double check and triple check that we haven’t missed anything else. I’ll be in my ready room talking to the Admirals.”
“Affirmative.” Nemesis nodded with an understanding tone. Not even the pragmatic AI believed that was going to be a pleasant conversation.

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 29


USS ODIN
FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT
SPACE ABOVE ORION


Halsey raised an eyebrow and sighed deeply as he finished reading through the last report sent from the Avenger to his superiors back home while he was still waiting for the communications channel to Starfleet Command. He’d been less than pleased with the fact that a Minbari vessel had managed to escape the system and he seriously doubted his colleagues in the Admiralty wouldn't feel the same. This had also forced him and the small fleet under his command to take appropriate actions to further cover up their actions, even though it may well be a wasted effort now.

All the remnants of the Minbari and Earth task forces had been first triple-checked for survivors and salvageable technology, and all the remnants of the Minbari ships had then been towed to and dropped into the local star en masse, along with the remains of the Minbari who had fallen on the planet. This had turned out to be a massive commitment as the Minbari ships didn't just turn into three or four pieces but rather millions of tiny shards, which had forced them to invent a solution right then and there. Now all that remained in orbit were the drifting hulks of the Earth Force defenses.

"Halsey." Admiral West's voice was sharp as a razor blade when the screen lit up. "Nice job on the ground and in orbit, it's just too bad that Minbari shuttle managed to elude your force."
"Indeed, I still stand by my opinion that there wasn't anything we could have done differently." Halsey replied. "Seeing a shuttle running on emission control in a debris field is no easy task even under the best conditions, and these weren't exactly optimal circumstances either. We had problems enough getting good sensor information through that energized crystal they use for armor without it being in the middle of a field a square light second large filled with that crap."
"We all understand that, George. We've read Nemesis' reports as well and I doubt she'd not be completely honest. It wouldn't be like her kind." Keyes' face showed up on the screen next to West's. "And to be completely honest we all knew there was a risk we couldn't get them all, or that not all of the Minbari ships would still be there, and you know as well as I do that we decided to go in knowing that."
"I'm not going to fault you or Grayson for this as I don't think I could've done a better job either, and you still managed to complete all primary and secondary objectives both in space and on the ground with a near flawless result." West added. "How is the cleanup proceeding?"
“In essence sirs, we’ve practically cleared the system of any and all evidence that we, or for that sake anyone else, ever fought here.” He replied. "It's not the easiest thing to do when the Minbari ships leave a field that looks more like a bull went loose in a glass shop, and it took some creative work with our tractor beams to be able to gather it all up."
“Understood, Halsey.” West silently sighed and shifted position a little. “What about the people at the colony?”
“We managed to evacuate most of them off the planet without much trouble, we sent them off through the jump gate in those of their transport ships they still had operational on the ground, as well as what shuttles and life pods we could salvage from the remnants of the Earth fleet.”
“You haven't noticed anything else that could become a threat to operational security?” Keyes asked from the other side of the link. "Even if the Minbari found something out, by accident or oversight, I'd very much dislike the Earth Alliance doing so from the people we sent back to them ourselves."
“From what we were able to find out from a quick debrief of the survivors those who actually saw anything worth mentioning were killed by the Minbari ground forces prior to our involvement, while those that survived were already fleeing the colony or hiding in secured shelters.” He paused. “Our marines used Earth Force uniforms, and of course we only sent in human personnel, when we evacuated the colonists. We don’t believe they’re any wiser and not any kind of threat to our security.”
"I also hope they have no reason to doubt your cover story?" Keyes asked just to make certain.
“No, ma’am, we informed them the Minbari were engaged on the other side of the planet.” Halsey confirmed. "As for the few surviving Earth Force soldiers they're being held as our guests aboard the Odin, along with the survivors of the Victory. Sheridan is with them right now explaining their new circumstances. He wasn't too happy that I didn't allow him to join the ground forces, albeit he didn't seem to mind too much when he saw the battle in orbit, but he's been quite useful in establishing a dialogue with the survivors."
"How many?" Keyes asked as she bit her lip.
"Fifteen, and from the victory five, at least that made it until we could bring them up." Halsey said soberly. "Only Captain Kira and Ensign Velon survived of the ship's command crew."
“Very well.” Keyes nodded. “Then as far as Earth knows, the colonists were evacuated by the last remnants of the Earth Force garrison just before they made their last stand, and they have no idea that the Minbari force didn’t survive.”
"No, ma'am." Halsey nodded and bit his lip slightly. "As far as they know, and what they'll see if they come back, is a destroyed garrison and no trace of the Minbari. The battlefield on the ground has also been covered up by dropping some of the Earth Force debris into the area. The explosions caused should provide ample cover."

He could see the two Admirals look at each other for a few seconds in the conference room they were in back at Starfleet Command, but he kept silent and waited for them to continue. He’d screwed up, he knew that, but he also knew that he really couldn’t have done anything to change it. He hadn't had the ships nor the resources to cordon off the jump gate, and even if he had the gate had been classified as dead by their own experts. Who'd have known the shuttle would've been able to reactivate it again not to mention that fast? Or for that sake that it'd be able to hide out in the debris field? It was one thing to be prepared for the unexpected, but an entirely other thing to be ready for something most other people told you wasn't even possible. Well, that said more about Starfleet Intelligence than it did about him or Grayson in his opinion.

“But that’s not true for the Minbari, is it?” West bowed his head a little.
“No, sir. It's not.” Halsey shook his head if ever so slightly. “Even though we don’t know what kind of intelligence the escaping ship was able to gather, I believe we have to assume the worst which would be that they managed to secure scans and readings of our ships and at least some of our technology, and that they’ll be able to make it back to Minbari space intact.”
"Could they get any readings through our shields though?" West asked. "I know Nemesis stated she had problems enough getting through their dampening fields and armor."
"Except that neither the Odin or the Thor had shields up, as we were deploying marines and equipment for the duration." Halsey explained and then shrugged. "I don't know for sure, and I believe that shuttle getting a good scan of one of the Valkyria would be the worst case scenario."
“Right, and in that case there really wasn't much you could do either.” Keyes nodded and added. “Even with the Darwin's subspace sensors at full power we weren’t able to track the ship further than a few light years, she's just too far away from you to get more range than that and the shuttle's too small to trip the sensor buoy net, but we do believe the shuttle was indeed headed towards Minbari space. At least it followed the appropriate course to get there.”
“Understood, Admiral.” Halsey nodded and sighed. “I had hoped she'd be able to get a glimpse from her current location."
"Just barely, but she did." West nodded. "Deschamps sends his regards by the way, he hadn't heard about your promotion before now."
"Well, that's what happens when you spend six months straight studying archeological remains and pre-warp civilizations on other planets." Halsey replied with a dry tone. "Well, I believe my task force has done all we can here. What are my new orders?”

West looked at Keyes, who just glared back at the Commander-in-chief. Apparently the two of them had argued about that earlier and, from the looks that they still gave each other, the matter wasn’t exactly what either of them would call settled yet. He was actually quite surprised, it was the first time he’d ever seen the two otherwise always friendly and united Admirals divided on an issue in public. Then he suddenly and for the first time realized that it wasn’t exactly in public either as he was now considered part of the inner circle of the Admiralty himself.

“Well, that’s still an issue of ongoing debate. Keyes here wants you to return and debrief, and Jahari wants the Thor back to slap on her missing parts.” West frowned. “However, I still outrank them and personally I’m more than afraid that the Minbari will be planning a retaliatory attack on the Earth Alliance than that they'll go home and sulk after their defeat at Orion. I also think it's quite a lot more likely they'll blame the Alliance rather than some unknown enemy, an enemy which would be us of course."
"While I believe the chances are they'll pull back their forces for a time while they try to figure out exactly what happened and why their collective nose is still bleeding." Keyed added. "They can't believe the Alliance was responsible, at least not alone, not only after seeing our ships in action but also because of the obvious technological difference."
"Either way, I still want to be ready for at least the possibility of an immediate counterattack by pissed off Sharlin." West stated, earning him a resigned shrug from Keyes. She still knew which of them was the ranking officer even when she had another opinion. "Therefore I want you and your battle group to head to Alpha Centauri as, especially with the massive evacuations of the other Alliance colonies, I believe it'll be the most likely target of such a strike."
"What should we do about the marines and Minbari we're carrying?" Halsey asked. "Plus, I'm not entirely comfortable bringing an unfinished ship into a potential warzone."
"I agree, as does Jahari." West nodded. "The Thor is to take on as many of the Minbari survivors as possible and return to Sirius for her final work, and I'll send over the Gabriel to Alpha Centauri to pick up your marines, she's empty of fighters while she's ferrying supplies and people between Sirius and Draconis anyways."
"Sounds good, sir." Halsey nodded. "Any more details on our next assignment?"
"You should stay as far away from the Proxima colony as you can while still keeping in sensor range, but be on high alert and ready for an attack at any time.” West replied. "I'll send over a few more ships to join yours as well just in case."
“Understood.” Halsey nodded. “Will there be any changes to the rules of engagement?”
“No, I don’t think that’d be too wise unless the situation changes dramatically.” West raised an eyebrow. “But I also want you to contact us the second anything happens. The second, Admiral.”
“Yes, sir.” Halsey made a snap salute as the link terminated.
He turned and looked at the blonde avatar next to him.
“You were unusually silent.” He commented. "Something the matter?"
“Well, in truth I had very little to add to the discussion.” Mist replied simply with a shrug. “I wasn’t here and so I couldn’t have changed anything no matter how much I may have wanted to. Nor do I believe you could have done so, for that same and quite simple reason.”
“It doesn’t really work that way though.” Halsey shook his head and made a slight sigh. “I was in command, so I’m responsible no matter who makes the mistake.”
“True, but with the ship in ghost mode you could neither see what happened out there, nor do anything about it. That’s why you brought the Furies along, to watch our backs while me and Aurora were planet side. At least that's what you kept telling me.”
“I was still in charge, Mist.” He sighed. “And that’s what matters to everyone involved. Well, enough of that. Tell Lieutenant Black to lay in a course for the Alpha Centauri system, and spread the word to the other ships as well.”
“Of course.” She nodded. "I'll also issue the return order to Aurora, like the Admirals requested."
“And tell Grayson I’d like to see her in my ready room in, say twenty minutes.” He added. "I want to go through our new assignment with her in private."
“Very well, and don't be too hard on her.” She gave him a consoling smile as she blinked out of existence.


VALEN’THA
MINBARI FEDERATION FLAGSHIP
HYPERSPACE


Lenonn walked the familiar path from the docking bay to his destination with not just a little hurry in his stride, which was uncommon but not rare for the aging religious-caste Minbari. The ship was far from empty and he'd been forced to slow down several times because of the crowds in the corridors, but most of the crew and warrior guards seemed to decide to give the Anla'shok'Na all the room he needed and often enough even seemed to avoid him outright when they noticed him heading their way. It might have been a gesture of respect, but it might also have been a reaction to his blood-covered face and slightly tattered robes, something he’d not yet had the time nor wish to do anything about. They reminded him of the purpose of his visit, and the urgency of getting his message delivered to the right person.

Eventually he came upon his destination, and at the press of a button on the doorframe he could hear the muffled chime inside telling the occupant that he’d arrived. He sighed deeply, took a deep breath to clear his mind and straightened out his messed-up uniform. He wasn’t exactly clean and proper but at least he wouldn’t show the Setai the disrespect of not doing what small measure he could to make his dress what little bit more correct he was able to.

“Enter.” The muffled, soft female voice came through the door.

The door opened, and Lenonn waited a second in order to allow his eyes to acclimatize to the darkness inside. Only a single candle was lit and the female Minbari, the only person in the room, sat on the floor between the light and him making him see no more than the slightest outline of her cloaked shape.

“Setai.” Lenonn bowed deep and slowly entered the room letting the door slide close behind him. "It is good that you would see me."
“Anla'shok'Na.” The woman replied softly without turning around. “You bring news?”
“I do.” He stopped only a few paces inside the room and nodded. “And it is grave news indeed, Setai. The entire task force under War Leader Sineval, dispatched to the human colony of Orion, was destroyed earlier today.”
“I know.” The Gray Council member replied slowly. “I received that news from the leader of the Wind Swords warrior clan earlier today. They do not know how that happened however, but by your speedy return I must guess that you must.”
“They were slaughtered.” Lenonn said with a grim voice. “Their ships were torn to pieces and their ground troops cut down like wheat for a scythe.”
“How?” She asked. “The warrior caste tells me this Orion colony was supposedly a minimally defended world with only a few thousand inhabitants, and I find it hard to believe seven Wind Sword Sharlin, two dozen Tinashi and four entire brigades of infantry would find much of a match even against worse odds than that.”
“It’s not that simple, the humans were indeed destroyed and except for one of their ships ramming and destroying the Boreata, our raiding force only sustained minimal damage.” Lenonn sighed as he recalled the following chain of events. “However, when the fighting drew to a close the Trigati noticed another ship had appeared on the battlefield, and opened fire before examining it more closely as perhaps prudence would suggest they should have done.”
“And?” She motioned him on with the single short word.
“It’s hard to believe but that one ship, smaller than even a human corvette, managed to not just damage the cruisers but indeed it all but destroyed the Mistive and crippled the gravimetric drives of the Ferranti.” Lenonn bowed his head in respect of the dead. “The other ships spotted a weakness in the unknown ship’s shielding and managed to damage it, after which it finally exploded in a massive blast close to the planet’s atmosphere.”
“One ship, no larger than a corvette.” The woman repeated with a cool and even voice. “And this ship managed to disable two Sharlin-class war cruisers.”
“Well… Yes, Setai Delenn.” Lenonn sighed. “However, that is still not all.”
“Then continue, Lenonn.” Delenn softly replied.
“Against my better judgment Sineval decided to send down ground troops to capture and interrogate the humans on the surface, to try to find out where this ship came from and who had sent it. He only managed to capture a few humans and even when he put them through intense interrogation none of them turned out to know anything about this ship.” Lenonn paused and steeled himself for the rest of his story. “Not that it really mattered. Only a few hours later several other ships arrived in the system and attacked our warships, their silhouettes completely unknown but looking somewhat like the one our ships had previously destroyed. By what means they arrived I still don’t know as we never saw any hyperspace vortexes. It's almost like they just appeared out of thin air.”
“I see.” Delenn seemed even more focused on the dancing flame of the candle. Her face showed no emotion and her gaze didn't offer much either.
“Within only a few minutes the remaining war cruisers were destroyed, and the unknown ships descended on the planet. By some unknown means they transported hundreds of assault troops to the planet, enough so that even the basic sensors of the shuttle I was piloting could pick up the increase in life signs. After maybe another hour, after they had corralled our troops into a shallow valley, they sent in bombers to wipe them out. The explosions were powerful enough to be visible from space, and I severely doubt any of our warriors would have survived.”
“Did your sensors manage to identify of what race these people were?”
“Some, but not all.” He paused before he continued. “Many were curiously enough human, but many were even more puzzling not only of several other races, with each of the various races being very different than any race in known space. I don’t know how this can be, and what data my ship’s sensors managed to gather is inconclusive as well.”
“And these ships, you are sure we’ve never seen them before?” Delenn asked silently and ominously.
“Never." He shook his head. "Even so, I know your thoughts Delenn, but they are not of the Shadows. They certainly didn’t look anything like the Shadow vessels we still have images of, nor did they spread that legendary feeling of fear around them. If anything, their design seemed practical and… even beautiful.”
“I see.” She replied.
“I might also add…” He paused for a second. “Even the smallest of these ships had a massive energy signature, indeed the ones that appeared and eliminated the Trigati task force had power signatures many times that of even a much larger Sharlin. What little information I remember from the first few scans we made indicated that they use some kind of advanced antimatter energy source judging by the neutrino emissions, a technology far more advanced than anything we’ve encountered before. They also have some kind of energy shielding we’ve never encountered either, which seemed to easily neutralize all but possibly the most powerful of our weapons.”

Delenn sat silently and kept her gaze locked on the flickering candlelight. She had already heard much of this before when she had talked to Kosh and Ulkesh, the two Vorlons which had been hidden away on the ship by the late Dukhat himself. They hadn’t given her much more information than this, but she suspected the two mysterious aliens knew much more than they were willing to share with her or her people. When she had asked them if she should approach them with a gesture of peace, or fight them with all her might, they had only given her the response of silence. Something the two Vorlons seemed to do all too often for her taste. She didn't know what bothered her the most though, that the Vorlons refused to give her guidance or that the Wind Swords had obviously done to this unknown people what the humans had done to hers.

“In truth, I find the situation nothing short of ironic.” Delenn suddenly said with a dry voice. “We started our holy war against humanity because they attacked us seemingly without provocation. You and I know better, it was that foolish warrior caste tradition that was the cause of the attack. Now, the warriors themselves may have earned us another front in the war by doing the very same thing they blame the humans for against another race.”
“Possibly.” Lenonn nodded. “But unlike Earth, this people are not just our equals but indeed, at least technologically, they are by far our superiors.”
“A situation not so unlike that between Minbar and Earth, only in our case reversed?” Delenn said in an emotionless tone. “You know, I still regret my decision on that day.”
“I understand, Setai.” Lenonn replied with a short nod. “The question is however what we should do about this new threat?”
“What we can do in order to stop this new situation from escalating, and hopefully we will be able to do so before even more of our people have to die needlessly.” Delenn snuffed out the light and nimbly rose to her feet. “Until now, we fought an enemy that could not hurt us. What we’ve done, no matter what honorable reasons the warriors strut about is to slaughter them. Now we are faced with another enemy that, as you bear witness, could do very much the same to us. You also tell me some of them are human. If that is indeed true, I truly fear what may soon come upon us.”
“That is a possibility, Setai, and one I would very much like to avoid I might add.” Lenonn nodded grimly.
“You will find these unknown people, Lenonn, and you will ask them to meet with me.” She straightened out her gray and black robe. “I will do what I can to convince the others that this massacre has gone on far enough.”
“I exist only to obey, Setai.” Lenonn bowed and turned to leave, wondering exactly how he was supposed to follow his friend's wishes.


VULCAN SHIPYARD COMPLEX
AQUILAE CONTROL ZONE
SIRIUS SYSTEM


Jameson walked down the long and constantly spiraling upwards corridor towards the head office of the shipyard, that of Captain Valentine Jonah. He’d known Jonah for almost ten years, they’d been stationed aboard the Exeter together, but lately he hadn’t seen much of his old friend. As he reached the double doors leading into the commanding officer's office he paused momentarily before buzzing. He’d always been interested in the other Captain, not only because she was a good looking woman but also because they shared quite a bit of interests. Among others they had the same taste in music, had the same kind of humor and the same affection for hoverball.

He straightened his jet black uniform jacket and finally pushed the buzzer, and the door to the office opened almost immediately. He took a step inside and was initially surprised by how small the office seemed, before he realized this was more because of how filled it was with shelves and cabinets, all quite apparently overfilled and overstocked with data pads and even quite a lot of old-fashioned sheets of paper.

“Jameson!” The bronze-haired and still quite good-looking Captain flashed a perfect white smile at him as he took a few steps more. “How absolutely nice to see you again!”
“Jameson?” He returned the smile and extended his hand. “Who are you, and what have you done to the Val I used to know? You haven’t called me that since the first week on the Exeter.”
“True, though that was a long time ago, Kirk.” She blushed slightly as she grabbed his hand and shook it rather violently. "Plus, I haven't seen you at all for months now and thought you might've gotten your head up in the clouds like all the others who got assigned as teachers."
“Nice to see you too, Val.” He smiled as he carefully removed a high stack of pads from the visitor’s seat and sat down. “So, did you just want to reminisce over old times and trade bad rumors about Captain Hunt?”
She chuckled a little. “Nah, though that’d no doubt be pleasant, I did actually call you here on business.” She made a gesture at the stacks of pads surrounding her. “As if I didn’t have enough as it is.”
“Heh, I see.” He smiled. “So, what’s up?”
“Not up, but rather out.” She searched through one of the piles and grabbed one of the pads, passing it over to Jameson. “Night shift parked her outside, and the keys are in the ignition.”
“Really?” He looked at the pad, which gave a brief overview of systems he’d never even seen before. “You sure this is the right pad?”
“Let me see…” She bent over the small desk and glanced at the pad, giving him a really nice view of the petite Captain's backside. “Yup, that seems to be the right one.”
“Well that can’t be…” He actually went pale as he tore his eyes away and kept reading. “You… You can’t be serious, Val!”

She stepped away from her seat and turned around, looking out through one of the portholes behind the undersized desk. She had a magnificent view of the closest ribcage-like construction yard, where several dozen construction droids were now marrying the partially completed saucer and engineering sections of the second Luna-class Light Attack cruiser under the direct supervision of her shipyard's AI. The subject of their discussion hung silently just beside it, lit up by the few of her running lights that were turned on.

“I’m afraid I am.” She was silent for a few seconds, before motioning him to look out the window. “That is, or perhaps was would be a better choice of words, the Icarus.”
“But…” He swallowed in disbelief, his eyes constantly wandering between the pad in his hand and the view outside. “You ripped out… but…”
“Trust me, I know the feeling.” She shook her head. "Remember, my own ship's called the Odin today." She sighed deeply before she turned around and faced the other Captain. “The simple truth is that she was just too badly damaged to simply repair. We had no choice but to strip her down to the keel as you somehow managed to get tears and cracks in several of the support beams that held together the ship's entire framework. As a result, Jahari and I decided that when we had little choice to tear her open anyways, we might as well put her back together what we considered to be the right way.”

Jameson was still in shock. He’d expected to get a few surprises when he got his ship back, as it was common practice among Starfleet space dock personnel to refit what they could when the ships needed repairs, but this was taking the practice a little bit too far. What made it even worse was that neither Val nor Admiral Jahari had even hinted at the extent of which they'd changed his old science ship until now.

“Unfortunately, we had to prioritize.” Jonah continued after a minute or so. “We had to remove four science labs, as well as the main shuttle bay, but we believe the tradeoff was worth it especially in our current situation.”
“I see you’ve been busy.” Jameson managed to exhale though it sounded more like a whistling. “Bio-neural circuitry, mark twenty-three sensor package, upgraded phasers, higher yield quantum torpedoes… god, are those Sovereign nacelles?!”
“Almost exactly, but scaled down accordingly.” Captain Jonah nodded. “The originals are based on almost the same coil design as a these, but wouldn’t support the new antimatter reactor core which is actually not only a Sovereign model, but the very one we had left over since we refitted the Discovery with the new Valkyria model. It's not the same warp core, but it'll be a lot faster than your old one.”
“Jeez, Val. You guys are insane!” He shook his head. “How fast is she?”
“We actually don’t know.” She made an amused smile. “You could probably fry the nacelles if you wanted to try though, but our best guess is that you can safely get somewhere around 9.982. She’ll be overpowered for her size, that’s for sure.”
“What the...? He gasped. "That's just about the same speed as a Defiant?”
“True, but she'll come with much the same problems as the Defiant class initially had as well.” She nodded. “We didn’t have much choice though, read on.”
“I did, but I have no idea what this is.”
“Well, excepting the other weaponry, those two tubes going half-way through the saucer, and the reason we had to rip out the science labs, are in fact two overgrown pulse phaser cannons.”
“Overgrown?” He frowned. “More like supersized, in my opinion.”
“True, I suppose.” She sighed. “We ran into a slight problem when we looked at increasing her armament, as there was simply no space left to add any more of the higher yield conventional phaser strips on the limited hull area that ship has, especially not after we added the ablative armor generators, so we had to... improvise."
"So I see." He scratched his head, still having problems believing what he was seeing.
"Test results show they have a yield that is approximately four times that of a regular pulse cannon, but at a lower rate of fire." She shrugged, but a smile played on her lips. "We actually have the power requirement to fire it faster covered, but the system requires a few seconds to cool down sufficiently.”
“She'll be a mean little thing.” He sighed.
“That she already is.” The bronze-haired woman turned and looked Jameson straight in the eyes. “She’s nowhere near the firepower of even a light cruiser, but she’s more than a match for a Defiant or Saber. Probably about equal to a Norway-class destroyer for long-range power, but faster and more maneuverable. But, time for the bad news.”
“Oh?” He looked up and met her dark-eyed gaze. “And what’d that be?”
“I renamed her.”
“You did what?” He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“You heard me.” She smiled. “She’s hardly a poorly armed and even worse armored research ship anymore. She really needed a better name, especially since she won't melt if you get too close to a star anymore.”
“So, what did you come up with?” He asked.
“The USS Eclipse.” She gave a flash of a smile. “Surprised?”
He almost laughed. He remembered that the female engineer turned Captain was an avid fan of the constant scene playing out outside as the numerous moons turned around the planet. “No, can’t say I really am.”
“Anyway, you’ll have to get your crew back together again and take her for a spin.” She made a gesture for the door. “I’ve got another meeting in a minute with another hopeful.”
“Oh?” He rose from his seat and shot her a meaningful glance.
“For the job as chief engineer of the Surprise, you pig.” She mocked throwing a pad at her old friend. “Dirty mind, Kirk. Just like another Kirk I’ve heard about.”
“I’m in good company then.” He smiled as he turned to leave.



CAPTAIN’S READY ROOM, USS ODIN
FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT
EN-ROUTE TO ALPHA CENTAURI


Halsey was slumped back in the spacious and surprisingly comfortable sofa, enjoying his cup of citrus-spiced black tea while reading through the after-action reports that had eventually filtered up since the battle at Orion, both the detailed ones from the various departments of his own ship, but also the more general reports from the other ships in the battle group.

He’d been over most of them several times already, looking for someone somewhere who might have seen that one crucial mistake coming, but he had still not been able to find anything he could blame Grayson or anyone else for. She’d made a mistake, sure, and even though no one would think of faulting her for it under any other circumstances, as her commanding officer he needed to see to it that not only hers but his back as well were sufficiently covered. Especially if the Council requested a hearing or even worse a court martial.

Had it been a comparable situation back home, he still thought of the Alpha Quadrant like back home, there’d been no question about what had happened. She’d be acquitted of any suspicion of dereliction without even getting close to facing a court martial, and quite possibly be given a medal for her service as well. But, this wasn’t the Alpha Quadrant and there’d be no medal. Halsey didn't doubt the rest of the Admirals, they just as he didn't blame her or anyone else and had been at least aware that the risk existed. As for the civilian government though...

He looked up from his pad as he realized his door opened, and rose from his ill-fitting pose as the blue-and-leather uniformed shape of Commander Sheridan entered the room. Halsey had even forgotten he'd asked him to wear his Earth Force uniform when speaking to the few human survivors they'd brought along from Orion.

“Commander, please.” He motioned for the other end of the sofa. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks, Admiral.” Sheridan gave a slight smile as he sat down. "I'm supposed to give you the full regards of the survivors. Seems they're quite a bit more willing to accept their new reality than I believe I ever was, but then again I suppose I didn't start my new life fighting Minbari in a ditch alongside you guys either."
"That's true, I suppose." Halsey nodded with a wry smile. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“No, thanks.” Sheridan declined, and continued. “Admiral, even if I didn't see it happen while on the bridge, I've heard what happened with the Avenger.”
“Of course you have.” Halsey shook his head with a faint dry smile. “You know, there’s no such thing as a secret on a starship, and especially not on one with marines on board.”
“Right you are.” Sheridan nodded. “Still, I wanted to thank you for getting those civilians out of there.”
“I suppose you’re welcome, but I’m guessing you’re not entirely unpleased with the way the rest turned out either.” Halsey sighed, and looked Sheridan in the eyes. “Tell me, Commander. Would you be pleased if Starfleet was forced to take a more active role in this conflict?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t.” Sheridan nodded sincerely, but his smile vanished immediately. “At the same time, I saw what happened in orbit as well as anyone else, and I believe I’ve begun to understand your position of non-interference. It’s a terrible responsibility to have that power, isn’t it?”
“Heh, ironically enough what you saw wasn’t entirely our true abilities either.” Halsey made a sad smile. “What you saw was Federation ships playing with a handicap, consciously avoiding doing more damage than necessary.”
“Looked effective enough…” Sheridan started to reply, but Halsey raised his hand.
“Commander, I’ve been debating whether to tell you this or not, but the fact is that nine out of ten of the Minbari cruiser crews survived, no matter how ferocious the Akiras' attacks looked."
"Where are they then?" Sheridan asked, somewhat dumbfounded. "I haven't seen any of them and I've pretty much gone through the entire ship."
"They’re on board the Gabriel, the carrier we rendezvoused with an hour ago, at the moment, and although heavily sedated and under marine guard they are indeed still very much alive." He sighed deeply. "The same can’t be said about their ground forces, unfortunately.”
“I understand.” Sheridan sighed himself, reflecting on what West had said a few weeks ago. “You still want to save as many as possible, from both sides.”
“You're absolute right.” Halsey nodded. “It’s the major part of the responsibility we have, or rather, the responsibility we’ve taken.”
“Still, if that battle was played with a handicap, I’m not sure I look forward to seeing you fight a real battle against any known race." Sheridan pondered and shook his head ever so slightly. "All the races the Earth Alliance has encountered fear the Minbari, and your ships were barely scratched even by the most powerful weapons they had. Weapons I know firsthand would split a Nova-class dreadnought wide open with a single shot.”

Halsey actually started laughing, though it was a fairly dry and empty laugh. Sheridan was surprised, but waited patiently for Halsey to continue.

“Commander, if there’s anything I’ve learned from my time in Starfleet, it’s that there’s always a bigger fish swimming somewhere in the endless ocean of space, wielding an even bigger gun, with even larger ideas of empire and conquest.” He stroked his chin. “First there were the Klingons, then the Romulans, then the Cardassians, then the Borg, then the Dominion, and once you think you’ve dealt with them all, the circle repeats itself once more.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know all of those names.” Sheridan replied, trying to remember his short brief with Sophia back at the Academy. "Except the Romulans and Dominion, at least."
“It doesn’t matter, and it's a very, very long story.” Halsey shrugged and dropped that matter. “My point is, even as far advanced as Federation technology may seem to you, or to any other race you know, there’s always another race out there which isn’t quite as impressed by it as you are."
"That sounds logical, even though I must admit have a hard time coming up with who that
d be at the moment."
"It is, unfortunately, one of the first things any nation must realize or face the consequences." Halsey continued. "The Dilgar realized this when they met your forces in battle, and you in turn realized this when yours met the Minbari.”
“Earth already knew there were other races out there more powerful than ourselves.” Sheridan replied defensively. “The Centauri, as an example.”
“Which you neutralized with trade agreements and mutual defense pacts.” Halsey rebutted. “They never tried, or ever had the intention, to actively stop you. Not the way Earth decided to stop the Dilgar, or the way the Minbari decided to stop Humanity.”
“I suppose you have a point.” Sheridan replied. “I still have a hard time seeing another race from our area of space being comparable to your Federation.”
“Those who live will see.” Halsey replied, with a sad look in his eyes. He could still remember the overwhelming feeling of dread he’d faced when he’d almost lost his life twice in short succession above Draconis. “Those who live will most definitely see.”

Sheridan leaned back and observed the Admiral who went silent for a moment. He hadn’t been around Halsey long enough to get to know the man very well, nor did he know much about his history or heritage. The one thing he’d been surprised by when they had finally met was the typical British accent, but even that just added to the mystery. His current behavior, while just as mysterious, gave him more than just a slight hint that the Englishman already knew the answer to that question, and knew it well.

He took his gaze away from the black-uniformed man and looked at a large viewscreen that covered the wall opposite the door. He’d been told this ship had no windows, but to replicate the view the designers had decided to add these. He regretted his decision almost immediately; as he saw the stars outside go by unnaturally fast forming white lines rather than the usual bright spots.

He’d slowly grown accustomed to many things these Starfleet people took for granted, such as artificial gravity and replicated food, but even though he was consciously aware that these ships were capable of true faster-than-light travel he was still unnerved every time he realized that they were traveling at speeds beyond three hundred million kilometers per second. More than a thousand times faster than the speed of light. And this was just what they considered a standard cruising speed, in a crunch they could go many times faster still. It utterly and completely boggled his mind.

Still, he could realize the usefulness of the technology, as he’d been told by the Starfleet engineers that the method of travel universally used by the races he knew about had its own limitations, some more severe than others. One of the main problems hyperspace had was its currents, and the way these behave close to larger gravity wells such as binary stars, white dwarves, black holes and other high-mass stellar phenomena. The other main issue was that unlike real space, hyperspace isn’t static, so it’s never easy to actually find other star systems unless you have a beacon to follow. Two rules he knew by heart, as did every other Earth Alliance crewman, but rules he’d never questioned until just lately.

The Federation version, while still amazing all in itself, seemed so much simpler when it came to navigating. Point the ship in the right direction and engage the engines, and aside from having to dodge a few comets, moons, planets or even entire star systems that went by in seconds at most, you’d end up exactly at the place you aimed for. He could only imagine what his people could find in the other star systems around Earth, as they hadn’t even been able to get from Proxima to the actual Alpha Centauri system albeit this had not meant they hadn't tried repeatedly every time they got a better jump engine design.

“Admiral, mind if I ask where we’re going?” Sheridan said and broke the silence.
“Alpha Centauri.” Halsey replied almost absent-mindedly. Sheridan recoiled from the surprise, as he’d just been thinking about it. “We are, or rather Commander Starfleet is, worried about a possible Minbari retaliatory attack on the Proxima colony.”
“I see.” Sheridan nodded. “I suppose it’s the next logical target, after all it’s the main staging area for the Earth Alliance fleet as well as the gateway to the Sol system.”
“It’s also the only militarily important target left in the Alliance outside the Sol system.” Halsey pointed out. “Most other colonies are either occupied or evacuated.”
“Ironic.” Sheridan sighed. “I always wanted to be the first human to visit Alpha Centauri. It’s always captivated me. So close, but yet so impossible to get to.”
“In a way you’ll get your wish.” Halsey replied with an amused smile. “We’ll be there in less than six hours. You won't be the first human in the system, but at least you'll be the first Earth Alliance citizen.”
“I will, I suppose.” Sheridan bowed his head. “But this isn’t right. I wanted it to be on the bridge of an Alliance explorer ship, staking a claim for a prospering Earth Alliance. Not on a ship belonging to a foreign power heading towards a potential catastrophe.”
“Heh, you know, the alternative version you wanted really isn’t possible anyways.” Halsey made a twisted smile.
“How so?” Sheridan asked.
“You can’t just claim what someone else already owns.” Halsey rose from his seat. “And last I heard, there’s about four billion sentient beings there who would probably mind if you tried.”

Halsey walked out of the ready room, leaving a dumbstruck Sheridan still on the sofa. That was simply not something he’d expected to hear.

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 30


OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
STARFLEET COMMAND
ELYSIUM, SIRIUS, DECEMBER 8TH 2245


Fleet Admiral West stood in silence leaning on his desk, his gaze pointed towards some distant object outside the thick transparent metal window. He was deep in reflection, thinking about how everything that had happened lately had played out. He wasn’t too happy about what had happened, but surprisingly even to himself he wasn’t entirely disappointed either. That thought irritated him to no end, as he really didn't want to admit even to himself that his people could, maybe even should or would have to intervene fairly soon.

He’d always been a follower of the Prime Directive and had always believed that it provided Starfleet, indeed the entire Federation, with an extra layer of insurance against the kind of backfires that had been commonplace in the era before its inception. He went over them all in his mind which took some time as there had been quite a few, most of them since before the founding of the Federation but also some quite notable since. Most had been well intended, some had even been entirely successful. Most however had eventually ended in tragedy or failed abysmally. Still, he could remember just as many situations where intervention would have quite possibly prevented a larger incident, perhaps most importantly the decision not to intervene in the Dominion annexation of Cardassia, or the way Starfleet had officially ignored the Breen for decades even knowing they harbored smugglers, war criminals and raiders.

There had always been Captains, not to mention Admirals, more or less willing to violate the Prime Directive given the correct circumstances. Most of the greats had done so and most of them several times as well. Kirk was even infamous for his tendencies of ignoring it, and Picard was known to have violated it at least seven times. Even Janeway, a personal friend of his, had been forced to be quite lax about it while she and her crew had been trapped in the Delta Quadrant. In fact, the very reason she’d been trapped there was because of a violation of the Prime Directive in itself. Talk about instant karma.

He sighed and silently cursed, his situation was by all measures actually even worse than hers had been. Sure, he had more people, more ships, and infinitely more resources than Voyager had ever had in the Delta Quadrant, but here in this mockery of home one of the other major players in this massive game of interstellar chess was another version of humanity itself. It could very easily be argued that the Prime Directive didn’t really apply at all, as it had specific amendments about splinter colonies, other human nations and displaced civilizations. He'd even set a kind of precedent when he'd approached the Draconis government. At the same time, if Starfleet were to reveal themselves to Earth and the Minbari they’d still quite possibly destabilize the entire region, not to mention indirectly interfere with the natural progression of dozens of other native species. Still, he had his suspicion that he'd already seen that choice slip through his fingers.

The Prime Directive had never been intended to cover a situation like this, and unfortunately for the Admiral he and most of his Captains knew that it had other gray areas built into it as well. As an example once a civilization had become warp-capable, they were bound to run into the other space-faring races sooner or later no matter whether or not first contact had already been established. Making a pre-emptive contact before this happened was standard practice, but that was mostly a way of minimizing the risk of confrontation on the part of the newly ascended race.

Here, the tables were turned, but not entirely. The Federation was the new guy in the neighborhood, so to speak, but unlike any newly ascended race who’d have to adapt to face the rest of the galaxy, the rest of the galaxy would have to adapt to face them. The last time that’d happened in the Alpha Quadrant had been as the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant started spewing out Jem Hadar warships, and the only one preceding that which he knew about would have to be the discovery of the Borg.

West really didn’t like drawing those comparisons, but even so it was the closest ones he could make.

He turned around and rubbed his eyes. All this thinking and worrying was giving him a really bad headache, but unfortunately he didn’t have anyone else he could really discuss his thoughts with either. The rest of the Admiralty would all react in different ways, from the isolationist policy Keyes would favor, to the interventionist policy that Halsey would most likely propose. West wasn’t even sure what Jahari’s position was on the entire matter, and even though he doubted the Caitian would back down from a fight, the feline man had repeatedly managed to surprise him before.

Then there was the ever-present and lingering matter of the Vorlons. They still hadn’t seen or heard from them since their unprovoked attack on the Draconis system, but that could possibly change in a hurry if the Federation started advertising their existence by intervening in the war between Earth and the Minbari. There had been vague theories voiced about why this belligerent race hadn’t bothered them again since then, but so far there'd been nothing even close to concise or factual. He made a tired smile when he remembered something one of his first commanding officers had told him.

“The only man who actually knows what to do, that knows all possible outcomes…” He whispered to himself.
“Is a god, and the gods are dead.” The dry voice of Commander Korash, the Klingon first officer of Aquilae Station interjected. “They knew too much for their own good and met their demise at the business end of a Klingon Bat'leth.”

West turned around in surprise and realized he hadn’t even noticed the burly officer entering his office.

“Commander.” He approached his desk again and shook the Klingon’s hand across it. “What can Starfleet Command do for you today?”
“Not much.” Korash took a seat without being offered one. “I’m supposed to give you the weekly report, but seeing as you already know exactly what’s in it I’m really just sitting here killing time while I'm waiting for the shuttle back up to arrive.”
“That’s a cynical way of looking at things, don’t you think?” West smiled. Klingons weren’t exactly known for their humility or adherence to protocol.
“Probably.” Korash nodded. “Still, you’ve been downloading our situation reports every other hour for the last three days, so you’re probably more up to speed on the Space Command reports than I am at the moment. Elisha is getting quite mad at you, she keeps telling me it's like you're constantly looking over her shoulder and it's driving her nuts.”
“Heh, I hadn’t realized.” West replied and almost blushed. "Convey my apologies to her, Commander."
“Admiral, let me be blunt.” Korash leaned back in his seat and scratched his long moustache. “Everyone knows something’s been eating at you lately, and most of us have a decent idea what it is as well. It’s not like there’s all that many possible impending dooms hanging over our heads at the moment.”
“True enough, I suppose.” West made a deep sigh and rubbed his temples. “I suppose you have an idea about how we should tackle it too?”
“There’s an old Klingon proverb that best describes my views on the issue.” Korash made a toothy smile. “Act; and you may eat dinner. Think; and you may be dinner.”

West couldn’t help but chuckle at the comment. It bore all the simplicity one would expect from Klingon wisdom, but still held infinite wisdom in that very simplicity.

“I guess you have a point.” West nodded. “Still, there’s another proverb that also applies. There is no honor in attacking the weak.”
“Which is exactly what this Minbari race of p’tahk did, is it not?” Korash made a spitting motion, but to West’s relief he just mimicked the sound, not the actual action. “They are truly without honor, and thus they do not deserve our respect.”
“So, if I may ask, what would you have us do?” West relaxed. “Hypothetically, of course.”
“It’s easy, even by Federation standards.” Korash scratched his moustache again. “We create an enforced peace.”
“Become peacekeepers in a hot war?” West recoiled. “That’d be the same thing as de facto entering the war as an active participant, Commander.”
“But by legitimate and politically acceptable means, Admiral.” Korash made a slightly devilish grin. “Federation Charter, chapter one.”
“Doubtful.” West shrugged. “I’m not entirely familiar with the Federation Charter though, I’ve always been closer to the Starfleet Directives.”
“Well, I’d recommend you look that up instead of re-reading the same Aquilae situation reports every ten minutes.” Korash pointed out. “Especially sections one, five, six and seven. You may find that the phrasing catches your eye.”
“I see.” West nodded as he actually had a decent idea of what the Klingon was hinting at, even though he couldn't for the life of him remember the exact words used which were so important in legal matters. “If, and I mean if, it's actually phrased that way that’s one way of making a legitimate intervention. It’d require the Minbari to change tactics, however. Just as I'd have to convince at least one of the Draconis council members.”
“That’s actually debatable.” Korash rebutted. “They have already provided us the means to push for it, if you decide to use them that is.”
“You’re probably right.” West shrugged. “I’ll have to think about it some more, as well as talk to Fontaine and Callaghan.”
“Of course.” Korash rose from his seat and started to make his exit. “Just remember what Kahless said. To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible.”
“Good night, Commander. And thank you.” West motioned for him to leave, and once again stood up and started thinking again.

It was still night on Draconis, and he didn’t want to start this discussion until the two senior representatives to the Federation Council were awake, fed and ready to be severely shaken. Plus, he had a date with a both cute, young and quite attractive girl who'd just love to see him and get a few hours of his precious and too rare quality time. A quick glance at the time told him he only had another ten minutes until he was supposed to go pick her up and she absolutely hated it when he was late. He almost started to feel old, she'd turn three in just a few months and he was still amazed she could walk, and even more so that she could talk, even though she'd been both for quite a while now.


VALEN’THA
MINBARI FEDERATION FLAGSHIP
HYPERSPACE


Delenn found she had to fight to keep her cool, and sometimes she wondered just how dense her companion could actually be. Normally she always respected the opinion of the fellow Gray Council member but this night she couldn’t for the life of her understand how he could keep to it no matter her arguments.

“I understand your position Delenn, but do please remember that yours was the deciding vote on the matter and you may have to live with the consequences of that decision. I personally voted against it, if you remember.”
“My decision was, perhaps, a bit rash.” She bowed her head in true shame. “He died in my arms, and I was blinded by rage. What else was I to tell them when my hands were still covered with Dukhat’s own blood?”
“But the decision was made, and the warrior caste was let loose on the human race in an unrestricted holy war." The older worker caste Setai pointed out. "We can't easily overturn a decision that has already taken effect, especially when we gave them no boundary in the first place.”
“But in light of these new events, our earlier decision must be reevaluated!” Delenn insisted. “There is no need to continue this war; we’ve already had our revenge, indeed we have had it many times over. The Human dead count in the tens, even hundreds of thousands!”
“Have we, Delenn?” Setai Hedronn of the worker caste rebutted. “You may think so, and I may think so, but I believe you will find it hard to get Shakiri, Coplann or Morann to agree with that assessment.”
“The warrior caste. They do not fight for the cause of revenge anymore; they fight only for the cause of war, for the battles and honor they believe they are gaining by slaughtering the human worlds.” Delenn frowned. “It is distasteful at best.”
"You forget, they see every Minbari warrior killed at the human hands as yet another reason to continue the war." He pointed out. "Each life lost as a reason to exact another even more drastic measure of revenge."
"You are right, of course." Delenn nodded.
“And with the appearance of this new race which destroyed the Trigati's taskforce, they feel the true war has only just now started.” Hedronn shook his head and made a deep sigh. “Now that Minbari blood has been shed large amounts once again, I fear they will not stop voluntarily until the humans and their new allies have both been completely destroyed.”
“Even as these new ships seem to outclass even the most powerful Minbari warship?” Delenn shook her head in disbelief. The warrior caste mentality ad always confounded her. “I fear, Hedronn. I truly fear what consequences such actions would bring. This new faction has already proven they can fight, and fight well at that. What would be left of Minbar if we let this war escalate?”
"But what hope would you have of convincing Shakiri of that?" Hedronn asked. "To him, this war has become a measure of personal revenge. His wife was the second in command of the Trigati, his only son one of the ground Commanders on Orion. His thirst for revenge is the guiding light for his soul now, Delenn."
"His thirst for revenge is a madness boiling within him." Delenn nodded. "Nothing good can come of it, and the path he's walking us down cannot lead to but pain and sorrow."
“I agree with you, do not doubt that.” Hedronn stopped and frowned. “Yet, we cannot stop this war without good reason.” He continued. “The warrior caste is powerful, you know that as well as I do, and trying to force any such decision without being able to convince them would most likely explode in our faces.”
“I know the religious would vote with me to stop the war.” Delenn stated. “The workers follow you, or at least Zakat does. We could vote to end it right here and now.”
“Durlan would most likely support us as well.” Hedronn stopped and looked straight at her. “But what would that accomplish?”
“An end to the war, I would imagine.” Delenn replied matter-of-factly. “And, hopefully, an end to our conflict with this new race before it begins in earnest.”
“We both know that a Gray Council vote wouldn’t stop the warrior caste, it would only serve to alienate them. We let them loose, Delenn. We allowed them to go to holy war, but we didn’t bother to restrict their mandate. It was our mistake, and the humans and our consciences will have to pay the price.”
Hedronn sighed and leaned his head back, allowing the hood of his robes to glide down from his head. He looked tired, Delenn thought, just as tired as she felt.
“Putting the leash back on the beast is never as easy as it is to let it go, I’m afraid.” He said softly. “Unless something changes dramatically, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do to stop this insanity from continuing.”
“Then something must change.” Delenn almost screamed. “Even if we have to force it to!”
“Indeed, but what can we do?” Hedronn asked soberly. “Neither the Workers or the Religious can easily affect matters outside Minbari space.”
“Together, we control more than four fifths of the Minbari, and two thirds of the council.” Delenn replied with an angered face. “We are far from powerless.”
“But even if we do control military forces, we do not command the loyalty of the warrior clans nor the majority of the true warships. How are we supposed to change the course of a war without that?”
“There is, perhaps, a way.” She thought for a second. “The Anla’shok.”
“The Rangers?”

Hedronn recoiled a bit in surprise, but then quickly regained his composure as he reflected more closely on it.

“Perhaps.” He nodded. “Am I to assume you have been in contact with Lenonn?”
“Yes.” She replied. “I’ve asked him to seek out this new nation and speak to them on my behalf.”
“Heh.” He made a short snicker. “Shakiri would probably have your head served to him on a silver platter if he knew, you do know that, don’t you?”
“That is possible.” She made a dry smile. “Still, without any ideas of where to look, I feel doubt that Lenonn will find much of use.”
“Tell him to focus his search in the systems which are close to the human worlds and have gates.” Hedronn stated after a few seconds of thought. “There are several systems around them we haven’t been to since the end of the Great War. Legend tells that some of the other races involved in that war lived in that area, but that they were destroyed or left long ago.”
“I see your point.” Delenn frowned. “Perhaps... perhaps not all of these races were quite as gone as we thought.”

The two Minbari walked in silence until they reached their destination, both in deep reflection over what had just been discussed.


USS INDEPENDENCE
FEDERATION SOVEREIGN-CLASS BATTLECRUISER
GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT AROUND SIRIUS


Commodore Duval had hurried as fast as she could towards the transporter room, but as she entered she saw she had gotten there just a few seconds too late. Still, she didn’t let that unimportant fact deter her. A few quick paces and she almost ended up tackling her husband to the floor. Luckily he was still strong enough to catch her, not to mention quick enough to understand her intention. She did however manage to cause the otherwise stony face of her Xindi transporter chief to break into a slight smile.

“And hello to you too, Commodore Duval.” Her husband smiled as he hugged his wife.
“Sorry!” She blushed slightly. “It’s just… I haven’t seen you in weeks!”
“I know.” He chuckled a little. “Sorry, but with the war and all…”
“I know, I know.” She pouted.

She loosened herself from his embrace with a soft peck on his cheek, and straightened her uniform out a bit.

“So, what in the world made you decide to recall the entire 116th squadron back to Sirius?” She asked inquisitively. “Normally I’d suppose it’s my good looks and company, or perhaps Janine reaching yet another stage of the terrible twos and you wanting to dump her on board, but I’m guessing you have a different motive this time.”
“You know I can never get enough of those good looks of yours.” He smiled, and then got serious. “I need to talk with you in private.”

He kept silent as they walked out of the transporter room, and into the nearby storage room. Finding it vacant he leaned against the wall and sighed deeply.

“In truth, I need your help, Sheila.”
“Oh?” She replied with obvious surprise. “With what?”
“Finding a Minbari ship.” He stated matter-of-factly.
“Really.” She shrugged. “I can point you to at least a dozen I know about already.”
“It’s not quite that simple.” He smiled. “I need you to find a specific ship.”

He reached into his inside breast pocket and produced a pad, which he handed over to his wife.

“A very special and equally very important Minbari ship.” He finished.
“Wait…” She raised a hand while she finished reading. “You want me to find a single ship, that’s probably hidden somewhere deep within Minbari space, but no one really knows where, or for that sake exactly what kind of ship it really is?”
“Basically.” He nodded. “It gets better.”
“Really? How?”
“What you’re looking for is the Minbari flagship itself.” He raised a hand. ”Not the one floating around in Earth space directing the invasion, but the real one. The one their so-called Gray Council is on.”
“Okay, here’s a great question.” She replied. “Why?”
“Because unless something changes very soon, we’re going to be the only human race alive in this galaxy.” He sighed. “I just got word back from Valeris' squadron, Minbari ships have started to bomb the colony at Beta 9 using mass drivers and antimatter weaponry.”
“But…” She gasped. “That’s a civilian colony! They’ve never intentionally targeted civilian ground installations before, and I was there when they destroyed the garrison. They left the colony intact!”
“We feared they’d retaliate after we destroyed their taskforce in the Orion system.” His face darkened. “A miscalculation on my behalf, I thought they’d attack Proxima, as it’s the only valuable military target left except the for Sol system itself and Sol is shielded by Proxima as well.”
“Did we have anyone there at the time?” Sheila prayed.
“No.” He shook his head. “Valeris and her flotilla got there too late, Halsey and his taskforce are at Alpha Centauri, and Henry and his ships are still keeping watch for enemy raiders in the Sol system.”
“Grayson or Cleves then?” She pleaded.
“The furies are with Halsey, and Cleves is here in the Sirius system.” He shot her hopes down. “I switched the Venture with the Steamrunners guarding the Minbari refugee camps on Hades in order to free up the Michael from guarding Draconis.”
“Damn.” She screamed and he barely had time to intercept her small fist before it smashed into the hard metal wall.
“I know.” He whispered softly to her. “Trust me, I know.”
“This can’t go on.” She half-sobbed. “Too many people are dying. And for what?”
“I know.” He gently stroked her hair, doing his best at calming her down. “That’s why we need to find the Minbari leaders.”
“To lock them in chains, pull their kicking and screaming bodies in front of a war crimes tribunal and then beam them into low orbit of a black hole?” She cursed.
“Not quite, though that sounds just a bit like what I'd like to see happen as well. At least to the officer who ordered that bombardment.” He replied sincerely. “But still, in order to end this I’ve spoken with Fontaine, and in light of the recent development the Council has agreed to, ‘officially condemn the actions of the Minbari Federation as being a threat to the galactic peace and an act of severe aggression and disrespect of basic sapient rights’, I think his exact wording was.”
“Not quite what I had in mind.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “But I suppose that’ll have to do. Section seven?”

He wished. That’d make the entire issue of sending his wife and her crew in to risk their lives behind enemy lines avoidable. Still, he thought, it would be better to try to get things done in the least bloody way possible before he had to resort to a more... direct... approach.

“Six” He replied. “Article thirty-three, unless the situation changes.” He paused. “And Fontaine already wrote a blank check for a seven forty-two if it does, though he also warned me specifically not to use it lightly or he'd have my head hung on display above the main entrance to the Federation Council. I suspect he’s the only one that actually knows what the Council’s decision actually means, while Bannerman and Callaghan probably just thought it sounded good to condemn genocide. Which is an opinion I can definitely agree with.”
"So..." Sheila picked herself up. “What do you want me to do, exactly?”
“Poke around in and near Minbari space, especially in the uninhabited systems with hyperspace gates.” He explained. “They’re most likely in contact with the fleets and the rest of the nation using tachyon beam communications, so keep an eye out for any changes in tachyon emissions and try to follow them to their source.”
“Sounds like an idea.” She nodded. “If this ship is really the nerve centre of the entire empire, it should be lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“Don’t jump to any such conclusions.” He shook his head warily. “We suspect very little actual work is done by this Gray Council of theirs, but rather that they set general policy and let others enforce it. As far as we have been able to tell, they’re running their nation very hands off.”
“Sounds like another empire I know.” Duval darkened.
“It does, doesn’t it?” West nodded. “But at least this empire doesn’t have those annoying Vorta.”
“True, though from what I've heard they're not much better.” Sheila made a dry smile. “And their warriors aren't really far behind the Jem Hadar in their ruthlessness. So, what should I do once I find them?”
“If you find them.” The Admiral corrected. “You call me, immediately. No waltzing up to them waving the flag, understood?”
“Right.” She nodded defensively. “But I’m giving one of my transphasics a custom paint job. Something along the lines of ‘Greetings from the people of Beta 9’.”

He gave her a stern look which in no uncertain terms told her exactly how much he objected to that idea.

“It’s not good for you, you know.”
“Wrong, Samuel, it’s exactly what I need.”
“I’ve always told you to try not to get so emotionally attached.” He sighed. "We can't change the way the galaxy spins."
“It's just in case, Sam.” She parried. “I won’t load it in a tube… yet.”
“Changing the subject.” He retreated, knowing full well his higher rank was useless when discussing privately with his wife. “I want the rest of your taskforce to reinforce Halsey at Alpha Centauri.”
“Still expecting trouble?” She asked.
“Just because I was wrong about the time and order doesn’t mean I’m wrong about the act.” The Admiral reasoned. “The question isn’t if the Minbari will attack Proxima. They will; the only real question left is when.”
“True.” She frowned. “The entire Earth fleet is there, plus hundreds of thousands of people on the surface.”
“At least they’re evacuating.” West sighed. “Proxima is a class K planet.”
“Domes.” She cursed. “What’s with these humans and their fondness for domed colonies?”
“Heh, what do you think the Federation would look like if we’d never found more than a handful of habitable planets?” He rebutted. “Their faster than light technology doesn’t even allow them to enter most systems capable of producing them”
“Oh?” She asked, she’d never been very interested in terraforming, and as such had never really paid all that much attention to those lectures. “Why is that?”
“Because the kind of tidal stress and geological shifts that are required to produce life, and for that sake a habitable atmosphere, is much less likely to occur in a system with a single star.” He explained. “Earth, for example, would be much like Mars is if it hadn’t been for the Moon.”
“So?” She didn’t understand his point yet. “What’s different with a binary system?”
“In a binary, or for that sake a ternary system.” He continued. “You always have tidal stress from the other star.”

She got the point.

“So, while binary systems are less likely to form planets, the ones that do are more likely to actually develop life?”
“Correct.” He smiled. “That is also one of the reasons why most class K planets, like Mars, are so easy to terraform, in that all they lack is sufficient heat and cyanobacteria. The first we generate artificially by increasing the carbon dioxide levels, the second we transplant from other planets.”
“You’re making my head hurt again.” She stopped his lecture. “And you’re straying again, Professor.”
“Sorry.” He almost blushed. “My point is that they can’t easily reach binary systems with their jump drives, so the chance of them happening upon actually habitable worlds is much smaller.”
“And they don’t have the kind of terraforming technology or experience that the Federation does.” She finished. “So, instead, they lock themselves in glass bubbles which make great targets for orbital bombardment.”
“Yup, that'd be correct.” He nodded. “Guess they’ll have to rethink that entire idea after this. Still, that’s why I want your taskforce to go there.”
“Don’t worry, my Captains won’t let you down.” She gave him a kiss. “And neither will I.”
“Glad to hear it.” He smiled. “Now, I have to get back before Keyes gets an aneurism.”
“Haven’t told her yet?” Sheila made a surprised frown. “Ouch.”
“Well, I told Athena.” He admitted. “Didn’t really have a choice there. Either way, Elisha will understand. Once she calms down, anyways…”
“I wish you luck.” Sheila smiled. “You’ll need it.”

The couple embraced once more, and then left the cargo bay. The Admiral headed towards the transporter room, ready to get over to Aquilae and face the verbal firing squad, and the Captain towards the bridge in order to brief her senior staff. Sheila couldn’t help smiling all the way; finally they were going to act and not just react.


MINBARI SCOUT SHIP
EPSILON ERIDANI SYSTEM


The young religious-caste Minbari was still worried that he’d been detected by the unknown ship, enough so that he’d shut down all the systems of his small scout ship and turned the life support system to its lowest possible setting. This meant that the temperature inside the small vessel was rapidly approaching freezing, and the air was getting harder to breathe every minute. Still, even though he’d be able to enter a state of meditative trance to conserve his air supply, he opted not to. The intelligence he was gathering was far too important.

He had initially doubted the wisdom of going to this remote and apparently lifeless solar system, and even more so when he’d exited the apparently ancient warp gate. He had his doubts whether the ill-kept device would even be able to get him back into hyperspace, as from the looks of it there was a fair chance of it exploding in his face when he’d try. Still, he’d been forced to admit that his initial doubt was in error.

Barely an hour after his arrival his sensors had started to behave erratically, showing him an object not just closing in on him, but closing with a speed so high that the computers had trouble resolving what it was. Now, almost an hour later, it had finally spat out an impossible result. The object in question had been travelling at a speed higher than the speed of light and the only reason he’d been able to detect it at all was his tachyon-based sensors, the other systems didn’t even react until the object had actually slowed down.

And slowed down it had. He’d managed to get a few more detailed scans of it before he turned his vessel dark, scans that seemed to support his superiors’ fears. The object was in fact a ship; it had to be considering it had numerous life signs. As for the rest, he didn’t know what to make of it. Not only did it use a propulsion system he couldn’t even begin to understand, it was also emanating an insane energy signature for a ship its size. Indeed, the energy signature almost reached that of a Sharlin-class war cruiser!

And that was insane enough. A Sharlin was more than a kilometer and a half tall, while this small frigate was no more than a tenth of that from bow to stern, and nowhere near as massive. It looked sleek, almost beautiful, but at the same time it also filled him with a sense of purest dread. Who were these people, and where did they come from? It was obvious he hadn’t found one of their systems, from what limited sensor data he was still passively gathering they were here doing much the same thing he was, gathering information. Luckily for him, the alien vessel seemed to be focusing on the planet it was orbiting rather than the distant asteroid belt.

Even so, and this also frightened him, the kind of energy emissions he was detecting made little sense to the computer either. Most races the Minbari had encountered used a mixture of electromagnetic, tachyon-based and laser-based scanners. The kind of particles and emissions his passive sensors were capturing contained none of these, in fact most of what they were recording his computer simply spat back as ‘unknown’.

All of a sudden, alarms started to go off all around him, and as he looked up at the main display, he cursed and started activating his ships dormant systems. He’d been spotted, whatever this unknown ship’s sensors were capable of they were apparently able to see his ship, even while running silent. The last thing he saw before blacking out was a bright white line between where the ship had been one second, and where it was the next.

His last conscious though was simple enough.

“What the…” 

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 31


USS SURPRISE
FEDERATION LUNA-CLASS LIGHT ATTACK CRUISER
NEAR SIRIUS C, SIRIUS SYSTEM


The first short leg of the just recently christened Luna-class starship Surprise’s shakedown cruise had gone without as much as a single hitch, not that anyone was all that surprised especially considering the amount of refinement their own version of Starfleet Engineering had made to the original plans for the Luna-class explorer. Not only was the ship reclassified as an attack cruiser, but it was also designed and built with a much more rugged internal design than most previous Starfleet vessels except the natively constructed Valkyria-class dreadnoughts. The changes that had been made were obvious to anyone used to regular Federation interstellar starship, as this ship lacked everything even close to resembling science labs, astrometrics equipment, survey gear and many more systems that had no function during an actual battle.

There were other differences as well. The redesign of the ship had moved the bridge away from the pod structure, down into the rear center of the saucer and three levels below the outer hull, and main engineering up one and forward into the very center of the secondary hull, in order to reduce their vulnerability. Also, since both had been moved closer to the nacelle pylon the distance between the two had been significantly reduced.

They'd even opted to draw a completely new main up to the pod structure as the space regularly used by the bridge was now taken up by several quantum torpedo launchers and a couple of phaser strips. This internal restructuring had increased the projected survivability in both areas, but unfortunately it also had the consequence of reducing the available space for crew quarters, Jeffries tubes and corridors as well as lengthening the plasma conduits to the nacelles. Even with the refined AI systems, the ship still required a crew of two hundred and fifty to operate at full efficiency and the ship just wasn’t built to be as spacious as the ships the veteran Starfleet crewmen were used to.

Still, this ship was the first real starship built from scratch in the Sirius shipyards, the Valkyria having been built on the frame of the Excelsiors even if they were extensively rebuilt, and everyone had expected to see at least something fail.

“I’ve completed my diagnostic, Captain.” The burly AI appeared beside her. “The secondary deflector couplings are only operating at ninety-four percent of nominal capacity, but other than that all of my systems seems to be working according to design parameters.”
“That’s all?” Kira stated, quite surprised. Her fatalistic view of the universe didn’t quite expect that.
“Yes, Captain.” The AI replied with a slight nod. “All drive, defense and weapons systems are functioning well above their intended parameters as well I might add, and engineering has already been appraised of the situation with the deflector.”
“Praise be to the prophets.” Kira made a short prayer. “That’s great news, Commander Aubrey. So, all in all a successful shakedown so far, wouldn’t you say?”
“Agreed.” The AI removed his large hat, which she still thought looked quite ridiculous just like the rest of the AI’s uniform. “The crew’s still getting used to the ship, but without any intention of boasting I believe I’ll make a fine addition to the fleet.”
“I believe you, Commander Aubrey.” Kira replied with a smile.
"Please, Captain." The AI smiled at her. "Hopefully we'll have the chance to serve together for a long time to come. Please, call me Jack."
"Very well." She nodded. "Jack it is."

Looking around the oval bridge she saw the truth in what the AI had said about the crew learning their way around the new ship's systems. Most of the crew was used to other kinds of ships and the long since standard bridge layout, and as such the trained eye could still see where and when they sat down at the wrong console or used the wrong commands for what they were doing. Still, they were learning and they learned fast, and the AI kept his watchful eyes open so noone accidentally shut down life support, shot off a torpedo or anything else equally stupid.

As for herself, she was mostly surprised that the Admiral had entrusted her with not just another ship but indeed this specific ship after the unfortunate and considering their situation highly controversial destruction of her previous command. Not that she minded it, but under normal circumstances a Captain would be reassigned to shuffling paper for at least quite a while after something like that happened no matter the cause or effects. The Admirals had apparently pretty much overruled that tradition, her transfer papers citing the severe lack of experienced starship Captains as a major reason.

She had made a vow to the Prophets not to let them down, and had to remember to give Admirals West and Keyes a hug each for still trusting her. She'd even gotten the customary Captain's prerogative to choose her own first officer, and more than one person had been quite disappointed to see Ensign Velon Car skip over three full ranks in the chain of command and land as a provisional Commander for the duration of his assignment to the Surprise. She didn't even bother replying to the comments, the simple reason was that she'd already entrusted him with her life in a frozen riverbed on Orion IV, and he'd never let her down even once.

“Captain Kira, Commander Aubrey.” The voice of the ship’s second AI came in over the intercom as the engineers over at Aquilae still hadn’t solved the problem of multiple independent AI holograms being active in the same room. “We’re receiving new orders from Space Command at Aquilae.”
“Thank you, Doctor Maturin.” Kira replied. “On screen please.”

A second later, the viewscreen at the forward end of the bridge activated, showing her the imposing face of Admiral Keyes, the known to be stern head of Starfleet Space Operations. Kira sighed slightly as she saw the look on the Admiral’s face, she didn’t look too happy about something, and Kira was quite sure it'd somehow involve her even if she probably at least wasn't the cause.

“Admiral Keyes.” Kira made a short salute as she walked over to the Captain’s chair. The AI made a much more formal and even ancient salute, and then sat down in the first officer’s seat.
“Captain Kira, Commander Aubrey.” Keyes simply nodded. “Since I haven’t heard any screaming over subspace yet I trust your shakedown has so far gone according to plan?”
“Yes, Admiral.” Kira nodded. “Except for a minor error in one of the secondary systems, we’re green across the board. So far, I’m very pleased with her performance and it seems the combat systems are even performing better than expected.”
“I'm glad to hear it, Captain.” Keyes replied with a slight hint of a smile. “Especially as I’m going to have to speed up your planned departure quite a bit.”
“Ma’am?” Kira asked quizzically.
“I trust the Surprise is ready for her maiden voyage, Commander?” Keyes switched her gaze to the AI.
“You are quite correct, ma’am.” Aubrey replied matter-of-factly and gave the flag officer a short nod. “We’re ready to set sail and move out as soon as you give the order.”
“The order is hereby given, Commander. Captain, you’re to proceed with all possible haste to the Epsilon Eridani system, and rendezvous with the Darwin in orbit above the third planet.”
“Understood, Admiral.” Kira replied with a nod. "What's the rush?"
“The Darwin just recently found and captured a Minbari scouting vessel that was lingering in the outskirts of the system's asteroid belt, and we’d like to have him brought back to Starfleet Command for interrogation as soon as possible.”
“May I ask why the Darwin can’t make the delivery herself?” Kira asked rather bluntly. “While we still haven't seen any indications of more than the slightest problems I’m still hesitant to take a mostly untested ship several light years to another system.”
“The Darwin didn’t detect the scout for quite possibly several hours, Kira, which means the pilot may have had the opportunity to attach a tracking device or in some other way mark the ship." Keyes explained. "Until they’ve conducted a thorough scan of their systems and hull we won’t bring her even close to, much less actually back into, the very heart of Federation space."
“Understood, Admiral.” Kira bit her lip to prevent her from continuing. “Surprise out.”
“God speed, Captain.” Keyes said as she terminated the link.

Kira took a quick look around the bridge; some of the officers looked a bit worried about risking their lives on a parsec-long test drive, but most were obviously enough not just willing but also eager to see just what this more than just lightly redesigned starship could actually do. Their short trip from the shipyards to the deuterium mines had only been at a measly warp one, and the ship was rated to be able to do at least warp nine point five continuously even with the extensive modifications the engineers had made. Jahari had made it very clear that she was not under any circumstances to push the engines past warp 9.96, but even that was just as fast as her big sisters in the Akira-class.

“Well, Jack." She turned to the AI. "It would seem like we’ll have to get to work earlier than expected.”
“Indeed, Captain.” He replied and rubbed his ever present and always short stubble. “I don’t foresee any problems; Epsilon Eridani is only one parsec away which means roughly twenty-four hours at warp eight. If we keep to that speed we run no risk of overtaxing any of my systems and give me and the engineers ample time to double-check the systems as well.”
“How about the Doctor?”
“Last I spoke to Stephen he was relaxing in the holodeck." He gave her a reassuring smile. "Don’t worry Captain, he’s an excellent surgeon and I’d expect he’d make a fair engineer as well.”
“I still don’t understand why we got two of you on the Surprise.” Kira shook her head. “No offense, but even though my previous ship had no AI, a single one of you seems capable of doing pretty much everything on a starship by yourself.”
“Possibly, even quite probably.” The AI dressed as a British first Lieutenant replied. “But as with most other systems on this ship, there needs to be redundancies built in. Otherwise, should my mainframe be damaged in combat the ship would be hard if not impossible to fight with. Unlike most other ships in the fleet this one was never designed to be operable without my assistance.”
“So why not just make a carbon copy of your own matrix?”
“Heh.” The AI smiled and gave her a friendly nudge on the shoulder. “You know Captain, we AI need to have some company as well. Also, this way you not only get a great first officer but also a truly remarkable chief medical officer.”

Kira rolled her eyes. She’d heard true horror stories about the only other holographic CMO in Starfleet to date.

“Sometimes, you AI are just too human.”
"Thank you, Captain." Aubrey chuckled. “I do take that as a compliment.”
“So, to get back on track." She smiled. "Are we ready to set out?”
“We are.” The AI nodded. “We’re pretty much just waiting for your command.”
“Well then, what are you waiting for?” Kira asked rhetorically. “Ensign, plot a course for Epsilon three, let’s begin at warp five and then slowly increase to eight.”
“Aye, ma’am.” The pilot replied. “Engineering reports warp five ready.”

Kira smiled and sat down.

“Engage, Ensign.”


STARFLEET COMMAND
SIRIUS
THREE DAYS LATER


The young Minbari pilot was slowly regaining consciousness if ever so slowly, that much was obvious from the increased rate of breathing as well as the fact that he was starting to move his arms and legs a bit. The injection one of the medical staff had given him apparently worked just as quickly on this alien physiology as on the other humanoids they knew about. As he opened his eyes, he immediately tried to move. Iona wasn’t sure if it was the rough awakening or the fact that he was sitting right in front of an apparently human officer, but either way she was pretty sure that the alien pilot wasn’t too happy with his current circumstances.

“Good morning.” Iona started in her deceptively soft voice. “I’m glad to see that you’re finally awake.”
“Who… where am I?” The Minbari asked, obviously surprised that the human woman could speak what he heard was the Minbari language.
“That’s not important.” Iona replied softly. “What were you doing in the Epsilon Eridani system?”
“I will not answer any questions until you answer my questions.” The Minbari stated. "Who are you, and where am I?"
“That’s fine with me.” She just shrugged and smiled at him. “I’ll just sit here and wait.”
“You won’t break me.” He spat.
“I'm not trying to break you, my boy.” A quick smile as she gazed into the defiant Minbari's eyes. “Trust me, I really don’t have to.”
“Who are you, and where have you taken me?” He repeated.
Iona remained silent, her hazel eyes staring deep into the Minbari’s.
“What do you want with me?”

Still not a word, not a movement from the female interrogator. The two sat in silence, neither of them willing to speak nor move an inch for several minutes. The young Minbari obviously had trouble doing this, which was something Iona had actually expected and counted on. It wasn’t too uncommon for any race she knew about to have certain biological needs after being sedated for three days straight while being fed intravenously. Still she was surprised that the young, at least she guessed he was that, man was able to hold it together as well as he did.

Another half an hour passed, and the Minbari was obviously getting quite uncomfortable.
“Please excuse me, I do believe nature’s calling.”
Iona rose from her seat and went into a door that led to a small restroom. The sound of her ever so slowly relieving herself was quite audible through the slightly ajar door. A minute or so later, she came back out and returned to her seat.

“The restroom is right there, you can use it just as soon as you tell me your name.”

The Minbari managed to hold it together for another fifteen minutes, before he yelped “Ghelan”. With the push of a button, the now smiling ghost released his restraints and motioned towards the small door. A few minutes later, the young man reappeared.

“Sorry, there are no exits in there.” The ghost smiled and once again locked her gaze in his eyes. “And there’s a force field between you and me, as well as two armed guards outside the door in case you get any wild ideas.”
“Where am I?” He asked again.
“My question first." She smiled. "What were you doing in the Epsilon system, Ghelan?”

It took another few minutes before the Minbari answered. Iona was surprised, this young pilot had excellent training in resisting her kind of interrogation and with some training he might actually be able to develop at least a marginal telepathic skill, but whoever had trained him had obviously never intended it to be against someone with her quite special abilities.

The small crack in his defenses him revealing his name had opened was quickly becoming a wide breach under her active influence. What held her back was the simple fact that she didn't want to leave him a brain-dead wreck, which she had little doubt would happen if she used her full power and forced her way into his mind.

“I was looking for something, and I found it.” He replied, almost mechanically.
“And what was this something?” She asked. "Tell me, Ghelan."
“A ship, or, well, more like a type of ship.” He nodded, his eyes almost starting to glaze over.
“Indeed?”
“My master sent me on a mission to find it, and more importantly the race that use it.”
“Really.” Iona smiled as she pushed just a little bit harder. “Why?”
“I… I don’t know.” Ghelan shrugged. “I was supposed to report back when I did.”
“Why were you in the Epsilon system?”
“I told you that already.” He winced in pain, she had little doubt her mental prodding was giving him a migraine even if he didn't realize why. “I was looking for a ship.”
“But why in the Epsilon system?”
“My master said I should look in the systems of the elder races." He replied. "Systems where no ships have been for a thousand years.”
“Why?”
“He believed the ships may be from one of the other elder races. Our allies in the last great war, who everyone thought had either left or had been destroyed.”
“Indeed.”

Iona made a mental note to pursue that matter further, but at a later time. Perhaps this pilot could shed some more light into several areas where the entire signal intelligence division had yet to produce any worthwhile information at all. This ‘Great War’ was something they’d heard quite a bit of rumors about, but had no real intelligence on since apparently neither of the other races had experienced it firsthand but were only retelling other races' legends. Even the Centauri had yet to reach out into space when the war was supposed to have taken place.

“Who is your master?” Iona continued her interrogation.
“The Anla’shok’Na.” Ghelan replied.
“Who is this person, this Anla’shok’Na?”
“Anla'shok'Na Lenonn is the leader of our order." He grimaced. "The first among the Rangers.”
“Where were you supposed to report to him?” Iona increased the mental pressure she was exerting on him.
“I…”
“Where, Ghelan?” She increased it just a little bit more. “Where?”
“Ugh...” Ghelan winced. “The Trigati system… his home is... in the Trigati system.”

The interrogation lasted another twenty grueling minutes before the mental strain became too much for the Minbari pilot and he lost consciousness. The ghost stepped outside and straightened out her borrowed Earth Force uniform, nodding to the armed marine guards as she passed them. Her destination wasn’t far at all, maybe twenty meters down the hall she pressed the button next to the double doors that led directly into the Admiral’s office. The door opened after just a few seconds, letting her into the very heart of Starfleet.

“Major Iona.” West greeted her with a short nod from across the large desk. “What do you have to report?”
“First of all, sir, I’d like to once again voice my objections about this kind of interrogation methods.” Iona stated coolly. “It’s not that I'm bothered about the ethical ramifications, I know what kind of job I signed up for, but using this kind of mental pressure on him while I'm reading him at the same time is something I don't appreciate doing no matter the circumstances.”
“Your objection is once again noted, Major.” West replied with an equally frosty tone. “I understand them and your discomfort in experiencing the pain you cause him, but the intelligence he has may well be vital to Federation security. You'd know that, since you're the one getting it for us.”
“I suppose so.” The surgically altered Deltan sighed. “I still don’t like it, and it feels like I’m mentally raping him. He's just an innocent boy following his superior's orders, and unlike with most people I can't just get what we want at a glance. He's a latent telepath, and albeit not a strong one it's still enough to block a non-invasive scan.”
“In a way I guess you are.” West replied with a dark face. “I hate to say it, but in this case I do believe the ends do justify the means.”

For the first time in a long time Iona doubted the truth in those words which had so often been used around her, and shook her head ever so slightly as she took a seat across from the Admiral. She knew full well that sometimes ethics had be ignored in this business, especially in the branch of it she'd so long served in. No intelligence officer believed anything else, especially not an infiltrator. At the same time, even she was appalled when it was so direct, so… personal.

"So, tell me Major." West asked, interrupting her pondering. “What did you learn?”
“A lot, though little is of any practical or immediate use.” The ghost began. “His name is Ghelan, and he belongs to the clan Yssa. He was born on Minbar, and raised in temple at one of their larger cities. He’s religious caste and a part of an organization called the Anla’shok, or Rangers in our language.”
“Interesting.” West noted. “Who are these so-called Rangers?”
“From what I can tell it’s a semi-religious intelligence organization whose ultimate goal is to find and expose another race called the Shadows." She shrugged. "He didn’t really know anything about these beings except their name though. Apparently, the Rangers have been active for about a thousand years or so but over the course of the centuries they’ve become less and less respected as these Shadows haven’t been heard from in just about as long.”
"That's understandable." He nodded. “Go on.”
“There’s not much more to say about them, they seem to be well trained, much like our own special operations teams, but other than that it seems they’re much like a ship without a course. I can understand if the other Minbari lose their belief in these shadows, as even Ghelan had some distinct doubt about their existence.”
“Really.” West shook his head. “Reminds me of the legend of the Holy Grail from Earth’s literature. There were actually entire knightly orders dedicated to finding it, only no one knew where to even begin searching, and most didn’t even believe it really existed in the first place but rather joined for the honor and glory of being part of the group more than anything else.”
“Well, there may very well be some more truth behind this legend at least, as Minbari history actually confirms that they fought these Shadows just about a thousand years ago. Contrary to this Ranger’s story though history tells that they were destroyed in this war.” Iona continued with a fairly even shrug. “Even so one of their greatest leaders, a man called Valen who presumably founded the Gray Council after the war, predicted that they would not only return but return in force after a thousand years had passed."
"Really?"
"Indeed, and as far as Ghelan knows there’s not a lot of time left until that deadline, but he doesn’t know how much.”
“Very well.” West shrugged. “Let’s put the legends aside though. Did you get anywhere with why he was in the Epsilon system?”
“The Ranger leader sent him there.” Iona raised an eyebrow as she continued. “To look for us, no less.”
“Really?” West was surprised, and slightly shocked at how close they actually got. “Interesting, what did he have to go on?”
“Not a whole lot, fortunately for us." She shrugged again. "He knew some things about the general design of our ships, at least enough to recognize the Darwin even though he’d never seen the class before. Other than that one of the few things we can confirm they know is that we use antimatter from the neutrino emissions.”
“Nothing else?”
“Not that he knew, but granted he’s just a pawn." The ghost sighed. "There's no reason to believe he knows everything their higher ranks have gotten to know about us.”
“I suppose you're right." West nodded. "Why was he sent there though?”
“He doesn’t know, probably because he never actually asked.” She made a dry chuckle and frowned. “He doesn’t seem like the type that asks too many questions, if you know what I mean. He was supposed to find us, and then report back to the Ranger leader when he had.”
“Did you get anything useful out of him at all?”
“Sure, I got the rendezvous coordinates for the leader. It’s supposedly an elderly religious caste Minbari named Lenonn.”
“Well?” West asked. “Where is he?”
“They call the system ‘Trigati’.” Iona replied.
“If memory serves, that translates into...”
“Indeed.” She gave a half-serious smile. “I always wanted to go to Risa. Too bad it’s crawling with Minbari and my disguise really isn't worth much with them around. I'd actually be better off looking as one of my race should.”
"Discounting the bone plate, maybe." He replied. "And you don't exactly have the facial structure of a Minbari either."
"Nothing a prosthetic and a little plastic surgery can't cure." She replied in a serious tone. "It wouldn't be the first time I went through that, after all."


USS INDEPENDENCE
FEDERATION SOVEREIGN-CLASS BATTLECRUISER
HIGH ORBIT ABOVE TRIGATI
RISA SYSTEM, MINBARI SPACE


Risa had been the most popular place to go to for serious relaxation in their own Beta Quadrant. The inhabitants were the most hospitable and carefree people in known space, and the weather was always perfect thanks to their extensive expertise in weather control. Looking at the planet in its more natural state was almost disappointing, as from their orbit the entire bridge crew could see a hurricane sweeping across the largest sea and several storms moving through the inhabited areas. That’d never happen on the Risa they knew, but it gave some hints as to why the Risan people had developed weather control so quickly.

Still, they’d chosen their time and place carefully, from what little information they’d been sent via subspace from Starfleet Command they knew which city to look in and had chosen to enter orbit on the night side of the planet just to be safe. This was a sound tactical decision as well, as it was far easier to separate the mostly static life signs you'd see in the night than ones that kept moving around mixing and mingling about as people have an annoying tendency to do in the daytime.

“Well?” Duval asked her AI. “We’re here. Now, how did Samuel expect us to find one Minbari among… well... all these Minbari?”
“I am not entirely sure, Captain.” Hancock replied. “My initial scans of the planet show in excess of two million one hundred and fifty thousand life signs. There is no way I can possibly make out individual patterns at this distance without something tangible to lock on to, and I would seriously recommend against entering the atmosphere even while out of phase.”
“Try to make sense of their communications and data networks, and see if we can at least narrow down the search area." She frowned. "If it comes down to a worst case scenario we’ll have to send in a marine squad to extract this Lenonn fellow.”
“I am working on it as we speak.” Hancock answered. “There is a lot of data to sort through however and their data transmission protocols are not just inefficient, they actually make TCP/IP look efficient in comparison.”
“Well then.” She smiled at the comment regarding the truly archaic protocol and turned to the science officer who looked busy enough running her own scans of the planet. “Anything to report?”
“A lot of fascinating readings, ma’am." She nodded. "The Minbari seem to be fond of using crystalline materials in their construction, most of the civic buildings seem to be grown from these materials rather than built using more conventional means and materials.”
“Guess they’d have to be a patient people as I can't really see buildings of that kind go up all that fast.” Duval pondered. “Seems to fit badly with their aggressive behavior however.”
“Not really, ma’am. From what I can tell, the military structures are much more conventional in layout, materials and architecture. It seems like there’s a difference between the castes rather than anything else however as this difference also translates directly to the clearly residential areas as well.”
“That makes sense, I suppose.” She nodded.
“I can’t really tell from up here, ma’am, but I believe that city would be a sight to see. I remember crossing that lake on a small sailing ship, and I guarantee you that city would look like a diamond rising from the sea.”
“I believe you, Lieutenant.” Duval smiled. She’d been to Risa before as well. "Though with that electrical storm, I wouldn't want to be on that lake at all much less in a frail little sailboat."
“Captain, I believe I have found what we are looking for.” Hancock interjected. “A crystalline building approximately two kilometers outside the city proper.”
“Life signs?” Duval asked.
“I count eleven total." He replied. "Most seem to be sleeping, but two are definitely awake.”
“Are the surroundings clear?”
“It seems so, I read no other life signs within less than sixty meters.” He nodded. "I cannot isolate the life signs however, and even so I will require a beacon for transport as I do not have enough information to target this specific Minbari among the other ten."
“Great.” She rubbed her eyes. “Well then wake everyone up, it’s show time.”

It didn’t take too long before the ship's scarred marine Captain entered the bridge, already dressed in the typical black-etched Starfleet marine armor and carrying his phaser rifle thrown across his back.

“Your orders, ma’am?” He asked.
“We’ll beam you down just inside the east wall of the target building.” Duval explained. “Your mission is to extract one of them, an elderly Minbari by the name of Lenonn.”

She nodded to Hancock who suddenly changed form into that of an elderly Minbari.

“This is the closest visual description of your target that Starfleet Intelligence has been able to create, but remember that it may well be incorrect in several details.”
“Understood, ma’am.” The marine nodded. “What are our rules of engagement?”
“Non-lethal force only, and if at all possible try not to get noticed at all." She said in no uncertain tone. "We don’t want to blow our cover and people will definitely not just start noticing he’s gone but ask uncomfortable questions if there are people with phaser burns all over the place.”
“Yes, ma’am. If there isn’t anything else?” He turned to leave.
“Good luck, Captain.”
“Yes, ma’am." He saluted. "Thank you, ma’am.”

He turned around again, and walked in almost a marching pace to the turbolift. Duval sighed as he entered the lift and slowly shook her head as the doors closed.

“I never really liked the people in the Marine Corps.” She told the AI.
“Why?" He wondered. "He seemed effective enough.”
“Yeah. Effective is one word for it.” She quelled a yawn. “We had a saying about the marines when I went to the Starfleet Academy. 'Follow orders, do what you’re told. Not a whole lot of thinking involved'.”
“Is that not quite a discriminating comment?” Hancock asked curiously.
“Probably, but there’s always been some friction between the Space Forces and the Marine Corps.” She smiled. “It's an old tradition, Hancock.”
“I see.” He pondered the issue for a little while. “Ah. I looked through the database, and I must admit, I had no idea the different military forces of the Federation had so much animosity toward each other. It seems illogical that forces that fight side by side would have such destructive tendencies towards each other however.”
“Not animosity, Hancock, and hardly what I'd call destructive either.” She started chuckling. “We have what’s called a competitive symbiotic relationship. Well, I suppose most of that’s gone now.”
“Would you care to explain that, Captain?”
“Space Force personnel, such as myself and my crew would usually compete against the Marines and Fighter Corps. Mostly in events, sports and in athletic competitions." She explained. "The Marines would in turn compete with us and the Army, while the Fighter Corps compete with us and the Home Guard.” She sighed. “But we had no Army troop transports with us, and we sent the Guard squadron home before us.”
“I understand. A competitive symbiosis. I will remember that.”
“Of course you will, Hancock.” She smiled as she turned to look at the viewscreen. “For all your appearance you’re still a computer, even if I do consider you both to be a close friend and just as alive as I am.”

They stood there in silence for a few minutes, and Sheila barely even acknowledged the report that the marine squadron had disembarked. Her gaze was fixed on the viewscreen, which now showed the building in question with the life signs superimposed over a floor plan. From what she could tell, the four-man squad had not yet been detected and they were rapidly making their way up the flights of stairs to the top floor. It wasn’t every day she could see a marine special operations team do their work live, and while she couldn’t see the surroundings or the actual interior of the building her imagination was as good as anyone else’s.

“The marines report that they have acquired their primary target.” The tactical officer interrupted her half dazed state. “They’re returning to the ship, and the Captain asked me to tell you they weren't seen.”
“Good. Get us out of the system.” She replied. “Full impulse power, and go to warp as soon as we’re outside the gravity well.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Hancock, please tell the marines to take our guest to the forward observation lounge, and to be courteous. He's an important person after all.”
“Acknowledged.” Hancock folded in on himself and disappeared with a flash.

She walked to the turbolift with a steady pace, going over what would happen in a few minutes in her mind. She wasn’t an interrogator by any means and she didn’t have any qualified intelligence officers aboard her ship either. She made a mental note to request one from her husband the next time he sent her out on a wild goose chase, and also to remember to specifically ask not to be assigned that ghost Iona. Not a whole lot of people made her skin crawl, but that woman certainly did so and worse.

Entering the turbolift and speaking her destination she went over it all again. She still wasn’t sure, but she’d always preferred to play things a little loose. That way you didn’t usually get entirely surprised if things turned out differently than you’d planned. Her husband was different in that regard; she knew that from experience as well as their personal relation. He’d rather make plans with infinite contingencies rather than walk in unprepared. At the same time, though, he didn’t really seem to mind too much when she did surprise him.

She was still surprised she'd been able to trap him as easily as she had, but she had lately started to suspect one of the contingencies he'd had planned all along was the very ring she still kept on her finger at all times. And it wouldn't surprise her the least if he'd actually planned it all along either, she knew that he was good enough at hiding his real motives that he could easily have fooled her into taking the first steps herself. You didn't become an Admiral if you didn't have a really good poker face or some really golden connections, and Samuel West had never been one who bothered with trying to get the latter.

The turbolift stopped at deck seven, and she exited into the wide corridor leading to the forward observation lounge. She barely took notice of the crewmen and women that greeted her, most likely they’d been asked to vacate the premises by the armed marines now guarding the door from the inside. Walking through the corridor the doors opened automatically as she approached. She made a short salute to the guards, a pair of young marines that looked like they were barely out of their teens, and walked inside.

The elderly Minbari man had been seated at one of the far tables, not too far away from the forward window. As she approached she noticed just how correct the description Starfleet Intelligence had gotten was. Short even by Minbari standards, and comparatively she’d say he’d be in his early eighties if he’d been human. She sat down on the other side of the table from him, but she wasn't getting any reaction from the old man.

His face was wrinkled and she immediately noticed the beard and moustache, something she'd been told was quite uncommon if not exactly rare among the Minbari. He was dressed in a black and brown robe made from some woven fabric and even as he sat there alone at his table he had a dignified, almost royal air about him.

“I never tire of this view.” She stated softly. “Seeing the stars, feeling the ship move through space.”
“I can imagine.” The old Minbari glanced at Duval. “Although I must protest the rough awakening, I must also thank you for seeing me.”
“It is the least I can do for the honored leader of the Anla’shok.”
“You know of me?” He barely looked surprised as he asked the question.
“You are Lenonn, leader of the Rangers." She nodded. "The Anla’shok’Na.”
“And you are one of the humans who are not human.”
“It seems that even if we don’t know each other, we at least know of each other.” She nodded again. “My name is Sheila Duval, Captain of this ship and a Commodore in the Federation Starfleet.”
“I am Lenonn, honored leader of the Anla’shok.”

They took a few more moments just looking at the stars quickly go by outside, the old Minbari seemed amazed at how fast they were moving through them. She nodded.

“Yes, we are travelling faster than light. Several hundred times that to be precise.”
“Amazing.” He replied. “We wondered how you were able to enter the system we’d attacked without our sensors picking up a jump gate.”
“Well, now you know.” She replied.
“We Rangers specialize in gathering reports from distant places.” He continued. “Rumors are at the core of what we do, and rumors are hard to stop and even harder to prevent. Yet even so we haven’t heard a single word about your people until we encountered your ships at that human colony.”
“We try not to make a fuzz.” Sheila responded evenly.
“And you are human!” He continued as if he'd made a revelation. “But yet so very different than the ones we know. I’ve seen miracles even in my short time here, and I’ve seen technology no Earth ship has and not even my own people even believed was possible. I’ve seen you in battle and I know you are not the same as them, or I fear the Minbari would long since be defeated.”
“We found one of your scouts. Why were you looking for us?” She asked.
“Ah, I had hoped it would be the other way around, but I suppose it still reached the preferred end. I hope the Ranger you captured is still alive?” Lenonn asked with some concern.
“He’s doing fine last I heard.” Duval nodded. “Our methods of interrogation are non-violent.”
“Ah, I must say I am surprised to hear that, if not ungrateful.”
“We respect life, and try not to take it if we don’t have to.”
“Considering the battle at the Earth colony at Orion, I find that hard to believe.”
“Even if I was to tell you that many of your people actually survived that battle?” Duval smiled.
“I find that hard to believe, but considering your capabilities I guess that could be true. You are holding them as prisoners?”
“No, they’re displaced but looked out for at a location I'm not at liberty to disclose. They will be returned to you once the war is over, as per our laws.”
“I’m quite surprised, truth be told.” Lenonn stroked his beard. “No race I know of would show an enemy that compassion, nor agree to return their prisoners without something equally valuable in exchange.”
“We’re not like most other races.” She shrugged. “So, why did you go so far out of your way to find us?”
“I was asked to, by one of my most revered friends.” He answered. “She wants to meet with you, or one that will speak for your people.”
“Why?” She asked with a more than a little curious tone.
“Her reasons are her own, but I believe she wants your help to stop the war, and to stop the conflict between the Minbari and your people before it has a chance to begin.”
“A Minbari that wants to talk?” She asked with surprise evident in her voice. “Considering how fast your forces fired on the Victory and how quickly your war with the humans escalated from a mere misunderstanding to genocide, I find that surprising.”
“You will find that the Minbari are usually an enlightened people.” Lenonn sighed deeply. “However, you could easily say our current problems stem from that same enlightenment. We have not been at war for hundreds of years, and some would say that our warrior caste grew impatient and restless. The war with the humans gave them the opportunity to practice their art, and I believe that had the Council known then how this war would eventually turn out, they’d have never supported it.”
“They say hindsight is usually twenty by twenty.” Duval responded, getting a quizzical look back as the Minbari didn’t recognize the phrase. “It’s always easy to see one’s errors after the fact.” She rephrased.
“Indeed.” He nodded. “Still, I must request that you meet with my friend. I vouch for her honor, and for the validity of her request.”
“I will forward the request to my superiors.” She nodded. “I will give you their answer as soon as I can.”
As she rose from the seat, Lenonn rose as well and gave her a bow.
“I thank you for listening to an old man. May I request somewhere I can lay down and rest, as my sleep was so however fortunately interrupted?”
“Of course. I will send one of my crew to lead you to guest quarters momentarily.”
“My thanks.”

As she left the room, she couldn’t help but wonder whom this mysterious friend was, nor wonder about the old Minbari himself. She’d had to reevaluate him almost immediately. He didn’t just seem regal, he acted the part too, and his sympathetic demeanor had pretty much shattered her own misconceived prejudices about how he'd behave. As she exited the room, she hurried her pace. She had to make her report and she had no doubts that her husband would be quite interested in what she had learned.

[Zcenicx]

Chapter 32


EARTH FORCE DISPLACEMENT CAMP #31
ISIS
SIRIUS SYSTEM



Jaden took a good look at the curious Earth Force personnel that had gathered in the small clearing between the houses in front of him. He wasn't worried even though he knew at least one group of people such as this one had attacked their Starfleet guards and forced the marines over at the lunar base to intervene using anesthizine gas canisters and stun rods. It wasn't anything they were too proud of, but since then they'd broken up the few people that had been responsible for creating the riot and that camp had been calm ever since with no further repercussions.

What had happened had however caused the people over at Starfleet Command to take a few extra precautions, and if anyone tried to start throwing rocks at the Trill Lieutenant the person in question would probably be quite surprised to see a marine tactical shield flare into life and deflect the projectiles. In his opinion it was hardly necessary, but then he'd never been attacked either even though he'd already been to three of these camps himself. Looking out at the people below him, he didn't foresee any such problems here either, the people seemed to be calm enough albeit quite curious at his somewhat alien appearance not to mention his sudden appearance with marine guards on the roof of one of the buildings.

"Please, if I may ask for your attention." Jaden's voice boomed, artificially amplified by a device on his neck. "Your attention, please."

He waited a few seconds to allow the people in the clearing to quiet down and give him their full attention.

"Hello, everyone." He smiled and made a theatrical wave towards his audience. "My name is Lieutenant Jaden Vim, and I represent your hosts here on Isis. I've been ordered to come here today and explain why you are here, as well as what your circumstances are, by my superiors."
"You can start by explaining how the hell we got here!" One of the Earth Force crewmen exclaimed.
"Of course, and you are?" Jaden asked.
"Lieutenant Ivanov." The man replied. "Ganya Ivanov, fighter pilot from the EAS Lexington."
"Add mine to that!" A copper-haired human woman added. "Lieutenant Commander Sabine Bayard."
"Ah, I know the names, if not your faces." The Trill nodded. "In your case, Lieutenant Ivanov, one of our starship captains rescued you from your Starfury just before it impacted an asteroid in the Sol asteroid belt."
Ganya almost froze as he heard exactly what he'd been having nightmares about for the last few weeks.
"As far as I heard, you weren't released to this camp from the medical facility until just a few days ago, due to the extensive internal injuries you sustained." Jaden said with a compassionate voice. "I'm sorry we couldn't save your leg, but there are limits to what even our medical science can do. You will be issued a prosthetic as soon as it heals sufficiently."
"I... I see." Ganya nodded.
"As for you, Commander Bayard." Jaden turned to the redhead Earth Force Lieutenant Commander. "You were pulled out of the Earth Force cruiser Damocles, just before the ship you were on rammed the Minbari war cruiser Saleni. You've spent two months in recovery after extensive repairs to your spine and nervous system."
"How the..." She went just as pale as the Lieutenant had gone, neither had apparently expected that some of their worst nightmares were true.
"All of you were rescued from the clutches of death." Lieutenant Vim continued. "Each and every one of you. Not all have the kind of history that these two have, but some of you can't have helped but to notice the nightmares."
"You mean to tell us they're true?!" Another man stepped forward. "That I experienced a ship exploding around me and getting the air sucked out of my lungs?"
"Quite probably, yes." Vim nodded. "You were all aboard one ship or another that went down fighting against the Minbari war fleet. As such, most of you experienced something like that."

The revelation hardly made anyone extremely surprised, he'd been quite correct that no matter how much or little they consciously remembered they all shared nightmares on that very specific theme.

"The truth is, if we hadn't rescued you you'd all be dead." He made a sad face. "However, something you may want to know is that for all intents and purposes, everyone else back in the Earth Alliance thinks you are as well."
"What do you mean, alien?" Commander Bayard yelled to him. "Is this some kind of prisoner of war camp where we're just supposed to rot away 'til we die?"
"Hardly." Vim shook his head. "However, until the war with the Minbari is over, we cannot let you go back home. After that you have our promise we'll let you leave if you wish to do so."
"But everyone already thinks we're dead?" Ivanov said under his breath. "My parents, my sister... they all think I'm dead...?"
"Quite right, Lieutenant." Vim nodded sadly. "And that's one of the things you must remember. We are not in contact with the Earth Alliance, so we cannot let them know you're still alive."
"But why?!" Bayard said with tears in her eyes. "I have a fiancé waiting for me! A life to go back to!"
"Would the alternative be any better?" Vim replied with an almost callous shrug. "If we hadn't saved you, you'd be just as dead as the people back home think you are. The difference is you get a second chance at life, albeit quite possibly not the one you were expecting when you signed up for Earth Force."
"What do you mean by that?" Ganya asked.
"First, I must explain your situation." Vim replied. "This camp is but one of several hundred camps just like it spread out over the moon we're on. The specific place we're at is called Camp 31. Out of the supposed hundred and thirty thousand Earth Force casualties in space side of the Earth-Minbari war, more than a half are here on this moon along with you."
"You're kidding!" Bayard's eyes stood out.
"Hardly." Vim shook his head. "Roughly seventy thousand of your fellow servicemen are scattered about the surface of this world, in two hundred and forty settlements just like this."
"Why haven't we heard about this until today?" Ganya's voice echoed over the clearing. "These men and women you speak of are our friends, our family!"
"Because we haven't had the time, nor do we still know who everyone is." Vim replied fairly bluntly. "As far as my information goes, I know the name of less than fifty people in this camp. Out of three hundred. In other camps, I have no idea at all who's there and who's not." He shook his head. "It's true, unfortunately. We can rescue you en masse, but as many of our own men and women are out there watching your backs we cannot ascertain your identities as we neither have enough time or personnel left to do so."
"That just sounds insane." Bayard shook her head.
"I never said it wasn't." Vim replied with a sorrowful voice. "But it's the truth. That's also one of the reasons why I and these marines here are with you today, and as we're done speaking the Marine Corporal at my left here will take your names and previous assignments so we can correct this problem."
"I see." She replied, and considering the others' silence Vim now thought he could come to the conclusion she was the assigned leader. Not surprising, as far as he knew she had the highest rank present. "Still, you have a lot of questions to answer, Lieutenant Vim."
"Of course." Vim nodded. "And I will, if you choose to listen."
"How do you mean?"
"You have a choice to make, Commander Bayard." Vim replied softly. "As do you, Lieutenant Ivanov, as do all of you others who are here today."

He took a step forward and crouched down on the edge of the small residential house's roof.

"We can explain everything that's happened to you, even show you how we rescued you and why we haven't been able to intervene in the war. We can show you wonders you never imagined possible and things you never knew existed." He paused for the dramatic effect. "But if you choose to listen to this explanation, we cannot allow you to leave. If you choose not to listen, we will guarantee you that you will be allowed to leave this place and return home as soon as your nation's war with the Minbari is over."
"That's not an easy decision to make, Lieutenant." Bayard replied sourly. "If we want to know anything, we'll be stuck here. That's like living in forced ignorance!"
"Quite right." Vim nodded, and she almost recoiled due to her extreme surprise at this. "Our people live here in secrecy, and we value that position very highly. We guard secrets noone else knows, secrets that cannot be spread across the galaxy."
"Somehow, I doubt that." She frowned.
"And how do you suppose we got you and half your ship's crew out of a ship seconds before it impacted a Minbari cruiser?" He asked rhetorically. "Or how we managed to get Ivanov here out of a Starfury right between it was hit by a neutron maser and impacted an asteroid?"
"I..." She bowed her head and sighed. "I don't know. And that's part of my problem."
"That much I understand." Vim nodded. "And as I said, I can explain it to you, but you have to choose all on your own whether you can stand the consequences of getting that information."
"And if we do, we won't be allowed to leave." Lieutenant Ivanov finished the point Vim was making. "What would become of us?"
"That depends on you more than me." Vim replied evenly. "If you want to, you can live out your lives in peace among our people. You can also choose to join us in space if you'd like, I know an experienced starfighter pilot like yourself would most certainly enjoy riding a Valkyrie or strapping a Peregrine to your back."
"And we'd be allowed to do whatever we want to do?" Someone else in the group replied. "If I'd want to build my own cabin somewhere and just live out my life, I could?"
"While it wouldn't be the most productive choice." Vim flashed a white smile. "I'll guarantee that we'll have no objections."
"I lived on Beta 7..." A female survivor whispered. "It's not even there anymore. I have nothing to lose."
"There is another thing I might add." Vim stated with his amplified voice. "No matter what you want to do as our guests, you will never be hungry, and you will never be left out in the cold."
"It's even more simple for me." A burly man said. "My entire family's already dead, and I have no future on Mars either. There are no jobs and I've got no money."

Vim couldn't help but smile, even though he made his very best effort not to let it affect his neutral expression. It was nothing short of ironic, and also something he'd learned to expect when he made his speeches. The people that joined Earth Force did so for one of three reasons, either because they wanted the adventure, because they needed the money or because they didn't have anywhere else to go. The adventurers couldn't resist the adventure involved in what he was offering, the people that needed money couldn't help but be attracted to his promise never to be wanting again, and the people who didn't have a future in the Alliance were attracted to his promise of having one here. Even still, most of them would inevitably refuse for their own reasons, be it family, friends, loyalty or anything else. But some would say yes.

"So, what do you think?" He asked as if he didn't have a clue. "Do you want to take this chance?"

A few hours later, Vim gathered the group of roughly fifty people on a small platform just a click or so outside the encampment. He'd scored about average, getting somewhere around fifteen to twenty percent to accept his offer, and to his quite remarkable surprise both Commander Bayard and Lieutenant Ivanov had decided to do so as well. He stood there in silence, barely listening to the relatively low conversations between the people around him. Most of them seemed excited at the unknown destination that lay before them, while others were more pragmatic. They didn't have to wait long. He carefully hid an amused smile as the people around him gasped in surprise at the vessel that descended above them.

He'd seen the same thing happen over and over again, each time they went through the process. The barge wasn't anything special by Federation standards, just a flat deck with rails on its sides and a force field protecting the passengers from the wind shear which would otherwise kill them at the speeds it would reach. As the barge landed just a few meters away he nodded his greetings to his partner in crime, so to speak. Apparently he'd been just about as successful as he'd been, and the two groups would neatly fill up the barge.

"Herron." Vim greeted the Bajoran Lieutenant as he stepped aboard and motioned for his group to join them. "So, how many did you get?"
"Fifty three." Herron snorted. "I'd made a bet with Skara that I could get at least sixty."
"Heh, it's your own fault for betting against a Ferengi, Jar." Vim chuckled. "You know better than to take a bet like that. What'd you lose?"
"He'll take my place on the next crew rotation." Herron sighed.
"Hah, you're not missing much." Vim started laughing. "The next rotation goes to the Sherman, there's a lot of postings that are more interesting than babysitting Port Royal in a Steamrunner."
"I suppose you may well be right." The Bajoran Lieutenant sighed. "Still, I signed up to be in space, not for babysitting Earth Force."
"True, space is space after all." Vim said dreamily.

The two Starfleet officers leaned back against the forward railing as the barge took off again, looking at the assembled Earth Force crew that had chosen to take the proverbial red pill, as it would be called in that old cult movie. Soon the vessel sped out beyond the coastline which wasn't too far off and quickly made its way across the sea with the foaming waves just meters below its flat bottom. Vim smiled as he imagined what would happen next, and was soon rewarded by yet another gasp of surprise and awe at what lay before them.

He turned around and gave the approaching sight a quick glance. The city wasn't large by any measure, but it filled up the small island it was situated on making it seem like the it rose straight up from the surface of the sea. The silver towers weren't high per se, but they were coated with a layer not entirely unlike nacre, which made them reflect the sharp white light from the binary stars in a myriad of colors. The view was simply breathtaking, even to the Trill Starfleet officer who had already seen it dozens of times. He exhaled sharply before turning and facing the awestruck Earth Force personnel behind him.

"Ladies and gentlemen." He made a theatrical bow and gave them an amused smile. "I bid you all welcome to the capital of the moon of Isis."
"The island city of Atlantis." Herron added with a slight smile.


USS SURPRISE
FEDERATION LUNA-CLASS LIGHT ATTACK CRUISER
EN-ROUTE TO MINBARI SPACE
DECEMBER 15TH, 2245


Samuel West, Fleet Admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Federation Starfleet. He re-read the line at the top of the memo several times. He’d never actually read that line, nor contemplated on the actual meaning those few words actually had. Only a couple of years ago, he’d been a low-ranking Rear Admiral in charge of starship production back at Earth Spacedock. He’d been content with that posting, content at doing what he was trained to do since his late teens. He’d been an engineer ever since then and even with all these new titles he still thought of himself first and foremost as being just that.

The Romulan War had changed all that as every Admiral in Starfleet that still had the use of their legs, and even a few that didn’t, were pressed into active command service and in not just a few cases including his own had gotten a bump up the command ladder to account for their new position in the active fleet. To him it had been a necessary evil and something he’d had his plans set to get through as quickly and efficiently as possible. To this end he’d declined getting his own flagship but instead decided to set his flag down on his brother’s ship so that he didn't have to go through the entire ordeal of getting out of a more permanent captaincy.

He’d never even entered his name into consideration for command of one of the larger or more active fleets, but decided on one of the smaller task forces instead. He’d had his sights set on the only career advancement he really cared about, and that was getting command of the Starfleet Fleet Yard complex at Utopia Planitia. Ironically he was already halfway there, as most other admirals didn't want that posting and the one already holding it was getting bumped up to command the First Fleet, the large fleet in charge of protecting Earth and the local systems.

Fate, or perhaps chance or just rotten luck had however disagreed with his intentions. Now he and his task force were in a completely different reality than their own, with an entirely different set of circumstances than what he'd counted on. He’d been the only possible choice to lead them into this new world, or at least that had been the way his subordinates had reasoned. Personally he still didn’t know if they were right about that or not. After that, he’d been locked down behind a desk and spent most of his time making seemingly unimportant decisions about resource allocation, construction plans and day-to-day operations for the new settlements they’d constructed. In fact, this was the first time he was on board an actual starship for more than an hour straight in more than a year.

It hadn’t really entered his mind before that he was currently quite possibly one of the most powerful men in this entire sector of the galaxy, but now that realization had struck him much like a sledgehammer straight to the face. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to or didn't like having to make tough calls or having hard responsibilities, you tended to get accustomed to those kinds of circumstances very quickly as a Starfleet Admiral in a time of war. What did however bother him was the fact that he wasn’t used to making these kinds of strategic decisions that not only affected himself or his command but entire civilizations or possibly the natural balance of the entire galaxy. And excepting a Federation Council that pretty much gave him free hands to deal with the situation in any way he chose to, he had no superiors to go to for guidance either.

He yawned and asked the computer for the time. Oh-two hundred hours, he hadn’t even noticed time had gone so fast. Sometimes he felt like his entire life was getting swallowed up by reading reports and having meetings about personnel allocations. He almost never got to see any real results from his decisions either, which was highly frustrating for someone who'd gotten used to seeing every decision making a difference by just turning around and looking at the ships they were building in the yards right outside his office window.

Thinking back he had a hard time remembering seeing any direct results from a single decision he’d made since he’d signed the new Federation Charter, and even then that was mostly Fontaine’s work, not his. He almost envied Captain Jonah, as hers was the position he'd been in all those years ago, but then again there was still a major size and scale difference between the Earth Spacedock shipyard facilities and those built in Sirius orbit.

He spread the three pads he had brought with him over the small desk and gave them a final glance.

The first was a first report from Captain Deschamps of the Darwin, the Nova-class science vessel Jahari had sent to the Epsilon Eridani system to study the planet they'd earlier found energy readings from. The report itself was quite interesting, they’d found traces of very advanced technology on the surface as well as numerous subterranean power signatures that indicated a very advanced civilization. They’d had a lot of problems getting any kind of high resolution scan results however, mostly due to interference from whatever power generation technology was being used, so they were still not certain whether there were any kind of life signs or structures below ground. The planet's surface was not habitable, which discounted an optical scan.

They’d also finished doing several sweeps of a relatively nearby sector of space which seemed to experience very slight but definitely existent temporal distortions, they had however failed to attribute this to anything but some kind of natural phenomena. He’d already finished writing his response, ordering them to continue on to the next location on their survey but to leave a sensor probe behind to record any changes. He didn’t want to impose on the civilization living there if there was one, and he didn’t have the manpower or starship numbers available to tie his only remaining actual science vessel down to one planet no matter how interesting it might be.

The second was the latest report from his brother who was still stationed in the Sol system. He’d already guessed what it contained even before he read it, and it was pretty straight forward. The Earth Alliance was getting even more desperate and were doing whatever they could to boost their system defenses. Military production was increased to the point where everything else was ignored and all kinds of ships no matter age or damage were pressed into service. Bone yards were emptied of anything that could still fly, derelicts were hastily converted to defense satellites, and even civilian ships were outfitted with military-grade armaments and sent to the front line. All of this happened at the same time as passenger liners and cargo ships were laden with people and materials necessary to create a new civilization, and sent off towards a new colony whose location was not only highly classified, but supposedly not even in Earth Alliance territory.

The third was the most interesting and it was the preparatory report his wife, Commodore Duval, had prepared for him. She’d obviously had long discussions with the leader of these Minbari Rangers, discussions she’d described as ‘mutually beneficial’. In other words, she’d told him some of her secrets, and he’d told her some of his secrets. It had taken a while to get past the discussions about culture and history, even though a number of these also provided interesting knowledge, but she’d eventually managed to get information on the Minbari hierarchy as well as their from her point of view more interesting traditions. Lenonn had refused to give her any of the really sensitive information she'd been fishing for, but West wasn’t really surprised about that. What information he had given her had been of enormous help no matter that reservation.

He’d actually managed to answer a lot of questions Starfleet Intelligence hadn’t yet been able to get even the slightest hint to, such as what actually made the Minbari respond in such force after the failed first contact. He still thought they had overreacted and done so to the point of clear and utter insanity, but now he knew he wasn’t alone in having that feeling either but that indeed many of the highest ranking people in the Minbari's own governing council felt the same way too. He could also understand their apparent problems in getting their military to back down, as even the Federation had been through that very same situation a few times too many for comfort themselves. Politics, it made his head hurt sometimes.

It was nothing short of ironic that his decision to force the issue with the Council, and thus free himself to approach the Minbari, had almost exactly coincided with Lennon’s ‘friend’ at the Gray Council deciding to do the exact same thing behind their warrior caste’s back. He just hoped they could actually reach some kind of mutually beneficent and agreeable conclusion that didn’t require him to order Halsey into action. Sheila’s flotilla had finished getting integrated into his and the AI had all adapted to the new command structure, and he had also put his brother's flotilla on ready standby in the Sol system ready to be deployed to Proxima as well if they had to. Those were reports he’d finished reading while still on Sirius, along with the latest report of malfunctions on the Loki.

He cursed. Initially he’d planned to start construction of the three new Akira heavy cruisers right after the class 4 slips were emptied as the three ships in the Valkyria-class had been completed. The Harlequin was already almost complete, and the Trickster wasn't more than a few weeks behind her as she'd been started on as soon as the Thor had exited her dry-dock. Everyone had thought that the Loki wouldn't take much longer than a month more than the Thor, and Jahari and Jonah's engineering teams had been just as effective as usual.

So effective in fact that when they’d found severe problems with the Loki’s propulsion system during her shakedown cruise and started to limp back to the Vulcan Shipyards, her slip had already been filled with the keel and beginning framework for the Sorceress. He’d made a command decision to finish work on the smaller Akira-class ship before bringing the massive dreadnought back in, for the simple reason that Jahari had clearly and in no uncertain terms told him everyone he'd talked to expected the repairs to the Loki to take longer than the entire construction of the smaller heavy cruiser.

Their expectations had been proven right too, at least according to the latest report he'd received from Captain Jonah. They would have to basically tear the ship open again and effectively go through and replace the entire plasma distribution system, all due to what Jahari had diplomatically written down as ‘human error’. He hadn’t extrapolated any further on the matter, but West had an idea of how frustrated everyone back at the shipyards would be once they found the problem. He’d personally experienced a similar situation when an engineer had forgotten some tool, probably a hyperspanner or a conduit surface scanner inside one of the warp plasma conduits. The result was that it had disrupted the plasma flow to the warp engines to the point where it almost caused a warp core breach, and it had taken weeks until they’d found the molten remains of the then unidentifiable tool jammed inside one of the warp coils in the starboard nacelle. And that had been on a Saber-class heavy frigate, not a Valkyria-class dreadnought which dwarfed even the Sovereign.

He winced as he thought about it. It had taken just over fourteen weeks to tear apart the ship, find and repair the problem, and that didn't count the time spent to rebuild the ship again. Multiply that several times as the Loki was if quite likely simpler by design still much larger than the small escort ship and which made it even worse still had four nacelles even if they were welded together, and you were looking at something quite probably along the lines of six months to a year. That meant that it still wouldn’t be even close to ready when construction on the Indefatigable or even the Hyperion, the next two ships of the Luna class, were completed. Unless Jahari would be forced to push the Loki back even further due to personnel issues. They still weren’t entirely sure they could scrape together a full crew for her now that they'd reassigned her crew to be able to man the other upcoming ships. Especially with three new Akiras and two more Lunas being ready and commissioned within three months. To make matters even worse the teams that were being freed up from these constructions would soon start to build a number of Defiant-class gunships as well, three for his Starfleet and six impulse-only versions for the defense forces.

He went over his fleet disposition in his mind again, going through every ship he had available, which weren’t and why. The end result wasn’t too appealing. He had his various cruisers, he had his Sovereigns, and he had the rebuilt Nova-class ship Jameson was still working the quirks out of. Everything else was either assigned to the defense of his two systems with skeleton crews or were tied down in operations. Both his Galaxy-class ships were locked down in overwatch over Isis and Hades and he didn’t have close to the crew required to make them ready to do battle. The Lexington was still slated as a training ship for the Academy, as was the Valiant. What ships would be made available to his operational force would be the new constructions, like the Surprise, but even then it'd be a very small force at least in numbers.

All in all however he was looking forward to meeting Lennon’s friend. He’d already drawn the two most apparent conclusions, that she was a member of the Gray Council and from the way she’d been described he had to guess religious caste. What he wasn’t sure about was whether he’d be able to reach a good agreement with her, and even more so whether he’d actually be able to stop the entire Minbari fleet by other means if he wasn’t. A small and unprepared task force was one thing, while an entire war fleet was a different prospect entirely especially considering how extremely imbalanced the force ratio between them actually was.

He asked the computer for the time again, and cursing as he realized he’d spent two more hours deep in thought he retired to his bed. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, even though he found little rest in the dreams.


USS INDEPENDENCE
FEDERATION SOVEREIGN-CLASS BATTLECRUISER
HOLDING POSITION OUTSIDE THE BETA RIGEL SYSTEM


They two were once again seated in the forward observation lounge, and this time she’d actually managed to get the elderly leader of the Anla’shok to try a cup of raktajino. It seemed the Minbari enjoyed it so far, although he also seemed to feel the effect of the high amount of caffeine quite a bit more than she’d expected. The entire experience had resulted in him explaining the finer points of his initiation into the Rangers, something she’d realized slightly too late had happened almost a century ago.

Well, Sheila thought, at least she'd managed to throw another one of Starfleet Intelligence’s so-called facts out an airlock. It had been one of the early suppositions as to why so few multi-star systems were colonized that the alien faster than light technology simply didn’t allow them to enter these systems. It might very well be the case for the relatively low-tech Earth Alliance, Sheila pondered as she looked at the ternary system before her, but it was hardly true in the case of the much more advanced Minbari. On the other hand, that was something the science department had already challenged as Minbar itself was orbiting a binary pair.

“No matter how many times I see that, I am still impressed.” Lenonn stated beside her. She suddenly realized he’d been silent for a few moments. “Though I would have to say your method of travelling is quite possibly slower than ours, it does seem far more accurate and if nothing else with a better view.”
"We can go a lot faster than we currently are, but as we are awaiting another vessel we have no reason to hurry." She replied honestly. “Our own early intelligence into your method actually discounted the ability to travel to systems such as this.”
“Such as it does for the younger races.” He nodded. “It did, but after many centuries of using it we have learned to refine our methods.”
“Obviously. So, can you enter any system you wish, no matter how many stars or stellar objects it includes?”
“No, that is something we still cannot achieve.” He replied. “Only the First Ones have that ability.”
“First Ones?” She asked curiously.
“The first races to evolve to sentience in the galaxy, at least that we ourselves know of.” He explained. “There were a great many of them once, but legend tells that their numbers dwindled due to constant warfare between them. We know the last Great War only left a handful of them remaining, and most of them left our part of the galaxy after that.”
“Most?" She asked, with a nagging suspicion growing in the back of her mind. "You mean some of them are still around?”
“Two, at least that we know of.” He sighed deeply. “And the second of those two races is the reason my order exists in the first place. Valen foretold that they would return after a thousand years and once again bring the galaxy to the brink of chaos and destruction.”
“You’ve spoken of this Valen many times, who was he?”
“That, my young friend, is a very good question.” He leaned back and took another sip of the quite potent coffee. “Every Minbari can tell you what he did, and most even know what he said or at least, as you would say, the common interpretation of what he said. But who he actually was is a story that is mostly covered in legend.”
“But you’re not just any other Minbari.” Sheila prodded.
“No, but still I’m afraid that even my knowledge on this specific subject is limited.” He sighed. "I will tell you what I can."

He closed his eyes and for a few seconds he seemed to almost fall asleep as he gathered his thoughts. When he opened his eyes, Duval realized he’d never actually been asked this very question, and that he was quite pleased to tell someone, or anyone, else what he knew.

“What little is known about Valen suggests that he was not born on Minbar, or any of our precious few colonies that survived the Great War. Legend even goes so far as to say that he was a Minbari not born of Minbari. The question of his origins only surfaced after he’d done his greatest deeds however, and as he never gave a plausible explanation himself he quickly became persecuted as his fame faded. In the end, he and his family went into self-imposed exile.”
“You’ve told me he was the man who united your people, who formed the Gray Council. Was he a wise leader?”
“I would have to say that he was, yes. He often used diplomacy, even with the warrior caste, and most of the time it surprisingly enough even worked. He could also use force when needed, which he did several times during the Great War itself." The elderly Minbari sighed. "It is sad however, to know that this great man was in the end hunted down by the very people he saved from destruction at the hands of the darkness.”
“Do you know what happened to him after he went into exile?”
“He was never heard from again.” Lenonn said with a dark voice. “But, at some time I and many others with me suspect his family returned to Minbar. The one thing that distinguished Valen from all other Minbari men at the time was that he had facial hair, which is something that, as you can see, many of us now do as well. I bear mine in his honor.”
“I see.”

She didn’t have too much problems seeing where that might have come from, even if she was a bit surprised he didn't seem to grasp the idea himself. She, just like any other human geneticist, knew that just about a full three percent of the entire human population in her own reality carried several genes that came from a Vulcan that had been stranded on Earth sometime in the early twentieth century. A Minbari not born of Minbari, indeed.

“As for his origins, the first time his name is recorded in Minbari history is when he was found by a battered and near defeated Minbari war fleet, aboard a station which later served as our forward operating post during the remainder of the Great War. His first words are well known to all Minbari.”
“What did he say?” She asked.
“His words to the warriors that found him were simple. ‘I welcome you, and present this place to you as a gift. I am called Valen, and we have much work ahead of us.’ As time would tell, that was to be the turning point of the entire Great War.”
“And the warriors trusted him?” Sheila asked, quite surprised.
“They did, albeit that might have had more to do with the fact that he was flanked by two Vorlons who vouched for him.”
“Vorlons?”

She was stunned, while she'd had her suspicions since before she still hadn’t really expected to hear this single word to be mentioned, and this single statement broke straight through her mind like a slap in the face. She had to use all of her willpower to hide the fact that she’d clearly recognized the name. She immediately made a mental note that she'd have to warn her husband before he arrived, he could be walking straight into a diplomatic minefield if the Minbari and the Vorlons were connected.

“Yes, the Vorlons were our major ally during the Great War.” He nodded, and seemed oblivious that she’d clearly recognized the name. “They led the Alliance of Light, of which the Minbari and many other races were part.”
“Let me guess.” She almost stuttered. “One of these ‘First Ones’?”
“Indeed. The other race was the Shadows, the darkness the Anla’shok are still watching for today." He nodded as he explained. "Valen told his peers that they would return after a thousand years, and that time is nearly up.”
“How about the Vorlons?” She asked. “Are you still in contact with them?”
“Sadly, no. At least that I know.” He shook his head sadly. “We haven’t seen or heard from them since the Great War. But at least we know they’re still there as every ship we send into Vorlon space is never heard from again.”
“Sounds like great friends.” She snorted, even though it didn’t surprise her.
“The Vorlons are the Vorlons.” He replied fatalistically. “It is not for the races younger than them to question their motives or their wisdom.”
“You really respect them this much, even though they haven’t been heard from in a thousand years?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “You find that hard to believe, don’t you?”
“Very. In our culture, something that happened that long ago would be mostly forgotten, and the Vorlons would be passed to history and legend.”
“Sadly enough, it is the same way for us. Not even all the members of the Gray Council believe they even care about their former allies much less the younger races anymore. But as you said I’m not most Minbari.” He winked. “The Anla’shok must believe, as we are what stands between this universe and the Shadows returning unnoticed.”

They were interrupted by Sheila’s communicator beeping. With a quick word of apology she rose and walked a few steps away from the old Minbari.

“Duval here, go ahead Lieutenant.”
“Captain, we’ve received word from the Surprise.” Her tactical officer’s voice stated calmly. “She’s about a quarter of a light year away traveling at high warp. She’ll be within range in just less than twenty minutes.”
“Understood.” She tapped the com badge again and turned to Lenonn.
“It seems we must part ways, my friend. My ship will remain here while you will be joining my husband on another ship.” She explained. "You will be accompanying him the rest of the way to the meeting."
“I understand.” He nodded. “I hope we will have the chance to see each other again.”
“As do I.” She motioned for one of the ever present marine guards. “This man will escort you to the transporter room; you will disembark in a few minutes.”
“Thank you, madam Duval.” He bowed, and she quickly returned the gesture before turning to leave.

She hurried toward the bridge and from there to her ready room. Sitting down at the computer terminal she frantically started typing an update to her husband and commanding officer, letting him know the latest pearls the talk with Lenonn had given her. He had to be prepared before he got here, and he wouldn't have much time to digest that specific black pearl he'd given her either.


USS ODIN
FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT
ALPHA CENTAURI SYSTEM


In Earth Force there weren’t really too many things one could do on a starship to keep in shape. The lack of gravity constantly ate away at your muscles and skeletal structure and once you returned home you’d more often than not have to spend weeks in rehabilitation just to be able to walk straight again. Earth had learned at an early stage that they needed to have specialized training equipment to allow space travelers to spend just a few weeks in space without noticeable deterioration, but that was pushed to the brink of what it could achieve as well when Earth Force ships and their crews spent up to six months straight being on patrol.

This wasn’t really an issue on the comparatively small Starfleet starships though, their artificial gravity prevented such deterioration entirely and he found that the ship had an excellent layout for taking a run. The main corridors stretched all the way from the bow of the saucer to the stern of the engineering hull and there was one on each side of the ship, with a number of stairwells available to traverse the height difference as well.

Sheridan had also found that they linked up in the mess hall in the bow and in the small shuttle bay in the stern, making it an easily usable training circuit. Lately even Starfleet personnel seemed to have realized this and more and more of them were also using the same corridor for their cardio training. To make matters even better the gravity plating in the corridors were set below Earth standard, making the run a lot faster and in his opinion quite a lot more fun even if you had to run further to get the same end result.

He slowed down as he reached the mess hall for the tenth time that morning, wiping the sweat from his face and neck before entering. Fifteen laps around the saucer equaled about a twenty kilometer run in this gravity, perhaps equal to half that in normal such which was more than enough before breakfast in his opinion. He wasn’t in the kind of shape the ship’s marines were though, who not only used to lap him before they began starting an hour or two earlier, but actually ran up to two or three times the number of laps.

He walked up to the replicator and ordered his usual breakfast. Before he'd gotten here it had been one of the hardest things to come by on a starship, but here on the Starfleet ship all he had to do was ask for it. Bacon and eggs with a side dish of omelet, with a glass of fresh orange juice and a cup of steaming hot coffee. He’d even learned that this machine produced some of the best coffee he'd had so far in the galaxy, an alien blend called a raktajino. Taking the tray the machine served his breakfast on in his hands, he turned and scanned the room for a table he could join. He found one only seconds later and he didn't mind the company present either.

“And so, I told that Tellarite piece of crap exactly what I thought.” Lieutenant Jorani said with emphasis. “There’s a massive difference between a Starfleet Engineer, and a Federation Engineer.”
“Really?” The Trill operations officer replied. “And what would that be?”
“Starfleet Engineers build weapons.” The Bajoran female smiled grimly. “Federation Engineers build targets.”
“I see.” Lieutenant Char giggled softly. “And what did Ha’sra say in return?”
“That’s the really funny part!” Jorani chuckled. “He didn’t!”
“No!” Char squealed and folded over laughing.
“It’s true.” Suvok added. “He looked positively baffled, and after a few seconds his face turned very red and he turned and left while making some quite interesting noises.”
“Stop it, Suvok.” Char stuttered between her laughing attacks. “You’re only making it worse.”
“I do not understand.”
“What she means, commander, is that any further details about the subject's in question reaction isn’t very likely to stop her from laughing, but only making her do so harder.” Sheridan interjected with a grin, he'd gotten used to the Vulcan quite early. “This seat taken?”
“By all means, John.” The always lovely engineer Jorani Dia flashed a smile at him.
“If I may ask though, who is this Tellarite you were talking about?”
“Commander Ha’sra is the head of the Federation Corps of Civil Engineers.” Suvok replied. "Or, rather it used to be Commander. He is now one of the Sirius representatives on the Federation Council, but he still serves in that same capacity as well."
“Way back when I was stationed as chief engineer on the Michael, he was the chief engineer of the Gabriel.” Jorani explained. “As they were sister ships, we always had a bit of friendly competition about which of us could keep our ship in the best shape.”
“Often enough, it was a dead race between them with both ships being in perfect running order.” Char added as her laughing fit slowly ceased. “In those cases either would find some scratch or loose bolt somewhere on the other's ship, which weren't even close to having a realistic impact on either ship’s systems I may add, and then they’d start competing in who could insult the other’s proficiency better.”
“This is in itself an illogical behavior I wouldn’t expect from two so proficient Starfleet engineers.” Suvok stated with a mildly disapproving tone. “You were both obviously very capable at doing your jobs if both ships were at optimal efficiency.”
“That’s not the point though.” Jorani flashed a smile at the rather dry Vulcan. “The point was that he always had to prove he was the best and, well, so did I. The insulting each other part came along naturally as, after all, he is a Tellarite.”
“And you’re Bajoran.” Char added quickly with a completely indiscreet smile. “Your people are of course revered throughout the Alpha Quadrant for their generally high patience and legendary self-control.”
“Well, now.” She replied with a wide smile. “I can be patient, and I have quite a nice temper, thank you very much.”
“Depends what you compare with, I suppose.” Char admitted and chuckled slightly. “I must admit, you’re quite mellow when compared to a Klingon Saber-bear.”
“Hey now!” The engineer started giggling at the comparison. “At least Paul doesn’t seem to mind.”
“It’s because he’s madly in love with you, Dia.” Sheridan interjected. “Even I can see that, and I’ve only been aboard for a few days.”
“Nine, to be exact.” Suvok corrected. “And you are correct, Commander Sheridan. Our science officer seems to hold quite affectionate feelings for you, Lieutenant Jorani.”
“Are you ever going to do something about that?” Char asked.
“We’ll see.” Jorani smiled. “He’s cute, but way too innocent. I prefer men who don't act like they still don't even know how to spell some things I want out of a relationship.”
“Something tells me that if you ever sink your teeth into him, he won’t be for long.” Char snickered.
“You’re probably right.” She sighed. “Well, I better get back to my warp cores; I have a readiness drill in twenty minutes.”
“Have fun!” Char yelled as the Bajoran woman rose and left. “So, what about you, John?”
“Hmm?” He replied as he’d just stuffed his mouth with some more bacon and eggs.
“I heard you had a dream come true coming here to Alpha Centauri.”
“Oh.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. I’d always wanted to go here, but to be honest I always envisioned getting here on the bridge of an Earth Alliance Explorer ship.”
“Maybe one day you still will.” She replied diplomatically.
“I’ve already seen it. I will say this though, seeing that planet made me realize something about you and that Prime Directive of yours.”
“Really?” She asked.
“That race, the Vee'zak?” He looked at Char who nodded. “They’re in a state where they’d pretty much revere even the Earth Alliance as living gods if we approached them. They’re much as Africa, even America, was back home when the European nations first started exploring the world. It would be so easy to occupy their planet, enslave their population or just displace them. Yet, you just study them from afar and let them continue on in their own pace and in their own way.”
“That’s the entire point of the Prime Directive.” Suvok explained. “Allowing other races to develop according to their own circumstances and culture, without artificially advancing or contaminating it.”
“But the resources you give up by doing so must be enormous!”
“Reality has taught us that there’s usually somewhere else you can also find what you need.” Suvok replied. “There are some exceptions though, in which cases other directives can force us to intervene.”
“Really?” Sheridan asked.
“Indeed. The Prime Directive is exactly what it's named, the first and foremost of our directives, which of course logically means there has to be other directives as well." Suvok explained. "If a race develops technology that could affect other inhabited worlds, or technology that will hinder other races to use space travel, we are forced to either disrupt it or in the extreme cases actively discourage its use.”
“I see.” He thought for a moment. “Isn’t that somewhat hypocritical? You’re willing to leave them to their own devices, until their presence start affecting you?”
“It is, but once a race reaches that point, they’re usually either past or very close to developing viable warp technology either way.” Char explained. “At which point we’d make contact sooner or later by running into them in open space.”
“So, the Prime Directive stops being in effect after a certain point?”
“Not really, though it does become quite a bit less restrictive.” Suvok replied. “It isn’t considered interference to make first contact at that point, simply because they’d run into us on their own no matter our own involvement."
"Where we come from, there are hundreds of these kinds of planets technically within Federation claimed space, and even more of them outside." Char added.
"The risks involved with letting them encounter any random vessel in deep space when they finally reach interstellar capability are however deemed unacceptable." Suvok continued. "There have been several incidents over the years where even civilian cargo ships have even fired on these kinds of ships, effectively destroying any chance of positive future relations or set our relations back decades before they even start.”
“I see.” Sheridan nodded. “I guess life must be much more abundant in your galaxy than here.”
“It is, but not as much as you’d think." Char smiled. "There are plenty of races just like the Vee'zak around; you just have to know where to look. What makes it hard for you and most other races here is that you can't just point and steer between planets or stars like we do. It makes exploring a lot more complicated and a lot less exact.”
“I still can’t believe it. Another race of intelligent life, just a parsec away from Earth.”
“I’d think you’d be more surprised about a civilization much more advanced than Earth only two and a half parsecs away.” Char smiled. “It’s a good sign that you’re getting used to that idea at least.”
“There you are.” Mist appeared standing next to them, with a decidedly irritated expression. “Commanders.”
“Mist.” Char and Suvok made small nods acknowledging her greeting.
“The Admiral requests your presence in his ready room, as soon as possible.”
“Of course.” Suvok and Char both rose and started to head toward the turbolift.
“That includes you as well, Commander Sheridan.” She told John before she blinked out into nothingness again.

Well then, he thought. What had gone wrong now?


USS SURPRISE
FEDERATION LUNA-CLASS LIGHT ATTACK CRUISER
ENTERING THE BETA RIGEL SYSTEM, A FEW DAYS LATER


The small bridge of the Surprise was eerily silent as the ship cruised through the small belt of stellar debris that made up the Beta Rigel system’s Oort cloud. Even the until then talkative Lenonn seemed to be content with just watching the ship silently glide forward toward their destination. West had already received the latest updates from his wife who had for some reason decided to join him on the Surprise, and after checking with Starfleet Medical they’d soon been able to verify her suspicions.

He hadn’t had the heart to tell Lenonn of their discovery yet, but he also knew that he might have to use that ace up his sleeve with the Gray Council member he was supposed to meet. If she believed him, it would be a possible way for her people to honorably stop the war. After all, no one would be able to criticize them for not wanting to kill a race that was basically their own kin. He had to wonder how that’d happened though. After all, a thousand years ago Earth had been in the middle of the medieval age, and it’d be another seven hundred and change years until the first manned spacecraft would have been launched.

The answer was easy enough in a way, and it was something the Federation was fairly open to accepting as well. Time travel. He'd never liked temporal mechanics, and his experiences with problems or anomalies of that kind always, with no exceptions, gave him a headache. He’d had a long discussion with Admiral Janeway on the subject when she’d returned from the Delta Quadrant, and her horror stories about what they'd been through still gave him the chills. The entire computer age in the late twentieth century being a causality loop with her and the Voyager in the very center was hard enough to accept, but she’d had other stories as well of which several were even more hair-raising than that one.

Still, at least he knew what had most probably happened in this case, somewhere in the future a human man had traveled back in time, surgically or even genetically altered to appear Minbari. This man had allegedly saved the Minbari from certain doom in this war, quite probably due to advance knowledge of what would happen or some key event that could turn the tide of the war. In his world it’d be considered one of the most severe breaches of the Temporal Prime Directive possible, but here it was already considered an existing predestination paradox. He stopped reflecting on the subject as he felt the all too recognizable feeling of another migraine coming on.

He also had quite a lot of questions concerning the Minbari’s knowledge of and relations with the Vorlons. He still had vivid dreams about their unannounced appearance over Draconis, as well as the ensuing battle that had claimed thousands of lives, most of which had been innocent civilians on the planet. He wanted to know who they were, what they wanted, and why they had fired on a defenseless colony without as much as a warning to their intent or complaint. In truth, he was still actually equally curious about why they’d withdrawn from the battlefield and hadn’t been seen since. Perhaps, just perhaps, he’d get some of these answers today.

“So, mister Lenonn." He asked. "Where exactly are we supposed to meet your friend?”
“There is a moon with a breathable atmosphere orbiting the frozen tenth planet.” The old Minbari responded. “She will be waiting for us there.”
“Will she be alone?”
“I believe that would be unlikely.” He shook his head slowly. “She would not want the warriors on the Gray Council to know where, not to mention whom, she is meeting. I would doubt there are too many people she would trust to keep her secrets past the Anla'shok. Perhaps she will bring an ally in the Council, but either way she will most likely bring aides.”
“That’s understandable.” West nodded himself. “Very well, Captain Kira?”
“Yes, Admiral, I heard.” She responded from the Captain’s chair. “Helm, set course for Rigel ten, half impulse. Keep the phase cloak engaged just in case.”
“Aye, Captain.” The helm officer responded, and the slightest shift was felt through the ship as it changed course and quickly accelerated. “We're on course, ma'am. Estimated time of arrival is eight minutes.”
“Very well then.” West leaned forward on the handrails above the bridge pit. “Mind if I borrow your replicator, Nerys?”
"Of course not." She nodded and gestured towards the nearby ready room. “Help yourself, Admiral.”

He walked the few paces to the ready room in silence, going over his briefings in his mind. His wife knew him too well