No offence to you, but I do not like original fictions that much. It is that I have to read literature for school, but that's it. I did like books like Max Havelaar, De Aanslag, Kort Amerikaans, Mists of Avalon, Der Vorleser. (all in their original language ofcourse)
Noooo curse you senseless n00b, getting all my hopes up that the epic adventure that is Task Force 43 had been updated. Now I'll have to mope about it for the rest of the morning =.=
Stop hitting me please Hmmmmm,sorry for my mistake...but i like the work of Z very much.I am a crossover fan,and i'm proud of it ! .Now please don't hate me because of it...I'm young,i make mistake,i learn from them Anyway my "friend" Barricade make me see the light Maybe i am a n00b,but because i am not a intelligence one i don't retreat ... i just hate when a great story is stopped,unfinished...i understand the writer problems [generally speaking]but i read a lot of beautiful writings,here and on another sites,who just "died"....Great work Z!! And for the rest [Barricade,Panaka,Night33]:I'm here boys !!Come and get me !!!But i must warn you all :i'm a great athlet.I'm a chess player !!!
I, occasionally, wish; sadly and without much hope, that people would learn to read for comprehension.
I wish that people would stop using this thread to express their musings on literature or accurate reading and stop bumping it. After the annoyance of a necro to have people keep posting is rather exasperating! Please stop posting it's annoying those of us who are waiting for updates
I agree. Please people enough of the endless discussion on literature and accurate reading. The fact that this thread is still active days after it was first bumped keeps prompting me to look for a new update and its frustrating when I just find endless discussion, discussion thats not related to the fic at all.
The white-robed sorcerer stepped into the long dark and silent crypt and began chanting the Raise Dead spell. It didn't take long for the chanting to have an effect, and as the skeletal writer picked up his bones one by one he threw a pile of old manuscripts at the sorcerer. He had seen these before, everyone had, but to his shock there were editations to them seemingly written in blood. "Now, leave, sorcerer", the skeleton whispered with a ghastly tone. "I have much work to be done. When you are done reading those, more will be finished" - And so, ladies and gentlemen, both in order to update you and me - the last few chapters with some spit and polish. I've also transferred the story from its older novella format to the e-book format of my latter works, so it should be lighter to read... for being a 10k-word per chapter brick that is. AND FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! - This story keeps going as long as there is feedback from YOU. Ideas, questions, critique... it's the one and only cure for a writer's inability to come up with new ideas on his/her own (except abandoning the story for six months, which I know you hate).
Delightful News. Goodness what's been going on. All these stories updating suddenly. I'm feeling rather overwhelmed. And delighted naturally x
*sits back and waits* Seriously though, this was one of the best works of star trek fan fiction out there, and I look forward towards reading the rest.
66 Chapter 66 USS RETRIBUTION FEDERATION NOMAD-CLASS STAR CRUISER NEAR THE BASSEN RIFT Admiral Craig stood at the relatively small window of the otherwise spacious ready room and looked out into space beyond. The green-hued clouds kept slowly moving about in the lightyears across nebula field ahead of the small task force, almost too slowly for a mere human eye to see at the ranges involved. The admiral almost felt a shiver go down her spine as she slowly heard her mind's voice count off the ships lost here in the last two decades, not even a piece of debris of any of them ever to be seen again. The Rift had become a restricted zone ever since an entire task force had been lost while traversing it and the few facts even Starfleet had made everyone except the most daring smugglers avoid it like if it'd been stricken by the plague. Now, fifteen years after the loss of the task force and ten years after the end of the war during which they'd disappeared, Starfleet had finally gotten the time to come back and study what had happened. More than a year ago an entire squadron of Nova- and Quasar-class research vessels had been dispatched to study the rift, some with more success than others, and as the weeks and months had passed Starfleet had gotten a rough but still plausible explanation for their ships' disappearance. Deep inside the nebulous cloud field they'd found a subspace rift not unlike a wormhole, ever so minute but highly unstable and evidently prone to sudden and violent expansion. Early attempts to force it open had so far failed, but through a simple practice of trial and error they'd managed to get a probe through just to soon realize that while the probe had by all indications made the transfer intact it was unable to transmit data back through the rift. Whether this was because the rift moved around on the other side or because it only worked one way was unclear, and the finest mind in the entire Federation had started to work on the problem. Soon they'd realized the only way to make sure was to send a manned vessel, but the question of how to get them back was of course of overhanging concern and it slowed the project down to a crawl. If the rift was one-way only they wouldn't be able to return through it, and if it moved around on the other side it could be near impossible to find once there. But the fall of the Borg, and the recent advances in transwarp and dimensional technology the Federation had gotten from them, had given them what they hoped would be the key to both getting wherever their lost ships had gone and be able to come back again. A great apparatus had been constructed around what they believed was the center of the rift, powerful enough to force it open and hopefully enough to stabilize it as well. Her ship carried with it equipment which was tuned to the exact same quantum wavelength as the equipment in the apparatus in order to construct what in essence would be an artificial wormhole between the two. Still, it was a gamble. They had no way of knowing where or even when they'd come out of the wormhole. It could just as well lead to another system far off in the gamma or delta quadrants as to any other galaxy in the local group. Granted, if the wormhole led to another galaxy entirely the strategic value of the location would be immense, or rather more immense considering wormholes were rare enough to be extremely important strategic locations no matter their destination. Still, she just hoped the lost ships and their crews were still alive and hadn't run into too much trouble. She had several close friends in the task force that'd been lost, and that had been one of the main reasons she'd lobbied hard with the brass in San Francisco to get the assignment of going through. She knew full well it was still a risky choice, but she'd volunteered knowing the risks and so had the other sixteen ship's captains whose ships were now holding position in formation around her own Star Cruiser. Every man and woman aboard the ships had likewise volunteered for the mission, all of them consciously aware that it might well be a one-way trip, but she could understand their willingness to go along nonetheless. The greatest part of being in the Starfleet, the main part of the fleet's mission, was to explore where no man had gone before. Risk was part of that very same mission, and every year ships were lost exploring their own back yard. This time they at least knew the risk before they left. Now, she and over seven thousand men and women from a hundred different worlds just sat here, waiting for the all clear from the engineers and scientists which were going over the large apparatus and making their final checks before sending Task Force 59 on their way. She had to admit that so far, the most difficult thing to endure was the waiting. She shrugged and massaged her neck trying to get the stiffness out, she'd been standing here thinking for more than an hour and her muscles were starting to protest. She closed her eyes and sighed to herself, there was little point of standing here doing nothing even if she really didn't have anything better to do. With that thought she spun on her heel and headed towards the exit to the bridge, the door sliding open as she quickly covered the distance. Before being stationed on the Retribution she'd been captain of a Galaxy-class cruiser and one of the first things she'd been struck by when she'd gotten on board was the immense size of the main bridge, even compared to that of the previously largest ship in the Starfleet. It was shaped like an oval, more than ten meters across at its shortest diameter and almost twenty meters at its longest, and its entire circumference excepting the large viewscreen in the front was covered by science, engineering and operations consoles and readouts. As she stepped out of the ready room her first officer, Commander Simon Walker, rose from the captain's chair and gave her a curt nod. They hadn't served together for very long by Starfleet standards but they were quickly approaching two years and they'd both gotten used to each other’s’ eccentricities by now. The well-muscled South African had almost pitch black skin, which made his red uniform lining contrast almost as much as his white teeth and short graying hair. "What's new, Commander?” the admiral asked as she walked up and took her seat, Walker taking the first officer's seat on her left. "Not much, admiral", he replied with a slight shrug. "The Kusanagi and the Galatea arrived about twenty minutes ago and have taken position in the fleet." "That brings us up to our full number", she nodded slowly, watching the fleet's formation on the smaller screen built into her armrest. "Did you make the final announcement?" "I did", he answered with yet another nod. "You'll be glad to hear that no one decided to jump ship." "I wasn't really expecting anyone to either, but we had to give them one last chance." "If you say so", the black man smiled. "Personally I'm more than ready to take this baby for a spin into the great unknown." "As am I", she sighed and turned to look at her executive officer. "I just hope they're all okay." "It's been fifteen years, Samantha", Walker said with an even tone. "Don't get your hopes up too high." "Can you blame me?” she asked. "Don't worry about it", he tilted his head and continued with the same even voice. "Admiral West had a full task force with him when they were lost, I'm sure they can take care of themselves." "Perhaps." "And if not, well", he smiled and motioned for the console she'd been watching. "We're not exactly going in unprepared either." "True", she had to admit, of the seventeen starships all but one was a cruiser and of those seventeen only six were older than ten years. While that fact would have been significant ten, fifteen years ago reality was that few ships older than that had survived the later conflicts with the Romulans and the Borg. "Let's just hope we're not too late." "That, at least, we can agree on." A little over an hour later the admiral and her crew braced themselves as the small fleet slowly made its way towards the hexagonal apparatus in the distance, looking so much alike a Borg transwarp node that Samantha got a shiver down her spine. She'd gotten her admiral's brooches fighting the Borg in the Typhon Sector and if she never had to face the Borg again it'd be too soon. That being said she was fully aware of the risks of this rift ending up in the Delta Quadrant. "Incoming message from the Curie", the operations officer seated in front of her and to her left spoke up. "The corps of engineers has vacated the apparatus and are heading to a safe distance before engaging the subspace field." "Lovely, they go to a safe distance while we have to go through it", Walker flashed a blindingly white smile. "Guess that's why we're paid the big bucks." "Who're you kidding?” the tactical officer, a young human woman giggled from behind them. "We're Starfleet!" "Huh?” the first officer glanced over his shoulder. "You mean getting to explore unknown stars and cruising around the universe isn't pay enough, Ensign? I may have to note that in my next performance review." "Forget I even opened my mouth, Commander", she smiled. "Thought so", he nodded with a self-gratified smile on his face. "People pay good money to go on trips like this." "In the case of this particular trip, I'd say that's doubtful", the admiral smiled. "Estimated time until the Curie is clear?" "They're slowing down now, ma'am", operations replied. "They're engaging the field as we speak." "Very well", she nodded. "Keep us on course and make sure we're not going too fast. I don't want to go through until they tell me it's stable." "Yes, ma'am", he nodded and focused on the console for a moment. "Admiral, the lead scientist tells me this will probably burn out a number of capacitors on the array, so it'll take a while until it's operational again." "Does he have an idea of how long?" she asked. "His best guess is two or three weeks", he answered. "In other words less time than it'll likely take us to find what remains of Task Force 43 and construct the gate on our end", she sighed. "Sometimes the corps of engineers can give you too much information." "Obviously", Walker agreed. "The Curie now reports the subspace field has reached optimal strength", operations noted from his console. "We're cleared to proceed, and urged to do so as soon as convenient." “In other words, they don't know how long they can keep it active", Admiral Craig smiled. "Very well, increase speed to half impulse and order the fleet to fall into single-column formation." "The fleet acknowledges." "Very well", she nodded and pressed a button on her console to give her fleet-wide communications. "All hands, this is Admiral Craig speaking. We'll be entering the rift momentarily and I wish to thank each and every one of you for volunteering for this mission. We don't know what we'll face once we go through, but our mission is clear. Find what remains of Task Force 43 and, when we do, help them get back home. There is no higher mission in all of Starfleet than helping lost servicemen come home, remember that no matter what happens. Craig out." "Nice speech", Walker chuckled. "Oh, shut up, Simon", she shook her head but smiled nonetheless. The South African had a quirky sense of humor but she was getting used to it. "Bring the fleet to alert level blue." "Aye, ma'am", operations nodded. "All ships acknowledge alert level blue. Shields up, inertial dampeners, containment fields and structural integrity fields to maximum. All emergency bulkheads are closing and the warp core is spinning down... now reading offline. We're at alert level blue, Admiral." "Good", she nodded. "Take us in, Lieutenant." "Yes, ma'am", helm responded from his console to the right of operations. "Well, now we're at the moment of truth", Walker said softly enough that only the admiral would hear just as the bow of the ship grazed the shimmer of the subspace field ahead. "Is it the stairway to heaven, or the highway to hell?" "Jeez, Simon", Samantha rolled her eyes and sighed. "Just thinking out loud, Admiral", he smiled. "Just thinking out loud." STARFLEET COMMAND ELYSIUM, SIRIUS FEDERATION SPACE "What news, Commander?", Admiral West tiredly asked the black-uniformed man who had just entered his office. "Admiral", the lieutenant commander rose to attention as he stood opposite the admiral's desk. "We've received an updated status report from our survey ships in Centauri space." "Let's hear it", West stated just a bit too calmly as he leaned forward over the large wooden desk. "The Narn offensive has taken the Nefua system after a short battle with the local garrison, and are pushing through toward the forward outpost in Quadrant 1." "Not an unexpected turn of events", the admiral sighed. "Anything else?" "Yes, sir", the commander continued. "We now have an accurate report of the aftermath of the battle at Orion VII. The Clarkist faction were victorious as expected, and they've landed ground forces in order to suppress the loyalist uprising calling it an armed rebellion. We've received word of numerous incidents with civilian casualties." "Also, unfortunately, not too surprising", West nodded. "Thank you, commander." "Yes, sir", the young officer turned on his heel and left the way he came, leaving the Commander Starfleet alone with his thoughts and his numerous pads again. West added these latest developments on one of the pads he had in front of him, one he kept updated with all the latest information in order to always have a general idea of the galactic situation. He wasn't too proud to admit that even he had problems keeping abreast of the half dozen or so violent conflicts which were brewing all across the galaxy, but then again who would be able to do so? The AI, obviously, but he didn't have their advantage of massive databases filled with easily accessed cross-referenced data nor their impressive speed at processing these huge amounts of data. He really didn't have to remember it all either though as he could always ask one of the AI or, as he did, store the cliff notes on a pad to help him remember the most vital points. He leaned back in his chair again and sunk back into the train of thought the lieutenant commander had interrupted. He'd been in contact with his wife just a few hours ago and she'd updated him on the Minbari situation along with the formal request for military assistance against the rebels and outside forces which were attacking them. As much as he wanted to send the orders immediately and form a battle group to go in guns blazing it really wasn't that simple, and both he and his wife knew that. First the Federation Council would have to approve the Minbari request for assistance, and then he and the Admiralty would have to come up with a plausible strategy and create a decent battle fleet. That would be the hardest issue, as the ships which were worth the most on the battlefield were also the ships which were the rarest. No matter his wishes, the simple fact was that he only had a hundred and thirty ships under his command, of which a half dozen was currently undergoing repairs and two more were being rebuilt using spare parts and hastily constructed frames after being destroyed at Quadrant 37. Of those only seven were Valkyria and another seventeen were Sovereigns, and those few were in a class of their own when compared to the other ships of the fleet when it came to pure battle strength. The rest of the fleet wasn’t completely discounted of course, even a Luna-class light cruiser could make a small Earth Alliance fleet regret their choice of opponent, but a Sovereign could practically tear the same fleet apart without breaking a sweat. Or, he had to correct himself, could have. He'd received disturbing reports that the Earth Alliance was also developing new weapons and defenses that may well help them close the gap enough for their far superior numbers to weigh in more than it previously had. Still, he doubted the Federation was in any real danger from the hotheads in the Alliance. Mars was the only readily available planet to strike at and its defenses were tough enough that he dared hope even a Vorlon fleet would think twice about attacking it. If they really did decide to do so it'd be a close call at best, he knew full well that the Vorlon fleet outnumbered his own by at least a factor of ten and the tech gap was small enough not to matter, but he knew they'd make them pay dearly for every inch of space. The Vorlons wasn't his main headache though, and something inside of him kind of missed the days when it'd been that simple. Now he had the Shadows, the Vorlons, the Drakh and the Streib to worry about, and that was only discounting the Narn, the Centauri, the rebel Minbari and the Clarkist faction of the Alliance. If what they'd experienced so far going up against the Shadows was anything to go by, they were in for one rough ride if they decided to strike at the Federation directly. He knew this was something every single man and woman in both the Council and the Admiralty knew as well. "You are thinking too much again", a voice stated from nowhere, just as a brief smell of ionized air made it through the nostrils of the admiral. "Perhaps", West nodded slowly as he looked up and met the gaze of the resident AI. "Don't tell me you've got bad news too, Lord Admiral?" "Too early to tell", the AI shrugged. "Most of my cycles are currently being allocated to processing the Drakh remains along with Minerva and Sophia, but I have a few cores left which I thought I might spend with you." "Great, you're making yourself sound like a time share", West smiled. "You would be interested to know that so far what we have learned that the Drakh is generally lower tech than the Minbari", Nelson stated while ignoring the joke at his expense. "As a prime example their defensive technologies are, to be absolutely frank, pathetic at best." "And the catch is...” West sighed, there was always a catch. "Excepting the fact that their ships are on average so large that they require stellar demolition charges to destroy them, we have yet to find any", Nelson made a shy smile at the partial joke. "Which is in itself a catch, and a pretty big one", West nodded slowly and rubbed his left temple. "We don't have an inexhaustible supply of tricobalt devices, and as far as I know we still don't have the infrastructure to produce them." "A very astute observation", the AI nodded as well. "In fact, as it stands our supply of warheads of any other kind than simple antimatter would be exhausted fairly quickly in any kind of prolonged conflict." "Don't remind me", the admiral sneered. "I simply don't have the personnel to expand the zero-point energy lab." "A fact which I am already acutely aware of", Nelson replied matter-of-factly. "I also know that we lack several of the materials and qualified personnel required to produce or reproduce several of our other more advanced technologies, and in several cases we AI cannot substitute due to our very nature." "I told you not to remind me", West repeated. He'd already heard the AI's quite blunt explanation of what would happen if you brought high-energy forcefields and ionizing radiation into a high-tech laboratory, and those were effectively the two things their avatars were made of. Some of the processes could be automated through the use of robots and other such tools, but the fact was that there were several other steps that needed to be taken before that. First the correct materials needed to be found and mined, then cast into the correct alloys with molecular accuracy. A factory had to be constructed to create the tools needed to create the factory that manufactured more advanced tools which were in turn needed to create another production facility which created yet another even more advanced set of tools which could then, perhaps and if accurate enough, be used to create the final set of equipment required. It was one of those times where their ability to quickly produce items through molecular replication simply didn't make a difference, as molecular level was simply too rough and inaccurate. Of the people they'd gotten with them from the Alpha Quadrant, there were simply no such engineers or scientists able to create them either but they had to go the long way, teaching people the theory behind it and waiting for them to become experts in the field before they could even begin to hope to rebuild these lost capacities. "What are our stocks on the regulated ordnance?” West asked the AI. "Well, as far as I know", the AI made a slight smile as he knew full well the exact number. "Our stocks of transphasic torpedoes are two hundred and eighty eight, and we have sixty four tricobalt devices of which half are in stock at Aquilae." "Two transphasics per ship, not even one per every two ships for tricobalts." "Correct", Nelson nodded. "All ships carry their nominal load of quantum torpedoes though, with an additional six hundred fifty in stores, and as I stated before we have no shortage on photon torpedoes." "From what I hear though, they barely even dent the paint job of a Shadow vessel", West snorted. "How long until we’re able to produce those bastardized transphasic photon torpedoes?" "Best case, twelve months", the AI replied evenly. "Which is the same time that we have to wait to get new phase cloaks." "I know, issues with producing interphase generators which are powerful and stable enough to phase anything larger than an apple without exploding or simply burning up." "Quite", Nelson nodded. "Still I will remind you that this is far further than our attempts at creating weapons-grade tricobalt..." "...which is simply due to our not being able to produce strong enough gravity fields to fuse dicobalt with cobalt." "We still have the option of creating dicobalt warheads, though these would of course be of substantially lower yield than our current devices", Nelson pointed out. "We have no lack of dicobalt, and the process of weaponizing it is quite simple." "But it's only marginally more powerful than a large photon warhead", West retorted, "while also being highly unstable after the warhead is armed." "Which is true", the AI admitted. “They would however still have a subspace component to their detonation, which could be useful.” “Thanks, but I’ve already seen what that can do to our own forces.” The admiral sighed and looked down at his desk; it was almost completely covered by pads and even some data crystals of Centauri and Minbari origin, most of them dealing with what little they knew about the Shadows, the Drakh and the Streib. He'd been over them all at least once, skimming over parts in some cases as they weren't relevant or were too much like mythology rather than quantifiable facts. "If we were to send a battle group into Minbari space, what would your opinion be on its makeup?” he asked the AI. "Firstly, I believe it to be a question of when, not if", Nelson almost shrugged. "Minbar is too important, at least in the opinion of me and Athena, to let fall. Other than that Captain Corday of the Thor would be the obvious choice to lead the fleet, along with the rest of her current force." "They're not really making much difference being placed at the Narn border, are they?" "None whatsoever", the AI nodded. "Reinforcing them by transferring medium and light elements from the Sirius and Mars fleets we could, at least in theory, increase the size of the battle group to twenty to twenty five ships without sacrificing viable strategic readiness." "As always, I trust your theories more than I trust most people's guarantees", West nodded slowly and paused for a second. "Very well, prepare the appropriate orders and be ready to send them the moment the Council agrees to the request from the Minbari government." "As you wish", Nelson gave a curt nod. "You will not be part of the decision?" "As you very well know my vote can only be used as a tiebreaker or as a veto against a military operation", West pointed out. "They already know my stance in this matter, me being part of the discussion would only harm Sheila's position." "If you say so." Admiral West leaned back in his chair again and thought things over quickly in his head. If they managed to stifle the unrest among the Minbari that'd be one less smoldering pyre of conflict in their arm of the galaxy, but that would be about all it was, one less. There were still the other major issues of the Narn-Centauri war and the Earth Civil War to deal with, albeit he had little doubt how the first of the two would end if they didn't intervene soon enough. The Narn Starfleet was neither weak nor ill equipped, but he knew full well that in going up against the Centauri Republican Navy they were both outclassed and outgunned. A G'Quan-class heavy cruiser wasn't a bad warship by most races' standards, but the Primus and Vorchan warships of the Centauri were almost in the same league as the comparable ships of the Minbari war fleet, and they had a lot more of them than the Narn had G'Quans. The Narn had quickly struck through the peripheral House Fleets who had been unfortunate enough to be in their way towards core Centauri space, but in these battles the Narn had outnumbered their opponents as well as drawn extreme advantage of both the surprise and lacking battle experience of the Centauri nobility’s private navies. Once the Republican Navy itself reacted and started positioning itself for a full fleet action however, the situation would change quite dramatically. He knew this, every captain in the Starfleet knew this, and he'd be extremely surprised if the Narn fleet commander didn't know this as well. Perhaps this was the simple reason they'd attacked now, given the brief window of opportunity that they had been granted with the death of the Centauri emperor, but it was a window whose jaws would snap shut very hard and very quickly once the new emperor was confirmed by the Royal Court and the major houses. "Admiral, I'm receiving a flash message from Kara", the AI spoke up. "Kara?" West asked, not knowing each of the hundred and fifty plus AI which were currently active by heart. "The Valkyria dreadnought Balder, Captain Aylam Iriya in command", Nelson explained. "Her surveillance force includes a Phoenix-subtype Nebula cruiser, the Royal Oak, for long-range sensor sweeps. Said sensors are detecting some form of subspace distortion quickly building not far from Proxima and Kara is consulting whether to investigate or to hold back." "Subspace distortions in Proxima space?", the Commander Starfleet simply shook his head in surprise, because as far as he knew the Clarkist forces which were gathering there had no such technology and the only nation that he knew of that even knew how to manipulate subspace in this universe was his own. "We have no assets except Captain Aylam’s force within four light years of that system. Could they be mistaken?" "I have to admit the possibility exists, but it is highly doubtful", the AI stated. "As you very well know, Admiral, we have enough experience with subspace to know what we are looking at when we see it." "True", he nodded and thought for a second. "Tell Captain Aylam to position her force to be able to move in within a moments notice, but to not enter the planetary system unless she specifically feels the situation warrants it. I don't want to provoke the Clarkists unnecessarily, but she has to use her own judgment." "Of course", Nelson nodded. "Orders sent." "Very well", West sighed and added somewhat unnecessarily, "keep me apprised of any further developments on that front." "Of course, Admiral", the AI responded. "Now, what's the status on the Freedom?" "She has passed the basic space worthiness tests, but the engineers are trying to work out some problems that have arisen in the plasma distribution network which will have to be dealt with before warp trials begin." "Have they given a new estimated time of completion?" "Not so far", the AI shook his head. "Early reports suggest three to four days until they can re-engage the warp cores and pressure test the system. We won't have any new estimates until that test is complete." "Very well then." The admiral slowly rose from his desk, feeling every year of his age in his aching muscles and joints as the events that had taken place over these last few weeks had effectively tied him behind his desk with little time for training or even the most basic forms of physical activity. He walked over to his replicator, but just before reaching it he changed his mind. There were too many events hanging in the air for him to control them all, too many to even keep himself apprised of every development that came up. "If anything happens, I'll be on the comm", he told the AI who was silently studying him. "I believe I need a walk and some fresh air more than any of these pads need even more of my attention." "If I may say so", Nelson smiled, "that is quite possibly the best idea you have had in the last week." "Perhaps", the admiral knew it was pointless to argue with the sentient supercomputer. "Good evening, Lord Admiral." "Good evening, Admiral", the AI returned the farewell and disappeared into thin air. Almost absentmindedly the admiral straightened out his black uniform jacket and buttoned it up; knowing full well that even with the near equatorial position of the city on the planet, the weather outside would be both chilly and wet. Winter was still winter even if it didn’t regularly snow when the temperature crept below freezing. As nature would have it January was a winter month on Sirius just like it was on Earth. He walked through the almost endless corridors in a brisk pace, enjoying the feeling of his blood returning to his limbs as he made his way toward the entrance of the massive command complex. He chose the path least likely to lead to regular encounters with the rest of the staff assigned to his command, but even so he had to pause regularly to be greeted by his subordinates and his only blessing was that with his rank he at least didn't have to stop to greet any superiors of his own. Walking through the marble-like gate that was the main entrance to the main Starfleet Command station in the Federation he paused for a second to let his eyes get accustomed to the much brighter light. Both stars were visible in the clear blue sky, the second barely a pinhead next to the system's white main star but still too bright to look at directly. The damp black and white cobblestone that made up the plaza was bathed in all the colors of the rainbow as the white light reflected off the thin film of water they were covered with. As he resumed his walk he discarded the idea of walking through the park in front of him, he could easily see that the trees and bushes that lined the path through it were soaking wet and he had no wishes of getting himself soaked to the bone. Instead he walked towards the large building to the right of the plaza from where he was standing, instantly getting a pair of snappy salutes from the two grey-uniformed guards which were standing at the large glass doors. He quickly answered the salute and gave each of the two young guards a nod, neither of them out of their teens yet by the look of it, and walked inside. The change of pace when compared to the command complex was striking even to him, as soon as he walked through the doors he saw youngsters running to and fro, many of them carrying small stacks of data pads or tools he in several cases couldn't even recognize. He wasn't too surprised that no one seemed to recognize him or stop to greet him and that too was yet another positive change of pace for the admiral, though most of them would in time learn if they hadn't already. He didn't have any issues making his way through the milling crowd of gray-clad teenagers, one thing they could easily recognize was the black uniform which even to the least educated mind meant that he was a commissioned member of the Starfleet and this made them instinctively move to give him ample room to pass. With a hint of a smile on his face he made his way up a wide flight of stairs and after checking the signs on the wall he made his way toward the astrophysics department. There were more of the gray-clad teenagers in the corridors he passed, but these were older than the ones on the lower floor and several of them seemed to recognize him, or at least his rank insignia. Though not even a handful had the presence of mind to stand at attention or salute as tradition would require quite a lot of them were left with their jaws almost impacting the floor or their eyes on the verge of popping out of their sockets. It didn't take long after that before he attracted attention, though not exactly the attention he'd been looking for with his trip over here. He felt the hairs on his left arm rise, a feeling soon accompanied with the light clatter of wooden sandals against the polished white floor. He kept his smile and refused to even turn his head, choosing not to even acknowledge the presence of the being which had materialized at his side. "You're making my students lose focus", she said with a somewhat irritated if humorous tone. "You do know that, don't you?" "It can't be the first time an officer walks through this halls", he responded with the same kind of humorous tone. "It's not, but you're kind of a case of your own", she pointed out. "Even a veteran crewman tenses up when they come face to face with the Commander Starfleet, and these boys and girls are fifth and sixth year cadets, barely even used to dealing with commanders and much less so flag officers." "Perhaps", he admitted with a slight chuckle. "I'd say the experience is well worth it for the cadets though, and if not the expression on their faces has already made my day." "This is a school, Admiral", Sophia pointed out with an irritated fluttering of her snow-white toga. "Not an amusement park for senior officers." "Of course", West nodded, still chuckling. "So, what brings the Commander in Chief of the Federation Starfleet to my humble abode", the avatar resembling the Greek goddess of wisdom asked. "I had some spare time and thought I'd check on my daughter." "Ah", Sophia chuckled, a gesture that sounded like a soft rain. "Janine is doing just fine." "I would hope so", the admiral smiled. "How's she holding up though?" "You know how academies work", Sophia shrugged. "Although we try to create a flat social curve among the cadets, we can't effectively enforce it and thus the cadets maintain their internal hierarchy." "Which means?" Admiral West asked. "With a councilmember and admiral as her mother, and the Commander Starfleet as her father?" the avatar asked rhetorically. "She's as close to being royalty as you can get in the Federation." While the admiral maintained his outward smile and good mood, he did feel a sting of conscience as well. He'd had far too little time to spend with his daughter ever since she'd been enrolled in the academy almost five full years ago. He knew Sheila felt the same weight on her shoulders as well as her duty kept her light years away most of the time. Still he felt immense pride in his daughter as she'd performed well above even her teachers’ high expectations, after all the teachers didn't have the same expectations on her as they had on other students either with her quite high-ranked parents. As he and the holographic representation of the Starfleet Academy artificial intelligence kept walking he completely let go of the galactic worries and faced those of a parent instead, updating himself on his fourteen year old daughter's grades and achievements. USS RETRIBUTION FEDERATION NOMAD-CLASS STAR CRUISER Craig and her crew were hanging on to their seats and their consoles for dear life, even with their ship’s highly advanced inertial dampening systems they were still experiencing turbulence measuring in the high triple digit gees which the dampeners were simply not able to fully nullify. Samantha thought to herself that if her modern ships going into the event horizon fully prepared were going through this kind of a rough ride the people preceding her would have had a much tougher time. Traversing the rift had probably not taken more than a few minutes, but her arms and her head felt like it'd been hours since she'd first grabbed hold of her cushioned armrests and pressed her head against the padded back of the chair. Still, she was one of the lucky ones as many of the personnel who had standing stations had been thrown to the ground and were still bounced around on the floor every time the large cruiser hit another subspace eddy. Suddenly she felt the sensation of falling stop and she almost fell out of the chair from her own efforts at keeping herself seated. Looking around for the first time since her ship had entered the apparatus in the Bassen Rift she noticed that many of the bridge consoles had malfunctioned and showed nonsensical information or were just completely blacked out. Moans coming from around her told her that her bridge crew was still alive, albeit in several cases bruised and battered. She quickly looked up at the main viewscreen which was still functional and looking at the display of stars ahead of her starship she couldn't really make out much more than the fact that they weren't even close to the Bassen Rift area, though that was an assumption that it didn't really require a quantum physicist to make. There was no trace of the green-hued nebulous clouds which covered that area, and even she could tell that the stars were all wrong as she had a clear view of many of the most visible landmarks in space such as the Andromeda galaxy and the stellar nursery near Orion. Wherever they were they were far closer to the Sol system than they had been, but even with all her years piloting and captaining starships she couldn't tell exactly where from visible stars alone. "Are you all right, Admiral?" her first officer asked from his seat beside her, looking quite ill from the experience of crossing the rift. "I feel better than you look", she answered. "That's good news", Commander Walker nodded. "That was worse than navigating the Kuiper belt in a type four shuttle." "No kidding", she nodded and rose from her seat. "I want a status report from all stations, and ops; will you please extend that request to the rest of the ships as well." "Of course", he nodded while picking himself up from the floor; he'd been hanging on to the base of his chair for most of the trip which had spared him more than a few bumps on his legs from impacting his console. "The tactical systems are all operating within normal parameters", the ship's tactical officer, a burly Andorian with long white hair answered the admiral's request. "Main power is still offline but I'm reading no damage to the intermix chamber or to the plasma grid", the bridge engineer replied. "Secondary power is stable, but one of the reactors performed an emergency stop." "I'm reading minor damage to the outer hull, nothing we can't fix", another engineer stated from the wall behind the admiral. "Microfractures have formed along the outer edge of the bow but the structural integrity field is keeping them sealed. She's still very much spaceworthy, ma'am." "Short range communications are okay, Admiral, but subspace comms and sensors were scrambled by the rift eddies", the Trill science officer on her right stated with a cool voice. "They’re currently resetting and it'll only be a few moments before I can reinitialize the system and they're back online." "All in all roughly between twenty-five and thirty casualties, no fatalities", Walker noted after reading the medical report. "Most of them are suffering from broken bones, contusions and lacerations from being bumped around. Sickbay has their hands full." "All right", Craig nodded. "If anyone here is hurt please don't hesitate to go to sickbay as well. I have no use for bridge officers with broken arms and legs." She waited a few moments before continuing, pleased that at least two of the officers who had been standing near the starboard wall obviously in pain left and were quickly replaced. "The rest of the fleet are reporting in", ops stated. "The Seahawk suffered damage to her deflector but it's a minor enough issue not to pose a problem unless we want to go to high warp within the next hour or so. The Galileo has taken some stress damage to her upper port nacelle. Again, it’s not an issue for anything other than high warp." "Very well", she nodded. "Now, where in the nine hells of perdition are we? We're nowhere close to where we entered, that much is certain, but from what I see we're not exactly in the gamma or delta quadrants either, much less another galaxy." "Astrometrics are calculating our position right now, ma’am", the science officer stated, only to quickly continue with a confounded voice. "Well, this can't be right..." "What is it, Lieutenant?" Walker asked. "The computer took less than a minute to spit it out as it's a location we know only too well", the Trill replied while quite literally scratching his own head in confusion. "We're just a few light seconds outside Proxima orbit." "Proxima?” Admiral Craig asked, suddenly quite clear with why her science officer was so lost. "Are you really sure about that?" "I can't explain it, but triangulation confirms it", he nodded. "The astrometric sensors confirm the location by no less than four hundred and sixty known stellar configurations, including that of Sol." "That's not the only thing that doesn't make sense", operations added. "Admiral, short range sensors just came online, and if these sensors are to be trusted I'm reading more than four hundred ships in orbit, ranging from the size of the Retribution and upwards." "Say what?!” Craig and Walker asked almost in perfect sync. "I'm not kidding, sir, ma'am", ops clarified. "They haven't reacted to our presence yet but I believe it's just a question of time." "My sensors are telling me the same thing", the trill science officer confirmed. "Add to that the fact that according to this, their crews are human, but I've never even seen anything like their silhouettes or their energy or weapons signatures before." "No kidding", the admiral breathed, confused to no end as the massive fleet of equally massive ships was brought up on the viewscreen. "Where the hell are we?" "You're asking me?" Walker said almost speechless from her side. "The unknown forces have detected our presence", ops pointed out. "The rest of the fleet is forming up in a defensive ring around us." "Very well", she nodded. "What do we know about these ships?" "Literally not much more than what our sensors are telling us, Admiral", the engineering bridge officer explained. "The energy signature points to their main energy source being from our perspective primitive hot nuclear fusion, though the scale of their reactors is certainly impressive. From our scans their weaponry seems to be based on plasma accelerators, kinetic accelerators and what very much look like missile launchers." "I highly doubt their weapons are able to do much damage to our ships however", the Andorian lieutenant at tactical pointed out. "Their energy output is comparable to that of a pre-Federation battleship and I don't read anything that even looks like a shield generator." "Understood..." the admiral began, but was quickly interrupted. "We're being hailed by the unknown fleet", ops stated. "On screen", the admiral nodded and straightened out her long chestnut-colored hair, soon greeted by the face of an overweight dark-skinned man on the other end off the comm line, wearing an unfamiliar blue and leather uniform. "Greetings, my name’s Admiral Samantha Craig of the United..." "I'm Fleet Captain Ellis Pierce of the EAS Hyperion. I know who you are and who you represent, Admiral", the man on the other end replied with a more than just slightly blunt voice. "You know you're violating Earth Alliance territory, I demand that you withdraw immediately or we will be forced to open fire." "I'm sorry, I don't believe I know what you're talking about", she answered truthfully. "You have five minutes, Admiral", Pierce cut the comms. "Well, that was more than just almost spooky", the admiral shook her head as she was trying to make sense of it all. "It does answer one question though, even if it raised even more", operations commented. "How do you mean?" Admiral Craig asked. "He recognized us, Admiral", the lieutenant commander explained. "He recognized us even though we've never seen him before." "You're right", she breathed. "Wherever we are, they're here." "No doubt about it", he nodded. USS BALDER FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT PROXIMA CENTAURI SUBSYSTEM The small Federation reconnaissance force was holding position on the light side of Proxima II, a small and half-molten rock not much larger than Earth's moon. It had exactly one strategic value, and that was that the planetoid could offer the five gleaming starships the perfect hiding place while they monitored the Earth Alliance fleet continuing to build up in orbit of the system's third planet which was just over ninety light seconds away. What seemed like just a few minutes ago, in fact it was almost half an hour, they'd started noticing a buildup of subspace stress in the vicinity of the third planet and after getting updated orders from Starfleet Command the five ships had moved from their hiding place in the system's small but useful Kuiper belt to this location in order to get better sensor readings, while hiding their own energy emissions in the massive amount of interference caused by the red dwarf behind them. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book and it would never work against a nation which had subspace sensors, but the Earth Alliance wasn't one of those nations. "The subspace anomaly is reaching critical levels", the science officer noted with more calm than Captain Aylam herself could muster. "The computer is estimating that it will collapse into real space within the next few seconds." "Imprecise, but accurate enough", the ship's dark-haired AI took form near the rear engineering section. "These readings are however extremely interesting, Captain. They’re an almost perfect match to the anomaly which brought us to this universe in the first place." "The anomaly is collapsing", Lieutenant Barnes at the sensor station noted. "I'm reading, wait a minute, are those readings correct, Kara?" "I'm analyzing the sensor data as we speak, Lieutenant", the AI replied. "Captain, we're reading seventeen new contacts which have just now appeared approximately two light seconds from the bulk of the Earth Alliance fleet", Barnes told the Bajoran captain, "and if I haven't gotten completely daft in the last few minutes I swear there's two Akiras and three Lunas in there!" "Silhouettes are a near perfect match", Kara nodded. "Allowing for an upgrade of their warp cores, so are their energy signatures. All ships are definitely of Starfleet design; their warp signatures are dead ringers for our own." "On screen!", Aylam Iriya almost yelled, being just recently promoted to the rank of captain after serving as Admiral Valeris' second for near a decade she wasn't even close to prepared for a situation such as this. "Holy!" her tactical officer exclaimed from behind the captain. "Are those...?" "Close, and I understand your reaction, but no", Kara interrupted him. "I only have passive scans to work from, but while they're definitely based on the Constitution and Constellation designs, they are a new breed entirely." "Same with the Sovereigns", the captain pointed out, "and I've never seen anything like that large cruiser either. What are those other two? Prometheus-class?" "I don't have accurate scans of an actual Prometheus", Kara admitted, "but I would presume them to be the actual production model of a ship based on the Prometheus prototype, given that the Prometheus class was only intended to be a proof of concept design." "I'll take your word for it", Iriya breathed. "The Earth Alliance fleet has noticed them", Lieutenant Barnes spoke up. "They're being hailed." "Can we intercept it?" "Yes", Kara nodded and the viewscreen immediately split into two halves, each showing a starship bridge but the similarities ended there. On one side they had the familiar image of an Earth Alliance heavy cruiser's bridge with the uneven walls lined with consoles manned by regular blue-uniformed men and women, on the other however was the last shred of proof needed to verify beyond all doubt exactly where these starships had come from. The bridge was almost an exact if overgrown copy of her own and she could clearly make out the LCARS setup of the consoles behind the woman in charge, as well as immediately identify people in her bridge crew as Andorian, Trill, Bajoran and Bolian. "...iral Samantha Craig of the United...” the Starfleet flag officer, a rear admiral given her rank insignia and uniform began. ""I'm Captain Ellis Pierce of the EAS Hyperion. I know who you are and who you represent, admiral", the Earth Alliance officer interrupted the Starfleet one. "You know you're violating Earth Alliance territory, I demand that you withdraw immediately or we will be forced to open fire." "I'm sorry, I don't believe I know what you're talking about", the Starfleet officer replied, looking positively confused. "You have five minutes, admiral", the Earth officer replied before he cut the transmission and the viewscreen returned to the tactical view of the Clarkist fleet. "Damn it", the captain made a vile and almost unpronounceable curse. "He thinks he's dealing with us, and she's got no idea what kind of hornet's nest she just stepped into." "All things considered, there's no way she could", Kara looked up and checked a screen. "The Clarkist forces are starting to power up their engines and weapons systems." "Kara, flash to Commander Starfleet, give him the brief version of events and tell him I'll be taking action." "Message sent", the AI replied just a moment later. "What are your orders, captain?" "What do we have in our files about the commanding officer?” she asked. "Given we don't know exactly how out of date our files are, and I'm presuming on the out of date considering the general design difference of the Akiras", Kara began, "I can't be entirely certain that I will find the correct personnel file." "Best guess, Kara", the Bajoran captain told her with the typical Bajoran patience in her voice. "Very well", the ship's avatar nodded and was silent for a moment as she scanned the Starfleet databases. "The best match is a then Lieutenant Commander Samantha Margaret Craig, facial recognition makes this an acceptable match with a ninety-two percent likeness. Stationed on the USS Galaxy since 2371, science officer specialized in astrometrics and space-time anomalies." "The Galaxy in ‘71?", Captain Aylam asked herself. "Kara, cross-reference her name with those of the Commander Starfleet and Admiral Duval." "The former was the ship's first officer and later captain, the latter head of the science department", the AI replied evenly. "I was equally curious, Captain." "No doubt", she breathed. "So, she’s a former shipmate of the Fleet Admiral's, and a rear admiral by now from the looks of things." "Obviously", Kara replied equally evenly. "Have you finished analyzing the new arrivals?" "As far as I can from passive scans only", the avatar nodded. "Unlike the Earth Alliance vessels my scanners can't exactly penetrate Starfleet-issue shielding all that easily." "Very well, give me what you know so far." "I was able to localize Admiral Craig's transmission to the larger ship which, as far as I can tell, is a long-range explorer ship with much the same offensive power as a Sovereign but with the same scientific abilities as a late Nebula-class." "What about the Sovereign lookalikes?" "Most likely just that, an evolution of the Sovereign design, given how close they resemble them. Additional phaser mounts along with a higher energy production rate, but otherwise directly comparable", the AI continued. "The ones which resemble the Constitution and Constellation classes are entirely new designs, with the former being roughly equal to a Nebula-class and the latter being somewhere between an Akira and a full-sized Galaxy. Also in the case of all the ships I've been able to scan they have a slightly different alloy hull than our ships do, most likely due to advancements in their armor composition." "Very well, I guess we'll have to wait to get the full story", the captain nodded. "Open a secure line to their flagship." "Given that we don't have any current clearance codes, I doubt that would work", the AI responded. "Use the most recent ones for Task Force 43", Aylam told her artificial and more than slightly unimaginative first officer. "I suspect they'll at least recognize them." "As you wish, captain", the AI responded with a curt nod which made her scale mail cling, thinking that she should have thought of that first. "They're responding." "On screen", the captain stated and was again treated of the image of the Federation bridge she'd seen just moments ago. "Admiral Craig, I presume?" "You presume right", the startled flag officer on the other side replied. "Samantha Craig, commanding officer of Task Force 59, Starfleet Fifth Fleet." "Aylam Iriya, captain of the Federation starship Balder." "Bajoran?" she almost sounded like she asked herself. "At least that's something I can recognize." "Yes, ma'am", the captain answered. "Balder?” Iriya could see the admiral becoming even more puzzled. "43 didn't include a starship by that name. You used the clearance codes of Task Force 43?" "That is correct, ma'am", she nodded. "It's a long story", the captain sighed and looked to her tactical screen, "but suffice to say yes, we're Starfleet, and no, you're not wrong. And while I'm not able to give you orders, I strongly suggest we take this discussion elsewhere considering you're likely to be fired upon by the Alliance fleet unless you get yourselves out of the system." "Admiral, I've tracked their subspace signal to the area around the second planet in the system", one of the bridge officers, a Trill in science blues, told the admiral. "It's a small force of five ships, of which two look like Luna designs, one being a Nebula design and one of the Phoenix subtype Nebula. The fifth ship still clearly registers as Starfleet, but the computer can't make heads or tails of it. Neither matches any of the ships lost with Task Force 43 or either of the previous incidents and not a single ship conforms fully to Starfleet design specs." "Well done, Lieutenant, and the correct name for the last ship would be Valkyria class", Iriya stated with a calm and helpful voice, not the least surprised that they were able to detect them and scan them just as well as she could. "We're a reconnaissance detachment here to observe the hornet's nest your fleet just struck with a baseball bat." "Very well, Captain", the admiral nodded. "I have no reason to argue with you, as I'm sure you know this place a lot better than I do." "Yes, ma'am", the Bajoran replied calmly. "If the admiral won't mind I would advise that you withdraw to the Centauri system proper, where we'll be able to talk without other matters interfering. Just stay clear of the fourth planet if you would be so kind." "Of course. Why, if I may ask?" "Pre-industrial civilization", the captain shrugged. "They already have a god shaped like a silver bird, and albeit not our fault we'd rather not compound that belief any further." "Good point", the admiral responded almost mechanically. "Very well, we'll set course for the outer gas giant, unless there's any native life we should be aware of?" "Not as far as I know, Admiral", she replied. "We will be there momentarily, just give us some time to leave the system quietly." "I've plotted a course to Centauri ten at maximum speed, Admiral", Iriya heard the admiral's helmsman from the periphery of the comm image. "The rest of the fleet has also been informed." "What?" Craig asked absentmindedly. "Oh, yes. Engage, Lieutenant." "Shaken and stirred?", Iriya couldn't help but shake her head as the communications window blacked out and the viewscreen reverted to a computer-generated image of the sensor input. "Were we in a better condition when we got here?” Barnes asked, he'd been a junior crewman at the time but he'd been through the rabbit hole same as the captain. "True, and we didn't come out smack dab in the middle of a hostile Alliance fleet either", the captain nodded. "Very well, prepare to bring us out of the system and to the same planet using hyperwarp. We'll leave the Royal Oak behind to cover our current mission while the rest of us take care of this latest development." "Aye, Captain", helm nodded. "We'll need to make a quick stop at the Kuiper belt in order to get around the planet undetect... holy shit! Did you see that, Kara?!" "I did", the AI replied with an almost awestruck voice, something neither on the bridge had ever even imagined the hazel-haired valkyrie even physically capable of. "What?” the captain asked, without access to either the navigational or ship's sensors she felt herself quite left outside the point of the discussion. "Recreating", Kara said and a moment later the captain watched a close-up of the futuristic ships of the recently arrived Starfleet task force. "I’m playing back the events in slow motion, one thousandth of normal speed." Iriya found herself glued to the image in front of her, seeing what the avatar and the sensor crew had seen all along she could definitely understand their point about the iconic appearance of several of the new arrivals, but something told her that wasn't the main point of Kara's recreation. She expected to see the telltale stretching of a Federation warp drive knowing of course that at this speed even that would take several seconds to form, but when the first flecks of green-hued energy started to appear ahead of the larger ships first only to be followed shortly by the smaller even she had to gasp for air. Her own ships had two drives, capable of either using the standard warp drive or what had been dubbed in everyday speech as hyperwarp, opening a jump point into the void between the different space-times which looked like they flew straight into a flash of white lightning. This, now this was different. As the first of the green energy wakes coalesced in front of the largest of the ships it almost looked like it tore a hole in space-time itself which the ship then entered, a process repeated sixteen more times before her very eyes. "What was that?” she asked, now fully understanding the reactions of her helmsman and ship's avatar. "I know what it looked like, but it can't be", the helm officer just shook his head. "Can it?" "Quantum slipstream, possibly transwarp…" Kara breathed, still awestruck by what she'd witnessed. "They actually got it to work?" "We'll have to ask how later", Iriya snapped back to reality as quickly as the viewscreen reverted back to the tactical view and she was reminded of the three hundred and change Alliance warships less than spitting distance away by Starfleet measurements. "Plot your course, send it to the others and engage." "Do you want me to update Starfleet Command on these new facts?” Kara asked. "Are you kidding?” the Bajoran simply shook her head as her own ships entered the very white lightning she'd been thinking of earlier and jumped out of the system in less time than it took between two heartbeats.
67 Chapter 67 USS RETRIBUTION FEDERATION NOMAD-CLASS STAR CRUISER WOLF 359, CN LEONIS SYSTEM The twenty one starships belonging to the two different Starfleet task forces glided silently through the black void that made up most of the star system, the ships lit up only by their running lights and that of the dull red glow of the red dwarf star which made it through the dense asteroid belt coreward of the small fleet of silvery ships. Samantha watched the image being displayed on the main viewscreen with a feeling both of dread and awe as she recognized the system just like any other Starfleet officer would, though she did note another difference from the reality she knew. Last time she'd been here there'd been a massive monument here, placed in much the same orbit as her ships and their escorts were now in, and built by the Federation in memory of the eleven thousand men, women and children who had died here. Here, apparently, things hadn't played out quite the same way. She and the combined scientific staff of her task force already come to the conclusion that they'd traveled between realities, and while it'd made several of the scientists double or even triple-check their data they weren't really all that surprised. They all knew such travel was possible of course; it'd been a rare but not unheard of occurrence ever since the days of James Kirk. Given the timeline variances they had theorized that this reality was further away from her own when compared to the ones previously visited, so there would likely not be any returning home by just using regular transporters, but it also verified to the admiral that she had no idea what to expect. At least in the case of the reality most commonly intersecting with her own she'd recognize the ships and most likely the people, though she didn't know whether to prefer this one or that with the Terran Empire. She hadn't gotten much information out of the Bajoran captain either, as soon as her ships had joined the admirals' own in the Alpha Centauri system they'd simply relayed these coordinates to her task force and explained that she'd been ordered to proceed there and await the arrival of one of her superior officers, without going into further detail about pretty much anything. She could of course understand Captain Aylam's position in that she didn't want to overstep her authority, but she also had to wonder considering the only Aylam Iriya she had in the database as part of West's task force had been a just recently promoted commander at the time of their disappearance, and, even though she'd worn a slightly different uniform than the admiral's crew did, she had worn the rank insignia of a Starfleet captain as well as obviously been in command of the still quite strange starship which now holding position just a few thousand kilometers off her bow. "Have we finished the analysis of the sensor data on these ships yet?" she asked the bridge engineer, a human in his early forties. "We're still going over the last of the data, Admiral", the lieutenant commander answered and then turned and gave his commanding officer a resigned face. "It's far enough done for me to give you a good enough summation however." "Then, by all means", she motioned. "The two Lunas are pretty much identical in outward design to the three in our own force, and the Nebula isn't much different than what I'd expect either. What is different is that all three of these ships sport a noticeably higher than standard weapons load and also have a modified internal structure", he began. "They lack our transwarp coils, but that's not really all that surprising considering the technology wasn't perfected until six years ago. What is surprising is an energy signature we still haven't been able to identify emanating from just behind their deflector arrays, which also matches those energy waves they seem to enter and exit faster-than-light from." "We still haven't been able to identify the technology involved?” Craig asked with a fair amount of surprise evident in her voice. "No, ma'am", the Trill science officer replied. "The energy wave registers much the same as a space-time distortion would, but as it's not even within the realm of known science; neither I nor the computers have any idea of where to even start analyzing them." "Seems our long lost friends have made some advancements of their own then", the admiral nodded as she thought about it for a moment. "It's not all that surprising; no doubt it's something they've picked up locally." "Considering that it doesn't even resemble Federation technology I'd say that's likely", the engineer nodded his agreement. "How about Big Bertha over there", Craig asked the room and motioned for the viewscreen which showed the largest of the four escorts in all its terrible glory. "Now that there is one impressive piece of machinery", the engineer replied with a hint of a smile playing in the corner of his mouth. "Putting aside the obvious design differences, that's two Sovereigns, effectively welded together." "Excuse me?" Craig exclaimed in disbelief. "Two mark eight warp cores, four Sovereign-type warp coil assemblies, though merged to form two nacelles", the engineer explained. "About twice the amount of weapons systems as well, and although it only has one shield emitter array it's no doubt quite a bit more powerful than even that of this ship considering the amount of power they can pump into it." "I'd second that assumption", a gravely voice spoke up from the rear of the bridge as the burly shape of the ship's chief engineer entered the bridge. "A mark nine is some twenty percent higher than an eight, sure, but they've still got two of them", the Ktarian officer paused and met the admiral's gaze. "Admiral." "Commander", Craig replied. "All ships in the force have now finished repairing what damage they suffered during the crossing", the engineer stated straightforwardly. "We're now operating at nominal efficiency across the board." "Very well", the admiral nodded. "What's your take on the ships outside, Commander?" "From what I can see, I'd say that this universe isn't exactly the nicest part of the multiverse", he chuckled and brought up a hand to rub the spikes on his forehead. "Though, I'd also like to say, neither is ours. That ship's designed for one thing and one thing only, and that's as a heavy warship." "I'm just surprised they were able to build a ship of their own", she noted while shaking her head slightly. "It's not as hard as most people believe", the Ktarian answered with a slight shrug. "Any long-range starship is able to produce its own replacement parts, otherwise venturing into the great unknown would always be a fatal gamble." "I know that, but still, an entire starship?" she asked. "Correction, five, at least that we know about. Likely many more", the engineer made a wry smile. "None of the ships we've seen so far was built in the Alpha Quadrant. The alloys in their hulls are close enough that it doesn't matter from a structural standpoint, but they're not identical. Given the molecular differences I’d guess their main supply source to be in the Sirius sector, not in the Sol sector." "Which just makes the entire idea even more insane", she pointed out. "Give me time and give me resources and I'll give you a fleet of Nomads", the Ktarian shrugged. "You're standing on the blueprint and all it takes is enough spare parts." Samantha could understand what the chief engineer was trying to say in his usual direct manner, Ktarians weren't exactly known for being smooth talkers, but it was still quite a lot to take in. Sure she could accept that given enough time a ship could effectively produce a replica of itself, but West's task force hadn't included any Phoenix-subtype Nebulas nor for that sake a single Luna, they'd barely even entered service by then. And going from replicating a starship to creating an entirely new class? "I'm reading more of those odd particle emissions again, ma’am", her science officer stated. "They're centered between us and the Balder." "I really want to know how they managed this", the Ktarian murmured with a low voice, barely audible enough for Samantha to hear. "You and me both", Walker spoke up for the first time in several minutes. Admiral Craig watched the viewscreen in silence, studying what first appeared as little more than a speck of bright light fan out into a flash of energy not unlike a lightning strike, with the exception that this lightning strike fanned out in a circular fashion leaving a shadow on her vision for several seconds. She'd seen the same thing happen before as the other ships around her had arrived at this location, but it still astonished her as reality seem to almost tear open and spit out a light grey starship. "Silhouette and energy signature confirmed", the Trill stated unnecessarily as every person present on the bridge could easily tell what the new arrival was. "It's a Sovereign-class starship." "Please tell me at least that ship is one of the ones they actually should have", Craig almost breathed the words as the starship turned on its axis and headed towards her own ship. "Well", the Trill started, but then zoomed the image in to show the several meters high lettering on the dorsal surface of the saucer. "I doubt it, Admiral. We're being hailed." "On screen", she nodded and took a deep breath. The viewscreen erased the image of the approaching Sovereign and resolved into a bridge that looked just like a bridge of a Sovereign should, with the exception of a young and strikingly beautiful short-haired woman dressed in little more than an ancient-looking yellow dress which made her stick out even more among the black uniforms of the other officers present. She was seated right next to the captain's chair and as the captain rose she could see the spots along his forehead and neck which told her his race, and his first words told her the rest. "Task Force 59 actual, I'm Captain Dal Caeron of the Starfleet battlecruiser Antigone", the Trill nodded his head in greeting to her. "Admiral Samantha Craig", she nodded back as in their current situation both were formally captains no matter the actual rank difference, "Captain of the Federation star cruiser Retribution and commanding officer of Task Force 59." "Well met, Admiral, welcome to Wolf 359 and our side of the rabbit hole", the Trill captain replied with a smirk on his lips. "I've been asked to convey an invitation aboard my ship to you and your senior captains in order to meet with the admirals of the Starfleet." "Admirals", she repeated. "Very well, give us a few minutes and we'll beam over." "Affirmative", the Trill nodded. "Antigone out." "Admirals", she said again. "He did use plural, right?" "Quite", Walker nodded from her side. "That wasn't the strangest thing though." "How so?" "He said 'of the Starfleet', Samantha, not “of the Task Force”", the first officer pointed out. "Something tells me our initial estimates of this mission weren't just incorrect, they weren't even in the right ball park." USS ANTIGONE FEDERATION SOVEREIGN-CLASS BATTLECRUISER WOLF 359, CN LEONIS SYSTEM As the blue-white light dissipated and she once again felt her body she at least praised the fact that the transporters were still what they'd expect. She and her two most senior captains, along with her chief engineer, had beamed over to the Sovereign as requested and now stepped down from an also familiar transporter pad. She wouldn't go so far as to say that the similarities between this ship and the Sovereigns she was used to ended there but even the walls were different, covered in some kind of noise dampening fabric rather than being the bare metal she was used to. As she was stepping down from the platform the door to the nearby corridor slid open, revealing the Trill captain she'd talked to just a few minutes ago. He stood at attention as soon as he arrived, beaming a smile to the three officers. "Admiral, captains, commander", he greeted them. "Thank you for coming." "Captain", Craig acknowledged. "If you would please follow me?” the Trill asked and pretty much immediately turned around and started walking outside, not leaving the three arriving officers much choice but to follow. As they made their way out of the transporter room Admiral Craig found herself somewhat disoriented, she knew the inside of a Sovereign fairly well after having served on one for several years, but this one was, however slightly, still different. She knew where all three transporter rooms of a Sovereign were in relation to its overall deck layout and she could easily make out that they'd exited the primary as only the one in the ship's bow had curved corridors outside. Still, the angle of the corridors seemed off from what she remembered, as did the numbers on the doors to what should be crew quarters on the outer edge and civic locations on the inside. The corridor also felt smaller than it should, and she told the Trill captain as much. "I'm not surprised you feel that way, Admiral", Captain Caeron told her. "The Antigone's inner dimensions are compressed compared to the design standard in order to fit the crew quarters." "Did you increase their size?” she asked. "Or the amount of them?" "Neither", the Trill shook his head as he kept walking down the corridor. "In fact the ship's crew is reduced by forty percent in comparison, and the crew quarters are smaller than design standard as well." "Then why..." "You emptied the outer hull?” the Ktarian chief engineer interrupted. "Nice catch", the Trill nodded and gave the reddish-hued Ktarian an impressed smile. "Engineer?" "Chief", the commander added with a nod. "Always was hard to tell with those uniforms", the Trill mused as they turned a corner and headed towards the center of the saucer. "But suffice to say you're right, it was done in order to increase the survivability of the ship from breaches of the outer hull, as well as giving us additional room for additional defensive and offensive systems." The admiral shook her head as she heard the explanation and sighed silently as she realized the initial assumption of her chief engineer had been right spot on the target. This was not the nicest neighborhood in the multiverse and the very design of even this otherwise fairly familiar ship reflected that more clearly than she'd been able to see, or perhaps accept, from looking at it from the outside. Reaching their destination both the admiral and the rest of the visiting officers did however show real surprise in their faces, they'd expected a conference room of some kind but in both the case of a Sovereign and the later Noble the location they'd reached would be a holodeck. Judging by the controls on the wall next to the door that was exactly what it was as well. The captain of the ship simply pressed the door control and motioned for the visitors to enter, ignoring their surprised faces. As they slowly walked inside their suspicion about the location was confirmed, as there was no way the space inside existed inside a starship. Their shoes went from stepping on the dark blue fiber carpet of the corridor to stepping on perfectly kept green grass, and from looking at light-grey fabric covering the walls to a dense leaf forest framing what looked like a stone gazebo with a great circular stone table in the center. The place reminded Samantha a bit of the old Greek temples back home on Earth, the white marble gleaming in the light of a binary star in the sky above. When the last of the four visitors had stepped through the door slid shut and disappeared, leaving no visible trace that they were even on the starship they had boarded anymore. She and the others kept walking towards what was obviously the centerpiece of the simulation, being the only structure in sight and more obviously the place where she could see more of the black uniforms she'd been seeing the last few hours being at They hadn't been that far away even to begin with, but too far for her to make out the faces of the people gathered around the table. As they closed she could hear fragments of discussions among the ten, at least she could see that many, black uniformed officers. She couldn't make out exactly what they were talking about but apparently at least a few of them were fairly agitated. When they noticed the arrivals approaching however they all became silent and turned to face Craig and her officers, one of the older men instantly breaking into a smile as he recognized her. "Samantha", Admiral West stated with a wide smile on his face and a pleased tone in his voice. "I don't know what you're doing here, but you're not going to hear me complain!" "Admiral", Craig smiled as she shook the hand of her former commanding officer. "It's good to see you all and know you're safe." "That's a relative term, but more on that later", the admiral nodded. "Please, who are your companions?" "These are captains Michiko Nokawa of the Musashi", she motioned to the Japanese woman on her left, "and Mikhail Kutuzov of the Soyuz." "Pleased to meet you, captains", West shook their hands in turn. "Finally, my chief engineer", Samantha motioned to the tall and burly Ktarian, "Commander Trajok Mizan." "I'm honored", West said as he bowed and crossed his arms over his chest in the ritual Ktarian greeting. "I wasn't aware there were civilized people in the Starfleet these days", the commander smirked. "I'm most pleasantly surprised." "I had the advantage and honor of a Ktarian teacher during my time at the academy", West smiled. "Very well, I hate to ask, but what brings you and your force to this part of the multiverse? I suspect you already know we're in a different universe than the one you're used to." "That much was quite evident", she nodded. "After researching the loss of your forces along with other ships lost in the Bassen Rift we eventually found the anomaly responsible. After a few months of research into its properties Starfleet Engineering built a stabilizing apparatus in its center and my task force was formed with the mission of going through it and finding out what actually happened to the lost ships, among them yours." "I see", he nodded and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Please forgive me for asking, but what year did you depart in?" "June of 2395", she answered somewhat curiously. "Why do you ask?" "If you have the patience, you'll get your answer in a moment I'm sure", he replied. "Please, continue." "Admiral Ross' orders were for my force to find you, and when found help you get back home", she continued. "We were almost expecting to end up in another arm of the galaxy and find your ships crash landed on some planet somewhere, but apparently that's not the case." "Obviously", he nodded. "Getting back home isn't quite as easy as it sounds though, but I suspect you must have a plan for that?" "After what I've been told by my scientists and the ones back home, the anomaly behaves like an unstable wormhole. It's almost completely stationary back home, but it wanders here. We need to find the exit point and anchor it using an apparatus like the one they built in the rift back home." "Well, I'm afraid things aren't all that simple", the senior admiral present sighed and turned toward his own officers. ”I suspect you already know the people on my side by name, but introductions are in order nonetheless." "After what I've seen so far, I suspect that would be preferable." "Probably, yes", he nodded and counted them off clockwise from his own position. "Admirals Heron Jahari, Elisha Keyes, George Halsey, and Vice Admiral Janet Valeris." "A... a pleasure", Samantha couldn't quite hide her shock at the introductions, but tried to keep an even face anyway. "The man in the dark grey fatigues opposite me is General Adrian Sharp, followed by Rear Admirals Helen Grayson and Jürgen Cleves", he continued. "You already know my brother Henry, and of course my wife Sheila, both of whom have the same rank as the previous two." Admiral Craig was visibly relieved to see both her old friends and even the people she'd only seen the personnel files of being all right and as it looked in good health, but she couldn't help but react that of every single person present in this room except her own subordinates, she'd likely just been reduced to the lowest rank present. She barely even had to ask what rank her old captain had, there was only one rank higher than that of a full admiral, and he was clearly still in charge. "I'm happy to see you're all okay", Samantha nodded but her confusion was evident in her voice earning her an understanding smile from her old department head. "You weren't kidding things weren't as easy as we'd thought. Ten flag officers? I'm hoping it's not just a question of throwing titles around?" "I wish", West sighed as he motioned for the empty chairs at the table. "Please, sit down, this may take a while." "No doubt", Craig nodded and took a seat between now apparently admirals Duval and Keyes. "First off, let me begin by saying that I'm sorry we have to meet in this kind of a location, but the simple truth is that it's the only way most of us can be here", West began after sitting down opposite Samantha, and after seeing her instinctive reaction he raised a hand to stop her from misunderstanding him. "It's simply because we're currently spread out over several dozen light years, each of us with their own responsibilities which we can't just leave behind. We've perfected this system in order to allow us to have face to face meetings even without being in the same sector." "Amazing", Commander Mizan exclaimed. "Real-time holographic networking?" "Yes", the raspy voice of the Caitian admiral replied, before dumbing it down for the non-technical visiting officers. "We link our holodecks via subspace and a central hub." "The computer power requirements must be enormous", the Ktarian said with a suspicious look on his face. "We've made... certain advancement in those fields", West answered evasively and then addressed Craig again. "Of the ten of us, I'm the only one actually on the same ship as you with the rest joining us by subspace." "I see", she nodded. "Perhaps it'd be best if I started by asking a simple enough question. I came here expecting to find a small colony of Starfleet people with their ships displaced here. Now, that's obviously not what I've found considering what I've seen and heard so far." "Quite correct", Sheila answered from beside her. "Since we didn't know if we'd ever be able to get back home, and with all due respect I still doubt it even if you say it'll be possible, we initially decided to do just what you expected." "Mind you, we're still explorers though", Cleves added from his seat between Craig's two captains. "We both wanted to explore this universe and find a secluded piece of space in which we could settle down, but... well, let's just say we ran into trouble along the way, trouble by the name Vorlons." "It didn't take long for us to find out we weren't the only Starfleet ships which had traversed the same anomaly as we did", Valeris added and was treated to a nod from Admiral Craig telling the half Vulcan she knew that too. "Unlike your and our forces entry into this universe, which seems to be more or less proportionally spaced, they had exited the anomaly several centuries in what from our perspective is the past and already both settled down and met at least one of the native races, namely said Vorlons." "All right", Samantha nodded. "I'm with you so far." "They'd struck a deal with the Vorlons to dismantle their advanced technologies and stay out of interstellar matters, but unfortunately our own encounter with the Vorlons made them suspect the same Federation colony they knew of since earlier and within weeks they sent a force to attack the planet", West concluded. "It was a close call and both sides suffered heavy damage but in the end they withdrew, leaving us with a lot of damaged ships and an overwhelming threat of destruction over our heads." "I see", Craig sighed. "You said that the ships which entered this universe did so several centuries before your arrival?" "They did", he nodded. "They were the crews of the Portsmouth, the Edinburgh and the London along with the evacuees they were carrying, and they settled in the Sigma Draconis system." "Why didn't you just relocate them?" Captain Nokawa asked. "There must be other planets which were outside the range of the hostile nation?" "I don't think you understand, Captain", West had a sad smirk on his face as he turned to the Asian woman. "They arrived here hundreds of years ago from our point of view." "At the time we discovered them, the population of Draconis was rapidly approaching twenty million and with their ancestors' deal with the Vorlons to discard their technology...” Jahari sighed and paused for a second. "Their civilization was just reaching the point where they could create a viable warp drive design. There was no way they could protect themselves, and you know as well as we do that evacuating a civilian population of that size is an immense undertaking for the entirety of the Starfleet, and an impossibility for a single combat task force." Craig sighed and nodded, she was starting to understand how this would change things for West and his captains, and them finding millions of people which were technically a lost Federation colony would explain where they'd gotten the extra manpower from. It still didn't quite add up though, and she felt she had to ask to be sure she got the answer. "I'm sorry to interrupt", she said slowly and with a thoughtful face. "Even if this planet had millions of inhabitants, surely they weren't ready to either serve on or, or much less build, Starfleet ships?" "That's correct, we had to solve that problem another way", Keyes nodded. "The first new ships we built were crewed simply by reducing the crew of our other vessels, but that soon became an issue as strictly speaking a Starfleet starship isn't all that effective in battle once you go below a certain point." "That much I'm aware of", Samantha nodded. "Given that we didn't have any more trained crew to draw upon, the only practical way to move forward was thus to reduce the crew requirements by automating much of the ships' functions and removing the need for human interaction", Keyes continued, ignoring the interruption. "At the time it was by all accounts a controversial decision, but the prototype performed well above expectations." "Excuse me, admiral", the Ktarian engineer stated, and then paused as he realized he'd interrupted a flag officer. After making sure he wasn't going to be berated for it, he continued. "Most of the systems which require human interaction on a starship can't be automated, or they already would be. They have to be monitored and adjusted by not just a logical but a thinking mind, one able to make decisions." He finished with a gesture of expecting an explanation, but for a moment he didn't get any response other than just a slight smile from some of the assembled admirals and what he'd translate as an uncomfortable face from some of the others. He could see that Keyes was almost about to answer when a voice came from behind him, making the admiral close her mouth again. "…and you doubt a computer could do that, Commander Mizan", a soft voice finished matter-of-factly, startling the visitors and causing more than one head to turn in that direction. "I'm not surprised, although I must admit I'm sad to hear the Federation hasn't advanced further in the last fifteen years." "Why... why is that?", the Ktarian stuttered as his eyes traced the form of the lovely woman he was now facing, it was the same woman they'd seen earlier when they'd been hailed and she wore the same sunflower-colored dress with her hazel hair accentuated by a golden hairnet inlaid with pearls which sparkled in the sunlight. "Long story, but to cut it short", West sighed as the lovely figure gave him a slight smile, knowing exactly how uncomfortable she made her commander in chief. "Admiral, captains, commander, meet Lieutenant Commander Antigone." It took a few moments for the Ktarian's mind to process what he was seeing and hearing, but then he simply said; "Ah. I would suppose that's not a coincidence." "No", the woman in yellow gave him a blindingly white grin. "I'm impressed, most people usually stutter for quite a while before they accept it." "And what's that?” Craig asked, not quite following the development as well as her engineer apparently was. "My full name is SSOI mark two, number twenty-two", Antigone replied with an even voice and smiling as she noticed the admiral was still equally confused she motioned towards her striking form. "In this form I'm known as Antigone, carry the rank of lieutenant commander and am the ship's operations officer", and raising her hand and creating a scale model of the Sovereign starship they were on she continued, "while in this form I'm known as the USS Antigone, registry number NCC-48004, and the fifth ship of six of the mark three Sovereign design." "You mean...” the admiral actually did stutter. "See what I mean?” Antigone asked the Ktarian. "Yes, Admiral Craig, I'm the holographic representation of this starship's artificial core intelligence. Like the rest of my kind I'm fully sapient, not just sentient, and I'm part of the same chain of command as any other person in Starfleet." "And capable of the same bad personality traits as well", Jahari kept a smile which bared one of his sharp canines. "Most notably pride, envy, anger, vanity... and given the load your kind puts on my mining facilities likely gluttony as well." "Oh, sheesh", she chuckled. "We're sapients, not saints, and with most of our personality matrices originally modeled on those of humans, you have to accept there being some flaws here and there." "You forgot a bad sense of humor, Heron", West told his Caitian friend almost as if in passing. "Suffice to say their development along with a number of purpose-built tools for them made us able to cut the operations, security and combat crew down to a bare minimum." "I understand that", she breathed, "but to create an artificial life form and entrust your lives and your ship to it?" "Necessity is the mother of invention and, to the aggravation of genius, desperation its illegitimate father", Jahari quoted. "It worked, that's what matters." "Ships which can think on their own", Craig just shook her head. "What's next? Battle tanks which fight on their own?" She just barely noticed the exchanged glance between West and Jahari, but decided to let the matter rest. For now. "To get back on track", West bluntly changed the subject. "While we began to reinforce the fleet and build both manned and unmanned static defenses, the Vorlons thankfully enough didn't attack us again past our initial encounter over Draconis. That's not to say the galactic situation didn't come to involve us in the end though, even as we tried to remain hidden isolationists." "All right", Craig nodded while subconsciously leaning forward. "Given the first events we experienced after exiting the rift I kind of expected as much." "You ran into the Earth Alliance, the human interstellar nation of this universe", West nodded. "Much like our own local area of the galaxy, space here is carved up between a few major powers and a few minor ones which work together in a form of coalition." "Just a few years after we arrived here Earth ran into the much larger and far more advanced Minbari", Sheila added from her seat next to Craig. "After they went through a first contact easily rivaling our own with the Borg in terms of success, Earth quickly found themselves both outclassed and outgunned in what was basically a war of extermination." "I understand", Samantha nodded and turned to face the fleet admiral. "And that's when you ripped up the Prime Directive?" "Not at first", he bowed his head a bit not being too proud of the consequences even now, but still convinced he made the right call. "We started by saving those who would otherwise be doomed to a certain death by the Minbari, crews of damaged ships and life pods beamed out by our ships just before the Minbari ships destroyed them." "Once Earth itself was threatened however, we could no longer just stand by and watch", Sheila continued with a hard and firm voice. "There were other events that happened as well, by accident one of our ships was exposed and fired on by the Minbari", Keyes added. "But all in all it boils down to us not being able to accept watching the genocide of the human race." "Genocide?” Craig asked with a surprised tone. "In no uncertain terms", Sheila nodded. "The Minbari resorted to tactics such as destruction of entire colonies through orbital bombardment, destruction of disabled or fleeing vessels and life pods, even continuing to do this after refusing to accept an unconditional surrender by Earth." Samantha could definitely understand that, and she could also understand the problems they'd have keeping to the prime directive if humans were being killed with no mercy given or even offered. "I see", was all she could reply. "Long story short we tried the diplomatic approach with both Earth and Minbar, but the caste-based system of the Minbari and the centralized nature of this Earth's government only made that partially successful", Halsey spoke up for the first time, scratching his gray hair as he remembered the battle line at Proxima. "Then we wiped out half the Minbari fleet and most of them got the message. The cat was out of the bag though, after showing ourselves to two of the major nations we couldn't exactly retreat back into seclusion again, especially not after Mars decided to secede from the Alliance." "Umm... what?" Samantha asked. "Again, long story", Halsey shrugged. "Mars and Earth haven't gotten along for a long time, pretty much like it was back home with the Martian separatists except this Earth never sat down and made peace with them. The Alliance government is also formed in a way that doesn't give their colonies much say even in matters which affect them directly, and as the war ended they thought they'd be better off with us rather than with Earth, so… they seceded." "And you let them?” Craig said barely believing what she heard. "Considering the alternative was invasion and occupation by Earth forces, yes we did", West nodded. "It was a decision our civilian government decided on, with the total abstention of recommendation or vote from the Starfleet." "That together with the fact we refused to share our comparatively much more advanced technology has marred the relationship between us and Earth ever since though", Halsey continued with a wry face. "Mars being as exposed as it is to the rest of the galaxy also prompted us to have a much more visible presence there than we might have originally wanted." "I see, I guess that explains the less than warm welcome we received from the Earth ships at Proxima then", Samantha replied. "Partially, that's true", Halsey nodded and only paused for a second. "With our presence and at least a general idea of our advanced technology known, but with a severe numerical disadvantage compared to any other nation out there… Well, we've since decided on hiding that one major weakness behind a strong and high-tech facade, staying as strictly neutral as we can in matters of politics and diplomacy but at the same time never letting the other nations forget we're here and that we wiped out a Minbari fleet." "Politics here work much the way they do back home", West explained with an even tone. "The difference is that the only nation here which believes in the ideals of the Federation back home is ours. The rest, with very few exceptions, are about as tolerant to other ideas as the Romulans, Cardassians or Klingons." "You weren't kidding when you said I'd arrived and found something I hadn't expected", Craig breathed and paused to gather her thoughts. "Am I to assume then that you've effectively created your own miniature interstellar power?" "It's somewhat simplified, but not a bad analogy", West gave her a short nod. Samantha met the thoughtful look of her Russian and Japanese senior captains, their faces telling her they had much the same emotions running through them as she did. Admiral West and his captains had effectively thrown the entire Prime Directive out the airlock, which she of course resented as a Starfleet officer, but at the same time she found she could understand their situation too. Especially considering what changes her own Federation had gone through, or, for that sake, were still going through, in the last twenty years. "All in all I'm happy you managed to get here though", West continued. "In the last few years this entire region of space has started to destabilize, and even though we've flourished quite well ourselves since we arrived here we simply don't have the numbers to do what we'd need to turn the tide. If there really is a way to get to the Alpha Quadrant and back we could really use the help of the Starfleet." Craig and her officers kept silent for a few ominous seconds as West stopped talking, assimilating and processing what they'd been told as well as the captains looking to their admiral to explain their own news. It took a little while, but then the admiral nodded, sighed deeply and turned to the assembled admirals. "You know, you'd likely be placed in front of a tribunal if you did return", Samantha began; making a gesture that encompassed the rest of the admirals around the white stone table. "As you yourselves said when I first arrived here though, it's not quite that simple even when we eventually do manage to build the device." "Please", West motioned for her to continue. "Us getting sent here was only partly as a humanitarian effort, the hope of the Starfleet was that by risking our ships they'd possibly get both my and your task forces back in return", she began. "The fact is, as it stands right now, the Federation is facing increasingly difficult times ahead." "Perhaps it would be best if you started from the beginning", the fleet admiral pointed out. "As you wish. As you know we were at war with the Romulans, but the war never really escalated beyond a border conflict until the Remans allied themselves with the Klingon Empire in return for being allowed to settle within the Klingon border." "Now that's interesting", West nodded. "I take it the Klingons were quick to take advantage of their increased forces?" "Given their mutual defense treaty with us we expected them to do so", she nodded. "The war ended quite abruptly though when the Borg decided to pay the Alpha Quadrant another visit. The Romulans quickly withdrew their front line fleets in order to defend their own space, while ours and the Klingons' faced off with the cubes heading for the Federation. We both suffered losses, including two planets lost to Borg assimilation, but since we were prepared for the eventuality we managed to beat them back and eventually neutralized their invasion fleet by using the Endgame Virus." "I thought Starfleet had decided not to use that weapon on the insistence of Captain Picard?", West inquired with a surprised face, it was extremely rare for the Federation to use such weapons, that virus itself already having been classified as a weapon of mass destruction. "He was the one who after months of front-line combat suggested its use", she shook her head. "We lost a lot of good men and women during that war, including Admiral Janeway." "I see", he nodded with a grim and sad face. "The ships and drones which remained operational were easily captured and brought back to be studied by Starfleet when their link to the collective was severed, in time leading to the development of among other things our own version of their transwarp drive, adaptive personal shields and regenerative shielding." She paused and sighed as she remembered the faces of long lost comrades and fellow servicemen. "The peace didn't last too long though, as after the Borg threat was vanquished the Klingons and Remans went back to their war with the Romulans, conquering Khitomer and the other planets they had lost in the previous war between them before the Romulans managed to stop their advance, while Starfleet was still busy restoring order and securing our own space." "When we were finished we managed to convince both to sign a peace treaty, and with the threat of facing both our nations again the Romulans agreed to formally return all territories previously annexed from the Klingons", Kutozov, the Russian captain continued as the admiral became silent. "It didn't help the Romulans though, as the Hobus star went nova in 2387 the entire Romulus system was wiped out in the blast, and it was only thanks to the Vulcans that it didn't wipe out their entire nation." "The Vulcans?” West asked curiously. "Ambassador Spock managed to convince them to give assistance in turning the supernova remnant into a black hole, which halted any further damage to the sector", he explained. "Since then the Star Empire has effectively crumbled due to a continuous civil war being fought between various factions for control of the Empire and much of the civilian population has been dependant on relief shipments from the Federation to survive." "Relief shipments which I may add put an enormous strain on the transport capacity of the Starfleet", Captain Nokawa added. "The Federation Transport Union refused to carry supplies into the war-torn area, and Starfleet starships aren't really made for bulk transport of that kind. It opened the way for Orion and Nausicaan pirates again and threatened the internal trade routes." "Sounds like your Federation is as hard pressed as mine is", West nodded. "It gets better", Samantha told him with a sarcastic voice. "Chancellor Martok was deposed in a private duel a little over two years ago and although he survived he was exiled to the Federation, effectively ending the Khitomer accord overnight." "Ouch", West and most of his admirals made a pained face; they all knew what that meant. "Since then the Klingons have mobilized their fleets and the new chancellor hasn't shown any interest in even responding to diplomatic messages, much less sign a new treaty", she sighed. "We think he's contemplating a full-scale invasion of Romulan space, an invasion the Romulans are hard pressed to counter given a decade of war followed by civil war. The Federation Council has already given notice that such an act would not be viewed favorably by the Federation." "Which places Starfleet on a direct collision course with the Imperial Defense Force", West sighed and nodded. "I understand your position." The admirals all sat in silence for a moment, contemplating the dire news from their home. Having heard that they might soon have the ability to call for help had been received with hope, with the only fear being that their actions here would earn them a court martial. Now that they'd heard in no uncertain terms that their home wasn't in any way in a position to help them due to having their own problems that hope vanished quickly. "One of my primary objectives in coming here is to assess the strength of your forces in the eventuality that we can go back home", Samantha said after a minute or so. "If you don't mind me asking...?" "No, I don't mind", Admiral West nodded slowly and motioned toward the Caitian admiral. "Admiral Jahari is in overall charge of Starfleet Operations. Heron, would you mind?" "Of course", Jahari replied. "Strength-wise our force is comparable to that of a standard Starfleet fleet unit, but including the support facilities..." "...you're kidding", Craig coughed. "No", he said with a dead serious voice and shook his head. "Our operating fleet force consists of one hundred and thirty starships and a reinforced division of marines." Samantha just blinked in response, until she finally was able to speak again. "That's a logistical nightmare to withdraw from here, but I suppose it could be done..." "Withdraw?” West asked with an almost amused tone. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Can you fit a starbase through your rift device?" "A starbase?” she asked. "Of course not, but why do you ask?" "Samantha, you must know that you don't just whip up a hundred starships out of a replicator", West pointed out and turned to the ship's AI which had stood silent and just listened to the discussion. "Antigone, can you bring up Sirius so the admiral understands my point?" "Of course, Admiral", the avatar nodded as the scenery changed, the admirals now seated in empty space in orbit above a lush green planet. "This is a real-time simulation based on the information carried in Admiral Keyes' data stream." "Thanks", he nodded and gestured towards the structures hanging silently in the void around them. "This is the Sirius system as it looks right now. Starbase Aquilae, the first of our orbital facilities and Admiral Keyes' place of command", he paused as the shadow of an Akira cruiser glided past them close enough to touch the hull plating and bathing them all in the dull blue glow of its warp nacelles. "The Vulcan shipyard, the smallest of our three, is over there." "Three shipyards?” she asked. "Antigone?” West said. "Switching to Admiral Valeris' feed", the AI nodded. "This is the Sigma Draconis system, with Starbase Port Royal in orbit. If you will please look down...” she paused as the visitors did so, "...you'll see the New Plymouth transport yard." "While it is larger than the shipyard at Sirius, we only use it to manufacture bulk transports, merchant ships and the likes", Valeris added. "Port Royal is my own command and it has some dry dock slips capable of performing medium repairs of anything up to a line cruiser, but anything larger will have to be diverted to Sirius or Mars." "I know", the AI preempted the admiral and the scenery changed to a fortified planet which only had a hint of its original red color. "Mars." "Now I know you're kidding me", Craig shook her head. "This can't possibly be Mars, it's not even..." "No, it is Mars", Halsey chuckled. "The Alliance had already begun terraforming the planet when they joined us, and with the help of a Minbari mass driver and our own knowledge of how we terraformed the Martian ecology of our own universe, well, we finished the job." "Insane", Craig just shook her head. "What's that moon though?" "Ceres", Halsey shrugged almost nonchalantly. "Ceres?" she repeated in disbelief. "Ceres", West confirmed. "To stabilize the ecology we needed a sizeable moon, and we reasoned that if a Galaxy-class starship can tractor a stellar fragment, a dwarf planet would be piecemeal for two dozen starships. It turned out to be a correct assessment." "In addition to the orbital shipyard, the main fleet yard of our fledgling nation", Jahari pointed toward the rows of silvery slips of which a number were currently occupied surrounding a massive space station, "there are two Regula-class starbases and an orbital university. While not the most strategically important it is the most exposed and thus the best defended." "We also have the support facilities needed to run the fleet, including academies, industries, resourcing operations, medical centers, research and development and so on", Keyes added dryly. "All in all, our Starfleet employs a quarter of a million people directly, and around three million indirectly." Craig looked to her fellow rescuers, each of which was just simply stunned by the quick walkthrough of their supposed rescuees’ actual size. Walker had been wrong. Their estimations weren't in the wrong ball park; they were in the wrong solar system.
68 Chapter 68 USS RETRIBUTION FEDERATION NOMAD-CLASS STAR CRUISER ENTERING THE SIRIUS SYSTEM The meeting aboard the Antigone had taken several hours during which Craig's mind had quickly started to feel like it was going to explode from information overload, and all the time during the walkthrough of this universe's Federation she'd been marveled as several of the admirals had excused themselves and vanished, only to come back after anything from a few minutes to hours. Then finally it had started to sink in that while ten flag officers was quite a lot for a fleet of a hundred and thirty starships, they had a lot of other things than just starships to deal with as well. She'd been briefed on how this smaller version of her own nation worked and she'd been surprised to learn just how much they'd kept of the original Federation form of government. There were more representatives per planet in the council than she was used to but then there were also a lot less planets involved. One of the major differences she'd noted was that none of the admirals had complained about red tape, no doubt one of the major advantages of an enormously reduced bureaucracy compared to how it was back home. The shocking news of their Federation having decent-sized colonies at Sirius, Mars and Draconis had just been the tip of the iceberg though, she'd been told of resourcing operations stretching not only into the bordering unclaimed systems but far into what she'd consider Klingon and Romulan space, in this universe that area of space was claimed by the Minbari and the Centauri respectively, as well as exploration efforts underway far beyond even that. She'd also been told of extensive operations including small colonies on both Vulcan and Andor to mine materials which were vital to build starships and that they all knew were naturally found on these two planets. They'd briefed her and her captains about the current political situation in the galaxy and, ironically enough, that'd been the least confusing part of it all, tough she could readily admit that was most likely because she was much more used to handling and dealing with rapidly changing interstellar politics and gunboat diplomacy than she was at handling a rescue mission blowing up in her face. She could also see the same things happening here that her own universe was slowly building up to, so she did understand why her peers in this universe were worried especially with the ties they'd made to these local races. When the double-sided briefing was over Admiral West had invited her and her taskforce to enter the Sirius system, she hadn't been told but she could easily imagine the reason for the briefing happening in unclaimed space had probably been to prepare her and her captains for what they'd see when they actually got to one of their controlled systems. Expecting a small colony of stranded crews and running into a highly developed solar system would likely have caused even more confusion than meeting them this way had already done. Her ship made a slight tremor as the bluish green tunnel of the transwarp drive was replaced by the star-speckled black of normal space on the main viewscreen, and she sighed and shook her head as she looked up at the large monitor and saw almost the exact same view she'd been treated to on the Antigone's holodeck. The only difference was that her ship's tactical gave her a much better view of the small shuttles and large bulk transports which were constantly moving about the inner system than her own eyes had been able to see back then. "You weren't kidding, Samantha", Commander Walker said with a slightly awed voice while nodding almost imperceptibly. "Sensors?" "Yes, sir", the Trill science officer nodded. "There's a lot of contacts to sort out, but just counting the largest I'm reading what looks like a heavily fortified Regula-class starbase, a small shipyard complex with approximately two dozen slipways and from the subatomic particle decay what I'd guess is a high orbit antimatter depot, though I must point out it's a lot larger than any such I've seen before outside a fleet yard." "From what I've been told their entire nation is fueled by antimatter made only in this system", she nodded. "They only harvest deuterium in their other systems." "That would explain that", the Trill nodded. "I'm also reading twenty nine starships in orbit, not counting ours or the Antigone, some three dozen transport ships and some four hundred starfighters and shuttles give or take a dozen due to clutter, plus a very large amount of satellites spread over the planet's orbit... holy shit, they register as armed?" "A planetary defense grid", she nodded grimly. "They told me about it." "We're being hailed by the starbase", the operations officer said. "They're transmitting instructions for a parking orbit." "Very well, bring us to the assigned coordinates and inform the rest of the squadron to follow", Craig nodded. "Advise the shuttle bay I'll need a runabout for a trip to the planet." "As you wish, Admiral", he nodded and turned and hit the intercom, talking in a hushed voice. Admiral Craig sighed as her Nomad-class cruiser slid between six Steamrunner-class light carriers parked in a perfect parallel formation on her starboard side and four modified Akira-class cruisers parked in slipways to port, giving her a perfect side view of a dry dock large enough to park her own star cruiser in if it'd been empty. As it was she could see yet another of the large ships West and his cohorts had named Valkyria-class taking shape with a number of work bees slowly moving a nacelle housing into place. "Jesus they're big", she said with a soft voice. "If you say so you haven't seen anything yet", the Trill stated with a shaken voice. "I'm reading a ship that registers as over twelve hundred meters long on the other side of that moon..." "...say what?!” Craig and Walker exclaimed in stereo, with most of the rest of the bridge crew showing clear signs of shock. "Twelve hundred and thirty six, to be exact", came the even answer from the entrance to the bridge. "Thank you for the tour of the ship, Commander, it's been interesting to see what Starfleet's come up with in my absence." "You're welcome, Admiral", the sharp voice of the Ktarian chief engineer answered. "Your brief didn't cover such a monstrosity", Admiral Craig told the new arrival as he walked up to beside the central chairs. "Simply because she's not finished yet", Admiral West answered in a soft tone, but with a smile playing on his face. "It's the first ship we've designed from the ground up on our own, and her name's the Freedom. She's meant to be our countermeasure to the largest of the Vorlon and Shadow ships." "I can't get an accurate reading on her from this distance, but that energy signature is just insane for a starship", the Trill added with an inquisitive tone. "How did you ever manage that?" "The same way we did with the Valkyria, though in her case it was a lot more complicated", he shrugged. "You'll have to ask Jahari and his teams of engineers, but I know as much as that it took them three years just to design the plasma network and it still doesn't work right." West smiled, shook his head slightly and closed his eyes for a moment. He'd expected them to notice her of course; she'd be as hard to hide as a small sun to Federation scanners, especially considering she wasn't warp capable yet. It was a small blessing that she was being built on the other side of Isis, putting the entire mass of a large moon between her and the newly arrived ships, as it was one thing to judge her based on size and energy signature but an entirely different thing to see the ship directly. Craig and her captains had reacted at the increased combat ability they'd built their newer ships with and especially so with the Valkyria, and the Freedom took that to another level entirely. "Well, we're here", he said after a few moments of silence on the bridge. "As much as I'd love to stay and chat I do have other responsibilities which I must attend to as well." "That I can understand", Craig nodded, she hadn't forgotten what they'd told her about the overall galactic situation. "As technically you're not part of our chain of command I can't tell you what to do", he told his old friend, "but I will have to ask that you check in with Aquilae before you leave the system or move about. They won't stop you, but with the amount of traffic coming through here a fleet just going through without traffic control clearing it would create chaos." "Don't worry, we're not going anywhere", Craig told him. "At least not until we clear up some things." "Very well", he nodded. "Elisha has arranged for two smallcraft traffic corridors to be made available for your use, one to the planet and one to Isis, and your crews are welcome to come down at their leisure." "We'll spread the word", Walker nodded and gestured to the operations officer to do exactly that. "I'll be coming down with you if that's all right", Craig told the other admiral. "As I said there's a few things we need to clear up and I'd rather have that done as soon as possible than wait any longer than necessary." "I have no objections", West nodded and gave her a slight smile. "In fact I was kind of hoping you'd say that." "Then let's not waste any more time than we have to", she replied and with a gesture for him to join her she started walking towards the open door out of the bridge. The two flag officers walked in silence to the turbolift just outside the bridge, West walking a step behind Craig as even though he was senior to her in every aspect, even using their respective given ranks by the same Starfleet, it was still her ship and he was just a guest on board. The turbolift trip didn't take many seconds, he wasn't surprised considering the distance between the bridge and the main shuttle bay wasn't more than a few decks straight down, and as they stepped out they were faced with a bay that looked large enough to fit a Defiant inside. West had been quite impressed with the ship as he'd been given the grand tour by the chief engineer, his having made his career through engineering made him able to discuss most of the new technology integrated with the Retribution's design in depth, and he wasn't really surprised that Starfleet had decided to create a ship larger than the Sovereign either. He'd been told the Nomad was supposed to be a less warship-like cruiser than the Sovereign's successor, the Noble, in order to make diplomatic missions and the occasional first contact situation less intimidating than if they sent a heavily armored and visibly armed battlecruiser. They'd succeeded as the ship didn't really look that much like a warship, but even though he hadn't been given the complete set of data he'd been immediately able to tell that was mostly cosmetic and he had no doubt the ship was every bit as powerful in combat as either of his own refitted Sovereigns. They entered one of the runabouts, West counted six of them total in the bay plus shuttles, and as they sat down behind the already seated pilot he could see the ensign which had gotten the so-called limo assignment going over the last checks of the pre-flight. Satisfied with what he'd seen he tapped the controls and moved his left hand over one of the panels making the smallcraft lift off from the shuttle bay floor and slowly move toward the now opening doors. Moving through the thin forcefield which kept the bay pressurized he then turned the runabout toward the planet which truly dominated the immediate surroundings and checked his course to make sure he was in the flight corridor he'd been assigned, putting the craft's nose pointing straight toward the planet's south pole. Having made this trip more times than he cared to remember West leaned back and relaxed in his seat while Craig moved up to the seat next to the pilot to get a better look when they passed a slow moving squadron of some twenty Lancet starfighters which was out performing training missions. The distance from the parking orbit Craig's force had been assigned to the planet's atmosphere wasn't far by any measure, just some forty thousand kilometers, but it still took some time to traverse it as no sane pilot wanted to reach even close to fractional speeds that close to a planet and especially not while heading straight toward it. It did give the junior admiral a good opportunity to take in the sights though as the Sirius orbit was never idle, with transport ships and starships resupplying, shuttles constantly leaving and entering the atmosphere as well as containers filled with goods produced planet-side being launched into orbit by three space elevators every so often while others were sent back down into the atmosphere. Entering the upper atmosphere West felt the familiar vibration as the runabout's inertial dampeners and shields parried both the braking thrusters firing as well as the increasing atmospheric drag. Opening his eyes he could see the glow of air molecules impacting the shield and getting heated past their ignition point as the vessel dropped down through the thin air bubble around the planet. The air around the smallcraft soon stopped burning as it stabilized at an altitude of a few kilometers over the small ocean, and flying at a speed just below the sound barrier a pale green strip of land soon appeared on the horizon. Admiral West straightened and stood up as he felt the runabout start to slow down, looking out of the front window with a slight smile on his face as he saw the other admiral's reaction. Unlike many of the other guests they'd entertained she'd been on numerous Federation worlds before and she wasn't easily impressed by starships or orbital stations as she'd seen them all before, but there weren't many cities like this one in all of the Alpha Quadrant. The first thing they saw was farmland, acre after acre of low green winter crops which partitioned the land around the planet's capital into what looked like small squares from this altitude. The runabout's pilot also seemed suitably impressed when he received new approach vectors which brought his smallcraft over a wooded ridge and straight above one of the major residential areas of the city. They typically weren't easy to see due to their natural camouflage but with the sharp light of the two stars above reflecting off the polished stone walls the low houses sparkled amidst the trees, bushes and gardens that framed them. It didn't take more than a minute after the runabout had come over the ridge until it slowed down and started to descend towards the large plaza below, black and white cobblestones forming the detail around the central fountain which had the shape of the Starfleet insignia. Landing struts extended from the bottom of the smallcraft and with a slight clunking noise of metal against stone it came to a complete stop and the large door in its rear started to lower down to the ground again. "Welcome to Elysium", West smiled as he helped the younger admiral out of the runabout. "Principal city of our Federation, and the home of the Starfleet." "You weren't kidding when you said you'd rebuilt", Craig told West as the two stood on the quarter-mile wide plaza just outside the Starfleet Command complex and looked out over the edge of the city center which was almost completely hidden by a large park on the other side of the plaza. "The city is quite beautiful." "It was originally a by-product of us wanting the city camouflaged, but even when it started to expand we kept the same architecture", West nodded. "We like it." "I'm sure you do", she nodded. "So, where are we?" "This is the central plaza, around which the rest of the city fans out", West motioned to the large fountain and the buildings which enveloped it on three sides. "To your left you have the home of Starfleet research and development, to the right is the Sirius academy, while just behind us", he turned around to face the large portal leading into a massive building in front of a decent-sized cliff, "is Starfleet Command." "Impressive", she admitted. "Why such a large complex though?" "You haven't seen anything yet, most of the complex is actually built inside the mountain behind it", he explained with a humored face. "The reason is fairly simple, it's the one and only such facility we have. Draconis and Mars have sector commands in orbit and smaller administrative offices planetside, but partly because of lack of personnel and partly because of security issues, neither has the kind of strategic facilities we do here at Sirius." "I see your point", she nodded, she was used to most fleet command activities being handled on starbases, controlled by sector commands on or in orbit of numerous planets, with only the central decisions being made at San Francisco. "If you've finished taking in the sights, we really should get moving", he told her with a wry smile and started to head toward the large portal behind them. "Coming?" "Of course", she nodded as she caught up with the entirely black-uniformed officer. As they passed through the marble portal and went through a pair of large glass doors she had to quench a gasp as they entered the heart of Starfleet. The corridors were exquisitely decorated with art, flowers and even the odd fountain adding their own soft rippling sounds in the large entry hall. From her position at the main entrance she could see the silver inlay in the carpet forming the same insignia as the fountain did outside, though this time with more detail forming the entire Starfleet Command insignia. She followed the other admiral who obviously knew where he was going as he made his way down the corridors. Every so often she was near to stop as she looked on the paintings on the walls or the statues in the corners, they too tastefully arranged as if to captivate whoever passed by. She saw figures from Norse, Greek, Roman and Gaelic mythology, kings and queens from history, even some religious ones, both as busts and full-sized statues and as paintings, along with large images of starships of every imaginable class, in some cases clad in intricately painted armor. All this was much to handle, but what stunned her was when they passed through a fairly large double door and she saw a number of people, somewhere around a half dozen within eyeshot, dressed in what she recognized as late eighteenth century British naval uniforms. She simply stopped as her jaw dropped, just looking as these historical figures moved about the corridors doing whatever they were supposed to. She was stunned to see one of them standing near an open maintenance port welding something with a plasma torch, without even using any protective gear. "I probably should have warned you", West chuckled as he turned and walked back to her. "But I will have to say the look on your face more than makes up for that." "What...?" "Maintenance droids", he explained. "They're controlled by the complex' artificial intelligence." "Androids", she said with disbelief. "Yes, well, droids rather than androids. They’re not independently intelligent", he explained, understanding her reaction. "We have them on our starships as well, but they're rarely seen outside the engineering decks unless doing damage control. A hologram can only do so much if there are no emitters in a specific location, or worse if the power's out." "I guess..." "Come", he motioned for her to join him again. "My office isn't far." West wasn't exaggerating that statement either, they barely had to do more than turn a corner and the two flag officers were faced with the oak doors with the inlaid gilded seal of the Starfleet Commander in Chief. He placed his hand on the scanner on the wall and the doors slowly parted inward giving them a good look of his office. As the two entered he unzipped his uniform jacket and expertly threw it on a hanger beside the entrance before he sat down at a nearby table. "So", he sighed as he leaned back in the seat of the synthetic leather sofa. "What are you thinking, Samantha?" "Well", she paused a moment to gather her thoughts as she took a seat opposite the other admiral. "You know that our priority must be to locate the subspace rift on this end, and build the apparatus at that point." "Which will be hard at best if it's still near Proxima", West pointed out with a soft voice. "We're not exactly welcome there." "That may be", she nodded. "In which case we need to figure out how it travels and when exactly it'll be in a position where we can intersect it." "That’ll take a while though", he replied. "We only have three data points, and only two of them are exact enough to use in the calculations." "There should be two more we can find", she shook her head. "One being the probe we sent through before we arrived, which should logically be somewhere in the void around Proxima, and the other being the Jonathan Carver." "The Trade Union ship supposedly displaced here before the London." "Yes", she nodded. "If we can find those two, we should have two more data points." "It's possible, but at least in the case of the ship I doubt it's even feasibly possible", he regretfully admitted. "The London and her group ended up seven hundred years in the past, compared to us. There's nothing to say the Jonathan Carver didn't end up even further back." "What choice do we have but to investigate?” she asked rhetorically. "Very true, and I've already detailed two of our science vessels to locate the probe", he nodded. "In the meantime I have other priorities I need to attend to." "The Minbari?” she asked. "At least at first", he confirmed. "Stabilizing the Minbari Federation would go a long way towards doing the same to the rest of the region." "Personally I'd rather you focused on the Earth Alliance, given the last known location of the rift." "It's not my call", he shrugged but gave her an understanding look. "Even if it was I'd be hesitant to intervene yet." "And why is that?" "If we did, all we'd be able to do is to eliminate the figureheads. If we're to be able to make more than a temporary difference we need to find the root of the problems, the people with the power, money or both who hide behind Clark and his supporters." "And exactly how do you suppose you'll be able to do that?" "By active infiltration of the Earth government and organizations and also by nothing but having patience and waiting. Like any other rat they need to come out of their hole sooner or later." "All right", Samantha nodded and shook her head. "I suppose you may have a point there. So, what do you suppose I do?" "If it was up to me I'd send most of your ships into action alongside, or as part of, Halsey's task group", West admitted straight out. "I realistically can't spare more than thirty and change ships to go with him, and your ships would make a massive difference. I'd also like to have one of your ships to study, to see if we can refit our own ships with among other things your transwarp coils and upgraded armaments." "The Minbari action is so important to you you'd send in a fleet without sufficient numbers?” she asked with a surprised tone. "The Minbari is one of very few nations I know we could count on to help fight the Shadows if it comes to a real war", he nodded grimly. "We don't have even close to the fleet numbers to fight them alone, and they've already shown that their view toward us is nothing but hostile." "Granted, a hundred and thirty ships isn't that much even back home", she admitted with a nod. "I thought you had a definite tech advantage though?" "Against most of the native races, yes we do", he nodded. "But we do not against the Shadows, and last we checked just barely when compared to the Vorlons. In both cases, we’re still so heavily outnumbered we wouldn’t stand a chance in a realistic war." "I think I'm starting to understand", she sighed. "I'll be straight with you, Samantha", West leaned forward and looked her straight in the eyes. "As much as I'd like to say we're all right and don't need the help, we aren't and we do. Seventeen ships may not be much, but it’s almost fifteen percent of my current fleet strength, perhaps even more considering your ships are, in most cases, both newer and more modern than mine." "Yours have more guns though", she made a wry smile. "We didn't always", he pointed out. "And still, you get my point. There's a massive difference between sending thirty or fifty ships." "I do get the point", she admitted. "You know, it's not like I have that many options open to me. From what I've understood from both your and my scientists, we're effectively stuck here until we can determine the rift's course." "Yeah", he nodded. "Sorry about that." "No reason, that's not your fault and one of the things we knew could happen", she shrugged. "I also doubt there's a better solution for the time being than me and you working together. After what I've understood this is pretty much the only place around where we can get fuel and supplies anyway." "That's likely true, unless you want to go through what we did and build your own inversion plants and factories." "True", she nodded and was silent for a moment. "All right, say I agree to join my task force with your fleet. How would we do it practically?" "I think the easiest way would be to incorporate you as a separate unit under your own command", he said calmly. "Like any of the other rear admirals, you'd report directly to Halsey and me." "I've never worked with Halsey before", she admitted. "How is he?" "He's a good listener and a competent tactician", West told her. "And most importantly of all he can make decisions on his own." "Not a bureaucrat then." "Not even close", he chuckled. "He'll approve anything you can back up with fact and feasibility, as long as he doesn't know I'll countermand him, but try to get him to sign off on performance reviews and he'll just as likely take his ship and flee outside subspace range." "My kind of officer", she smiled. "Well, as I said, I don't really have much choice. I do have one condition and one request though." "Shoot", he nodded and his face became serious again. "I won't accept suicide missions, don't even try to give me one." "I'd never ask anyone to do that, and you know that", he nodded. "We have a deal." "As for the request, I want your promise you'll... we'll... keep working on getting the rift mapped and anchored. If I'm stuck here, fine, but I won't give up on getting back home until I know for certain that we've exhausted all possibilities." "Of course", he nodded again. "I give you my word, and I’ve already sent a science detachment to search for it as well as your lost probe." "All right", she nodded. "Where do you want us?" "If it's not too much to ask, Mars", he gave her a grateful smile as he rose and walked over to a nearby wall. Tapping a few buttons the pearlwood paneling disappeared and revealed a large map of the local sector. "With the solid recommendation of me, my wife and the rest of the Admiralty, the Federation Council approved the Minbari Gray Council's request for military assistance." "All right, what's the tactical situation?" "We already had preliminary orders prepared to send out to the four sector commands, Sirius, Draconis, Mars and Babylon", he continued. "While Babylon won’t be affected, other than us withdrawing half their marine detachment, Valeris is sending a portion of her force from Draconis and Keyes is sending elements of the force here, which your ships would join. They'll meet up with Halsey and those of his Mars force which will also be joining the expeditionary fleet as well as take on their ground teams." "Ground teams?" "Marines, air cavalry and commando units, along with their heavy support equipment", he explained. "We're expecting ground combat as well and most of the ground forces are stationed on Mars." "You weren't kidding you're serious about this." "No", he shook his head. "Minbar is the key to the entire Minbari Federation, and if it falls so does the entire nation. It's not the only place which we're expecting ground action, but it's by far the most important." "All right", she nodded. "I suppose that's logical." "As for the fleet Halsey will be in overall command of the expedition, and should you choose to accept the assignment you and my brother will be his seconds, each of you responsible for roughly a third of the fleet with a third directly under Halsey. Henry will join the rest of you at Minbar, he's already on-site." "I expect I'll be in command of my own task force then", she nodded. "That should be in the order of a third of the fleet." "That was my intention, yes", he nodded. "If you don't mind I want to switch out two of your ships first though, and send a couple of our engineers on board to see what systems can be retrofitted to our own ships." "All right...” she nodded slowly. ”I suppose you know which you want as well?" "While it's your ships, I would like to go through the Retribution and one of your Constitution-replicas", he nodded. "My flagship", she said matter-of-factly. "Yes", he nodded. "I'll trade you though, the Saga is standing by without a captain, and as your ships don't have ours' weight of fire I'll be happy to send along the Antigone with your force." "The Saga would be...?” she started. "...a Valkyria-class dreadnought, sister ship to the Balder which you've already seen", he finished. "Her captain is currently on maternity leave and her first officer is too junior to take over a strategic ship such as her." "I see", she nodded. "Well, I suppose that'd be acceptable, just remember I have no experience with a ship such as her." "Don't worry about it, she comes with a manual", West smiled. "Though judging by how they usually behave, you might just as well just tell her what you want and trust that she knows what she's doing." "More AI?” she asked, remembering Antigone. "Worse, you’ve met Antigone, but Aerie is a Valkyria", he grinned. "Never underestimate one of those, Halsey did and it cost him his freedom." "That sounds like a very interesting story", she said with a thoughtful face. "Let's just say Mist, the AI of the Odin, is a very attractive young woman who knows what she wants", West chuckled. "And, more importantly, will take what she wants. And it's hard to get away when the person trying to catch you controls the door locks and force fields." "You're serious", she noted with a definite look of surprise. "In her defense she waited ten years for Halsey to get a clue", the admiral couldn't contain his laughter. "Even an AI doesn't have infinite patience though, so in the end she made sure he got one." "Jesus", she exhaled. "Not the most usual combination I'll agree, but then again which is?" "But... how?” she asked. "I won't argue another sentient beings right to love or be loved, but..." "Anything I'd say would be pure speculation", he replied. "Remember, I'm married, and even that's not exactly the easiest combination to deal with." "Quite, to my old commanding officer no less", she nodded. "Who is also both my superior in her position as a member of the Federation Council, and my subordinate as a member of the Starfleet admiralty." "I won't feel sorry about that", she shook her head slightly. "Very well, back on topic. I suppose it's all an acceptable solution, for now at least. When would we leave?" "First thing tomorrow morning", he replied. "The fleet will be leaving Sol space by noon, and I want all ships ready to go by eleven." "Doesn't leave us much time to get going", she noted. "How about ground forces for my task force?" "The Saga is already loaded with a full battalion, the Peacemakers", he replied with a wry smile. "Six hundred and thirty three men and women, with a lieutenant colonel named David Lowell in command. Truth is, we don’t have enough troops ready to fill the rest of your ships even if I wanted to, but we do have troop transports being loaded as we speak." "All right", she nodded and rose from her seat. "If there's nothing else, admiral, I'll excuse myself. I'll need to speak to my captains before I agree to anything." "Of course", he nodded. "You know where to reach me." "Umm...” she paused before she reached the door. “How exactly do I get out of here?" "Heh, one moment", he smiled and pressed a button near the large map. "Lord Admiral?" "Yes, Admiral", the hologram stated as he to the dulled surprise of Craig took shape beside her. "Could you escort the admiral to the main entrance?” he asked. "I'd do it, but I need to speak with Halsey as soon as possible." "Of course", the ancient naval officer gave the female admiral an endearing smile and offered his right arm to the lady. "If you'd please be so kind as to follow me, Admiral Craig." "Of course", she nodded and just paused a moment before taking the offered arm, glancing at her old friend who was still studying the large map. "Horatio Lord Nelson?!" USS SAGA FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT SIRIUS ORBIT, EARLY THE NEXT MORNING "Admiral on the deck", the first man on the bridge to notice her arrival shouted, making each and every one of the officers present snap to attention. "As you were", she waved them off, turning and smiling to the black-uniformed man beside him. "I see discipline hasn't suffered during your time here." "No, ma'am", the marine nodded and gave her a wry smile, which almost looked menacing with his scar lifting one edge of his upper lip more than the other. "We do our best." "So I see", she nodded as well and stepped forward toward the railing station above the command chairs, placing her hands on the main tactical station and leaning forward to get a better view. "Admiral Craig, I presume", another black-dressed officer, this one a Trill male, walked up beside her from one of the stations lining the wall. "I'm Commander Yzak Tam, your first officer." "Pleased to meet you, Commander", she gave him a nod as greeting. "Ditto", the fairly young Trill said with a serious tone and gave a short nod. "On behalf of the rest of the fleet I want to thank you and your captains for agreeing to help, and you'll be pleased to know that the Saga is almost ready to set out." "Don't thank me; thank my captains who voted to do so. Very well", she replied and looked around. "The rest of my task force should almost be ready to get underway as well." "We're just waiting for the last shipment of antimatter pods to arrive before we move", he said with a regretful voice. "I'm sorry that we don't have time to give you the full tour of the ship before we set out." "I've been told in no uncertain terms I won't be disappointed with this ship, and I'm willing to trust that source." "Wise choice", a short-haired blonde in a beautiful blue dress with a plate cuirass covering her quite obviously female chest commented as she rose from the first officer’s seat. "Welcome aboard, Admiral." "You'd have to be Aerie", she said as she studied the stunning avatar in a little more detail. "Obviously", she replied with a slight chuckle. "You're not as surprised as I expected, I suppose you've gotten a crash course already." "Beginning with both Antigone and Lord Nelson", Craig nodded. "And just a short while ago with Athena." "That would seem to explain that", the avatar almost pouted. "Anyway, the supply shuttle has left the orbital storage facility and should be here within a few minutes." "All right", Craig responded and walked slowly around the railing toward the captain’s chair below. "I've been given the short version, but I'd like to know your capabilities by your own judgment." "Of course", Aerie smiled. "I'm, like any other Valkyria, a heavy assault cruiser or dreadnought for short. My top speed is warp nine point nine five, or two point one parsec per hour using my hyperdrive. Tactically I'm covered by ablative armor and adaptive metaphasic shields..." "...and have more phaser banks than half the task force put together", Craig gave a wry smile. "What's the torpedo load out?" "I'm fitted with a strategic load, including six hundred and forty photon and a hundred and twenty quantum torpedoes", the AI replied. "I also carry sixteen transphasic torpedoes and six tricobalt devices, which are currently in cold storage awaiting strategic clearance." "Strategic clearance?” Craig asked the AI curiously. "Due to the extremely limited supply of these weapons systems, they are only allowed to be used under certain circumstances", the AI nodded. "Also, some restrictions are placed on their use even meeting these circumstances." "Such as?" "Effectively tricobalt devices are prohibited from use when facing Shadow forces, and transphasic torpedoes are prohibited from use facing anything but Shadow forces", the avatar explained. "Even if I doubt I would want to do so I cannot override these instructions, which come from the highest possible authority." "I see", the admiral nodded. "Why is that?" "In the first case because the subspace shockwave from a tricobalt device reacts… violently… with the Shadow's ships' systems in some way we do not fully understand, causing an interspatial detonation", she said with a grim face, she'd lost kin in that battle because they hadn't known that yet. "In the second it's as simple as them being the only truly effective weapon we have against the Shadows save overwhelming fire, and we don't have enough of them to waste them when regular torpedoes work just as well." "That sounds like a reasonable explanation", the admiral nodded and sat down in the captain's chair, finding it surprisingly comfortable. "The rest of us think so", the avatar nodded and gave her new commanding officer a slight smile. "The supply shuttle is docking and transferring the antimatter pods. I have received clearance to leave dock as soon as the transfer is finished." "Very well, update the rest of the task force with orders to proceed to the rendezvous point", she nodded. "We'll have to form up with the other ships and proceed to Mars, with my own task force proceeding separately." "Affirmative, I and my kin can't quite keep up with those drives you have", the AI admitted. "Yet, I might add. We've finished loading the antimatter pods." "All right, take us out of dock", Craig nodded. "Aye, admiral", the AI nodded. "Sealing all airlocks and disengaging docking ports. Bringing main and auxiliary power online, reading stable output and umbilicals disengaged. Maneuvering thrusters in station keeping mode, inertial dampeners engaged, dry dock is disengaging mooring beams." "Aft thrusters at half power", helm added. "Entering course zero mark zero." "Sensors and navigation systems nominal, main and secondary deflectors online, output level nominal", the avatar continued. "Shields and structural integrity fields read nominal, impulse engine online, warp engine online, hyperdrive capacitors powering up and standing by." "We've cleared the dry dock", helm acknowledged. "Opening up the impulse manifolds to one quarter and plotting a course to rendezvous with the Antigone and Helena." "All right", Samantha nodded and looked up to the viewscreen which had resolved into the bow view of the ship. "Tell all ships to make way for Mars, we'll exit in Ceres orbit and rendezvous with Admiral Halsey's forces." She watched as most of the ships she'd arrived here with turned in space and accelerated, soon enveloped by bluish green flecks of energy as they engaged their transwarp drives. They disappeared in the blink of an eye and she suddenly felt kind of lonely. She knew she'd see them again in just over an hour, but it wasn't the same. At the same time she also felt exhilaration at the prospect of trying out an entirely new ship and an entirely new way of going faster than light. She looked to the blue-dressed avatar that still looked somewhat absent, no doubt going through her various systems in detail to see if there was the slightest flaw or defect in any of them. She probably didn't find any as she turned around and sat down in the seat to her right with surprising grace considering the plate armor she was wearing, turning and giving the admiral a half-cocked smile. "Commander Walker sends his regards", the avatar told the admiral. "He wishes us a good journey, and regrets he wasn't allowed to join." "Of course he does", she chuckled. "He's a good man, but sometimes I wonder if he joined Starfleet to explore or to fight." "I have no information on him, so I cannot give you an answer to that", the avatar shrugged. "I've linked up with Antigone and Helena; we're ready to proceed along with the rest of our hyperdrive ships." "Very well", she nodded. "Take us to Mars, helm. Best speed." "Aye-aye, Admiral", the ensign nodded and made a flowing motion over the control board, releasing the massive amounts of energy stored in the capacitors deep inside the ship's engineering hull. Craig found herself holding her breath as space was simply torn apart in front of her ship, ripples of energy that flashed like lightning extending in every direction from the circular hole in space time the ship's hyperdrive was creating. The ship shuddered slightly as it accelerated into the open tear and as soon as the darkness of space was replaced with the blue and purple mist of the interdimensional realm they'd entered she finally exhaled. "Pretty, isn't it?” the avatar asked in a hushed voice. "It is", she nodded. "It's one of the few sights even I can enjoy", the hologram admitted. "In normal space, even in normal warp, I can see the differences in distances between the stars and planets, but here all I can see is energy as it impacts the deflector field." "I could see how that would be different", Craig nodded. "Transwarp looks much the same, but with different colors." "I guess I'll see that for my self sooner or later", the AI almost sighed. "Well, if you'll excuse me admiral, my presence is needed in engineering." "Of course", the admiral nodded and watched with a thoughtful wrinkle in her forehead as the avatar dematerialized. "Why is that?” she asked herself. "Hyperwarp at these speeds is very strenuous on the ship's energy matrix", the Trill first officer responded from his seat at her other side. "There's nothing to be worried about, but it does mean Aerie has to keep an eye on the pressure in the flow regulators pretty much constantly." "Couldn't she do that from here though, I mean..." "She could, and if something here required her direct attention she would", Commander Tam nodded slowly. "Being in her assumed form does however require considerable computing power, power which at present could no doubt be better used elsewhere and even with the best of our computer technology she doesn't have an unlimited amount of processor time available", he smiled. "She's not gone though, considering she quite literally is the ship, she's just paying less attention to us." "All right then", she nodded. "Time to Mars?" "One hour, ten minutes", the ensign at helm replied. USS ODIN FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT FEDERATION EXPEDITIONARY FLEET RENDEZVOUS POINT CERES ORBIT, MARS Halsey, Mist and a few of his captains stood at the center of the vessel's strategic command center, an adaptation of one of the ship's holodecks to give the fleet commander a better overview of a battlefield, or as in this case the space around them. In reality it was little more than a modified holodeck, but after he'd been given a tour of a Minbari war cruiser Halsey had immediately seen the advantages of their version of the system and pushed to recreate it aboard Federation command ships. To date every single Valkyria and Sovereign in the entire fleet had this capability, and the only reason they'd stopped there was because smaller ships were unlikely to be used in any fleet command capacity. He watched as entire wings of starships formed up, most having already finished supplying from the large storage facilities, beaming up their respective personnel and made ready to go to war. The newly arrived forces from the Sirius system had already joined their respective formations having been supplied in that system before they'd made their way here, and as he watched a number of hyperdrive windows opened in the distance and released the last ships to arrive, those which had traveled from Draconis. "I'm almost surprised those new ships decided to come with us", one of the captains behind him said. "I'd have betted good money they'd need more convincing before they did." "You'll have to ask admirals West and Craig about that, John", Halsey said without turning to his subordinate. "Personally I'm just happy they did and I've learned over the years never to look a gift horse in the mouth." "You've got a point of course", came the reply. "How do you and the rest of the former Alliance officers feel about this though?", Halsey asked him and turned to look at the dark-haired officer. "After all, it wasn't that long ago you and the Minbari were shooting at each other." "That's true, and I really do need to find someone to blame for putting me in contact with you guys", the captain chuckled. "Don't worry about it, Admiral. Neither of us, and especially not the Agamemnon, will have any problems with this." "Good to hear", Halsey nodded and turned as he heard the door open, giving the new arrival a pleased smile. "Ah, Admiral Craig. How do you do, and welcome aboard the Odin." "Very well, and thank you", Craig nodded as she brushed her long hair back out of her face. "Let me introduce some of my captains", Halsey gestured towards the short line of people behind him. "Elania Cordey, captain of the Thor, just returned from a patrol mission at the Narn border. She'll be joining Rear Admiral West's task force once we arrive at Minbar." "A pleasure to meet you, captain", Samantha shook her hand, knowing Cordey by reputation if not by name as she'd made quite a fast career while in command of the Berlin, a reactivated Excelsior. "Beatrice Hansen of the Sovereign", he gestured first to another woman and then to a Criss standing nearby, "and M'quite'k of the Liberty." "Captains", she smiled as she recognized another of her previous commanders, the aged Criss had been her pilot instructor at the academy. "And finally one of our local stars, John Sheridan of the Agamemnon", Halsey gestured toward the only other human man in the room. "Captain", the admiral nodded as she shook his hand. "Local star?" "I was originally with the Earth Alliance", Sheridan admitted. "I'm all better now." "Impressive", she noted and then looked to Halsey. "Very well, so, what's the plan?" "Mist here is receiving the latest intelligence regarding the Minbari and the various actions taking place", he replied. With a slight nod from him Mist changed their surroundings to a three-dimensional representation of the portion of space belonging to the Minbari Federation, albeit with only a few stars marked with the insignia of their nation. Given the size of their claim tens or even hundreds of thousands of stars technically fell inside their territory, and even with Federation star charts collected over three hundred years before they'd ended up here and a decade of constant exploration missions since, they were still barely even scratching the surface. Some of the systems which were marked were flashing red, and even without having it explained Craig understood that those systems were the main conflict zones. One was closer to the border to Earth space, another closer to the Vorlon border, but most of them were fairly deep in the center. "Minbar is the key", he said and pointed to a binary star near the middle of the room. "The Albion was forced to withdraw when the rebel faction invaded the system three days ago, the Commander Starfleet wasn't willing to face her off against either the unknown capabilities of the new Dark Star class war cruisers or the Streib swarm ships without sizeable backup, and I'd agree with that assessment as well. This will be our first objective." "Sounds reasonable", Craig nodded. "There have been attacks against the Valen's Eye Shipyards", he pointed towards a large blue giant located in the center of what Craig recognized to be the Horse Head Nebula. "While it's critically important that we secure the area and make sure Neroon and Delenn can send in their own ships without danger of being destroyed, it's not as important as relieving the siege of Minbar and making sure their homeworld doesn't fall into Shakiri's hands. "Understood, sir", Captain Cordey nodded. "Wouldn't it be easier for us to deal with the forces at Minbar with their help though?" "Most likely", he admitted with a sigh. "Unfortunately the revolt caught the Minbari with their pants down. A decent chunk of the Minbari navy is loyal to the rebellion, and those loyal to the Gray Council are to a very large extent locked down in their anchorages at the Trigati and Ralafa systems..." "...which are both under siege...” Cordey nodded. "...with their forces from Eshar also busy fighting the Streib at Iklath", Halsey added. "All right, I get the point, but what about the White Stars which are being built at the Valen's Eye yards?" "I've got about a hundred Rangers on board which have gone through a crash course in Starfleet-style maneuvering, as well as a few hundred religious and worker caste Minbari which will act as crew", Sheridan told the other captain. "They'll assume command of the White Star fleet once we get to Valen's Eye, but it'll still take them at least a day or two to get their ships in order and checked out. We simply don't know if they've suffered damage or if they're even all finished yet." "I see", Cordey nodded. "The shipyards are heavily defended by the local garrison and defense grid, and so far we don't have any intelligence that the rebels have come that close to breaking through, so we're hoping the White Stars will be able to join us sooner rather than later", Halsey added and then turned to the other admiral present. "Samantha, I'll send you and your task force to the Trigati system once we're done at Minbar. Expect resistance, but the besieged ships making up the defense line will most likely make a breakout once your forces arrive." "All right", she acknowledged. "Ralafa will simply have to wait, and hopefully the forces at Trigati will be enough to lift the siege once they get there. If not, well we'll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it." "This is where the first battle will be joined", Mist said as the Minbar system replaced the stellar view. "Minbar is as you see a binary system with a total of eleven planets and about a hundred moons total. We will all rendezvous with the Albion at coordinates exactly one quarter of a light year retrograde of the system, at which point we'll enter the system by warp to ensure we all arrive at the same time." "Our first objective will be to secure the system, and I expect a fleet battle to take place above Minbar, the fourth planet in the system. Shakiri, or rather whoever is in control of that force since we don't believe he's still on Minbar, has too many people on that planet and we suspect they'll also want to test out their new ships against us", Halsey continued. "After all, it was the Federation which forced them to give up the war against the Earth Alliance, and it's us they have the grudge against." "Once the system is secure we'll immediately split between the three secondary objectives, hopefully hitting Valen's Eye and Trigati before they have a chance to react and reinforce", Mist finished. "We in the first task force will land our ground forces and face off against the rebel forces on the planet, as well as garrison the system until the Minbari get their own fleet units into position." "We don't know where the rebel command base is yet", Halsey admitted. "When we've come so far as to have secured these three points we hope to have forced them to make enough communications links to it that we can track it down. At that point we'll meet again to plan the next phase of the offensive and hopefully end the revolt permanently." Halsey bowed his head and sighed as he stopped speaking, almost looking like he made a quick prayer before looking up at each of the gathered officers. He gave them each a nod and then looked to Mist, almost like if silently asking her if he'd forgotten something. Since she didn't say or do anything to indicate it, he nodded to himself and spoke up again. "All right ladies and gentlemen, it's go time", he said with a steely voice. "Get back to your ships, captains, and we'll see each other again near Minbar." "Admiral", each of the assembled officers nodded and in a few seconds they'd all beamed away from his ship. "Well, I guess it's time to see what the Minbari and Vorlons have been up to in the last ten years", Halsey sighed as only he and Mist were left in the room, still looking at the Minbar planetary system. "Judging by the specifications we got on the White Stars we AI estimate the Dark Stars to be about equivalent to a Vorlon destroyer in terms of weapons and armor", Mist responded darkly. "We don't know how well our phasers will work against the organic crystal combination their armor is made from though, and that's not counting if the rebels have gotten help elsewhere." "True, Vorlons sharing technology is bad enough", he admitted. "I don't even want to know what the Shadows may have shared." "Unfortunately I believe we will in just a few hours", the AI smiled. "Well, my body wasn't solely created to look good now, was it?" "True", he nodded and gave her a slight smile. "Let's get to work."
69 Chapter 69 STARBASE BABYLON DIPLOMATIC LEVEL, GREEN SECTOR EPSILON ERIDANI SYSTEM Sinclair turned another corner basically walking on autopilot while his mind was still busy trying to sort through the information he'd been given by the latest transmission from the loyalist forces at Mars. The Earth Force officer he'd talked to hadn't had any really good news to give him either, but some of it was extremely interesting nonetheless. "Commander!” the sharp Russian accent of the second highest ranking Earth Force officer on the station called out behind him, startling him and making him slightly disoriented. "Sheesh, Ivanova", he turned and faced the arrival. "Keep that up and you'll give me a heart attack." "Sorry, Commander", she said and gave him an excusing smile. "I heard you got news from back home?" "I did", he nodded and started walking again, Ivanova filing in beside him. "And?" she asked when Sinclair had been silent for a moment too long. "It's not good", he said after a second and shook his head ever so slightly. "Clark and his forces have seized the belt colonies, most of them without the colonies even putting up a fight." "They're afraid they'll suffer the same treatment as Orion VII no doubt", the Russian nodded. "It's hard to resist when the only thing between you and death is a few inches of steel and glass." "True enough", he agreed. "Did you hear the rumors about the Federation helping the Minbari?” Ivanova asked. "It's more than just rumors", he confirmed. "The forces we have at Mars verified a fleet of Federation starships being quickly gathered and leaving. They're not confirming that they're headed for Minbari space, but they're not denying it either." "Damn", Ivanova cursed. "Why will they help the Minbari, but not us? What makes them so special?" "I don't know", he answered. The two kept walking for a little while, passing through the almost eerily silent corridors of the Narn embassy. Ever since the Narn had declared war on the Centauri they'd mostly worked behind locked doors, always looking over their shoulders in case anyone paid by or otherwise affiliated with the Centauri should hear. The Federation embassy being in between the two warring factions was a blessing however, and direct turbolift access between the two was also locked down. Other than that no Centauri were allowed to traverse into the Narn embassy, nor any Narn into the Centauri, partly to ensure the safety of the embassy but perhaps most importantly to ensure the safety of the messenger. Diplomatic messengers would be forced to either go via the Minbari embassy on the other side of the Centauri, or the Earth Alliance's on the other side of the Narn, and in either case they'd be escorted to their destination by armed Federation marines. To his knowledge that option hadn't actually been used so far though, as neither of the two wanted to speak with each other and any meeting between them would likely have to be moderated by a neutral party anyway. "How much have you heard about what's happening in their space?” Ivanova asked. "Not much past rumors. The Minbari aren't exactly known for being forthcoming with information." "That's true I guess", she nodded slowly. "I heard they were under attack from another nation, so far unknown to the rest of us." "That would make more sense than the rumors of a civil war", Sinclair admitted with a grim face. "I suppose that may be the difference?" "Difference of what?" "The difference between their problems and ours", he explained. "Come on, you've read the Starfleet directives just like I have." "I have, but that was quite a while ago", she nodded and thought back. "What we have is a straight up civil war, and none of our forces have openly attacked Federation assets either on Earth or in space", he sighed. "Why does that matter?" "I don't know what the true story on Minbar is, but I do know the Federation embassy on Minbar is in ruins", he shrugged. "An embassy is formally the sovereign soil of the country which owns it, so by attacking the Federation embassy the people attacking Minbar committed an act of war on the Federation as well." "I guess it's too bad there's no Federation embassy on Earth then", she sighed. "True and while we both know that's mostly a measure of definition considering the attacks on the station a few weeks ago were by Clarkist forces, they still view it as an act of terrorism rather than an act of war. A definition which makes Clark's coup a straight internal Earth affair." "They're not counting the alien attack on Earth Force One?” Ivanova asked with surprise quite evident in her face. "Which was technically before the coup, and they haven't shown up since or during any of the battles", Sinclair pointed out. "They're walking a fine line there, a line I hope will snap before it's too late, but following their directives that's exactly how it's supposed to be handled unless their assembly decides to make an exception to policy." "Which is about as likely as hell freezing over", Ivanova sighed and shook her head. "Very well, so, what's your hurry exactly?" "I've been reassigned", Sinclair responded dryly. "Really? Why is that, and where?” the Commander asked. "I'm to replace the Alliance ambassador to the Minbari", he sighed. "Ambassador Hiu isn't loyal to Santiago, and we're still not sure whether Parker is still alive or not since we haven't heard anything from him since his report that Minbar was under attack." "I see", she nodded as they turned a corner and the scenery changed from the Narn green to the Federation light blue, the two Earth officers giving the armed marines guarding the passage a nod of greeting. When they turned into the main office corridor the Federation embassy was surprisingly enough filled with black-dressed Starfleet officers hurrying to and fro mixed with civilians, all of them forming a jumble of people belonging to at least a dozen different species. The difference to the empty corridors of the Narn area was striking to say the least. When they passed two almost human officers who stood near the wall and seemed to discuss something of importance Ivanova noted she could hear every word clear as day, but the language wasn't even close to any she'd heard before. Of course, she thought, they didn't have to worry about operational security when no one knew their various native languages. She'd once tried to learn the Trill language as she was fascinated by the singing sounds involved in it, but after learning it had a grammar which was more complex than that of Japanese and had seven different tempus, she'd practically given up on that entire venture as all the species in the Federation knew English more than well enough anyway. "You know, you could have taken the turbolift and avoided this mass of people." "True enough, but I wanted to clear my head as well", the older commander shrugged and gestured towards two people in brown cloaks speaking to a Starfleet officer in a hushed tone. "Plus, I think this verifies the reports about the Federation sending that fleet to Minbar." "How so?" "Those two are Rangers", he said in a low voice. "They belong to an organization consisting of humans and Minbari, the Earth Intelligence Agency thinks they're most likely a part of the Minbari intelligence services." "Humans working for Minbari intelligence?", she recoiled in surprise. "Now that almost sounds unbelievable." "Could you imagine a Minbari intelligence operative in either the Federation or on Earth?” he chuckled. "Or even in any of the other nations? Humans move freely throughout the galaxy, and are much more likely to be involved with any other organization other than the Alliance government." "It still gives me the creeps", she stated. "Well, no matter our feelings about it we know they're linked to the Minbari, and the Federation being in open contact with them means something big is going down." "True...” she sighed. They made their way through the flowing crowds in the main hall and the two were practically silent as they walked down the curving corridors past yet another Federation guard post and into the Centauri embassy. It wasn't near as empty as its Narn comparison was but there weren't too many people around here either which struck Ivanova as odd. The Centauri prided themselves on gossip and mingling about, and the few people they saw looked busy doing whatever and barely even bothered looking up. She simply shrugged as they passed the giant hair fan emblazoned in the purple floor of the main hall and entered the next corridor which would lead to the Minbari embassy. "So, do you suppose you'll still be stationed here, or on Minbar?” she asked. "I'm to be the ambassador to the Minbari, not to Babylon", Sinclair answered. "I'm told the powers that be have selected someone else to fill Hiu's post here. I'm not sure why they selected me specifically to go to Minbar either, but Minbari I can at least handle." "No kidding, it's the Centauri and Narn which get on your nerves", Ivanova chuckled dryly. "So, any idea who the new ambassador here will be?" "I do, Hague told me", he stopped and gave the junior commander a quick smile. "Until further notice, you." "Me?!", Ivanova spat. "Why in the world?!" "It's a temporary assignment, at least according to Hague", Sinclair told her with a reassuring tone. "The simple fact is that you've already developed a working relationship with both the Minbari and the Federation, as well as a number of nations in the League. That sort of head start can't be ignored." "Sure, but... ambassador?" "For the time being", he nodded again as they entered the softly lighted Minbari embassy. The change between the Minbari and the Centauri complexes was dramatic even though it was practically just a question of passing two guards and a few meters of corridor. Just walking into the spartanly decorated corridors of the Minbari center of the station gave them both a feeling of peace. Even though their nation was at war none of the people they encountered hurried past them without greeting them, however short a greeting it was. By its very definition the embassy was run by the religious caste but there were a number of warriors present as well of which many sported the colors of the Star Riders clan, as well as a large number of worker caste in their typical grey clothes. As they finally arrived to the main hall both of the human officers were surprised to see the Minbari ambassador stand there and speak to a black-uniformed Minbari. She'd heard both warriors and religious speak before of course, but it was rare to hear a religious and a warrior speak to each other in public and Ivanova realized that even though they definitely sounded alike when heard separately, they were so different when heard at the same time that it sounded like the two were talking in two different languages. As the two approached the Minbari Delenn and the other Minbari turned to greet them, she with a smile and her hand against her chest while he raised his hand palm outwards in the ritual warrior greeting. "Sinclair, Ivanova", Delenn greeted them both in order. "Or, as I hear, ambassadors." "Word travels fast", Sinclair nodded. "Even on a station such as this", she nodded. "Especially on a station such as this", Ivanova corrected. "As you say", the Minbari nodded and gestured to the warrior standing beside her. "Ambassadors Sinclair and Ivanova, let me introduce Shai Alyt Neroon of the Star Riders clan." "Pleased to make your acquaintance", Ivanova replied. "I'm honored, Shai Alyt", Sinclair added and gave the best version he could of a formal Minbari greeting to a superior, and then explained to Ivanova. "Shai Alyt would roughly translate to our commander in chief of the navy." "Really?” the Russian commander couldn't quite conceal her surprise. "That is correct", the Minbari answered with a strong voice. "I was Shai Alyt Bramner's second for many years, and with his passing I was elected his replacement." "I was sorry to hear of his death, he was an honorable warrior", Sinclair replied and bowed his head for a second in respect for the dead leader. "I'm also sorry to hear about the troubles in your home." "Traitors to the Minbari working with the Streib. May the universe take them and spit them out in disgust", Neroon cursed. "Indeed, times are changing when Minbari turn against Minbari in rage." "No doubt", Sinclair nodded his agreement. "We've heard rumors of a Federation fleet being dispatched to your space?" "It would be pointless to deny it seeing as how you'll be joining us for the trip back home", Delenn sighed and nodded slowly. "Indeed, we have been forced to swallow our pride and request their help in reclaiming our own nation, and to drive out these dark invaders." "In the old days we would never admit such a thing, but we have all learned a lesson from the pride of those that came before us", Neroon sighed. "We are beset on too many fronts and the enemy struck too deep, too fast, for us to be able to counter it ourselves without considerable loss of life." Sinclair and Ivanova just nodded, in the former case with a face of understanding, in the latter with some conflict apparent. It was perhaps fairly easy to understand Ivanova's feelings about the subject considering how Earth had fared in their own war with the Minbari, and having the tables turned on them had some kind of poetic justice to it, no matter how sorry she felt about anyone having to go to war. "Very well", Neroon nodded and fixed his gaze on the human commander. "I and Delenn will be leaving for Minbar within the hour aboard the cruiser Zha'Lenn. I would suggest you be ready to join us by then." "Naturally", Sinclair nodded. "We will be at the diplomatic docking port", Delenn said with a nod. "We will meet you then, Ambassador." USS AGAMEMNON FEDERATION NEBULA-CLASS LINE CRUISER OUTSIDE THE MINBAR SYSTEM The atmosphere on the bridge of the large Starfleet cruiser was stoked with expectation even if the room was almost completely quiet, this being the first time many of the crew actually went into combat and for most of the rest still the first time fighting a foe that wasn't quite as pathetically outmatched as the typical raider squadron. Sheridan sat in the captain's chair flanked by his first officer, Commander Bayard, and the ship's avatar in his shape of the ancient Greek king the ship was named after. They watched in silence as the fifty ships of the Starfleet expeditionary fleet traveled the short distance between their rendezvous and the system proper. The binary stars making up the system's center were already clearly defined by the time they had arrived at the rendezvous, and as they moved closer and closer the sensors filled in the tactical view with first the outer gas giants, then the inner solid planets and some of the larger moons and lastly with the smaller moons and asteroids of the system. Sheridan had never had the pleasure of visiting this system before, and he hoped he'd one day be able to return under circumstances not requiring him to ride in on a starship with shields raised and phaser banks charged. The trip was fairly long, they'd already been going for almost an hour and a half and they still had a few minutes to go with the lead ships in the fleet barely grazing the system's Kuiper belt. Once upon a time he'd been awed by just going at twice the speed of light, but he had to admit that after getting used to the speeds of their hyperdrives, approaching a system even at high warp almost felt slow. Still, warp offered a number of advantages that neither hyperdrives nor the new vessels' transwarp could offer, and the most important was the ability to scan space ahead of you. They'd already gotten a fairly accurate plot of the enemy forces in orbit around Minbar and had adjusted their heading accordingly, planning to drop out less than a light minute away from the planet and the defending forces. That distance would give the defending rebel forces a minute or two to react before the first shots were fired, but the simple truth was that exiting warp closer to the planet than that was risky even in the best of situations. Even the Federation ships would also require a moment to redress their ranks before they'd be ready to fight as they had to travel in a fairly loose formation in order for one ship's warp field not to risk damaging the ships next to it. "Admiral Halsey is on fleet-wide", Agamemnon spoke up as he brought up the older flag officer on the viewscreen. "Ladies and gentlebeings", Halsey greeted his subordinates with a nod, his voice carried over the PA system of every ship in the fleet as he continued. "You all know that in a few short moments we'll be entering the system and challenging the enemy fleet orbiting the Minbari homeworld. We're here to help the Minbari end a war and to liberate and defend the population of their nation, not to occupy or conquer. We will not fly our flags in their nation, nor will we ask for anything in return for our assistance. I know many of you feel confident in your ships and in your crews and that is good, for those are the people and the equipment that will see you home safely. Trust in the people next to you to do their duty just as diligently as you do yours. However, do not let yourselves become overconfident, as we go into this battle with lacking intelligence on our enemy's capabilities and intentions. To quote one of the greatest men throughout history, be ye always men of honor, and always remember the values that we've all sworn to uphold as members of the Starfleet. No matter what atrocities the enemy has committed we will not fire on surrendering or disabled ships. No matter what crimes they have done against sentience we will not fire on escape pods. We will fight the enemy honorably and with decency and make sure we do not disgrace our uniform. No doubt people will die here today, and no doubt a number of these will be wearing the same uniform as you. Remember that they will have died making the ultimate sacrifice at the altar of freedom and justice, and that this sacrifice is the finest gift any man can give his fellow sentients. They who do not return will forever be remembered and honored among us, as heroes to this world and to our own. Ladies, gentlebeings, I salute you all and thank you for this commitment." The bridge was quiet as the image of the admiral faded away from the viewscreen, and Sheridan almost thought he could reach out and touch it, so dense was the feeling of expectation for the battle to come. It was almost a cliché, but the people in the Starfleet truly believed in exactly those virtues. Duty, honor, justice and freedom were words that were capable of touching their hearts in ways other people perhaps could never understand. To Sheridan that was a simple enough fact which made him proud to be in the uniform and be on the same team as those standing around him. He sat there in silence repeating the short but powerful speech in his head. He'd heard parts of it before, but then every battlefield address had always taken inspiration from those which had been made before it. This one was different in only one respect, it was honest and the people had taken it literally. Halsey had meant every word, they would fight honorably and they would be willing to lay down their lives in defense of the freedom of Minbari civilians, whose faces they would likely never see nor they theirs. "We're crossing into the system proper, Captain", the AI told him as the ship shivered slightly. "Warp exit in thirty seconds." "All right, take us to full alert", Sheridan nodded and waited as the klaxons throughout his ship informed the crew that they were moving into the final phase of the approach. "Tactical?" "All weapons systems are on hot standby and we have live photons in the tubes, the armor matrix reads all sections green and the shield emitter capacitors are at maximum charge. We're as ready for battle as we'll ever be." "I'm sure the Minbari and Streib won't disappoint", the captain nodded and folded his hands in front of him. "All right, keep an eye on the rest of the fleet when we exit. We're to link up with the rest of the task group when we're out and take position ahead of the Steamrunners.” "Aye-aye", helm nodded as the bright white lines which were the stars outside coalesced into the bright dots they should be. The fleet had finally arrived at their destination. The Federation fleet quickly formed up into a number of small squadrons consisting of four or five ships each, every single one of their ships knowing exactly where they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to do given the circumstances. Ironically the slowest ships to get into formation were the most modern. The fifteen ships of Task Force 59 suffered more than just a little from not having the immense advantage of the AI, which were all easily able to keep track of all the other forty nine starships' positions at the same time. Still, there was no such thing as an incompetent helmsman in the Starfleet, and with the assistance of their still extensive navigation systems they soon entered their assigned positions and slowly started to move toward the distant planet. The enemy fleet didn't have very much warning or time to respond and that was the only major advantages they knew their side had. Even counting on the Minbari using tachyons, their fleet had approached at a speed where even the optimal circumstances would only give them the briefest respite before the Starfleet ships were upon them. The Agamemnon was soon flanked by the Betelgeuse and the Procyon, the two Steamrunner cruisers flying barely a hundred kilometers from her sides and just slightly behind her as the four ships of task group two point three accelerated toward the planet, the fourth ship being the Draconis, the third Steamrunner flying just behind the main wedge in a covering position. Just ahead of their own group the fleet's three main formations flew right next to each other, diamond formations each consisting of a Valkyria flanked by a pair of battlecruisers, and in the case of both force one and two an Intrepid-class destroyer for point defense. Force three under Craig’s command didn't have any Intrepids, so this duty was taken up by the far heavier bulks of a Luna and an Excalibur. It just added to how warlike that formation looked considering the Nobles flanking the main Valkyria. The enemy forces around the planet were still in disarray trying to regroup to face the rapidly approaching wave of starships, and Sheridan thought to himself that the crews on those ships were probably experiencing feelings not all that unlike those which the Earth Force crews had felt when the Minbari had struck against their planets. A force of less than twenty Starfleet ships had stopped the entire Minbari war fleet cold at Proxima, now they came here with fifty ships and went up against what their sensors had already told them was a fleet of only three hundred. They weren’t counting the few dozen large ships they'd already classified as likely to be dedicated troop transports. Their profiles didn’t resemble those of warships and their very low orbit meant they couldn’t join the battle effectively either way. Still, Sheridan watched as the visual display in front of him quickly brought more and more ships into view as both forces closed in on each other. There were a large number of regular Minbari warships in the enemy fleet, ships that could easily have been at the very same line where Starfleet had proven their worth to the rest of the galaxy. There had been a time he'd felt both fear and awe when he came up against a Sharlin, a feeling which had been almost completely wiped away aboard the Harlequin above Mars, but then there were the others. Among the blue behemoths were darker ships surrounded by numerous smaller vessels. It almost looked like the large dark ships slithered among the lines of more visible traditional Minbari ships. There were also ships that looked much like the older war cruisers, but were covered in a dull dark material that barely seemed to reflect light at all. All throughout the mass of large warships smaller ships moved about, some of them recognizable as Tinashi-class war frigates while others while larger looked almost similar enough to pass as an updated version of the same, if you discounted them being covered in the same type of pitch-colored armor as the new war cruisers were. "Zhanla...” the British accent from behind the captain announced the arrival of one of the Rangers to the bridge. “How in the seven bloody hells of perdition did they manage to get the plans for those?" "You recognize the design, Marcus?” Sheridan asked without taking his eyes off of the ships on the screen. "I do, obviously, but the bloody prototype isn't even finished yet and we're already facing full squadrons of them?” he cursed. "We call them Zhanla in Adronato, Sentinel-class in English, and they are as you can easily see a new evolution of the old Tinashi frigates. They are however built to what the Minbari would consider to be light cruiser specifications." "My comparisons to the historical data of the Tinashi, as well as the Tinashi on my sensors, would seem to indicate both increased maneuverability, thrust and energy output", the AI extrapolated. "All in all, a very much more capable warship than their predecessors." "Don't be fooled by their size, they have almost as much firepower as a Sharlin does and, at least on our blueprints, the same type of armor as an Enan Fi... though that looks nothing like White Star armor." "It's not of Vorlon origin, so I'm not surprised", the AI commented. "It's organic, but the cellular matrix is much closer to Shadow technology than Vorlon even if it is not an exact match." "Shit", Sheridan cursed as he looked up and watched as the magnification of the image gradually got lower and lower the closer their fleet came to the planet. "Then this will be one hell of a bumpy ride." USS ODIN FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT EXPEDITIONARY FLEET FLAGSHIP MINBAR SYSTEM "I've established fleet command, all three task forces have linked in to my command matrix", Mist told the admiral while he studied the tactical readout. "Great", he nodded and zoomed in on a group of the pitch black Minbari ships. "What's your tactical evaluation of those ships?" "It's hard to get any certain readings of them", she admitted. "The armor seems to be some sort of a hybrid of Shadow-based organic technology and the typical Minbari crystal, and as such I get about as much sensor readings from those ships as I'd get from a Vorlon or Shadow ship. In other words the sensors can’t see much except the armor's own life signs." "Damn", he sighed. "All right, we'll have to play this as we go then. Hail the enemy fleet." "Channels are open", she nodded. "Minbari and Streib fleet, this is Admiral Halsey, commander of the Federation Starfleet's expeditionary fleet", he said with a clear and strong voice. "Our orders are to remove your presence from this system and restore the peace. You will power down your weapons, leave orbit peacefully and prepare to be boarded. Failure to do so will result in your destruction." "A little over the top, perhaps?” Mist asked with an almost surprised face, muting the transmission. "Perhaps, but I doubt they'd respond well to diplomacy and we don't have that long until we need to start firing or lose the element of surprise entirely. I won't be taking any chances", he said firmly and then nodded for her to resume broadcasting. "You will not be allowed to retreat from this battle, nor will you be shown any mercy as long as you keep fighting. Your choices are simple, surrender or be destroyed. You have...” he looked at the distance meter as it rapidly counted down. "Thirty seconds to respond." "Well, that will at least save us the trouble of chasing them down later", the tactical officer said dryly. "I won't allow small groups of those ships to plague this entire sector of space for the upcoming decade", Halsey responded equally dryly. "Any response, Mist?" "Not yet... wait", she closed her eyes and a Minbari warrior came on the screen. "Halsey. I am Alyt Sarhat ra Vonilbok of the drala'lin Va'Denn. We will not surrender, we will not withdraw. Today you and those with you will pay the price for your actions at Proxima and Orion. Today, Halsey, you... will... die!" "That almost sounded personal", Halsey shook his head. "I'm not up to date with my Minbari, what did he call himself?" "He said he was War Leader Sarhat of the Wind Swords clan, of the 'dark cruiser' Dark Traveler." "Wind Swords", he spat. "I thought that clan was disbanded a decade ago." "Obviously that was not done as thoroughly as we might have hoped", Mist shrugged. "They're beginning to form a battle line, though so far it's pretty ragged." "Tell the fleet to slow to battle speed", Halsey nodded. "We'll be fighting fairly close to the planet and I don't want ships crashing into the atmosphere." "Battle speed aye, the fleet is slowing", Mist nodded. "All right. Halsey to all ships, we'll perform an enveloping maneuver and attack the enemy from their rear flanks, each force attacking from our respective positions. Take care not to fire if there's a chance we'll hit the planet, those are friendly civilians down there." "The fleet acknowledges." "Very well. Split the fleet and get us into position." The fleet split into its three constituent forces and all three of them made a sharp turn to take them around the enemy forces, which were still coalescing, while still keeping outside firing range. They kept a distance of slightly more than a lunar orbit from the mixed Streib and Minbari fleet as they came around and had they not turned again when half way they'd have almost met up again on the other side of the planet. Instead they slowed down yet again and almost turned around completely, bringing them on a heading straight for the rear elements of the enemy fleet, each of the forces coming in at an exact hundred and twenty degree angle from the others as they closed the distance, riding just a thousand kilometers or so above the atmosphere in order to reduce the chance of the enemy or themselves accidently hitting the planet with stray fire or, even worse, torpedoes and missiles with yields in the triple-digit megaton range. Riding this deep in the planet's gravity well severely limited the speed at which the Starfleet ships were able to move at, but there was no alternative other than letting the enemy engage them a lot further from the planet which would give the enemy both time to dress their ranks and time to get their command structure in order. Halsey and his forces were also counting on the far heavier enemy ships having more of an issue maneuvering in the gravity well than the light Starfleet vessels would, which wasn't as much a guess as it was a simple physics equation. They also knew that the chances of the enemy moving so far away from the planet that they could use their ships' top speeds as an advantage were pretty much inexistent. The Minbari knew the planet would slow the Starfleet down and would never allow them the advantage of engaging at speeds of over the half speed of light. In the end the Starfleet ships, easily capable of traveling at over two hundred and seventy five thousand kilometers per second, were closing the range at barely even ten, using the planet's surface as reference. Any faster than that and a simple evasive maneuver downward could put the planet's population at risk, if not from collision then from the enemy getting an angle to shoot at it. "We're approaching phaser range, Admiral", tactical pointed out as the reticles around the enemy ships switched from red to yellow indicating the scanners were tracking the targets and preparing to lock on. "Very well", he nodded. "Attack pattern beta, I want the second group to follow us in, but tell the other task groups to break formation after the alpha strike and link up with the other forces' flanks." "Aye-aye", Mist nodded as she relayed the orders to the rest of the AI in the task force. "The rear elements of the enemy fleet are turning to engage us, we're taking a few ill-aimed pot shots but there's chaos in their lines as the forward ships are trying to get back again." "Just as we'd hoped", he nodded grimly as he saw the distance toward the targets rapidly shrink. "Very well, Halsey to all ships. Fire at will!" The first ships in the Minbari fleet to be struck by the sudden onslaught of the small Starfleet fleet's firepower were the rearmost ships in the combined enemy fleet. By their very definition these were also the slowest ships in the force and overall the least advanced. Still it was a powerful sight to see a group of three Sharlin war cruisers being bathed in the light of their bronze-colored spears of compressed subatomic particles, shining for a moment like if the stars themselves had risen above the horizon of the planet until the powerful particle beams stopped, leaving crystalline drive fins drifting apart into small pieces and main hulls scored with large gashes from where the crystal had literally melted apart. A pair of Tinashi defiantly tried to hit the attacking Starfleet ships with their still quite powerful neutron beams, but the ships of the second task group showed them the folly in their attempt as a number of brightly glowing orbs left the forward launchers of the two Sovereigns. After a very short journey, which the torpedoes covered in just a few seconds, they impacted their bows with the force of a large nuclear weapon. They literally cracked the Tinashis' armor apart before finally detonating almost half way through the centuries old warships, causing the crystalline hull to fail completely and shower space around the ships with bluish glass fragments. The same procedure was repeated at the locations where the fleet's two other task forces had opened fire, though with very varying results due to the uneven distribution of the enemy fleet. Craig's third force's initial volley had almost torn apart that entire flank, opening up with a massed salvo of photon torpedoes and their more advanced phasers. They literally shattered the few ships which were at that location and gave the third force a few moments of breathing room before they closed the range to the next line. The second task force under the Albion, led by Rear Admiral West, had however quickly run into a center of heavy resistance after downing just a single Sharlin. Torpedoes and phaser lances struck against the dark hulls of Streib cruisers, causing damage but nothing even close to what they had been expecting. In return the dark grey vessels launched clouds of rapidly accelerating missiles against the Starfleet forces. The missiles were in themselves fairly easily avoided or shot down by point defense fire, but the sheer amount of them which was fired, hundreds or even thousands of them per ship targeted, made the shields of the cruiser-heavy task force flare almost constantly. The missiles weren't powerful enough to be more than an irritant to the starships, but they were powerful enough to prevent West's third and fourth task groups which were focused on Akira and Steamrunner Lancet carriers, from launching their fighters. A starfighter was no match for even two or three of these small anti-capital ship missiles, and even just the one could inflict severe damage. Switching his focus back to his own task force Halsey saw the telltale flash of another ship meeting its end. One of the few Streib ships within their line of fire was quickly taken down by concentrated fire from his first two task groups. It wasn't something he was too shocked from seeing, a Vorlon ship would be more resilient and a Shadow vessel even more so, but the very fact that it had taken the combined force of four Sovereigns and a Valkyria to bring it down gave him a hint of how the battle would play out. The one to six force ratio, something they'd just months ago would have thought to be little more than a walkover victory for the Federation, was actually way too close for comfort. "Tell the ships to divert their fire toward the Sharlin and Tinashi as soon as they get a clear shot", he told his avatar. "We need to thin their ranks before they get into formation." "Understood", Mist nodded and quickly altered her fire solution accordingly, being in control of the ship's considerable phaser arrays herself while the ship's tactical officer focused on the torpedoes. The Valkyria and her escorting Sovereigns halted their fire for a fraction of a second as another group of starships overflew them and passed by in between them and the enemy. The three Akiras of his fourth task group dotted the length of a Streib dreadnought; a two kilometers long and nearly pitch black starship formed like a needle, with orange-glowing torpedoes and pulse cannon fire while the cruiser group's escorting Intrepid spent its phaser fire intercepting the heavier torpedoes the Streib fired in return. It didn't matter how resilient a ship was, being pounded by antimatter warheads impacting at a quarter of the speed of light always caused damage. The very same locations being targeted over and over and over again by not only torpedoes, but brightly glowing golden pulses of compressed particles that made your hull dissolve as well, quickly took its toll. Halsey quickly asked himself what they actually used to power those ships when another bright flash nearly blinded him, this one clearly coming from deep inside the enemy warship. The closest he could come with a comparison was the flash of a large nuclear explosion, but much more powerful. "The enemy ships are now launching starfighters and bombers. Phase two complete", Mist told him as the ship started to turn away from the enemy, getting into position to use her fearsome broadside phaser pulse cannon batteries. "All right, tell the carrier groups to pull back to the Azrael and launch their fighters while the rest of us lay down suppression fire." "Orders acknowledged", the AI told him as he saw the Akiras ahead of their ship make a sharp turn and head back on a course which passed just a few kilometers below his own ship. "The Helena and Sovereign are taking position on our flank, with the Carina and Surprise providing missile interception." Halsey was silent for a moment as he watched the port side view, seeing volley after volley of golden pulse phaser bolts traverse the distance towards the black-hulled ships on the other side of the small void while silvery shades came the other way riding on streams of blue fire. The Streib had already proven themselves more of a challenge than the Drakh, but the biggest challenges on the field were the new Minbari ships. So far, not a single one of the dark hulled ships which looked so much like overgrown Tinashi had gone down, even though one had been crippled and was stuck turning to starboard it was still firing those of its weapons which could get a solution. Of the still larger cruisers one had lost a drive fin and he thought West's task force had brought one down to a crawl after expending dozens of torpedoes and hundreds of phaser strikes into its side. Still, even though they had barely even had a chance to fire back yet, seeing as almost every one of those ships had been at the front line and they had the furthest to move to get to their attack in the rear, he was already hearing reports that their weapons were much more potent than those of the older Sharlin. Antiproton and neutron beams struck Federation shields and left tactical officers doing the math as quickly as they could, all of them coming up with much the same conclusion. Small explosions dotted the dark void ahead of them, phaser pulses striking starship hulls and anti-ship missiles but also increasingly often from striking Minbari and Streib starfighters as they were launched from their motherships. The rapidly growing cloud of fighters started to move up and down, aiming to traverse the shrinking void between the two fleets on a different level than the ones where the two forces' main firing solutions were filling with golden, red and green energy weapons fire. Some of them were quickly intercepted by rapid-firing if low-powered phaser beams fired from the light cruisers and destroyers screening the five main battle ships, but they were far too many and the screens had too much work to do keeping the massive volleys of Streib missiles from overwhelming the shields of the Starfleet starships. It was working, but it was just a question of time and they all knew it. Once thousands of fighters added their ordnance to the mix even the Starfleet ships would quickly start going down. "Our carriers are reporting that they've started to launch their fighters", Mist stated. "We're ready to proceed to phase three." "All right", Halsey nodded as the Odin shook slightly as a thick red beam of antiprotons impacted the shield, the slight bleedthrough causing the otherwise mirror polished armor to become dull. "Tell the Helena and our own task group to prepare to vent drive plasma, and ask the other forces to confirm that they're ready for phase three." "Admirals Craig and West report ready", she answered after a couple of seconds, half her face lit up by an unfortunate until now surviving Sharlin drawing its last breath, gutted and cored out by a series of secondary explosions from a number of photon torpedoes aimed directly at the ship's otherwise so powerful antimatter cannon. "Admiral Craig says she's told the Amathea to retire to the carriers, her shields are out and she's taken some light hull damage." "Damn it, remind me to check how long Jahari needs to manufacture armor generators for her ships", he said, cursing. "Fine, release the warp plasma in three.. two.. one.. now, go!" All eight ships making up the front line of Halsey's part of the battlefield all of a sudden started spewing out purple glowing drive plasma into the surrounding space, the rear thrusters firing at the same time to spread the dense fog of ionized gas over as large an area as possible while the ships started to move. Within seconds the entire area they'd been occupying was filled with nothing but this purple fog, and as the two task groups turned in behind the cloud the volume of fire coming in from the Minbari line dropped dramatically as the plasma wreaked havoc with their scanners and visual sensors. "Admirals Craig and West report they've mirrored our actions, and the Azrael and the other carriers have now launched all of their fighters", Mist noted. "One failed to launch due to a drive problem, but in total we now have eight hundred fifty in the air with all of them carrying heavy loads." "All right", Halsey nodded. "Now we show them that the Federation is no nation to trifle with, and neither are our friends." "I'm ready", Mist stated with a soft voice. "Tubes loaded, targets programmed." "Order all Lancet wings to move up, after our strike they are to engage at best speed using corridors delta, sierra and omega", the admiral continued. "After the initial volleys they are to lock down the enemy fighters but tell them to keep clear of the Streib, those missile volleys will tear them to pieces." "Understood", Mist nodded and relayed the orders to her brother. "The Thor and the Saga also report that they've finished their reloading." "Tactical situation?” Halsey asked. "So far the enemy has lost a total of thirty-six ships, with another four crippled", tactical responded. "The Amathea will be back up in three minutes give or take, other than that we've only suffered shield damage." "Very well, link up with the third and fourth and tell them to get back to our flanks, and move us in closer to Henry's force as he's facing the heaviest part of the enemy fleet. Tell Craig to do the same on her end." "Very well", she nodded and turned silent for a moment while the screen in the front of the bridge showed hundreds of impulse engines overfly the Odin and then dive down below the now massive but quickly dispersing gas cloud, but slow down dramatically as they did so. "We're in formation and moving, the enemy has regained a firing solution on us. It's now or never, George." "All right", he nodded and took a deep breath. "Do it." "Very well." Mist nodded ever so slightly and then leaned her head back, almost looking like she glowed in the purple light of the gas cloud outside. As she did two blue-white orbs shot out of her bow, one heading above and the other below the cloud, rapidly gaining speed as they made their way toward the enemy line. On their sides of the battle, the scene repeated itself as the Saga and the Thor both did the same. Then he heard a soft voice sing over the intercom, one he hadn't ever heard sing before, and on the viewscreen he saw a visage he wouldn't soon forget. He'd seen her before, seen all of them before, but never, ever, like this. The blonde woman sat astride a winged horse, both she and the steed clad in finely crafted silver scale mail. Under her armor she wore a deep red dress, and around her waist was a longsword with a large ruby in its hilt. The wind picked up the long blonde hair and showed a red gold tiara which took the shape of wings behind her head. "The wild Valkyria ride the wind, with spear and clanging shield, where all the Hates embattled, are met on frigid field. For there shall fight the Mighty Ones, by valiant men adored, great Odin, Thor the fearless, and Saga that gave her word." "Heimdall shall sound the boding horn, again and yet again, rouse the warring passions, which swell the hearts of men", another voice continued as the white orbs closed in with the enemy ranks, changing the image to that of a blue-dressed woman with short hair instead. "Revolt shall wake, and Anarchy, with all their horrid throng. Revenge, Destruction, Rapine, the spawn of ancient Wrong." "With all the hosts of slaughter, that our own sins must breed. Cold Hate, Oppression's daughter, and Rage, the child of Greed", the first one sang again. "Then, as we stand to battle, as men have ever stood, down we shall crash their temples, the Evil crushed by Good." "So strong in faith, or weak in doubt, or berserk-mad we range. Our spears in that long battle, which means not Death, but Change", Mist suddenly took over seated between her two sisters, her white silk dress and chainmail sparkling in the sunlight. "Our highest with our lowest, must own the grim behest, and Good shall yield for Better, else how should come the Best?" "Yet if we win our portion how dare we crave the whole? And if we still press forward, why need we know the goal?” Aerie, the youngest of the three sang. "But those whose hearts are constant, and those whose souls are wise, have said that from your ashes a nobler race shall rise", all three sang in chorus, rapidly approaching a crescendo. "From shreds of shattered altars, to rear the Perfect Fane, you little men must perish, that good himself shall reign!" So perfect was their tempo that with the final word of the final stanza, the six bright orbs detonated. Light so bright it hurt to look at even through a viewscreen flared up in the middle of the enemy force, the sheer force of the implosions simply tearing space itself apart at the seams. Dreadnoughts and war cruisers were torn apart into shreds by the tidal forces, smaller cruisers and destroyers thrown away like ragdolls in the wind. As the flash cleared the enemy ranks contained a great void where some of their heaviest ships had once been, little but dust now remaining to prove they'd even existed. "My complements to you and your sister", Halsey nodded, touched by what he recognized to be a slightly modified version of the last lines of the Edda. "Let's hope the Minbari and the Streib get the point", she nodded. "But thanks, anyway." "Tactical?" "Forty-six ships destroyed", the Bajoran lieutenant answered. "We've punched a hole, just like we hoped." "Very well, let's not make our guardian angels liars. Order all task groups to re-engage immediately." The Bajoran and the avatar both simply nodded, and a second later the horns of the Valkyria spoke again. This time they weren't pulling any punches either.
70 Chapter 70 USS AGAMEMNON FEDERATION NEBULA-CLASS LINE CRUISER MINBAR SYSTEM The massive subspace implosions in the center of the enemy fleet had quickly added to the chaos among their ships' attempt at getting into formation, and the ships directly destroyed or crippled by the detonations was just the beginning. In an attempt to avoid floating debris, or even drifting hulks that barely even looked damaged from a glance, cruisers maneuvered away and in their hurry crashed into other ships that were frantically doing the same thing. Sheridan just shook his head at the general confusion and chaos in their lines, but then this result had of course been exactly what the Starfleet ships had been aiming for. "Update from task force command", the AI stated from beside him. "We're now ordered to re-engage the enemy." "All right, relay the order to the rest of the task group", he told his first officer. "We'll take the flank of the Venture's group and try to punch through." "All three ships confirm the order", she nodded. "Helm, put us on course twenty by five, take us straight towards the rear of their center." "Aye-aye, Captain", the ensign who sat at helm nodded. "Twenty by five, course laid in, sir." "Very well, Ensign, engage. Tactical, fire at will." "Yes, Captain", the lieutenant standing behind him replied. The Nebula cruiser and her accompanying wing of Steamrunners turned slightly to starboard and started to head straight toward the dark mass of starships which was what remained of the enemy fleet. The battle had only raged for minutes so far and by all measures the Starfleet force had barely even started to fight yet, but almost a full third of the enemy force was already destroyed and a massive amount of their fighters were either destroyed or drifting aimlessly with their pilots killed by the extreme radiation given off by the tricobalt detonations. Consciously they all knew this was simply because they'd weeded out most of the older ships, the Sharlin and Tinashi of the Earth Minbari War whose weaknesses they knew all too well how to exploit. The tricobalt detonations had taken down some Streib and dark Minbari ships as well, but the only reason they'd been so effective was because they were aimed where the enemy was packed far too tight. The enemy fleet was already reacting by trying to move their ships into a looser formation and get their heavy hitters back into position, both of these being actions which would severely limit the efficiency of further attacks of that kind. The four Federation cruisers opened fire against a Streib cruiser which stuck its neck out from the increasingly uniform formation, taking advantage of the unfortunate alien captain's mistake. Lances of nadion particles joined with angry orange-glowing photon torpedoes and golden pulses, all of them slowly but surely taking their toll on the port side of the cruiser's bow. As their fire died down, arrays recharging and launchers reloading, another barrage came from beside them as the Galaxy-class battlecruiser they'd teamed up with added her rage, shortly followed by even more fire from its escorting Lunas. Slowly but surely their damage overwhelmed the cruiser's armor and hull, and lances and torpedoes started to explode deeper and deeper into the flat black ship. As the first of the lances started to push its way through the rear of the Streib starship a bright flash from its reactor core heralded its death. Still smoldering black debris peppered the ships beside the disintegrating Streib ship, twisted pieces of metal and armor sticking to the hull of black-armored Minbari ships. "It's dead, find us a new one", Sheridan called as the flash bathed the bridge in white light. "Sentinel, forty by nine", Helm called out to the tactical officer. "The one the Thor's got a solution on." "I see it, plotting solution", the tactical officer replied. "Firing phasers!" The dark-skinned Minbari light cruiser was already being pounded by the flagship group of the task force, the massive firing solutions of the Albion and Tempest both adding their weight to that of the Thor's pulse cannon broadsides and bathing the dull black organic armor in an angry bronze-colored light. Gashes had already been torn in the armor, weight of fire showing its worth as the Starfleet ships kept firing wave after wave of particle fire into its ever more scored flank. The Agamemnon and Venture led their respective formations at an angle as compared to the Sovereigns and Valkyria of the flagship group, a few kilometers below them to avoid getting too close to the busy firing solution as they added their own quite impressive lineup of phaser cannons to the mix. Red and green particle beams shot back at the Starfleet ships, impacting shields and causing them to flash and flare as the still quite powerful Minbari weapons proved they weren't to be ignored, but the dents in the Minbari armor grew ever deeper and wider. "Starboard shields down to seventy two percent", tactical almost murmured as he kept the phasers firing. "The Procyon is reporting a fifty percent loss in her bow shields." "Tell her to switch positions with the Betelgeuse", Sheridan said to the avatar. "Tactical, keep an eye on our shield levels, but keep up our fire." "Aye, Captain", both the lieutenant and the avatar replied. The Minbari Sentinel outside kept soaking up damage, but the concentrated fire began to take its toll. The top drive fin was soon severed as the Venture hit it with a spread of photon torpedoes and caused the ship to begin to list dangerously, and aimed fire from the Agamemnon took out its forward weapons mounts one by one. The coup de grace was delivered by the Thor, as the Sentinel's listing caused her to turn the dreadnought got a solution on the rear drive fin and launched a devastating barrage at the vulnerable system which effectively disabled the ship. As the running lights and weapons went offline the Starfleet task group moved on. The ship wasn't killed, but it was no longer a threat and they had more important things to do than waste time and energy on drifting hulks, no matter how salvageable they were. In truth them being able to be recovered and repaired wasn't a bad option at all, seeing as how the Minbari nation as a whole would lose a lot of their fleet before this was all over and easily repaired advanced ships were the fastest way to get them back on their feet again. Sheridan cast a quick glance at the tactical display on the wall and noted that their task force had gained momentum after the quick withdrawal and reengagement. Their initial strike had found a center of resistance and both of their own tricobalt explosives had been targeted at that very location, opening up for this much more effective attack. Still, he saw both Halsey's first and Craig's third group getting quickly bogged down as they now started to run into the ranks of Dark Star class cruisers. The difference between the old-style Sharlins and new Dark Stars was much more than a mere glance could tell, even though the design was almost identical the armor and weapons were both much more powerful than the old design. The Agamemnon's task group rejoined the formation following the Thor as they turned to bring them back out of the enemy ranks. Using their still superior maneuverability to make what could almost be described as hit and run attacks, the Starfleet ships taking the enemy out one or two ships at a time through focused fire and then withdrawing before their shields suffered too much damage. He bit his lip as another thick dark red beam hit his ship's shields, this time triggering an alert klaxon which the tactical officer shut down after a second. "Aft shields down to fifty percent", he said somewhat unnecessarily. "Bleedthrough is starting to damage the rear pylon armor, but so far it's negligible." "Rebalance the shields, and make sure the armor generators are charged", Sheridan told the tactical officer. "How long until the shields fail?" "At this rate they won't hold for more than a minute or two, then we'll have to recycle them." "Thank you, Lieutenant", the captain nodded as the Sovereigns now in front of him opened up a full broadside on a Streib ship in the distance. "Lock on to the Albion's target and add our weight as well." He gritted his teeth as yet another white flash meant another Streib ship got the death sentence by the massed guns of their sixteen Starfleet vessels. No ship that was faced with that amount of fire could survive very long, but it did still take time to kill them and time was a commodity they were in far too short supply of. They couldn't accept this turning into a battle of attrition, as sooner or later the much higher numbers of their opponents would start wearing the Starfleet down. Sheridan already knew, all of the captains knew, that they'd likely lose ships in this battle no matter how well they fought. The tactical screen said it all, Halsey's forces were heavily engaged and even though he had the heaviest of the three task forces several of his escorts had already been forced to deploy their armor. Although the Luna which Craig had detached had returned to its task group, two of her Excaliburs had already started to fall back with one of them leaking strands of purple drive plasma from a damaged nacelle pylon. The guns of the ships ahead suddenly came silent, and the ship's avatar silenced those of his ship as well when a large cloud of silvery shapes with red trails behind them passed over and under the hull of the cruiser. He didn't have to ask, the admiral had ordered the ships to pull back while the enemy got another surprise pummeling by Starfleet, though this time by the Starfighter Corps. The capital ships of the Starfleet task forces all remained silent as the starfighters darted towards the enemy line, some of them meeting an early demise at the hands of enemy point defenses and missiles but most continuing on. As the more than two hundred and fifty Lancets approached their targets, mainly the few older Minbari designs remaining and the lighter of the Streib ships, they let loose a massive volley of anti-ship photon torpedoes which hung from their short, stubby wings. Each starfighter had been armed with two starship-grade photons and try as they might there was no avoiding, interception or even absorbing the force of in excess of five hundred of these warheads. Some of them did go down, some fighters even crashing into their targets, but most managed to hit home. The torpedoes exploded in clusters, a dozen here, two there, twenty against the drive fin of a Sentinel. A group of them hit the side of the last Tinashi that remained on the sensors, cracking the armor along a hundred meter long seam and spraying space on that entire side of the ship with debris and bodies as the antimatter warheads detonated deep inside the Minbari frigate. The Sentinel whose drive fin had been completely trashed by the torpedoes lost all forward thrust and simply drifted until a Sharlin whose port stabilizer fins had been completely severed crashed into it, tangling the two ships together in a mess of bluish crystal and black-skinned armor. The bridge crew of the Agamemnon, along with those of every other ship on their side of the battle, watched in silence as the blue-white antimatter explosions littered the enemy ranks. To make matters even worse for the Minbari commander, theirs had been the smaller of the two main fighter attacks. They were close enough to see the Odin's task force in the distance now, and the almost six hundred fighters the first task force had launched filled that entire sector of the battlefield with bright explosions as even more enemy ships met their end at the business end of a storm of photon torpedoes. The tactical screen was little more than a jumble as the friendly starfighters, having avoided those enemy fighters which remained with their far superior speed and maneuverability, zipped in and out of the enemy formations while rapidly unloading all their heavy ordnance. After the three attack wings had finished firing a total of almost thirteen hundred photon torpedoes they added insult to injury by almost emptying their stores of micro-torpedoes into the already damaged sections of the ships. As they reached the end of their magazines they pulled out wing by wing and accelerated away from the enemy while furiously trying to avoid the masses of missiles and energy weapons the Streib and Minbari shot after them. New explosions were seen, much smaller than those of antimatter weapons, and Sheridan knew at least some of the Federation's finest were not coming home again. Those that managed to get clear engaged the enemy starfighters, firing their first shots at far beyond visual range to weed out the enemy ranks before the dogfight began. As soon as the last of the fighters exited their firing solutions the Valkyria heralded the next phase of the attack by once again opening up on the enemy with her broadside batteries on those ships ahead who had sustained the most damage from the fighters' torpedo strike. Armor which had already been opened up by antimatter explosions offered little or no resistance to phaser strikes, and in less than a minute a trail of a half-dozen Streib and Minbari cruisers drifted aimlessly forward with the telltale orange glow coming from the gashes in the armor which told of hull and systems being consumed by nadion interaction. The devastation was even more impressive on Halsey's end of the field, having more than twice the amount of torpedoes striking into the Minbari line had forced even the most resilient enemy captains to reevaluate their position and he'd even managed to get some of the Streib dreadnoughts out into the open. He’d started immediately reassigning his entire force's fire to the missile ships which were being torn apart at an almost surprising rate. Halsey had a task force almost twice as heavy as that Sheridan's force was part of and one by one the dreadnoughts went down, surprisingly enough lighter armored than their smaller cousins no doubt because they were never meant for engaging in this kind of melee but stand back and lob their missiles at the enemy. As each of the four they'd uncovered went down in quick succession the volume of missiles hitting the Starfleet ships' shields lessened dramatically, though it didn't stop as they couldn't get them all with many staying hidden behind the larger and much better armored Minbari ships. Sheridan silently watched as a barrage of red-hued energy lances suddenly came out of nowhere and impacted the side of the Sovereign battlecruiser just ahead of his ship. The first few shots didn't manage to do anything but create sparkles as the shields soaked up the antiproton beams, but as the moments passed by and more and more beams hit, one of them eventually bit into the Tempest's armor. The ship started to flash rapidly as entire sections of armor were automatically deployed and while he doubted that the battlecruiser had suffered any serious damage it did still mean that Starfleet was quickly running out of time, especially as he saw yet another of the ships on the tactical screen withdraw. USS ODIN FEDERATION VALKYRIA-CLASS DREADNOUGHT MINBAR SYSTEM "Report!” Halsey called out. "The Implacable has suffered damage to her port nacelle, she's venting drive plasma and is withdrawing from the field as ordered, together with the Caladbolg, Durendal and Manticore", Mist said with a soft but still somewhat agitated voice. "That makes four of our ships out of the fight. Other than that eleven ships have lost shields and are running with armor, and I can't keep mine up much longer either." "Don't wait for them to give out", Halsey told his avatar and lover as another beam hit her shields and caused the ship to shake slightly. "As soon as you get an opportunity to do so, deploy the armor and recycle the shield emitters." The white-dressed avatar simply nodded as a response as her broadside pulse cannons finished off yet another Minbari Sentinel, the fourth one to go down in their part of the battlefield. "What's the fleet's damage status?” he asked. "I told you about the Implacable. Other than that the Caladbolg has gotten her coolant leak under control and reports a total of twelve casualties in the plasma fire, while the Manticore's still under emergency power and the Durendal is working on repairing the plasma conduit which burst in her nacelle pylon", she sighed. "Our heavy ships are mostly all right, though the Majestic suffered some medium hull damage before the armor fully deployed. Her captain is not requesting to drop back, and her armor and forcefields are keeping the damage contained." "Better than I'd expected so far, then", he nodded. "What about the enemy?" "We've taken out a total of one hundred and ninety two enemy ships", she responded. "Of them sixty and change are presumed disabled, the rest are pretty much by varying degrees destroyed." "And all that's left to kill now are their new ships and the Streib", Halsey finished with a grim nod. "Quite", she nodded. "We've lost one hundred and seventy six fighters over all three sides; most of them during the attack on the enemy capital ships, but the enemy fighter screens are crumbling." "Twenty percent losses... all right, let's get ready to finish this then", he said and closed his eyes as he heard the dull noise of the ship's armor plating deploying. "Tell Craig and West to get ready for the final phase." "Very well", Mist nodded and sent them the message over subspace. "Orders confirmed; their task forces are disengaging from the battle." "Good, let's do the same. Order the Helena, Lexington and Emerald to form up their task groups behind us. Lieutenant, take us out of the enemy firing range and set course for the rendezvous point." "Course laid in, sir", Lieutenant Black at helm replied as the large starship started to turn, enemy particle beams traversing the length of her side as she did so and leaving long black lines of carbon scoring on the dreadnought's armor though doing only minor real damage. "The enemy are redressing their lines", tactical noted as the enemy fire started to die down, the last beams hitting the ship in her stern before the rest of the task force blocked her. "The Dark Stars are being brought forward." "Just as expected", Halsey nodded and sighed. "Time to rendezvous?" "Twenty seconds", Black replied. "Mist, I need the new formation uploaded." "It's up, Lieutenant", she nodded. Outside, given a brief respite by their withdrawal from the battle line, the three task forces linked up for the first time since they'd engaged the enemy. The so far uneven results of the battle were evident for any observer, of the Starfleet ships all were more or less marked by scoring from particle and energy weapons but not a single one of them was too damaged to keep up, and so far none of them had been destroyed either even if some of their ships had been forced to withdraw. That was to be compared by a debris field hundreds of kilometers long which was slowly spreading itself out in orbit, the remains of almost one hundred and fifty Streib and Minbari warships which had at least portions of themselves turned to little more than dust. Most of those of the enemy which still remained were also marked by energy weapons fire, but they were still more than twice as many as the Starfleet fleet and had proven they were not to be underestimated, even by Starfleet. The Odin linked up with her sister ships, the Thor and the Saga taking positions just beside her one on either flank. All the Sovereigns and Nobles of the fleet formed a circle around the dreadnoughts, while Lunas and Intrepids took their places inside the very heavy star formation. They all started to move in sync, slowly but surely accelerating back toward the enemy line with most of the other ships following behind in cover behind the battlecruisers and dreadnoughts, while a few cruisers centered on the Venture took off on a course for the enemy troop transports which had been hiding on the other side of the planet. When they reached their target speed each and every single ship in the formation fired their thrusters and turned on their own axis to presented their broadsides to the dark ships on the other side, letting their inertia carry them toward the enemy while the massed side batteries and dorsal arrays of three Valkyria, seven Sovereigns and two Nobles opened up on the dark-skinned Minbari cruisers. Hundreds, thousands of particle pulses impacted the Dark Stars, ships which had stood up to the firepower of a Valkyria and a handful of cruisers started to ever so slowly bow down under the strain of all of them firing at them all at once. The other ships of the fleet followed suit, adding phaser lances and photon torpedoes fired barely even aimed but as a measure of clearing the path of the heavy Starfleet formation ahead of them. Lunas and Intrepids worked at intercepting missiles, even going so far as detonating their photon torpedoes inside the enemy firing solutions to scatter the fusion warheads before they impacted the armor of their larger cousins. Some still managed to get through, and while they were almost harmless when they hit shields those ships who relied on armor still took a beating leaving large black scored areas of the armor where they impacted. One by one, almost painfully slow, the Minbari dark cruisers fell out of formation. One was hit by a storm of phaser bolts so intense that the pulses actually started to melt away the organic armor from the crystalline hull beneath. As soon as that happened the crystalline structure started to crack and give way, spraying the inside with crystalline fragments that turned to deadly shrapnel cutting the crew to pieces and making the ship start to drift away. More fire entered the already opened section of armor and damaged the containment grid of the quantum singularity which powered the massive starship, the resulting explosion tearing the rear of the ship to pieces. Another was struck by torpedo after torpedo, soon joined by phasers both lance and pulse as the first ship went down, all of them impacting much the same point in the narrow bow of the cruiser. What started as a dent in the ship's durable organic armor soon became an open wound, then a crater and finally a massive explosion tore the ship's entire forward section to shreds as the ship's energy grid was compromised and antiprotons spilled out into the ship's compartments. Another torpedo entered the ship's front as the explosion died down, stopping several hundred meters into the ship with a bright flash that was barely even seen from outside but which completely disabled the massive ship. The third, another of the two kilometer long Streib missile dreadnoughts which had been hiding behind the now dead Dark Star war cruiser, was caught in the blast and annihilated almost by accident as it was first hit by debris from the cruiser and then pummeled as the Starfleet ships hit it with their barrage as it passed clean through the now empty void in the cruiser. It too ended its life in the bright flash the Starfleet crews had come to expect when ships of her kind were disabled, shooting still glowing debris into the ships around it but most bouncing harmlessly off of the dark armored hulls of the Minbari cruisers. Still, return fire landed hard hits on the Starfleet armor, causing a barely visible trail of dust to come off them as layer after layer of ablating armor detached itself from the underlying segments. Gashes appeared along the sides and dorsal areas of the battlecruisers and destroyers as fusion missiles exploded against their hulls, battering the people inside as the inertial dampeners were just barely enough to keep them from bouncing around like balls in a pinball machine. One of the Noble's shield emitters flared for a second and let a lance of green neutron beam through to hit the armor, the armor along the nacelle preventing any serious damage but still giving her engineers yet more to worry about. One of the Sovereigns was hit by several cruisers' thick lances of antiproton particle beams, the red beams converging at and coring a deep line across the port half of her saucer. Ablative armor or not, that kind of firepower hurt even a ship of her caliber and with no shields to stop them the antimatter particles were unhindered from cutting into it. Alarms wailed inside but the crew steeled themselves and merely switched positions in the formation, allowing a less damaged ship to take its place while her guns still spoke just as rapidly as they closed the range to the Minbari. The fourth ship downed was another Dark Star, the vessel turning to follow the dreadnoughts as they made their way forward. As they did so however they cleared the line of fire for the single heaviest weapon system in the entire fleet, and a meter-thick lance of compressed nadion fire tore into the war cruiser's flank. The Azrael was an Archangel and with her fighters all doing their part it now showed its wrath, the focal cannon lance soon followed by wave after wave of antimatter-loaded micro-missiles. One by one the small missiles were little more than an irritant, barely even hitting in the megaton range, but they came by the hundreds and covered the already severely scored side of the Minbari cruiser in a carpet of bright explosions. It almost looked like a giant had stepped onto the field and torn the black armor from the side of the ship; neither missile powerful enough to crack the armor beneath it but all of them combined enough to rip through its seams. Large chunks of organic-covered crystal armor simply dropped off the side of the ship, clearing the way for another wave of photons from the fleet to core the ship through the now exposed hull while the Archangel recharged its spinal-mounted weapon. By the time the fifth ship went down, a Minbari Sentinel which lost most of its port side hull to a wave of photons and phaser pulses, the Starfleet ships had almost reached the Minbari line and enemy fire quickly went down from a massive barrage to a mere trickle as few other ships than the Streib had that impressive an array of side-arc weaponry. A shouted order on the Odin later and the Starfleet formation dissolved completely, Sovereigns, Nobles and Valkyria starting to dash between the Minbari cruisers in a fast-paced melee the Minbari ships were ill equipped to deal with. The small Starfleet ships, not even half the size compared to both those of the Minbari and those of the Streib, were hard to hit as it was even on a straight course. Dashing between the enemy ships this was put to the extreme as more of the Minbari energy fire now started to hit their own ships than it did the Starfleet cruisers and dreadnoughts. The ships of the first expeditionary fleet suffered no such ill effects however. Helmsmen and tactical officers, avatars and captains, they all showed just how different Starfleet fought as compared to anyone else handling their capital ships in a manner the native races reserved for starfighter pilots. The Odin took off followed by two Luna-class light cruisers, the dreadnought taking a long winding course down the length of the Minbari battle line. Mist's broadsides fired every time she had a clear shot, often at two at once as she lined herself up for a good target on both sides of her hull to maximize the damage output. Her own lances and those of the Lunas fired near constantly, digging into the scored lines where the broadsides had already prepared the way, and the two light cruisers fired torpedoes from their top pod almost constantly as well as they worked the same areas even further. The first Dark Star to go down from this was passed first by the Odin and her two escorts, soon followed by no less than three Sovereigns with their own escorts each group going in its own direction. Organic or not the rapid succession of the attacks meant that the hull was not allowed to heal or recover as broadside was soon followed by another broadside, and the torpedoes of yet more of the lighter ships adding in as they followed the heavier or went about in small wings of their own. The massive cruiser barely even got a single clean shot in on the Starfleet vessels harassing it before the armor gave way, and as a swarm of piranha a number of Lunas, Akiras and even Craig's single Valiant rushed in to deal the war cruiser its final deathblow. A web of phasers laced the gash in the armor, widening it and deepening it, soon working their way into the core of the ship. Torpedoes followed, detonating deep inside the main hull and causing internal structure, crew and air to rush through the hole in the armor like a fountain of death. The first ship to go down on the Federation ship was an Intrepid, the Courageous living up to its name as it sped just behind a wing of Akiras. The torpedo cruisers emptied their launchers into the side of the last Streib dreadnought at near point blank range, and misfortune would have it that they did so just as the missile ship prepared to fire its own barrage. The antimatter-loaded torpedoes detonating lit the fusion warheads, all of them exploding within or just outside the black ship's hull and causing a large chunk of the ship to simply shoot away from the dreadnought at an impressive speed. The Akiras in front only just barely managed to avoid the massive piece of debris, but the Intrepid that followed them didn't. She was hit in her stern and spun out of control like if the small destroyer had been hit by a gigantic bat. The tight quarters flying gave no mercy for even the slightest of mistakes, and the proud Starfleet ship didn't have any time to recover before it crashed into a wildly turning Sentinel, hitting it near the aft before she drifted away towards the rear of the enemy formation. There was cause but no time to mourn, and the Akiras quickly turned to claim their vengeance on the offending Minbari vessel. It was hardly its fault, it'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she was there and the Akiras would not let her fire on the now drifting and crippled Starfleet ship. Other ships quickly joined in the slaughter, their avatars knowing immediately what had happened and where, and all three Valkyria soon came along all singing the same song of rage. The Sentinel had already been severely damaged from the impact, and it went down quickly as broadsides and torpedo spreads opened up its damaged side to space and the large hulk joined the smaller one drifting in silence. USS AGAMEMNON FEDERATION NEBULA-CLASS LINE CRUISER MINBAR SYSTEM "Break hard to port!", Sheridan called out to his bridge crew as a flight of Luna light cruisers cut in just ahead of them, lacing a Streib cruiser with their phaser arrays. "Take us across its other side, fire a full spread of torpedoes!" "Torpedoes, aye", tactical responded and quickly tapped his console, five glowing balls of antimatter fire exiting the launchers lining the cruiser's weapons pod and striking into the dark-hulled cruiser while return fire landed a dozen or so missiles against the Agamemnon's starboard armor. "The cruiser is severely damaged but still operational, and we're losing armor integrity on the starboard dorsal." "Understood, Lieutenant", the captain nodded and gritted his teeth. "Status on the shields recycling?" "Another thirty seconds, Captain", the avatar replied calmly. "It's going to be close, but I believe my regular armor can make up the difference." "I'd rather not chance it if I have the choice", Sheridan responded with a slight shake of his head as another red beam licked his ship's armor. "Helm, reprogram our course to primarily face the port side armor toward the enemy." "Aye, sir", the ensign at helm replied and adjusted their heading accordingly. "Lieutenant, Sentinel on our eleven o'clock." "Got it", tactical nodded and fired the ship's port weapons array at the black Minbari ship while the Minbari scored a few glancing hits at the Starfleet cruiser. "Port armor at seventy-five and falling." "Keep it up until the shields are ready", Sheridan breathed as the ship shook again. "Status on the fleet?" "Forty-three ships still in the fight, six have withdrawn, one is disabled", Agamemnon stated with his cool voice. "Eighty-one enemy ships remain operational, correction", he paused as a bright explosion tore a Dark Star cruiser in half, its singularity reactor opened to space by another long-range phaser shot by the Azrael's spinal cannon, "eighty." "We'll soon start losing even more people", Sheridan sighed as a lucky hit by a Minbari ship hit a Luna in front of them, the strike hitting her port nacelle along its length and sending plasma drifting into the bow of the Agamemnon as the Starfleet light cruiser started to move out of the firing line. "True enough", the avatar nodded. "The Minbari fighter contingent has been neutralized; Azrael is half way through taking the Lancets in for repair and rearming. They'll be ready to make their next wave in less than ten minutes." "Ten minutes? Hell, this fight can be over in ten minutes", the captain cursed as another beam just barely missed the ship's scarred aft pylon. "Ensign, take us in behind a Valkyria." "Which one?” helm asked. "Anyone", he replied sharply. "We need to concentrate our attacks, the enemy commander is adapting just a little too fast for my taste." "All right", helm nodded and cut between two Streib ships as he aimed the ship for the nearby silvery shape of the Saga. "I'm linking us up with the Saga and the Musashi." "Right, Agamemnon, link your fire control with Aerie." "Done", the ancient Greek king nodded. "Very well", Sheridan sighed as the ship started to bank and turn in quick succession as his cruiser followed the heavier pair through the winding maze of Minbari ships and the cored-out hulks of their fallen brethren. "Fire as you bear, Lieutenant, and when the shields are ready switch over immediately." "Aye-aye, Captain", the tactical officer nodded. The three ships, all of them smaller than the smallest Minbari or Streib ship, continued the close-quarters knife fight at speeds which would make most people deadly pale. The crews were relying heavily on their inertial dampeners and impulse drives to allow them to make maneuvers which would instantly crush them to a bloody pulp due to the g-forces involved if they hadn't had them. Another Sentinel was crippled as precision bombardment from the Saga on one side and the Thor on the other severed both of its ventral maneuvering fins. With no way to steer the ship the Minbari vessel ran into a Streib cruiser, pulling it along as the two ships drifted forward until finally crashing into the hulk of an already dead Sharlin. Behind them another of the Dark Star cruisers ended its life, careful but masterful maneuvering by a flight of Sovereigns caused several of the Minbari ships to hit an already damaged dark war cruiser and the Odin took advantage of the situation, pouring torpedoes and pulse fire into the severely weakened armor. Secondary explosions littered the side of the cruiser as weapons systems and power circuits overloaded from the damage, showering space around the ship with crystal debris and shreds of organic armor as the ship exploded from the inside. "Seventy four ships remaining", the AI noted. "The enemy is passing seventy five percent losses." "Damn it, why don't they try to jump out already?” Sheridan cursed the stupidity and sheer pigheadedness of the Minbari leaders. "That information is not available", the avatar shrugged. "The Odin has now identified the enemy flagship, she's relaying the coordinates of the Va'Denn, the Dark Wanderer, and we're ordered to engage and destroy her." "The Saga is moving to intercept", the ensign at helm responded. "All right, keep us on her tail, ensign", Sheridan nodded as another lucky hit grazed the saucer of his cruiser, the now restored dorsal shield blocking the energy but still shaking the ship slightly. "Lieutenant, feel free to fire at targets of opportunity during the trip but focus on that flagship!" "Aye, sir", tactical nodded and fired off another salvo in retaliation for the earlier hit, tearing up a hole in an already damaged Streib cruiser. The Va'Denn was in the very center of the enemy formation, closely escorted by two other Dark Stars and a small group of Sentinels, which had so far managed to block the central ship in the heavy group from being identified. Now that it had however the Starfleet vessels barely even cared about the escorts, attacking from above or below the main plane of battle instead of through it. The flagship was struck repeatedly by spread after spread of torpedoes as Lunas and Akiras sped past, only getting a fraction of a second to get a clean hit but still firing what they could as they did. Forty and change Starfleet ships kept coming at it, some of them taking the chance of running between the escorting cruisers and the flagship to get a better firing position but paying for it as some ships scored hits on them. Another Intrepid broke off from the fight trailing atmosphere and plasma as it had suffered a direct hit to the main deflector, while an Akira started to list dangerously as a wave of missiles which impacted already scarred armor took out its weapons pod and starboard nacelle. Still, the fight was heavily unbalanced. The three Starfleet dreadnoughts traded fire directly with the enemy flagship now, with the Odin's just recently recycled shields resisting even the most powerful barrage of red and green particle beam fire. The Saga and Thor added their weight and added the first glowing blue balls of zero-point energy death to the mix as the first quantum torpedoes of the battle were launched against it. So far they'd relied on the less powerful but far more plentiful photons, but time was running out and they needed an edge quickly. There was no time to intercept or avoid the bluish torpedoes, nor was there a defense against them. The zero-point implosions shook the massive Minbari cruiser as they ripped space time itself apart in a massive wave of bright energy and subatomic radiation. Layer after layer of the organic armor was literally ripped off of the side of the already weakened sides of the war cruiser, adding to the cloud of debris that surrounded them. The exposed crystal of the hull below was soon targeted by yet more phaser and torpedo fire which cracked the hull open and caused a jet of escaping atmosphere to be lit up in a flash of orange fire for a second. The Agamemnon narrowly avoided ramming one of the escorting Sentinels' rear drive fin and fired every single torpedo launcher it could line up at the port maneuvering fin of the flagship, a hail of orange-glowing torpedoes joining a hail of phaser lances as the fin was first holed and then holed out as the damaged armor wasn't enough to withstand the kinetic impact. Crystal shards and strips of organic flesh shot out the other side of the fin as torpedo after torpedo simply punched through like bullets through glass, causing the cruiser to list and turn slightly to port as the helmsman struggled to compensate. He didn't get time to do so however as a full flight of five Sovereigns, one of them leaking plasma from a gash in the stern armor, came in above the escorts and dumped everything they had into the stabilizing fin at the top. Expertly coordinated, the phaser pulses started to impact near the bow end of the fin and traced a narrow line across its length until they hit nothing but empty space in the stern end. Wave after wave of fire came in, and then finally a spread of torpedoes hit it near the top to get the most momentum possible. If sound could travel through space there would have been a cracking and screeching noise without any comparison as the crystalline superstructure was simply torn asunder by the impact, the force of a half-dozen hundred-megaton torpedoes detonating at the same time being far too much for the already weakened structure to handle. The organic components somehow still managed to hold it in place, but without the support of the internal supports it almost looked like the fin had gone slack, tilting to starboard in an odd angle which told everyone that saw it that it no longer served any useful purpose. With no way to keep the ship under control the helmsman of the Minbari cruiser had no choice but to cut thrust completely or risk running into other ships or any of the dead hulks littering the battlefield, and the ship simply drifted forward even though its weapons still put out all it could against the Starfleet ships which were buzzing around it like a swarm of angry hornets. Most missed, lances of green neutron fire cut deep scars in its escorting ships and to make matters worse the escorts also hit their own flagship as they turned and tried to hit the nimble Federation warships. Some still hit home however, and the first of the Sovereigns had to make a quick escape as it suffered a deep gashing wound along the side of its engineering hull after making a close pass in front of one of the escorting Dark Stars. The Odin performed the coup de grace herself as she maneuvered sharply and came in almost at a perfect ninety degree angle to the plane of battle, perfectly lined up to punch a hole in the severely weakened side where the quantum torpedoes had detonated earlier. Phaser fire tore into the ship, not hitting any critical systems due to the angle of fire but still causing even more problems for the Minbari flagship to maneuver. All of a sudden the Va'Denn's forward guns stopped firing, the pulse fire which was biting deep into the enemy ship disabling their power conduits, but return fire from the side arc guns still made the Starfleet dreadnought's stressed shields flare in response. "The enemy forces are charging their jump drives", Mist suddenly called out. "They're preparing to escape." "Great, just great", Halsey made a tired smile and looked to the wounded image of the Minbari flagship. "Took you long enough, lad. Guess you're more comfortable with your subordinates dying than you are with dying yourself." "We're ready, Admiral", the Bajoran tactical officer noted as most of their fleet broke off their pursuit of the enemy flagship and spread out among their ranks. "Rear launchers reloaded, and most other ships have done so as well, and they're spreading out again" "Very well, let's show these bastards we meant what we said", Halsey nodded grimly. "Escape is not an option, only death or surrender." "Admiral?” tactical said with some urgency, watching the power levels of the enemy ships approach optimal. "Yes, by all means, Lieutenant", the admiral nodded. "Launch." The shields of the Odin were still flaring every so often, both from grazing shots from the flagship escorts and from Streib missiles as their cruisers and dreadnoughts moved apart to make the hyperspace jump. A jump Halsey had counted on them making far earlier than now, truth be told, but still something he'd came prepared for. As the Starfleet ships all broke off as one they all fired off a number of glossy black projectiles from their rear launchers, projectiles any Starfleet officer would recognize as class ten probe casings. They only remained so for a fraction of a second however, firing their braking thrusters and releasing their composite plastic shells as soon as they reached their programmed destinations and revealing a far more sinister truth hidden within. It wasn't fighting fair, it wasn't even fighting clean, but in all honesty they had warned the enemy about it even as they had engaged them. As energy levels spiked across the enemy fleet the now silvery shapes extended subspace antennae and began to increase the power output of the small but powerful fusion reactors which powered them. Their maneuvering thrusters soon started to fire as the devices began to drift closer to the planet, every one of the barely two meter long satellites artificially increasing their mass rapidly approaching that of a small moon. The results weren't delayed by long. As the Minbari ship's jump drives gathered more and more energy to jump inside the massive gravity well they were now enveloped in, circuits overloaded causing rippling explosions across their bulky hulls, some ships experiencing overloads so strong they literally tore the ships apart while most others simply just shut down. Other ships managed to somehow actually open their jump points, but the portals didn't remain stable for long and many flared out of existence just as quickly as they had been brought forth. The results were much the same across the board; ships simply exploded or silently shut down. Of the roughly seventy ships which had still been in operation, only a single Streib ship which was almost completely undamaged managed to open a jump point and actually escape. On the bridge of the Odin a chorus of cheers could be heard, they'd been unsure whether the jump interdictors would work as well on outgoing jump points as they did in blocking incoming, and now they knew how spectacular the results were. Still, it was a tactic they would no doubt never be able to use again, word would spread and the next time their opponents would fight ever more desperately knowing there was no escape to be had. Halsey sighed as he quickly went over the tactical screen. A single Sentinel was still operational, if barely, but the Saga and the Thor quickly disabled her by taking out her weapons one by one, taking advantage of them for the first time ever during the entire battle being in a forty to one numerical superiority. "All enemy ships are destroyed or disabled", Mist said with an almost empty voice, busy taking in reports from the other ships of the fleet. "We have ten ships which have withdrawn because of serious damage, one more disabled, and all other ships have suffered anywhere between light to heavy armor damage. The ones still in condition for further action are taking an overwatch position around the remains of the Minbari fleet while they perform repairs." "In part worse than I'd calculated, but at the same time also better", the admiral sighed and gave a tired nod to his AI. "Call in the Azrael to recover and assist the Courageous, and send the all clear to the transports." "As you wish", she nodded and turned absent again for a second. "He will be here once he finishes the launching of the fighters and requests an engineering team be sent in ahead to ascertain the situation", she continued. "The transports will be here momentarily." "Good", he nodded and surveyed the massive debris field around him. "May whatever god they worship have mercy on their souls, and on ours for not showing them that very same kindness." SS TERRA CIMMERIA FEDERATION CARGO CARRIER ENTERING THE MINBAR SYSTEM "All right, Dragoons, listen up!” the colonel yelled loud enough to get the attention of the near thirteen hundred marines milling about the massive cargo bay. "I hear the fleet has had their part of the fun now, and apparently things haven't changed much since it falls to us to go in and mop up after them. However, it does still seem Halsey and the other brass knows who's the best because we won't be joining the other ground pounders down planetside but rather go toe to toe rooting out the Minbari and Streib in their own ships." He paused for a second and couldn't keep from smiling as the marines cheered at the news, they all knew it was by far the most dangerous kind of mission but they also knew they'd been selected because they were the best trained at that kind of action and they and the Fighting Eagles were the only two regiments equipped solely for that kind of combat while lacking the heavy support most of the other regiments had. "We'll be going in on boarding pods, one platoon per pod and two or three per ship. That means we and the Eagles will cover a total of thirty ships in the first wave. The Thor will stand by as backup, but let's not fail so badly we need to call in the Lightning, shall we?" More cheering came from the marines around him, and the displaced South American smiled to himself. His men were as ready as they ever would be, officers, noncoms and grunts alike. All of them were dressed in the black and dark grey armor of the Black Dragoons, sporting the regiment’s insignia on their left shoulder and the urban warfare patch on the right, and as soon as they’d donned their helmets they'd be ready to fight in almost any kind of environment short of walking on a star. "Form up by your platoon lieutenants and enter the pod with your platoon's number painted on it", David pointed to a hastily painted number one on the pod next to him, the one he'd go on himself. "Remember your training and keep to your comrades, and you will get home to your sweethearts, and your wives, again." Laughter spread through the ranks of marines as the colonel made a slight smile and shook his head, donning the black-painted helmet and speaking to them through the powerful PA system. "All right men!” he yelled. "Let's not keep the Minbari waiting!" A slight tremor spread through the ship as the large cargo ship exited warp inside the system, bringing them into a high geostationary orbit of the planet Minbar. As if on cue the marines all made their way into the breaching pods by the numbers, officers entering first and sergeants entering last as the cargo bay was quickly emptied into the twenty pods lining the large room. Colonel Perez was the last to get into his own pod, a heavy platoon of assault marines aimed for the enemy flagship which was surprisingly intact enough to still have life support in a large number of areas. As the black-armored colonel strapped in his eyes glanced at the other sixty and change people around him, all of them carrying grim but still excited faces. David wasn't too surprised, most of the grunts had never seen real combat before except a few boarding actions on Raider motherships and the far more veteran noncoms and officers knew better than to burst their bubble of confidence. Some of them would never sleep in a bed again, but that was a risk that came with the job and it was still a job they'd all voluntarily signed up for knowing that fact. As the Terra Cimmeria and her sister ships stabilized their orbits she and the Tharsis Montes lined up their ventral cargo ports toward the now silent battlefield. After slowly decompressing the massive cargo bays, they opened the large doors and let the large runabout-sized marine assault ships exit. The forty smallcraft quickly made their way toward the large Minbari and Streib vessels which were hanging silently almost twenty five thousand kilometers below them, covering the distance in just a few minutes as none of the ships could hinder them. A single shot was fired at them, an unlucky crew of a Streib cruiser managed to get one of its weapons arrays operational and take a pot shot that still missed badly, but the offending ship was immediately taken out by massed fire from a dozen or so starships. The already crippled cruiser was just torn apart by impacting particle fire. The marines of the Black Dragoons and Fighting Eagles were none the wiser however, there were no windows in the smallcraft and they were all flown by remote control from their motherships. When the smallcraft had almost reached their target height they were joined by wings of Lancet starfighters which entered an escort pattern, there were little risk of any further incidents happening but they didn't want to take any unnecessary risks either. The first breaching craft headed for the closest Sentinels, entering through holes in the hull where possible and in others through latching on to the organic armor and starting to drill through it using high energy plasma cutting beams. Pods one through three kept on course as pod after pod diverged from the main course and headed toward the ships along the scattered line of wrecked starships, the three containing the colonel himself and two of the other heavy marine platoons not content with anything less than the flagship itself which loomed darkly at the center of the line. As their pods slowed down to make their entry a number of other pods continued onward toward the rest of the line beyond, all aiming for the ship they'd been assigned to secure. Colonel Perez' pod made it in through the wide rift in the Va'Denn's armor that the Odin had torn up, making a soft seal against one of the doors lining a blown-out floor and barely even touching ground before the rear hatch started to slide open. The marines inside were already suited up for zero-g combat and had their entire suits of armor on, so the hard vacuum outside didn't even phase them as they rose and got to work breaching the door. The doors had literally been fused together, so one of the combat engineers brought up his beam rifle and slowly started to cut the door from its frame. Golden patches of melted crystal dripped from the door as he went, looking much like melted glass as thin strands of it stuck to the wall and floor. Before long the engineer stopped and gave the other marines a wry smile behind his combat visor before giving the still standing doors a resounding kick with his armored boot and the doors fell into the corridor inside, still fused together along the centerline. The lead marines, a sergeant in heavy assault gear and his squad, made their way forward scanning their surroundings for compartments which could still have operational life support. It wasn't made any easier by the vastly improved shielding, but at least the equally improved ECM they'd heard about was now offline along with the ship's main power and propulsion systems. The sadness of the entire situation was soon made clear to the marines as the platoon advanced; Minbari bodies both male and female were lying lifeless on the floor, some even drifting away where the artificial gravity was no longer working. Many of the corpses were badly mutilated from being hit by razor-sharp shrapnel as the walls around them had shattered from incoming fire, while others had bloated as they'd been exposed to hard vacuum. The Starfleet marines clenched their jaws as they made their way through the corridor, not minding the quiet but still felt rather uneasy by walking through the veritable slaughterhouse. They made their way to a door ahead, the lead sergeant raising a hand to tell the others to stop and then quickly signaling the engineer that he read an atmosphere ahead. The engineer went back to the previous intersection and closely examined the structure of the corridor from there to the door, and being satisfied with the results of his examination detached a small forcefield generator from his combat belt and attached it to the wall. A few seconds later the corridor was blocked by the golden light of the thin energy field, and the engineer tapped it twice with the butt of his weapon to check that it held before giving the front sergeant the thumbs up to open the door. As he did so they all felt a short rush of air escaping before the forcefield stopped any further decompression, and the lead squadron carefully stepped in to secure the next section. This far in the care taken was barely necessary as their scanners were more than capable of sensing any life signs within line of sight or some twenty or so meters through the walls, but they still took no chances as they couldn't be sure there weren't some areas which were better shielded than others. Colonel Perez moved as one with the rest of the marines, the entire platoon moving squad by squad one always being covered by two more. They'd made it almost a hundred meters into the core of the ship before the marine sergeant in the front again told them to halt, and using the same kind of hand signals he told them all that he had a single Minbari on the scanner moving toward them and silently called for corporal Jenkins, the platoon's sniper, to get ready. The young Martian marine simply gave thumbs up, slung his phaser rifle over his back and grabbed hold of the stock of his specialist weapon. The long-barreled weapon he produced looked nothing like any of the other weapons the platoon were equipped with but it had proven its worth in situations such as these. With a movement of his jaw he moved the targeting reticle for the rifle into position over his right eye and crouched down, placing the stock of the rifle against his shoulder as he aimed at the wall where the sergeant had pointed. A few turns of the dial on the sights later he could see a Minbari warrior lean against the wall, he almost discounted him as a target as he was grabbing his right arm with his left but then Jenkins could see the neutron rifle he held in the other arm. Hurt, definitely, but not incapacitated and still an armed enemy which made him a legal target. The corporal took a deep breath as he aimed and slowly squeezed the trigger, the suppressed rifle barely making a sound as the bullet left the barrel and was transported only inches from the Minbari warrior's chest. A muffled thump was all the rest heard as the Minbari warrior fell to the ground and the lead bullet was mangled against the bulkhead behind him. Jenkins slowly scanned the rest of the corridor ahead, but couldn't get far before the shielded bulkheads produced too much interference for him to see further. All done he made a nod and another hand signal to the sergeant and once again switched weapons, this time to the far more versatile phaser rifle. Another movement of his jaw removed the targeting reticle from his vision and he once again joined the rank as they kept moving. The colonel was the only person present except the platoon's lieutenant who was monitoring the two other platoons which were on the ship. One had ran into a small pocket of resistance, a dozen or so warriors who had barricaded themselves behind a fallen support column had prompted the marines to throw in a photon grenade to clean the strongpoint. The other had so far yet to reach a pressurized section of the ship but was on course for the strategic center of the ship where they expected to find the Alyt, if he was still alive. They'd still ran into some resistance, from Minbari attacking dressed in pressure suits and armed with beam guns and close combat weapons which were close to useless against the marines' thick power armor. Continuing forward the lead sergeant suddenly cursed over the intercom and hit the deck with a loud clang, plasma bolts soon traversing the empty air where just a second before his torso had been. Not everyone were as quick to get down and one of the marines was hit square on his chest, the armor holding but the plasma still burnt the paint off of the silvery material below. The Starfleet marines didn't allow the Minbari more than that little measure of surprise however as they all went straight for what cover existed while squads behind them filled the corridor with plasma pulse fire from their assault rifles. "What's up front, Sergeant?", the lieutenant asked as he went into cover next to the senior noncom. "I saw three, lieutenant, scanner didn't pick them up", the sergeant replied. "Their engineering bay is right through that door, damn thing can't make them out through the energy signature from their reactor." "I thought their main power was offline?" "It is, but it's an effing miniature black hole", the sergeant pointed out. "You just don't turn that off and on with the flick of a button, sir." "Good point", the lieutenant nodded. "Grenades?" "That close to the reactor?", the sergeant asked. "Not the best idea in the world, sir." "Well, give me a better one then." "All right", he nodded and unclipped something from his belt before attaching it to his armor. "Let's see if this works as well as those newbies say they do." "What are you...", the lieutenant breathed as the sergeant jumped up out of cover and started running toward the enemy position while spraying the corridor with phaser fire. "Are you completely nuts, sarge?!" The sergeant just kept running, most of the Minbari fire stopping as he suppressed them with fully automatic phaser bolt fire but some still making it through. Still, those of the energy beams and bolts which actually hit impacted an invisible field around him with only a fraction of their energy actually making it through to the armor. He didn't suffer any such problems however but used his suit's internal servos to make an impressive jump over the enemy fortifications and simply mow them down. As he pointed his rifle toward the last of the warriors he was hit again, the shield finally giving out and flashing out of existence, but it had done its job and all the warriors were dead. "Damn it sarge, do something like that again and I'll effing shoot you myself!", the lieutenant barked from behind him. "Well, it worked, didn't it?” the sergeant smiled under his visor, catching his breath from running wearing a half a ton suit of armor. "Just barely, by the look of it", the officer pointed out. "One more shot and..." "Easy, Lieutenant", Colonel Perez approached and laid a hand on the junior officer's shoulder. "The sergeant knows." "Sir, yes sir", the lieutenant barked in return. "At ease", David chuckled and pointed to the door with his thumb. "Main engineering is through here?" "Yes, Colonel", the sergeant nodded. "All right", he nodded. "I take it there's no way to know what we'll face inside. Line up for breach." "Sir, yes sir", the sergeant nodded and rapidly began barking orders to the platoon's four squads. Seconds later carefully placed strips of plastic explosives tore the door from its frame and threw it violently into the bay beyond. There weren't that many Minbari inside and most of them weren't even armed, not too surprising considering Warrior Caste made poor engineers but left that in the more capable hands of the Worker Caste. The few warriors that were armed were quickly dispatched by the marines as they stormed inside while the workers simply stood there waiting for the death they thought would immediately follow. Most actually looked shocked as the marines started to produce sensor tags from their combat belts and told them in their own language that they were now prisoners, the tags' signals strong enough for the long-range transporters of the Terra Cimmeria to penetrate the shielding and beam the surprised Minbari into already set up holding cells guarded by a detachment of personnel from Starfleet Security as well as a number of agents from Starfleet Intelligence. The colonel cursed silently as he heard a report from third platoon, the lieutenant in charge reporting that they'd reached the strategic center of the ship and that the entire area had been blown open to space after a major overload in a nearby power conduit. They still hadn't found a single pocket of breathable air on that entire level of the massive starship and whatever resistance they'd found had been brief at best, no doubt because it took a lot of nerves fighting in vacuum in the first place and even more so to actually try to make ones' way to a space suit in a ship which was literally falling apart. The report from second platoon wasn't much better either, they'd breached the bridge and managed to capture two of the ship's bridge officers alive, but that was also about all they were. Life support in that entire section of the ship had been knocked offline in the battle and they were both suffering from oxygen deprivation. The rest of the bridge crew had already died before they made it there, and they too reported no sight of the Minbari Alyt. The colonel was still cursing as he made his report to General Sharp over on the Valles Marineris. Their prize target was most likely dead, and while not unexpected it was still bitter to fail a secondary objective like that and even worse to know that he and his marines would suffer from the void in their intelligence the death of the senior commander on scene meant.
71 Chapter 71 HILLS OF TUZANOR MINBAR, MINBARI FEDERATION HOMEWORLD MINBAR SYSTEM The few still surviving Rangers, which had so far succeeded in stalwartly defending the headquarters of their order, looked up as the artillery barrages from the enemy forces suddenly faltered and stopped. None of the people lining the walls had been able to miss the massive lightshow above them, nighttime only made it even more clear that an equally massive battle had taken place in orbit, but they still had no way to know which side had won. The Federation may well be a friendly force to the Rangers, but neither had any way of contacting the other nor had the Rangers heard any news since the Setai Delenn had informed them that Starfleet was sending relief. Still, the respite in the bombardment of their heavily fortified home gave them enough precious time to regroup and move their wounded to more secure locations inside the facility. It also gave them valuable time to try to make something out of where their enemy was positioned and what they were doing. High gain visual equipment didn't really help much, ever since they'd begun fighting back the enemy had pulled back, dug in and called for heavier weapons to be used against them. Thermal imaging equipment could however still make out the front lines of the enemy forces, but were insufficient to tell them much about their numbers. One of the Minbari who were watching through such equipment suddenly cursed in his native tongue and stepped back from the screen, the entire display becoming almost too bright to look at. Surprised and confused he rubbed his eyes and took a risk by looking through one of the shot-out windows nearby and his heart almost stopped as he watched dozens of shooting stars quickly make their way through the atmosphere. He'd seen the lightshow in orbit same as everyone else and by now he hoped their side had won. He really didn’t have much choice in the matter; if the other side had won he didn't even want to guess what all those burning objects were. He sighed as he watched the burning objects suddenly stop burning, one by one and still far up in the sky, and all that remained of the once burning balls of fire were bright red and blue streaks which were still rapidly descending. That ruled out debris, mass drivers or weapons fire, as neither of those had braking thrusters. Without such equipment whatever was falling from orbit would just keep burning until it hit the ground, and even with thrusters debris wouldn't have that kind of lights or descend in what to his untrained eyes looked like a perfect double wedge formation. He shielded his eyes as bright flashes were soon followed by shockwaves which made the floor he was standing on tremble, and seconds later the shockwaves were joined by imposing sound of crackling explosions in the distance. Now he could make out what looked like wide-belly ships, silhouetted against the white and yellow explosions their shapes were brought forward, and he finally allowed himself to relax. He'd seen the enemy land troops and fly recon missions all day long and they didn't use ships that looked even close to that. The young Ranger broke his up until now constantly neutral and emotionless face into a smile; at long last he'd seen a ray of hope, a miracle of the universe. He actually started laughing coldly with a dry voice as he felt the wind long before he heard the noise of fighters actually overflying his position at a very low altitude. He couldn't see them as such, the only proof they existed were the large number of angrily glowing red dots above him, but when a dozen of them passed by he could hear and feel their presence. This wasn't a dream, and perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn't going to die today after all. "Kiowa Leader to Sitting Bull", the young flight captain said on his flight communicator while he scanned the heads-up display for any more traces of dangerous anti-air or artillery fire from the ground and kept his wing of Peregrine fighters in a tight turn above the enemy's main deployment zone about four kilometers east of the city. "Sitting Bull here, reading you five by five, Kiowa Lead", the reply came from the female flight controller. "Primary objective accomplished", he reported with an even voice, watching in the corner of his eye as one of the other Peregrine wings cleared out a handful of hastily scrambled fighters that had probably been patrolling close by. "We've cleared the area of hostile triple-A and designated a safe deployment zone roughly fifteen clicks due northeast of the enemy. We’ll be remaining on station in case of arrival of additional hostile air forces." "Understood, Kiowa Lead", the woman on the other end acknowledged with a noticeably relieved voice. "Sending the green light signal to the Valles Marineris and the Utopia Planitia now, expect Firehawks and Rocs to enter the assigned airspace momentarily." "Roger, the Kiowas will keep clear of the cone", the captain nodded to himself and almost unconsciously punched in a new heading on his controls to avoid the path of the bulky personnel and equipment drop ships. They were large, heavy and once in reentry not exactly agile enough to avoid hitting him if he strayed too close. "Good hunting, Kiowas. Sitting Bull out." It only took a few seconds before he started to see the drop ships on his monitor, unlike the observers on the ground his starfighter was more than capable of distinguishing the incoming ships long before they even reached the atmosphere and also able to read the transponders of the Starfleet Marine Corps drop ships. He'd had ample time to see the redesigned bulk transports their displaced brethren used for moving regiments of troops at a time and he still had dubious feelings about their capabilities. Back home bringing a regiment of ground pounders on a transport vessel like that was a surefire way of getting about one and a half thousand people dead in a hurry, but at the same time he had no doubt they were more than able to do the job in this universe where in-warp interception was less than even a remote risk. That was also the one saving grace for using this design, as while a single D'deridex would have had no problems plowing through the entire transport group long before they'd reached the enemy planet all of the local races were warp-incapable. They'd had to settle for that name for the advanced local races, as they couldn't be viewed as warp-capable as such since there was no proof of any of them even having a decent understanding of warp technology, but they were still very much interstellar empires and thus calling them pre-warp civilizations hardly seemed to do them justice. The flight captain didn't have as much of an issue with the whole thing as the Kiowa's senior officer had gone through, they had spaceships, they were just as likely to be shooting at them as not, and thus they were valid targets if they did and it was just as simple as that. The ride down on a marine landing craft wasn't by any means bumpy or uncomfortable, barring the split second feeling of vertigo as the bulky drop ship had launched from the underslung launch racks of the troop transport Valles Marineris. The atmosphere was still charged in the fairly cramped transport compartment however as many of the marines from officer to grunt alike wondered if they were experiencing the last moment in life before their entire company died shot down by a lucky Minbari anti-air missile. The transports were both armored and shielded, but it wasn't exactly starship grade and they all knew there were Minbari weapons which were capable of going through even that. The breakneck speed of descent was a safety measure against just that; in fact they were going so fast that the air around them actually started to burn as it impacted the shield bubble around the transport. It offered the protection of being hard to target even by heat-seeking missiles, as the hottest area would actually be well above the transport. It also meant that the inertial dampeners and artificial gravity were unable to fully compensate for the turbulence and all of the people inside felt kind of like they were constantly falling, like if one little jump would break the tenuous hold gravity held on them and actually make them weightless. "All personnel prepare to disembark, landfall in fifteen seconds", the mechanized female voice told the inhabitants of Firehawk landing craft 2-01. "Looks like the homeward pilots did their job right for once", General Sharp said with a low enough voice that just about everyone inside the smallcraft could hear him as he started to relax, no anti-air fire had touched the reinforced ventral shields from what he could tell and that made his life so much happier. "Everyone, get ready. Lock and load those big bad toys of yours and prepare to give them hell!" "Hooah!” the rest of the people inside shouted and as one reached up and pulled their visors down over their faces, Sharp just catching the glimpse of brightly filed fangs as the Caitian sergeant major flashed him a smile before lowering his. "Landfall imminent", the mechanized voice spoke up again and paused for a couple of seconds, continuing only after a soft thump was heard through the armored personnel's audio enhancers and the ever so slight falling sensation had stopped. "Releasing restraints, embarkation doors are now opening. Semper fi, marines!" "Go, go, go!” the Caitian suddenly shouted over the comms, already out of his seat and grabbing and shoving the marines out the doors as soon as they got up from their seats. "Secure the landing zone. Make sure there are no snipers outside, for Volksha's sake don't get killed before you kill at least five of them and don't even dare shoot at civilians." General Sharp knew the Caitian was keeping time for the debarkation, and by his count it took less than a minute for the hundred and thirty people of first company, first battalion to get out of the drop ship, form up by squadrons and start securing the area around the landing zone. One minute was what he and the rest of the officers had deemed an acceptable time and all in all the general felt quite proud that his men seemed to all remember and follow their training. In his role as battlefield commander Sharp was only allowed to disembark once the immediate area was deemed secure by the sergeant major, and as he made his way out of the metal doorway and onto the light red sandy hilltop they'd landed on he could see that the other drop ships had also touched down and were spilling their innards of more armored Starfleet marines around them. Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the direction of the Ranger compound not far away, and his heads up display showed that the first of his advance teams had met up with enemy soldiers while other teams were trying to flank the enemy to locate their heavy support. The night was just now breaking into dawn, with the brighter of the twin stars of the Minbar system coming up over the horizon. Day came quickly on Minbar, just as it would on many planets with a tight binary pair. Likewise dusk would last longer than usual as well as the dimmer of the two stars would take a while longer to set than its brighter companion. The sharp bluish-white light of the star in the sky reflected off of the silvery metal of the Firehawk drop ships and caused his visor to polarize, turning dawn into near night once again. "General, the first, second and third companies have all disembarked and the Firehawks are lifting off", Sergeant Major Harrin told his commanding officer as they were both lightly pushed to the side by the drop ships’ thrusters as they immediately lifted back off the planet surface once the last person was offloaded. "The fourth and fifth are on approach and will arrive momentarily." "Good, we'll have to thank the fighter corps; I didn't expect to be able to land the Rocs immediately. How about the heavy support?” the general asked. "They will be a while still, but I'm told Halsey will be ready send them down at your convenience as soon as we find a decent place to put them", the Caitian replied evenly as he looked towards a new set of flares tearing down through the upper atmosphere. "Remember, we don't have drop ships big enough to take them, and as the bastards can't be transported it also means once they're down it'll take a damn long time to relocate them..." "...and we have an entire planet to secure with just over ten thousand men to do it, I know, Harrin", Sharp nodded and the two walked over to a command post being quickly put up in the center of the landing zone where a picture taken from orbit of the rolling hills of Minbar was shown and was already flanked by the other two senior officers on scene. "Colonels." "General", the second Caitian on the ground nodded his greetings, the dark brown furred Colonel Carrith being in charge of the other mechanized marine regiment that had landed. "Sir", Jake Bryan, the other colonel present gave him a nod. He was Sharp’s second in command of the Wildcats. Colonel Bryan was young for being a colonel, Martian by birth and he'd reached his position mostly by what rank he'd carried in the Mars Defense Force prior to their merger with the Starfleet Marine Corps. He was a capable leader, but he was inexperienced in actual battle and even if he knew the theories behind them he was still learning the practical side to Starfleet battle strategy. He was however doing so more than quickly enough to ensure that Sharp didn't give up and assign him a desk job. He'd actually been instrumental in designing the battle plan for Minbar, seeing as how this planet very much resembled how Mars had looked prior to the Federation intervening a little more than a decade ago. The reddish volcanic soil, crystalline outcroppings and even the larger than usual polar ice caps were all reminiscent of the red planet in their own home system, though more so of Starfleet’s original Mars considering theirs was still a red desert and not the lush temperate world with a very pleasant subtropical climate they’d turned this one into. Minbar wasn't by any measure the most hospitable planet Sharp had ever seen. He'd fought Dominion troops on far worse ground than this and in most of those battles the Starfleet forces had been at a serious disadvantage. He'd also fought Nausicaans and Orions in situations where those forces had used exactly this type of terrain in order to do exactly what he would be trying to do now. Just like in those cases the hills gave him the advantage, as his forces numerical inferiority meant he had to find ground where the enemy couldn't surround him in order to minimize their own causalities and maximize their shock effect. Given his forces technological and equipment advantages over their enemy he also wanted them packed close together and defensive. He had his doubts about the quality of the renegade forces, but quantity had a quality all of its own and his own forces were very far away from the regular three to two force ratio that every military strategist had pushed for an attacker to have ever since the days of Cyrus the Great. As such, he'd opted to drop most of the Starfleet forces assigned to this battle in the hills overlooking the Minbari religious center of Tuzanor, home of the Starfire Temple and the Anla'shok academy. The religious caste had never been considered to be militarily apt or well equipped to fight a war, and the city itself reflected that in its complete lack of fortifications as well as lack of defenses. As far as they knew the entire city except for the Ranger headquarters had already fallen to the renegade Minbari and their Streib allies, but intelligence also told him that the Streib had withdrawn to the warrior caste fortress city of Zohal after the city had been occupied. "We know that the majority of the renegade Minbari forces are split between the cities of Tuzanor, Zohal and Yedor, which is also where the friendly forces loyal to the Minbari government are concentrated, though no doubt biding their time waiting for an opening", Carrith pointed at the two cities on the image with a very sharp claw. "We are here, fourteen clicks north by northeast of Tuzanor, and we know that most of the enemy force at this city is located between us and the city proper with only a handful of men detailed to patrolling the streets of the city itself." "Right", Sharp nodded and looked around, making a pleased smile as he noticed most of his company commanders joining them for the repeat briefing. "As our two regiments make a joint attack on the enemy from the northeast most of the Grey Lancers regiment will be dropped directly into the city, closing the enemy's main path of retreat and forcing them to turn south instead." "Aye, Hellas is standing by in low orbit and is just waiting for your word to drop the Lancers", the Caitian confirmed. "I know I'm repeating myself, but let me once again stress that I do not want this to become an urban battle. In Yedor we'll likely have no choice and I don't even want to think about Zohal right now, but here the resistance in the city proper should only be light if we can close it off quickly enough. Do we have any more intelligence on heavy support on the enemy side?" "Light tanks, possibly a few batteries of short range artillery according to the Kiowa fighter group", one of the lieutenants in charge of battlefield intelligence answered. "Most of their long range and anti-air artillery and missile capabilities were knocked out in the first bomber strike, which is likely why we're all still alive and not receiving anything more than harassing attacks by light scout forces." "I wouldn't be surprised if we soon see aerospace fighters from the military bases in the central region come up here, possibly even attempts at transport drops of heavier support equipment", the Caitian finished. "We can't rely on being able to sustain air superiority, our Lancets and Peregrines are capable fighters, but neither was designed for atmospheric combat. The Minbari don't suffer that drawback as the Nial is almost as capable in air as they are in space." "Duly noted, but I've been assured by the Angel of Death himself that we won't face that problem ", Sharp gave his officers a grim smile and looked upwards as a shadow fell on the makeshift command post. "Well, if that's not a Roc I'm a private in the army, so let's not completely waste our moment of surprise. It looks like we'll be ready to go in just a few minutes." Up above them a number landing craft far larger than their own Firehawk drop ships, each and every one of them outweighing a Defiant gunship by more than four times the mass, extended their thick landing struts and fired braking thrusters as they approached the ground below. Almost as soon as they touched down, visibly before the shock absorbers of the struts had even fully stabilized the drop ships, the massive ramps in the front of the Roc-class transports started to lower towards the reddish soil. The Roc was an adaptation of a single-deck transport ship, the same class of ship as the holoship splinter elements of Starfleet had once used to try and fool the native people of a planet in the Briar Patch. Starfleet Engineering had effectively torn out the insides of the ship and made it into an oversized cargo bay with engines as there wasn't really room enough for anything else on board once fully loaded with all their new both bulky and heavy toys. The Starfleet marines had gone up against Minbari ground forces once before and they'd learned their lesson well. Everyone in the Admiralty knew that using just plain old marines weren't going to be even close to enough to cut it when faced with extreme odds. Previously they'd evened it out by the use of what effectively counted as orbital bombardment as well as their planetfall support mechs, the Herald-class walkers, but for a mobile campaign like this was going to end up being the Heralds simply weren't going to be enough either. That said, each and every single one of the three Valkyria in orbit all carried a half dozen of the heavy assault mechs and they were all on stand-by to launch at a moment’s notice. The first thing to exit the now fully lowered ramps was an almost metallic colored black vehicle hovering about a foot above the ground, no more than eight or nine meters long and having a smooth if bulky shape that almost looked like an overgrown photon torpedo. The thing looked exactly like what it was, the stubby turret with its dual phaser cannons instantly giving it away as an Achilles-class hovertank. It was soon followed by more hovertanks mixed with long-barreled Theseus-class artillery vehicles, Troy-class armored personnel carriers and Argo-class light reconnaissance transports. None of them, not even the Achilles or its half brother the Heracles missile tank could match a Herald for armament or armor. However, unlike a Herald an Achilles could still do in excess of ninety kilometers per hour over very rough terrain while still accurately firing its dual phaser cannons. It could also be driven off cliffs and slowly glide down without taking any damage. The only drawback was its inability to scale a wall, levitation didn’t mean flight, but there were usually few such obstacles on a battlefield which couldn’t simply be blown apart instead. The general and his closest staff immediately entered one of the Troys as it pulled up to the command post, just giving a nod to the lighter armored driver of the vehicle as they sat down around an electronic table in the back. The command vehicle had limited armaments, but it held an impressive array of specialized sensors as well as a decent enough computer on board to coordinate an entire war. While most of the officers, including Sharp himself, would likely rather spend the day in the dirt with the men, they all knew this was where they were supposed to be. Sharp watched in silence as the mechanized forces started to group up, letting his subordinates handle the details and just looking at the display. He watched his scout squads getting into Argos and speeding away in every direction to gather information while the main force, spearheaded by a dozen of the heavy hovertanks, started moving towards the enemy lines in the distance. The only forces remaining at the quickly emptying landing zone were the Theseus' and a few defensive forces, as the artillery tanks were already well within firing range of the enemy they were setting up to unload the first of their small antimatter-tipped shells as soon as the order came. Fourteen kilometers wasn't far by any measurements and Sharp was almost surprised that the enemy hadn't struck back at them yet considering just how close to the enemy his forces had landed. Looking at the computer-generated image however he witnessed how dozens of fast moving objects were constantly shifting over the enemy line causing all sorts of mayhem to lock them down. The Kiowa fighter group wasn't able to make that much real damage to the entrenched ground forces, the Minbari were too good for that, but they were more than able to prevent them from moving out from their fortifications. It couldn't, and didn't, last too long though. He could see as much as hear how hundreds of Minbari Nials came in at hypersonic speeds above them, speeds which would bring them into firing range of the Starfleet Peregrine fighters very quickly. He knew that the Peregrines had orders to withdraw from the battlefield at the first sight of enemy air forces, and while doing so attempt to pull the enemy with them, but even he had to give them credit for how they pulled it off. The Kiowas with their dark-red painted Peregrines didn't run away as much as charge through the enemy, photon missiles being just as effective in an atmosphere as they were in space caused a full dozen of the Minbari fighters to disappear off Sharp's monitor almost as soon as he'd noticed them. Not long after the first missiles landed the Starfleet fighters started to take pot shots at their enemy equivalents while setting a new course toward the mountainous ridge in the southwest where the Minbari Nials had originated. He didn't even bother to look, he knew the Alba was already watching, waiting, for the Nials to call for reinforcements and reveal the location of their hidden bases to the watchful eyes in orbit. As soon as they did, planetfall capsules would be launched carrying the entire Golden Hammers regiment, one of the two heavy armor regiments Sharp had deployed to Minbar. Their Heracles missile tanks were more than capable of taking out massive numbers of enemy aircraft, and if that wasn't enough the regiment's assault marines could sweep through an airbase in minutes leaving little but debris as proof it had ever even been there. If that wasn't enough to deal with the enemy air threat, there were more than a thousand fighters in orbit able to pick up the slack as soon as their repairs were done. "I estimate one minute until our front lines make contact with the enemy", one of the officers next to the general pointed out to him. "Well, well", Sharp nodded and pressed a button on the table. "Knight Six to Wizard Six, make the ground shake." "Wizard Six, understood, Knight", the captain in charge of the artillery company responded. "Abracadabra, sir." "Wiseass", Sharp chuckled. They may only have been given a few moments between the Kiowas being pushed back and General Sharp's marines with the Shining in front pouring out from the hills around them, but what time they had been given the Minbari had spent well. Evacuated fortifications, defensive posts and surviving artillery pieces had been hastily manned again just in time for the first visitation by a Starfleet marine captain codenamed Wizard. Projectiles not much larger than the lower arm of a normal man crossed the fourteen kilometer distance at speeds well over mach three and they had ample time to both impact and explode before anyone on the ground even had the chance to hear the high-pitch whistling sound they made while traveling through the cold Minbar mountain air. Each of the projectiles detonated with the force of fifty or so kilos of TNT, an almost pathetic amount for being antimatter weapons but low enough to be tactically viable without destroying a decent sized neighborhood per shot fired. Most of the artillery barrage was aimed at the rear lines of the Minbari renegade force, both in order to effectively knock out what remained of their artillery and communications and to allow the mechanized marines to strike at the front lines without fear of friendly fire incidents even if they got close in. It didn't take long for that to happen as the Federation hovertanks completely ignored anti-armor obstacles and even jumped off cliffs and over riverbeds, relying completely on their anti-gravity engines to brake the fall for them. In the distance the towers of the religious city could easily be made out, and again more of the falling stars made their descent above them all. The Grey Lancers, the second airborne regiment of the Marine Corps, was making their descent into the city proper. With their primary exit to the west sealed and the attacking force coming in from the northeast, the Starfleet forces effectively forced the renegade Minbari to fight or retreat toward the hills to the south. They'd knowingly let that path remain open as the objective wasn't so much to destroy the enemy as it was to liberate the city, albeit the destruction part was still in some quarters a preferred outcome. After the city was secured the rest of the brigade would move south towards the Minbari capital and try to clean out the combined Minbari and Streib army that had already begun fortifying the primarily Worker and Warrior caste city. Battle was joined as soon as the first of the Achilles' got a clear shot at a Minbari crystal tank, the compressed nadion cannons mounted on the hovertank's turret immediately opening up a devastating volley of starfighter-grade pulse phaser fire on the enemy counterpart. A half dozen Minbari standing around it either dove to cover in time or got cut into small pieces as the tank exploded and showered the area around it with razor-sharp pieces of superheated crystal. Return fire opened up from concealed makeshift bunkers and heavy weapons alike, most of it harmlessly impacting the shields of the Starfleet tanks but some of it bypassing the tank line and impacting the now emerging armored but unshielded personnel carriers. None of them took enough damage to be destroyed, but a few of them were forced to make evasive maneuvers in order to avoid the more powerful blasts of enemy weapons fire. As the distance between the two sides closed, even more of the enemy infantry fire joined the fray and while they were individually not even close to being able to overwhelm the shields of an Achilles their pure weight of fire was actually draining them worryingly fast. The Shining weren't an armored regiment either and as such they only had a limited amount of hovertanks available with most of their forces rather qualifying as mechanized infantry. Being a mechanized regiment did however have its advantages, as the range closed enough and the Achilles' had completed their primary objective of neutralizing or tying up the limited enemy armor the armored personnel carriers went into action with wide-beam phasers backed up by photon grenade mortars. As they reached their maximum standoff range most of them slowed to a safe debarkation speed and let the squads inside jump out. Using the bulk of the transports as cover they moved toward the enemy while now firing their own weapons back at the enemy. Sharp's command vehicle didn't enter firing range however, it held back on the other side of one of the sharp hills to keep the battlefield commander out of harm's way. He had all the information he needed available to him from just glancing at the tactical battlefield display anyway, and while losing a grunt was still a tragedy losing your one and only experienced general could easily lose you the war. He knew that fact full well, but it still felt wrong to sit back at a safe distance and lead by words rather than example. But then he hadn't been a flag officer as long as he'd been a platoon commander yet either. In all actuality he really hadn't had that much to do much yet either, the two regimental commanders, Colonel Carrith of the Shining and his own second, Colonel Bryan of the Wildcats, were doing a good job as it was. That meant his time was allowed to be focused more on keeping tabs on and if need be coordinating the planetary situation. He watched as entire wings of Lancets were now entering the atmosphere a few hundred kilometers to the south, no doubt heading towards the main airbases the Minbari Nial had emerged from. As they made their entries into the Minbar atmosphere they all kept clear of the exit cone of the Alba Patera, the troop transport carrying the Golden Hammers armored regiment, which was now launching their planetfall capsules. Each of them contained an Achilles or a Heracles hovertank with its crew. The combination of an entire armored regiment with its three hundred and change hovertanks and hundreds of Starfleet starfighters should be verging on the limits of overkill for the job they were supposed to do, but Sharp and Halsey had felt way more comfortable in taking no chances that the job got done as quickly and as painlessly for their own side as possible. On his own front he could see how the Starfleet marines were now advancing into knife-fight range, which in their own terms meant close enough to use regular optical targeting to hit the enemy. Engineering squads were bustling around the front doing everything from setting up sentry guns and mortars to erecting forcefields for his soldiers to take cover behind while traversing the sometimes far too even terrain. The Minbari line was already crumbling under the pressure, the two regiments of regular Starfleet mechanized forces was far more capable fighters than the unprepared warriors and untrained workers and religious caste Minbari the renegades had been fighting thus far and they hadn't been even close to prepared to beat back a coordinated attack of this magnitude. The two combined regiments had the equivalent of an entire battalion of artillery between them, four batteries each counting sixteen of the thus far impressive Theseus mobile howitzers, and all sixty-four were delivering as promised effectively carpet-bombing the rear of the Minbari position. At the same time the light Argos were harassing the enemy flanks using its top-mounted rapid-fire phaser to great effect. As the renegades were trying to get their ranks dressed to face the threat the chaos was just compounded as the heavy Achilles tanks ran straight through the enemy line firing on targets of opportunity as they went. The general counted himself lucky that he was only able to see the battle take place electronically as he had little doubts about the level of carnage he'd unleashed upon the Minbari. Their army had been in excess of twenty-five thousand strong, the size of an average corps. While not a whole lot compared to any reasonable nation's army including that of Minbar itself, which typically counted in the high six to low seven digit numbers, he was still going at them with a force of only about four thousand total, not even a sixth of the enemy number. Of those four thousand, a third wasn’t even at the battlefield. He glanced at his deployment screen, both the second and third regiments, the ones he was in personal command of, were fully engaged. The fifth was encountering surprisingly strong resistance in the city a few clicks ahead of them while the eight was busy tearing down the main Minbari airbase protecting the capital and both the sixth and seventh were still committed to the mop-up in space. That only left him two regiments in case he needed backup; the first armored and the fourth airborne. Sure, the three Valkyria also carried marines in battalion sized numbers, but those were lighter units lacking any form of heavy support and thus ill equipped for ground warfare on this level. "We've broken through the enemy lines in the center", Colonel Bryan told the general. "Second company requests permission to enter the breach." "Denied tell them to pull back", Sharp dismissed the entire idea and tapped the display with enough force to cause distortion in the plasma screen. "Look at them, Jake, look at their lines. They're not moving troops to reinforce or close the breach but rather reinforcing the sections close to it. It's not a breach; it's an invitation to get enveloped in crossfire." "Damn, I completely missed that", the colonel admitted. "Don't worry too much about it, this time no one got hurt", Sharp shook his head and entered a message into the control network. "Good move on their part though, or it would have been if we hadn't seen through it. Can you tell me why it's not?" "Because they just pulled their loose formation together along the edges of the breach", the colonel nodded. "Artillery?" "Already ordered", Sharp confirmed with a sharp nod and a dry tone. "Twenty shots per side, tell our men that after that, we'll happily accept the invitation." "Understood, sir", the colonel acknowledged and went to his business again. It only took fifteen seconds for the sound and shockwaves of the explosions to bounce their way up the hillside and rock the tracked vehicle. Sharp completely ignored the trembling of the floor and instead watched the sensor readings of the two reinforced defensive lines intensively, and as soon as the distortions of the explosions faded he nodded to his second in command. Almost immediately after he'd done so an intense barrage of phaser fire struck the enemy defenses forcing them to duck and cover while the first of the Starfleet marines quickly made their way through the no man's land between the two small armies and into the open breach. Engineers set up even more deadly traps and defensive screens to cover the people now heading into the shallow trenches the Minbari mainly used as cover. Sharp could only imagine what the Minbari were thinking right now, they preferred to go into melee using short-blade swords and fighting pikes, while his men used plasma flamethrowers, phaser assault rifles and in the occasional case Klingon bat'leths. They also wore powered armor that made them strong enough to cut a person in half with a single swing while beating on them with a fighting pike felt much like hitting a concrete wall and had much the same effect. No doubt his people would be called dishonorable warriors throughout the Minbari Federation after this war. General Sharp really didn’t care. Humanity had learned long ago that it was most often better to be dishonored and alive than honored and dead, especially when there weren't a lot of warriors to go around as it was in their case. Each step taken by his marines took them further into the trenches and fortifications. The breaching force was overwhelmingly effective and the volume of fire the Minbari renegade force was able to put toward the still advancing marines was severely reduced. This allowed even more of the silvery armored Shining and black and yellow armored Wildcats to advance into the breach. Although the intensity had been severely reduced, artillery fire was still showering the rear of the enemy defensive area and both of their flanks were still being harassed, effectively pushing the entire enemy army into the attacking marine force and creating no end of confusion among the enemy rank and file. It was a double-edged sword in that it concentrated the enemy's defenses to that single point, which of course made their own advance that much easier but also increased the capabilities of the enemy defenses. That's where it simply came down to the quality of the men, their training and their equipment. Minbari weren't used to fighting as a combined arms force in the first place, their emphasis was more towards ancient Earth samurai type warfare, and this was made even worse considering only a small part of the renegades were actually veteran warriors. Many of them were simply regular citizens who had been persuaded to join the revolution and take up arms against their government in order to preserve the ultra-conservative way they'd always lived. On the Starfleet side however each and every man involved in the fighting had trained for a minimum of fifteen months before even being considered for this mission, they all had state of the art equipment which were centuries ahead of what the Minbari were using and their leadership had the better part of a millennia's worth of combined arms strategies and tactics to rely on. They also used weapons which had been tempered by some of the bloodiest and ruthlessly effective wars ever in existence, not least the three Earth World Wars. Sharp's main battle plan had been specifically designed to use each and every one of these advantages, while also taking full measure of each of the enemy's weaknesses. One of these weaknesses, the Minbari inability to use combined arms and lack of experience facing it, had been a chance on his side. He'd had contingencies in place in case he'd been wrong, but so far it looked like their air force had completely abandoned their ground forces in order to defend their own home bases. It was a critical mistake on their part and an action that would get any Starfleet ground commander court-martialed for criminal negligence. It had allowed Sharp and his regimental commanders to deal with the air force and the ground force separately, using the best counters at their disposal against each force without risking their own forces in the process. Had they focused both forces at this place the Minbari air assets could have torn his fairly light marine regiments to pieces. They’d have suffered severe casualties from the defending Lancets, but when it all came down to it there was no way Starfleet could win the war with only Lancets and the already very short supply of marines were very hard to replace. As it stood the general was just counting the seconds, he already knew that the only air base complex within effective range of Tuzanor had been effectively disabled by the eight armored. This freed up more than a hundred Lancets, all of them which had been carrying various air to ground munitions of which he hoped some would still be available. He didn't have to wait long either, only four of his twelve infantry companies had made it through the breach when the air almost started to vibrate from the fighters overflying them at supersonic speed. Wing after wing of Lancets, all gleaming in the gold-colored paint the Azrael's starfighters used, descended toward the ground from an almost suborbital altitude, the small fighters unable to reach high enough cruising speeds at low altitudes due to their terrible aerodynamic shape. Stray shots of Minbari light weapons fire tried to reach the Federation starfighters, but even if they'd hit their targets no hand-held weapon save perhaps a micro-missile launcher would even dent the shields of a Lancet. They lacked the speed and maneuverability advantage they had in space and the attenuation effect of firing inside an atmosphere may well have reduced their phaser effectiveness and range, but their shields and armor were still just as hard to crack. Sharp and his people immediately went to work marking targets they wanted hit on the tactical display, each target marked equally quickly becoming a valid target for the starfighters which were now entering a wide holding pattern above the battlefield. Ordnance depots the artillery had been unable to punch through were targeted with armor piercing missiles loaded with kiloton level warheads, enemy strong points were leveled equally quickly and troops running in the sharp and narrow gullies intersecting the battlefield were strafed by phaser fire strong enough to pierce starship armor. The full envelopment strategy Sharp and his planners had come up with had come to its apex. The Minbari were facing strong attacks on all five of their sides, in the front by the attacking mechanized forces, in the rear by artillery and by extension also the airborne regiment which was securing the city behind them, on the flanks by the light scouts and hovertanks and now finally from above with the arrival of a rough third of the entire Dark Angels air group. The results were simply devastating. His own forces had taken casualties, it was an inevitable fact that every time you sent people into real combat some of them would die, more would get injured and some unlucky few would even have accidents that did as much damage as getting shot would. Of his four thousand men and women about six hundred had so far been evacuated by transporter, and although he had no numbers yet of the amount of people killed, he also had no illusions. At least a third of the casualties would be fatal, perhaps more given how intense the Minbari fire had been. Still, their impact on the Minbari had been far, far greater than that. Of the twenty-five thousand life signs in the Minbari camp they'd started with, less than five thousand still remained. Not even close to all of them had been killed, there'd been widespread panic among their ranks ever since the first artillery shell had landed and countless people had dropped their weapons and made their way away from what had instantly turned into a shooting gallery of Starfleet’s making. His men had clear orders not to shoot at them unless they were armed and showed hostile intent, he had no wish of killing people just because they'd been fooled into joining a rebellion, and in his heart he hoped all of these, well, almost innocent, people had made it out alive. He consciously knew that wasn't the case, his people had no way of telling them apart from the real renegades as long as they carried weapons and neither artillery, smart bombs or missiles could tell one man from another if they were both in the blast radius, but most would have likely escaped mostly unscathed. "The enemy formation is crumbling", Colonel Carrith, the Caitian colonel in charge of the Shining regiment, somewhat unnecessarily told the rest of the officers. "Do we continue to push them or should we give them a way out?" "The plan was to allow them to escape towards the south", Colonel Bryan raised an eyebrow. "Only a few Argos are in that area for just that reason." "Ah, but that way is no longer accessible", the feline officer pointed out by tapping on the display with a sharp claw. "One of the fortified towers the Lancets brought down is now blocking the dry riverbed they were supposed to go through." "They won't go north", Sharp motioned towards the map of the general area behind him. "The northern wastelands aren’t really inviting and there's really nothing for them to reach there either. We can't let them go east, since that brings them further into the mountains and it'll take decades to root them all out of the caves." "And in the west, we block them at Tuzanor", Bryan finished with a sigh. "So, we have to kill every last one of them?" "Perhaps not", the general shook his head. "We'll let them go west, by the time they reach Tuzanor it'll be as a broken force not capable of doing much damage. We have more than enough people there to protect the city as well as for the moment complete air and space superiority." "And?" "I don't think they'll be in a state to fight once they get there", Sharp shrugged. "Those that aren't directly complicit in the uprising will likely lay down their arms, and those that won't we'll just have to deal with. Either we beam them to a secure location or we fight them, I really don't care as long as it's that kind of people, but more than likely that'll at least sort out the followers from the leaders." "Right. Agreed", Carrith nodded and ordered the artillery to cease fire. "Just in case I would still recommend that we bring down the fourth just in case." "I don't see the need, and we may still need them as a rapid response somewhere else", Sharp shook his head in response. "We can easily reinforce Tuzanor from here, seeing as how the Minbari is limited to their legs while we can move people both by transporter, personnel carriers and by Firehawk... I don't think I'm overestimating their chances." "Very well", Carrith and Bryan nodded their agreement and the latter of the colonels continued. "The Minbari are starting to retreat, the scouts report that it's mostly a disorganized rout but there are elements which are still keeping in rank." "Those are the ones we want to keep an eye on", Sharp nodded. "Slow the advance on the front to a crawl, let's show them we won't chase them down if they run, and then call down the Firehawks. We'll need a field hospital set up to take care of the wounded we can’t transport. We might as well take down the Rocs and load up our heavy vehicles for transport as well seeing as how it's a long trek to Yedor by land, and I'd rather like to avoid running into Zohal if I can." "We'll have to deal with Zohal sooner or later, you know that", Bryan gently reminded the general. "It's likely the most heavily fortified city in this part of the galaxy", Sharp sighed. "It's got more firepower than a small fleet of ships and every building is built from the same materials they build war cruisers from." "Which isn't surprising considering it's the heart of the Minbari warrior caste", Carrith nodded. "It's also held by a Streib army that puts the one we just crushed to shame." "Of course it is, had it been the kind of mishmash rabble like this army was the warrior caste loyalists would have already thrown them out into the wasteland", Sharp cursed. "We have a plan on how to deal with them, but first we have to cut the Streib and rebels off from outside support as well as gather our forces. That means taking Yedor and the other major settlements first, and also getting some of our so-called friends to come and help us." "That would make it significantly less hard", the Caitian nodded again. "It still won't be easy, but it won't be as hard." "Don't remind me", Sharp sighed and mentally steeled himself. "Very well, move us forward. I need to look at the mess we made in person."
"Was"? I know I promised to update this last week, but I found I had to go back and update myself before I could keep writing it. I thought chapter 66-67 would be a good place to start since I included a good recap of the story there. Now, there's no earth-shattering differences between these chapters and the previous. It's mostly some streamlining and flow fixes, with a little more dialogue in places.
is*, but you know how it is when stories aren't updated for a while regardless of what the author says. Anyway, thanks for the update
I prepared myself for a necro and found myself staring at one of the largest update ever Will now be spending the next half hour or more reading.
Yah, and someday I need to go back and reformat the other 65 chapter to the same format as well... These six were 56k words or so.... the other 65 are half a million words and change. *sigh* Well, semi-update. The real update (chapter 72) will most likely be up later today or possibly early tomorrow - depends on if I cut it at 7.5 or 10k and how fast I can write. I'm still a little bit rusty since I've lately mostly been writing Swedish Extremely doubtful on the half an hour tho, if so you're a very fast reader.
Um, I'm happy -positively delighted - this is back and all, but I think the current hard thread-length limit for the forum is at 5k posts, so it would've probably been better to make a new thread?
I didn't do a proper estimation of the length of the update, depending on the text, I usually read at 100000 words/hour. Would it be possible to remind us what happened in the previous chapters? Just a few words.
Wasn't aware of that. Will do. 67 has a recap of <66 in it, while 68 and forward is the Minbari Civil War.
awesome update! Cannot wait for more, this story has so much potential, even considering that what it has already achieved which alone is a marvellous feat! 'A thin veneer' while awesome is not as awesome as this story! I do love the Ashen and Shadow following Minbari idea of 'A thin veneer', perhaps those groups could reacquaint themselves with the main race if they exist in this fic.
