The Mass Effect Age
Chapter 4: Negotiation and Conflict
Asari dreadnought Victory Ascension
En route to Shanxi
In orbit of Macedyn the massive asari dreadnought, the Victory Ascension, sat waiting for the final clearance to leave, and for the last of the ships supplies, along with her escort of two asari cruisers and four asari frigates. Their lines were smooth and clean in contrast to the turian fleet in orbit, which was angular while asari go for a more organic look to their ships.
A lone Asari Matriarch sat looking out at the view through the observation dome on the ceiling, looking out through the bow of the ship and took in the view of the turian fleet in orbit. Most of the ships were the remains of General Oraka's invasion force, many of his ground forces had to be left behind, and the proud general had never been able to set foot on Shanxi, and looking at the state that most of the fleet was in, even after over a week in dock for repairs, the damage inflicted upon the turians had been massive, many of which were barely salvageable.
Matriarch Benezia looked upon the fleet outside as a bad omen of what possibly could happen if her mission failed. The view of the defeated turian fleet, a sight she had not seen in centuries, did not fill her with confidence, though she would not show her fear even to her most trusted of followers. Soon enough the view above her head shifted as the Victory Ascension broke orbit along with its escort and turned towards the star filled darkness of open space and the view outside blue shifted as the ship accelerated to FTL speed, heading for the Mass Relay in the next system. The trip only took minutes, and soon all seven ships were in formation for a simultaneous Mass Relay jump.
"All hands, brace for Mass Relay jump," came the warning from the ship's captain, Matriarch Nalia, an old friend and lover of Benezia, whose memories she had of her still warmed her heart.
The universe around her seemed to stretch as the asari ships were accelerated to incalculable speeds then snapped back to reality in less than a blink of the eye, revealing a new vista of stars for her to study.
However seconds into enjoying the new scenery several dozen blue vortexes, fifty in total, opened up and disgorged a single heavy warship each. Benezia identified them as a human equivalent of a dreadnought along with several dozen fighters from each vortex, a stunning display of firepower that was extremely intimidating to her. Moments later Shiala, one of her most trusted confidants came onto the observation deck as large armoured shutters closed over the dome.
"Matriarch Benezia," Shiala greeted respectfully. "Matriarch Nalia requests your presence in the CIC."
"Then I shall not delay," Benezia responded and had Shiala show her the way. It took several minutes to traverse the distance from the observation deck to the CIC, the oval hallways glowing with reflected light from overhead light fixtures, giving them a serene and peaceful feel to them. They soon entered the CIC, which was in a state of near controlled chaos as every asari officer tried to assess the threat potential from these fifty human dreadnoughts, though both Matriarchs Nalia and Benezia didn't let any of their emotions show on their faces, a result of near a millennium of experience, but they could still see each others fear in their eyes.
"What do you make of this?" Nalia asked Benezia.
"A most interesting display of firepower obviously meant to intimidate us. Have they attempted communication?"
"Yes madam, however I thought it best that you make contact with them personally, you're the diplomat, I'm just a humble ship's captain," she said teasingly.
"Open a channel please," she requested, though coming from a Matriarch of Benezia's standing it might as well have been an order.
"Channel is open," a comm. tech reported, and an image formed over the holo-tank in the centre of the CIC.
"This is Vice Admiral Joe Tennant, commanding officer of the Earth Force 2nd Expeditionary Fleet. Identify yourselves and state your intentions, or you will be ejected from our space with lethal force," said a large dark skinned human male rumbled, confidence seemed to pour from his very pores.
"I am Asari Matriarch Benezia, special envoy of the Citadel, I was sent here to negotiate a peaceful settlement between you and the Turian Hierarchy," she responded bluntly and succinctly.
"Are you acting as their representative or as a neutral party?" the admiral asked.
"The turians have agreed to allow me to act as their representative in this matter and I have been given wide latitude for negotiating an armistice and a possible peace treaty."
The Admiral's eyes tighten slightly at the news, showing to Benezia's eyes that he didn't quite believe her, but his expression changed slightly after a few seconds into a thoughtful one.
"We were also going to send a diplomatic envoy to the turian colony, our diplomat was going to pass through here to the colony, but I'm sure he would like to meet you, however he won't be here for another..." he looked over to a monitor out of the camera's field of view. "48 hours, in the meantime you can consider yourselves guests of the Earth Alliance, but I warn you, any attempt to target any of our ships, the starbase or the colony and we will consider your ships hostile and respond accordingly, do we understand each other?" the admiral demanded.
"Yes, I believe we understand each other perfectly," replied Benezia, not in the least showing to be intimidated by this man or his fleet of ships.
"Good, we will escort you in to a designated parking orbit."
The comm. channel was cut from their end, the view replaced by the tactical display showing the Earth Force warships boxing in the Victory Ascension and her escorts.
"They seem quite serious, don't they?" quipped Matriarch Nalia.
"Yes, but so are we!" said Benezia. "If you don't mind I'll take my leave, I must prepare myself for this human diplomat," she said as she moved serenely out of the Victory Ascension's CIC to her quarters.
Earth Force Starbase Shanxi Prime
Two days later
For two days Benezia had waited for the human diplomat, most of her time was spent on studying the humans, mostly their culture, history and psychology. She had requested access to the human public information network from Admiral Tennant, the Galaxy Net the human version of the Extranet. She found humans to be a fascinating species, though they were a mass of contradictions, even more so than most of the species she was familiar with. She was also interested in the recent wars they had fought. They had managed to save something called the League of Non-Aligned Worlds from a race known as the Dilgar, had driven them back all the way to their homeworld and imprisoned them in their home system, which according to the history books she could find on the net was completely unexpected by the other races in the League. Recently they have been playing galactic peacekeepers and diplomats between the races in the LONAW, and had managed to somewhat maintain the peace between the Narn and the Centauri, though from the history of those two species a real peace between them would most likely take several generations to create.
As the two days passed the crew of the Victory Ascension was getting ever more nervous, and so was Matriarch Nalia, though she never showed it to her crew, but to another matriarch that could read her body language she might as well have been displaying a bright flashing sign across her face and body. Now she was sitting at the negotiating table with a human diplomat, an apparently older male specimen of the specie's, was showing slight hair loss and his hair was dark grey, but his eyes were clear and keen, borne of long experience with many alien races. The two political animals looked at each other for a moment, studying their opponent, neither side showing their intentions.
After a few tense seconds pleasantries were exchanged.
"Matriarch Benezia, I am David Sheridan, I welcome you in the spirit of peace and hope that between the two of us we can put an end to this firestorm before it goes out of control."
"Thank you Mister Sheridan, I am pleased that your government is open to diplomatic talks between our two civilizations."
Sheridan's eyes tightened slightly in confusion at her words. "Your race and the turians are part of the same civilization?"
"The turians have been a Citadel Council race for a millennium. They serve mainly as the muscle you might say of Citadel Space. We the asari however are seen more as the diplomats and the third and final species on the Council are the salarians, our intelligence and information gatherers."
Sheridan nodded his head in understanding then took a short look at his notes. "We both know how this conflict started, the attack upon the human exploration ship EAS Amundsen," the human diplomat stated, a fact that Benezia acknowledged with a simple nod of the head. "The questions we want answered right now is why did the turian patrol attack the Amundsen and why did the Turian Hierarchy escalate this by attacking Shanxi?"
"The answer to the first question relates to one of our highest laws that date back to just after the Rachni Wars. The law states that it is forbidden to open a newly discovered Mass Relay without knowing where it ends. The captain of the turian patrol unit was over zealous in the performance of his duty and the Council is bringing him in for an official hearing. The Hierarchy's decision to escalate this to a full scale military conflict was taken without the sanction of the Citadel Council and at the time they believed that you might pose a threat to Citadel Space, so they decided to launch a pre-emptive strike against you, without consulting the rest of us. They have a tendency to conquer less advanced races and incorporate them into their domain as client races."
Sheridan nodded at that as Benezia confirmed the intelligence the EFNI and the EIA had gathered from the wreckage of the turian fleet and the interrogations of captured turian soldiers.
"The fact remains that the turians attacked unprovoked an Earth Force exploration ship and one of our newest civilian colonies. The first could just be written off as a simple First Contact gone wrong and could possibly be rectified through diplomacy at a later date."
At these calm words Benezia's hope for a peaceful solution raised a couple of notches, but the realist within her told her to wait for the other proverbial shoe to drop.
"However this devastating attack upon one of our largely civilian colonies is nothing else but an act of war with hundreds of dead on both sides," said Sheridan slightly agitatedly, the mask of a career diplomat slipping slightly, only to revert back into is normal poker face a second later. "I don't have the exact numbers, but according to our latest figures our casualties are roughly over six hundred dead and more than two thousand injured. For the turian invasion force it could be as many as two thousand casualties. I am told that quite a few of their transports were shot down before they could land, and that number is just going to get higher when a full accounting of losses is done."
"I would like to extend my own and the Asari Republics condolences for the losses your people suffered, and rest assured the turians are going to pay heavy reparations for what they did to Shanxi," said Benezia.
"I thank you Matriarch," the human diplomat answered gracefully. "We have already made an accounting for the cost of damages that the turian forces inflicted upon the colony and the damage they did to the Earth Force 2nd Fleet. You will find that the price may be high, however no amount of compensation will ever make up for the fact that men and women died for this world, both in its defence and its reclaiming, and the families of those victims will never be able to see those people alive or whole again."
After that the two diplomats got into the specifics of what the price of the reparations the turians and the Citadel Council would have to pay to stop a potential conflict into spiralling into a war that could devastate a large portion of Citadel Space, one which Matriarch Benezia would fight tooth and nail to prevent in these negotiations, and once again, for the first time since she was a young and brash maiden, she wanted to personally envelop that foolish turian captain in a biotic field so strong it would crush him to the size of her fist.
The Rim of Known Space
High orbit of Z'ha'dum
The solar system that was home to the ancient, dark world of Z'ha'dum was a barren, silent place, seemingly devoid of any form of sentient life. Few space faring races ever even attempted to make the journey to Z'ha'dum, even those species who were technologically advanced enough to detect and bypass the powerful, ancient defence systems seeded throughout the sector by the Shadows. Across the galaxy species knew unconsciously that Z'ha'dum was a forbidden place, a haunt of darkness that would consume anyone who dared to land on the planet from which the system took its name.
Abruptly the systems long silence was disturbed as sixty-five thousand kilometres out from the word of Z'ha'dum space abruptly warped and distorted. Two glowing blue funnels of energy burst into existence with silent roars of power. Out of the rents ripped in the fabric of space came a small fleet of ships, the jump points folding closed behind them as if they had never been present at all.
Anyone who saw the fleet of ships would have thought them elegant and beautiful. Dozens of small tri-winged fighters constructed of a light blue polycrystalline material darted with effortless grace around two massive capital ships. Moving in closer formation with the two capital ships were small, sleek armed transports and gunships that looked more like aquatic animals than spaceships. All of them however were dwarfed by the two capital vessels, each was a massive ship over sixteen hundred metres long and over a kilometre tall. To Human eyes, the ships would have resembled angelfish crossed with some gigantic ribbed whale. Each was covered with projections that marked them as warships. Warships that were a combination of elegance and predatory fierceness, a combination that would strike fear and awe into almost anyone they encountered.
Propelled by their gravitic propulsion systems the two Minbari war cruisers glided towards Z'ha'dum with an effortless grace that would fill most species with undisguised envy as every movement of the cruisers and there escorts proclaimed the technological supremacy of the Minbari for all to see. Invisibly, silently the powerful and sophisticated sensors on the two cruisers reached out across space and began probing the area around Z'ha'dum, searching for any sign that the dark ones they had fought a thousand years ago were beginning to return her as had long ago been prophesised by the greatest of them to ever live.
Deep within the slightly larger of the two war cruisers, a vessel called the Valen'Tha, a mysterious, even to the Minbari, group of individuals wearing hooded dark grey robes stood in a darkened room. Each figure stood in the centre of a cone of blue light, the light cones being the only illumination in the entire chamber, which suited them as it reminded them constantly of their role, the role Valen himself had chosen for them a thousand years ago, the role to stand between the candle and the star, to be neither of the darkness nor of the light but to be of the middle, to be of the grey.
One figure in the circle however wore a different set of robes unlike his fellow members of the Grey Council he didn't wear the dark grey robes of their office. Instead he wore simple white and cream coloured robes. In one hand, he held a silver staff topped with a strange triangular device known to the Minbari as a triluminary, the staff and triluminary were the symbol of his office, of his position over all Minbari everywhere. His name was Dukhat, and he was known as the chosen one, the leader of the Grey Council and the supreme leader of all Minbari.
There was also a tenth figure in the chamber, standing outside the circle of the Grey Council in the brown and black robes of the Anla'Shok, or Rangers as they are known to most. None of the council members paid much attention to him, as a live holographic view of the outside universe was displayed around them, giving them the near feel of standing in open space, though the council and the Ranger was used to such displays, to someone not used to it, it could be rather unsettling.
One of the Grey Council Satais, a younger warrior caste member of the Wind Swords Clan, Satai Morann, lifted his grey hood, signifying his wish to speak.
"There appears to be nothing here," Satai Morann of the Warrior Caste said softly, removing his hood as protocol demanded so he could address the rest of the council. "This place appears dead, the Shadows are not here."
"This voyage is a waste of our time," Satai Coplann, also of the Warrior Caste, agreed removing his own hood. "The prophecy does not appear to be true, the Shadows are..."
"Be still, my younger fellow warriors," said the eldest warrior Satai, Bolinarr of the Fire Wings clan. "We should conduct a thorough scan of the planet first before we leave, it would be careless of us to just simply look at the planet and leave before we have all the facts."
"Well said Bolinarr, who said that there is no longer any wisdom within the warrior caste," said Satai Dukhat approvingly, the elder warrior bowed to the leader of the grey council.
"My duty is to serve, master, and to keep these youngsters from making rash decisions," said Bolinarr with a pointed look to his fellow warrior caste Satais.
"Alyt, begin scans of the planet below," Dukhat ordered the Valen'Tha's commanding officer.
"It shall be done, master," replied the Alyt.
As the minbari began scanning the planet something began to stir deep underground the planet's heavily bombarded surface. In a deep cavern a large number of oily black cocoons stood in neat rows by the hundreds. In the deepest part of the cavern a single cocoon attached to an organic computer system by fleshy wires became active. The cocoon began to bend and flex as the being inside was awoken by a steady series of pulses, sounding much like heavy heart beats as the creature inside began to awaken. From the inside it scratched and forced its way through the thick material of the cocoon and finally cut its way out, fully alert and curious as to why it was awakened.
The creature had the form of an insect with six legs that looked like a cross between a spider and a praying mantis, its small triangular head swung from side to side as it took in the readouts on the display in front of it, its fourteen small eyes glowed golden as it identified the species that had scanned their planet and had so rudely awakened it. The creature let out some curious screeches as it took in the new looks of their old adversaries warships that had beaten them back a thousand years ago.
Looking back at the rows of thousands of cocoons that filled the cavern, and thinking of the millions more in several other caverns deep below the surface of their homeworld it quickly made a decision. Once out of hibernation it could simply not just return immediately to that state, and the numerous power generators that powered the mechanisms that kept their people in stasis would soon be detected, it made the decision to call upon some old allies, quickly, before the minbari had a chance to destroy them, the great debate could not end like this, and the Shadows would not allow themselves to be weakened so again, not before their children were ready to face the Reapers.
Tapping quickly into the organic computers in the cavern with its own substantial telepathic ability it sent out a message over a high powered tachyon pulse that would easily be detected and understood by its allies. Then it began the awakening process, fleshy tendrils connected to the cocoons in the cavern and millions more in the others became active, awakening an entire ancient race from their thousand year slumber.
The Shadows were awakening, and their thralls would take care of the intruders.
"Master, scans reveal a number of active power sources both beneath and on the planet's surface, and several life forms seem to be appearing, thousands, hundreds of thousands..." said the shocked alyt.
"Identify power source!"
"Satai "Power source is of unknown type and origin," the alyt's voice answered a second before musical alarms sounded throughout the ship."Satai our sensors have detected ships coming towards us on an intercept course, unknown configuration."
"Show us," Morann commanded.
The holographic display shimmered for a moment then changed to show the ships that were approaching the small Minbari task force. There were two capital ships; their hulls were made of an amber coloured material that gleamed slightly where it caught the light of the systems distant sun. Strangely, curved edges near the aft sections glowed with a shimmering blue light obviously the engines of the three ships. Each ship was huge nearly three kilometres long but didn't seem to mount obvious weapons turrets or beam projectors in the way the Minbari ships did.
Flying along in front of the three massive ships was a literal swarm of small fighter sized vessels. Almost dart-like in form the fighters had a strange blue crystal in their bows and were made of the same amber-coloured material as the bigger ships. All of them advanced upon the Minbari ships with confident arrogance and deadly purpose.
"Satais, we're picking up a sharp energy build-up," the alyt reported. ""Unknown ships are powering up their weapons, we are being targeted!"
Morann frowned. "Are our stealth systems functioning?" he asked.
"Perfectly Satai, the unknown ships sensors are just burning through as if our stealth fields don't exist."
"Open gun ports and bring all weapons systems online," Dukhat instructed. "And prepare to transfer additional power to recharging the jump engines."
"Yes Satai!"
"Is that necessary, it is only a few ships," Morann asked. "We should be able to defeat them easily."
Dukhat scowled at the warrior's arrogant confidence. He started to open his mouth to remind the younger Minbari that it was only a fool who underestimated an enemy, but no words were heard as for at that moment there came a dull rumbling boom and the Valen'Tha rocked violently.
Silently the fleet of unknown fighters accompanied by the two capital vessels of their own moved towards the Minbari vessels that had dared to violate their master's domain. The Shadows were still away or asleep, they were vulnerable and reliant on them to protect them until the Time of Awakening.
The presence of the Minbari now was concerning as it meant the Minbari suspected that after a thousand years of silence the Shadows were returning, but fortunately it was only two war cruisers and a few support ships. To a soul the crews on the Drakh cruisers and raiders were confident that they would crush the Minbari infidels quickly, ensuring that the secret that there masters were preparing to return would stay just that a secret.
The first squadrons of raiders crossed an invisible line in space and immediately opened fire upon the Minbari. From the blue crystal in the nose of each raider erupted a brilliant, shimmering blue energy beam that sliced silently across space to smash into the Minbari cruisers despite the best efforts of the Minbari stealth technology to disrupt the Drakh sensors. Fired from extreme range the Raiders quantum particle beams did no harm to the cruisers, beyond shaking both vessels, the energy of the beams being effortlessly dispersed across the hull of the war cruisers by their gravitic defence fields.
Despite being startled by the accurate fire, and despite their stealth technology's best efforts, the Minbari reacted quickly. The screen of Niall-class fighters that had been buzzing around the cruisers broke formation and advanced upon the Drakh raiders, slender yellow-green fusion laser beams shooting forth from each of their triple gun arrays. Three raiders instantly crumpled and exploded in brilliant fireballs as they took multiple strikes. The other raiders ignored the loss and continued towards the Minbari, even as some of their number broke formation to engage the Minbari fighters.
As the fighters and some of the raiders began dog-fighting, yellow-green and blue beams flashing back and forth and occasionally resulting in a fighter or raider going up in a brilliant fireball, the remaining raiders fired upon the cruisers for the second time. Once again, the beams did no damage to the Minbari, the gravitic screens absorbing and dispersing most of the energy of the beams over a wider area to dissipate back out into space, this time however, some energy got through to strike the polycrystalline armour covering the cruisers metal skins. Instantly the armour soaked up the energy, dispersing it and like the gravitic defence field radiating it back out into space.
Instantly the cruisers secondary weapons arrays responded, unleashing a fury of fusion laser beams and bolts of coherent electromagnetic energy from electro-pulse arrays, even as additional Niall squadrons emerged from the noses of the war cruisers. Dozens of Drakh raiders vanished from existence being wiped from the sky with effortless ease by the powerful Minbari weapons. The remaining raiders veered off, trying to move out of the angle of fire of the capital ship guns, only to be pounced upon by the Niall's and gunships that tore into them with a vengeance.
For a moment, the battle swung against the Drakh as the raider assault was driven back, pushed away from the war cruisers by an intense wall of firepower. Then the slower Drakh cruisers came into firing range and instantly opened up. Wider and brighter quantum particle beams blasted forth from their main cannons while smaller pulse cannons began firing at the fighters and gunships, swatting several from the sky immediately.
The beams from the Drakh cruisers smashed into both Minbari ships with white-hot force, but in a testament to the engineering skills of the Minbari, the gravitic shielding blunted the weapon impacts, absorbing seventy percent of the beams energy. The remaining energy of the beams slammed into the polycrystalline armour and was immediately absorbed and dispersed though small carbon scoring appeared on the armour as a thin film of polycrystalline material burned away at the points of impact.
Both the Valen'Tha and her companion cruiser the Ingata shuddered violently with the attacks, but immediately retaliated with the neutron beam cannons that were their main armament. Emerald green beams of raw power and with bores measured in metres smashed into the Drakh cruisers, ripping through their own gravitic defences to flay at the armoured hulls. Both Drakh ships visibly shook with the impacts even as plumes of molten metal erupted from their hulls as the neutron beams attacked the metal at the sub-molecular level, tearing atoms apart.
Startled and much more respectful now the Drakh cruisers changed tactics. Their pulse arrays ceased firing upon the Niall's, giving the pilots time to start re-establishing shattered formations and instead fired upon the war cruisers, simultaneously both cruisers fired their main quantum beams again, this time focusing all fire on the Ingata while sending energy pulse after energy pulse into the Valen'Tha.
The combined beams smashed into the Ingata, sending plumes of melting crystalline material into space as the powerful beams overwhelmed the polycrystalline materials deflection and absorption capabilities. Even as she rocked violently and visibly with the impact, the Ingata hit back, neutron beams smashing into a single Drakh cruiser tearing away huge chunks of armour but failing to penetrate to the hull underneath.
The Ingata struck again with her neutron beams and this time her secondary fusion lasers added their own formidable firepower to the assault, every beam firing upon the same cruiser. Drakh armour shattered and vaporised allowing the powerful Minbari weapons to cut into the hull beneath. Jets of molten material and escaping atmosphere shot out of the gashes ripped in the side of the ship. Though now heavily damaged the Drakh cruiser refused to give up and with its companion fired its main quantum beam cannon at the Ingata once again.
Crystalline armour shattered and vaporised allowing the beams and energy pulses to burn deep into the core of the Minbari warship. Secondary explosions erupted throughout the Ingata, burning and severely damaged the Sharlin-class cruiser began to tumble helplessly out of control. Sensing victory both Drakh cruisers fired upon the near helpless Ingataagain, twin beams of blue death burning right into the very heart of the vessel, the artificial quantum singularity that powered the ship, rupturing the containment field with devastating results.
In a titanic blast of energy and fire, the Ingata disintegrated as its singularity blinked out of existence, releasing all of its energy in a single cataclysmic burst of energy and hard radiation that tore the whole ship apart in an instant.
No sooner than the blast of the Ingata's violent death faded than another explosion shattered space as the Valen'Tha hit the already damaged alien warship with a full alpha strike from every weapon that it could bring to bear. Under the immense concentrated firepower of a Sharlin-class war cruiser the damaged ship had no chance, it broke in half midway down its length before exploding.
Grey Council Chamber
Minbari War Cruiser Valen'Tha
Dukhat and the members of the Grey Council stumbled as the shudder of another direct hit ran through the Valen'Tha's deck as the remaining alien cruiser slammed another searing beam into the side of the ship. Around them, the holographic display momentarily flickered as the energy of the blast shot through the ship causing brief disruptions in the energy distribution grid.
To a soul, they were enraged by the destruction of the Ingata, though it had answered the question that had brought them here. The Shadows weren't back yet, but they were returning exactly as Valen had foretold, the alien ships that were attacking them had to be allies of the Shadows. There was no other explanation for the immediate and deliberate attack on them and the ease with which their antagonists destroyed the Ingata.
Silently they watched in satisfaction as the Valen'Tha's more powerful weapons tore into the remaining cruiser, neutron beams and fusion lasers wounding it cruelly where they breached its armour.
Severely damaged by the Valen'Tha's assault the Drakh cruiser remained defiant, slamming another beam into the Sharlin-class ship's side, breaching armour and rupturing outer and inner hull plates in a forty-metre long gash in the ships starboard flank below the dorsal drive fin. The Valen'Tha shook violently as explosive decompression tore through the affected compartments and triggered a cascade of fires and secondary explosions in surrounding areas.
Though wounded, the Valen'Tha lashed out again with her main guns. Fierce green neutron beams tore into her enemy. The Drakh ship crumpled under the blows as the beams tore apart a number of key structural braces and power conduits. Secondary and tertiary explosions erupted and a ripple seeming to pass along its length opening breaches that allowed gas fed flames to lick at open space. Another neutron beam hit and the dying cruiser came apart, disintegrating in a massive explosion.
The last of the Drakh capital ships dealt with the Valen'Tha turned to assist the Niall fighters that were still bitterly engaged with the raiders. Secondary weapons arrays on the mighty Sharlin came alive, sending out short bursts from either fusion lasers or electro-pulse guns. Each shot striking and destroying an enemy fighter. In seconds it was all over with the last Drakh raider being sliced in half by a Niall fighter's fusion laser burst.
Silence reigned in the chamber of the Grey Council as they studied the dispersing debris clouds that were all that remained of their attackers, a number of Nail's and of course the Ingata.
"It appears we have our answer," Satai Delenn said, at last removing her hood exposing a face that was extremely youthful even by Minbari standards. Indeed, she was the youngest person ever to be chosen to serve as one of the nine, it was a testament to the abilities that she had, abilities that Dukhat himself had spotted and nurtured until she was ready to become one of the nine. "The prophecy is true, the Shadows will soon return."
"That is the only conclusion that can be drawn," Satai Coplann, admitted reluctantly, being Warrior Caste, he had never really believed in the Prophecy of Valen, until now that was. These aliens whoever they were had given them a formidable fight and had no doubt inflicted considerable damage to the Valen'Tha as well as destroying the Ingata, there was no doubt in his mind now that they were indeed allies of the Shadows. After a thousand years the dark ones were returning and as this battle had proven the Minbari, the chosen soldiers of the light, were not ready to oppose them.
"We shall return to Minbar," Dukhat said, though he had already known from the Vorlons that the allies of the Shadows were starting to gather here at Z'ha'dum it was still a surprise how powerful they were. "We have much preparation to make, including reinforcing the Anla'shok for the war ahead."
One by one, the nine bowed indicating their agreement and Dukhat raised his voice slightly to activate the internal communication system. "Alyt," he said. "Recall all Niall's and set course back to Minbar, maximum speed. We have found out what we needed to know."
"Yes Satai," the alyt answered.
In a dark corner of the council chamber the old Ranger Lenonn began to think of what allies they would need for the coming war.
AN: I would like to thank AJW for letting me use the some of his writing from one of his stories for this chapter. This author has been one of many in the fanfiction community that has been an inspiration for me.