Zocallo
The Federation captains were sitting at a table watching the stream of people pass by. There were a lot of humans but the rest was a parade of races Starfleet had never encountered before. Captain Santowitz had arrived only minutes after the Sparta had left and he had brought with him a raiderpilot and one fighter that was completely useless. Even at one percent power the power core was completely melted and the resulting power surge had completely wiped the computer. The raider himself wasn't talking yet, but that could still change.
"So, why did you want to meet here?" Walker had already explained his reasons to Tuvol and had agreed. "It's not exactly secure."
"Because I haven't had the time to see the station like this and what we want to discuss isn't something that needs to remain a closely guarded secret. Unless you have something that needs to remain between the three of us?"
Santowitz leaned back and gave that half smile again. "No, in fact it might help if word got out about what I have in store for these raiders."
"Maybe you want to hear our news first, we met with some Earth Alliance representatives."
"What happened?"
Captain Tuvol told what happened. "They demanded that we gave them our technology and reacted very emotional to our refusal of their demands. Suffice it to say that both parties now know that they do not agree with each other on a number of topics. They seemed to be quite shocked when they learned that I was a Vulcan and seemed to think that the Federation was preparing an invasion."
Santowitz just shook his head. "So no hope for getting them to leave this station or us alone?"
"No, so I would be careful out there," warned Walker. "One on one their ships are no match for ours but six to one would already improve their chances significantly."
"I'll be careful, dad. So what's the status of Deep Space Babylon?"
Tuvol raised an eyebrow but Walker answered. "We haven't thought of a name for our station, have we? I am assuming that you are referring to the big rock Tuvol here is towing to the station. I think I will ask my crew for additional suggestions, but so far we are on schedule. In a few days the first habitats and defenses will be installed. In three weeks everything should be up and running. But you mentioned that you had something in store for the raiders?"
"Yes, I have. Patrolling the surrounding systems with just one ship isn't going to work. Too much space for a Defiant to cover, so instead I was thinking of putting that cloaking device to work again. These raiders attack ships that travel between jumpgates when they can't reach either gate fast enough to flee. I propose that I lay in wait with the Salvador in one system for six to seven days and then move to another system. With the cloak on, those raiders will never know what hit them and after a sort while they would get very wary of attacking because I could be there."
Immediately Tuvol picked up a certain weakness in the plan. "That could only work, if you are planning to let some of the raiders to escape."
"Yes, but that wouldn't be a real problem. The Salvador doesn't have a big enough brig or hangar bay to hold them anyway and killing defenseless people, even criminals isn't my style. Unless I start using the transporter but I don't think you are in favor of that."
"Their ships are that fragile?"
Santowitz nodded. "Yes, although they are only fighters that rely on jumpgates or a real ship to get around. I didn't pick up a ship with the raiders I encountered but I heard they do have a few jump capable ships. Speaking of jump capable ships, how is our research on hyperspace going?"
"We are still studying the subject, but we already have designed a jump engine of our one. We can replicate Quantium 40 but we are looking into designing an engine that would work without the element. We want to install the first one in your ship, it can be placed in the hangar bay. From what we have gathered hyperspace can potentially be faster then normal warp, but there are drawbacks. These people have no way of knowing where you are in real space as long as your ship is in hyperspace, again this is something we are looking into. Subspace could be the key here, but we have to test our theories first."
"I, in the mean time, also bought some jumpgate activation codes. That way we can send a shuttle or two to take some readings from hyperspace without having to wait for those engines to be installed. I will also give you a few, Boris, that way you have some backup if the engines get damaged or they fail. There are other drawbacks apart from the one Tuvol mentioned. Hyperspace isn't as calm as normal space but instead resembles an ocean, with currents and eddies. The jumpgates function as lighthouses for the ships in hyperspace and there are quite a few ships that get lost."
"I think I will stick to plain warp until your scientists have figured out how we can know where we are going when we are in hyperspace, thank you very much. I don't want to get lost, again!"
They talked for a while longer about lighter things until duty called once again.
2 days later, Mid-range military bases at Beta Durani
The Sparta had returned with the Roanoke
in tow. Now they had to analyze the strange Federation ships that had
beaten their destroyers so easily. Attending the meeting were Captain
Dexter Smith, General Fontaine, Colonel Carter and several others.
They had all read the reports and had just heard General Fontaine's account of his visit to the ship called Odyssey. "Assuming that they aren't misleading us, this Federation is very far away but with ships like that and their strange FTL technology, that makes little difference. We have no idea how long it would take a fleet of their ships to get here."
"What are they using," asked an admiral, "if it isn't jumptech?"
Carter had studied the reports and she was the one that answered. "They use a technology that propels them at faster then light speeds without leaving real space. Reports indicate that they can vary the speed at which they move and that even their shuttles are equipped with these engines. We currently can't track them when they use this FTL technology but we are working on it."
"So that is how they just appeared next to my ship?"
"No, captain. That sudden appearance is not consistent with the reports we have, I believe that they used something else to do that. I believe they used a stealth device like the Minbari, however this one is far more advanced then the one the Minbari use."
That caused some consternation among the gathered officers. "But if they can hide their ships that well, then their ships could be circling Earth as we speak!"
"Perhaps, but I think that their advanced stealth requires huge amounts of energy and so does their FTL engines. The recordings from the Agrippa clearly show that their energy shield only built up after they powered down their stealth. It also because of this that I don't think they can fire while their stealth works but this is pure speculation."
"Which brings us to the next question." General Fontaine frowned at the thought of a race with more advanced technology then the Minbari. "How do we stop them? The president was quite clear on this, we must retake Babylon 5 and capture one of the Federation ships to learn were they came from and to acquire their technologies."
"The blockade is step one, step two could be the capture of the Salvador. Apparently that ship is patrolling the systems surrounding the station to protect local shipping against raiders. The only problem is that we have no way of knowing where they are. We would have to get lucky or use several task forces to catch them."
That would have to do for now. President Clark had already put pressure on the Warlock team to finish a prototype as soon as possible but it would still take at least another year before it would be ready. In the mean time they would begin modifying some of their Omega's with the technology they had acquired from Ganymede but that too would take months. The modifications to several Hyperions would be ready in 2 months but were untested too, they could well blow up when test fired.
"We don't have enough ships to form several task forces, we will have to do with one. Their beam weapons, how powerful are they?" He had seen the Roanoke, it was covered in gashes and holes.
"They are very powerful and apparently they can control the amount of firepower they use. They destroyed the well-protected engines, laser/particle cannons and the pulse cannons with the same weapon yet in each case the damage was confined to these parts. They were only trying to disable our ships, not destroy them. Their weapons are probably capable of destroying an Omega class destroyer with one or two shots. My guess is that their missiles are even more powerful, if those tubes are indeed missile launchers."
"Which means that any attack would fail unless we achieve first strike and damage them sufficiently with that strike."
"I think so, sir. The Odyssey stopped after it got hit by the two missiles from the Nimrod. The energy field surrounding the ships also went down after it got hit multiple times. A missile strike of maybe six to eight should take out their shielding and incapacitate their ship."
"I would like to volunteer for the mission to capture the Fed ship, general."
"The Agrippa is still being repaired, captain Dexter. But if you can get all the repairs done in a week, you can join the hunt. It will take that long to assemble enough ships and prepare them."
Minbar, the capital city YedorIt felt good to be back home except for what Neroon had heard 2 days ago. Delenn had broken the council to aid that station but when they arrived, they saw that another race had already taken up the defense of Babylon 5. And now he had learned that they were human! Yes, there were others on board as well but most of the crew was human. Humans in possession of technology that seemed to be equal to their own but also radically different. Something had to be done about this, before those Federationists could give their technology to the other humans.
But what could he do? They were hiding at Babylon 5 and that station was being protected by the Worker and Religious cast. He refused to attack his fellow Minbari to prevent humans from getting new technology, he wasn't the one that had broken the council. Of course he couldn't be sure they would protect the Federation ships but he couldn't take the chance. In any case, the Federationists didn't seem to like the current rulers of Earth so he had some time before he had to act.
First he had to find out how advanced the Federation was and more importantly where in Valens name it was. He would keep his ears open, as the humans said, and see what he could learn about these new arrivals. He had already heard what Captain Lenann had seen on the ship, it seemed a bit unbelievable but he wouldn't make conclusions just yet.
TBC
