November 2245 - Deep space
Alyt Sernal was going to attack the human colony of Kandhi. He had reviewed, one last time, the Battle of Maui. The humans had innovated (they always did), they had placed 6,000 nuclear missiles in geostationary orbit, above each city Maui, with the 700 Artemis rail-frigates and the 22,000 Starfuries within the nukefields. There were also 3,000 defence platforms, deep within the nukefield.
They had hoped that the Minbari would send the capital ships to glass the cities, and then, they would have detonated the missiles by waves. The goal of the humans was not to take out the ships directly with fixed nukes (the Minbari would never go close enough to the nukes for that), but to illuminate the region of space.
Even if the capital ships fired on the cities (or the frigates) at extreme range, they would have been forced to enter the illuminated zone, and then, the Artemis would have located them easily and targeted them with their cursed rail-guns.
The Minbari commander at Maui, Alyt Mirenn, had decided to, instead, send a third of her Nials in atmosphere to bomb the cities themselves, and not risk the capital ships in the illuminated zones. The 10,000 remaining Nials would charge in the illuminated zone, and target the Artemis themselves.
However, the humans had sent 200 nukes in the higher atmosphere, creating a majestic firestorm, that destroyed all the 5,000 Nials sent there, while 2,000 in six waves, degrading the Nials' sensors to nothing for a few minutes, and illuminating six times the local space.
The main Nial force was within the nukefield, and was fully illuminated and blinded, allowing the defence plaforms (with their pulse cannons and missiles), the Starfuries, and the Artemis (with their rail-guns and missiles) to destroy them all in less than a minute.
Mirenn had lost all her Nials, and only managed to destroy 17 Artemis. She still had 120 Sharlin and 300 Tinashi, however, while the Earthers still had 683 Artemis, 22,000 Starfuries, 3,000 defence platforms and a nukefield of 3,800 nukes.
Furious about the loss of her Nials, Mirenn ordered her force to charge into the nukefield. Immediately, the fusion cannons of her ships started to take out nukes, Starfuries and defence platforms, while her neutron cannons targeted the Artemis.
The humans reacted immediately. They detonated the remainder of the nukes in three waves, and sent the Artemis by packs of five (there were 126 groups of Artemis), each surrounded by 145 Starfuries (give or take). The 126 groups micro-jumped as close as possible to the Sharlins, whose general area had been pinpointed thanks to the nukefield detonation's light.
Out of 120 Sharlin, only 39 survived the onslaught, but they destroyed all the Artemis and Starfuries. At the same time, the Tinashi pushed forward, and destroyed methodically the defence platforms from extreme range.
Then, the Tinashi and surviving Sharlin glassed the colony, and moved away. The Minbari had managed to destroy the colony of Maui and its defending fleet, but had lost 81 Sharlin and 15,000 Nial fighters.
The Grey Council had presented this battle as victory. It was not a lie. Firstly, Minbari do not lie. Secondly, it was technically a victory. However, Sernal knew better. It was a strategical defeat. Sernal didn't doubt the Minbari would win at the end, but resolved to do better than Mirenn and obtain a true strategical victory at Kandhi.
Kandhi
According to the Anla'shok reconnaissance team, the Earthers had put the same nukefields on Kandhi and Maui, but with an extra-ingredient on Kandhi. The geostationary nukes were now strapped to Starfury reactors. Also, there was only one main city on Kandhi, so everything was concentrated there.
The Earthers had 1200 Artemis rail-frigates, 122,000 Starfuries and 1750 defence platforms, again deep within the nuke fields and above the cities. Sernal expected them to have at least one trap ready. He, himself, had 430 Sharlin, 600 Tinashi and 33,500 Nials.
Sernal quickly decided his tactic. He would send an Alpha force, made up of 10,000 Nials, to harry the Artemis frigates, destroying them if possible but more importantly, distracting them. A Beta force, made up of 2,000 Nials, would deal with the unmanned platforms at the same time. A Delta force, made up of 21,500 Nials, would deal with the Starfuries.
The Beta force would go first, and come through the atmosphere, striking the plaforms from behind them. The platforms were, of course, turned to space and not to the megacity they protected. If everything went well, the Nials would destroy all the platforms at once, removing an important hazard to the Alpha and Delta forces.
As soon as the platforms would be down, the Beta force Nials would place themselves between the megacity and the fleet, and attack the Artemis at extreme range, picking them up from behind, where they didn't expect an attack. Moreover, to fight the Delta Nials, the Earthers would have to risk to fire on their own city.
At the same time, the Alpha and Delta forces would enter the illuminated zones in space, targeting respectively the Artemis and Starfuries. Still at the same time, the Tinashis would jump. A minute later, they would open jump-points near the Artemis, destroying at best 600 of them. The Tinashi would not exit jumpspace, but instead continue to open jumppoints on the Artemis. Sernal expected that, after the first time, the Artemis would move at their best speed, and that only the first jump-point attack would be a great success. But even if the next jump-point attacks only destroyed a few dozens of enemy ships, it would still help.
Finally, after the first jump-point attack, the Sharlin would enter the dance and start destroying (from extreme range) both Starfuries and Artemis with their neutron cannons, while they would provide cover to as much damaged Nials as possible with their (shorter-ranged) fusion cannons. To finish, they would glass the megacity and any other human settlement on the planet.
Sernal, after reviewing one last time his plan, gave the order to the Beta force to go. What he hadn't expected was that dozens of thousands of human civilians, evacuated to the countryside, were watching the sky with binoculars and optical telescopes (the Minbari sensors overlooked them since they didn't use any electronics). The ground observers detected the Beta Nials 5,000 kilometers away from their targets, and telepaths among them sent the signal.
This signal helped the fleet to immediately locate (optically) the Beta Nials, which were destroyed by a barrage of nukes when they were above an uninhabited zone. They were all destroyed. Sernal understood that attacking the defence platforms (and the fleet) from below wouldn't work. So, he had to attack, more conventionnally, from space.
He slightly changed the plan. The Tinashis would make their first jump-point attack on the defence platforms, taking out 600 of them, out of 1,750. Each Tinashi would also deploy, through the jump points, 12,000 Nials from below.
Then, 2,000 Nials from below would deal with the remaining 1,150 defence platforms, while the other 10,000 Nials from below would target the Starfuries. The Tinashis would make their second jump-point attack on the Artemis, hopefully taking out 600 of them.
At the same time, the Sharlins would jump to the limits of their extreme range, and snipe (from this position) more Artemis frigates, while deploying, from their own jump-points, the remaining 19,500 Nials, which would target either the Starfuries or the Artemis, as targets of opportunity.
Once again, Sernal gave the order, and the Tinashi all jumped. The humans saw the jump points, and expected a jump-point attack on the Artemis. So, the Artemis started to move at their best speed, while the defence platforms and Starfuries targeted the Artemis, expecting jump points near them. Instead, 600 defence platforms were instantly destroyed, and 12,000 Nials emerged from below the human fleet.
To her credit, General Mina Perez didn't panic, and following her intuition, ordered the Starfuries (and defence platforms) to still target the Artemis (or rather, their vicinity). The Nials took advantage of this to slaughter 45,000 Starfuries (out of 122,000), but when the Tinashis launched their second jump-point attack, a volley of 151,500 nuclear missiles (from the Starfuries and the platforms) targeted the jump points, and even with the Nials hastily trying to intercept them, there were around 10 nuclear explosions in each jump-point.
Out of 600 Tinashis, 562 were instantly destroyed, 14 were heavily damaged, 11 were lost in jumpspace, and only 15 remained functional. The jump-point attack had got only 230 Artemis out of 1,200. The surviving Tinashis managed to destroy, with their fusion cannons, 37 further Artemis before being destroyed themselves by a second barrage of missiles. It is a testament to the accuracy of Minbari targeting systems, that they managed to got any Artemis at all with a jump-point attack, when the Artemis were moving at top speed.
However, just as the Tinashis were destroyed, the Sharlin opened their own jumppoints from above. One minute ago, the humans had seen the Sharlin jumping, and Perez had given her orders about that.
As soon as the 430 Sharlin and their 19,500 Nials emerged from their jump points, at the extreme limit of the nukefield zone, half of the nukefield was detonated. The Minbari sensors were blinded, especially those of the Nials, which were picked up easily by the 72,000 remaining Starfuries and the remaining mobile nukes.
During the detonation, 200 Artemis had opened their own jump points (hidden by the thousands of nuclear detonations), and re-emerged right behind the Sharlin fleet. Each of these Artemis had been followed, in jumpspace, by 50 Starfuries and 100 mobile nukes. Half of these mobile nukes (5,000) detonated right away, illuminating the Sharlin, while the other half went at full speed (with their Starfury reactors) to the Sharlin, hoping to destroy them.
The 435 Sharlin crews hadn't expected an attack from behind, and were focused on destroying the 737 Artemis in front of them. When the 5,000 nukes exploded behind them and illuminated them, the 737 Artemis in front of them and the 200 Artemis behind them fired their rail-guns as one. 188 Sharlin were instantly destroyed.
At the same time, the last mobile nukes of the battle reached their targets. Out of 5,000, only 93 got close enough to their targets. In total, 281 Sharlin out of 435 had been destroyed.
One minute ago, the last Nials had been destroyed after the main detonation, by Starfuries and mobile nukes. They still had managed to down 35,000 Starfuries though. The last 37,000 Starfuries of the battle, now, were closing on the Sharlin fleet and would enter their firing range soon.
Sernal saw the writing on the wall, and ordered the retreat of his fleet through normal space, each ship following a different direction at top speed. The humans were unable to follow.
Ten minutes later, Sernal gave his last orders of the battle with an evil smile. Thirty minutes later, the human fleet detected 308 small asteroids (whose length was around 50 meters each) coming to Kandhi at 2c speed.
Admiral Mina Perez had the worst day of her life, when she ordered her fleet to let the asteroids pass and sacrificed the colony. She knew that her fleet had no chance to stop all the asteroids. If she sent her ships, they would be out of the battle zone, where so many nukes had been detonated that the radioactive gas would break the Minbari jamming. Moreover, her Artemis would all be alone, and the faster Sharlin would form wolfpacks and pick them one by one.
Sernal would later argue this was a tactical decision, and he expected Perez to send her ships and stop the asteroids (so that he would destroy her fleet), and this was the truth. But the whole truth was that sending those asteroids was, also, simply cathartic for him.
So, Admiral Perez announced to the colonists that they had been saved (so that they didn't have to know their impending death) and ordered her fleet to go to Cooke. Part of the admiralty wanted to send her to a martial court for her decision, but she took her own life with her pistol as soon as her fleet reached Cooke. Alyt Sernal went back to Minbar with dishonor. Not because he murdered millions of innocents, but because using asteroids instead of fighting in person was not honourable.
When Perez decided to not stop the asteroids, higher beings decided to take the matter in their own hands. When the asteroids were one minute away from the planet, all the colonists disappeared from the mortal plane in strange flashes of light.
Thousands of light-years from Kandhi, all those colonists reappeared in a strange sanctuary, where they were welcomed by monks, people looking like hippies from 20th century movies, and Dilgar children and teenagers.