Author disclaimer: I don't own any of the carachters, names and other things of Babylon 5 franchise. If i was, i would certaintly doing a reboot.This story is what i think it would happen in the real world if the Minbari-Human war started. I was allways very dissapointed with the lack of human creativity fighting the Minbari armada as it is presented in the movie In the Begining and the series itself. A lot of courage, sacrifice and bravery, but zero brain, research, and even warfare history, except in the case of John Sheridan. This is a lame intent to correct that, and sorry for my bad english, spanish from Río de la Plata is my mother tongue.
Montevideo, Uruguay
Confederación Sudamericana
Earth Alliance
Benjamin couldn't stop watching the news, his coffee went cold and his stomach was bubbling with hunger but his brain was just too busy, trying to asimilate what the heck just happen.
-La re put.sima madre que los parió!
scream in Rioplatense spanish, while the terryfing scenes of Earthforce fleet being cutted to burning junk by the green beams of the Minbari ships where played again and again. Finally he move his eyes away from the screen, and his mind started to work. Brain cells where starving to death so he take the medialunas, a local version of the croissants, but bigger and cutted like a sandwich with cheese and jam, and devoured them.
With the hands full of sugar he grab his phone and texted in the group chat of his team of engineers and started to spit messages so fast his fingers couldn't keep the pace of his thoughts.
-Hey guys have you seen the news? I have an idea to help Earthforce, grab your stuff and go the office in two hours...
-Brenda, call to Whomever is the contratist of the systems in the ships, and give then my number. Call whoever made the software and hardware of all the systems, weapons, navigation, jump engines, etc.
-Patrick, bring all you have about the interphase and transmitions to control the bots, those companies would need to know how fast and how much data our systems can handle, and how far...
Suddenly one of them call him.
-Park, what's up dude?- Ben aswered.
-Ben what the heck are you coming up with? stop texting and explain yourself, i am with Brenda and Djan here. What do you want to do?
- I want to make drones, Park. All our assests, ships, fighters, etc. All drones.
Earthdome, Switzerland.
Earth Alliance
General Kuscinsky couldn't sleep. Senators, the Joint Chiefs, and President Levy herself calling him all day asking for some idea, plan, research, or whatever the ID Section of Earthforce had in some secret basement lab to fill the huge technological gap between Earth and Mimbar before the next fleet were sended to another kamikaze operation.
His office in Earthdome was almost empty at 23:00 local time, and suddenly his secretary, a beatifull but sober liutenant from Lebanon, entered.
-Sir, the Col. Hagge is here. He says is urgent, sir.
-Send him in
The tall and thin colonel Hubert Hagge was a canadian, with more Doctorates and PhDs that he could even remember, proud and with dark hair, entered walking so fast he would go trough the door if the secretary wouldn't open it for him in time.
-Sir!
-At ease. What's the matter?
-Sir, i have just finished a grupal call with the teams of half of the fleet providers, they called me to show me one idea, or sort of.
-And the idea was?
- They want to build a fleet of drones. Drone ships and drone fighters, controlled by pilots in normal ships hidding in hyperspace. These drones would be cheaper, faster, better armed, faster to build, and more able to keep fighting when a normal ship would be crippled or disabled.
The General was slowly making a huge list in his mind of all the things a drone fleet would mean in terms of logistics, fire power and mostly survavility against a superior foe. Drones werent used for war since the 22nd century, but the maintenance bots and cameras, for example, used the technology for non violent purposes, while the golden age of drone strikes of the first half of the 21st century was buried by modern values. But one of the main principles of the drones was to spare lives from the battlefield, striking the enemy from the security (and comfort) of a homeland base.
And now, after the massacre the Minbaris were doing with Earthforce ships to strike them without risking precious lives was more than enough to consired it. If the fleet would make sacrifices, better sacrifice material instead lives.
Linköping, Sweden
European Union, Earth Alliance
Dr. Johansson, a renouwned bothanic from Sweden was very intrigued about why the alien ships can't been locked if the optical sensors and cameras, as well as the human eyes, can see them. It was obvious the visible light wasn't intercepted or concealed by these stealthness. So, the light should be used to lock their ships instead of radar waves or infrared. Besides the Mimbari painted all their assets in blue, so it was posible to design an optical device to detect, track and give a firing solution to such a target. Optical targeting was very old tech, but he was thinking about plants and their cloroplasts, with their unique predilectancy to blue light. It was posible to use chlorophile to increase optical tracking of those damned blue ships. So he made a couple calls to the main contractor of the weapons and fire controls system of the Earthforce.
Aberdeen, Scotland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Earth Alliance
The leadership of the company were in permanent meeting for days to find something, anything, to improve the current systems before another fleet were sended to a suicide mission. Coffee, cafein pills and any known legal stimulant were all over the office while scientist and engineers discuss one idea after another, and when the secretary told them some swedish doctor had an idea, they all stopped and take the call.
After the presentations and all the explanations of Dr. Johannson, the CEO, Bill McDonnahue, just ask one question.
- So, Dr. Johannson, you think you can build a blue things detector? If it is blue, we could shoot it?
-Blue, red, whatever colour you like.
- How much money do you want?
- I don't look for money, i am not selling this idea, just put me in your science team, i will work for you. There is people dying out there.
- Done, you are hired. Take the next flight to our labs in Aberdeen, we will make someone pick up you at the Space Port.
After some days of tireless work, the prototype was ready, it was called BIOEYE, combining photosyntesis molecules from plants and algae and advanced light and electromagetic spectrum scanners. The first model of the BIOEYE tracking system was installed in all the weapons and firing systems of the dreadnoght EAS De Gaulle, and its fighters. This included a new patch for standard fighter missiles, called Cervatana, the dart thrower weapon of many tribes in Earth jungles. This missiles, just like the old heat seekers air-to-air missiles, would give some chance to the Starfuries against Nyalas. Some silos with more of this weapons were added to the defense grid of the capital ships.
Because of the short range of the standard plasma cannons, the Earthforce fleet decided to replace half of the guns in the Nova and Hyperion classes with long range Gauss cannons and Railguns. This weapons were easier to build, had more rate of fire, almost infinite range in space conditions, and they were cheaper.
The prototype dreadnoght De Gaulle,
with a small task force of four Novas and six Hyperion cruisers as escort, were sended to the frontline in the New Berlin system. Other ten ships were there, the last remanent of a huge 40 capital ships fleet. They were especting a final strike of Sharlin cruisers at any moment.
Sharlin Cruiser Ga'llen
Minbari attack force.
New Berlin system, Earth Alliance.
The Sharlin jump to normal space right in front of the EAS Paschendale firing with all it had, the poor cruiser was destroyed but could shot a couple of times with the main bateries, making a huge hole in the front side of the Mimbari ship. The warrior cast capitain Nialen was shicked, how the heck could those barbarians bypass the protection and hit with that accuracy? He asked for damage control and turn for the nearest target, the Nova Julius Caesar, but for his surprise the human was already shooting at him, with great results. The Sharlin lost the main guns, and started to loose power. The Nyalas tried to surround the dreadnoght but guided missiles made them withdraw after loosing twuelve and kill only one Starfury.
Shohut, the commander of that minbari battlegroup was shocked, even when half of the human ships were destroyed in the first minutes, two of his ships were killed, and two more crippled, and all the other seven were taking hits. Their sthealth capabilities were bypassed somehow by this criminals and the same weapons that murdered Dukhat were killing them.
- All ships, attack with full force! Destroy them fast, they weapons are targeting our ships somehow!
Fighters were taking the worst part. Guided missiles were shooted by the ships and the human fighters, whom remain far from their counterparts, the Nyalas were being destroyed before they could even reach the slower Starfuries. Soon, all the cruisers had lost 3/4 of their fighters, and recalled them to avoid more losings. Human pilots take the chance and started to strike the Sharlins, concentrating fire in the gun ports and engines.
The De Gaulle was firing another salvo of Gauss protectiles, finishing a burning Sharlin who was destroying the Nova Tamerlan. Until now of the nine Sharlin attackers only two were still fighting, with huge holes in the hull and many weapons disabled. Of the human side two Novas and four Hyperions were still operative, and another Nova floating helpless with no power or weapons. The Mimbaris were too busy to terminate them.
Finally they withdraw. And a huge "Hooray!"started to be heared in all remainig vessels. Victory.
Grey Council Flagship
Somewhere near Minbar system
-Satai Delenn, our incursion in the human colony of New Berlin was... defeated. It looks like these barbarians find out how to lock their weapons on us even with the stealth screen layer.
- When they killed Dukhat our ship weren' t using the protection, and they hit us hard. They have the firepower to damage us, and if you are right, they will fight back. How many ships you lost?
-We lost seven of the nine i use to strike.
-And them?
- They had 21 in that system, when we left only 7 remain, one of them was powerless.
-A costly victory. But we are using a fraction of our power. Our huge superiority allowed us to send only small groups of ships to fight...
- Perhaps we should increase the size of our attack parties. As far as we have seen the humans have a large fleet and a big industrial capability. Numbers are not in our side, at least for a year of two if we start to increase ship production levels, just like we did against the Shadows...
The battle of New Berlin and the Lexington nuclear skirmish marked an inflection point in the war. The BIOEYE tracking system and the Cervatana Mk I guided missiles were quickly installed in all the fleet. And half of the plasma cannons in the Nova dreadnoghts were replaced with Gauss and Rail guns, with far greater range and fire rate, allowing those ships to hit the enemy before being in the enemy's fire range.
As a small but crucial security measure the blue stripes in Earthforce capital ships were repainted in red, looking more agresive and increasing the moral in the crews.
But the great improvement was the new drone capital ships and fighters. This models were stripped from all life support systems, quarters modules, anything that needed an atmosphere. The great saving in energy and weight was used to increase the speed and manouverability, and the lack of crew allowed the engineers to give the ships the hability to move in deadly manners, at G forces lethal to any crewmate.
The Starfuries passed a similar transformation. In this case the new Drone Starfury could outmanouver it's manned counterparts easily. Cervatana missiles and a new heavy pulse cannon, with antiship capabilities, was added instead the cockpit.
As soon the first units were being ready at the Earth Orbital shipyards the mechanics named them, calling the Nova drones "Skeletor", for the bad guy in the He Man cartoon, recently rebooted, and the Hyperion drones "Robocop" for the XX century ciborg cop. Original oficial names were soon forgotten. Spectre was the nickname for the drone Furies, but some used Predator.
To control all this drones it was designed a Control Battlegroup of Novas and Hyperion ships, called class E, with enhanced modules to house the pilots for the drone fighters, and the crew of the drone capital ships. This Control units would use the tachion broadcast of the Hyperspace beacons to communicate with the drones, that would protect the vital signal from jamming, because jamming them would nullyfy the use of the beacons for everyone. While the Drone force would face the enemy in normal space, the Control Battlegroup will be commanding them from the Hyperspace, trying to avoid any contact with the enemy, and ready to abandon the place at once in case of being attacked. The Drone forces were expendable, Earthforce new they weren't able to protect the ships enough, so they would just protect the crews, and with that lives and experience, and leave to the enemy the material loses. This unmaned ships were faster to build and cheaper, with many ensambling process unnecesary, as well security and crew lifesavings. Besides all weapons were connected independently to the Control ships, so if half of the ship was destroyed the other half could still return fire. Energy was also generated by separate modules for the same reason. This drone class were like zombie ships, able to fight even crippled or half destroyed.
The main model to design all this was half part the drone squadrons in the XXI century, and half the works of the Sci Fi author Orson Scott Card, in Ender's Game. The movie, a cult classic, inspired Admiral Gallahad to take all the ideas and give them a shape.
This changes started to increase the preocupation in Minbari ranks. The idea of a race of cowards and ruthless primitive murderers was being removed by daily reports from the frontline. Human doing things like suicide attacks, often to secure a crippled ship or to cover a retreat, or just to stand tall against an unbeatable enemy, a display of courage, bravery and dignity never seen outside the minbari race.
It was necesary to obtain a more wise approach of this new enemy.
Grey Council Flagship
Near Minbari Federation border
-Neroon...
-Satai Loreen...What can i do for you, Shai Alyt?
- I need your guide, Satai Neroon. Please let me show you...-and show him an hologram of the human capital ships. Neroon, with no emotions in his face, get closer tonsee them.-What do you think of these new improvement in the human ships?
- Well, those primitive proyectile acelerators are brute but quite effective, they can reach our ships far before we can engage them. And those misiles that pursue our fighters are giving our warriors real struggle, we are withdrawing our Nyalas from the battles. We are not sure what those red stripes mean, some our linguistic experts think is a reference for blood.
But what surprise me was this two types, very similar to the ones we now from first contact, but look at the sensors scan. No life signs, not a single one. Those new ships are unmanned. We don't know if are ruled by some artificial life form or remote control from another human vessel, perhaps in hyperspace. In fact images from the battle in New Berlin showed the main guns of these ships targeting and shooting even wih the ship cutted in pieces or burning. This design is being made to keep fighting even under heavy fire. This humans know they can't protect their ships, so they build new ships capable of fighting while are being destroyed. I have never seen anything like this in my whole life.
Earthforce Command Center
EarthDome, Switzerland.
Earth Alliance
After the complete assimilation of the new weapons and systems it was time to do something to make the Minbaris pay for all the destruction in the outher colonies. The best thing they could come up with in the Joint Chiefs council it was a new version of Doolitle's strike against Tokio, in revenge of Pearl Harbour. Just go and level one or two Minbari colonies like they do to ours. But with something else. The Jump Gates would be targeted also.
General Leftcourt started the meeting. Using a 3D projection showed the star map of the Minbari/Earth Alliance border.
- This two systems, Tareleen and Nocalo, are just a couple of jumps from our territory. Our plan is to lauch a hit and run strike in both colonies, destroy all ships, stations, military infraestructure, and the jump gates. We will use two task forces of ten Skeletor Novas and seven Robocop Hyperions each. All vessels will carry forty Balista Mk II missiles, with 1.5 Megaton warheads.
This is a kamikaze mission, we are not expecting more than four or five ships to return from this strikes, besides the control task forces, of two H Novas and Four Hyperions.
-General don't you think this would rage the aliens even more?
- I think they can't be more pissed off than now, even more now with our ships started to hold the line and kicking ther boned ass, and they deserve this, after all what they do with our colonies.
The Tareleen Strike group was commanded by the Admiral Nurhan "Pashá" Koprulu, a very devoted sunni turkish veteran of the Dilgar War. His flagship was the Nova Mohacs. The Nocalo Strike Group was under another Dilgar War Veteran, Admiral Ali Abu Bakr, from Iraq. Also a renouwnwed historian of the jihad wars of the 21st century. His flagship was the Nova E EAS Salahuddin This two officers were selected for obvious reasons. Suicide strikes expertise were needed for this operation.
In the Nocalo system there was a small orbital shipyard with four Sharlin under reparations and maintenance, and other three guarding the planet. Some orbital defences, with antimatter cannons, also complete the security. Admiral Abu Bakr decided to launch a first wave of drone fighters armed with nukes, and a second one with half of the Drone fleet to asure the destruction of the target. If the force survived would withdraw and one of the ships would detonate the Jump Gate when the rest of the Strike Group was far away.
The Tareleen Strike Group would launch a recon force of one Skeletor Nova to test the defenses, and to trigger the Minbaris to bring any other ship near. After that the whole fleet would strike. This one was more populated, so there were ten Sharlin cruisers and a dozen of other class, several dozens of Nyala squadrons, and a dense orbital defense network. No signs of shipyards whatsoever.
The Tareleen Strike Group started the attack sending the Skeletor Nova Minotaur. The ship had only ten minutes to do something before the Sharlins destroyed it, so they shoot all main guns to the two nearest ships, and launched all the fighters right into the planet defense grid, to destroy and to launch nukes to every valuable target they could get. The fighters were sended in pairs, covering eachother from enemy fighters until they deliver the payloads. In just seven minutes two Sharlins were destroyed by the Minotaur's guns, and other one heavily damaged. Other two take some shoots but they could still destroy the human ship. The squadrons survived a lot more, they splitted all over the space sorrounding the planet and take down many of the Minbari interceptors. For two hours they destroyed several platforms, three support ships and nuked five targets in the surface. It was a great score to such a small force. The Aliens sended distress calls to all the Federation and in the following hours more than twenty Sharlin and forty other ships arrived. The Pashá's trap was ready.
In the Nocalo system the Strike Group arrived to the Hyperspace beacon one and a half hour after the Tareleen system was attacked, so the three Sharlins in orbit were sended to help. That was excellent. One of the Sharlins in the shipyards was being getting ready to leave also, but it won't be ready for combat in another five hours. Without knowing that, Admiral Abu Bakr launched the first wave.
The Minbari were caught with their pants down, and the first wave anihilate them. There were no need to launch a second strike, the Drone fighters destroyed everything useful without mayor casualties. The sunni commander selected one of the Cruisers to make the jump gate destruction, and withdraw from the system to the rally point.
While defenders muster in Tareleen, the bad news of the strike in Nocalo arrived, and soon after a huge disturbance in the Hyperspace beacons crippled the entire network for several minutes. Admiral Pasha Koprulu decided to launch the final attack right now, knowing the disturbance in the Hyperspace would affect them and also stopped any other enemy arrival.
He formed the Control Battlegroup in slightly open formation far enough from the planet, while the drone fleet attacked in a semicircular line straight to the enemy. The Minbaris were still shocked but there were battle ready and reacted quickly, and the clash of both fleets was really hard. The humans launched all they had, careless about the drone capital ships casualties but focusing in preserve the fighters, more fast and capable of destruction in the middle of the clash. Minbaris do the opposite, they concentrated the fire in the main ships and ignore the fighters, falling in line with the iraqui's plan.
In fourteen minutes half of the human ships and a third of the Minbari were destroyed. Nyalas fighters were pinned down, they couldn't scape from the Cervatana missiles but still manage to cause huge casualties to the Drones.
The War Cast commander was too worried with the strike fleet, terrified with the idea of the planet being nuked by this barbarians, to understand the whole fleet was being controlled by the battlegroup in the back of the human formation.
Gauss cannons and Railguns were being used as sniper shoots against the alien ships from the distance, covering the Drone fleet to ensure their survivality. The Control force was fighting from behind the lines, abd the blue cruisers were being eliminated one by one.
However it was clear the enemy had enough numbers to turn this hit-and-run strike into a conventional space battle, and that was a strategical defeat by itself, even when it was expected to lose the Drone fleet, the objective of the attack was far from being reached and the control Battlegroup was too near from the enemy forces.
The Admiral studied the holographic map to see if something could be used to change the outcome, he found a huge hole in the enemy formation, and behind, another hole in the planetary defense grid. Right in the center of the right side of the battle, from the human' s point of view.
-Captain Lefour, call all the ships. Ready to battle. We will strike right here. Concentrate the right flank to clear a path so we may strike the planet as safely as we can.
-Commander Da lann, the humans reserves are moving towards our left flank!
-Move our right flank and attack them, but this way, far from the battleline! Ignore their other ships, leave then to the orbital guns!
The alien move was a mistake, cause the few drone ships stucked in that sector instead of turn around and stop them from outflank the Control Battlegroup, move forward to the planet. With all the minbaris lured to the incoming human fleet, the path to the colony was cleared, and the five remaing ships wiped out all the planetary grid and the bases in the surface. The commander just had a few minutes to understand his error, cause two Gauss proyectiles destroyed the flagship's bridge.
Neroon take the word and give the Gray Council the bad news.
-We have lost the Tareleen and the Nocalo systems. They destroyed the jump gates, we lost contact with our ships there after the strike, we only know the human launched a nuclear strike over the planetary surface and were engaging our ships with full force...
- This is outrageous! How could this happen! They barely can defend their territory from our attacks!
The other members of the Warrior cast couldn't believe the news.
- That was before they could bypass our protection, and before their started to use unmanned ships. Now they have become a real threath. Our first real enemy since the Shadows. It wont be long before they strike our homeworld.
- We should start peace talkings again, they allways wanted to settle this by non violent methods.
That was the opportunity the religious cast was hoping to end this madness, perhaps now the Warrior Caste would see this was an useless war.
But the Warrior Cast don't see the things that way.
-Yes, like killing the ChoosenOne without provocation!
- Because aim with gun ports open o hailing ships isn't a provocation, isn't it?!
The Worker Cast just throwing a logical thougt like allways do.
Delenn tried to stop the fight between them being rasonable.
-Stop! I think we have already avenged Dukhat quite enough. We find out the humans were an easy target so we keep killing them, but now they have improved their forces and stopped being an easy prey. Their industrial development is bigger than ours, they can build more ships and faster than we can destroy them, and it wont be long they start to kill ours faster than we can replace them. Peace talks are needed!
- This is a holy War! And you Satai Delenn give the final vote to it! If your weak and peaceful religious cast mindset can't take the bloodshed, then you can leave the war to us! Go to pray somewhere else!
Delenn just ignored the blatant accusation and throw a huge ice cold water bucket to her Grey council mate.
- You talk like a fool! What happen to your brave division last week? Those barbarians make you retreat with only a tenth of your force! Wake up to the reality! You are not winning anymore!
Delenn's intervention hit right on target. The recent raid on Flinn Colony it was a complete disaster. The Warrior cast decided to land in the planet to destroy the AA artillery that was targenting the Minbari ships, but a huge GROPOS garrison repell the attack. The local commander, Col. John Morrison, had ordered, after hear the word about Minbari's predilectancy for hand to hand combat, all his men with some skill in sword, spear, etc. carry their weapons in case of an attack. Also purchased old fashion proyectile weapons. Those tactics give a nasty surprise to the aliens.
He finnaly shut up, and start looking to the floor. He could still remember the thunder noise of the human proyectile weapons roaring as the heads of his warriors were pierced by bullets. And that thin sword of one of the small human soldier, so small and weak to his eyes he had to grab that sword with both hands, even tough the minbari pike was useless against his movements. Katana. Thats was the name when he started to study the human historical records obtained in one of the raids to the Earth Colonies. And samurais, japanese warriors. Dannier, one of his best lieutenants, died after another human warrior confront him with a huge sword. He recognize it from a list, a Spanish design, made in a town called Toledo, made with an alleation called steel, perfectioned in that city in a supreme way. Those barbarians had a very old warfare culture, and they were putting their warrior cast equivalents in the frontlines now. Satai Delenn and Satai Neroon were right, the Minbari have finaly meeted a worthy enemy. Weak in force, primitive in technology, but superior in tactics, strategy and logistcs.
Hyperspace, Near Orion 7 beacon.
The Warrior Caste decided to retaliate and restore the initiative in the war by lauching a full invasion of the Orion colonies. The main scheme would be to deploy a main force of thirty ships to Orion 7, deploy a ground force of 10 thousand warriors and other two support fleets of ten or more ships to defeat the expected human reaction. The idea was to lure the humans to a battle they think they could win, and then strike them hard enough to cause huge loses. With several victories the Earth forces would be too weak to stop the Minbari to reach the main systems, and finally, the Earth Alliance homeworld.
Neroon himself take part of the attack force, desiring to lead the ground invasion and meet the human equivalent of his warriors in combat.
Orion 7 was defended by ten Nova dreadnoghts and 8 Hyperion cruisers, and recently reinforced with 5 Skeletor Novas, two GROPOS infantry divisions and seven support regiments of Earth Regional Guard forces. Three regiments of Heavy Mechanised Infantry (Meca Combat suits) from the Guardia Nacional de la Confederación Sudamericana, two regiments of Armoured Cavalry from the United States National Guard, and five Anti Aircraft and Low Orbit Artillery regiments from the African Block.
The Minbaris attacked with gun ports open and shooting anything they saw, civilian or military. Earthforce ships and Orion National Guard tried their best to stop them, but there were too many ships. After half an hour of intense shooting, the last two Hyperion cruisers jumped out to wait reinforcements. The Minbaris cleaned the sky from human ships, but ten Sharlins were destroyed, and other seven were crippled. Six more have some damage.
Neroon wasn't happy with the high cost of the battle, but hoped this sacrifice wouldn't be wasted. He joined his troops and landed in the outskirts of Orion 7 Capital city.
Orion 7 surface, Earth Alliance.
Before the battle the two GROPOS divisions and the three Mecas regiments were deployed in the hills at the west of the capital, the other five were being dispatched when the Minbaris arrived, and most of them were destroyed in the ships or trying to land.
The Minbari warriors jumped from their transport ships while those were just couple meters above the groud; several dropships were hited by the AA artillery and the Cervatana misiles, but there weren't enough to repel so many attackers. Most of the troops landed in the southern neighbours, where the defenses were just a couple of batteries. Local police, and some National Guardsmen were the only ones to resist them, some citizens join the fight also. The main issue was the minbari were fighting in the middle if the city, with thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire. The quickest solution would be a huge artillery strike, but it was imposible without huge colateral damage. The units in the city decided to draw a defensive line between Downtown and the southern sectors, while the Mechanised Infantry and the GROPOS flanked from the West and the southwest.
Minbari warriors started to advance to the north in small sections, the sharpshooters move trough the streets, confronting any oposition, and hand-to-hand fighters cleared the houses, focusing in armed people. Disarmed civilians were ignored.
After three hours of urban warfare, the Minbaris were in full shooting with the Downtown line and with the west counterattack. Warrior cast uniform, very Jedi look like outfit, was very resistant to PPG fire, and the small handguns they carried were as best as Earthforce PPG rifles. The battle become static, Minbaris couldn't attack more, and the flanking movement was stucked, only the Mechas were able to return fire without being killed. Rockets and Heavy MGs and 20 mm cannons were doing damage in the aliens ranks, but the buildings, full of terrorized civilians, avoided a better use of fire superiority.
-Carabina a la espalda y sable en mano! ("Carabine to the back and sabre in hand!", that was the battle cry of an uruguayan general in the Ituzaingó battle, when argentinians and Uruguayans were being pinned down by the Brazilian infantry). The order given by the uruguayan guardsmen Lt. Col. Fernando Oribe invoked his ancestor words during the Uruguayan independence war, 300 years ago. In that war, against the former Empire of Brazil, the uruguayan forces joined with argentine and federalist brazilian rebels from Rio Grande do Sul, called Gaúchos, to get rid of brazilian rule. His companions in the other two southamerican regiments get the idea, and fill themselves with a great sense of patriotism and heroism. They would do a remake of that ancient battle the Minbari warriors would never forget.
The Mecas formed a line using their weapons to pinndown the Minbari sharpshooters, pull out their sabres, and advanced like a wave of steel and titanium, the strength of the minbari warrior was nothing against the metal suits, talls as Goliath and armed with a two meters long sabre like sword, titanium and tungsten alloy and old spanish sword tactics. Argentinian Granaderos, Uruguayan Blandengues and brazilian Gaúchos charged and anhiliate the warrior cast entrenchments. The GROPOS and Orion National Guard troops cheered as the southamericans wipe the floor with the terrified aliens.
In the space the Minbari cruisers were holding the line against the endless waves of Earth drones, believing their groud forces would crush the humans and make the space battle worthless. Humans wouldn't fight for a empty planet, they think.