Surrounded by their Warrior Caste guards, three representatives of the Grey Council walked across the landing pad connected to the EarthDome compound. As she walked with her Warrior and Worker counterparts and colleagues from the Grey Council, Delenn flinched at the uncomfortable temperature; Earth was a comparatively hotter planet than what she was used to, but seeing as how she hadn't visited that many worlds, given how the Minbari preferred worlds that were much cooler than this, she would need to travel extensively to become used to higher temperatures.

But what made her flinch even more was the sheer amount of devastation, but while she was pleased the humans were suffering for their crimes against the Minbari people, she didn't have to like it.

Every day causality reports from both sides, gathered by the Rangers told Delenn that despite the destruction they were taking, the humans were somehow still able to fight.

To many Minbari warriors, that only made them delighted to have a vicious enemy to fight back, one they could defeat instead of fighting off an enemy that was considerably more powerful than themselves.

Delenn hadn't forgotten the plea of Lenonn - such a long time ago, the war had seemed to engulf her entire life, and that of the entirety of her people - for financial sup[port and greater resources to help the Rangers to meet their mandate to fight the Shadows who were apparently returning. Delenn had spent enough time with the elder Ranger One before he was murdered by human treachery, although it beggared belief that the humans would even want to be slaughtered. Another thing that didn't make sense was why those two humans who'd been caught on that planet hadn't tried to escape…

Delenn pushed her thoughts aside when she caught sight of someone she hadn't expected. "Branmer. I didn't know you would be here," she smiled while both Minbari bowed while symbolising the triluminary. "Have you recovered?"

"Not entirely, Delenn," Branmer smiled as strongly as he could back, but he was still recovering from a disease that intelligence had called the flu; while it was unpleasant to humans, according to their findings, it had a truly fatal reaction with Minbari. For weeks Bramner and several other Minbari warriors had suffered from it, and more than a few of them had died. Branmer had been worried and even frightened he would have died himself, but he had only just managed to hold on. But he was worried for his future. "Still, we have to make these negotiations work. We have paid too high a price as it is."

Delenn nodded and although they were listening and kept silent, her colleagues from the other two castes were in full agreement. For such a primitive race, the humans had fought incredibly hard, and before their invasion of Earth, the Minbari had been forced to fight the humans for every inch of space. They would ram their ships into the sides of Minbari war cruisers, and mine the space near planets and despite the stealth fields, the human pilots and crews were relentless in fighting back against the Minbari.

On Earth, it was even worse. Before the invasion, the humans had used millions of their remaining weapons to inflict terrific and terrible levels of damage against the Minbari. When the warrior caste had had enough, the various clans had bombarded Earth with plasma, mass drivers - weapons that were banned by every civilised world. The Religious Caste had fortunately voted against the use of bioweapons devised by that….that thing, with the help of the Worker caste, although a warrior caste member of the council had forbidden their use as well, surprisingly, although Branmer was relieved by that.

The damage their world had taken had merely spurred the humans on, and the Minbari had paid a steep price in the ground campaign, and Branmer had seen many things that would haunt him even in his next incarnation to the point where he wished that his soul never rejoined the Well of the Souls so his future incarnations never had to endure what he had seen.

The ground campaign had been disastrous with the humans using whatever nuclear weapons they had left in their arsenal. Their planet was already badly damaged, but to the humans, if they could keep the Minbari out, then so much the better. That mindset was terrifying, but many Minbari had already died, and the casualties on both sides were terrible. The humans had suffered worse, with their cities in ruins, dust choking their planet's atmosphere although he had seen some places that were truly beautiful, and with their new president leading them after taking power when his predecessor and other government officials were killed, the humans had fought on harder.

But what upset Branmer the most was how so many warriors had been twisted by the war to the point where they forgot honour. They would torture and mutilate humans simply because they had the power, but the humans were just as bad, if not worse. If there was one thing he had learnt since becoming Warrior caste, it was that the humans were not afraid to do whatever it took to survive. He was just relieved they hadn't resorted to biological weapons.

The League of Non-Aligned Worlds had condemned the war, begging and pressuring the Minbari to stop, and with the attacks on so many colonies belonging to other races, the Abbai, the Drazi, the Pak'Ma'Ra and several other races who had taken in human refugees, and along with terrible threats of retribution for even harbouring the humans in the first place, they had declared war against the humans. Their technologies alone were inferior compared to the Minbari's technology and power but combined, they would pose a threat. Branmer hoped his more hotheaded warrior brothers and sisters did not relish the thought of a war against those races.

To his relief, the Centauri were not one of those races declaring war. If they had declared war, then combined with the other powers, the Minbari would lose. The one against the humans was bad enough, and their economy was nearly at breaking point. The Vorlons were pressuring them to stop the war as well.

But Branmer's mind had to look to the future. He had believed Lenonn when the older Ranger had warned of the coming Shadow War. As a former priest, Branmer had studied Valen religiously. Valen had prophecised the return of the Shadows. They needed all the resources they could get, instead of throwing everything away on the humans.

Branmer sighed under his breath as he and his fellow Minbari walked into the human building. He couldn't help but admire some of the pictures depicting humans from many years ago, pioneering new technologies, exploring space in their primitive spacecraft, or flying in primitive machines. When he saw the smiles on the faces of so many of them, Branmer could not help but feel doubt about the humans….

All of the Minbari entered an office. There were four humans inside already; two of them were clearly members of Earthforce, Earth's warrior caste, and the other was the new president. He was a tall man with a beard, and hard eyes, but what interested Branmer the most about those eyes and his overall appearance was the fact he was dressed much like a soldier was and those eyes spoke of a will that would be buckled. It was little wonder he had been able to inspire his people to fight so long, and so hard.

So intense was the president's position that Branmer and Delenn barely noticed the nondescript woman nearby. She held some kind of device in her hands. A translator, then.

"You'd better have a seat, then," he commanded in a deep voice with an accent that made it hard to place - that was something Branmer had found on Earth while he'd been here; all humans from different parts of the planet looked and sounded different, so it wasn't different from some Minbari - although everything in his body language yelled that he didn't want to do this. The Minbari bowed slightly and took their places. "Now, how do we end this war? And why are you coming to the negotiating table now after refusing to contact or speak with us since this unprovoked war began?" The two sides had come a long way in understanding the languages, and they had the technology to prove it.

"Unprovoked?" Delenn screamed. "Your ships fired on us without any reason, you murdered our beloved leader, who was considered by all to be greater than even Valen himself."

"Really?" The human president replied. He didn't look affected or concerned, but Branmer could see that he was trying to hide his sudden understanding of how the war had begun. "We saw it differently. Your people decided to launch a war of genocide against us because the exploratory division commander you encountered opened fire when you attacked him. What did you think he was going to do when your scanners caused system malfunctions on all of his ships and when you opened your gun ports?"

"It is a tradition of the Warrior caste," Coplann who was representing the Warrior caste along with Branmer spoke up, "a gesture of respect. We show our weapons and that we have nothing to hide."

"That's all very good," one of the Earthforce officers said, "but why didn't you bother to send our lead ship an inter-lac package to make communication possible? That would have ended the possibility of a war breaking out."

"You didn't send us one," Delenn pointed out.

"Actually, we did," the president refuted, "but from the reports of the inquiry later, the scanners caused too many malfunctions so the data in our transmissions was likely corrupted."

"Inquiry?"

"Yes, after the Prometheus attacked, we celebrated because we had shown you we were not a race to be taken lightly. When the war started, an investigation was launched into what went wrong. We found there was simply too much damage to the recorders of the ships' computers to tell if your inter-lac package was received, or ours was sent. The inquest was essential because we needed to understand what caused the war in the first place, but the only things we found just pointed to your guilt in using scanners which caused system malfunctions," the president explained.

The Minbari shared a look and they quickly conferred in their own language. But what they didn't realise was while their own interpreter was more than happy to turn a blind ear, the human interpreter was not.

"Is it true? Can it even be possible? The humans didn't start this war…because they're savages, but because they thought we were really going to attack them?" Delenn asked desperately. One of the biggest comforts she'd had for the last few years was the knowledge the humans were barbarians who deserved to be wiped out despite her abortive peace attempts. To find out those realities had been wrong…

"If it's true then we made a huge mistake," Branmer said himself. "We will need to investigate this property somehow. If it's true…. Then we started our Holy War over a misunderstanding. It's a grave dishonour." What made it worse was how the Minbari had lashed out against other races, burning down planets simply for taking in and helping human refugees. He was no longer sure how he could look at himself and claim he was a good person.

"I may not like the humans, but it is plausible. From what I later discovered after the Valen'tha was attacked, the humans had sent us garbled transmissions that were badly corrupted. Now it seems we have a reason for it," Coplann said thoughtfully.

"Do you believe them?" Delenn asked.

Coplann sighed. "I think so, yes, but I want more proof to make sure I am not being proven to be a fool."

"I think it is true and it makes sense. I saw the same transmission logs myself, and the Shai Alyt of our cruiser definitely had the inter-lac package sent to the Earth ships. We received corrupted data back. Now I have a good idea why," Damask, the Worker caste councillor said, "our scanners are powerful. We clearly underestimated the humans' primitive technology."

Unknown to the Minbari, the humans were listening to every word. The president had ordered the Minbari's part of the office to be bugged so the translator could tell them everything they were saying for intelligence purposes, and to prepare them for a trap. The humans were furious that the Minbari launched their war of genocidal murder because of a mistake, but they didn't dare reveal anything, since they couldn't reveal the bugs in case it might make the war go on longer and worse than before.

The Minbari conferred for a few minutes before they turned to the humans. "We ask for your complete and unconditional surrender," Branmer said, trying hard to keep his composure, "Earth and its inhabitants will become a Minbari protectorate from this moment forwards."

"What?"

"Not a chance in hell."

The President held up his hand for silence, and he glared at the Minbari. "I have a better idea, why don't you take your ships and leave our solar system and don't come back? If you do that…we won't come near your people ever again."

"We will not do that," Delenn interrupted with a pointed glower toward the humans. She wasn't prepared to give them a chance. "Your people have proven to be savage. We will not let you get out into the galaxy to cause destruction."

"How dare you?! We are not savages. We fight the way we do to survive. And you can hardly claim you're any different, considering what you've done," the president growled angrily. "Who the hell are you to judge us?"

"That's enough," Coplann interrupted evenly. "We have a weapon which could wipe your race out if you provoke us if you don't accept the terms of your surrender."

The meeting went on for another two hours, but the terms for Earth and her people were very harsh. The humans were holding onto their independence, and that was it. The humans would be confined to their own solar system, without any diplomatic ties to any civilisation. The humans were to accept the full responsibility for the war, paying the cost for the repairs to the Minbari economy while having nothing else to rebuild their own world.

The humans who had fought against the Minbari, like John Sheridan, were to be turned over, but the humans compromised with the Minbari, but where the Minbari warriors challenged them to their version of an honourable fight, the humans changed the whole thing around and they fought the Minbari with their own fighting skills.

But the occupation was on, and it was one the humans planned on fighting against because there were plans to end it for good and to save Earth.

Author's Note - The Minbari war takes a new turn and more consequences will happen further down the line. But the human race is not finished yet. So ends this short story. More to come.