10: Dawning Alliance
by Chaoseternus
When Enerina is sent to investigate why every gate in an area of space will not establish a wormhole, she finds something totally unexpected...
FourteenAbruptly, catastrophically, the Del Shakka Mel died, a new sun momentarily appearing, supernova like that died in an instant, the glow vanishing as the shockwave flashed, unknowing and uncaring across space, scattering the few survivors of the Del in their flimsy shuttles.
It was into this chaos that the vanguard of the Minbari fleet, a Sharlin class war cruiser dropped, its weapons already hot and ready, its captain frankly scared at being ordered into a fight that had seen a mighty Tau'ri warship laid low.
But, the Drakh were gone, wiped out to the last by the Del Shakka Mel, the 5SFW and the Stingray, and it was one very relieved Minbari captain that ordered immediate rescue and salvage operations.
USS General Hammond was the first Tau'ri warship on the scene and the first to leave, her engines screaming as the Dauntless class Destroyer headed at flank speed for the nearest stargate beyond the slowly weakening hyperbarrier, her mission, to report to the Tau'ri the lose of an allied warship and the heavy damage received by the Stingray.
And of the apparent new allies for Anubis, this race the Minbari called Drakh.
-
"Offworld activation!"
General Carter rubbed his head, almost wishing for his Tok'ra days as he dropped the latest paperwork on the desk and headed once more for the control room.
They weren't expecting anyone back now, so this was unscheduled and unscheduled almost always meant trouble of one sort or another.
"Receiving GDO transmission..." the tech sergeant glanced at General Carter, more then a little startled, "its USS General Hammond sir, they are requesting permission to send a briefer through"
"Granted, arrange a resupply for the General Hammond whilst they are at the gate, and as soon as the briefer clears customs, send them to my office"
Nodding at the sergeant's acknowledgement, Carter swiftly headed back to his office, his mind already cursing in tune with Selmac as they considered exactly what kind of chaos was occurring across the hyperbarrier that would have the General Hammond herself delivering the news herself, instead of leaving it for the scheduled run by one of the F-302's deployed aboard the Del Shakka Mel.
Carter never even had an chance to sit down in his office before he was called to the sickbay, the first port of call for anyone arriving from offworld, to deal with the frantic XO of the Hammond, who insisted their news couldn't wait for the Doctors to finish their checkover.
Frankly, Carter was soon wishing he had waited, at least in the office he would have had a few aspirin handy to help deal with his developing headache, something not even Selmac seemed to be able to help with nowadays. But then, both of them were far out of their prime, no longer the young beings they once were.
"let me get this straight, the Del is gone, along with the 5 th SFW and the Stingray, a ship so new I'm sure she still has some of the yard crews aboard, is heavily damaged. Oh, and just to make my day complete, we know now Anubis has made contact with some of his old allies, allies with advanced fighters"
Carter shook his head at the officers sympathetic nod, 2great, its bad enough we've got reports from Endeavour coming in that sound like something from a trekkies..." Carter trailed off, refusing to finish voicing that thought out aloud.
"We've got a real problem here, I cant see us being able to free up any reinforcements for you, every ship we had spare is being rerouted to deal with the Aschen, sons of a bitches managed to get a taskforce into a system that isn't one of ours, buts its still far to close for our liking, and the locals made an official request for assistance"
"We're down to just General Hammond , Prometheus and two outdated Ha'taks, standard
system lord ships not the upgraded vessels of Maktenos or Anubis, the
local races maybe doing most of the work but if we are outclassed so
are they, and they need our heavy hitting ability
Its bad enough that they have become distracted by war with the
Centauri but if they start felling they aren't getting enough
support..."
"I know, I know, but ships aren't exactly in easy supply, especially not now..." Carter sighed, "they just finished the first layer of type one defence satellites around Edonia, they may be willing to release a ship or two from there now but I would have to have a word with Thompson and Peters at the RSS, they do have priority over fleet operations after all"
"Go, get some sleep and I'll send for you when in know some more"
-
The next day, General Hammond surged back towards Minbari space, her perishables restocked her ammo bunkers topped up and her entire computer core copied to the SGC over radio via the gate.
The day after, USS Yorktown left Edonia nebula, her orders to report home for resupply and briefing, then onto Minbari controlled space, joined by USS Gettysburg , until recently, part of the Sol system defence picket.
Behind them they rumours of a massive project, planned as a combined effort between the allied races, a place where the alliance could meet, to learn more about eachother, to grow closer, researching and living together, a place where a war could be controlled from.
A project, codenamed Babylon...
