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...

Twenty

Dodge watched, shocked and fearful as a fifth Minbari vessel vanished from his scopes, its unidentified destroyer still unseen by the Stingrays sensors, and, if the transmissions were anything to go by, barely seen by the Minbari either. They at least had the advantage, they had been shown a thousand years ago how to detect the Shadows, but in that thousand years, their sensors had changed and the ability weakened. Stingray saw nothing on her passive sensors, and couldn't go active without losing all stealth, all surprise.

Dodge winced as another Sharlin vanished, screw it, the situation was fubar anyway.

“"Battlestations! Make all tubes ready in all respects including opening the outer doors, raise shields and prep all weapons batteries, we are going in”"

"“Aye sir, surface the boat!”"

"“That's drop active stealth Emily”"

“"Just going with what I know sir”"

"“Active sensors are up... no contact sir”"

"“Damn it to hell, alright..." Dodge paused, “"ping the sensors”"

“"Sir, that procedure damages the arrays"

“"Right now, I don't really care, ping them!”"

Pinging the sensors was an option recently added to the ‘Avoid unless totally fubared' section of the operations manuals for ships of the Prometheus and Dauntless classes. It involved turning the arrays to stand by for fifteen seconds whilst charging several capacitors. At the fifteenth second, the energy stored by the capacitors would be released to surge through the sensors. There was no question that it compromised the arrays, reducing their useful life every time the manoeuvre was used. There was no question that the sensor returns generated tended to be fuzzy, the returned energy being more then the receivers were designed to handle.

“"Contact!”"

There was no question that it tended to get results if nothing else would.

"“Contact is fading..."

“"Now I know what it feels like for the Captain of an ASW destroyer"” Dodge wryly commented, before ordering, “"keep pinging, it's the only way we're going to nail this sucker”"

“"Sir, signal from the Minbari ships, they say our sensors bursts are crippling their systems”"

“"Damn it, stop the pings”" Dodge swore, fluently in English and Goa'uld. Another Minbari vessel vanished from the scope, this time a Tinashi. He closed his eyes, slumping down slightly and his voice was harsh as he spoke once more.

“"Sound the retreat, all ships to make best speed for MakeSafe”"

“"Sir…”"

“"We've lost this one Emily, sound the retreat”"

xxx

Dodge groaned as he saw Weir waiting for him as he stepped out of the airlock onto the Minbari shipyards. He didn't feel up to this, not now.

“"Dodge, a word”"

“"Can it..."

"“No, it can't wait”" Weir interrupted him, gesturing the Captain to follow her, she strode off down the corridor, ignoring his mutterings totally.

Dodge swore; "he really didn't feel up to this right now."

He followed anyway.

The meeting wasn't what he expected.

“"A Narn courier arrived six hours ago, bringing interesting news. The Narn moved into and successfully captured a Centauri system, their first in fact, and during a post battle sweep of the system to check for any surprises, they found this”"

Weir dropped a lone printout onto the desk, and Dodge's eyes shot up, it matched the Minbari descriptions of a Shadow warship, more importantly, it also matched the somewhat fuzzy silhouette the Stingrays sensors had been able to generate whilst in ping mode. This was the type of ship that had successfully destroyed his ambush.

“"Hot on the Narn's heels came the League”" another printout was dropped, "“and an F-302 from Prometheus" ” a third printout dropped.

“"All of them are buried on inhospitable planets very close to inhabited worlds”"

Dodge glanced up, "“Anubis has found at least one”"

Weir nodded, agreeing personally, but she played the Devils Advocate anyway, “"all we know is that somebody hostile attacked your group with a Shadow vessel, it isn't outside the realms of possibility, especially given the pattern that seems to be developing for how these things are hidden that somebody else had found and is using one”"

"“I don't believe that, it's Anubis”"

"“I agree, but we have to consider the alternatives too”"

Dodge nodded, accepting the implied rebuke.

“"So, what do you want to do about it?”"

“"Your engineer reported degraded performance on your sensors, bad enough that he recommended you head back to Thundersdawn and have them worked over in the repair bay, you will do that and you will courier all the latest intelligence with you, including the sensor data of the Drakh and Shadow vessels and you will bring back a full analysis, understood?”"

“"Yes sir”"

“"You don't like the orders?”" Weir asked at his tone.

“"No sir, this puts me and my command on the sideline and I don't like that Weir, you need every ship you can get”"

"“I need every fully operational ship I can get,"” Weir shot back, “"your sensors are compromised. As its stands, the only reason you weren't headed back earlier was because Thor helped you out. You're still shorthanded after your brush with the Drakh remember”"

Dodge winched, of course he remembered, the Del Shakka Mel had died that day, “"aye sir. Anything else?”"

“"Yeah"” Weir winched, contemplating the Minbari equivalent to Coffee, "“bring back Coffee, lots of it”"

Dodge chuckled, and slipped from the room.