Chapter 2

"Shit Helm turn us around get our aft shields between us and them. Weapons lock on and fire."

"Aye Sir."

"They have some kind of Jamming field trying to block our scans- attempting to adjust our scans to target them, SHIT, we've got an Energy Spike, they're firing."

Twin cutting beams emitted from the front of the massive ship impacting directly on the edge of the Prometheus class ship's hull skimming off the intact rear shields and ablating the ship's armour, cutting deep into the hull blowing through the empty cargo bay and out the other side. The glancing impact threw the ship sideways, the crew were strapped in this time and there were few injuries, within seconds the Achilles had managed to manoeuvre one hundred and eighty degrees round to bring its intact and powered rear shields completely between them and the Minbari ship.

From two separate weapons ports beams of pure energy hammered into the aft shielding of the Achilles, the beams however were not enough to break the already weakened energy barrier separating the two ships. As a response a spread of Missiles were launched at the unknown ship impacting on the thick armoured hull- two of the half dozen missiles were knocked out of space but this close it was inevitable some would get through, the effect was instantaneous the ship was crippled by the massive explosive force of the four Naquada enhanced missiles that were able to hit the ship directly.

"We got them sir, read four good detonations. Enemy ship damaged, weapons seem to be disabled."

"Send another Hail to the hostile, order them to surrender."

"Aye sir sending."

"Get on to all sections I want a damage report as soon as possible!"

"Aye sir."

"Get the ventilation fixed and clear this smoke."

"On it sir."

"No response from the Minbari Sir."

"Sir reports coming in from all over the ship, We've got damage to the fore sections of the ship we've lost contact with several rear deck sections and the empty cargo bay has completely depressurized the entire section's been sliced clean through sir."

"Ok does someone want to explain what happened there."

"Looks like the Goa'uld aren't the only people we've pissed off." The Xo remarked.

"Communications?"

"No response sir."

"Sir I'm reading another energy spike, enemy weapons are now back online, they're firing again."

"Weapons can you get a lock on them."

"Barely sir, We'll be fly by wire."

"Fire."

The crippled Angelfish shaped starship fired their main weapons for the second time finally crippling the remaining shields of the Earth built starship, the beam continued on smashing against the ship's skin and piercing though into the ship's inner hull. The Trinium/Naquada skin unable to hold back the immense power of the Minbari weapons still held the ship in one piece unlike the ships they had seen crippled or destroyed all around the system, the energy burst almost totally hid the second missile launch from the Achilles as they headed straight at the hostile ship, this time the minbari were ready and shot almost all of the missiles down.

However most is not all and two missile impacted on the Minbari ship this time immolating much of the engine fin and the forward weapons system, their weapons destabilised and engines critical the Minbari ship exploded.

"Target destroyed Sir."

"Dammit. Anything more on damage and casualty reports."

"That last blast knocked out most of the onboard communications we'll have to do a section by section, infirmary reports six dead and over a dozen injured and that doesn't count anyone killed in the depressurisation in either of the attacks."

"Keep me informed."

"Aye Sir."

"Engineering, bridge, time to hyperdrive repair."

"Bridge we're looking now but it doesn't look good, we'll need a good three days of repair to get it functioning, same amount of time to shore up the ship's damage."

"Get on it and send a work detail to repair the long range Comm. Systems."

"Aye sir."

"Bridge out."

The Human starship sat alone in the star system the debris of three armed starships floating in the darkness with what seemed to be the debris of a half dozen civilian freighters obviously this 'Minbari' ship had decided to destroy not only the military ships but anything that they found. The fact that this was worse than the Goa'uld had done to some races at least they took some survivors as prisoners or slaves this new race were barbaric to the extreme- much more than the enemies of the Tau'ri.

The only good news was they knew where they were and had much of their primary systems back online after only twenty four hours; the other bad news was that the shields and Hyperdrive would need a drydock for full repairs although the Hyperspace generator would be able to get them back to Earth within a few jumps. The hyperjump had sent them spinning almost fifteen light years away from their course towards Earth with the shockwave accelerating them blowing them out of the conduit, it was imperative they return to Earth with this new information.

"Colonel I'm not receiving any kind of signal from the SGC beacons, or from the Prometheus."

"Are you sure."

"Confirmed Sir, the comm. Systems are in working order but I'm getting nothing on SGC, USAF or Tok'ra frequencies. There's nothing out there."

"Could this new race have got to Earth?"

"Unknown sir but considering that we destroyed that ship relatively quickly, the Prometheus, the Daedalus and the 302's would have put up a hell of a fight I don't know though, we would at least be getting a signal from an offworld base but there's nothing except some kind of increased tachyon emissions from the Sol System and a few smaller system in the area the same as the transmissions we got from that Minbari ship."

"Try contacting Wolfhound station."

"I've tried them sir, Wolfhound, SGC, Norad, Beta Site, hell I tried every Mining site and even the Blasted NID I've received nothing sir."

"Engineering Bridge we need that Hyperdrive as soon as possible."

"We're trying captain if we cut some of the corners we can get it fixed in twenty eight to thirty hours."

"Do It, Bridge out. Helm go to maximum Sublight get us closer to the Sol System. All hands this is the captain, all off duty personnel are to assist with repairs, weapons stations take inventory and reload all tubes and CIWS systems. Bridge out."

"Course to Earth Laid in sir."

"Engage."

The Massive Sublight engines of the Achilles powered up and took the small starship to her top speed within minutes before shutting down and allowing the ship to coast at her maximum supported speed, to keep the engines on would increase the ship's speed incrementally leading to time dilation and damage to the ships supporting members. It was a long way to Earth with the damage they had and without help they could be in for a rough ordeal.

The Days crawled past for the crew of the heavily damaged Achilles, the armament of the starship was fully reloaded and many of the hull sections damaged were sealed up with sheets removed from storage or from internal wall sections, the damage to the ship was minor but needed a full drydock stay to refit. The ship's armour had held well against the Goa'uld ship's weapons and the shields had been a shock to all sides of the two conflicts the Achilles had been involved in, taking damage that would have crippled most known ships and shrugged them off- only the close by Nuclear explosions had been responsible for the crippling of the fore ventral shields the rest of the ship's defences were at optimal effect with all but the damaged shield generators and the slight armour damage on the port side. The damaged and depleted shields had almost burnt out with the attacks from the Minbari weapons when already damaged from excessive weapons fire and close proximity explosions. The depletion of the shield's energy and subsequent shit off was the only thing that had saved them from the completed electrical disruption that had destroyed the forward shields, even with the damage to several sections of the ship and the shields the ship was as ready as it could be for combat the overlapping shields of the Fore dorsal and aft shields coving most oft he hole left by the loss of the fore shields but parts were still exposed to enemy fire, some internal bracing had been reinforced around the damaged sections but nothing could be done until they hit earth orbit.

By the end of the second day the engines had pushed them out into the space between systems but only an infinitesimal distance when compared to the distance they needed to cover to warn Earth about a new threat if it wasn't already too late. The Alpha shift Bridge crew were uncharacteristically quiet during they shift- the knowledge that this new and very hostile race could have already been to earth and destroyed their people was weighing heavily on the minds of all personnel on board. However the mood was soon to dissipate as a hum started to vibrate throughout the ship rising in frequency before levelling off and dropping below human hearing.

"Bridge This Is engineering Hyperspace generator is Online she's ready for a test jump."

"Well done Lt.. Helm lock in course for earth maximum velocity."

"Aye Sir."

For the first time in days hope sprang up in the minds of the Crew of the Earth ship if they could help to save their world then they would if they had to go down they would go down fighting, the damn Goa'uld hadn't made them Bow and they would be damned if some Boneheaded asshole of a race would make them. With a flash of light the Hyperspace window activated and the Achilles moved into light speed closing the window as she did.

Seconds later a wormhole-like vortex opened up just outside the boundaries of the system and three ships identical to the destroyed alien vessel appeared from the end and flew directly into the system itself searching for their sister ship, their scans found the wreckage of the destroyed Warcruiser as well as that of the human ships destroyed in combat- the scans were clear that a massive nuclear explosion had crippled then destroyed their sister ship- and the only race to use them at all in this area of space were the earthlings.

The three Blue Angelfish shaped starships departed soon after retrieving the debris that remained of their brethren- the humans would not go unpunished for this travesty- the ship that did this would pay heavily for their impudence against the warrior caste of the Minbari.

DSR 4

Later that day.

The six Deep Space Rendezvous points had been created by the Earth Alliance military command at Earthdome very early into the Minbari war, it was known by that point that although the Minbari didn't know much about the Earth humans and their space that could change dramatically- for this the beacons for six DSR points were put together for remnants of damaged or destroyed task forces to regroup if necessary. Today the beacon at DSR 4 was home to a group of both crippled and damaged ships- not one of the ships was intact.

The EAS Hyperion led a tattered group of survivors from three task forces to the rendezvous point where a few other ships stood guarding and waiting, three Nova Dreadnaughts, Six Hyperion and Midwinter refit cruisers, four Olympus Corvettes and a single Artemis class Carrier trundled at the pace of their slowest ship- they were met by Task force Galapagos of Five Dreadnaughts and twelve attendant ships including a pair of Cotton class Tenders brought in for this exact reason.

The Small base in the area was nothing more than a large sphere with minimal weapons systems- allowing the base to go unnoticed in most scans, as the ships came in the Cotton class' mobile space dock, extended the massive construction frames from their hulls bringing the ship's length to near 1,600 meters, big enough for the repair and maintenance of even the largest ships of the incoming fleet. Two Hyperion cruisers and the Artemis took up positions inside the Pseudo Dry-dock facility of one docking side by side, the second of the tenders took a Nova and a Hyperion into their Construction arms again side by side allowing a third of all the ships to be refitted enough to make it back to one of the massive fleet docks in the Earth Alliance.

DSR 4 was one of the few safe ports that existed for Earth Alliance ships in the section of the galaxy- hundreds of ships had been wiped out in the first year of the war and slowly but surely the Minbari were pushing their way into Earth space- not even the massive and experience forth fleet- captained by crewed by veterans of the Dilgar conflict and the best of the Earth forces could stand in the way of the Minbari War machine. The news that not one of the Forth Fleets ships had escaped the attack on one of the border system had devastated fleet morale leading to the loss of even more fleet warships. Few outside of the ship's Commanding officers knew the locations of the DSR stations and were rightfully worried as a single starship dropped out of in the middle of the system barely one hundred thousand kilometres from the assembled fleet.

Bridge of the EAS Nautilus

Nova Class Dreadnaught

The Nova class dreadnaught was the De facto flagship of the fragmented fleet at DSR 4 by default of the ship being the only reasonably intact and crewed starship in the fleet, the other dreadnaughts and cruisers had shifted crew to the damaged ship to make up the shortfall in lost crewmen from the latest battles, like all EA starships the Nautilus did not have gravity force to keep it's crew in their seats and like the older Hyperion Class ships the crew were strapped down to hold them in their seats.

"Sir we're getting some kind of energy reading."

"Identify."

"Unknown sir it's not in any of our records, it's powerful whatever it is."

"Minbari?"

"I don't know sir, It's possible."

"Sir something's appeared 247 mark 34, the energy build up's gone she must have been responsible."

"Red alert, all hands General Quarters. Mackenzie to all ships Battle stations."

With the call to arms the available ships out of the thirty in orbit of DSR 4 went on full alert readying weapons and defences on all of their ships, the starfuries on the base and from the launch bays of the defence ships launched in packs to head off any attacks from enemy fighters- for all the good they would do. With over a year of battle and the loss of many good ships and crews the crews of the Earth Alliance warships were under no misconceptions that any of them would come away from this alive especially against one of those damn massive Warships.

The squadrons of starfuries opened up their formations as not to allow any possible attackers to hit too many of them at once, their agility and speed may be impressive but was of little use against the Nial class fighters of the Minbari federation however as the both the fighters and the capital ships moved closer to the new arrival it was obvious that the new ship wasn't Minbari, hell it looked almost like one of theirs.

"Captain scans cannot penetrate new ship's ECM fields."

"Have we got anything?"

"Yes Sir one of the Star Fury pilots has got visual on the ship's outer hull… What the fuck??"

"Dammit out with it man."

"Sir it's ID is in English Says BC 303, USAF , USS Achilles."

"That's impossible."

"That's what it says Sir, a Battlecruiser United States Air force."

"The US Air force had nothing like this before they were incorporated into Earthforce."

"No sir, She's also too small to be a Battlecruiser she's barely the Size of an Orestes Patrol Ship."

"Can you give me anything?."

"A basic size and power output that's it sir."

"Hail them." He turned to his Comms officer. "All languages, Interlac, Hell send in morse code but I want to talk to them."

"Aye sir."

The lumbering ships of the Earth alliance fleet slowed as they approached the damaged warship that had intruded upon the system- an order to two of the Cruisers and a flight of 'furies had had them make a approach either side, weapons hot and if possible using a visual lock. Even as the ships got closer there seemed to be no hostile response from the strange ship no scans, no weapons fire nothing.

Bridge of the Achilles

"Colonel the warships are approaching, we're reading almost thirty ships in the approaching fleet- some are launching fighters, we're receiving a hail."

"Anything on scans."

"Several of the ships are of the same configuration as the ship we saw destroyed by the Minbari cruiser she's heavily armed with some kind of Plasma weapon, a group of smaller ships maybe some kind of escort are also approaching, the fighters are one man ships not much against our defences sir. I'm reading Human life signs on all the ships in-system."

"I guessed that by the design- only humans could build something that butt-ugly and get away with it, this must be the group the Minbari mistook us for. Play the hail."

"This is the Earth Alliance Starship Nautilus to unidentified warship; you are trespassing on Earth Alliance Claimed Territory, power down your weapons and prepare to be boarded."

The collective shock of the Bridge crew of the Achilles was palpable, the fact that there were advanced humans out here was not unprecedented after all they had met other races that were much more advanced than the Tau'ri forces, no the shock was the fact they had Identified themselves as being allied to earth to begin with- unless some race had come to earth and taken them under their wing protecting them not everything was as it seemed.

"Earth Alliance?" Asked the Helmsman

"That's what they said Lt." replied the XO.

"Comms open hailing frequencies."

"Aye Sir."

"This is the United States Air Force Achilles, Colonel Joanna Taylor Commanding, to Earth Alliance Vessel Nautilus- we seem to be at a bit of an impasse here."

"Achilles this is Nautilus, explain your presence in Alliance space."

"We're going home Nautilus."

"Identify your Home Port."

"That is classified information Captain."

"Well My Pulse cannons say you can tell me."

"And my shields say I don't."

The Earth alliance ships listening stopped their movements and many crew started listening in closely- the ship is not only small and capable of blocking their scans and possibly doing more than that- now they claim to be shielded and by the looks of those energy reading have a form of jump drive as well. Who were these people and where did they get this technology from?

"No Earth Ship has Shield technology the Abbai refused to sell or trade for it- your lying, heave to and prepare for boarding."

"Captain You try to take this ship by force and I will open fire on your ships- make no mistake I can will use deadly force if I have to, now I'm asking you Captain to Captain please leave us be and let us return to Earth- the SGC will explain who we are when

we get back."

"I don't take kindly to threats Colonel."

"Neither do I Captain that's why I don't make them."

"Mackenzie to all ships, Lock all weapons."

"Captain." His xo piped up, "The ship has made no overt hostile Actions against our ships, we don't really know who they are."

"XO they come into our space and proceed to flaunt their technology while attempting to circumvent us to get to earth- that makes them enemies in my book."

"Sir You threatened them, they are human, they speak English hell if it's true then they are American and American soldiers at that. Don't do this captain."

"XO Either stand with me or get off My bridge."

"Captain…"

"Security get this traitor off my Bridge, Weapons fire at will."

The Achilles was already moving by the time the order had been sent out by the Commander of the fleet, however no fire came from any of the ships around her- a few stray shots came from the Starfuries spooked by the Achilles' rapid pace of acceleration- much faster than any other Capital Ship, League, Earth, Minbari or otherwise. The USAF Warship ground to a halt several hundred thousand Kilometres from the Assembled fleet- while many scans were still being thrown at them from the ships surrounding the area not one of them were attempting to paint a target.

"Uhhh Nautilus to Achilles Come in."

"This is Achilles, receiving- what happened here?"

"Captain Mackenzie Overstepped his Bounds Ma'am he attempted to fire on your ship against articles of war and established first contact situations. Weapons across the fleet are powering down- we apologize for what happened. The captain and Xo have been taken to sickbay for injuries."

"Thank you…"

"Garibaldi Ma'am Sgt Michael Garibaldi, Commander of the Marine Detachment of the Nautilus.