DSR Four

Three Days post arrival of USAF Achilles

News of the arrival of the Achilles had spread like Wildfire across the base. While small the ship was now known to be an interstellar craft with heavy armament and new technologies that were unknown to the Earth alliance forces. The ship was damaged; that much was obvious but what was surprising is that the energy signature from the weapons strikes matched that of Minbari fusion beams. The ship had obviously taken on an enemy ship and won the day. No Earth ship had yet survived a one on one encounter with any of the Minbari Warships to date. If this new ship had survived and dare they believe destroyed the Minbari ship, then what else might it be able to do?

In the last few days most of the lightly damaged ships had been repaired and now only a few of the more seriously damaged ships now stood in the larger repair bays belonging to the Cotton Class tenders. However close to the station itself the new arrival was seen to have all kinds of space-suited crew and construction pods looking her over. The commander of the Station had granted the crew a repair bay on the station itself and possible liberty (what they could give of it). However half of the crew was currently using Earthforce suits and pods to check over their ship, the depressurized areas of the ship had been resealed with thick slabs of metal alloys from the station's stocks to allow the ship to be fully re-pressurized and full sets of repairs looked over. Already damaged relays and support systems had been repaired across the ship and the last remaining holes had been plugged. The injured where recuperating nicely thanks to the Earthforce Medbay on the DSR station.
The debriefing on both sides had lasted well into the third day. Basic information about their commands, their respective levels of technology, status of their home worlds, virtually anything that could explain what exactly was going on and how and why the Achilles was an unknown ship in a strange time and world were discussed and theorized. A literal stranger in a strange land as it were, the last day was now about tactical information culminating in information about both wars being fought by their respective worlds.

The Goa'uld were an unknown to these humans and if this was in fact their Earth and the surround space was the same as their own then the Goa'uld should have been at least mentioned even in classified reports, reports that would mean little now humanity as a whole were in space. There was nothing anywhere; NORAD had been shut down years before and Cheyenne Mountain no longer existed. The officers of the Achilles and Earthforce quickly realized that the knowledge of the Goa'uld was of no real use. At this time however, the information about the Minbari was more than useful to the people of the Achilles.

The crew was shocked at the fact that one accident could lead to such a massive loss of life as the much more advanced Minbari ships ripped apart every ship and station that came within range. More than that was the fact that colonies even those with no defenses were being sterilized from orbit by Minbari ships of the line. Even those with barely a few hundred people in a science station were fair game to the Minbari.

"Well I can see the problems you had with first contact. This Captain Jankowski should not have been given that command by any stretch of the imagination. We've only been in interstellar space for two or three years now and even we wouldn't let that kind of officer have a ship command let alone a fleet command."

"Agreed, but at that time we believed we were invincible to all but a few powers, shows that humans are a egotistical as anyone."

"I assume that some members of Earthforce still believe they can beat the odds."

"Yeah, you've met one."

"The Captain of the Nautilus."

"Yes, but I want to be clear. Not all of us are of the 'shoot once, shoot twice, shoot some more and once everyone's dead try asking a few questions' school of tactics."
"I'll try to remember that." Taylor grinned at her cohort, sobering she got down to business. "What can you tell us about the Minbari ships, technology level, weapons and defenses, anything about them?"

"The problem is that all our ships are unable to get full scans and even the few ships that have gotten away haven't been able to give us much. Some kind of stealth field covers the ships making it all but impossible to even see the things on sensors, even direct visual scans are useless because by that range all of our ships are shredded. IR, Radar, scanners, everything is disrupted by the Minbari. Worst of all their own scans disrupt our systems to the extent that we're helpless."

"We've seen that, even our sensors are hard pressed to lock on. We also know they use some kind of controlled fusion weapons and crystal armor and that's it, we need to know more before we try going up against them again."

"We believe they are perhaps one thousand years ahead of us in technology and they are making good use of that gap."

"Understood."

"Command to Colonel Travmakov."

Hitting her link she spoke into it. "Go ahead."

"Transmission from the Achilles, Ma'am."

"Put it through." She nodded at the USAF officer before leaving the security office.
"Colonel." the Xo of the Achilles appeared on the screen of Travmakov's office, "The Achilles is almost at battle readiness should we be needed, the only problem is we have no way to replace the missiles already used in combat we have just less than a full magazine. With these Minbari around we'll need a restock and soon."

"Defenses?"

"Shields are running at ninety two percent of normal, ECM is at full power the damage has been patched and covered over with sheets of Titanium."

"Good. Anything else?"

"No Ma'am. Everything else is fully functional, the 302 returned last night and is fully stocked."

"Good, keep me apprised XO."

"Aye."

"Good Luck, Taylor out."

"Achilles Out."

Walking out to the main section of the security offices Taylor approached her opposite.

"Well Colonel, looks as if things may be changing for us." Taylor said.

"Red Alert! All hands battle stations!"

"Or not," Travmakov replied. Outside the station the ships of the Alliance Fleet broke dock and pulled into formation, from the ships and the station squadrons of Starfuries sped out from their berths and took their positions around the Earth Alliance ships. In the midst of this a small almost insignificant warship launched its own meager fighter group into the void and took p a position close to the front of the Battlegroup. The USAF warship stayed in the sensor shadows of the larger warships, while fully armed they were not yet ready for combat.

"Achilles to Nautilus." The Comms officer started the transmission, "We stand by ready to assist."

"Achilles, Nautilus. I hope your techs as powerful as they say or else this will be a damn short fight."

"Received Nautilus, weapons are hot and defenses to standby."

"Received Achilles, first sign of trouble hit your shields and pick your targets."
"Roger That. Achilles out."

"Good Hunting Nautilus out."

The Comms officer turned to his boss and relayed the instructions they had been given.

"Weapons officer, unmask all launchers and ready the main weapons."

"Aye sir weapons arming time to intercept six minutes."

"Status on shields."

"Shields are offline, but ready at seventy percent with full power with in twenty seconds."

"Bridge to Engine Room."

"Engine room Aye."

"What's wrong with the shields?"

"The shielding systems are still playing up. We have full power now, but the subsystems are bypassed to the hilt just to get the shields to full power. We're still working on it, if the bypasses don't hold they'll drop to seventy percent. Not much else I can do without a full overhaul of the defensive systems."

"Understood; do your best."

"Always do. Out."

"Captain the formation is opening up; we're to go to the head of the formation. Captain we've been ordered to go in fully shielded."

"What? By who's order?"

"Captain Smith of The Nautilus, he wants to face the Minbari down with a ship that the Minbari have never seen."

"Maybe we can use this to our advantage, acknowledge orders and move up in front of the formation."

"In the front, Sir?"

"Yes, the front Lt."

"Aye, Sir."

The small and fast battlecruiser pushed ahead of the lumbering Earthforce spaceships, while not much better looking the Prometheus Class vessel was faster and much more agile than any of the other ships and their manoeuvre to the position ahead of the main force just enforced that upon both the Humans and the Minbari, the shock of such power coming from a tiny ship caused the Minbari Line ships to pull up and reduce their attack speed down to a relative crawl.

Sensors from all five Minbari ships were now actively scanning the starship in front of them; unlike with the EarthForce ships however these beams were all but blocked by the shields and ECM systems which were now active, the Minbari couldn't scan anything from the ship or a small distance around it.

Blood of Dukhat

The Holographic Command centre of the Minbari ship was fully staffed as the two dozen Minbari currently on duty readied their ship for the now almost routine annihilation of Earther ships and their command post. However for one of the Warriors aboard the Blood of Dukhat this was to be an interesting day in so long as they remained in the Earth claimed system. The 'Blood' was the most powerful of her class in the fleet, the combined skill of all three castes had made her fast and powerful second only to the Drala Fi herself.

"Alyt we have picked up an anomaly in the Earther's battle fleet."
"Explain."

"A small area directly in front of them is impenetrable to our scans, we thought we picked up some kind of vessel but nothing we know of can be that small and have that much power."

"Continue scans, if it moves from its course destroy it."

"Yes, Alyt."

The two Sharlin warcruisers continued closer to the battle fleet, the three escorts taking position to the side and above the twin Capital Ships, all five of the highly powerful warships increased speed once again bearing down on the Earth fleet.

"Alyt."

"What is it?"

"We have an incoming transmission coming in."

"Ignore it."

"It's coming from the anomaly."

"Really, very well let's find out what the mystery is. Onscreen."

The small area of the holographic chamber faded in and a view of a tall dark haired man looked directly at them, when he spoke it was obviously in English an Earther language that seemed to dominate their worlds.

"This is the United States Air Force Vessel Achilles to incoming Minbari ships, we mean no harm but we will not allow you to willfully butcher the men and women of this command. We wish to parley with your leaders and come to a ceasefire."

"Alyt?"

The Commander of the taskforce looked at the screen somewhat surprised. Most Earthers would have fear in their eyes at the thought of five Minbari ships coming down at them, but this one…

This one had nothing but defiance in his eyes, his ship if that was what the anomaly was too small to be much of a problem to the Sharlin Warships or even the smaller Tinashi War Frigates. A ship that small couldn't even take on a squadron of the Minbari fighters, however with their ability to confuse even Minbari scanners, it somehow could be useful.

"Send two of our fighter Squadrons and One of the escorts to investigate the anomaly, if it's a ship disable it for study. All other vessels destroy the Earth ships."

"At once, Alyt."