Part Ten:
"That's all we need a Druish princess."

Earthdome
Senator's offices

"I really don't like that guy."

"Sir." The General's Aide appeared next to Leftcourt as the older man left the senator's offices, Leftcourt was both angry and embarrassed at the conversation he had been a party to. People like Clark got right on his wick.

"Let me tell you something Captain, never get involved in politics if you can help it."

"What was the Senator's reaction Sir?"

"Clark is very annoyed by the fact that this newcomer ship refuses to give us access to their entire technical base, apparently he thinks that they are afraid of us for some reason."

"With their tech base I doubt that, Sir."

"As do I," he agreed.

The two EarthForce officers left the senator's offices at EarthDome to return to the command centre at EarthForce Headquarters. Even with the excitement of the last few days, the loss of six ships was little more than a gnat bite when it came to the overall view of the war. The Minbari were still pushing forward in most areas. Only a few outposts with heavy weapons and massed warship support were holding out at the moment, but even so the war was still going against the Earth Alliance and not even the most powerful systems were safe from the Minbari.

The only true fortunes the humans had were the fact that the Minbari did not know where the twin home systems of the Alliance were, Earth and Proxima were still safe from attack by the alien race, for now at least. Secondly the next generation of warships were almost ready for deployment from the Alliance Shipyards at Sol, Proxima and Barnard's star.

With luck the fifty new warships and sixty new escorts would help to hold the Minbari back at least for a while until the Alliance could come up with something involving the new technologies bought from the Narn and possibly from the Achilles crew as well, the prototype Nova and Hyperion refits made up the bulk of the newly commissioned ships all with better sensors and weapons that the last commissioned fleet had had.

The entire group was to be the Reinforcement fleet for the mid range base at Wolf 359. That station while nominally the equivalent to the Beta Durani base had little to no defensive armament left after successive attacks by the Minbari.

The system's shipyards had been crippled with barely a fifth of the seventy slipways intact while the minefields and patrol ships had been wiped away by continuous assaults by the Minbari. This left the Twin Stations and its surrounding weapons platforms as the only systems remaining to defend the system and the personnel in the shipyards.

The attacks however had been continuously repelled by the EarthForce defences. The loss of the mine fields and thirty ships of the defensive force had cost the Minbari close to forty ships and the each time while the damage done to the enemy was less and less the crippled defences still drove off the massive Minbari Sharlins and smaller Tinashis. The fleet would be assembled by the end of the week. Those ships would join with a force of both construction ships and fleet tenders. Together, they would attempt to reinforce and rebuild the system defences for the Wolf System to hold against the inevitable attacks that would be coming once the Minbari had reinforced their forward lines. Hopefully this would make the Minbari think twice about coming after the midrange bases again.

"Sir, we've established communications with Beta Durani."

"Good, put it through to the briefing room."

The briefing room was similar to the meeting rooms on the space stations in orbit of the EA worlds, however it was much more luxuriously appointed compared to the orbital habitats, taking up much of one wall was a series of screens and consoles to allow large scale communication with stations and battlegroups. On the centre screen was the face of the Station's commander, General Hague.

"William, good to see you."

"You too, Sir."

"Straight down to business, what can you tell us about our new friends?"

"Well, true to their word we've received technical specifications of some of their systems.. According to our technicians they've never seen anything like this before, the technology is over two hundred years out of date but the way it's been put together…its systems are much more advanced than most of ours. The railguns alone are a tenth our size, but capable of destroying fighters and even smaller warships."

"The video evidence shows this ship is more than we could ever hope for."

"Sir, they've given us their sensor tech as well, within the month we will have every ship in the system fitted to read the Minbari warships."

"That quickly?"

"Yes, Sir. The rest of the technology will take time to reverse engineer and fit to the rest of our ships but the sensors are easy to integrate."

"Do it. Top priority. Suspend all work on the omega class and wait for the new tech to be engineered."

"Aye, Sir."

"William, we might have a problem."

"Sir?"

"Clark is ordering a Psi Corps team to Beta Durani from their Base at Proxima. They will be there in three days."

"What the hell for?"

"I don't know but it's unlikely to be anything good, especially since the Achilles refuse to share their most powerful and advanced tech."

"So the teeps might be sent to get that information?"

"At best guess."

"The Achilles and crew are not EarthForce or Alliance personnel, they do not come under the auspices of Psi Corps and therefore this is illegal."

"I agree."

"Should I Inform Colonel Taylor?"

"Yes, As soon as possible."

"Sir. Why exactly are we trying to stop the Psi Corps? I mean we could do with all the help we could get." A very Junior Ensign asked

"Main reason ensign, these people are helping us out of a tight squeeze, they don't have to and I'm damned if some blockheaded prat at Earthdome is going to mess up this alliance."

Minbar
Minbari Federation
Same day

The Crystalline spires that made up much of the skyline of Minbar glittered in the rising sun of the early morning, Minbar like much of the Federation was at a war footing, since the Murder of the greatest of them the Minbari of all castes had joined up to fight the Barbarians known as 'Humans' or 'Earthers'.

In a deep hidden temple the seven members of the Grey council still on Minbar were meeting to discuss the state of the war against the Earthers. Information gathered and extrapolated had given the Minbari navy more targets, both ship based and planetary based. The most intriguing had been the records from the Drala Fi and the Warrior Caste Satai Hedronn of a missing naval task force assigned to destroy an Earther station that had been the first strike into the space claimed by the so-called Earth Alliance.

The only information that they had received from the task force had been a single coded text recording sent to the Drala Fi by the command ship of the task force, the 'Blood of Dukhat'. The news that all the ships of the fleet, bar a crippled Sharlin, had been destroyed on top of the loss of the Shargotti Shal'avi only days before had angered the council, the fact that they had no idea of who or what had been responsible was even more perturbing than just the loss of six ships.

"Fellow Satai, we seem to be at a slight impasse in our eradication of the Earthers." He brought the holographic systems online to form up around the Wolf 359 System. "In the last three weeks this Earth system has held against our most determined efforts to pierce their defences, while their ships and primitive minefields were dealt with they managed to damage many ships allowing the survivors and local defence systems to destroy our vessels.

"More so, they are still capable of combating task forces sent to destroy them. Fifty of our front line ships have fallen destroyed or damaged to the Earthers. This base is better defended and in better repair than the smaller stations we have destroyed since the war began."

"What is the warrior Caste's thoughts Satai?"

"We believe that a determined strike of twenty ships could wipe out the enemy fortifications and any ships that come to reinforce the Station. Furthermore it will avenge the blood of our lost brothers and put fear into the Earther's hearts when their most powerful stations are destroyed by our superior ships."

"What of the loss of six of our ships to an unknown assailant," asked a worker Satai.

"The loss of the Shal'avi was discovered by the Halla'shi task force what seems to be less than a day after the incident. Some debris of non-Earther or Minbari type was discovered as was radiation of an unknown type- it was later discovered that the same radiation existed at the Earther station later destroyed by the Drala Fi Combined Battlegroup."

"So, the humans or someone assisting them, have destroyed six of our vessels for almost no observable damage."

"That is correct."

"Could this be the same vessel or could it be the actions of more than one?" a religious Satai spoke up.

"We believe it may be the work of multiple ships, there is little chance that any ship could have made it between both systems so quickly. Not even our fastest ships came back it that far within that time limit."

"So the Earthers have help from multiple ships of an unknown type and from an unknown power."

"That is out belief at this time."

"Fellow Satai." The second warrior Satai lowered his hood to look at the rest of the group. "If this is true then the possibility exists that the humans may acquire technology that will allow them to destroy entire task forces with a single ship, this cannot be allowed to come to pass. We must push forward harder than we have done, we have the warriors and the ships we must strike deeper and harder than we have so far."

"You do not believe this is hasty, one ship or even two will not allow the Earthers to defeat our ships in the time left to them," stated one religious caste.

"I believe that the humans while little more than barbarians have somewhat of a capability when it comes to adapting their technology, theirs and any they acquire from others."

"Be that as it may, they have not stopped us yet and I doubt they have the resources to, however I also believe that the threat may be real. We shall authorise the use of the Eastern Defence Fleets to join the attack, we need to end this war and quickly."

"Agreed," the entire council chimed.

Outside the chamber an Attaché to the council was given the orders to allow the fleets on the eastern border of the federation, the border to the League Of Non Aligned Worlds to be attached to the war effort, this war would be over with quickly and efficiently and allow the Minbari to rest in the knowledge their fallen would be avenged.

"Order the fleet to destroy both Earther midrange bases immediately."

Unknown Location
Unknown Time.

Observing through the eyes of their spy devices hidden in the Minbari Council meeting chambers, a host of floating semi-energy beings watched as their children pushed forward to finish this threat to their very beings. Of the beings assembled many sat worried at this new change in things.

"This newcomer threat has changed things, the Minbari are developing with a fervour that is much beyond their ken."

"Whatever this newcomer is, it is destabilising the circle, the humans may be the key, but if the Minbari push forward things may change and not for the better."

"The Circle will collapse and the game will be over."

"No." one voice said, one being that would one day be known to the outside world as Kosh Naranek, "The Circle will not break, it has changed and it has shifted but it is indeed whole and will stay so. The humans are more than even we know. The newcomers may help the humans against those whom seek to destroy them. In essence they may be what we need to banish the enemy once more."

"You believe these humans to be important to the grand scheme?"

"Yes."

"We shall watch and see, Kosh, we shall watch and see.

Midrange Base
Beta Durani
That night.

The dockyards were still at full swing as the dozens of slipways were still under use as the dreadnaughts, cruisers and carriers were under construction. The shipyards were under constant use twenty-four hours a day in an attempt to get as many ships out onto the battle line as was humanly possible. Some were partially constructed while others were barely begun, and only a very few were near completion.

However in the largest docks the partially completed Nova-X Dreadnaughts, as they were known construction had all but stopped as the massive constructs were ordered to cease most of the systems integration, only a very few systems such as life support and power distribution were still being installed.

The main reason for this halt was sat in the sixth of the Omega bays. The USAF Achilles had begun the very basic repairs to its hull and systems. Surprisingly enough to the USAF personnel,the technical abilities of the Earth Alliance Forces allowed close facsimiles of the Goa'uld based command systems as well as the trinium/titanium hull armour.

However much of that was in the future since the basic shoring up of the damaged sections and the refit of the most necessary primary systems came first. This was a massive undertaking due to the damage taken by the battle cruiser during the last battle. The huge amount of damage forced them to ask for EarthForce assistance which was necessary for the basic systems to be repaired.

In the thirty six or so hours since the Achilles arrival very little had been done to the ship even with the cordial relationship between the crew of the Achilles and the alliance forces. Neither were willing to do much more than the very basic work with each other. Some technical specs had been delivered to the R&D at Durani Station for perusal and in return certain amounts of supplies had been received by the Achilles. But so far, it proved enough to repair the major hull stresses and the primary environmental systems.

The outer sections and those not classified by the Captain and the XO were open to Earth Alliance technical staff in order to get the repairs underway quickly and efficiently. Most of the technicians had been part of the New Class Destroyer program and were some of the best the Alliance had- allowing the Achilles to be repaired faster than usual.

The worse off areas of the ship were to be the first to be repaired, hull breaches, system shorts and damaged decking were all top of the list. It was hoped that the ship's outer hull would be done within a few days allowing the damaged areas to be fully pressurised and tested before the systems and internal bulkheads were repaired.

"Colonel Taylor."

"Commander, how can I help you?"

The Durani Station's XO had been assigned to overlook the repairs teams the Alliance had sent to assist the USAF personnel in the repair of the Achilles. His basic demeanour and friendly personality had endeared him to the crew of the 21st century vessel. The dark haired man walked along the corridor towards the Colonel, though he had been aboard a half dozen times in the last day he was still awestruck by the fact the ship had Artificial gravity aboard.

"There's a communication from Durani Command for you, it's being transferred from the dockyard to the bridge."

"Thank you Commander, any idea why?"

"No Ma'am, if you'll excuse me I need to return to my teams."

"Of course, Commander."

The EarthForce officer left the corridor allowing Taylor to approach the bridge of her ship. The bridge was almost empty, more so than when the ship was in dock in Nevada. The necessity of having every available hand on damage control and repair had meant only two or three personnel were on the bridge at any one time, Joanna looked around and nodded to the on duty personnel before heading to the communications console.

Tapping in authorisation and command codes, the communications linked to the dockyard receiving station and translated the short-range communications channel into the basic SGC frequencies and then into the visible spectrum.

"General Hague, what can I do for you?"

"Colonel Taylor, I have news for you. EarthDome have agreed to all requests for repairs to your ship in exchange for the systems you are willing to share with us."

"Good news for both of us then."

"Not quite. Has anyone informed you of a group known as the Psi-Corps?"