Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter One
--------------------------------------------------------
The Von Braun floated between the stars, its gravimetric engines slowly pushing it towards the single planet of this system.
Intel reports coming from several reliable sources told that this system was held by a race called Minbari and the Terran Union wanted to meet them and open diplomatic contacts.
The Von Braun was the only ship that had been send to this system. But still it was considered a show of force towards many of the other races in Known Space. The ship was an attack carrier a cross between a battle ship and a carrier for bombers and fighters, in itself capable of laying waste to a small force of ships, and it had shown this during the Dilgar War.
It was of the generally ulitarian design like all Terran Warships and ugly compared to the ships of the other races, but it did its job.
Aboard Colonel Jason Willks was a little nervous about this meeting. He glanced over to Lieutenant Xoral, the Dilgar that happened to be navigator of the Von Braun and remembered a little of the history of the Dilgar War.
The Dilgar had attacked the League of Non Aligned Worlds about 40 years ago and the Terran Union had tried to talk to them, but the result was that the Dilgar had attacked Terran controlled space. The Union had responded in kind and after two years and countless battles, the Union had successfully invaded every world controlled by the Dilgar.
The League and the Narn had wanted to isolate the Dilgar, but the Union found out just why the Dilgar had started the war and did what human had several times since World War II, they helped their old enemies. The Dilgar colonies had become a Terran Protectorate and new colonies were founded on neighbor worlds. In an unparalleled act of technology and economical might, a billion Dilgar had been evacuated from the Dilgar home system and to the new colonies. Than the sun of the Dilgar homeworld went Nova and destroyed everything in the system, but about one billion Dilgar were saved from extinction. Now the Dilgar worlds were part of the Terran Union and Dilgar had began to file into the Armed Forces.
"Multiple Contacts, unknown configuration," the sensory chief said suddenly and Willks nodded.
"Yellow Alert," he said.
He didn't hope that it would come to a fight, but it didn't hurt to be prepared.
Deep inside the computer core of the Von Braun something happened. Code lines more than a century old started to influence the AEGIS weapon control system of the ship as the sensory systems took measure of frequency blocks that were considered an electronic weapon.
"We are being scanned," the sensory chief said," high band EM emissions. I don't think that they will get much data."
The AEGIS system switched modes as it analyzed the data coming from the sensory systems. A century ago, this EM emissions would have been enough to scramble the computer systems of any ships, but technology had advanced and today the systems were not as sensitive as before.
"Looks like they have their gun ports open," the sensory chief said," But they are not powering up their weapons."
Willks nodded. Maybe this was some form of first contact behavior of the Minbari. He knew enough about alien psychology to know that not every race though as the humans.
"What the..." he suddenly heard the voice of the tactical officer and red lights started to blink throughout the ship.
"RED ALERT," a computerized voice bellowed," RED ALERT!"
Willks turned to the tactical officer.
"What's going on?"
"The AEGIS system switched to Armageddon mode, something about EM emissions. It targets the lead ships of the Minbari."
Willks swallowed.
"Deactivate it!"
"I'm trying!"
The AEGIS system went through all targeting solutions and sensory data before deciding on the right course of action. The massive four Gauss Turrets of the ship went online, their ten meter barrels turning towards the largest of the Minbari ships. Coming down to a sollution the AEGIS system opened fire and a a ten second salvo of Gauss projectiles moving at ten percent the speed of light speed towards the Minbari. Not even a second after firing the projectiles ripped into the crystalline armor of the ship and after ten seconds it was crippled by more than a hundred Gauss Projectiles.
"FUCK!" the tactical officer cursed as he deactivated the AEGIS system, seconds too late.
"We cripples the lead ship," Willks heard the sensory chief," and the other ships don't look happy about it."
"Get us the hell away from here," Willks just said.
With that the Dilgar Navigator powered up the String Drive and the Von Braun latched onto the next cosmic string, using it like a monorail to disappear at FTL speeds.
Thus the War between the Terran Union and the Minbari Federation began, with a bug in the computerized weapon control system.