Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter Four
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Aylt Sural closed his eyes. His fleet was just about to engage the Terran Union in one of their systems, called Jericho. The Burning Sword would come down on the Terran like its namesake. They would pay for what they had done. They had approached the ship of the Gray Council six week ago and opened fire at it without warning. All members of the Council had been injured to a certain degree, but Satai Dukhat had been worst of. A beam of the ships hull had knocked him down and served his spine, crippling him. It had been a wonder that he had survived at all. And he still was in a state of coma.
The Terrans would pay for such imprudence and their way would cease to exist in the galaxy. Every race in their right mind would have turned their backs on the Dilgar after such a war and they would have ceased to exist in the nova that had destroyed their home system. The Terrans must be mad to help a race like the Dilgar. Even if the Terrans hadn't attacked the Minbari, it would only have been a matter of time until the Dilgar would have put a dagger into the Terrans back and destroyed them.
But it wouldn't come that far. The Minbari would destroy the Terran Union, the Terrans, the Dilgar and those strange servitor races that the Terrans seemed to have created. And Sural was one of those who would make sure that that happened.
The Angla'shok had scouted out the Jericho system and they had found that it was a perfect target. It was a large colony by the standards of most races, but as far as the Angla'shok knew about the Terrans, they considered it a minor colony. 500.000 people one a colony planet wasn't minor, but it would be the same as in Delphi, Deneb, Kandhi and Signet. The few ships guarding the colony and the colony itself would cease to exist.
Another step towards the destruction of the Terrans and their imprudent ways.
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Jericho was busy. Just one day ago a pair of the largest vessels ever build by the Terran Union had entered the system with their escorts. And now the Battle Plates Norfolk and Vladivostok were orbiting Jericho, ready for deployment towards the Minbari Federation.
General Mick Dawson was sitting in the planning center of Norfolk and looked at the data Einstein, the AI of Norfolk, provided him with. It was everything they had got about the Minbari. Simulations of the four engagements with the Minbari were shown in several overlaying holographic projections.
Dawson frowned. The Minbari had some form of active Stealth system unknown to the Union and the Union had no way of countering it at this moment. This Stealth system, combined with the low number of old vessels that were part of the Frontier Defense fleet in the attacked systems, had lead to the defeat of the Navy in all four cases and the destruction of all four colonies. More than three million people had lost their lives on the four planets. All thanks to a fucking computer bug and a race that seemed to show the rest of Known Space just how Bad Ass they were.
But they would look around in wonder if the Union started to attack them.
Thankfully there were enough scientific sensory satellites in the attacked systems to at least have some data about the battles. The Stealth of the Minbari worked in a way like the first primitive stealth systems used during the 20th century on Earth. They bend and broke the scanner emissions and only reflected little back, making it very difficult to target the ships. The data showed that only about a tenth of the attacks of ht Frontier Defense units had impacted in the Minbari ships.
Another thing was the fact that strange emissions had been measured before the battle, right before the Minbari ships had opened jump points right inside the formations of the fleets, already destroying about half of the ships without even firing one shot.
Data on the Minbari weapons weren't available at the moment, but the damages on the second generation uni-molecular carbon hulls of the Frontier Defense vessels had told that those weapons were dangerous. But the Fourth generation armor of Battle Fleet units were much more effective.
The Minbari hadn't lost one vessel during the four engagements, while Frontier Defense had lost nearly a hundred. And the worse was that no one had an idea how many Minbari ships had taken part in these engagements.
"General," Eintstein suddenly said," I am measuring the same strange emissions the scientific satellites measured before the engagements with the Minbari."
Dawson blinked for a moment, before it hit him like a ton of bricks. The Minbari were able to scan from Jump Space.
"All ships leave their position with String Drive, now!"
Einstein blinked at Dawsons reaction, but still followed the order.
"Forming Jump points," he said at the same time as Norfolk slipped into the next string and moved away from its position at 2 times the speed of light.
A projection appeared in the room, showing what happened in real time. The three hundred vessels of Battle Fleet, including the two Battle Plates and their one hundred escorts, had burst out into every direction, engaging their String Drives to get away from their old positions, positions that were now the center of several jump points.
"I want every ship to enter a standard frigate screen formation as soon as the jump points close. All carriers and the Battle Plates launch their fighters."
Dawson looked at the projection. The Norfolk was now about a light second distant to the place where it had been only half a minute ago and the AI of the Battle Plate was organizing the formation in sync with Korolew of Vladivostok.
Battle ships were taking flaking positions above and below the two Battle Plates as the Plates moved to present their largest sides to the enemy. Cruisers got into position left and right of the Plates, while the frigates took the front line positions, mixed with squadrons of fighters, while bombers were positioning themselves between the front lines and the Plates and the carriers trailed the whole fleet.
"Showtime."
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Aylt Sural was a little concerned. His fleet had scanned normal space before leaving jump space and they had found several hundred ships in orbit around the planet. The jump points had been carefully placed for maximum destruction in this fleet and the fast defeat of the primitive Terran ships.
But something strange had happened. The whole Terran fleet had disappeared as they left jump space and the brown orb of Jericho was floating in front of the fleet. How could it be possible that three hundred vessels disappeared just like that?
Sural's blood ran cold as he thought about the ramifications of this. The Terrans were in league with the Shadows! That was the only possible explanation for the sudden lack of targets.
"Aylt, the Terran ships are back. And..."
The sensory technician trailed of as he stared at the two large contacts in the center of the Terran formation. He had never seen a ship that large. And they were putting out sensory emissions like cheap candy.
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Battle Plates were designed to operate a long distant to the real target and as such a Battle Plate had the most powerful sensors of all Terran ships. Even a Battle ship only had about 5 percent of the sheer power output of a Battle Plate.
And while the sensory systems of the Battle Plates were designed to be operating at extreme ranges, a point black range they were burning their way straight through the sensory stealth of the Minbari.
As the fleet dropped out of a coordinated String Drive flight, five Sharlins, ten Tinashis and about a hundred fighters were left without cover and ready for the Fleet.
Frigates and fighters moved in on the Minbari, opening fire at the fighters, just slapping them out of the sky in mere minutes, while cruisers, battleships and the two Battle Plates opened fire at the capital vessels. Not to destroy, but to cripple. Drive fins were separated from the main bodies by gauss fire, reactor sections blown open by concentrated Gamma laser bombardment.
Not even ten minutes after the first measuring of the Minbari sensors by Norfolk, the fifth engagement with the Minbari ended as complete victory for the Terran Union.