Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter Five
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With a loud bang the assault drop ship made itself known as it clamped down onto the crystalline hull of a Sharlin cruiser that had been crippled during the First Battle of Jericho. Like all of its brethren it was unable to fight or flee from the field of defeat.
For the first time in a millennium the Minbari had been defeated in battle. And that happened by the youngest race of Known Space, the humans. They only had about one century and a few decades time to get themselves known in this area of space and they already they controlled the largest area of space and had the largest number of colonies.
Minbari warriors hurried towards the area of the hull, where the dropship was about to get through the hull. They were sure that the humans would need time to get through the hull armor of the ship as the crystalline matrix was known to be very resistant to energy weapons or any laser cutter.
They were wrong. Shielded by special alloys, the docking ring of the drop ship was equipped with a large ring that was a giant shaped charge. As it detonated it forced a metal inlay inside the charge to become a stream of superheated liquid that forced its way through the crystalline hull, breaking the crystalline matrix appart and reducing it to a shower of crystalline shrapnel.
Without much more warning than a another loud bang three quaters of the assembled warriors were literally ripped apart by the cloud of crystalline shrapnel and reduced to bloody mess in the rooms that lay behind the corridor near the hull. The rest of the warriors just stared in shock at the pitiful remains of the brothers and sisters and the large hole that was large enough for two Nials to fit through.
There was a short silence before another loud clang was heard and the first Terran Marines stormed out of the dropship and into the crippled Sharlin.
The uniforms of the Marines were the result of decades and centuries of scientific research. Flexible smart ceramics protected the wearer from kinetic energy and other energy weapons by transforming into a hard state to dissipate the energy. The ceramics were only able to dissipate certain amounts of energy and failed when the energy was to high. Helmets had integrated sensory systems and laser projectors that placed the information directly onto the soldiers retina. Other memory materials allowed the wearer to be protected in space, while the uniform itself wouldn't have looked out of place in the battlefields of the first decade of the 21th century.
Gauss assault rifles opened fire and the rests of the Minbari forces were put out of action before they could even react.
This scene repeated itself all over the crippled Minbari fleet over Jericho and by the end of the day most of vessels were in Terran hands. The crews of three Tinashis and one Sharlin had managed to activate the self destruction and blown them up in a spectacular way, while the other ships had been damaged further by the battles between Marines and Minbari warriors. Aside from six Marine Platoons in the destroyed Minbari ships, the boarding action had killed fifty Marines.
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Terran Union President Mark Ryan sat on the round table of the situation room about a kilometer below the White House. He was in his second election period and like his first, he had won the elections with a very high majority of 71 percent. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was a full wolf-morph, but he doubted it.
He looked around and into the faces of the Joint Chiefs and General Dawson, who was still with Norfolk and only present with modern holographic technologies. The First Battle of Jericho had happened two weeks ago and the Minbari had tried to take the system twice more, before they went directly to Leonus and Ross, destroying the Leonus colony completely, while Ross was protected by several units of Battle Fleet, like most systems now.
But Battle Fleet had only so many ships. After the Dilgar War, the Union had decommissioned a good portion of the fleet, while only few new ships had entered service.
"Due to all respect, sir," General Miller of Battle Fleet said," I still think, we should pull the vessels of Patrol Fleet into active duty in Battle Fleet."
"Are you nuts, Miller?" General Petterson of Patrol Fleet said and tied to kill Miller with a hard glare," Our ships were modern during the Dilgar War. Like Frontier Defese. You from Battle Fleet hogged all the new ships. And now you want ours as well?"
"Gentlemen," Ryan said and held his hands up," We can't afford a fight between any of the fleets. I need you to cooperate."
The two Generals glared at each other, but remained silent. Ryan sighed. It was bad enough that the three services of the Navy had to fight between themselves, but now was not the time to intensify it.
He looked at Dawson, who had remained silent.
"Is there anything you can tell us, General Dawson?" he asked, not really thinking that he would get an answer, as he hadn't gotten an answer the last few times Dawson had taken part in these meetings.
"As a matter of fact, Mr. President," Dawson said," I have some news."
Ryan's eyebrow raised and his ears perked.
"Our engineers on Norfolk and Vladivostok have taken a few looks at the Minbari ships we have here. We were finally able to locate an intact computer core. Einstein and Korolew are currently trying to decrypt the information in them."
"How long will it be until we have the informations?"
"Einstein isn't sure. It could be a few days until we are able to decrypt the data completely."
Ryan nodded. That were good news.
"What about the Stealth systems?"
"Negative, Sir. We have questioned some of the Minbari, but they refuse to tell us anything. And Amnesty won't like it if we break the Geneva Convention."
Ryan nodded again.
"How about burning through the Stealth," another General asked," Can't we simply mount the sensory equipment of a Battle Plate into a battleship?"
Dawson chuckled a bit. Most of the Generals didn't really know much about Battle Plates as they were a fleet on their own, detached from Patrol Fleet, Battle Fleet and Frontier Defense.
"I think that will be a problem, General," he finally said," The active sensory systems of a Battle Plate are twice the volume of an Alabama class battleship. The passive systems are of the same size, not to mention the reactors needed to power the equipment."
There was a pause.
"But Einstein noticed something during the battles. It seems that the Minbari are using singularities in their reactors, small black holes. When they move through space they produce minor gravity waves. And the sensors used to find a string for the String Drive are able to measure these waves. It could be possible that we use those sensors to detect the Minbari. But even than we are not fully able to say where they are, as the gravity sensors are not build for something like that."
"But it would be a way to see them without a Battle Plate," Ryan said.
"Possible, sir. But we haven't tried it yet."
Ryan nodded.
"Good," he sayed and looked at the Generals," Now we talk about 'Operation Midway'."