Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter Twelve
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"Reentry of Normal Space in five..."
Jeffrey Sinclair breathed in as he head the voice of Masako, his eyes concentrating on the large cockpit windows of Excalibur.
"Four..."
Flying with the String Drive was strange. Even at FTL velocities of more than fifty times the speed of light it was possible to see everything going on STL. But it was strange to see a gas giant grow in seconds and than wizz by the window.
"Three..."
His eyes went over the displays for a moment as Excalibur slowed down for leaving the string she was currently using for FTL travel. Everything was okay. But Sinclair knew that it wouldn't last very long.
"Two..."
Only a few more seconds and they would be doing the job they were trained to do. But there was something nagging in the back of his mind.
"One..."
Were his orders the right thing to do? Should they really be doing this?
"Now."
His thoughts were blown away from his mind as Excalibur dropped from her string, the other bombers in formation not even a hundred kilometers over the surface of Minbari, having dropped from FTL down to orbital speeds o only four kilometers per second. He could see small plasma fingers dancing across the surface of the heavy bomber.
"All clear for atmospheric entry."
He glanced over to Masako.
"Are we on course?"
"One hundred percent."
Sinclair nodded and looked back at the other two crew members.
"Lar'tal?"
The Dilgar woman nodded.
"Armed and ready."
"Marco?"
"Already got several bogies on the screen. Looks like shuttles and Nials on patrol or something."
"Did they see us?"
"I got no idea."
Sinclair nodded and pushed the flightstick forward, tilting the large B2 shaped bomber forward towards the atmosphere. With trained ease his fingers danced across the controls, killing speed with the gravimetrical drives as long as he was able to do so. The HUD changed slightly, showing him the best course for his part of the bombing run as the other bombers broke away from Excalibur.
As the bomber had dropped down to a hight of fifty kilometers the gravimetrical drives stuttered as they weren't able to work against the gravity of the planet below anymore and the computer switched them off. There was a loud bang ringing through the hull of the bomber as the dual scramjets opened up and the thin high atmosphere streamed through them and another as plasma from the reactors was injected into them, making space for a deep rumble.
"Scramjets active. Everything looks good."
The bomber screamed through the air of Minbari, dropping further in hight, while its speed stabilized at Mach six.
"We are ten kilometers away from Nav Point One," Sinclair said after a while," Open the bomb bay."
Lar'tal nodded and the twin bomb bays of Excalibur opened, forcefields preventing airdrag of the two large openings. The right bomb bay was filled with the Plasma Bomb Launchers, able to drop seven forcefield bottles filled with plasma at the same time, two times before needing to recharge until they hit the next Nav Point. The left was filled with six thermobaric FAE bombs, the strongest non-nuclear bombs.
Lar'tal looked at her displays, fingers ready to press the trigger for the bombs.
"Three... Two... One... DROP!"
With that fourteen plasma bottles screamed towards thew surface, while a much slower FAE follwed, being slowed down to sub-sonic speeds by a chute.
Excalibur was long since on her way towards the next Nav Point as the plasma botles slammed into the bome like structures of a large Wind Swords training facility, the force field bottles collapsing and bathing the surrounding area in sunhot plasma.
The FAE bomb on the other side dropped slowly, needing thirty seconds to reach the optimal high to release dust like solid propane. The cold propane sublimated in the hot atmosphere of Minbar and as the FAE reached the surface on an open air training area with several hundred young Minbari warriors, staring at the still blooming plasma detonations about a kilometer distant, he air itself was explosive. The bomb released the last of its dust like propane and ignited.
More than two hundred meters around the impact of the bomb was going up in a growing fireball. The first shockwave of the detonation destroyed about a hundred meter more, while the second of air streaming back in to the vacuum created by the detonation reduced large parts of the training facility to nothing more than burning rubble.
"Three... Two... One... DROP!"
The second drop destroyed another facility of the Wind Swords, this time a complex housing the few elders living on the planet itself. Four more targets followed , destroying two more facilities of the Wind Swords, while one destroyed a fusion reactor and the last a production facility for parts needed for Nials.
'Operation Doolittle' was a full success, the Minbari never even reacting to the attack of the bombers before they had already left the planets atmosphere and got away by using their String Drives.
Sinclair could only stare at the display showing the rapidly shrinking planet of Minbari, part of him asking if it had been the right thing.