Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter fourteen
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"Home sweet home," Sheridan said as he looked at the holographic projection showing Earth.
Lexington had arrived only a few hours earlier as part of a convoy of more than three hundred damaged ships from the Battle of Zendamor. They were all in various states of damage, but mostly ships that couldn't repaired at Norfolk or the other two Battle Plates in a reasonable time frame. And like a great part of the destroyed ships, the damaged ships where mostly ships pulled from storage and Sheridan knew that a good portion of those would be scrapped and only about a quarter of those who arrived at Sol would be repaired.
Of cause Lexington would be one of the ships that would get repaired, especially since her main computer was now the residence of an AI. AIs weren't very wide spread in use. They were counting as sentient beings and had their own set of sentient rights, so new AIs weren't created very often and in most cases an AI was the result of two AIs exchanging parts of their code, much like the procreation of two organic beings.
Sheridan's glance went over to Erwin Rommel, the resident AI, who had copied itself to Lexington's computer before the old residence, the dreadnought Erwin Rommel had rammed a Sharlin and gone the way of the dodo.
As Sheridan looked at the hologram of Rommel, he had to shake his head. A good portion of the crew were morphes and Rommel had changed his appearance according to his surroundings. Now he was looking like a Fennek-morph wearing the uniform of a WWII Afrika Korps tanker. According to the legends the original of Rommel had been called 'Wüstenfuchs' or 'Dessert Fox', so Rommel only found it right to be a morph while serving with a crew mainly consisting of morphs.
Well, most AIs had their quicks, Sheridan presumed. The AI of the Attack Carrier Red Baron had insisted that at least part of the carrier was painted red.
"We're closing in on the San Diego drydocks," Rommel said," They are taking us in on computer control."
Sheridan nodded his thoughts wandering a little.
The San Diego drydocks were one of about five large dry docks orbiting Earth and one of about seven in the Sol system. More than fifteen more where in the other systems of the industrial retangle, Proxima, Cooke and Wolf.
And San Diego was part of the multiple layers of the Earth Global Defense Network. It originated from about thirty years back when the Dilgar attacked the then defenseless Earth. They managed to destroy several major cities and released a plague that killed about five million people before the CDC could find a cure.
Back than the Pentagon had used huge amounts of money it got to build the EGDN. Five large NEOs had been pulled into several eccentric Earth orbits and used as base for the large Planetary Siege Fortresses. One of them was San Diego an irregular asteroid with a maximum dimension of about thirty kilometers and also home of the San Diego drydocks.
Each PSF was equipped with sensory systems more powerful than those of the Battle Plates and with enough weapons to outfit an entire fleet. They also were bases for fighters and interceptors.
The other layers of the EGDN were large numbers of relative small weapons platforms. They weren't very powerful, but their large number made up for the lacking power. And of cause there was Home Fleet, about three hundred of the most modern ships of the Navy.
Of cause that wasn't counting the number of ships currently in production, during refit or being pulled from storage.
Everyone who dared to attack Earth would get their asses kicked back to their home planets. Of cause most races didn't know the exact size of the EGDN, they mostly presumed only a few hundred defense platforms and Home Fleet, not the fact that there where thousands of platforms and the Siege Fortresses.
Sheridan dared to say that Earth was the best defended planet in Known Space.
"Well, well," Rommel suddenly said and Sheridan looked at him," Looks like the Pentagon finally decided to get of their collective asses."
Sheridan blinked and looked at the holographic projection that had popped up next to him.
It showed a ship that looked much like the flat shape of Lexington, but the dimensions where wrong, as was the number of turret mounts.
"Yamato class," Rommel said and smiled," about one and a half kilometers, a hundred meter frontal armor, fifty meters ventral, dorsal, aft and side armor."
Sheridan nodded slightly. Lexington only had half that armor.
"Seven dorsal and ventral turrets armed with dual Plasma cannons and one 450 centimeter gauss cannon. Four MAC guns, three front and one aft. Six VL systems for about two hundred Harpoon V with two reloads each."
Than Rommel smirked.
"I heard that Miamato Musashi was pulled from the dreadnought o his name to be put on the Yamato. I hope that class will do honor to her name. She certainly got 25 percent more firepower than a Willsberg."
Sheridan could only nod as he looked at the Yamato and her escort of two Ticonderogas, one Attack Cruiser and five Kurjakow Frigates.
Rommel chuckled.
"They called her Iowa."
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Shengol had become the staging area for the counter attack against Earth. The Warrior Caste had pulled everything they could spare from the on going attacks on the Terran fleets in the Protectorate. And most of these vessels pulled together were coming from the large stores of vessels, which had been build since the end of the Shadow War more than a thousand years ago.
Other of those old vessels were strengthening the other attack fleets, but this was still the largest fleet the Warrior Caste had pulled together since the attack on Zendamor, it was even larger. Sharlins and Tinashis filled the space around the single Minbari planet and the sky of it sparkled with the light reflected by their crystalline hulls.
Than the fleet went into formation and opened jump points, illuminating the sky of the planet even in the light of the night.
Earth wouldn't be existing much longer in the mind of the Warriors.