Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter Sixteen
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BGM - Christopher Franke - Pax Terra
It was silent in the Earth Moon gravitational system, shuttles where doing their routes, transporters flashed away with their String Drives towards the inter system colonies, while others went through the L5 Jump Gate towards the extra solar colonies.
In Colorado on the northern American continent was NORAD, it had been shut down during the late 21th century as it wasn't needed back than anymore. But it had been reactivated as part of the Earth Global Defense Network to coordinate the defense affords in the Earth Moon system.
At the moment the people of NORAD were relaxed. Sure the war was going full force, but the Minbari wouldn't dare to attack Earth just now.
But the relaxed atmosphere suddenly changed as alarms went through the large control room of NORAD.
"Minbari pre-jump scans!" one of the technicians jelled out and General Sergej Jurijewich Iwanow literally jumped out of his seat, eyes fixed on the large holographic projection in the center of the room.
"Fuck!" was all he could say as he stared at the sensory returns of hundreds of jump points opening.
Than he stared at the data. The jump points were opening on the other side of the Earth, opposite to the moon and out of range of the lunar defense systems. Three of the Planetary Siege Fortresses where in range of that fleet as where about half of the Defense Platforms and half of Home Fleet. The negative thing was the fact that jump points opened right on top of that part of Home Fleet, the forming singularities shredding the most advanced ships of the Terran Union apart, including one of the new Yamato battle ships.
"SYSTEM ALERT!" he yelled.
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Three hundred Sharlins, about a thousand Tanashis and several thousand Nials left the hundreds of jump points and descended onto Earth, their weapons discharging at the remaining ships of the part of Home Fleet they had jumped into.
The thick armor, DefNets and EWebs of the Terran Navy ships only barley where able to take most of the onslaught of energy. But the rest of the energy slammed into the thick armor, vaporising large chunks, opening whole decks to the hard vacuum of space before force fields snapped into place.
It was often said that Terran ships where capable of taking more punishment than ships of comparable size and mass and the Minbari once again found out that it was true. The multiple layers of defensive technologies gave the Terran ships an edge and the crews knew of them.
Only about fifty ships of about two hundred had been able to survive the jump points attacks and the following high powered energy bombardment and started to fire back, using the weapons they still had operational.
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Sheridan stared at the screen of Lexington's bridge.
"Oh shit," he muttered.
"That's an understatement," Rommel said from the side.
Since the AI had transfered itself to Lexington, he had become a friend to Sheridan.
Rommel raised his head as if listening to an invisible voice.
"San Diego is getting into the fight," he stated and Sheridan could feel how the fur on his neck started to raise.
He swallowed and his look went to the ship count overlaying the sensory readout. The number of ships from Home Fleet were getting smaller.
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Neroon smiled to himself as he looked at the holographic display. The humans where putting up a fight with the few ships they had here, but they still would loose this fight and the planet in front of the fleet would cease to exist.
"Multiple new contacts," one of his subordinates suddenly called out," That are thousands..."
"What?" Neroons head whipped around.
"And three large energy sources."
The subordinate swallowed.
"The asteroids."
A steady stream of energy and projectile weapons suddenly opened up on the Minbari fleet, the first attack from the new contacts and the asteroids destroying one hundred Tanashis and twenty Sharlins outright, damaging even more.
"These humans," he muttered as his ship shook under his feet as a MAC disk slammed through a drive fin on his Sharlin," Destroy the new contacts!"
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Each of the Planetary Defense Platforms was small compared to the ships of the Union Navy. They were about the size of a frigate, but they lacked most things a manned ship had. Life support, String Drive, high powered gravimetric engines. So they were packing much more weapons on such little volume.
And they were cheap in construction and maintenance. And even if they where mostly outdated and build from technologies thirty years old, they were orbiting Earth in so large numbers that they were making up for it.
Receiving targeting data from the high powered sensory systems of the Planetary Siege Fortresses and orders from the high powered computer system of NORAD, they went into action, sending streams of laser beams, plasma bolts and gauss projectiles towards the Minbari vessels.
The huge weapon arrays of the Siege Fortresses followed suit a few moments later with missiles, plasma bolts, gauss and MAC rounds.
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"Thats a turkey shot," Sheridan muttered as he continued to stare at the display in front of him.
"It is," Rommel said from his side and they watched as another salvo from San Diego ripped two Sharlins and five Tanashis apart.
"Somehow I pity the Minbari," Sheridan said," They never knew what hit them."
Rommel nodded.
"It seems that Earth is indeed the best defended planet in Known Space."