Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter Twenty
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"Okay, here we are," Rommel said and looked at Sheridan," The Edding system."
Sheridan nodded at his XO and resident AI. He was still a bit put of about the refit of Lexington to Block 2, but in the end it was all for the best. Especially since Lexington was one of the first ships with a NEDAR system, passive neutrino based system that was to sense any Minbari ship in existence, with activated stealth or without.
During the Jump Space transit they had done a few drills to familiarize themselves with the new systems of the Block 2 variant of the Ticonderoga class, especially with the new weapons available.
"Contact," Lieutenant Karl Davis, Alpha shifts sensory technician, said," T'Ralie class Narn transport. Nothing much about it, through it seems that the owner of the ship needs to take a look at its reactor."
The Fennec-morph avatar beside Sheridan gave a short chuckle.
"Amazing little thing this NEDAR system."
Sheridan nodded.
"Contact the transport and tell than to prepare for docking with us. Where going to take G'Kar with us down."
"A pitty that we don't have the hangar space to take the whole freighter with us."
Sheridan nodded again.
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G'Kar sighed as he stepped down into the artificial gravity of Lexington. He hated travel in Zero-G. It always made him sick. His look went to the two men of the 'Welcome Squad', a sandy furred morph in a normal Terran Union Navy uniform and the rank markings of a Major and another also sandy furred morph with huge ears and a uniform G'Kar couldn't identify.
"Ambassador G'Kar," the morph with the normal uniform said," Welcome aboard Lexington. I'm Major John Sheridan, the commander of this ship."
He pointed at the other morph.
"My Executive Officer and resident AI, Erwin Rommel."
"Ambassador," Rommel said and G'Kar looked a bit puzzled.
"Ai-Ei?" G'Kar asked and looked at Rommel.
Rommel on the other hand looked at Sheridan.
"You know that most other races don't know what an AI is..."
"Hey, it's not like I'm used to the fact that someone doesn't know."
G'Kar observed the whole thing with a healthy dose of interest, until Rommel looked back to him.
"My apologies, Ambassador," he said," Everyone in the Terran Union knows what an AI is, so it took us a bit in surprise."
"Not a problem," G'Kar answered," I am sure it's not that important."
Than he looked around.
"I take it that we will go to the shuttle that will take us down to the surface now."
Sheridan and Rommel shared a knowing smile.
"Something like that."
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"Okay, people," Sheridan said and sat down in his command chair," Lets get the party started."
G'Kar was standing next to Rommel, feeling a bit out of place on the bridge of Lexington. Especially since holographic projections were floating everywhere in the room, showing just how much more advanced the humans were compared to the Narn.
"The transport had undocked and proceeds to a parking orbit," Davis said and Sheridan nodded.
"Than lets get her down," Shjeridan said with a nod," Sound blue alert. Everyone ready for atmospheric reentry."
G'Kar blinked rapidly for a few times. They couldn't mean what he thought they meant.
"Deceleration on my mark," Rommel said," Mark."
Red lights switched on for a few seconds and G'Kar could see how several indicators for the speed of the ship abruptly went down.
"What are you doing?" he asked, near panic as he realized that it was what he had thought of.
"Standard reentry manouver," Rommel said," All modern ships of the Navy build since ten years ago are capable of atmospheric reentry and soft landings on the surface of a planet with atmosphere."
G'Kar stared at Rommel as if he had said that he was an artificial life form, which he hadn't, yet.
"Deploying Plasma shields," someone said and several other lights went green.
The Plasma Shields were a force field similar to the force fields used inside a fusion reactor, but on a greater scale, used to shield the hull of a ship from the heat of an atmospheric reentry.
"Besides we are dropping larger massed to the surface of a planet on a regular basis. Just take a look at the Ithacus mass freighters. They are capable of getting ten mega tons down to a planet by just dropping through the atmosphere and making a soft landing. Or the suborbital mass transports on Earth."
G'Kar swallowed. The humans were indeed much more developed than any race would have liked. To think that a shipof about two megatons was able to survive a reentry.
The ships wasn't shaking as simple shuttles used to when they dropped into an atmosphere, quite the opposite.
"Deactivating gravitational drives, switching to antigrav and scramjet. We're on an optimal glide path."