Changed Circle
by Warringer
Chapter Twenty One
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Sheridan had to chuckle as he looked over to Lexington from the bunker of the automated scientific station of Edding. It was a strange sight to see the large Fast Attack Cruiser standing on the surface of the planet on its about twenty stubby legs, each doubling as armor segment.
Sure the legs were enough to hold the two mega tons of Lexington above the ground, but the anti gravity systems were still activated, taking care of about 99 percent of the weight.
"It will make quite an impression to the Minbari, I guess," G'Kar said from somewhere beside hims.
"That is if they see it."
G'Kar blinked a few times, still a bit rattled by the fact that they had gone down to the planet with the whole cruiser and not just with a shuttle.
"Huh?"
Sheridan grinned a bit and nodded over to Rommel, who was present with his human Avatar. His grin widened a bit as the huge silhouette of Lexington simply disappeared to be replaced by a small hill, as the Holographic Imager system activated. The Holo Imager was a system designed for camouflage purposes, normally used to hide from Raiders in form of a small asteroid, to strike at them when they didn't expect it.
G'Kar blinked a few times before shaking his head.
"Your holographic projection technology."
"Ooohhhh," Rommel made," And people think that the other Races of Known Space can't learn."
Sheridan gave Rommel a short glare.
"By the way," Rommel continued," A ship just left the Jump Gate. Neutrino signature suggests a Linshara class transport."
"ETA?"
"About an hour."
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Loral Refa wasn't exactly one of those people who liked to do dirty jobs for his uncle. Especially if it was a dirty job like this. But, he told himself, this would bring him closer to another of his rather rapid promotions.
He was a little put up by the order of his uncle to meet with other ships controlled by the Refa family. Especially since those ships happened to be two Primus and eight Vorchan, without his own Vorchan.
It seemed a bit too much to crash a simple arms deal between Narn and Raiders.
What he didn't know of cause was the fact that the commanders of the two Primus were the only ones knowing exactly what they were up to crash. Not a simple arms deal, but rather a meeting between Terrans and Mibari with the presumed presence of a Terran battleship. But not even the spies of the Refa family did know what kind of ship the Terrans had send, but it couldn't be more than a rather old Bremen class frigate.
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Lennon's shuttle had touched down next to the bunker system of the scientific outpost the humans were maintaining in the Edding system. It wasn't much, just another proof of the sheer curiosity of the human race.
He had had much time to study the humans, through he thought that these 'Marines' were a rather bad example of the humans. The Marines had ended up with the Angla'shok after the Warriors Caste had lost interest in them. Especially since the interrogations hadn't brought anything of value for the Warriors in space battles. The battles of Zendamor and Earth had shown that much.
The Angla'shok on the other side hadn't tried to interrogate the Marines. They were treated with the same amount of respect they treated everyone with, through it wasa bit colored by several letters Valen had given to the Angla'shok, indicating that the humans would play a role in the future war against the Shadows. Not many besides the head of the Angla'shok knew about these letters, not even the Gray Council.
Lennon was a bit curious about these humans as he left the shuttle and walked the last few meters to the bunker. He didn't kn ow if he should trust in the statement of some Marines that the 'Morphs', as they were called, were members of the human race, who happened to be mutated by radioactivity from the last half of a century they called 20th century.
He followed several sounds that turned out to be a conversation and entered one of the bunkers. Raising the hand with his weapons, he looked at the people in the bunker. One was a Narn, his old friend G'Kar, the others a normal human in a uniforms he had never seen and a massive Morph in a normal Terran Union Navy uniform. Lennon knew enough about the human military to be able to tell that the Morph was commander of a ship, was part of the part of the Terran Union Navy called Battle Field and held the rank of a Major.
"It seems our guest had arrived," the normal human said with an expression that could be best described as smug grin," And he's pointing a weapon at us."
"It is only a security measure," Lennon said.
The Morph just rolled his eyes at the human and took a step towards Lennon.
"Major John Sheridan," he said and reached out with his hand in a gesture called 'shaking hands' by the Marines," commander of Lexington."
Lennon looked at the hand before taking and shaking it. Like one of the Marines had said he was gripping the Morphs hand as hard as he could, but the Morph increased pressure on his own, nearly making Lennon wince.
"You are Sheridan," he asked with a little surprise and a little concern.
He had heard the stories of a heavily crippled ship taking on and winning against the not even lightly damaged Black Star. One of the Marines had even managed to identify the ship on footage the few surviving ships had brought home from Zendamor. The ship was named Lexington and the commander was Major John Sheridan.
It had come to the Warriors ears and even if they didn't like it, they had to admit that Sheridan was worthy of being a Minbari warrior, through the Marines had said that he had guts. But didn't everyone have guts? These Marines were puzzling most of the time.
Anyway, the Warriors had taken to calling Sheridan 'Starkiller'.
Sheridan raised an eyebrow, but Lennon continued.
"I am Lennon."
Sheridan nodded and pointed at the human.
"This is Erwin Rommel, my executive officer," he said and than pointed at G'Kar," And that is..."
Lennon interrupted him.
"No need to introduce us. We know each other."
G'Kar nodded.
"Yes, he was the iniciator of this meeting."
Sheridan nodded in understanding.
"Okay," he said," Lets get down to business."
But before anything could happen, G'Kar's communicator came to life.
"Centauri just jumped into the system!" came the panicked voice of a Narn through the communicator.