Hello again Everyone, I'd like to thank everyone who was reviewed, it is very much appreciated by the Chronicles team. I'd like to thank Chris again for such an increadibly well written chapter. Again I apologize for the bad breaks between sections butthere's nothing we can really do about it. On another note we've changed the Title. Since this is book one it needed a name so we changed it to Book 1 "The Gateway"

A Diplomatic Incident Part II

Commander Corwin glanced up as Captain Lochley strode into C&C. She moved briskly, but not rushed, harried or even at all concerned about the situation. Instead, she swept her gaze across the personnel standing watch, returning their nods briskly as she moved to her own console, logging in before turning to look at her XO.

"Status?"

Corwin glanced back down at his station.

"All civilians are in designated shelter areas. The defense grid is coming online. Delta Squadron is on patrol, Alpha squadron is hot in the Cobra bays ready for drop ten seconds after the order is given. Damage control teams are standing ready and security is deployed for possible internal defense".

Lochley nodded once again, turning back to her own console and staring at the sensor readouts repeated there. The system wide sensors showed most of the civilian traffic moving into a high orbit over Epsilon Three, staying well out of what was soon likely to become a battle zone. Traveling down the numerous hyperspace beacons that linked the Epsilon Eridani system, a dozen Hyperspace probes sought the threat Drall claimed was heading for the station. Yet according to the state of the art in Earthforce technology, the Hyperspace region around the station was completely clear of traffic.

Lochley didn't believe that for a second. Unlike most Earthforce Captains, she knew damn well just how technologically advanced the Drakh were.

Although come to think of it, Earthforce as a whole had probably been given a pointed lesson in the Drakhs technology level when they had shown up on Earths doorstep with a Death Cloud, then dropped a Shadow plague into the biosphere…

Regardless, she had to assume the Drakh were closing on B5 right now, using their more advanced navigation systems to stay just far enough off the Hyperspace beacons to dodge patrols or probes and that they would only trigger the proximity alarm as they jumped to normal space. Of course if it hadn't been for Drall's warning, the first indication an attack probably would have been their Jump Points opening, just like it damn near had been on Earth almost half a year ago.

She had come through for Sheridan back then to sound the alarm for Earth, now Drall had come through for her. And she didn't intend to waste his warning.

Setting her hands on her hips, she looked up from the countdown timer and at her second in command.

"Signal the Lexington, we're good to go. Designate Delta squadron subordinate to their flight control and link in our fire control into their data net". Turning back to the window, she saw the Prometheus flash by her end of Babylon 5, moving down towards the other end of the station.

"Close blast doors. Activate defense grid"

Thick beryllium alloy shutters jolted into action, sliding to cover the vulnerable windows and airlocks situated across the station. The shutters were not able to stop much more then a hasty burst from an enemy fighter, but Lochley would settle for not having her retinas burned out by the flash of a fusion bomb.

Across the stations dorsal superstructure, dozens of interceptor batteries unlocked from their cradles or popped up from hidden storage compartments turning to line up on the threat axis as power was routed from the main reactor to the defense systems. Further under them, pulse cannons with bores as wide as a Starfury pushed out of their internal storage bays, casting a forbidding green glow on their area of the station.

"Signal from B5, they report full combat readiness."

0000000

"ETA enemy arrival?" Leftcourt asked, not looking away from the sensor displays, still feeling a little out of breath from jogging from the hanger bay to his command centre and promising for the hundredth time to start exercising again.

"One minute, fifty seconds".

"Any updates on the Foxfire battle group?" Leftcourt asked another officer as he looked over the hyperspace probes. He had sent out a priority one request on the Gold channel as soon as General O'Neill's warning had come through and an EA battle group led by the Warlock class EAS Foxfire had responded.

Of course the fact that they were going to take forty minutes to arrive was something of a problem.

"Last report from the Foxfire was that they're pushing their engines past the redline, but they're still at least thirty minutes away".

"Very well. Continue to transmit reports to Fleet Command" he ordered, not letting the sinking feeling he felt show on his face.

Oh with a dozen Destroyers and a few carriers what an ambush I could set he thought to himself. Then he frowned. And if wishes were fusion bombs…

Two Omegas, four White Stars and Prometheus against a Drakh assault fleet was a rather tall order.

But he hadn't become a General by giving up when the going got tough.

"Signal all ships, assume first positions and launch fighters. Have the drydock begin to fall back towards the Northern planetary pole; assign trident flight to screen her."

Starfuries poured into space. From the two Omega class Destroyers, Auroras and Thunderbolts rippled into the vacuum, forming into strike groups as they swung into formation. From Babylon 5's cobra bays, Thunderbolts dropped into space, firing off their engines as they were thrown clear, curving around to join up with Delta Squadron.

Fighters also angled off the deck of the Prometheus, forming expertly into strike groups that angled off to start running racetrack patterns around Babylon 5. These were the backline that were to anchor Leftcourts simple but brutal defense of the station, brand new F-302B fighters from Area-51, so new in fact that several of their pilots complained they could still smell fresh paint inside the cockpits.

It had taken some effort to upgrade the F-302's on the Daedalus to the new F-302B standard, so much so that only half her fighter wing had been switched over before she had left for Atlantis. Their shear effectiveness in mock dogfights against Thunderbolts (which had led to many irritated EA wing commanders buying huge rounds of drinks for the USAF pilots) had generated interest in an accelerated mass production schedule, leading to the question of where to get the spare parts to refit 302's.

A hunch followed by a little digging by an Earth Alliance logistics officer had struck pay dirt.

The SA-25 Badger class Starfury had been a relatively uninspiring craft. Its heavier then normal pulse cannons were fearsome enough in their own right, but the craft lacked a reactor that could give it real endurance in an all out brawl. When combined with its relatively limited maneuverability, it had fallen out of favor after the Minbari war ended. The new, maneuverable, and heavily armed Thunderbolt had proven an ample replacement, leaving thousands of Badgers just gathering dust in depots all across the Alliance. But the engines and weapons had proven to be easily adapted into the F-302B design.

All that was left was dividing them between the Earth Alliance and IOA powers.

Idly, Jack wondered if anyone had actually tested these new ships yet…

"Busters, you are cleared to launch".

Putting all irrelevant thoughts out of his mind, Jack checked his straps one last time as yellow warning lights strobed on the hanger deck. The flight suit he had hurriedly changed into felt too tight around his shoulders, but beggars couldn't be choosers and he sure as hell wasn't going into combat wearing his dress uniform.

"Carter you ok back there?" he called over the intercom, noting he hadn't heard from her since the preflight checklist was completed. He felt a twinge of guilt over 'volunteering' her for this mission without even asking her, but he knew deep down that she, like him, preferred to be able to do something in a fight rather then be turned glorified observers.

"Good to go Sir, just double checking the new readouts. I've never taken a 302B into combat before".

"Well it's just like riding a bike" Jack commented…then decided he could expand on that statement somewhat. "You know as in the whole getting back into practice thing after not doing so for a long time, not any kind of peddling motion that…how long until we launch?" Jack switched tracks, closing his eyes and strapping on his oxygen mask.

"Final checks. Engines?"

"Check".

"Inertial Dampeners?"

"Check"

"Hyperdrive?"

"Check…wait, we have a hyperdrive?"

"A prototype Area-51 installed" Sam explained. It's basically another Naquadriah reactor-"

"Ugh not again" Jack muttered under his breath.

-"but thanks to some EA technology, we've built in a buffering system similar to the one the Prometheus used to use for her Naquadriah reactor, but small enough to fit into the 302."

"Just make sure the damn things turned off. I'd rather not jump out to the Vorlon Homeworld by pressing the wrong button".

Carter smiled and strapped on her own mask before glancing at the counter.

"Three...two…one…launch".

Jack tripped the breaks and gunned his ion engines, flinging his fighter down the flight deck and into space, a trio of F-302's pouring out from behind him to join the twenty others already moving to their positions.

000000000000

Corwin's board chimed loudly in the dead silence of C&C. The officers and crew who knew what it meant glanced at each other then settled into their stations and brace for the coming battle. On Corwin's tactical display, a wave of red THREAT icons spilled over the hyperspace sensor readouts, the Drakh fleet appearing at precisely the time Drall had predicted.

"Jump Gate activated….here they come!"

The Jump Gate orbiting Epsilon Eridani Three flashed into life, a vortex of energy warping into a conduit for the assault fleet. Dozens of starfish shaped Drakh raiders swarmed into the system, fanning out expertly to secure a hemisphere of space around the Jump Gate.

The tactic was an old one, used by races all over the Galaxy. Jump gates were effectively inviolate targets in war; every side needed them equally to maintain the beacon network that made faster then light travel possible. By sending their armada through the gate rather then just opening their own jump point, they simultaneously prevented any non jump capable craft escaping and could guard against anyone coming to help. The expandable formation of small craft would also provide something of a shield for the heavier units as they themselves arrived, just in case any defenders DID defy conventional logic and started shooting at the Jump Gate.

At least such went the theory.

A wave of white energy pulses slammed into the Drakh raiders from the rear. Barreling down from above and behind the Gate, a quartet of White Stars rolled into the fight with wingtip cannons blasting, their fire lanes carefully choreographed to avoid hitting the active Jump Gate.

A quarter of the Drakh raiders were blasted to vapor before the rest started moving, accelerating into radical curves to bring their nose mounted cannons to bear on their tormentors. Rather then break off and give the Drakh a clear shot, the Ranger crewed ships simply accelerated straight through the disintegrating formation, firing without pause to blow open an exit path before blasting out the other side, corkscrewing away in an evasive pattern.

Enraged by their losses, the Drakh collected themselves and dove after the fleeing Minbari ships, abandoning the Jump Gate to the heavier units following behind them. Moving in an ironic harmony of precision and order, the agents of Chaos expertly closed the distance with their ancient foe. Just about every race in the Galaxy still found it near impossible to penetrate the sophisticated stealth systems of Minbari ships. The Drakh however were not 'just any race'. Their Shadow enhanced sensor technology cut through the distortions being thrown out by the White Stars with brutal directness, the Drakh correspondingly adjusted their aim points and let loose.

White Star Sixty took a volley of fire to its starboard wing that ripped off the drive pod, sending the ship into an uncontrolled spin. The ranger at the helm controls with exceptional skill managed to stabilize the ship, but that simply made it a sitting duck as six raiders struck it simultaneously, detonating the hybrid ship into a ball of fire. Together, the Drakh snarled their victory and were making ready to claim their next kill - when the rearmost flight of raiders shouted in alarm.

Spiraling down from where they had clamped onto the lowest strut of the Jump Gate, twelve Minbari fighters roared into the fray, spraying fire from their trio of Neutron cannons and smashing their targeted ships into clouds of high speed shrapnel. Having waited for this moment in Leftcourts hurriedly thought out battle plan, the three remaining White Stars flipped end for end and brought their weapons once again to bear on their pursuers, letting themselves coast back towards B5.

White and green pulses of light crisscrossed with blue beams as the two mortal enemies tried to bring each other down with no quarter asked or given. A lattice of beams connected a formation of Drakh craft to one of the White Stars, blasting through its Vorlon defense system and causing the ship to erupt in fire. Barrel rolling wildly to evade their own tormenters, the remaining pair of White Stars and eight surviving Minbari fighters returned the favor, firing their weapons to the point of overheating as they sliced, vaporized and detonated the remaining Drakh ships before looping away, the crews angered at the loss of two of their own and hot for revenge.

In Hyperspace, a Drakh watched.

His screening force had been demolished by a group of those cursed White Star class vessels, in an ambush of considerable skill and cunning. His frown deepened as he replayed the attack, so unlike traditional Minbari tactics to layer deception within deception. He had to be seeing the effects of more and more humans moving into the Anla'Shok.

Mentally, he performed the Drakh equivalent of a shrug. With the Shadow plague released on the humans homeworld, their race would become a non existent factor soon enough.

No, what he was concerned about were these "new" humans.

As a senior fleet commander, he had studied the few sensor records the Drakh had of the ship their agents had identified as the "Daedalus" in their engagement at Earth. Part of him could appreciate the glorious destructive power this ship embodied even as he mourned for the Drakh it had slain in the battle and its destruction of their one remaining Planet Killer.

But any respect he had for the technology these newcomers possessed paled in comparison to the hate he carried for them because of their disruption to their ever so carefully laid plans.

The last few months of activity by his people had been the culmination of a plan that had started the day they had left Za'ha'dum for the last time, only minutes before the planet had self destructed.

After months of searching, they found their home.

And not just a home…but a purpose.

Their former masters had once had great hope for the Centuari, watching in delight as they had thrown the Galaxy into Chaos, a great wave of fire that had rolled across the Galaxy and purified the weak, letting the strong re-grow into all they could be.

Until the fateful day when the Shadows had been betrayed by the one who had shown such potential. Until the day Londo Mollari had turned his back on those who had done so much for him.

The Shadows had left this nursery of the young ones with the rest of the First Ones, but they had told their children to continue what they had started. And they had. The Centauri had proven an able tool for their purposes after they had driven them away from the Interstellar Alliance, hurt them and forced them to turn inwards.

These events had been simply notes in the song they had composed, one that sung their revenge on those who had sent their masters away. Their attack on Earth with a planet killer was to be the first of many such attacks, but thanks to that damned John Sheridan and these newcomers interference, they had failed.

The Drakh had gone in with a contingency plan of course; they had learned that lesson well from their hard experiences. The bioweaopn had been successfully deployed and they had faded back to their hidden bases. The Earth Alliance, the Anla'Shok and the Minbari Fleet were even now tearing known space apart to find their people and wipe them out, but it was almost as if the Drakh did not exist for all the success they had had in their searching.

But a chance to derail this treaty, THAT could not be missed. Caressing a stud next to the hologram of the battle zone, he spoke one word.

"Begin".

000000000000

"Stay sharp people, here comes wave two!"

The words were barely out of Leftcourts mouth when the Jump Gate exploded into action again, this time joined by a quartet of extra Jump Points around it. Raiders and an occasional light cruiser streamed out of the Jump Points but their threat paled next to the line of heavy cruisers that moved out of the Jump Gate. Three-five-eight-TEN!...ONE could turn an Omega into Swiss cheese within five minutes, TEN of them were the universes idea of a sick joke. He watched with a growing sense of cold detachment as they separated into a lead group of six and reserve of four which held back from the spearhead, allowing the six to start their advance.

That confident are you? Good he thought, highlighting the rear targets and assigning them on his command board.

"Ahead point five sublight" he ordered as he settled into his chair and strapped on his restraints. "Do we have a targeting solution?"

"Yes sir" his weapons officer acknowledged as he continued to assign primary, secondary and tertiary targets to the fleet. "Estimate optimal firing range in thirty two seconds".

"Very well" Leftcourt said and started to do what every Soldier since ancient times on Earth hated doing.

He waited.

0000000000000000

"We're receiving targeting telemetry from the Lexington." Gant reported as data scrolled across her screen, with a quick keystroke she pushed it across to the bridges main screen to her left. Pendergast glanced at it then frowned. The plan was risky as hell. Potentially highly effective, but risky.

Then again, they were hardly going to win this battle playing it safe…and as he had three of the four members of SG1 on hand, given their history, the risk in the plan perversely guaranteed success.

"Time?" he asked, trying to force himself not to grip his chairs arms. Erin Gant looked at the counter.

"Lexington will engage in fifteen, we're mark plus ten".

"Alright, release safeties on all Mark eights, signal weapons free status to the fighters and lock the autopilot in".

The rumble of the ships reactor slowly increased as energy diverted, making it sound almost as if the ship herself was eager for the battle to begin.

Patience he thought to himself as the cloud of red icons slowly closed on the scattering of green icons. Just wait for it…

"Not yet" Leftcourt breathed, half to himself and half to his bridge crew who looked understandably tense as the swarm of dull brow/yellow ships closed in.

Come on you bastards, just a little further he thought to himself…then as the Drakh crossed an invisible line-

"Execute!"

Instantly the Lexington's power plant was thrown into overdrive followed a microsecond later by the Atlas's. Already sitting outside of the Drakhs left most escort stream as they steadily closed on B5, the two Omegas accelerated into a slight left turn at maximum thrust, looking for all the world like they were planning to ignore the real threat of the Drakh's heavy cruisers and simply exchange broadsides with the lighter screening elements.

The dozen plasma cannons that lined the hull of each Omega class destroyer opened fire almost simultaneously, the helmsmen on each of the ships carefully rotating to present the maximum number of guns to the Drakh. Their intent was not so much to score kills (though they took every one that they got as Raiders shattered and cruisers shuddered under the barrage) but to aggravate and disrupt.

And it was working. The neat lines of raiders were breaking up with an occasional light cruiser tagging along, swarming away from the assault fleet's flanks and heading right for the two Earth ships. Taking a deep breath, Leftcourt flicked the all hands link.

"All hands: Brace for maneuvers. Hard right rudder, prepare for crash stop and stand by main guns".

Lexington's thrusters fired, shoving the ship into a hard right turn at full thrust. Around them, the space frame groaned in protest at the abuse, the shear torque of the turn on the rotating section would have been enough to rip the ship in half if not for the recently installed Minbari / Centauri designed inertial compensation systems.

Even so, for a few seconds it felt to Leftcourt like a grizzly bear had decided to sit on his lap and he cursed the fact that the SGC's advanced inertial dampening technology was still months away from any real integration into EA ship design.

The Drakh were taken by surprise and the swarm of Drakh ships scrambled to get the hell out of the way.

Tough though raiders might be, none of them really felt like getting sideswiped by the Omegas.

In seconds, what had been orderly ranks of ships about to start tearing into the starboard decks of the Lexington became a confused mass trying to avoid being run over as they broke in almost every direction, immediately being pounced on by flights of Starfuries that broke from their holding orbits behind the Omegas and charged into the battle, blazing away with wild abandon.

"Main guns on Lexington and Atlas now bear on Target Alpha General" the weapons officer called out as solution lights on his panel switched from red to green. Leftcourt nodded then hung on as his ship shuddered under fire from a pack of raiders.

"Fire at will Commander, but make them count".

The two Omegas opened fire simultaneously, bow guns sending two dozen packets of plasma into the lead Heavy Cruisers stern, shattering armor and chewing into the hull with brutal force. Barely had the explosions started to clear when the guns switched over and a quartet of scarlet beams blew through the gaping wound. Debris, bodies and atmosphere vomited back out the hull breach as the EA ships mercilessly continued their slash and burn attack, until the far side of the ships stern exploded, sublight engines flickering as the mighty ship started to list.

The core Drakh fleets broadside weapons swiveled to target the two ships and return their impudence by blowing them out of space, but here the suicidal brilliance of Leftcourts strategy revealed itself. His ships were still holding behind the reforming line of light cruisers and surrounded by swarms of raiders that were duking it out with the Starfury packs. Any long range counter fire had just as much chance of blasting their own ships as those belonging to the Earthers. And if their ships attempted to disengage, they would become sitting ducks to the Earth ships, which would no doubt run close pursuit on them.

On his Mothership, the Drakh commander ground his teeth- a useful human habit he had picked up- then ordered the light cruisers to redouble their efforts and redirected the unengaged upper and lower escort formations to help finish off the Earth ships quickly. He didn't even care if they killed them, it was sufficient to swamp them and hold them up as his main battle line speed up for their attack run. One pass and Babylon 5 would be nothing but a memory.

Their memory.

"Three, two, one, Mark!-"

And in a blur of motion, Prometheus leapt into hyperspace, emerging scant milliseconds later to the rear of the Drakh cruisers, swinging down to confront the Drakhs unguarded rear with a full speed attack. On the bridge, Daniel held on for dear life as the ships helmsmen maneuvered a ship the size of the USS Nimitz like it was an F-15, the brown hued hull of the nearest Cruiser blurring past scant meters from the ships shield perimeter.

"Isn't this a little close?" Daniel managed to get out in a half choked voice, his eyes wide behind his glasses as he watched weapons mounts, airlocks and thrusters streak by the windows, resisting the urge to duck.

"Yes' Pendergast admitted, "but they can't shoot at us if we're this close without risking damage to their own ship. Major, talk to me"

"The Drakhs second and third reserve formations are moving to engage Leftcourt" Gant replied as she studied her sensor readouts. "Lexington and Atlas are starting to get swamped under and taking heavy damage", the Drakh don't appear to be responding to our presence yet.

The Omegas headlong rush had been stalled by heavy fire from the light cruiser formations as they reinforced, pulled together and started to beat back the Earthforce ships superior firepower, containing them in an escape proof globe of ships. They were more then happy to take their time and make the impudent humans pay dearly for their actions and the deaths they had caused this day to their kind.

"Then let's see if we can get the Drakhs attention" Pendergast ordered as the X303 approached the long lances that formed the bow of the rearmost Cruiser. "Weps, all Mark Eights, fire for effect on targets six through ten, helm decelerate to point two after launch"

"Aye, firing one through four" Major Delouse acknowledged, highlighting four of the red 'D-CRSR' icons on his sensor display and depressing the enable.

Newly installed EM catapults fired, flinging Earth Alliance built missiles into the void. Equipped with Mark Eight Naquadah enhanced nuclear warheads and powered by high thrust ion jets, the missiles closed from point blank range at great velocity and with no warning, smashing into their chosen ships and detonating their warheads.

A series of brilliant white stars were born for a split second in the Epsilon system that would have blinded Captain Lochley had she not closed her blast doors, a funeral pyre for the quartet of Heavy Cruisers that now had become so much debris and vapor.

"That's a kill of targets Six through Ten" Delouse declared as Prometheus ripped out of the far side of the explosion.

With more speed then Pendergast could have believed, the Drakh cruisers whipped around to see what had happened; when all they saw was a small ship and a debris field where four of their sisters had been, they let loose.

Energy washed over the Prometheus's shields, barely even shaking the ship as it bobbed and weaved closer towards the jugernaughts in their path.

"Forward pulse cannons, focus fire on target Alpha, lets make this a quick pass" Pendergast ordered, keeping half an eye on the two Omegas coming up on his Starboard side. The engagement was a mere three minutes old and already the two proud ships were starting to look like they had decided to race through an asteroid field to get here thanks to the Drakh.

"Sir, the final Drakh escort stream is breaking off and accelerating towards Babylon 5" Gant warned.

"Signal the Snakes and Busters to engage when they reach their engagement zones and alert Captain Lochley" Pendergast replied without looking away as Prometheus's bow guns opened up, ripping without mercy into the already heavily damaged Drakh ship. It had rotated to soak up the firepower from the Omegas and shield its sisters as they approached B5, more or less becoming a sitting duck as Delouse poured firepower into the breaches over its stern. While Pendergast respected the dedication of the ships Captain in offering himself as a target to shield his comrades, business was business and it was still firing back. Great chunks flew off the hapless ship as it and its sisters tried throwing everything they had at Prometheus, not even denting her Asgard shielding as she streaked past Alpha, now burning fiercely at the stern.

In fact everything was going more or less according to plan…which was just the right time for a spanner to be thrown into the works.

With a crash, Prometheus jumped as if it had just run over a starship sized speed hump. The officer at the sensor systems control console at the front right of the bridge was thrown out onto the deck and didn't get back up, Daniel who was the only person on the bridge without a job to do, leapt forward to tend to the blissfully unconscious technician as sparks showered the back of the bridge.

"What the hell was that?"

"Sir starboard shield generators three and four just went offline" Gant reported as a damage control window flashed on her secondary screen.

"How the hell is that possible?" Pendergast demanded as a second shower of sparks broke out. He ignored it; from the sounds of the technicians behind him the situation was well in hand, medics rushed onto the bridge to deal with the down crewman, in record time he noticed.

"It looks like the Generators were not properly remounted after the hull work on the main cannon, when the Drakh fire washed over their positions the momentum shook lose some of their power feeds and-".

"What does that mean for shield strength" the Colonel demanded, focusing on the critical issues and deciding to ignore the technobabble until the after action report needed to be written.

A new alarm sounded on Gants board and her face went bleak.

"Shield grid failure within three minutes".

0000000000

"The fourth Drakh wing is accelerating right for us people, here's how it's going to play out. Snakes, we're going straight up the middle break by flights and keep moving. Flight leaders, you each get two cruisers everyone else protect them! Busters, hang back and spread out at least two hundred klicks from the station, catch anything we miss. Anything less then two hundred out belongs to B5; don't follow into the red zone unless you want to get Alpha Squadron antsy. Let's move it people!"

The long line of F-302's blasted out of their holding patterns, engines burning a hot blue as they raced to intercept the incoming forces. It had taken an act of will not to go to the aid of the Lexington group as they fought impossible odds or to the Prometheus when she had made her predictably flamboyant entrance into the battle, but their patience was about to pay off as they moved in to unleash their firepower, half of the group jumping ahead and half breaking off into a screen, ready to pounce on anything that kept coming

"This is White Star eighteen, we'll blow the door open, you rob the vault" a ranger that could only be human commented as the two Minbari gunships fell into formation with the 302's.

"Roger that eighteen, good hunting" the wing commander responded as the two ships accelerated ahead slowly.

Well Slowly wasn't really accurate Jack thought, the ships were going almost full throttle, it was just that the 302's on cruise speeds were only slightly slower then a Whitestar on full burn. But if they blew the door open for them, that was fine with him.

"Echo flight, stick with me and keep those raiders off my back" Jack ordered, angling down from the rest of the 302's with three other fighters behind him. The firefight with the bulk of the enemy forces far off to port looked vicious, but if they didn't stop this splinter, their efforts would all be for nothing.

The Whitestars spiralied in, the majority of the Raiders broke to deal with them, the gunships angeling off to the side and drawing them away from their screening duties.

"Tally one Raider squadron, nose, three hundred Kilometers, time to intercept fifteen seconds" Carter warned as the Drakh finally spotted the F-302's burning for them and sent their raiders in.

"Looks like some of them didn't take the bait" Jack commented as the first explosions started off to his right as the Minbari opened fire.

"We've got them Nine" one of his flight members - was it Johnson? – commented, his and two other F-302's leapfrogging forwards past Jack towards the incoming Raiders.

"Snake Ten, Fox Four Two!"

"Snake Eleven, Fox Four Two!"

"Snake Twelve, Fox Four!"

Five missiles detached from the F-302's and burned down range, their seeker heads locked onto the relatively large Drakh raiders. For a second, the raiders hesitated between firing at the F-302s and trying to shoot down the missiles before deciding on both.

Blue beams reached out for the twelve fighters, failing to hit any of them as they rolled, dodged and sidestepped. The missiles although far smaller and faster at least weren't trying to dodge and the fire team of Raiders assigned to anti missile duty opened fire. They even managed to tag three of Echo flights missiles and shred them, but two missiles reached their targets and the high explosives snapped their target ships spines. Flashes of light in Jacks peripheral vision suggested that other missiles were detonating, but he ignored them as he focused on his battle. Three Raiders remained to intercept his flight group, placing themselves directly in his flights path as if daring them to run the gauntlet.

Challenge accepted Jack thought to himself, his thumb flicking the coolie hat on his flight stick to its maximum setting, settling the 'floating' gun sight onto the nearest raider and tightening up on the triggers.

The two Pulse cannons nestled in his fighter's fuselage opened fire. Instead of the typical discrete pulses that usually came from Starfury cannons, elongated spears of energized plasma looking more like a Death Gliders staff weapons then anything were thrown out with each stroke of the trigger, joined by dozens of others from the formation, bracketing the Drakh in a blistering salvo of weapons fire.

Waves of azure energy crashed into the raider Jack targeted joined by fire from the rest of his flight that dug deep into its side, sending it staggering out of formation into a wild spin, atmosphere blasting out of a massive breach. It was all the 302's in Jacks flight needed, accelerating rapidly through the gap in the Drakhs line towards the heavier fleet units as the Drakh tried futilely to tag them with their single heavy beam weapon.

In Hyperspace, the Drakh Lord commanding the assault started to painfully understand that while Raiders were fine craft for tearing up freighter convoys in deep space or pack hunters in rapid hit and fade attacks…in a pitched battle, they simply were not suited to dealing with small enemy fighters. He made a mental note to investigate the possibility of their own fighter analogues, then turned back to watch the battle rage.

"Snakes Eleven and Twelve, keep those Raiders busy. Ten, stay on my wing" Jack ordered his flight, continuing to slip and slide his craft towards the wave of Light Cruisers ahead, the Raiders behind twisting around in a struggle against their own inertia

"Copy Lead, luck" Johnson responded, pealing off and pulling into a wicked 180 degree turn with many other F-302's, pouncing on the Drakh screen as they completed their own maneuvers, missiles and plasma cannons swapping fire with fusion beams. Jack wished him luck mentally, but he had his own problems to deal with.

"Transferring target data to your screen General, safeties are off" Carter spoke up, Jack glanced down to see a model of the Drakh cruiser they were gunning for, then glanced back up in time to dodge right and prevent their ship from being impaled upon one of its beam weapons salvos.

"Copy that, yo-yo in five" O'Neill responded as the Drakh cruiser brought all its weapons to bear on him and burn him from the sky. Stomping down on his rudder peddle, Jack slewed his craft out of the line of fire, then shoved his stick towards the floor.

Instantly a wave of G's slammed into him. The 302 still had problems pulling negative G's and while it now compensated for much closer to 100 of the forces rather then the 90 of the original model, he still had to focus to keep his lunch in his stomach and not on his windscreen as he dove through ninety degrees, then yanked back into level flight, now half a kilometer under his previous location, with a perfect line of fire at the Drakh Cruisers belly.

"Snake Nine, Fox four Two!" he declared, thumbing his trigger twice then pulling up into a ninety degree climb, "yo-yoing" back up above the cruiser still trying to burn him from space.

Unfortunately for the Drakh on board, they completely missed the drifting missiles until at the last second they ignited their engines to correct their course, slamming into the centre of the Cruisers ventral hull.

Under them, the centre of the Drakh ship snapped up and out as the spherical detonation of the Mark Seven warheads blasted the ship into two pieces, which drifted away from each other, secondary explosions wracking the hulk as Jack looped away towards his next target flanking the wreck of its sister ship. Spiraling down towards it, he suddenly leveled out and accelerated for it, before pulling up at the last second and barrel rolling over its starboard beam to its ventral surface, the two drifting missiles he had released this time not even needing to correct their courses before impacting and vaporizing the first third of the cruiser in another massive explosion.

"Lead, Nine, targets secure" O'Neill signaled as he pulled into a long curve back around and towards B5, nothing with appreciation the other six light cruisers either burning or doing a very good impression of an expanding debris field.

"Nine this is Seven, lead is gone. We've also lost Three, Four and Five".

Jack felt a ball of led push into his stomach. The squadron commander AND XO both gone?

"Seven what the hell happened?"

"We had the damn Raiders beat, only a half dozen of the things left" Seven said in disgust. "One flight was re-engaging and they all just turned and accelerated right for them and bloody blew themselves up! Just like that, took out three of Delta Flight, one of foxtrot and scared the bejesus out of me".

"Did they punch out?" Jack demanded. The F-302's were equipped with ejecting cockpit modules sealed against space and there was a chance that-

"Not a chance sir, they were ripped to pieces by the blasts".

"Copy that" Jack replied, forcing away the anger he felt at the loss of eight good men far away from home. But true to form as now he was in command, he forced all feeling aside until later

"All Snakes, reform on Snake Seven and fall back to point Zulu, we've done what we need to. Flicking back to the White Stars channel, he triggered his radio again. "White Star eighteen, what's your status?"

"Not too good Snake Nine" a static filled voice came back. "We chased off the Raiders but both of our ships took a lot of damage. The auto repair systems are engaged, but we'll be out of the fight for at least half an hour".

"Can you make it back to B5?"

"Affirmative, but I doubt we'll move from there for some time".

"Copy, we'll escort you in. Break. All Snakes form up on the White Stars. Busters, return to screening positions".

Barely listening to the acknowledgements, Jack cut back his throttle to a less insane speed as he steered towards the two gunboats.

"Sir, Prometheus is in trouble" Carter suddenly spoke up, snapping O'Neills eyes back open. Pulling his mask back to his face, Jack toggled his microphone.

"All Foxtrots" he ordered, using the brevity code for the F-302's, "stand by for possible mission change". Turning towards the massive battle raging hundreds of Kilometers away, he flicked his communications systems back to his intercom.

"What's the problem?"

The 'problem' was the steadily draining shield system on Prometheus. It wasn't a problem of power due to the Drakhs bombardment; it was two, five hundred dollar bracings used to connect the power supply to the generator that hadn't been properly tightened, letting the proverbial 'plug' pull lose during battle.

With those generators offline, the shield bubble simply couldn't be maintained and was steadily falling apart, despite the best efforts of the remaining generators.

Pendergast vowed silently that he would kill whichever yard dog was responsible for forgetting to correctly tighten a half dozen damn bolts on his ship. Assuming they survived the next three minutes.

"We don't have time for subtlety now" Pendergast declared, standing up and moving to between Gant and Delouse. "Major, roll us ninety degrees to starboard. Target railguns and interceptors on every Raider around the Lexington and Atlas, VLS tubes on the cruisers and hit them with everything you have"

Her shields still rallying against the Drakh firepower, Prometheus rolled, bringing the line of Drakh escorts englobing the Omegas into her forward and upper arcs while placing the heavy cruisers and her strongest shields under her.

The Omegas were mostly impotent now, huddled side by side with only a third of their weapons operational and three quarters of their fighters gone. Not enough to discourage an attack, but the Drakh were taking great pleasure in the payback they were dishing out. The countless wrecks of Raiders and a handful of light cruisers were a testament to just how costly their holding action had been for the Drakh. And the Drakh were keen to make them suffer all the more for it.

Then the formations of Raiders started to explode and shatter as torrents of blue interceptor bolts and stuttering golden streams of railgun slugs slammed into them from Prometheus as she sprinted past in a blur, a salvo of missiles streaking from her VLS cells into the pack of cruisers, not enough for kills but pounding them heavily enough to force them to back off and give Leftcourt enough breathing room to blast an escape route towards Babylon 5's defense grid. Captain Lochley committed Alpha wing to go and help them blast into cover of B5's big guns and Pendergast wished for nothing more then to turn back and cover their withdrawal, but they had bigger problems to deal with. And as they shot past the front lines of the Drakh ships, he decided to play his last card.

He just hoped it wasn't the joker.

"Major Gant, charge the main cannon".

Gant traded a look with Delouse at that order, but was far too professional to say anything out loud, typing the activation sequence on her keyboard.

"Aye, diverting power to main cannon, initializing pre-fire sequence".

A sound like a jet engine slowly powering up started to be heard through the ships hull, a deep thunder as incredible forces were diverted into the completely untested weapons system, power indicators in engineering moving as a great deal of the ships reserve power was diverted through newly installed and untested conduits. For a wonder, they were holding up to the flow without problems, Pendergast just begged the universe to let them hold out long enough.

"Main cannon is at fifty percent charge, ready to fire in ten seconds" Delouse announced.

"Shields approaching critical, collapse imminent" Gant warned as the Drakh, sensing the weakness in their enemy concentrated their firepower on Prometheus with almost blinding intensity.

"Bring us around to firing position, hit them the SECOND you have a green light then get us the hell out of here" Pendergast ordered, trying to hurry the slowly moving status bar on Gants display through shear will power as it just about reached one hundred percent-

"Shields collapsing" Gant shouted as the energy bubble started to fracture-

"Fire in the hole!" Delouse barked as the cannon activated, sounding for all the world like a gigantic staff weapon powering up.

As the first Drakh beams punched through the collapsing shield barrier, too weak to do more then scratch the hull, the massive bronze muzzle at the bow of the ship starting to glow a brilliant white, its luminosity continually redoubling to the point that looking at the glare was painful until finally with a recoil that shoved Prometheus back a hundred meters, a golden bolt exploded down the length of the weapon, passed through the white glare and the combined energy screamed towards the lead Drakh cruiser.

The Hybrid Pulse Plasma Cannon (or REALLY REALLY Big Honking Space Gun as General O'Neill had named it) was a slapped together prototype derived from backwards engineered Goa'uld and EA weapons technology. A relatively close facsimile of a Ha'Tak's main cannon was powered then discharged down the massive barrel. Passing through a series of magnetic fields in the one hundredth of a second the energy took to reach the business end of the weapon, the energy bolt was layered like cotton candy by a compressed EA plasma pulse and yet another containment field, then flung into space, the ships inertial dampeners straining to deal with the enormous recoil generated.

The Goa'uld based weapons pulse was concentrated in the front fifth of the energy blast. Compact and focused to as great a density as physics permitted, it was like shooting a sabot round into a light armored vehicle, tearing through the lead Drakh cruiser on a narrow front and blasting right out the other side without slowing down. As the pulse passed through the ship, bashing and vaporizing its way through bulkheads and walls, the magnetic field holding the EA plasma component around it degraded rapidly, finally collapsing a third of the way into the ship.

It was the next best thing to setting off a fusion bomb. The plasma, released from its magnetic prison forced its way through the ships internals. Even as the Goa'uld component of the pulse blasted out of the cruisers stern, the ship shuddered violently and seconds later a rolling wave of plasma and debris blasted from every window, docking port and airlock on the forward half of the cruiser, the wreck slowly drifting into an uncontrolled left hand turn as the now uncontrolled engines misfired.

The Goa'uld based initial energy pulse meanwhile found a new target, crashing into the starboard flank of the next Drakh cruiser in line and tearing a trench down the right flank of the hapless warship, opening countless compartments to space, staggering it but not stopping it.

Even as Prometheus laid waste to the lead Drakh cruiser, the remaining four cruisers fired one more salvo, punching through the weakening shields as Major Gant broke hard to starboard.

Pendergast held on for dear life as Prometheus heaved under him. Without him needing to say anything, Major Gant was already yanking the ships bow around, letting the beams rake along the ships heavily armored flank before punching the engines to full power blasting back towards B5 and away from the Drakh ships, which ceased fire as they regrouped for their final thrust.

"Damage Report!" Pendergast demanded as the ship stabilized.

"Forward missiles tubes destroyed. Heavy armor damage to the starboard beam. VLS tubes damaged, extent unknown. We have hull breaches forward of frame six".

"Seal those sections off and get a damage control team up there. Jackson, what's the status on the rest of the battle?"

Daniel who had taken over the ships sensor station was thankful for the cross-training he had received on the 303's systems during his single aborted trip to Atlantis with General Hammond.

"The Snakes are down a third and have expended most of their ordinance. The Busters are still at one hundred percent, both squadrons are now holding at the final defense line. The two Omegas look pretty shot up, they're falling back towards B5 as well, ditto the two White Stars sitting there".

"What about the Drakh?" the Colonel asked as Prometheus started to decelerate from her sprint in front of the huge blue space station.

"They're regrouping the last of their ships into a single formation".

"And they'll probably roll right over us" Pendergast sighed. All five defending ships were beaten up and in no shape to take on even the reduced Drakh fleet. "Why don't they just blast B5 from here and be done with it?" Delouse wondered out loud. "They're well within weapons range of the station, I can't imagine it would take more then one salvo would tear it apart".

Pendergast frowned. It was actually a rather good point. He could understand them ignoring the station until they had dealt with its defenders but as they had finished beating them back, albeit at great cost…why weren't they attacking?

"Symbols" Daniel suddenly spoke up, his expression thoughtful.

"I'm sorry Doctor Jackson?" Pendergast asked in confusion as his crew strove to try and affect damage control and get as much repaired as fast a possible.

"Sorry, it's just something that comes with being an Anthropologist" Jackson commented as he turned around. "You keep analyzing everything to see if it points to something else. This whole attack, it's all symbolic".

"Rather lethally symbolic" Pendergast pointed out, trusting the mans opinion but not seeing where he was going.

"Yes but that's effect rather then cause. Look at the Drakh. When they attacked Earth, they did so to make a point. They used a Shadow planet killer, then they used a Shadow plague and they did it on the 5th anniversary of the Interstellar Alliance. Here they are attacking the station that was the base of the army that vanquished their masters, which is being used to sign a treaty to vanquish them".

Pendergast frowned slightly in thought.

"Okay, so they like to make a big splash. Why aren't they attacking?"

"Because they want to make a statement. About how helpless everyone is before them now. We've given them a hell of a bloody nose in front of their audience, they want to pointedly slaughter us in response and then slowly dismember Babylon Five so that memory replaces that of their losses they suffered doing it. I mean they took horrendous casualties in the battle at Earth, but no-one remembers that do they?"

"What Audience?" Pendergast asked in confusion.

Daniel just pointed out and up. Following his gaze, the logic suddenly clicked into place. Orbiting above the battlefield were several dozen civilian ships from all the races in the Galaxy, who would carry the tail of horror back to their homeworld as a quarter of a million people were slaughtered in what had once been the fortress that had stood against the Shadows, in the symbol of the unity that the ISA had forged.

So how did they turn that against them? His mind was working in small circles when Gant broke into his thoughts.

"Sir, Signal from the Lexington". He nodded in response and sat up straighter in his chair.

00000000000

Leftcourt helped the last of his men up from the smoke filled command centre; a medic nodding in thanks as he helped manhandle the young officer onto a stretcher. Relief officers had arrived and had put the fires out, but with half of the bridge consoles destroyed, his ability to command the battle was rather compromised.

"Approaching the Zulu Line General" his helmsmen commented, steering with one hand while holding a bandage to his forehead with another.

"All stop, turn us-" Leftcourt broke off into a fit of coughing, swiping smoke away from him "-turn us to present all functioning weapons on the enemy. And get the life support running again! Status on the Atlas and Prometheus?"

"Atlas has been shot up as bad as we have but her engines are in decent shape. And I don't have the first clue about what signifies good and bad for the Prometheus Sir" the sensor officer pointed out. Leftcourt grunted.

"Get me Pendergast". The technician worked his console and a few seconds later, static hissed through his headset.

"Prometheus this is Lexington, what's your status?"

"We've taken some heavy hits General. The damn yard dogs didn't bolt on our shield generators properly and we lost shields a few minutes ago. All nukes expended and the main cannon is unlikely to fire again".

Closing his eyes and sighing in defeat, Leftcourt knew the game was up. He had fought the good fight and lost, all that was left was taking as many of the Drakh to hell with them as they could.

"Is your hyperdrive still online Colonel?" Leftcourt asked as he eased back into his command chair. For a wonder, the ventilator fans were coming back on line and removing the smoke from the command centre, at least he wouldn't CHOKE to death.

"It's online, but if your suggesting that we-"

"Get your people back on board and jump out".

"General with all due-"

"Save the heroics for another day Colonel. The Drakh want this treaty to fail and ten billion people back home to die because of it. If you get away with the diplomats, we still win. We pay a price, they do too, but we still win. Leftcourt out".

Pendergast pressed his lips together. As much as he hated to admit it, the General did have a valid point. The treaty was bigger then any of them and without heavy weapons, there wasn't anything he could do…short of playing Kamikaze anyway.

Was this the only way to win and turn the Drakhs tactics against them?

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair.

"Get me Snake Nine".

"You're on".

"General, did you copy that conversation?"

"Affirmative. Load up everyone onto the Prometheus and hyper back to Earth. I'll stay behind with any 302's who want to stay and-"

"You're part of the Ambassadorial party as well General" Pendergast cut him off. Get your ship back to the Prometheus. As for everyone else…Snakes and Busters, you can stay in the fight for now IF your ship is still good to go. We'll jump out to Epsilon Four and hide in the sensor shadow, you should be able to outrun the Drakh if things get too hot, but don't-"

"Sir, I'm detecting a jump point precursor" Gant suddenly. Vector two two one mark fourteen"

"Dammit, they were waiting to bring in reinforcements" Pendergast sighed in frustration. Even the hope of victory appeared gone now. "Alright EVERYONE get back on Prometheus, Major set a course for-"

"Sir…" Gant started as the computer processed the hyper detailed data from the ships Asgard sensors and alerted her to a peculiar fact. "The jump point signature…"

"Yes"? Pendergast asked…

"Sir Jump point forming in the middle of the Drakh fleet"

Leftcourt cursed softly at the announcement. Every second the Drakh had delayed their attack to reform brought the Foxfire group closer. But it looked like the Drakh reinforcements were closer still.

"Alright this is it, get ready to…" the order died on his lips as a furious salvo of Neutron cannon fire streamed out of the jump point, blasting with deadly results into the side of one of the heavy cruisers and exploiting the damage Prometheus's main cannon had done to its flank. The green-golden beams damn near tore it in half with the shear weight of fire as the jump point itself shredded a dozen Raiders too close to the vortex. A massive Tri-Wing ship followed the weapons fire out of the jump point, turning with surprising maneuverability to line up the next ship with its massive array of guns, frantic return fire from a handful of Raiders doing little but scorching its dull grey hull.

"Well I'll be damned, it's the Victory!"

"Helm; come Starboard twenty five degrees. Weapons control fire!" Captain Anderson barked as the Victory bullied through the rapidly spreading debris from their first victim. He was proud of the way his crew was working, not a move wasted, not a hesitation to his orders. As the old saying went they moved like a well oiled machine.

Of course he demanded nothing less of his crew then perfection. Since the day they had been 'chosen' by that Technomage and been thrown into events that had culminated with the attack on Earth and its infection by the Drakhs contingency weapon, he had pushed his crew harder then they had ever been pushed before. Anderson and most of his crew had expected, at best, to be transferred to backwater postings where their carriers would dead end.

After all they had gone AWOL, stolen two classified prototype ships and gotten them banged up something fierce.

Instead, they had been made into Heroes with a capital H, along with President Sheridan (who until that day had still been somewhat distrusted by some people on Earth, but after going to such lengths to fight for his homeworld now had very few critics remaining) partially because they had earned it…and partially because Earth Force wanted to distract people from the Daedalus and her role in the battle.

Because of his skill in the battle and his otherwise impeccable service record, he and his crew had permanently been assigned to the Victory. The warship had been modified into the half mobile research laboratory half warship design like her younger sister ship, traveling across the Galaxy on leads from the Rangers and trying to find a cure to the plague. It had been pure chance that they had been passing close to the Episilon system when they had overheard the distress call from General Leftcourt. Anderson had decided to withhold a response; the Drakh had shown an uncanny ability to intercept even secure transmissions. And his strategy appeared to have worked, surprise was total as he jumped out into the middle of the Drakh fleet.

"Firing forward weapons aye!" his weapons officer acknowledged, depressing his triggers. Again his ships forward guns raked along the flanks of the next enemy ship in line like claws into flesh, laying the ships flanks open to space. The remaining three Heavy cruisers started to turn, but the Victory was already moving far too fast, turning to starboard and finishing off the second Drakh cruiser with her broadside turrets before bringing the aft weapons to bear on the third cruiser.

"Target two destroyed, target three is attempting to power its jump engines".

The Drakh Lord closed his eyes and ordered all ships to abandon the attack. All hyperspace capable ships were signaled to exit the vicinity and begin evasion routines through hyperspace. When they were completely sure no-one was following them several days into the future, they would make their way home.

He looked at the system display relayed from his ships as the remaining heavy ships started to back away, dueling with the Victory as another of their number held open a jump point that the remaining Raiders fled through. Nodding at his ships helmsmen, he let a slight smile grace his boney face.

Always have a contingency plan…

"They're retreating!" Gant shouted in delight as the Drakh ships broke their formation. Jump points opened as the lighter elements abandoned the field, screened by their remaining heavy ships for the safety of hyperspace. Cheering and applause started to break out on the ships and station behind them, the Victory backed off as the Drakh cruisers unleashed their firepower at her, blasting armor plates off the ship, but doing little to damage her combat capability. Andersons return fire cut deep into one of the cruisers, but not deep enough to stop it as it opened its own Jump Point to escape.

"Major Delouse, stand down the weapons and get me damage reports on-"

"New jump point precursor, high on the Z axis near the civilian ships holding orbit!"

"Send a signal to the fleet!" Pendergast snapped, kicking himself for thinking the Drakh would give up that easily. "Then send to the civilians on all frequencies for them to get the hell out of there-"

"Jump point opening" Gant said with astonishment in her voice. "It's massive!

"On screen" Pendergast ordered. The main screen switched from the Victory slugging it out to a massive vortex that punched into space near the helpless civilian ships.

"Jesus H Christ look at the size of that thing" Delouse breathed. Pendergast was about to tell his officer to watch his boards and not the screen, but the words died on his lips as a massive Drakh Mothership exited hyperspace behind the civilian ships. Like a spider hovering over a collection of helpless insects, Pendergast knew the ships were dead.

But even as the thought came through his mind, a second came on the tail of it. The civilian ships held no real value, killing them would just enrage dozens of races. In fact the only thing the Mothership gained by jumping where it did…was a shot lived shield to prevent anyone firing at it.

"If they're not the target…" he asked softly, too low for his crew to hear him. "What is?"

The answer to Lionel Pendergast's question was revealed as a series of hull plates were blown clear of the massive Motherships rounded nose, revealing a half dozen missile silos. Inside each, the pointed black tip of a missile that belonged to a Shadow Planet Killer poked into space. Six missiles were hardly enough to destroy a planet, but Epsilon Three was anything but a normal planet. At its heart was a massive reactor complex which powered the planetary sized facility. Almost unimaginable amounts of power surged through the kilometers wide power conduits, requiring constant and careful regulation from the caretaker of the facility.

When Drall had taken over managing the planet from the former caretaker, the reactor had been on the verge of destroying itself thanks to the lack of oversight from the dying being, Drall had barely reversed it in time. The effect of its reactor complex letting go on anything near the planet could probably be best described as Susan Ivanova had described it to Londo Mollari.

"Boom. Boom boom boom. Boom boom. BOOM! Have a nice day."

With an almost affectionate stroke of his firing control by the Drakh Lord, the missiles were released and streaked for Epsilon Three, the thunder of the Drakh Motherships jump drives increasing as a new jump point opened for his ship to escape through.

Farewell Babylon Five. And good riddance.

"Captian the Drakh Mothership just launched three, no, six missiles towards Epsilon Three" Corwin shouted in a horrified voice. On his screens the Victory had pitched to bring her Main Guns to bear, but she simply couldn't risk firing with so many civilian ships in the way.

"Calm down Commander and get me the Prometheus" Lochley said, striving not to show the same horror Corwin did, despite feeling it. They had started to celebrate the Drakhs retreat then the Drakh had pulled another damn contingency plan out of nowhere. If they didn't stop those missiles-

"The Drakh ship just launched six objects towards Epsilon Three General" Carter announced as their fighter hurtled towards the Drakh mothership. "And they've just opened another jump point, they're leaving".

Without comment, O'Neill altered his course towards the six new blips on his sensor display, picking the fast moving objects from the still scattering cloud of civilian ships. He had ascended straight for the civilians when Carter had detected the Jump Point starting to form, the rest of the 302's were only now starting to accelerate after them. With only two missiles left he doubted he could really do much to a ship that made Anubis's comand ships look small, but with luck he could put one hell of an expensive dent in it…

"Prometheus this is Snake Nine, any idea what was just fired at Epsilon Three?"

"We're working on it" Pendergast replied, "hang on….oh hell, they match the sensor profile of missiles from a Shadow Planet Killer".

"But that thing needed thousands of missiles to kill a planet" Jack O'Neill protested as he willed his craft to go faster. He wasn't flying straight up at the missiles, as given their forward acceleration he would end up flying in an arc behind them, loosing valuable time. Instead he was flying to an intercept point where they should be in about twenty seconds, assuming of course they didn't accelerate faster then they were.

"They probably don't need thousands of missiles to kill this planet" Carter replied. "If there is some kind of installation down on the planet and that's what they actually want to destroy."

"Actually Colonel, its worse then that" a new voice Carter recognized as Captain Lochley broke into channel, probably via the Prometheus. "If those missiles set off Epsilon Three, nothing in orbit twenty seconds later will be alive".

"Nuts" O'Neill breathed into his mask. "Alright, we'll take care of it. Out. Carter?"

"Sir?" she replied.

"How close are those missiles grouped together?" Jack asked as he started to decelerate, it wouldn't do him any good if they overshot the targets after all.

"It's a staggered spread, roughly grouped into two groups of three about five hundred meters apart".

"Alright, target one missile on each group".

Carter worked her controls. "Done, we have twenty seconds before they hit the atmosphere".

"No pressure" Jack muttered to himself, pulling his craft into a wicked hundred G turn as he moved onto a parallel course with the warheads, the massive brown ball of Episilon 3 growing alarmingly large alarmingly fast as he closed to firing range. Holding off as long as he dared for the best shot, he finally dropped his nose at the lead target, squeezed the trigger then dove slightly and fired again.

"Fox four Fox four!" Jack announced as the two missiles smoothly slid off their rails, arcing out towards their target on long streams of exhaust. A handful of seconds later, a pair of detonations that would have blinded Jack if not for the visor he had pulled down on his helmet, flashed and he lifted the visor, expecting to see nothing but debris.

"Crap, one of the missiles didn't die" Jack announced.

Carter glanced down at her radar. True enough, one of the six missiles had survived the thermonuclear firepower and hit the atmosphere, flames licking at it as the atmospheric friction superheated the air in its path. A second later, their 302 hit it in pursuit, shuddering despite the best efforts of the inertial dampeners. With its forward swept wings and trinium/titanium space frame, the 302 could take incredible stress at hypersonic speeds, but crashing into the atmosphere was pushing it to the limit. The wings edges started to glow red and O'Neill silently prayed for his ship to hold together as he fired bolt after bolt into the missile from his cannons.

"It's no good Sir" Carter yelled as she studied the effects. "The ionization around the missile is dissipating the plasma…but I do have a crazy idea".

"Well it's about time" Jack shouted over the roar of the friction.

"You'll need to get us within ten meters of the missile before we hit the stratosphere" she replied, hammering at her controls without looking up. Jack eased the ship forward and to the side, trying to slide directly over the front of the massive warhead despite the horrible buffeting it was producing around it.

"So what's the plan?" Jack shouted.

"If we can get close enough, I can program the Hyperdrive to open a window that we can use to ride the missile through the planet and out the other side".

"Like that asteroid through Earth?"

"Exactly, but the hyperdrive is untested, I don't know if-"

"Just do it!" Jack replied, his hand starting to turn to jelly as his flight stick tried to tear itself out of his hand from the effort of sitting next in the missiles slipstream.

"Activating hyperspace window generator" Carter shouted, a new high pitched whine forcing itself into the cockpit. In the flames outside his cockpit, Jack had a brief glimpse of a purple distortion then with a blur of motion the flaming atmosphere vanished to be replaced by the brilliant tunnel of hyperspace.

"Reactor is spiking, I don't know how much longer it can keep this up!" Carter warned with a note of urgency in her voice. Naquadriah's awesome power curve was only matched by its instability. The EA technologies added to the design did little more then build a more advanced buffering system, but she was pushing it way beyond its design limits in moving a missile this size through Hyperspace. The master alarm went off in their cockpit as the energy buildup approached the red line-

-And with a jolt, the blue tunnel of hyperspace flashed and was replaced by a star field on the dark side of Epsilon Three. On Carters board, the buffer read out flashed red one last time and then faded away back to a safe blue as the Hyperdrive powered down.

Jack let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding as he turned his craft away from the missile, which was still happily speeding off into space. Frowning as he stared at it over his shoulder, he triggered the intercom.

"So what do we do about-"

A lance of red energy punched up from the surface of Epsilon Three, slamming into the rear of the Shadow missile and blowing out the other side without slowing down, the missile detonated milliseconds later and leaving nothing but vapor.

"-the missile" Jack finished with a feeling of great respect for the weapons array of Epsilon Three. A new voice came over their communications systems, one Jack recognized.

"Colonel, General, as you humans are so fond of saying, I believe I owe you one" Drall commented. "I would invite you two and Doctor Jackson down whenever is convenient, we have much to talk about" and before Jack could reply, the channel closed.

Pulling off his oxygen mask and letting it dangle by its strap, Jack closed his eyes for a full five seconds before banking into a gentle turn that brought him into an orbit that would take them back to Babylon Five.

"Carter?"

"Yes sir?"

"The next time General Hammond sends me on a diplomatic mission….shoot me".

"I'll keep that in mind Sir" she smirked with a shake of her head, their somewhat charred F-302 accelerating into the sunrise on Epsilon Three's horizon.