Chapter Eleven: Retaliation
General Braddock sat in his ready room as he contemplated his mission of subjugating Babylon 5 and the renegades who had dared to secede from Earth Government at a sensitive time like this. To him, this was the pinnacle of back stabbing and he despised the people responsible for it. In his opinion, President Clark should have taken this action much sooner. He wasn't exactly a fan of the president but his policies ran along the same line as his own. He went over his plan one more time. Nothing was going to go wrong on his watch. He believed in the Powell doctrine and had insisted on an overwhelming show of force and the president had agreed. Even though they had to scrounge all available ships to make up his task force, even the old Olympus corvette and Hyperion heavy cruisers, he was quite happy with it. There was just no way for a single O'Neil class station to challenge his armada.
The last ten hours had been a flurry of activities preparing the station in anticipation of the coming battle. Sheridan had resigned himself to that. Clark was determined to bring the station back under his control and there was no stopping him. The fifty ships headed their way made that point clear. How in the hell did Clark manage to get that many ships on such a short notice? Granted he was not privy to the current state of the Earth Force but last time he checked, capital ships were in short supply. Well, wherever Clark got his ships, the fact was that he would soon be facing a massive onslaught. Babylon 5 was well armed but would never be able to face such overwhelming odds even with the support of the two "rebel" ships now stationed outside. Sure Delen had promised help but there was no way the Minbari ships would arrive on time. Even the ship she had arrived on had left after dropping her and might not make it back on time, that is if Delen could convince her people to support Babylon 5. The situation looked dire but all was not lost yet. He still had an ace up his sleeve. "Commander, get me a shuttle. I have a trip to make."
"Sure, where you going?"
"I'll tell you when I get back."
Susan was surprised. This was no time to be taking trips. Clark's force was on its way and would be on top of them anytime. "Alright, I'll get on it immediately," she replied as she walked away.
"Commander, could you also get Dr Franklin out here. I've been feeling queasy all morning. Must be something I ate."
"Yes sir," she replied without breaking a step. Actually, she was also feeling a bit under the weather. Must be some kind of bug going around.
G'Toll and the two Klingon warships surveyed the devastated scene around Narn from warp. There were several dozen Centauri warship in orbit amongst numerous hulks of burnt out warships, both Centauri and Narn alike. From the looks of it, the home defense fleet had put up a valiant fight but had been crushed never the less. As for the planet itself, it was a smoking ruin. The once beautiful planet was a hollow shell of its former self. Black smoked bellowed from fires that were still raging planet wide. It was slowly obscuring the whole planet as the black smoke swept across the globe riding the jet streams. It would take months for it to clear up once the fires had died out. Life on the planet was no doubt in serious jeopardy if not already dead. The enraged G'Toll ordered an immediate counter attack on the Centauri. The two cool headed Klingon captains knew better than that but did not want to get in his way. After all, they would have felt the same if it had been their planet that had been so brutally raped. The trio of warships dropped out of warp and immediately started a high speed attack run on the blockading ships which took them by complete surprise. Several Primus and Vorchans were completely shot up even before the rest of the ships realized what had happened. Hurriedly they turned to face the new opponents who had already finished their initial run and were making a second pass. This time, the Centauris were a bit more prepared and returned fire. While the new systems installed by the Klingons gave G'Toll an edge over a single Centauri ships, it did not help much when pitted against several dozen opposing ships. Even the Klingons who had far superior weaponry were feeling the pain. Their ships were a lot faster than his but they had to slow down to keep in formation with him and to provide fire support. Even then a lot of weapons fire found their mark. "Thank god, the Klingons are intercepting all the torpedoes," G'Toll thought to himself. No sooner had he said that a single torpedo made it past the defenses and slammed into the side of his ship. There was a loud crashing noise but nothing more. He let out a sigh of relief. It was a dud. Unfortunately for the people manning pulse canon number five, it was a different story. The dud torpedo slammed into the gun placement with such force that it completely knocked the gun off its emplacement and although the thick armor prevented the missile from tearing into the hull, there was localized catastrophic damage. The kinetic energy of the torpedo slamming into the armor had an effect similar to the High Explosive Squash Head round used by British tanks in the twenty-first century. All the kinetic energy of the torpedo transferred into the armor which propagated it to the inside where it shattered the inside wall into thousands of tiny shrapnel. Not a single soul manning the pulse cannon number five survived. Furthermore, the shrapnel cut into several power lines and high energy plasma conduits which immediately started a raging fire in the confines. It quickly spread to the neighboring compartments. Firefighting teams broke into action trying to contain the fire from spreading any further but it was a futile gesture. RiTal was busy directing the firefighting efforts when an officer ran in and ordered him to seal the hatches to the next compartment.
"I have men in there fighting the fire. I can't leave them in there," he yelled back. The officer was clearly enraged.
"Damn it," he cursed as he whipped out his sidearm and yelled back. "You will close that hatch," Just then, his team of blackened and burnt firefighters stumbled out of the fiery compartment, clearly having given up the fight. With a sigh of relief he quickly slammed the hatch shut and kept the fire contained at least for the moment.
Captain TekSha did not like this turn of events at all. With the slower Narn ships in formation, his two ships had to reduce their own speed to protect the straggler. A part of him told him to leave the Narn to fend for itself. But the other half reminded him that if he left the Narn alone, it wouldn't last very long. He didn't want that either. So he stayed in formation till he had had enough. He hailed the Narn captain and said, "Captain G'Toll, we cannot keep this up any longer. Our ships are taking a beating and we are not killing them fast enough. If we keep this up, we will be destroyed."
"I am prepared for that." G'Toll replied hotly.
"I know you are prepared to die but that will not achieve anything. Clearly, the Centauri has already defeated your fleet and if they manage to defeat us too, then who is going to stop them in the future. Remember, this is just a battle. There is no shame in retreating from a battle to save an empire. Neither is there is glory in winning a battle if it destroys the empire in the process."
"Very well, let's pull back," G'Toll agreed reluctantly. With that the three ships exited the battle leaving the victorious Centauri to gloat over their achievement.