Chapter 3

January 23, 2248 – Minbari space

It was an odd quirk of fate two star-faring races that had only recently come into contact with each other had happened to call a particular star system by the same name.

The Humans of Earth Alliance referred to the system's G-type main star, one so similar to the Earther's own Sol, as Chara. They also, strangely enough, had other names for the star that was 27 light years distant from their own, notably Asterion and Beta Canum Venaticorum.

The Minbari, on the other hand, simply called the star C'hara. They had only established an agricultural midrange base there about one hundred standard years ago and would never be so indiscriminate about naming a star system that belonged to their federation. C'hara III, the planet in the system where they'd established worker caste farms and foodstuff preparation facilities to provide supplies to their frontier outposts, had simply gone about its business over the course of time.

However, on this particular day, a Tinashi frigate happened to be on patrol near the gas giant the unimaginative Minbari had called C'hara V when the upgraded Constitution-class USS Thornwood dropped out of warp directly behind the unsuspecting ship. Suddenly without warning, the starship fired two photon torpedoes into the aft end of the frigate, vaporizing both the Minbari vessel and her crew before they even knew what had hit them.

Then before the Minbari could even see the light that had served as a funeral pyre for the hapless crew of the Tinashi, four Constitution-class starships, the Enterprise, the Lincoln, the Exeter, and the Suronn, and the Miranda-class starship, the Dauntless, began their run on C'hara III. Hundreds of small flyers, civilian transports and freighters scrambled to get out of the way as the first of their defenders came barreling toward the invaders. Several squadrons of Nials sent out by a quartet of Sharlin war cruisers vectored toward the ships imprudent enough to attack a Minbari colony. As the formidable fighters moved into attack formation, the Sharlins rapidly closed the distance behind their fighter screen and began to fire ranging shots.

When they had reached the enemy vessels, the Nials fired almost as one. Unfortunately, their energy pulses simply splashed ineffectively against the Federation ships' protective shielding. A moment later, the Starfleet vessels cruised majestically through the cloud of Nials, leaving the Minbari fighters to flounder in their wake and desperate to catch up to vessels that had moved faster than anything their alarmed pilots had ever seen before.

Now in range, one of the war cruisers fired and scored a passing hit on the Suronn, dropping her shields by six percent. In response, the comparatively smaller bulk of the Federation cruiser swiveled on her own axis, bringing her bow and dorsal surfaces to bear on the offending Sharlin. Suddenly, the starship returned fire with all twelve of her phaser turrets, destroying the surprised Sharlin's forward weapons array. Simultaneously, the Exeter targeted the war cruiser's engineering section with all of her port phaser turrets, completely penetrating the hull and boring through the hapless vessel's quantum singularity containment device. Then, while the other starships, now joined by the Thornwood, maneuvered to engage the remaining war cruisers, both the Exeter and the Suronn sailed past the doomed, imploding Sharlin and continued onward to C'hara III.

As the pair of Constitution-class heavy cruisers approached the planet, orbital defense satellites began to track the two incoming targets. Shortly thereafter, gravitic fusion beam cannons fired several salvos and managed to graze the Exeter's shields. However, moments later, the satellites lost acquisition as both ships accelerated to high impulse speeds and employed evasive maneuvers. Then before the satellites could compensate and reacquire the targets, starship phasers lashed out, taking apart the automated defenses.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise and the Lincoln had teamed up to take on the last of the war cruisers, a proud old Sharlin, long past her prime. The stricken vessel had lost both of her drive fins and most of her forward weapons array yet she courageously battled on with her secondary weapons. Soon, though, energy beams cut deeply into the ship, eviscerating everything in their path as they probed for the singularity used as the ship's power source. Suddenly, phasers reached the singularity and the result was a cataclysmic explosion. Then, before the light of the Sharlin's demise had dissipated, the Enterprise, Thornwood, Lincoln, and Dauntless began their assaults on the military space station in orbit above the colony world.

The four starships' phasers carved up the station like a roast turkey on Thanksgiving Day before it could even begin to defend itself. Internal explosions tore the station apart as its debris tumbled toward the surface of the planet below. While the quartet of starships continued to sweep the satellites out of orbit, the Exeter and the Suronn destroyed all power generators, military installations, and spaceport fields on the planet's surface while carefully avoiding the infliction of harm to all residential, agricultural, or commercial areas, including spaceport terminals.

Then before the dust had settled, the Federation ships were gone like thieves in the night. When the defender's rapid reaction force jumped into the system from hyperspace, all the Minbari found was the debris of their war cruisers and planetary defenses floating in space, frightened Nial pilots who spoke of swift and dreadful vessels that had blithely ignored them, and terrified colonists who'd actually witnessed solid matter fade out of existence at the mere touch of crimson beams of light.

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The Grey Council

As she took her place in the circle, her concern was palpable to other members of the Grey Council. "What has happened now?" Delenn ra Mir asked apprehensively. "Why have you summoned me?"

Delenn's fear of what was to become of her people had heightened after the attacks on their bases five days ago in and around Batain by the Earther Federationist vessels led by the Human, Admiral James T. Kirk.

Satai Coplann, his face hardened by his fury, said nothing as he started the playback of the most recent assault on their territory. As one, the members of the Grey Council watched the replay of the Earther Federationist's latest romp through one of their systems.

"This was the scene at C'hara seven hours ago," Satai Cadroni, a member of the religious caste coldly announced. "They mercilessly destroyed five warships, the military space station, the satellites, and military facilities on the planet surface. These alien butchers have spilt the blood of thousands this terrible day, a toll to be added to the blood of the martyrs we'd lost five days ago!"

A horrified Satai Delenn's eyes flew wide open at that pronouncement. "How many of our people did they murder at C'hara?" There was an uncomfortable moment of silence when it appeared Cadroni could not bring himself to disclose the number. "How many?" she demanded.

"Five thousand, one hundred, and twenty-three, Delenn," he whispered. "We lost many of the warrior and worker castes in this most recent attack."

Delenn, youngest of the council members, sobbed loudly, the disturbing sound so like the screech of a wounded animal wrenched from her very soul, as she almost collapsed to the Council chamber's floor in her grief. At that moment, she comprehended the magnitude of the loss that terrible number had entailed to her people. Then, through her tears, she screamed, "Animals! Brutal! Strike them down, follow Kirk and his ilk back to their base and kill all of them, all of…" Suddenly, her voice trailed off when she recalled how the very words she'd just said were almost the same as those that had continued to haunt her from almost two years ago, the ones that would have surely broken her mentor's heart and had started this nightmare for her people. Dukhat had died in her arms and her grief for him had launched this terrible war. His was the first, the most damning of the blood that soiled her hands. Now, her past words had led to the blood of ten thousand more of her people to join with the offering of the lives of the Earthers in both the Alliance and the Federationist colonies expended on the altar of her war.

As she gasped, horrified by the rivers of blood that threatened to drown her very soul, Coplann answered her, seemingly unaware of her distress. "If only it were that simple, Delenn! But, at the moment, we cannot follow them. Indeed, we currently have no way to track them when they use that infernal faster-than-light drive of theirs. Even worse," the Satai added, "their blasted star drive may allow them to enter areas where we cannot follow. One of the problems even we have with hyperspace are the currents and the way they behave close to hyper-gravity wells such as white dwarves, black holes, neutron stars and other dense or high-mass stellar phenomena. So, if Kirk and his brigands have established a base of operations in our space near any of these spatial anomalies, we would not be able to jump in and attack them."

After that depressing thought, Coplann changed the image to display two of the alien starships destroying the satellites in orbit above the planet. "This time, the Humans destroyed four Sharlins with impunity. Sharlins!" he snapped. "Apparently, it wasn't simply misfortune that allowed the Excelsior to destroy the Blood of Saints. Our masking screen is completely useless in the face of their sensor capability and their weapons are clearly superior to ours." Then the Satai shook his head. "And although I hate to admit this, our frigates are a joke to them! Once again, our Tinashi was destroyed without firing a shot; it was taken completely by surprise."

As Coplann hung his head low, embarrassed by his admission of the frigate's crew's failure to even be aware of the enemy before succumbing to the Humans' deadly fire, Satai Hedronn of the worker caste asked, "How badly was the colony damaged?"

"Surprisingly," Satai Morann of the warrior caste said in answer to Hedronn's query, "the planet was hardly damaged at all. Of course, all military installations and facilities were wiped from existence by those devastating beam weapons of theirs. However, it appears that the invaders went out of their way not to strike residential areas, temples, commercial areas or agricultural facilities."

A puzzled look then crossed Hedronn's face. "Why would they conduct such a raid and not lay waste to the entire colony? The Humans would surely have reason to do so in response to Shakiri's attack on their Regulus colonies?"

Coplann snorted. "Isn't it obvious? They want to destroy all military resistance so they can return at their leisure to the bypassed worlds and eradicate our people. They want to bleed us dry!" he snapped. "Listen to this report, Hedronn. We have lost contact with the Night's Star battle group. Their mission was to eliminate the three thousand or so inhabitants of the Jericho colony before we sent a major force to strike at Proxima III. Now, we must send a reconnaissance-in-force group to determine the Night's Star's fate and to see if the Earther Federationists are responsible for whatever had happened to it."

Morann nodded. "That makes sense," the warrior caste satai noted.

"Why do you say that, Morann?" Hedronn asked. "Wouldn't the second force fall into the same trap that had ensnared the Night's Star's battle group?"

"Yes, but," Coplann snapped, "if we leave Jericho intact, the Earthers can use it as a forward base against us. We cannot allow them to possess the dagger they can hold to our throats!"

As Hedronn nodded, affirming his understanding, Coplann murmured, "Although we still have no idea from where they are launching these attacks, at the moment, they appear to be small in number."

"But that may soon change, if we do not act quickly," Delenn warned. "Again, it is plainly evident that they've found another passageway from their space to ours because there is no way they could have snuck past the ships we have guarding the hyperspace highway. Unless we can find the new passageway and close it off, more of these murderers will come through it and establish a significant foothold behind Earth Alliance's lines of defense."

"Even as we speak," Satai Morann announced, "Shakiri is mobilizing the grand fleet to stop the UFOP vermin from joining with their Human brethren and giving the Earth Alliance their formidable technology. Shakiri is also responsible for making certain that the one called James T. Kirk and his ship, the Enterprise, shall both die for their crimes against the Minbari; they destroyed Dark sword and Straight Blade, destroyed our bases, communication devices, ships and power stations at Batain Prime. Now, this attack on C'hara must be added to the list of their crimes."

"True," Delenn agreed, yet she wouldn't relent. "However, Shakiri's efforts may all come to naught if we fail to seal off the other passageway and stop more of those murderers from coming through!"

"Delenn is right," Hedronn said. "If we do not find a way to keep the Federationist Earthers from coming through in overwhelming numbers, we may not be able to activate a sufficient number of war cruisers from our mothballed fleet to be able to stop them, particularly if the Klingon aliens also come through the passageway as well."

"The warrior caste agrees with pursuing your recommendation," Satai Coplann said. "We will contact Shakiri immediately and order him to find the UFOP's passageway at all costs."

At that, Delenn and Hedronn bowed to the warrior caste satai. "Thank you for your consideration in this matter, Satai Coplann," she offered serenely.

Just then, an aide rushed in and whispered something in Coplann's ear. After the aide had strode away from the warrior satai, Coplann said, "Well, speak of the devil…Shakiri has just contacted us with important information for the Council."

Coplann called for the holographic imager to come online and images of Shakiri, Alyt Jaysonn, and the Three-who-are-one appeared before their very eyes. At that moment, Delenn welcomed their virtual visitors. "Greetings to you all. Shakiri, were you successful?"

"Yes," he answered.

Then several beats of a heart later, he ominously added, "And no."

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Hyperspace Channel Entrance

In real space, near the location of the hyperspace channel to the other side of the galaxy, Shak-Na Dukain, the captain of the Minbari war cruiser Brigain, was on his bridge when he received a communiqué from the leader of his clan. Dukain was known as a competent officer, more of an explorer than a soldier. Although he was more willing to avoid using force to solve problems with other races, he was willing to do anything for the benefit of his people, including the use of his ship's arsenal when warranted.

He was a seasoned warrior who'd fought against some powerful pirate bands that had raided one of the colony worlds. Outnumbered, his vessel managed to defend the colony and pursue the pirates back to their base. After destroying their means of escape, Dukain was able to negotiate their surrender. Surprisingly, he offered them the opportunity to live out their lives in peace as long as they never darkened the Minbari Federation's doorstep ever again. Now, years later, those pirates had not gone back on their word to the captain.

"Dukain, we've suffered an attack on one of our mid-range colonies at the hands of the Human called Kirk," Shai Alyt Shakiri reported. "We've also lost contact with the Night's Star battle group. Its mission was to eliminate the inhabitants of the Jericho colony before our forces were to strike at Proxima III. We believe that the battle group may have run into more of the Earther Federation warships. We are sending a larger force to investigate, and if warranted, to deal with that possibility. Clearly, though, it seems that the Earther Federationists have found another passageway to our side of the galaxy. Therefore, your mission has now been changed. We must search for the other passageway and find a way to seal it off before the enemy sends more of their ships here to the aid of the Earth Alliance. Thus, your orders are to take the Brigain, Valen's Tears, and several Tinashis to Batain and begin a search pattern for the Federationists' passageway. Stop at nothing and use any and all resources you have to find that passageway. You may even question the Centauri to see if they may possess any information that could be useful."

After Shakiri had relayed his orders, Dukain licked his lips before he spoke his next words carefully. "Shai Alyt, does the Grey Council believe that these Humans are servants of the Shadows?"

Shakiri stared at him through their holographic connection for a moment before he said, "There are those who believe that these Federationist Humans have been bred specifically by the Shadows for the coming war. They say the Humans are Sha'tha-Shadow warriors, thieves, and murderers. As for myself, I do not believe that because we just captured one of them and gave him to the Three-that-are-one."

Dukain felt his heart sink when the Shai Alyt had told him that. From what the captain had been told by a friend who'd been an aide to one of the Grey Council members, the triad of telepaths was the Grey Council's own, each a representative of the three castes. They were a power unto themselves. Indeed, other telepaths shunned them, which was telling in and of itself.

Shakiri shook his head then. "I could only imagine what type of pain the Human had experienced when they stripped him of his mind. Even I began to feel pity for the poor thing after they had subjected it to their tender mercies. However, the triad confirmed that the Federation Humans aren't connected to the Shadows and were not connected to the Earth Alliance until we attacked their colony at Regulus."

Appalled that the triad had tortured the Federation Human, Dukain narrowed his eyes at his caste leader. "If they are not connected to the Shadows or to the Earth Alliance then who are they?"

The Shai Alyt fidgeted for a moment before he said, "They are apparently members of a vast organization comprised of Humans and aliens. The Humans in that organization alone are almost as numerous as the grains of sand on a beach. That is why we must find the passageway, Dukain. According to the triad, the Federationists and their allies, the bestial Klingons, have already sent 96 warships here along with a substantial amount of support vessels. Their warships have accounted for the loss of at least twenty of ours at the cost of four or five of theirs. The Humans are powerful and appear to have curried extraordinary favor in convincing their Vulcan masters to send so many ships against us. Now, they are out for blood due to our miscalculation of launching an attack on one of their minor colonies, an attack I am responsible for leading. So, it matters little whether or not they are agents of the Shadows if, in their fury, they are able to defeat us. The outcome, in either event, would be disastrous for our people."

As Dukain attempted to process the fact that his people had wrongly attacked the Humans on the other side of the galaxy and had failed to finish the job as it were, Shakiri said, "We must deny them Earth's resources before they become too well-established. Therefore, we must prepare the grand fleet to attack Earth and destroy the Federationists, the Klingons, and the Earthers there before the Federationists and Klingons send more reinforcements through their passageway. However, it would help us greatly if we can close down the passageway from our side and keep them from establishing another foothold in our space. Shak-Na, it is crucial that you not fail in your mission. What you learn will help determine our very survival."

At that, the captain of the Brigain struggled mightily with himself not to roll his eyes at both the old fool and the damnable Council. If the Council had allowed cooler heads to prevail rather than listen to the ravings of Delenn, Dukhat's former acolyte and, in the minds of many, his secret lover, Dukain's people may have avoided this foolish war in the first place!

He was absolutely convinced Dukhat would never have approved of the slaughter of the Humans. And beyond the moral concerns he had, it was clear that their economy was in a shambles because of the war. He suspected that a lot of their mercantile troubles were due to their isolationist policies and their lack of strong relationships with trading partners, particularly when it appeared the Minbari were engaged in a genocidal war against a race that had helped most of the League against the Dilgar. Now, Shakiri's attack against the Federation colony and the presence of their avenging warships in Minbari space had caused fear and righteous self-delusion to permeate the ranks of the Grey Council.

However, even though he hadn't wanted this war, his people were now threatened by the Federation Humans and their untamed allies. Dukain couldn't, wouldn't turn his back on them.

"I will leave now."

"May Valen go with you, Dukain."

"I could use his counsel right about now," the Shak-Na drawled. "I believe we all could perhaps because he'd have us seek out the angels of our better natures," the captain added in a slight dig at both Shakiri and the Grey Council.

In response, a chastened Shakiri said nothing as he averted his eyes from the captain and terminated their connection.

An hour later, the Brigain and her flotilla formed up and transitioned into jumpspace on their way to Batain near the Courtor system.

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