Chapter 12

Wardroom, USS Auckland, 0730 hours

After the newly promoted Lt. Rager had left the wardroom, Admiral Tapin led them all to his conference table.

As everyone began to take their positions around the table, Tynen stood closely to V'Lar and whispered, "Aduna, most of what I am going to say may be…distasteful to your people's sensibilities. I will discuss how we will snuff out the lives of thousands of beings. Afterward, I wouldn't blame you at all for thinking of me as a monster."

Suddenly, she raised her hand and extended two of her fingers toward him. Slowly, like a thirsty man in the desert who finds an oasis and frightfully approaches it for fear that it's a mirage, he reached out and pressed his fingers against hers. "I believe I have told you before, my beloved, that you are no monster. You are my adun, the light of my katra, my noble champion, and the warden of my life."

Again, her supreme faith in him had humbled Tynen and nearly brought him low.

He smiled gently at her then they turned from each other to take their seats at the table. Once everyone had settled down, the Admiral began. "The purpose of this briefing is to have Captain Tynen present his plans for the defense of the Earth Alliance Sol System from an all-out attack by the Minbari."

"Admiral Tapin," Captain Gaila said as she brushed a loose strand of red hair out of her face, "were the Alliance Earth people invited to this meeting?"

The flag officer shook his head. "No, Gaila. I wanted to have us hear it first before we decided to present it to them. I wanted to make certain we're all on the same page because I suspect we're going to have to tell them they're going to go through hell in a very big way before this thing is over. Isn't that right, Jason?"

The Valkyrie's commanding officer nodded in response. "I'm afraid so, sir. Considering how superior the Minbari warships are compared to the Alliance Earth vessels, even though we'll do our best to even the odds, the Alliance Earth fleet will likely be decimated. Indeed, their losses may be so bad that Earth Force may cease to be an effective military force after this engagement. However, by using deception in some cases and asymmetrical warfare tactics, tactics some may find…distasteful, I intend to even the odds and effectively cripple the Minbari to the point they'll be unable to engage in meaningful offensive operations in the solar system."

While several of the people shifted uncomfortably in their seats after his last remarks, Tynen said, "As you all know, our plan, from the beginning, was to make the Minbari concentrate their forces here at Earth because, at the moment, we don't have enough ships to invade their territory and bring the war to them. We wanted them to target this system because it affords us the best opportunity to inflict massive damage on the elements of their fleet and draws the bulk of their ships away from the Courtor system. You see, what we know and the Minbari don't is that Courtor is the key to this quadrant. It's where the subspace conduit is and how our main battle fleets will enter this fight. However, until the battlestations and the starbase arrive to protect the entrance on this side of the conduit, our continued operations are highly vulnerable."

"Until Courtor is secured, we have to keep the Minbaris' attention focused on Alliance Earth rather than searching for the entrance to the conduit. We must destroy as many of their vessels and kill as many of their warriors as possible," Tynen said, his voice hard and determined even as he struggled to remain stoic in front of his pacifistic wife.

"Before their attack is launched, I believe both the subspace and hyperspace sensors we've placed will give us sufficient warning of the Minbaris' arrival for us to move our support vessels out of the combat zone. The mobile repair facilities, their escorts, the cargo vessels, and the medical cruisers will warp out past the Oort Cloud and orbit the system at Warp 1, practically rendering them invisible to the Minbaris' sensors."

"Once the Minbari arrive to do battle, I expect them to launch a three-pronged attack. They'll want to challenge Alliance Earth's military assets to avoid having those assets attack them from their rear while the Minbari launch their main thrust against Earth. So they will attack Io and Titan just before their main elements strike against Earth. After studying the Minbaris' tactics, I've determined they prefer to fight in formal battle lines, similar to eighteenth and nineteenth century European armies. To effectively counter this tactic, we must wage two different kinds of warfare against them."

"The first," he emphasized by holding up the index finger on his right hand, "is a war of attrition. For that, we will use fixed phaser, photon, and missile batteries on Earth, Luna, Mars, Titan, and Io against their fleet elements."

"Now, one problem we have to take into account for our planning is that we don't know if they plan to attack Mars during this assault. The Mars Colony has made it plain that it was neutral and wouldn't fire on Minbari vessels. If we knew that the Minbari would ignore Mars, we could certainly use the batteries and defense satellites there somewhere else. However, we can't afford to take that chance."

"Agreed," Tapin said.

"Even so, we know Earth is the centerpiece of their assault. When that occurs, we should be able to hammer them with fire from the installations on the planet, its natural satellite, and the Starfleet and Klingon defense satellites in Earth orbit, along with the weapons from our vessels."

"Finally, the second," he indicated by displaying both his index and middle fingers on his right hand to the group, "is a slashing, cavalry style attack comprised of Federation and Klingon starships supported by battle groups of Alliance Earth ships used as artillery. The cavalry charges are intended to disrupt the Minbari battle lines while the battle groups made up of Olympus gunboats armed with phase cannons, extra fusion reactors, and polarized hull plating along with Novas will target the Sharlins that try to attack the marauding Federation and Klingon starships. Meanwhile, the Alliance Earth ships will be protected by swarms of Starfury fighters and Alpha Quadrant armed shuttles."

"How do you intend to assign the ships in our fleets to these cavalry units, captain?" the stunningly beautiful Commander Mares asked.

"There will be three main units comprised of eleven starships each. We'll call them Alpha, Gamma and Omega groups. There will be two smaller units with seven ships each; we'll refer to them as Delta and Sigma wings. Finally, Brigadier Kerla will be in command of a phalanx of Klingon Battlecruisers that will launch their attack against elements of the Minbari attack force two light years from this system. Of course, the brigadier is welcome to name his group whatever he'd like."

Kerla flashed a deadly smile at him. "I shall call it the T'h'lar squadron!"

Tynen cocked a wry eyebrow at the other man. "Defender? That is an apt name for your squadron, brigadier." Then he took a deep breath and continued. "Now, along with the batteries we've begun to install on the planets and moons, we've also begun to install the multi-generator shield systems on Earth, Luna, Mars, Titan, and Io. However, the shield system at Titan will deliberately have a 'weakness' built into the system because I want to spring a surprise on them there."

A sly smile slowly spread across Tapin's face then. "A surprise, captain? Do tell!"

Tynen returned the Admiral's smile with one of his own. "Yes, sir. After studying the logs of Commodore Kryiss' encounter with the Minbari in the Leonis cluster, it appears the Minbari are desperate to get their hands on one of our ships for intelligence purposes. So, I say, why not give them what they want?" Then he smirked and said, "I intend to have our engineers build a mock-up of a perimeter action ship similar to the U.S.S. Echo. Like the smaller Klingon Bird of Preys, the perimeter action ships are capable of planetary landings, so it won't look odd or out of place on the surface of Titan."

"What do you plan to do with the mock-up of that ship, captain?" Sulu wondered.

"We're going to take one of our defense satellite warp cores and use it as the power source for our little decoy. We'll also place a few thrusters on board to make it appear that she's trying to take off and avoid capture when the Minbari assault Titan. I believe the enemy will seek to exploit the 'weakness' in our Titan shield to capture the decoy to learn our vessels' capabilities. Meanwhile, we'll use the decoy to pin down a large portion of their forces to serve as missile fodder."

Tynen paused for a moment to take a sip of water from his glass before he continued his presentation. "Right now, Alliance Earth munitions factories are churning out the improved 'Predator' missiles and the Ekosian's x-ray nuclear warheads from plans we provided to them from our databanks. All of the missiles are augmented by Klingon impulse engines to be swift and extremely deadly. They'll also have laser trackers supported by a subspace transceiver based on Titan that'll help them lock onto Minbari vessels even through their stealth fields. The Alliance Earth people will fire their missiles from underground bases located outside the shielded area on Titan until they've all been expended. Then they'll fall back inside their main base and allow our MACOs to blast away at the Minbari with phaser and photon batteries.

"Finally, after being pummeled by our forces and just before they become frustrated enough to simply obliterate the vessel and Titan with it, we make it appear they've won their 'hard-fought prize' and allow them to take the decoy. Then when they enter hyperspace with the decoy, a short time later, it will self-destruct, taking out the ship that has captured it along with her escorts."

"Intriguingly diabolical, Tynen, and truly inspired," Kang observed with an evil smile. "It sounds like something Kahless himself would have done!"

"Thank you, general. Now, if you loved that, I think you'll approve of my next trick. I propose we deactivate the jump gate at Io and place Hyperions and Novas inside the gate's latticework."

"Why would the Alliance Earth people want to do that, captain?" the raven-haired Orion woman asked.

"It's my understanding that all the races in this quadrant loathe firing on jump gates. Apparently, if a gate is destroyed, the hyperspace beacons that make up the network will reconfigure to take into account the loss of a gate. When that occurs, any ship currently travelling in hyperspace may lose their way and become hopelessly lost. So, the Minbari will hesitate attacking the vessels hiding inside the gate if they don't want to be blamed for destroying merchant shipping in hyperspace."

Tapin smirked at that. "Kind of like how the colonists fought against the British during the American Revolution—hiding behind trees and stone fences while the redcoats stood out in the open, eh?"

Tynen grinned at him. "Indeed. Oh, I also plan to have our attack shuttles, Starfurys, and Olympus gunboats do the same by hiding amongst the debris inside the rings of Saturn and the upper reaches of the Jovian atmosphere just before they sortie against the Minbari fighter and frigate squadrons around Io and Titan. Additionally, the Alliance Earth small craft will be provided targeting assistance by the Sato and the T'pol, the pair of Archer class scouts that have been reconfigured into dedicated communications vessels."

"Meanwhile as the Minbari approach Earth, we will use several squadrons of Hyperions to emit sympathetic high frequencies that will interface with the crystals the Minbari use for nearly everything on their ships to incapacitate and kill their crewmen. We also believe that by using this weapon, we will effectively degrade their ability to engage in combat against us. Although the enemy will be searching for the source of these signals, I believe the risk will be worth it. One of the tasks of the upgraded Olympus gunboats is laying the high frequency probes throughout the Sol 2 system starting today. Once the task is accomplished, Each Hyperion will be able to control a dozen of these probes."

"Killing the pe'taqs with sound waves?" Kerla grumbled. "Where is the honor in that?"

Tynen simply shrugged and said, "Considering the fact the Minbari warships completely outclass the Alliance Earth vessels, I'd say the honor on either side of this battle is found in surviving the charnel house we're attempting to create here. Brigadier, it has been said once in our past that 'I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.' I suppose survival is honor enough when you deal with those who seek the genocide of a people."

As Kerla grunted and nodded at him, he felt his wife's essence brush against his mind. Did you just quote George C. Scott's dialogue from the movie Patton to the brigadier? You are aware, of course, that General Patton never said that.

Well…he defended silently, it's a great quote and I was on a roll!

While his wife mentally skewered him with her 'why-in-Surak's-name-am-I-saddled-with-this-illogical-human' plea to the universe, Tynen indicated to the group that he had completed his presentation. Then Admiral Tapin smiled and said, "Well, when I asked for some 'outside-the-box' thinking, you certainly delivered, Captain Tynen. Nice job!"

Kang nodded and added, "Warriors, after hearing Captain Tynen's presentation, I am confident that a magnificent victory lies before us."

Kerla growled lowly and snapped, "I trust those are prophetic words, Kang."

"They are, my young friend, they are. And to bolster them, I promise that all of us in this room shall share a bottle of bloodwine on the broken bridge of a Minbari warship after we have beaten them!"

"Merely a bottle, General Kang? Come now! I'm certain you can do better than that!" Kerla exclaimed. "I have a barrel of the finest vintage of twenty two twenty nine on my ship and I'll offer it up so we may drink over the broken bodies of our enemies!"

While the Klingons continued to argue, Tynen smiled. If they could worry about something mundane as the vintage of their bloodwine, perhaps they had a chance of coming out of this alive after all.

Sol system-Earth Alliance, 0930 Local Time

"Madame President?"

President Elizabeth Levy looked up from a report she'd been reading on the production of the new missiles the Earth Alliance's munitions industries were constructing with the Alpha Quadrant powers assistance and answered her intercom. "Yes, Martin?"

"Secretary Hannah is here to see you if you can spare a moment."

"Of course," she said, "send her in."

As the woman stepped into her office, Jo said, "Good morning, Madame President."

"Good morning, Jo," she answered with a charming smile. "Would you care to sit?" she indicated the arm chair directly across from her desk.

"Just for a moment; this won't take long," Hannah said as she planted herself in the chair.

"What would you like to talk about, Jo?"

"Well, Liz, I once again asked Ambassador Sarek and General Koloth if there was anything we could provide to them as a token of our appreciation for their people coming to our aid. Again, I was assured by Ambassador Sarek that his people wanted nothing from us."

Elizabeth sighed deeply and said, "Well, I didn't expect that he would change his position on that. It really does appear that the Federation certainly lives up to its ideals in that regard."

Josephine nodded and said, "Yes, but in regards to the Klingons, we've run across a little…snag, so to speak."

Levy frowned at the Secretary of Defense then. "What sort of snag? Do the Klingons want something from us?"

"Yes."

"What do they want, gold, quantium 40, some other type of valuable commodity?"

Hannah pondered the president's question for a moment before she answered, "Well…I suppose it's valuable to them."

"Well then, what do they want?"

"Prune juice."

Levy blinked twice before she managed to find her voice. "Excuse me? They want what?"

"They want prune juice, lots of it."

"Why in the hell would they want prune juice?"

"Apparently," Jo noted with a sigh, "they simply love the stuff. And don't ask me where they got a hold of it. Maybe somebody served it at one of those conferences the munitions people sponsored when the Klingons presented their disruptor and missile designs to us. Anyway, the Klingons are mad about the stuff. They call it a 'warrior's drink!'"

After taking all of that in, Levy narrowed her eyes at Hannah. "Why did you say we've hit some sort of snag with the Klingons over this?"

"Well, they love the stuff so much that we project a worldwide shortage of prune juice if their consumption continues at its current pace. This would, of course, be a problem for our geriatric population and pregnant women and could create some problems for us on the home front."

Levy blinked thrice at that. Never in a million years would she have thought prune juice could result in a planetary crisis. "All right, Jo, what do you propose to do about this?"

"I'd like your permission to confer with the Secretary of Agriculture to see if we can do something about increasing prune juice production, you know target more plums to be switched over to producing prunes. In the meantime, I want to talk to the Federation and see if they can use their molecular synthesizers to supplement our prune juice supply. Apparently, the Klingons prefer the real stuff, like the rest of their food stuffs, over the synthesized version; however, our geriatric population may not be able to tell the difference, so the synthesized version may suffice for them."

President Levy pursed her lips for a moment before she made her decision. "Jo, get with Sharon and tell her to make this a top priority."

"Yes, ma'am!" Jo snapped. Then she sprung from her chair and raced out the President's door, leaving a bemused Elizabeth Levy shaking her head and muttering to herself.

"Aliens."