Author's notes:
- This chapter was supposed to include what will now be chapter 5, but it was getting very long, so I decided to split it. The bad news is that this one will be very technical, and hard to read for people who are not tech or info freaks (like me). The good news is that chapter 5 is almost ready, and giving a little spoiler: It will be a full action packed chapter.
- Especial thanks to Susan Hilton for making this story readable.
Chapter Four
Earth Alliance – Sol star system
Earth - Geneva
EFNI (Earth Force Naval Intelligence) - Headquarters
August 12, 2245
Admiral Donald Ferguson was seated in a meeting room with the Head of the Earth Force Naval Intelligence, Admiral Roger Donovan, and the Director of the Earth Intelligence Agency, Victor Chapel. Ferguson had been sworn in as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nearly three years ago to replace Alexei Denisov who had retired. President Elizabeth Levy had almost been forced to beg for him to accept this position, as his heart had always been on the bridge of a ship.
The three of them were reviewing data, and making decisions on how best to proceed with the Minbari situation, a situation that was rapidly escalating into an all out war.
"I had my teams working around the clock to analyze yesterday's battle. We were victorious, but the victory had been tarnished by the heavy losses we'd incurred. The tactical and strategic considerations of the engagement will occupy EFNI for years to come, but we have been able to at least determine our ships' chances against them and with the help of the EIA to establish a set of strategies and actions that will allow us to engage them to our best of capabilities." said Admiral Donovan, He was one of the youngest Admirals, and had gained his position as head of EFNI for his tremendous brilliance in tactical and strategic scenarios during the Dilgar War, which helped end that conflict faster than anticipated.
"Let's hear it Roger. The President is waiting for Mr. Chapel and me to give her our recommended course of action." stated Ferguson.
"OK. Let's proceed then. Everything works around our ships, so let's start with them." said Donovan straightening in his chair. "We'd been running thousands of simulations since yesterday with every computer core available in EFNI, and we've added the new information gathered from this new ship. The Minbari vessels, even these smaller ones, are tremendously powerful units. The bigger ships which we are designating as dreadnoughts, should be considered even more powerful than the smaller ones which we are designating as destroyers. We are making this assumption based only on the increased volume and displacement of the dreadnought, and on the battle damage done by their beams during the Pythia incident."
"We have been able to clearly identify their destroyer's capabilities, and we have increased the tactical strength of their dreadnought accordingly. We've been able to recreate simulated Minbari vessels in our analysis programs to the point that we got almost the same results from a simulated engagement with yesterday's battle as a scenario of the simulation. Once we got that right, we started testing every single one of our ship designs against the Minbari destroyer."
"We are currently running battle scenarios with different strategies to allow every single of our designs to be able to stand a fight against their destroyers. But we have at least concluded our one-on-one engagement analysis of our units against only the destroyer, and things are not very comforting."
"The Oracle is our least capable unit against them. Its weapons were not even able to penetrate their armor, and even a single Destroyer's beam would be able to put one out of action. The Olympus and Artemis are also unable to penetrate the Minbari destroyer's armor with their plasma weapons, even though they are able to inflict heavier damage than those used by the Oracle. Their rail guns on the other hand had proven able to penetrate it, and were instrumental along with our missiles in defeating them, especially when hitting them on what we have determined to be their gravitic drive. Both units are also very vulnerable to their beam weapons, as a single shot will most certainly destroy an Olympus, and heavily damage an Artemis or probably destroy it."
"Our Sagittarius are quite capable of destroying one of their destroyers in a one-on-one engagement, provided that they make their missile launch no more than 3000 km from them. Above that distance, the time required for the missiles to reach their targets is more than enough time for the Minbari destroyer to intercept every single one. Engagements at increasing ranges will require the use of more than a single Sagittarius per Minbari destroyer. During yesterday's battle, our Sagittarius launched their missiles at more than 7000 km. They forced the Minbari units out of their defensive stance, which allowed our other units to inflict damage when they redeployed their gravitic fields. If there wouldn't have been other units present, every single missile would have been intercepted. Thanks to them, some of our missiles reached their targets, and every single hit proved devastating against their vessels, as every impact in the body of the destroyer proved at least incapacitating."
"Up to this point, the information I have given had been corroborated by both the actual engagement and through simulations. For the rest of our units, the results are given exclusively by simulated combat."
Donovan gathered his thoughts before continuing while Ferguson and Chapel listened intently. "Both, Sagittarius and Avengers are completely useless without their missiles and fighter complements, as their weapon systems are exclusively defensive in nature. While the Sagittarius missiles are very fast compared to the Avenger star furies, these last ones can be equipped with fighter based anti-capital-ship missiles that while far inferior in power compared to a ship based one, the numbers used have proven capable against Minbari units in simulated engagements. The Sagittarius has a small edge in fire-power and engagement speed, but against shield protected Minbari units in defensive stance we believe our Avengers to be considerably inferior than the Sagittarius, as the star furies missiles are not believed to be strong enough to penetrate it."
Ferguson raised his hand, and asked. "Sorry to interrupt Roger, but on what assumptions are you saying that?"
"As you said, it's only an assumption. We won't know until we have gathered more data on their gravitic propulsion field strength. Our star fury based fusion missiles have a warhead strength of almost 7 PJ compared to 342 of the ship based ones. During the battle we were able to hit their shields with plasma pulses and rail gun rounds with a combined strength inferior to a star fury fusion missile, so we could say that this missile should be able to penetrate it, but the last Minbari destroyer was hit in the aft section by a ship based missile and the gravitic field was able to hold. We know that at that time the entire field was in the aft section, so while the Minbari ship was rocked from the impact, we also know that the shield was not penetrated, and considering the nature of gravitic drives, at least of what we know of the Centauri designs, it will affect every positive and negative charged weapon systems. We believe that only neutron particles passed through that shield. So, we are guessing that the energy required to penetrate their shields while in defensive mode is to be at least stronger than the impacts received by our units or 4 PJ to one fourth of our capital ship missile strength, or 85 PJ. This range suggests that our star fury missiles should not be able to penetrate their shields, unless we use concentrated attacks. Now, if their ships are on the move, the gravitic field is useless for defensive purposes unless engaged on the aft section. Our missile equipped starfuries should prove very effective if we are able to keep the Minbari ships moving." answered Donovan.
"So, they are not actually shields? I mean, they are not like those fielded by the Abbai?" asked Ferguson.
"Yes and no. Yes they are shields in the sense our E-Webs are shields. While our E-webs don't stop incoming fire, they only disperse them, forcing the beam to affect a larger volume of armor. They are still a shield system, and while the Minbari ones won't stop every kind of particles as the Abbai ones, they still act like shields while deployed. And, no, in the sense that the Minbari and Centauri systems are a result of their propulsion drives. While the Centauri are able to deploy a similar gravitic field around their vessels, they rarely use it as it will impede the use of their weapons that are positive and negative particle-based ones, but in the case of the Minbari, they seem to have neutron particle-based cannons, for they were able to fire through their shields while these fields were stopping our weapons. When they detected the approach of fusion missiles, they might have calculated the chances our warheads had against their ships, and that's probably the reason they brought down their fields and accelerated to be able to use their other weapons that we guess might have positive or negative particles, and in consequence were unable to fire through. So they are not as the Abbai shields in the sense of dedicated defensive systems, but still a good commander could exploit the capabilities of their gravitic drives to employ them like ones." answered Donovan.
"So we need to keep them mobile, or force them to fire their other weapons?" asked Ferguson again.
"Yes, or just overwhelm them with heavy fire, like in the case of the Novas."
"OK, go on." added Ferguson.
"The Hyperion is the first real multipurpose unit in the Fleet. Its twelve missiles and six fighters make these vessels inferior in missile fire-power to the Sagittarius, and fighter strength to the Avenger, but it should be able to bring one of their destroyers down single handedly using only their plasma weapons, provided we are close enough to make our shots count and away from their forward vectors. A Hyperion is able to fire an alpha strike with a strength of 4.4 Peta Joules, nothing compared to our Novas, but considerably superior to every other unit we have mentioned. If we add their missiles and fighters, we should be able to complicate things for the Minbari, but only at short ranges. We'll obviously be completely overwhelmed at medium and long distances."
"The Nova and Nova II are considerable threats for the Minbari at ranges not exceeding 10,000 km. Their alpha strikes are enough to bring down one of their Dreadnoughts, especially the Nova II, which can fire all 20 dual plasma cannons, and its two plasma mortars on their forward vector. With their 72 missiles and 36 fighters, we should have enough strength to deal with them as long as we don't exceed those ranges. Above them, we'll depend exclusively on missiles and fighters, and we'll be forced to engage them with superior numbers. But still, with the speed of our plasma pulses, and the acceleration detected on Minbari ships, we should try to make every energy only based engagement, inside a 300 or 500 km range."
"The good news comes with our Nova III. They are the only units we have that are able to engage the Minbari in every envelope. Up to 200,000 km the unit that fires first would win. Above that, the Minbari sensors slowly start turning the odds to their favor, as they don't have to cope with emissions travel delay as our passive sensors have. Also our reactors are not as strong as theirs. The Minbari destroyers were able to fire all their weapons constantly, and some of those are close in power to our Nova III particle cannons, and we believe that those equipping their Dreadnoughts should be even more powerful. Our reactors allow our particle cannons to fire once every 15 seconds, so if we don't hit the Minbari first, we'll most probably be destroyed. In short ranges, we should be able to match them, as we have sufficient reactor strength to fire enough plasma pulses to destroy one of their vessels." finished Donovan sighing.
"I guess that sigh of yours means problems?" asked Ferguson.
"Yes. Two." answered Donovan.
"What are they?" asked Ferguson again.
"One, we need better sensors for every unit except the Nova III, and two, we only have 573 Nova III. If we don't upgrade our units with the EMS/STL system our chance of detecting and engaging the Minbari at ranges above 3,000 km are very low, and would make even a saturation missile strike impossible without something to vector our missiles in. Also, having a little more than a Fleet strong of Nova III limits our operational capabilities considerably. We just can't give to one Fleet the responsibility to engage the Minbari. We need those sensor upgrades, but we desperately need more Nova III. All other units will only buy us time, as I don't think that the Minbari will make it easy for us to fight at close ranges when their units are especially designed to fight at a distance." answered Donovan.
"You must add a third. Three, the president won't allow the 1st Fleet moved away from the defense of the Sol system, especially Earth when we know nothing about Minbari numbers, and little about their capabilities." added Ferguson, and Chapel nodded.
"I was guessing that. Is there a way of convincing her otherwise?" asked Donovan.
"Maybe, but I won't try. If we lose Earth, we lose any chance of defeating the Minbari, and while I understand the fact that the 1st Fleet is the only unit that can make the Minbari bleed for any incursion into our territory, the fact that every other vessel is close to useless at long ranges will make the use of our only capable Fleet a priority for defensive operations on the core worlds." answered Ferguson.
"I understand that Donald, but I can guarantee you that the losses we suffered in the Vega Cluster will be infinitesimal if we allow the Minbari the initiative. If they attack us at long ranges, we could lose a Fleet to a few Minbari destroyers. We were victorious because we attacked them at close range. We dictated the terms of that battle. If we would have jumped 10,000 km away we would have lost every single ship, and we would have been unable to destroy any of their vessels." refuted Donovan.
"Then we have our objectives very clear. We have to make those units capable of fighting their destroyers and dreadnoughts, and we must force the Minbari to fight on our terms." stated Ferguson.
"Our losses will be very high, Donald. We need the Nova IIIs" said Donovan.
"I know, but they'll be even higher if we learn to fight the Minbari with our best units." Ferguson sighed. "You remember the Battle of Balos?"
"Of course." answered Donovan.
"The Seventh and Forth fleets were ambushed by Jah'dur, and lost 75 percent of their vessels and were forced to retreat. We had close to half a million people on the planet that thankfully joined the Balosians underground, or it would have been a massacre. Admiral Hamato tried to break the blockade, but he went with one thousand less vessels of what he could have gone with, and Jah'dur broke his formation with suicide ships and forced another retreat with heavy losses. The one thousand ships he didn't take were old mothball vessels that were ready in Earth Alliance space, ships that are now part of the 9th, 10th and 11th Fleets, and we didn't send them because we thought that we would be risking people. That they'd be slaughtered in them, when the reality would have been that those vessels could have turned the tide of that battle. We could have defeated Jah'dur at that moment, but we didn't. Instead we lost our most powerful units to heavily armored and nuclear packed suicide frigates. We learned Jah'dur's new strategy with our top-of-the-line vessels."
"The thing is that the Earth Alliance invested heavily in those ships, and they were never used. That is something I don't intend to let happen again. If we lose a million people fighting in less capable vessels to allow the Alliance to fight back, then I will personally give the order to make them fight, and if I have to give an example by manning one of those ships I would also do it. The Dilgar war showed us that we must be more analytical and less emotional when dealing with a war. Yes, we could lose a million, but if they save billions, I will gladly volunteer to be one of them."
"Until we know how they fight, we'll be making a great deal of mistakes against them, and I won't use the 1st Fleet just to gather experience, because by that time, we may have a fraction of its strength left, and we'll be forced to fight with older and less capable units. I also want the Minbari to face one unit, and then force them to adapt to a newer and capable one, and have them again to adapt to a newer and capable one, and so on. That will keep them off balance. I will also not dilute our only capable warships to boost the strength of the other Fleets. When the Minbari face them, they will face pure fleets of ugly looking bricks with a pair of heavy particle cannons spitting venom at them. Shock and Awe, Roger. All the other fleets unable to fight on even terms will follow a with our strength and against their weakness strategy. We will plan battles where we'll dictate the terms, and where we know that even the least capable of our units will be able to harm them." finished Ferguson with a definitive tone, and then asked. "Now, what can we do to bring our entire Navy up to speed against them?"
Donovan sighed, but understood Ferguson's point of view. If they were facing just a border skirmish, using the 1st Fleet's Nova III would avoid heavy losses, but if they were facing an all out war with a numerous Minbari Navy, then Ferguson's course of action was the only one. He just hoped for the first, but as Head of the Naval Intelligence community, he knew that things were probably already out of hand, so he answered. "There are technical, industrial and strategic considerations to take into account."
"From a technical standpoint we need to upgrade all of our Nova II to Nova III configurations. The Nova IIs are the backbone of the Fleet with more than 1,500 units available. The addition of the particle cannons in substitution of the plasma mortars, and the integration of the EMS/STL system on all weapons will be relatively inexpensive compared to building a whole new Nova III, and will allow us to field at least four full fleets of Nova III in a relatively short time."
"The Nova will be expensive to upgrade to a Nova III standard. Its structure is different to the Nova II, so I'd recommend to keep them with their current configurations, but we should add the EMS/STL system. For the Hyperions, I would recommend doing the same. For every other unit, I would make upgrades via Fleet tenders, and I would only install the EMS/STL trackers for long range guidance, but I wouldn't waste time integrating it into its weapons, as they are too short ranged to require the enhanced precision to make any difference. For those units that have long range capabilities like the Sagittarius via its missiles, and the Avengers via its fighters, I would assign the newer variant of missiles and fighters equipped with the EMS/STL."
"Another modification I would recommend for the Avenger is doubling its fighter capacity. As you know the Avenger was introduced in a time when exo/endo atmospheric capable fighters were still in widespread use. That's why its hangars are wider than those used on the Hyperions. The star furies will be a little cramped, but we should be able to deploy two per hangar for a total of 96 fighters per Avenger. I wouldn't recommend that if they were operating at long ranges like we did during the Dilgar War, because of the increased personnel required to man and maintain the extra starfuries, but in this case, so close to home bases, we shouldn't have any problems, and the modifications should be easy to make by fleet tenders." finished Donovan, and nodded to Victor Chapel to continue.
"The EIA and EFNI had been working closely lately to try and make a solid front against the Minbari. Roger has specified the upgrades required to make our Fleet effective against them, but if we are unable to out fight them, then we have to at least outproduce them to beat them in a war of attrition. We haven't received a formal war declaration from the Minbari, and I'm sure that there will be many Senators who would try to justify everything to try to avoid us going into war spending again, but recent actions shows that we are heading that way, and we should be prepared." said Chapel.
"For that purpose, and from an industrial point of view, we are recommending an increase in our defense spending to bolster our shipyard capacity. This will allow us to upgrade Nova II into III, and to considerably increase Nova III production. There are some things that I have been discussing with Roger about our Motherships that have me worried. We designed them to be able to add modular shipyard modules so that we could channel our war spending budget into them, but with the way the Minbari fight, we would like to readdress that strategy." added Chapel.
"What do you mean?" asked Ferguson.
"The Astrum class mothership has a sufficiently strong missile, fighter and turreted plasma mortars, that would allow one of them to repel a 100 ship strong Dilgar raiding party. That's enough firepower to force an enemy like the Dilgar to commit a very strong force in order to be successful, but still the Astrum has sufficient firepower to cover its retreat in case it can't handle its opposition. But with the Minbari things are different. A single one of their destroyers is able to destroy an Astrum before its missiles or fighters reach the aggressor, and its plasma mortars that have the range to force Dilgar units into facing their devastating power will be useless against the Minbari weapons range." answered Chapel
"The number of motherships deployed should allow us great redundancy if one is lost, but due to the fact that our Motherships are deployed in the Sol-Proxima Beacon cluster, the Minbari should be able to explore adjacent systems to Sol and Proxima relatively easy if they are able to reach this far out. But the real problem is that if we add the 20 shipyard modules we wanted to add to the Astrum, it would make the mothership immobile, as the mass of the shipyard will be too much for it to handle, and would force the Astrum to detach itself from it in order to be able to escape. That takes too much time, and will defeat the purpose of the Mothership program as a means to protect our citizens. Losing 32,000 people if one is destroyed is not acceptable if we can avoid that."
"What do you propose then?" asked Ferguson.
"As you know, one of the priorities of the Mothership program is its self-sufficiency. Every single person living in one of those ships has been guaranteed every basic need: Housing, food, clothes, education, health, etcetera, but those things are not supplied through taxes, because if someone's business is not working out, then they wouldn't be paying taxes to guarantee them, and if our economy is destroyed, then it's even worse. On the Astrum every citizen is required to invest between three to four hours per day of work in different areas of the mothership to keep its systems and services operational, or if you are doing fine with a business inside it, then you are able to pay for them, but on average every citizen is unavailable for almost four hours just to keep the mothership going. That gives the Astrum, let's say another four hours per citizen of available time for other activities like shipbuilding. That's 128,000 man hours per day without counting rest days that each mothership can devote for ship construction."
"Those numbers will allow an Astrum to produce nearly three and a half Nova IIIs per year, and with 132 of them available that's almost 470 vessels per year. Four shipyard modules per mothership should be more than enough to produce that amount of ships every year. That's about two Nova III every 200 and something days. Adding four shipyards would allow the Astrum to be completely mobile with them attached, and if we start detecting Minbari ships reaching the Sol-Proxima cluster, then we can order them to move to other pre-constructed mining facilities on other planets far away of any of our beacon clusters. We will obviously have to construct those mining facilities elsewhere, even if we don't man them."
"Another positive thing about this is that we should be able to completely eliminate the need to ferry personnel and supplies to these motherships, because they should be able to produce everything for themselves, and that will considerably reduce the risk of Minbari vessels following our transports to their destination." finished Chapel.
"That sounds good, but I believe that we are going to be needing all of our resources to battle the Minbari, and the Earth Alliance economy in a war spending should allow for a far greater number of ships to be constructed. Where do you plan to place the rest of the shipyards?" asked Ferguson.
"Well, we know little about the Minbari, and almost nothing about where their colonies are, so until EFNI is able to send recon missions into their territory, and the EIA is able to break their codes to gain some kind of intelligence about the location of their bases, we can safely say that were are going to be focusing on defensive operations until we are able to do that. In that case, we can devote at least 25 percent of our economy to shipbuilding. With our actual defense spending we are currently able to build 257 Nova III per year. With 25 percent more, we could build approximately a little more that 2,400 Nova III. That's more-less 2,670 Nova III per year once we have all our shipyards operational. For the moment we have 257 shipyards constructing one Nova III each per year. We could produce 470 more vessels on the Astrums, and there are enough unassigned shipyards available in the Alliance to immediately start constructing another 417 Nova III. That leaves as short of approximately 1,500 shipyards."
"We propose to construct them on Earth, Proxima III, and Orion VII, but mostly here on Earth. We have focused our colonization effort on Proxima III and Orion VII during these last 10 years, and with the help of our multipurpose Novas, we have been able to move out of Earth approximately 410 million people while constructing the infrastructure required to maintain them. While that gives those colonies strong economies, their orbital defenses are still not strong enough to guarantee an engagement with the Minbari. But Earth currently has 10,787 Global Orbital Defense Satellites of which 1,445 are MK II with particle cannons, and with its more than 200,000 starfuries should be able to protect the shipyards against even a threat as the Minbari. Either way, Earth still represents more than 89 percent of our economy, so losing it would still make shipyards deployed else where to stop operations due to lack of resources and funds."
"Also, the modular shipyards are designed to be produced on smaller planetary based facilities, and then its modular components are ferried to orbit via capable shuttles and assembled there. Earth is the only planet with enough industrial capacity to be able to produce that amount of shipyards in 6 months." finished Chapel.
"OK. I understand, and I like the idea of having our Motherships mobile and able to re-deploy on short notice. Do you have anything else to add?" asked Ferguson.
"Yes," answered Donovan. "We want to program ship construction to be divided by days. Let me give you an example: If we have 365 shipyards, then I propose building them at a rate of one per day, instead on 365 in one stroke and then wait another year for a second batch. The reason for these would be our training facilities. If we bring ships on a daily basis, it's easier to train the crews without saturating our installations as would be the case if we receive a huge amount of them in a go. Many shipyards will be coming on line at the same time, so it will be difficult to accomplish this at first, but we propose that some shipyards just construct some part of the vessels, and then have those parts move to other shipyards so that we can slowly move our production on a daily basis."
"Sounds good, and that will also help the logistics of preparing so many ships for operations at the same time. Nice thinking. Any thing else?" replied Ferguson.
Donovan nodded. "Yes, from a strategic point of view, we need the President to activate the emergency beacon protocol immediately. Every day that passes will allow the Minbari to get a better view of our planetary positions. The Vega cluster is already compromised. They already should have a good picture of how many planets they have to explore. Its only a matter of time until they find Vega, but many of the other clusters shouldn't even be seen by their sensors from the Vega cluster. We need to activate the protocol now. "
"That will be my first recommendation. What about new technology? Are we anywhere near of having a new upgraded variant of the Nova?" asked Ferguson.
"I have been in contact with Dr. Shouri of our Research and Development Division, and he says that we should be able to start construction of a Nova IV variant in a little more than a year. That ship would be including advanced sensor systems based on those used by the Hyach and Abbai, and it should be able to field in replacement of the plasma cannons, a hybrid ion pulse – particle beam weapon. The Particle mode should allow us great range on all vectors, and the ion mode should allow us a stronger gravitic containment field for plasma bolts giving our pulses stronger power, speed, and range." answered Donovan.
"The remainder of the systems recovered during the Dilgar War should make it into a Nova V in a little more than three years culminating with the Nova evolutionary process. We expect to include on those ships, the advanced Abbai shields, Gravimetric enhanced fusion reactors, artificial gravity in replacement of our ferries wheels, and probably a secondary propulsion system in the form of a gravitic drive." added Donovan.
"There is no way in decreasing those time frames?" asked Ferguson.
"He says that for the Nova IV, the equipment is already finishing prototyping, and that a fast paced demonstration validation phase is being considered for that time frame. The reality is that it could be longer. For the Nova V, he says that the science around the remaining components is already well understood, but that they still have some way to go to start designing prototype components, especially with the shields and gravitic drive. Once they have that, they have to build a prototype, demonstrate and validate it, while at the same time make the modifications to the Nova IV frame. In this case the new components will considerably modify the Nova that we could almost consider it a class on itself. In short, we shouldn't get our hopes to high, at least not on the Nova V. We'll be depending greatly on the Nova III design." answered Donovan.
"Well, at least the Vesuvius subclass has proven capable in the simulations." stated Ferguson, but then added. "Keep some pressure on Dr. Shouri. It won't hurt us fielding those designs earlier."
"I will." said Donovan.
The three of them finished identifying their priorities, and spent nearly an hour preparing the report with the help of several EFNI analysts.
Earth Alliance – Sol star system
Earth - Geneva
Earth Dome – Presidential Office
August 12, 2245
It was late in the afternoon. President Elizabeth Levy had been analyzing the recommendations brought by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and by the EIA Director for almost the entire afternoon. The two men had left her office nearly half an hour ago, and her staff were already preparing the necessary equipment required to record a speech to be broadcasted by every major news channel.
She was standing; leaning on one side of the window, looking outside with a perplexed look. Lake Geneva was shimmering with the light of the setting sun. She was waiting for her staff to finish, while thinking of the gargantuan task that had been delivered to her shoulders. It was these moments that confirmed the slow transition from a democratic presidential based government system to a meritocratic council based one. It was obvious to her that such a task could not rest in the hand of a single individual. Even though she had a lot of advisers, it was her final decision that would set things in motion. It was too much of a responsibility for a single person. It was clear to her now that the federal meritocratic government that had been slowly installed at the Motherships and Colonies was a good step towards a solid, knowledgeable and distributed government.
She subconsciously took a deep breath to release her stress. Images of the Dilgar War came to her memory. She remembered the massive operation that was required to bring those brutal Dilgar to their knees, and now she was informed by her advisers that the Minbari were far more advanced than they. President Dieter Hauser had had a rough time with the Dilgar, and she trembled to think what was in store for her now. The battle footage taken at the battle of VCB-165 gave her goose bumps and she broke out in a cold sweat at witnessing so many Earth Alliance ships destroyed by so few Minbari vessels.
She remembered her experience on board the EAS Vesuvius during its particle cannon testing, and almost cried after seeing the incredible foresight of Earth Force commanders. During the meeting with Admiral Ferguson and Victor Chapel, she didn't have to be convinced to agree to the immediate boost of Nova III production. Every part of the EIA report presented to the Senate more than ten years ago had been proven correct, and her trust on Earth Force and EIA leadership was complete.
Everything was ready, and she took her seat in front of the camera. She had already given the orders to execute the recommendations brought by Ferguson, and she was about to make them public. The situation with the Minbari gave her especial emergency powers, and even though this speech would probably come as a surprise to many Senators, since only the Vice President, the Senate Majority Leader, and Senate President Pro Tempore had been notified, they would still have to ratify her orders later, but for the moment, a very cold bucket of water was about to be released to the entire Earth Alliance.
She straightened in her seat as one of her aides made the final touches to her make up. The monitor in the camera where she was to read her speech showed the countdown. The number three appeared followed shortly by a two, and finally: one.
"Fellow citizens of the Earth Alliance. During the last few weeks, we have been trying to contact the Minbari with the purpose of presenting our deepest regrets and apologies for what has come to be known as the Pythia incident. We received no reply. A few days ago, nine Minbari ships entered Earth Alliance space near the Vega system on beacon 165 of that cluster. An Earth Force battle group was dispatched to ascertain their intentions. The military ships waited in hyperspace as to avoid an aggressive posture, and an unmanned civilian vessel entered the system with the intention of initiating communications with the Minbari. The ship was destroyed without warning. Our military forces proceeded forward with numerous vessels to force the Minbari to define their position towards us. Our ships were attacked in hyperspace again without any kind of warning, and without our vessels showing any kind of aggression towards them. Earth Force ordered the battle group to protect Earth Alliance space.
Yesterday, August 11, 2245 – Earth Alliance ships engaged the Minbari in combat. A fierce battle ensued, resulting in the destruction of the offending vessels, and the capture of what has been determined to be a supply depot. The presence of this depot suggests that the Minbari were preparing an offensive into our space. I regretfully inform you that as of yesterday, a state of undeclared war exists between the Earth Alliance and the Minbari Federation.
With the emergency powers vested in me during times of crisis, I have ordered Earth Force into the highest levels of alert, and the activation of the beacon system emergency protocol. Our economy will gear itself for a war footing, and ..." The President continued her speech trying to calm the population and justify her decisions reminding them that every effort to reach a peaceful solution would be sought.
Half an hour later, she sat resting her head on her desk. The lights were dimmed, and her staff had left. She had asked her personal assistant to leave her alone for a moment. There were surely a lot of people looking for her, but she needed a little time. She knew that things were already in motion, and that the government could get along for a moment without her. The Fleet was surely canceling shore leave and getting ships ready for combat, and others ready for upgrade.
Earth Force was also surely delivering the new procedures for civilian vessels traveling through hyperspace. The beacon system emergency protocol was now in effect, and as soon as every ship that hadn't been given the new protocol arrived to their destinations, the beacons would start to slowly shut down, especially those on the main colonies. Only three beacons on every cluster would remain operational, and they were to be constantly shifted. Every ship would now have to triangulate their position with those three beacons to determine the location of their destinations, and they were only given the coordinates of star systems on a per fight plan basis, and would require a new set of coordinates for every trip, as the operational beacons in a cluster were to be constantly shifted to avoid the possibility of captured data to be used to identify the coordinates of a habitable system. The combinations were enormous, and it guaranteed that no one could jump on a habitable system without extensive exploration.
Ships would no longer be able to travel at will through Earth Alliance space as beacon triangulation coordinates would only be given to registered space craft, and would only be emitted by Earth Force personnel. It was a drastic measure for a free society, but a needed one. Jump gate operation was also affected, as the variability of hyperspace meant that triangulation coordinates while able to send a vessel to a star system, was no where near as accurate as pinpointing the location of a jump gate in it. So as the ships approached a star system, they would have to use short range communication systems to determine the location of the gate prior to activation of the jump gate. These procedures would certainly make hyperspace travel more hazardous, so while it was not enforced, the protocol suggested that civilian ships travel in groups to not only divide gate fees between them, but also to guarantee the safety of damaged vessels.
She straightened up, and activated the ISN feed. She wanted to see the reaction her speech has had with the population, and was surprised to see that while there was tension around the subject, people were mostly expecting the Minbari to stand down, and accept the fact that everything had been a misunderstanding. Little did they know that their leader had been killed in that incident, and that they had no intention in backing out. On the contrary, they had all the intention of taking it to its ultimate conclusion, and that the losses they'd incurred in the last engagement had infuriated them beyond understanding.
Minbari Federation - Chi Draconis binary star system
Battle Station "Valeria" - Orbital Command
Geostationary orbit above Yedor.
September 15, 2245
More than two months had passed since the Minbari started preparing their forces for war. Shipyards all over the Federation had been recommissioning ships from the reserves to assemble the first offensive fleet. The relatively small number of shipyards available to manage the task, had forced the Grey Council to authorize the expansion with newer ones to guarantee the maintenance requirements of the defense fleets, and to continue expanding the recommissioning operation. There was no change to ship production operations other than those required to produce transports, as the ships in the reserve were deemed more than enough to defeat the humans, as every engagement they had been in during the last thousand years had not required the use of even a hundred vessels.
In orbit of Minbar, near the Battle Station Valeria, ships from the 1st Attack Fleet were assembled and ready to depart. The Minbari used three standard formations: The 9 unit strong detachments, the 81 unit or 9 detachment strong Battle Groups, and the 729 unit or 9 Battle Group strong Fleets. The ships being assembled into the 1st Attack Fleet were only 364 Tinashi class Frigates, and 45 Sharlin class War Cruisers. There were only 5 Battle Groups assembled, with the sixth forming, but last month's losses required a response. They only waited for the 5th Battle Group to finish assembling and for crew members to finish training. Already several detachments had arrived to Earth Alliance space or where on their way, but the core of the 1st Attack Fleet was still in orbit.
Inside the corridors of the Battle Station Valeria, Sineval and Durlan were walking towards one of the Hangars escorted by several warriors.
"Yes, Alyt. We have been expanding our shipyards, but what few of them had become available are being assigned to maintain defense fleet vessels. The shipyards that handled that job are being used to bring reserve ships on-line, and our defense fleet vessels are suffering from lack of proper maintenance. I can't step up our recommissioning operation without severely hampering them." stated Durlan.
"We need more ships Durlan, and we need them fast." said Sineval.
"I know Alyt. But we also need transport ships to support the operation. We don't have enough of them not even for a single Fleet operating at those distances. We are doing everything we can." said Durlan and then asked. "Are these humans powerful enough to require so many ships? I thought they were primitive."
"It's not the humans I worry about. It is the number of systems we are being forced to reconnoiter."
"Why?"
"They have shut down their beacon network, but its not strategic and tactical concerns you should worry about, but of our logistics." answered Sineval.
"I understand Alyt." said Durlan bowing.
They reached the hangar, and Sineval stopped before continuing towards his shuttle. "The Grey Council has given you free hand over our logistical operations. You have no constraints of resources. It is your judgment that will define the course of our expansion into Human space. Take heed to our requirements or you may put us into a difficult situation. Logistics are important, but so are the number of operational vessels in the front." he sighed. "You are a respected member of the Worker Caste, Durlan, but you have little understanding of military matters. We need more ships on the front, or our progress will slow to a crawl."
"I do understand your requirements, Alyt, but I can't create shipyards out of thin air. If you want ships, then take them from the defense fleets. Otherwise, you'll have to wait for our industry to expand to required levels. I will concentrate my effort in expanding our shipyards. Good day, Alyt. I wish you safe journey." Said Durlan stomping away in frustration.
Sineval stood watching Durlan as he went away. He sighed, and turned around resuming his trip to the shuttle.
A few minutes later, the small Minbari shuttle left the Valeria, and headed toward the concentration of ships, and arriving to a Minbari Sharlin class War Cruiser named Trigati.
He stepped out of the shuttle to be greeted by his second in command.
"Alyt, Sineval. Welcome aboard."
"Kalain." said Sineval bowing slightly, and then asked "Are we ready to depart?"
"Yes, Alyt." answered Kalain.
"Send the order. We are to depart immediately."
"Are we in command, Alyt?" asked Kalain.
"I have been informed that the Drala'Fi will soon join the 1st Attack Fleet. A Shai Alyt will be assigned to it from one of the defense fleets, and will be given command of the attack fleet. Until then, we are in command. Send the order." answered Sineval.
Kalain bowed respectfully and left immediately for the bridge.
Moments later, the ships in orbit of Minbar started to approach the jump gate. The 1st Attack Fleet formed in line, one detachment after another. Each of the detachments was lead by a Sharlin, and the remaining eight vessels were Tinashis. Some detachments had already gone forward towards Earth Alliance space, and some were already en-route, but still more than 40 were on their way to the gate.
The jump gate activated, and ships started to make the transition into hyperspace. It took some time for every vessel to pass through, but soon the nearly 400 ships were on their way to Earth Alliance space. Sineval was ecstatic with the number of ships in battle formation. He had only seen this amount of vessels gathered together in orbit of a planet or during rare fleet training exercises, but never in hyperspace, and definitely never heading for a battle and under his command.
His thoughts went into the task at hand. His feelings of invincibility permeated the bridge, and now his thoughts were directed to the humans. "You will now know whom you are dealing with. I will soon make you pay for murdering Duhkat."