Chapter 3

On the flight deck of the TCS Mastiff, Admiral Douglas just looked at the two men who stood in front of him. Captain Santiago spoke first, "Admiral Douglas, I would like to introduce Lt Masterson, my chief of security."

The Admiral just nodded, "Captain Santiago, Lt Masterson, welcome to the TCS Mastiff. The Admiral then introduced the two women with him. This is Lt Commander Langford my number 3 and Dr. Lloyd my CMO. If you don't mind, I would like Dr Lloyd to scan you for any unknown organisms or viruses."

Captain Santiago just nodded, "A wise precaution sir. That's what I was going to ask of you as well. Lt Masterson was a senior at medical school before the war, and he can use a diagnostic scanner with the best of them."

Admiral Douglas smiled for a moment, and then shook his head. "Lt, Dr., proceed."

Both of them took out hand held devices, and passed them over the other group. After a few moments, Dr. Lloyd spoke. "Nothing in their systems that doesn't correspond to ours."

Lt Masterson just shook his head "They're clean sir, and they're human." Now the Admiral extended his hand, and Captain Santiago shook it.

"Captain, if you and the Lt would come this way, I think that we need to talk."

.
The group proceeded out of the landing bay, and was followed by the marines. As they walked, the Admiral could tell by their expressions, that both men were impressed by most of the things they saw around them. After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at a conference room, and then went inside. Two of the marines went in as well, and the rest stayed out in the hallway. Once inside, the Admiral motioned for the two men to sit at the table in front of them. The EA officers and the Admiral waited until the ladies sat down then sat down.

The doctor leaned over to Commander Langford, "At least they have the same manners."

This caused Commander Langford to just smile a little, and the Admiral just looked at the doctor.

Then the Admiral turned toward Captain Santiago, "Can I offer either of you something to drink?"

Both of them looked at the Admiral, and the Lt spoke up hesitantly, "I'd like some coffee sir."

"And you Captain?"

"Uh, coffee would be fine."

The admiral pressed a button on the table, "Steward, Would you bring coffee for 5 to conference room gray 5."

They heard a voice answer, "Yes sir."

.
"So Captain, I think it would be safe to assume that we each have about a million questions about each other we would like to ask."

Captain Santiago looked at the Admiral, "A million would be a good beginning."

"Well then, lets start with a simple one. Who were the people in the ship that fired on my two ships?"

Both men looked a little uneasy about the question, and the Confed people could plainly see that.

"Well Admiral, I guess I should start with a little history."

"Please do Captain."

"The Lt and I come from a planet called Earth. About 200 years ago, our planet made contact with an alien race known as the Centauri. It was a sobering time in our history to say the least. We opened trade with them, and found out about jump gates and hyperspace. The Centauri were more than willing to trade with us, technology, trade goods, information, for a price of course. Once the people of earth had access to hyperspace, we began to colonize a lot of the systems within 20 light years of Earth. Soon we had colonies on Proxima Centauri, Wolf 359, Cygni Alpha, Luyten, and the Ross systems. We also began to meet with other alien species, and we got along with most of them. Then about 16 years ago, we were involved in a war with a species called the Dilgar. It was a tough and brutal war, but we won."

The Captain was interrupted by a knock on the door. The marine at the door opened it and the steward came in with a cart with a coffee pot and 5 cups on it.

.
The Admiral thanked and dismissed the steward after she had poured and handed out the coffee.

Captain Santiago just sniffed the coffee, "Is this Columbian?"

The Admiral smiled, "A man who knows his coffee. But Captain, please continue."

After taking a drink of the coffee, and enjoying the taste of it, he continued.

"After the Dilgar war, we had several more colonies, and things were going well for the Earth Alliance. Then a few years ago, one of our ship groups saw an unusual ship come out of hyperspace. Before we could hail them, they jumped back into hyperspace. We found out from various aliens, that the ship was a Minbari ship. Most of them wouldn't really talk about the Minbari, and our attempts to find out more of them were pretty much useless. Well just over a year ago, a group of ships was sent out to scout along the Minbari frontier. As the group came out of hyperspace, they detected on the edge of their scanners some unknown ships. The leader of the group, Captain Jankowski ordered his ships to get closer and to scan the unknown ships. He ordered a hail as part of first contact protocol, and the Minbari ships came closer, with their weapons ports open. The Minbari scanned the ships in the group, and somehow their scans began to disrupt the power systems on all of the ships. Unable to jump to hyperspace, and believing the Minbari were beginning to attack, Captain Jankowski ordered all ships to open fire on the Minbari ships. The group managed to destroy a support ship, and damage the cruiser. This stopped the scanning, and the group jumped back to hyperspace."

.
The Confed officers could see that the Captain was a little distraught. "Admiral, that act, started a war with the Minbari. It's a war that many in Earth force don't believe we can win. The Minbari ships outclass our ships in everyway, and because of the stealth technology, we can't even fire at them accurately. We have to get to nearly point blank range to hit them. Even that tactic is nearly impossible, because they have no difficulty hitting our ships at range. And the Minbari do not show any different treatment of any human ships, military or civilian. The convoy that I am leading was originally 8 ships. Four civilian refugee transports, my heavy cruiser and 3 corvettes. The Minbari jumped us with 2 Tinashi frigates, one of which we damaged, but we lost the 3 corvettes, and one transport with over 6,000 refugees aboard. I opened a jump point and the rest of the convoy and my cruiser managed to escape. We were trying to reach Beta Durani, but my ships engines were damaged, and we had to leave hyperspace. We exited into this system, and came upon your ships."

. As the Captain was explaining the attack on their convoy, Lt Masterson was watching the Confed people. The two women showed a shocked looked at the mention of the refugee's death, but this Admiral showed no reaction at all. Either he was an expert at hiding his emotions, or he's a cold-hearted SOB. He could tell by the armor and weapons that the marines had on, that these people where no strangers to conflict, but what that conflict was, was a mystery to him, for now.

.
Bridge of the Golden Star: Shai Alyt Vasann stood looking at his crew, some of the finest warriors of the Wind Sword clan that he had ever had the privilege to command.

His XO came to him, "Shai Alyt, we are ready to jump to normal space."

"Do so."

The frigate jumped back to normal space, and they were near the jump gate.

"Scan for any ships in the area."

The techs did as he ordered. "Shai Alyt, we are showing a large debris field, and many bodies."

"So the earthers decided to go out fighting then. Contact the Red fire and tell them that we have arrived."

The scanner tech looked at the XO for a moment with a concerned look on his face. The XO came over and spoke quietly to him, and they spoke in hushed tones for a moment.

"Shai Alyt, we are not showing any signs of the earther ships at all. The only debris and bodies are …"he hesitated finishing.

His Shai Alyt looked at him "Are what?"

"They're Minbari sir."

"That's impossible. Even if the earthers managed to destroy the Red fire, there must be some wreckage from their ships. Widen the scans, find those ships."

"Yes sir."

After a few minutes, he reported their findings. "Shai Alyt, we have found many dispersing ion trails. Four of them match known earther ships, but 2 of the large trails and most of the small trails do not match our records at all."

"Can we follow these trails?"

"I believe so sir."

"Then do so, we will avenge our dead Clan brothers and sisters."

"Yes sir."

Soon the Minbari frigate Golden Star was following the Ion trails.