Into The Fire
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement - sadly all Robotech and Babylon Five characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Babylon Productions Inc and Warner Brothers respectively - I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs - also known as lawyers - firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Author's Note: It's astonishing me how quickly this story is coming together, the chapters are practically writing themselves as soon as I finish the previous one. It's been a long time since the muse has cooperated so readily as it is at the moment.
Chapter Three
Minbari War Cruiser Agiati
In Hyperspace
Twelve Hours Later
Alyt Rastenn frowned thoughtfully as he carefully read the report from one of the dozens of hyperspace probes that the Minbari had sent into human space in the month's that followed their cowardly murder of Dukhat. Their purpose was to find and carefully map out all the routes into human space, especially as in recent weeks the humans had taken to periodically turning off their hyperspace beacons - usually at the moment when it would be most devastating to their expeditionary forces.
The recent loss of the fleet sent towards the Deneb system was an example of how devastating that tactic could be. The route through hyperspace to Deneb was a complex one that skirted dangerously close to a singularity, which created an even bigger gravitational maelstrom in hyperspace than it did in normal space, with there being only a narrow route past the singularity. Their fleet had been moving along that path when the humans shut down the Deneb beacons - as a result almost the entire fleet had been lost pulled into the singularity. Only two ships had survived to retreat back to Minbari space with heavy damage from the gravitational shearing forces.
Determined not to be caught by that cowardly, but infuriatingly effective, tactic again the elders of the warrior caste had ordered the probes be sent towards human space. It was risky and dangerous as the probes were vulnerable and easy prey for the human fighters. Fighters that many a warrior caste pilot had reluctantly come to respect as while they were slower than their Nial fighters they were far more agile and their plasma cannons were dangerously powerful being fully capable of gutting one of their fighters.
Now the probes were beginning to bear fruit.
The probe report he was reading detailed a route to the system that the humans referred to as Altair. It's sensors had also revealed something rather interesting, beyond the fact that the system was clearly home to a sizable human fleet base as the sensors had picked up tachyon transmissions on known human military channels. The probe had detected a massive disturbance in the space-time continuum in the system twelve hours ago. A disturbance that did not match anything in their database.
Are the humans playing with some new weapons technology, he thought with a frown of concern. He wondered if it was something that they had acquired from the Dilgar after the Earth Alliance defeated them or could it be something that they had acquired from the Narn. The warrior caste elders and the Grey Council were both well aware that the humans had made a deal with the Narn Regime to buy Narn copies of Centauri weapons. Something that the Narns would pay dearly for when they were done with Earth, they had after all made it clear to the other races that anyone who stood with the humans in even a limited fashion would be judged an accessory by the Minbari and suffer the same fate.
The more he looked at the report the more he suspected that whatever it was the disturbance was not a weapons test. While the spatial disturbance was quite extensive, and had pumped out a form of tachyon particle that they had been researching for centuries and still not come close to fully understanding, and the forces involved powerful the more he read the analysis of the readings, the more it didn't feel like a weapons test. So what could it be, he mused but decided he could find out more and learn more about the human defences in the system - while he called in reinforcements for the attack as alongside the Agiati he only had three Tinashi-class frigates and a patrol/scout ship to attack with.
Which was not enough as even their stealth wouldn't be enough of an advantage in such a battle as the sheer weight of the humans superior numbers would mean they could approximate the location of his ships from their weapons fire. Approximate and promptly pepper the area with plasma bolts, laser beams and charged particle bolts which would lead to his ships being seriously damaged if not outright destroyed as unlike some in his caste he refused to scoff at the humans firepower the fact that they had been able to damage the Valen'tha at all, let alone seriously enough to kill Dukhat and over a dozen of the crew, was proof in his mind that they were fully capable of inflicting serious, potentially fatal, damage to even the strongest war cruiser.
Putting down the datapad that he'd been reading he reached out and pressed a control on his desk console. "Alyt Rastenn to bridge. Dispatch our scoutship to the coordinates I will send you in a moment," he ordered as he tapped in a command to the console sending the required coordinates to the bridge, "also put through a request for reinforcements to Shai Alyt Branmer. Advise him that I believe we have found the location of a human military base."
"Yes alyt," his first officer replied immediately.
"Inform me immediately when we have a response."
"Yes sir."
SDF-1
That Same Time
Sitting in his personal office Captain Henry Gloval smiled as he read the latest reports on the evacuation of the survivors of Macross Island. The assistance that General Bradshaw had promised had been very quick in coming, several more EarthForce ships - including a fifteen hundred metre long heavily armed vessel that they referred to as a Nova-class dreadnought - including several dozen specialist search and rescue craft had arrived within half an hour of the other man signing off.
In the eleven hours since they had arrived, the EA craft and his own small armada of small craft, had been working flat out to recover the survivors from the island. Somewhat to his surprise they had also found about a hundred survivors on the Prometheus and nearly two hundred more on the Daedalus. Apparently they had been below decks behind armoured bulkheads that had been sealed because of the ships being at action stations.
According to the latest reports over seventy percent of the surviving civilian population had been recovered from the icy asteroid that had once been a South Pacific Island. At their current rate of recovery they would have the last of the survivors aboard in another three or four hours - the delay being due to the fact that the last two shelters were not quite as accessible as the others, the way to them blocked by debris from the alien attack. Thankfully Lisa had already assigned a combined squad of Spartan and Tomahawk destroids to clear the debris.
A bleep from the desk comm unit brought him out of his thoughts. Now what, he thought as he reached out and pressed the flashing button on the offending device. "Yes?" he asked.
"Sir another jump point just opened off our starboard side and disgorged another EarthForce dreadnought," Lisa reported from the bridge. "They've identified themselves as the EAS Minerva. They say they have General Bradshaw aboard, he's requesting permission to shuttle over to meet with you."
"Grant it. Arrange a priority bay for his shuttle."
"I have already assigned a bay for his shuttle, sir. It will be landing in bay one zero six on the starboard side."
Reading my mind again, Lisa, he thought amused that the young woman had already thought to assign a landing bay for General Bradshaw's shuttle. It was a good thing that Lisa Hayes already knew him well enough to be able to fully anticipate what his orders would be in any given situation.
"Very good. How long until they land?"
"Approximately ten minutes sir as the Minerva is only now launching the shuttle."
"Very well I will make my way to the bay now. Have Colonel Maistroff assign a squad of marines as an honour guard for our guest."
"Aye sir."
"Gloval out." Henry pressed the control on his desk console again before standing up, adjusting his uniform jacket which had gotten somewhat rumpled while he'd been sad there as he did so. After pickup up his cap and putting on his head he left his office heading for the nearest lift.
EarthForce Shuttle
A Few Minutes Later
Strapped into the co-pilot's seat of a standard EarthForce inter-ship shuttlecraft - a simple looking craft that was not in any way designed for atmospheric entry given it's roughly rectangular shape that was in no way aerodynamic - General Kyle Bradshaw observed the SDF-1 as his pilot guided them closer to the extra-universal warship. In the nearly thirteen hours since the vessel had arrived so unexpectedly, turning a routine day, if you could call any day routine when you were in the middle of a war against a technologically superior race that seemed determined to wipe your species from existence, into anything but.
They still knew very little about it.
Attempts by their ships to scan the SDF-1 had not been as helpful about learning anything about the ship as he would like. Whatever metal the hull was made from was blocking most of their scans of the vessel, though they had been able to measure the vessel's power signature. To say it was enormous would be an understatement, with energy emissions into the petawatt range - higher than many entire planets - and on a frequency band that they had honestly never seen before. Though there analysts had already noted that the energy waveform had a distinctly organic curve to it, meaning that whatever the ships power source was it was organic though how that could be - and what it could be - they had not been able to say.
The only other thing they knew was that this ship had some extremely powerful weaponry. The energy beam they had fired as a warning shot at the Dauntless, a beam which had come from what was clearly a secondary turret and thus likely quite rapidly tracking as such turrets usually were, had had a phenomenal power level. Specifically the beam was every bit as powerful as the fusion beam weapons that the Minbari used alongside neutron beam weapons only unlike the Minbari weapon it wasn't a plasma beam. Instead it had been a particle beam weapon and the range the beam had travelled beyond the Dauntless was so astonishing that it seemed impossible, in fact he would have thought it a mistake if the readings had come from one ship, the beam travelling three hundred thousand kilometres. How it was possible to project a beam so far, well the few scientists he had on the base could give him no answers.
And if that's a beam from one of the secondary turrets then what are the main turrets capable of, he thought. One thing was sure he had to do whatever he could to get Captain Gloval and his crew on their side as that ship's firepower would be an absolutely huge help against the Minbari. Thankfully they had already made a very good start on relations with them - well after that little issue with the Dauntless which had seen him temporarily put the inexperienced Captain Darsk off duty with orders to review thoroughly first contact protocols - by helping with the recovery of the civilian population from the island turned asteroid nearby.
"General," Lieutenant Paulson said from beside him, bringing him out of his thoughts.
"Yes," he asked, looking over at his chief aide.
"We've received a transmission from the SDF-1," Paulson replied, "they're sending us docking instructions."
"Follow them precisely, lieutenant," he ordered, "how long until we land?"
"Approximately five minutes sir."
"Understood," Bradshaw replied, gazing back out of the windows at the alien-yet-not-alien at the same time warship as they drew ever closer to the vessel. To the point that the ship was beginning to fill the space ahead of them. She sure is impressive to look at, he thought as he began to be able to make out more details of the hull including the large number of turrets - many of them small and probably designed for close in combat or point defence, possibly both, though there were larger turrets among them - lining the hull. Though what immediately grabbed his attention were the four massive rail cannons that had to be part of the ships primary armament. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of whatever those things fire, he thought as Paulson lined them up with a docking bay door.
Moments later they were passing through the door into the interior of the ship. The moment they passed through the doors Bradshaw immediately felt weight return to his body. Surprised gasps from behind him let him know that the two marines along as a security detachment, indicated that they too had been taken by surprise by the sudden return of their normal body weight. Artificial gravity" Impressive, '' he thought as Paulson carefully followed the docking instructions that led to a side passage that they carefully turned into, lining them up on a larger docking bay.
As they entered the bay there was a momentary flash of light and a ripple almost like the ripples made when you threw a stone in a pond. What the! Bradshaw thought a moment before Paulson emitted a yelp of surprise.
"Sir there's atmosphere around us," Paulson reported even as he brought the shuttle into landing. "When we entered the bay we passed through some kind of gravimagnetic force field probably designed to keep the atmosphere in."
"Incredible," Bradshaw breathed the fact that they had such a system made him wonder if the ship had energy shields similar to those of the Abbai to defend itself with. A jolt ran through the deck beneath them as they set down.
"We're down commencing power down," Paulson reported a moment before a proximity warning went off. "Sir, we're picking up a group of people approaching. Looks like an honour guard."
"No surprise," Bradshaw replied, he would have provided an honour guard of marines or security personnel should Captain Gloval have visited him on Altair Station. Hell he would provide one when he inevitably did as he fully intended to invite him to the station, especially as the government representatives that were surely on their way here from Earth by now would certainly want to meet him. I just hope whoever President Levy sends is one of the more reasonable, level headed sort, he thought, and not one of those arrogant Earth First morons supported by the likes of Senator Clark.
He put those thoughts out of his mind for now as he unbuckled himself and stood up. "Well let's go and meet our hosts shall we gentlemen?" he said with his trademark levity producing smiles from both the two marines - or more correctly GROPOS - and Lieutenant Paulson. General Bradshaw's more relaxed, and slightly informal, command style made him quite a popular officer to work under unlike some of his peers at EarthForce Command who could add whole new meanings to the term 'stick in the mud'.
"Sir yes sir," all three men chorused.
As protocol, and honestly common sense, demanded one of the two GROPOS went first. Moving to the door and opening it, before descending the steps that automatically deployed from the side of the ship. Bradshaw followed with Paulson a few steps behind him and the final marine bringing up the rear. Stepping off the shuttle Bradshaw was surprised by the warm feel of the lights inside this ship, they felt exactly the way sunlight would feel. Impressive, he thought with a slight smile before studying the welcoming party.
Standing immediately to the sides of them were two rows of four marines - or what he guessed were probably marines - dressed in some type of hard but formidable and high tech looking body armour that he was willing to bet had a powered component to it. Each was carrying a powerful looking rifle that they were currently holding in the present arms position. Beyond the marines three individuals stood waiting for them. The one in the middle he immediately recognised as Captain Gloval, though the other two were unfamiliar. Though one thing he noticed immediately was all three men had much longer than regulation length hair. Different reality, different rules possibly, he thought as he led his people past the marines.
"General Bradshaw welcome to the SDF-1," Captain Gloval said, his natural Russian accent more noticeable in person than on the comm. "Allow me to introduce Colonel Dennis Maistroff commander of all ground forces assigned to the SDF-1, he also acts as chief of security for this ship," he gestured to the tall man - who had the air of someone who while a competent soldier was also something of a bureaucrat - to his right before gesturing to his left "and Commander Roy Fokker my CAG."
"A pleasure," Bradshaw replied, "allow me to introduce you to Lieutenant Nathaniel Paulson, my chief aide and these are Sergeants Hathaway and Young from the base security detachment."
"Pleasure," Gloval answered with a smile before turning his full attention to the visiting general. "General, you said you had something to tell us."
"Indeed there are a few things that you need to be made aware of, preferably before some government officials from Earth arrive as they're bound to be on their way here by now as EarthForce Command and EarthGov have had plenty of time to act on my report of your arrival."
"Such as?" Maistroff asked.
"That this reality is not as safe as you probably would like," Bradshaw admitted, "you see the Earth Alliance is at war with another spacefaring civilization, the Minbari Federation. A war that, as hard as it is for me to admit it, we are losing."
Gloval frowned and exchanged concerned looks with both Colonel Maistroff and Commander Fokker. This was deeply concerning news as their scans of the EarthForce warships had shown that, while technologically considerably less advanced than the SDF-1, they were formidable vessels with surprisingly large arsenals of plasma, particle and laser weapons for vessels whose power signatures were a great deal lower than theres was with even the dreadnoughts only having power signatures in the low terawatt range. The fact that they were being overpowered was surprising and concerning.
"I see. We should retire to my office," Gloval said after a few moments of concerned silence, "something tells me this is going to be a long conversation and certainly difficult conversation we should at least be comfortable for it. This way please gentlemen."
Gloval's Office
Ten Minutes Later
"So it was an EarthForce ship that started the war."
General Bradshaw winced at Colonel Maistroff's words. While it was true that it was the arrogance and frankly rank stupidity of Michael Jankowski that had caused this war Maistroff didn't have to be quite so blunt about it.
"Unfortunately yes," he admitted, "Captain Jankowski violated his orders to map the outer edges of Minbari territory by approaching a group of Minbari vessels that were where they shouldn't be according to the information provided to EarthForce Command by Ambassador Mollari of the Centauri Republic."
"Why on Earth would he do that," Roy asked with a concerned frown. "And why were those ships near the border in the first place as from what you've already told us there is some distance between the edge of Alliance space and the start of Minbari space."
"Ships identified as Minbari have been sighted nosing around our borders on and off for the last couple of years ever since the end of the Dilgar War," Bradshaw explained, "some of the paranoids at EarthForce Command and in Earth Dome thought that the Minbari might pose a threat to their sphere of influence plans among the other races. So they sent a group of ships out there… and chose the worst possible commander to lead it.
"Captain Jankowski had a reputation of something of a glory hound," Bradshaw continued "unfortunately he has, had, powerful political connections which meant no action could really be taken against him. It also meant he got assignments he really shouldn't have… like the expedition to the Minbari border."
"So how did that translate into the start of the current war?" Gloval asked.
"As I said Captain Jankowski violated his orders and approached two Minbari warships that were far away from the patrol routes that the Centauri gave us," Bradshaw replied, "he testified that the Minbari approached with gunports open and began scanning his ships and somehow caused a number of systems failures on board the Prometheus including the jump engines. From what I know Jankowski panicked and opened fire on the Minbari. Both warships were damaged and two of their smaller support ships were destroyed, Jankowski then withdrew from the area once the interference with the jump engines stopped.
"Two days later a fleet of Minbari warships attacked and destroyed both the fleet and base at Jericho IV," Bradshaw continued "they spared no one, even escape pods were targeted and destroyed by them. Since then they've been moving methodically throughout the outer colonies and sectors wiping out defence structures and ships leaving no one alive. We have tried to contact them numerous times, they never respond with anything other than weapons fire. From our contacts with other races we know that an important Minbari leader was killed in the attack and that since then the Minbari have decided to exterminate us."
"That seems a bit extreme for the death of one individual," Roy commented.
"Agreed."
"Bridge to Captain Gloval," Lisa voice said over the intercom.
Now what, Gloval thought as he pressed the flashing control on his desk console. "Yes commander what is it?" he asked.
"Sir our long range sensors have picked up another jump point opening several thousand metres above the plane of the elliptic and sixteen thousand kilometres away," Lisa replied immediately. "We're now detecting one vessel, approximately six hundred metres long, emerging from the jump point."
"Expecting anyone?" Gloval asked, looking over at Bradshaw.
"Not at the moment and none of our ships that size are capable of generating their own jump points," Bradshaw replied with a concerned frown knowing few races had jump engines advanced and small enough to fit on a ship that size. In fact he knew of only one race that possibly had that technology…
…the Minbari.
"Can you identify the vessel commander," Gloval asked.
"Negative sir," Lisa replied almost immediately, "it's definitely not an EarthForce vessel, we're not picking up any particle wake. However we are detecting gravitational field manipulations from the vessel, it appears to be using them for propulsion."
"Minbari," Bradshaw exclaimed, "it's probably a scout ship. We've had a number of encounters with them, like other Minbari vessels, their technology makes them almost impossible to detect and you can forget about targeting them except at suicidally close range, and usually by the time you get that close they've already sliced you to ribbons."
"Order's sir?" Lisa asked.
"Try and hail them Lisa. We'll be right there."
"Aye sir."
"Your going to try and talk with them," Bradshaw asked as Gloval stood up and gestured for him to follow him.
"If we can," Gloval replied as he led the way out of the room with Bradshaw following him, though the EarthForce general made motions for his aide and two security marines to remain where they were. "This ship looks different enough from yours that they might actually be willing to talk to us. If we can get them talking then maybe we can put an end to this little war of yours."
"I wish you luck," Bradshaw answered as they began making the short journey to the bridge, "I would love this war to end, I am fed up with writing condolence letters to the families of the soldiers the Minbari have killed. But I must warn you that the moment that the Minbari see your human - if they respond to your hail at all - they might well start shooting at you as we're well within their weapons range."
"There is that risk," Gloval admitted as they came upon the passage leading to the bridge. This time he remembered to duck as he stepped through the door, Bradshaw doing the same as he saw how low the door was especially for people who were above average height. Who designed that bloody door a dwarf, Bradshaw thought before taking in the command centre of the SDF-1.
It was a rectangular room that somewhat reminded him of the bridge of a Hyperion-class cruiser. There were two stations at the back of the bridge on either side of the door - at which sat two young women who looked barely out of their teens - another station with a huge screen display was on the starboard side of the bridge at which sat another young woman. Directly opposite it was what he suspected to be the captain's own workstation while directly at the front of the bridge were two more stations. At which stood two more young women though these two were slightly older being well into their mid-twenties. It was a surprisingly logical layout though what did surprise him was the technology on display seemed to be - while advanced - far too primitive for the rest of the ship. Really strange, he thought.
"Status report commander," Gloval ordered, bringing him out of his assessment of the bridge. Carefully Bradshaw put himself in a position that, while he was out of the way, he could see everything that was going on.
"Sir the Minbari ship has acknowledged our hail," Lisa replied, "I got the impression that when the ship responded it was surprised that we'd detected them. They're standing by monitor three."
These people can really detect the Minbari, Bradshaw thought amazed as nobody in EarthForce had ever been able to do that. He glanced around and his eyes fell on the big station manned by the young woman with glasses. He could clearly see the track of the Minbari vessel as well as the tracks of all the EarthForce ships that were around them. It was incredible, if he could persuade Captain Gloval to share whatever sensor technology this ship had with EarthForce it could become a turning point in the war. Being able to see and track the Minbari ships meant they would be able to hit them at normal combat ranges instead of trying to get up to point blank range for a visual target lock. They would at last be able to hit those boneheaded bastards back and show them that real war with Earth was not the turkey shoot they currently enjoyed but a brutal grinding match. Maybe then the arrogant creatures would be willing to talk with them with something other than their admittedly ferociously powerful energy weapons.
He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of Gloval's voice. "Put them through commander." he heard the Russian man say.
"Aye sir."
One of the larger monitors hanging down from ceiling mounts lit up bringing in an image of a bald humanoid alien with an elaborate looking bone crest wrapped around the back of his skull. Paradoxically the alien had a small goatee beard and was looking at them with a quizzical expression on its face. Within seconds however, before Captain Gloval could even begin to speak, the quizzical look disappeared from the alien's face and it spat something in its native language at them before closing the communications link down.
"Well that wasn't very polite," Gloval commented a moment before there came a distant dull thud, like a door being slammed somewhere, and the deck shuddered slightly underfoot. "Report!"
"The Minbari vessel is firing on us sir," the African-American woman at the other front console reported, "they're some kind of fusion based plasma bolts. No damage so far." A more powerful jolt ran through the deck accompanied by a distant rumble of thunder. "That was a neutron based particle beam. Minor damage to the outer armour band in section six, deck four."
Gloval growled like the bear his people were often compared to. "Fine they want to fight we will fight," he said as the deck shivered again as more fusion bolts from the Minbari scout ship slammed into the hull of the battlefortress, scorching and pitting the outermost band of armour but doing no other damage. "Commander Grant have gunnery control lock onto the Minbari ship."
"Aye sir," Claudia acknowledged as another barrage of fire from the Minbari vessel struck the ship, this time a mixture of fusion bolts and light neutron beams sending a resonating shudder and a rumble of thunder through the battlefortress. "Multiple hits sir. Outer armour band integrity down to eighty percent. No other damage."
How! How can this ship sustain Minbari fire like this, even from a scout ship, and not suffer serious damage? Bradshaw thought knowing that this much fire from even a scout ship would have by now seriously damaged if not outright destroyed a Hyperion-class cruiser. It seemed like he would have a lot more to talk with Gloval about than just these peoples sensors, whatever they made their ships from it was clearly far superior to the carbonat armour currently used on EarthForce ships.
"Sir gunnery confirms target lock on the Minbari ship," Claudia reported, stunning Bradshaw yet again as the younger officer didn't sound at all surprised that they could actually target the attacking Minbari vessel.
"Fire."
On the outer hull of the SDF-1 one of the triple barrel secondary turrets, that had hours earlier fired a warning shot across the bows of the EAS Dauntless - and in the process caused more than a few of her crew to suddenly need a new pair of trousers from the amount of energy behind the beam and the realisation as to what that beam would have done to their ship if it had hit them - rotated and locked onto the attacking Minbari vessel. However, unlike with the Dauntless, this time all three barrels glowed a moment before three whitish-blue beams of supercharged, compressed particles blasted towards the Minbari at near light speed.
The three particle beams crossed the very short distance - by robotech standards anyway - between them at the Minbari nearly instantaneously and smashed into the scout ships thin polycrystalline armour with searing force. Designed to offer a scant few seconds of protection from the powerful exotic beam weapons of the Shadows and their thralls the armour of the Minbari ship withstood the initial blast though the sheer kinetic force of the blows made the vessel stagger as though it was a boxer who had just taken an uppercut to the jaw. The beams vanished but before the shocked Minbari could even begin to recover the turret fired another trio of beams.
Still dispersing the energy of the original assault the Minbari armour buckled under the assault, the polycrystalline lattice of the armour losing cohesion and vaporising allowing the remaining energy of the particle beams to slam into - then through - the more vulnerable metal hull underneath. Designed as they were by one of the most advanced and powerful races in the SDF-1's own reality the beams kept going, slicing right through the Minbari vessel before blasting out the otherside in an explosion of fire and debris. The beams vanished and for a few moments the gutted Minbari vessel hung there, spewing burning atmosphere and debris from the trio of holes ripped right through it, then the antimatter fuel cells that were the scout ships main power source gave way and the vessel disintegrated into a brilliant explosion.
"Target destroyed sir."
"So I see, commander. Stand down weapons, resume search and rescue operations on Macross City."
"Aye sir."
Unbelievable, Bradshaw thought shocked and amazed by the speed and ease with which the attacking Minbari vessel had not just been destroyed but utterly annihilated. It on top of everything else that he had seen their universally displaced cousins do with the SDF-1 made him realise just how big of a game changer this ship, it's crew and technology could potentially be for them both in this war with the Minbari and there place in general among the galactic pecking order. He also got the distinct impression that he had not even seen a fraction of what this ship could do, that she had far more power than ever thought possible for a single ship to have possessed. It had not escaped his notice that the beams that tore the Minbari from the sky had come, once again, from the secondary turrets. It made him wonder just what the heavier turrets, among them the four rail cannons, were capable of. He was almost scared to find out.
"Captain Gloval."
The sound of a young female voice from behind them brought Bradshaw out of his contemplations and he glanced over at the same time that Gloval did to see that it was the young blonde who had spoken.
"Yes what is it Sammie," Gloval asked.
"Sir, just before we destroyed them, sensor logs indicate that the Minbari ship emitted a large burst of tachyon particles in a very tight beam. Computer analysis indicates that there was a radio transmission of some kind included in the burst."
"Stellar comm," Bradshaw explained, "what you picked up is a stellar comm transmission; it's how interstellar communication works in this reality. You imbed a signal inside a tachyon stream which is then picked up by either relay satellites or the hyperspace beacons and directed wherever you want it to go."
"Is there any way to tell what the message was and where it was going?" Gloval asked.
"If we find the tachyon relay we could pull it's logs. It's not hard as for ease of communication - and to avoid compatibility issues with the hyperspace beacons - every race we know of uses the same basic format. But I think that we can guess where the transmission was going and who it was meant for."
"The Minbari calling for reinforcements."
"Exactly."
Gloval scowled at that. He wasn't happy that they could soon be confronted with more Minbari warships that were out to kill him, his crew and the civilians they were rescuing from the remains of Macross Island for the crime of simply being human. He would rather avoid another fight with them but if the Minbari did attempt to attack them again then he wouldn't hesitate to unleash the full power of this ship on them.
"Claudia what's the status of the evacuation of the remaining shelters," he asked as he would rather not be at this location when the Minbari arrived if he could avoid it.
"Sir our destroids have just finished clearing away the debris blocking the entrances to the remaining shelters," Claudia reported immediately. "Evacuation efforts have begun; they should be completed within the next two hours."
"Keep me informed."
"Aye sir."
"We should return to my office," Gloval said turning to look back at Bradshaw, a very serious look on his grizzled old seadog face. "We still have a great deal to discuss."
"Agreed," Bradshaw replied knowing that they did indeed have a lot to discuss, especially as their universe displaced cousins were now being dragged into their war. Something that he couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty for. All he could really do to allay that guilt was try to prepare them for the inevitable confrontation with the Minbari. He would also have to send a message to the base to assemble the fleet and prepare for what would certainly be the fight of their lives.
He just hoped that, with Captain Gloval's assistance, they survived it.
Author's Notes: Well another chapter bites the dust. Now before someone says that atmospheric containment fields don't exist in Robotech they actually do. We see one in full operation on the factory satellite in the Sentinels movie, from there it became logical to me that the SDF-1 being the former flagship of the Robotech Master Zor Deralda himself would have that technology. Finally the Minbari scout ship that attacked belonged to the same class of ship as the Liandra seen in the Legend of the Rangers tv movie, which did show the ability to open jump points despite being an older Minbari design. Until next time.