Into The Fire
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, universes and concepts that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own demented author amusement – sadly all Robotech and Babylon Five characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold, Babylonian 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.
Chapter Fourteen
Minbari War Cruiser Durkana
A Few Minutes Earlier
Sitting comfortably in the commander's chair on the bridge of his cruiser Alyt Jurroon observed as his small task force – just his single Sharlin-class war cruiser, three Tinashi-class war frigates and a Morshin-class carrier – returned to normal space and began taking up position to ambush the human supply convoy that, if the information from their intelligence intercepts was right, would be passing through this system on its way to Altair shortly. The mission of course was to destroy said convoy, similiter task forces to his own would do the same elsewhere, to cause the same disruption to the human logistical support networks that they'd been causing to the Minbari's with their raids.
Jurroon would be lying if he said he approved of the mission. They were warriors of the Minbari not pirates or barbarians, blowing up transports was frankly beneath their dignity. Unfortunately, it was the only way they had to fight the humans now, the only way to continue to pursue justice for their unprovoked attack upon the Grey Council and the callous crime they had committed against the very heart and soul of Minbar in taking Dukhat from them. The loss of the forces sent to attack the Deneb colonies, lost to a cowardly but perfectly timed and thus devastating trick of turning off the hyperspace beacons leading to the fleet getting pulled into the hyperspace storm of a nearby quantum singularity and torn to pieces by the extreme gravitational sheering forces, and the devastating defeat at the Battle of Altair left them no other choice. They needed to do something to keep the humans off balance while their decimated expeditionary forces were rebuilt, and the workers did their best to try and sort out the complete chaos that had enveloped their logistical support networks.
At the thought of the Battle of Altair Jurroon couldn't help but grimace and even felt a shiver of dread go down his spine. To say that it had been a complete and utter disaster – though not for any fault of his people as how in Valen's name were they to have known a previously unknown alien ship would be there, a ship that could not only see through their stealth technology but had the power to swat even Shagotti-class battlecruisers out of the sky like they were a toy – would have been an understatement. Being from the same clan as Rastenn – who had taken the courageous decision to withdraw when it was obvious that the battle was lost so he could alert their people to the danger, despite knowing that many of the warrior caste leadership would be and now were furious with him for doing so, though thanks to the direct intervention of Satai Coplann they had taken no disciplinary action against him – he had been allowed to see the footage of the weapon fired at the fleet in the opening moments of the battle and he could honestly say that he had never seen anything so utterly terrifying in his entire life.
"Alyt are you alright," his first officer asked from the station next to him, seeing he seemed to be distracted by something.
"I'm fine Sirann," he answered looking over at her with a reassuring smile.
"You were thinking about Altair again weren't you," she said knowingly honestly not able to blame her superior and long-term friend for it, she had seen the same recordings as him after all and been just as horrified. The alien weapon that had been fired at them was powerful to a degree that was frankly beyond comprehension – not even the great enemy a thousand years ago had displayed the ability to wipe out entire squadrons of war cruisers with a single shot. Though to her the thing that had been even more terrifying was seeing the Earth ships open fire and for every one of their shots to – for the first time since this war had begun – slam into their ships with perfect accuracy. That had been horrific as it had shown that indeed the humans did have the firepower to tear even their greatest warships apart in short order. We just must hope that whatever sensors they've been given that let them penetrate our stealth technology hasn't spread that far yet, she thought knowing that when it did – well the battle with them would become far more interesting and their victory in the end far sweeter as really, she had seen no honour in how they were fighting them until now. There really wasn't any honour in fighting someone who couldn't really hit you back.
"I was," Jurroon admitted. "Being only one jump from where so many of our brothers and sisters died, died without any chance of fighting back is hard."
Brings it into perspective doesn't it, Sirann thought knowing that the deaths of so many of their fellow warriors at Altair had sent a shockwave through the whole of the warrior caste. While many had almost immediately began shouting for vengeance and promising painful retribution, she while saddened by the loss of so many Minbari lives had seen it as the natural cost of war. Too many of her caste had thought the war with the humans to be little more than an exercise at best or treated it as a game, seeing the ease with which their ships had routinely killed Earth warships while said warships futilely sprayed plasma bolts at them in an attempt to score a hit. Certainly, really until Altair there had been no sense that the humans could stand before them as anything other than a target for their neutron and fusion cannons to destroy.
A crystalline sounding chime from her console brought her out of her thoughts. She checked the console and wasn't surprised to see that the jump gate was powering up to open a vortex. "Jump gate sequence activated," she reported, "they're coming through. Looks like our intelligence reports were accurate, we're reading fourteen transport vessels with an escort of four light warships consisting of a frigate and three corvettes. Minimal fighter screen just four of them."
"Have they detected us," Jurroon asked, remembering how the human ships at Altair had been able to target their ships. Something that they had never shown to be able to do before, while he doubted that whatever the technology was that let them penetrate their stealth had spread that far yet it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Negative. Human ships are setting course for the next jump gate and have begun to accelerate."
"Sound battle stations. Scramble fighters but keep them close to us for now. We will wait and watch for a couple of minutes until the humans are too far from the jump gate to easily double back and escape, then we will move in and destroy them."
"Yes sir," Sirann acknowledged before hitting the command to summon the crew to battle stations and begin preparing their potent arsenal for use while also relaying the appropriate orders to first their main hangar bay to scramble fighters, then sending the same orders to the other ships especially the solo Morshin carrier Selani. Within moments fighters – most of them Niall but at least one squadron from the Selani consisted of the older, lighter but still very formidable Tishat – were sent silently screaming into space. Immediately they formed up around the fleet, forming up into a standard formation around the five capital ships.
Meanwhile within said capital ships warriors moved to man their battle stations. Simultaneously religious caste medics moved to prepare the medical bays on the ships for casualties, however unlikely it was for any to really be sustained, while worker caste engineers brought the full potential of the singularity and fusion reactors cores online to power the weapons systems and damage control crews readied themselves for potential action. Gunports opened and the powerful weapons arrays of the Minbari warships completed their power up cycles ready to fire.
For several more minutes the Minbari squadron remained where it was, watching the humans as they cruised – slowly by Minbari standards but at the fastest thrust their primitive particle acceleration engines could achieve – across open space towards the next jump gate and the safety of hyperspace it offered, still blissfully unaware of the death that awaited them since the sensors on their escorts had not been upgraded yet. And there was no chance of visual detection as unlike what pre-spaceflight science fiction liked to show long range visual detection was not possible with the good old mark one eyeball, the light being reflected off the metallic – or in the Minbari's case crystalline – hull being too faint to provide an optical return except at close range.
"Alyt the humans are coming into range now," Sirann reported, "still no sign that they've detected us."
"Show me," Jurroon ordered.
Immediately the holographic display at the front of the bridge, between the twin pods holding the navigators and the bridge windows, shimmered into existence and stabilized to show an image of the human ships cruising through normal space. Still blissfully unaware that death was lurking very close to them. Jurroon sneered slightly at the sight of the human ships, they were such boxy, ugly things with no sense of style or aesthetics that just went to show how backward a people they were. Even the Narn, with the blade-like shapes of their warships and the red and black war striping that adorned the hulls, had a better sense of aesthetics than the humans did. Ugly ships, he thought, we will really be doing the universe a favour when we erase this pathetic race from existence.
Sirann's console abruptly came alive with a warning. "Alyt the humans have seen us," she reported, "the transports are changing course and the warships are forming up to confront us."
"It matters not," Jurroon replied, knowing that the freighters and transports would never escape. "Weapons open fire on the warships. Sirann detach some of our fighters to eliminate the human fighters, the rest of them are to go after the transports."
"Understood," Sirann replied even as she heard a familiar thrum echo through the ship as the Durkana's cannons opened fire. She relayed Jurroon's orders to the fighters before glancing up at the holographic display in time to see there neutron beams slice into the hull of the human frigate, burning through its armour almost instantly and beginning to slice along the ship steadily sawing it in half. One of the beams must have hit its deuterium storage tanks instantly heating and compressing the gelled deuterium stored there to the point of fusion. The result was predictable the frigate vanished inside a brilliant flash of light and rampaging radiation as the sudden nuclear reaction consumed it.
Mentally she sighed and looked down at her console, despairing at such an easy kill. Unlike far too many of her caste she was getting somewhat tired of the easy killing. Had they not avenged Dukhat enough by this point? They had killed tens of thousands of humans in the war to date, burned entire fleets of their relatively primitive warships from the stars with neutron and fusion cannon fire, wiped out any colony that dared to show even the slightest bit of resistance to the garrisons deployed to those worlds to secure them until the time came to finish the war. Surely that was enough blood for everyone from the lowliest warrior all the way up to the Grey Council.
Sadly, for far too many Minbari, it did not seem to be.
To distract herself from her thoughts, thoughts that she knew far too many of her caste especially would consider treasonous, she focused all her attention on her console. With hidden sadness, and no small amount of similar concealed shame, she watched as the Niall and Tishat fighters ripped into the human transports, tearing through their thin metal hulls with ease spilling cargo and bodies into space as cargo pods were ripped open by neutron and fusion blasts. In a credit to them the transports were attempting to fight back, firing multiple pulses from their light guns in every direction they could trying to defend themselves. After a moment she saw the transponder of a Tishat disappear as the fighter turned right into a stream of bolts and was torn apart.
The human gunners didn't get chance to savour their triumph though as the rest of the Tishat squadron fell on the freighter with murderous intent. Seconds later it joined the fighter it had shot down in oblivion as its fusion core was breached. Fresh information appeared on her console.
"Alyt the human ships are sending out a distress call," she reported.
"It doesn't matter nobody will get here in time to save them," Jurroon answered even as he watched the last of the escorting human warships explode on the holographic display. This is far too easy, he thought even as the gunners on both this ship and the Tinashi turned their cannons on the attempting to flee transports and freighters. In moments it was over, the last transport exploding as capital grade fusion beams ripped it apart.
"All enemy targets destroyed," Sirann reported as new information appeared on her console. She knew what they were and almost didn't report it, knowing what the consequences of doing so would be. "We're now picking up lifepod beacons amid the debris. Shall I order the fighters to hunt down and destroy them?"
Jurroon considered for a few moments. "No leave them be for now," he said at last. "They'll be useful bait."
"Bait?"
"Yes. We are one jump from Altair. No doubt the human military commander will send reinforcements as soon as the convoy's distress call reaches them," Jurroon answered. "We will wait here for the reinforcements to arrive then we will destroy them."
"I understand."
"Good now recall all fighters to our perimeter. Then instruct all ships to begin preparing to engage enemy capital ships."
"Yes sir."
EAS Cleopatra
In Hyperspace
Thirty Minutes Later
Grim silence reigned on the bridge of the Cleopatra as the Hyperion-class heavy cruiser, and the other eight ships of their patrol group, charged through hyperspace towards the location where Convoy LJR-67 had been ambushed by the Minbari. None of the crew fooled themselves into thinking that they would arrive at the location of the ambush in time to save the convoy, the people on that convoy were no doubt by this point already dead and their ships reduced to a spreading cloud of dust and wreckage by the fearsome Minbari weapons. Instead, they all hoped that the Minbari's usual arrogant belief in their invulnerability of their ships would show itself once again and the boneheads would still be hanging around, waiting for them, so they could avenge the people who had died in that convoy by burning the Minbari warships from the stars.
Sitting, held in place by a combination of strategically placed Velcro strips and heavy-duty seatbelts, in his command chair Captain Simon Hillman had the same grim expression on his face that the rest of the bridge crew were wearing. While he was looking forward to being able to get to grips with the Minbari and show them what real war with Earth was like now that, thanks to their universally displaced cousins on the SDF-1, they could see through the stealth that had previously made targeting Minbari warships nigh on impossible except at suicidally close range he regretted that it was coming at the loss of so many more innocent lives.
"Captain we're five minutes from the jump gate to the system where the convoy was ambushed," his first officer Commander Natalia Young reported.
"Very good. Sound battle stations and have all fighters ready to launch the moment we hit normal space," Simon ordered, "inform me when we reach the gate."
"Aye sir," Natalia acknowledged before entering the command on her console. Immediately klaxons began to wail throughout the ship summoning the cruisers crew from their bunks and off duty recreational areas to their battle stations. For another minute or so nothing happened then one by one reports came in to her console as section after section and deck after deck reported manned and ready – well as ready as anyone could be considering who their opponents were – to engage the enemy.
"Sir all station's report manned and ready," she reported.
"Hmm two minutes and forty-five seconds," Simon commented, "commander schedule some drills, we need to boost our alert response time a bit."
"Will do sir," Natalia answered, agreeing fully with her commanding officer on the need to improve their response time to a battle alert. Ideally the crew should all reach their stations within two minutes at most of the klaxons beginning to sound. They certainly should not take the better part of three whole minutes to get ready, clearly, they had been patrolling the space lanes around Altair too long as their response times were slipping. That and we have a lot of greenhorns, she thought knowing that almost every department on the ship had at least one new crewmember, replacing those who had been promoted or transferred to other ships. She would speak with the section officers later – assuming they survived the coming battle as she didn't doubt that, in their arrogance and overconfidence, the Minbari would be sitting their waiting for them – about organising some drills to whip everyone into shape.
A change in her readings brought her out of those thoughts. "Sir we have reached the jump gate beacon," she reported.
"Very good," Simon replied before toggling the fleet command channel on the comm panel attached to his chair. "All ships initiate jump gate sequence on my mark… mark. Sensors as soon as we're back in normal space scan for the Minbari. Knowing how arrogant those boneheads are, how superior to us they think they are, I fully expect them to be still be waiting for us."
"Aye sir," sensors acknowledged a moment before a faint shudder ran through the ship as the Cleopatra transited through the jump gate, returning to normal space from hyperspace. Returning to normal space with her were the other eight ships in her patrol group consisting of another Hyperion, a Nova-class dreadnought, two Artemis-class frigates and four Olympus-class corvettes. Fighters immediately scrambling from the launch bays on the two cruisers and the dreadnought bringing their fighter coverage up to full strength.
Immediately the officer manning the console accessed the newly installed Macrossian sensor array, not for the first time marvelling at the incredible amount of detail that it was able to feedback, searching for any nearby Minbari ships. They weren't even trying to hide, seemingly still convinced that they were invisible to mere human sensors. "I've got them," he reported, "I read five capital ships, war book identifies them as one Sharlin-class war cruiser, three Tinashi-class war frigates and a Morshin-class carrier. Several dozen fighters in formation around them, we read a mixture of Niall and Tishat-class fighters."
"Nice of the Centauri to give us a war book so we can identify these things now," Simon commented.
"Sir the Minbari have seen us they're moving to intercept," sensors reported, "looks like most of the Niall and all the Tishat are moving ahead of the capitals. Twelve thousand kilometres to optimum firing range."
"Any sign that they're taking any action to evade detection and targeting?"
"Negative sir."
"Cocky bastards," Simon muttered. Well time to inform these arrogant bastards that there stealth technology is no longer an advantage against us, he thought. "Fleet command to all ships. Load missile launchers with anti-fighter ordinance. Target the incoming fighters. Starfuries stand by to intercept any that survive the barrage. All interceptors stand by for long range dispersive fire."
"All ships report missile launchers loaded with anti-fighter ordinance. Enemy fighters entering engagement range now."
"Fire."
From the missile tubes of the EarthForce warships medium-range anti-fighter missiles – which during the Dilgar War had claimed many a Dilgar pilots life until the cat's learned how to fool the missiles guidance systems – roared into space and began accelerating right towards the approaching cloud of Minbari fighters. In the cockpits of their fighters Minbari pilots were suddenly shocked as their screens came alive with warnings the likes of which had never been heard by any Minbari outside of basic training as missiles locked on and began racing towards them homicide on their electronic minds.
Despite their shock the Minbari pilots began to react to defend themselves. Neutron and fusion energy beams lancing out from their cannons even as they began to take evasive action, attempting to break the impossible targeting lock of the missiles. Missiles immediately began dying, punched into hazy balls of vaporized metal by the powerful and accurate Minbari guns. It didn't do that much good as – without the need to limit acceleration to protect fragile organic bodies – the missiles began ripping into them. Dozens of fighters vanishing into spheres of superheated metal and vaporized crystal as missile warheads consumed them.
The remaining Minbari fighters weathered the firestorm of the detonations, coming through crystal armour scorched and pitted and with pilots hopping mad at the sudden deaths of so many of their brothers and sisters. Enraged to the point of stupidity the Niall and Tishat streaked towards the Earth ships intent on one thing and one thing alone – vengeance. It did them little good for as they closed the forward interceptor batteries on the EarthForce ships opened fire unleashing blistering torrents of small but lethal bolts of either charged particles or superheated plasma, coordinating their fire into a well-disciplined tightly woven net of energistic death. To angry to think straight the remaining dozen Minbari fighters ran straight into the network and one by one vanished as each fighter took up to four hits a piece consuming them instantly.
Minbari War Cruiser Durkana
Alyt Jurroon's mouth dropped open, leaving him doing a very good impression of a codfish, as he observed the complete annihilation of the swarm of fighters he'd dispatched to begin taking out the gun arrays on the human warships. While sending the fighters out of the fire support range of his warships had been a risk, it had been a calculated one and one that had always paid dividends against the humans in the past. Yet this time it hadn't.
Instead the Niall and Tishat squadrons had been annihilated, torn from the stars like they were toys by a frighteningly, impossibly accurate, barrage of missiles from the human warships followed by a brutal barrage from the humans defensive guns. Guns which he had to acknowledge were very, very good at their job of knocking down hostile fighters before they could pose a threat to the capital ships.
"Well it appears that whatever technology they now have to see through our stealth is spreading," he commented, shaking off his shock and gazing at the tactical holograms. The human warships were continuing to close and were beginning to run targeting sweeps to engage his ships. Fortunately, he still had some advantages over them, losing the stealth was a blow yes but it was not necessarily a terminal one as he still had slightly longer ranged guns – granted at this range they wouldn't be as effective as normal due to beam attenuation but still it was an advantage, and it was time to exploit that. "All remaining fighters pull back and protect our carrier. All other ships open fire on the humans with your primary cannons. Burn their primitive ships from the sky."
Neutron cannons on the Sharlin and three Tinashi opened fire on the humans. Sending out a total of nine coruscating green energy beams – three from the Durkana and two from each of the Tinashi -towards the EarthForce ships. At this range the neutron cannons were the only beam weapons on the Minbari cruisers capable of engaging as for their firepower the fusion cannons that made up most of their armaments was notably shorter in range than the neutron cannon.
Though their power was weakened somewhat by the distance the Minbari beams were still devastatingly powerful as they ripped into the four Olympus-class corvettes that were the leading ships of the EarthForce formation. Carbonat armour melted and dissolved, ripped apart at the molecular level, allowing the deadly green beams to slice deep into then completely through the corvettes exploding out of the opposite side in an eruption of fire and debris. The neutron beams disappeared leaving the four gutted ships hanging their in space bleeding fire and debris for several seconds before exploding as either plasma escaping ruptured reactor cores or exploding munitions completed their deaths.
It was the only free salvo that the Minbari got for it was at that moment that the rest of the EarthForce fleet reached energy weapons range.
Immediately both the Cleopatra and its companion cruiser the Horatio as well as the Nova dreadnought Thor opened fire upon the Durkana. From the flanks of each cruiser a dense red Narn-designed heavy laser beam erupted while the Thor unleashed four identical beams from her refitted port and starboard bow cannon turrets. Eight beams of supercharged photons slammed into the upper forward hull of the Durkana each beam aimed to strike the war cruiser in exactly the same area of her hull.
The impact violently rocked the Sharlin even as her polycrystalline armour flared brilliantly with diffusion as it tried to deflect the intense energy of the lasers back into space and disperse over a wider area what it could not. The beams disappeared leaving the forward dorsal armour glowing cherry red and flowing like sluggish lava as melted crystal dripped like candle wax into space where it almost immediately froze into bizarre alien shapes. Plasma bolts followed smashing into, then through the already weakened dorsal armour opening several compartments on the upper decks to space. Debris, atmosphere ignited by the intense heat of the plasma and the bodies of dead and dying Minbari crew members flew into space through the breach in the hull before internal bulkhead doors slammed closed isolating the ruptured sections off from the rest of the ship.
Enraged and wounded the Durkana lashed back at her tormentors with her remaining forward weapons. The Horatio took a direct hit from a fusion beam her armour glowing and melting as the stream of superheated plasma attempted to burn through to the vulnerable plasteel-titanium hull underneath. A small explosion erupted on the Horatio as a section of armour failed allowing the beam to rip a six meter wide, burning hole in the hull. A second beam, this one from a neutron cannon, struck the Horatio near the engine block with only the dense radiation shielding around the engines preventing the beam from tearing the block right off the ship. As it was the Horatio was crippled, immediately losing main power and beginning to drift, leaking radiation and burning plasma from her damaged engines.
It was the Durkana's last act of defiance.
Both the Cleopatra and the Thor lashed out at her again with their heavy lasers. All four beams entering the already ruptured section and cutting down and back through the ship, eviscerating section after section across dozens of decks with contemptuous ease, before exploding out of the aft ventral hull just forward of the main drive fin. The beams shut off even as Minbari cruiser lost power and began drifting, spewing debris and blazing atmosphere from the massive hole ripped right through the entirety of her hull. Small hatches on the hull of the dying, burning cruiser opened and lifepods began to pull away from the blazing, steadily melting from within wreck. After a few moments a brilliant explosion enveloped the Sharlin and tore her completely apart as damaged jump engines let go.
Even as the Durkana died in flames the Cleopatra and Thor turned to assist the two Artemis-class frigates against the three Minbari Tinashi. The captains of the frigates, Tinman and Nike, knowing their vessels well had skilfully placed themselves outside of the effective range of the Minbari energy weapons allowing them to pound away with their heavy railguns with virtual impunity, backing up a bit every time the Tinashi attempted to close to engage them with either fusion beams or neutron cannons.
The effect on the Minbari was obvious as all three frigates sported damage and were surrounded by clouds of what look like fine glass, but which was shattered and pulverized polycrystal. One of the Tinashi was listing to one side due to a sizeable chunk of one its three fins having been ripped right off the ship. So focused were the captains on the Tinashi on getting the two impudent human frigates that they didn't notice when the Thor turned slightly to present a broadside to the distracted frigates. Dual heavy plasma cannons locked onto the first Tinashi and fired.
The Minbari frigate never knew what hit it as eight plasma bolts – each twelve meters thick and hotter than the core of a star – slammed into the hull. Already weakened and broken armour offered no resistance and the barrage ripped deep into the hull, opening the entire port side of the vessel to space. A second salvo followed ripping open the core sections of the ship and rupturing the containment field on the artificial quantum singularity in the core of the main reactor. Suddenly subjected to the tremendous pressure of normal space-time the singularity imploded dumping all its energy into normal space at once in a single cataclysmic burst of energy and Hawking radiation.
Even as the first frigate turned into a ball of rampaging energy the Thor shifted her target and opened up on the next frigate in the formation. Two more heavy plasma salvos followed, quickly ripping the vessel apart as for the first time since the war had begun the Minbari learned the lesson that the Dilgar had learned over a decade and a half earlier. The lesson being that the Nova-class dreadnought was perhaps the single greatest heavy artillery platform in the known galaxy and that to get into the range of her slow traversing but mighty guns was tantamount to committing suicide. As the Dilgar had before the crew of the second Tinashi did not live to learn that lesson.
Infuriated and terrified the remaining Tinashi fired at the dreadnought. Neutron and fusion beams raking the length of the hull but not doing much in the way of damage as the thick heavily layered armour of the dreadnought weathered the storm with only the outermost armour bands being penetrated by the defiant Minbari salvo. Then the last Tinashi joined its fellows in oblivion as the Thor – much like the ancient Norse deity for whom she was named – tore her apart with another mighty barrage of plasma.
Deprived of its escorts, and with the human warships turning to bear down on it, the Minbari carrier Selani decided that discretion was the better part of valour and turned away, opening a jump point and withdrawing into hyperspace ahead of a pair of fusion missiles launched from the Cleopatra that would have sent her to her doom as well.
The battle was over.
EAS Cleopatra
"Sir the last Minbari warship has fled into hyperspace."
"So, I see," Captain Hillman replied, even as he waved a hand to clear some smoke that was filling the bridge. Itself the legacy of a small fire that had begun after one of the last Minbari fighters had attacked them before their furies had knocked it down. "Stand down from battle stations."
"Aye sir," Natalia replied, "captain we're picking un a number of lifepod beacons transmitting nearby."
"Whose are they ours or the Minbari?"
"Both. We are also detecting a number of civilian lifepod beacons near the remains of the supply convoy. It's likely that the Minbari left them alive to draw us in."
"Probably planned for us to be lambs to a slaughter," Hillman said with a sigh, feeling more than a little drained. While they had won this skirmish with the Minbari the cost was horrific, and he knew that they had had the big advantage of surprise on their side this time. The Minbari weren't stupid, soon they would adapt to them now having the ability to see through their stealth and battles like this would get more costly – for both sides. "Communications contact Altair Base and tell them that the battle is over and that we need medical ships out here ASAP. Commander Young dispatch our remaining fighters to corral all the Minbari lifepods together and then surround them, in accordance with the presidents order they are not to harm them in anyway."
"Aye sir."
"Sir Altair Base has acknowledged our report and is sending medical ships and an appropriate escort now," communications reported, "they'll be here in approximately an hour. Also, General Bradshaw says he would like to speak with you as soon as possible."
"Advise the general that I will contact him as soon as I have an initial damage and casualty assessment."
"Aye sir," communications acknowledged and relayed the reply. The response was immediate. "Sir the general says that is fine and he wouldn't expect any less."
Simon chuckled though it was without any real humour. "That sounds like our old man alright," he said with a smile before turning serious. "Alright people we have a lot of work to do. I want as comprehensive a damage and injury report as we can gather by the time the first of our medical ships get here. So let's get to it."
"Aye sir."
Authors Notes: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, and I am honestly surprised by how quickly it came together it practically wrote itself. I hope you all enjoyed it and the fact that even with the breaking of the Minbari stealth this war is not going to be an easy fight for EarthForce just as it won't be the easy fight the Minbari were previously used to either. I really hoped that with the performance of the Thor that I captured the sheer massive power of a Nova-class dreadnought as frankly those things are something that even the Zentraedi would look upon with great approval since anything this side of a Shadow battlecrab that gets into its gun range will die. Until next time.