Visions of Peace

by Matthew Sprange

  VISIONS OF PEACE

  By Matthew Sprange

  Bablyon 5 - A Rangers Novel

  Initially Published in ‘Deconstruction of Falling Stars’ Edited by Richard Ford

  Babylon 5 names and characters are trademarks of Warner Brothers

  ©2009 Warner Brothers

  Prologue

  October 12th 2232, Omelos

  The EAS Potemkin thundered out of the expanding jump point vortex, the cross-dimensional energies shimmering pale blue on its hull. Across the dark of space behind the massive dreadnought, hundreds more jump points winked and flickered as the ships of a gigantic multi-race fleet emerged from hyperspace, setting course for the main planet of the invaded system. Today, the Dilgar War would come to an end.

  Nearly three billion miles away on board a shuttle in high orbit above her homeworld of Omelos, Warmaster Jha’Dur seethed as she watched the incoming contacts glow orange on her tactical display. She cursed the lesser creatures that invaded her system, that even now raced toward her planet, each eager to be the first to bombard her cities and her armies. For four years, she had dreamed of a great war, a mass attack that would sweep the inferior races of the galaxy aside and allow the Dilgar to reign supreme. How could it have come to this, her ships routed from alien space and now unable to protect her world against this fleet? Her hard feline-like features tensed as she systematically blamed the weakness of others in the Dilgar military and the fickleness of fate.

  The war had been hard fought, and there had been little that could halt the Dilgar fleets as they overran the systems that formed the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Her people had fought with a tenacity born of the knowledge that their own world was doomed, its unstable star about to give its last gasp. One by one, the weak fleets of the League, never expecting to fight a serious war, gave way to the Dilgar strike forces, even as their planets’ defences were overwhelmed by superior firepower and technology. Jha’Dur could not help but smile at some of the memories of those invasions, all masterminded by her. The scientific advances her experiments on the populations of those worlds had achieved were immeasurable in their scope and depth.

  The sensor telemetry from scout ships on the furthest edges of the system confirmed her expectations. The massed fleet was spearheaded by ships of the Earth Alliance, an alien race the Dilgar had never declared war on and whose space had never been invaded. What possibly drove such creatures to become involved, she could not fathom. True, they might fear the Dilgar would not stop at conquering worlds of the League--and the humans may have been right--but that would have taken years. They seemed almost eager to jump into this war. What deal had been made? What could the League have possibly offered the Earth Alliance in exchange for the massive resources committed?

  Jha’Dur recognised the signature of the lead ship, an Earth vessel that had led fleets against her forces several times in the past few months. Now it led a far grander fleet of Drazi, Abbai, Hyach, Markab and many other races, all with orders to kill her and smash her world. They would get the chance at only one of those objectives.

  She imagined Warmaster Ta’Loka, the oldest member of the Dilgar Council, now responsible for Naval Command of their homeworld. He would now be attempting to counter the attack, reeling out defence orders in his usual monotone. However, Jha’Dur knew it was useless. As much as it angered her to admit it, she knew Omelos was lost when their long-ranged hyperspace probes detected the fleet massing within the Abbai Matriarchy.

  Jha’Dur had made her own plans and quickly set them into motion. She would survive this attack, that was a given. What was just as important was that a strike would be aimed at the heart of her enemies, something large enough to bring them down and reduce their own world to the ashes hers would inevitably become. Perhaps the Earth Alliance saw themselves as messiahs, leading the beleaguered races of the League to a better future. Well, if she had to bear witness to the destruction of her homeworld, then so too would the humans.

  She thumbed the communications channel on her display to a pre-set secure link directed at the three ships hanging motionless in orbit just ahead of her shuttle. ‘Captain Nil’Bak, are the Stratis devices fully loaded?’

  ‘Confirmed, Warmaster. Loaded and online. We are ready to depart on your order.’

  ‘The order is given. Do not fail me, Captain.’

  ‘Confirmed, Warmaster.’

  The massive hulls of the three ships, advanced Ochlavita destroyers that she helped design specifications for some years ago, blocked out Omelos’ blue sun as it rose above the planet’s horizon. As one, they fired their ion engines, faint streaks of light trailing behind them as they accelerated for the edge of the system. Jha’Dur had arranged for a cordon of ships to funnel the invading fleet away from the destroyers, ensuring no Earth or League ship could attempt an intercept before they entered hyperspace. Captain Nil’Bak faced a long and complicated journey, the furthest ever attempted by a Dilgar ship, but his fierce loyalty to Jha’Dur had been proven many times the war. The crew beneath him had all been selected carefully for this mission and approved by Jha’Dur herself. They knew better than to fail.

  For just a few seconds, Jha’Dur savoured the scene that would play out on the humans’ homeworld when her new weapons were activated. A world she had never seen and a moment she would never witness. Nevertheless, Jha’Dur could almost see it. Her area of science was primarily biological, but with so many League worlds under her heel, the Warmaster had taken the opportunity to . . . expand her interests. No longer limited to developing new machines that controlled the thoughts of her victims or releasing planet-wide plagues to gauge their effects on different races, Jha’Dur had begun to expand her fields of study to entire ecospheres and their delicate balance. So easily shattered, she mused. The three Stratis weapons now on their way to Earth were capable, if properly positioned, of working together to reshape the entire surface of a planet into something desolate, violent and bleak. As a happy coincidence, they would also wipe out all lifeforms larger than the most primitive of microbes. Maybe even they would not survive. Wryly, Jha’Dur considered herself cheated that she would never have the chance to monitor the effects of her new weapons and analyse just what could survive them--and for how long. These details were largely irrelevant, as their purpose was to strike back at those who had brought her own dreams crashing down. The loss of all that scientific data was the true shame. However, the Dilgar would inevitably lose the war and then be destroyed when their star finally lost all stability and went nova. The humans, in return, would mourn the loss of their own homeworld and the deaths of billions. Perfect symmetry.

  Jha’Dur herself would go on. She consciously touched a pouch at her belt, feeling the reassuring bulk of a medical case. The serum it contained, a product of her own scientific genius, would ensure she could return to the galaxy at large later to fulfil her designs. Much later.

  The tactical display winked an alert as the two fleets began to engage. Huge wings of small fighters fired first, but the big guns of the capital ships soon opened up, gouging holes in their opponents. Even within these first few seconds, Jha’Dur could see the Dilgar fleet was surrounded and outgunned. She also knew the Navy would not surrender under any circumstances.

  Sparing no further thought for the rest of her race or their future, Jha’Dur switched views on her display to retrieve navigation routes. A long journey lay ahead, but she was confident her small shuttle would evade the enemy fleet and eventually carry her to a new hiding place. Tapping in the convoluted hyperspace route designed to throw off would-be pursuers, Jha’Dur pressed the symbol of her final destination.

  Minbar.

  November 6th 2232, Sol

  Breathing a sigh of no little relief, Captain N
il’Bak barked for status reports from his three crewmen on the cramped bridge of the Ochlavita. It took seconds to confirm that all three destroyers had survived the long voyage and were in position to begin their run to Earth. Jumping into realspace just above the plane of this system’s asteroid belt, the three Dilgar vessels had completed a voyage of epic proportions through hyperspace and certainly broke many space travel records. Not that it mattered--Nil’Bak knew this was a mission he would not return from but, given skill and a little luck, it might just shift the course of history. After serving Warmaster Jha’Dur faithfully for the past years, no better reward could be hoped for.

  Within the destroyers, the Dilgar crews responded to their orders with a discipline born of well-practised drills. Positions were manned, bolters and pulsars charged and then, finally, the Stratis devices loaded into the hastily modified mass drivers that hung beneath the dark green hulls of the ships.

  ‘Captain, we are detecting a system wide alert with responses from multiple locations. Locking in their positions . . .’

  ‘It’s the humans’ Early Warning Network. Similar to our own, I have been told. Order the squadron into battle formation and increase to maximum thrust. We must not be delayed.’ Captain Nil’Bak was aware that though his destroyers might be fast enough to slip past most of the defences of the Earth Alliance, if the squadron became bogged down in combat, more ships would quickly vector onto their position until they were overwhelmed.

  Minutes trickled past until his tactical officer registered a solid reading from his display. ‘Contact. Three cruiser-size ships bearing down on us from bearing 348 by 22. From their ion signatures, Hyperion-class.’

  ‘Hyperion?’ Nil’Bak asked for confirmation. The bulk of EarthForce’s warships had been presumed to have led the attack on Omelos, leaving only a skeleton defence fleet around Earth. Nil’Bak had faced a Hyperion before and had not savoured the experience. Relatively new additions to the Earth fleets, they could match his destroyers for speed and easily overwhelm them in firepower.

  ‘Confirmed. They are now launching fighters.’

  ‘Change heading to 12 by 72. Bring us within range of the asteroid field, we might be able to scatter their sensor readings.’ The relative weakness of sensor technology within the Earth Alliance had been quickly noted by the Dilgar in their initial engagements, and many captains had devised various methods of using this to their advantage in battle.

  ‘Contact. Multiple readings dead ahead, looks like five wings of fighters--Starfuries!’

  This gave Nil’Bak cause for pause. Did EarthForce have a carrier in the vicinity, perhaps lying in wait within the asteroid belt? If so, did this mean they had detected his squadron while they were still in hyperspace?

  Individually, Earth Starfury fighters were little to worry about, the Dilgar destroyers massing greater by several orders of magnitude. However, gathered in co-ordinated wings, they could cause real damage if allowed to set up solid attack runs. Nil’Bak had no intention of giving them the chance.

  ‘Open fire when in range, maximum spread.’

  ‘Confirmed. Hyperions have changed vectors and are now closing in.’

  This was going to be close, Nil’Bak knew. His aim was to punch through the gathering Starfury wings with bolters and disruptors blazing. Those the destroyers did not annihilate would hopefully be shattered and left in disarray, unable to launch an effective counterattack. Meanwhile, he could allow the Hyperions and their fighters to engage in a running battle that would last all the way to Earth. Less than a minute passed before the dim red lighting in the bridge of the Ochlavita flickered, power surging to the main weaponry. A mixture of spheres and fast-cycling pulses of energy flashed through space, reaching out to the swarming Starfuries. Nil’Bak leaned forward to see his tactical officer’s displays for himself. Several Starfury contacts had winked out of existence, but this salvo had by no means taken the human pilots by surprise. The Starfuries immediately spread out their formation before reacquiring the Dilgar ships.

  Fire continued to pour out of the Ochlavita destroyers, but as the fighters closed range, the Dilgar’s weaponry began to lose track of the fast moving targets. Nil’Bak was thrown into his hard-backed seat as energy bolts from the Starfuries thudded into the armour of his destroyer.

  As the Starfuries passed their targets, the pilots used small manoeuvring jets mounted on the wingtips to spin the fighters around their axis, allowing them to keep firing as they flew down the flanks of the Dilgar ships without breaking off for another pass. As the destroyers sailed past, the Starfuries continued their axial spin until they faced the direction they had originally been travelling. Activating powerful afterburning engines, the Starfuries first cancelled out what was now their backward motion and then began to accelerate after the fleeing destroyers. Their hail of withering fire did not cease throughout this manoeuvre, and multiple explosions across the hulls of the Dilgar ships began to blossom into ever-larger concentrations of fire and burning metal. They again closed upon their enemy, constantly twisting to avoid the rearward return fire of the destroyers and the chunks of debris that flew off their crumbling targets.

  The three Dilgar destroyers adopted a looser formation and dove low over the slowly spinning rocks of the asteroid belt, heading for a dense section where they might break the lock-ons of the pursuing fighters and gain precious distance. The continuous attacks from the Starfuries began to falter as their pilots were forced to break off briefly in order to avoid an asteroid that spun dangerously close, but concentrated fire from one flight was rewarded by a huge explosion as the engine section of one destroyer blew apart under the pounding. The ship slewed to one side from the force of the blast, desperately firing manoeuvring thrusters in an effort to remain level.

  Given a chance to close range, the three EarthForce Hyperion cruisers announced their presence in the fight by opening upon the stricken destroyer with their massive plasma cannon. Large globs of pure energy flashed through space, utterly consuming the Dilgar ship. Raw plasma burned through the destroyer, instantaneously incinerating the Dilgar within and burning through to the ship’s fuel cells which promptly exploded with a force that tore the vessel apart and rattled the cockpits of nearby Starfuries.

  The three Hyperions, never breaking formation, surged forward as they closed on a second destroyer forced to slow down by the constant attacks on its rearward engine section by the chasing Starfuries. Another salvo of plasma fire peeled away the armour of the Dilgar ship, exposing vital systems and crew to both the savage energies of the attack and the cold vacuum of space. Debris rained from the ship, leaving a metal trail behind, before flights of Starfuries lined up for a final attack run on the drifting hulk. Once again, fuel cells were struck, destroying the ship in a billowing explosion powerful enough to shatter several small asteroids.

  The last Ochlavita destroyer had obviously learned the lessons of its allies’ demise, and it ploughed deep into the asteroid belt, allowing smaller rocks to bounce harmlessly off its armoured hull while the Starfuries flying after it were forced to divert their course to avoid the potentially devastating impacts of even tiny asteroids. The Hyperions kept pace but refused to enter the asteroids, their captains instead choosing to track the Dilgar ship and open fire whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  Small bolts of plasma streamed down from the Hyperions, impacting the destroyer’s hull, flaying armour plating but causing little serious damage. No reply was forthcoming from the Dilgar, and it seemed as if either the Starfuries had managed to offline its weapons or its crew were kept busy manoeuvring past the larger rocks among the asteroids. Most of the Earth fighters had now left the asteroids themselves, forming up behind the Hyperions to prepare a co-ordinated strike should the Dilgar emerge from the cover of the rocks, though a few diligent and skilled pilots remained in direct pursuit in order to keep the pressure on.

  The Ochlavita attempted a hard turn to quickly change vectors and surprise its pursuers as it left th
e denser field of asteroids, but the destroyer seemed sluggish and unwilling to respond to commands. The EarthForce ships did not miss their chance, changing course as one before unleashing the full weight of their plasma cannon. Once again, pure energy tore past armour plates as if they were tissue paper. The destroyer jinked harshly in a pitching motion it may never have been designed to perform, but the desperate move caused much of the Hyperion’s fire to overshoot. Starfuries now swept down and poured their own fire into the failing ship, now unafraid of possible return fire. Out of control, the Ochlavita descended once more among the asteroids.

  Captain Nil’Bak heaved himself back into his seat, choking on the smoke filling the bridge. Cables and structural supports hung from the ceiling where they had been blasted clear of their anchor points and his crew lay on the floor, the life blasted from them by the explosion that had wrecked the bridge. Nil’Bak hammered at his consoles but nothing responded to his commands. Despite the constant rocking from attacks by the Earth fighters, he was finally able to summon a close-ranged sensor display to life. He stared at the information being updated on its screen. Though he had no viewport on the bridge of this warship, he could imagine the massive asteroid looming in front of the gunship, its gigantic size only hinted at by the tiny icon that steadily registered as getting closer and closer.

  Nil’Bak’s fists clenched as he fervently wished he had but one weapon with which to respond to the attacks of his enemy. The ranging information on the asteroid reached zero on his display and then he wished for nothing more.

  Chapter One

  May 1st 2263, Tuzanor, Minbar

  Buried deep within the ISA Headquarters in the Minbari capital, Tuzanor, the Anla’Shok Intelligence Gathering Centre was a perpetual hive of activity. With offices clustered around a central chamber, often jokingly referred to as the ‘war room’ by human staff, it still retained the brand new feeling of a recent construction despite having seen heavy use in the past six months. With the timelessness inherent in all Minbari buildings, from humble abodes to their greatest millennia-old temples, it would likely maintain that atmosphere for centuries to come.