Sorry everyone for the delay, life, work, and my own lazyness got in the way. heres chapter three i know its short but i wanted to get it out to you.

Chapter 3

Burning Skies

UNSCS Point of No Return

Halcyon Flight II Cruiser

Captain Jacob Stiles Commanding, September 10, 2563, 1725 hours GMT

Like most captain's of the older ships in the fleet, Captain Stiles evacuated the Navigation Bridge half a hour before expected contact with the enemy. He moved all operations to the CIC to prevent a lucky hit on the nav. bridge and mission killing his ship. He also ordered Commander Clark of the Night Watcher to stay put in that crater during the coming battle, and to launch a complement of Clarion spy drones to watch the battle and report the results back to FleetCom.

He was positive that the aliens would gain orbital supremacy, he wasn't being defeatist it was simple numbers, they had more. He will make them pay for every inch of space, and show them why you don't FUCK with Humanity. Hopefully his ship will cause enough damage to the enemy fleet to make any ground operations they had planed ineffective.

As he sits at the command consol, looking over the various ship's status screens his X.O., Commander McCarren turns to the Captain and says "Sir, the hostiles are approaching the mine field."

The captain looks over to McCarren and tells him "Transfer the image to my consol Niles."

Niles replied with "Aye sir." as he turned back to his station typing on the holographic keyboard.

Stiles looked at his display showing the eighteen warships approaching the Lagrange point were the impromptu minefield was located. As he watched the ships approached the mine field oblivious to the coming storm of nuclear annihilation they were sailing right into. Then it happens, a bright flash of light and three enemy destroyers were destroyed and four more drifting out of formation. A moment later another flash and two additional destroyers are gone from the scope.

The A.I. pedestal to the right of the Captain lights up and the image of Tiberius appeared as he told the Captain "Sir, Commander Clark wishes to inform you that he has jammed the enemies comm suits, and his cyber-warfare A.I. has hacked into there network and is at this moment downloading their entire database."

"Good, Have Commander Clark transmit a copy of everything they have from the database on these ships and there language. I want you to try to make a translation software so we can try to talk to these people, and if that doesn't work then hopefully we can define a weakness in their ship designs." replied the Captain

"Very well sir." replied the A.I.

For ten minutes the Captain and crew of the Point of No Return watched as the enemies Destroyers take out the minefield. Once the enemy started to maneuver Captain Stiles leaned forward and said "Alright boys and girls, time to put forward your best. Prep all weapon systems, bring point defense and CWIS mounts online."

Lt. Taylor nodded at his C.O. and said "Aye, aye sir. P.D.'s and CWIS are online, all archer pods are hot and ready the MAC is at sixty percent charge and rising, the field recyclers for the MAC are at full capacity. Weps is ready sir."

"VAMPIRE,VAMPIRE,VAMPIRE! 285 high speed fusion missiles inbound. Captain they are breaking into four groups. Course heading indicates that they are targeted to us and the three tethers." proclaimed Commander McCarren.

"Helm, turn us broadside to those missiles. Taylor, as soon as there in range have the P.D.s light them up. Keep the CIWS spooled up in case they get through our Point Defense screen." said the captain as he looked at the holo projection of the missile tracks. He hopes that the tethers missile interceptors would down the missiles targeting them because if just one hits it would be over for hundreds of lives on the tether and the ground under it.

Lt. Taylor looks up from his station and says "Captain our point defenses have engaged the enemy missiles. Ten VAMP's have punched through the P.D. screen, CIWS mounts engaging splash nine bogies. One active and locked in, BRACE for contact."

As everyone in the CIC braced the enemy missile struck amidships on the armor belt just twenty meters forward of portside main gun batteries, violently shaking the entire ship. Small sparks rained down from the overhead from the E.M.P. bleed through from the enemy missile.

As Captain stiles sits back up in his chair he looks to Cmdr. McCarren and asks "Damage report Niles?"

"Minimal damage to ships systems, the armor belt kept out most of the hard stuff. In fact there is very minimal armor penetration." replied the X.O. with confusion in his voice.

From his station at tactical Lt. Taylor catches the attention of his C.O. "Sir, the enemy missile had an Omni-directional warhead. Most of the force from the detonation was expelled out into space. Also the tethers were able to splash all missiles targeting them."

"Good." replied the Captain "Helm, re-align our bow with the enemy. Taylor, I want you and Tiberius to plot MAC shots for destroyer Delta 3 and these two cruisers, Charley 4 and 5."

The holo pedestal lighted up showing Tiberius looking at the Captain. " Sir, I already have the target plots done. Lt. Taylor can fire at your discretion."

"You heard him Lieutenant, give them our response." the Captain stated with a feral grin on his face.

As Lt. Taylor hit the fire command on his consul the ship shuddered and shifted three times in rapid succession and three blindingly bright streaks shot forth from the bow of the ageing warhorse flying rapidly towards the oncoming fleet. The first round struck the Destroyer analogue directly on the bow, and the ship immediately shattered into a million pieces.

The round kept moving, barely hindered by the first impact as it slammed into the lower portside drive fin on the cruiser behind the intended target, shearing the fin off causing the ship to veer into an uncontrolled lateral spin. The second round hit the hanger doors in the ship designated C-4, destroying violently the forward third of the ship. The third round struck its target right at the juncture between the main hull and the upper drive fin. The kinetic force of the impact shearing off the fin and slamming it into the upper half of the main propulsion fin, effectively mission killing the cruiser.

The Captain looks the Lt. Taylor and says "WEP's, target them with the archer pods, A-1 through E-2 please."

"Aye sir, pods A-1 through E-2 are armed and ready." the Lt. replied

The captain looked at him with steel in his eyes " then lets show these people how to make a real fusion missile. Taylor you may fire."

"Aye, Aye. Missile pods Alpha -1 through Echo-2 away, one minute twenty seconds to impact." stated the weapons officer as 250 missiles with a fission shaped charge warhead apiece racing out of there silos at ten kilometers a second actively seeking out there pray.

Minbari Shargoti War-Cruiser Ingata

0230 Hours MST

Branmer watched in disbelief as only one of the hundreds of missiles his fleet fired hit the side of the enemy cruiser, and non that targeted the orbital stations make it through there ridiculously powerful and efficient interceptor grids. And the one that did impact the enemy ship appeared to only have burned the outer hull of the thrice damned ship. He started to turn towards Tarik when he noticed that the enemy ship was maneuvering again.

"Tarik, order all ships to flank speed. I want to be in optimal firing range immediately." ordered the Sas'Alyt. But before his aid could respond they saw static discharges forming on the bow of the enemy ship.

Tarik turns to Branmer with his hand on his ear bud and says " Sir the bridge is reporting that there is an electro-magnetic field forming at the bow of the enemy cruiser."

Branmer turns to his aid and yells " Order all ships to go evasive now!" but it is too late as they watch three bright flashes of light leave the enemy cruiser and witness the power of the enemy's "primitive" kinetic weapons annihilate a war frigate, destroy a cruiser and cripple two more cruisers in a single volley. Without looking to Tarik he orders "Have the surviving ships target that ship and fire. I want it gone from my sight."

Without responding Tarik starts to whisper into his comm unit relaying his masters orders. Branmer watches the magnified image of the enemy cruiser thinking that this new enemy definitely knew how to build ships to survive combat. As he continues to watch the ship maneuver he notices small hatches along the starboard flank of the warship flipping open, causing him to wonder what new trick his enemy was now using. He sees small puffs of smoke and a twinkling of debris come out of each hatch, then massive clouds of smoke originating from the debris and even before he can confirm his suspicions Tarik yells out "Sir two hundred and fifty fission missiles are inbound, sensors report that they are targeting all our ships even the crippled ones."

Branmer turns to him and says "Have all ships switch weapons to interceptor mode, and have our fighter screen intercept those missiles. We can not afford to lose any more ships." Branmer and Tarik both turned to the holo field to watch the coming fire. They saw the brave pilots of the fleet's fighter wing trying to intercept the incoming missiles, some even ramming them with their fighters. They watched as the vivid emerald lances of the fleet's fusion beam weapons try to intercept the missiles, working alongside their over taxed interceptor grid. And in horror they watch as the damaged cruiser Sangati took three fission missiles to the forward sections. When the missiles detonated, they punched right through the armor belt. The outer bulkheads glowed at the seams for a fraction of a second trying to contain the hundreds of megatons of energy that was released with the missiles impact before the main reactor detonated incinerating the entire ship.

Branmer looks at Tarik and says "Tell the damaged ships crews to evacuate. They need to get to the life pods." As Tarik relays the Sas Alyt's orders, they watch as the two remaining undamaged war frigates, with their interceptor grids over taxed and shutting down, take multiple missile strikes, causing them to expand into iridescent clouds of gas. As the last missile was shot down Sas' Alyt Branmer looked out upon the irradiated cloud that was the majority of his once great fleet. How could one ship destroy fifteen of his warships.

Tarik looks at the the Sas'Alyt and says "Sir, we are in rang of our fusion beam weapons. The remaining Sha'Alyt's are requesting permission to open fire on the barbarian's ship."

Branmer turned to his aid and with steel in his eyes said one simple word "Fire." He turned back to watch the enemy ship as his remaining ships fired their primary and secondary batteries at the barbarian cruiser. To there shock their secondary batteries were barley marring the hull plating, but the primaries were a different story. The primary fusion beams were tearing great rends in the enemies hull.

Suddenly there was a great explosion coming from the side of the enemy cruiser. Tarik looked to the Sas'Alyt with his hand to his ear and says "Master, the bridge reports that the enemy ship is having massive power fluctuations and is venting atmosphere from all decks. They are launching escape pods." before Branmer could respond he sees Tariks face go ashen. Branmer asks "what is it Tarik? What is wrong?"

"Sir, we must move away from that ship, its reactors are overloading and we are in the projected blast range." Tarik all but screams. Branmer asks his aid "Are our surviving ships jump engines online and at full charge?" "Yes master, they are." Tarik replies earnestly. Branmer turns back to the holo desplay and delivers his last order for this battle "Order all ships that are still able to activate their jump drives and head to the edge of the system. There we will wait for reinforcments." Tarik responds in a grave voice "As you order master."

As the surviving Minbari ships turned into their jump points, and accelerated into the void of hyperspace a lone stealth probe attached itself to the aft drive fin of the damaged War Frigate Wind Sword's Light and began recording everything it sees for the next 72 hours before activating its slipspace transmitter and reporting everything in its memory banks.

Escape Pod Alpha Two Niner, planetary reentry

September 10, 2563, 1752 hours GMT

Captain Stiles looked out the aft hatch window at his ship as she tore herself apart with decompressions. He sees the enemy ships behind his beloved ship start to turn away as a blue event horizon appeared behind each surviving ship. 'Good' Jacob thought to himself. 'They are retreating. Hopefully our reinforcements will arrive before they return'

As the pod vibrated and bounced from planetary reentry the thought that was foremost on the captains mind was not what they were going to do after they landed but that he hoped and prayed that he would see his family again.