A/N: First off, would everybody give a warm welcome to 2 betareaders that have joined the team. Inquisitor and MikieBEE have been a great help in making this chapter readable. Second, I would like to dedicate this chapter to Robert Jordan and Arthur C. Clark. Two writers whose books I enjoyed and have left to explore the final frontier.

Change of Plans

"All the gods are dead except the god of war."
- Eldridge Cleaver

Bor'Goth star system, Narn battleship G'eron

T'Narl was sitting on his bridge again, staring at the main screen. It showed the system he was now responsible for, the last system in Narn hands. Of course the rest of the galaxy didn't know it existed, let alone knew that there was a Narn shipyard here.

His people had stumbled across this system by pure chance. The reason no one else had discovered it was because of the dark matter cloud in the inner system. It hid the red light of the star from astronomers and it didn't have a jump gate when his people first arrived here.

Because of this, it had been decided that it was the ideal location to house the main research and development facility of the Narn Regime. Its very existence a closely guarded secret, not many Narn outside of the system had known of its existence even before the war. Now, this shipyard was his people's best hope to retake their homeworld.

Unfortunately, that secrecy also produced a few problems. For one, they could build ships but lacked the people to crew them. What few ships were present were almost all needed to guard the system. His own ship, the first and last of its kind, was one of the few exceptions and it wasn't ready for combat. In its last engagement with the Centauri, all of the G'eron's main systems on the left side had been rendered non-operational. Since then its left engine had been repaired but its left main cannon had actually been gutted to provide spare parts with which to repair other ships.

Another problem was the irregular contact they had with the outside. The dark matter blocked long-range communications so the only news they got was from the infrequent visits of other vessels. The last big piece of news that they had gotten was that the Vorlons had almost incinerated Centauri Prime; the thought still gave him a smile but for the most part they had to provide for their own entertainment here in Bor'Goth. Like observing test flights as they were going to do today.

VVV

"Control, this is Tor'Eth," Ni'kur radioed as she pointed her double-winged fighter to today's testing grounds, an ice-moon some distance away. "All systems are showing green, I'm proceeding with the first part of today's test-flight." The Tor'Eth had started as Project 37 and was supposed to be the replacement for the obsolete Frazi. The goal was a fighter nimble enough to compete with their Human and Centauri counterparts.

But the designer had gone further than that and had made the Tor'Eth capable of flying in an atmosphere as well as space. Then the war with the Centauri had heated up again. Suddenly the Narn found themselves needing everything. They demanded an interceptor, a dogfighter and a bomber. So Project 37 became the desperate scramble to produce a multi-role fighter capable of meeting all those needs and fast. Only to see homeworld fall just as the first prototype was ready for testing.

The situation had once again changed and the pace of the project slowed down, giving the engineers the chance to do a thorough test of the fighter and its various load-outs. The load-out Ni'kur was testing today was the standard one, consisting of one Light Ion Torpedo-pod and one resupply-pod carrying extra fuel and air so that she could make the trip without getting stranded or suffocating midway.

The ice moon was the destination, but the yard she had just left was situated in an asteroid belt and there were quite a few rocks in the way. So first she got to see if the new weight-distribution improved maneuverability before making her attack run on her 'target'.

Her heart rate sped up as she opened up the throttle, careful to keep it to about half of full power since she wanted to fly again tomorrow. 'Hard to do if the fighter you want to do that with is in pieces, especially if your own bits and pieces are mixed in there too,' she reflected.

The controls were practically identical to the Frazi's but the response was much better. You didn't have to wrench this fighter into the course you wanted. So after avoiding the first two asteroids Ni'kur began to push the craft a bit, cutting the margin for error thinner. She didn't bother keeping a constant dialogue on how the fighter was doing, the engineers back at the yard had a direct link to all the read-outs.

Ni'kur was just starting to enjoy her flight when an alarm began to blare out of the communicator. It was cut off with an agonizing squeal a moment later followed by several bright flashes from behind her.

VVV

On board the G'eron, T'Narl was still watching the experimental fighter weave through the natural obstacle course when a flash of light in the corner of the screen caught his attention. With a quick push of the button the view swiveled away from the experimental fighter until it centered on a glowing ribbon of light. Just in time to see the first ships fly out of it.

A corner of his mind was telling him that this was impossible, that it was insane. The sensors should have sounded the alert if a jump point was being opened, sensors that were still not seeing anything amiss. Not to mention the fact that jumping into normal space inside of an asteroid field was an accident waiting to happen. No sane commander would risk his ships like this and the defenses had been designed with that in mind. Luckily other sensors were picking up the fact that unauthorized spaceships had arrived. Their report triggered an automatic system-wide alert even as T'Narl ordered his own crew to go to battlestations.

But the ship was at rest, most of its fusion generators were offline and several systems were offline or in pieces for repair. T'Narl watched helplessly as the geometrically formed vessels appeared in the asteroid field, inside the inner defense perimeter and well beyond the energy mines. The first three ships used a green energy beam to cut straight through the tons of rock that shielded the command center as another vaporized the tachyon array. In seconds the command channel fell silent but not before it had carried the panicked voices of the people trapped inside to everybody in the system.

Fortunately most of the defenses were automated and had their own internal power supply. Without orders from the command center they were programmed to attack any craft they couldn't identify as friendly. Pulse cannons on other asteroids and defense satellites began peppering the invaders, their first volleys dissipating harmlessly on the red shields the invaders were sporting. A crew member on the bridge whooped when the first attacker succumbed to the barrage but not T'Narl, who was scowling at the tactical display.

T'Narl had noticed how much firepower it took to bring just one of those ships down and by the time the second one blew up, six new ships had already emerged from the rift. And the enemy ships weren't going down without taking several of the defense emplacements with them. Finally the first Narn ship carefully maneuvered into attack range and red beams reached out to touch energy shields that had almost the same color.

Again it took too long for one of those ships to die, withstanding the firepower of a G'Quan's main guns for three whole seconds before its crimson shield winked out and its pitiful armor offered no protection. In fact, most of the energy simply passed right through the ship and went out the other side, leaving the stricken vessel adrift.

The Narn Heavy Cruiser turned about to deal with its target's compatriots and left the destruction of its first opponent to a flight of Frazi fighters. The secondary armament of the G'Quan was already firing but simply splashed against the crimson shield without visibly damaging the ship underneath it. In turn two of the octahedron-shaped warships fired their weapon and the green beams ate through the spotted armor of the Narn ship. It wasn't destroyed and with secondary explosions going off the more than a kilometer long vessel completed its turn to bring its main weapons to bear. And continued to turn. T'Narl's heart sank; obviously the ship was simply following the last command of an already dead crew. Before the ship could collide with anything the attacking ships fired once more and this time the G'Quan didn't stay in one piece.

More of the defenders arrived, beating back the tide of the invading force. "Sir, Engineering reports the final generator just came online. We're ready to get into the fray."

A glance at the time told T'Narl they had completed the procedure that was supposed to take 10 minutes in half that time. "Excellent, take us out but slowly. We don't need speed, we need firepower. Tell Engineering to overcharge our guns as much as possible. I don't care if they blow up just as long as they blow up some of the enemy first!"

Ponderously the G'eron began to move. Outwardly the ship could be mistaken for a G'Quan until you saw it besides a real Heavy Cruiser. For the G'eron was a good deal bigger, as was fitting for something that had been designed as a battleship.

At the same time the G'eron began to move towards the battlefield a new batch of the invaders came through the energy ribbon. But this time they were not alone for they were acting as a screen for a ship easily ten times bigger than them. It looked like someone had cut two large discs in half and then glued them back on a tube. The new ship fired four green beams of destruction. Sweeping across the hastily assembled defense force in front of it and slicing through them like a hot knife through butter. A lucky few were missed because they lay outside of the most economical path for the beams, while several more were only crippled but that single attack had still taken out half the Narn ships present there. This left the crews of the surviving ships hesitant, unsure if they should continue the fight as the enemy began to advance.

"This is Dar'Sol T'Narl to all ships. Any ship without offensive capability is ordered to fall back to the shipyards to function as a refueling and rearming point for our fighters. Everybody else will stand their ground and defend the last hope of our people to be free. Unless someone thinks we should just go home and cower before the Centauri. But don't bunch up, use a loose formation. Coordinate your fire, their defenses are too strong to break through on your own. We will target the cruiser first, we won't survive another attack from it. Fighters will run interference with the escorts, keep them off our back while we deal with the big ship." He cut off communications, hoping this would settle their nerves without getting them to do something suicidal.

It was true that the Bor'Goth system was their people's last hope, but that included the ships and their crew. If it turned out they had no hope of victory then he would tell them to jump and thus save at least something. He had learned the price of falling into traps all too well while fighting the Centauri. The problem was that his options were limited.

The battlefield was cluttered with asteroids limiting maneuverability and the enemy had the capacity to open jump points without warning. An unknown enemy with an unknown number of ships with capabilities that looked like they were up there with the Minbari. The only good news was that they could be hit, they could be destroyed.

His ships were still in the process of carrying out his orders when the next surprise came knocking on the door. A Narn surprise this time. One of the heavy plasma cannons on what used to be the nerve center of the defense system began to swivel towards the enemy cruiser. The first shot raked one of the smaller ships, erasing it from the universe. But the second one washed over the shields of the cruiser as did the follow-up shot.

And then the cannon fell silent even as the enemy cruiser continued on its path. Two of its escorts didn't ignore the now inert weapon and blasted it, which kept them from intercepting the single fighter that rocketed out of the shadow of the asteroid.

VVV

Ni'Kur wasn't enjoying her flight anymore but soon the ones that had ruined it for her wouldn't care much for today either. Instead of just turning back and taking the shortest route back to the fighting, as had been her first impulse she had gone a more roundabout way. By keeping out of sight and keeping the power down she hoped to escape their notice and it seemed to have worked because she now had a clear run on the enemy flagship.

She hoped it was the flagship anyway, because she didn't have enough torpedoes to take out any more beasts like that and even the smaller ones could take a lot of punishment. With a shake of her head she banished thoughts of the future and returned her attention to the now.

She couldn't see where the enemy was, but what was left of the static defenses were still broadcasting their sensor data to every Narn craft in the system. It was just a lightspeed transmission but the distances were so short that it didn't matter. Kicking caution out the window without a spacesuit she went to full power, appearing from behind the much-abused rock on a plume of incandescent gas.

It only took seconds for the enemy to analyze the new threat and formulate a response. Seconds they didn't have because Ni'Kur was already passing the two escorts as they were still pointing at the cooling remains of the plasma cannon. Another second and she let loose with her Light Ion Torpedoes, firing all four of them in quick succession before banking hard to the right towards a more friendly audience.

The torpedoes raced on, much of their momentum having been imparted by the fighter that had carried them rather than their own anemic engine. There was no counter-fire, so great was the enemy's confidence in their shielding technology. Then the first torpedo detonated just before hitting the shield, bathing it in destruction but not penetrating it. A second detonation made no difference and many Narns began to fear the ship was invulnerable.

And then the third detonation bloomed and when it died down, so did the crimson shield that had protected the shield. The fourth torpedo detonated closer to the hull and the plumes of superheated material rocked the warship. It wasn't staggered or stopped, indeed the involuntary movement was quite small. But it had come from an enemy who had been so very precise until then and that made it seem all the greater.

An old Th'Nor light cruiser was the closest ship and it took advantage of the enemy's weakness right away. Two bright red beams sliced into the armor of the cruiser, completing its demise when its power source took a direct hit.

Not that Ni'Kur was aware of that, she was too busy staying alive. The escorting ships in front of the cruiser were still exchanging fire with their Narn counterparts but the two escorts that had been protecting its left flank were focusing solely on her.

The increase in acceleration she had gained with the loss in weight only threw off their aim for the first few shots. Even with evasive maneuvers that left her body aching and fighting to remain conscious their beams still came close enough that she could have reached out and touched the things.

Her only hope was that they wouldn't risk firing if she got too close to their comrades. Of course she would have to weave through both hostile and friendly right after but she liked to stay optimistic. Already half the escorts had fallen, especially after the G'eron unleashed a torrent of pulse fire on the enemy.

For a split second it looked like she was going to collide with one of those pulses, after plowing through an enemy ship that had lost its shields. Without hesitation or thought Ni'Kur dove into the expanding debris cloud said ship had become. Her pursuers kept firing, trying to hit her through the remnants. One came very when she jinked across something that looked like a person. A few droplets from the resultant spray of molten metal hit her ship but it was the momentary lurch to the left that had her attention.

She almost crashed then but managed to get the fighter back under control in time. A quick glance to inspect her wings nearly distracted her enough to stop her random evading. 'I picked up a hitchhiker,' her mind supplied. And there was no better word for it. A humanoid was clutching the barrel of the cannon on her upper left wing and was now swinging its body around so it could grasp the weapon with both hands.

Ni'Kur had no idea what the alien was going to try and didn't want to know either. But she knew that having an alien on her wing that was strong enough to survive a stunt like what this one had just pulled was a bad thing. So she went into a barrel roll hoping the thing would loose its grip. Another quick peek told her it hadn't but she kept trying, refusing to give up.

And still those two ships were pursuing her, executing quick stabs with their beam weapons. It was only a matter of time before they hit something and halfway they did. The force was enough to forcibly stop her roll but the unexpected change of her flight path saved her from a follow-up attack. She almost laughed right there when she saw what they had hit, only two lower arms were still gripping the barrel. The rest of her passenger was gone.

VVV

T'Narl had shared in his people's happiness when the enemy cruiser had been destroyed, but hadn't stopped worrying. With the base gone, all that was left of Project 37 was flying right there, cut off from support and surrounded by the enemy. Fortunately, the enemy was ignoring her for the most part.

Another bit of good news was that the secondary defense line at the shipyards was finally starting to take shape. What that fighter had done could be done by the enemy as well and there were still a few ships at the shipyards that were being brought online. Even if he could hold the system, with the shipyards destroyed the system lost most of its value.

Finally the G'eron was in range and added its fire to the maelstrom, but only from its pulse cannons. T'Narl kept his sole main gun in reserve, just in case the enemy sent in another cruiser. He observed the destruction of another enemy vessel, saw the distinctly hollow explosion as its power source blew up. He called it a hollow explosion because there was no fireball, just a flash followed by a shockwave.

There were still three enemies on the field when two shapes began to emerge from the rift, both identical to the cruiser whose pieces were still hurtling themselves towards what was left of the Narn fleet. And they were alone. Without hesitation he designated the cruiser on the right as the priority target, ordering his ships to ignore the enemies closer to them.

As one his ship and the last two Heavy Cruisers under his command opened fire, followed by a trio of patrol boats who had just arrived. Two patrol boats ignored the order, too busy fighting off the three remaining escorts. They died moments later, taking only one of their opponents with them.

Five beams of light played over the crimson shield, draining its energy but not breaching its protection. They were still hitting the shield when the slower travelling pulses began to hit the barrier. T'Narl stared hard at the cruiser as if trying to bring down its defenses with sheer willpower. They only had a few seconds left before the capacitors were drained completely and after that it…

The main guns of the G'Quans fell silent, the inside of their barrels hot enough to give off a faint glow for a couple of seconds, and T'Narl wanted to pound his chair in frustration. Before he could even rein in his emotions the crimson protection of the targeted cruiser gave out and chunks of armor began to fly from the ship. In moments the enemy had been reduced from terrifying to salvage.

The return fire was far more effective. Both Heavy Cruisers were bisected and one sweeping beam of destruction wiped out half a patrol boat. The last one hit the G'eron directly. It went through the thick armor as if it wasn't there, vaporizing the left main cannon. The one that had been offline because it lacked certain critical components. If it hadn't, the ship would have been wracked by power surges and secondary explosions as capacitors discharged the energy they could no longer contain.

If it hadn't. As it was, the crew still felt like they had been struck by a ten-ton hammer and the ship began to list as it tried to compensate for the abrupt movement with thrusters that no longer existed. They were still struggling to get the ship back under control when the last of the smaller enemies dove in, chased by a handful of Frazi fighters.

It hit the one of the thickest parts of the battleship's armor and still it was nearly going through. The enemy kept accelerating, ignoring the fleas at it back, in an apparent attempt to ram the G'eron if it couldn't destroy it.

VVV

Ni'Kur saw the enemy frigate make its suicide run. The cannons on her fighter were more powerful than the ones on a Frazi but there was only one of her. Coupled with the range there was a chance she might actually hit one of her own, but there were a whole lot more people on the G'eron.

So she fired, gritting her teeth as most bolts did indeed miss. But she didn't relent, just kept firing when a ship came sailing in from the left. It was one of the patrol boats, its engines burning far hotter than the safeties would have allowed. She winced at the acceleration the craft was pulling, at what it must be doing to the crew.

It started firing, not aimed at the craft but just straight ahead. Doubtlessly it was a preprogrammed action because there was no way the crew could operate the controls. The ship ploughed into enemy, physically pushing it aside. The prow of the patrol boat crumpled against the shield but they took that crimson field with them and the engines rammed into the ship itself.

They didn't make it too far from the G'eron when a bright explosion signaled the end of both ships. Once again Ni'Kur changed course, she was just going to land on the G'eron and get rearmed there.

VVV

T'Narl offered a silent thanks to the crew of the P'chan. But a cold part of him wondered if they had bought him anything but a little time. Besides his own ship there were only a few fighters left and one patrol boat. The last of the static defenses had long since been destroyed and that was the only reason he had stuck it out here rather than having everybody fall back in an orderly fashion.

And that last cruiser could fire at any moment. There was no choice, he would have to take a chance. "Navigation, open a jumppoint. We will make our way to the shipyards via hyperspace. And tell the T'gan to follow us in." The move was risky, they couldn't make precision jumps so there was a chance they would overshoot the target. But there was no way they would survive in normal space while being chased by that monster.

The crystals on the enemy cruiser began to glow, signaling they were about to fire when the jumppoint formed. The vortex looked odd, its contours wavered before firming up but T'Narl couldn't afford to waste a single second. For now the jumppoint shielded the G'eron and the single patrol boat, so they slipped into hyperspace before the enemy could reposition itself. The hostile cruiser kept going for a few seconds more before changing its heading, straight for the shipyards.

Two more rifts now opened. One appeared right in the middle of the shipyards and disgorged another swarm of small ships. Before anyone could react they opened fire, indiscriminate of the state those ships were in. Damaged ships from the battle now died right alongside ships that were only half completed. What few defense satellites that were in range didn't last much longer as dozens of ships tore away any semblance of order amongst the Narn.

The second rift opened right in front of the jump beacon, a single ship emerged from it which destroyed the beacon without qualm before turning back into the energy ribbon.

"We should be near the shipyards now, Dar'Sol," the navigator reported. There was wariness in his voice and T'Narl couldn't blame him. Trying to do such precise navigation while in hyperspace was practically impossible with Narn sensors. An alarm coming from the navigator's station broke the tense silence.

The navigator's movements became panicked as he punched commands in. "We lost the beacon!"

T'Narl frowned at that. "Steady, H'Drog. And give me a proper report."

H'Drog took a deep breath which did seem to calm his nerves. "I apologize, sir. I just… I am not picking up the signal from the hyperspace beacon anymore, it suddenly got cut off."

The implications were staggering. Only the destruction of the beacon could have done that and nobody did that, not even the Centauri. It also meant more of the enemy had entered the system since they jumped into hyperspace. "Very well, we will open a jump point here. The T'gan goes first while we wait in hyperspace and try to keep it open for as long as possible before we follow through."

He hated doing that, but if the G'eron went through first the T'gan would be stuck in hyperspace. She had to go through first, no matter what was on the other end. T'Narl watched as the yellow vortex opened and the small ship sailed through it. An open comlink let them hear everything that was said on the patrol boat's bridge.

"We're in normal space, we have the shipyards in… By G'Quan, they're…" The start of a thunderous explosion drowned out the captain's voice before the link was cut off. "Shut it off, and close the jumppoint. Navigation, turn us about and take us out of here." Nobody protested the sloppy course since none of them had any better idea where to go. Without a beacon they were lost, even staying here was made impossible by the currents of hyperspace.

"Yes, sir. Setting the heading to 180 by zero." But T'Narl wasn't paying attention anymore. He was too busy reflecting on his latest failure.

VVV

Y'Stron cursed her luck again as she sat helplessly in her wrecked fighter as it lazily spun on its axis. All she could do was watch the enemy butcher the rest of her people as her remaining air ran out. It wouldn't be long now and then she would be gone. One of their frigates flew towards her, occasionally firing its weapon at seemingly dead hulks.

'Guess I am not going to choke to death after all,' was her cheery thought. A new sight came into view, a new rift had opened and more of the frigates were coming out. They were escorting ships that didn't have the crystal pyramids Y'Stron had come to identify as their sole weapon. Simple bricks, they were about as long as the warships that were escorting them.

She was still puzzling out what those ships were for when her body dissolved in green energy along with her fighter.

Centauri Prime

"Things are finally settling down here, I believe it is only a matter of days before we have achieved a more stable situation here." Admiral Cianti preferred to keep the conversation as innocuous as possible, even on a secure channel. "You should come and visit then, when I…"

He cut himself off when Londo's image became wavy, then distorted before being replaced all together by a logo Cianti had never seen before. It looked like five carved stones fitted together to form a wall, but before he could study it further it was replaced by a blue screen with letters scrolling up from the bottom of the screen.

It started by addressing the Centauri people and what came after that was just as matter-of-factly. And a lot more chilling.

TBC