Author disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, names, and other things of the Babylon 5 franchise. If I was, I would certainly be doing a reboot. This story is what I think would happen in the real world if the Minbari-Human war started. I was always very disappointed with the lack of human creativity fighting the Minbari armada as it is presented in the movie "In the Beginning" and the series itself. A lot of courage, sacrifice, and bravery, but zero brains, research, and even warfare history, except in the case of John Sheridan. This is a lame intent to correct that, and sorry for my bad English, Spanish from Río de la Plata is my mother tongue.


Montevideo, Uruguay

Confederación Sudamericana

Earth Alliance

Benjamin couldn't stop watching the news, his coffee went cold and his stomach was bubbling with hunger but his brain was just too busy, trying to assimilate what the heck just happen.

-La re put. madre que los parió!-scream in Rioplatense Spanish, while the terrifying scenes of the Earthforce fleet being cut to burning junk by the green beams of the Minbari ships were played again and again. Finally, he move his eyes away from the screen, and his mind started to work. Brain cells were starving to death so he take the medialunas, a local version of the croissants, but bigger and cut like a sandwich with cheese and jam, and devoured them.

With his hands full of sugar, he grabs his phone and texted in the group chat of his team of engineers, and started to spit messages so fast his fingers couldn't keep the pace of his thoughts.

-Hey guys have you seen the news? I have an idea to help Earthforce, grab your stuff, and go to the office in two hours...

-Brenda, call whoever is the contractor of the systems in the ships and give then my number. Call whoever made the software and hardware of all the systems, weapons, navigation, jump engines, etc.

-Patrick, bring all you have about the interphase and transmissions to control the bots, those companies would need to know how fast and how much data our systems can handle, and how far...

Suddenly one of them calls him.

-Park, what's up dude?- Ben answered.

-Ben what the heck are you coming up with? stop texting and explain yourself, I am with Brenda and Djan here. What do you want to do?

- I want to make drones, Park. All our assets, ships, fighters, etc. All drones.


Earthdome, Switzerland.

Earth Alliance

General Kuscinsky couldn't sleep. Senators, the Joint Chiefs, and President Levy herself calling him all day asking for some idea, plan, research, or whatever the ID Section of Earthforce had in some secret basement lab to fill the huge technological gap between Earth and Mimbar before the next fleet were sent to another kamikaze operation.

His office in Earthdome was almost empty at 23:00 local time, and suddenly his secretary, a beautiful but sober lieutenant from Lebanon, entered.

-Sir, Col. Hagge is here. He says is urgent, sir.

-Send him in.

The tall and thin colonel Hubert Hagge was a Canadian, with more Doctorates and PhDs that he could even remember, proud and with dark hair, entered walking so fast he would go through the door if the secretary wouldn't open it for him in time.

-Sir!

-At ease. What's the matter?

-Sir, I have just finished a group call with the teams of half of the fleet providers, they called me to show me one idea, or sort of.

-And the idea was?

- They want to build a fleet of drones. Drone ships and drone fighters, controlled by pilots in normal ships hiding in hyperspace. These drones would be cheaper, faster, better armed, faster to build, and more able to keep fighting when a normal ship would be crippled or disabled.

The General was slowly making a huge list in his mind of all the things a drone fleet would mean in terms of logistics, firepower, and mostly survivability against a superior foe. Drones weren't used for war since the 22nd century, but the maintenance bots and cameras, for example, used the technology for non-violent purposes, while the golden age of drone strikes of the first half of the 21st century was buried by modern values. But one of the main principles of the drones was to spare lives from the battlefield, striking the enemy from the security (and comfort) of a homeland base.

And now, after the massacre, the Minbari were doing with Earthforce ships to strike them without risking precious lives was more than enough to consider it. If the fleet would make sacrifices, better sacrifice material instead of lives.


Link?ping, Sweden

European Union, Earth Alliance

Dr. Johansson, a renowned botanic from Sweden was very intrigued about why the alien ships can't be locked if the optical sensors and cameras, as well as the human eyes, can see them. It was obvious the visible light wasn't intercepted or concealed by this stealthiness. So, the light should be used to lock their ships instead of radar waves or infrared. Besides the Minbari painted all their assets in blue, so it was possible to design an optical device to detect, track and give a firing solution to such a target. Optical targeting was very old tech, but he was thinking about plants and their chloroplasts, with their unique preference for blue light. It was possible to use chlorophyll to increase the optical tracking of those damned blue ships. So he made a couple of calls to the main contractor of the weapons and fire controls system of the Earthforce.


Aberdeen, Scotland

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Earth Alliance

The leadership of the company was in a permanent meeting for days to find something, anything, to improve the current systems before another fleet was sent to a suicide mission. Coffee, caffeine pills, and any known legal stimulant were all over the office while scientists and engineers discuss one idea after another, and when the secretary told them some Swedish doctor had an idea, they all stopped and take the call.

After the presentations and all the explanations of Dr. Johannson, the CEO, Bill McDonnahue, just ask one question.

- So, Dr. Johannson, you think you can build a blue things detector? If it is blue, we could shoot it?

-Blue, red, whatever color you like.

- How much money do you want?

- I don't look for money, I am not selling this idea, just put me on your science team, I will work for you. People are dying out there.

- Done, you are hired. Take the next flight to our labs in Aberdeen, we will make someone pick up you at the Space Port.

After some days of tireless work, the prototype was ready, it was called BIOEYE, combining photosynthesis molecules from plants and algae and advanced light and electromagnetic spectrum scanners. The first model of the BIOEYE tracking system was installed in all the weapons and firing systems of the dreadnought EAS De Gaulle, and its fighters. This included a new patch for standard fighter missiles, called Cervatana, the dart thrower weapon of many tribes in Earth jungles. These missiles, just like the old heat seekers air-to-air missiles, would give some chance to the Starfuries against Nyalas. Some silos with more of these weapons were added to the defense grid of the capital ships.

Because of the short range of the standard plasma cannons, the Earthforce fleet decided to replace half of the guns in the Nova and Hyperion classes with long-range Gauss cannons and Railguns. These weapons were easier to build, had more rate of fire, almost infinite range in space conditions, and were cheaper.

The prototype dreadnought De Gaulle, with a small task force of four Novas and six Hyperion cruisers as an escort, was sent to the frontline in the New Berlin system. Other ten ships were there, the last remanent of a huge 40 capital ships fleet. They were expecting a final strike of Sharlin cruisers at any moment.


Sharlin Cruiser Ga'llen

Minbari attack force.

New Berlin system, Earth Alliance.

The Sharlin jump to normal space right in front of the EAS Paschendale firing with all it had, the poor cruiser was destroyed but could shot back a couple of times with the main batteries, making a huge hole in the front side of the Minbari ship. The warrior-cast captain Nialen was shocked, how the heck could those barbarians bypass the protection and hit with that accuracy? He asked for damage control and turn for the nearest target, the Nova Julius Caesar, but to his surprise, the human was already shooting at him, with great results. The Sharlin lost the main guns and started to lose power. The Nyalas tried to surround the dreadnought but guided missiles made them withdraw after losing twelve and kill only one Starfury.

Sho'ut, the commander of that Minbari battlegroup was shocked, even when half of the human ships were destroyed in the first minutes, two of his ships were killed, and two more crippled, and all the other seven were taking hits. Their stealth capabilities were bypassed somehow by these criminals and the same weapons that murdered Dukhat were killing them.

- All ships, attack with full force! Destroy them fast, their weapons are targeting our ships somehow!

Fighters were taking the worst part. Guided missiles were shooted by the ships and the human fighters, who remain far from their counterparts, the Nyalas were being destroyed before they could even reach the slower Starfuries. Soon, all the cruisers had lost 3/4 of their fighters and recalled them to avoid more losings. Human pilots take the chance and started to strike the Sharlins, concentrating fire in the gun ports and engines.

The De Gaulle was firing another salvo of Gauss projectiles, finishing a burning Sharlin who was destroying the Nova Tamerlan. Until now of the nine Sharlin attackers only two were still fighting, with huge holes in the hull and many weapons disabled. Of the human side, two Novas and four Hyperions were still operative, and another Nova floating helplessly with no power or weapons. The Minbari were too busy to terminate them.

Finally, they withdraw. And a huge "Hooray!" started to be heard in all remaining vessels. Victory.


Grey Council Flagship

Somewhere near Minbar system

-Satai Delenn, our incursion in the human colony of New Berlin was... defeated. It looks like these barbarians find out how to lock their weapons on us even with the stealth screen layer.

- When they killed Dukhat our ship wasn't using the protection, and they hit us hard. They have the firepower to damage us, and if you are right, they will fight back. How many ships did you lose?

-We lost seven of the nine I use to strike.

-And them?

- They had 21 in that system, when we left only 7 remain, one of them was powerless.

-A costly victory. But we are using a fraction of our power. Our huge superiority allowed us to send only small groups of ships to fight...

- Perhaps we should increase the size of our attack parties. As far as we have seen the humans have a large fleet and a big industrial capability. Numbers are not on our side, at least for a year or two if we start to increase ship production levels, just like we did against the Shadows...

The battle of New Berlin and the Lexington nuclear skirmish marked an inflection point in the war. The BIOEYE tracking system and the Cervatana Mk I guided missiles were quickly installed in all the fleet. And half of the plasma cannons in the Nova dreadnoughts were replaced with Gauss and Rail guns, with far greater range and fire rate, allowing those ships to hit the enemy before being in the enemy's fire range.

As a small but crucial security measure, the blue stripes in Earthforce capital ships were repainted in red, looking more aggressive and increasing the morale in the crews.

But the great improvement was the new drone capital ships and fighters. These models were stripped from all life support systems, quarters modules, anything that needed an atmosphere. The great saving in energy and weight was used to increase the speed and maneuverability, and the lack of crew allowed the engineers to give the ships the ability to move in deadly manners, at G forces lethal to any crewmate.

The Starfuries passed a similar transformation. In this case, the new Drone Starfury could outmaneuver its manned counterparts easily. Cervatana missiles and a new heavy pulse cannon, with anti-ship capabilities, were added instead of the cockpit.

As soon as the first units were being ready at the Earth Orbital shipyards the mechanics named them, calling the Nova drones "Skeletor", for the bad guy in the He-Man cartoon, recently rebooted, and the Hyperion drones "Robocop" for the XX century cyborg cop. Original official names were soon forgotten. Spectre was the nickname for the drone Furies, but some used Predator.

To control all these drones it was designed a Control Battlegroup of Novas and Hyperion ships, called class E, with enhanced modules to house the pilots for the drone fighters, and the crew of the drone capital ships. These Control units would use the tachyon broadcast of the Hyperspace beacons to communicate with the drones, which would protect the vital signal from jamming because jamming them would nullify the use of the beacons for everyone. While the Drone force would face the enemy in normal space, the Control Battlegroup will be commanding them from the Hyperspace, trying to avoid any contact with the enemy, and ready to abandon the place at once in case of being attacked. The Drone forces were expendable, Earthforce knew they weren't able to protect the ships enough, so they would just protect the crews, and with that lives and experience, and leave to the enemy the material loses. These unmanned ships were faster to build and cheaper, with many ensembling processes unnecessary, as well security and crew life savings. Besides all weapons were connected independently to the Control ships, so if half of the ship was destroyed the other half could still return fire. The energy was also generated by separate modules for the same reason. This drone class was like zombie ships, able to fight even crippled or half destroyed.

The main model to design all this was half part the drone squadrons in the XXI century, and half the works of the Sci-Fi author Orson Scott Card, in Ender's Game. The movie, a cult classic, inspired Admiral Gallahad to take all the ideas and give them a shape.


These changes started to increase the preoccupation in Minbari ranks. The idea of a race of cowards and ruthless primitive murderers was being removed by daily reports from the frontline. Humans doing things like suicide attacks, often to secure a crippled ship or to cover a retreat, or just to stand tall against an unbeatable enemy, a display of courage, bravery, and dignity never seen outside the Minbari race.

It was necessary to obtain a more wise approach to this new enemy.

Grey Council Flagship

Near Minbari Federation border

-Neroon...

-Satai Loreen...What can i do for you, Shai Alyt?

- I need your guidance, Satai Neroon. Please let me show you...-and show him a hologram of the human capital ships. Neroon, with no emotions on his face, gets closer to see them.-What do you think of these new improvements in the human ships?

- Well, those primitive projectile accelerators are brute but quite effective, they can reach our ships far before we can engage them. And those missiles that pursue our fighters are giving our warriors real struggle, we are withdrawing our Nyalas from the battles. We are not sure what those red stripes mean, some of our linguistic experts think are a reference for blood. But what surprised me was these two types of capital ships, very similar to the ones we know from the first contact, but look at the sensors scan. No life signs, not a single one. Those new ships are unmanned. We don't know if are ruled by some artificial life form or remote control from another human vessel, perhaps in hyperspace. In fact images from the battle in New Berlin showed the main guns of these ships targeting and shooting even with the ship cut in pieces or burning. This design is being made to keep fighting even under heavy fire. These humans know they can't protect their ships, so they build new ships capable of fighting while are being destroyed. I have never seen anything like this in my whole life.


Earthforce Command Center

EarthDome, Switzerland.

Earth Alliance

After the complete assimilation of the new weapons and systems, it was time to do something to make the Minbari pay for all the destruction in the outer colonies. The best thing they could come up with in the Joint Chiefs council was a new version of Doolittle's strike against Tokio, in revenge of Pearl Harbour. Just go and level one or two Minbari colonies as they do to ours. But with something else. The Jump Gates would be targeted also.

General Leftcourt started the meeting. Using a 3D projection showed the star map of the Minbari/Earth Alliance border.

- These two systems, Tareleen and Nocalo, are just a couple of jumps from our territory. We plan to launch a hit-and-run strike in both colonies, destroy all ships, stations, military infrastructure, and the jump gates. We will use two task forces of ten Skeletor Novas and seven Robocop Hyperions each. All vessels will carry forty Balista Mk II missiles, with 1.5 Megaton warheads.

This is a kamikaze mission, we are not expecting more than four or five ships to return from this strike, besides the control task forces, of two H Novas and Four Hyperions.

-General don't you think this would rage the aliens even more?

- I think they can't be more pissed off than now, even more now with our ships started to hold the line and kicking their boned ass, and they deserve this, after all, they do with our colonies.

The Tareleen Strike group was commanded by Admiral Nurhan "Pashá" Koprulu, a very devoted Sunni Turkish veteran of the Dilgar War. His flagship was the Nova Mohacs. The Nocalo Strike Group was under another Dilgar War Veteran, Admiral Ali Abu Bakr, from Iraq. Also a renowned historian of the jihad wars of the 21st century. His flagship was the Nova E EAS Salahuddin These two officers were selected for obvious reasons. Suicide strikes expertise was needed for this operation.

In the Nocalo system, there was a small orbital shipyard with four Sharlin under reparations and maintenance, and the other three guarding the planet. Some orbital defenses, with antimatter cannons, also complete the security. Admiral Abu Bakr decided to launch the first wave of drone fighters armed with nukes, and a second one with half of the Drone fleet to ensure the destruction of the target. If the force survived would withdraw and one of the ships would detonate the Jump Gate when the rest of the Strike Group was far away.

The Tareleen Strike Group would launch a recon force of one Skeletor Nova to test the defenses and to trigger the Minbari's to bring any other ship near. After that, the whole fleet would strike. This one was more populated, so there were ten Sharlin cruisers and a dozen of other class, several dozens of Nyala squadrons, and a dense orbital defense network. No signs of shipyards whatsoever.

The Tareleen Strike Group started the attack sending the Skeletor Nova Minotaur. The ship had only ten minutes to do something before the Sharlins destroyed it, so they shoot all main guns to the two nearest ships, and launched all the fighters right into the planetary defense grid, to destroy and to launch nukes to every valuable target they could get. The fighters were sent in pairs, covering each other from enemy fighters until they deliver the payloads. In just seven minutes two Sharlins were destroyed by the Minotaur's guns, and another one was heavily damaged. The other two take some shots but they could still destroy the human ship. The squadrons survived a lot more, they split all over the space surrounding the planet and take down many of the Minbari interceptors. For two hours they destroyed several platforms, three support ships and nuked five targets on the surface. It was a great score to such a small force. The Aliens sent distress calls to all the Federation and in the following hours, more than twenty Sharlin and forty other ships arrived. The Pashá's trap was ready.

In the Nocalo system, the Strike Group arrived in the Hyperspace beacon one and a half-hour after the Tareleen system was attacked, so the three Sharlins in orbit were sent to help. That was excellent. One of the Sharlins in the shipyards was getting ready to leave also, but it won't be ready for combat in another five hours. Without knowing that, Admiral Abu Bakr launched the first wave.

The Minbari were caught with their pants down, and the first wave annihilate them. There was no need to launch a second strike, the Drone fighters destroyed everything useful without major casualties. The Sunni commander selected one of the Cruisers to make the jump gate destruction, and withdraw from the system to the rally point.

While defenders muster in Tareleen, the bad news of the strike in Nocalo arrived, and soon after a huge disturbance in the Hyperspace beacons crippled the entire network for several minutes. Admiral Pasha Koprulu decided to launch the final attack right now, knowing the disturbance in the Hyperspace would affect them and also stopped any other enemy arrival.

He formed the Control Battlegroup in a slightly open formation far enough from the planet, while the drone fleet attacked in a semicircular line straight to the enemy. The Minbari was still shocked but there were battle-ready and reacted quickly, and the clash of both fleets was really hard. The humans launched all they had, careless about the drone capital ships casualties but focusing in preserve the fighters, more fast and capable of destruction in the middle of the clash. Minbaris do the opposite, they concentrated the fire in the main ships and ignore the fighters, falling in line with the Iraqi's plan.

In fourteen minutes half of the human ships and a third of the Minbari were destroyed. Nyalas fighters were pinned down, they couldn't escape from the Cervatana missiles but still, manage to cause huge casualties to the Drones.

The War Cast commander was too worried about the strike fleet, terrified with the idea of the planet being nuked by these barbarians, to understand the whole fleet was being controlled by the battlegroup in the back of the human formation.

Gauss cannons and Railguns were being used as sniper shots against the alien ships from the distance, covering the Drone fleet to ensure their survivability. The Control force was fighting from behind the lines, and the blue cruisers were being eliminated one by one.

However it was clear the enemy had enough numbers to turn this hit-and-run strike into a conventional space battle, and that was a strategical defeat by itself, even when it was expected to lose the Drone fleet, the objective of the attack was far from being reached and the control Battlegroup was too near from the enemy forces.

The Admiral studied the holographic map to see if something could be used to change the outcome, he found a huge hole in the enemy formation, and behind, another hole in the planetary defense grid. Right in the center of the right side of the battle, from the human' s point of view.

-Captain Lefour, call all the ships. Ready to battle. We will strike right here. Concentrate the right flank to clear a path so we may strike the planet as safely as we can.

-Commander Da'lann, the humans' reserves are moving towards our left flank!

-Move our right flank and attack them, but this way, far from the battleline! Ignore their other ships, leave them to the orbital guns!

The alien move was a mistake, cause the few drone ships stuck in that sector instead of turn around and stop them from outflanking the Control Battlegroup, move forward to the planet. With all the Minbari lured to the incoming human fleet, the path to the colony was cleared, and the five remaining ships wiped out all the planetary grid and the bases on the surface. The commander just had a few minutes to understand his error, cause two Gauss projectiles destroyed the flagship's bridge.


Grey Council Flagship

Neroon takes the word and gives the Gray Council the bad news.

-We have lost the Tareleen and the Nocalo systems. They destroyed the jump gates, we lost contact with our ships thereafter the strike, we only know the human launched a nuclear strike over the planetary surface and were engaging our ships with full force...

- This is outrageous! How could this happen! They barely can defend their territory from our attacks!

The other members of the Warrior cast couldn't believe the news.

- That was before they could bypass our protection and before they started to use unmanned ships. Now they have become a real threat. Our first real enemy since the Shadows. It won't be long before they strike our homeworld.

- We should start peace talkings again, they always wanted to settle this by non-violent methods.

That was the opportunity the religious cast was hoping to end this madness, perhaps now the Warrior Caste would see this was a useless war.

But the Warrior Cast doesn't see the things that way.

-Yes, like killing the ChoosenOne without provocation!

- Because aim with gun ports open o hailing ships isn't a provocation, isn't it?!

The Worker Cast just throwing a logical thought like always do.

Delenn tried to stop the fight between them from being reasonable.

-Stop! I think we have already avenged Dukhat quite enough. We find out the humans were an easy target so we keep killing them, but now they have improved their forces and stopped being easy prey. Their industrial development is bigger than ours, they can build more ships and faster than we can destroy them, and it won't be long they start to kill ours faster than we can replace them. Peace talks are needed!

- This is a Holy War! And you Satai Delenn give the final vote to it! If your weak and peaceful religious cast mindset can't take the bloodshed, then you can leave the war to us! Go to pray somewhere else!

Delenn just ignored the blatant accusation and throw a huge ice-cold water bucket at her Grey council mate.

- You talk like a fool! What happen to your brave division last week? Those barbarians make you retreat with only a tenth of your force! Wake up to the reality! You are not winning anymore!

Delenn's intervention hit right on target. The recent raid on Flinn Colony was a complete disaster. The Warrior cast decided to land on the planet to destroy the AA artillery that was targeting the Minbari ships, but a huge GROPOS garrison repel the attack. The local commander, Col. John Morrison, had ordered, after hearing the word about Minbari's preference for hand-to-hand combat, all his men with some skill in sword, spear, etc. carry their weapons in case of an attack. Also purchased old fashion projectile weapons. Those tactics give a nasty surprise to the aliens.

He finally shut up, and start looking to the floor. He could still remember the thundering noise of the human projectile weapons roaring as the heads of his warriors were pierced by bullets. And that thin sword of one of the small human soldiers, so small and weak to his eyes he had to grab that sword with both hands, even though the Minbari pike was useless against his movements. Katana. That's was the name when he started to study the human historical records obtained in one of the raids to the Earth Colonies. And samurais, Japanese warriors. Dannier, one of his best lieutenants, died after another human warrior confront him with a huge sword. He recognize it from a list, a Spanish design, made in a town called Toledo, made with an alloy called steel, supremely perfectioned in that city. Those barbarians had a very old warfare culture, and they were putting their warrior cast equivalents in the frontlines now. Satai Delenn and Satai Neroon were right, the Minbari have finally met a worthy enemy. Weak in force, primitive in technology, but superior in tactics, strategy, and logistics.


Hyperspace, Near Orion 7 beacon.

The Warrior Caste decided to retaliate and restore the initiative in the war by launching a full invasion of the Orion colonies. The main scheme would be to deploy the main force of thirty ships to Orion 7, deploy a ground force of 10 thousand warriors, and other two support fleets of ten or more ships to defeat the expected human reaction. The idea was to lure the humans to a battle they think they could win, and then strike them hard enough to cause huge losses. With several victories, the Earth forces would be too weak to stop the Minbari to reach the main systems, and finally, the Earth Alliance homeworld.

Neroon himself takes part in the attack force, desiring to lead the ground invasion and meet the human equivalent of his warriors in combat.

Orion 7 was defended by ten Nova dreadnoughts and 8 Hyperion cruisers and recently reinforced with 5 Skeletor Novas, two GROPOS infantry divisions, and seven support regiments of Earth Regional Guard forces. Three regiments of Heavy Mechanised Infantry (Meca Combat suits) from the Guardia Nacional de la Confederación Sudamericana, two regiments of Armoured Cavalry from the United States National Guard, and five Anti Aircraft and Low Orbit Artillery regiments from the African Block.

The Minbari attacked with gun ports open and shooting anything they saw, civilian or military. Earthforce ships and Orion National Guard tried their best to stop them, but there were too many ships. After half an hour of intense shooting, the last two Hyperion cruisers jumped out to wait for reinforcements. The Minbari cleaned the sky from human ships, but ten Sharlins were destroyed, and the other seven were crippled. Six more have some damage.

Neroon wasn't happy with the high cost of the battle but hoped this sacrifice wouldn't be wasted. He joined his troops and landed on the outskirts of Orion 7 Capital city.

Orion 7 surface, Earth Alliance.

Before the battle the two GROPOS divisions and the three Meccas regiments were deployed in the hills at the west of the capital, the other five were being dispatched when the Minbari arrived, and most of them were destroyed in the ships or trying to land.

The Minbari warriors jumped from their transport ships while those were just a couple meters above the ground; several dropships were hit by the AA artillery and the Cervatana missiles, but there weren't enough to repel so many attackers. Most of the troops landed in the southern neighbors, where the defenses were just a couple of batteries. Local police and some National Guardsmen were the only ones to resist them, some citizens join the fight also. The main issue was the Minbari were fighting in the middle of the city, with thousands of civilians, caught in the crossfire. The quickest solution would be a huge artillery strike, but it was impossible without huge collateral damage. The units in the city decided to draw a defensive line between Downtown and the southern sectors, while the Mechanised Infantry and the GROPOS flanked from the West and the southwest.

Minbari warriors started to advance to the north in small sections, the sharpshooters move through the streets, confronting any opposition, and hand-to-hand fighters cleared the houses, focusing on armed people. Disarmed civilians were ignored.

After three hours of urban warfare, the Minbari's were in full shooting with the Downtown line and with the west counterattack. The Warrior cast uniform, a very Jedi-like outfit, was very resistant to PPG fire, and the small handguns they carried were as best as Earthforce PPG rifles. The battle become static, Minbaris couldn't attack more, and the flanking movement was stuck, only the Mechas were able to return fire without being killed. Rockets and Heavy MGs and 20 mm cannons were doing damage in the aliens' ranks, but the buildings, full of terrorized civilians, avoided a better use of fire superiority.

-Carabina a la espalda y sable en mano! ("Carabine to the back and saber in hand!", that was the battle cry of an Uruguayan general in the Ituzaingó battle, when Argentinians and Uruguayans were being pinned down by the Brazilian infantry). The order given by the Uruguayan guardsmen Lt. Col. Fernando Oribe invoked his ancestor words during the Uruguayan independence war, 300 years ago. In that war, against the former Empire of Brazil, the Uruguayan forces joined with argentine and federalist Brazilian rebels from Rio Grande do Sul, called Gaúchos, to get rid of Brazilian rule. His companions in the other two Southamerican regiments get the idea and fill themselves with a great sense of patriotism and heroism. They would do a remake of that ancient battle the Minbari warriors would never forget.

The Meccas formed a line using their weapons to pin down the Minbari sharpshooters, pull out their sabers, and advanced like a wave of steel and titanium, the strength of the Minbari warrior was nothing against the metal suits, tall as Goliath and armed with two meters long saber-like sword, titanium, and tungsten alloy and old Spanish sword tactics. Argentinian Granaderos, Uruguayan Blandengues, and Brazilian Gaúchos charged and annihilate the warrior-cast entrenchments. The GROPOS and Orion National Guard troops cheered as the south Americans wipe the floor with the terrified aliens.

In space the Minbari cruisers were holding the line against the endless waves of Earth drones, believing their ground forces would crush the humans and make the space battle worthless. Humans wouldn't fight for an empty planet, they think.