The Earth-Minbari War was perhaps the most one-sided conflict in galactic history, with
the enormous technological advantage the Minbari enjoyed, their human adversaries were rarely
able to realistically engage their warships, leading to a series of brutal defeats for
the Earth Alliance, and thousands upon thousands of lives lost.
There was however, a single victory enjoyed by Earthforce during the conflict, and though
it did little to slow the pace of the enemy advance, it inflicted a powerful and unexpected
blow to the Minbari Warrior Caste, one that would still be remembered by the Minbari Federation
decades later.
In April of 2247, after enduring several days of hit-and-run attacks, the EAS Lexington
and its battlegroup, under the command of Captain Roger Sterns, were moving through
the Asteroid Belt between Jupiter and Mars, when they detected a Minbari Scout Flyer,
which seemed to have suffered damage in a previous engagement.
In an effort to better understand the situation, the Lexington dispatched Lieutenant Ganya
Ivanov, Callsign Eagle 7, to approach the Minbari vessel.
As Ivanov approached the target, the Lexington’s executive officer, Commander John Sheridan,
noticed an oddity in the Minbari Flyer’s behaviour, before being seemingly disabled
by its damage, it had fired its forward thrusters and come to a relative halt, a strange choice
for a pilot attempting to escape pursuit, Sheridan suggested to his captain that the
enemy might be attempting to lure the Earthforce fleet into a precise positon, but this realization
had come far too late.
Using their advanced drive systems to drop out of hyperspace with extreme accuracy, a
Phalanx of Sharlin-Class Minbari Warcruisers exited hyperspace, led by the flagship of
the Minbari Federation, the Drala Fi, known to the Earth Alliance as the Blackstar.
Having used the scout flier as a lure, the Minbari fleet had been able to envelop most
of the Earthforce fleet within the wake of their jump-point, tearing multiple vessels
apart in the powerful energy field, and allowing their forces to begin quickly eliminating
the survivors.
Those capital ships and fighters which survived the initial energy field were destroyed in
short order by the Sharlin War Cruisers, and Lieutenant Ivanov was killed attempting to
escape as his fighter slammed into an asteroid.
The EAS Lexington was crippled by weapons fire and disabled, and its battle damage was
so extensive that it was presumed destroyed by the Minbari, in actuality the ship was
intact though it had suffered catastrophic damage, and lost the majority of its crew,
including Captain Sterns.
Assuming command of the Lexington, Commander Sheridan took stock of the situation, he knew
that a distress call or transmission of any kind would be intercepted by the enemy and
that they would return, the Minbari Warrior Caste were renowned for leaving none alive,
and would have no qualms about murdering the crew of a disabled vessel, no matter how helpless
they may be.
Sheridan instead decided to use his distress beacon to lure the Minbari into a trap, in
the same way they had baited the Lexington and her battle group, the commander ordered
that his ship’s three remaining nuclear warheads be removed from their housings and
converted into improvised mines, before delivering them to crew shuttles and EVA teams to be
fixed to asteroids in the Lexington’s proximity.
With his trap laid, Sheridan activated his distress beacon, and in short-order the Minbari
flagship Blackstar returned alone, to finish off the Lexington.
As the war-cruiser entered the area, Sheridan ordered the firing of his ship’s docking
thrusters to continually shift the Lexington between large asteroids, breaking line of
sight with the enemy, and forcing them to move into closer range of the Earthforce ship.
Once the Blackstar had re-established a lock on the Lexington, it was within the range
of one of the three warheads, and Sheridan ordered it’s activation.
The blast scorched the war cruiser’s hull and tore away several large portions of it’s
spaceframe, whilst forcing the ship away from the Lexington with tremendous force.
As it drifted the vessel fell out of range of the second nuclear warhead, but the third
device’s blast radius fully encompassed the Minbari vessel, and on Sheridan’s order,
the warhead detonated, tearing the Blackstar apart, and destroying it completely.
With his victory against the Blackstar, John Sheridan became the only human commander ever
to engage the Minbari in battle and emerge victorious, the Warrior Caste named him the
Starkiller, considering his destruction of the Drala Fi to be a despicable act of cowardice,
though Earthforce maintained that the tactic was justified, given the Minbari’s willingness
to destroy helpless targets like the Lexington.
Across his career Sheridan would repeatedly be asked by the Minbari to apologize for the
incident in the interest of interstellar diplomacy, a request which he never obliged.
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