EIGHT

Ivanova reported to the main reception at the Earth Central complex. Close to the appointed time, she expected to be escorted straight through to the offices of the Fleet Commanders. Instead the receptionist rechecked her screen, holding up a finger to keep Ivanova waiting as she talked briefly into her headset and then nodded along to the lengthier instructions she received.

“You will come with me, please,” the receptionist said as she came around to the front of the desks. They made their way to the security scans, waiting in line until it was Ivanova’s turn. She glanced at the people standing patiently in front of her, and those already starting to queue behind. Dressed in suits with aides standing behind them rifling through files to make last minute adjustments to the material, they were likely senate representatives or their assistants who had crossed over from EarthGov to sit in on meetings. All of them had a visitor pass tagged to their lapels.

“Is this really necessary?” Ivanova muttered.

“Yes,” the receptionist said, staring straight ahead. She wore a charcoal Graydon suit and had a permanently pinched mouth. Ivanova noticed that she had looked at her with an air of someone whose gaze had fallen on something terribly unappealing. She wondered if it was just her or the receptionist saw everyone who came through the doors of Earth Central. The security guards waved her straight through, surprised that an EarthForce officer had been made to wait in line. Ivanova

followed the receptionist down the main corridor, expecting to be taken straight to the General’s office.

“You will wait here,” the receptionist said. She opened the glass door to a small waiting room.

“General Smits knows I‘m here?” Ivanova asked, trying not to let her frustration show.

“Someone will come for you,” the receptionist explained.

“You will wait here.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Ivanova said. The receptionist simply gave her a curt nod and turned on her heel. The room was narrow and brightly lit with three high-backed chairs set against the wall beside a small table. A restaurant guide to Geneva as the only reading material provided. She had not noticed before but once Ivanova sat down she realised that the wall facing her was a single sheet of glass that looked out onto the main corridor. Instead of a waiting room it was a display case, and she was the exhibit.

It felt like it was as if she was a youngster again, sitting outside the principle’s office at school, waiting to receive a reprimand. Then she would have sat with her head bowed, ashamed at how her behaviour would reflect upon her parents and the family name. Now Ivanova sat with her head held high, defiant and proud. If they were trying to humiliate her, she would not let them succeed. When people passed by in both directions, whether they were government officials or military personnel of all ranks in a mixture of grey, green and blue uniforms, she looked every one in the eye.

Some were too busy to notice her as they hurried on to their next appointment. At times the rumble of conversation coming down the corridor would tail off once they saw her sitting there. “Is that her?” she heard a few of them ask. Others in the party would nod in reply or take a good look at her and say,

“That’s her.” There were other officers that grinned when they saw her and gave her a quick nod as they carried on their way. As the minutes ticked by it felt as if the whole of the permanent staff at EarthDome had paraded past.

She was looking in the other direction when General Smits finally tracked her down.

“Captain Ivanova?” General Smits said, as he eased open the door. “So this is where you are.”

“General,” Ivanova replied as she stood to attention.

Smits returned her salute.

“I see they put you on show,” he stated, looking past her into the corridor.

“I’m happy if it makes the OJC happy, General,” Ivanova replied.

“Everything has a natural evolution, save military humour,”

he explained. “Sorry that you were kept our here. My last appointment overran.”

“I was expecting a last request before the firing squad.”

“What would your request be?” the General enquired, “out of interest.”

“A fast shuttle to a distant star system,” Ivanova said.

“Just proving your point about humour, sir,” she added off the General’s expression.

“Walk with me,” he told her.

Out of the waiting area, Ivanova fell into step beside him the General. For a while they said nothing. As they encountered subordinates coming the other way, Smits returned their salutes but his hand barely reached above shoulder height before it dropped down to his side.

He seemed to have aged ten years since she had last seen him, in a priority Gold Channel communiqué to Babylon 5. On an open line he had sent Sheridan a cryptic message, warning of the growing threat from the Nightwatch, Clark’s branch of the Ministry of Peace. As career-military he had put in enough years to be a canny player in the politics of war. Adept at reading the signs, he had managed to survive but at a price. His hair had been thinning but now it was almost gone. From steely silver it had turned pure white. Even when standing to attention his body seemed to sag as he put all his weight on the cane, which he grasped in his left hand. But there was still a calculating mind at work. Anyone who simply decided to write him off as a tired old man would be in for a surprise.

“What you have to understand is, the Earth-Minbari War forged deep bonds between everyone in EarthForce, for the officers and enlisted men alike who survived the conflict,” Smits told her. “You enlisted when?”

“During the war,” Ivanova stated. “By the time I graduated from the academy it was over.”

“An effective fighting force is built on trust,” he explained. He stopped and looked at Ivanova. “If you can’t trust the man beside you, even on the most basic level, you’re finished.”

“I agree, sir,” Ivanova said.

Smits nodded. They had reached an intersection and he stood for a moment, deciding which direction to take.

“This way, I think,” Smits said, waving his cane to the right. Ivanova obediently followed after him.

“We were still reeling from the death of President Santiago,” he continued. “Obviously everyone was on a heightened state of alert. We were too caught up in matters of planetary security to see what was really happening: Clark putting his men in positions of power, slowly, over time. And the sonofabitch did it in plain sight, under our very noses.”

Ivanova nodded as she listened to what sounded more like a confession than on observation. They took another turn. The next corridor was practically deserted.

“By the time we started to question the policies it was too late. We had the Home Guard, Nightwatch and the Ministry of Peace,” Smits added. They stopped at an elevator and he pressed the call button.

“Quiet isn’t it?” he observed as they stood and waited. Ivanova looked around her. The particular wing of the building they were did appear unnaturally silent. Before, even

after they had turned off the main corridor, there had been staff hurrying past them. While listening to the General she had caught glimpses of doors opening and closing as people arrived for meetings or aides breathlessly delivered much-needed files or memorandums. Ivanova had heard secretaries taking or redirecting calls, snatches of muffled conversations or gruff voices issuing instructions as well as one or two sharp rebukes. Now it felt like they had the whole of EarthDome to themselves.

“There are corridors here in EarthDome with a lot of empty offices,” the General explained once the elevator had taken them five decks up. “Some recently vacated, given the sudden spate or retirements or re-assignments. Others have stood that way for well over a year now.”

He stopped and stared at a door that seemed to invoke a particularly strong memory. Invanova wondered if they were about to step inside but Smits simply cleared his throat and continued walking.

“Some officers tried to take action. They didn’t last very long. They were either killed or betrayed. The rest of us had to play along, simply as a means of survival. A few managed to get off world like General Hague, but once Clark made his move and declared martial law most of us were assigned round-the-clock personal protection.” He spat the words out, shaking his head at the thought of it. “Psi Cops, every one of them. Which meant they knew who was had misgivings about Clark. They kept us around and they made us keep up the charade just to rub our noses in it.”

As they continued walking Ivanova noticed the framed photographs that began to appear on the walls. Almost all were of past EarthGov Presidents, either alone or in the presence of dignitaries and alien ambassadors. The late President Santiago dominated the pictures, which, she figured, had only been recently re-hung. A new addition showed President Luchenko flanked by Ambassadors Delenn, Mollari and G’Kar, smiling after ratifying Earth’s induction into the Interstellar Alliance. All signs of President Clark had been efficiently erased.

“It left us feeling impotent and jealous even, knowing that if there was going to be salvation it would come from the outside and we wouldn’t play a direct part in it. Once Babylon 5 declared independence we knew that was the turning point, right there. Out in space you could do something. We depended on Sheridan and his command staff. You knew him before his posting to Babylon 5?”

“We were stationed together on Io. I served under him there. My brother was a Starfury pilot on the Lexington. He was killed before Sheridan took over command.”

Smits nodded. He stopped to take a deep breath and check on his surroundings. Ivanova stood beside him.

“In the end you came though. The true irony is in the eyes of many people here you went about it the wrong way. An effective fighting force is built on trust. It is also built on rules of military protocol that have to be followed to the letter. From the point of view of members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on down, you disobeyed direct orders and that was unpardonable.”

“Which was why no one here acted against Clark sooner,”

Ivanova suggested.

A broad grin spread across the General’s face. Smits continued walking along the corridor with Ivanova at his side.

“Even if we had an inkling of what was really going on?

It’s flattering of you to suggest we knew more than we actually did,” he replied. “If it wasn’t for you and Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew, who knows how far it would have gone. What Clark and his followers created was an aberration; a distortion of our principles, which you set right.” He stopped in his tracks and looked her in the eye. “You should be proud.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ivanova responded.

“Sheridan becomes President of this Interstellar Alliance. These next few years, we’re going to see a lot of changes, here and out there in space. Hopefully for the better,” Smits said.

“Yes sir,” Ivanova agreed.

“And as for you, we were more than surprised to see the transfer papers come through,” the General said.

“It was time to move on,” Ivanova said.

Smits nodded. He knew there was more to it, but he let it go. Instead he looked over her shoulder to the door behind her.

“Well, here we are,” he said. “This should give us more privacy.”