NINETEEN

Captain Elizabeth Lochley stood at the observation window of Babylon 5’s C&C. She had just returned to the command deck after another heated debate with Sheridan and was not in the best of moods.

From the moment she received her transfer orders, Lochley thought it odd that she had been chosen as the new commander of Babylon 5. In transit to the station, just after the New Year celebrations, it had nagged at her continually while she studied the station procedures and personnel files. The first chance she

had, Lochley questioned Sheridan as to why, with Babylon 5

remaining independent, an EarthForce officer had been given control of the station.

She understood his desire to use the appointment to try and heal the rifts caused by the Civil War. Trying to come up with her own conclusions, Lochley had in fact already considered it as a viable option. Which was why she told him that her being in charge of the station meant just that. If he simply wanted a commander to act as a mouthpiece for his decisions, with all due respect he could find himself another puppet. To that end they had agreed that while Sheridan would make the political decisions on behalf of Babylon 5 and the Interstellar Alliance, the day-today running of the station was hers alone. Almost immediately Sheridan had broken his word by offering sanctuary to a group of telepaths, tired of their nomadic existence, travelling from one world to the next looking for a place they could finally call home. At least their leader, Byron, had come to her first. Tall, with a narrow, chiselled face and long flowing hair, he was not unattractive. But Lochley was put off by the arrogance of the man. While his followers saw him as a prophet, in her eyes he was simply another rogue telepath. While they were happily ensconced in Brown Sector, she had continued to voice her continued concerns to Sheridan on an almost daily basis. More telepaths were arriving to join them. Although they offered to earn their keep, Lochley knew the PsiCops would come for them eventually and she would be the one left to clear up the mess. Right now she didn’t feel like standing around and monitoring the traffic moving in and out of the station.

“Captain, we’ve got a ship coming through the Jump Gate,”

Lieutenant Corwin informed her. “The identification code is Earth Alliance, but...”

Lochley looked out at the blazing cone of blue and white light that rippled inside the Jump Gate array. At first she thought it was the Psi-Cops, just as she predicted, but the size of the ship that suddenly appeared astonished her.

“Open up a frequency,” she instructed.

“We’re being hailed.”

“This is the EAS Titans to Babylon Control,” Maddison announced over the com speaker, “Requesting to be patched through to President Sheridan, priority one.”

“Babylon Control to Titans, I’m sure you realise that the President is a very busy man...” Lochley said, not happy with being pushed around or stepped over in the chain of command quite so openly.

A face appeared on the BabCom screen above the console, matching her grim and determined look. Lochley wondered if she had not glanced into a mirror by mistake.

“Captain Ivanova?!” Corwin spluttered.

“I’m sure he’ll be able to find a couple of minutes in his schedule for me,” Ivanova said.

“Susan, well this is certainly a surprise,” Sheridan said as he appeared on the Titans’ bridge monitor. “I didn’t think you’d be missing us all so soon.”

“I just happened to be in the neighbourhood and thought I’d swing by,” she said, knowing Sheridan wouldn’t buy that for one minute. “Truth be told, I was trying to keep a low profile. Which is not easy when you’re carting around sixty-seven million metric tons of warship.”

“So what can I do for you?”

“I was hoping you could find time in your schedule to come over and take a look at the ship.”

Ivanova knew that would get Sheridan’s attention and she could see the almost imperceptible change in his expression. Like her, Sheridan was not wildly enthusiastic about all the pomp and ceremony that came with the job and viewed it as a necessary evil. She did not doubt that he could read between the lines and understand there was far more to it than that.

“That’s a gracious offer,” Sheridan said trying to muster up enthusiasm as the frown that creased his forehead softened.

“I’ll get a ship prepped for launch and be right over.”

From the shuttle Sheridan marvelled at the sheer scale of the Titans, which filled the cockpit windows as he lined up on his final approach. As the tiny ship hovered between the spacelocks, waiting for air to be pumped in and the atmosphere to equalise with the hanger bay that lay beyond the thick metal doors, the initial sense of wonder trickled away. Bathed in the glow of the red warning lights, he began to feel a sense of unease. By the time the shuttle had touched down all that remained was a deep sense of foreboding lodged in the pit of his stomach.

He saw Ivanova step into the launch bay to welcome him. Out of the hatch, he hurried down the steps to greet her and suddenly stopped. His foot wavered in mid-air as he felt strangely reluctant to step down onto the deck of the landing bay.

“John, its good of you to come over at such short notice,”

Ivanova said. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Sheridan said, forcing himself to step down onto the deck.

As they walked toward the hanger bay bulkhead, Sheridan turned and looked back at the shuttle.

“It was the oddest sensation, like someone had just walked over his grave,” he told her as they stepped out of the hanger and was surprised that Ivanova didn’t find the suggestion at all unusual. If anything she seemed more relaxed than she had appeared on the com-screen.

“So, this is the Titans,” Sheridan announced, trying to sound encouraging as they made their way along the corridor.

“The new Warlock-class Destroyer. The first of its kind.”

“Well, she’s quite something.”

Ivanova noticed him vigorously rubbing his hands together.

“Cold?”

“A little, yes,” he replied looking around. “Maybe someone left a window open.”

He can feel it too, Ivanova thought. Although she could sense his discomfort, she felt pleased that it hadn’t been her imagination playing tricks with her all this time. As she led him through the ship, Ivanova noticed Sheridan glancing around warily as if something was not quite right. She picked up her pace. With Vathek’s reaction to the ship clear in her mind, Ivanova wanted to get to her quarters and out of sight as quickly as possible. It would not look good for news to circulate that the President of the Interstellar Alliance was onboard and having a complete breakdown.

“Quite a ship,” Sheridan repeated to himself, distracted by the growing sensation that something wasn’t right. Outside her quarters, Ivanova opened the door and allowed Sheridan to enter first. She was just about to follow him inside when she saw Graydon standing at the end of the corridor leading to the bridge. Ivanova nodded to her and Graydon nodded silently back.

“What the hell is going on with this ship?” Sheridan asked as she locked the door behind her.

He was pacing about like a caged animal wanting to break free.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh come on Susan, from the moment I arrived onboard I’ve had the urge to get right back on the shuttle, and get the hell out of here. So are you going to admit that something is wrong here or am I going to turn around and do just that?”

“I know exactly what you mean, which is why I needed you to come over here. There’s just one more thing I still need you to do.”

She stepped over to the com station and instructed the computer to stand by to archive guest data. The screen glowed with the same familiar Earth Alliance logo above the Titans crest.

“Sheridan, John J. President, Interstellar Alliance,”

Ivanova announced as Sheridan stared suspiciously at the screen.

“I really don’t know what you’re playing at here but this has gone on far enough,” he said angrily.

“John, place your hand on the screen so that the computer can recognise you,” she said but Sheridan was already turning to leave.

“Please, it’s the last thing I want you to do. After that you can go back to Babylon 5.”

Sheridan stood by the door, keeping his distance. She could sense his reluctance but finally his resolve broke and he walked towards her.

“This is all you want?” Sheridan asked. Ivanova nodded. Cautiously he flexed his fingers and pressed the palm of his hand against the screen. Even before flesh made contact with glass, the logos had dissolved into the same swirling mass of unrecognisable shapes and symbols. They boiled with such fury that the screen shut down.

Sheridan wavered on his feet like a man coming out of a trance. He looked as if he had woken up in unfamiliar surroundings and was trying to find clues that would help him work out where he was and how he had got there.

“Susan?” he said, his voice barely a whisper, as he saw her standing beside him.

“Don’t tell me it’s what I think it is,” Ivanova murmured. Sheridan blinked and shook his head to clear his thoughts. He knew now what was making him feel so unwelcome.

“Shadowtech,” Sheridan said, confirming her suspicions.

“Goddamn EarthForce Black Ops,” Sheridan snarled as he reconvened the command staff, back in his office on Babylon 5. “I ought to kick their asses for this.”

“I think you can,” Ivanova said. “But only if we get to watch.”

“I’ll bring the popcorn,” Garibaldi offered.

“Okay, knock it off,” Sheridan told them. He shook his head. “I don’t know how we ever got anything done around here with you two children.”

Ivanova and Garibaldi exchanged sly grins but kept quiet. Ivanova felt good being back on Babylon 5. She had known that one day she would return, although this was much sooner than she had expected. Suddenly finding herself by the multitude of different races had come as something to a shock, but with so much to concern her, she hadn’t let the feelings she last associated with the station get to her.

“You’re absolutely sure it’s Shadowtech?” Franklin asked.

“No doubt about it.”

“Before the Titans launched we gave an EarthForce Senator a guided tour of the ship,” Ivanova said. “He had an aide with him who was straight Psi Corp. Before long he went...”

“Completely buggo?!” Garibaldi suggested.

“That about covers it. He had to be taken off the ship.”

“I’d say that’s unequivocal proof that the two main elements in the universe are hydrogen and irony,” Franklin chuckled.

“I’m sorry, but as someone who wasn’t involved in the Shadow War, you’re going to have to clue me in on some of this,”

Lochley said. In reviewing that station’s records references to the Shadow War had come up but details were sketchy in places. Almost from the moment she had been called to Sheridan’s office Lochley realised that she was hopelessly out of her depth.

“Shadowtech is an incredibly advanced organic technology that, as far as we can tell, can interface with any other technology it encounters. It’s like it wants to be used,”

Franklin explained. “Well over a year ago, after we had broken away from Earth, we intercepted a ship that was part of a Shadow convoy.”

“We were told that the ship contained weapons,” Sheridan added. “What we found instead were humans sealed in cryogenic chambers.”

“They were Psi Corps, rated P11 and P12.”

“Telepaths?” Lochley said, with perhaps a little more venom than she would have liked. She looked at Sheridan, hoping that all this wasn’t going to perversely tie in to Byron’s crowd. Ivanova smiled at Lochley’s outburst. They had only exchanged little more than pleasantries when Sheridan introduced them, but Ivanova immediately understood why he had appointed her to take over the running of Babylon 5. She may have the diplomatic skills required for a job like this, but it was obvious to Ivanova that Lochley was more than prepared to shoot first and shake hands later.

“All of them had cyberweb implants attached to their head and linked to their cerebral cortex,” Franklin continued. “During my examination of one of the telepaths we had managed to revive, she became hysterical and tried to merge with the station computers.”

“So the Shadows used telepaths?” Lochley said.

“No, the Shadows were fearful of telepaths. We used them aboard the White Star fleet to help disrupt the Shadow ships and destroy them,” Sheridan told her.

“We could only assume that agents of the Shadows infiltrated Psi Corp in the first instance to prevent human telepaths from ever being used against them. The implants dampened their psychic abilities and they were probably being shipped out to be merged with a Shadow vessel become its living central processor,” Franklin said.

“Another thing the Shadows hated were the Vorlons. Maybe from commanding the White Stars something of their fragrance rubbed off on me a little,” Ivanova said, managing to find a way not to reveal her latent telepathic abilities. “I could sense something about the Titans was very wrong almost from the beginning and kept having violent nightmares. Which is why I had no choice but to come here and get John to confirm it. And then see if we could sort it out.”

“What about your crew?” Garibaldi asked.

“The command staff know. After the problems we had with the ship I couldn’t keep quiet about it any longer,” Ivanova said.

“If you need to bribe them to keep quiet, I bet you I can dig up some juicy dirt. Just write down their names and serial numbers, and include an unusual predilections.”

“That’s a sweet gesture, Michael. I’ll keep that in mind for a later date,” Ivanova said.

“Once I explained to them about Shadowtech, I happened to add that the Interstellar Alliance wouldn’t be at all pleased if they found out.”

“It’s going to be a sensitive issue, but one that we’ll certainly have to address further down the line,” Sheridan said.

“I know President Luchenko understood the benefits of signing on, but some of the Joints Chiefs in EarthForce saw it as a fait accompli.”

“Would that have been before or after you filled their sky with over a thousand armed White Stars?” Garibaldi said. “That might have made think you were piling on the pressure. Not that they didn’t deserve it.”

“It was worth it to see their faces. But if we start ordering EarthForce to stop construction of their new, top-ofthe-line warships and open up all their Research and Development facilities to Interstellar Alliance inspection, they might decide that we are interfering too far into their internal affairs.”

“So what do we do right now?” Ivanova asked. She looked at Franklin and Garibaldi sitting side by side on the sofa, Lochley alone in an armchair. All of them had blank expressions on their faces, unsure of what the answer was. Maybe there was no answer to be found here and she would have to return to Cyrus Shipyard after all. She looked over at Sheridan and saw the grin on his face.

“I think I may have just the answer,” Sheridan smiled. “But first we need Lyta Alexander.”