FIC: Babylon Faith (2/?)
Tuzanor, Minbar
The training room fell silent when he entered, a reaction he was getting uncomfortably familiar with. "President Sheridan," Darken greeted with a waist bow. "How is the Anla'Shok Na?"
"Please, continue with your lessons." Sheridan looked towards the students, noting with pleasure their growing diversity of races before returning his eyes to their Minbari teacher. "She's fine, Darken, thank you."
Darken bowed again. "We live for the One, we die for the One."
Personally he rather hoped there'd be a moratorium on the dying for a while, but he knew from bitter experience to be pessimistic about such things. Not Ivanova pessimistic, but still. "And how are these recruits doing?"
Darken smiled. "Everyone is progressing."
"Yes," Sheridan looked over the students again. As well as the usual mix of humans and Minbari, there were several Narns, including one he thought he recognised from Garibaldi's security force back on the station, a pair of Brakiri, a Yolu, and even a few Drazi.
However one important race was conspicuous by its absence.
"No Centauri still?" He sighed at Drakhen's head shake. It would only be a small step to see a Centauri take their seat in the Anla'shok, but an important one that would signify that recent rifts were beginning to heal.
"Sometimes a wounded pride can take longer to heal than the most grievous of physical wounds," counselled the Minbari.
"Yes, of course," Sheridan nodded. The Minbari should know, the first time they'd met, the Ranger had been fighting for his life in Medlab, victim of a Shadow attack. Still, it was almost as if the entire Centauri race, bar perhaps dependable, honourable Vir, had gone completely insane in their rush to embrace xenophobic isolationism. "Well, please continue with your lesson," he edged to the back of the class, taking a few minutes out of his day to simply watch and enjoy some of the fruits of his labour.
After a quarter of an hour the pressures of the day called, and he nodded his goodbyes to Darken before exiting and hurrying to work. He had a meeting with the ambassadors of the Interstellar Alliance and if he was late for that….
"Ah hell," he grumbled, "I'd rather fight the Shadow War all over again."
Shai Alyt Shakiri's eyes burnt as he glared out of his balcony and onto the city below. Betrayal, traitors and cowards, he was surrounded by the scum. Even his own protégé, Neroon, had forsaken him at the Starfire Wheel for that half-human, half-Minbari freak. Stripped of his title and power, he was now little more than an example of a failed Warrior Caste. Almost as galling was that damn Earther, Star-Killer, making his home here and that freak opening the Anla'Shok up not only to the human scum but other races too.
Yes the list of insults to TRUE Minbari was long and grievous. Unfortunately he was in no position to avenge himself and raise the Minbari back up to their rightful dominance.
His fists clenched and unclenched as he dwelled on his humiliation, a sourness festering in his gut. "Come inside," a voice hissed from within his quarters, "we have much to discuss."
Shakiri spun around at the unexpected voice, hackles rising as he recognised the accent. "How?" he hissed as he strode back into his sparsely furnished quarters. "You're supposed to be all dead."
The feline-featured alien smirked. "We had sneaked off-system when our sun went super-nova, searching for First One technology with which to avenge ourselves on our enemies."
"We?" Shakiri looked around, as if expecting more Dilgar to burst out from behind what little furniture there was.
"The rest of my people are still on my ship," the Dilgar replied, his eyes dark and angry. "But we are not many, not enough to survive. We are a dying people and we want revenge on those who wronged you."
"I want nothing to do with you," Shakiri kept his eyes on the Dilgar as he edged towards his quarters' alarm.
"Deathwalker helped your clan greatly in your little grievance against the humans did she not?"
Shariki froze, eyes narrowing. "An attempt at blackmail would be very unwise."
"Blackmail?" the Dilgar affected shock. "No, not all," the Dilgar shook his head. "Merely pointing out just how useful we have been in the past. And how we could be in the future."
Shakiri sniffed, affecting disdain but in fact his heart was racing. "Why are you trying to strike a deal with me?"
"You share our loathing for the humans," the Dilgar replied. "The humans have a saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. It basically encapsulates our interest in you. You're a formidable warrior, a man who's voice is unjustly ignored. Should we aid in your elevation to your supremacy via intelligence gathering, assassination, and the retrieval of First One technology, your first act should be the massacre of the humans."
Shakiri smiled. "A good deal for me. I get power and my vengeance on my enemies. But how specifically will our partnership help me?"
"Minbari cannot kill Minbari, we're not hamstrung by such restrictions," the Dilgar replied. "And when the time comes, when you're ready to move against the earthers, we will have new technology for you, improved eavesdropping, shielding, and stealth technology for example. In addition, even now I have agents searching for First One tech, should we find any, we don't have the resources to reverse-engineer and mass-produce it. But we'll give it to you."
"That is agreeable to me," Shakiri nodded. "How will you keep in touch with me? And how will you get out of here?"
"Our first present," the Dilgar dropped a half-foot long cylinder onto the glass table between them, "a long-distance communications device that is not only completely unhackable, it won't even be noticed by contemporary communications systems. As to how I will get out here, I have a Changeling-Net," the Dilgar explained before changing not into a Minbari but a sever-looking human. "Less Minbari wish to speak to a human, makes my passing easier. Then we are agreed?"
"Did he agree Warmaster Rha'Kir?"
The Doom-Bringer smirked at one of his attaché's queries as he walked in to the control of their cloaked ship. "The fool is too bound up in his own arrogance and ambition to consider turning us down." He glanced around the dimly-lit, coldly functional craft, feeling every year of his eleven decades. He'd been long retired by the time of The Dilgar Expansion, so when they'd been defeated by the Earthers, he'd been the only alive Warmaster to escape punishment, an incredible irony considering many of those punished, including the much-feared Deathwalker, had been his students and protégés.
As he'd told Shakiri, his team had left their system a few years before the system had gone super nova on a mission to find some technology capable of turning the tide back in their favour. With the destruction of their homeworld and their people, their goals changed dramatically. No longer were they to be satisfied with mere revenge, now nothing less than the extinction of their enemies and those like the Centauri and Minbari who'd stood by and let it happen.
For long over two decades they'd watched and hidden as the universe burnt, first the Minbari-Earth war, then the second Narn-Centauri conflict, the Shadow War, the Earth Alliance and Minbari Civil Wars. For a while they'd thought the universe would destruct without their intervention.
But then they'd found the Drakh and things had started to fall into place. Joined together by their twin hatreds, they'd plotted together, the Drakh supplying them with files on various known places of First One power, and information on the Minbari.
Their plan was two-fold, both they and the Drakh would bring their manipulated civilisations to war, but only when they were ready. An alliance was to be built of the disaffected, already the interstellar powers to be included had been selected. And then, when the Centauri and Minbari had either been beaten back by the rest of the galactic powers or had defeated them, but at great expense to their respective militaries, they would strike, slaughtering what was left.
It was a simple pincer manoeuvre, but one that would leave hundreds of billions dead, an extinct galaxy that would deafeningly echo for eons to come.
So yes, he felt every one of his years, but Dilgar could live for decades more, he could wait a while to finish this mission. Until then, work had to be done. "Eri'Lar," he looked towards an oddity in his people, a historian and linguist, but a man whose unique talents made him invaluable to their mission. "Take a third of the Brutes," he looked towards their bred-for-power foot soldiers, "and one of the shuttles, and see what you can do to track down any First One tech." He looked towards Ha'Kur, a WarElite. "Take another third of our Brutes and one of the shuttles, and head out to make our offers to our soon-to-be allies. Let us be the match that ignites the universe and the enemy of the Dilgar join them on its bonfires!"
Brisbane, 2006
Sweat flowed down Amy's face, her limbs clenching as she poured more and more power into the spell holding Tepop. The four-armed, two legged insectoid was one of the last Black Thorns remaining, Giles having organised what amounted to a 'fatwa' against the Circle Of The Black Thorn after the fall of LA.
Several specialist teams had been set up, one led by Kennedy and Willow, one by Vi and Rona, and one by Xander and Faith, their only mission to track down and kill Black Thorns.
And so they where here, their fourteenth Black Thorn in two years, the hissing demon a superb magician as well as a highly dangerous fighter, its arms ending in over-sized lobster's claws. While she held its magics at bay, Faith and Xander were darting in and out, attempting to remove its head from its plated shoulders.
Amy's eyes widened when an energy bolt soared out from Tepop's mouth, arching towards the curvy Slayer. Even as she fired out a deflecting spell of her own, Xander leapt at the dark-eyed Bostonian, his face etched with fear. Amy gasped as their spells collided, enveloping the duo in a crackling energy field, grey lightning bolts of a third spell created as a by-product of their two competing spells slicing through the duo, tearing them from the time line.
Sector 45
Beep! Beep! Beep!
"Interesting." Galen glanced at his sensors, eyebrows raising at the readings. According to the screens, the disturbance was of a temporal sort, the sort that wouldn't be recognised by any of the races bar perhaps the Minbari and then maybe not even them. Even stranger was the unidentifiable energy source fuelling the temporal paradox.
"Whatever you are," he murmured into his dimly lit ship's still quiet, "you've piqued my interest." His fingers dancing nimbly over his ship's controls, changing his ship's direction to one of his order's greatest crimes, the extinction of the Markab people.
They hadn't been involved in that of course, that was the entire point, they should have been. The technology to affect a cure had been in their grasp, but they had already fled from this space and forbidden to return.
Instead they watched as an entire race died and hadn't done so much as lift a finger to stop it.
Galen forced away the guilt that such thoughts and memories caused, relying on the discipline Elric and Alwyn had taught him. Closing his eyes, he entered a meditative trance.
The beep of his proximity alert arose him, warning him that his journey was at an end. Rising he stared down at Markab homeworld, bile rising in his chest as he looked down on the dark, silent planet. After he didn't know how long, he rose and treaded into the shuttlecraft.
Less than an hour later and he was on the planet's surface, the dead's cries ringing in his ears and waist-high, untended vegetation and plant-life everywhere. In minutes he'd walked the distance he'd left his craft for fear the anomaly's energy field would somehow disrupt his craft's computers. Of course there was a chance the irregularity would interfere with his implants, but that was a risk he'd have to take, he couldn't exactly remove them.
For a while he stood watching the shimmering, gleaming portal, his sensors telling the power was building, to what he couldn't tell, but curiosity compelled he stay until the powers reached their peak. His hackles rose as he sensed someone approaching from behind before turning to face the nearing duo. One was a stately Narn with a poised air uncommon to that race and a human, elfin-faced redhead-.
His eyes narrowed as something indefinable tickled up and down his back. "You've been altered by the Vorlons," he accused.
The woman bared her teeth and her eyes momentarily blackened. "And you're Shadow-Tech."
The air seemed to crackle around Galen at the accusation. "Not for centuries."
"Don't try me, Technomage," the telepath warned. "I'm far beyond your powers."
Galen smiled. "Arrogance always was a Vorlon trait."
"Yes, yes," the Narn impatiently snapped as he stepped between them. "Now we're all introduced, can someone please explain why we're all here?"
Galen's eyes snapped towards the Narn. "Atoms and molecules randomly converged to give you life, Citizen G'Kar."
"You have the advantage of me, Technomage," the Narn prophet, one of the most impressive beings of all those they'd eavesdropped on, said. "We've travelled several sectors after Lyta sensed something off here."
Galen tore his eyes from the portal and looked towards his companions. "According to my sensors this is a temporal rift, a passageway to the past. The energy source is beyond me," he admitted.
"Some of the First Ones could manage time travel," the Vorlon-altered redhead said.
"But they've gone, who could it be?"
"That is a very good question." Galen mused. If he could travel time, would he journey back to see his parents that he barely remembered, or spend more time with Elric, the nearest thing to a father he'd ever had, or perhaps even meet Wierden, the Technomage who'd codified their Order's teachings. No, he decided, he would use it to tell Isabelle all the secrets he'd been reticent to share.
Suddenly golden light flashed in the centre, expanding to encompass the entire portal. "It appears," the Narn orator's voice had an undercurrent of excitement, "we're about to get some answers."