The Inquisitor couldn't have picked a better time to abduct her if he'd tried. In the aftermath of the Drazi situation Dr. Franklin had ordered Susan off the duty roster for two days. Assuming that Garibaldi remained his scrupulously obsessive self that gave the Imperials a twenty-hour lead before they noticed she was gone. More than enough time for the Imperials to spirit her away.

Susan wanted to scream, to cry out for help, to resist but she couldn't. When she tried to speak her lips would not open, when she tried to run her legs would not work, and when she tried to cry the tears would not come. The injection had seen to that quite nicely. She'd thrashed and screamed as the Inquisitor came at her with the needle but it hadn't been enough to break the Skitarii's grip. Within moments of the needle's kiss she couldn't move any of her limbs.

Susan used the last of her energy to twist her hand into a rude gesture as she felt herself falling back into a comatose state.

Weakness overtook her and she fell into a deep somber sleep full of frightening dreams. She saw dark worlds, great ships, and twisted monsters flashing past her as she fell into a deep pit lined with fangs. Bursts of color whipped past her eyes. Brief flashes of her own past burst forth in front of her, distorted by the same haze of unnaturalness that overwhelmed every corner of her mind.

Fragmented spirals of thought, form and word wrapped and wriggled round on her powerless form like hungry pythons. They danced and sang in circles in the shape of children singing-mocking rhymes. Her family appeared around her, twisted and snake like singing in mocking tones, "Should have known, she should have known. Die, die alone, she would always die alone. The girl will always die alone."

She'd woken several times through the night when the stations alarms had sounded, lying limply on the bed and cursing her weakness. She'd shaken off her drug-induced stupor just long enough to limply swat at the bald head of Jak as he injected another syringe of the paralytic agent into her arm.

He always smiled apologetically and stuttered, "I d…do hope you understand. Th…this is for the best." She couldn't say how many hours passed before the Inquisitor returned, but when he returned he was not alone.

Gazan, the Imperial doctor, jabbed her side with some bizarre instrument. The machine beeped and whirred, green lights flashing along its sides. The instrument flashed green and whistled a Gazan's face scrunched in approval, "She'll keep. She doesn't seem to be having an adverse reaction to the paralytic agent. If we're lucky she'll resuscitate without any permanent damage to mobility."

"Good," The Inquisitor rubbed his neck, "Very good."

Susan stared back at him hatefully, thinking the most spiteful and painful things she'd like to do to him with all the force she could muster. He quirked an eyebrow at one of her more creative suggestions for the application of a knife, "You'd have to do that overhand or the whole process is wasted. You cut the femoral artery and you'll bleed the man out in minutes."

He sat down on the side of the bed, pushing a lock of fiery hair away from her face. "I am not a good man Ivanova. I do not pretend to be one. But I am not a heartless man and though you may not believe it what I do now I do out of kindness. I chose not..." the Inquisitor stared into Susan's eyes as they fearfully darted around the room looking for some way of escaping. Daul sighed sadly, "Commander Ivanova I do apologize for the indignity of what comes next but it is necessary," he nodded to the Skitarii, "Get the items we discussed."

The Skitarii nodded and walked to a thick ebony chest that sat to the left of the door. Susan tried to watch what he pulled from the chest but her field of vision was blocked by Gazan as the Imperial medic leaned over her. He rubbed at the graying mess of stubble at his chin and clicked his tongue on his teeth.

He tapped the flesh at Susan's knee, sending a jolt of agony up her spine, "Inquisitor I don't know about this leg."

"What about it?" The Inquisitor leaned in.

"If we strip the cast I fear it will break a second time. The bone fractured a bit already. It might never heal properly," Susan screamed behind her gag as he tapped a scalpel against the plaster, "Do you really want to do this?"

"The astropathic servitor didn't have a damn cast, let alone one set by the esteemed Medicus Franklin," the Inquisitor laughed, "If your goal is to be discovered immediately then, by all means, keep the cast. Otherwise Medicus Nor is more than sufficiently equipped to repair broken bones or replace them with augmentics if need be," he tilted his head, "Come to think of it. It would probably be best for us to break it now. It would go a long way for realism and be easier to heal if we made sure it was a clean brake."

Susan struggled to move her drug-addled body, trying to punch and kick at the lot of them. Hot tears streamed down her fact at the futile wobbles she could muster. Gazan pushed her back down on the bed with minimal effort, not even bothering to look at her as he asked, "With respect sir. Is that wise?"

"Perhaps not," the Inquisitor looked into Susan's hateful eyes considering the matter, "Cairn, the black one if you please."

The bed shifted from the weight of the Skitarii as he leaned in and wrapped a blindfold of black silk embroidered with golden eagles around her eyes. Darkness enveloped her as she felt Cairn shove a thick leather gag between her lips. She desperately lashed out with her mind, feeble tendrils of thought weakly grasping to those round her.

A firm grip lashed out and grabbed her probe. Susan wrenched to the side and tried to worm out of the grip, biting and scratching at the grip. The inquisitor's booming voice echoed in her throbbing head, "Enough girl! You've lost."

"No!" Susan bellowed, stabbing at the Inquisitor's mind with her own. She must have stabbed a hundred times, but each may as well have been a pinprick. The Inquisitor held firm.

The booming voice echoed in her mind a second time, brimming with satisfaction, "Such spirit! I will have use for you."

In the distant blackness beyond the blindfold the Inquisitor snarled, "Gazan give her a double dose. I don't want her waking till this is finished."

Susan felt another prick, and a slight burning sensation before the world faded into nothingness. Silent screams filled her head as she labored against her weak limbs, futility battling the nothingness.

"Break both legs for good measure Cairn. The hands too, I don't want her waking up and trying to fight her way out of this."


"Same to you too buddy," Zack deactivated the comm. channel and flipped an impolite gesture out the window in the direction of the Beijing beauty. Captain Xingjian was understandably angry at the Babylon station. The orders he'd been issued by Bester were illegal, but that didn't make thirty members of the Beijing Beauty's crew any less dead, "How many more of these do we still have to get through?"

Lt. Corwin wiped his brow with his sleeve, "It looks like there are two more that will need to be repaired at the station before they can even be dragged to the dry docks by the recovery fleet."

"Oh boy," Zack sighed, "Only four more of these nightmares to co-ordinate. And with only two thirds of the fighters still in service. The pilots are going to take hell for ejecting as early as they did."

"Better lose the fighter than the pilot," the station lost a lot of good men in defense of the Endless Bounty, some at the guns of Imperial ship. Ships were easy to replace, there would never be another Lieutenant Warren Keffer. Zach was not looking forward to that funeral.

"Are you sure about relaxing the security procedures on the Imperial dock?" Lt. Corwin chewed his lip, "It seems like the last thing we should be doing is making it look like we're favoring a foreign government over our own armed forces."

"The faster they get the last of their property out of the cargo bay the faster the Endless Bounty stops sending unarmed transports ship past where we're going to have five very angry warships. The crews of those ships are going to be hurting over their loss for a while," Probably more than a while, people never really forgave their comrade's killers. But would it be the Babylon station or the Imperials who earned the brunt of their hatred? "Best not to tempt fate."

"If you say so sir," The proximity sensor chimed, a blue light flashing on the control consul in time with the tinny whistling sensor. The Lieutenant leaned in and squinted at the readout, "We have a new contact sir."

"Another sweep of space by the carriers looking for 'ejected fighter pilots?" Any actually ejected fighter pilots had been recovered long ago but the military charters following Dilgar war stipulated that warships could never be ordered not to recover survivors of a battle after surrender. There was an unauthorized launch every two hours or so when the air group commanders conveniently forgot Sheridan's orders not to launch fighters. The searches for survivors invariably involved a fly-by of the CnC window, "It's been a while since Captain Emmett showed off."

"No sir. We picked up a weak signal coming out of deep space" Lt. Corwin typed corrections into the stations sensor computer, "I've just double checked it sir. It's neither an Earthforce nor an Imperial communication code."

"Coming from regular space?" Zack blinked in surprise and looked at the readout. Regular space travel between solar systems was uncommon for the civilized races. Even the races incapable of creating jump gates usually rented the use of more affluent race's gates rather than risk the dangers of decades traveling the void.

"Yes sir," Lt. Corwin typed a couple of commands into the computer, "Riding right on though regular space. It doesn't seem to be responding to our commands."

"Are we getting anything off it at all?" Zack ignored the flashing red light next to him heralding another communication from the Beijing Beauty and pointed to the sensor readout to Lt. Corwin's right, "There. What is that?"

"That…" Lt. Corwin smiled, "Would be an audio transmission."

Zack laughed, "Pick up the phone, let's see who's coming to dinner."

"Yes sir," Lt. Corwin agreed, "Patching it through."

The transmission was grainy, it echoed with the random hiccups and pulses of radiation in space that distorted and twisted radio signals. However even mired in all that brouhaha a voice calmy chanted, "This is the Copernicus we come in peace."

Oh for the love of…. if this was another cousin race come to visit Babylon Five Zack would eat his badge. Keeping the Imperial situation under control was more than he'd care to deal with as it already was.

"Of course my day just doesn't get any easier," Zack tapped his link, "Captain Sheridan, we need you in the CnC."


Father Al'Ashir tried to twist the stiffness out of his neck. The pile of loose insulation padding he'd chosen to sleep on was serviceable, but left little in the way back support. Beggars couldn't be choosers though and down below offered little in the way of amenities. The security forces of the Babylon station were looking for Imperial loyalists, and he wasn't about to get caught. His mastery of the Alliance tongue was limited, but it didn't take a master of the language to figure out that when the armed guards stormed a cargo bay that one should hide.

Two days had passed since then. On the second day he looked out one of the windows and watched the Endless Bounty exchanging fire with Alliance starships. That made his mission that much more crucial. He had to bring these people into the Emperor's light before either Sáclair or Inquisitor Hilder tired of dealing with their treachery and destroyed them.

No soul deserved to die without knowing the word and love of the Emperor.

He rubbed the spot under his robes where he'd hidden his prayer book and moneys. Praise to the Emperor it was still there. He'd feared some vagrant might slit his throat for the paltry couple of iron rings on his fingers or for his purse but not nearly as much as he feared someone might take his prayer book. The gilded edges of the cover and hinges would be more than enough motivation for theft.

The destitute wretches in down below needed the word of the Emperor just as badly as any he had ever seen. There was poverty in the slums of the Endless Bounty to be sure, however he hadn't seen hide or hair of anything that resembled an almshouse or a public kitchen where the poor might get some broth. As soon as he established the local parish, that would have to change.

It was the challenge few missionaries got, the opportunity to bring the word of the Emperor to those who were truly ignorant of it. Many Imperial citizens turned their backs on His word at some point or another. If faith were easy then there would be no need for the priesthood at all, but few were ignorant of it even if they were indifferent to it. But these Alliance humans were totally and utterly virgin territory, ripe for His word.

It was the chance of a lifetime, the mission he'd dreamed of since he first entered the clergy. He was living out his dreams, even though it was somewhat less glamorous work then he'd hoped for. This was a miserable space, what little light shone from the reactors was regularly punctuated by the rhythmically spinning exhaust fans of the station. It was the sort of space suited for servitors and little else.

Yet people lived here, people who he would teach. In fact two of the livelier inhabitants of down below were battling over a small scrap of something, twisting and turning on the deck in front of him.

"Childrens! Childrens fighting is worthless!" Al'Ashir croaked in his broken English. His plain robes snagged on sharp bits of refuse as he rushed over to them, making him stumble, "Stop! Stop now!"

The two boys continued to paw at each other angrily till a third man emerged from a rotting pile of garbage screaming incoherently. The boys gave up their wrestling match and fled from the monster covered in rotting food.

"Aaaarrrggh! Through the walls. Its coming through the walls," Luker screeched, his eyes wide and out of focus. He blinked and then stared into Father Al'Ashir's eyes, almost pleadingly, "Ozones… I need some ozones."

Al'Ashir did not know what an Ozone was, but judging by the way the man searched his pockets frantically he suspected the man was recovering from some sort of narcotic. He smelled foul and looked dirtier than he smelled. The man looked up at Al'Ashir disappointedly, "No ozones."

"Are you well my childrens?" Al'Ahishir said tentatively, "Is there helping I can be doing?" Al'Ashir knew he was butchering the Alliance language, but he hoped that perhaps his tone of voice might calm the man, ease him of some of his pain.

The man doubled up in pain clawing at his eyes, "No. Get out of my head." Father Al'Ashir just barely resisted the urge to grab the man by his arm. Touching the man before gaining his trust would only exacerbate the situation.

"Where are you?" the man looked around wildly, staring at everything. He rushed over to the wall and started grabbing bits of refuse at random, flinging the garbage wildly about the hall and screaming excitedly, "There you are!"

Father Al'Ashir felt his heart breaking for this poor man. The man's fingers bled from grasping at broken glass and shards of metal as he ripped things away from the window with wanton abandon, desperate to see the stars, "There you are."

"Oh you poor, poor man," Al'Ashir mumbled in Damascan, "What has happened to you my child? What has happened?"

The man fell to his knees and clutched his hands together pleadingly. He started to pray to his pagan god, fumbling over the words in his haste, "blessed mary, hallowed be, thy kingdom done, thy will something, on Earth as it is in space. Hail mary father of," the man stopped and flung himself to the floor sobbing and screaming, "Gaaahhh."

"Hush," Father Al'Ashir fell to his knees and bushed the man's scraggly hair out of his face. "Do not worry my childrens." He said in what little English he knew, "You are loved by one greater than what you fear." Al'Ashir grasped the man's hands, "Nothing to fear."

The man shook his head and screamed, "No, no, no! I have to warn them! It's here don't you see! It's here."

The man stood up drunkenly and staggered off into the distance at an alarming pace. Without even thinking about it twice, Father Al'Ashir was running after him as quickly as he could. His legs protested violently, he wasn't as spry as he'd used to be but he'd found the man most in need of the Word and he'd be damned if he was about to let a lost soul get away from him.


"You're late Inquisitor," John looked up from his massive stack of paperwork, deeply grateful for the reprieve even if it was in the form of the Inquisitor and his Skitarii companion. He had half a mind to simply burn several hundred sheets of reports in favor of just facing court-martial. Only the Earth Government could be so horribly backwards as to want him to carbon copy his handwritten reports in triplicate in addition to the normal reports, "I'd almost given up on you showing up at all."

"I was unavoidably detained," The Inquisitor pulled at the sleeve of his coat, brushing off an errant speck of dust, "In light of the recent unpleasantness your Mr. Garibaldi felt it was wisest for us to remove the remaining cargo I have in your station. Certain personal items required extra preparations," he looked to the corner of the room, "Miss Winters."

"Inquisitor Daul," she responded frostily. If looks could kill she would have destroyed the Inquisitor on sight.

John put down his pen and steepled his fingers, "Then you're planning on leaving?"

"Nothing so dramatic is planned Captain. As you so elegantly put it 'where would I go?" his voice betrayed more than a little bitterness, "However it seemed a wise choice."

The Inquisitor edged towards John's desk and motioned vaguely at the mountain of paperwork, "If this is an inconvenient time I could return later Captain. You seem to be rather occupied at the moment. Not all of it is due to us I hope."

"A fair amount of it, yes. But stay, there's something I need you to see," Sheridan flipped a switch on his desk, lowering the portrait of President Clark and exposing the wide view screen embedded in the wall, "I received this message from my government this morning with instructions to deliver it to you personally. Please understand that as a priority one transmission I cannot replay this."

"I presume you've seen it then?" Flecks of balefire flickered about the man's shoulders and face, giving an iridescent and distracting quality to his continence. His face crinkled into an amused smile at John's indignant expression, "Were it a transmission you were expected not to see you would have delivered it to my quarters Captain. You're feigning a lack of knowledge and an inability to pause it so that you may gauge my expressions and reactions. I don't need to be a psychic to understand human nature Captain."

John opened his mouth to disagree but was cut off by a dismissive wave by the Inquisitor, "Oh don't bother denying it Captain. I'm not angry about it, truth be told it's what I would have done were the tables turned. But do me the common courtesy of assuming I'm as devious as you are," the Inquisitor chortled, "I'm impressed at your daring if the truth be told."

John, who was being neither daring nor dastardly, decided that it correcting the Inquisitor's presumptions about his own cleverness was not in his own interest, "No offense was meant."

"Nor was any taken," the Inquisitor waved and ornate ebony cane topped with a ruby the size of a man's thumb towards the view screen, "Well let's get on with this then. I have still a half dozen meetings with my fellow Non-aligned world members to be getting on with."

John double tapped his link and pointed it at the view screen, activating the automated message on the crystal. The smiling face and cheerful expression of President Clark greeted them, sitting at the desk of his office in Geneva. He'd clearly posed himself in such a way that he could look as non-threatening as was possible in his body language, but still show the massive mock up of a Hyperion Class starship hanging from his wall. The President smiled into the camera, "Ambassador Daul Hilder I presume?"

He chuckled and leaned back in his chair, "I hope you'll forgive me for not personally having attempted to contact you previously. The affairs of state often limit ones ability to chat with new neighbors. I just wish we were meeting under better circumstances."

The bald statesman sighed exaggeratedly and shook his head. His face was a mask of deepest sorrow, "I want to assure you Ambassador of my greatest apologies. The attempt to seize your ship was done without the knowledge or consent of the military leadership of the Earth Alliance. I hope that we can work past this misunderstanding in order to achieve stronger ties of friendship between our two governments."

"The officer responsible for this whole mess will be held accountable for his actions in a court of law. I assure you of that," the President punctuated every sentence with a jab of his pen in the direction of the camera, as though he were brandishing a sword, "I will not stand for the legal system being subverted in this manner. This is not how my administration operates." John carefully converted his laugh to a cough, turning to the side to hide his own incredulity.

Clark punched his fist into the palm of his left hand; leaning so that the presidential office's model of the Hyperion cruiser was just visible behind him, "There's no reason for this situation to escalate any farther. Men have died from your ship, men have died from my fleet, but this is the desperation of a single man who was simply overzealous in conducting his own duties. We share a common humanity and should act as such."

He smacked his desk jovially with the open palm of his hand, the room echoing with the cheery crack of his ring against the mahogany, "To demonstrate the seriousness of our commitment to peace between our worlds I am giving blanket amnesty to all the officers of Babylon Five who came to your aid and attacked Earth Force vessels against the orders of a superior officer. Captain Sheridan, you did your duty better than anyone could have expected of you, well done sir." The President saluted emphatically. John awkwardly returned the salute, trying to focus more on the compliment than on Clark's likely involvement in the murder of former President Santiago.

The President smiled widely, "We have much to learn from you and, I hope, we have much to teach you as well. We may not be from the same world but we are brethren. Both strong, powerful, and able peoples capable of action." The President stood up and held out his hands in a gesture of friendship, "Welcome to the neighborhood."

The video cut out abruptly, leaving the spinning Earthforce logo in its place. A few pregnant moments of silence passed before the Inquisitor snorted and stood up, "It would seem that the meaningless barking of planetary governors sounds the same in any language," he shot an incredulous look at John, "Does your chief of state actually believe that a five minute picture recording in which he rambles obtusely about us being brothers out of one side of his lips will make me forget that he would gladly have praised Mr. Bester out of the other side had the mission succeeded? And honestly? A recording? Have the dignity to speak to my face."

"I cannot speak to the motivations of the President," Nor did he wish to. John would not bad mouth Clark in front of the Inquisitor but he was not obligated to defend him either.

"Hum," the Inquisitor pondered the moment, rubbing absently at the stubble about his chin, "Can't you. I wonder." The Inquisitor fixed him with a piercing stare that John feared could see right through him, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"Stay out of my head Inquisitor." John reached back and rested his hand on his side arm. Thross' metallic limbs creaked ominously. The pistons in Thross' arms twitched nervously, flexing cybernetic fists ready to tear John limb from limb at a moment's notice. Let him try it, thought John. He'd placed a satchel charge behind the wall Thross preferred to lean on, not enough to kill Thross but probably enough to give John enough time to get out of his office.

"I do not need to read your mind to get inside your head Captain. You should realize that as a military governor," the Inquisitor pulled some sort of hard candy out of one of his inner pockets. He popped it between his lips and sucked it greedily, "Nor do I need to be an expert in reading facial expressions to tell that you aren't President Clark's most ardent of supporters, even if you are loyal to your government."

"He's telling the truth," Talia admitted grudgingly, "I haven't felt even a passive scan. Unless he's very subtle and able to hide better than anyone I've ever met he hasn't done anything… yet."

The Inquisitor snorted in an undignified manner, "Miss Winters, if I wished to read the Captain's mind I wouldn't waste time trying to hide from your… limited abilities. I would simply overpower your talents and take what I needed from his mind."

"Enough" John cut in. Since the Psi Corps had attempted to arrest him the Inquisitor had taken every possible chance to inform Miss Winters of just how inferior of a psychic she was by comparison, "Inquisitor you will not insult my staff. Miss Winters is not responsible for the actions of Mr. Bester and I will not allow you to belittle her for your own amusement."

"Perhaps it would be best for us to continue with other business then Captain," the Inquisitor said between chews of his hard candy, "I have other meetings to get to after this one."

"Have you finally agreed to meet with the Narn Ambassador?" G'Kar had been in John's office at least twice claiming that the Centauri had poisoned the Imperials against the Narn Empire. For all John knew G'Kar was right. Virtually all the supplies going to the Imperial ship were of Centauri origin or funded by Centauri gold. However John could not force the Imperial Ambassador to negotiate with anyone he the Inquisitor did not wish to.

"Yes, I have," the Inquisitor chuckled and looped his thumbs through the pockets of his coat, "In truth I did not even realize that I'd been remiss in meeting with the Ambassador. I'd delegated the duty of meeting with some of the more," he snapped his fingers searching for the correct word, "Ah, yes, some of the more esoteric races like the pak'ma'ra to Vira'capac. When he brought me the ambassador's request I'd been distracted by the injury of Danzig, we had a difference of opinion, I slapped the data crystal out of his hand and in all the excitement of the past days I must confess it had slipped my mind. Jak discovered the invitation to open a dialogue only this morning."

"I'm sure G'Kar will be thrilled to hear that. He's been looking forward to talking with you for some time." The Inquisitor shrugged disinterestedly at the prospect.

"There is still the matter of your man in the brig," John crossed his arms, "He killed a half dozen sentient beings on a whim. I want him brought to justice."

"Captain you can no more bring him to justice than you might bring a malfunctioning transport to justice. He is equipment that has been sabotaged. Don't let the human shape fool you."

"You do realize I'm going to need independent medical verification of the non-sentience of the… servitor?" John stumbled over the word awkwardly. What little John understood about how the Empire made servitors caused him unease.

"I want my property back Captain." Flames flickered in an angry crown at Inquisitor Hilder's brow, "This is non-negotiable."

"Inquisitor your 'property' killed people. What part of that hasn't sunk in yet? I don't know how they deal with criminals where you come from but we aren't about to let him go just because you tell us to," Miss Winters cut in exasperatedly, "Our legal system demands that all cases get investigated fully."

The Inquisitor burst into a jovial barking laugh, "How foolish of me to be so lenient to those who defy the law. Very well, do your tests. Have your justice. Kill it if you must but try to leave it in once piece so that when I hand the remains over to Magos Frist she isn't starting from scratch on the rebuild."

John deeply hoped the Inquisitor was joking. He still hadn't managed to get a grip on what would set the Imperials into fits of laughter. They truly were a strange, strange people.

The Inquisitor jabbered quickly in the Imperial language to his bodyguard. The stoic Mr. Thross nodded sagely and the Inquisitor turned back to John, "Really all I need left in tact is the head. Do what you will with the rest."

Less of a joke than John had hoped, "You'll have to direct all questions to Mr. Garibaldi. This matter is under his jurisdiction."

"Ah yes," the Inquisitor nodded approvingly, "The formidable Mr. Garibaldi. I regret that I only have knowledge of the man by virtue of his reputation. Magos Frist was quite… vocal on the subject of Mr. Garibaldi."

"I stand fully behind Mr. Garibaldi's decision to remove her," it was still a matter of speculation as to how the Magos had accessed restricted files through a public terminal. The security experts he'd spoken to in Geneva initially thought he was playing a prank on them when he'd asked. They had not, as of yet, been able to define or replicate the manner in which Kerrigan accessed the station's computer core, "I cannot have people endangering station operations."

"I understand entirely Captain, I'm just astounded that the Magos ended up finding someone more stubborn and hard headed than she. Were I not already sure that your Mr. Garibaldi is not a psychic I would suspect the use of psychic compulsion was required. The idea that someone could remove Kerrigan from a machine she wanted to study against her will had never occurred to me, not without the assistance of a small army and perhaps an orbital strike," He exchanged an amused glance with his bodyguard, "Most certainly not by just 'telling her it was time to go."

"Mr. Garibaldi is a persistent man," Miss Winters examined her gloves with measured disinterest, "A hard man to go up against."

John's linked chimed and he raised it to his ear, "What is it?"

"Captain Sheridan, we need you in the CnC." Zack Allen said insistently over the link, "There's something you should see."

"I'll be there in a moment," John deactivated his link and smiled apologetically at the Inquisitor, "I'm sorry Inquisitor Hilder, we're going to have to cut this meeting short. I'm needed elsewhere."

The Inquisitor's eyes were focused on a blank wall of his office in wrapped concentration, utterly oblivious to John. "Inquisitor?" John tried a second time, "Inquisitor?"

The Inquisitor's focus snapped back to John, his face briefly a rictus of spite. In an instant it was gone and all that remained was the calm paternal face of Daul Hilder John had come accustomed to, "I'm sorry I was miles away for a moment."

"I need to go Inquisitor. I have pressing business elsewhere that cannot wait."

"No," the Inquisitor said with resolute agreement as he stared into the distance. His lip twisted up in disgust, "No it cannot."

"Very well, we'll pick this up later in the day then," John shook the Inquisitor's hand firmly, "Good day Inquisitor."

"Good day Captain," the Inquisitor stared back from the wall staring directly into the Captain's eyes, almost pleadingly, "Captain, remember some things are best left undisturbed and undiscovered."

"You know something I don't?"

"Of that Captain, I have no doubt."


Lennier froze at the entrance to the garden, unsure if he should enter or not. He'd adopted the habit of going to the gardens once a day when Delenn meditated in private. He used the time to review the day's agenda and found the fresh air of the gardens to be beneficial to his thought processes. It required either diplomatic or military clearance to enter the garden so he could generally rely upon it being abandoned.

This morning he had company. The fearsome lithe form of Vira'capac stood in the center of the garden cooing with amusement as he played with his hounds. He was playing some sort of odd game with a large hunk of meat attached to the end of a stick. Whenever one of the hounds would get close enough to take a bite of the meat he swiped hard with his talons and quills, trying to stab them.

The hounds barked and crooned joyously as they dodged, weaved and snapped at the hunk of meat. Vira'capac replied eagerly with his own yips, whistles, and twittering barks, clearly enjoying the dangerous game as much as his hounds. Lennier winced as one of the hounds came dangerously close to biting through Vira'capac's leg tendon.

The Kroot stopped abruptly and looked at Lennier, his hounds stopping in eerie synchronicity. The meat on the stake remained in Vira'capac's hand, seemingly forgotten. As they all stared at him in the same way they'd stared at the bleeding hunk of flesh with their unfeeling reptilian eyes Lennier couldn't help but notice their sharp beaks and prominent talons with dread.

He swallowed nervously and smiled, bowing politely, "Good day to you Vira'capac. I hope I am not intruding."

Vira'capac tilted his head to the side, parrot like, examining him intently. He sniffed twice then relaxed, barking and tossing the hunk of meat to the side for the mastiffs to fight over, "No intrusion was made Lennier of the Third Fane of Chudomo."

"You have me at an advantage it seems," Lennier focused on Vira'capac, drowning out the wet smacking chomps to his left as the hounds tore hunks of flesh off and swallowed them whole, "I do not know the name of your caste else I would gladly do them honor as well."

"Wisdom your race has." Vira'capac sighed, "See value in peace you do. A pity."

"Wisdom is never a shame Vira'capac." Lennier smiled, "Nor is peace."

"If you were a foolish race you might have tried to fight me when you felt danger. If you tried to fight me I could battle you to the death and consume you," the quills at the back of Vira'capac's head twitched, causing the many beads and baubles to clatter against each other. Lennier noticed with discomfort that they seemed to be carved out of the finger bones of sentient species.

"Consume me?" Lennier eyed the hunk of meat warily.

"It is the flesh of an Ogryn who died in battle against the Alliance. Not my kill but a worthy death deserving of continuing into the next generation. A rare gift from the Inquisitor," Vira'capac looked at his hounds lovingly, "We take in the best of those we consume and change, we adapt. We consume the strong to become strong, we consume the quick for their speed, we consume the dangerous for their potency but rarely do we consume the wise. The wise are usually clever enough not to fight when it is not needed," he hooted with laughter and clapped Lennier about the shoulder jovially, "Just as well that wisdom is better earned than given or we would never be wise."

"I presume that you're not planning to eat me then," Lennier said in a hopeful voice. He suspected he'd be able to overpower the Kroot but he had his doubts about the hounds.

"Not today Lennier of the third Fane of Chudomo," he sat cross legged on the grass and motioned in front of him, "You will sit and I will tell you of my people. I shamed you by naming your brood before naming mine."

"You did not shame me," Lennier bowed his head as he sat, "You flatter me that I am worthy of notice. I had not believed your embassy paid much attention to my people. Inquisitor Hilder's last encounter with my government was… unpleasant." Lennier did not bother to disguise the venom in his voice for the Inquisitor. Delenn had cried for hours after whatever it was Daul said to her.

"The Imperials hear much and listen to little. They are too caught up in who they were and what they fear, but they live in a world of secrets and danger," Vira'capac shook his head morosely, "But I am Kroot. Kroot is different. I will tell you of the Kroot."

"Why?"

"Because I am lonely. Because I am bored. Because I am trapped," the Kroot longingly looked to the stars, "Because one day my people will reach these stars and they need to know I lived a worthy life so that I can continue."

"Continue where?"

Vira'capac pointed to the hounds, "To the next generation of my people. Just as the ogryn continues to my brood cousins."

"You… want them to eat you?" Lennier recoiled and eyed the door apprehensively. It probably wasn't worth it to run, it might trigger some innate predatory response.

Vira'capac laughed, "Lennier of the Third Fane of Chudomo. You are wise but you have much to learn. So much to learn."


Vir tried to make himself as invisible as was possible at the edge of the bazaar. The guy standing on top of the bar across from him was unquestionably a raving mess. Smelly, scraggly, and unkempt, he looked like someone's worst nightmares about destitution and mental illness. And boy did he have a pair of lungs on him, "Hail to the Lord and the refuse you miserable sinners may be destroyed."

He waved his arms, jumping down from the bar and scattering the passing shoppers as they fled his ravings. He danced just out of reach of a second man wrapped in the robes of some sort of clergy and screamed, "An army of darkness, soldiers of the Devil or something like that. We're all in grave danger! A pox upon this station."

He wriggled out of the clergyman's grip and rushed Ambassador G'Kar as he meandered past, "You! A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit unless its got bad roots."

"Please I have troubles enough," G'Kar continued to walk, waving the smelly lunatic away from him. The clergyman continued to try and talk sense into the lurker, speaking soothingly in heavily accented English, "Come now childrens. This is no time for joke. Calm. Calm."

"I have walked in the valley of the shadow of death," the lurker sermonized, waving his arms wide and calling to the heavens. The clergyman tried to get the man into a full nelson but he simply wriggled out of his grip, he was too covered in filth to get a decent hold.

"Good!" Ambassador G'Kar picked up the pace, "Keep on walking."

"Hurry Ambassador. He's gaining on you," yelled Londo Mollari from across the bazaar, thoroughly entertained by the Narn Ambassador's discomfort. Unfortunately for him this only served to bring himself to the lurker's attention. The lurker ran up to Londo, caressing his crest of hair lovingly, "You with the hair."

Londo, alarmed either by the man's odor or his caresses, grabbed fistfuls of jewels from the vendor he'd been perusing, tossed his credit chip at the man and fled away as fast as his legs would take him. The lurker tried to follow but was intercepted by the timely intervention of Mr. Garibaldi.

The lurker struggled in Mr. Garibaldi's grip, "Now unless you have a class C missionary license its time for a little R and R."

"There is no shelter, it's coming, it's coming," the lurker jerked wildly in Garibaldi's grip, trying and failing to get away. Mr. Garibaldi was stronger than he looked.

"Yeah yeah, I'm sure." the Earther shook his head amusedly and looked up at the clergyman, "Hold on a second. I know you! You're the Imperial who hopped customs a couple days ago."

The clergyman blinked in apprehension, turned and tried to run away, tripping over his own robes in the process. Mr. Garibaldi sighed, grabbed the clergyman by the back of his robes and frog marched the two of them out of the Bazaar, "If it's not one thing it's another, if it's not another thing it's both. Once, just once, I want a simple quiet day. It isn't too much to ask is it? Really?"

"So do I give this credit chip to you or is it a gift?" Vir turned around in surprise. He'd actually forgotten about the Brakiri who owned the jewelry shop. The amused Barkiri held out the credit chip in one hand and an receipt for an exorbitant fee in the other.

"The jewelry ambassador Mollari took isn't worth a quarter this price!" Vir protested. It was practically highway robbery.

"Look buddy, my business is mostly haggling. You stick around to haggle the price down, you get a better price. You run off with my merchandize and I double my price just because you're pissing me off. Either take the chip or I add another charge for wasting my freaking time," he waved the chip towards his cash register threateningly.

"I'll take it," Vir snatched it out of his hand, "But you'll hear from the Ambassador about this."

"I'd love to. Tell you what. I'll save us both some time. Tell him 'No refunds' from me in advance will ya'," the Brakiri shooed him with a flourish of his hands, "Now get away from my store, you're scaring away my customers."

Vir made a halfhearted attempt at a rude gesture but ended up turning it into an insolent wave goodbye halfway through. Vir had never really been able to muster the sort of venom necessary for rudeness; it was part of why his family found him ill suited to politics. It was his own fault for not joining in on the family quarrels he supposed.

He looked down at the credit chip in his hand and chewed on the inside of his lip. Chances were that the Ambassador expected him to continue shopping for the Ambassador in spite of Mollari's hasty retreat, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what was on the Ambassador's shopping list. Never mind, he would just buy enough alcohol and recreational substances that the Ambassador would simply forget anything else he'd wanted Vir to buy.

He adjusted the necklace beneath his shirt. He hadn't really meant to wear the necklace that the techno mages had given him. It was an ugly and morbid thing. Yet he could not bring himself to be parted from it. The warnings of Eldric still ran round in his head. He'd taken it to several jewelers, none of whom could identify either the stone in the center or the bone.

He'd checked the data crystal discarded by Londo in the hopes it might hold some answers but it was encoded by some form to techno-sorcery to open for Mollari and Mollari alone. Whenever he tried to open it the data terminal he used displayed a message. "This is not for you." As much as he desired to see what was on the crystal he felt that trying to hack into a data crystal designed by a Technomage would be counter intuitive.

Vir wandered past a stall selling brandy at well over three times the price it was worth. The owner must have been convinced all aliens were either too lazy or incapable of checking the prices of other stalls. Judging by the small crowd of people milling about in front of it he probably wasn't that far off base.

Well, best to get on with it. Chances were that there would be a liquor vendor with prices resembling sanity somewhere on station. If not, then it was the Ambassadors credit chip not his. The gods would forgive him some pettiness.


"Captain we cannot ignore the facts. Someone in the command structure is a traitor. Someone in the senior staff," Donat growled in frustration. Why Sáclair was being so damnably stubborn about this was beyond him. Someone in the senior staff had provided security codes to the Amon Sui saboteurs, allowing them to commit a precision attack on the generators and shielding systems. It was simply a happy accident that the Earth Alliance attacked and forced the Amon Sui partisans back into hiding.

"Donat the Amon Sui were more than capable of getting old codes from the system before. Our machine spirit is absent minded, the dead do not always get their access codes removed. Even centuries later I suspect the first captains access codes still function," Sáclair rubbed at a tuft of hair on his chest that was poking out from the space in his robes. The Captain, disheveled and only half awake took another grateful sip of recaff and eyed Donat distastefully, "I fail to see how this jumps to one of our officers being a traitor."

"Sir the codes they used were new. They hadn't been entered into the system for more than a couple of hours before they were used," Donat unfurled a scroll of technical information across the table, being careful not to smudge the ink. It was freshly transcribed by one of the data servitors and the ink was not quite yet dry. The penmanship of the servitor was dubious enough without smudging his writing, "Someone with access had to enter our systems and change the data entries."

"Access doesn't necessarily mean an officer Donat. The old families all have some level of access to the main computers. You know as well as I do that the noble houses have their 'secret' access codes to the mainframe," he chuckled dryly, "Though I suppose those would have already appeared on the logs wouldn't they."

"Indeed sir," Donat smiled, "Making sure that we get logs of the 'secret' activities of the noble houses was one of Kerrigans better ideas."

"It also means that the tech priests must be under suspicion for this. Especially considering how many of them were previously in the employ of the Amon Sui at some point or another," Sáclair smiled as a serving girl arrived with a plate of eggs and some sweet smelling salted meats, "Ah fantastic! I'm starving."

The serving girl turned to Donat, "Will Mr. Enzo be wanting a plate as well."

Donat eyed the egg mash Sáclair was greedily stuffing into his face with a mix of hunger and apprehension, "I wasn't aware than any of the birds on deck twelve survived."

"They're from the latest shipments. Some bird from the Alliance home world… Ostrich or something to that effect, strange looking bird but the flesh is positively succulent. If you want some there's more than enough. The Throne blessed birds lay eggs the size of my head," he chewed the salted meat with a pleased look on his face, "The meat isn't half bad either."

"It's gotten the all clear from medical?" Donat licked his lips, "It does look quite good."

"Another plate then," Sáclair nodded to the serving girl, "I have to confess that for such a strange looking animal they are a vast improvement over the inbred strains of grox we were relying upon before. I just wish they weren't so insufferably violent."

"Violent sir?" Donat gladly accepted a generous helping of scrambled egg and salted meat from the serving girl. It had been hours since his last meal, "How big of a bird is this?"

"A good two meters tall with talons more than capable of gutting a man on its feet. Nothing the quartermaster's staff can't deal with but not an animal to be trifled with," Sáclair laughed, "Apparently he's started nesting them as guard animals in front of the ship's granaries to keep out intruders."

"Guard birds sir?" Donat rubbed his eyebrow in incredulity. He had a hard time imagining the hardened criminals of the Endless Bounty being intimidated by oversized birds.

"Well we lost most of the dogs and unless you want the tech priests to start having to devote repair time to constricting cyber mastiffs in addition to every other damn thing we have to fix on ship then it's a workable solution," Sáclair straightened up stock still, "By the Throne that hurt!"

"Sir?" Donat blinked in confusion then made an 'oh' of comprehension with his lips at the sight of a silver cable running down Sáclair's arm, "Sir how long have you been linked up with the ship?"

"Since the repairs started," Sáclair winced slightly, "I need to keep a close eye on the progress of repairs, and I'm not going to be caught with my pants down for another Throne cursed sabotage."

"Sir I must insist that you remove yourself from the ship immediately!" Donat could have punched him. Linking with the ship for extended periods of time was dangerous. The human brain was never designed for the volume of data the ship analyzed. Every moment that the captain spent linked into the ships core processes increased the chance that he would get trapped within a rampant data flow. At best he would go hopelessly insane, at worst he would explode the ship with a stray thought.

"I know what I'm doing Donat," Sáclair clutched the cable in his arm possessively. His fingers shook slightly as he held it in place, though it might just have been the alcohol, "I know how to do this safely."

"Sir nobody knows how to long term link into the ship safely. That you haven't gone totally insane already is nothing short of a miracle. Now you will unhook yourself from the system and get some proper rest or Throne help me I will get Nor and have him sedate you for the next week!" Donat pounded his fist on the table.

Sáclair glared angrily and swatted his cup of recaff across the room where it shattered against the wall. The recaff dripped down an ancient tapestry, staining an embroidered image of Ixxac the Reveler. "Did I ask you for your opinion on the matter Mr. Enzo?"

"You did not have to sir. As your second in command and as your friend I am obligated to stop you from being a danger to yourself and others," Donat pleaded with Sáclair, "Sir do not force me to make this a matter of official record. You know as well as I do how tenuous your position is already. If I have to relieve you of command the nobility may well rebel even if the Amon Sui don't."

"How dare you?" Sáclair ripped the cable out of his arm in fury, strode over and slapped Donat across the face in fury, "How dare you? I am your captain! I am your liege lord! I will not allow you treat me in this manner. You traitor!"

Donat looked sadly back at Sáclair, the slap deadened by his paralyzed face. Sácliar was capricious at the best of times but he'd never actually hit Donat before, "My liege you are acting like an impudent child. And if my liege touches me again I will be perfectly happy to have Sergei come in from the hallway and assist me in forcing my liege into bed where his wife will more than gladly assist me in tying my liege to the bedpost and sedating him."

"You insufferable… impossible… stick in the mud," Sánclair floundered around searching for any sort of insult applicable to Donat. His shoulders drooped and he deflated, losing some of his swagger. He sighed and looked Donat in the eyes, "You're right my friend. I've… I've spent too much time linked to the ship. My emotions have gone beyond my own rational mind's control. My words were ill chosen."

"My liege has no need to apologize," Donat said insincerely, "Now we must sit down and figure out how to plug up what is obviously a hole in security, be it a traitor in the command staff or not."

"Donat," Sáclair sighed, "We must find this leak before the Inquisitor turns his attention from the Alliance. I cannot live through another damned round of him questioning my ship… my staff… my family…" He looked to Donat with wet eyes, "I cannot live through it a second time Donat. I won't let him do it. I'll blow the damn ship up first, honor be damned."

"Sir. If it comes to that I'll kill him myself," Donat said the words without thinking and realized, with no small amount of alarm, that he meant them, "Enough children have died for his Throne cursed cause. To the Eye with Inquisitor and to the Eye with Faust."


"Just got the message?" Captain Sheridan looked up and smiled at Michael as the Security Chief entered the CnC. The Captain and Lieutenant Corwin were crowded around the Lieutenant's station intently examining the incoming ship.

"Any idea where it's from?" Michael leaned in. Whatever this Copernicus was, it was speaking English, which meant it was human. Why humans would be out this far into deep space undeclared on any flight plans was anyone's guess.

"Not yet sir," Lieutenant Corwin scratched his head in confusion, "And for the life of me I can't identify the make or model of the ship.

"Why didn't it use the jump gate?" Ships didn't travel through space without using a jump gate, not unless they had some sort of a death wish. There was just too much that could go wrong. In addition to the various pirates, hooligans, and slavers that tended to roam the dark spaces between gates there were billions upon billions of natural phenomenon capable of destroying even the strongest of warships in an instant.

"That's what we're trying to figure out." Captain Sheridan smiled amusedly.

Lt. Corwin typed several command macros into the station systems, "Probe bot 2 in place for a longitudal scan. We're trying for a visual ID now."

The screen flashed and switched to the camera mounted on the robot. The Copernicus suddenly snapped into view. It was a primitive ship, barely more than a cargo hold slapped onto a set of rocket engines and a fusion reactor. It was the sort of primitive and unsophisticated design one associated with a pre-hyperspace society still constructing ships on the planetary surface.

"Those look like letters," Michael pointed to a small section of the screen, stopping the image and bringing the letters into focus. The blurred and charred letters were marred by decades of space debris and radiation to the point of being unreadable.

"Ah," Captain Sheridan snapped his fingers in comprehension, "It's English. It should say USS."

"Earth sir?" Lieutenant Corwin blinked, sharing a look of confusion with Michael. Michael shrugged, he hadn't the vaguest clue what Sheridan was yammering about.

The Captain nodded, "Check your history. Ships like this were used in deep space exploration back before we got jump gate technology from the Centauri."

Lt. Corwin looked at the ship in shock, "That was over one hundred years ago, what's it doing all the way out here?"

"Things were pretty primitive back then," Captain Sheridan shrugged, "Maybe it missed a thruster firing or went off course."

"It's been adrift ever since," Michael looked sadly at the ship. What a disappointing fate for the passengers. Adrift in space forever. Ugh, that was not the way he wanted to go out. The idea of being so powerless was terrifying.

"Possibly." Captain Sheridan shrugged, unwilling to speculate. His eyes were fixed upon the ship, no doubt wondering about its history. The man had a fascination with the past.

"That's a hell of a wrong turn to make." Michael snorted. He would have loved to see a pilot try to explain that one to the passengers. 'Um, sorry folks. Looks like were a couple billion light years from were we were trying to get to. Sorry for the delay.'

"Maybe it wasn't a wrong turn." Captain Sheridan shrugged noncommittally.

"Why don't we ask the pilot?" Lieutenant Corwin said in shock.

"There is something alive in there!" Michael damn near shouted. Good god, could the cryogenics systems still be active? He'd heard rumors that theoretically one could be frozen indefinitely but he'd never actually heard of that being put to the test.

"Bring her in." Sheridan nodded to Lieutenant Corwin before tapping his link, "Sheridan to med lab."

"Dr. Franklin speaking."

"We may have a patient for you in docking bay four."


Zach snorted with amusement at his co-worker's antics. Officer Montgomery was doing his best not to gawk at the imperial dockworkers but failing badly. They were the oddest assortment of people he'd seen in his entire life, including his time on Babylon 5. Dock ten was a constant flow of cyborgs, servitors, swarthy skinned men with thick beards, and eerie floating skulls with glowing red eyes.

"What do you think they want the ostriches for?" Montgomery squinted at trio of the servitors were lazily trying to direct a small crowd of large birds onto one of the eagle shaped transports.

"Eggs?" Zack shrugged, "How the hell should I know? I know less about the imperials than you do."

"You were stationed outside their door, you have to know something." One of the ostriches managed to bolt past the servitor and into the line of swarthy skinned men carrying bags of grain into another transport. The swarthy skinned men screamed and dodged the giant bird, moving out of the way and leaving it to one of the oversized Ogryn to overpower the angry bird.

"I know they are very fond of staying inside their room and not talking with security." Zack watched the battle between man and bird in mild amusement. The infuriated bird was carried one handed by the Ogryn over to a transport and flung in with the other ostriches.

"Come on sir you have to give me something better than that." Montgomery simply refused to believe that escorting the imperials had been as mind numbingly boring as it had been.

"You've been watching too much ISN Montgomery. Nothing happened," Zack shrugged, "I might as well have been guarding the Gelf Ambassador when he's hibernating for all the excitement I got."

He swatted one of the skulls away from the place where it had been hovering in front of his face, jabbering incoherently in the imperial language. It hissed angrily as it sped away from him and back to one of the cyborgs in the red robes.

"Ex…ex… excuse me," stuttered a pretentious voice from behind him. He turned and came face to face with the Inquisitor's translator Jak. Crouched behind him and just barely fitting into the narrow passageway was the small mountain of flesh and sinew known as Galut.

"Oh!" Zack blinked in surprise, "Hey."

"We ne.. need to get to the transports. Please allow us through," Jak smiled politely and looked expectantly at Zack. Zack moved to the side, closer to officer Montgomery allowing the shambling intellectual past. Jak meandered forwards at a brisk hobble, lugging a rucksack full of books and scrolls.

Jak turned round after entering and yelled back up the hallway, barking stuttered orders in the imperial language. He sighed and looked to Zack, "Ogryn are st..strong but take a str…strong hand to command. They for..forget things too easily."

"If you say so," Zack said noncommittally as he stared at the door, watching the Ogryn squeeze through the small door. It wasn't quite wide enough for him, forcing him to get sideways on his hands and knees. It looked a bit as though the door were giving birth to a particularly large and smelly man.

Something was nagging at the back of Zack's mind but whenever he tried to put his finger on it seemed to escape him. He knew it was vitally important but for the life of him he couldn't remember what in the heck it was. Susan… something to do with Susan.

No, he shook his head. Not Susan, there was no reason to think about Susan. But why not? He had just seen her in the Zoccalo on some down time hadn't he? Wait… when had he been in the Zoccalo? No, he must have been there. Never mind, he had more important things to do.

"Officer Allen?" Zack snapped back from his own thoughts abruptly.

"Yes… uh…" He floundered for Jak's title, "I'm not sure what to call you."

"Jak will do officer. I hold no titles nor family names." Jak watched the Ogryn heave a sheer silk bag over his shoulder. Beneath the sheer white fabric the curvaceous form of a woman was just visible, "Be careful with it Ogryn. Don't damage the astropathic servitor."

Zack swallowed and tried not to stare and at supple flesh of the woman. He'd been told about the 'meat puppet' that the Captain of the bounty communicated through but he hadn't expected to see it in person. The imperial standards of modesty apparently varied drastically. He blushed and looked at Officer Montgomery who was staring at the flesh beneath the sheer fabric with wrapped attention.

"Damn it Montgomery!" Zach smacked him, "She's a corpse."

"Quite so," Jak nodded, "Come Galut."

The Orgryn stood in place, staring Zack in the eye and chewing his lip. Zack felt that same nagging itch at the back of his mind. There was something he needed to be doing. He opened his lips to ask but the words died in his throat. What was the question he was going to ask? It couldn't have mattered that much.

"Galut! Now" Jak said firmly, motioning for him to head to one of the nearest transports.

The Ogryn stood stock still, shifting on the balls of his feet. Staring from the sack on his shoulder to Zack with a pleading expression. The large man looked on the verge of tears but seemed too terrified to cry. Zack walked up to him and rested a hand on his arm, "Hey there big guy, what's the matter?"

Jak swore in his native tongue, "C… claustrophobia… how c… could I have forgotten? Ugh… with the added stress of course it would go into overdrive."

"Added stress?" The nagging feeling was slowly turning into a throbbing headache.

"O.. of leaving his new friends of course," Jak said a bit too quickly. There was something off with the entire situation.

"We're glad to have you big guy," Zack smiled politely at the Ogryn, "I know that the Chief and Commander Iva…" Zack trailed off forgetting what he was going to say, "Uh, that is to say we're glad to have you here and sad to see you go."

That was enough to set the Ogryn off into a full-blown bout of crying. Tears the size of golf balls rolled down his cheeks, leaving runs down his face where they wiped away about a weeks worth of sweat and grime. He stood there silently balling, rubbing the stuffed rabbit tied to his side for comfort.

Jak's expression soured and he started yelling in the Imperial language. The Ogryn swallowed, coughed, and started balling again as he followed Jak towards the nearest ship. Officer Montgomery shook his head confusedly, "What in the hell do you think that was about?"

"I haven't got the vaguest idea," Zack shook his head and tried to ignore the nagging tug at the back of his mind, "Probably best not to think about it."

"Yeah, the Empire is freaking weird," Officer Montgomery smiled, "On the bright side now we know their women have all the right parts in all the right places."

"You're a pig Montgomery," Zack chuckled.

"Oink."


Sørian swore and ducked down another corridor as a third security patrol whipped around the corner. How many damn patrols did the Belzafesters have? It seemed like every damn on duty security officer was on their feet and walking around the so-called 'New Belzafest' ward of the ship. It was also the strip of what was formerly the main drag where the Amon commonly staged meetings.

"Is Phoneutria out of his mind not relocating?" Sørian hissed to himself as he looked down at his chronometer. Twenty minutes to go. Damn it. He could make the meeting but there was no way to avoid the patrols entirely, well better to take the risk than to show up late and end up Hexathelidae's next sacrifice.

Oh the two of them had a 'truce' to be sure, but Sørian didn't trust that truce even half as far as he could throw it. If he showed up late and angered Phoneutria he would be sacrificed to the Prince of Excess just as surely as anyone else who disobeyed the Amon Sui.

He walked at a brusque pace down the sidewalk, doing his best to look like he belonged. Why on earth was there such a powerful security presence in this section of the ship? Never mind, just two blocks to go.

Sørian felt even more naked and out of place among the Belzafesters than he did around any of the other commoners. He couldn't help but fear that he stuck out like a sore thumb in the midst of all these fair skinned foreigners. It was like carrying a sign that said 'look at me I'm foreign.'

It was a blissful relief to reach the door painted with the green fist of Amon that smelled of Almonds and Cinnamon. He pushed the door open and rushed into the room, saying, "For the glory of the hand that grasps I come, for the glory of the hand that holds I come, for the glory of the hand that gives I come, for the glory of the hand I come," as quickly as he could manage while rushing over to his place in the circle.

Hexathelidae watched him run past her in apparent disappointment that he'd remembered to say the password this time, absently rubbing one of her knives lovingly. Sørian ignored the woman and suppressed the pleasant memories of what lay beneath the synthaskin bodysuit she wore. Now wasn't the time for that sort of thinking. He looked at his chronometer, ten seconds to go. Thank the true gods!

He looked up in relief and nearly shouted in shock when he came face to face with the last person he ever expected to see. Nathaniel Emanuelle Sáclair was standing in front of him. It took him a few seconds to realize that Captain Sáclair was neither moving nor breathing, "A damned hologram…"

"A damned good hologram," muttered a surly voice from behind him, "Some of my better work if I do say so myself."

"Dex," Sørian said coldly to the jovial voice behind him, "I was lead to believe you'd perished in the Belzafest attacks."

"Aye," Dex nodded, "That sounds about right then eh' lad. Sept' of course for the fact what I aint' dead. Least ways not yet."

"Do learn to speak properly at some point," Sørian sneered, "It will improve your quality of life greatly."

"Nah, I think I'll keep me language the way it is, thank ye' kindly. Especially seeing has how it pisses off spoiled little shits like you," Dex smiled, "I look forward to the day when we no longer require the services of your kind."

"And when will that be? When techno heretics like you finally have the run of what you want? Doing what you want? Making what you want? It was the likes of you who made the Iron Men who destroyed the first human Empire," Dex's lip curled and he spat on the ground at Sørian's feet before storming away. Dex was an oddity in the Amon Sui partisans. He made no effort to conceal his face or his motivations, it was entirely possible that Dex was the man's actual name.

That Osma hadn't managed to catch the bull headed prig was a sign of the techno pagan's unique skills. Dex was the worst sort of techno heretic traitor that the Adeptus Mechanicus loathed. He sought knowledge for its own sake and distributed complex and often dangerous technical data to everyone he believed would be able to understand it. If the man had his druthers the Empire would be ruled by cold, emotionless, unthinking machines. Disgusting.

"It is unwise to provoke him Latrodectus," hissed a breathy voice to his side. He looked over at the buxom form of Stenatoda. The dead did seem to be more active today than was usual. Phoneutria was up to something big if he was keeping partisan cells out of the loop.

"I hold powers he cannot dream of Stenatoda. The true gods are with me in all I do," he deeply enjoyed how her lip curled in distaste at a reference to the dark patrons. "I have nothing to fear from him."

"That is only because your imagination is limited Sørian. Not because he is less of a predator than you are," Stenatoda shook her head dismissively, stretching the porcelain flesh behind her bodice and veil deliciously. She would make a perfect sacrifice to the Thirsting Prince someday. She had the perfect throaty voice for the screams necessary to get that particular demon prince's attention.

Sørian bowed insincerely, "Those with power do not require imagination, only opportunity. Now best not to keep the patron waiting." He gestured to the wide circle of partisans, dismissing her entirely. The furious Stenatoda strode away, giving Sørian ample time to examine the curve of her hips as she went.

"I do not like this Latrodectus," hissed the smoky voice Hexathelidae as she wrapped her body around his from behind. Lithe hands rested indecently on his person, rubbing and tweaking at his flesh. She really was quite pleasant when she wasn't trying to gut him like a fish.

"Nor I Hexathelidae," Sørian said as he looked around at the room, "Nor do I."

The circle was larger than was customary. It was rare for more than ten partisans to meet at once, the risk that a single cell might be discovered by ship's security was too great to hazard a large gathering. But there were not less than forty partisans and a good three score bodyguards packed into the modest dwelling.

"Something momentous is going to happen soon, though why Phoneutria is risking us all in one place is beyond me," Sørian bit his lip stop from moaning. He grabbed Hexathelida's hand and twisted it painfully, dislocating her thumb, "Now is not the time for that."

Hexathelida bit his ear hard enough to draw blood and smiled at him. Her eyes clouded with lust and she gurgled in delight as she popped her bone back into place. Damnit, he'd forgotten that the woman had no pain receptors, only pleasure. Insufferable death cultist.

"Later woman," he hissed, "Later."

Hexithelida caressed her hips and knives, staring at him with murder in her eyes. Sørian turned his back on her, half expecting a sacrificial knife to wedge itself in his spine. Luckily it did not. Hexithelida took her place in the circle next to him, panting slightly with exertion and anticipation.

The room echoed with a booming gong and the center of the room flickered into life. The translucent blue holographic image of Phoneutria glared at everyone and no-one. Sørian had never seen him this angry. The sorcerer smiled, his patron would no doubt have a new sacrifice this day. He exchanged a glance with Hexithelida, her eyes were wild with anticipation.

"I am disappointed beyond words at the rampant incompetence displayed by the members of our organization responsible for launching an attack on the shield generators while we are in the middle of hostile territory," Phoneutria's eyes quivered with rage, "Our purpose is to conquer the Endless Bounty not get it blown up by some gun happy backwater outpost with an over-inflated sense of jingoistic pride."

A nobleman wearing a feathered frock flinched as Phoneutria's hologram jabbed a glowing finger toward's the flaring nostril's of his stylized porcelain mask, "If we blow up the ship then this was all for nothing. None of this entire damned process matters."

An opulently dressed merchant wearing a hawklike mask covered with opals burst into tears under Phoneutria's withering gaze, "This is not Imperial space. There is no Amon naval presence to commandeer the bounty after we've disabled the shields. Simply because you've been told that a plan is put in place does not mean that I am ordering you to put it into action the second the whim hits you. For the sake of the Amon think before you act! If I haven't ordered you to launch an attack it's not because I don't realize you can do so. It is because I do not want you to do so."

Phoneutria's image hissed and sparked as he started to pace at a speed slightly faster than the holographic projector could keep up with. Vague disappointed looking after-images of himself bloomed in the space behind him. The ethereal specters of his rage contorted and vanished ominously.

"We cannot afford these mistakes! The pretender Sáclair is in a weakened position. Soon he will fall. This I can promise you faithful brothers of the Amon," Phoneutria's eyes narrowed and he glared at Sørian, "That I will meet out punishment to those responsible. Ambition has its limits and loyalty to the Amon is more important than whatever other oaths you may have to keep. It would be wise not to make promises that force you to come into conflict with our glorious purpose."

It took a few moments for Sørian's brain to process what Phoneutria was implying. By the Gods! Phoneutria thought that he was the architect of the failed assault on the Endless Bounty. Sørian's blood ran cold. God's blood, he had no way of proving that he wasn't the architect. He couldn't exactly claim he wasn't guilty of betraying Phoneutria's plans for the Endless Bounty. He'd gone through a great deal of effort to conceal his movements too and from the ship, but not his absence from his quarters.

A life of heresy and betrayal and his death would most likely be the product of a case of mistaken identity. He would have found it funny were he not intimately aware that he might be torn to pieces at any moment. If it came to a fight he would lose, his own talents in the true craft were limited. Without summoning circles or totems he was hard pressed to create more than a couple bursts of fire before his reserves of psychic energy became depleted. He was a trained summoner, not a battle mage. With his patron deity's weakened hold on this plane of reality he was hardly even that.

He exchanged a worried look with Hexathelida, though it was hard to read her expression behind her mask her posture had tightened and her fingers were gripping her knives, not caressing them. Judging by her aroused panting she seemed to be expecting the chance to stab someone at a moment's notice.

Sørian wondered how quickly she would turn on him when the opportunity came. Probably she'd be the first. Hexathelidia was not the greatest proponent of loyal service.

Phoneutria snapped his fingers and Sørian abruptly came back to reality, "We wait. We bide our time. And we will strike. Whoever brings me the head of the man responsible for this nightmare will be rewarded greatly. I will grant a pardon to those caught in his plans, but if and only if they bring me his head," he glanced ominously arount the room, "Do not presume that I do not already know of your treacheries. I am cleverer than you give me credit for and twice as dangerous. Now get to it."

He snarled and clapped his hands, phasing the hologram back into nothingness, leaving the assorted saboteurs together alone in the room. Silence reigned as they Amon Sui partisans stared at each other. A room full of the most capable murders and brigands on the Endless Bounty, all of them wondering who's blood would be spilled. All of them wondering who they might pin the failed conquest of the bounty upon.

All of them, that is, with the exception of Dex. The techopagan was not nervously examining his fellow partisans. No his eyes were fixed unflinchingly upon Sørian, his lips quirked into a half smile, and his eyes were twinkling. There was something about that smile more disturbing than any demon he'd ever summoned.

"This will not end well."

"Us least of all I expect," Hexathelida sighed, "You realize we're the prime suspects of treason and treachery if anyone gets too antsy with their side arm."

"The thought had crossed my mind yes. It would be perhaps wise to beat our retreat sooner rather than later?" Sørian tapped slightly into the power of the fetish he had tied about his neck. Power crackled uncomfortably beneath the flesh of his right hand as he made a hasty retreat towards the only door. Sørian felt a surge of relief that he had nearly been late for the meeting, a few minutes earlier and he would have had to muscle past the sour faced trader and his Ogryn bodyguards.

"Hurry," the voice of Hexathelida was heavy with anticipation as she watched a half dozen masked partisans exchanging accusations, "These morons are going to start a fight here and now."

"I'm trying!" Spat Sørian. He fumbled with the controls to the door, punching in the code to exit once, twice, thrice, "What the hell do you mean unable to comply!"

It clicked in his head, "By the Gods... he can't mean for us to..."

"This is going to be a blood bath," hissed Hexathelida in a mix of lust and fear as she inched towards Sørian.

"Unless I miss my guess that's the point of having such a large meeting," Sørian swore, "He's thinning the herd, at least of those of us he has doubts about. He can't risk letting us become too ambitious or too competent while we're out of the range of the Amon's sphere of influence."

"Duck!" Hexathelida screeched and dropped to the floor, yanking Sørian down with her. A cascade of stubber fire raked the door from some damned fool's hold-out pistol. The Amon Sui meeting place turned into a charnel house as the partisans turned on each other.

"Oh to hell with this!" Sørian fumbled with the pouch at his waist, examining the supplies he had with him. He didn't have his more esoteric supplies with him, the hand of Gak'vo'ketha'lo would have been substantially more difficult to explain than chalk and feathers, but it would be enough, "Hexathelida! We're getting out of here. I need two hearts, a liver, and an ear."

"Into that?" Hexathelida smiled and looked into the bloody melee. She licked her lips and breathed heavily, "I suppose it has been too long since I've properly done my devotions to the thirsting one."

"This is not the time Hexathelida! Two hearts, a liver, and an ear!" Sørian flinched as an axe blade swung through the air, sailing past his ear by inches. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small bone totem of a man inscribed with a cruel angular script, "Unless you have some pressing urge to die now I suggest you get moving."

Hexathelida gutturally screeched and tossed herself into the swirling morass of blades and bullets. Her grimalkin form stretched and swayed rhythmically as she dodged and parried the oversized combat knife carried by a musclebound ogryn.

Sørian grabbed a sliver of chalk out of his bag and started to inscribe blasphemous symbols upon the door. A summoning circle was a dangerous thing, a single rune put out of place or glyph misspelled could result in disaster. It required hours, or even days, of careful planning to do properly. However if one's actual goal was to cause an explosion it could be safely achieved in minutes.

"Heretic!" bellowed a furious voice to his left. An aging man with a greying beard was advancing on him with a cruel looking truncheon, "I don't care if you were responsible for this nightmare, I will still gladly see you dead."

Sørian rolled his eyes, grabbed the bone totem and broke it in half. The old man fell to the ground, dead, "I don't have time for this!" Sørian looked at his circle, the 'ang' rune looked like a 'gelf' but that was probably in his favor this time.

"A pistol Sørian," he shouted to himself as he rooted through his bag for the vial of essence of Tanshir Willow, "Next time bring a pistol to the bloody meeting!"

He looked to the melee, looking for Hexathelida. His brain went white with anger, the damned fool of a cultist had fallen into a blood rage and entirely forgotten about her role in collecting components, "Must I do everything myself?"

Pulling a jagged knife out of his coat, Sørian crawled to the old man. The floor was slick with the blood of the dead and dying. The blood, there was too much blood. Sørian turned in and looked to the door, realizing his mistake too late to change anything. The entire room was one giant charnel house, the poorly made summoning circle wouldn't differentiate between sacrificial murders and general fighting. All it would take is a single drop of blood shed in the battle and the circle would implode.

"By the gods! Hexathelida, grab onto something," Sørian ran to the wall and grabbed the bulkhead as tightly as he could, waiting for an explosion that never came.

Silence descended upon the room as the Amon Sui partisans all came to a halt. He didn't need to look behind himself to recognize the wailing howl behind him. The circle was open and a door to the warp ripped open. A deep birdlike wail echoed from inside the portal as a long skeletal arm reached out from the void and clasped the deck. Steel tore under razor sharp talons.

"No, no, no, no!" It was only supposed to explode, not actually open a warp portal. The ship's hexagrammic wards were ostensibly too strong for that to happen. Another impossible thing happening with his summoning circles in the space of a month. It must be a new record.

The talon tipped hand reached out and swatted around as the demon struggled to enlarge the hole. An unluck partisan caught a viscous backhanded swat that split his head like a mellon. The partisans opened fire on the hand, their murderous intentions briefly forgotten.

Sørian turned and came face to face with the impassive visage of Dex, still wearing that insufferable smile. Sorian grabbed for the front of Dex's shirt with every intention of tossing the bastard to appease the demon, but his hands just passed through Dex's chest the hologram disappeared.

"Cowardly bastard!" Swore Sørian. The sonofabitch had probably disappeared at the same time as Phoneutria. Which meant that the locked door behind the portal wasn't the only door. There had to be another exit.

Sørian felt along the wall till his hand found a recessed part, hidden by a hologram. He pressed a button and felt a cool rush of air from the passageway beyond. Sørian exhaled with relief as he ducked down the passageway and gladly lapped at the tepid air. He opened his eyes and realized that he was staring into a timer. A timer slowly declining to zero.

"Techno-pagan bastard," Sørian ran as fast as his legs would allow, his legs strengthened by the talismanic energies of his fetish. Two minutes, only two minutes till it exploded, only two minutes for him to get to safety, it would be enough.

Sørian ran, jumped, ducked, and leapt his way down the dark tunnel, unsure where it went but unwilling to risk stopping long enough to check the maps along the walls. Just as he felt his lungs were about to burst from exertion a hot blast of air rocked up the corridor. The concussive force knocked him off his feet and flung him off of the causeway.

Sørian fell three stories and crashed bone-crushingly into a large pile of refuse, his arm twisting up the wrong way. Sørian cursed the very souls of Dex and Phoneutria as he plucked spoiled vegetables from his face and hair. The bastards had been working together, Dex had to have known about that passageway in advance from Phoneutira in order to set up the bomb.

Fine then, if that's the way they wanted it Sørian could handle that. Loyalty begets loyalty, treachery begets ambition as his mentor used to say. It was time for Sørian to get ambitious.


The bulkhead of the ancient ship was thicker than the standard modern ship. Without the advanced ship building technologies of he modern era, pre-hyperspace ships had been forced to rely on thick hulls to protect them from dangerous space debris. It took nearly an hour to cut through the two feet of solid steel.

When the bulkhead eventually gave way it popped outward with a puckering squelch of changing pressure and crashed deafeningly against the deck plates. Michael and his security contingent stood at the ready, warily staring into the darkness.

"Are you sure the added precautions are necessary sir?" Dr. Franklin asked John, "We only detected a single humanoid life-form."

"They're perhaps excessive Mr. Garibaldi, but I prefer to be cautious. Something the Imperial Inquisitor said has me a bit spooked about this ship," Captain Sheridan eyed the sleeper ship apprehensively, his omnipresent grin dulled somewhat with worry.

"The guy gives me the creeps sir," Michael hadn't cared much for the Inquisitor, even before he knew the man's official title, "I'm especially uncomfortable with his request to have Dorn returned to him." Michael motioned for his security team to pile into the ship. The small contingent of men hopped into the ship, guns at the ready.

"I don't know if we legally have the right not to return him. He is an imperial citizen," Captain Sheridan said halfheartedly, the words hollow on his lips, "Members of the non-aligned worlds have the right to request that trials be conducted by their own legal system. But I suppose that's only if Dorn request it."

"In this case it would be convicted without trial,"Dr. Franklin's had his medical sensor grasped in a death grip at the thought of the Imperial plan for Dorn, "They've made it abundantly clear they simply intend to lobotomize him or, barring that, desecrate his body."

"I'm with the Doc on this one sir," Michael nodded to officer Daniels acknowledging the all clear and motioning for the Captain to follow.

Captain Sheridan scratched the back of his head and entered the ship, "I've send a message to Senator Hidoshi but I don't know what we can do about it in the meantime other than stall."

Michael grunted noncommittally as he entered the pitch black of the ship and squinted trying to make out shapes in the distance. The blindingly bright lights attached to the security officer's guns illuminated random bits of the ship as they searched the corners to re-verify the ship's security. It was dark, damp and more than a bit spooky.

"Not exactly a vacation spot," muttered John as he eyed the ship's architecture with wrapped attention, "Amazing what we were able to do with so little."

"Sir," Officer Burton walked up to Michael and gave a hasty salute, "We searched the ship. There are two cryogenic freezing tubes. The one on the left is a corpse, the one on the right seems to have kept containment, but I can't say for sure."

"I've got life signs on this one right here," Dr. Franklin shouted excitedly. His medical sensor flashed ominously, "her signal is weakening."

"Opening the ship must have triggered something," Captain Sheridan's eyes widened in alarm and regret. If she died the Captain might not forgive himself. He wouldn't be able to bear the idea that his curiosity could be her undoing.

"We're going to have to get her back to med lab or we'll lose her." Dr. Franklin tapped his link and waved at the security team, "What are you waiting for? Get a gurney!"


It should have been obvious to him that his mistress' pride had been wounded by Mr. Garibaldi's dismissial of her but it honestly hadn't occurred to him that the Magos had pride to wound. She'd always seemed somehow serene and beyond such paltry hauteur. Magos Frist was in a petulant mood. Everyone knew that Magos frist was in a petulant mood. Everyone knew that it was unwise to mention the Magos' mood to her. Everyone, that is, except Abbas. Foolishly Abbas had made the error of asking her, "What's wrong mistress?"

It had been a mistake.

Magos Frist flew into a rage, ranting about how an apprentice was to listen and obey without question, about how he should not expect special treatment because of his birth, and about how there was no space in her service for such useless drivel as gossip. Abbas was close to tears by the time she finished and greatly feared that she might hit him.

Blessedly Tuul had interceded before she'd actually hit him, claiming that it was time for Abbas' training and indoctrination that day. Abbas could have kissed him. The two of them walked away from the raging Magos, not daring to speak till they'd passed through the ring of cherubs and skulls that was always flying around her.

"I don't get it," Abbas twisted and dislodged himself from Tuuls grip, "What is wrong?"

"With the Magos? Not much more than wounded pride. Give her a project to work on and she'll be right as rain in moments," Tuul barked out a metallic cough of a laugh, "You forgot she was a woman didn't you?"

Abbas protested indignantly stamping his foot, "I did no such thing."

"Tell me boy," Tuul said his optics focusing on Abbas' face, "Are you ignorant of women entirely?"

"I have many sisters," Abbas said defensively, "I know how to deal with women."

"You could have fooled me boy," Tuul playfully ruffled Abbas' hair with a mechandrite as he locked the boy into a headlock, "What's wrong? Honestly? I mean child that is the first mistake any man learns to avoid."

"I...I..." Abbas sighed, "I guess I did forget."

"There's no shame in that boy. I forget sometimes myself. Half the time I forget I'm a man for that matter. As you become more and more machine it matters less and less," he tapped the side of his head knowingly, "But much as I try to be more machine than flesh every once and a while the flesh gets in the way. It's up to us to aspire for more, but there's only so far we can go."

"I understand," Abbas smiled, "So we never really lose what makes us who we are."

"Well, not for centuries anyway," Tuul shrugged, "If you live long enough you will reach a point where all that matters is pure logic, but that isn't something to worry about for a long, long time," he cracked his neck and gestured to an open door with one of his mechandrites, "Now let us get on with your duties."

Abbas stared at the curious machine in front of them. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before in his life, a strange mix of alien looking bits and bobs two stories tall, "Magos adept Tuul... what in the name of the Empe... Omnissiah is that?" Abbas floundered remembering his new devotions.

"That is a hyperdrive generator that we... liberated from the wreckage of the Minbari cruiser. It has taken weeks to for the Inquisitor to acquire sufficient parts for us to make it function... in theory at least," Tuul laughed at Abbas' confused expression, "Of course, forgive me. I've been working on this damned thing for so long that I forget that not everyone knows what I'm talking about. Hyperspace is how the Alliance travels faster than the speed of light, how they travel faster than the speed of light without entering the warp."

Abbas' heart was beating fit to burst. Without entering the warp? Was such a thing possible? He had heard tales of such magical devices of course. People told tales of such devices from the dark age of technology when mankind could shape the stars and reform planets at will. But to have such a device within inches of him was just too much.

"Yes Abbas," Tuul continued, "It is truly what you think it is. And I intend to spend the rest of your apprenticeship training you about these sorts of machines and how to construct them. Can you imagine it? Travel without fear of the warp. By the Omnissiah, we could recolonize space no matter the dangers of the warp."

He ruffled Abbas' hair again, "Now come on then child. Let's get to it. You have a lot to learn."


She was pretty. Stephen couldn't help but feel somewhat transfixed by her beauty. It was a bit too much like a fairy tale for his taste, the beautiful princess put to sleep for a hundred years only to wake up and still be dying. Well dying wasn't a good end for a fairy tale. It was time for the good doctor to heal her so she could live happily ever after.

She was doing everything in her power to make that difficult. It wasn't her fault. Cryogenic tubes were not intended to last for hundreds of years at a time without maintenance. The few cases of long term cryogenic resuscitation done successfully had been from facilities with regular care and update of the tubes.

This wasn't just less than ideal. This was the nightmare situation. Not only was he trying to revive the woman from a hundred year cryogenic coma he had the added bonus of not having a scrap of the woman's medical history. If he made even one mistake, gave her a single medicine she had an allergic from taking and she would die then and there.

Her death was not an acceptable outcome.

The nurse at his side grabbed the woman's wrist as she was loaded into the elevator, "I'm losing her pulse, threading. She's gone into arrest."

"50cc of demolara," muttered Dr. Franklin absently as he injected the drug. Several pregnant moments passed.

"Still flatlining," another nurse pulled out a medical scanner and waved it over the woman.

"Cardiac stimulators," said the first nurse as she pulled out the metal paddles. Pressing them to the woman's chest and looking to Stephen for permission.

Stephen didn't even hesitate before saying, "hit her."

The woman's body jumped with the jolt of electricity as her muscles responded to the unexpected stimulus. However it wasn't enough, "Nothing"

Stephen bit his lip, "Hit her again."

The body jumped again. The heart beeped faintly for a few seconds on the monitor before going back into cardiac arrest.

She would not die. Stephen wouldn't allow her to die.


Susan had no idea how long she'd been unconscious when she awoke. Long enough to load her onto one of the Imperial transports apparently. She was crowded into a small cargo compartment with the Inquisitor's belongings, Jak, the Imperial doctor, and the Imperial who'd recently recovered from his wounds at Dorn's hands. She'd been roused by a loud argument between the three of them.

"Because we're damn well kidnapping a foreign military official that's why," shouted a scratchy voice just outside of Susan's admittedly limited field of vision. Between the drugs, the black veil and the sheer fabric of the sack she was inside of, "By the Throne, has the Inquisitor gone senile?"

"Danzig you know f...full well that the Inquisitor never does anything without having a reason for doing s...so." Stuttered the diminutive Jak, "In th..this case he f...felt it was unwise to leave a psycher who'd been inside his mind with the Alliance. N...no telling what secrets she got."

"Ah," Danzig's voice relaxed considerably, "That makes a great deal more sense. If its a bolt magnet I see why we brought it with us."

"She," Susan slurred out, "Not 'it' I'm a 'she'."

"A not unimpressive she judging by what I can see," at that grunted a sandy haired man from standing behind Danzig. The bastard Doctor Gazan, "Gentlemen we have taken the woman from her home, might I request that we preserve what is left of her modesty?"

Danzig clucked his tongue, "Shameful that it was necessary to do this. Please forgive us for the offenses we are about to commit."

Susan responded with a string of the most creative phrases she could think of in Russian. Danzig quirked his eyebrow and looked at Jak. The fidgety man shook his head uncomprehendingly, "I'm unsure of that language... it vaguely resembles Vostroyan or Valhallan but I couldn't understand it's meaning. I doubt it was particularly congratulatory."

"I could have told you that," Gazan stated dryly, "Very well then. Miss Ivanova, yes? That was your name correct? Very well miss Ivanova we are going to take you out of the sack and get you into some proper clothes. It will hurt very badly but if I am going to get your wounds properly dressed and splinted we must do it. I know that even now you are planning your escape. I request that you wait for me to finish. If you are going to try to go out in a blaze of glory it is customary to do so whilst clothed."

Susan blushed as she realized her own nakedness. She tried to move her arms to cover her front but they only flopped painfully where they were broken. Much as she would have liked to gut the lot of them it seemed that, for the moment at least, she was their prisoner, "Very well."

"This goes without saying but if we even suspect you of trying to commit psychic witchcraft upon my person or that of anyone on this transport we will fill you full of so many holes they'll have to identify you from your blood records," Gazan said as he opened the sack and pulled the veil from her eyes. He said the threat in the same paternal tones Susan might have associated with her own parents offering sweets. In his own twisted way Gazan seemed to believe this was being kind to her.

For all their bluster and bravado Gazan and Danzig were both clearly unaccustomed to being this close to a naked woman. The dark skinned men blushed and hesitated as they helped her dress, trying to stare everywhere but at her, lengthening the agonizing process of helping her dress. After a couple painful fumbling moments they manage to have her fully clothed in a simple woolen garb bearing an embroidered sigil in its center.

"Much better," Gazan nodded approvingly, "Now for the hard part. I'm going to have to set the bones."

Jak sniffed, "T... the Inquisitor hasn't approved that."

"He hasn't approved me shooting you in the head either but if it comes down to it I'm going to that without asking as well. I will not willingly allow a person to go on being injured for no damn reason," Gazan blithely said as he started to pull support splints he'd clearly borrowed from the Babylon Five medical supplies. He smiled apologetically, "Your Dr. Franklin was more than generous in supplying me with certain medical supplies we were running low on. I am ashamed that they will be put to this purpose but I suspect he would be glad I did what I could to put you back on the path to wellness."

"After breaking my bones in the first place," Susan said icily. She eyed Gazan's side arm longingly.

Gazan followed her gaze and tutted, "Not yet miss Ivanova. Soon perhaps, but not now." He grasped her leg and yanked it into place. Susan swore as the sensation hit her abruptly. "God dammit!"

"We're going to have to teach this girl to swear properly," Danzig rubbed the stiffness out of his wrists, "If she starts blaspheming like that she's likely to get killed for being a heretic."

"T... technically she is a heretic," Jak interjected, "Well... a p...pagan."

"Jak. Your lips are moving and sound is coming out," Danzig said scathingly, "You should see to that."

"Well I n...never!" Jak stood and stormed out of the cargo hold, clearly trying to look dramatic. His natural tics rather ruined the dramatic suspense of the moment.

The door slammed behind him and Gazan smacked Danzig in the chest, causing the younger man to yelp in pain, "That bloody well hurt!"

"Good," the doctor grabbed Susan's arm and examined where he'd broken it, "It was supposed to. Jak is an insufferable pain with little sympathy for others but he's only doing his job."

"Demeaning the woman?"

"Providing an honest assessment of the situation. He's an ass but he usually has his facts straight. He can't help that providing us with fact comes out as rude gibberish," Gazan twisted the arm, then twisted it back because he didn't like the way it was bending. Susan screamed out in pain again and spat in Gazan's face.

"That was not necessary young lady," Gazan wiped his face with a handkerchief as he clamped the splint into place, "Now sit back and let me get back to doing what I need to do."

"And then what? Am I the Inquisitor's servant? His prisoner? His slave?" Susan felt the blissful nothingness of the drugs fading away and being replaced with red hot fury. She was not some damned damsel in distress to be rescued and she wasn't about to be a compliant hostage. She was damn well going to fight every second they had her.

"I cannot even begin to guess as to the Inquisitor's plans for you madam," Danzig helped Gazan dress the wound on Susan's leg before shoving the bone back into place, "But I doubt he wants you for anything untoward if that's what you're implying."

"It took us the better part of three months to realize he wasn't sly," snorted Gazan, "Honestly how was I supposed to know he was actually watching the boys training? I spent three damn months secretly watching him to make sure he didn't try anything with the new blood before I realized it was a wasted effort."

Danzig snorted, "I'd forgotten about that."

"Hey! Can we focus please? You're twisting broken bones back into place remember? Kidnapped woman in front of you," The casual way in which these two were treating the kidnapping was rather disturbing. They had absolutely no fear of being caught what so ever.

Danzig eyed the pile of sheer fabric they'd stripped off of Susan, "What happened to the Astropathic Servitor anyway? I never got a clear answer out of Galut before we left the station."

"Damned if I know," Gazan rooted around in his bag and pulled out the most wonderful thing Susan had seen in weeks, an ostrodermic regenerator. Her broken bones would heal in a matter of hours rather than weeks. It was likely that it too had been donated by Dr. Franklin. She was so glad to see it that she briefly forgot she was angry with Gazan for breaking her bones in the first place. Gazan continued to talk as he prodded her broken bones with the device, "For what I could glean from Vira'capac he found the scent of it in the carrion eaters wards but never actually found it. He recons something ate it."

"Disgusting," Danzig's face twisted in distaste, "Why the Alliance allows such creatures is beyond me."

"I don't remember being kidnapped by the pak'ma'ra," Susan found herself feeling a great deal of positive sentiment for the tentacle faced carrion eaters she'd never really nurtured before. However when compared with the Imperials her relationship with the pak'ma'ra had been idillic.

"You'll learn your mistakes soon enough," Danzig nodded sure of himself, "The Inquisitor will see that you get a proper education. Of that I'm sure."

"The Inquisitor can kiss my ass," Susan said bluntly, "And so can you, your damn ship, your captain and your damned Emperor."

Danzig slapped her so hard it nearly dislocated her jaw. He fixed her with a stony stare and spoke in a voice of dangerous calm, "I'm sorry that I needed to do that. You are unaware of the sin you just committed by insulting His name. You need to know now before you anger the wrong noble. Blaspheming is a capitol offense in the Empire, an often enforced one. You will learn to hold your tongue or someone will gladly cut it out for you."

"I'm not afraid of you," Susan twisted her head and clicked her jaw from side to side. It popped back into place with a wet snap.

"Nor should you be," Danzig nodded, "But I am not the one you need fear. Ivanova you are a captive. If you do not start acting like one soon we will be obligated to remind you of your place. You do not wish for the Inquisitor to remind you of your place."

"What has Hilder done to keep you all in such fear of him?" Susan pleaded, "What can he possibly do to you that engenders this sort of fear and loyalty."

"The Inquisitor?" Danzig laughed dryly, "In the time I've known him he's been simplemindedly devoted to a single cause. In the past month alone the pursuit of that goal has destroyed a planet, by accident. And yet he still survives, and we with him."

Danzig stood up from where he'd been squatting on the floor next to her and brushed off his silk pants, "No Ivanova the question is not why do we trust and fear the Inquisitor, it's how do we aid him better in his quest. For there can be no more noble task than serving the Emperor's will."

"Gazan, I will leave you to your medicines," He nodded to Susan and walked out of the room, "I will see you later miss Ivanova."

Susan bit back furious tears as Gazan regrew her broken bones, wishing that Danzig would come back and talk to her so she didn't feel so alone and hating herself for being so weak as to need people around her to distract her. She was an officer of the Earth Alliance dammit. Cowboy up and move forward, she couldn't afford weakness.

It didn't make her feel less alone when she repeated that mantra to herself, but it helped her pretend.


Checking the cells was therapeutic for Michael. Whenever he felt the urge to drink he would just get up and wander the rows of holding cells, checking on the inmates. It kept him busy and reminded him of why he'd given it up, why he kept himself lucid and capable. It was nice to see the good he'd helped do.

Plus it helped to be aware of what was going on in the cells. There was invariably some thing or another going pear shaped and it helped to be in the loop. About half way down the row of cells, in 3-B the door was wide open and Officer Shiro was standing with his arms crossed, looking into the cell with a worried expression on his face.

Garibaldi walked over to the holding cell at a brisk trot. Within the confines of the cell were the two lurkers he'd arrested earlier in the day in the Baazar. They one sleeping on the bed was twisting fitfully in his sleep and screaming, "Incoming" at random moments, his face fearful and his arms clutched to his chest, grasping at himself trying to make himself smaller.

"Damn it" Michael swore to himself. He'd been hoping that the lurker's friend, the imperial priest, would be able to calm him down. Al'Ashir had been kneeling next to the lurker, praying and singing soothing songs to him since the two of them had been put into the cell. The poor guy barely spoke a word of English but he'd been doing everything to comfort his friend.

"How long has he been like that?" Shiro shook his head disapprovingly, starting at the lurker with disgust.

"A couple hours now." Michael sighed. If they didn't get him calmed down soon they would need to have a doctor come and check on him. It wasn't healthy.

"To the walls, get to the walls." The lurker grasped at his blankets and tried to shield himself from his nightmare.

"Damn lurkers," Shiro scoffed "We ought to space all of them."

Garibaldi leaned in close to Shiro and whispered, "Were you in the war?"

"No I missed it." Shiro said in a tone that implied he would gladly have been part. The poor bastard actually believed it too.

"He didn't." Michael flinched as the lurker cried out in terror.

Shiro looked at the lurker in astonishment, "How do you know?"

Michael sighed, "I've had that same dream."

The priest looked up at Garibaldi and smiled, interlocking his thumbs and making a symbol Garibaldi recognized all too well. Ugh, the last thing he wanted was to deal with the Inquisitor today. How in the hell did an Imperial priest end up hanging out with a Lurker?

Michael double tapped his link, "Captain Sheridan, get down the Inquisitor down to the brig. There's something he should see."

Surgery had gone about as well as Michael could hope for. The woman's heart restarted upon being directly hit with a class E cardiac stimulator and she had been necessitated without apparent brain damage, though only time would tell on that. In fact other than the fact that she was having fitful dreams she was in perfectly good health considering the circumstances.

It had not been an easy surgery. Twice she'd nearly died on him, it had taken every trick in his bag to bring her back from the brink. Even now he was reluctant to take her off life support for fear she might fall victim to her inherent cryogenic frailty.

Stephen returned from his rounds find nurse Anderson standing over her with a cranial scanner and a worried expression. The woman flailed and shifted furiously in her sleep.

"When did it start?" Stephen took the cranial scanner, worried that he'd missed something.

"Moments ago. Looks like a dream." Nurse Anderson brushed the woman's hair from her face.

"Or a nightmare," Stephen said looking at the levels of adrenaline in her body. If he didn't know better he'd think someone had hit this woman with an injection of epinephrine.

The woman shot up in bed thrashing and trying to escape whatever it was pursuing her in the dream. Stephen reached down and grabbed her hand firmly. He cooed softy and rubbed her hands soothingly, "It's alright. I'm a Doctor. Do you understand?"

The woman nodded curtly, clearly still scared. She seemed somewhat unconvinced she was even alive, let alone safe and in a hospital. Stephen held her hand, giving her a tangible connection to the real world.

"There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll take care of you." Stephen smiled brightly. She was safe and alive, now for the hard part.


Daul's room seemed naked without all his personal effects. They'd only been on the station for a few weeks and it was already feeling strange to be leaving it. Which, more than anything else, was a clear sign that it was time to go. The Babylon Station was a gilded cage of heresy designed to make forming relationships with dangerous and vile xenobreeds. The longer he stayed the more intertwined he would become with the local politics.

"Not me, clean the room. Not me!" Daul chided one of the small army of servo skulls tasked with sanitizing the apartment. He batted the hovering skull away from his face as it tired to spray him in the eyes with disinfectant. It bounced off the wall and hissed furiously as it sped for the relative safety of the bedroom. Daul wiped the stream of soapy water from his hand onto the arm of the sofa, "Cairn when I said program them to search for my DNA and render it inert I intended for you to wait till after it was detached from my person."

The cybernetic attaché looked up from frosting a plate of biscuits with as close to a cheeky expression as the mute could manage. He twittered to the hovering skulls and nodded in the affirmative to the Inquisitor.

As Daul watched the Skitarii walk the plate of frosted pastries over to the table he got the distinct impression that Cairn had played a prank on him. The blasted tin man was getting a bit to impudent for his tastes. He grabbed a biscuit and chewed it sullenly as he watched the skulls go about their work.

By the day's end they would have all the supplies they needed to begin the search for Faust anew. The distraction of the Babylon Station would finally come to an end. Securing safe passage through the various xenos territories had been well worth the concession of joining the League of Non-Aligned worlds. While he only trusted the treaty as far as he could spit, it seemed that the xenos in local space had a great deal of reverence for it and were unlikely to violate it without cause.

Throne what was wrong with him? Trusting xenos? Had he lost his mind?

For that matter why had he allowed Vira'capac free reign on the station? Nothing good came from allowing the xenos to be left to their own devices. Then again nothing good came from keeping them under heel either.

Nothing he seemed to do lately conformed with the rigid tenants of behavior he'd been trained in by Inquisitor Gaal. It was positively infuriating. Every decision he made seemed to be just a step further towards being declared an excommunicate traitor. His excuse of gathering intel for a crusade fleet in the future was starting to seem flimsy, even to him.

Zorn Calven sent a messenger scroll only that morning informing him that the Navigators had been able to quell his suspicions. How the man managed to sound just as condescending by proxy was nothing short of miraculous. The stars of the local system didn't even remotely conform with known space. There were several hundred billion too many stars in the wrong places for it to even possibly part of Terran space, even the marked zones of theoretical extragalactic expansion.

He was still skeptical of the Alliance claim that they were natives of the Terra of this sector. It was not impossible that genetically compatible humans evolved on another planet, however it seemed infinitely more likely that a planet with a vaguely humanoid population had been colonized at some point and the colonists had either mated with or destroyed the native humanoids. There were numerous examples of it, the ratlings and Ogryn being the most prominent.

And really, the Alliance honestly expected him to believe that two separate groups of identical bipedal humanoids originated on a planet they named Terra and did not have similar origins? Daul was no fool. At the moment however it was more politically expedient to continue to allow them to believe what they wished. As time progressed it would be

"Tell me Cairn. When did I become responsible for entertaining xenos diplomats? There was a time where I would skewer a man for even suggesting that we allow xenos to surrender. Now I'm greeting a xenos diplomat with tea and biscuits," he picked up a biscuit and stared at it morosely. The frosted Aquilla stared at him judgmentally till he bit off the heads. The flaky pastry dissolved in his mouth in a sweet mess of crumbs and frosting.

Cairn swooped over with a cloth and assaulted his crumb covered beard. Daul batted him away, "Honestly what has gotten into you?"

Cairn crossed his arms and leaned back on his mechandrites, pointing in the direction of the empty liquor bottles lined up across the sink. The Skitarii had poured out every drop of liquor in the apartment after Daul had stopped disciplining the Ogryn. It was a bit like dealing with Inquisitor Gaal's wife, his foster mother, the first time she'd caught him drinking liquor. Cairn glared at him and he heard her voice saying, "You act like a child and I will treat you like a child."

"Enough Skitarii Thross! Your point is taken. My alcohol consumption was ill advised. We've had to kidnap a woman and wipe the minds of a dozen xenos and humans. We're skating on thin ice. I'm bloody well aware of it," Daul bit off a wing and chewed the buttery pastry. He raised the remaining wing and brandished the pastry at Cairn, "And the Ogryn as well, don't think I've forgotten I mistreated him. Poor fool, I don't know what came over me. It was like I was a different person for a minute."

Cairn massaged his temples in frustration, a gesture he'd picked up from watching Mr. Garibaldi. Daul hoped the Skitarii would grow bored of it soon. Cairn hadn't quite mastered it, he mostly just rumpled his hood while appearing to be in pain. It had been too long since Cairn had needed to express emotions of exasperation and he seemed to have forgotten the firmer points of the expression.

"Do try to keep your emotions in check when the Ambassador is here." Daul sighed and swallowed the rest of his biscuit. Cairn twisted his optics indignantly and busied himself with the kettle.

The door chimed and Daul rose to open it, sauntering over to the door and forcing his face to a practiced expression of polite disinterest. The door swung open and the tall mottled orange Narn G'Kar entered his apartment with a smile and a flourish, offering his hand to the Inquisitor, "It is an absolute pleasure to meet you in person Ambassador."

"Inquisitor," Daul corrected as he accepted the Narn's handshake, "Ambassador was a translation error."

"Ah," the Narn frowned somewhat off-put by the poor start, "I apologize. I was unaware."

"Don't worry," Daul sat down in the largest armchair, "As of yet very few of the Ambassadors are aware of my proper title. I only discovered the translation error recently."

"If I may say your English has improved drastically since you spoke to the League of Non-Aligned worlds. If one didn't know better one would assume that you were feigning ignorance for their benefit," G'Kar accepted the tea cup offered to him by Cairn and sniffed it tentatively, "A confusing move."

Daul snorted with amusement as one of the skulls hovered inches away from the Ambassador's head. G'Kar hissed and bared his teeth at the skull, getting a mouth full of soap for his efforts. Daul pretended not to notice the Ambassador's discomforted spitting as he responded to his question, "My understanding of the Alliance standard language is a relatively recent development. A side effect of defending myself against the Earth Alliance telepath."

"Ah," G'Kar's eyes lit up at the mention of the complications between the Alliance and Empire as he wiped his mouth on the back of his gauntlet, "If I may ask what actually happened? The press release is somewhat unclear."

"You may ask," Daul shook his head, "But I have no intention of exacerbating what is already a tenuous relationship with the Earth Alliance. Suffice it to say certain elements of the Earth Alliance government were educated on the dangers of overzealous ambition."

"And does this education have anything to do with the Earth Alliance fleet that is currently en-route to drag the numerous disabled Earther warships to dry dock," he chuckled politely at Daul's miffed expression, "You cannot fight a battle under my very nose and expect me not to research it Inquisitor."

"No," Daul sighed, "I suspect not. Though I hope we have more productive things to speak of today."

"I do not mean to touch on a delicate subject but I feel it necessary to ask why you have declined my requests to open a dialogue till this point," G'Kar grabbed one of the biscuits shaped like the bounty and bit into it. Crispy flakes of biscuit fell down his front and G'Kar brushed himself off apologizing profusely, "Oh my."

"No worries, Cairn's cooking is delicious but often messy. I suggest eating with the plate beneath your chin to avoid spillage," Daul chuckled as Thross offered a napkin with a mechandrite. G'Kar tentatively accepted the napkin from the mechanical tentacle, "As to why I did not schedule a meeting with you; it has been a busy couple of weeks. Had I not been occupied with an assault on the Endless Bounty we well may have met prior to this. And you are not the last to meet with me. I still decline to meet with the Minbari."

"You have not met with the Minbari?" G'Kar looked up from his biscuit in surprise. What was this absurd fixation these xenos had with catering to the whims of the Minbari and Vorlon governments? He had yet to witness evidence that either were worthy of the reverence they were given, even if the Minbari military record did justify their fear.

"I do not like genocidal monsters as a rule," G'Kar choked on his biscuit, "Are you alright Ambassador G'Kar?"

"I'm sorry Inquisitor," G'Kar slapped his chest to stop the coughing, "Most people would consider that statement... somewhat... hasty."

"The truth often is," Daul shook his head, "I prefer to deal in truth, not politically correct fiction. What is it you want from me Ambassador?"

"Obviously a simple cultural exchange would be good for a start but we are, like all the other governments I suspect, obviously interested in trading with you for military technologies," he tapped a gauntleted finger on his chin, "But if I may speak frankly the most useful thing you can provide me with is yourself."

"I beg your pardon?" Daul scowled across his cup of tea and into G'Kar's red eyes.

"My people no longer have psychics. We did in the ancient days, in the times of G'Quan," G'Kar stopped and smiled bashfully, "The great enemy came and killed the psychics with soldiers of darkness. They were eventually sent away but at a great cost. There are no longer Narn telepaths."

Daul blinked at the absurdity of the conversation. G'Kar was asking him to commit a cardinal heresy, that of artificially creating psychers. They wouldn't even be human psychers. His lip curled in disgust and he shook his head, "I think not... our government has... strict regulations upon the use of psychics. I would be very much interested in this great enemy however."

On the offhand chance this species killed all their psychics to avoid the predations of chaos he would have to remember to mark them as 'potential allies for the Ordos Malleus.'

G'Kar brightened at the suggestion, "Of course. It would be my pleasure." From a bag at his side G'Kar pulled out an aging book. The leather of the cover was taken from the skin of some great scaly beast and covered in gold leaf. The pages were thick and smelled of papyrus.

"This is the book of G'Quan. Copied from his original notes, generation to generation. Each copy must be a perfect imitation of the previous one, every note, every jot, every random dab of the pen. The words in this book are as much the voice of G'Quan those from the prophet's own mouth," G'Kar lovingly flipped through the pages, his every touch full of reverence.

He turned the book around and handed it to Daul, "The great enemy came on ships black as night that screamed with the voice of a thousand dying men. They brought a century of darkness till one day a coalition of the light managed to drive them away."

Daul's hands shook with excitement as he looked at the familiar spidery shape on the page. He forced his heart down from his throat and looked up at G'Kar, "And you've got proof that these soldiers of darkness were here?"

"Oh very much so," G'Kar sighed, "And I have seen proof that they are mustering at the edge of known space in a place of great evil but for all my efforts I have not been able to convince anyone of the imminent danger to us all. My own efforts to collect evidence have been less than fruitful."

"Cairn," Daul turned to his attendant, "Would you be so kind as to pull up the records of the fight over Belzafest. The first battle, before planetfall."

"Belzafest?" G'Kar took a second biscuit and chewed with relish, "These really are magnificent pastries."

"You're more than welcome to take some with you when you leave. They won't keep and I don't plan to say on the station long," Daul accepted the holographic projector from his attendant and placed it on the table, "Belzafest was a planet at the edge of our holdings. An archeological curiosity really. At least it was till a rogue agent of the Inquisition started using it as a staging base for something more insidious," he activated the hololithic image of a giant spidery ship in orbit of the planet, "We encountered two ships reminiscent of the designs indicated in your book of G'Quan."

"This is more than I could have hoped to find!" G'Kar's face lit up like a child at his name day, "And you are willing to testify that these ships are a danger to the known worlds."

"Of course," Daul felt a rush of excitement. The trail had not gone entirely cold after all, "Gladly."

"And can we expect you to provide us with advice on how one might fight the dark ones?" G'Kar posited hopefully.

"I will go a step further than that Ambassador. My government is at open war with the monsters that pilot these ships and the bastard who directs them," Daul stuck his hand out to G'Kar, "My friend if you are willing to aid me in destroying the monsters of Faust you have my aid and my friendship."

G'Kar reached out and gladly grasped his hand. His face was turned up in the most genuine smile Daul had seen in years, "Truly this is an auspicious day. I must confess that I had feared the prejudices of the Centauri might have prevented us from having any sort of relationship between our peoples at all. I regret judging you, your's is a wise and reasonable people."

Daul replied, "I hope to prove that wisdom with actions," even as a dark voice hissed 'heretic' in the corner of his mind, tinny and quiet as an echoing whisper in the night. One more step closer to finding Faust. One more step into heresy.

It was only minor heresy, he reminded himself as he pretended to listen to G'Kar's excited rambling praises. A small heresy to prevent a much greater one. It was all for the good of the Empire after all.

'How often does Faust convince himself of that?' he wondered.

"I'm sorry Ambassador," Daul apologized as he blinked his own confused thoughts away, "I was miles away, what was that again?"

"I was just saying that if we were to approach the Centauri Ambassador and get his support as well we could easily convince the known worlds to launch an attack on the enemy while they are still gathering their forces," he smiled toothily, flashing a mouth full of sharp yellow fangs.

"Yes," Daul smiled and nodded approvingly, "Best to get this over with quickly. Best to be done with it."

"Imagine Inquisitor! We could end the enemy here and now."

"No Ambassador. We would only end the enemy for a while. There is always a new enemy. We are never at a loss for new enemies," Daul sighed.

"A man with enough friends need not fear his enemies." Chortled the xenos.

"No ambassador," Daul shook his head, "A man with enough enemies cannot afford to trust his friends."

Cairn walked over and passed a message to Daul. He looked over it blinking in abject astonishment. How in the blazes had Al'Ashir gotten himself arrested? How had he gotten on the Babylon station at all for that matter? Daul swore it Metzik, "I'm sorry Ambassador but if we're going to continue this meeting we'll have to do so on the move. Our ship's brother confessor got it in his head that going and getting himself arrested by Mr. Garibaldi was a wise course of action."

"No time like the present," G'Kar slapped his knees jovially, "Off we go Inquisitor. It took me this long to find someone with proof of what is coming. I don't plan to let you out of my sight till you've managed to warn the council of the coming danger."

Daul looked exasperatedly to Cairn and switched back to gothic, "Well come on then Cairn. We can pick up the Ogryn on the way."

"Of course," G'Kar hesitated, "I don't suppose we could... perhaps..."

Daul rolled his eyes, "Cairn wrap up the biscuits for the Ambassador, we'll have them on the go.


Osma stared at the boy. The boy stared at Osma.

He was little more than a wisp of a boy, the sort of street child that often found himself apprenticed to some merchant or another. The Endless Bounty was full of orphaned or abandoned children, it always had been. Which was just as well, there were many jobs on ship that required small hands and nimble fingers. The work was often hard and dangerous, but most jobs for children were substantially less so that working as a power monkey or in the ironworks. The belt of an angry trader was no doubt preferable to the whip of a taskmaster in the Fabrica Munitio Imperialis.

The boy clearly knew his foster brothers were dead. All the street children were inanimately aware of death. In the old days of Delivan Sáclair hunting the excess orphan population became something of a sport. The practice had been abolished close to three centuries ago but the perception of street children as less than human had never quite been quashed. There were still nobles offering rewards of ten thrones for each street child killed by the police.

Osma made a point of crucifying anyone guilty of 'culling the herd' in the center of the marketplace in front of the cathedral. He wanted to make sure that the Emperor could see the sins of the men clearly so that they might meet their judgement swiftly.

He'd always hoped the street children would understand this meant he was on their side. Judging by the sullen expression of the five year old sitting on the other side of the interrogation room the only part that got through was 'I kill people in public.' Worse still, it turns out that Cha'wu Xian raised this boy and his foster brothers for the better part of the past three years. Poisoning their opinions of the security forces no doubt.

Xian was a traitor, but he was still the closest thing the child had to a father. The very idea that he might have to break those bonds of trust made Osma's skin crawl, though not as much as the idea that one's father might blow up your house while you were still inside of it.

Osma stared at the child, trying not to be disturbed by the glassy emptiness in the boy's eyes. The child stared at Osma directly, carefully avoiding eye contact, "You're going to be staying with me for a while boy."

"Oh," the child stared through Osma rather than at him. Still avoiding catching Osma's eyes, "Am I?"

"Yes," Osma nodded, "Your brothers and master met with an accident."

"I know," the boy swallowed and stared at his feet. The aged leather of the secondhand shoes Nor had given the boy was scuffed and worn. They were probably the best shoes the boy had ever owned, "I was there."

Osma chuckled darkly, "Yes child, yes you were. Now do you have a name child? I cannot simply go about calling you child or boy."

"Xian always just called me apprentice or yelled orders," the child scratched the stubble along his head where his hair was growing back in, "Never really worried about a name."

"Your foster brothers must have called you something." Osma smiled in what he hoped was a comforting way, "A nickname?"

"They... they called me wormy," The boy rubbed his hands together furiously and shifted in his chair, little legs swinging backwards and forwards beating against the chair leg in a nervous tattoo.

"I have no intention of calling you wormy," Osma rubbed the sleep out of his eye as he pulled out a painkiller and chewed on the pill. The foul tasting capsule slid gloriously down his gullet, its unpleasant tang already numbing his aching jaw, "You'll need a proper name if you're going to be with me."

The boy looked down at the floor, "If you say so."

"Boy," Osma's voice cracked like a whip and the child flinched, his arms wrapping around his chest to make himself smaller. Osma's face fell, "No child, no."

He reached over and gently rested his hand on the boy's shoulder. The boy froze, terrified to move. Osma sighed, "Child, listen to me and listen to me well. I do not condone or allow striking a child. I cannot promise never to be angry with you but I will never allow someone to strike you while I am around. Do you understand?"

"Sort of," the child said apprehensively. He probably wasn't the first to have said it to the boy, though he might have been the first to mean it, "I guess so."

"Good," Osma leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard, "Now I need to give you a name."

"How... how about Guilliman?" The child said hopefully, "Or Sanguinius?"

Osma chuckled, it was the sort of name he might have suggested for himself were he a five year old with a head full of tales of the great deeds of the Primarchs, "Why not simply take the name of the Emperor himself while you're at it child? No, I think we shall leave the names of the most holy to the Cult of the Emperor. Perhaps a saint's name might suit you better."

"Are you sure I can't be called Vulkan?" The boy had started swinging his entire body backwards and forwards in time with his legs. They were clearly reaching the edge of the child's patience for sitting still. The name 'wormy' started to make a great deal of sense.

"No child, you may not pick Vulkan as your name," He smiled apologetically, "I would probably have picked Rogal. No I think that Yunus suits you better."

"Yunus?" The boy made a face, "The fat child apprenticed to the baker with the oversized boil on his face is named Yunus."

"Well we can't have people associating you with giant boils now can we?" Osma patted the boy on the shoulder. The child still looked like he wanted to run away, but his flinch was slightly more delayed this time, "Efraim perhaps?"

"Efraim is an old person name." The child scrunched up is face and crossed his arms petulantly, "I'm not old."

"I'll have you know I have a good friend named Efraim." Osma ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.

"An old person," the child rolled his eyes, "With an old person name. I need a better name."

"Tariq perhaps? It means conqueror in the old tongue," Osma smiled at the boy's excited expression. The dreams of young boys were always of war and glory.

"Tariq," the child rolled the name around on his tongue, trying it out, "Tariq... Tariq... yes!"

"Very well Tariq," Osma patted his own stomach, "If you are to be my apprentice you are going to have to be properly fed. We are going to go down to the mess hall and grab a bite to eat with your fellow officers and apprentices. You're still a bit too young to train with the new recruits so for now I'm just going to have you tag along with me," reached down and lifted the boy's chin so that the Tariq would have to look him in the eyes, "Is that ok with you Tariq?"

"Can..." the boy hesitated, "Can we go somewhere I can pray afterwards? My brothers never got names. I want to make sure that the Emperor knows who they are... I don't want them to get lost in the crowd climbing the Golden Throne."

Osma beamed at the child, "I think some time at the church would do both of us some good."

He offered his hand to the child and Tariq grasped it hesitantly. He didn't have the boy's trust yet, but it was a start. First a meal, then prayer, then perhaps the boy would trust Osma enough to talk about Xian. Forcing the child to talk would only get the boy to clam up tighter than he already was.

He would get the Amon Sui bastards soon enough. For the moment helping a boy find peace would have to suffice.


The bald man stood to the side of the room watching Al'Ashir praying over the twisting and squirming man. Truth be told Al'Ashir was grateful for the company, praying for the souls of the unwell was often a lonely task. Their jailer seemed to take a very active interest in the wellness of his inmates, an uncommon trait for a man of his profession.

The unwell man groaned and sat up in bed blearily looking around the room. The balding man cleared his throat. Al'Ashir listened with wrapped attention trying to understand the curious speech of the Allaince, "You alright?"

The man rubbed the kinks out of his neck,"I never felt better. I'm the picture of health. Where am I?" He froze as he realized where he was, "Oh god… what did I do this time?"

"You don't remember?" The jailer asked calmly.

"I find that life, in general, is much easier if I forget most of the things that happen to me." Al'Ashir reached out to comfort the man but got his hand's slapped away by him.

"Well you were about to accuse the Centauri Ambassador of being in league with the Devil which might not be too far from the truth," He nodded to Al'Ashir, "And I wouldn't hit him if I were you. He may talk like he took too many blows to the head but he's spent the better part of the past day trying to keep you out of trouble."

"Yeah... thanks buddy," he said uncertainly to Al'Ashir wincing as he turned his neck, "Ow, my head hurts."

"Yeah we had to put you out." The Jailer shrugged.

"I was that bad?" Said the man in an unsurprised voice.

"You were standing in the middle of the plaza yelling that the day of judgement was coming."

"Did it?"

"No not that I know of but I may have missed a staff meeting," the Jailer sighed "You ever done this before?"

The man laughed, "I've done everything before."

The Jailer pulled up a chair and sits down close to the man, "Where were you stationed?"

"Nowhere special," the man rubbed his nose reflexively. More than likely he was recovering from some recreational substance or another, "Here and there. Just a gropo. No big deal."

"I figured you for a ground pounder. Me too." The jailer smiled and chuckled jovially.

"Looks like we both missed our chance to be heroes," said the man dejectedly.

"What about the dreams?" The jailer said pointedly.

"Dreams?" the man's eyes flitted about the room fearfully, "No I… I never dream."

The jailer wasn't buying it for a moment, "You've been talking in your sleep."

"Is there a reason that door is open?" the man snarled and scratched furiously at his own head. Little bits of collected grime flaked off him.

"You can go," the man rose and rushed for the door, eager to be out of the cell. The Jailer calmly watched him leaving as said, "I know some good councilors. I used them myself."

"Now what would a man with everything in the world do with one of them eh?" The man waved his arms widely, his voice anything but convincing.

Al'Ashir stood to leave as well but the jailer pressed his hand to Al'Ashir's chest, "Sorry buddy. Not you."

"I must be going. The man is needing me," Al'Ashir nervously listened to the man's retreating footsteps with a deep sense foreboding. He could not allow the man to get away from him before he'd had a chance to save him from himself.

"I don't disagree with you padre," the jailer looked in the direction the man walked, "The man needs serious help from somebody and I'm not necessarily opposed to it being you. But honestly padre, I just can't let you go till we've gotten a couple things ironed out."

"It is my rights to spread word of Emperor to mankind," Al'Ashir flustered indignantly, "I may travel as I wish."

"In the Empire maybe," Garibaldi shrugged, "But in the Alliance you need to qualify for a missionary license first before you can start preaching to the masses. And I still need to find out how in the heck you snuck past security."

"It was will of the Emperor," Al'Ashir fumbled in English for the right words. The whole damned language seemed to be one giant mess of irregular words. It was as bad as High Gothic if not worse, "His will that I be here. His will that I preach his words."

"Could you point out where it was the Emperor's will you sneak past security on a map? It may have been the Emperor's will that you get past my guys. I doubt that a dust smuggler is in his good books," the jailer rolled his eyes, clearly less than awed by the divinity of his cause.

"You joke of His will?" Al'Ashir shook his head in disappointment, "I have much teaching to do here my childrens."

"I'm not opposed to it buddy but you have to go through the proper channels for this stuff," the jailer shrugged, "We can sort this out when the Inquisitor gets here."

"Ah," Al'Ashir ran his hand through his beard nervously, "Yes... perhaps we should be talkings about that. If it is a matter of gold I have gold." He pulled out his heavy purse and poured a couple dozed thumb sized Imperial Thrones into his hand. The jailer's eyes bugged out at the sight of the satchel of gold.

"How in the heck did you keep that freaking sack of gold in down below? The Lurkers would knife a man for a nickel, let alone a sack for fragging gold," the jailer blinked in surprise. He reflexively reached out for the coins then drew back his hand as though it had been scalded.

An honorable man. A pity, this would have been much easier if he could be bribed. He smiled at the man, "The Emperor protects."

"Then the Emperor may patiently protect you in this cell till the Inquisitor arrives to sort this whole mess out."

"Very well then," Al'Ashir smiled, "Perhaps you might be open to listening to his word."

"Uh... yeah," the jailer looked over his shoulder at the open door, "Look buddy I've got stuff to get done."

"Brother confessor Al'Ashir," said Al'Ashir as he pulled out his player book and thumbed through the pages.

"Michael Garibaldi," the Jailer replied, "Look have fun praying, or meditating, or whatever it is you do. I need to go meet up with the Captain for a meeting. I'll be back soon with the Inquisitor and we can smooth this all out."

"Very well Michael," Al'Ashir smiled at the jailer as he left the cell, "I will pray for you while you are gone my childrens."

"Pray extra," the jailer chuckled, "I've done a good bit of sinning."

Al'Ashir smiled as he kneeled down to pray. The ones worth putting in the effort to save usually had. This was indeed an auspicious day for the Word.


The family meal was a tradition the Lady Sáclair started after the birth of Marco, the captain's third bastard child off his concubines. She'd decided that if she could not stop her husband from sowing his seed wherever he wished she could at least see to it that the 'wild oats' and those cultivated intentionally did not grow to resent each other. To that effect she had insisted that the entire extended family of the Captain would meet for a meal at least once a week.

The first several attempts weren't as idillic as the Lady Sáclair had imagined in her head Ami suspected. More often than not the Lady acted as a peace maker between Sáclair's four concubines for most of the meal and as a peace maker between the children for the rest.

They had since separated the children and the parents into two separate rooms when they ate meals together. Ami liked to believe that it had improved the relationship between the siblings.

For all the passive aggressive sniping and pointless arguments that arose at the table Ami liked the family meetings. She did not often get to see her younger siblings. The youngest, Agustus, was barely out of diapers but had as much sheer cheek and flirt in him as his father. He wandered the dining hall all fat cheeks and wide smiles for the serving girls, raising his arms to the air and saying "up." He was going to be a heart breaker some day.

Paulo, slightly older than his brother, had progressed to the 'girls are icky' stage of his development and watched his brothers actions with a confused mix of envy and disgust. He kept elbowing his half brother Vincente and whispering in his brother's ear before the two of them dissolved into giggles, doubtlessly wispering dirty things to each other they'd overhead from the Lionhearts. Her youngest sister Marian kept whining to them to let her in on their secret talk, prodding at Vinciente's ribs in annoyance.

Abbas' chair was absent, as were those of the twins Bartimius and Iswin. Abbas' training with the Magos consumed the majority of his time and the twins were back in Imperial space training in the Schola Progenitum. The table felt horriby lonely now that the three of them were gone. Antony was good company to be sure, but he was a bit bland for Ami's taste. Were as Abbas, Bartimius or Iswin would gladly have been plotting some mischief with her Antony was glad to simply sit quietly and observe the other people at the table.

With her elder siblings Vigo, Marco, and Aryana in the hospital visiting David that essentially meant the only people to speak with at the table were her elder sisters Carran and Arda. It had been years since Carran last attended a family meal. If Ami had her way it would be years more till the next one.

"I'm telling you Carran I don't think they're looking in the right places for this guy," Ami crossed her arms frustratedly and scowled at her sister, "At best they're just getting him to go underground while the security forces are in place."

"Ami must you talk about this at the table?" Carran massaged her temples in frustration her face the picture of patient suffering. Ami would have liked to toss the dinner roll on her plate straight into Carran's face, "It is hardly an appropriate topic for conversation."

"I find the topic to be fascinating," Antony said in placid indifference, "What is it that makes you believe that the current measures are only stop gap measures?"

"Because we don't have enough security officers to have them patrolling the Belzafest quarter indefinitely," Arda wiped the sides of her mouth with a napkin, "My word that soup is superb. Pass a roll will you?"

"Exactly!" exclaimed Ami as she passed the plate of bread, "Shakut's men are good but any clues they had were destroyed when the crime scenes blew up."

"And what exactly do you propose to do about it?" Chuckled Carran, "Solve it yourself?"

"I could," protested Ami, "I'm as clever as any."

"More than most I suspect... no not at the dinner table!" Antony snagged the butter knives Paulo and Vinciente were about to sword fight with before turning back to Ami, "But I don't think it is wise for you to seek out a murderer Ami. For that matter I don't think its wise for any of us to go anywhere on the ship without a sufficient escort."

"I have no need of any such protection," hissed Carran indignantly.

"Yes," Arda rolled her eyes behind her spectacles, "You do Carran. Thrones be blessed girl use your head, if Ami's murderer isn't Amon Sui then the bomber more than certainly is. I know you have private security but I will be speaking with the Lady about having the Lionhearts follow all of us."

"I'm not so sure about that," Ami started hesitantly. She was as reluctant as Carran to be followed by the Lionhearts at all times.

"You especially," Arda brandished her fork in Ami's direction, "I know you too well sister. You're about to go on some fool mission. Well this is the end of it. I dislike losing privacy as much as you but certain things take precedent over our own comfort. No more running into damned battles."

"I didn't go looking for trouble," Ami protested, "I just wanted to help."

"Well you just helped your way into having a Lionheart with you at all times," Antony crossed his arms in resignation.

Ami scowled indignantly, even as the sandy blonde hair and brilliant white teeth of Sergi flashed in her memory. Perhaps having a Lionheart around her at all times wouldn't be all bad.


Dr. Franklin's report was grim, "At the time of death the victim's weight was ninety pounds. Based upon his height and his bone structure his normal weight should have been about one hundred and eighty but malnutrition wasn't what killed him. He died as a result of organ failure."

"Why" Mr. Garibaldi said suspiciously flipping through the chart, his eyes flitting about the page in confusion.

"I don't know. They're missing. It's as though something reached inside of him and pulled them out." Doctor Franklin pointed to the data display, highlighting the missing organs. How in the heck did something tear out the organs without leaving a mark on the skin?

"What happened to the organs?" Mr. Garibaldi made a disgusted face. John couldn't help but share the feeling. Organs did not simply get up and walk away.

"There's no evidence of them anywhere on the ship. We ran a complete scan if there was so much as a cell remaining we'd have found it." Dr. Franklin shook his head in wonderment, his face utterly flummoxed. That was... disturbing on a level John didn't even know how to describe.

Something came into the pod, tore out a man's organs without breaking the skin and then disappeared without leaving a trace. It was like some horrible ghost story.

Mr. Garibaldi sighed, "I think we'd better have a talk with the woman who was with him."

"No I don't think that's such a good idea yet." Dr. Franklin shook his head firmly.

"A man's been murdered and the list of suspects is pretty short." Mr. Garibaldi said flippantly.

Dr. Franklin shook his head, "According to the ship's logs she was in stasis the whole time."

There were times where John had difficulty if Dr. Franklin's blind faith in people was optimism or naivety, "Logs can be altered. It's a safe bet he didn't reach down his throat and pull out his own heart."

Dr. Franklin's scowled angrily but before the good doctor could respond his link chimed. He raised it to his ear in frustration, "Yes?"

"She's awake and asking for you Dr. Franklin."

"I have to go," Dr. Franklin collected his papers and data pad, shoving them into his satchel.

"When she's ready I want to talk to her," John stated firmly. If nothing else he owed this woman a conversation before he accused her of murder.

"Finish up for me," Dr. Franklin nodded to Michael and rushed out of the room.

"Lousy way to die huh," Mr. Garibaldi stared at the diagram of the dead man with a slightly nauseous expression.

John shook his head and turned the morbid image off, "Last time I checked there weren't too many good ways."

Michael looked down at his watch, "Crud! I have to go sir. The Inquisitor is coming down to pick up the priest we found this morning. I'm already going to be late."

"Then you'd better hurry Mr. Garibaldi," John sighed and dismissed his security officer. He sat down at his desk and turned to the photo of his dead wife, "It's always something isn't it?"

The photo did not reply.


Daul paced impatiently in the brig's waiting room outside of the processing center. It was like everything on the Babylon station, grey, sterile and functional. The very idea of calling him down to the brig to see Father Al'Ashir then making him wait around for Mr. Garibaldi to have a time for him was insufferable. He was a bloody Inquisitor.

The toad of a man who'd been given the duty of doorkeeper refused to allow Daul access to the cells even if he left the Xenos, the Skitarii, and the Ogryn in the waiting room. He'd given some excuse to do with telepathic regulations but Daul was willing to bet the security chief had given orders not to allow him in without Mr. Garibaldi's direct supervision.

"If you keep pacing like that you'll drive yourself insane Inquisitor," G'Kar said over the cover of his book, "Mr. Garibaldi will be back soon. The man is scrupulously punctual."

"Then where is he," Daul hissed, "I see no security officer other than that," he jabbed furiously in the direction of the dour faced man at the main desk, "Impudent cur who had the unmitigated gall to deny me access to my countryman and my property."

"I dislike the reference to a living being as property Inquisitor," G'Kar adjusted the collar of his jerkin, "It has certain unpleasant precedents with my people."

"We may have a discussion on the ethics of it once Dorn is back on my Throne cursed ship," Daul breathed deeply resisted the urge to simply tear the door off it's hinges. It would be all too easy. Peace, calm, he needed these people.

"Indeed," G'Kar flipped the page with a flourish.

"What on earth are you reading anyway? You've been sitting there with that book in your hand since we arrived," Daul examined the scribbled writing on the cover.

"What this?" G'Kar looked down at it, "A mere curiosity of mine. It is a history of the expeditions into Vorlon space."

"It was my understanding that expeditions into Vorlon space do not return," Daul looked to Cairn for confirmation. The Skitarii shrugged. How should he know?

G'Kar chuckled, "Yes, the ending of each story is rather similar. But what interests me is why these people go into what is clearly a suicidal situation."

"I would have thought that was obvious," Daul blinked in confusion.

"Obvious," G'Kar looked up from his book.

"Galut," Daul turned to the wide faced man. The Ogryn was sitting as still as he could manage, doing his best to look well behaved. Upon hearing his name the Ogryn stood up as though he'd just been plugged into a live wire and snapped off a quick salute. His head collided with the ceiling, denting the plating of the ship's hull, "Wut sir?"

"Why would someone go on a suicide mission Galut?"

"Wut?" The ogryn's slaute faltered fearfully, "Right now you mean sir? Do I have to?"

"No," Daul shook his head, "For pretend. Why would someone go on a mission that they knew they couldn't come back from. One that they don't have to go on."

"Cuz its da' right fing' ta do I suppose," the Ogryn squinted hard as though he'd been given a complex math equation, "Yeah. Oi'd do it cuz it was the right fing' ta do."

G'Kar smiled, "Much the same conclusion anyone might come to. But what is it that makes something the right thing? How do we decide it?"

"Ambassador," Daul shook his head and looked to the door, "You're over analyzing a simple thing. Right and wrong aren't choices we make, they're choices made for us once we've been long dead." He smiled as an ambient sensation of resigned duty crept up to the door, "And unless I miss my guess the local arbiter of right and wrong approaches."


Michael entered the brig five minutes later than he'd intended to only to find the Inquisitor and his retinue sitting in the waiting area along with the Narn Ambassador of all people, "Inquisitor Hilder, you're early."

"Mr. Garibaldi," The Inquisitor replied. Small flames flickered unnervingly in his eyes, "You're late. I do not appreciate being kept waiting."

"I'm sure you don't," Michael had no intention of playing the Inquisitor's word games or of being intimidated by his eery psychic voodoo. The man was a glorified diplomat and would be treated just like every other uppity diplomat, "But we can't always get what we want."

"I want my man and my property Mr. Garibaldi," the Inquisitor rubbed together his thumb and forefinger in frustration, small sparks spat out.

"You singe the carpet and you're paying for it buddy," Michael walked past the Inquisitor ignoring Cairn entirely, "You can bring Galut with you into the holding cells but the tin man and G'Kar are going to have to wait outside."

"I must insist that Cairn be permitted to come with us," Hilder stated in a tone of dangerous calm. Michael was apparently skating on the edge of his patience.

"Then I must insist that Al'Ashir stays a guest of my cells," Michael tossed the sign in clip board to the Inquisitor, "I don't allow anything with a recording device or capable of hacking a lock into the cells. To my knowledge Cairn is more than capable of both."

"Ah," The Inquisitor nodded, "Very well. We will comply. Cairn, wait."

The mechanical man crossed his arms and leaned against the wall making petulant warbling noises and shooting Michael dirty looks. Michael rolled his eyes, "Look buddy take it as a compliment. You're the most dangerous lock pick I've seen in ages. You're like a walking prison break."

The warbling dulled down to an occasional tweet, even if the sullen body language didn't change.

Michael motioned to the turnkey and the light above the entrance to the holding cells flashed green. Michael pushed the button to activate the door and motioned to Daul, "After you. We're heading for cell 15."

"Too kind," the Inquisitor said dryly as he entered the holding area and eyed the full swat team in riot gear and gas-masks, "Are they for my benefit?"

"I remember your performance on the bridge Inquisitor. You try that here and we'll just pump the hallway full of a powerful sedative," Michael smiled charmingly, "I like to have all my bases covered."

Michael nodded to the riot squad, they took their places in front of and behind the Inquisitor, side arms at the ready. Rather than looking off put by the treatment the Inquisitor seemed out right giddy.

"Quite," the Inquisitor chuckled amusedly, "Well, this is more like it. I was starting to feel like a damned house pet. Shall we continue then Mr. Garibaldi?"

"Yeah," Michael strode towards Dorn's cell at a healthy pace, trying to keep in stride with the Inquisitor's long shanks, "You do realize that I cannot release Dorn into your custody."

"Your Captain said as much," Hilder glared icily at Michael, "I have you to thank for that I understand."

"We aren't sure how he fits under our legal system," Michael scrutinize the Inquisitor right on back, "If Dorn is truly non-sentient property then we're actually obligated to destroy him entirely as he technically constitutes an illegal bio-weapon. If he qualifies as sentient then because your government has no established extradition treaty we are obligated to try him under our system."

"You have no intention of releasing him to me do you?" Hilder raised an eyebrow. His distinguished features looked distinctly hawkish in the dull light of the corridor.

"Unless you establish a very specific extradition treaty before you leave here today that applies ex post facto to crimes committed while on station I don't see it happening," Michael shook his head, "And considering how much he talks I don't see Dorn as being classified as non-sentient."

Michael continued walking for a few steps before he realized the Inquisitor was not following him. Hilder stood stock still, apparently processing what Michael just said, "Dorn... is talking?"

"Yes," Michael failed to see the relevance of it, "Mostly incoherent chanting about angels but he is talking."

"Cell 15 right?" The Inquisitor didn't wait for Michael to finish saying yes before bolting towards cell 15 at a dead sprint. Balefire flickered around his entire body as the man muttered to himself furiously in his native tongue.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," Michael broke into a run after the Inquisitor, struggling to keep up with the man's impressive sprint. He caught up with the Imperial ten yards up the corridor as Hilder stared into the open window of the cell in abject horror.

"How did I not see that this would happen! By the throne! How blind am I? A regenerative... it would fix everything the body naturally saw as an error," The Inquisitor looked to the furious mass of muscle and sinew in the cell beyond, "The damn replicator glands are probably manufacturing it by themselves now. They got more than enough to replicate the pattern."

"Want to share with the class Hilder?" Michael snapped his fingers in front of the other man's face.

"War servitors are kept in a murderous rage at all times that is only suppressed with drugs and hypnotic triggers. I cannot always guarantee that I have regular access to the facilities necessary to fabricate the narcotics used to keep an arco-flagellant docile," He ran his hands through his hair, "I had him implanted with a unique organ designed to replicate the narcotics internally. With the proper gene triggers they could be made to replicate the anti-agapics used by most of the imperial nobility."

"Anti-agapics? Age reversing drugs," Michael had flashes to the Deathwalker incident.

"Mr. Garibaldi, a properly powerful vat of anti-agapic restorative can grow a human from a single cell," Daul Hilder looked at the psychotically grinning face of Dorn behind the window, "And now Sotu'an Taka, a man responsible for the deaths of six thousand people is regrowing brain function. Mr. Garibaldi this is no longer a request I will be taking Dorn with me when I leave here. One way or another he is coming with me. Sotu'an Taka must not be allowed to regain his higher brain functions."

"I am not going to release a man to you so that you can lobotomize him. I don't care if he's Adolf Hitler himself, as long as he's under my custody he is guaranteed a trial by jury and equal protection under the law," Michael pointed to the admittedly terrifying face of Dorn as the man rubbed his face across the window, leaving a trail of spit, "I cannot allow you to torture this helpless man."

Galut shot Michael a meaningful look, his choice of words was apparently a mistake. "I will be leaving with this man Mr. Garibaldi. You cannot stop me when the time comes," Hilder said in a voice of complete confidence.

"Try it," Michael spread his arms, "I'll be right here waiting. In the meantime are you going to take back your preacher or should I plan on him being a long term resident."

"As tempting as leaving him in a cell is I fear leaving him behind would be more problematic than taking him with me," The Inquisitor's shot one last angry look at Dorn, "Very well where is he?"


The woman from the sleeper ship sat in bed, doing her best to swallow a cup of water. Considering that she hadn't been making use of the muscles for the better part of a century she was making quite a go of it.

She smiled happily at Stephen when he wandered over to her bed and grabbed her chart. Scrawled in the illegible script of one of the nurse was the name Miranda Cirrus. Finally, a name to go with the face, "Well looking a lot better."

She positively beamed at him, "Well I'm feeling a lot better thanks to you doctor…"

Stephen offered his hand, "Franklin."

She shook it jovially and he added hastily, "Stephen."

Stephen looked down at the largely empty chart. Now was as good a time to fill in the blanks as any. He clicked the pen and smiled at Miranda. "If you don't mind me asking a couple of questions what were you doing on that ship?"

"Will, my husband, and I are part of a commercial research group. They needed volunteers for a long term deep space research mission and I jumped at the chance. They assigned us to the Copernicus. She was programmed to home in on any signal we might come across and wake us up," she chewed her lip and looked around the hospital excitedly, "I never though the signal could be of human origin. How long were we in stasis."

Stephen read her eager expression with some concern, "I think we should take this a day at a time."

"That doesn't sound very good," damn, she was perceptive. He'd been hoping to delay this to avoid shocking her system. It had already been through substantial stress, "How long."

"Well I don't have the exact number," Stephen hesitated, "but over one hundred years."

"A hundred years?" Miranda's face went white as a sheet and she looked around the room, "I'd like to see Will now."

Stephen froze unsure what to say. Sorry to tell you this but something ate your husband's organs just felt a bit callous. And as long as she was a suspect in the man's murder he didn't even know where to begin.

Miranda swallowed nervously, "Something's wrong isn't it?"

Well he had to say something otherwise he would just be standing there staring awkwardly, "I'm afraid he died during the voyage,"

"Oh god," Miranda grabbed her face, unable to believe the words.

"We still haven't been able to determine exactly what happened." It wasn't strictly a lie. They knew that William had been murdered, they just hadn't got a clue how or why it had been done.

"We just said goodnight to each other," Miranda rubbed her face and stared at Stephen with absolute panic in her voice, "I can't cry."

"Long term stasis dries the tear ducts," Stephen got in close and examined her eyes, double checking that there was no permanent damage.

"Oh god what have I done," Miranda grabbed his hand and looked into his eyes, her gaze pleading for everything that happened to just be some terrible nightmare. Stephen couldn't do anything other than squeeze her hand and sit there while she tearlessly sobbed, mourning a husband lost decades ago.


"Father Al'Ashir I presume?" Daul leaned door frame in amusement looking into the dimly lit cell, glad to be speaking in High Gothic. Though, now that he thought about it for a moment, it was substantially larger and more luxurious that the quarters Al'Ashir chose to inhabit on the bounty.

"Inquisitor Hilder," Father Al'Ashir rose from his morning prayers positively quivering with excitement, "I have finally found my calling in His name!"

"I suspect that He doesn't need you to be in prison Al'Ashir. The worst crime you've committed that I can think of was that insufferably boring sermon about the importance of trust three months ago," Daul smiled and nodded towards the door, "Come on then. Let's get you out of here."

"Are we all good here?" Mr. Garibaldi rapped on the door, clearly eager to break off the conversation before he became trapped listening to High Gothic at length, "Not that I want to stop this love fest but if you're taking him can you take this conversation on the road."

"A second please Mr. Garibaldi," Father Al'Ashir said in heavily accented English, "Inquisitor I am wishing to start a permanent mission on station."

"Father Al'Ashir I haven't got a clue what is involved in that," Daul massaged his throbbing temples, "Nor am I inclined to leave you alone on this station when we leave. Perhaps when we get back to the Empire and send a more permanent presence in this sector of space."

"Inquisitor I am not fool," Al'Ashir fixed him with a scowl that would have had priest adepts and alter boys cowering in fear, "I do not plan to start a mission here in two hundred years I mean to start a mission now."

"Two hundred years?" Mr. Garibaldi interjected, "Just how far away is the Empire."

"Further than close and closer than forever," Daul spat back flippantly. He had hoped Al'Ashir would simply pester Sáclair about this insane plan to open a mission on station, "Mr. Garibaldi I am taking Father Al'Ashir with me. I would take it as a kindness if you would assist me in escorting him to a transport. As his only crime is trespassing I hope that would be an acceptable solution."

Al'Ashir scowled, "I will not be walked off this station at gun point Inquisitor. I am a man of peace. If you must use force on me to have your way so be it. I will follow you, but I know that me being on this station is the will of the Emperor. Mark my words Daul. He will aid me."

Daul smiled sadly, "The Emperor protects Al'Ashir, but he doesn't always give us what we want when we want it. Take pride in that we've found the Alliance at all."


Normally Stephen wouldn't consider taking a patient out of the recovery room this soon but keeping Miranda in the sterile recovery room was only going to give her more time to brood and regret. The faster he could get her scientist mind working on other things the faster she would be able to get on with her life. The hospital was only ten minutes away from the Bazaar and if ever there was a place to lose yourself in the moment, it was in the Bazaar.

Miranda froze in astonishment as they exited the lift and a Markab wandered past. Her eyes were wide as saucers as she tried to look everywhere at once. It was like watching a child in a candy shop. She was so interested in everything she could see that her body simply did nothing as her brain tried to reconcile all of it.

Stephen chuckled and gave her a little push to start her walking, "You've never seen an alien before have you?"

"There were indications that there were other life forms but I never imagined anything like that," she crooned with anticipation as Stephen guided her over to a nearby café, "I've missed so much."

"Well, not all of it's been good." Stephen said, thinking back to the Earth-Minbari war, "A few years after your ship left Earth we finally made contact with another species, the Centauri. We opened up trade relations and they gave us jump gate technology."

"Before that we'd been pretty much limited to our own solar system." Stephen waved apologetically.

"After that we were out among the stars," Stephen waved his arms wide, "First leasing time on alien jump gates and then building our own."

"So the cryogenic suspension, the goodbyes… was all for nothing." Miranda's voice darkened, hinting at another bout of depression, "If we'd just waited a few more years…"

"You couldn't have known," Stephen patted her hand in awkward compassion, "What you did, it took vision. It took courage."

"What else did I miss?" Miranda said longingly.

"The usual. The good times and the bad times. The revelations and the revolutions. Outbreaks of hysteria, the parade of promises, consequences, constitutions and the occasional war," Stephen paused considering his words, "The last big ones were against the Dilgar which we won and against the Minbari which… well that's a long story."

"And we still haven't outgrown violence?" Miranda's face fell disappointedly.

"No," Stephen chuckled, "It's going to take a lot more than a hundred years to evolve a better human."

Ambassador G'Kar wandered over to the table with Inquisitor Daul. Stephen smiled, he'd been worried that the Ambassador's fears that the Centauri might have poisoned the imperial opinion of the Narn Empire had been valid.

"Ambassador, Inquisitor," Stephen paused when he got to the bearded man to the right of the Inquisitor.

"Father Al'Ashir," supplied G'Kar, "Apparently a member of the Imperial clergy."

"Well," Stephen nodded politely and offered his hand, "Hello." The priest took it gladly, bowing slightly as he shook it.

G'Kar smiled brightly at Miranda, "This must be our visitor from the past,"

"Miranda, this is Ambassador G'Kar of the Narn and Inquisitor Daul of the Empire," Stephen was grateful for the Imperial Ambassador's presence even if the man was sour tempered. He was substantially less overwhelming than most of the other aliens.

"The future is always changing madam," G'Kar smiled at her brightly, "And we will change with it. It is what we make it."

And then the screaming started.


Miranda fell to the ground twitching in an epileptic fit, screaming about some great beast coming for her in the night. A stabbing shoot of warp energy rocketed up Daul's spine out of nowhere, a bone chilling reminder of the presence of the Great Enemy. Daul froze for a second when the woman began before leaping into action, "She's been posessed Al'Ashir!"

"What?" Al'Ashir blinked in shock, "Here? How? These people know nothing of the warp."

"When has that ever stopped the Great Enemy?" Daul pulled a sliver rod covered in hexigrammic wards from his pocket and pointed to Miranda, "Galut! Hold her down. Cairn, keep the onlookers away."

Dr. Franklin protested vehemently when Cairn pulled him off the woman but could do little other than protest as he was carried away. G'Kar grabbed Daul by the shoulder hissing angrily, "Inquisitor what do you think you are doing?"

"Ambassador I am saving this woman from the worst fate imaginable. There are soldiers of darkness from the ancient times, we both know that. But some of them are more subtle than others. Not if you wish this woman to live I must be allowed to finish my work," he pushed the Ambassador back with gentle burst of psychic discharge.

Daul kneeled down next to the violently seizing and screaming woman and placed the rod in the woman's mouth. The wards within the silver rod glowed a violent red light and started to spark angrily, "Al'Ashir the right of Exorcisim! I need the word empowering this, I do not know the beast's name."

The priest did not need to be told twice. He began to sing the Chant of Banishing, invoking the names of the Emperor, Primarchs, and Sainted Matryrs of the Empire. The words calmed Daul's mind and focused his spirit.

"This woman is not yours demon," Daul placed his hands on the woman's forehead and plunged into her mind. Her mind was a tumultuous mess of fear, loss and confusion. It was the perfect cocktail of emotions for a creature of the warp to feed off to sustain itself.

Daul searched the fragmented landscape of the girls mind, searching for the beast's link to her. He wandered past images of houses, trees, shadowy figures of friends and memories of emotion, bursting and brimming with color and feeling, till he reached the dull rust colored image of a rust-bucket freighter.

There was something bad within that freighter, something wrong. He stepped towards it and got an image of running down some dark corridor in his mind. He felt the stale air upon his face. He felt fresh blood dripping from his lips and hands, sticky and sweet from a fresh kill.

Daul retched, the sick bastard was playing with her. He wanted her to watch what he did to others so that she would know that he would one day do it to her. It wanted to feed on her fear, it wanted to gorge itself on terror and despair so that it could sustain itself on chunks of her soul as long as was possible.

Well, two could play at this game. Daul would not let humans be easy prey to some unholy abomination. Daul forced himself into the ship and grasped at the shadow tendrils that tethered it to the demon. He drove his arms into them, rejecting the sensations of wretchedness and slime. He shoved his fingers to the core and grabbed hold of them, tight as he could and projected all the pain he had ever felt in his entire life in one moment.

The tendrils twitched and tried to retract but Daul would not let them, he continued to feed agony directly into the demon's mind. Again, and again, and again he forced the memories of being flayed alive, of being tortured, of being stabbed, of being burned and all manner of unpleasantness into the creature's mind. He pumped them into the creature's core till he could hold on no longer and let go of the tendrils.

The demon hurriedly tired to regain it's hold on the woman's mind, but too late. Daul pushed every last scrap of the creature out, barricading the hole in the woman's mind with bricks of his own pain and using his hatred of chaos as the mortar.

He gasped as he left the woman's mind, watching in shock as a tendril of balefire flew from the woman's body and out of the bazaar. Sentients screamed and ducked the billowing black ball of fire as it rocketed into the distance, screaming with unholy fury. The hexigrammic wards in the woman's mouth flared white, then disappeared.

Her ragged breathing soothed and she relaxed enough that Galut could let go of her without risking her doing harm to herself. Daul took the silver gag out of her mouth, stood, and found himself face to face with the the livid face of Talia Winters. She was standing with a PPG in one hand and her Psi Corps badge in the other, "Inquisitor Daul you just committed a forceable intrusion into a woman's mind in plain view of several dozen witnesses. I would ask you what the hell you were thinking but it is abundantly clear to me that you weren't thinking at all."

"Miss Winters, I am not the one you want to point that firearm at. You have an greater problem to deal with. There is a demon on the station. We are all in grave danger." He looked over his shoulder and flinched in terror as a psychic scream ripped through the station, the rage of the beast tearing through reality, "Miss Winters, I need you to trust me or we will all die."


Sorry this is only half a chapter but I've been doing relief work at a food bank in Kyoto for most of the month. There should be another one of roughly this length within the week.

I wrote and edited this on my cell phone so if anyone sees any errors please feel free to point them out. I know this chapter isn't up to my usual standard.

Thank you to everyone who's written reviews and a special thank you to those of you who send me messages asking questions. I wish I could answer them but it would ruin the big reveal later on.