In the depths of space several hyper space portals opened, fleets of war machines made the transition from that to the real space.

They tore into the Centauri lines with relative ease, destroying everything in their path, taking a lot of damage along the way. The Earth Alliance and Inter Stellar Alliance hit the Centauri border region hard, and hundreds of small battles and skirmishes would take place over the next several hours.

High energy plasma, ions, and beams of angry red light scorched at one another, gutting hulls, and ending lives.

As for the Gandalf she crossed the border with complete ease. Not even being detected as she made the transition from one area to the other.

Stacia Clarke was in the mess hall, getting her tray from the galley stores, she turned around, and wondered where she was going to go to sit down and have her meal. The mess hall was oddly crowded for this time of day, no one really had anything to do for the moment. And they all knew, at least subconsciously, that this could change at any second now, where they could be forced into the fire so dramatically.

She saw a lonely figure sitting at a table towards the middle of the room, and decided to go and sit down and join it.

"Is this seat taken?" She said, approaching the figure nervously.

He started and looked at Stacia for a second before responding "no not at all." Prince Vintari said in his still overly thick Centauri accent.

She accepted the invitation and spread the napkin out in front of her on her lap as she went to eat. Prince Vintari did not look much inclined for the moment to talk, and he just went back to the state he was in before, deep in thought, almost in a blind stupor.

"I'm Stacia, Lt. Cmdr Clarke." she said in between mouth fulls.

"And you know who I am" The Prince said absently.

She looked at him for a second, hardly being insulted by the brash tone that he had taken on.

She looked at him sadly, figuring that something deep had to be on his mind.

"It must be tough," she said with sympathy, he came out of it and arched an eye at her curiously. "I mean going back to face your people like this, in the middle of a war."

"Oh you have no idea." He grinned, but somehow Stacia knew it to be fake, and nervous.

"Especially for me." He said absentmindedly, threatening to lose himself again in thought.

"Why?" She probed, not willing to let him get away that easily.

"Because I am a Cartagia." He said averting his eyes, and smiling bitterly. She looked at him curiously, he returned her gaze sadly. "He was a real monster, the greatest evil that has ever been on our planet before, he was responsible for the murder of thousands. And nearly caused our great Republic to be exterminated from the face of the Galaxy. As a result the name of Cartagia is something of a curse among my people, as are anyone who is related to him. And for good reason I suppose."

She mulled this information over, and then said tentatively, "Well I am a Clarke." He looked at her bitterly as if to say how can your life compare to what I have gone through. "Come on you have been on Earth enough, you have to realize the significance of what I just said." She said, trying to salvage the situation.

"President Clarke?" He narrowed his eyes in absolute and perhaps abject shock.

"The one and only."

"I see" he said, prompting her with his voice to continue to tell the story anyways, probably since he did not know any of the details himself.

"He assassinated the President of the Earth Alliance, Louis Santiago, took power, and used it to his advantage to instigate several programs designed to stir up anti alien sentiment, and…generally take power over the populace. He was unpopular, but no one knew what to do, some tried to rebel, and then John Sheridan ended it."

"I see, had to figure that he would come into this story somewhere." Vintari chuckled to himself at some other wise unknown joke, but reading the histories on the man Stacia knew exactly what he was talking about.

"And as a result, especially when I was younger, it seemed like I was a social pariah, hanging around people, only had a few friends. The rest of them treated me like the enemy. Especially those who had families that had suffered personally at the hands of the Clarke 'administration', could not separate me from the name that I belonged to."

"I see, at least you were not ripped off to something that was a birth right." He said bitterly.

"No. And it all changed when I joined Earth Force, they gave me a home, a purpose."

He closed his eyes sadly, "I am sorry that was…unkind." He then adverted his eyes and looked at her cross wise bemusedly. "I guess its still in my genetics, the genetics of a Cartagia, the genetics and soul of a monster. Its something that I still fight with almost every single day." He then laughed out loud, leaning back in the chair with his hands behind his head. "Its ironic really, when you think about it. If I had never met John Sheridan I would be leading this invasion force against Humanity. Setting my name in the stars with the Vorlons, the Shadows, Clarke, Cartagia, Attila the Hun, and Hitler."

"I am sure it is not all that bad." Stacia volunteered trying to be helpful.

"It is." He sighed sadly yet again. "All the hate, all the anger, all the mistrust of my youth, the feeling that the whole world was against me and that the only way that I could solve the problem was by taking power, by seizing it, and by putting fear and crushing all of my enemies. Especially over that idiot," he smiled at her letting her know that he did not mean what he was about to say, "Vir Cotto"

He sighed again, then chuckled heartily. "It is still something that I am dealing with even to this day."

"I see." She said with sympathy.

She directed the conversation over to more mundane matters of state, politics, and even local sports, which Cartagia seemed to be a fan of football.

On the bridge Captain Patterson had just accepted the latest status and update from an passing NCO as she went off to go attend to the rest of her duties. He gazed over it quickly, taking in the expected information in a flash.

Nothing, thank the Universe.

The Bridge crew, all that were on duty since he sent the main people off to an early lunch, were tense. They were now two light years back into the Centauri border regions, two light years into Centauri Space, and everyone was tense, attending to their duties with the utmost of care. Being so far back in enemy space a single mistake could kill you, or worse.

"Nothing to report?" Norman said coming up behind his Captain.

"No James." The Captain sighed, letting his discipline drop in the face of the tension. "Thankfully."

"Just cosmic dust and distant star systems, some distant sensor probes from passing patrols. Nothing to really report." the Captain iterated gesturing with the pad.

"Well no reason for a CAP then." Norman said.

"No, not yet but soon." He looked at his first officer. "I know you disagree with me sending the crew to go eat early. But…well they deserve it. This mission soon is going to be one of the most difficult in our history. And I need them to march on their stomachs at full."

"Understood Captain." Norman said, getting the logic, but it left them under manned at this specific point in time.

"We have a long way yet to go Colonel." The Captain said sounding determined.

Michael Keegan was standing over a console in the hanger bay working on, again, the state of the armory and the rest of the inventory that he had available, without the possibility of re-supply as long as they were on this specific mission. Which meant conservation, which meant rationing, especially with the larger ordinance, and with fuel.

A door whooshed open and he looked up to see Stacia enter. He was surprised to see her here, and she went right over to her.

"I decided to check the Starfuries." She explained.

"Really?" He asked her.

"Yeah I needed the excuse to come down here. Nothing to do in engineering."

"Oh Anders is just going to love that." He grinned back at her.

"I 'm sure." She said realizing.

"So…an excuse?"

"Yeah I just wanted to come down here, do my duty, and see you."

"Yes but we are on duty." He reminded her.

"Yes…so those Starfuries."

"This way." he said gesturing to the hanger deck and letting her lead.

On the bridge, still nothing, they were still heading for the destination of Centauri Prime, and were about to turn 'south' away from the Vorlon Border and begin the final leg.

It was a true miracle that they had not been detected, they had been through three or four hours worth of sneaking around Centauri space.

Maybe they did have a little luck.

But that was not something that Patterson was going to count on for the rest of the journey. And he was waiting constantly for the other shoe to drop.

The crew stations were fully manned, as far as he was concerned that this was critical hour. The time that he was expecting when he gave the order for the crew to take the extra time off. Now they were preparing for the battle that was to come

Not knowing what that battle would bring, so he had all the of the stations manned in order to deal with any possible threat.

They were alert in their duties as well, staring at their screens intently. And that is how they noticed what was happening.

"Captain, I am detecting something down range." A senior sensor officer said reading from his console as it flashed at him.

"Analyses." Patterson said turning in his seat.

"Nothing, well I cannot get a handle on it. It seems to be a gravitic anomaly in the hyperspace. Almost like a hyperspace bubble."

"English please Ensign." Colonel Norman said glaring.

"I do not know, I am just doing it to the best of the sensors abilities, even the computer does not know what is going on." He retorted, hardly chastised.

Patterson smiled at that and held up his arm holding off the reprimand that was coming from his first officer. "Analyze, what do you think?"

"If I had to guess it almost seems as though that someone is drawing power directly from the hyperspace for something."

"Can you determine what?" Patterson asked.

"Not from here."

"Can you at least localize it?" Patterson said getting somewhat frustrated by the lack of information.

"No sir, I cannot get the sensors to lock on to it from here. It is something that is non localized, it is just coming from an area just under a light year away."

"Suggestions." Patterson volunteered.

"If we launch a probe down range the closer that it gets to the source, the better the chance we can localize and then get a better picture of what we are dealing with."

"I see. Helm, all stop, firing control, launch a mark 12 recon probe, have it hover for a second and then go to the source and see what is going on."

"Aye sir, all stop, launching probe." Norman said.

The Mark 12 recon stealth probe was a brand new design straight from Earth Force R&D. They only had two aboard, it had the same stealth suite and armor that makes up the Raptor, along with a ingenious drive system that limited emissions down to almost nothing.

The probe launched and sped to the target.

It would take several hours to complete.

"What do you think it is?" Norman came up and asked Scot Patterson.

"I do not know, I guess we will see." He responded gingerly to his first officer.

"We shall, what should we do in the mean time?"

"I think we should review and update all of our intelligence. Navigation, I need you to update our route, this gravitational fluctuation might change it."

"Understood sir." The officer in charge of navigation said.

"Very Well." Patterson said stepping into the rear of the office.

The probe took three hours to complete its mission, and finish checking out the area in front of it. Taking notes, and scans of the area, before it made the return trip to the EAS Gandalf where its information was uploaded and picked apart piece by piece by dozens and dozens of systems and information analysts.

An hour after that it was ready for review.

"Wow." Keegan said with the pictures and scans on the table that was before them.

It showed…dots, in front of a big structure in the middle of space. Highlighted against the back drop of the stars.

"That is a lot of ships." Norman agreed with the assessment of the situation.

"And that…is that Vorlon technology?" Stacia asked pointing at the big structure in the back ground.

"Looks it." One of the sensor and intel officers said. "It looks as though it is a ship yard, or factory, it is drawing its energy through an organic tether from the jump gate directly into its matrix. Using it to build stuff."

"Defenses?" Norman asked.

"Seem to be directed by these automated new class Centauri defense platforms. And the huge escort fleet, twenty escorts and looks like 12 capitol ships, anchored. by the defense platforms."

"Vintari you think that this is what has given the Centauri there big advantage?"

Vintari leaned forward into the light, "it is certainly possible." he volunteered unhelpfully. "But, I do know back when I reentered Centauri Space a few years ago was that we found something that could have turned the entire tide of the entire Centauri people. Give us our domination back."

"Well it looks as though we need to get this out to the Fleet command in order to draw up a plan, because we cannot deal with this on our own." Patterson said.

"Its going to be tough though…for our fighters. We are going to need to go after the defense systems." Keegan said, uneasily.

"Yeah, I agree." Stacia Clarke said. "We also should check and re check all of the systems, and everything that we have available to repair them."

"We also have to worry about our mission, and keeping it secret, if we go to the fleet it will be making our position aware to the rest of the fleet."

Patterson thought it over and thumped the table. "Not really, General Baker knows that we are here and we can go to him. If we go to them and they put together a task force, and assigns us to it…because make no mistake they are going to at least give us some role to play, then the rest of the squadron does not have to know why we are here."

"We should go off the grid when we make contact with the fleet." Norman supplied.

"Agreed, I will have us go about .2 light years off the beacon when we transition into normal space and send out message. Dismissed." Patterson said.

Stacia and Keegan went down to engineering, he was walking her there.

"Pretty scary, eh?" She asked.

"But it makes sense, that the Vorlons would have something to do with this. And the technology as far as autopilots to make this work over the years."

"Indeed" she responded. "Still the war is almost over." She volunteered.

"Yeah this has been our war, and our time, and I pray it is over too. I am getting tired of it to be honest with you." Keegan said

"I know, and so am I. But none of us can predict the future, and we need to be here in order to prevent us from being conquered or eliminated throughout all of time. Who knows what threats might be there, waiting in the shadows?"

"I know," Keegan said uncomfortably.

They were at engineering and they decided to go there separate ways.