I don't own Babylon 5.
A Desperate Experiment.
Sheridan took a deep breath as he looked at the assembling War Council. His eyes lingered on the new Vorlon Ambassador, unable to keep the strange feeling of foreboding that he felt the moment he looked at the Vorlon. There was something about the design of the encounter suit that worried him; he knew that inside the Vorlon encounter suit was a creature which would disguise itself telepathically when it was perceived by one of the other race's, who would see its resemblance to a being out of legend.
But what would this particular Vorlon appear as?
Kosh, the former Kosh, not this Vorlon who'd insisted on being called that name to maintain the illusion that the Vorlon ambassador originally assigned to Babylon 5 had merely exchanged encounter suits and wasn't killed by the Shadows when Sheridan had pushed him and his people into finally acting, had been warm.
This Vorlon was cold. Sheridan wondered if this new ambassador would exhibit that same cold aura if it were seen out of the suit.
But this wasn't the time to dwell on that. He was proud of what he had achieved. Nobody had ever done what he'd done, to his knowledge to form them into a fighting unit against the Shadows. On their own they were vulnerable and no match for the First One race stampeding through the galaxy. But together, they might be just what was needed to stop the Shadows before they became a threat. But Sheridan hesitated before he opened his mouth. So much hinged on this meeting, on what happened here. But he hoped when it was stressed how important this experiment, desperate as it was, was to the coming war.
"Thank you for coming. Please be seated," Sheridan waited while the aliens - those that could - took some seats, "As you know Mr Garibaldi recently uncovered information which seems to indicate the Shadows have a weakness. Now, their ships are based on organic technology which may be vulnerable to telepathic interference. In theory, a telepath might be able to jam their central operating system leaving them vulnerable to attack."
"I noticed a number of conditional phrases in that," G'Kar commented as he went through the papers in front of him; each representative had been handed printed copies of the report, and now the Narn who had once been so fierce but who had undergone a massive personality change had quickly pointed out the problems facing them, "Seems to indicate a weakness," "may be vulnerable" "in theory.""
Sheridan didn't even bother denying the truth since he had wanted to make it clear this discovery had come recently, and there were some things they still didn't know. "Exactly. Maybe we're right, maybe we ain't. Unfortunately, war doesn't tolerate ambiguities," Sheridan's mind went back to the endless briefings he'd endured when he'd been fighting in the Minbari war; back then there had been numerous theories and experiments that were desperately put into effect to see if the Minbari were indeed vulnerable.
Sheridan refused to let that happen this time. This time they had some degree of proof of the Shadow's vulnerability to telepathic interference, but they needed to see if that was correct. If it was then it would go a long way to helping him discover a strategy or a plan which could really hit the Shadows where it would really hurt.
But at the same time, Sheridan still found it hard to work out and understand the rules behind the war. There was still so much that he didn't know…
Sheridan carried on with his speech, his very tone making it clear he was not in the mood for an interruption, "We have to find out if we're right. So I have decided to test the proposition. In a few hours, I'll be leaving on the "White Star". I've asked our only resident telepath, Lyta Alexander, to come along, she has agreed. We'll take up position in hyperspace. As soon as we hear of a Shadow attack we'll jump out and engage one of their fleet ships.
We'll attempt to jam it...and then destroy it."
"Captain, the last two times that we ran into full-blown Shadow vessels the only way we got out alive was by outsmarting them. We used Jupiter's gravity to destroy one and blew up a Jumpgate to kill another. We've never tried a head-on confrontation," Susan interrupted.
One of the reasons why Sheridan had always enjoyed working with Susan Ivanova was she possessed a practical mind, and she was unafraid to point out the well-known flaws which had already occurred to him. He needed that as a leader, and her commanding officer, particularly now; between the running of Babylon 5 especially given their renegade status thanks to Clark's wanton disregard for the Earth Alliance constitution, which had resulted in several of the Alliance's holdings to break away, and the threat of the Shadows, Sheridan needed her more than ever.
Sheridan nodded in agreement with her. "Which makes this mission absolutely essential. Now, to minimise our losses, I'll take a skeleton crew."
Barely noticing the reactions of everyone to his sudden decision, Sheridan turned to Lennier.
"Mr Lennier, since I'll need a translator, you'd be an asset, but the choice is yours."
Sheridan knew enough of Minbari mentality to knowing they were honourable, but he wanted to make it clear to Lennier this was his own decision. Not Delenn's or anybody else's. His.
But luckily the Minbari nodded in agreement. "Of course. I would be honoured," he replied in his usual calm manner.
Sheridan nodded thankfully at the Minbari before he turned and looked around the whole room. "There is a second part to this experiment. Even if we succeed in jamming one of those ships the "White Star" may not have the firepower to destroy it. If any of you could send along with one of your ships as an escort," he trailed off, looking hopefully around the council members, hoping one of them would provide some support, no matter how small a gesture it was.
But Sheridan hoped someone volunteered. A lot was riding on this. And they could not just hide forever. Sooner or later, these races would need to go out and fight the Shadows. But this experiment was vital for helping them shape the future of the war.
G'Kar seemed to be the only one willing to provide any kind of assurance, but Sheridan hoped the Narn would set an example to the others. "Only the G'Tok is capable of a mission of this nature. I will have to discuss this with her captain."
Thankful that G'Kar was willing to provide this gesture even if the former Narn Ambassador to the equally former Narn Regime before the Centauri were helped by the Shadows into reconquering Narn must have been aware of how easily the Narn had lost so many of their fleet due to the Shadows, Sheridan nodded in gratitude, "Fair enough. Delenn?" Sheridan looked Delenn; the G'Tok was a great gesture, but Sheridan wanted more. The addition of a Minbari ship combined with a Narn heavy cruiser and a ship that linked the best of Minbari technology's attributes and Vorlon organic technology would really help, but if there was a little more support among the League, it would prove to the others this was possible.
"Consider it done," Delenn offered him a smile.
"Anyone else?" Sheridan looked around the room. But as he'd expected all of the other ambassadors and representatives of the rest of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. And he was disappointed. None of them was willing to really to take the risk. While he was disappointed since they were giving in to their fears of the Shadows, Sheridan wasn't surprised. The Shadows had proven to be incredibly strong and powerful. He glanced at the Vorlon Ambassador, cursing the First One for just standing there instead of offering some of his race's typical cryptic pseudo-wisdom to this cause.
If the Vorlons were more than willing to encourage others, then he wouldn't be having this problem.
In the meantime, the last few moments had made Delenn see a flaw in the plan. "Captain, I do have one concern. We do not know how strong a telepath has to be to jam a Shadow vessel, or how many are necessary. Lyta is a P-5. She may not be strong enough."
Sheridan already knew of this flaw, but there was nothing that could be done. Lyta had been the only telepath on hand, even with Delenn's contacts available. But at the same time, it was a good idea to see just how strong a telepath needed to be to harm one of those ships.
Susan was firmly on Delenn's side on this. "I agree, if you're determined to go through with this I recommend some backup. Bring along a couple of Minbari telepaths on the other ship. If it looks that things aren't working bring them into range and see if it makes a difference.
Sheridan ground his teeth in frustration. He had deliberately planned to take just one ship, one telepath so they could see if those same issues existed or not, and here everyone was in trying to make it harder for him to determine the answers to his questions because he had already gone through all of this in his head.
How many telepaths could jam a Shadow vessel? Did they need to be strong, or could any telepath do it? Bester's presence on the White Star had forced that ship to back off without a fight, but Bester was one of the strongest telepaths the Psi-Corp's had, but out here they were hard to come by. Could any telepath force the same result?
Sheridan was honestly trying to find ways of answering those questions. But he was not a miracle worker. He knew the best way to answer these questions was to simply get out there and check the limits. "I'm trying to minimise the risks," Sheridan tried to say, mentally choosing the right words to explain his reasonings but he was interrupted again when Michael spoke up for the first time, his tone that forceful one when he was trying to prove to somebody that was not how life went.
"You're not minimising anybody's risk if you don't bring back solid way, we'll know what we need to shut these things down.
"I agree," Delenn added, making Sheridan gape at her in betrayal.
"Good," Garibaldi looked around the council members, "All agreed say aye."
"Aye," Sheridan could not believe it; everyone had been reluctant to even consider the possibility of even helping him by joining with the White Star, and now, here everyone was voting on a course of action he personally didn't want.
"Opposed?"
"Nay," Sheridan said weakly.
"The ayes have it. The War Council has spoken," Susan retorted, but the good news was the experiment was going ahead. Sheridan mentally prepared himself a list of the things that would be needed in order to make this all work. Lyta needed to be given a time, the ships had to be readied, G'Kar had to inform Na'Kal about the plan - Sheridan did worry and wonder about that; he knew the Narn Resistance was working on consolidating their resources to liberate their world from the Centauri Occupation, and he was worried the Narn Captain would just refuse, but if that happened then Sheridan could live with it since the Narns had their own problems like everyone else, and in their case he understood, and then he would need to find a sector under Shadow attack to conduct the experiment.