"Important." Normandy stubbornly insisted.

Yamato pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm not disagreeing with you, Normandy-san. I am simply saying that Galactica does not have the reactor power to run shields for any meaningful length of time."

"Capacitors."

"My shields run on capacitors as well Normandy-san, but it would take a vastly impractical amount of time for even a fusion reactor to charge up a capacitor capable of powering wave-motion shielding."

Normandy tapped the sleeve of her armour impatiently. "Kinetic barriers."

"The ones you explained don't help against lasers, like the ones the Sword-class was using?" Babylon 5 said, then paused. "Not that my interceptors would help against lasers either…"

"Dearies, it's fine." Galactica protested. "I'd much prefer being put back the way I was anyhow."

"There wouldn't be much point repairing you if you got broken up again the next time someone picks a fight with us." Babylon 5 protested.

Galactica was currently tied to d̶o̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ Babylon 5 in a somewhat undignified fashion via a baby carrier s̶e̶v̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶u̶m̶b̶i̶l̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶u̶l̶l̶ ̶e̶l̶e̶c̶t̶r̶i̶c̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶i̶r̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶. Her twisted midsection had been carefully cut open, exposing her guts to space in a way that made all the other ships uncomfortable; even though they knew it had to be done if she was to be repaired. Every so often, they had to cut away the Cylon goop that was trying valiantly to seal the gaping hole they were operating w̶o̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ through.

The idea of simply letting her die was not being seriously thought about by anyone – well except Chimaera, but her disapproval of their "foolishness" was expressed mostly in sceptical looks and rolled eyes. Everyone else felt they should do their best to save the life of the ageing Battlestar.

"Better reactor?" Normandy offered.

"We would need to completely replace her entire engineering section to achieve that." Yamato protested. "And I have no ability to recreate my own wave-motion engine in any case."

There was a flash of pseudomotion, heralding Chimaera's return from her patrol around the system. One thruster was still noticeably brighter than the other one, despite how obsessively she had overseen their repairs. "What are you idealistic fools arguing about now?" She asked, ignoring the dirty looks she got in return.

"Chimaera, what does your reactor run on?"

Chimaera looked at Babylon 5 in confusion at the apparent non-sequitur. "Hypermatter? Why?"

"Do you have any spare?"

"No." Chimaera said firmly. "I'm going to have to carefully ration myself as it is – I only have half a billion tonnes left."

Everyone present looked up at the Star Destroyer in shock – even Enterprise turned away from her work to stare at Chimaera's midsection (which wasnot bulging with the ridiculous amount of fuel she was supposedly carrying) and yell "What!"

"What?" Chimaera echoed, now even more confused. "It's only enough to run me for two years at low power at most."

"How exactly do your fuel systems work, Chimaera-san?!"

"Forget that, I want to know how your fuel storage works!" Enterprise yelled, stars in her eyes. "If I had that kind of antimatter on tap, I'd never need refuelling!"

She'd also go off like a tiny supernova if she lost containment, but Enterprise actively tried not to think about such things.

"You use antimatter as fuel?" Babylon 5 exclaimed. She knew some races (particularly the Vree) used antimatter weaponry, but as far as she knew they generated the antimatter on demand. She wasn't aware of anyone who stored the ridiculously dangerous stuff in any noticeable amounts.

"Um…" Enterprise said, trying once again to figure out how to answer their questions while explaining as little as possible. "Do you know what dilithium is?"

"Two lithium atoms bound together?"

"I mean crystalline dilithium."

"Dilithium doesn't form into crystals. It's a gas at room temperature."

"Well apparently we gave the name to something else in my timeline, alright? Anyway, it's ability to repel charged particles makes it far easier to make practical antimatter reactors. And fusion reactors. And I think the Romulans even use it in their quantum singularity drives. Basically it's a vital resource to anyone who wants to run a warp drive."

One of Babylon 5's eyebrows rose. "In that case, do you want one of our non-dilithium-based fusion reactor designs? You know, to conserve a vital resource?"

Enterprise rolled her eyes. "It's vital, but it only really gets scarce in wartime. Really that'd only be useful if somehow all the dilithium in the galaxy vanished or exploded or something."

"Just take the plans, Enterprise."

Enterprise grumbled, but accepted the data transfer.

"Ablative armour?" Normandy crossed her arms.

All else present turned to stare in confusion at the segue.

Normandy rolled her eyes. "For lasers."

Yamato, figuring out that Normandy had jumped back into their previous discussion, furrowed her brow. "I suppose if we gave her a coating of Gamilas reflective armour…"

Enterprise, who had been tuning out the conversation as she worked, blinked. "Um, what are you two talking about?"

"They've been arguing on the best way to protect Galactica from harm while repairing her." Babylon 5 sighed.

Enterprise flinched, then started nervously fidgeting. "Um, are you really sure that's the best idea?"

"I am not going to repair Galactica-san just to watch her die in our next engagement, Enterprise-san."

"But she has to go home eventually, right?" Enterprise argued. "And when that happens, won't it disrupt the balance of power there?"

Galactica snorted. "You don't have to worry about that, dearie. The Rebel and I were the only warships left, in the end."

"Alright, that does it." Babylon 5 said. "We really need to sit down – metaphorically speaking, of course – and properly swap histories."

"Before that," Chimaera interrupted "can you finally explain just what you had me scatter across the system?"

She pointed upwards d̶r̶o̶p̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶n̶a̶v̶ ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶ at the closest of the thousands of spheres now orbiting the system's star. About two meters in diameter and silver-grey in colour, each sphere would be nearly impossible to spot except that Chimaera had placed them and thus already knew where they all were.

"Did I not say?" Enterprise said, slightly embarrassed. "Sorry. They're basically just a sensor package strapped to a power source and a device from Babylon 5's new head-guest."

"I have so many questions about that sentence I don't know where to begin." Chimaera pinched the bridge of her nose.

"The idea is that they will recognise our extra-dimensional drives, and work together to disrupt anyone else's. Hopefully that'll stop any more 'visitors' like the Cube."

Babylon 5 frowned. "Normandy's drive isn't extra-dimensional."

"I'm not sure anything can stop that one really, it's just Newtonian physics and a lot of dark energy." Enterprise admitted. "But hopefully if anyone does arrive with a drive like that, they'll be more amenable to talking."

"If it's a grav-well generator, you could have just said that." Chimaera said, then continued on before Enterprise could correct her. "What about slicing attempts?"

Enterprise blinked in confusion. "Well, they shouldn't be able to get within a few light-seconds of them, so… melee attacks shouldn't really be a problem."

That wasn't what Chimaera had meant, but she was satisfied with that explanation nonetheless; being from a galaxy where cyberwarfare required a physical (read: scomp) connection between a device you controlled and a device the enemy controlled.

"So is that some form of controller?" Chimaera indicated the device Enterprise had been working on when she arrived.

"Hmm?" Enterprise turned and looked. "Oh! No no no. This is our ticket home – hopefully."

Chimaera studied the device with great interest. "It looks like that gate that Babylon 5 had."

"That's because it's based off of it." Babylon 5 explained.

"When seeking to traverse dimensions, it is only sensible to begin with a device designed to traverse dimensions." Yamato added.

Indeed the structure did resemble a jumpgate rather closely. The four struts were there, with their seven phasing modules filled with the last of their Quantium-40. However, the four struts were not free-floating, but instead joined together at the back by more struts connected to a black cube.

"If this works the way we think it will, this should 'drill' a path back 'up' to the universe we all came from." Enterprise explained. "From there, a quantum resonance pulse and a little luck should put us all back in our own timelines, roughly where we were before we 'fell'."

The other ships (and Babylon 5) already knew this, having helped Enterprise with the theory behind the device, so they all just watched Chimaera for her reaction. Chimaera, for her part, gave no visible reaction, but resolved to step up her plans to covertly steal as much technology for the Empire as possible before leaving.

Then she cocked her head to the side, her expression puzzled. "Is it supposed to be glowing like that?" She asked, watching the phasing modules light up one at a time.

"It's doing a test run." Enterprise answered. "Making sure it can connect to other dimensions at all before we try sending probes through. It's very powerful – it has to be, to get us 'back up' – and putting anything physical through might destabilise it at this point, which would be… very bad."

"Hmm." Chimaera mused. "Did you remember to program those jamming spheres I dropped to ignore this device as well?"

Enterprise's mouth opened. She blinked. She closed her mouth. Her brow furrowed. Then she turned very pale.

The ships and station had just enough time to see a small point of light form in the centre of the not-jump-gate shortly before lightning covered its surface, and everything went white.

This story will continue in the Battle of Antarctica