G'Kem (The One Who Must Be)
"Top news story: Today, the first president of the Alliance, John Sheridan, died at the age of 65."
It was very old news. Ashley was getting on him for watching the dated clip again and again.
He had met Ashley soon after arriving on Zion. A nice woman. She was an intimidating telepath if she decided to invade a normal's mind, but very nice. Still, he thought, half jokingly, the other half deadly serious, if they ever got really involved, he'd have to eventually face her parents. Ashley's abilities had manifested very early, which wasn't surprising at all given that her parents were none other than the infamous Alfred Bester, and Lucia Gerstein, not so infamous but a Psi Cop as well nonetheless. After the telepath war, the Psi Corps had fallen, but these people still held the principles of Psi Cops. Ashley had resisted any form of training by the Corps and had run away from home at age fifteen. Her parents were outraged, but even they couldn't do anything because Zion was a free world protected by the codes of the Alliance.
The news had been just perfect to spoil G'Kem's birthday over a decade ago. It had been coming though. John Sheridan had known it as well. He had known he would die sometime in the next year or two. G'Kem had attended his funeral, admitting that he did care about him like a father.
"G'Kem, we'll be late," she insisted, putting on her coat. "You're not being a very nice host by watching that the whole time I'm over. We will be late."
What they would be late for was lunch with an old friend of Ashley's who she had recently bumped into on a business trip. G'Kem obediently pulled the data crystal out of the socket and put it in the crystal case.
They met Ashley's friend at a restaurant.
"This is Juanita... Juanita, my friend G'Kem."
Juanita was a Silent One. They were rare, but not unheard of. G'Kem saw a white tiger pad up to him and purr.
"Nice to meet you." He smiled at her, and a waiter led them to a table.
Suddenly Ashley stood up again.
"Juanita didn't mean this to be so immediate, but she has something she'd like to show you in private." Ashley took a few steps away from the table and diverted her attention from the two. G'Kem was confused. This was supposed to be a friendly lunch Ashley hadn't shown any signs of anything unusual. Juanita pulled his attention towards her. She invited him to look into her mind. G'Kem obeyed.
Words could not have explained it so quickly. And when a telepath looks so deeply into another telepath's mind, there are no lies because you can see what the person truly knows.
And Juanita knew something that G'Kem needed to know. This is what Juanita told him without words:
*The Earth-Minbari war ended with Jeffrey Sinclair and the soul of Valen. You know the story. If we--you don't act fast, it may end with the fall of Earth. You know Susan Ivanova, she won't live much longer, you're aware of her current condition. But she is vital in stopping the Earth-Minbari war. The Shadow war is not over. Non-sequitor, yes? Wrong. Ganya Ivanov, Susan's brother, would have drowned at age 13 if Susan Ivanova, age 68, who somehow arrived there from the future, had not been there to alert the rescue team that there was a boy drowning in the river. Ganya would never live to the Earth-Minbari war, where he somehow interacted with Jeffrey Sinclair somehow keeping Sinclair from going on a mission earlier in the war. If Ganya hadn't been there, Sinclair would have died, unnoticed as Valen. The Babylon Station would never have been built, Sinclair would never have fulfilled the Valen prophecy, and likewise, the Shadows would have won the war. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that Susan Ivanova will live to be 68. The life energy she got from Marcus was only his life span, which, by some very unfortunate fluke of nature, is naturally only 59 years. There are records of the rescue. That is why, for the both wars to go as they are supposed to, Susan Ivanova must have enough life energy to live those extra nine years at least. Go to 4-Post.*
G'Kem nodded. He saw it in his mind, the records. They had been passed on, but they were intact. Perfectly intact.
But there was something else. The memory was fading as Susan Ivanova's life was.
4-Post was a heap of junk out in Sector 14 assigned to monitor the time anomaly there. No one was there but a small team of scientists. Actually the time anomaly had closed up years ago, but people had still been placed out there to monitor out the area in case it reappeared.
"G'Kem Sheridan to 4-Post. Requesting right to dock."
"Hello. We've been expecting you. Proceed."
G'Kem maneuvered his ship into the tiny dock.
As he stepped into the docking bay, a woman ran up to him. She seemed to be in a hurry, and G'Kem, who had reviewed the situation over again, could understand why. Why they needed him was another matter entirely.
The woman had been listening to his thoughts. She was a telepath. "If you don't mind me intruding, we need you because you're as close to General Ivanova as anyone we could contact. I'm Brooke, by the way. I'm going to be your partner in the time jump."
"Time jump!" exclaimed G'Kem.
"You weren't briefed? Our mission is to reopen the time anomaly and travel back to a point in time where we can donate a small bit of our own life energy so Ivanova will live long enough to do what she needs to."
"And who decided that I would even go along with this?" G'Kem was beginning to feel as if people were just expecting things of him.
"Ashley said, and as far as we're concerned, you don't have much choice."
"But I didn't know Susan at the point in time you're talking about." He realized he was whining a bit, and knew he was forgetting all he had learned from the Vorlons as a boy.
"You still know her better than anyone of us. And we don't have the alien healing machine now. If we did, Ivanova would be a very different person."
She was referring to an incident during the telepath war that forever changed Captain Ivanova's life. She had been watching her security guards take a particularly rebellious telekinetic as a prisoner of war. Finding she couldn't do much in the way of escape, the teek had singled our Ivanova and ripped her spinal cord in the middle of her upper back. Any higher and she probably would have lost some function in her arms as well. The ship's doctor Heather O'Day was completely clueless as to what had happened when the captain had reportedly given a surprised shout and fallen to the floor. It had taken them three hours to locate the exact location of the rip and by then the damage was done.
When Susan Ivanova met Doctor O'Day when she first took the command before the war, she had finally met her match in all areas of pessimism, sarcasm and one liners. The two of them would often use each other to grouch at. G'Kem didn't care much for O'Day though. From the very beginning, she had shown no respect for a Narn child raised by Vorlons, and had treated him like a baby.
When the Vorlons went beyond the Rim, G'Kem had nothing on their home world, and had left it and wandered around in common space for three years until at time when he was on a transport to Earth, had a telepathic mind burst and nearly destroyed the ship when he was unable to control his abilities.
Susan Ivanova's ship had picked up the distress call he had sent, and she had managed to calm him down as she later said, "Like I once saw an old friend do on Babylon 5." At the time she seemed hesitant to use the word 'friend' but he didn't find out why until much later.
She had tried to locate his biological parents, but with no results. After he had been on her ship for six weeks, Susan finally received a message from Delenn saying she and John would adopt the young telepath and raise him on Minbar.
But like a baby animal who thinks the first thing it sees is its mother, G'Kem had become very attached to Susan Ivanova. She was the first person to ever really care about him. It was a problem that had lasted all his life.
G'Kem grew up on Minbar with David, whom he became quite fond of eventually. David was a bit of an oddball like himself. To the present, it still stumped everyone where David Sheridan had gotten his coloring. His eyes seemed to change color every few months and his hair, which was almost pitch black and not at all shiny, never grew past his shoulders. Brittle, white tipped hairs stuck out around his ears. He was always skinny but stronger than he looked.
The biological child of Delenn and John Sheridan had always been a bit strange in disposition. Even after he had long since outgrown childhood seizures, David always seemed a bit uneasy and off balance. This was not helped after his parents where nearly killed at the hands of then Emperor Londo Mollari of the Centauri. David would frequently talk in English and Minbari at the same time without realizing it, dropping in words from both languages.
Even though G'Kem grew up with John and Delenn, he was still attached to Susan. No matter what she did towards him, and it was usually very minimal, he still wished she had taken him as her own child.
And that was his connection with Susan. It wasn't surprising that they had wanted him for this, but it wasn't like it was his lifestyle to just be called away to change history. Maybe they thought that the adopted son of the One who is and the One who will be was the best person for the assignment.
"How can you make me do this?" asked G'Kem.
"Think about it," said Brooke, "Do you want the Shadows to win the war?"
"But why me?" G'Kem ran after Brooke, who had picked up her pace.
She was a tall woman with dirty blond hair and gray eyes. She was wearing a Starfury pilot's outfit and head microphone. She looked and acted as if she had been on 4-Post her whole life and never did anything but watch uneventful readouts. Maybe this was the case. But it looked as if 4- Post had been taken over by this crazy operation.
She led G'Kem into a small room where there sat two of men.
"You're here, this can't take long. The sooner we can get history on track he better for everyone." That was one of them. He stood up and G'Kem saw a telepathic flash of the mission plan.
"Man this is suicide," muttered G'Kem.
"It'll be suicide if we don't go through with this," Brooke pointed out.
The plan was to somehow get into Babylon 5's medlab and Brooke would give some of her life energy to Ivanova. All G'Kem had to do was get them onto the station with his knowledge of computer systems. The telepathic communication had also mentioned a third person, and suddenly G'Kem became aware of another person in the room.
She hopped off her chair and stuck her face into G'Kem's.
"Ah!" She clucked at G'Kem. "You notice Patras. Good. Patras know much about time anomaly. Learn from brothers. Yes. Great Machine reopen anomaly for you."
Some memory of John describing a man somewhat like this came back to G'Kem. "You have to remember," he had said, "they can be useful people to have around."
Patras pulled three round devices out of her pocket.
"Last existing time stabilizers. Oh no, not good. Not good." She gnashed her yellow teeth.
"What's not good?" G'Kem asked.
"One of stabilizers not work properly. Must have gotten damaged in pocket. Draal tell Patras to bring case, but Patras not listen, is sorry now. Only two people able to go."
"Only two!" exclaimed Brooke.
"Eh he... you come with Patras."
The creature pointed to a startled G'Kem.
"Me? She can go!"
"Nah, you come. She stay. Is better that way."
G'Kem wasn't sure of that. Who could just say it was better for him to go without Brooke and give his own life energy to a Susan Ivanova who didn't know him yet? He would be more than willing if the Alien Healing Machine still existed now and could save them all time travel, but in this case, she couldn't appreciate this as a gift from someone who cared about her. And what would she do if she saw him?
Patras started to dart out of the room.
"Come now! Must hurry!"
"Now? We're going now?"
"Of course. Come!"
G'Kem ran to catch up with the strange woman.
"Since there are only two of us, we go in Starfury. Must put on suit."
As G'Kem pulled on the Starfury clothing and helmet, he asked Patras why she had chosen him over Brooke.
"You last surviving relative of Ivanova. I choose."
"But I'm not really related to her."
"Men say to Patras to take relative. Patras choose relative. Patras take relative. You see?"
"I'm only half human. Brooke probably has more common ancestors. Half of mine are Narn." G'Kem was still trying to get out of this.
"Patras sorry. We go now."
Patras plunked herself down in the second seat.
"You fly Starfury better than Patras," she explained unnecessarily, gesturing for G'Kem to take the pilot's seat.
He did know how to fly a Starfury. As a boy he had studied ships and how to operate them. At least that was in his favor. He gave up and got in. He clipped his time stabilizer to his suit.
"This is G'Kem, we're ready to go."
"Confirmed. We're getting a transmission from Epsilon 3. It's reopening the time anomaly." It was Brooke. G'Kem could hear much envy in her voice. He couldn't help but feel for her. It had been her mission and he had taken it from her without any desire to.
If only Delenn knew what he was doing, he thought with a slight grin. He didn't know what her reaction would be. But might she know about this operation? She was familiar all the ins and outs and horrendous confusion of time jumping if all she had told him was true.
The time anomaly didn't seem as large as Delenn had described it. Perhaps the Great Machine didn't want any stray ships to get into it. It was barely large enough for the Starfury to get in.
G'Kem piloted the fury into the anomaly. He was excited but scared to death of what might be in for him. He also hadn''t expected the woman behind him to be interested in chatting.
"Brothers teach Patras to work for Great Machine."
"On Epsilon 3?"
"Yes. And Draal teach." Suddenly after a second of silence she made an exited growl and announced that they were at their target time.
"You sure?" He looked back at Patras.
She nodded.
"Alright. Pulling our of anomaly. How long is it to Babylon 5 from here?"
"Hmmm. Twenty-five of your minutes jump Patras think."
G'Kem checked the fury's capabilities and was pleased to find that the ship was hyperspace capable.
"Initiating jump point." He hoped he could remember which jumpgate opened at Babylon 5. He supposed it was the Epsilon Grid one which had been disassembled after Babylon 5 in his time was destroyed and the sector became unstrategic for anyone.
Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five minutes in hyperspace. He and Patras both agreed that ship their size in the 60''s would not be able to form its own jump point. G'Kem locked onto the Epsilon jumpgate's signature. They left hyperspace.
The Babylon station hung in orbit around Epsilon 3 just as G'Kem remembered it from years before. The first time he had seen it was when Susan had taken him to meet the couple who had agreed to adopt him.
All the senior staff had been invited to dinner as a welcome party for G'Kem and as a reunion party for Ivanova and her former crew mates. He'd clung to her for most of the time despite her great attempts in getting him familiar with John and Delenn.
Not being well trained to handle his telepathy, G'Kem had gotten a headache from all the background chatter in the room and Delenn had taken him aside and finally back to her quarters, where he spent the evening telepathically talking to baby David, who seemed to hear him.
G'Kem suspected that the backup to get onto the station wasn't as bad as it sometimes was. The place seemed to be holding its breath with the historical situation on Earth. Still, it took awhile before the Starfury was allowed into the docking bay.
Despite the few ships outside, customs was crowded. G'Kem and Patras pushed to get through faster. They didn't have much time to waste, even though time seemed to be unlimited.
"Identicard."
Patras handed her card to the guard. G'Kem did the same. His head was full of worries. What if identicards were different in the 60's? What if Patras's race wasn't registered? What if this whole crazy mission didn't work!?
"Okay," and the guard continued with the next person in line. G'Kem gave a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was go through with the rest of the mission. Patras scurried behind him as he walked through the Zocalo.
G'Kem leaned over to one of the vendors.
"Hey what's the date?" He asked it as if he simply couldn't remember the day of the month.
"Twenty-second," she said.
"Thanks."
The liberation of Earth happened in November, so this had to be November 22. He was a day early.
Morning dawned as well as any morning can on a space station, but G'Kem and Patras were already ahead of it. He was worried. He checked the station's map for the medlab. He turned to Patras.
"I'll go alone. You stay here."
"Patras understand. Patras stay behind."
"Good."
He ran down the corridor and took the route to the medlab.
The door was open, and the place looked like a hurricane had just blown through. Trays were knocked over, doors forced open, and people knocked unconscious. By instinct, he ran deeper into the rooms.
And he found it. Marcus still had some life in him, but he was more dead. Susan was lying there.
The shock was more than he had expected. Every time he saw her, she looked about the same as she had the last time. But here she was, a child of 31, and here he was, older than her. She seemed to be smiling slightly, and it was unsettling.
He could hear the mind echoes of medical attendants in the distance. He pulled the clamps off Marcus and put them on his own arms. Marcus looked at him in daze but puzzled. In the mission flash, they had calculated that forty-six seconds would do the trick. He began to count. He hoped the machine was still at the correct setting. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18....22, 23, 24. He could hear them coming closer. 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 seconds. He felt slightly dizzy. 42, 43, 44. They were two rooms away. 45, 46, 47. Perhaps they had underestimated. 48, 49...54, 55. He ripped the devices off of himself. As G'Kem ran drowsily out of the room, he didn't notice that Marcus was still slightly alive.
G'Kem conked out the moment he was safely back with Patras in the spare cobra bay where they had put their Starfury. He slept for more than a day. But as quickly as he had fallen asleep, he woke up. He went back to the medlab.
It was clear that Marcus was in his last moments of life. Whatever little bit of energy the stranger had saved him was about to run out. G'Kem peeked into the room where he lay. He saw the young Susan sitting by his bed, talking quietly to him, making up old faults while she still had the chance. Then she started to cry, and G'Kem knew that the death of Marcus was preserved in the time line.
General Susan Ivanova hadn't been expecting anyone, and she was surprised when the doorbell rang. It was probably just someone trying to sell her something, but she answered it. She opened the door slightly.
"G'Kem, I wasn't expecting you! Come in!"
He was so happy to see her she could never imagine. She was the same Susan he remembered and loved so much. He noticed her lone earring as she gazed up at him. Well, she seemed mostly the same. But there was something else with her that hadn't been there before. She seemed happier somehow. She had been able to reconcile her feelings toward Marcus before he died. That was years ago, but G'Kem could see it clearly in his mind. To him, it had happened only days before.
"I have something you need to know," he explained confidently, "Well, something you need to do."
"Top news story: Today, the first president of the Alliance, John Sheridan, died at the age of 65."
It was very old news. Ashley was getting on him for watching the dated clip again and again.
He had met Ashley soon after arriving on Zion. A nice woman. She was an intimidating telepath if she decided to invade a normal's mind, but very nice. Still, he thought, half jokingly, the other half deadly serious, if they ever got really involved, he'd have to eventually face her parents. Ashley's abilities had manifested very early, which wasn't surprising at all given that her parents were none other than the infamous Alfred Bester, and Lucia Gerstein, not so infamous but a Psi Cop as well nonetheless. After the telepath war, the Psi Corps had fallen, but these people still held the principles of Psi Cops. Ashley had resisted any form of training by the Corps and had run away from home at age fifteen. Her parents were outraged, but even they couldn't do anything because Zion was a free world protected by the codes of the Alliance.
The news had been just perfect to spoil G'Kem's birthday over a decade ago. It had been coming though. John Sheridan had known it as well. He had known he would die sometime in the next year or two. G'Kem had attended his funeral, admitting that he did care about him like a father.
"G'Kem, we'll be late," she insisted, putting on her coat. "You're not being a very nice host by watching that the whole time I'm over. We will be late."
What they would be late for was lunch with an old friend of Ashley's who she had recently bumped into on a business trip. G'Kem obediently pulled the data crystal out of the socket and put it in the crystal case.
They met Ashley's friend at a restaurant.
"This is Juanita... Juanita, my friend G'Kem."
Juanita was a Silent One. They were rare, but not unheard of. G'Kem saw a white tiger pad up to him and purr.
"Nice to meet you." He smiled at her, and a waiter led them to a table.
Suddenly Ashley stood up again.
"Juanita didn't mean this to be so immediate, but she has something she'd like to show you in private." Ashley took a few steps away from the table and diverted her attention from the two. G'Kem was confused. This was supposed to be a friendly lunch Ashley hadn't shown any signs of anything unusual. Juanita pulled his attention towards her. She invited him to look into her mind. G'Kem obeyed.
Words could not have explained it so quickly. And when a telepath looks so deeply into another telepath's mind, there are no lies because you can see what the person truly knows.
And Juanita knew something that G'Kem needed to know. This is what Juanita told him without words:
*The Earth-Minbari war ended with Jeffrey Sinclair and the soul of Valen. You know the story. If we--you don't act fast, it may end with the fall of Earth. You know Susan Ivanova, she won't live much longer, you're aware of her current condition. But she is vital in stopping the Earth-Minbari war. The Shadow war is not over. Non-sequitor, yes? Wrong. Ganya Ivanov, Susan's brother, would have drowned at age 13 if Susan Ivanova, age 68, who somehow arrived there from the future, had not been there to alert the rescue team that there was a boy drowning in the river. Ganya would never live to the Earth-Minbari war, where he somehow interacted with Jeffrey Sinclair somehow keeping Sinclair from going on a mission earlier in the war. If Ganya hadn't been there, Sinclair would have died, unnoticed as Valen. The Babylon Station would never have been built, Sinclair would never have fulfilled the Valen prophecy, and likewise, the Shadows would have won the war. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that Susan Ivanova will live to be 68. The life energy she got from Marcus was only his life span, which, by some very unfortunate fluke of nature, is naturally only 59 years. There are records of the rescue. That is why, for the both wars to go as they are supposed to, Susan Ivanova must have enough life energy to live those extra nine years at least. Go to 4-Post.*
G'Kem nodded. He saw it in his mind, the records. They had been passed on, but they were intact. Perfectly intact.
But there was something else. The memory was fading as Susan Ivanova's life was.
4-Post was a heap of junk out in Sector 14 assigned to monitor the time anomaly there. No one was there but a small team of scientists. Actually the time anomaly had closed up years ago, but people had still been placed out there to monitor out the area in case it reappeared.
"G'Kem Sheridan to 4-Post. Requesting right to dock."
"Hello. We've been expecting you. Proceed."
G'Kem maneuvered his ship into the tiny dock.
As he stepped into the docking bay, a woman ran up to him. She seemed to be in a hurry, and G'Kem, who had reviewed the situation over again, could understand why. Why they needed him was another matter entirely.
The woman had been listening to his thoughts. She was a telepath. "If you don't mind me intruding, we need you because you're as close to General Ivanova as anyone we could contact. I'm Brooke, by the way. I'm going to be your partner in the time jump."
"Time jump!" exclaimed G'Kem.
"You weren't briefed? Our mission is to reopen the time anomaly and travel back to a point in time where we can donate a small bit of our own life energy so Ivanova will live long enough to do what she needs to."
"And who decided that I would even go along with this?" G'Kem was beginning to feel as if people were just expecting things of him.
"Ashley said, and as far as we're concerned, you don't have much choice."
"But I didn't know Susan at the point in time you're talking about." He realized he was whining a bit, and knew he was forgetting all he had learned from the Vorlons as a boy.
"You still know her better than anyone of us. And we don't have the alien healing machine now. If we did, Ivanova would be a very different person."
She was referring to an incident during the telepath war that forever changed Captain Ivanova's life. She had been watching her security guards take a particularly rebellious telekinetic as a prisoner of war. Finding she couldn't do much in the way of escape, the teek had singled our Ivanova and ripped her spinal cord in the middle of her upper back. Any higher and she probably would have lost some function in her arms as well. The ship's doctor Heather O'Day was completely clueless as to what had happened when the captain had reportedly given a surprised shout and fallen to the floor. It had taken them three hours to locate the exact location of the rip and by then the damage was done.
When Susan Ivanova met Doctor O'Day when she first took the command before the war, she had finally met her match in all areas of pessimism, sarcasm and one liners. The two of them would often use each other to grouch at. G'Kem didn't care much for O'Day though. From the very beginning, she had shown no respect for a Narn child raised by Vorlons, and had treated him like a baby.
When the Vorlons went beyond the Rim, G'Kem had nothing on their home world, and had left it and wandered around in common space for three years until at time when he was on a transport to Earth, had a telepathic mind burst and nearly destroyed the ship when he was unable to control his abilities.
Susan Ivanova's ship had picked up the distress call he had sent, and she had managed to calm him down as she later said, "Like I once saw an old friend do on Babylon 5." At the time she seemed hesitant to use the word 'friend' but he didn't find out why until much later.
She had tried to locate his biological parents, but with no results. After he had been on her ship for six weeks, Susan finally received a message from Delenn saying she and John would adopt the young telepath and raise him on Minbar.
But like a baby animal who thinks the first thing it sees is its mother, G'Kem had become very attached to Susan Ivanova. She was the first person to ever really care about him. It was a problem that had lasted all his life.
G'Kem grew up on Minbar with David, whom he became quite fond of eventually. David was a bit of an oddball like himself. To the present, it still stumped everyone where David Sheridan had gotten his coloring. His eyes seemed to change color every few months and his hair, which was almost pitch black and not at all shiny, never grew past his shoulders. Brittle, white tipped hairs stuck out around his ears. He was always skinny but stronger than he looked.
The biological child of Delenn and John Sheridan had always been a bit strange in disposition. Even after he had long since outgrown childhood seizures, David always seemed a bit uneasy and off balance. This was not helped after his parents where nearly killed at the hands of then Emperor Londo Mollari of the Centauri. David would frequently talk in English and Minbari at the same time without realizing it, dropping in words from both languages.
Even though G'Kem grew up with John and Delenn, he was still attached to Susan. No matter what she did towards him, and it was usually very minimal, he still wished she had taken him as her own child.
And that was his connection with Susan. It wasn't surprising that they had wanted him for this, but it wasn't like it was his lifestyle to just be called away to change history. Maybe they thought that the adopted son of the One who is and the One who will be was the best person for the assignment.
"How can you make me do this?" asked G'Kem.
"Think about it," said Brooke, "Do you want the Shadows to win the war?"
"But why me?" G'Kem ran after Brooke, who had picked up her pace.
She was a tall woman with dirty blond hair and gray eyes. She was wearing a Starfury pilot's outfit and head microphone. She looked and acted as if she had been on 4-Post her whole life and never did anything but watch uneventful readouts. Maybe this was the case. But it looked as if 4- Post had been taken over by this crazy operation.
She led G'Kem into a small room where there sat two of men.
"You're here, this can't take long. The sooner we can get history on track he better for everyone." That was one of them. He stood up and G'Kem saw a telepathic flash of the mission plan.
"Man this is suicide," muttered G'Kem.
"It'll be suicide if we don't go through with this," Brooke pointed out.
The plan was to somehow get into Babylon 5's medlab and Brooke would give some of her life energy to Ivanova. All G'Kem had to do was get them onto the station with his knowledge of computer systems. The telepathic communication had also mentioned a third person, and suddenly G'Kem became aware of another person in the room.
She hopped off her chair and stuck her face into G'Kem's.
"Ah!" She clucked at G'Kem. "You notice Patras. Good. Patras know much about time anomaly. Learn from brothers. Yes. Great Machine reopen anomaly for you."
Some memory of John describing a man somewhat like this came back to G'Kem. "You have to remember," he had said, "they can be useful people to have around."
Patras pulled three round devices out of her pocket.
"Last existing time stabilizers. Oh no, not good. Not good." She gnashed her yellow teeth.
"What's not good?" G'Kem asked.
"One of stabilizers not work properly. Must have gotten damaged in pocket. Draal tell Patras to bring case, but Patras not listen, is sorry now. Only two people able to go."
"Only two!" exclaimed Brooke.
"Eh he... you come with Patras."
The creature pointed to a startled G'Kem.
"Me? She can go!"
"Nah, you come. She stay. Is better that way."
G'Kem wasn't sure of that. Who could just say it was better for him to go without Brooke and give his own life energy to a Susan Ivanova who didn't know him yet? He would be more than willing if the Alien Healing Machine still existed now and could save them all time travel, but in this case, she couldn't appreciate this as a gift from someone who cared about her. And what would she do if she saw him?
Patras started to dart out of the room.
"Come now! Must hurry!"
"Now? We're going now?"
"Of course. Come!"
G'Kem ran to catch up with the strange woman.
"Since there are only two of us, we go in Starfury. Must put on suit."
As G'Kem pulled on the Starfury clothing and helmet, he asked Patras why she had chosen him over Brooke.
"You last surviving relative of Ivanova. I choose."
"But I'm not really related to her."
"Men say to Patras to take relative. Patras choose relative. Patras take relative. You see?"
"I'm only half human. Brooke probably has more common ancestors. Half of mine are Narn." G'Kem was still trying to get out of this.
"Patras sorry. We go now."
Patras plunked herself down in the second seat.
"You fly Starfury better than Patras," she explained unnecessarily, gesturing for G'Kem to take the pilot's seat.
He did know how to fly a Starfury. As a boy he had studied ships and how to operate them. At least that was in his favor. He gave up and got in. He clipped his time stabilizer to his suit.
"This is G'Kem, we're ready to go."
"Confirmed. We're getting a transmission from Epsilon 3. It's reopening the time anomaly." It was Brooke. G'Kem could hear much envy in her voice. He couldn't help but feel for her. It had been her mission and he had taken it from her without any desire to.
If only Delenn knew what he was doing, he thought with a slight grin. He didn't know what her reaction would be. But might she know about this operation? She was familiar all the ins and outs and horrendous confusion of time jumping if all she had told him was true.
The time anomaly didn't seem as large as Delenn had described it. Perhaps the Great Machine didn't want any stray ships to get into it. It was barely large enough for the Starfury to get in.
G'Kem piloted the fury into the anomaly. He was excited but scared to death of what might be in for him. He also hadn''t expected the woman behind him to be interested in chatting.
"Brothers teach Patras to work for Great Machine."
"On Epsilon 3?"
"Yes. And Draal teach." Suddenly after a second of silence she made an exited growl and announced that they were at their target time.
"You sure?" He looked back at Patras.
She nodded.
"Alright. Pulling our of anomaly. How long is it to Babylon 5 from here?"
"Hmmm. Twenty-five of your minutes jump Patras think."
G'Kem checked the fury's capabilities and was pleased to find that the ship was hyperspace capable.
"Initiating jump point." He hoped he could remember which jumpgate opened at Babylon 5. He supposed it was the Epsilon Grid one which had been disassembled after Babylon 5 in his time was destroyed and the sector became unstrategic for anyone.
Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five minutes in hyperspace. He and Patras both agreed that ship their size in the 60''s would not be able to form its own jump point. G'Kem locked onto the Epsilon jumpgate's signature. They left hyperspace.
The Babylon station hung in orbit around Epsilon 3 just as G'Kem remembered it from years before. The first time he had seen it was when Susan had taken him to meet the couple who had agreed to adopt him.
All the senior staff had been invited to dinner as a welcome party for G'Kem and as a reunion party for Ivanova and her former crew mates. He'd clung to her for most of the time despite her great attempts in getting him familiar with John and Delenn.
Not being well trained to handle his telepathy, G'Kem had gotten a headache from all the background chatter in the room and Delenn had taken him aside and finally back to her quarters, where he spent the evening telepathically talking to baby David, who seemed to hear him.
G'Kem suspected that the backup to get onto the station wasn't as bad as it sometimes was. The place seemed to be holding its breath with the historical situation on Earth. Still, it took awhile before the Starfury was allowed into the docking bay.
Despite the few ships outside, customs was crowded. G'Kem and Patras pushed to get through faster. They didn't have much time to waste, even though time seemed to be unlimited.
"Identicard."
Patras handed her card to the guard. G'Kem did the same. His head was full of worries. What if identicards were different in the 60's? What if Patras's race wasn't registered? What if this whole crazy mission didn't work!?
"Okay," and the guard continued with the next person in line. G'Kem gave a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was go through with the rest of the mission. Patras scurried behind him as he walked through the Zocalo.
G'Kem leaned over to one of the vendors.
"Hey what's the date?" He asked it as if he simply couldn't remember the day of the month.
"Twenty-second," she said.
"Thanks."
The liberation of Earth happened in November, so this had to be November 22. He was a day early.
Morning dawned as well as any morning can on a space station, but G'Kem and Patras were already ahead of it. He was worried. He checked the station's map for the medlab. He turned to Patras.
"I'll go alone. You stay here."
"Patras understand. Patras stay behind."
"Good."
He ran down the corridor and took the route to the medlab.
The door was open, and the place looked like a hurricane had just blown through. Trays were knocked over, doors forced open, and people knocked unconscious. By instinct, he ran deeper into the rooms.
And he found it. Marcus still had some life in him, but he was more dead. Susan was lying there.
The shock was more than he had expected. Every time he saw her, she looked about the same as she had the last time. But here she was, a child of 31, and here he was, older than her. She seemed to be smiling slightly, and it was unsettling.
He could hear the mind echoes of medical attendants in the distance. He pulled the clamps off Marcus and put them on his own arms. Marcus looked at him in daze but puzzled. In the mission flash, they had calculated that forty-six seconds would do the trick. He began to count. He hoped the machine was still at the correct setting. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18....22, 23, 24. He could hear them coming closer. 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 seconds. He felt slightly dizzy. 42, 43, 44. They were two rooms away. 45, 46, 47. Perhaps they had underestimated. 48, 49...54, 55. He ripped the devices off of himself. As G'Kem ran drowsily out of the room, he didn't notice that Marcus was still slightly alive.
G'Kem conked out the moment he was safely back with Patras in the spare cobra bay where they had put their Starfury. He slept for more than a day. But as quickly as he had fallen asleep, he woke up. He went back to the medlab.
It was clear that Marcus was in his last moments of life. Whatever little bit of energy the stranger had saved him was about to run out. G'Kem peeked into the room where he lay. He saw the young Susan sitting by his bed, talking quietly to him, making up old faults while she still had the chance. Then she started to cry, and G'Kem knew that the death of Marcus was preserved in the time line.
General Susan Ivanova hadn't been expecting anyone, and she was surprised when the doorbell rang. It was probably just someone trying to sell her something, but she answered it. She opened the door slightly.
"G'Kem, I wasn't expecting you! Come in!"
He was so happy to see her she could never imagine. She was the same Susan he remembered and loved so much. He noticed her lone earring as she gazed up at him. Well, she seemed mostly the same. But there was something else with her that hadn't been there before. She seemed happier somehow. She had been able to reconcile her feelings toward Marcus before he died. That was years ago, but G'Kem could see it clearly in his mind. To him, it had happened only days before.
"I have something you need to know," he explained confidently, "Well, something you need to do."