I can't say if Michael actually slept that night and from the way he looked when I saw him the next morning, I tend to doubt it. But he seemed to welcome our morning meditation, and he didn't doze off during it.

The map we had used to track the raiders back to Centauri space was still on the display panel when we returned to the office. I placed a marker at the location of Babylon 5, added date and time, and turned to Michael for the vectors. He added the direction of their flight - right back to Centauri Prime - but told me to check with C&C for the approach vector.

I made that call from my office and left Michael to deal with other things. He hadn't spoken about Byron's claim that Bester was aboard, and that surprised and worried me. But he hadn't spoken about his pursuit of the raiders or his exchange with Lyta either. The quieter Michael got, the more dangerous he was. My apprehension was growing.

When I returned to his office to add the approach vector to our map, he was on the com with Londo.

"Very well, Mr. Garibaldi, very well." The Centauri's voice was gruff but resignation captured his eyes. "I have made the arrangements. Your Rangers may patrol the area."

"Thank you, Ambassador." Michael's voice was velvet. "The Alliance appreciates the generosity of the Centauri." Since I knew how much Michael hated diplomacy, the conversation was rather amusing. "May I ask, Londo? Your fleet? Can I assume Centauri vessels are also protecting your space?"

"Yes, yes," Mollari replied petulantly. "What does this matter?"

"I just want to be certain our people don't get in the way of the Centauri fleet, that there are no misunderstandings, that's all."

They talked for several more minutes while I pretended not to eavesdrop. When he finally ended the call, Michael joined me in studying the map.

"It seems totally random," I noted.

"Chaos," he said. "It's what they want."

I turned and watched as he walked back to his desk, dropped heavily into the chair, and propped his feet up on the desktop. "You know something," I declared.

He shook his head. "More 'remember,'" he said cryptically.

"Michael?"

Garibaldi sighed, then slowly stood again. "I don't know. It's just... Lyta called them 'Dark Soldiers.' We've heard that name before, years ago." He shivered a little. "A lot of bad dreams ago." He walked across the office and filled his mug again. "When we met the first one, we didn't really understand. But the Shadows... we learned more than we wanted to know about the Shadows. They want total chaos, and they use other races to achieve it."

"I thought the Shadows went beyond the Rim?"

He nodded. "They did, but they left their friends behind. We know now that the Dark Soldier that lurker tried to warn us about was ... what do you want to call them? A Shadow follower? Helper? Apprentice?" He shrugged. "Whatever you call them, you don't want to know them."

I looked again at the map, but it yielded no more than before. "So what do we do?"

"Maybe the better question," Michael proposed, "is what do they want? What have they accomplished?"

I looked back over the reports of previous incidents. "Frankly, not much. They've fired on ships in transit and given chase, at least until our WhiteStars arrived, but they've yet to seize a cargo or board anyone. We might know something more about them if they had. They've attacked settlements, but there has been no pillaging, no extortion. They just seem to be terrorizing everyone."

"Terrorizing." He repeated the word, not as a question, but as an insight. "And if someone were terrorizing you, what would you do?"

I considered the question. "Fight, if I thought I could. Otherwise, I guess, I'd run."

Michael turned back to the map. "So what if they're trying to clear this section of space?"

"Why? There's nothing special. A couple of worlds that were wiped out in the Shadow War, and a few, very poor, inhabited planets. Us, of course. What's of any value to them?"

He looked at me, but I knew he was seeing something else. "They want to go home."

"You think this is their home?"

He snapped out of the memory with a shake of his head. "No, that area had a scattering of colonies - little outposts, really. Even before the war, it wasn't much. Some humans, some Drazi, some Centauri, separate colonies, and a few that mingled the races. But no one, no government anyway, ever really claimed it."

"And if these pirates were from this part of space," I pointed out, "we'd know them. So why do they want everybody out of here?"

Garibaldi looked thoughtful. "Maybe because something is going to happen," he said. "Or they're going to make something happen."

He spun toward his desk. "Look, let's get set up to intercept them. Londo's caught between the Centauri's official diplomatic stance and his own... hell, honesty is not a word I'd ever use to talk about Mollari. But over the years, he has built up some loyalties here. He's trying to bluff, but this whole thing is killing him. We may need to move fast before he loses his nerve. Check with Delenn and find out who's available."

I called on Entil'zha as ordered, got a roster of rangers available for assignment, and while I was there, tended to a few of the details of security for her trip to Minbar. As I made my way back to the office, I scanned the list Delenn had provided, looking for rangers with whom we had trained, and was pleased to find several familiar names. The team would be chosen, I knew, for particular skills, not personal affiliations, but it was reassuring to have an indication that friends were alive and well.

The bellow from the security officer snapped me out of my musing. I flattened myself back against the wall as an entire squad in riot gear went charging by me. The silence in their wake was a relief. Whatever crisis they were facing, the station was not under another attack. But that ease was supplanted by curiosity, or maybe it was intuition. Or suspicion. Whatever it was, I followed them.

They were headed to Brown Sector and my gut told me immediately that the telepaths were somehow involved. I wasn't surprised then to see Alfred Bester at the security perimeter. I didn't stay to see more. I knew it would only anger me.

Garibaldi intercepted me at the lift. "Sheridan's office," he said, pulling on his suit jacket. "We've got trouble." I shared what I had observed, provoking a deep sigh but no comment from Michael.

It took only a nod at security to move us through reception and into the President's office. Sheridan was ending a call, and we were able to see Captain Lochley's image before the screen flickered off. "Gentleman." He acknowledged our presence with a nod, then turned away. From my position, I could see his face in profile and I guessed that he was trying to compose himself. Although Michael could only see Sheridan's back, he knew the heart of the matter.

"I understand we have a situation with the telepaths in Brown Sector," Garibaldi said calmly. "I'm told our friend Bester is already in the middle of it."

Sheridan turned to face him. "Michael, I'm sorry to ask this of you, especially under the circumstances..."

Garibaldi straightened, stiffened just a bit, or maybe it was my imagination, because his words denied it. "Not a problem, Mr. President. Do we know how this thing started?"

Sheridan briefed us quickly on a circumstance that, had it arisen in a nursery school, would have been dismissed as a collective tantrum and solved by putting everyone down for a nap. But these were adults, who were resolved to mistrust and fear one another and who defined themselves in terms of that conflict.

"Michael, I gave these people asylum and I have a responsibility to protect them."

"We'll do what we can to defuse this, Mr. President, but on some level you're putting us at odds with Captain Lochley and therefore the station's security force."

"I know, Michael, and I'm..." He paused to find the politically correct phrase. "...continuing to work with the Captain on his situation." Sheridan stepped around his desk and left his worries about diplomacy behind it. "Look, I don't trust Bester not to inflame this situation. Hell, I don't trust him not to create a situation. As long as he's on station, we're going to have a tinderbox."

Garibaldi assured the President we'd do all we could and left him to deal with Lochley. Outside the office, he led me not toward Brown Sector but to DownBelow. "The first thing you learn in security," he explained, "is everybody has a back door."

A few minutes later, we were hoisting ourselves into a ventilation shaft, and navigating through that maze back to Brown Sector. Just before we dropped in - literally - Michael reached inside his jacket and flashed a small cylinder at me. I took the denn'bok from my belt and nodded.

In fact, we had no need of weapons. The telepaths did not seem surprised by the timing of our arrival or by its method. Although our reception was not particularly warm, we were taken to see Byron near the barricades the telepaths had set up. On the other side of these blockades, I realized, were the security teams I had followed earlier, and with them, Alfred Bester. How much of this, I wondered, had he provoked?

"I should have known better than to trust the promises of mundanes," Byron snarled the moment he caught sight of us. "Or is this your idea of a safe haven, Mr. Garibaldi? My people trapped like animals and your PsiCorps pounding at our door?"

Michael's glance moved to the barricaded passageway and, for a moment, I thought I saw him shiver. "President Sheridan is talking with the Captain, trying to put an end to this, even as we speak. He's committed to providing you with asylum, but you're going to have to work with us."

Byron started to speak, but Michael cut him off. "Look, right now I don't give a damn what you think of me. You want to put your personal feelings ahead of the welfare of your people, fine. I can leave the way I came in, and you can deal with Bester. But if you're serious about protecting your group, then we've got to cool this situation off right now."

Byron seethed but said nothing. Lyta Alexander stepped up beside him. "What do you need us to do?"

Garibaldi looked at the barricades again. "You've got a stand off at the moment, and those are security officers out there. Zack's not going to let his people do anything stupid. But if Bester calls in his hounds, we'll have a mess on our hands. We've got to make this whole thing disappear. Get your people away from here. Clear this area. Let us deal with security, and you just fade back into your normal lives."

"Normal?" Byron snorted. "And then what, Mr. Garibaldi? Wait for your PsiCorps to chase us deeper into the bowels of the station?"

This second stab of language brought Michael's irritation to the surface of his consciousness. "Will you please stop that?" He was as polite as he could manage. "It is not my PsiCorps."

The telepath eyed him with a wry, growing smile. "Indeed."

Garibaldi sighed but pressed on. "I can't speak for the President, but it seems to me that we need to get you out of Captain Lochley's sphere of authority, and do it as soon as possible."

"What you're saying is you want to put us off the station."

"What I'm saying is that it's time to make your telepath homeworld a reality. Look, there are planets that have been uninhabited since the Shadow War. If no one's reclaimed them by now, odds are they're not going to."

"You're willing to give us what no one else wants? How gracious of you!"

Michael's patience snapped, almost audibly. "Do you ever not complain?" Lyta stepped between them. "Look," Garibaldi continued, shifting his glance to her, "I'm not saying it will be easy. These planets got torn up during the war and you'll be starting nearly from scratch. But it will be your own. That's what you say you want."

Lyta turned to Byron, but he did not take his eyes from Garibaldi's face. After a moment, Lyta looked around her slowly, pausing to focus on each cluster of telepaths huddled together. As her gaze moved away from them, they dispersed. The men at the barricades were the last to leave, then Lyta took Byron's arm and led him away.

Garibaldi tapped his link, made contact with Zack Allan, and informed him of our location and our intention to come out peacefully. We could only hope that Allan truly had control of his people. With a long conscious breath, Michael stepped toward the pile of furniture that barricaded the door. Slowly, calmly, he lifted a piece of furniture, turned and set it gently on the floor behind him. Watching him, I was reminded of a martial arts form, and soon I joined in the rhythm of his motion. In unison, breathing deeply, moving meditatively, we disassembled the makeshift barrier.

When all the obstacles were moved aside, Michael pounded heavily on the closed blast doors. We listened for signs of activity on the other side but heard nothing. "The controls are dead," he explained. "I'm going to try to hotwire them, but you may need to force the door at the same time."

He turned to the panel, pulled out a handful of wires, and started reconnecting them. A few sparks, a few expletives, and a miniscule movement of the door gave me indicators of his progress. As Michael continued his work, I wedged my denn'bok in the first small opening and pushed the halves of the door apart. With a clank, the door mechanism released and the portal cleared. Michael joined me in the doorway, greeted Zack Allen with a word, and made eye contact with Bester before the dark figure turned and walked away.

"Interesting speech. How are you planning to make it happen?" I asked when we were alone.

A cocked head and a raised eyebrow were the only answer at first. Then after a few moments, he spoke. "Hopefully, we can sell the President on relocating them on one of those abandoned planets you noticed."

"You want to put them in the path of the raiders? Byron will love that."

"These raids won't last much longer," he replied, although I noted a lack of conviction.

I remembered the personnel list and handed it to him. As he scanned it, we talked about the best people for this job and about the familiar names on the list, but when we reached the office, there was work to be done.

We called up a detail map of the area where most of the attacks occurred, looked at a listing of populated areas in the region, their inhabitants, resources, trade affiliations. We found nothing extraordinary. We focused on the uninhabited regions. We looked for seismic and volcanic activity, meteorites, space debris, unusual weather patterns. While Michael paged again through flimsies on his desk, I sat back and stared at the map. I tried to quiet my mind, to relax my thoughts in the hope of seeing something, anything, new.



We both jumped at the sound of Garibaldi's link. Sheridan's voice instructed Mr. Garibaldi to report to his office. It didn't sound like a happy summons and we had a good idea why.

"Figure out why they're interested in that area," Michael instructed me as he pulled on his jacket, "and while you're in there, find me a planet nobody's using." Before he left, he tossed the list of available Rangers back at me. "I circled some names. Call them in."

I made the calls while he was gone, all of them. Although I tried not to check the time, I knew Michael had been gone a long time, too long for me to think the meeting was going well. Whatever positive energies I had to spare I wished his way, and turned my attention to the other tasks before me. I was beginning to see some progress when Michael came in.

"How did it go?" I asked, although I wasn't sure if I wanted to know any more than he wanted to tell me.

"Well, Lochley and Byron have managed to agree, at least on the fact that they both want me spaced, whereas the President is holding out for having me drawn and quartered. And Bester, well..." He drew a long breath. "Fine, it went just fine. You find me a planet?"

"As a matter of fact, I think I did." I felt myself start to grin at the shock on his face. I tried to squash it, but when I saw his relief and satisfaction in the information I gave him, I couldn't help but smile.

"Write this up, will you? And fire a copy off to Sheridan ASAP. Maybe that'll get my butt out of the sling." He turned back to the map. "Tell me you've got some brilliant insight on our little mystery, too."

I had to disappoint him on that, and we agreed we were too tired to pursue it any further. I confirmed that the team of Rangers had been contacted, would be arriving shortly, and would have quarters when they arrived, and then I suggested Michael sleep. I wanted to get the memo off to Sheridan before I did the same.