Chapter 36

The Legions of Fire and Brimstone


War Room

Babylon 5

March 20, 2271

11am

Vir Cotto brought the people that he'd been working with to deal with a problem emerging on his homeworld of Centauri Prime. Ren Lanas had been used by the Drakh in an attempt to assassinate John Sheridan years ago. and he'd been thwarted by Cotto. Having been freed from their influence, Lanas had become Cotto's right hand man in finding out what was going on inside the Royal Palace. Another was Lady Senna, who was still on Centauri Prime, and had supplied another associate, Dunseny, with several data crystals full of intelligence. Dunseny had managed to sneak inside Emperor Mollari's personal library and scan his personal diaries. It was a tremendous invasion of privacy, but with the Drakh's stranglehold on their homeworld, the rebellious Centauri had to take tremendous risks in order to regain their planet.

Galen had been assisting them as well, and he was in attendance at the meeting. He showed the image of the keeper on Emperor Mollari's neck, and explained what it did. "It allows the Drakh to monitor Mollari, and to inflict punishment upon him should they not do as he is told. He had to submit to allow the keeper to merge with him, though I don't know why."

"I think I may know why, or at least why he would do so.," Hollifield interjected, "Mollari's a proud man, and he would not cede control over himself or his world unless there was a great threat against Centauri Prime. My bet is they have some ace up their sleeve."

Dunseny produced copies of the scans he made of Mollari's diary. "They do. According to him, they have planted fusion bombs under the surface of Centauri Prime, and they would wipe out virtually all of the population should they go off. He gives no indication of where they are, but I'm sure that you have a way of finding out."

Captain Ashcroft nodded and added, "We do. We can scan the surface and try and find those bombs. If we can beam them out into space and destroy them, all the better, but if we can at least locate them and deactivate them, then we should be able to get rid of them later on. If we take their threat away, then we can move to drive them off your homeworld, Cotto."

"What about Mollari," said Cotto.

Michael Garibaldi slammed his hands on the table and asked, "Look, I know you're his friend, but after all he's done, after all the people who died because of what's he's done..."

Garrison Hollifield yelled out, "Michael, shut the hell up! I know the way you feel, but I've know him a hell of a lot longer than you have, so don't start acting like you can stick the knife in him and kill him that easily."

Ashcroft cut them off both short, saying, "Look, I don't give a damn what he's done or who's he's supposedly responsible for killing, because we have bigger things on our plate to worry about. Besides, if we can get rid of that keeper off of him, he may become an ally of ours. We first need to drive off the Drakh and get rid of their influence, then find out what the Ragendora have been doing with the planet. We took Z'ha'dum away from them, so they may be looking for another center to organize their offensive against us. Let's not give them the chance to acquire Centauri Prime."

Garibaldi and Hollifield slowly sat down in their seats, chastised. Hollifield continued, "The Wildstar is ready to depart to Centauri Prime, along with the Defiant III and Yamato II, as well as Yamato and whatever other forces we can muster. We have some Earthforce Marine Corps troops en route, as well as platoons of Klingons and Minbari assembling here. And Captain Wildstar has whatever EDF Marines he can bring into the fight coming soon. We should be able to leave in three days time. Any other questions?"

No one said anything else. "Alright, I'll leave you with one last thing before we adjourn the meeting. If the Ragendora decide to take out the planet, we plan on beaming as many people out before they surround the planet. The details of the last resort rescue operation are being sent to your ships. Anyone going on the planet should know that there is a chance they won't be beamed off of it in time. Let's just hope they are busy with other things. "

The meeting adjourned, and the members began to file out. Garibaldi came over to Hollifield and said, "Look, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. It just seems that people want to forget about what he's done."

Hollifield nodded and said, "Apology accepted, Michael. I know what he's done, and why he did it. Hell, it's not like there weren't plenty of others who helped the Shadows and now the Drakh. But I know that Mollari regrets what he has done, and he also knows he can't ever fully atone for what he's done. He learned a painful lesson."

"What's that?"

"That you can love something too much, and do it more harm than good. Look what the Narns and Drazi did when we discovered that it was the Centauri behind those attacks, or allegedly behind them, because I wonder if the Drakh didn't set them up. We have to free him from their influence that the keeper has on him, then try and help him win back his people."

Cotto came over and joined the conversation. "That won't be easy, because Prime Minister Durla has been consolidating power at an astonishing rate. He seems to have picked up some lessons from Clark."

"Especially with those Prime Candidates. Didn't that guy that was killed there when Garibaldi and G'Kar went there to check out that site on Xonos say that they reminded him of Hitler Youth? We have to be ready for that. I've already briefed General Franklin about that as well as the Minbari and the Klingons. What worries me is that they'll try a kind of insurgency like they did back in Vietnam, Iraq, Columbia, and in Bangladesh, and we Humans know how those turned out. We have to be quick about this, and, Vir, you may have to assume the role of emperor a lot sooner than you ever expected."

Cotto blinked, then, before he asked, Hollifield answered, "Lady Morella told me of the prophesy a while back, when I went to see her before all hell broke loose years back. She told me of Mollari's future, yours and mine."

"What did she tell you," Cotto asked.

"I'd rather not say. Don't want to spoil things for you, Cotto.," Hollifield laughed, trying to make light of things. Knowing he failed miserably, he shrugged and walked along with them out of the war room.

Centauri Prime

March 21, 2271

6pm

It was night in the capital city, and Londo Mollari was asleep in his bed. The Drakh Shiv'kala walked into the refuge that he had demanded Mollari assemble for his kind. There, he met with Morden, as well as two new allies.

"Mollari won't stand in our way when we decide to step up our efforts. The Drakh Entire is fully behind the Ragendora, Morden, and we're making plenty of progress in readying a new Centauri fleet to attack the other members of the Alliance. Taking Narn out was an excellent idea, because it puts the fear of death back into the Alliance."

Morden smiled his slimy smile, "Glad to be of service. I'd like to introduce you to two of our newest allies. This is Gul Dukat, soon-to-be leader of the Cardassian Union, and the now Empress Invidia, leader of the Comet Empire. They are also assembling their forces to aid in your attack. We also have plans to take back Cardassia from that civilian government and turn it back into a force to be reckoned with."

Shiv'kala nodded towards the guests, then asked, "What about those Jem'Hadar you told me about?"

Gul Dukat interjected, "For now, they'll be used to deal with Cardassia, but we'll soon have enough ready to aid in your takeover of Earth. The great thing about he Ragendora is that they have made the Jem'Hadar even more lethal than they already were to begin with."

Invidia added, "And the Comet Empire fleet is being built up to attack Minbar. Our engineers are readying some new weapons to wreck havoc on that accursed world. They denied us our vengeance upon one Earth, but not on the one we really wanted."

Shiv'kala nodded, and his craggy face seemed to smile at the welcome news. "Good. Our plans are proceeding as scheduled. Soon, we'll have our vengeance upon all of our enemies."

"What about Durla? Does he know about us," asked Dukat.

"No. We influence him in other ways. We do not need a keeper on him, because he's already headed in the direction we need him to go."

Morden smiled again, playing with the stone on his necklace. "They know not of what is coming. We'll be ready in a few days to launch our attack from here onto Minbar and Earth. I can't wait to see the look on Sheridan's face when he loses both Minbar and Earth, just as it seemed that he'd saved them!"

He took out a picture of Anna and ripped it apart. "This person thought she was essential to the effort. But we now have a new Z'ha'dum to serve as a command post, and the right person to deal with the threat from the Federation. They may have the Borg, the Klingons, and the Romulans playing nice now, but there are others who want to take up where the others left off."

Entering the room was a being encased in a environmental suit. "Let me introduce Narvak, general of the seventh fleet of the Tholian Assembly, and our newest ally."