Changed Circle
Babylon 5 Year One
by Warringer
Chapter Thirty Two
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Colonel John Sheridan looked at the holographic projection of Babylon 5, the last few years going through his head.
He had been promoted after the end of the Minbari War and jumped over the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, mostly due to the destruction of the Black Star and his part in the Peace Talks.
Shortly after the Declaration of Peace, then-President Ryan had set the Babylon Project into motion, to help preventing tragic mistakes like the one that lead to the Minbari War by having all Ambassadors of the races in Known Space at the same place. Kinda like a modern version of the old United Nation, the predecessor of the Terran Union.
The first three Babylon station had failed spectacularly, blowing up during construction. Everyone blamed the Shadows of cause, since they seemed to have an interest in seeing a project like this to fail. But Ryan hadn't given up. Babylon 4 had been finished, but before it could be opened for commercial traffic, it disappeared without a trace and again the Shadows were blamed.
This lead to another strategy for Babylon 5. During the Minbari War the Pentagon had ordered another Battle Plate to be build, but her construction was nixed about three years into the construction with a half finished Battle Plate. Ryan had pulled a good number of strings after that, saving the half finished Battle Plate from scrapping and used the funds to buy it on raw material cost and than asked some favors from Dukhat in financing the construction of Babylon 5 from the Battle Plate hull.
The result was the Station that now hung in L5 of Eridani III and its suns.
Eight kilometers in diameter, one and a half kilometer high, hundreds of external docking ports for commercial traffic. It's own small scale dry dock for ships up to one kilometer maximum dimension. Hidden Weapons mounts that could take on four ships like the Black Star at the same time. And all this was topped by the large dome structure on one end of the Station. Eight Kilometer in diameter and about a kilometer high, above an artificial landscape that seemed to be somewhere in Europe.
Sheridan could see the small one kilometer diameter lake in the center of the landscape surrounded by something that looked like a town. The edge of the landscape was something that looked like a hundred meter high cliffs surrounding the landscape.
Sheridan had read the memo on Babylon 5 and knew that about four hundred thousand people could live in the 'town' and that several parts of it were specially designed after buildings of the races that lived in them.
But seeing the station with his own eyes was something else that reading about it. It was a great station. Somehow Sheridan knew that she would become very important in the future.
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Sometimes Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova thought she should start drinking. Today was such a time. She was second in command of the military personal of the station and as XO she had to deal with most of the day to day stuff.
She grumbled low and even if she was a normal human, she sounded very much like the proverbial Russian bear. Not all that surprising, considering that she was the kid of two Bear Morphs and just happened to be one of those freak coinsurances when a normal human was born from a Morph couple.
Most of her subordinates suddenly started to sweat and no one of them dared to even say one word as Ivanova glared into holographic projection of Traffic Command, her primary assignment, a cub of hot tea in her hand.
She had several reasons for her bad mood. First the Picket for the Eridani system, the 42rd Fast Attack Squadron had just arrived and a good number of merchant men were getting extremely nervous about it. Second they were awaiting the Ambassadors of the Terran Union to take over civil command of the station.
Third they were also awaiting the Ambassador of the Minbari Federation, something Ivanova didn't look forward for. Her brother had died during the Battle of Earth, being a Su-36 pilot. And last was the awaited arrival of the Vorlon Ambassador. And absolutely no one knew anything about them. There was just very little data they had gotten from the Minbari.
It was not a good day for Ivanova.
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Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Sinclair wondered if he shouldn't have remained the pilot of a Strategic Bomber. It was less strenuous than being the CAG of a station like Babylon 5. He had to deal with four squadrons worth of Su-36 Black Knights and two squadrons worth of Phalax Drones, instead of just one Enola Gay bomber.
Not to mention the biggest assembly of overgrown egos he had seen in his life. The Senate or the Congress was nothing against this. He was just glad that Masako was here too.
He cleared his throat.
"Okay people," he started as the noise in the briefing room finally died down," it seems that we are getting reinforcements today."
A pilot made a joke and Sinclair shook his head at it. Overgrown egos.
"The 42rd Fast Attack Squadron. Five Block 3 Ticonderoga's with Lexington as the lead vessel."
That managed to cut of all conversation.
"And Colonel Sheridan is the commander of the 42rd. So don't think that you could play glory hog with Raiders in the next time. That is Sheridan's job."
There was a low murmur in the assembled pilots.
"Another thing. Ex-President Ryan himself will be Ambassador of the Terran Union and the civilian commander of the station."
That on e the other side caused a few cheers going through the rows of pilots.