Changed Circle
Babylon 5 Year One
by Warringer
Chapter Thirty Three
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Colonel John Sheridan, Erwin Rommel, Ambassador Mark Ryan and his Secret Service bodyguard left the airlock and entered the large reception area of the Ambassadorial Docking Area.
"Welcome aboard Babylon 5, Mr. President," the military commander of the station said with a smile.
Ryan gave the man a wry smile and shook his outstretched hand.
"It's only Ambassador these days, General," he answered.
Brigadier General Don Redhorse, a native American of the Cheyenne, chuckled slightly and nodded.
"You are still the President in the minds of most people in the Navy, sir."
"So I've been told."
Ryan decided that he liked the normal human. He had read the native Americans file and knew that he liked to take risks, but took good care of the people under his command. So he had rather decided to save his last command during the Minbari War and get away, rather than taking the risk to take on two Sharlins with his battle ship, through both ships had been heavily damaged and could have been destroyed by him.
Redhorse's turned to Sheridan and Rommel and continued to smile.
"I see the Pentagon wants to have is well protected if they send you, Colonel."
Sheridan looked a little embarrassed at that and also shook the outstretched hand.
"I think so, sir."
A nod of Redhorse was directed at the avatar of Lexington's AI.
"Rommel."
"General."
Redhorse turned back to Ryan and than looked towards the command crew.
"Let me introduce the members of the command crew, sir. Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova, my second in command and head of Traffic Control. Colonel Jeffrey Sinclair, the Commander Air Group of the station. Chief Michael Garibaldi, the head of the Babylon Police. And Alfred Bester, the... uhm... Cultural Attaché of the Terran Union."
Ryan looked at the Raccoon Morph introduced to him as Alfred Bester. He had meet Bester once, when he was still Attaché on Centauri Prime, just after the War, when Ryan had an unofficial talk with the Emperor. Bester was a good man for his job as middleman between Ryan, the CIA, NSA and Mossad. Through that grin of his was really making Ryan shudder.
"Doctor Franklin couldn't be here, as he is currently in a operation and couldn't make it in time."
Ryan nodded.
"I think I will meet him soon enough."
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Axel Fowley growled low in the back of his throat. This was not his day.
He was currently walking along the shore of Lake Ur, the artificial lake of Babylon City, as the city beneath the dome of Babylon 5 was called. He took a peddle from the ground and flipped it over the water, while his look went to the replica of the HMS Beagle.
He had probed all of his informants and tried to pull some information out of the rat that had to have seen the murder of the dealer, Edward Miller, in Down Below.
But he hadn't been able to say much. He had maundered something about a man who had changed his looks, but Axel didn't thing he could trust that, since the rat had been so stoned that he had seen someone named Gothwrain or something like that. Seemed to be some sort of Bogey man for the rat morphs.
After that Axel had tried to dig up some news. Miller was known to have dealt with several drugs, but it also seemed that he had gotten a client who had a strong demand for cocaine. According to his informants he had made some money through him and had tried to get him to pay more. But it seemed that it had cost his life.
The wound that had killed Miller was also strange. Quincy, the coroner of the station, had noticed that the weapon used seemed to be some sort of staff. A material analysis of some material left behind, indicated a very advanced alloy and one of Quincy's assistants had said that the imprint of the staff looked like a Minbari Combat Staff.
Another thing Axel didn't like about all this. There were about three thousand Minbari in the Minbari Quarters of Babylon City, about a hundred of them being Warriors. Everyone of them could be the suspect. Or someone who had managed to get one of the Combat Staffs from a Warrior.
More research had pulled up that cocaine was related to a drug used by the Minbari as pain killer. The data also said that it was multiple times more effective than the Minbari drug and also made the user highly addicted.
Axel shook his head.
It looked like he had to track a cocaine addicted, shape shifting Minbari Warrior.
Sometimes he wondered if he should have taken that job at Wonder World in California as Chief of Park Security.