Thirteen

Chapter Eighteen

Life Beyond Earthdome

Garrison Hollifield returned to the presidential suite inside Earthdome and sat on a nearby couch in the residential part of the massive suite. His wife was back home now, and Dr. Shelly Godfrey had accompanied the president back home to help in her recovery. It would be several weeks, if not months, before she could walk again, but she would, in time, be able to do so.

Twanissa slept for the most part when she wasn't undergoing therapy. Hollifield slept on a rollaway in their bedroom so he could be closer to him, which killed his back but he bore the burden of it easily. Seeing her wake up in the mornings made his day, as he knew all too well how close he had come to losing her.

Keeping the presence of the Colonials on Babylon 5 a secret was hard, so he didn't even bother. His press secretary, a former sportscaster named Keith Patrick, had advise sending out leaks through the tabloid media to confuse the issue, making it seem like a whole bunch of nonsense. Part of Hollifield didn't particularly like using this kind of propaganda tactic on the populace, but, given the circumstances, it seemed like the best thing to do.

The Senate was all up in arms over the continuance appropriations bill that Hollifield had submitted to pay for further operation of Babylon 5. His critics, both inside his own Progressive Conservatives and in the opposing Liberal Democrats, had a field day ripping into the president's bill. Nevertheless, it passed, as Hollifield had known he had enough votes to keep it in operation.

His vice president came in for their daily meeting. Julio Garza was a stocky Mexican male in his mid-fifties, who had come into politics through a most unusual door. He was a former professional wrestler, a luchador, who, in his youth, wowed Lucha Libre fans from Tijuana to the Yucatan. When he retired fifteen years ago, he entered politics, and famously removed the mask that he had worn in his wrestling days when he won election as Mexico's senator to the Earth Alliance Congress. At first, his colleagues in the Senate mocked his former profession, but he soon won respect for his political prowess, something he learned as he bounced between Mexico's two main Lucha Libre federations, CMLL and AAA.

"Buenos dias, Mr. President! How are you on this fine day?" said Garza.

"I've been better, but I've been worse. What's up?"

"Listen, I don't know as much about these Colonials as you do, but are you sure it is wise to keep them at Babylon 5 and have them mixing with our citizens?"

"It's not the way I would like to handle it, but the universe is as we find it, not as we want it. Sheridan and Garibaldi are on B5 and are helping assist the Colonials in adapting to life on the station. It's the best we can do for now."

Garza leaned forward in his chair and asked, "But will you bring them to Earth? If so, how will they adapt to life here?"

Hollifield looked at his old friend and sighed. "That's the one million credit question, isn't it? There are less than fifty thousand of them, so we could find some place to house them where they could learn to adapt to our culture. However, if we did that, we would wreck the culture they had created forever."

"So what do you propose to do?" Hollifield told him, and Garza let out a long, low whistle. "You've got cahones, mi amigo! How do you propose to sneak it by the appropriations committee?"

"I'll leave that to Ivanova and her staff to figure out. Right now, our main battle is to keep B5 open. The appropriations bill may have passed, but we have to keep a lid on this for as long as we can. If the wrong people find out, our asses will be in a sling."

Garza grunted and laughed, and he said, "Tell me about it! So what do you make of what that Clarissa Cally's been up to inside the Washington beltway?"

Hollifield sighed and threw up his arms. "She's playing her cards close to her chest in this one. She wasn't thrilled when she met her copy on Babylon 5, and I think she secretly blames me for it, even though Luchenko was president at the time. Did you know her twin sister died twenty years ago?"

"No, I didn't know that. What about it?"

"I was in the room when she met her clone. She whispered her twin's name, 'Melinda', and walked out. It's like it spooked her or something. Her sister died when she was arrested by some of Clark's thugs in the old Ministry of Peace and executed because she was found working for the resistance. Since then, Clarissa's never liked me because I'm the one who brought Melinda into the movement."

"How can she do anything about it? Outside of North America, she's not that well known!"

"Mi amigo, I wouldn't put it past her to run for the senate seat next year, then against me in 2283. She was tempted to run for the American consortium's presidency this time around, but she declined the bid and kept her senate seat in Congress."

Garza nodded and added, "We need to keep an eye on her. If she decides to run against you in three years, we need to know what's she's got planned."

Hollifield replied, "I know. I don't want her to bolt the party, Julio. If she does, the Liberal Democrats will have a field day. After I thrashed Kurt Jamison two years ago, no major candidate has come forward to pose a challenge. If she stays within the fold, we'll win again in '83. If she doesn't, it's gonna be a tougher slog."

The day went by fast enough as Hollifield dealt with the affairs that came with steering the ship of state, but he still had time to head over to the secret complex where Earthforce Brigadier General Nelena Cain and General Susan Ivanova were working on the long term plans to take back the Colonies.

Cain seemed to be stronger now, but Hollifield sensed that she was still uncomfortable with living in this place. She never uttered a peep about it, but he didn't need to be a telepath to sense the awkwardness. She got along well enough with Ivanova; though Ivanova said privately to the president that Cain's habits of conducting meetings standing up has got to go.

"I told you that you should have let them replace that knee when you tore a ligament two years ago on that campaign stop in Liverpool! I hate to break it to you, but you're not young anymore!"

"Frag you…sir! OK, so I'll talk to Cain and see if I can suggest that actually sitting down would be more conductive to better productivity. Don't know if it'll work…" Ivanova threw up her hands and Hollifield shrugged and nodded in acknowledging the difficulties of convincing Cain of anything.

"So what have you got so far?"

Ivanova took him over to a computer terminal, and punched up a schematic. "The Cylons have a major presence on all twelve colonial worlds, but especially the center of government on Caprica as well as the military headquarters on Picon. Our preliminary plans are to take these two worlds over, then move from there to take the rest. Right now, we need a way to get disposition on their forces at present."

"I think I can talk to Alwyn about that. Anything else?"

Ivanova looked down for a moment and asked, "Do you think your plan involving Bester will work?"

Hollifield shrugged and said, "I wish I knew. I have programmed him to send out a signal with the relevant information we need at certain intervals, using communication channels that the Cylons will probably not look for. I don't know if they'll take him directly to the Cylon homeworld, but it's worth a shot. If we can find the location of their homeworld…"

"Then we have a leg up in the game. But if we take them on there, we're going to need a lot more forces than we have now."

"You'll find out about that soon enough. The appropriations bill to keep Babylon 5 open had a little bit of pork in it to deal with just that. Let's just say that the old shipyards that we used to construct the second generation of Victory-class ships are going to be brought out of mothballs!"

Hollifield woke up the next day to news that had broken in the middle of the night in America. Clarissa Cally had officially announced her bid for the senate seat currently held by the Progressive Democrats, but she had made the announcement at a Liberal Democrat fundraiser in Los Angeles.

Dan Tanner, his chief of staff, brought him the video of the event, and it was clear that the up-and-coming senator was ready to rumble. "I have had enough of Hollifield's backdoor dealings! Elect me to the Senate, and I'll keep him in check! And, in three years time, elect me to the presidency and we can send him to the old president's home!" The crowd cheered as the turncoat warmly embraced Liberal Democrat party officials.

Hollifield sighed and said, "Well, why should I be surprised? It's not like she earned her reputation as a bitch overnight!" He clicked off the vid and went back to his desk to get more work done.