Chapter Three
Men of war
"I'm starting to look like my father," John murmured. When Sheridan, Captain and Commander of Babylon Five, de facto leader of the Earth Resistance, and ex-widower, looked into his mirror this morning, he decided that he didn't like what he saw. What peered back at him was a man doing battle with stress weighty enough to drive most people mad. One of the many negative things about stress was its ability to make one's hair grow gray far faster than it should. He didn't like that either. But there was something else a lot more profound aggravating him.
He never felt as alone as he did now.
Command didn't bother him, neither did the fact that he and his people had ceded from EarthGov until Clarke's removal. The fact that what one was doing was right had gave the man a sense of peace. But what did bother him was that he had to do it in the first place and in the process he made powerful enemies of his own people. Then the Shadows seemed to be winning the war against the Vorlons, or so Kosh had said. The Centauri had attacked Babylon Five en mass and a new enemy calling themselves the Drakh were attacking shipping lanes in general and the Minbari in particular. They were obviously allied with the Centauri and the Shadows.
President Clarke's initial unwillingness to join with the other races had placed the entire Earth and its colonies in a bind. Now there was word that the Centauri were about to step up attacks on the Drazi, who didn't have enough firepower to resist a full-scale onslaught unless they had significant support of another government. If the Drazi fell, the others races might sue for peace with the Centauri, even though they had to know that the Centauri would never honor the agreements. That would leave Earth alone in a war against them. The Minbari could not be counted on for help until they straightened out their problems with the Drakh.
Then there were the Narns. Everyday, thousands on their world were being killed by the Centauri, either by starvation or outright executions, a direct result of this war. What was left of their military wouldn't submit and they wouldn't give up which was admirable and necessary, but the result of the defiance was the wholesale slaughter of their people. The Centauri Emperor's intentions bordered on genocide and whether the surviving Narn vessels surrendered or not wouldn't make a difference. There was no way he would surrender if he were in that position. The morality of it disgusted him, but the reality of it turned his heart to steel. Resistance was necessary. And he knew that G'Kar would resist with every breath he had. What bothered him the most was his betrayal by two people he had come to care for. First there was Kosh, who he wasn't really feeling to friendly with right about now because he lied about Anne being dead and Delenn, who lied right along with Kosh.
On the other hand he did have some powerful backup. The Great Machine of Epsilon IV-his ace in the hole, constantly gave him silent backup support and would serve as a second line of defense if it came to that. There was Babylon Five itself, all alone in the night, prepared to defend its one half million people to the death if need be. The EAS resistance warships and their crews were a small, but powerful force in their own right, now being augmented by new, advanced technology.
Sheridan's homeforce coalition now had a force of ten White Stars, radical starfighters created with Minbari and Vorlon technology, now being augmented with Federation technology. That thought brought his train of thinking back to the arrivals that literally saved B5 from Clarke's forces. True, Delenn's forces would have arrived in time also but the Feds got there first. And with their advances in replication technology and a half dozen other innovations, Babylon Five was now an almost completely independent entity. It could survive on its own without any outside support or critical supplies for years now. That relieved a lot of burdens. Well, that was part of a job well done and he would stand up well against those outside forces that were so excited about crushing him and his station, but it was the emotional upheaval that now threatened to tear him apart.
It was 'her' on his mind now, clawing at him like some unseen leech. Immediately he chided himself. There was no way he should compare his wife to a leech. She hadn't asked for this, and his love for her was still there. Contrary to popular opinion, love didn't simply die, it lingered, always hoping that the best would happen. There had been times when he had curled into a tight ball, because he missed her so much, not knowing what had happened to her, sometimes second-guessing himself about letting her go. If only…
Quickly he finished dressing and checked in with Captain Hiroshi, who still had an hour to go before he relieved her. Quietly he thanked God for her. The woman was relieving an enormous amount of pressure from both he and Susan, leaving them with more time to handle the other ten thousand things that happen onboard this station. Psi-Corps was out there requesting sanctuary and that was something that he was glad to let his people handle. He had other things to deal with right now. He walked to the secured sector, where his ex-dead wife's quarters were. Turning, he quietly acknowledged the four security guards and rang the door chime to Anne's room.
"Come in." She was expecting him.
The door opened and he walked in just as his wife came out the refresher-half naked. He intended to avert his eyes but couldn't quite do it in time and he caught her smiling at him. Angry at himself, he sat on the couch. "Put something on."
"Why, is it bothering you?" she asked in a mocking innocence. Then she grew a lot colder. "It didn't before, John. I'm your wife!"
"I don't know what you are."
"What I am?" she questioned. "Am I some type of clone or some creature that's imitating your wife?" She was almost completely irate now. "That's what you want isn't it? Did Delenn or Kosh tell you that I was some type of creature that-"
"I asked you this before. Leave Delenn out of this!"
"How can I?" she coldly responded. "She hasn't even left us. She's always in between us!"
Silence. Again the conversation degenerated to the most basics of fights between husbands and wives. The silence continued for perhaps another minute.
"You won't even let me out of these quarters. If you want a divorce to marry that witch, then you can have it. However, to my dying breath, I will swear that you never gave me a chance to fight for you. I never had a chance, John. They captured us and hooked us into those machines." Quietly: "I told you what they did to me, but not 'what' it was like. That I left to your imaginations because I wanted to spare you the truth. Maybe I was wrong."
There was something in her voice, something of the old Anna that he remembered. His wife, the one that he knew, was different. Her voice and body and even the memories were the same. But her body language was different; the way she moved, all of her intonations that he remembered, all wrong. Maybe this was the time to find out the whole truth. "Talk to me, Anne. What did they do to you?"
"I've already told you, so many, many times."
She never even blinked as she spoke. That was something else that was so different from the woman he remembered. "Tell me again. Please." At first he believed that she become evasive once more, but he was wrong.
"John," she began. "There are experiences humans should never be privy to. She started shivering. "I didn't agree with what they stood for. They wanted me to work with them of my own free will and I refused, as did most of the others in the crew. They could have killed us, but they chose not to. Instead they condemned us to a hell that you-can-not imagine. We became living CPUs in their Shadow vessels." She sat and covered up just a bit more. "Understand," she continued, "that any vessel larger than a fighter require living sentient beings to be used as the main operating systems. The larger the ship, the more people are needed to control the systems. Some of their battleships require two, even three units in order to function properly. They burn out quickly, you understand."
John frowned at her. "You're talking about people, not computer chips."
"You wanted me to explain," she protested. "I'm sorry if you don't like the way I'm doing it!"
The anger was very evident and again John was struck with the difference between what he remembered and what faced him. "I'm sorry," he answered. "Please continue."
Instantly, she calmed down-or seemed to. "Their ships are organic, their technology is organic and their connections are organic…"
Sheridan didn't like the implications or the images it produced. "You never really explained since you've been here. What did they do to you, Anne?"
There was a slight hesitation, maybe a trace of fear in her eyes. "I was taken inside the ship, into the main nervous junction." She trembled slightly, as though reliving the experiences as she spoke of them. She looked at him with her oh, so sorrowful eyes and continued. "When you're in a shadow ship, you have to be careful what you brush up against. Their organic tissue is fatal to most organisms and a wrong touch can instantly drain all the electrical and life energies from the human body. In the nerve center of the ship I was assigned to, I was attached to the main ganglion plexus. You saw the scar in the back of my neck," the woman forbiddingly whispered. "The ship joined with me, John. The vessels central plexus nerve tip, think of it as a kind of stinger dissolved a part of my skull and entered my brain." She shivered again, this time more violently. "You can't imagine the pain, the terror, or the absolute madness of what it did to me. The nerve split into a thousand parts and clustered itself inside my brain. There was itching, John, so bad that all I wanted to do was scream and die. But it wouldn't let me." She shivered.
So did he.
"I was paralyzed," she continued. "It made me endure everything. Some part of me remembered that the brain supposedly had no feelings, but it didn't matter, not then. I was just responding to its nerves testing me, evaluating my efficiency, my worthiness. It lasted forever."
Continuing: "Eventually, I became one with the ship and listened day upon day as it whispered its dark secrets into my mind. It never let me rest; it fought my memories, my love for you. It wanted me to love it. It wanted me to be first in its life. It fed me and taught me how to work its systems and how to enjoy killing. It showed me wonders that you could never imagine. I have seen and manipulated hyperspace in ways that would enrapture your soul. To be a part a Shadow 'Nasshi' is to experience what it must be like to touch the helm of God. As she spoke, John could see her eyes light up with the remembrance of the experiences. There is a saying that no one ever comes back from Z'ha'dum the same. It's true. But I did come back. I don't know what our lives will be like, but remembered what I lost. I want that back, John."
John sat speechless and as she cautiously held out her hand towards him. He took it and was once again surprised by how familiar it felt. The body remembered. Delenn, he thought. What have we done? No matter what's was said and done, she is my wife. Can I abandon her?
"We have to know more about the Shadows, Anne," he said quietly. "I need to know if there is any way to avert a war with them. So, I'll ask you again. Will you allow a telepath to scan you?"
She flushed, pulling away from him and for the first time attempted to cover her exposed shoulders. "I can't. I won't. We-I will not be subjected to those creature's probes. I'll never let that happen to me again, not from the Shadows or any telepath."
Her husband caught the inference. "We?"
"I'm sorry," she explained. "Part of me still associates with the ship. Even now, I don't feel completely comfortable thinking of myself as an individual."
"Anna, we need to know what the Shadows are planning and so far you're the only break we've had to get an idea of how they really think. A scan can give us the information that we need to defend ourselves against them."
"Psi-Corps is not you friend," she said flatly. "You can never trust a telepath. Not ours, or theirs on the Federation battleships ships. But that's not the point, is it?" Anne asked. Now she was analyzing him. "This is indeed a matter of trust. You believe that a scan will help determine if I can be trusted."
"That is a small part of it," he admitted. "But it's more than that-"
"I understand," she said cutting him off. "But you've got to understand that trust goes both ways. I came to you because you're the most important thing in my life and I find you here pinning away for Delenn, a member of a race that nearly destroyed our people. And I see you can't even decide whether to call me Anne or Anna. No," she nodded. "I will not submit to a scan," she said turning away from him making it clear that this little talk was over.
Now, she reminded him of the old Anna, stubborn as ever. He got up to leave. "I'll be back."
"Take your time," she answered. "Tell Delenn I said hello."
Just before the door closed, John could have sworn that he could hear a muffled sob come from behind.
***
There are those who would say that there is no such thing as a soul, but Anne Sheridan would strongly disagree. She remembered vaguely, what it was like to have an untampered one. She also remembered what it was like to have it shredded and torn into a thousand pieces, shifted and minced into powder by a lifeforce that considered her something to be consumed. It could not use her in her natural form, so it remade her. It sifted through her memories, discovered that she was an emotional creature and began to rebuild her into something that it could use. First it made her love it-
-And after that it drove her completely mad so that it could control her cerebral functions in without opposition.
The door close and the woman called Anna Sheridan didn't move for a long time, but her spirit soared. The man called John Sheridan had been scarred by a love that no longer existed within her. There was no love within to give him, because it had become polluted, tainted by a sinister thing that would allow no other love before it. The 'Nasshi' had made sure of that with its whispers of unmitigated terror and absolute seduction.
In future historical commentaries, there would be intense speculation by many that her soul-if you believed in such a thing-warred against itself, and that deep down, she did love John and it was that love which changed the course of their history. But those same people would be wrong. They completely misunderstood who and what Anne Sheridan had become. Anne was dead. This woman was simply a recreation made in her image and totally dedicated to the distraction and eventual destruction of John and Delenn along, with everything that they held dear.
And she would do it by telling the absolute truth, because sometimes the complete truth is the greatest lie of all.
***
Visibly shaken, John left the area and was met by a concerned Michael Garibaldi next to the lift. He knew that Michael would say nothing until he brought it up. That this conversation would have to occur sometime and right now, he needed someone to talk to.
"She said no."
Michael simply shrugged. "But that was kind of expected. She's been saying no since she got here. But do you think what she told us has been the truth?"
"Yeah," he sighed. "I believe she's been honest about everything, except how she got away. But I won't press her on that yet. Michael, she was crying when I left her." He couldn't help but look depressed when he said that.
"John," Michael said softly, as they entered the lift. "I don't know what to say."
He nodded slowly, not knowing what else to say either.
"But she hasn't done anything since she's been here and we've triple checked her. She's not accompanied by anything, if you know what I mean. And unless the Shadows have some hidden device that none of our or Picard's people can detect, she's clean. There's no legitimate reason to keep her under lock and key. People are starting to talk." Garibaldi moved closer. "She's one of the few people to escape from Shadow control and that makes her somewhat of a hero around here."
"I know that, but something's not right here. That woman is not the woman I married," he said, throwing his hands into the air, in a helpless, futile gesture."
"But she is Anne," Michael countered. "I don't know what she went through while she was locked inside a shadow ship being used like some kind of a calculator, but that experience would have changed anybody. If you don't love her, fine, then tell her. But she does need our help and she came to you to get it. We can't send her back to Earth and she's not safe anywhere else so we're stuck with her."
The lift opened and both men walked towards C'n'C'. For perhaps a minute, John couldn't bring himself to say anything. Finally he spoke. "I'll lift her quarantine, but I want her guarded at all times."
"That's a given."
Changing the subject: I've been meaning to ask you. How did the date with Deanna go?"
"She's a doctor, Captain," he answered as though that explained it all. The 'date' had lasted three long, wonderful hours before she headed off to regions unknown. And the fact that she was a Doctor did nothing to keep the smile out of his voice.
The secured doors opened and Captain Hiroshi bowed slightly.
"I must say that these new uniforms fit very nice," she said. "I see now why you changed over. It does give a sense of freedom until all of this is over."
"Yes, it does. I heard about the telepaths," he said impressed by her handling of the matter.
"Thank you sir. But we still don't have a place to keep them. Most of Psi-Corps' senior officers are onboard. There is no way we want them onboard B5. But where can we put them?"
John's eyebrows rose up in amusement. "I have an idea, but I need to make a call first." The smile that grew on his face reeked of deviousness. I'm sure Zathras can be very accommodating."
Michael began laughing. "I bet they are going to just love that!"
"Now, how are the preparations for the Alexander and the Hamato coming?" he said changing the subject.
"They've all gone through their final checks and are ready to leave," Sandra replied. The polarized plating and updated sensors refit phase is completed. The main lasers have been replaced with twin phased canons. And everything forward the rotating section has gravity plating."
The refitting process had taken almost two weeks, giving Major Edward Ryan and the crews of the Alexander, the Hamato and three other vessels, time for a crash course in polarized and phased weapons technology instruction. The overall effect was that the upgraded EAS Omega ship was now four times as lethal as any other ship of its class. Propulsion remained the same, for now. But the ships fighter support was now complimented with three-dozen of the new SA-26B Thunderbolt Star Furies, made possible by the Federation industrial-sized replicators onboard Babylon-Five. The crew had undergone ten hours of simulated training and twelve hours in actual flight training. The fighter's layout was specifically designed to essentially mimic the SA-26A's cockpit so that the pilots wouldn't have relearn from scratch.
Needless to say, they were overjoyed at the response and performances of the hottest fighter in Earth defense history.
-Which incidentally was the exact same thing that Earth Force was saying about the stolen fighter brought in by Lieutenant Commander Gerald Higgins formally of the EAS Churchill.)
"Patch me through to the Major."
A few moments later, Major Ryan appeared onscreen. "Captain Sheridan. We're just about ready to join the rest of the fleet at Zero-Delta."
"Good hunting, Alexander." He watched as a grim-faced Ryan actually smirked, then cut communications. inside the new upgrade, months of stress seem to have been lifted from him.
The three of them watched as the Alexander, Hamato, and three smaller vessels exited through the jump gate.
"I hope this is a good idea splitting our forces like this. Clarke might consider this the perfect time to pull a double cross."
Sheridan shook his head in disagreement. "I don't think so, Michael," Sheridan countered. "The Centauri technology is more advance than ours and they've been fighting a lot more than we have lately. " If they come in force, we will barely be able to hold our own against them."
"Especially, since the only thing we've been shooting at is each other for the last few months," murmured an angry Garibaldi. "But I have to agree with you. EarthGov has managed to antagonize just about everybody. Most of the other races may offer some type of support, if they can. The Centauri are being aggressive to everybody right now, but only the Drazi has enough real firepower to support us. If they fall-"
"That's exactly correct," Sheridan confirmed. Also, Clarke's forces are tied up in supporting the colony worlds, keeping them from revolting and coming over to our side. The instant he lets his guard down, he'll start losing people, materiel and valuable resources. If that happens his government will bleed to death from a thousand small cuts. It's a shame that the Minbari are tied up.
"And so are the Vorlons."
"As if they'd help in the first place," Sandra added.
Sheridan nodded again, this time in affirmation. "We won't be able to handle the Centauri and the Drakh if they both decide to attack us. No, I don't think that Clarke will turn on us even if he wanted to."
"Not yet."