Chapter Six: Strike Three
For Captain Payne, the arrival at Babylon 5 couldn't have come any sooner. He wanted to off load his human cargo onto Babylon 5 as soon as possible but he had to be cautious. His fleet had already been attacked twice and did not want to start yet another incident. So when the fleet arrived at Babylon 5 it was under cloak. For over an hour they watched the huge station as many small ships of various sizes came and went. By now he had gotten used to the massive size of ships in this universe but something else surprised him a bit though. For a station that had just seceded from an aggressive government bent on genocide, they sure weren't very worried. Other than the two warships patrolling the area, there wasn't much in the way of defenses. Finally satisfied that he had a pretty good picture of the situation, he ordered the Baikonur to withdraw to well beyond the stations predicted sensor range and decloak. From there they proceeded at half impulse back to the station.
Commander Susan Ivanova was busy going over some maintenance report when long-range scanners picked up a medium sized vessel approaching the station at a very high speed. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have thought twice about it but given the high state of alert, she quickly ordered a flight of Starfuries to intercept it.
"We are being hailed sir."
"Put them through." She replied. She was a bit taken back when the viewer was filled with the image of a man in a strange uniform.
"This is Captain Thomas Payne of the USS Baikonur, United Federation of Planets," the man greeted her in perfect English. "To whom am I speaking?"
"I'm Commander Susan Ivanova of Babylon 5," she replied. "Please hold your current position. You will shortly be escorted in by a flight of Starfuries. Do not make any deviation in flight or it will be taken as hostile intent. Do you understand?"
"Yes we do," he replied. She motioned for the link to be terminated and called for Captain Sheridan. She had a strange feeling about this and wanted the captain on the bridge in case the shit hit the fan.
When Sheridan arrived on the bridge, the ship had already been escorted in and was parked only a few kilometers from the station. He quickly studied the ship and could see the name and registry of the ship written in plain English. He was a bit puzzled. Was this a new Earth Force ship? If so, what was it doing here? Wouldn't Clark send a warship instead of what looked like a luxury liner? "Hail them," he ordered. When communication was established, he could see an authoritative looking middle-aged man seated in the middle of a large bridge. He immediately noticed the strange uniform and the presence of aliens among the crew.
"This is Captain John Sheridan. What brings you here captain?"
"We have over 30,000 wounded on board from President Clark's Mars orbital bombing. As you can see, my ship is not capable of handling so many. I would like permission to offload them to you."
No kidding, Sheridan wanted to say but he had other questions that needed to be answered first. So instead he asked, "How were you able to get them off the planet Captain and what is this United Federation of Planet that you speak of?"
"That's a long story. Perhaps if I could come aboard, we can discuss it face to face," came the reply.
Sheridan thought it over quickly and decided there was not much more risk involved, so he answered, "I will allow that. You will be given coordinates to the shuttle bay shortly. You are to bring over only 3 people, no weapons. Is that understood?"
"Very well, captain."
The flight to the station was short and uneventful. As the shuttlecraft touched down gently, the massive hangar doors swung shut behind it and pressurization began with a loud hiss. Once complete, they were greeted by Commander Ivanova who led them to a conference room where they met Captain Sheridan.
"Captain Payne, welcome to Babylon 5." Pointing to Commander Ivanova, he carried on. "You have already met Commander Susan Ivanova, my Second in Command. And this is Michael Garibaldi. He is in charge of station security."
"Nice to meet you," Payne replied acknowledging the introduction. "This is my ships councilor John Michaels." Once pleasantries were exchanged, he carried on. "As I stated earlier, we have over 30,000 wounded refuges from Mars onboard my ship. With your permission, I would like to off load them to your care."
"Yes, you did mention that. But before I can let you do that, I have a lot of question for you. Lets start with who you represent and how you manage to save that many people from right under Clark's military."
"I guess you do deserve an answer," Payne began. "I represent the United Federation of Planets which is a coalition of various worlds working together for the good of all members." He conveniently forgot to mention that they were from a different universe. That would have to come later. "We happened to be in the area when President Clark started his genocide. Our charter forced us to step in and lend a helping hand."
The ever-suspicious Garibaldi cut him off. "You conveniently happened to be there? And Earth Force did not object to that?"
"Well, it wasn't quite as simple," Payne continued only to be cut off again.
"It never is, is it?"
Warily not wanting to reveal too much, he continued once again, "We have our ways. What matters right now is that we were able to save over 30,000 civilians and we need your help." Just then his communicator chirped and Commander Sato's voice cut in.
"Captain, there's a vortex forming just 1000 kilometers off our port bow. I've just taken the ship to yellow alert. Wait, there's ships coming out of it." Payne could hear the tension in her voice. "It's the same ships we encountered before sir."
"Go to red alert. Do not engage them yet and try hailing them."
Meanwhile, Sheridan and the others were busy trying to find out what was going on too. "Bridge, what's going on?" he asked.
"It's the Minbari sir. Ambassador Delen's ship," was the calm reply. All of a sudden it was replaced by panic. "They're arming weapons sir."
"Damn it. Patch me through," he ordered. "This is Captain Sheridan to the Minbari warship. Hold your fire! I repeat, hold your fire!"
Tense moments passed before there was a reply. "This is Captain Neta of the Minbari War Cruiser Seleen. Captain Sheridan, that is the ship that attacked us at the Sh'lekk'tha star system and destroyed several of our ships. Stand aside while we take care of it. Do not get in the way!"
"Captain Neta, I repeat. Hold your fire! That ship is Babylon 5 space and we will deal with it accordingly."
"This is Minbari matter Captain Sheridan. Stay out of it."
"Not so fast Captain Neta, is Ambassador Delen on board?"
"Yes she is."
"Then let me talk to her before you take any action." Delen was shortly on the line.
"John, what's going on? What is that ship doing here?"
"I don't know yet Delen but the captain of that ship is here with me. I'll try to find out what's going on but I need time."
"Very well! Keep him under arrest. We will come get him momentarily."
Sheridan turned back to Payne and said, "you heard her. Order your ship to power down immediately if you don't want them blown to bits."
Payne did not like this one bit. He had come here peacefully in the hope that they would be able to help him with the wounded civilians. One look at Garibaldi who was now holding some kind of a gun in his hand cemented his fear. He carefully tapped his comm. badge and ordered, "Commander Sato, beam us back."
Garibaldi was confused. What did he mean by beam us back? Then right before his eyes, the two people disappeared in a sparkle of light. For a while he was stunned. He quickly looked over at Sheridan and Ivanova. They were just as stunned as him. All he could manage was, "What the hell was that?"
As soon as Payne and his party were back onboard the Baikonour, they warped out of the system before anyone could react. To all who were watching her, she accelerated incredibly fast seemed to stretch out and then disappeared in a flash of light.