Chapter Eight: Complications

Governor David Wilber tried to open his eyes but it hurt too much. The lights were too bright so closed it shut again. The then tried to collect his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was taking cover under his desk as the building around him started to collapse under the constant barrage from orbit. He hadn't taken Clark's threat seriously when he had threatened to level the Mars Colony. No one had. Only a mad man would undertake genocide on such a grand scale. No one had realized what a mad man Clark really was. He lay still for a couple more minutes and slowly tried opening his eyes again. His vision was blurry but he could make out the clean antiseptic lines of the room. Where was he? He tried turning his head to the side but it hurt too much so he lay still trying to compose himself. The effort had taxed him too much. He fell back asleep.

When he woke up again, he felt a lot better. He wasn't sure how long he had been out but he felt rested. He slowly tried to refocus his senses and that was when he realized someone was hovering over him. He tried to speak up but he could only get out a hoarse croak. It caught the person's attention.

"Ah… I see that you are awake. Please try not to talk for a while. Your throat should be dry. Let me give you something for it first." With that the bald man walked away. When he came back he dropped something in his throat, which had a soothing sensation. It moistened his mouth. He tried speaking and the hoarseness was gone. "Where am I? Who are you?" he questioned.

The man mumbled something under his breath then replied, "Always the same question. I am the EMH."

"EMH?"

"Yes, the Emergency Medical Hologram."

"You mean you are not real?"

"That is correct."

Wilber did not know what to say to that so he asked the same question again. "Where am I?"

"You are on board the USS Baikonur, a Federation Starship."

He was at a loss of words again. "What Federation?" He muttered.

The man, err… hologram seemed annoyed with his questions. "So many question. You will have to wait for your answers. For now, I recommend you get some more rest." With that he walked away leaving Wilber to his thoughts. Somewhere along the line, he drifted off again.

Payne was not happy with the way things had unfolded at Babylon 5. Upon reflection, he wasn't sure if he did the right thing. Maybe he should have tried to explain their first encounter to the Minbari. But then again, they hadn't given him much of a choice. Just like during the first encounter, the Minbari were way too aggressive and the station personnel were more than willing to do their bidding. He didn't like being pushed around. Wearily he made his way to the briefing room. When he got there, most of the senior staff was already seated around the table and the other ships were conferenced in. His staff rose to acknowledge his presence and took their seats after him. "Gentlemen," he began. "We seem to be in a predicament. Every race we have encountered so far has been hostile towards us. Our best chance had been Earth but that too turned out to be rotten." He paused and then carried on, "I could use some suggestion here, people."

"Well, we can always bid our time and see what happens next," Captain Puchenko offered.

"That's a good idea, but let's not forget that we have our ship filled to the brim with refugees. They are calm for now but I don't know how much longer that situation will last," Captain Narayan countered.

"Yes, especially on our ships. They were never designed with this in mind," Captain Ahmed added.

"Agreed. We need to find someone willing to take them off our hands," Payne summed it up. "Question is who are we going to turn to?"

"How about we ask our guests? After all, they know this area better than anyone of us." Everyone turned to Commander Sato who had come up with the idea so she continued, "There has to be someone with situational awareness among those we rescued."

"Well then everyone, lets get to it," with that Payne adjourned the meeting.

The third time Governor Wilber woke up, he felt much better. He was a bit surprised at the rapid rate of recovery but he reminded himself that he did not know how much time had actually passed. He should ask the good doctor he told himself. Slowly he scanned the room to see if there was anybody around. There was no one in sight other than the other patients lying on what looked like raised platforms. He then tried to get up and with a little effort was able to sit upright. He waited a bit to gather his strength and then swung his leg around to get off the bed. He felt a bit woozy but fine otherwise. The voice from behind him nearly made him jump out of the bed. It was only the doctor. "I see that my patient is doing better," he said checking his pupils for reaction. "How do you feel?"

"A bit woozy but otherwise fine." The doctor then reached for a small device and pressed it against his neck. There was a hissing sound and he felt a tingling sensation. Amazing, he started to feel much better immediately. "There! How's that?" the doctor asked.

"Much better," he replied. Now that he was feeling much better, his mind started to run a mile minute. He had so many questions he wanted answered. So he fired away at the doctor with a rapid volley of questions. The doctor answered some but refused to answer the rest stating that it was for operational security reasons. He felt exasperated. "I want to talk to your captain," he adamantly told the doctor.

"You and a thousand others. Sorry, but that'll have to wait. The Captain it too busy at the moment."

"You don't understand doctor. My name is David Wilber. I'm the Governor of the New Brussels," he replied to the doctor's sarcastic reply. That caught the doctor's attention. With a quick "Excuse me" he left the area. When he came back, he had a posse with him. One of them was a tall middle-aged man. "I'm Captain Thomas Payne and this is commander Sato," he started. "The doctor tells me that you are the Governor of New Brussels."

"Yes," he replied offering his hand. "David Wilber."

The Captain shook it firmly. "So how are you feeling Governor? I heard that you took quite a bit of bruising." That was an understatement if he ever heard one. According to the doctor, he had broken his spine, torn the ligaments on his left leg, broken the other, and ruptured his liver, just to name a few things. How they managed to patch him up so well was a wonder to him. The fact that he was feeling almost as good as new was an even bigger surprise. He remembered the last time he had fractured his leg, it had taken a whole month in a cast before it had healed.

"Can't complain. You have a good doctor here," he replied.

"Yes we do." He then turned to the doctor and asked, "Doctor, is your patient well enough to leave the sick bay?"

"Yes he is. I would like him to come back tomorrow for a follow up though," the doctor replied.

"Well then Governor Wilber, Commander Sato will escort you to your quarters for now. Would you care to join us for dinner later, say at nineteen hundred hour?"

"I'd be delighted Captain, I do have a lot of question for you."

"All in good time Governor," Payne replied with a polite smile. "Now if you will excuse me, I have work that needs my attention." He then shook Wilber's hand and walked away.

Commander Sato then led Governor Wilber to his new quarters. It was spacious and luxurious; almost as nice as some 5 star hotels he'd stayed at, very impressive. He had tried to engage the Commander on the way to his quarters but could only get vague answers. There must be something they were trying to hide. The lack of information frustrated him. He was used to being on top of things. Well, there was the dinner with the Captain; maybe he'd get some answers there. But first, he needed a shower and a shave. He entered the stall that the commander had pointed out to him but he couldn't find the damn shower. Frustrated, he walked back out to his room and stared out the large windows and watched the stars streak by. He wondered how fast they were traveling. After a while, he got tired of it so he went to the bed and lay down. Somewhere along the line, he dozed off again.

The incident with the "Federation" puzzled Sheridan. It did not make sense at all. First, they show up claiming they had rescued people from Mars. Then it turns out that they had actually attacked the Minbari and survived. Correction; make that destroyed three Sharlins and badly damaged the remaining two. Finally, they turn tail and flee at the arrival of a single Sharlin. It wasn't the fleeing part that bothered him but the way they had done it. He could somewhat understand the teleportation bit, after all there was word that the Vree had similar technology, but what about that ship? The only explanation was that they had accelerated past the speed of light. But that was impossible. Everyone knew that. Nothing could travel faster than the speed of light in normal space. Besides the acceleration alone would kill everyone onboard. Unbelievable. He hoped Delen had answers.

When Delen finally arrived, she was in a bad mood. She had been worried about the recent action her people had taken against Earth Force but now this incident trumped all else. Somehow Earth Force had managed to develop multiple ships that were incredibly deadly and were bristling with technologies that they hadn't encountered before. She was hoping Sheridan knew more about it. "John, what was that ship doing out there? Where did it go?"

The look on his face told her that he didn't have the answers she was looking for. "I was hoping you knew more about it," he replied.

"I only know that they destroyed Selan's fleet. According to the report, there were two ships that were very similar to the one that was parked outside. Why were they here?"

"They claimed to have had wounded refugees from Mars and wanted to transfer them over to us."

"That's a lie if I ever heard one. Most probably, they had a battalion of Marines ready to storm the station," Delen stated with absolute conviction. "Never mind, lets go talk to that Captain and we will get to the bottom of this."

"That's not possible," Sheridan answered. "I don't have them."

"What? Didn't you tell me that you had them in your custody?"

"Yes I did but they're gone now."

"Gone? How? We didn't see anything leave the station."

"Have you heard of the Vree transporter technology?"

"Yes… What has that got to do with this?"

"Well, they seemed to have something very similar."

"So they're working with the Vree."

"We don't know that. From what I could tell, I don't think the Vree had anything to do with it."

Delen just gave him a cold look, "We'll see about that."

Lieutenant Tingley arrived at Governor Wilbur's quarter at eighteen hundred fifty hours. Dinner with the Captain was at nineteen hundred hours so that would give him enough time to escort the Governor to dinner. He rang the doorbell several times but there was no response. "Computer, locate the governor," he instructed the computer. "The governor is in his quarters," the female voice of the computer answered his question. He was puzzled. Why wasn't the governor answering the door? He tried the bell several more times, then decided to inform the officer on duty. "Lieutenant Tingley to Lieutenant Commander Joseph."

"Joseph here."

"Sir, Governor Wilbur is not answering his door. Permission to enter his quarter."

"Granted."

"Thank you sir," he replied. He then instructed the computer to open the door and entered the room. It was dimly light so he instructed the computer to turn up the lights. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He then made his way into the bedroom section of the quarter where he immediately noticed the governor on the bed. He cleared his throat to get his attention but it was not successful so he walked over to the bed where he immediately noticed something was wrong. He reached for the governor and quickly noticed the shallow breathing and extreme high temperature. Without a second thought, he called sickbay. "Lieutenant Tingley to sickbay. There's something wrong with the Governor. I need him beamed over to he sickbay immediately." Moments later, the Governor Wilbur was whisked away to the sick bay.

Dr Tellar was on duty when the governor was beamed over to the sickbay. He quickly started the diagnostic routines. High body temperature, swollen lymph nodes, fluid in the lungs, shallow breathing… all pointing to one thing; a viral infection. He would have to get him to the lab to conduct further tests. With the help of Nurse Shelly he got his patient into the lab. The diagnostic didn't take long. The prognosis was surprising, so he called the captain.

Captain Payne didn't take long to get down to the sickbay. What the doctor told him changed everything. According to the doctor, the governor had come down with the Hodgkin's fever. Everyone under his command was vaccinated for it. In fact, every human child in the Federation was vaccinated for it at birth. But that left the humans from this universe open to infection as seen by the case with the governor. "How much time do we have before we have more people coming down with the disease?" he asked.

"Not much longer, the gestation period for the virus is anywhere from three to ten days. Most of the refugees will be coming down with it if we do not vaccinate them quickly."

"How long will that take?"

"At least 24 hours."

"You better get on it then, doc. By the way, how did they catch it?"

"From us," he replied as he walked away. He had a lot on his plate.

A dark sinister ship shimmered into view near the Sh'lekk'tha star system. Its black oily skin reflected the faint light in a dazzling yet ominous pattern. Some would even venture to call it beautiful was it not for the evil essence oozing from within the ship. It just hung motionless for sometime, and then glided towards the rubble-strewn patch of space. It was looking for something. Its sister ship had been dispatched to probe the children of their hated opponent; the Vorlons. Surprisingly it had not reported back so she had been sent to investigate. At first, every thing seemed normal. There were numerous wreckages of alien vessels floating by serenely. That was nothing out of the ordinary for her. Finally she came upon the mangled and gutted remains of her sister ship. This on the other hand was totally unexpected. All those years serving her masters and she had never encountered such devastation on one of her own kind. She started to get angry… very angry. Who dared do this to one of her own? She would find out and make them pay. But before that, she had to report back to her masters. Heaven help those poor souls, not that she believed in such nonsense. With cold rage surging through her, she faded back into the night leaving no trace of her presence at all.

Captain Payne was in his ready room when they received the distress call so he quickly made his way to the bridge. "What's going on?" he asked the ensign at the comm. station.

"Sir, we just got a distress call from a ship called the Deral, Ventuki Conglomerate. They claim that they are being attacked by the Minbari and are quickly loosing life support."

"You got to be kidding me. What's with those boneheads?"

"What's your order sir?" Commander Sato asked.

"How far are they?"

"Five minutes at warp nine."

"Alright, tell the fleet to follow us in but remain cloaked until I say otherwise. Ensign Tellar, drop cloak and take us in, warp nine."

Captain Minos of the Minbari War Cruiser Kantar was feeling much better. His recent run in with the new human ships had left a foul taste in his mouth but this was somewhat making up for it. The Vree had decided to help the humans so it was up to him to make them see the error of their ways. Along with the War Cruiser Strella, they were systematically taking apart the lone Vree Saucer. He was in no hurry to destroy it. In fact, he was just toying with it. The longer he took to destroy this ship, the more likely it was that someone would come to their aid. He just hoped it would be the new human ships. He had a nasty little surprise waiting for them.

He did not have to wait long. A single ship flashed into view as it decelerated rapidly, vectoring in on an intercept course. He was glad that they were so predictable. He would really enjoy putting an end to this abomination.

Soon they were being hailed. A middle-aged human appeared on screen and gave him an ultimatum. He just ignored it and signaled for his plan to be executed. Suddenly, nine Sharlins exited hyperspace and surrounded the lone human ship. Only then did he answer the hail. "Human," he started, "Power down your ship and be ready to be boarded. Make any false move and I will destroy you." The human captain was not amused. "I think it is you who needs to back off," he shot right back. Minos was taken aback. This one sure was cocky. "In case you haven't noticed, you're completely surrounded and outgunned." The man just leaned back and said something to another. He then replied with a smirk, "Captain, I suggest you take a look around." Minos didn't understand what he meant but his sensor officer did. As if by magic, they were suddenly surrounded by seven more human ships. The tables had suddenly turned. It took a little longer for Minos to understand that he had walked straight into their trap. He was mad and wanted to strike out but he knew if he did that, he and his fleet would be completely decimated. His pride would have to take a back seat. Reluctantly he signaled his fleet to withdraw.