Chapter 22
Author's note: From a Babylon 5 point of view, this chapter follows the two-part-episode "War Without End". This chapter and subsequent ones will explain how Zathras ends up on Magrathea and how Babylon 4 ends up in a time where it is found by Crichton.
Accompanied by massive distortions in the time space continuum, the enormous but mostly unoccupied space station Babylon 4 arrived in the year 1260, emerging at the exact same location in sector 15 where it had left in the year 2260. Its two sole occupants were standing in its control center, watching several screens.
"I have preparations to make. You keep an eye on everything", John Sinclair said to Zathras after the distortions had died down.
"Zathras will do", the shaggy alien replied.
Sinclair walked out of the control room, took the elevator down, and went through the corridors to the captain's quarters. Here he was preparing to use the chrysalis device to transform himself into Valen, a Minbari not born on Minbar. He was going to close the cycle and present Babylon 4 to the Minbari as a replacement for their main base of operations, which had recently been destroyed by the Shadows. He and Zathras had together with Ambassador Delenn, Captain Sheridan, Lennier, Marcus Cole, and Commander Ivanova commandeered Babylon 4 shortly after the station's completion. While the others had left with the White Star, he and Zathras remained aboard to send Babylon 4 a thousand years back in time, where the space station was needed by the Minbari to win the war.
At the same time the TARDIS materialized in one of the corridors aboard Babylon 4 with its typical groaning/ wheezing sound. On board, Arthur Dent was still randomly pushing buttons, since to him not much seemed to happen. The only thing he and Ford noticed was the sound that the TARDIS always made when travelling, which Arthur mistook for the air conditioning system. After the strange noise had stopped, he continued pushing buttons and hit the tractor mode button, while Ford, sitting in a corner, continued to read the Hitchhiker's guide from the future.
A screen opposite from where Arthur was standing displayed in Gallifreyan:
Tractor mode activated.
Identifying target...
Target identified as Babylon 4 space station.
Synchronizing...Please wait.
The tractor mode was a standard feature that every TARDIS was equipped with in order to tow large objects through time and space. It was originally designed for the purpose of rescuing damaged TARDISes that were unable to travel under their own power. After Arthur had accidentally activated the tractor mode, the TARDIS began scanning its surroundings, identified Babylon 4 as the object it was supposed to tow, and started to link itself with Babylon 4's computer system. The TARDIS had now access to all internal and external sensors as well as Babylon 4's databases. The next phase of the synchronization process was to calculate how the TARDIS would have to adjust certain parameters during the next time jump based on Babylon 4's size, mass, material composition, and current location in the time/space continuum.
...Synchronization complete.
Off course neither Arthur nor Ford could see that, because Ford was reading and Arthur was facing in a different direction. The TARDIS had been built to be operated by a crew of multiple people and had multiple consoles, although the Doctor would most of the time fly her by himself.
The TARDIS and Babylon 4 were now linked together and would travel as a single unit until the tractor mode was disengaged. The TARDIS had analyzed Babylon 4 and detected residue of chroniton particles from its recent time travel. She recognized the space station as a vessel that could travel through time and space, something very similar to herself, albeit a lot less advanced and lacking any form of sentience or semi-sentience.
"I don't think that this is the ship's bridge", Arthur realized.
"What made you suddenly come to that conclusion?", Ford asked.
"First of all, this place doesn't have any windows and the view screens are not large enough. How should the crew know where they were going? This place looks more like some sort of auxiliary control room. Maybe for the air conditioning or something. ", Arthur said.
"This is not even a Vogon ship", Ford remarked. "I've never heard of any Vogon ship having a library or a swimming pool. The design is just not utilitarian enough to be Vogon."
"Did you notice this large door? I wonder where that leads to.", Arthur said.
"Why don't we go ahead and find out", Ford suggested.
They both stepped outside the door, surprised they seemed to be exiting a blue box that appeared barely large enough to fit both of them inside, not to mention an Olympic size pool, a library, and all those other rooms. They ended up in one of Babylon 4's corridors, staring at the blue box they had come out of.
"This is an old police box! I haven't seen one of these since I was a little boy", Arthur exclaimed.
"Yes, and it is much bigger on the inside", Ford commented.
After everything that Arthur had been through over the last few hours, nothing seemed to surprise him anymore. Not even an old police box that appeared to be bigger on the inside.
"I could really use a nice hot cup of tea right now", Arthur said.
Ford didn't care. He was just glad that he was no longer stuck on Earth. So he followed Arthur along through the corridors of Babylon 4. Arthur, however was determined to find a break room or someplace where he could get a cup of tea.
Sinclair had reached the Captain's quarters, where he sat down on the floor and began to meditate in preparation of his transformation into Valen.
While wandering the hallways, Ford was telling Arthur about the technology that was available on his homeworld and in the wider galaxy. He had just mentioned the existence of food synthesizers that could recreate any type of food and beverage.
"… this kind of technology would be astonishing. And you say it could produce anything? Even a cup of tea?" Arthur asked.
"Even a cup of tea. Even Earl Grey tea. Hot, of course", Ford responded.
Arthur's obsession with tea had become his coping mechanism. He had lost his house, his planet (or so he thought), and everybody he knew. The thought of tea was what prevented him from losing his sanity as well, or at least what was left of it after everything that had happened to him since he had gotten up that morning. So when Arthur and Ford reached a room with a computer console, he requested that the computer would make him a cup of tea.
When the TARDIS connected itself with Babylon 4, the computer virus that had allowed Gina Inviere to gain access to the Vogon ships from aboard the TARDIS had infected Babylon 4's computer system. Authorization codes were no longer necessary. Anyone had access to anything. So when Arthur ordered the computer to make tea, it dedicated its entire processing power to that task. The computer researched its entire database on the subject of making tea.
Inside the captain's quarters, Sinclair finished his meditation and began to connect the triluminary to the chrysalis device, so he could begin his transformation into a Minbari. Then suddenly the lights went off. Sinclair realized that something was wrong and decided to wait until he had found out what was going on. He tried to call Zathras over the intercom, but without success.
The computer had already figured out within the first nanoseconds that in order to make tea it need to boil water and that it need to have actual tea. Within less than a second it had searched through the station's cargo manifest and located a crate that was supposed to contain packages of teabags with tea in them. The real problem now was to figure out how to actually get the teabags from the crate in the cargo bay into the boiling water in a teapot in the officer's mess. Figuring that out began taking up more and more processing power and the computer shut down systems it did not need in order to dedicate more processing power to the task at hand. After about twenty minutes all systems except life support had been shut off.
Sinclair meanwhile had walked back to the CIC, taking a different route since the elevators were out of power and noticing the blue police box standing in the corridor.
"Something has gone wrong", Sinclair said to Zathras.
"It was not Zhatras' fault", Zathras replied. "Zathras does what Zathras is told."
"We are in the wrong time. On my way back here I passed a blue wooden telephone box with the word "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX" written on it. We are supposed to be in the 13th Century, but this box looks clearly like something from a different time period. Maybe the 19th or 20th century.
"Zathras is very sorry, but Zathras does not know. Zathras very confused", Zathras responded.
The Minbari had detected the temporal distortions from several sectors away. The Vorlons were notified and a combined fleet was sent to investigate. The commander of the Minbari forces prayed that these distortions meant that the prophecy about Valen was about to be fulfilled and that Valen would bring a new battle station to serve as operations center for the war against the Shadows, just as it had been foretold.
In the meantime, the station computer aboard Babylon 4 had managed to gain control of one of the maintenance bots, using it to open the cargo container that, according to the cargo manifest, was supposed to contain tea.
"I wonder how much longer it will take that bloody computer to make tea", Arthur cursed impatiently.
Luckily when the station was evacuated there had not been enough time to take everything. So Arthur and Ford found plenty of fresh food and drinks in the kitchen of the officer's mess. Unfortunately for Arthur, the drinks were mostly juice and sodas. Tea and coffee had not been unpacked yet and were still in the cargo bay.
Since the station computer was busy and Sinclair had been unable to use it, he decided to leave the station in one of the shuttles. His goal was to calculate the current year based on stellar drift using the shuttle's sensors and onboard computer. Although slower and less powerful, the shuttle's computer was independent from the station's computer and capable enough to perform the necessary calculations.
A fleet of fourteen ships emerged from a hyperspace jump gate at the edge of the star system and set course toward the space station. The TARDIS scanned the approaching fleet and panicked when she detected two Vorlon ships among the dozen Minbari cruisers. Without the Doctor to calm her down, the fight-or-flight instinct of the semi- sentient time machine kicked in. She did what could in TARDIS terms be considered the equivalent of running away- jumping backwards several thousands of years or more, dragging Babylon 4 with her. She did not want to let the space station fall into the hands of the Vorlons.
The TARDIS was afraid of the Vorlons. Not only were they one of the oldest and most powerful races, even older than the Timelords, but they also had an axe to grind with the Doctor. Especially after their last encounter, where the Vorlons had been performing genetic experiments on humans at that time, trying to breed human telepaths to be used in the next war against the Shadows. Needless to say that that did not sit well with the Doctor and he had destroyed the Vorlon research lab at the bottom of one of Earth's oceans and incapacitated one of their leading scientists by dispersing his non-corporeal form across the Galaxy.
When the TARDIS disappeared with Babylon 4 in tow, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect did not notice what was going on since they were both soundly asleep in two abandoned officer's quarters across the corridor from each other. Jeffrey Sinclair was left behind in a small shuttle outside the station, and Zathras tried to contact the Minbari and Vorlons. The shuttle Sinclair was in was a short-range shuttle, since all the long-range shuttles had been used to evacuate the station. As such, it did not have an air recycling system, only an oxygen tank. Also, it only had thrusters and a very limited amount of fuel. This type of shuttle was normally used to ferry small numbers of people back and forth between ships. The larger shuttles, which had been used to evacuate the stations construction crew under Major Krantz, were equipped with sublight engines, had air recycling systems, and carried much more fuel.
The Minbari fleet had emerged from the hyperspace jumpgate at a distance that would still take it an hour to reach Sinclair even at maximum sublight speed. He was adrift in a small shuttle with oxygen and fuel quickly running out.
Jeffrey Sinclair had only thirty seconds of oxygen left when the Minbari fleet and the two Vorlon ships were still 10 minutes away. However, according to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with space being the mind boggling size it is, the chances of getting picked up by a ship within those thirty seconds are two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand, seven hundred and nine to one against.
Some twenty-nine seconds later, Sinclair was rescued.