On the bridge of the Heart of Gold Zaphod and Trillian were watching the news on the main screen. The news anchor was rapidly flipping through his notes and began talking about the sensational theft of the new improbability prototype ship by none other than Zaphod Beeblebrox.
"And the big question everyone's asking is: Has the big Z finally flipped? Beeblebrox, the man who invented the Pangalactic Gargleblaster, ex-confidence trickster, one time galactic president, once described by Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon VI as the best bang since the big one," the news anchor reported.
Trillian gave Zaphod a certain look, and he smiled back.
"Recently voted for the worst dressed sentient being in the known galaxy for the seventh time running," the news anchor continued.
Sinclair stood in the back of the bridge, absorbing all this new information, trying to make sense of it. The two-headed alien a former galactic president? Did that mean there was a unified galactic government? How far into the future had he travelled? Or had he travelled far back into the past?
Then the news anchor asked Zaphod's personal brain care specialist Gag Halfrunt for his opinion.
"Well, Zaphod is just this guy, you know?", Halfrunt answered.
"Beeblebrox stole the infinity drive ship when he was in fact meant to be launching it.", the news anchor said just as Trillian turned the main screen off.
"What did you do that for? Zaphod asked annoyed.
"I just thought of something", Trillian answered.
"Worth interrupting a news bulletin about me for?" Zaphod asked angrily.
"Can we leave your ego out of this? This is important!" Trillian shouted back.
"If there is anything more important than my ego around here, then I want it caught and shot right now," Zaphod said.
"Excuse me if the two of you could please stop arguing for a moment", Sinclair interrupted. "I would like to know if it would be possible that we can return to the exact location where you picked me up?" Sinclair asked.
"What? Do you think we are some sort of travel agency?" Zaphod asked.
"I am on a very important mission, and your ship seems to have the capability for time travel…", Sinclair began to explain.
"Important mission? Yes, yes, yes. I've heard that a thousand times. From a dozen people. " Zaphod said and waved him off.
"Will you at least listen to me?", Sinclair asked, hoping he could explain the situation and reason with the two-headed alien.
"What about your mission could possibly be so important that it would warrant me to turn the Heart of Gold around and take you back? Do I look like I don't have anything better to do? We've got the police of half the galaxy on our tail, for Murphy's sake!"
"Please listen to me. We need to take Babylon 4 to the Minbari to end that terrible war," Sinclair urged Zaphod. "I believe with that improbability drive of your ship it is possible to get to any point in space and time, am I correct?"
"What war? There is no major war going on anywhere in the galaxy. Maybe a few border clashes here and there and some localized conflicts. We have not had a full-blown large scale war in centuries. At least not as long as I have been galactic president. And the Minbari? Hah! They wouldn't even know how to use a steam engine, if there are even any Minbari left at all. The Minbari got pretty much wiped out by the Shadows a few hundred years back", Zaphod explained.
Sinclair was shocked. He realized that he had failed and that the Minbari had been defeated. But he also realized that he still had a chance, if he could go back in time and set things right. At least it seemed like the Shadows had not overrun the galaxy. There was still hope. He tried again.
"That is why we need to go back in time and prevent the Shadows from wiping out the Minbari", Sinclair tried to explain.
"We? Why we? I don't have any business with the Minbari or the Shadows", Zaphod responded.
Trillian could see that Zaphod was annoyed. They were losing valuable time arguing. Time that could be better spent shaking off potential pursuers.
Trillian aimed a weapon at Sinclair and shot him with an orange beam of light. Sinclair instantly collapsed onto the metal floor of the bridge.
"You killed him! What did you do that for?" Zaphod asked.
"I did not kill him. I just stunned him. Don't worry, he'll wake up in an hour or two", Trillian assured him.
"Didn't know that thing had a stun setting. At least he isn't talking anymore. Let's loot his pockets and then dump him on the next planet before he wakes up." Zaphod said.
A short time later the Heart of Gold landed in a sparsely populated area on the earthlike planet Lamuella. While a loudly complaining Marvin carried an unconscious Jeffrey Sinclair out of the ship, Zaphod was pushing an antigrav cart with a shipping crate of food and Trillian followed carrying a battery powered radio with one hand and an antenna with the other.
Even though Zaphod didn't care, Trillian made sure that they followed intergalactic law, which states that when abandoning someone on a planet, that person should be left with food supplies to last at least one month as well with a long range communication device. They also left him the shuttle they had picked him up in, since the Heart of Gold already had two shuttles and according to Zaphod it was just wasting storage space in the hangar. With an unconscious Jeff Sinclair stranded on Lamuella, the Heart of Gold took off again.
After escaping from the dreaded Vorlons by jumping far backward in time, an exhausted TARDIS emerged at a rather interesting period in the history of the galaxy. It was a time where many people had become extremely rich. But this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor, at least no one worth speaking of. But for these rich people, life had become rather dull and it seemed that none of the worlds they settled on was entirely satisfactory. Either the climate wasn't quite right in the later part of the afternoon or the day was half an hour too long, or the sea was just the wrong shade of pink. And thus were created the conditions for a staggering new form of industry: Custom-made luxury planet building. The home of this industry was the planet Magrathea, where vast hyper spatial engineering works were constructed to suck matter through white holes in space and form it into dream planets, lovingly made to meet the exact standards of the galaxy's richest people. And Babylon 4 with the TARDIS aboard flashed into existence just a few light years away from Magrathea.
The TARDIS' reserves were drained after dragging the massive Babylon 4 space station so far back in time with her. Aboard Babylon 4, Arthur Dent was roused from his sleep by the voice of the computer, which announced that his tea was ready.
"It is about bloody time!" Arthur commented.
Arthur was sipping his tea in the officer's mess as Ford walked in.
"Arthur! This is amazing!" Ford exclaimed excitedly.
"What is so amazing?" Arthur asked.
"I studied the Hitchhiker's Guide a bit more. Remember that blue police box we walked out of? It's actually a TARDIS that belongs to a Time Lord known as "The Doctor".
"I have no idea what you are talking about. What's a TARDIs, anyway?"
"According to the Hitchhiker's guide, the TARDIS is a form of time machine. And it's bigger on the inside. I heard rumors and legends about the Doctor when I was younger," Ford explained.
After finishing his tea, Arthur followed Ford back to the TARDIS. Since Babylon 4 was so big, they did not run into Zathras, who was looking for ways to get off the station. Zathras needed to find Sinclair, so that Sinclair could become Valen and they could continue their mission to save the galaxy from the shadows.