Into The Fire

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement - sadly all Robotech and Babylon Five characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Babylon Productions Inc and Warner Brothers respectively - I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs - also known as lawyers - firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.

Authors Note: I really was not expecting this chapter to be ready before the new year but I found myself with quite a bit of free time today so I was actually able to finish it. So I thought what the hell might as well post it so consider this a slightly delayed Christmas present from me to you my readers.

Chapter Twelve

Diplomatic Conference Room

A Short Time Later

Captain Henry Gloval had a slight frown on his face as he made his way back to the conference room that had been set aside for the talks with the Earth Alliance, the Centauri Republic – which he thought was a somewhat misleading name since the Centauri governmental system was a constitutional monarchy not a republic – and now the Narn Regime. They had been waiting for Lisa to finish escorting the newly arrived Narn ambassador to their presence when he had been called out of the room by Colonel Maistroff. Knowing that the other man wouldn't have bothered him at this time unless it was important and could potentially affect the safety and security of everybody aboard this ship – Maistroff took his responsibilities in that area extremely seriously, especially now that they had seventy thousand civilians with them – so he had stepped out to see what the other officer wanted.

To say he was surprised by what the other man had said would have been an understatement.

One of the civilian Macross Island refugees – a young man named Rick Hunter, who he now recalled to be Commander Fokker's adoptive little brother – had been led into a previously hidden section of the ship. A section sealed off by something called a phase displacement field, which had him wondering if it was a derivative of the perception and temporal distortion fields they'd encountered when they'd first boarded the SDF-1 a few weeks – and a handy tropical cyclone which cooled the previously white-hot site down – after she had first fallen to Earth. In said section he had encountered an extremely advanced AI – that made the AI smart programs they'd developed previously from analysing and reverse engineering the ships coding look downright primitive as it appeared fully sentient - that was apparently based on an older version of himself. A version who had apparently travelled back through time and – while they were distracted by the battle with the Minbari, or rather introducing them to the utter devastating power that was the SDF-1's main cannon – snuck aboard long enough to access the hidden section and install the AI before leaving again and deliberately killing himself for some reason that was sure to make his head hurt by self-destructing his ship.

The reason he had apparently done that was to change the past, to avert some terrible catastrophe that had befallen their people sometime after this war with the Minbari ended and make things better. The AI had shown his younger flesh and blood self an alien device called the protoculture matrix before giving him some kind of biometrically encoded bracelet that would let him come and go from the hidden section and take others with him. Maistroff had wanted permission to take the young civilian pilot, Commander Fokker and a squad of marines and technicians into the section to learn more since apparently the AI couldn't project outside the area for long. Naturally he had given it though that didn't stop him wondering, and worrying, about what it was they were going to find there. What secrets of this ship, her technology and some terrible future they were about to find out.

"As if we didn't have enough to worry about dealing with the Minbari," he muttered to himself in his native Russian. "Now I have to worry about whatever that AI is going to reveal about events that haven't happened yet and which it wants to avoid happening. I hate temporal mechanics."

He put those thoughts out of his mind as he arrived back at the conference room. The marines on duty outside nodded politely at him and opened the door for him to enter the room, which he did. Immediately noticing that in the time that he had been gone the Narn representative had arrived. He resisted the impulse to blink as he found himself face to face with a being that looked like an alien. The Narn was slightly shorter than a human, but far stockier with tan coloured, vaguely reptilian-looking skin and blood red eyes. Instead of hair the alien – and his three companions, two of which were wearing tough looking armour though they lacked weapons as requested – had strange individual patterns of large brown and black spots.

"Ah good captain your back," Secretary Sheridan said with a smile relieved that Captain Gloval had returned from wherever he had been summoned off to. He had already gotten fed up of the tension between the Centauri and the newly arrived Narn, or at least the Narn guards and the Centauri guards who kept glaring at one another and indeed if looks could kill they would have been dead a dozen times over – and they had only been here five minutes at the most. "Is everything alright?"

"Oh yes mister secretary everything is fine the issues that called me away have since been dealt with. Now let us get back to the issues at hand," Gloval replied before turning his attention to the newly arrived Narn ambassador. "Greetings ambassador, I apologise for not greeting you myself but…"

"…duty called I understand fully Captain Gloval," Ambassador Ch'tor replied, "allow me to introduce myself. I am Ambassador Ch'tor, third circle."

"Third circle," Doctor Lang said confused.

"The Narn government the Kha'ri is structured as a series of circles," Secretary Sheridan explained, "the first circle is composed of the nobility, the second circle is the religious leaders and judiciary, third circle is the ambassadors and representatives to other races, with the fourth circle being representatives of all the districts of all planets claimed by the Narn Regime. Once we are finished here, I will send you a bit more information on the local races. After all, if you are going to be in this reality for a while then it would be a good idea to know who is who."

"That is a good idea I will do the same," Envoy Jaddo added, making a mental note to do so as soon as he returned to the Demarius. It would after all be very advantageous for everyone for Gloval to know which races could be somewhat trusted, and which were more likely to try and take the SDF-1 for themselves so they could possess her weapons. If he was truthful there were quite a few among his own people who would love to do just that and use this ships power to restore the Republic to what it had been before the civil war that had seen them loose vast swathes of territory and seen numerous protectorate races become independent. Most of whom now formed the League of Non-Aligned Worlds though a handful had chosen isolationism.

Personally he saw such individuals as glory seeking idiots. There old empire had never been sustainable, nobody not even they could hold on to entire conquered populations forever. The old republic was always going to fall apart at some point, the fact that they had done it to themselves didn't change that fact. No his people would never again have that empire, and he believed that it would be foolish of them to try. Instead, the Centauri needed to embrace the galaxy as it was now and build new friendships and alliances through trade and diplomacy, not military force and harsh planetary occupations. Until this unfortunate war had begun it had worked with the Earth Alliance, the Centauri as a people had profited far more from having a peaceful, trading relationship with them than they ever would have if they had used the old, muscle headed methods. Methods that had only earned them a lot of animosity from dozens of species with the Narn being – quite understandably he thought given what they had done to their planet – the most belligerent.

"That would be greatly appreciated," Gloval replied. Though probably not needed as that AI probably can tell us all we need to know, he thought thinking about the AI that had just made itself known to them via young Mr Hunter. If it really was from the future, transported here through some mechanism or technology that he knew he would never understand, then it would surely be able to tell them all they wanted or needed to know about the local races and the geopolitical landscape they were faced with in this reality.

"Now then gentlemen shall we continue," he added as he returned to his seat. "Ambassador Ch'tor might I ask what brings you here? How can we help you?"

"I am mostly here to keep the Centauri honest," Ch'tor admitted, "when the Kha'ri learned that the Centauri Emperor had taken the highly unusual step of sending an imperial special envoy to you it was felt we needed to do the same less they paint us as something we are not or try to exploit you in the way they are known to do. However, it does work out quite well as I have something to give to our currently embattled friends in the Earth Alliance."

"Oh, what is that ambassador," General Bradshaw asked wondering what the Narn were offering them now and wondering what they would want for it considering how much the weapons they were supplying them with were costing the treasury.

"This," Ch'tor replied taking the data crystal from its secure hiding place in his right arm vambrace. "On this data crystal is a set of coordinates, they are for the main supply and staging post for the Minbari forces currently invading Earth Alliance territory. The system it is in is normally uninhabited and is generally unclaimed by any spacefaring races, mostly because there is nothing there worth exploiting."

Surprise flashed across the faces of everyone else in the room.

"How did you acquire this information ambassador," General Bradshaw asked even as his mind whirled with sudden possibilities. If the information that the Narn had was accurate, and they could get enough forces together quickly enough as well as fitting them with the sensors from the SDF-1 quickly enough, then they could potentially destroy the Minbari staging area. If they could do that then they could potentially buy themselves a great deal of breathing room to upgrade their fleet and then maybe take this war to the Minbari assuming the boneheads continued to refuse all attempts at contact to end this conflict peacefully.

"Two days ago one of our border patrols intercepted a Pak'ma'ra freighter where it should not have been," Ch'tor explained, "it was far off any known hyperspace routes, so they detained and boarded it. They soon found that the crew were not Pak'ma'ra, though the bodies of the Pak'ma'ra crew were found in one of the secondary cargo bays."

"They were Minbari," Bradshaw said/questioned, guessing what had happened.

"Indeed there were three Minbari warriors aboard from the clan whose name translates into standard as the night stalkers," Ch'tor explained, "they attempted to purge the computer but were not able to before our warriors detained them. We currently holding them in a secure prison and will return them to the Minbari once this unfortunate war is over.

"From the computer records we learned that the night stalker trio tricked the Pak'ma'ra by sending out a distress signal indicating that their flyer was damaged," Ch'tor continued, "as disgusting as they can be, being carrion eaters, the Pak'ma'ra are generally a kind people and stopped to render assistance. The night stalkers then boarded their ship, killed the crew and took over stowing their flyer in one of the other cargo bays. Since then they have been using the ship as a scout, searching for additional hyperspace routes into human space. Which is where we encountered them after they strayed into Narn space."

"That sounds like something the night stalkers would do," Jaddo commented thoughtfully knowing that the night stalkers were one of the smaller clans among the ranks of the Minbari warrior caste. They were a clan that specialised in assassinations, sabotage and other covert operations. The latter of which put them in direct conflict with the anla'shok. "They are one of the smallest clans in the Minbari warrior caste but one of the most cruel and brutal. Even other clans in the warrior caste tend to despise them considering them honourless cowards."

"Indeed," Ch'tor answered in full agreement with the Centauri nobleman on that issue. Before returning to the issue of the data crystal. "Our intelligence people were able to break the encryption on the computer of the Minbari flyer, the warrior caste seems to have seriously let their cryptographic skills atrophy over the last few centuries."

"We've noticed that" Sheridan commented, knowing from the times they'd intercepted Minbari military transmissions that the encryption was relatively – almost laughingly – easy for the cryptography department of Earthforce Naval Intelligence to crack. "The Minbari warrior caste do seem to be very complacent and overconfident in that area."

"Yes, well thankfully for you that overconfidence has worked against them," Ch'tor added "in the computer of the flyer was information on the Minbari staging and supply post, including its location and the fact that its defence fleet consists of just three Sharlin-class war cruisers and nine Tinashi-class war frigates. All other Minbari ships present are routinely docked at mobile supply docks. Intercepts of Minbari transmissions have indicated that, with their defeats here at Altair and at Deneb, the Minbari are planning to increase the defence and bring in more ships prior to launching their next attack. However due to severe logistical problems, exasperated in no small part by the raids by Earthforce frigates and cruisers on Minbari shipping, it will be a month at least before they are able to properly do so."

"A month," Bradshaw breathed, shock and delight welling within him. The Minbari supply and staging post would be vulnerable for at least a month, if they could martial enough upgraded forces quickly enough, and get them there without being detected they could deal a devastating blow to the Minbari forces in Earth Alliance territory. It might even be enough to force them to withdraw from captured systems like Jericho and allow them to help anyone who might have survived the boot heels of the warrior caste assuming they didn't die during the bombardment of planetary military facilities. Which was likely since the Minbari tended to use their antimatter converter weapon in planetary bombardments instead of kinetic impactors like everyone else.

"Interesting," Sheridan commented as Ch'tor handed the data crystal to one of his guards who brought it over to General Bradshaw, who gratefully accepted it. "I am sure we will be able to marshal enough forces to take the base out before they can bring up their reinforcements."

"Indeed," Gloval replied already thinking about he could help, especially as Doctor Lang had already told them that in a day or two at the most the SDF-1's hyperspace fold system would be back online as his teams finished replacing the last of the fold field emitters that had been burned out in the incident that had transported them to this reality. Once the system was back online… well he would discuss how he could help them use it to take advantage of the Minbari vulnerability with Bradshaw later. "Now maybe we should turn our attention back to this proposed blockade of shipments to the Minbari Federation by every other race for the duration of the war and how it is going to work in practice."

"Agreed," Jaddo replied, "I will tell you how Emperor Turhan thinks it will work and we go from there?"

Both Sheridan and Ch'tor nodded in agreement. Jaddo smiled and began explaining the full details of the blockade plan that had been devised by Emperor Turhan and Prime Minister Malachi to explain to the Minbari the depths of their displeasure over this war, their stated aim of genocide and their blatant, arrogant bullying of the other races.

Hidden Section

A Few Minutes Later

Rick Hunter was nervous. He believed that he had very good reason to be given that he was surrounded and escorted by a dozen heavily armed marines all of which were wearing armour that looked like it had jumped straight out of the Halo or Mass Effect computer games. Not only that but there were a number of robotechnologists and technicians with them, all of whom were looking at him – or rather at the bracelet on his wrist – in a way that made him very nervous indeed.

The only thing that made the attention at least somewhat bearable was the presence of Roy next to him. His adoptive older sibling seemed to not want to let him out of his sight right now and while normally that would have been irritating as hell, right now he found it very comforting. Especially given where they were going – into a part of the ship that aside from himself nobody had ever been in since before the ship first crashed into Macross Island a decade ago and a whole universe away.

After a few minutes of quiet walking they arrived at the end of corridor that appeared to end in a blank wall. I wonder how we will go through, Rick thought, will we walk through it like I did earlier or will something else happen.

"Alright we're here," Colonel Maistroff said from where he was leading their little posse. In the short time since Captain Gloval had given them permission to proceed with the investigation, he had changed out of his normal officer's uniform into the same kind of tough, durable armour as the marines only his had different markings indicating his status as a senior officer. "Mister Hunter would you please do your thing and open this for us?"

"I will try," Rick replied as he walked up to the wall and put his hand on it. Then he concentrated on the bracelet and immediately felt something inside, felt the bracelet form some kind of connection between his mind and the ship itself. Though he had experienced it before, when he had called the AI version of him to his presence in the security section, it was still a very strange and somewhat disconcerting experience though he was sure he would get used to it. Through the connection he felt with his mind for the controls to open the wall and after a second or two found them. Open, he thought at the wall and felt something respond.

For a second nothing happened then the whole wall began to glow and shimmer. "Okay it's open begin walking through," he said somehow knowing he would need to wait here until the others had gone through before going himself, "I will need to wait here to hold this open so you can all get through before coming myself."

Maistroff nodded in understanding deciding he would trust the young man would come through after them as he had said he would. "Alright everyone you heard him," he said. "I want you all to walk through single file, be on your guard as we have no idea what is hidden in this section of the ship."

Without waiting for a reply he brought his laser rifle to his shoulder and resolutely started walking forward. In seconds he came to the wall and mentally braced himself before walking through it, feeling an odd tingling like static electricity and a cool feeling like he had just stepped through a plane of flowing water before he appeared on the other side facing a corridor scaled for humans. A corridor with a dark marble-like floor and walls made of an odd green marble like material with starburst shaped light fixtures every few meters.

Knowing that the others would be following he moved forwards as far he dared before turning and looking back – to see the same blank wall. But only for a second before it rippled, and Commander Fokker came through and moved to join him. Then a marine came through. The process repeated several dozen times as the rest of the investigation team came through, the scientists and technicians all looking incredibly excited by the experience. Finally, though young Mr Hunter came through after them just as he said he would, easily slipping past the scientists and marines with an easy athleticism that showed that the young man was definitely fitter than he looked. Though given he is a stunt pilot in an air circus and is one of the most gifted amateur pilots back on our world that's not surprising, Maistroff knowing that Rick would have to actually be very fit to handle the high-gees of some aerial acrobatics stunts – like that little booster climb stunt he'd pulled after being unwittingly challenged by Commander Fokker back on Macross Island before all this started – in fact he was willing to bet that most of his lithe frame was packed with muscle.

"So now where do we go," he asked as the young man joined him and Commander Fokker at the head of the investigation team.

"This way," Rick said, somehow knowing exactly where they needed to go. Without waiting for a reply he started walking, everyone hurrying to follow.

"Ugh Rick no offense but how do you know where we're going," Roy asked.

"I just do Roy," Rick replied, before looking thoughtful. "It's like the bracelet is telling me or has somehow uploaded where we supposed to go into my mind. Possibly when it connected to the ship so I could open the wall."

"Fascinating so the bracelet is acting like some kind of bridge between your mind and the ships computers?" Doctor Cochrane asked.

Rick shrugged. "I guess though to open the door I actually needed to be touching the wall and concentrate on the bracelet," he replied, "only then did I actually feel a connection with the ship."

"Interesting," Cochrane commented looking deeply intrigued and wanting, now more than ever, to really have a look at the bracelet that the young civilian pilot was wearing. A bracelet that was tied to his biometrics and thus could only be used by him, a bracelet that was clearly far, far more than what it appeared to be. Yet at the same time he was somewhat confused, in the decade they had spent analysing this ship and its incredibly advanced technology there had never been any indication that the ships giant builders had had anywhere near the technology for any form of direct mind-machine interface like what the bracelet had to be using. Thus, he had to wonder was the bracelet even the product of robotechnology or was it something else.

"It's not hurting you is it," Roy asked worried.

"I'm fine it doesn't hurt at all," Rick answered, "yeah it feels a little weird when I use it, but I think that's because it's so different to anything I've ever felt or used before. Ah here we are."

As he spoke Maistroff, and the others, realized that he had led them to a large hexagonal door. A door that opened as soon as Rick put his hand – the hand with the bracelet on the wrist again he noted – on a panel to one side. Slightly creeped out by all this but determined to see just what the hell this all about Maistroff led the way inside, everyone calmly piling in after him.

To find that the room beyond was empty. But only for a second for as soon as the door closed the AI version of Rick that he had seen before appeared right before.

"Hi there younger me, hey Roy," the AI said in greeting. "Colonel Maistroff, Doctor Cochrane welcome. It is good that you came here so quickly. I take it Captain Gloval is still meeting with Secretary Sheridan, General Bradshaw, Envoy Jaddo and Ambassador Ch'tor."

"He is," Maistroff replied, "how do you know that are you linked to the ships systems."

"Only in this section," the AI replied, "and for most systems I only have read-only access especially for things like the protoculture matrix. The older flesh and blood me didn't have time to connect me up for greater access before he had to leave to destroy both himself and his ship."

"Why did he do that anyway," Roy demanded, "and don't give me that line you did earlier about an incompatibility between two versions of Rick."

"It was the easiest answer to give you and it was true from a certain point of view," the artificial intelligence replied, "two flesh and blood versions of me existing in the same point in space and time would have caused temporal and quantum problems though they would have taken years to manifest enough to affect health. The reality was he was already dying from radiation poisoning."

"But we can treat radiation poisoning now," Cochrane pointed out, one of the many medicines developed from secrets they'd learned on this ship was anti-radiation medication that could not only stop the damage inflicted by radiation poisoning in its tracks but reverse the effects repairing any DNA damage as it went.

"Not the type of radiation he was exposed to," the AI replied, "it was a form of temporal radiation as the method he used to come back here was experimental and very high risk. He was essentially rapidly aging to the point that between installing me and leaving the ship he had aged physically from a man in his fifties to a seventy-five-year-old. I do not doubt that within a few minutes of undocking and setting his ship to self-destruct he died. As for why he didn't leave the ship here – he promised the person who helped him build it that he would destroy it once he was done. He kept that promise."

"Did the older me know he would rapidly age," Rick asked.

"He did but he came anyway. There was nothing to be lost in that future and everything to be gained by changing the timeline which is why he brought me here."

"You mentioned that the colony that we will build after this war with the Minbari was over was destroyed," Maistroff said.

"It was," AI-Rick answered, "though to truly understand why and who did it I will need to fill you in on quite a few particulars of this universe that we have found ourselves in and the cycle that it has become trapped in. A cycle that is at this point only a decade and a half away before reaching its violent climax. A cycle that if we are careful, we can use not just the robotechnology on this ship but information and designs I have stored in my matrix to break not just for our benefit but for the benefit of the entire galaxy."

"What cycle," Maistroff asked with a frown of confusion and concern as he really didn't like what he was hearing, and something told him he would like it even less once he knew exactly what was going on in this reality.

"A cycle of violence and death designed by two elder races – the Shadows and the Vorlons – to determine which of their philosophies is right. A war they manipulate the other races to fight for them," the AI answered.

"I think you had better start at the beginning."

"Very well. The beginning starts billions of years ago when the first generation of spacefaring civilizations arose in this galaxy. For hundreds of millions of years, they walked the stars, establishing great empires and accomplishing many wonders and fighting wars more terrible than anything our species has experienced in our tempestuous history. Among the oldest of these ancients, known to the current crop of spacefaring races as the First Ones, are the Shadows – there is no other name for them."

Authors Note: Well another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. The plot is beginning to deepen quite a bit more now and Doctor Cochrane is starting to suspect that there is much more to Rick's bracelet than they currently know and he is not wrong. He is also correct in that the technology in the bracelet is not based on robotechnology at least not fully but is another thing that the older Rick brought back with him from the other timeline, and left with the AI for him to give to his younger self before he left the ship. Who helped him develop it, and the ship he used to come back in time even though he knew doing so would lead to his death due to exposure to unstable temporal radiation well I will leave that for you all to guess about and speculate on for now. Until next time.