The Lone Ranger

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own demented author amusement - sadly all Babylon 5 and Farscape characters and concepts remain the property of Babylonian Productions Inc, Warner Brothers, the Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment 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.

Chapter Two

Beams of searing blue-green energy erupted from the cannons of the three Dilgar cruisers and shot towards the warships that had violated the gateway system. While the two flanking cruisers opened fire on the White Stars the central ship fired upon the Helios recognising her as a distant descendant of the Nova-class dreadnoughts that every member of the Dilgar Navy had learned to fear. To a soul the Dilgar aboard the Shadow tech upgraded cruisers were gleeful at the thought of finally getting to strike at those who decades earlier had defeated the Imperium and forced them to flee and continue as many of their kind as they could while the majority of Dilgar died with Omelos. With the tech they now had they believed victory inevitable.

It was an illusion born of both overconfidence and ignorance. Of a belief that the other races, being naturally inferior to Dilgar, would not be able to advance to the same levels they had in their decades of long exile. An illusion that was suddenly, decisively proven to be just that as the first salvo of Shadow-designed boser weapons fired at the White Stars went wide the hybrid Minbari/Vorlon vessels easily evading their targeting locks.

The same could not be said for the much larger, still manoeuvring to face them Helios.

The salvo fired at her immediately encountered the first layer of the powerful Thor-class ships defences – an enhanced gravimagnetic shield grid similar to the Minbari/Vorlon system used on the newest generation of White Stars – and immediately partially defocused exotic energies and particles spilling forth from the edges of the beams revealing the outlines of the force field even as the rest of the beam carried on and slammed into the hull. Instead of immediately scorching and rendering it, as the Dilgar expected, the beams broke apart and dissipated almost all their remaining energy being immediately deflected back into space in a rainbow blaze of diffusion leaving only slight, blackened smudges on the hull where they'd hit to indicate they'd struck her at all.

Not about to let the attack go unanswered the White Stars and the EarthForce super-dreadnought immediately returned fire. The White Stars falling into three ship attack formations and streaking towards their two targets gravitic discharge cannons, pulse neutron cannons and fusion pulse cannons blazing. Immediately upon impacting the shimmering midnight-black organic armour the blasts broke apart and spread across the surface in a rippling wall of energy that was rapidly drawn towards the spines where it was quickly radiated out into space. Not deterred in the least, and trained in how to deal with Shadow vessels or vessels that used their forbidden technology, the Rangers kept firing focusing all fire on one section of the armour intended to overwhelm the armours dispersion capabilities.

For her part the dorsal triple barrel turrets of the Helios turned to bear on the attacking cruiser – as it fired another salvo of beams which were as ineffective against the advanced defences of the mighty warship as the first salvo had been– and opened fire brutally raking it with a combination of fusion beams and neutron cannon fire. Shadow armour glowed fiercely as it fought to disperse the massive influx and the cruiser visibly trembled from the force of the impact.

Then the Niall and Thunderbolts blew in firing fusion beams and plasma pulses respectively at the Dilgar ships all of them targeting the radiator fins. The glow around them growing brighter even as the capital ships continued pelting the Dilgar with weapons fire putting their defences under strain. The Dilgar gave as good as they got however to the point that a White Star lost its shield and seconds later it was transformed into a fireball as the exotic energies of the Shadow-designed weapons annihilated it.

Bridge

EAS Helios

"We just lost White Star Thirty-Nine."

Sitting in the command chair General Jack Crichton nodded at the report from Lieutenant Curtis. He could see it himself on the holographic display and he honestly wasn't surprised that it had happened as while they had advanced defences the best defence of a White Star was its speed and agility. After all they weren't much bigger than a frigate and really had no business going up against something as big as a cruiser except in a group and when they could coordinate their fire.

"What's our status," he asked as the Helios shuddered under another volley of enemy fire.

"Shields down to sixty-three percent general," Curtis reported, "e-web down to fifty percent capacity. Outer armour band twenty percent compromised. No systems damage or power loss at this time."

"That's going to change soon," Roberts commented. Jack nodded in agreement as while the Helios was an immensely powerful vessel, with the best defences EarthForce R&D knew how to make some of which were ironically based on their own studies of Shadow technology during the Clark era as well as technology shared by other worlds as mandated in ISA treaties, she was far from invincible and invulnerable. Though they had already soaked up enough firepower to have destroyed an Omega-class destroyer a dozen times over and which would have disabled a Warlock-class heavy destroyer.

"Not if we can help it," he answered, "Lieutenant Curtis how long until our main cannons can be brought to bear on the Dilgar cruiser?"

"Sixty seconds sir. The cocky cats aren't even trying to manoeuvre out of the way."

"Idiots that will cost them," Richards commented with the grin of a predator who knew he would soon have his prey in his jaws ready for the kill. Jack had to work hard to maintain a professional mask and not return the grin as the main battery of the Helios was composed of the newest version of the most powerful energy beam weapon ever conceived by EarthForce. A weapon that could cut through even the largest of Drakh ships – their clanships – with relative ease. The version was even more powerful, owing to improvements made in particle acceleration and gravitational lensing technologies not to mention the fact that they had improved power sources now including their own gravitic reactors.

"That it will. Lieutenant Curtis as soon as our main battery has a lock on the Dilgar warship open fire. Don't wait for my order," Jack ordered as the ship shook under another volley of enemy fire. A thin haze of smoke began to make itself known, a sure sign that the ships systems were beginning to sustain damage.

"Aye sir. Twenty seconds till we're in position sir."

Jack nodded and turned his attention to the tactical displays. One of the Dilgar cruisers had been disabled and was drifting, trailing radiation and burning atmosphere from multiple breaches that had been torn in its hull by the White Stars gunfire. A small but growing number of lifepods surrounded it as the Dilgar crew scrambled to evacuate the dying vessel. One of said White Stars was also drifting, spinning slightly out of control as its starboard engine nacelle had been blown off.

"Ten seconds to firing general," Lieutenant Curtis reported bringing his full attention back to the cruiser that was firing at them. "Nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… firing main cannons now."

Four large cannons stacked one on top of the other on either side of the Helios prow glowed brightly with gathering energy. First developed after the devastating conflict that was the Earth-Minbari War for the Aegis-class Global Orbital Defence platforms the massive superheavy particle cannons were among the most powerful and lethal weapons ever created by any of the Younger Races with even the likes of the Minbari respecting and fearing their destructive power. Since there first introduction the cannons had seen numerous upgrades and improvements – starting with being able to scale them down enough to mount them on the Warlock-class heavy destroyers – and those present on the Thor-class were the recipient of all those changes as well as new innovations that came about with the creation of the class.

Now, for the first time in history, the new model cannons unleashed their wrath on something that was not a test drone or unlucky asteroid. Four muscular beams of searing yellow-white particle energy, each over ten meters in diameter, erupted from the Helios and slammed into her opponent almost instantaneously. The effect was devastating.

Already weakened Shadow armour offered virtually no resistance as the beams tore into it. Even if it had still been at full capacity, it would have done no good as the armour in and immediately around the path of the beams immediately flashed to vapour. The beams continued on slicing into the more conventional metal hull underneath, disintegrating it nearly instantly as they tore into then through the entire length of the cruiser, slicing through the superstructure with an ease that was as devastating as it was utterly contemptuous, before exploding out the back surrounded by an eruption of flames and debris. For a few timeless seconds the doomed cruiser hung there, speared through from stem to stern by the beams then both its jump engines and its main power core detonated turning the entire vessel into a maelstrom of liberated energy and hard radiation.

Even as the beams from her main cannons vanished, as did their victim, the Helios wasn't done but instead opened fire with more convention fusion and neutron beam armament upon the last Dilgar warship. The barrage was joined by fire from all the surviving White Stars and under such a sustained withering barrage it stood no choice and within seconds its armour was buckling and dissolving in numerous locations across the hull followed by the hull itself beneath. A final volley of fire from the White Star's nose mounted gravitic discharge cannons tore deep into the ship and ripped apart its reactors with the predictable result. The final cruiser exploded with appalling violence leaving nothing behind but a spreading cloud of cooling plasma and burning dust.

The battle, the first with the Dilgar in over sixty years, was over.

Bridge

EAS Helios

"The last enemy ship has been destroyed."

"So, I see," Jack replied from where he was sitting in the command chair. Despite knowing how powerful the Thor-class was – indeed many in EarthForce liked to state that the class outgunned even the Minbari Shagotti-class battlecruisers – he was still somewhat surprised by how relatively easily she had dealt with the Dilgar ships. Granted they had had help from a squadron of White Stars – and the Dilgar had certainly been overconfident in the abilities of the Shadow tech upgraded ships as they'd been outnumbered by a considerable margin – but still the ease with which her state-of-the-art weapons systems had cut through the Dilgar was impressive to say the least.

"Stand down from battle stations," he ordered, "scramble our medical ships and make sure those Dilgar lifepods are rounded up and captured. Both the ISA and the Alliance will want answers as to where they've been for the last sixty odd years and where they got Shadow technology."

"Aye sir," the flight control officer responded.

"Lieutenant Curtis, are we still receiving telemetry from Farscape One?" Jack asked his thoughts turning back to his son and his ship that had been swept into one of the wormholes near the stars by the detonation of the Dilger perimeter defence mine.

"Negative sir we've lost the signal there's too much radiation flying around out there from the destroyed ships to maintain signal lock," Curtis reported, "however before we lost the signal the ship had ceased moving, so it likely exited the wormhole. Given how weak the signal was when we lost it the computer estimates that Farscape One has been transported anywhere from seventy thousand to seventy-four thousand light years away from here. We can't be certain due to interference from the wormhole."

Jack felt like he had been punched in the gut as the younger officers' words registered. John had been transported to the other side of the galaxy by the wormhole he'd been knocked into by the Dilgar mine. How the hell were they going to get him back? He forced himself to calm down, he knew John could look after himself – he was Anla'shok after all – and that if he was able to, if his ship wasn't damaged, then he would immediately reverse course and fly back through the wormhole.

"Keep an eye on the wormhole for as long as possible," he ordered, "knowing John if he's able to he'll fly straight back through the wormhole to here."

"Aye sir," Lieutenant Curtis acknowledged a moment before his sensor chirped a warning. "What the hell?"

"What is it?" Jack demanded.

"Sir the Dilgar lifepods all just self-destructed."

"Have any of our medical ships been damaged," Jack asked scowling at the news that the Dilgar had deliberately killed themselves, by blowing up their own lifepods, rather than be taken prisoner and interrogated.

"Negative sir they were far enough away from the blasts to escape damage."

"Well, that's something at least," Jack muttered relieved that no more of his people had gotten hurt when the pods exploded. Though it was also clear that the Dilgar had changed and not in a good way. They'd gotten more ruthless and fanatical if anything and we're now willing to die before being taken prisoner. Which did not bode well for future confrontations with them, confrontations that were sure to come now that the Dilgar knew that they knew they'd survived and that they'd integrated Shadow technology into their own "Scan the debris from the destroyed Dilgar ships, look for any sign of data recorder transponders."

"Aye sir."

"Also open a jump point and send a squad of fighters into hyperspace on recon/sentry duty. Tell them to keep an eye out for more Dilgar warships, I don't want to be surprised again."

"Aye sir."

Farscape One

A Short Time Later

John Crichton groaned as consciousness returned. Slowly he opened his eyes to find himself lying on the cold alloy deck of the heavily modified Blue Star scoutship. Ugh what in Valen's name just happened, he wondered awkwardly sitting up and almost wishing he hadn't as his head suddenly swum with disorientation that was so severe he thought he was actually going to throw up. He closed his eyes and through a combination of Ranger training and the breathing exercises he'd done all his life – and which had on half come in handy during the Clark regime era as his father being on Babylon 5 as a pilot during the civil war had had Clark's jackbooted thugs making the rest of the Crichton families lives hell in retribution, being able to keep his cool around them had prevented anything nastier than harassment occurring – to push the nausea away and regain his equilibrium.

Slowly the disorientation faded until he was confident that he could stand up without falling over, or throwing up all over the controls while it wouldn't damage them it would be a pain in the arse to clean off, he opened his eyes again and stood. He immediately noticed that the main lights in the small cockpit/bridge of the scoutship were off indicating that main power was certainly down meaning that for some reason the micro quantum gravitic reactor had gone into lockdown leaving only the backup power cells available. Great that's going to be a nightmare to fix, he thought as he made his way over to the controls – he knew better than to call for the AI at the moment as it wouldn't be much help – and tried to determine both what had happened to him and what the ships current condition was.

The sensors confirmed that the Dilgar nuclear mine had detonated just before he could clear the blast radius of the decades old weapon. The electromagnetic pulse wave and charged particle blast wave from the fusion detonation had slammed into him, the former causing several systems to shut down from the overload while the latter had knocked him out of control into one of the wormholes.

"So, where the fuck am I now," he thought checking the sensors and groaning when he got an error message indicating primary sensors were offline. Secondaries were working but at reduced efficiency due to the fact that main power was out, the singularity core having gone into lockdown after the primary containment field generator was damaged by the EMP.

"Oh, that's going to be a pain in the arse to fix," he muttered before checking and smiling in relief when he saw that the automatic repair system was still online and working. Main power would be restored within the hour according to the system though most other systems – including both the sublight and jump engines, shielding and the weapons system – would be down for several hours.

John leaned back thoughtfully in his chair. While the ship was fully capable of repairing itself – much like its larger White Star cousins could due to the amount of Vorlon biomechanical technology integrated into it – things would go a bit quicker if he stepped in to assist. The question was where to start and after a moment he decided that he would begin with the sensors. He wasn't stupid enough to touch the gravitic reactor as only specialist engineers from either the Minbari worker caste or the power generation section on the Helios were really trained to maintain and repair those things. For someone like him, who only had a passing knowledge of how they worked, to mess with the contained artificial black hole would be like playing Russian roulette and likely to end just as badly.

He was just about to stand up to go and get a repair kit when Farscape One abruptly jerked as though something had hit it, nearly knocking him out of the chair again. "Ship what was that," he demanded as stability returned.

"Short range sensors confirm a small fighter craft, unknown configuration, collided with our starboard anti-proton thruster nacelle," the AI reported immediately, "no additional damage detected. The fighter that hit us has collided with an asteroid and been destroyed. One unknown life sign was recorded just prior to the impact."

"Damn," John muttered then it dawned on him that the AI had mentioned asteroids. "Ship are we in an asteroid field?"

"Confirmed. Vessel is drifting near in the outer edge of a type two asteroid field."

Well, that's something at least, John thought knowing that a type two asteroid field was much like the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter back in Sol. Very large but very diffuse with hundreds or even tens of thousands of miles of space between individual asteroids and groups of asteroids. So, there was little danger of the ship hitting or being hit by an inconvenient asteroid or meteor.

No sooner than he thought that then the ship jerked again. Now what, he thought. "Ship report," he ordered.

"Vessel has been locked onto with a gravitational force beam similar a tractor beam but without any magnetic emissions."

"Source?"

"A frigate sized vessel located at a distance of eight thousand kilometres, vessel is of organic construction and appears unarmed."

"Show me."

"Confirmed."

The holographic display at the front of the cockpit powered up appearing first as a shimmering curtain of energy in the effect that Minbari holographic displays always used for some reason known only to them. It quickly stabilised and showed an ultra-high definition image of a strange vessel. It had a vaguely elliptical main body from which extended three tendrils that met – but didn't quite touch – at the back of the ship. A large metal structure, held on by large metallic straps, was wrapped like a collar on a dog around the forward section of the ship, and standing out sharply against the honey-coloured biometallic alloy that the ship was constructed from. It was very strange and alien looking even to someone like him who was well used to alien ships and how downright weird to human eyes they could look.

It was also under attack.

Dozens of small fighters, which somewhat reminded him of tri-bladed knifes, buzzed constantly around the ship carrying out attack runs. Every few seconds one of more of them would fire some type of red energy bolts that exploded on impact in a way that reminded him somewhat of how Centauri pulse weapons – be they ion bolts or plasma accelerator bolts – would explode on impact with a target.

Quickly John's hands flew across the console in front of him entering commands for the secondary sensors to both scan the vessel that was pulling him in and the small fighters that were attacking it. The vessel was definitely organic and unarmed; indeed, it was giving off the life signs of a true living being and not something that was just biomechanical like some ships back home were. It was clearly suffering under the bombardment as several areas of the outer hull, which had a molecular structure similar to coral but was much stronger with distinct metallic elements present, were showing signs that they would soon buckle under a relentless assault.

An assault that honestly puzzled John somewhat as the sensors confirmed that the alien bolts were definitely plasma based but were not particularly powerful as such things went. Certainly, they were much less powerful than he would have expected, being not much more powerful than the weapons Earth had used when they'd first ventured out into the galaxy after the Centauri stumbled across Sol and made first contact with them. It was odd in that the fighters themselves were technologically advanced having a defensive electromagnetic-gravitic field around them and powerful hybrid gravitic-ion engines.

The same could be said for the gravitic force beam that was drawing the Farscape One towards a large opening door on the rear of the upper hull of the organic ship. While the pull was impressive for something purely gravitic the beam was quite diffuse and if his main engines had been functioning, he would have had no trouble breaking free of the pull just by overpowering it. Given how advanced the ship had to be it was bizarre to say the very least.

A proximity warning let him know that the ship was now passing into the interior of the ship. He looked at the holographic screen to see walls made of a slightly darker version of the outer hull passing by him and ahead of him, he saw a device running along a rail that appeared to be the projector for the gravitational force beam. The tunnel the ship was travelling down gave way to a very large hangar bay with two or three layers of ledges that ships could land on, he could see a number of cylindrical spacecraft – which from their size he guessed were shuttlecraft of some kind – sitting parked.

The force beam began to lower the Farscape One towards the deck. John quickly touched some controls deploying the landing legs from their slots on the ventral hull, green lights appearing almost immediately to inform him that they were down and locked. It wasn't a moment too soon as a few seconds later a jolt ran through the ship as it was set down, the force beam releasing it a second or so later.

"Ship what's the environmental conditions outside," John asked knowing that he would likely have to go outside to convince these people, whoever they were, to let him go so he could fly back to the wormhole once the ships automatic repair protocol finished its repairs and return to the system he'd started in and the Helios. Where he was certain to get the air hugged out of him by his father right before Jack Crichton gave him a lecture for scaring the living daylights out of him. Hopefully they would be willing to listen and let him go but if they didn't well, he was a Ranger and he might have to demonstrate just what that meant by using a denn'bok to bash a few skulls in possibly quite literally.

"Sensors confirm an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere comparable with most lifeforms outside," the AI confirmed, "temperature and gravity are within human norms."

"Alright then," John said with a sigh. "I'm going out there to find and talk – possibly quite painfully – to whoever is in charge here and get them to release us. In the meantime, continue with repairs, as soon as I disembark initiate fortress protocols."

"Confirmed."

Knowing that there was nothing else to do, and that the AI matrix would take care of the ship while he was gone especially with the fortress protocols active - protocols that would keep anti-boarding, anti-tampering measures firmly at the ready until he, or another authorised person such as Entil'zha Ivanova or President Delenn, deactivated them with a command override – John left the cockpit and went back into the living area of the heavily modified Blue Star.

He immediately went to the weapons locker and using both a password and a DNA scan opened it. Sitting inside the locker were a number of different weapons ranging from obvious weapons like Earth Alliance pulsed plasma guns and Minbari fusion blasters to less obvious ones like the denn'bok which in its stored form looked like a simple metal cylinder. Present as well were a series of gravitic force rings, Minbari devices that while they looked like innocuous jewellery were actually weapons that could – due to their mastery of gravitic science – manipulate local gravity to a frightening degree. There were even a few knifes, and other bladed weapons present from a Minbari crystal blade to a Human kukri.

For a moment he debated with himself what weapons to take. Eventually he took out a ppg and a denn'bok slipping them into the appropriate positions on the belt of his uniform, before taking one of the more moderate strength gravitic force rings and slipping it onto one finger in the inactive position. Then he closed and sealed the weapons locker and began moving towards the airlock.

A few seconds later he was descending the boarding ramp, keeping his senses on full alert as he stepped out into the alien ship. The air was a little bit warmer than what he was strictly used to, having spent so much time on Minbar he had gotten used to the cooler temperature that the cold adapted Minbari found comfortable, and had a very odd if not entirely unpleasant scent to it. Everywhere he could hear a faint pulsing humming that somewhat reminded him of heart beats.

The deck beneath him suddenly shook reminding him that the vessel he was currently an unwilling guest on was under attack. It prompted him to pick up the pace, using his comm link to remotely close the ramp on the ship behind him. Then he started walking into the rest of the ship…

…and into the unknown.

Authors Note: Well, another chapter of this reboot/reimagination of this very old story of mine is done, I hope you all enjoyed it. Things are going to get pretty interesting for everyone involved pretty soon, especially as not only are the Dilgar back from the dead – something that will really set the cat among the pigeons with EarthGov and the Interstellar Alliance when they find out about it i.e. when they read Jack Crichton's report – but they are also active in the Uncharted Territories as there is a reason why they call the wormhole system Gateway. Next time John meets the crew of Moya – which might include a few new individuals as I have often found it odd that there were so few prisoners kept on a ship Moya's size – while back in Gateway things get a bit more heated as the Dilgar will be back. Until next time.