(disclaimers and associated descriptions in overture)
* * *
<<ACT TWO>>
#There#
The SHARD; captain's quarters, the night of March 8-9, 2267.
She had waited a long time to be sure, but it had finally happened. Her counterpart had fallen asleep... and now it was time for her to press the advantage she'd recently acquired; an edge provided to her by the fact that, for now at least, she didn't seem to need sleep; an unusual situation, to say the least!... but not something she was about to question, given the present situation.
On second thought though, maybe this wasn't such a surprise, after all; back in the 'regular' universe, her body was probably being tended by Veyshahk, Taylene Nividia and the SHARD's other medical staff right at this moment. The link that still remained between here and there, however tenous, looked like it was giving her (soul?) some much-needed reserve.
Somehow.
At the same time, this period of peace and *aloneness* hadn't come quickly enough for her. The past few hours had been spent observing the other Tikopai work herself into a frenzy during a battle practice that had shocked her to the bone... although there HAD been the slight distraction of slowly circumventing the barrier the Other had established in their shared mind. While at the same time maintaining a constant, strong image of herself, dejected and beaten, within the prison of thought she had broken out of hours before.
But now the Other was asleep, it was finally time for her to begin getting a few answers about what had happened in this reality to make it so different from the one she knew. Slowly, very slowly, Julia moved *forward*, somehow shunting her counterpart aside in the process... and moved into control. It was like... how could it be described? Like the joy of putting on a worn and familiar pair of gloves, after those gloves were thought to be lost forever. And so, wearing a body she didn't own, Julia rose out of bed and moved over towards the computer that lay atop the harsh, blackrock desk that stood nearby.
Julia shivered then, however, as she sat down at the terminal. One thing for certain, the Other's fashion sense left much to be desired. Well, best not to beat around the bush; nearly *everything* about her left something to be desired! Her reflection was everything she wasn't, and more.
And after a careful sifting of memories, the reasons for this were becoming much clearer.
<flash>
"No!" cried out the girl-that-had-been, as she rose to her feet, and desperately tried to escape from the fate that awaited her. "Not again. Please! Not that!"
The Drakh beckoned, and the guards moved to restrain the struggling child, while a Z'shailyl approached from behind its overlord, whip in hand. "You will be silent, human. Warned you were, not to rise above your place in the Ring and the House. You ignored us... and now, you must pay the price for that ignorance."
"The pain makes me stronger." the girl-that-had-been ground out, her teeth already clenched against the agony to come.
"The pain makes us *all* stronger." the Drakh reminded her, before nodding in the direction of its 'assistant'. "You may begin."
<back>
She had screamed loudly, that dark night, so long ago. And after it was all over, a little more compassion had leached out of her counterpart. Was there any left? Julia blinked, then, and came back to the here-and-now; there were answers she needed, and from another earlier observation, she knew exactly how to get them, now.
"Computer." she began. "Download recent histories of the Empire to this terminal; period, three hundred and fifty years before present up to and including present day." This would not appear suspicious, as the Other had revealed herself to be a student of battles and warfare, just before she had fallen asleep.
"Ready."
"Display earliest records, and begin to scroll."
* * *
Hyperspace. Nearby.
Their ranks dark and ominous, the multitude of Empire warships proceeded silently through hyperspace, the formation englobed by two hands of Vaar'la fighterwings. Above and behind this procession, a flash of light briefly flickered upon the hull of another starship, before the chameleon armour of that vessel compensated for the random pulses of light that were all too common in this domain.
The vessel had a name and a number, of course. To those who had ordered it built, the starship was named White Star 175, and it belonged to the Intelligence squadron of the Interstellar Alliance's First White Star Fleet. Its present master, however, had decided that an inappropriate title.
Shortly after the warship had left its construction orbital around the world named Sanctuary, Val'na Talion Quintara had rechristened it 'Aurora'.
"Tell me..." his first officer, a Drazi named Dasouri, had inquired that day. "Why Aurora?"
"Well, Dasouri, that's a bit of a factoid from the ancient history of my race, pre-Empire." Talion had replied. "Back in the time period before the Minbari invaded and conquered Earth, one of our governments was in the process of designing their second generation of surveillance aircraft. The story goes that the project was named 'Aurora'..."
"Ah! Now I understand; we are surveillance White Star, so Aurora we are named!"
On this day, however, a worried Dasouri was very glad that the ships below could not see them, very glad indeed. The combined firepower displayed was sufficient to lay waste to several heavily populated Alliance systems...
"Dasouri." a familiar voice inquired, and he turned, to see his Captain standing in the entrance to the bridge. "Can I assume they haven't changed course, yet?"
"Not yet, no." he affirmed, as he moved to the secondary station nearby. "The enemy leader, Val'na, appears to have taken the 'bait', as your kind says."
"And it's a damn good job he did, too." Talion mused, as he settled into the chair that Dasouri had just vacated. "Tri'no'kal Tolmanes has been telling me about the rumours coming down from the top; whatever this is all in aid of, it's big, and revolves around the commander of that *new* Empire ship, the tiny one right in the middle."
Dasouri spat a curse. "A blasphemy that is, to see the Empire build such a blatant echo of our own White Stars, using the Great Enemy's technology."
"Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, you know..."
"Yes... hold!" Dasouri exclaimed, as his board began chiming at him. Message coming in on ship-to-ship private band." Dasouri's eyes widened, then. "It is from White Star Prime, Val'na!"
"On screen!" Talion barked, and both Rangers rose to their feet, then, as the image of their Entil'zha's greatest battle commander rippled down.
"Good morning, gentlemen." Sha'vei Marcus Cole began, his expression its usual mix of deadly seriousness and bitter humour. "How goes the chase?"
"Show me." Sheynell commanded, and then, the telepath frowned as an image of a tiny, diamond-shaped black craft shimmered into existence against the background of the jump gate's blue vortex. "From your comment, am I to assume that you actually don't recognize this one?"
"No." a somewhat perplexed Larieken replied. "I do not, and this is surprising, since my people have now managed to encounter most of the races in the local galactic region... wait. We are being hailed."
"About time." she muttered. "Maybe *now* we can start making some progress towards getting Julia's hand off of that obelisk." Then, however, she jumped, as the rippling image shimmered and stablized to reveal a dark-hooded and clean-shaven man, his piercing gaze almost frightening to behold.
"I am Anla'shok Keynes of the..."
"I know who you are, and what ship you command." the hooded man icily replied. "I know more about you then you know about yourselves. I have been watching all of you for a very long time, and now, it appears I must bow down to your level to teach someone a very important lesson."
"Who are you? And *what* are you talking about?"
"The meaning of my words will become obvious, soon enough. And my name... is Galen."
"Galen? I see. Do you need..."
"That will be unnecessary. My ship is more then capable of landing on the planet below. I would, however, suggest you join us down at the surface, Miss Keynes. I will be requiring your services in short order."
"Can you save her?" she bluntly asked him.
Galen paused, then, a pause she didn't like. "It is possible that we will save her, yes. If all goes according to plan. If nothing... unexpected occurs."
"Life is full of unexpected surprises." Larieken noted.
"Why, yes, so it is!" Galen sarcastically replied. "But that's what makes it so interesting, isn't it?" With that final, biting rejoinder, Galen's image faded from sight.
"Larieken. Are the..."
"Affirmative. Both Soul Hunter ships have broken from orbit, and are following Galen's craft down towards the Labyrinth."
"Then I've got to go. Will you..."
Larieken smiled, and nodded. "Yes, I will keep the ship safe until your return. Only bring her back safely, that is all I ask."
"I will." was Sheynell's final comment, as she all but ran from the bridge. "I swear."
"You had better." Larieken muttered, as he settled into the captain's chair. "Because we, and especially *I*, will have to face Sech Westcastle's wrath, if this gambit fails."
* * *
#There#
Hyperspace. Approach to Zander Prime.
Dureena Nafeel was one of the best intelligence operatives the Interstellar Alliance had, and even she was in a sour mood about the upcoming operation. Dureena turned towards the commander of the Interstellar Alliance's latest and greatest flagship at that point; she had some concerns to air, and over the past six years, this captain had shown himself to be a valued comrade, and also, someone who would listen when it counted. An important characteristic, in a human. "Did you pass on my comments to him, word for word?"
The Captain nodded. "I did."
"You told him that, in my opinion, he has got to be out of his mind to want to do this? That this is the first time the new ships will be tested in a full, head-to-head engagement with the Earth-sect Warlock Class Destroyers and their Minbari counterparts, and how we don't even know if the new weapons will work against their Shadow armour?"
"Yep."
"And finally, that conducting a full scale military engagement in the skies of MY PLANET does not, how shall I say it, make me very happy?"
"Dureena, what part of the above two responses *didn't* you understand?"
"So what did he say?"
"Our great and glorious leader took it all in, and said exactly two words in response.
Faith manages."
"He," Dureena muttered, "Is *definitely* trying to get us all killed."
"As I recall," the Captain mused, "You've said that, oh, about a hundred times since the Shadow War started. Have we died yet?"
"Trust you to point out the obvious."
"Captain!" the helmsman announced. "We're approaching Zander Prime."
"And so the games begin!" the Captain said in reply. "Stand by to jump to normal space."
"Ready."
"Jump!"
* * *
The new day had begun, and while the Other went about her duties, Julia sat in the little niche at the back of their mind that she had 'constructed' during the night, and slowly took in what she had learned, during her intense, crash course review of the history of this domain. And a frightening review it had been, too...
Over a thousand years before, the Shadows and their allies had decimated the Minbari fleet... and Valen, the Minbari she also knew as the human named Jeffrey Sinclair, the human who had been Entil'zha when she had first aligned herself with the Rangers, he had not appeared when he should have, while Babylon 4 had not appeared out of the future to aid the Minbari when they needed aid the most... and after that, things had gone very badly indeed. Oh, the Vorlons and the rest of the Army of Light had driven off the Shadows eventually, but not before the damage had been done.
After the war had ended, history had turned down a darker road as the Warrior Caste had blamed the Religious Caste for involving them all in a conflict that had killed many of their kind, and more death soon followed, as a massive civil war then swept across Minbar's surface. Most of the Religious Caste who had not fled had been killed... while those who HAD fled had followed the Minbari 'who could not be named'. The histories also named this individual 'traitor', and from that description, combined with the Other's earlier response, Julia already had a pretty good idea who the Minbari in question was. Which meant that her earlier guess might actually be true; that Jeffrey Sinclair might actually still be around, in the here and now!
Her mind had wandered, where had she been? Oh yes. Soon enough, the 'light' Minbari who had fled their homeworld began the forging of a great Alliance of worlds to combat the darkness growing on their ancient home... a darkness compounded by an alliance with the Drakh established in the late 19th century, human reckoing, and an invasion of Earth conducted by the Warrior Caste Minbari less then a hundred years after that.
The rest, as the old saying went, was history. The Interstellar Alliance and the Drakh-Minbari-Human 'empire' had stared at each other across their mutual border for almost 400 years now, and while it looked like the Vorlons had managed to keep things from progressing beyond the saber-rattling stage for most of that time period, once the Shadows had gotten themselves involved, it hadn't taken long for the war between the two great powers to start. And now that both Elder Races were gone (the histories, interestingly enough, hadn't told her *how* that had happened, or why) the Drakh had been free to attack the Alliance in retribution for the loss of their Masters, and the war looked set to enter a new and potentially equally bloody phase.
At that point, she set her thoughts aside; her counterpart and this reality's version of Larieken were discussing something that sounded important, something related to the 'mission' that this reality's harsher, brutal version of John Sherdian was presently conducting. And so, putting her thoughts aside for the time being, she came 'forward' to observe what was going on.
"So, Pa'trakar... what do we know about these new Alliance warships?"
"Very little." the Warrior Caste Minbari admitted. "The Alliance engineers, cursed be their names, are suspicious and distrustful enough that every spy we have sent to infiltrate this project has been detected and elliminated. While to date, none of the lesser vessels to encounter these new ships have survived to make a report about their capabilities."
"How *considerate* of the Sha'var Alyt to keep this from me."
"It is my belief," Pa'trakar Lariekn carefully replied, "That the Sha'var Alyt believes our numbers sufficient to defeat this new threat... and does not, how shall I say, wish to *discourage* his captains, especially you. And while their flagship certainly is one of the new class, our analysts do not believe them to be overly numerous as of yet."
"Do we even know what they look like?"
"Yes. They look like this."
Very nearly, Julia cried out then, a cry that would have alerted the Other, without a doubt, to the fact that the prison she had placed her 'weakling sister' in was now well and truly shattered. But it had been hard... because the flagship of the Interstellar Alliance, the ship that her doppelganger and crew had sworn to destroy...
That ship seemed to be the EXCALIBUR.
* * *
Elsewhere. <One>
"You will come?" the man on the screen asked.
Warmaster G'kael of the Narn Regime nodded firmly. "I have waited a very long time for a rematch with the Earther Sha'var Alyt named Sheridan, old friend, as well you know from our previous conversations. There was a day, not so long ago, when Sheridan and his screaming black ships tore my command asunder, a day he left me for dead. That was, I fear, the greatest mistake he will ever make. Yes, we will be at Zander Prime, and in *strength*."
"I only wish we didn't have to fight this battle, that more good men and women of the Alliance didn't have to die."
G'kael shrugged. "We must fight for what we believe in, or fall beneath the Empire's heel.
And that, I will not allow."
* * *
<Two>
Once again, space rippled over Zander Prime's northern hemipsphere, and with a shudder, six Naielsha-class ISA war cruisers fell out of hyperspace, their long tapered hulls gray against the darkness of space. Captain William Westcastle, the group leader of that squadron, looked out upon the the small shoal of Alliance warships that rode between the planet below and the stars above from the bridge of his warship, the FURIOUS, and smiled bitterly while more jump points continued to tear space asunder around his command. It appeared as if everything was actually going to come together on schedule, for once...
"You seem far away, sir." his young first officer inquired. "May I know your thoughts?" William turned towards the young Brakiri the Supreme Commander had assigned to his side two years before, then, and shook his head sadly. So many her age had already lost their lives in this long and harrowing conflict, how many more would have to pay the price for upholding the freedom of Alliance?
And would the day of battle to come finally be the day his luck ran out?
"We are the exiles, Zhailxi." he replied. "The Minbari exiled from their home for generations, and the humans proud enough to leave their world behind, and bold enough to fight to reclaim it. While you stand among those strong-willed enough to follow us into the fire, without question. My father was the first of my family to take up arms against the Empire, and in all respects, I am my father's son. For generations, the Alliance has fought to free our respective worlds from the Tyrant's grasp... and now, if our leader is correct, the battle ahead of us stands a chance of changing the balance of power in this galaxy.
Forever."
"No oppressing power lasts forever." his First reminded him. "While the Tyrant of Minbar, along with the other members of his Council of Ascension, are deluding themselves if they believe there is no opposition to their rule and their commands. On both Earth and Minbar, resistance is spreading daily."
"While we stand a very real chance of either capturing or killing their greatest commanders, in the deadly game we are playing here."
"Ah, yes. I had heard that Sheridan himself was commanding this mission for the Empire." his Zhailxi mused. "Is he really as fierce a fighter as the stories suggest?"
"I have fought against him myself on two occasions." he reminded her. "The stories are true, I assure you."
"And what of this new captain of his, the one they call 'The Darkness Born'? I am given to understand that she was the one personally responsible for the murder of Alyt Kalain and the destruction of his command. The rumours say that she will be at Sheridan's side... but are the rumours true?"
"It sure looks like it, yes. In fact, although I do not know all the details, it would seem that the Supreme Commander is counting on her presence, and that many of the more *specific* details of this operation evolve around her capture."
"Interesting." was Zhailxi Klairika Alidiae's next comment. "Why do you suppose that might be?"
"I don't know. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough, though."
* * *
<Three>
"This course of action you are pursuing," Shai Alyt Sinoval exclaimed, "It is madness!"
"You dare to call me mad, after all that I have endured for you, and for our people, in the last twenty cycles?"
"Yes! Fight your battles for you, I will; I have long since sworn to uphold the ideals of the Free People and of the Alliance, so that one day in the none too distant future, I might yet set foot upon my homeworld as a *free* Minbari. That time may be drawing nearer, and this battle will certainly be a critical one on the road to that day... but what if that dark madman Sheridan pulls off another miracle, and you and the others are killed?"
"Then others will take on our tasks, and continue towards the ultimate end, Sinoval, as well you *know*. Valen himself predicted this day would come a thousand years ago, that a great battle would be fought at the world named Zander Prime, and a fate decided."
"How *suitably* vague." he angrily replied.
"Do you now even presume to question the words of the Minbari who lead us out of the Darkness to sanctuary, Sinoval?"
"That would not be overly wise of me, now would it?" he wryly admitted, as he forcefully set his anger aside. "His prophecies have been right too many times since the Shadow War began for any of us to ignore them."
"Yes. And while this pattern is something I have always found disturbing, for now we have greater concerns, and nothing must upset the pattern of light and shadow we will shortly be weaving at the world of Confrontation."
"I understand." were Sinoval's next words. "You will, however, allow me to convey you to that world personally, I hope?"
"So. You intend to stand against Sheridan and the Lost, as I thought you would."
"There will be other battles to fight that day, but this is the one that matters to me the most, the one I cannot miss. Do you understand why this is so?"
"I do, yes." Delenn whispered, as her battle commander turned away, and left the chamber. "Better then you will ever know."
* * *
#Here#
March 9, 2267. The Labyrinth of Night, mid-morning.
Her heart heavy, Klairika stepped out of the thermal tent and into the cold light of Amaranth's morning. A storm front had emerged out of the north-west during the night, and enormous flakes of snow were now falling out of the lead-grey sky, while the icy wind that snow was carried on seem to bite right through her thermal jacket and the uniform beneath, and sink into her bones.
The wind and the snow, however, did not seem to bother the three individuals now approaching from the west. And the combination was an upsetting one, to her at least. Sheynell, who had rushed back down from orbit at the command of the leader of the trio, peeked out of the tent doorway, her expression bleak. "What did you call him, again?"
"The signs are clear to me." she replied, her thoughts distant and elsewhere. "Time and again during our history, as the Comet has made its passes through the inner worlds of my home system, they have come to observe the Day of the Dead for their own, incalcuable reasons. They are magicians, Sheynell, and they are mysteries unto themselves... and he is one of them, I am certain of it."
"A Technomage."
"Indeed." And with that said, she left the safety of the doorway, and strode forward to meet the approaching delegation, walked until only a handful of paces seperated her from the new arrivals. "I greet you, Technomage Galen," she formally began, in the cadence of her kind. "And you also, Seekers of souls. I have heard it said you come to aid us in our present trial; tell me that the words my Rangers speak are true ones."
"The attempt will be made." the older of the two Soul Hunters replied. "No more can we say at this time. Much, there is to be done; you will let us pass, and approach your captain?"
"I will." she allowed. "And if there is anything I can do to help..."
The technomage named Galen levelled his staff at her, and her heart chilled as she heard the words that emerged from his lips a moment later. "Help? YOU are her executive officer, Brakiri. If you cannot protect her from herself, what good are you to any of us?"