And then she had left, and never returned.
Until now.
Her eyes opened, and she could see him again. She was feeling…. so weak, but…. ready. There he was. David. A good few years older than in her vision from the past, but…. still young, still innocent. She almost sobbed.
There were others beside him, and one of them barked something. She couldn't understand the words, and she tried to move forward. They were all drawing weapons. She recognised one of them. Not his name, but he had…. done something…. He had helped her, helped them, once…. He had let her try to kill Delenn.
No. Prevent that betrayal, do something to change the present, perhaps save them all.
She moved, and tried to touch them. There was a brilliant flare of light before her eyes, and she screamed. The other man had fallen, but everything inside her was churning. She felt sick. She tried to reach David. He was so close to her now…. almost…. there….
With a soft wrench, she was pulled back into the timestream.
"Why are you doing this?" someone was asking her. "Why are you…?"
"I must have been dropped on my head when I was a baby," she replied, with trademark cynicism. "I don't need a reason."
"I will not forget this."
"I doubt you'll live long enough to."
With a shock, she realised she was holding a weapon. She raised it up. A darkness fell over them both, and something in the other person's eyes glinted, and Susan realised at last who it was.
The timestream threw her out again, her head reeling. She was in the same place she had been in before, the docking bay of the Babylon. David was there again, but alone. It was the same time as before.
He began to speak, and unlike the last time, she could understand his words. "It's you, isn't it?" he said. "I thought it was before, but now…. it is you."
She tried to move forward, to reach him, to touch him, but she could not, and she fell. He rushed to her side, but then stopped suddenly. "You need my help," he said, not a question, but a statement. He knew her better than she knew herself these days.
She nodded weakly.
"So then, what can I do for you?" Slowly, desperately, knowing that it might be a mistake but willing to chance it anyway, she removed her helmet, so much wanting to see him directly instead of through a visor.
"I…." She tried to think of what to say, but the words would not come out. So much had not happened yet, there was so much she had not yet done that she would regret. Marcus was…. still alive.
"I'm sorry, David," she whispered, tears running down her face. "When I…. left you, we argued. I'm sorry for what I said."
"Ah…. that's all right," he said, bemused. "Susan, you look…. different. This has to do with Babylon Four, doesn't it? What's happening?"
"It's…. I can't explain. Think of me as…. as…." A brief memory of Marcus came to her mind, a book he had been reading while he was assigned to look after her — or to spy on her, depending on your point of view. But David was hardly a greedy miser, and she was no spirit, benevolent or otherwise, and she could not change him. What had been…. was, and she could not alter it.
"I'm a ghost," she said, trying to beat back tears. "I'm just a ghost passing through. Forget I was ever here."
"I'll never forget you, Susan," he said, and he was so sincere, so genuine….
She blinked away her tears, and knew what she had to do. He had shown her the way, although he would probably never know how. To be truthful, she probably never would either. "I need to get back to Babylon Four," she said. "There's…. something I have to do."
"Can I help?"
She shook her head sadly. "You already have. More than you can know."
He nodded. "I'll…. always be around to help you, no matter what's been going on lately. I have hope for the future, Susan. Everything will turn out for the best, I'm sure of that."
"Keep believing that…. and maybe…. may…. be…."
She fell silent, and did not speak again until she arrived back on Babylon 4, almost exactly at the spot where she had ambushed and captured Sheridan. The Narn was waiting there for her, as were Valen and Zathras.
"I surrender," she said quietly. "I'm turning myself over to you."
"Told you," said Zathras happily. "Zathras knows best. Oh yes. People should listen to Zathras more. Zathras knows what Zathras is saying."
* * *
A ruined ship was floating aimlessly, just one pile of debris among so many, just one more mark of the lost and the damned in this battle. In the remains of what had once been the bridge of the EAS Parmenion there was a body, the body of one who had once been the greatest hope of his people.
Captain John Sheridan was trapped between life and death. He was not breathing.
There was a sudden and brilliant flare of light, the very last act of a dying angel.
And then there was silence once more.
* * *
"He is not dead," she said softly. "I can feel it. I know. He is not dead."
Commander David Corwin nodded once, briefly. He wanted to believe her, even if he was not sure he could. No one could have survived that, could they? If anyone could, it would be the Captain.
"He…. is not dead."
Delenn was not crying.
"We will find him."
Corwin nodded again. "Yes," he said. "Yes, we'll find him."
* * *
He stood alone, as he always would from now on. Everything that had once been a part of him was gone. Jeffrey Sinclair was gone. His future was gone. From now until his death, he would always be Valen.
They had arrived in the past safely, and had found two Vorlon cruisers waiting for them. The Vorlons had come aboard, and formally introduced themselves to him. He knew one of them. It was Kosh, whose life essence was now finally fading with the temporal rift. But that was a thousand years in the future.
I will not be your puppet, he thought to himself as he looked at his new companions. But I will do what is ordained. I will end this war, and build peace here. It might not last forever, but a thousand years might just about be enough.
What had happened at Epsilon 3? Who had survived? What would become of Kazomi 7 with its ray of hope, and of Delenn, and Sheridan, and poor, doomed Primarch Sinoval?
He would never know.
After their arrival Zathras had spent a lot of time messing around with the ion engines. The first meeting with the Minbari was a fair distance away in normal space. It had taken the station some hours to get to the required area, and Zathras spent the whole journey tutting, clicking and muttering to himself.
And now he was waiting. The first Minbari ship had chanced upon the station, and its occupants were coming aboard. Two warrior caste of course, leaders of different clans, warring clans that he would eventually unite. The greatest, proudest, strongest warriors of this age.
And he would destroy them both.
Both of them came into view, looking bemused, and more than a touch angry. Each was only barely tolerating the other's presence. He could see them clearly now, just as he could see them later. Their fight back to back on the blood-stained sands of Iwojim, ending with the two mortal enemies clasping hands astride an ocean of the dead.
Enemies now, soon to be friends, and later, to be traitors.
But their deaths would not be in vain, neither of them. He could see that now. It was all part of a vast tapestry, a multitude of threads that led back to the present, and the future, and beyond….
Parlonn's betrayal to the Shadows, brought about by rational reasoning and an acceptance of their cause, was necessary to convince Marrain to ally with them, an alliance wrought out of jealousy and envy. And that was necessary for one man who would arise a thousand years in the future, and begin a destiny that would affect the next thousand years.
Threads within webs, creating an infinite tapestry, of which he was only the smallest of parts.
"I welcome you," he said, and they started. Marrain raised his hand to his weapon. "And present this place to you as a gift."
They stood still, looking at the Gods of beauty at his side, each realising that something very special had just happened. They could feel the course of history turning beneath their feet. Neither had any idea of where it would take them, or that the salvation of their people would mean the damnation of their souls.
"I am called Valen," he said, "and we have much work ahead of us."
Gareth D. Williams
From the Ashes
The Minbari have an old saying: 'There can be no peace with the Shadow'. But what if there could be? How much would peace be worth, and what would it cost? And who would pay?
'There can be no peace with the Shadow.' An old saying now, almost proverbial, used mainly by members of the warrior caste when placed in a situation which, for them, admits of only one course of action. The saying however is incorrect. There were numerous attempts at peace during the Shadow War. They all failed, but that does not mean that we can pass them off as anomalies. Each in its own way was significant.
The closest attempt at a settlement of sorts came a few years after we, the Minbari, had entered the war. At the time we knew very little about the circumstances in which we found ourselves. We had been in tentative contact with other alien races for some years, most notably the Ikarrans, the Tak'cha and the Markab. Agreements had been made with these races, slow and cautious, tentative at first, when emissaries from the Markab had arrived at our capital, claiming that they were under attack by a strange alien race who gave no reason for these incursions. None of our treaties included mutual defence clauses, but we were prepared to assist. Our warrior caste was not prominent at the time, but each of their clans was anxious to prove its mettle. The religious caste contemplated diplomacy, but the leaders of at least three of the clans were in favour of military action on behalf of the Markab. They won out, in the end.
Our first few engagements with this…. Enemy did not go well, however. Many ships were destroyed, and the warrior caste was thrown into disarray. Warleader Hantenn of the Wind Swords clan committed ritual suicide to atone for his rashness, and the militaristic fervour died down. Matters were confused for many months afterwards, especially as the Ikarrans were invaded soon after Hantenn's death. Their invaders were not the same race as the Enemy, but a different one we did not know. They called themselves the Streibs.
The Ikarrans requested aid from us, aid that we had to refuse. Our generals were smarting from the losses they had sustained defending the Markab and unwilling to take any more such risks for a cause that was not ours. We lost all contact with their area of space about three years after they were invaded. We did not learn of the tragic solution they had found until it was too late.
