**"It was the end of the Innocence...it was the point in which we realized that safety was measured by what defences you built for yourself. We came to this place looking for a moment of peace and transition between the fear and the horror of our existence. And it was at that point that we realized there was no turning back from what was, and that what would be had us firmly in its grasp. And that there would be no peace this side of the grave, until we did what needed to be done."**
From "Storm Crossing: The Shadow War, and Other Responsibilities"
* * *
Dec 22nd, 2259...Tuzanor.
Silent and inscrutable, Ulkesh stood before her, as always he had been...but not this time. "You *can't* expect me to do this!" she whispered fiercely. "We *promised* we would leave them be, let have their time together!"
##You would travel where no one may go. We require this of you, in order that the bargain be kept. *If* you would do this, your wishes are irrevelant. *They* must be protected...*They* must know what is coming. *He* has touched you.##
"Damn *right* he has!" she hissed, turning at last to face the Vorlon fully. "*He* is not you, he is...gentler. He *knows* us, better then any of you, this I am now *sure* of."
##Your viewpoint is irrevelant, you do not understand. Serve us now, or not at all##
At that, her defiance abruptly evaporated, and she bowed her head. The *need* burned within her...this wasn't *fair*!...but she had taken that first fateful step...and there was *no* going back...not now. "I...understand, Ulkesh. You know what the answer to that must be."
##Yes##
* * *
Outer Earth Alliance, near Deneb IV. Dec 23rd, 2259.
The two enormous Omega Class Destroyers hung in space together, the rumble of their drives temporarily silenced. The vessels were, for now, nothing special, but that would in due course, change considerably...for one was Bethany Tikopai's command, the NIOBE...and the other?
General William's Hague's flagship...the ALEXANDER.
* * *
The device was placed on the desk and activated. Sad to see, in this day and age, that even her own crew couldn't be trusted with this knowledge...but that was the way things were.
And 'things' were only going to get worse from here on in.
"You know what is coming, Captain...don't you?"
Bethany Tikopai nodded grimly. "Yes, sir. I don't have to like it, but it's clear enough to see from the reports coming from home through the network. Nightwatch and the Ministry of Peace are tightening their hold on the Earth Alliance...and sooner or later, someone or something is going to push President Clark over the edge of democracy and into the hell of Dictatorship. He believes that no one and nobody can stand against him, and as long as he continues to believe that, he *will* make his move."
"Precisely; but it's equally necessary for us to make a beginning against that fate. You are far from the first I have contacted, Captain...and I only wish I could have started this sooner...but it was too dangerous to move quickly...we would have been discovered, and then all would have been lost. It is likely that we will be unable to stop him and his followers when they do move...but it is a *beginning*...and even if I do not survive what is coming, there are those behind and below who will take my place...I hope that you, Captain, will be one such when the time comes."
"I thank you for that trust, sir."
"Don't thank me yet, Captain, some of the things we will be required to do will hurt us to the core before this is over."
She nodded, even more grimly then before.
"Captain; can your command staff be trusted with this information, and this trust?"
"I assure you, sir, that they'll be no problems on that score."
* * *
NIOBE. The office of Dr. Mariallah Quesotz.
The cold certainty of facts were a harsh enough pill for Mariallah to accept, but what was worse was that those self-same facts only served to confirm something that she had known about all along. William and Walther had most likely seen their careers destroyed by this conspiracy of darkness, and then they had vanished...and *what* if *they* had known about the attacks on Nighthawk all *along*?...what if Jennifer, her friend, had *died* as a result of that plotting?
Commander Dietrich Alwhin, NIOBE's clean-cut, severe first officer, gazed at her levelly, while nearby, Lieutenant Paul Telluride, the destroyer's fighter group commander, lounged against the nearby wall nonchalantly. *They* had known about this for some time now...but she had been *new*, and therefore, despite her position in the warship command structure, *untrustable*...until she had proven her worth, both in the discovery of the conspiracy of 'light' onboard, *and*, more importantly, her response to that discovery...
"Sir; again, I thank you for your trust in me."
Commander Alwhin nodded thoughtfully. "It's a long step to take from knowing about something to acceptance of the facts...and a longer step *still* to actively *think* about doing something about the problem, Doctor...but now, you must understand that's where we going to be heading if President Clark and his men do what General Hague suspects they will. And now, we KNOW that President Santiago's death was *not* an accident, we must act accordingly...even should it come down to what our superiors would call..treason. We *must* do what is right, we can do no other."
"Yes, sir." Commander Alwhin nodded in satisfaction, and then left her office.
"You made the right decision, Mariallah..." Paul Telluride remarked from nearby, his eyes downcast and now, showing again the anger she had seen before. "To *know* that someone I cared for, someone we both counted as friends or *better*, might have been killed as a result of these bastards... it's unacceptable. I joined the Force because of Jennie's determination to do right on her father's memory...became a Starfury pilot and kept in touch...and then she died...for no reason at all."
Mariallah nodded somberly. Over a year it had been now since the disaster at Nighthawk, and the pain was still as fresh, for both of them. "If only for her memory, Paul, we have to follow this thing...to the bitter end."
"Agreed. Will you take a drink with me to her memory at New Year's, Mariallah?"
She smiled. "As a shining star of memory against the darkness to come. You need to ask?"
* * *
Dec 25th, 2259. Babylon 5...the Ranger Command Post; very early morning.
"And to think..." William muttered, hands behind his back, "That we came here looking for peace, to find this *instead*"
Tharvonn, one of several Minbari Val'na working under Ambassador Delenn, and a trainee from their own time on Minbar, nodded his head in agreement. "I regret that your 'vacation' from duties has been cut short. Matters are now tenser then they have *ever* been in this place, and word has come down from the Ambassador that all Anla'shok on Babylon 5 must assume a full state of alert. We must be ready for anything, and are called upon to act in the moment of need."
"Agreed. I only regret that my Rangers are not with me."
"The Entil'zha, Ambassador Delenn, and the Vorlons have acted to solve that problem. Your cadre is approaching at all speed...and should arrive, Valen willing, onboard within the next twenty standard hours."
"I am pleased to hear that, Tharvonn. In that case, any concerns I do have are unimportant, and for now, Anla'shok Clifford and myself will serve with your team, until ours arrives."
Tharvonn nodded. "So let it be."
Jennie stood aside, deep in thought, and gazed, with her mind's eye, out beyond the limb of Epsilon Three, to where the danger waited. The exiled, heavily damaged Narn Warcruiser *G'tok* hung alone, unprotected by anything but its secrecy...but would that last?
* * *
Dec 26th, 2259.
The alert sirens woke her first, after having been awake for more hours then she would have liked, kept alert by the stress, the horrible feeling that something *bad* was about to happen...then, the harsh shaking bought her into focus, and she gazed into Brianna's vivid eyes...eyes now of fire.
"Jennifer...get up...you have to get up *now*. A Centauri battlecruiser just jumped into the system, and Babylon 5's squadrons are in close combat with the battlecruiser right *now*"
She jumped, as the distant thunder of countermeasures fire shook the station. "In Valen's name...would the Centauri go so far as to fire on *this* place?"
"I know not."
And then, the world shook around them.
* * *
"Access to exterior cameras accepted." Tharvonn reported tensely.
William nodded, while sirens wailed all around. The station security officer had been most accomadating in allowing them access to exterior views of threatening situations...when all other exterior areas of view became blocked off with blast shields, this was the Ranger's only access to the situations outside...they had used it first during the Narn-Centauri firefight months before, and now...
"They wouldn't *dare*" someone whispered behind, and William prayed that would be the case. The Centauri couldn't be *stupid* enough to fire on their own people.
Could they?
Abruptly, dozens of missiles leapt from the battlecruiser, towards the Narn vessel...and the station, as well...and William cursed. It was the end of the final hope...and he bowed his head as first the station countermeasures, and then the Starfury squadron protecting the Narn warship responded to the threat.
"Brace yourself!" Tharvonn cried, and William shakily focussed on the viewscreen once more. The battlecruiser's fire continued unabated, even through the attacks it was withstanding from the Starfuries, and some were getting through...
The station *shuddered*...hard...and sirens wailed louder. The Centauri missiles had impacted on the forward pylons...but that was as much as they would do, as rather abruptly, the thunder of the station's exterior weaponry added to the miasma of noise, and William watched, now in horror, as repeated, enormous bolts of plasma hit the doomed cruiser. He did not watch what inevitably followed...and then, Tharvonn cut the link.
The Rangers were silent, each lost in his or her own fears and beliefs, lost in his or her own thoughts. It had happened at last...those who had believed this place invulnerable to the spreading darkness had been proven wrong...night had finally come to Babylon 5.
* * *
The Garden...Revelation Hour;
"Apology?" Jennie exclaimed, as the cadre, as one, moved through and around the buildings near to the gathering of Ambassadors and other respected guests that had convened to hear Captain Sheridan attempt just that. "I don't believe it!...it won't work."
"The mission of this place has failed." Talion somberly added from behind. "I cannot help but agree with you."
"Enough morosity!" William snapped. "The Ambassador has asked us to form a perimeter around the gathering location...an invisible, but necessary barrier, for in the case that the Centauri decide to take revenge for the destruction of their vessel, the Rangers must be ready to respond to such a threat...and so, we stand, in the name of the One, to protect the future."
"Do you know something we don't...Val'na?"
William smiled.
Tashann abruptly turned towards his leader. "Val'na...the Ranger stationed on the core shuttle line has reported that Captain Sheridan is enroute, and will shortly be arriving. He..."
The detonation was loud...shockingly loud, and as one, the Rangers looked up...and into a nightmare. Far above, the core shuttle was...gone!.. and the dissipating glow of a plasma wave expanded away from the twisted wreckage it had been. There was an instant of shocked silence, and then...
"No!...it cannot..."
"He's dead, he's..."
"Observe!" Dreann snapped, bringing the cadre back into focus. "A figure falls!"
"They'll never be able to reach him in time!" Jennie whispered, her eyes wide with horror.
And it was so...a figure of a man, tiny against the background of sky, buildings and landscape, falling towards them. But it was futile, nontheless, William knew with certainty... John Sheridan, his contact, his comrade in battle against the darkness, was falling towards a spinning surface that would kill him as surely as the explosion had.
And then...it was almost as if compulsion turned them towards their comrade... their friend, who they saved from madness...and now Brianna's pupils were so wide, it was like looking into black holes. "The sacrifice will be made." she whispered. "The bargain is agreed to."
"In *Valen's* Name!" Talion cried, his eyes wide with amazement. "It *Cannot* be!" But it was, and the cadre watched, and amazement passed into...something more...as a figure of *light* rose towards the falling commander of the place that hung all around them in a cycle of majesty and grandeur; caught him...and stopped his fall.
"And an angel to watch over me..." Jennie whispered. "And save me from the ills of the world."
"You do not understand." Brianna whispered, as the two figures, light and man, sank out of sight, to safety...to the ground. "But you will."
* * *
Chronicles Log, 2259. Final entry.
You do not understand...but you will. In that one line, Brianna Tolmanes explained the year in passing...a year in which we went from an age of Innocence to a burden of knowledge...from a crisis of destiny to a force of purpose, and into a hurricane we cannot hope to avoid...for the Wars are upon us, Wars of Chaos, wars of temptation, wars of greed, and all around, the darkness draws close. But we are Rangers, in body, in mind and in soul, and we will hold the line, both at this place and anywhere else that matters, even unto death. We have no other choice, and if the love I hold most dear is to survive what is to come, no other option.
* * *
They call me the Observer...ironic how that works, isn't it? Watcher in the Woods, keeper of the chronicles...of those damned and destined. Accomplice to giants, recorder of greatness, and served by and servant of a love I have never deserved but need now, more then ever before, to keep me sane against what is yet to come. For what I have seen, the tragedy, the darkness, the death of the year just past, is as nothing to what is coming...
* * *
Who are you?...I was a lost soul, and then a damned soul. I have murdered, and maimed, and it seems that the penance I serve will last forever. I stand apart, and lead the followers into the Fire that is coming. I spin and live in the Light, and now, I go into that light. The stars beckon me onwards, even though those who take me do not understand. None of them understand, none of them *can* know what I know. And that is the way it must be...for now. But the time will come when the vanguards of might clash, and the final struggle is at hand...and then, only then, will the Truth be known. Perhaps, then, I will be set free at last...
* * *
Once I held their comradeship dear, but call me a traitor if you so wish, I have made the choices I did because I saw that they were right. I look down on a vision of darkness, and see the future in their eyes. It is inevitable, it cannot be stopped, as they will realize in due course. The Lords of Order hold onto the present, but those I serve do what they do in the name of the future, in the name of change. And once everyone understands what I do, their triumph will be *complete*...
* * *
**"Through darkness and through fire, behold the Three in One...of many, and of none. Stand with us, we said, stand and look into night. Broken dreams, they said, dreams of peace, dreams of sadness. Know this well, we said, rage unyielding, hope denying.
In the light of the Blessed One, see the Searcher, feel his gaze. In the march of his soldiers, fear the Light, darkess banish. For the cause of his angel, die he will, and live again. Know him well.
In the arms of the Wise One, see the Watcher, feel her loss. For need of knowledge, she faced the fire, and stands apart. Light of silver, she wields with skill, against the foe. Know her well.
Last of all, there comes the Guide...vision dreamer, hidden gaze; Lords of Order, she serves as well. Not alone, but harder still, then she of Fire, the First of All. Into darkness, she travels freely, knowing still, there is a hope.
Place of peace, the final bastion, there they go, to hold the Line. Three in One, but not alone, never farther, then the heights; There they see the Three in One, first of all, the Lantern Bearers."**
- From one of the more obscure sections of the Book of The Observer, as published in the 33rd Century, Earth Reckoning
* * *
Next...
It is the Earth Year 2260, and while the Shadow War draws ever nearer, the struggle continues to assemble a force sufficient to face the might of this apparently implacable enemy. William Westcastle, Rimstalker, Ranger and Warrior, along with his companions, comrades and love, will travel farther into the Fire then ever before in the name of their beliefs.
Babylon 5's mission may have failed, but a new mission awaits, not just for the long suffering crew of that station, but for the Rangers as well...a mission of purpose, and of hope...that task?...to build what will later be called the Army of Light...and strike forth against the foe.
RIMSTALKER III: "DARK CIRCLE". Available elsewhere on this site.