BABYLON STAGE 34 A Midsummer night s dream
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Babylon Project: End Of The Line free porn video
Babylon Project: End of the Line
By Lynn LeFey
"Hey mom... tell me a story," Alex demands.
He braces himself in the door of the cockpit, looking
like he owns this freighter.
I can't help but smile. He looks like a miniature
version of his father. That makes me both proud and
a little sad.
"Are all your assignments done?" I ask.
"Yes," he sighs, rolling his eyes.
I gesture to the copilot's seat. He pushes himself
forward, and floats gently into the seat, moving the
way only someone whose grown up in micrograv can
move.
"Does it matter if it starts with 'Once upon a time'?" I
look at him, smiling impishly.
"Mom!" he says in frustration.
"Okay... Well... what do you want to hear?" I ask,
full of cheer.
He slides his hand out of his pocket, and holds up a
medal. The mere sight of it opens the floodgates to
years of painful memories.
"Tell me about this," he says innocently.
Only a child of his tender seven years could ask that
question without knowing the pain it might inflict.
The medal he holds glimmers with the lights of the
instrumentation, and with the swirling red light of
hyperspace beyond the cockpit.
"That's..." I begin. My voice breaks. "That belonged
to your father."
"Tell me about him," he pleads.
"Your father was... he was a good man, but troubled.
You could see it in his eyes. He bore a terrible secret,
but as he neared graduation from his preliminary
education, Earth was facing a real problem. That was
2230. There are a lot of different people among the
stars, hun... and not all of them are nice. Earth had
many other races that it dealt with on peaceful terms,
but one race in particular was a problem. A race
called the Dilgar was fighting everyone. It was like
they'd gone crazy. They were... hurting lots of other
people." I pick my words carefully.
"So your father felt obligated to serve in EarthForce.
He went to the fleet academy. Before he completed
his training, Earth had officially declared war on the
Dilgar. Your father, fresh out of the academy, was
put in secondary fire control, on a then state-of-the-
art dreadnought. His ship had just been outfitted with
the newest fighters, called Tigers," I tell the child
beside me.
"Did he shoot any of the Dilgar?" he asks excitedly.
"Yes, and that didn't make him feel good, having to
kill other people," I explain.
I want the child to understand war as I do. It's not like
the vids he's seen. War is not accompanied with
orchestral soundtrack. It's screams and blood and
watching people vaporized in the explosions of
reactor cores.
"It was just over a full Earth-year after the declaration
of war that it ended. The Dilgar had been forced back
to their home world. Everyone was proud of what
they'd done. Except... three years later, the star in
their home system went supernova. Do you know
what that means?" I look into his eyes, but see the
blank expression.
"Supernova is when a big star... much bigger than
Sol, finally uses up all it's fuel. It kind of collapses,
then explodes. The explosion destroyed the Dilgar
homeworld... consumed it completely, along with all
the remaining Dilgar." I stop for a moment, and take
a sip of water from the sphere velcroed to the arm of
my pilot chair.
"The word for killing a whole race is genocide. We,
the human race... and some other races... we
committed genocide on the Dilgar, even if we didn't
mean to."
I don't know what children think when adults are
reliving pain in their mind, when we pause in such a
story. I am seeing the Dilgar cruiser on my targeting
computer, feeling my dry throat and sour mouth as I
press the fire button, watching the volley of
superheated helium spheres speed toward the
crippled ship... watching it drift apart after the silent
flash of light. I know I did my part in that genocide,
and that's the kind of thing that stays with you.
I clear my head.
"It was silly, in a way. Your father had this secret, but
he couldn't bring himself to act on it. He was
ashamed, and instead of trying to face that, he looked
for a way to die with honor. His peers saw him as
fearless. But... like I said, he wasn't fearless. He just
feared death less than he feared his secret. I guess
there are a lot of guys like that in the military. Your
father spent the next twelve years aboard starships,
working his way up the command structure.
EarthForce was pretty full of itself in those days." I
stop again.
I take a moment to check my course readings, check
the beacons of the other vessels in the convoy... I
even check the latest diagnostics on the interceptor
battery, which is registering as running at peak
efficiency. Old habits die hard.
"In that time, your father met a lady. That was more
than twelve years ago, now. She stayed at home,
which to her was the Proxima III Colony."
Alex sits and listens. He's a very good listener. When
he gets tired of his games and such, he comes and sits
beside me, and listens.
"Anyway, he was really in love. Probably for the first
time in his life, but he had this secret, and it made it
hard for him to let anyone into his heart, you know?"
I look at the little man that looks so much like his
father.
"Then, in 2245, humans encounter a race called the
Minbari, and everything changed for us. Apparently
there were shots fired during the first encounter
between us. The Minbari became very angry. They
went on the warpath, and started attacking human
settlements. Before this, EarthForce had thought they
were pretty powerful, but the Minbari have been out
among the stars a lot longer than humans. Their ships
are much more powerful. The outer colonies fell
quickly. The Minbari didn't take prisoners. They
killed everyone... men, women, children," I say as I
feel myself losing it.
I can see clear as day the ground forces of the
Minbari, storming the Proxima III Colony domes,
blasting everyone...everyone.
"This lady that your father loved... He thought
maybe keeping her safe, keeping the rest of humanity
safe, was a noble way to die. He thought it was worth
dying for. But he couldn't keep her safe. The Minbari
just ... couldn't be stopped. Nothing EarthForce did
worked. The big problem is we couldn't hit them in
combat. They had great ECM... umm... Electronic
Countermeasures. We couldn't get solid locks on
their ships. Their vessels would slice ours apart
before we could get a bead on them. Dakota, Wolf,
Cook... all the outer colonies fell." I stop again.
The worst day in history is coming up in my mind.
"By this time, your father was a captain. He was
captain of one of the best ships there was, a Hyperion
class heavy cruiser. Her name was the Ixion. He was
given orders to defend the jumpgate at Io. It was a
critical strategic point in the Sol system. The Minbari
were most likely going to strike there next. The fleet
amassed there was really just a joke though. Most of
the remaining ships were waiting to defend Earth." I
say this and reach out to touch the medal Alex holds.
"Around our little fleet, eight jump points appear, and
out come the blue-black cruisers of the Minbari. They
look like angelfish, and on the front, they have a
bunch of bristly antenna. Your father wasn't afraid.
He was glad for a chance to die this way. It made him
look brave. The Minbari destroyed the Jumpgate in
seconds, and fired on all the dreadnoughts in our
fleet. Without the dreadnoughts, we would be
stranded at Io. Our cruisers didn't have the ability to
form jump points. The fleet got off a few shots, but
the Minbari jumped right back into hyperspace. It
was a few minutes later that they got subspace comm
saying the Minbari were attacking Earth itself. It took
about six minutes for the crack damage control team
on the Castor to get her jump engine back on line.
Those ships in that little fleet that were still operable
pulled in close. Eight ships tried cramming through
the jump point created by the Castor. The Cheyanne
and Homer were both torn to pieces as the jump point
collapsed on them." And again I pause, looking out at
the swirling red and black of hyperspace.
It will forever seem to me like the bloody smear of
bodies in the void. I can hear the last crackling
transmissions of the other hyperions as they fly apart.
"Cheyanne to fleet: Mayday, Ma..." and then
subspace hiss as the reactor goes.
"It was thirty seven minutes in hyperspace before the
jump point opened at Earth. Reemerging into normal
space, the Amazon exploded. It was a little Olympus
Corvette. I had served aboard her for two years," I
looked at Alex and smiled briefly.
"So, your father was there, at what is now called the
Battle of the Line. There had been several hundred
EarthForce ships there, and so many fighters that it
was like the sky was full of them. And those big,
dark Minbari Angelfish of death, gouting these
horrible rays, slicing our ships apart. The Ixion was
cut in two. Your father called for all hands abandon
ship. It didn't matter. The Minbari fighters were even
shooting the escape pods. He stayed on the bridge. It
had been sheered free from the rest of the hull, along
with three decks of the upper control tower of the
ship. He stayed as it tumbled through space, him and
one ensign. Every twenty seconds, the battle came
back into view, and he watched humanity's last
chance die a little more. Then it would slowly roll out
of his view, and for twenty seconds he'd sit, waiting
for the explosion as he was hunted down and blasted
by some Minbari fighter."
"In that time, when it was just him and the ensign,
they talked. Not like captain and crewman, but like
two people expecting to die." I tell the boy who stares
at me now with wide eyes.
"Your dad finally says 'This was a good way to end, a
noble way'."
"Then the young crewman says 'Sir, my dad told me
something once, and I hold it dear to my heart. He
told me it was easy to find something worth dying
for, but it was much better to find something worth
living for. Don't you have anything worth living
for?'"
I pause. I have no choice. I can't speak. It takes me a
minute to fight back the tears.
"I've heard there are only about two hundred people
awarded the medal you hold. Your father was one of
them. That medal was for the few brave souls who
survived the Battle of the Line. When mankind was
that close to coming to an end, the Minbari
surrendered. Can you believe that? They just stopped,
and left Earth. Your father and that ensign were
rescued before their air went toxic."
"He retired from the military then. He didn't get it...
you know? The big cosmic 'it'. Why did the Dilgar
die, and humanity live? He'd found something worth
dying for. He almost DID die in the protection of
humanity. But in the days and months that followed,
while all of Earth was mourning the loss of life, and
digging itself out of the ashes... he sat in quiet
meditation, wondering why he, someone who'd
wanted so badly to die, had lived."
"He finally made the grim pilgrimage to Proxima III.
He saw to the final interment of his lover's remains,
and he turned to face that secret that had haunted him
for so long."
I pause. The moment of truth.
"That's where I come into the picture. Alex... I don't
know an easy way to tell you this. I was the person
on that bridge that day. I am... well... in a way, at
least, I'm your father," I finally get it out.
"Huh? No... you're my mom. I mean... you DID give
birth to me... right?" He looks a bit shocked, but not
horrified, as I feared he might be.
"I am genetically your father, but I also carried you,
and gave birth to you. The woman I told you about
from Proxima... she's your genetic mother. Her name
was Karen. Maybe some day, if you want, we can go
visit her resting place," I tell him.
He looks out the window. I can see he's thinking.
"So you're secret was that you were not really a
man?" he finally asks.
"No, not really. Not in my mind, and not in my
heart," I say.
"So... did you ever figure out something worth living
for?" he asks softly.
"Yeah, I did. You," I smile.
We sit in silence for a moment, smiling our big goofy
grins at each other. Then a soft ping sounds. We are
two minutes from the Epsilon Jump Gate.
"Buckle up, pardner," I say in a bad Texas drawl.
It's November 19th, 2256, and I'm about to see a
dream given form.
The vortex opens, and we emerge with the rest of the
supply convoy, into normal space. What I see
terrifies me... the huge looming form of the blue-
black angelfish of death. Just coming out of the
shadow of Epsilon III, the vessel gleams in the rays
of starlight. I fight my urges. I know the Minbari
even helped with financing of the station we are
about to visit, but those old memories are hard to set
to rest. The nightmare form of those ships may
forever set me on edge. As I'd seen in the past, it
opens it's own jump point, and disappears into
hyperspace.
Over the comm, I hear a voice.
"This is Lieutenant Commander Takashima of the
Earth Station Babylon 5. Please transmit manifests
and transport permit data," the human female says.
Seven years ago, I became a mother. In that same
year, the Babylon Project began. The project has
been plagued with structural collapse, reactor
overload, terrorist sabotage... and when they finally
finished and got a working station on-line... it
disappeared. Failure after failure... 1,2,3,4. Seven
years, of trying to get the dream of peace to survive.
Now, I stare at that wonder of technology.
I have to believe it will work. Boarder disputes and
pirate raids are one thing, but genocide is a thought
too horrible to ever imagine. I can't fathom the
thought of all of humanity wiped away. Our survival
is something worth fighting for... something worth
living for. That, and the young man beside me... he's
worth living for. God, I hope it works.
Emely
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