'Well.... we now no longer have the entire galaxy to save every morning before breakfast, so we will have to find something else to occupy our time. No doubt it will be very boring.'
He smiled with her. 'I think boredom is something I can get used to. It'll be a change if nothing else, but I don't think we can start planning a glorious retirement just yet.'
'No. After all, we do have to rebuild everything that was destroyed.'
'And make it better this time.'
'Exactly. We have an opportunity to make everything better this time around. But I don't think the galaxy will begrudge us a little time to ourselves. After everything we've done, we deserve a little holiday.'
'And what to do with all that free time, I wonder?'
John suddenly turned serious. 'Delenn, I.... I know that things have been difficult, but it's all changing now. I can feel it. Everything will be better now, and.... We've both got the rest of our lives ahead of us, and I....
'I'd like to spend that time with you. I'd like to spend as much of my time as I can with you.'
She smiled again. 'John.... nothing would make me happier.'
They came like thieves in the night. It had taken them a long time to find him, longer than they had anticipated, but ultimately he was one of theirs. And waking or sleeping, telepaths were never far from their creators.
It was a secret station, hidden in a dead area of space, a place where Alfred Bester could watch and wait and gather allies. He had pitifully few allies and far too many enemies, but he had accepted that state of affairs with necessary stoicism. He had burned far too many of his own bridges to cry about it now.
Ah, but victory.... if he had only won that desperate gambit, then the galaxy would be a very different place. He had failed, yes, but it was a failure such as few even dreamed of.
And he had been content to wait. The war was raging, Shadow against Vorlon, Chaos against Order, Darkness against Light. While it raged, he would be safe. When it finished, the victor would be free to look for the dark secrets of that bloody war.
He had prepared, but flight was the only real plan at the moment. He should have fled even deeper into the unknown, into hyperspace itself, to the Rim, to any number of dead worlds the Corps had discovered.
But he was waiting. Waiting for one last arrival, one person, without whom life meant nothing.
And then the Vorlons had found him, before she had.
Talia came across the dead space station Laton after months of searching, following half–forgotten memories, whispers across star systems and the dreams of dead men. She had heard a little of what was happening in the galaxy, and had been pleasantly surprised to learn of Dexter's successes on Proxima. But always her mind was on Bester.
And she was too late.
Laton was dead, destroyed, everyone on board with even a hint of telepathic ability taken. Talia remembered the screams of those trapped in the prisons of light and she shuddered. There could be nowhere for her to run now. Nowhere. That would be her fate now, an eternity of agony and slavery.
But even ancient races can make mistakes. Even Vorlons have sins, and the greatest of these is arrogance.
There was one person on that station still alive. Talia followed his plaintive psychic calls for help. He was wounded, badly, but he still lived. She spent weeks keeping him that way, missing the New Year, missing so many things. When he was fit enough, he told her what had happened.
He told her of the sudden attack from nowhere, of the sheer agony that had engulfed every telepath on the station, of the creatures that had attacked them all, indestructible, awesome, terrifying.
He told her how the others had been taken. All of them. Jason Ironheart, Harriman Grey, Matt Stoner, all the others. Even Alfred. He told her of Alfred's last instructions to him, a whisper in his mind that he could not forget.
And then he asked her what they were going to do.
Talia thought about this for a few seconds, and then looked up. 'We're going to get them all back. We're going to bring that network crashing down around their heads and free everyone trapped in it, and then we're going to destroy every single one of them.'
Ari Ben Zayn did not hesitate. 'Good,' he said simply.
It was a place where the damned went to die, where the lost gathered to start at shadows, where the friendless, the alone, the forgotten.... where all of them could be found.
It was full now. There were many lost after the wars, the deaths, the pointless, constant killing. Criminals, refugees, bounty hunters, the just plain unlucky.... they were all here.
There was an inn, of course. Oh, different races might call it different things, but it was a place where the friendless went to drink themselves into blissful oblivion. The owner was a huge, one–eyed Drazi whose only words were the price of each drink, and who heard nothing but the orders.
The inn had no name. The world had no name. Most of the patrons had no names. It was that sort of place.
In the corner, in an area every bit as shadowed as the rest of the building, a man sat, drinking painful memories along with his lukewarm brivare. The vintage was surprisingly good, the memories still painful.
Her blood had been so bright, her eyes so dull. He would never hear her speak again, never hear her laugh, never stand at her wedding or watch his grandchildren play. There was so much he had never told her, and so much he never would.
He couldn't even go to her grave, to stand there and talk to her spirit. His Emperor, his best friend, the man to whom he had sworn his life.... had exiled him forever from his home.
Once he had been Lord–General Marrago, in charge of one of the mightiest war fleets in the galaxy. Now he was no one, one of the lost. No title, no name, no House, no family, no friends.
No one.
He wondered idly whom the Emperor had made the new Lord–General. He hoped it would be Carn. He was young, but he had talent and conviction and a certainty of what was right and what was wrong. He would be a good Lord–General.
On the other hand, the Emperor could have picked anyone, anyone at all, if he was even still alive. If Carn was still alive, for that matter.
It would not be difficult to find out. Information, along with alcohol, was the thing most commonly available here, for the right price, and the simple name of the Centauri Republic's new Lord–General would not be difficult, confidential or even hard to discover.
It was just that he did not want to. That life was behind him now. Let his successor have all the luck in the galaxy. He would need it.
He looked up sharply as three people arrived at once. Groups were rare here, and usually meant trouble. Anyone with friends was not the sort of person likely to end up here.
Two Narns and a Drazi. Neither a race likely to feel any affection for him. He had after all been responsible for leading the war effort against the Narns for three years, enlisting Shadow aid to do so, and in his younger days he had led assaults on the Drazi more than once.
It could be nothing. It could be absolutely nothing. Or they could be after someone else. Ninety percent of the entire planet's population must have a price on their head (or other appendage) for some reason or another. Bounty hunters were hardly unexpected, and they received little help here. Today's informer could be tomorrow's information, after all.
But there were always some too far gone to see that.
Slowly, trying not to attract undue attention, Marrago rose from his seat and shuffled towards the back exit. Naturally there was a back door probably six or seven, but he only knew of the one. He made a point of walking slowly, trying to hide his usual arrogant stride a legacy of the Court, that. He also hunched himself over, his cloak over his head. Look like no one. Attract no attention. You are no one. No one at all.
He reached the back door, stepped outside into a cold, dark alley, and walked directly into a tall, finely dressed Centauri. For a moment their eyes met, and the Centauri smiled.
'It is you. My my, how the mighty have fallen, yes. From Lord–General to.... this.'
