A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 4. A Future, Born in Pain

'How?'

'We do not know, my lord. I am willing to take full responsibility, my lord. I ask only that you.... spare my family.'

He knew what the Guards-Captain was saying. Execution would be a lenient response to such a failure, whether it had truly been his fault or not. The torture and deaths of his family were likely as well.

'You are not at fault, Captain. You will speak of this to no one save myself. Security around the Emperor is to be doubled.... no, tripled. If you ever see the prisoner anywhere in the Republic again you are to shoot to kill, but be careful. He is very dangerous. Report back to me whatever you discover about him, no matter how trivial, and no matter the time or the place.

'You are a good servant of the Republic, Captain. I will never forget that.'

'Thank you, my lord.'

'You may go.'

The captain left and Marrago turned back to his papers, but a dark cloud was hovering over his mind. His recent victory might yet turn out to be more costly than even he had thought.

3. Sector 301, a. k. a. the Pit, Proxima 3, January 2nd 2261.

He had been nursing his drink for a long time, looking at it reflectively, brooding, thinking, waiting. Dexter Smith had always liked pubs, ever since he had been a child, creeping into the Emperor Bibulos for the warmth and the company and to hear the stories of the regulars. He had actually believed most of them, and he had walked around convinced that he knew a legendary space explorer, the world's greatest baseball player, and the galaxy's most prominent genetic surgeon.

Illusions and dreams, crafted in lies and half-hopes and delusions.

The Emperor was now long gone, and he had settled for the Pit Trap. The lager was cheap and drinkable, the barman was a veritable fount of information, and it was, all told, a nicer place than his apartment, if only just.

As the only customer with anything resembling both consciousness and money, Smith was the major object of Bo's conversational skills.

And the topic of conversation, which had varied from the baseball, to the ISN reports of the Narn / Centauri War, to President Clark's promises to put more money into Sector 301, had finally settled on the big news of the week.

'Did you see those ships? You could pick a few of them out last night, up there. Keeping us safe. Kinda reassuring, although they look a little.... creepy, if you get me.'

Smith did indeed get him, unfortunately. 'Yes, I saw them.' Shadow ships, creations of darkness and chaos that screamed inside his mind. He had fought them at Epsilon 3, and seen their terrible destructive power first hand.

And they were humanity's allies, humanity's protectors, humanity's guardians.

Who would guard humanity from their guardians?

'Pretty impressive, though. I heard this race.... the.... whadyacallem.... the Shadows. I hear they're like.... real old. Ancient, even. They'll sort out the Minbari, no doubt. Anyone else too for that matter.'

Yes, they could. The Minbari did not need 'sorting out', no matter what President Clark was saying about Sinoval on ISN. Smith had never met the Primarch himself, but he had been in combat against the Minbari. They were a broken power now, shattered, perhaps irrevocably, fatally divided.

'You're a military man, ain't ya?' Bo said suddenly, and Smith looked up.

'I was.'

'You seen these Shadows in action?'

'Yes....' He closed his eyes, and for one minute he was back at Epsilon 3, watching ship after ship blown to pieces, hearing their screams in his mind, watching an entire world torn apart. 'Yes, I have.'

'Musta been something, eh?'

'One way of putting it.'

'So.... if ya don't mind me asking, why ain't you up there with them now? What brings someone like you back here? You don't belong here, I can see that. Not any more.'

'I.... I just saw a little bit too much. More than I was comfortable with. I couldn't serve in the military any longer, and.... I needed to get back to my roots, I suppose you could say. I needed to find something smaller, something to work towards that wasn't saving the world, or the galaxy.... something where I wouldn't get people killed.'

'Musta been rough.'

'Not for me. I'm still alive, after all.'

'So, you really grew up in three-o-one, eh? And you made it out. That's impressive. 'Course, maybe things weren't as bad back then. I'm from Orion, myself, so I wouldn't know what it was like then.'

'It was.... I don't think it was as bad then as it is now, but it was never perfect. As a child, I enjoyed it. Everything was an adventure, so many places to run, to hide, to play. I saw the people starving to death, begging.... and I never really realised. My brother died when I was thirteen, and that was the first time I ever really saw what this place was.... That's when I resolved to get out.'

'How'd you manage that?'

'It.... wasn't that hard, really. I suppose. Looking back at it, anyway. I had nothing to keep me here. My brother was dead, my sister married off to some rich businessman up-sector, my mother was in prison. I made my way to Sector Three-o-three, and got a job waiting in a hotel. I managed to save a bit, joined a gym.... I didn't have much of a goal. I was just.... glad to be doing something for myself, something away from three-o-one.

'When I was fifteen I joined Earthforce, lying something chronic to do it. I think the officer training me had some suspicions, but he kept them to himself. A good man, was Captain MacDougan. I think he's dead now.

'Getting out of here.... wasn't easy, but I managed it.'

'And now you're back.'

'Yes. I'm back.'

He fell silent and turned back to his drink. After a while he finished it, and left.

 4. Cathedral, orbiting Tarolin 2, January 1st 2261.

'I am sending you this message because I will soon be dead.

'I do not understand the full details, Sinoval. I do not fully understand why my allies should wish to kill me, or what they can hope to gain, but then perhaps I am too close to the situation, too close to them.... to see.'

Primarch Sinoval stood silent and still, listening to Delenn's message, one of the last she would have time to send. The opening words had hit him, but he had soon regained his composure. He could see Delenn's bearing in the hologram of the message. She was proud and resilient, accepting of her fate.

She was Minbari, in soul if no longer in body, and he gave her a silent salute.

'The Vorlons have healed John of the injuries he suffered at Epsilon Three. They have also cured him entirely of the virus with which Jha'dur infected him. I do not know how, and they would not tell me. I did not enquire too closely, Sinoval. I was happy just to see him live, and walk. I do not know if they will be willing to provide this cure to any others who may be suffering from this virus, but as we do not know for sure if anyone is, and as any such cure would have to go through you, then I doubt it.

'But these acts of compassion were not without price. As payment for healing and curing John, the Vorlons have demanded that I go to Z'ha'dum, where they fully expect me to die. I will die there, Sinoval, or if not there, then elsewhere, perhaps Proxima.

'I do not know why they wish me dead, or why they have gone about it this way, rather than a simple attack. I do not wish to know. That is for you to discover.

'I have had little time to prepare these messages, and I have had time for only four. One is to John, explaining that I love him, and what I have done. Another is for my best friend, and the third is for the Alliance Council that is to lead after me.

'But I send this to you for two reasons. First, you may be able to use this information. You have been right all along. The Vorlons are not our allies. In fact, they may yet prove to be deadlier and far more terrible even than the Shadows, for they are evil masked as good. You can see this, where no one else has been able to. I do not believe