From ESTALKER@b205s1.ssc.af.milThu Mar 30 14:17:02 1995 Date: Thu, 30 Mar 95 07:31:00 PST From: "Stalker, Edward, Capt AFLMA" To: B5 Posting Subject: FW: Passing the Torch, Part I of ? Several people told me that Part I got lost in the bit bucket. Let's try this again..... ---------- From: Stalker, Edward, Capt AFLMA To: B5 Posting Subject: FW: Passing the Torch, Part I of ? Date: Wednesday, March 29, 1995 10:39AM Hi y'all, There was some comment on the lack of creative writing on here. Personally, I like all the speculation, but I think I'll drop this out here for your consideration.... Since we're in a rerun cycle, I have been thinking about the period 1995-2257 a lot. I realize I'm painting with a wide brush, and filling in a lot of space JMS has left tantalizingly blank. I think I've got my timeline straight. Rick Hazlewood and Joe Ferrare have been helping me with editorial comments, but all mistakes are strictly my own fault... Constructive comments are most welcome. Let me know what you think.... ********* Passing the Torch Sometimes the Dragon wins.... ============================== AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story takes place in 2249, one year after the end of the Earth/Minbari War, eight years before the Babylon 5 station became operational, . Comments and criticisms are welcome. DISCLAIMER: This story is copyrighted by Edward C. Stalker. All rights will be transferred to Babylonian Productions upon request. ********* Passing the Torch Sometimes the dragon wins.... A world like New Jerusalem is the kind of place that makes you wonder why anyone would ever live anywhere else. My first view of it was from orbit, a few hours out from the jump gate. It reminded me of the old Apollo photographs, from back before we messed up Old Earth. When I was a kid, one of my teachers in PS 6001 had a big blow up of one of those shots. The Earth looked like a big blue marble, hanging over the moon s surface. I used to look at it and daydream about living back in those days, with clean air, and water, and an ozone layer that would let you go outside. I mean folks used to go to the ocean and lay around outside almost naked, for pity s sake. They were intentionally exposing themselves to UV radiation to darken their skins. Most of the world s man had colonized were dirty mudballs, or the local flora was the wrong color. It was strange to see clean blue oceans and white clouds for real, but there they were, hanging right there in the porthole. It was May 4th, 2249. In most of the Americas, people were getting ready to celebrate Cinco De Mayo. This year, the celebrations were worldwide, because May 5th was the first anniversary of the Battle of the Line, when all humanity almost got trampled under the Minbari Juggernaut. I had made it through the Minbari War real well, all things considered. I d started as a Gunnery Sergeant, and ended as a Major. Of course, most of my comrades from the NCO mess were just plain dead. I heard the rumble as the thrusters finally died. I figured I had about ten minutes to get my bags down to the shuttle. A rating stuck his head in the wardroom and said Major Macfarlane, we ve made orbit. Your bags are already aboard the shuttle. We ll be ready to drop in 10 minutes. I laughed. The crew had been totally in awe of me, all the way out from Earth. I wasn t much used to such attention. I guessed that in their place, I wouldn t have acted much different. I mean, how often do you carry a guy with a Golden Banner and the Senate Medal of Honor? I was only the third person to get both, and the only one to survive the experience. I grabbed my cane and walked to the shuttle. All things considered, I decided I d accept the help. My new leg was coming along nicely. Here in the .85G of the transport EAS Barnstable County, I could get along quite nicely. Once I got down to NJ s 1.15G, I d probably have trouble. ***************** The assault boat made a nice shallow trajectory and landed at Lod Spaceport. I was kind of bored. I mean I m more used to 9G falling leaf assault landings, but the youngster piloting the boat didn t look old enough to be out of high school. She was nervous about giving her VIP a smooth ride. I complimented her as I stepped off, and she grinned like I d given her a medal. They had a welcoming party waiting for me - the planetary governor, the mayor of Roclevitch, and my regimental commander. Colonel McNeil was the only one I really cared to see, anyway. We went back a long way. I'd met Col M back when he was a brand new shavetail and I'd just put on my NCO stripes. I'd carried a sword at his wedding, and I'd baby-sat his kids at other postings. We'd run into each other several times in his career. I went through all the formalities, but I got to speak with Col M in the car headed out to the base. "So, Colonel, how's the family doing?" I asked. "Not bad, Jean stayed on Earth to see Janie through her last year of high school. They'll be joining me out here in July. Andy's at the Academy. He keeps telling me he's going to the Marines, although I keep telling him to stay with the Navy." "Oh well, I laughed, What kid ever listens to his old man? Did you listen to your dad?" He chuckled. "No, but I don't know where he got his streak of stubbornness from. Must be his mother's side of the family." "Must be," I agreed, "since you haven't lost any of yours." "You don't have to agree so readily." he laughed. It was good to be back among the Fleet Marines again. I'd spent the last several months recovering from my wounds on Kennicott and at the Asteroids. I didn't think much of the honors. Colonel Craig was the one that planned the defenses of Kennicott. I just implemented his plans. I was just a dumb jarhead, trying to hold things together. He should have got the Banner, but he was radioactive dust in the wreckage of Fort Powell, along with most of the 77th. I was the one they saw on the newsfeeds, bringing 5000 survivors out of the bowels of the Thompson Mine, where we d cowered for a month after the attack. At least they gave Lt Commander Sheridan a Golden Banner and a promotion for taking down 3 Bonehead cruisers. All I'd done was set the timers and help him lay the minefield. The Senate still voted Medals of Honor for the rest of the crew. ************* We were in the Colonel's office, and he was giving me the rundown of our new unit. The 6th EA Marine Regiment was a proud unit, with a long history, going back to the old US Marine Corps. Colonel M had only been there a month. " Mac, I'm making you my XO." said the Colonel. My mouth fell open. A little over a year ago, I'd been a Gunny, hoping to make Senior. Now I was the #2 man in the regiment. He laughed, as he saw my expression. "Mac, I won't kid you. The Corps took a hell of a beating from the Minbari. Right now, Earthdome is backing and filling to spread our survivors out among an expanded Corps. NJ didn't get hit, so the 6th came through the war unscathed. The ship that brought me in took out most of the senior staff of this regiment. The ship you came in on will carry most of the rest." He sighed. We don t know why the Minbari quit, and we don t know if they plan to come back. We re doubling the strength of the Corps, and the Army is beefing up their heavy maneuver battalions. Once we got the Minbari on the ground, we re on nearly equal footing. They may be able to beat up the Navy, but if we can fight them to a standstill on the ground, we might be able to convince them that it s not worth it. Is that what Force Command figures, Sir? That we made the ground battles too expensive for them? We don t know, Mac. The Spacers took 50:1 losses at the Line - and that was the best they did. Some of that was your doing, I hear. Hell, Colonel, I was just somebody Commander Sheridan found to arm the mines. That was a total unauthorized hare-brained mission from start to finish. Yep, but you took down three Minbari ships - one of them was a cruiser.. We figured we had nothing to lose. I figured I was going to die anyway, so I figured I would take some Boneheads with me. We should ve got hammered for misappropriation of property, unauthorized military action - Hell, I jimmied the nuke surety codes on the mines, and that s high treason. Be that as it may, you guys succeeded, and that may have been the last straw - THEY lost the will to fight first, not us. He grinned. You re still alive, and I need you here, so for that, I thank God. "Right now, I've got the damnedest bunch of odds-and-sods and newbies that I've ever seen. You and I are the just about the only ones that have seen any action. My NCO's, for the most part, are discipline cases or derelicts. I think they must have just sent every third boot from the last three classes to me." "Well sir, you know that discipline cases aren't always bad. Remember that kid Garibaldi on the Colonel Bowie?" " Yeah, I remember him. What a wise-ass smart mouth punk! I figured somebody would have spaced him by now, just on principle." "Yeah, but when things went to shit on Kennicott, he came through for me. He ain't much on paperwork, but he's a cool character. He's fantastic at setting ambushes. He must have killed over 200 Boneheads on Kennicott until we holed up. Once we got down in the hole, he was great with keeping the equipment running. We just about went stir-crazy down there, I ll tell you. He even found time to tell the kids stories to keep them quiet. He does great impressions of cartoon characters. I recommended him for a Silver Star and a Navy Cross. He's a Staff Sergeant, although I don't know how long he'll keep those stripes." "Well, that's good. I'd settle for him on this hole, I'll tell you. The officers are mostly new butterbars, straight out of ROTC, or staff wienies that sat out the war in a safe hole. The newbies aren't too bad, just stupid. Take a two by four to them a few times, and they ll start listening to their NCOs. The staff wienies are mostly inoffensive, although I'll caution you, Lt Ari Ben Zahn gives me a bad feeling." I'd learn to trust the Colonel's feelings. His hunches were a lot better than most officer's reasoned analysis. "Is this guy a brown bar?" - meaning a 2nd Lieutenant, the lowest grade of officer. "No, actually, he's a first with a line number for Captain. He worked on General Craig s staff at Earthdome. He's actually pretty good, seems to be a bit ate up and too ready to fight. For a line officer in a command out here on the frontier, that s not necessarily a bad thing. It s just, I don t know, he just makes me nervous, and I can't put my finger on it." Just then, the Colonel's batman stuck his head in the door. "Begging the Colonel's pardon, sir, but the Governor s on line 3." Colonel M gave me a wry smile. "See what you have to look forward to now, Mac? I gotta deal with this functionary. You re probably tired from the trip. We don t need to go over the whole regiment tonight, but I DO have to deal with the local politicos tonight. He grinned. Why don t you grab quarters and take the rest of the night off? Tonight you can go into town and pretend you're still an NCO. Starting tomorrow, you're the XO, and you'll start by helping me deal with all this bat puckey." ********************* To be continued..... ************ Ed Stalker, estalker@b205s1.ssc.af.mil The above message contains my own observations and opinions. They should not, in any way, be construed to reflect the actual, official policy or opinions of the US Air Force or the Department of Defense. From ESTALKER@b205s1.ssc.af.milThu Mar 30 14:17:06 1995 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 95 10:48:00 PST From: "Stalker, Edward, Capt AFLMA" To: B5 Posting Subject: Passing the Torch, part II of ? Hi y'all, There was some comment on the lack of creative writing on here. Personally, I like all the speculation, but I think I'll drop this out here for your consideration.... Since we're in a rerun cycle, I have been thinking about the period 1995-2257 a lot. I realize I'm painting with a wide brush, and filling in a lot of space JMS has left tantalizingly blank. I think I've got my timeline straight. Rick Hazlewood and Joe Ferrare have been helping me with editorial comments, but all mistakes are strictly my own fault... Constructive comments are most welcome. Let me know what you think.... ********* Passing the Torch Sometimes the Dragon wins.... ============================== AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story takes place in 2249, one year after the end of the Earth/Minbari War, eight years before the Babylon 5 station became operational, . Comments and criticisms are welcome. DISCLAIMER: This story is copyrighted by Edward C. Stalker. All rights will be transferred to Babylonian Productions upon request. ********* Passing the Torch Chapter 2 I took the Colonel s advice and set out to sample the nightlife of Roclevitch City. NJ was mostly settled by Jews after the destruction of Israel in the third World War. Most of the survivors emigrated to North America, where they settled in well in the aftermath of the Great Plague. It was kind of ironic - that Israel got destroyed, right when they could have bankrupted their enemies. Just before the war, the scientists at the Dimona Nuclear Research Center developed a practical, small cold-fusion reactor. They were about ready to announce it when the war started. See, the whole reason that their enemies had any money was because of petroleum. Almost all the vehicles on earth burned petroleum, and half the world s petroleum was in the Middle East. Cold fusion changed all that, because the Dimona reactor was small enough to go in vehicles. Ten more years, and the Arabs would have been bankrupt. Some folks wondered if that was why the Arabs hit Israel so hard. I don t think so, because they never hit Dimona. A lot of people died in the war, but the Israelis still fought the Arabs to a standstill. Then they figured out what all the fallout from Europe was going to do to them. Barak Ben Canaan, the Israeli Prime Minister, cut a deal with the US to evacuate all the Israeli survivors, in return for the secret of cold fusion. The US Navy ran the radioactive gauntlet and got over 900,000 folks out. The Israelis never forgot Eretz Tzion. No longer was next year in Jerusalem a remotely possible dream. Scientists estimated that cobalt by-products would render the Jerusalem crater dangerous until at least the year 3000. In 2205, when NJ was discovered, a consortium of businesses bought up the colonization contract. Just incidentally, these businesses were primarily Jewish owned. The first immigrants were primarily Jewish. The general idea was, if they had a whole planet to themselves, the goyim would have much harder time persecuting them. These descendants of the Kibbutzim and Moshavim had jumped in with a vengeance. In the 45 years since the first settlers arrived, Roclevitch City had gone from a collection of rude huts to a bustling city. The place was a study in contrasts - vitrified streets crowded with cars and people, lights powered by fusion, and a horse-drawn produce wagon from an outlying kibbutz. Every once in a while, you d see a buckskin-clad Sabra leading a fur-laden mule, looking like something out of the early American West, aside from the modern rifle. I walked into the old part of the town, down by the waterfront. Like most of the early settlements, Roclevitch centered on the harbor. While personnel shuttles land on pads, the unmanned bulk cargo pods came down in ballistic trajectories. They had to make water landings. Most sensible colonists unpacked the pods as soon as they towed them to shore, and why carry them inland if you didn t have to? Roclevitch Square was placed where they towed the first cargo pod ashore. The settlers had put up a bronze statue of Polkovnik Yitzhak Roclevitch right there. Old Yitzhak was one of my favorite figures in history. At the beginning of WWIII, the German-led European community blitzed the Russian defenses with special forces teams. The 77th Regiment of the Special Rocket Forces were in the process of requipping. They managed to foil their attack, then stood defense over most of Russia. For three days, their Galosh 8 interceptors held off the EurCom missiles, while the technicians worked feverishly to bring the missiles on-line. Finally, they put up their SS-54 Slam-Dunk constant-boost missiles and hammered the Eurcom. The missile silos on the Plain of Lyon and Northern Italy were hammered into uselessness, and the armored force massing on the North German Plain disappeared into the North German Crater. The Russians venerated Roclevitch for ending the German menace that had threatened them for over a thousand years. The Jews were proud of him because he was the latest in a chain of Jewish warrior leaders. After WWIII, he helped the UNRRA resettle the survivors of Israel in the US and Russia. He was president of Russia for two terms, and a founding member of the EA Senate. I wandered the streets for awhile, then found a pleasant little bar near the docks. NJ already had a respectable fishing fleet and coastal shipping. I might be a Marine in an interstellar Navy, but I still love the smell of the ocean. It was a little different smell than I was used to, but salt water is still salt water. I sat down at the corner of the bar and ordered up a local draft. I leaned my head against the wall and surveyed the room. Most of the clientele was male, and dressed in work clothes. Most of the conversation seemed to be about sports, women and work. Then I heard the tones of anger, and tuned in on them. "The goddamn EA bureaucrat Earthers are the problem!" I heard the vehement exclamation come from my left. "Yeah, but the dirty factories and the goyim are ." came the equally impassioned reply. I recognized the tones of men having an emotional argument, but trying to keep their voices low. They must have been sensitive for eavesdropping, because the one nearest to me suddenly rounded on me and got in my face. "What are you listening to, Big Ears? You some kind of Earthie spy?" he demanded. "The schlemiel ain't never been in here before, Lennie" commented his buddy. "Maybe the governor's figured out that we're started to get annoyed." "Hey, hey, hey, guys." I said as I pushed Lennie's hands away from my chest. I could have taken him and his buddy easy, bum leg and all, but I didn't know how many friends they had between me and the door. I lied quick. "Guys, I'm just an Able Bodied Spacer off the Deneb Queen." I stuck a hand out and put on my most facile grin. "ABS Kevin McFarland, at your service." Lennie glared at me. "You look pretty old to be an ABS." he growled. "Hey, until last year, I was a foreman at a machine shop in Tonawanda, New York, back on Earth." "I knew it, Lennie, a damn Earther." said Lennie's buddy. "Hold on a second, Abe, I think I know what this guy's gonna say next." growled Lennie. "So why are you an ABS now, Mr Big ears Kevin McFarlane?" "Well, the EA Skywatch did a pretty good job of stopping the Bonehead missiles. They were really concentrating on Earth's powerplants, you know, the fusers and the hydroelectric sites." "OK, so what?" said Abe impatiently. "Well, they didn't vaporize all the Minbari High Velocity Weapons aimed at the Robert Moses Hydro plant at Niagara Falls." I said. "A few HVMs just got sideswiped and exploded. I guess when you blow a 10 tonne weapon off course, the military calls that a success. They called the fallout "minor damage", but when 200 kilos of rock lands in your neighborhood, moved at 14 km/sec, it makes a hell of a crater." I kept my face as impassive as I could. "I used to have a wife, two kids, and a dog. Now I own a part of a crater." The story really was true, only it was my younger brother's story. "I was at work, and some debris came through the roof and took off this leg." I rolled up my pants leg and let them see the regen scar that went all around my upper calf. "When I got out of the regen tanks, I got a job on a freighter and left Earth." I grimaced. "What's your problem, friend?" I really did lose my leg to debris from a Minbari HVM, but it was on Kennicott, not Earth. Lennie frowned, and stepped back. "Sorry, man. My aunt and uncle lived in Tonawanda, and my nephew arrived this morning. I can tell you're hurting, and I can relate. I'm just bent out of shape, and paranoid. You ain't part of this, and you'll be gone next week. Sorry to bother you." He turned, and threw some money on the table. "Hang on, Lennie." I said. "My troubles can't be fixed by anything but time, but what about yours?" I laughed. "A spacer gets around, hears all kinds of things, meets all kinds of people. Who knows, maybe if I find out your gripe, I can get it to somebody." "C'mon, who the hell you know, the Sec Gen of the EA maybe?" chuckled Lennie. "Nah," I said, "but my skipper knows some bigwigs, he might be able to do something." I raised my hands, palm outward. " I ain't promising nothing, but what have you got to lose, talkin' to me?" So how come your skipper listens so close to an ABS? Lennie wondered. You don t look the type to be a bum-boy. Hey, look man, no need to be insulting. There s plenty of them in space, alright, but I ain t one of them and neither is the skipper. I protested. He s a mensch, though, and he s interested in a lot of things. He used to teach at one of them universities before he went into space. Always giving us history lectures and such. Hoo-boy, sounds like a fun ship. laughed Lennie. Hey, it ain t like that. I said. Hell, he s pretty interesting. If I d had a few more teachers like that, I might a gone to college. He really makes ya think, and he s interested in the worlds we put in at. "OK," said Abe after some thought, "it ain't nothin' you won't see in the local newsfeeds anyway." The two guys did a back-and-forth routine, like some of the glitzy newsfeeds teams do. Abe started it off. "The Elders picked this planet back in 06, right after we heard about it. It was way out on the left side of nowhere, and it was like Venus before the terraforming project. The World Jewish Community picked up the rights on it and dropped a terraforming package on it right away. They used some help from a Centaur genius, and it worked beautiful. The First Sabras landed in 10, and we spread out from Roclevitch City." Lennie picked it up. "The Elders wanted this to be a Jewish world, a place where all the sects of our people could come and be free from oppression. We had enough money to buy a lot of good equipment - fusion plants and orbital factories. One of our goals was to try and prevent the mistakes that Man had done on Earth." "OK, so enough with the history lesson." I said. "I read all that in the encyclopedia entry before I got here." I shrugged. "You folks got a beautiful world here. So what's got you riled." Abe grimaced. "Its the damn EA bureaucrats. We've been spreading through the Alpha continent, and we've started some kibbutzim on Beta. The EA found mineral deposits on Gamma, so they've been bringing in Goyim, non-Jews, to work them." "OK, so you're mad because you're getting a bunch of immigrants you don't want - or is it just that you're getting cut out of the action?." Jews have a reputation for being greedy. The ones I knew personally didn't seem to run any worse than the normal run of humanity. "Not really," protested Lennie."We haven t got the population. Earther need food, metals and manufactured goods. Nu, not a problem." he shrugged. But the Elders paid good money for this planet, and the EA has just decided to step in and do what they feel like. "They claim it is only until the crisis on Earth is over, then they will resettle the workers elsewhere." said Abe. "So it sounds like the problem will solve itself." I said. "Many of the workers are from Earth, and like it here. They want to settle, and we hear that the EA has promised that they will not remove them unless they request to leave." said Lennie. Well, I said, I just came from Earth, and the Minbari really hit it hard. Out here, you might not realize it, but the we re in a world of hurt there. I shrugged. The boneheads got all the orbital powersats, most of the hydro plants, and half the fusion sites. The weather control stations got popped like a bunch of balloons. There s damn little power, and they re facing a nuclear winter scenario, just like after WWIII. I shrugged. If you have a job classified EA Defense-Essential then you re OK. If not, you can emigrate, go into cold-sleep, or worry about whether the cold or starvation gets you first. I grimaced Not much of a choice. Lennnie said, We understand refugees. Everybody on this planet is a refugee or a child or grandchild of a refugee. Our people have been refugees for 2300 years. The problem is, they re bringing them in and dumping them off the shuttles, without the logistical support. Thousands of people live in tent cities miles across. They are supposed to grow food - both for themselves and to send to Earth, but they are not farmers. Many are hungry, some are starving, and they blame us for their problems. "And the factories are even worse," said Abe, "they have relaxed the environmental regulations on Gamma. The factories belch pollution in our skies, the water runs foul with the mine tailings. They are strip mining, raping and pillaging our planet in their quest to repair the wreckage of Earth." Lennie added, "They have even re-introduced coal powerplants, because fusers must come from Earth. They can strip mine coal and build boilers much easier than shipping fusion plants from earth." I looked at him with my mouth hanging open in shock. "Coal fired boilers - here? What is this? The Middle Ages?" Every schoolkid on Earth learns about the age of Pollution, and we've seen pictures of the acid rains of the early 21st century. I was totally amazed. Abe agreed with my horror. "Nu, it is true. They have brought back the black past, and promise to bring more. Goyim to oppress us, as they did in Eretz Tzion, Schwartzers and Arabs, all the elements are there." We talked a bit more, then I left with my head spinning. These guys were angry, but they were no conspirators. They told me all about their protest organization and the demonstration planned for tomorrow. Trouble was, I could sympathize with their gripes. Hoards of refugees, pollution, Pissing off Jews was a good way to get hurt. The Middle East was a radioactive pit, wouldn't be habitable again for centuries, if ever. The Arabs had lost more of their populations than the Israelis, and were rapidly fading out as an ethnic group. Maybe the Jews didn't win, but they sure as hell hurt their enemies. The Germans had persecuted Jews for centuries. In WWII, they d massacred 6 million Jews in the Death Camps. In WWIII, old Yitzhak had created The Blue Spot - from orbit, you could pick out the North German Plain, because it glows blue at night. Today? This might be a frontier world, but the Ben Canaan Nuclear Institute was one of the biggest and best in EA space before the war. Right now, it was probably THE best in EA space. The wind had come up, and it was blowing off the ocean, chilly and wet. I zipped up my jacket, but I didn t think all my shivering was from the cold. ******************************* To be continued.... Ed Stalker, estalker@b205s1.ssc.af.mil The above message contains my own observations and opinions. They should not, in any way, be construed to reflect the actual, official policy or opinions of the US Air Force or the Department of Defense.