From: wilko@vip.solis.co.uk (Steve W) Subject: Bonzo Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 21:04:30 GMT "So in a voice..." Copyright (c) Steve Wilkinson, 1997. (IRC nicks: Entil on WB, Wilko or SteveW elsewhere) Babylon 5 is Copyright (c) of Warnerbros/Babylonian Productions (I think). ---- This story is set sometime *early*-ish during Season 3. Comments are welcome. Some other notes can be found after the end of the story. ---------- "So in a voice..." (rough draft). Lewis could hardly contain her nervousness. She was within touching distance of what she had sought after for the best part of fifteen years. This was it. The conclusion of a search which had taken her to the end of the Galaxy and back. Only it wasn’t. Not yet. First she had to get past a rather tiresome member of station security: "And *I’m* saying that you can’t bring that through here until I check it!" "But it’s only a small case," Lewis protested. "Surely you don’t think that I’d be trying to smuggle anything illegal on board?" "Hey, under normal circumstances I wouldn’t *care* what you have in there, but at the moment we can’t be too careful. Over the last year we’ve had assassination attempts, mad bombers, murder, death, bribery, psycho Kings, and a mild case of the flu." "All I’ve got in here is a few clothes and personal belongings. Come on. Be a buddy. Let me through." "Listen to me very carefully. You can either show me what you’ve got in that suspicious-looking black case there, or I haul your ass onto the next available transport outta here. And I don’t care where it goes. You could even end up in Pak’Ma’Ra space. And we all know what they like to eat..." Lewis involuntarily stepped back. "Okay, okay. You win," she grumbled. "Hang on a second." Lewis made as if to put the case on the floor, then suddenly sprung up and sprinted for the nearest corridor. Garibaldi sighed as he tapped his comm-link. It was going to be one of those days. "This is futile! We’re no closer to finding out what they’re up to. We just sit here and wait. Wait for the inevitable. Wait for the end." Sheridan slumped into his chair and stared across his desk at the figure who had come (in her words) to ‘cheer him up’. "John, listen," Delenn urged. "We may not be winning the fight, but we’re not losing it either." "I just can’t stand it!" "We have to keep hope. It’s these long periods of waiting that can get people down. People start to feel useless. Sometimes this negativity can be even more dangerous than the battle itself." Sheridan sighed. "That’s crap and you know it. Next you’ll be saying things like ‘In war there are no winners’, or ‘We have to keep hope’." "I already did that one." Sheridan smiled for the first time in days, but to Delenn it seemed forced. She tried a different approach. "What would you like to be doing then? Instead of sitting there and slowly fading away, tell me what it is you want." "I just wish..." Sheridan began, then paused. "Yes?" "I can’t get over the feeling that perhaps we could act first this time. We’re always reacting to events, always on the back foot. For once I’d like to be able give the Shadows something to think about. Let *them* worry about where the next attack will come from. Let *them* be watching their back’s day and night." "Our time will come," Delenn said. "Yeah, but what do we do in the meantime?" Delenn smiled. "I think we need to find something to take your mind off things for a while." "Oh? What?" Delenn stood and walked around the desk to where Sheridan was sitting. She took his hand in her own and stroked it gently. "I’m sure that I can think of something," she said. Garibaldi was having a tough time of it. First, a smuggling suspect had sprinted away from him before he could get his hands on her. Then he’d got a call from Ivonava saying that there’d been a violent disturbance near Ambassador Mollari’s quarters. *That* had turned out to be a false alarm. Londo was blindingly drunk and had become paranoid about unsubstantiated reports of a Na’ka’leen Feeder a `mere` seven sectors away. It had taken the best part of half an hour to get him calmed down. Now, however, Garibaldi was finally back on the trail of the smuggler. It was puzzling though, that she seemed to be heading for Ambassador Kosh’s quarters. Uh-oh, Garibaldi thought. She’ll be in big trouble if she disturbs Kosh. Lewis was close to Ambassador Kosh’s quarters. She paused to catch her breath and turned her head to see back down the corridor. There was no sign of station security. Damn, she thought. I’m gonna have to slow down a little if I want them to figure out where I’m going. How can these people be so inept as to not be able to capture an ageing nobody like me? Lewis looked at the case she was carrying. This had better be worth it, she thought. Her mind went back to the day when it had all changed. A day which would stay in her mind for as long as she lived... ...That day was just under a year ago. Professor Lucille Dana Lewis was passing through Babylon Five on her way back to Earth after fourteen years of self-imposed exile travelling the stars. It was the day before she was due to depart. Lewis was strolling aimlessly through the corridors of the station. Then came a noise from nearby. The station rocked. To Lewis it seemed like an explosion. She ran in the direction that it came from. She eventually reached the place of the disturbance. It was a garden of some kind. The security personnel at the door ignored her as she entered. Lewis looked around. The garden was filled with a plethora of different species. Lewis recognised some of them as the members of the Babylon Five council. A party? An informal meeting of the council? Either way, this was something big. Even the Vorlon was there. She looked closely at the Vorlon. This was Lewis’ first proper look at one. She stifled a laugh. The Vorlon looked faintly ridiculous - like a giant, mangled tin can. Something was wrong. Everyone was looking up into the air. Lewis followed their gazes. She saw many things: The high curved walls of the interior of the station; the magnificent view that went on for miles; the monorail that went through the middle of this gigantic, awesome cylinder; the smoke and debris that was scattered in the air. Smoke and debris? And something else! What was it? A falling object of some kind. A bird? A plane? No! It was a human figure! Lewis noticed movement from one of the ambassadors to her left. It was the Minbari - Delenn. She was speaking to the Vorlon - Kosh. Lewis couldn’t tell what they were saying. She looked up again at the falling figure. A voice at the back of her mind informed her that she had never seen a dead body before. A certain part of her was curious at what the body would look like after it hit the ground. Would it be whole? Would it be a bloody, scattered mess? Lewis shook her head. She hated herself when she got this way - cool and detached from reality. It almost always happened when she was scared about something. This time, however, she wasn’t scared for herself, but for the poor figure who was now hurtling towards his death. Another disturbance! To her left! Something was happening near the Vorlon! Lewis stared in awe at the sight before her. The brilliant white light that was coming from the Vorlon’s encounter suit dazzled her to the point that she had to close her eyes. Seconds passed. Lewis eventually opened her eyes. The brilliant light was gone. Had she imagined it? Had it all been an illusion? No! People were pointing up into the air! Lewis once again followed the group actions like a sheep, unable to resist the unbearable curiosity that drove her to tilt her head upwards. ‘Magnificent’. ‘Awe-inspiring’. ‘Divine’. These were just some of the words that Lewis later used when relating to people what she had seen that day. "My God," she said softly. A nearby member of station security looked at her. "Yes - probably," he said. The Vorlon was in the air. Floating slowly upwards. Only it wasn’t the Vorlon. The shape in the air was humanoid. It had graceful, faintly translucent wings. It had a benevolent, serene expression on it’s vaguely human face. It was the most beautiful thing in the Galaxy - truly a sign from God. *Which* God was inconsequential to Lewis. In that moment she came closer to ‘believing’ than she ever had in her life so far. Unbidden, a quote from an old piece of Earth literature came to mind: "So in a voice, so in shapeless flame, angels affect us oft and worshipped be..." Lewis then knew, somehow, that the human who was falling though the air was perfectly safe from harm. The ‘angel’ exuded a wonderful feeling of comfort. A feeling of complete peace. Lewis felt it deep within her. She knew that the others felt it too. She closed her eyes and swam in the emotions that she felt. It was a moment that she would long for again for the rest of her life... Lewis could have done with that reassurance now. She was alone, frightened, desperate, unsure of her plan. Perhaps when she met the Vorlon it would all change again. Or perhaps not. She suddenly heard voices coming from nearby. Looks like the goon squad have finally figured out where I am, she thought. Here we go again. "Umm...Delenn?" "Yes John?" "This isn’t quite what I hoped you had in mind." They were in Sheridan’s quarters. They were alone. They were on the bed. They were not, however, doing what Sheridan hoped they would be doing. "John?" "Yes?" "It’s your move." Sheridan moved his King out of danger. Delenn looked at the board for a moment, then moved her Queen forward two squares. "Checkmate," she said. Garibaldi’s voice came over the communications channel: "Looks like she’s gonna reach Kosh’s place before we get to her. You’d better inform the Big Bonzo that he’ll be having some unwanted company." "Big Bonzo?" Ivonava asked. "Just a pet name me and the guys came up with. ‘Ambassador Kosh’ sounds a little too theatrical." "How quaint," Ivonava said. "Whatever turns you on I suppose. Ivonava out." She paused for a moment. "Big Bonzo?" Now what? Lewis thought. I’ve got this far, and now I don’t have anything to do but wait. I just hope Kosh gets out here soon. ‘Soon’ came earlier than she thought. The door to Kosh’s quarters opened barely a minute later. The Vorlon walked out in a peculiar stuttering gait. It stopped a few metres away from Lewis. "What...do...you...want?" Kosh asked lethargically (all the while, an eerie cacophony of bizarre noises coming from it’s ‘mouth’). "How did you know I was out here?" Lewis asked. "You...know." Lewis nodded with satisfaction. "Station personnel are so predictable," she said to herself. "What...do...you...want?" Kosh repeated his earlier question. "I need to speak to you," Lewis answered. "It’s urgent." "It...is...not...necessary." "What? Of course it is. This is a matter of life and death." "No." " ‘No’? What the hell does that mean?" "No." Lewis stared back in amazement at the Vorlon. She slumped to the floor, her back against the wall. She flung her case against the other side of the corridor. To come so far only to fall while leaping the final hurdle, she thought. The Vorlon spoke up: "There...are...other...ways." "What?" Lewis stood and looked sharply at Kosh. "Find...them." Lewis stood. "How - " she started to ask, but was suddenly interrupted as she was grabbed by an unknown assailant from behind her. "Not so fast, Missy," a new voice said. Lewis was forcibly turned around. She was facing three members of station security, one of whom was the person she had been in trouble with earlier. This one turned to the other two. "Okay. Take her away to holding for a while. I’ll be along in a minute." The other two guards led Lewis away, while the one who had spoken stayed behind with Kosh. "Sorry for the disturbance," Garibaldi said. "We would have got here sooner, but we got delayed." "I...know." Garibaldi gave Kosh a puzzled look. "Okay," he finally said. "I’d better go interrogate the prisoner. Thanks for your help in delaying her." Garibaldi made as if to leave. "Mr...Garibaldi?" Kosh said. "Yeah?" "Big...Bonzo?" Sheridan tapped his comm-link. "Sheridan here." "Sorry to disturb you, Captain. We have a situation here," Garibaldi said. Sheridan groaned. "Can’t it wait?" "I’m afraid not. It’s pretty important." "Okay. I’ll be right there. Sheridan out." Sheridan gave another groan. "I sorry Delenn. We have to get untangled from each other now." "Okay John," Delenn said. "It was fun while it lasted." Both Sheridan and Delenn got up from the floor. Wrapped around each other like they were, this was much more difficult than it sounded. They eventually managed it, however, and they both straightened their clothing. Sheridan made for the door. "John!" Sheridan turned back to Delenn. "I had a wonderful time just now. You do know that don’t you?" "Of course I do, Delenn." Sheridan went for the door again. "John?" Sheridan sighed as he turned to Delenn once again. "Yes?" "Is the game ‘Twister’ really held in such high esteem amongst your people?" Sheridan entered the cell. "Okay - what’ve we got?" Garibaldi gestured towards the prisoner. "We picked her up about an hour ago. She was trying to get through to Kosh." Garibaldi turned towards Lewis. "Tell him what you told me," he said. Lewis looked tired. She looked tired because she was tired. Tired of interrogation, tired of her fruitless search, tired of life. She sighed. Oh well, she thought. I might as well get it over with. "Let me begin by telling you what started it all: Twenty years ago I was a Professor of History at the Unified European University. It was while working there that I uncovered something." "What?" "Tell me, Captain - do you know much of the history of the alien worlds of the Galaxy?" "It depends. Which time period?" "About a thousand years ago." Sheridan stiffened and looked at Garibaldi, who remained expressionless. He hoped that the prisoner hadn’t seen his response to her words. Damn, he thought. What’s she stumbled across? "No," he finally trusted himself to say. "Some of the details are a little sketchy, but what we do know about a thousand years ago is that the Galaxy was not in particularly good shape. Petty little wars sprung up all over the place, there was a lack of trust between races, species were driven to the point of extinction." "So?" Sheridan said, feeling a sense of dread about what was coming. "Then it all stopped. The wars halted. Races which had been at war with one another suddenly started to work together. Massive inter-species co-operation started." "So?" Sheridan repeated. "Doesn’t it seem odd to you?" "Not really. Wars *do* end." "Not like that. Not that suddenly. Changes like that don’t just happen without reason." "Even in our own Earth history major changes in society have occurred suddenly" "Yes, but those changes have always been caused by some major event. A natural disaster. Plague. Famine. A new technological discovery. In the twentieth century, the world would have gone to a third world war if it wasn’t for the fact that nuclear technology had been developed to such an extent that it was one of the most destructive forces on the planet. Everyone saw what had happened at Hiroshima and no-one wanted to unleash that terrible power again." "Okay, point taken," Sheridan said. "But what has this got to do with a thousand years ago?" "I was getting to that. I spent a short time looking for records of that time period. Details, as I said, were sketchy. However, I eventually found a reference to an ‘event’ in a piece of manuscript that was supposedly from the Book of G’Quon - a Narn religious text. Most of it was indecipherable, but what I did manage to get from it was that something happened a thousand years ago. Something so important that it caused everyone to sit up and decide to work together against a common enemy." "Like what?" Sheridan asked. "I don’t know," Lewis said. "Like I said, I thought that perhaps a mass plague or something similar like a natural disaster had frightened everyone into working together. This was disproved by the few existing records of the time period. I then thought that perhaps it was due to a massive advance in technology. We know that it often has the affect of changing societies. This was also disproved - again by the few existing records." "The behavioural makeup of many alien species is wildly different to ours," Sheridan said, trying a different approach. "Yeah," Garibaldi said. "The don’t act the same as we do. Their reactions to certain events would be completely different to our reactions, and to each other’s reactions." "No," Lewis answered. "Why do you think I spent two years consulting the top psychologists from literally dozens of worlds? This wasn’t just some stupid theory that I cobbled together after a drunken binge one night." "Perhaps the records were just wrong," Sheridan suggested. "You said yourself that the details were sketchy." "That’s what I thought at first, but a year later I became sure that I was right." "Why?" "I set about contacting as many fellow historians as I could, trying to find out what they knew about what had happened. No-one knew. I eventually decided to contact a few alien ones. The response was surprising to say the least." "They knew the truth?" Sheridan asked. "No - not quite. I contacted a Narn friend of mine. I asked him reasonably politely if he knew anything. He said that he didn’t, but I could tell that he did. As soon as I mentioned anything about the events of one thousand years ago he went as white as a ghost - no mean feat for a Narn. I pressed him about it and he eventually told me that ‘it’s best not to know some things’." "That's the sort of stupid comment that *always* causes trouble," Garibaldi muttered. "I finally decided that the only way I was going to find out what happened was to go to the source of the information. I decided to take two years off to visit a few alien homeworlds. The war with the Minbari prevented my return after that time, so I continued my search. Somehow it lasted fourteen years. I think I was obsessed. "I went to homeworld after homeworld after homeworld. I found nothing. Can you believe that? It was like a massive cover-up had taken place. People pretended not to know anything, records were conveniently ‘misplaced’, threats were made against me if I investigated further. It was like being back in the conspiracy-obsessed days of the twentieth century." Lewis sighed. "I had wasted fourteen years of my life traipsing around all of these God-forsaken places only to find nothing. The last planet that I went to was Minbar. I thought that if the information was going to be anywhere, it would be there. I was stupid to think that it would be different. It wasn’t. I was devastated and finally decided to return home. "On the advice of a friend I made on Minbar, I visited this station on the way home. Jeff said that if any answers could be found, they could be found here. It was just before the end of last year. I was wandering the station aimlessly when there was a disturbance - an explosion - in a garden of some kind..." Lewis’ voice faded in Sheridan’s mind, to be replaced by the stark images of the day which seemed so long ago. The day when he came as close to death as at any time in his life before. Almost a year ago... ...He made it out just in time. He felt the extreme heat of the explosion scorch his back as he flew through the air and started falling. Falling towards certain death. He felt like a fool. Why had he jumped? He would just die from the fall anyway. At least if he hadn’t jumped he’d have been killed instantly, instead of having to go through several minutes of dread, panic, and then the awful impact which would surely kill him... As Lewis finished her account of what she had seen that day, Sheridan seemed to be in a trance... ...He remembered his amazing rescue. He remembered Kosh as an ‘angel’. Above all, however, he remembered seeing Delenn after he was brought down to safety. It was at that moment that he had finally realised that he loved her - although it would take him several months before he acted upon his feelings... Sheridan realised that both the prisoner and Garibaldi were looking at him. "Then what?" he asked Lewis hastily. "Although it was the most astonishingly wonderful moment of my life, I didn’t really make the connection until after I had returned to Earth." "What connection?" "The connection that could allow me to complete my research. The connection with the Vorlons and Earth. The connection that could change everything that we’ve believed in for the past two and a half thousand years!" (continued on next post) --------------- MESSAGE b5-creative.v001.n366.6 --------------- From: wilko@vip.solis.co.uk (Steve W) Subject: Bonzo2 Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 21:04:42 GMT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Babylon 5 is Copyright blah...blah...blah...etc. Some notes can be found at the end of this file. ---------- "So in a voice..." (Continued) Delenn sighed as she sat on John's bed. She hardly ever got to spend any leisure time with him anymore. They were always interrupted by some emergency. She had been stupid in thinking that it would be any different this time. The door swung open. Three figures stood in the doorway. She recognised two of them as Sheridan and Garibaldi. She didn't recognise the third figure - a woman. "What is it?" Delenn asked. "We need to talk," Sheridan said. He turned to Garibaldi. "Wait here." He lead Delenn into an adjoining room, leaving Lewis and Garibaldi standing near the door. "So - what do they call you then?" Lewis asked. "Why do you want to know?" Garibaldi countered. "Just making conversation." "It's `Garibaldi`." "Like the biscuit?" "Actually, it was the name of the heroic General who united Italy in the nineteenth century." "United? More like he started a naval mutiny and then systematically butchered his way through Italy to place a puppet King on the throne." Garibaldi turned to Lewis, a worried look on his face. "Are you saying I share a name with a mass murderer?" he asked. Lewis smiled inwardly. Hook, line, and sinker, she thought. "Delenn," Sheridan implored, "we have to help her." "I see no reason to. All she has is speculation." "Even that can be dangerous. The only way to keep her quiet is to tell her the truth. With any luck, she'll be scared enough to keep the secret." "That's a pretty big gamble to take." "I know. That's why I came to you before I decided anything." "Why does she want to see Kosh anyway? What has it got to do with her work?" "Because she made the connection," Sheridan said. "The connection?" "I'd already figured it out, but I wasn't sure if I was just being paranoid. Now that I've found out someone else thinks it too, I know that I wasn't." "John!" Delenn pleaded. "What connection?" "Tell me Delenn - how long have you know about the Vorlons and Earth?" "What?" Sheridan raised his voice slightly. "How long have they meddled in our affairs? How long have they watched us, interfered with us? How long have we been under their scrutiny?" A guilty look flashed across Delenn's face. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. Sheridan raised his voice even more. "Minbari lie badly - you should know that. It's written all over your face that you know what I'm talking about." "No! It's not true," Delenn blurted "I didn't know. I suspected, yes, but I didn't *know*." "I even thought Sebastian was a one-off," Sheridan continued. "How many other people have they stolen? What else have they interfered with? What more have you kept from me?" Delenn turned away from Sheridan. She didn't trust herself to conceal the lie. "Nothing, John. Truly nothing." Sheridan seemed to calm down a little. He had a sudden impulse to gather Delenn in his arms, but he managed to resist the urge - well, at least for a few seconds. He eventually embraced his Minbari lover, and she buried her head in his shoulder. They stood like that for a few moments, each not wanting to say anything for fear of breaking the beauty of the moment. Finally, Delenn raised her head. "What now?" she asked. "We go find the Vorlon," Sheridan answered. "She knows," Delenn told Kosh. She was in his quarters - alone. "How?" Kosh asked in his usual, irritatingly slow manner. "She was there when you made your...manifestation last year. She then made the obvious connection that the Vorlons had been visiting the worlds of the younger races for millennia. She recognised your image from a painting of something she called an 'angel'. It also occurred to her that you have been *interfering* with the affairs of her planet for thousands of years. An excerpt from a piece of Earth literature I think puts it best: 'angels affect us oft and worshipped be'." Kosh remained silent. "There are legends on Earth of 'angels'. It is believed that these supposedly mythical beings were messengers from God. The 'angels' watched over the people of Earth. Guided them. Interfered with their affairs. The human woman now knows that your people were active in the Galaxy a thousand years ago. She believes that you or one of your kind will be able tell her what she needs to know in order to complete her work." Still the silence from Kosh. "I also believe that you can tell *me* some things: was I naive to think that Sebastian was a one-off? Have you taken people from my world too?" Again, nothing from the Vorlon. "What is the extent of your tampering? Do your people have some kind of secret agenda?" Kosh chose that moment to break his silence: "Yes," he said. "I wonder why she's been in there for this long," Sheridan said. "I wonder what Ambassador Kosh is telling her," Lewis said. "I wonder if the Vorlons have Elvis," Garibaldi said. Sheridan and Lewis both gave Garibaldi a look which the security chief later called the 'Icy Death Stare'. "Wow," he said. "Come on you two. It was a joke. Don't go nuts, okay?" The door to Kosh's quarters opened suddenly. Delenn walked out, a worried expression on her face. "Well?" Sheridan asked. "He said that we should tell her the truth." "Is that all he said?" It took all of Delenn's willpower to keep the lie from her face. "Yes," she said. "So she's with Delenn?" Ivonava asked. "Yeah," Garibaldi replied. "And she's going to be told about the Shadows and a thousand years ago and all that stuff?" "Yeah." "And she'll keep quiet?" "Hopefully." Ivonava looked sceptical. "What's to stop her running back home and writing some paper about it?" "We're hoping that what Delenn tells her will scare her enough so she'll keep quiet. It's a pretty big gamble to take, but I think it'll pay off," Garibaldi said. "By the way," Ivonava said. "What was in the case you said she was carrying?" "Lewis said that it contains the data crystals which hold every scrap of research that she's collected over the past twenty years," "Where's the case now?" Ivonava asked. "That's the weird thing," Garibaldi said. "I saw her throw it on the floor near Kosh when I arrived there. When I looked a minute later it was gone." "You mean Kosh has it?" "Yeah, probably." "Lewis won't be able to go running off and writing about anything without her research." "Yup." "Doesn't it seem a little too lucky that Kosh got to it? I mean, if you guys hadn't gotten delayed while chasing her, she wouldn't have got anywhere near Kosh's quarters." Garibaldi stiffened. "The devious son-of-a..." "What?" "When I was dragging Londo back to his quarters he mentioned something. At the time I thought it was just part of his drunken ramble. But now..." "What? What did he say?" "He said something about Kosh sending him a 'present'." "You think that this 'present' may have been bottle-shaped?" Ivonava asked, her eyes widening. "Yeah," Garibaldi replied. "And where did those reports of the Na'ka'leen Feeder came from?" Ivonava tapped a few commands into the terminal in front of her. "It says here - " her eyes widened as she saw the words on the screen. "Kosh!" she exclaimed. "Exactly. Somebody's *got* to have a word with that scheming bastard one of these days." "What do you want me to do with the case?" Lyta asked Kosh. "Destroy...it," the Vorlon answered. "Destroy...it - now!" Lewis and Delenn both sat facing one another at a table. The Minbari was wondering where she should begin as she stared blankly at the inquisitive stranger. "Where do I start?" Delenn asked. "At the beginning, perhaps?" Lewis answered, raising an eyebrow. Delenn nodded, took a deep breath, and started to speak: "There are beings in the universe that are billions of years older than any of our races. They walked among the stars like giants, vast yet timeless. They created great empires, taught the new races, explored beyond the rim. The oldest of these Ancients are called the Shadows. We have no other name for them..." As Delenn continued her oration, Lewis felt little triumph at finally completing her quest. She knew that no matter how fascinating the revelation, no matter how momentous; the information would be both terrifying and dangerous... The End ------------------------------------------------ I'm not too happy with this story. It's nowhere near my best work. When I started it, I thought I'd be able to shoehorn a story idea that I'd had into the Babylon 5 universe. Looks like it didn't work. It would've worked better as a novella. I'd have been able to go into Lewis' actual search more (which I had originally planned to do), and get some actual characterisation in there. You may also notice that the `prose` is very lazy. I *could* go back and tighten it all up, but I figured I'd see what people thought first. By the way, someone mentioned to me that they thought that my story is a little too `talky`. I dunno, I'm just rubbish at descriptive writing I suppose. I've also just realised that I haven't mentioned in the story what the main character (Lewis) looks like. All I've mentioned is her age. Ah well, it doesn't make much difference (mainly because the character is so poorly drawn out that no-one really cares about her). What else? Umm...character motivations are a little askew (especially Lewis. Would she *really* go off for fourteen years like that? I think not); there's a massive plot hole which I forgot to consider when I wrote the story; I also had to cut down Garibaldi's part in the story a lot because I couldn't get a hold of the character; Sheridan is mainly superfluous to proceedings; the `Kosh-speak` isn't quite right; the last words which Delenn speaks are lifted straight from an episode of the show (301); the story trails off about 1/3 into it; it doesn't work as drama; the dialogue is a little...er...crap; there's too many sighs from the main characters; the `big terrible connection/revelation/cucumber/kosh thing` is not exactly that suprising or terrible; the story lacks any real point; my Garibaldi/Bruce Willis gag didn't add anything to the story and wasn't realistic so I removed it (perhaps I'll include it in my next story); Sheridan over-reacts in his confrontation with Delenn; the story may be at odds with stuff in Season 4 (which I haven't yet seen)....I could go on, but I won't. Oh well. It's suppose it's not bad for my first attempt at a non-comedic story. Don't worry. I'll do better next time (or my name's not Jerry the Poker Playing Penguin). As always, comments are welcome at wilko@vip.solis.co.uk Next project: Back to what I am (allegedly) good at - Comedy.