Disclaimers: Babylon 5 and its characters are owned by JMS, Warner Brothers and TNT. The rest I made up. This story is written for the enjoyment of the reader and not to infringe on any copyrights.
Comments can be sent to: AJMarks01@aol.com
The Primeval War
by
A.J. Marks
Part 2
Garibaldi and the insect-like Shadow arrived in the Med-Lab. They first talked to the injured Shadow pilot. They learned that he had been ambushed while on route to Babylon 5 to warn them of what was happening. Garibaldi showed the Shadow that was with him the picture that was retrieved from the White Stars. They both agreed that it was a picture of a ship from the enemy race that was attacking them.
Garibaldi decided to try the young woman who was sitting quietly across the Med-Lab. He walked over to her and she looked up at him curiously.
“I’m going to show you a picture and I want to see if you recognize the ship in it.”
“She still doesn’t understand our language yet.” A med tech told him.
“Well I’m going to show her this and see if there is a reaction.” He told the lab tech.
He sat down next to her and she had a look of curiosity on her face. He showed her the picture of the ship and watched for a reaction from her. He was not ready for what happen next. The young woman suddenly screamed and curled up into a ball. She started saying something that no one could understand. Garibaldi also noticed the look of absolute fear on her face.
The door opened to the Med-Lab and Sheridan, Delenn and a couple of robed figures walked in, three in black and one in blue with golden stripes on it. The blue robed one went straight to the woman and started to talk to her in her language.
“What happened?” The blue one asked Garibaldi.
“I just showed her this.” Garibaldi told the robed figure and held out the picture of the ship.
“I see.” The figure said, it then turned toward one of the black robed figures and spoke in a different language. The black robed figure then walked out of the room and the blue one turned toward the group standing there. “It seems that we have a common enemy. We will explain a little bit later in your council room.”
The robed figure then turned its attention toward the woman and pulled the cloak back and revealed a human face, and brown short hair. The woman looked at him and threw her arms around him. One of the other robed figures turned toward the two and conversed with them. He then turned toward Sheridan.
“I am instructed to tell you what is going on. Is there a place where I can tell everyone so I will not have to repeat myself?”
“Yes there is, Delenn can you tell the representatives that there is to be a council meeting as soon as possible.” Sheridan asked her. Before she could respond another aide came into the room and approached Sheridan.
“President Sheridan, there has been a call to have a planetary council meeting right now by the representative from Dluth.”
“Well Delenn, I guess you don’t need to round up all the representatives for the meeting.” Sheridan told his wife.
“Are you coming with us?” Delenn asked the robed figure.
“Yes.” He responded.
Delenn glanced back toward the Med-Lab at the young woman and blue robed man. He seemed to be telling her something in their language and she had visibly relaxed and he had pulled her into his lap.
“Yes Delenn, they are very good friends, ones who haven’t seen each other in a long time. In fact he thought she was dead!” The robed figure told her as he noticed her watching.
“What is up with the rest of you guys?” Garibaldi asked him.
“They are guards for the Princess Zabmi, I know this doesn’t make since and I know I do not have all the answers. The answers you probably seek Bzed has and he is not leaving Princess’ Zabmi’s side.” He responded to Garibaldi.
It seems that the more you speak the less I know.” Sheridan told him as they made their way toward the council.
The four of them, President Sheridan, Garibaldi, and the robed figure entered the council room. There they were greeted by a bunch of yelling by different members who were accusing each other of something. One member had a green head and was wearing a green robe and the other one had gray skin and had similar features to humans.
“You are a lair and now the whole council knows it, so why do you keep denying it?” The green headed one yelled at the other one.
“Will you all please SIT DOWN?” Sheridan yelled.
“See, the president himself has probably been withholding this information that could have saved my people.” The green one said now accusing Sheridan.
“Ambassador if you will kindly sit down and tell me what happened then maybe I can agree or disagree with what you have accused me with.” Sheridan said as he was taking his seat in front of the council room. Delenn sat down next to him, Garibaldi stood near the door with the robed figure.
“President Sheridan, we know that something is going on. We know that there are Shadow and Vorlon vessels around the station. We also know that almost all of the White Star fleet has been recalled to the station. Now a short while ago I have lost all contact with my homeworld. The last report I received was they had come under attack by some invading race. We also know that his race,” he pointed to the gray skinned ambassador, “our neighbors, have been trying to expand their space. He says that he doesn’t know anything about it, I call for sanctions or war against them.”
“Ambassador, you are partly right. I have kept something from you regarding the fleets orbiting the station.” A murmur rose because of Sheridan’s statement. “I was about to call for a meeting to discuss the events. I was asked by one of our guests on the station to call the meeting so he could talk to you. I believe that it will answer some questions that we have. I also believe that the same race that attacked the Vorlons, and Shadows attacked your homeworld ambassador. Now I’ll let our guest talk to you.”
The robed figure walked toward the center of the floor. He pulled back his hood to reveal his face. Many were shocked by the strong resemblance to the Human race.
“You will notice that we resemble the Human race, but we are not humans. My race is older than the Shadows are. My race is called Gmih. Just recently I was shown a picture of a ship that had attacked a Shadow vessel. This attacking ship is from an evil race called the Zes. I am certain that the race that attacked your homeworld was a Zes invasion fleet. In our language zes means slavers because that is what they are.
“Many years ago my race was like many of yours, we had started to explore space. We then encountered the Zes. They made contact with us and promised us useful technology and help for our race. They came to our planet, landed and then conquered it. There were few survivors that day. We later learned that if they thought that a race was violent they killed them all. They would look for peaceful races to conquer and enslave.
“The few who did survived were able to create a small fleet to challenge the Zes. One of the survivors was Bzed, our leader. The first small fleet was crushed, their technology was no match for us. Bzed was a brilliant scientist. He developed new was to develop power plants, weapons, and a different jump engine design. He and a few survivors also developed cloning. And yes I am a clone.
“I was one of the first clones that they created. With a new population, and workforce from the new clones we were able to create a new base, and fleet. We learned that the Zes also used clones for their fleet and their fleet was huge. It number in the hundreds of millions at that time, maybe even a billion ships.
“We found out that there were few allies that we could make, almost all races had been enslaved or destroyed by the Zes. The few races that had managed to avoid attacks from the Zes were unwilling to help. The Zes had scared all of the races to the point that nobody challenged them. They are a fierce race who cares nothing about honor or rights. They will stab you in the back if they feel like it.
“It took a couple of years but we were able to create a fleet and main base of operations for the fleet. We were able to create construction yards and cloning factories for the war. When we finally started to attack the Zes again this time we did it with a fleet of thousands instead of about thirty. The war lasted for over a hundred years and millions of billions of lives were lost.
“Later after the war was over it was called The Primeval War. The first of the known space wars, however I am sure that other races challenged them. The war was very costly in lives, as I have mentioned because of the cloning factories on both sides. We were able to produce, man and have combat ready about a hundred ships in a week. It didn’t take long for the battles to involve tens or hundreds of thousands of warships. There were so many battles that a contest between fleets of less than a thousand warships on either side was no even worth mention.
“The war went on for so long that someone had to change tactics. In large battles usually the planet was destroyed, and sometimes the system. Stars would be destroyed in the larger battles that involved millions of warships. Bzed then decided that lives were being lost to casually. Promising systems that held life were being destroyed by our battles and very few livable planets were remaining in this area of space. Bzed decided to hold a meeting of the top advisors that had emerged form the clones.
“We decided at that meeting to stop trying to destroy their ships, but we should try to destroy their ability to make the ships and clones. Unlike today’s warfare the clones made it impossible to infiltrate the enemy. Espionage did not exist because it was ineffective and spies were recognized right away.
“It took about twenty years but we finally managed to start putting a dent in their ability to make clones and warships. We then got a big break and found out through interrogation where their largest base was. The important piece of information was that the top scientists and the majority of their fleet were usually based at this base.
“We planned the operation very carefully and waited for about a year before we attacked it. At the time of the attack our two fleets were about even and had been for about half the war.
“Our attack of this base, which we called base Alpha, was the key to winning the war. The battle of the base involved almost a trillion warships. It lasted for about two days, but in the end we destroyed their fleet, factories and scientist. We then went to systematically destroying their other cloning factories and were able to beat them. The Zes eventually disappeared and we haven’t heard from them till today. The shuttle that appeared here a couple of days ago was a Zes slave shuttle. They used them to transfer new slaves to their homeplanet.
“We knew that we hadn’t see the last of the Zes so we went into a suspended sleep and let our scanners alert us to when they would return. One of our advanced systems was using the Death Walkers. They travel lots of areas and attract a lot of attention to themselves. I will try to answer any questions that anyone might have.”
“Why should we believe you, you could be the cause of it?” One ambassador asked.
“You don’t.” He answered.
“I believe them.” Garibaldi told the room of ambassadors. “As many of you know I have been showing you a picture of a warship lately. That ship was what attacked the Shadow and Vorlons. There is a young woman in the Med-Lab that went absolutely berserk when I showed her the picture. The terror on her face was not faked.”
“As much I hate to admit it, we need their help. This Zes’ race warships are very powerful. One of their ships tore to shreds five White Stars.” Sheridan’s comment was met with gasps and looks of shock on many of the ambassadors’ faces.
"Their ships are highly advanced, and not even the combind might of all the first ones could stop them." The Shadow ambassador said.
“I guess we don’t have many options left Sheridan, do we know where they might attack next?” The gray skinned ambassador asked them.
“Yes we do, we believe that they are going to attack here next.” Garibaldi told the room.
In the Med-Lab the blue robed Gmih was talking with the doctor on duty about young woman’s injuries. The blue robed figure then introduced himself to the doctor.
“My name is Bzed, and her name is Zabmi.” The Blue robed figure said.
“Pleased to meet you, my name is Dr. Lu Chin.” The young female doctor said.
“You an your team took good care of her, I thank you for your efforts and she also says thanks for your help.”
“It is what we train for, I’m just glad that things worked out this time.”
“I think you better sharpen your skills because it’s going to get worse, a war is about to start.”
“You think so? And I don’t what to pry but what were you telling her, it seemed to quiet her down?”
“Yes I do believe so, and I just told her that her nightmares won’t hurt her anymore.”
He was interrupted from saying anymore from another black robed figure walking into the room and saying something to Bzed that the doctor could not understand. She did notice that the young woman, Zabmi, was able to understand them. For a second she looked terrified again, but Bzed turned toward her and put his arms around her and whispered something in her ear. Whatever he said seemed to calm her down. Bzed turned toward the doctor.
“Do you have anything to help her relax?”
“Yes I do, would you like me to give her some?”
“Yes, she is very tense and worried, but I told her nothing would happen to our princess.”
As the Lu was injecting a relaxant into Zabmi she wonder about that comment. ‘She is a princess?’ It just didn’t make since, what was she not in a robe like the others and why would she be here.
As the council broke up Michael Garibaldi was wondering the same question that Dr. Lu Chin was wondering.
“Why do you call the young woman in the Med-Lab a princess?” He finally asked. He noticed that both Delenn and Sheridan both perked up and were listening carefully to the other’s answer.
“As I mentioned before I am a clone right?” He noticed the others shaking their heads in affirmative so he continued. “The war took a great toll on the non-cloned ones, in fact, only Bzed and Zabmi are not clones. They carry the original DNA of our race, the clones were modified for better strength and stamina. We can even survive for a small time in a vacuum. In a way we were created for the single purpose of war Mr. Garibaldi.”
“So you call her princess out of respect for her DNA?” Delenn asked.
“That is a small part of it, we always called the non-cloned ones princess or lords to respect where we came from and for what we fought for. We didn’t know about her until just a little while ago.” He looked at the shocked expressions on their faces and explained some more. “Somehow the ship was transported through time to this time. And before you ask how we could survive so long our DNA was altered and the aging process was slowed down till it almost stops.”
“Well this is a lot to think about. Do you think we can win against the Zes?” Sheridan asked the robed man.
“Yes I do, yes I do.”
End Part 2