Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 14:01:10 -0600 (CST) From: Richard Hazlewood To: Creative Babylon5 Subject: STORY: The Only One 3/4 Hi All, Here is part 3. ====================================================================== DISCLAIMER: This story is copyrighted (1995) by Richard Hazlewood. All rights reserved. Electronic transfer and storage is permitted. Just don't make any money off of it (yeah right). NOTICE: This story takes place early in the THIRD season of Babylon 5. (I know, quite a risk with half of the second season still to be aired...) ============================================================== The Only One By Richard Hazlewood Introduction (Voice of Ambassador G'Kar) The Babylon project was a dream given form. 250,000 beings in a station five miles long located in Neutral Space. It was the Third Age of Mankind. The Great War was spreading across the galaxy. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. A shining beacon in space, all alone in the night. Conceived in peace, it had become our only refuge. It was our last, best hope of peace. It is the Earth year 2260. The name of the place is Babylon 5. ACT III In a deserted section of Downbelow, a lone man rested in a dark corner. Suddenly, he took a deep breath and looked up. Jumping quickly to his feet, he reached behind him and drew his sword. Taking a defensive stance, he faced the nearest door and waited. "I see your reactions are as good as I have heard." Came Morden's voice from the other side of the door. "I am glad to see that you will at least make this one interesting. I had heard you were a pacifist." Stepping into the room, sword in hand, Morden began circling the stranger, seeking out a weakness in the other's defense. "Morden, I should have known it would be you. Have you killed the others as well?" "Yes, Shin Qo, all the others. Only a few remain but there can be only ONE!" With the last word, Morden swung his sword in a vicious cross-body slash. Shin Qo, reacted, but was not able to completely block the full force of the blow. His left arm was slashed open and blood began to soak his shirt. Almost immediately however, the wound closed, and within a few seconds the only sign that he had been injured was the ripped fabric of his shirt and the bloodstains. Morden swung again, this time aiming for the regenerating arm. Shin Qo deflected the blow clumsily and riposted with a wicked backhanded strike of his own. Morden smoothly blocked the blow and retaliated. The fight continued for several minutes. Morden smiled. Shin Qo was not a good swordsman and Morden enjoyed toying with his victim. The apparent stalemate might have continued indefinitely had not the Shadows interfered. Presuming that their Chosen One might not win this fight, they entered the fray. Becoming partially solid, one of the Shadows appeared behind Shin Qo. Seeing that his allies were trying to help, Morden decided to finish the fight. He drove his opponent back with a flurry of cross-body slashes and overhead smashes. Driven back, Shin Qo was only able to defend, not attack. As he continued to move back, he got closer and closer to the semi-translucent spider shape behind him. Shin Qo stepped back again and the Shadow struck. Shin Qo felt a sharp pain lance up his left leg. Reacting quickly, he tried to hop to his right and defend himself from this new attack while still holding off Morden. However, Morden beat Shin Qo to the spot. In one quick stroke, Morden severed Shin Qo's head. For an eerie moment, the body balanced in place, as if reluctant to admit that it had been defeated. Then, slowly, ponderously, the corpse collapsed into itself. The Shadow faded back from whence it came as the mist of the Quickening rose from the dead body of Shin Qo and overcame Morden. First, all of the electrical lights in the area exploded in a pyrotechnic nightmare. A wind came up from nowhere and swirled all the loose debris in the area into a violent, blinding whirlwind. Arcs of blue energy transfixed Morden's body as the essence, the very soul and power of Shin Qo left it's now dead master and merged with that of Morden's. One particularly large bolt struck Morden in the chest throwing his arms and head back in a mixture of pain and ecstacy. Just as quickly as it had started, it ended. The darkened section of the station returned to the quiet that it had known before the fight. Slowly, almost wearily, Morden reached down and retrieved his opponents sword from the ground near the corpses feet. "There can be only ONE." Hearing the approach of what was undoubtedly Security, he quickly slipped behind a pile of crates and down a dimly lit corridor to the neighboring section. Sinclair sat on the couch in his quarters, stunned. The amount of information he had received had almost overloaded his brain. Immortality, the Prize, Morden. It was all too much. Delenn and McCloud were waiting for him to recover somewhat. Finally, McCloud could wait no longer. "Sinclair, we must act now. The Gathering has already started. Unless you want Morden to kill you and plunge the galaxy into darkness, you HAVE to snap out of this. Come on man! You are an officer in Earth Force. Start acting like one!" With his last words, McCloud reached over and grabbed Sinclair's arm. Sinclair looked up into blue-grey eyes. Taking a deep breath, he nodded. "Good." McCloud said, "Now it is time that you heard my story. If there is any chance of us defeating Morden, we must trust each other. "In 1988, I defeated the last of the old immortals, the Kurgen, and gained the Prize. With it's power, I pulled the world back from nuclear war. With my help, communism collapsed and the Cold War ended, Russia and China peacefully changed into more open societies. I couldn't do everything of course. It took a decade to settle the problems in Yugoslavia. But with the Prize, I managed. Eventually, new immortals were born. That was when I realized that the Prize was not the end, but part of a cycle. With each immortal born, I lost a little of the Power. After a hundred and fifty years, I realized that if I was going to be able to do any lasting good, I needed to do something before I lost it all. That was when I started to transfer bits of the Power to others, to mortals. I travelled around the world. Everywhere I went, I gave bits of the Power to unborn children. There, the Power was nurtured and grew. Eventually, these infants were born and they were able to use their gift. I hoped to help all mankind." "The first telepaths." Sinclair whispered in understanding. "Yes, the first telepaths. I hoped to teach them to use their understanding of others to help create a Utopia. But, lately, something has changed. The PsiCorp has become something to be feared. "Now, after almost three hundred years, I have no Power left. Everything I had, I gave to the telepaths. They continue to grow on their own. I am no longer needed." "What does all this have to do with me?" Sinclair asked. "You are the last immortal to be born in this Age. Also, you are the only one not born on Earth. The next age will need someone with a perspective that is larger than the planet of our birth. You have that vision. You must be the One." "What am I supposed to do then, kill you?" "Yes." Came the simple answer. Sinclair and Delenn were both shocked. Surely this man who had lived for almost a thousand years did not plan on simply letting himself be killed. As if reading their minds, McCloud continued, "I do not belong in this galaxy. I belong to another, older world. A simpler world without Jump Gates and Lasers. I am tired." "But surely you don't expect me to just..." "No. I do not. You do not have the skills. You have never even touched a sword before. Morden would have no trouble killing you. What we must do is force a situation where he will be vulnerable and then you must kill him." "But what about you?" "I will be the bait." ====================================================================== Virtually Yours, Richard Hazlewood RHAZLWD@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU Do not assume malice when stupidity will suffice. -Flame War Comment =========================================================================