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An elderly Minbari male arrives on the station and asks to be shown to
Ambassador Delenn.
[INLINE] Asking for directions.
Epsilon 3, the planet B5 is orbiting, is experiencing large
earthquakes. Ivanova and Sinclair clear Dr. Tasaki, a geologist, to
take a shuttle closer to the planet and collect data.
On his way to a negotiation session, Sinclair runs into Talia Winters
waiting for the transport tube. She comments that Garibaldi is always
in the tube waiting for her, and sure enough, he's there when the door
opens. She opts to take the stairs.
As Dr. Tasaki's shuttle nears the surface of the planet, a powerful
energy beam suddenly fires into space from below ground, knocking the
shuttle out of control. Ivanova orders two Starfuries to tow the
shuttle back to base. When he returns, Tasaki is eager to go down
again the next day with more equipment, to try to figure out what's
causing the beam.
Sinclair is presiding over a negotiation between Delenn and Londo
about trade routes. The negotiation proceeds smoothly, which Londo
attributes to G'Kar's absence. Delenn assures him that G'Kar's anger
will fade with time, but Londo insists that the Narn hatred of the
Centauri is intense enough to reduce Centauri Prime to ash if it could
be made physical -- and the Centauri react to that hatred by hating
the Narn all the more. After Londo leaves, Delenn comments to Sinclair
that if Londo is right, if future generations won't be born into a
brighter world, "then life is pointless, and evolution vastly
overrated."
[INLINE] Londo describes the Narns' hatred.
Later, Ivanova tells Sinclair that the beam is a signal, perhaps a
beacon, though nobody has been able to decipher it. She remarks that
the day's Earth Force status report didn't say anything about the Mars
colony, very unusual as it's mentioned every day.
Delenn is returning to her quarters when she's met by the Minbari male
who boarded the station earlier. His name is Draal, and he's an old
teacher of hers.
Sinclair is preparing for bed, watching the news on TV. The anchor is
interrupted by a special report from the Mars colony: an armed revolt
has begun, and heavy fighting is reported. The news show is able to
broadcast a few moments of a field report before the reporter is cut
off. Sinclair shuts off the television, disturbed.
Before he can contemplate further, a flickering image appears in
midair across the room, an alien man who pleads for Sinclair's help
before vanishing abruptly.
[INLINE] Pleading for help.
The next morning, Sinclair and Ivanova talk about the situation on
Mars over breakfast. Sinclair, of course, was born there, and it's his
home that's being blasted apart; but neither of them has friends or
family there any more. Garibaldi, according to Ivanova, is taking the
news badly.
Draal joins Delenn in her quarters. After thanking her for arranging
for his quarters, he says that he left Minbar because it's changing
for the worse, the people growing dissatisfied, self-involved to the
exclusion of others; they've lost their sense of purpose. He says that
he's "going to the sea" -- journeying out into the sea of stars in the
hopes of finding a place where he's needed. Delenn is shocked.
Garibaldi tries to get a comm channel to Mars, but the government has
imposed a communications blackout and he's not highly-placed enough to
get through despite the blackout.
Ivanova briefs Dr. Tasaki and his crew, reminding them that the
Starfuries escorting them are only designed for spaceflight and won't
be able to help if the shuttle goes into the planet's atmosphere.
Tasaki agrees not to do that, and the shuttle and escort are launched.
[INLINE] Ivanova briefs the shuttle crew.
Garibaldi goes to Talia and explains that when he was working security
on Mars, he met and got involved with a woman named Lise Hampton. It
was serious, but when he accepted Sinclair's offer to come to Babylon
5, he and Lise broke up angry with each other. They haven't spoken
since, but now he's worried sick about her. He asks Talia to try to
get him a comm channel via the secret Psi Corps training facility on
Mars -- a facility, Talia notes with surprise, that he's not supposed
to know about.
[INLINE] Garibaldi talks about Lise.
Ignoring Ivanova's order, Tasaki takes the shuttle into the upper part
of the atmosphere to get more detailed sensor readings. Suddenly, a
barrage of missiles is launched from the surface. One of them strikes
the shuttle, but after Ivanova has the Starfuries disorient the
missiles from orbit, Tasaki and his crew manage to escape safely.
Back on the station, Tasaki shows Sinclair and Ivanova a
high-resolution image he captured just after the missiles were
launched. It shows them coming from deep inside a fissure in the
surface, five kilometers below the surface. Sinclair easily convinces
Ivanova that the two of them should take a shuttle down to take a
closer look, justifying his presence because it might be a first
contact.
[INLINE] Tasaki describes the image.
Garibaldi is in the zocalo, looking miserable. Londo cheers him up by
telling him a story. Londo was sitting in a club one day, looking
miserable, when one of the dancers kissed him and told him it couldn't
be that bad. He married her, regretted it the next morning, and has
regretted it ever since.
On his way back to his quarters, Londo sees the same alien Sinclair
saw earlier. Once again, it asks for help, then vanishes.
With orbiting Starfuries disorienting the missiles, Sinclair and
Ivanova take a shuttle into the fissure, where they discover an
artificial tunnel in the rock face. They land on a platform inside and
put on breathers to go have a look around.
[INLINE] Distracting the planetary defenses.
Talia speaks with a member of the Psi-Corps, someone at the Mars
facility. The woman refuses to let Garibaldi have a link -- doing so
would confirm the existence of the facility, and he might be asking
for a channel just to find out if the place really exists -- but she
offers to look Lise Hampton's name up in the files and see if she's
all right. Fighting is occuring less than a quarter-mile away from the
facility, it seems; the Free Mars movement was much better armed and
organized than anyone suspected.
Sinclair and Ivanova explore some smaller side tunnels on foot. They
pass a dead alien, then nearly stumble into a high-tech deathtrap, but
Sinclair sees it in time and the two of them make it through
uninjured. They find themselves on a bridge spanning what looks like
the hollow core of a gargantuan machine, miles tall with huge parts
moving up and down the walls.
[INLINE] Sinclair and Ivanova cross the bridge.
Delenn and Draal visit Londo, who complains that he's unable to
comprehend Earth people. As an example, he quotes a song he's been
studying for a week. "It doesn't mean _anything_," he complains.
Talia visits Garibaldi in the command center and tells him Lise
Hampton isn't on the survivor list. Garibaldi refuses to believe that
something has happened to her, but seems somewhat numb.
An earthquake cuts off the tunnel behind Sinclair and Ivanova.
Continuing forward, they see another projection of the alien Sinclair
saw on the station. This time, though, the real alien is just around
the corner, strapped into the center of a huge machine on the wall.
"Help me," he says, "or your people, _all_ your people, will die."
They help him out of the machine and take him back to the shuttle.
With fighter cover, they head full-speed back toward the station.
Sinclair orders Garibaldi to have a medical team standing by.
Garibaldi is relieved to hear that they're returning, but his relief
is cut short when a tech announces that a ship, a _big_ ship, is
coming through the jump gate. He looks down at his computer display.
"What the hell?"
_To be continued..._
Synopsis by [9]Steven Grimm
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[16]Last update: March 19, 1997
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