Babylon 5 Episode 14 Season 2
Journal of John Sheridan Captain of Babylon 5
I’d hoped to try and clear my head this week. Commander Ivanova is more than capable of handling the station with Garibaldi as back up, that left me free to fly. I said I wanted to test out the fighters we inherited from the Churchill, and that was true, those craft do need to be assessed, but it doesn’t necessarily take the station’s captain to do it. It was an excuse for me to what I do best, and what I like to do most…fly. I may be a captain, but at heart I’m still a rocket jockey.
I was enjoying myself until we got a distress call. Even the action was welcome, until I found out who the call was from. Psi-Cop Bester. Part of me said to let the little weasel get lost in space, I don’t like to admit it, but even now I think my finger hovered over the trigger. Who would know? Who would even care? Against my better judgement I responded to his call and brought him onboard the Babylon.
Much as I dislike Bester and all he stands for, I do have to admit he’s capable and while I don’t agree with his methods he does get results. Even when we drugged him to prevent him from using his telepathic powers against us I still thought he was dangerous and for that reason I didn’t trust him when he said he wanted to help us and that he wasn’t going to scan us. For that reason it was Susan I sent to speak to him. Commander Ivanova’s small telepathic abilities mean that she knows when someone is trying to scan her, if Bester tried that then we’d know he was lying and was not to be trusted, and I’d keep him locked up on the station until it rusts and falls out of the sky. I knew it put Ivanova in an uncomfortable position, but it’s one of those difficult situations a captain has to deal with as best he can.
While Susan was assessing Bester I had the problem of G’Kar to wrestle with. I like the Narn, and the help of his people as security staff and in the battle against Earthforce has been invaluable. I indicated that in response to that assistance I’d bring him into the inner circle. He’s been agitating about that, and I believe he can be of assistance, but he’s a loose cannon, and he could be a liability. I’m not the best person to discuss matters like this with an alien. I was relieved when Delenn offered to do this for me. She’s a member of the inner circle and she possibly has more knowledge of the Shadows that anyone on board, except maybe Kosh or Marcus Cole, and they both plays their cards close to their chests. Delenn’s also a diplomat. I was concerned for her during that meeting with G’Kar as he is volatile and unpredictable, but my Minbari beauty knows how to handle herself in all sorts of situations, as I’m discovering on an almost daily basis.
Ivanova was obviously shaken when she returned from her meeting with Bester. I’m sure the little rat said something to try and shake her. How does a person like that develop? However he was true to his word, and for that reason he’s probably telling the truth about not liking what’s happening on Earth or with Clarke and the Shadows. Unfortunately that means we also have to accept that there’s a Shadow ship out there carrying weapons components and that Bester has the telepathic ability to lead us to it. This necessitates taking him onto the Whitestar, and I’d really rather keep that ship’s existence from him, but needs must I suppose.
Taking on and beating a Shadow ship was quite a coup although it was largely unnoticed because of what we recovered from it. Bester’s so called ‘weapons components’ were frozen telepaths. The fact that one of them tried to attack my head doctor and then integrated itself with some of our systems makes Bester’s statements true in a way that even he didn’t realise. He says he was in love with this telepath and that seems to motivate his antipathy towards the Shadows. I’m sorry, but I can’t take anything the man says at face value. My experience of him is that anything he does, he does to benefit Bester, no one else. That the girl is pregnant opens up an entirely new can of worms that I’m not sure we can deal with. I don’t trust Bester, but we’ll just have to work with each other for the present. We do have a common enemy.
Garibaldi did something I never expected. He found something in G’Kar’s version of the bible; the book of G’Quan, that could help us defeat the Shadows. The Narn have dealt with the Shadows before and it’s all contained in the book of G’Quan. I hope G’Kar agrees to work with Michael on his, because while I respect him as a security chief he isn’t a scholar and the book is written entirely in Narn. I’m amazed he was able to uncover what he did, a fresh set of eyes with a little extra knowledge maybe?
Damn finding that ship, a ship of tears.
End of journal entry.