They came from nowhere, simply appearing, shimmering into view. There were three of them, black and sinister, shadows against the night sky.

The crew of the two Drazi ships knew full well what they were, and they were not afraid. Perhaps these…. mysterious aliens had been able to defeat the Brakiri expeditionary force sent out against them, but what could you expect from Brakiri anyway? This crew were Drazi, and they were true warriors. After all, hadn't they fought these…. Shadows already? At Epsilon 3. They had survived that, and they would survive this.

The first Sunhawk was sliced in pieces by the first Shadow ship. Its crew died without the chance even to scream. The other soared forward, firing its forward ion cannons. The Shadow dodged the blast effortlessly and rose above the warship.

An instant later, the second Sunhawk was gone.

The three Shadow vessels departed from normal space, none so much as scratched, leaving behind them only the wreckage and the dead.

The images faded, and Delenn sighed softly. So many dead, so many lives annihilated in a mere split second. Such a tragic waste, and it had been she who had arranged their deaths. Oh, refusing the Shadows' false offers of peace had been the only course of action, but ultimately it had been her decision. She had made it, and these people had died as result.

There was a gentle hush amongst the members of the Council. Delenn's first glance was to Vizhak and Taan Churok, the two Drazi members. They had been here from the very beginning, and they had each served the Alliance well. But they were still Drazi, and some things remained no matter how much time was spent among aliens.

"We will send more ships," Vizhak announced. "And we will keep sending ships until these Shadows are all destroyed."

"You can send all the ships you like," Delenn said softly. "You will only create more of the dead. The Enemy is too powerful for that. They are also too quick. You saw yourself just how the ambush turned around there. Did both ships have telepaths?"

The two Drazi looked at each other, and then proceeded to find many things of interest in the papers before them.

Delenn sighed again, rubbing at her eyes. She had not slept well last night. Not at all. "Telepaths are the only real weapon we have against the Shadows," she said. "You both know this. Why then were those ships not provided with telepaths?"

"It is easy for you," Vizhak said, looking up. His tone of voice was faintly apprehensive. "Minbari have many telepaths. Drazi have few. We do not breed as many telepaths as Minbari do, and those we have are…. needed. Our laws do not bind them. They are not soldiers. We cannot command them to go to war."

"We have…. some telepaths here," she said.

"Yes. Minbari telepaths. Brakiri telepaths. One human telepath. None of those can serve on Drazi ship. Only Drazi serve on Drazi ships."

"I was on one of your ships," she pointed out. Twice, in fact, at Minbar and at the Third Line. The Drazi had been most eager to have her aboard the Stra'Kath, their flagship.

"You are leader," she said. "You lead Drazi. You speak for Drazi to aliens. You are different."

She did not know whether to be flattered or not. She had certainly been given worse compliments. Her general mood, however, left no time for recognising the absurdity of the situation. "The fact is, Vizhak…. without telepaths we stand little chance against the Shadows. At Epsilon Three we had the advantage of knowing they were coming, of setting defences, of time to prepare. We cannot do that this time, and if we simply fly around waiting for them to appear, then we will share the same fate as those two ships."

"At least we try," spoke up Taan Churok. "Kazomi Seven is as safe as we can make it. Is fortified, is strong, is safe…. but other worlds, other peoples, other ships…. We cannot protect them all. So we try to deal with Shadows. We try…. where are others?"

"We have hardly been idle," Delenn replied. "We have been trying to establish a strategy, so that we can understand the enemy. Ambassador Sheridan made it clear that we, the Alliance, would bear the brunt of the Shadows' attacks, and so far that has appeared to be the case, but their attacks have been against your individual worlds…. not against any Alliance holdings. Why? We have to understand what they want first."

"We know what they want. To destroy us."

"We try to fight them, Delenn," said Vizhak. "Is Drazi way."

"There is another concern," spoke up another voice, and all eyes turned to Lethke, Minister for the Economy. The Brakiri was a calm-spoken man, precise and used to thinking clearly before speaking. "We have among us, here in this very city, one who knows more about the Shadows than anyone else can hope to. He promised us his aid and the assistance of his people when he arrived. But he has done nothing. For three weeks he has done nothing. He is not even here now.

"Where is Ambassador Ulkesh?"

"He was invited to this meeting, as he has been to every other," replied Delenn, a slow chill spreading through her body. There was a great deal about Ulkesh that she disliked. He was very…. different from the Vorlon who had shared her mind and soul for so many years, the Vorlon who had given his life in the temporal rift.

And she was not the only one who felt like that. The technomage Vejar had been conspicuously avoiding Ulkesh ever since his arrival. And Lyta…. Delenn's friend had changed greatly in the three weeks since the new Vorlon had come to Kazomi 7. Delenn wished she had had more of a chance to talk with her recently, but she had been so busy….

There was something that kept Ulkesh from these meetings, and for some reason she could not identify, and certainly could not rationalise, Delenn had the very uncomfortable feeling that that something was her.

I've been listening to Sinoval too much, she thought uneasily. To be certain, the warrior detested Vorlons with every fibre of his being, and after his revelations at the Rebirth Ceremony at the beginning of the year Delenn understood something of why, but did that mean his paranoid suspicions were true? Previously she had disbelieved them all, but since meeting Ulkesh again….

"Then what do we do?" asked Vizhak. "Sit here and wait to die? Is not Drazi way."

"No, we do not just sit here, but we do not send our ships out to be pointlessly butchered either. We formulate a plan, and we force the confrontation on our terms. That is as soon as we are ready. Commander Corwin…. do you honestly think we can defeat the Shadows?"

The young human shuffled in his seat awkwardly. He had been invited to all the meetings of the Alliance Council since the Battle of the Third Line, but he had only started coming with the advent of the open attacks by the Shadows. Of everyone here, with the possible exception of Ta'Lon, he had the most experience of fighting the Shadows directly.

"There's no denying their superiority," he said, after a moment's hesitation. He was clearly uncomfortable. "Technological, that is. Some of their tech was put into the Babylon by the Resistance Government…. not as much as was built into the later ships, but still a little. We've been going over it as best as we can, and what we've found isn't very…. um…. reassuring.

"Their ships are organic in nature, at least partially. They're very resistant to damage. It can be done, though, with great difficulty. We've all seen that. Telepaths seem to be our only real advantage against them. Each time we've fought them…. something has happened to swing the battle in our favour.