He did. Her skin was very warm to his touch.
* * *
"You are the lost. You are the abandoned. You are the angry and the resentful. You think this creation owes you more than you have been granted.
"You do not know what you want, but you do know that whatever it is you want, it is not what you have now.
"You call yourself the Brotherhood Without Banners. You are a force of chaos, a union bound by self-interest and self-protection.
"The fact is, you want banners. You need banners. You need a lord to serve and you walk the path you have chosen because you do not have a worthy lord. For some of you that lord would be a real person, for others an ideal. Some of you found a lord only to lose it, slipping like dust between your fingers, a memory into the wind.
"You know who I am. You know what they call me. I shake the foundations of Heaven with my footsteps. There will be a war, a great and terrible war for the destiny of the galaxy and all who live in it. So far, you have all been unwitting pawns in this game.
"I offer you the chance of something more.
"I offer you a lord. I offer you purpose. I offer you the chance to serve me.
"I offer you a war.
"You are killers and raiders and rapists and torturers. You will find no sanctuary anywhere but amongst your own kind. The forces of Order will seek you out and destroy you, for you are everything they hate.
"Understand me. You will die if you try to fight alone. You may die if you try to fight beside me, but you will die fighting for a real cause, beneath a banner you can respect.
"I will speak with each of you in turn. Any who wish to reject me may do so. You will be permitted to leave. I will not stop you, but as I said before....
"The Alliance will find you, and they will destroy you. They will weigh you down with chains of order and they will claim all that you are. They will destroy all that you are, leaving nothing but bones and ashes and the occasional nightmare of what you once had.
"The choice is yours. You believe in freedom. You worship freedom.
"Enjoy that choice, for it is the last taste of freedom any of you will ever have."
* * *
"Who am I?"
No one seemed to recognise him, and he supposed he should not be surprised. He was not General John Sheridan, Shadowkiller, today. He was just a man, taking a holiday.
Or a sort of holiday.
"Who am I?" he asked himself again. It was a question that had been bothering him for a long time. Sinoval had simply managed to bring it into focus. Sinoval had forced him to confront it.
Sinoval. Now there was another problem that would have to be dealt with sooner rather than later. He could not be allowed to go running around the galaxy doing whatever he wanted. Sheridan had not heard much of what had happened at Centauri Prime, but what he had heard worried him. If....
No. Galaxy-shattering problems later. Personal problems today.
He leaned back in his seat, drumming his fingers on the armrest. The seat was not terribly comfortable, but then he was not expecting anything better. He supposed he might be able to sleep on the journey. He was actually looking forward to sleep without dreams.
Although he would miss Delenn's warm breath on his shoulder. Until he had slept alone in the Medlab he hadn't realised how much he missed the little things about being with her. They had been apart more often than together during their eventful relationship, but since the end of the war they had spent almost every night together. It was uncomfortable, being without her.
It was painful, being without her.
They had not made love in almost six months. They had hardly kissed properly — not as lovers, not even as people in love. Something dark and cold had come between them.
Was it just the war? Too many bad memories and bad dreams? A child dead, a world destroyed, friends scattered and broken, one compromise too many in the name of a greater good?
Or something else?
The Vorlons had used him, controlled and manipulated and propelled him in the direction they wanted. He might not have minded. They were order, after all, and the galaxy needed order. The Alliance was a noble aim and the Vorlons provided enough power and backing to hold it together until it was strong enough to manage on its own.
But if what Sinoval had said was true, they had manipulated him to leave Delenn to die on Z'ha'dum. If they had done that — and he was growing more and more sceptical of what Sinoval had told him — but if it was true, then no force on Heaven or Earth would keep them safe from his wrath.
It was ironic. He would go to war against a race of Gods, not for the freedom and sanctity of the galaxy, but to avenge a wrong against the woman he loved.
If he still loved her.
If he had ever loved her.
No, he had. Once, he had. He was sure of that. He was not sure if he had ever stopped, or when.
He sighed. At least Sinoval was fighting for what he perceived to be the greater good, even if there was more than just a hint of personal motive in there. What did that say about him personally?
"Who am I?"
There was no other passenger at his side. In fact, the shuttle was only half-full. That was just as well. He did not want anyone to recognise him, and wonder why the General in command of the Alliance fleet was going mad.
If he was going mad.
If he had ever been sane.
"Not who I want to be," he said firmly.
"Or perhaps, whoever I want to be."
He continued drumming his fingers on the armrest, waiting for the shuttle to depart for Minbar.
* * *
The Death of Worlds emerged from hyperspace, escorted by the Vorlon fleet. No one had ever seen such a planet killer before. The Vorlons had hidden a great deal from their servants.
The Vorlons reveal only what they choose to reveal. It was time for them to show the hammer of heaven, the hammer of the light.
You shall have no truck with the Shadow. Those who do shall suffer the cleansing fires. The fire of the Inquisition. The fire of the Network.
The fire of the Death of Worlds.
The Lords of Light cast a great shadow over Narn.
Chapter 2
The existence of terrible weapons of war capable of destroying planets had long been suspected by several of the younger races. Some of the peoples with race memories or historical records of the last Great War speak of them. Markab holy tracts speak of wrath from the heavens that shattered the worlds of the sinful. The Book of G'Quan contains a passage describing a 'Dark Oracle' - obviously either a Shadow itself or, more likely, a Shadow vassal race, possibly a Drakh magus — threatening the doom of the Narn world with black spears from the sky.
There are also several asteroid fields which are believed to be planets destroyed by some catastrophe, although many of these rumours can be discounted. Long-time associate of the Blessed Delenn through his efforts in helping to supply the nascent Kazomi 7, Captain Jack, claimed to have encountered no less than four such destroyed worlds. His claims are usually treated with scepticism, but he was responsible for one of the first sightings of First One ships, early in the year 2262.?
Insofar as any of these stories were believed, it was thought to apply to the Shadows only. The terrifying sight of their Black Cloud rising above Kazomi 7 towards the end of the first phase of the War confirmed the existence of such planet-killing weapons, and no one who saw that battle doubted that the weapon was capable of destroying Kazomi 7.
There were other forces whose powers were more or less acknowledged to be of similar magnitude — The Great Machine, for one. We are indebted to L'Neer of Narn for providing a great deal of information on the capabilities of that artefact, information gleaned from her conversations with Ha'Cormar'ah G'Kar.? And, of course, Cathedral....
But no sign of any equivalent Vorlon weapon was ever positively identified. They refused to answer any questions put to them on the subject. Their level of technology was roughly on a par with the Shadows of course, and of the creators of the Great Machine, so it was virtually certain that they possessed the technology to build such weapons, even if they did not actually have the weapons themselves.
But, others argued, if they had the weapons, or even the technology, why had they not employed them on Z'ha'dum, during the thousand years in which the world was deserted? There was no convincing answer for that.
In the middle of 2263 all the questions were answered, although not in a way that anyone would have wanted. It was the second sign of the end of the peace, and the beginning of the month that would later be called the Death of Hope.
The planet killer revealed itself above Narn, ready to inflict punishment for the Kha'Ri's sheltering of some of the exiled Shadow vassal races. It was felt by the Vorlons that an object lesson was needed.
They considered the use of a planet killer to be a lesson.
? GOLDINGAY, D. G. (2293) Stalkers on the Rim. Chapter 4 of The Rise and Fall
of the United Alliance, the End of the Second Age and the Beginning of the
Third, vol. 3, 2262: The Missing Year. Ed: S. Barringer, G. Boshears, A. E.
Clements, D. G. Goldingay & M. G. Kerr.
? See also Learning at the Prophet's Feet, by L'Neer of Narn.
MATEER, K. (2295) The Second Sign of the Apocalypse. Chapter 9 of The Rise
and Fall of the United Alliance, the End of the Second Age and the
Beginning of the Third, vol. 4, The Dreaming Years. Ed: S. Barringer,
G. Boshears, A. E. Clements, D. G. Goldingay & M. G. Kerr.
