Chapter Five

Trip exited customs with an unusual smile on his face. Although a bit tedious, it was an experience he had only seen in the movies. T'Pol waiting for him at the reception area, was nursing a drink, and watching the crowds.

"Enjoying your tea?" Trip asked, greeting T'Pol with a hug from behind.

"Yes, very much," T'Pol acknowledged, trying to sound surprised at Trips presence. She wasn't. She'd spotted his scent and presence about a minute earlier, and could easily have turned to face him and would have; if he were Vulcan. But, she knew he liked to try and surprise her like this. And, even though she would never admit it, she did enjoy it.

"They seem to have a huge variety of aliens," Trip observed. The sheer number of variety of people who they had seen visit the station was astounding.

"Yes, that they do," T'Pol took a sip of her green tea. "Do you want something to drink?"

"How did you get the credits to buy a drink?" Trip enquired, a little surprised they'd managed to get hold of the local currency.

"The bounty," T'Pol told him factually. "It was issued to us as a cashier's cheque, which we were able to exchange into the local currency. I have some hard credits, as do the others." She paused, then asked again "A drink?"

"Ah, sure," Trip said, trying to think of a relatively generic drink and hoping it would be the same as back home. "I'll take a soda, if they have anything resembling a cola."

"One cola, please," T'Pol ordered.

"Can we make that to go?" Trip added.

"Sure," the tender replied grabbing a disposable cup.

"You want to go on the core shuttle, I take it?" T'Pol was watching the crowd, studying the differing patterns in behaviour. It was something she did as a matter of habit as she had been trained to do by the Vulcan Diplomatic Corps in unfamiliar environments to avoid possible blunders and as also as a tactic of self preservation. With this knowledge she be better able to blend in with those around her.

"Oh, yeah" Trip did enjoy watching the crowds walk by, but from the accounts of the Captain and the others, the view from the core shuttles was breathtaking. "I hear the view is amazing."

"And very romantic," T'Pol teased him, feeling the telepathic bond she and Trip shared get stronger with their close proximity to one another. They had discovered had been formed at the end of the previous year, and through it, she had learned that they could influence the others behaviour through it.

"Yes, that too," he admitted. "Is it a crime to want to be with you in a romantic place?"

Her look was all he needed for the answer.

"Here's the cola. That will be a quarter credit." Glancing around, she noticed that her customers were getting up to leave.

"Thank you," Trip said, taking a tenth credit from T'Pol and placing it on the table. "Let's go."

"Thank you for your patronage," the bartender called after them pocketing her tip.

"Why did you give her the extra tenth credit?"

"It is called a 'tip'," Trip explained. "It is common courtesy to tip the person who serves you, plus you usually get better service if you tip well." He took a sip of his cola.

"Ah," T'Pol said thoughtfully. "A way of thanking them for their good service?"

"Yes. The waiters usually make more in tips then what they hourly wages allow." Trip was thoughtful as he considered the dark brownish black drink he had. It was decent, though maybe a little bit too gassy. He had had better, but it was still better than what he'd expected much from an outpost this far out. The pair headed hand in hand towards the core shuttle.

O-O-O

"See you guys later," Travis said, excusing himself from the group. He had to go get ready for the party and also give the invitations to some of the crew who would no doubt want to join the fun.

"I need to go finish the trade we came to Babylon 5 for," Mal informed the group. "I will see you at the party?"

"Take care of yourself." George smiled at him, causing him to blush. He thanked the universe that a Narn's blush was not as apparent like other humanoids.

"I will. Take care of my sister," Mal said causing Kat to blush in turn, his protectiveness of his sister speaking volumes for his character.

"They will," Kat teased him. "Now go and make sure we don't go broke. We can't run a ship without that money."

"I am afraid we are leaving as well," Garibaldi announced.

"Catch you guys later?" Alexa joined Garibaldi. She really wanted to see the bike that he and a Minbari had built from parts Michael had collected over the years.

"Huh?" George complained. "I thought you wanted to go shopping?"

"Shopping is fun," Alexa said smirking. "But I want to see his Kawasaki Ninja." Alexa waved as they headed towards one of the stations transport tubes.

"Alexa wants to see his Kawasaki Ninja," George chuckled a moment later after the pair was far enough to be out of earshot. "Didn't know she had a wild side."

"Mister Garibaldi really has one," Delenn said thoughtfully. "My aide, Lennier, helped him assemble it." Delenn had seen the old Earth vehicle herself.

Ivanova shook her head, realising what Lass had implied. "Pervert."

"Come on," George said trying to save herself from her gaff. "I'm not the only one with the dirty mind here."

"No dear," Tru laughed. "You're just the one with a big mouth. Let's go get some swimwear for these two; speaking of which, does T'Pol have any?"

"No idea," Hoshi admitted. "It's not like we had a chance to swim during our missions. And Vulcan is very arid." She gave an inward wince, remembering the descriptions of the planet she'd heard from Captain Archer and Commander Tucker.

"Why don't we ask her?" Kat suggested.

"Good idea," Hoshi said as she took her communicator out of a pocket. "Sato to T'Pol."

O-O-O

"Jon, that's an understatement," Captain Hernandez looked at Archer. "Though from your mission logs, you're not that unfamiliar with the concept." From reading them, she'd learned of the time he'd been transported to the 31th Century. After that, she'd read the report of the time Archer and Enterprise had been transported back to an altered version of the Second World War. "The 31th Century, World War Two."

"No." Archer glanced down, giving Porthos a scratch. "Not like this. Everyone we knew, all our friends, family They're all dead."

"What can we do, but move on." Hernandez hated having to be the strong one. Inwardly, she was glad Columbia had a qualified psychotherapist in Doctor Summers. However, Enterprise didn't. It seemed that Doctor Summers was going to be doing a bit of double duty. At least until someone aboard Enterprise could be trained for that duty. At present, the closest thing to a psychotherapist Enterprise had was the Chef, and that wasn't even his job.

"True," Archer agreed. "Speaking of which, I was told by the bank that the personal accounts are set up. All we need now to fully activate them are personal identification cards, or 'Identicards' as they call them, for the crew. They said I should speak to either Commander Ivanova or Captain Sheridan about that."

"Do you you believe we were able to beat the Romulans?" Hernandez asked. They hadn't been at war when they left. But, they had known the war was coming. Despite knowing almost nothing about the Romulan Star Empire; they did know that they'd feel threatened by the very existence of the Coalition of Planets. She didn't even want to contemplate the notion of Earth or any of the Coalition of Planets signatories falling to the Romulans.

"I know we did." Archer knew that no matter what, they would win. They had to.

O-O-O

The view was truly amazing, then again so was the kiss they had been sharing for the past minute or so. Thanks to the bond, Trip was getting a unique perspective of what it was to be with the one you loved. He knew T'Pol was as well. The communicator rang, again.

"Ignore it," T'Pol's reaction surprised Trip as it would normally he that would be saying it.

"It could be an emergency," damn the Vulcan influence on him.

"Okay, I'll get it." She opened the communicator. "T'Pol here," she answered, sounding a bit irritated.

"Commander, we were wondering if you had any swim wear?"

"What? You called for that?" Trip knew that Hoshi had better sense.

"Were we interrupting something? We are having a pool party, and thought that the commander would need something to wear."

"Pool party?" Trip remembered "Ah." In his head, he was picturing T'Pol in a two piece, making T'Pol blush.

"No, I do not have any swim wear." She was glad that they did not see how flushed her face was.

"Why don't you join us at the Zocolo? We're at a boutique which sells them."

"We will be down in a few minutes," T'Pol replied as Trip grabbed her again closing the communicator muffling her reply a bit.

O-O-O

Hoshi was getting impatient as it normally did not take this long for T'Pol to answer.

"T'Pol here" She sounded irritated.

"Commander, we were wondering if you had any swim wear?" Sato asked, hoping that the irritation she had not upset her senior officer.

"What? You called for that?" Trip's loud voice could clearly be heard through the communicator.

"Were we interrupting something? " Sato asked, hoping they would understand."We are having a pool party, and thought that the commander would need something to wear."

"No. I do not have any swim wear." T'Pol's voice seemed more calm and paced then before.

"Why don't you join us at the Zocolo. We're at a boutique which sells them" Sato suggested.

"We will be down in a few minutes." T'Pol's reply was muffled as the signal was cut off.

"Looks like we know what they were doing when you interrupted them." Kat laughed, which prompted everyone except Delenn to join in, who was puzzled by the comment.

"What were they doing?" Delenn was curious.

"Ambassador if you will" Taking Delenn aside Susan Ivanova whispered in her ear trying to explain. Delenn's cheeks flushed a rose red.

O-O-O

"Play the visuals again," President Clark was mesmerised. The sheer acceleration of the ships and their speed were mind blowing. Whoever they are, they could outpace even the Minbari. Who knew what else they might have.

"They have made first contact with Babylon 5" His aide reported.

"Have they now?" Clark commented to himself. Why Babylon Five of all places, "Any useful information?"

"Yes sir, quite a bit," the aide informed him as he opened the report up. "It went quite well from what the general report states."

"So, are they human?" He had noticed the English script on the ship's Hull. NX-01 Enterprise.

"Yes sir."

"We don't have any lost colonies." All of the colonies are known and accounted for, thought Clark.

"No sir, we do not. This is hard to believe, but they're not even from our galaxy."

"Is this another case of humans being abducted by aliens?" The Vree were quite famous for this. The Vree ship the former United States had in their old Area 51 facilities was proof that they had visited Earth."

"No sir. They apparently evolved on their own Earth." Clark and several others noted that he emphasised 'own' and 'Earth'.

"There is another Earth?" What the hell, there is another Earth?

"Yes sir, apparently even their Earth's solar system is the same."

"Really?" Who would take the time to copy the Earth and it's system in two separate galaxies. What would their purpose be? Are we the chosen ones? Clark's ego rose a bit, He could imagine gloating to the other rulers. "What about their history?"

"From what I read of the notes, their history practically mirrors ours until the mid 20th Century."

"That is good, we have common ground." This will get me the manoeuvring room I will need to negotiate with them. "This seems too fantastic to be true."

"Yes, though their story needs to be checked up on. Unfortunately the distance makes it impossible to confirm if another Earth exists."

"Then how in the hell did they get here?" He wondered. Unless they could travel hyperspace without the use of a beacon system, or their beacon system is far more advanced. From the observed acceleration rates, the speeds their ships could theoretically reach would translate to very fast travel time; Even in the turbulent void of hyperspace.

"A wormhole. They were examining it. Apparently the wormhole was very unstable and pulled them here."

"Hmm. So their stuck here. We can use that." Yes, he thought. They would need parts, repairs. Complimentary of course. He did know one thing. Bribery always worked.

"We could just claim they're under our jurisdiction as humans and claim their technologies," Clark's aide Dan Bush spoke up.

Clark frowned. "Even I'm not that rash," Dan sure was annoying at times, Clark knew Dan's father had contributed a good deal to his campaigns earning Dan a seat on the advisory board."If we act too aggressively we can loose everything."

"What do you mean?" Dan was puzzled. That ship was tiny, he was sure they could 'blow it out of the sky!'

"Dan, you saw the encounter. They can easily just go away. We can't even see them with scanners. How can we be sure that an alien power won't offer them shelter and other things in exchange for their technologies? We can't risk the others gaining them."

"Then we should plan to destroy them if they should." His understanding of the situation was simple. If these ships could threaten Earth, then they should be wiped out. And it had the benefit of creating a new enemy to fire up the people. "We could say they are collaborators who helped the Minbari during the war..."

"Dan, I think you need to take some time off. To get some objectivity. These are humans, son, humans that are stranded. They may have things we want, but we can get more with honey than vinegar." Clark was looking at the junior and younger politician very frankly. In political terms, he was telling him to back the hell off.

The younger man nodded after a long pause. "Will I see you at the ranch?"

"Probably not this weekend. Maybe after you've had some time to cool off," Clark vaguely promised.

After Dan had been escorted out by one of his bodyguards, he said to himself, "I won't tolerate that kind of stupidity." Screw him and his holier then though bullshit, he was the reason why the recent news had leaked about the assassination attempt. "Now, I see the EAS Invincible will be going to Babylon 5 there to meet them soon?"

They need to play clean-up, Clark thought furiously. Fortunately Sheridan had been a good boy and made a positive impact. Sheridan was a good officer, he admitted to himself. And a war hero. The question though, was if Sheridan's loyalty was to him. Sheridan very likely presented his own prejudices towards him and his office to the newcomers. If so this would also would have to also be fixed.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, make sure the Captain and his new XO make a better impression this time."

"Yes, sir."

O-O-O

Trip walked around the shop, it was a rather nice place. There were a lot of women's clothing, as the store also sold them.

"Are you dressed yet?" he nagged.

"I would not call this dressed," T'Pol exited the changing room, wearing the mint green two piece Trip had picked out for her.

"Wow!" Was all Trip could say, as he fought desperately not to drool.
A bunch of fox whistles later, he added. "That looks good on you."

"Thank you" She replied, wishing it covered more skin, like the ones Delenn and Ivonova had picked out.

"I didn't know Vulcans look that human," commented Delenn was happy with her choice which Ivonova helped pick, it being much, much more conservative.

"We look very much alike. In general, pure Vulcans are three times stronger then humans, more agile,and have better endurance," Tru informed the group.

"Don't put yourselves down. I know that your brother has great endurance." George smiled while slapping Tru's back, instantly realising her mistake. Dread came to her as she realised what she inadvertently just revealed to Tru.

"You slept with Jason?" The shock in Tru's voice was clear.

"Well," George searched for something better to say, failing utterly. "Yes."

"How could you sleep with my brother and not tell me?" How could she keep this a secret? They told each other everything!

"Sorry?" George had hoped that her indiscretion would not have come out like this. "He was really, really good."

"You..." Tru's voice trailed off. She was looking at her side."My brother..." realising that George was over one hundred years older then Jason. She looked straight in George's face. "Cradle robber!"

"Umm. Isn't Jason your older brother?" Alexa pointed out as she had met him. He was cute and tall but not her type. He was too geeky. She could not count how many G., Transformers, and comic books he had. He was a true fanboy if she ever met one.

"Yes, and?" Though she was glad her uber fanboy geek of a brother had gotten himself laid, it didn't change the fact that it was with her best friend! This did explain that year when Jason had suddenly gotten such a big confidence boost.

"You're thirty nine? George is in her early twenties; it would make him the 'cradle robber.' No?" Tru was a great person but she could be such a ditz at times.

"Oops." She had almost blown George's cover. "Yes, my mistake."

"You're thirty nine?" Ivanova was shocked as she could not help but stare at Tru.

"Vulcan's age differently then humans. Commander T'Pol, for example, is sixty-six years old." Hoshi added as she knew a few things about the Commander from her mind meld earlier that year.

"I am sixty one," Delenn said feeling young for a change.

"Wow." Ivanova looked at the two. Tru looked like a teenager, and T'pol in her mid twenties. That is scary, I could use some Vulcan or even Minbari genes, she thought in a way that would be quite blasphemous to most Earth First members.

"Tru, are you related to Jason Kal-El Summers?" Hoshi asked, remembering the meetings involving that person's persistent nature and the constant stream of messages.

"That is him," Tru nodded, recalling that he had taken the middle name, "He is a BIG superman fan." She missed him, despite his obsession over everything sci-fi and comics.

"I believe he was sending inquiries to Captain Archer. He kept asking if the captain could talk Crewman Daniels into getting him a 'Legion of Super Heroes' ring"

"Don't mention him to Captain Archer, ever!" Hoshi remembered reading the messages.

"I remember that name as well," Trip said, suddenly thoughtful. "Didn't he try to send in designs to Starfleet Command based on something called 'Iron man'?" Trip remembered how the bulky and impractical all the designs were. "He even had submitted plans for transforming robots for future space fighter designs."

"Oh God!" Tru said blushing a deep red. She knew he was a bit obsessive. But that was going over the top. "He did that? I'll kill him. Kill him I tell you!" Emphasising her words with her hand gestures "I will reach out with the force and choke him!"

"And she calls him a Geek. I can't believe I slept with that dork," Remembering the event. "No wait, I take that back." George paused a moment, glowing in the memory. "Commander, did he ever send in that 'Mercury-class Battlestar design?"

Trip just rolled his eyes; he didn't even want to go there.

"Was he that good?" Hoshi's curiosity had getting the better of her.

"Ten hours straight, after I stopped him from babbling on about obscure comics . Duct tape rules!" George grinned.

"I don't want to hear this!" Trip clasped his ears.

"Neither do I!" Tru agreed. The last she wanted, was to hear about her brothers sexual exploits.

"These human mating rituals are very strange," Delenn observed.

"Agreed," T'Pol replied as she nodded.

O-O-O

"Shall we wait for the others?" Marcus sat on the chair facing John Sheridan's desk.

"No, We will however update them in the next official meeting as this is an unofficial one," Sheridan replied.

"Besides they are shopping for swimming suits," Dr. Franklin added. "They are having a promotion party at the pool"

"What?" The thought of Susan Ivanova in a bikini made Marcus Cole smile. "I hope she gets a two piece..." Realizing the seriousness, he gets back on topic. "Sorry, got off track. On to the new comers shall we?"

"They seem like nice people. The Vulcans look oddly human, almost elven," the doctor added. "I hope I can speak with their medical officers, and do

"Elven? Really?" Marcus had never seen an alien who resembled Earth myths before.

"Yes, Commanders T'pol and Summers look very elven. Summers looks more human although as she has human ancestry."

"Her eyebrows are more curved," observed the doctor.

"Yes, she has a softer look to her," admitted Sheridan.

"I believe i ran into a group of them a while ago. A short blonde bumped into me. She was quiet rude but had quiet a presence." She felt like an old soul. An aura of depth unlike any he had felt before.

"I believe you mean Lt. Georgia Lass. She has a mouth on her." Garibaldi entered the room at a trot. "Hi, guys."

"Thanks for making it, and yes she does." Sheridan wondered who would win in a swearing match, her or a drunken sailor. Hmm. Actually, get her drunk and she probably was a drunken sailor.

'Georgia Lass.' Now marcus had a name to the face.

"I heard you were showing off your bike to Lt. Folie from the Colombia?"

"Yeah! She loved it. I am planning on visiting their ship to watch some old 20th century movies we don't have on our earth. They star an actor named Bruce Willis who Lt. Lass swears looks like me," Garibaldi said with a laugh.

"Lucky," Dr. Franklin's voice could barely be heard.

"What?" Garibaldi asked, a bit puzzled.

"Never mind." He had not meant that to be heard.

Whispering in Franklin's ear, "Is she pretty?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Gentlemen..." Sheridan's patience was not infinite and the meeting was not for this.

"Pardon, sir."

"Now, the reports you got were not the ones we sent to Earth. We kept certain things private."

"Such as?" Garibaldi asked with a slight frown.

"The Vulcans are tactile telepathic."

"Both of them?"

"Yes, it appears to be a trait their entire species are natural touch telepaths."

"That is amazing Telepathy is a rare occurrence in all the races we know of. Why keep it a secret? It is not as if we have not met alien Telepathy before," Marcus Cole added.

"They can successfully interbreed with humans. Other aliens, to our knowledge cannot." Dr Franklin was amazed as inter-species breeding usually lead to a sterile offspring, as with mules.

"Also their offspring inherit the abilities, the two women might be in danger of kidnapping for egg harvesting or worse." Sheriden looked around as they took that in. "I would not suggest letting G'kar know about them. Be circumspect."

"Do we know how strong they are? Compared to our telepaths?" Marcus asked as he leaned up against the wall of the office near the door. Just in case.

"Commander Summers was able to sense that Susan is a latent telepath," Sheriden added, not masking his surprise to the news that Susan was a latent telepath.

"Another thing, Vulcans are physically much stronger and faster then we are," Dr Franklin explained in admiration.

"Not a surprising, Minbari have a similar advantage." Marcus has had many bruises from combat drills which accounted for his testimonial.

"It is a good thing they are peaceful. T'pol could probably break one of us in half if she wanted to." Dr. Franklin frowned at that. Why was humanity generally at a lower level of ability physically? The universe was not kind in that manner.

"Reading up on how United Earth," the term sounding funny to him, "started and is fairing. They are doing much better then we are, even though we have been in space much longer." Sheriden liked the idea of humanity, even if it wasn't his humanity, succeeding.

"Yes, two hundred years for us, also we didn't have a devastating World War, when the Centauri made first contact we already had a sizable space fleet." Garibaldi knew due to his friendship with Londo that they had not invaded earth as it would have been a waste of resources and manpower.

"They have had interstellar travel capabilities for roughly a hundred years. Ironically this is the same as us. Though like you mentioned we already had a space fleet, they started almost from scratch."

"Their colonies are very self sufficient and are prospering," Franklin spat out angrily. " I knew the mega corporations were limiting our growth." His hatred of the Megacorps was unsurprising, as he felt their control of money was one of the 'big problems' of the day.

"Lt. Folie told me their Colonies have state rights in their government. They are autonomous and are able to levy their own laws." Garebaldi, a native martian knew how important this issue was to his mars.

"Really?" Marcus knew that colony worlds did not receive equal rights in this area of space. Colonies ended up being small holes which where taken advantage of by the homeworlds.

"Yes, their government appears to be very amiable and progressive" Sheriden wished his own government would follow suit.

"This collation of planets they formed seems very promising." Dr Franklin observed.

"Yes, they have shown me their charter. They managed to unite many races to defend against a common foe" Sheriden commented.

"Something we have yet to do" Marcus coleThinking of the shadows and the looming war.

Garibaldi snapped his fingers "I forgot to mention. You know that we monitor all outgoing and incoming transmissions to the station now."

"Yes, the new policies of President Clark" The name leaving a bad taste in Sheriden's mouth

"We saw the starfleet personal use their communication devices several times"

"Yes, I was surprised as most personal comm systems lack the power to transmit from inside the station" They where much more advanced then the humans of his earth.

"That isn't the only thing. There is no log of their transmissions. It is as if they never happened. Whatever they use, it is neither em based nor tachyon based. Our system did not detect any transmissions"

"that could draw up a red flag with the Ministry of peace or Nightwatch"

"that is why I doctored the records," Garibaldi knew he probably broke regulations but something like this would not be good in the hands of the ministry of peace or Clark. "I hope you do not mind sir"

"No, I will ask Captain Archer, Hopefully they will be forthcoming with it." It was a leap of faith to trust Archer, and this would help solidify that trust.

O-O-O

The mood on the Invincible was sombre. Captain James McTaggart was very quiet, and rarely spoke, and only to give orders. He kept wondering what the hell possessed him to take such a hard line approach to that encounter with the Enterprise. Performance anxiety, he guessed.

Pissing people off in a first encounter never ends well. Fear had gotten to him, as the new political officer had been very active in rooting out people who where not 100 % loyal.

Andrew Zimmerman looked at his friend and never seen him this withdrawn before.

"Jim, you really need to relax" Andy was worried about his friend, and he hoped to help mold him into the great captain he felt the ship deserved.

"But I messed up, really badly, even the president has demanded I apologise. I am lucky I still have my command"

"Do yourself a favour and learn from this. Acting out like that, may have earned you brownie points from the political officer, and I know how they can hurt"

"thanks, I don't know what I would have done without a good friend like you?"

"Jim, I have, and will always be, your friend"

O-O-O

"Sheridan go" the captain tapped his link

"Sir, captain Archer for you on babcom"The voice of the comm officer currently on duty informed him

"Patch him through to my desk", he saw the image of the captain pop up, "Hello captain archer"

"Hello captain, I was wondering what the regulations are for bringing animals on babylon 5?"

"Err.. Animal?"

"Yes, I want to take Porthos, my pet beagle for a walk. He could use the exercise, and the garden area seemed like a good place for it."
"You have your pet dog with you?" Pets where never allowed by regs in the earth alliance did not allow for pets.

"yes, I had to go through hoops, but I managed to get him on board."

"Tell you what captain Archer. How about I join you and play guide while you walk him."

"That would be wonderful, Please call me Jonathan."

"Call me John then." archer was looking forward to talking more with the captain after their initial contact. The prospects of the two ships to help was very good towards the cause, and he would get a chance to ask some questions.

O-O-O

"On this occasion we congregate to congratulate the new lieutenant, Hoshi Sato on her promotion!"
"Go hoshi!, go hoshi go go go hoshi" George was cheering
"Looks like you got a cheering section Lieutenant."
"Let us enjoy ourselves and hope for more occasions like this one. Thank you" Lt Sato picked up her glass to toast the occasion.

O-O-O

"Nice dog" Sheriden was petting the beagle, amazed at that Archer was able to get permission to take his dog with him.
"Thank you, he is family" He brushed the dog "Aren't you Porthos. At least this time you won't get me in trouble"
"Trouble? how?"
"We had an adventure when he accidentally desecrated an alien garden. It made for an interesting first contact" A smile came to archer.
"I wanted to be an Explorer when I signed onto earthforce, it is still a dream of mine"
"I hope one day, it becomes a reality for you"
"thank you." Remembering his priorities "I do have a question for you, as we have a puzzle on our hands, which you may solve"
"Ok, shoot"
"We saw your crewmen, communicate to your ships several times"
"yes"
"We didn't detect any signals with our internal security systems. What do you use?"
"Well, our communication technologies are subspace based, though we do have and can use EM and tachyon based "
"Subspace? I am only familiar with hyperspace" the term was foreign to Sheriden.
"Subspace is a layer of reality which is distinct from hyperspace. We use it to for communication. Many of our technologies are derived from its properties. You would have to ask trip for a better description"
"Thank you for telling me." That was surprisingly painless
"I hope we find a way back home, though a part of me enjoys being in a new enviroment and a new era"
"A new era?"
"Yes, we have done calculations. From our earth's point of view, we are in the 24th century."
"That is roughly 100 years ahead of us" The implications where shocking, as their earth was older. Even if by 100 years, it implied a lot.
"yes, even if we do manage to find a way back, we are caught outside our own time. I hope we have an earth to go back to." The Romulan war came to mind, as did the earth which was destroyed from the future.
"I am sure your earth is safe and sound" Sheridan assured archer.
"If we don't go back, I hope we can make this earth a home for us"
"Earth is different then what you are used to?"
"Yes there are many differences, yet many similarities. We are the same animal" Archer admitted, knowing that given the different circumstances, his humanity would be in the same pot that the earth alliance is in.

O-O-O

"That was fun"
"Indeed" Tru had fun at the party. She had brought Delen the books and the movies for Lord of the Rings. The ambassador had been eager to get them. Transferring them to the data crystals had been tricky would get easier with time

O-O-O

Delen hurried towards Ambassador Kosh's quarters, with copies of the material at hand. She had no idea what the reaction of the Vorlon would be.
"We have humans from another galaxy. They know too much! I have brought some interesting materials"
"The children of the preservers have arrived, the circle is strenghtended"