Babylon 5 s04e17 Episode Script

Commander's personal log.
The war to liberate Earth and her colonies continues.
We have more Earth ships on our side than ever before but the battles are becoming more desperate the closer we get to home.
Auto-repair systems are moving as fast as they can to keep up.
Status? The Hydra and the Delphi are out of commission and withdrawing.
The rest are moving in for a counterstrike against us.
Damn it.
They're outnumbered, their jump engines are down they can't beat us, they can't escape.
Why don't they surrender? This is the hardest part of all: Fighting our own.
Franklin and Lyta should be on Mars by now, along with their cargo.
Our resources are stretched to the limit.
Everything's riding on what happens in the next few weeks.
This is endgame.
We'll be okay as long as nothing goes wrong.
- You took care of it? - Yeah.
Yeah, it's done.
Captain Sheridan's father is in custody.
He's being shipped to an area on Mars so we can keep an eye on him.
I'll contact Sheridan as soon as everything's in place.
- Are you sure he'll come? - Yeah, he'll come.
Good.
Good.
Let me know when he's in custody.
Mr.
Garibaldi I know this is hard for you but it really is for his own good.
It's for everyone's good.
Once he's out of the picture, President Clark will lower his guard.
Then we can deal with him and the Psi Corps.
In the final analysis, once he's better, Sheridan may even thank you.
Somehow I doubt it.
Well, we'll have to see.
Still, once this is done, I can tell you the rest.
The truth, the whole, absolute truth is only a few days away.
- How many people can say that? - I don't know but I think the last guy got It was the year of fire.
The year of destruction.
The year we took back what was ours.
It was the year of rebirth.
The year of great sadness.
The year of pain.
- And a year of joy.
- It was a new age.
It was the end of history.
It was the year everything changed.
The year is 2261.
The place, Babylon 5.
- White Star 20 is hit.
- How bad? Minimal.
They're withdrawing until auto-repair systems can cut in.
I just don't understand.
They have to know they can't win.
Why don't they surrender? They can't want to die, not for Clark.
This is John Sheridan to Earth Fleet.
I say again, you are ordered to stand down and surrender your vessels.
We have no desire to destroy your ships but if you continue to fight, we'll have no choice.
What difference does it make? We're dead anyway.
It's the Cadmus, Captain Leo Frank.
- What are you talking about? - What do you think I'm talking about? We've been briefed on your campaign.
As soon as our forces surrender, our crews are taken out executed, and then replaced by Minbari crews.
- Is that what you've been told? - It is.
And I believe it.
Then you're even dumber than you were at the academy.
Who is that? Mackie? - Mackie, is that you? - Alive and well.
But we heard you Yeah, I know what you heard, and it's a load of crap.
I'm alive.
Every member of my crew is still here.
I don't care what you've heard about Sheridan, you know me, Leo.
Everything I tell you is on the up-and-up.
Stand down.
You won't be harmed.
Nothing yet.
Come on, don't be stupid.
Picking up a signal.
They're standing down.
Sheridan to attack fleet.
They've given the surrender order.
Cease fire.
I repeat, cease fire.
- Tell the others - Just a minute! A jump point's opening.
Agamemnon to Sheridan.
Agamemnon to Sheridan.
That's my old ship.
Sheridan to Agamemnon.
Tell me you're not here for a fight.
Negative, captain.
We've been chasing you for days, but you're too fast.
We couldn't catch you.
We're looking to join up, if you don't mind.
Mind? Hell, you've just made my whole day.
Stand by, I'm coming aboard.
Is that a good idea? They're my crew.
I trained them myself, including her captain.
I trust them implicitly.
You have the helm, Marcus.
- Stephen, good to see you.
- Good to see you too.
You got here fast.
With so many ships called away to fight our forces we were able to slip through.
This is Lyta Alexander.
She's a telepath.
- Lyta, this is Number One.
- Wait a minute.
You came here a couple of years ago.
You didn't say anything about being a telepath.
I couldn't.
I was on the run from the Psi Corps.
You should've told us.
And you, are you out of your mind? What are you doing, bringing a teep here when we're ready to move? Are you trying to compromise my security? - Look, it's okay.
- No, it's not okay.
I didn't know about her.
You should've warned me.
You can trust her.
I'd put my life in her hands.
Fine.
That's your choice.
But when it's my life l'd like to have a say about it, if it's all the same to you.
- All right, all right.
I'm sorry.
- Lf it's a problem, I can go topside.
- I'll find a place to stay until you need me.
- No, it's okay.
Now, she needs to stay here with the rest of us.
We may need her at a moment's notice.
What for? Our cargo.
What cargo? That cargo.
Hold it.
More telepaths.
- Yeah.
- How many? A lot.
Mister, you've got one hell of a lot of explaining to do.
Captain's on deck.
As you were.
- The place hasn't changed.
- Well, not perceptibly, sir.
We have updated the DX-419 tracking system.
It's about time.
Of course, the main reason for the update was to make it easier to find you, sir.
At least some good has come out of this.
That thing never worked right from the first day we got it.
- How's the crew? - Good.
Good.
Lieutenant Chase is out on pregnancy leave Miller is back Earthside recuperating from injuries he sustained in a firefight against raiders off of lo a couple of months ago and the rest of the crew has been busy following your adventures, sir ever since you made it known Clark was responsible for Santiago's assassination.
To tell you the truth, captain, some of us thought maybe you were out of control.
- We just kept hearing these stories.
- I understand.
And then came Nightwatch and the illegal orders to take out civilian targets so we knew who was telling the truth.
The crew trusts you, captain.
They believe that you're a pain in the ass, sir, but they trust you.
So we voted to join you as soon as we could.
I can't tell you what it means to have you aboard.
Makes me think we might actually win this one.
- Well, you haven't lost one yet, sir.
- Oh, I've lost a few.
I just made damn sure nobody heard about it.
- We've got a signal coming in for you, sir.
- Okay, put it through to my Main console.
Marcus, what's up? We're receiving a transmission from Mr.
Garibaldi.
He needs to speak with you.
He says it's important.
All right, put him through.
Mr.
Garibaldi, what is it? Captain, I just thought you should know.
Okay, look, we're not exactly on the best terms right now but they've got your dad.
They traced him through his medication and picked him up two days ago outside of Chicago.
Is he all right? It's hard to get good information, but I think so.
They're gonna use him to get to you.
If you don't surrender, they're gonna kill him.
We've got a couple of days before they can move and we should be able to break him out.
I've got people who can help, but they want a meeting.
They know your rep, but they're afraid of a setup.
So it's gotta be just you and me.
Nobody else.
If we're gonna do this, we gotta move fast.
I need an answer.
I need it now.
- Captain, I don't think you should.
- Lf it were your father, what would you do? All right.
I'll need to verify this through my people but if it's true you tell them I'll be there.
Alone.
- Captain, I strongly object.
- Your objection is noted.
I don't like the way this thing sounds I don't like the way it looks.
It stinks of a setup.
Look, Susan, Michael and I have had our problems lately but he has never given me reason to think he meant harm.
Maybe so, but what if his information is wrong? It's not.
I just got word from my contacts on Earth.
They got my dad two days ago, just like Michael said.
At least let me send Marcus with you.
Marcus needs to be here as your liaison with the rest of the fleet while I am gone.
Now, I will listen to what Garibaldi has to say and if there's any way we can make this work, we'll find it.
What do you mean "my liaison"? I want you to take my place during my absence.
Take White Star 40 and get here as fast as you can.
- Shouldn't Delenn? - She's not back yet.
We need to keep this a clean fight.
That means human commanding officers only.
Last time an assault fleet came to Earth, it was under Minbari command.
We don't want the folks back home thinking the Minbari War is happening all over again.
- It has to be one of us.
- All right.
I guess you have to try and get him back.
I have to.
If I don't, I'll regret it the rest of my life.
Take care, Susan.
I'll see you soon.
- Are you sure you want to go along? - We've got the current access codes.
We can get in and out of the colony without setting off the warning system.
All right.
As soon as we make the jump from hyperspace l'll take down one of your Thunderbolts, land just outside the colony.
If everything goes right I'll be in and out in a few hours.
You'll have the best fighter we've got.
Stand by to change course.
Standing by.
Transfer navigation to beacon 119176.
Aye, sir.
- Maybe I should just go.
- No, no, it's all right.
Says you.
What? You really don't know.
But I'll bet she does.
Well, in that case, you only have to let me know what the hell is going on.
She can do it.
Someone just dumped several dozen cryonic freezers on me and I have to find room for them.
I have no time for this.
She's talking about the new Bloodhound units.
Telepaths assigned to the military divisions occupying Mars.
Anyone suspected of being in the Resistance is scanned.
They're very deep scans.
The trouble with deep scans is, they can cause heart attacks, seizures, strokes There's been several deaths.
She's right to be upset.
Well, how did you find out about this? Once I got taken off the rogue list, I began to hear things but we always keep it inside the Corps.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Always? This has happened before? Lyta.
While I interned with the Psi Cops, there were a number of murders.
Someone was killing commercial telepaths and the mundanes didn't care.
For them, it was just one less teep to worry about.
So the Psi Cops took care of it.
- What'd you do? - What we had to.
We scanned anyone who might've had a lead.
No warrant, no permission and no trace.
Just gaps in their memory, missing hours, headaches Did you find him? - Did you? - No.
That would have been too quick.
We couldn't go to the police because we didn't want to explain how we found him.
Somewhere on Beta Colony there is an institution.
In one room of that institution there is a man who spends his days and nights screaming at things only he can see things we planted in his mind.
They have to keep him in a straitjacket 24 hours a day or he'd claw his own eyes out just to make it stop.
My God.
When it was over I transferred to commercial work.
I wanted out.
The Corps took me in when I was just a few years old.
They taught me what a telepath was, what we could do.
And all that time, I'd never been afraid of who we were until that day when we did what we had to do because no one else would.
Someday there's gonna be a war between telepaths and mundanes, Stephen.
I just hope I don't live to see it.
Maybe after the captain takes care of President Clark we're gonna work on this, okay? We're gonna build some bridges and find a more positive way of dealing with the Corps.
You're going to have a long wait.
We just received a coded message from Babylon 5.
It's about Sheridan.
I hope he told you what to do with those frozen telepaths because it looks like you're on your own for a while.
Delenn, Lennier, I'm glad to see you.
I was about to leave.
It's good to be back, commander.
Is there a problem? I'm afraid so.
President Clark's people have found John's father.
They're holding him.
Mr.
Garibaldi thinks he can help.
The captain's en route right now.
He wants me to take over the fleet.
I was hoping you could keep an eye on things.
Of course.
We'll do everything we can.
Good luck.
Thank you.
Do you think the captain's all right? He knows what he's doing.
He'll be fine.
Assuming Mr.
Garibaldi can still be trusted.
- Hello, Michael.
- Captain.
I was starting to think you weren't gonna make it here.
Have you heard anything about my father? No, just that he's being held at a facility here on Mars.
He's not being heavily guarded because Clark hasn't announced that he's been captured yet.
- So we need to move before that happens? - Yeah.
All right.
What do you want me to do? You've already done it.
- What? - It's a tranq.
Don't fight it.
Just give it up, or they're gonna hurt you! I got here as soon as I could.
Susan.
What's going on? You all look like a Pak'ma'ra just ate your cat.
We picked this up off the ISN feed just as you were coming out of hyperspace.
We interrupt our regular programming for this important announcement.
The leader of the renegade fleet that has been attempting to destabilize Earth for months has finally been located and detained.
Captain John Sheridan, formerly of Earthforce was captured earlier today by forces loyal to President Clark and is now being held in a secure facility.
Unlike many of his victims he is being given proper care and treatment until a hearing can be convened.
John.
Something's happened.
Wade just brought me a message from President Clark.
He's ecstatic over Sheridan's capture, sends his thanks and his compliments.
He seems to think the whole Resistance movement will fall apart now.
- He's wrong.
- Possibly but it'll take them a while to regroup and that'll give us the time we need to get everything in place.
And what's that? You said you'd tell me the rest of it when I proved my loyalty, when Sheridan was in custody.
Well, I held up my end of the bargain.
Now I want the truth.
Fair enough.
Wade.
We're engaged in a very dangerous game, Mr.
Garibaldi.
In this game, you have to pick your target very carefully because you only have one shot.
And this is much, much bigger than you suspect.
President Clark isn't the real problem.
He's trivial.
In one way or another, he'll be gone in a few years but the telepaths he put in power, the Psi Corps those will be with us forever.
That's the real danger.
If information is power, then telepaths represent the greatest threat to freedom we've ever seen.
We have to deal with that or face the very real possibility of our own extinction.
The danger before us is nothing less than the death of human liberty and human thought.
Do you recognize this? Yeah.
Yeah, that's the package I helped Wade smuggle past Customs on Babylon 5.
Lise said it was a cure for telepaths against some kind of genetic mutation.
Lise is a very good woman.
She believes me when I tell her these things but lately I couldn't tell her the truth because I knew that the Psi Cops were after this.
They don't know what's going on, but they know enough to be worried.
And that's the reason why you didn't come yourself and why you had me fire Lyta.
Any telepath is a potential risk to my work.
If they knew for certain what was going on, I'd be dead in 5 minutes.
This vial does contain a cure, Mr.
Garibaldi.
It took my people three years to develop it.
Almost as long as it took us to develop the virus itself.
This virus is encoded to embed itself in the gene that activates a telepath's abilities.
Only telepaths are susceptible.
Once infected, they have to receive injections of the antidote every two weeks.
If they miss even one injection They die.
And your people in the government control the antidote.
It's insurance against the day when they try to do to us what we've done to them.
Turn us into second-class citizens.
If they try it, we simply withhold the antidote.
And the net result is, you create a slave race to serve or die.
It's the tyranny of evolution.
Sooner or later, you have a species that will have a genetic or technological advantage and that species will always conquer a species without that advantage.
Carthage, the triumph of the Homo sapiens over the Neanderthal showed us that.
Now what do we have? We have Homo superior versus Homo sapien.
On a level playing field, Homo superior wins every time.
Unless we cheat.
I turned this company into one of the biggest medical research facilities in existence because I wanted to help people, not harm them.
But I won't stand by and let telepaths turn into a ruling class.
So first we remove that danger then we'll deal with President Clark.
Telepaths are his power base.
Neutralize them and you take away the instrument of terror he's used to suppress and intimidate others.
Does any of this pose a problem for you, Mr.
Garibaldi? No.
No, it doesn't.
I think what you're doing is right.
Telepaths have an unfair advantage.
I think it's right that we make an advantage of our own in return.
Exactly.
I'm very tired.
It's been a long day but we've made a good beginning.
With Sheridan out of the way, Clark will relax and I expect we can start moving the virus out in a few days.
Three weeks after that, according to our projections of the infection rate the telepath prob The telepath problem will finally be over.
Now that you know, you'll have to stay on the compound until the virus starts moving out.
I'm sure you can understand the danger.
Michael I heard what Bill told you.
I can't go back there, not now.
You gotta help me stop him.
What he's doing I understand why he's doing it, but it's wrong.
I've felt that something was going on for a while, but I had no idea.
Michael? Michael, are you listening to me? You've gotta do something.
You have to leave here.
- But l - Now.
- But what am I gonna do? - Go home.
Hello, Mr.
Garibaldi.
I received your signal.
Now, tell me what you know.
All of it.
This virus is encoded to embed itself in the gene that activates a telepath's abilities.
Once infected, they have to receive injections of the antidote every two weeks.
If they miss even one injection They die.
Well thank you.
Not that you had much choice.
I knew there were forces out there with plans for my telepaths, but this? I had no idea.
The sheer scope of it.
Well we'll stop it now, of course, in our own way.
I can feel you, you know? The real you beating at the inside of your skull screaming to get out to know what's going on.
For a long time, I've been debating what to do when this day came.
Do I let you know what happened to you or do I leave you like this trapped in a prison of meat and flesh and bone forever.
I've decided to be magnanimous, Mr.
Garibaldi not that you'll appreciate it because you have prevented a new holocaust: The enslavement and murder of several million telepaths.
Though I doubt very much you'll appreciate that, either.
Go back, Mr.
Garibaldi.
Go back and remember.
Moving into position.
Everybody hang tight.
The Shadows had come to Babylon 5 and Sheridan had gone to Z'Ha'Dum.
- So why don't you just kill me? - It doesn't work.
Somebody'd just come around and replace you.
They knew there were three people who could replace him: Delenn, Ivanova and you.
Given your checkered background they thought you would be the easiest to turn to their side.
What the hell? Once Sheridan was dead Ivanova and Delenn would be eliminated.
They left the station intact on the theory that it could be used for their purposes.
And you they took back with them.
To adjust you.
By this time I knew they had infiltrated the Corps so when they pulled in some of my people to help in your adjustment I was able to intervene.
Not so much on your behalf as my own.
This virus that kills only telepaths l'd bet good money it's Shadow technology.
They probably got it to him through third parties helped his people work out the details.
We both know that telepaths were a threat to the Shadows one they wouldn't mind eliminating.
It's ingenious, really.
They played Clark's drive for power on one side and Edgars' fear of telepaths on the other, leaving us in the middle controlled or dead.
But let's get back to you.
I arranged to have you rerouted to our research facility here on Mars.
Then we got to work.
All right.
I want a complete neural workup.
I wanna know the soft points where we can go in without disturbing the neural landscape.
We can't leave any fingerprints.
He may have to pass a telepathic scan.
You don't want us to do a full reprogram on him? Unnecessary.
By nature, Mr.
Garibaldi is rebellious, stubborn and suspicious.
He has an innate distrust of authority figures.
And he's very good at figuring out when a conspiracy is taking place and tracking it back to its source.
We need that part of him so I don't want to risk tampering with it.
We don't have to reprogram him just accentuate his natural instincts.
More rebellious, more stubborn, more suspicious of his fellow officers.
Then all we have to do is nudge him in the right direction from time to time and let nature run its course.
After we finished, we had to make sure that you didn't remember anything we had done to you.
That was the hard part.
We were, shall we say, less than gentle.
I said, I don't remember! Anything! Nothing! Once we felt it was safe, we put enough information out there to let your people find you.
After that, all we could do was wait and hope for the best.
It worked even better than I could have imagined.
You resigned your position, something I hadn't expected but it put you in the perfect position to be recruited by William Edgars.
And it isolated you from the people who cared about you and might try to help you.
I've decided to resign as head of security, effective immediately.
From time to time, we updated your conditioning continued to point you where we needed you to go.
Until, in the end, the old Garibaldi was gone and the new one worked only for us.
You would do anything to find what we wanted you to find even sell out Sheridan.
Your final orders were to report back when you had all the information we needed.
So now the question becomes what do I do with you now that I have no further use for you? I could kill you, I suppose.
In some ways, it might be a mercy.
By now your friends know that you betrayed Sheridan.
So, as the saying goes, you can't go home again.
And your current employer is not going to be around much longer.
Or I could leave you just like this.
Forever.
Whatever you think of me, Mr.
Garibaldi, I'm not capricious or cruel.
I used you because I had no other choice.
I have what I want.
My interest in you is over.
We'll be docking in a moment.
I've just sent the all-clear signal telepathically.
After I'm gone you'll be able to move again.
You'll remember it all.
You'll be yourself again.
You can try to tell the others what happened but under the circumstances I doubt very much anyone will believe you.
Be seeing you, Mr.
Garibaldi.
No! - Did you get through? Is it true? - They've got the captain, all right.
It was a setup.
And Garibaldi was behind the whole thing.
- I just heard he's tried to contact Babylon 5.
- You tell Corwin to refuse his signals.
There's nothing that he has to say to me that I have the slightest interest in hearing.
And you tell them that if he turns up on the station I want that son of a bitch shot on sight.
- Susan.
- I mean it.
What's our status? The other ships want to know what we're going to do now.
We finish what we started.
If Clark thinks this is gonna slow us down, he's in for a very big surprise.
The captain once told me, "The person is expendable, the job is not.
" We keep going.
Lise?! Lise?! Lise? Lise? Lise? Wade.
Wade? Wade, what happened? Five of them hit us out of nowhere.
- They knew.
- Where's Lise? Where? I don't know.
She wasn't here.
She was gone when they got here.
She Wade? Oh, damn it.
This is Alison Higgins with an update on our earlier stories.
President Clark declared today a day of celebration and rest noting that the capture of renegade Earthforce Captain John Sheridan signals that the war of aggression against Earth is unraveling.
Sheridan continues to be well-fed and well-treated.
Now that he has been freed of alien influences he has indicated feelings of remorse and regret for his actions against his own homeworld.
We hope to have more on this soon.
In other news, William Edgars, founder of Edgars Industries one of Earth's 10 largest medical research corporations was found dead this morning along with at least one of his staff.
Two personal bodyguards outside the estate were also killed.
Preliminary reports from investigators on the scene indicate that the Resistance may have been responsible for the attack as they continue their assault against business and political targets.
Nothing is known yet concerning the whereabouts of his wife Lise Edgars.
Finally, ISN sources within Earth Dome have indicated that Captain Sheridan may have been turned in by his own former head of security Chief Warrant Officer Michael Garibaldi.
If this is true, we at ISN want to convey our personal thanks and gratitude to a true hero of the people.