ACT II Establishing shot. The Enterprise is still in front of Babylon 5, but now its warp nacelles are starting to glow a brighter and brighter blue. SHERIDAN Battle alert! Deploy the blast shields! Assume a defensive posture! Scramble all starfuries for immediate launch! TECH #1 Sir, the tachyon sensors show another faster-than-light object emerging from that Enterprise thing and headed straight toward -- BBBBBB OOOOO OOOOO M M ! ! ! B B O O O O MM MM ! ! ! B B O O O O M M M M ! ! ! BBBBB O O O O M M M ! ! ! B B O O O O M M ! ! ! B B O O O O M M BBBBBB OOOOO OOOOO M M ! ! ! Lots of lights flashing. Klaxons everywhere. General panic. IVANOVA (reading a console) We've taken a direct hit to Center Section! Half our cobra bays are off-line. TECH #2 We're venting atmosphere and going off-axis! Initiating stability thruster burn! IVANOVA If we start precessing, we've had it. SHERIDAN Lock on to that vessel and return fire! TECH #1 We can't, sir! Their backing off from us faster than light. SHERIDAN Great. They can even outrun our *lasers*. Launch all available fighters -- at least we can give them more than one target to worry about! Cut to what's left of the cobra bays. The standard fighter-drop sequence starts and the main title theme music turns on real dramatic-like. SHERIDAN Analysis -- what just hit us? TECH #1 (puzzled look) Some kind of antimatter warhead. It hit us going at about a thousand times the speed of light and then detonated. SHERIDAN And for some bizarre reason, we weren't completely ripped in half. That kind of technology should have turned this entire station to liquid. IVANOVA Sounds like they don't *want* to destroy us outright. SINCLAIR (joining them in C&C) Either that, or their weapons technology is so pathetically low-powered compared with the rest of their technology that they'd have to hit us with their entire arsenal just to tear us apart. TECH #1 The craft just dropped back down to sub-light. VOICE ON COMM (filtered) This is Zeta Wing leader. I have a lock on the vessel. Cut to Zeta Wing leader's cockpit. ZETA WING LEADER I'm opening fire. Exterior shot of starfury shooting plasma bolts at the Enterprise. They score direct hits, but... ZETA WING LEADER Uh oh. Uh, Captain, we have a new problem. Cut back to Babylon 5 Command & Control. SHERIDAN Now what? ZETA WING LEADER (from fighter, filtered) My plasma bolts got stopped by some kind of invisible wall surrounding the vessel. SHERIDAN (slaps his palm to his forehead) Wonderful. Faster-than-light propulsion, faster-than-light weapons, and now a magical barrier of force that stops our weapons! SINCLAIR They have more than that, too. IVANOVA Huh? SINCLAIR But they have some weaknesses we can exploit, too. SHERIDAN How the hell do *you* know? SINCLAIR (smugly) While I was searching for Danny Duck in my quarters, I came across an old collectors-item book I'd had preserved in plastic. It's called the _Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual_, and it describes every last detail of that ship out there. SHERIDAN Well, well! Let's see it. SINCLAIR Un uh, not so fast. I'll only let you look through it ... if you promise never to call me a wooden actor again. SHERIDAN That's blackmail! SINCLAIR Take it or leave it. C-and-C shakes violently. TECH #1 Sir, we've just been hit by a faster-than-light beam weapon of some kind. Damage to the main cargo bay. SHERIDAN All right, all right! (cringes in pain) I'll never ... (grrr) ... call you ... a ... wooden actor again. (pants in exhaustion from the effort) SINCLAIR (tossing him the ST:TNGTM) Thank *you*. Sheridan and Ivanova fling the pages open and begin rifling through different sections. SHERIDAN This is incredible! IVANOVA This is disgusting! SHERIDAN I've never seen anything like this! IVANOVA I've never read anything this dense! SHERIDAN Page eighty-seven: "Each of these generators consists of a cluster of six 128 MW graviton polarity sources feeding a pair of 550 millicochrane subspace field distortion amplifiers." IVANOVA Page 134: "Energy is stored within a replenishable sarium krellide cell." And on the facing page they've got a picture of a dustbuster. SHERIDAN Page 18: "The primary spaceframe of the _Galaxy_ class starship is fabricated from an inter- locking series of tritanium/duranium macro- filament truss frames." IVANOVA What the heck are "tritanium" and "duranium"? SHERIDAN Oh, here we go! The first thing that hit us was something called a photon torpedo. IVANOVA (puzzled) Photons are the individual quanta that make up light. SHERIDAN Exactly. IVANOVA So how could it have been moving ... faster than light? SHERIDAN Well, I guess it wasn't *just* light, it was like, um, like light ... in a torpedo. IVANOVA Ah.... I...see.... SHERIDAN There's all sorts of specs on how big a photon torpedo is and how fast it will fly, but nothing on its actual warhead yield. That weaker beam that hit us later was called a "phaser" -- IVANOVA Meaning phased ... what? SHERIDAN Um, PHASed Energy Rectification? IVANOVA Makes about as much sense as "tritanium." SHERIDAN Anyhow, one phaser emitter has a maximum output of only 5.1 megawatts. IVANOVA That's not that much. SHERIDAN Roughly equal to one lousy kilogram of TNT. So that phaser blast must have been caused by several emitters focusing on us at the same time. IVANOVA Captain, look! SHERIDAN What? Is that Galaxy-class starship coming back for another shot? IVANOVA No, page 138! It says those magical shields of theirs can only dissipate a little over seven hundred and thirty megawatts! SINCLAIR Hey, you two've been gabbering nonstop for the last five minutes, while we're under attack! I'm sorry, but holding a staff meeting in the ready room *during* a battle just doesn't work. IVANOVA Ready room? SHERIDAN All right, all main weapons on line. When that ship goes sub-light again I want you to fire every weapon we have at that ship *simultaneously* -- not in successive bursts, you hear me, all at once. Fire our sub-light weapons first so that they reach the target at exactly the same time as the light-speed ones. If we can exceed 750 mega- watts, we can punch thr-- TECH #1 The ship is sub-light again bearing aft at eight thousand kilometers! SHERIDAN Open fire! Everything we've got in a single timed salvo! Exterior Babylon 5. Every nook and cranny of the station erupts in one monumental rearward fury, practically sending back a whole station- sized shaft of blinding hot plasma, particles, and lasers which you're not supposed to see because you can't see lasers unless they hit something but you can see these anyway because it looks better on film. Eight thousand kilometers back, the cylinder of concentrated hell slams into the Enterprise's shields, punches through, and makes a big black mark on the front of the saucer section. SHERIDAN Report! IVANOVA Well, it looks like we scratched their paint, at least. TECH #1 Sir, they're sending us another NTSC signal. SHERIDAN Onscreen! Captain Picard's face replaces the Babcom logo on the main monitor. PICARD (on the screen) We surrender! We surrender! RIKER (out of frame) Captain, they didn't even breach the outer hull. PICARD Did you tell them we surrender, Mr. Worf?!?! WORF (out of frame) ... Sometimes you are the most pathetic starship captain I have ever seen. SHERIDAN (grinning that over-done and often out-of-place Boxleitner grin of his) Glad to see you can see things our way. Now that you've surrendered, why don't you come on over to our station -- slowly -- and introduce yourselves. PICARD Glad to oblige. Unbeknownst to the Babylon 5 crew, the Enterprise now lowers her shields. There is an eerie sound and a bunch of bubbly streamers appear right next to Sheridan and company, who practically jump out of their collective trousers in surprise. PICARD (in C&C, after the transporter finishes materializing him) Hi! SHERIDAN (cringing) Don't ever *DO* that!!!! SINCLAIR Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, Tech Manual chapter nine talks about these teleportation devices on their ship they call "transporters". Fade to commercial. ("OS/2 Warp is your on-ramp to the Information Superhighway! Well, er, except that Mosaic and clones like it already exist for other operating systems, and all you REALLY need for a dial-up connection is the crummy terminal-emulation software that comes bundled with your modem. And the fact that the Internet bears little resemblance to the Information Superhighway that Al Gore was talking about -- or to any voice transmission systems you might hear about in an AT&T commercial. But OTHER THAN THAT, OS/2 Warp is your on-ramp to the Information Superhighway!") ACT III -- EPILOG Establishing shot: The Enterprise-D is docked in Babylon 5's central cargo bay. Of course, only a tiny piece of the saucer section's leading edge can fit through the hub-bay entrance, and the whole ship has to rotate at the same rate as Babylon 5 does -- but what do they care, they have artificial gravity and inertial dampeners. Sheridan and Ivanova are walking down a corridor together toward the hydroponic garderns. SHERIDAN I tell you, Susan, up until today I didn't believe in parallel universes or alternate realities, but *that* reality was just about as alternate as they come. IVANOVA I *know*! Geez, a whole armload of alien races populating the galaxy, all of whom look like humans. Ivanova accidentally bumps into Londo, who's having a heated debate with G'Kar as to whose empire has the biggest and most prolific sex life. LONDO Pardon, Commander. As I was saying, my dear dear friend Ambas-- G'KAR (receding) You and your hermaphrodite statue goddess can go straight to your own version of Hell! They babble off down the hall. IVANOVA And they have this space station on the boundary of neutral space, with a number in its name -- They pass by a Babylon 5 logo on the wall. IVANOVA -- that's run by a guy with the rank of Commander who isn't on very good terms with the military he's a part of. SINCLAIR (accidentally running into her the way londo did, going past) Oops, sorry Commander. SHERIDAN And, finally, they have this alien race that has this mysterious "cloaking" technology that the other races, including the humans, don't posess. IVANOVA and SHERIDAN (in chorus) Naaah, it could never happen here. Batman-style cross-scene spin to Commander Sinclair's quarters. We have one more little subplot thread to resolve in this episode. GARIBALDI Commander, I'm sorry. We've search all over the ship. We've pumped the stomachs of every carrion-eater on board. We haven't turned up so much as a scrap of yellow rubber. SINCLAIR (dejectedly) I can't believe Danny Duck is really gone. I'll never be able to get to sleep again. I feel like turning back sideways and becoming invisible for the rest of the second season. I don't know what to do. With that last line, Sinclair covers his eyes with his hands and bends over forward. When he does so, we hear something squeak. SINCLAIR Wha ... ? Sinclair bolts upright, then reaches down the front of his pants for his crotch. Garibaldi averts his eyes in disgust. Sinclair fishes around near his privates, suddenly brightens up, and when he pulls his hand out in triumph he is brandishing: SINCLAIR Danny! He squeezes it twice. It squeaks two warm quacks. SINCLAIR I had him in my pants all along! GARIBALDI (chuckling) Ha ha ha ha ha kill him. About a dozen PPGs carried by Garibaldi's search team all flare into action, riddling Sinclair's (wooden) body with burns and blasts the way they did to the feeder in "Grail", only more ruthlessly. GARIBALDI Good riddance. Fade out to the words: "Executive producer: The Great Maker." END CREDITS Produced by The Great Maker and Dug Prettier Cameras by Great Big TV Cameras Inc. Music by Christ -- er, I mean Chris -- FrankeFurter Video effects by the Video Toaster and Lightwave, which are far cheaper than those overpriced and underpowered Silicon Graphics workstations that SGI has been duping the rest of Hollywood into buying, so nyah Wardrobe by Off-the-Rack Clothiers Transportation by Yellow Cab Company Creative Consultant, Harlan "Arrogance" Ellison Babylon 5 is produced by Babylonian Productions, Inc., and is distributed by Warner something-or-other, but of course this script doesn't count.