A mournful hymn ran as an undercurrent in nuViel Roon's voice, a melody taken up and supported by the others. "Dead. She fell during the battle. She died lost and insane and consumed by the long dark."
"Ah," Sinoval said. A pity. This noMir Ru might have been a useful subordinate, if her madness could have been controlled. What he had seen of her strategy for the attack on Centauri Prime demonstrated a ruthlessness he could have used. "Is this all of your people?"
"No, Saviour. Many others remain on our world. Some were too touched by the long dark to follow any commands, and they remain lost. Others could not fight, and remained to build more ships and weapons. They are still Songless, as we were before your touch. The Land is still Songless."
"Where is your world? You will take me there. I wish to see your dead world for myself."
"And then, Saviour? Do you desire that we go to war alongside you?"
"We shall see," Sinoval mused. "We shall see."
Every ship available had been press-ganged to this service. Cargo was emptied from merchant ships. Weapon storage was stripped from military vessels. Short-range flyers were commandeered. Everything was cannibalised.
All that mattered was that as many people as possible were removed from the dying Narn world.
Ha'Cormar'ah G'Kar looked at the figures again, privately despairing. His own death he could tolerate, but the deaths of so many of his people through his own blindness was too much to bear. They could not evacuate enough. They would never be able to evacuate enough. The children and their mothers were first of course. Any women expecting children. The race must continue.
Any with essential skills. Starship maintenance engineers and pilots. Diplomats. Some of the military. Astro-navigators. Survival experts.
But there were so many people, and so few places. They had tried to break through the communications barrier the Vorlons had placed around their system, but to no avail. There would be no help from elsewhere.
With every second that passed, ticking in his mind, another failed chance for salvation passed and died unborn.
The others reacted with varying degrees of responsibility. Some, like H'Klo, refused to believe that the Vorlons would destroy the world and declared that this was all a trick. He was determined to let them descend upon Narn and then fight them with every resource he had. Others in the Kha'Ri had killed themselves.
Da'Kal, for her part, had worked as tirelessly as he had, but she had not said a single word to him since he had spoken to the Kha'Ri.
He was tired, and weary, and sick to his stomach, but he had no time to rest.
Another second passed.
"You have your fleet," she said. "Things are getting somewhere at last."
"Are they?" he replied. "I have seen them all and spoken to them all. I am not sure if I am supposed to be disappointed or elated or some strange mixture of both."
"What do you mean?" He seemed very cold as she stepped up beside him. There was no heat coming from him, no warmth, nothing. Not for the first time, she felt she was looking at a dead man walking.
"I have spoken to Moreil, the Z'shailyl the Shadowspawn. His kind revere me. To them, I am some prophesied saviour who will return them to the days of their Dark Masters and their immortal chaos. He has offered his whole race to me, and they will come and they will flock to my banner."
Susan said nothing to interrupt. She knew a monologue when she heard one.
"I have spoken to Marrago. He is broken, and I fear there is nothing left to sustain him. A man needs a purpose for which to fight, and he has lost almost all of his purpose. Nothing remains but vengeance,
and that will wither and die in time, perhaps taking him with it."
Yes, she thought, everyone needs a purpose to fight. But it has to be the right purpose. Have you not learned anything?
"I have spoken to the human, the Sniper. He was a worthless, pathetic creature, a madman driven by desire for pain. A dangerous liability, and a monster which this galaxy does not deserve. I killed him. A simple act, with no thought or consequence."
Susan looked at the blood on his robe, and then at his blade. There was blood there also. He had not bothered to clean it off.
"I have spoken to the Narn, G'Lorn. He maintains that everything he has done has been for the good of his people. His associate, whom Moreil murdered, worked directly for their Government. This was all a ploy to serve their own purposes. Never mind the thousands who died. What were they but pawns and toys for the powerful?"
You are powerful, remember. A great deal more powerful than the Kha'Ri ever were.
"I have spoken to the Drazi. They at least have good news for me. They will serve and obey and fight for my cause. But they will do so out of vengeance and anger, and they will not work with the aliens they say betrayed them. I am trying to create a unified army, but all I have is disintegration."
No, you aren't, she wanted to scream at him. E verything is split apart. You have too many agents spread out all over the place, and none of them knows what the others are doing.