G'Kar in the Catacombs
The fools who designed this base, G'Kar thinks, clearly placed more stock in their invulnerability than any sensible warrior would dare, but these Narns are not sensible warriors. Not warriors at all, in the strictest sense -- he neatly flicks a soldered lead from the bunker's lock mechanism and the door slips open on its greased track -- no morality behind these attacks, no sacrifice, nothing at all that resembles the teachings of G'Quon or G'Lan, nothing that suggests to G'Kar that these are his people at all. Which makes the idea of killing them easier, but by no means easy, and he is thankful that he will not have to live with his actions.

He is sixteen levels below ground, and it's hot even by Narn standards, the air thick and mossy in the narrow catacombs. The computer systems are anachronistic, all clean metal and plastic jutting from the stone walls like fat loose teeth. Tu'Pari's men must have installed them mere months ago, weeks maybe, fresh from the black market, underfeatured and surely overpriced -- Tu'Pari was never a savvy businessman, always preferring to trade on fad and fashion in place of time-tested more cumbersome devices. So these computers are flashy, and streamlined, and fragile as Kavarian eggs.

G'Kar squats before the main terminal and opens his pouch. Takes out a spool of primer cord and fixes one end of it to the exposed computer panel with a wad of putty. Slap. Just like that. Then he stands up again, shoulders the cord, and sets off back down the hall, letting the primer unspool itself out behind him. He's not very surprised to realize he's humming, humming and laughing and unspooling and, for the first time in very many days, certain of himself.

He flicks on his communications link. The predictably shiny, predictably cheap hand-unit he nabbed from one of the Human terrorists can barely break atmosphere when he's on the asteroid's surface -- here sixteen levels deep it has the broadcasting power of a pen and paper. But a pen and paper have always been enough for G'Kar.

"Begin recording," he says.

*

I, Citizen G'Kar of the Narn Regime, being of debatably sound mind, though soundly superior physique -- and if you doubt me on the latter point you would do well to ask Mollari for his expert opinion on the matter -- do hereby give my life for the sake of Delenn's Anla'shok. To those who consider my opinion to have merit, I ask only that you remember what it is that brought me here, and if you wish to honor my memory, I ask that you honor it by honoring the Rangers, and seeing that their legacy is protected in all parts of our galaxy.

There is no tragedy in giving one's life in pursuit of a noble cause, and a nobler one than this would be difficult to imagine. And so I find I am without fear, without grief, and without remorse for the life I will leave behind -- and in fact I take comfort in the very likely truth that those who mourn me most will get along quite well once I am gone -- perhaps better than they would when they looked to me to lead them.

I am not a leader; I am a man. I am a Narn. I am --

*

G'Kar stops unspooling a moment, sits down against the wall and lets his eyes trace the snake of primer cord down the corridor into darkness. He rolls his head on his shoulders, peers at the comm link, and continues.

*

I am weak. I am -- curse Mollari, who will undoubtedly take full credit for my present state, thus stripping my selfless act of any legitimate moral purpose, but I suppose the truth will out in its own way, and I will not be there to experience it regardless.

I have lived with the warrior's code for the better part of my life, but when I was held prisoner on Centauri Prime, when my eye was taken from me, I found I was able to see the world more clearly than I ever had before, and I laid down my warrior's sword then and have not raised it since. Oh, I have fought since, and I have killed since, but I no longer see myself as the warrior I once was. If I were born Minbari, I believe I would echo the words of Delenn's compatriot Neroon -- I was born a warrior, but I find that the calling of my soul is religious. And my soul -- quite independently of my higher functions, I assure you -- decided to fall in love.

As a warrior, I had no shortage of sexual partners, for we Narns are voracious in our appetites and we fuck with wild abandon, knowing each moment could be our last. We are drawn to beauty, to impulsiveness, to the pleasures of the flesh of a multitude of genders and races and physical forms. But love -- that is something new, and something quite different, for me...and I am not certain that I am strong enough to bear it.

That Mollari -- bah! I seize up when I even speak his name -- should be the object of this unwanted and unwarranted emotion is obviously the universe's sick attempt at humor. That my love for him is so strong it threatens to tear the heart from my chest seems to make a perverse sort of sense. There is so much pain between us, so much blood, and hatred that when I lost my eye to see his soul -- when I fell arms spread into that widening chasm people so cavalierly call "love" -- it is only logical that the knowledge should hurt, and wound, and burn.

And I do not think I can live with it, for I know Mollari does not feel the same for me, and I am unaccustomed to a battle I cannot win.

So here I am, faced with a battle I can assuredly win --

G'Kar stands up heavily, shakes the cobwebs from his brain and continues down the hall, unspooling the primer.

-- and if I lose my life in the name of the Anla'shok, at least it cannot be said that I fought without cause.

Mollari is a beaten, broken man, and I love him with every cell of my being. That, my friends, is a fight without cause, and I will continue it no longer.

Computer, please relay this message to my private files on Babylon 5, locked to Mollari's password. What he sees fit to do with it is his choice.

A klaxon blares from somewhere, and G'Kar takes off doubletime.

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