In her novel Accusations, Lois Tilton returns us to Babylon
5, a space station built by humans after the Earth-Minbari War. While Commander Susan
Ivanova played a small role in John Vornholt’s novel Voices, Tilton’s story
centers on her. While working in Command
& Control (C&C), she gets a call from J. D. Ortega, her former flight
instructor. The man has retired
from the military and works on Mars. He
sends her a message, asking to meet with her later in the Alpha Wing ready room. When he doesn’t show, Ivanova visits Michael
Garibaldi, the Chief of Security, who informs her that Ortega is wanted for
terrorism and conspiracy back on Mars.
This makes no sense to Ivanova.
As with Talia Winters’ uncle in Voices, Ivanova cannot believe that Ortega
is a terrorist. Garibaldi conducts a search, only to discover that Ortega has been murdered.
Babylon 5 then receives a mayday signal: raiders are attacking
a transport ship. Susan Ivanova leads the
Starfuries of Alpha Wing from the station.
Before they reach the ship, the raiders take its cargo, and kill its
crew. Raiders have grown bold of late,
and hit a large number of heavy transport vessels. Ivanova conducts an investigation into inventory
records, and discovers that many of these transports were carrying supplies of
morbidium, a metal mined on Mars, and important in the manufacturing of military
weaponry. She sends her findings to
Earthforce, in the hopes of preventing future attacks.
Events rapidly escalate on Babylon 5. After an investigation team arrives from
Earth, Ivanova is relieved of her duties in C & C. Meanwhile Garibaldi discovers another body. The investigators round up anyone with the
slightest ties to Mars, and they order Talia Winters to scan their minds, or
even perform deep probes. As these are
conducted without the witnesses’ permission, she protests. But the inspectors produce orders from Psi
Corps: she must accede to the team’s demands, without question.
Mysteries build upon mysteries, and we’re never sure what
will happen next, or why. But Tilton
keeps us focused on Garibaldi’s search and Ivanova’s dilemma. The heavy-handed methods of the inspectors
impede Garibaldi’s efforts, and their superior access to computer records make
it difficult for him to discover clues before they classify the records or
arrest a potential informant. But he
won’t quit, as inspection team has linked Ivanova with a Martian terrorist. Ivanova also does what she can, knowing that
her career is over unless she can uncover the plot involving Ortega, and
demonstrate that she was not involved in…whatever it is that Earthforce seems
so concerned about.
In Voices, John Vornholt returned us to Babylon 5, showed
us Earth in the twenty-third century, and then whisked us off to Mars for a thrilling climax. Now Lois Tilton
returns us to Babylon 5 for an entire novel, and spins such an involving mystery
that I tore through the book in a couple days.
I literally couldn’t put Accusations down for the last seventy-five pages. If you loved the show, seek out these novels. They’re real treasures, and would have made
wonderful TV movies. Plus, both tantalize us with the possibility of colonizing Mars. And who doesn’t love stories about Mars?
Dragon Dave
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