The Vorlon fleet is battling the Shadows. Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) is broadcasting information on troop-movements, targets, and refugees. A woman desperately looking for her husband on Babylon Five is helped by Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) and taken to Zack Allan (Jeff Conaway). When he leaves, First One Lorien (Wayne Alexander) tells him he can’t save them all.
Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) is antsy and wants to return to work. He’s suspicious of Lorien and tracks him on the station’s security cameras. Everyone is asking him if he’s okay, when Sheridan actually returned from the dead and no-one seems concerned. He is waiting for Doctor Franklin’s (Richard Biggs) okay. He confides in Zack Allan that Sheridan seems to be avoiding him.
On Centauri Prime, Emperor Cartagia (Wortham Krimmer) and Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) talk in the garden. Morden (Ed Wasser) tells them the Vorlons are attacking worlds allied with the Shadows. Only Londo wants the Shadow ships removed. Though the Emperor promises Morden to put a Centauri fleet in orbit, he confides to Londo that he has no intention of doing so. He takes Londo to meet his shadow cabinet—the decapitated heads of his rivals—and tells Londo that the Vorlon destruction of the Centauri Empire is part of his plan for apotheosis.
Doctor Franklin clears Garibaldi for duty. Garibaldi tells Franklin he thinks he was caught in the backdraft of a Shadow ship’s hyperdrive. Ivanova reports. Delenn appears at Sheridan’s quarters. He has never seen her afraid before, and he says that her image is what he clung to on Z’ha-dum. In the War Room, Franklin, Garibaldi, and Allan discuss the station’s overcrowding. Sheridan approves the idea of moving refugees to Epsilon III below, as it was never touched by Shadows. Sheridan wants the Vorlon Ulkesh (voice of Ardwight Chamberlain) off the station. He kept Garibaldi out of the loop lest the Vorlon read his mind. Lorien and Lyra (Patricia Tallman) are willing to help.
Garibaldi and his team ask Ulkesh to leave. He tosses the security forces about, they attack him with weapons to no avail, and are forced to retreat. Londo contacts Sheridan for information on the Vorlons and is told they should reach Centauri in a week or so. He has a plan to stop them, but it might not work. Lyta meets with Ulkesh and warns him of the attack, which he has already dealt with. She says a piece of Kosh is hidden in a human, which Ulkesh finds intolerable. He wants to free Kosh. She leads him into an ambush which forces him to leave his encounter suit and reveal his true form.
Ivanova clears the Vorlon ship because it’s tearing the station apart trying to escape. Ulkesh attacks Delenn and Sheridan takes the blow. He is helped by Lorien to let Kosh go. The two Vorlons battle, fleeing to the ship, which explodes. Lorien replenishes Sheridan’s life force. Mollari tells the Emperor that if Centauri Prime is destroyed no-one will be left to remember his rise to godhood. But if he takes G’Kar to the Narn home world for trial and execution, he will leave a legacy for Cartagia’s worship. A fleet of vessels are gathering at Babylon Five. Sheridan tells Delenn that Lorien has restored his life force, but he still only has 20 years to live. He proposes to her. On Centauri Prime, Cartagia doesn’t like the way G’Kar is looking at him, so he plucks out an eye.
Now, the Vorlon planet-killers are coming, Sheridan is treated like the Second Coming and Garibaldi is crankier than usual. Krimmer’s Cartagia is a brilliant madman and Jurasik’s Londo handles him like a diamond cutter romancing a stone. I never expected to see two Vorlons brawling. One of the severed heads is a model of Andreas Katsulas.