“By Any Means Necessary” is episode twelve of season one of Babylon 5.
Ivanova is in C&C dealing with lots of different ships that are attempting to dock with the station. The captain of a Narn ship urgently wants to be allowed to dock, but Ivanova says that there are other ships ahead. The captain says that he has perishable goods for ambassador G’Kar, so Ivanova says that she will see what she can do.
Ivanova contacts the foreman of the docking bay and, although they are clearly very busy, he does agree to get the Narn ship in ahead of the others. This ship is entering the bay when an alarm sounds in C&C. The departure sequence has been activated for another ship, and it is being lifted into the bay. Ivanova tells the Narn captain not to alter cause but, when he sees the other vessel, he panics, ignites his engines and crashes the craft.
Two dockers are trapped in a section and an emergency team arrives. Two people in protective gear go inside a section where there’s a fire, and bring the two trapped people out. One of them is dead, the brother of the foreman that Ivanova was originally talking to.
G’Kar is performing a religious ceremony when Na’Toth enters and tells him that the Narn ship has crashed and what he was waiting for was destroyed in the accident. He is rather upset.
The head of the Docker’s Guild is not happy and G’Kar wants compensation for his loss. Garibaldi says that the accident was caused by equipment failure, due to the contractor installing substandard chips. Sinclair agrees that they need an increase in budget, due to overwork and equipment failure.
Senator Hidoshi tells Sinclair that there is no more money, and that the government experts say that they have enough to do the job already. The dockers have got nothing and are bound by government contract, so they can’t quit or go on strike. They are, however, calling in sick, effectively an illegal strike. Earth sends out a negotiator, a rather slimy individual, but the situation is deteriorating.
G’Kar is looking for a replacement for what was destroyed, a plant, but no-one can get a replacement out in time for the ceremony it’s needed for. According to Na’Toth, only one person on Babylon 5 has one of the plants, Ambassador Mollari. Londo takes great pleasure in this, and refuses to sell G’Kar the plant, in retaliation for the Narn invasion of Ragesh Three in “Midnight on the Firing Line”. So G’Kar gets rather upset again.