BABYLON 5: THE VIRTUAL SIXTH SEASON
"THE PRICE OF FREEDOM"
Episode 13
WHAT WAS, AND WHAT MAY BE
There were some days, Lieutenant David Corwin wearily considered as he watched the first morning arrival from Brakiri space make its way into the docking bay, when getting a good night's sleep was just about impossible. For a few months after the Shadow War had ended, Corwin had endured nightmares revolving around the events of the day when the Shadows had come to Babylon 5 - the day that Captain Ivanova, himself and G'Kar had stood in this very spot, all but helplessly waiting for the hammer to fall. A day when Mr. Garibaldi had gone missing - the day they'd all thought that President Sheridan had died at Z'ha'dum. Only, the thing was, every once in a while, the dream had ended in a way that real life hadn't - with the Shadow warships opening fire. He'd never wanted to analyze those dreams too closely - and then, for the longest time, the dreams had gone away.
That had changed last night - and before his shift had started, he'd needed way more coffee then usual to get going. Corwin managed a smile, then, however - at least the quality was still going strong...the IGOT girls were seeing to that. But it still didn't answer the question of why he'd dreamt about that day again, after so long - the morning had been quiet, thus far. Although someone had told him, once, that dreams sometimes reflected in reality - hadn't that been Delenn? He couldn't quite remember...
"Uh... I think you should take a look at this, sir." Corwin turned with a frown to take in the uncertain expression on the face of Amanda Kreies, in her now-familiar position over at the gate control station. "To be honest, I'm having a hard time believing what I'm seeing."
Corwin sighed - never failed, did it? It had been a quiet few days...but as anyone who lived and worked here knew only too well, peace and quiet were things that was almost always in short supply on Babylon 5. "All right," he said, "So who's trying to sneak up on us from the depths of hyperspace this time..." Which was, of course, when Kreies transferred the image she was looking at to one of the nearby wall screens - an image that stopped Corwin cold.
An image that bought back a memory of another day - the day when four Earth Alliance warships had descended upon the station, and a lot of people had died - the ominous forms of Earth Force destroyers and heavy cruisers, silouetted against the red and black hell of hyperspace. "How many?" he quietly asked his watch 2IC.
"At least seven." Kreies replied -- and then, her eyes widened further. "My God! Sir, the lead ship, it's..."
Corwin took a deep breath -- now, even he was having a hard time believing what he was seeing - but there it was, just the same. The lead destroyer in that formation was nothing more than a black shadow against hyperspace...but the shadow's most defining features were the curving black 'arms' that emerged from its fighter bays and drive section. "Oh, Hell - " he muttered. "Here we go again."
Ever since the news had broken the year before, most everyone knew that a couple of the Warlock Class ships, one of them Captain Ivanova's 'Saint-Germain', had been built using Shadow technology. And also that the ISA had ordered the Earth Alliance to completely change the design of the class after that crisis was over, so that even though the name remained the same, there were eventually going to be at least three different models of the destroyer in active service, the first two of which looked nothing like the third.
And then there was the wild card - a ship halfway between the Omegas and the earliest of the Warlocks. Only a handful had ever been built, and now there was only one left - this ship.
The EAS Dark Thunder.
And even as the jump gate came online and began to spit out the first Earthforce ships, Corwin suddenly made the connection he'd been searching for, only a few moments before - a dream about the Shadows, and now, one of the rare Earth Alliance Shadowtech warships had shown up at Babylon 5. This was just too weird - maybe he could ask Sherann about this one later - but for now, there were other details to attend to - the first being, to get the Captain out of bed. And then...
"Sir," Kreies reported, somewhat unnecessarily, "Captain Barns of the Dark Thunder for you, on primary comm."
"Captain Barns," Corwin began, as the image of the destroyer's CO flashed onto the screen in front of him, "If you don't mind me asking..."
"What brings a complete Alliance battlegroup to Babylon 5?" Barns replied, his tone pleasant, yet full of steel. "Well, Lieutenant, I think that's a subject best discussed with Captain Lochley in attendance. For right now though, what you do need to know is that my crews will be coming aboard shortly for some leave from duty - and also that the Earthforce Joint Chiefs of Staff put in a request for extra supplies for this mission to be issued from stocks onboard Babylon 5. At 0200 hours this day, that request was approved by the Interstellar Alliance Advisory Council."
Corwin winced. Even now, he could remember what had happened back in '59 when General Frankin and his Gropos had come aboard - it hadn't been pretty, but then again, this situation was completely different - destroyer crews tended to be a little more gentle when it came to station property. The numbers were still going to strain the facilities, though, at least on the short term - while resupplying seven warships wasn't going to make the supply techs very happy at all. "Thanks for the warning, sir."
Barns nodded. "Oh, and one other thing, Lieutenant, you may want to tell Captain Lochley that Captain Foraker of the EAS Acheron is acting as my adjutant during this phase of our campaign. I've heard that the captain and some of his crew would like to get together with their old CO sometime during our layover."
Corwin blinked. "I'll let her know just as soon as she's awake, sir."
Barns laughed wryly. "Another late night dealing with crises, was it?"
"More like paperwork, sir."
"Heard and understood, Lieutenant. We'll talk more when I come aboard - Dark Thunder out."
Now this, Corwin considered, was a reunion he would definitely like to witness. And, he mentally added a moment later, as the pit techs began passing out orbital parking slots to the various capital ships bearing down on the station, this might even be exactly what the Captain needed - a chance to get together with old friends and maybe, oh...relax a little? What with the crackdown, the recent soul hunter crisis and the host of other things that had happened since New Year's, there sure hadn't been a whole lot of that going on around here just lately.
With a grin, he linked in to the Captain's quarters. "Captain, this is Lieutenant Corwin in C&C, with your friendly neighborhood wakeup call."
"You're being unusually cheerful this morning, Lieutenant." Lochley's reply came, a moment later. "Does this mean the news is good, bad, or worse?"
Corwin raised his eyebrows, and tried not to laugh. "Well, Captain, it's like this..."
****************
Almost unnoticed amidst the confusion caused by the arrival of the Earthforce battlegroup into orbit around Epsilon 3, a single White Star emerged from the jump gate, and after the captain of that ship exchanged words with one of Babylon 5's now harried technicians, the Ranger warship smoothly slipped into an empty parking orbit just above and behind the station's docking bay sphere. A few minutes passed, and then another request was made -- at which point a small transport left the White Star, and made its way over to the station.
****************
Geneva, Earth
Bureau 13 Headquarters
07:20 EST.
Deep beneath the surface, things were, as certain individuals had learned in the recent past, not always as they seemed. But that...episode was past, and for the time being, there were far more interesting issues to deal with. His expression one of calculated interest, the man who had no name, a man who was, however, known as 'Mr. Molyneux' by many of his closest...associates, opened the report that had arrived on his desk a short time before, and leant back in his chair, thoughtfully considering the possibilities at hand.
One of the Bureau's exploration teams had recently acquired a number of interesting artifacts on their latest pass through the Rim territories, including, of course, a small amount of 'First Ones' technology - but amongst the collection had been a rather interesting...crystal. As the report made clear, the internal composition of the crystal was, to put it mildly, somewhat unusual. The operative in charge of the expedition had put forth the hypothesis that it was an advanced storage device of some sort - and Molyneux had been inclined to agree with that...until, of course, he had made certain inquiries - until he had cross referenced the report with data from the other branches of the Earth Alliance space operations division.
A connection had been made - a rather interesting connection, all things considered. And now, an experiment would be necessary - soon enough, all the pieces would be in place. The Earthforce ships sent to Babylon 5 had now arrived, the expected reunion between the primary and secondary targets was about to occur. And when it did... his people would begin the experiment.
Soon enough, Molyneux gravely considered, he would find out whether he was right or not about these...crystals.
Soon enough.
After a moment, the head of Bureau 13 rose to his feet and left the room, but not before reviewing the status of the operation one more time...and for a moment, his eyes lingered upon the names that identified the Bureau's targets.
The primary target: Captain Anthony Foraker, commanding officer, EAS Acheron.
And the secondary?
Captain Elizabeth Lochley, commanding officer...Babylon 5.
****************
Babylon 5
Transit Lounge 3
07:30 EST.
As had not often been the case of late, Babylon 5's transit lounges were once again packed with personnel disembarking from their respective starships - a situation which allowed G'Stral the liberty of moving through that crowd with the near certainty that this new influx would keep Chief Allan and his men busy enough that none of them would notice him.
He knew the Chief didn't like him hanging out in this part of the station...but sometimes it was necessary. On occasion, G'Stral's contacts would meet him here, and even more rarely, items would be exchanged from hand to hand in passing, and the like. There was always the chance, of course, that the Chief or Sergeant Satamba would see this happen, but almost from the moment he'd begun this little 'career' of his, G'Stral had decided it was best to keep the opposition on their toes - sometimes, you just had to do the unexpected. To close deals right under their noses...now that was one of the things that made this all worthwhile.
Today, however, was not one of those days. Today, he'd wandered up to the arrivals concourse when he'd heard about the unexpected arrival of the Earth warships. Having nothing else better to do, G'Stral had decided to play a...game, he supposed the Earthers would call it - the purpose of the game was to guess what the Earthforce crews were up to...from observing their expressions as they arrived onboard Babylon 5.
His eyes narrowed with concentration, the Narn slouched down in a corner, and watched the humans stream by in all their multitude. None of them looked very happy, for starters - whatever they were doing, he supposed it was necessary...but the convinction he had seen in Captain Lochley's eyes on occasion in the last few months seemed to be absent in theirs. And with seven Earth warships sent out on this operation, there was probably going to be a fairly serious battle eventually...but with who, now that was the question, wasn't it? And where?
And that was when it happened. Even as he watched, a small cadre of black-cloaked Rangers appeared amongst the passing military personnel. Six of them, to be exact - two humans and four Minbari. The human Rangers were a male and a...female. G'Stral abruptly rose to his feet, the game now forgotten, as he focused on the female Ranger. What he was seeing, it was more than enough to make him take notice.
Unbidden, the memories returned...of a day almost three years before, when the young human woman passing in front of him had come upon the gang of youths who'd been troubling him in Down Below. At the time, he'd believed her not much older then himself as the humans reckoned things, but the thing that G'Stral had found interesting right from the start was that she'd been wearing the grey and black of an Anla'shok trainee. Then, the girl had demanded that his opponents cease their attack...and, of course, had been mocked in return.
Even now, G'Stral found it impossible to forget what had come next. The human female, her expression now ominous, had reached to her side, opened a Minbari warrior pike - a weapon a human of her age should not even possess! - and had moved to aid him in his struggle. For him, this had been one of the few bright spots in that dark and bleak year - and after the battle was done and the gang had fled, he and the girl, Julia her name had been, had shared a few words, and then he had asked her why she had aided him.
"There is a purpose to everything and every deed." she had replied. "If I had not surprised your opponents, there is every chance you would now be lying in this place, close to death. They asked you for credits, G'Stral, and you refused. For some humans, that is more than enough excuse to kill."
Her hair was far longer now than it had been the last time he had seen her...but that was not the most noticable change. His curiousity now piqued, G'Stral slowly moved into the crowd and began to follow the Ranger party - if his eyes did not decieve him, she now appeared as a human female of twenty years would...perhaps five or six years older than he.
This, of course, was clearly an impossibility, and would require that she had aged at somewhat over twice the normal rate for a human since the last time he had seen her.
G'Stral cursed, then, as he realized what he had done. The corridor he was moving through was now nearly empty. No doubt the Rangers would eventually notice that someone had followed them out of the transit lounge - and if it was one thing Rangers did not like, it was being followed...
At which point, the familiar sound of a warrior pike being opened filled the corridor behind him, and he ground his teeth irritably, before turning to face the Ranger standing there...one of the party's Minbari Rangers, his face full of suspicion. How did the humans put it, 'too little, too late'?
"Narn...why are you following us? A spy, are you?"
G'Stral laughed bitterly. "That's a good one - if I was a spy, don't you think my pursuit would have a little less obvious?"
"I had considered that possibility." the Minbari admitted, "All the same, you follow us for a reason - tell me what this is about, and I may yet leave you in peace."
"Look, all I wanted to do was have a few words with one of your fellow Rangers, Julia's her name. It's not every day someone saves my life, you know..."
"She remembers." a whisper came from behind him. G'Stral turned...and there she was, all in black, her expression serious, but with a faint smile on her lips. "Hello, G'Stral - how have you been?"
"I...I saw you when you came." he managed, all the cockiness suddenly gone from him for some reason. "You will not mind if I ask..."
"What I've been up to since I saved your life? Why I look older then I should?"
The Minbari laughed. "A story that is, to fill many nights."
"Now, now, Larieken," Julia replied, her smile bright, "Be nice."
"If I must."
"So," the young Ranger continued, as she turned back to face G'stral, "What I've been up to, and what I've seen." She laughed. "Why not? It's not often I get to talk to someone who isn't Anla'shok these days. I have one condition, however..."
G'Stral grimaced - he knew what was coming. "Name it."
"That you do the same for me."
"The story of my time in this place...is not a pleasant one."
"That's my condition." Julia replied. "And you do owe me one, after all. Do we have a deal, or don't we?"
He paused - but finally, he nodded ruefully. "This isn't about money, like so many of of my bargains..."
"But it is about information. And that's almost as important for you, isn't it?"
"How did you..."
"Know?" Julia raised one eyebrow. "Meet me at 19:00 hrs this evening, in the main courtyard of the Ranger compound - and maybe you'll find out."
****************
Freighter Tiber Prize
Primary Docking Bay
08:05 EST.
"Okay, boys," Jeremiah Stone began, as his two associates on the other side of the crew galley gazed back at their superior uneasily, "Now that we're finally here, it's time for the scoop. The Old Man has a mission for us to carry out - bit of an experiment, really..."
"The last time we undertook one of his experiments, we nearly got killed!"
Stone's congenial attitude suddenly evaporated. "Okay, listen up, you little pipsqueak - when the Old Man says 'jump', you say how high, got it?"
"Mallory," the third operative entreated, "Don't be an idiot. All we've got to do to start with is sneak through customs with our 'cargo' and rendezvous with Olfhar, who's gonna be acting the part of the 'smuggler' wanting to buy what we've 'got'."
"And remember," Stone reminded Mallory, "The Old Man helped you when no one else would - if we hadn't been there when Planetary Security finally caught up with you, you'd be dead, and is anyone going to support your wife and two kids back in New York if you're dead? I don't think so!"
"Guess you're right." the sullen operative finally allowed. "So, let me see if I've got this straight - we're supposed to go meet up with Olfhar, get caught by station security, and make sure the head of security gets a hold of the cargo?"
"There, Walson, y'see?" Stone exclaimed, as a smile appeared on his face like a lightbulb going on. "When it comes down to it, our friend Mallory here really does know what side his bread's buttered on."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Mallory grumbled. "Let's just get this over with, so I can go home. Hey, what's this cargo the Old Man's so all fired up about, anyways?"
Stone disappeared out of the galley - and a moment later, came back with a large black case. "Well, you know what," Stone muttered, as he opened the case and leaned back, "That's the really interesting part..."
****************
Elsewhere...
{What have you learned?}
{The feeling is not to be ignored, cannot be forgotten. A crystal is here}
{Impossible - only one crystal were we able to salvage from the home-that-is-now-ashes} Hakrah informed his vision-walker. {The rest of us have detected no resonance.}
{You will detect the resonance soon enough.} the vision-walker sharply replied. {The crystal is here, brought to this place by those who are not of the People. No good can come of this.}
{Go now - I must think on this matter.}
The vision-walker inclined his head in agreement, and left the chamber, at which point the V'cha'richae named Hakrah rose to his feet, his expression grim. The one singing crystal they had saved from their dead home had been given to the Anla'shok humans who had saved them as a union-gift - no more had they found. But now, one of his companions insisted that another was here...if this was true, then the colony's vision-walker had spoken truly. A singing crystal, in the hands of the Others? 'No good would come of this' was a mild description of the chaos that might yet result.
And yet...perhaps this was the sign they had all been waiting for. Proof that the legend of the Lost Ones was true, after all. Hakrah nodded, the decision made - if it was true, then and only then might the hunt for their new home begin.
****************** Act One *****************
Babylon 5
Blue Sector, near Sanctuary 'Alpha'
08:35 EST, June 27th, 2263.
"Does someone want to tell me what's going on here?" Prado demanded, as Vir and Volga lead him down the corridor, working desperately against a flood of Earthforce personnel going in the other direction. "Where are all these...humans going? And where have they come from?"
Vir looked at Volga, and the younger Centauri sighed mournfully. "Well, I heard something about some Earth warships coming through the gate a few hours ago -"
"How many Earth warships, exactly?"
Volga frowned. "Uh...seven. I think."
Prado and Vir exchanged a long glance. "What was that you said about this 'Sanctuary' place, Vir?"
In short order, the three Centauri arrived at one of the station's four Sanctuaries - and found, to their amazement, that it was full to the brim with members of many of the species that conducted business oon Babylon 5 - and many of them were clearly upset. While out the windows...
For a wonder, it looked as if Volga had been right, after all. In what he supposed the human military considered a 'triumphant' array, a staggered diamond of destroyers and cruisers hung at station-keeping besides Babylon 5, while the tiny sparkling fires of dozens of Earth fighters moved through the void. And then, Vir looked at the Earth destroyer closest to the station, and it was that which stopped him dead in his tracks - until Volga slammed into him from behind, that was. "Sorry!"
"Never mind!" Vir hissed, as he tried to get a better look at the shimmery black Earth warship. "That...isn't what I think it is, is it?"
"Ambassador." Vir broke out of the daze the sight had induced in him to see Ta'Lon approaching through the crowd. "Once you have taken a closer look at the vessel in question, I am afraid you will find your initial suspicions proven correct." Without further ado, the Narn turned around, and despite protests from many of the other spectators in the Sanctuary, pushed right back through to the edge of the chamber, Vir following close behind him.
Vir took in a deep breath...and proceeded to hold it. He had read fairly detailed reports about these ships that the humans had built, had even watched that Warlock 'crisis' unfold on ISN before President Sheridan and the rest had left the station - but watching events occuring on a screen was very different from looking at one of those ships at close range.
"Breathe, Ambassador." Ta'Lon suggested, as he cast a critical eye across the shimmery Shadowtech hull of the EAS Dark Thunder. "What does this tell you?"
"That a lot of the generals in Earthforce are insane?"
"Many of the individuals in this room will not be so kind." the Narn replied. "And while, as we both know, the Earth Alliance has paid the penalties for the use of Shadow technology both in this ship and the Warlock Class, the arrival of the Dark Thunder and its companion vessels will no doubt resurrect many of the complaints from that crisis in Council soon enough."
Vir conceded the point, as they moved back towards the Sanctuary entrance. "Ta'Lon, have you ever noticed that every time things around here begin to get even a little bit quiet, something like this happens?"
"Hmm. That's an interesting observation, Ambassador - you may be right."
****************
"And that's what happened." Corwin finished explaining, as he followed Lochley down the corridor at speed towards her office. "I've tried to get an explanation out of Earthdome as to what the Hell's going on, but the only thing they've told me is that because of matters of planetary security, Captain Barns would have to explain it all to you in person."
Lochley nodded, as they arrived at their destination - good, they weren't here yet. Jerry Barns. Almost five years it was since the last time she'd seen him, now where had it bbeen...she smiled as the memory came back to her - of course. The Acheron and Barns' Elysium had taken part in a war game in Jovian space - Barns and his crew had taken top prize, of course, but even then, she and Anthony had only been a step behind them. A year and half it had been since she and her former first officer had said their goodbyes...the moment she'd stepped off of the Acheron for the last time. The moment he'd taken command. How had that command changed him, she wondered...
The same, she considered, could also apply to Barns. About half way through the reign of President Clark, Barns had disappeared from plain view - now, of course, in hindsight, it was obvious what project he'd been assigned to oversee. For as most everyone now knew, there had once been more then one Omega-X destroyer in active service - all the rest, of course, had been destroyed by the White Star Fleet...under Susan Ivanova's command. Now only the Dark Thunder was left - what could it like to command such a ship?
"Captain Lochley." She looked up, and quickly wiped the smile off her face, as Jerry Barns entered her office, Anthony Foraker close behind him. Lochley noted the expression on her friend's face, and she nodded grimly - just as she'd suspected, whatever this was about, it wasn't going to be pleasant. "It's good to see you again - even thouugh I must say I was surprised when I learned you'd taken command of Babylon 5."
"We all do what we have to, Captain." she carefully replied, sitting down even as Barns and Foraker did the same. "I'm sure you'll agree?"
Barns laughed wryly. "That, Elizabeth, would be the understatement of the century in this case. What I am about to tell you and your first officer must not go beyond the borders of this room - this most especially applies to the representatives from the other Alliance powers. Agreed?"
Damn and Hell. That Barns had addressed her on a first name basis meant that this was worse then serious, it was potentially critical. The last time he'd done that had been during the Lysaker standoff, a mission that had nearly claimed both of their lives back when they'd both been lieutenants younger then Corwin - so long ago, that had been...they'd both been different people, then. "If you were trying to get my attention," she quietly replied, "I think you just succeeded."
Barns nodded. "Several weeks ago, the Earth Alliance stood on the brink of disaster. You don't need to know the details for now, but let's just say that if this coup had succeeded, we and the Interstellar Alliance would very likely now be at war."
"A coup needs a ringleader."
Barns nodded. "You've heard of General Gregory Wallace, I trust?"
"Of course - isn't he the commander of Seventh Fleet?"
"Was the commander of Seventh Fleet." Barns quietly corrected. "No longer."
"Why?"
"Wallace hated the Interstellar Alliance because it's led by John Sheridan, Elizabeth. He blames the President for the deaths of his two brothers who were killed in the Civil War, and he would have destroyed that organization for the...crimes of its leader. Not many of us agreed with him, but enough did to carry the plot forward."
"But you stopped him...right?"
Barns took a deep breath. "We were able to intercept and capture some of the group responsible for the plot, including Wallace - and the powers that be within the Alliance judicial system rushed him to trial almost immediately."
"But that didn't end the crisis, did it?"
Barns shook his head somberly. "Wallace made a deal with the lawyers, that he would confess and name his co-conspirators within the Earth Alliance government, but he died before he could do that - circumstances unknown. While a group of captains and their crews loyal to his ideals have vowed to carry on his work. This, we cannot allow."
"My God." Corwin whispered. "Now I can understand the need for the secrecy - and the reason Earthforce Command assigned your command to lead the hunt, sir."
"Exactly, Lieutenant." Barns confirmed. "It could take us months to track them all down - but if it's one thing the crew of the Dark Thunder has demonstrated from the start, it's this...once they've got a mission and a purpose, they don't give up. Not ever.
But before we begin this hunt, we need to give our crews several days to relax, to enjoy some leave from their posts. This stopover may be the last break they get for weeks if not months - and, as I told your first officer, it gives us chance to take on supplies - and for you and Captain Foraker to tell each other what you've been up to in the eighteen months seen you've last seen one another."
"It does indeed!" Lochley confirmed.
"In that case," Barns concluded, as he rose to his feet, "I believe we should set aside this grimness for the time being. If you need me, I'll be on my ship, helping my first officer get as many of the crew over here as I possibly can."
"And that's going to be a difficult task?" An unexpected twinkle showed up in Jerry Barns' eyes, and the Dark Thunder's captain allowed a small laugh to escape as he left her office. After a guarded nod in her direction, Corwin shortly did the same...which left Lochley alone in the room with her former first officer. His hair, she noted absent-mindedly, was a hell of a lot more silvery then it had been the last time she'd seen him, but otherwise he looked pretty much the same - ruggedly handsome, she supposed some women would say...
"Liz," Foraker began, "You look tired. Hasn't that young pup of a first officer been doing his job properly?"
"What, Corwin?"
Foraker snorted. "Even the name spells out 'wet behind the ears' in ten foot high letters. What did I say the day we came through the gate in January '62? I was right, wasn't I?"
Lochley firmly clamped down on the first response that came to mind. Anthony, of course, had told her she was 'crazy to say yes to Sheridan' - and in some respects, she supposed he'd been right. But on the other hand...
"Not...exactly."
"And what kind of answer is that?"
"The only answer you're going to get for now. Look, Anthony, we've both got a thousand and one things to take care of right now - if I'm not mistaken, Barns will be breathing down your neck long before the day is over if everything doesn't go exactly acccording to plan. Why don't we get together later on for dinner?"
"I guess that'll have to do - tell me the place and the time, I'll be there. Oh, and one other thing before I go - a few of the crew would like to say 'hi'. You won't mind if I bring them along, will you?"
Lochley sighed. Looked like the officer's club was going to be hopping tonight.
****************
The Zocalo
11:15 EST.
There were some days, G'Stral bitterly considered as he paused close to the entrance of Vintauka's tailor shop, when it seemed as if the universe was definitely out to get him...or embarrass him, at the very least. The situation could be described in the following fashion - on a great many occasions in the past several years, he'd made a point of scornfully dismissing the upper echelon of station society, the businessmen and the rich who had money to burn, who spent credits merely to impress as they escorted their companions to evening meal - a meal that cost more then he could afford to spend in several months.
The Narn sighed deeply, as he inched ever closer to the tailor shop entrance, hoping even now that no one who knew him would see him here. The credits he'd managed to scrape together as a result of his 'service agreements' had barely been enough to keep him alive on more then one occasion - and while things had been a bit better just lately, enough so that he'd managed to set aside a fairly sizable reserve fund for rockier times, not once had G'Stral ever believed he would feel the need to impress someone by the way he dressed.
That, of course, had now changed.
He grimaced, and forced himself to walk into the shop - if he was to show up tonight at the Ranger compound wearing what he usually wore, he knew what would happen. She would be kind to him, but this time, kindness simply wasn't enough. He had his pride to preserve - and after all, there was always the chance he would run into Pratchett, now wasn't there? G'Stral grinned - as a matter of fact, he was looking forward to seeing the expression on her face when she saw what he was planning on wearing...
"Now, now, what's this all about, then?" G'Stral ground his teeth, and forced himself to meet the open sneer on the face of Shasan Vintauka, who was, of course, the owner of the establishment. Vintauka had arrived on Babylon 5 from Brakos just after the end of the Shadow War, and since then, the Brakiri entrepreneur had made it his personal mission to attract as much business, from as many races, as was theoretically possible. He was good at his job, but was usually a very difficult person to deal with. "I've heard about you, Narn - and your deals, oh yes! I will not have your bargaining in this place of business."
He was going to be polite, he was going to be polite... "You misunderstand." he ground out. "I...require your assistance."
Vintauka blinked - and then began to laugh. "You don't expect me to take you seriously, do you, boy? To the Comet with you and your request for 'assistance' - I have no time for this nonsense - and many more important customers to deal with..."
"G'Stral?"
Nearly he turned and ran at that point, but G'Stral finally decided that would be admitting to one and all, Julia included, that he was incapable of taking this step - and that, he would not do. "Doctor Hobbs - well, this is just great. Now I suppose the news of my little mistake here is going to be all over the station by dinner, right?"
"Not necessarily," the doctor corrected, her expression difficult to read. "Although someone did say something to me at breakfast this morning about a friend of his seeing you take off in pursuit of some Rangers. That wouldn't be connected to this little shopping trip of yours by any chance, would it?"
G'Stral scowled - now who had that been... Allan or Satamba? Not, of course, that it really mattered - either he was going to do this and surprise everyone, or... "It might."
"In that case," Hobbs carefully replied, "And since I heard you say something to Shasan about 'assistance'..."
"Now you hold on just a..."
"As I see it," Hobbs continued resolutely, "You have two choices here, G'Stral - either I help you choose something to wear and act as an intermediary between you and Vintauka - or you deal with him directly, and, if your history is anything to go by, annoy him to the point where he throws you out of the shop and tells you never to come back. Which will it be?"
There was a long pause - but finally G'Stral nodded, almost but not quite respectfully. "And who taught you to bargain like this...Franklin?"
"That...would be telling. Now, then - are we going to have to start from the foundation here, or do you have even a passing aquaintance with the words 'fashion sense'?"
Things went reasonably smoothly after that - and about thirty minutes later, G'Stral found himself standing in front of the mirror...as a stranger looked back out. Hobbs stood in the corner and waited to see what he would do, smiling faintly. The combination was an unusual one for his kind - but then he'd never been one to run with the crowd, now had he? Dark slacks, a charcoal shirt, and over both, a midnight-black tunic with just the slightest hint of jade thrown in for good measure along the seams and within the collar. G'Stral bent down and tugged on the boots one last time - and then he grinned, before rising to his feet and turning to face the still non-plussed Vintauka.
"I'll take it."
****************
The Eclipse Cafe
12:35 EST.
There was a time when Thomas Wingrove had been proud of his race and their accomplishments...proud of his perfect record, of the A-level he'd attained at Earthforce Academy after the end of the Earth-Minbari War... but that had all been shot to hell when Morgan Clark had arranged to have Luis Santiago assassinated. Pride had quickly become disatisfaction, and then, of course, he'd served under Robert Hardishane on the Theseus during those months of darkness in '60 and '61 when nothing was set in stone - the only certainty being that he and his CO were going to follow Major Ryan and Captain Tikopai, and eventually John Sheridan, to the bitter end - which meant winning...or dying.
Well, the end hadn't exactly been bitter, but it hadn't much felt like victory, either. Wingrove shook his head sadly as he ordered another drink - at least the senior officers that had served under Sheridan, himself included, hadn't ended up being shot out of hand afterrwards - although he had heard that the more radical ones had been shoved into all-but-impossible missions, like Ivanova and Tikopai getting involved in that nasty Warlock business last year...and that a few of them had even died as a result of their orders.
And then there was this whole Wallace thing - what the hell had the General been thinking when he and his fellow conspirators had thrown together that squadron and triedd to start another war? Too damn many people had been killed in the past few years already...and now it was going to be his job to go and kill some more.
Wingrove sighed - he didn't have to like it, but he supposed someone had to do it...
"Well, well." a bright, familiar voice suddenly drawled at his elbow, "If it isn't Honor Boy, in the flesh!"
Wingrove jumped and nearly spilled his drink. "Damnit, Griffon, what the Hell are you playing at?"
"You looked entirely too miserable for your own good." Leslie Griffon replied, as she slid onto the seat next to the Acheron's first officer. "And since the Captains have ordered us to have some fun and relax for a couple of days before we ship out..."
"Relax?" Wingrove barked out a laugh. "That's a good one." At which point, he watched Griffon's eyes grow narrow, and wished he'd never opened his mouth in the first place. Leslie and the rest of her Academy friends had managed to turn his time there into a living hell - and whenever she got that look in her eyes, he knew that trouble was only just around the corner. "Oh God - me and my big mouth."
"Captain's orders are captain's orders!" Griffon reminded him. "And since we appear to have a dereliction of duty going on here, I'm making it my personal mission to make sure that YOU have some fun while we're on Babylon 5. Sir."
"Yippee." Wingrove muttered. "What, exactly, did you have in mind?"
"Excuse me - are these seats taken?"
Wingrove slowly turned around, and came to face to face with the most worried looking Centauri he'd ever seen in his life. "What?"
"Please tell me these seats aren't taken?"
He frowned, and slowly turned to look at the three seats beside Griffon that had been vacated by a few personnel from the Dark Thunder only a moment before. "Not as far as I know."
"Volga!" a tight, snippish voice inquired from somewhere in the crowd, "Where have you got to?"
Wingrove chuckled, as the Centauri's face grew even more mournful. "Over here...my love."
"Love indeed!" the voice retorted, and shortly thereafter, the owner of that voice stalked out of the crowd, another member of her race close behind. "It's bad enough that Vir ran off with that Narn to try and deal with something or other, but now all these human military people are taking over the station and no one can get into a decent restaurant. You promised me a midday meal this morning, Volga - somewhere we could sit down together and talk without Vir interrupting!"
"Look, Prythia - I've found us somewhere to sit down and eat, see?"
"In the Zocalo?" the female Centauri all but shrieked. "How are we supposed to talk to one another when I can't even hear myself think?"
"And anyways," Volga desperately continued, "There's a couple of Earthforce officers here who helped me find our seats, er..."
"Commander Thomas Wingrove, EAS Acheron," he supplied, "And this is Commander Griffon of the Dark Thunder. And you are?"
"Volga Jaddo, attache to Ambassador Cotto - this is my wife, Prythia...and, er, our associate, Prado."
"Griffon?" Prythia Jaddo inquired with a frown. "Isn't that some sort of weird animal from a human legend, or something?"
Griffon raised her eyebrows. "That's an interesting comparison..."
"You're not, however, the first one to make it." Wingrove supplied, as he quickly downed the rest of his drink, and nodded his head in the direction of the bartender, who smiled and nodded in understanding. "So sorry, I must be going now..."
"Wingrove!" Griffon bellowed, as she jumped out of her seat and took off in pursuit, "I'm going to get you for that!"
"Humans." Prythia sniffed, as Volga began looking at the menu. "I'll never understand them."
****************
Gray Sector, Level 12
17:45 EST.
Almost from the moment he'd seen them, Baxter had figured out exactly what these two were up to. He'd been on the station almost from the moment it'd gone online - he'd seen it all during those years - and these guys were just more of the same ol', same 'ol. The flight plan he'd picked up in the office earlier in the day told him this lot had come in on the Tiber Prize from beyond the Nighthawk asteroid field - from the Rim, it looked like. And that, wouldn't you know it, probably meant only one thing...that these idiots had probably been poking around in the ruins of one of the planets where the Ancients had used to hang out.
Sheer stupidity, it was - but did they ever learn? Hell no! Baxter chuckled as he slowly wove his way through the corridors in pursuit of his targets. He remembered what'd happened when that Ikaran war machine had gone berserk down here back when Sinclair had still been around - and a long time ago, Chief Garibaldi had made up his mind that was never gonna happen again. That was where he and the rest of the lads came in - and even as he reached up to tap the link woven into the collar in his jacket, Terence Baxter, one time lurker and now undercover agent for Babylon 5 security, knew that this was going to be one very interesting bust, indeed.
****************
Gray Sector, Level 15
18:50 EST.
It had taken a Hell of a lot longer for the security boys to take the bait then Walson had thought, but in the end they finally had, the bristly-chinned operative considered with a thin smile, as two burly, gray-uniformed guards held him face down on the deck. Mallory, of course, had played his role a little too well...the goons hadn't been quite as pleasant with him, if his groans were anything to go by.
"Well, well - what do we have here?" a deep voice announced from behind, and Walson relaxed - that was Satamba, of course. "Didn't anyone tell you boys that it's against regulations to bring artifacts onboard Babylon 5 without registering them first?"
"To Hell with your regulations!" Yuri Olfhar spat. "This transaction has nothing to do with you...and in any case," the Slovakian smuggler added a moment later, "One would think that you learned your lesson during Lochley's crackdown..."
Thump
"Not the best thing you could have said," Satamba ground out, his eyes glittering darkly, as Olfhar sagged to the deck. "But this situation looks just a little more simple, in any case. McCaffrey, what do we have here?"
"Some pretty weird stuff, Sergeant," the other security guard replied, as Satamba critically gazed into the handful of cases on the nearby table. "In fact, there's a couple of things that look like they might even be organic tech."
Satamba whistled. "You boys been poking around in Shadow space?"
"Not...Shadow space." Walson managed. "We're not...stupid."
"Nope, just not very smart - we caught you, now didn't we? Okay, McCaffrey, take 'em away, and get this stuff down to the hazardous relics lockup so the Chief can take a look at 'em."
Walson grinned, even as McCaffrey and his goons grabbed them off the deck and dragged them away. "Stage one complete." he subvocalized into the transmitter in his mouth. "Stand by."
****************
Central Corridor: the Ranger Compound, main courtyard
19:05 EST.
The location was the correct one, and so was the time...but for G'Lan's sake, where was she, then? G'Stral began to pace - he knew he was drawing curious glances from the windows above, but he didn't care - the less time he had to spend here, hoowever, the happier he'd be. He'd been on time - she'd promised...
"G'Stral. Thank you for coming."
He turned at those whispered words - and to his surprise, found himself breaking into a smile. She was wearing a dark green skirt, a gray blouse, and a high necked black jacket trimmed in silver and jade - while she had her braids tied up almost in a circlet of sorts...and then, he noticed that there was also a pair of emerald stars set in silver circles pinned to the collars of that jacket. Questions there would be a plenty this evening...and, he now hoped, an equal number of answers.
"If you were trying to impress me..." Julia observed, "You've succeeded."
G'Stral nervously cleared his throat before tugging at the throat of his own tunic - for some reason, yet again he found he could not be his usual self around her, and on top of that, his clothes were beginnning to itch. "It's...no big deal, really. I just thought...the few times I've run into the head Ranger around here, I was wearing...what you saw me in when you came aboard. Took me a while, you know, but I finally decided that if I was going to come meet you in the Ranger compound, that I shouldn't look like...well, something a raiak`vah dragged into its cave."
"Some would call that an accurate comparison," the Ranger thoughtfully replied, "But not, I believe, those who know you well. Shall we go?"
G'Stral almost had time to say yes - but then a bark of laughter filled the courtyard and he winced...this encounter, of course, had been destined to happen from the moment he'd stepped into the courtyard. Surprise, surprise.
"Well, well." Jamie Pratchett observed with a grin from one of the nearby tower portals, "Look what the cat dragged in."
Julia turned, and in a single fluid motion, bowed in the direction of her superior. "Anla'shok Val'na Pratchett - you are well this evening, I trust?"
Pratchett snorted. "Oh yeah they taught you all the pretty words to use, didn't they? Let's cut to the chase, shall we, Anla'shok Tikopai...why are you hanging out with G'Stral, of all people? And why the heck is he dressed like that?"
"During the weeks of darkness two years ago when we believed the President lost at Z'ha'dum," Julia explained, "I spent a period of time in this place watching over the High Councillor and his chosen - I was also allowed to watch over her fighting pike at the same time. This proved useful...for on one of my progressions, I came across G'Stral struggling with a group of youths in Down Below...and I moved to aid him, as was just. In short, Val'na...
I saved his life."
"You did what?" Jamie exclaimed.
"I saved his life." Julia repeated, as she cast a warning glance in G'Stral's direction. He got the hint - sat down on a seat in the corner of the courtyard, and kept quiet. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"This was before he opened his mouth and showed you how irritating he can be, right?"
Now that was just too much to bear. "She's telling you the truth, okay?" G'Stral hotly exclaimed, as he rose to his feet and strode forth to Julia's side. "I trust her - I owe her a debt larger then you can imagine."
"A likely story - she's the reason you're not wearing your regular ratty jumpsuit?"
"Give me a break, Pratchett - do you really expect me to walk into a restaurant with a Ranger, dressed in that?"
"Okay..." the older Ranger eventually replied, "Fine by me. Off you go then, kids...do have a good time, though, wont'cha?"
"Is she always like this?" Julia asked him, as the older Ranger vanished back into the tower.
"Unfortunately, yes." G'Stral confirmed, his expression dour. "Now, can we get out of here, please?"
Julia laughed, nodded, and gestured towards the courtyard exit. "After you."
****************
Earhart's
19:52 EST.
Dinner, of course, had gone well - and now that the party was really starting to get underway, a partly bemused Lochley watched Anthony's officers telling tall tales to her own personnel around the nearest dozen or so tables - and for a wonder, it seemed as if she was actually starting to relax and enjoy herself. How long had it been since she could honestly say that had been the case? Too long.
Way the Hell too long.
"So, Lieutenant," Foraker confided, wine glass in hand, "Did Liz ever tell you about the time we found the orbital towers out on the Rim?"
"Orbital...towers?" Corwin replied with a frown, as he took a deep sip from his own drink. "You don't mean..."
"I do indeed. This was back in '57, of course, before the war, when the Omegas were still conducting active exploration missions out beyond Sector 750. Now where was it, exactly - I can never remember, for some reason..."
"GC 13791." Lochley supplied with a sigh.
"Bingo!" Foraker replied. "Thank you, Liz. Anyways, we jump into orbit around this planet covered in ruins, and wouldn't you know it, there's these three huge towers reaching from the equator right out to geosynch..."
"I remember hearing something about that before I came out here..." Hobbs allowed with a smile. "But I didn't know your ship was the one that found them, Captain!"
"Our momentary claim to fame..." Lochley allowed.
"'Momentary' meaning that right around the time the first IPX people arrived," Foraker explained, "The towers began falling over."
"No!" Corwin exclaimed. "Really?"
"Yes-siree. We told those archeological idiots the towers weren't stable, but did they listen to us? Hell, no!" Foraker began to laugh. "I've never seen scientists move so fast in my life..."
"Ah, Captain, you got a moment?"
Lochley turned towards the door, and there Zack was - in full uniform, even...damnit, she'd known this was too good to last. "Chief, come on...you know the rule!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Zack replied, "And I didn't really want to interrupt your party and all - but the Sarge made a bust right around dinner time that uncovered some stuff we think is from the Rim -- maybe not Shadoww technology, but could be just as old."
"And don't you have any protocols in place to deal with this sort of thing?"
"Yeah - Captain Ivanova drew 'em up, back when she was first officer around here. The first step was to...
"Contact the commanding officer." Lochley wearily finished for him.
Zack nodded grimly. "Great," she ground out. "And how, exactly, did these 'artifacts' get on board?"
"Couple of smugglers came onboard the station this morning, Captain - we've got 'em in the brig right now for questioning."
"Okay." Lochley finally allowed, as she threw her hands up in surrender. "Guess I'd better come take a look, then."
"C'mon, Liz..." Foraker added, as he came to her side, "This isn't such a big deal - probably no different from a dozen and one things we've found out on the Rim together. In fact...why don't I come along wwith you and the Chief and take a look at these artifacts?"
Lochley smiled, and nodded. "Why the Hell not. All right, Zack, let's get going - the sooner we get this over with..."
"The sooner the party can continue," Foraker finished for her> He turned to face Corwin, who now seemed to be deep in conversation with a pair of brunettes from the crew of the Dark Thunder. "Oh, Lieutenant?"
"Sir?"
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep the party humming along nicely until Captain Lochley and I return. Do you accept?"
Corwin grinned. "Yes, sir!"
"Hmm. Maybe he's not quite so wet behind the ears as I originally thought..." Foraker muttered, as he and Lochley followed Zack out of the club.
Neither officer, of course, saw the microscopic spy-eyes zip away from the ceiling to follow them.
****************
Onboard the Tiber Prize, Jeremiah Stone sat back in his chair, and began to grin, as the image of the two targets shimmered into view in front of him - and then, he began to chuckle. "Welcome to my house, said the spider to the fly..." he whispered. "Now, the question is,
Which one of you is going to be the one it attacks?"
****************
Too late - he had not moved quickly enough, and now, it was going to be too late. Hakrah could sense the pattern forming, even as he hastened out of Babylon 5's 'alien sector' towards his goal. Too late and too slow - the vision-walker had been right - and now someone was about to pay the price for his mistakes.
The singing crystal was here.
And the song it sang...
Was chaos.
****************** Act Two *****************
Green Sector: Central Corridor
19:45 EST, June 27th, 2263.
The restaurant that Julia eventually decided to go to was named 'Moriarty's'. Like its more upscale competitor 'Fresh Aire', the dining establishment in question was located in the Central Corridor - but further to spinward and about half a mile up-corridor. Instead of being located at 'ground' level, Moriarty's was situated on a terrace near the top of a business complex along the edge of one of the rare and very shallow lakes scattered throughout the station interior - the viewpoint was, to put it mildly, a good one.
G'Stral, of course, had made the mistake of grumbling about the 'expense' - and in response, had been assured that 'the Anla'shok takes care of its own - and also its friends and guests'. The challenge thus issued, the Narn immediately began another of his traditional bargaining sessions, a exchange that continued almost until they'd reached the restaurant entrance...but finally, the bargain being found acceptable to both parties, G'Stral and Julia walked in together...and in short order, the evening manager guided them to a table overlooking the water and buildings below.
Soon thereafter, G'Stral discovered exactly why she'd chosen this establishment - Moriarty's had the good fortune to employ among its kitchen staff a certified Narn Feihrusavar who had arrived on Babylon 5 shortly before his people's homeworld had fallen to the Centauri. The master-of-food in question had turned his talents towards pleasing as many members of as many races as he possibly could - while still hoping the day would come when Narn would be freed, and proud members of his species would come to the restaurant to enjoy the fruits of his labours. And tonight, the Feihrusavar had spied G'Stral entering the restaurant with his Ranger companion - and a short time later, the waiter had set before him a familiar list of 'choices' - meals that he had eaten in his youth, before he had come to this place...but certainly not since.
And finally - the moment came, as the waiter carefully set the piping-hot plate of mes'haag pie in front of him. While Julia watched on, a small smile on her face as she waited to see how he'd react, G'Stral carefully sliced a piece off the corner of the pie, raised the fork to his mouth - and was instantly transported back to his youth - to the years before the war had destroyed the Regime and...
And his family.
"It's good, is it?"
"Perfect." he managed, still fighting off the sheer sense of displacement he had been feeling from the moment she'd stepped aboard earlier in the day. "Do you know how long it's been since I've eaten this?"
"I can guess." Julia replied, as she sipped delicately at the icewater in front of her before attacking her own meal. "While if you don't mind me asking..."
G'Stral's expression darkened slightly - for G'Lan's sake, how did she do that? He sighed then, however...and nodded - she had the right to know. "How did that part of my life end...and what happened to my family."
Julia nodded. He gritted his teeth, before beginning the tale - even now, the words hurt...and the memories - but it needed to be said. "My father was a fusion specialist - he was assigned to the Na'Garamar colony about four years after the end of your race's war with the Minbari. For a while, we did okay...and even though growing up on the side of a mountain range wasn't easy for my pouch-brothers and I - we learned the lessons we needed to survive...and how to prosper, if all went well. For the Regime was growing, wasn't it!... in their broadcasts, the kHa'Ri assured us that noone would ever defeat us again.
The kHa'Ri were wrong." he muttered, as he continued to eat. "And my family eventually paid the price for their mistakes when the Centauri returned. The evacuation of Na'Garamar began when the front lines got close enough - but not until the very end, with Centauri warships bearing down on us like rah'gahr, was my family chosen to leave. By that point, of course, more then half of the outer colonies had fallen - and like so many others, our exodus from that place was one drenched in blood."
He looked up from his plate - and once again, was surprised, as he saw unshed tears glistening in Julia's eyes. "You were...separated from them, of course," she managed, "Their ship made it past the Centauri blockade...did yours?"
G'Stral shook his head - his expression now bitter. "There were too many Centauri warships in the way - they forced us down, and then they threw the survivors, myself included, into a work camp - and we were in there when Homeworld fell...and after. It was brutal, Tikopai - but in the end, it was their own belief in what they were doing that did them in. Na'Garamar was a deep range colony, and not an important holding for them...and they were so concerned with dealing with uprisings on Homeworld that they began to forget about us...they thought we weren't important. Bit by bit, they thinned out the garrison - and then, one day, when the local Centauri warships were out of the system...we acted."
Julia smiled sadly. "A breakout."
"A revolt would be more accurate - we overpowered the local authorities...and killed most of them in the process. And then, we broke into their transports and made for the local gate. We reached it just as a small group of their war cruisers jumped back in from patrol. They gave chase, of course - and one of the transports was destroyed. The rest of us got away, though, and we reached Babylon 5 about six weeks after Sheridan fought his own war of independence."
"I remember that time only too well..." Julia allowed, "Only for me, it was a little bit different - I arrived here the day after the station seceded, on the Ranger High Councillor's White Star. Now - are you going to tell me what happened to your family? You don't have to if you don't want to..."
G'Stral lowered his head. "I have to - that's part of the story...part of our deal. They made it back to Homeworld, but I eventually learned they were killed in the first hour of the Centauri bombardment that ended the war. Ironic, isn't it? They escaped, and I didn't - but in the end, they were the ones to die - while I lived."
He paused then, expecting her to say she was sorry, as humans so often did - such a meaningless phrase, that was - but yet again, she surprised him by simply...waiting for him to go on, her attention focused on one thing and one thing only...his story. "There's not much more to tell. Since no one on Babylon 5 was going to help me, I had to help myself. Took me a while, but I finally found someone to work for, someone who appreciated my style - and the credits he paid me kept me alive, even as the Shadow War was tearing the galaxy apart. But you'd know about that, wouldn't you?" he shrewdly noted, changing subjects just for a moment.
"The rest of my story will come soon enough." Julia reminded him. "First, you have to finish yours."
"Guess so." G'Stral paused for a moment, then, as he continued to carve his way through the now-rapidly cooling pie. "Thirty second rundown - I learned when to bargain, and when to cut my losses - when to fight, and when to run. When to take my chances, when to lie...and when to tell the truth. It took a long time, Tikopai, but once you've learned how to play the game around here, the rest becomes just a little bit easier. Have to admit I've made some enemies...but as long as they hate one another more then they hate me, I'm more valuable to them alive then I am dead.
None of which would've been possible, of course..." he quietly concluded, "If you hadn't saved my life when you did."
"And that," Julia noted, "Would be your version of 'thanks', right?"
"Guess so..." G'Stral's head snapped up, his eyes now sparkling with irritation. "All right, I've had just about enough of this - that's about the third or fourth time you've done that to me today! What's up with this habit you have of filling in cracks in people's stories and lives before they finish telling their tales? You're not telepathic, are you?"
There was a long pause...but finally Julia laughed. "Not quite. I should apologize, G'Stral - as a matter of fact, I've been holding back on that angle of what I am ever since we met at the Compound earlier on. You wanted some answers - well, to make things just a little clearer, I'm going to have to go back in time a little ways before we first met." As he watched, her finger came up to rest upon one of the jade and silver stars on her collars. "What do you suppose these mean?"
G'Stral shrugged.
"All right then - you're going to have to keep an open mind on this one, though. A lot of the people who've trained me, the people in the Rangers who are my friends, have dealt with this oddity right from the start - have...dealt with the fact that I'm not exactly an ordinary girl, if you know what I mean?"
The Narn laughed himself, then. "I think I've figured out that part already, thanks."
"About three years ago," Julia continued, "I came to Babylon 5 and learned that I was what the Vorlon Ambassador Kosh called...an 'Observer' - there's only three of us in the galaxy that I know of, one of whom is the wife of our High Councillor..."
"Oh yeah, I've seen that guy on ISN from time to time - what's his name, Frostcastle, or something?"
"Oh dear!" Julia managed, as she tried desperately to hide a giggle. "I'd better not tell him about this..."
"And why not?" G'Stral observed. "If Pratchett's anything to go by, the whole lot of you are too serious for your own good. So what's that mean, exactly...you being an 'Observer'?"
Julia sighed. "That's a good question, G'Stral - and none of us have a really clear answer yet - one of the things we have figured out, though, is that seems to be our job to record really important events for future reference, in my case, mostly in the form of horribly scribbled notations written in a notebook. But as I was saying...right around the time the High Councillor was pulling the White Star Fleet together to fight the Shadows, they decided to give us our own badge of service..."
The discussion continued - and even as it did, neither the Ranger nor G'Stral noticed two pairs of eyes peeking through the glass and plant partition seperating their terrace from the one just above.
****************
"I told you that was him!" Selene accused, as an astonished Jaida turned away from peeking and listening to face her friend. "What's he doing here? Why's he dressed like that? And who's the girl?"
"Don't know, don't know, and if we listen closely," Jaida retorted, as she leant forward towards her friend so her father wouldn't hear what they were talking about - not that he was paying attention right now anyways, 'cause he was paying more attention to his own lady friend then he was to them, "Maybe we'll find out. I just heard her say 'White Star Fleet'...". The Centauri girl's eyes widened. "Hey - do you think she's a Ranger?"
"No way! Really?" Selene frowned, as she bent back over to take another look at the elegantly dressed young woman sitting with G'Stral below them. "I didn't know the Minbari let kids become Rangers - " Both of them grinned then, the reason for the meal now forgotten as they began to wrap their minds around this new and very interesting mystery. "Do you suppose she's been on a White Star yet?"
"Ssssh! Just listen - and make sure he doesn't see us!"
****************
Station Hazardous Relics Lockup
20:05 EST.
"Nice setup you've got here." Foraker commented, as he and Lochley briefly paused in the HZR lockup's 'airlock' as Zack entered the code for the secondary door. "Even if someone did get past the first door looking for their stuff, you could still trap them here."
"And then pump the trap full of gas, yeah..." Zack replied with a wary grin. "Mr. Garibaldi and Captain Ivanova came up with the idea after the Ikarran incident, so if we ever did have to deal with weirdness like that again, we could put the artifacts someplace the 'owners' couldn't get at them, if you know what I mean?"
Foraker frowned. "Ikarran incident?"
The Chief nodded bitterly. "Before my time, but Mr. Garibaldi told me about it once. Guess this doctor and his buddy smuggled some ancient organic stuff onboard, and this assistant wasn't, well, as careful as he could've been - and zap, one of the artifacts attached itself to his chest. Next thing they knew, there was this seven foot tall war machine going 'round blowing holes in the walls -"
"And how, exactly, did Mr. Garibaldi take this thing down, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Well, that's the weird part - he didn't. Apparently Commander Sinclair went in and convinced the guy to take the artifact off, or something..."
"You don't say..."
Lochley cleared her throat, and Allan rather abruptly got the hint that story time was over. "Well, hey, that was the past! This time, though, it looks like we managed to shut these guys down before they could do any harm with this stuff."
"So what exactly do we have here, Chief?" Lochley inquired, as they passed through the door and into the lockup proper - a room whose far wall was covered with small lockers - yet another layer of security dreamed up by Michael Garibaldi, she supposed. The guy'd been incredibly paranoid about his job...but in this case, even she had to admit that most of the time that was a good thing.
"Wellll, there's some stuff that looks like it might be organic tech, but as you can see," Allan continued, as he opened one of the containers, grabbed hold of a greenish hoop and passed it over, "Whatever this is, it's been dead for what could be thousands of years, just full of cracks..."
"For this, he dragged us away from the party?" Foraker muttered in Lochley's ear as he critically examined the artifact - she smiled and nodded, before wiping the grin from her face.
"Ah, Chief?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know - get to the good stuff, already. Now this," Allan indicated, as he opened another container, "was the really strange one. The guys we took down insisted that they didn't know where it was from, and that they bought it all from a trader out on the Rim - and since their backgrounds check out as far as we can tell, your guess is as good as mine as to what it is, but it looks to be pretty much intact." At which point he lifted a crystal out of the container - octahedral, clear, maybe forty centimeters long -- and Lochley stiffened in surprise.
"Anthony..."
"My God." Foraker managed, his eyes showing he was just as surprised as she was by this...whatever it was that Zack Allan was holding in his hands. "Damnit, Liz - haven't we seen one of these things before? More than one?"
"I don't...think so." She frowned. "You're right, though - looking at that thing's giving me the strangest feeling of deja vu..."
"You both okay?" Allan inquired, his expression now one of suspicion.
"Just fine, Chief..." Foraker replied. "But do you mind if I take a closer look at that?"
Allan shrugged. "Don't see why the Hell not - half a dozen of my people have handled the thing so far - and no one's found an 'on' switch, if you know what I'm saying?" And with that, he passed the crystal to the Acheron's captain.
Which was, as it turned out, one of the bigger mistakes Babylon 5's security chief had made recently - but there was no predicting what came next. Even as Foraker took the crystal into his hands, Lochley felt a completely irrational stab of fear pass through her. "Anthony, wait!..."
"What..." A deep rumbling shudder passed through her mind - while the crystal, if only for a moment, went from clear to blazing red, a glow that seemed to shimmer around Foraker for a moment - and was gone. As gone as Foraker, as it turned out, as he slumped to the deck, unconscious, the crystal falling from his hands...
She didn't think - she just acted. And even as Allan began to bellow, Lochley leapt forward and caught the falling crystal in her hands - and only then did she realize what she'd done.
"Captain," Allan growled, as his hand came down on her arm, "Are you out of your flippin' mind?"
"I..." Lochley shuddered as Allan grabbed the crystal out of her hands and put it back in the container - and then she knelt down to check on Anthony's condition. He was out cold, but at least he was still breathing. While the crystal had done exactly nothing to her - but Zack was right - she wasn't normally this impulsive! "Chief, let's forget about that for the time being - I think Captain Foraker's condition should be our main worry for now, don't you?"
"Damn straight." Allan raised his hand to his mouth. "This is Chief Allan to Medlab One - we need a team in HZR lockup, stat. We've got a man down!"
****************
Moriarty's
20:27 EST.
"Turtle brownies?"
"What?" Julia managed, her mouth full of chocolate and caramel -- she swallowed...and then sighed. "Oh...yeah. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had one of these?"
"This sounds familiar." G'Stral replied, his voice droll. "So the Minbari aren't real big on desserts, then?"
"Give the Narn five points for accuracy." she retorted. "So...what do you think?"
"About the dessert, or your implausible stories?" G'Stral shot back. She narrowed her eyes - "Yeah, yeah, I know - you didn't deserve that. What do I think? I think you were out of your mind to get sucked into this Ranger business, that's what I think. After all, you were only, what, twelve human years old when this all started?"
"More or less. In case you haven't noticed, G'Stral, I didn't have much of a choice, not with...you know who involved - and he was by far the kindest of them all. And even with that being true," she continued, her voice low, "Where I've walked, there's been so many times I should've died. On the bridge of Tashann's White Star at Corianna VI, during the Thirdspace crisis... during the final battle for Earth, the battle where my mother's Earthforce destroyer got shot to pieces. And then, of course," she whispered, "There was the time when a Shadow servant shot me from behind, and left me for dead."
G'Stral whistled. "Truth?"
Julia nodded - resolutely, regretfully. "That was only a couple of weeks before I rescued you, actually - it's one thing the Minbari are really good at, and that's medical tech. I don't suppose you've heard what caused High Councillor Westcastle to go to Z'ha'dum?"
G'Stral shook his head warily - and she leant forward, and explained - quietly, and to the point. "You were in the way -" he finally said. "And since the Shadows gave them their marching orders - their servants got you out of the way, the easiest way they knew how." He paused. "There's something about you," he finally said, "Rarely seen in humans your age..."
"And how are you any different?" she reminded him. "You lost your family and your home, you came to a place you didn't know anything about - and while you've had some hard times, you've still made a living for yourself here, G'Stral - in Valen's name, you've even dealt with Captain Lochley herself on a number of occasions and lived to tell the tale!"
"That is also a truth." G'Stral finally admitted. "So...where you do you think you'll be going from here? And what about me? Any guesses?"
"The future is never set in stone," Julia reminded him, as she set her dish aside and leant towards him, her fingers steepled under her chin. "But you're a part of the pattern that's formed here, G'Stral, never forget this. What was can never be reclaimed - what may be is all we have to hope for."
"That's your 'talent' speaking, I suppose."
She raised one eyebrow. "Maybe. Shall we go?"
****************
"Father!!"
"Great Maker, Jaida, you're restless tonight!" Ari Tefano snapped, as his dining companion leant back from the table and glared at the girls. "What is the matter with you?"
"Oh nothing, we just have to check on something - can we please, please go?"
"By all means, yes. We will be talking about your manners later on, however, young lady!"
And with that Jaida and Selene sprang out of their chairs and raced down off the terrace, even as the two figures they were most interested in turned around the corner outside Moriarty's, and vanished from sight. "What'd you hear? What'd you hear?"
"Some pretty wild stuff!" Selene blurted out. "She was talking pretty quiet there for a while..."
"And so was he." Jaida darkly replied.
"Yeah. But wow, she said she was on a White Star during the last battle of the Shadow War. And at the battle where President Sheridan went to Earth to boot out Clark!"
Jaida nodded solemnly, trying to wrap her thoughts around those impossibilities - the girl G'Stral had been sitting with didn't look much more than, oh, eighteen or nineteen Earth years, maybe - and the Shadow War, of course, had been over for more then two years, now. "That's what she said."
"But that's just not possible!" Selene insisted, as they ran out of the building and down the walkway beside the lake, looking for their two targets. "That would be like Captain Lochley letting us take one of the station fighters out for a spin!"
"Those were desperate times, remember." she reminded her friend. "But you're right - even the Rangers couldn't have been that desperate."
"Oh, where'd they go?" Selene skidded to a halt as they came to the end of the lake. "This just isn't fair!"
"Well, um, maybe she went back to the Ranger compound - we could always go that way..."
"Are you nuts?" Selene exploded. "Pratchett might catch us if we went there - and then we'd have to explain everything."
Jaida gulped - and nodded. They'd heard a few things about the Ranger commander from G'Stral - none of which were very flattering. "So much for following them, huh?"
"Yeah. Guess it wasn't such a good idea, after all."
"Okay. Let's go, then." And even though the hunt had come to a sudden and unexpected end, Jaida found herself unable to ignore the subject even after she'd said goodbye to Selene and gone home...at which point her father had returned to give her the expected lecture. "A girl named Julia," she muttered later on, as she began to fall asleep. A girl who'd danced with Shadows... and been touched by Vorlons? She had heard her say something about that. A girl who'd become... a Ranger...
****************
Selene frantically burrowed through the stash of starship drawings she'd made over the past couple of years while peeking out of viewports in Red Sector - and finally came across the one she'd been looking for, one she'd made on a day when Trish had been so sure they were both going to die - a day when even the lurkers had been quiet, waiting for their world to end.
A day in which warships from a hundred worlds had filled the skies of Babylon 5 - a day in which she'd summoned up the nerve to go one of the station's Sanctuaries to see the departure of the fleet - the day she'd made this particular sketch.
Selene closed her eyes, and tried to remember the sight she'd seen - of what had to be the entire White Star Fleet passing along the station's starboard quarter, as the rest of the President's armada maneuvered to jump. They'd been moving so quickly - and she'd only had time to draw a few of 'em before the President had given his command, and everyone had jumped into hyperspace.
That girl, Julia, had only been sixteen or seventeen at the time - and if the stories she'd been telling G'Stral were true, she'd been a member of that flyby. And then, she'd become a Ranger...
Selene's eyes widened, then - if one kid could become a Ranger, couldn't more?
****************
The Ranger Compound: Guest Quarters.
21:47 EST.
"Your evening went well, I trust?" Larieken inquired, as Julia slipped down the darkened corridor towards the meditation chamber, candle in hand.
"Well?" she retorted. "It was...interesting, let's leave it at that for the time being, shall we?"
"It shall be as you wish." the Minbari Ranger gravely replied. "Sleep well, then, shaen'li alanna'la - perhaps we will speak more on this when day comes to this place once again."
Perhaps - and yet...Julia set the candle down on the black tiled floor as the portal slid shut behind her...tiles that'd been imported from Raenl'aigh Province on Minbar when this place had first been built - and she frowned. She'd watched the pattern unfold, of course, and tried to figure out what it all meant. There was G'Stral, coming out of his shell for the first time in a very long time, if she read him right - then there was that dark-haired girl and her Centauri companion, who'd come racing out of the restaurant after they'd left. She had a pretty good idea who'd they'd been looking for - her - and an even better idea what they'd overheard. The acoustics in that restaurant had been pretty good, after all - even she'd caught snatches of conversation clearly from twenty feet away on the other side of the terrace. But what did all mean?
She shivered. A pattern was forming here - a pattern that needed to be fulfilled. Someone - of course! Someone was in danger, or would be - and those three, the girls and G'Stral - would they be involved in saving that someone? Julia sighed - she would have to be watchful. There was always the chance they would need some help, when the time came.
****************
Onboard the Tiber Prize
22:21 EST.
"Well, well..." Stone muttered to himself, as he watched Lilian Hobbs and her people run Foraker down the corridor to Medlab on a stretcher from the viewpoint of the multiple spyeyes he'd sent in pursuit of the medical team. Luckily for everyone concerned, most especially Stone, Allan had been his usual predictable self. Stone sniggered - the chief had all but thrown the crystal at Foraker, for God's sake!
"Looks like the Old Man was right, after all." Tomorrow morning, he'd arrange to break Mallory and Walson out of protective custody and whisk them out of sight - for right now, though, it was time to take a little nap.
****************
Medlab One
23:05 EST.
"You're sure there's nothing I can do?"
"Apart from hovering in the window and looking unhappy, you mean?" Hobbs retorted, as Lochley paced back and forth in her office. "Let me be frank with you, Captain - your friend Captain Foraker is in stable condition at the moment, and as near as we can tell, he isn't in any danger..."
"Then why hasn't he woken up yet?" Lochley snapped.
"The human mind sometimes plays strange games with us - most especially after it comes into contact with alien technology." Hobbs reminded her. "Whatever that crystal is, it had a most immediate and obvious effect on the Acheron's captain - I'm almost tempted to call this a 'light coma' - but until we do some more tests, I won't know for certain what's going here.
In the meantime, however, Captain - you should get some sleep. That's not a suggestion, by the way."
Lochley opened her mouth to argue that point - then thought better of it, as a spike of pain caught her unawares - another headache - just typical. "Ah, Hell! You're right, of course. Sixteen hours is a long enough day, especially with all these Earthforce crews running around the station."
"Of course I'm right." Hobbs replied, with a small smile. "I'm a doctor - that's part of our job description."
"Oh really? I..." Lochley yawned, and then grimaced.
"Good night, Captain."
****************
The Central Corridor
01:15 EST, June 28th, 2263.
It had been...a nightmare, he'd been sure of it. Or was it just another leftover memory from Kosh? Either way, Colin had found himself unable to sleep - and after a time, he'd dressed, pulled on one of his old off-hours Academy jackets and gone out on walkabout. What had he seen, he pondered, as he wandered at random along the pathways and between the buildings, dimly lit as they were in the near-darkness of Babylon 5's interior at this time of night...
What had he seen?
"Restless, you are!" a vibrant deep voice announced behind him, and Colin jumped. "And, no doubt, for the same reason as I. A mistake has been made, telepath - and now we must decide what to do about it."
He slowly turned around - and blinked. A tall, dark-skinned humanoid in emerald robes, his head bald and scaly save for a single trailing tendril of hair at his chin, stood in the middle of the path behind him. His expression was severe, and sad at the same time... "Ah, do I know you?"
"No!" the reply came. "Not yet. But I know you, telepath! I have seen you in passing on many occasions - and on this dark night of our soul, the disturbance awoke you, yes? I have heard the crystal singing its song of pain - and as yet, I have not yet decided what it is I must do. Perhaps you can help me make this decision."
"If I'm going to help you," Colin managed, "It'd be nice if I knew who and what you are, first..."
"But of course! My name is Hakrah - and I am the leader of the V'cha'richae in this place."
Of course - now he remembered, from the briefing the Corps had given him on the various species living on Babylon 5 before he'd come here. The V'cha'richae had been one of the species that had been...foolish enough to associate themselves openly with the Vorlons. And during the final stages of the Shadow War, the Shadows had cast one of their deathclouds against the V'cha'richae homeworld. Colin tried not to grimace - as near as the Alliance authorities knew, Hakrah and his people were the only surviving members of their race. "The 'crystal', you said - what crystal would that be, exactly?"
"Before understanding comes," Hakrah gravely replied, "An explanation, I must give you. In the times before the Dark Ones destroyed our world, many of my kind owned -sligaaarnazza- what you would call 'singing crystals'. Only one was rescued from the ruins by the Anla'shok who aided us, and this we gave to him as an union gift when he joined himself to his partner-in-life. It was our belief that no more would be found, then - that this phase of our existence was over. All that changed a short time ago, however, when our vision-walker detected the dark-song-arrived. At first, we did not believe him - but finally, all could hear, and the decision was made that someone should act."
"And that someone was you?"
"It is as you say - the conclave sent me forth to try and prevent the dark song from affecting those who dwell in this place. The crystal tricked me, however..." Hakrah explained, "And a short time ago, what was feared came to pass."
Colin muttered a curse. "You're trying to tell me this crystal your, uh, shaman detected attacked someone onboard Babylon 5? What are these things, some sort of telepathic booster?"
"Not...as such, no." Hakrah lowered his gaze. "But the song of this crystal is a dark one - and our vision-walker may not be able to control the song should he choose to interfere. You, on the other hand..."
"Now hold on just a minute, here!..."
"You, on the other hand," the V'cha'richae insisted, "Are a powerful human telepath, a member of this Psi Corps I have heard of. I ask you now for your help, human - together we may be able to defeat the crystal, and rescue the one it has attacked."
Well...this looked like it was going to be...interesting. "You're sure there's no one else who can do this for you?"
"Very sure." Hakrah regarded him impassively, his arms now folded tightly acros his chest. "You are the one - there is no other."
Colin sighed - now, the question was, who should he approach to ask about this...attack? The decision wasn't a difficult one - Elizabeth, of course. Except - he ran through the shift rotation in his head - she was probably asleep right now, although it certainly didn't hurt to ask. "Hakrah," he gravely replied, "Just to let you know, I think we might have to wait a little while longer before we can deal with this problem..."
****************
Blue Sector, Level 28
07:20 EST.
"Yoooou promised, Dad!" Akili accused, as Glenn Satamba paused in front of the door, and turned back to face his daughter with a frown. "You promised you'd tell us if we could go. Please, can we, can we?"
Glenn sighed - and then made his way back towards the kitchen, his daughter dutifully tagging along behind. "Ah, Miriam..."
"You forgot, didn't you?" his wife replied from behind the partition. "You won't mind if I ask what crisis caused this particular memory lapse?"
"Better that you don't know." he finally replied. "Now what's this all about?"
"He forgot?" JoJo asked his sister.
Akili glared at her father. "Yep - he sure did."
"The parents in Resource Management who have kids put their heads together," Miriam explained, "And tried to figure out a way for the children to have a picnic and play some games together..."
"A picnic? On BABYLON 5?" Satamba paused then, however, as he figured it out...and then he let out a deep belly laugh. "Hold on - did you..."
"The rank doth have its privileges once in a while." his wife wryly replied. "Indeed I did - after much discussion, Resource Management came to the decision that they wouldn't damage the grass too much...as long as someone keeps a close eye on them, that is. Which someone will. The someone being Alisande Reynauf, one of my better agronomists, who is taking a day off to organize this little expedition."
"She'd better." Glenn growled, his memory of what had almost happened to his family during the crackdown still too fresh for his own peace of mind. "Still - it has been a while since the kids have been out in the open - and the Central Corridor's as near as you get to 'open' on Babylon 5..."
"It is indeed. So," his wife carefully continued, as the kids watched and waited, their eyes wide with expectation, "Are we going to let them go out and play?"
"As long as they stay close to Mrs. Reynauf - and as long as Akili makes sure she looks out for her brother at all times..." Glenn finally grinned. "Yeah, they can go."
"Yippee!!"
****************
Captain's Office
08:01 EST.
"Lieutenant..."
"Captain?"
"You let me sleep in."
"You needed the sleep." Corwin pointed out, as Lochley shook her head to clear away the last traces of grogginess, and fight off the headache that had only gotten worse since she'd risen. "And as Dr. Hobbs explained when I dropped in after you'd gone to bed, there was nothing you could have done at the time - and until she figures out exactly what is going on, there's still nothing you can do."
"I'm afraid, Lieutenant, that you're wrong about that." Lochley replied. "There's definitely something I have to do - even though I don't have to like it. Now that Captain Foraker's out cold, I have to deal with the repurcussions of what's happened to him. Starting with..."
"Oh damn..." Corwin managed, "I'd forgotten about him."
"Captain Lochley!" a voice barked, "What the hell is going on here?" It had, Lochley considered, taken longer then she'd thought it would for Jerry Barns to arrive on her doorstep, but now he had...and the captain of the Dark Thunder was clearly not amused. "I've just been informed by my XO that the captain of the Acheron was taken to Medlab last night, after being struck unconscious by an ancient artifact your chief of security was foolish enough to give to him. Why the Hell didn't you call and tell me about this the instant it happened?"
"I did call, actually!" Lochley snapped, "And Commander MacDonald told me that you were asleep, as a matter of fact - the 'first decent sleep he's had in months' I believe he said. I decided, Captain, not to disturb you for the very same reason Babylon 5's chief physician told me to go to bed...there was nothing we could have done to help him last night, Jerry...and as things stand right now, that hasn't changed one bit. Dr. Hobbs and her people are doing their best to try and figure out what's going on, but we have to give them some breathing room, so they can do their job!"
Barns' left hand clenched into a fist - and for a moment she thought the yelling match would continue - but as he had so many times before, Jerry Barns proved her wrong, as his face relaxed. "Damnit - you're right of course, Elizabeth...but for this to happen now..." Barns shook his head, and closed his eyes. "Every hour we delay here means the captains loyal to Wallace will be that much harder to find. Whatever caused Foraker to collapse - I hope your doctor finds the cure, and soon."
"Ah, Captain...I think we might be able to help you out with that problem." Lochley froze, and slowly turned towards the door - not now, damn it, she did not need this, not now!... but there he was, just the same.
Colin.
While the colder side of her personality still wanted to call him... "Mr. Ferris!" she ground out, "This had better be good - because if it isn't, you can turn around and walk right back out that door!"
The Psi Cop cleared his throat uncomfortably. "The explanation makes a certain amount of sense after you've had a little bit of time to think about it...but I'm not the one to give that explanation. He, on the other hand, is." At which point Lochley watched Ferris nod at someone behind him, and a dark-skinned humanoid in emerald robes stepped into view, his expression grave. "Captain, this is Hakrah - the leader of Babylon 5's resident V'cha'richae population. He has something to tell you..."
****************
Security Central
08:13 EST.
"Okay..." Wingrove all but snarled, "Let's try this again, shall we? You've told us that some trader out on the Rim sold you the crystal, and that you came here trying to sell it, along with the rest of that junk you dredged out of some First Ones garbage pit - only problem is, I don't believe you. It all fits together just a little too easily..."
Within the holding cell, Walson yawned, and checked the time. "Don't know what the Hell your problem is, 'Force, but like we already said, we're not responsible for what happened to your captain - anyone idiotic enough to grab hold of an ancient's artifact like that should have his head examined."
The anger in Wingrove's eyes darkened towards black rage at that point -- which was, of course, when Zack and Griffon stepped in. "Woah, there, sir..." the Chief cautioned, "We don't want to make a bad situation worse, here."
"And how do you define worse, Chief?" Wingrove roared. "Does 'worse' equal these bastards laughing at us when we're not looking? Of pretending they don't know what the Hell's going on, here?"
"No, sir." Allan replied. "'Worse' equals me letting you pound these jerks into the deck and then having them press charges. They're not worth it, sir."
"He's right, Thomas." Griffon agreed. "C'mon - we've been here for almost three hours now, and we've gotten exactly...nowhere with this angle of attack. Don't you think we should go to Medlab and see how your captain's doing? Heck, while we're away, we'll probably think up a bunch more questions to ask these idiots."
"Idiot?" Walson spat. "Who are you calling an idiot, 'Force?"
"You're the one behind bars," Griffon pointed out, her tone smug. "You figure it out." And with that, the two officers left Zack alone with the 'smugglers'.
"Well, well," the Chief pondered, "What are we gonna do with you two?"
"Let us go?" Mallory snidely suggested.
"I don't think so. Marten!"
"Chief?"
"We're wasting our time here. Take these two over to the secondary holding area."
Zack did not see the amused glitter in Walson's eyes as he gave out the order - or hear the word the 'smuggler' whispered, a moment later.
"Finally."
****************
Captain's Office
08:27 EST.
"Do you seriously expect me to believe that..."
"Expect, no." Hakrah disagreed, his expression stern, "Need, yes! Captain Lochley, I have explained much of the situation to you, as much as I believed you would understand - but there is one thing I have not yet said. My people are all, to a greater or lesser degree, able to sense the emanations coming from the singing crystals...
And also identify the individuals to which they are singing." In this case, the song's focus is on Captain Foraker - but not the entire focus. The crystal sings to you as well, Captain - I have sensed this, and know it to be true."
"This is all way too far out on the limb for me..." Barns began.
"Wait!" Lochley turned her focus back to the dark-skinned V'cha'richae leader, at the same time as she continued trying to fend off her mysterious, ongoing headache. "Hakrah - this 'song' you're referring to - if I'm only experiencing a fraction of what Captain Foraker's experiencing -- what are some of the symptoms you'd expect?"
"With a song as dark as this one is," Hakrah mused, "Perhaps flashes of light, headaches, dizziness..."
"Captain," Corwin carefully inquired, "Are you..." Lochley nodded; sharply... once - and then winced. "Great - this just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"
"Okay," Lochley continued, "So what do we have to do to fight off the crystal's effects?"
"Fight off?" Hakrah began to laugh. "You cannot fight the crystal, Captain. You must embrace the song, and learn what it is the crystal wishes to teach us."
"That thing attacked Captain Foraker - and I could be next!"
"If we do not embrace the song as one, and learn what it is the crystal intends!" Hakrah insisted.
"As one?"
Colin cleared his throat. "That's, ah, where I come in, Captain."
Lochley's eyes widened. "Oh no! - no way in Hell will I agree to th..."
"It is the only way to save your friend, Captain!" Hakrah interrupted, as he leant across the desk towards her. "The only way to ensure that you will not share his fate. For if we do not act," the V'cha'richae concluded, "The crystal may drag you both down into darkness.
And this, I will not allow!"
****************** Act Three *****************
Command & Control
08:41 EST, June 28th, 2263
Orders were orders, and even though every instinct told him that he should stay at his CO's side during this strange investigation that the...V'cha'richae (damn, you couldn't get much worse then that for an unprounouncable species title) was conducting, Corwin knew the Captain was right - someone had to 'watch the farm' while she, Officer Ferris and Hakrah went wandering around inside Captain Foraker's head - and that someone was, of course, him.
"Lieutenant Corwin - may we have a word with you?" Corwin drew in a deep breath and turned to face the entrance of C&C - and there they were - Ta'Lon, Vir...and also, surprisingly, Rathenn.
"Ambassadors - what brings you up here?"
"We thought it best that we should come and warn you about this in person," Ta'Lon carefully began, "Before you hear about this matter from the other...parties involved."
Corwin scowled - just from those words, it was now clear that a certain amount of arguing, and possibly some more shouting, was probably going to be involved - and he beckoned the three representatives up towards the captain's station. "Okay - what's this all about...this time?"
"As there was a last, and undoubtedly will also be a next," Rathenn wearily allowed. "Forever they seek to challenge...while we strive to maintain the balance, as is just. In short..."
"In short, Lieutenant," Vir explained, "Certain ambassadors from the ISA member governments have decided..." and this at a whisper, "To attempt a reopening of ISA investigation 71-62."
Corwin frowned...and then his eyes widened, as he remembered the analysis of that particular 'case' that had been aired on ISN late the year before...
"Oh Hell - you're not trying to tell me what I think you're trying to tell me...are you?"
All three of the ambassadors nodded. "They wish to appeal the decision of that 'case'," Ta'Lon confirmed, "And, along the way, impound the Earth warship Dark Thunder in orbit around Epsilon 3 until such time as the situation is resolved to their satisfaction."
"WHAT?"
"Quietly, Lieutenant." Vir hissed. "We don't need to draw any more attention to this matter then we have already. And now that Captain Lochley is, ah, mysteriously indisposed..."
"Again." Ta'Lon dourly clarified.
"As acting commanding officer of Babylon 5, we were wondering if you would terribly mind attending a council meeting at 13:00 hours station time this afternoon..."
"In which we shall attempt to head the troublemakers off 'at the pass'." Ta'Lon concluded. "Do you believe yourself up to the challenge, Lieutenant?"
Corwin thought about that for a moment...and then he grinned. "Before the crackdown, I might not have been so quick to answer that question, Ambassador..."
"But now?"
"Hell yes! Where do I sign up?"
"There, you see?" Ta'Lon said, as he turned to face Rathenn. "I told you that was what he would say."
"I never should have doubted you for a moment, Ambassador."
"Indeed not." the Narn replied, as Corwin tried not to laugh. "And now, we must go - we have a great deal of planning to do, and very little time to do it in. Ambassadors, this is what I propose..."
****************
Ranger Compound, Guest Quarters
08:51 EST.
'And every investigation,' Julia wrote, 'Usually starts with gathering clues...'. The question was, where was she to start, this time around? Her mysterious talents were telling her that G'Stral and the girls she'd noticed the previous evening were connected in some way - that they were probably meant to help someone or several somebodies who were probably about to get themselves into trouble - the question was, how? It was a most...interesting problem.
However, even though she was officially here on leave, a long time ago grandmother Katherine had taught her that those who 'lollygagged around in bed' never got anything done - so shortly thereafter, she began the short trek down to the Compound's dining hall...
Which was when the distinctive smell of coffee stopped her dead in her tracks. Julia frowned - coffee, on Babylon 5? The last time she'd been here, hadn't coffee been on the prohibited plants list? William, at least, had bemoaned the lack of that beverage on more than one occasion during the Shadow War. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she wandered down the hall in the direction of the aroma, stopped at the portal of one of the 'regulars' on station, Colvhar Vendim, and stuck her head in the door.
"Unbelievable, isn't it?" the blonde-haired Ranger drawled, as he poured his raven-haired companion a cup from the battered field percolator on his side table. "Before last week, I didn't even know you could get coffee on the station, and then..." Abruptly Vendim's voice trailed off as he realized someone was standing on his 'front porch' and then he grinned. "Hey, Julia... how's it going?"
Vendim, of course, had been one of the Rangers to first make her feel welcome when she'd first arrived on board, three years before - and so she returned the smile. "Hi, Colvhar - not too badly, actually! I went out to dinner with an old friend last night - we had lots to talk about..."
"Yeah, so I hear. Hey, can I offer you a cup?"
"No, thanks - I'm a tea drinker myself, actually. What I am curious about, though is...where did you get it from?"
"The coffee?" Vendim chuckled. "Well, there's these two girls on-station who're looking after a tiny coffee plantation over in hydroponics..."
Julia's eyes widened, as she felt her Observer's Sense shift into high gear. "No, let me guess - the human one's dark-haired, and the other one's a Centauri, right?"
"Yeah - you didn't run into them last night, did you?"
"You might say that I did - they didn't tell me their names, though..."
A short time later, after Vendim told her what she needed to know, Julia made a discreet inquiry to learn where it was the young ladies in question lived...and then she opened another connection. Some moments later, as she sat down to breakfast, Larieken appeared at her side, his expression polite...as always. "You called?"
"I did. Larieken, can you do me a real big favour?"
****************
Red Sector, Level 12
08:57 EST.
There almost always came a moment in every Bureau operation, Walson considered with a grin, when an opportunity like this would come - the goons that Allan had assigned to take them to the secondary holding area aboard didn't appear to be 'overly intelligent gentlemen' as the Old Man had been known to put it from time to time. He, on the other hand, was willing to be a little more specific then that - the low level personnel in Babylon 5's security detachment had, well, a reputation for being upstaged by their opposition on many a occasion. Heck, besides Allan, Satamba and maybe a few others, they were like security the galaxy over - hired hands, the lot of them. While escorts from point A to point B - he laughed. Sometimes, it was like taking candy from a baby.
"Hey..." the patrol head growled, "What's so funny, smuggler? You want to share the joke with us, maybe?"
Walson paused, glanced over at his partner, and scratched his stubbled chin thoughtfully. "Naah..."
Which was, of course, when the miniscule remotes controlled by their team leader moved into contact with the three members of the patrol - injecting enough Klaraxol nerve-toxin to knock them out silently...and professionally. Only micrograms, but for the average human, that was more than enough. "You just experienced the punch-line first hand, though. Any questions?" He paused again. "No? I'm sorry - in that case, I must be going."
"Hey Walson!" a familiar voice drawled from a side passageway, "Cut the crap already - c'mon, now we've gotta find a place to hide until we're done finding out what effect the crystal has on the captain of that 'Force ship."
"Yes sir, Mr. Stone!" the cocky young operative replied with a grin, as he and Mallory turned aside, and vanished into the darkness besides their leader. "Hey...when the time comes - you're sure we can get out of this place in one piece?"
"Well, you know what?" Stone replied with a jaunty grin, "If Frost could do it - twice, I might add! - we can manage the same feat in a heartbeat...got it?"
"Right you are, then, Mr. Stone. So...once we do go to ground - what comes next?"
"Wellll, it's like this..."
****************
Medlab One
09:04 EST.
"Okay, let me see if I've got this straight," Lochley began, as Colin and Hakrah stood beside her above the still unconscious Foraker - while the heavy weight of the alien singing crystal rested next to the V'cha'richae on a small rolling table that Hobbs had appropriated from a nearby storage room. "Hakrah's going to attempt to establish a link with Captain Foraker using this...singing crystal thing, while you're going to try strengthening the link between us telepathically?"
"While attempting to monitor your response to it at the same time, yes," Colin confirmed. "It isn't going to be the easiest thing in the world to do...but Hakrah's convinced me it's necessary. A lot of Corps telepaths call what we're about to attempt a 'gestalt' - and while it's much easier if other telepaths are involved - as long as neither you or Hakrah resists...it should work. Theoretically."
"The crystal sings to both you and Foraker, Captain..." Hakrah reiterated, as he carefully took hold of Foraker's hand and placed it on top of the crystal and then placed his own hand onto the shimmery white surface, as well. "We must learn why this is so - and only with the telepath's aid and your cooperation, will this be possible."
"Right." Lochley took a deep breath. "And you're sure that Captain Foraker will respond to the crystal's presence?"
"There is a reason for this convergence of forces," Hakrah replied. "We must learn what has caused this to occur. Foraker is unconscious...for a reason. The crystal sings to you...for a reason, and yet, has left you standing while it has struck him down. I must learn why this is so before I can be at peace. Now, Captain! - I will perform the ceremony of summoning." And with that, the V'cha'richae closed his eyes, and began to chant softly in his own language - and Lochley's eyes widened as she felt...or heard, something tremble, far off in the distance - a rumbling drawing ever nearer.
"What's going on?" Colin asked, as he noted in the change in her expression.
"It awakens," Hakrah muttered, "Far too easily - the time of visions draws near."
"Captain," Hobbs inquired, her normally pleasant features now tinged with worry as she attached small monitoring devices to all three of them, "Are you sure you want to do this? This...thing has harmed Captain Foraker in some way - it could do the same to you!"
"Yes, it could." Lochley agreed, "But from what they're telling me, Doctor, this is probably the only way to find out what's really going on here."
"Mr. Ferris?"
"You have my assurances, Doctor," Colin replied, "That if anything starts to go wrong, I'll be the first to break the gestalt - and I have no intention of letting the crystal do the same thing to her that it did to Captain Foraker."
"That, I suppose..." Hobbs allowed, "Along with my own monitoring of the situation, will have to suffice for the time being."
"Telepath," Hakrah whispered, "You are ready?"
"Whenever you are." Colin confirmed. A moment later, Lochley flinched as she felt his long fingers gently reach out to touch the side of her face as he reached out his other hand to take hold of Hakrah's - but then she took another deep breath - this was...necessary, he needed the connection to do what he had to do - this was...the right thing to do.
"Whatever you're going to do, Hakrah...do it.
Now."
Hakrah inclined his head in her direction. "It shall be as you say, Captain - the time has come for you to look at the crystal." Lochley complied with his suggestion...and her eyes widened as she realized that the singing crystal was now... faintly glowing. "Ah, yes..." Hakrah repeated, his voice rising. "It stirs.
It is...awake!"
The crystal flashed - and Medlab faded away into darkness.
And then into vision.
****************
"Okay, Commander - what have you found for us this time?"
"Looks pretty damn interesting, actually," Foraker replied, as he brought an image of the planetary system up on the nearby screen. "Almost the first thing we noticed after coming out of hyperspace is that the third planet of this system has a fairly standard nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere - but then we looked a little more closely - and this is what we found."
"My God!" The image her first officer was displaying said it all - almost the entire surface area of the planet ahead of them was covered in enormous geometric patterns - a cityscape larger than anything she'd ever seen before - while two silvery spheres rode in orbit mid way between the planet and its lowest moon. "Are those..."
Foraker nodded sagely. "They are indeed - orbital habitats, Captain - big ones, maybe twenty or twenty five miles in diameter, and almsot certainly hollow. If you want my honest opinion, they're probably the best place to start our investigation of the system..."
"Hold on, Commander - not so fast. Are you absolutely sure there's no intelligent life in this system?"
"Absolutely?...no. But I can tell you with certainty that we aren't detecting any communication going on, or, for that matter, any energy sources, either on the planetary surface or in the habitats. They're cold, Captain - and have been for thousands for years, by the look of it. Your orders?"
A long moment passed - and then she made the only decision she could in the circumstances - orders were orders, after all. "Take us into orbit - we'll make up our mind where to start exploring once we get there..."
****************
And then...there was darkness again, as the dream from her past faded away...and then light.
"What the Hell?" she burst out, as the Medlab walls returned into focus around her.
"Be at peace, Captain." Hakrah suggested. "The crystal has decided not to tell us the story all at once - and for this I am thankful indeed. Its song, while not as dark as it was, is still very powerful."
"May I suggest," Colin pointed out, "That we use this intermission to examine what we've seen already? For starters - that was you, along with Captain Foraker..."
"On the bridge of the Acheron." Lochley confirmed. "Over six years ago, it was. I remember that exploration...at the time, it was a Hell of a find, I'll tell you - but no matter how hard we looked, we couldn't find the builders. But why is the crystal showing us this now, damnit? It doesn't make any sense!"
"The veil of mystery will be cast away once the crystal has finished telling its tale," Hakrah sternly cautioned. "We are merely passengers on the river of life...on the ocean of memory. We must be patient, and wait for understanding to come."
"I hope you're right."
"And I additionally hope..." Colin muttered, "That your 'ocean', Hakrah...doesn't decide to throw a hurricane in our direction."
****************
Security Central
09:17 EST.
This whole thing, Zack Allan dourly pondered, was slowly starting to turn into an investigation like so many others he'd conducted since taking over Security from Mr. Garibaldi almost two and a half years ago...yet another entry in the 'things didn't add up' category. At first, it hadn't seemed that way - but then Zack had dug a little deeper, and the loose ends had started to emerge.
To start with, there was the corp the two prisoners were working for - a archeo-dig setup named 'Flynn-Outworld'. Flynn-Outworld seemed to be almost a smaller carbon copy of IPX...except that it was owned by a larger and much darker Euro-megacorp named Skaanshier. An organization that, if you believed the rumours, had connections to some of the shadier departments in the Earth Alliance government - 'the spiders in the web', the President had called them once, just before he and Delenn had left for Minbar.
Next - these two guys, Mallory and Walson, appeared to have dropped right off the map for at least the past five years - they'd vanished from the public eye right around the time, as a matter of fact, that Clark had taken control of the Earth Alliance government. From past experience, Zack knew that almost always meant trouble was waiting just around the corner.
And finally, there was the matter of the missing camera footage from the docking bay, early this morning. Whoever had pulled that off had been...almost an expert, but not quite. There'd been a tiny jump in the data that his people had noticed - and from that, they'd been able to figure out that something like a ten minute slice of time had gone missing from the data - which wouldn't ordinarily be that big of a deal...except the ship the camera'd been monitoring was the Tiber Prize. The ship that was supposedly owned by Mallory and Walson.
Zack sighed - looked like there was three ways of looking at this. First option - those two yahoos were operating by themselves. Second - their bosses at Flynn-Outworld had been calling the shots. Or third, and least likely, the big invisible powers who ran Skaanshier had been in on the deal, as well. To start with, he'd figured option one was the most likely...but now? Now, he wasn't so sure. Everything Mr. Garibaldi had taught him over the years told him that something fishy was going on here - and he meant to find out what.
And that, of course, was when things went from bad to worse, as Marten and his men stumbled into Security Central, looking very much the worse for wear - and decidedly unhappy, as well. "Okay, what the Hell happened to you guys?" Zack rasped, as he rose to his feet.
"Well, uh, Chief...you're not gonna like this, but..."
Zack's expression darkened, as he abruptly put two and two together in his mind. "You're not gonna tell me those two smugglers overpowered you and took off, are you?"
"Uh, well...kinda, yeah. But I don't think 'overpowered' is the right way of putting it, Chief - we were just about to the secondary lockup when the dark-haired one began to laugh. Then I felt a sting on my neck - and that was it, lights out."
"And when you woke up," Zack wearily finished for him, "They were gone." There went option one, right out the window - whoever these 'smugglers' were, they weren't operating on their own...and option three was becoming more and more likely by the second. In fact, the break in camera data might mean...
"Well, Hell - I guess we probably shoulda seen this one coming right from the start. Everything points toward there being more than two of 'em aboard - someone came off of the freighter last night, snuck up behind you..."
"And knocked us out?" Marten snorted. "Sorry to burst your bubble, Chief, but don't you think we would've heard them coming?"
Zack shook his head. "No necessarily - nobody's perfect, not me, not you, not anyone - and there's a lot of sneaks out there. Doesn't matter, though, we still have to find these guys and figure out what they're up to. Okay...get a hold of everyone who's not busy right at this moment, and start searching for 'em - at least until the Sarge and I come up with a better idea."
"But Chief," Marten protested, "That'll be like hunting for a needle in a haystack!"
"And the longer you argue with me, the farther away they're gonna get. Those are your orders, mister - now get going!" The last was almost a roar - he'd lost his temper, something he usually managed to avoid...but damn, this was frustrating as all Hell. Hunting the station for these guys probably wasn't going to help, he knew it...but it was a start.
While the pieces to this puzzle were out there - now, all he had to do was put them together.
****************
Red Sector, Near Medlab One
09:31 EST.
"They what?" Wingrove exclaimed, as he and Griffon moved at speed down the corridor towards Security Central. "They escaped?"
"That's what Allan's second in command said, yep." Griffon replied with a thoughtful frown. And running into him had been pure luck - he'd come to grab one of the security guys standing watch outside Medlab, and silly her, she'd asked what was going on...
"Does someone want to explain to me how Allan and his people could be so stupid as to let this happen?" the Acheron's first officer fumed as they stepped into the transport tube. "Our one link to finding out who was responsible for finding this crystal, and what exactly the damn thing really is..."
"Isn't the only way we've got on figuring out exactly what's going on here." Griffon mused, her eyes narrowed with thought. "Sometimes, Thomas, you've got to look beyond the obvious...you never do know what spiders you'll see scurrying into the cracks when you start paying attention."
"Okay, Leslie...what the Hell are you going on about this time?"
"Simply this: ever since I joined Captain Barns on the Dark Thunder, circumstances...have caused me to re-evaluate exactly who is pulling the strings in the Earth Alliance - have you ever asked yourself who is charge of what, and why? For instance, only the Captain knows who made the decision to build the Omega-X's, and he's not telling anyone for a darn good reason...but that's only the most obvious example I can think of. What if...hey, what if this whole operation is being orchestrated as some kind of weird experiment? And...didn't your CO and the captain running this place use to work together?"
"Yeah...they did, actually." Wingrove admitted. "Foraker was Lochley's XO from before President Santiago was assassinated until the beginning of last year when Sheridan asked her to come and run this place for him..."
"Okay...now, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we just see Captain Lochley, another guy and some sort of alien by your captain's bedside, when we went to check on him? Something important's going on here - and that doc moved awfully quick to stop us from going in to see him. There's a connection here, Thomas...we just have to find it."
"While if you're right," Wingrove pondered, "Aren't we going in the wrong direction?"
"Damn straight we are." Griffon tapped her link, which, on Babylon 5 at least, tied her into the local comm net. "This is Commander Griffon of the Dark Thunder to Security Chief Allan, please respond."
"What's on your mind, Commander?" the gravelly voice of the security chief came back at her. "And can you make it snappy? I'm kinda busy right now..."
"Yeah, so I hear - except...we're starting to put two and two together here, Chief - and I think you're going to want to hear some of what we've got to say. Can you meet us outside Medlab One as soon as possible?"
****************
The Central Corridor: Endcap Parklands
10:07 EST.
His eyes wide with glee, Jojo crouched down as low as he could, trying to avoid even breathing as he congratulated himself on finding what almost had to be the best hiding place ever. It'd been Mrs. Reynauf's idea, of course, that they should play hide and seek - but she'd made it absolutely clear that they weren't to go out of bounds. Even he understood why that was - Jojo's happy grin faded as he remembered what'd happened when the bad men had come to their home and taken them to the scary place - how Dad and Mr. Allan had come to rescue them...and especially how Akili had zapped the bad man with the gun...
After breakfast today, Dad had told them that there was too many bad men in the world...and that they had to listen all the time so his job wouldn't be harder. And that meant listening to Mrs. Reynauf.
"Gotcha!" a voice cried out, and Jojo nearly jumped out of his skin, before he realized it was his sister that had found him. "Great hiding place, Jo...but I knew I could find you before the others did!"
"Ah, Akili...this ain't fair!"
"Isn't." his sister corrected.
"Yeah, whatever..." And that, of course, was when he saw it - the little brown head looking at him from the bush near to the edge of the crops...only a short run from their hiding place. "Hey look -- is that a mouse?"
"Gimme a break, Jo, there's no mice on Babylon Fi..." which was, of course, when she saw it too. "Oh WOW! - hey, do you think we'll get a prize if we catch it?"
"How'd it get here?" he asked, as they snuck along the bush-edge trying to get nearer to the mouse - "On a spaceship, maybe?"
"Yeah, probably! Don't think there's 'sposed to be any critters in the crops 'round here, though - hey, if we catch it, Mrs. Reynauf will be happy with us, right?"
"Yeah!" And that, of course, was all it took in the children's heads to go from 'shouldn't' to 'should'...as they reached the end of their bush-line and got themselves ready to catch the 'mouse'. Except - that was the moment the creature in question finally went from inquisitive to frightened, and off it went into the crop. Jojo's eyes widened - "Uh, Akili...do mice have six legs?"
"No - now c'mon, we gotta catch it!" To his delight, Jojo soon realized that the wheatgrass, or whatever it was, was formed into a maze, which was of course one of his fave things in the whole world. His Mom and Dad had even bought him a maze game for Christmas last year, 'cause he liked them so much. "Hey," he panted, as they broke out of one corridor and into the next, turned left and then right looking for the critter. "Where'd it go, where'd it go?"
"I don't know, I..." And that, of course, was when common sense kicked in, as Akili screeched to a halt. "Woah, hold on there - don't you think we should go back?"
"Uh...oh." Jojo's grin began to fade. "Which way's...back?"
Akili grinned. "Easy - that way's the endcap, and that way the docking bay, the station' spinning that way..."
"C'mon, Akili!....which way's back?"
A beat. "Uh-oh."
****************
"Okay, kids...game's over!" Alisande Reynauf called out, and with only a small roar, the small gaggle of kids who'd stayed hidden right until the end erupted out of their hiding places and came forward to join the others who hadn't been so lucky. She checked the time, and then nodded in satisfaction - the length of that game had been just about right, and there was probably time for two or three more before lunch...
Which was when she suddenly realized that two faces were missing from the group, and Alisande's mood went from satisfaction to ice-cold fear in a heartbeat. Oh...no. This couldn't be happening...could it?
Geneive LaPierre, one of her assistants in Agronomy, had also volunteered to help run the picnic - and she realized what was wrong only a moment later. "Uh, Ali...where's Akili and Joesph?"
"Oh, them?" one of the older kids cried out. "I saw them go running into the crop fields."
Oh damn, damn, damn -- "Timothy, how long ago was that?"
The kid shrugged, and then looked down at his feet as he realized what was going on. "Dunno - maybe five minutes - maybe ten? I can't remember!"
Alisande winced - and then she and Geneive exchanged a glance...and nodded simultaneously. "Someone's..."
"Going to have call Miriam."
"Do you want to do it..."
"Or should I?"
****************
Blue Sector, Level 28
10:21 EST.
"You sure this is the place?" Selene doubtfully asked her partner in crime.
"Absolutely sure." Jaida replied, as she made a notation on the tiny computer pad she carried with her to deal with just this kind of situation. "Half a kilogram of IGOT special blend, to be delivered to the household of Sergeant Glenn Satamba and family...paid for in advance, I might add."
"You know what," Selene quipped, as she pressed the door chime, "I think we should come with a better name for our blends - how about..."
"Yes?" a familar voice inquired from within.
"Special delivery!" the girls choroused, and a moment later Miriam Satamba opened the door with a smile. "Well, well, what do we have here? Something to brighten up a lady's day off?"
"That's absol-utely the case." Selene confirmed, as Jaida drew a small silver bag out of her carry-sack. "Course it's not going to be any good unless..."
"My husband's percolator finally arrived from Earth?" Mrs. Satamba inspected the wares with a careful eye, but finally she nodded. "Well, everything seems to be in order here, girls - and I'm sure you have other deliveries to make, so I won't keep you..."
Chime
"Hold on...would you excuse me for a moment?" The girls watched on, then, as Mrs. Satamba went to answer the call - and then their eyes widened as a panicked face appeared on the screen. Selene raised an eyebrow - that was Mrs. Reynauf from agronomics - what was going on here?
"Oh, thank God you're there, Miriam - something terrible's just happened - your kids ran off into the cropfields during our first game...I'm terribly sorry, but we really don't have a clue what to do!"
"Hold on now, Ali...just stay calm. I'll give Glenn a call...I'm sure he'll be able to scrape some people together to help search for them. Now how did this happen, again?"
Jaida and Selene exchanged a glance. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" the Centauri girl whispered. Selene thought about this for a moment, and finally began to nod, as images of a certain dark-haired young Ranger began to dance through her head.
"A mission...and if we find them..."
"We'll be heroes! C'mon, lets go!"
****************
Miriam turned around as Alisande vanished from the screen, and raised her own eyebrows. Jaida and Selene had been right there when this had all started...for heaven's sake, she hadn't even heard them go! Never the mind - there were plenty of other things to do, and unlike her friend, she'd already decided she wasn't going to panic.
****************
"We're lost." Jojo blubbered, as Akili lead him resolutely down the row of crops towards the endcap, having come to the conclusion that sooner or later, they would reach the edge of the field, just as long as they kept going in a straight line. "Aren't we?"
Akili frowned, and looked behind her - what was that noise? Sounded like...someone eating something, or teeth snapping together, click, click...click. "Lost? C'mon, where'd you get that idea? As long as we keep going this way, we'll come out of the Garden eventually - and then, all we gotta do is find a comm terminal, make a call, and Dad'll come and get us!"
"We're gonna be in trouble." The clicking sound was getting louder - she turned around again...and screamed, a sound echoed a moment later by her brother. There were...things coming through the crops, big silvery things that were eating the crops...
Robot harvesters - oh no, she'd forgotten about that! "You're right, Jojo, we're in trouble - we gotta run, the harvesters are coming, just like Mom said the other day!"
"I'm running, I'm running!" Jojo yelped, as Akili followed him down the row, the metal monsters grinding through the crops behind them.
****************
Green Sector, Level 3
10:37 EST.
"You want us to do what?" Sonia Aldred erupted, as Satamba leant against the corridor wall, his expression inscrutable, and waited for the outburst to subside. "But aren't we supposed to be helping the Chief and Marten search for these two guys who bought that crystal onboard?"
"You were, yes..." Satamba ground out, "Now you can consider yourself officially re-assigned. My kids are out there in those cropfields somewhere, Aldred, that's if they haven't already been spooked by the harvesters and are somewhere else entirely. Isn't going to be easy, but someone's got to find them before they get into more trouble than they have already. It should be me, damnit, but..."
"But you don't have the time," Aldred crisply replied, "Because you and the Chief have to find these smugglers and their accomplice, before they cause more trouble then they have already. Don't worry, Sergeant...we'll find your kids." And with that, she and her team moved away at speed, leaving Satamba where he was, and giving him the breathing space he needed to let loose...a little. Damn it, why did it have to be Akili and Joseph who were missing...again? What had he done to deserve this?
"You have to find them!" he finally ground out. "You have to!"
****************
The Tefano family quarters
10:51 EST.
"Are you sure this is such a good idea?" Selene asked again, her eyes wide, as Jaida grinned at her friend from beneath the hood of one of the pair of light grey travelling cloaks her (somewhat dotty) Aunt Neishila had sent to Babylon 5 in honour of her last naming-day. Up until this moment, Jaida had sworn up and down that she would never wear them - but circumstances now called for stealth, and cunning...and other things, as well.
"Yeah, they're perfect! Everyone's used to seeing us as we usually are - they're not going to pay any attention to us dressed this way - plus..." Jaida went rummaging through her father's belongings, finally emerging with a pair of her father's antique bola'a walking sticks. "There's a handy loop on the back to store these in case..."
"We get into trouble!" Selene whistled her appreciation of her friend's planning even as she put on the cloak that Jaida had given her a moment before, and grabbed one of the walking sticks, imagining for a moment it was a Ranger fighting pike, and that she was walking into battle, as the Rangers had all too often during the Shadow War, if the stories she'd heard were true. "You ready?"
Jaida nodded. "And now that's settled...let's go find G'Stral."
****************
A moment passed - and then, Larieken slipped into view, his brow furrowed with concern. What he just witnessed suggested that trouble lay ahead...for to the trained eye, it was obvious that the O'Hara and Tefano girls that Julia had asked him to observe were attempting to dress as he did - and also that they carried wooden staffs as well, in emulation of his warrior pike.
Dangerous - very dangerous...and perhaps foolish, as well. And now, it was time for him to make a call...and then? Then, perhaps he and Julia would demonstrate how even hunters...
Could become the hunted.
****************
Medlab One
11:04 EST.
"How long do we have to wait for that thing to get its act in gear?" Lochley demanded, as Hakrah hovered over the crystal and Foraker, muttering some sort of prayer. "Doesn't it know I've got a station to run?"
"It knows only what it has been told," Hakrah replied.
Colin frowned. "Are you trying to tell us that you can give these things instructions...that you can program them to play back messages like we would program a computer?"
"You do not understand." the V'cha'richae patiently replied. "It has its own timetable, we cannot rush..."
The station rumbled around them - and Lochley flung out a hand to the bedside to support herself, even as Colin rushed back to her side. And then...
And then, the universe decided to take a holiday, as the room darkened around her...and the visions returned.
****************
..."We need to make a decision here, Captain," Foraker told her, and Lochley could not help but agree. "Where are we going to focus our attention? We've only got a very short time to spend in this system..."
"And since that's true, Commander, what little time we do have has to be used properly. You want to explore those habitats... except every sensor we've got tells us they've been deserted for something like five or six thousand years. While down below we've got the city..."
"Which isn't in much better shape," Foraker retorted, "If you haven't already noticed?"
"Doesn't matter - down there, we stand a reasonable chance of actually learning something without getting ourselves killed if those habitats suddenly decided to spring a leak..."
"Captain, Commander...can I have a moment of your time?" Lochley paused in mid-tirade, and whirled around to face her dark-skinned operations officer, Lt. Malcolm Nygaar.
"Mr. Nygaar - what have you found?"
"Perhaps the most interesting find yet - observe." The younger officer tapped a few keys, and an image sprang into being on the wall screen, showing the surface of the planet below them. "As we've already determined, the oceans of this planet are mostly undeveloped...there is, however, one exception to that rule." The image faded, and was replaced by another, which showed a hexagonal...something on the blue water below them. "This exception. It's in the middle of the dominant ocean, more or less equidistant from all of the major land masses."
"A floating city?" Foraker began to grin. "Well I'll be damned - Nygaar, how big is that thing?"
"Approximately twenty one hundred square miles, sir. Unfortunately, it also appears to be as dead as the land-based cities."
"So what," Lochley challenged, "Makes this one so interesting, apart from the fact it's sitting in the water instead of on the land?"
"Most of the land-based cities show some form of decay..." Nygaar replied, his expression showing that he was about to let a rather sizable cat out of its bag. "This one however...
Does not."
Lochley and Foraker exchanged a long glance. "I don't know about you, but I think we just found our landing site..."
****************
Lochley came back to the waking world flat on her back, with an anxious Lilian Hobbs hovering over her. "What...what happened?"
"You passed out, that's what happened." Hobbs replied with no small concern. "Captain, I must advise against continuing this...experiment - if this pattern continues, sooner rather than later you will be no better off then Captain Foraker!"
"No...we can't stop now - not now we're so close to learning what it is this thing wants from us!"
"Doctor Hobbs may be right, Captain," Colin pointed out, as Lochley pushed her way back to a standing position and returned to Foraker's bedside. "The pull that thing has on you is getting worse every time we do this. If the pattern continues unabated..."
"If the pattern continues unabated, we will push through this darkness, and into the light beyond." Hakrah interrupted, his expression and voice stern. "To stop now is to invite disaster - for if the crystal is not satisfied, your doctor's prediction will come to pass."
"Oh great..." Colin muttered, "So it's 'damned if we do, and damned if we don't', is that it?"
"Sure looks that way, doesn't it?" Lochley ruefully observed. "We can't go backwards, or sideways...we have to go forwards, towards Hakrah's 'truth'. We have to finish this, Colin...
Before it finishes us."
****************** Act Four *****************
Brown Sector, Level 21
11:17 EST, June 28th, 2263.
His expression guarded, G'Stral moved through the heart of Down Below at a fast walk, while many of the other Lurkers watched his progression with narrowed, suspicious eyes. And who could blame them? So many times in the past couple of years, he'd come tearing through this place with pursuers close behind - and on more than one occasion, he'd used crowds to lose those pursuers. The other lurkers didn't trust him - but then again, he'd didn't trust them either. Such was the way of life in this place - and occasionally, it all came down to 'kill or be killed'.
But not today.
Today, his fellow lurkers had nothing to worry about, for once - his latest 'deal', while important to him, hadn't involved smuggling or deliveries of any kind...hadn't resulted in a monetary profit...but had gone exactly as G'Stral had planned and intended. There were only a few Narns from Na'Garamar still on the station, but one or two of those still owed him some favours...and today he'd collected on one, when he'd asked his comrade G'Arekh to keep his black and jade suit of fine clothes in a 'safe place' where no one would think to look for it. He didn't really expect to use it again for a while...now that his dinner with Julia was done with, things around here were probably about to go back to business as usual...
And that was when he realized someone was following him - two someones, as a matter of fact. G'Stral's eyes narrowed as he turned aside from the corridor he'd been following and headed over towards the nearest bulkhead wall - now what was this about? He glanced back quickly to see if they were still following him, which they were. His pursuers were slight in stature, while their features were hidden inside the hoods of what appeared to be Centauri-fashioned gray cloaks...
Which was when he winced, and shook his head irritably, even as he paused at one of the many ladders that went between levels in this part of Babylon 5. If he was right about this...that was the girls again, almost had to be. Which didn't, however, answer the question of why they were trying to sneak around unnoticed, dressed like they were...or why they were following him, for that matter. And while he could lose them easily enough if he really tried...G'Stral soon came to the realization that he didn't have anything better to do for the time being...and for some reason, he also found himself curious to find out what was going on, as well. With a grin, he silently made his way down the ladder, paused then...and waited.
"Selene - are you sure that was him?" a whisper came down to him from above a couple of moments later. "We're taking an awful big chance coming down into this part of the station, you know."
"Yeah, I'm sure." Selene replied, as the two girls passed by the ladder-shaft, without seeing him, of course. "Rigorak told me that G'Stral came through here with a package of some sort about half an hour ago, and then he saw him coming back this way only about two or three minutes ago - he probably saw us, and thought that someone had sent some goons to jump him, or something..."
Which was when G'Stral hopped out of the laddershaft and said one word - but one word was more than enough in this case.
"Boo."
Disappointingly enough from his perspective, they didn't scream - but they did yelp. "G'Stral!" Jaida exclaimed, "That wasn't very nice!"
The Narn shrugged. "That's a fairly good description for this whole part of Babylon 5, actually. This was just a joke, but there's a lot of people around here who aren't quite so friendly."
"That's," Selene archly replied, "Why we're carrying these." G'Stral snorted as the end of a polished wood staff appeared in her hand for a moment, before disappearing back into her cloak. Well that was all well and good - but did they know how to use them?
"So what do you think?" Jaida asked him.
"You know my opinion about carrying weapons down here, Tefano - while it's nice to see you've actually listened to your partner in crime here for once, about how bad things can get in Brown Sector. Now, though - I think it's time we discussed why you were sneaking around looking for me down here."
"Sergeant Satamba's kids have gone missing in the garden." Selene dutifully informed him. "And rumour has it that the Chief and the Sarge and a lot of their people are busy searching for some big-time criminals or something, and that there's not a lot left to search for Akili and Jojo. We figured we should join in the search...and if we find 'em first..."
"We'll be heroes!" Jaida finished up.
There was a long pause - and then G'Stral began to laugh. "Let me see if I've got this straight...you want me to help you search Babylon 5 for Satamba's missing kids - someone who's tried to throw me in lockup on more than one occasion in the past year? Are you both out of your mind? Why should I want to do that?"
"Because it's the right thing to do?" Jaida suggested.
"And because if we do find them," Selene added, "You'll be getting on the good side of the Sarge for the first time ever?"
G'Stral frowned, then, as he thought back on what he and Julia had been discussing the night before...and farther back still to the moment when she'd saved him from that gang. That day, she'd helped him because it had been the right thing to do - and now... "I don't suppose I can get you to change your mind about looking for them, can I?"
"Nope." Selene replied, "You can't."
"Right - that's what I thought you were going to say. Okay...looks like someone's going to have to watch your back while you're looking for the kiddies, and I guess it's going to have to be me, at least to start with. While I'm guessing that even though the Satamba kids probably started out in the Garden, right?..." the girls nodded, "That they're not there any more. Do you have any idea where they were last seen?"
"Uh...I think they were playing in the fields at the tail end of Green Sector - you know, right by the endcap..."
"That's a fairly useful piece of information, all things considered - probably means they got lost in the agro fields and ran into some harvesters or something - if so, they're almost certainly through into Grey Sector by now..."
"So you're actually going to help us?"
"Yeah, I'll help you - I can call in a few favours from the locals around here and see if they've seen some kids running in areas that kids aren't supposed to go - but do me a favour...if we're going to be sneaking around, try not to poke anyone with those sticks of yours if you can help it, all right?"
"Sticks?" Jaida exclaimed. "I'll have you know these are antique Centauri fighting staffs!"
G'Stral shook his head wearily - it was obviously going to be one of those days.
****************
Medlab One
11:24 EST.
Another memory, another time - but now Lochley found that she could control how deeply into the memories she was sinking - this, no doubt, because of the steadying influence of Colin within the gestalt. {This story does have an end, doesn't it?} the Psi Cop asked her. {You landed on the island city, and what did you find?}
Lochley paused even as the memory began unfolding all around them, and said the only thing that seemed to fit.
****************
"There, what did I tell you?" Foraker quipped as they stepped out on the edge of one of the largest city squares that Lochley had ever seen - at the very centre of the floating city, it was easily two or three miles on a side - but dwarfed by the massive towers surrounding it - and the even more massive domed structure behind them, which was, as near as she could tell, at least twice as large as Earthdome. "I told you I'd need my sunglasses sooner or later." She laughed, then, as her first officer slipped on his prized mirror-shade sunglasses, and gestured in the direction of the dome. "I don't know about you, Captain, but I'm inclined to check out this place first - as near as we could tell from orbit, this dome is at the centre of the entire city's geometric pattern, like it's the heart of their culture, or something."
"Sounds like a good suggestion to me, Commander - the only thing that continues to bother me about this whole thing, however, is how this city is still intact, while all the others are falling down. That implies that something's at work repairing these buildings and especially this dome."
"Yeah - well until we take a look inside one of these, we won't know who or what's responsible for that." After a momentary discussion, Foraker ordered half of the landing party to post themselves around the Acheron's landed transport, scanning for energy signatures and/or movement of any kind. And once that was taken care of, the rest of the party headed in through one of the dome's many wide open entrances...and into the cool, bluelit corridor beyond. A corridor which curved gently upwards the farther in they went, while the colour of the light changed from blue up the spectrum towards yellow, and then to red...before fading to near darkness, a darkness pierced first by the lights carried by Lochley and the rest of her landing party - and then by a strange silvery flickering coming from the end of the corridor.
And in only another moment more, they discovered what it was that was causing that flickering as they emerged into the massive chamber at the heart of the dome - a chamber whose walls were lined with a seemingly countless series of tall galleries...while on each level dim flickering light sources could be seen. "My God!..." she managed, "What the Hell is this place?"
"That's a damn good question," Foraker replied,, as he turned aside from the entrance and made his way up the nearby stair to the first gallery level, "And for an answer or two, why don't we take a closer look at whatever's causing those lights?" Lochley nodded, and a moment later, the rest of the party, herself included, joined Foraker on the first gallery, where the first officer and a half dozen others had made their way about a hundred feet around the curve of the dome from the entrance to the first alcove...
An alcove that contained...
A long, tapered, softly glowing...
Blue crystal.
And then something passed in front of her eyes...
****************
The memory ended, and for a moment, there was silence - but then, the inevitable eruption came. "Impossible!" Hakrah declared, "Those were singing crystals - thousands upon thousands of them! Even at the height of our culture, there were never more than six hundred thirty-two known crystals. They were our greatest talismans...and when those you name the Shadows came to destroy our world, all but one of them were destroyed. What can this mean?"
"What I'm more interested in finding out, actually," Colin countered, "Is what the Captain remembers of what happened next, since Foraker's memory of the discovery seems to end right there - quite abruptly, as a matter of fact."
"I..." To Lochley's surprise, she was beginning to find that she actually was remembering a great deal about that day - the singing crystal had taken them down Memory Lane - except..."What do I remember?" she muttered. "I remember us returning to the bridge of the Acheron, disappointed because we'd found nothing of interest down on that planet. Issuing a report to that end - and taking our destroyer on towards its next point of call."
Colin laughed, the sound dry within the sterile chamber. "Why am I not surprised to hear you say that. Correct me if I'm wrong, Hakrah - but they find that crystal and all its thousands of companions...and then they're back on the Acheron, thinking they found nothing of interest? We appear to have a period of missing time here, as well as mental manipulation - and that implies..."
"And that implies," Hakrah finished for him, "Interference. Some unknown force is behind the manipulation of their memories - a force that made sure she wouldn't remember the importance of that time until now. Captain Lochley, Officer Ferris - I believe that we are now very close to the truth of this matter - and that the moment we find this truth, your fellow officer will awake."
"And now we're so close to the end of the line," Lochley challenged, "You're so sure that thing will tell us what we need to know?"
"Yes!" Hakrah replied, his tone defiant. "Now that its tale is nearly told, it will not wait much longer to tell the rest. Not long at all."
****************
Medlab One, outer offices
11:31 EST.
"Damnit!" Griffon exclaimed, even as Wingrove reclined against a nearby wall and watched her pace back and forth across the chamber, "We've been here for over an hour, now - and he's still not here! What gives?"
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Les...but I think the Chief and his subordinates are just a tad busy looking for our perps at the moment - and Babylon 5's an awfully big place, you know..."
"And what if we're right, and he's wrong?" she challenged, coming to a halt in front of the other officer. "What if searching this station from top to bottom isn't the answer...what if the perps who organized this whole thing and brought your captain into contact with that crystal are watching the whole operation from afar?"
"Ahhh...so that's where you're going with this...and why you had one of your people bring over some of your equipment from the Dark Thunder. What is that gizmo, anyways...a portable scanner of some sort?"
"Darned right it is - it's something I cobbled together when the Thunder was out on one of its recent patrols." Momentarily forgetting her anger at the Chief's continued absence, Griffon activated the scanner, while Wingrove looked on in interest. "It should be more precise than any of the scanners the B5 people have got - and if these guys sent monitoring instruments of any kind into Medlab to watch their experiment unfold, this will find them for us."
"That's an interestin' theory, Commander..." a gravelly voice announced from the door, "But for now, it's only that...a theory." Griffon paused, and angrily whirled towards the door, an opening now filled by the black and grey-clad figures of Zack Allan and Sergeant Satamba. "And until we get some hard evidence to back it up..."
"We have to pursue every avenue we've got to try and find these guys." Satamba finished for him. "So if you don't mind, can we cut to the chase, here?"
"Cut to the chase?" Griffon exclaimed. "In case you've forgotten, Sergeant, we've been waiting here in Medlab to do just that for over an hour! When we first got here, I asked your doc for permission to scan the room they put Captain Foraker into...and would she give it to me? Hell, no!"
"Take it easy, Lieutenant Commander..." Wingrove suggested, even as he turned a penetrating stare in the direction of Allan and Satamba. "There's no point in losing your cool - the only person who might be able to convince Dr. Hobbs to let us in is standing right in this room. The question is, will he help us out, or are we just wasting his time?"
Zack raised his eyes skyward, sighed, and then nodded wearily. "Okay, Commander, lemme see what I can do about gettin' you in to do your scan." At which point he headed into the next room to talk to the station's doctor-in charge.
A few moments passed, and then Zack reappeared. "So what did she say?"
"The Doctor," Allan carefully explained, "Didn't want to let you in at first, but after I explained the situation, she changed her mind...but there's conditions. One, you don't get in her way...two, you don't go anywhere near Captain Foraker or the rest of the people in there...and three, if the Doc says go, you go, and you don't come back. Clear?"
"As crystal, Chief." A relieved Griffon replied.
"And now that particular roadblock's been taken out of the way," Wingrove said, "I think it's time we went bug-hunting."
****************
The robot minds of the probes sent into Medlab by the agents of Bureau 13 were very small, but were also as intelligent as technology would allow - at the same time as being constrained by the programming of their creators. The probes had been ordered to observe the ongoing operations involving the crystal and the target of the operation...while at the same time ensuring that no one member of Doctor Lilian Hobbs' medical staff discovered their presence...a difficult prospect to be sure given the precision of most medical scanning devices in this day and age...but not impossible. The situation was nominal, and looked to be staying that way...until, that was, four new individuals entered the probes' field of view. Individuals that appeared harmless...until the device that one of them was carrying activated. And after that, there was only one course of action that the ever-logical robot minds of the probes could follow.
For if stealth was impossible, the probes had been instructed to divide their efforts. In order to ensure that some would escape and return to their creators, a sacrifice would be necessary.
****************
"Well I'll be damned!" Griffon exclaimed, as the sensor results from her scanner almost immediately told her that her guess had, after all, been the correct one, "There's almost two dozen of the things in here!" And then her eyes widened, as she saw the traces on the instrument's tiny screen divide into two - and then... "Down!" she cried out, "Everyone down! And was gratified to see Captain Lochley, her Psi Cop colleague and the black-skinned sentient with them do exactly that...even as one of Dr. Hobbs' orderlies grabbed her arm and cried out in pain...before collapsing to the floor.
"Son of a..." Zack Allan began, even as he and Satamba ran for the entrance to Medlab. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin?"
"Sure am." Satamba replied, as he pulled his PPG out of the holster and changed its setting in mid-run. "We sure as Hell aren't gonna get 'em all, Chief, but even if we get a few..."
"We just might be able to trace the carrier waves those things are emitting right back to the source." Allan agreed. Which was when Zack and Satamba began to fire wide-dispersal plasma bursts up towards the ceiling - bursts which would not, of course, have had any effect on human beings...but just might, they considered, have an effect on covert infiltration probes...that was, of course, if they could even hit any of the damn things.
Mostly, he was right about that - but not entirely, as by pure and random chance, part of the escaping swarm of probes flew squarely into the path of the energy bursts being flung up by the two security officers...and fell to the deck, their systems only just this side of...fried.
****************
Somewhere in Red Sector...
"Ah, Hell!" Jeremiah Stone exclaimed, as beside him, Walson flung down his own monitoring equipment and let loose with a slightly more virulent curse, "Well, boys, looks like this is where we cut our losses, and move to a slightly more defendable position. We've got at least two or three days to kill until we can get out of here - and since we can't go back to the ship..."
"We need a bolt hole to vanish into. " Walson asserted, "Someplace we can hide until things quiet down enough for us to escape...right?"
"To a T!" Stone replied with a jaunty grin, even as he closed all of the cases his equipment was stored in, scooped them up and threw him into the backpack he'd brought with him just for that purpose. "We go to ground until Allan and his boys get tired of searching for us - and then the Old Man's covert retrieval team comes in...and poof!...it'll be like we were never here."
"It's too bad we can't take the ship back with us, though." Mallory noted. "A perfectly good ship..."
"Which is being watched around the clock by Allan's goons, remember?" Stone countered, his expression suddenly gone cold. "Geez, Mallory, there's some days I don't know why Mr. Molyneux hired you. Come on - get your stuff packed up, and let's get the Hell out of here, already."
"So where're we going, anyways?" Walson asked, even as he finished packing up his own gear.
"Up into the zero-G cargo bays, of course." Stone replied. "It's a perfect place to hide. Once we get up there amongst all that cargo, they'll never find us. Hey Mallory!..." Stone barked, "Haven't you finished packing, yet?...quit screwing around!"
"Sorry, Mr. Stone!" the youngest member of the team sheepishly replied as he scooped the rest of the gear into his pack, "I'm finished now, Mr. Stone."
What Stone had forgotten, of course, and what Mallory would shortly prove to him...is that it paid not to rush nervous operatives. And also...that even from a distance, the 'Old Man' was always watching...that Mr. Molyneux disliked sloppy management - and that even though the mission was expected to proceed to a successful conclusion...
Operatives were always expendable.
****************
Grey Sector, Level 2
11:57 EST.
"We escaped from them -" Jojo managed between gasps, "Told you we could, Akili."
Jojo's sister nodded dubiously, even as she tried to figure out which way to go in the maze of debris-filled corridors they'd run into earlier. "They scared us, Jo...and we forgot what Dad and Mom said - that if we ever got lost, we weren't supposed to panic."
"But...but they didn't give us no space to escape!" Jojo insisted -- and on that point, she decided, he was right. The harvesters had chased them right to the edge of the big trench that ran right around the endcap - and it was only after they'd run down the stairs on the side of one of the biggest dropoffs she'd ever seen that Akili finally figured out what was going on...as they'd seen the harvesters go down the ramp behind them and into a big garage of some some sort...and right by the garage door had been a smaller door for people that actually hadn't been locked. The harvesters had been going this way in any case...and they'd just been in the way.
"Yeah, so what? We shoulda' stopped running and started thinking - 'cause now we're so lost, and I can't remember how to get back to where we came from."
To his credit, Jojo didn't immediately start to cry when she said that - but instead defiantly stuck out his chin, and said, "Hey, now I 'member something that Dad said one time - if we ever got lost, we were 'sposed to go to the nearest terminal and call home. Do you 'member our number?"
Akili took a deep breath, and tried her best not to cry, for her brother's benefit if not for any other reason. "'Course I do!... but what difference would that make? You see any terminals 'round here?"
"No..." Jojo whimpered.
"That's right - I remember Dad saying one time that this bit of the station wasn't finished right or something when they put it together - most of the people live around the Garden and up front where the ships come in...only the strangers and the really weird people stay down here."
"Weird people?" Jojo replied, his eyes wide and teary. "What weird people?"
"Whoops - forget I said that, okay?"
"No way!" came the insistent reply, as they made their way through a rubble-filled room only lit by a pair of flickering, roving spotlights, "What if they're watching us? What if the weird people are following us around?"
"Okay, you stop that, right now!" she insisted. "Sooner or later we're gonna run into somebody who will help us - and there aren't any..."
"Oh, but there are, you know." Jojo screamed, and Akili nearly joined him, and then she turned to see an Abbai not much older than herself watching them from the other side of the room, his eyes glinting with interest and also with concern. "What in the name of all our Gods are you doing down here, human? It is a miracle of epic proportions that the Nightblades haven't captured you already."
"We're lost, mister." she replied. "We were playing a game in the Garden when my brother and I went to catch a creature in the fields..."
"And then the harvesters chased us, and we ended up here." Jojo finished for her. "Are you gonna help us, mister?"
"A 'mister' I am not." the Abbai disagreed. "My name is Hrixon -- and yes, it does appear as if I must help you, for if I do not, then who will? Follow closely, if you please - the group I live with have access to one of the few terminals in this sector, most of which are hidden in places where the gangs cannot easily find them..."
"So we can get to this terminal, right?"
"If we are careful, yes! But If we encounter any members of the Nightblade gang, questions will be asked and we may yet have to fight to escape...and I have sworn never to reveal the location of our operational terminal to them...for any reason." A faint smile appeared on Hrixon's face then, however. "But once and if we reach it, there are several individuals in the dockwards sectors I can call who may aid us."
"Um...why are you helping us?"
"That is for me to know...and for you to guess at, young human. Now...follow closely, and be quiet!"
****************
Grey Sector, Level 21
12:37 EST.
"So that's the story." G'Stral concluded, the third time he'd told this tale in the last hour. "The girls and I are looking for these kids real quiet-like - but we can't do it alone."
"You can't be serious." the drifter named Na'Maelk replied, his expression showing exactly how confused he was by G'Stral's request. "A pair of children from a dockwards family got themselves lost, first in the Garden and now more probably somewhere in Down Below...and you want to know if I've heard anything or seen them?"
"That's right." G'Stral ground out, "And yes, I'm very serious - if we find these kids and return to them to their family, there's a good chance I can set up some sort of working relationship with their parents - if you were in the same position, wouldn't you do the same thing?"
"That all depends on what the family in question was willing to give me." the other Narn replied, "But enough - the life-debt I owe you is remembered, G'Stral...and while I haven't heard anything about these human children you mention, if I do, I shall attempt to send you a message..."
"Na'Maelk." The drifter's head turned, as another Narn appeared in the doorway. "There is a message for you from the dark sectors below - an Abbai named Hrixon wishes to speak to you. Do you know this individual?"
"Know of him?" Na'Maelk declared. "He and I have fought together against the Nightblades on more than one occasion. Does young Hrixon indicate what this is about?"
"Apparently, two 'packages' have wandered into his care - he wishes advice on what to do next."
"Packages, you say." Na'Maelk murmured. "Interesting...I will be there shortly, G'Mael." Na'Maelk turned back towards G'Stral. "Hrixon and the group he aligns himself with dwell in the dark sectors closer to the axis...there are few communications terminals in that area. Perhaps..."
"He's come across the individuals we're looking for!" G'Stral finished for him. "Maybe we should speak to this friend of yours."
"And if this is about some other matter and not the children you seek, what then? Will you guarantee the silence of your companions, G'Stral?"
"I will." G'Stral assured him. "On the life-debt we share, I swear it."
Na'Maelk nodded curtly. "Then follow."
****************
Grey Sector, Level 5
12:43 EST.
"Lost, are they?... how interesting."
"Never mind that!" Hrixon exclaimed, as Akili and Jojo watched on from nearby, "And never mind the thoughts of profit on this transaction, Na'Maelk - isn't it about time we proved to the humans that run Babylon 5 that at least a few of the Lurkers are honourable, and that we aren't always out to either kill everyone or drain people dry for the sake of a few hostages?"
"Honourable?" the Narn retorted from the other end of the static-filled connection. "May I remind you, Hrixon, that 'honour' will not fill your stomach at the end of the day? That it will not suffice to clothe you, or give you shelter?"
"So what are we to do with these humans, then?"
"What we must. Let me introduce you to one of my associates, Hrixon...a young Narn who plys his trade both here and also in the dockwards sectors, as well. G'Stral - come forward, and your young allies, as well. Hrixon, tell your 'packages' to come to the screen...let us see if our guess is right."
A now thoroughly confused Hrixon did as he was told - and after a moment, a startled oath emerged from the screen. "Well I will be a...Jaida, is that them?"
"Oh wow!" the grey cloaked girl beside G'Stral exclaimed, "Yeah, I think it actually is! Is this a lucky break, or what?"
"Hrixon..." the Narn Na'Maelk had called G'Stral asked him, "Can you keep them safe until we arrive at your location?"
"Oh no!" he exclaimed, "You can't meet us here at the terminal - if the others found out, they'd kill me, or worse. I know a place where we can get together..." at which point he rattled off a series of instructions, "You know where that is?"
"Yeah, we should be able to get there without too many problems - next question...what's the gang presence like in that area?"
"Quiet for the time being - but this is something which, as you well know, can change in an instant. Do you want to tell me why you're searching for these kids, G"Stral?"
The Narn shook his head. "That's on a need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know. All you need to worry about is getting them there safely...we'll take it from there."
G'Stral nodded curtly at someone out of the field of view, and the screen faded to blackness. Hrixon shook his head wearily - absolutely typical...but for now, his next move was clear, as he turned to face his two charges. "All right - come on, you two...time to go."
****************
Grey Sector, Level 21
12:51 EST.
In a deserted part of Grey Sector a few hundred feet behind the now-swiftly moving threesome of G'Stral and his two partners in crime, a shadow broke away from the greater darkness filling the corridor and joined another shadow already waiting there. "So...was I right?"
A light sprang into being, revealing the face of the one who had come before. "About their intent, or their capacity for getting into trouble?"
"Yes."
A laugh. "It would appear that one of the residents of this sector has come across the children G'Stral and his fellow conspirators are searching for...they go, even now, to meet with this young Lurker to reclaim that which does not belong, and return them them to their parents."
"The Satambas. While I understand why he's doing it, and while I already know why the girls are doing it - they can still get into trouble down here no matter how well he thinks he knows Grey Sector. All it takes is a determined group wanting some hostages...a few Lurkers not quite so honorable as G'Stral's friends...and this situation could turn nasty in a hurry."
"Which is where we come in, of course. So...do we move to intercept them at this time?"
"No..." the other replied after a long moment of thought, "Not yet. If they can do this without running into any of the gangs, G'Stral and the others are going to gain a lot of prestige for pulling this one off. But if they do get into trouble...
Then we'll step in to help out. Agreed?"
"Agreed." At which point the light was extuinguished, and the two dark-cloaked figures moved off together down the corridor.
****************
Alliance Council Chambers
12:58 EST.
"So," Vir allowed, as Corwin sat down, only for the second time, in the chair that belonged to Babylon 5's military governor, "Here we all are again - I trust you're ready to deal with the problem at hand, Lieutenant?"
"He is ready." Ta'Lon declared a moment later. "Can you not see it in his eyes, Ambassador Cotto? The last time he sat in this chamber, the ambassadors to this place tested him as he had never been tested before...and now that the Lieutenant knows what it to make a stand for something he believes in..."
"As we discussed earlier, it is our belief that you will be able to help us deal with the challenge we face." Rathenn finished for the Narn, "If perhaps a trifle more diplomatically then was the case during Captain Lochley's crackdown?"
"Now, now..." David Sheridan pointed out, "The Lieutenant did what he had to when he had to - but you're right, Rathenn...a little diplomacy's never hurt anyone."
"Even though," Sherann added, "We do have to deal with this matter firmly - because if we don't, you know what will happen then."
"It'll spiral out of control, like so many of the arguments that have taken place in this chamber in the last few years." Corwin finished for them, as a faint smile crept onto his face. "Thanks for the pep talk, ambassadors - but now," he continued, as the chronometer ticked over to the top of the hour, "I'm guessing that..."
He fell silent, then, as the rest of the Alliance ambassadors appeared in the chamber entrances and made their way to their seats. Corwin closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath...the question was, could he and the others direct the discussion so that didn't happen this time? There was only one way to find out - while of course the first challenge was about to come in the personage of...
"Lieutenant Corwin!" Ambassador Vizhak all but roared, "Where is Captain Lochley?"
"Indisposed." he coldly replied. "A medical emergency came up - she couldn't be here."
"How interesting..." Lethke Kullenbrok replied, his expression difficult to read. "A 'medical emergency' is it, this time? One might suggest that the Captain isn't taking this matter, or us, for that matter, as seriously as she could."
"Be assured, Ambassador," Ta'Lon replied, "That if she could be here, she would - but the emergency is real - and that if it is not dealt with and soon, her own health may be in doubt. But enough of this for the time being - let us now deal with the matter for which you have summoned us here."
"With pleasure." Vizhak replied, his teeth bared in a death's-head grin. With a grand gesture, the Drazi rose to his feet, even as the chamber darkened to reveal a real-time image of the Earth fleet parked outside...and then the field of view narrowed until the flagship of that fleet, the Omega-X destroyer Dark Thunder, filled the holographic projection. "Over three of your years ago, Lieutenant, a great crime was committed...during our battle with Darkness, humans working for Earth Alliance government found warship of Shadows in their territory. Much investigation was undertaken, until Earth scientists learned to build warships incorporating Shadow technology...first came fleet of ships like this one, most of which were destroyed by former first officer of this place.
But Earth Alliance was not content to stop there!" Vizhak growled, his tone low and vicious within the silent chamber. "No!...instead we learn that vessels named Warlock class destroyers were built, also incorporating Shadow technology!"
Vir cleared his throat at that point. "Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, Ambassor - but all of these facts are known, and none of what you say is new to us..."
"While it is our understanding that the parts of the Earth Alliance government responsible for the construction of these ships have already been punished to the full extent Interstellar Alliance law permits." Ta'Lon continued, before turning in Rathenn's direction. "This is correct, is it not, Ambassador?" Rathenn nodded. "In that case, Ambassadors...why are you wasting our time?"
"You have no right to make such a claim." Lethke replied after a moment. "While we were pleased to see the humans responsible for those projects brought to justice...the 'crime' mentioned by the Drazi ambassador continues to be committed, even to this day."
Corwin's eyes widened at that - for Vizhak and Lethke to be on the same side on this meant that both ambassadors felt strongly enough about it to set aside their prior and significant differences...the question was, how many other ambassadors were included in this little alliance? "Three ships there are in Earth Alliance service that contain Shadow technology..." Vizhak continued, "And now your military dares to send one of these to this place, for one and all to see. This is an act of *contempt*, Ambassador Sheridan - one that must be answered for!"
"Now you hold on just a minute, Vizhak..." Sheridan ground out, as he rose to his feet, "As the Narn Ambassador just pointed out, we've paid the price for the mistakes we made - Hell, we just about didn't survive making those mistakes!... "
"That is irrevelant." the Brakiri replied, his tone cool. "We would challenge those claims...we choose to demand that the warship Dark Thunder be impounded in its present orbit...and that all other Shadow technology warships in your arsenal stand down as well, until and unless our concerns are addressed."
At that point, the room erupted with shouting and also quite a lot of gesturing, and Corwin was just beginning to think that this situation was going to be worse than the previous one, when the sound of laughter began to fill the council chamber...a sound that brought the eruption to a complete and screeching halt. "What does Minbari ambassador find so amusing?" Vizhak hissed. "Does she choose to mock us, perhaps?"
"Mock you, Ambassador?" Sherann replied, "No. But now that I've got your attention...isn't there something you're forgetting?"
"Explain your comments." Lethke invited. "Carefully, if you please."
"As the Drazi ambassador said a moment ago, with pleasure. You're all forgetting one of the reasons my people chose to allow the continued service of the three ships you mention, when we could have ensured those warships would be destroyed right down to their keels and beyond. You're forgetting what it is the captains of two of those ships did in Earthspace last year...and how we can never repay them for the sacrifices they and their crews made that day." Corwin began to grin, then, as he realized where it was that Sherann was going with her argument - that in the end, it didn't matter how and where technology came from, if the guiding hands behind that technology used it to do good.
"What do you suppose Captains Ivanova and Tikopai would have to say to you if they found out what it was you were trying to do, here? That you're implying that all the good they did using Shadow technology meant nothing...that those who died under their commands died for nothing - never mind that the terror they helped to defeat would probably have destroyed Earth before turning on the rest of us. And that this defeat," Sherann softly finished in the now absolutely quiet council chamber, "Was managed using Shadow technology.
Their sacrifices cannot be forgotten...and because this is so, I would call for the vote, Ambassadors...if you would be so kind, Lieutenant Corwin?"
"Does anyone else have anything else to say on this matter?" he asked - and then he nodded grimly when no hands went up. "In that case..." The results of the vote were, of course, a foregone conclusion - a vote that was followed by the Brakiri ambassador stalking up to Sherann to say something that was extremely short and to the point (Corwin caught only one word, and that was 'betrayal') and then Lethke made his way furiously out of the chamber. Vizhak, surprisingly enough, was a lot calmer then his colleague, and chose to approach him instead.
"Lieutenant Corwin."
"Yes, Ambassador?"
"The day may come when you may yet regret the decision you have helped to mediate here, this day."
"That may be so, Ambassador...but I'm only glad we managed to deal with this before it really got out of hand. There are, in my opinion, far more important issues to deal with, like interracial relations and making sure we don't get into another war with one another any time soon."
"Ah...I see. In that case, Lieutenant, I will bid you...good day." A now-perplexed Corwin watched Vizhak bow in his direction, and then the Drazi left the council chamber, as well.
"Hmm..." Ta'Lon observed, as he came to Corwin's side, "He took that well, didn't he?"
"Yeah..." Corwin replied. "It's almost like he was expecting us to shoot him down."
"That may well be, Lieutenant." Vir observed. "The important thing is, we did indeed manage to 'cut them off at the pass'...this time. While this is, perhaps, one thing we don't have to worry about from here on in..."
Both Vir and Corwin would have reason to regret thinking that, eventually.
****************
Security Central
13:11 EST.
"So does anyone want to tell me what she's doing?" Zack gruffly inquired, as Griffon tinkered with one of the probes they'd knocked out of the air in Medlab some time before, while Wingrove continued his job of mediating the whole affair. "In case you've forgotten, we fried those things - while it's been my experience that spies usually don't leave their equipment on after their bugs've been zapped."
"You're probably right about that, Chief," Griffon admitted a moment later, "But you never do know. After all, sooner or later these guys are bound to make a mistake, and when they do..."
"When they do," Wingrove finished for her, "We'll be waiting and willing to strike."
"That's all well and good," Satamba said, "But what you're suggesting could get really nasty, sir. Even if we can find them, those guys are not gonna want to give up. While if we back 'em into a corner, there's probably gonna be one Hell of a firefight."
"Probably." Wingrove agreed. "Except...there was this crack markmanship award I earned at the Academy - and while I haven't had a lot of time to practice just lately..."
"BINGO!" Griffon suddenly yelped. "That's it...I guess these guys really are idiots, when it comes right down to it. I'm reading an electromagnetic trace between this probe and whoever was in charge of it...they've left something on, probably by mistake!"
"Yeah, whatever." Zack growled. "Commander, does this mean we can track our perps, or not?"
"Hang on..." Griffon said, as she patched in a connection between her equipment and the station computers, "Bringing it up...there!" Everyone involved fell silent for a moment, as a amber point of light sprang into view on the station monitor, and then Zack shook his head and sighed.
"I should've guessed." the security chief said, a moment later. "Yellow Sector."
"The zero-gee bays." Satamba replied, his expression grim. "Well isn't this going to be fun."
"Maybe not fun," Griffon answered.
"But oh so very necessary." Wingrove concluded, as he laid a hand upon his sidearm. "Shall we, lady and gents?"
****************
Medlab One
13:31 EST.
"Okay, this has gone on long enough!" Lochley said, as she stalked over to the corner where Hakrah had secluded himself, over an hour before. "And while I appreciate your efforts to date on this matter, I'm just about done waiting for the crystal to tell us what it wants to, when it wants to. Maybe it's time for us to force the issue."
"What you are suggesting may be more dangerous then you realize, Captain." Hakrah replied, his voice low and sharp as a blade. "The crystals have been known to kill if forced - and while I believe I have unlocked most of this one's secrets..."
"Captain Foraker still hasn't woken up!" Lochley interrupted him. "And that tells me exactly one thing - we still haven't given the crystal what it wants, and until we do..."
"Until we do, the Acheron's captain isn't going to recover, and there is every chance that Captain Lochley's condition will get worse." Colin pointed out. "I'm willing to go on, Hakrah...are you?"
There was a moment of silence, but then the V'cha'richae rose to his feet, and finally nodded. "I would be foolish to ignore your suggestions...and while this course of action concerns me, you are right...all of you are right." His expression unreadable, Hakrah returned to Foraker's bedside, and the crystal waiting there. "Telepath - I remind you that this will not be easy."
"The important things never are." Colin said, as he and Lochley returned to their positions above the crystal. "Let's get this over with."
"Then prepare yourselves...this will be anything but pleasant." At which point Hakrah's eyes opened wide, and with a harsh cry, he brought his hands crashing down upon the crystal...and darkness consumed them. {Where are we?} Lochley managed, after the initial spike of pain had passed.
{At the barrier in your minds.} Hakrah replied. {At the barrier the crystal has erected - the barrier it does not wish us to cross.}
{Hakrah,} Colin suggested, {If you and I both put pressure on this thing to the full extent of our abilities...}
{We may break through.} Hakrah agreed - and then both men turned their full attention on the crystal and pushed. The pain that followed was sudden, total, and...
Gone. The barrier parted, and Lochley suddenly found herself flung back into the vision. {Well I will be damned...} Colin managed. {We should have known.
We should have known.}
A vision that showed the watchers what appeared to be six V'cha'richae shamans standing around an entranced Lochley, Foraker and their party, in the great hall of the crystals.
****************** Act Five *****************
BABYLON 5, MEDLAB 1
13:47 EST, June 28th, 2263
"Impossible!" a voice insisted. "This cannot be!"
And with those words, the gestalt established between Lochley, Colin and Hakrah hours before began to unravel - while the vision they'd confronted a moment before vanished as well, gone as if it had never been. And even as the words were spoken, Colin thought he knew what the problem was - Hakrah had just confronted something that had shaken his worldview down to its foundations...a vision that suggested that the captain and her former first officer had visited a world possessing a temple full of the 'singing crystals' prized by Hakrah's people...and that Lochley and Foraker had encountered a group of V'cha'richae in that place almost immediately thereafter.
A group who had wiped the memory of that meeting from their minds...until now, that was. "Oh, really?" Lochley sharply replied. "In case you've forgotten, Hakrah, for the last two years you and your people have been living on a station where the impossible seems to become commonplace on an everyday basis..."
"Ah, Captain," Colin pointed out, "That's a bit of an exaggeration, isn't it?"
"You stay out of this!" Lochley snapped, even as she whirled back to face a now scowling Hakrah. "Your problem is that you don't want to believe what the crystal was showing us - my problem is that as long as you don't want to face up to the truth, that damn thing is going to keep Captain Foraker in limbo - and who knows, maybe Doctor Hobbs is right...if we drag this on long enough, it'll probably turn on me, next!"
And that was when the lightbulb ignited in Colin's mind - when it came right down to it, why had the crystal attacked both Lochley and Foraker...and why had it left her standing when it had taken him down for the count? Hakrah had come to him because he'd been the only telepath on the station strong enough to help control the crystal...his connection to the captain had ensured the establishment of the gestalt - which had in turn lead them to this truth. "That's it!" he exclaimed. "I've got it!"
"Mr. Ferris," Lochley demanded, "What are you talking about?"
"Captain, don't you see?" he excitedly replied, the words coming fast as bullets, now. "Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that Hakrah would receive this message - somehow arranged it so that this crystal would come to Babylon 5 at the same time as the two senior officers on the only human destroyer ever to visit that planet were in the same place at the same time, one of whom, you, happens to command the station, of course. Hakrah contacted me, I contacted you, and eventually..."
"Oh my God!" Lochley managed, as Colin watched her cool down enough to understand what he was trying to say. "Of course - they're sending him a message...no, wait! - how can this be possible? All the factors that combined to produce this meeting, this event...how could they have predicted this would come to pass, so far in advance?"
"You do not know my people like I do." Hakrah said, his expression still shaken but rapidly becoming firmer, "Let me assure that with the greatest of our shamans, it is possible. While it also appears that I must set aside what it is that I have always believed...and accept the rest of this message as it has been...recorded. You will help?"
"Of course we will." Lochley replied, even as they moved to place their hands over the crystal yet again. "We've come this far - I think it only fair that we should cross the finish line together."
Hakrah nodded - and then reality once again blurred into vision...and Colin watched as another door was unlocked in Lochley's mind.
****************
"So." the ancient V'cha'richae shaman intoned, his expression forbidding, "As it was prophesized long ago, so it has come to pass at last. The bringers of change have come to our most sacred shrine - have desecrated what was, what is, and what may yet be. They must be made to pay for this crime of intrusion!"
"I beseech you, Elder, be not so hasty as that." another implored. "Look more closely - the crystals have spoken to us of this one's fate - and also of the great Darkness that will soon befall the galaxy. Behold!...from our secret hiding places, we have seen the pattern, and tremble. While as you know, our lost cousins have fallen under the thrall of Order...and the time is coming when the One will rewrite the pattern - and then will the destruction be vast."
"Yes..." a third noted. "Many will die, while worlds will be torn asunder. Elder, we have seen that the world settled by our lost cousins after the Sundering will perish...and that few indeed will survive that winnowing. We have also seen that this leader of humans may come to command one of the greatest crossroads this galaxy has ever seen...and that the lost survivors may also come to this place in time."
"May." the elder spat. "*Might*. We have heard of these ones, these humans - of their habit of stealing what they cannot invent themselves. And even though we accept your input in this matter, if the humans are to leave this place with the knowledge of the crystals, sooner or later the Darkness will find us all!"
"That cannot be allowed to happen." the other shaman agreed. "We must remove the memory of this meeting from their minds...and also the importance of this place...and in time, the Darkness will pass - this we have also seen. In time, the human captain will come to her crossroads, and so will the lost ones. And when this happens...
When this happens, the message will reach them - and they will know what to do."
"So it shall be." the elder finally proclaimed. "The message will be sent - while it appears we must leave the rest...up to fate."
****************
Lochley blinked - someone was calling her name again. But it was a voice she hadn't heard in such a long time, it seemed. Someone, a close friend, who...
"Liz - hey, c'mon, Cap...snap out of it, already."
"Anthony?" she burst out, even as Hakrah and Colin, under the watchful gaze of Lilian Hobbs, rolled the singing crystal away from Foraker's bedside. "You're awake!"
"Yeah...guess I am, at that." Foraker wryly admitted - but then his eyes widened. "Well I'll be damned - looks like you unlocked one Hell of a door while I was out cold."
"So you remember it, too?"
Foraker nodded. "That planet where we figured we hadn't found anything interesting...yeah, I remember it, all right. Always thought that there was something a little strange about that landing, but some reason, I never wanted to examine the details too closely."
"As we have seen, our seers made sure that no such desire remained in you, Captain." Hakrah explained, as he came to Lochley's side. "Until the time was right - until this crossroads named Babylon 5 brought us together. Then, and only then, was the crystal ready to tell its tale - ready to show us the road we must travel upon. And now, I wish to walk apart from you for a time - there is much I must think on, while my people must be informed of what we have learned here."
"Of course." And then, as Hakrah left the Medlab at speed, Lochley whispered another sentence, just for Foraker to hear.
"And he's not the only one."
****************
Grey Sector, Level 7
14:03 EST.
"This is just too freaky..." Jaida muttered to Selene, even as G'Stral lead them down one off Grey Sector's circum-station corridors - a corridor filled with debris, for the most part - garbage left over from when Babylon 5 had been built, she supposed. "How do you suppose Akili and Jojo made this far without running into any of the nastier Lurkers that live down here?"
"Freaky?" the other girl retorted. "More like a miracle. This part of the station can be way worse than Brown Sector - there was one time that Trish was telling me a story she'd heard, about how a girl got killed down here back just after the station came on-line, and how once in a while the Lurkers swear up and down they've seen her ghost..."
"Okay, listen up, you two!" G'Stral hissed, as he whirled around to face his two partners in crime. "This isn't going to work if you can't learn to be quiet. Some of the same individuals who were responsible for that killing are still aboard... and some of those like to hang out in Grey Sector. What do you suppose is going to happen if they track us down?"
Jaida laid a trembling hand on the walking stick she was carrying as a makeshift staff, and gulped. G'Stral was right, of course - even though all three of them were armed to varying degrees, if one of the Lurker gangs cornered them..."It'd be bad, right?"
"That's right." G'Stral tersely replied, "It would be. Now come on - we're almost at the rendezvous point, and if Hrixon's been as careful as I think he's been, he and the Satamba kids should already be there." At which point the Narn turned out of the corridor they were walking through, around a corner, and then they came out into a huge empty space, once more filled with debris.
"Where's the walls?" Selene managed.
G'Stral shrugged. "The Earth Alliance was running low on credits by the time they got to building this part of the station - so a lot of the corridor walls around here weren't finished. There's only a few parts of Grey Sector that are like this...and on the odd occasion I've come down here to close a deal, I sometimes meet my contacts here. Don't suppose you can figure out why..."
"Gimme a break, G'Stral, that's an easy one." Selene retorted. "The bigger the area, the more ways there are to escape...right?"
G'Stral had not time to reply at that point, however...because that was when the Abbai named Hrixon suddenly popped into view from behind a low partition in the middle of the chamber. "'G'Stral - it's about time you got here. I was beginning to think..."
"Do you have them?" G'Stral interrupted.
The Abbai nodded curtly - and after a moment, a still clearly frightened and now very dirty Akili and Jojo scrambled into view, and ran to their sides. "Now for all our sakes, get them out of here and back to where they're supposed to be. The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that the Nightblades or one of the other Lurker gangs will figure out what's going on and get themselves involved."
"Not if I can help it." G'Stral said. "I know a few ways out of here that should take us around any gang presence - while I think it's time for us to part ways. Thanks for your help, Hrixon - I and the others won't forget this."
"The day may yet come when the debt will come due." the Lurker allowed - and with that said, Hrixon turned away, and faded into the shadows on the far side of the compartment. G'Stral, the girls and their charges chose a different exit, and started on their way, as well.
A moment more passed - and then a young Drazi stealthily emerged into view, the insignia of a bared dagger plainly visible upon his dark-green clothing, and began to grin, even as he departed the area in yet a third direction.
****************
Yellow Sector, Zero-Gee Cargo Bays
14:14 EST.
Within the poorly lit immensity of one of Babylon 5's cargo bays, a lighter briefly ignited, followed by the appearance of a glowing butt-end - and then, a moment later, by the sickening sound of a hand striking the smoker's face, sending the cigarette flying off into the darkness. "Mallory, are you out of your fraggin' mind?" Walson hissed. "In case you've forgotten, Allan's boys are probably looking for us by now - and your cigarette might be all the infrared source they need to find us."
"Ah, for Crissake!" the more junior operative exclaimed, as his hand went up to massage the cheek where Walson had struck him, only a moment before, "Not you, too! Are you guys ever gonna start cutting me some slack?"
"Maybe once we get out of here, sure."
"Which oughta be fairly soon, in case you boys have forgotten." Stone drawled from his own hiding place nearby. "Foraker's probably woken up by now...and eventually Allan and his goons are gonna give this one up as a lost cause. Which is when we make our way back down to the docking bays, just in time to link up with the retrieval team..."
Whatever else Stone was going to say was cut short at that point, however...as the lights in the cargo bay suddenly went from standby to full intensity - and a familiar, unexpected bellow filled the thin, cold air around them. "All right!" the gravelly voice of Babylon 5's security chief barked, "Mallory, Walson...and whoever else you've got helping you out, we know you're in here, and we've got all the exits covered. So why don't you make this easy for everyone, and come on out with your hands up?"
"What the frag?" an astonished Walson managed - and then the operative began to scowl, before turning towards his now petrified partner, even as an equally angry Stone joined them. "Mallory - show me your equipment...now."
"What, I don't, I don't..."
"That's not a suggestion, kid." Stone added. "If you know what's good for you, you'll show us the equipment."
"Uh, yessir." At which point Mallory unloaded his equipment from his backpack, opened it...and froze when he saw the incriminating, illuminated green light on one of his consoles, before turning back to face the now-glacial expressions on the faces of his companions. "Uh-oh."
"Well, isn't that nice." Stone muttered, as he turned to face Walson. "So, whaddaya think we should about this? Is he gonna get the easy way out, or are we gonna make it hard for him?"
"Uh, guys...is this a trick question?"
"Nope." Walson replied. "It's not - sorry."
And a moment later, the sharp reports of two PPG rounds filled the air.
****************
"Ah, Hell!" Zack barked, even as the distinctive sound and flash of PPG discharges filled the air inside the cargo bay, "That's it - take 'em down!"
Glenn Satamba nodded, and even as the burly sergeant and his people carefully made their way forwards, the magnetic soles on their boots clicking against the bay floor, Zack turned and laid a restraining hand on Wingrove's shoulder, who had been about to follow them. "Commander - they can handle this...let them do their job."
"Now you just hold on a damn minute..."
"There they go!" Griffon cried out, and Zack and Wingrove whirled around even as Satamba and his men opened fire at the pair of black-clad figures making their way up the side of the cargo bay - a pair of figures that opened fire themselves a moment later with near-lethal accuracy, as one of the more junior members of the team took a round on the shoulder before whirling around and half-floating way, his contact with the floor disrupted. "Well, so much for holding back." Griffon continued, as together with Wingrove she whipped out her own PPG and added to the barrage of fire zeroing in on their opponents, high above. A barrage which found its target a moment later, as the younger of the two figures took at least two rounds in the back, and with a cry, spun away from the wall to float helplessly in mid-air.
"This is your last chance!" Zack bellowed, even as the firefight briefly paused...even as the last figure made his way up onto a ledge on the side of the bay and turned a defiant stare down upon the forces awaiting him below. "Don't make us..."
"Make?" the figure cried, his sparse hair wild in the spotlights cast by the security team. "It's always the same with you guys, isn't it?" At which point their opponent began to laugh, even as he brought his weapon to bear on a wide-eyed Griffon. "See you in Hell, 'Force."
"I don't think so." Wingrove snarled, as he stepped in front of Griffon, brought his own weapon to bear...and fired - a shot that tore through the dark-clothed man's leg a moment later. An opponent who fell away from the wall, his weapon floating away as the first's had already done. "Think you can take it from here, Chief?"
Zack was about to reply, when the two figures above them suddenly whirled in mid-air to face each other. "What we do, we do because they have given us no other choice." the older man intoned.
"The mission has succeeded." the other agreed.
"But we...are expendable." And then, both of them suddenly had weapons in their hands again, and even as they began the process of sighting them in...a fresh barrage of PPG fire filled the air, shots cast up by officers waiting for, but dreading, this outcome. And a moment later, both men were dead.
"Well I'll be damned." Zack managed, even as Satamba and his men began the grim job of reclaiming the bodies, "It's almost like they wanted us to kill them."
"Dead men..." Griffon reminded him, "Can tell no tales."
****************
Grey Sector, Level 19
14:27 EST.
Even as they entered the corridor that lead to the boundary between Gray and Green Sectors - and even with their mission complete, G'Stral couldn't help but think that this was going far too easily...that sooner rather than later, something bad was going to happen. And while he had no problem with being proved wrong once in a while, hard experience had taught him to be wary. What was it one of his human associates had said, once - something about a human 'law' of some sort, invented by a man named...Murphy? "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." he muttered.
"Don't be so pessimistic, G'Stral." Selene replied - the kids were, of course, right behind her, while Jaida was bringing up the rear. "We'll be out of Grey Sector in a few more moments, and then..."
"Ah, but it is not quite so easy as that." an unfamiliar voice declared, and G'Stral and the girls skidded to a halt, even as a mass of green-clothed Drazi and Yolu erupted into the corridor ahead of them, their grins predatory, and their many knives and clubs only too visible. G'Stral steadily met the gaze draz who'd spoken, a gang member who possessed a vicious scar across his left eye and cheek - who carried at least four daggers that he could see...and that wasn't counting the ones he couldn't. "We have heard of you, G'Stral...while it surprises me that you were foolish enough to bring these children into Grey Sector."
"Let us by." he ground out, even as he realized that whatever gambit he could play probably wasn't going to work, this time. "You won't like the consequences if you don't."
"Consequences, he says." the lead draz replied, even as the mocking laughter of the other gang members filled the corridor. "Threaten us, do you?"
"That's right."
"G'Stral!..." Jaida began.
"Centauri!" the draz exclaimed, even as a shark-like grin appeared on his face. "Give the child to us, Narn, and we may yet agree to your terms."
G'Stral brought his hand down upon the PPG sitting on his hip. "I don't think so."
"In that case..." The gangleader was interrupted then, however, as the silvery sound of two Minbari warrior pikes opening suddenly filled the air, and two more figures in black strode into view behind G'Stral and his colleagues, figures whose gaze promised death to any who wished it.
"In that case," Julia Tikopai finished for him, "Let this battle begin."
The gangleader roared his defiance and started forward, followed by a goodly member of his followers...but not all, for not every Lurker, even well armed, possessed the tenacity to fight against the Anla'shok - and even as battle was joined, those members of the gang turned to run. "This is...becoming a habit, you know." G'Stral ground out, even as he and the Rangers moved forth to protect the girls and their charges.
"And if we hadn't intervened, what do you think would have happened?" the dark-haired Ranger challenged, as she and Larieken whirled in between four of the Drazi gangmembers and struck them down as one. "G'Stral, you have a bad habit of getting in over your head in situations like these..."
And then it happened...as one of the gangmembers struck down a moment before struggled to his feet, drew a dagger, and prepared to throw it. And even as Larieken began to cry out a warning, even as Julia whirled, her expression astonished, to face the new attack...G'Stral drew a bead on the young Drazi attacker, and sent a PPG round flashing into his arm. The Drazi cried out, dropped his weapon, and then without further pause joined those who could leave the field of battle, barely standing or otherwise. "Is it over?" Selene asked, her eyes wide.
"It is, as you say, over." Larieken replied, as everyone came together. "You possess admirable reflexes, G'Stral - I do not believe I would have been able to prevent the Drazi from throwing his knife."
"G'Stral..." Julia managed, "You may have saved my life!"
"May?" G'Stral replied. "Well, then...I guess we're even, aren't we?"
Julia grinned, even as the other two girls frowned, trying to figure out what was going on. "I guess we are, at that. Okay, let's get out of here before anything else happens."
There were no dissenting votes to that motion.
****************
Medlab One
15:02 EST.
"So what's your prognosis, Doctor?" Lochley asked Lilian Hobbs, even as the station's chief medical officer and her assistants finished their examination of Foraker. "Is he going to live?"
"He, and you," Hobbs replied, "Appear to be in perfect health...but do you think you can try not to make a habit of this, Captain? Four times in the past two months you've nearly gotten yourselves killed."
"Comes with the territory, Doc." Foraker quipped, even as he finished buttoning up his tunic. "Doesn't seem to matter whether whether it's a space station or a deep-space destroyer...there's always someone or something out to get you when you're in charge."
"There is one particular 'something', however, that we need not worry about from this moment forward." Foraker and Lochley turned towards the entrance to Medlab and began to smile as Hakrah stepped back into Hobbs' domain, his expression grave... yet pleased at the same time. "Our shaman has examined the singing crystal, and has declared it to be perfectly safe. Its song is sung...while the message left for us has been received."
"So...all's well that end's well, is that it?" Foraker asked.
"Maybe," Lochley mused, "Except - there's still a few things that are bothering me about this whole mess. One, where did that crystal really come from - two, did Mallory, Walson and their colleague actually reach the V'cha'richae shrine, and three...if so, were they affected by the crystals in some way, as well?"
"Yeah." Foraker agreed. "After all, they did pick up the message crystal and bring it here."
"You are both thinking too linearly." Hakrah countered. "If one could be told, then all could be told. All that is important is that the message reached those it was intended for."
"I guess." Lochley agreed. "Except now they're dead, I guess we'll never find out who Mallory and Walson were really working for."
"Do not be so sure about that." Hakrah suggested. "The answer you are looking for may come from an unexpected direction, Captain...in time."
In time. Lochley sighed - right. "So, what are you and your people going to do now?"
"Come to Departure Lounge 2 at 1000 hrs station time tomorrow," the V'cha'richae replied, "To learn the answer to your question."
And with that said, Hakrah bowed in their direction, and then departed, to be replaced a moment later by an incoming David Corwin. "Ah, Lieutenant, there you are." Lochley began. "So, have things been busy while Captain Foraker and I have been otherwise preoccupied?"
"Busy? Oh no, nothing really out of the ordinary."
"Which," Foraker said, "Can of course mean anything from invading boarding parties to full scale warfare going on in orbit outside. Would you care to be a little more specific, Lieutenant?"
"He was a lot easier to deal with when he was unconscious." Corwin observed, as the three officers left Medlab. "Anyways, it all started when Vir and Ta'Lon showed up in C&C..."
****************
Blue Sector, Level 28
The Satamba Family Quarters
15:17 EST.
"And that's exactly the way it happened." Jaida finished, "Believe it or not!"
"Well, I'll be damned." Glenn Satamba managed, as the two girls grinned...while G'Stral stood off in the corner and glowered. "I don't know what to say!"
"'Thank you' would be a start." his wife observed, as she moved forward to give both Jaida and Selene a hug. "You've done us both a great service today...and if there's anything we can do for you..."
G'Stral cleared his throat. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Satamba sighed before ambling over to stand in front of the young Narn. "Not in the slightest. I'll be honest, G'Stral - I never thought the day would come when I'd be doing this, but yes...I'm going to say the same thing to you that my wife said to the girls. Thank you for helping to find our kids, and also for protecting them from that gang."
G'Stral shrugged. "Yeah, well...it seemed like the right thing to do - and besides, as I told them a while ago, someone had to make sure the girls didn't get themselves into trouble."
"And speaking of trouble," Miriam added, "Jaida, your father was mentioning something about someone stealing his antique walking sticks."
"Uh-oh." Jaida muttered, while G'Stral grinned and made his way sneakily out the door, "Wonder how mad he's going to be?"
****************
Hydroponics
15:37 EST.
"You what?" Ari Tefano erupted, as Jaida and Selene finished explaining what they'd been up to. "You asked that Narn to help you find the Satamba kids in Grey Sector? Were you both out of your minds? You could've both been killed!"
"Neither of them were ever really in danger, Mr. Tefano." another voice observed, and the girls and Ari turned to see Julia step into the room. "Anla'shok Larieken and myself were watching over them almost from the start of their...adventure - but we chose not to interfere for the simple reason that sooner or later, everyone, even your daughter and her friend, should have an adventure - and a coming of age, as well. I certainly had more than enough adventures of my own when I was their age."
"I suppose." Ari growled. "Just don't ever do this again, Jaida...you hear?"
"I hear." Jaida dutifully replied. "May we go now?"
Ari nodded, and a moment later, the two girls rushed out of the Hydroponics Lab, Julia close behind. "We did a good thing today, you know." Selene said. "I can't wait to tell Trish!"
"Your father was right about one thing, though." Jaida and Selene turned guiltily to face the Ranger who'd helped them - here it came... "If we hadn't been there to help you, G'Stral probably wouldn't have been able to protect you from that gang. While if you don't mind me saying this...sometimes having a case of hero worship can get you in a lot of trouble."
Jaida cringed - whoops. "Guess you're right. We just thought..."
"That you wanted to be a hero, too?" Julia inquired, "Like the Rangers who helped to win the war against the Shadows? The thing you have to remember, Jaida, is that while I've witnessed some of the greatest battles ever seen, being Anla'shok isn't all about glory and victories and changing the shape of the galaxy - even Rangers can die, and many of us have. And also, that not every story ends happily."
"Guess you're right..."
"We won't do it again!" Selene added. "We swear!"
Julia laughed. "If it's another thing I've learned from my service as a Ranger, is that you don't make promises you can't keep. But I think the lectures are done for today...and as a matter of fact, there's something I'd like you see, if you're up to it. Do you think you can both come to the Ranger Compound this evening, at about 19:00 hrs?"
****************
Elsewhere, Hakrah looked out the windows of the Sanctuary, and was pleased.
The long road that he and his people would have to follow was opening up in front of them, but at the end of that road was the only thing that mattered, now.
The only thing.
Reunion.
****************** ENVOI
*****************
Ranger Compound, Main Courtyard
18:58 EST, 06/28/2263
"So," Selene mused, as she and Jaida ran into the heart of the domain belonging to Babylon 5's Rangers, "What do you think this is all about? I mean, she already told us off - you don't think that, um, well..."
"Not hardly." a familiar voice replied, and Jaida and Selene turned to see Julia leaning against one of the nearby tower portals, once more wearing the full black and grey uniform of her craft...though offset, Jaida noticed, by a pair of jade and silver stars on each collar. "Even though Val'na Pratchett did...request a complete report regarding your adventures and our part in them, I didn't ask you both here to receive another lecture. While it is well to see you've dressed appropriately for the occasion."
Jaida and Selene turned to glance at one another, and grinned. They'd both decided to wear the darkest, cleanest and newest clothes they owned - and had added to that the cloaks they'd worn while on...search. "If you don't mind me asking..."
A brilliant smile appeared on Julia's face, then, as she turned to walk into the tower and the two younger girls ascended the steps to follow her. "Where are we going? You'll see - but first..."
"But first," another voice announced, "There are a few small details to take care of." Both girls jumped as a tall, grave faced Minbari Ranger appeared in front of them. "Anla'shok Tikopai - will you please do the honour of introducing me to your young companions?"
"Of course, sir. This is Selene O'Hara and Jaida Tefano - two members of the group who helped to rescue the Satamba children."
"And your name...sir?" Jaida managed.
The Minbari smiled. "Brave, and polite they are, as well. My name is Tharvonn - and before we go any farther, there is something we must do. You will repeat after me - asha'ka anla'shok mei lan vei drei." With much coaching and a bit of practicing, the girls managed to say the sentence at least more or less properly... at which point Tharvonn nodded, and turned to leave. "It is done - Anla'shok Tikopai, you may now guide them the rest of the way in."
"What did that mean?" Selene asked, as they made their way through the corridors.
"One thing you always have to remember about the Minbari," Julia explained, "Is that ritual is all-important to them. Another is that what you're about to see is only to be witnessed by Rangers. So, you see, my superiors and I had to figure out a way around this..."
Selene's eyes went wide as she finally put two and two together. "You didn't...he didn't..." Julia nodded. "Oh...wow! So what's this, some sort of 'honorary' thing?"
"You could say that - but with a built-in expiry date."
"But why?" Jaida asked.
"Val'na Tharvonn does not confer honours without due cause, you know. He helped to train me when I was learning to be a Ranger...and he told you the truth. You both did a very brave thing today...and now it's time for you to see what I wanted you to see." At which point Julia lead them both out into the compound's secondary courtyard...an enclosure that was filled to the brim with Rangers.
"All here at last, are we?" a voice inquired.
"Yes, sir...the gang's all here," another jauntily replied - at which point a ripple of laughter passed through the waiting ranks - while Jaida and Selene watched Babylon 5's dark-haired Ranger commander step up to stand beside the older, bearded Minbari already on the dias. "Including, or so I'm given to understand, several guests."
"As is just." the Minbari allowed - but then his expression grew stern. "Tharvonn!"
"I come, Councillor." the other Ranger replied. "I come this day, as witness to what is, and what must be. Who stands?"
"I stand." the brown-robed Minbari replied. "I am Shival - and in Valen's Name, I have stood watch over this place for more than three cycles...but now I am summoned home by our Entil'zha and her right hand. My time in this place is done."
"Who follows?" Tharvonn challenged. "Who dares to walk where Shival has walked, where the Rimstalker himself has helped to hold the line against the darkness?"
"I follow." Jamie Pratchett replied, her tone decisive. "I will stand, as others have before me. And as long as I stand, as one of the Nine and in the service of the One, the line will be held." And then, the girls watched as she turned to kneel before Shival. "This I swear."
"And so it continues, from now until the end of our service." Shival agreed. "We watch over you no longer, Val'na Pratchett - you have proved your worth to one and all who serve in this place." And with that said, Jaida watched Shival turn away, towards his future and away from the past, and in that moment, as she watched Jamie Pratchett rise to her feet, the Centauri girl suddenly realized what it was that Julia had wanted them to see, as the words of one of her great-aunts came back to her.
"Childhood, Jaida, only lasts a moment - and do not pretend to understand what it is the Great Maker intends for you until that moment has passed you by. Nothing...
... is ever set in stone." she whispered, as the Rangers began filing out of the courtyard. And what about that other saying she'd heard, some sort of thing the humans had invented - enjoy the moment, for who knows what tomorrow will bring?
"Hey, Jaida, what are you mumbling about?" Selene cried out from the entrance.
"Oh, nothing!" she replied, as she ran out of the courtyard past a smiling Julia. "I'll tell you all about it later."
****************
Earhart's
20:15 EST
"Well I'll be damned..." Jerry Barns managed, as a now finally-relaxed Lochley sat across from him, drink in hand. "So let me see if I've got this straight - these aliens predicted our arrival at Babylon 5 years in advance, recorded a message for this Hakrah, and knocked out my adjutant because you were the only one who possessed all the connections to get the rest together *and* make sure Hakrah got his message?"
"Sure looks that way, doesn't it?" Lochley replied with a weary grin. "My own exec, of course, went so far as to ask why couldn't they have arranged to have their 'delivery boys' give the message to the V'cha'richae in person."
Barns snorted. "Lieutenant Corwin's got a good head on his shoulders, Elizabeth...but one thing we've both learned and that he should have by now is that you never, ever try and get inside the heads of other alien species...especially ones with a name as unpronouncable as that, and try to compare the way they do things to the way we think things should be done. I've found that it's always given me a headache - and I've got enough headaches as it is without adding another to the list."
"Speaking of which," Lochley carefully inquired, "Now that Anthony's back on his feet, may I assume you're back on schedule?"
"You may indeed." Barns agreed. "As a result of coordination undertaken during Captain Foraker's convalescence, onloading of supplies is very nearly complete - and Commander MacDonald has informed me that all crews are to be back on their ships by 10:30 hrs tomorrow morning, at which time we will resume our search for the renegade ships."
"And how long do you think the search is going to take?"
There was a long pause, and then Jerry Barns sighed. "That, I'm afraid...
Remains to be seen."
****************
Transit Lounge 2
09:58 EST
"So, Captain..." David Corwin inquired, as he and his commanding officer made their way carefully through the mob of departing Earthforce personnel that was filling all of the station's transit lounges this morning, if not for much longer... "What do you think this is all about?"
"Well, it's almost the time he specified to me yesterday, and this is the place, so..." Lochley fell silent then, however, as Corwin tapped her on the shoulder, and she slowly turned around to see the swell of Earthforce personnel slowly part, to reveal a long procession of dark-skinned V'cha'richae, Hakrah at their head. "And that's pretty much what I was expecting to see, actually."
"Captain Lochley." Hakrah intoned, as he stepped forward to stand in front of the two officers, "Thank you for coming to, ah, 'see us off' I believe it is you would say. We came to this place in peace, and now we leave it as we came to it, knowing that this is the right thing to do."
"You're going to go look for them, aren't you?"
"We are indeed." Hakrah confirmed. "Our resources are scarce, Captain, but some among us have worked in our time here, and as a result, we were able to purchase passage on a human freighter outbound towards the Rim...and towards our goal. It may take us a very long time to reach the world we seek - I may indeed have passed on before our goal is attained - but now that we know the Others are out there...we will find them. Eventually."
"In that case...would it be impolite of us to wish you good luck on your search?"
Hakrah's mouth suddenly flashed into a smile, revealing for a moment a flash of white teeth within. "It is acceptable with our people to accept such wishes, yes. We will carry your luck with us wherever we walk, and in time, we may yet return to this place to tell you of our progress. But for now, Captain, this is farewell." At which point Hakrah turned away, and with the rest of his small band of people, made their way through the gate, and out of sight.
"Well," Corwin mused, as he and Lochley turned away and began fighting upstream against the flood of departing Earthforce personnel, "I guess that's...that, then."
"Which means," a familiar voice suddenly announced, "That the lady's finally got time to say bye to another of the men who got themselves involved in this mess."
"You've got great timing, as usual." Lochley allowed with a smile, as she turned to face a now once-again clean shaven Anthony Foraker, Thomas Wingrove at his side. "How do you do it?"
Foraker shrugged. "Nothing to it - a man's gotta keep his ears open, is all. So - one request only, if you can manage it...try not to piss anyone else off before we get back from this hunt, okay? This is a great place you've got here, Liz - I'd like to try and visit it again sometime soon."
"I think something along those lines can be arranged." she replied. "And now, don't you have a ship to run, or something?"
"Or something." Foraker agreed. "See you 'round, Cap."
And then, even as the *Acheron*'s senior officers disappeared into the rapidly dissipating flood of outbound personnel, Corwin and Lochley glanced at one another, and the station's first officer said the only thing that seemed to fit - "Captain, I think it's time we high-tailed it out of here. That thing that the Captain said yesterday about CO's having a 'magnetic' personality..."
A moment later, Babylon 5's commander and first officer were nowhere to be seen - but the farewells weren't quite over yet, as a dark-haired figure in black accompanied by a young Narn in a tattered coverall walked into view, that young lady's Minbari companion hovering protectively, as always, in the background. "So..." G'Stral inquired, "Where are you going from here?"
"Well, you know how it goes..." Julia replied, "There's never a dull moment in my life."
"Would you care to be a bit more specific?"
"For the next couple of months at least, or so I understand, I'm to be serving as operations officer on White Star 72," Julia explained, "So as to 'gain much needed experience in dealing with possible external threats to the governments of Alliance'."
"Well, that could mean anything."
"You've got that right. Only thing is...G'Stral, for some time now, I've been getting the...feeling that the High Councillor and the rest are starting to prepare me for some sort of unique mission, or maybe as a member of a Ranger special ops team, or something."
"Well, I guess you'll find out what's in store for you when it happens."
"Oh, very helpful." the Ranger replied, her tone sarcastic. "In any case," Julia continued, her tone now more companionable, "I'm going to ask my 'friends in high places' if I can at least come back here before the end of the year. It was much too long since the last visit, and I'm damned if I'm going to stay away from B5 as long as that again unless I can't help it."
"I'll be here." G'Stral promised. "You'll look me up?"
"Count on it!" Julia promised, and then she was gone in a whirl of dark fabric, Larieken close behind...leaving G'Stral to wonder exactly how much he would change before the next time he saw her...
Or the station, for that matter.
****************
Ambassador Vizhak of the Drazi Freehold watched from one of Babylon 5's sanctuaries with baleful eye as the distant jump gate came on line to scoop up the seven warships belonging to the fleet commanded by Captain Jerry Barns of the Dark Thunder - and then, as that vortex faded from sight and what passed for normality on Babylon 5...resumed, the Drazi turned away from the view and made his way to his private quarters. While a short time later, a private link was opened to another location, in another place.
"So..." the individual on the other end of the link inquired, "Did all progress as we had assumed it would?"
Vizhak nodded...carefully. "Yes. Kullenbrok responded to my overtures as I had hoped he would, while the challenge we issued in Council was responded to by Corwin and his allies on Council, and was defeated."
"Not Captain Lochley?"
"No." the ambassador replied. "If you will, examine the evidence at hand. A pattern is becoming established in this place - Lochley is allowing herself to become...distracted by extenuating circumstances, and in so doing, allowing her inexperienced first officer to assume certain of her duties."
"How interesting. Well, then - perhaps we shall have to take advantage of this in some way. Perhaps something worthwhile has come out of this experiment, after all."
"Perhaps." Vizhak carefully agreed. "And now that we are done with this matter..."
"You wish to know what else the others and I expect of you...Ambassador?" Vizhak nodded. "Then listen on, and I shall explain..."
****************
Elsewhere, the man without a name examined the data from his own failed experiment, and smiled the thin smile that was his and his alone. All had not gone according to plan, but just the same, progress had been made. Several weak links within the Organization had been removed, while a surprising amount of information had come to light regarding the crystal.
All the same, he considered, perhaps it was time for this operation to enter a new phase. Perhaps it was time for him to once again take a more...active role in the affairs of those who revolved around this curious nexus named Babylon 5.
For now that most of the pieces on the board were in place, there was every chance that the game might be played to its expected conclusion. And also...that as long as that game continued, he and the rest would continue to live...
In interesting times.
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