The Lifeboat

A Babylon 5 adventure from J.M. Straczynski
by Ramona Louise Wheeler

During the Shadow War
6500 words

I

Michael Garibaldi was awakened, much too early as usual, by an alarmed, 
authoritative voice. "Mr. Garibaldi, can you scramble a starfury? 
Everyone I could spare is out defending a refugee transport trying to 
make it through to us, but I have a mayday coming in -- and coming in fast."
"I'm on it," he answered more patiently than he felt. "Bad dreams anyway."
He chewed over the broken-glass bits of the bad dream while he thrust 
himself into his flight uniform. The brief regret at not getting a cup 
of coffee first was pushed away. Michael Garibaldi was well used to 
pushing away thoughts of what he wanted.

II

She should not be alive. She looked white, gaunt, and dead. Garibaldi 
could see her face in the lifepod viewport clearly from his cockpit 
control seat. During the flight back to Babylon 5, he studied her 
features against the stars, framed by the lifepod's clear armature. 
She distracted him from his familiar mesmerisation with the emptiness 
of space and his starship controls. She had a long gash across her 
left cheekbone, a gash rimmed by a ridge of blood. The blood made 
that peculiar, horribly familiar pattern of organic life drying in 
microgravity; a pattern which Michael had fought through nightmares 
to forget. Had he come so far only to be her pall bearer? His computer 
assured him, every time he asked, that she was alive -- badly injured, 
but alive. He looked at her face through the vacuum between them and 
wondered whether his computer could now lie to him. She did not look 
alive.
By the time he had docked the two awkwardly grappled ships, his computer 
was also telling him that there was something wrong with his stomach, but 
he already knew how to ignore that.

III

"Mr. Garibaldi, that lifepod you brought in--"
"She's under Dr. Franklin's care."  Garibaldi rarely interrupted Susan 
Ivanova. He had never met another woman whose word he respected more, 
but her interest in that disturbing rescue unsettled him suddenly, a 
gesture which always made him forget his manners. "I only brought her in."
"Dr. Franklin reported that he had an unknown alien, injured, in a coma."
Michael had to blink twice to focus Ivanova's face on the command screen. 
Had he flown home from the stars staring down at an alien siren who was 
only human on the surface? "I, uh, I thought -- I mean, she looked human." 
He made himself meet his commander's steady, immaculate gaze. "She looked 
human."
"And the doctor says she's alien?"
Michael nodded.
"This might be a problem."
"Yeah. It might at that."
IV

"You put her in isolab?"  Michael had had his problems with Stephen Franklin, 
but he could still read the good doctor's body language like Narnian nursery 
rhymes; his patterns were stark and transparent. Clearly, Stephen was as 
confused as Michael was.
"I can't find out where the alien ends and she begins," Stephen said wearily. 
"It's spread through her like her own mitochondria. I could kill her by trying 
to make her human again."
The two men stood in silence, studying her finely cut features and ivory skin. 
She lay as still as Sleeping Beauty frozen in the mystery cave, the only sign 
of life a faint stirring of her flame colored hair in isolab ventilation.
"Any clue as to where she comes from?" Franklin asked.
Garibaldi shook his head. "A standard issue lifepod, completely stripped of any 
i.d. Her trajectory was wild, could have come from anywhere. I can't figure it 
out."
"Do you know her?" the doctor asked him finally. He sounded surprised, because 
Garibaldi's emotion was usually so conservative, so concealed.
"No. It's just..."
Stephen sighed. "Yeah. That's how it happens. You save their lives, and suddenly 
you belong to them."
After a long moment, Garibaldi said curtly, "Keep me updated."
"You got it."
V

"I've established a DNA identity on her, Michael."
"Talk to me, doctor." Garibaldi closed down the security review on his desk 
monitor to faced the doctor's image in the com screen. "Who is she?"
"Captain Iris Raybourn, late of the private starship cargo transport, Mr. MaGoo."
"Late of? What does that mean?"
"She was listed as missing over two years ago. The remains of the Mr. MaGoo 
were salvaged near a Drassi colony a year after that. No survivors."
"Well, there was this one lifepod, with no i.d. on it, wasn't there."
"She didn't survive in that pod for two years, Michael!"
"How do you know? We don't know what that alien thing's done to her."
"I wish I had an answer to that, Michael."
"So do I."
"At least, she has a name, maybe a known history."
"That's my job, Stephen. I'll find the history."
"Yeah. I figured you would." The doctor signed off, and Garibaldi turned to his 
desk monitor in earnest.
VI

The Rangers stood crowded together around the viewport of the isolab chamber 
where Iris Raybourn lay wrapped in medical electronics. Everyone was curious 
now and the undercurrent of suspicion was strong. When Dr. Franklin called 
this emergency meeting, the urgency in his voice had alarmed them all.
"We have found out who she is," the doctor began. "Her name is Iris Raybourn. 
She's a starship pilot."
"Her father was the Captain of the Icarus." Michael knew that Captain Sheridan 
would be very interested in that fact.
"The captain wasn't named Raybourn," was Sheridan's only response, but 
Garibaldi saw the tensing of his face, the intensified interest.
"They didn't have much family contact. She's a free trader, worked on her own 
out on the fringes. Apparently, they didn't get along." Then Dr. Franklin told 
them about the destruction of the Mr. Magoo and a starpilot gone missing for 
two years and more.
"Will she become conscious again?"  Delenn spoke gently.
Franklin could only shrug. "According to all my machines, she is conscious. 
It's up to her now."
"What is happening to her? Mr. Garibaldi spoke of alien cells invading hers?"
"Symbiosis."  Franklin did not want to say that. He saw Michael flinch slightly 
at the word, and Franklin felt the same blow. "There is a coherent entity 
implied in the genetic structure being overlaid on hers, but it is still 
fragmented throughout her system, as though it isn't finished growing yet."
"And can you identify the alien species that's doing this to her?" Sheridan's 
question carried the ring of their real fear that she was only the first 
victim of this.
"Yes." That question was the reason Franklin had had to call in the Rangers. 
It was the question he did not want to answer. "It matches long sequences 
from the DNA of that alien pilot who killed himself on Bester's Psi-Corp 
transport. I've checked and triple-checked. It is a Shadow alien."
The harsh and sudden silence was loud with the rhythmic click of the medlab 
machines around them.
"Are you saying that she's being absorbed -- joining with one of those Shadow 
aliens?" Delenn's voice rang with the horror they all were suddenly feeling.
"Absorbed -- or abducted,"  Franklin countered. "Who says it was voluntary? 
Her injuries would indicate she fought to escape."
"Like a demon rape," Delenn said tonelessly. "And she is forced also to be 
the child of that rape." Delenn's rich voice sounded the sadness they all felt.
"Can we save her?" Sheridan asked.
"I don't know. At least, I don't know yet."
"Her own humanity will save her," Lennier said firmly. He reached for Delenn 
but restrained himself, pushing his hands into his wide sleeves. He repeated, 
more firmly, "Her humanity will save her."
"If ours can't," Franklin answered wearily.
Delenn put a hand gently on Dr. Franklin's arm. "I will be available for her, 
for anything, if you feel I can help."
"If anything can help her."
"And if we can't?" Michael demanded harshly. "I mean, is this like a dog with 
rabies? If we can't cure her, what? Put her out of her misery? Put her back 
in the lifepod and send her on her way? I mean, we've got ourselves a 
potential invader here. She could be the --"
"She could be the Trojan horse." Sheridan stepped to the glass wall separating 
them from where she lay in isolab, to study her pale face more closely. "And, 
indeed, what do we do with her if we can't make her human again?"
No one could answer.
VII

"Michael, you wanted updates on her condition."
Garibaldi did not have to ask why the doctor had wakened him once again from 
nightmares. Her need of rescue seemed the rescue of his own bad dreams. "Yeah. 
Of course. Lights." This last was pitched to his personal computer, and the 
room glowed slowly into recognizable dimension. He was not really lost in space, 
dangled between armies of darkness and light. He was safe in his bed on Babylon 
5. "So what is it?"
"She's awake."
"I'll be right there."

VIII

"She's in pain, Michael, and I can't stop it, so I had to tranq her up pretty 
good. Be patient. She'll fade in and out." Franklin went out, leaving Michael 
alone with her in the isolab unit.
She did not look familiar. He had never met her before, but in his dreams 
lately she had worn the face of everyone he had ever touched or wanted to 
touch -- yet each face in his dreams was then overwhelmed by a holocaust of 
fire and sound, lost. Her face was completely new to him. She was a companion 
of his soul whom he had not been privileged to meet until she lay dying, 
consumed by an alien seed.
She lay still, looking up at him with storm colored eyes gray and hot.
"Why did you come here?" he asked her helplessly.
After a long moment, she said quietly, "Babylon 5 is safe."
"Nothing is safe." Michael wished immediately that he had not said that, but 
she continued to look up at him.
"Babylon 5 is safe," she whispered. With that Shadow creature growing inside 
her every cell, she could still believe. "I came here and you brought me out 
of the dark."
Michael tried to turn away from the light in her eyes. Why had he let Delenn 
and G'Kar teach him about souls? "You saved yourself. I just covered the 
docking maneuvers."
"We are both pilots," she said. "We both know the risks."
Michael could only nod. If she was lost to the Shadows, why could he see so 
much light in her face?
"We both know that starpilots only survive on the love of other starpilots."
That was an unwritten law, jokingly referred to as "the lighthouse law." 
Every starpilot was the potential lighthouse beacon of every other. Space 
was unimaginably huge, even with no Shadow ships haunting the dark. 
Lighthouse beacons marked the passages of human spirit, and starpilots, 
always on the front line, were the carriers of that light. Her stormy eyes 
widened, and she tried to raise her hand to him.
Michael caught her fingers in his, marveling at the intense warmth of her 
skin.
"I could see your face," she whispered. "You watched over me while your 
ship carried me here. Your eyes -- you were so beautiful in the dark." 
Her voice was labored despite the light in her face.
"Sleep," he said to her. "We won't let you fall into the dark again."

IX

"She's suppressing it, somehow, for the moment," Dr. Franklin said to him. 
The doctor had waited until breakfast to speak about her with Michael again. 
Franklin was exhausted, and his weariness showed more often now. "She's 
getting weaker, Michael. But what I'm really worried about is the way you 
affect her."
"Me?" Michael pushed his breakfast away, filled now instead with a sudden, 
nameless dread.
"Her bio-readings were getting weak, falling steadily, until you came in to 
see her that first night. Since then, every time you come in, her readings 
shoot up, stronger than anything I can do for her. And I don't know why."
"How's she holding up now?"
Franklin shrugged. "You had to sleep sometime, Michael."
Michael stood up. "I'm on my way."
Franklin stopped him by putting a hand out, catching his sleeve. "Michael -- 
if she's -- What if she's feeding off you somehow? We don't know what's 
going on inside her."
"Has any man ever known what goes on inside a woman?"
"She's not exactly your average female, Michael."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"Wait. I'll go with you."
Michael shook his head, gently pushing the doctor back into his seat. "Finish 
your breakfast first, Stephen. You look terrible." He walked away, trying not 
to run.
"Thanks." Dr. Franklin turned back to his half-eaten meal. "I feel terrible. 
So, what's new?"
X

She was paler, and her tangled mane of flame-red hair was matted as if she 
had tossed and sweated in her dreams. She looked thinner, her bones pushing 
against her skin to escape. She sat up abruptly when Michael stepped through 
the airlock into the isolab chamber. "I have to fight him," she said without 
introduction. "I won't let him take me."
"Him? Him who?"
"The Shadows want me to become him, to let him turn me into -- into darkness."
"Him who?" Michael could not take the harshness out of his voice or his face. 
Her words were ice cold with terror and her terror spilled over to him.
"The Shadow they put inside me. The alien thing I am becoming."
"We're trying to fight it -- we're trying to help."
"He is too strong. I have to get him away from Babylon 5. I can't let him be 
born here." She looked up at him with a storm of horror sweeping through her 
gray eyes. "I thought Babylon 5 would mean safety -- but I am the danger. I 
brought the Shadow here. I have to get him away from here -- or else let you 
kill me."
"I am not going to kill you!" Michael exclaimed helplessly.
She shook her head, sitting forward so that a cascade of red hair hid her 
face. "It doesn't matter. I don't think death would be an escape from him 
anymore. And I don't think killing me would make you safe anymore. He will 
go on without me, and without me, he will go mad. I have to fight him. I'm 
the only one who can fight him. I'm the only one who can fight for him."
"You're not fighting alone."
"Yes. You make me stronger. You make me believe."
"I don't even know what I believe."
"Yes, you do. I can see it. I saw it in the dark when you came after me, out 
there in the void. You know how to believe in the light."
He shook his head. "I can't work on belief. I have to have some kind of facts 
to go on. I have to know what happened to you."
She almost laughed. "I flew too close to the sun, and my wings melted away. 
I nearly drowned in feathers."
"That's not an answer."
"No. Not for you, anyway. I had to know what happened to the Icarus. I had 
to know. Someone who loved me died with that ship. The Shadows found me 
instead. They killed my starship, my beautiful, lovely starship -- oh my 
God, Michael, I loved my ship, but they wouldn't even let me die with her. 
I'm alive because I am good starpilot. Because I am a good starpilot they 
put a Shadow-ship into me."
"What??"
"Their technology is organic, you know. Like the Vorlons, only cruder, 
more feral."
Michael shook off the chill of her words. "And they need living pilots, 
people to be the central control. We know that."
"And they are experimenting. They tried grafting ships that had already 
grown up onto human beings, even telepaths, but the ships went mad."
"And we stole their weapons components back. They won't try that experiment 
again."
"And I have to make damn sure they never try this experiment again, either."
"What experiment?" Even as he asked, Michael knew he did not want to know.
"The Shadows are growing a ship from scratch, with the pilot already in 
the center. I am becoming a Shadow-ship."



XI

"Because no one can stop the change in her anymore." Garibaldi had answered 
this question before, but Captain Sheridan kept that cold, galaxy-hard gaze 
on him, and he found himself stumbling and repeating himself.
"Does the doctor agree with that?" Sheridan demanded.
Dr. Franklin held himself very still. No answer he gave would be the right 
one, no matter what the truth was. He had lost the fight to save her from 
the Shadow DNA in her cells. He nodded then, and Delenn gasped in dismay.
"So what's next?" Sheridan could not sit still anymore, and pushed away from 
the table to begin pacing. "Do we just throw her out an airlock?"
"Only if it is an airlock very far away from Babylon 5." Michael had seen the 
darkness she fought, and he knew the power she was struggling to contain. 
He spoke softly, afraid of his own words.
"You were the one who wanted to save her!" Sheridan exclaimed in protest. 
"Are you ready to throw her out an airlock?"
There was a long, terrible silence as everyone in the room realized the 
agony reflected in Michael Garibaldi's face, frozen in his eyes. "She's 
already asked me to," he said finally. He could hardly make the words 
form. "She says there may be no other way."
"No!" Delenn put a hand over her lips, startled by her own outburst.
"What -- So she can come back as a Shadow-ship and attack us?" Ivanova 
had a way of cutting through to the real disaster at hand. Boom. Boom-boom.
"Meanwhile, the Trojan horse sits in our parlor, waiting for us to knock 
on the door." Sheridan paced harder, resisting the urge to kick things 
around him. "Is that our only choice now? Have we allowed ourselves to 
be invaded?"
"We cannot let that happen." Delenn, however, for once did not sound 
convinced. "We have to save her."
"She had enough willpower to escape from the Shadows in the first 
place!" Michael exclaimed in her defense. "How many others can say 
that!"
"No one else can, Michael," Ivanova said. "Which means that they might 
have let her escape. She may be here for their reasons, not hers."
"Which brings us back to the airlock," Sheridan said sourly.
"If she is still enough in control even to have asked, then there is 
still some human left to her." Lennier's gentle tone momentarily eased 
the heat rising around them. "Mr. Garibaldi, do you believe she can 
control this thing inside her?"
"She is the central control, the brain of the symbiosis," Franklin broke 
in. "As long as she can keep the ship from going insane, she should be 
the one in control."
Michael nodded, agreeing with the doctor. "She has said that the Shadows 
have lost ships to insanity. That's the operating limitation on an 
organic starship, I guess."
"Can we keep Captain Raybourn sane?" Ivanova asked. "A thing like that 
would make me pretty damn crazy, and fast. Talk about your demon lover!"
"It is your calling, Stephen," Delenn said, "To fight madness."
"Madness of the flesh, yes. Madness from neurochemical imbalances, yes. 
But  a madness of the soul? That takes a different kind of physician. 
I've got her on second by second monitoring -- I'm keeping her blood 
sugar levels on max -- endorphins elevated -- every vitamin in the 
alphabet --I'm giving her all the chemical identity I can."
"And she is getting stronger," said Michael, "So much so, that she's 
going to let me shove her out an airlock."
"And if she fights?" Sheridan asked.
Michael felt the darkness closing around him now. "She won't. She's as 
afraid as we are."
"Afraid of us?" Sheridan said angrily.
Michael shook his head. "Afraid of him, of the Shadow-ship." He looked 
around the table, meeting each one eye to eye, challenging. "Wouldn't 
you be?"

XII

As he walked to medlab beside Dr. Franklin, Michael did not know if he 
was returning to her to say good-bye and watch her die, or to fight the 
demon she had become. He had walked into firestorms and blazing combat 
with less fear cutting through his strength of will, and he had never 
wanted a drink more in his entire life. The realization of that made 
him smile, and he shook his head in surprise at himself.
"What?" Franklin asked, noting the sudden change.
"If nothing else, Stephen, I get through this one without taking up 
drinking again, and I'll know I've beaten it for good."
"Well, there are demons and there are demons, Michael."
"Don't I know it."
XIII

"Then make me feel like a human being one last time, Michael. Please."
The very fact that he wanted so much to say yes to her made him hesitate, 
with a wall of protest rising up against the power of his own need. Yet, 
even as the protest was forming itself in words, Michael remembered, 
abruptly, another soldier lady who had once made the same request of 
him, a request driven by the fear of dying, a similar need for courage. 
He had believed, at that time, that "the gentlemanly thing" was the right 
way to respond -- until he saw the news footage later. He had stolen her 
last chance for a taste of life, and had let her go into battle with only 
the emptiness of a polite apology. No matter what his reasons had been 
then, he knew what he had felt when he learned how she had died. "But 
not -- not here," he said. "I've been too close to death in here."
"That's quite a twist on the old your place or mine." She was smiling.
"This is a twist on everything, lady!"
Her smile warmed, and she gently brushed her fingertips across his 
cheek. "I'll make everything twist the right way," she whispered, with 
heat showing in her ivory pale cheeks. Her fingertips were a searing 
touch on his face, a warmth that, at last, began to reach past his 
gentlemanly reserve. "I've had a long time to be hungry."
"So have I," he said to her. "My place. Definitely, my place."
Dr. Franklin required no explanation. He just made Michael swear he 
would call immediately if she showed any distress. "Or change," 
Franklin added darkly. "The captain is definitely not going to like 
having her loose on the station."
"Yeah. I still don't know if I'm preserving station security -- or 
compromising safety for all of us."
"Michael, just ask yourself what would happen to Babylon 5 if a newborn 
Shadow-ship were to go insane while inside the station. Is it really 
going to matter which room she's in if we can't help her?"
Michael felt an unmanly shiver at the image, momentarily daunted. What 
kind of battle was he preparing to fight here? The duties of the true 
knight are many, and varied, and often learned only in mortal combat. 
He spoke into his com unit. "Ivanova?"
"Here, Chief."
"I don't ask this too often, so indulge me. I'm going to be off duty 
for awhile."
"No problem. For how long?"
"Well, there's some what would say I could do all right in a half 
an hour or so, Commander, but I think I'll be a little longer."
He could almost hear the smirk in her voice. "Take your time, 
Mr. Garibaldi."

XIV

When he awoke, abruptly flung away from a dreamland lost in her eyes and 
her skin, he found himself alone on the bed. He leaped to his feet, 
alarmed, shocked, prepared for anything yet totally unprepared for what 
he saw.
Iris was gone, or very nearly gone. The creature who filled the shadows 
of his room was almost her. That was almost Iris Raybourn's face, but 
starship foils like blackened angel wings crested her shoulders; her 
blazing red hair was lost in a tracery of  hull lines grown around her 
skull. She was still as achingly beautiful as she had been in his arms, 
but she was, nonetheless, submerged in the dark star technology of the 
organic Shadow-ship. Michael had never before felt more naked nor more 
bare-assed vulnerable. Nothing but his manhood stood between the light 
and this thing of darkness she had become in the night.
"She loves you." That strange voice boomed with painful harmonics, fading 
into a rippling trill reminiscent of Kosh's Vorlon voice, but dark and 
cold.
Michael tried to see her face in the darkness of the Shadow-ship's morphing. 
Had she spoken, or did the voice simply come from inside her?
"And you have shown me how to love her," the voice went on. "You have shown 
me how to make her feel my love."
Michael Garibaldi was a gentleman, and he knew how to make a lady feel like 
a woman, but to make a Shadow demon feel love? "Iris? Are you in there?"
"Yes, Michael." The same weighted harmonics rang through her whisper, but 
clearly it was she who spoke. "I am here. I am complete now. We won."
"We won??" Michael's voice was edged with more hysteria than he wanted to 
reveal. "You've been -- you changed! The ship won!"
"Yes!" This time the voice was the harsh male voice of the Shadow-ship. 
"Yes! We have won, Michael Garibaldi, because you have shown me how to 
love her, and in loving her, I am no longer just an animal. I am hers now, 
and I will never be a mouth to feed souls to the Shadow Lords! I will be 
a soul now myself! Because I am linked to her, I can be real. I can exist! 
I will contain her. I will protect her. I will -- I will love her, and I 
will not let the Shadow Lords take her!"
Michael tried to swallow against a dryness that threatened to overwhelm 
him. "That makes us partners then, doesn't it?" he said into the darkness.
There was a moment of humming silence while the Shadow-ship thought this 
through. "Yes!" he boomed then. "Yes, I see! Partners in love, Michael 
Garibaldi. Partners in caring!"
"Partners in the light," Michael prompted.
"Yes! Partners in the light!" The monstrous darkness in that huge voice 
was sparked with a curious kind of joy. "Partners forever, Michael 
Garibaldi!"
"In that case, why don't you just call me Mike." Michael sat down on the 
edge of the bed. He could already feel the weight of the emptiness that 
would be his reward for this victory. "Iris?"
"He's patterned on you now, Michael." she whispered. "The Shadows have 
lost to love. I don't want to leave you. I didn't want to give up being 
human, but I walked into the Shadow's lair and I have to take the 
consequences."
"What will you do now?"
"All I ever wanted all my life, Michael, was to fly a starship and explore 
the sky. I will have that now, more than any other human being ever had. 
He can give me the stars."
"I will give you the entire heaven filled with stars!" The ship exclaimed.
"That's true love, all right," Michael said with a sigh. "You just stick 
with that story, son." He began to search around for his clothes. He left 
the lights off. He did not really want to see them, to see her joined with 
him, not yet.
Michael did not know what to call her, what name to remember her with. 
Clearly, she would be no longer the Iris whose name he had whispered 
in the dark. She was a memory of perfume against his skin, sudden laughter, 
but no name could be applied anymore. She would be a starship captain 
now, no longer really human at all. He tried to focus on that as he 
fumbled on his boots, tried to focus on what must happen next.
"I said that you would have to shove me out an airlock before this 
was over, Michael." The starship harmonics that rang through her voice 
chilled him, as though he moved through and breathed broken glass. "But 
now I know I can just jump out into space on my own, darling. Won't that 
be easier on you?"
"Sure." Michael took a deep breath and stood up. "Sure, lots easier."
"Will you walk me to the door, soldier?" Iris tried to sound human, light, 
but the pleasure in her voice rang cold against his nerves, the smothering 
sound of ice closing around him.
"Ivanova?" Michael spoke sharply into his com unit. "We've got a situation 
here."
XV

Captain Sheridan, Ivanova, and the doctor were waiting in the corridor 
outside his quarters. Dr. Franklin stood in front, his concern for this 
unique patient as great as his curiosity about so monstrous a change in 
a human being.
Garibaldi stepped out first, hesitating at the sight of their tense faces. 
For an instant he had the crazy, cartoon image of the Shadow-ship getting 
stuck in the entry, but the sizzling dark shape seemed to flow through as 
if turned to smoke, swelling to fill the corridor. Spines like black ice 
swept around her face, all that was now left of her human form. The graceful 
lines of the ship's hull might have been curves inspired by her body within 
the machine, but a true, fully formed Shadow-ship floated in the half light 
where they stood.
Captain Sheridan's face was grim, and he kept one hand on the weapon at his 
hip. "Michael? Talk to me."
"She just needs to get out of here now, Captain. She needs to get away from 
the station."
Sheridan tried to look past Garibaldi into the shadows but saw only a 
shimmering darkness. "What is she now, Michael?"
"She is my companion," the Shadow-ship boomed. "She is my heart!" Pride and 
joy echoed through the corridor with agonizing intensity. "I will carry her 
to all the heavens in the sky!"
"Puppy love," Garibaldi quipped.
"Please, don't be afraid of him, Captain Sheridan." Iris Raybourn's voice 
was stronger now, but rich with the ship's harmonic accompaniment. "We just 
need to get away from here. We can't afford to attract his masters."
"I will take her away to safety," the ship's voice boomed over hers. "I 
will never let the Shadow Lords feed on her soul -- never!"
"I am still here, Captain Sheridan." Iris's barely human whisper was swept 
up in the fading harmonics of the Shadow-ship's cry. "Your Babylon 5 has 
done its work. You gave me the strength to bear him in the light, and he 
is mine now. The Shadows will have neither of us."
"You're just going to leave? How can we trust that?"
"Captain Sheridan, I am now in control of a fully functional, very powerful 
warship. Do you think you can keep him in this place -- in any place -- 
if he wants to take me away?"
"Nearest airlock okay?" Ivanova said, "Or do you need a cargo bay?"
"Michael?" Sheridan had not reached for his weapon, but the shift in emphasis 
was clear in his stance.
"Just let her get out of here, Captain." Michael had to remind himself that 
he had, in fact, put on his uniform and did not stand as exposed as he felt. 
"If nothing else, Captain -- better to fight her with the station's big guns 
out in space than what we have at hand, inside here."
"He's right, Captain," Iris Raybourn said. "No matter what you may or may not 
believe, or trust, you are safer with him outside of your Babylon 5 than 
inside."
"They cannot keep you here!" the ship's voice shook the decks beneath their 
feet.
"And they will not," Iris spoke almost tenderly, amplified by the 
Shadow-ship's harmonics. "They are just overwhelmed by your power, your 
beauty. They did not expect you. You are the miracle no one could predict, 
and they are awed by you. Be patient."
Captain Sheridan turned to Susan Ivanova beside him, caught her eye, and 
nodded. His face was grim but he had accepted their situation.
Ivanova lifted her com badge: "Ivanova here. Close it down. We're coming 
through. All monitors off. Triple-check the route to be sure we meet no 
one, and I mean no one."
"Can't I peek, Lady Godiva?" David Corwin, at C&C, was smiling with charmed 
delight at his commander's secretive urgency, but Ivanova was acutely aware 
only of the laughter in his voice. No one knew about the Shadow-ships yet 
except the Rangers.
"A single scan and I'll personally cut yours off," she snapped, cheeks 
reddening.
That unwitting witticism, however, broke the surface tension in the corridor, 
and the unlikely launching of Babylon 5's first-born Shadow-ship set off for 
the launch bay. Susan had earlier pre-prepped Garibaldi's starfury, and had 
it standing by. Neither she nor Sheridan had argued with Michael's reasons 
for being the one to escort Captain Raybourn off-station. Garibaldi taking
a starfury out on a secretive command mission was fairly routine. No one 
was supposed to notice only one ship returning.
Garibaldi led them, not out of command but from the need to keep them 
behind him, unseen. Ivanova walked beside Garibaldi, glancing back 
nervously from time to time and wincing as the shining blackness 
continued to show a human face. Dr. Franklin and Captain Sheridan 
followed. Franklin kept checking the biomonitor in his hand, but it 
told him lies and nonsense, and he relied, finally, on only his own senses.

XVI

"Just give me time to suit up and get ready to launch," Garibaldi said 
once they arrived in the emptied launch bay.  He was gone before anyone 
could reply.
The sudden silence was hard with suspicion as the three stood before the 
hovering Shadow-ship in their midst. "You will know now," Iris Raybourn 
said to them, "That there is one Shadow-ship who is not fighting with 
you but for you,.
"Yeah, well, you wear a red carnation so we'll know you," Ivanova snapped.
The ship chuckled, if such a large sound could be called anything so 
gentle, and from the wingtip nearest Ivanova an extension suddenly shot 
out. There was a red carnation in its grip, held out to her. The green 
leaves and bright new petals sparkled as if with first dew, and the 
spicy scent of  the fresh flower was sudden and rich.
They were speechless for a moment, and then Ivanova carefully took the 
offered flower. The stem was wrapped in crystal, and both it and flower 
were quite real.
"It's -- it's alive," Susan said, astonished, after daring to touch and 
examine it. "It's alive."
"As am I," the Shadow-ship said, its terrible voice softer now. "And I 
will never forget that I began my life here, because of the kindness of 
strangers."
"Good bye," Iris whispered.
"Ready for launch." Garibaldi's voice came through the console intercom. 
His starfury could be seen through the ports alongside the launch bay, 
but his face was invisible in the navigation lights.
The Shadow-ship was also invisible once outside the station. They could 
not see him clinging to the underside of the starfury as it dropped 
from the bay. The linked ships swept away from the station, quickly out 
of sight from where Sheridan, Ivanova, and Franklin watched.
Ivanova was gripping the crystal vase in a tight fist and was started 
suddenly by the cold touch of a water droplet fallen from the red 
petals. She looked down at the miracle in her hand, astonished by it 
again. "Does anyone believe any of this??" she demanded of the flower.
"Not a single word," Franklin said quietly. "And I dare you to find an
yone else who will, either."

XVII

"The Shadows know why they fear having humans in the fight against them," 
Delenn said after listening to Sheridan's account of the Shadow-ship's 
birth. "If one woman could defeat them this way, by falling in love, 
then your people are more powerful than they can know."
"In the end, love may be all we have to fight with."
Delenn smiled, leaning closer to John across the small dinner table. 
"There is a saying, among the worker caste. I hope I can translate the 
meaning into your words." She paused, still smiling at him, and then 
said, "Yes. It goes -- You find love in the damnedest places."
They both laughed.
She held her palm up to the candle that Sheridan had set out for her. 
"Between the candle and the star," she whispered. She was greatly 
relieved by the outcome, more relieved than she could express in human 
language. "She gives me hope, this starship captain Iris Raybourn. I 
will think often of her."
Sheridan drew himself up from the intrigue of candlelight caressing 
Delenn's silken skin. "I imagine Mr. Garibaldi will be thinking of her 
quite often as well."

XVIII

"Michael, you look better this morning." Susan smiled up at him perkily 
as he settled beside her at breakfast. Cafeteria noises closed them into 
a moment of privacy in public. She could see the strain in his eyes still, 
but the darkness that had followed him for the last few days seemed lifted. 
"Sleeping better?"
"Sleeping better," Michael said gruffly, but he made himself smile at her. 
"And getting over it."
Susan leaned back and deliberately studied his face for a moment. "No, not 
yet," she said gently.  "She was worth more than a few days to recover."
"I only knew her a few days!" Michael protested.
"Don't you believe in love at first sight, Michael?"
"I don't know," Michael replied. "Maybe I do. Maybe not."
"My mother always insisted that all love is love at first sight. Some people 
just have slower vision than others."
"Slower vision?" Michael almost smiled.
"She never explained that part. She just said I would understand when I 
grew up."
"Do you?"
"I don't know. I haven't grown up yet." Susan expected this to be the 
punchline, but Michael reacted with a serious look.
"Maybe I finally have." He set his breakfast out with unusual slowness. 
"My Dad used to play this same song over and over whenever he got to 
missing Mom too much. I hated it then, never understood it. I told myself 
I would understand, someday, when I was grownup."
Susan waited while he picked up his fork and pushed his food around for 
a moment.
"An old song, played by an old man," Michael said finally, feeling the 
broken glass cut in his voice. He took a deep breath and recited the 
song's chorus-line: "'Feels like laughing when she makes me cry.'"
Susan sighed. The two of them began to eat their breakfast. The day's 
work on Babylon 5 was waiting.


T H E   E N D


The Lifeboat                                            A Babylon 5 Adventure

page 14