From: "Stephen J. Barringer" Subject: WANDERING STAR 39/?? Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 01:50:01 -0500 A month and a half -- well, so much for more frequent writing.... "Get a life"? I need *less* of a life. This one's dedicated to everyone on the list for being so patient. Check out the new Virtual Season Six Website at www.connect.ab.ca/~dgolding/vs6/VS6.html for some *really* good stories.... *****************DISCLAIMER***************** Susan Ivanova and all BABYLON 5 characters and situations are the creations and copyrighted property of J. Michael Straczynski and Babylonian Productions, and are used here without permission strictly for the purposes of non-profit entertainment. Other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, non-profit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) ************************************************** < < W A N D E R I N G S T A R > > PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 34 - VORLON HABITAT 23:43 EST Behind her closed eyelids she saw the face of the City again, the kind, feline simulacrum who had named her Messenger. Lines ran in its face now, lines of age and weariness and pain. But in the eyes there was an immense relief. Susan wasn't sure why she thought it; she only knew she couldn't address it as simply *City* any more. She was dimly aware of the voices singing on. came the eventual reply, after a pause. She did not say for what; the City did not need to ask. Ancient alien bioprograms closed faltering calculations. The simulacrum smiled. The simulacrum's smile faded; it straightened, seeming to become larger and yet more insubstantial. At another time she would have bridled at the implied order, but there was a strange humour in the thoughts that she understood. The Sharasai's face was huge now, ghostly and misty. Only the eyes retained any hint of substance, and they were vast and burning. Consent was not even a word. She couldn't refuse. She *was* the consent. The simulacrum seemed to sigh. All around Ivanova a vast wind blew. She felt the song dying in the immense exhalation, felt Tisiara's gestalt and the power of the others fall away beneath it like sand dissolving in a tideflow. Energy drained from the air and ground around her. With the last trailing note of life came a final thought: The wind faded away. Silence fell. Susan opened her eyes on darkness. The only light came from the lanterns of the guards and the tiny green lines on Braun's biosensor units, attached in lines to the far wall. And on every one of those units, the lines were flat and unmoving as the chiseled surface of a gravestone. She knelt for a moment, the Sharasai all around her, not moving, scarcely even breathing. Snow's face shone wet with tears. Waverly looked dazed, as if coming off a drug trip. The Drazi had all dropped to their knees, heads down and out, as if kneeling for a headsman's sword. Braun touched one of his units hesitantly, as if unsure it would remain solid beneath his fingers. It did. At the feel of it he shuddered and sighed. "Lifesign loss," he whispered in a rasp, "total." "It's dead," breathed Snow. More tears welled; her voice sounded thick. "Dead." Her grief began to well outwards, into the Sharasai, and Susan felt their slow shocked understanding begin to spill over into a like grief – The City's last words abruptly came clear. Ivanova thrust herself to her feet with a leap that startled everyone into convulsive movements back. "All hands, outside the room *now*!" she shouted. "Now, now, *now!* *Move* it!" She batted at the Sharasai with both hands, shoving them into dazed motion. "Hurry! Before we're fried!" "You mean – " Corelli jerked his gaze up to the unseeable ceiling of the Chamber. "Yes, the transmission got through and they're boring another hole *any fragging second now*, now MOVE!" Corelli lifted his voice, adding his shouts to hers. One by one the unruly crowd came surging back out into the corridor that had led them here. Ivanova kept pushing them down and away. "Come on, come on, we need some distance, we could be about to fry here – " "*Captain!*" The scream froze them in the corridor; Ivanova shoved her way to the front just in time to see Burns come sprinting back towards them. She caught the younger woman by the shoulders and held her steady as Burns' breath heaved. The corporal's eyes were wild. "Burns, what is it? What's wrong?" Burns only turned and pointed. Ivanova looked past her and froze. At the distant end of the corridor was a sick, multicoloured radiance she knew only too well. Oozing towards them. But before she could even formulate the curse in her head, light blazed behind them like the fury of God, and they all threw themselves down as black shadows razored themselves on the walls in actinic radiance. SKYHOPPER FLIGHT ONE 23:45 EST >From a black hammer three hundred kilometres above the world, blue-white rage pierced sky and cloud and storm like a lance. Takayama could see it as he circled, fighting his Thunderbolt, flaring through the black thunderheads with the fury of a thousand gods. The wind picked up; he felt his craft pitch and roll beneath him. He flew with it, holding the centre of the pattern. Awe held his mind numb, even as his body flew with unthinking skill. For a moment the clouds parted. Below, far below, he made out the point of red smoking cloud where the beam disappeared into the earth, ash and smog and detritus billowing skyward from the rapidly growing crater. More than half the city had been consumed now, dissolving into the radioactive slag left by the particle cannon detonation. The light from the remainder had died, and only the lightning lit the valley now – A particularly fierce levinbolt turned the park bright as day, and Takayama stared. Was that *Shuttle One*? It might be a trick of the light, but that triangular shape looked very like – The beam cut out. A staticky, barely distinguishable voice came over his comlink. "*Saint-Germain*, this is Thomas Morgan, excavation complete! I'm running the lines now! And get the docking bays ready for us 'cause we're coming out of here in a fragging hurry!" SHUTTLE ONE 23:46 EST Thomas threw the compartment door open. The Drazi stared back at him, suspicious, sullen and wary, but he didn't even notice. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Ilvridas and two others. "You, you and you! Outside, *now!*" Ilvridas repeated the order in short, sharp words. Thomas didn't stay to see if they obeyed or not. He turned away, raced through the muddy ground to a side compartment of the shuttle and knelt to unlock it. His knees turned sodden and cold; his blond hair collapsed to his head in a plastered mess of water-dark strands as the rain struck down on him. The last lock gave: he slid the catch and dumped the cable driver unit open. Ilvridas and the other two Drazi joined him, looking miserable and frightened in the rain; the desert-evolved species was thoroughly uncomfortable with this much open water. "What now?" Thomas pointed at three hooks beside the one he was undoing. "Unlock it, wind it out, over there." He turned and pointed. Ilvridas turned to follow his direction and almost dropped the disengaged hook from her hands when she saw the smoking mound-walled crater. But her training cut in, and as Thomas stood and splashed towards the crater with his cable trailing behind him, she followed, unspooling her own cable. Her colleagues came as well, muttering to each other in a sullen curiosity. Up the slope Thomas staggered, cable trailing. With the claws in their feet and hands, the Drazi fared better on the muddy mound-wall. They hit the lip of the crater at the same time, finding a shaky balance on the sodden lip of earth, staring down. Without hesitating Thomas pitched the line into the crater, watching it disappear downwards. The cable spun out with a whirring sound, three seconds, four, five – CLANG. Maximum extension. The Drazi looked at each other and did likewise. For a moment there was no response. And then Thomas heard a sound he had honestly wondered if he'd ever hear again: the breep of a link circuit opening. His reflex answer was so automatic he'd spoken before understanding what was happening. "Morgan!" "Ensign, do you have any idea how good it is to hear your voice?" Morgan's vision blurred, and it wasn't from the rain. It took all he had to keep his voice comprehensibly steady. "Believe me, Captain, it's mutual." "We've found the cables. We'll be getting maybe four people a minute up them. What's our window of timing?" Morgan spun, checking the progress of the nuclear rot. Five metres further in the last few minutes. His stomach sank. "Not good, sir. Estimate ten minutes before we have to take off or we fry." "Acknowledged. Watch for us. Ivanova out." Morgan blinked. "Watch for -- *watch* for us?" He looked at Ilvridas. "What does she think I'm gonna get distracted by, the latest Robin Kessler flick?" Ilvridas shrugged inscrutably. EAS *SAINT-GERMAIN* 23:47 EST As the door whirred and Kimeda stepped onto the bridge, she stopped as she saw the hive of activity it had become. She frowned, bewildered. What -- ? " – search party located, only five casualties – unloading now – " Bailey had one jack pressed to her ear at the comm station; in the command seat and Tac Ops board, DeClercq and Ramirez had turned to stare at her, hanging on the young woman's every word. " – estimate nine-ten minutes to liftoff." "Does Shuttle One have enough fuel?" snapped DeClercq. Bailey switched channels. "Checking with the Dockmaster – " A swift murmured question to the link brought an equally swift headshake. "Unknown, Captain, they're right on the verge at this moment. The storm itself might bring them down." DeClercq closed his eyes and clenched his fists simultaneously. Ramirez frowned in intense concentration. After a moment he spun about and bent to his board, typing commands furiously. "What are you doing?" DeClercq scowled at the younger man. "Planning a backup." DeClercq opened his mouth to reply when he caught sight of Kimeda. A tinder of confusion clouded his face, then sparked into irritation. "What the hell are you doing here, Doctor? You should be in medbay waiting for our casualties!" "I had to find out. Have they rescued her?" The Commander blew out a breath of mixed relief and exasperation. "Yes. And she seems no worse for all her adventures." "Good." Kimeda made herself say the word calmly, turning to look at the main viewscreen. Her gut roiled with acid. But she repeated it absently. "Good." From the corner of her eye she noted DeClercq's narrow look. VORLON HABITAT 23:49 EST Among the skills that all Earthforce personnel got rammed down their throats in training was basic climbing techniques. What use the Space Service might have for such had never been explained, but Ivanova was so grateful for it now she was seriously considering finding the man who'd decided that and kissing him soundly. The polymer-and-alloy cables were slippery with rain and mud, but the guards, technicians and soldiers knew to wrap the sleeves of their tunics around their palms, and to brace most of their weight on their feet against the fused rock of the wall. The climb was hard, but straightforward. Four by four Ivanova ordered them upwards. Braun, surprisingly, appeared to have lost none of his old skills in his time in retirement; when his turn came, he packed away his instruments efficiently and swarmed up the cable like a much younger man. Even the Drazi did not have much trouble. The Sharasai were something else again. Though one toe of their pads had been angled by evolution or Vorlon uplift into a workable opposable thumb, they had no strength in their grip, and the claws of their hands were not designed to work with cables or rock walls. But Corelli had provided a solution before Ivanova could figure one out: he had simply picked up Tisiara, draped her around his shoulders like a child playing piggyback and climbed up carrying her. Ivanova was not too proud to steal a subordinate's ideas: with a few sharp orders, every last one of the little aliens was borne upwards the same way, though their distress and fear was a tangible weight in the air. Waverly and Snow were the last ones down besides herself. Ivanova watched the second last group go, then glanced down the corridor. The light of the dissolving rock was alarmingly close now, its radiance painting them in flickering broken rainbows. She looked at Snow and Waverly. "Well? Are you waiting for anything in particular?" "Just yourself, Skipper," said Waverly amicably. He went to the cable, got a solid grip and swung himself up to brace against the ruined walls of the Chamber. Rain blew down across him. "You coming?" "Remind me to find out if there's an injunction in the Articles of Duty against stupid questions," muttered Ivanova as she joined him. Snow followed. "You kidding, Cap? If there was the entire senior command staff would be, like, brigged for life." "And this is a bad thing because -- ?" Ivanova arched an eyebrow. "Come on." She swung her legs up, paused to get her weight balanced, and began to pull herself up. Muscles bunched and quivered in her arms and shoulders as she walked up the wall. Snow and Waverly kept easy pace, though sweat had sprung out on all their foreheads. The cool rain across their faces was actually a blessing. Ivanova's link bleeped. She rolled her eyes, wound one forearm into the cable and lifted the other free, jabbing the go button with her chin. "Ivanova!" "Captain, this is Morgan – um – how fast can you get to the surface?" Ivanova looked up. Some five or seven metres above she could barely make out the last group of four still climbing. "Chamber depth is forty-two metres, right? A minute or two." "Captain, that's not enough time." Though the voice was calm, there was a thrumming tension to it that stiffened Ivanova's back. She ran through her options and knew there was only one. "Ivanova to climbers," she said into her link. "All of you still on the cables, *hold on*. Mr. Morgan?" "Sir?" "Initiate liftoff. Pull in the cable as you lift. Initiate *now*." A moment's silence, thick with shock and fright. Waverly's jaw had dropped, and Snow's eyes were bulging. But neither got the chance to speak before a vibrating thunder rippled through the rock around them. Abruptly the cables jerked in their hands; all of them tightened their grip spasmodically, clinging with the full length of their bodies. They dropped a moment, the cables sliding downwards, and then upwards. The rock walls of the bore jolted past them as they shot upwards in a jerk; a minute's pause; another whirring tug and a jolt, all through a steady ascent and a roar growing ever louder – The bore fell away on all sides and then they were out, dangling in midair. Above them hovered the shuttle, VTOL engines bellowing as it continued to rise. The cables fed inwards with spastic jerks as each group of four, some with Sharasai clinging to their shoulders, scrambled in through a side hatch. But Ivanova watched only briefly to make sure the loading was going as planned before she looked down. Her breath caught. The ground, over fifty metres below them now, had dissolved into a soup of radiant magma. Most of the City was gone now. Only the outlying structures still stood. To the northwest, the circle of white stone that had once been their landing zone was a lake of lava, golden with furious fire. Ivanova wondered how long the reaction would continue. Would it ever stop? Would the planet itself be consumed? She didn't know. The wind sheared the cables about wildly. She clung with savage strength, strangely disconnected from the reality of her position: hanging hundreds of metres above a lake of fire, battered by storm and rain, the fuel-starved Shuttle One pulling her in barely in time to save her life. Only the devastation surrounding her had any reality. She flashed on a memory of the city as she'd first seen it: glowing, jewellike, alien and majestic... empty and silent. No more alive then than it was now. Only haunted. How horrifically arrogant they had been, she mused with that eerie detachment. They had come here looking for the secrets of gods, as if the mere ability to ask questions gave one the right to an answer. They might even have found some, if Braun's experimental samples proved of any use – though she still didn't know what he would want with them, what he would do with them. But in the end they had been blundering children trying to decipher the mysteries of adults. They could have done nothing else but fail. "*Captain!*" Corelli, at the hatchway, held out his hand to her. She freed one of her own hands and gripped it, letting him pull her inside with Snow and Waverly as the last of the cables fed into their spools and stopped. The hatch slammed behind him, and Ivanova braced herself, almost dazed at the simple beauty of electric light and dry, warm air; the crowds of human and Drazi bodies were strapped in, and she felt their fear, tension and burgeoning hope like lightning inside the shuttle. Corelli tapped his link. "Corelli to Morgan! The Captain's in! Go!" "Acknowledged," came Morgan's response over the PA. "All hands, brace for high acceleration in three – two – one – " The cabin tilted back. Ivanova let herself go with the tilt and dropped into one of the last remaining seats, not bothering with her safety belt, only holding on with clamped hands. A moment later a roar of fury erupted through the shuttle with sledgehammer force: Ivanova felt herself pressed back into the seat under nearly triple her normal weight. The shuttle leapt for the sky. ...TO BE CONTINUED From: "Stephen J. Barringer" Subject: WANDERING STAR 40/?? Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 02:29:21 -0500 Vacation, vacation, vacation.... *GOD* it's nice not to have to worry about getting up to go to work in the morning.... This one's dedicated to Kelly, who was crazy enough to ask for all THIRTY-EIGHT back parts of WS after reading chapter 39 -- if a story can hook you when you're that far past the beginning, you know you're doing something right. *****************DISCLAIMER***************** Susan Ivanova and all BABYLON 5 characters and situations are the creations and copyrighted property of J. Michael Straczynski and Babylonian Productions, and are used here without permission strictly for the purposes of non-profit entertainment. Other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, non-profit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) WARNING: A little bit of bad language. If this offends you, I envy your sensitivity. ************************************************** < < W A N D E R I N G S T A R > > PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 35 - EAS *SAINT-GERMAIN* 23:53 EST On the main screen the trajectory of Shuttle One spiraled upwards. Kimeda watched, forcing her breathing to remain steady. DeClercq stood before the command seat, hands behind his back, clenched into fists. Bailey looked up from her board, her face sick and drawn. "They'll never make it. There isn't enough fuel in the shuttle." At the helm, Ensign Koderres snapped around. Her dark eyes flashed. "They'll make it. You don't know Thomas's piloting. If anyone can squeeze one more flight out of those fuel cells it's him." "Optimism has its place, Ensign," muttered DeClercq. "For myself I prefer to ensure my own best results. Philip?" "Prepared and ready, Commander." Ramirez sat quivering in his chair, bent forward, eyes locked to the tiny blip which was Shuttle One. Kimeda stared at his expression. She supposed she shouldn't have found it surprising – Ramirez was exactly the kind of bloody-minded hothead who would find Ivanova to be the CO of his dreams – but somehow it was. Which was true. But only half a truth. That Alexandra Kimeda could not feel, nor imagine anyone feeling, loyalty, devotion or affection for Susan Ivanova was still a given. But that those feelings stemmed solely from hatred of the woman who had killed her father – and done so in a battle that was nothing but out-and-out treason – that... she was no longer so certain of. Bitterness. Anger. Loss. These she still recognized. These she still clung to. But actual hatred.... The gently mocking words burned in her mind. And then the green blip of Shuttle One began flashing rapidly yellow and red on the screen. Lines of code unfurled beside it, but the bridge was already exploding in panic. DeClercq shouted orders as Ramirez activated his link and passed them on; Kimeda heard none of it. She only watched as the flight of that flashing dot began, visibly, to falter. she asked the universe silently. Nothing answered. SHUTTLE ONE 23:55 EST The engines stuttered. Morgan gulped. "Oh boy." The engines stuttered again, regained the roar of full power, then dropped back into the stuttering pulse of imminent failure. Morgan felt cold roar through his body. They were fighting the storm for altitude now, shooting higher and higher. He had played the updrafts for all they were worth, throttling back to the minimum power needed to build to escape velocity, and they had gotten high enough that he had begun to hope they might just make it. But that stuttering engine noise was a cold, flat contradiction. Morgan fought down his panic as if physically struggling to beat a screaming, kicking madman to the floor. He shuffled options in his head. They could take it down again, away from the City, get Shuttle Two to come back down with a refuel – assuming whatever was happening in the City *could* be outrun, wasn't consuming the entire planet, or poisoning the atmosphere. They could try a midair fuel transfer by linking with Shuttle Two in midflight – Morgan matched Yves' piloting skill against his own and discarded that. For the first time he began to wish the *Saint-Germain* had come equipped with the tractor beams that races like the Centauri or the Minbari routinely used. Not that that would have made a difference, he thought, with a calm remoteness he knew was just another symptom of incipient panic. Tractor beams didn't work through atmosphere at anything but ridiculously close ranges, and there was no way the *Saint-Germain* could have gotten low enough to grab them. He checked the readings, boosting the scanners to the maximum power he could get and turning them on the firestorm below. Something twisted in his gut as he stared at the readouts. Half in an autonomic haze, he tapped his link. "Morgan to Ivanova." "Ivanova, go." "Captain, can you come in here for a moment?" A beat. "These aren't exactly safe movement conditions, Ensign." "I know, sir. Believe me. I know." Another beat. "I'll be right there. Ivanova out." He didn't look around, only waited. Seconds later the door slid open. Balancing on the unsteady floor, Ivanova half-stepped, half-slid to the copilot's seat, fell into it, and strapped herself in. "If this is about the engines, I already know," she said. "We've only got one choice, Captain." Thomas had to fight the fierce temptation to call her *Susan*. "Find a landing spot somewhere else, send Shuttle Two up to refuel, and bring them back down to us." "Sounds easy enough. What's the catch?" "This." Thomas tapped the readout. Susan bent to examine it, eyes flickering over the data with eidetic speed. It only took a few moments before she closed them and breathed out something that might have been an inaudible curse. Morgan nodded in resigned agreement. "The reaction seems to be accelerating exponentially. The bigger it gets, the faster it moves. We could be looking at the complete destruction of the planet in six hours." "God – " Ivanova stared out the windscreen. Lightning-lashed blackness flared back at her. "From one weapons strike? One blast destroying an entire fragging *planet*?" "Chain reactions, Susan." Working the controls, Thomas realized a second too late he'd slipped; but Ivanova didn't seem to notice. He went on as if he'd said nothing. "Strongest power in the Universe." "Can we outrun it?" "Not on aerodynamic range alone." The engines were beginning to cut out entirely now for split instants. Thomas banked the shuttle back and forth, riding the stormwinds. "I could get us beyond the central site, sure. But there's no point I could bring us down to that Shuttle Two could get back to us in time before the reaction caught up with us." Ivanova looked at him sidelong. "I thought you were supposed to be the optimist, Thomas." *Thomas*. Morgan felt something unclench inside him. So that meant... he didn't know what it meant but it meant she wasn't about to kill him for his slip. Anything past that he could let ride for now. "I am, Captain. But this is mathematics. No place for optimism here." He looked out into the storm again. Above and all around, blue-white lightning crackled; below, seeping even through the black murk of the storm, the sick red-gold glow of the liquefying City. Morgan felt cold again, a deep cold that went straight to his bones. Ivanova stared at the screen, her face calm. But her hands gripped her accelseat arms with white-knuckled fierceness. "Well," she said at length, her voice unreadably level. "For what it's worth, Mr. Morgan, your service has been... exemplary." Morgan swallowed. "Thank you." He hesitated. "Susan." Ivanova nodded, almost absently. "There's a certain... simplicity to it, don't you think?" she said. "Dying in the performance of duty." "It does tend to render most other problems irrelevant," Morgan agreed. Ivanova smiled at that; it was a tight, painful expression, but there was something of genuine humour in it. "You should have been Russian, Thomas." Morgan feigned a look of thoughtfulness. "Naaahh," he finally said. "I never liked vodka. Too bland. Give me a Scotch straight up any day." "Scotch? Scotch is the piss of a peat bog." "And vodka is meltwater acid off a dirty Siberian glacier. What's your point?" "My point is that *JESUS CHRIST!*" The two of them instinctively sprang back against the back of their seats as a four-winged arrow shot by their windscreen almost close enough to touch, the searing blue-white of fusion fire blinding them and leaving spots in their eyes. Ivanova was on the link even as Morgan fought to compensate for the atmospheric backwake of the flyby. "What the *fuck* are you playing at, Takayama?" she screamed. "Orders from Lieutenant-Commander Ramirez, Captain!" Takayama's voice was thick with static, but unruffled. "Skyhoppers, sound off and close in!" "Cardshark, on the six, green and coming in." "Dazzler, on the nine, five by five." "Howler on three, rockin' and sockin'!" "Wildfire at five, all clear." "Angel on seven, target locked, moving in." Through the storm, new lights began to shine. Not the blue-white flicker of lightning or the reddish burn of atomic fire, but the red and green running lights of Thunderbolt Starfuries. Swinging in to a ridiculously close range, airfoils fully extended, fusion engines running hard to keep them all steady and together. Takayama's voice became clearer and clearer as the range decreased. "Visual sighting made, Skyhoppers," he declared. "Let's bring the Captain home. Mag grapples lock!" "*Locked!*" shouted five voices in unison. "Target!" "*Targeted!*" "FIRE!" Morgan got the shuttle level just in time. They couldn't see the flicker of the magnetically launched cables, but they felt the impacts thudding through the body of the ship just as the engines rattled like a jamming autorifle and died completely. The fusion-drive plumes of the Thunderbolts reeled as the shuttle's weight came down on their craft. But the fighters' engines were designed to blast up to nearly six times their own weight, with an endurance several times that of the shuttle's. And their pilots, whether it was skill, talent, or sheer and simple defiance, refused to let it throw them. The shuttle stabilized; the Thunderbolts angled upwards and boosted, the blue-white fire of their engines blazing stronger. Acceleration began to vibrate through the dead shuttle, driving them upwards, faster and faster. "When – " Ivanova's voice broke. Sh e swiped ineffectually at her face. "When did Thunderbolts get magnetic grapnels put on them as a matter of course?" Morgan was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question. But if he didn't say something he was also pretty sure he too would start crying. His voice rasped suspiciously as it was. "It was a new feature added for all the flights aboard the *Saint-Germain*," he managed. "There was a line about it in the Flight Ops status report." "I must have missed that one." "It happens, sir." Morgan gulped, not letting go of the controls; he had no drive power now, but he could still play the winds to help the Starfuries until they cleared atmosphere. "It might have been just an experimental idea. But it occurs to me it would be awfully useful if you were using your Starfuries for, say, board-and-capture missions." It took Ivanova a moment to answer. "So it would," she whispered. "So it would." There was no telegraphing of the move. Without warning Susan simply leaned across and gripped his hand where it was locked to the piloting bar, squeezing it tightly. It was brief; Morgan didn't even have time to unlock his fingers and return the grip before she'd taken her hand away, and something in the remote stiffness of her bearing silenced him. But his hand felt warm where she'd touched it. And he could feel the heat in his face. He cursed his fair colouring. The blush had to be like a stoplight. She said nothing. The blackness flickered, tore, and dissolved. The stars opened up in a glorious blaze overhead. From starboard came more green and red lights, and another set of fusion plumes. The link opened again. "Skyhopper 1, this is Skyjacker, do you copy?" "Loud and clear," said Takayama over the link. "The Captain is safe and sound, all personnel aboard Shuttle One." "In that case, sir, I have someone who wants to speak to the Captain very badly." Ivanova made a spluttering noise that was half laugh, half sob. She reached forward and activated the shuttle's com. "This is Ivanova, go." A moment's pause, as if the speaker on the other end had momentarily lost track of what to say. "Captain," came DeClercq's flat South African accent. "Are you well?" "Affirmative, Xavier." Ivanova closed her eyes. Morgan felt a twinge he sternly beat down. So *what* if he wasn't the only officer she called by his first name? Christ almighty, this was a military vessel, not kindergarten. "No new casualties. Some Drazi prisoners. Currently led by Khovrath, Huntleader of the Silent Shadows." "Estimated numbers?" "Twelve at most." "We'll have the brig ready." No mention, yet, of what to do with the potential political timebomb. But that could wait, Morgan knew. "And Captain... welcome back." "Thank you, Xavier." Her voice was strengthless, practically inaudible. But Morgan suspected DeClercq heard it as clearly as he himself did. "Thank you." EAS *SAINT-GERMAIN* 23:59 EST Ramirez whooped with something that was half yodel, half war cry and shouted an exuberant string of Spanish. All around the bridge, cheers resounded. The blip of Shuttle One, now solid red but surrounded by six clear green dots, was climbing towards orbit once more. Even the phlegmatic DeClercq was grinning like a schoolboy, shaking his head in disbelief. Kimeda spun abruptly and left the bridge, the door sliding smoothly open for her and shut behind her. She was going to Medbay, she told herself. There might be some who needed treatment coming in. But she barely got a few steps before her legs gave out, and she had to lean against the black-green wall of the corridor and master herself in a few shuddering breaths. She had wanted this cup to pass from her so badly. And for a moment the choice had been out of her hands. But no. She'd asked the universe, earlier, if this was justice. She knew now she had been wrong. True justice required *her* to do what must be done. She could not allow fate to do her work for her. It was now, always and would ever be, her responsibility. When she stood again and made herself walk towards the transport tube, there were tears on her cheeks. She let the breeze of her movement dry them from her blank, unmoving face. ...TO BE CONTINUED