From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 13/?? Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 16:54:08 -0400 Instalment 13 of WANDERING STAR. Folks, I'm really sorry this took so long, but I actually had to sit down and sketch out the internal layout of the Omega and Warlock ships before I could write bits of this convincingly. Anyone ever wondered just *where* in the Omegas they *keep* all those fighters...? Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 7 - STAR SYSTEM GC-9330, VORLON SPACE JANUARY 14, 10:12 EST The screen was blank with the red boiling storm of hyperspace. "Anything?" Ivanova tapped the arm of her command chair. "Nada," said Ramirez sourly, his Hispanic accent audible in the word and preventing it from sounding sarcastic. "No beacons, no signals. The Commander was correct. The Vorlons apparently did not use standing jumpgates." Ivanova sighed. "What's our realspace correlation margin?" Morgan punched in commands at his station and studied the results. "Computer estimates plus-minus thirteen percent, Captain." Ivanova repressed the urge to make a disgusted noise. The distorted pseudo-continuum of hyperspace was what made FTL travel possible in the first place, but its compressed, constantly shifting gravity gradient meant that there was no absolute point-to-point correspondence between hyper and real universes. The same relative course could land you in two completely different star systems, in the worst cases. Most ships compensated by using inertial dead-reckoning from local real-space knowledge, then following the beacon signals of jumpgates, stations or civilized worlds; unfortunately, they were in unknown space, and there were no beacons here. Which meant that they were reduced to attempting estimates based on predicted gravity-gradient fluxes - an imprecise method of judgement at best. It was one of the less-glamourized, but just as deadly, risks of explorer ship travel: a sufficiently incorrect estimate of emergence coordinates could drop a ship too far into the gravity well of any stellar object to ever escape. In terms of actual probability, such a fate was unlikely, of course. Space was so vast, and stars and planets so far between, that the odds of coming close enough to a gravity well - much less emerging into a star or gas giant's core - were far lower than those of being struck by lightning. It was much more likely that they would simply emerge into realspace at an inconvenient distance and be forced to spend time and energy accelerating towards their true destination. A thirteen percent margin of error was easily allowed for and didn't even require that much realspace correction. On the other hand, no one had given Babylon 5's survival very high odds, either. "Captain?" She looked up. "Yes, Mr. Morgan?" The young ensign had spun in his seat to face the rest of the bridge. "I just had a thought." He looked abruptly quizzical. "Hard as that may be to believe. Anyway. Are we particularly dedicated to being quiet around here?" Ivanova frowned. "I'm not sure I know what you mean." "Well, it occurs to me that if Lieutenant Snow's mass sensors are set to pick up continuum displacement, if we send out enough pulses, the computer should probably be able to map hyper-to-real point correspondence with a much closer accuracy." Morgan shrugged. "At the very least it'll give us a much better idea of the local gradient drift. The problem is if there are any ships in local hyperspace with grav sensors of their own, we'll be effectively screaming 'Here we are' at the top of our lungs." Ivanova twisted to look up over her shoulder. "Commander?" DeClercq considered. "Do we require particular precision in our entry?" "Only if you're excessively paranoid." Ivanova thought about her own words and surprised them both with a wry grin. "As I was saying...." "It's a worthwhile thought," said DeClercq. "But I suspect it would take more time in both recalibration and use than it would be worth right now." At his station, Ramirez suddenly grinned, sharklike. "Not to mention it could be *very* useful as a surprise tactic, in which case, we keep it in reserve until we damn well need it." "You think of everything in terms of violence, don't you," said Morgan, sounding more bemused than reproving. "The exercise of force is a universal principle." Ramirez shrugged. "Maybe in *your* universe." "And what universe are *you* living in?" "Why does everyone ask me that question?" Morgan asked the air, with a mock look of confusion on his face. Ivanova shook her head, trying half-heartedly to hide her smile, then gave up. Morgan would never conform to the humourless Earthforce ideal of professionalism, but in some ways he was more valuable as he was. God knew his jokes had gotten the crew more at ease with one another, more quickly, than her own style of command would ever have done. "I'll put the question to Lieutenant Snow, Ensign," she said. "In the meantime, perhaps you'd care to take us out?" "One evening of dining, dancing, laughing and First One ruins, coming up," Morgan deadpanned, turning back to his console. "Jump engines on line." The ship vibrated with coiled power, cycling up to jump. "And, through we go." There was no noticeable sensation of movement as the *Saint-Germain* emerged from hyperspace into the real universe; Morgan had matched the jump point's formation to their own steady course, and they cruised through without a jolt. Black space swallowed them, the light of a golden sun falling over their hull; a yellow star blazed not far away. At a steady half-g acceleration, the ship burned inwards towards the sun. "Scan," said Ivanova. The sensor techs above her flicked through screens of data as information, energy and particles flooded the ship's sensors. "We're three hours from biozone orbit," said a sallow man named Enfield. "Astrographic data coming in. We've got six planets. Two inner rockballs. One gas giant, fifth orbit, a rockball inside... one iceball on the outer orbit. Looks like a terracompatible planet in third orbit, mid-biozone." He looked over at Singh. "Manhir?" "Verified." For once, even Singh was working with some speed. "That's the tachyon source. And I'm reading high concentrations of metal and advanced organic compounds." Cold tension flooded Ivanova's gut. "Atmosphere?" Enfield studied his displays, then looked up. "Looks very much like a standard oxy-nitro mix, Captain. No discernible toxins or foreign elements. Should be perfectly breathable." Probably not the Vorlon homeworld, then. Maybe a colony, or a controlled world. Ivanova sat back in her chair, gnawing on one knuckle. If the transmitters had figured out how to use Vorlon communicators, they might well have figured out how to use other devices. Maybe even weapons. Maybe this was nothing more than a gigantic trap. "Take us into orbit, Mr. Morgan." "Aye aye, sir." "Commander," rasped the draz on sensor station two. "We have grav waves. Definitely the wake of an exit closure." "Bring us in, then hold at the exit point," said Zarabakh. "Give them six hours to achieve orbit, then take us out. We should be out of their detection range by then." "Yes, Commander." Zarabakh nodded in satisfaction and beckoned Salathek over. "Subcommander. You can confirm our position?" "We are well inside Vorlon space," Salathek agreed. "Soon we will make our greatest 'discovery' of all." His smile was half sardonic humour, half anticipatory greed. Zarabakh returned it in full measure. The planet revolved below, startlingly Earthlike in its blue, brown and green hues. It was smaller than Earth, and its rotation was slightly faster; clouds feathered across its skies with the delicate inexorability of snowfall. Superimposed graphically on the screen, a tiny yellow dot blinked. "Altitude three hundred kilometres," said Morgan. "We're in a geosynch orbit over the tachyon source. Enfield, any luck on that laser scan?" "We're getting a resolution now," said Enfield, working at his station. "Computer analysis is almost complete." He scowled at the readings. "God, that's a mess." "How do you mean?" said Ivanova. "These compounds, I've never seen anything like them before. They're registering as both organic and inorganic... you aren't supposed to be able to bind heavy metals into organic molecules, but the computer's insisting that's what these compounds are." Ivanova closed her eyes and for a moment she was elsewhere. Bay 13, Babylon 5. Above her, a long, graceful shape, green and brown with fluid colour that slowly shifted, most often with such lassitude you couldn't actually see it change, only realize that it *had* changed when you emerged from the trances it induced. Silence, in the cold and metallic air of the docking bay... and faint and far away, the sound of *singing*.... whispered Delenn's husky voice, in the depths of her memory. "Lifesigns." "Captain?" said DeClercq. She was about to snap at him when she realized he wasn't questioning the order, he had simply not heard it. She had spoken too softly. She cleared her throat and lifted her head. "Scan for lifesigns." Enfield shrugged and obeyed. She watched without any surprise whatsoever as his eyebrows shot up, then drew down again, then shot up. Consternation and incomprehension roiled across his long, pallid features like storm fronts. "Good God - Captain, this is off the scale! It's like - like - " "It is as if *everything* down there is alive?" Ivanova whirled in her seat to look at the doors to the bridge. She had been so intent on Enfield that she had not heard them open. Braun stood there, pale eyes cold and alight with an unpleasant gleam. He had discarded his white lab coat and wore a heavy, one-piece survival coverall, thick with pockets and instruments. Ivanova thrust herself to her feet. "Oh no. No, no, Doctor, this is absolutely - " "This is our mission profile!" Braun brandished a data crystal as if he wanted to fling it at her head, though his parade-precision stance did not alter. "You have been *ordered* by General Lefcourt himself - " "*Doctor* Braun." A heavy hand fell on Braun's shoulder; he whirled with liquid quickness, and DeClercq recoiled a step, then held firm. Black eyes met ice-blue, poised and sharp, like swords held en garde. "I am sure you do not need to remind the Captain of her orders." Braun's eyes narrowed. "Are you threatening me, Commander?" DeClercq considered. "Yes." Ivanova sighed. Enough was enough. "Mr. Morgan, would you kindly conduct an internal environmental scan?" Morgan's brow furrowed. "Aye aye, sir... can I ask why?" he added as he turned to his board and began bringing up the necessary diagnostics. "No real reason, I just want to make sure nobody suffers from all this excess testosterone." Morgan choked and almost bent double with the effort to repress his laughter. Braun and DeClercq snapped their heads to her, startled. She favoured them both with her driest glare. "Done with the posturing, guys?" Neither answered. "Mr. Ramirez." "Sir?" "Start assembling a survey party. Equal parts security detachment and science techs. Get Lieutenant Corelli and a couple of his Marines in there too, and Lieutenant Snow, and have them assemble on the dock. Dr. Braun, meet me there in twenty minutes. Mr. Morgan?" "I'm already there, sir." Morgan saluted snappily and rose from his station, heading for the elevator, a sparkle in his eye. DeClercq caught her arm as she turned to head for the door herself. "Captain - " "I know, XO, I know, the Captain is *not* supposed to leave the ship." She pinned him with a level gaze. "But I know more about the Vorlons than anyone on this ship, as pathetically little as that is. I will not send my people in there blind." "That doesn't mean *you* have to go," he pressed. "Send me. Send Ramirez, use downlink com units to keep in touch. Anything, but don't expose yourself to - " "Xavier." Gently, but uncompromisingly, she freed her arm from his grip. "I appreciate your point, but I've made up my mind." She walked to the door and turned. "Commander DeClercq, you have the conn." "Aye aye, sir," he answered, clearly hating the words but not faltering in the ritual response. "I have the conn." Morgan had held the lift door for her, and stepped courteously back as she entered. He anchored himself firmly to a grab bar. "You might want to hold on, sir." "Noted, Ensign." She took hold of the bar. The lift had already begun its rise; she could feel the slow bleed-away of gravity as they rose high into the rotating section. Her stomach shifted uneasily, and she moistened her lips. Her face felt cold. Morgan glanced at her. "You okay, sir?" "I'm fine." Even to her own ears, that sounded unnecessarily curt. She closed her eyes. "Sorry, Thomas. I'm just out of practice at micro-grav manouevring." "I hear you, sir. I don't like it much myself." But there was no change in his usual cheerful tone, as if he was about to start grinning any second. Unaccountably irritated, she glared at him. "Do you have to be so infuriatingly perky every second of every day?" His eyebrows shot up. "'Perky'?" "You know what I mean," she muttered. "And for God's sake you don't have to lie and say you're feeling bad just to make me feel better." "How do you know I was lying?" She glared at him. "You're a *pilot*, Thomas. I've seen your record, you trained on all the Starfury models from Ares through Thunderbolt, I do not believe for a single second that a little zero-gravity is going to bother you." Thomas looked sheepish. "I'm sorry, sir, but I didn't think you'd enjoy hearing 'oh gosh, gee willikers, I get to fly the shuttle, whoopee.'" "'Gosh gee willikers'?" She mimicked exactly his intonation of earlier, and had the satisfaction of seeing him actually blush. With his fair colouring it showed like a stop signal. It didn't stop him for long, however. He found a sudden grin and his voice dropped into the stereotypical Yiddish accent of a Bronx rabbi. "You vant maybe I shoult've said 'Oi vey'?" "Do you always have to have the last word?" Thomas opened his mouth, then closed it, looked innocent, and shook his head. Ivanova wasn't sure whether she wanted to laugh, scream, or throw up. "Ensign, please don't take this the wrong way, but you have to be the single most infuriating person I've met since - " Her voice died. The heat fell out of her cheeks, and the queasiness of zero-g suddenly turned over and became a deeper nausea. She turned abruptly away, aware of Thomas' gaze on her in mingled surprise and concern, but right now she couldn't bring herself to care greatly. The lift had stopped for a moment, waiting for the internal transfer ring to cycle around and shift them into the central axis chamber of the ship, and there was silence but for the ever-present subliminal hum of power. "I'm sorry, sir." It was more than an apology; she could sense that in the way his voice had gone quiet. He sounded startlingly old all of a sudden. Almost against her will, she looked back. "What do you mean?" "Whoever it was I reminded you of, it was evidently a matter of... some pain... to you." He looked down at his feet. "I hope you know the last thing any of us wants to do is hurt you." Out of the confused moil of emotions stirring inside her, Ivanova grabbed the one reliable constant: irony. She could think about the others later. "You and some others, Thomas, but I'd be careful about that kind of statement in front of Dr. Kimeda." Thomas frowned, but his response was cut off by the sudden jolt as the lift rose up one more level, stopped, and then decelerated horizontally to a perfect stillness. Gravity left the chamber completely, and their feet left the floor. Ivanova swallowed hard, closed her eyes, and dragged up the mental discipline exercises they'd taught her in Earthforce Academy. When her stomach had steadied somewhat, she opened her eyes and touched the control panel. The doors slid open. She reached back with one foot, put her sole against the back wall and pushed off gently, floating into the corridor. Morgan had pushed off a little too hard, and shot past her to thump ungracefully into the green-black wall with a grunt of exaggerated consternation; for a moment Ivanova felt alarmed before spotting the twinkle in his eyes, and she realized he'd done it deliberately. She rolled her eyes, both exasperated and amused despite herself. "Ensign, you can quit the clowning, I'm not about to have a nervous breakdown." "Aye aye, sir." Smiling, Morgan reoriented himself and grabbed the rungs leading along the corridor wall, pushing himself smoothly along. Ivanova followed. The transfer ring was the final inner core of the rotating section, a cylindrical deck that revolved to pick up the turbolifts and then stopped to allow transfer to the zero-g sections. From the debarkation corridor, a pressure door led into the forward section of the ship, between the hammerhead-shaped prow and the rotator decks; all the corridors here were laddered along the walls with secure rings, and at intervals emergency g-stations were sunk into the four walls, oval chambers with padding and shock webs for the moments when crew couldn't get to an acceleration station in time. Beside the rungs on both sides ran transport rings, grips on mobile conveyor belts much like flat escalator railings. Nimbly, Morgan grabbed one and let it carry him upwards along a vertically-ascending corridor, Ivanova trailing behind him. She was glad she'd tied her hair back; a few auburn strands had escaped her ponytail to float loosely around her face, and she found herself blowing at them irritably, trying to get them out of the way. At the top, the vertical shaft opened onto a flat platform studded with anchor loops, small arcs of metal into which one could set one's feet to avoid drifting off. Ivanova hadn't done starship duty in years, and had forgotten just how much was required to compensate for freefall in a ship without either rotating decks or artificial gravity. Her crew waited there, a fifteen-strong complement of men and women loaded down with equipment and, in the case of the three Marines and the security detail, weapons. Beyond, a broad rectangular pressure door led to the docks. Lieutenant Corelli saluted crisply, as did the other gropos. "Captain," he said. "I believe you already know Sergeant Major van der Rhies, my platoon sergeant?" - he gestured to the ugly blond giant, who grinned toothily. "This is my senior lance corporal, Olivia Burns." "Captain," said Burns. She was small, black-skinned and young-looking, but her eyes were obsidian. Ivanova saluted back, impressed. Between van der Rhies and Burns, Corelli's discipline must be excellent. She thought of Morgan and Ramirez and sighed. Snow broke away from a discussion with some of her techs and came over to them, Braun close behind her. Her expression walked a jittering line between ecstatic anticipation and worry. "Sir, what kind of protocols are we lookin' at here? I mean, I can tell you, my people are gonna wanna take everything apart they find, and I know how paranoid you military types get." "Us military types, Lieutenant?" said Ivanova as dryly as she could. Snow blushed. "You know what I mean." "It amazes me that anybody does," muttered Braun. Normally Snow just ignored such comments. This time, however, she spun to give Braun a glare that should have melted lead; the scientist actually backed up, surprised. Ivanova wondered if that was a good thing. That Snow might start thinking better of herself and standing up to others, well, that was nice, but she *really* didn't need more antagonism among her crew. She moved to intervene. "I'll be overseeing the site security personally, Tiffany. Protocols are, clear it with me first, otherwise hands off. Okay?" "Yeah, I can live with that." "More importantly, so will the rest of us, hopefully." Ivanova raised her voice. "All right, people, our primary mission here is search and rescue. We have reason to believe there are sentients down there signalling for help. You'll wear standard biofilters until we've established environmental safety. Security personnel, consider yourself on detachment to Lieutenant Corelli. R&S, you're under Lieutenant Snow and Dr. Braun. "Second priority is research. We'll be examining and recovering whatever we can, subject to the safety of ourselves and our rescue subjects. I want all personnel to cooperate with any *reasonable* requests made by Doctor Braun, Lieutenant Snow or her people, *provided* they don't interfere with that safety. "Ensign Morgan will be our pilot - " Morgan bowed sweepingly, and Ivanova sighed, then went on. "Shipboard safety and piloting will be his responsibility. If he decides we can't make it to pick up a straggler, I'm not going to override him, people. We'll do what we can, but you have to look out for yourself as well. Am I clear?" A ragged, but strong, chorus of "Yes, *sir!*"s followed. Ivanova let herself smile, just a bit. "All right, then, people. Let's go make history." ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT In which we examine Vorlon cities, the difference between servants and slaves, and the difference between predators and carrion-eaters. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> AUTHOR'S NOTE Okay, I wanted to actually get them on the ground, but it was either post it now or keep writing and make you guys wait another week. Sorry...! I swear, I'm *trying* to keep things moving....! --------------------------------------------------------- "If I live through this job without losing my mind, it will be a miracle of Biblical proportions!" "There goes *my* faith in the Almighty." --Ivanova and Corwin, "A Day in the Strife" BABYLON 5 --------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 14/?? Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 16:53:59 -0400 Instalment 14 of WANDERING STAR. Bit by bit, we go on.... Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 8 - STAR SYSTEM GC-9330/3 11:21 EST The vehicular complement of the *Saint-Germain* consisted of a squadron of twenty Starfuries - ten standard, ten Thunderbolt atmosphere-capable craft - and four shuttles, two ground-orbital craft and two spacegoing craft. Stored in four vertical transfer-belt stacks like bullets in the clip of a gun, the craft were boarded through individual docking ports and then conveyed to the launch tube via a feeding belt launch cradle. The orbital shuttle, a flattened cylinder with a needlepoint nose and swept-back delta-wing aerofoils, was Earthforce-sparse, but its seats were well-padded - even though the tiny craft couldn't do much more than two g, that was still well and away enough to leave bruises on human flesh without the protection of padding. Morgan had settled into the pilot's seat and was running over the preflight checklist with the absent skill of a master. In the copilot's seat, Ivanova watched him. He might be annoying at times, she had to acknowledge, but he was damn good at what he did. She refamiliarized herself with the routine, remembering the last time she'd piloted a combat mission: the Starfury strike against the Black Omegas sent to make B5 look like a pirate, preying on legitimate Earth transport. Instead, she and Alpha Wing had saved the very ships that were blockading them, and sent away a very confused commander. She smiled to herself. Everything had contributed, and unlike much of what they'd had to do on the final campaign of liberation, that was one battle she remembered with genuine pride. The shuttle's engines came on line with a subliminal roar. Morgan clicked the switch for the cabin speakers. "Initiating launch routine, all personnel secure and signal." Within moments a bank of lights over a sketch of the cabin layout came on in a flickering wash, each lit-up seat signalling the confirmation of a properly-secured passenger. Morgan glanced over at her. "Captain?" She tapped her shock harness. "Go ahead, Ensign." Morgan changed over to the bridge channel. "Shuttle One to bridge, Shuttle One to bridge, final check." "Shuttle One," said DeClercq's voice, "you are clear for launch." The words were toneless. Internally, Ivanova winced. She would be hearing about this for a long time. "Transferring to launch tube, go," said Morgan, and activated more controls. The launching cradle enclosing the shuttle jerked and slid sideways, then dropped downwards. The blank wall of the bay gave way to a long, empty corridor ending in black space. Around them, the blue-black wall panels of the launch tube shimmered. Ivanova closed her eyes. Morgan watched as green lights clicked on down the length of the launch tube, accelerator coils coming on line. He increased the engine power. "Shuttle One to bridge, launching: now, now, now." On the final *now* he disengaged the anchoring clamps and triggered the acceleration pulse. Kinesis smashed into them like a tidal wave. Ivanova flew back in her seat, breath punched from her. The shuttle rocketed at nearly thirty metres per second squared out of the launch tube into star-glittering emptiness. A wide, gleeful grin stretched Morgan's face even through the grimace of acceleration. "*Whoo!*" he shouted. His hands never stopped moving on the controls. The acceleration bled away rapidly as momentum took over; the pull decreased to a steady half-g as the shuttle angled down towards the planet. Able to move comfortably again, Ivanova called up their course plot and examined it. Morgan was bringing them around and back on a wide parabolic arc that ended at the tachyon source-point, swinging considerably far out over a southern ocean. She frowned at it. "Mr. Morgan?" "Captain?" "Why are you going so far out of your way? This flight is going to last at least two hours. We could have been down there in half that time." "Couple of reasons, sir. One, this is more fuel-efficient and less stressful on the shuttle." He freed one hand, reached over, and scrolled to another flight-option plot. "This is the quickest - " a nearly-vertical drop straight into the gravity well, ending in a tight landing spiral focused on the tachyon source - "but it's the biggest heat-stress on the shuttle, it takes more fuel, and if there *are* any weapons down there aimed at us, I want to be over water as long as possible." He shrugged. "VTOL landings eat up a hell of a lot of fuel. I'd rather come down on water than risk being stuck over land without a clear landing point and not enough fuel to take off again." Ivanova considered, then nodded grudging approval. A flicker of mischief flashed through her mind. "I think you've got this wrong, Ensign. You're supposed to be young, enthusiastic and naive, remember? I'm the jaded, paranoid one." Morgan looked at her quizzically. "Sir, if you were really jaded and paranoid you'd have stayed on board like Commander DeClercq asked you to." "And if you were really as naive as you pretend to be, you wouldn't understand pain half as well as you do." Their eyes locked for a moment. Morgan was first to look away, the expression on his face oddly distant. For a time there was no sound but the rumble of the motors, and the vibration of ghost-atmosphere against metal as the shuttle began arcing into the ionosphere. The horizon rose with slow inevitability. Faint red radiance began to shimmer from the shuttle's needle-nosed prow: friction-generated heat. Its light backwashed across Morgan's face and highlighted his cheekbones, combining with his expression to make him look older. "Sometimes I think I don't understand pain," he said finally. "Not enough to really deal with it. I'm better at avoiding it. Anaesthesizing it, you could say. Things still hurt, you just don't know it because you don't let yourself think about them." Ivanova stared at the console. "If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?" She looked up. "Pardon?" "Assume that the really big things, wars, natural disasters, they still have to happen," said Morgan. "But you can go back and rewrite any and all of your own decisions. What would you do differently?" "You expect me to answer that quickly?" "We've got two hours to kill, sir," he pointed out. Ivanova blew out a breath. Where in the name of God did she start? "Ensign - " She thought about it. No, the answer deserved more. "Thomas... there's no way I could pick one decision and change it, unless you count deciding to grow up. Everything depends on everything else. I couldn't change one moment and not change the rest." "You're evading the question, Susan." "No, I'm pointing out it's fundamentally unanswerable. What would *you* change?" "I think I'd have gone into acting." Susan blinked. "What?" "I was a pretty good amateur actor in high school," Thomas said, blushing slightly. "I wanted to move back to Earth and get my break with a movie studio. I joined Earthforce 'cause I thought it would be a great way to get the money I needed, and then I found out I loved piloting, and that I was good at it." He shrugged. "I may still go back in a few years." "Move back to Earth?" Morgan shrugged. "I was born in Canada, but my folks emigrated to the Beta Lyrane II colony when I was about three. Nice place, but there wasn't a lot to do. Without the local community theatre I'd have gone out of my mind." "And you've got such a firm grasp on sanity now?" "Are you trying to make a point, sir?" "Oh no, Ensign, not at all." Thomas shook his head and chuckled softly. Susan let herself smile, her own laughter a whisper of breath in her throat. She let the companionable silence linger just long enough before she spoke again. "But I don't think you have any room to call me on evading questions, Thomas." "What do you mean?" "I think you're pretty good with masks yourself," she said quietly. "One of these days I'm going to need to know what you're hiding." For literally the first time since she'd met him, Thomas looked caught flatly off guard, his mouth slightly open, blue-green eyes wide. He swallowed and moistened his lips. "Um=85 Susan, I - " "Ensign, that's all right. We don't need to discuss it now." She put a slight but definite stress on the rank. "But you made an offer to me some time ago. I just wanted to warn you that if I take you up on it, there will be prices." "Prices?" Morgan hesitated, then added, "Sir?" "I don't give trust where I don't get it." Morgan swallowed again. His voice was subdued. "Understood, sir." Neither of them spoke again for a while. In its century and a half of galactic exploration, humanity had found that despite the bewildering variety of zoological and botanical species produced by terrestrial ecologies throughout space, the requirements of physical and chemical law enforced their own regularity. Most planets with the necessary amounts of water, oxygen and heat possessed analogues to grass, trees, moss, fungi, and other flora. The forest that they were passing over might, at this height, have been any coniferous forest from Earth. There were differences, as Ivanova had noticed when she'd used the shuttle scanners to examine the atmosphere for toxins and microbes. The bark of the "trees" was perforated by a million tiny pores, making it look almost spongy. The photosynthesis receptors, the "leaves", seemed to combine the stiff sharpness of coniferous needles with the broad, jagged shapes of deciduous leaves, and they were coloured a mix of black, green and blue that no Earthly foliage had ever been. Hexapedal reptilian shapes flitted on quadruple wings from branch to branch. No, this was no Terran forest, much as it might look like it from a height. Like much else about the Vorlons, it was deceptive. The forest rose in indigo-green waves up to a mountain range. Morgan had dropped them to an altitude of about five kilometres, just above the tops of the approaching peaks. Ivanova watched them expand steadily in the viewports. She didn't need to glance down at the readouts on the console before her; she knew what they said. Nervous anticipation cramped her= stomach. "There." Morgan banked the shuttle up and to starboard. A deep gash opened between two of the tallest peaks, like the stroke of a city-sized axe blade. Morgan took the shuttle into the chasm at a speed that seemed impossibly slow. Shadow fell over them as the mountains blocked out the sunlight. Ivanova's knuckles tightened on the arms of her chair. She was a spacer, accustomed to the vast empty void of starflight and orbit; so much mass so near her made her almost claustrophobic. she told herself. Why were monosyllables supposed to be so reassuring, she thought irritably. She found nothing reassuring about sounding stupid and simplistic. The rock walls to either side fell away with startling speed, as if time had accelerated somehow without her catching it. The cool shadow enveloping them burst open, engulfing the shuttle in a wash of fiery, prismatic light. Ivanova's breath stopped. At her side, she sensed Morgan stiffen, as if struck by a mild electric shock. "Dear God in Heaven," he breathed. The mountain range sloped down to a crumpled swathe of hillscape, intermittently clothed by patches of forest and by the emerald-green grass-analogue. In the centre of the hills, a shallow, wide vale took up a vast, almost perfectly circular area. Cupped within the vale, like gemstones within the palm of a hand, the city glowed with its own light. Ivanova had never seen the crystal cities of Minbar herself, although she had seen vids and holographs of the magnificent crystalline spires, like blue-white shards of glass carved into skyscrapers. She had never thought anything would be more beautiful than that. But this.... It was as if the crystal clarity of a Minbari city had been infused with the riot of colour and pageantry that the Centauri enjoyed. Smoothly curved towers, like seashells made of crushed gemstone and frozen fire, ascended out of the vale, impossibly tall - they had to be hundreds of stories high, Ivanova thought numbly. Long low domes gleamed with the nacreous shine of pearl, glossy blue-green panels set into their arcing lengths like insets of jeweled leaves. The white streets wove intimately between the buildings, a web of conduits and passages that seemed half spiderweb, half crystal lattice. Tetrahedral spires inscribed strange runelike patterns throughout the city, some ruby-scarlet, some marbled aquamarine, some a deep indigo sapphire no Terran jewel had ever been. And most shocking because of its sheer familiarity, its instant recognizability, there were *parks* -- flat green areas covered in trees and grass and alien blooms, denoted in a dozen different shapes: circular, square, trapezoidal, leaflike, triangular... one had a startling, uncanny resemblance to a spread-open human hand. And on the far side, as perfect as if it had been designed for them, waited a wide, perfectly circular open space covered in some kind of white stone, almost blindingly bright in the sunlight. Ivanova had to moisten her lips. "Mr. Morgan?" "I see it, sir. Going in." They passed low over the city like a dragon strafing a fairy castle, the roar of the shuttle's thrusters startling hordes of winged creatures out of their resting places. Morgan didn't even need to correct for the buildings; the approach path was that perfect. Arrow-straight, the shuttle hurtled in towards the landing field. Morgan slapped a button on the console. A deceleration warning siren wailed. Ivanova braced herself. The last of the buildings passed by underneath and they were abruptly gliding low over a white, frozen ocean. Morgan throttled back the power, dropped the landing gear and kicked up the wing ailerons. Turbulence rattled the shuttle as velocity died; there was a sickening sensation of dropping before Morgan eased off, accelerated just slightly, then tilted the shuttle downwards. The landing gear kissed the white stone with barely a tremor. They were down. Morgan brought the engines' power down, kicked them into reverse and brought it smoothly back up again, killing the shuttle's velocity. The craft vibrated as its speed bled away into the pavement. Morgan steered with one eye on the velocimeter, bringing the shuttle about in a long, slow arc to face back towards the city. Ivanova only barely noticed, waiting with unconsciously held breath to see the city again. It came back into sight, and she let her breath out. It hadn't been a dream. It really was that beautiful. "Captain?" Ivanova blinked. Oh. Right. She had to give the debarkation order. For safety's sake, she ran the computer through one last environ-analysis program. The screen flashed a cheerful green NO KNOWN BIOHAZARDS DETECTED at them. Morgan raised an eyebrow at her. "So what about the *unknown* biohazards?" "Leave the pessimism to the professionals, Mr. Morgan, you don't have the face for it." Ignoring his mock-wounded expression, she unclipped her shock harness and leaned forward to activate the cabin PA. "Attention, all hands, this is the Captain. Prep for debarkation and assemble outside main hatch in fifteen. Level One environment protocols." She turned to Morgan. "Ensign, pop the hatch." She could *see* the joke flit through his mind, but some vestige of professionalism - or maybe just the look in her eyes - stopped him. "Aye aye, sir," was all he said. The air outside smelled... strange. The temperature was pleasantly cool, maybe fourteen or fifteen degrees Celsius, with a faint breeze that brought them a scent of something bittersweet. Ivanova took a deep breath. It smelled like a strange mixture of roses and exotic spice, with a hint of something earthier and muskier beneath. "Put this air on the market as a perfume," declared Snow between deep breaths, "and you would make a flippin' *killing*." She flung out her arms and spun in a circle. "God, it smells like heaven!" "Still wouldn't sell," Ivanova said. "Why not?" "Would *you* buy something named Eau de Vorlon?" Snow stuck her tongue out at her. Corelli, Burns, and van der Rhies hunkered down over a small scanning unit. Its flattop screen glowed with contour lines. Corelli scowled down at it. The entire display was masked with a staticky overlay, shimmering like sunlight. The EPS lieutenant muttered something savage and Italian under his breath. "That doesn't sound positive," said Morgan, from where he stood in the shuttle hatch. "It's not," said Corelli, and massaged his fist with his hand as if he wanted to punch the sensor unit. "The tachyon source is so strong that at this range there's no way to locate it precisely. It's like the entire city's the emitter." "Which may very well be the case," said Braun, standing off to one side with the stillness of one who will wait only so long as it suits him. "There is no guarantee that Vorlon organitech would be as modular and logical as our own." "Thank you, Doctor," Ivanova muttered. "Good to know we can always count on you for the good news." Snow frowned. "Couldn't we just go in and follow the noise?" "What noise?" observed Burns. The comment stopped them all for a moment. Ivanova closed her eyes and listened. Burns was right. Their own chatter, and her nerves at setting foot on a Vorlon world - something only one other human in all history had done - had deafened her to the silence. But now, as they stood mute, the terrible emptiness pressed in upon them. Not even the sound of animals or insects disturbed the air. Only their own breaths, their own heartbeats, and the faint pulse of the shuttle waiting in passive mode. She'd been expecting to find *some* trace of life. But amid the organic structures of the Vorlons, *everything* registered as alive. The fugitive tachtrans operators could be anywhere. Ivanova opened her eyes. The city loomed up, silent, powerful, waiting. It took all her strength to keep her voice steady, and even she couldn't get it above a murmur. But the others swiveled towards her as if she'd shouted. "Mr. Corelli." "Captain?" "Set up perimeter ward drones. We'll make this our base of operations. Mr. Morgan, you stay with the shuttle at all times. I want us ready to take off on an instant." "Aye aye, sir." Morgan's disappointment was visible, but mitigated somewhat by the nervous looks he cast at the buildings. "Dr. Braun, Lieutenant Snow, you and your people are with me. Once Lieutenant Corelli has his sensor net in place, we're going in." ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT ...in which we debate Art vs. Life, or, Would You Smash The Mona Lisa To Save A Baby? <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> AUTHOR'S NOTE Again: it was either try to get in everything I wanted and keep people waiting, or write something shorter and get it out to you guys now. Sheez, you guys is merciless. (Not that I'm complaining....) --------------------------------------------------------- "If I live through this job without losing my mind, it will be a miracle of Biblical proportions!" "There goes *my* faith in the Almighty." --Ivanova and Corwin, "A Day in the Strife" BABYLON 5 --------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 15/?? Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:34:46 -0400 Instalment 15 of WANDERING STAR. My profound thanks and admiration to David Goldingay; I did some back reading of the RIMSTALKER series and was finally inspired to go on with my own opus.... Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 9 - 13:02 EST Corelli's insistence on having the gropos take point did not go over at all well with either Snow or Braun, but Ivanova had overruled them in his favour. Scientific potential notwithstanding, a healthy paranoia was a good way of staying alive. Burns and van der Rhies were out front, PPG rifles charged and held ready. The security guards had formed a defensive ring around Ivanova, Snow, Braun, and the techs, with Corelli himself on rearguard. At a steady pace the company trooped towards the buildings. The smell became stronger the nearer they got, until it was almost overpowering. Strangely, Ivanova felt no urge to sneeze or cough. She had no allergies that she knew of, but her sense of smell had always been sharp, and excessively strong scents of any variety usually produced a reaction. Not this one, though. She took another deep breath, enjoying the fragrance. A small part of her brain yammered warnings against biohazards, but she shrugged. If there was anything here lethal to humanoid metabolisms, they were already dead. She doubted there was. The odds of any xenobiota being compatible enough with Terran metabolisms to affect them, but dissimilar enough to be missed by the scanners, were ridiculously long. Which didn't mean she wasn't going to insist on full workovers by Kimeda once they got back to the ship. Several streets opened onto the landing site, spaced around the border at irregular intervals. Van der Rhies paused. "Captain?" "There." She pointed to the widest street, a broadway about twice the width of a normal Earth road. Twin towers loomed to either side, shimmering in rainbow colours. "That's obviously the main entrance." "Subtle," Snow remarked. Ivanova let it pass. The party was halfway through the gate when one of Snow's instruments went off. She swiftly turned and scanned with it, left, then right. "Oh, wow," she said. "Captain, you are *so* not going to believe this." "Defensive perimeter," Ivanova ordered Corelli. He nodded and sent the guards spreading out in a circle. Braun watched with a lifted eyebrow. "If you intend to do this at every stop, progress will be slow." "And did *you* have anything else to do today?" Ivanova snapped. Braun ignored her and went to Snow's side. She had knelt at the base of the tower now, running various instruments over it, so rapt in the data displays that she didn't even notice Braun. "Well," she said, "you want organic technology, Skipper, you got it out the wazoo." "The building?" "Is a single genetically engineered life form." Ivanova stared, then lifted her gaze up the ten-storey height of the thing. Slowly, she moved forward and slipped between two of the techs, who had spread out along the tower's base and were frantically taking measurements. She raised one hand, hesitated a moment, then put it to the tower's surface. The material was hard, but not with the gritty, dead feel of stone or plasticrete. There was a smooth ridged feel to it, like the surface of a human fingernail. And it was warm - not as warm as her own skin, but warmer than the sunlight alone could explain. Ivanova closed her eyes, listening as hard as she could. Through her hand, through her ears, almost through the entirety of her skin, she could feel a slow and steady thrum, a rising and falling heat, like the beat of a gigantic heart.... Snow's gasp snapped her eyes open. Ivanova stared as, around the outline of her hand where it lay spread against the tower, waves of colour began rippling out like rainbow-coloured tides. Hastily she snatched her hand back. The coloured ripples faded. "What was that?" said Braun. "I don't know." Snow stood and placed her hand where Ivanova's had been, then closed her eyes. A minute passed. Snow opened her eyes and stood back. "Okay, that made like no sense. Gibson - " she directed a look at one of the techs kneeling nearby - "you try it." Gibson, a young woman with slightly overbroad Slavic features, gulped and did the same. There was no result. Snow revolved to look curiously at Ivanova. "You got a security clearance we don't know about, Skipper?" "Unless Kosh Naranek liked me a lot more than he let on, I doubt it." The irony was reflexive; Ivanova's stomach and throat were freezing cold, as if she'd swallowed a glacier. So far as she knew, there was only one thing about her that was different from everyone else on the ship... only one thing that Vorlon organic technology might be programmed, at some subgenetic level, to recognize and respond to. <"I've never trained, I'm probably not even a P1! But that's enough for the Corps to draw you in!"> Her words, to Sheridan, years ago, when all her options had run out and she had been forced to take the final, unthinkable step of trusting another with her secret. Thank God, thank God Sheridan had been the honourable man he was. But who could she trust here? There were three people, at most, who might have the loyalty and courage necessary to keep this kind of a secret on her behalf: Ramirez, Morgan, and DeClercq. But Ramirez's obsession with honour was just as likely to make him betray her, out of condemnation for the deception. DeClercq's history made him too much a target for anyone seeking information. And Morgan simply didn't have the rank necessary to protect him from any kind of official investigation. No. For now, it would have to stay a secret. "Lieutenant Corelli, I want this tower marked with a locator tag." She turned away and walked to the centre of the street, staring down its length into the heart of the city. The scent of roses and spice eddied about her, like a soft liquid. "Lieutenant Snow, Dr. Braun, your people have five minutes to finish, then we're moving on." "Five minutes will *not* suffice, Captain," said Braun, his voice hard. "Tough, they're all you've got." Braun opened his mouth, but stopped as Snow, still bent over her instruments, spoke. "I wouldn't, Ulrich." "But - " "Ullie, trust me on this." Snow looked up, her earnest expression spoiled only by the slightest twitch of a smile. "You value your cojones, shut up and shut up now." The technicians stifled snickers. Braun stared down at her. "Cojones?" he repeated. With a dignity Ivanova wouldn't have believed her capable of, Snow ignored him. Ivanova sighed to herself and again stepped into the breach. "In case anyone here has forgotten, we are on a *rescue mission.* We don't have the *time* for every scientific opportunity we see." Braun looked unimpressed. Ivanova matched his even glare. "Four minutes and thirty seconds, Doctor." Braun let out his breath and returned to his own instruments. EAS *SAINT-GERMAIN* 13:44 EST "Commander." DeClercq looked up, more startled than he let show. The mess hall of the *Saint-Germain* was busy, but he could always guarantee having at least a table to himself. He had long since learned not to sit with people; one by one they would always find polite and flimsy excuses to leave. Now he just looked for empty tables near the fringe of the hall, and found what contentment he could in the relative quiet. His fellow officers had not been much help. Captain Ivanova didn't eat in the mess hall at all, and none of the others had ever sought his company. In an obvious effort to break the isolation, Morgan had joined him once or twice, but it hadn't worked out: despite the young ensign's undeniable charm, he had been unable to drag anyone else along. After a few attempts DeClercq had ordered him to stop trying. It only made it worse. But now Philip Ramirez stood over him, and though his eyes blazed as hotly as ever, for once, the quality of that heat was unreadable. "Have a seat, Commander," said DeClercq in as neutral a tone as he could manage. "I would prefer to speak elsewhere, sir, if that's possible." DeClercq's face didn't change, but his thoughts raced. "Very well." Without pausing he pushed his tray away - he'd eaten as much as he was going to - and rose. Saying nothing, he strode past Ramirez towards the mess hall entrance, smiling inwardly as Ramirez scrambled to catch up. He made a bet with himself and waited. Surprisingly, Ramirez managed to stay silent all the way through the swift walk to a turbolift, down three decks, and into the hydroponics chamber. Long and narrow, the chamber was thick with greenery and the heavy smell of nutrient fluid. Plasma tubes overhead poured heat and light into the vegetation, raising the temperature to a stifling, humid wall. DeClercq found a place away from the on-duty techs, leaned against one tank and folded his arms. "All right, Mr. Ramirez. Talk." Ramirez took a deep breath. "Commander, first, I wish to apologize for any embarrassment or injury I may have done in the incident with Jacobsen - " "There *was* no incident with Jacobsen," said DeClercq flatly. "Was there, Commander?" Ramirez's fists clenched, but his voice remained steady. "No, sir. Of course not." "Then get to the point." Ramirez visibly gathered himself. "I do not wish to appear as if I am criticizing or complaining about the Captain's actions behind her back - " "Then don't." "Commander, she must be protected from herself!" Ramirez burst out. "We are exploring the remains of the most powerful civilization in the galaxy and she is down there amid God only knows what deathtraps with nothing but a single security squad for protection!" "Excellent breath control, Mr. Ramirez, but please tell me something I don't know." Ramirez mopped at the sweat on his face. "Is there nothing we can do to make her protect herself more carefully?" DeClercq sighed. "In any other situation I'd agree with you, Philip." The use of his first name brought Ramirez's head up with a surprised look. "But she's right. She is one of maybe ten people in the Earth Alliance who know *anything* at all about the Vorlons other than their name. I know nothing, you know nothing, I highly doubt Doctor Braun knows as much as he would like us to believe he does...." Acid soured the words. Ramirez smiled in bitter agreement. "For the purposes of this mission she *must* take the lead. She cannot do anything else." "It should not be her place to take the risks," Ramirez muttered. "And were you in her place, what would *you* do?" The younger man sighed. "That is not fair." "Yes it is, Philip." DeClercq stared off into space. "I realized something a long time ago. The universe *is* fair. That's why it hurts us all so much. People don't want a fair universe. They want one that's unfair *in their favour*." Ramirez said nothing. But there were unspoken questions in his eyes, shadows of a battle lost over fifteen years ago. The bleep of a link broke the silence like a slap. Both of them started. DeClercq brought his hand up to his mouth. "DeClercq. Proceed." "Commander?" It was Bailey's voice, now vibrant with apprehension. "I think you'd better get to the bridge. I've got some more data out of the translation schema." Apprehension shaded into fear. "It doesn't look too good." - 10 - GC-8330/3 14:03 EST An hour's work had brought them no closer to an answer. The buildings continued to yield gigabytes of data, but no doors. The few structures open to entry were empty of life or furniture, other than the buildings themselves. And the only ones that had been open were small structures, domes like houses, containing nothing but a random number of rooms with no furniture. Nothing resembling a data terminal or computer, either, although Ivanova had never really hoped for anything that obvious. The city's silence had lifted a little as the quadriwinged reptile-birds came fluttering cautiously back, but so far that was the only sound. And everywhere they went, the roses-and-spice smell of the city persisted. Snow had confirmed it was being produced by the buildings themselves. At last, in a desperate attempt to get away from it, Ivanova had ordered a base camp set up in one of the parks. The scent was here as well, but the natural odours of the park's vegetation mitigated it somewhat. Ivanova sat on the grass, legs folded, elbows on knees and chin in her hands. This was impossible. She was sitting in the middle of a city of the Vorlons, the most powerful and enigmatic race in galactic history, the first human since Lyta Alexander to do so... and she was *bored*. Nervousness and worry diluted it somewhat, but boredom remained. Her link bleeped. "Ivanova, go." "Captain?" "Xavier." Ivanova sat up. "What's the problem?" "I need to put Ms. Bailey on the link," said DeClercq, his voice taut. Ivanova frowned. A moment later a diffident female voice crackled through the ether. "Captain Ivanova?" "Go ahead, Ms. Bailey." "I had an idea to help make sense of the alien transmission," Bailey said. "So I downloaded an old file from Psi Corps." "*What?*" Ivanova was utterly unable to control her yelp. From the grass nearby where they were hunched over their portable terminals, a couple of the technicians looked up. With an effort, she got her voice back down to normal tones. "What are you talking about?" "Well, I, ah, I remembered some theories that said the Vorlons were partially or fully telepathic," said Bailey nervously. "There're some files from Psi Corps on how spoken language would develop or atrophy among telepaths, so I fed in some of their theoretical algorithms, and one of them worked. I've got almost all the message decrypted now." "Can you upload to a terminal here -- ?" Ivanova cut herself off. "No, don't bother, we don't have time. Does it say where the transmission source is?" Bailey swallowed audibly. "If I've got this right, sir, they're right under the green tower at the city's centre. But sir -- " Ivanova paused in mid-rise. "Yes?" "Sir, there's every indication you need to be at least a partial telepath to make half this stuff work. At least if I'm reading the subtext right. There's a whole lot of stuff about 'the song of the masters' voices' - I could be wrong, but that's what it sounds like to me." Ivanova clamped her jaws shut on the word. What was this, a fragging conspiracy? Her voice was tight with control. "Thank you, Technician." She finished standing up and clicked over the channel. "Ensign Morgan." "Captain?" came Morgan's startled answer. "Get on the link to the *Saint-Germain* and start organizing backup flight teams. I want all atmosphere-capable craft ready to go at a moment's notice." "Aye aye, sir. Captain - " Ivanova cut the link without answering. A slight feeling of shame niggled at her - he hadn't really deserved that rudeness - but there was no time to waste with irrelevant questions. She strode over to the technicians. "You two - Slade, Janciewicz - pack it up. We're moving." Without watching their scramble to obey she hit her link. "Ivanova to Corelli." "Corelli here." "Location, Lieutenant?" "Three hundred metres northwest of the base park. Doctor Braun thinks he may have found a way to trigger the access portals." Though if he was right Braun would be even more insufferable. She pushed that thought aside. "Tell him he's about to get his chance. Regroup and meet with us at city centre, the tall green tower, in fifteen minutes." "Aye aye, sir." To her relief, Corelli cut the link himself without comment. Some things she just wasn't in the mood for right now. She looked at Slade and Janciewicz - a mismatched pair: Slade was red-haired, freckled and a little tubby; Janciewicz was dark, stocky and balding. "You two ready?" "Yessir," gulped Slade. Janciewicz only nodded. "Let's move." 14:11 EST Four hours out from orbit, just beyond the range of the *Saint-Germain*'s sensors, a jump point twisted space open. From out of the vortex of blue light, the *Darktalon* shot like an arrow from a bow. A moment later, its engines died. On ballistic momentum alone, the ship coasted in towards the planet. All over the hull, EM baffles slid into place, sensor booms retracting. Weapons were powered down to their minimum. Electrostatic damping fields played over the hull, blurring its sensor image. The corsair plunged on as silently as a falling hawk. ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming (hopefully) soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT ...in which God only knows what's going to happen, but it should be chaotic. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> AUTHOR'S NOTE Yes, as you might guess, I've given up. I have no idea what's happening next. (You think 'cause I write this stuff I know what's goin' on?!) --------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 16/?? Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 16:14:13 -0400 Instalment 16 of WANDERING STAR. Things begin to get messy.... Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 11 - 14:17 EST >From the ground, the tower seemed to pierce the sky like a blast of green light, impossibly tall and slender. Ivanova let herself look skyward just once before vertigo twisted her stomach, and she jerked her gaze back to the curved green wall in front of her. At regular points around the tower's circumference, Braun and Gibson were attaching small devices to the structure's surface. Braun paused for a moment as Ivanova came up beside him, then went on as if she wasn't there. He lifted the device and pressed it to the tower, then touched a button. Small spikes snicked from the device's base and buried themselves in the keratin-like surface. Another switch activated a tiny display screen, which flared with multicoloured lines of light. "Biosensors?" Ivanova queried. Without looking around, Braun nodded. "With a bioelectric transmitter added to each unit. I am hoping to find a way to artificially stimulate the biocircuitry of the towers to produce a response." He moved on and attached another sensor unit. "It is much the same as applying electric current to organic muscle fibres, to provoke a response even from unliving tissue." "Ingenious, Doctor, but this is a Vorlon tower, not a dead frog." "Have you another alternative, Captain?" Ivanova couldn't think of anything to say. Gibson attached the last unit, stood back, and knelt to manipulate the controls on a transmitter datapad. "Synchronizing the units." As she worked, the multicoloured lines on the sensor units rippled and changed, gradually becoming identical. Ivanova was reminded eerily of the way Kosh's ship had displayed ever-changing text on its outer skin. "Readings?" "We've got several different current patterns." Gibson called up a schematic on the datapad - it meant nothing to Ivanova -- and showed it to Braun. The pale-haired scientist examined it, then traced three tall oval shapes with a lightpen. Without further speech Gibson began typing in a flurry of commands. The sensors flared with light, cycling through different patterns and symbols in a torrent of colour and shape. Corelli and van der Rhies came pounding up out of a nearby alley. As the burly sergeant-major paused to check in with Burns, who had overseen the security guards' arrangement, Corelli hastened to Ivanova's side. "What's our status?" "At the moment, pending." Ivanova frowned at the tower. Something about it looked=85 different. "No difference in your own findings, I take it?" "None, sir." Corelli shrugged. Perplexity and irritation were perceptible in his tone, but controlled to a steady calm. "No inhabitants of any sort that we can find. But there's no indication of neglect or time-damage. As far as we can tell it might have been inhabited as early as yesterday. No dust, no decay. No entropy." He raked the city with a sweeping glare, as if passing a radar beam across it. "No response to any of our signals or shouts. Nothing." He paused a beat and then added something soft and liquid under his breath. "I beg your pardon?" said Ivanova. She thought he wasn't going to answer for a moment. Then, almost as if embarrassed, he repeated the phrase more loudly. "*La Silencia Beata della Morte*." Ivanova sorted through her memories of Terran linguistics. "'The blessed silence of death'," she translated quietly. "This city is a shell," muttered Corelli. "What are we hoping to find?" She wasn't sure what made her answer; only that the ache to say *something* was too strong to deny. "Secrets, Mr. Corelli. Secrets." 14:19:33 EST Ramirez frowned at his displays. "Commander." DeClercq turned from the sensor station overhead where he'd been conferring with Enfield. "Mr. Ramirez?" "I'm reading a high-intensity power surge building underneath the city." "How high-intensity?" "Thirty-seven megajoules and rising." "That's impos - Confirm," DeClercq snapped to Enfield, already striding to the ladder leading down to the command chairs. The taller man dove for his sensor station, ran a quick scan, and looked up. His face was white as he nodded silently. DeClercq dropped into the captain's seat and activated the chair's main link. "This is Commander DeClercq. All hands to battle stations, I repeat, all hands to battle stations." "Battle stations?" said Singh from his post. "That kind of power is almost certainly an anti-space defense weapon," DeClercq snapped. "Ensign Koderres - " this to Morgan's second-shift replacement at the helm, a dark-skinned Greek woman in her late 20s - "I want all attitude jets charged, and main thrusters on-line. Mr. Ramirez, ready main weapons banks." 14:20:01 EST "Captain!" It was the first time she had ever heard Braun raise his voice. It was also the first time she had ever heard what sounded like real emotion in it. But the real shock was that the emotion in that cry was unmistakeably= terror. Ivanova spun. The green radiance from the tower hit her like a blow, swelling ever brighter even as she raced back towards the party. She ignored Corelli's cry of caution. *That* was what had looked different about the tower, it had seemed *brighter*, and she hadn't clued in - she cursed herself even as she grabbed Braun's shoulders and shoved him towards the nearest shelter she saw, a white pearlescent-shelled dome with an open entrance facing on an angle away from the tower. "Get under cover!" she shouted. The human explorers fled across the empty space surrounding the tower like ants fleeing from a waking giant. At the entryway to the dome Ivanova stopped, counting everyone in as they raced by her: Gibson, Slade, Janciewicz and the other techs; Braun; Burns and van der Rhies and the security guards. Under their footsteps and their terrified gasping, Ivanova heard a new sound rising: a deep, pulsing roar of vibratory sound like the approach of a tidal wave. She lost count, but Corelli had arrived by then and taken it up. "...Symington, Northrup, Tseng, that's it!" He leaned across to grab her shoulder. "Come on, Captain, get inside!" Ivanova shook her head, barely able to think over the roar and the blinding emerald light that now coloured everything a searing shade of green. "No!" she shouted. "No, we're missing somebody - " Her eyes widened. "*Tiffany!*" 14:20:27 EST Zarabakh stared in shock at the displays going wild all over the *Darktalon*'s bridge. The Drazi worked at feverish haste, but Salathek's furious, trapped stare told him the truth: there was almost nothing they could do without breaking stealth mode. And they were still too far away, even at full burn. By the time they could get there it would be all over. All they could do now was watch. 14:20:35 EST "Dear Jesus Christ!" Morgan dropped the supply crate he'd been in the middle of inspecting - with nothing else to do he'd begun checking the supply inventory out of sheer boredom - and flung himself into the pilot's seat. Racing through the preflight checklist, he cursed as the engines began climbing back to full power. "Landing gear - VTOL mode - fuel, god *damn* you you stupid machine will you hurry *up* -- ?!" Ahead of him, the tower glowed like a laser frozen in mid-blast. A bank of lights, one by one, flared green. Morgan punched the air in savage triumph and strapped himself in, then hit his link. "Morgan to Ivanova! Captain! Do you copy!" 14:20:59 EST The light was too bright now. Ivanova had to fling her right arm over her eyes. Staring directly at the tower could have blinded her. Sound and vibration had become useless as well. She tried anyway, screaming once more at the top of her lungs. "TIFFANY!" If there was any reply, she didn't hear it. For a desperate moment she staggered forward, trying to gain her bearings by what little she could see of the ground below. But it was hopeless. After a moment she had to stop, swaying helplessly. She couldn't even bear to peer at the ground any more. As yet there was no heat or pain except for the sensory overload. But once whatever was building reached its apex.... The vibration of the link against the back of her hand was all that alerted her. She almost lowered her arm to answer, then remembered at the last second. She hit the link by placing the back of her left hand directly against her larynx. "Ensign Morgan!" she shouted. Thomas almost fell backwards out of his seat at the blast of sound. Hastily he turned down the volume of the link. "Captain?" he shouted back. "I want a tracking schematic!" came Ivanova's buzzy, blurred voice. "Plot the location of Lieutenant Snow's link, then mine, and give us relative positions!" "Aye aye, sir!" A thousand questions screamed for attention; he banished them all and called up the link-tracking subroutine. A map of the city appeared: in a domelike structure near the centre, all the links hovered, except for two - one in the middle of the empty space around the tower, and the second - "Oh my God." "Captain!" She had to place the link directly against the bone behind her ear to hear Morgan's voice, even shouting at the top of his lungs. "Lieutenant Snow is right against the base of the tower!" Ivanova put the link to her throat again. "Give me relative tracking! Talk me in to her!" Back to her ear, she braced herself. "Captain, the power output is over a hundred megajoules and rising! Get yourself out of there!" Fury blazed through her like the *Saint-Germain*'s drive plasma. "Give me relative tracking on Lieutenant Snow, Ensign! NOW!" One half a heartbeat's hesitation. "Ahead sixty-two metres!" Ivanova broke into a staggering lope. After a few seconds the link buzzed again. "Ten degrees to your right!... Bear left, fifteen! ...Okay - okay, that's it, go straight! Straighten out!" Green light became the entirety of existence; Ivanova could hear nothing anymore. Only the vibrations of the link against her ear spoke of anything other than light, noise, and gathering cataclysm. "Less than thirty metres! Keep going!" 14:21:15 EST "Tracking!" shouted Ramirez. "We have an EM pulse wave sweeping the orbit!" DeClercq hit the main link. "All hands, brace for high acceleration! All hands, brace for high acceleration!" Obeying his own order, he pulled his shock-harness over him and locked it in. Everyone on the bridge did the= same. The computer screamed, a high-pitched keening tone of panic. "*Target lock!*" Ramirez bellowed. "Koderres, flank thrust, *now!*" 14:21:17 EST Ivanova reached out with her left hand and touched a booted foot. She was expecting to find a limp, unconscious body, or - at worst - a dead one. Instead Snow's hand clamped around her wrist with shocking strength, hauled her forward and down to the ground, and shoved her face first into the soil. Ivanova only had time to struggle for a second before the world, in silence, exploded. 14:21:18 EST Plasma burning hotter than the Sun erupted from all four drive tubes in a single coordinated instant, blasting against the void. The *Saint-Germain* lunged into motion at nearly seventy metres per second per second, breaking orbit like a hammer through a glass wall. In almost the same instant green fire speared from the planet's surface, bursting through atmosphere in a hellstorm of lightning and charged particles, ripping free of the gravity well and hitting .999c in under a nanosecond. Only DeClercq's anticipation had saved them. The beam split vacuum over five hundred metres short as its tracking solution fell away from the *Saint-Germain*'s unexpected acceleration. But they had not escaped scot free. Waves of particle castoffs and EM energy slammed over the polycarbosilicate hull in bursts so powerful, so high-velocity, they had the effect of raw mass. The starship juddered under the impact, ringing as if struck with a thousand sledgehammers. 14:21:21 EST The air rippled and roared as the charged bleedoff of the beam tore through the sky. Lightning hissed and danced, titanic whipcracks lashing from cloud to cloud and down into the city at random points. Morgan felt the shuttle rock under him as the wind shrieked, whipped into furious frenzy by the beam's energy. Morgan strapped himself in and began to power up the engines. He checked the display screen. His heart froze, then plunged like a stone falling into darkness. The screen had gone blank. ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT ...in which we learn the price of terror. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> AUTHOR'S NOTE Okay, so it ended on a cliffhanger, whadya want from me? Think of it this way; if I get lots of nice feedback the next instalment might be quicker in coming... heh heh heh..... --------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 17/?? Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 10:37:54 -0400 Instalment 17 of WANDERING STAR. The mess continues. Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 12 - 14:22:24 EST Ivanova thought to herself, amazed that she could think at all. The world was a black abyss. She could taste gritty soil on her lips. And a strange, unfamiliar, but oddly pleasant sensation: a warm human body pressed lengthwise against her own. "Captain?" Ivanova turned her head slightly, just enough to get her mouth free of the ground. "I hope you have a good explanation for this, Lieutenant." "How 'bout a structural integrity field?" "Go on." "I was trying to disrupt Braun's sensor transmissions, so I felt my way to the tower and tried to rip off his bioelectric implants. Didn't work, but once I'd stopped I realized there was no way I'd make it to cover in time. So I gambled the Vorlons would have some kind of energy shield to protect the beam projector from the backblast and got in real close to the tower." Snow's voice was subdued and dull, as if a thick fabric blocked Ivanova's ears. "We should have a little while before it cycles up to blast again. But *don't* open your eyes, Captain!" A hand covered her face. "We're protected from the sound and backlash in here, but the main light emission's still going on. You open your eyes at this range - permanent flashblind." "No heat," said Ivanova, only half-understanding. "All that power, and down here, no heat." "Vorlons," said Snow, as if that explained anything. "The others." Ivanova got her link to her lips. "Ivanova to Corelli. Status report." "Captain?!" A yelp of joy so incredulous and relieved that Ivanova felt absurdly like crying. What had she done to deserve that? "Captain, are you all right?" "Always with the questions," muttered Ivanova. "Mr. Corelli, *status report!*" "We're all fine, sir, though a couple of us have bruises - there was a ground tremor from the energy release, a couple of us were knocked down. Captain, where are you?" "Lieutenant Snow and I are at the base of the tower, we're fine. The Vorlons have some kind of integrity protection field that kept the backblast off us. *Don't* attempt to rescue us just yet," she interrupted him. "I need to check with some others." Her stomach clenched. This was the one she was afraid of. But without hesitation she switched channels and spoke again. "Ivanova to Commander DeClercq! Xavier! Can you hear me?" Even had DeClercq heard her voice through the thunder of the ship's drive, under the pressure of nearly thirteen hundred pounds - just under seven times DeClercq's normal weight - it was a Herculean effort simply to draw breath. Answering at all, much less shouting, was out of the question. DeClercq's finger dragged over the keypad of the command chair arm control and triggered a preset signal to helm. Koderres saw it and with a similar effort activated another preset switch. A moment later the acceleration began to ease, the pressure falling off: six gravities, five, four.... DeClercq sucked air into his lungs. "Damage report," he croaked. Singh, gasping for breath, juggled incoming reports with minimal hand movements. Quick, ungrammatical blurts of information shot across his screen. "I have CPO Fykas from Engineering," he grated, "we have full power. Injuries in the rotating section from accel impacts. Several internal systems off line from EM pulse wave. Dr. Kimeda reports no signs of any radiation damage to crew." "It worked," muttered DeClercq. "Son of a bleeding bitch, it worked." He raised his voice. "Ms. Koderres, maintain acceleration at two point five g, random trajectory swings. Mr. Ramirez, any sign of further tracking?" "Negative... as yet," the younger man groaned. His eyes flickered across his displays. "Power surge fell to point three five megajoules after firing...." He stopped; his voice became dull. "Rising again. Seven point two, steady increase -- " "*DeClercq!*" The Commander almost broke his hand link in the urge to answer. "Captain! Where are you! What happened?" "Status of ship?" "Shaken, but we're intact. The shot missed us by half a klick." "Any indication of a repeat shot or a recharge time?" DeClercq looked at Ramirez, who calculated hastily and turned green at the results. "Less than two minutes before another shot!" "You heard?" said DeClercq into the link. "I heard. All right. Reorient the ship to aim with forward guns at the power source - just *do* it, Xavier!" Ivanova cut him off before he could even draw breath to interrupt. "Calculate firing solution and give me a full power strafe on those coordinates exactly *one second* before predicted blast time." "That gives you only ninety-three seconds to get out of the area." "I'm aware of that, Xavier, but that's not the proper response." "Aye aye, sir." "That's better." The link cut. Ramirez turned to raise an eyebrow at his XO. DeClercq pointed sharply at him. "Not a word, Mr. Ramirez. Not a blessed *word*." He switched the impaling finger to Koderres. "Reorient the ship, target with forward guns." "Aye aye, sir," said Koderres, deadpan. 14:22:56 EST "If you gotta go," said Snow philosophically, "might as well be in a blaze of glory." "I'm not going anywhere." Ivanova switched channels again. The inside of her eyes had turned green from the light. "Ensign Morgan." "*Sir!*" Ivanova refused even for a moment to allow herself to think about what the emotions in Thomas's shout were. "Yes, I know, I'm alive, so are the others." "Your link beacons are down, I lost your coordinates." "Backblast disruption," said Ivanova. "The beam scattered the general beacon broadcasts. Can you get a tightbeam location on us?" "Sir, I can *see* the tower, I can fly in on manual." "Then do so." Underneath her stomach, Ivanova could feel the vibration building up through the ground into a second roar of power. "Sixty second retrieval, Ensign, on my mark: *mark!*" 14:23:03 EST Already strapped in, Morgan had been building the power since the moment the Vorlon cannon had ignited in viridian glory. It was one second's single, unified action to disengage the brakes and trigger full thrust. The shuttle hurtled across the white stone of the landing area with a whipcrack of torn air. The weight of acceleration was a mighty pressure over his body. Thomas eased back the flight-bar with delicate precision. The shuttle tilted back and shot into the air, bare metres above the roofs of the gem-like buildings and domes, hurtling towards the ever-brighter green tower at the city's heart. 14:23:06 EST Ivanova cut her link and staggered to her feet, still shielding her eyes. Snow rose with her, both hands clamped tightly onto her free arm. "Now what do we do?" "Brace yourself against the tower. By my side. Face straight out." There was no sound to the rising vibration yet - some mystical property of the tower's integrity field seemed to block it out. But the moment they crossed beyond the field's boundary (if they could - ruthlessly Ivanova stomped on that thought) they would be assaulted by sound and light and would have to navigate by sheer memory alone. Ivanova summoned the picture in her mind with all the clarity eidetic memory would allow. The tower, *here*. The dome in which the others had taken shelter, *there*; its entrance facing *that* way. The empty circle of grass-analogue, the area of it on a straight line to the landing zone: *there*. She calculated relative headings in her mind with a screaming intensity she could not dare allow to be panic. She would only get one shot at this. She brought the link to her mouth. "Ivanova to Corelli." "Go, Captain!" "Everyone is to protect both eyes and ears against sensory damage. In exactly seventeen seconds from my mark, leave the dome entrance at a fifteen-degree angle left from its straight-line exit, run twelve metres, and stop. Link hands in a chain if you have to. Clear?" "Blind movement, seventeen seconds from mark, fifteen degrees port off straight-line exit, twelve metres movement, stop, roger sir!" "Correct." Ivanova took a few deep breaths, counting time half consciously, half-intuitively. "*Mark!*" 14:23:12 EST Three hundred kilometres above the planet's surface, the vast black shape of the *Saint-Germain* had rotated, hammerhead prow turning to point down at the planet. Attitude thrusters fired, holding the ship steady, stabilizing its course. The main guns began to glow with accumulating power, aimed directly at the brilliant pinpoint of green far below. 14:23:23 EST The tower was again far too bright to look at. Morgan polarized the windshield to its darkest and could still barely see anything. One hand tapped at the display controls and generated an HUD holodisplay of the mapped territory; lines of light played over the inside of the windshield, sketching out phantom images of the buildings and terrain. Morgan swung the shuttle up slightly and cut the main thrusters. The delta-winged craft glided for one and a half seconds, coasting the updrafts, soaring higher and higher as its speed fell ever downwards to the stalling point.... He cut in the VTOL thrusters. Air blasted through vertically mounted vents in the shuttle's wings and fuselage, fighting the pull of gravity in a deafening shriek. The shuttle fell towards the central plaza like an ugly angel. 14:23:28 EST "*Go!*" shouted Corelli. He led the way from the dome himself, van der Rhies and Burns holding onto each hand, others holding onto theirs. The techs and security guards streamed out behind them like flags in a hurricane. They froze outside, hammered almost to the ground. The light and noise had been bad enough inside the dome; direct exposure was an avalanche of agony. Those with goggles and earplugs had donned them; others had improvised, wrapping tunics and torn-up shirts around eyes or ears. Still, they could barely move. Only Corelli's discipline let him remember the orders. He angled, stumbling forward as best he could, tracking every step. Five, seven, eight, ten, eleven... twelve? God, he hoped so. From nowhere a hand seized his shoulder. He screamed, let go of Burns' hand, and almost tried to break the hand's fingers. It jerked back just in time; then there was suddenly a body next to his and a face pressed into his neck, just below his ear. "It's *me*!" came the scream he could still barely hear. "Ivanova!" He didn't even try to shout back; he just grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. From out of nowhere, a banshee shriek split through the deafening roar. There was a solid thud that shook the ground under all their feet and then - blessed *shadow*! The light had been blocked out! Corelli tore off his protective goggles, squinting as Ivanova released him and turned. The shuttle had hit ground bare metres in front of them, between the little group and the tower, blocking the light. The entrance hatch slid open. With one hand, Ivanova shoved Snow towards the shuttle; the other pushed Corelli. Dazed, unable to struggle, he bolted for the entrance. Ivanova ran with the rest, pausing at the hatch as she counted everyone in, slapping each shoulder as it passed as if to make sure of its reality. The roar was an unending thunderblast in their bones. Finally, everyone else was in; Ivanova lunged in and pulled the hatch shut behind her. "*Punch it, Thomas!*" she screamed. Thomas shoved full power through the VTOL engines. The shuttle vaulted off the ground like a startled frog, seemed to hang in midair for a split instant, then blasted forward as Morgan switched to the main thrusters. White fire burst from the engine nozzles. The shuttle raced skyward and away at three gravities of acceleration. 14:24:08 EST "EM pulse!" Ramirez cried, terror, frustration and fury in his voice. "Beam is tracking -- *lock!* They have lockon!" "God help us all," whispered DeClercq. His fist clenched. "Mr. Ramirez. Fire." 14:24:10 EST In perfect synchronization, the twin forward cannon of the *Saint-Germain* erupted. Lines of blue-white energy coruscated downward into the atmosphere, tearing the air apart as the Vorlon weapon had done, smaller but more focused. They struck the Vorlon projector at the same point, in the same instant, bare milliseconds before the gathered energy would have been released upwards in a coherent beam. Instead, the energy was released outwards, somewhat less coherently. A spherical white flash whiplashed out, the first shell of photons and EM energy. Behind it came the shockwave of atmospheric incineration. Fire burst from the flashpoint and billowed outwards in a tide of onrushing, stellar-fury annihilation. 14:24:12 EST Morgan saw the blast and knew in that second that there was only one chance to survive it. As the wall of crimson and black hellfire boiled up from the city towards them he cut the main thrusters and slammed every airflow flap into its farthest down position. The shuttle's nose dropped, its tail coming up. He threw the shuttle into a sideslip, slewed it around to face the oncoming fireblast, and cut in the VTOL engines at full power. Screams of shock and pain echoed from the passenger compartment behind him, but Morgan hung on to the controls and grimly ignored them. If this didn't work they were all dead anyway. The tidal wave of fire engulfed them with an impact like a mountain under full pulse drive. The shuttle was lifted up and flung skyward like a leaf on the foam of a flood. Morgan prayed that the heat-insulation would be enough. Computers shrieked warnings; he ignored those too. If something failed they would die too swiftly to feel pain. The altimeter hurtled ever higher as the waves of scorched and carbonized air took them farther and farther upward. Morgan rode the waves with an intuition born entirely of mindless terror. There was a thud beside him, then the clack of a shock harness locking in. Morgan didn't turn, he didn't dare, but he didn't need to. Only one other person in this crew was crazy enough to fight her way to the cockpit now, of all times. "Do you have any idea what you're doing?" shouted Ivanova. "I very much hope saving us, sir!" "If you're wrong, Ensign - " "Then none of us will ever know it!" "If there is an afterlife, Thomas, I promise to be your personal tormentor, do you understand?!" "Oh goody, something to look forward to -- *hang on, Captain!*" The waves had carried them almost to suborbital height. Thomas let the shuttle's nose tilt skyward almost to a ninety-degree angle, then switched once more from VTOL to full power thrust. He and Ivanova slammed back in their control couches. The shuttle rocketed upwards on a column of white fire. Around them, blue sky began to give way to black. The rolling waves of fire had subsided, falling away below to collapse into a pit of seething combustion. Astonishingly, over half the city still seemed to be intact. The projector tower and the central buildings were gone, consumed in the immense detonation, but the outer rings of buildings were still there, still in one piece. Many were scorched and battered, but they remained. Ivanova checked her sensor displays, unable to believe the sight, and felt numb. No, she wasn't hallucinating. Slowly, the angle of the shuttle shifted, levelling out. Morgan was breathing in great gasps of steadily declining volume. One by one, the warning sirens switched off, though many a red light indicated damage. The displays steadied. Gravity faded away as the ship dropped into freefall. "Orbit," Morgan finally said. Ivanova stared at her hands, so white-knuckled on her shock harness that it seemed the very bone might rip through the skin. "I have a feeling I'm going to owe Commander DeClercq an apology." Morgan gave a perfunctory, shaky laugh. "You say so, sir." He closed his eyes. "I just want to go to bed and sleep for a week." Ivanova turned and looked at him. "What did you do?" "The shockwave would have smashed us out of the sky if we'd tried to outrun it. I had to get our nose into it, so we could take the shockwave aerodynamically and ride it up, and to get the reentry insulation between us and the blast." Ivanova took a deep breath. "Thomas - I've known maybe two other people in my entire life, not including myself, who could have pulled off the piloting you just did. One of them survived the Battle of the Line. What the hell were you telling me, 'pretty good'?" Morgan opened his eyes, which looked weary and haunted and dazed. "Captain, I didn't pull off a fragging thing. We were luckier than anyone has a right to be. Do you really believe that *any* kind of human skill alone could have survived that?" "I don't know what I believe any more." Ivanova didn't take her eyes from his. "But I believe I owe you my life." They stared at each other for a moment. "Oh - my - GOD!" Snow, looking bruised and battered and bloody but wearing the widest grin either of them had ever seen in their lives, bounced into the bridge compartment. "That was the wildest ride of my entire freaking *life*! Can we do it again?" Ivanova and Morgan gaped at her. Snow held her wide-eyed look a moment longer before bursting into laughter. "KIDDING!" she shouted. "But my God, you should've seen your faces...." She whirled and dove back into the main compartment. The ensign and the captain looked at one another. "I'll pull her left arm off if you take the right," offered Ivanova. Morgan closed his eyes again. "After I get my sleep." ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT ...War among the ruins. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> --------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 18/?? Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 18:43:12 -0400 Instalment 18 of WANDERING STAR. Aftershocks and confrontations. Thanks go to Anne Clements and Aleeha Travis for criticism, examination and provocation. Aleeha's not on this list, but Anne is. *Read her stuff.* Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 13 - D.F.C. DARKTALON 14:57 EST Sensordraz Kharidos turned to look over her shoulder. "Shuttle's IR emissions have merged with the Earther ship's. They're docked." "I still cannot believe they survived that blast," muttered Salathek. Zarabakh smiled, stretched out in his command seat and crossed his arms over his stomach. "Have you ever had a *t'kiva* infestation, Salathek?" The subcommander looked blankly at him. "No." "I have," volunteered Kharidos, and shuddered. "Horrible things. Far too many legs. Step on them and they crawl away half-smashed. And they bite like a katok." "Precisely like Earthers," said Zarabakh. "Ugly, fast-breeding, disgusting and difficult to kill. But with a nasty bite. If you don't have a pesticide capable of wiping the whole nest out, you avoid them. Just as we are doing." "Or you go and find a pesticide of sufficient strength," added Salathek with a nasty grin. "Just as we are doing." "We hope," Kharidos mumbled, but she knew better than to stand up to the Commander-First on this. She herself quite liked humans, and thought the Interstellar Alliance to be a wonderful idea. The Freehold had seen quite enough war for a while. But the factions of the Coalition that had... not sent, exactly, but *inspired* this mission, the Militants, had rather lower an opinion of the arrogant young galactic upstarts. They wanted war no more than the Pacifist factions, but they were far less willing to knuckle under to an Alliance led by Earther and Minbari empires. Unfortunately, strong as the Drazi were - and everyone knew they were among the strongest of the former League of Non-Aligned Worlds - even they could not match any of the Great Powers in open war, and they knew it. Hence, expeditions like this. In search of nothing more specific, and nothing more crucially important, than an edge. Any kind of edge. Whatever the price. "Kharidos." With a start, she came out of her reverie. "Time to orbit?" Hurriedly she checked her instruments. "One hour, fifty-five minutes." "Excellent," Zarabakh murmured. He reached down to touch the compad built into the arm of his command seat. "Zarabakh to Huntleader Khovrath, are you there, Huntleader?" "Khovrath here," came a deep, harsh voice in response. "We will be preparing a little exploration party of our own, Huntleader," said Zarabakh, sounding gleeful in his studied nonchalance. "I want a fully armed Hunt ready to go in two hours. Prepare them for an overland journey; we will be dropping them out of sight of our Earther friends, and they will have to walk to reach the target site." Khovrath grunted. "Protocols?" "Find what you can and bring it back, subject to decon requirements." Zarabakh waved an airy, dismissive claw. "As for the Earthers... avoid contact as best you can. But if contact is made - " The Commander-First straightened, his voice dropping to a growl. " - the Earthers are *not* to know of our presence. You are to maintain our cover as long as necessary, by any means necessary. Do you understand?" "Understood." The word was a low growl of pleasure. It roused instincts deeper than Kharidos' weariness, deeper than the heartbreak of a civilized being tired of war. It was the growl of a predator, a hunter. Kharidos felt spines bristle along her neck and back even as something in her soul cringed. She liked humans. She truly did. But in the end, she was a predator too. E.A.S. SAINT-GERMAIN 15:12 EST DeClercq was waiting at the shuttle docking ledge as the group debarked, several of them wearing hastily-administered casts and bandages from the shuttle's medikits. As Ivanova pushed herself down from the hatch and set her feet into the grip-loops of the ledge, she met his eyes. She felt momentarily, absurdly grateful for the numb, post-adrenaline shock enveloping her now; it was all that kept her from quailing at the fury in DeClercq's eyes. No, not so much the fury itself - she could deal with anger - it was the condemnation under that fury, and beneath that, the hurt. Hurt? Yes, she slowly realized, her brain working sluggishly. At the root of it all, it was the hurt. DeClercq had given her his best advice, the *right* advice, and she had brushed it off - had, in effect, listened to Braun's words over his; had as much as told him flat out she didn't trust his judgement. In that one move she might have inflicted more damage to his fragile self-confidence than half the years after Vega VII. Because he had begun to trust her, and she hadn't returned that trust. "Captain," said DeClercq flatly. "Commander," she muttered. "Permission to speak to you privately, when you have a moment?" Ivanova actually considered saying for a second; then she sighed. No, this would have to be done eventually. Now was as miserable a time as any. She nodded, tightly, once. Morgan came up to them, eyes flickering between them. He turned to DeClercq and saluted. "Commander. Permission to take the wounded to medbay." "Granted." It was one word, but DeClercq had to shift his attention briefly, and Ivanova felt the release of pressure like shedding ballast. Morgan let his eyes flick once more to hers; he nodded, then turned to shepherd the injured personnel off the ledge, down towards the passages leading towards the habitat and medbay. One by one, the others disappeared. At last only Snow was left. The engineering officer hesitated on the threshold of the docking ledge, letting the grip rings of the travel bands whir by. "Captain, will you, like, need me for debriefing or something?" "Not immediately." "Oh." Snow paused, seemed about to say something more, then apparently thought better of it. Looking subdued, she dove off the ledge, not bothering with the grip rings; her own momentum pushed her down towards the exit corridors. Watching her go, Ivanova felt half resentful, half admiring. Snow had clearly spent a lot more time in zero-g recently than she herself had. "Captain." Ivanova braced herself. "Yes." "May I respectfully suggest that that was the stupidest thing I have ever seen any Earthforce officer do in my career." The words were flat, sharp, like a slap. Something blew apart in Ivanova's mind. She whirled to face him. "Goddammit, DeClercq, don't you *dare* lecture me on my behaviour! You haven't earned the fragging *right*!" She took a step towards him. He didn't move, though his eyes held hers, wary and determined and angry. "I watched Clark's forces bomb innocent habitats on Mars and blow apart refugee ships over Proxima without a second thought. I watched one of my best friends and the greatest officer I've ever known risk his life for *nothing*, *twice!* Once for his wife, once for his father, and *both* times it was a *trap!* I've risked my life a thousand times over for the sake of my friends and my colleagues, and I watched the end of the most devastating war this galaxy will ever see!" They were almost nose to nose by now. "What have you done - what could you *possibly* do - that would give you even a *fraction* of the right to lecture me on my actions?!" She ran out of breath, rage boiling in her stomach and chest like acid, half-ready to slap him across the face. DeClercq's voice was without heat. "My job." Ivanova opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it. "You told me before we boarded that there was no room for recriminations or self-recrimination here." There was no anger in his voice now, no judgement; only quiet statement of inexorable, inevitable truth. The words fell on her like slow, cold, smothering snow. "That my job was to be the executive officer of an Earth Alliance starship. And part of that job has been, will always be, the right to advise the captain against actions that needlessly endanger herself or the ship." Had he tried to shout back, she could have matched that. But there was nothing for her anger to feed on here. Her fury began to twist agonizingly, cooling and knotting itself smaller and smaller, into a tortured lump of something that was part shame, part humiliation, part grief. Ivanova dropped her gaze to the floor, unable any more to look up at him. "This is not a temporary assignment any more, Susan," said DeClercq. His voice was so soft now it was almost a whisper, and still it echoed in Ivanova's ears like distant thunder. "You are the God of this vessel, its Alpha and Omega. You *cannot* risk yourself unless there is *no* other way. You could have, you *should* have stayed on the bridge and advised people from above, and you *know* that." He paused. "Don't you." It wasn't a question. Ivanova's face felt like fire; her vision blurred. Angrily she dragged a hand across her face. "All right." Her voice was raw with unshed tears. By sheer force of will she mastered her shaky breath and looked up. "All *right*, Commander. What do you recommend?" "I recommend that the exploration forces Mr. Morgan began assembling be deployed at various points around the city. All squads must be armed. Lieutenants Ramirez and Corelli should be put in charge of ground operations. Dr. Braun should be placed in charge of the scientific personnel." "Braun?" Surprise numbed her pain for a moment. "Braun's experiments were the ones that *started* that fiasco! And you'd trust him down there over Snow?" "Lieutenant Snow, like yourself, is too valuable to needlessly risk - she is the only one aboard who truly understands the *Saint-Germain*'s systems. She stays aboard and coordinates with Braun via downlink." "Thus leaving Braun to take the risks." "I confess, the prospect does not disquiet me." DeClercq's voice was as calm as ever before but there was a sudden gleam in his eye. Laughter bubbled like froth in Ivanova's throat. She choked it back, fully aware that it was more hysteria than true amusement. "All right, Xavier, you win. I'll stay. But Snow goes." She raised a hand to cut him off. "I know what you think, Xavier, but I don't *trust* Braun. And Tiffany is the only other person on this ship who has a hope of actually accomplishing our orders." Declercq hesitated, then let his breath out in a rush that left him slumped, staring at the floor. "I don't like this, Susan," he muttered. "We are robbing the graves of gods, hoping to steal their powers. Prometheus, Icarus, Pandora, Bellerophon. All sought knowledge or power that wasn't theirs by right, and all were destroyed." Ivanova closed her eyes. Exhaustion swept her in a warm, numbing wave. And out of it came words. She whispered them, almost not hearing them herself. DeClercq glanced at her. "Sir?" "*Eppur, si muove*." She opened her eyes, meeting his. "Galileo Galilei was brought before the Pope and ordered to recant his theory that the earth revolved around the sun. And at the last, he did so. But as he was leaving the audience chamber, he muttered under his breath, 'Eppur, si muove'." And from someplace inside her soul she hadn't even known she had, Ivanova found a smile. "'Nevertheless, it moves.'" DeClercq frowned. "I'm not sure I understand." Ivanova took a deep breath. "Truth is the right of every living being, Xavier. We are *never* ready for a new truth. But we have to take the risk, or we stop. We stagnate. And we die." "Just as you almost died today, from Braun's quest for truth?" Ivanova spread her hands. "But I didn't." "This time." "Yes. So what?" Ivanova shrugged theatrically, not sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. "Death is inevitable, Xavier. I'm not going to let it ruin my life." DeClercq blinked. Ivanova held his gaze and deliberately grinned. She kept grinning at him until his lips twitched and he gave up, allowing himself a quiet laugh. She joined him, blinking free a surreptitious tear or two. "Can we get back to the bridge now?" DeClercq paused, then saluted, smiling. "As my Captain commands." ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT "Finding the truth is one thing. Fighting over who gets to use it is something else." <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 19/?? Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 18:45:24 -0400 Instalment 19 of WANDERING STAR. This time they means business. A warm welcome to Sel Vecantie, also writing post-S4 Ivanova fiction... from the feedback I've gotten there's a lot of demand for it... I hope she's as warmly appreciated as I was. Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 14 - 15:31 EST "Captain!" Ivanova slowed to let Waverly reach them; he had appeared at the end of the hall as they'd exited the turbolift and came sprinting up to them. "You okay? I just took a report in medbay from some of my people, I almost didn't believe it except Northrup couldn't make up a story like that." "I'm fine, I'm fine." Ivanova waved a dismissive hand. "Was that all you wanted to do, check up on me?" "Almost." DeClercq sighed, a basso rumble of breath. "Mr. Waverly, the concern is appreciated but we don't exactly have the time for puzzles." Waverly shrugged. "Okay, hell, I can talk and walk at the same time." He jabbed a thumb down the hall, and turned to keep pace with them as they moved towards the bridge. "The timing on this was fragging awful, you ask me, but you remember that request you gave me two days ago?" Ivanova stiffened. DeClercq wondered just what she'd asked the young security officer to find. "Yes," was all she said. "We got a download while you and the first team were on the initial approach," said Waverly, and handed her a data crystal. "I skimmed it while you were gone. It ain't pretty reading." "I doubted it would be." Ivanova turned the crystal over in her hand, staring at it as if seeking meaning in its prismatic reflections. "Thank you, Matthew." "Any time, sir." Waverly gave that odd little two-fingered half-salute that would probably have pissed off a far more formal CO. It might have pissed *him* off, DeClercq silently admitted, once upon a time. But Ivanova clearly had other things on her mind; she didn't look up from the crystal as Waverly departed. DeClercq kept silent pace with her as they finished the trip to the bridge. Ramirez stood up out of the command seat as they entered. "Captain on deck." "As you were." Ivanova trudged down the laddersteps to the command chair and slumped into it as Ramirez went to his Tac Ops post. "Thank you, Mr. Ramirez, and may I compliment you on your shooting." Ramirez grinned, dark eyes sparkling like fire in sunlight. "With that kind of energy signature, Captain, I could hardly miss." "Maybe you should have." Ramirez blinked. His grin crumpled slowly into a blank look, as if he'd been cold-cocked by someone he hadn't even thought capable of throwing a punch. "I'm... not sure I understand, sir." "Whoever was signaling down there, there's no way they could have survived that." Ivanova stared at the screen, her eyes dark. "I'm amazed half the structures survived. Even if they escaped the initial explosion, the radiation waves would have been lethal. Any organic lifeform down there is probably now in radiation shock, and will be dead inside of an hour." She let out a slow breath. "They called for help, and we came, and killed them. And Earthforce wonders why we should be careful about investigating the Vorlons." The bridge crew exchanged glances. Nobody seemed to know what to say. DeClercq tried to think of something, anything, to break the despondent atmosphere, but couldn't. Tact had never been his strong point. *breep* The computer's chirruping signal sounded distinctly impatient. Bailey started and hastily began flashing data onto her screen. Then her movements slowed. A befuddled look came over her face. "Well?" said Ivanova, who had turned to watch with the rest of the bridge crew. Bailey flushed bright red. "Um, sir, I don't want to sound disrespectful or anything, but - er - you're wrong." Ivanova blinked. "What?" "More tachyon signals, sir. Same signature. And they're as strong as ever." "That's not possible!" Ramirez burst out. "Nothing could have survived that blast!" "*We* did, Philip," Ivanova pointed out, with some asperity. "All right, Ms. Bailey, if you would kindly stop your dithering and give me a complete translation of the signal, everything you've got. Mr. DeClercq, I want the executive staff in my office in thirty minutes. This time, we're planning this thing from the get-go." "This time?" said Singh incredulously. "Captain, you want us to go down there *again*?" "*You* don't have to go anywhere, Mr. Singh," said Ivanova with poisonous sweetness, "except possibly to the brig if you argue with me again." Singh gulped. "Yessir. Sorry, sir." Ivanova turned to DeClercq and gestured him to the door. "Commander, coordinate with Mr. Morgan on those flight crews I told him to ready, and tell them to stand by." She frowned. "Where is Morgan, anyway?" 15:41 EST MEDBAY "Don't you have somewhere else to be?" In the middle of sealing Symington's arm wound, Kimeda put down her fuselaser and glared at Morgan, who leant against the wall near the door, arms folded. Symington, a rangy black man in the grey of ship's security, looked unnerved at the interruption. "I can spare a few minutes." Morgan grinned. "Oh, joy." Kimeda sighed. "Are you deliberately out to annoy me, or do you just do this naturally?" "Uh, Doc?" said Symington. "My arm?" Kimeda snorted, but picked up the fuselaser and finished her task. "Don't put any stress on it or lift any heavy objects for two weeks," she told him as she wrapped the heavy membrane of a regen pack around the wound. "I've fused the bone and sealed the bleeding, but you're still going to need healing time. Didn't anyone ever tell you people to stay out of explosions?" she snapped in sudden irritation at both of them. "Not like I had a lotta choice, Doc." Symington sounded amused. She glowered at him. "Get out of here." Grinning, he went, and Kimeda transferred her glare to Morgan without loss of impact. "There, see? Everyone's been kissed and made all better. Now would you kindly stop hovering like an anxious parent?" "Parents are supposed to hover. It's in the job description." Kimeda's patience snapped. "Stop it, Ensign. Just -- *stop* it." "Stop what?" Morgan looked honestly puzzled, which only increased Kimeda's irritation. "Stop this infurating attempt to jolly me out of my bad mood, like it was a whim or a product of PMS. Not everything in life can be laughed off!" Morgan raised his eyebrows. After a moment, a slow smile spread over his face. "You completely arrogant, self-centred bitch," he said. His voice was marvelling, almost admiring. The gap between words and delivery was so wide it took Kimeda a second to realize what he had actually said. The breath left her as if she'd been punched. "I *beg* your pardon?" "You think everything is about you, don't you?" Morgan strolled over and leant on the medcot where she was still standing. His smile looked almost bemused, as if he couldn't believe he was having this conversation. "The Captain and I just escaped the detonation of a Vorlon particle cannon at ground zero *and nobody got killed*. Nobody even got *hurt* except for a few moderate injuries. And when I let myself get a little silly with the sheer relief of still being freaking *alive*, when I hang around to check out the crew and try to keep them from going into a battleshock tailspin, *you* think I'm doing it deliberately for the sole and simple reason of getting *you* out of a bad mood?" Morgan shook his head, still smiling, his voice still utterly without anger. "Think a lot of yourself, don't you, Doc?" Kimeda became aware her mouth was hanging open. She shut it as quickly as she could, feeling furious heat shooting up her neck into her face. "Mr. Morgan, I am very well aware of how close you all came to death. That is *precisely* why I am so angry, God damn it!" She slapped the medcot, hard. "I served on combat-line starships during the Civil War, I have *seen* the carnage that can be inflicted. You are a *boy*, Morgan. You have no idea of what it is actually like to look at ruined, destroyed human bodies. To feel life bleed out between your fingers and know that you can do *nothing* to stop it." She realized her anger was shifting, becoming something else much more painful; but the words had a momentum of their own now. She couldn't seem to stop. "And when I see young foolhardy idiots like yourself treating that possibility like a *game*, shrugging it off as if you still think you're immortal, the rage it makes me feel - " She broke off, her throat locked up. With a sharp movement she spun away from him, hiding the blurriness of her eyes. "You have no idea," she muttered. There was a pause. Morgan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry, Doctor." Kimeda snorted. "The saviour-pilot admits he was wrong." "Oh, I'm not wrong." Kimeda looked up, startled. Morgan's grin was firmly back in place, as if it had never left. "You're still a self-centred arrogant bitch. But anyone with that strong a passion for saving lives, even for people you can't stand, deserves some slack." Kimeda knew she ought to be angry but somehow simply couldn't find any more rage inside her. Her lips formed a disbelieving smile, apparently of their own will. "You are incorrigible, Morgan, do you realize that?" "All part of my charm." The ensign waved an airy hand. Then his expression became more serious. "Look, Doc, we're a band of misfits stuck together by bureaucrats who're hoping we'll all eat one another alive out here. The only way we're any of us going to survive is to learn to work together and trust one another. Now *I* find that spreading around as much friendliness, cheerfulness and forgiveness as I can speeds that process up a lot." He slid to his feet and gave her a level look. "Maybe you don't need them yourself, Doc; that's your call. But I tell you what. If you stop criticizing me for being too flippant, I'll give you a break on being too serious. Deal?" Kimeda slumped with an outrush of breath. "You really think you know everything, don't you, Ensign." Morgan shrugged. "I'm young and stupid, it goes with the territory." Kimeda closed her eyes. Righteous outrage was all that had kept her going for far too long in her life. She could admit that, if only to herself. What she could not deal with was what Morgan was telling her, if only indirectly: that there just might have been another way. That was not acceptable. The idea that so much of her life had been a *waste* -- The *breep* of a link was all that saved her. Morgan closed his eyes, looking more irritated than she'd ever seen him, then lifted his hand and tapped the link's receiving stud. "Morgan, go." "Mr. Morgan, report to command office on the double." DeClercq's voice was tense with anticipation and resolve. "We're coordinating for phase two of the retrieval." Morgan's eyes bulged. "Phase *two* -- " He got his squawk under control. "Sir, you *were* watching what happened out there the last time we tried this!" "Practice makes perfect, Ensign. Move." The link was cut. Morgan stared at it in disbelief. "Practice makes perfect," he mumbled. "*Practice?* Like to see *him* practice, *he* wasn't on the flippin' goddamned shuttle - " Still muttering to himself, he whirled and left medbay on the run. Alone in the silent room, Kimeda tightened her arms around herself. She felt cold, and she didn't know why. 15:53 EST COMMAND OFFICE, BRIEFING ROOM Space was at a premium in any starship. Even a room big enough to hold a table for at least ten officers, with the corresponding chairs, was only barely wider than that table - so much so that people had to enter in lines and leave the same way. Ivanova had carefully ushered everyone else in ahead of her and claimed the last seat, nearest the door - which not only turned the foot of the table into the head, it also neatly guaranteed that if *she* needed to leave for any urgent reason, she wouldn't have to wait for anyone else to move. she thought somewhat uncharitably, To her right sat DeClercq; to her left, Braun. Snow and Corelli had taken seats beside the scientist, whether out of conscious watchfulness or because they had been part of the expedition Ivanova couldn't say. Beside Snow, down at the end of the table, Bailey had been dragged in and seated, and she was almost squirming with visible discomfort. On the other side of the table, beside DeClercq, sat Ramirez, Morgan and a third man, Lieutenant Nicholas Takayama - a pilot, like Morgan, he was the assigned flight leader of the Starfury squadrons attached to the *Saint-Germain*. He was not normally part of line command, but the involvement of the flight squadrons had necessitated his involvement in this meeting. A look of boredom was already heavy on his finely handsome Japanese features. Ivanova took her seat and folded her hands on the table before her. "Ms. Bailey, if you would begin by playing your translation." Bailey flushed, fumbled out a data crystal and clicked it into the socket in front of her. "Okay, um, this is the complete translation of the signal, as best we can figure it." Light flickered through the crystal; Bailey touched a key and held it, suspending the warmup. "I should probably mention that this is still theoretical. The accuracy of this translation is unreliable, but certain phrases we're more certain of than others - " She tapped in a series of quick commands on the keyboard by her seat. "The louder and less echoey the words, the more certain we are of it." Ivanova raised an eyebrow, noting that the stammer had faded sharply once the other woman had focused in on her task. Bailey finished her inputting and hit the EXECUTE key. Static flared over hidden speakers, hissed and subsided. The voice that began was the normal, pleasantly sexless voice of the *Saint-Germain*'s main computer. <"We call you. The Shasarai call you."> "Shasarai?" said DeClercq. "We think that's the race's name," said Bailey. <"We call the masters to return to the home. We have lost the art of the song. We sing only to ourselves. The city of the masters no longer hears our song. The - "> The voice abruptly dropped in volume and began to echo slightly. <" - healing devices take life - "> Bailey paused the playback. "The computer suggested 'lifegiving' and 'resurrection' for healing in this phrase, and it also suggested 'cradles' and 'mothers' in place of devices." "Mothers?" said Ramirez. Snow shrugged. "Hey, even where I grew up, some kids had TV for their parents." "The resurrection mothers," said Braun thoughtfully. "Possibly some kind of rejuvenation or revivification creche. Surely a device of infinite value, if we could find a working one." "Provided you're telepathic enough to make it work," said Morgan. Ivanova held up a hand to halt the conversation. "Let's come back to this. Ms. Bailey?" Bailey tapped a key. The playback resumed. <" - take life without giving. The young die. The young die."> The voice grew more solid now, louder. <"We call the masters to save their - "> an echo <" - children - "> "Backup suggestions included 'servants', 'heirs', and 'slaves'," Bailey interjected quietly. <" - from the silence of lost hope."> Strong again, the voice went on. <"Without the song of the masters' voices, we shall all die. Beneath the mighty tower of green fire, we call to you. From the hidden depths beneath the city, we call to you. In the flesh and bone of your living city, we call to you. <"Return. <"Return."> Static hissed and flared and faded out. Bailey tapped a series of commands, then looked up. "We think that particular message is automated or recorded; it's been repeating since we first picked it up without variation. It's possible none of the Sharasai themselves are actually still alive." "Perhaps, but I won't accept that possibility without verification." Ivanova turned to Morgan and Takayama. "Ensign - Lieutenant - what's our maximum atmospheric evacuation capacity?" Morgan looked at Takayama, who conceded the start with a nod. "Well," the ensign began, "between the Thunderbolt Starfuries and the two orbital shuttles we've got room for about a hundred and ten passengers at full seating - that's fifty per shuttle and one per Starfury. We could double that by cramming two people per Thunderbolt gunseat and stuffing the shuttle cargo bays, but needless to say that would break pretty much every safety reg you could think of...." "But could it be done?" Takayama shrugged. "It's only a two-hour flight down and back: the Thunderbolt life-support could handle that easily. I'd have to accelerate carefully, but it shouldn't be any problem." He grinned. "Of course if I had to go into combat or evasive manoeuvring, the extra weight distribution would be beyond gyroscopic compensation limits. She'd handle like a wallowing pig." "Combat, I think, is unlikely," said DeClercq. "We scanned the city after the blast; the explosion seems to have destroyed one of its primary power sources, at least. Energy emissions are down from every building and structure." His voice became quieter. "It's possible the organic structures are breaking down due to lack of energy." "In short," remarked Braun with deadpan malice, "dying." DeClercq took a deep breath. "Yes." "Yes, thank you Doctor, that's quite enough," said Ivanova sourly. She didn't know what was worse - the crew hating DeClercq because they thought he was a coward, or Braun, who hated DeClercq simply because DeClercq was an obstacle. "Lieutenant Corelli, Lieutenant Snow, did anybody from either of your departments detect anything that could be a subterranean entrance?" Corelli shook his head. Snow, however, brightened. "Now that you mention it, Skipper...." From her pocket she took a data crystal of her own and slipped it into the display socket at her seat. A few seconds' typing brought up its contents on a screen at the far end of the room. "Computer, lights to half?" The computer obliged. A transparent schematic of structures became visible: the Vorlon city, outlined in threads of multicoloured light. Snow typed more commands. Several of the skeletal buildings turned white. There was no pattern to their location or shape: some were domes, some towers, some geometric shapes. But beneath all of them, a new shape spread out: a red pattern of irregular ovoid shapes, outlines vague and unfinished. "Geological sonar return suggests that under these buildings are caves," said Snow. Like Bailey, her voice had become flat and precise as she moved into technical terminology. "The pattern of the rock suggests they're at least partly natural, but if they're as big as the sonar indicates the ceiling should have fallen in long ago, so I think there must be something else at work here." "Structural integrity field?" Ivanova suggested. Snow shrugged with a theatrically blank expression. "You got me, Skipper; good a guess as any." "All right." Ivanova put her fist to her mouth, thinking furiously. "All right. Mr. DeClercq, Mr. Ramirez, your assignment is to calculate a firing solution and intensity for the forward guns that will bore us a hole into the largest of those caves from orbit. Mr. Morgan, Mr. Takayama, you will have both shuttles and all Thunderbolts on the ground by the time we're ready to initiate this operation, and all craft will be ready to take off at a moment's notice. Mr. Corelli, you will have your entire platoon and as many shipboard security personnel as you feel you may need ready to begin territory exploration and verification. Your job is to find these people, the Sharasai, and get them out." "So like what do we do, coast?" said Snow. "You and Dr. Braun and your science staff are with Lieutenant Corelli, but your *only* reason for being there is to figure out a way around any obstacles Corelli and the gropos may discover. You're not there for a field expedition, you're not there to set up camp, this is a *rescue* mission. We forgot that last time, and we almost all paid for it." She swept the room with a glare. "Does anyone have any questions?" "Yes," said Braun. "What do you think Earthforce Central will do when they find out you disobeyed their explicit orders?" It was almost absent; Braun wasn't even looking at her. But Ivanova felt the tension lash through the room. Her mouth tightened. "Have you ever read *Faust* in the original German, Doctor?" Braun frowned faintly. "Why... yes, I have." "What did you think of the English translations they used at Rhine University?" "How did you know I went to - " Braun broke off, looking uncomfortable with the evident realization that she must have scanned his records. "I thought they were... imprecise, at best. Flatly incorrect at worst." His eyes narrowed. "Why?" "Because military orders are just like art," Ivanova said in a low, deadly voice. "Everything's in how you interpret the details." Without giving him a chance to answer she looked around at the rest of the room. "You have your orders, people. Go. I want a status report in an hour." She stood, and in reflex the rest of them got up as well. Ivanova moved to the door and stepped out of the way of the others. "Dismissed," she snapped. The officers left the room in silence, intent expressions on their face. Only Braun paused to give her an indecipherable glare; then he, too, was gone. Ivanova rubbed her face. Details. Yes. The covert orders she'd viewed back at Listening Post VC-22, the orders that only Braun, Ramirez and DeClercq knew, had specified their task was to salvage and retrieve alien *technology*. But when the technology was alive in itself, then surely, any life form might count as technology. Even servant races. Ivanova suddenly wondered. What would Earth do with ex-Vorlon servant races? To have any hope of justifying this mission under her orders she had to bring the Sharasai back to *Earth* -- not to the Interstellar Alliance, not to an abandoned world, to *Earth*. But once on Earth there was no way Earthforce could let them leave again. Not without exposing what they were doing. Ivanova let out a breath and sank into her chair. Truth, after all, was malleable. Finding it was one thing. Fighting over who got to make use of it was something else entirely. ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT "Are you... from beyond the Veil?" "No, St. Petersburg. Though in winter it's an honest mistake." <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 20/?? Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 17:46:31 -0400 Instalment 20 of WANDERING STAR. Sorry for the long delay, folks. I just had a slow phase. A big yay for the return of Gareth Williams!!!!! Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 15 - D.F.C. DARKTALON 16:51 EST The helmsdraz ran the ship through one last burst of thruster power - holding the corsair carefully in the planet's shadow, diametrically across from the orbital position of the Earther ship - then let the engines die away. "We have geosynchronous orbit," he announced. "Altitude four hundred and sixty *khasri*, matching velocity." "Hold position," Zarabakh ordered. He turned to Salathek. "Report." The subcommander executed commands on his console, and the main viewscreen shifted from its orbital view to a planetwide schematic. A red dot blinked, indicating the *Darktalon*; directly across from it a green dot showed the location of the Earth vessel. "Our current positioning," said Salathek. "The drop shuttle will follow a trajectory *so*." From the red dot a dashed line shot downwards, sharply angled towards the planet, then levelled out to follow a long, looping arc parallel to the surface and almost directly merged with it. "Altitude can most likely be maintained at under one *khasri* for the journey," said Salathek. "The Hunt will be dropped *here*." A second red dot began to blink on the planet's surface, perhaps half a day's journey from the Vorlon city. "So near?" said Zarabakh. "Pilot Vathkir assures me that the horizon line will make ground sighting impossible," said Salathek. "And the shuttle is a fully stealthed *Shavak*-class raider. The Earther ship's scan window will be minutes at best." Zarabakh smiled, a slow spreading of sharp white teeth. "My compliments, Subcommander. I am pleased." "There is still a risk," cautioned Salathek. "There is *always* risk." Zarabakh shrugged the warning off. "The Hunt will have the advantage of surprise, ferocity and ability. No Earther can fight like a Drazi." He tapped the compad in his chair arm. "Huntleader?" "Khovrath here," said the speaker in response. "Execute." Through the corridors of the *Darktalon*, twenty Drazi raced, gathering combat armour, guns and blades as they ran. In the bowels of the ship, a black shuttlecraft, sleek and sharp, lowered itself into a launch cradle. The pilot ran through his preflight checklist as the Hunt boarded. Khovrath, a giant, green-scaled draz with scars across his skull like dashes of faded yellow paint, was the last to enter. Moving with deceptive slowness, he lowered himself into his acceleration couch and locked himself in. Without a word, he touched a signal button on his chair. The launch bay doors slid back. With a silent *clang* felt through the plates of the hull, the shuttle fell away from the *Darktalon* and dove downwards towards the planet. E.A.S. SAINT-GERMAIN 16:58 EST At the Tac Ops station, Ramirez and DeClercq argued about coherence frequencies and particle strength in a flurry of irritable mutters that sounded, Ivanova thought, exactly like two mechanics grumbling in a shop over how to fix a car. She snorted to herself and crossed her legs, settling back in the command chair. Men. The galaxy over and centuries past, and they didn't change. There was no God but gadgetry, and every man thought himself Its prophet. The bridge door opened. Morgan stepped in, his nose stuck in a datapad, and marched over to the ladder leading down to the command stations without looking where he was going. Ivanova sat up, drawing breath for an alarmed yelp; but before she could get out a syllable Morgan flipped the datapad in his hand, tucked it deftly under one arm, grabbed the railings and slid down the ladder in a single smooth drop. He hit the floor lightly and strode over to her. "Captain." "Mr. Morgan. You do realize you'll eventually break your neck if you keep doing that." "Hm? Oh, the ladder." Morgan grinned at her. "I wouldn't worry, sir, I'm sure someone will kill me out of frustration long before that happens." "Care to quote odds on that?" "No, but I understand there's a pool going among the enlisted." Morgan clicked the datapad back to its first display page and balanced in on the arm of the seat. "Lieutenant Takayama and I have worked out evacuation schedules for up to five thousand possible survivors. Assuming they're humanoid-sized with standard life-support requirements, that's the maximum the *Saint-Germain* can carry for a voyage back to EA space." "And if there's more than five thousand down there?" Morgan shrugged, not smiling. "Then we take who we can, subject to their own choice and your permission. As many children as possible with the minimum necessary adult guardians." Ivanova let out a breath as she examined the schedules. "This could take a few days." Morgan nodded soberly. "On the bright side, sir, at least Lieutenant Snow and Doctor Braun will get their research time." Ivanova scowled at him. "Isn't it illegal to be that optimistic?" "If you say it is, sir." Morgan took back the datapad and scrolled to a new page. "Although if you'd rather hear pessimism, take a look at this." "Ouch." "What's the problem, sir?" Ramirez looked up. "Screening." Ivanova tapped the datapad. "Laden down like this, the Thunderbolts will be well below maximum combat effectiveness. That's fifty percent of our entire fighter force. Our overall defense grid is severely compromised. Once you're finished with your calculations, Ramirez, I want you to recalculate defense formations for our space-only 'Furies." Ramirez opened his mouth, then looked at her no-nonsense expression and evidently thought better of it. "Aye aye, sir." "There's a limit to what recalculation will accomplish," said DeClercq. Ivanova spread her hands. "I'm open to suggestions, Xavier." DeClercq hesitated, then sighed. "And no one wishes more than I do that I had some." He turned back to the console. "Philip and I are nearly finished here anyway." "How much longer will you need?" said Morgan. "About twenty minutes." "Right, then I have to get back up to docking and help the crews prep." Morgan glanced from Ivanova to Koderres, at the helm. "If that's okay with the ladies?" 'Ladies'? Ivanova cleared her throat. "I have a rank, Ensign; I would appreciate it if you used it at least occasionally." Morgan straighted up as if kicked. "Sorry, sir. With the Captain's permission?" He nodded formally. Ivanova gestured in the direction of the door. At a smart military pace, Morgan trotted up the ladder and vanished off the bridge. She watched him leaving. Almost against her will, a tiny smile tugged at her lips. She caught herself with an appalled mental smack and jerked her eyes to the main screen, praying to God she wouldn't blush. Nobody seemed to have noticed. She let herself relax a moment, but the shock faded to be replaced by a horrified confusion. This had to stop. It had to stop *now*. She was not quite so deluded as to believe a simple act of will would suffice to shut down a biochemical response, but she couldn't allow her emotions or judgement to get caught up in that response. Morgan was a member of her *crew*. He was under her *command*. She could *not* allow herself to even *consider* any possibilities in his direction; it was as much a betrayal of the principles of Earthforce as - < -- as what? As defying the chain of command and breaking away from the government of your homeworld? As deliberately assigning a new captain the most fractured and disruptive crew possible? As handing her an untried, alien-based vessel, a secret agenda and an impossible mission?> Ivanova's fist tightened painfully. No. She would find her order within herself, if nowhere else. Let the universe collapse around her, let Earthforce and Earthgov do their worst. She would stay true to her principles. She *would*. The better part of an hour passed before all branches of the mission team reported ready. Ivanova gave the command and watched the main screen as the orbiter shuttles and the Thunderbolts hurtled downwards towards the atmosphere. Part of her itched to be down there, but it was surprisingly easy to subdue. All she had to do was conjure the memory of a wall of fire, slamming face-first into her shuttle, and suddenly she was much less eager to explore. "Projected flight time?" she asked DeClercq abruptly. He checked his board. "Two hours, as before." "Then you have the conn." Ivanova slapped the arms of her chair and stood up. "I'm going to get something to eat. If anything happens I'll be in my cabin." "You're leaving now?" said Ramirez, looking surprised. "Sir?" he hastily added. "Philip, I haven't eaten all day, and nearly getting blown to bits puts an appetite on you. I'm starving." She held up the back of her hand. "You know where to find me." "Aye aye, sir," said DeClercq, quelling Ramirez with a look. "I have the conn. Go have dinner, sir, I'm sure we can hold things down here." She waved a half-salute at him, already on her way to the door. The yeoman they'd assigned her as personal assistant and steward was an older man by the name of Robert Loman, with a round face, a straggly but short greying beard, and competently alert brown eyes. He and Ivanova had quickly reached an understanding: he would stay out of her way unless specifically requested, and she in return never called him "Yeoman Loman". It was as much for her benefit as his, since she had found herself unable to keep a straight face the first time she'd called him that. He took her meal order with a nod and headed off to the commissary, and Ivanova let herself collapse on her chair. Half-idly she turned on her personal desk pad and accessed the planet's astrographic data. By some freak of coincidence, the end of the EST day looked like it would coincide with the planet's own sunset this time around. Ivanova queried the computer. At this latitude, it answered, night would last approximately seven hours of the planet-day's nineteen. Ivanova folded her arms and stared at the deskpad screen. She sighed. No. So long as there might be innocent lives down there, that wasn't an option. Hours could make the difference. Her hand went to her pocket, testing the data crystal still concealed there. With strangely heavy fingers she pulled it out and slid it into the deskpad's scan socket. The planet's image vanished to be replaced by a familiar face. Its hair was a little longer, its features slightly less lined - taken a few years ago, probably - but it was Ulrich Braun, without a doubt. His name and rank ID, the latter with a (RETIRED) appended to it, scrolled briefly across the bottom of the screen. Ivanova picked up the pad's stylus and selected the BIO icon to one side. The icon flashed red. Braun's face abruptly disintegrated in a blur of pixilated static. Ivanova sat up with a jerk. The pad's screen cleared to black; a single word flashed in the centre. RESETTING The padd's opening system overview menu came on line, cursor waiting patiently for keypad or stylus input. Ivanova stared. "Computer, what happened?" she ordered. "Emergency override reset routine executed," said the computer calmly. "Awaiting request." "Scan crystal in socket A!" "Working. Crystal in socket A is blank." "*What?*" She thought furiously. "Computer, diagnostic on crystal in socket A." "Working." Light flickered inside the crystal. Information scrolled down the screen as the computer repeated it aloud. "Crystal in socket A is blank and unformatted. Data traces indicate recent level-seven wipe." Ivanova's brow knotted. Level-seven was as complete a datawipe as you could get, and generally only available to people at her security level or above. "Computer, list source of request for level-seven wipe." "Please clarify." "The wipe you just performed, you stupid - " Ivanova got hold of herself. Yelling at computers only confused them. It was one reason she stuck to keyboard input herself as much as possible. "Computer, display record of most recent commands within the past five minutes. Screen only." The computer obliged. Ivanova scanned through the short list and stopped. There was no record of the wipe command. How -- ? She stared at the screen. She'd *seen* it. Right before her eyes. But the computer had no memory of it. The door slid open and Loman came through with a covered tray. He stopped as he saw the expression on her face. "Captain?" She tapped the table absently. "Put that down and go get a second helping." She hit her link. "Ivanova to Waverly." "Waverly, go." "Matt, are you busy right now?" She could hear the answer in the background hubbub of the mess hall; Waverly's words only bore it out. "I was just gonna eat, Captain, is this important?" "Yes. I'm sending my steward to get you something. Get up to my cabin right away." ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 21/?? Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 15:43:26 -0400 Instalment 21 of WANDERING STAR. Alert readers may have noticed that the instalments are getting shorter and more infrequent. Please be assured that this reflects no intent on my part to give up before I hit the end of the story. I've just had a s**tload of angst on my plate recently of one variety or another. This particular instalment was not quite where I envisioned ending, but I've set myself a minimum of two instalments a month and this was the only way to meet it. Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". WARNING: This particular instalment contains detailed and specific spoilers for "A Spider in the Web". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 16 - 17:13 EST Tiffany Snow was bored, and she knew herself well enough to know that for her, 'bored' equaled 'dangerous'. She, Corelli and Braun sat in the front rank of Shuttle One's passenger cabin; Corelli had closed his eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep - though how anyone could sleep who had seen what they'd seen and were purposely going *back* to she didn't know - and Braun was absorbed in his datapad. Frustratingly, Corelli was between her and Braun, so there was no way she could sneak a peek at the contents of Braun's pad without making it obvious. For the fifth time in as many minutes she checked her link's timekeeping function, just barely repressing the urge to smash it when the computer calmly informed her that it was seventeen-fourteen -- Snow filled in for herself. Abruptly unable to sit still any more, she unbuckled her shock harness and got up, carefully bracing herself against the slanted pull of deceleration and planetary gravity. The floor felt tilted under her feet. Corelli didn't move, but his eyes opened and flicked to her. "Where are you going?" "Anywhere but here," Snow snapped. Braun looked up. "Lieutenant, you *are* aware of the dangers of unsecured movement in an orbital craft." "Yeah, Ulrich, I am, and that's exactly the freakin' point." Braun looked bemused. "I don't understand." "Hey, and how many times have you said *that* in your life?" "Very few, Lieutenant." Snow donned her ditziest grin and let her voice skirl up to a childish pitch. "Well, then, isn't this just a special day for you." Without waiting for an answer she swung away, face collapsing into a scowl, and trudged forward to the cockpit. She wanted to stomp, but movement was too tricky to allow for a good satisfying thump. The last thing she wanted to do was fall on her face in front of Braun. She did allow herself the luxury of punching the cockpit access control with the heel of her hand. The control's acknowledging bleep sounded distinctly startled. The hatch swung back; Snow slid sideways between the control seats and plopped into the copilot's chair with a thud. Reflex made her arms reach up and pull down the shock harness. She wasn't *quite* mad enough to let her tantrum drive her to outright stupidity. Morgan glanced over with a raised eyebrow. "What's up, Lieutenant?" "Isn't there *any* way you can get this fragging plane to move faster?" "Sure, but I have a profound objection to unnecessary risk." Morgan tapped the flightpath display. "After what we went through on the way up, I'm minimizing our heat stress." Snow let out a disgusted sigh. "Gods, I could really use just one decent loop-the-loop. Just to get the adrenaline out." Morgan chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully. "Lieutenant, how long has it been since you've eaten?" "Since - " She actually had to think. "Not since this morning." "Then might I suggest some refueling?" Morgan reached down and popped open a storage compartment, pulled out a couple of foil-wrapped energy bars and tossed one to her. "Trust me, it'll make you feel better." "Maybe I don't want to feel better." Snow stared at the bar in her lap. "Well, that's your prerogative." Morgan tore open his bar and began munching. "Although," he added through a mouthful, "the use of food as a grounding procedure for mental exhaustion is well known in many occult traditions." "Wow," said Snow, drawing the syllable out in mock awe. "Another fascinating thing I could care the hell less about." Morgan blinked at her. "You *are* pissed." "Gee, what *was* your first clue?" Morgan stared at the controls, then tapped in a series of commands; the AUTOPILOT settings engaged with a rippling bleep and flash of lights. He leant back in his couch and swiveled it towards her, folding his arms. "What's wrong, Tiffany?" Snow's irritation collapsed. "Tom, I haven't got the first fragging idea." She lifted her hands and let them fall, ignoring his wince; she knew he hated being called *Tom* but simply couldn't be bothered with the extra syllable. "Nothing. Everything." She hesitated. "Braun." "Ah." There was a pause. Snow looked over at him. "Just how much do you know about NTD, Tom?" "New Technologies Division?" Morgan shrugged. "About as much as anybody at my level, which is to say, not a lot." "I thought as much." For lack of anything else to do with her hands, Snow opened her energy bar and began breaking tiny pieces off, munching on them almost absently. "So try this on for a thought experiment: whadya get when you cross the chaotic brilliance of some of the best scientific minds of humanity with the tightest military security in the Alliance short of Psi Corps?" Morgan's eyes widened. "My first guess would be, a hell of a mess." "Bingo." Snow pointed at him. "Real scientific progress depends on the free exchange of ideas and information. Military efficiency depends on need-to-know only command channels. These are, like, two fundamentally incompatible ideas." "And when you tie in the inevitable leakage of any tight-knit group...." "Pre-fragging-cisely." Snow popped another crumb in her mouth. "You hear things. You don't know what's truth and what isn't. But you hear things. You ever heard of Project Lazarus?" Morgan frowned. "How pompously Biblical. Can't say I have, no." "Before my time, so I don't know much myself." Snow leant forward conspiratorially. "But a certain ex-Colonel who's riding in our shuttle was supposed to be one of the brains behind this. Last big shot at real cybernetic augmentation. True mind-computer synchrony was never possible thanks to the brain's capacity for quantum recalculation - same recursive-energy effect that makes telepathy possible, some of our people were thinking. No computer that could fit in a human biosystem has the complexity needed for a similar effect...." She trailed off, looking at Morgan's bemused expression. "You're not following me, are you." "I got the point, I think, but the technobabble just, whoa." Morgan passed his hand over his head. Snow laughed. He smiled, but let it fade to a serious look. "You're saying they tried one more time to do this." "Yeah." Her amusement vanished. "On clinically dead subjects." "*What?*" "Take a flatlining human. Use a telepath to psionically fixate the conscious mind on the moment of death. Connect a computer to the organic circuits that the memory loop frees up. And then throw the 'on' switch." Snow stared out the viewband at the approaching planetary horizon. The red light of atmosphere friction glowed against her face. "The cybernetics and the autonomous nervous system take over the task of keeping the body alive, and the brain stays just dead enough not to interfere with the computer. But memory and subconscious are still there for computer access and use. Result: a living robot into which you can graft whatever cybernetic augmentations you want." Morgan looked sick. "That's -- *blasphemous*," he finally managed. "Uh huh." Snow nodded with slow irony. "And the man who's supposed to have been in on this, the man who nearly got us all killed earlier today, is the same man sitting behind us in that passenger compartment." Morgan made no answer to this for a while; he stared at his console displays as if holding on to a life preserver. At last he bit his lip. "You don't actually *know* this." "No," Snow admitted. "Not like for-certain for certain. But you know what Damon Runyon said." She wrinkled her nose and did her best Brooklyn accent. "'Da race may not ahways be to da swift, or victory to da strong, but dat's da way ya bet.'" Morgan winced. She wondered if it was in reaction to the sentiment or the accent; she knew it made her voice sound incredibly whiny, but it had been too appropriate to pass up. "So what do you suggest?" he said. "Just, you know, keep your eyes open and your back to the wall around him." Morgan snorted quietly. "Tiffany, I've been doing that with *everyone*." "Even me?" Even as the question left her mouth Snow suddenly realized it wasn't half as joking as she'd meant it to be. "*Especially* you." He gave her a lopsided grin. "Hell, Lieutenant, you're one of the best dissemblers on the ship, aren't you?" "And what about the Captain?" Morgan blinked. "What *about* the Captain?" "Do you watch your back around *her*, too?" Snow snapped. "Or if she told you to fire yourself out the launch bay without a suit, would you wag your tail and do it?" They stared at each other. Morgan looked almost as poleaxed as she felt. "Whoof," he said after a moment. "Where did *that* come from?" His tone tried for lighthearted and didn't quite make it. "How the hell should I know," Snow muttered. She slouched down into her accel couch. "You think just because I'm living this life I know what the hell I'm doing with it?" There was nothing really to say to that, and Morgan, wisely, didn't try. ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 22/?? Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 13:43:02 -0400 Instalment 22 of WANDERING STAR. This instalment is dedicated to AEC ("Infinite Regress", "Intralude") for her unflagging support and counsel during a singularly unpleasant time of my life, which is now, thankfully, more or less over. Instalments will hopefully pick up in frequency now -- though given that I've just started rehearsals for ANYTHING GOES, well, anything goes. Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". WARNING: This particular instalment contains slight spoilers for "Messages from Earth". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 17 - 17:29 EST "Level seven wipe?" "That's what the computer says." "Huh." Waverly leant back and stared at the deskpad. "Well, there's three possibilities I can think of. One, there was a command buried in the datafile itself so that it would self-destruct if it was downloaded by anyone unauthorized." "Do you think that's it?" Ivanova leaned against her desk, arms folded. Waverly revolved in the chair, leant back and cocked one leg over a chair-arm in a graceless sprawl. "Not really. If that's what it was the thing should've gone boom the moment I got it out of Earthdome's files, or when I skimmed it in my datapad. No, it's gotta be in our own system. Either in your terminal or the general mainframe." "Crap," Ivanova muttered. She'd been half-certain of the same answer but had desperately hoped Waverly would be able to suggest an alternative. He hadn't. "This is the last thing we need. I don't suppose there's any chance you can find it right now?" Waverly frowned. "You want me to go through your personal terminal? Completely? Now?" "Your dinner's right there." Ivanova pointed at the second steaming tray Loman had brought up from the mess hall. "And I haven't had that computer long enough for anything embarrassing to go into it." Which was true; her Captain's Logs had so far been a model of brevity and professionalism and, quite frankly, dullness. Much like the logs in her early days on B5, actually. Before the Raghesh 3 incident, and the soul hunter and the Ikarran war machine and Jason Ironheart and.... she thought. Sometimes it was all too easy to forget that the present wasn't *that* much more strenuous than the past had been. Memory's caprices were subtle. "Well? What are you waiting for?" Waverly sighed, sat up, pulled his chair in close to the deskpad and plucked a chunk of meat off his tray. "Gimme some time here," he grumbled. Ivanova sat down across from him, pulled over her own tray and began eating. "Take your time," she said calmly. "Take your time." The stew tasted amazingly good. 18:41 EST In the cockpit of his Thunderbolt, Takayama clicked on the all-units broadcast com. "Attention all wing units," he noted calmly. "We are coming up on final approach leg. Alter course as follows." He banked smoothly to the northeast, feeling the air wash over the foils of the Thunderbolt like treacly ocean currents. It was a very different feel from the weightless freedom of space, but not unpleasant for all that. "Keep it low to the deck, people. Stay with me. Shuttles One and Two, do you copy?" "Shuttle One, copy," said Morgan. "Shuttle Two, copy," said Yves, the jig who was Takayama's second in command in Flight Ops. He sounded a little peeved, which, Takayama supposed, he might well be - normally planning and coordinating an operation like this would have been done with *him* as the second. That Morgan was as proficient a pilot with small craft as he was with Omega or Warlock destroyers didn't matter; he was Helm, not Flight Ops, and had no place here. To make matters worse, Morgan was an ensign, the lowest commissioned officer rank possible, and outranked even by Yves, a lowly lieutenant junior grade. Yet Takayama had followed *Morgan's* lead. To Paul Yves, this was fundamentally intolerable. But Yves hadn't seen Morgan's flight out of the cannon explosion. Takayama had; he'd studied Shuttle One's flight records. And while the natural arrogance of any pilot forbade actually admitting it, Takayama had severe doubts he would have been able to pull off the same feat. He was prepared to extend the young ensign some respect for now. Forest shot away beneath them in rippling blue-green waves, its colour deepening towards the black of night as the sunlight faded from the sky. Already stars were becoming visible above. From behind the flock of craft, the setting sun threw long black shadows on the darkening forest ahead, shadows that flashed across the treetops like racing hawks. With a Dopplering roar of fusion power, the tiny craft hurtled onwards, startling winged creatures out of the trees in furious clouds of protest. On the horizon, a mountain range appeared, sliding up out of the tree-covered plains like sharks's fins surfacing from the ocean. Takayama keyed his com. "Morgan?" "That's them," the ensign's voice came back. The confirmation wasn't really necessary, though. From just beyond the mountain line, a huge column of black, greasy smoke roiled into the night sky, lit from below by the flickering glare of an immense fire. "The deep pass, maybe thirty-three degrees south. Would you like me to lead, sir?" "Negative, Ensign, the shuttles will stay safe at central. Transmit a coordinate highlight to my computers, I'll tell the rest of the flight." "Aye aye, sir." A beat. On Takayama's console, holoprojectors hummed to life and an HUD of laser outlines picked out the pass Morgan had indicated. Takayama tapped in commands with one hand, sharing the signal with the other Starfuries. He switched to the all-flight channel. "This is Skyhopper One to Skyhopper Flight and Shuttles, do you read target vector?" Various affirmatives came in from the other craft. Takayama bared his teeth in what wasn't really a grin. "Then follow me in." He banked again, lining up on the pass, and punched the throttle. The roar of the Thunderbolt's thrusters swelled. G-force pushed him back in his seat as the fighter shot towards the pass. Dying sunlight flashed on duralloy hulls from behind him, and the other craft accelerated to match him. Moving as one, the squadron raced for the gap through the mountains. On a screen never built by human beings, twelve dots of light drew closer together and accelerated towards the jagged graphic of a mountain range. Khovrath growled. "Vathkir," he snapped to the pilot, "time to destination?" "Seven *desrai*, give or take a fraction." Vathkir didn't look up; he was slim for a Drazi, and tended to avoid meeting the gaze of those like Khovrath. They were a civilized species, but the ancient instincts of challenge-and-response were still there. "Too slow. Increase speed." "That will increase detection risk," cautioned Vathkir. "So be it. *Increase speed.*" The scales along the back of Vathkir's neck collapsed - a submission-fear response that might have been a nervous gulp in a human. But it was the only visible form of protest. Without a word his hands moved over the controls. The scream of air over the shuttle's hawklike wings intensified. Like a black arrow loosed at a dragon, the Drazi craft sped onwards over the ocean. Waves and water vapour billowed in its wake. E.A.S. SAINT-GERMAIN 18:50 EST "Captain." Ivanova blinked herself awake. She'd finished her dinner and retired to a seat on the couch, and somewhere in the middle of studying a crew performance report she had, she belatedly realized, dozed off. A faint heat of embarrassment tinted her cheeks. "Yes?" "I'm done." Waverly slouched back in his chair, glowering at the desktop terminal. Ivanova's hopes sank. That expression boded nothing good. "Well?" She got up and went over to the table. Waverly's plate had been pushed to one side, only half-finished, and very cold. He had evidently abandoned it some time ago. Either whatever he'd found had put him off his appetite or he'd simply been too busy to finish, and either way she didn't much like what that suggested. Waverly tapped the screen. "Nothing. I've gone over the central memory core for your terminal from top to bottom. There's nothing there that shouldn't be." He grinned briefly. "'Cept for that 'Warlords of the Galaxy' game." Ivanova cleared her throat. "That is not a game, Mr. Waverly. It's a strategic and tactical skills practice aid." "Uh - yeah, whatever." Waverly shook his head. "But the point is, if there were any hidden commands for the datawipe, they're buried in the mainframe core. Which means they're pretty much impossible to find." "I don't want to hear that word, Matt," Ivanova snapped. Waverly glowered at her. "Christ, Captain, what do you want me to do, lie to you? The central mainframe was built and programmed back at Earth, the commands might be fragging hard-etched into the OCPs for all we know and there would be no fragging way in *hell* to dig 'em out with the software we've got! Not without frying the computer, anyway, and you know what that would mean." "I know, I know." She bit off the acid words that wanted to follow - she had never taken kindly to being lectured - but she couldn't deny his point. A deep-space vessel without a computer was a useless hunk of metal. No human ever born was capable of all the simultaneous calculations and control necessary to maintain life support, reactor balance, thrust output, guidance vector, rotary inertial compensation, spatial tracking, hyperdimensional stress, and the thousand and one other factors that complicated space travel. With a silent groan, Ivanova sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. If the choice was between dealing with the buried landmines of hidden programs, and losing all computer power of *any* sort.... Then she looked up. "Memory." "What?" Waverly looked blank. "You can bury command-level protocols beyond any standard diagnostic program," said Ivanova, "but there's one thing you can't do, and that's make them take up less memory." She stood and began to pace, arms held around her stomach as if keeping herself from flying apart. "If there *are* commands hard-lasered into the optical core processors, then those processor units are going to register with just a little less memory than their records will indicate. I want every single memory cell on this ship scanned and accounted for. You either tell me what's in it or you prove to me it's blank. Do I make myself clear, Officer Waverly? *Everything*." Waverly's expression hovered halfway between bemusement and alarm. "Captain - do you *know* how much memory the computers aboard this ship have?" "I'm sure by the end of this I will. I'm not joking, Matt." She strode over to him and glared straight down at him. "I have enough problems on my plate without worrying about landmines in my ship's computer. Dig them out. Find the compromised processors, replace them with blanks from the ship's stores and back up all the necessary files individually if you have to. I don't care how long it takes, I want them *out*." "Hoookay," said Waverly with a shrug, and rose to leave. He paused at the door. "I just hope you're not expecting instant results." "Sir," Ivanova gritted. "Your superior officer is addressed as 'sir'. You remember that from Basic, I trust, Mr. Waverly?" "Uh, yes, sir, I do." Waverly stiffened to something approximating attention and saluted. "I'll get some people on it right away, sir. But my best estimate is that this'll take at least eight ship-schedule weeks to complete. Probably a lot more." "Noted. Go. --No, stop." Waverly froze in mid-exit. "You mentioned you'd skimmed the file before giving me the data crystal. What did you see?" Looking sheepish, Waverly shoved his hands in his pockets. "That was a few hours ago, Captain, I don't have a photographic memory." "Just whatever you remember." Ivanova motioned impatiently with one hand. Waverly blew out a breath and leant against the door frame, brow furrowed. "Okay, well, he was born in Berlin about 2203 or -04, I forget which." Ivanova blinked. "He's older than he looks." "Tell me about it. He studied at Rhine University; he had a double major in xenobiochemistry and psioneurology. He was married in '32 - " "Married?!" Ivanova's eyebrows shot up. "Didn't last long," said Waverly with a dismissive shrug. "They divorced in '35. No kids, or at least the file didn't mention anything on that - this was about a year after he joined Earthforce. Went into R&D pretty much straight from the get-go and after that I didn't have the clearance to access any of the subfiles." He looked at her, and his eyes were shadowed. "But I'll tell you this, Cap: there were a *lot* of subfiles. A big chunk were filed during the E-M War. And they shot up again just after '53." Memory avalanched down over Ivanova like a flood of ice. Seven years ago. Nine, now. 2253. The first contact of humankind, though nobody knew it at the time, with the most ancient race of all, the progenitors and prophets of chaos, bloodshed, and war. The Shadows. "Captain?" Ivanova forced herself out of the freezing numbness of recollection. Waverly was staring at her with worried eyes. "You okay?" "Fine." "Cap - " "Don't you have a *job* to get started on, Mr. Waverly?!" She'd meant it to be a snapped order, no more; but fear, anger and frustration suddenly erupted halfway through it, and it came out as a furious shout that seemed almost to physically drive the young security chief back a step. Waverly regained his balance and stared at her for a second. Then his expression shifted, not into the chastised meekness Snow or Morgan might have evidenced or DeClercq's closed neutrality, but into a sullen glare. "Yes, *sir*," he snapped in return, saluted with bitter textbook perfection, and strode out. The door whirred shut behind him. Ivanova spun, fell against the wall and slammed her fists back into the duralloy paneling with all her strength. Pain shot through her knuckles. Her breath hissed between her teeth. God *damn* it! Now she not only had to deal with *two* of the scientists who'd helped drag Earth under the Shadows' influence, but she could no longer trust her own central computer, and her inability to control her emotions had just alienated the one person in her crew she might need more than any other. What the hell *else* could go wrong? As if in sadistic answer, her link bleeped. Ivanova took two shuddering breaths, trying to get her voice under control, and slapped it. "*What?!*" she shouted at it. One instant's pause. Then a deep, precisely-accented voice spoke, as smooth and untroubled as if her response had been perfect protocol. "Captain, this is Commander DeClercq. The rescue party's about to touch down. I thought you would like to be on the bridge." There was no hint of any curiosity or surprise in his words at all. And that by itself was enough to tell her he was going to demand a full explanation from her the moment he got her alone. Strangely, the thought made her feel better. She took a last deep breath and answered. "Thank you, Commander." "You're welcome, Captain." She felt a distant surprise the link circuits hadn't blown with the weight of the things left unsaid. ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 23/?? Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 18:49:51 -0400 Instalment 23 of WANDERING STAR. This instalment is dedicated to the Yorkminstrels, the community theatre troupe of North York, Ontario. Check out their website at: http://www.geocities.com/ Broadway/7237/. This instalment is also dedicated to Julia Watkins for being an unflagging source of feedback and inspiration. Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 18 - 19:05 EST Beneath Corelli's feet, the white stone of the landing area had been cracked, blistered and warped by the fury of the explosion. In the heart of the city, fires still burned, some tainted with strange chemical colours: blue, green, violet. The white stone threw the light back up in their faces in crazed, broken shimmers; that light in turn refracted from the duralloy hulls of the shuttles and starfighters in silent ricochets of brilliance. Waves of heat eddied over them from the blast site. Through the chaos of heat, fire and sound, the groundpounders moved like rainbow-hued phantoms, silent beneath the ongoing roar of the all-consuming flames, seeming to flit over an ocean of fractured light. Smoke boiled above them, hiding the night sky. As he led the platoon in a swift pounding run towards the city, Corelli had to repress a superstitious shiver. This might not be Hell, but it was close enough that he never wanted to see the real thing. The Claymores passed the columns guarding the main highway and continued down the central boulevard, dodging rubble scattered by the blast. Black streaks and ripples of carbonization scored every building in sight. Many of the structures had lost the peculiar sheen they'd seen earlier, fading and dulling like leaves in autumn. A nauseating stench like burned hair washed into Corelli's lungs, and he gagged. "Biomasks!" he shouted. Moving as one, the platoon lifted their masks from the compact filtration units they wore on their belts, slung them over their helmets and slotted them into position. Polarized visors slid down from the helmets, locking into the masks. The broken-rainbow fires of the city vanished into a sharper, clearer, monochrome outline as Corelli's UV scopes switched on. He took a deep breath, savouring the clean air. Van der Rhies' voice crackled in his ear through the helmet's link. "Suggest we move to establish perimeter sensors, sir." Corelli nodded. "Acknowledged." He tapped his belt-control unit and switched channels. "Corelli to platoon. Time to go roaming, people; I want a five-kilometre-radius tacnet established within the next thirty minutes. Each of you has a HUD map of the city with your target structure highlighted. Once Sergeant-Major van der Rhies signals a secure tacnet perimeter, everyone is to scatter to their target, plant the homing beacons and return here. No slackers, people! I want you all back here by nineteen thirty-seven *exactly* or I will personally kick your asses all the way back to Earth! Clear?" "CLEAR, SIR!" It was a unified shout. Corelli grinned. One by one the soldiers peeled off in wide, arcing runs. Each of them readied small AV-EM sensors as they ran, moving towards a preset target area throughout the ruined streets. As the last of them left his side, Corelli slowed, looking for his own target. Out of the smoke reared an obelisk of polished stone, black, gleaming, unmarked by shrapnel impacts. Corelli sprinted towards it, van der Rhies at his side. The giant sergeant unslung his core tracking unit as he ran and braked to a skidding stop already kneeling down. Corelli slapped the obelisk to bring himself to a halt and dropped to a squat beside him. From his belt he snatched several data crystals and slotted them one by one into sockets on the side of the unit. Van der Rhies flicked switches and slid controls. A screen atop the unit came alight, throwing its own brand of eerie light into the hellish scape. It played over the mirrored visages of the gropos' helmets like ghostfire. On the screen, a dot of white light blinked into being. Green lines spread out from it as the AV-EM sensor it signified came on line, recording information and matching it against scan maps contained in the data crystals, constructing a tactical map and signal field through which nothing could pass without being seen and recorded. More dots ignited, map lines blossoming from them, as the Claymores spread throughout the ruined streets and planted their sensors. The map grew smoothly. Corelli felt a warm rush of pride through his chest and stomach. *Damn*, but his people were good. Van der Rhies tapped the screen. "Check this out, sir." His fingers traced the outline of a ragged arc developing in the corner of the display. "That's one awfully sharp blast perimeter for the size." "I know." Corelli tagged the nearest sensor and accessed its log, then opened a link to its depositor. "Corelli to Klein." "This is Klein. Go ahead, L-T." "You put your sensor near the border of the blast zone." "Ten-four." "Can you take a scan on the blast area? Link your scanner to the home unit." "Sir yes sir, give me a minute here - " Klein left the link open and muttered under his breath. "...come on, you piece of junk - ah." The screen display switched over. "Are you seeing this, sir?" Corelli and van der Rhies leaned over the display, eyes wide. Klein stood at the edge of the blast zone, moving his head in a slow sweep to cover as much area as he could with his helm-camera. The image panned slowly from left to right. In its periphery they could barely see the same hellish scape that was around them now: broken buildings, alien fires and smoke-clogged darkness. But ahead there was - -- nothing. The explosion of the particle cannon had torn matter apart on a molecular level. What seethed and glowed out there with feverish, rotten heat was a soup of undifferentiated particles, as if the city's core had melted into a thick, organic magma of black and gold. The air warped and rippled above it with heat-distortion. Corelli thought. With deliberate roughness, shaking himself out of his trance, he reached up and switched his link channel. "Corelli to Snow!" "This is Snow, go ahead," came the voice, flat with electronic distortion and intensity. "We're gonna feed you a visual of the blast area," Corelli said, typing the transfer codes into the scan unit. "We'll be echoing the feed to the *Saint-Germain*'s central computer. Can you tell us what we're looking at? Any kind of proximity danger?" Snow sounded puzzled. "We did all the standard scans on the way down, Lieutenant. What's the big deal?" Corelli snorted. It wasn't a laugh. "Trust me, Lieutenant. *Nothing* about this situation is standard." E.A.S. SAINT-GERMAIN 19:17 EST The main screen flickered and changed. Hellish red-gold light bathed the bridge in an aura the colour of flame. Ivanova stood, slowly, with no conscious decision at all. "Dear God," she whispered. DeClercq cleared his throat. "Technician Enfield. Are we receiving Lieutenant Corelli's scan information?" "What?" "*Are we receiving Lieutenant Corelli's scan information?*" It wasn't a shout but it was close enough to jolt everyone, even Ivanova. She spun to see Enfield, his sallow features flushed with shock and mortification, working furiously at his board. DeClercq glowered round at the rest of the bridge; the crew had all bent to their stations, none of them quite meeting the eyes of their commanding officers. Ivanova felt a strange impulse to laugh. It died as she watched Enfield. The initial burst of motion slowed; the technician stared at his screens and displays as if they had begun to speak in a foreign language. Periodically his lips moved, shaping words he didn't seem to have enough breath for. "Well, Mr. Enfield?" said DeClercq. Enfield looked up. The red-gold light gave a strange, almost alien sheen to his brown eyes. "IR's off the scale. Waves of erratic microwave bursts, some high-end EM radiation - I've got gamma, alpha, X-rays -- some really weird gravity shifts - " He swallowed. "Between the Vorlon fields and our own pulse blasts, I think we've caused a major particle collapse down there. It's like - " He looked around, as if the words hid in the shadows of the bridge. "It's as if the strong and weak nuclear forces have become destabilized; the atoms and molecules down there are combining, collapsing and recombining in all sorts of unpredictable waves." "Is there any danger?" said Ivanova. Enfield raised his hands helplessly. "I don't think so, Captain, but I've never seen anything like this before!" He hesitated. "If I'm interpreting the sensors right, none of the nuclear or subnuclear reactions is going to last long enough to generate any kind of harmful radiation for now, but - " "For now?" DeClercq pounced on the words. "The nuclear binding forces might only be temporarily disrupted. If they restabilize spontaneously anything could happen." Sweat shone on Enfield's brow. He flipped through displays with frantic speed. "The whole mass might just solidify harmlessly, we could start getting lethal bursts of X-rays or gamma rays, there might be another explosive reaction -- *I don't know!*" He sucked in a trembling breath. "Sir." "Is there any indication that this *is* happening?" Curiously, Ivanova felt calmer than she had in a while. This was a physical, tangible threat. It was something they could deal with, something they could take feasible precautions against. Her pulse steadied. "Um...." Enfield ran through his displays again. "Not yet. Nothing specific." "All right. Program in a set of danger criteria and set up an alarm protocol if any hazardous levels of radiation or heat are passed." She turned. "Mr. Ramirez, I assume you have a variety of target sites?" The Tac Ops officer nodded. "Yes, sir." "Pick the one farthest away from the central disruption. We don't know how deep that matter breakdown goes, I don't want to collapse the whole valley when we bore our way in." "Aye aye, sir." Ramirez swung back to his screen, tapped in a few swift commands and brought up a schematic of the city. Details filled the display out as she watched: Corelli's tacnet data, still coming in. "This is the most distant site - " He indicated a red-shaded area under the city's outskirts, on the opposite side from the landing zone. "Spectrographic data suggests it's the deepest, too. We'll have to sustain the burn longest." "Understood. Recalibrate your power solution for that eventuality." She switched link channels once again. "Ensign Morgan, this is the Captain." "Morgan, go." "Lieutenant-Commander Ramirez will be transmitting his firing solution for the target site to you," she said. "You may have to do another emergency retrieval. I want you to work with Lieutenants Takayama and Yves on pre-plotting as much of that as you can." "Understood, sir, but I have to warn you that won't be much." Ivanova raised her eyebrows. "You mean you didn't know what you were doing last time?" she said in her best deadpan. "Ensign, I'm shocked and disappointed." "Sorry, sir, I'll try to make *this* life-saving last-minute impossible escape a little smoother." Morgan's deadpan matched her own. Ivanova's mouth twitched in a smile. "Just be careful." Her smile faded; she switched to the general ground channel and raised her voice, though it wasn't strictly necessary. "All of you on the ground - be careful. We can't afford to lose any of you." Without waiting for an answer she clicked off. DeClercq moved to her side. The red-gold light of the screen's display lent a hint of colour to the rich darkness of his skin; he seemed almost to be carved from living ebony in the radiance. "That was well done," he murmured to her. Ivanova blinked at him. "What?" "There are captains who never think to encourage their people, you know." DeClercq's lips barely moved. His voice was quiet enough that Ivanova knew nobody else, not even Ramirez, could hear it. "Captains who have as little to do with the enlisted as possible. But you cannot feel true loyalty for something you don't really know." "Xavier - " Susan didn't know, for a moment, what she wanted to say. Out of reflex she kept her voice as quiet as his. "Xavier, I trust the professional commitment of these people. I don't need to worry about their loyalty." A flare of irritation flickered over her features. "What do you think I am, a manipulator? You think I want to control these people like a puppet master?" "No! No." He looked at her, sidelong and steady. "But there is loyalty of the mind, and loyalty of the heart, and the Captain who wins both...." He let the sentence trail off in a faint smile. Bitterness twisted somewhere in Ivanova's chest. "How are you supposed to win the loyalty of something you don't understand any more?" she rasped. "Being who you are is a good start." Ivanova closed her eyes and took a breath. "Thank you, Xavier," she finally whispered. "No, Captain." DeClercq's face was impassive now, but the smile lingered in his voice. "Thank *you.*" ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 24/?? Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:55:00 -0500 Instalment 24 of WANDERING STAR. Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 19 - 19:31 EST VORLON HABITAT "Tacnet up and running, sir." Van der Rhies gave Corelli a thumbs-up signal. "All right." Corelli activated the all-hands channel. "Claymores, this is the Lieutenant. We've got a new directive from Captain Ivanova. All targeting beacons are *recalled*, I repeat, all targeting beacons are recalled, with one exception. Target Site 3 is still a go, repeat, Target Site 3 only is go." He glanced at the tacnet display. "Burns, that's your site." "Affirmative, L-T," came Burns' voice over the link. He could hear her breathing steadily, and there was a faint sound in the background: the noise of boots striking uneven ground in a swift, balanced lope. On the tacnet screen, the blip that represented the young corporal was moving towards the red circle of Site 3 at a steady clip. "Time to mission accomplish?" "Estimate - " a brief pause - "ten minutes to plant and get clear, sir." "Acknowledged. Link in when you're clear. Corelli out." The lieutenant sat back and glanced around. His UV-enhanced helmet sensors showed him a blue-grey hellscape. Smoke washed across the ruined city like blood in water. Hot winds howled through the shattered structures. He shuddered. "Not a pretty sight, eh, sir?" said van der Rhies. Corelli eyed his platoon sergeant. "You seem awfully calm." Van der Rhies shrugged. "Nothing's shot at us personally yet, sir. So far it's all been large-scale auto defenses. I'll get worried when we meet whoever's sending this distress call." Corelli considered the other man's words. "You're not convinced it *is* a distress call." Van der Rhies scowled. "Let's just say I have a tough time believing they could figure out how to operate a tachyon broadcast system and not be able to deactivate the weapons." "The Captain wants us to rescue these people, Sergeant." "Well, you can't always get what you want, sir." Corelli hesitated. Some officers liked to encourage free speech in their subordinates. He didn't. Too often it became defiance and disunity, which was fine under ordinary circumstances but was death for a combat-line unit. Any of his people who talked this way he would normally have cut off at the knees with a blistering rebuke. Everyone was entitled to their opinions, but combat was not about opinions: it was about obeying orders. Promptly. Fully. Without reservation or second-guessing. And van der Rhies *knew* that. So if he had spoken now against direct orders - even in such a hinting and indirect way as he had - then he considered his concerns serious enough to warrant such expression. In another man that might have been arrogance or ignorance. In Christopher van der Rhies, with whom Corelli had worked for nearly two years, it was a warning signal as clear and terrifying as a full-volume klaxon alarm. Unfortunately, they didn't have much in the way of alternatives. He was saved from having to reply by the appearance of the first returning soldier, a lithely moving shape that seemed to materialize, ghostlike, out of the smoky darkness. Silently he raised an arm and signaled. The runner signaled back and sprinted up to join them. He flipped his visor, squinting at them in the dimness: it was Klein. They exchanged crisp salutes. "Any other movement, sir?" "No." Corelli looked around as, one by one, the other troops began appearing out of the night. Each saluted as they rejoined the platoon. They didn't give their names; Corelli didn't need them. He could have identified each and every man or woman under his command by the sound of their walk alone. By the time they had finished gathering there was only one missing. Van der Rhies tapped his link. "Burns. Time to accomplish?" "Estimate - " Burns' voice was a little more breathless now - "five minutes." "Good. Don't slow down." SHUTTLE ONE 19:38 EST "There." Morgan highlighted one section of the screen display with his light-pen, drawing a circle of pixels around it. Snow knew the other screens of the flight, both in the Thunderbolts and in Shuttle Two, were echoing it. "That's our landing site." He tapped it with the stylus. It was a narrow, high-walled valley leading into the wider, shallower bowl containing the main city, maybe half a kilometre from the selected drilling site. "That?" Over the link speaker, Yves' slightly French-accented voice was acid with disbelief. "That valley floor is nothing but loose scree! You will raise a sandstorm like Hell itself if you bring us down on VTOL there! Even assuming we can fit the shuttles into the vale to begin with." "You've got a better suggestion, Paul?" interrupted Takayama. The link was silent. Morgan took the pause as permission to go on. "Lieutenant Yves, sir, I know it's not much of a site but it's the best possibility in the area. And even if we do kick up a cloud or two, that might just be to our benefit. It would certainly be an extra layer of concealment." "Which will do us no good if we ruin our engines." "There is that possibility, sir." Morgan didn't hesitate or allow his voice to waver. Snow had to give him points for guts. "Paul, if we need to use it then we will be in a great deal of danger regardless, and I see no better alternative." Takayama's voice held the clipped certainty of command. "All flight units, mark coordinates 3A15 by 4C29 into your plotting computers as LZ-Beta. If we have to abandon LZ-Alpha we will regroup and touch down there." "Shuttle One acknowledge, aye aye," said Morgan. "Out." He began to type with furious speed, programming the coordinates of the valley into the shuttle's autopilot. In the copilot's seat, Snow drummed her fingers on the console in frustration. "This is even worse than the freakin' flight. At least we were moving." "Be at ease, Lieutenant Snow." She stiffened at the voice, but Braun didn't appear to notice. He leant between the seats and stared out the shuttle's viewport into the flame-threaded darkness, eyes distant and intent. "Amazing," he whispered. "Have you perused the results of the detonation, Lieutenant? The matter breakdown in the central blast zone?" "Yeah, actually, I did." Snow didn't look up. She could see his reflection, in the plexicrys of the viewport, turn to look at her. "Fascinating, was it not?" "I think the word you want is 'terrifying', Ulrich." "Is there a difference?" Braun regarded her with a raised eyebrow; it made him look indefinably amused, though his mouth remained even and his gaze flat. "That which we fear has always been most fascinating to us. Witness - " he gestured around the cockpit - "this entire expedition." "There's fear and there's fear," muttered Snow, but she was unable to put much effort into it. Self-hatred rippled through her. Despite everything she wanted to feel - she would have said or denied anything rather than admit for a moment that she agreed with Braun at all -- she knew that her own response had been much the same as his: an intense fascination, almost a delight in the sheer surprise of it. It was only on reflection, and on listening to Ivanova's cautions, that the reality became apparent. They had unleashed something that might yet kill them all. She had thought herself well inured to fear. There was the old dread of people who would hate her for one reason or another, some for her past as a Green Moon, some for her present as an Earthforce scientist, some simply because she was beautiful and brilliant and uncompromising. There was the nervousness of authority, the wariness all scientists developed for the military chains of command whose ways were as mysterious as God's, sometimes. And there was the honest physical fear of dangerous experiments, though that was always mitigated by the anticipation of success. None of it had prepared her for this. Until the way was opened, and she and Braun could go in to find the Sharasai, she was utterly useless. Her life was in the hands of Morgan and Takayama and Corelli, and if the seething chaos at the heart of the destroyed city chose to erupt in another spontaneous cataclysm, there was absolutely nothing she could do. And it could happen, at any time, for any reason or none. She might not even have time to realize she was about to die. Snow could handle the idea of dying. What she couldn't stand was not *knowing*. And the sheer helplessness of that ignorance was more terrifying than any runaway fusion reactor could ever be. If Braun felt anything like that fear, it didn't show. She could barely remember his cry of panic as the Vorlon cannon had brightened towards ignition, that first time. Now he watched the city with eyes as avid as if that had never happened. Snow stared at him. "You still think we're gonna find something, don't you?" she asked abruptly. "I *know* we will find something," Braun answered after a moment. He didn't look at her as he spoke. "I simply do not know what it will be. The shards of these structures would be a useful beginning, if nothing else." "Great. So go out and grab a few, why don't you?" Before Braun could respond Morgan sat up, slapped his hand on the console and glared at them both. "Don't you *either* of you leave this shuttle until Corelli gives the all-clear, you hear me?!" He pointed at them. "I'm serious, sirs, I will quite cheerfully stun you and tie you down if you go out there a moment before it's safe." Tiffany raised her eyebrows. "Sheez, Tom, lighten up. It was a joke." She thought. "Sorta." Braun eyed her as if unsure of her sanity. "Lieutenant - you *are* aware that you outrank Mr. Morgan, are you not?" "Yeah, so?" "Is there not a passage in the Articles of Duty about insubordination?" "Prob'ly. What's your point?" "My point is that you could have Mr. Morgan court-martialled for the way he just spoke to you!" Braun's pale face flushed; his eyes glittered. Tiffany stared at him. "Is this the kind of sloppiness you've been encouraging in the engine room? On the bridge when I'm not there? What kind of starship are you operating, Lieutenant?!" "A different one from yours, 'cause you ain't operating any," Snow snapped. "Now sit down and *shut up.*" For half a second a furious play of emotions flashed through Braun's face and eyes, like sunlight shattering on an incoming tide. Then, without warning, his face went blank. With great calm, as if he had never even heard of the concept of anger, he sat down in the third acceleration chair, folded his arms, and gazed serenely out the viewport. Snow blinked. She looked at Morgan, but the ensign had stopped moving: he was watching Braun with the air of someone who had just seen a cobra slithering out of a hole and was about to back away with very slow and careful quiet. Fear twisted into a new shape within her. The console link trilled. Snow was unable to control the sudden jerk of her body or the tiny yelp she let out. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Morgan start as well. It didn't make her feel much better, but it helped. Braun didn't react at all. Morgan stabbed at the console. "Shuttle One, go." "This is Corelli," crackled the link. "Targeting beacon placed, I repeat, targeting beacon is placed. All ground craft polarize sensors, brace for impact." The static became louder, more violent. "Corelli to *Saint-Germain.*" "*Saint-Germain,*" said Ivanova's voice, likewise static-distorted. "Go." "Targeting beacon is placed, all personnel clear of impact site. Go-NoGo Beta point, on your command." "Beta Point Go," Ivanova answered sharply. "Initiating countdown. Orbital blasting will begin in two minutes on my mark. All units synchronize." Morgan tapped further keys, then paused, hand above a final keystroke. "*Mark!*" Morgan punched the keyboard. On one of the screens a display came alight: 2:00; 1:59; 1:58; 1:57. The link crackled again. "Corelli, get your people out of there. Go, now!" The concern in Ivanova's voice made the order sound strangely like a plea. "Trust us, sir, we weren't waiting." Even through the static, they heard the dryness in Corelli's reply. Snow found herself repressing a startling urge to snicker. Morgan adjusted more controls on the console. Electrostatic fields played through the plexicrys of the viewport; molecular valences shifted, and the transparent material began to darken, fading down through smoke-blue to charcoal almost to black. Their three reflections became clear and sharp, though still faint: a young, slender man of elfin appearance; a beautiful woman with shadowed, glittering eyes; a tall man, skull frosted white, eyes barely darker. All gazing into infinite distance, with expressions of unreadable intensity. Like ghosts, thought Snow. Or vampires. The countdown clock ticked relentlessly on. E.A.S. SAINT-GERMAIN 19:39:44 EST "Blasting in one minute," reported Ramirez, his voice taut with an almost sexual intensity. thought Ivanova. But she couldn't shake the tension herself. This whole operation was a massive risk: that there wasn't enough power left in the dying city for further anti-ship fire; that the cannon beams wouldn't collapse the caverns underneath and kill the people they were trying to rescue; that the people they found would understand that it *was* a rescue, not an attack, and not fight back.... Ivanova clenched her jaw. No. There was no other way to do this that wasn't an absolutely unacceptable risk to her people. Not that this was safe, either... but it was the best they could do for now. "Thirty-second mark, Go-NoGo Point Omega," said Ramirez, turning to look at her. "Captain?" His hand hovered above the cutoff key. Last chance. Ivanova took a deep breath. "Point Omega Go." "Point Omega Go," replied Ramirez, already turning back. He entered the final adjustments on his panel. The *Saint-Germain* had swung into firing position again, facing the planet like a hammer suspended high above the nightscape. "Twenty seconds." Ivanova's hands tightened on the arms of her command chair. "Fifteen." She shot a look at DeClercq. The Commander only nodded with a look of grim determination. It shouldn't have been reassuring, but somehow it was, at least a little. "Ten." A pin could have been heard dropping to the deck-grid. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One." Ramirez' hand moved. The key beneath it closed with a *click*. "Firing." SHAVAK-CLASS ASSAULT SHUTTLE 19:40:45 EST "*Sfakrah!*" Khovrath's head flashed up, alert, at the pilot's oath. He leaned forward. "Vathkir! Report!" The pilot swept a clawed hand over his sensors. "The Earthers have turned their weapons on the city! At these power levels they will eradicate the site within - wait." Khovrath's fists clenched and unclenched, the claws flexing in their sockets. "No." Vathkir watched his sensor readouts. Gradually, a toothy grin spread over his face. Khovrath felt the scales along the back of his neck ripple in response. "They are not destroying anything. The coordinates of the beam are fixed, and the burn is sustained." Khovrath scowled. "Then what are they *doing*? And why do you look so happy about it?" "They are *drilling*, Huntleader." Vathkir turned to the larger draz and actually met his eyes, still grinning. "And the ionic energy the beam is giving off is further disrupting atmospheric patterns over the city. If they sustain the beam only a few seconds more, they will generate a storm of such ferocity our final approach will be effectively invisible." "Harrrrrrr." Khovrath drew back his lips in something that was half smile, half snarl. "If we accelerate to maximum, how swiftly can we get there?" "Within the *desra*, Huntleader." "And the storm will cover us?" "It will change the scan window, but yes, the storm will cover us on the final approach. Even if they see us approaching they cannot know where we will land - and they must beat our stealthing to see us at all." Khovrath's blood raced with risk and anticipation. "Then execute!" Vathkir activated the shuttle's internal broadcast and snarled a warning of acceleration. Even as he did so his talons flashed over the controls. The scream of the shuttle's engines skyrocketed; Khovrath fell back in his seat against the giant force on his chest. But it could not wipe out his grin. The assault shuttle tore the sky apart as it hurtled on towards the Earthers. VORLON HABITAT 19:41:00 In the shelter of an unbroken dome, Corelli and the gropos watched in awe as the titanic blue pillar of fire and lightning played over the target site. Its actinic radiance brought an electric daylight to the city. Smoke and wind howled around the column of nuclear fury, spiraling in on it in tornadolike bursts that fell apart as the beam's heat shoved the air back out. Lightning had begun to flash and hiss from cloud to cloud. Vapourized earth and stone and matter billowed skyward from the base of the beam. They could feel the heat in the air, sweeping over them in waves. The ground vibrated under their feet with the rage of annihilation. Almost but not quite unconsciously, Corelli made the sign of the cross. "*Sancta Maria, Matria Dei*," he breathed. Van der Rhies was less eloquent. "Son of a fragging *bitch*!" he shouted. "Will you *look* at that!" Burns crouched over the tacnet control unit. Half its sensors had been destroyed in the first burst of power from the *Saint-Germain*, but enough remained on line to give them a view of what was happening. "Hundred metres depth!" she called. "Hundred twenty-five! Hundred-fifty! Hundred seventy-five! Two hundred metres!" "How deep does it *go*?" Corelli bellowed. "Estimate three hundred!" Burns shouted back. "Two-fifty! Two-seventy-five! Three hundred! Three hundred twent - *that's it!* Sonar returns are clear! *They're through!*" Corelli waved acknowledgement and triggered a preset signal on his link. The beam vanished. The night crashed back down on them, lit only by hissing flares of lightning. Corelli signaled to the team, and they caught up their weapons and gear and hastened to his side. "Corelli to Shuttle One! Lieutenant Snow, you hear me?" "Loud and clear!" Snow's voice brimmed with sudden excitement. "You and Dr. Braun meet us at the target site ay-ess-ay-pee! We are going in!" He shut off the link and steadied his breathing. "God help us all, we're going in," he whispered. ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> From: Stephen Barringer Subject: WANDERING STAR 25/?? Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1998 17:31:29 -0500 Instalment 25 of WANDERING STAR. This instalment was written in part to the mental recollection of the soundtrack to Alex Proyas' DARK CITY, and inspired somewhat by my recent reviewing of THE X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE. (Who else out there thought the Season 6 premier left a little something to be desired? Wake up and smell the *coffee*, Scully!) It's occurred to me that some may be getting a little fed up by the comparative paucity of usual B5 elements... I apologize for this but the story's taken its own path. Once Part II is over and we begin Part III, SHADOW GAMBITS, there should be a little more familiar territory. Feedback is welcomed; constructive criticism is welcomed; flames will be extinguished in creative bodily fashion. <><><><><><><><><><> BOILERPLATE <><><><><><><><><><><><> 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 entertainment. All other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, nonprofit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) SPOILERS: Much of Fourth/Fifth Seasons, from "Between the Darkness and the Light" up to "A View From the Gallery". <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> << W A N D E R I N G S T A R >> PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 20 - 20:10 EST In the half-hour it took Snow and Braun to make their way to the target site, the ionized and tortured clouds finally tore open. Rain came thundering down over the ruined streets, filling the air with a hot wet stench of carbonized organics. By the time the two scientists had reached the cracked tower at which Corelli and the Claymores had gathered they were both soaked to the skin. As she slipped and stumbled across the broken ground towards the tower, Snow bit back on an urge to wail like a five-year-old. She *hated* getting wet. She hated rain, she hated wrenching her ankle like she'd almost done half-a-dozen times, she hated Braun, she *really* hated the way Braun gazed serenely ahead as if nothing could bother him, she was beginning to hate this entire goddam city and she was coming dangerously close to hating everyone on the goddam *Saint-Germain* all the way from the infuriatingly cheerful Morgan right up to their oh-so-self-punishing Commander and Captain, Then she saw past the tower to the opening in the ground, and all her petulance and discomfort blew away in a wind of wonder. The hole itself, over four metres wide and black and depthless as space, sat at the bottom of a steep-sided pit. A ring of rippling stone surrounded the pit, nearly ten metres high: the detritus of the bore, blown clear and fused to rock by the energy of the beam. Smoke and steam still drifted from its inner slopes. It looked like the crater of a fledgeling volcano. Strands of polyfibre cable - minuscule lines of polymer with the holding strength of inch-thick rope - ran over the edge of the ring into the hole at the pit's centre; their far ends were attached firmly to pitons embedded in the tower wall. Around the cables, the gropos fussed with pulleys and rappelling gear. Corelli broke off from the group and sprinted to meet them. He didn't salute - Snow was a Space Service officer and Braun was no longer in Earthforce - but there was an almost grudging respect in his eyes as he looked at them. "You're really going to do this." Giddy exhilaration took Snow from nowhere and spread a lunatic grin over her face. "Hell fragging *yes* we are!" "We?" Corelli looked pointedly at Braun. "I will do whatever is necessary, Lieutenant." How he managed to speak so clearly over the storm without sounding like he was shouting, Snow would never know. "You may rest assured of that." "Yes, I do, that's what scares me." Braun frowned, but Corelli turned away before he could answer. Snow hastened to follow. Silently, Braun came behind as the three of them moved over to the edge of the pit. Van der Rhies, Burns, Klein and four other soldiers stood there, waiting in an at-ease posture. They had already donned the slim harnesses that hooked them to the cables; at their belt was the magnetic lock that controlled the sliding pulley. Two more gropos waited with empty harnesses in their hands. The implication was obvious. Without asking Snow went to one of them and turned around; the soldier buckled her in with quick, efficient movements. In equal silence, Braun did the same. Corelli touched the unit on his belt. "The controls are simple," he shouted over the noise of the storm. "This sliding switch controls the strength of the gripping field. The farther forward you slide it, the stronger the field, the more slowly you move. Take it all the way back, you're in freefall. If you slide it all the way forward, you can push down - " he demonstrated - "and lock it into place; that locks *you* in place. Clear?" "Clear," said Snow. Braun only nodded. "Okay." Corelli looked at them one more time, as if to memorize their faces. "Then let's get moving." He turned. "Sergeant-Major van der Rhies!" "Pla-TOON, form HUP!" bellowed the Sergeant-Major. "BY squad! First through Fifth, in order! Sixth Squad, confirm anchors!" "Confirmed, *sir!*" shouted the soldiers by the tower base, as the others gathered together in groups of six. Burns and Klein and the four already-harnessed troopers turned, grabbed the heavy packs of equipment at their feet, and began to scramble up the steep slope of the crater wall. Their slung PPG rifles bounced against their hips. Below, the second squad donned their harnesses. Corelli beckoned Snow and Braun. "You two, the Sergeant-Major and I will be going after the second squad," he ordered. He led them to the cables and, while the first squad disappeared over the edge and the second squad raced up after them, hooked all four of them on in four neat movements. "Keep it unlocked until we're at the edge and then slide it to the halfway point. Come on - " Without warning he was clambering up the slope, van der Rhies beside him, and somehow Snow was following him at the best speed she could, Braun silent and brooding beside her, the cable sliding past her and tugging on her hip, the rock slick and wet and hot and hard under her fingers and the rain hammering coldly on her neck and shoulders. They crested the edge. "Halfway!" snapped Corelli. Snow's fingers moved without her volition, engaging the mag-grapple. The black void at the centre of the pit pulled at her, hungry, tantalizing. It was almost impossible to turn around, but she did it, leaning back. Gravity pulled her down; she backed down the inside slope towards the hole, her boots finding footholds with blind certainty. "Let the cable go," said Corelli. "Bounce with the fall, kick off with your legs. *Don't* grab the cable itself, you'll burn your fingers off. Hold on to your harness and brace against the wall." He paused on the threshold of blackness. "Don't look down, don't think about it, just keep the grapple in your hand, and *go!*" Snow took a deep breath and leapt backwards. The harness caught her before gravity could take her completely, yanking her back towards the wall as the cable sliced through the channels of the mag-grapple. Blind darkness engulfed her in a hot, acrid smell of burning rock. Steam and heat whirled around her. She reared back and brought her boots up, landed against the wall, and kicked off again in a smooth bounce. To either side, she heard the quiet, intense breaths of her companions. The night sky shrank away above, the hole growing smaller and smaller as they rappelled down into darkness. Dim forms moved above: the third squad, following them down. "Dr. Braun? Lieutenant Snow?" In the enclosed tube Corelli's voice was shockingly loud and booming. "How you doing?" Snow opened her mouth and surprised herself as much as anyone with a howl of laughter. "I am having the time of my freaking *life!*" E.A.S. SAINT-GERMAIN 20:17 EST The viewscreen held a schematic of the blast site. The bore was a long, thin tube of red stretching down some three hundred metres to where it opened into a vast, circular cavern. Around its surface, the city was sketched in green. In the throat of the bore, small groups of yellow dots moved slowly but steadily down towards the cavern. "There'd better be another way out of there," muttered Ivanova. "There must be," observed DeClercq. "Whatever is down there didn't come in the same way we are, after all." Ivanova thought that over. "That's so logical it's scary. Not to mention it's actually reassuring." She feigned a scowl. "Okay, so what's the down side?" "What down side?" "There's *always* a down side." DeClercq frowned at her, then looked relieved. "Ah, so that explains it." "Explains what?" "Ensign Morgan's constant cheerfulness. He's here as a karmic counterweight to your pessimism." Ivanova raised an eyebrow at him. "Pessimism? You think it's pessimism?" She sat back and waited, then lifted one hand and began ticking off fingers. "Five. Four. Three. Tw - " "Captain." Enfield's voice rang urgently from his station. DeClercq stared at her. Ivanova shrugged. "So my timing's off. Sue me." She revolved in her chair. "Yes, Mr. Enfield?" "We're beginning to lose our link to the ground site." Even as he spoke the yellow dots on the screen began to flicker in and out of existence in the schematic. "Between the radiation from the cannon blast and the storm, transmissions are getting weaker. We may not be able to keep in real-time contact much longer." Ivanova frowned. "Can we drop a comm satellite to set up an indirect link?" "We could, but it wouldn't do any good. Without precise knowledge of the coordinates the ground team would have next to no chance of transmitting to it, and we can't *get* those coordinates to them if the direct link goes out." "A Starfury," said DeClercq. "Give the pilot the correct coordinates and he can manually transmit to the ground team and then back here." "Good thinking," Ivanova acknowledged. "Okay, Mr. Enfield, I want you to set up an orbit for a Starfury middleman, then I want - " "What the *hell?*" All three of them spun at Singh's befuddled yelp. Ivanova herself was startled at how quickly she jumped to his side. "Mr. Singh, report!" "I just - " Singh scrolled through different screens of data, so fast Ivanova only caught glimpses of them: a map of the site; an overlay of the storm, different layers of wind highlighted in different hues; a jagged, wildly-spiked wave-graph of EM levels. "I thought I saw - " He broke off. "Computer, scan again, full sweep." The site-map reappeared, then widened its focus to include some twenty kilometres to either side of the city. A line of red light swept the map. The computer spoke pleasantly. "No anomalies detected." Singh slumped. "Damn." "What did you see?" Ivanova just managed to avoid biting off each word. Singh took a deep breath. "There was a moment when I got a trace scan through the storm. It looked like it might have been an overflight by a shuttle." "A shuttle?" Ivanova exchanged a puzzled glance with DeClercq. "One of ours?" "No, the signature was different. At least it *looked* different - " Singh shook his head. "Whatever it was, there's no trace of it now. It was probably just a sensor fritz. There's enough crap down there to confuse the arrays into seeing anything you can imagine." Ivanova's lips thinned. What Singh said made perfect sense. And even assuming it hadn't been a sensor ghost, where would another shuttle have come from? They'd seen no other ships, detected no other movement since assuming orbit. For all they could tell they were alone out here. Still.... "*...filo e puta!*" Ramirez struck his console with his hand. The yellow blips were gone from the main screen display. "We've lost downlink, Captain!" That decided her. "Commander DeClercq. I want you to take command of Starfury flights Alpha and Beta. Detach one pilot to an intermediary position and restore communications to the ground party. The rest of the flight will burn through a complete orbit around the planet. Keep your weapons hot and ready for trouble." "Weapons?" DeClercq looked startled. "I don't think we're the only scavengers out here." 20:26 EST Halfway down, Corelli had cursed and told them all that the uplink to the ship was out. Snow tried to feel worried but couldn't; she was too excited. Braun, of course, only nodded. She had had to work very hard to repress the urge to kick him, just to see if she could get a reaction out of him. Then she had remembered the just-barely visible flash of fury she'd seen in the shuttle, and the impulse had vanished. They had slowed as they neared the end. How Corelli could tell the distance they'd travelled Snow had no idea, but it was evident he could. Their pace had decreased almost to a walk; she felt decidedly odd, staring up through the rock bore with her feet flat against the wall and her back parallel to the ground, almost as if she was quite genuinely walking backwards down the wall. The rock had cooled a little as they descended, but the air still stank of sulfur and burning stone. A hand touched her shoulder. She yelped and locked her cable in nervous spasm, then flung herself about in a spin. "Don't *do* that!" she shouted at Corelli. "Sorry, Lieutenant." Corelli sounded unruffled. "First Squad's out of the bore. We've got another ten metres, then there's a ninety-seven metre straight drop. Once we run out of wall, set your mag grapple to 90% and just let yourself fall." "That's a *real* reassuring instruction, Leandro." "Lieutenant," Braun rumbled in warning. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Corelli didn't seem offended. "Burns, have you got some lights set up?" "Almost ready," came Burns' voice over the link. "Second Squad is down. You coming down, sir?" "Just about." Corelli looked over at them. "Remember, 90%. Gravity will do the rest." He pushed away from the wall and bounced downwards. With a sigh, Snow followed. Braun and van der Rhies came behind, their breathing loud in the tube. To herself, Snow counted metres. She tightened the mag-grapple. Abruptly, there was no rock against her feet. Her body swayed crazily on the cable. Snow gulped and bit back a whimper. Her descent continued, the cable winding through the grapple's magnetic fields with slow and steady certainty. The grip did nothing to stabilize her balance, however, and she found herself spinning on the end of the cable like a child's top. Snow gulped again, this time fighting back nausea. She would *not* throw up. She would *not* throw up. She would *not* -- - click - The noise was not loud, but it echoed like the boom of a sharp snare drum. A beam of searing white light pierced the darkness and splashed against the ceiling of the cavern, where it exploded in a burst of brilliant white sparkles. Below, more of the tiny but powerful spotlights came on with the same sharp reports of reverberation. The blackness parted like a slashed curtain as the soldiers below began slicing the beams back and forth, swiftly picking out the contours of the cavern. It was big - Snow could tell that instantly just from the feel of the sound - and too evenly spaced to be natural, but the beams moved too fast to tell anything else. And then Snow glanced to the ceiling and her breath caught. Where the light had fallen, crystals glowed like diamonds infused with fire. As she watched the light grew stronger, and began to spread. From the path of each beam, similar trails of light swelled into blooms of fire. The darkness faded like a dream. Splotches of radiance met and created solid walls of brilliance, running along the walls like fire through a dry dusty building. Within seconds the light was so bright that Snow's dark-adapted eyes sang with pain. She put an arm over her face but couldn't make herself close her eyes; from the periphery of her vision, she still watched, breath frozen. The cavern was immense, nearly a hundred metres high and over five times that distance wide. Its walls were smooth and curved, ribbed with gigantic pillars like marble made out of frozen flame, glittering and shimmering in the light generated by the crystals everywhere. Between each mammoth pillar ran wide, flat ledges, each of which supported a row of sealed, lambent orbs; there were thousands upon thousands of them. To the south, towards the city, a massive door built in the shape of a perfect circle gave egress. All was arranged in a mathematically precise, yet entirely natural order, without blemish or flaw. Only the fused and melted hole in the roof, and the slagged circle of stone on the floor where the *Saint-Germain*'s beam had struck, broke the complete and mystic harmony of the chamber. Within the curved, translucent shell of each orb, there was just visible a shady outline of a might-be humanoid form. It was as if a single, titanic geode had been transformed into a titan mausoleum, then infused with flame. Snow stared around, no longer caring that she spun, suspended eighty metres over the floor of the chamber. Time sang in the silence of the air around her, a presence, a weight like mountains made of ice, where life and death fused in a single moment of eternal, unchanging triumph, and the light shone down all around her like the face of God. ...TO BE CONTINUED <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Coming soon: More of WANDERING STAR, PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>