From: "Gary Boshears" Subject: "Darkness Wakes" Part V Chapter 14 Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 22:34:55 -0500 Warnings & Disclaimers in previous chapters. Feedback to: toast_army@hotmail.com Chapter Fourteen Keilmar Prison Ship Hyperspace-Unknown Location March 9, 2262 She laughed heartily at the figure of the once proud military commander = who was now lying on the floor. "You Humans have far too low a tolerance = for pain." She said mockingly. "My husband will be most disappointed."=20 Barns once again stood up, challenging her. His hair was messed up, his = uniform torn and stained with blood. Dried blood could be seen on his = face and where the energy whip had hit his back. "Who's your husband," = he said, his dry mouth presenting a challenge for speech. "Some two bit = Keilmar General with dellusions of grandeur." She struck his back once again with the whip, causing him to fall back = to the floor. "Hardly, he is the Emperor." Barns stood once again. He refused to stay down for it was the first = step to giving in. "Well then, I look forward to meeting him so I can = tear his throat out!" Barns knew that becoming hostile was not the = answer but he wanted to test his enemy. He needed to know all about them = that he could to be able to survive. Instantly when he finished his sentence, one of the armored Keilmar = guards in the room struck him on the back of the head with the end of = his rifle. Barns rolled over on the floor so he could see the guard. "You will not speak about his holiness with such disrespect again!" The = guard barked as he aimed the rifle at Barns. After a few seconds, the = Keilmar Empress made a gesture that ordered the guard to stand down. Barns essentially ignored her and stood once again. He would not let her = win. He couldn't let her win. She rolled her eyes in disapproval. She made another gesture to the = guards, who grabbed Barns and forced him into a chair. Restraints locked = to hold him in place. A large viewport opened in front of him, allowing = him to see that they were still in hyperspace.=20 "I gave you a chance to be reasonable, you refuse, now I will let you = wait." As she left, an electrical current began flowing through the restraints. = It became increasingly painful every second as Barns was forced to sit = there. Forced to wait for what was to come. Space Station Babylon 5 Orbit of Epsilon 3 March, 10 2262 0900 EST It was not every day that Captain Taylor was able to speak with = President Sheridan. This was a fact he was now grateful for as he = nervously awaited the President's call. The reason he was nervous, he = knew exactly what the President was going to say. The call final came through and Sheridan's face was displayed on the = monitor. "Captain Taylor," he said. "I'll make this short and to the = point. Until Admiral Barns returns," Sheridan paused for a moment. "If = he returns, I'm giving you full authority to act in his place. This war = is your hands for the time being. Good luck." The President's face = disappeared. Taylor remained silent as he stood and headed for the Council Chambers = where the Alliance Military Command Staff, a select few officers, = appointed by Barns and the President, and a General from every member = world were assembling. Barns had been able to hold this group together, = to keep them agreeing on things. That's what Barns knew how to do and = one thing his Adjutant did not. Now, the real war began. From: "Gary Boshears" Subject: Darkness Wakes Part V Chapter 15 Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 22:22:12 -0500 Warnings and disclaimers in previous chapters. Chapter Fifteen Unknown Location Keilmar Territory April 8, 2272 1934 EST The Vorlon bio-armor on the Victory's hull was becoming weaker. Even starting to wear off in some places. Still the plasteel crystalline alloy was able to shrug off fire from the attacking Keilmar gunboats. The main turreted defense guns continuously targeted them, while the heavier forward weapons assisted the EAS Dark Thunder in targeting the attacking heavy cruiser. The cruiser however, focused only of the attacking Omega-X destroyer. The ship had taken moderate damage but it was increasing. As another wave of Keilmar fighters prepared to attack, dozens of bright pulses from the EAS Nighthawk struck them, turning them into small balls of fire. On the bridge of the Nighthawk, Captain Summers smiled as he looked at the heavy cruiser which now lacked any figter escorts. He threw a glance to his weapon's officer. "Prepare to fire, tubes one and fourteen!" The officer's only response was a nod. Summers waited for a moment, clenched his fist and gave the order to fire. At that order, two of the Nighthawk's high powered anti-ship missiles flew toward the cruiser. They left nothing but dust after detonating against the hull. On the smoke engulfed bridge of the ISAS Victory, Captain MacDonald coughed, trying to clear the smoke from his lungs and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He glanced at the crew members who were carrying wounded officers off the bridge. Everyone looked demoralized. Not that he could blame them. They had only been behind enemy lines for a month and they had already fought over fifty engagements with Keilmar forces. Some of which did not turn out as well as this one. MacDonald turned to his Executive Officer, who had more of a look of doom about him than many of the other crew. "Connor," he said, trying not to convey much emotion with his voice. "Have Captains Griffon and Summers meet me in the conference room as soon as possible." As he left the bridge, MacKenzie silently went to work carrying out his orders. Dungeons of The Imperial Palace Keilmar Homeworld 2000 EST This place was hot. Damnably hot. Hotter than the desert where Barns spent three days for his Earth Force survival training. Heat wasn't the worst thing however, the worst thing was the dryness in his mouth. They hardly ever gave him water in this place and when they did, it wasn't very much. The interrogation sessions were also bad. These Keilmar interrogators seemed to take special pride and enjoyment in their work. Work that they excelled at, giving pain. No matter how much of it that he felt, Barns could not get used to what they did. The Admiral spent these quiet times between the sessions alone with his thoughts. Thoughts about the war, for as much as he knew, the Keilmar could have overrun Earth of Minbar by now. He also wondered how Mike was handling the job which President Sheridan surely gave him. He also found himself thinking about Sarah. She, actually, occupied his thoughts more than anything. Space Station Babylon 5 Orbit of Epsilon 3 2018 EST Sarah McDouglass did not feel comfortable right now. Usually when Matt kissed her she enjoyed it, but for some reason, right now she was not. This was something she knew he could tell. He pulled himself away from her and sat up. "Sarah what's wrong?" She sat up and pushed her long hair back behind her back. "I'm just thinking about Jerry." Matthew MacDonald wondered why she was thinking about him again. "That makes me feel special," he said, trying to hide his actual thoughts and feelings. Sarah touched his arm gently. "It's not anything like that, it's just." She paused. "I'm worried about him. He's been missing for so long. And with all my friends out there looking for him," she hesitated for a moment. "I just feel like there's something more I could be doing." Matthew was mocking her for acting like this on the inside. "I know how it is. Heck, my brother is out there." Sarah smiled. "You and your brother have never pretended to get along Matt." Her voice was still solemn. "No," he acknowledged. "But he is my brother." Sarah leaned forward. "I'm sorry Matt, I just can't do this tonight. Nothing seems right anymore." She shook her head. "Nothing." He stood. "No problem. I'll see you in the morning." He said as he left her quarters. He looked back at the door which closed behind him. "You'll have to let go of him eventually." He whispered. "We must continue our strikes against them while their forces our still in holding! It is the only way to assure we continue to achieve victories against them!" The Narn General Mal'Rosh screamed. "But if we want those victories to have lasting values then we need ships and troops to hold the systems we take from them. We can't do that now without sacrificing the security of our homeworlds and colonies. We must use this pause in their attacks to build new ships and train new troops." The Brakiri Lakele countered. "This will only allow our enemies time to do the same!" The Narn approached the table at which Captain Taylor, Tessa Halloran and two Generals from Earth and Minbar were seated. "Captain you must not listen to him!" The Brakiri General also approached the table. "If you listen to him all you'll be doing is setting up for invasion!" The two Generals continued to argue back and forth, forgetting that they were trying to convince someone to do something. The argument quickly deteriorated from debating each other's ideas to insults about the other's mother. Taylor glanced at Tessa who only looked back and smiled. "That's enough." Taylor said, barely loud enough for the Generals to hear and not loud enough to get a response. After several more tries, he simply screamed. "That's enough!" This got their attention and caused the noise level in the room to drop to near nothing. "Now," Taylor said as he walked around to the other side of the table. "You're both right and you're both wrong. We need to consolidate our forces to hold the sectors we have, by time to construct and train new military units. While we're doing this, the White Star Fleet supported by fast attack elements of all of your fleets," he made a gesture indicating he was speaking to every General who was seated now in the Council Chamber. "Will conduct hit and run attacks against Keilmar manufacturing facilities. Hopefully this will throw them off balance while we rebuild our forces." Both of the Generals started to try and debate his decision with him. "That's my decision and it's final!" He snapped. "You're leading us to death Taylor," the Narn General said in response. "Barns woud recognize the continued need to attack them." Taylor narrowed his gaze at the Narn. "Maybe, but he's not here, I am and this is my command." He said with more authority than had ever been heard from him before. After he said that, the assembled Generals quietly left the room, leaving only Taylor and Tessa. "That went well." Tessa said with a sigh as she began putting various papers and folders into a case. Taylor sat down and rubbed his eyes. He was tired. He hadn't slept well either from worrying about the Admiral or from the simple fact that he was running a galactic war, or both. "It's only going to get worse the longer Barns is gone." Taylor waited a bit and turned towards Tessa. "Any news?" Tessa shook her head. "No. Haven't heard anything about the Admiral or those three ships that went off looking for him." "Let's hope those ships are all right. Because the way it looks now, they're our only hope of getting the Admiral out of there." He rubbed his eyes once again. "Anything else?" "One piece of good news. One of our main shipyards reports that twenty Victory Destroyers will be completed in two weeks." "Good," Taylor looked at the miniature fleet disposition chart he had in front of him. "We need them." ISAS Victory Hyperspace Keilmar Territory 2135 EST "We can't continue like this," MacDonald was blunt. "We've been behind enemy lines for a month. We've done nothing to help the war effort and we're no close to rescuing the Admiral now than we were when he was first captured. If anything we're farther from rescuing him." "No one said this was going to be easy." Summers commented. "No," MacDonald conceded. "But no one ever said either that it's going to become close to impossible." "How do you get that?" Summers asked. Captain Griffon was being suspiciously quiet. "Simple," MacDonald said harshly. "We keep taking damage, we keep losing fighters we keep losing crew. We've got to head back." Griffon glanced MacDonald's way. "Mac, I've never known you to be the one who walks away from a fight. Besides if we go back now, they'll have us stripped of our commands and court martialed. I don't think any of us want that." "This is a battle we can't win Leslie. Unless you have any suggestions." MacDonald asked. She sighed. She didn't know what to do. She wasn't a tactician. She was a soldier, which was all she knew how to be. "Keep trying to rescue him. Try to avoid fire fights a little better and try to aid the Alliance's war effort as much as possible." MacDonald was preparing to make his next comment when Commander MacKenzie's voice came through the comm system. "Captain, we've just picked up something interesting. It's a Keilmar communication's array. Very well hidden. The only reason we're able to pick it up at all is because of the Vorlon technology in this thing." The eyes of the three officers locked on each other. "We might be able to gain some valuable information from that." Captain Summers commented. MacDonald and Griffon voiced their agreement with his statement silently. MacDonald called to the bridge as the three of them were leaving the conference room. "Helm, change course to take us to that comm station." Major Neil Tolner waited on the bridge of the Nighthawk for Captain Summers to arrive. He had know idea why he had been called to the bridge. Why the Captain needed to speak with the CO of the ship's marine detachment on such a short notice was beyond him. Captain Summers finally arrived and immediately addressed Tolner. "Major, we're approaching a Keilmar communication array. We may be able to gain some valuable information from it. I want you to take a strike team over, download the data files from the array and get out of there." Tolner saluted swiftly. "No sweat sir!" When the Captain returned his salute and dismissed him, he left the bridge. Space Station Babylon 5 Orbit of Epsilon 3 2316 EST "What do you mean you haven't killed him yet?!?" The main asked with extreme anger in his voice. "That was part of our deal!" He listened to his contact respond and was still, to say the least, displeased. "How long can it take your people to get information from someone?" He was beginning to become nervous. The amount of time he had to speak with his contact was growing shorter. "Well, kill him soon, and be sure to leave the body where someone from the Alliance will find it!" He shut off the communication's system and left the room. From: "Gary Boshears" Subject: "Darkness Wakes" Part V Chapter 16 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 13:45:35 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Warnings and disclaimers in previous chapters. Chapter Sixteen Keilmar Communication Relay Unknown Location April 8th, 2272 2325 EST Why was it so hot in here? Was the question that every member of Neil Tolner's boarding party were asking themselves. Living on a barren, desert planet must give these Keilmar some kind of like for extreme heat. The heat in this small room was also amplified by the fact that there were twenty marines crammed into a space that was probably designed to hold less than ten. Despite the uneasy work conditions, their work was proceeding. This small relay had a large amount of information stored in it's data banks. Keilmar transmissions dating from months before the war to just recently. Whether this would provide any useful information to the Victory, Dark Thunder and Nighthawk was still to be determined. Captain Leslie Griffon waited silently for news from the landing party that Captain Summers deployed to the comm relay. She hoped, no, that was not the word, she prayed that they would be able to use some piece of that information to find Jerry. Jerry, she stilled called him that, after all these years. She tried to convince herself that she had merely grown accustomed to it, but she knew there was more. She liked how it sounded. She missed him, more now than she had before. She felt a tear build in her eye and quietly left the bridge for her quarters. While she tried to fight it, Leslie Griffon knew she was tired. Having barely slept for days does have that effect. She lay down on her bead and tried to resist the grasp of sleep for as long as she could before it siezed her. She fell slowly, into a void. She knew this was a dream. She knew that she could not actually be traveling through hyperspace as what she was seeing in front of her suggested. She further knew that she could not be on the Keilmar Homeworld. She found herself walking into a room, a room that was apparently deep underground. The floor was one of sand. The walls were rock, aging rock at that. As she approached a door, she could here the cry of pain through it, in a voice she could not mistake. Upon opening the door, and rushing in, she could see Jerry. He was suspended from the ceiling by his arms; he had a look of agony upon his face. Behind him was a figure, draped in black. This figure mercilessly struck his back with an energy whip. Though she could not see it, she knew that he was feeling pain from some other things, or many other things than just this whip. It was as he turned and looked at her that she woke up to the beeping of her link. She was startled, in a cold sweat,. Her first instinct was to reach for her PPG. She quickly calmed down though and toggled her link on. "Griffon, go." Her voice sounded as if she had just run a marathon, it was rushed, tired. "Captain," it was the voice of her first officer. "The team from the Nighthawk has finished downloading the information from the relay. Captain Summers is going to have it sent to us." Griffon was still trying to regain her composure. The dream was more disturbing than any she ever had before. "Thank you. I'll review them later." She toggled her link off. This time, when she lay back down, she did not fall asleep. Merely lay there, and thought about Jerry. Tried to here his thoughts. Tried to make him feel not so alone. Captain MacDonald had been scanning through the information downloaded from the communication's array for over three hours now. He'd still found nothing of particular interest. Granted, all of it could be useful to the Alliance, with that in mind they were preparing a probe to send to the Alliance with copies off all of this information, but none of it was of particular use to them. None of the messages seemed to state Barns' position, though Captain Griffon still insisted he was being held on the Keilmar Homeworld, or anything else related to his captivity, the number of guards for example. MacDonald's eyes were hurting and he was tired, needless to say since he had been staring at this computer screen for hours. He wanted to just stop and get some sleep, but something compelled him to continue. Something told him that he would find something he needed to know if he kept looking through these files. The Captain was, to say, annoyed when Commander MacKenzie disrupted his concentration. "Sir, we're ready to jump." He said through the comm. MacDonald toggled his link on to respond. "Very well." After toggling his link off and looking back at the screen, MacDonald noticed something. Something he had obviously looked past before. A message sent a few days before Admiral Barns' strike group attacked the Keilmar world. A message sent from Babylon 5, containing the name of the ship Barns was commanding along with it's transponder and ID codes. There was a traitor on Babylon 5. A traitor who gave the Admiral, who gave his friend to the Keilmar. Dungeons of The Imperial Palace Keilmar Homeworld Several Hours Later Barns had learned over this past time, he really did not know how much time had passed as days seemed to be different lengths on this planet then they were on Earth, to conserve water when they gave it to him. It typically came in small dishes and much of it splashed onto the floor when they tossed it into his cell. Hence, he would always drink very small sips. While this was not enough to keep his mouth from feeling warm, dry and uncomfortable, it was enough to keep him alive. Barns was starting to take another sip when he heard the ancient metal door to the cell start to creak open. He readied himself to resist the guards if they were taking him for another interrogation session. While this did no good as they were considerably stronger than him, he thought it would show them that he would not be broken easily. A fact that he continuously tried to reiterate. However, they did not come to take him. When the door was open, a man in an Earth Force uniform was thrown into the cell. The door was quickly slammed shut. The man landed face down and made no signs of movement. Barns could see that he was not breathing very deeply. Barns turned the man over to help him and recognized him immediately. "Colonel Meade?" While he was sure it was Meade, the bruises and other marks on the man's face added the certain degree of doubt. "Ssssssir?" It was very hard for him to speak and he apparently had trouble recognizing Barns. "Here," Barns said, poring some water into his mouth. He was still gasping for air and struggling to speak. "Thank you." Barns looked at him again. His uniform was covered in stains where blood and come through. "What'd they do to you Colonel?" Meade breathed in and out deeply a few times. "I don't even know sir. That's how awful it was." Barns looked at the one window in the cell which was covered by bars. The sun was starting to set and a dim orange light was now coming through. "We're going to get out of here Colonel. Some how." Space Station Babylon 5 Orbit of Epsilon 3 April 9th, 2272 0600 EST Captain Elizabeth Lochley frowned. All of this paperwork was becoming tedious at best, annoying and pointless at worst. It didn't feel right for her to just be sitting here, reviewing waste management reports while so many of her friends were out there fighting. She put down the papers, leaned back and sighed. She found herself still thinking about Admiral Barns. Why she was blaming herself, she didn't know. It was no one's fault, though both she and Ranger Giovoni wanted to believe that the fault belonged to them. She wanted to be out there fighting. Out there looking for Barns. Anything but sitting here. She tried to convince herself that what she was doing was important but in the end further convinced herself otherwise. Her thoughts were interrupted when Lieutenant Jeffries contacted her. "Captain, the EAS Damocles and her escorts just came through the jump gate. Captain Horack wants to meet with you immediately." Well this day just became a little less dull. "I'll meet her in the docking bay." Lochley toggled her link off and left her office. Dungeons of The Imperial Palace Keilmar Homeworld Later That Day Barns awoke to the sound of the door to his cell opening. As soon as he opened his eyes, he felt two of the large Keilmar guards grab him by the arms and drag him away.