name = keeper
email = oneeyed@hotmail.com
title = Hearts Imprisoned: One Step From Darkness pt.1

This story takes place a year after the end of season 5.  
Raiders are tracking down Lyta and G'kar because they have heard of 
her powers and decide that she can be a valuable prisoner to be sold
on the black market.  They find out that the starhopper (last seen in
Objects in Motion) has been seen nearby.  The raiders find it and send
a boarding party in a raider ship, but Lyta's powers make it impossible 
for them to commadeer the ship as she starts to fry the synapses of the 
raiders.  But they are prepared and the main ship fires
their weapons on the star hopper knocking all controls off line. Lyta
and G'kar pass out from the damage to their ship and its environmental
controls.  The raiders take the prisoners and lock them in a sealed
room, chained and drugged up, already prepared to hold her from
escaping. 
The leader of the raiders try to decide which race to sell them to
and who is the highest bidder.  Then the captain realizes that the
Narn will be the ones as they will want their esteemed religious
leader to be delieved back to them (this should be public knowledge by
now that G'kar abandoned his people and they want him back) and they
can also make use of Lyta as they have no telepath among their race
and her genes would be useful.  So he contacts the closest colony,
probably the one that was rebuilt after it was destroyed in "Coming of
the Shadows".
The side story would be on Babylon 5, where a servant of the Drahk
have arrived on a mission to put it out of business.  They are fed up
with it being a beacon of hope and so they decide the best way to
destroy it would be to place a keeper on Neeoma Connoly (the Union
workers leader last seen in "By Any Means Neccessary").  Zack sees the
person arrive on the station, the computer apparently noticed that his
race is unknown and informed Zack that a check into his race is
necessary.  Zack sends the person to Lillian Hobbes to check for
diseases as stated by the new ISA xenobiological laws.  She finds
nothing wrong with the person or contagious and decides to let him go,
but Zack is feeling that he is bad news.  Once the dark servant is
away from the public and in down below, its keeper uncloaks and can
now be seen (it probably can avoid scans, how else can a keeper
attached to Londo and avoid detection on the Alliance headquarters). 
The Dark servant goes to a nearby station map/computer and asks it
where Connoly can be found, it replies she is directing the workers
near the reactor core.  The servant heads out but is trapped by a gang
of lurkers who try to rob him.  The keeper tells him to get out of
there at any price to get the job done.  So the servant  slashes them
with his hand, in a matter of seconds the lurkers start convulsing and
the servant escapes.   Elsewhere on the station, Dr. Lillian Hobbes
goes to Zack and tells him of an anomaly found in the alien biology
tested a couple of hours earlier.  Apparently, there is a type of
poison running throughout the blood of the alien, but does not affect
its body.  Zack soon after, gets a message from a security guard
saying that 5 lurkers are convulsing in pain with scratch marks on
them.  He realizes that something doesn't add up and sends them to
MedLab to be analyzed for poisoning.
Connoly is near the Core and feels that someone is watching her,
she turns around but no one is there.  After a while, she tells her
crew to take a break and she heads down a corridor.  As she walks
something pulls her into the shadows and covers her mouth from
yelling.  The creature says that, "your life as it was is now over,
you now serve those who follow the darkness".  The servant's keeper
awakens and a second keeper attached to it pulls off of the servant. 
Connoly manages to scream as the keeper tears into her nervous system,
and then a darkness passes over her and she passes out.  When she
wakes up no one is around but she has no control over herself and she
becomes aware of her keeper telling her, "you will tell no one, you
will follow where we lead".  
The dark servant goes to the transport area to leave, knowing that
its mission is accomplished and that the keeper will continue the rest
of the job that is planned for Connoly and Babylon 5.  But 3 security
guards in armored suit tell it to stop, blocking its path.  It becomes
aware that there are another 5 all around  pointing weapons at it. 
Zack says that it is being arrested in suspicion of the deaths of the
lurkers found poisened with something that was also present in its
body.  The creature screams, knowing that it can't allow itself to be
captured.  It stops and takes its hand and presses down on something
inside its mouth. Immediately a vial rushes into its bloodstream and
merges with the already present poison and becomes active.  Its blood 
starts boiling and it gets on fire (like spontaneous combustion). 
Zack yells to everyone to duck and hide behind anything for
protection.  As the servant finishes burning up, a burned body remains
(like seen in "Ship of Tears", the shadow allies burned corpse
remained) with no traces of a keeper. 
This is the extent to which i thought of the story, if you are interested 
in me expanding it I will try.  (I would bring the next part to include 
the psi core omega squadron, Narn fanaticism, Ta'lons arrival to help 
G'kar, and maybe there can be a cool story for Connoloy)

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