From: "Sel" <vecantie@geocities.com>
Subject: New Fiction: Reunion - Part 1.
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 23:42:54 +0930

Greeting all.
I have just joined this list in the past week, so you wouldn't have heard
from me before. Anyway I live in Australia, so still havn't seen the end of
season 4 yet. Never the less I have decided to write a story set in Season
5, following what happens to Ivanova after she leave's Babylon 5, her
reasons for leaving, and that sort of thing.
An achive of this will be kept on my webpage at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933, along with some other fiction by
some friends of mine. It will contain some adult bit in latter chapters, but
I will edit them out for posting to this list. I would be very interested in
reading any comments anyone had to add, as this is the first time I have
written any sort of Fan Fiction so would like to know how I am going. You
can send them to sel@geocities.com

Anyway on with the story. This is part 1 of what looks like being 20 or so
parts at the moment. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did
writing it, and you can expect more from me soon.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------

			      Reunion - Part 1
			      By Sel Vecantie



"And finally we can report that the latest addition to the Earth Alliance
fleet, the soon to be commissioned EAS Rasputin has finally been completed
and now awaits her first captain in the construction yards orbiting
Neptune. As we reported recently Captain Susan Ivanova, previously
stationed on Babylon 5 has been given command of this, the first production
model of the new Warlock class destroyers. As part of our continuing
coverage of this momentous event we will be bringing you a special report
on the commissioning ceremony in tomorr....."

Click Here For More Information
(http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/warlock.html)

ISN Report - January 30, 2262.

	------------------------------------------------------------

"Off."

Earth Alliance Captain Susan Ivanova slumped back into her seat as the ISN
report faded from the vid screen, replaced instead with the standard
Earthforce insignia. She just wanted to take command of her new vessel, as
quietly as possible and then fly off into space, away from the reporters
and questions she had faced on Earth, and even Babylon 5. ISN still
regarded her as some sort of hero though and insisted on covering her every
move. All she wanted was to be left alone to forget about what had
happened, to forget Marcus and the sacrifice he had made for her.

When Susan had been offered the captaincy of the new destroyer by
Earthforce she had jumped at the chance and returned to Earth, leaving
Babylon 5 behind her. The civil war was over, and had she remained she knew
the memories of what had happened would have eventually driven her into
depression. Earthforce seemed to want her back, and with the amnesty for
all those who served on Babylon 5, or in the fleet that had ended Clark's
rule, they had even been willing to forget about which side she had fought
on in the war. It was not only Earthforce that was willing to forgive,
everyone on Earth seemed busy trying to forget Clark, to wipe his memory
and what he had done from their minds.

She had found however that she could not forget, or forgive so easily as
everyone else. The civil war came close to claiming her life, and had it
not been for the sacrifice of Marcus she would have been dead, nothing but
a memory to those who knew her. So she had run, away from Babylon 5 and
those who cared about her and back to Earth, but had found even less peace
there. To those who had suffered under Clark's rule she was something of a
hero, someone who had fought against the tyrant to save them. ISN in
particular had taken an interest in her, and seemed intent on following her
around wherever she went, ensuring that her face was plastered all over
their news bulletins, despite her wishes.

Now finally she was to take command of her new vessel and with it hopefully
earn some peace and quiet to recover from the memories that still plagued
her from the previous two years. Susan didn't believe for a minute that
things would change much once she was on the Rasputin, but at least she
would be working again, and could bury her memories in her job. A holiday
had not helped, even when she returned to her home town of St Petersberg.

Her home was gone now, repossessed by Clark's agents, probably in
retribution for her siding with Sheridan. She had now cared much about that
though, it had never really been a home since she her mother had died. She
had gone to see the graves of her family, but found nothing to guide her
there, and was only reminded on the others who had died, of Marcus, and
Talia. She had spent only two days there, most of the time lying on the
hotel bed crying.

Then had come the trip to Earthdome, the meetings with President Susanna
Luchenko, and other top officials. They had only kept her busy for a week
though, before packing her off to Station Prime to await a flight for the
Neptune-Beta research centre. There, she waited for weeks as the
commissioning of the Rasputin was delayed again and again for various
reason. There in the little room she had been given she had found plenty of
time to think out her past, and the memories that plagued her.

She remembered Talia, the woman she had thought would be her one true love,
and the way she had been snatched from her arms. They had only spent the
one night together, one night of passion that still remained etched in
Susan's mind till this day. She had given herself to Talia totally, let
their minds echo their love for each other. She had held back nothing, had
given all that she was to a woman that the next day was taken from her in
the cruelest way possible. She had gone to see her before she left, but
could find nothing of her Talia left, not even a trace. The woman who she
had loved was now nothing more than a cold, empty shell, filled with a
being who embodied all that was the Psi Corps.

During her time on Station Prime Susan realised that she had never really
recovered from that loss, and it had shaped her every waking moment from
that day on. She had given up on love and thrown herself into her work,
trying to forget Talia, forget what they could have had together. At night
though, when she closed her eyes she could not forget, and the image of
Talia, walking away from her, out of her quarters and her life was forever
etched in her mind. Every night she dreamed of her, imagining ways for them
to be together again, but every night Talia left just the same. She had
dreamt about Talia every night for a year, and then just when she thought
she might be getting over her along had come the Shadow war, and Marcus.

If she had never met Talia, fallen in love, and lost her, things might have
been very different between her and Marcus. But she had and because of this
Susan had never seen the love Marcus had for her. She had concentrated on
her work, always serious and committed, never for a moment giving him a
thought. She had realised that perhaps he was interested in her, but so
were many others on Babylon 5. Like the others who had asked her out on
dates she had turned Marcus down, her mind still on the past. Then when she
had finally realised that he had truly loved her it was too late and he lay
dying by her side, his life drained to save her.

She hadn't wanted to be saved though, and hated him for bringing her back
to this, for condemning her to walk forever alone. She would have welcomed
death, as a final freedom from her life, a peaceful end to all the tragedy
that had plagued her. Marcus had taken her from her peaceful sleep,
sacrificed himself and then left her alive, but with even more baggage to
carry with her than before. She hated him, she hated the way he had never
told her of his love, hated herself for not giving him a chance. She knew
it would not have made a difference though, she was incapable of love now.
She had given her heart to Talia during that one night in her quarters on
Babylon 5 and when Talia had left she had never given it back.

In her tiny room on Station Prime she could not even bring herself to end
her own life, to take away the pain forever. She could not give up what
Marcus had given her without feeling guilty. It was as if she was trapped
in this life by her own guilt, doomed to live out her miserable existence
alone forever. She had left Babylon 5 to escape the past, but had only
found herself trapped by it, trapped by her memories and her lost love, and
trapped by her duty to Marcus. She didn't want this, she didn't want the
memories, didn't want the responsibility, but it had been given back to her
anyway.

For three weeks she had been stuck on Station Prime, never leaving her
quarters in case someone recognised her and she would be forced to sit
through their fawning gestures of gratitude, and requests for autographs.
It had been three of the hardest weeks she had ever had to live through.
Over the past two years on Babylon 5 she had always been too busy, and
never had enough time to sit and think, and now that she did she really
didn't like what she was thinking about.

Finally the call from Earth Central had come and she had left the Station,
boarded the shuttle with the two crates that contained all her belongings
and set out for the short trip through hyperspace to the Neptune jumpgate.
The blinking light on the screen, and the synthesised words of the computer
informing her of the incoming message had been one of the most relieving
moments of her life, finally something to grab hold of and drag herself out
of the mire of her existence. She had thrown herself into the packing,
although she had never really unpacked her belongings after their trip from
Babylon 5, and after dressing once again in the blue of Earthforce, this
time with the single gold bar indicating her new rank, had marched out of
the room and across the station, the perfect picture of a Earthforce
officer.

She had boarded the shuttle with only a small bag, containing a few
important items and had found herself the only one on board. On a shuttle
that could hold up to a hundred people, she was alone. They had waited
while porters from the station had delivered her packing crates and then
the shuttle had left on the short two hour flight to the Neptune jumpgate.
She had strapped herself into her seat so she didn't start floating across
the room when the shuttle stoped accelerating and returned to zero-g again.
Then settling in for the flight she had turn on the monitor to ISN to catch
up on what had been happening.

There had been the usual stories about Babylon 5 and the new Alliance as
well as coverage of the upcoming election, one which Susanna Luchenko
seemed likely to win. The story on Babylon 5 had bought a faint smile to
her lips as she though of John, even more wrapped up in affairs of
politics. She remembered when he had first come aboard how he had hated the
paper work, and sitting behind his desk, how he had threatened to quit over
it, until she had convinced him otherwise. Still he was happy now at least,
a loving wife, and his friends around him. Susan wished she could have
stayed, remained with Babylon 5 and the people she had grown to care for,
but every time she had to go to medlab she would have remembered what had
happened there, and knew that she would not have been able to live with
that.

Then the final story, the one about her had come on and in annoyance she
had closed down the vid to avoid having to listen to yet another story
about her. Instead she stretched in her restraints and looked around the
shuttle, looking for something to take her mind away from her troubles.
There was nothing there however, just a few scattered bits of paper
floating about the cabin and her packing crates strapped down securely
toward the back of the shuttle. There was not even a porthole to look out
and watch the swirling chaos of Hyperspace with.

She had always liked that about the White Star's. Even when she had been
unable to sleep there was alway the porthole to look of, out into
Hyperspace. For some reason Hyperspace always had a calming effect on her
and there she had always slept peacefully and without the horrible dreams
that plagued her on Babylon 5. Susan remember the times she had spent
there, the time she had spent with Marcus, and how she had been so blind to
the way he looked at her, his loving eyes always following her around. She
cursed herself again for not being able to see what was obvious. Still is
was too late to worry about that now, Marcus was dead and she was doomed to
live without him, without Talia, and without love.

With a deep sigh Susan closed her eyes, determined to at least try and
catch up with some of the sleep she had lost over the past few weeks. To
her surprise she drifted off almost as soon as her eyes closed, into a
sleep that was for once was mercifully empty of the nightmares that had
been her constant companions in recent months.

	------------------------------------------------------------

"Please ensure restraints are fastened and you are sitting upright in your
seats. Shuttle is about to undergo breaking procedures prior to entry back
into real space. I repeat please ensure restraints are fastened and you are
sitting upright in your seats."

The voice of the shuttle's pilot cut into her sleep and wearily Susan
dragged herself upright, for a moment confused about where she was. A itch
at the back of her neck soon reminded her though and as she scratched it
she cursed all Earthforce tailors, and the poor quality of their uniforms.
Although good by Earth standard she was used to the softness of the form
fitting Minbari uniforms that until recently had been her most common
clothing. She had even worn them when off duty, instead of more casual
clothing as she had when Earthforce uniforms were still common on Babylon
5. But now she was back with Earthforce once again, and the old uniforms
had been pulled from the back of her cupboard, and sat uncomfortably on her
body, itchy, cumbersome, and in her honest opinion, ugly.

Still she was a captain in Earthforce so had to at least look the part, and
at least when she was annoyed with the itchy uniform she didn't had to
think about other darker things. Susan smiled as she smoothed out the
slightly wrinkled uniform, thinking that perhaps there was still some hope
for her. She might have suffered greatly and lost all she cared about but
she was about to get what she had always wanted, ever since the day she
first signed up, a ship of her own. She could only hope it had been all
worth it.

The screen in front of her was blinking, a message informing her, as the
pilots words had just a moment ago, that the shuttle was about to fire its
braking thrusters and exit to real space through the jumpgate. She quickly
checked her restraints, but found them secure and then gripped her
arm-rests as the shuttle's frame shook as it's thrusters fired. There was
none of the smoothness she had known on the White Star's, but it was still
not as bad as she remembered from previous journeys.

The shuttle travelling between Earth and Neptune were ancient compared to
the new Phoenix class shuttles on Babylon 5, with their inertial dampening
and smooth hyperspace to real space entry. They were designed for space
though, and this one, a five year old Moa class shuttle was made to land
both on a planet's surface as well as dock with stations and starships.

A shudder ran through the vessel and Susan knew that they were back in real
space again, having just past through the Neptune jumpgate, one of four
that could be found in Earth's solar system. This one was the original,
part of the ancient jumpgate network that had been created by an unknown
race long before the younger races ever went to the stars. It had been
patched and repaired many times since the people of Earth had first become
aware of it existence, and until the construction of the jumpgate near Io,
it had made Neptune an important part of the Earth Alliance. The Neptune
gate was also the one the Centari had used when they had first contacted
humanity, claiming to long lost cousins. They had then built the Earth
jumpgate to speed up travel between Earth and other worlds, and before long
humans had also learned how to make their own and began to out spread
across the galaxy.

Still in the hearts of many the Neptune Jumpgate still held an important
place. There was even a small museum dedicated to the first Centari-Human
meeting on Triton, largest of Neptune's moons. It was once a place where
all who could came to visit, to see the place where the first meeting of
humanity and another race had taken place, where the research vessel Kraken
had found the ancient gate just in time to see if flare into light and the
massive form of a Centari battle cruiser come leaping through. Fortunately
the Centari had proven to be friendly and their arrival had opened the way
for humanity to reach into the stars.

The museum was not why most people had come to Neptune though. As humans
colonised other worlds the thirst for fuel and resources became ever
greater. Mars was colonised and the process of stripping it bare of all its
minerals began, and Neptune with its ancient jumpgate became the largest
fuel producing centre in the Earth Alliance. All starships needed fuel, and
for the Earthforce vessels that meant hydrogen to power fusion reactors and
thrusters, and Neptune had hydrogen in abundance. Many years later, after
the construction of the jumpgate near Io the importance of Neptune slipped
as the Jupiter Mining Corporation stole the markets from Neptune's
independent companies with its cheaper prices and shorter travel times. For
those who sought to make a living outside the megacorporation that the JMC
had grown into Neptune still remained, but no longer was it was the sole
source of fuel for Earth's ever growing number of ships.

To the pilot of Susan's shuttle though it still seemed very busy space
indeed. Five large tanker ships filled his vision as the shuttle left the
jumpgate and began the short trip toward the planet beyond. Carefully he
threaded his way past the giant cylindrical shapes of the tankers and the
smaller tender vessels bringing the hydrogen from the gas mines around
Neptune. Easing back on the shuttles deceleration he pointed it away from
the main colony and headed out across Neptune's northern pole towards the
research station. Behind him the jumpgate flared again as a large
commercial liner enter normal space, probably carrying a load of tourists
bound for the museum, or maybe new workers for the mines.

Below, reaching deep into the gas giants atmosphere, the gas mines
themselves could be seen. Thousands of metres high the mine shafts
stretched from the storage silos and refineries in the upper atmosphere to
the collection sites deep beneath the surface. To the shuttle pilot they
looked like gigantic needles, plunging into the surface of the vast blue
sphere that was Neptune. At this distance both they and the planet still
looked small, but as the shuttle powered towards Neptune's dark side they
loomed larger, and larger in the pilot's view.

Eventually though, after another ten minutes of travel, even they passed by
and the shuttle was travelling over unclaimed atmosphere, heading for it
destination, the research station Neptune-Beta. After the war with the
Minbari stations like Neptune-Beta had sprung up across the Earth Alliance,
all devoted to increasing the EA's technology so that never again Earth
would be threatened with annihilation as it had against the Minbari.
Neptune-Beta was one of the least secretive of these stations, but one that
had eventually been used to produce one of the nastiest vessels that the
Earth Alliance had ever constructed.

During the civil war President Clark had been aided by dark allies, who had
never truly been exposed to those back home. Using the technology of these
aliens, researchers on Neptune-Beta had modified the standard Omega class
vessels and turn them into the horrific vessels that Ivanova had encounter
in a battle last year, a battle that had left her battered and dying. The
vessels she had encountered though where nothing more than a modified
version of an already existing vessel, but now after several years of work
the station was about to release its greatest creation ever, the Warlock
class destroyers.

In a low orbit over the dark side of the gas giant, the Neptune-Beta
complex looked like a dark spider's web of metal and silicon, spreading out
across the atmosphere of the planet. Lights from the habitation cylinders
and the construction yards gave the whole structure and eerie glow,
something totally alien from the smooth dark globe that was Neptune in the
background.

As the shuttle grew nearer it was possible to see the outlines of three
massive vessels filling the space of the construction yards. One, a strange
dark-hulled vessel, which seemed to draw in light rather than reflect it,
was moored near the end of the station. Had the pilot been even closer he
would have been able to see the name, EAS Warlock, emblazoned along its
side, but one look at that vessel made the pilot wish that he would never
be caught near it. Although he could not put a name to it, he had a feeling
that something was very wrong with the vessel, something frightening and
almost evil. Spotting the landing lights from the docking ring he almost
breathed a sigh of relief as he turned his shuttle away from the
black-hulled vessel.

The other two vessel looked completely different, one was just a basic
construction framework swarming with the lights of the workers and
engineers who were putting it together. But when the pilot lifted his eyes
to the third vessel he saw what it was they were working on building. A
vision of beauty and wonder filled his sight, a vessel of a type he had
never seen before. It was long, easily as long as the Omega destroyers, but
at the same time its hull was a lot larger, at least twice the width and
height of the Omega's. The rotation mid-section that had contained the crew
and bridge also seemed to be gone, and the whole hull looked smooth and
clean. It was simply the most beautiful vessel the shuttle pilot had seen
in his five years of flying passengers around the solar system. He wished
he had more time to examine it further but he was nearly at the docking
ring and he didn't think that he would be allowed to stay over the
station's airspace on the way back to Earth, especially considering
classified nature of much that was being worked on here. Even at this
distance he could see the spiky shapes of orbital defence platforms, ready
to shoot down any unauthorised vessel that approached.

With a sigh he manoeuvred the large shuttle past the destroyer and with the
controlled ease that came from experience fired the thrusters and carefully
slipped the shuttle into the rotating docking bay he had been assigned. A
loud clunk sounded behind him and with a jerk the shuttle came to a rest
against the metal floor of the dock. Looking out the front window he could
see the rushing air filling the chamber as the atmosphere was restored.
Behind a window across the other side of dock he could see a small
collection of Earthforce officials waiting, probably for his passenger. The
remembering his duty he spoke into the microphone to alert his charge that
she had arrived and could get ready to disembark.

	------------------------------------------------------------

"Attention this shuttle has now arrived at research station Neptune-Beta.
We are currently awaiting for the atmosphere and pressure to be restored
outside and then you will be free to disembark. I trust you had a good
flight."

Susan yawned once, ignoring the pilot's voice. She had travelled on enough
shuttles in her time in Earthforce to be familiar with the routine by now.
Undoing the tight restraints that had held her in her seat throughout the
trip she rose and stretched to get any kinks out of her body. Then she
smoothed down her uniform, and ran a brush quickly through her hair trying
to make herself somewhat presentable for the party she knew would be
awaiting her. She felt surprisingly good actually, the short rest on the
trip seeming to have restored her somewhat, although she doubted that it
had driven away all the effect of the sleep deprivation she had suffered
recently.

Now was the moment of truth though, as soon as she walked out the door she
would be beginning her new life. Behind her was Babylon 5, the war, and
Marcus, and ahead was a fresh start with a new ship and a new crew. She
knew it wouldn't be the same, a warship like the Rasputin never was, but if
what she had been told was true this new destroyer was the largest ever
built and carried a crew well over a thousand, almost double what the
Omega's carried. Besides this was only meant to be a shakedown cruise, a
quick jaunt around the colonies to iron out any problems with the new
vessels before any more were built, she wasn't even likely to see any
action.

The green light over the shuttle hatch came on and Susan reached down and
twisted the lever there, forcing the door open. It slid away to the side
with a hiss and she quickly walked down the stairs and onto the metal floor
of the docking bay. Across from her a small group of men and woman, some in
Earthforce uniforms, some in the white coats of the research division, were
walking steadily towards her. Slinging her small travel bag over her
shoulder she marched off to meet them, her face an impassive mask of
determination.

Whatever she might be feeling inside Susan had learned many years ago never
to show anyone what she was really feeling. She tried to always appears
strong and determined to others, and always finish the job, no matter what
she really felt inside. It was part of what made her such a good officer,
she had the ability to tune out other distractions and concentrate fully on
her job, forgetting about everything else. This was what she did now, not
wanting to give anyone the impression she was weak and not suited for the
captaincy of their new ship.

The group from the station met her half way across the docking bay, lead by
a short, overweight, dark-skinned man in the uniform of an Earthforce
Admiral. She gave a short and sharp salute as she pulled up next to him and
then shook the hand he offered her.

"Welcome Captain Ivanova to Neptune-Beta. I am Admiral Kiernan, in command
of this station, and all the work that goes on here. If you will just come
with me I will introduce the rest of my staff."

Susan nodded her ascent, as the Admiral knew she would and he quickly
introduced the rest of his staff one by one.

"This is Dr Nathan Kozlowski, head of research," he pointed out a tall,
thin man who looked about sixty and had a large number of papers and charts
under his arm, one of which he was reading intently. He didn't even seem to
be aware of Susan's presence.

"No doubt he will want to talk with you later about your new command." At
this the doctor looked up from what had been reading and started to speak,
but the Admiral had already whisked Susan away and down the line of
Earthforce officials, introducing them one after the other. Dr Kozlowski
closed his mouth again and looked glum for a moment before noticing
something interesting on the paper he was holding and went back to his
reading.

"And finally we have Lt-Commander Philip Moore who will be serving as your
chief engineer on the Rasputin."

Susan shook the hands of the tall, well muscled, dark-skinned engineer, a
Polynesian by the looks of it, and took the time to examine him carefully,
as he was the first of her crew she had been introduced to. He wasn't what
she had expected of an engineer, looking more like an athlete than someone
who spent all their time working on a starship engines. At another time she
might have even found him attractive, but the last thing she needed now was
more complications in her life, so she turned and walked over to join the
Admiral who was waiting by the large pressure doors leading into the
station.

She could feel the eyes of several of those she had just meet boring into
her back as she walked away, and quickened her place slightly. Reaching the
Admiral's side she asked him, "Where are the rest of my command staff,
haven't they arrived yet.?"

"Yes they have arrived," the Admiral said, pressing his hand down on the
control that operated the pressure doors, and then standing back as the
massive doors slid open with a hissing sound. "Most are already aboard the
Rasputin though, and there has been a minor problem with one of the systems
so they are busy working to fix that before the commissioning tomorrow."

"What sort of problem," Susan asked. "Nothing serious I hope?"

"I don't think so," the Admiral replied. "But the doctor would know more
about that than me, he will probably tell you about it. I have to go and
meet with the ISN crew we have allowed on board, they seem very interested
in this new vessel, or perhaps just in its captain?" He turned and eyed her
carefully with a questioning look on his face. When she did not respond he
shrugged and said, "I will meet you later in the officers mess for dinner
then. Philip and Nathan can give you a short tour, and show you to your
quarters."

"Then I will see you tonight Admiral," Susan said with another salute. The
Admiral returned her gesture and spinning around on his well polished boots
marched off up the corridor leading towards the command section of station.
Several of his officers left with him and Susan was left in the company of
Nathan Kozlowski and Philip Moore. Looking at the doctor, who was still
busy reading through his reports she asked, "so doctor, what is the delay
with my vessel. I wanted to at least meet the rest of my crew."

The doctor looked and was caught in her cool, steady gaze as she looked
toward him for an answer. He shuffled his papers and looked a little
embarrassed for a moment. "Um, nothing important, just a minor problem with
the artificial gravity at the moment, nothing that won't be fixed by
tomorrow. It does mean however that no-one can go aboard or leave for the
moment, well not without a lot of trouble anyway."

"Artificial gravity?" Susan looked a little amazed, for as far as she had
known Earth didn't have any artificial gravity systems. "I wasn't aware the
Warlock class vessels had artificial gravity."

"Well it doesn't at the moment," Philip Moore said with a light, teasing
laugh, interrupting the doctor's explanation. "That is the problem."

"It does actually,"Kozlowski said, his voice rising slightly in response to
the engineers prodding. "There are just some minor problems. They are
nothing that we can not fix, but until the system is repaired the ship can
not get under way."

Philip laughed again. "Right, whatever you say doctor. If you ask me the
whole system is faulty. Not only does it take up nearly half the output of
four fusion reactors, that's four by the way, each larger than the old
Omega reactors, but when it is running you can not fire any of the guns
without bringing down the whole system."

Susan looked slightly concerned at this, and the doctor quickly rushed to
assure her. "Don't worry captain, we have added the new solar panels, which
are of my own design, and with them operating you will have enough power to
run all of the ships systems and still have plenty left over for weapons,
power storage and everything else."

Philip snorted at this. "Of course the solar panels require sunlight to
fuel them though don't they, so that means that they are not much use out
here in deep space."

The doctor looked indignant at this. "Of course they operate in deep space,
they are nearly one hundred percent efficient and draw in all energy, even
from weapons fire. Anyway we have the storage system for keeping energy for
when it is needed. You are worried about nothing."

"Well that is still experimental isn't it, besides I never liked the thing,
and I don't trust it as far as I can throw it."

The doctor was just about to answer again when Susan spoke up, wanting to
end the argument before it went on for too long. Obviously this was
something the two men argued about often, but it was giving her a headache.
"Enough, all I want to know is when I can go aboard, when can I meet my
crew, and when the ship will be operational."

Philip and Nathan looked at each other and the doctor consulted some notes
for a minute before answering. "Um, well you could go aboard now, but there
isn't much in the way of gravity, and there is that water problem on deck
eight, so it would be best to stay here for now. The AG system should be up
and running again sometime tonight with any luck, and that should fix most
of the problems. It was only a short in one of the less important circuits
so that will be repaired and replaced in a few hours. Then we have to check
the rest of the circuits and you will be able to board after the
commissioning ceremony tomorrow morning. Philip here is working with me on
the final upgrade of the bridge systems, so everything should be ready a
bit quicker."

"Don't worry Captain," Philip added. "I won't let him start pulling it all
apart again like he did last month. I know they have had you waiting on
Station Prime for nearly a month now, so if it can be ready in time it will
be."

Susan nodded and asked, "that's something to look forward too at least, but
where will I be staying for the night."

Philip smiled, "There has been a room put aside for you in the habitat
ring. Right next to the ISN quarters."

Susan groaned, "not ISN."

"I am afraid so captain, it was the only room available. If it makes you
feel any better I can order security to make sure their doors are locked at
night. That way they can't get out and start running around wreaking
thing." Philip's tone was only half teasing as he said this

"That might be best," Susan said with a faint smile.

"Yes, I imagine that you must be getting quite sick of them by now."

Susan nodded and was about to reply when she noticed something through the
large window that looked out over the construction yards. As the station
rotated a massive ship was just coming into view. "It that her," she asked,
slightly in awe of what she saw.

"Yep, that's the Rasputin all right, quite a beauty isn't she." Philip
walked over to the window to look out at the silver-hulled vessel sitting
idle in the construction dock, the occasional blue spark showing where a
construction crew was still working on the hull, or one of the external
sensors.

The doctor also walked over to join the other two, his papers forgotten for
the moment as he looked in admiration at his creation. "The best ship in
the fleet, more powerful that any other vessel in space now that the
Vorlon's are gone."

Susan looked at him. "You can't be serious, what about the Minbari or the
Centari vessels. No earth ship has ever been able to stand up against
them."

The doctor looked out at his creation, with a smug grin before turning to
Susan to answer her question. "Well this one can. It is designed to take a
beating and keep on fighting, and if that gun hits a Minbari vessel then
they will die just the same as any other ship."

Susan followed his arm and saw what the doctor was pointing out to her.
Slung underneath the front of the ship was that largest single gun she had
seen on a warship, a huge weapon of destruction unlike any she had ever
seen before. "What the hell is that."

Philip laughed, "that captain is the particle cannon. It is the pride and
joy of the researchers here on Neptune-Beta, the single most powerful
weapon ever built by the Earth Alliance. Even the weapons on the earth
defence grid were not as powerful as this little baby. It can cut through
almost anything, and as far as we know there is no defence against it, not
even the Minbari stealth technology."

"It works similar to the Minbari weapons," Nathan Kozlowski added. "It
fires a steam of charged particles across space and the beam can be used to
slice an enemy vessel up, rather than just blow up sections like the plasma
weapons."

Susan appeared suitably impressed, but somewhere in the back of her mind
she felt there was something similar about what they were describing,
something she had seen not so long ago. Before she could examine the ship
any more though the station had rotated further and it was gone from view.
She thought about waiting around until the station rotated again, but
already her guide was ready to move her on.

"Come on, we might as well get going," Philip was saying. "You quarters for
the night are off in this direction and you had best get settled if you are
going to be on time to meet the admiral for dinner. He always has an early
meal."

"Lead on then, now that you mention it I am feeling a little hungry." Susan
smiled as she said that, but realised that she was hungry and wondered when
the last time she had sat down for a proper meal was. She thought about it
for a moment and couldn't remember the last time. The past few months had
been nothing more than quickly grabbed snacks or meals in her quarters, she
had never had the time to sit down and eat with the rest of the crew, or at
one of Babylon 5's various restaurants.

"You do look like you could need a good meal," Philip said, still smiling.
"Don't worry the admiral will give you a good feed, as you might have
noticed he does like the odd snack."

Behind her the doctor snorted at this, "More than the odd snack I would
think."

Philip laughed again at this, and took Susan by the arm guiding her towards
the passage leading to the habitat section. She wondered for a moment what
he meant by saying she needed a good meal before realising how thin and
gaunt she had become. She wondered what the matter with her was, how had
she got so thin. Before she could realise that she had hardly been eating
at all since Marcus' death Philip had hustled her onto the small shuttle
car that ran down the corridor to the habitat section of the station.

The passages between the various sections of the research station were in
zero-g so a quick shuttle had been built to transport those who wished to
travel between each section. The station itself was divided into five
sections, docking, research, construction, habitat and command. Each
section being linked by long glass corridors which the shuttles ran down.
Each section also seemed to rotate on its own, separate from the other,
ensuring that all had gravity.

Susan could see the whole station through the glass like corridor as the
shuttle hurtled down it towards the next section. She could also see her
ship, and behind it another two vessels, one under construction and the
third, covered with a dark, mottled hull, one that she recognised only too
well. She shivered at the sight of the Warlock, remembering again the sight
of the Earth destroyers leaping from hyperspace all around her and the
deaths of those on the other White Star's and then finally the collision
and the blackness that followed.

Philip noted her looking at the Warlock and the way she reacted, but did
not say anything. He unlike most of those working here knew that she had
lead the White Star's that had destroyed the modified Omega's, vessels that
had been modified here at Neptune-Beta. It was still a bit of a sore point
with some of the researchers here, and he didn't want to remind the doctor
about it. They had been his babies after all.

Susan was not willing to let it pass so easily though and as soon as their
shuttle had reached the habitat section and they were under the effects of
a normal gravity again she asked, "What was that second vessel we passed
just then?"

Dr Kozlowski looked at her, "what vessel, do you mean the Warlock?"

"Yes. I want to know why it's here. Don't you realise that it is using
Shadow technology."

"Shadow Technology?" the doctor looked at her, wondering what she was
talking about.

"Yes, the hull, it is the same as the advanced-tech Omega destroyers Clark
used in the war."

The doctor looked confused for a moment, and then realised what she was
talking about. "Oh you mean the Biosilicate hull. Yes we did use that to
modify some of the older destroyers last year. Quite effective it proved to
be during testing. Some people seem to have an adverse reaction to it
though for some reason, found it somewhat disconcerting to be near.So we
had to alter the hull of the production models."

Susan almost sighed in relief, but instead just nodded. "Good, I don't
think I would want to be on a vessel like that one. Anything related to the
Shadow still scares the hell out of me."

The doctor was about to open his mouth and tell her something, but Philip
slapped his large hand across it, before Kozlowski could speak. He didn't
want to upset the captain, not now anyway. She would have to learn later
that the Rasputin had the same hull as the Warlock, it just had another
layer of more normal material across the surface, hiding the Biosilicate
hull beneath the surface.

Susan shuddered at the thought of the Shadow vessels, the way they had
screamed in her mind as they had passed. She hadn't told anyone yet, but
she had been more effected by them than the others. She, as a latent
telepath had picked up more intensely the thoughts of pain, anger, and
horror that had come from the ships, but without training to use her
abilities had been unable to block them out like Lyta and the other
telepaths that they had used during the war. She had felt the full force of
the screams and the thoughts of what she had felt and heard still haunted
her crowded nightmares.

Philip and Kozlowski were waiting for her, the engineer's face showing his
concern. Silently she cursed herself for showing her fear and straightened
up. "Which way to this room you were talking about," she asked the
engineer, trying to look calm and collected, and brush aside her reaction
to the sight of the Warlock.

"This way," Philip answered, pointing down a corridor. "There aren't many
others around at the moment, but most of the station crew will be here
later. The doctor and I have to be going though, we still have some repairs
to finish working on. I believe that the Admiral sent someone to unload you
possessions and put them aboard the Rasputin."

"Good," Susan said as she walked steadily down the corridor, her fear at
the sight of the Warlock now gone.

"Oh and that reminds me, a package arrived for you from Babylon 5 last
week. I think it is in your quarters here on the station."

Susan looked confused. "A package. I wasn't expecting anything. I took
everything I owned with me when I left."

Philip shrugged. "All I know is that it arrived last week, addressed for
you, from President Sheridan I think."

Susan was even more confused now, but hid it with a nod, as if to show the
engineer that his explanation had made everything clear. She followed the
two men down a corridor before Philip halted outside a door, sliding a card
into the lock to open it. Inside was a basic room, with little more than a
bunk, shower cubicle, and some other basic furnishings. Sitting on the
floor was a large plastic packing container, the package that Philip had
spoken about.

The engineer handed her the card he had used to open the door. "Well here
you go captain, dinner is in an hours time. We are fairly informal around
here so you don't need to wear a uniform if you don't want to. The computer
can direct you if you need to find the way or anything like that. I have to
get going, but will probably see you tomorrow morning at the ceremony."

Susan nodded and said, "thanks for showing me around Lieutenant."

The tall engineer just smiled again, flashing his white teeth. "No trouble
at all Captain, we are shipmates now after all, and we all have to get
along if we are going to be serving together. Come on Nathan, lets get
going, we have work to do."

The doctor was again busy with his reports, so Philip grabbed him by the
arm. Startled he dropped a couple of paper and Susan bent down to pick them
up. "Thank you captain," he said as she handed them back to him. "I am sure
you will enjoy serving on my ship, it is after all the best in the fleet,
all the latest upgrades, all the latest improvements. There is nothing we
have left out, it is not like that old station you have been on for the
last few years."

"I am sure I will doctor," she said, slightly annoyed at the way he had
dismissed Babylon 5. After all to her is hadn't been some old station, but
her home. "But for now I need a shower, something to eat, and a good nights
sleep. I will see you later." With that she turned towards the computer and
said, "close." With barely a sound the door to the room shut and left her
alone again, at least for a little while.

	------------------------------------------------------------

A sonic shower was never the same as a real water one, but in space it was
usually the best one could expect. It felt similar, but Susan had grown
used to her shower on Babylon 5, one of the few on the station that had
been allowed to use real water. Only hers, the other senior officers
quarters, and the ambassadors had running water, and it was one of the
things that she was going to miss most of all. It had been her one luxury
that she would allow herself everyday, well that and the coffee that she
had grown herself in the botanical gardens. She knew that it was unlikely
that she would feel water on her skin again for some time, as on a starship
water was even rarer than on a station like Neptune-Beta, or Babylon 5.

Stepping out of a sonic shower was never the same either. When she had
finished showering back on Babylon 5 she could always look forward to
drying herself with the soft Centari towels she had received from Londo
Mollari as a birthday the first year she had been there, but with a sonic
shower she was already dry so all she could do was put on the standard
dressing gown that she had found hanging behind the cubicle door and go and
get dressed. It was not the same, but she would have to get used to it. At
least she felt clean now, a sonic shower did clean you as thoroughly as a
real shower at least, although they had always seemed to leave her feeling
cold when she got out.

At least her room was nice and warm. The first thing she had done had been
to turn up the temperature a few extra degrees, giving the room a much more
cosy feel than it had before. This station, like all of those built since
the Minbari war, allowed each room to maintain a separate temperature,
instead of the constant 21ºC that the older stations maintained throughout.
She had also dimmed the lights a little, trying to make it feel a bit more
like her quarters back on Babylon 5. Susan knew she would only be here for
one night, but she was determined to get as much out of it as possible as
it was unlikely that she could expect much in the way of luxuries once she
was on board the warship.

She say down on the bunk and ran her brush through her hair, trying to work
out some of the tangles that had gathered there over the past few weeks.
During her time on Station Prime she had not really been concerned about
her appearance and now her hair really needed some work. As she was sitting
there she noticed the plastic crate that her guide had pointed out earlier,
the one from John. Putting down her brush she knelt down beside it, curious
to see what was inside.

Sitting on top was a data crystal, which had probably been delivered at the
same time, so she picked that up and put it into the viewer and said,
"play."

The wall mounted screen showed the B5 logo for a moment before clearing
into the smiling face of John Sheridan. "Susan, I hope this finds you well
and happy. A few of us back here decided to put this package together for
you, just so you could have a few things to remind you of happier times. I
know you left with so little, so we decided to send you a few little
something's that would might need. I know there probably won't be much room
on your new ship, but with the little you took with you I think you be able
to squeeze this crate in as well. I hope you enjoy everything we sent,
Lennier and Garibaldi spent a while putting it together. Anyway I don't
have much time so I guess I will look forward to seeing you when you come
to visit. Just don't leave it too long, we want to at least here from you
sometime Susan."

The short message then ended and Susan was left wondering what exactly was
in the package. She didn't want to wait any longer so quickly undid the
seal of the packing case and lifted the lid to expose its contents. She
gave a slight gasp at what she saw, a collection of beautiful Minbari
clothing, covering the upper layer of the crate. She quickly pulled them
out and ran the soft cloth along her cheek, enjoying the smoothness, and
silky feel she had always enjoyed. There were several items of clothing,
all for off-duty wear, and a long gown, similar to the ones Delenn often
wore, and probably one that she had put in for her. The Minbari seemed to
have rituals for everything, even designing clothes and for them to send
her so many beautiful garments showed how highly they valued her.

Underneath the gown however was even more. Several bottles of Centari wine,
probably from Londo or Vir. All had been stamped with the logo of house
Mollari, and were similar to those she had seen Londo drinking in his
quarters when ever she had gone to visited. Next to that was a pile of Narn
cookware, and a carved spice rack, made from what looked like bloodwood.
Obviously G'Kar didn't want to be outdone by the Centari so had spent her
an even more expensive gift. Then there was a pile of data crystals,
featuring some of her favourite music, probably from Stephen. And finally a
pair of daffy duck boxer short, and a small collection of data crystals
with title that made even her blush. There she realised were from
Garibaldi, recognising his perverse sense of humour. Well at least he was
back to normal now.

Susan realised that John must have organised all of her friends on Babylon
5 to send something to remind her both of them and the station that had
been her home for so long. She couldn't help but cry at his thoughtfulness,
hugging the gown to her chest as tears ran down her cheeks. Even though she
had left them behind they still thought of her, still cared enough about
her to send her such beautiful gifts. For a moment she felt intensely
homesick, wishing that she was back on Babylon 5 with Garibaldi, Sheridan,
and the rest. The feeling passed though as she remembered Marcus, Babylon 5
would never feel the same without him, and every time she went into the war
room, or medlab, or the hundreds of other places she had seen him then she
would be reminded of him, and would feel his loss again.

Sniffing she wiped away the tears and checking the clock on the vid screen
realised that she was going to be late for dinner unless she got moving.
She considered what to wear, Philip had said that it was informal, but she
didn't really have anything but her uniform. Then she remembered what she
was holding and smiled at the thought of her walking into the officer's
messed dressed in Minbari clothing. She decided that it probably wouldn't
be the best idea and repacked everything Sheridan has sent her and resealed
the crate, before struggling back into her Earthforce uniform.

It proved to be the best choice as the Admiral and several others at the
table were also dressed in their uniforms still, despite what Philip had
said. Admiral Kiernan motioned for her to come over to his table and she
soon found herself sitting beside him, facing a group of civilians, all
wearing ISN press badges. Inwardly she groaned at the sight, although
knowing that they were probably here to cover the launch of the new
destroyer, after all it was not every day that Earthforce launched a
completely new class of vessel. She could not help but feel that they were
here because of her though.

For the moment they seemed more interested in their meals, as did everyone
on the table, expect Dr Kozlowski who was sitting next to her. He was busy
writing on a pad, while his meal sat unnoticed on the table in front of
him. A steward soon arrived with her meal, a concoction of chicken and what
looked like mango slices. Chicken wasn't her favourite, but she did like
tropical fruit. Tucking in she was soon enjoying one of the first proper
meals she had eaten in a long time.

The Admiral seemed to be enjoying his as well, judging by the amount on his
plate. By the time she had finished her plate, surprising herself at the
amount she had eaten, he was just completing his meal, despite having
starting long before her. Wiping his lips on a napkin he turned to her and
asked, "So Captain Ivanova, what do you think of the Rasputin. I gather you
got a bit of a look at her earlier."

At his words the ISN crew looked in her direction, and she could almost see
their hands reaching for notepads and recording devices that they probably
had hidden beneath the table ready to catch anything she said. Then again
she just might be a little paranoid as well. "Very impressive Admiral, I am
certainly looking forward to serving on her."

"Indeed, she is the finest vessel in the fleet Captain, and you are very
lucky to get her."

"I thought so as well Admiral," Susan agreed, again wondering why exactly
she had been offered the command, especially after all she had fought on
the other side during the war.

"Yes, well it seemed that Earth Central was most impressed with the way
that you have handled yourself recently and wanted to see what you could do
with a command of your own. Besides it seems that you are something of a
celebrity these days, even more so than Sheridan." The Admiral turned and
stared at the ISN crew, who looked slightly guilty for a moment before
appearing to focus their attention on their meals, and the plates of desert
that were just being bought to the table from the kitchen.

The Admiral picked up his and then, motioning for Susan to do the same,
stood and walked over to the large window that looked out into space. She
followed and they sat down in at an empty table looking out at the vast
bulk of Neptune as it slowly appeared to drift by the window, although it
was actually the station that was moving, not he planet. "I was actually in
favour of you taking this command Susan, and that is mainly why you were
offered it. Before Clark you were always one of our most dedicated and
loyal officers and I hope this is still so."

"Of course Admiral, I have always been loyal to Earth."

Admiral Kiernan nodded. "Yes I know you have, as were all of those who
fought, no matter what side they were on. It was Clark and those who worked
with him we had to worry about all along, I knew that. When his researchers
arrived here with shuttle loads of alien artefacts then I knew there was
something wrong. He spent so much time talking about the Alien influence on
earth, yet here we were deciphering artefacts from worlds I didn't even
know existed."

"The Shadows," Susan said grimly.

"Shadows? I don't think I ever heard about them. Is that where the
artefacts came from?"

Susan nodded, and Kiernan could see a slight look of apprehension, or even
fear on her face, a look she quickly hid. "We fought against them, while
all the while Clark was working with them, trying to harness their
technology for his own purposes."

"Then that was what was going on," Kiernan said, everything now becoming
clear to him. "We heard stories of course, about a war, but never any
detail. Out here we were pretty much kept in the dark about what was going
on, with only ISN and what they wanted us to know getting through. All I
knew was that ship loads of researchers were coming and going, and then
after Kozlowski deciphered how to grow more of that Biosilicate or what
ever he calls it we were asked to refit a fleet of destroyers."

"Yes I know," Susan said, thinking back on the battle she had fought
against the modified Omega's. "I fought against them in the war."

"And destroyed them as well," Kiernan said. "That was partly why I wanted
you to command the Rasputin. You had the most experience with these ships,
and the Warlock class vessels still use a lot of this alien technology, as
well as some we developed ourselves from a captured Minbari fighter from
the Earth-Minbari war."

Susan looked surprised as he said this. "I though only the Warlock used the
Shadow technology, Dr Kozlowski said something about the Rasputin's hull
being altered."

Kiernan nodded again. "Yes an outer layer was added after they found people
didn't like looking at the Warlock's hull, something about it giving them
nightmares. I know what they meant, it had the same effect on me. But the
hull is still there, beneath the surface, and the solar panels are made of
the same stuff."

Susan shivered again at the thought of it. Kiernan noticed this and quickly
spoke to reassure her. "I wouldn't worry though we have made a lot of
changes since the Omega modifications. The Biosilicate has been modified to
grow more regular, instead of developing those spikes that it did when we
applied it to the Omega hulls. Everything has been harnessed and is kept
under control now, much like any other piece of Earth technology. I guess
it is like anything that joins Earthforce, we soon straighten it out."

At the Admiral's words Susan felt a little better, but she knew she was not
looking forward to serving on the ship now. Her mind was filled with
thoughts of the screams of the Shadows and their weapons slicing into
everything they hit. "I hope you are right Admiral," she said. "The Shadows
were an evil race, and their weapons and technology was just like them. You
didn't see their planet killer, and what it did to worlds."

The Admiral turned away from the window and looked over towards the table
where Kozlowski sat, his meal still untouched. "Well I don't think you have
too much to worry about. Kozlowski is a genius, if a little absent minded.
The other researchers they sent us just tried to modify out vessels to fit
the technology, and you saw the results. Kozlowski though modified the
technology to fit our vessels and altered it considerably. I have been on
board the Rasputin several times, as have your crew and I haven't noticed
the same feeling I felt when I was on those Omega's yet."

"Good," Susan said with some considerable relief. She had fought against
the modified Omega destroyers, and they had been tough, but she had not
intention of serving on one of them. The Rasputin had looked normal enough
when she had glimpsed it earlier, but she knew that such appearances often
covered up surprises below the surface. At the moment she was also curious
about her crew. Apart from Philip Moore, the engineer she had yet to meet
any of them. She asked the Admiral about this.

Admiral Kiernan was busy eyeing the untouched meal sitting in front of Dr
Kozlowski and a little distracted, so her question caught him a little off
guard. "Hmm, what was that, the crew. Well they are a good enough bunch,
most have been appointed by Earth Central so I don't really know them that
well. The engineering crew is from this station though, and they are all
good men and woman. As for the others well I can't really tell you anything
about them. You will meet them all tomorrow at the ceremony though."

Susan looked a little disappointed. She would have liked to get to know
everyone a little before the set off, as she knew that once the ship was
commissioned she was expected to fly her out of the dock, although where
exactly she had not been told yet. She decided that it might be time to get
some rest, for some reason what he had told her about the destroyer had
filled her with apprehension and she didn't want to to appear that was in
front of him and the rest of the people in the dining room. "Well I had
best be getting some sleep then Admiral, I want to be fresh for tomorrow."

"Good idea, would you like me to show you back to your quarters Captain."

Susan smiled and as graciously as possible turned down his offer and then
extracted herself from the room, getting away before the reporters from ISN
could corner her with questions about her thoughts on the new destroyer and
that sort of thing. Almost running down the corridor she returned to her
room and after pausing only to take off her jacket before lying down on her
bunk.

She felt incredibly tired, despite the nap she had on the shuttle earlier
that day. She had thought that she would have been able to move into her
quarters on the destroyer that day, but that had not proven possible, and
then had come the revelation that the hull had been based on the Shadow
vessels. She knew that this wasn't going to be easy, but she should have
known that Earthforce wouldn't give up the technology they had gained from
the Shadows so easily, despite the fact that they were Clark's allies. Now
she was going to be stuck on a vessel using this technology for several
months at least.

She knew she was stuck, trapped by her guilt and job. She couldn't go back
to Babylon 5, and there was nothing left for her on Earth will all of her
family now dead, and here she was, stuck on a ship that she knew she was
going to hate. Susan sobbed softly into her pillow as she drifted off to
sleep and into the arms of the nightmares, the same ones she had suffered
from every night for the past two years.

Soon she was moaning and twisting on the bed as they took hold and she
again saw her friends die again and again in her dreams, with the screams
of the Shadow vessels cutting into her mind. This time though it was her in
control of the Shadow vessel, it was her doing the killing, and there was
nothing she could do to stop herself.

	------------------------------------------------------------




Sel Vecantie

e-mail: vecantie@geocities.com
homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/


From: "Sel" <vecantie@geocities.com>
Subject: Reunion - part 2.a
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 01:04:14 +0930

Here is the second part of my B5 story., spread over two posts due to the
size.
As I said in the post of the first part an archive of the story (in html
format with a nice background) can be found on my homepage at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/

The address I gave for any coment though was wrong. It should be
vecantie@geocities.com
I am interested in hearing anything you have to say, especially advice on
how to improve my writing etc.
_________________________________________________

			      Reunion - Part 2
			      By Sel Vecantie



"We are now going live to the commissioning ceremony for Earthforce's
latest warship, the EAS Rasputin. Designed with all of the latest
technology, including artificial gravity, this vessel is destined to become
the flagship of the Earth Alliance fleet. As we mentioned yesterday the
Rasputin will be commanded by Captain Susan Ivanova, hero of the war
against the mad president Clark. As you can see from the pictures we are
now receiving they are just about to begin, so we now go live to
Neptune-Beta, the research station where the Warlock class vessels have
been designed and built."

ISN Report - Morning, January 31, 2262.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Susan unsuccessfully tried to hide a yawn as the ISN crew focused their
recorders on the warship behind her. She was still tired from her restless
night and it had been very difficult dragging herself out of bed this
morning to face the reporters. Still she had done it and had even managed
to make herself look presentable, mainly thanks to a clean uniform that
someone had thoughtfully left in her quarters while she had been off having
dinner the previous night. She hadn't noticed it last night, but this
morning was glad it was there, especially after she had spent the night
sleeping in her old uniform. Looking back on it, that was probably why she
hadn't slept well at all.

She was annoyed that the reporters were here, as it seemed to her that
Earthforce was only allowing them in to show everyone that they the Earth
Alliance still strong, despite the destruction of a large number of ships
in the recent civil war. The ISN crew was certainly being given plenty of
time to look the at the ship, especially the heavy weapons and the fighter
bays at the front. She disliked the whole thing, in fact she disliked
reporters in general, but the Admiral had insisted that she be here,
showing her face. To Susan it almost seemed as though she was part of some
sort of perverse publicity campaign.

At least she had finally been able to meet her crew this morning. The
problems with the Artificial Gravity had been fixed apparently and everyone
had gathered in one of the station's docking bays, the one closest to the
massive bulk of the Rasputin so ISN could record plenty of vid images of
the new ship. The command staff of the Rasputin was a very diverse bunch,
even compared to the Babylon 5 command staff.

Her executive officer, a thin, wiry, Russian from the Moscow megacity
called Gregor Petrov. He seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face, but
at least he had taken a likening to her, especially after she had been
introduced and he realised she was also from the Russian Consortium. He was
likely a conservative like her father, one of those who still wished for
the good old days of the past when all the nations were independent of each
other and only Russians could guide the destiny of other Russians. Still
she decided that she also liked him, as it was likely that he had disliked
Clark and Earthdome as much as she had.

Alister Schmitt and Vincent Dreyer, in charge of the fighter squadrons and
ships weapons respectively she was less sure of. Both were from the
European Union, and looked like career officers, the sort who would never
disobey the orders of their commanders. They had probably served Clark's
side during the war, and this could probably lead to trouble. After all she
had been one of the leaders of the rebel force and it was only because of
the amnesty that Sheridan had managed to drag out of the new Earth Alliance
president that she was not facing a court marshal right now, instead of
being given command of the new Earth Alliance flagship.

The other two members of the command staff she had liked however, at least
at their first meeting. Philip Moore, the Polynesian engineer still looked
as cheerful as ever, despite probably spending most of the night working on
the ship's repairs. He had waved to her when she had arrived for breakfast,
appearing worn out from her nightmare filled sleep the night before. She
didn't know exactly what to make of Amanda Taylor, the ships doctor though.
She was from Mars according to her record, and had only joined Earthforce
three years ago. Why she had been given such a high profile posting Susan
didn't know, but the blonde woman seemed nice enough when they had met at
breakfast.

Admiral Kiernan had told her that the rest of the command staff, which as
far as she could tell meant only the commander of the ship's marines were
waiting for her at Mars, apparently the first port of call for the Rasputin
after it left the station. At the moment the ship only had a skeleton crew,
with almost a thousand new crew members awaiting her arrival on Mars to
come aboard. The few that were here were enough for the short journey
through patrolled space though, with no trouble expected in either
hyperspace, or in space near Mars, depite the reports of raider trouble
near some of the inner colonies.

Her thoughts about her crew were soon interrupted though as Admiral Kiernan
turned to her and invited her up onto the podium to introduce her, the ISN
recorders turning to watch her again. With a smile she crossed the room to
stand beside him as he spoke, "and now I would like to introduce Captain
Susan Ivanova who will be commanding the Rasputin."

Susan smiled mechanically for the ISN crew as the Admiral continued to
describe the vessel, how it was the pride of the Earth Alliance fleet, and
the ship that would show to the other races that Earth could design
warships as well as them, if not better. She barely concentrated on his
words, instead trying her best not to look bored or too tired for the
recorders. Then she realised that he had finished talking and was looking
at her. She felt a sudden fear, not knowing what to say or what he had been
saying, but then noticed his finger, hidden from the ISN reporters by the
podium, pointing toward a button and realised what he wanted. With another
smile for ISN she turned towards the window looking out on the warship and
waited until the station rotated enough for the Rasputin to come into view
again. Then when it was coming into view she pushed down the button and the
recorders turned to watch as the arm of one of the maintenance robots,
which had been positioned outside the docking bay, tossed a bottle of
champagne across space towards the hull of the Rasputin in the time
honoured ritual used to christen a new ship.

She watched the bottle's flight, following its path as it spun slowly
through space before shattering against the thick hull of the new warship,
just below the section of hull where the ship's name had been inscribed. A
cheer went up from the crowd gathered in the docking bay, and contined for
about ten second, before the warship moved out of view again as the station
continued its rotation. Susan smiled as she thought of the maintenance bots
that would likely now be rushing to collect all the shattered glass from
the bottle. Even the tiniest piece of glass could be deadly if it struck a
fast moving fighter craft like a Starfury. The station's sensors had
probably been even tracked the bottle the whole time, so what was left of
it could be gathered quickly. It seemed a silly thing to do given the risks
to vessel, but tradition demanded that the ceremony be performed as it
always had been, despite the fact that modern vessels no longer sailed the
seas of Earth, but the depths of space.

She soon turned away from the window and went to join the rest of her
command staff and the researchers that had gathered in the docking bay.
They were busy handing around bottles of Australasian Champagne, and trays
of food. She didn't really feel like eating anything more right now, but
took a glass of the champagne, after all it wasn't every day that she got
to drink the most valuable wine currently produced on Earth. It was the
Centari that had first led to its popularity and rise in price, after they
had taken a shine to it shortly following their arrival on Earth, and as
Susan knew the Centari were nothing if not experts on alcoholic drinks of
all kind.

With gritted teeth she managed to fight her way through the long party that
followed, smiling nicely whenever someone came to congratulate her on her
command, and answering the questions of the ISN crew and nicely as
possible, despite the annoyance that she felt at their presence. Inside she
could only hope that it would all be over soon. Despite her experiences
with diplomacy on Babylon 5, she still didn't like standing around drinking
and chatting with people. She was a woman of action not a desk jockey like
Kiernan, who was certainly in his element here, holding court on the far
side of the docking bay, describing the herculean efforts of his
researchers as they had designed and put together the Warlock and Rasputin.
She on the other hand tried to stay out of his orbit as much as possible
and avoid the spotlight if she could.

"Having fun yet Captain," the voice of Philip Moore asked from behind her.

She turned around and saw the engineer and Amanda Taylor, the ship's
doctor, standing close behind her. "Of course," She said with a slighty
sarcastic smile. "Who wouldn't be enjoying this."

Philip laughed, recognising her sarcasm for what it was. "Don't worry
captain there isn't more to go, you will soon be aboard. I think you will
find it quite an amazing vessel. I know, I helped but it together."

"So I have been told time and time again," Susan said. "I would like to see
for myself though, before passing any judgements."

"Don't worry Captain," Amanda spoke up. "The Rasputin has all the latest
advances, and even I was impressed when I saw the medical facilities. Very
nice indeed, a lot better than what I expected on a warship."

"Well I look forward to seeing them then," Susan said, still not really
impressed, especially after her experience with the White Star's, and the
other Minbari vessels. "I suppose at least the beds will be horizontal."

Amanda and Philip looked a little confused by this, not knowing the Minbari
practice of sleeping at a 45º angle. "Well you won't have long to wait
now," Philip said. "In fact it seem that we are about to head off now. The
Admiral has just finished giving his speeches, in record time by the looks
of things."

Susan turned around again and saw that Admiral Kiernan had indeed finished
talking and was motioning for her and the rest of her crew to come over to
his side so they could board the shuttle that would take them over to the
Rasputin. She noticed with no small amount of pleasure that the ISN
reporters were being guided out of the docking bay and the only ones left
were the Admiral, Dr Kozlowski, her crew, and the pilot and crew of the
shuttle.

"Come on Captain," the Admiral was saying. "We want to get going as quickly
as we can. You might like to sit up front though and get a good look at
your ship before we go aboard. I am sure you have been anxious to have a
close look at her."

"I certainly have Admiral," she agreed, grabbing hold of the small ladder
that lead into the Phoenix class shuttle's pilot cabin, and preparing to
drag herself upwards. Before she could though a hand reached down from the
cabin and hauled her aboard, and she found herself being welcomed into her
seat by the young, sandy-haired pilot who introduced himself as Ensign
Roland Muther. She smiled nicely at the young pilot, while refusing his
offer of the shuttle's controls. After all she was a captain now, and that
meant getting others to do the work for you.

The pilot did not seem to mind her turning down his offer and soon had the
shuttle under way, the four thrusters on it's underside lifting it smoothly
off the deck of the docking bay and then into space, after the external
doors opened. The large thrusters at the aft of the shuttle began to chew
through the hydrogen fuel as they pushed the vessel out of the gravity
field generated by the rotation of the docking ring and into space. Then
with another quick burst of power from the aft thrusters the shuttle began
gliding toward the Rasputin's dock.

>From her vantage point in the cockpit of the shuttle she could see the huge
warship slowly come into view, its silvery hull sliding from behind the
bulk of the docking bay. Susan was surprised how it made her feel, almost
excited about going aboard, despite her fears about the Shadow Technology
that it contained. It was truly a magnificent ship, over a thousand metres
of pure beauty, and power. Obviously it's designers had gone all out to
make it look perfect in every way. It made the old Omega's and even Babylon
5 look like ugly ducklings when compared to it. Even the vast explorer
ship, vessels she had always wanted to serve on, could not match it for the
way it took her breath away.

At the front of the vessel Susan could see the lethal looking barrels of
the particle cannon, sitting just below the dual fighter bays, which sat
ready to pour Starfurys out at any enemy that came within range. Then
behind the bow she could see the smooth, slightly bludging hull that
contained the habitat sections of the ship. Gone was the rotating section
that had provided gravity for those on board the older destroyer. Instead
the bridge and everything else now looked like just another part of the
hull. She could see the lights from the portholes that were scattered along
the sides, all the way back to the huge, dark solar panels that rose high,
just aft of where she imagined the bridge would be. Then the hull bludged
outwards again and she could see large bumps that marked the locations of
the four gigantic fusion reactors that dominated the rear of the vessel,
and provided fuel to all the vital systems.

The shuttle then began to dip below the hull of the Rasputin, bound for a
large, dark opening Susan could see in the lower part of the ship. She
realised that this was likely one of the shuttle bays that Philip Moore had
told her about this morning, over the large breakfast provided by the
station's catering staff. Clustered around the opening she could see the
various sensor arrays that had once dominated the front of the Omega
destroyers. It had now been relocated to the much safer location just below
the middle of the ship, right between the two massive hanger doors that led
into the shuttle bays.

With another burst from the thrusters the shuttle dipped again, passing
just below the great barrels of the main gun, and looking up she could also
make out the shapes of two smaller weapons, painted the same colour as the
hull so they sat almost hidden against its surface. She couldn't tell what
they were for her location, but they looked similar to the plasma gun on
the Omega's, maybe just a little large. They were very well hidden and had
she not been as close as she was she would not have seen them. Silently she
commended the designers for their good work, realising that most enemy
sensors would register the guns as nothing more than part of the warship's
hull, that was until the guns started firing at them.

Up close the hull began to lose some of its shine, as she noticed that it
looked somewhat similar to the hulls of older vessels, with slightly
overlapping plates covering the surface. These seemed to have been moulded
to the ship's frame better than any she had seen before though, and it was
almost impossible to see the joins. In the past most of the designers had
cared little for how the vessel's looked for the outside, just as long as
the armour protected them. The external hull was not designed to look good,
it was there to stop enemy weapons getting through and causing a breach. If
what Philip had been telling her was correct though this vessel was
designed differently, with the main hull beneath the surface, and just a
thin metallic layer covering the outside. She didn't really want to think
about that at the moment, and during the flight had been avoiding looking
towards the black silhouette that was the Warlock, in its own dock off in
the distance.

The flight looked like it was nearly over now though, as the young pilot
began to fire the forward braking thrusters, slowing the shuttle and
preparing for landing. Susan watched intently as the shuttle slowed, coming
ever closer to the large opening that was the shuttle bay, appearing to her
as though it was about to be swallowed by some sort of gigantic mouth. Then
it was through and with one last burst of the forward thrusters which
bought it almost to a stop the shuttle came to rest on the floor of the
vast airlock leading into the shuttle bay.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Susan didn't really know what to suspect, so was a little surprised that
the shuttle bay looked much the same as all the docking bays she had seen
on Babylon 5 and elsewhere. Because of the size of the destroyer it even
had a lift platform that would collect the incoming shuttle and cycle it
through the large airlock before it was lift by large clamps mounted on the
roof. The lift then slip away and the shuttle was lowered gently by the
clamps until it was resting on the floor of the main docking bay.

Below her, on the docking bay floor Susan could see the same scattered
collection of crates and tools that had been common place on Babylon 5, and
the scurrying crew members who hurried to get the boarding ladders up to
the shuttle's main doors, situated somewhere behind her. Susan undid her
restraints and pushed open the cockpit door, before swinging around and
climbing down the ladder the pilot had thoughtfully extened. It didn't hit
her until she had reached the ground, but the docking bay had gravity. Not
quite as much as Earth normal, but close. Obviously the AG system had been
fixed now, although she could still see a couple of torn up sections of
flooring not to far away, with tools piled around them and the blue arches
of welding equipment shining up from whatever lay below.

By the time she had reached the bottom the ladder the Admiral and the rest
of the shuttle's occupants were beginning to walk down the stairs. She
rushed over to meet them, making sure they saw how impressed she was with
what she had seen of the Rasputin so far. Admiral Kiernan noticed her
admiration and could not help boasting about his ship. "Pretty impressive
is it not Captain, artificial gravity on almost every deck now. Makes a bit
of a difference from the old days of the Earth-Minbari war when you had to
strap yourself into your station, or even your bunk all the time."

"You were in the war Admiral," she asked, a little surprised that he had
been involved as he didn't really seem the sort who had ever been a
soldier.

"Sure was, attached to the Vega fleet. We saw a fair bit of action too,
very lucky to get out in one piece. Our ship's electronic were taken out
once and we were left to die by the Minbari in deep space. Luckily we were
rescued before life support failed all together, but we still had to spend
a fair amount of time freezing our butts off in our enviro suits."

Susan nodded, knowing all too well what he was talking about. In space the
heat and oxygen provided by the life support system were the most important
things needed for survival. If heat failed then the cold darkness of space
would quickly creep through the thin hulls and into the vessel and it's
crew would freeze, and if oxygen failed, or the hull was breached then they
would die even sooner from decompression. She had only once been forced to
rely on her environment suit, when she had been forced to eject from her
Starfury outside Babylon 5, but even that one time had been enough, and it
had only lasted for a few minutes.

"But that was all a long time ago now," the Admiral continued. "After the
war I was promoted and eventually ended up posted here to Neptune-Beta.
Never though we would ever see anything like this beauty coming out of here
though, makes me wish we had these back when we fought the Minbari."

"Well we have it now Admiral," interrupted Commander Petrov as he squeeze
past the Admiral to join Susan on the deck of the shuttle bay. "I for one
am looking forward to serving on her."

"Indeed commander, she is a fine vessel." The Admiral then suddenly
realised that he was blocking everyone else from exiting the shuttle and
slowly walked out of the way of the ladder. "Well Captain, shall we take a
quick tour?"

"Sounds great Admiral, will you be showing us around, or the doctor.?"
Susan  asked as she stood to one side and watched as the rest of the crew
filed down the stairs, Dr Kozlowski the last of all. He quickly moved over
to have a look at the work that was still being done on the artificial
gravity, still carrying a pile of papers and a data pad.

The Admiral watched him go, and then realising that he probably wouldn't be
able to get the doctor away from his work smiled and gestured for Susan to
follow him down the towards the end of the shuttle bay. The rest of her
crew tagged along behind her, Gregor Petrov taking up a position by her
side as she walked. Philip Moore soon got left behind the small group
though as he joined Kozlowski in examining the work that was being done
beneath the shuttle bay floor.

As he walked the Admiral pointed out the lumbering shape of another Phoenix
class shuttle on the other side of bay, sitting quietly on the deck. "As
you can see we have two Phoenix shuttles here, as well as the four Dove
atmospheric shuttles," as he spoke about the smaller shuttles he pointed
towards four large doors, two along each side of the shuttle bay,
indicating where the much smaller vessels were kept. "We also have the new
troop transport vessel in the rear section. You might be interested to see
that."

Susan indicated that she would and the Admiral led her to another airlock,
this one much smaller than the one they had passed through in the shuttle.
Both sides of the airlock were pressurised at this time so it took only a
moment for the cycle to be complete and for the other door to open. She was
not really ready for what was in the bay beyond though.

Lights set in the roof shone off a large spiky black shape, something that
at once reminding her of the shadow vessels. It sat like some sort of
hideous spider, right in the middle of the bay. Even the Admiral couldn't
resist a slight shudder at the sight of it. "Nasty little bugger isn't it.
The Akira class troop transport they call it. It can hold a hundred marines
and can fly right through the atmosphere of a planet with little effect,
some sort of new atmospheric shielding, or so I have been told. As you can
see the floor of this bay opens up and the ship can drop right out. That is
why we keep this section clean of any crates or when the ship goes, they go
with it."

"Well except those crate over there," Petrov pointed out, indicating four
huge plastic boxes that were stacked against the wall of the bay."

"Those are the tanks, latest thing from R&D on Mars. They are supposed to
attach to the transport somehow and then when it reaches a certain height
in the atmosphere they detach and float down, ready to do fight off
anything really nasty that might be waiting. They have a really powerful
plasma gun, large enough to punch a hole in most starships. There is also
supposed to be a crew for them around here somewhere. You will probably
meet them later on."

"Well I would like to see a little more of the rest of the ship first,"
Susan spoke up, eager to be away from the hulking sight of the troop
transport. "We can meet the rest of the crew later."

"Of course," the Admiral said, agreeing with her. He also found the sight
of the transport a little disturbing, especially as he was not exactly keen
on spiders, and that was exactly what the ship reminded him of. "We will
take the lift to the upper decks."

He turned back towards the main bay and yelled towards Kozlowski and
Philip. "Is deck 8 open yet."

The doctor, who was crouched over the workers who were busy welding
something together below deck looked up as he heard the Admiral's voice and
consulted his notes before replying. "No not yet, the gravity is still
shorted out there. The water wrecked most of the circuits in there. We will
probably have to leave it closed for the moment. There is nothing important
left in there though."

Susan turned to the Admiral and asked, "what was that all about. I heard
him mentioning something about water yesterday when I arrived. If it
something that is important to this ship then I should know about it."

the Admiral looked surprised she hadn't already been told and quickly
supplied the information. "Oh nothing bad. The tanks on deck 8 burst
yesterday morning when one of the welders cut through the plasti-steel
while he was fixing a minor fault. Shorted out almost all the circuits on
deck eight and flooded the entire place. Trapped most of the crew on the
upper decks and what with the Artificial gravity down it was a bit hard for
them to get down to the shuttle bay. They have the lifts back online now
though."

"What is in deck 8."

"Just the water storage tanks, recycling equipment for the entire ship and
the botanical section. It should be easy enough to clean up. I think all
they have to do is patch the tank and then pump out the water. fortunately
each of the decks on this ship are sealed off from each other, as well as
the different sections on each deck. From what I was told it only shorted
out the gravity and the main lift. Unfortunately with the lift down the
only way onto the shuttle bay was for the crew to wade though the water and
then climb down on the emergency hatches, not the easiest trip so most
decided to stay on board last night."

"That was why we were not able to be there to meet you when you arrived
last night Captain," spoke up Alister Schmitt from the back of the group.

"Yes," agreed Vincent Dreyer, the gunnery commander. "We were both stuck up
front in the fighter bays for some time. They drained out most of the water
last night though and the lift was back up and running again this morning."

"Speaking of the lift," Admiral Kiernan said, "we had best be using it. We
do want to get this ship under way sometime today."

"Of course Admiral," agreed Susan. "Lead on."

The Admiral smiled and walked back into the main bay and towards the middle
where Susan could see the shape of a twin turbo-lift system. Not as
elaborate as the one on Babylon 5, but just as effective for transporting
people around. She had not realised the real size of the vessel before, but
now seeing the lift she knew that it must be very large indeed, especially
if it needed a lift to get between decks. The older destroyers had made do
with stairs and zero-g passage ways.

The lift was already waiting on his level so they all filed in and the
Admiral spoke into the microphone and then waited as the computer delivered
them to the required floor, this time deck 7.


Sel Vecantie

e-mail: vecantie@geocities.com
homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/


From: "Sel" <vecantie@geocities.com>
Subject: Reunion - Part 2.b
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 01:04:56 +0930

	------------------------------------------------------------

Deck 7 looked a lot different from the huge shuttle bay she had just left.
Gone were the piles of crate and barrels and the huge, hulking shapes of
the two shuttles and instead she now found herself looking at clean, empty
passages heading off in several directions. It was very quiet here, with
not even the slightest noise breaking the silence.

She commented on the lack of noise and the Admiral replied, "each deck is
shielded against noise. Padding in between the walls or something like
that. We like to ensure everyone gets a good nights sleep. You will find
all the decks like this one, this is actually the main crew deck. Towards
the bow we have the marines and the tank crews, while back towards the
stern is the engineering quarters and some rec areas. Anyway not much to
see here, we might as well head up to the next deck. From here was can take
the stairs."

Susan nodded, very impressed by what she had seen so far. Even on Babylon 5
it had always been possible to hear the faint noise from outside her
quarters. She didn't know about peace yet, but it looked like she was
certainly going to be getting some quiet during her time on the Rasputin.
Seeing the Admiral walking down a corridor towards the starboard side of
the ship she followed, along with the rest of her crew.

Gregor Petrov walked up alongside her and spoke quietly so only she could
hear him. "You think this is impressive Captain, wait until you see the
command quarters."

Susan looked over at him, and noticed for once the almost permanent scowl
on his face appeared to be gone and he was smiling faintly. Behind her she
heard a faint giggle at his words, indicating that at least Dr Taylor had
heard his words. She smiled back at him and said, "I can't wait Commander.
I hope they are better than the ones on Babylon 5, and I don't have to pay
rent on them."

"I think you will be impressed. They don't seemed to have spared any
expense on this thing. I can only hope it works once we get it out of dock.
Still the good doctor is supposed to be coming along with us, so if
something goes wrong he will be there to patch it up. That is the theory
anyway. Oh and no you don't have to pay rent, privilages of rank and that
sort of thing."

By now they had reached the next deck, but the Admiral didn't stop, and
instead turned around and walked up the next flight of stairs. Susan turned
to Petrov and looked to him for an explanation. He just shrugged and said,
"just more crew quarters, much the same as the deck below. Most of the
enlisted crew can be found on those two decks, with command staff, gunnery,
and the flight crews on the upper decks. Gunnery towards the stern and the
flight crews up front, so they can get to their fighters quickly if
needed."

Susan nodded at the reasoning behind the placement and joined Admiral
Kiernan on the next deck. As soon as she arrived he continued his tour.
"Well what we have here is the main deck. From here you can reach almost
all of the ship." He pointed towards a long passage that seemed to run down
the very middle of the deck. "This passage here lead to the fighter bays up
front, and engineering towards the rear, as long as you don't mind a bit of
a walk. We have a lift type arrangement set up as well. It can transport
you a lot faster from one end of the ship to another, a bit like the
shuttles we have between the various Station section. We debated for quite
a while over putting it in, especially considering the Omega's never had
lifts of any kind. But after the designers walked down that passage a few
times they soon came around and stuck it in. You can take a look at the
fighter bays and everything else in a minute, but I though you would want
to see this first."

He led the small group down the passage toward the bow for a short way,
stopping outside a set of large, pressure sealed doors. There was a
pass-secure lock in front that the Admiral slipped a card into, then
stepped back as the doors hissed open. Tossing the card to Susan who caught
it, despite her surprise, he marched off into the room. Susan quickly
pocketed the card and followed him into the room beyond.

Inside was a small group of the crew, busy working at an array of panels,
boards, and other controls. They came to attention and saluted as she
entered the room one of them shouting out, "Admiral on the bridge." The
Admiral in question quickly waved them back to their posts and went on with
his commentary. "As you can see this is a bit like the updated bridge of
the latest Omega destroyers. This is however not the main bridge, that is
up above us. Instead we have set this aside as a secondary bridge, and for
running the main sensor system, which you would have noticed it built into
the hull just down below us here. You can actually run the entire ship from
here though, just in case the main bridge is knocked out."

"Very impressive," Susan commented, trying to ignore the curious stares of
her new crew, eager to check out their captain.

"Don't say that until you see the main bridge," Petrov said, as he nudged
her gently in the back.

Susan raised her eyebrow at this, but before she could speak Lt-Commander
Alister Schmitt spoke up, "I think you will find it is even more impressive
that those fancy Minbari ships you have been flying about in."

"Alister," Gregor looked at the flight commander with a warning scowl.

"It is ok Commander," Susan said, smiling slightly at his protective
attitude. "I happen to agree, it took me quite some time to get used to the
White Star controls, and of course the crew only spoke in Minbari and I had
to learn that."

"I wished I could have seen one up close," Admiral Kiernan said with a far
away look in his eyes, as he returned to stand by Susan's side. "They
looked very impressive flying over Earthdome on ISN. Such beautiful craft,
I would have liked to have one here, so we could take it apart and have a
good look inside it."

Susan almost laughed at what the Minbari would say about the Kiernan and
his researching tearing apart the ship, but managed to contain her
laughter. Instead she decided to give the Admiral something to look forward
too saying, "you might get that chance Admiral. When I left Earthdome there
was some talk about building them in Earth construction yards. I don't know
if that will come to pass, but it may."

"I don't see what is wrong with Earth designed ships," interrupted Alister
Schmitt again. "At least they are Human."

The Admiral burst out laughing at this, Susan and Petrov joining in soon
afterwards. The rest of the crew, both the rest of the command staff and
the junior members on the secondary bridge looked on, wondering what was so
funny. The Admiral soon filled them in. "You think this is a Earth designed
vessel do you. Scratch off the hull a little and you will find it is as
Alien as those White Stars, even more so. You saw that transport ship down
below didn't you, well the hull of the Rasputin is made of the same stuff,
and believe me it didn't come from Earth R&D. In fact I don't know where
Clark's researchers got it, and frankly I am not in too much of a hurry to
find out."

That shut the Lt-Commander up for a while, and taking advantage of the
quiet the Admiral led them out of the secondary bridge and into the
transporter that ran down the length of the ship. Again speaking into the
microphone mounted on the wall he ordered the transporter's computer to
carry them forward to the fighter bays. It did so, quickly and efficiently,
and they stepped off into a section of the ship that Susan found very
familiar.

To her it looked very similar to the fighter bays on Babylon 5, only a lot
more cramped. The Admiral quickly pointed out the two sets of drop chutes,
one on either side of the main bay, and each holding six Starfurys ready to
fly. "We don't actually have any pilots on board yet, you are supposed to
get them at Mars, which will be your first stop. But as you can see these
are your pretty standard sort of quick launch facilities. There are lifts
and that sort of thing to carry the ships into position, and both of those
drop chutes can be depressurised so the Starfurys can launch without having
to worry too much about gravity. Both chutes are separate from the
artificial gravity system, so the pilots and maintenance crew have to float
out to their ships, if they are already in position, although with the
lifts they can board and then be carried into position. We have also left
the landing bays in the bow off the AG system as well, makes for less
mistakes. Oh and there are two bays on the Warlock destroyers, makes for a
quicker retrieval. As you might know it used to take ages for the Omega's
to pick up their fighters after a battle, the duel bay makes for some
increase in that time."

"How many fighters do we carry," Susan asked, curious as she had always
enjoyed her time in her Starfury back on Babylon 5.

Alister Schmitt stepped forward, his face showing a little pride now, as
well some eagerness to show off his knowledge about his section of the
ship. "I can answer that one Captain," he said. "We have four squadrons,
the same as on the Omega's, or forty eight fighters all up. You can see the
squadron of the standard Starfurys ready to launch at the moment. As they
are the real space fighters of the lot we have them ready at all times.
Apart from them we also have two squadrons of Thunderbolts. As you might
know they are considered the best fighters in Earthforce at the moment."

"And the forth squadron," his captain prodded, eager to learn the extent of
his knowledge.

Alister grinned, having just spent much of yesterday eagerly examining the
new model fighters that the Rasputin carried. "The last squadron are the
new experimental fighters. Much like the Thunderbolts, but single seaters
and with a lot more weapons on board. They are called Lightnings, and are
the latest model. They are designed to compliment the Thunderbolts, but
with heavier weapons. I haven't flown one yet, but I hope to get the chance
later."

"I am sure you will Lt-Commander," Susan said with a smile, realising the
love that Alister had for the fighters. She knew the same feeling, and was
almost itching to get her hands on one of the new fighters as well, even
though it was not really the captains place to go flying off in a fighter,
as she had told John several time back on Babylon 5.

"Very impressive," Admiral Kiernan said. "We can have a look as we go past.
I wanted to show you the main gun before we took a look at the rest of the
ship though. The Lightning's are still being tested, which is why we have
attached a squadron to this vessel. I think Earth Central is also lining
you up a crack squadron of pilots, a group of real aces to give them a good
workout. They said something about testing them in the field or something
like that in the last message I got. Anyway, we might as well take a quick
look on the way, they are over here."

The Admiral pointed in the direction of the bow of the ship, and then led
the small group across the flight deck. It was abandoned at the moment, as
none of the flight crew or the pilots were on board yet, all still awaiting
the ship at Mars High, the main transfer station for those coming and going
from the red planet. For the moment the flight deck was barren and empty,
everything still packed away neatly, completely different from the way it
would look once the crew moved in here.

Susan smiled as she remembered the Babylon 5 flight deck, with crates of
parts scattered everywhere, and holoposters of the latest pin-ups, both
male and female, stuck up in the ready rooms. Compared to the Bablyon 5
flight bays this was small, but still impressive, especially with the
artificial gravity which allowed them to walk across the deck much as they
had back on the station, with its gravity supplied by rotation. It was
certainly a lot different from the Agamemnon, which had been the last
destroyer she had been on. There the crew had been forced to float around
the flight deck in zero-g, and nothing had been allowed to be left lying
around in case of accidents.

The Admiral stopped for a while and pointed out the new fighters. Susan and
the others had a quick look over, Alister ready to jump in and point out
all the improvements over the Thunderbolts. He quickly showed them the
missile pylons on the wings, which as far as Susan could see was the only
major difference. Alister had noticed a lot more though, especially the
single seater arrangement, designed to cut down on weight he informed them,
as well as numerous other improvements and alterations over the older
Thunderbolts.

The Lightnings were stacked carefully along the port side of the flight
deck, each secured to a large trolley that carried the shuttles from the
landing bays up front, through the air locks and onto the flight deck. This
enabled the fighters to by quickly moved into position and secured for
transport. Babylon 5 had used a similar system, although it had been a lot
larger, each trolley able to carry four fighters at once, so each squadron
only needed three trolley, instead of the twelve that were in use here. At
the moment the rows of fighters sat quiet and silent in the bay, but all
here could imagine what it would be like when operational, with fighter
trolleys being rushed across the deck, and the ground running everywhere to
repair and rearm each of the fighters.

The Admiral quickly pointed out the rest of the features of the flight deck
to Susan. "Over there you can see the two airlocks, the fighters are
carried through there on the trolleys, we have made sure there are a few
spares just in case. Right at the back of the deck you can see the lift to
the repair bay, which is built into the deck below us, and then along each
wall are the airlocks into the launch chutes. It is all fairly automatic,
but you still need a ground crew of around forty or so to keep everything
running smoothly. Missile and other parts are kept in the storage section
up front, below the landing bays. And so is the hatch to the main gun,
which we might as well have a look at now."

"Sounds good," Susan said, taking a look around at everything he pointed
out.

The Admiral nodded and led Susan and her crew forward to a large hatch that
was set into the ground between the two airlocks that led into the landing
bays in the bow of the destroyer. He quickly tapped his foot on the floor
control that raised the hatch but placed his hand out to stop anyone going
down just yet. "The gun section is in zero-g, so we will need to hold onto
the railing. I know you have all served on the Omega's so it isn't much
different. The other guns, I don't know if you spotted them earlier can be
reached from the passages that run along the side of the ship, but this one
can only be reached through here. It is sort of a safety arrangement,
mainly because of all the power that runs through the damn thing. If it
blows then you want to be able to shut it off from the rest of the ship to
avoid too much damage. There are airlocks, pressure doors and the hull is
extra thick down here, all just precautions of course."

Susan and the rest of the command crew nodded. The others were as curious
as she was, none of them having seen the inside of the gun yet, not even
the gunnery officer, Vincent Dreyer. Eagerly they pressed into the hatchway
after the Admiral and Susan and gripping the railing they pulled themselves
along, though the zero-g area. They soon passed the pressure doors, and
airlocks that the Admiral had spoken of and found themselves in a large
control room. The Admiral strapped himself into one of the padded chairs
and Susan and the rest of her command crew did the same. The control seemed
to have plenty of seating, enough for ten crew members from what Susan
could see.

The Admiral soon explained. "This gun is a real piece of work. It needs ten
crewmen to run it, a lot more than you might expect. We originally were
going to have it operating with an automatic system, but that kept crashing
with the amount of data it had to handle so we ripped it out and put in
manual control instead. In testing it worked a lot better than we hoped the
automatic system would so we decided to leave it as is. In fact most of the
guns require manual controllers, it proved to be more accurate, especially
with each system operating separate from the bridge. Of course as you can
imagine giving each gun its own control system takes a lot of the strain
off the central computer. The down side however is that you need a lot more
crew, I think it is near a hundred and fifty just to keep the weapons
running. This gun takes up the most of that though. Ten for the firing
crew, and another thirty to keep it running. There are systems running up
and down this ship pulling power into this weapon."

The Admiral paused for a moment, then pointed out the various different
systems that operated the gun. "Up the front there you can see the firing
control. You need three guys to run that, two for targeting, and one to
actually fire the damn thing. We have two different targeting systems, as
well as manual siting of course. Each one is very complex so we had to
install a separate computer for both systems. Back here you have to weapon
power relay. You need two guys for that as well, one to monitor the power
flow from the reactors and the other to direct it into the weapon. We tried
doing it with the one computer but it blew out the entire system, took us
three weeks to put it back together again. It has a fair bit of a kick when
it goes off."

"And the rest of the systems," Dreyer asked.

Both the Admiral and Susan looked at him, slightly annoyed at the
interruption so he quickly closed his mouth and tried to slink away into
the background. "I was just coming to them," Kiernan said. "Lets see, we
have the turret control, defence grid, commander's chair, sensor array, and
finally the guy who looks keeps an eye on the coolant system. It might seem
like a lot, just to fire a single gun, but this baby is one hell of a gun
and we need everyone we can to keep it running. It even has it's own
defence grid, life support, and emergency power supply, all separate from
the main systems. It is made to last too, and keep going as long as
possible. It can fire for almost thirty seconds straight as well, a bit
more that the three seconds max that the Omega guns could manage before
they began to overheat. Actually this thing nearly requires more crewmen
than the main bridge, so it is a real nice piece of work."

Susan smiled, "I guess you have spent a fair amount of time down here
then."

The Admiral laughed. "You could say that," he said, agreeing with her. "I
was the one who oversaw the test firing, over on the Warlock. It is a
really great feeling knowing that you are sitting in command of the biggest
gun in the fleet, and when this thing goes off you should see the bang it
makes. We test fired it on an old Nova a couple of months back and it
sliced it in half, without any effort at all. Just tore the old hunk of
junk apart, and that was with just the one blast. As you can see it is set
in a turret as well, so you can move it around and slice open a ship like
using a can opener on those old fashioned tin cans, you know the ones we
had before the auto-heat packets came onto the market."

Vincent Dreyer looked longingly at the controls, obviously eager to have a
shot at the gun itself. The Admiral shooed him away though saying, "you
will all have to wait a while before you test it again. I think Earth
Central has you slotted in for a proper test session in one of the asteroid
belts of the outer colonies, probably out near Amador or somewhere like
that. On of the world that are right out at the edge of the alliance.
Anyway enough talking about this gun, we still have most of the ship to
look over."

He waved his hand, motioning for the Rasputin command crew to climb back up
to the flight deck. They did as quickly as possible, and the hatch was shut
down behind them once they were safely back in the gravity field generated
by the flight deck artificial gravity system.

The Admiral quickly pointed out the hatches leading off the flight deck and
into the pilot's ready rooms, and the other guns. "The rest of the weapons
are fairly standard issue, although you will be the first ship to be
outfitted with the new Mark III interceptors, all with updated tracking and
that sort of thing. They are all linked in the bridge's gunnery control and
are basically automatic, so you won't need to much in the way of crew to
run them. Of the other guns, well you need three guys to run each of the
turreted plasma cannons, each is on its own separate tracking system like
the main gun, but the aft Ion cannons are on auto as well. The rest of the
gunnery crew is set aside for maintenance, they sort of mix in with the
engineering crew and also handle the weapons systems of the fighters as
well. All up I think there are around a hundred and sixty or so crewmen on
each shift, with three shifts."

The Admiral then moved over to the side of Vincent Dreyer, the gunnery
officer. With a hearty slap on the back he said, "and that that makes you
the officer with the most men under your command, with the exception of the
Captain of course. I think it is around five hundred all up with the ship
is fully operational."

"I am sure I will be able to handle it Admiral," Dreyer managed to choke
out, having nearly bitten through his tongue when Kiernan had slapped him.

"I am sure you will," Admiral Kiernan said with a wink at Susan. "Right
come on all, lets get down to the stern and have a look at what makes this
ship tick."

Susan looked over at Commander Petrov who was watching the retreating
Admiral with a raised eyebrow. He caught Susan watching him and shrugged
helplessly. Kiernan certainly wasn't what they usually expected in an
Earthforce Admiral, he was likeable for a start. She returned Petrov's
shrug with one of her own and they all rushed after the Admiral, who was
already well on his was across the flight deck.

The caught up with him outside the transporter and all walked inside just
in time to hear the Admiral order the computer to take them to engineering.
The door slid shut and the transport began its almost frictionless glide
down the tube to the far end of the ship. It took only a few seconds of
travel. The late 23rd century maglev technology a making the ride a lot
faster and smoother than the old cable systems that were used on earth back
in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The doors slipped open again and the
Admiral led them out into the spacious engineering section.

They were on what appeared to Susan to be the main deck of engineering.
Above her she could see the upper decks that looked out over this one.
Rising up from the centre of the room was a large collection of piping, and
cables, which were probably the fuel pipes and power cabling that fed the
rest of the ship. This section of the ship was very busy, not empty like
the flight deck had been and she could see the engineering staff moving
around the various system, checking to make sure they were still running.

Admiral Kiernan quickly took up his commentary again, sounding more like a
tour guide than a fleet Admiral. "Well here we are the heart of the ship,
engineering. You see those pressure doors over there, they each lead to one
of the reactors, there are four in total. We are not quite at the stern
yet, there is about a hundred metres or so of fuel cells and engines out
behind us yet. Most of that is sealed off though, we wouldn't want the
hydrogen exposed to a spark if we can avoid it. There are extra fuel cells
further forwards as well, in the section of the ship near the solar panels,
and the power storage system. I don't know much about that though, all
Kozlowski's work. It seems to do the job though, fixed the power problem we
were having last year."

The Admiral paused to catch his breath before continuing. "There are
passages in the back there leading to the the aft guns, and two more decks
of engineering above us, systems to keep and eye on the engines and that
sort of thing. Most of the stern though is fuel cells, and of course the
reactors. There are nine of the new Ferrari-Alpha engines, so as you might
imagine it really eats through the fuel. Still I think there is enough to
keep the ship running for around three months or so without refuelling.
Kozlowski was also talking about some sort of new shuttle as well, that you
might be getting soon. It is supposed to be able to collect fuel for you
from any suitable gas giant and even has its own mini refinery to filter
out the impurities. I Haven't seen any sign of it myself, but Kozlowski was
saying that it would spell the end of the gas mines."

"Might even put a dent in the JMC's stranglehold on the market," Alister
Schmitt interrupted. "They have had it too good for too long."

"True," Kiernan agreed. "But like I said, I haven't seen this new shuttle
yet, and until I do I won't start counting them out yet. Anyway I am not
really familiar with these systems, you would need to ask Kozlowski or
Moore about them. I am only really familiar with the C&C and the weapons
system. I do know that this ship doesn't really have much of a speed
advantage over the Omega's, but a lot more endurance. Even though there are
nine engines, they are smaller and more effecient that the four on the
Omega destroyers."

"How much of the ship does engineering take up," Commander Petrov asked. "I
still haven't had a good look around yet. I have been running through crew
rosters and that sort of thing for the past week, ever since I arrived."

"Around half," Dr Taylor spoke up from the back of the small group. Petrov
looked at her in surprise, as she had only arrived yesterday day from Io,
with Dreyer and Schmitt, and as far as he knew had not had time to even see
the ship yet. She looked faintly embarrassed for a second at the attention.
"I asked Philip Moore last night when he came aboard from the station after
meeting the Captain. He said that engineering, power supply and the fuel
cells took up around half of the ship, with the habitat section taking up
another three hundred metres, and the flight deck the last two hundred."

"Indeed," the Admiral agreed. "Much the same as the Omega's, around half
the ship is devoted to the engines and that sort of thing. This ship is a
quite a bit larger than they are though. There are some crew quarters for
the engineering staff back here as well though, just as there are bunks for
the flight crews up in the bow. It is probably one of the best improvements
over the Omega's but it has a lot to do with the Artificial gravity
section. On the Omega's all the crew had to be in the habitat section as
that was the only part with any type of gravity. Now we can scatter the
quarters across the ship. Basically it means that everyone can get to where
they need to be a lot faster."

"Sound like a good idea to me," Susan said. The rest of the command staff
quickly agreed with her, at the same time looking around the massive
engineering section. Susan also had been having a glance around and
realised that although it was nowhere near as large as the vast reactor on
Babylon 5 it was still very impressive. After all this was a warship, not a
massive space station. The Admiral did not seem as interested as they were
though and quickly pushed them back towards the transporter.

	------------------------------------------------------------

By the time they had returned to the main deck Philip Moore was waiting for
them. He smiled and said, "looks like I finally caught up with you." He
then turned to the Admiral. "Roger, Kozlowski said he wanted to speak with
you, something about work on the third destroyer while he is away or
something like that. Apparently he has come up with a few improvements and
wants to check out the funding with you. I can guide the captain around the
rest of the ship if you like."

The Admiral nodded. "Alright Philip, I will go and see what he wants now."
He turned back to the Rasputin's command staff and said, "I will see you a
little while latter in the shuttle bay. The ISN crew is supposed to be
coming aboard before you leave and there is going to be another little
ceremony. Lt-Commander Moore here knows most of the ship better than me
though, and has worked on it for nearly two years now, so I will leave you
in his capable hands."

He executed a quick salute, which the Captain and her crew returned and
then he re-entered the lift, leaving them with the chief engineer. Philip
went over to the rest of his new ship mates. "Well what do you think of the
Admiral, quite the character when he has had a little too much champagne."

"Yes," Susan agreed. "He certainly is somewhat ... eccentric."

Philip laughed at that, a couple of the others also joining in. "That's
probably why he got this command. Apparently Earth Central didn't really
like the way he ran things so to of get rid of him they posted him out here
to Neptune-Beta. Even with the jumpgate it is fairly remote. Still he has
been good for the project, and made sure all the resources he could muster
were sent here. I am not sure if Earthdome realises exactly how much has
been spent on this project yet. When they do they will probably want to
shut us down, these ships are not cheap to make, even when we grow the
hulls from silicon rather than shipping in armour plating like that on the
Omega."

Vincent Dreyer was a little surprised by the mention of growing the hull
and asked, "what do you mean by that. How can you grow a hull?"

Philip looked at the gunnery officer. "Well we use a new organic compound
that we grow over on one of the construction platforms. I don't think you
can see it from here, but it is over past the Warlock. Basically it is a
silicon based compound that feeds off electrical energy or sunlight. If you
saw the Warlock earlier you would have seen what it looked like, the entire
hull of that ship is made of the stuff. It works quite well actually, and
when struck by energy based weapons distributes the energy across a whole
section of the hull, instead of just where weapon strikes. It makes it a
lot harder to penetrate, and it is also self repairing, although we have
had a lot of trouble with that system and I really wouldn't advise using it
unless necessary."

"Perhaps you can show us the rest of the ship now," Susan said, a strange
tone on her voice. Philip looked at carefully for a moment before agreeing.
He remembered the Captain saying something about Shadows last night and had
seen her reaction when she had first spotted the Warlock. He quickly
decided that what she suggested might be best, after all he didn't want to
upset her now, especially seeing he was really looking forward to getting
of the Station after nearly two years of working flat out.

"Of course Captain, there is plenty of time to talk about the ship's design
later. The Admiral has shown you what so far."

Susan quickly listed all the sections of the ship they had seen so far.
"The fighter bays, the secondary bridge, engineering, some of the lower
crew quarters and the main gun."

Philip smiled at the mention of the gun. "I thought he might have taken you
there. That gun is his favourite part of this ship, he used to spend a lot
of on the Warlock when we were first testing it, nearly got himself fried
in there one day. Well you have probably seen most of it then, except for
the rest of the habitat section."

He paused for a moment as if thinking before he contined. Pointing down the
passage to the stern he said, "down a little way towards the stern is the
ship's medlab. We have tried to equip it with all the latest equipment, but
you know how things are with development these days, always coming up with
something new. Amanda, I believe you have had a good look over it?"

The blonde doctor nodded at his question. "I spent several hours there last
night when we were all trapped up here while they were working on the lower
decks. I had a fairly good look around, and everything seems to be up to
date. It is a lot better than what we had my old ship anyway."

"Glad to hear it. Anyway that is about all of interest on this deck, except
for the secondary bridge of course, but you have already seen that. The
next three decks are mainly crew quarters. There is a lot more space
devoted to the crew on these vessels. On the Omega's we also had
engineering and life support, as well as everything else in the rotating
section, but with the Warlock's we have moved everything closer to where it
is actually needed. Engineering has gone back near the engines, and the
fighter ready rooms and everything else is up front now. The galley and the
main mess for the crew is on deck 4, which is the one just above us, and
there are games rooms and other rec areas on deck 3. We might as well head
up to deck 1 though and take a look at the main bridge and the command
quarters. Most of you would have already seen yours, but the Captain hasn't
yet."

"And if you don't like them Captain you can always swap with me." Amanda
Taylor joked. "We had a quick look last night, and lets just say that they
are treating you very well indeed, not that there is anything wrong with
ours of course."

Philip laughed. "No nothing wrong with them at all, the designers have
really spared no expense or space for the command crew. I guess that is
because these vessels are supposed to be for the top brass only."

"I guess I should feel honoured then," Susan said.

"We all should," said Alister Schmitt with a pointed glance at his Captain.
"After all this is the new flagship, and only the best are getting to serve
on her."

"Well we will see how things turn out," Commander Petrov said softly. "I
have had a look at the crew lists and we look like getting some of the very
best, especially the ace pilots coming on board to test those new fighters.
I will show you the list later, but I think the Captain might like to have
a look at her bridge first."

"Good idea," agreed Philip. "This way everyone."

He led them into the lift and spoke into the microphone, ordering it up to
deck 1. Once there he pointed out a door to Susan. "That way leads to your
office, and then onto your quarters. We have the captain's cabin at the
very front of the habitat section, while the rest of the command staff are
along the sides, around the bridge. Oh and don't let the name of this level
fool you, there is actually another deck above us, we call that deck 0
though, and it is mainly devoted to storage and the computers for the
interceptor grid. The hull is extra thick here as well, so it is actually
one of the best protected sections on the whole ship."

Philip then led them down a corridor that curved towards the starboard side
of the ship. Susan also noticed a similar passage that went the towards the
port side. On the way he pointed out the quarters of the other command
staff, the main computer room, and the officers mess. Then he stopped
outside a large set of pressure doors and inserted his passcard into the
reader.

The doors slid open and exposed the large bridge area. It was empty at the
moment, with all those who would normally be here either busy elsewhere or
gathered around her and Philip. The bridge was large, even larger than C&C
on Babylon 5. There was a raised platform in the centre, which she guessed
must be the commanding officers station. A padded chair, and two
semi-circular computer consoles sat on it, right in the middle of the
bridge. One the far side of the bridge was another door, which Susan
guessed led to the other passage she had noticed earlier. The platform with
the commander's chair also led across to this door, while stairs on either
side of each door allowed access to the lower pits where all the main
computers and consoles were fixed into the floor.

Philip move down into the stern facing pit and quickly tapped a few
commands out on a fairly standard looking keyboard set into one of the
consoles. Then he looked up at Susan who had gone to examine the Captain's
station. "Well here we are the bridge, all the latest equipment to make the
ship run even smoother. Everything except the turret weapons can be run
from here if necessary, although obviously not as well as if each section
is operating independent of each other. Standard bridge crew is twelve,
plus the Captain, or who ever is commanding at the time."

Philip paused and looked at Alister Schmitt and Vincent Dreyer who were
busy examining one of the consoles. "You two might be more interested in
the systems over the other side, that is where weapons and fighter tactical
are. Of course you don't have to be here all the time, but you will find
that those stations best allow you to keep an eye on everything at once."

He looked up at the Captain a slightly devious grin on his face. "What do
you think so far Captain."

Susan slowly sat down in her chair and wiggled around a little bit trying
to get a feel for it. It quickly moulded itself to her body and felt very
comfortable. She looked up at the chief engineer and returned his grin.
"Very nice, I think I could really get used to this."

Philip's grin grew even wider as he said, "well you might like this then, a
little something R&D has come up with. It is going to be standard soon, but
for the moment this is one of only two ships that have it.

He turned away for a second and tapped a final key on console beside him.
As he did so the ceiling suddenly flared with light as what had looked like
normal black tiling disappeared and was replaced by a view of the space
around the ship, as well as of the research station, and the long shape of
the warship itself.

Philip moved up the stairs to stand by the Captain while they all looked on
amazed. "Quite nice isn't it," he asked.

"Amazing," Susan said, her breath taken away by the magnificent sight.
"Where the hell did you get this, it is even better than the Minbari
system.

Philip shrugged, as if to dismiss the viewscreen as nothing great. "They
pulled it out of the wreckage of a Centari battle cruiser a couple of years
back. You know the one, it was knocked out by the Babylon 5 defence grid,
at your Captain's orders. Apparently the Centari were not interested in
cleaning up or salvaging anything so some of the R&D guys from Earth
Central went to take a look and managed to put the cruiser's bridge back
together or something like that. If there is one thing the Centari make
well it is their holographic systems. They apparently used holos on their
bridge to show space around their vessel. Some of the stuff is still being
worked on, but we managed to copy the main holographic projection system
and stick it in here."

"How does it work," Alister asked, amazed at the detail of the image they
were looking at.

Philip tapped out a couple of commands on the Captain's console and altered
the view, this time showing the region of space beneath the Rasputin, and
the command crew could see a shuttle heading towards the main shuttle bay.
Their view almost seemed to come from that bay itself, and the detail was
quite amazing.

Philip smiled at the way everyone was staring and said. "Well it is a lot
easier than it looks. I am surprised they didn't come up with something
like this before. I don't know if any of you have seen the Centari
holograph systems before, but they can create free standing images with
almost no flickering at all, all with a small device no bigger than your
links. They are considerably more advanced than our current systems which
require one of those holo players that are everywhere in the shops at the
moment. Earth technology is getting better, but I don't think it will catch
up with the Centari for a while, at least not civilian technology."

He paused for a moment to catch his breath before continuing. "Well we use
their holo projectors, and have put a whole stack of them up above us here,
all linked to a central computer and power supply that keeps them aligned.
Then along the hull we have put in a series of cameras, those new wide
angle ones that ISN and the other vid networks are starting to use. You
have probably seen something similar on some of the more modern stations,
Babylon 5 for example."

He looked at Susan as he said this and she nodded. "Yes we had them on B5,
although there they were only linked to the display screens, we didn't have
anything like this."

Philip nodded. "Well what we have done is link all the cameras into the
computer running this display and it splits the images correctly and allows
it to appear as though you were standing on the hull looking out. It works
fairly well, you can even zoom in on different locations, although that is
a little limited as it can only display what the cameras can see."

"Why bother though," Petrov asked. "The old display boards did much the
same job."

Philip shrugged at his comments. "Something to do with crew behaviour. I
heard someone saying that a crew would work better if it could actually see
its opponent or something like that. I quite like it really, you can
overlay the display with almost anything you like as well, so if there is
an enemy ship on screen the tracking computer can display info about it. It
basically just brings everything together for you to see at once, and makes
it a little easier to keep an eye on things."

On the screen they could see the shuttle approaching fire it braking
thrusters and begin to slow, ready to dock with the Rasputin. Susan saw
this and commented on it, "I guess that must be the shuttle bring the ISN
crew aboard."

The others turned take a look at it as it's thrusters fired again, slowing
it right down. Philip nodded, "yes that is the Admiral's personal shuttle."

He stood up and shut off the display and then when they all turned to look
at him to see why he said, "well we had best get going then. The rest of
you might like to head down to the hanger bay, the Admiral wants to have
another little ceremony or something like that. Captain I will just give
you a quick look at your quarters and we shall join them."

Susan nodded and they all filed out of the bridge, most of them heading
towards the lifts to the lower floors, while Susan and Philip went through
the door leading into her quarters. The first room they came to was her
office, looking somewhat spartan at the moment with only an unadorned desk
and four chairs taking up space. Beyond the office was another door, the
one leading in her actual personal quarters. She stood waiting for him to
open it, before remembering that Admiral Kiernan had tossed her the
passcard before. Slightly embarrassed she slid the card into the lock and
the door slide open, smoothly and without a sound. Stepping inside, Susan
walked around the packing crates on the floor, the same ones she had bought
with her from Babylon 5, as well as the package John Sheridan had sent her
and had her first glimpse at what was to be her new home, at least for the
next year or so.

It was a lot bigger than her old quarters on Babylon 5, even larger than
John's. There were five rooms, unlike the three she had on Babylon 5. The
first of these was the lounge room that they were in at the moment. Like
her office it was still fairly empty and only some basic furniture was
present. Then in the walls of the lounge room there were three sliding
doors, much like those in her old quarters. One led into a storeroom which
was completely empty, while the others led into the kitchen and bedroom.
She moved through into the bedroom and took note of another door, which
likely led in the bathroom cubicle.

Philip moved into the room after her. "Well do you like it Captain," he
asked.

"It is certainly larger than I expected," she replied, examining the bed
with a somewhat suspicious eye, wondering for what purpose the designers
had put in such a large one. "I thought space would be limited on a
warship, but this is even better than my quarters on Babylon 5."

Philip laughed. "Not bad are they. All of the command quarters are
impressive, I guess they are one of the good things to come out of Clark's
rule."

Susan looked up with a frown of confusion on her face. "How do you mean?"

"Well these vessels were designed for those officers still loyal to Clark,
so he order extra space be made available for command staff, and this is
the result. We even have real water showers up here, and extra large water
tanks down on deck 8 to keep them running. Ah and have a look at this, this
is one of the best improvements of all."

He crossed to the far end of the bedroom and pressed a small control almost
hidden on the wall. Suddenly the entire section of the wall over the bed
became opaque, allowing a view down across the front of ship, all the way
to the bow. Lights from the construction platform all around them played
off the silver hull of the warship and for a moment Susan was caught by the
beauty of the whole thing.

"How do they do this," she asked.

Philip pressed the control again and view of the front section of the
warship faded. "Similar system to the one on the bridge, only with a lot
less power. All of the cabins that border the sides of the ship have these,
even the on the crew deck below. They uses a single camera for each, set
into the hull plating outside. Then you have a low power holo display set
into the wall here. The whole thing uses less power than most vid systems,
and we do carry replacement cameras in case the hull is damaged."

"It looks great," Susan said. "I trust though no-one can look in from the
outside."

Philip laughed at that, and even the normally dour, and slightly sad
looking Captain smiled, his friendly nature finally getting the better of
her. "Don't worry Captain," he said with an wink. "It is all strictly one
way only."

"Good," she said firmly, before walking across the room to have a quick
look into her shower.

"How many crew members have quarters on this deck," she asked as she came
back into the bedroom where Philip was waiting.

"Just the command staff and a couple of guest rooms. Counting your quarters
there are nine in total, the rest of the deck is taken up by the bridge,
the computer rooms, officers mess, and all the rest. As you saw on the way
in this deck is raised a little higher than the rest of the ship, so is
considerable shorter."

"Yes I noticed that," she said, nodding as she bent down to glance under
the bed, noticeing that there was drawers of some kind built down there.
"Wouldn't that make it more of a target though?"

The engineer nodded, "I wouldn't worry about that. The hull here is twice
as thick as the rest of the ship and tests on the Warlock showed that the
Biosilicate tends to distribute energy through the entire section of hull
instead of just letting it punch through. We used the main gun from an
Omega against the hull of the Warlock, and although it did breach the hull
in a couple of places, the bridge was still ok, ever after several blasts.
We have also added the outer layer to the Rasputin as well, and it has that
new Auto-Seal system."

"Auto-seal?" Susan questioned. "I don't think I have heard of that before."

"That's another of the new systems, one Earthforce intends on putting on
every new vessel that comes out of the yards from now on, no matter what
model. It is basically two inert chemicals that are stored between very
thin layers of plastic. Kept apart they do not react, but when the hull is
breached then the separator between the two is also breached and they mix,
creating a very vigorous reaction that caused them to expand quickly and
fill the gap in the hull. Should prevent a lot of deaths once it become
standard."

"Well it makes me feel a little bit safer anyway," Susan said, taking a
look at her crates, not really looking forward to unpacking them.

"It is supposed to," Philip said, checking his link to see what the time
was. "We should get going anyway, the Admiral will be wondering what is
keeping us."

"Lead on chief," she said, inviting him to leave first. He took up the
invitation and left her quarters, Susan in close pursuit. Pausing at the
doorway she looked back for a moment, already thinking about what she could
do to bring some warmth to the room. This on her mind she turned away from
her door and followed Philip out of the Captain's office and towards the
starboard lift.

As she walked she realised that much of her apprehension about taking
command was gone, and she wasn't even concerned about the ISN crew any
more, although the Shadow technolgy did bother her a little. She knew at
that moment that her decision to leave Babylon 5 was the right one. Now she
had her new life, a new crew, and possibly even new friends and with any
luck the bad memories she had from her time of Babylon 5 would fade and she
would have only the good to remember everyone by. Straightening her uniform
let a spring come into her walk as she entered the lift to the lower decks.

	------------------------------------------------------------



Sel Vecantie

e-mail: vecantie@geocities.com
homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/



From: "Sel" <vecantie@geocities.com>
Subject: Reunion - part 3
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 00:19:55 +0930

Here is chapter 3 of my story, which is still really part of the
introduction.

An archive can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/
and comments can be directed to vecantie@geocities.com

Coming soon part 4 (where the action actually begins).

Enjoy........ hopefully.

	    ____________________________

			      Reunion - Part 3
			      By Sel Vecantie



"In the latest news from the presidential election campaign Acting
President Luchenko has taken a big lead in the polls over her nearest
rival, former Senator Walter Pollock. With the election set for three weeks
from now it seems unlikely that any other major challengers will be
standing. Of course ISN will be bringing you full reports over the
remaining weeks during the lead up to the election."

ISN Report - Midday, January 31, 2262.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Susan turned away from the ISN monitors that had been set up in the shuttle
bay and rubbed the bridge of her nose wearily, thankful that at last the
Admiral was ready to leave, taking the reporters with him. It had been a
tiring two hours as she had been force to sit through another round of
speeches that the Admiral had insisted on giving, and then finally had been
dragged up in front of the assembled crew and asked to give a speech
welcoming them all on board. Still it could have been worse, and the crew
members seemed to accept her words of welcome.

Someone came brushing past her, and Susan was forced to step back as the
ISN crew quickly began to collect their equipment. Their recorders, which
floated around the room thanks to the tiny engines that held them aloft
were already gone, and now they were removing the heavy monitors and other
equipment needed to run a mobile studio. Soon they would be gone and she
could get on with running her ship the way she wanted, and that would mean
no more interviews, in fact no more reporters full stop.

Susan wanted to get out of here now, and on to the bridge, there she would
be in her element. Commanding a starship like the Rasputin was something
she had always wanted to do, and her experience running C&C on Babylon 5
had only heightened that desire. Now she had her chance, and she wanted to
make the most of it, as long as she could make it through this day.

She had not slept well last night at all, the nightmares that had been her
constant companions ever since Marcus had died had made her sleep restless
and left her tired and grumpy in the morning. Now after an entire morning
of speeches by Admiral Kiernan, and questions for the ISN reporters she
felt very tired, and it was not even midday yet, she still had most of the
day to go.

Susan became aware of someone approaching her, and turned to greet the
Admiral as he walked up in the company of Commander Petrov, and the rest of
her command staff. The Admiral still looked much as he had the morning, and
hours of standing around speaking did not seem to have caused any ill
effect.

"Captain," Kiernan said warmly, gabbing her hand and shaking it vigorously.
"Congratulations again on your new command, you must be very pleased."

"Yes I am Admiral," Susan answered, managing to disengage her hand from
Kiernan's clutches. "It is a fine ship and I look forward to serving in
her."

"Good, good. I trust Philip showed you the bridge and the rest of the ship
like I asked? Pointed out all the improvements and that sort of thing."

Susan nodded, "yes he did Admiral, I was most impressed. Some of the new
upgrades in the bridge are better than anything I could have hoped for."

Admiral Kiernan nodded and then grabbed Susan by the arm, guiding her away
from the rest of the group. "Yes they are Captain, but that is not what
makes a good ship. There are likely to still be some problems, so you will
need to keep an eye on all the systems, at least until everything has been
fully tested. I am afraid that Earth Central has been pushing us to get
this ship ready and we haven't had as long as we would have liked to work
on it."

Susan looked a little concerned as the Admiral spoke, but he quickly moved
to reassure her. "That's not to mean that anything is likely to go wrong.
We have tested everything as fully as we can, but you do remember what
happened to the Omega when it was built. We have learned a lot since then,
but despite all the testing we can never hope to fully emulate battle
conditions. Everything should be fine though."

:"I certainly hope so Admiral, I wouldn't want the reactors to fail the
first time I went into hyperspace like they did on the Omega."

"Yes a sad end to a ship that was,:" Kiernan said. "They never did find it
again did they. A real pity. Still the later Omega class destroyers turned
out ok." The Admiral turned and smiled at her, "but of course, with
Earthforce's finest captain in charge we shouldn't have too many problems."

Susan blushed slightly at his praise. "I would hardly consider myself the
best Captain in the fleet. The newest perhaps, but not the best."

Kiernan snorted. "Nonsense Susan, you don't think Earthforce would give you
this ship if they didn't think you were up to the job. They are very
impressed with you, and if you work within the rules this time I see you
rising high in the ranks. You are still young, a lot younger than most of
the fleet captains and you have a very good future ahead if you play your
cards right."

"I will do my best Admiral," Susan said, pleased with the praise he had
given her.

"You do that Captain. Anyway I had best get onto my shuttle. I don't want
to be late for lunch now do I." Kiernan smiled at her, and grasped her hand
once more, in a gesture of friendship and congratulations. "Now you take
care of yourself Captain, and try to keep this ship in one piece. She is
the only one in the fleet, and I would hate to see anything happen to her,
or her captain."

Susan nodded, and with a final squeeze of her hand the Admiral pulled away
and saluted her sharply, a gesture she returned in kind. Then with a nod
towards her command staff he strode across the shuttle deck and boarded his
personal shuttle. Before he he entered though he paused and looked back at
the gathered crew members for a moment before saluting them all and
entering his shuttle.

With its final passenger on board the shuttle's doors were closed, and crew
from the Rasputin dragged away the ladder that had been used by the
shuttle. From the roof huge magnetic clamps dropped onto the corners of the
shuttle and dragged it smoothly into the air, and across the shuttle bay to
the massive airlocks that led out into space. Susan could see the shuttle
pilot waving jauntily at them from the cockpit, but resisted the compulsion
to wave back, instead standing calmly next to her command staff as the
shuttle was loaded into the airlock.

Then as the large pressure doors slid shut with only the faintest whisper
of noise she turned back to her staff. In a weary voice she said, "well
that is finally over. Lt-Commander's Dreyer and Schmitt, perhaps you would
like to dismiss the crew and we can get this ship under way."

The two officers quickly saluted her and went to speak to the crew who had
gathered on the shuttle deck to hear the Admiral's speeches. The crew were
soon slowly drifting away towards their stations. At the moment there were
only around three hundred on board, enough to run the bridge systems and
engineering but little more. Soon however that number would be four times
higher as more than a thousand new crew members who were expected on board
when the Rasputin arrived at Mars.

Completing the task Susan had sent them the two senior officers returned.
Most of the crew were gone now, taking the lifts and stairs up to their
various stations. Only the few crew members who were needed to clear the
shuttle bay, and move the Rasputin's second shuttle back into position
remained. The large Phoenix class shuttle had been moved earlier to allow
the Admiral's vessel to come aboard and now they need to move it back so it
would be in position to be used once they arrived at Mars. As the crew
busied themselves with this task Alister Schmitt and Vincent Dreyer moved
back to the Captain side, both looking as though they wanted to ask her
something.

"Captain," Alister finally asked. "I was wondering if we could be allowed
to work up in the bow for a while? Neither of us have had much of a chance
to look over our systems yet, and we need to be familiar with them if we
are going to be ready when the crew comes on board. You don't really need
us up on the bridge do you?"

Susan looked over at Commander Petrov who shook his head at her before
saying, "I don't see why not Captain. We are only going on a short trip to
Mars, not interstellar so everything should be ok."

"Very well then," Susan said as she turned back to face to other two
officers. "Take as much time as you need. I don't think I will need you for
a while. Just try not to break anything or you will be getting the bill."

They thanked her and hustled off towards the freight lift at the other end
of the shuttle bay. The larger lift was designed to move crates of spare
parts and even entire starfuries from the shuttle deck to the repair bay
below the flight deck, and was a much more direct route than the lifts near
where Susan and Petrov were standing.

Susan looked around her, and noticed that all the other command staff
seemed to have vanished as well. She could see Philip Moore off in the
distance, talking to the crew about to move the shuttle, but there was no
longer any sign of either Amanda Taylor or Dr Kozlowski, in fact after she
thought about his absence for a while she realised that the scientist had
been missing for some time.

"Anything you need me to do Captain," her executive officer asked.

Susan though for a moment before responding. "Not really Commander,
although you may with to check on the repairs to deck 8 that were supposed
to be done last night. I want to make sure everything is working now. I
will go up to the bridge and see if I can't work out how this thing moves.
You can join me up there later."

"Ok Captain," Petrov agreed. "I will meet you on the bridge later then. I
will bring up the crew lists as well, you might want to take a look at
them."

"Good Idea Commander," Susan said as she pressed the button to summon the
lift. "I should get some free time before we get to Mars to have a quick
look over them. Anyway here is the lift so I should get going. I will see
you later on the bridge.

Commander Petrov saluted her, and after returning his gesture Susan backed
into the lift and quickly informed the computer of the required level.

	------------------------------------------------------------

As the lift doors closed Susan suddenly became aware of Dr Nathan Kozlowski
sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of an open panel close to the
floor of the lift. She couldn't see what he was doing, but noticed that he
appeared to be working on some sort of control mechanism, with the slight
glow of a fibrous power cable visible. Before she could ask him what he was
doing the lift began moving upward, but she realised that something was
terribly wrong. The lift was making a lot of noise as it moved, and there
was a faint scraping sound.

Then the lift jerked violently and with the hideous sound of screeching
metal came to a sudden and violent stop, throwing Susan and Kozlowski to
the floor. As she picked herself up Susan felt fear rising inside her, and
the colour began to drain from her face. She knew that the modern lift
systems did not have any cables holding them up, rather they relied on
magnetic levitation, and if that failed then there was nothing to stop them
from falling to a rather messy death at the bottom of the lift shaft.

Bracing herself carefully against the panelled wall she looked quickly
towards Kozlowski and the open wall panel where he had been working. The
doctor had also climbed back to his feet and was now poking around inside
the panel once more, muttering to himself as he worked. "What did you do
Doctor," Susan managed to ask, amazed that he could be so calm when the
lift could fall at any time. She soon felt her anger rising as she began to
realise that the lift seemed stable for now and that Dr Kozlowski had been
responsible for the problem, whatever it was.

Kozlowski didn't even look up at her words, and did not seem to notice
either the fear or accusation in her voice. "Hmm, won't be a minute
Captain. I am just adjusting the speed a little. When I was in the lift
this morning it was very slow, so I though it needed a little adjusting.
Nothing to worry about."

Susan slowly pulled herself away from the wall, breathing a little calmer
now. Her eyes bored holes into the white-coated back of the scientist, now
more annoyed than worried. "Well do you think you can do it later," she
asked, her voice betraying her annoyance. "I don't want to be stuck here, I
need to get to the bridge. I do have a ship have a ship to run after all."

"Won't be a minute Captain," the doctor muttered as he carefully inserted a
thin metal rod of some kind into the open panel and began to lever at
something hidden from Susan's eyes. "I just have to remove the safety
protocols and make some minor adjustments."

"What?" Susan yelled at him as she reached out to try and stop Kozlowski
before he did anything really dangerous. She was too late though and the
lift jerked again. Then she felt herself almost flying towards the ceiling
as the lift threw itself towards the bottom of the shaft at a speed it was
never meant to move at.

'I am going to die,' Susan thought, or she would have thought if she had
taken the time to think. She didn't even have time to scream though as the
lift came to another sudden halt and she fell solidly towards the floor.
She landed with a painful thud on the metal floor, before rolling into a
corner with pain shooting through her leg, and a throbbing headache. As she
lay moaning on the floor she realised that the emergency braking system
must have activated and as full awareness returned she could smell the
acrid taint of burnt metal and plastic coming in from outside the lift car.

Her leg still felt painful, but the sharp pains she had felt at first were
beginning to fade so she could only hope that it was not badly injured. She
rolled over onto her back and began to feel around her body to see if she
could discover anything broken. Finding nothing she pulled herself up so
her back was resting against the wall and looked across to where she had
last seen Kozlowski.

He was sitting pretty much where he had been when she first entered the
lift, and despite the spots of blood she could see on the floor he did not
seem that perturbed by what had happened and continued on with his work. As
he worked she could hear him muttering, "that was a little too quick I
think. Now if I just make a minor adjustment it should be fine."

Before Susan could get up and strangle him though the doors opened from the
outside and a concerned looking Commander Petrov rushed into the lift.
Seeing his Captain lying on the floor he rushed to her side and helped her
up to her feet. She accepted his help, but winced slightly as she put
weight on her injured leg. It was the same leg she had injured once before
but fortunately it did not seem too bad and after testing it a couple of
times found she could walk, although she might have a limp for a day or
two.

Resting with her arm around the Commander's shoulders Susan suddenly
noticed that Kozlowski was still working in the open control panel and with
a strangled gasp she threw off Petrov's support and ran to drag the
scientist away before he could cause any more trouble. Grabbing him by the
collar she dragged him bodily out of the lift and threw him out into the
shuttle bay, right into a rather surprised Chief Engineer who was just
arriving to see what the trouble was.

One look at the still furious Captain he quickly pushed the startled doctor
behind him. "Um I am not sure killing him would be a good idea Captain," he
said calmly. "Besides we need him."

Susan closed her eyes for a minute to recover her composure before
responding. "No probably not. But if I catch him messing with the lift with
me in it again I will toss him into an airlock and open the outer doors
personally. Get someone who knows what they are doing to fix it, I am going
to take the stairs."

"I will look after it personally Captain," Philip said as Susan stormed
off, her anger driving away any pain that she was feeling. Commander Petrov
stepped carefully out of the lift, noticing the burning smell that seemed
to be hanging around it, and not really wanting to plunge to his death if
the brakes broke away or anything like that.

The doctor pulled himself to his feet, brushed off his white coat and
flatted out what hair he had left. A little confused he looked somewhat
embarrassed by what had happened. "I don't understand what happened. It
should have been fine. Still no-one was injured and the emergency braking
system worked fine."

Philip shook his head in amazement. "I am not sure the Captain would agree
Nathan. I don't think nearly killing her is going to make her like you very
much at all."

Kozlowski shook his head, not really understanding what the Captain's
concern was. "But what was she doing in the lift. She started it up when I
was trying to work on it. Fortunately I was able to stop it in time,
otherwise we could have both been killed. I was only trying to improve the
lift, as I told you yesterday they are not working as well as they could."

"I will get someone to look at it Nathan," Philip sighed. He passed a
critical eye over the scientist and noticed that he was bleeding profusely
from his nose, which was probably broken.  "Why don't you go down to medlab
and get the lady doc to patch up that nose of yours. We can't have you
leaking blood all over the place, it might cause a short circuit in one of
the systems. Then when she fixes you can up head down to engineering and
help Lieutenant Eades with the tests on the reactors. We are about to leave
for earth so you might want to keep an eye on them to make sure they are
running correctly."

Kozlowski's nodded slowly, feeling his face and finding blood flowing down
from his nose. He carefully wiped it away with a rag he dragged out of a
pocket. Then to the amazement of the two officers he went back into the
lift and began to work on the control panel again. Taking only a few
seconds to finish what he had started he picked up his tools he put them
away carefully in a leather pouch, which he slipped into his pants pocket.
Then with that done he closed up the panel and said with an air of
confidence, "Lift, deck 5."

To the surprise of Petrov and Philip the door closed and the lift rose
smoothly upwards towards the main deck. Only the now faint smell of burnt
plastic and melted metal remained to show that anything had happened at
all. Philip wasn't going to take any chances though so tapped his link and
spoke to the ship's main computer, ordering it to shut down lift one until
further notice.

"Is he usually like that," Petrov asked, more than a little concerned about
the close call Captain Ivanova had just had. "I don't think the Captain
sounded very happy at all, and I don't really blame her."

Philip sighed helplessly, "I am afraid so. Kozlowski usually doesn't leave
the research station much. He has been there for nearly six years now, most
of that time working on the Warlock destroyers. He was always replacing and
altering things as he notices problems, without informing anyone. I will
have to talk with him and tell him that he can't do that on an operational
warship, or that the very least inform the central computer what he is
working on."

"That might be best Lt-Commander," Petrov said, eyeing the now closed lift
doors with some suspicion. "Send someone to check out the lift properly as
well. I don't know what he did, but I want to make sure it is fixed before
anyone else uses it."

Philip nodded in agreement, realising that the precaution was probably
necessary, despite the fact that the doctor had likely done a perfect job
on the repairs as usual. He quickly turned to the small group of crew
members that gathered around to see what was happening and ordered them to
get together a repair crew to check out the entire lift system.

"That should keep them busy for a while," Petrov said. "Well shall we get
up to deck 8. The captain asked me to check and make sure the repairs that
were done there last night were complete."

Philip nodded his agreement and the two officers headed towards the stairs
on the far side of the shuttle hanger, both still not willing to trust the
lifts.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Carefully easing herself down in the captain's chair Susan turned it to
face the bow, and rested her still sore leg. Amanda Taylor had checked her
over carefully, and reported that despite a small strain it was not badly
injured. Dr Taylor had then advised her to rest up for a while and not take
the stairs if possible. When Susan had told Amanda that she didn't really
feel like taking the lifts the doctor had only laughed, and told her
instead to only take lifts that were not being worked on by Kozlowski at
the time.

She now felt a little annoyed with herself, after letting her temper get
the better of her and for blaming Kozlowski for the accident. She should
have checked first before activating the lift. Had she known that he was
working on it, she would have taken the other one instead, or maybe the
stairs. She felt a little embarrassed that she had let herself become that
angry and when the doctor had come into medlab she had apologised to him.
Fortunately he had forgiven her, and even claimed it was all his fault and
he should have informed the central computer that he was working on the
lift.

She rubbed the painful section of her leg to try and work some of the
stiffness out of it. Dr Taylor had given her a painkiller so she could
still walk around, but it still felt a little uncomfortable. Finally
feeling somewhat better Susan activated the viewscreen, anxious to get
under way sometime today. She felt a little hungry, and realised it must
already be well past lunch time. She had spent most of the morning looking
over the ship, but hadn't realised exactly how much of the day had slipped
past.

As the holographic screen activated it showed her the space around the
habitat section of Rasputin. She could see the light from the thrusters of
the Admiral's shuttle retreating into the distance, almost about to dock
with the research station. The construction dock around them, which had
been dark and lifeless this morning was now lit up brightly, and she could
see several large spotlights shining down on the girders, pointing out the
location of the massive arms of metal.

The bridge was now busy with noise and action as members of her new crew
scuttled about making pre-flight checks and starting up various systems.
She was still not familiar with any of the control systems, except the
viewscreen which Philip Moore had been kind enough to explain to her as
they had gone back down to the shuttle bay earlier. Still her crew, all of
them having been trained at the research station seemed to know what they
were doing.

Looking down Susan recognised what looked like a communication console,
with a very pretty, red-haired lieutenant in charge. "Lieutenant," she
asked, making the young woman jump slightly at being addressed. "Are we
cleared to depart yet."

The lieutenant quickly scanned her console before replying. "Yes Sir,
Neptune-Beta flight control is giving us the green light. Admiral Kiernan's
shuttle has cleared the area and there is no more traffic anywhere nearby.
They are reporting that we can depart when ever we wish."

"Good," Susan said, as she leaned back in her chair. "Then we should get
going. I want to be at Mars soon, so I can get something to eat. Is
everything secure on board, no loose shuttles or anything like that."

The young communications officer glanced across the room at another of the
bridge crew who shook his head. She then turned back to Susan and said, "no
Sir, everything is secure we can depart on your orders.

Susan nodded and turned her chair to the front of the ship, addressing the
helmsman. "Helm set course for the Jumpgate. Keep it slow for now though,
there is a lot of civilian traffic out there, and we don't want to hit
anything."

"Yes Sir," came the low voice of the Rasputin's helmsman. "Directing main
power to the engines now, all system are operating within parameters and
fuel injection is go."

Far behind them the fuel valves on the nine huge engines opened and the
hydrogen fuel began to flood in to the ignition chambers. Even on the
bridge, over five hundred metres in front of the engines Susan could feel a
faint shudder as they were ignited. Then, ever so slowly the massive
warship began to move, slow at first, but ever increasing in speed as it
began to clear its moorings. Despite their power, on the bridge there was
little sign that the engines were operating apart from the movement that
could be seen on the holographic viewscreen, and a very faint vibration in
the railing around the Captain's station. With the viewscreen operational
though it was possible to see the vast girders that made up the
construction dock slowly falling behind the ship as it left Neptune-Beta.

"We have cleared the dock Captain," the helmsman reported. "Setting course
for the Neptune Jumpgate now. Although if you don't mind me asking why
aren't we using our own jump engines. Regulations state that we are
permitted to use jump engines at all times. It is a thirty minute trip to
the Jumpgate at this speed, if we went to hyperspace here we could easily
save that amount of time."

Susan scowled down at him, making note of the name on his uniform. "I don't
think I need to inform you of all of our orders ensign Marino. Earthforce
has asked that we stick to the Jumpgate this time. After all we don't have
a full crew on board yet, and we wouldn't want to see any accidents would
we now?"

"No Sir," he responded, properly chastised. "I didn't mean to question you
Captain, I was just trying to help out a little."

"I am pleased to hear that ensign," Susan said, a brief smile on her face
at the eagerness of the ensign to please her. She realised that this was
probably his first posting, but had no intention on making it easier for
him, after all it hadn't been for her. "I think you should be concentrating
on your console though, not chatting with me. I don't want us to smash up
the ship during its first flight."

The helmsman quickly turned back to his computer, and tried to look busy.
In truth the updated systems on the Rasputin could handle the flight quite
easily and did not even need his supervision, but he wasn't about to tell
the captain that. He had heard many stories from some of the other crew
about Captain Ivanova, and how she was meant to be a real tyrant when it
came those under her command. He didn't want to get on the wrong side of
the Captain on the very first day of her command, or he was in for a rough
time. Even now he could feel her eyes on him, probably watching everything
he was doing, and looking for any mistake.

Susan smiled faintly to herself at the ensign's discomfort, remembering how
she had been when she had first signed up, a day that seemed almost another
lifetime ago now. So much had happened in between, and despite the odd good
memory, almost all of it had been bad. 'It wasn't likely to get much better
either,' she though, with her typical pessimism. She tried to dismiss those
thoughts though and concentrate on commanding her vessel. After all this
was her new life, and there was no reason it had to be like it had in the
past. All she had to do was stop herself falling in love again, either that
or shoot anyone who showed any interest in her.

The portside door opened with a faint hiss as it released it's pressure
seals and the chief engineer walked in, carrying a small stack of papers.
Susan spun her chair around to face him, and looked at him with a
questioning glance. "You have something for me Lt-Commander?" she asked, at
the same time eying the stack of paper suspiciously, hoping it wasn't
anything that involved her, a pen, and the paper he was holding.

"Just the crew lists from Commander Petrov," Philip replied., dropping the
small pile of paper down on her console. "He thought you might like to take
a look at them while we were in hyperspace to Mars."

Susan shuffled through the papers, looking as though she wished that they
would just crumple up and vanish. She had never liked paperwork, even back
on Babylon 5, where she had only done very little. She sighed softly and
looking up at the engineer said, "Tell the commander I will take a look
later. Where is he by the way, I thought he would be up here on the bridge
by now."

"He is still down on deck 8 with Dr Kozlowski," Philip answered. "I was
just down there as well, checking up on the repairs. The commander said
something about keeping an eye on the doctor, making sure he didn't cause
any more trouble. I think he was a little concerned about what happened
earlier."

Susan nodded remembering the way the Russian commander had rushed to her
side when the list doors had been forced open earlier. "Well that sounds
like a good enough reason to me. I want him with me when we arrive at Mars
though, so don't let him get lost down there or anything like that."

"I won't Captain," the engineer said, a little distracted as he noticed
something he hadn't seen when he first entered the bridge. He peered
curiously at the viewscreen for a moment, noticing that the research
station was already falling behind them, and that the ship seemed to be
headed for the Neptune Jumpgate. "Um Captain why aren't we in hyperspace
yet. Wouldn't it be quicker to use our jump engines instead of going all
the way to the Jumpgate. It could save us around thirty minutes."

The Captain looked faintly embarrassed at that question, especially when
the helmsman turned his face to look up at her. She narrowed her eyes and
gave the young ensign a glare, which quickly had him furiously scanning the
console in front of him, very busy all of a sudden. She turned back to
Philip and said, "don't you remember Lt-Commander, Earthforce has asked us
to use the Jumpgate instead of our generator."

Philip Moore looked confused for a moment, then seeing the message in her
eyes he suddenly realised what she was up to and let a wide smile light up
his face. "Of course, I must have forgotten all about that Captain. I guess
I have been too busy to read all the memo's from Earth Central properly.
Yes I remember quite clearly now that they said something about not using
the jump engines. I don't remember exactly why though, but it was a good
reason."

"Yes the memo," Susan said, pleased that Philip was as intelligent as he
had first appeared. "Earthforce decided that we didn't want to risk damage
without a full crew on board for repairs or emergencies."

"Indeed, it is a good policy Captain," the engineer remarked, careful not
to let his amusement show too much. "Anyway I had best get back down to the
engineering and keep an eye on Kozlowski. We wouldn't want him to start
pulling everything apart, would we now. I will relay your message to the
commander."

"You do that Lt-Commander," Susan said, turning back to face the bow, where
she could just see the wire-frame structure that was the third Warlock
class destroyer sitting alone in it's own dock. At the moment it looked
much the same as every other Earth Alliance vessel did during construction,
with only the major support beams in place, along with a few platforms for
the construction crews. In time though it would look as beautiful as her
own vessel, that is assuming that Earth could still afford to build it.

Seeing the Captain's attention turn away from him Philip gave a quite
salute and spun around on his toes, walking quickly towards the door. Just
after it opened again and he was about to leave he paused though and turned
back to the Captain. "That control to your left there controls the
viewscreen zoom Captain. You should be able to get a good view of it if you
zoom in closer, although I am not sure what the museum authorities will
think of us, after all we are hardly your normal sort of tourist ship are
we now."

Susan turned around to look at him in annoyance, but he had already gone,
and the doors were closing behind him. She felt the eyes of the helmsman on
her again and she glared back at him. "Ensign Marino, I thought I told you
to keep an eye on the helm, not me. If you can't keep your eyes on your
work I will have to think about replacing you with someone who can."

"Sorry Captain," he rushed out, quickly turning back to his console again.
Around him he could almost feel the amused smirks of some of the other
bridge crew, before they too suddenly seemed to become very occupied with
their work as the captain turned to glare at them as well.. It was not him
they are smiling at though, but rather the Captain, realising from the
chief engineer's words that she was only taking the Rasputin through the
Jumpgate so she could have a look the museum on Triton as they passed. The
museum which was dedicated to the first meeting between Humanity and the
Centari was supposed to bring good luck, at least that was how the stories
went. Ensign Marino couldn't help but be a little surprised himself, not
realising that Captain Ivanova had a sentimental side. Still it was good to
know she was not the blood thirsty tyrant he had been told about.

Susan sighed in annoyance, realising that the crew probably knew why she
was taking the Jumpgate by now. She thought about ordering the jump engines
online, but dismissed that thought. Not only had she already told them it
was not permitted, but she would also miss her one chance to see the
museum, albeit from space, and not up close. All her life she had wanted to
come to Neptune and visit the museum, but always something had prevented
it. Now here she was in a ship orbiting Neptune and she would be damned if
she was going to give up the opportunity to see it, no matter what the crew
thought of her. What Earthforce would think of the waste of thousands of
credits of fuel though was another matter entirely, she could only hope no
one told them.

Trying to look less guilty she picked up the papers Philip had bought her
and began to shuffle through them. As she did the Rasputin finally cleared
Neptune-Beta's sphere of influence and began to accelerate towards the
Jumpgate. Below it the dark sphere that was the planet Neptune began to
move closer as the ensign Marino trimmed a few minutes off their flight
time by cutting closer to the planet's gravity well. She looked carefully
at her screens, but soon realised that he was well within safety limits and
regulations, so let his modification to the flight plan pass without
comment.

Actually she was very pleased with the young ensign so far. Not only had he
shown initiative but he also questioned her orders. If she could make him
respect her command a little more then he would make a fine officer in the
future. He also seemed to be a damn good starship pilot, as not many would
have thought of the short cut he had made, not even her, and she had seen a
few starships in the past few years.

She noticed the sun beginning to rise from behind the planet, nothing more
than a bright star out this far, but a welcome sight after having spent the
past day in the darkness behind Neptune. Then the lights from the gas mines
came into view, shining brightly against the blackness of space. Finally
she could see the dark bulk that was Triton, rising over Neptune, and with
it the lights of the Jumpgate, and the ships waiting in high orbit for
cargo or passengers. It was a beautiful sight, and one that reminded Susan
again why she had remained with Earthforce after the Earth-Minbari war.
This was only one planet, and there were many more out there to see.
Worlds, alien civilisations, and hundreds of other wonders. All things she
would never have seen if she had left Earthforce and stayed on Earth like
her father had wanted her to.

Susan watched the planet's atmosphere slide away below them for ten
minutes, mesmerised by the swirling clouds of dark gas, lit only by the
faint light from the sun, and the occasional small craft or gas mine that
passed beneath them. She had never taken the time to just sit and watch a
planet from space before. Always she had been too busy watching
instruments, or scanning space for enemy vessels. Now she could take the
time to do so, and let someone else worry for her. Here above Neptune there
was not likely to be anything in the way of raiders or other enemy vessel
so she could spare the time at last to just sit, watch, and enjoy.

Then she noticed that their course looked like it was taking them above
Triton, rather than below where the Museum was at the moment so she quickly
looked around for an excuse for a quick course change. She noticed the
large, unlit shapes of two JMC bulk tankers, probably here at Neptune to
collect fuel from the private mines. They were close, but still well within
safety range. 'Good enough,' she thought as she turned back to look down at
ensign Marino. "Ensign, it looks like there are civilian vessels out there.
This is a fairly big ship, so perhaps it would be best if her directed our
course below Triton, and away from those tankers. You never know what a
civilian vessel is going to do, especially when they see a warship like
this passing near them. We don't want an accident now do we."

"Already on it Captain," the ensign responded, no trace of any argument at
her request in his voice this time, and if anything there was an edge of
excitement. "Just programming in the final changes now."

He quickly completed the calculations and typed them into the navigation
computer, which accepted them and the Rasputin slowly changed course again,
dipping down towards Neptune again. It was now flying just above the tops
of the collection of giant needles that were the gas mines, and had slowed
considerably, as the Rasputin now had to loop about Neptune's largest moon
instead of flying straight above it, and if it was travelling slower then
it could save fuel as it changed course around the moon. Then free of the
moon's gravity it could speed up again.

Susan sat back and tried to look interested in the crew lists, all the
while peaking up occasionally to look at the gas giant slip beneath them,
and Triton begin to grow large in the viewscreen. It was a losing battle
though and the papers were soon sitting forgotten in her hands, as she
craned her neck, looking for some sign of the vast mural that marked the
location of the museum.

Just as the warship began to leave Neptune and move closer to Triton the
door leading into the bridge opened again and this time it was Commander
Petrov who entered the bridge, along with the Chief Engineer. They both
crossed over to stand by Susan's chair, leaning against the railing that
prevented them from falling into the sunken area that held the bridge, and
watching the viewscreen as carefully as she was.

"Good of you to join us Commander Petrov," Susan said as they reached her
side, still not taking her eyes away from the screen. "How goes the work on
deck 8."

The commander shrugged, "I think everything is working fine now. Nothing
down there is like anything I have even seen before though."

"It has all been fixed Captain," Philip Moore added. "I shipped Kozlowski
off to the engineering decks to run some tests on one of the reactors so
the repair crews can do their work. He was muttering something about
turning the AG system off so he could add some new circuit or something
when I got there. I didn't think that would be a good idea though, and told
him to wait until we were safely in orbit around Mars."

Susan looked pained at the thought of losing artificial gravity in mid
flight. "He isn't going to cause any more trouble is he. If he is I will be
tossing him off the ship at our first stop. I can still feel the bump on my
head."

Philip shook his head, "I don't think we have to worry about him. Nathan is
a brilliant scientist, he just tends to live in his own little world most
of the time, separate from everyone else. I think he was even in an
institution as a child or something like that. But then, when they realised
what he could do, they let him out and he has been shuffled around the
various R&D sections for the past thirty years. As long as you have someone
to keep an eye on him he is fine. He didn't mean to cause the accident in
the lift this morning you know."

Susan mused on this for a few seconds before asking, "I realise that it
wasn't really his fault. Do you think he will work out ok here though, this
is a warship after all, not a research station. We can't have him pulling
up parts of the deck all the time to update systems. That isn't going to
make things run very smoothly."

"We can't do without him," Philip answered without hesitation. "There are
parts of this ship that only he knows about. I know, I have been working on
them for the past two years, and still don't have a clue how most of the
technology around here works, especially the solar panels and those new
power relay circuits for some of the weapons."

Susan looked towards Petrov, silently asking him for his opinion. He
quickly supplied one, "I agree with the Lt-Commander Captain. We need
Kozlowski. From what I was told there isn't anyone else in the fleet who
knows how to run half the systems this ship has."

"Very well he can stay then," Susan said, with a tone of resignation in her
voice. "I want him supervised at all time though, just in case."

"I will set something up later today Captain," Philip said, consulting a
notepad he pulled from his pocket. He quickly scanned the pages, before
shutting it down and slipping it back into his pants pocket. "I will assign
him an assistant to keep an eye on him. There are a few young recruits that
are being attached to engineering among those who are coming aboard at
Mars. I will give a couple of them the job of looking after the doctor
while I keep the more experienced staff with me."

"Sounds like the best idea. I don't really want to have to do this, but
based on his actions this morning I want him kept out of trouble. See if
you can get him to teach someone else to maintain the new systems as well,
I think that is the reason that he is here anyway. It wouldn't do for him
to get sick without someone else knowing how to run those system, or we
would be stuck in the middle of space with no-one to repair any problems."

"I will get right on it Captain," the engineer said, pulling out his pad
again to make some notes in it.

Susan was about to continue with the discussion when she was interrupted by
the voice of the navigation officer. "We are just coming up on Triton now
Captain. We will passing over the museum, I thought you might be
interested."

"It might be worth a look Lieutenant," Susan responded, careful to keep her
excitement at seeing it for the first time out of her voice. "Zoom the
viewscreen in a bit as we pass Triton, so we can all see it."

"Yes Captain."

The young lieutenant flipped the view from the Rasputin's external cameras
so it was showing the surface of Triton in the main viewscreen, instead of
the space ahead of the warship. Then she zoomed in on the area of the moon
where the museum had been built. Once this was done the lieutenant turned
her eyes to watch the screen as the warship powered past the planet, along
with everyone else who was on the bridge at the time.

Susan soon became aware that the rest of the bridge crew behind her had
hopped up out of their seats and were peaking over the raised section where
the Captain's station was, most just as anxious as she was to see the
Museum. Then it came into view, a small, bright dot of light on the moons
surface, surrounded by the well lit shape of a vast mural covering the ice
plains of Triton.

Shortly after the meeting of the two races artists from Earth had worked
together with Centari artisans to construct possibly the largest mural in
existence. It was carved deep into the methane ice of Triton with lasers,
and then the ice was dyed permanently with chemicals that had been obtained
from the Centari. Lit by spotlights, which were set into the ice along it,
Susan could now see the form of the Earth Alliance symbol, along with the
peacock like crest of the Centari Republic. It was one of the sights that
everyone wanted to see, and although Susan had seen it before in vids, and
on ISN or one of the other networks, the sight of it now was something
completely different.

The bridge was perfectly quiet, and it was even possible to hear the faint
throbbing of the ship's engines as it slowly glided above the surface of
the moon, everyone attention focused on one of the most famous monuments in
Earth Alliance history. It was a symbol of Earth's past, a time when
humanity had thought that the stars held only wonders, a time before the
wars and the deaths. A two hundred kilometre wide symbol of the peaceful
meeting with the first alien species that Earth had encountered. It also
marked the beginning of Earth's expansion onto other worlds, and to most
people, especially those in Earthforce it was a place to visit at least
once in a lifetime, to celebrate what they all worked towards.

As the moon slowly drifted past, Susan wished that she had the time to go
down to the museum itself. There was contained a collection of some of the
greatest Centari and Human art works, although for the most part only
copies. But as the originals were now kept locked away under guard all of
the time it was the only way most people could get to see some of earth's
greatest masterpieces. She dismissed this wish with a sigh, knowing that
she would likely not get to see Neptune again for many years. It was
possible that she could take a trip here by commercial liner for a holiday
or something, but the current prices meant that it was cheaper to travel
for a week to Disneyplanet that to stay in the hotels on Triton for a day.
Despite what everyone thought the salary of an Earth Alliance captain did
not tally up to that much.

Then they were past Triton and the Rasputin was into open space heading
towards the Jumpgate. Susan sighed contentedly, pleased that she had
finally been to Triton, a place she had wanted to see for so many years.
She had passed by before of course, but that was always in a shuttle or one
of the older warships and she had never been able to see the planet. Around
her the bridge crew, who had sat quietly watching, headed back to their
stations and the normal activities of the Rasputin's bridge began to
resume.

"Quite a sight wasn't it Captain," asked the voice of Philip Moore. "Is
that the first time you have seen it."

Susan nodded, "I have always wanted to visit, but never could find the time
or money for the trip."

Philip nodded understandingly, not wanting to say anything more to break
the moment though. He had been past Triton several times in the past two
years, taking a shuttle from the Research station, but even then the
amazing sight of the mural still moved him, especially when he thought
about the effort that had gone into its construction. He knew that
eventually it would disappear, covered over by the constant ice eruptions
from beneath the planets surface, but was determined to enjoy it while it
remained.

"Captain we are ready to enter the Jumpgate," said the helmsman,
interrupting the thoughts of all on the bridge. "Activating Jumpgate
sequence in twenty seconds."

Susan and the rest of the crew gripped their chairs a little tighter. Even
Philip was a little apprehensive, as despite all the tests this was the
first time the ship had been into hyperspace. There proved to be nothing to
worry about though and the Rasputin shot into the vortex with barely even a
shudder, smoother than most of the Bridge crew had expected.

Once they were in hyperspace bound for Earth Susan got up from of her chair
and picked up the crew lists. Petrov looked at her and asked, "do you want
me to take over here Captain."

"Yes Commander," Susan replied. "I will be in my office if anyone needs me.
I want to have a quick look over this list before we arrive at Mars."

She turned to leave, and was just about to exit when a shudder ran through
the whole ship and it began to slow suddenly. Then gravity of the bridge
began to fade, dropping to around half Earth normal. Commander Petrov
looked concerned, although Philip Moore looked more annoyed about the
situation that anything else.

"Report," Susan ordered. "What is going on."

The bridge crew were already scanning their consoles looking for the
problem, and it wasn't long before one of them realised what the trouble
was and relayed her findings to his commanding officers. "It looks like
reactor's three and four have been taken offline for some reason. There
doesn't seem to be any trouble with them though. It looks like they have
been shut down in engineering."

Susan glared at her chief engineer hoping he realised what the problem was.
Philip was already way ahead of her and was rushing towards the door.
"Don't worry Captain," he shouted as he ran off down the hallway to the
lifts. "I will check to see what is going on. It may have something to do
with the tests Dr Kozlowski is running."

"If it's his fault again then you can throw him in the brig," she yelled
after the chief engineer who was sprinting towards the bow of the vessel
and the lifts to the lower decks..

Susan threw up her hands in frustration and walked off the bridge towards
her office and quarters which were at the front of the command deck. As she
walked she was imagining several very nasty tortures she could inflict on
the errant doctor if the power loss was due to something he had done.
Nothing permanent seemed to be wrong though, for before she had even
reached her office the gravity quickly returned to normal as stored power
was re-routed into the artificial gravity system.

Susan soon forgot all about the trouble as she sat with her feet up on her
desk, and a steaming cup of coffee in her hands, reading through the crew
lists that Commander Petrov had drawn up for her. She knew that there was
bound to be a few problems with a new vessel, but after nearly being killed
this morning in the lift, and now with the reactors going down while they
were in flight she was a little bit concerned. Reading through the records
of her new crew did take her mind off the problems for a while. Long enough
for the rest of the trip to Mars to pass smoothly.

	------------------------------------------------------------

The space above Mars was crawling with space going vessels as the EAS
Rasputin came through the Jumpgate and slid into an orbit around the red
planet. From his position on the bridge Commander Petrov could see at least
ten Omega class destroyer also in orbit, as well as a large number of
Condor troops transports, commercial liners and other private vessels. This
region of space was a lot more crowded than he remember during his last
visit, several month ago so when he ordered the Rasputin into orbit it was
well away from the Jumpgate, and the flight paths of any other vessels.

He was just getting ready to call the Captain when she came in through the
pressure doors. He quickly surrendered his seat to her and then as she sat
down asked, "where to from here Captain? Do we have any orders yet."

The Captain quickly scanned to latest readouts on her console before
answering, "We both have to go to Mars High station for a meeting with some
of the senior staff from Earth tomorrow. I just got off the link from the
station and apparently they want to see us to discuss some changes to the
testing of this vessel. We also have to pick up most of our crew and get
them settled in, from what I was told that may take a day or two at least."

"That sounds about right captain," Petrov agreed, scanning the console in
front of Susan, to check that everything was running smoothly. "I wanted to
thank you as well captain, for taking that detour past Triton. That was the
first time I had been past triton, and I am sure the rest of the crew
appreciated it as well."

"Well I always wanted to see the place," Susan explained, interrupting the
chorus of agreement from the bridge crew.  "I have never had a chance
before, and that was probably the last chance I would have for a long, long
time. Ever since my mother told me about it when I was a little girl I
wanted to go there, to experience it for myself."

"Perhaps it will bring us good luck," Petrov said. "I have heard that some
of the Centari consider the site a place that brings luck to all who
venture there."

Susan's thought quickly turned back to her mother, and what had happened to
her. "I doubt it, still we can use all the luck we can get, if today is
anything to go by."

"I am sure things will work out fine." Petrov said. "All new ships have a
few teething troubles, and I would not expect this one to be any different.
One last thing Captain, will we have a chance to go down to the surface at
all?"

"Probably, I will ask when I meet the command staff tomorrow. For now we
are to stay in orbit around Mars, this orbit looks as good as any."

Petrov nodded. "If we do get a chance to go planetside, I would like
permission for a short trip. It shouldn't take more than a day at the most.
Perhaps even tonight if at all possible."

Susan examined his face noticing the worried frown there, a frown that was
almost becoming a look of longing. "Well that should be ok. I don't think
there is anything important occurring until tomorrow so permission granted
then Commander. I want to see you on the station when I arrive though, and
that should be around mid morning. I gather that you have someone down
there waiting for you."

Petrov's face showed only the briefest flash of a smile, still it was more
than she had seen from him so far. "I hope so Captain. With the civil war
and everything I haven't really had time to visit, and the link to Mars has
been very erratic. I can only hope that she is still waiting for me down
there."

"Well I hope you have better luck than me then Commander," Susan said, her
impassive face hiding the pain she felt come pouring back as she thought
again about Marcus' death.

"Me too Captain," Petrov said softly, think about the woman he had left
behind on Mars. "Me too."

For a moment they both were silent, thinking on their lives and their
loves. Then Petrov returned Susan to the present by asking, "so what do you
want done about Kozlowski Captain. I know he nearly caused a very bad
accident this morning, but it wasn't his fault."

Susan moaned, she had almost forgotten about the errant doctor. "I guess I
will have to speak to him. Do you know where he is?"

"Lt-Commander Moore is with him down in engineering I think."

Susan smiled at the thought of the engineer, who was probably fussing over
the engines, trying to find out what had gone wrong with the reactors
earlier that day. "I might go and speak to him right now, is everything
secure up here?"

"Yes Captain," Petrov said as he moved to look over her shoulder at the
console. "We have achieved a stable geostationary orbit and Mars High C&C
has just confirmed our position with navigation, so they know where we are.
We should be right here for a few days at least, although there is a lot of
traffic out there at the moment, I think that has something to do with the
withdrawal of Earthforce ground troops from the planet. They do seem to be
staying to the normal space lanes though."

"Yes that sounds likely. I know we are getting some of the marines that
have been stationed on Mars. I am not too sure about having them on board,
they do have fairly bad reputation, and what they did on Mars during the
war certainly didn't help anything. Bombing civilian targets and that sort
of thing."

"I am sure they will be fine," the Commander tried to assure her. "These
are marines after all, not your general thugs like those you find in the
ground forces. Besides I know the Major and she isn't the sort to get
involved in that sort of thing."

"I certainly hope so," Susan said, still not really convinced. "We can
worry about that when Major Logan comes on board. Right now I have to go
and speak to Dr Kozlowski and Lt-Commander Moore and see if we can work out
what was wrong with the reactors. I don't want the ship to start falling
apart on me, especially after I have only had it for a day."

"That certainly wouldn't look good on our records," Petrov agreed. "Shall I
get someone to take over for me here. I think Lt-Commander Schmitt is free
at the moment, and doesn't have anything to do until his fighter pilots
arrive."

Susan shook her head slowly, "Well I don't think that will be necessary,
one of the bridge crew should do fine. I won't be long down in engineering,
and I am sure Mr Schmitt has plenty to do at the moment."

"If you think that is ok Captain," Petrov said, and then when she nodded
again he turned to the lieutenant who was in charge of navigation.
"Lieutenant Heneker, can you take command here until the Captain returns."

Satisfied that the ship would be well looked after until she got back Susan
left the bridge, determined to discover what exactly was going on in
Engineering, and what part Dr Nathan Kozlowski had played in it. After the
accident in the lift she had been willing to forgive him, especially as she
now realised that it was partly her fault as well, but if he was
responsible for the trouble with the reactors as well then she might have
more than a few harsh words to say to the good doctor.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Engineering was a hive of activity when she arrived. Piles of what looked
replacement fuel conduits lay scattered across the metal grating that
passed for a floor in this section of the ship and several of the
engineering crew were busy replacing sections of the fuel pipes. Susan
looked around for the chief engineer and soon spotted him and the doctor,
both busy with supervising some of the work.

"What the hell is going on here Lt-Commander," Susan asked brusquely.

Both the Philip and Kozlowski looked up and seeing their captain tried to
hide looks of guilt that came unbidden to their faces. Susan however
noticed them and asked suspiciously, "Everything is working alright isn't
it. There is nothing major wrong."

"Um," Philip began. "Not really Captain, just a minor oversight during the
initial construction phase. It is nothing life-threatening, and we will
have everything operational within a two hours at the most."

Susan glanced around at the crew members, who were now busily replacing
several of the main fuel lines. "Let me guess, something to do with the
fuel system."

Dr Kozlowski nodded quickly, "yes that is all Captain, just a minor
problem, nothing to worry about really."

Susan eyed both men, still suspicious that there was something going on
here that she hadn't been told about. She wasn't going to leave here until
she heard the truth either. "Well what is it then. I think as Captain I
have a right to know what is wrong with my ship."

Philip sighed in resignation, "well as the doctor said it is only a minor
problem. We forgot to change over the fuel lines from a new model we were
testing a month or so ago back to the more standard type. The new model has
problems with leaking when under pressure, which is why we were going back
to the standard, but with the rush to get this vessel operation no-one got
around to doing it. Then as we entered hyperspace the lines to reactor's
three and four began leaking and I am sure you realise what sort of trouble
that could have caused."

Susan involuntarily shuddered as she realised how close they had come to
disaster. "The reactors would have blown, taking most of the ship with
them."

Philip nodded, "that's right, fortunately Nathan was here to notice the
problem and switch them off in time. Once they were off-line we could
repair the damage."

"Do we have enough spare fuel conduits to replace the damaged one?" Susan
asked.

Philip looked over at Kozlowski who quickly consulted a data pad before
responding. "Yes it seems as though both the replacement parts as well as
plenty of spares were but on board. They were never installed though for
some reason. We have dragged them out now and have already replaced those
on the two affected reactors. We can bring them back online as soon as we
clear up the spilt fuel and then we can get to work on the other two
reactors. Shouldn't take more than two hours at the most."

Susan nodded slowly as the scientist gave his report before saying, "good
work then, both of you. I will get back to the bridge. Oh and if you get
some time off later I will buy you each a drink."

"I don't think we are allowed alcohol on board Captain," Kozlowski said.

"Well we will have to drink coffee then. See me on the bridge when you are
finished, and have everything fixed."

Susan turned away and walked back to the transporter to the rest of the
ship, pleased that she had been wrong about Kozlowski and it had not been
his fault with the reactors. If anything the bald-headed scientist had
saved the ship from certain disaster. She had seen often enough over the
past few months what happened to a ship when its fusion reactor blew.
Plenty of Earth vessels during the civil war had been destroyed in just
that way, and she wouldn't wish that fate on anyone, especially herself.

Stepping off the transport onto deck 5, just outside the secondary bridge
she paused for a moment and thought back on what Petrov has said about good
luck. Perhaps he might be right after all, if the doctor had not noticed
the fuel leak then they could have been dead by now, so that was certainly
a stroke of good luck. Susan could only hope now that her luck held out for
the meeting tomorrow. Still apprehensive about what was going to occur she
headed for the stairs leading up to the command deck and the the officers
mess, hoping that she could at last get her long delayed lunch.

	------------------------------------------------------------


Sel Vecantie

e-mail: vecantie@geocities.com
homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/



From: "Sel" <vecantie@geocities.com>
Subject: Reunion - Part 4
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 00:50:34 +0930

And so it really begins. No more introductory stuff, into the action in this
chapter. And as for the next chapter, well.....

Story Archive: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/
Send comments to: vecantie@geocities.com

_______________________________________________

			      Reunion - Part 4
			      By Sel Vecantie

	------------------------------------------------------------

10:24, February 1, 2262

The giant starfish shape that was the Mars High Station spun slowly in
space, just above the thin atmosphere of the red planet. As the only major
station around the planet, it was the natural transfer point for any
passengers disembarking from larger vessels such as Earth Alliance
warships, or the large interplanetary liners. In fact two of the huge
liners, capable of carrying nearly five thousand passengers were currently
in orbit, each attached to the ends of one of the triangular arms of the
space station.

The station sat above Mars in a low, stationary orbit, positioned just
right, so it was always above the main spaceport on the planet below. With
Mars' gravity less than forty percent Earth normal most smaller transports
and passenger vessels could land on the planet with little difficulty, the
thin atmosphere barely even heating their outer surfaces. The larger
vessels, those not equipped for a planetary landing, were forced to stop at
the station, and a constant stream of small shuttles and transport ships
could be seen moving between the surface and the station, like bees
travelling to and fro from their hive.

The beehive must have been exceptionally busy this day however. Susan could
see at least a hundred small craft filling the skies, and this made the
piloting of her own large shuttle a lot more difficult. Although once again
she had allowed the normal pilot to guide the craft while she sat up front,
enjoying the view. Despite her worry over the upcoming meeting with the
commander of Earthforce activities on Mars she was determined to try and
forget her problems for a moment, and was spending the entire journey
trying to identify the makes of all the different craft that were plying
the upper atmosphere.

The pilot however did not seem to be enjoying the ride at all, despite the
presence of the lovely captain next to him in the Co-pilot's seat. He was
terrified of making a mistake, and had Susan taken the time to look, she
would have noticed that sweat was running down his face like streams down a
mountain side. He was not so much worried about the actually journey, he
had done the same trip many times before. Rather he was concerned about the
Captain presence, sure that she was only here to spot any mistake he made.
Despite his concerns he flew perfect, perhaps the best he had even flown
before and his docking with the station was even better. When he looked
back on it latter he would sigh as he thought that it really was a pity
that he wasn't being evaluated after all.

The pilot breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the shuttle was at last
safely secure in the Station's main docking bay and the Captain was
climbing back down out of the cockpit. He wiped his brow with a thick
handkerchief and gave a little prayer that the Captain would be taking the
other shuttle back on her return. Fortunately it looked like his wish was
going to be granted, as he could already see a large collection of
uniformed men and woman gathered on the deck, most likely enlisted crew
bound for the Rasputin. Tucking the handkerchief back into his pocket he
whistled a merry tune as he awaited for word from Flight Control over his
next more.

Susan was already well on her way into the station proper. She had stopped
only for a moment to answer the salutes of the new members of her crew,
most of them looking so young and inexperienced to her war weary eyes. Then
she had left the docking bay, almost running in her haste to get to the
rendezvous she had arranged earlier that day with Commander Petrov. She
knew she was already late, having been delayed by Flight Control for nearly
an hour as the Station struggled with the heavy influx of the early morning
traffic from the surface, probably all shuttles bringing passengers for one
of the two liners. She didn't really want to think about what it was going
to be like once she entered the embarkation terminals.

Rushing through the large pressure doors from the docking bay Susan
suddenly pulled up short, looking out over the crowded chaos that was the
embarkation terminal for the station. Thousands of beings, mostly human,
but the odd Alien breaking the monotony filled her vision, a swarming mass
that she could see no path through. She cursed under her breath, realising
that she must have arrived just as one of the big liners that she had
noticed on the way in was about to take on passengers, and that the number
of these passengers could be as high a five thousand. Add to that the
merchants who filled the areas along the walls of the terminal and Susan
was stuck as well as if she had fallen into a bog of quicksand.

Still Captain Susan Ivanova was not one to give up easily and with a deep
breath, and a quick prayer she plunged into the surging crowd, struggling
to make it to the cafe where she had arranged to meet the Commander. She
soon found herself adrift in a tide of humanity, one that seemed to be
going in a completely opposite direction to her. Still she struggled on,
despite the jostling and was soon making headway, although it was slow
going.

Then she spotted a break in the crowd and ducked into the open doorway of a
small store that seemed empty at the moment. She decided that it might be
best to wait until everyone had bordered their vessel, and again cursed
herself for having to land in the same station arm that the liner was
attached to. Still the crowd seemed to be thinning now, as they all headed
towards the customs and security check points at the far end of the
passageway.

She was just about to leave the shop when a voice assaulted her from
behind, "my lady, my fine lady. What good taste you must have to land here,
in the shop of Joran Yari."

She turned wearily around to tell the shopkeeper that she was only
interested in waiting her until the crowd of passengers cleared out of the
passage way and was not interested in the slightest of buying anything he
had for sale. The Centari merchant did not even give her the chance to
speak though, continuing with his spiel. "Perhaps I might interest you in
this fine brevare, sweetest in all of the republic. Although maybe a lady
such as yourself would be interested in this cream, just perfect to make
your head lovely and bald and get rid of all that ugly hair. I really do
not know why human woman persist with allowing their hair to grow in such a
manner when with just one easy application it could all be gone."

He slid smoothly towards her, holding out the bottle of cream in his hands,
and even seemed ready to demonstrate its effectiveness on the Captain's
beautiful hair. Susan looked at him in horror and immediately raised her
hands to fend him off. He did not seem offended by this, instead he put
down the cream and offered her a fine bone comb, one usually reserved for
Centari gentlemen. Not really wanting any further interruption to her
journey she grabbed his arm firmly and said, "look, I am not interested in
anything in your shop. I came in here by mistake and now I must be going."

"Not even one bottle of brevare," he said quizzically, holding out the fine
crystal bottle in his hands once more for her to examine. "I will even let
you have a taste first, I understand that is the human custom in some
regions."

"I already have several in my quarters, gifts from Prime Minister Londo
Mollari," she replied backing out of the shop as fast as she could, and at
the same time trying not to offend the merchant too much.

"Prime Minister Mollari," he gasped, suddenly pulling away from Susan and
allowing her to leave without any further sales attempts. She looked
closely at him for a moment before noticing the look of fear that played
across his features, and realising that he was probably another of Londo's
victims. As much as she had liked the Centari ambassador he had done some
horrible things in the past, and even among his own people there were those
he had hurt. This poor merchant was probably one of them, and for a moment
she was tempted to buy something, but then a glance at her link bought her
attention back to more urgent matters as she noticed the time. She cursed
once more before turning and sprinting down the passageway towards the
centre of the station, where she hoped Petrov would still be waiting for
her.

As she ran off towards the rendezvous point two men stepped out of the
shadows that gathered behind the Centari's shop and watched her retreating
figure. Both were very similar looking, with nondescript features, and the
same dark, unremarkable clothing. They even had the same hair and eye
colour, both brown haired with brown eyes. Anyone who looked closer though
could see that they were not identical twins, but rather two men who had
made every effort to look alike, and seemed to be succeeding very well
indeed.

The similarity was about the only remarkable thing about them, and most
eyes just passed right over them, dismissing them as unimportant, or as too
poor to be worth harassing for a purchase. This was just the way they liked
it, for their jobs required that they be able to avoid detection at all
costs, and these two were very good at their jobs. Even the Centari
shopkeeper did not attempt to coax them inside when he came out to watch
the Captain hurry away.

They both noticed the shopkeeper however and waited until he had returned
inside his shop before pulling out a small data pad and consulting it. The
man on the right looked carefully at it for a moment, then in the direction
he had last seen Ivanova heading. Satisfied he turned to his companion and
nodded once. His companion nodded back and the first man returned the data
pad to the inside pocket of his coat and they both set off in pursuit,
careful not to run, least they raise attention to themselves. The
passageway was now clear of most passengers, the last ones just leaving
through the customs port behind them, but there were still a lot of
shoppers and other travellers left, not as many as a minute ago, but still
enough to allow the two men to slip unnoticed thought the crowd as they
carried out their pursuit.

Two minutes later Susan finally reached the cafe where she was to meet
Commander Petrov and found him already seated at a table, sipping a cup of
coffee, and polishing off the last of a plate of what looked like scrambled
eggs. She walked over to his table and sat down in the chair opposite him,
trying not to look like she had been running to get here. Petrov however
noticed her lack of breath and realised at once that she must have really
hurried to get here on time.

"Caught in the rush Captain," he asked, smiling warmly at her. "It is
certainly busy out there today. It seems like everyone is trying to get off
Mars at once."

Susan looked at him curiously, not remembering the Commander as ever having
been this cheerful before. She nodded, but as she was still trying to catch
her breath did not answer with words. He smiled again, and gestured to a
waitress to bring over another cup of coffee. She quickly complied and
Susan gratefully accepted the gift, sipping it slowly as she let her
exhaustion slip away and the feeling of warmth and comfort that she alway
got with a nice cup of coffee return. She closed her eyes and let the steam
drift into her nostrils, slowly absorbing the pleasant smell before taking
another sip.

Her peace was quickly interrupted though as the dull, synthesised voice of
the station's computer echoed across the station. "Attention all passengers
for the liner Jupiter's Glory please proceed immediately to embarkation
terminal alpha. Liner Jupiter's Glory will be departing in twenty minutes,
stopping at Earth, Proxima III, Centari Prime, and Babylon 5."

Susan tuned out the rest of the broadcast as the computer voice repeated
the message in several more languages, most human, while others were alien,
including worker-caste Minbari, which she knew a little of. She glanced
around the cafe, examining the rest of the patrons. There were few who
caught her attention however, the most interesting being a young
warrior-caste Minbari, a ranger by the look of his uniform. He was sitting
alone at a table, and was being pointedly avoided by other patrons, the
Earth-Minbari war and Clark's propaganda not easily forgotten. She quickly
glanced away, not wanting to be recognised, and also not wanting to
remember the last time she had seen that uniform and who had been wearing
it.

"It certainly is busy here today Captain," Petrov said, pulling her
attention away from the cafe's patrons. "I even had trouble making it up
from the surface by shuttle this morning, and apparently there was at least
one accident."

Susan then remembered why the Commander had gone to the surface last night
and leaning over a little closer before asking, "and how did your little
trip go Commander, a good result I hope."

Petrov smiled, and then to Susan's amazement even seemed to blush a little.
"Very good Captain," he said softly as he remembered his reunion with his
lover. "Very good indeed."

"That would explain the good mood then," she murmured to herself. Petrov
caught her words, but did not comment, although he agreed with her fully.
He did feel a lot better today, with one of the things that had worried him
for so long now resolved. With the rebellion on Mars he had heard terrible
stories about the death and destruction that had occurred. It had even
effected some of the larger domed cities so he had been most relieved to
discover Leira was still alright, and that she was still happy to see him.

Lost in his memories of the previous night he finished his breakfast, while
Susan drank her coffee, enjoying the taste of real coffee, something she
had not enjoyed since her short trip to the Russian Consortium several
weeks ago. "Where did you find this place from Commander," she asked. "It
has been a while since I have had real coffee like this on an Earth
Alliance Station. On Babylon 5 I even had to grow it myself."

Petrov smiled, "It is one of my favourite cafes on the whole station. The
owner also runs several small cafes in Europe so he imports everything from
back home. It makes it a bit more expensive, but as you must agree it is
worth the extra cost."

Susan took another sip, enjoying the wonderful flavour. "It certainly is. I
will have to remember this in the future, I usually don't spent that much
time at this station though."

"Well I always make it a point to stop here on my way through," Petrov told
her as he finished off the last of his cup of coffee and signalled for the
waitress.

She came over with the portable data reader and asked for his credit chit.
Just as he was about to reach for it Susan interrupted him. "No, let me pay
for this Commander."

Petrov at once objected, pointing out that it was his meal after all, and
all she had was a single cup of coffee. She shook her head to dismiss his
objections. "It is alright Commander, Earthforce gave me a year and a
half's back pay to help entice me back, so I am fairly well off for the
moment."

"Well in that case Captain," Petrov grinned, indicating for the waitress to
use Susan's card instead. The waitress quickly scanned the credit chit and
after withdrawing the correct amount handed it back to Susan. Petrov pushed
away his now empty plate an scanned his link again to check on the time.
"Well I guess we had best get going Captain. The General is expecting us
soon, and with the station this busy it might pay to set out a little
earlier than planned."

Susan nodded and after downing the rest of her coffee got to her feet and
followed Petrov out into the crowded walkway once more, this time bound for
the area of the station restricted to Earthforce members only. In the cafe
the two men who had followed Susan since she had disembarked from her
shuttle remained seated, each drinking a tall glass of milk, a rare
commodity on a space station far from the nearest cow, or even anything
that looked like a cow.

Only when the two Earthforce officers were at last out of sight did the
first Watcher slide the personal communicator out of his pocket and switch
it on. Looking just like a small button the communicator was designed to be
just that, and was usually stitched onto a shirt or jacket so it could be
worn without anyone suspecting its true purpose. Inside however was a
powerful battery and transmitter capable of sending a signal from the
ground to an orbiting spaceship. This time it had a much short distance to
travel, but it was no less effective.

"Watcher 3 to Operative K," the dark clad man whispered softly into the
communicator. "Have sighted Target 2, will follow. Any new orders?"

Through a tiny implant in the Watcher's left ear the reply was almost
instantaneous. "Follow Target 2, but do not terminate for now. However if
she meets Target 1 then kill them both. K out."

The Watcher did not question his orders, or ask for further instruction. He
was trained to obey, and that is what he did so very well. With a quick
glance over at his companion he nodded once in the direction of the
direction Susan had gone and then as one they both rose from their seats
and strode off into the crowd in pursuit of their target. Among the throngs
of humanity that teamed along the thoroughfare the two men soon blended
into the crowd, just as they had been trained. Long ago they had learned to
appear invisible even in an empty room, so to them this job was not
difficult at all.

	------------------------------------------------------------

The General's office was right at the far end of the station, in a region
closed to the general public. Susan was glad to get away from the crush
that filled the other passages at last. She slowed her pace a little, not
really wanting to arrive to soon, realising that despite her late arrival
on the station she had put aside more than enough time for the short
journey to the General's office. She was not looking forward to this
meeting however, certain that the General was going to send her off on an
impossible mission or banish her to some desolate section of the Alliance,
all as punishment for her support of Sheridan during the civil war. She
knew that she was being a little paranoid though, it was Clark that most
people blamed for the war, not her. In fact if anything most people
considered her something of a hero, mainly thanks to the ISN reports on the
real story behind the war.

Finally they arrived at the General office and were directed to wait on a
bench outside by his secretary, who said that the General currently had
another visitor, but would see them in a moment. That visitor turned out to
be a short, black-haired man dressed in the green uniform of a telepath who
was currently attached to the military. He may have been attached to the
military but as he turned towards Susan and Petrov they could see that he
still wore the gloves and badge that indicated his membership in the
Psi-Corp. No matter what service they might work in these two symbols never
changed.

The telepath's eyes passed over the two Earthforce officers and for a
moment focused on Susan. She felt a shiver of fear run up her spine, scared
that he would scan her and discover her own latent telepathic abilities.
She could feel nothing though, and all he did was examine her closely for a
second before inclining his head in her direction once and turning to walk
back down the corridor. Susan almost breathed a sigh of relief as he left,
and avoided watching him as he walked away from them, although Petrov
stared at the telepath back for several seconds before returning his
attention back to the General's office.

Then the secretary informed them that the General was now available to see
them and they both entered the large office. General Harry McCarron, a
large, white-haired man who looked about sixty, although his muscular body
still appeared to be just as fit as he must have been when he had first
joined Earthforce. The old warrior had signed up during the war against the
Dilgar and now, coming to the end of his career, was one of the most
respected officers in the Earth Alliance military, and also the current
head of Earthforce operations on Mars.

The general invited them to both sit, while he brushed imaginary flecks of
dust off his spotless brown uniform. Then when they were seated he spoke,
"It is good to finally meet you Captain Ivanova. I have heard a lot of good
things about you, if half of what I have heard is true then I am sure we
will get along nicely."

"Thank you General," Susan said, relaxing a little from the tension that
had gripped her when she had first entered the office.

"And Commander Petrov," the General said, turning his head to examine the
Commander closely. "It is good to have you on board for this project as
well. Anyway we may as well get down to business, I am a busy man these
days, so can't afford to waste any time. I have to organise transfers for
over a hundred thousand men, not to mention ten destroyers and a hundred
other vessels. A word of warning to both of you, never accept a desk job
like me, you will live to regret it."

That out of the way the General pulled out two sheets of paper from a
folder that he picked up from his desk and handed one each to both Susan
and Petrov. "Now this is memo from Earthdome about a minor change from your
original crew. Because the Warlock destroyers have still not really been
fully tested, and do contain some very alien technology we have yet to
evaluate the crew responses to working on them. Because of this Fleet
Command has decided to send two telepaths along with you to assist in this
evaluation."

"Telepaths?" Susan asked, a strange tone in her voice. "Is that really
necessary."

The General shook his head. "Not really, and personally I am against the
whole idea. I have never really liked the idea of those brain suckers
reading my mind. But I don't make the orders, Earthdome does and they want
to send the telepaths along with you. I wouldn't worry too much though,
they won't be permitted to scan anyone without their permission, and are
only really present to judge crew reaction, not to monitor their thoughts.
And if they do cause any trouble I for one will not be sorry to see you
pitch them out the nearest airlock. Don't quote me on that during your
court marshal though."

"I am sure the Captain and I can accommodate them General," Petrov said,
with a sideways glare of warning towards Susan who was about to continue
her protests. "As long as they do not interfere with the normal operations
of the Rasputin I am sure they will be no trouble."

"Good," the General said nodding. "Now one of the telepaths has already
been decided, and he is Darren Anderson, the man you just saw a minute ago,
outside my office. He has been working with the military for nearly five
years now so you should find him easy enough to work alongside. The other
has yet to be decided, but Mr. Anderson said he would be choosing someone
suitable this afternoon."

"I am sure he will make a good choice General," Petrov said, continuing to
answer for his Captain on this matter. He had read the Captain's record
before he joined the Rasputin's crew and knew her aversion to telepaths,
and didn't really want her to get into any trouble because of her feelings.
Susan certainly did not look happy about the whole thing, but at least
refrained from telling the General what she really thought of telepaths
being on her vessel.

"Yes he should," the General continued. "Anyway Mr. Anderson and his
assistant will be coming on board sometime in the next two days. The rest
of your crew should be arriving around then as well. Some have are being
transferred from Earth and other bases even further away so it will take a
little while for them all to arrive. I think you will find yourselves very
happy enough with the crew we have assembled for you."

"They certainly seemed to be a very experienced bunch," Susan agreed. "I
was very surprised when I saw some of the names, especially those of the
fighter pilots. It looks like we are getting some of the real ace pilots
from other vessels."

General McCarron nodded at her assessment, handing her another paper, this
one showing the list of fighter pilots that she had just mentioned. "Yes we
have tried to put together the best crew we can find. With half of the
fleet layed up for repairs then there are plenty of good men and woman with
nothing to do, and a position on the Rasputin at least gets them working
again instead of sitting around some base cooling their heels while they
wait for their destroyers to be patched up."

Susan looked faintly embarrassed at the General's words, knowing that she
was responsible for a lot of the damage caused. The General did not seem to
be blaming her though as he continued. "Which is really why we need your
ship up and running as soon as possible. Earthforce only has around fifty
operational destroyers left in the field at the moment, the rest were
either destroyed in the war, or so badly damaged that it will be months
before they are back in space again. The whole Alliance is vulnerable at
the moment, and we need all the vessels we can spare."

"Are there any threats at the moment though General," Susan interrupted. "I
mean with the interstellar alliance protecting our borders, are things that
bad?"

The General did not seem annoyed at her interruption, instead he considered
her word before continuing. "Well I am sure that they mean well, but we
need to be able to stand on our own feet, not rely on outside forces to
protect us. At the moment Earth could not even hold off a minor attack from
one of the large alien governments, let alone a full assault. With the
defence grid around Earth destroyed we have had to seed most of the fleet
there to protect it, however that has left us with only twenty destroyers
to patrol the rest of the Alliance against raiders and other enemies. It is
not really enough."

"Is that what you need us to do General," Petrov queried.

"Partly. With most of the fleet around Earth we need every ship we can get
out in the field. There are entire planets out there with no protection at
the moment, well nothing more than a few starfuries anyway. And I don't
think a Starfury, no matter how good the pilot is can hold off a destroyer
or other large warship."

"The Rasputin is hardly ready for active duty yet though General," Susan
said, quickly recounting the problems they had experienced already since
she had taken command.

General McCarron considered these for a moment before replying. "Hmm, well
it does look like a little more testing might be called for. However that
has already been taken into consideration by Fleet Command when writing up
your orders. You probably noticed the large number of transports around
Mars when you arrived."

When both Susan and Petrov indicated that they had seen the vessels the
General continued. "Well as you might know Mars is being granted
independence, all part of Sheridan's deal with Luchenko or something like
that. Anyway what this means is that Earthforce has to withdraw all of it's
troops from Mars, and there are currently quite a few here. You will be
given the task of escorting ten thousand of these soldiers to their new
base."

The General picked up another piece of paper, looked at for a moment to
ensure it was the correct one and then handed it over to Susan to read. "As
you can see there you will be escorting two Condor transports to Proxima
III where a new base is already being set up for them."

Susan looked confused about this for a minute. "I thought Proxima wanted
independence as well," she asked. "They suffered almost as much as Mars
under Clark's rule and I thought they would join them in declaring
independence after the war."

The General shrugging, indicating such matters were beyond his concern,
which currently only stretched to this station, and his soldiers on mars.
"Well they had some sort of vote on it and decided to stay with the
Alliance, mainly for the protection that we could offer. So we have to
carry out our part of the bargain now and start securing the planet from
attack. Proxima is after all our second largest colony at the moment, after
Mars, and it's protein farms are of considerable importance, especially
considering that Earth can not produce enough food to feed itself at the
moment."

"Are we going to be based at Proxima?" Petrov asked.

McCarron nodded. "To start with. You still have to put your ship through
some testing. As I understand it most of the systems are still experimental
and haven't really been fully tested. So Fleet Command has decided to send
you to Proxima, along with the Opollo, Vesta, and the Odysseus. I think
four destroyers should be enough to secure Proxima against any pirates or
other raiders that may decide to try raiding the colony. Anything larger
and you will have to call on Sheridan's forces."

The General suddenly stopped, his voice interrupted by loud bout of
coughing. He poured himself a large glass of water and drank it before
continuing. "Of course you will not only be at Proxima III, you will be
operating through the entire system. There is also the possibility that you
could be sent to another system as well, if you are needed. I think your
ship should be able to handle that, and as long as you don't start feeling
restless for battle then you should find the posting enjoyable enough. I
realise that Proxima is hardly the most pleasant world, but I can think or
worse places to be. Well any more questions?"

Neither the Captain or Petrov could think of anything so he rose from his
chair and shook their hands. "Well then I wish you luck with your new
command. You will be here for a couple of days yet as you are waiting for
the rest of your crew so if there is anything else come and let me know. I
don't seem to be going anywhere for the moment."

They both said that they would and were just leaving the room when the
General called out to Susan. "Captain, just one last thing. I was wondering
if I could have a word with you in private."

Petrov nodded, and then smartly saluted the General before backing out of
the office. Susan walked back into the room and joined McCarron next to the
large picture window that looked down on the red globe of Mars, not all
that far below them. The General looked a little uncomfortable with what he
was about to say, and hesitated before speaking. "I didn't really want to
say this with the Commander present Captain, but I wanted to warn you
before you left."

He hesitated again, fidgeting with a thin piece of paper, a printout from a
computer terminal most likely. Susan stood quietly waiting for him to
continue, not wanting to push him. His attitude still seemed friendly
enough, but she was still worried about what he had to say. Instead of
speaking he passed her the printout instead, and she quickly scanned it,
seeing that it was a list of names, none she recognised though.

"I thought I had better give this to you Captain," he finally said, seeing
her confusion about the meaning of the list. "Earthdome didn't want to
worry you, but I didn't think it would be a good idea to send you off
without first warning you about all possible problems."

"This is a list of those who remained loyal to Clark isn't it?" She asked
with a sudden dread in her voice.

The General nodded. "Only those that we didn't arrest after Clark's
suicide. Most of them are only junior officers from some of the Starships
that remained loyal to him, but a couple on there were his senior advisers.
Now we don't know for sure that they will try to get revenge, and even if
they do it will probably be against Sheridan, not you. But I though you
have better have this list as well, just in case. A copy has already been
sent on to Babylon 5, so Sheridan has been warned as well."

"I had hoped that all of that would be over by now," Susan said, annoyance
more than anything present in her voice.

"And it probably is Captain," the General tried to reassure her. "This is
just a precaution, after all we wouldn't want anything to happen to you. As
I said they would probably not come after you, but there has already been
one attempt on Sheridan, and before you ask he is ok."

"Well that is some good news at least," she said angrily.

"I wouldn't worry too much Captain," the General assured her. "Earthdome
doesn't want anything happening to you, and if any of those names appear on
an Alliance colony then they will be arrested. We think most of them are
hiding out on Earth though. It is a lot easier to hide yourself among all
the billions down there that out on one of the colony worlds."

"I thought most of Earthdome would just prefer I vanish," she snorted,
remembering the way she had been left on Station Prime for three weeks,
with no contact from anyone in Earthforce.

"Not so Captain," the General said. "Most of Fleet Command is very happy
that you returned to Earthforce, and didn't resign with Sheridan. With so
many lost in the war they didn't want to lose you as well. You are one of
the most experienced officers left in the fleet, and we need everyone we
can get at the moment. Besides with ISN portraying you as something of a
hero they want you out in the field, flying the flag. I think they wanted
your image even more than they you, someone to attract new recruits and
that sort of thing."

"I would hardly consider myself a role model General," Susan commented
dryly.

"Well you might not consider yourself one, but Fleet Command does. If you
are not carefully they will probably want to put your face on posters at
recruitment offices."

Susan looked aghast at the very idea, and said as much to the General. He
only laughed, obviously enjoying teasing her. "Don't worry Captain I don't
think they have any plans to do it just yet. Any more heroic exploits and
they might though. So for a while you might like to just stick to being
plain old Captain Ivanova, instead of some media hero. Proxima III is a
good place for that, a nice colonial posting, not too far from home. As
long as you like a planet covered entirely with deserts"

"Not really General, but I guess I could get used to it. After all it is
only for a year."

General McCarron nodded in agreement. "Yes probably for a year, although it
could be a lot less than that, all depending on how your new ship turns
out. Some back in Earthdome are a little concerned about the amount of
money that has been put into the Warlock project. Each of those ships costs
about five time what it costs to build an Omega so unless the Rasputin
proves to be a big improvement over the older destroyers the whole project
will likely be scrapped."

"Well then I will do my best General," Susan said firmly.

"I am sure you will Captain," the General agreed. "Anyway as much as I
would like to continue this chat I do have work to do. Besides we don't
want to keep Commander Petrov waiting for too long now do we. If you do
have any problems while you are hear, don't hesitate to call me."

Susan said she would and then after another round of shaking hands the
General guided out of his office and into the hallway where Petrov waited.
Carefully stuffing the printout of names into her pocket, and resolving to
deal with it later she joined the Commander as they walked slowly back
towards the busy centre of the Station.

	------------------------------------------------------------

"Well that went a lot better than I thought," Susan commented to Petrov as
they left the Earthforce section of the station. "I guess escorting
transports around the place is not too bad. It will actually feel good to
be away from any battles for a while."

"Indeed captain," Petrov said, agreeing with her fully. "I am not too sure
about having those two telepaths on board though. Never really trusted them
myself, and they were said to be behind a lot of what Clark did."

Susan had almost forgotten about the telepaths that had been posted to her
vessel, and thinking about them drove away the pleasant thoughts that had
been filling her mind. While she had served with Telepaths on Babylon 5,
that had been much larger than the Rasputin and it had been possible to
avoid them when she wanted too. Of course after a while she had found that
she had not wanted to a certain telepath. But after Talia had been taken
from her so had the trust they had built up and she never wanted another
telepath near her again, not even Lyta Alexander. Although she had served
with Lyta she could never trusted her like she had trusted Talia.

It was too late to worry about it now though, and as Earthforce was not
likely to be moved on its position she would just have to put up with the
situation. She resolved though that if any telepath attempted to scan her
she would toss him out the closest airlock. She could not risk allowing any
telepath to that close ever again, knowing that they would be sure to
detect her own abilities and then she would be dragged off to the Psi-Corps
and end up like her mother, trapped in a dying body by the drugs that they
had fed her.

She knew she could not allow that to ever happen, and it remained her
greatest fear, one she had only even been able to admit to John, one of her
oldest friends, and even then only when threatened by the arrival of Lyta.
And the result of the inquisition that followed, she had lost the one
person she had truly loved. She still grew angry when she thought about the
way it had happened, imagining that if Talia had never come into Sheridan's
office at that time then they would still be together. At least that was
what her heart was telling her, her mind knew the truth. Talia had always
been part of the Psi-Corps It was their tampering that had trapped Talia in
her own mind, and the final taken her away from Susan for good.

"Are you ok Captain," Petrov asked, staring at her with some concern after
she had not answered his last question. Susan didn't notice him talking,
her mind still far away, stuck in the past. So he repeated the question and
this time she seemed to jump, before finally focusing her thoughts back
into the present, and onto what he was saying.

"Yes I am fine Commander," she said softly. "I was just thinking about
something that happened a long, long time ago."

Petrov did not push her for an explanation, not wanting to interfere in the
Captain personal affairs, despite the pain he could see her suffering from.
"I asked if there was anything else you needed me for this morning."

Susan thought for a moment about her schedule before replying, "nothing I
can think of Commander. Why is there something you have to do?"

Petrov nodded, "I wanted to buy a something, a small present, for a friend
of mine. I noticed a shop back there that looked like it might have what I
am looking for, so if you don't mind I might just pop back and take a look.
There is no need to wait for me, I still have the shuttle I used last night
anyway. I have to take it back to the Rasputin anyway, so there is no need
for me to come along with you right now."

"Ok Commander," Susan said nodding. "Just make sure you are back on board
in time to meet Major Logan when she comes aboard with her marines. Those
colonial marines are a tough bunch, and I am not sure I want to face them
alone. You wouldn't believe some of the stories I have heard."

Petrov consulted his link to check on the time, totally missing the humour
in her voice. "She won't be arriving for another three hours, that is
plenty of time. I will meet you back on the Rasputin before she arrives."

"Fine," the Captain said. "Enjoy yourself then Commander. I might even do a
little shopping myself on the way back to the shuttle bay. It seems the
easiest way to get through this crowd."

Petrov laughed at that, and then the two officers separated, Petrov heading
back to the shop he had noticed before, while Susan began picking her way
through the crowd of shoppers and passengers. To her the crowd seemed if
anything even worse than it had been earlier, and she had thought it was
busy then. Behind her two men hesitated for a moment, eying the Commander's
passage, before walking slowly into the crowd behind her, careful to stay
far enough back to not be noticed, not that Susan was looking out for them
anyway.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Susan had spent the past hour searching fruitlessly through the various
shops along the walls of the station for something to catch her interest.
She had found very little that interested her though, and certainly nothing
she would want to buy, even just to get rid of some of the credits that
were gathering dust in her account. Finally dismissing the whole idea of
shopping as a big waste of time she set off for the shuttle bay, again
passing through the main embarkation terminal for liners leaving the
station. For some reason she had the unfortunate timing to again be passing
just when one of the huge interstellar lines was boarding, this one bound
for Vega Colony.

Struggling past the crowd of passengers she suddenly heard a female voice
from somewhere behind her all out her name. "Captain Ivanova," it shouted.
She didn't look back, thinking that the woman who had called out was
probably just someone who had seen her on ISN and now wanted to meet her.
Susan walked on, ignoring the stares of the passengers in the terminal who
suddenly realised who she was and hoping that whoever had called out to her
would go away., quickly. She could see the dark doorway that led into the
shuttle bay just ahead and if she could just reach it then she would be
free of this crowd and on her way back to her ship.

"Captain Ivanova," the voice called out again, this time a lot closer. With
a sigh of annoyance Susan looked around, and soon spotted an overweight,
middle-aged woman barrelling her way through the crowd towards her,
clutching a thin, official looking, black briefcase beneath one arm. Susan
almost groaned, wondering what she was needed for now. She only hoped it
wasn't anything to time consuming, and certainly nothing that made her miss
lunch for a second time in two days.

The woman finally managed to break through the crowd of humanity and came
up to Susan, panting slightly at the exertion of pushing her way through
the crowded embarkation terminal. She the plump look of someone who did not
get a lot of exercise, and her pale skin seemed to indicate to Susan that
she had not spent a lot of time outdoors, either on Earth or one of the
other planets. Susan looked down at her with a questioning glare as the
woman shuffled through some papers that she had just pulled out of the
briefcase, unaware of the Captain's annoyance at her presence.

"Captain Ivanova," she asked again, trying to balance her briefcase in one
hand and the thick wad of papers in the other. "I was wondering if I might
have a small amount of your time. There is a proposition that my employer
want to offer you, one I assure you is very beneficial for you."

"I am not interested," Susan said, thinking immediately that this woman
must be some sort of reporter after another interview. Already the mention
of her name was getting her strange looks from the crowd. Most seemed
almost worshipful, but a couple, especially on the faces of Earth Alliance
troops heading off planet, were less than friendly. Susan didn't really
want to spend any longer here than she had already if she could help it.
She cast a glance towards the open door leading into the shuttle bay,
hoping the woman would take the hint and leave her alone.

"But Captain," the woman continued, oblivious to Susan's impatience and
growing annoyance. "It is a very lucrative offer, and after all you could
not afford to set up a new mining operation yourself. My employer has
prepared a quite lucrative offer for you, more than generous I think."

Now Susan was confused, wondering what the hell the woman was talking
about. Noticing a symbol on the briefcase she looked closer and saw it was
an emblem of one of the major Megacorporations. "What does Futurecorp want
with me," She asked cautiously. "I can't think of anything I have that you
could want. It is not like I actually own anything of importance."

The woman looked around at the crowd as Susan mentioned the name of her
employer. "Umm perhaps we could go somewhere a little less crowded to
discuss this Captain."

"Very well," Susan said, spotting a small cafe near the exit to the shuttle
bay that looked like it had a couple of empty tables. She grabbed the woman
by the arm and dragged her across the crowded embarkation terminal and
deposited her in a chair next to an empty table. Then pulling up another
chair for herself she sat down and began to watch the woman carefully as
she searched through the jumbled papers.

Then finally finding the right one she placed it carefully in front of
Susan so the Earthforce Captain could examine it. Susan picked it up and
after turning it around the right way scanned the page. It seemed to be an
offer of a very large number of credits indeed for the mining rights to a
planet called Arisia 3. The name felt familiar to Susan, and she was sure
she had heard it mentioned sometime in the past, but it's location didn't
come to mind straight away. There was also a slim business card with the
woman's picture on it, proclaiming her to be Julia Morris, lawyer for
Futurecorp's Mars Division.

"What the hell has this to do with me," she asked, thinking that the woman
was confused. "I certainly don't remember owning mining rights to a planet,
let alone Arisia 3, wherever that is. In fact I don't own any planets, or
moons, or even asteroids, not a single one."

The woman looked concerned for a moment, as if worried that she may have
made a mistake. Then she quickly scanned some other papers she had pulled
from her briefcase before replying. "Well according to Earth Alliance
records you do. It says here that the rights to Arisia 3 are owned by Cole
Mining, of which you are the only surviving director."

Susan felt her heart almost stop for a moment at the mention of the
company's name. She realised at once that it must have belonged to Marcus,
but wondered why he had never mentioned to her that he owned a mining
company. He had always told her that he had grown up on a mining colony and
worked there, but never mentioned that he been the owner. She felt cold,
not wanting to dishonour his memory by selling off his possessions,
especially possession that she didn't even know existed.

Then she thought, wondering exactly how she came to be a director and her
thoughts turned to anger as she realised that Marcus must have left it to
her after his death. She was furious at him for doing this without asking
her. She didn't want his company, or anything that had belonged to him.
They all seemed worthless without him, and there was no way any of them
could bring him back.

Then noticing that the Futurecorp Lawyer was still waiting for an answer
she said, "I think there must be some sort of mistake, I never knew I was a
director or even that the company existed."

"Then you will sell," the woman asked eagerly, all too anxious to close the
deal. Susan began to grow very suspicious about the whole deal, now
wondering exactly what Futurecorp's interest in the planet was. "What
exactly does your company want with Arisia 3," she asked. "I didn't know
you were into mining."

The lawyer shrugged, almost as though the reason should be obvious. Seeing
Susan still looking at her for an explanation she said, "well it is quite
simple really Captain. Arisia 3 has a high concentration of Quantium 40,
which is very valuable at the moment with the shortage because of the war.
Futurecorp wants to set up a mining operation there, as part of our
expansion off-world. With the shortage we can use the sale of the Quantium
40 to fund virtually all of our expansion. Of course we have to own it
first."

Susan nodded, "well I will have to speak with some other people first. This
is the first time I have even heard about this planet so I want to look up
a few details before giving you a answer."

"Of course Captain there is no hurry, although I believe that you will be
leaving Mars soon so it we would like to have an answer before you depart.
There are a couple of other sites we are also interested in, although
Arisia 3 is obviously the best choice at the moment, being actually inside
Earth Alliance territory, if only just."

Susan nodded her understanding and then excused herself from the table. She
went quickly over to the counter where the owner of the cafe sat. "Do you
have an interstellar link here," She asked. The balding, middle-aged man
eyed her for a moment then indicated the vid screen on the other side of
the cafe with his head.

Susan quickly crossed over to it and inserted her credit chit. Then as the
screen came up she chose to link to the command deck of the Rasputin
instead. The screen showed the Earth Alliance logo for a second and then
the pretty face of Lieutenant Heneker came up onto the screen. "Captain,
what can I do for you," she asked, a little curious to see Susan using a
public line instead of an EA link.

Susan informed her of what she wanted and hiding her surprise the
lieutenant issued the necessary commands to re-route the call. Then Susan
leant against the wall and waited as the link to Babylon 5 was opened. She
could of course have just linked directly from the vid phone she was
standing next to, but coming from an Earth Alliance destroyer it was more
likely to get through, besides it was a lot cheaper, especially considering
the current price of interstellar calls at the moment.

After nearly ten seconds the EA logo faded again and this time a more
familiar face filled the screen. "Commander, I mean Captain Ivanova,"
Lieutenant Corwin gasped in surprise. Then regaining his composure he said,
"What can I do for you Captain."

Susan smiled at Corwin, pleased that it was him on duty. He had been a
familiar face after working with her for so long, and she knew he could be
trusted to at least try to do what she asked. "Is President Sheridan
available at the moment Lieutenant."

"Just a minute Captain I will check." Corwin quickly placed a call through
to Sheridan and then after receiving confirmation that the President of the
Interstellar Alliance was free to accept the message from Ivanova he turned
back to the screen. "I am just relaying your call now Captain. Oh and
Captain, it is good to see you again."

"Thanks Lieutenant," Susan said as his face faded and she had to wait again
for several seconds until the slightly tired looking face of John Sheridan
appeared. "John, you look like hell."

"Susan," he said, his pleasure at her call obvious on his face. "How are
you, we haven't heard from you since you left, and frankly we were getting
a bit worried."

"I am fine John," she said. "Unfortunately this isn't really a personal
call. There is something I need to ask you. It is about Marcus."

At the mention of the dead ranger John saw a shadow pass across her face
for an instant. "What is it Susan?"

"Um this is a little difficult," She said, still not sure how to ask him
what she needed to know. "It is about his mining company, it seems he left
it to me, and now I am being chased around Mars by lawyers for various
companies that want to buy it off me."

Sheridan looked a little guilty for a moment, "he didn't tell you that he
owned it then did he. I thought he had."

Susan shook her head, "all he told me was that he had been bought up on a
mining colony. I didn't know that it was his families company that owned
the colony or anything like that. And I especially didn't know that he was
going to leave it all to me."

"It was his wish Susan. He knew we was going to die so he made a will
leaving everything to you. I think he wanted you to have something to
remember him by. I tried to get in touch with you after we found his
message, but you were already gone, and frankly you haven't been easy to
find, in fact impossible would be more like it."

Susan looked angry as she thought about this, "well I didn't ask him for it
John. I didn't ask him to leave his company to me, or to give up his life
for me. Surely there is someone else, family or something like that."

Sheridan shook his head sadly, "no, he was the only member of his family
left, the rest were dead. I looked around after his death, and after you
left, to see if I could find anyone who might have been related to him, but
there was no-one."

Susan was just about to respond when she heard something familiar off in
the distance. The sort of high pitched whine that was made by only one
thing she knew, the sound of the power cap of a PPG weapon being activated.
She stiffened, feeling something very strange, almost a premonition that
something bad was about to happen. She had felt this way before, and it was
always before some terrible danger descended on her head.

Sheridan noticed the sudden change in her posture and was about to ask her
what was wrong with the normal sounds of a busy cafe were broken by the
harsh screech of automatic PPG weapons. Susan spun around just in time to
see four men, all clad in long dark overcoats begin firing multiple bursts
of plasma across the terminal and into the crowded cafe, straight towards
the table were the Futurecorp lawyer awaited her return.

The Lawyer had seen them before she had though and had ducked down behind
the relative security of the metal table before the men had fired. Then as
the four men approached closer she had pushed it over, forming a temporary
barrier against the plasma blasts. Susan, standing in the open next to the
phone suddenly realised that she was exposed and before the men could turn
their guns on her dived towards the floor. She moved just in time as a
withering hail of plasma tore into the wall of the cafe, shattering the vid
screen she had just been using and showering her with fragments of glass
and hot metal.

Smelling something burning, Susan looked down and saw that several shards
of smouldering metal had landed on her leg and were burning through the
thick uniform she was. She quickly brushed them away, somehow managing to
avoid burning her hand in the process. She realised that she was still
exposed so she rolled as fast as she could towards the far corner of the
cafe, and the large wooden counter that the cafe owner had been sitting
behind when she had approached him earlier. It looked solid enough to
withstand even the strongest PPG blast, especially since they were designed
to cut through flesh, not wood and metal.

The sounds of men and woman screaming cut into the noise of the weapons
fire, and Susan heard several of the screams cut off suddenly and knew that
people were dying in the cafe behind her. She risked a quick glance around
the corner of the counter and saw the weapons fire cut down another of the
cafe's patrons, a young girl, probably on her first trip from Earth. The
gunmen did not discriminate though, and the girl was cut down just as
callously as they shot everyone else. As the girl fell to the floor, smoke
spiralling up for her left leg Susan realised that whoever these men were
they did not seem at all concerned about who they killed, so unless she
could stop them, or survive long enough for security to arrive then she was
just as dead as the girl.

Looking behind the overturned metal table Susan could see that Julia Morris
was still alive, and somehow had managed to get her hands on a weapon, a
small PPG pistol that she now clutched in trembling hands. Susan realised
that the lawyer must have had the gun with her all the time, and wondered
if she had expected this sort of trouble all along. Julia turned a looked
over at her for a moment, the lawyer's face reflecting the fear that she
also felt.

Then the lawyer suddenly stood and sent several blasts of energy from her
own gun flying across the cafe, towards the gunmen. They spotted her, even
before she fired, and ducked beneath the shots, which then flew on to
strike two civilians who were running across the terminal in a desperate
attempt to avoid the gunfight. Susan did not see the shots hit anyone
however, but heard the cries of pain and the screams of wounded men's
companions.

Looking up again she saw to her surprise that there were still some people
alive in the cafe, mostly crouched down behind tables like the lawyer. Her
eyes wandering across towards the shuttle bay doors she noticed the large
frame of the cafe owner hiding behind a chair, which did not seem to offer
him any protection at all. He noticed her staring at him and then made a
snap decision to join her, in a far more secure position that his current
hiding place.

The cafe owner, a large burly man of about fifty threw himself across the
floor, reaching for the relative safety of the area behind his counter
where Susan currently crouched. He did not make it though, as three pulses
of super-heated plasma caught him in mid leap tearing the life from his
body. By the time his body smashed it's way through a nearby table and
landed at Susan's feet he was already dead, great smoking holes in his
chest and head pouring his blood out onto the tiled floor.

Susan turned away, nausea rising in her throat. She had rarely even been in
an actual battle before, and was instead used to the cold, calculated dance
between warring starships and fighters. The sight of the innocent cafe
owner dying at her feet sickened her, and she crouched even lower, hoping
the assailants would not see her. For the moment they seemed busy trading
shots with the lawyer, but Susan knew by the way they had slaughtered the
other cafe patrons they would probably come after her next. She almost
screamed out her frustration, trapped here and unable to do anything to
save those still left alive, or to save herself.

Then she spotted it, hanging just underneath the edge of the dead man's
counter. It was ancient, possibly non-functional, but it was a weapon.
Carefully, so not to attract attention to herself she eased the old laser
rifle out of the clips that held it in place and cradling the heavy weapon
in her hands she checked to make sure it still worked. It was at least
fifty years old, and some time in the distant past someone had shortened
the barrel, cutting its effective range, and the power of its blast, but it
looked like it still functioned.

She turned the weapon over in her hands and noticed that the power
indicator showed that it was nearly empty, giving her at most three or four
shots. Susan ran her hands along the weapon before at last finding the
button that switched between automatic and single-shot. Pressing it she
changed the weapon mode to single-shot, realising that a single burst of
automatic fire would do no good here. She would have to pick her shots
carefully, and make every one count.

A blast of plasma hit the counter she was hidden behind and she could smell
the acrid taint of smoke begin to fill the air, indicating that the counter
or something else close by had probably caught fire. Gritting her teeth
Susan gripped the rifle tightly in her hands, and prepared to go into
battle. She could still hear the steady pulse of the small pistol the
lawyer had pulled from her bag, so was relieved that at least the other
woman was still alive, and still fighting back.

Then, with a loud battle cry, she leapt up from behind the counter,
levelling the rifle in front of her. The four gunmen, surprised by her
sudden appearance, did not even have time to react, or move, before she had
cut one of them down with the wide bolts of burning energy from the archaic
weapon. It was the only victory that she would have however as the
remaining gunmen ducked and then began to target her hiding place.

Ducking down again Susan examined the weapon. It's power indicator was now
sitting on empty, and it was unlikely that she could manage to wrest
another shot out of it. Still one of the men was down, possibly dead and
she could only hope that Ms. Morris was able to hold off the others with
her pistol, at least until station security arrived. Susan knew they could
not be far off away, and would not ignore the sounds of a gun battle going
on in their station.

The heavy wood counter, probably a family heirloom of it's now dead owner
was rocked with multiple plasma blasts, all striking with deadly accuracy.
The plasma soon cut through the wood and left it smouldering and afire,
while the woman it protected was becoming more and more exposed to the
withering fire the gunmen were pouring towards her. Susan crouched as low
as she could and tried to move away, into the corner of the cafe. She hoped
that the gunmen did not spot her movement, and would continue to fire on
the counter, as every second she gained was another one that she would
remain alive.

As she shuffled backwards Susan saw the Ms. Morris, the Futurecorp lawyer
jump to her feet and try to run in the direction of the open doors leading
out of the terminal and onto the relative safety of the waiting liner. She
tired to call out to her, to warn her to stay where she was, but it was too
late. The weapons of the three remaining gunmen suddenly came around and
the bolts of plasma they fired tore through the lawyer's body, throwing her
into the air, and depositing her nearly two metres away, right next to the
doors she had been attempting to reach.

Susan bit her lip and tried not to cry out, knowing that the gunmen would
probably turn their attention towards her again now. Then, just as she
thought she was about to die she heard the thumping sound of a large number
of approaching feet, all sounding as though they were wearing the heavy
boots favoured by the Earthforce ground forces. The gunmen also heard them
and hesitated, as if deciding what to do next. Then, as one, they turned
and ran towards the open doorway leading out of the terminal, pausing only
once, just long enough for one of them to throw a small object in the
direction of the smoking ruin of a cafe.

The small object flew through the air and then hit the edge of the counter
Susan was hiding behind before bouncing off the floor with a clatter and
rolling beneath the upturned table where she had been sitting with the
lawyer just minutes ago. Peaking out around the edge of the counter Susan's
eyes focused quickly on the object, a small fusion grenade, and then just
as quickly she pulled her head back around behind the counter and scanned
for some way to escape.

She was too late though and the grenade exploded with a burst of white-hot
energy that tore through the cafe, burning away everything in its path. As
Susan flung herself on the ground in a vain attempt to escape the blast she
felt something strike her hard on the back of her skull and then remembered
nothing more, her vision becoming dim as she collapsed into peaceful
oblivion.

	------------------------------------------------------------




Sel Vecantie

e-mail: vecantie@geocities.com
homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/



From: "Sel" <vecantie@geocities.com>
Subject: Reunion Part 5/15?
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 00:17:31 +0930

At last here is chapter 5 (well ok it has only been about a week, and I was
busy watching all of season 2 & 3 of B5 instead of writting).
Anyway this is the first part I have been really happy with so I hope
everyone else likes it too.
If you do you can send comments to vecantie@geocities.com
and for a properly formatted html archive of this story go to
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/ And I intend on adding in some
background info about the various different planets and companies mentioned
in the story, just for fun.

	------------------------------------------------------------

			   Reunion - Part 5
			      By Sel Vecantie

	------------------------------------------------------------

2:31, February 1, 2262

On every station the size of Mars High there were bound to be some security
problems, but usually it was fairly quiet. Most of the visitors to the
station did not stay long enough to cause trouble, and the rest didn't want
any disruptions to their businesses. Out of all of the sites on or around
Mars it was probably the best posting anyone involved with security could
have. Even during the hottest fighting during the Mars rebellion the
station had been secure and relatively peaceful, and now since the recent
granting of independence to the colony it had been downright dull, not that
those stationed there minded much.

For Security Chief Frank Cox however the station was about to become a lot
more interesting than he was used to. He was sleeping peacefully in his
quarters, enjoying a pleasant dream about a New Vegas showgirl that he had
seen during a recent leave period when the loud klaxon of the security
alarm had broken into his peaceful slumber and rudely summoned him to the
far end of the station. Complaining bitterly about the lack of
consideration for his sleep he had dragged himself out of his quarters and
headed across the station towards Embarkation Terminal Alpha, the site
where the emergency was supposed to be taking place.

He knew that the alarm would not have been sounded unless something very
nasty indeed, such as a murder, had occurred, but even knowing this he was
unprepared for what he encountered. The place looked like a war zone, with
an entire section of the terminal from the shuttle bay doors to the main
liner embarkation gate torn up, and in some places still burning freely.
Milling around the destruction was what looked like an entire regiment of
Earth Alliance ground troops, not to mention the hundreds of curious, and
in some case panicky civilians. Cox could see only a few splashes of grey
in the mix, indicating that his security staff were hopelessly outnumbered.
Still there did not seem to be any fighting or rioting going on, which had
been Cox's first thoughts when he had spotted the crowd. Instead they all
seemed to be gathered around what was left of Stefano's Cafe, which had
until now been one of his favourite haunts while off duty.

Pushing his way through the crowd he soon fought his way to where his men,
assisted by a few of the Earthforce soldiers, had established a perimeter
around the cafe. Up close the devastation looked even worse, although he
noted that whatever had caused it only seemed to have damaged the cafe,
while the restaurant next to it was still intact. Dead and wounded were
scattered across the floor, from a young woman lying in front of the open
shuttle bay door to several men and woman being carried away by a medical
team just in front of him. At least they were still alive, but Cox could
see they had been badly wounded, by what looked to his eye like blasts from
PPGs or similar weapons.

Spotting his second, Belinda Kidd valiantly trying to direct the whole
security operation from the top of a table near the wreaked cafe he pushed
his way past the perimeter and out into the chaos. "What's going on here
Belinda," he asked, speaking loudly to get above the din the crowd was
making.

The young security officer looked extremely pleased to see him, and quickly
jumped off the table and rushed over to him, dodging the chunks of burnt
metal that lay scattered across the once clean floor. "It's bad chief.
Looks like someone decided to hold a private war in the cafe. We have at
least five dead, and ten wounded. And those are only the ones we have
found, there could still be more under that wreckage over there."

Cox looked in the direction of the ruined cafe and saw that much of the
roof had collapsed, and that collapse seemed to be responsible for much of
the destruction he could see. "Was it some kind of a bomb?" he asked, still
wondering what exactly could have caused the damage and deaths he was
seeing.

Belinda shrugged helplessly. "We don't know chief. Early reports I heard
indicated that there was a gun battle going on, but one of the GROPOS said
it was caused by a fusion grenade. We still don't know if anyone is left
alive underneath that mess."
"Well we had been find out then. Get me a sniffer team, and some
extinguishers. I want those fires out and the whole place scanned for
lifeforms, or failing that weapons. I will try and clear this area a little
so we have space to work."

Pleased to finally have someone directing the chaotic rescue efforts
Belinda rushed off to find the nearest scanner team, leaving Cox to try and
bring some order to the station again. Noticing a high ranking Earthforce
officer standing nearby he quickly collared him, and after a quick
discussion drafted his soldiers into security to help clear curious
civilians and reporters away from the ruined cafe.

With the soldiers now assisting security instead of hanging around watching
Cox and his men soon had the terminal cleared, and the civilians and
reporters pushed back to a workable distance, although the two men from the
local news network were most insistent that they be allowed to remain. Cox
eventually settled for their recorders being allowed to float above the
cafe and observe the clear up operation, but only as long as the reporters
themselves stayed well away.

This done Cox looked again over the shattered ruins of Stefano's Cafe and
groaned, realising that he was now going to have to find another place to
spend his time off. He only hoped that Eric Stefano was still alive, he had
become quite fond of the old rogue. He was about to turn to his men and
issue orders for start of the search for any more survivors when he
suddenly felt as though someone was watching him very closely indeed. It
was a strange feeling, almost a tingle in the back of his neck, but Frank
Cox had made a living out of trusting his feelings and spun around to
examine the crowd.

At first he didn't see anything, but then he noticed a black uniformed
figure pushing his way through the crowds towards the liner terminal. The
figure turned back to face Cox and the security chief saw the Psi-Corp
symbol stuck firmly to the front of the black uniform and realised that the
man was most likely a Psi-Cop. He was just about to go over and ask the
Psi-Cop exactly what he was doing here when one of his men called to him
from the ruined cafe. He turned away for only an instant, but when he
looked back the telepath was gone. Cox shrugged, dismissing the encounter,
and went over to address his men. He was a little concerned about the
Psi-Cop's presence and wondered if he had been scanned and if so, why? The
security chief couldn't find a good reason though so dismissed the
encounter as unimportant.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Awareness returned to her slowly. At first there was nothing but darkness,
an all encompassing darkness that held her tightly, almost as though it did
not want to ever let her go. Then came the faint whiff of something
wonderful in the air, and the touch of a gentle breeze on her face. The
darkness still held her though, still dragged her downwards into the black
pit of her soul. Then she felt the warmth, and began to shy away from the
cold that was all the darkness could offer. Gasping and scratching she
fought her way, up out of the pit and into the warmth of consciousness once
more.

With the mightiest of efforts Susan managed to force open her eyes, at
first only the tinniest amount, but enough to look around and she looked
straight into the brightness of a powerful light shining down on her. As
she watched it grew even brighter, washing away the shadows of the darkness
that had gripped her and making her feel more comfortable and more at peace
than she had ever felt before.
She breathed in, only a little breath, but enough to bring to her senses
the wonderful smell of flowers floating in the breeze. Susan was
immediately reminded of the time, long, long ago when her mother had taken
her on a spring picnic, and they had sat among the flowers and fed the
birds. It was one of her most pleasant memories, from a time before the
painful existence that was her life now had begun. For some reason the
memory remained in her mind as she wearily dragged her eyes open and looked
around her in confusion.

Gone were the stained walls of the cafe, the dead bodies, and the twisted
and burning wreckage that had been her last vision before the grenade went
off. Instead, in it's place, was a vast field of flowers, reaching out to
the horizon and beyond. She breathed again, and the the wonderful array of
smells floating in the air seemed to refresh her, taking away her pain and
tiredness, and leaving her restored and more alive than she had felt in
over twenty years.

She closed her eyes for a second and rubbed them with the back of her
hands, and if to drive away the illusion she was sure she was seeing. When
she opened them though, the field was still there, and she could still
smell the fresh scent of flower pollen. A cool breeze brushed across her,
only touching her for an instant but leaving her entire body tingling at
its passing. Curious she stood up and brushed down the soft, silky cloth of
her robe, removing the tiny pieces of grass and flower petals that had
stuck there.

'Robe?' she thought suddenly, looking down at her body for the first time
since awakening. To her surprise her Earthforce uniform was gone, and in
it's place was a flowing robe of wispy golden material. It was perhaps the
most beautiful article of clothing she had even seen, and as she ran a fold
of the gown between her fingers she could barely even feel it. Also gone
was the rest of her clothing, including her boots and belt so she now stood
barefoot on the peaceful field of flowers.

She wiggled her toes, and was amazed at how wonderful the flowers felt
beneath her feet. For a brief moment she was transported back to her
childhood and that one fine spring day when she had played in a field just
like this. Then she remembered that her mother had been with her that day
and the comfort of the memory fled and she felt again the pain that her
mother's suicide had caused her. A single tear rolled halfway down her
cheek before she brushed it away and tried to think of pleasant thoughts
once again.

Susan looked out over the empty field once more, but this time she noticed
something that had not been there before, a bright light in the distance,
somehow familiar and comforting. As she watched the light seemed to move
towards her, faster than she would have though possible. It was as if time
slowed down, her movements became sluggish, while those of the light seemed
unhindered. Then it was in front of her, and Susan realised that she
recognised the being of light that now floated in the air before her.

She had seen just such a being before, as it rescued Captain Sheridan from
certain death as he fell from the destroyed core shuttle on Babylon 5
towards the hard surface of the garden's below. "Kosh?" Susan asked
cautiously, still not really believing what was in front of her was real,
sure that she was only dreaming.

"Yes," the angelic being replied, although the voice no longer carried with
the mechanical sounds of the Vorlon's translator. Instead it now flowed
around her like music, carried in the breeze, and bringing with it the
sounds of tiny bells and birds singing.

Susan didn't notice the musical nature of Kosh's voice, instead just his
words. "Why are you here, I thought you were dead."

"I have always been here, you have always denied my presence until now."

Susan looked in annoyance at the floating Vorlon, upset that even in death
Kosh's words still continued to remain as perplexing as ever. "Does that
mean I am dead as well?" she asked.

"Perhaps," Kosh answered, although this time Susan had the distinct
impression that he was unsure about what he was saying. Before she could
press the issue the Vorlon continued. "All life is an illusion."

"What do you mean," she asked, determine to find out what had happened to
her. "Am I dead or not."

"You do not understand," was the only response.

"Of course I don't understand," she shouted at his anger beginning to rise
within her. "That is why I am asking you."

Kosh did not seem perturbed in any way by her angry tone and just looked at
her with a curious face. A shiver seemed to pass though him and then when
he spoke again his voice was very different. Gone was the musical tones and
in their place was a new voice, one that sounded even more familiar to
Susan than Kosh's had been. "You stand at a crossroads. You must choose
between light and darkness, peace and war, security and hope, safety and
pain. If you are to survive then you must reclaim yourself, become all that
you were meant to be, and leave behind all that you have been. Fail and you
will die, but succeed and you will finally be free."

"That doesn't help much," Susan said. "Is there something I must do."

Kosh's voice changed again, becoming even more familiar, and also more
feminine. "Yes, you must use your past and your future to destroy the
present." As he said this Kosh's hand reached down and gripped Susan's. All
of a sudden she began to hear voices, strong and loud. They echoed in her
head, so loud they began to feel painful. They also made little sense,
nothing more than a jumbled collection of words, as though a thousand
people were all speaking at once, and all at the same volume so none could
be understood.

She screamed as the noise from the voices grew in volume and tried to pull
her hand from Kosh's grasp, sure that he was responsible. The Vorlon did
little except float there in front of her and watch her reaction. His grasp
remained firm though and try as she might she could not free herself. The
voices now felt like hammer blows against her skull and under this pressure
Susan began to lose consciousness. Before she blacked out though she felt a
sudden surge of emotion from one of the voices, almost as though its owner
had suddenly discovered something very important to him.

	------------------------------------------------------------

"Chief," called out the head of the scanner crew. "We are picking up
something in here, it looks like we might have a survivor."

Security Chief Cox exploded into action, jumping across the nearest pile of
wreckage to land beside the scanner crew. The man in charge of the life
scanner quickly showed him the reading and he saw that they were correct,
they had indeed found someone alive, although whoever it was had been
trapped at the very bottom of the region where the worst of the collapse
had occurred. "Great work guys," he said, already thinking of the ratings
the rescue would get on the local networks, with any luck he might even get
on ISN. "Ok, lets get the rest of the crew in here and stabilise this area
so we can start clearing away the garbage. We don't want another collapse
so be careful."

As soon as he had issued his orders several teams of station maintenance
personal and security officers arrived with large braces to prop up what
remain of the roof and prevent any further collapses. They worked as fast
and as carefully as they could, and within two minutes had the entire
section secure. Now that it was safe to do so Cox ordered in the rescue
teams, while he kept an eye on the scanner, hoping they would be able to
reach whoever was trapped down there in time.

He was about to join in the rescue effort when he suddenly heard a
scrapping noise from somewhere above him. The security chief quickly
scanned the ceiling, searching for anything that might have slipped. He
could see nothing though, everything still looked secure and safe.
Dismissing the noise he returned to the work at hand, hoping all the while
that the rest of the ceiling would not come crashing down on him while he
was dragging away a piece of wreckage. While that was one way to get on the
news networks, it wasn't the one Frank Cox wanted.

	------------------------------------------------------------

As she fell Kosh released her hand and the voices ended almost immediately.
Susan managed to hang on to consciousness and kneeling on the ground,
rubbed her temples to try and ease the painful headache that she felt
developing. To her surprise the gentle ministration worked and the pain she
felt throbbing through her head began to ease.

Kosh spoke again, once more in a different voice, one Susan realised
suddenly was identical to hers. "Can you fight the pain? Is it even worth
fighting. This you must decide Susan, is your life worth such pain."

Susan didn't know what to say, still not sure exactly what the Vorlon, or
whatever it was that was talking to her, wanted. She brushed her long hair
away from her face and looked up at the Vorlon, only to find him gone and
an image of herself standing where Kosh had once floated. "Who are you?"
Susan asked suspiciously.

The image simply smiled and said in Susan's voice, "I am a ghost, and a
guide. Heed my words if you wish to survive this day."

"I would if I knew what they meant."

The other Susan looked at her sadly, "If you do not understand then you
will die. My time here is nearly past and soon the dark one will come. You
must fight and defeat him if you are to survive."

"Fight?" Susan said looking around her, "but how, I have nothing to fight
with."

The voice that responded to her was a lot weaker now and as Susan watched
she saw her double begin to vanish, disappearing into thin air. "My time is
over," whispered the other Susan as she slowly vanished. "Remember this is
your dream, your life, your mind. You have the weapons to fight with, you
must only find them."

Then with that final message the other being vanished and Susan was left
alone on the field of flowers. She pondered the strange message Kosh, or
whatever that had been had delivered to her. As she thought she did not
notice that the once bright, sunny day begin to fade as dark clouds began
to fill the sky. It was not until the first drops of icy, cold rain struck
her cheeks that she noticed the change. Looking around she was surprised to
find that it was growing darker by the minute, and beneath her feet the
flowers that had so enchanted her when she had first arrived in this place
were beginning to die.

The wind, which had once been a gentle breeze, now began to grow in
strength and bring with it an chill that cut straight through her thin
robe, leaving her cold and shivering. She looked around for somewhere to
hide from the coming storm, but couldn't find a single tree, cave, or other
shelter. It was then that she noticed, with no small amount of horror, that
it appeared the plain she had been standing on was being eaten up by the
darkness. Already the horizon had disappeared and the darkness was
gathering around her in a circle, a circle that was quickly growing smaller
and smaller as each second passed.

It took only seconds before the entire plain was gone, and the icy darkness
had surrounded her completely. Then the very ground beneath her feet seemed
to vanish as well and she felt nothing except the chill in the air. Susan
felt totally alone, more alone than she had ever been before, almost as
though she was the only creature in the universe. She suddenly craved
someone else, anyone, so she would have someone to talk to, or someone to
assure her that she still existed.

As soon as she felt this craving a bright flare of red light erupted in the
darkness above her and began to move towards her with frightening speed.
The red light soon revealed itself as a vortex of some kind, similar to a
jumpgate when it was opening. This vortex did not have a warm orange colour
of a jumpgate though, rather it was an angry red, shot with withering bolts
of intense darkness, and Susan was being drawn towards it. She tried to
fight, but there was nothing to hold onto, nowhere to hide, and so she was
pulled through with almost no resistance possible on her part.

Once through the vortex Susan was thrown to the ground, which seemed to
have reappeared and hit the now rocky surface with a heavy thump. Small
stones and rock scratched at her, but for some reason did not cause any
injuries. Her eyes flickered for a moment as she fought to recover from the
pain of landing on the rocky ground and then she noticed that light had
returned, although this time it was not the bright, warm glow of a  summer
sun, but rather an evil reddish light that seemed to filter down from
somewhere far above her.

Susan pulled herself back to her feet and then shuffled backward as she
realised that she now stood on a narrow ledge overlooking a very deep
chasm, that plunged into the darkness far below her. She risked a quick
look but could see know signs of a bottom to the chasm, or any hand holds
for her to use to climb down. As she looked up she could see none above her
either, although the top of the mountain or wherever she now was seemed to
be surrounded by a red mist, similar in colour to the vortex or portal that
had just grabbed her moments ago.

As a cold wind began to pick up around her Susan grew very worried about
the whole situation. She still didn't know where she was, if she was
dreaming, or if she was dead. And if this was the afterlife then it
certainly hadn't been very pleasing so far, in fact it had been downright
horrible, not to mention confusing.

Looking around her, Susan searched for somewhere to go, anywhere that was
away from this horrible place. She had always hated heights, and looking
over the ledge only made her head swim. Then just as she thought all was
lost, and she was doomed to remain her forever Susan noticed a faint light
appearing in front of her, near the ledge. It grew brighter with each
passing moment and as it did she became aware of a person floating in the
light.

"Marcus," she whispered, as the features of the figure became cleared and
she realised who it was.

Marcus nodded and held out his hands, as if asking Susan to join him in the
light. He wore a golden robe similar to her, and the light seemed to
surround him as well as supporting him in mid air. She moved to join him,
put pulled up short when she reached the edge of the ledge and looked down
into the chasm below.

"Jump Susan," Marcus called to her. "Join me and we can be together
forever. I have come to save you, for if you stay here you will be trapped
in this place for eternity."

Susan gritted her teeth and tried again to join him, only to again pull up
when she reached the edge of the ledge. It still looked like too far a jump
to her, and one she would never make. "It is too far," she called out to
Marcus. "I can not jump that far."

"Yes you can Susan," he replied. "All you need to do is jump, I will catch
you before you fall."

Susan looked over the ledge and down at the vast drop again and shivered,
but resolved to do as Marcus said and readied herself. Then just as she was
about to make the run up she felt a gloved hand grip her bare arm. Turning
around she gasped in surprise as she looked into the eyes of Talia, who was
wearing the uniform of a Psi-Cop.

"Do not jump Susan," Talia said softly, her voice barely reaching Susan's
ears above the roar of the ever strengthening wind. "Stay here instead, I
will protect you."

"Do not believe her Susan," Marcus called out. "She is an agent of
darkness, trying to seduce you. Jump while you still can."

Susan turned to look at him, aware of the warmth and light radiating from
the position where he floated. Talia on the other hand did not have the
same warmth, and the hand she had place on Susan's arm felt cold, even
through the leather glove she wore. Despite this she was torn, not knowing
who to believe.

"Jump Susan," Marcus called again. "If you do not then you will be trapped
in a world of pain forever, there will be no escape, no rescue." As if to
illustrate his point Susan suddenly remembered all the times over the past
thirty years when she had been hurt, all the painful relationships, and
lost friends and family. The feelings of loss and pain were so intense that
she almost broke down and cried right there.

"You know what pain is like Susan, do you want to face that for eternity?"
Marcus again held out his hands, as if to urge her to jump into his arms.
For a moment she was sorely tempted to do so, but before she could Talia
pulled her back again.

"I can not offer peace Susan," the telepath whispered, her voice cutting
into Susan's thoughts. "I can only offer you life. If you can not face your
life then you will die here."

More memories of her life began to flow about in her head and Susan grasped
at them, trying to find a solution to the choice that faced her. She
remembered the time she had spent with her mother, the happy life she had
experienced then, and how it had been taken away from her by the Psi-Corp.
Also how she had cried at her mother's funeral and prayed for someway for
them to be together again. The painful memories continued to bombard her,
only this time she also remember the good time, few as they may have been.

"So much pain," Marcus' voice cut into her memories. "Is it worth returning
to that, to be left alone with your pain. Wouldn't it instead be better to
forget the past and embrace your future, a future without pain or
suffering."

A thought cut through Susan and for a moment she remembered how she had
ended up here, and who it was that had left her alone in the universe. It
had been Marcus who had given his life for her, had left her alone with the
guilt and pain of his sacrifice. She turned back to look at Talia and
noticed the tears running down the blonde woman's cheeks, and the sadness
in her eyes. Before she could go to her though a sudden gust of wind
buffeted her and Susan was thrown back towards the edge of the chasm.

Reaching out with her hands Susan was just able to stop herself from
falling to what she now realised was certain death below. Hanging from the
ledge by her fingertips everything that was happening to her suddenly
became clear. She knew what both Talia and Marcus were offering. The image
of Marcus offered her peace, but also death, while Talia offered nothing
more than a chance at life. Life with all it's pain and suffering was not
something Susan was sure about right now, so she turned her head around to
look at Marcus who still floated in the air nearby.

He had on his face a look of hope, and longing, and she knew that if she
let go of the ledge as he asked then it would be over, all the pain she had
suffered would be gone and she could remain forever in Marcus' arm, safe
and secure. This was the choice the image of Kosh had spoken off. If she
went to Marcus now the she would choose peace, security, and safety. But if
instead she selected Talia then she would be condemned to continue her life
of pain. She had to choose, but right now could not make the choice. She
didn't know what she wanted, and was torn between the two, unable to choose
either life or death.

Talia's voice dragged her away from her thoughts and she turned away from
Marcus to face Talia instead. The wind was whipping through the telepath's
blonde hair and ripping the tears from her eyes before they could even
begin to roll down her cheeks. "Embrace the future Susan," Talia screamed,
her voice only just carrying above the cyclonic winds. "Survive, and do not
give in. For to surrender mean death, or something even worse than death."

"No," called Marcus, his voice still strong and firm. "Give in to peace
Susan, do not follow the ways of darkness. Surrender to the light and we
can be together again." The wind around them began to grow even stronger,
and Susan's grip on the ledge began to slip, the rock beneath her
finger-tip seeming to crumble under her weight. "Let yourself fall Susan,"
Marcus called out to her again, this time from below her. "I will catch
you, all you need to do is trust. Trust in yourself and trust in me."

Susan's fingers slipped even further and the strain of holding only the
tiny rock ledge was become almost too much for her. She looked up again,
straight into the sad looking eyes of Talia. "Embrace me Susan," Talia
said, her voice now little more than a faint whisper, and had Susan not
seen Talia's lips moving she' would not have known that the telepath was
even speaking. "I am your past, and your future. I am who you are, and who
you have always been. Embrace me and be free. Surrender and die."

Torn between the two Susan was unable to make a decision. Then just as she
though she might remain here forever another memory came floating to the
surface. She remembered what had happened when she had been on Babylon 4,
when she had seen a vision of her future. Then she had thought it nothing
more than a possible future, but the words of Kosh were still strong in her
mind. So reaching out she chose hope, and grabbed hold of the hand that
Talia offered and allowed herself to be pulled up onto the ledge once more.

As soon as her feet were once again were firmly secure on the rocky ledge
the light that had surrounded Marcus died, as did the wind and the darkness
began to close in around her once more. She looked towards Talia, only to
find that she had vanished and in her place was another copy of herself.
Just as Kosh had turned into her, so had Talia. Before she had even
recovered from the surprise the other Susan embraced her warmly.

Susan looked into her own eyes and noticed that like the image Kosh had
turned into this copy of her was also beginning to disappear. Unlike the
first one though this one seemed to melt in her arms, merging with her. She
tried to pull away but was stuck fast and unable to do anything as the copy
seemed to vanish into her, becoming part of her forever.

There was a sudden flash of bright light and then Susan heard a voice, her
own voice echoing softly around her. "I am part of you now, as I have
always been. In the past you have rejected me, fought to forget me, but now
you need to embrace me and use me or you will die."

She searched desperately for the source of the voice but couldn't find
anything. In fact as it had before everything seemed to have vanished into
the darkness once more and she was alone with her own thoughts. "Beware the
wolf Susan," came her voice again, this time seeming to flow around her
like a soft breeze, gently caressing her hair and face. "He comes for you.
You must fight him if you are to live."

	------------------------------------------------------------

The past two minutes had been a flurry of exhaustive activity, but it had
all been worth it. Security Chief Cox and his team had finally managed to
remove enough of the collapsed roof to expose part of the being who had
been trapped beneath. Now looking down at the woman who had been exposed
Frank Cox was somewhat surprised to find that she was familiar. Then he
remembered the recent ISN broadcasts and recognised the woman as the
Earthforce captain who had only yesterday taken command of the newest
warship in the fleet, a warship that even now hung in space above Mars.

Cursing as he thought of what would happen to him if he allowed her to die,
and the paperwork that would be involved, he signalled for his second to
bring the medical scanner that she had looped in her belt. Realising that
she was needed Belinda Kidd joined the chief, kneeling at the side of the
trapped woman and carefully running the medical scanner across her. Then
when she was sure of her readings she looked up at Cox and the rest of the
maintenance team standing above her. "It looks like her life signs are
stable enough, but I am getting some very erratic brainwave readings. I
think it would be best if we pulled her out as soon as possible and moved
her to medlab where they can take a proper look at her. If there is
anything seriously wrong then they can care for her a lot better than we
can out here."

Cox nodded and then stood to inform the rest of the security team what was
required of them. "Ok everybody, listen up. We need some heavy lifting
gear, try looking in the shuttle bay there should be something in there.
Harrison you take care of that." A middle-aged security officer near the
back of the ground nodded and jogged off through the shuttle bay doors. Cox
took no notice of Harrison's movement, used to having his orders carried
out without question. Without stopping he continued speaking, "also someone
organise a medical team to transport the injured woman to medlab, we don't
know what sort of injuries she might have yet. The rest of you are with me,
we need to pull as much of the smaller pieces of wreckage away so there
will be less to fall down and injure anyone when we lift away the big
chunks."

"Yes sir," was the mechanical response from the gathered security officers
as they rushed to carry out his orders. As the security officers started
digging into the wreckage and tugging away anything small enough to be
carried by hand, Cox joined them. He only hoped they would be able to pull
out the woman before anything else happened to her. Cox was not concerned
for the woman, but rather he was already imagining the interview he was
going to give to the ISN reporters who would come, and the promotion that
would surely follow. Of course she had to be rescued first, and he didn't
want to think what would happen to him if he let ISN's favourite hero die.

	------------------------------------------------------------

The darkness slowly faded again and Susan found herself on another plain,
although this one was one of ice, not a field of flowers like before. A
soft breeze also blew across the landscape, only instead of bringing the
sweet smell of flower blossoms, it carried the foul, icy, stench of death.
Susan shivered in the chilly air, suddenly realising that she was still
clad only in the thin, loose robe, and despite it's beauty it would do
little to keep out the cold.

A loud, evil sounding laugh suddenly echoed all around her. She clapped her
hands over her ears but that did little to block it out, as it cut into her
head, and rebounded off her mind. Then came the voice, a horrible rasping
voice that cut through what was left of her defences and pounded against
her brain like a hammer. "You have many surprises Captain," it said, every
word striking her as a hammer might strike an anvil. "It might be
worthwhile keeping you alive, I know many who would like to know how you
have managed to keep it a secret for so long. But the project must be
protected, and for that you must die. This is going to hurt I am afraid,
you should have taken the way I offered and not fought, now you will have
to suffer for you foolishness. It is nothing personal you understand, just
business."

Then the voice faded and Susan forced herself back to her feet, having been
driven into the ground by the blinding pain each word the voice had spoken
had caused her. Her head still throbbed after the hammer-like blows and she
was disoriented, not knowing entirely what was going on, where she was, or
even who exactly she was. The pain faded quickly though as she noticed
another red vortex appearing above her, she tried to back away but it kept
on coming ever closer.

Suddenly she backed into something cold and smooth and spinning around
found herself looking into a mirror. The mirror did not reflect her image
though, rather it showed a scene of her past, a time during the academy
when she had been happy. Then the mirror was gone, but she noticed another
in the distance. She ran towards it and saw another image of her past, this
time a battle from the shadow war. That mirror also faded and Susan looked
around for another.

She seemed to be surrounded by mirrors, each one holding a part of her
past, and they were all being slowly sucked up into the sky by the vortex,
almost as though something was stealing her memories, stealing who she was.
She saw a mirror that held a memory of her mother and grabbed it tight,
trying to ensure that this one would not be taken from her. All around her
she saw mirrors flying through the air, pulled towards the vortex by an
almost irresistible force. She felt the mirror she grasped begin to
shudder, as it to was caught up in the suction.

She held it even tighter, and managed to resist the suction the vortex was
generating, despite the pain it was causing her. For some reason the vortex
was not taking her, just the mirrors. Then the suction died and she looked
out over a barren plain, still grasping the mirror with almost fanatical
strength. She couldn't remember why she was holding onto the mirror any
more, only that she had to do it, and so she did.

Above her the red vortex still hung in the air, only now it was not pulling
her towards it, instead something seemed to be coming through, straight
towards her. A massive bestial creature of some kind, many times her size,
and with a drooling mouth full of jagged teeth. The creature burst through
the vortex and landed on the icy ground, still a fair distance from her. It
was a gigantic wolf, larger than almost any other creature, Earth native or
Alien, that she had seen before.

She screamed and tried to run, leaping to her feet and stumbling off across
the icy plain, the mirror now forgotten in her terror. She was operating on
instinct alone now, and her instincts told to her to flee, to hide, and
somehow escape the monster that was chasing her. The giant wolf turning in
her direction and howled, an evil sound that ripped into her very being,
leaving little of what was her behind. It's claws tore large chunks of icy
dirt from the ground as it padded after her, each step it took equal to
three of her own strides.

Somewhere inside her she heard a voice urging her to stand firm and fight,
to drive off the beast, but she didn't know how, so she ran instead.
Running proved to be little use though as the monstrous beast caught her
and knocked her to the ground. As she lay there waiting for it to kill her
she felt it's fetid breath on her face, the warmth not providing the
slightest comfort at all.

Then it struck her, a single swipe of it's claw that sent her tumbling
across the ground. She realised that it was playing with her, letting her
live a while longer so it could enjoy the kill even more. Susan was angry
at the thought of this, angry that she was so helpless, that there was
nothing she could do to fight back. If only she had a weapon, any weapon
she could fight the wolf, make it pay for what it was about to do to her.

Then as she heard it coming towards her again she felt something by her
left hand, something solid and strong. In desperation she grasped the
object and as the wolf reached her swung her hand over and smashed it in
the side of the jaw with the large club she now held. The wolf gave a yelp
of pain as its face was twisted sideways by the force of the blow. Susan
took that opportunity to leap to her feet, the pain and helplessness now
gone, replaced by the hungry flames of anger.

She swung the club again, this time striking the wolf on the shoulder, a
painful blow that forced the monster to retreat a step. Then the wolf
struck out again, a single claw catching her in the stomach and ribbing a
gash through her flesh. It was only a light wound, but the pain was
intense. Susan dropped the club and fell to her knees clutching her wounded
stomach in her hands. The wolf came closer again and Susan could here its
laughter in its breathing, and realised that it was no longer playing, and
the next blow would end her.

She was not finished yet though and fell to the ground, ducking under the
wolf's jaws which closed above her like the snap of some tremendous steel
trap. She rolled across the ground to escape the wolf's reach and then
pulled herself back to her feet and began running away from the monster
once more. As she ran she sought another weapons, a club, a knife,
anything. To her surprise she found one, seeing the hilt of a large knife
sticking out of the icy ground just in front of her.

Leaping for it she just avoided another lunge from the wolf, its gigantic
jaws closing just behind her flying feet. She tugged the knife blade from
the ice and it slid out smoothly falling into her hand just in time. The
wolf lunged again and she ducked and as it passed by her she lunged out
with the knife striking the wolf solidly in the side.

The wolf yelped again and rolled over on it side, knocking the blade out of
the wound. Susan snarled at it in triumph, but then noticed in horror as
the bloody wound on the wolf began to fade, right before her eyes.
Realising she didn't have much time she pulled out her PPG rifle, not even
for a moment stopping to wonder where it had come from, or how she knew she
carried it, and began pelting the wolf with blast after blast of burning
plasma.

Susan was really angry now, furious that the wolf would try to kill her,
and furious that she had almost given in to death. As her anger grew her
mind had supplied her with the weapons to fight with, first the club, then
the knife, and now the rifle. She felt the rage begin to rise within her
and knew now that she would win, and the wolf would die.

Her shooting was less than accurate with most blasts striking the icy
landscape instead of the wolf, but enough made it through to injure the
monster. It began to change though, its skin becoming mirror-like and
reflecting the plasma instead of letting it strike flesh and fur. Susan was
operating of pure instinct now though, her reason and normal thought
processes replaced by anger and the desire to survive. Realising that she
could no longer hit the wolf she instead aimed for the ground, blasting the
ice with burning plasma and melting the frozen plain. As it melted the land
beneath began to boil and bubble with the fury of her assault. The rock and
dirt melted and became molten, turning into pools of lava. The wolf
realised what was happening and began to breath onto the melting rock,
hoping its now icy breath would be enough to freeze the rock again.

It wasn't able to match Susan's fury though and the land began to melt more
and more, changing from a plain of ice into a landscape of fire and fury.
Terrified the wolf now tried to flee, running across the plain of ice,
except it was no longer a plain of ice. Geysers of flame were bursting all
around them, and Susan could see the wolf's hide begin to smoulder, and
finally catch flame. The mirror-like hid shattered in the heat, exposing
the vulnerable fur and flesh beneath. She did not seem effected by the
fires though, and if anything they seemed to comfort her, to warm her and
to protect her. She felt powerful, more powerful than she had ever thought
she could feel, and began to walk across what was now a vast pool of molten
lava towards the monstrous wolf. It was now trapped in the lava, slowly
melting away before her eyes. Its massive paws had already sunken into the
molten rock and now only its upper body and head was left, howling
fruitlessly at her to stop, to release it.

Susan would not stop though and picking up handfuls of fiery lava began to
pelt the creature, striking it again and again in it's chest and head. The
fur there caught fire, and soon the flames spread across the monster's
entire body. The wolf gave one last desperate cry and then fell silent, its
body now almost totally destroyed. Susan fell to her knees in the lava, and
it washed up around her grasping her and comforting her. She sobbed as
waves of pain and regret washed over her. She felt awful as though she had
just done something horrible, but she could not think what it could be. She
grasped her head in her hands and screamed out in anguish, trying to drive
away the thoughts, and to her surprise they retreated and when she opened
her eyes again she found herself on the peaceful flower strewn plain once
more.

What was left of the wolf lay on the ground in front of her, its lidless
eyes looking up at her, reflecting the pain of its death. She stared down
at them and then realised with horror that she was looking into a pair of
human eyes, not the yellow canine eyes she had seen earlier. Gone were the
greedy eyes of the hunter, and in their place were the pained eyes of a
little boy, at least that was the thought that came unbidden to her.

She reached down to cradle the wolf's head in her hands but then leapt back
as a circle of darkness suddenly opened above her. A cold wind whipped out,
blowing her robe about her, and bringing with it a fetid stench that
reminded her of the wolf's breath. She backed slowly away and watched as
the wind began to reverse direction and suck the remains of the wolf into
the dark circle. She dug her heels into the ground and braced herself, sure
that the wind was going to drag her in as well. But it stopped as soon as
it had taken the wolf's body and she found herself sitting in the gently
blowing breeze that felt it's way across the plain, slowly rustling the
tall grasses, and softly kissing her face with the faint smell of flower
blossom.

	------------------------------------------------------------

The large cargo lifter raised its arm and dragged the large wooden counter
off the trapped woman. It was still relatively intact, if a little burnt
and scratched and had fortunately managed to protect the woman from any
major harm. The lifter then backed up and took the counter with it, finally
taking away the last of the obstacles that lay in the way of the rescuers.
The medical team moved in quickly to take its place, eager to ensure their
patient was alive and well.

Belinda Kidd was first to reach the side of the trapped woman, and quickly
examined her. Belinda's father was a doctor and she had learned a lot from
him, skills that came in very handy during her career in security. The
medical team soon joined her, kneeling on the now exposed cafe floor to try
and determine if the Earthforce captain would live.

The woman's breathing was strong and healthy, and the erratic brainwaves
Belinda had noticed before were now stable and normal. One of the medical
team pulled a small hypospray out of her bag and looked over at the
security officer. "It looks like she is not to badly wounded, give her this
and she should wake up. It would be better to have her conscious so we can
determine if she has any injuries that the scanner doesn't show."

Belinda nodded and took the hypospray from the doctor. She pressed it into
the woman's neck and press the activator which then shot the drug through
the pores in the skin and into the bloodstream.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Susan suddenly became aware of voices again, although this time they
appeared to be coming from unseen sources, rather than inside her head. The
flower covered plain where she lay began to fade, only to be replaced with
the twisted wreckage of the burnt out cafe once more. She blinked and
looked up into the ice blue eyes of a short-haired woman in the grey
uniform of Earthforce security.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," the woman said, although Susan
could only just grasp her words.

Susan didn't reply but instead looked around her in confusion, wondering
where she was, and what had just happened to her. Then it came back to her,
the lawyer, the call to Babylon 5, and finally the fight with the gunmen
who had suddenly appeared out of the crowd. She reeled in confusion at what
she saw, wondering exactly what had just happened to her, and if it had all
just been a dream. There was certainly nothing to indicate that any of it
was real.

Shaken to her core she tried to rise, only to be driven back as an
incredible pain struck her, a headache stronger than anything she had ever
felt before. One of the medical team noticed her pain and quickly
administered a painkiller which began to ease the throbbing a little. Susan
still felt as though a thousand elephants were doing the tango inside her
head, and the pain only added to her confusion.

The painkiller soon took over and the pain faded, leaving behind only a
dull ache somewhere behind her eyes. She bought a hand up and rubbed the
spot that where the ache seemed to be worse, but it didn't seem to want to
go away. Then she felt strong arms lifting her as she was pulled from the
ruins of the cafe and onto a white stretcher the medical team had waiting
for her. She wanted to protest but found her throat to dry to speak, and
all that came out was a dry croak.

Then she was being carted off, into a confusing blur of unfamiliar faces
that seemed to spiral around her. She looked away, scanning to floor
instead, but that provided little comfort. She could see the covered bodies
of the victims from the gun battle, still lying where they had fallen.
Susan looked at the bodies with a fascinated stare, and then she noticed
the cafe, or rather what was left of the cafe. She tried to raise herself
into a sitting position to examine the damage, but found herself strapped
down. Her hands scrambled for the clasp of the straps, but they was gently
pulled away by one of the medical team that was guiding her stretcher.

Before she could protest she was being taken down a path that had been
cleared through the crowd, past the whirring recorders of the local vid
stations that floated around the scene of the explosion, and off towards
the nearby medlab. Realising that struggling was getting her nowhere Susan
resigned herself to her fate and let herself be dragged off for medical
treatment, although at the same resolving to be out of Medlab before the
day was done.

	------------------------------------------------------------

Security Chief Frank Cox watched Captain Ivanova being taken away with a
satisfied smile and began to run his speech to ISN through his brain, sure
that the rescue of so high a profile officer would attract the attention of
the Earth Alliance's premier news broadcaster. Already he had sown up
interviews with several of the local Mars networks and before the day was
out he would be seen on every vid screen across the planet, the hero of the
hour. He might even be able to get someone else to do the paperwork for him
if this kept up.

"Sir," called one of the security officers still in the ruined cafe. "I
think you had best take a look at this."

Cox looked annoyed at the interruption and it showed in his response to his
subordinate. "I'm a little busy right now, can't you take care of it."

"I don't think so sir," the man, who Cox now recognised as Harrison, one of
his most reliable officers. Also Cox noticed the taint of fear in the man's
voice as he spoke. "This is bad, very bad."

Interested now Cox walked briskly over to the other man's side and followed
his outstretched arm as it pointed towards the ceiling. There the security
chief could see the light from Harrison's torch shining off something. He
looked closer and recognised the bronze symbol of the Psi-Corp, and that it
was still attached to the chest of someone.

"Oh shit," Cox said, before glancing around hurriedly to make sure no-one
had caught his outburst and was now looking at him. Seeing everyone still
watching the medical team take Ivanova away his mind began to think
quickly. If he could get the body down and cover it with a sheet then
perhaps no-one would notice, and it could all be taken care of back at the
office. Cox knew that the one thing that would get more interest than a
rescued Earthforce captain would be a dead Psi-Cop, and he recognised the
black uniform at almost the same time as he had seen the Psi-Corps symbol.

"He is still alive chief," Harrison suddenly said, using the medical
scanner that Belinda Kidd had left behind earlier.

"What?" Cox said, grabbing the medical scanner from Harrison and looking at
it's read out for himself. Sure enough the scanner showed the telepath was
still alive, with a weak heartbeat, although it also showed almost no brain
activity. "Damn. Well we had best get another stretcher for this guy then."

The security chief noticed that the crowd which had gathered earlier was
now beginning to disperse, probably thinking that everything interesting
had already occurred and realising that some of them had a liner to catch
after all. Even as he watched he could see large numbers of civilian
passengers heading through the terminal to the liner. Still he didn't
really want any more trouble if he could help it, and especially didn't
want Psi-Corp to find out through the news networks. He would much rather
tell them latter on in his own office that one of their high and mighty
Psi-Cops had been injured.

Spotting the colonel he had spoken to earlier he again grabbed the officers
attention and asked him if he wouldn't mind getting his troops to clear the
area around the ruined cafe so he could let the maintenance crews in. The
colonel quickly agreed and within two minutes the region around the cafe
was clear of everyone except Cox's security men, and the station
maintenance teams.

Once that was done Cox had no trouble getting another medical team into the
cafe and assisting them with the removal of the Psi-Cop. Not for the first
time he wondered how the telepath had got there, as the gap between the
ceiling and the inner hull of the station wasn't the usual place to find a
telepath. Still that wasn't really his concern now, that would be up to the
Psi-Corp investigators when they arrived, and he could only hope that they
didn't blame the injury on him, after all it wasn't his fault that the
telepath had decided to go scrabbling through the bowels of the station
just as a bomb was going off below him.

Still worry about this, and the inevitable paperwork Frank Cox left the
scene of the battle, heading for his office and the first of the interviews
with the local networks. His planned triumph was lessened now, as he
continued to worry about what the Psi-Corp would do as they tore up the
station to find out what had happened to their agent. He knew they would
not just accept what he would put in his report, they never did.

It wasn't until nearly an hour latter that he remembered that he had seen
the injured Psi-Cop when he had arrived on the scene, long after the
explosion and Cox really began to worry. Fortunately for him the Psi-Corp
did not seem very interested in his explanations, instead snatching the
half-dead Psi-Cop out of Medlab and asking him to cover it up, and not to
let anyone else know what he had seen, something that Frank Cox was only
too happy to do.

	------------------------------------------------------------

4:07, February 1, 2262

On the other side of Mars, far from the city of Olympus Mons and the
orbiting space station that hung in space above it, was another domed city,
this one much smaller and far less known than the heavily populated
capital. It was the home of the rich, kept only for those with the money to
purchase one of it's small number of spectacularly expensive apartments.
Harvey Kiel was one of the rich few who were able to afford to live here,
despite the fact that the money was not really his, and even the apartment
here only belonged to his new benefactors, and was not his.

Harvey Kiel had once appeared to be one of president Clark's most loyal
servant's, although he was not really a follower, but instead had been one
of the telepaths who had aided the now dead president in his mad schemes.
Following the death of Clark he had been force to flee and had it not been
for his new allies he may have been captured and he did not like to think
of what might have happened to him then.

As a Psi-Cop, and until recently one of the leaders of the entire Psi-Corp,
he was an extremely dangerous man, and one that few ever had the chance to
cross even once. Like many of the more powerful male telepaths he was only
a short man, but to those who encountered him he seemed to radiate power
and strength, not only mentally, but also physically. He no longer wore the
uniform of the Psi-Cops, and in fact his new identity, arranged by the
Corp, gave his rating as a P5, that of a commercial telepath. Despite his
falling out with the Alliance government he was still supported by Psi-Corp
as telepaths looked after their own, no matter what the government might
tell them.

No amount of mental power would have stopped the new Earth government
though in their search for those who had served the former president. Still
he was safe now on Mars, far from those who still sought him for the crimes
he committed during Clark's rule. With Mars now an independent planet it
was a lot easier for him to hide out here for a while than it would have
been back home. He did not intend on hiding out for long though, rather he
intended to regain the power he once had, through a campaign of terror and
death, the seeds of which he had only just began to sow.

Just now though he wasn't sowing anything more dangerous than lettuce
plants as he tended his small vegetable garden at the back of his hideout,
if one of the most luxurious apartments on Mars could be called a hideout.
Gardening was one of his few pleasures, and being stuck here in Gates Dome
for nearly five weeks meant that he had found plenty of time to tend a
garden.

Right now though he looked little different than most other middle-aged men
as he planted a row of lettuces in the carefully tiled dirt of the garden.
He did not have the look of a man who had been at the centre of the plot to
bring Clark to power and who had guided him from behind the scenes for more
years than he cared to think of. That time was gone now though and his
concentration was devoted instead to growing his garden, that and the
project he was even now guiding to completion.

The sound of heavy footfalls on the rocks of his garden path awoke Kiel
from his concentration. He put down the last lettuce plant and let the
walls inside his mind lower just enough to allow him to identify the
approaching intruder. Then recognising the familiar pattern he felt the
Psi-Cop stood and with barely the slightest effort sent his thoughts into
the intruder's mind. 'I trust you have a good reason for interrupting my
one simple pleasure Anderson. The task was simple enough, has the nosy
lawyer been deposed of yet.

'There is a problem sir, it is about the project.' came the thoughts of the
other telepath, as Kiel allowed the other man access to his own mind. 'I am
afraid that operative K has taken it on himself to eliminate Ivanova, he
failed and there was a mess. Several innocent's not related to the project
have been killed.'

Kiel broadcast his supreme annoyance strongly into Anderson's mind. 'Then
where is K, it would seem he does have some explaining to do. We can not
attract attention to ourselves yet. The time for that is latter, when
everything is in place.'

The sudden fear from Anderson's mind shocked him. There was something
bothering the military telepath, something he didn't want to tell Kiel. He
could feel the indecision, and then finally a brief burst of clarity as
Anderson sent his reply. 'I am afraid that K is dead, he was injured in the
attack, some sort of spasm or tumour according to the doctors and I had him
put down so they could not discover anything.'

Kiel turned and looked at his subordinate with his eyes now, instead of
just his mind. 'Was that really necessary, he was a valuable asset.'

Anderson wriggled under the piercing gaze of his superior, knowing that he
could not hide anything from Kiel now. That foremost in his mind he
resolved to tell the Psi-Cop the whole story. 'The mundanes on the station
were most suspicious about his motives and as to how he was injured. I
happened to be nearby and when I examined him I found that his mind had
been destroyed."

Now Kiel looked surprised. 'By what, he was a P12, he should have been able
to resist almost any sought of trauma.'

'So I thought too, but I believe that he may have been inside the mind of
one of those who died during the gun battle and been caught in there,
unable to escape. If he was caught in a dying mind then it is possible that
he suffered a backlash and his mind could not take it.'

'Gun battle?' Kiel looked annoyed that Anderson would leave out important
details about the story. He always liked to have the whole story so he
could run it over in his mind and search for any answers that others may
have missed. 'Perhaps you had best fill me in from the beginning then.'

Anderson sighed. 'As you wish. I might need to sit down for this though.'

Kiel waved the other telepath towards a small white bench that sat beside
the path and they both sat down. 'Now continue, and don't leave anything
out.'

With a slow nod at his superior Darren Anderson thought over what he had
been told, and personally observed before sending his thoughts. 'I was on
Mars High to meet with General McCarron about my assignment to the
Rasputin. K was also on the station, but he was only meant to be watching
the lawyer. Somehow he found out that the lawyer was going to be meeting
Captain Ivanova and sent his watchers after both of them. As you order he
was supposed to only kill the lawyer, and even then to do it quietly, but
when Ivanova meet with her K sent in the watchers and they shot up the
whole place.'

As he thought Anderson could feel a growing anger insider Kiel at the
actions of operative K, he only hoped that this anger would not be turned
against him. Shrugging off these thoughts he continued 'One of the watchers
was killed and Captain Ivanova was trapped in the wreckage. I watched for a
while as they pulled her out and when they took her to Medlab I followed,
hoping to scan her to see what she had learned. I never got close enough
though, and then when I was about to leave to come here I heard that K had
been found in a air vent above the cafe and had been taken to Medlab. I
went there and found that his mind had been fried, so I finished the job
and then acting on behalf of the Corp took his body before they could
examine him further. I thought it was for the best, as we would have been
unable to learn anything from his mind in the condition I found it in, and
I didn't think it would be a good idea to let the doctors there poke around
too much. He still had those implants, and had they found him they may have
been able to link him to the watcher who was killed.'

Kiel nodded slowly as he considered Anderson recounting of what had
happened. 'Yes, you did well then. It would have been good to reclaim the
watcher as well, but he had little of importance on him, and if we claimed
him then they would only know we were responsible.' He stood and began to
pace around the tiny area of grass next to the garden. Harvey Kiel was not
normally a nervous man, but with the operation he was running now at a
critical stage then everything had to be perfect. He thought of something
suddenly and turned back to Anderson. 'Why was K in an air vent, and where
was it exactly.'

Anderson thought for a moment as he considered the information he had
gathered before replying. 'He was in the air shaft above the cafe where the
gun battle took place. I am not sure how or why he was there, and didn't
want to quiz the security chief too much. I did scan him though and he
didn't have any relevant information, although it was only a surface scan.'

'Hmm, well I guess K bought it on himself yet. He might have been a
valuable assent to the project, but he was still an idiot. Make sure his
body is properly disposed off so no-one will ever find even a piece of it
again.'

His subordinate sent a quick thought of agreement, while Kiel's mind
shifted from the problem of the dead Psi-Cop to other more important
matters. 'Does Ivanova know anything of the plan?'

Anderson shrugged helplessly. 'I was unable to scan her, she may no
something. I did pull the surviving crystals from the security cameras and
examine them. They did not show enough information to indicate what the
discussion was about, although a paper the lawyer gave her did have the
name Arisia 3 on it. The Captain did not seem to know the location though
and went to make a call soon afterward. The call was to her vessel and we
were unable to trace it further as the screen she used was destroyed in the
fighting.'

Kiel began to tap his fingers against his forehead, something he always did
when pondering a problem. 'I would prefer to know what she has learned. If
she discovers anything important she may come after us.'

'I do not think so. She is due to ship out tomorrow for Proxima and anyway
I will be going along so if she tries anything I can get rid of her. If you
want I can scan her when I go aboard.'

Kiel considered this for a moment. 'That might not be a good idea, her
record shows an extreme hatred for telepaths and if she discovered what you
had done she might shoot you. She had been violent before, and that fool
Bester said that she even tried to kill him with the defence grid of
Babylon 5 once. He was never able to prove it though, and by that time they
had broken away from Earth so we were unable to follow up on the report he
sent us.'

'What was he doing on Babylon 5 if they were had broken away.'

A raised eyebrow from Kiel was the only indication to Anderson that he was
not to pursue the matter, and the dealings of Psi-Cops were not his
concern. 'I would still like to know for sure though if she is aware of the
project or not. The lawyer knew something, but we do not know if she passed
it on.'

'Perhaps we can send another to question her, in disguise of course.
Perhaps a message from Futurecorp asking to meet her and explain what
happened. Then when our agent was close he could do a surface scan on her
without her detecting it and make up some story to send her off on the
wrong track. I know you want her alive for the testing later on, but if she
knows something then it would be best if we knew now, rather than risk the
project.'

Kiel thought this over for a moment before nodding his agreement. 'Send one
of the commercial telepaths, there is no need to risk any more of our
better agents just yet. A P5 should be enough to scan her without her
noticing, she is only a mundane after all.'

'I have just the person for the job, someone expendable in case anything
goes wrong again.' Anderson handed Kiel a small data pad with the necessary
details on it.

'Good, now have you given any more thought to who will be assisting you in
the Proxima part of the Project. I know the military have given you a free
hand in the matter.'

'Yes I have, I think this person would be most suitable.' Anderson handed
over another data pad, and Kiel quickly read it.

'A P5, are you sure. I would have thought you would have taken another P10
with you. She isn't even part of the project.'

Anderson shook his head and leant over to scroll the information on the
data pad down a little. 'There are some important details that you haven't
read yet. As you can see here there is a very good reason why I choose this
agent.'

Kiel scanned the new data, and then his face broke out into its first smile
in many weeks. He broadcast his telepathic laughter to Anderson as he
realised was his devious subordinate had planned. 'I agree, she is perfect,
and loyal too. Even if your plan to find out what Ivanova knows tomorrow
fails then this should keep the Captain busy for a while. Good work.'

'Anderson responded with a smile of his own. 'I thought you would like it.
I didn't want the project to fail, and although I do not consider Ivanova a
threat it would be best to assure all possibilities are taken care of.'

'Yes, although in two weeks time no-one, not even the entire Earth Alliance
will be able to threaten us. The project is nearing completion and when it
is finished and if the tests are successful then no-one can stop us. Go now
and put your plots into action, I must prepare for transport to Site A as
soon as possible. You must ensure none discover the project until it is too
late.'

Anderson stood and inclined his head in a slight bow before turning and
leaving the garden. Kiel watched him leave, before he too stood and left
the garden, although he was heading for his study and com unit rather than
the front door. So intense was his concentration on his plans that he did
not even notice the last remaining lettuce that he hadn't had time to
plant. It was crushed beneath his boot, but he took no notice, far more
important things occupied his mind now than his garden.

	------------------------------------------------------------


Sel Vecantie

e-mail: vecantie@geocities.com
homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/9933/