From: dgolding@connect.ab.ca Subject: STAR AND CIRCLE: "THE SEEKER'S FIRE", EPISODE III: OVERTURE Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 23:38:57 Author's Note: After the constant outpourings of the past several weeks, I decided to take a breather. Not that they are ever *long*, mind you! Anyways, here we go with the Overture for Episode 3. * * * [Cue Dramatic Music] KLAIRIKA ALIDIAE We are the Watchers... [Klairika standing on the bridge of the SHARD OF NIGHT, an image of the EXCALIBUR hanging in the air in front of her.] SHEYNELL KEYNES We are the Warriors... [Images: Sheynell at the tactical station, the battlecruiser firing its main gun and destroying a Drakh capital ship] LARIEKEN We are the Guardians... [Image: Larieken defending his Captain against Z'shailyl attackers, warrior pike in hand] VEYSHAHK We are the Healers... [Image: Veyshahk at his desk in MedSection, an image of the Drakh virus on his computer screen.] DASOURI and NICHOLAS DAWSON We are the exiles... [Image: Nicholas in Engineering, Dasouri at the helm of the SHARD] JULIA TIKOPAI And I am the Seeker. [Image: Julia's face, lit by candles, the stars of the Galaxy beyond] KLAIRIKA ALIDIAE We are the Rangers of the SHARD OF NIGHT, in this, the Earth Year 2267. [Image: The SHARD OF NIGHT enters, from the left...] JULIA TIKOPAI This is our story. [... before engaging darklight mode, and going into hyperspace.] S T A R A N D C I R C L E "T H E S E E K E R' S F I R E" * * * STAR AND CIRCLE created by David Goldingay * * * Legal Disclaimer: BABYLON 5, CRUSADE and all characters and situations thereof are the creations and copyrighted property of J. Michael Straczynski and Babylonian Productions. This series is a non-profit creation for the purposes of private entertainment only. Original characters and situations are copyright of the author, 1997-99. * * * <> ISAS SHARD OF NIGHT, February 13th, 2267. Early morning, ship's time. Captain's Log... It's now been over a month since the SHARD and my mother's destroyer parted ways... a month I've needed to try and put behind me what happened during that momentous few days when ships based on technologies created by two ancient enemies worked together for a common goal...and I first encountered that most mysterious of emotions... love. And also, the touch of another. I forced myself to say goodbye to him, but it was harder then I had thought it was going to be... seeing, at the end, the smile he gave me to remember him by, as we wandered away in seperate directions to walk amongst the dusty, abandoned and mysterious worlds of the Rim. And one of those mysteries walks with us as I write, and how many secrets does the Z'shailyl named Moreil hold behind those red eyes of his? Much of the crew does not trust him because of his past association with the Shadows and their various other servants... and because of that distrust, he's kept mostly to himself in that horned ship of his for the past few weeks, a ship we've kept tucked off in a mostly unused corner of the shuttlebay up near the starboard fighter launchpoint. Klairika, of course, was all for abandoning it right there and then when my mother's people threw it out the front end of the DE'MOLAY, but Nicholas and I argued otherwise, although for very different reasons. My chief engineer is *dying* to learn more about Shadow technology and how it works, you see. Jaiena Mithrush never took him on a tour of her ship, so now he's trying to inspect the 'poor man's' version of Shadowtech that's now lurking a hundred metres below my head and four hundred behind... Julia scowled, and raised the pen from the page in front of her. The crew *knew* never to interrupt her at this hour, who could this be? Just before sleep and just after was when the 'touch' of her Calling was always the strongest. "Yes?" she exclaimed, perhaps just a *little* too sharply for her own peace of mind. "Who is it?" The door slid open, revealing the light of the corridor beyond, and also a familiar and for now *unwanted* shape. "Moreil." she muttered. "So what brings you up from your scaly little nest?" The Z'shailyl grinned toothily as it entered the foyer. "Wisshed to discuss mattersss with you, Huntleaderr. Mattersss you may consider critical." "Why do you keep calling me that?" "Because it iss what you are, Sss-ulia." Moreil cryptically noted. "You hunt for cure to plague of Dark Onesss, and as Huntleaderr, you deserve to learn what it isss I have discovered from fragment of lost archive." "Please don't tell me you're *still* playing with the bits and pieces of that crystal that Aazhvar broke?" Moreil nodded, a trifle excitedly, she noted. "Your kind gave up too quickly for my tasstes, information they retrieved wass not complete. Have now spent many of your days attempting to unravell other bits and piecesss of the whole. Have discovered sssomething very important." "Which is?" Was he going to get to the point any time soon, she wondered? "Fragment of data revealsss location I recall learning about in my youth, mossst exciting thing, you sssee! Battle between the Dark Onesss and the Great Enemy was at its height in war before your Valen came, when civilization there wasss, named R'kaht. Loyal to the Enemy they were, and hard fighterss, but finally, the Mastersss chose to apply... lethal force against their new foes." "You mean the planetkiller, don't you?" "No," the Z'shailyl replied, "Not at firrsst, no! The Masters wished to punish their enemies instead, and fill them with chaos and pain. Plague they used..." "*The* plague?" she exclaimed, rising to her feet. "Perhapsss it iss the same one, yes." Moreil's brow furrowed then, however. "Curiousss legend about those times is thisss; the R'kaht did not die as easily as the Masters had intended them to, and while their numberss diminissshed, healthy some became... healthier then wasss deemed possible, and on the R'kaht did fight. Finally did the Masters lose patience, and a Fissst of Darkness was summoned, to finish the tasssk the Plague had begun." "Which may imply," she mused, "That these R'kaht either found a way to delay the action of the plague virus, or elliminate it completely, in at least a percentage of their population!" "Yesss!" Moreil agreed. "You have it, asss your kind sssays." "And you have the coordinates for their world?" "Roughly." the Z'shailyl admitted, after a moment. "Will have to ssearch a little, but legendsss describe world of R'kaht as umisstakable. When see it we do, they say, know it for their world, we will." "Which means what, exactly?" "Saying there is, included in legend of thiss place." Moreil straightened, then, much of the hissing in his speech vanishing as he concentrated. "Great Enemy named their allies this way; 'balanced between fire and ice, they are; of neither, and of all." "That's typically Vorlon, isn't it?" "Regrettably, yesss. Much information, but no clearnesss." "But it *is* a lead, isn't it?" "Yes. Well, I have done?" Moreil inquired, a glint of pride now visible in his eyes. "Helped you and your people, I have?" "That," she tartly replied, "Has *yet* to be seen. Now you have to convince the rest of my senior staff that this 'legend' of yours has a fragment of truth in it somewhere." "Ah, yesss..." Moreil sadly noted as Julia shooed him out the door so she could get properly dressed. "The greater of two evilsss." * * * "So close it seems," Klairika whispered, as she reached her hand out towards the glistening image of the EXCALIBUR that hung in the air in front of her. "And yet in truth, so far away." "Many light years away, yes." Larieken admitted, as he walked over towards his first officer's station to stand beside her. "But courtesy of Varsak's whisker array, we are able to view their activities nearly in real time, as long as they are relatively close to the hyperspace beacon network, and even if not, the individual elements of the array are more then capable of talking to one another in hyperspace." "To a degree. You do recall, however, the Chief Engineer's warning about their use in normal space, do you not?" The Minbari snorted. "The humans, as a whole, have applied *far* too much emphasis on the problems of this universe, and their... mania, shall we say, related to the speed of electromagnetic energy in this domain, while it has receded since the Centauri gave them jump technology, still remains far too active for my own tastes. Fear not, Na'lai: the way I have the array set up, realspace delays should *never* become an active concern." Rather abruptly, Klairika caught the Rangers at the back of the bridge straightening, and began to smile. "Our Mistress," she noted dryly, "Has arisen." "And the Z'shailyl walks with her." Larieken observed "Interesting. Do you suppose our careful, long distance pacing of the EXCALIBUR is about to end?" "Anything, as the humans say, is possible." * * * Again and again, the dream returned to her; the day she had begun her long run. The day a dream had died, wiped from her sight by fire created and by blood spilled... "What has happened here?" she exclaimed, as she passed through waves of confusion and fear. "Who has done this to us?" Brianna turned in the teeming corridor, a curious smile on her face. "You know the answer to that question, young one; the serpent has many heads... cut off one, and many more arise. *He* never learned that lesson, you know, as much as he tried to prove otherwise, he never learned a thing. And now it's too late for him, Sheynell; too late for so many of us. But not too late for you." "No!" She strode forward, and seized the other woman's gloved hand in her own. "I was the first to return; he sent me on ahead to contact you... you cannot ask me to leave! I am an officer of the Corps, my place is here, fighting to protect his telepaths!" "*His* telepaths?" Brianna skeptically replied. "They were never his telepaths, Sheynell, and now the others have come to destroy those he holds dear. You will leave this place... *now*." "You dare to give an order to me?" "WE dare, yes." was the reply, and involuntarily, she found that she'd retreated a step... for Brianna's eyes had glowed, if only for a moment. "You will leave this place, before it it too late. Your future is not here." "Who are you?" she gasped out. "*What* are you?" "A dream; a possibility... a means to an end." Brianna half-turned away, then. "We are done with you, and with this place. Face your destiny now, or not at all." A distant rumble shook the building then, and for the first time in a very long time, she knew fear. The enemy had entered their citadel of power, was there anywhere they couldn't go? *He* had said, not so long ago, that he would keep her safe, that she was the guardian of his dream. He had made her what she was today, but the dream? Was it dead, now and forever? Another face came to her then, that of the young female Ranger who had helped to save her on Babylon 5; and a memory, of a promise that had been made. The Ranger had approved of her actions, then, and while there were things she'd done that the Ranger had certainly *not* liked, the implication had been clear. Two paths lay before her...one to death and destruction, if she stayed, and the other? The other lay... elsewhere. She turned away from the growing chaos, and began to walk, and soon enough, the walk became a run, while behind her, the laughter of the woman who was Brianna Tolmanes, and also something else, filled the hallway. Filled her mind until she re-entered her small personal transport, and flung it skyward, away from that laughter. A sound that was only silenced when the horizon behind her lit up, brighter then the sun... With a cry, Sheynell arose into the conscious world, and the cry quickly became a gasp, a gasp that concealed bitter tears just below the surface. It had been *that* dream again; the memory of one of her greatest failures, and also one of her greatest losses. So *many* of the Corps had died that day, the day she'd started to run away from her past. The day a dream had died. The day the lies had begun. Repressing a violent shudder, she slowly walked over to the mirror in her quarters, and ran her hands back through her long blonde hair, the dark eyes below shadowed with remembered pain. There was so much they didn't know, so much she hadn't told them; but it was all for a very good reason, of course. Would they have accepted her so readily, if they'd known about the monstrous things she'd done, in the name of her former master? Would they have been so quick to approve of her, to name her Anla'shok, if they had known, if *he* had known that she'd been forced to abandon one of his dearest friends to the Fire? How Brianna had stood and laughed, as one of the Corps' greatest bastions had vanished in a nuclear pyre? No! There was no proof that had happened; she'd never seen it happen. Admittedly, Brianna and Lyta Alexander had been close at the end, and everyone knew what had happened to *her*... but there was no proof Brianna had died that day. Just as there was no proof that Bester was gone, either. Only rumours. It was then that the shimmering sound of the message-chime sounded through the air behind her, and Sheynell turned away from the mirror and her dark memories, and forced a smile onto her face. "Yes?" "I wasn't sure if you were awake, Sheynell; it's not quite the start of your shift, yet..." "You don't have to worry about that, Julia," she matter-of-factly replied. "I very rarely sleep deeply, nowadays, for some reason." Her captain sighed at that remark. "Shadows of the past coming back to roost, again?" "Perhaps. Now," she critically noted, adroitly switching topics, "Shall we return to the reason you called?" "Probably for the best, yes. If you're up to it, I wouldn't mind if you'd join the rest of us up on the bridge. Moreil's recovered what looks like a very interesting fragment of information from his wrecked crystal..." Sheynell yawned. "Oh, wonderful. Please tell it's not another long garbled report on Shadow troop movements? The last one he recovered gave me a headache when I tried to translate it." "Not quite, no." She winced, then, as a particularly *vivid* smile appeared on Julia's face; that always meant trouble. "What would you say if I told you the fragment seems to contain mention of a race that fought the effects of the Drakh plague, and may have won?" "That I definitely want to hear the rest of this in person." "That's what I thought you'd say." * * * Act I of "A Gallery of Whispers". Coming soon! http://www.connect.ab.ca/~dgolding/index.htm From: dgolding@connect.ab.ca Subject: STAR AND CIRCLE: "THE SEEKER'S FIRE"; EPISODE III, ACT I Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 13:27:00 "STAR AND CIRCLE: THE SEEKER'S FIRE" EPISODE THREE "A GALLERY OF WHISPERS" (disclaimers and associated descriptions in overture) * * * <> Bridge Level Conference Room; Feb 13th, 2267, 07:00 hrs, Ship's Time. "So what do you think?" Sheynell sighed, before drinking deeply from her morning cup of coffee, and turned her attention back to the commander of the battlecruiser SHARD OF NIGHT... a woman that seemed barely older then herself, *until* you looked into her eyes. She'd been right about a notion she'd begun to have in the last week or so, and this latest meeting with Julia only proved the point. While they were all Rangers, and thus the best at what they did, having serving members of four different Interstellar Alliance races on the same command-bridge sometimes created problems that no one, not even President Sheridan, could have forseen. It was becoming increasingly clear that Julia was finally beginning to miss the regular contacts with the other human Rangers she knew so well, and who could blame her for such a reaction? Larieken, while he protected her and was her friend, would not tell her certain things about his own past, and the same went for Klairika, while Dasouri could be so damnably *Drazi* at times. That left her... a telepath, a citizen of the Interstellar Alliance; but finally, a human being just like her. And because of this, a pattern was slowly establishing itself. Most mornings nowadays, the two of them would sit together at breakfast, and simply *talk* about things. Nothing critical and revealing, of course, for they both had their own fair share of secrets, but talk they did, regardless. Perhaps they would talk about the mission, or maybe a guess would emerge at where Matthew Gideon was going to take his ship next. Today however, that pattern had changed dramatically; today, Julia had skipped right by breakfast in her haste to follow a lead to what sounded like it might be a cure for the Drakh plague... "Let me see if I've got this straight," Sheynell mused, as Julia paced slowly back and forth between the window and the door. "Moreil's located a piece of Shadow history in this shattered crystal of his that *seems* to indicate these 'R'kaht' found a way to at least partially defeat the effects of the Drakh Plague." "Which is exactly why I invited Moreil to come up to the bridge this morning and coordinate the search for their world with Klairika and Dasouri. The area of space he's talking about contains only three numbered catalogue stars, and none of the Alliance races have ever been to them!" "If you don't mind me asking, how far away from the EXCALIBUR will the pursuance of this rumour take us?" The smile of anticipation faded from Julia's face, to be replaced by some small measure of anxiety. "Farther then I like, Sheynell. Whatever clues Captain Gideon and his crew are presently following, for at least a few days we're going to be hundreds of light years away from them, as things are measured in normal space." "And if the Drakh choose to attack them while we are diverted by this search for the R'kaht world?" "We have to hope that doesn't happen, and while our primary mission to protect them remains an active and ongoing concern, we must accept that another part of President Sheridan's orders will occasionally overrule that prime concern. If these R'kaht found a way to beat the plague, a method we can use to save the billions of humans and creatures back on Earth..." "Then recover it, we must." she replied, conceding the point. "How long is it going to take to reach the coordinates that Moreil has provided for us?" "Twenty-six hours at maximum burn." Julia ruefully admitted, as Sheynell quickly downed the last of her coffee, and tried not to grimace; it had gone cold, of course, during the discussion. "I sure hope this is worth the effort." she replied, as she rose from her seat, and began to drift slowly towards the door. "Because if we're on a wild goose chase, we're going an awfully long way on the word of an alien we can barely trust." * * * Elsewhere. A place of majesty, and of terror. "You understand what it is we want you to do, then." The other bowed. "We do. And though the hunt may be long and arduous, he and I have been preparing for this task... for some time now. We seek two great prizes, and if one cannot be claimed, then perhaps the other will fall to us." "Eventually." the first to speak reminded the second. "The Well has been whispering to us of the one named 'Seeker' for some time now, and only recently do I begin to understand the reasons for this. She is a pivot upon which destinies turn, a type of individual I never believed I would see again in my lifetime. Her kind walk among the stars as legend, and no few of them reside *here*, as you know. But it has been long since a *Sha'naktoweire* walked among the stars we know." "But now she has come upon us, and perhaps she will lead us to the prize we seek. Before the end." "Perhaps. Go now, before it is too late." Another bow. "I go. Primarch." * * * February 14th, 2267; 17:21 hrs, Ship's Time. "This," Julia muttered to no one in particular, "Is not good." Briefly, she cast a baleful gaze in the direction of her dark-robed 'ally', who had, for the better part of the last day, been using one of the spare science consoles in the rear hemisphere bridge... and it hadn't taken him that long to learn how to use it, either. In any case, Moreil had said very little since arriving on the bridge earlier in the daywatch, and as the first and then the second of the three stars nearest to the Z'shailyl's coordinates had revealed nothing more then orbiting gasballs and barren, sun-blasted worlds incapable of supporting life of any kind, he had sunk into what for his race appeared to be a melancholy silence. And now, soon enough, they would see whether there was anything orbiting the third star on their list... "We are approaching the biozone around Star Three, Val'na." Larieken reported, his expression as grim as any of the other crew; even he was starting to doubt the legend, to question the coordinates that Moreil had provided for them. "Stand by to jump to normal space." she wearily replied. "Jump engines coming online." Klairika reported from behind her, and Julia turned, and met met her XO's bleak gaze. She didn't believe in this legend at all, and soon enough, maybe the tale of the R'kaht would only be what it had seemed from the beginning... another false lead. "Let's get this over with." she said. "Take us in, Klairika." The Brakiri brusquely nodded, and passed her hand over the jump-crystals on her board. Mere seconds later, the familiar interdimensional tunnel of a jump point sprang into being ahead of them, and the SHARD fell through the discontinuity and back into normal space. And it was then that she rose to her feet, awestruck at the vision before her. Around the bridge, a number of the crew were heard to gasp, and for a very good reason, as the SHARD's main computer completed its scan of the local area, and then zeroed in on the *only* habitable world in the system. Although in this case, WORLDS was more accurate. "Is that... what I think it is?" "Yes!" Larieken replied, after a long, long moment. "Although I must note, in all the hundreds of years my people have travelled between the stars, a place such as this has never been found. Predicted, yes, but never found!" "The scientists of my race also have made similar predictions from time to time." Klairika commented. "I am... familiar with those predictions. A binary planet; the odds are against such a set of worlds ever forming, and yet, there they are!" "What was it you said to me, Moreil?" she noted, turning towards the Z'shailyl. "When see it we do, know it for their world, we will?" "Yesss. Balanced between fire and ice, thisss place iss, exactly as the legend describess." Moreil briefly turned away to converse with the Ranger in charge of the holoimager, and then, Julia, Klairika and a few of the others on the bridge gathered around it, as the image of the two worlds sprang into being. "Your analysis?" "This is a remarkable find." Larieken commented, as he analyzed the infomation the SHARD's whisker network was sending to its mothership. "The two worlds are close enough that they share a common atmosphere at the orbital pole, and also, their shape is not entirely *round* because of this closeness..." "It's a Rocheworld." a familiar voice drawled, and as one, everybody whirled to meet the openly curious, and *quite* surprised visage of Nicholas Dawson, who had just entered the bridge. "Damn! I never thought I'd see the day when we'd find one." "Why do you call it a 'Rocheworld', Mr. Dawson?" Julia inquired. "A long time ago, a human named Roche was the one, in our race at least, who was responsible for the theory of binary stellar interaction. And not *quite* so long ago, there was another man named Robert Forward who wrote a series of novels wherein a fictional crew of his found a place just like this; I've never read them, but I remember reading about his works in school. He called it..." "Rocheworld." Now she remembered. "Exactly." "AS I was saying," Larieken continued, casting a somewhat irritated gaze in the engineer's direction before he did so, "A remarkable find. One of the planets in the system appears to be a dead world, although, I will note, the deadness does not appear to be natural. Observe." The image blurred for a moment before it zoomed in on the larger and drier of the two planets, revealing thousands and thousands of craters, and also many active volcanoes. "Are those planetkiller strikes?" she asked the Minbari. "That would my guess, yes. The other member of the pair is over two thirds covered with water, although a great deal of that water is presently frozen." "So that one's in an ice age, right now." Larieken nodded. "You call them such, yes." "Well, well." she continued, as the crew resumed their stations, "It would appear that the legend of the R'kaht may be true after all. My congratulations, Moreil, on the success of your search." As the Z'shailyl bowed in her direction, Julia then shifted her attention to other, more critical concerns. "Klairika, bring us into orbit around the dry world's equatorial regions, and commence a search for ruins. If those R'kaht were as advanced as Moreil is suggesting, they were bound to have cities of some kind." "I will commence the search immediately. May I assume, Val'na, that we will be descending to the world below once we've located likely targets to explore?" "Yes, but not until we're fully rested. I don't want to have to deal with any of us making mistakes because of exhaustion." "And this time, you will be letting me take the explorer team to the surface, won't you?" She laughed, and rose from her seat. "Well I suppose it *is* your turn, isn't it?" "We do not want a repeat of what happened at Talangahta." Klairika dryly noted. "And as the captain of this vessel, your place is here." "I'll accept that argument... this time. Now, unless there's anything else?" Moreil cleared his throat. "Before you go, there is perhapsss one more thing you ssshould know; a part of the ancient his-ss-tory I did not feel important enough to mention until our arrival. A large percentage of the R'kaht population were sssaid to be Tainted Onesss..." "And what," she pointedly asked him, "Are Tainted Ones, Moreil?" "Like her." came the reply, as Moreil turned his full gaze towards Sheynell. "Telepathsss, you would say." * * * Later that evening. "Computer, activate personal log, begin recording." Sheynell ordered. "-Ready-" "Ever since I became Anla'shok, I knew this day would come." she began. "That there would come a time where I would be called upon to interact with telepaths from races other then the Minbari. For years, the Corps trained me to fear and hate those among the other Great Powers who were like us... and it wasn't until I reached Minbar that I knew this wasn't true. The Minbari, however, don't have any more telepaths then we do, as near as I can tell! Now, however, we've come upon a planet of the dead, and those dead were almost *all* telepaths. With that amount of mental power, a power they may have drawn upon to fight the Shadows and their plague, what might they have left behind the-" Darkness. "Lights." a voice said. Her voice. A man sat there, bound into a chair, his face haggard; she knew this man of course, had hunted him from the moment she'd become an officer of the Corps. Carlos Weintraub, P11 rogue, and terrorist. Her enemy, the telepath that Mr. Bester had sent her to capture. A test it had been, the hardest one yet, but she'd succeeded, of course. Failure had not been an option he would have accepted. "I see that you've woken up at last, Carlos..." she began, as she approached and then knelt beside him, fixing the taller man with a sharp, analytical gaze. "Your timing is, how shall I say it, ideal!" "Man, he must be getting pretty desperate these days, if he's down to using children as Bloodhounds..." Weintraub ground out, his eyes narrow with pain. "Are we pushing your master to the limit, Ms. Keynes? Have all his best been killed?" "I *am* his best." she coldly informed the rogue. "I caught you, and you are not the first. I have done things in his name that you and your kind cannot possibly comprehend. I have killed for him, Carlos; do not make me kill you." "You, kill me? With what, a..." "You... can't make me." Weintraub choked out, as a glint of fear finally appeared in his eyes. "You don't have the guts." "*I* don't have the guts?" she exclaimed. "It would appear that I must remind you, yet again, who I am! I am a loyal servant both of the Corps and Alfred Bester, and now, you will tell me their names. You will tell me their numbers, and you will tell where they are hiding. And you will do this *now*, or I will drag it out of you, and fry every one of your brain cells in the process!" Sheynell cried out involuntarily, and rose to her feet, her eyes wild. The nightmares were emerging into the conscious world, now... what could possibly be causing this? She whirled, but the room was quite empty. "What the..." A silvery laugh sounded through her mind. she cried out. Silence. Evidently whatever was down there had overextended itself, but equally obviously, it (or they) wanted very much to talk to her again. Sheynell slowly moved over to her bed and lay down on it, her thoughts in turmoil. She'd seen a few of the reports on the ruins below; cities there had been down there at one point, but everything had been destroyed when the planetkiller had come, so long ago... but then, an idea began to form in her mind. This mental force she'd just encountered, what if that was all that was left of the R'kaht race? If she was able to convince Julia to let her go down with Klairika to explore the ruins, maybe she could find this 'Whisperglass' and make contact with the R'kaht? Maybe they she would even be the one who would learn how they were able to defeat the plague... As she drifted off to sleep, suddenly exhausted, she realized that she like that idea *very* much indeed. * * * Feb 15th, 2267; 07:10 hrs. The Officer's 'Mess'. "Absolutely not!" Julia exclaimed, as she fixed her tactical officer with a furious glare, before sharply stabbed her fork into the remnants of breakfast. "I've already decided to send two of my senior staff down there, I will not go so far as to send three!" "Your arguments has merit, Val'na," Sheynell replied, as she forced herself to take on, once again, the coolness she had learned from her time in the Corps. "But I believe that before we descend, you should give me a moment to air my own opinions. I do not argue with your choice to send Klairika down to the surface with a team of Rangers, but I do not believe it prudent that Larieken accompany her down there..." "You want to replace him. May I ask why?" "Yesterday, Moreil told us that a large number of the R'kaht used to be telepaths. What if they've somehow left some sort of telepathic residue behind them in the ruins that only I can sense? There isn't anyone else onboard this ship that has my abilities, and I'm among the strongest telepaths in my generation, Julia; I assure you, if there is anything down there for me to sense, I will sense it." "I... see. And you believe Mr. Holm is capable of defending this vessel during your absence?" "I do. He's already proven himself in one major battle and several smaller skirmishes with Drakh scouts in the last month; I trust his combat senses implicitly. He will keep this ship safe while we're down below trying to find the clues we need to cure our people." Julia sighed. "I'm not going to change your mind about this, am I?" "Not in the slightest." "All right, okay!... you can go. Just be careful." "I will." Sheynell replied, as she rose from the table, and left the dining area. She managed to keep her face straight until she entered the corridor, but then, allowed a wide smile to appear. *Now*, she'd show all of them what she was capable of... "Keynesss." She whirled. "Moreil?" The Z'shailyl emerged from around the corner, and he appeared almost... displeased! "You have convinced your captain to let you go down to the sssurface, haven't you?" "How did you know that?" The Z'shailyl shrugged. "Asss your kind says, a good guessss; things to tell you, I have, now this choice you have made.... a third part of the legend there isss, for your earsss alone. After the world of their allies wasss destroyed, did the Great Enemy send Tainted Ones to make contact with any remnant force that remained. None who were sssent to thiss place returned to report their findings to the Enemy, those you call Vorlons. It seems clear that thisss place destroyed them in some way; that even though they were allies of the Murdered Ones, something in this place rejected and then destroyed them." "If you are trying to make me change my mind, Moreil, you may as well stop now. I'm going down there, and I'm going to make a difference." Moreil sighed. "Listen to me you will not; ssso be it. Remember only thisss, telepath; beware the voicesss you may hear in this place. Draw you in they may with wordsss of welcome, but the welcome hidesss the hate beneath, the hate that may try to destroy you. Warned you I have, I can do nothing more." "I will return to prove you wrong, Moreil." she told him, before turning sharply away, and striding down the corridor. "We sshall see." * * * http://www.connect.ab.ca/~dgolding/index.htm From: dgolding@connect.ab.ca Subject: STAR AND CIRCLE: "THE SEEKER'S FIRE", EPISODE III, ACT II Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 22:25:48 "STAR AND CIRCLE: THE SEEKER'S FIRE" EPISODE THREE "A GALLERY OF WHISPERS" (disclaimers and associated descriptions in overture) * * * <> We remember the R'kaht. We remember their great sacrifice, what it was they did, and why. We have heard of their Whisperglass, heard of the legend, but the few we were able to save after the fact would not tell us of its location... would not even tell us where their world had been, when destroyed it was by the Darkness. Their home, taken from them by force, so long ago. Rare this is, unusual enough that we took notice; momentous enough that the Well itself paid heed. Now, we have been sent in pursuit of a vessel that cannot be seen by most. And while this is as true for us as it is for the others, trace it we can. And the method we *use* to trace it is not a normal one. Even for our kind. * * * February 15th, 2267; 09:05 hrs. Almost silently, two portions of the SHARD OF NIGHT's outer hull slid apart at a spoken command, and a moment later, another command cast three violet fighters out into the vacuum of space, fighters that faded from sight a moment later as their pilots concealed their charges from plain view. While shortly thereafter, the two small transports those pilots had been assigned to protect emerged from the battlecruiser's launchpoints, their surface target long since chosen. It was then that Sheynell decided she just had to ask the question which had been bugging her since the moment they'd begun preparing for the descent. "Why," she asked her first officer "Are you so glum? Is something about this mission bothering you?" The Brakiri turned towards her then, her eyes narrowed, and nodded, as the atmosphere began to buffet the small Ranger craft. "Something? I would rather say *everything* about this mission bothers me, Sheynell! This world is a house of spirits, a memory of a darkness long undisturbed... a convergence I do not willingly walk into, even though I must. As if this were not bad enough, that *other* world hangs over this place like a weight upon the soul. So close it is, and even though I understand the theory, I cannot escape from the feeling that it is about to fall on us all." "You didn't have to volunteer to lead the mission, you know." "You are wrong in that." Klairika ground out, her words precise, the anger behind them barely held in check. "You know that if I had not volunteered to lead the mission, *she* would have descended in my place! I could not allow that to happen, not this time!" "No. Of course not." "And what of you, Sheynell?" came the next, penetrating question. "Word of the Z'shailyl's warning has reached even me. Why did you insist on replacing Larieken, if you know this place holds danger for you?" "I... I guess I'd just like to show her and the rest that I'm good for something more then firing a gun, if you know what I mean? That being what I am can make a difference." "But has it not already?" "Compared to the chance of contacting whatever the R'kaht may have left behind them," she shot back, "Capturing a saboteur isn't much of a challenge, you know." "And you believe that there *is* something down there for you to contact, then?" "Yes..." she breathed out, as the transport's course began to level out over the barren wastes below them. "I'm sure of it." "Are you, now?" At that point, Klairika turned her attention to a matter that was rapidly becoming more critical the lower they went. "The time is drawing near for us to pick a place to land; will you assist me in this?" "Love to." * * * Millions of kilometers above the plane of the R'kaht system, a flicker of light appeared, a shimmer that could not be seen from below, for it was pointed *away* from the twin worlds and the warship presently orbiting their far side. A flicker that shimmered for a moment, before expanding into the maw of a tiny, extremely focused jump point. Out of this point came two ships, one slightly larger then the other. These ships were known and feared by all the races of known space, but for the wrong reasons. Coiled and spiked they were, and the hands that guided their course were full of purpose. Though not the purpose normally associated with such vessels. At least not yet. "They are here." "Yes. You were expecting otherwise?" "What do you suppose they would say if they knew we had been following them?" The Eldermost of the two sighed. "They would undoubtedly be upset that their cloak of light and darknesss had been pierced. Some among them would have cause to believe we were hunting *them*. Of course, they would be wrong. For now, that is." The other conceded the point. "As you say. Has the Sha'nahktoweire spoken to you, yet?" "He has, and does not approve of our intent. Young she is, he says, and many years there are ahead of her... which is the truth, in its own way. Why do we hunt her, he asks? She is too young, she is not close to death; she has not yet attained the height of her greatness. And what do we intend?" "All these things are true, and yet, he misses the point, as is usual for his kind. I will assume you informed him of his error?" "Yes. And while he is displeased we have used her in this fashion, he now understands his mistakes." Both paused, then, and turned their attentions towards the worlds below. "Do you not sense it?" the Younger exclaimed. A longer one. "*Yes*. It is here, concealed from us; it will not be easy to find, but now we are here, now that the Sha'naktoweire who is mistress of the vessel below has guided us to this place, we will find it. It is inevitable." "Yes. A great task this is that the Primarch has set upon us, but a necessary one. *Think* of the souls within the Whisperglass, trapped by their ancient mistakes. We must save them." "Have patience, young one. That time will come soon enough." * * * 10:35 hrs, Ship's Time. It had been a city, once. The world it had stood upon had been a living, breathing world... until the screaming missiles of a Shadow planetkiller had rent the crust asunder in thousands of places, bringing chaos, fire and ruin to the world of the R'kaht. Now, their city was only a monument to that chaos, but *what* a monument, Sheynell thought, as she slowly twirled on one heel, her eyes wide with wonder. As far as she could see, great fingers of latticed silvery rock reached towards the heavens, their tops torn away, their bulk clear evidence of how high they must once have reached. In between those great murdered monoliths, the shattered ruins of thousands of smaller buildings could be seen, the destruction clear and present evidence of the earth-shattering quakes that must have shook the city when he Planetkiller's missiles had exploded miles beneath the surface of the world. "Where do we begin?" Klairika mused, as a gust of hot wind blew across the cracked stones at their feet, an echo of the distant range of volcanoes that painted ash across the northern sky. "It's so..." "Big?" "Enormous. If you pulled together every city on the surface of Brakir and put it one spot, the resulting congregation would not come close to EQUALING this one. How many of these R'kaht could there have been, to build such a place as this?" the voice informed her, and she smiled. "A lot, I imagine. And the Shadows murdered them, because they dared to stand at the side of the Vorlons..." "While the Drakh tried to do the same to your people, because they committed the crime of banishing those very Masters." Klairika straightened. "Enough talk; we must begin to search for clues to this 'cure' the R'kaht may have found to the Drakh plague." the voice insisted. "Whatever we do, we'd better hurry," she repied, while doing her best to ignore the thumping of her heart, so excited was she at the strength of the contact. For now, it was best not to make Klairika suspicious, though, so she turned towards the vast, white and blue misty crescent of the R'kaht binary companion, its arc filling the sky below the white blaze of the sun. "Agreed. We would only seem to have about four hours until the R'kaht companion eclipses the sun," Klairika observed. "May I suggest you take half of our team into that complex over there, while I take the rest to explore the tower behind us?" "Sounds like a good idea. Shall we?" "Make sure, however," the other Ranger warned, "That you and your followers return to the shuttles before total eclipse begins. We do not know what dangers this place holds once darkness falls." "Not a problem; see you then!" Even as she turned away, she winced at those words, and at the reason the lie had been given. Another lie, to add to the rest, but a necessary one, this time. she asked the waiting voice. the voice from the past gravely informed her. Silence. It didn't matter though, she supposed, as she calmly walked through the ruins towards the pillared hulk ahead, the rest of her team close behind; she already knew what she had to do. And even though there would be a price to pay for it afterwards, what was that compared to the prize she might win? * * * 14:07 hrs, Ship's Time. "This tower," one of the Rangers noted with some trepidation, "Is swaying." "Mr. Cradoach," Klairika noted, "If you were the same age as the tower, you would probably also be swaying." The other Rangers laughed, and the tension in the air, which had almost been thick enough to cut, finally faded away... which, of course, had been her intention all along. "Nevertheless, he makes a good point, gentlemen; going any higher up probably isn't that good of an idea, especially since there doesn't appear to be anything in here but ash and a lot of dust..." With a sigh, she raised the communicator to her mouth. "This is Alidiae. Go ahead." "Na'lai, this is Anla'shok Ellis. We've got a problem." "Miss Ellis, some *expansion* on that would appear to be necessary." "Ah, yes, ma'am! We were following Anla'shok Keynes in exploring the interior of this place when she just, uh, disappeared!" "Disappeared?" Klairika dryly inquired. "As in, into thin air, as your kind says?" "Yes! One moment she was there in front of us, and then, suddenly she wasn't!" Klairika spat a curse in her native tongue, then, as she realized that Courtney Ellis was being absolutely serious. "I *see*." she frostily replied. "Very well, then; you and the rest of her team are instructed to pull back to the landing area at once." "But...!" "This is *not* a discussion!" she sternly informed the younger Ranger. "You will pull back NOW, Anla'shok Ellis! We are less then half a standard hour away from an eclipse that will plunge this entire city into darkness, and I do not wish to lose any more of my Rangers to unseen dangers you may stumble across in that darkness. Do I make myself clear?" "You do." Ellis sullenly replied. "Signing off." Klairika let out a long breath, then. What Sheynell had done had been a classic telepath's trick, but why, in Valen's Name, *had* she done it? Why had she abandoned her team and gone against one of the most important codes of Ranger discipline, that never, ever, did you abandon your cadre members in a place of danger? She had her suspicions about why... and none of them were good. Nevertheless, there was a still a way to find Sheynell, a way that not even her telepathic abilities could disrupt. "This is Na'lai Alidiae to SHARD OF NIGHT." * * * "Do you not sense it? The moment draws near. The moment we have been waiting for!" "Yes..." * * * "What did you tell her?" Julia furiously exclaimed, as Moreil, accompanied by an equally grim-faced Larieken, entered the conference chamber. "What did you say to her, that she would do a thing like this?" "I?" the Z'shailyl angrily spat. "I, as you now reali-ss-ze, warned her againssst descending to the world below! Warned her I did that thisss place was dangerous, but listen to me, ssshe did not. Voices she hasss heard, I believe, voices that have summoned her to a place of danger." "You are supposed to be our ally," she reminded him. "And that role does not involve keeping your own council when the safety of one of my senior officers is in doubt!" Moreil shrugged. "Difference, would not have made, Huntleaderrr. Your telepath would have found way to sssurface even if permission you had not given." "The point is a moot one, in any case," Julia reminded him, as together with Moreil, she stepped back onto the bridge, Larieken close behind them. "My errant tactical officer seems to have forgotten that we can locate her with a precision of millimetres from up here in orbit..." "Thisss may be true," Moreil noted, "But hurry your Rangers mussst, along paths they know not. Keynesss was summoned, I believe, and would not have problems finding what she sseeks." "And what might that be?" "Anssswers." * * * The path spiralled down into darkness, but up ahead, a beam of light could be seen, rapidly narrowing now as the limb of the R'kaht companion bit ever farther into the sun. the voice insisted; although, all things considered, it seemed to be voices now, instead! she replied, too calmly for her own peace of mind. Finally, the end of the path appeared, and she stepped out onto the floor of the chamber... the very heart of the massive building that she'd taken her team into; the team she'd later abandoned in her haste to reach this place. The answers were here, ALL the answers that Julia and the rest were seeking! And she was the only one who could do this thing; the only one who could make contact with the force that lived here, still. she cried out. the voice reasonably replied. Suddenly understanding, her eyes came to rest on the beam of light cast on the floor... and the circle of crystal that lay there, slightly highter then the obsidian-black floor around it. the warning came. Suddenly, the voice sharpened, as the beam of light cast upon the crystal shrank towards extinction. Sheynell took a deep breath, as the bead of light flickered, and began to fade away. And then, she stepped onto the crystal surface... and looked down. Only then, did she begin to tremble, because... Because it had begun to GLOW. she cried out. one voice told her. another noted. a malicious whisper explained. all the voices cried together, and Sheynell flinched as the glow beneath her intensified into an intolerable glare. And then screamed, as a massive telepathic shockwave swept through her, and dragged her down into the darkness. * * * To be (definitely!) continued! http://www.connect.ab.ca/~dgolding/index.htm From: dgolding@connect.ab.ca Subject: STAR AND CIRCLE: "THE SEEKER'S FIRE", EPISODE III, ACT III Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 23:04:51 "STAR AND CIRCLE: THE SEEKER'S FIRE" EPISODE THREE "A GALLERY OF WHISPERS" (disclaimers and associated descriptions in overture) * * * <> Darkness came to the great city of the R'kaht, and several rather interesting things accompanied that darkness. * * * The SHARD OF NIGHT; the moment before total eclipse. "I cannot understand what she might have been thinking." Larieken mused, as he turned towards his captain. "All the Anla'shok aboard this vessel have guide-crystals implanted in locations from which they cannot easily be dislodged. As a result, we can, as you implied a few minutes ago, acquire her exact location within the ruins any time we wish to. She knew we could this, Val'na, why, then, did she choose to hide herself from her team?" "It gained her a few precious minutes to act, Larieken..." Julia noted with some irritation, as the Minbari gestured into being an image of the city below and zoomed in on the complex that Sheynell and her team had entered a short time earlier. "Courtney Ellis was *just* indecisive enough not to call Klairika immediately about this matter, and now the other R'kaht world is plunging that city into darkness..." It was then that a warning chime sounded on the bridge, of course, and a perplexed Larieken watched as the holoplot in front of him briefly dissolved into static, before returning somewhat... altered. "In Valen's Name! What is this?" "What's going on?" "An enormous energy source has just appeared in the heart of the ruins." Larieken calmly noted, although the calm appeared to be somewhat forced. "As near as I can tell, Anla'shok Keynes was at what your kind calls 'ground zero' when the energy source appeared." "Damn!" she exclaimed. "This is the SHARD to Na'lai Alidiae. If you able..." "This is Alidiae. Go ahead." "Klairika; what's your status?" "It is a good thing that we retreated to a place of redoubt when we did," the Brakiri replied, more then a little tersely. "A rather significant quake shook the city when total eclipse began, and several of the nearby towers have actually collapsed. On top of which, the ruined building in which we lost Anla'shok Keynes is now, ah... Glowing." "Glowing?" "Glowing, yes. And brightly enough that we should be able to conduct a search during the time of darkness without any difficulty whatsoever. Do you wish us to begin that search, Val'na?" Julia sighed; this was *so* frustrating, but for now, the need to find out what had happened to Sheynell was overcoming the worry of why the building was glowing. It probably had something to do with her tactical officer, in any case. "Take three Rangers you trust implicitly and try and find her, Klairika. And if you can get her out of whatever it is she's gotten herself into, then all the better." "And if we cannot?" "Then let's hope she can get herself out of this mess without blowing up the whole city in the process. SHARD OF NIGHT out." Julia then turned her attention back towards a still waiting Larieken. "Is there something else?" The Minbari nodded gravely. "There is ONE other matter I wish to discuss with you at this time." "And that would be?" "I do not believe that we are alone in this place." "May I assume you have some sort of evidence to support this hypothesis of yours?" she critically inquired. Larieken gave her a 'this is *me* we're talking about' look at that point. "Yes. If you will observe these sensor records... * * * On the Whisperglass. The moment of shock and terror passed, and when it did, Sheynell gathered her thoughts, and began to critically observe what it was she was experiencing, although, all things considered, what she was experiencing could not be reality. The flare of light that had come from the Whisperglass had blinded her at the same time the telepathic shock had hit her, and now, she appeared to be drifting through a latticework of light, the individual beads of which extended... how far? To infinity? she cried out. One of the beads of light abruptly left the latticework, and drew close to her. -smile/tenderness/sadness- -concern- There was a flare of sensory disruption, and then the latticework was gone, and she found herself standing on a broad terrace beneath a blazing sun. Behind her, hundreds of silvery spires reached for the heavens, and tiny craft buzzed through the skies in an uncountable multitude. "This was the way it was." the voice continued, and Sheynell slowly turned away from the vista to meet the gaze of a tall, silvery-skinned being, its two compound-eyes glittering in the bright sunlight. "Before the Darkness came. Before the Plague." "It's beautiful." she managed, before lowering her gaze. "It *was* beautiful. I'm sorry." "Please, do not be! It was our decision to ally ourselves with the ones you know as Vorlons, and our decision to fight against the Darkness. The only mistake we made, child, was to not find other allies like ourselves. We believed that with the Vorlons to aid us, we could defeat the Darkness and their creatures. We were wrong." She nodded dejectedly. "They tried to kill you with the plague, and then, when that didn't work to their satisfaction, they destroyed your civilization with one of their planetkillers." Willein inclined his head. "That is more or less accurate, yes. Some of us survived, only to be destroyed without mercy. So much time, we wasted..." "Please! I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't know how much time I've got to talk to you, here..." "Not as long as I would wish." the other admitted. "Then I must come to the point, Willein. As you probably know by now, I belong to a race named humanity, a race that has recently fought in the latest war of Darkness to plague this galaxy... the last, we hope." "Last?" Willein exclaimed. "The Darkness is gone?" "Yes. And the ones we know of as Vorlons, as well." The R'kaht sighed explosively. "I wish there was time to discuss this matter more closely, but since there is not, we must press on to deal with more critical concerns. I can sense that you have a more question to ask, young one. Since you are the first to properly contact us in so very long, ask your question. Answer it I will, to the best of my ability." "The servants of the Darkness, ones we know of as Drakh, have cast upon my people the same plague that they cast upon you. Willein, I must know what method you used to defeat their plague, and if it can be used to aid my people! Can you aid us?" Willein sighed again, and then grew sorrowful. "I wish it were that simple, young one, but it is not. Defeated the plague we did, but not without paying a great price. A story I must tell you of the ending of our days, so that you might understand what it is we did, and why. And also, what it is we ask of you on this day, and at this time." "I'm not going to like this story, am I?" The R'kaht shook his head. "I do not believe so, no." * * * The nearer they got to the heart of the ruins, the louder the vibration grew, and the brighter the glow became. Finally, Klairika had to shield her eyes as she emerged into the vast central space at the bottom of the ruin, the Rangers accompanying her close behind. At the exact center of the chamber, a circle of *something* blazed on the otherwise black floor, surrounded by a chamber-high veil of blue light, while ON the circle... Klairika ground her teeth in irritation as she stepped off the ramp and approached the shimmering veil of light. Sheynell was standing on that fiery circle, her eyes wide and pupils fully dilated, her mouth slightly open, her arms and fingers outstretched; almost... enthralled, she appeared. Whatever this thing was, it had probably drawn her here against her will, and now, it was clear they had to get her off the circle as quickly as possible. Shaking her head, she then attempted to reach out to grab her new friend... And cried out in shock and pain as the blue veil of light surrounding Sheynell quite thoroughly decided it wasn't going to let her through. "Klairika!" Julia exclaimed from high above. "Are you all right?" "We," she replied a moment later, while rubbing her still-buzzing arm, "Would appear to have a larger problem then we previously thought. May I suggest you join me down here as soon as possible?" "I'll be on my way down shortly. For now however, I think you and your team should keep keep your eyes open for other intruders in the ruins. Larieken's just shown me some evidence that suggests something, or even *several* somethings, may have entered the system a short while ago..." * * * Elsewhere, but quite close. "Look what the *human* has done!" the younger of the two Watchers exclaimed. "Exactly at the moment we intended to act, the human female interfered!" "Yes." the Elder replied. And although the Elder was just as annoyed as his companion was, a dozen centuries of duty in the name of his Primarch had given him a *somewhat* greater measure of reserve. Hence, the annoyance did not show. "Although I suspect the R'kaht within the Whisperglass drew her to this place with... promises." "Promises?" "Yes. As you know, the ones on the ship above are not here merely by chance. They are hunting for a cure to the nano-disease that afflicts the world of the humans." "And they thought to find such a cure here?" his now-appalled companion replied. "Do they not understand?" The Elder sighed. "The humans are too young to understand, their lives too ephemeral. And she is a telepath... a strong one, for their kind." "This may ruin *everything*!" "Yes, it may indeed. But now that this has happened, we can do nothing else but observe the end result. You understand why this must be so, do you not?" "Yes. The Primarch has ordered it so, because of the greater concerns involving the fate of the newborn Sha'naktoweire that commands the ship above. And if we do not obey the Primarch in this..." "Then there is every chance we may never see Cathedral again. It is good that you understand." * * * On the Whisperglass. "There-and-back, you said, before I stepped onto the glass." Sheynell recalled, as Willein sat himself down on the long stone bench that ran along the edge of the terrace. "What did you mean by that?" "Desperate we were to find a cure to the nanovirus the Enemy had cast upon us," came his reply. "And our warriors were equally determined to continue the war against the Darkness. Compromises we made, for unlike your kind, the virus was adapting itself rapidly in our case, and in no more then three or so of your years, we would all be dead. We decided that this was unacceptable, and luckily, or so we believed at the time, one of our scientists had developed a process that we thought might be able to erase the nanovirus from our bodies, and allow us to continue our struggle." "And that would be?" "You are standing on it." was the R'kaht's reply. "What? You mean the Whisperglass?" "Indeed. The process I mentioned a moment ago, there-and-back, did exactly what the title implies. Each and every R'kaht, in their turn, stepped onto the glass and allowed their essence to be transferred into the crystal... and then back, while the crystal purified and cleaned their bodies of the invasive force. It took a very long time, many months you would say, but eventually, the process was concluded." "And it *worked*?" Willein sighed. "More or less." Uh-oh, here it came. "Something went wrong, didn't it?" "Yes. At the time we fought the Darkness, there were many of my people living on these worlds, primarily on this one, for it was the one upon which we first appeared. Out of that many, all of which stepped upon this glass, most were returned to their bodies, the healing complete. Over four of your millions, however, did not." "Why?" Willein shrugged. "We do not know why, only that when the machine attempted to return us to our bodies, we could not escape from the crystal. A 'minor' technicality, the scientists termed it; if the rest of our people could be cured to continue the struggle, could we not afford to pay the price we were paying?" "And you kept doing it..." Sheynell whispered, as she paused to wipe away the tear that had appeared, almost as if by magic, on her cheek. "You were so determined to fight the Shadows that you kept on stepping on this damned glass, right down to the last man, woman and child?" "Yes. And therein lies our present concern. Thousands of years have now passed since the Dark One's great weapon swept this world with fire and murdered the rest of my people, but, in a stroke of fate, their missiles did not destroy the glass..." "And you've all been trapped here since then?" "You have it." At that point, Willein's expression became more critical. "And now, if you are to help us, it must be now. We have sensed another force drawing near, a force that while it means to aid us, would seek to place us in a prison no different from the one we find ourselves in now." In a moment of realization, she realized what it was he was talkng about. "Soul Hunters. You're talking about Soul Hunters, aren't you?" A brief whisper passed through her, and the R'kaht nodded. "So you call them, yes. About to strike they were, when we summoned you to this place. Some among us did not mean you well, but the greater, conservative majority silenced them and held them in check... but I do not know how long this will last. And what is worse is this: it would appear that the source which powers this device is also beginning to wane. If we do not do something soon, we may all perish, trapped in this glass prison. Will you help us, Sheynell Keynes of Earth? Will you help us to escape from the ones named Soul Hunters? Will you free us from this dying tomb?" "What do you want me to do?" "Though you are different then us, the machine has treated you no different in one way." Willein explained. "You have begun the journey there- and-back; the only thing that is stopping that journey is our interference." At that she shuddered, as her worldview abruptly spun around her. "You're not... you're not trying to tell me that my body's on the glass, and my soul's in here, are you?" Willein shrugged. "What is, is. You are here, talking to me. Where do you believe 'here' is?" "But... but what if I can't get out!" she just about shrieked. "I'd be trapped here forever, like the rest of you!" "We do not believe that is a likely outcome. You are not our kind, and the machine is not tuned to your race's... patterns. When release you we do, we believe that you will complete the journey, and return to your body unharmed. Because of your differences, however, and the sheer strength of your telepathy, it is the... judgement of all that the glass will shatter, and that we *should* be able to escape." "Should?" "Yes." Willein declared, as he suddenly strode forward and grasped her hands in his. "Should. This is the reason we summoned you here, the reason we plotted to summon your essence into this place, so we could talk to you... and reason with you. You are our final hope, Sheynell Keynes of Earth. Help us now, or not at all." * * * The SHARD OF NIGHT. "Captain!" Nicholas exclaimed, as he burst into the shuttlebay, "Wait! Before you go, I've got to tell you something. Lesaki and I have just discovered something that you should know about..." "Mr. Dawson!" she icily noted, "I simply do not have time for this at the moment. One of my senior officers is in terrible danger..." "One?" Nicholas ground out. "Sorry to burst your bubble, Captain, but it's more then one. And unless we get everyone off the surface, pronto, they're all gonna be in terrible danger, *trust* me on this one." "What do you mean?" "Well, you know that polite little iceball just next door? Well, it's not nearly so polite as we thought. To be succinct, Captain, looks like it's about to have a temper tantrum, actually." * * * To be continued! http://www.connect.ab.ca/~dgolding/index.htm From: dgolding@connect.ab.ca Subject: STAR AND CIRCLE: "THE SEEKER'S FIRE", EPISODE III, ACT IV Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:38:55 STAR AND CIRCLE: "THE SEEKER'S FIRE" EPISODE THREE "A GALLERY OF WHISPERS" (disclaimers and associated descriptions in overture) * * * <> In the shadows above the Whisperglass, the two who had come here unseen continued their observance. Their ships were perfectly safe, and would not be found by the ship of war above, this they knew. There was more then sufficient time to observe the final move in this ancient game, and while both were disappointed in the outcome, watch they would, regardless. And learn. "Summarize for me what you have learned in this place, while we wait for this matter to conclude." The younger Soul Hunter, a Fhedayar, nodded and began to speak... but softly, so the humans below, intent though they were upon saving their comrade, would not hear. "The human telepath before us was drawn to stand upon the R'kaht Whisperglass by forces she did not and could not understand, but wanted to contact... for her own race has been placed in mortal danger by the same enemies these brave people fought, so long ago. >From what we know of this device, it was designed to briefly capture the souls of those who stood upon it while their bodies were cleansed, and would then return those souls safely to their homes. At least that was the theory. In practice, the truth of the matter was somewhat different; some of those who entered the glass did not return. When first I learned we were coming to this place, following the trail that *she* laid down before us, I thought to save those souls, but we did not arrive in time to make a difference." "This is true." The older of the two, a Praetor Questus as he was known, paused for a moment, then, to gather his thoughts. "And now, I believe that the end of this matter is close at hand, even though the means to that end have not as yet been accomplished." "So it may be..." the Fhedayar replied, his gaze intent. "I should have seen it from the beginning; the R'kaht have drawn the soul of the human telepath into their crystal, and are holding her in place. Was this done so they might converse with her?" A nod. "Such is often the wish of trapped congregations, yes, to speak to the one who reaches out to them in their greatest moment of need. Occasionally the visitor is destroyed by this action, but most often the one drawn into the artifact is strong enough to survive. And rarely, that one is strong enough to destroy the artifact, and free the trapped souls within." "As would seem to be the case in this time, and this place." the Fhedayar ruefully added, a moment later. The Praetor Questus settled silently down into the rubble, his gaze intent upon the figure and the blazing circle below. "Perhaps. We shall see whether or not this is true, soon enough." * * * On the Whisperglass. "The timing could not be more fortunate," the R'kaht that called itself Willein explained, as a now-tentative Sheynell tried to figure out if there was any other way she could get out of this... if there was a way to avoid making the trip there-and-back, and taking the chance she might also be trapped by the minute yet jarring flaw in the machine named the Whisperglass. A machine that was running out of power; could, in fact, be about to deactivate any time now! "We were running out of time, and then, when least expected, you appeared to aid us." "But... but if I do this thing," she exclaimed, "If I travel the full path and return to my body, the glass will shatter, you said. Won't that destroy the machine?" Willein emphatically nodded. "Destroyed, it will be, yes... for all time. But save us, you will!" "There must be another way!" she insisted. "This technology could be used to help heal my own race of the plague! We could study it, take it apart, figure out how it works, figure out a way to free you safely without destroying it..." "I wish this could be so," the R'kaht regretfully replied, "But there is no time for such luxuries, no time to remove the glass and its support structure to your ship. The source is failing, young one, and only the will of the All is keeping you suspended between -there- and -here-. They grow restless for release, and if you do not act soon, the ones who wish you harm may escape from our control. If this happens, then we will *all* be doomed. You must free us now, human, or not at all. Free us now, or suffer our fate... and worse. Free us now and return to your own people with a final warning, a warning they *must* heed at all costs. The protection this place had is now gone, the time of the Final Reckoning draws near." "What?" "I will explain; there is yet time for such an explanation, even though the end of our Contact draws near. But after I have told you what I must, the decision you must make. To leave and save us, or stay and die." What a choice. There was no choice at all, really, when it came down to it. "Say your piece, Willein." she replied. "I will hear your words, consider them, and then make my decision." "As it should be..." * * * The chamber of the Whisperglass. "That was quick," Klairika remarked, as Julia and her small party of Rangers entered the central chamber at a run. "Please tell me that you didn't damage the transport on the way down, in setting your record time of descent?" "It's a little... warm," she managed, as she looked somewhat hopelessly in Sheynell's direction, to see her still standing on the circle of glass, still communing with whatever force had drawn her to this place. "But it'll survive. What's the situation here?" "There have been momentary disruptions in the electromagnetic field surrounding the Glass in the last twenty standard minutes, and the disruptions are becoming more frequent, almost as if the force powering this complex is beginning to falter." "Good." she replied, as they walked closer to the edge of the forbidden zone. "At least Sheynell appears to be unharmed. Whatever this thing's doing to her, it doesn't appear to be hurting her in any way." "That remains to be seen." Klairika replied. "If her telepathic abilities have been damaged, we will not know until she returns to us." Julia nodded. "I didn't want to say it, but you may be right about that." The Brakiri smiled, somewhat regretfully. "This time, I wish I hadn't been, but we have to do something soon, and now that you are here, the choice of methods is yours. Command us." "All right, let's..." "Val'na!" another of the Rangers in the chamber exclaimed. "There's a message coming in from the SHARD OF NIGHT for you." "That would be Mr. Dawson again, I suppose." she noted with a sigh. "Just before I left, he ran into the hangar bay wanting to tell me something, and called us four times on the way down..." "You should have answered him, you know." "I know I should have, but I was worried about Sheynell!" "Sometimes, we let our worries take control, and ignore the things we should not." Klairika gently, but firmly informed her. "His persistence would seem to indicate the matter he is concerned about is one you should *also* be concerned about. Perhaps you should call him, and find out what this is all about." A mild rebuke, that had been, but it was a good job the chamber was as dark as it was, as Julia turned away from her First to hide her embarassment. "You're right, of course; perhaps I should. Val'na Tikopai to SHARD OF NIGHT..." It was then, however, that a strong tremblor swept through the ruins, and all of the Rangers immediately found cover as a storm of dust and no few fragments of rock dislodged from the partially shattered ceiling, high above. And a moment after that, when something completely unexpected and extraordinary occured. * * * "You understand the warning, then, and the danger?" "I *DO*!" a suddenly frightened Sheynell replied. "Whatever it is we have to do, we have to do it now!" "Indeed. And as such, I am afraid we must now take our leave of one another. I am sorry that we could not help you with the problem of curing your race, but there is no more time for discussion, for any of us." Willein straightened, then. "I do not know what form we will take on the journey we are about to begin, but know that forevermore, you will now be known as the one who set us *free* from this place." She force her trembling lip into a smile. "Okay, Willein, let's do this, okay? Before I change my mind?" "It shall be as you wish." Willein paused, then, as if receiving instruction, and then, he smiled. "The others wished to give you a parting gift before the moment came, and I concur. In the ages yet to come, we shall think back on this day, and wish the gift could have been greater." "Wait!" she cried out, as the vision of the city began to dissolve. "WHAT gift? What are you talking about?" "The moment COMES, Wanderer. Farewell." She felt it when they let her go... and it felt like dropping from the top of a mountain, and worse, and there *was* a bottom, and a moment of crystalline pain, before the rebound began, like the worst upward elevator ride she'd ever experienced, and more. And then... * * * Julia, and all the other Rangers in the chamber, watched with no small astonishment at that moment as the screen of energy around Sheynell abruptly flickered and died. Watched as their tactical officer came back to herself, and began to step foward, off of the crystal surface. And watched as behind Sheynell's feet, the crystal surface abruptly began to shatter... And then, ALL of them jumped as a brilliant, purple-blue stream of energy and purpose flared out from the shattering Whisperglass, passing in an urgent stream around and seemingly *through* Sheynell's figure. The telepath looked up as the river of light began to dissipate, the individual threads beginning to go their seperate ways. And they all heard her say one word, then, a word both unexpected, and understandable, as the last ones finally faded from sight. "Goodbye." * * * "What happened?" Julia exclaimed, as Sheynell shook herself down and grimaced, as for the first time in far too long, she moved muscles too obviously strained by the stance she'd held on the Whisperglass, muscles paralyzed by the action of Willein and his All. "Why did you..." "*Later*." she insisted. "For now, we've got to get out of here, and I do mean right now! The R'kaht told me about a danger that's about to descend upon us, and unless we leave, we're all going to die!" "Which," the rather annoyed voice of Nicholas Dawson explained through the link a moment later, "Is what I've been trying to tell our dear captain for the better part of the last HOUR. But would she listen to me? No." "Mr. Dawson!" Julia began, as Klairika moved to Sheynell's side to aid her progression out of the ruins, "Now that we've managed to recover Anla'shok Keynes from what may have been a fate worse then death, we're on our way out of the ruins and back to the landing zone. Perhaps you can explain this problem to me while we're enroute?" A protracted silence filled the comm line, and Sheynell almost laughed when she heard her captain sigh. "All right, all right! I'm sorry!" "And you won't do it again, right?" Julia rolled her eyes, while chuckles passed through the rapidly moving cadre. "I promise. Now, Mr. Dawson, as you were saying?" "Right... you've got to get out of there pronto, Captain, and the urgency's gone way up since you began your descent. A while ago, the geo-types in the crew were examining the system when they realized that something weird was going on, and once they explained what was causing it and what might result, I decided you had to know, and now, we've decided to come down and get you out of there, before you well... drown is the least of our concerns. Turns out that having these two planets so close together can be a bad thing, Captain, and after my earlier comments about Dr. Forward and his stories, I should have figured it out myself, should have remembered what happened..." "Mr Dawson!" "All right, look, this system's got tides like you wouldn't believe; if it hadn't, the planets would be round instead of egg-shaped. They also vary their distance from one another in a cyclical fashion, and right now, we're only minutes away from the closest approach in thousands of years..." "He's taking too long." she cut in. "Julia, one of these planets is mostly dry, and the other is mostly water. FIGURE IT OUT." And rather abruptly, Sheynell watched her captain come to the same conclusion that Nicholas Dawson had come to. "This planet weighs more then the other one does, right?" "It does." "And the tides are going to start dragging... water off the other planet and onto the centerpoint pole of this one." "Which happens at every close approach," Dawson cut back in, "But since this is an *extra* close one..." "Would now be the time to start running, instead of walking, do you think?" * * * "I believe," the Praetor Questus told his companion, as both turned their gaze towards the vast, and now sinister form filling the skies, "That we should be going now." "Will they not notice our departure?" The Praetor Questus laughed. "The chaos of gravity and tide will hide our passing from this place. And in any case, our path and theirs will be crossing again soon enough." "As is known." the Fhedayar observed. "Our tasks are not yet complete." "No, indeed not. Our tasks have barely begun. Come now." * * * The SHARD OF NIGHT. "Oh, my God." Nicholas fretted, as he watched the last of the ground personnel enter the transports on the bridge main viewscreen. "Come on, come on!" "What is the status of the phenomenon?" Larieken inquired, as Dasouri's capable hands guided the SHARD down into the atmosphere towards the ancient city of the R'kaht. An ancient city that looked like it was about to be underwater in very short order. "The 'phenomenon'," he caustically replied, "has deposited a small ocean's worth of water onto the centerpoint-pole of this planet, and said ocean is now advancing towards us faster then I would like. We've got to make this work the first time, or they're in *big* trouble." At the front of the bridge, Dasouri snorted, and waved his hand dismissively. "Plenty of time, do we have. Water front is only one of your miles high, only moving slightly faster then speed of sound. We are faster, engineer, will rescue our comrades." "The city is in sight, sir." Larieken's replacement at the operations board reported, as the Ranger transports lifted out of the city. "Standing by on gravitational projectors." "Val'na," Larieken calmly reported, as the pole-ward horizon behind them darkened with the approach of the water-front, "It may be advisible to, as your kind says, 'brace' yourself." "Noted, Larieken!" was Julia's somewhat strained reply. "Get us out of here, now!" In that instant, with more then ten kilometres of air seperating the transports from their mothership, Larieken gave his order, and two constrained beams of gravitational force struck down, grasped the rapidly accelerating smaller craft, and drew them upwards towards the SHARD at a speed that only antigravity technology could manage. "Dasouri?" "We go!" the Drazi declared, and at that word, the SHARD heeled over and up, and rapidly retreated back towards its home medium, even as the vast wall of water reached the city of the R'kaht behind and below them, and quite thoroughly submerged it. * * * "The city..." "Is gone." Sheynell whispered, and to Julia's surprise, tears appeared in the telepath's eyes, and began to run down her cheeks. "So much history, so much promise, and now it's gone forever." "But the water... how did they survive these onslaughts before? This wasn't the only time in their history that this happened, after all!" "No. The planet used to have small seas," Sheynell told her, as she began wiping the tears off of her face. "Before the planetkiller came. The R'kaht used to ride out the really big planetary waterfalls underwater, until they gained the technology to repel the water's advance. But then, the Shadows and their allies destroyed them, as the Drakh are trying to destroy our people... and the R'kaht did the only thing they could, and doomed themselves in the process, not just in one way... But *two*." "Why don't you tell me about this later, once we're back on the ship?" "Later?" Julia curtly nodded, and Klairika deftly administered a sedative while Sheynell wasn't looking, and quicker then even she was expecting, the telepath collapsed into an only slightly-assisted deep sleep. "*Much* later, I think." Julia leant back into her chair at that point, and let out a groan. "Oh, Valen! Trapped souls and plantary waterfalls... isn't this job ever going to get any easier?" "No." There was a long pause, and then the eruption began. "Well, that wasn't very reassuring!" "Would you have prefered it if I had said, 'we are all doomed, and we're certainly going to die?'" The conversation went downhill from there. * * * To be concluded... http://www.connect.ab.ca/~dgolding/index.htm From: dgolding@connect.ab.ca Subject: STAR AND CIRCLE: "THE SEEKER'S FIRE", EPISODE III, Envoi Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:40:10 STAR AND CIRCLE: "THE SEEKER'S FIRE" EPISODE THREE "A GALLERY OF WHISPERS" (disclaimers and associated descriptions in overture) * * * <> A between place, and time. "So. I will assume that matters proceeded as you had expected they would?" The Praetor Questus inclined his head. "There were a number of... complications, but yes, this is so. The Sha'naktoweire and her followers arrived at the worlds of the R'kaht ahead of us... and while we erred on the matter of which of them would be responsible for the contact and most especially *how*, the contact did occur. And the R'kaht were, after a time, freed from their Whisperglass, and became lost to us." "Unfortunate. But not unexpected." the reply came. "Now, the next phase of your great task must begin. I fear, soon enough, that the voice of rumour will reach even *her* ear, and the matter the Well has been warning us about will come to pass. It is inevitable. It will happen. Are you ready to do what you must, when that moment arrives?" "I am, Primarch." "Then, for now, I command you to watch the movements of the vessel the Minbari name 'Vi'dalae An'shaka', and the humans, 'Shard of Night'. The path it follows is a tortured and difficult one, and long, but follow that path you must, as well." "I understand. And once the task is concluded?" "Return to Cathedral, you shall." the Primarch Majestus et Conclavus allowed. "Another task awaits you." "This is well." The Primarch nodded. "Well, indeed." And there it was that the conversation ended. * * * Feb 16th, 2267; mid-morning, Ship's Time. "I should be very angry with you, you know," Julia remarked, as the grand majority of the SHARD OF NIGHT's senior crew ate their breakfast together, and waited for the stories to begin. "But from what I can see and what I've overheard, it doesn't look like I have that right." "I'm not so sure." Sheynell replied, her eyes slightly downcast. "I did some pretty silly things down there, and even before we descended to the surface, as well. The R'kaht reached out to me the only way they could, via my telepathic abilities, and I thought that if I could reach out to them, if I was the *only* one who could talk to them because of those abilities, that they might be able to tell me how they defeated the plague." "And," Larieken mused, "You would then have the opportunity to be the one responsible for curing the plague on Earth. This was important to you?" "Yes!" Sheynell shot back, but then, the fervor faded. "You've no idea how important, how *good* the idea sounded, at the time. I've spent so much of my life searching for the approval of others, and I've been disappointed so many times. I trusted my first mentor, and then he went rogue, and in the end, I had to help hunt him down. I trusted Alfred Bester enough to echo him faultlessly, as you saw on Babylon 5, Julia... and in the end, even he betrayed my trust. I thought that if I could find the cure..." "You could find the approval you have searching desperately for, for so very long." Klairika finished for her. Sheynell ruefully nodded at that remark. "But yet again, I jumped before thinking about it, and yet again, it nearly got me killed. But surprisingly enough... I *think* I might have finally found what I've been looking for, at least a little!" "Here it comes, boys and girls..." Dawson drawled. "They couldn't help us find the cure to the plague... there wasn't enough time left for that. But *I* could help them. And in helping to free them, I received their approval, Julia... the approval of an entire race! Do you have any idea what this means to me?" "I think so." Julia replied, after a long, long moment. "And while the powers-that-be probably aren't going to be very happy with us for losing a chance to cure the people of Earth, I think you've taken a very important step forward, Sheynell. A step away from the darkness of your past, and towards a brighter future. While the R'kaht have shown us, in their own way, that the plague *can* be cured, and even though their method wouldn't have worked for us even if we had been able to save the Whisperglass, that we can't give up hope." "That much, at least, we can do in their memory," Dasouri gruffly finalized, as he raised his glass in salute, a pose the others soon adopted. "The way, they have showed us. Follow it, we must. In doing so, do we not honour their memory, and the sacrfice that was made?" "I'll drink to that." Dawson said. "So should we all, Mr. Dawson." Julia added. "So should we all." Seven glasses clinked together at that point, and so the pact was sealed. * * * Much later... "A gift, he said," Sheynell muttered, as she finished brushed her hair out. "A gift, from a race about to pass beyond the Veil, a race I released from their ancient prison. I wish he'd been just a *little* more specific." Muffling a yawn, she reached for the light-toggle beside her bed as she lay down; unfortunately, she was so tired that she didn't *quite* manage to reach it before her head hit the pillow. The lights, however, went out anyways. * * * Next time: Trouble is well and truly afoot as the crew of the SHARD arrive at the homeworld of one of the First Ones races that took part in the battle of Corianna VI. An unexpected door is opened... a door that Julia manages to fall through quite by accident. And how will she be saved from a fate worse then death, if the only ones who may be able to save her cannot even agree on the method to be used? "Objective Perspectives" the 4th episode of "Seeker's" starting this weekend (all being well) * * *