From: creative-archive@anxst.com
Subject: A Simple Mission
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:26:45 -0700 (PDT)

name = Katie Enterkin
email = KaEnterkin@aol.com
title = A Simple Mission
story = A SIMPLE MISSION

by Katherine Enterkin (KaEnterkin@aol.com)

Okay, I give up.  I tried e-mailing this to b5-creatrive@lists.best.com
twice with the same answer that that was not a correct address.
So, here it goes, typed into the net.

This is the second part of a story I started earlier under the
title of "Courier Mission".  I have changed the title to "A
Simple Mission."  I am also sending out the first part again
which is the introduction.  The narrator changes from first
person to third person.  Somewhere near the end it changes back
to first person.  Hopefully I will be sending out the Second and
Third parts in a few weeks or less.  Hope you enjoy it as much
as I have enjoyed the other stories on this list for the past
two months.



This is my first Babylon 5 story.  Any comments or constructive
criticism is welcome and wanted.  If it stinks tell me, but tell
me why it does, because there is nothing worse than getting no
comments and leaving my overactive imagination to run wild (But
a warning, if someone sends me an e-mail message saying that
this SUXXXXXX with no reason why it does so, I begin to doubt
the brain power of such person.).  If you love it please tell
me, I really want to know. Oh well, enough of my mindless
ramblings for now.



DISCLAIMER

Viaborg owns...oops, sorry, wrong disclaimer ... Lets try that
again ... PTEN, Babylonian Productions, and JMS own Babylon 5
and all characters save two.  Anessa Baldwin and Leonard Pettis
are of my own creation.  This is for my own enjoyment, and I
certainly don't expect to earn any money from it.



Minor Spoilers for Book 9:  To Dream in the City of Sorrows

T



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A



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O



R



*****

INTRODUCTION



	The message had come in about thirty standard minutes ago.  It
was short, to the point, and from my former superior.  "Meet me,
my office, 1100 hours."  The message was not unusual in itself,
had it come six months ago, but now I am a teacher, not a field
agent.  Oh sure, our organization has teachers too, although it
may seem strange.  We have almost everything, teachers,
warriors, commanders, pilots, spies, couriers, doctors, cooks,
musicians, anything but lawyers.  Those we don't have.  And yes,
I am a trained field agent, but for the past six months, I have
been a teacher.  So, the question remains, why am I here?

	I stood facing my old mentor and friend, a man with a small
body and large mind.  I noticed that he had grown smaller with
age, or had my perception of him changed.  Three years ago he
seemed to me a towering giant, unstoppable by even the greatest
of forces.  But no longer.  "Nessa, we need you for a job." 
Short, to the point, just like the message.  No frills, never
any frills.

	"Care to elaborate on that, sir?"  Probably not, but it never
hurts to ask.

	"Nessa, you know the rules.  I know that you've been busy with
Andrew for the past couple of months, and I wouldn't have asked
you, but this mission is of the utmost importance.  You are one
of the few people that I can trust to do this."  Well, he knows
me well.  Flattery will get him anywhere.

	I don't know what possessed me to do it.  Maybe it was a sense
of loyalty, or friendship, or just plain stupidity.  Ask me in a
few years, and I may have an answer for you.  "All right.  I'll
do it.  Now what is it that I'm suppose to do?"

	He picked something up from the desk, and palmed it before I
could determine what it was.  "We need you to deliver something
to Babylon 5."  Aye, there's the rub.  Babylon 5 is closed. 
"Your contact will meet you in the section known as down below."

	"How will I know my contact?"

	"Don't worry about that.  They will know you."  He placed his
hands on my arms, and turned me around.  I felt something slip
into the bun in my hair, he released me and I turned back to him.

	"And the pass phrase that my contact will give me."

	"Go ahead."  That was the permission I was waiting for.  I
stared briefly into his eyes, and was rewarded with the phrase.

*****

Well is it worth continuing?

*****

Part 1

	Zack Allan, the chief of security on Babylon 5, was walking
through the Zocalo when someone caught his eye.  A young lady,
not more than 25, with an unrefined British accent was having a
disagreement with one of the vendors.  Several other people had
gathered around, and were beginning to harass her.  "Great." he
thought to himself, "it's almost time to get off, and now this. 
How did the Chief put up with it for so long?"  Hoping to end
the argument before it became more heated, he walked over to the
crowd.

	"All I want is a cup'o'tea.  That's all."  she protested.

	"Yeah right.  And just how do you expect to pay for it." the
vendor said.

	"People like you should stay where you belong in Downbelow." a
voice cried out.  Zack could see what the people meant.  The
woman was dressed in dirty, torn clothing, and he could see that
she had not bathed in several weeks.  She was thin, almost too
thin to be healthy.  She did, in fact, look like a lurker from
Downbelow.

	"So what's a lurker doing on the Zocalo?" he thought to
himself.  Addressing the small crowd, he said, "Okay everybody,
break it up.  Show's over.  Leave the lady alone."

	"Lady, look buddy, she's no lady."  a different voice said.

	"That doesn't matter.  All of you are harassing a person in a
public place.  It's part of my job to stop that.  So just break
it up before I have to call in more security, and you all end up
locked up."

	"Oh, I'm just so scared."

	A Narn in the crowd finally decided that the whole affair
wasn't worth the trouble.  "He is the head of Security.  Maybe
we should let him handle it."

	"If Security would do their jobs right, there wouldn't be a
Downbelow for lurkers.  Hell, there wouldn't be any lurkers." 
the first man argued.

	While the two were arguing over station security, Leonard
Pettis, one of the men in the crowd was thinking to himself,
"Damn just what I needed.  I'll have to find another way to get
to her.  I can't do anything with Allen around."  Pettis slipped
a small needle into the folds of his clothing and slipped away
from the crowd and into a back corridor.

	Zack was beginning to activate the link on the back of his hand
when the group began to disperse, leaving only the woman and the
vendor.  "Now, how do you expect to pay for that tea?" the man
asked

	"What tea, I aven't had any tea.  You wouldn't sell me any."

	"You couldn't have paid for it if I had."

	"I'd pay for it."

	"Hey, you two stop it.  This is going to cause another mob
scene."  Zack was becoming tired of the situation.  It was in
fact time to get off.  "I'll buy her tea."  Zack handed the
vendor his credit chit as the lady took her cup and began to sip
her tea.

	"Thank you sir." she said before she disappeared into the
corridors leading to Downbelow.

*****

	Pettis punched the code to the door to his temporary quarters. 
"Did you find her?" a voice asked.

	"I found someone that could have been her.  But she looked and
sounded different."

	"Kill her?"

	"Couldn't.  She was in an argument with a vendor in the Zocalo.
A mob formed and I was going to inject the poison there."

	"What happened.  I don't tolerate many failures."

	"Zack Allen showed up.  Besides, it may not have been her."

	"Has she made contact yet?"

	"No.  She wouldn't still be on the station if she had."

	"Where is she now?"

	"Downbelow."

	"Find her." he said simply.

*****

	A Lone figure slipped into the corner of a bar in Downbelow. 
The bartender walked over to her and said, "What d'you want?"

	"Doesn't matter.  Whatever you've got."  she answered.  "Stupid
Baldwin, just plain stupid."  she thought to herself.  "You've
been teaching so long that you forgot how to actually do
anything.  Jeez, you almost blew your cover up there on the
Zocalo."

	"Here's your drink.  It's just a beer.  Didn't figure you'd
want anything strange."  she handed the bartender her credit
chit as he put down her drink.  She watched him as he walked
over to the terminal to transfer the credits from her account. 
As she sat watching the bartender, another person entered the
bar behind her.  Leonard Pettis took a seat at the other end of
the bar.  He was seated so that he could see her clearly, but a
column in the bar obscured her view of him.

	Nessa Baldwin began to scan the room with her eyes.  Over in
the corner of the bar she saw a vaguely farmiliar figure.  "Now
where do I know that man from?" she asked herself.  "If I could
only scan him." she mused.  Since she could not see him clearly
a line of sight scan would be impossible, and there were too
many other people in the room to do a surface scan.  There would
be no way for her to distinguish him from the other people in
the bar, even for a P10 such as herself.  She doubted that even
the PsiCop, Bester that she had heard of, could do it.  



	Leonard Pettis was not having a good day.  He had been hired to
find one of the most elusive people he had ever dealt with,
Anessa Baldwin.  He felt a mild sort of professional courtesy
toward her.  They were, in fact, in the same sort of business,
both P10 telepaths, both highly trained professionals.  However,
he almost regretted, they always found themselves working at
cross purposes.  He'd almost enjoy working with her, but now he
had to kill her.  Nothing personal mind you, just business. "A
shame really." he thought, "Such a waste of talent."

	"What can I get for ya." the barman asked his new customer.

	"Well, I don't need a drink, but there is something you can do
for me."

	"Depends, what?" the bartender asked Pettis suspiciously.

	"Nothing major.  See the woman down at the end of the bar?"

	"Sure." the barman nodded in her direction.  "The lurker."

	"That's her.  Next drink she orders, bring it to me first. 
There'd be a decent tip in it for you.  Never mind why."

	"Look, buddy, as long as the tip's enough, I won't care why."

	"Good."



	"Now where've I seen him before."  she was still trying to
place the man at the end of the bar when she finished her drink.
The barkeep walked over to her as she placed her empty glass
down.  "Get you another?"

	"No.  I was leaving."

	Worrying that his tip was about to walk out the door, he
thought quickly, "Reason I asked, you sort of look like you need
it.  Second one's on the house."  he said.  "More like on the
guy at the end of the bar." he added silently.

	She hesitated for a moment but decided a lurker would never
turn down a free drink said, "All right."  The barman walked
over to pour her drink, but took a trip to the other end of the
bar to refill another drink first, or so she thought.

	He put her drink down in front of Pettis, blocking it from her
view with his body and began to pour another drink for a
customer.  Taking the opportunity presented to him, Pettis
slipped a capsule into her drink.  The barman whispered to him,
"She didn't want another drink.  Figured you'd pay for it.  Told
her it was on the house."

	"Smart move." he acknowledged.  He placed a few credits on the
bar, real credits not from a chit, just enough to pay for the
drink and leave a sizable tip.  

	The barman took the credits and turned to deliver the drink. 
"Now there's someone who doesn't want to be found." he thought. 
He delivered the drink to the woman, and moved to help some
other customers.  When he looked back to where the man had been
sitting, he found that the seat was empty.

*****

	"Well," the man asked, "did you find her?"

	"Yes I did."

	"Did you kill her."

	"I put a fast acting poison into her drink.  About now she
should be feeling a bit light-headed."

	"What if she goes to Medlab."

	"It'd blow her cover.  She's too professional for that.  As
long as she's in Downbelow posing as a lurker, she'd never go
for treatment.  Even if it meant her life."

	"Someone could find her."

	"Not likely.  No one pays attention to lurkers.  They're nobody
people."

	"Good.  You'll find a ticket off the station in your quarters,
along with you're fee."

	"It's been good working with you sir."   Leonard Pettis watched
as his former employer boarded a shuttle off of Babylon 5.  He
then left to collect his ticket, his fee, and to return the lock
code for his temporary quarters.



	In a back corridor of Downbelow, Anessa Baldwin was beginning
to feel the effects of the poison from her drink.  She lay down
on a bed of sheets on the floor and closed her eyes, hoping that
sleep would clear her head.  "What was that drink I had?" she
thought.  "Have to ask the bartender later."  At the same time,
Leonard Pettis watched Babylon 5 disappear into the distance as
his shuttle neared the jump gate that would deliver him back
home.  For a brief moment he felt a pang of regret for the now
lost colleague that his poison was slowly killing.

*****