From: "Stephen J. Barringer" Subject: WANDERING STAR 28/? Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 23:19:33 -0500 Hi folks, and welcome to January and the New Year.... I told you I wouldn't give up on WS.... Toronto is currently drowning in about 2 metres of snow. Three cheers for Canadian winters. As you will notice, I have a new e-mail address. Comments and criticism, not only on WS but on the Virtual Sixth Season as it comes out, can be sent to me here at . Anyway, on with the tale.... *****************DISCLAIMER***************** Susan Ivanova and all BABYLON 5 characters and situations are the creations and copyrighted property of J. Michael Straczynski and Babylonian Productions, and are used here without permission strictly for the purposes of non-profit entertainment. Other characters and situations are copyright of the author, but permission is hereby granted for free, non-profit use by other fanfic authors. (Though it would be nice if you asked anyway.) ************************************************** < < W A N D E R I N G S T A R > > PART II: SCAVENGER HUNT - 23 - 21:09 EST The lifepods of an Earth Alliance starship were designed to do one of two things. Normally they functioned in long-term life sustenance mode, in which they could keep their occupant alive for up to two weeks before the oxygen recyclers gave out, all the while broadcasting a powerful distress call. If, however, their tiny sensor suite detected a sufficiently tolerable planet nearby - or if, as was more often the case, the mother ship had made orbit before disintegrating or destructing - small but powerful thrusters kicked in, and the pods went into planetfall mode. As she watched the clouds ripping by outside through the pod's tiny viewport, Ivanova thought to herself that the "fall" part had never been more sickeningly accurate. Most of the fall had been disorienting, as the planet spun in and out of the pod's viewport, but not terribly stressful. But then, after nearly two hundred and fifty kilometres of hurtling weightlessness, they had struck stratosphere. Streamlined, finned, and heat-shielded, the initial entry was rough. Ivanova felt herself kicked and bounced about like a toy in the hands of a gigantic, angry child, and her body protested. Only the pod's heavy internal padding, and her own armour, saved her from bruising. Then the atmosphere thickened, and the pod's streamlining took over. The fall straightened out. Like a short, stubby missile, the pod sliced downwards through the atmosphere. Heat began to build in its nose as the friction increased. Ivanova watched the status boards carefully on the pod' s internal displays. The temperature rose above a tiny line marked on its gauge. She shoved her arms and legs against the pod's inner walls and braced herself. A warning gauge flashed red. Throughout the body of the pod, a sudden high scream ripped like a banshee shriek; Ivanova barely avoided shrieking herself. A moment later she was unable to stop laughing as she realized what it sounded like: the world's biggest teakettle, merrily announcing it was time to bring out the samovar. It was, of course, the coolant jettison flare. A layer of liquid ammonia tucked just inside the outer hull - prisoned by duralloy panelling even against the increased pressure of the entry heat - had been opened up. All around the lower nose of the pod, jets of gas were screaming out of tiny vents, serving a trinity of purpose: they provided a brake for the pod, they carried away the potentially lethal heat, and formed a huge vertical contrail that would be visible for hundreds of kilometres at this height - an unmistakeable signal screaming for help. Ivanova didn't know if she hoped someone would see the flare or not. It was almost certainly impossible. It was the planet's night side and the only inhabitants they knew were buried underneath a storm of such ferocity as to blind their own sensors. Nobody would see them. Nobody *could* see them. PROXIMITY WARNING, flashed the control board. Ten kilometres. Ivanova braced herself for what she knew was coming next. A cap on the end of the pod blew away. Torn from its compartment at over three hundred kilometres per hour, the chute didn't last long, but the first one wasn't meant to. One kick of nearly bone-crushing force and the chute burst, decelerating the pod as it died. A few moments later, another chute blossomed free, caught atmosphere for five point seven seconds, then exploded in its turn; but by then the pod had slowed even more. The third chute was tougher, and lasted for nearly a minute. Ivanova flipped on the sensors again and directed them downwards. A seething sea of lightning-laced black glared on the screen. She cursed silently to herself. A minute more at most, and the final and most important part of this drop was going to be completely blind. Well, there wasn't much to do now except the inevitable. She triggered the final sequence. Tiny blades sliced through cords; the chute flew free, and the pod dropped sickeningly before Ivanova gave its engines one last carefully aimed pulse. The pod *twisted* in midair, and as it did so two panels along the side - the side that had now become, briefly, the top - blew away. Twin, rectangular, panelled chutes burst from them, one much larger than the other, and abruptly Ivanova was piloting a clumsy, incredibly fragile and clunky, but nonetheless workable glider. she thought grimly, Carefully, she manipulated the controls; the cords leading to the chutes pulled, slacked and tugged, and with infinitesimal twitches of fabric the pod flew back and forth, wavering down and down into the murky deep of the storm. Ivanova could hear the wind now outside her pod, hear the rain rattling a furious tattoo upon the pod's steaming metal skin. Through the viewport she caught glimpses of light, here and there: the liquid flickers of lightning, the slowly rising glow of the unquenched fire and ruin beneath the storm, and then - praise God - the brief sight of the green-and-red running lights of other pods, likewise shifted to glider mode and flying down towards the city. She felt an incredible surge of relief. The others had made it down. She wouldn't be alone. Experimentally, she touched her link. "Ivanova to Takayama." Static. She sighed. Without the orbital uplink to the *Saint-Germain* the links evidently didn't have enough power to connect directly through the storm's interference at this range. Still, she knew where the team had landed. If worse came to worst they could trek directly over. Speaking of landing - the altimeter was dropping second by second; it was about time she started looking for a place to put down herself. A switch on the dashboard triggered the pod's outer lights. Powerful beams of white brilliance cut downwards through the murk and illuminated a rubble-strewn street, winding between seashell-shaped buildings that had been cracked and blistered by the explosion. That the buildings still stood at all amazed her every time she thought about it. Carefully, she brought herself around, tacking against the wind to bring the pod into a direct line of descent with the street. Closer... closer... Now. She pulled the pod's nose up and let the tailsection drop. The pod's rear end slammed hard into the ground. As the glider-chutes collapsed it lurched forward and smashed its nose down. Ivanova rattled back and forth in the interior like a stone caught in an empty can and finally fell still, gasping for breath. She struggled to turn over and punched the pod's final control. Above her, the escape panels blew up and away. Rain crashed in and soaked her within seconds, but she barely noticed as she clawed her way up and out of the pod, rifle rattling loosely against her armoured hip. With one final thrust she vaulted up and over, landing with bent knees on the ruined street, breathing once again the air of the city. Amazingly, the faint roses-and-spice scent was still there, though overlaid now with a stench like burnt hair and a hot, acrid ashy smell. She looked around, shielding her eyes against the cool rain. "*Matthew!*" she bellowed into the night. "*Chief Waverly! Can anyone hear me?*" Lightning flared; a second later thunder bellowed in its wake. It was her only answer. Cursing to herself, Ivanova pulled the datapad from her belt and consulted its map. They had agreed to meet at the bore-site if they became separated during the drop. Said site looked to be a couple of kilometres away, to her northwest if she was reading the map right. She slotted the datapad back into its belt-holster and began loping down the street, PPG rifle held ready. She was feeling lost enough already as it was. 21:22 EST Surinder Punjat died without warning. Alan Merhaupt wasn't even sure exactly when she'd stopped breathing; it just suddenly came to him during a lull in the gunfire that he hadn't heard her rattling gasps for a few minutes, and he ducked down to put a hand to her neck. The flesh was unmoving and cooling beneath his fingers. He closed her eyes, then shut his own, hands going white-knuckled on the handle of his PPG rifle. She'd been hit in the chest during the last exchange. Whatever weapon the Drazi were using, the EDI armour seemed only partially effective against it. She hadn't died instantly, or even lost consciousness. Her last commands had been to order him to get to the cables, get down into the city somewhere and warn the others. His problem was that he had no idea how to do that without getting blown apart. He peered over the windowsill and looked out into the open square again. In the middle of the site, the crater of the bore still smoked and steamed. There was no sign of movement. But he had learned the hard way that meant nothing. The Drazi were good. Damned good. Though the five EPS gropos had had the advantage of cover, the first shot from the marauders had come through the window at a range of what had to be well over fifty metres and had taken Packard's head off with a blast like a smashed melon. They had retaliated instantly, catching sight in the flicker and flare of coruscating energies of their attackers: armoured Drazi, all with a wild and feral look to them, at least twelve and possibly as many as twenty. They had taken cover themselves behind the other buildings surrounding the bore, and bit by bit had worked their way closer to the building and the cables. Attrition had taken its toll on both sides - several plasma-burned Drazi corpses lay unmoving in the open - but the outnumbered Earth soldiers had fallen, one by one. Now only Merhaupt was left. He checked his link once again, hoping, praying that it would work. But the staticky screech that was all he'd heard for the past few minutes didn't vary. At the sound he shut his eyes again and almost began to cry. With shuddering gasps he mastered himself. Goddammit, he had a *job* to do and he was going to *do* it. Speed, that was the answer. Clip his mag-grapple onto the cable without engaging it, vault the windowsill, run like a sonofabitch to the bore-crater and drop, praying he could use the grapple to catch himself before hitting bottom, however far away that was. He took a few deep breaths, steadying himself. He clipped his grapple onto the cable and braced himself. The Drazi leapt the windowsill with a silent bound. Sheer shock almost killed Merhaupt, but the reflexes of a groundpounder came to his rescue; the Drazi's knife was centimetres from his throat when his PPG rifle erupted and smashed him back into the wall. Before the dead draz could even hit the ground Merhaupt had vaulted the sill. He hit already sprinting, wavering back and forth just slightly. There were two other Drazi crouched beneath the sill - they had crept there without him ever hearing or sensing him - but his sudden bound took them equally by surprise. He had made it almost a third of the way before blue disruptor bolts sliced the air around him. He dodged, wavered, fired randomly back, not seeking to hit anything but just to keep them down. And then he was at the base of the borewall, scrambling up, up, over, braced to dive at full plummet into the black well - Something huge and searing hot kicked him in the back. He fell, too shocked for pain, the polyfibre cable whipping around him as he plunged into the bore. Automatically he grabbed for the mag-grapple and engaged its gripping field to one-third. Deceleration caught him with an agonizing jerk. Spinning, he continued his descent. Pain engulfed him in a rising tide of blurriness and dizziness, each wave dragging him further and further under. Above him, yellow eyes peered down into the blackness. 21:34 EST Corelli watched as Harmelink, the last of the Claymores, shot out of the pipe and plunged into the fabric pile like a whale shot out of a cannon; he caught a glimpse of Harmelink's surprised eyes in his deceptively placid-looking moon face before the big soldier vanished completely. He had to fight back his smile. It was almost worth it just to see that. He had acceded to Snow's request through a combination of sense and frustration - it was simply too much effort to argue about by shouting back and forth down a chute, and she did have a point. However they were going to get out of these catacombs, it would be much easier with the natives showing the way. But he could not conceal his discomfort whenever the ridiculously cute-looking cat-creatures bounced around his feet and grinned up at him, sending waves of invisible delight and playfulness over his nerves that just grated immeasurably against his own apprehension and tension. he thought, came a puzzled thought from one of the Sharasai. Corelli erupted. "Get out of my *mind!*" he shouted at them. They scattered like pigeons from a dog, but quickly gravitated to other soldiers, none of whom looked much happier. Only Braun seemed to be immune. One or two of the little aliens had approached him, then started back as if unexpectedly shocked; after that none of the others had come near him. Braun's face was as impassive as ever, but Corelli suspected the scientist was just as content this was so. Tisiara twitched on her feet by the opening out of the room, both impatient and a little unnerved by the number of people Snow had summoned. The room itself was packed uncomfortably full. Snow looked at Corelli, and he nodded. "That's everyone." "Right. Okay, sweetie." Snow knelt and scratched Tisiara behind her ears; the Sharasai rubbed delightedly against her hand. "That's all of us. You want to show us a better way out of here?" Braun cleared his throat. Snow looked at him with an irritated expression. "What?" "There *were* other things we were supposed to find." Snow rolled her eyes. "Could we think about like maybe saving our lives first?" "It *is* possible to satisfy both objectives at once, I believe." Snow hissed in a breath of irritation. "Look, Ulrich, I know what you and Earthforce want to find here, but these are *children*, okay? They' re not gonna know what you want or how to find it, and I am *not* gonna try to explain to them why we want weapons or thinkstuff or - " "Thinkstuff?" Braun interrupted. "What do you mean?" Tisiara's mind pulse was even more impatient now. She turned and glared at the entrance. It rippled, pulled closed like a sphincter, then uncoiled again. Corelli jerked in startlement. The Claymores gripped their weapons with whispered oaths. And Braun's eyes widened in astonishment. He stepped forward, touching the wall gingerly where it had pulled open. His fingers ran over the surface. "Amazing," he whispered. "Telepathically controllable molecular construction. I must have a piece of this - " From the belt of his coverall he seized an instrument, put it to the surface of the wall, and drew it sharply downwards. Corelli had one glimpse of the material parting like meat under a razor before every Sharasai in the chamber screamed in agony. At the same instant, the wall *convulsed*. A wave of rock-hard matter, like stone become fluid, lashed out and smashed Braun backwards; his reflexive dodge avoided only part of the blow and he fell to the floor, gasping. In his hand, the chunk of matter *writhed*, dripping clear, thick liquid. A similar gash in the wall oozed the same substance. It was half supplication, half command. The wall slowed its convulsions and froze, trembling. Tisiara stared at it hard. With a wave of surprisingly adult fury, she lifted one paw and pointed in. She turned her head just enough to glare at the gasping Braun. "You fragging well got *that* right, sweetie," gritted Snow. She strode over to Braun and yanked him upright with surprising strength. "You *idiot!*" she hissed in his face. "Don't you ever freaking *learn?!*" She spun and shoved him towards the passage. "Go!" For once, Braun seemed too dazed to argue. But Corelli noticed that he had not let go of his carved chunk of matter-tissue. Even as he stumbled through the exit into the moist-looking passage, he had produced a vac-storage case from somewhere and sealed the sample away. Snow followed him, glaring at his back as if she wanted to burn her gaze through his spine. Corelli waved the gropos ahead with a curt order. One by one, all of them casting suspicious glances at the trembling Tisiara, they passed through the exit. Corelli was the last to go. As he passed, he reached out and touched the little alien. She leapt through after him. The instant they were through the opening sealed itself like a wounded creature huddling fetally into its own pain. Which it was. It had to be. For the first time Corelli really understood what that meant, understood what they had done when the *Saint-Germain*'s cannon had blasted apart the structures above. They had *hurt* a living creature, torn it apart. And now it was dying. And Braun saw it all as nothing more than a grand experiment, a living lab. Startled, he glanced down at Tisiara. It hadn't been words she'd sent, merely a pulse of gratitude, but he had understood it as if spoken. "For what?" he murmured. Confusion came from the alien's mind, the confusion of a sighted woman who cannot understand and has never even conceived of Braille. "It's called empathy," Corelli said quietly. Corelli thought of Braun. "No," he almost whispered. "Not enough of us, anyway. Not nearly enough." . . . TO BE CONTINUED