From: "Stephen J. Barringer" Subject: WANDERING STAR 33/?? Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 00:33:10 -0400 May, folks, was a month of auditions, family crises, expanded work responsibilities and VS6 work. Hence the LONG delay between parts. I am so so sorry.... If I told you it'd never happen again I'd be a liar, but I'll try. *****************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 - 28 - SKYHOPPER FLIGHT LANDING SITE 22:39 EST Takayama’s intercom came alive with almost a complete absence of static. Because of that, the dapper flight lieutenant knew without having to ask who it was. "No, Thomas, I haven’t heard any signals yet, either." There was a beat. "You sure you’re not a telepath, sir?" Morgan inquired suspiciously over the com. "You’ve been asking the same question every five minutes like clockwork for the past fifteen," Takayama snorted. "How much telepathy do you need?" A new voice entered the link. "We should maintain radio silence, sir." Takayama sighed. He supposed everyone had to have *something* to hold on to, to keep their stability. He just wished Yves hadn’t picked unreasoning annoyance with Morgan as his spar. "Paul, the static out there is too heavy to get any decent scan signals through. I hardly think we’re in danger of being spotted." "By anything Earth-built or the equivalent, sir. It is not perhaps wise to assume that everything has our limits." "He has a point, sir," Morgan admitted. "Mea culpa. Morgan out." His link closed with a faint click of static. There was a pause. Yves spoke again. "Lieutenant." Takayama scowled through the cockpit window of his Thunderbolt at Shuttle Two, some twenty metres away. Its form was barely visible through the sheeting rain that was an everpresent drumming sound on the starfighter’ s canopy. "Weren’t we supposed to be keeping radio silence?!" "Why do you put up with him?" A beat just a fraction too long to be accidental. "Sir." Takayama had had enough. Flight Ops was traditionally the most informal part of a deep-space crew when it came to the protocols of rank and salutation, but there were limits. "For the same reason I put up with *you* when I have to, Paul, which is that he’s a *damn* good pilot. Did you even *bother* to look at the file I referred you to? The black box from Shuttle One’s first escape flight?" Yves snorted. "So an Academy brat was lucky. Tell him to do it again, then I will be impressed, sir." "’Academy brat’?" "These young hotshots, they come out of school, think they know everything about how to fly." Anger, real anger, was thick in Yves’ voice. The realization startled Takayama out of his own rapidly building fury. What *was* this? "And people like you and I, Lieutenant, we work our asses off for *years* and we are upstaged by this , this , this young ensign who plays his luck and his charm like cards from his sleeve -- *Who were you going to promote next, ha?*" The shout was completely unexpected; Takayama jerked in his seat. "My work, my skills, they mean nothing to anyone, to this bitch of a Captain, to – " "LIEUTENANT Yves!" Takayama shouted. "You are *out of line*, Mister! Shut your mouth and *keep* it shut!" Blinding red fury drizzled over his sight, rippling like the rain on the windshield. "One more word out of you and I will *personally* -- " The guns of Shuttle One went off with a blinding flash and a thunderclap of ionized air, firing into the air above the rim of the arroyo in which the shuttles and the Thunderbolts lay. Takayama almost screamed with the shock. Briefly visible in the light of the discharge, he saw a large group of figures standing some way down the arroyo. Five were human. The rest – "Drazi spotted, distance fifty-two metres, in company with what *looks* to be a few of our own guards," said Morgan’s calm voice. A spotlight came on from Shuttle One and swivelled to find the straggling group, most of whom had flung themselves flat to the muddy ground. From speakers mounted on the hull, Morgan’s voice crackled in flawless Interlac. "This is Ensign Thomas Morgan to approaching Drazi. If your intentions are peaceful, signal them now. Otherwise we will be forced to assume your hostility and respond accordingly." One of the humans – a tall, rangy black man in EDI armour – stumbled to the forefront of the party. He opened his arms, dropping the pile of rifles he was carrying, and waved his arms above his head in the universal signal to wait. He brought his link to his mouth. Takayama heard his voice through his own speakers. "This is Ship’s Security Guard First Class Carl Symington! Stand down your guns, sir, I repeat, stand down! The Drazi are under protection of truce!" Morgan’s response came to Takayama’s link alone. "It could be a trap, sir. Symington might have been ordered to say that." "Then why was he carrying all the Drazi weapons?" "He was?" Morgan sounded startled. "So he was. Good God." The speakers of Shuttle One resumed broadcast. "Who is the leader of the Drazi?" "I lead Silent Shadows!" A slim draz raised its – no, *her* -- voice in answer. "Ilvridas am I, Huntleader-Third, of the Green." Her face worked. No matter how proud she was or how semi-honourable this treatment might be, she clearly didn’t want to say it. "I am under orders of Green Leader." "’Green Leader’?" repeated Yves, sounding about as bewildered as Takayama felt. "Who in the Sacred Heart is – " "Oh my God." Morgan’s stunned disbelief cut them both off. "Of course! Captain Ivanova!" He burst into slightly loopy-sounding laughter. "Oh, God, if we’d only known...." Takayama decided he was getting fed up with this. "Ensign! Explain!" "Uh – " Morgan paused a beat. "Aye aye, sir. Three years ago, Babylon 5, Drazi quinticyclical ritual contest of power, arbitrary random division of population, leader likewise randomly selected, the Captain grabbed the leadership sash, she became the leader, the rules changes didn’t exclude aliens yet, and I guess it still doesn’t. Sir," he hastily added. Takayama shook his head. Well, he’d *asked* for an explanation. "How did you find all this out?" "It’s not classified, sir. I did a little checking up when I found out where I was being assigned." "You would," muttered Yves sourly over the link. "Belay that, Lieutenant!" Takayama snapped. "Ensign, order the Drazi into the passenger bay for Shuttle One and *lock them in*. Maximum security, understand?" "Aye aye, sir." As he switched back to the speakers to repeat the orders in Interlac, Takayama began the cycle of preflight checkup. One way or another, he sensed, things were about to come to a head. And when they did, he wanted to be ready to go *now*. 22:44 EST The corridor ended in shattered, broken rock – at least, it *appeared* to be rock. But liquid oozed from it in strangely-coloured splotches. Tisiara stared at it. What radiated from her, even more than her bewilderment and fear, was a simple sense of outrage, as if the impudence of the universe in collapsing this passageway was some kind of personal imsult. Corelli sighed. "I hope she knows another way out of here." Snow waved him back. "Let me check something here – " She took a scanner unit from her belt and ran it over the splotches and the rock. Readings flickered, and she nodded grimly. "Yeah, I kinda thought so. We’ re getting into the area under the blast zone. Not much of the usual structures are gonna be left, I think." Tisiara turned to stare at Snow with huge, unbelieving eyes. For once, Snow was almost grateful for her nervousness and fear; it was all that kept the huge wave of guilt that washed over her from breaking her down completely. As it was, her quick drop to her knees to look the little alien straight in the eyes wasn’t entirely due to choice. "Sweetie – " She sought for words. "Sweetie, the systems in this city would have blown us out of the sky if we hadn’t shot back. We didn’t have any choice. You can tell I’m telling the truth, can’t you?" Tisiara only stared back. Her misery didn’t abate, but into it there wove a new thread of confusion, as if faced with an irreconcilable paradox. Though she was no telepath herself, Snow could almost sense what was going through the little one’s mind. Hurting the City was *bad*. The City was provider, guardian, home, friend, mother, playground, God. It was *everything*. But Snow... Snow, one of the first living minds to come here since God only knew when, who had touched minds and fallen helplessly in love with the little alien – a love just as helplessly returned – Snow, her friend, had told only the truth: somehow, for some reason, the City had decided that the vessel that had borne them here was an enemy’s. And there had followed what followed. finally emerged from the miasma of pain. Snow gave up trying to find words. She only hugged Tisiara to her and swallowed the thickness in her throat. Braun cleared his throat loudly and harshly. He said nothing, though, which was lucky for him: one snide remark out of that haughty mouth and Snow would have done her best to deck him where he stood. Angrily (and she knew Tisiara felt that anger, for all that she did her best to quash it), she let go of the Sharasai, stood and turned. "We need to find another way out. Lieutenant, what was the last turnoff we passed?" "About two hundred metres back, the narrow passage off to the south." "Okay. South leads us along the edge of the blast zone." She leant down to show Tisiara the map; the little alien’s whiskers twitched over the datareader as she sniffed at it. Snow traced their rough path along the graphic. "Down this way. Are there any ways up into the City from this area here?" Tisiara scowled at the datareader; the only thing Snow felt from her was perplexity and frustration. Abruptly she looked up, her eyes locking with Snow’s. Snow felt a momentary, piercing sensation like a needle of ice passing swiftly through her head – so cold and so quick there was no pain, only the shock of sensation. The confusion blew away as Tisiara looked back down at the map. With no doubt at all this time she extruded a single claw – Snow felt a badly unsettled shock at the sight of how needle-sharp it was – and traced the same path Snow had, then slid off to one side where there was no map line. she sent strongly. She scampered back down the tunnel, the other Sharasai following. Snow sighed, threw up her hands and turned to Corelli. "Come on, Leandro. Let's backtrack." "Does she really know what she's doing?" "Do we have a fragging choice?" Snow swept past him and back through the gathered Claymores. "Come on, people. Let's move." The gropos stared at her. Corelli drew a deep breath, then looked at Van der Rhies and nodded. The sergeant nodded back and turned to the soldiers. "All right, you pathetic mass of sickly-pallid slack-bellied gorilla-strokin' goons, you *heard* her, we don't have all *day* here, people! Let's move! Move, move, move!" He chivvied the soldiers back down the passageway. Corelli and Braun brought up the rear. Neither man said anything, but the silences they carried could not have expressed more different things. 22:50 EST "Stop." So soft but strong was the word that the Drazi had stopped before even Khovrath had realized that the word didn't come from *his* throat. Mazrakh looked around at the corridor, his nostrils wide, his eyes seeming almost to glow in the gloom of the passageway. They shone wetly, like the walls. "They are coming." "Who?" "The Earthers." Khovrath drew in a breath. He smelt nothing but the spice of the City. "You cannot possibly – " "They are *coming*." Mazrakh turned to him, and Khovrath's fury at having the Hunt usurped from under him died at the gleam in those eyes. "If we wait here, we will take them, and the allies they have found here, and we will have the secrets we came for. That is our task, is it not?" Numbly, Khovrath nodded. "Then let us be about it." Khovrath sucked in breath to shout. he meant to shriek. Khovrath couldn't even see if Mazrakh's snarl had formed words or not. He only knew that the words thundered in his brain, shaking him, and as if in a dream he saw Vrysh, Zhamarok, and Uzbek staggering, hands to their heads as if something had reached inside to rattle their brains in their skulls. The glow in Mazrakh's eyes was more than metaphor now, a blood-red gleam beyond what should have been possible. And weirdly, impossibly, he *was*. It was the berserker joy, the hunter's joy, the killer's joy. It rose in him now, red and glorious. Forgetting his blaster rifle, he followed Mazrakh down the corridor to a place where it widened into a smaller circular chamber, halls leading off from it like veins from a heart. There was little light here. The Drazi moved into the shadows and waited. In the distance, soft footfalls and whispered voices reached towards them like the echoes of an onrushing train. TO BE CONTINUED (and hopefully sooner than it was last time!) SJB