From: "Stephen J. Barringer" Subject: WANDERING STAR 38/?? Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 02:14:40 -0400 This one goes out to my cat, Shadow, who puts up with me beyond normal feline patience, and to my roommate Aaron, who bought Pizza Pops exactly when I needed one. *****************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 - 33 - MEDBAY STATION ONE 23:35 EST The only sound was the swift clatter of fingers on a keyboard. THIS MIGHT BE THE LAST CHANCE I HAVE TO SEND THIS. ONCE YOU READ THIS FILE, YOU WILL SEE WHAT HAS TO BE DONE. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS. WE THINK IT IS YOU WHO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND. WHAT DO YOU MEAN? YOU HAVE MISINTERPRETED YOUR FUNCTION. AND YOU HAVE MISINTERPRETED OUR INTEREST IN YOU. PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO (a pause while tapping keys fall silent ) CLARIFY. WE DO NOT THINK YOU NEED CLARIFICATION. YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES ARE. AND YOU KNOW THE CONSEQUENCES OF FAILING IN THOSE RESPONSIBILITIES. WE SEE NO PROFIT IN CONTINUING THIS DISCUSSION. The sound of breathing, harsh and tight with emotions too powerful to name. Then a sharp cry and a *crack* of plastic against metal, as a medical instrument was hurled across the empty room. VORLON HABITAT 23:36 EST "So now what do we do?" muttered Corelli. Waverly grimaced. "Hey, I *had* my idea." Corporal Burns gestured with her rifle at Tisiara, who, along with the rest of the Sharasai, was staring about in horror at the gloom of the Chamber. "Lieutenant Snow, I'd suggest that if she can get the systems operating soon, she'd better." Snow nodded nervously. "Right...." She knelt down, gathering the Sharasai to her with soft murmurs and embracing arms. The little aliens purred back at her in tones of fright and uncertainty. Watching, Ivanova felt pain twist through her. Though Snow's meld could not possibly be as deep as hers had been, it seemed *easier*, less terrifying, warmer and softer and more full of love than her own survival-blinded rapport had been. She couldn't figure out the answer. Tisiara sent. She looked about the chamber as if seeking something in the shadows, something not visible. There was too much fatigue and bewilderment in the sending now for pain. Snow pressed her lips together in an expression that might have been repressed anger if there hadn't been a tinge of white showing around her eyes. "You have to *try*, sweetie. Reach out. Reach *hard*. Come on." She hugged them to her tighter, almost desperately. *Exactly* desperately. Tisiara closed her eyes under the embrace, nostrils flaring, and actually quivered with an effort Ivanova could *feel.* But there was nothing. "I'm getting a *really* bad feeling about this," muttered Pike. Van der Rhies snapped out a finger at the guard. "That's enough of that, mister! The last thing we need is giving up – " "Yeah, who exactly made *you* my boss, gropo?" Pike snapped back. "I'm Space Service, case you forgot -- !" "Pike, *I'm* your boss and he's right, so *shut up*." Waverly spun to face van der Rhies. "And you listen to me, Sergeant, you *don't* give orders to *my* people, got me?" Van der Rhies stared down at the smaller, younger man. "Are you *threatening* me, boy?!" "Secure it, Chris!" Corelli's voice whipcracked. "Lieutenant – " began the sergeant. Ivanova drew her PPG and fired three shots skyward. The scream of ionized air silenced them all with gasps and starts. They turned to gape at her as if they'd forgotten she was there. She swept them all with her most withering glare. One by one, they wilted, looking down or away: Waverly, Corelli, Burns, van der Rhies, Pike, DeChant, the others. Only Braun met her gaze, cool and distant; but for one unpleasant moment there was almost a feeling of... *resonance*, of sympathy, as if he too was disgusted by the collapse of discipline. Unwilling to share any agreement with the scientist, she moved to stand by Tisiara's side. With seeming absentmindedness she reached down with one hand to caress the alien girl's head, never taking her eyes from the group. "We are in an area of lingering telepathic influence," she said aloud. "For that reason alone, I will forget this incident. If this had happened anywhere else, you would be brigged. If this had happened in any other situation of danger, you would be ruined. All of you." Nobody answered. Tisiara's sending was quiet, yet intense, and Ivanova knew it came only to her. <[blank bewilderment]> Ivanova gritted her teeth, trying not to let her opinion of the Vorlons filter back down through the link. She let her eyes rest once more on Braun, meeting his cool regard. "Dr. Braun. Place your biostimulus units into the wall of the chamber and set them to maximum. We have to provoke a response. Any response. If we can get power through the organic circuits for any reason, we may stimulate a portion of the City's consciousness back to useful levels. Can you do that?" Braun considered. "I'll need a minute or two to calibrate them, but yes, I can." "Do it." As Braun moved to the walls and began placing the tiny units, Ivanova turned to Tiffany. "Dr. Snow. I want you to observe this closely. You may learn a thing or two." Snow opened her mouth. But Ivanova held her eyes, willing her to understand as best she could without letting her mind take a fatal telepathic leap. It took a moment, but abruptly Snow's eyes slid to Braun, who had paused to wait, and back to Ivanova. One pale eyebrow arched just faintly. In return, Ivanova nodded perhaps a millimetre. Without further protest, Tiffany turned and walked briskly to Braun's side, watching as the older scientist attached and calibrated his instruments. Watching to be sure he would do what he was ordered and nothing more. And conveniently placing her out of direct contact with the Sharasai, and hopefully preventing her from overhearing any of what was about to happen. "Cap?" It was, of course, Waverly. "What's, uh, what's happening?" "I'm the only one here who's had any experience with the Vorlons before now," stated Ivanova. "And I know more or less how any tachyon transmitter actually works. If I can combine my skills and knowledge with the Sharasai's familiarity with the city, perhaps we can get this transmitter working." Corelli cleared his throat. "Protocol requires me to observe that permitting a telepathic scan from an unfamiliar nonhuman species is not – " "*Protocol* is not going to get any of us out of here, Leandro," Ivanova snapped. "If you have a better idea I'd love to hear it." Corelli regarded her steadily. "I had to say it, Captain. You know that." "Yes, yes you did." Ivanova sighed. "Tell DeClercq about it, I'm sure he'll ream me out for it later, and if we're alive for it I'll praise God and say Kaddish. Now *shut up*." Corelli shut, turned, and shepherded the others back to the entrance without a word. In the centre of the chamber, Ivanova knelt, holding Tisiara's paws in her hands and feeling the other Sharasai gather around to touch her, stroking, petting, or just grabbing on and holding tight. Ivanova closed her eyes. A memory flashed in her skin: the time she'd visited her crazy great-aunt Petra, who had about seventeen cats, and the eight-year-old Susan had accidentally torn open a catnip pouch and gotten the herbal dust all over her. Every cat had mobbed her, rubbing, purring, butting, swatting and tumbling, and the normally friendly pets had suddenly become terrifying. Susan had run sobbing to her father, who'd had to carry her out of the house literally holding her over his head while the cats meowed and pawed at his legs. A warm tingling rippled about her, tickling, like bubbles streaming past her in all directions. It took her a moment to realize it was the Sharasai, helplessly laughing at the memory. Somehow their laughter transmuted something, and she found herself laughing along. It *was* funny, now that she thought about it. "Captain?" It was Braun. "I've attached all my sensors. On your command I will trigger the pulse." Ivanova nodded. "Give me a ten-count, then go." She reached out to the Sharasai, Tisiara first and then through her the others. The link was weak, but even through that feeble contact the power under her thoughts was terrifying, as if she'd laid a trembling fingertip on a shipkiller nuke. More terrifying was the realization that Tisiara and the others simply had no comprehension of that power. Had they known how to fuse together properly, how to direct and channel their power, they might have blasted all the humans' minds out of existence by sheer accident. And she was proposing to provide that very direction and channel. Three. Two. One. The power spike was like a reflex kick in the knee. Pins and needles swept all across her flesh. Before the sensation could fade Ivanova led the Sharasai into the connection. The chamber came alive around them with energies invisible to the others: red rippling lines of energy, crackling up and down the tubes like the walls of the Great Machine, weak and feeble. Ivanova fed them with her own meagre power, and with the linked power of the Sharasai, not knowing how she did it, just doing it. Strange characters materialized in the air, shifting and blurring into one another as Vorlon script so often did. Ivanova could not read it, but she did not need to read it. She *understood* it. The confusion echoed and rebounded among the Sharasai as concepts utterly unfamiliar to their untrained minds bounced through them. Ivanova wasn't sure she understood either, but the only possibility she could think of gave her a chill deeper than she wanted to think about. Now – how to operate this? She cleared her mind self-consciously; it felt almost like clearing her throat. The characters and energies did not change. She called for the entity she had seen, the simulacrum she had begun to think *was* the City in some real sense. She built its image in her mind, focusing on it, straining her will to believe it into existence. But there was nothing. And the power was beginning to fade. She heard Braun calling urgently from across the room. The words made no sense, but she was beyond words now. She understood him in one quantum surge. If this failed, they had nothing left. The City would be truly dead. But even as she reached, she knew it would be useless. The little alien had never been here, had never been trained to operate these devices. Which proved their earlier speculation: these Sharasai had never signaled them. It had been the City itself. All along, it had been the City. And now the City was dying, and Tisiara could not help them. Nobody could help her. She drew a deep breath. Out of nowhere, she remembered John Sheridan, describing in an awed and perplexed murmur the words of a Vorlon in his mind. She threw back her head and sang. "What the -- ?" Snow's whisper never finished. Ivanova had lifted her head, eyes still closed, and sung a note, a high-pitched steady tone, an open vowel: *Aaaaaaahhhhhhh*.... A moment later Tisiara raised her voice as well: it was an unearthly sweet note, the kind of note only castrati singers could produce but even higher, like a crystal glass struck with pure silver. The others chimed in, each finding their own note in the harmony, and the chord grew about them like sunlight tearing clouds to shreds. Corelli crossed himself. Waverly's mouth had dropped open. Crazily, Snow sucked in a breath and sang, adding her own note to the harmony. She was aware of Khovrath moving up beside her to stare. And then, a moment later, he drew breath and joined in. His voice was a rich deep bass, vibrating like a fusion plant. The other Drazi lifted their voices, finding their place in the harmony. The sound was so rich that it was a physical thing now, shaking them all. It did not cease: none of them took a breath at quite the same instant, and the sound continued flawlessly, a thundering, keening note without music and yet utterly harmonious, the echoes of the chamber building a resonance upwards and downwards that was shaking the entire structure – "*Gott und Jesu in Himmel!*" screamed Braun as the chamber burst into light about them, blue energies searing upwards towards the invisible apex of the room. "DON'T STOP!" It was not a shout, not a scream, but a song. Ivanova held the note through the words and went on. Snow felt her very flesh singing. She closed her eyes and dissolved into it. Her thoughts became the song. And as one, the song reached skyward. SKYHOPPER FLIGHT SHUTTLE ONE 23:41 EST The song burst out of his speakers all at once, huge and thunderous. Wired to his seat by adrenaline and a white-knuckled grip, it caught Morgan like a tsunami and literally knocked him screaming in sheer terrified fright. He lay on the shuttle floor gasping, trying to calm his rabbiting heart before it burst, when it dawned on him that he *knew* the voices in those song. He'd only heard Ivanova sing once, at the Mass he'd dragged her to on Christmas Eve. But Tiffany sang all the time – she usually had only a nodding acquaintance with key or melody but her shrill voice was unmistakeable, except here even that shrillness became a superhuman purity. And there was Matt's voice in there, and Leandro's, and – He threw himself at the console, pounded the sensor controls so hard he nearly broke them, stared at the readouts, then fell on the main comm circuit to the ship. "Shuttle One to *Saint-Germain!*" he screamed. "*Tachyon signal*, goddammit, we have a *tachyon* signal! It's them! Coordinates as following – " He stabbed his keyboard, feeding the coordinates to his uplink. "*Saint-Germain*, do you copy coordinates?!" "Coordinates copied!" He couldn't tell if the shout of triumph was DeClercq or Ramirez, and supposed it didn't matter. "Targeting now!" Morgan nodded, breathless. "Wait 'til the signal ceases, give them time to get clear, we can – " He stopped. His eyes widened. "Ensign Morgan, come in. Ensign, come in!" But Morgan was beyond proper speech. His lips moved in the faint shape of the words *Oh no*, but if there was breath to animate them, it was too low for any human ears to hear. Across the park, less than thirty metres from where the shuttle lay steaming in the rain, two buildings had begun to glow. And as he watched, they slumped, sliding with slow dreadful finality down into a multicoloured luminous ooze like poisonous magma. Smoke began spewing up from the edge as that multicoloured devastation began to creep slowly towards the shuttle. ...TO BE CONTINUED