From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sun Aug 4 01:59:59 1996 Date: Sat, 3 Aug 1996 11:27:47 -0500 (CDT) From: watkins julia k To: b5-creative@lists.best.com Subject: "War Bride" chapter one Hello All! The time has come to think about the Earth-Minbari War ... and, of course, romance. In this story I hope to fill in some John and Anna backstory, which is why I've been asking timeline questions. I have taken John's age from the Carlson timeline, and he got the date from a Boxleitner interview. I am somewhat dubious, since it makes Sheridan two years _younger_ than Sinclair. So that's how I'm writing this, though I wouldn't mind being corrected. There's some other stuff I've arbitrarily decided. Ask me if you want to know. Many thanks to Angel, Alison, Rebekah, Becky, Adele, Leslie, and Dave who made comments on the drafts. I hope you like this; please let me know what you think. Julie the Anna-obsessed =================== Standard disclaimers. ====== "War Bride" by Julie Watkins julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Chapter 1. Date: October 2245 (four months after Dukhat's death) --=*=-- "Once during the war my fighter was disabled. I sat there, radio out, power out, for eight hours which seemed like eight years. I didn't think I'd ever see another living being. Well, I was rescued, obviously ... " John Sheridan, "There All Honor Lies" --=*=-- It was a white light that surrounded him, calling him to its unity, calling him to the peace of the grave. All that he was drifted and blended into a single resting pearl. All that might have been flew away in tatters: Stars shone in a dark night, rain on the roof, a warm touch of fingers on his neck. All blended into one as he released, a small spiraling regret escaped behind him as he fell inward: Earth, teaming billions, hung on it's fragile thread. Would it, had it fallen as he would, he had failed? Time, too, fell away. +++ "REROUTE FAILED." John cursed at the display. He was running out of options. His power was fast bleeding away and the emergency backup had already been taken out. The beacon was dead, the radio was out. Every other moment another screen went dead as he power outage spread. As far as he could tell there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the radio, except the screen had long since gone blank. If he couldn't get a signal out, he could only be found by direct search. Space was filled with wreckage and he would look like another piece of dead metal to any long-range scanner. He made one more attempt to power the radio and lost probably more than half of what little power he had left. He at last gave up, and put all remaining external power into a final thruster burst. He got five percent, and it only lasted four seconds. It only added a snail's difference, but it was at right angles to the direction of attack of the Minbari ship. So now his drift was separating from the shrapnel surrounding him. Maybe it would be enough to register. If there was anyone out there looking. And then there was the waiting. His fighter was dead in space and all he had was what was left in his suit. When fully charged it was three days worth of life support, but--if he could trust the meter on his arm--a lot had escaped when the emergency system had been hit. Maybe the failsafe would hold. All he could do was wait and hope. Arko'll come through, John told himself. But that was only if he still survived. If the Captain was going to come through, he would have been rescued by now. It was already over an hour since the attack. It had been an attack, not a battle. The Minbari war cruiser had appeared without warning. The _Eagle_ was still deploying fighters when the shooting began. He remembered what he saw of firefight, out of the corner of his eye. The ship was hit bad. It would have been sitting ducks for the next pass. John's fighter had been hit in the same barrage and it had taken him long minutes to regain control, and he might have blacked out for a time. When he finally slowed the tumble to tolerable, he was unable to see much against the starfield, those glances he took as he fought to regain radio. They're dead. It was a dull pain pulling him toward despair. They're probably all dead. That leaves me, alone in the night. Rescue would be nice. Can't count on it, though. Helpless. All he had left to do was wait for the improbable luck of someone else finding him and pulling his ass out of the fire. All he had left to do was try to live as long a possible to better the odds. He fought back against the adrenalin rush. Panic would do nothing but use up oxygen. He tried to force himself to calm. Still, his instinct resisted. There had to be something he could do. Nothing. Not a thing. Just wait. Oh, right. Smile and do the Buddha bit. Doesn't that sound fun? He clamped his mouth shut, tight, against his racing heart and tried to relax his fisted hands. I'm not dead yet, he told himself. I am not going to die screaming. What he had left to do now was think. A cartoon picture presented itself to his imagination. St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. "Lieutenant John Sheridan," the bearded man said in a serious tone. "What do you have to say for your life?" All the cliche's, all the fears, all the warnings. He had chosen this life, sought it out. He could have been a diplomat, like Dad. There weren't any other military in the family. So, hot shot pilot, what do you have to say for yourself? Live hard, die young. My body's whole, that's something. The ID will be positive ... if there's anyone to find me. Mom will want a gravestone for the family plot even though they'll send the coffin into a star: JOHN JOSEPH SHERIDAN 27 March 2220 - 8 October 2245 I'd rather my soul stay there, he thought, under the larches. He could feel the cool breeze again in his memory. This wasn't what I expected when I joined Earth Force seven years ago. Back then, there had been nothing in the future but bright promise. We had helped defeat the Dilgar, Earth Alliance was expanding and the military was the fastest route to the top of the hill. Or six feet under (symbolically speaking). Oh, damn, he complained. It's not fair. Where did this war come from? Arko didn't, doesn't know. The way he looked at the briefings was "don't know" not "can't say". +++ John looked again at the time display on his forearm. Faint red numbers glowed in the dark. Fifteen minutes less air than the last time he checked. The power that ran the clock wasn't exactly a waste of resource: The battery was small. There was no way to translate the electricity to more air time. Playing "how long can I hold off until the next time I look?" was a bad waste of mind time, and an invitation to make his heart race. He reviewed the configuration. Wires led back to the oxygen supply, but there was nothing vital underneath, and it would crush rather than break. There would be no sharp edges capable of puncturing his suit. With the tips of his gloves he pressed down on the display panel until he felt it give way. The display froze: some line segments dropped out, it became something meaningless. He lay his head and arms back, relaxed his muscles, closed his eyes, tried to breath shallow. +++ He was proud of himself. He hadn't hit anything yet. (How long a time was "yet"? He had no way to tell.) His hands were relaxed. His eyes were closed ... most of the time. The fear and panic was still there. He needed a happy place to wait in. He let his mind wander, seartching through his memory, panic following behind. The fall was slowed by the memory of fingers on his skin. He clung to the memory, defined it. His breathing slowed and went shallow as he let it enfold him. Love. Yes. Why hadn't he seen it? Why couldn't he admit to it? Where had all his ambition gotten him except here, to die in the dark? What was the worth of all the plans when war would come and shatter everything? Love. He drank of it. Who? Tricky question, Mr. Hot Shot Pilot. Cocky and ambitious, he had had his pick of women and had often done so. So who? --Or was it illusion? Was he only grasping for some sort of meaning? He felt the embrace again, felt the comfort filling his soul. It was real, he told himself, just unknown. The touch was familiar. Not one of the one night stands. If it was then he _was_ kidding himself. It was a light touch, most times, though it also could be strong and demanding. It was something joyful as well as need and release. Laughter. Laughter was a lot of it. Oh, God-- He knew. Long brown hair, laughing eyes, broad mouth. Feet running down the hall, laughter following. "Stop bothering me," he would call. "I'm trying to study." And he would try to ignore the knowledge that she and Lizzy were talking about him behind his back. Oh, God, Anna. He laughed, laughed happily, forgetting the darkness outside. His eyes were closed and he floated outside of all. Mom was right. Mom is always right. Anna Mathieson. Lizzy's best friend, and the bane of his existence. It was Anna. Anna who had been playing the same futile game that he had been playing--ambition, excitement, no time for commitment. What other motive could have drawn him into such a dangerous life? (Life hadn't seemed dangerous when he enlisted.) What other motive could have drawn her in as well, stalking lovers among soldiers? The first time had started at Luna's, in San Francisco, an officer's haunt. He hadn't recognized her--the bar was dark and he wasn't expecting anyone from home to be there. He was looking for a pickup. She had responded with interest, arms around his neck. A sensual touch. Then she whispered a teasing giggle "Now, Johnny. What would Mom say?" and he knew her. He suddenly straightened as if it had been Liz he'd found there, ... and had overheard some other hot shot delivering his same line. But his sudden protectiveness soon disapated. She was legal, he calculated, though not by much. It was also soon clear that she was experienced. Within the hour he had had her leaned up against the wall and they were kissing hungrily. Soon after that they left for his hotel room and played long into the night. The next time he visited home she entered the house first, his hand on her back. Mom and Dad figured it (this wasn't the first girl he'd brought home), and there had been some nervous laughter amid the teasing. They left to go dancing and it wasn't a surprise that they didn't show up again until the next morning for brunch. Mom shook her head and was tolerant. It was the next visit that she got upset, when he showed up with someone else. She kept her mouth shut and John tried not to notice. Since then ... well, they both had ambitions. Since her skills were in archeology it was too soon to enlist (she needed to finish her degrees), and she might go further in the civilian sector. The expedition companies were beginning to expand. So they made no plans and continued their casual habits, other lovers. But when they did wind up in the same town they were always happy for each other's company. Maybe he didn't want to admit how much he looked forward to those rendezvous. Not until it was too late. How long had it been? It felt like years. He kept his eyes closed. There was nothing to see but stars processing through the weird epicycles of his residual tumble. The odds didn't look good. Anna, can you help me with this? (I'm sorry you're never know.) Anna, love, could you help me to die? It was a white light that covered him, smothered him, his burial shroud. Fingers pulled at the threads that had been floating outwards, and they began to tangle and weave. +++ The white light ... moved. That seemed odd. Slowly the meditative trance fell apart. It was not one light within, but several outside. He could feel (feel!) the fighter being pulled by a grappler. Someone trying to get his attention; his radio still dead. How was his air supply? He could see hand signals through the window, suited crew outside, caught in the spotlights of the rescue tug. They were far from the nearest star, so there was no general light. The markings he could see were ambiguous. Earth Force, but he didn't know who. Did he need the medic now? How much air? He looked down at the broken display. Am I going to get in trouble for willful damage? he almost giggled. His air didn't seem to be stale. He motioned a "fine, maybe". They'll be able to tell me when I get in how close I cut it. ===end chapter one=== From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sun Aug 4 13:31:41 1996 Date: Sun, 4 Aug 1996 06:03:45 -0500 (CDT) From: watkins julia k To: b5-creative@lists.best.com Subject: "War Bride" chapter two Hello All: This is the second chapter of "War Bride". Thanks to Angel, Alison, Rebekah, Becky, Adele, Leslie, and Dave who made comments on the drafts. I also have a debt of inspiration to Becky ("Building Bridges") and Rebekah ("Home Fires Burning") for helping me visualize ship life. Please let me know what you think! Julie the Anna obsessed ====== Standard disclaimers. ====== "War Bride" by Julie Watkins julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Chapter 2. Date: October 2245 (four months after Dukhat's death) --=*=-- "You have quite a brother there, Liz." Anna Sheridan, "Revelations" --=*=-- "Congratulations," Dr. Clary said. He was one of the doctors from _Djakarta_, the ship that had rescued them. "Near as we can tell, you were on the low end of oxygen consumption. That's unusual for how tall you are." "How much time did I have left?" He shrugged. "A few hours," he said, then smiled broadly. "Long enough." John got the distinct impression Clary was happy he wasn't looking at a corpse. "The others we rescued had better luck with their emergency supplies, _and_ radios. So they got picked up first because they were yelling. It's the way things go. You did good." "Thanks." "Thank _you_." John vacated, letting Clary get back to the injured. Mostly burns, it looked like. Overflowing. He did and he didn't want to know who was on the beds. Some of them weren't going to make it. Once outside, he wondered where he could find a vibe shower, and hoping there was a laundry unit in the same room. He had left his spacesuit in a neat pile in the locker room area. Everything else he owned he was wearing: his flight suit. It--and he--was pretty ripe. _Djakarta_ and _Eagle_ had been built from the same plans. He made guesses, then ran into Scott Borgia on the way. That had been the first ride down the roller coaster of tears mixed with joyful reunions. The _Djakarta_ crew had been near overwhelmed, racing against time, trying to save everyone they could. Borgia had been brought in four hours earlier, and told him the ropes and what news he had as John cleaned up. The _Eagle_ was down and dying. Arko had sent a narrow-beam distress signal toward HQ when the attack began. The Minbari had not returned for the kill. Perhaps they were observing in their "invisible" ships, observing the human's strength and rescue resources. There was no sign that any of the Minbari fighters had been hit, much less destroyed. About half the crew was saved, from what Borgia could tell. The captain (their captain) was dead. Their new captain was Anthony Milborn, but they soon would be split up and reassigned. The bridge of the _Eagle_ had been well protected, but Arko had been injured in the rush to get all the injured into "safe" areas, and he'd been lost. What was left of the old ship was a dangerous place. All they could do was explode the rest when the search teams were done. They had left Arko where he died, eyes closed and hands crossed. He went "down" with his ship, along with the unrecoverable dead. +++ It would be another five hours before the final lists would be posted, and the wait time was surreal. Coffey and Dieker had the preliminary list on the wall, but he didn't look at it as checked in. Medlab had already sent down his name, which he verified. There was a faint dead smile in her eyes as Dieker changed the flag on his name to green. Coffey asked if he'd seen McCord. He hadn't. It was crowded, shuffling between the mess and assembly area, and some people were vainly trying to find hidden corners to collapse. These were most of the unconfirmed Coffey was trying to track down. The _Eagle_'s crew component was 400. On a good day he knew everybody's name, and could match names with faces of the support and technical crew. It was not a good day. All you knew was the people you talked to. Seeing wasn't always believing. Royden Tolzien from _Djakarta_ looked like Kevin Hajek from _Eagle_, at least from the corner of his eye. So when he'd read Hajek's name on the "dead" list he'd gone to sleep thinking "that can't be right". +++ Gamma Station. He was starting over with nothing but his flightsuit... and his life, and his memories. It had been two days to the station, the funeral on the evening of the first day. It was the last gathering of the crew ... but it had already begun to fragment under the strain of losing Captian and ship and nearly half the complement. One hundred eighty-six killed in battle, another twelve in medlab after rescue and four more still in critical condition. Funerals shouldn't be lists of names. They all stood, some weeping, and "family" fell apart. The survivors would be reassigned to twenty different ships. John had a few days layover. His former crewmates were scrambling to accumulate new kits. What he got for himself was some time alone on a terminal and he wrote letters. It was time for reflection, and he though about what he had discovered, floating in that white light in the darkness. "When I lay there thinking I would die," he wanted to tell Dad, "I had one regret--" --The censors would not let him write that. He couldn't mention the attack, and he didn't want to worry them anyway. But he could tell Dad his hope, not telling him why he felt it: "When this is over, I want to marry Anna, if she'll have me. Ambition isn't important any more." He couldn't say "Don't tell mom; I don't want to make her cry." He'd have to tell both or neither, so he left it. "Keep an eye on her for me, can you?" he asked. What could he say to Anna? "I've had time to think out here. Sorry I forgot a Christmas card--" he began, never minding that she hadn't send one to him. He then wrote a chatty report of his New Year's adventures on Proxima III. That had been before the war started. +++ Anna came in from classes exhausted. It had been a hard time concentrating. She put off her reading to check mail. A letter from John Sheridan. At first she was surprised, and then she remembered: Earth was at war. The media didn't want to talk about it much, and that was as frightening as anything else. There had been no formal declaration from the Minbari, it took a long time for anything beyond rumors to come out of the Senate. Each rumor contradicted the last: They attacked. No, we attacked. Why would we attack? No one knew a thing. Life tried to go on as normal. What else was there to do? But it had been a cold certainty growing in her belly: Nothing would be the same. And John, it seemed, had been thinking, too. That was what life was like for a soldier in war, wasn't it? In peace time you made plans. Learned stuff, prepared. All you could do in war was be alert and wait. Daydream about the future and play "might have been". And John--Hot Shot Johnny--had decided he'd rather be married. John didn't mean the letter as a proposal, she knew. He was being considerate, rational. Now was not a time for making plans. But it was easy for her to read between the lines to know his intention. It was a sudden flutter inside her to realize she had been waiting for this, had been trying to call up the nerve to take the first step. She should have bought him that card. She started to write an answer: yes. Yes, I will love you, she thought. Come home to me. But then she read again the words there on the screen: "keep alive". How could she ask that? How could she be so selfish to ask him to put his life before what might have to be done? All the fear of the war came back to her, redoubled, crushing her new-found happiness. It might be that he must die to defend Earth. She swallowed, not knowing how she might continue under such a weight of regret and might-have-been. Slowly she deleted the words. There was nothing else for it: she could not ask for such a promise. She deleted the words, and then the whole letter. She remembered a night in Denver, and wiped away her tears. Tears never helped. She put her hands on the keyboard and began to write again. Yes, John, I'll marry you. If I can. +++ John signed in at his station after the 1500 mail dump. He was on _Courir_ now, training his wing on what little had been learned in the _Eagle_ attack. There was a letter from "Anna", and the system supplied her last name, "[Mathieson]". He smiled. That was fast. As he read the letter his eyes opened wide, and then he began to laugh. You're not a subtle man, Johnny, he told himself. Rather transparent, I'd say. He laughed again, but softly. He didn't want to make explanations to the curious just yet. He was happy she wasn't angry at him for asking, even though he hadn't realized he had. He was happy he'd made the right choice. He wondered if she had heard him when he had called to her, or maybe the war had changed her, just as it had changed him, falling on them both without a warning. It was some kind of stupid cosmic joke that they felt this strong and were too stubborn to admit it. At least now they knew. It was a melancholy comfort. Denver, huh? he mused. Not San Francisco? "Married". He tried the word. Liked it. ====end chapter two==== From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Wed Aug 7 20:17:35 1996 Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 16:00:14 -0500 (CDT) From: watkins julia k To: b5-creative@lists.best.com Subject: "War Bride" chapter three Hello all! As I promised some of you, here is chapter three. "War Bride" is my proposal of what John and Anna did during the Earth-Minbari War. This chapter is all slush. :) Tomorrow morning I will be leaving town for two weeks, so if you send a comment (please, please) it might take me a while to respond. I figured this was a better pausing spot than chapter two. I hope to get some writing done while I'm out of town. This chapter includes a short (but important) contribution written by Angel (Anna's flashback, slightly edited). Thanks to Angel, Rebekah, Becky, Adele and Leslie who sent comments. Thanks also to Dave answered some ship and rank questions I will be using in future chapters. Julie the Anna obsessed ==== Standard disclaimers ===== "War Bride" by Julie Watkins Chapter 3 Date: February 2246 (seven months after Dukhat's death) --=*=-- "She was my friend for a lot longer than you were married to her." Liz Sheridan, Revelations --=*=-- Anna was still standing in the same place when the taxi turned the corner. This was the Sheridan house, but not _the_ homestead that felt like her other home. When "Dad"--David Sheridan--had stopped doing field work in favor doing deskwork in the diplomatic office he had bought a second house in Arvada, west of Denver, so he could commute; Denver had one of the branch departments, hard-linked to Geneva. The farm house down on the plains he kept as a vacation retreat, renting the cropland to neighbors. That's where she had grown up, that's where she had met Liz. Liz was still living at home, finishing up her Masters at the University of Colorado, and Anna had been doing her graduate work at the Institute of Language and Archeology nearby. Not quite familiar, Anna admitted to herself, looking up the short walk at a half-bricked building that seemed hemmed in by its neighbors. There was hardly any lawn, only one tree in front ... no fields. It was still friendly territory. She walked up to the door and pressed the doorbell. Carol answered. "Ah, hello Mrs. Sheridan," she said in a small voice. "Is Lizzy home?" Carol said "yes" and started to ask why Anna was here, but she sped up the stairs looking nervous as a teenager. They were still upstairs when David got home for dinner. "Anna's here," she told him. "She was acting strange." David smiled, and hugged his wife close. "I think our girl figured it out." Carol tried not to hope too much as she called the girls down. Anna helped set the table like it was old times. All that was missing was one more seat at the table. "What brings you here?" David asked Anna, bringing them back to the present. "She got another letter from Johnny, Dad," Liz said. Anna had talked with them after the first letter came, talked about what John wrote, not what she read into it. "What did he say?" Carol wanted to know all about it. Anna blushed. "A bit spicy?" David laughed. "Not quite," Liz whispered under her breath. Through most of the dinner they talked in generalities. John seemed to be doing all right, though he couldn't say anything real. After a while the conversation stilled and the silence got awkward. "When I got John's first letter," Anna said, "I had to wonder why he wrote. It wasn't a habit. Half the time he'd forget Christmas and the only time he sent me a birthday message was when Lizzy made him. So I thought, he wants--" She stopped. Felt teenage again. "Er, you know we've ... been seeing each other. When we're in the same place." David nodded, hiding his smile behind one hand, knowing why John wrote. Finally John was thinking sensible about commitment and settling down, and maybe Anna as well. He knew several of John's "dates" and there were probably several more. He could also say the same thing about Anna and she knew it. One thing he hadn't liked about the military was how it magnified teenage egotism with little encouragement to change. Anna was still staring at her plate. "So I wondered why he wrote. I wanted to say, 'be careful'--" her breath caught. "I couldn't say..." "Hush, child. We know," Carol said. They didn't want to hear the words any more than Anna wanted to say them. What ISN said, what it didn't say, was a constant worry. John might not come home. Anna pushed over the lump. "I thought, I think he wanted to ask me. But he didn't want-- if he didn't-- He wanted to ask _me_. Not in a letter." "He didn't ask," David said. "But I answered," Anna replied. "It's ok," Liz prompted. "Tell them." She took a deep breath and explained. "I p-picked a night," she stuttered into the silence, "ch...changed the date." She breathed in deeply looking at her plate."I was afraid John would think it was a bad joke, but he wrote back the sweetest letter--" She had to stop for a time to gain control over her tears, remembering. She had returned to her apartment after a long stint at the lab yesterday, and the rooms had seemed just as sterile as the specimens she was dating, Uruk and Euphrates notwithstanding. Lonely, echoing. She fed the cats and sat down to open her mail. There was a letter from John listed, amid other correspondence from a half dozen friends. Nervously, she had saved his letter for last, skimming the others first. Would he think it was a bad joke? Would he _wish_ it was a bad joke? She needn't have worried. He phrased it carefully, hoping she wasn't having second thoughts, was she sure? She fretted over the first few paragraphs, until she heard it, halfway through the letter. "I love you," he said. "I want you for always." She took a deep breath. It was all right, then. " I love you, too," she whispered back to him, letting herself believe it was real, not just wishes, believing he would know she had said it. That the barrier was broken. "He does feel the same way," she continued, "but he needs to be sure. So that's this letter, and I needed Lizzy's help to write it. I have to tell him everything that happened. That means I'm serious." She was flustered, the words were tumbling over each other. "I don't understand," Carol said finally. "I called him 'husband'," she explained into the silence. "I told him I missed him and I loved him, and I thanked him for the memories." Memories to give us both strength through the waiting, the fear and regret. "I signed it 'Anna Sheridan'." Instead of asking "do you want to marry me?", instead of writing "I know why you wrote, and yes, I'll marry you," she had called herself a War Bride, for she knew not if the War would let him return to her. The night before he had left for war had been their wedding night, and it had been the night in Denver, though there had been three suns between them, and that and other nights as well. And there had been a courtship, and friends and family had gathered after the wedding to wish them well, and so they would. And all the "might have been" that the War took from them they would build in memory. For she would not let it be that fate could say that love had been lost before it had been found. Anna looked down at her empty plate, ashamed. What right had she to do this, to force herself into his family by decree? David reached over the table to take her hand, and she looked up to see Carol was crying, covering her mouth with one hand. David's face was sad, not angry. "That was well done," he said. "My Johnny chose wisely." "Thank you," she whispered. "What have you decided so far?" With Liz's help, and much stuttering between them, she sketched it out. David and Carol stayed silent until Anna mentioned the reception had been at Starlight, a small restaurant in Burlington that had been a high school favorite. "No, that won't do," David broke in. "That's where Johnny wanted it, but it was my money and I put my foot down. Too out of the way. You got married in Denver, and the party was at Thomas', Grand Lake." It was high class and expensive, and a beautiful view. It also had a specialty of catering to large gatherings. Anna and Liz both blinked. "Oh, yeah." Liz managed to speak first. "You two sure went round and round about that." So Thomas' it was. And when Anna and Carol couldn't decide if they had served salmon or steak David wondered "why not both?" and there was no good reason not to. The plans continued. When Liz got up to get paper to take down notes, Carol called a break to do dishes. Then they continued in front of the fireplace. It was more than a little silly. The wedding was a small ceremony with the judge--that Anna had already established. The wedding was John and her in front of the judge, and her parents and David and Carol and Lizzy were there watching. On the other hand Anna could tell the reception was going to get out of hand. Yet any time she tried to put the breaks on David would interrupt and pout until she relented. As far as he was concerned, nothing was too outrageous. Anna finally gave in, and joined in the laughter. It felt good to smile, and she could hear John laughing as she keyed the words in. It was going to be a long letter. He would like that. David kept his smile on. This was serious business. He could feel the unspoken dread that hung over them: the war. Letters and wartime; it would be a hard journey. There would be so much that couldn't be talked about. So let the wedding be insane, he resolved. It was something they could elaborate upon without worry for the censors. It would be a long time (he hoped) of letter-writing before John could come home. The prayer was continuous: "Almighty God, please bring him home. Bring them all home alive." The more they could write about the easier it would be to "chin up" and be brave. +++ It was late before the letter was finally done. In the morning Anna planned to write a private note to send along with the one from the family. David read her thoughts as she looked at the clock. "You can stay here tonight," he said. He grabbed an extra blanket and showed Anna to "her room", as he called it. It was John's. She halted at the doorway. "D-David--" she began, after taking the blanket. "'Dad'," he corrected. "OK. Dad." The voice was small. "I don't think--" It was another lump to push over. "I don't want to leave. Can you find me work, for the war effort?" She knew his diplomatic work had been shifting. He was close enough, she hoped, to get news that wasn't overly processed for the media. "I can't concentrate at the lab," she looked down. She didn't like to admit that worry was making her work sloppy. None of it seemed to matter. "I can wrap it up to a stopping point in a few days and take a leave of absence. A lot of people have already left." He nodded and promised he could find something. She thanked him and then entered to make the bed. +++ In the wee morning Anna left John's room and walked barefoot in the dark to the deck looking over the back yard. The other houses were dark, roofs touched by moonrise. She couldn't sleep. She didn't want to sleep alone. She looked at the stars that the moonlight and city lights hadn't chased away. Was there battle going on out there? She wondered where John was, and hoped he was still alive. A short time later David joined her. She felt guilty and didn't know what to say. She felt bad for asking, could she move in? She tried to withdraw her request, but--as with the party arrangements--he waved aside her objections. "You call me 'Dad', I'll call you 'Daughter'," he said, and his smile was as winning as John's ever was. "Don't feel bad. You didn't surprise me tonight, but you were to scared to notice, I think." He looked at her intently, and she could see the certainty in his eyes that he wanted her to feel as well. "You didn't push Johnny into anything. He told me to look after you, and you read him right." He spoke carefully to keep within in the marriage fiction. "John wrote me the same time he wrote you. He told me what he hoped for, to come back again to you." Anna started to cry. She tried to turn away, to hide her tears, but David took her arms and then pulled her into a tight embrace. "Dry your tears," he whispered in her ear. "Go back to your bed and get some rest. We'll see to your things tomorrow. Big old house, we've got plenty of room." ===end chapter three=== From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sun Dec 22 23:04:42 1996 Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 23:23:59 -0500 (CDT) From: watkins julia k To: b5-creative@lists.best.com Subject: "War Bride" chapter 4 Hello All! Here is chapter 4 of "War Bride", finally. Thank you to everyone who has commented on the first three chapters, and thank you to Leslie, Becky and Rebekah who commented on the draft of this chapter. Once again Angel gets a special thank you: it was she who suggested Mr. Elytis' mistake, and the rewrite wrote itself into something much better than the original. Please let me know what you think. In chapter 5 we go back to John. Julie =============== Standard disclaimers =============== "War Bride" by Julie Watkins julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Chapter 4. Date: Early Spring 2246 (first year of the Earth-Minbari War) --=*=-- "I'll talk to you when I talk to you." --David Sheridan, _Severed Dreams_ --=*=-- "You just want the two?" David asked as the clerk left to get a box. "Dad. John got me a perfectly good diamond--" even if it was nothing more than transmitted binary code retranslated into a picture on her computer screen; the letter had arrived last night and had prompted this expedition "--it's just not something I can wear every day. Now we were in such a rush that we didn't get rings. But the judge frowned at us and I promised--" The clerk came back and she handed him her credit chit. "Mathieson", it said on the screen. "You should let me pay for this." "He's my husband. It has to be my gift to him." They weren't five steps outside door toward the mall parking lot when Anna sat heavily on the bench, pulled the velvet box out of the bag and unceremoniously (though holding her breath) removed the smaller of the two rings, slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand, snapped the box shut and put it in the breast pocket of John's EarthForce Academy jacket, which she had been using as her winter coat. David just stared. She stared back, hands crossed on her lap, left hand above, the wedding ring reflecting the overhead lights like stars. John's coat was five sizes too large for her, making her small form smaller still ... a vulnerable child. Twenty-three years old, the ring surrounded her finger as if had been there these last two (no, six) months. He supposed the judge hadn't frowned on them-- the story was getting revised again--and they had had the rings all along. His eyes closed for a moment. If she could stay in the fiction, then he would also, but it was painfully hard. "It's a beautiful ring," he said. Simple, bold. "It's what John wanted. He asked me to keep his safe with me. Pilots and mechanics aren't allowed jewelry on the hands, it's a safety hazard. He didn't want to risk it getting lost--" "I know." The day she had finished moving into the house Liz had asked her, "Are you going to change your name?" Anna had said "No." She hadn't wanted to fight and have to defend herself against bureaucrats who would ask her "why?" But the wedding ring, it seemed, was an achievable defiance. "Lunch?" he asked. She shook her head. "Can we go home, Dad? I'm not feeling well." Time for a good cry, he concluded, feeling the same way. He helped her to stand and kept one arm around her back as they walked. Someone had a radio on in a kiosk selling souvenir mugs and baseball caps. Election year prattle. No one wanted to talk about the war. +++ Eighty miles to the North and West, Paul Elytis walked confidently through the broad rooms of his domain. His step wasn't as lively as it once was and his black hair was beginning to gray above his ears, but _Thomas'_ was ever the same--good food, good dark wood, tall windows to let in the view of the mountains surrounding Grand Lake. He was happy to make people happy, and enjoyed talking to his customers to show his appreciation. So it wasn't surprising that when Liz came to take notes and a few photographs that Elytis would stop by her table as she was finishing dessert and trying to decide which one digital photo she would be able to put in her next letter to John. "Little Lizzy. How you've grown." He always said that. "Are you alone?" Elytis had several ongoing conversations in the works with David and Carol, none of which involved politics. "No, just me." "What brings you here?" "Your cucumber salad, of course. ... And some research," she added when he looked at the notes and camera. "Yes?" Liz breathed deep, and dove in. "Was the banquet room empty any night during June 10th through July 1st last year?" Elytis paused at the odd question. "Perhaps. Why?" "I need to pick one of those nights, because that's when John and Anna got married." "John?" he smiled foolishly. "Married?" He missed the name of the girl, and reviewed in his head John's past visits and dates. "Excuse me, who?" "Anna!" Liz laughed. "You know--Anna." Anna had been here many times, but mostly with Liz. "Oh, yes. Of course," he said hastily. Carol had hoped to him again last year about her. Then his face got puzzled. "Excuse me, you said last year?" "June 10th, about. That's when they got married." This was a strange matter. "Here?" he managed. "No, this is where they had their reception." "Oooohhhh," he said, as the light dawned. The young ones have had an elopement, and the parents are embarrassed. So we will plan also the anniversary party! "Let me get the book," he told Liz, and hustled away to his office. +++ "And Tad Henne--" Anna tried hard to contain her laughter. "Does this sound like something Henne would do?" "Don't ask me," Liz said blandly. "I've read the same letters you have. What do you think?" Anna looked down at the small copy of the banquet room floor plan that Liz had gotten from Elytis during her first expedition last month. "The head table is here," she pointed, "and Henne and Sally Pines ... and two other people I still have to pick stood by the window--" Anna was speaking notes into her pocket recorder as different reception "memories" occurred to her or Liz. She was writing another letter and _Thomas'_ seemed the best place for an early Sunday dinner. Anna was in a good mood. She had gotten word from her parents that they had accepted David's offer and would be coming back to Earth to join the household. She didn't like to think about the reason why David had made the invitation: EarthDome had been quietly encouraging civilians in the colonies to return to Earth if they weren't part of self-sufficient farm communities. It would be less population that needed to be evacuated if the front got too close. Housing wasn't tight yet, but it would be, so the best thing to do was have them in the house. They were going to have Liz's room and Liz was moving into Carol's sewing room, except sharing Anna's (John's) clothes closet. They knew John and Anna wanted to get married after the war was done, but they didn't know the full extent of the fiction. She hoped they would have as much fun planing the reception as John's parents were having. When Liz had sent John a copy of the seating diagram it came back with many additional names. It looked like every man and woman on his ship wanted to have attended, or he wanted to invite everyone from his class in the Academy, or friends wanted to invite other friends who would like a good party. Liz was glad the censors let the diagram through. Carol had been flatly amazed they hadn't returned it as unsendable, but it was too convoluted for any spy to try to deduce numbers strength. John and his friends seemed to be having lots of fun and every letter ended with seating changes. They had also begun to accumulate "special orders" for the kitchen ... and the wine cellar. And during the reception, of course, the hall often rang with the sound of forks tapping on the glass wine goblets--a signal to John and Anna to kiss. That's where Henne came in. John had mentioned that Henne had done something to attract attention, but hadn't told specifics. Anna figured he was either painfully shy or John was making some kind of repayment. So she picked something silly. Henne had organized a panel of judges to rate the kisses--using something outrageous for score cards--and Pines (John had mentioned she liked being contrary) kept giving them low marks. Anna was then trying to figure some silly incidents for family members when Elytis appeared and patted her wedding ring. "So how is married life treating you?" "Just fine, Mr. Elytis." "Good, good." He then shook his head at her. "Such naughty children. Parties are important, you know. Ceremonies are not just for the couple." Anna blinked, and struggled to keep in some part to the fiction. "John got called out sudden. We didn't really have much time." "Then you should have decided sooner!" Elytis said sternly, then smiled. "But-- well, we will make it right. Congratulations! You say that to your John." "I will," she promised, and managed to keep from giggling until he was out of earshot, unable to think of anything safe to say. Stifling her own laughter, Liz at last pronounced,"I think Mr. Elytis could easily take two from four and have five left over." Anna could only agree, feeling strange but happy. +++ Having been reminded of the wedding Elytis called up the public records again on his office terminal. "Why can't I find it?" he asked to the room, and heard the cook laughing through open door to the kitchen. "A wedding should be no secret," he called back. "It should be here." Then he turned around to see Nora Rainer, one of his waitresses, looking at him seriously. "Sheridans?" she asked. Elytis' intermittent search for the official record had become common knowledge with the staff. "They aren't married." Elytis stared back at her, face growing angry. "It's a fiction," she explained. She walked into the office but stared at the wall. "I saw Ed Butler--he's married to Mrs. Sheridan's sister--at the post office and asked. He said--they weren't married." "But why--" "You don't have family in the military, do you?" she asked softly. "You do," Elytis answered. An uncle, he remembered vaguely. She nodded, looking back at him. "And all my neighbor's three kids." He took a long time thinking. He didn't much think of the war, any more than he did when the Dilgar matter was happening. That had turned out fine; more than fine. He had a business to run. He stared at Rainer, trying to puzzle why little Anna and David's family would say such lies. "She's afraid--" "Yes. Don't say--." "--he's going to die." He couldn't stop the sentence already started. "She doesn't--" "--No, dammit! Stop!" Rainer tried to cover his mouth with her hand. "--want... " his voice sputtered out. "Sorry." "Sorry," she apologized, backing away. Not the way to treat a boss, even if she'd been working there seven years. "Sorry. You're part of the secret now, and there's rules." She continued after his nod, "Rule one is you can't say why. No one can ever say why. It's bad luck." Anna's afraid there will be no real wedding, Elytis said to himself, and a shiver ran through him. Fear. He knew nightmares would come after, more than he'd ever felt before. Like ISN, he had been ignoring what was happening on the borders. It couldn't be serious. EarthDome wasn't saying much but to reassure, but Sheridan had connections. If he and his family were worried, they did not worry without reason. He walked to his window, put his hands on either side and stared across the lake at the at dark mountains against a twilight sky. Rainer exited silently, leaving him to his frightened thoughts. +++ Anna entered the house ran up to check for mail as Liz went to talk to Carol. "Hey Liz!" she heard Anna's voice after less than a minute. Well, it couldn't be another letter from John. Those were always long and she always read them first alone, separating 'family' from 'private'. And she only called for her, not her and Mom. Still, it sounded like good news. Liz came up as fast as she could. Anna was smiling broadly, her eyes slightly bright. "Mr. 'Jones' finally got the mail system fixed," she reported. "Jones?" Liz wondered, then remembered. She grinned widely. "Johnny will like that," she answered. "Bet it was annoying--" (no it wasn't) "--to keep getting [Mathieson] on his mail list." She used her hands to indicate the brackets. "It's a tough bug, he said," Anna continued her report, "and he's still working on it. Right now I can only send mail from this terminal if I want to list as 'from Anna Sheridan' like I should." Liz grinned. She would love to see the look on her brother's face the first time that happened. It might have been easier to fix if Anna had officially changed her name but it would have broke the rules to tell the government clerks "why". "That was nice of him to take the time." "He's not done yet," Anna grinned. "He's working on a program that will link to John's serial number so it won't matter where I send mail from." Liz chuckled. They even had the censors playing the fiction now. Last week Anna had received mail from "System Administrator", with no address. The note was signed "Mr. Jones" and stated that he had noticed an error in the system and would she like him to correct the mail sent to her husband, so her "from" name would match her signature. The War and necessity was so much in her mind that she didn't feel the breach of privacy. Anna had replied saying "yes" and "thank you". Liz wondered if Jones--this "Jones"--was the censor who OK'd sending the seating diagram. ===end chapter 4=== From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Tue Dec 24 16:57:32 1996 Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 04:12:43 -0500 (CDT) From: watkins julia k To: b5-creative@lists.best.com Subject: "War Bride" Chapter Five Hello All! Continuing through my trip to the past, here is chapter 5 of "War Bride". Thank you to Leslie, Becky and Rebekah who commented on the draft of this chapter. Thanks also to my writer friend Susan Sizemore who helped me get over a hump with some solid structural advice, and to David Finnigan who looked at my first rough draft and gave some military suggestions so that (maybe) I've got the ranks correct. Please (!) send comments. I'm trying to psyche myself up to finish this before the last of the Final Five is shown on this side of the pond. Julie the Anna Obsessed =============== Standard disclaimers =============== "War Bride" by Julie Watkins julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Chapter 5 Date: May 2247 (end of the second year of the Earth-Minbari War) --=*=-- "Everything's gone to hell, John. God help us all. You're on your own." attributed to William Hague, _Point of No Return_ --=*=-- John, broad smile, was making one more attempt. "Are you sure you didn't want to come?" He was on the _Valiant_ now, and this was the first invitation to be refused. "I didn't know you yet." Colonel Hague's voice carried a touch of amusement at the Navy boy's persistence. War's necessities had found a wing of Navy starfuries assigned to his Army ship. Along with the extra firepower had came unforseen oddities. Hague had anticipated that cheerful inter-service "rivalry" would be a good source of distraction in the tense waiting times. He had not expected a wing commander who was and wasn't married, nor had he expected one of the walls of the mess to be appropriated to display a seating chart that looked like nothing so much as a battle plan. Certainly, the diagram elicited enough serious debate to be mistaken for the latter. The weekly mail dump must have brought another letter, and the boy, as usual, was almost unbearably cheerful. "Oh, where does logic have to fit in this?" Bold with good news, he didn't want to accept Hague's refusal. Scuttlebutt had apparently traveled and Captain Maynard (alive!--it was so hard too keep track of people these days) had sent a congratulations letter to Anna, inviting himself in. That meant every other CO he'd served under (except Arko) had been there. Over the last year the fiction had acquired a life of its own. Putting up the seating chart here had been a risk. _Valiant_ was a heavy cruiser, four times the size of the destroyers John had served on previously. It was a large number of people to invite into his game, but exclusion would have been worse. As usual, those who accepted the invitation were mostly fellow pilots. He made room, crowding the tables and taking over more and more of the dance floor. "Uncle Fred has decided he gave us a piano." "I'm sure that will be a charming addition to your bungalow. Are you expecting me to contribute an equal amount of credits to this con game?" "Sir!" he replied in mock indignation. "I didn't know you," Hague repeated emphatically. "My response then would have been what it would be now to thinly veiled beggary from strangers. I assure you that if you do open your hyperspace window to the past to add my name to your guest list I would have sent your unsolicited mail to the circular file with the rest of the spam. It would be to my detriment if I have forgotten your name for you would deserve a lecture, not promotion." Promotion. John lost his joking smile, belatedly recognizing Hague's "I have news" look. "Sir?" "I've got your marching papers, Mr. Jar-Head." Hague handed him the flimsy. John kept his eyes on him instead of reading it. "Lt. Cmdr. Jar-Head. You're going back to Io. There will be a ship there, waiting." John looked at the flimsy. There were several old destroyers that were changing hands in the home defense. Final assignment would occur once he reached Sol system. "Why me?" "They asked for Oriold; I told them you'd do fine." "You don't want to give her up?" Laura Oriold was his XO. "Not to Sol system. That's where your family is. Her's is out here, and next in line for attack. So I keep her ... unless orders are for a ship out here. For as long as I can. It's got nothing to do with what's the most important job. God help us if the front gets that close to Earth. What Earth Force Command is doing," Hague pointed to the flimsy, "is taking anyone with combat command experience out of home system to fight out on the front, as well as finding good exec's to move up." "So I'll be working with Old Man Rund?" "No. He's been called out." "What?" A sudden chill went through him. "They can't, he's half blind." "Rund volunteered to take charge of the evacuation of New Sydney," he explained. It was a city of 900,000 on Proxima III; the largest out-system metropolis. "Projections are we can save 30% of the planet--that's 80% of the urban population--if we start now, and prevent panic." John's mouth opened then shut again as he turned away. "Don't repeat that," Hague said, watching his reactions closely. "I won't." He could feel his CO's eyes on his back. Soon it would be he sitting in a lonely seat. "Sir--" he began. He kept his eyes on the wall. There were framed pictures there: trees, water, a family portrait. Hague was waiting. "It's not going well, is it?" John managed, keeping his voice steady. "No," Hague answered. He kept his eyes on him as the navy boy turned around, and the army man's head moved in a single nod of satisfaction. His instincts had been correct, he wasn't just being selfish about Oriold. "You're not surprised." "No," John answered, struggling to keep his hands still. "Sir, I've never stopped being scared. From the first reports ... I knew it could get nothing but ugly." Swallowed, voice reduced to a whisper "... and 'ugly' keeps getting worse." He shook his head. "Sorry. I shouldn't admit to that, should I?" Hague's face warmed slightly. "You can say that to me, get it out of your system. Back on the home front, you'll have to keep it to yourself." I'll have to be brave for my crew, John told himself, and it was an odd shift of thinking. It wasn't the same as being squad or wing commander. Bravery wasn't what he was feeling. "Why?" he asked in frustration. It was the guilty question only to be asked or heard in the anonymity of darkness. Misery loves company; it was a luxury that would be soon closed to him. "Why? What do they want from us? Why did this start?" Hague locked eyes with him. "You want to know?" "Yes." Hague shifted his attention to his terminal. "You're not the only one." His hands moved quickly, pulling up a file. John stepped closer, and he stood and gestured him to sit. John did so, keeping his eyes on Hague. This seemed odd. "No, you're not supposed to be seeing this," he answered his look, "so I don't want you to try to memorize any of these numbers. Look at the over-all. I'm hoping we just can't see the forest for the trees." John's hands were set loose on either side of the keyboard. Hague reached over his right arm to key the advance and watched his reactions. Hague advanced the screens in a relentless, familiar rhythm. There had been many times he had done this, alone, driven by the same question John had asked: why? The reports were in a standard format, sorted in chronological order. The form was primarily a data grid with space for commentary at the bottom: date of the incident; vital statistics on the target (population breakdown, resources, strategic and cultural importance), damage and death toll, rescue statistics (if any). In many of the reports one or several of the boxes were blank. John's first reaction was anger, but it soon dissipated into fear as he saw that what he first thought was Minbari cruelty was, in fact, efficiency. Could you hate an earthquake, a flood? To what purpose when you needed every scrap of energy to battle the raging waters just to stay alive? Survival, that was all that mattered. Methodical, complete. The minimum expenditure to get the job done. They had delivered direct death if necessary, but would also inflict a fatal wound and leave-to-die if that was less expensive. Minbari resources were conserved whenever possible, and planetary resources were likewise conserved, if those assets could be blocked from human use. There was no sign that the Minbari were taking anything for themselves. John kept his eyes on the screen, mouth was open and breathing in gulps. His eyes blinked, and Hague could see slow tears forming, and he envied his youth, that there was still emotion enough there to fell regret for what was lost, for what was going to be lost, where for him there was nothing left in his dead soul but the determination to go on, never mind the small voice that said "hopeless, hopeless". "Extermination?" John asked, incredulous, once Hague had reached the end of the file. "There's nothing we have they want. They just want us dead?" Hague's face fell one tiny step. One more impossible hope shattered against the cold, hard stone of reality. Grasping at straws, he was. Not a kindness to expect rescue from the kid. "That's the only conclusion Command can come up with." "But what have we done?" John complained to the universe. Gone. He shuddered to think that. Geneva, Denver, all the temples of Lhasa and the palace of the Dalai Lama. The Golden Gate. When the Minbari destroyed the cities of California would they let the redwoods survive? Mom, Dad, Lizzy ... his head spun. Anna, his wife. (By any measure that mattered, she already was his wife.) He had a vision of the empty homestead, a burning shell surrounded by blackened cornfields. "What have we done that God would say 'erase it all'?" It can't, he pleaded. It can't happen. Please, dear God in heaven-- "I don't know," Hague answered, utterly weary. "Maybe we'll never know." He reached over John's shoulder to close the file, then pulled him out of the seat. The viewing had taken equal toll on Hague and he sank heavily into his reclaimed seat. The room fell back into its smothering silence. Finally, Hague spoke, telling the brutal truth. "We don't know how to plan a defense. There's very little strategy to counter what's happening. Sorry. Not much of a present, is it?" John swallowed. "I'd rather know than be ignorant." He tried too smile bravely. "I've never had illusions." Hague chuckled dryly, and then his face broke into a rare grin. "I'm truly sorry I missed your wedding, John," he said. He could stay in the shadows of fear only so long before human nature objected. John lost the battle with his hands. They clasped the back of his neck as he turned away. "It sure sounds like it was one hell of a party," Hague continued. "That it was, sir." John grinned back at him. He managed to get one hand down and relaxed. "When you write you wife your next letter, be sure to mention I said that--" "I will, sir." Hague then said in a voice of iron, "And you write your answer the way you were writing it as you came in to see me, and don't make any hints about what I said or where you're going." "Yes, sir." The orders said he would leave the next morning, so the rest of the day was a hurry of finishing up business, mostly "goodbyes". Hadley, Alpha Squad Leader, was ready to move up to Wing Leader and could chose his own replacement. There wasn't much for John to pack into his kit; the largest piece was the seating chart and that came down during the farewell party, to much sad comment. This time it was Oriold trying to get Hague to pick a seat (next to hers) but he continued to refuse. In the early morning the party ended when Hague made the final toast, and everyone downed their glass. A few hours later John was on a transport back to the transfer station. Only a few people were there to see him off, crowds being bad luck. ===end chapter five=== From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Tue Dec 24 17:34:50 1996 Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 05:49:56 -0500 (CDT) From: watkins julia k To: b5-creative@lists.best.com Subject: "War Bride" chapter six Hello all! This is chapter six of "War Bride." Things are getting dark. Many thanks to Elaine, Angel, Adele, Rebekah and Becky for their comments and encouragement. And special thanks to Leslie for help in the nit-picks. Colonel Chee and _Boyington_ have a mention with her permission. This is rather long and could have been split into two chapters, but I refuse--all things considered--to have a "chapter 13" for anything connected with Anna Sheridan. It would be too gauche. (That's right, six chapters down, six to go. It's a long story; I hope I am keeping your interest.) Julie captive writer [caught in the EM War] =============== Standard disclaimers =============== "War Bride" by Julie Watkins julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Chapter 6 Date: Late Fall 2247 (near the end of the Earth-Minbari War) --=*=-- "After three years, the Holy War that began when our leader was killed by and Earth explorer division was almost over. To avenge Dukhat's death we had pursued your forces all the way back to your home world. The few surviving Earth ships that were ordered to defend your world at any cost were not an obstacle." Lennier, _Points of Departure_ --=*=-- "We must be prepared for the inevitable." Earth Alliance President Patrick Auden had addressed the Senate yesterday afternoon. CDN was replaying the speech at four hour intervals, and in between the standard civil defense instruction cycle was being slowly replaced by more specific suggestions and directives. "What you can do to defend yourself against invasion." "Decentralization of government as a part of regional self-sufficiency." There were relocation orders: most urban areas didn't have sufficient local food resources. Many rural areas didn't have population enough for the harvest, if it had to be done my hand. Her whole world, her whole life was falling apart. It was the third week of martial law. The Senate had passed legislation postponing the next elections until no longer than one year after the end of the War. That action had raised less protest than the institution of the planetary draft eight months prior. The day after the election was postponed ninety-five percent of the Senate and its staff put half their salary or more toward buying savings bonds for the war effort, and that included one hundred percent of the War Subcommittee. Two days after that there began a series of small (but loud) protests against the election cancellation that grew increasingly violent. Martial law had been declared and the media (with government help, no doubt) exposed a half dozen clueless candidates who were counting on exploiting the War to their own ends. On the one hand it was hard not to be cynical about the timing of the exposes. On the other-- She had remembered butting heads with followers of one of the accused before the War started and the media description seemed only mildly exaggerated. It was a relief to be spared all the political mud-slinging. Auden had more important duties than worrying about re-election. He had taken on the worry of the whole Alliance on his shoulders, it seemed. "We have been given a task that may be beyond our ability," he said, apologizing. His quiet voice, for all the words of despair, never lost its dignity. "My fault," he seemed to say, ... though it was the Minbari. "An old race," their allies from the Dilgar War whispered as they slipped away, afraid to be drawn into the conflict. Too powerful. Thousands of years ahead of Earth technology, people said. Hopeless. There was nothing left but the waiting. Letting the images from the vid wash over her, she had lost track of how long she had been waiting. She was standing in the front waiting room of David's office. He had asked her to meet him there. She sat entranced by the vidscreen because passive attention was easier than thought. There were others also waiting--work assignments, probably. Or housing. No one spoke. David was late or she was early; it didn't really matter. Dully she tried to focus, willing herself to believe the reports, the hopes, were real. There were billions of humans on Earth; millions in the colonies. Somehow, somewhere, pockets would survive. She had to believe that. "Anna," someone said. It was David. "How's my girl?" She smiled wanly. "Fine, I guess." He pulled her away from the screen, toward the front door. "I got you an assignment." There was a tremble in his voice she wasn't used to hearing. "Dad? Are you all right?" She thought back to his words. "What assignment?" "Courier," he explained. "To Io. That's where _Sam Adams_ is posted." It was actually _Samuel Adams_: John's ship. At the thought of John, Anna's heart began to race, but she pushed it down. "Courier?" That made no sense. There was military traffic enough, there was no need to send a civilian. She fisted her hands and turned away. "There's no reason for this. You pulled strings!" It was an accusation. "Now listen here, girl--" She spun to face him. "No!" Her whole body shook. "Dad, no, don't do this to me." David could only stare, uncomprehending. "I know why you did this," she said, struggling to control her tears. "But I can't, can't you see? Was Mom--" She meant Carol. "--going to send a license with me?" The wedding ring had never left her finger, but she was too far fallen into despair to guard the marriage fiction. Her parents--Robert and Edith--had been inducted into the secret when they arrived, and never seemed quite comfortable with it. Joining too late, they could only see the desperation. John, to them, was an overly earnest high school student. He was fifteen the last time they spoke in person, already determined to join EarthForce, having devoured all the vids and text he could find about the Dilgar Wars. He was going for the glory, he was going to be a pilot. Robert Gray and Edith Mathieson, refugees, forced to flee the new home and careers they had been building on Orion 7, had found war in no way glorious. True, the letters that John had sent them and Anna spoke now of concern and determination to keep them and all EA safe, but it had been the ambitious pilot that had caught her eye, and they feared for their daughter that she had bound herself to the military life. David and Carol, knowing how much Anna's love meant to John, understood her parent's feelings and tried their best to show gratitude. The first weeks had been awkward, until Edith entered the kitchen one evening to find Carol battling tears as she was shucking corn for dinner. "If John were here," she explained, "I'd have to add four more ears." Edith had turned away, ashamed. At least her child was safe. If the war did come to Earth, at least they would die together. David had called in every favor he had left to get Anna and John together ... one last time. It would be now or never, he knew. As much as it had hurt to admit that possibility, her refusal hurt more. She held his left hand in her two hands, holding it outwards that they both could look on the ring he wore for Carol. "We can't act as if we're all going to die, even if we will," she whispered. He pulled his hand away, unwilling to give up this small comfort he had made for himself and the rest. Anna could only think on the price that comfort would demand. "What will that do to him, if he and I --" John. My John. Visions of passion overtook her: she could not bear to speak the words. The final goodbye: it would be the end of hope. "What would I do to him to say: 'You will die'? What would it do to him if he accepts his death, and ours?" "I know." David's head was bowed in shame. "I just-- I saw a chance. I just wanted--" "Give the gift to someone else, Dad. A mechanic, a medtech. Someone who's allowed to be scared. I have memories, Dad." She closed her eyes, clutching her ring. "You know I have memories. I want it. I dare not. I can't do that to him. Not him, not his crew." David nodded, pulling himself together. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." "You didn't hurt me. It's the damn Minbari. Now go." She turned him around and pushed him back the way he came. "Go undo that order. I'll wait here." He did as he was told and Anna, for the moment blind, fumbled her way out the front door, gulping for clean air. +++ Retribution, Bethke sighed. A holy war. It was hopeless. General Ivans Bethke was the Military Governor of Io, and the burden on his shoulders was the equivalent to Auden's, both too great to bear. Io was his home, as well as his post. His family--career military, mostly--had emigrated here when the transfer point was built. Most of the Bethke's stayed with the family tradition, they had just shifted where they called "home", where the dependants stayed. They and their neighbors worked on the hydroponic farms and the mines. He knew the domes on Io as well as he knew the corridors of the military station. His roots were here, and here they all would die. Retribution. The report lay on the conference table in front of him, relentless burning through the last of his impossible hopes, leaving him powerless. EarthForce Command had finally--as the end drew near--answered the question of "motive": that first attack, the _Prometheus_, had killed the Minbari leader, who was both their political and spiritual head. How long Command had know this, he didn't know. Of course--at the beginning--there had been rumors, but no one would think that could be the only, the over-riding reason. Command sent the report out know as an admittance of just how dark the future had become, to prevent any false hope, to prevent anyone from thinking there might be a deal to be worked out. All they could do was stand and die. The information was still classified. Command staff--anyone with independent control of a ship or forces--was to be told that they could better interpret the standing orders during the chaos of combat, but the soldiers were not to know. Better the uncertain rumors than the bitter truth. Io was strategic. Io was the gateway to Earth. It was manned, heavily manned. Too far away from Sol to get light enough, the environment was fully artificial. The pre-war goal of self-sufficiency had not yet been achieved when war's necessities had tripled the population. The civilians were supposed to have been evacuated, but the front had begun to collapse sooner than had been expected, and they were now all trapped, waiting to die. The reserves of air, food and fuel were too small. Even if they could somehow avoid attack, there were too many people for the fragile resources. Mars might have a chance, but not Io. The best estimates--no damage--the colony would be dead in a year. Bethke stared at the report, stared at the men and women he had called here to be briefed on its contents. He still breathed: muscle still moved at his nerve's commands. But his soul had died. And so had come his last duty. Defeat and invasion certain, still he must look and judge the options, few though they were. Bethke had the impossible task of pretending a defense could be planned against the invincible, cobbled from old ships and new commanders. Crowded around the table were the CO's of the ships stationed at Io. There were four cruisers represented: Colonel Gunsalus, of the _Geneva_, newest of the lot. Three old navy ships of ironic name that had begun service during the last war: Captain Clarke, _Formidable_ Captain Rashid, _Repulse_ and Captain Mowrey, _Victory_. The twelve old destroyers, a mix of Army and Navy, were represented by their CO's, all new. There were also close to a hundred frigates stationed at Io, including _Keren_, captained by his daughter Gerda. They would be briefed later. Three liaisons were at the meeting: Colonel Randall Chee, _Boyington_, from Mars; Captain Allan Young, _Conqueror_, from Luna; and Colonel Hua-Ching Wang, _Wasp_, from Earth. They would courier back to their ships when this session was done. Bethke's XO, Colonel Kung, was similarity attending the meeting at Luna. What they had to look at wasn't pretty. The last reports from the front made it clear the Minbari would arrive at Sol system within a matter of days, a week at the most. Defense seemed problematical. These sessions hadn't been called to unveil some Grand Plan, poised to save them all. At the most it was damage control: put the truth on the table as a defense against panic and frantic rumor. Bethke read to the end of the report before his aide send copies down both sides of table. He watched silently as they were passed down. "A reminder," his dead voice repeated, these flimsies don't leave this room. Shove them down the slot when you're done reading." Half the people studied the words, the rest only made motions, or stared at the strategic map on the wall. Bethke gave the room another minute before he leaned forward with a sigh. "That's that," he said, as eyes turned back to him. "We've got a bad situation coming, people." Understatement. "Don't expect the diplomats to make any last moment break-throughs. It's going to come down to who can fight hardest." "It can't be genocide," Lt. Cmdr. Sharon Doheny of the _Nehru_ said, still thinking in terms of territory and invasion. "The other races--" "If they haven't helped yet, they won't now," Colonel Chee reminded. "Who but the Narns can we look to?" There were nods around the table. "Yet, their help has always been cautious and paid for. What do we have left?" The Narn had also been the first and most consistent of help, but their technology was near as "primitive" as Earth's when compared against the Minbari. "What the Minbari do is for vengeance, not gain," Bethke repeated. "What they do to us they could do to any other race that would challenge their sentence. No other government will risk that. Individuals, perhaps, might feel guilt enough that they must make some gesture. But it will be too little, too late." A few families here and there, taken to other worlds as refugees to find what livelihood they could. Eventually--with a cautious look toward Minbari anger--other governments or cabals might build anew on the ruins of the murdered human colonies, making them alien territory. "We cannot look toward others for help. We are alone." "There has to be something," Captain Mowrey said. That plea was over spoken by Lt. Cmdr. John Sheridan, one of the new kids, claiming the room's attention. "We're all going to die." Several pairs of angry eyes turned on him, but he met them with a stare of cold fire. His was not the face of despair. "We're going to 'lose'," he continued. "You've all seen the reports. Is there any doubt? We can't stand against them." Bethke stared at the young navy officer, mentally reviewing what he remembered of his record. A new kid in more than one way: he spoke in a different voice. He didn't come from a military family. Rather, his father was a diplomat. "Your point?" "We can't plan on 'winning'. Whatever the Minbari want, they're going to get, or close to it. So we plan on that, and try to deal with it. We're not fighting to win, we're fighting to survive. So what do they want?" Chee only shrugged, beyond looking for a reason. Clarke and Mowrey and Young looked angry: the unspeakable was unspeakable for a damn good reason. Rashid was scanning the room, looking for signs of panic. "We're being punished for killing their leader," John continued, voice firm. "All we can do is accept what punishment they feel is appropriate, since they have the strength." His eyes locked with Bethke's. "They want us dead. All of us -- dead." He scanned the rest of the room, lengthening the pause. "Or --" he let a quiver of hope into his voice, " -- they want us out of space." All in the room seemed to let the air out of their lungs as one, not realizing their breathes had been held. The spell of John's voice broken, everyone was released into their own fears. When John spoke again it was the voice again of a scared new kid. "That's our job now, isn't it?: save something, save enough. Make their work hard enough, expensive enough, to encourage them to chose the lesser punishment, and leave us Earth. Leave us just enough to start over. Bomb us back to the stone age-- I'll take that, as long as there's someone left to remember." Somehow in his fatalistic words he gave determination, not despair. He accepted the loss as given and then gave them a goal they might hope to achieve, could die believing in ... and if the hope was futile, they wouldn't know. "OK, we've got the Enemy's motive down cold," Mowrey barked. "What's the damn plan?" A hour of debate couldn't arrive at much. Once battle was joined, all would be chaos. Everyone could only do as they could--guerilla warfare, kamikaze--look for opportunity and don't think about "after". It would be the people on Earth who would rebuild. Somewhere at the center of the discussion Major Denny Ireland, _Veneto_, observed, "They'll be arriving on the ecliptic--" "You don't know that." Another new kid objected. "If they don't, there's no way block them, is there?" Gunsalus responded. "It's too much area to guard. It's the most likely path to Earth, that's where we should prepare. If we're not between them and Earth when they arrive we'll just have to run there to help." Bethke closed the meeting a bit further down the line before frustration could crash the room into wounding silence. As others filed out his eyes held John to remain. +++ "Sir," he said quietly. "Captain Sheridan," Bethke answered. Courtesy rank. "Your family's all on Earth, aren't they, Sheridan?" John nodded, face full of guilt. "I'm trying my best not to think of them specifically, sir." "You're right," Bethke said, meaning the objective to save Earth at all costs. He spoke not quite as if their positions were reversed. He spoke to John as if he were the representation of EarthForce Command, also on Earth. "We will do the best we can." ====end chapter 6=== Please send comments. Chapter 7 will be _Black Star_. :)