Strange Bedfellows

by Ruth Owen

Disclaimer: Babylon 5 belongs to somebody else. I'm just borrowing the characters for a little while.

This story is my addition to the 'train wreck' genre.

Many, many thanks once again to Kathleen for her patient beta reading and invaluable comments.

The setting is in Season 3 after 'Grey 17 is Missing' but before 'And the Rock cried out no Hiding Place.'

Extra note: This story was written somewhere between 1993 and 1997. I'm currently in the process of uploading some of my old fanfiction to the archive.

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"So you see," John Sheridan was saying to the Vree and Gaim delegates seated in his office across the desk from him. "We could increase... "

boom

"What the...!"

There was nothing more than a faint booming noise - like the sound of a distant thunderstorm, and a slight shift in the contents of his desk, but it was enough to propel Sheridan from his office toward C&C at a dead run, leaving two very confused aliens behind in his wake.

"Report," he ordered tersely into his link, cursing the slow speed of the tube.

"Captain." It was Ivanova's voice; in the background he could hear an amalgam of people talking and alerts sounding. "Explosion on Station."

"Where?" He came through the doors of C&C into barely controlled chaos, weaving his way through the bodies rushing back and forth to his second-in-command's side.

"Green Sector," Ivanova returned, not taking her eyes from her console, her hands skimming across the controls. "Containment crews have already been scrambled."

"What level?" he demanded.

"Can't say. It was fairly powerful - knocked out the main EPS and sensor channels into the entire sector, so we're not getting any readings in or out."

Sheridan smacked his hand violently into the railing. God! There were hundreds of alien residents of green sector... All the Ambassadors, their staff, families... Delenn...

"Seal of all traffic into and out of the station," he ordered Corwin, who was holding a communication panel.

"Aye, Sir. Station lock-down in progress," the young lieutenant acknowledged calmly, sending out the message to the ships in the docking bay ready to depart as well as those floating outside awaiting entry.

"Also, send a message to the Vree and Gaim Ambassadors who are waiting in my office that I will be... delayed."

Corwin nodded, doing as requested.

Ivanova tapped at her panel, frowning. "Power to the area is completely shot," she confirmed. "I'd also hazard a guess that life support is out."

"Is it possible to reroute..." Sheridan began, but was interrupted by a comm channel opening.

"Garibaldi to C&C." The security chief's voice crackled over the link.

"Go ahead, Michael," Sheridan said with a calmness he didn't feel.

"Green sector's a mess, Captain." The man was coughing in between his words. "We're putting the fires out now."

"Injured?"

"A damn lot - shrapnel blasted some, others were hit when part of the superstructure collapsed. More with smoke-inhalation. I count... maybe eight or nine casualties at the moment. It's all been completely turned upside down. There's no way to tell just how many are trapped in the collapsed sections."

Sheridan swallowed hard.

"What happened? Was it accidental?"

Garibaldi paused, then: "It's too early to tell, but my gut-instinct tells me this wasn't any accident." A scream of tortured metal and people crying 'look out' could be heard in the background of the transmission.

John clenched his fists, staring out the window at the cold starlight. Everyone in the frantic control room seemed to hold their breath, waiting...

"Stuff's collapsing around us still," Garibaldi's voice returned suddenly.

"Can you tell where the explosion originated?" The muscles along Sheridan's jaw stood out in sharp relief.

More coughing. "I'd put it somewhere around the main Ambassadorial Wing. The facade looks like it's just staying up and holes have been blown through everything."

Sheridan didn't notice as his fingernails made crescent-shaped cuts in his palms.

"Captain, I've gotta put my breather back on now," he coughed hard. "The air down here's almost thick enough to walk on. I'll keep you updated. Garibaldi out."

There was a continued hush in the room, then the sound level gradually rose to what it had been as the personnel returned to their interrupted tasks.

"Commander, issue a station-wide alert for all ambassadors, their staff, family and guests to report their whereabouts immediately. We need to get some idea of how many may still be trapped in there." Sheridan's intonation was clipped; precise.

"Aye, sir," Ivanova transmitted the message through her panel. "I'll also issue an order for general quarters - if this was deliberate..."

"Then we want to keep the number of people wandering the halls to a minimum," Sheridan finished the sentence for her, and curtly nodded his approval. Ivanova's face registered sympathy, but he turned away, folding his arms tightly across his chest. He had to remain calm and focused, even though his first urge was to run down to Green Sector and toss through the wreckage, searching for Delenn.

'Delenn!' his soul cried out with a terrified scream. 'Delenn!'

'Stay at your post soldier!' the trained, disciplined part of his psyche barked. 'You don't know for sure she was in there, and you have the lives of a quarter of a million beings resting on your shoulders. You can't go running off and putting all that of them in danger for just one person. '

Even if that person was the woman you loved...

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Garibaldi grimaced, trying to peer through the gradually dissipating smoke. Many of the automatic fire-suppression mechanisms had been damaged in the initial blast and they'd had to extinguish some fires the old-fashioned way with hand held units. From what they could determine all the fires were out, but it was impossible to tell for sure in the inaccessible parts of the sector. Those would have to wait. Normally they could just shut off the air supply, or even pump an inert gas through the ventilation system to starve the fire, but apart from the fact they still had people trapped in there the whole building had been wrecked and they would have had to flood the entire central core to contain it. That option was neither feasible nor possible.

He ducked under a fallen conduit, wary of the arcing discharge from the severed cables. All his security forces were turned out - some were on search parties, others maintaining increased patrols around sensitive areas. And a team were working with the forensic specialists to try and determine the most likely cause of the explosion. The Rangers on the station were also out in force amongst the search parties, desperate to try and find Delenn. So far they had had no luck in penetrating the area around the Minbari Diplomatic suite - most of the ceilings were down and the area was just so unstable that the structural engineers had advised the rescuers to avoid the area until it had been stabilized.

Since power had been cut off, everyone was forced to rely on hand-held lamps to locate survivors. Or victims. Garibaldi averted his gaze from a badly charred corpse. The fire here had been pretty intense and he couldn't even tell what species the poor bugger had belonged to.

He used his tools to remove a fused wall panel and reveal the manual release lever for the quarters he was standing before. He stood cautiously to one side, mindful of the fact that there may still be a fire raging on the other side. His hooded suit would protect him from a brief exposure, but would not be able to withstand the full brunt of a blast from a plasma stream. The door grudgingly opened a crack, but proceeded no further. No fire at least, he thought with grim relief.

Putting first his arm then his shoulder into the gap he heaved the barrier aside.

Drazi quarters, he identified, as the garish if somewhat battered decor was revealed under the light of his lamp. He swung it back and forth, trying to locate any occupants. None in the main room, but two were huddled by a still-intact window in one of the back rooms.

"Garibaldi to med-team," he said into his link. "I got two injured Drazi in Green 53." Hearing the med-team acknowledge, he bent to offer what first aid he could.

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Ivanova looked sideways at Sheridan as he patiently explained to the recalcitrant Captains of the ships outside why they had to hold orbit and would not be allowed either to dock or to go back through the jump gate. He was calmer than she had expected him to be, given the circumstances. The C&C crew were following his example, proceeding through their tasks smoothly and efficiently with a minimum of noise.

"Sir, the alert has been posted to all security stations and establishments," she announced, "and we're starting to get reports back."

Sheridan turned, his face begging the question, and she returned the negative without any words being exchanged: Delenn had not reported in as yet.

"I'm sure she'll..." Ivanova began quietly, but Sheridan cut her off.

"Keep tabs on the numbers, Commander," he said stiffly, turning to contemplate the performance of his 'bridge' crew, walling off his personal feelings behind his professional mien.

"Aye, Sir," Ivanova sighed.

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"Definitely a bomb, Chief," Julie Plowman, one of the forensic specialists announced. They handed over the information they had. "We got traces of triglyceride and loridium nitrate - both components of C-15."

"No chance of these elements being found naturally here - like in some of the foods these guys eat. Or something they use as bath salts?

"Not in these concentrations, no way," she replied. "Our best guess is that it exploded somewhere pretty close to the conduits beneath the main Ambassadorial level. That would account for the pattern of damage as well as the rapid spread of the fires."

"So. Who likes to use C-15?" Garibaldi asked rhetorically. "Just about everyone, right?"

"Yeah, well it's pretty common," a technician agreed. "Most races can get it pretty readily, but the ones that use it the most are us, the Centauri and the Narn."

"Great. Centauri, Narn, and humans. Fantastic." Heaving a breath, he tapped a channel open on his link.

"Garibaldi to C&C."

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The figure moaned and opened his eyes, completely unaware of his surroundings. For sometime he simply stared uncomprehendingly at the strobing light, occasionally blinking, but not moving. Gradually, shadowy shapes began to grow clearer and resolve themselves into parodies of recognizable objects. He frowned, knowing something was terribly wrong with what he was seeing, but unable to determine what that might be.

More time passed and self-awareness began to seep back. He blinked a few times, trying to clear the blackness from one eye, but was unable to. Lifting a heavy hand to his brow, he felt a stinging pain and a warm wetness where his fingers touched his forehead. He drew the hand down level with his good eye and squinted at the dark-hued, sticky liquid staining his fingertips. Blood. Carefully, he wiped the edge of his sleeve over his eye and was rewarded by the return of partial vision to that eye even if it was somewhat blurred At least he wasn't blinded, which had been his initial thought.

Vir sat slowly, surveying the devastation around him.

What in Mogoth's name had happened?

Debris was scattered knee-deep in the corridor - conduits, wall and ceiling panels. Everything seemed to be coated in a fine, dusty residue. He absently brushed it off the arms of his coat and immediately started to sneeze violently.

'Well, that was a mistake,' he thought as his convulsive fit subsided. Cautiously, so as not to disturb more of the dust, he patted down the rest of his body trying to assess the extent of his injuries.

Apart from the gaping wound on his head, he determined he had nothing worse than minor cuts and bruises. He searched his pockets for a handkerchief, but came up empty handed so he tore a strip from the tail of his shirt to use as a makeshift bandage.

Stiffly, he climbed to his feet, steadying himself with a hand on the wall as he swayed. There was something he should be remembering... some one he should be remembering. Someone he had been talking just before the world around them exploded. They had been walking back to their respective quarters when...

"Lennier."

He frantically scanned his eyes around the area. The decapitated body of a Brakiri was in plain sight. He gagged, forcing the bile in his throat back down and sharply turned his head away, the sudden movement making him dizzy. After a long moment, the dizziness receded and he forced himself to examine the area, a coldness spreading through his body as he dreaded what he might discover.

The section of corridor he was trapped in was only five or so meters long - the ceiling had collapsed at both ends, blocking it off completely with debris. He felt sick again. Oh, no! He couldn't be trapped under there! There was no way anybody could have survived that... Wait, a soft shape protruding from underneath a fallen ceiling panel caught his eye. He heaved the offending piece of material out of the way with a relieved cry to reveal the unconscious form of the Minbari diplomatic aide.

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Medlab echoed with the distraught cries of the critically injured and the dying. Lillian Hobbs used all of her professional training to block out the anguished moans and concentrate on her particular patient as she used a laser scalpel to slice open the abdomen. She flinched backwards as a vile smell permeated the air. Dammit! The impact had ruptured the Golian's equivalent of a human spleen. A nurse quickly applied suction to the khaki liquid as she probed for the exact source of the rupture.

"Stay with me," she ordered the unconscious patient. A human probably would have died from the impact alone, let alone the ruptured organ, but Golians were generally hardier and more resilient and she would probably pull through given no complications. Isolating the offending organ, she deftly repaired it and making sure as much of the leaking liquid as possible had been removed from the abdominal cavity, she resealed the incision.

"Continue with 4 cc's of drelazine per hour," she told the nurse, and looked around the chaos that had been an ordered room only half an hour before.

Aliens of many different species filled every available bed. And these were only the seriously injured - she'd had to order that those with lesser injuries be attended to in the emergency triage area in the gardens. God, she wished Franklin were here - she'd never seen a doctor more deft in his treatment of the various alien species than the CMO. A call had gone out for all doctors and medical personnel on station to report to Medlab, but Franklin hadn't shown. Even though the man was technically relieved of duty, Hobbs couldn't believe that Franklin would deliberately ignore something like this. Maybe he just hadn't seen the message yet.

A Vree on the next bed stared unblinking at the ceiling - dead. There hadn't even been time to tap him in to the bed's monitors and life support. Dr. Hobbs motioned for a couple of the Narn guards to remove the body to the morgue to make way for the next patient.

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