This fic is all action/adventure because Ivanova is cool and an action heroine. That said, I just want to warn everyone that it disregards everything that happens in "Time, Space and the Incurable Romantic" and pretty much anything else that gets in the way of a happy ending for Susan and Marcus :D I hope you enjoy it in spite of the lack of fluff.


Forever in a Day

"Anla'Shok'Na, they are breaking through!"

Susan cursed loudly, her crew, made up mostly of Minbari were used to her outbursts by now and did not react to them. Sparks were flying out of several of the consoles and bits of the structure littered the bridge. Susan envied their self-control and surprising cleanliness. She herself was covered in soot and sweat, her uniform was rumpled and she thought the only reason you couldn't see the sweat stains was that it was black. Sometime during battle, she had lost her Ranger insignia.

"I'm getting too old for this," she told herself, wiping a greying lock of hair off her face, "You need to learn to delegate, Susan."

She took the command chair again and pressed to open communication with White Star 37 and the rest of the fleet, "Tighten the ranks, White Stars 24, 52 and 13 move in to assist, continuous fire in the whole area. Some of that has to reach target!"

"Anla'Shok'Na, that will leave an opening in the blockade," Shok'na Harren protested over the comm, "we can't hold our end of the front without those three ships."

"I know Harren!" she yelled back as an enemy fighter whizzed past White Star 3, in flames, almost close enough to skin them, "you'll just have to hold as long as you can. They must not get through to the planet!"

She looked behind her and to the right, resting her head on Shok'nali Durvan's knee was Faroush. Her eyes were tightly shut. She was praying in terror. Susan could not imagine what the little alien, barely taller than a ten year-old child was going through. The Sta'ui were a wonderful race – wonderful and mysterious and incredibly old. And this was their planet Susan was fighting for. The Sta'ui were possibly the oldest race not to fall under the heading of "First Ones". They were small, delicate creature who had long since left behind any primitive instincts for aggression. They had kept to themselves for hundred of thousands of years and devoted their existence to life and peace.

Susan had been the first to contact one of them directly. With the relative peace created by the Interstellar Alliance, the allied world had been able to push outwards beyond their borders steadily. Exploration was a booming business and private companies had been making fortunes pushing the boundaries of science and stellar cartography. With this expansion, First Contact had been made with dozen of new species, many of which were now in the process of achieving the requirements to ask for membership in the Alliance as well as many who had declined, sometimes violently, any contact other than conflict. Well, it kept Susan busy. When the independent IPX ship had stumbled on the Sta'ui's homeworld, Lari'na'maia, and scanned the surface, they had been amazed at the size of the structures on the planet as well as with its natural beauty but they had been completely unable to get close enough to establish any contact with its population. Susan had finally decided to take a White Star there to have a look for herself. At her age and with her experience, there were few surprises left in the universe and every single one should be relished. The effect was nearly immediate from the moment the ship left hyperspace just outside the minimum distance to the atmosphere they had ever been able to reach.

Susan had stood on the bridge, marvelling at the planet itself. The land, deep green, ochre where there was a desert, glittered on the side illuminated by the sun, the oceans were in parts milky white and in others blue. And then something touched her mind. It was the softest of touches, a feathery sort of feeling in her consciousness, like a kiss from a ghost. Without thinking about what she was doing, she had reached out with her mind, using her meagre telepathic abilities for the first time in decades and she felt her there. That was when she had met Faroush. The little alien, a scientist among her people, had been on watch for aliens that day and her mind had recognized the parts of the ship that were Vorlon and "tasted" her latent telepathy. Reassured that they were not Shadows or their allies, she had called to Susan.

Sta'ui technology was unlike any they had seen before. Where Vorlon technology was awe inspiring and terrifying, Sta'ui technology was beautiful and harmless. They were willing to share some of that with the younger races but only as long as they or their chosen representatives were running the machines. It was a good trade, the IA benefited from the machines but no one could make their own, therefore preventing their misuse. It wasn't ideal but it was good. And the Sta'ui were generous in their use of the technology. Sadly, as it always happened, there were people who were not so keen on being kept in the dark and wanted the technology for themselves and there were those who had served the Shadows so many decades ago and who knew, probably better than anyone else what lay down on the planet and what its worth might be. And they wanted it. When the first attacks happened, the Sta'ui, who had lowered their defences to allow easier trade with their new friends, were decimated. They had no ships or weapons so they turned to the IA for help and the IA rose to the occasion.

Susan had no issue whatsoever kicking the asses of former Shadow minions, especially after they had massacred a species she had come to love. Faroush had become one of her closest friends. Her soothing presence reminded her of her mother's before the Sleepers and took away the edge of her constant pain and loneliness. She was damned if she was going to let anyone destroy her friend's home.

Protecting a whole planet is difficult business and the enemy had many ships, more than the Rangers had. They were a force of peace and the borders they patrolled were long. They were stretched thin. What forces could be spared were here, fighting for their lives.

She frantically called out instructions to her ship and the fleet, switching easily from English to Minbari and the occasional Russian swearword.

"We're getting pummelled here! Where the hell are our reinforcements?" She yelled into the comm, now linking her to Minbar where the President and several high-ranking people were following the battle, "I didn't survive three wars and ten assassination attempts to die fighting raiders and Shadow-scum!"

"They're on their way," the President assured her, "they should be there within a couple of hours."

"No offence Madam President," Susan answered, "But that's not nearly good enough. Tell them to get their asses here right now!"

"No offence taken," Susan thought she heard a sigh from the woman who had been elected to the presidency only last year and had to learn that Susan enjoyed the leniency that being a war hero and a living legend afforded her quite a bit, "I'll relay your message. We'll see what else we can do for you but hold on as long as you can."

For umpteenth time in her life, Susan found herself missing John terribly. The woman was a good president, she had the right ideas and was capable enough but she was not a soldier and right now, that's what Susan needed most. Her Rangers were dying all over the place.

"Ok, let's try the Garibaldi manoeuvre," she told her crew. Her second winced visibly then took over and informed the rest of the fleet. I never thought I'd be using Michael's crazy tactics, she thought, if this gets out, I'll never bear the shame.

The White Star ships moved as one in perfect synchronisation, each perfectly in place. Amid a shower of missiles and laser fire, a small group of White Stars separated from the rest, led by Susan's ship. They raced and dodged their way through the fire towards the enemy at ramming speed. The enemy turned its attention to their more imminent threat. Susan opened the comm and broadcast towards the enemy ships,

"This is Susan Ivanova to enemy fleet," she said, "If my name means anything to you then you know that you have made a terrible mistake. Ivanova doesn't like pirates. Ivanova doesn't like bullies and especially, Ivanova doesn't like you. Make peace with whatever gods you worship because Ivanova is coming for you." She laughed long and hard, a laugh filled with blood-lust then punched the communication pad off.

She watched the alien ships growing larger and larger and the fire from their weapons arrays growing thicker. The ship rocked under the assault of so much combined fire but held. It wouldn't for much longer. Off to the side, White Star 22 exploded, taking several small enemy fighters with it and crippling one of the larger ships. She waited. And waited. She could feel the tension running through her crew.

"Now!"

At the very last minute, the White Stars decelerated brutally, swerved in place and released a cloud of flammable and corrosive waste gases right in their enemies' faces. With only a couple of seconds' stall, the engines started again, lighting the gas cloud they had created and propelling themselves back towards their forces from deep within enemy lines.

"Run!" Susan shouted. She was hanging off the edge of her seat with a look on her face that would have frightened a wolf. Behind them, the noxious cloud ignited and exploded. The ship shook and rocked, and lost power as the powerful boom knocked into them but the ships still held and they rode the shockwave to the end, nearly ramming into their own ships.

Susan stood up with some difficulty, the helmsman coming to assist her. She waved him away and limped weakly back to the command chair. It was lying on the floor in pieces, she kicked it out of her way.

"Status?"

"We lost three ships to the enemy and the explosion," she was informed as she ducked under the consoles around the command area and went to extirpate Faroush from a pile of debris, praying sincerely for the alien to be alive, "White Star 3 is disabled, communications are down, power is down and there is considerable damage to the hull in section 10 through 16. Casualties to enemy fleet appear considerable but our scanners are offline, it is difficult to say how many ships we managed to take out."

"Can you get through to the fleet at all?" she asked, handing an unconscious and seriously battered Faroush to a crewman.

"Negative," the communications officer said although he tried several times, "there's nothing we can do."

Susan seethed inside, they were dead in the water and she couldn't even relay orders to her fleet. She tried to think of solutions but in the end, accepted that they would have to finish this fight without her. It was just the way it worked sometimes.

"Alright, set to repairing vital systems," she ordered, "tried to get me communications first.

"Yes, Anla'Shok'Na."

"How's hull integrity?"

"43% but stable."

"Ok, so we're not going to randomly explode, at least one thing is working in my favour," she said, "I'll be in the infirmary if you need me. Durvan, you're in charge."