By the time Silver changed back into her pressure suit that was required to be worn during Starfury flights and got back to the hangar where her Starfury was, about half an hour had passed. She approached the same techie as before. This time he was looking at his PADD while he waited for a diagnostic to finish running. When he heard her approaching footsteps, he briefly glanced up at her and then back down with a sigh.
"Yes, you can take your Starfury back out," he sighed without looking up again.
Silver started to smile, but his next comment made it fall.
"You're going to have to wait until the diagnostic is done though," the techie warned and waved a hand to the diagnostic currently running. "Then, if the diagnostic says it's clear, you can take it out."
Silver glanced over at the diagnostic screen herself, and saw that it was almost done. She didn't know what result it would give though. Before she could start to say something, there was a distinctly electrical zap sound and someone's scream as they fell back. Both Silver and the techie jumped and faced the noise.
One of the maintenance technicians who had been working on a nearby panel was now lying sprawled out on the ground, and the panel he was working on was sparking dangerously. It seemed that it hadn't been grounded correctly, and the maintenance worker had paid the price. The techie turned away from Silver with a curse and ran over to kneel by his side.
"Hey, are you okay?" The techie asked and shook the maintenance worker.
Silver heard him groan, so she knew that he was alright. It was odd for a maintenance worker to electrocute himself, so he was likely new. Things were peaceful right now, and since the station was no longer getting blasted to pieces by the Shadows, President Clark's forces, or anything else, there wasn't much extra work. Likely he was still getting used to the differences between Babylon 5's circuity that handled dozens of aliens, and that of a normal Earthforce base that only supported humans.
The diagnostic chimed that it was finished, and Silver looked over at it and then at the distracted techie slyly. She smiled in a very Dilgar-like manner and inched backwards away from the techie. When it was clear that he didn't notice her, she turned and walked swiftly to her Starfury. It wasn't like she was breaking any rules since she had gotten Lochley's permission.
Unnoticed she traversed the catwalk to her Starfury's launch cradle and hopped inside. She secured her helmet and strapped herself in as she started powering up her bird. Its power came online and she began launch protocols, using her access code to open the launch bay doors.
What Silver didn't realize, as she was slammed back by the g-force of her Starfury being shot out of Babylon 5, was that the diagnostic of her Starfury had come back red. She thought it was fine since it had undergone maintenance not long ago and she hadn't been in any battles since, but she was wrong. The diagnostic had detected a malfunctioning part in the engines that had been replaced a few days ago, and it had flagged her Starfury down as not-fit-for-flight until repairs were made.
Silver smiled as her Starfury dropped from the station and she made for the Jumpgate. A brief communication and then the Jump Gate opened, and she was in Hyperspace with only the station's beacon to guide her.
Many sentients hated Hyperspace flight. They loved the ability Hyperspace gave them to fly from star to star, but they hated actually flying through it. Some people claimed that flying through Hyperspace reminded them of being trapped in a nightmare, although compared to hearing the scream of a Shadow Vessel Silver couldn't agree.
The constantly flickering and shifting patterns of light and false shadow reminded her more of the waves on a beach, and helped her think clearly instead of playing tricks on her brain and her perceptions. She was already in a zero gravity environment so up and down were whatever direction she chose them to be. Why that fact of Hyperspace bothered purebloods so much she didn't know.
Being in Hyperspace helped her relax, and here she was able to drop her guard without worry. Here, no one cared that she was kin to the race that had exterminated so many species and experimented on the members of the League of Non Aligned Worlds. Many people had been glad when the Dilgar race had become extinct, but Silver's survival was contrary to that. Hyperspace didn't care about that though.
She had put her ship on autopilot so it would circle the beacon, and lazily folded her arms over her chest and lowered her head. Silver sighed deeply and watched Hyperspace flow around her. Thoughts about her days at the Academy came back to mind. Since she was such a small and slim-built cadet, everyone had underestimated her until it had come to sparring where her Dilgar instincts and upbringing had changed their minds. Everyone had been surprised when she'd decided to become a pilot instead of soldier.
Her time at the Academy had been interesting, but it was after the Academy when she had been assigned to Babylon 5 that her life had really picked up.
Silver had been disappointed although not surprised when she learned that she was going to be deployed as one of Babylon 5's Starfury pilots when it first came online. Like many people, she had thought that Babylon 5 wasn't going to last a single year, yet it had been through five years and three commanders and was somehow still functional. How that was possible was beyond her.
Her immunity to the troubles of Hyperspace hadn't won many points when compared to her amber eyes and pointed ears. She shook her head at the amusement of it all, and closed her eyes to let her thoughts calm. Silver was not going to let her history spoil a perfectly good Hyperspace jaunt.
In fact, Silver let her thoughts calm so much that she began to nod off. Drifting off while in Hyperspace was not the safest thing to do, but Silver couldn't help herself. The route she had set her ship for was out of the way of Hyperspace lanes so she wouldn't bump into any incoming or outgoing ships, and there were no Shadow Vessels either appearing out of nowhere. She didn't think she was in any danger, and she had been staying up late at night training in the flight simulators to get an advanced pilot's license so she was tired.
Eventually Silver gave up on trying to sleep and turned down the volume on her Starfury's systems as low as it could go so she wouldn't be woken up. She left the communications with Babylon 5 untouched, figuring that if they were contacting her she should wake up and answer it. Then she lowered her head and let herself drift off, glad that it was so easy for her to sleep in Zero-G's.
She should not have turned down the volume on the systems however, for not long after she fell asleep her Starfury began to warn her that the faulty engine part was starting to leak flammable coolant dangerously close the engine reactor. Silver slept on, but her dreams were troubled. In her dreams she was a little girl again on Earth. Back then she had let her long hair hang loose to try and hide her ears and the slight ridging of her forehead.
Alien-human hybrids like Delenn or her and Sheridan's son David were extraordinarily rare and the other human children had targeted her for her difference. One incident during recess in first grade came to mind. She had been sitting in the branches of a tree she had climbed up to relax and watch the other children play. A group of children were playing tag, and one of the players had run underneath her perch and tripped, falling and skinning his knee. His friends hadn't noticed his injury, but she had seen it.
Curious of the injuries and the metallic scent of blood she could detect, she had dropped four meters to the ground and landed silently on the balls of her feet with no trouble. The action wasn't something a human could do, and it startled the boy who had hurt himself.
"It's okay," she had told him, "I don't mean you any harm. Are you okay?"
"Get away from me!" The boy had shouted and waved his hand at her.
She had stopped walking towards him in surprise, and that was when the boy's friends had seen her and come running over. They had assumed she had pushed him, and the boy who had skinned his knee wasn't saying otherwise. It was just like always.
She hadn't understood what they meant and told them that she had seen him fall. They hadn't believed her, and the boy who had skinned his knee grabbed a stone near him and threw it at her. Instinct allowed her to catch the stone an inch from her cheek, and the movement made the pure-blood humans step back.
"Monster," one of the children had said while two of the others helped their friend up.
She had flinched back, confused as to why they were calling her that. Was it just because she had caught the stone and jumped from so high? It wasn't her fault. The Dilgar traits were dominant, and the Dilgar were a warrior race who simply outclassed the humans in physical prowess.
"Monster, monster, alien monster pretending to be human," the children had taunted her as they always did. "Get away from us, Dilgar. You're Jha'Dur's kin. Deathwalker, Deathwalker, get away. We don't want you on our planet. You'll kill us all like your kin, monster."
Harmony Silver hadn't understood why they were saying such things. It wasn't like she'd asked to be born a hybrid. They were pure-bloods, and they lived a life of luxury with no idea what it was like for her. It was just how pure-blood humans were. Whether it was other humans who had different skin color or gender, pure blood humans always felt the need to suppress someone.
"I'm not a monster!" She had shouted at them. "I'm human! Not Dilgar!"
The warning chime of her Starfury tried to get louder, but it couldn't. It was tired of being ignored and about to alert Babylon 5 when they coolant spread to the flame of the engines. Silver was snapped from her dream, somewhat thankfully, as the engine exploded. Her thankfulness was short-lived as the damage to the engine made the controls on her Starfury lockup and fractured the glass canopy of her bird.
"Son of a," Silver swore as she tried to work the controls to stabilize her Starfury.
The panel she was working at exploded suddenly, and the lock on Babylon 5's beacon was lost. Silver wasn't aware of the new dilemma as she tried with the controls that were left to contact Babylon 5.
"Babylon 5, this is Harmony Silver of Beta squad," she messaged, "my Starfury has been damaged, repeat. My Starfury has been damaged."
There was only static, and Harmony stared at her communicator. It appeared the radio had been taken out with the initial explosion.
"Really?" She asked it and then went back to working what controls were left.
It was lucky she was wearing her pressure suit because the cracks on the canopy did not look like they would stop growing.
"Just my luck," Silver muttered and hit one of the consoles to try and bring it back on line.
Hitting it worked more often then you thought, but it didn't do much this time. The damage to the controls affected the other engines, but luckily nothing else exploded. Silver went through her options in her head, trying to determine what parts of her tech were not decimated. She had lost contact with Babylon 5's beacon and her course had been away from the other ships. Because she had let herself dose off she wasn't sure where she had been in regards to the station at the time of the explosion so she couldn't calculate where it or the Jump Gate was.
What should she do next?
The question was taken out of Harmony Silver's hands when she tore the panel of a console off so she could access the wires directly and ended up shortening out her suit's life support system. She jerked back at the sudden, unexpected bolt of electricity. Dilgar were physically superior to humans in most regards, but they did not have as high an immunity to electricity. It shorted out her nervous system and soundly knocked her out, leaving her Starfury to drift through Hyperspace.
One of the officers on Babylon's C'N'C looked at their console in confusion, and tapped it lightly with their fingers. David Corwin, Elizabeth Lochley's second on command, noticed the action, and addressed the officer.
"Is something wrong with your station?" He asked the human staring at the screen.
"I don't know," they replied honestly. "The Starfury that entered Hyperspace just vanished."
Corwin couldn't help but think back to the Shadow War and asked seriously, "what do you mean by vanished?"
"It's gone," the officer raised her hands from the console as if afraid to touch it. "It's no longer on the beacon."
"Contact the pilot," Corwin ordered.
"Starfury pilot this is Babylon 5, do you read?" There was only silence, and the officer repeated the transmission. "Beta 7, this is Babylon 5, please respond."
Silence.
"Beta 7, respond," the officer said in a louder and sharper voice, perking the interest of some of the other C'N'C officers.
There was only silence.
Silver should have looked at the diagnostic, but she didn't think there was anything wrong with her fighter since she hasn't been in any battles. People get in their car every day without doing a full diagnostic on it first, assuming that since they haven't gotten into a crash and they're caught up on maintenance that everything will work fine. This is similar.
Yes, children can be cruel, but I'm sure many of my readers out there know how children can be, whether from firsthand experience or simply watching it. By everyone picking on one person, that one person is alienated, but the rest of the children now have a common "foe" and become closer for it. Human/Alien hybrids really aren't that common in the Babylon 5 universe, and Harmony is Dilgar which is not the most well-like of the races.