A Place to Call Home
By Terri Osborne
terri@terriosborne.com
Part 12
All Babylon 5 characters and settings belong to JMS, Warner Brothers, TNT and anyone else with legitimate legal claim. No infringement of copyright is intended by this work. Only a few select characters are mine, and should the Great Maker need them, or anyone similar to them, I can probably be bought off with a story credit. ;-)
Even though this covers the same time period and the same major event, no infringement upon J. Gregory Keyes' novels is intended. Though, I will draw upon them for some background information.
Content Warning: [AC] [AL]
Anything encased in * these * is telepathic speech.
A note from the author: This story centers around three characters, Susan Ivanova, Alina Minette (yes, she's baaaack) and, to a certain extent, Lyta Alexander. To the I&M'ers out there, stay tuned, my friends. For the spoiler-allergic, provided you haven't read it already, I would recommend waiting to read Only Those Whose Lives Are Brief. In an intentional Babylon Squared/WWE homage, the flipside of at least one scene in Brief will show up here.
Since I'm not sure of everyone's schedules, I'll include this potential spoiler warning: I'm a continuity junkie, so this includes events through Season 5, as well as things that were revealed in the closing credits of Sleeping in Light. (If you've seen it, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. If not, that's okay, it's not quite that obvious.) Background information on the Psi Corps comes from the Keyes novels. Set in the same potential future as Only Those Whose Lives Are Brief. Considering that this covers the time frame of late 2263 - early 2265, I suppose everything is a potential spoiler (though, it would be one INCREDIBLY lucky guess).
And thanks to Sarah, Sharon and Keith, my eagle-eyed beta readers! Virtual boxes of Godivas to all of you!
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March 30, 2264
"It'll never
work," Susan muttered as she walked the corridors of the underground base.
"Never."
It was ludicrous, really. The
idea of her working inside the Corps? Willingly working around Bester?
No, it was worse than
ludicrous. The precise word escaped her, but she did know that whatever it was, it
certainly described that plan.
And the idea of having someone
poking around in her head, well, that was even more insane. What if they found-?
"What's so absurd about
the mission?"
Susan clenched her teeth at
the sound of Alina Minette's voice. Why was this woman baiting her at every turn? For that
matter, how had Marcus ever befriended a woman so unbelievably annoying?
Resisting her urge to leave
the area, Susan found Alina standing in an adjoining chamber, sweat matting the small
woman's black hair as if she had just finished exercising. She walked up just in time to
catch a painfully familiar vision, the sight of a fighting pike collapsing into itself.
Joy bloomed like fireworks in the back of her mind, overwhelming her anger. The sight had
managed to reach Marcus.
"You're with the
Rangers?" Susan asked.
Alina wiped a hand across her
brow. "Yes and no."
"And you've also been
around the Vorlons," she quipped, only to be surprised by the look of distaste that
appeared on Alina's delicate features.
"Too much, I'm
afraid."
"What? How? I mean,
Lyta-"
"Lyta saw what they
wanted her to see."
Susan shook her head. "I
don't get it. I mean, I thought they always did that. What was different with you?"
"I saw them for the
monsters they really were," she replied. The sight of the petite woman reaching for
what looked like an antique sword gave Susan a moment's pause. Alina, however, continued
unabated. "A little lesson I was always trying to teach our mutual friend. Pretense
is, for the most part, a waste of time. To be honest with you, they were the first race I
couldn't scan on sight."
"So you found other ways
around the problem," Susan said. "That proves it, you did grow up with
him, didn't you?"
Alina smiled for the first
time since they had met. "Eleven glorious years."
"Eleven years?"
Alina nodded. "And I'd be
more than happy to tell you what you want to know, Susan."
She balked at the familiarity
of her own name, especially in such a painfully similar accent, but it was brief.
"Thank you, Miss-"
"Alina," she quickly
finished. With a conspiratorial smile that reached all the way to her emerald green eyes,
she added, "Liana's on my identicard, but that's only to drive Psi Corps
bonkers."
Susan raised an eyebrow.
"Does it work?"
Alina shrugged. "Andrew
told me that he was the office equivalent of this Bester everyone has been talking about.
Desk job, really, but he used to coordinate the Psi Cops that were out searching for
rogues. For a while, I was one of those rogues. They stopped looking for me about ten
years ago and declared me dead. Apparently, every time I use the identicard it gets
reported to the Psi Cops. I've only used the thing maybe a dozen times in the last three
years, but from what Andrew tells me it throws the Cops into a fit. So, yes, I suppose it
works."
The smile that spread across
Alina's features was easy to return. "I can just bet."
A silence began to stretch
between them, growing into awkward proportions, until finally Alina said,
"Catch."
Before Susan realized
precisely what Alina was referring to, the woman's collapsed pike was flying through the
air. Susan caught the cylinder in one hand, inspecting the tiniest detail of the Minbari
design. The things had fascinated her from the first instant she had seen one used. To
hold one in her hand seemed familiar, somehow. It felt as if she were holding an artifact
from the past, yet not hers.
"I'll make you a deal,
Captain Susan Ivanova," Alina said, cutting into her thoughts.
All of Susan's alarm bells
went off. "What kind of deal?"
Alina lifted the sword before
her, and Susan realized that the only thing that had been antique about it was the sheath.
A whisper of leather against metal reached her ears as Alina drew the sword. The most
unusual jewels Susan had ever seen were set into the hilt. The texture of the blade looked
almost like the skin of a White Star. "You are a leader, Captain, not a follower.
That much I remember from going into battle with you. We need your leadership and your
strength here, yet you cannot lead us. Not on your own, and certainly not in the public's
eye. Too much is at stake to allow pride to get in the way. I suggest we do away with the
inevitable power struggle right now. My deal comes from an old tradition, really. If you
can best me in a fight, then you will become our third. Your word will carry the same
weight as mine or Lyta's. You will have a part in everything that goes on down here, and
you will lead the charge once again."
Susan moistened her lips,
Marcus's warnings replaying in her mind. "And if I lose?"
"You go along with the
Syria Planum mission, no questions asked. Lyta and I continue to command this unit by
ourselves."
The weight of the collapsed
pike in her hand was almost comforting as Susan contemplated the options. Truth be told,
she simply was not that familiar with using a pike in hand-to-hand combat. Her
self-defense training had never covered using such a weapon. Still, if she had some weight
in the command of this unit, she might be able to find a way to end the bloodshed before
it got any worse, before the normals got involved. It was a risk she was compelled to
take. Certain that she didn't stand much of a chance in the fight, she still nodded
her assent. "Okay, you've got a deal."
What details she could get
from touching the pike told her nothing about how to make it extend. There were no
switches, no buttons, nothing of use. It was nothing like the modern Minbari technology to
which she had grown accustomed. She was about to ask for assistance when a thought struck.
Her fingers moved over the slim cylinder, finding three very specific, very unmarked
pressure points. Something told her that if she pressed them in a particular order, it
would open the pike. With nothing to lose, she picked the first order that came to mind
and triggered the points. The pike flashed into existence.
"Impressive," Alina
stated. With a twirl of the sword, it came to rest in a two-handed grip. "As Lyta's
friends the Vorlons would say, and so it begins."
She struggled to recall the
times she had seen Marcus in combat, remembering the movements as much as her normally
eidetic memory would allow. The woman that challenged her was a known fighter, and that
was by Marcus's standards.
Susan blocked Alina's first
few attacks without much effort, more acquainting herself with the pike than anything
else. She blocked a blow from overhead, then from the side. One surprisingly restrained
attack after another, until Susan realized that Alina was allowing her the time she needed
to get comfortable with her weapon.
She felt knowledge that she
hadn't even known she had seeping into her mind. Alina made a feint toward her side,
and Susan blocked it easily. The clang of exotic metals filled the tunnels as Susan
finally began her attacks. Adjusting her grip, Susan thrust her left hand forward,
bringing the lower level of the pike out at knee-level. When that attack was parried, she
thrust the other arm forward. Alina's sword rose just in time to block the blow to the
head.
Alina went on the offensive
once again. Overhead attacks were followed by attacks at Susan's knees, or her side. She
quickly realized that Marcus had been right. This woman was a fighter, and a damned good
one.
Susan regretted lowering her
guard so very briefly as the sword made contact with her left arm. Suppressing the yelp
that wanted desperately to escape, Susan mentally slapped herself. Adjusting her grip, she
brought herself back to the fight, all the while worrying about what felt like a deep gash
in her left shoulder.
Faster and faster the attacks
came.
Faster and faster Alina
parried them all.
Susan attempted to strike at
every weakness she could find, until finally she could not think of another method of
attack. A warmth began to work its way down her arm, numbness coursing into her hand.
Great. Somehow, Alina's blade had clipped a nerve as well as the muscle. If she
didn't think of something soon, bring this fight to a close, she was going to lose
the arm. That was when the idea slipped into her brain. It was a risky move, one Susan was
not even certain she could accomplish physically, yet she had to try.
Ignoring the pain, she
concentrated her attacks on Alina's sword and hands and allowed what felt like instinct to
take over. Her hands seemed to move of their own volition, an attack here, a parry there,
until finally she got the opening that her plan required. One stroke of the pike disarmed
the small brunette, while another blow to the back of her knees brought her to the floor.
Susan brought one end of the pike to rest at Alina's chest, pinning her down.
When she had caught her
breath, Alina's emerald green eyes looked up, and a smile spread wide across her face.
"Welcome back, Marcus."
"What?" Susan asked,
her vision beginning to blur at the edges.
Alina's eyes went to Susan's
arm, and her smile turned to an expression of concern. "You're losing blood. Let me
help you."
Susan shook her head, fighting
the dizziness. "Why did you just call me Marcus?"
"Sit down, Susan. I'll
explain after I know you're all right."
She recognized the tone in
Alina's voice. After all, she had used it herself on more than one occasion. It demanded
no question of her word. Another wave of dizziness swept over her, and her balance
wavered. She slowly lowered herself to the floor, the pike clattering to the ground at her
side.
Alina crawled the small
distance between them, examining the wound with a level of attention that Susan
hadn't seen since her last stay in Stephen Franklin's care. "Well, thank the
Great Maker you were wearing short sleeves," Alina observed. "This wound is
going to be hard enough to take care of without worrying about stray fibers in it. I
didn't mean to clip you this hard, really."
Susan was about to ask how she
planned on doing such a thing when her frazzled nerve endings began registering a tingle
in her shoulder. Dismissing it as a simple case of shock, she closed her eyes and fought
to regain some sense of balance. Without her vision, the spinning sensation slowed to
something a little more manageable.
That was when the tingle
intensified.
Concentrating on the injury,
Susan focussed on the sensations she was getting from her nerve endings. The numbness
slowly left her hand, leaving behind full sensation. Her bicep involuntarily contracted as
whatever was happening to the muscle continued. She could remember the feeling of her skin
being sliced open when it had happened. Now, however, it felt as if the torn flesh were
knitting back together on its own.
The sheer surprise of that
realization caused Susan to open her eyes, looking down at her injured arm. Where she
expected to see a gaping slice in her upper arm, there was the barest of cuts inside a
flesh-colored line, all of which were centered inside bright purple skin. "What the
hell?"
"Quiet," Alina
chastised. "I'm trying to concentrate."
"You're what?"
There was no answer.
While Susan continued to
watch, the cut seemed to close itself. Deep within her muscles the fibers were knitting
together, repairing themselves with very unsettling sensations. She opened her mouth to
speak, but closed it again when speech proved elusive.
Silence filled the space
between them, broken only by the occasional sound of Alina's labored breathing. Moments
that felt like hours passed, until Alina finally backed away. When Susan caught her
emerald eyes, she could see the exhaustion in the small woman's gaze. "You
okay?" she asked.
Alina nodded. "Yes. Just
tired. Stupid thing to do after a practice session. Really stupid."
Susan looked down at her arm,
where only a purple bruise remained. "How did you-?"
"The bruise will have to
heal on its own, I'm afraid. It costs more energy than it's worth."
Susan's fingers went to the
bruise. The skin was smooth to the touch, bearing no other sign of the injury than the
discoloration. "You did this?" Susan asked, still not believing it herself.
Alina nodded. "Little
something I learned from the Vorlons."
"They taught you?
Why?"
"They had their reasons.
Susan, I can guarantee those neural blocks."
Susan stared into Alina's
green eyes, and knew that she meant what she had said. Something still bothered her
however. "How do you propose that?"
Alina took a deep breath.
"The Vorlons showed me a map of the human brain, including the neural pathways that
hold what we call the memory. I can put up blocks there. Not permanently, of course, but
with enough strength that no Psi Cop alive could get through them."
"And how do we test these
blocks?"
"Andrew can help. He's a
high P12 and knows all of the Psi Cop tricks. Please don't think I'm trying to pressure
you into this, Susan. You won. Your word is as strong as mine or Lyta's. I can't make you
do this. All I can ask is that you'll promise me you will consider it."
Susan swallowed hard.
"I'll think about it, Alina. I'll think about it."
[End Part 12]