A Place to Call Home
By Terri Osborne
terri@terriosborne.com
Part 23
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.
Spoilers through Season 5 and the Psi Corps novels.
And thanks to Sarah, Sharon and Keith, my eagle-eyed beta readers! Virtual boxes of Godivas to all of you!
----------
7:40 a.m.
*I'm going to kill
her,* Lyta thought with a cold fury. *Then I'm going to kill Keene for
trusting her. Then I'm going to kill Alina for trusting him.*
Tucked away on the other side
of the corridor, Stephanie thought, *I don't think Andrew knew, Lyta. Elizabeth
is a high P12. She's stronger than Andrew. She could have fooled him easily.*
Lyta stared at the floor
between them, * But I didn't catch it.*
Stefanie gave a telepathic
scoff. *Who did?*
*I will next time. At
least Michael managed to get a homing beacon implanted. It'll make her easier to
kill.*
Lyta felt around the corner,
looking for one presence in hundreds. The odds of one man in particular actually being
there were astronomical - she didn't want to consider how high. A nervous woman here,
a frightened child there, until finally . . . .
*There you are!*
She pulled back, not wanting
to give away her presence. Slipping the mask back into place, she gestured for Stefanie to
follow.
It was time to give Alfred
Bester his wake-up call.
The level of disconcertion
among the people they passed worked in their favor. The bodies parted in a manner that
Lyta thought similar to how the Red Sea must have been as Moses passed through its depths.
*Moses,* she thought
with a cold smile. *I like that.*
The supernatural aspect of it
all was multiplied by the snap-hiss after snap-hiss that followed their path as securecams
exploded one by one. Not a soul turned a second glance upon them. At one point, she worked
her way into a P1's mind, just for the sight of the two of them walking down the
corridor in a shower of sparks. It was a frighteningly ominous sight if she did think so
herself.
They turned right, passing
into another corridor. Where the halls they had walked to that point had been bustling
with people trying to decide whether or not to evacuate after the little
Marsquake' (at least, the people she had overheard along the walk were blaming
it on a quake), Lyta's spirits were boosted somewhat by the lack of people at their
destination.
*All right, Bester. Time
to see if you're still home. Stefanie, follow me. Once you get a line on him, keep
him occupied as best you can.*
Stefanie smiled. *Be happy
to.*
Placing her palm on the door,
Lyta allowed her senses to flow out, into the rarely found - at least on Mars - wood of
the door, along the metal that supported the structure, out over the walls, along the
ceiling. All the while she kept a watchful eye on Alfred Bester's consciousness.
There were some strange things there; the strangest was the thought of an old Vorlon
research facility on Ganymede. Why hadn't she known about that? She silently
eavesdropped on his thoughts, pulling every detail she needed from his mind before going
on. When she felt Stefanie latch onto the psionic thread, she pulled away from Bester just
enough to keep from being spotted.
That was when she picked up on
the window close to the desk.
The cold smile expanded with
sinister abandon across her features. Yes, this was absolutely perfect.
She extended herself into the
seals on the window, weakening them millimeter-by-millimeter. It wasn't a large
window, but it was big enough. Exposure to the Martian atmosphere was enough to kill an
unprotected human. When it came down to it, Bester was still a human. A twisted,
psychopathic, sadistic, evil little human, but a human nonetheless.
Seconds ticked by slowly as
she worked.
She sensed Stefanie rip her
mask from her head as she worked on keeping Bester occupied. Whatever the young telepath
was doing, it was working.
So far.
Lyta worked as quickly as she
could, taking every precaution to silence the alarms as she went.
"Lyta," Stefanie
whispered, the strain seeping into her voice.
*Just a few more
seconds,* Lyta replied.
"Hurry."
She worked the final
millimeters of the window seal, fighting to keep the window in place until the last
possible second. She was close to the finish when the fear struck her - cold, dead fear.
It wasn't a reaction to any of the alarms; she'd killed those as she had passed
them. Graves' little mistake had hardly been a big enough explosion to merit fear
like she was sensing. What was it?
One look toward Stefanie told
her everything. The young telepath was crumpled over, her breath coming in long, ragged
gasps. Her blonde hair was matted to the sides of her face by perspiration. "I
can't," she whispered.
Still sensing the fear, Lyta
reached back into the office. She eavesdropped on Bester's mind momentarily before
returning most of her attention to the window. He'd been ignoring the sense of panic
that was pervasive through the compound, but he was realizing that something was up. He
couldn't quite put his mental finger on it. She attempted to split her efforts
between keeping him from figuring out what was going on and the task of pushing the window
out of its bed. Thanks to the natural pressure difference of the Martian atmosphere, she
could almost feel the first trickles of the toxic air seeping through the seam that was
already cut.
One word screamed in her mind
in a panicked voice that was still unmistakably Bester's.
LYTA!
Calmly, she gave the window a
telekinetic shove.
----------
7:40 a.m.
"What the hell
was that?" Michael asked as soon as he regained his balance.
It didn't take long for
Susan to realize that Garibaldi wasn't entirely acting. The anger that was in his
eyes said it all. If Graves wasn't dead already, there was going to be a queue formed
to take care of that particular problem.
Matheson, however, simply
straightened the jacket on his suit. With a deliberateness that Susan hadn't expected
in the kid, he walked the few steps to a comm unit embedded in the wall. "Give me
Security, please," he said.
Garibaldi turned his back to
Matheson, affording Susan what she knew as his Ready to kill this guy?'
expression. Susan gave him the briefest of nods, but it was reluctant agreement. She would
kill Matheson if he tried to stop them, but something told her that this wasn't going
to be the case. He'd already had enough opportunities to turn her in. Why wait until
now?
"Security."
"This is John Matheson.
I'm wondering if that was just a quake."
A derisive snort came through
the comm speaker. "Of course not. Those damned rebels just blew the last transit line
we had completely off the bloody planet."
"Any casualties?"
Matheson asked.
"None reported, but
it's still early," was the reply. "Hang on."
Susan turned her attention
back toward Michael, who was inching closer and closer to the hangar with each second. She
raised one eyebrow questioningly. "Wonder what's going on?" she asked,
projecting as much innocence as she could manage.
Michael simply shrugged,
scooting one foot closer to the goal.
After a moment's more
silence, the security officer came back on the comm. "Mister Matheson, you'll be
happy to know that those lunatics were caught just a minute ago."
"Really? They survived
the blast?"
"Yup. Caught them in what
was left of the next tunnel over."
Matheson nodded approvingly,
"Good work. Thanks for the information. Matheson out."
A tense silence accompanied
him back to where Garibaldi and Susan stood. "Seems we've already taken care of
the problem."
"Seems so,"
Garibaldi said.
"Now, let me finish that
visit for you, Mister Garibaldi."
Susan and Michael exchanged a
look. This was a side of Matheson that she had yet to witness, a cold, unfeeling,
let them eat cake' side that she wasn't sure she trusted. "You
don't want to check on the others?" she asked.
The kid nodded. "Yes, I
do. But, what help could I be from here?"
Garibaldi took the opening
before Susan could think of something. "Go ahead. We'll be right here when you
get back."
Matheson smiled. "Good
try, Mister Garibaldi, but there are specific rules about you not being left alone in any
Psi Corps facility."
"He won't be
alone," Susan stated. "He'll be with me. And if there are rules against me
being alone here, you've already broken them."
Garibaldi chuckled.
"Besides, what're we going to do, blow up the place?"
Matheson's eyes went
between the two of them.
Susan didn't feel a scan,
but checked Alina's special barriers again nonetheless.
After a long moment, he
nodded. "All right. Stay right here."
Susan gave a nod of
acknowledgement.
"We'll just go right
over here - talk business," Garibaldi added, gesturing further down the corridor.
With a nod, Matheson turned
and stepped back to the comm unit.
This time, Garibaldi led Susan
a few feet further down the hall, around a large slot in the wall. Interesting,
Susan thought. Andrew said there were bulkheads around the hangar. I wonder-
"Stay here," Michael
whispered.
"What?"
"Just don't go back
across. If Lyta's right, it should be right about-"
Another explosion sounded in
the distance.
Garibaldi grinned impishly as
the bulkhead door slammed down.
----------
7:40 a.m.
Alina held the denn bok
in a defensive position, riding the shake of the Martian soil around her until it
subsided. When it was finally over, she turned what she hoped was her most withering glare
on Andrew. "Your lady friend had best be dead, or I'll take care of that problem
personally."
Andrew leaned down and
recovered his PPG from the ground. "Lady friend?"
Every ounce of her being
wanted to pursue the subject, but it was simply something that would have to wait.
Shifting her grip on the denn bok, Alina firmly held one end of the fighting pike
at the throat of the woman who had been on the other side of the door. "Out of my
way."
"No! I'm on your
side!" The brunette held out her hands pleadingly. "Help me get these people out
of here. They need the resistance. You need them!"
Alina extended her senses
briefly in an attempt to get a feel for the woman. When she sensed no duplicity, she
asked, "Who are you?"
The woman heaved a sigh.
"My name is Sara. Please, help me get these people out of here."
Dubious, Alina scanned the
room as quickly as she could for conspirators. The Shadow presence came at her from every
darkened corner. She counted fifteen other people in the room, some tucked away in the
shadows, two oddly curled in the center of the room. All were in black uniforms that were
in some form of disarray, and all had perfectly clean-shaven heads littered with surgical
scars. That's it. They're what I'm sensing. This is the Shadow
presence. It's in their minds. In Valen's name
She shook her head hard in an
attempt to forcibly remove that thought. It was difficult enough just to tone out the
smell of too many people crowded into a small room without any hygienic facilities. She
walked over to where a woman lay curled around a small black bundle. No sensation of life
emanated from her, and a hand to the flesh revealed cold skin. "This woman's
dead," she stated, somewhat surprised.
"Very observant,"
Sara dryly said. "She killed herself last night. Her baby died sometime yesterday.
Best I can tell the baby died of malnutrition."
One dark eyebrow rose.
"Surprised they haven't begun decomposing."
"Bureau Thirteen,"
Sara said, her voice cold with anger. "I did some digging last night. One of their
experiments was on nanotechnology that would delay decomposition of a corpse. You're
looking at the first two test subjects. They got a side bonus in finding out that a mother
could pass them to the baby. Looks like the bastards starved the kid to death to test the
technology."
Andrew visibly shuddered.
"I heard rumors that Thirteen had a dumping ground on Mars. Never thought it would
have been here."
Alina turned a glare on Sara.
"You knew about this," she accused.
"I just found out
yesterday."
"Why didn't you get
them out yesterday?"
Sara held her hands out
imploringly. "And take them where? Where am I supposed to hide fifteen telepaths that
are in this state? How am I going to bury the dead?" She pointed toward a woman that
was leaning against the wall. Her black, fatigue-style uniform was obviously newer than
the others, her recently-shaven head was covered in fresh surgical wounds. "What
about her? How do I explain the road maps on her head? What do I do with that that
doesn't jump up and say escapee?"
The sight was enough to make
Alina feel sick. The smell wasn't helping her stomach, either. The last time she had
encountered such a nauseating mix of bitter and sweet aromas had been on an accidental
adventure into one of the less savory areas of Daltron Seven.
She felt Andrew begin to
sicken as well, and placed a hand on his arm. "I can't believe humans would
still do something like this to their own people," she whispered.
Andrew scoffed. "This
from a woman who trained with the Minbari."
"What?" Alina asked,
incredulous.
"You studied with a race
that damned near wiped out humanity."
Dread formed like a small rock
in her still queasy stomach. "Yes? What does that have to do with this?"
"You seem to think
they're so much better than we are, yet they're willing to openly embrace
genocide whenever it suits them."
The words rang all too
familiar. Alina's jaw dropped in utter disbelief. When speech finally returned, all
she could do was whisper, "There's no time for this. We will discuss
whatever you want when we get back. You can count on that. Now, are you going to
help me get these people out of here, or do I have to kill you?"
Her argument was cut off by
another, slightly more distant rumble, accompanied by the sound of small rocks falling in
the distance.
"What was that?"
Sara asked, eyes wide.
Alina shook her head. "Not
sure," she said. "That one's not in the plan."
The faint sounds of door after
heavy door slamming shut made it to her ears. She'd only heard such a thing once
before, on a passenger liner fifteen years in the past. It wasn't the kind of sound
that was easily forgotten. Bulkheads are dropping. Something's compromised the
internal atmosphere. Lyta, what have you done?
"We need to get out of
here," she stated. "Now. Get these people together and we'll go back to the
stairs."
Sara grabbed Alina's
shirtsleeve. "Some of these people can't walk."
"Then take them on the
lift." There had to be a lift. There was always a lift. "There is a lift
in this place, isn't there?"
Andrew stepped into the hall.
In seconds, he was pointing off down another corridor. "This way."
Alina walked into the corridor
beside him, checking the information for herself.
It took more time than she
would have liked to get the thirteen telepaths up and around. Sara made a concerted effort
to get the two deceased telepaths to a point where they could be recovered for burial
later. One older man was having trouble standing, while another little boy wouldn't
leave the room at all. A mental nudge was all it took to get the child up and around, but
the older man had a more pressing dilemma.
According to Sara's
research, Thirteen had also been testing methods of controlling reactions to pain. When
Alina examined the man, she discovered that while he was somehow still able to stand, it
was going to be virtually impossible for him to walk with two missing kneecaps. She sent
Sara out into the corridor on a quick search. If this pit has any medical facilities,
they must have a wheelchair.
One by one, Alina and Andrew
managed to get the telepaths to the lift, even the woman that Sara had pointed out to her
earlier. Taking that woman's hand to help her up, Alina immediately registered hatred
so extreme that it turned her still-queasy stomach. She turned custody of the woman over
to Andrew as quickly as she possibly could, if only to try and keep from adding to the
smell of the room with the rations that she had consumed for lunch.
The deeper they got into the
thirteen people that had been in the room, the faster Alina pushed Andrew to get them out.
She was beginning to sense a weakness in the walls around the lift. Small rocks were
trickling down almost like rain from the ceiling. Faster. Must go faster.
Finally, the old man was the
only person remaining. The pain of motion was evident in his gaze as he looked up at her
from the floor.
*We will get you out of
here. I promise.*
Where the hell was Sara with
that wheelchair?
Alina ran into the hall,
frantically searching the corridors for the small brunette while she attempted to concoct
alternate ways of helping the man to move. We might be able to carry him up the lift,
but then what? It's not like we can carry him the whole way.
The sound of small rocks
falling in the distance sped up her train of thought. She helped the man wrap an arm
around Andrew's shoulders and one around her own. It wasn't pretty, but it would
get him out of there.
She hoped.
As a last-ditch effort, she
tried supporting the old man telekinetically as the threesome slowly hobbled down the
corridor. It worked for a few steps, until her energy began to run out.
Please, Valen, if Sara
doesn't find something soon we're all going to die.
Alina took another step,
stumbling briefly as she lost her footing. More rocks fell in the distance.
This time they sounded larger.
She frantically strengthened
her grasp on the man's arm, somehow managing to keep him upright.
That was when she heard what
might possibly have been the sweetest sound of her life.
It was a sound vaguely similar
to fingernails on a chalkboard, grating to any ears that weren't in such desperate
straits. But the most rickety, dilapidated wheelchair that Alina had ever seen was making
it. Sara ran behind it, coming toward them like a manic nurse.
"Thank the Great
Maker," Andrew breathed.
Sara fought to catch her
breath. "Had to hunt through every room down here."
They slowly lowered the old
man into the thing. Alina fought to keep from cringing at the sound the wheels made as
Sara careened down the corridor with the old man.
Andrew helped take seven of
the telepaths up on the lift, returning to allow Sara to take the others.
"I'll wait for you
upstairs," Sara said as the doors closed.
A rumble sounded from above,
and alarms that had heretofore been silent began wailing in the night. "Stairs,
Andrew."
He nodded, running back toward
the corridor and the direction from which they'd first come.
They both ducked falling rocks
as they ran. "These rocks are getting bigger," she noted with dread as they ran.
Somehow, they made it back to the same utility staircase they had first descended.
She was just about to yell for
him to hurry when the ceiling a few meters behind them started to collapse.
----------
7:48 a.m.
PPG fire, this time coupled
with a little quick rewiring, allowed Susan and Michael access to the hangar. Between the
two of them, the supposedly secure door was open in a matter of seconds.
"What happened, Michael?
What did you mean, If Lyta's right'?"
He shook his head. "I
don't know. It's just that while that Matheson kid was screwing around talking
to security, I got this - I don't know, feeling - from Lyta. Almost like she was
telling me what she was doing. She yanked a window out in Bester's office. This place
is so full of bulkheads and pressure doors that I figured putting one between us and the
kid wouldn't hurt."
"Good thought."
Susan idly added, "Wonder if she got the bastard?"
"Doubt it," Michael
replied with a sinister smile. "She's saving him for me."
Susan scanned the hangar as
quickly as possible, hoping the flight suits would be in an obvious location. There were
five Thunderbolts tucked away in the semi-darkness. It looked as though none had seen any
flight time in the last week, at the very least. What are dust covers doing on those
scanners? Obviously not a great military mind in this bunch, Susan thought with a
great sense of satisfaction. Otherwise they'd have been doing flybys with these
babies. That's good to know.
"Flight suits. Wonder
where they're keeping them?"
At that point a tingle began
at the base of her skull, not quite a return engagement of her horrific headaches, but
enough to be a distraction. If she ever figured out what was causing the things,
she'd be deliriously happy to surgically remove said cause from her life forever. Now
if I could just figure out why the damned things barely showed up in the last three weeks,
life would be beautiful.
This time, however, the tingle
turned into a nagging sensation. Something told her to walk toward a dark cabinet on the
far side of the hangar. It didn't feel like a scan, but there were enough high-level
telepaths in the area that it wasn't out of the question. Talia, the old Talia, had
once told her of grouping together several telepaths and fooling Bester. It wasn't
out of the question.
Giving the PPG a charge, she
trained it on the cabinet door with one hand and yanked the door open with the other. When
she realized what was in the cabinet, she lowered the weapon with an embarrassed laugh.
"Nice job, Ivanova,"
Michael quipped. "Now that you've captured the renegade flight suits, want to
blow this place?"
She slipped the safety back on
the PPG, fighting the urge to deck Garibaldi. I'd have probably said the same
thing. Instead, she opted for tossing a flight helmet at him, with possibly a little
more force than was necessary. "Here. Help me rig the furies, then get suited
up, we don't have much time."
It only took a few minutes for
the duo to deal with the extraneous starfuries in the hangar. Susan slipped into the open
hatch of one starfury, setting the engines to a five-minute overload. As long as the
bulkhead doors held, the odds of someone getting hurt in the explosion were non-existent. And
a nice, big boom that doesn't hurt anybody is precisely what we want.
The occasional sound of
breaking consoles, the snap of cables breaking preceded by a groan here and there,
suggested that Michael was doing his best to disable the other two starfuries - just in
case Susan didn't get what she wanted.
"You've got three
minutes before we have to get the hell out of here, Garibaldi," Susan said as she
hurriedly put on the flight suit and ran toward the Thunderbolt she intended to
commandeer. "Get it in gear."
Two minutes and fifty-nine
seconds later, they were streaking out of the hangar.
Two minutes after that, the
hangar turned into a raging inferno.
[End Part 23]