Here's my next chapter! ^^ Enjoy!
CHAPTER THREE
Gideon walked into the cluttered MedLab down in Babylon 5. The Excalibur was cluttered up with Earthforce and Babylon 5 officers all wounded in one way or another. He came for not only a checkup, but also for a visit. He came up to an medic. "Where is the captain kept in?"
The medic pointed to the main recovering room. One person was lying there. "She was hit pretty badly," he told her. "Another few minutes and there would have been no chance for her to have lived through. She's recovering now...you can visit her, Captain." He left.
Gideon crept into her room. Her eyes fluttered; why was he creeping in the first place? To scare the hell out of her? Her features were still gaunt, but no long sharp. But they were still fatigued; the dark circles never went away and nor did the sharp pop of her high cheekbones. Her arms looked thin and made her top under uniform made it look loose from afar. She groaned a bit and shifted beneath the bulky white blankets, her brows burrowed a bit as she winced and shifted a bit more to where he was going to sit. "Gideon?"
He sat down and took her hand. "I'm here."
She frowned without opening her eyes. "You don't have to creep around."
He smiled and kept holding her hand. "They said you're...recovering," he told her honestly. "You took a pretty bad blow back there. We're still recovering all your officers on the station and I have Starfuries out there recovering the life pods." He paused. "Not exactly your saviour but..."
"Hey," she interrupted softly, her condition fraile. "I'm glad you came in the first place. Not exactly home-coming or welcome here but I'm...grateful that you came here or else we'd be blown to oblivion in the first place. I just wished it was under...better conditions."
He raised a brow. "You're getting all touchy on me, Elizabeth."
She frowned slightly. "That's the best you can get out of me, Captain."
He snickered before looking at the schematics before sighing. "I---What happened to you?" he asked her gently, avoiding her grumpy side. After all, getting wounded makes her rather grouchy. "I never seen you so gaunt that God, you look anorexic! Have you just suddenly got lost on the station without food or did you just stopped eating altogether?"
She managed a rueful grin. "So much for my saviour," she teased gently beefore sighing. "Before the attack, I got...I guess I got under a flu. A flu has been passing but I got...only the bad colds and stuff that I couldn't go to work that day. When I came back, I have practically two million papers to do all piled up on my table. I wish Corwin was here to get them all done---"
"Corwin?" he inquired.
"My first officer," she replied for him. "He's a good officer. He was third in command at the time the President was captain and Captain Ivanova was the number two. He was given the priviliage. And he's damned-right efficient. But, I gave him shore leave. I guess he heard of the attack and might be on his way here now."
"Work," he mused, "always makes you lose the stomach."
"And I thought the Sacred Omega was bad enough to lose your appetite."
He laughed; rarely did he laugh. "I've got Matheson and my expert resident-pilot searching for those pods," he told her. "Thought you want to know." He took her hand again. "I just want you to know that we're going after the guys who knocked you beneath you feet. They contaminated our world, and now they try to destroy the last of the Babylon stations. I won't allow them to."
She sighed heavily. "Your word as a captain or as my friend?"
"Both," he replied.
"Beta Two to Beta Leader," Trace hailed.
The fifteenth hail this hour. Now what did he want to know? At least he was hailing under personal codes. At least the others won't listen. Why won't he just go into Trace's mind and made him eject from the chair? It was a mistake to suggest him for wingman. Might was well get over it. "Yes, Mr. Miller?"
"Sir, this is the fifteenth time we are sweeping the same sector," he complained. "How long are we suppose to keep this up? I'm starting to think about taking up the offer of crash-landing in Epsilon 3. I think they have much more better sights than hyperspace."
True; all surrounding them was the red and black swirls of hyperspace. It became incredibly boring in time. The hyperspace was made for travelling to be faster and easier, but hyperspace cane be incredibly dull. Anything could happen in this period of time."
"Do you seriously believe the life pods could get in here?"
Matheson dropped back into reality. Trace was still on the other end. He gulped and returned to his normal crisp and commanding tone. Thank goodness he wasn't the telepath. "It could be possible, Mr. Miller," he replied. "We will continue to investigate this matter, Mr. Miller."
"But---" he began to blubber.
"No buts, Mr. Miller, Matheson out." He cut off communications and laid back. He finally got to hop onto a Starfury and finally go on search and rescue missions. Sometimes, he felt that the regulations for telepaths were just damned. He always wanted to be in Earthforce, only to learn that he cannot be allowed off the ship. Does Earthforce believe that they were renegades or something?
He remembered his times on the PsiCorps. It wasn't the best experience, but it was indeed resourceful. The destruction of PsiCorps; it was a damned shame but it had to do. Time for telepaths to choose between PsiCorps or their own lives. Sometimes, he wondered how telepaths actually came to being. ESP was only for the open-minded ones, not for aa third of mankind. There was a rumour going on that the Vorlons did it. Then again, the Vorlons were no longer in the galaxy, but in another world with the Shadows and all the others.
If the Vorlons did this to them, were they then instruments of war if their other counterparts, the Shadows ever struck them. Matheson hated to be used. Always have. Always will. He could remember the rogue telepath's voice as him and the shuttlecraft take off; you're free now John.
Not with all these memories behind me. Or with Trace as my wingman for that matter, he added ruefully. His indicators flashed; it was a while since he had drove a Starfury. Within the Earthforce Acadamy, he couldn't help but remember the days when he was casted aside with all the other telepaths. And here he was, first officer aboard the finest ships, Excalibur, and was commanding a Starfury. Despite his troubling past, nothing could be related to flying his own Starfury.
"Beta Leader," Beta Seven reported. "I'm picking up something at 60 by 75 by 84 sir. It's sending out a distress signal but I can't seem to decipher it. The object where it is coming from dosen't seem to be a Babylon 5 life pod...in fact, i don't know who it is, but it's definitely a life pod."
"Roger that, Beta Seven," Matheson acknowledged. "Beta Squad, maximum burn to sector eighteen, bearing marks 60 by 75 by 84. Stay clear of the object until I give the orders on what to do with...it." He heard muttered "yes sirs", all of them regulational. None of them were exactly the friendliest people in the entire force, all of them were bound by regulation. But, that's the least of his problems.
As his Starfury slugged towards the object, Matheson was getting a clear view of the object. An alien life pod, as big as an standard starship life pod with strange wires intersecting above and around it. It was strange, eerie with a green glow that made it look like it was some kind of alien vegetable. Matheson could sence a strange life form inside. "I want you all to maintain a distant from that object," he ordered. "Beta Seven and Nine, lock grappling clamps on it and tow it back to the station. Beta five and Six, follow. The rest of you, stay with me."
Four of them broke of formation and the rest impulsed to cover the holes as they continued to speed through hyperspace. From his comm system, he could hear Trace grumble something. Matheson cleared his throat. "But the sound of it, Mr. Miller," he said, "you don't sound rather pleased."
"Of course I'm not," he replied darkly. "I'm still in hyperspace."
Matheson smothered a chuckle. "That's just too bad, Mr. Miller," he replied. "Just too bad. You might as well enjoy the ride," He then remained neutral and could've sworn he heard the pilot grumble all over again.
"Have you ever spoken to him since?" Chambers asked as they salvaged through some wreckage down at the lower compartments. Their crew was behind them, in the same condition, rumaging through the debris and remains of a once-walled up corridor. Everything was a smashed mess.
"Hell, no," Max replied, throwing away pieces of burnt metal. "Weeks later, I found out the Babylon 5 had broke away from Earth and were involved in this Shadow war. Then again, ISN was an instrument of Clark's and so they were always lying about what was truly going on in Babylon 5."
"Must have been tough," she commented.
"He was directly involved in the damned war," he stated firmly. "Him and his courageous idiots. And the won, which I was thankful for. The guy nearly hit me with that damned pike of his while we were chasing my to-be-thieves." He shook his head. "Overall, it was my first experience in Babylon 5 I would never experience again."
"Must be," she remarked, summoning a medic to take over the body she was examining that she had found beneath the debris. She said to the medic, "Looks like he's suffering from some concussion to the cerebral lobe. MedLab four. He needs stat immediately."
"Aye, ma'am." Curtly but efficiently.
Chambers wiped her hands and joined Max at the other end. "Found anything?"
"Nothing much," he said grimly. "Nothing but debris, metal scrapes, blown out consols and the usual." He shook his head and looked around. "God, this place is one hell of a mess. One huge mess. I never knew the Drakh could do such damage to the station before."
"You should have seen Earth," she said sourly.
"I didn't," he admitted. "I wasn't there at the time, remember? But I've heard of the casualties along with the damned plague, and let me tell you, it was good I wasn't there." He shook his head. "But I think the Captain has something in mind once the cure is found; to shove both the plague and it's cure up the Drakh's behind."
"I suppose," she said carefully as she analyzed some more of the debris. "During the last decade or so, we've been in wars more than any timeline up here. The Shadow War, Earth Civil War, the Interstellar Alliance-Centauri Prime war, the telepath war, and now we're in to the Drakh war? Sounds like we're never going to have any peace around here."
Max remained silent as he finished brushing and analyzing through his side of the corridor. The last few decks was nothing. Nothing here, nothing there, nothing anywhere. What were they looking for? Dead bodies or more to grieve on the impending list? As a strange fog began to emerge from another part of the corridor, Max was starting to remember more things. The Hak'Vir. The running in the hallway. The explosion in the cargo bays. It was as if it happened yesterday.
"Max," Chambers said. "Max, are you here?"
He blinked. "You were saying...?"
She frowned slightly, her face crumpling back a bit. "Max," she said firmly. "I said it sounds like we're never going to have any peace around here." She frowned again, this time deeper when she saw something very disturbing on the scrapes of metal. She bent down, her clothes already heavy on soot, to analyze something. Max joined in.
"Isn't that a remnant of a lo-tech bomb?" Max asked, bewildered.
She nodded and looked at him. "How'd you know?"
Max shrugged at the thought. "One of my friends used that bomb while I was here back then," he explained, "to get rid of some of the Hak'Vir that was after the cargo. Pretty efficient for a lo-tech." He frowned, his creased face crumpling even more. "What's it doing here, I wonder."
"I'd like to find out too," Chambers agreed. "Hudson, Lewis, come."
CHAPTER THREE
Gideon walked into the cluttered MedLab down in Babylon 5. The Excalibur was cluttered up with Earthforce and Babylon 5 officers all wounded in one way or another. He came for not only a checkup, but also for a visit. He came up to an medic. "Where is the captain kept in?"
The medic pointed to the main recovering room. One person was lying there. "She was hit pretty badly," he told her. "Another few minutes and there would have been no chance for her to have lived through. She's recovering now...you can visit her, Captain." He left.
Gideon crept into her room. Her eyes fluttered; why was he creeping in the first place? To scare the hell out of her? Her features were still gaunt, but no long sharp. But they were still fatigued; the dark circles never went away and nor did the sharp pop of her high cheekbones. Her arms looked thin and made her top under uniform made it look loose from afar. She groaned a bit and shifted beneath the bulky white blankets, her brows burrowed a bit as she winced and shifted a bit more to where he was going to sit. "Gideon?"
He sat down and took her hand. "I'm here."
She frowned without opening her eyes. "You don't have to creep around."
He smiled and kept holding her hand. "They said you're...recovering," he told her honestly. "You took a pretty bad blow back there. We're still recovering all your officers on the station and I have Starfuries out there recovering the life pods." He paused. "Not exactly your saviour but..."
"Hey," she interrupted softly, her condition fraile. "I'm glad you came in the first place. Not exactly home-coming or welcome here but I'm...grateful that you came here or else we'd be blown to oblivion in the first place. I just wished it was under...better conditions."
He raised a brow. "You're getting all touchy on me, Elizabeth."
She frowned slightly. "That's the best you can get out of me, Captain."
He snickered before looking at the schematics before sighing. "I---What happened to you?" he asked her gently, avoiding her grumpy side. After all, getting wounded makes her rather grouchy. "I never seen you so gaunt that God, you look anorexic! Have you just suddenly got lost on the station without food or did you just stopped eating altogether?"
She managed a rueful grin. "So much for my saviour," she teased gently beefore sighing. "Before the attack, I got...I guess I got under a flu. A flu has been passing but I got...only the bad colds and stuff that I couldn't go to work that day. When I came back, I have practically two million papers to do all piled up on my table. I wish Corwin was here to get them all done---"
"Corwin?" he inquired.
"My first officer," she replied for him. "He's a good officer. He was third in command at the time the President was captain and Captain Ivanova was the number two. He was given the priviliage. And he's damned-right efficient. But, I gave him shore leave. I guess he heard of the attack and might be on his way here now."
"Work," he mused, "always makes you lose the stomach."
"And I thought the Sacred Omega was bad enough to lose your appetite."
He laughed; rarely did he laugh. "I've got Matheson and my expert resident-pilot searching for those pods," he told her. "Thought you want to know." He took her hand again. "I just want you to know that we're going after the guys who knocked you beneath you feet. They contaminated our world, and now they try to destroy the last of the Babylon stations. I won't allow them to."
She sighed heavily. "Your word as a captain or as my friend?"
"Both," he replied.
"Beta Two to Beta Leader," Trace hailed.
The fifteenth hail this hour. Now what did he want to know? At least he was hailing under personal codes. At least the others won't listen. Why won't he just go into Trace's mind and made him eject from the chair? It was a mistake to suggest him for wingman. Might was well get over it. "Yes, Mr. Miller?"
"Sir, this is the fifteenth time we are sweeping the same sector," he complained. "How long are we suppose to keep this up? I'm starting to think about taking up the offer of crash-landing in Epsilon 3. I think they have much more better sights than hyperspace."
True; all surrounding them was the red and black swirls of hyperspace. It became incredibly boring in time. The hyperspace was made for travelling to be faster and easier, but hyperspace cane be incredibly dull. Anything could happen in this period of time."
"Do you seriously believe the life pods could get in here?"
Matheson dropped back into reality. Trace was still on the other end. He gulped and returned to his normal crisp and commanding tone. Thank goodness he wasn't the telepath. "It could be possible, Mr. Miller," he replied. "We will continue to investigate this matter, Mr. Miller."
"But---" he began to blubber.
"No buts, Mr. Miller, Matheson out." He cut off communications and laid back. He finally got to hop onto a Starfury and finally go on search and rescue missions. Sometimes, he felt that the regulations for telepaths were just damned. He always wanted to be in Earthforce, only to learn that he cannot be allowed off the ship. Does Earthforce believe that they were renegades or something?
He remembered his times on the PsiCorps. It wasn't the best experience, but it was indeed resourceful. The destruction of PsiCorps; it was a damned shame but it had to do. Time for telepaths to choose between PsiCorps or their own lives. Sometimes, he wondered how telepaths actually came to being. ESP was only for the open-minded ones, not for aa third of mankind. There was a rumour going on that the Vorlons did it. Then again, the Vorlons were no longer in the galaxy, but in another world with the Shadows and all the others.
If the Vorlons did this to them, were they then instruments of war if their other counterparts, the Shadows ever struck them. Matheson hated to be used. Always have. Always will. He could remember the rogue telepath's voice as him and the shuttlecraft take off; you're free now John.
Not with all these memories behind me. Or with Trace as my wingman for that matter, he added ruefully. His indicators flashed; it was a while since he had drove a Starfury. Within the Earthforce Acadamy, he couldn't help but remember the days when he was casted aside with all the other telepaths. And here he was, first officer aboard the finest ships, Excalibur, and was commanding a Starfury. Despite his troubling past, nothing could be related to flying his own Starfury.
"Beta Leader," Beta Seven reported. "I'm picking up something at 60 by 75 by 84 sir. It's sending out a distress signal but I can't seem to decipher it. The object where it is coming from dosen't seem to be a Babylon 5 life pod...in fact, i don't know who it is, but it's definitely a life pod."
"Roger that, Beta Seven," Matheson acknowledged. "Beta Squad, maximum burn to sector eighteen, bearing marks 60 by 75 by 84. Stay clear of the object until I give the orders on what to do with...it." He heard muttered "yes sirs", all of them regulational. None of them were exactly the friendliest people in the entire force, all of them were bound by regulation. But, that's the least of his problems.
As his Starfury slugged towards the object, Matheson was getting a clear view of the object. An alien life pod, as big as an standard starship life pod with strange wires intersecting above and around it. It was strange, eerie with a green glow that made it look like it was some kind of alien vegetable. Matheson could sence a strange life form inside. "I want you all to maintain a distant from that object," he ordered. "Beta Seven and Nine, lock grappling clamps on it and tow it back to the station. Beta five and Six, follow. The rest of you, stay with me."
Four of them broke of formation and the rest impulsed to cover the holes as they continued to speed through hyperspace. From his comm system, he could hear Trace grumble something. Matheson cleared his throat. "But the sound of it, Mr. Miller," he said, "you don't sound rather pleased."
"Of course I'm not," he replied darkly. "I'm still in hyperspace."
Matheson smothered a chuckle. "That's just too bad, Mr. Miller," he replied. "Just too bad. You might as well enjoy the ride," He then remained neutral and could've sworn he heard the pilot grumble all over again.
"Have you ever spoken to him since?" Chambers asked as they salvaged through some wreckage down at the lower compartments. Their crew was behind them, in the same condition, rumaging through the debris and remains of a once-walled up corridor. Everything was a smashed mess.
"Hell, no," Max replied, throwing away pieces of burnt metal. "Weeks later, I found out the Babylon 5 had broke away from Earth and were involved in this Shadow war. Then again, ISN was an instrument of Clark's and so they were always lying about what was truly going on in Babylon 5."
"Must have been tough," she commented.
"He was directly involved in the damned war," he stated firmly. "Him and his courageous idiots. And the won, which I was thankful for. The guy nearly hit me with that damned pike of his while we were chasing my to-be-thieves." He shook his head. "Overall, it was my first experience in Babylon 5 I would never experience again."
"Must be," she remarked, summoning a medic to take over the body she was examining that she had found beneath the debris. She said to the medic, "Looks like he's suffering from some concussion to the cerebral lobe. MedLab four. He needs stat immediately."
"Aye, ma'am." Curtly but efficiently.
Chambers wiped her hands and joined Max at the other end. "Found anything?"
"Nothing much," he said grimly. "Nothing but debris, metal scrapes, blown out consols and the usual." He shook his head and looked around. "God, this place is one hell of a mess. One huge mess. I never knew the Drakh could do such damage to the station before."
"You should have seen Earth," she said sourly.
"I didn't," he admitted. "I wasn't there at the time, remember? But I've heard of the casualties along with the damned plague, and let me tell you, it was good I wasn't there." He shook his head. "But I think the Captain has something in mind once the cure is found; to shove both the plague and it's cure up the Drakh's behind."
"I suppose," she said carefully as she analyzed some more of the debris. "During the last decade or so, we've been in wars more than any timeline up here. The Shadow War, Earth Civil War, the Interstellar Alliance-Centauri Prime war, the telepath war, and now we're in to the Drakh war? Sounds like we're never going to have any peace around here."
Max remained silent as he finished brushing and analyzing through his side of the corridor. The last few decks was nothing. Nothing here, nothing there, nothing anywhere. What were they looking for? Dead bodies or more to grieve on the impending list? As a strange fog began to emerge from another part of the corridor, Max was starting to remember more things. The Hak'Vir. The running in the hallway. The explosion in the cargo bays. It was as if it happened yesterday.
"Max," Chambers said. "Max, are you here?"
He blinked. "You were saying...?"
She frowned slightly, her face crumpling back a bit. "Max," she said firmly. "I said it sounds like we're never going to have any peace around here." She frowned again, this time deeper when she saw something very disturbing on the scrapes of metal. She bent down, her clothes already heavy on soot, to analyze something. Max joined in.
"Isn't that a remnant of a lo-tech bomb?" Max asked, bewildered.
She nodded and looked at him. "How'd you know?"
Max shrugged at the thought. "One of my friends used that bomb while I was here back then," he explained, "to get rid of some of the Hak'Vir that was after the cargo. Pretty efficient for a lo-tech." He frowned, his creased face crumpling even more. "What's it doing here, I wonder."
"I'd like to find out too," Chambers agreed. "Hudson, Lewis, come."