Here's the next chapter!
CHAPTER SIX
"Okay, the trail ends here." Eilerson stood over a sand dune of gun powder as he waited for Chambers to catch up with him. She appeared out of the darkness, her dark eyes spinning over to take a look at the end of the trail they had been following since they had found the remnants of the no-fusion bomb.
Chambers bent down to study the powder. "That's odd," she said finally. "The trail just... stops here. I don't get it."
Eilerson shrugged. "Maybe they found out what they were doing and dumped it out."
"These are hijackers, Max, not ordinary amateurs," she pointed out. "Hijackers don't just start blowing up parts of the station for fun. They don't just leave shells of their bombs behind and run off and they surely don't just make a trail and just dump it out half way through. No...these are masterminds. They obviously are up to something."
Max groaned. "That's why I leave this stuff to the military."
Sarah Chambers ignored him. "Something's up," she said finally. "I can smell it."
"Either that or you're smelling yourself," he said smugly.
Suddenly, something came down from above. Not thinking, Max grabbed the bewildered doctor and swung her aside to the wall. She slammed heavily against some metal containers before rolling over to the floor. Max landed heavily to the wall, his right temple meeting the wall with a heavy impact. He turned to see the thing swing back into darkness.
"What the hell was that?" she hissed in the sudden deadly silence.
"I'm about to find out," he told her, lifting a PPG from an inside pocket and creeping over towards where the metal rod had slithered back in. Funny thing was, rods don't slither their way back into darkness unless it was either a strange alien animal or someone was dragging it inside. Max grunted to himself; it was pitch black. How was he to combat if he couldn't see?!
The rod lurched out again as Max swung to his right; the rod missed him by millimetres. He then ducked as the rod spun inward and then rushing to his right. The person missed again, and now Max could see that; black gloves. Human or alien? he asked himself as he jumped back , PPG at hand.
"Max, look out!" he heard Dr. Chambers scream.
Too late. A leg spun out and slammed the PPG out of his grip and soring out a hand. The gun hit the wall with a clunck! and dropped uselessly to the floor. The foot lashed out again, but Max ducked before it hit him at the stomach. He rolled over and grabbed a rusty metal rod from the side. Unconfortable to the touch, he took it out and swung it blindly. It missed, but certainly made the person stagger back into the darkness...
...only to lash out completely into the light. A person covered in black from head to toe and was roughly the same height as Max with a perfect kung fu stance. Just what he needed; a karate master against a loud-mouth linguist. And in the assalent's hand was a...
Minbari fighting pike?
Marcus activated his fighting pike, nearly hitting Max in the head. "Hey, watch where you're setting that off!" he protested as they ran after their fleeing suppose-to-be-killers. He fought panic. "Sorry," he panted...
Bang! He got hit at the jaw. Pain exploded all around his jawbone as he reeled back, stars exploding in his vision. Once he got his vision back, he only saw the pike heading towards him again. He quickly ducked and slid back. But he was too slow and was hit at the back by the pike. Pain erupted even more as he dropped to the floor with a crash. He couldn't get up. His wounds hurt like hell.
He only heard the slurred words, "Time to get you back, IPX man."
"Not if I can help it!" came a voice, followed by a slam at the head. All he heard next was the pike dropping and a body collapsing heaplessly on the floor.
Hands spun him so that his chest and face was facing the ceiling for he was too weak to actually do it himself. "Ouch," he muttered as he watched Chambers studying his wounds carefully in examination. He almost forgot for a moment she was a medical doctor as she began to heal them with her simple first aid kit. "How do you feel?"
"Gee, how would you feel if someone came over your head with that damned pike..." He stopped his sarcastic speech when he mentioned the pike. The Minbari fighting pike. The one that Marcus used. Or, at least, identical to it. He got up weakly despite Chambers' protests, and started his way to the pike. He grabbed it with a weak hand and shook it twice. It activated itself and returned to a small tube that was handheld and was travel-easy. He watched it with deep respect and keeness.
"What's wrong, Max?" Chambers asked.
"He used this," he said softly. "He nearly lost my nose with it, yet it saved me..."
Chambers looked up. "We better get going," she said to him gently. "Gideon and the others expect us to find something..."
Slam! Dureena slid through the floor as the station was hit by a Drakh phaser fire. She cursed silently to herself as she pulled herself up. "Oh, hell, do something for crying out loud!" she screeched at the top of her lungs. "I ain't no military man!"
Another explosion rocketted the station as she reeled over again, only to land on someone and pulled her upright again. Startled, she turned to see a human in a B5 uniform with blue eyes. "You must be Dureena Nafeel," he said despite the buzzing behind them and outside the station. "Let the first officer handle this." With that, he turned to main controls and looked at the stars. "Fighters, this is Lt. Cmdr. David Corwin from Babylon controls, steady fire to the Drakh vessel, all at one," he ordered curtly.
The first officer, Dureena thought keenly, watching in awe.
"Babylon controls, this is Lt. John Matheson, Beta Leader and first officer to the Excalibur," came a staticy reply. "Rerouting power to main gun points. Target...propulsion systems of the enemy craft. Give me a scan of the durability of the vessel to my controls."
"Aye, Beta Leader." He turned to a technician. "Pull up Defence Grid."
"Defence grid up, sir."
There was a beep. Dureena spun to the computer control to see a red light flashing. The data that Gideon asked for! Apparently, a lieutenant was suppose to finish the job, oh, but what the hell? She scanned the data given immediately. Instead, a dossier appeared of all the names of the officers on board. Of all of them, one specifically was on Babylon 5 for six years.
"Computer, download file of Lt. Catalina Santiago-Mereza."
"Download complete." The dossier for the lieutenant appeared. She was a stiff-looking officer with a strict set of brown eyes, drawn back blonde hair that definitly didn't match her coarse set of brown eyebrows and a straight and stiff jaw. Her uniform practically sucked herself inward that Dureena could start counting her ribs. Her face...
"Computer, reconvigure the battle play, mark 0-5-7 again."
"Dowloading battle 0-5-7." The screen shifted as the station was hit again. She narrowed her face as the officers were racing to keep their stations operational. At the corner, she saw the same officer, her stiff blonde hair slicked back, her eyes darting from side to side as if someone were to catch her. Then, her bony fingers raised up to hit the consols---
"Computer, magnify image left corner, one hundred max, grid 50 by 70."
"Magnifying image." Now Mereza was up close. Dureena could see the sweat that had built up in her forehead and the smears of smoke and dust on her cheekbones. She lifted her hand again, darted her eyes side to side before hitting the controls on the panel---
"Computer, replay the order given from the panel bearing...5-6-4."
"Reconfiguring the entire scenerio bearing 5-6-4." The computer then beeped. "Authorization given to panel was fuse out fuses 9-4-4 to surveillance camera 0-5-7 under authorization code 40-89-666. Command authorization completed in 14:09:59 hundred hours, given date."
"Oh, hell," she muttered. "So someone did fuse out the wires." She snickered at the picture of the Lt. Santiago-Mereza as another explosion rocketted the entire station beneath them. "And I'll place my money that you, Catalina Santiago-Mereza did it yourself." She turned to Lieutenant Hovan. "Lieutenant! Get over here for a moment!"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Do you know Lt. Catalina Santiago-Mereza?" she asked him.
"Yes ma'am. She was transferred here to B5 six years ago from the Mars Military Base," he replied stiffly. "Not much on her. She kept a low profile. I do know that she's that sneaky type of person. Very vague, never clear on anything. Or at least, that's how I've experienced with her." He shook his head. "I don't even know why she's in Earthforce in the first place."
"Did anything unusual happen when she first arrived?" Dureena pressed on.
"Yes, ma'am. Roughly at the same time, Cmdr. Susan Ivanova and a Ranger called Marcus Cole, both on the command staff, was chasing down some Amsterdam gang that was roaming about Down Below at brown sector whom was rumoured to steal some important artifact founded by this IPX . He was suppose to auction it to the Hak'Vir, but they turned against him."
"Thank you. That'll be all. Dureena to Gideon..."
CHAPTER SIX
"Okay, the trail ends here." Eilerson stood over a sand dune of gun powder as he waited for Chambers to catch up with him. She appeared out of the darkness, her dark eyes spinning over to take a look at the end of the trail they had been following since they had found the remnants of the no-fusion bomb.
Chambers bent down to study the powder. "That's odd," she said finally. "The trail just... stops here. I don't get it."
Eilerson shrugged. "Maybe they found out what they were doing and dumped it out."
"These are hijackers, Max, not ordinary amateurs," she pointed out. "Hijackers don't just start blowing up parts of the station for fun. They don't just leave shells of their bombs behind and run off and they surely don't just make a trail and just dump it out half way through. No...these are masterminds. They obviously are up to something."
Max groaned. "That's why I leave this stuff to the military."
Sarah Chambers ignored him. "Something's up," she said finally. "I can smell it."
"Either that or you're smelling yourself," he said smugly.
Suddenly, something came down from above. Not thinking, Max grabbed the bewildered doctor and swung her aside to the wall. She slammed heavily against some metal containers before rolling over to the floor. Max landed heavily to the wall, his right temple meeting the wall with a heavy impact. He turned to see the thing swing back into darkness.
"What the hell was that?" she hissed in the sudden deadly silence.
"I'm about to find out," he told her, lifting a PPG from an inside pocket and creeping over towards where the metal rod had slithered back in. Funny thing was, rods don't slither their way back into darkness unless it was either a strange alien animal or someone was dragging it inside. Max grunted to himself; it was pitch black. How was he to combat if he couldn't see?!
The rod lurched out again as Max swung to his right; the rod missed him by millimetres. He then ducked as the rod spun inward and then rushing to his right. The person missed again, and now Max could see that; black gloves. Human or alien? he asked himself as he jumped back , PPG at hand.
"Max, look out!" he heard Dr. Chambers scream.
Too late. A leg spun out and slammed the PPG out of his grip and soring out a hand. The gun hit the wall with a clunck! and dropped uselessly to the floor. The foot lashed out again, but Max ducked before it hit him at the stomach. He rolled over and grabbed a rusty metal rod from the side. Unconfortable to the touch, he took it out and swung it blindly. It missed, but certainly made the person stagger back into the darkness...
...only to lash out completely into the light. A person covered in black from head to toe and was roughly the same height as Max with a perfect kung fu stance. Just what he needed; a karate master against a loud-mouth linguist. And in the assalent's hand was a...
Minbari fighting pike?
Marcus activated his fighting pike, nearly hitting Max in the head. "Hey, watch where you're setting that off!" he protested as they ran after their fleeing suppose-to-be-killers. He fought panic. "Sorry," he panted...
Bang! He got hit at the jaw. Pain exploded all around his jawbone as he reeled back, stars exploding in his vision. Once he got his vision back, he only saw the pike heading towards him again. He quickly ducked and slid back. But he was too slow and was hit at the back by the pike. Pain erupted even more as he dropped to the floor with a crash. He couldn't get up. His wounds hurt like hell.
He only heard the slurred words, "Time to get you back, IPX man."
"Not if I can help it!" came a voice, followed by a slam at the head. All he heard next was the pike dropping and a body collapsing heaplessly on the floor.
Hands spun him so that his chest and face was facing the ceiling for he was too weak to actually do it himself. "Ouch," he muttered as he watched Chambers studying his wounds carefully in examination. He almost forgot for a moment she was a medical doctor as she began to heal them with her simple first aid kit. "How do you feel?"
"Gee, how would you feel if someone came over your head with that damned pike..." He stopped his sarcastic speech when he mentioned the pike. The Minbari fighting pike. The one that Marcus used. Or, at least, identical to it. He got up weakly despite Chambers' protests, and started his way to the pike. He grabbed it with a weak hand and shook it twice. It activated itself and returned to a small tube that was handheld and was travel-easy. He watched it with deep respect and keeness.
"What's wrong, Max?" Chambers asked.
"He used this," he said softly. "He nearly lost my nose with it, yet it saved me..."
Chambers looked up. "We better get going," she said to him gently. "Gideon and the others expect us to find something..."
Slam! Dureena slid through the floor as the station was hit by a Drakh phaser fire. She cursed silently to herself as she pulled herself up. "Oh, hell, do something for crying out loud!" she screeched at the top of her lungs. "I ain't no military man!"
Another explosion rocketted the station as she reeled over again, only to land on someone and pulled her upright again. Startled, she turned to see a human in a B5 uniform with blue eyes. "You must be Dureena Nafeel," he said despite the buzzing behind them and outside the station. "Let the first officer handle this." With that, he turned to main controls and looked at the stars. "Fighters, this is Lt. Cmdr. David Corwin from Babylon controls, steady fire to the Drakh vessel, all at one," he ordered curtly.
The first officer, Dureena thought keenly, watching in awe.
"Babylon controls, this is Lt. John Matheson, Beta Leader and first officer to the Excalibur," came a staticy reply. "Rerouting power to main gun points. Target...propulsion systems of the enemy craft. Give me a scan of the durability of the vessel to my controls."
"Aye, Beta Leader." He turned to a technician. "Pull up Defence Grid."
"Defence grid up, sir."
There was a beep. Dureena spun to the computer control to see a red light flashing. The data that Gideon asked for! Apparently, a lieutenant was suppose to finish the job, oh, but what the hell? She scanned the data given immediately. Instead, a dossier appeared of all the names of the officers on board. Of all of them, one specifically was on Babylon 5 for six years.
"Computer, download file of Lt. Catalina Santiago-Mereza."
"Download complete." The dossier for the lieutenant appeared. She was a stiff-looking officer with a strict set of brown eyes, drawn back blonde hair that definitly didn't match her coarse set of brown eyebrows and a straight and stiff jaw. Her uniform practically sucked herself inward that Dureena could start counting her ribs. Her face...
"Computer, reconvigure the battle play, mark 0-5-7 again."
"Dowloading battle 0-5-7." The screen shifted as the station was hit again. She narrowed her face as the officers were racing to keep their stations operational. At the corner, she saw the same officer, her stiff blonde hair slicked back, her eyes darting from side to side as if someone were to catch her. Then, her bony fingers raised up to hit the consols---
"Computer, magnify image left corner, one hundred max, grid 50 by 70."
"Magnifying image." Now Mereza was up close. Dureena could see the sweat that had built up in her forehead and the smears of smoke and dust on her cheekbones. She lifted her hand again, darted her eyes side to side before hitting the controls on the panel---
"Computer, replay the order given from the panel bearing...5-6-4."
"Reconfiguring the entire scenerio bearing 5-6-4." The computer then beeped. "Authorization given to panel was fuse out fuses 9-4-4 to surveillance camera 0-5-7 under authorization code 40-89-666. Command authorization completed in 14:09:59 hundred hours, given date."
"Oh, hell," she muttered. "So someone did fuse out the wires." She snickered at the picture of the Lt. Santiago-Mereza as another explosion rocketted the entire station beneath them. "And I'll place my money that you, Catalina Santiago-Mereza did it yourself." She turned to Lieutenant Hovan. "Lieutenant! Get over here for a moment!"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Do you know Lt. Catalina Santiago-Mereza?" she asked him.
"Yes ma'am. She was transferred here to B5 six years ago from the Mars Military Base," he replied stiffly. "Not much on her. She kept a low profile. I do know that she's that sneaky type of person. Very vague, never clear on anything. Or at least, that's how I've experienced with her." He shook his head. "I don't even know why she's in Earthforce in the first place."
"Did anything unusual happen when she first arrived?" Dureena pressed on.
"Yes, ma'am. Roughly at the same time, Cmdr. Susan Ivanova and a Ranger called Marcus Cole, both on the command staff, was chasing down some Amsterdam gang that was roaming about Down Below at brown sector whom was rumoured to steal some important artifact founded by this IPX . He was suppose to auction it to the Hak'Vir, but they turned against him."
"Thank you. That'll be all. Dureena to Gideon..."