Points of Separation, Moments of Introspection: Act II.

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Author's Notes:

Well, here I am, writing at this again. Hopefully I can keep up a good quality B5/Eva crossover. Who knows… I wish I could write faster, then I could have a twenty six episode season. :) Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of time to invest in my writing. *sigh*

Read and Enjoy…
P.V.

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Points of Separation, Moments of Introspection: Act II.

Perhaps it was the way of the thing. The fact that human beings needed to see and touch and feel with their own eyes, bodies, and fingers. Still, Michael Garibaldi didn't like the idea that his Commander got in his head… He didn't like it one damn bit.

"Jeff…" He said running up beside Sinclair. "Come on now. Are you in that much of a hurry to die?"

"I've got to see it Michael. Before it gets here. Maybe there's something I can do. Some way to…"

"To what, martyr yourself?" Garibaldi quipped back. "For God sakes, its suicide!"

"We don't know what set that thing off, Michael. It could have been an energy source, it could have been someone left ALIVE in there. There are life signs…."

"Jeff…" Garibaldi implored one last time as they made their way through the flight lockers… a few steps away from the Cobra bays. "Oh, to hell with it." He finally said, and quickly grabbed his flight suit as the commander got his helmet and gear together.

"Michael, what the are you doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?" He asked flippantly. "You think I'm going to let you go out there and frag yourself?" He stared into his commander's eyes, "Um… NO!"

"Garibaldi…" Jeff started but was cut off by his security chief.

"Don't give me an order we both know I'll never obey." Garibaldi said, a smug grin on his face, "Besides, Its my responsibility to make sure you don't get careless. Something about protecting the captain and all of that…" Sinclair glared at him, so he decided to elaborate, "Something along the lines of 'Preventing command personnel from taking unwarranted and extraordinary risks upon themselves, and there by abandoning duty…' and such nonsense."

"Why Michael, you studied." Jeff said sarcastically while shrugging on the last of his flight suit. "I'm touched…" He quipped, then moved his hands to his stomach, "Right about here…"

"Oh, har de har har." Garibaldi acerbically intoned. "Just remember, these are mark 82's. They're short range, but they're faster than our 'furies unless we're at full burn."

Jeff nodded. "We'll make it. Delenn told me once I have a destiny. I don't think I'm meant to die on some giant rock floating through deep space."

"That's good for you." Garibaldi mumbled. "What about me?"

A semi serious frown appeared on the Commander's face, "I don't think I ever remember her saying anything about you…"

"Swell…"

-

"Recon One and Two, you're cleared for launch…" Ivanova intoned, watching her display board. "Godspeed."

The Commander's voice came over CnC's audio monitor's, "Roger that. And thanks."

Just as Ivanova was about to move to the next ship in the departure manifest, "Hey, if this is what we think it is, I'll bring you back some nice Anime, if we can find anything."

Ivanova arched an eyebrow, "Cartoons are for kids…" She said loudly. Then lowered her voice, "But if you find any CCS, grab it."

"Roger that." Garibaldi said as his fury launched out of the cobra bay.

-

Michael looked at his display. "Did I ever mention how much I HATE the waiting part."

Sinclair's voice groaned back, not really responding to Michael's statement, "You never could stand long trips."

"I know. Its just that… you know."

"I know." Sinclair responded. "So what you want to talk about this time?"

"Japanese."

"Interesting, don't know much about the subject myself." Jeff muttered, with a mild smile on his face.

"Neither do I… except for the bike."

"Ah yes, a Kawasaki Ninja, I believe. You're trying to put it together."

"Yeah, trying… and failing." Garibaldi groaned. "I mean, I have all the parts… but…"

"The manual is in Japanese?"

Michael had a suspicious look cross his face, as his mouth turned downward in a frown, "Yeah, how did you know?"

"You wouldn't stop talking about it on that one Mars mission we were on." Jeff's voice came back clearly. "We were in that shuttle for what? Fifteen hours? And the only thing you could talk about was how you had the instruction book to put the whole thing together… and how it was written in Japanese."

"Yeah. Well, I was thinking, at any rate, maybe we can find an intact one, you know, grapple it, and bring it back to the station… Something preferably in an electric blue."

"And ruin all the fun of putting it together yourself?" Sinclair asked, mockingly. "Now what kind of friend would I be if I let you do that? Besides, if my suspicions are correct, you'll be able to ask for help…"

"Jeff, its been two hundred years, there's nobody who could survive that long inside a lifeless rock. The life signs are probably some biomass or something that just hasn't figured out its dead yet." Michael said, looking at his chronometer. "Six more hours…" He mumbled. "Why couldn't we have waited until it got a little closer?"

"Because, If we would have, IPX would have complained about us taking a little joy ride. They don't like to share."

"IPX is not due to arrive for another day…"

"Trust me." Sinclair said, the smile visible in his voice.

-

"Unscheduled ship coming through the Jump Gate."

"Okay," Ivanova said, looking out at the distant device.

The jump gate burst to life, bursts of energy from its vortex generators rippling along its length and converging at a point to tear a hole in space-time. As the burst of energy folded into the ether – a vortex of torrential energy appeared, with a blackness at its center. Then the entire vortex seemed to shift for a second, as a burst of light was emitted from that dark hole, and a ship suddenly appeared, moving at a seemingly incredible velocity – then slowing to a normal speed once it cleared the event horizon.

Soon after the small vessel appeared, the jump point – deprived of the energy provided by the generators on the Jump Gates' support struts – collapsed in on itself, revealing no trace of the violent vortex that existed but moments earlier.

Ivanova's eyes narrowed at the ship. "IPX." She muttered.

In confirmation of her theory, the comms system came alive. "This is the IPX research vessel Rift Tangent, we are here to research the planetary ejecta currently approaching the station. Requesting permission to come aboard and speak with Commander Sinclair."

"Docking permission granted." Susan practically snarled at the comm system. "Bay sixteen."

"Roger that." The captain of the ship answered hesitantly.

"Release controls of your ship for docking." Susan responded, removing the emotional growl from her voice.

"You have control." The captain replied.

Susan closed the channel. "I have control? Ha!" She narrowed her eyes at the IPX rat-trap. "If I had control… they'd be docking with the local star." She muttered as she straightened her tunic. "The commander knew this would happen. He left me here, to deal with this… I'm going to get him… I swear I'm going to get him good for this…"

-

"Now arriving, Minbari Star liner Nepheli. All passengers are to proceed through security checkpoints three and nine for customs." The accented voice from above to the masses surging from point to point below. Babylon 5 was a very busy space port – made even more essential by its location in neutral territory.

A middle-aged, dark brown-haired woman came through the airlock. She looked around at the various aliens and humans mulling around the arrival gate. She had dark skin that was representative of African ancestry, however her features displayed other traits. Her face, for example, had various Oriental influences, and her eyes were a brilliant jade green. While not exceedingly tall, she stood taller than most of the women around her.

Contributing to her exotic appearance was her dark brown hair. It was braided, and currently hanging to one side. Her silky hair had a large red butterfly bow placed right above her right ear. The long single braid wrapped around and draped down her left shoulder and across the front of her dress suit, and was tied off with a small red bow that matched her suit jacket and the large butterfly bow adorning her head. Running down the braid were strands of silver and gold thread that intertwined to catch the light and reflect it every so often.

The red suit jacket was silken, a scarlet red only a few shades lighter than blood. Her undershirt was a silken white, with tendrils of silver and gold meshed into ornate patterns that caught the ambient light and seemingly changed as she moved. On the right shoulder of her suit, just above her breast, was a small pin that said "IPX" in platinum lettering.

The woman let out a small sigh, as though being relieved to be in a place with lots of people. Finally she spotted the person she was looking for – a person in an Earth Force command uniform. She smiled and walked briskly to the woman. 'At least she's not a brown shirt…' she thought to herself as she approached the commander. "I'm Gloria Stephens, IPX head researcher on the Rift Tangent…" She extended her hand to the commander.

Susan maintained a straight face, and did not accept the hand shake. "Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova."

"I was told that I would be meeting with the Commander on arrival." Stephens quirked her head slightly to the left.

"You were told wrong." Ivanova said offhandedly, watching as the woman dropped her extended hand.

'Fine' Gloria thought, a self-assured smirk on her face. "Most of the information on this subject is considered confidential and strictly classified. I can't release it to a subordinate."

"Ms. Stephens," Ivanova said acerbically, "I am the best that you're going to get for now. Commander Sinclair and Chief Garibaldi are currently on a recon patrol."

Gloria looked mildly shocked, "Is that normal? For the two senior most officers on board to go and flit around in deep space?"

"First, yes, they normally go off and 'flit' through space. Its our job. We're Earth Force." She nailed the woman with a death stare, "Second, I am the Second in Command. It goes: God, Sinclair, Me… Got it?"

The short brown haired woman began to bristle at the commander's open hostility. But before she could respond with a retort, Ivanova interrupted her.

"And lastly, nothing, and I mean nothing, around here is normal." Susan finished, then waited for the woman to recompose herself.

"Where did they go?" Stephens asked, looking at the commander.

"That's classified information. I can't share that with civilians." Susan responded with a hint of a smile.

"Well, can you tell me how long until they'll be back?" Gloria asked, not wanting to push to see how unstable the Lieutenant Commander was.

"Classified." Susan responded, then waited for the next question.

"You are aware IPX charter gives us carte blanch over any alien tech discovered by Earth Alliance members…"

"Of course."

"They wouldn't be going to that rock ahead of us, would they?"

"As I said, that's classified." Susan said, "They're on Recon patrol. There's all sort of nasty things out there."

"Like?"

Susan got a predatory grin. "Things that make other things go boom."

"Boom?"

"Yeah. BOOM."

Gloria sighed, "Well in that case, I guess we better get set up then…"

"You have Brown twenty-eight section twenty-six to work in…"

Gloria gasped as she mentally recalled the layout of the station, "But… but that's on the other side of the station… About 170 degrees spin wise!"

"Its where our scientific research areas are set up." Susan shrugged.

"Can we get some help to move our equipment there?"

Susan smiled to herself. "I'll see what we can do."

-

"There it is." Jeff said, his fury approaching the giant rock in space.

"It doesn't even look like it came from a planet…" Garibaldi mumbled.

"Well… one day, that might be how people find out about us. The Earth won't be around forever." He said softly.

"Well when you put it that way…" Just then a loud shrill beep interrupted Garibaldi's thoughts. "Um…"

"I've got it. I've been painted too…"

"Incoming." Garibaldi managed.

"Go to full burn!" Sinclair shouted, pushing his star fury into a twisting loop.

-

Dozens of blue flame points appeared along the asteroid's horizon. The swept upwards methodically, dancing in time with the information being relayed by their tracking systems.

The two star furies began their own death dance, dodging the incoming spears of destruction. Fortunately for the star furies, most of the missiles were designed to explode when they were within a certain range of the craft. In the atmosphere of a planet, the explosions would create deadly concussion waves that would shred a conventional aircraft. But this was space… So even as the missiles exploded around the small fighters, they remained safe, as long as they avoided a direct impact.

-
"Definitely set up for a planetary defense. Otherwise they'd be detonating a hell of a lot closer…" Garibaldi muttered, pushing his fighter over.

"Yeah… or chasing us down."

"That too." Garibaldi responded to the commander. He looked up and saw a missile looping back… "Um Jeff, you got one on you."

Garibaldi desperately tried to get lined up to take a shot at the missile. "Damnit." He said, as Sinclair's wild maneuvers caused the missile to dance in and out of a target lock.

"I can't shake it…" Sinclair said.

"To hell with it…" Garibaldi said, and increased his thrust to 110%. The added momentum allowed him to get a steady strain on the dodging missile. "Bang" He said, firing off a single burst from the pulse cannons mounted on the underside of the fighter.

Sinclair nosed over, cutting in to full reverse at the same time, and fired on the missile. Both destructive packets of energy met the dancing rocket at its mid section – blowing it cleanly apart. Jeff then nosed his fighter over, and began to weave in and out of the jagged surface of the asteroid.

Garibaldi came in hot as well, dancing around the outcroppings as the last of the missiles slammed into the oddly shaped rock and silica formations jutting up from the irregular surface. Finally the missiles stopped coming, having lost their quarry in the surface clutter.

"That… was close," Garibaldi mumbled. "You know what Jeff, I hope you're right about there being someone left alive down there. Because when we find them, I'm gonna throttle 'em."

Sinclair chuckled, "Garibaldi, you never seem to change."

-

Both fighters dove into the unknown opening of the asteroid. Below the fighters, as they slowed their velocity, were the remains of a city, an underground lake and a massive pyramid.

-

"What are we looking for…" Garibaldi asked, then watched as Sinclair's fury came to a complete stop above a hole in the ground.

"This." Jeff said, nosing his star fury downward.

As Garibaldi approached, he could see the remains of a massive armored seal, and what looked like a rail launching system. "I don't know Jeff. Could be a tight squeeze."

Sinclair fired his reverse thrusters on low for about a second, to keep him above the hole. While the asteroid was small, it did have a slight amount of gravity. "Whatever these were designed to launch, they were big."

"Well, after you." Garibaldi said.

"Age before beauty?" Sinclair quipped.

"Naw, insanity before reason."

Sinclair chuckled slightly, "Garibaldi…"

-

One by one the two fighters disappeared down the hole, following the ancient launch tube to its source…

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Author's Notes:

I'm working on it. I promise I'll get it there soon. :) After all, this is about Eva too… but I have to set it up the right way. So I hope you'll bare with me, and that you enjoyed this section. I should have the next part done sometime in the next two to three weeks. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions – they are warmly accepted.

Later,
PitViper(pvalpha@yahoo.com)