Past and Present
Agendas
Chapter 6
Tracy Reager
Dureena was furious. "I should've known it was a trick! Why did I ever trust him?" She shouted out loud, not that anyone was there to hear her. About an hour ago, Galen left his flyer to go talk to his mysterious source. As promised he left an image showing what he was seeing, and he also left another image from the probe on Trace's shoulder. But when she saw Galen coming up to a building, the picture suddenly went blank and the image popped out of existence. Only the picture of Trace remained. She walked to the door of the control and told it to open, nothing happened. So she decided to push on it...big mistake. An electric shock was sent through her body. She fell backwards, gasping for air. For a few minutes all she did was lay on the floor, trying to calm her body down. "Ok, I guess he wasn't kidding about the whole self-defense thing." She slowly climbed back into the chair and watched Trace vehemently search the red planet for any sign of the technomage's ship.
***************
Galen knew Dureena wasn't happy about having the image shut off, but it was necessary. In his mind he watched her talk to the walls and pace around the control room. He winced when she touched the door. Why doesn't anybody ever listen when I give them warnings? He pushed her image to the side and concentrated on getting to the meeting place without drawing any attention from the Drakh. Yesterday Finian sent him a message saying that Gwynn saved Vir from almost dying...again. Galen told them he would be there by the next day and to make sure Vir was going to be there. He reached the door, put his hand on the access pad and visualized the secret access code. He walked upstairs to find Gwynn asleep on the couch.
"Get up!" He all but shouted. It wasn't that he was annoyed with them, but he didn't want to run all the way out here just to teach Vir a lesson. Sometimes Vir just paid more attention when Galen told him something.
"Where is he?"
"Uh..." Gwynn mumbled still half asleep.
"On his way." A voice replied from the stairwell. Finian walked into the small living room. "What do you plan on doing to him Galen?"
"Showing him the face of his enemy. And maybe once he sees it, he will be much more careful."
Now fully awake Gwynn had a few questions, "Is that really wise? How do you think he'll react?" But the questions never got answered, Vir walked in.
"Am I interrupting something?" Vir asked. He used to be scared by the mages, but now...well he was still a little nervous around them, but he got over his initial fears.
"No Vir you weren't interrupting anything." Galen replied, giving Gwynn a dirty look. Even though Finian and Gwynn were initiated at the same time as him, he still thought they had a lot of learning to do. Maybe it was because they haven't seen the things he has, didn't know the secrets the Circle kept. "I heard about the incident last night near the Tower of Power. You really need to be more careful." He held out his palm and an image of a large Centauri appeared.
"Who's he?" Vir looked harder at the image when it went blurry and was replaced by a tall, scaly shape. "It's hideous! Is that a Drakh?"
"Yes Vir, this is what almost killed you last night. Gwynn explained.
Vir felt very sick, he wanted to go back to Babylon 5 and hide there. After he took a three-day shower of course. He felt dirty just looking at it, and to think he was so close to it last night. He wandered into the bathroom and lost it.
Finian gave Galen a disgusted look as Vir threw up in the bathroom. "You had to tell him didn't you?"
"Hopefully it sank in about how dangerous things are here!" He frowned and put his head down. While they were waiting for Vir to compose himself, Galen sent a message to Dureena. //How are you?//
Dureena jumped when words popped onto the control screen. "Galen?"
//Yes, it's me. I should be back soon.//
"Dammit why did you do that? You lied!" She jumped up and pointed to the screen, not sure if he could actually see her or just hear her.
//Not really. There are some things I can't show you, and before you ask it's not my decision to make. The video will resume when I leave. I have to go, see you in a little bit.// He ended the message, wishing he could hold her in his arms.
Vir stumbled out of the bathroom. "I'm sorry about that." He stuttered and pointed. "If you're done with me I would really like to leave, I need to shower."
"Go ahead." Galen said reassuringly. "Just be more careful from now on." Vir nodded and left the house. Galen wrinkled his nose; "You might want to clean that up, before it starts to smell worse."
Gwynn gave him the dirtiest look possible while trying not to breathe. "I'm not doing it. It's all yours Finian."
Finian went over to open the window. "Thanks."
"It looks like you two have everything under control. I'm going to leave now, I have to get back to the Excalibur before they get into any trouble." With that, Galen left the house, glad to be breathing fresh air. When he got far enough away from the house, he began transmitting his surroundings back to the ship for Dureena. He hurried through the streets back to the flyer.
Dureena was busy looking through a vidpad when Galen got back. "Don't you think it would help if you could read that?"
She jumped when she heard his voice. "I didn't here you come in. What did you just ask me?"
"I asked if you could read that?" Galen walked over and took the vidpad out of her hands.
"No. I was looking at it to see if it would make sense. What is it?"
"My spell language."
"Huh?" Dureena had a puzzled expression on her face. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Every mage has their own spell language, this is mine." He walked to the control panel and told the computer to start the take-off checklist. "So what have you been up to while I've been gone?" He was curious to see what she'd say about the incident.
"Not much, pacing the room."
"Nothing strange happened?" He raised his eyebrow at her. This is fun. I should tease her more often. Galen was surprised at how he felt about her. It took him awhile to get over Isabelle's death. He wasn't a people person; usually he avoided them. So it almost scared him that he was falling for her, even though he felt great when he was around her. Maybe it's her feisty personality?
"No. Should something have happened?" She wasn't sure if he knew about her trying to leave.
"Are you sure?"
"Is there some strange inside joke I'm missing?" Dureena was confused; she wasn't sure what to say to him.
Galen laughed. "So, how is Trace doing?" He pointed to the screen, trying to change the subject. "He seems agitated."
"He has been talking to himself for awhile. When do you think Gideon will make him go back to the Excalibur?"
"As far as Gideon knows Trace is doing his job, but I'm sure when people start to complain about there not being three shuttles, he'll find out." They both sat down and Galen piloted the flyer out of the atmosphere and into hyperspace. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Please." She sat patiently while Galen was gone. After what happened before, she was a little afraid to touch anything. Still, Dureena went up to the door to open it, when Galen came back.
"Don't worry, the security system is only activated when I'm not here." He smiled at her.
"So you know?"
"Of course. This ship is linked to me, I know what happens when I'm not around." He paused. "Instead of going right back to the Excalibur, I say we find Trace first; play a little trick on him."
"That sounds good to me!"
********************
"Where have you been Trace?" Gideon shouted. He managed to catch up to Trace when he came back to the Excalibur to refuel. "I've had complaints all morning about how long people have to wait to go to Mars."
"I've been busy."
"Doing what? What is more important than your job?"
"Looking for someone, and I will find him."
"Wait. Don't tell me you're still looking for Galen?" He looked at Trace; "You are, aren't you? Why don't you just give it up? I seriously don't think they are down there. Now you are going to get back in that shuttle and do your job, or I will personally make sure you spend the next week in the brig! Move it!" Gideon shook his head as Matheson came up behind him. "He used to be such a good worker."
"He still is, just a little jealous."
"I don't like it when my crew don't do their jobs, unless there is a good reason. This," he pointed to Trace's shuttle, "is a bunch of crap. Keep an eye on where he goes for me, I'm going to get some lunch."
"A little late for lunch, isn't it?"
"I need something, I haven't eaten since early this morning." The both grinned and went their separate ways.
****************
Ok, this is the last group. Now I can search for that damn pest! Trace waited until he got the all clear message from control, then went off in search of Galen.
***************
Later that day...
"Are you sure he won't see us?" Dureena asked, Galen's plan for Trace wasn't making much sense.
"Positive. The only way he'll see us is with his eyes, the scanners can't detect my ship." He reassured her. She just shrugged. They entered the Martian atmosphere and quickly covered the distance between them and Trace. When they got within range, Galen instructed the computer to grapple the shuttle.
"What the hell was that?" Trace shouted when he heard a metal on metal sound. Suddenly the shuttle lurched backward. He frantically checked the controls and couldn't figure out what had happened. Just when he was about to call for help, the shuttle flew forward. He looked at the computer readouts and saw he was back in control. After he double-checked the computer he shook his head. "What happened?"
"Unknown." The computer reported.
Inside the flyer, Galen was monitoring the bridge activity on the Excalibur.
"Where the hell is Trace again?" We're scheduled to leave in two hours and he isn't here!
"Sir, the other pilots are bringing back passengers as fast as they can, but a lot of the crew are still down there." Matheson could tell by the look on the Captain's face, that he didn't want to hear that. "They also report seeing Trace take some people down earlier, but that he never came back up with more. When they went back to the landing site, his shuttle was gone."
"Just great. He probably ran off looking for Galen again. Alright open a channel to his shuttle, it's time I took care of this."
Dureena snickered, "Ooh Trace is in big trouble now!" The both started to laugh.
On the bridge an image of Trace appeared on the screen. "Where are you?"
"I'm...uh...."
"Let me guess, you're still searching for Galen, right?"
"I know he's down here Captain."
"I told you this morning, he left. I doubt he is on Mars, we've tried looking for him ourselves and came up empty. Now if he were there, our scanners would find him long before yours would, so you are to come back right now. And when you get back we are going to have a nice long talk about insubordination. End." Gideon put his head back in the chair; "I need a vacation."
Trace started to head back to the Excalibur with Galen following close behind. Suddenly a large black object flew past him into the docking bay.
"Now you're just provoking him." Dureena glanced at Galen.
"I know." He replied coolly.
"Damn him! He was probably following me the entire time!" To enraged to think straight, Trace hit the forward thrusters, sending him closer to the technomage flyer.
The computer on Galen's flyer automatically sped it up, trying to avoid a collision. Dureena couldn't help but notice how fast the wall was getting. Luckily they just made it past the gravity shields. Trace wasn't so lucky. In his attempt to ram Galen, he was going too fast and a transparent blue wall formed in front of him, shaking the shuttle and drastically slowing it down. To make things worse Matheson and Gideon were watching the entire scene from the edge of the docking bay.
Gideon took his eyes from the shuttle and focused on the incoming flyer. The landing gear finally appeared beneath it and it landed, but he didn't think they were going to stop in time. Smoke came out from underneath Galen's ship while it made a horrible screeching sound. It stopped...a few inches from the wall.
"Like I said, not a problem." Galen told Dureena. She didn't say anything; she was too busy trying to slow her heart rate. Galen noticed she wasn't moving, so being daring, he decided to give her a hug. Surprisingly Dureena returned the favor.
"Thanks. Let's never do that again!"
"But I thought you liked adventure?" He looked at her. She just shook her head. They walked out of the ship and towards the Captain. Behind them, Trace stumbled out of the shuttle and pulled out a gun.
"Turn around you!" He pointed the gun at Galen's head.
Galen laughed. "Do you really think that will work? You don't scare me Trace." He raised his hand and conjured a fireball. "Now, I can shield myself from your PPG, but can you shield yourself from my fireball?" He saw Trace actually think it over. "You won't win, just give it up." From the hallway emerged a team of security guards. They positioned themselves near Galen and aimed their weapons at Trace. Finally realizing he had no choice, Trace threw the gun on the ground and kicked it to one of the guards. He raised his hands and one of the men grabbed him. The fireball in Galen's hand diminished into nothing. He walked over to the Captain
"Put him in the brig and throw away the key." Gideon commanded. He was really annoyed. "Now that everyone is safely back, let's get ready to go to our next destination." With that they all left the flight deck and walked to the conference room.
Agendas
Chapter 6
Tracy Reager
Dureena was furious. "I should've known it was a trick! Why did I ever trust him?" She shouted out loud, not that anyone was there to hear her. About an hour ago, Galen left his flyer to go talk to his mysterious source. As promised he left an image showing what he was seeing, and he also left another image from the probe on Trace's shoulder. But when she saw Galen coming up to a building, the picture suddenly went blank and the image popped out of existence. Only the picture of Trace remained. She walked to the door of the control and told it to open, nothing happened. So she decided to push on it...big mistake. An electric shock was sent through her body. She fell backwards, gasping for air. For a few minutes all she did was lay on the floor, trying to calm her body down. "Ok, I guess he wasn't kidding about the whole self-defense thing." She slowly climbed back into the chair and watched Trace vehemently search the red planet for any sign of the technomage's ship.
***************
Galen knew Dureena wasn't happy about having the image shut off, but it was necessary. In his mind he watched her talk to the walls and pace around the control room. He winced when she touched the door. Why doesn't anybody ever listen when I give them warnings? He pushed her image to the side and concentrated on getting to the meeting place without drawing any attention from the Drakh. Yesterday Finian sent him a message saying that Gwynn saved Vir from almost dying...again. Galen told them he would be there by the next day and to make sure Vir was going to be there. He reached the door, put his hand on the access pad and visualized the secret access code. He walked upstairs to find Gwynn asleep on the couch.
"Get up!" He all but shouted. It wasn't that he was annoyed with them, but he didn't want to run all the way out here just to teach Vir a lesson. Sometimes Vir just paid more attention when Galen told him something.
"Where is he?"
"Uh..." Gwynn mumbled still half asleep.
"On his way." A voice replied from the stairwell. Finian walked into the small living room. "What do you plan on doing to him Galen?"
"Showing him the face of his enemy. And maybe once he sees it, he will be much more careful."
Now fully awake Gwynn had a few questions, "Is that really wise? How do you think he'll react?" But the questions never got answered, Vir walked in.
"Am I interrupting something?" Vir asked. He used to be scared by the mages, but now...well he was still a little nervous around them, but he got over his initial fears.
"No Vir you weren't interrupting anything." Galen replied, giving Gwynn a dirty look. Even though Finian and Gwynn were initiated at the same time as him, he still thought they had a lot of learning to do. Maybe it was because they haven't seen the things he has, didn't know the secrets the Circle kept. "I heard about the incident last night near the Tower of Power. You really need to be more careful." He held out his palm and an image of a large Centauri appeared.
"Who's he?" Vir looked harder at the image when it went blurry and was replaced by a tall, scaly shape. "It's hideous! Is that a Drakh?"
"Yes Vir, this is what almost killed you last night. Gwynn explained.
Vir felt very sick, he wanted to go back to Babylon 5 and hide there. After he took a three-day shower of course. He felt dirty just looking at it, and to think he was so close to it last night. He wandered into the bathroom and lost it.
Finian gave Galen a disgusted look as Vir threw up in the bathroom. "You had to tell him didn't you?"
"Hopefully it sank in about how dangerous things are here!" He frowned and put his head down. While they were waiting for Vir to compose himself, Galen sent a message to Dureena. //How are you?//
Dureena jumped when words popped onto the control screen. "Galen?"
//Yes, it's me. I should be back soon.//
"Dammit why did you do that? You lied!" She jumped up and pointed to the screen, not sure if he could actually see her or just hear her.
//Not really. There are some things I can't show you, and before you ask it's not my decision to make. The video will resume when I leave. I have to go, see you in a little bit.// He ended the message, wishing he could hold her in his arms.
Vir stumbled out of the bathroom. "I'm sorry about that." He stuttered and pointed. "If you're done with me I would really like to leave, I need to shower."
"Go ahead." Galen said reassuringly. "Just be more careful from now on." Vir nodded and left the house. Galen wrinkled his nose; "You might want to clean that up, before it starts to smell worse."
Gwynn gave him the dirtiest look possible while trying not to breathe. "I'm not doing it. It's all yours Finian."
Finian went over to open the window. "Thanks."
"It looks like you two have everything under control. I'm going to leave now, I have to get back to the Excalibur before they get into any trouble." With that, Galen left the house, glad to be breathing fresh air. When he got far enough away from the house, he began transmitting his surroundings back to the ship for Dureena. He hurried through the streets back to the flyer.
Dureena was busy looking through a vidpad when Galen got back. "Don't you think it would help if you could read that?"
She jumped when she heard his voice. "I didn't here you come in. What did you just ask me?"
"I asked if you could read that?" Galen walked over and took the vidpad out of her hands.
"No. I was looking at it to see if it would make sense. What is it?"
"My spell language."
"Huh?" Dureena had a puzzled expression on her face. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Every mage has their own spell language, this is mine." He walked to the control panel and told the computer to start the take-off checklist. "So what have you been up to while I've been gone?" He was curious to see what she'd say about the incident.
"Not much, pacing the room."
"Nothing strange happened?" He raised his eyebrow at her. This is fun. I should tease her more often. Galen was surprised at how he felt about her. It took him awhile to get over Isabelle's death. He wasn't a people person; usually he avoided them. So it almost scared him that he was falling for her, even though he felt great when he was around her. Maybe it's her feisty personality?
"No. Should something have happened?" She wasn't sure if he knew about her trying to leave.
"Are you sure?"
"Is there some strange inside joke I'm missing?" Dureena was confused; she wasn't sure what to say to him.
Galen laughed. "So, how is Trace doing?" He pointed to the screen, trying to change the subject. "He seems agitated."
"He has been talking to himself for awhile. When do you think Gideon will make him go back to the Excalibur?"
"As far as Gideon knows Trace is doing his job, but I'm sure when people start to complain about there not being three shuttles, he'll find out." They both sat down and Galen piloted the flyer out of the atmosphere and into hyperspace. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Please." She sat patiently while Galen was gone. After what happened before, she was a little afraid to touch anything. Still, Dureena went up to the door to open it, when Galen came back.
"Don't worry, the security system is only activated when I'm not here." He smiled at her.
"So you know?"
"Of course. This ship is linked to me, I know what happens when I'm not around." He paused. "Instead of going right back to the Excalibur, I say we find Trace first; play a little trick on him."
"That sounds good to me!"
********************
"Where have you been Trace?" Gideon shouted. He managed to catch up to Trace when he came back to the Excalibur to refuel. "I've had complaints all morning about how long people have to wait to go to Mars."
"I've been busy."
"Doing what? What is more important than your job?"
"Looking for someone, and I will find him."
"Wait. Don't tell me you're still looking for Galen?" He looked at Trace; "You are, aren't you? Why don't you just give it up? I seriously don't think they are down there. Now you are going to get back in that shuttle and do your job, or I will personally make sure you spend the next week in the brig! Move it!" Gideon shook his head as Matheson came up behind him. "He used to be such a good worker."
"He still is, just a little jealous."
"I don't like it when my crew don't do their jobs, unless there is a good reason. This," he pointed to Trace's shuttle, "is a bunch of crap. Keep an eye on where he goes for me, I'm going to get some lunch."
"A little late for lunch, isn't it?"
"I need something, I haven't eaten since early this morning." The both grinned and went their separate ways.
****************
Ok, this is the last group. Now I can search for that damn pest! Trace waited until he got the all clear message from control, then went off in search of Galen.
***************
Later that day...
"Are you sure he won't see us?" Dureena asked, Galen's plan for Trace wasn't making much sense.
"Positive. The only way he'll see us is with his eyes, the scanners can't detect my ship." He reassured her. She just shrugged. They entered the Martian atmosphere and quickly covered the distance between them and Trace. When they got within range, Galen instructed the computer to grapple the shuttle.
"What the hell was that?" Trace shouted when he heard a metal on metal sound. Suddenly the shuttle lurched backward. He frantically checked the controls and couldn't figure out what had happened. Just when he was about to call for help, the shuttle flew forward. He looked at the computer readouts and saw he was back in control. After he double-checked the computer he shook his head. "What happened?"
"Unknown." The computer reported.
Inside the flyer, Galen was monitoring the bridge activity on the Excalibur.
"Where the hell is Trace again?" We're scheduled to leave in two hours and he isn't here!
"Sir, the other pilots are bringing back passengers as fast as they can, but a lot of the crew are still down there." Matheson could tell by the look on the Captain's face, that he didn't want to hear that. "They also report seeing Trace take some people down earlier, but that he never came back up with more. When they went back to the landing site, his shuttle was gone."
"Just great. He probably ran off looking for Galen again. Alright open a channel to his shuttle, it's time I took care of this."
Dureena snickered, "Ooh Trace is in big trouble now!" The both started to laugh.
On the bridge an image of Trace appeared on the screen. "Where are you?"
"I'm...uh...."
"Let me guess, you're still searching for Galen, right?"
"I know he's down here Captain."
"I told you this morning, he left. I doubt he is on Mars, we've tried looking for him ourselves and came up empty. Now if he were there, our scanners would find him long before yours would, so you are to come back right now. And when you get back we are going to have a nice long talk about insubordination. End." Gideon put his head back in the chair; "I need a vacation."
Trace started to head back to the Excalibur with Galen following close behind. Suddenly a large black object flew past him into the docking bay.
"Now you're just provoking him." Dureena glanced at Galen.
"I know." He replied coolly.
"Damn him! He was probably following me the entire time!" To enraged to think straight, Trace hit the forward thrusters, sending him closer to the technomage flyer.
The computer on Galen's flyer automatically sped it up, trying to avoid a collision. Dureena couldn't help but notice how fast the wall was getting. Luckily they just made it past the gravity shields. Trace wasn't so lucky. In his attempt to ram Galen, he was going too fast and a transparent blue wall formed in front of him, shaking the shuttle and drastically slowing it down. To make things worse Matheson and Gideon were watching the entire scene from the edge of the docking bay.
Gideon took his eyes from the shuttle and focused on the incoming flyer. The landing gear finally appeared beneath it and it landed, but he didn't think they were going to stop in time. Smoke came out from underneath Galen's ship while it made a horrible screeching sound. It stopped...a few inches from the wall.
"Like I said, not a problem." Galen told Dureena. She didn't say anything; she was too busy trying to slow her heart rate. Galen noticed she wasn't moving, so being daring, he decided to give her a hug. Surprisingly Dureena returned the favor.
"Thanks. Let's never do that again!"
"But I thought you liked adventure?" He looked at her. She just shook her head. They walked out of the ship and towards the Captain. Behind them, Trace stumbled out of the shuttle and pulled out a gun.
"Turn around you!" He pointed the gun at Galen's head.
Galen laughed. "Do you really think that will work? You don't scare me Trace." He raised his hand and conjured a fireball. "Now, I can shield myself from your PPG, but can you shield yourself from my fireball?" He saw Trace actually think it over. "You won't win, just give it up." From the hallway emerged a team of security guards. They positioned themselves near Galen and aimed their weapons at Trace. Finally realizing he had no choice, Trace threw the gun on the ground and kicked it to one of the guards. He raised his hands and one of the men grabbed him. The fireball in Galen's hand diminished into nothing. He walked over to the Captain
"Put him in the brig and throw away the key." Gideon commanded. He was really annoyed. "Now that everyone is safely back, let's get ready to go to our next destination." With that they all left the flight deck and walked to the conference room.