Sarah Chang removed her hand from where it had rested, across Talia chest. "She has gone inside," she said. "We can continue."
Talia sighed in annoyance. "I don't know why you want to stay out of the Captain's way. Why do you care what she thinks?"
"I am trying to make things run smoothly," Sarah explained. "You must know that Captain Ivanova doesn't like telepaths. While I find that very strange and irrational it doesn't hurt to do whatever I can to try and smooth over relations."
Talia let out an exaggerated yawn. "Whatever you say," she said, sounding less than convinced. "Personally I don't see why you just don't go and demand her immediate cooperation. That way we could get this silly investigation over and done with a lot quicker. These endless interviews with Proxima's telepaths are useless as well. It is obvious that Anderson didn't have anything to do with them."
Now Sarah was becoming annoyed, although not with the investigation, but with Talia. "You job is to obey, not complain," she snapped, surprising herself with the brief burst of anger. "One of them has to know something about Anderson."
"I doubt it," Talia said. "How do you know that he even met with one of the telepaths?"
"Because the records show that he left the Rasputin for four hours on the fifth of this month, returning right before he told Captain Ivanova he was leaving to return to Mars. The question is where did he go during those four hours. My guess was down here to see someone on the planet. All we have to do is find out who that was, and then we might also find out what has happened to Mr. Anderson."
"How do you know he didn't just have an accident in Hyperspace?" Talia asked. "I can recall a lot of vessels that have entered Hyperspace and never come out again."
"We know," the Psi-Cop replied.
"How," Talia pressed.
"That is not your concern," Sarah replied, before a frown crossed her face. "In fact, none of this is your concern. You are supposed to be my assistant, not my interrogator. So assist and don't question me again."
Talia smiled faintly as the Psi-Cop marched off toward the home of the next telepath they were going to interview. She enjoyed these little games, as they kept her from becoming bored. She eyed the shop Ivanova had entered for several seconds, before walking slowly after Sarah, not wanting to appear too eager to follow the Psi-Cop's orders. She might be loyal to Psi-Corps, but that didn't mean she was going to act like a puppy dog and follow every order the much younger woman gave her.
For a brief second, she even thought about going onto the shop to annoy Captain Ivanova instead, but the Captain had been showing a lot more resistance to her taunts of late, so that probably wouldn't get her anywhere. Instead, she turned back towards the Psi-Cop who was waiting a little way down the street, tapping her foot in annoyance. T alia smiled innocently and walked over to Sarah's side, trying to look eager, something she failed at completely.
President John Sheridan of the Interstellar alliance looked annoyed as he read the report he had been given. "This is all you received?" he asked the ranger who stood before him.
"I am afraid so," the ranger replied. "The message was cut short before it ended."
"This doesn't tell us much," Sheridan said looking at the screen, where the message was displayed.
"We are under attack by an unknown force, s..." was all the entire message had said before being cut off by a burst of static. The sender of the message was Ranger Harrison, the current commander of Whitestar 85, one of two vessels that were currently overdue at the rendezvous near Drazi space. The ship was obviously in trouble, as both men in the office could see the bright sparks of exploding panels in the background.
Sheridan sighed. "There is not much we can do I am afraid. T his situation with the Enphili has forced us to commit all of our forces; we don't have any spare ships to send to investigate this attack yet. What did Earthforce say?"
"That they will look into the matter. No specifics though."
"Then there is little else we can do," Sheridan said firmly. "We can not go storming off into Earth's territory without a good reason. While you and I might consider this a good reason, it is Earth's responsibility as it happened in their territory. Whoever might have been responsible we can only hope that Earth can deal with them."
"Just leave everything over there, Crewman," Susan said, pointing towards a spot on the floor just inside her quarters. The crewman nodded once and carefully lowered the packages she had purchased on Proxima down onto the floor, trying not upset the Captain in her quarters by spilling their contents. Then, the job done, he hurried out of the room as soon as Susan had dismissed him.
After she had set the packages she had been carrying down on her bed, she looked at those the crewman had carried from the shuttle for her. It wasn't until that moment that she realised how much she had actually bought. She had originally intended on buying nothing more than a couple of plants to sit on the shelves in her bedroom, instead she has ended up with several paintings, ten pot plants, three rugs and a large collection of other items she hadn't really wanted. The shopkeepers on Proxima though were very insistent and Susan had ended up buying a lot more than she had originally intended.
In fact, she had been a little embarrassed returning to the Rasputin weighed down with her purchases, while the crew had been slaving away all morning on a series of tiring drills designed to determine their readiness for battle. Susan wondered what that said about her readiness. She only hoped that the crew wasn't going to treat her differently now, although knowing the way things usually went, they already probably hated her and nothing she did now was going to change the situation.
Although she still had to find places to put all her new purchases, Susan scanned her computer for recent messages. Surprisingly there were only three. One was from Commander Petrov, advising her on the status of the drills. Reading it, she found it was as to the point as the rest of the Commander's work had been so far. The other two messages were from the ship's laundry telling her that both of her uniforms she had sent down there were ready to be picked up. Leaving the unpacking of her shopping for now she headed down to deck 4 to retrieve two of her uniforms from the laundry, both of which had need repairs after the what she had put them through.
"You will tell us," Sarah Chang said harshly to the figure sitting on the chair.
"Look I don't know anything," the man replied, although the beads of sweat beginning to run down his forehead betrayed the worry, or was that fear he felt. The man was a commercial telepath, and a reasonably successful one at that. He was also, as Sarah had finally been able to find out, the man the rogue Darren Anderson had been to see before leaving the Proxima system.
"You know Anderson though, don't you," Sarah demanded. "He came to see you, why was that?"
"I don't know this guy Anderson," the telepath replied. "I already told you that before."
Sarah smiled. "Indeed you did Mr. Hill, indeed you did. However, I don't believe you, and like it or not you are going to tell us."
Talia, who had been sitting quietly behind the Psi-Cop, trying to look menacing, was a little relieved as Sarah said that. She knew that the Psi-Cop could probably have wrenched the information out of the telepath's mind with little trouble at all. After all, he was only a P6, admittedly high for a commercial telepath, but nothing compared to the Psi-Cops, who were rated at least P11. Talia hoped that now they could get this silly interrogation over and done with. She didn't understand why Sarah just didn't use her abilities to get the information she wanted instead of trying to be kind and do things the mundane way.
"Ms. Winters," Sarah called. "Hold him still please."
With a slightly evil smile Talia extended her will and used her telekinetic abilities to hold Hill rigid, so he couldn't evade the Psi-Cops hands while she probed him. It was difficult, he was a strong man, but her mind was stronger, at least for now. "I can hold him for only a few minutes," she said, the strain plainly visible in her voice.
Sarah nodded, and after removing her gloves placed her hands on either side of Hill's head and then closing her eyes began to probe him, gently at first, but then when he still resisted with all her will. "You are… an agent of his," Sarah said slowly, dragging each titbit of information out, a piece at a time. Beneath her hands, still held tightly by Talia's mental powers, David Hill began to sweat, realising that he couldn't keep anything secret any more. His mind soon gave up any resistance and information flooded out into Sarah's possession.
"Yes," the Psi-Cop breathed. "That's it, tell me everything you know."
Hill was unable to resist any more and the information she sought was soon found. "Good," Sarah said releasing Hill, and allowing him to flop down unconscious on the floor. She smiled. "Well Mr. Anderson, what are you up to?" she asked no one in particular as she replace her gloves on her hands.
"Did you find anything interesting," Talia asked from her seat by the door.
"Plenty," the Psi-Cop replied. "Come, we have work to do."
She then swept out of the door, leaving the unconscious telepath lying sprawled across the floor. With only a brief glance in Hill's direction Talia followed, this time a little more eagerly.
Susan looked suspiciously at the data crystal the crewmen working in the laundry had found in the pocket of her uniform along with the rock sphere Kozlowski had lost when he had bumped into her giving her this very data crystal. She had arranged for the stone to be returned to him and then returned to her own quarters to see just what sort of research Dr. Kozlowski thought he had been conducting for her. Putting the crystal into the reader in her bedroom, Susan left it to play while she worked out where to put her new pot plants.
A little surprised there were no voice or sound Susan turned back to the screen and read what the doctor had written.
Captain,
I have gathered the information you required regarding the criminal treatment technique known commonly as the Mindwipe. I am not that familiar with the telepathic and Metapsionic sciences, however this file should answer most of your questions.
Dr. Nathan Kozlowski
NOTE: I have made kept this introduction fairly general so anyone, even those not versed in Metapsionic Telepathic Lobotomies (myself included) can still understand it. However, I have also attached to this file several essays from recent issues of the Psi-Corps Journal on the subject, as well as five research papers by Dr. Eric Portman, the leading researcher into the technique.
'So this is what he meant by research,' Susan thought. She thought back to the very brief conversation that she had with the doctor in the fighter bay what seemed like weeks ago. She shook her head, amazed that Kozlowski would spend so much time gathering information for her, especially seeing she had never asked him too. Still she wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to find out all she could, especially after the doctor had spent the time to do the research for her. Eagerly she turned back to the screen and began to read the rest of the file, hoping that Dr. Kozlowski knew as much about this subject as he seemed to know about everything else.
Anderson handed over the report to Kiel, who was at his usual post on the Enlightener's bridge. In fact, since they had left Arisia 3, he hardly ever seemed to leave it any more as the warship moved ever closer to its next target. The Earth Alliance base may still have been more than two days travel away but Kiel was anxiously looking forward to the coming attack.
"Interesting," the former Psi-Cop said after skipping through the report. "Well I don't think Sheridan will make much of that message." He looked up at his assistant. "Are you sure that is all they managed to send?"
"That was all we monitored, their ship exploded right after so I think we can safely assume that the Interstellar alliance still doesn't know of our existence."
Kiel nodded, and then leaned back against the soft padding of the command chair. "Good, the less people who know the better. I must admit though, I didn't think your plan would work. I mean, pretending to be dead in space, only a fool would fall for that."
"Well the Rangers must be recruiting fools then," Anderson replied with a smile. "Because both of those ships fell for it." His face turned a little more serious. "I was a little surprised it actually worked. I would have thought one look at us would have made them turn and run and, at the speed this ship moves, we wouldn't have been able to catch them."
"Instead they decided to investigate," Kiel said, returning his assistant's smile. "I can still remember their commander's words as the fighters launched at him."
"It's breaking up," Anderson said, before breaking down laughing as he remember how the two Whitestars had been destroyed. Kiel soon joined him, both laughing aloud at the humour, at least as they saw it, in the whole situation. Far behind them now, the wreckage of the two Whitestars spun slowly in space, peppered with blast marks from the fighters. Ahead, still at least another two days travel away, was another Earth Alliance outpost unaware of the danger that was slowly making its way through Hyperspace towards it.
Susan quickly scanned the rest of the information and realised that it was similar to what she already knew. Despite the doctor's best work, he had been unable to discover anything that she didn't already know. Skipping the rest of the file, she turned instead to the attached essays. The Psi-Corps articles were useless, as Susan had expected. After all it wasn't likely that Psi-Corps would want anyone else to know how their powers worked, they liked feeling superior than everyone else.
Sighing to herself, Susan turned to the last few essays, the ones by Dr. Portman. Despite her hopes, they proved as useless as the rest of the articles. It wasn't that they didn't contain useful information, she was sure they did. Susan just didn't understand anything the man had written in his essays. In fact, she was sure that probably the only person who understood everything in those essays would be Portman himself.
A little angry for allowing herself to feel hopeful, she leaned over to shut off the reader. Her hand stopped though as she realised that there was still one more file to read. For a second she hesitated, torn between reading the last file and exposing herself to more disappointment, or leaving and possibly passing up one last chance. Susan then surprised even herself and opened the last file, sitting back down to read the title of the document.
TELEPATHIC & METAPSIONIC TECHNIQUES
Reading on, Susan realised that this document contained a long list of abilities that were available to Earth's telepaths. While it was very useful, in fact, she wondered exactly where Kozlowski had found it; it did little to raise her hopes. In fact looking down the entire list, she felt her hopes dropping with every sentence she read. Out of the abilities listed, the only power she was certain she possess was the ability to hear the thoughts of other telepaths, and occasionally scan someone else, but only when they were actually touching her. In fact, based on what was in the file her powers barely even rated a P1.
Sighing in disappointment, she turned off the reader and took out the data crystal, not even reading the second part of the file on theoretical abilities, instead just tossing the crystal into one of the drawers beneath her bed with the data crystals Garibaldi had sent her. She was about to shut the drawer again when she noticed the one of the other crystals, the one with the Vorlon markings on it.
Picking it up, Susan looked at it for a second wondering if there had been a problem with the reader last time she had tried to access its contents. She paused, again torn about her action, and then deciding that giving it just one more attempt wouldn't hurt her. It wasn't that she was optimistic about it's contents, but something told her that there was more to the data crystal that she thought, otherwise why would Garibaldi have sent it to her.
When the same screen of static came up again, she considered quite seriously calling up Babylon 5 and asking him just why he had sent it to her, but instead just sighed and lay back against the bed, cursing god and everyone else she could think of. She had been so hopeful when she had first looked at the information on Dr. Kozlowski's data crystal that she might have found the key to freeing Talia, but she had allowed herself to hope for no reason.
It was frustrating more than anything else. Talia was here, on her ship, and somewhere hidden, who knows where, there was a key that would unlock her mind and return the woman she loved. "It would be so much easier if it were a medical problem," she said aloud. "If we could just see her thoughts on the screen and fix the problem."
Susan suddenly stopped and sat up, staring at the static filled screen in front of her. "On the screen," she said looking at it. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, weak though her telepathic powers might be. To her surprise the images came back powerful and strong, a collection of fear and terrors. Despite what she was witnessing Susan felt joy, she knew what the thoughts were.
Once, shortly before Talia had been taken from her, the telepath had told her of an incident with Ambassador Kosh, how he had recorded her thoughts. This was that recording, a record of everything that Talia, and the false personality currently inhabiting her mind, feared. New possibilities filling her thoughts, Susan removed the data crystal and put it aside, retrieving the one Kozlowski had sent her. Somewhere in all that had to be a clue on what to do.
Talia stopped for a moment and looked around confused. She had felt something strange as she had climbed down the ladder from the shuttle, something that left her a little frightened. She frowned. She hadn't been frightened before, the old Talia had, but not her. The new and improved Talia didn't fear anything.
"What is wrong now," Sarah asked, her voice leaving Talia in no doubt that the Psi-Cop was getting really annoyed.
Normally Talia would have been pleased with the reaction she was getting from the Psi-Cop, but for some reason she now felt concerned more than anything. "Nothing," she snarled at Sarah as she stalked past the Psi-Cop, her mind scanning around the shuttle bay, trying to find the source of the sudden sensation of terror she had felt. There was no sign of anyone though, so if another mind had been responsible they were now out of range of her telepathic abilities.
"Come on then," Sarah said. "I want to see if the Captain knows anything about what we have discovered."
Talia nodded slowly and turned to follow, her mind still searching for the source of whoever or whatever had filled her thoughts with fear. For a brief moment she thought it might have been the old personality that still dwelt within her, but the old Talia was still as elusive as ever and had it been her then she would have repeated it, trying to get back at her for all the pain Talia had caused her.
Seeing the Psi-Cop looking impatiently at her again, Talia decided to leave off her search and forget about the incident for now. However, she was on the look out now, and if it happened again she would teach whoever was responsible a lesson they would not forget, or recover from.
It took Susan another hour to find the reference she had been looking for, but at last, she had it. She had the key she needed to restore Talia's personality. All she needed to do was break down the current personalities strength, and then when it was weak enough, the real personality should be able to return. She had the key at last.
Or rather, she would have one if she had a telepath who could enter Talia's mind and carry the thoughts on the data crystal with them. A P12 might be able to do it, but Susan, barely even a P1, had no chance. Certainly, she had a key, but her mind was not powerful enough to turn it, and she could hardly ask anyone from Psi-Corp to assist her. Disgusted she tossed the two data crystals into the back of the drawer and slammed it shut.
Then she stormed off, out of her quarters. She had never felt such frustration before. To know that she had within her grasp something that could save the woman she loved, only she was not strong enough to use it was one the hardest things Susan had ever had to accept. She didn't want to accept it, but knew that baring a miracle, or a friendly Psi-Cop, if such a thing existed, all she had were two useless data crystals.
Susan looked around the conference room; amazed this was the first time she had actually been here. When the Warlock class destroyers were designed they were created to be a fleet command vessel, and this meant there were several extra features that were not common on the other, smaller, destroyers. One of these extras was the conference room that had been set aside for meetings between captain's of other vessels and the Rasputin's commander. Susan hadn't known of its existence though until Commander Petrov had said they should meet here instead of her office.
Actually, Susan would have preferred her office, but she was aware that it was probably too small to hold all the command staff comfortably, so had agreed. The conference room was a lot larger than she had imagined when Petrov had mentioned it. Located at the far end of the command deck it took up about as much room as her quarters and office combined. It was dominated by a large metal table and the ring of chairs that surround it, but Susan also noticed the holographic displays that covered the walls, some just showing space outside, but other showing important readouts from various ship's sensors.
As no one else was there when she arrived, Susan took a seat at the head of the table and idly watched the slowly rotating planet pass by on the ceiling display. After ten minutes of waiting, the rest of the command staff had arrived, taking up seats around the table. "Right," Susan said after everyone had arrived. "I thought we might just have a quick discussion about the results of today's drills. Lieutenant-Commander Schmitt, perhaps you would like to lead off."
"Certainly Captain," the flight commander replied enthusiastically. He pulled out a data pad from beneath the table, where it had been resting on his legs, and began to read from it. "All drills were passed successfully within the required parameters. Alpha squadron had the best score with a ninety nine percent kill rate and no causalities on their part."
"That is good," Susan agreed, cutting into his speech. "What were the..."
"Captain," a voice from the door suddenly called out loudly, cutting of the rest of the conversation.
Susan swung around and looked at Sarah Chang with a frown. "What do you want Ms. Chang," she demanded. "We are in the middle of an important meeting here."
"It can wait," the Psi-Cop replied. "I have important questions of my own."
"Well I think they can wait," Susan said, in a tone that showed quite clearly how annoyed she was at the interruption.
"I am afraid they can't Captain," Sarah told her. "I need answers for these at once. And the sooner you help me out here the sooner I can be out of your way."
Susan sighed, admitting defeat and waving the telepath towards a seat at the table. "Very well Ms. Chang, ask away."
Sarah nodded and took a seat opposite before beginning to explain what she wanted. "I have discovered something important," she told the collection of officers. "It seems Mr. Anderson took an unscheduled journey down to the planet below shortly before his alleged trip to Mars."
"Well I didn't know that," Susan said. "Of course Mr. Anderson was not in the habit of informing me or anyone else of his activities. He reminds me a little of you in that way Ms. Chang."
Looking a little annoyed at the interruption, Sarah glared at Susan as if to remind that the affairs of the Psi-Corps were not her concern and then she continued her explanation. "Had you checked the shuttle bay logs you would have been able to find that out Captain. However, that doesn't matter for now. What does matter is the fact that he met with someone in Reagan Dome, a commercial teep named David Hill. I have spoken to this Mr. Hill and he told me that Anderson was going to some place he called Project A3."
A look of recognition passed over Susan face, something that did not pass unnoticed by the Psi-Cop. "You know the location of Project A3 Captain?" she asked.
Susan nodded. "I may do Ms. Chang," she answered. "I believe it could be the planet Arisia 3, somewhere along the border with Narn space." As she spoke, she noticed Major Logan looking on with sudden interest, and then remembered that the Major had said she would look into the whole matter of the Arisia 3 for her. For a moment, Susan thought about telling the Psi-Cop that, but decided not to at the last minute. If the Major didn't volunteer any information, Susan wasn't going to ask her to, especially not to a Psi-Cop.
Sarah looked a little surprised by that news. "Arisia 3?" she said in a questioning tone. "I don't believe I have ever heard of that one."
"It was once home to a small colony owned by a friend of mine," Susan told her. Then she stopped for a moment and realised this was the first time she had thought of Marcus for days. She glanced up at Talia who was standing quietly by the door watching proceedings, and wondered if the telepath's presence was the reason.
"Did this friend of yours tell you anything about the world Captain?" Sarah pressed.
Susan shook her head. "I didn't even know anything about it at all until a couple of weeks ago. I believe it was a mining world, Quantium-40 probably. It is in the database anyway, you should be able to find out anything you desire from that."
"Thank you Captain," the Psi-Cop replied. "I believe I may have enough information to find Mr. Anderson now. If you will excuse me, I will get right onto it."
"Of course Ms. Chang," Susan replied, indicating the Psi-Cop was more than welcome to leave. Then as Sarah did so, taking Talia with her, Susan turned and looked at Major Logan, a slightly questioning look on her face. The Major looked thoughtful as if considering the Psi-Cop's findings and did not seem to notice Susan's interest. Deciding to talk with Lily later, Susan turned back to face the rest of the table asking, "right, now that is over, where were we."
"You were about to ask me what targets fighters were aiming at," Alister Schmitt replied. "And I was about to tell you that they were aiming at holographic drones of Narn fighters."
"Why Narn," Susan asked.
"Well they had already defeated all the other targets, Minbari, Raider, and Centauri. Narn were the next on the list. I thought it best to test them against a variety of potential enemy targets."
Susan nodded, "sounds like the fighter pilots are ready for almost anything then Lieutenant-Commander. How about the rest of the crew."
She turned to look at Lieutenant-Commander Dreyer who was slumped in a seat across from her, the dark haired officer looking a little tired. Before she could get a reply though, her link beeped. Susan look heavenward for a moment as if to ask "what now" before tapping the receive button. "Yes what is it," she asked.
"Coded signal coming in from Earthdome on channel three Captain," the voice on the other end replied.
"Send it through then," she replied.
"Yes Captain," was the reply and then part of the back wall of the conference room changed to display a flashing message indicating that her code was required before the communication could be received. She quick typed it in on the keyboard built into the table in front of her and the screen changed to show the stern face of Admiral Mellor, current chief of operation for the outer colonies.
"Admiral Mellor," Susan said as she stood and saluted him.
"Captain Ivanova," he replied, although with no answering salute. He noticed the rest of the officers gathered. "Good the rest of your command staff is already present, that saves me having to wait while you summoned them."
"Is something the matter Admiral," Susan asked, realising that if he needed to talk to all of her command staff at once then something very bad must have happened. He was not just calling about a simple reassignment.
"Yes, Captain, something very serious indeed. It looks like there may be an unknown enemy about to invade Earth's territory. We don't have much to go on yet, just a garbled message from one of our outposts on the Narn border. However, what little we have so far has worried us greatly. Enough to order a fleet to set out and investigate exactly what is going on. If this is an invasion then we want to show a strong hand now before any more damage is done."
"What about the Interstellar Alliance," Susan asked. "Have you requested assistance from them?"
The Admiral nodded. "We have," he replied. "Unfortunately they can not be in two places at once, and their ships are currently involved in some kind of sortie near Drazi space, so they cannot assist us for a least another two weeks. President Sheridan did inform us that two of their vessels have vanished somewhere close to the outpost that was attacked. This leads us to believe an alien fleet is responsible."
"What do you want us to do then Admiral."
"We are sending a small fleet of newly repaired destroyers to Proxima. They will meet with your vessel and the two destroyers currently on patrol nearby. You will then proceed to the last known location of this enemy fleet and scout out the area. If it is discovered then it is to be destroyed. Earthdome wants to make it perfectly clear that no invaders will be tolerated inside our territory."
"Understood Admiral," Susan said, "How long until the other destroyers arrive?"
The Admiral consulted his notes. "A little over five days I believe. I will send you all the necessary information on which ships are arriving. The fleet will be under the command of Vice-Admiral Emmerton by the way."
"I know her," Susan said with a quick nod to indicate she accepted her new orders.
"Good, I will leave you to prepare then. I know your ship is only a new, untried vessel but I want it ready for combat in five days time. We need every operational destroyer and fighter we can get at the moment, until the rest of the fleet is back up to strength."
"We will do our best Admiral," Susan told him, although she was less than confident about the Rasputin's battle readiness.
"I expect nothing less," Mellor replied. "Earthdome out."
As the screen went blank, Susan sat back down in her seat and looked around at her crew. "Well looks like we have some work to do then," she told them. She looked around at each officer in turn. "We don't know for sure if this ship is going to be seeing battle, but if it is then I want everyone as ready as they can be. Those crewmen involved in drills are to continue for now, unless I say otherwise. I want everyone else busy as well, even if it is only on routine maintenance. By the time Vice-Admiral Emmerton arrives, I want this ship combat ready and it's crew raring to go."
"Yes Captain," they replied, almost as one.
"Good," she said. "You are dismissed then, I think you all have enough work to keep you busy for now. I will meet with everyone sometime tomorrow morning to discuss individual assignments, until then just continue with the drills you have been working on over the past two days."
As they all filed out of the room, Susan could not help but feel a little anxious about what was to come. If the Admiral was right and some large alien force was attacking the Earth Alliance then she would be forced to lead her vessel into battle a lot sooner than she would have liked. There were still many questions about the Rasputin's performance, which she didn't have the answers for yet. That was a problem with entering battle in an untested vessel, if even one system failed in the heat of combat, then her entire crew could face death.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to recover some of the calm and determination that had filled her for the past two days. It seemed to elude her now though, as her mind began to worry about what was to come. Unable to gain any comfort from her inner thoughts Susan opened her eyes and left the room. There seemed to be an impossible amount of work to do if they wanted the Rasputin truly combat ready in time, but it was possible, as long as all of the crew worked together.
"Good work Ms. Chang," Bester was saying on the vid screen in Sarah Chang's quarters. "I hadn't actually expected any results from you quite so soon. That is good work indeed. Now what do you know about this planet, Arisia 3 you said it was called."
"Very little Sir," she replied. "The Captain did not seem to know much about it, except that it was once home to a small mining colony. She said it belonged to a friend of hers, but didn't give me a name."
"I could probably find that out," Bester mused. "But it is not important. The question is why are Anderson and Kiel interested in the planet. Hmm, I have the information about it up here on my screen right now and from what this says it was fairly standard class 4 world, with poor to average quantities of Quantium-40 and high levels of other minerals. Nothing to get excited about though, I could probably find a hundred other world of more value."
"All I know is that Anderson's contact on Proxima knew about something called Project A3, but did not know any of the details. I am assuming that A3 is Arisia 3, and this is also what Ivanova suspects."
"Is there anything else Mr. Hill remembered of interest?" Bester asked.
"Only that Anderson was paying him a lot of money to watch movements of Earth Alliance troops on Proxima and also there was something about a package."
"A package."
"Yes," she replied. "That was why Anderson went to see him, to pick up a sealed package that had been sent to him from Centauri Prime. Hill didn't know what it was except that whatever it was Anderson thought it was important."
"Interesting," Bester murmured. "I wonder what was inside."
"I am afraid that knowledge is known only to Mr. Anderson Sir," Sarah said.
Bester looked at her and smiled. "Then you will just have to ask him won't you now."
"Sir?"
Bester's smile faded and he turned serious again. "I think you should check out Arisia 3 to see what is there."
"But Sir, what if Anderson and Kiel have defences of some kind. My shuttle isn't going to be much use if they are in a armed vessel."
"I am aware of that Ms. Chang," Bester said. "I was thinking you should take a warship. The Rasputin isn't doing anything at the moment is it?"
"No Sir," she replied. "But Captain Ivanova isn't going to agree to that."
"Do not worry about Ivanova," Bester told her. "I will organise things with Earthdome. While I would actually prefer to use our own resources for this, some of the others in Psi-Corps do not seem to see Mr. Kiel as the threat he is. Therefore, we will have to use an Earthforce vessel. At least this Arisia 3 planet is inside Earth's territory so we can investigate without raising any interest from the alien governments or Sheridan's alliance. If it had been outside Earth's sphere of influence it would be a lot more difficult to organise assistance from Earthdome."
"Yes Sir," Sarah replied.
"You can go and see Ivanova tomorrow and tell her your are requisitioning her vessel for Psi-Corp use. If she complains then tell her to call Earthdome and confirm the orders. Then get to Arisia 3 as soon as possible and find out exactly what Anderson is doing there. Is that understood?"
Seeing Sarah nod in confirmation Bester looked pleased and said, "Good. I still have a few details to check on here, not to mention other matters to take care of, or I would come and join you personally."
"Have you discovered anything interesting, Sir," Sarah asked, eager to know all the details of the investigation.
"Nothing that concerns you yet, Ms. Chang. I will fill you in on your return; assuming Kiel doesn't have an entire fleet out there waiting for you, although I think that would be unlikely. He is planning something, but doesn't have the resources to pull off anything major. As soon as you complete the investigation on Arisia 3 return to Proxima and I will meet you there."
"Are you coming here, Sir?"
Bester nodded. "Yes Ms. Chang I am. As soon as I am finished up here I would like to have a few words with Mr. Hill, to explain to him the consequences of dealing with enemies of Psi-Corps."
Sarah didn't think that Hill actually knew that Anderson was an enemy of Psi-Corps, as officially he wasn't. She almost felt sorry for the commercial telepath, realising that by the time Bester was finished with him he was going to wish he had never ever heard of Darren Anderson.
"Is there anything else to report?" Bester asked her. "Something about the death of Dr. Taylor perhaps."
"Not yet Sir," Sarah replied. "I am still investigating that matter."
"Very well Ms. Chang," Bester said. "Continue to do so while you are on your way to Arisia 3 and report to me anything interesting that you find. Bester out."
With that final comment, the screen went black and Sarah was left to herself again. Sighing to herself, she stood up and looked at the time displayed on the screen. It was late, too late for her to go and see the Captain tonight. Besides, it would take time for Bester to organise everything with Earthdome for the temporary loan of the Rasputin and her crew to Psi-Corps. She had never heard of anything like that happening before, realising for the first just how much Bester must hate Kiel, and just how much influence the other Psi-Cop had gained among the upper echelons of Earthforce.
She hadn't heard anything much about Harvey Kiel when she had been in training, only that he was an important telepath who was aiding President Clark. He was now high up on the wanted list of former Clark advisers who had fled after the president had committed suicide. Psi-Corps had protected its members though, and Kiel had found some protection on Mars. The first Sarah had learnt about him was when she was assigned to watch him by Bester shortly after becoming the Psi-Cop's assistant. Most of the time, the renegade seemed to do little more than tend to his garden.
In her mind that didn't make someone a renegade, but Bester obviously knew what he was doing. Sarah was too tired now to think about it too much though. Scanning Hill had taken a lot out of her and putting up with Talia Winters all day had been a trial as well. For some reason, her assistant had taken an immediate disliking to her and spent most of the time trying to make her life a misery. Sarah would not have minded so much if she knew the reason for the hatred, but the blonde telepath's mind was closed to her. She could sense the other woman's surface thoughts, but Talia could block any probes that tried to go further with almost no trouble at all. Sarah wondered how Talia had come to possess such powerful mental blocks, wondering if perhaps that was why Anderson had bought her here in the first place.
There was something going on her that was outside her knowledge. Ms. Winters was possibly the best suspect for the murder of Bester's agent, but for some reason Bester did not even consider it a possibility. All of it was more than a little suspicious to Sarah and she suspected that she was nothing more than a pawn in a much larger game, the rules of which she couldn't even comprehend.
Back on Mars, Bester had spent hours busy calling in every favour he could with Earthforce officials to allow Sarah to use the Rasputin for the mission to the Arisia system. He had even been forced to threaten blackmail to a couple of officers, but finally he had been able to secure the ship for five days. It wasn't a lot, but it was all that Earthforce was willing to give right now. Everyone in Earthdome appeared to be worried about a possible invasion by an alien fleet and it had taken all his persuasion skills to get even those five days.
That done, he returned to other matters. His investigations on Mars had gone well, especially into the matter of Kiel's two dead agents. To his surprise, both of their deaths had closely involved Ivanova. The first, the agent who had died on Mars High, had been present during the short gun battle where Ivanova had been shot at and nearly killed in an explosion. However, the cause of death still wasn't confirmed, and despite his best efforts, no body had been found.
That led him to believe that Kiel must have sent his agent to kill someone on the station, and then after the death of the telepath involved had disposed of the body to hide the evidence of his involvement. That didn't explain why Ivanova was involved and, despite the official statement that she had nothing to do with the target of the gunmen, he wasn't too sure. Unfortunately, the chief of security on the station had been less that co-operative and short of doing a deep scan on the man, Bester wasn't going to find out anything else there.
The body of the second agent had been recovered so badly decayed due to exposure that not much could be learned. He found it interesting that it had been put down by the local security as a Mafia killing, something about the Martian Mafia wanting him dead because he was cheating at the gambling tables. Bester wasn't sure if he believed that and, with further digging, had found out that the telepath had in fact been in New Vegas to see Ivanova. Which led to the question: why?
While he didn't think that there was anything going on between Ivanova and Kiel, she just wasn't the type to get involved with telepaths, and certainly not a former Psi-Cop. However, Bester had come to believe that the Rasputin's captain knew a lot more than she was telling Chang. He had considered taking a shuttle to Proxima to question her himself, but there were still other matters to take care of here on Mars, and that would have to wait for another few days until the Rasputin returned from Arisia 3. If they found Kiel and Anderson then everything would be all right, if not then he would have some serious questions to ask Ivanova about her involvement in the whole affair.
Bester paused in his thoughts and glanced at the framed picture sitting on his desk. A faint twinge of sadness welled up in him as he looked at Carolyn's image. Despite the best efforts of the medical staff in the Psi-Corps headquarters on Earth, they still hadn't been able to remove all the shadow technology that had been inserted into her skull. They were close, and constantly promised that it would only take another few days, but they still hadn't been able to do it, at least not so that the subject would survive intact.
Making a silent promise that Kiel would pay for what he had done to Carolyn, Bester rose and left his office. It may be still only early morning here on Mars but he had work to do. Somewhere, either here on Mars or Arisia 3, was the secret to Kiel's plans and he intended on finding that secret, and making sure that Kiel never lived to threaten someone he loved ever again.