CHAPTER FOUR: Shadow's Of Thirdspace

As the Invincible slid deeper into Thirdspace the travel has really vibrated the ship badly, but it is still holding together. As Nanette, Mirra and Iris watched out the window the sights are painful. The space starts out pure ice white that has the affects of that of someone turning on a flood light in the dark, but as the light dims the space seems to be moving in all directions ripping the ship apart. As they view ahead they see a black dot growing larger. Nanette rushes in slow motion towards her chair and slowly sits down; time seems to be slowing down.

As the door opens Deylnn of Sigma 957 steps slowly into the room and then stares at the black dot is if been traced, but still moving. As Deylnn moves towards Mirra they are trying to figure out what is wrong and what is that now giant black dot.

As for Iris he remains by Nanette's side.

As for Spurr he is now noticing the time flux when the pen in his hand slowly hits the floor in what seems to be minutes, but once again time really does not exist. Mira is worried so she goes to Spurr to relay the question "What's going on" because her com is not working. As she enters she too watches the pen make its slow descend to the floor, her eyes seem to remain widen, but to her demise, Spurr's com does not work nether.

In the mess hall, Casthmatic and Jake and the same table that had pinned Jake down are showing strange happenings and when Casthmatic drops the soup it falls down slowly but just seems to hover in mid air. Jake slowly walks to what Jake thought was running to Casthmatic to assist her.

Before the Invincible entered Thirdspace Arimira was all ready heading towards the engine room for the defense grid went down again, but she is then hit by a wave and she feels as if she is walking under water. She finally reaches Gram, but is stuck with him…the door is a slow automatic opener and this time flux has slowed it down slower.

Back on the bridge the black dot fills the entire window and something strange is happening, the ship is materializing into shades and colors, a simple spectrum going into the center of the hole and as the window materializes then the floor and then Deylnn and Mirra, then Iris and Nanette, throughout the ship and the vessel was gone—gone to dust.

As the ship somehow rematerializes and everyone is in a deep sleep, the Invincible itself is all shut down but as the ship looks—it's not the same—it has been altered, changed somehow the vessel has a darker blue color with shifting flesh, there are spiny triennials all over the ship. Inside the skin is lighter blue with lights, crystals, and lots of sounds. The ship has been altered into a hybrid of Vorlon, Human and Shadow, a complete mess! But for the others the same goes with them, some have changed little, or a lot.

On the bridge Nanette has awaken she notices that her ship is singing to her, she is confused, but remembers that there is two Vorlon vessels aboard, but some of the writing is Shadow. As she rises her outfit has also been altered into robes, this gets her attention when she sees her hands covered all in scales, next to noted was the wheezy sound she produced, but she ignores it. As she looks at the other three on the floor she does not notice their alterations at the moment. As she moves the hair out of her face her fingers brush pass scales, flesh, and hard bone. As she touches more of her face it is covered with bone that is even in her hair sort of like Mirra's bone crest, then it dawns on her.

When they entered Thirdspace they were not equal and now they are. As Nanette rushes to Iris, Iris too has changed, he is like a mirror reflection of her, only smaller and younger, as Nanette touches Iris he awakes and moves around slowly trying to adjust to the extra weight, but not this much, it was as if he had just got out of his cocoon a few weeks ago when he was on Vorlon, feeling slimy, sick to the stomach and different. As he looked at Nanette he noted that she to has changed…big time. As they both got up they moved to Mirra and Deylnn, they too were somehow changed, but as closer views of Mirra, he had not changed much which was a relief to Nanette for she did not want to have to explain her actions to the Grey Council. As for Deylnn, he was different, took the genetics of Mirra, this may be a problem with the Minbari because Mirra is of the prophesy of Delenn, but as Nanette banished the though she had to stay clear—we are here to destroy the evil the chaos. With these thoughts she pulled Mirra "You are going to need to council Deylnn—fast."

Mirra looks over and Mirra agrees. As Nanette goes to her new chair, Gram's comes onto the bridge. "Captain Nanette—are you all right?"

Nanette clears her throat, "Yes, and you?"

Noticing Grams new scales and bone structure over his face, and fins on his wrist. Gram looks at Delenn and shakes his head. "Actually—no, do you know how to stop the itching of these scales and how to use these fins—for it really hurts when you bang them into an engine part!"

Nanette's mind is just racing 100 miles per hour. "Talk to Mira, I bet she knows what to do."

Gram turns and then looks at the vessel. "Thank you…oh yes just wanted to say—nice ship—I really love what you've done with it!"

Nanette looks back at Gram. "Why thank you."

As Nanette looks off to the screen the space is black as night and there is a massive electrical storm ahead, the looks of the structure is massive. The electrics are striking the lowlands that overflow red lava from a black tower spewing white plasma. The vast black lights shine tike lighthouses spotlights—searching for lost souls. The city is covered in partial black smog with sudden flashes of lighting. The views are harsh, there are moving objects throughout the city that shift shapes then the electrical storm advances growing, lighting flashing everywhere then the clouds are sucked inward in a upright skyward hurricane, as the space surges the hurricane thrust outward towards the Invincible and 1000 small ships and 70 Capital ships emerge—firing.

The Invincible takes fire, but the organic flesh repairs quickly, stronger, and the ship begins firing back with out Nanette's orders. The Invincible's fire power is highly stronger then the Hands due to the combination of Shadow and Vorlon technology, we would mention Human fire power but compared to either Shadow or Vorlon strength it's just a joke! The small ships are destroyed with ease, but the 70 Capital ships are harder to destroy, but Arimira has an idea, use the Capital ships to destroy themselves. As Arimira has the Invincible turn after being chased by 20 Hand vessels they soon collide with 20 other Hand Capital vessels, thus is reasoned because the Hand follow by the numeric system. It is deadly if used right, but waste less if not more. As the last Capital ship was on fire the Invincible storms full steam towards the Hands only major city. As the ship draws closer more weapons were used till the space was lit up by lighting and gunfire. When the Invincible gets into firing range the ship fires all weapons at the city where the gunfire is coming from setting the city ablaze. As Nanette watches then notices that the real target is the black tower, so Nanette tells Arimira to target the black tower, Arimira does not argue and concentrates towards the black tower. As the Invincible keeps firing, the tower does not fall, but as two minutes come around the tower begins to burn, then the tower explodes. The tower falls on the city and the outpost begins to blowup. The city is demolished.

The space next begins to fall apart, the sky is on fire, and then the space begins to tear apart. As the Invincible hurry's out of Thirdspace, hundred of thousand of Hand vessels are firing at them, but most are not successful. As the Invincible passes out faster then entering the Artifact is falling apart as the Hand vessels flood outward the Artifact erupts and the entire armada is engulfed in fire. As the brightness dims the entire Hand armada has been destroyed. As Nanette looks at Deylnn and Mirra and Iris she is relieved of the end of the Hand war, but as the Invincible turns towards to jump gate space begins to foil—it's Liberator vessels. Then the space opens up and 50 to 100 Vorlon War cruisers pour out of hyperspace intermixed with 100—200 Shadow vessels of all shape and sizes. As the space returns to normal the space is disturbed once again and the fleet Nanette and her crew saw in Shadowspace foils out into regular space. As the vessels hold their positions, the holograph forms of one Shadow, Liberator, and one Vorlon foil in front of Nanette, Deylnn, Mirra, Iris.

"Has the artifact been decommissioned?" Says the Liberator.

Nanette nods, "Yes, it has been destroyed with many hostile vessels."

"Then the Hand war is over?" Says the Shadow.

Nanette is shocked to see the Shadow's also here, where did they come from? "We believe that to be so."

"TO BE SO?" Says the Vorlon.

Nanette looks at the Vorlon's, what is this the first ones field day, and how did they get here? "We only decommissioned the Artifact; we don't know how many are roaming in hyper or regular space."

"So we are needed?" Says the Shadow.

Nanette really does not want to argue with the Shadow's, she's always been creped out more by their voices, low, calm, and airy. "Yes, it would be a help, I am going to take my crew to their homes, so if both of your fleets want to help find the hostiles that would be great!"

"WE WILL DO AS YOU ASK." Say the Vorlon. The Vorlon and Shadow slowly fades out leaving only Nanette, Deylnn, Iris, and Mirra on the bridge.

Nanette turns and goes to the com to present a message. "If I could have your attention, I would like to see the entire crew on the bridge—we're going home."

As Nanette watches out window she watches the vessels of the Shadow's, Liberators, and Vorlon's leave her view—for some strange reason she has a bad feeling about letting the Shadow's, Liberators, and Vorlon's back into the young races universe, but she hopes she is only over judging them for their past relationship in the universe.

As she looks at Iris, she wonders if the curse placed against him is gone. As she walks to him she speaks to him privately. "Hello Iris."

Iris looks up at Nanette, the crest bone makes it hear to keep ones head steady, it is an awkward weight. But as Iris's eyes trail off, Nanette looks at Iris's disability as a failure. They did not get rid of it. As Nanette looks at this, she now knows why the universe did this, to keep them closer, she is going to help him break loose of this disease. "Iris look at me, look at my eyes."

Iris looks stressed, but finally has eye to eye contact. "Isn't ironic that I aloud the Vorlon's to change me, because I was always wanting to be normal, and they said they could do that, I always wanted to be pure, and now I am nothing like that...I am a autistic hybrid for pity sakes...I guess I got what I deserved?"

Nanette shakes her head. "No, your different because the universe chose you to be like this...your special...like me. If you want to know a secret to be normal...accept the change, cast out the idea that you are special and those around you will admire you, or they will be envy of you." Iris smiles and nods, the others begin to filter in slowly.