Thirdspace, p.17
Thirdspace, page 17
With that, he dashed off in the direction of Lyta's quarters, as Ivanova headed off in the other direction. She couldn't get the image of that city out of her mind, and began to wonder whether she hadn't seen a premonition of the new tenants in Babylon 5.
The fight turned vicious very quickly. In the beginning, Zack had felt the need to try and hold back, because he knew that none of these people were really in control of what they were doing. But as minutes passed, and the fight showed no sign of slowing down or ending, Zack's patience faded into nonexistence. Furthermore, it had gone beyond mere patience and restraint, as Zack and his people were now fighting for their lives. He swung a shock stick at one Human and the man went down. Another man, who happened to be Leo Rosen, was right behind the first, but he saw the fate of his associate and took a wary step backward. Zack advanced on him, swinging the stick in a warning fashion, and Leo backed off completely, to be replaced quickly by a coldly infuriated Nam. Zack jabbed the stick forward and the Nam staggered, grunting under the charge... but that was all. Then he swung his powerful arm in a looping curve and caught Zack with a cruel blow to the upper shoulder. Zack gasped under the impact as his arm went momentarily numb. He ducked under the next thrust, sidestepped, and kept the dulled arm between the two of them. If he couldn't use it offensively at the moment, he'd use it as a shield. The
Nam was momentarily off balance, and Zack lashed out with a side kick to the Nam's knee that caused the attacker to stagger and then fall. Even as he went down, the Nam swung a blow that struck Zack in the upper arm, but since there was still numbness thanks to the previous shot, no further pain really registered. The Nam tried to scramble to his feet and Zack, aching and angry, slammed a boot heel directly into his face. The Nam rolled over on his back and stopped moving.
Others in the crowd had been charging as well, but the tide was beginning to rum. As if sensing it, and wanting to maintain the advantage of surprise, the mob suddenly started to back off. The security men charged forward and immediately the opposing forces dispersed in all directions. But Zack was all too certain that this wasn't a full-scale retreat, or anything even remotely resembling a surrender.
Meanwhile, Leo Rosen was among those who had hurriedly dispersed. He found himself in a group with about half a dozen others. They looked at each other with smug satisfaction, pleased with themselves that everything was in such disarray. All was chaotic, which was the way of the One. They felt alive for the first time in their lives, completely exhilarated, thrilled to be part of something greater than themselves. Greater than anything.
As one, they headed off down the hallway in search of new victims.
Delenn, too, was hurrying down a corridor as quickly as she could, and suddenly she found herself facing a wall of Humans. A small wall, to be sure, about half a dozen of them, but they had arrayed against her.
"Out of my way, please," she said with a rising sense of urgency.
There was a pause, the moment electric, and then the station public address system clicked on. "This is Security to all station personnel and guests," came the voice of Zack Allan. "The situation has become critically dangerous. We are imposing immediate curfew and lockdown. Do not leave your quarters for any reason, I repeat, for your own safety, stay inside."
"Thanks for the tip," she murmured, mostly to herself, and then she looked at those obstructing her way. "I wish to get to my quarters," she said.
Leo shook his head. The truth was that he had really not been himself for the last several decades. But today he was even less himself than usual. "No," he said softly. "You wish to stop the One. You are not of the One. You lie to us."
The fact of the matter was, she had lied to them. That was a fairly impressive bit of intuition on the part of those confronting her. Or perhaps it wasn't simply intuition, perhaps it was something more. Indeed, she had not been heading to her quarters, but instead to those of another ... the only person who, as far as Delenn was concerned, might possess some insight into whatever it was that had seized the station and threatened to turn it into utter bedlam.
Suddenly, the members of the Human blockade all began to mutter or chant. They used words that Delenn had never heard before. Whether they were names or descriptive words, curses or chants, she couldn't discern. They were nonsense to her. Sounds such as "tekeli-li" had no meaning for her whatsoever, although clearly they meant something to the people who were voicing them.
"I will not ask you again," Delenn said firmly. She advanced as if she fully expected them to give way, hoping that through sheer confidence she could shove her way through before they knew what had hit them. It was a worthwhile gamble and, considering the situation she was in, possibly the only one she had.
They charged her.
Delenn uttered a cry, backpedaling as fast as she could. Leo was in the lead, and he lunged forward and grabbed her arm. She tried to pull it away, but he would not yield an inch, and there was an expression on his face of such demonic intensity that it cut Delenn to the very core of her soul.
And then Delenn heard, rather than saw, an impact. There was a rush of air just aside her face as if something had streaked past her faster than the eye could follow. Leo's head snapped back, a jet of blood fountaining from his nose as he went down, clutching at it.
The remaining five assailants took a step back, reassessing the situation, and Delenn let out a sigh of incredulous relief as Lennier stepped in between them and her. There was a spot of blood on the side of his right hand, from where he had bashed in Leo's nose, but he ignored it. He struck a fighting stance, and the others started to approach him cautiously.
"This is not the way to your quarters," Lennier said with a tone that sounded astonishingly conversational, even as he readied himself for new attackers.
"I need to talk to Lyta Alexander. She may be the only source of answers for all this."
If Lennier questioned the wisdom of Delenn taking a stroll over to Lyta's at a time when all common sense dictated that she should be back in her quarters, he gave no sign. With a slight inclination of his head, he said, "As I recall, her quarters are in that direction. You go. I shall hold off, and dispense with, your assailants."
"Lennier, are you sure?"
He assessed the location of his slowly approaching opponents, and decided he could afford to risk a quick glance in her direction. He did so, saying, "I promised I would follow you through fire. These," and he indicated them with a nod, "are little more than overexcited embers. Go. I shall attend to them."
Taking him at his word-for indeed, what choice did she have-Delenn headed off down the corridor.
Leo Rosen, still clutching his nose, crawled off in another direction as the remaining five assailants charged the lone Minbari.
The corridor was a bit more confining than Lennier would have liked, but he needed merely to make some adjustments to his fighting style, and then he was in motion. He leaped into the air, executing a perfect spin kick that took down the first of those charging him. It sent that fellow staggering back into another, even as Lennier landed in a crouch, ready for more, with a smile of grim determination on his face.
In the cobra bays, the efforts of the technicians, who were working in coordination with C&C, finally bore fruit and it was announced, "We have power. Go for launch."
The bay doors began to slide open. The pilots had been ready and eager to act, and the Starfuries barely had minimal clearance room available when they leaped outward into space to do battle with the unknown.
In the control room, Morishi was looking at the artifact with quiet amazement. Despite the destruction that had been the result of its activation, despite all the insanity that had been released as a consequence, nonetheless Morishi found himself admiring the sheer perfection and beauty of its destructive capability. Much as scientists of an earlier era would have gazed in awe at a high-level tornado, ripping apart a countryside, but nonetheless providing an elegant study in pure destructive power.
"Look at it... it's beautiful," he whispered.
Sounding very distant, Trent said, "Yes ... it is."
Morishi passed a hand over his face, trying to compose himself, to bring himself back into the moment. He glanced at the instrumentation nearby and said, "Scanners indicate they're moving fighters in all around it. We have to do something."
Trent said, "Yes, we do."
It was at that moment they both realized that they didn't have the same thing in mind when it came to a matter of "doing something."
Thirty seconds later, one of them lay dead.
Long before other Starfuries leapt from the confines of Babylon 5, Delta Squadron was already advancing on the artifact. Taking point was the experienced Marlette in his customary Delta 7. Marlette said in no-nonsense terms, "All right people, form up."
The Starfuries rose toward the mysterious object which had turned Babylon 5 into a war zone. "Weapons hot," Marlette announced. "We have to take that thing out, but we can't get too close or it'll kill the engines."
"How close can we get?" asked Thomas, who was piloting Delta 9. Thomas had been around longer than Marlette, but had a tendency to let his disdain for authority show through just a bit. He also got into more brawls than was wise for a man who was seeking to rise through the ranks. What was fortunate, however, was that Thomas didn't give a damn about rank, privilege, or anything aside from getting behind the stick of a Starfury. And once he was there, no one had any problem with the way he handled things.
"Just inside weapons range," Marlette told him.
Thomas was so close in Delta 9 that Marlette could see him shaking his head. "That far and we won't even be able to hurt it, the diffusion..."
"We'll just have to keep hitting it," Marlette cut him off, "and hope a lot of weaker strikes'll have a cumulative effect." There was no further word of protest from Thomas, which was fortunate since Marlette didn't exactly have the time to engage in a lengthy debate. "Deltas Two and Six, you're my wingmen. Nine and Three, hang back with the rest, then hit it in the next wave."
"Roger that," Thomas in Delta 9 came back. He sounded a bit torqued. If there was a scrap, Thomas didn't like to be on the sidelines. He preferred being in the middle of it. But considering the situation they were in, Marlette was confident that Thomas was going to find himself in the midst of more action than he was going to know what to do with.
The Starfuries zoomed down toward the artifact, guns blazing. For a moment, Marlette wondered if the thing would put up some sort of automatic defense. Whether it would have a defensive grid that would blaze into action, or perhaps an impenetrable force field that would snap into existence.
But there was nothing. The artifact simply sat there as the Starfuries unleashed full batteries of weapons at it. This was like using a wadded spitball to try and get the attention of a woolly mammoth. The artifact didn't fire back, didn't even acknowledge their existence in any way. Every single blast that was aimed struck home, and for all the good that it did, they might as well have been clean misses. For that matter, they could just as easily not have been shooting at all, thereby saving themselves the cost of ammunition.
"Negative on hit, Delta Seven," said a discouraged Watkins in Delta 2.
"Damn," murmured Marlette, and then more loudly he called out, "Okay, come about, we'll..."
And then an alarmed shout came from Thomas, who was hanging back in Delta 9. "Delta Seven ... the artifact! It's changing!"
Marlette looked up from his instruments and saw to his utter shock that Thomas was right. Marlette was the one who had been most worried about the defensive and offensive capabilities of the artifact, but he had never imagined that it might do anything along the lines of what it was doing now.
The artifact began to-there was no other word for it, really- blossom. Like a flower opening or, for that matter, like a sea anemone revealing the spines that provided the greatest threat. The tines, ribs ... everything on the object that appeared the least bit spiny ... began to move, to unfold.
And it looked familiar to Marlette, for some crazy reason. It took him a few moments to put his finger on it, but when he something that might have resembled a very eccentric, very surreal, and very corrupted version of a jumpgate.
Leo Rosen staggered down the hallway, tilting his head back, trying to stop the bleeding. And it was at that moment that Alex and Sheila ran past in the other direction, heading for Alex's quarters and safety.
Alex took one look at Leo, and sure, Leo had been acting off lately. And yeah, Leo'd been on the verge of destroying whatever happiness he and Sheila might actually have a shot at. But the bottom line was, they were brothers, and when Alex saw that Leo was injured, he was extremely alarmed.
No less so was Sheila, who cried out, "What happened to you? Oh God, it was one of these wandering hordes of crazy people, wasn't it! Al, your room, it's this way, right?"
"This way, actually," he said, indicating a different direction. Sheila hurried along, pulling a slightly confused Leo with her, and within moments they were safely within the confines of Alex's quarters.
"Safely," of course, being an extremely relative term.
* * *
Chapter 15
Sheridan walked briskly down the hallway, his progress interrupted only once when a demented-looking bruiser stepped out of a side corridor, let out a roar, gargling a word that sounded like "soggoth," and charged. Sheridan didn't even slow his step as he hauled off and slugged his attacker. The man went down and Sheridan stepped over his twitching body.
The hall was dark, except for the emergency lights. As he rounded a corner, he heard footsteps coming from the other direction. For a heartbeat he anticipated another possible attack, but then he realized that he recognized that tread. Sheridan wasn't in the habit of being able to know who was approaching him merely by the sound of their footfall, but this was someone whose every movement he knew as well as his own.
Sure enough, there came Delenn from the opposite direction. She looked slightly out of breath, as if she'd had a disconcerting experience. But since she was clearly present and undamaged, he could afford to put off asking about it for another time. Instead he simply said, with a half smile, "Looks like you had the same idea I did."
"It seemed like the logical choice."
Sheridan touched the bell next to the door. "Lyta? It's Delenn and John Sheridan," he called. "We need to talk to you."
There was no response. "Lyta?" he called again.
He and Delenn exchanged looks. If there was no response, there were several possibilities. The first was that Lyta had gone off to join the hordes of crazed lunatics who were rampaging through Babylon 5. The second was that she had been injured or worse by those same lunatics. And a third was that she was in her quarters, but afraid to respond for fear that Sheridan and Delenn had been ... "taken over," or whatever the hell it was that had happened to an unknown percentage of Babylon 5's populace.
But then the situation appeared to resolve itself as the door opened ... but only a bit, less than a foot. Yet another result of the power outages and systems problems that were proliferating through the station. It was enough room for Sheridan, though, as he wedged himself into the space and forced the door open sufficiently for Delenn and him to pass through.
Lyta's quarters were even darker than the corridor, and Sheridan-were he feeling imaginative at the moment-would have fancied that he had entered the dark side of the Human mind. But the main thing occupying Sheridan was trying to resolve what was going on with his station.
There was a thin sliver of light filtering down from overhead. Sheridan waited for his eyes to adjust, but he had a feeling that he could stand there until the crack of doom and still not be able to make out a damned thing with any clarity.
"Lyta? Are you here?" called Delenn.
A voice responded. It sounded like Lyta's ... but different. There was a vibrato to it, and Sheridan insanely thought that he heard something like the tinkling of bells. "We tried to stop it," the voice said. "Tried to warn you. We failed. And now it's too late. The door is opening."
Something seemed to move off to one side, and there was a floating glow that seemed to leap out because of the contrast in the darkness. There appeared to be twin, floating orbs ... and after a moment Sheridan and Delenn realized that they were glowing eyes. Lyta's eyes, but shining with an unearthly incandescence.
It was immediately apparent that whatever, or whomever, they were talking to, it was not Lyta Alexander. Delenn took a step forward and said slowly, "Who are you?"
"An echo of what was," Lyta, or whatever was in Lyta's form, said from a million miles away. "A memory. A warning embedded in the thoughts of each generation and passed on to the next. We were exploring memories when the device was found. That activated this memory ... this message."
Exploring memories, Sheridan thought. Lyta must have been doing something in connection with her normal day-to-day activities as a telepath. A freelance scan or some such. In a low voice he said to Delenn, "Lyta once told me there might be some leftover programming still inside her, put there by the Vorlons when they took off for the Rim. This could be part of it."
"Yes," Lyta affirmed softly. "A race memory. Our great mistake. Our failing. And now your failing. The error is compounded."
Delenn said in confusion, as if she'd missed something, "What mistake?"
"The first one ... the one from which all mistakes proceed. The error of pride."
Sheridan wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but it seemed to him as if there were images floating in the air. As if the darkness were congealing to perform a sort of shadow play. Or perhaps echoes of what was going through Lyta's mind were now transferring to his own thoughts, to help illuminate her words. Ships, recognizable as Vorlons', passing over a planet that might have been Earth ... and then ...
