Red Fury

by Claudia Christian

  She started to turn away when she found Zack Allen at her elbow. Lately he had developed an almost preternatural ability to turn up at just that very spot, time and again.

  “How would you like to earn some money?” he asked, smiling.

  “Depends. Is it a big job, or a small job?”

  He hesitated before answering. I guess that depends on your definition of big,” he said.

  Lyta laughed, shook her head. “Okay, I'll bite. Is it... bigger than a suitcase?”

  “Bigger.”

  “Bigger than an elephant?”

  “Bigger.”

  “Bigger than a starship?”

  Zack smiled again, bigger this time. “As it happens, Lyta, by a strange coincidence this job is exactly the same size as a starship.”

  She decided she didn't like the way that smile looked at all.

  Sheridan prepared himself for a moment before entering Docking Bay 13. When Vorlon

  Ambassador Kosh had been stationed at Babylon 5, this was where his ship had been berthed.

  Upon his death, the ship itself based on highly advanced organic technology, as close as anyone would ever create to a living ship had been released. Acting on something between autopilot and true sentience, it plunged into the heart of the local star when it was clear that its master would never return.

  Afterward, it had been home to the ship that carried Kosh's replacement, Ulkesh, a much darker and ominous Vorlon. Ulkesh had not cared for Humanity the way Kosh had, was even found to be working against Humanity's interests during the Shadow War. At the end it came down to a pitched battle between Ulkesh and Sheridan's forces, a battle that was tilted in Sheridan's direction only by the presence of the last of Kosh's sentience, which had taken up root in Sheridan.

  Ulkesh's ship had been destroyed in that battle, broken into six roughly equal sized pieces.

  Sheridan had ordered the pieces brought to Bay 13 for study. The next thing he knew, the six pieces had become five, five had become four, and it became quickly apparent that the ship was rebuilding itself, extruding tiny tendrils to reattach and repair the broken sections, slowly regenerating those parts that had been destroyed.

  The ship was still engaged in self-repair when the rest of the Vorlons went beyond the Rim along with the Shadows at the conclusion of the Shadow War. Subsequent scans of the ship found it to be dormant, seemingly dead. Sheridan had assumed that, with its master dead and the Vorlons gone where it could not follow, it had nowhere to go and simply ... stopped.

  Nonetheless, he had ordered Bay 13 isolated from all station personnel, and he himself had never entered it.

  Just in case.

  Because he had learned the hard way that with the Vorlons, death was not always as clear cut as one might assume. So he always gave the ship a wide berth. That was about to change.

  He entered his own private code, and the door slid away on its tracks, securing into the safety locks with a deep metallic chunk that resonated throughout the bay. The ship sat in its rail locks, silent, motionless, lifeless.

  Waiting, he thought distantly. Waiting for someone to wake it up.

  He walked down the ramp toward the ship, which loomed over him even larger than he had remembered. It was sleek, almost squidlike in appearance at one end, streaming off at the other end into delicate petals that opened and closed to radiate away the heat caused by hyperspace jumps. There was no visible door, though Sheridan had seen the side iris open when Kosh chose to enter.

  The ship was a shade of red he had never seen before or since, with a sheen that seemed deeper than it could or should be. His gaze kept drifting away from it, as if his eyes couldn't quite focus on the hull. There was a dark mottling all along the ship's exterior that shifted like the coloration on a chameleon when the ship was in space.

  That it had defenses was certain; he had seen them in action on Kosh's ship when he once made the mistake of getting too close. It was an error he had pledged never to make again.

  That, too, was about to change.

  He edged closer to the ship. So far it had not responded to his presence, had not shown any indication of activity. It seemed totally safe.

  Which only worried him that much more.

  He reached out a hand, and tentatively closed the distance between himself and the ship. He hoped that the ship, which had been made by Vorlons would recognize someone else who had also been intimately touched by Vorlons. He hoped that he still carried enough of that presence to resonate with the ship's scanners.

  Mainly, he hoped it wouldn't grow a gun tentacle and laser him into a smoking smear on the deck.

  He touched the ship. It felt unnaturally cold to his fingertips. It was the cold of space. It was the cold of death. It was the cold of something infinitely older and more dangerous than he was. He was just starting to wonder what the hell he was doing here in the first place when the skin of the ship shuddered.

  Shuddered. Like the skin of a reptile awakening at the first touch of warm sunlight.

  It knows I'm here, he thought. Either this is going to work or I'm going to end up so dead that all my ancestors back five generations will get a really bad feeling about the future.

  The skin of the hull warmed slightly beneath his fingers. Then he felt more than heard a change in the bay, a sense of hidden engines waking up, of scanners and sensors reaching out, listening, feeling, seeing, touching.

  Touching him. Sheridan realized he was holding his breath.

  Then: the hull softened beneath his touch, seemed to be drawing inward, into the ship. He yanked back his hand as the hull continued to pull away from him, folding into itself and slowly, slowly, irising open. In another moment, the entrance to the ship was fully open, revealing only a darkness beyond.

  Unaccountably, Sheridan found himself remembering a phrase from the Bible: And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and beheld a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

  Sheridan moved toward the entrance of the ship.

  Come and see, it seemed to whisper.

  Sheridan stepped inside.

  Lochley paced back and forth in front of the massive window that was the centerpiece of the observation dome, more casually referred to by the crew as C&C, Command and Control. It had been nearly an hour since Sheridan had entered Bay 13. I knew I should've let someone else do this, she thought resignedly. Only problem is finding someone else who was part Vorlon once, and damn it there just aren't any of those around when you really need them.

  An excited Lieutenant Corwin called over to her from his station. “I've got President Sheridan for you on channel four, audio only.”

  “Put him through!”

  She crossed to the main console, punched up the access for com four. “Mr. President? Are you all right?”

  For a moment, there was only static, a kind of static she hadn't heard before. It wove in and out of the audible range, frequencies bleeding through one on top of the other in a way that made her ears itch. Then, finally, Sheridan's voice came through.

  “I'm all right,” he said. Though he was only a few decks below C&C, his voice sounded a million miles away. “I'm ... inside.”

  “What's it like?” she asked.

  There was another long delay. “There are no words.”

  “Do you think you can control it?”

  “I'm not sure.” There was another pause, longer than the one before. She thought she heard the sounds around him riding up and down in a deliberate way, a rhythmic way, as though the ship were --

  No, don't be ridiculous, she thought. It's not singing to him.

  Then his voice came back to her: “I think so,” he said. “I think... I think it would like to have something interesting to do.”

  She looked at Corwin.

  Corwin looked at her.

  “The... ship... would like something interesting to do?”

  “Don't ask,” Sh
eridan said. “Is everyone in position?”

  “Lyta's on board the Titans with Ivanova. They're ready when you are.”

  “Then let's get this show on the road,” Sheridan said. “Open Bay 13, prepare for launch.”

  “Will do,” she said, and in a final burst of static before she cut off channel four, she thought she heard a sound that seemed to her might be just the kind of sound a ship might make if it were thinking, About time.

  She shook her head. You've been here less than a month and already you need a vacation.

  “Open Bay 13 and clear all other traffic from the area,” she called to Corwin. “He's corning out.”

  Ivanova watched the display on the control bridge as the Vorlon ship emerged from the central docking hub of Babylon 5 and arced slowly, gracefully, toward the Titans. She never got over her awe of the ship's ability to convey both beauty and terror at the same time.

  She looked to the other members of her crew, saw the numb expressions on their faces, and smiled. Vorlons were more myth than fact to these people, and to see something like this coming toward them had to be like entering the pages of a fairy story.

  I remember what I felt the first time I saw one of those, she thought. And the funny thing is, I'm feeling exactly the same thing right now.

  “Open flight bay, secure all airlocks,” she said, “prepare to receive.” She had told the crew this was a classified mission, that they were to hold onto this ship for safe keeping until such time as Earthforce asked for it back. That with any luck Earthforce would never know it was here was, of course, quite beside the point.

  “Bay doors open, Captain,” Commander Berensen said, never taking his eyes off the display.

  “Here it comes.”

  Why do I always get the crappy end of these jobs? Lyta wondered. She stood at a computer access panel in flight bay seven, wearing a heavy atmosphere suit to protect against the hard vacuum that could penetrate the bay in case anything went wrong.

  Though if anything goes really wrong the whole place could explode, or I could get sucked out into space, or the walls could come down around me like a deck of cards, so yeah, this suit is gonna be just a big help to me in my hour of need.

  She looked up sharply as a red warning light began to flash above her, then glanced right as the huge bay doors began to slide away, revealing the Vorlon ship hovering on invisible magnetic grapples in the space between.

  It moved slowly into the bay, positioning itself above the deck, where access panels had been cut into the metal flooring, within which naked cables and controls were visible, the tangle of computer relays hotwired directly into the Titans' main system. The final effect was that of a ship sized interface. Slowly, the ship began to lower toward the interface.

  Here goes nothing, she thought, and gripped the equipment around her as tightly as she could, counting down the inches until ...

  Contact.

  Ivanova looked up sharply as the lights flickered above her, then darkened. She felt the ship shudder.

  Berensen checked his display. “Captain? We're getting some anomalous readings from the “

  Before he could finish his sentence the engines of the Titans exploded into life, slamming him and everyone else back into their seats, heedless of the artificial gravity that was supposed to compensate for such things.

  The room shook violently as the ship twisted first one way, then another. Anything not bolted down was thrown across the room; crew members crashed into walls or tumbled over displays.

  Ivanova had once seen vids of an ancient sport called a rodeo, had seen a horse bucking violently, trying desperately to throw its rider, and wondered what it must have felt like. She no longer had to wonder.

  “What's going on?” Berensen yelled above the roar of the bucking ship.

  “Oh... nothing,” she said. “Just hold on.”

  In the flight bay, Lyta drove her thoughts deep into the ship's organic center, fighting for control even as the Vorlon ship sent out delicate tendrils that wrapped themselves into the Titans' conduits and control Systems.

  Once the Vorlon ship lands, you can bet the organic shadowtech will recognize it for what it is and fight like hell, Sheridan had told her. When that happens, someone's going to have to go in there and fight at an organic level, thought against thought, until the Vorlon ship does to it what the shadowtech does to everything else: takes over. All you have to do is make sure the Titans doesn't tear itself apart before the job's finished.

  She could feel a blind, searing rage emanating from somewhere deep inside the ship, where the sentient, organic shadowtech had been carefully woven into the ship's normal computer system... could visualize its thoughts in the darkness behind her eyes, could see its desperation as a bright red flare lashing out in every direction. She held onto the equipment, fighting not to be thrown across the bay.

  The triple space lock doors opened. Air shot out of the bay and into space, blasting past her in a roar that was second only to the roar of the shadowtech screaming in her mind. The plasteel walls around her twisted, groaned with metal fatigue.

  It's going to tear itself apart ... it’s going to destroy itself before it lets the Vorlon ship take over.

  She fought back, lashing out with her own thoughts, trying to fight the organic system's access to engines and navigational controls just as she would try to shut down a Human brain's access to fingers and legs and speech centers.

  She felt something pop high up in her nose, felt something warm flowing down over her upper lip. A moment later she tasted blood. Great, just great, she thought, and pushed harder.

  Berensen held onto the console in front of him, refusing to be thrown. “Engine systems are overheating, moving toward overload!”

  “How long?” Susan called over the roar.

  “Two minutes!”

  Lyta felt herself starting to black out. She fought to hold onto her thoughts, to hold onto the ship's organic center, not knowing how much longer she could do so --

  Then suddenly the red fury behind her eyes was lanced by a cool green determination that grew, surrounded it, engulfed it. They wrapped around one another, a tangle of colors and intentions, striking, retreating, feinting, parrying, then suddenly a final green lunge struck deep at the red, paralyzing it.

  Then the red was gone, and only the green remained. And instead of a roar of fury, the green sang in her thoughts. She opened her eyes as the ship steadied, evened and calmed. The air doors slowly closed, and she could hear the hiss of equalizing air filtering into the bay.

  Lyta released her death grip on the equipment that surrounded her, and realized that her arms and legs were shaking. She desperately wanted to sit somewhere, but since the nearest chairs were two decks up, she collapsed where she was, not caring that she was sitting in leaking lubricant that pooled around her environment suit. Impossibly, improbably she was alive, and that was all that mattered.

  In another moment, the side of the Vorlon ship irised open, and Sheridan stood revealed in the opening. He looked over to her, and waved, smiling. Triumphant.

  She waved back. Barely. Then passed out on the floor of the flight deck.

  “Any other problems with the interface?” Sheridan asked.

  Ivanova shook her head as she walked beside him down the main crew corridor of the Titans.

  “Nothing serious. A few minor glitches here and there, the interior temperature's running a bit warmer than it should be, and a couple of the com channels are scrambled, but we should have that in hand soon.”

  “Good,” Sheridan said.

  “We've checked out Lyta, and she seems to be all right, just severely stressed,” she continued. “We've put her on the shuttle and given her something to help her rest and recover. I'd thank her myself but we're way behind schedule, and if we don't get back on course Earth Central is going to want to know where we are and where we've been, and I'd rather avoid that conversation if I can.”

  “Understood.” They stopped in front o
f the main door to the flight deck, and he turned toward her. “It was good to see you again, Susan. I know you've got your own mission to worry about now, but you're always welcome to stop by whenever you're in the area.”

  “I know,” she said. “It's just... I'm not sure I'm comfortable enough yet with what happened ... what Marcus did ... to spend any time here. At least, not yet. I just ... need a little time, that's all.”

  “Of course,” he said, his voice quiet. “Well, good luck with your ship, Susan. And remember, she has to go in for an oil change every forty thousand parsecs. And keep everyone the hell out of flight bay seven.”

  “I will,” she said. “Thanks again, John. And don't worry, we'll run into each other again soon.”

  He smiled, and much to her surprise, gave her a hug. “I know we will,” he said, then turned and entered the main bay.

  On her way back to the command deck, Ivanova paused to contradict Sheridan's instructions long enough to peek into flight bay seven. The Vorlon ship was the only thing there, sitting quietly in the middle of the bay, thinking whatever Vorlon thoughts still hummed silently along its control systems.

  Illogically, it seemed to her that it almost looked content.

  He was right, I have to stay out of this place, she thought, and walked out again, closing the door with a command string that no one below her in rank could open. Then with a final glance back, she continued to the bridge of her ship.

  Sheridan watched from the shuttle as the Titans pulled away from Babylon 5 and angled toward the jump gate. It was Ivanova's ship now, no one else's, no hidden agendas, no chance of compromising control. He knew it could come in handy someday, if whatever leftover shadowtech programs had been implanted in the Warlock class of warships was ever activated.

  lf that day came, he knew that there would be at least one ship free of that influence, that would not go along with the rest, that would be independent.

  And it seemed utterly appropriate to him that it would be Ivanova's ship... because that was about as good a description of Ivanova herself as he could muster.