"STAR AND CIRCLE: THE SEEKER'S FIRE"
EPISODE NINETEEN: "AT THE HEART OF THE STORM"

* * *
        (disclaimers and associated descriptions in overture)

* * *

        <<Act Four>>

        "This was our moment of revelation, when we finally found out exactly how far Sheridan would go to protect Earth and the mission - but it wasn't until much later that we found out about everything that preceded that moment..."

        - Captain Matthew Gideon

* * *

        For the first time in decades if not centuries, silence reigned between the various worlds controlled by what had at one point been the Greater Powers and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds... and now, for almost six human years, the Interstellar Alliance. A silence imposed by the thousands of Shadow-stealthed jammer drones deployed by the forces loyal to General Ari Ben Zayn. A silence that weighed heavily in the minds of both leaders and their public, and especially so the latter, as tens of thousands sat alone in their homes beneath different suns, and wondered whether they would ever hear from their loved ones again.

        But even as hope ebbed in those minds, other forces were at work to break the silence in their own way - and one such was the force sworn to protect the Alliance at any cost - a force linked in both title and duty on this day to their namesakes in the American state of Texas. As it turned out, the humans among the Anla'shok had not forgotten the concept of the 'message rider' - as one of the tiny scoutships the Rangers had nicknamed 'Blue Stars' suddenly flashed out of a jump point and into Minbar high orbit.

* * *

        In a garden of glass and silver light, a garden woven between six of Tuzanor's many towers over five human centuries before, one of the more senior members of the Rangers sat alone, her eyes closed, her breathing even and steady and her mind elsewhere... her raven-dark cloak wrapped closely around narrow shoulders. The air in the City of Sorrows wasn't cold, but a darker, more insistent cold had taken hold of Jennifer Westcastle's heart in the last few hours - a cold born from the gift given to her by genetic fate... a gift that connected her to at least two other members of her race.

        The gift of Observance - a gift that now told her the young woman who had once been her protege in another day and age was in terrible, terrible danger. A shimmer of crystals sounded in the garden, and Jennifer opened her eyes and turned to face the Minbari who'd just appeared in a nearby portal. "Durhan - what news?"

        Jennifer's fellow instructor, the warrior who'd been the one most responsible for her earning the denn'bok during the conflict with the Shadows, shook his head sadly and sighed. "A message vessel has just arrived through the jammers from the fleet - and the news is... not what you have hoped for, I'm afraid. The Shard of Night is reported missing, while Tashann and Lanniel have asked for permission to send Ranger units in search of young Julia's command. The President, after some consultation with his Advisory Council and your own High Councillor..."

        Jennifer clenched one hand in frustration and averted her gaze, not wanting her friend to see how badly this was affecting her. The previous time Julia and her crew had been declared missing, when that alien collective had cast them beyond the Rim, she'd known in her heart that they were all right... but this time was different. "They've refused."

        "We are stretched thin, they say, even with the addition of the new strike and scout cruisers to our forces, while the search for the staging area the shadow technology warships are using must remain a priority. Nevertheless... nevertheless the High Councillor and his Sha'vei'e have reminded the President what the crew of the Shard of Night have already accomplished during their long and terrible watch over Captain Gideon and his crew. As such, President Sheridan has relented - and agreed, on a temporary basis, that a search should take place. One triad of White Stars, in addition to Val'na Gardinier's command, and several of the smaller scout vessels, have been set aside for this purpose..."

        "That's not enough, Durhan!" Jennifer suddenly flared. "They could be anywhere, disabled in hyperspace, captured by enemy forces..."

        "We know that!" Durhan snapped in reply. "They know." the Minbari continued, his voice now softer. "While you know that she walked onto this path willingly, because it was the right thing for her to do. They have accomplished a great deal, and should they have fallen to the enemy..."

        "No! - I won't believe that, not until the wreck of her ship is found."

        Durhan inclined his head respectfully at those words, his expression grave. "As you say. I shall of course return to you if word arrives of their survival or of..." Durhan paused, leaving the final words in the sentence unsaid. "You must have hope."

        Jennifer nodded, as Durhan left her to her meditations. And then she whispered, "Hope is all we have."

* * *

        ISAS Shard of Night... in hyperspace. 03:17 hrs, EST - Dec 11th, 2267.

        She could hear the footsteps coming towards her quarters -- but Illithan had already decided she would not bow down to their level, nor demonstrate any fear or regret with respect to her actions. Some she knew would have already given up hope, declaring that 'the game was up', but she did not consider herself a member of that group. A brief smile flickered across her face, then - the Rangers probably thought they'd figured it all out... but that wasn't the case at all.

        "I remember you, Dawson." she whispered, her eyes closed. "I remember your human pride, remember you basking in Varsak's praise. To think that one of us would choose a human as a protege - he could not have shamed us more if he had tried. And as such..."

        As such, there remained the matter of revenge to be fulfilled - and it would, in Dawson's case, be oh so very sweet. Dawson, of course, believed that there wasn't anything he didn't know about this ship... would, of course, be well on his way to 'removing her commands' from the ship's computer even now. She was very much looking forward to proving him wrong about that.

        Very much indeed.

        The door opened, and still Illithan did not open her eyes as the sound of booted feet moved out to surround her. "The ship's roster would have me believe I am speaking to a Ranger named Verrelan... we both know better than that, though, don't we?"

        Illithan opened her eyes to meet the furious gaze of the changeling's telepath servant, and inclined her head fractionally. "You know who I am, traitor - let us not belabour the point..."

        Sheynell Keynes' eyes flashed, and a moment later Illithan cried out in pain and would have fell had not she thrown out her arms against the nearby bed to support herself. "Traitor? You don't say. That was a warning, Illithan - I assure you, our Val'na will not be so kind." The Shard's tactical officer nodded curtly in the direction of her followers, and without a word the four Rangers surrounded Illithan, their expressions and hands on pikes clearly indicating what they would do to her if she tried to escape. "Bring her."

* * *

        Galen's Flyer - in hyperspace. 03:53 hrs, EST.

        The chiming was what woke her - soft, insistent... yet pleasant. With a frown, Jaida rose to her feet and made her way towards the circular chamber at the heart of the ship, a chamber that seemed to serve as the bridge of Galen's flyer. "You called?" she managed, though not without yawning.

        "We did, yes." Jaida whirled around and then smiled as Vejar emerged from the darkness, Galen at his side. "It is well to see you here, Jaida... well indeed. Though now you have taken what some among us have termed 'the first great step', there are certain preparations we must make before we arrive at our destination - certain matters that must be dealt with. And the first such is this."

        Jaida frowned as her teacher casually pulled a package out of his robes and passed it over. "Well go on!... aren't you going to open it?" She knelt down on the floor and did as she was bid... and then her eyes widened as she saw what lay within. "Oh... wow - is this what I think it is?"

        "Indeed." Vejar confirmed. "While it is well that you have attempted to emulate our mode of dress while meeting with us on Babylon 5, the time has now come for you to possess your own set of, ah, what shall we call them..."

        "Training regimentals," Galen offered, "Is perhaps the simplest term."

        "Technomage clothing - for me?"

        "It is that, and much more."

        "What do you mean?" A beat - and then both Technomages lowered the hoods of their cloaks over their heads - and promptly vanished. Jaida gulped. "Oh."

        Vejar's head reappeared, as near as she could tell not attached to his body or the floor for that matter. "Where we are going, it is best to possess, as we like to say, 'a few tricks up one's sleeve' - and this is one such. If you would go and change, my young apprentice, I may even decide to teach you one or two..."

        The Technomage paused and frowned, as he realized he was speaking to a room empty of anyone but his fellow mage. Vejar laughed and turned towards Galen. "So - do you suppose she likes my gift, then?"

* * *

        ISAS Shard of Night, the Brig - 04:21 hrs, EST.

        "All right, let's try this again - who do you serve?"

        "The enemy."

        "That's not good enough!" Julia shouted, her expression full of wrath as she stalked around the Minbari who'd sabotaged her ship and then sent it racing towards an unknown destination. "We've seen their ships in action, some of us have even met their servants - but you'd know about that, wouldn't you?"

        Illithan shrugged. "Miss Ellis, though she is dedicated enough to her cause, was perhaps the weakest link in your crew, changeling - a weakness that we were able to exploit to the fullest. I must admit, though, that I am impressed at the way your tactical officer has, shall we say, shattered her former vows to the Earther Psi Corps - cast them aside in the name of her beliefs and yours. Quite surprising, given who it was she was supposed to have served..."

        "Don't be surprised." Sheynell interrupted, her voice and eyes cold as ice. "Alfred Bester was, in his own way, one of the finest instructors I've ever had - he taught me a great deal... and today, I'm going to apply one of those lessons because it's necessary and because it's right."

        "And which one would that be?" Illithan taunted.

        "Never show the enemy your fear - and never give up until they give you what you want." Sheynell beckoned, and without pause two of Illithan's guards moved in and held her tightly. "You can struggle if it makes you feel better... but in the end you're going to tell me what I want to know, you're going to tell me it all - while we can either do this the easy way, or we can do it my way. So - the questions at hand are these - what are you really up to, who you serve, and who is the enemy?"

        "You will learn nothing from me." Illithan declared.

        Julia watched Sheynell think about that for a moment, and then the telepath nodded. "My way it is, then."

* * *

        Memories, and resistance - resistance that shivered before the onslaught of the power wielded by a human mind of telepath level P12, upper end - and eventually the barrier parted, and Sheynell walked forth among the memories and hatred in Illithan's mind, looking for the answers she wanted, the answers that Julia needed.

***

        One memory emerged, of a face she knew, the face of the Minbari who'd commanded the Shard before Julia. "So..." Rahkeel observed, "Now that Varsak is dead and he has told us all that he could, what next?"

        "What next, you ask? Well, Alyt, that all depends on whether you and your crew can catch up to our quarry or not."

* * *

        Sheynell frowned - 'catching up' implied that Rahkeel had been given another ship by someone, perhaps the powers-that-be amongst the Warrior Caste - another push, and an image appeared before her, of a tri-hulled warship with a similar hull to the *Shard*'s - it was...

        "Stormwind." she and Illithan whispered simultaneously.

        "What?" Julia said.

        "What a surprise." she muttered, turning to face her friend. "The Warrior Caste gave Rahkeel another ship, the Stormwind - and I think they've spent some time running around pulling together an alliance of all the people you've managed to tick off in the last twelve months."

        "The Eloi'a, the Drakh..."

        Sheynell nodded, and sent another blade-like probe into Illithan's mind - a probe that revealed another face, and the name attached to it. "A Drakh, to be more precise."

        Julia sighed, and then nodded. "Palakz."

        "But the questions are, what's the glue that's holding them all together, what was in that crystal she plugged into the core, and where was she taking us?"

        "Was?" Illithan managed, her tone still mocking even though it was much weaker than before. "Don't you mean 'is'?"

        "All right, that's it!" Sheynell shouted, her fury finally coming to the surface as well. "I want the answers to those questions right here, right now! Show me, damnit - show me what you're hiding!"

        Illithan cried out - once and once only... and then the Minbari collapsed - while Sheynell's eyes widened as she tried to make sense of what she'd learned. An image, of a cold faced man with a scar on his face... a name flitted out and attached itself to that face - another, of an ambush consisting of Drakh ships and Rahkeel's battlecruiser command, and then... "No..." she whispered, her tone suddenly forlorn, "She couldn't have - oh Hell!"

        "Sheynell?" As much as she didn't want to, Sheynell knew she had to ignore her captain's query in the here and now, knew that there was only one place on the ship she needed to be in order to prevent the tragedy that was coming - the tragedy tied into the fact that if Illithan could not bring the Shard to the enemy rendezvous point, she was to ensure that Rahkeel's backup plan was enacted. And even as an open-mouthed Julia watched on, she ran out of the brig without another word.

* * *

        Main Engineering - 04:37 hrs, EST.

        "All right, Lesaki," Dawson drawled, as he gazed intently at the holographic depiction of the invading algorithm Illithan had sent into his computer systems, "I think we've pretty much got this sucker isolated from all the primary systemics - whaddaya think?"

        "I concur." Nicholas's assistant replied after a moment. "Theoretically, once the algorithm is erased from both computer cores, it should be possible for us to immediately regain control of all primary functions - not only navigation and helm controls but sensors and all offensive and defensive systems as well.

        Theoretically."

        Dawson laughed. "Ha! - don't talk to me about theoretically this and theoretically that. This’ll work, Lesaki... trust me."

        "Thus far you have not disappointed us." the other engineer finally admitted. "Very well, then - counting down from nine..."

        Nicholas grinned - he'd been expecting something more complicated from that Worker Caste witch then this. "Six."

        "Nicholas!" a familiar voice shouted from outside engineering, "No! - you can't do it - you've got to..."

        "Three."

        Dawson frowned as Sheynell burst into the chamber. What the Hell?

        "Now."

* * *

        The command that Lesaki sent into the system in that terrible moment was a fairly simple one, all things considered - as near as the Minbari engineer could tell, the invading algorithm had been contained and neutralized, while deleting Illithan's handiwork would allow them to regain control of the ship for his Chief and their Ranger crew.

        Unfortunately, everything that Lesaki thought he knew was proven wrong a moment later, as the deletion command reached the algorithm and swept it aside... revealing the far more complex one hidden within - a command that swept out into the core like an exploding bomb, sweeping away billions of crystalline memories before it. A command that was complex in its form, but simple in its execution, a command that could be described in the english language with two words and two only:

        Shut down.

* * *

        The lights went out - while almost every control surface and system in engineering died as well. And even though Sheynell had known this was coming while hoping she would be quick enough to prevent Nicholas's final command... she stumbled even so, knocking the Shard's chief engineer to the deck as she fell. "Stop?" Sheynell nodded as the dim red glow of emergency lights sprang up all around them. "Son of a bitch - she played me like a flute, didn't she?"

        "Yes."

        "That little..." Nicholas stopped and drew in a quick breath as he and Sheynell rose to their feet to take stock of the situation. "Oh Hell..." the engineer managed. "This looks bad - very bad."

        "Do you want to be a bit more specific?"

        Nicholas nodded, even as the rest of his crew gathered round to hear what their Chief would do next. "Engines, propulsion, weapons - there isn't a system that virus bomb didn't affect..."

        "Life support?"

        Nicholas checked his few working systems, and winced. "Not good. And while the hull's a darn good barrier...

        I'd say we've probably only got about forty-eight hours of air left. And after that, we're dead...

        If we don't freeze first, that is."

* * *

        In hyperspace. 05:17 hrs, EST.

        "Galen - as we suspected would happen, the Minbari engineer has played her final card. The Seeker's ship has lost all power, and even now begins to tumble. It is only a matter of time until they drift away from the beacon path down the gravitational incline."

        "There are no surprises, Vejar... merely challenges to be met. And now that our dear vengeful opponent has played her final card, it is time for us to play one of ours. You know the way, of course?"

        Vejar nodded. "It must be this way, then?"

        "That was the agreement, yes. Either those who follow the Seeker will find a way out of their predicament - or they will come for her - to preserve what is, in hope of the darkness's eventual passing." Galen sighed. "We cannot help her, Vejar... this particular darkness, she must escape herself."

* * *

        Onboard the Cain. 06:31 hrs, EST.

        "What is this? Do you mean to say..."

        Ben Zayn nodded, as across the light years, Palakz and Rahkeel glared back at him. "I do. All of your best assessments agreed that Tikopai and her followers should have arrived at your rendezvous point more than half an hour ago. As they have not, we must therefore assume that your renegade engineer implemented her 'Plan B', yes?"

        "You knew..."

        "Don't waste my time, Alyt." Ben Zayn snapped, dismissively waving his hand. "They are missing, without power at best and presumed dead at worst. It is obvious that the Rangers interfered destructively with your plans, and as such..."

        "But what of Illithan?" Rahkeel demanded.

        The General's mouth twisted into a sneer. "A casualty of war. The important thing is, as near as we can tell she has achieved her objective. Without power, even Tikopai's vaunted ship will drift down the incline and eventually be destroyed - we need send no further forces to ensure this comes about, and in any case, no such forces can be spared."

        "But..."

        "Enough!" the General barked. "With the Alliance forces on the defensive, the time draws nearer for our final strike. The Shard of Night is no longer a factor, and now, with your help, I shall deal first with Gideon and his crew,

        And then," Ben Zayn concluded, relishing the words, "With Sheridan and his Alliance."

* * *

        In the darkness, Galen laughed.

        "You think this is the end of the line for your enemies, don't you, General? I'm sorry to disappoint you, but as you will soon learn,

        The end and the beginning are sometimes terribly interchangeable."

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