“It’s a trap, sir. Got to be.”
“No,” Corwin breathed. “Oh no, it isn’t.” He’d recognised the voice, and he was mouthing a silent prayer of thanks. “Set course for the relayed co-ordinates. I think we’re going to get the captain back.”
Sheridan was lost in this labyrinth of Minbari corridors, but Ivanova seemed to know where they were going. Didn’t these damned Minbari know how to build a corridor in a straight line? He was also feeling more than a little uncomfortable, and a little more alive. Here he was, on the homeworld of his sworn enemy, with no weapons and his spaceship several systems away, and his only ally a mysterious woman who seemed more than half insane.
It was exhilarating.
“You do know where we’re going, don’t you?” he asked Ivanova. He hated trusting others with matters like this.
“You’re too tense. Where’s your sense of fun? Of adventure?”
“You aren’t trying to cheer me up, are you? I hate being cheered up.”
“Fine, then we’re all going to die lingering, horrible deaths. Especially if the Minbari catch us. Feeling better now?”
“Not really.”
“Good. My brother always said I was too pessimistic.” They came to a divergence of corridors and Ivanova looked down both of them. “It’s this way,” she said, indicating one of the routes. “I think.”
“Which way did you come in?”
“That’s… ah, sort of hard of explain.”
The two of them had taken four steps in the direction Ivanova had indicated when a door opened in front of them and a Minbari stepped out. And not just any Minbari.
Satai Delenn.
For a brief moment Delenn was stunned. It was the Starkiller. Somehow he had escaped. She barely noticed the human woman beside him, focussing instead on Sheridan, forced to step back from the blazing fury in his eyes.
And then the human woman said something, and Delenn turned to her.
Time seemed to slow, a moment Commander Corwin called the long second. The human woman was no longer just a human, but a blackening silhouette, a darkness so absolute that it penetrated to her very soul, waking a hatred even more powerful than Sheridan’s, because it was hidden beneath a calm surface.
Delenn’s thought was as terrible as the one she had reached concerning Sheridan’s soul. The Enemy is awake, and it has come here.
And then she surrendered herself to the instincts of battle, rigorously forged in her by her father, by Durhan, by Neroon. It did not matter who the woman was, or why she was interested in Sheridan. It only mattered that she served the Enemy – the Enemy that Delenn had dedicated her life to fighting.
She struck forward, lashing out with her fist and catching the human woman off guard, knocking her backwards. The woman stumbled, but then Sheridan moved forward. He seemed to hesitate before hitting her, a brief moment that allowed Delenn to duck his punch and strike out at his belly. He too stumbled, and she gained enough time to unfold her fighting pike, a weapon centuries old, given to her in love by Neroon. It was a deadly weapon in the hands of a master, and while Delenn was no Durhan, she had been trained well enough.
Backing up against the wall, she gripped the staff tightly in both hands. She did not know human physiology as well as she might have done, but she knew enough to incapacitate these two. Then the Council would have to be warned. Not just that Sheridan had escaped, but that the Enemy was here.
There was a sudden noise, a buzzing and crackling. Delenn started and turned. There was a shimmering directly in front of her eyes, a shimmering in the shape of a giant, misshapen crab. Reason left her and she lunged forward with her staff, lashing out vainly at the beast before her, a beast from each and every one of her worst nightmares.
It moved with a speed that seemed impossible. One swift motion and she fell, in agony, very much aware that the warm dampness in her belly was her own blood.
“What the hell was that?” Sheridan asked as he stared at the fallen Delenn. “Do you mind telling me?”
“A friend, Captain. You’ll find we have them everywhere. Come on. She might have raised an alarm or something.”
Ivanova bent down and picked up the strange weapon Delenn had been using. “A quick blow to the neck and she’ll be out of your misery, Captain.”
Orange blossom. “No, we’ll take her with us.”
“And you said I was crazy?”
“Look, the Minbari won’t threaten us if we’ve got one of the Grey Council with us. Think what a hostage she’d make, not to mention what she knows. Now come on, you said you knew a way out of this place.”
Ivanova shrugged and compressed the pike. “Always wanted one of these. Asked my father for one for Christmas one year. It’s this way.”
As Sheridan bent down to pick up Delenn, he noticed a small triangular object that had fallen from her robes. Without thinking, he stuffed it into a pocket. He was surprised by how light the Minbari was, and by the fact that the scent of orange blossom was now replaced by the smell of blood and death. Had he been less preoccupied, he might also have noticed the same buzzing and crackling noise that had so affected Satai Delenn.
“Captain! Good to see you again. I thought… that is… Good to have you back, sir.”
“Good to be back, David.” Sheridan stepped off the shuttle into the small docking bay aboard the Babylon. “We have a guest in need of urgent medical assistance. If you can get Dr. Kyle to have a look at her, stat.”
“I’m here, Captain,” the elderly doctor said, brushing past Sheridan to enter the shuttle. Ivanova was staying very quiet. The doctor came out. “But Captain, she’s a…”
“A Minbari, I know. To be more precise, she’s Satai Delenn of the Grey Council.” Corwin whistled softly. “She may just be our means of ending this whole thing, and even if she isn’t, can you think of a better hostage?”
“Trust you to come out smelling of roses, sir.”
“Smelling of orange blossom, more like.”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“Nothing. How is she, Doctor?” Delenn’s wound had seemed quite serious at first, but Sheridan had seen the incredible Minbari constitution first-hand. She had remained half-conscious all the time he had been carrying her from the complex to the shuttle, and in the shuttle from the planet to the Babylon she had drifted in and out of consciousness. They had encountered no resistance during their escape, something which worried him quite a bit.
“She’ll recover. It looks worse than it is.”
Sheridan nodded. “Good. I want her alive. She has a hell of a lot of questions to answer.”
“She’s not the only one,” Corwin muttered. “Captain, what exactly happened on Vega Seven? And how did you get out of there so easily? I mean, I don’t want to be disrespectful or anything, but you don’t just leave the Minbari homeworld like it was a corner shop.”
“That’s funny. I was wondering the same thing myself.” Sheridan glanced at Ivanova, who stepped out from behind him.
“I told you. We have friends everywhere, Captain.”
But Sheridan did not hear Ivanova’s response. He only heard Corwin’s reaction. “Susan!”
“You two know each other?” To Sheridan’s surprise, Ivanova sidled up to Corwin and, staring at his still-dumbfounded face, gave him a long and very passionate kiss. “You two do know each other.”
“We used to,” Corwin replied. “I thought you were dead. I mean, I’d hoped from the voice, but then I thought it couldn’t be you. You were dead.”
“I was. I got better.”
Corwin was still staring at her, but then he shook his head and blinked. “I’m sorry, Captain. I was… distracted.”