A Narn was dying at her feet, blood pouring from a neck wound. He reached out pleadingly to her, but she silently stepped aside, inwardly weeping.
She had not seen his desperate, pain-maddened thrashings, and stumbled over his arm, tumbling to the ground. She tried to crawl forward, but he had a grip on her ankle, his last wish not to die alone.
Above her were a Narn and a Minbari, sword and pike flashing, fighting with their ancient weapons of pride. They came close to her, and the Minbari fell. Delenn tried to crawl out of the way, but he fell across her back. She felt a blinding pain and a moment of blackness.
When she came to, the fight was almost over. The Narns were pulling back, but had fortified the main corridor out of the docking bay. The Minbari were slowly moving forward. Delenn gasped, closing her eyes against the pain as she crawled out from under the body which lay on top of her. Slowly she turned, and gently closed his eyes.
“Delenn!”
Oh, no.
She could see John rushing forward, PPG fire picking off the Minbari who were moving towards her. The Narns, inspired by his example, had begun a counter-charge. The Minbari rushed forward, driven by fury and by pride.
The whole ship shuddered again, and Delenn fell forward. John caught her quickly and held her tight. Oh, John, no. I didn’t… I never meant…
He suddenly let go and spun around, firing instinctively. The Minbari warrior fell, two shots striking her chest and head at point-blank range. Sheridan was not happy with something, however. He backed up against the wall and began fumbling with his weapon. The energy cap was exhausted.
Blood. So much blood. So much death. All her fault. Too much death…
“Forgive me, John,” she muttered. She did not have a weapon, but she did not need one. Neroon and Draal had trained her in hand-to-hand combat well enough. She struck out at John’s belly. His instincts warned him about the blow, but too late to block it. He stumbled, and she hit his neck. He fell, poleaxed. Delenn noticed something at his belt. It was her pike, the one Susan Ivanova had taken from her on Minbar, the one she had taken back from the future Susan Ivanova aboard Babylon 4, the one she had given to John in trust after they left Babylon 4.
The trust she had just betrayed.
She took the weapon from his belt, and saw a warrior standing above her. The warrior said just one word.
“Starkiller.”
“He is to be left here,” Delenn said. “Do you hear me? He is to be left here. I am Satai Delenn of the Grey Council, and I demand to be taken before the Council. This must end. Please, listen. This must end.”
Again the warrior said just one word.
“Zha’valen.”
Susan looked down at the defeated eyes of Lyta Alexander. The telepath had already accepted her death. Susan could see it. She was broken. She was finished.
Susan raised the pike. No more need to be afraid. No more waking in the middle of the night. No more hiding.
She looked at Marcus. He looked sick, desperate to do something, but unable to. The two Shadows formed a wall between him and Susan. She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile…
Her head seemed to explode. She did not know if she actually screamed or if it was just in her mind, but she could feel the fear and the pain and the anguish all over again. It was a violation, an intimate sundering of a place she had only ever let her mother enter.
She screamed again, this time audibly. Lyta. But how…? The sleepers… Welles had assured her that… that… the Vorlon. The Vorlon!
She felt the pike drop from her nerveless fingers. She kept screaming, over and over again. She fell to her knees, screaming until the scream was the only thing in her existence.
She could feel the Shadows backing away. They were no more immune to telepathically induced pain than was she. Less so, if anything.
The pain ended – or she thought it did. Her scream certainly didn’t. She felt… numb, lifeless, unable to move or breathe or speak or do anything except scream…
And scream…
Nowhere is the Darkness greater than in the fortress of Light…
Deathwalker waited alone in the quarters she had prepared for this eventuality. She could feel the Shadows moving outside this ship. They would win. Of course they would.
She understood the Shadows. She was not their servant, but their ally. If they had been active thirty or forty years ago, her people might still be alive, might still be masters of the galaxy.
The Dilgar were dead, and would never rise again, but they would be remembered… She would build their monument, and how ironic it would be that the very race that had destroyed hers would create that monument on the ruins of the very race that had sheltered her.
Not for nothing was she called Deathwalker. She had made preparations… Her monument of blood was only just beginning.
Lyta crawled out from behind Susan. The Shadow agent had slumped down almost on top of her. She was still screaming.
Lyta was not sure exactly what she had done. She remembered the beating, she remembered the questions and Welles’ harshly ironic and scathing verbal assault on her. She remembered the sleepers. She remembered reaching out to touch Marcus’ mind and not being able to. She remembered a threat…
And she remembered one word. A word spoken in her mind by a voice she still did not understand.
“NO!”
And she had lashed out. Subconsciously, not understanding what or why or how, she lashed out with her powers, creating agony with a thought.
All she could see was Marcus. When he held her, for a moment she could forget where she was. For a moment she could take pleasure in the warmth of his presence.
But just for a moment…
The Shadows were moving. She saw them a mere instant before Marcus did, and she pushed him aside. She could hear the voice speaking to her, slowly and cautiously, directing her. She closed her eyes and reached deep inside, working past the sleepers, working past the pain and the numbness and the fear…
She lashed out again. The Shadows stopped and faltered. One of them bowed down, lowering its… she thought it was its head. The other one hesitated, as if recognising the taint of its ancient enemy within her.
Marcus acted. Scooping up Ivanova’s discarded pike, he struck at the nearest creature. He was not skilled with such a weapon, but that hardly mattered. Wielding it almost like a baseball bat, he gripped its end in both hands and swung it…
The first Shadow crumpled, its forelegs twitching. Marcus bashed its neck, once, twice, three times… It stopped twitching.
“Marcus!”
Lyta lost concentration for a moment, and the second Shadow rushed forward. It raised its foreleg and tore across Marcus’ chest. He fell back, and she struck out mentally again. The Shadow seemed unaffected. It certainly continued its charge over the fallen Marcus.
Acting on instinct with a weapon he had never before used, Marcus pushed up one end of the pike. The Shadow ran on to it with a sickening crunch and fell back. Marcus staggered to his feet and swung out with the pike as he had last time…
Lyta did not need telepathy to register the feelings of nausea and tiredness within him. She felt them as well, but she didn’t care. He dropped the weapon and winced at the pain of his injuries. She rushed forward and embraced him tightly, not caring about their pain, just caring that they were together.
She kissed him, for the first time without touching his mind with hers. It felt… better this time. Not as invasive. Ivanova had called her a mental rapist, and that felt true. Lyta had never felt more ashamed of the abuses to which she had put her powers.
She did not sense Ivanova’s attack. She had not even noticed that Ivanova had stopped screaming. Marcus had.
He threw Lyta aside and moved forward to confront Susan. She had picked up the pike, stained with blood and ichor and chitin. There was a madness in her eyes, a look of intense grief and anguish and a blood-rimmed, raging red fury…