July, 2270
Shuttle Bay of EAS Warlock
(next morning)
After an undisturbed night of sound sleep, Lyta was recharged enough to tackle repairs with a smile and plenty of determination. Most of the unhelpful helpers had drifted off to work, and word had not spread fully about her to the crewmembers currently off-shift. So, it was quiet, with Lyta working alone, her view consisting mainly of the underside of pulled up deck plates and the guts of the ship underneath them as she tried to convince the hybrid systems to meld together again so that she could see where the damage was to fix it. She was almost half-stripped because of the intense heat from the welder, and the skin, whether covered or exposed, was soaked from a pungent mixture of sweat, lubricant, and oils of various sorts. The look was completed by assorted new cuts and bruises, and she was in general a bit of a mess. Her undershirt and shorts were sticking to her from the dampness, making it very obvious that she was a female. The small portion of her mind aware of how she looked was glad she didn't have company.
[Well, that jinxed it!] Out of the corner of her eye, she spots shoes picking their way across the scattered tools and parts. Not earthforce issue, expensive and polished - shoes that leaked distain for the working class environment they were walking in. [Peterson,] Lyta figured as she continued to work and thereby ignore him. The man's emotions oozed like a leaking oil drum filled with contaminated crude. Distain, jealousy, fury, lust, a whole mix of the bottom-dwelling facets of a human's soul.
[The paragon of scum. Eew,] Lyta thought. [This man *is* a creep.]
She decided to play deaf-mute, and ignores him in favor of the welding.
It didn't deter him. "Ms. Allan."
[Augh, his voice is even worse!] "Yes." Lyta answered simply, her eyes still focused on their task of getting the readouts to blink yellow instead of green.
"Where were you last night?" The interrogation had begun.
"The land of Nod, along with everyone else who was sleeping. And you?" Her conversational tone could have passed for sincere, if she had wanted it to.
Peterson continued to grill her - and annoy the freckles off of her in doing so. What was her past association with Ivanova.
(no reply)
Questions on other details on her past.
(no reply)
He wanted information on the alien ship that 'supposedly' tried to destroy her.
(She snorted at the emphasis he put on supposedly. The damage done was evident.)
He digs after information on her ship's design and capabilities. She's tinkered with it to improve it's performance in more than a few aspects, not an easy feat.
(She glances up at him, once, but otherwise continues to ignore him. He's pretty pissed off at her by this point, and vice versa.)
Peterson says he tried to pull her current mission out of the computer (couldn't break the code or hack in) and took the liberty of performing a full search of her ship. He couldn't find a reason as to why Lyta would be here. Spouts off 'security of earth' quotes.
"Duckspeak," Lyta said simply.
"What?" Peterson misses the reference/jab completely.
"Or newspeak, if you prefer. The information I carry, Mister Peterson, is not available to you. Matters of the Alliance take precedence over matters of member worlds. What I carry has been encoded into by brain. It is involuntary, impenetrable to a telepathic scan, and is not yours to learn." She didn't tell him that she was a telepath. No need to squirt lighter fluid on the fire.
He got all huffy, says Lyta better not 'bother' the captain again. He plans to meet with Ivanova that evening.
Lyta snickers, gives him a scornful once-over, and says, "You aren't even close to her type, Mr. Peterson. And you never will be. I should know, I've been. . . working with Susan for years. And you have no chance to be anything but an ongoing hassle. Get off my ship."
Peterson stomped off.
"Prick," Lyta muttered under her breath.
A few quiet minutes passed while Lyta let her temper cool down, and managed to get the most stubborn system back into the safety zones again.
Then the sound of a knock on the side of the airlock's doorway heralded another visitor. Figuring the knock was a sign of politeness, she called out for whoever it was to come in, and set to work on the next item on the repair list with only a slight flicker in the visitor's direction to see what she could sense.
[A mental block. That narrows it down a great deal,] she thought with a slight smile. Ivanova had said there were several telepaths on board still, but there was only one with Psi-Corps training, and the high level which required such a thick shield to block stray thoughts from coming in.
"Aren't you going to say hi, young man?" She asked jovially as the visitor came carefully around the corner. Lyta's stronger-than-usual abilities could pick up a flicker of recognition from him, but it wasn't strong enough to indicate that he remember where - and when - he knew her from.
He looked good, she had to admit to herself. Gone was the nervous, skinny teenager who had wanted more than anything to be back at the controls of a starfury, gone was the self-aware shuffle and hunched over shoulders, gone were the nervous twitches. The man who was walking up had filled out and grown up, and radiated confidence.
[He's actually cute!] Lyta noted, noticing the way his muscles showed through his shirtsleeves. "Harriman. You look pretty good, considering how long it's been since we last talked. How are you doing?"
[I KNOW this goddess?!?]
"Your last thought just leaked. Thank you."
The pilot suddenly turned bright, bright red and mumbled an apology while staring at the floor.
"You have no idea who I am, do you."
"Not a clue, Miss Allan. I'm sorry I l- you heard me?! But - how??"
[Think back, to the last table in the second floor study room at the library, many, many years ago,] she sent to him.
His jaw dropped at the sending, then stared at her in amazement. "Lyta Alexander??" A huge grin began to spread across his features, and his eyes flicked over her figure with surprise. "You . . . uh . . . I didn't recognise you at first, you've - uh -"
"Filled out? I know. Pleasure to see you again. But Allan is my husband's last name, and I do use it these days." She put her tools down and sat back to talk to him without distractions.
His face fell again. "You got married? They - they didn't make you - the c - the corps-"
"By choice, for love, and willingly. To the sweetest normal. The corps didn't put me back into the breeding program, no. I managed to avoid much of the war. Watched and wept, as the saying goes. You?"
"We were out on the rim for most of it. I missed it, just watched and wept. The Captain refused to let us go when the recalls came in, even the crew who were latents - the corps didn't know about them - were kept on board and protected. Saved us from ending up dead. I owe her a lot."
"Susan had a good heart, I know. She likes to keep it behind welded steel plating, but she does have one."
"Her comments about spacing me on a daily basis were real enough, at the start. I had to be ready to grab a flight suit and hit the hatches at a second's notice, if she wanted me off the ship."
"You can't fool me, Harriman. You loved flying. We were nearly caught and punished on I don't know how many occasions because I agreed to teach you extra information, even if we never got past the theory."
"I know. Lyta, thank you. A thousand times over, thank you. The extra learning was what helped me when I was allowed to fly again, I'd have never lasted otherwise in any of the battles. Or some of the more . . . interesting . . . missions."
"Harriman, put your eyes back in their sockets. Two minutes of ogling is enough."
He blushed again, and focused on examining a console display. "Sorry. You've just . . .well . . . matured."
"That happens when you become a mother."
"You've got kids?" His silly grin was back.
"If you give me a minute, I'll locate the picture I have with me. They're with their father, who works security back on Babylon 5, where I'm based. I have to spent most of my time away from them, however. You've visited there?" She pulled out a crystal that held a hologram of Angel and little Z hugging each other in the rose garden, taken the day before she left on her current mission.
"Yes, twice. Last year and - gee - over a decade ago . . . you know, I think I've heard about the older one. A large chunk of the crew saw the captain receive a running bear hug from a little girl who looked lot like she does. It was kind of fast to become legend, to have God knocked down by a wiggly little giggler who refused to call her anything but 'auntie Susan'."
Lyta smiled. "That would have been my Angel. I wasn't there at the time, I was off on a courier run. The little one is named after his father. Whoever said it's not possible to love more than one didn't have a family."
"They're adorable. Like little replicas, if you don't object to the comparison."
"No, not at all. They're pure natural. Do you have any family? Willing, or otherwise. I don't think any of my corps-bred children lived. But you?"
"My parents, a sister, two nephews. They're all on earth."
"Oh."
"I talk to them whenever I can. It's not enough, but you do what you can, you know? Um - I know a lot about ships, and a little about alien tech. Is there anything I can do to help fix your flyer?"
Lyta nodded. "Maybe. Shall we find out?"
They dug into the repairs, still talking. Lyta prompted him to talk about the vorlon antique the Warlock found, said she had a personal interest in them. If he could tell her anything? 6000 years old, hidden by rocks, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Lyta worked with Gray through the day, getting lots of repairs finished and lots of stories swapped. A private had to be sent to tell them to come eat dinner, they totally forgot about lunch. They have a few other helpers again after dinner, Lyta shoos away anyone without the knowledge needed to actually work. She's on a deadline, and neither her message nor the Warlock can be delayed. Repairs continue for several more hours. When Ivanova comes down, she made the crewmembers go to bed, and told Lyta as soon as they were alone that Peterson had been poking around, can she come too?
"Sure, I'd love to grind the scuz's face into the deck," Lyta said.
"Now, now, be nice to my ship. What did the deck ever do to you?" Ivanova laughs.
~~~~
Late that night, they were ready for bed, swapping tales from earthforce/ranger life, when Lyta picked up on Peterson's presence, a few hundred feet down the corridor and heading right for them.
Lyta sighed and said, "well?" while moving from her chair to the bed.
"Sorry, but . . . " Susan ruffled Lyta's hair as they moved under the quilt and met in the center.
"I'm to die from embarrassment," Lyta muttered under her breath as she shifted her gown's strap off her shoulder and slid it down her arm, hiding it under the quilt.
"Wimp!" Ivanova hissed back, but she did the same.
When their uninvited guest let himself in a few seconds later, he stopped dead in his tracks with his jaw on the floor at what he assumed had happened. The woman he'd been attempting to seduce (for the purposes for advancing his career ,as well as physical) for the past few months was in bed, asleep, seemingly naked . . . in the arms of another woman.
Not her type indeed . . .
Lyta's contented little smile grew slightly larger when she heard the swear-words going through his mind. Then he turned on his heel and left, disgusted.
Ivanova began to howl with laughter. Lyta pulled back and made a face. "Your breath smells like alcohol."
Ivanova continued to laugh for several minutes before she could talk. "I think that did it. Ha! He was so revolted! Oh, that was great!"
"You owe me the biggest favor in the universe, Susan. Whether or not it will get rid of him permanently."
"Deal. I'm sure it'll work. We'll have most of tomorrow to figure it out. Will your repairs be done on time? There'll only be an hour or two margin for the beacon change. You go one way, I'll go another. If I don't get a chance to say this tomorrow, good luck."
"And to you. It might be years again until we can visit in person."
"As long as you let me know if there's a third kid that comes."
Lyta shook her head. "Won't happen. Zack got himself snipped during my last pregnancy. . . and it's unlikely that someone would rape me. My self-defense skills are quite good."
"You're away from Zack for weeks, even months at a time, you're not worried about cheating?"
"No. I'm not tempted by anyone else's advances, and he's got a pair of talkative chaperones to keep off the uniform's groupies."
"Out of the mouths of babes?"
"Yup. Angel is little miss enforce-the-chastity herself, and I do all I can when there to remind him of why I'm the one he married." Lyta gave a mischievous grin. "But usually Zack can fend them off before they show up at the door, not giving Angel the chance to grind their hearts up. As for me, one good sharp word usually fixes the amorous ones, if not, I carry a pike. I'm never in one place - besides home - long enough to put up with the really determined ones. But there's been a few men who've woken up by the side of a road someplace with no idea how they got there, and no memory of a red-headed ranger they tried to put the moves on the night before."
"A few, eh?"
"Plus or minus . . . " she grinned. "I have enough sleepless nights with Zack to not want to fool around on the side. Any other man just doesn't have the skill he has. He's good, really good, to me, and in more than the carnal sense. I hope you'll be as lucky someday. So, captain, what's the word among the crew as to my being here?"
"Just the expected mix of 'wow, she's pretty', 'another ranger, so what', and the fact that you would have died a nasty death if we hadn't happened along within those few hours and saw you drifting." Ivanova covered a yawn. "I'll do a check on you midmorning, see if you need anyone assigned to help the final repairs. How have the volunteers been doing?"
"The ones I let stay were some help. Thank you, but with good luck I should be done on time without extra assistance. Harriman was quite helpful all through today. Told some rather *impressive* tales about you, too. He still has that serious crush on you, but is too humble to try anything . . . if your bed gets lonely. . ."
"Don't - play - cupid!"
"I'm not! I'm just offering a second opinion, as a friend. He would be good to you. Ok, so he probably hasn't had an actual date since before his telepathy became active, so you'd have to teach him - which can be a good thing - and he might not have the stamina for anything long-term, but he would be good to you. But that's up to you to decide, not me. G'Night."
" . . . night. Just don't tell him that he's cute."
"You think so, huh?"
Ivanova pulled Lyta's pillow out from beneath her head and clobbered her with it. "Go to sleep!"
~~~~
Lyta's wake up call was abrupt, and not as soft as it could have been. She awoke to being shoved bodily out of the bed and being hit with a pillow again. "What'd I do??" She exclaimed as she clambered out of the way as fast as she could. The russian bear was in a ferocious mood.
"You little weasel! Don't EVER put ideas in my head again!"
"What'd I do?! What ideas?" Lyta exclaimed frantically as she scrambled for safety.
"Guess what man was in my dreams?" Came the sarcastic response.
The ranger paused, considering. "Ummm . . . good dreams or bad?"
"What kind? What KIND of dreams? The 'Oh, God, YES!' kind, you little tart!!! If Gray even suspects what my brain came up with-!"
Lyta collapsed to the floor, laughing. Ivanova went over and hit her again with the pillow before she fell down laughing, too.
~~~~
The ship was fixed in good time, and Ivanova spent the last hour of Lyta's visit with her inside, going over flight plans, and trying to figure out how they might meet again soon. The warlock wasn't scheduled to visit B5 any time in the near future, but the women exchanged promises to try to visit again.
Unaware of the innocence of the visit, when Peterson asked where the captain was, Harriman Gray mentioned having seen her heading for the shuttle bays 'about an hour ago'. The political officer suddenly developed a nervous twitch.
~~~~
"Comm -Captain Ivanova! This is a surprise. Social call or business?" Zack Allan's face showed his pleasure at the sight of an old friend.
"Social, mostly. The Warlock docked at Station 953 a few hours ago, and I wanted to leave a message for the Mrs., if you don't mind. And a 'hi' to the kids, of course."
"Lyta's not back yet. She just finished a run, but won't be home for a few more days. Something about needing extra repair time at Proxima. Earthforce classified the details."
"They would. I know, by the way, and she'll be fine. To get to the point, there are at least fifty-seven thank-yous from my crew aimed her way. Just let her know the scuz has transferred off."
"What?"
"Oh, and she's got something I gave her for you. Metal and Leather. Make sure you see it!"
"Right," Zack said, figuring it would be explained to him once Lyta gets back. "I'll make sure. Anything else?"
"Hi! That's it, I don't have too much time, but enough to say hi. There's another answer she'll want from me, about a different crew member, but I'm just going to let her wonder for a while on that. Revenge of sorts." Ivanova grinned and signed off.