Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 3 : След на песке

"Indeed. Your people are highly susceptible to certain telepathic impressions. Your Seeresses for example…. but I am digressing. I have discovered recently that their influence reaches higher than we had thought. Someone in this Court has been communicating with Z'ha'dum."

"What? Are you accusing…?"

"I am merely saying what we know to be true," he interrupted. "My associates are reluctant to come to the aid of people who may be working with the Enemy. You can…. understand their doubts, of course."

"Of course, but…. Mr. Morden, are you telling me the Vorlons will not come to our aid when the Narns attack?"

"I am afraid my associates will only aid you if you purge this evil from your Government, Majesty. If you can find this…. infiltrator before the Narns arrive, then…."

"We have hours at most, Mr. Morden."

"I am sorry, Majesty. I merely relay my instructions from my associates."

"I will find this…. Shadow agent, Mr. Morden, and I will purge him, as you put it, but for every Centauri life laid down to protect our homeworld I will hold your masters to account. We share the same enemy, and when I find their agent I will take action, but for our sake, not yours.

"Good day, Mr. Morden," he hissed. The Emperor turned and stormed from the room.

The Narn fleets were getting closer.

* * *

The Sunhawk exploded in one terrifying instant of destruction as its telepath failed, allowing the Shadow ship to fire. Its supporting ships fell back before the onslaught, but the Babylon kept moving forward. On board, Lyta Alexander strained to hold them still.

The Babylon fired broadsides at the nearest ship. The single remaining Brakiri warship concentrated its fire on the same area, and one of the Shadow vessel's spidery limbs was blown away. The ship screamed in pain and loss, and everyone on board the Babylon briefly heard their ship scream too, as if in sympathy for the pain it was meting out.

The second ship swooped down to aid its wounded comrade, but Sunhawks dived in to block it, raining ineffectual blows upon its skin, seeking only to force it backwards, away from its brother ship.

The Babylon and the Brakiri continued their barrage of blows, striking at limbs and body. The trapped ship was screaming as it withered before the attack. It began to spin aimlessly, its limbs severed.

The second ship swatted aside the irritating insects that were the Drazi and tried to free its brother, but it was too late. The wounded ship was torn apart, too badly damaged to survive.

The remaining ship rose briefly above the Babylon. Lyta tried to reach out with her mind to trap it, but she was too drained. It was all she could do to remain standing.

The ship spoke in her mind, and a brilliant light filled her soul. She collapsed unconscious.

The Shadow ship shimmered into hyperspace and disappeared.

"I think we did it," muttered Corwin, looking up from his instruments and turning towards the shivering Lyta.

"Yes," said Delenn softly, cradling her friend's head gently. Lyta's eyes were rolled up into her head, and soft tears of blood were trickling down her face. "Yes, we did it…. but at what cost, Commander Corwin?"

He could not answer. In his mind's eye he could see the destroyed ships and the bodies of the dead, and he just could not answer.

* * *

The post of Security Chief for Sector 301 in the Main Dome of Proxima 3 was generally regarded as being a career death sentence. The task was impossible, and everyone knew it. The only security officers assigned there were the corrupt, the embarrassing or the terminally inept. Crime was so ingrained into the whole area that trying to fight it was as futile as trying to hold back the sun. It was widely speculated that two-thirds of the force was corrupt.

It was not that the Government in Main Dome hadn't tried. During the early 2240s two of the youngest, keenest and best Security officers were posted as Chiefs of Sector 301 to sort the area out, clean it up and purge corruption in the security forces. One was assassinated three weeks into the post, the other was shot and killed during a routine operation when her PPG inexplicably failed. It was discovered later that the weapons issued to the security forces in 301 were of sub-standard, inferior quality, the better weapons having been sold to the mob bosses by corrupt quartermasters.

Main Dome had been determined to keep on trying, but then the war had come, and suddenly Sector 301 wasn't very important any more. It became much more important after the fall of Orion, when the bulk of the refugees swarming to Proxima from Orion and the rest of the devastated Belt Alliance settled there. A few months after that the area was thick with the starving, the sick and the dying, and any hope of redeeming the sector had evaporated.

The early years of the Clark regime had seen some hope for the renovation of the area, but these had faded once it became clear that the new President had his eye on wider fields than his own back yard.