Babylon 5 - Blood Oath

CHAPTER 16

In the ancient catacombs of the Narn Homeworld, three humans and a Narn attaché watched tensely as a dead ambassador climbed up a hole. They kept glancing over their shoulders, expecting an army of lunatics to charge down a passageway clogged with rotting bodies. Ivanova peered nervously up the shaft and couldn't see or hear G'Kar anymore, so she decided it was time to send someone else. She wanted to go next, just to get out of this subterranean hellhole, but she thought it would be better to send Garibaldi.

"You go," she ordered him, "and keep that grenade handy. If I don't hear anything from you in sixty seconds, I'm sending Na'Toth and Al. I'll go last in case they catch up with us from this direction. Go!"

Garibaldi nodded like a soldier, knowing there wasn't any point in being sentimental. Ivanova knew how deeply her closest colleague felt about her. Every day for two years they had relied on each other, suffering through countless crises and a traumatic change in com­mand. Nothing needed to be said. Garibaldi pulled the grenade off the belt and gripped it in his teeth as he climbed quickly up the rope ladder.

Ivanova counted roughly to sixty as she positioned Al Vernon to go next. "It sounds peaceful up there," she said encouragingly. "Climb as fast as you can and don't look back. Just do what Garibaldi and G'Kar tell you. They've been through tough scrapes before."

Al nodded with a nervous gulp, reached for the lad­der, and watched expectantly as Ivanova finished her countdown. When she hit the end of her inaccurate minute, she shoved Al in the back. To his credit, he climbed as if Narn maniacs were chasing him, and he went over the top in about the same time it had taken Garibaldi. Ivanova listened carefully, but she didn't hear any screams or shouts; so she motioned Na'Toth up the rope ladder. That allowed her to turn her full attention to the dark passageway behind her.

Ivanova could still hear the voices reverberating in the rambling catacombs. She had no idea if they were ten meters or a hundred meters away, but she knew she had to get out of there. As soon as Na'Toth was clear, she blew out her candle and stuck it and the PPG in her coat pocket. Then she grabbed the rope ladder and scampered toward daylight.

As Pa'Ko had promised, she emerged in the center of a small chapel. In an alcove sat a large statue of the har­vest goddess, D'Bok, with several rows of crumbling benches facing her. A Narn dressed in rags was asleep on one of the benches, and Ivanova waited in a crouch until she saw Garibaldi lean around the corner of the doorway and motion to her.

Ivanova drew her PPG and jogged into the sunlit street, where she found her companions huddled behind a collapsed wall, awaiting her. The warmth of the sun­baked air struck her full-force and nearly made her shout with happiness. The sweat glands along her back tingled, ready to do their job, and she felt alive, as if escape was possible.

Street Jasgon, however, looked dead. She could tell that the clay buildings were larger and better kept than the ones on Street V'Tar, but it was the middle of the day and Jasgon was totally deserted. That was a bit dis-concerting, if this really was the main drag. People who managed to live in this place had to have a highly evolved sense of self-preservation, she told herself. Besides, anyone in his right mind would stay hidden until the Blood Oath had played itself out, one way or an­other.

She crouched down with her fellows behind the wall and awaited G'Kar's instructions. The Narn was on his hands and knees, peering around the corner of the wall, apparently looking for signs of an ambush. Ivanova looked behind her and saw an unusual sign hanging over one of the storefronts. It was a symbol of a circle with a dash through it, looking something like a stylized capital "Q."

She tapped Na'Toth on the shoulder and pointed to the sign. "What does that mean?"

"It's a medical clinic."

"Here?" asked Ivanova in surprise.

"Doesn't Dr. Franklin spend several mornings a week in Down Below?" asked the Narn. "We have altruistic doctors, too."

They heard shuffling behind them, and Ivanova whirled around to see the derelict scurrying away from the benches. He left a few pieces of ragged clothing, and G'Kar got into a crouch and ran over to fetch the rags.

"What are you doing?" asked Ivanova.

The Narn smiled and threw the rags over his shoul­ders. "I don't see anybody out there, but that doesn't mean they're not there. In fact, it probably means some­thing that nobody is on the street."

He continued, "Plan A is go straight south to the outerwalk, although they could be waiting for us there. Plan B is to fall back to the shrine and descend into the cata­combs again."

G'Kar saw the humans' downcast expressions and pursed his lips. "You don't want to go back there. Neither do I. But we don't stand a chance of holding off a larger force out here in the open, in broad daylight. Down there, we do. Then we can wait them out until nightfall, when we should be able to move about with more safety."

"Is there a plan C?" asked Al Vernon, who was shak­ing despite the hot, red sun beating down on him.

"Plan C is that I give myself up to them," said G'Kar, "although I don't really think that will save your lives. But in the spirit of self-sacrifice, I'm going to walk out there now and draw their fire. We have to know if they're waiting in ambush."

"G'Kar, think about that for a second," insisted Ivanova. "When you were fighting revolts in the colonies, what would you have done?"

"Same thing." He smiled. "Of course, I would have sent one of you."

"Let me go," offered Na'Toth.

He handed her his PPG. "No, all of you must cover me. My life depends upon your marksmanship. I'm going to try to look like a drugged-out derelict, so maybe they'll just warn me away. One way or another, we've got to see who's out there."

Without further discussion, G'Kar staggered to his feet and began to wander, singing, into the middle of the street. Na'Toth chuckled for a moment, then grew somber again.

"What?" asked Ivanova.

"Oh, it's a very bawdy song," she answered.

The lanky Narn moved around the edge of the wall and dropped to her stomach, using her elbows to steady her weapon. Ivanova sighed and took up a similar posi­tion on the other corner, and Garibaldi waited, working the muscles in his jaw. He lifted the grenade and brushed some sand off it. Ivanova doubted whether anybody was looking at them with a drunken Narn staggering down the street, bellowing a bawdy song.

Well, thought G'Kar fatalistically, he had set out to save his life and had ended up casting it away. This was near suicide, and he knew it. This lot would kill a drunk as surely as they would kill an ambassador. He just hoped his friends and colleagues made it out alive.

He crooned another verse of the off-color ballad and stopped in the street to sway uneasily, and reflect. His only true regret in this entire business was that he had neglected Du'Rog's family, making them suffer worse than Du'Rog had. He could have made amends years ago, when instead he sowed the seeds of his own demise. He could have spared innocent people a bellyful of anguish, hatred, and bitterness. Thanks to him, their minds and their souls were out of balance, as a Minbari might say. His soul felt that way, too, which is why he understood.

Mi'Ra should have been in the university, warding off suitors, instead of casting her young life away on a bloody Shon'Kar. It was a Shon'Kar that he could have averted. He remembered a Terran proverb that was appropriate: In the end, it's not the things we do that we regret, it's the things we don't do.

"Get out of there!" hissed a voice. G'Kar cocked his head, as if he were hearing things, and he tried to find the direction of the voice. He saw the sniper crouching between two houses, waving him away. Well, thought G'Kar, maybe he would oblige.

He couldn't move too quickly, as he had to stick with his drunken gait, but he did stagger in the general direc­tion of his comrades, hoping they would realize what this meant. He started bellowing another song, a little love ditty he often sang on B5. For several moments, G'Kar thought he was going to make it back to the wall before somebody figured it out, then he heard a voice that rup­tured the unnatural silence.

"That's him!"screamed Mi'Ra. "Fire!"

Thanks to her warning, he had a chance to hit the ground as pulses of plasma streaked over his head, blow­ing up big chunks of the street. He slithered on his belly as fast as he could while his comrades answered fire, pumping their PPGs down the length of Street Jasgon. Screams echoed behind him, testifying to their accuracy, and G'Kar stole a glance over his shoulder. He wished he hadn't, because he could see Mi'Ra and twenty more bolting from their hiding places. They yelled like lunatics, and G'Kar scrambled to his feet and ran at full speed. He dived over the wall and thudded hard against a pedestal, as a shot followed him over and obliterated the pedestal, showering him with chunks of clay.

"Al!" yelled Ivanova, "hit the ladder!" The chubby human didn't need any more encouragement to run for safety.

Na'Toth and Ivanova continued to shoot at the advancing mob with deadly accuracy, but Mi'Ra and several others kept coming. Worse, the enemy's fire-power was starting to reduce the wall to rubble; in a few more seconds, their cover would be gone.

"Na'Toth and G'Kar" ordered Ivanova, "hit the lad­der!" She glanced at Garibaldi, and he held up the grenade. She nodded.

The women ran for the shrine, but G'Kar hung back for a split-second. He wanted to see whether Garibaldi would try to kill Mi'Ra. That was probably their only chance of escaping death. The security chief hurled the grenade, and their eyes followed the missile's arc. Mi'Ra had the presence of mind to hurl herself into the dirt as the grenade sailed past her and landed among the terri­fied pack. They screamed even before the fireball engulfed them.

A PPG blast shattered what was left of the wall, and Garibaldi and G'Kar ran for it. They dashed into the shrine and weaved their way between the benches, but G'Kar slowed up to let the human reach the ladder first. His close encounter with death a moment ago had steeled him. If Death wanted him so badly, let it take him! From now on, he would risk his own life first and foremost, while he pro­tected his friends' lives as much as he could. Maybe this was what the fates demanded from him for atonement—total selflessness. If so, he was happy to oblige.

He looked up at the statue of D'Bok, the harvest god­dess. A PPG beam blasted a chunk of the alcove away, but G'Kar took a moment to bow his head to the vener­ated goddess. "D'Bok, Mistress of the Fields, I place my life in your hands. Help me to be brave and do what is honorable."

Another shot sang over his head, and G'Kar stepped into the open hole in the floor of the shrine, deftly catch­ing the top rung. He stopped halfway down and pulled a knife out of his boot, then he reached up and began saw­ing away at the ropes. Enraged shouts and pounding footsteps made him grit his teeth and saw all the harder. The first rope snapped, and he dropped and crashed into the shaft wall. G'Kar groaned and reached up to saw on the other rope, but the voices were alarmingly near. He considered jumping off, but he didn't want to leave them any easy way down.

G'Kar sawed wildly with his blade as the loudest foot­steps came to a stop. A hand holding a PPG pistol reached over the edge, and G'Kar remembered that tac­tic. He jabbed upward with his knife and caught the Narn in the forearm, spearing it like a fat fish. Blood spurted, the PPG clattered to the bottom of the shaft, and the wounded man screamed and struggled. When more thugs crowded around the hole, G'Kar let go of both the knife and the ladder. His legs crumpled under him as he landed, and he bumped his shoulder hard against the, shaft. He shook his head, trying to clear his senses, and he felt something poking him in the rear. He reached down to find the PPG weapon.

Not a bad trade, he thought. A knife for a PPG. He aimed the weapon to finish the job on the ladder, but two arms pointed into the hole with PPGs. They blew out chunks of the shaft, and G'Kar scurried away as the debris rained down.

He saw Ivanova just ahead of him, motioning with a candle. "Come on!" she urged him. "The others went down to the tomb already."

As he ran toward her, G'Kar waved his new PPG. "Look what I found. You join the others. I cut half the ladder, but I want to discourage them from coming down after us."

Ivanova shook her head. "Just remember, you're not Superman."

"Who?"

"Look out!" shouted Ivanova.

She shoved G'Kar out of the way and drilled a thug just as he was emerging from the shaft. He slumped against a long row of bodies, looking like the youngest in a family portrait.

"Vo'Koth!" called a voice from above. "Vo'Koth!"

G'Kar put his finger to his lips, telling Ivanova not to say anything. Silence was the only answer they wanted to give. Let them realize that whoever used the shrine to enter the catacombs was going to die.

"These aren't trained soldiers fighting for their home-world," whispered G'Kar. "These are cowardly cutthroats. Their losses must already be substantial, and Mi'Ra can't count on them to keep risking their lives for­ever. Let's wait them out until darkness."

Ivanova nodded in agreement, but she had a concern. "We humans are going to need water pretty soon, and we'll all need food."

"We'll get them," promised G'Kar, "somehow."

Ivanova and G'Kar stood watch at the shrine until it became clear that no more mercenaries were going to plunge blithely into the catacombs. The waiting game seemed to have set in on both sides. Ivanova still felt at a disadvantage, because she would have rather been on the surface than in this subterranean necropolis. But at least they were alive and not under attack.

As she and G'Kar wound their way back through the narrow passageway, they saw a light and dropped into a crouch. After a moment they realized it was Garibaldi, wielding a tiny candle.

"There you are!" he said with relief. "I was about to send the bloodhounds after you."

G'Kar chuckled. "We wanted to discourage them from coming after us, and I think we did. Any sign of them at your end?"

"None," answered Garibaldi, "and I scouted all the way to the well, where we first came down. I guess the only reason they came down before was to drive us into the open."

"Now they're waiting, like us," said Ivanova with cer­tainty.

There wasn't much to add to that conclusion, and she followed G'Kar and Garibaldi into the eerie tomb, where they had met Pa'Ko and the children. Pa'Ko was there, along with Al Vernon and Na'Toth, who stood guard over the other two entrances.

Upon seeing the new arrivals, Pa'Ko jumped in front of G'Kar and slammed a fist to his skinny chest. "Sir, I understand you are a famous person, an ambassador! You were traveling in disguise, I saw that."

"I hope you can keep quiet about that," said G'Kar with a twinkle in his eye. "It would appear as if you can keep a secret, which is good to know."

"If I couldn't," said Pa'Ko brightly, "you would be dead."

G'Kar cleared his throat. "I suppose so. Then listen, soldier, we're going to stay here until nightfall. But our human friends need water, and we could all use some nourishment." He looked at Al. "Do you have any of those coins left?"

Al smiled sheepishly and fished in his pocket, pulling out a handful of black coins. "I got lucky on a few bar bets in that tavern," he said nostalgically. "Boy, would I like to be back there now."

He handed all the coins to an amazed Pa'Ko. "Do you think you could get us something to drink and eat for that?"

The boy nodded excitedly. "A feast!! I know a woman who cooks, and she can also keep a secret."

"A feast isn't necessary," said Al. "The water is the most important thing. Also a few motion detectors would be nice." He forced a smile. "Just kidding."

"Silsop cakes," suggested G'Kar. "Something that would be easy to carry. And keep some of the coins for yourself."

The boy nodded excitedly, then bent over in an exag­gerated bow and clicked his heels. In a flash he was gone.

"I hate to buy people's loyalty," said G'Kar, "but it usually works."

Al wagged a finger at him. "You owe me some money, Mr. Ambassador, if we ever get out of here!"

"Pretty big 'if,' " grumbled Garibaldi.

G'Kar nodded gravely. "I know, I owe all of you plenty. And don't think I don't realize it. I've been a huge fool, but I've learned a substantial lesson about how to treat people."

The ambassador wandered to one of the three entrances and leaned against the wall, tapping his PPG pistol against his brawny arm. "Fear and neglect often go together," he observed. "We neglect what we fear by pre­tending it doesn't exist. Then we must fear what we neglect, knowing that someday it might come back to haunt us."

He motioned around the dreary tomb. "Look at this place, where our children live. It is not enough to say that other societies have similar places—this must be dealt with! Ignore it, and we breed a race like those animals who are chasing us. And someday they won't be content to kill each other over a few coins."

Nobody could say much to refute G'Kar, especially under their present circumstances. They were out of grenades, but at least they had three PPGs and several candles. Ivanova also thought about the intense heat that would soon be roasting the surface. They should be happy to be ten meters underground, where the temper­ature would remain pleasantly cool. She could get used to temperatures like this, but never to the stale smells, the grinning corpses, and the claustrophobia of being inside the ground.

She doubted whether many humans would like it down in the catacombs. Whether it was a cloud-filled sky or an orbital station, humans liked open spaces.

Ivanova took up a station on one of the earthen entranceways and checked her PPG. She wondered how much charge it had left in it.

The commander gazed too long at a flickering candle and was stirred out of troubled daydreams by the sound of feet scuffling through the catacombs. She cursed her­self for her carelessness and drew her PPG. Only the fact that the weapon would soon be out of charge prevented her from firing at once, and she was glad she waited. She heard Pa'Ko's gleeful chuckle before she actually saw him skipping toward her, dragging a plastic sack.

"It is dinner time for all of you!" he gushed. First the boy passed plastic bottles to the three humans, each of whom drank ravenously. The water smelled heavily of minerals, but it tasted cool and refreshing. Ivanova knew that she might be picking up parasites or bacteria it would take weeks to get rid of, but she didn't care.

The boy unwrapped packages of small cakes, various pieces of cured fish and animal flesh, and a few dried fruits. "I promised you a feast!" he said proudly.

"Thank you, Pa'Ko." G'Kar patted the boy's bald head. "You have served us well. If you want to come back to B5 with us—after this is all over—perhaps we could find you an adoptive family. Would you like that?"

"Critical!" the boy beamed. "Now you must eat."

G'Kar picked up a cake and began to much on it. "Did you see any of our friends out there?"

Pa'Ko nodded seriously. "I saw the beautiful lady, my friend, and she was yelling at some of the others. She called them cowards and buffoons." The boy laughed and slapped his thigh. "She knows them pretty well!"

He shrugged. "I think they would have killed her, but some of the braver and younger ones stayed with her. I saw her give bloodstones to some who went away. There has been so much fighting that they fear someone has called the rangers. Of course, they may come or not—who knows?"

"You saw a great deal," said Na'Toth, bending down to pick up a slice of cured flesh.

"Always!" grinned Pa'Ko. "The food is good, isn't it? I had some on the way here. Aunt Lo'Mal sure knows how to dry porcine. The others trade animals for her cakes, so she always has more than she should have."

Al grabbed a piece and took a big bite. "It's excel­lent!" he assured the boy.

"With all these supplies," said G'Kar, "we could eas­ily make it to the plebeian village. As Mi'Ra loses people, she loses her ability to cover all of the escape routes. She'll still be expecting us to try for the outerwalk, so maybe we should try another way."

"I'm game," said Garibaldi.

It was amazing what food and water did to lift the spirits, even if you were entombed in a dreary stretch of catacombs, surrounded by dead and deadly Narns. Ivanova giggled at the word play in her mind.

"What's so funny?" asked Na'Toth, and then she gig­gled, too.

Ivanova felt light-headed, but she wasn't alarmed until she saw G'Kar, who was clutching at his throat and stag­gering around, as if he had lost his motor skills. Na'Toth laughed uproariously at this until she started gagging and clutching her throat. Ivanova whirled around, losing her balance. She tried to concentrate on the bizarre objects that were whirling around the tomb, so she focused on the biggest thing in the room, Al Vernon. He was asleep on the dusty floor, completely unconscious.

Garibaldi whirled around, waving his PPG. She could tell by the way he kept rubbing his eyes and staggering that he wasn't feeling too well. "You poisoned us, you bastard!" he screamed. "Where are you?"

A childish giggle seemed to haunt the room.

G'Kar collapsed to the floor, convulsing. Na'Toth was on her knees, throwing up repeatedly. Garibaldi was staggering around, unsure of his vision. The eerie, candlelit tomb pitched and swayed as if it were on a ship at sea, yet Ivanova could still spot the small Narn dash­ing for the passageway. She wanted to aim her PPG at him, but she didn't have the coordination.

He turned to them and shook his head sadly, like an adult considering the fragility of life. "Critical. That's what you are. Enjoy the afterlife, compliments of the Thenta Ma'Kur."

With a somersault, Pa'Ko was gone.