She was four when the Corps found them.

Her parents had booked passage on a Centauri freighter headed for a colony on the edge of Minbari space. Someone in the crew betrayed them, a bloodhound unit was waiting at a layover stop.

Her last clear memory of her parents is their presence in her mind. The sense of their desperate love burying itself deep into her psyche, ingrained so deep no one in the Corps could ever find or remove it.

It hadn’t stopped them from trying. Many times over many years Lauren was scanned for any sign of anything her parents could have done or told her but always those memories remained stubbornly out of their reach. Protected by her parents skill and her own desperation to never let go. Instead, she gave them no reason to mistrust her loyalty. She learned to play the Psi Corps political games better than the veterans in its upper echelon. She played that game with an ease and skill all her own and she played with her agenda kept tightly to her chest. She let them believe that she accepted their account of what had happened to her parents without hesitation and, on some level, she did believe some.

Her father had grossly over calculated his own skill and his cohort’s capabilities and his weakness had cost his family their freedom. She knew that. She would never be that weak. But on the other hand, that determination meant she would be no pawn of the Corps.

She was her own master and her own ally. Recognizing the agendas and games of those around her was second nature. Playing them to her own ends was no less easy. Those she could not fool or manipulate were dealt with in other methods. Her telepathic talents were formidable and those of lesser strength she saw no reason to spare. A thought here and a suggestion there became familiar tools of the trade. The trick was ensuring her superiors agreed with her methods but that was always a certainty. Lauren was the quintessential Psi cop and respected among her peers. Those that knew her skills in the ranks above her had little problem with letting her have a measure of freedom as long as their own goals were met and she always saw to that. She wasn’t foolish enough to make that mistake.

However, she was not a foolish woman. She recognized the ever shifting sands of the Psi Corps political structure and knew that the day would come when she could no longer work within its ranks.

That day arrived the first time she sensed the presence of the Shadows. The infiltration of the Corps by the mysterious aliens left no doubt that it had outlived it’s usefulness to her and she’d implemented an exit strategy she’d designed years before.

It was a carefully orchestrated plan which left no room for mistake or betrayal. Lauren would not be so foolish as her parents. She, unlike them, had no intention of ending up in a Psi Corp rehabilitation facility or on one of their dissection tables. She would not be used as breeding stock and she would not be experimented upon to serve their interests. Her plan would not allow for capture and her plan succeeded.

She arrived on Babylon 5 at a pivotal moment in the war against the Shadows. It was the moment when Sheridan and his forces were recruiting her kind as combatants and she decided to number herself among the recruits. There were little options otherwise. The Shadows were intent on destruction and domination and if Lauren Reed would not be controlled by the Corps then she would not be controlled by the Corps’ masters.

But she had never thought it would be like this.

Standing on the glossy deck of the White Star, Lauren heard nothing of the activity going on around her. Instead, she stared steadily outward as her mind locked horns with the ship hanging in space before them. It slithered and bucked in her mind, spider-like tendrils creeping into her mind and into her thoughts trying to sift through them and find something of use. She set her jaw and lashed back, calling all the skills she’d honed in the years of manipulation and strategy amongst the Psi Corps ranks. It took everything she had just to keep going. The feeling was like nothing she’d ever felt before. The filth, dirt, and rank darkness of it all made her shiver and her stomach revolt in nausea.

She didn’t know if it was the Shadows or her own body’s reaction to the feeling of it in her mind. She didn’t care. The Corps had allied themselves with these things. They’d willingly let this loose on telepaths and mundanes alike and they would *pay*.

Dimly Lauren heard the crew as they worked but she shut it out and dug down deep. Found the memories, heard the sounds of the bloodhound unit trooping toward them, heard the mindcries of her parents as they were dragged away, saw the files she’d found as an adult which detailed what had been done to them...she let all the rage of that build up from those things begin to work loose. Everything she had kept locked away and pushed down deep she let free and let it form into an image of a knife. Sleek, sharp and deadly. She watched it form and when she was ready she let it fly free. Sent it hurtling into the heart of that *thing*...

She felt, as much as heard, its reaction...an agonized wave of rage exploded outward.

And she smiled.

No more.

Finis

 

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