Title: Boom Tomorrow
Fandom: Babylon 5
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Susan Ivanova.
Rating: G
Word Count: 610
Spoilers: Grail, A Voice In The Wilderness.
Summary: There’s always a boom tomorrow.
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 283: Tomorrow.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Babylon 5, or the characters. They belong to J. Michael Straczynski.


Ivanova stared out through the observation window in C & C. Something always seemed to be exploding around here, or getting ready to, but as long as the whole damned planet below didn’t decide to blow itself to bits without leave to do so they’d be okay.

Probably.

Mostly.

For the moment, at least.

Sooner or later something would go boom though, it always did, but with luck it wouldn’t happen today. It could wait until tomorrow, preferably when she wasn’t on duty. Just once let it be someone else’s problem.

Anyone who thought Ivanova was a pessimist had it all wrong; she was Russian, and therefore a realist. Big difference. She’d simply worked on Babylon 5 long enough to know that things going boom was a regular occurrence, something to be expected. It was bound to happen and so when it did, it never came as a surprise, it was just one more annoying thing in a long list of annoying things for her to deal with.

Maintenance did their best, but this was a space station, located in a sector a very long way from earth, which meant supply lines were stretched thin. Not all of the equipment on board was as good as it could be, thanks to cost-cutting bureaucrats, and getting replacement parts shipped out cost money those in charge back home weren’t willing to spend since they’d already set the station’s budget. EarthGov wouldn’t authorise additional funds so Commander Sinclair had found his own way around the problem, but diverting money from the military budget wasn’t an immediate fix, the spare parts and replacement equipment still needed time to arrive.

In the meantime everyone was doing the best they could with what they had, but things still occasionally exploded. Residents and transient visitors sometimes shot at each other or set booby traps for their enemies, visiting ships had been known to malfunction, saboteurs were not unheard of, and some of the alien races had truly bizarre customs.

As if all that wasn’t enough to contend with, now Epsilon 3 had decided to get in on the act, suffering what had at first appeared to be earthquakes, and then firing missiles at the survey shuttle sent to investigate what was causing the tremors and evaluate whether or not the station was in danger. The planet was supposed to be uninhabited, but at this point nobody could be certain of what was going on down there. The missiles might just be part of an automated defence system no one had known about until now, left there by some long ago race and triggered by the volcanic disturbances, but no one could be sure. Right now Susan needed to focus on getting the survey team back, preferably in one piece. If they’d listened to her in the first place they probably wouldn’t be in their current situation.

She sighed, exasperated. She’d been right a few weeks back when Jinxo left the station; if nothing went boom today it was a safe bet that something would tomorrow. There was always a boom tomorrow, unless someone could find a way of preventing it, and with her luck she’d be the one that task was assigned to. Wonderful; it was a miracle she wasn’t going grey yet, although she wasn’t going to rule out that possibility either. It would all depend on what tomorrow brought.

Just please God let her get through today without anything critical going boom. At least let her live long enough to rip Dr Tasaki to shreds for disobeying her instructions. If the whole damned planet blew up, taking Babylon 5 with it, she was blaming him!


The End