Revenge Wars
Epsiode V
(?) Strikes Back
Section II - The Price of Freedom
***
Day 2
David Row looked across the table in the police interrogation-style room.
Sitting on the other side were two battered, irritated individuals, who were
making a definite point of not looking at each other.
He took another deep drink of his coffee, and then put it to one side, the
exaggerated care with which he set down the cup the only sight of how
angry he was. He gave a quick glance at Iczer, standing lazily in the corner of
the room, as she shook her head in an infinitesimal gesture. He didn't really
need their link to know she was telling him that these two weren't any
closer to acting intelligently; so, he'd have to do this the hard way.
Placing both hands on the table, he looked for a long moment first at
Webdragon, then at Prime, his glance deceptively mild until you actually met
his eyes. After a few second of trying to meet his gaze, both of them had
turned away, some of their defiance being slowly replaced with uncertainty.
"Just what the hell did you think you were doing?" He asked. His voice was
mild, but dripping sarcasm. Both of his victims winced.
"It's personal." Prime replied.
David looked at Prime, until he couldn't meet David's eyes and looked down
again at the table.
"'Personal'?! You two blew the hell out of an entire habitation block and that's
the best you can come up with?" David sat down heavily. "Look, it's not my
job to chew you two out. That responsibility falls to Ukyou, or maybe Wyrm.
But before I send you to them, I'd like to know WHY you were acting like a
pair of 5-year-olds fighting in a sandpit?"
"Sir, if you'll let me explain..." Webdragon began.
David smiled, completely insincerely, as he replied with honeyed tones.
"Explain? Oh, I'd just _love_ to hear an explanation that would justify this!!
Now listen to me, both of you! The way you two acted was inexcusable,
_regardless_ of the circumstances. I don't know if you realize this yet, but
you aren't just some faceless grunts who regularly get into fights and no one
cares. You are officers, and as such you are _required_ to adhere to higher
standards of conduct _AT_ _ALL_ _TIMES_!"
The last was in a _much_ louder voice than his previous comments, and the
sudden change had the desired effect.
Prime and Webdragon stiffened. "Yes, sir!"
"I could have you both court martialled and thrown in the stockade until
your _grandkids_ are old and grey! Whatever problems you two may have I
want them sorted out NOW, and whatever personal problems come up in the
future, it is NOT to impact on your performance in the field, is that clear?"
"Yes sir!" Webdragon and Prime replied crisply.
He cast them both a disgusted look.
"Dismissed, the pair of you. Get out of here." David said, waving them out.
Before they could leave, though, he held up a hand to stop them. There was
a grin on his face that could only be considered evil, and both of them
stopped dead as they realised that there wasn't any humour behind it.
"Considering you two have both undergone a recent change in power levels,
it's obvious that you need some sort of training in the use of that power,
before you level the entire damned compound."
He looked over at Iczer-2, who replied with a broad grin, and a slow look at
both of them, neither of which reassured them in the slightest. She looked
_far_ too much like a cat eyeing a pair of canaries, canaries tied up and
ready...
David saw their looks, and the sudden realisation that there _could_ be
worse fates than the stockade, if you upset a senior officer badly enough. He
grinned to himself, but kept his voice as poker-faced as his expression.
"Iczer 2 is arranging just such a class. I expect you to enrol."
The two gulped, nodded and walked out. David watched them go, and idly
wondered if the rest of SpecOps was this bad. Probably. Still, at least those
two had gotten a shock, he just hoped he and Iczer-2 didn't have to waste
too much time on the others, they had more important tasks right now.
***
Barry was off learning how to get bruised and fall over again courtesy of
Ryouga and Webdragon, Mackie turned around in his chair to face Katherine.
"Kate. Look. What's going on with Barry? I don't think he's sleeping at all,
and sometimes I think he's... I don't know, cold."
"There are things I cannot tell you Mr Stingray. You do not need to know."
"You keep saying that. I think we could replace you with a voice activated
recorder that plays 'You don't need to know... you don't need to know'."
Kate suppressed a laugh "It does seem like that sometimes, but you know
one of the ways we are trying to track the mole is by the controlled release
of information."
"Well then, let me help!"
"Do you know what it entails? Outside of Barry and I, you will not be able to
talk about anything to do with it to anyone. I mean that. Anyone.
Intelligence work is a dirty game with no glory and the only time we get any
recognition is when something goes wrong. You always have to watch what
you say, you may have to lie to your best friends."
"Will it hurt (?) ?" he looked at her intensely.
Kate looked back at him, weighing, judging. Eventually she answered.
"Yes."
Mackie's face was grim. "Then I want in."
***
Kate spent several hours giving Mackie a quickie course in
counterintelligence, eventually drifting to her role at Genom.
"Genom does a lot of good. Do not forget that. If it had ever become
important to find out who the Knight Sabers were, do you not think we
could have?"
"Then what my sister fought for was all for _nothing_? It didn't _matter_?"
"I didn't say that. On a purely physical level, no, your sister and her
compatriots could never have destroyed Genom, but in some ways you were
very useful. Mason, Largo and that idiot Miriam spring to mind. Looking at it
from a different perspective, it was necessary to have even a token
opposition. If the Knight Sabers did not exist, It would have been necessary
to invent them." she giggled "I think I would have enjoyed organising that."
Mackie looked strangely at her. <Giggling?>
"You, your sister and her friends kept the lid on things. Without them, as a
balancing force, the bubble would indeed have either collapsed or exploded.
Neither prospect pleases. Whatever damage they did was more than
counterbalanced by that. What people seem to forget is that the reason for
any company's existence, Genom included, is to make a profit for it's
shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less."
***
They got about thirty meters away from the Security building before Prime
finally stopped and turned to Webdragon-chan. "Okay, we're supposed to talk
this out. So talk."
Webdragon-chan crossed her arms. "What exactly do you want me to say?"
"For starters, what the hell were you thinking leaving Proxy alone in the
dorm?"
Webdragon-chan shook her head. "Damnit Prime, we've been over this! Do
you think for a second that if I thought Proxy or Sandra were in any danger I
would have left them? In case you've forgotten I've also got a responsibility to
all the other civilians, too."
Prime narrowed his eyes, but remained silent, glaring at Webdragon-chan.
Finally she had taken enough. "Fine, be like that! But consider this If
Proxima's welfare meant so much to you, why didn't YOU stay with her?
Instead you foisted her off on someone who was so shot up that any normal
human would have collapsed, and went off to play hero. How is that any
different from what I did?"
Prime looked stricken. He didn't say anything, but the horror in his blue
eyes told Webdragon-chan that he hadn't considered that. She turned and
walked away, leaving him to consider his actions.
A few minutes later her anger drained away, leaving her feeling a little guilty
for having said that. It would certainly make it difficult for Prime to face
Proxima again. She was having her own difficulties, remembering how
Sandra had begged her to stay. But she also remembered the same little girl
clutching her mother's mangled, bloody corpse, crying and cowering from
some red-eyed monster. Webdragon-chan knew she could never willingly
allow anything like that to happen again.
***
Magic Knight Kyone, Frosty Usa were sitting in Akkies with the Sailors of
Doom.
"Well," said Kyone "how do you like it so far Richard?"
"Looks good, but I'll have to do a proper taste test to be sure." Phobos stated
hungrily, staring at the large bowl of chocolate ice cream in front of her. A
similar bowl sat in front of Deimos, and was being regarded with equal
appetite.
In uncanny unison they picked up their spoons and prepared to joyously
embark on a new adventure of taste.
Kyone quietly growled and their eyes blinked rapidly.
"Oh did you mean how do I like FRED? It's alright I suppose..." Deimos
commented abstractedly.
"...Anyway, why _did_ you want to see me?" continued Phobos.
"Well," sighed Frosty "I'm a little worried about Mr Cadwgan, or rather his
choice of personnel."
"Hmmmm??" the pair made a questioning sound, glancing up from their
dairy treats.
"Barry's getting pretty good at looking after himself according to Webdragon,
but Ms Madigan is a little less capable, and as she is pretty much running
the admin side... well, I would rather like having someone around her who
knows what they're doing, and that I can trust."
"Keep her safe? Bodyguard her? Is that what you're asking me?" Phobos
replied.
"And keep an eye on her. Just in case, you understand." Frosty transfixed
Phobos with a glance
"Oh sure! I get what you mean. That's easy!" Deimos grinned. Then she
froze, an expression of delight passed over her features. Phobos had a
similar expression marred only by the spoon poking out of her mouth.
***
Prime made his way to the infirmary. Erin had dropped Proxima off there
after the all-clear was sounded so that she could be checked over. She
spotted him as he entered the building.
"Dad!" She cried and ran over to him. She looked worried. "Are you alright?
What happened to you?"
Prime realized that he must look pretty bad. Webdragon had really done a
number on his armor, which was torn and cracked in a dozen places. He felt
grimy, and figured he must smell pretty bad. "I'm fine. Are you okay?"
Proxima crossed her arms and pouted. "Oh I'm just peachy! Erin promised
to take me to Shallow 15, but when we got there, it was completely trashed!
and that stupid computer of his kept on singing this dumb 'Daisy' song! And
THEN I get dragged here so that they can poke and prod me even when
there's obviously nothing wrong..."
Prime smiled and hugged her, reassured. Still Webdragon's words kept
haunting him. He released a somewhat embarrassed Proxima. "Is Nightelf
around?"
Proxima cocked her head. "Yeah, she just went off duty. Why?"
"I just wanted to talk to her about something." Prime said. He walked down
the corridor, letting his instincts guide him towards the strongest mental
presence, which he assumed would be Nicola.
He was right. She was looking out of the balcony of one of the empty rooms,
staring at the rows of damaged and destroyed buildings.
"Nick?" Prime asked tentatively. His resolve began to waver, and he
wondered if this was a mistake.
Nicola turned and smiled. "What brings the Prime Sagittarian here?"
Prime stepped out onto the balcony and leaned against the railing. "I need
some advice."
Nightelf raised an eyebrow. "Actually, Ranchan is probably the one you'd
want to talk to."
Prime shook his head. "No. This is a parental thing, and you're the only one
I could think of who might be able to help."
"Oh." Nightelf replied. "I'm afraid I'm not very experienced in that field,
either, but I'll try. What's your problem?"
Prime shook his head. "I... I'm not the kind of person who gets mad easily,
Nick. But today I completely lost it. I went completely berserker."
"I heard." Nicola replied. "You and Webdragon caused quite a bit of damage."
"That's the problem." Prime said. "With these new abilities I'm developing,
losing control has become dangerous, not just to me, but those around me."
He closed his eyes. "I nearly got Yuri killed today, and I didn't even realize it
until later. And the worst part is, I'm as guilty as Webdragon. I left Proxima
alone, just like he did."
Nightelf put a reassuring hand on his arm. "Prime, the desire to protect
one's child is probably the strongest instinct we have. It's understandable
that you weren't ready to deal with the kind of emotional response it
evoked."
"I think part of the rage I felt was because she was put in danger, and I
wasn't there to protect her." Prime admitted. "I feel like... I failed her."
Nightelf nodded. "That's understandable. But you have to realize that you
can't always be there to protect her. As long as this war goes on, Proxima
will be at risk, along with everyone else. There are others here who need
your protection. They don't have the power you have, they can't fight like
you can. The best thing you can do to protect your daughter is to fight the
darkness as best you can, along with the rest of us." She sighed. "I don't
know if that helps any."
Prime straightened and smiled a little. "Yeah. 'With Great Power Comes
Great Responsibility'. I used to read Spider-Man as a kid. I never thought I'd
actually be in a situation where that saying would apply." He turned to leave,
then paused. "By the way, what is his name going to be?"
"Who?"
Prime gestured at her distended belly. "Nightelf junior."
Nicola blushed and absently rubbed her stomach. "I haven't decided yet."
"Be sure to let me know when you do." Prime replied, and walked out of the
room.
<Nick's right, I can't protect Proxima 24 hours a day.> He thought. <But I
CAN teach her how to protect herself.> He stopped and sniffed himself
experimentally. <*Phew*! But first I need a shower!>
***
Nicola sighed, sitting uncomfortably in a chair as she sipped her drink,
hoping it would help keep her alert. In a way, she was grateful for the pain
in her back, caused by all her standing earlier, it was stopping her from
falling asleep on her feet. She smiled ironically to herself; she never thought
she'd have been glad for the backpains being pregnant caused!
She rubbed her gritty-feeling eyes with one had, looking around as she took
stock of the situation in the Medical wing. Although it still looked like the
aftermath of the disaster it was, it was a vast improvement from the chaos of
last night. All the casualties requiring urgent treatment had been or were
still in surgery, and the additional medic teams transported in seemed to be
coping. They'd now started on the non-serious injuries, and there was a
constant stream of personnel trickling in to have cuts and similar injuries
treated, so they could get back to their jobs. She'd already sent out a
message on the com net to the section heads making sure their people
came in today; she didn't want any fools ignoring their wounds till they _did_
get serious it was far more efficient to treat them now and to get them back
to work. There was a _lot_ of clearing up to do.
She swirled the rest of the decaf in her cup, grimacing a little at the taste,
wondering how they could get the taste of coffee so completely wrong. A
small noise shook her from her reverie, and she looked up at the source
David Row and Iczer-2. David didn't seem to be very happy at coming here,
judging by the way he kept throwing disgruntled looks at Iczer-2. He didn't
look too badly hurt, though, just a couple of bandages here and there. She
smiled to herself; even after the order for all the troops to come in, she'd
known the officers wouldn't have considered that order applying to them.
She wondered who'd been responsible for making him come?
***
Iczer-2 sighed, looking at her partner's back as he stood in the line to have
his cuts properly dressed. She wished he'd take better care of himself; she
hadn't gone to all this trouble to find him just to let him die! He'd been fast
enough to order his men in to get seen to, but hadn't seemed to consider
that the order applied to him as well. She didn't think his injuries were
bad, but humans were so fragile...
Idly looking around the medical centre as she waited, her attention was
grabbed by a young woman sitting off to one side. There was something
unusual about her... she didn't appear hurt and was very obviously pregnant.
Curious, she extended her empathic sense in her direction. To her
surprise, the probes were intercepted, not by a shield but by a similar
response. She cast a quick glance at David to make sure he hadn't slipped
off, then slowly made her way over to the strange girl, stopping a few feet
away.
"Hello. My name is Iczer-2."
The girl looked back up at her, an odd expression on her face. Iczer-2
couldn't recognise it; it looked partly curious, but she didn't understand the
rest of it. And she couldn't read an active empath like she could an
unshielded person. She smiled, and slowly sat down close to her, trying her
best to appear non-threatening.
Nicola looked up at the slim girl, noting the exotic features as she tried
without success to read her emotions. She didn't know much about Iczer-2,
and most of the rumours she'd heard had sounded either wildly exaggerated
or _very_ wildly exaggerated, depending on their source. She looked on with
a somewhat rueful envy at the grace with which the young woman sat,
watching at her with a frankly curious gaze; she didn't _look_ like a 'lesbian
killer fembot', but after last night she was getting more than a little
distrustful of outward appearances.
"I didn't expect to see you here in the medical centre, Iczer-2."
"Neither did I, but I wanted to make sure my partner got his cuts seen to."
"Your... partner??" <So some of what I heard was true>, Nicola thought.
<She did take David as her partner. I wonder what that implies?>
Iczer-2 nodded. "He got hurt during the fighting last night. He didn't want
to come, but I can be quite... persuasive."
Nicola couldn't help but smile in response to the grin accompanying that
statement. She was surprised, though. All she'd heard about Iczer-2
indicated she was an extremely tough and ruthless fighter. Nothing she'd
heard even hinted at this almost whimsical sense of humour. Moreover, the
faint trickle of emotions that made it past her shields felt nothing like the
cold, vicious warrior she'd expected.
"I'm sure you can! Oh, my name is Nicola. I'm the acting Chief Medical
Officer."
Iczer-2 gave a small bow in response, then looked at Nicola with frank
curiosity.
"Excuse me, but... aren't you pregnant?"
Nicola grinned. It wasn't obvious?
"Oh yes, but Tofuu was badly injured last night, and someone has to do it."
Iczer-2 looked at her, her eyes curious - and with something else hidden
that Nicola couldn't quite make out.
"Your baby... this hasn't damaged him?"
Nicola sternly held her own worries about exactly that in check.
"No, he'll be fine, really! " <I hope...> But how did you know it was a boy?
Iczer-2 blushed faintly, a reaction which again surprised Nichola.
"I felt him inside of you. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, but he leaked
past your shields."
Nicola smiled. "No, you weren't being rude! I haven't been a psi for long,
and there hasn't been much chance to practice my abilities, let alone find
out about them."
Iczer-2 nodded thoughtfully. "I wasn't quite sure if it was normal; you see,
I've never met a pregnant woman before, especially one who was an esper."
Nicola frowned. "You haven't? But surely some of your race must be..?"
Iczer-2 shook her head. "No. Cthulu women use the biotanks to gestate
their children. I've never felt someone actually carrying a child inside them.
It's... fascinating..."
"So when you have children, you place them in these biotanks? That seems
odd to me."
Iczer-2 grinned at her, a half-smile that didn't convey any humour. "Well, it's
hardly relevant to me. After all, I can't have children."
Nicola blinked at the mix of emotions that faintly leaked through the
woman's shields.
"You can't? But why not?"
"I'm a living weapon, remember? The Cthulu didn't want a bioweapon with
my power suffering from PMS, so they didn't bother to include a
reproductive system when they designed the Iczers." The careless shrug
with which she imparted the information was rather negated by a touch of
bitterness.
Nicola looked rather embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I... I didn't know."
"That's OK. I know you didn't."
"Oh... am I radiating _that_ much?"
Iczer-2 smiled inwardly. "Not really, but I'm a pretty good empath.
Although most of it's leaking out from your baby. He hasn't got his own
shields yet."
Nichola reflexively looked down at her belly, a small worried frown on her
face.
"I wish I knew how all this would affect him. Noone seems to have any
experience of what happens when an empath has a baby. I'm scared that all
the violent emotions here will damage him somehow. I wish I knew, but..."
"Would you like my help? I think I can do something to help protect him."
Nichola almost said yes immediately, but then stopped, thoughts running
quickly through her mind. Could she trust this girl, after what she'd heard
about her? She seemed friendly enough, but this was her _baby_! She
couldn't afford to take risks with the child on the line.
"I... I don't know..."
Iczer-2 looked at her closely, a sad expression on her face.
"You don't trust me, do you?"
Nichola shook her head. "I... I just can't! I don't know you, I'm sorry. It's not
that I don't appreciate your offer, but..."
Iczer-2 looked at her, nodding slowly, as if weighing a decision in her mind.
Then she knelt gracefully in front of Nicola, gently taking the surprised
woman's hands in hers, and placing them against her head.
"Here."
Nicola blinked rapidly, unsure what was going on. Then she gasped in
surprise, as she felt Iczer-2's shields expand until she was enveloped within
them, allowing her to feel the girl's emotions. She didn't know what to
make of it, or them, as the complex feelings rushed around her, a
multicoloured whirlpool that brushed against the edges of her mind. She
didn't really understand much of it; Iczer-2 was far more complex than
she'd realised, but she couldn't detect any sense of malice towards her. She
looked into Iczer-2's deep cobalt eyes, smiled softly, and gently slid her
hands back down against her lap.
"I would love your help."
Iczer-2 smiled, and very softly pressed one slim hand against the bulge of
Nicola's belly, her eyes half closing as she concentrated. Nicola wasn't
exactly sure what she was doing, it seemed rather complex, as she tried to
understand it to be sure it was safe. Then the girl slid her hand away,
smiling softly.
"There. I've attached your shield to him, so anything that affects him will
have to get past your shields first. It isn't perfect, of course, but it's better
protection than he had before. I hope it's enough."
Nicola nodded, uncertain what to say in response, as Iczer-2 looked over to
where David stood waiting.
"I see they've finished with my partner. We must be going."
Nicola automatically tried to get up, a motion that was stopped by Iczer-2's
hand.
"It's OK, you need your rest. I hope we'll have a chance to get together later,
when things aren't so tense?"
"I hope so. You aren't at all what I expected!"
She was surprised to see Iczer-2 grin widely, winking as she straightened
up to leave.
"You know, that's just what my partner said in bed last night...!"
As the pair left the infirmary, David swore he heard a faint "oh my..." from
behind him.
***
Webdragon-chan sighed as she slipped into the standard issue morph suit. It
felt obscenely good to be out of the torn, dirty body armor and into
something soft and yielding.
<Even if I AM wearing it as a girl> She thought, a touch of annoyance
coloring her thoughts. In the wake of the boomer incident, there didn't
seem to be anyone who knew what to do with poor Sandra. Webdragon-chan
wasn't about to leave her alone in the infirmary, so she brought her back to
the dorm with her. Unfortunately, Sandra was still terrified of Webdragon-
chan's male form, which meant that as long as she was around, Webdragon-
chan was stuck as a girl.
"Webby?" A tentative voice called from outside her door.
Webdragon-chan froze. The LAST thing she needed now was a confrontation
with Prime. Finally she decided to see what he wanted. "Yes, what is it?"
"I'd like to talk."
<I remember what happened LAST time we did that.> She thought. but his
tone was definitely different this time, and she doubted he would got
berserker again with Proxima in the same building. She got up and opened
the door.
Prime was standing there, dressed in blue jeans, white shirt and a soft
brown leather jacket. It looked a little unusual to Webdragon, who had
gotten used to him wearing that blue guardian outfit all the time.
"May I come in?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral.
"Sure, why not?" Webdragon-chan replied, gesturing for him to enter. He
walked in and sat down on the bed.
"Are you going to yell at me some more?" Webdragon-chan asked. "Or maybe
just cut to the chase and shove me telekinetically through the nearest
available wall?"
"I'm sorry."
Webdragon-chan was caught totally off guard by the response. "Uhh..."
Prime didn't meet her eyes. "I completely lost control, and that's not
something I can afford to do anymore. You were doing what you felt was
right, I shouldn't have come after you like I did."
Webdragon-chan sat down on the other end of the bed. "You're not
completely to blame. Taking that swipe at you didn't help things much."
"Only after I tossed you into that wall."
"That was an accident, right?" Webdragon-chan paused, getting no
confirmation, she repeated a little more forcefully. "_Right_?"
"Yeah." Prime said. He looked up at her, trying to sort out what he wanted to
say. "Look, I consider you a friend, and I don't like losing friends. We got
lucky this time, no one got hurt. Can we just both admit we made a mistake
and leave it at that?"
Webdragon-chan considered a moment, then nodded, extending her hand.
Prime clasped it, and after a moment a smile broke out on his face. "Do you
think that boomer knew what hit it?"
Webdragon-chan returned his grin. "Not a chance."
the moment was broken by a flashbulb going off. Their heads snapped
around to see Kei standing in the doorway, holding up a pocket camera.
"Great shot, kids! Now if I could just get you to look lovingly into each
other's eyes again..."
Webdragon-chan and Prime bolted off the bed as one, pursuing a rapidly
retreating Kei.
"Give us that film!" They roared.
"Aww, c'mon, you'll cherish memories like this when you're on the
honeymoon!" Kei yelled back, vaulting down the stairs and out the front
door, Prime and Webdragon-chan close behind.
***
The conference room was bright and well lit
Dave, chieftain of the Red Shirts was speaking. "Forensics have a
preliminary report and I think we have established what happened.. The
Boomers arrived in a container, apparently at a shift change. Computer
records would indicate day shift inspected the container, interviews with
surviving members and hardcopies recovered indicate neither team did.
The main implication is the computer was compromised. Need to
investigate how and who. I will need high level access and help from at
least two AIs."
"Why two?" asked Ukyou
Barry broke in with a small smile "Because there is the possibility _one_ AI is
compromised, but it is highly unlikely that _two_ are. Especially if selected
at random."
Dave continued "Beyond that, we have accounted for 12 BU 55-C covert
assassination boomers, twelve BU 12-B battle boomers and three BU-33S
boomers. At least one more 33-S escaped, and there was certainly space for
more in the container. We are going to have to tighten up inspection and
general security."
Barry in his role as chief engineer "Preliminary damage report. Four
buildings were destroyed or are being demolished as unsafe. All residential
fortunately, nothing critical. This _will_ impact on planned construction,
accommodation will stay tight for the foreseeable future."
Prime let out a groan.
Nicola, as acting Chief Medical officer was next to report.
"Most of the Med center structural damage is superficial. Thankfully, very
little of the infirmary itself was damaged. However, the place where we
were hit hardest was in personnel. A total of nine members of the
MedCorps were killed, five from the hospital boomer alone, and six more,
including Dr Tofu, were injured."
Barry mentally put on his 'Spook' hat. "OK Obviously this is _not_ to leave the
room. The good news, everyone in here is cleared. Congratulations." he
smiled sourly "Bad news, that still leaves most of FRED as suspects. I'm
working on narrowing it down, but don't expect miracles."
"I am planning to set up a Special Operations Executive style operation,
starting with ex Dark General Jadite, if he's cleared.. he should still have
contacts in the Youma.. "
"Now onto whoever planned this operation. He or she likes to play
headgames. The payoff strategy would have been to send through a nuke. A
decapitation strike. They were programmed for deliberate cruelty." he
swallowed "_With_ deliberate cruelty. A short range transmission was
intercepted an hour before, I assume to the boomers. It was not decrypted
in time. It turns out to have been targeting details, who was where, that
sort of thing. I was simply... not in time."
"Can't you automate the process?" Prime asked
"Not at this time, no." Barry replied with finality.
"Very well then" Frosty sighed "We need a plan of action..." At that, everyone
began talking at once.
Nicola was advocating guerilla tactics. "Hit fast, hit hard, get the hell out.
With something like a battle planet, relying on ground based defenses like
ion cannons is unwise. The best plan would be to find a weakness,
something to exploit if at all possible..."
Barry was trying to talk to Wyrm.. "You can take _any_ defensive position if
you're willing to pay the butcher's bill! You don't win without attacking!
Wyrm, we need to be aggressively patrolling and harassing them! NOW!"
Prime was talking to the other telepaths and Frosty "...we should be
organizing Fred's ESPer population to try and contact Lady Mhiku. The
Evoluder hold her in an almost godlike reverence, and rely on her
precognative abilities. If we could break (?)'s control over her like I did for
Washuu then she could take the Evoluder out of the fight, maybe even turn
them against the rest of the fleet. We'd need Kumi Jefferson, Pai Thunder,
Mia Alice, Lamba Nom, Roll Kran, etc. etc."
"Oh God! It's the Psi corps.." Barry muttered "If they start compulsively
wearing black and gloves, I'll _scream_!"
"Given the number of ESPers who are babes, I think he's..." Dave broke off in
a chuckle followed by dark looks from Prime.
Barry turned back to Wyrm "Listen. If they hit us in a coordinated attack,
they'll roll right over the top of us. We need to break up their attack into
something we can handle. A fleet that size requires kilotons of supplies. If
we can disrupt that, we disrupt their operations. Logistics are the key."
Everyone was talking, no-one was listening. Barry seemed to slump.. leaning
forward on his knuckles, his head hanging. \par "This is _pointless_!" he
muttered
He was filled with an overwhelming frustration. He had studied war for over
half his life, fascinated and appalled. He could see what was going to
happen, if nothing was done... if nothing was _done_.
Like a supersaturated solution the instant a seed crystal was dropped, in
something changed, something he had been resisting with all his heart he
now embraced.
Prime looked up, glancing around. He'd been sensing something odd in the
room for some time now, on a wavelength only he, with his feel for
computers, could detect: The icy cold logic of an AI. A very specialised AI..
It was whispering in the background, seeming to blur in and out of focus ...
now the whisper became a roar.
It coalesced into one word... Nemesis.. then faded to a background hiss. "So
be it" Barry breathed, below even a whisper...
He looked up, straight into the eyes of Iczer 2, her attention attracted by the
chill and his utter stillness. For a moment he stared into infinity then he
snapped into focus. She had never thought hazel eyes could be so cold and
pitiless.
"Enough!" A voice cut through the babble, not a shout, but pitched to carry,
and with the timbre of command, expecting unquestioned obedience...
Silently all faces turned to the head of the table where Frosty was standing,
radiating fury.
"These recriminations must Cease!"
Frosty's gaze transfixed Wyrm "Admiral Wyrm. _You_ will prepare a threat
analysis based on all current information with a proposed operational plan."
Before he had a chance to speak Frosty turned to David Row
"Commander Row. _You_ will prepare and implement security measures to
ensure that this does not happen again, along with measures to catch the
remaining boomers."
David nodded and began think..
"Captain Cadwgan. You will coordinate with Admiral Wyrm on construction
priorities. And set up your fifth column."
"Zu befehl, Highness." he whispered.
Frosty went on down the table, parceling out assignments.. giving everyone
enough work they would not have _time_ to bicker, then swept out regally.
As the door closed behind Frosty-usa, people started pack up and talk.
Nicola noticed Zen looking at her.. "Er... why are you looking at me like
that?"
Zen grinned like a rat trap "Prime and Webby. Zen was right, You _are_
contagious."
Nicola buttonholed Barry as he was leaving "Barry... are you alright?"
<No point in lying to a telepath> "No, not particularly." Then he turned and
walked off.
***
A collected sigh of relief went among the officers with the meeting's
adjournment. This had not been among the most pleasant of gatherings;
wounds were still fresh, and the test had brought out the best and worst in
people. Still, all in all, the job got done, and that was something to smile
about.
Prime heaved his tired bones out of the chair. He was about to leave when
he felt a tug on his mind.
<Just a minute, you two.> The mental voice was largely feminine, though it
did have some darker tones, hints of the being she had been. He turned, to
find Nightelf still sitting there, along with Iczer 2.
<What's up, Elf? Is there a problem with the Mhiku plan?>
The young woman frowned, her mind focused on the 'conversation'. <No. I
hope you don't mind me asking, but did either of you sense something... odd
from Barry?>
<I take it you sensed something too?> Iczer 2 eyed the others critically.
Prime nodded. <Oh, yeah. His mind seemed... to phase out, almost. One
minute, it was Barry, emotions and all, the next it was like a computer. A
_lot_ like a computer. The thoughts were totally cold.>
<That's what I sensed. For a few minutes there, that's precisely what he
was. A computer. Even comatose patients give off more presence than that.
To put it bluntly, it frightens me. Something is very wrong with him.>
"Even we could have told you that, Nick," Prime whispered, reverting to
more normal communication. <But... I recommend not being as direct as
you plan. Barry doesn't deserve that.>
<For once, I am inclined to agree with the hentai. Perhaps the threat of it
will convince him to seek guidance.>
"Exactly." Prime looked smug for a moment then started. "Hey...who're you
calling a hentai?"
"Enough." Nick whispered. "Thanks. I... I don't want to do this. Barry...
he's a good member of the team, and I'd hate to lose him. At the same time,
I don't want to see a psychopath or psychotic out there with access to
weapons of mass destruction."
Iczer 2 shook her head. "Barry isn't that - at least, not yet. However, you
are correct. Something must be done soon."
***
Proxima allowed herself to be lead in the school complex, arms folded in full
sulk mode. <'Proxy, you need to meet kids your own age.' He says.> Proxima
thought angrily. <Yeah, like I want to hang around with a bunch of immature
kids obsessed with play-slime and Barbie dolls! Why won't Dad just admit I
could help in the fighting? I'm not afraid!> She had conveniently forgotten
about the 33-S that had attacked her and Sandra.
"C'mon Proxy, don't be like that!" Kyone-chan said. <Geez, she can be as
stubborn as her Dad sometimes!> "You'll like these kids, I promise you!"
"Yeah, sure. Great. Whatever." Proxy responded mechanically. It had been
her standard response for the past twenty minutes.
Then entered the classroom, mostly empty except for five children and one
Cabbit. Proxima raised an eyebrow critically.
"I'll leave you to get acquainted." Kyone-chan said and left the room,
wondering if it were such a good idea to put that particular bunch of kids
together.
One of the boys with a red streak in his otherwise black hair got up and
walked over to her. "Hi, I'm Ryunosuke, but my friends just call me Ryu."
Proxima suddenly experienced an unfamiliar emotion when confronted by
her peers Shyness. "Uhh... Proxima. Proxima Centauri."
Ryu cocked his head. "That's an unusual name." Yoshimi promptly kicked
him under her desk. "But nice! Real nice!" He said quickly.
"It's the name of a star you dope!" Skuld said. "I'm Skuld. This is Yoshimi,
Sasami, Ryo-Ohki and Shingo." Each one named smiled in turn.
"So, what are we supposed to do here?" Proxima asked. "I thought school
was cancelled for the duration of the emergency."
"It was." Sasami replied. "But they still let us use the facilities, since it's
close to one of the shelters. I think they put us here just to get us out of the
way."
"You got that right." Shingo said. "I'm not afraid! I can fight! I've helped the
Sailor Senshi before!"
Skuld squinted at the medallion on Proxima's jumpsuit. "Wait... I know that
symbol! It's the sign of Sagittarius, isn't it? The Prime Sagittarian is your
father, isn't he?"
"Oh!" Sasami blurted. "Then Washuu is your..."
"My Mom, yeah." Proxima replied. She hoped Sasami wouldn't ask too many
questions. Proxima was still embarrassed by her inability to remember her
own mother. "Why?"
"I know Washuu!" Sasami said. "I also know her other daughter, Ryouko!"
Proxima felt as if someone had just tagged her with a stungun. "Other...
daughter?"
"Yes, didn't you know?"
"No! I mean, maybe I did, but my memories got kinda scrambled..."
"Oh, that's terrible!" Sasami said sympathetically. "I can introduce you to her,
if you like?"
"I... I'd like that." Proxima replied, sounding a little unsure. <I have a
sister?>
"So, in the meantime, what do you want to do?" Ryu asked, leaning against
the wall. "We've already explored most of the base, and all the interesting
places are off-limits anyway."
"Security has been beefed up incredibly." Skuld said. "I've been trying to get
into the main computer to find out what's REALLY going on, but with three
A.I.'s guarding the system it hasn't been easy."
Proxima saw an opportunity to be useful, and to prove herself to her father.
"I know why! It's because there's a spy!"
Everyone stared at her. "Really?" Shingo said quietly. Then louder. "Cool!"
Proxima's face took on the feral expression her father's face took whenever
he went up against a totally outclassed opponent. "Anybody wanna catch a
spy?"
There was a pause, then Ryu said in a conspiratorial whisper. "What did you
have in mind?"
***
Barry had returned to his office..
"How'd the meeting go?"
"Just like clockwork. A wormhole jump to hell."
Kate took a long hard look at Barry "What's wrong?"
" Nothing... Everything... I'm activating project Nemesis. Case Purple."
Kate cocked an eyebrow "Are you sure this is wise? It was just a contingency
plan."
"I judge the contingency has arrived. I estimate we have 23% chance of
success if things go on as they are. On _desperate_ ground, attack, for you
have little left to lose."
"I still think Nemesis is an unwise name. The Greek goddess of vengeance.
Operational code names should have _nothing_ to do with their subject."
<BEEP**
Barry slapped the answer bar.
"Hello. Engineering. Barry here."
"Barry? We need to talk."
He looked up, a sudden sinking feeling in his middle. He knew the reason
for the call; he'd lost control in a room full of telepaths. Not exactly the
_best_ of times. The person on the other end looked at his calm face, a sad
look in her eyes.
"What about, Nick?"
The young woman rubbed her eyes. It was clear that she was tired; chances
are she hadn't had any sleep since before this mess started. "Barry... I'd like
to schedule a physical and psychological examination for you, as soon as
possible."
"Reason?" A redundant question, except to confirm his suspicions.
"Something is very wrong with you, and it needs to be taken care of as soon
as possible. What I sensed in there... (yawn)... was not the mind of a normal
human. It was cold... inhumanly cold. Now, either I get that examination,
or I will be forced to relieve you of duty."
Decision tree. He could undergo the exam, and risk discovery and/or being
relieved, _not_ undergo the exam and be relieved of duty. Risk against
certainty.
"I... see. Very well. Is tomorrow at ten alright?"
Nightelf nodded. "That'll be fine. I'll see you then."
Barry switched off the comm, and put his face in his hands. This he did
_not_ need.
"So. What have you gotten yourself into _now_." Katherine asked quietly.
***
Priss and Nene walked into the firing range.
"If you don't practice, you'll never get any good!" Priss chided Nene, who
followed her reluctantly to the firing booth.
There was another figure several booths down, squeezing off shots with an
energy pistol.
Nene settled down to a session of making things go 'bang' and 'zap' and 'zot'!
"Nene, Have you seen Mackie much recently?" Priss asked, wincing as Nene
bounced a shot off the firing range wall.
"Nope. Barry's keeping him pretty busy. Well, at least he doesn't have time to
do any peeking." Nene flashed a smile.
"Heh! Yep. He did pretty well against those Boomers. Took out a 'Betty' all
on his own. I wonder if we can sweet talk him into some hardsuit
upgrades?"
"You'd have to be careful, I don't think Ms Madigan likes people interfering
with Barry's production schedules." Nene replied.
Priss' lip curled into a snarl. "That ice hearted bitch! I _really_ don't like the
idea of her getting her claws into Mackie, and I heard Prime saying she's
part of this spy hunt!"
Nene started making frantic shusshing motions. The other figure had turned
and was regarding them impassively, a tendril of lavender hair escaping
from under her cap.
"You really should be more careful Asagari-san. I could have been anybody."
Madigan said coldly. "Loose lips and all that."
Priss was abruptly conscious of the shoulder holstered PPG pistol under
Kate's left arm. She shifted her weight slightly, flicking a glance at the pistol
Nene had been practicing with. Kate looked at her coldly for a moment,
turned and walked out.
She walked aimlessly for a while, her face had automatically fallen into a
mask of cold unapproachability as her mind churned.
Kate found herself in the park. There were scars of battle, burned and
shattered trees, but even spoiled by war it was peaceful. The threatening
rain of the morning had passed, and the sun had come out.
She leaned up against a tree. Her shoulders slumped slightly.
"Why did I come here?" she whispered.
A soft voice came from the other side of the tree "Possibly because it was the
right thing to do?"
Kate jerked as if poked by a cattleprod and turned to face...
Belldandy was sitting on a blanket in the shade, her skirt spread out about
her like a flower. She smiled up at the fatigues-clad executive.
"I am sorry I startled you, I did not realise you thought yourself alone. Please
excuse my rudeness Madigan-san."
Kate stared at her. It was the first time she had actually met the goddess at
close quarters; she did not patronise Akkies and had avoided the Med-
Center. She had too many secrets to keep from any telepath, and Med
Center was Nightelf's territory.
The goddess looked half her lifetime younger, and at the same time ageless.
She was knitting something scarflike.
Kate recovered herself "No, it is I who should apologise, for my carelessness
in inflicting my own troubles on others. Please excuse me, I must..."
"Sit, please. It is such a lovely day, and I would welcome the company." The
goddess looked up at her with guileless eyes.
Kate found her mouth shaping an answering smile. "Well, if you insist."
For a while Kate sat, watching the patterns of shadow shift with the
afternoon sun, listening to the faint clicking of the knitting needles.
Finally she spoke "The last person I met who claimed to be a god was
Largo..."
"I do not think we would have had much in common. Kami-sama tends to
frown on that sort of behaviour." Belldandy answered serenely.
There was a crash of mental gears as Kate finally realised that this was really
a _goddess_ sitting next to her. Feeling strangely disconnected, as if she
was spun glass, she swallowed.
"You turn my world upside down." Kate whispered
She felt the goddess's eyes upon her and carefully turned her head. She met
Belldandy's gaze and for an instant glimpsed what lay behind the unassuming
exterior: a being of great power and greater compassion looking into her
soul. All the stains, big and small, the petty jealousies, moments of fury, the
destruction of the careers of those who opposed her, lies, deceit and
murder... all laid bare. And worst of all, understood and forgiven.
Her eyes blurred with tears and her throat tightened. She quickly looked
away. She had faced death before unflinching, but not eternity, or herself
quite so starkly, all the little lapses of memory and layers of self justification
stripped away.
"Please... please don't do that."
Belldandy touched Kate's hand "I am sorry. You bear a great burden, and I
fear I have added to it."
Kate wordlessly shook her head, denying something, but what, she did not
know.
Belldandy pulled out a previously unnoticed picnic basket. She convinced it
to disgorge a pair of cups and saucers, two small plates, a small tea pot and a
thermos.
"That... that wasn't there before." she stated with a sceptical look.
Belldandy giggled slightly "My, you are a sharp one. There is little point in
being a goddess if you cannot arrange _some_ things for your own
convenience." She busied herself in making tea, then brought out a small
cake and cut off two slices.
At home, Kate had known she had the power of Genom behind her, she had
respect or at least fear. Here she was on sufferance and she knew it. Her
position was precarious, she could not afford a single slip. Always watching
herself, the looks of others, the sudden silences and abrupt changes of
subject when she was noticed.
As Belldandy passed Kate her tea, she felt something splash on her hand,
and felt her cheek incredulously. It was wet.
"Look at me, crying over a lousy cup of tea. I'm... That didn't come out very
well, it's a lovely cup of tea... Oh god, I'm babbling..." She took several deep
breaths, trying to regain her composure. Belldandy discretely turned away.
After a few moments Belldandy broke the silence "My Keichi and his sister
Megumi work for your Cadwgan-san and they have told me a lot about you."
"Ah yes, they're a good team. Nothing too bad I hope." <_My_ Cadwgan-
san???>
"Nothing bad at all, and..." a small smile crossed the goddess's face "... I see
they did not damn you with faint praise."
Kate blushed.
Belldandy coughed gently. "Do you have... many friends here Madigan-san?"
"I don't have _any_ friends, not here, and certainly not at Genom. I was
Quincy's hatchetwoman. Even if I wanted to, friends are a point of
vulnerability. I... I could not afford it, and... well, old habits die hard."
"What about you and Barry?" Belldandy looked questioningly.
"Not likely. I forced him to bring me here. We have a common interest. We
both see some things similarly. That is all."
"What is a friend but someone who knows who and what you are, and likes
you anyway?"
Kate's expression grew grim "Barry said to me a while back, 'Command can
have no friends, not just because you may have to send your friends out to
their deaths, but because sooner or later you will have to make a choice:
betray your friends or betray your command.' It is a decision worth
avoiding."
Belldandy looked at Kate soberly "Then he will need friends most of all. Will
he not?"
Another interlude of silence.
"Madigan-san."
Katherine smiled sidelong at Belldandy "Oh, call me Kate. 'Madigan-san'
doesn't feel right."
Belldandy's answering smile outshone the sun "Very well, Kate-san, why
_are_ you here? I understand if you do not wish to tell me, but you must be
clear in your _own_ mind."
"My reasons for being here? That's easy. Barry... has something I want.
Purely selfish I'm afraid. I'm sorry to disappoint you."
"I think you may be wrong there. The right people, in the right place, at the
right time... and for the right reasons. You will find them, I am sure."
Kate looked up sharply.
As she tried to gather her thoughts, her commlink beeped softly. She
glanced down at it.
"I am sorry Belldandy-san, I've got to go, I have an appointment. I would...
value being able to talk again."
"Certainly."
They rose, both graceful in their own way, bowed, and Kate walked briskly
away as Belldandy sank back down.
It would be difficult to tell if Katherine was hurrying _to_ something, or away
from something else.
***
Day 3
It was a Monday when the dead were buried, three days after the boomer
raid. It seemed appropriate that the day was chilly and overcast, with a light
drizzle that made everything feel cold and clammy to the touch.
There was little time for individual ceremonies. That would have to wait
until later. As it was the bodies were buried by spare worker drones in
simple, unadorned caskets. There simply wasn't time or material enough for
anything more.
Still, as the dead were lain to rest in the small but growing field of white
crosses, dozens stood watching, paying what respects they could, for
themselves and for those who could not come, who's work was too vital to
the survival of those who yet lived.
At the edge of the crowd stood a seemingly uninteresting young man in a
trenchcoat, watching as the caskets were laid in the ground by the
machinery with cold, brutal efficiency. However, those with the sight or
knowledge would have notice his odd aura, or the spinning globe of
multicolored light hovering beside him.
"I stayed away too long, Ghostwheel." He said to his inhuman companion.
"You made a bad move. It happens sometimes." Ghostwheel replied.
"This isn't a game anymore!" Kergma hissed. "People have died for this
idiotic war!"
"I believe I said something to that effect before we got involved in this whole
mess." Ghostwheel replied. "What were you supposed to do, anyway? (?) has
been chasing us ever since you helped out Mike Loader with the Plot Hole. If
we had stopped to say 'hi' he would have caught us!"
Kergma shook his head. "He can't get us here. He fears Fred and the people
here. You know that."
"But we're so *limited* here!" Ghostwheel protested. "Wyrm saw to that!
We've barely got the power to conceal ourselves!"
Kergma watched another casket being lowered. It was White Wolf's. He had
been tracking it ever since he discovered that the former FFML
administrator had been killed. If only the Fredites knew how high the death
toll really was. (?) had been tracking down Shadow Walkers with vengeance.
(?) seemed to be able to bypass even their strongest defenses, do things that
Kergma *knew* were impossible. Most of the authors from the FFML and
RAAC who had not sought refuge on Fred were dead or worse. There were a
few exceptions, but this was the last significant pocket of resistance.
"So what do you wanna do?" Ghostwheel asked. "Enlist? Go muck it out in
the trenches?"
"No." Kergma said quietly. "I want to hurt (?). I can't do it directly, but there
are those here who can. You noticed the odd signature from Cadwgan?"
"Hell yes! I've only seen that kind of sig from one other person."
"Good." Kergma turned to leave. "We're going to play a little game of chess
with (?), only we're going to be using tacnukes." As he walked away, the
trenchcoated figure slowly dissolved into the morning mist.
***
It was early in the morning in FRED with only a few people about. Some
were going back home to crash after working right through the night while
others were arriving, having decided to get an early start on the work of the
day ahead.
Amongst the later was a lavender haired woman whose face was familiar to a
fair number of people, but was rarely thought of with any fondness. Indeed
suspicion, or at least the giving of a cold shoulder, was the normal response
from many.
Still there were not that many people around so Kate Madigan reached her
office with out suffering anything more than a few cold looks.
She placed her hand against the newly installed palm lock, surreptitiously
flipping the 'duress' alarm switch off and the office door swished open.
She instantly noticed something thing was out of place, or to be precise two
people were in her office where they should not have been.
The combination of the basic training which she had suffered through and
recent events had Katherine Madigan reacting almost without thinking,
drawing the pistol which she carried and leveling it at the intruders.
Both were wearing those ridiculously short sailor suits which seemed
surprisingly common clothing for those young girls who were in FRED. The
clothing of one was green and she had shoulder length black hair, she was
sitting on the desk and reading a book. The other was dressed in blue and
surprisingly had grey waist length hair, she had a puzzle of some kind in her
hands and had been fiddling with it while sitting in the chair behind the
desk.
Apart from those difference they were identical, right down to exactly the
same bored expression on their faces.
"Who are you, what are you doing here and how did you get in to my office?"
she demanded of the pair.
Looking up from where they sat they saw Kate standing at the door and
immediately beamed at her.
"Good evening Ms. Madigan." they chorused, seemingly oblivious to both the
weapon that threatened them and the questions that had been asked.
"I asked who you are." Kate repeated.
"We're your new bodyguards!" they announced.
"By the way I'm Demios, that one's Phobos." the one wearing blue informed
Kate, gesturing towards the other girl.
"We're sure that we're going to get along just fine." the other announced
with a smile.
<Now I know just how Barry feels...> thought the distracted executive
***
Nightelf glanced down at the report from the physical exam. It had made
interesting reading. Barry's neurochemistry and brain activity were radically
different from normal. There was something going on behind those hazel
eyes, something strange, but she could not sense it. Possibly because it
_was_ so alien.
Alpha had said he had 'heard' something from him, something whispering
within his mind. Cold, focused and utterly logical. Not, he had hastened to
add, anything like an alternate personality. It seemed to be a blend of
human and artificial intelligence thought structures, flipping from one to the
other. And it seemed to be quite hostile to (?).
There was a knock at the door of Nicola's consulting room. Ranchan-chan
looked towards the office's owner.
"It's him" she responded to the counsellor's unspoken question.
"Come."
The door opened to reveal the subject of their deliberations.
Barry had cleaned himself up, not even wearing coveralls. Long sleeved
shirt, jeans and not a weapon in sight. A carefully calculated image of
normality. He settled himself.
"Barry, there are some irregularities in your brainscan that I would like
explained."
"Nicola, I went through a plot hole to escape the Knight Sabers." Barry said
calmly. "There were a few side effects. Nothing that compromises my
performance as chief engineer. My _word_ on it. Quite the reverse."
Ranchan was skeptical. "Hmmm... What happened? Did you gain some sort
of special abilities from this plot hole?"
Barry smiled humorlessly. "You might say that. I'm not sure what happened
exactly, but somehow I merged mentally with an AI, a combat AI. On the
upside my memory and sensory processing have improved. I can make a lot
more use out of what I see, hear and smell, and I can make decisions better
under stress." seeing a flash of concern Barry continued "There is a
continuity of identity, I'm still 'me', just a different 'me'. We are to a great
extent the sum of our experiences, I just have a few more than most."
"Sounds great."
"There is a downside. Remember, a _combat_ AI.." Barry sighed "I can
remember... terrible things. I know it wasn't me, but..." he shook his head
"Ryouga always complained he'd seen hell, because he turns into a _pig_.
War is Hell, and we are the demons."
"Where was the AI from?"
Barry's eyes went flat and cold and Nicola felt his mind blank out totally "You
don't need to know." he relaxed slightly and his mind came back into focus.
"Seriously, you can relieve me Ranchan, but there are things I will not tell
you, any more than I would tell you how to build a hellburner. End of
discussion."
"Don't give me that Barry. I won't let you off the hook until you tell me
where it came from." Ranchan said with conviction in her voice.
"Ranchan, have you read any Keith Laumer? His Bolo stories? Cybertanks.
Thousand ton war machines controlled by a self directing AI. Firepower
measured in megatons per second and defences to match. I've always been
fascinated by panzers." He quirked a smile "Be careful what you wish for
Ranchan, you may just get it. I did. Now can we drop the subject?"
The councillor glanced towards Nicola, who nodded. Everything Barry had
said was true.
Ranchan turned back to the red head "What would you have done
differently? If you had the chance?"
Barry was silent for a moment. Nicola felt a wave of guilt and regret from
him, overpowering for a moment, then seemingly damped out.
Finally he spoke "Based on the information I had, I would not have done
anything differently. I did the best I could. Playing games of 'what if' and 'if
only' is a waste of time."
Ranchan "What is eating you? Really?"
Barry's face fell, showing lines of fatigue and stress.
"Ranchan. Two days ago I killed a girl who's only fault was to be a little
different in how she arrived into the world, and was unlucky enough to be
on the wrong side. She did not want to be there with a gun in her hand.
Her choice had been taken away from her. I would have given a lot to not to
have killed her, but not my life, and not Mackie's."
Ranchan looked at Barry with understanding. "I know exactly how you feel
Barry." Ranchan said, her voice heavy with regret.
"How could you?" he snorted, then he saw the pain in her eyes.
"Because I had to do the same thing as you. I had to take away the life of
someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess you didn't
read Eric's report yet, huh?"
"No." Barry admitted. "I got hold of it just today. No time yet." He said as
he patted the data pad tucked into his shirt breast pocket.
"When you do, you'll understand. You and I both had to do what we had to
do. But that still doesn't mean that you should push yourself to the point of
insanity. Don't make this personal. If you need help we're here to give it,
but if you continue as you are now more drastic measures may be called for."
Barry took a deep breath before replying. "Ranchan, Nicola... the job's all
I've got left. About the only human role I can fulfil now. I can't go back to
what I was. I _can't_ forget. What else is there for me to do? I'm not
indispensable, but all modesty aside, there isn't anyone else who can do it as
well."
A low beep sounded from Barry's comm-link.
"Barry here, this'd better be good, I'm kind of busy."
A female voice replied "There's an emergency at Delta battery, they need you
there immediately."
"Very well, Have Belgaren meet me out the front of Medlab ASAP. Close
channel." He looked up "They wouldn't contact me unless they had to. I'll
have to go. Look, Ranchan, Cicatrix manet... scars heal. What matters now
is winning the war, we can worry about the long term when the short term
is under control."
As she watched him walk off, Nicola couldn't help feeling that somehow,
somewhere, she and Ranchan had been royally _had_... but no, you couldn't
lie to a telepath.
She sighed and turned to Ranchan.
"Now my friend, what is wrong with _you_?"
Ranchan looked at Nicola with pain filled eyes and she gasped as Ranchans
mental shields dropped and she got a taste of what she had gone through.
She was visibly trying to compose herself and keep from crying.
"I'll give you the long and the short of it. He sent Eric and me to clean up
the last Boomer we could account for. The building it was in was residential.
When we got there we found everyone dead. Eric made contact with the
Boomer first."
Now Ranchan voice became thick with emotion. She had to stop for a
second to compose herself before she continued.
"She said... she said it wasn't her fault. She said she was being controlled.
The... the look in her eyes, the pain, the fear. She begged Eric not to kill
her. I was watching from the rafters and I saw the look in her eyes. She
really didn't want to do what she'd done. She was being controlled. And
then she started reaching for a gun. Almost imperceptibly. Her hand was
shaking as if she was trying to resist. Eric had frozen up and didn't suspect
anything. As soon as her hand closed around the grip of the gun I jumped in
and... and... and... I k-k-killed her." Ranchan's shoulders slumped and she
stifled a sob.
Nicola could feel her pain and it brought tears to her eyes. And then, as
abruptly as her mental shields had dropped they went back up. The room
was silent for the next few minutes as Ranchan cried softly.
***
Outside, waiting for Belgaren, Barry spoke softly to the comm-link "Nice
timing Mads, is there really an emergency?... Good, so the fix is in with
Mackie too?... You've managed to completely corrupt that kid... yep, thanks."
***
All of LPAC was assembled in the Ops room, which showed signs of hasty
repair, to pay homage to their own who had fallen. Everybody now had on
the morph suit/body armor and some sort of weapon. It was obvious the
funeral was just ending, and an honor guard was marching with stasis coffins
to be put in storage until the remains could be taken home at the end of the
war. Everybody slowly filed out of the room.
***
A couple of hours later, there was a meeting of sorts in one of the bedrooms
used by LPAC personnel. This one was one of the few singles, but was still
crowded with a bed, multiple filing cabinets, a desk and several chairs. Into
the room walked a grief wracked Stargazer and Skywise. Stargazer slumped
onto the bed while Skywise stood. The pain and suffering was obvious on his
face. "God. Leading that funeral was one of the hardest things I'd ever
done."
Skywise looked at him in concern. "Are you all right?"
"No. Why should I be all right? This was all my damn fault."
"What are you talking about?"
"I lead them here. I didn't keep them safe. A dozen... almost 10% of my
people died or were hospitalized in that attack. I wanted to lead them and I
failed them. _I_ should have been the one to die. And then there was Fox. I
barely even knew her and she sacrificed herself to save me! I _knew_ I was
dead and she shoved me out of the way at the cost of her own life! DAMN!"
Stargazer slammed his fist into a filing cabinet in frustration hard enough to
warp the light metal, but not enough to break his hand.
"Wait a minute, that wasn't your fault!"
Stargazer lowered his head into his hands, sighed, and then looked up at
Skywise. His face was twisted into a mask of grief, pain, self- loathing,
lacking all confidence. Skywise didn't even need his telepathy to tell that
his friend was about to go over an edge, perhaps one he may not recover
from.
<I'm gonna regret this...> Skywise thought as he made a decision, <but
when has that ever stopped me before?> Skywise leaned towards his friend
and slapped him across the face, _hard_. "Listen up, Wayne, you haven't
failed them yet, they follow you, believe in you and are willing to die for you.
They know that (?) has to be stopped and haven't given up. They're
counting on you, so don't you _dare_ give up on them. It wasn't your fault
they died, but if you keep this up, next time it will be. Stop blaming
yourself, if your going to blame someone, blame (?), he's responsible. IT'S
NOT YOUR FAULT!"
Stargazer turned his head back towards Skywise, the angry red impression
of the slap emphasizing the look of naked, black fury on his face. He was
growling low in his throat and had his hands balled into fists. <Ohhh shit.
_This_ is going to hurt. I guess it's back to the hospital.> Thought Skywise
as he realized that leaning towards his friend he was a... major
miscalculation and so braced to accept the pummeling he was sure was
going to come. Unfortunately for him, in doing so he missed the wide range
of emotions that suddenly washed over his friend's normally reserved face.
"Your right, Sky." A strained voice barely whispered. "Excuse me a second."
The now mostly in control of himself leader of LPAC pushed himself by the
confused elf, picked up a chair, and with a roar, smashed it against a wall.
"Ahhh... Yeah. Are you OK?"
"Yeah, thanks to you. Do you have _any_ idea how dangerous that was? You're
lucky that I've never been able to lie to myself once I hear the facts. I've
never been in a murderous rage before." Gives a significant look, "and I
stress _murderous_."
A gulp was his only answer.
"You were right about it being (?)'s fault though, and it's time to do
something about that. Would you care to help?"
A knowing grin was sent at him. "Of course! What are you going to do?"
Stargazer chuckled, went over to the intercom and set it to the Legion
command frequencies. "Hunter, Anubis, come up to my quarters STAT." He
turned to his friend and said, "A plan we've spent a long time preparing, but
one that we also should have activated _long_ ago. By the way,
congratulations Lieutenant Skywise, you're now part of the Legion." Now the
roles were reversed as the next few minutes until the others arrived were
required to calm the distraught, protesting elf down.
As the two co-seconds in command of the Legion of PAC entered the room,
they instantly noticed the change in their leader and friend's attitude. That
and the broken chair and the red mark on his face. They looked at each
other and then at the two already in there. Before they could ask any
questions, Stargazer took out a small device, flicked it on and set it on a
desk. The two other Legion commanders took their cue from him and did
likewise. Skywise ended up wincing from the high pitched noise that was
generated when the jammers added their capabilities to the already potent
anti-espionage equipment that had been installed in the building.
"OK guys," began the Legion commander, "It's time we pushed back. I want
Operation 'Revelations' begun immediately."
"Ahh... Wayne..." began Hunter, looking nervously at Skywise while Anubis
began to circle around quietly.
"I've just made him a Lieutenant, staff rather than line, and with Nexus
clearance. He'll be joining my SpecOps team. Any _problems_ with that?"
There was a moment of confusion as the Legion had never had any officers
outside of the Line of Command, the line of officers and sergeants of The
Legion who would take command when their boss either died or was
rendered unable to command.
Hunter grinned. "No. Fortunately most of the anger the others felt over the
Variyah Tea incident was cleared after that fight." Skywise thought back
guiltily to his first run in with LPAC and the first SpecOps mission they had
performed.
It had been shortly after the revenge taken out on him. He'd been made
completely listless by Vampire Princess Miyu, but had been cured by another
author through a lethal overdose of caffeine and Variyah Tea. In an effort to
save him, LPAC had gathered the necessary cures, but had to move before
disarming him, which resulted in 10 out of the 12 LPAC personal who had
been involved being hospitalized. Since then there had been some severe
distrust and resentment directed at him from portions of LPAC, which had
culminated in the fight shortly after he arrived.
"Excellent. Any other problems?"
"We still need to find one of (?)'s bases." Anubis objected.
"Intel's your department, David. Hmmm, we made a number of contacts
with other mutiverse travelers and universes in order to survive before we
came here. Use them. I don't _care_ what you have to do, just find me
their bases!" He missed the look that passed between his two co-
conspirators which meant trouble for somebody. Instead he pulled out a
security case and unlocked it, pulling out a crystal. "Speaking of contacts,
Sky, bring this to SG. It's the main memory crystal from my 'porter with
the logs of what happened when Washuu blocked me from 'porting Fred
Special Operations back. He said he couldn't help us here, but he invented
the 'porters and uses them himself. He'll come up with a way to overcome
the blocking, out of self preservation if nothing else! Tell him I think they
were using some sort of broad spectrum blocking effect as there's no way
Washuu could have learned enough about how the 'porters work from my end
to be able to block it any other way. After you're done with him, have him
'port you to Astex base so you can train on the LPAC SpecOPs equipment and
be standing by for the first mission. Okay people, let's get moving!"
***
Skuld and Sasami walked along either side of a very nervous Proxima
Centauri as they headed for the dormitory assigned to the Tenchi entourage,
occasionally preventing her from turning around and retreating whenever
her courage failed.
"Look, Sammy, Skuld, I'm not sure this is a good idea. I mean, I'm sure
Ryouko doesn't want to be bothered..."
"She'll love to meet you." Sasami said encouragingly. "She's really very nice...
when she's not fighting with my big sister."
"Well, maybe that's what she's doing now." Proxima said desperately. "Yeah,
sure. This is a bad time! I can almost hear them fighting!"
Sasami cocked her head. "I don't hear anything. And we're less than a
kilometer away, so we would be able to see the explosions if they were.
Actually things seem pretty quiet today."
Skuld regarded Proxima for a moment. "Why are you so nervous, Proxy-
chan? I would think you'd WANT to meet your sister!"
"I... I do..." Proxima said. "But... but what if she doesn't... like me?"
Sasami chuckled. "Oh don't be silly! She'll love you, I know it! You're her
sister, right?"
The two girls dragged the reluctant redhead the rest of the way to the dorm
and let themselves in.
"Ryouko?" Sasami called. "Ryouko? I have someone I want you to meet!"
Ryouko's head phased through the ceiling. "Sasami?" She passed the rest of
the way through, levitating to drop softly to the floor. "Oh, I see you brought
your friends over."
Skuld smiled politely, while Proxima hid a little behind Sasami.
"What's your problem?" Ryouko asked, peering at Proxima curiously.
"She's just a little nervous." Sasami said. "You see, she's your sister."
"Oh." Ryouko said blankly. she blinked a few times, then broke out laughing.
"My sister, yeah, right! Good one, Sasami! You had me going there for a
second!"
"I told you this was a mistake!" Proxima said, eyes filling with tears. She
turned to go, but Sasami stopped her.
"Ryouko!" She said sternly. "This isn't a joke! Proxima really IS your sister!"
"Well, half-sister, really." Skuld added.
Ryouko stopped laughing and looked at the three. "What do you mean, she's
really my sister? That isn't possible!... Is it?" She looked at Proxima more
closely, noting that her elven features were similar to her own.
"Washuu is my mother." Proxima said. "She and my father... well, I'm not
sure about the details, but Dr. Tofu and Nicola were talking about a time
dilation, something to do with a known time traveller, or something like
that."
"They found her in Washuu's lab a few days ago." Skuld said. "Her memory
got messed up, so she doesn't remember much."
Ryouko was still staring blankly at Proxima. "I've got... a sister?"
There were still tears in her eyes as Proxima looked up hopefully at Ryouko.
Ryouko's expression softened. "Yeah, you've got the family ears." She said,
and smiled.
Proxima blushed and tried to inconspicuously wipe away the tears. "I'm
sorry. I guess this was a little sudden."
"That's okay." Ryouko said. "C'mere, I'll get you some hot chocolate or
something, we've got some catching up to do. For example, mind telling me
who your father is?"
***
Prime stepped through the portal to Shallow 15, blue bundle tucked under
one arm. He felt a little crummy imposing on Erin like this so soon, but it
was rather urgent.
The neural limiter circuitry in his armor had been damaged. Without it,
Prime's powers became so unstable as to be completely useless. And in a few
days he would begin experiencing power surges, which if left unchecked
could eventually kill him.
Erin was trying to salvage some scorched circuit boards when he noticed
Prime. "You're early. Got a sec?"
Prime nodded. Erin pried a chip off the board, examined it then threw it in
the trash in disgust. "All these perfectly good parts slagged by one lousy
boomer!" He turned to Prime. "Okay, you're here because of your armor,
right? I got your message."
Prime held out the bundle. "Can you fix it? I mean, the limiter in this thing
is kinda vital to my continued health."
Erin took the bundle, examined it then put it down next to the circuit
boards. "I can salvage that for parts. Don't worry, I've come up with a much
better alternative. He reached into a cardboard box and pulled out a small
yellow disc. Her tossed it to Prime. "Here. Check this out."
Prime caught the disc and examined it. It was a medallion, similar to the
one that adorned his armor. However, instead of a happyface it had a
horizontal line, pierced at a 45 degree angle by a double-headed arrow. The
symbol of Saggitarius. "Nice. Uhh, what is it?"
"That is the solution to all of your problems." Erin replied. "I miniaturized
the neural limiter circuitry, and then using a mass phase compensatory..."
Erin descended into the depths of technobabble the likes of which Prime
had never heard.
Prime held up a hand. "Whao whoa whoa! You lost me. Somewhere around 'I
miniaturized'."
Erin shrugged. "Just put in on."
Prime examined the disc, finding no fasteners. Idly he placed it against his
jacket, just above the left breast pocket. The disc whirred, rotated 360
degrees and attached itself.
Prime blinked. "Okay, now what?"
"Double tap it."
"You're not serious."
"Hey, you're the one who started this 'Guardian' motif. I just went with it."
Grinning lopsidedly, Prime took what he hoped was a heroic stance and
tapped the medallion twice, half expecting nothing to happen. "Reboot!"
A green disk appeared above him and slammed down into a column of
energy, completely engulfing him. It disappeared, leaving green energy
crackling along Prime's body for a second, which quickly disappeared as
well, leaving him standing in a perfect replica of his old armor.
Prime flexed his arms experimentally. "Wow. How'd you do that?"
"I thought I already explained it."
Prime sighed. "In non-technobabblese, please."
"Fine. The disc is completely self-contained. It recharges itself from your
psionic waste energy. It contains all the neural limiter circuitry, so as long
as you're wearing it, you'll be fine. It can also do some neat tricks with
clothes; It can rewrite anything you're wearing into your standard Guardian
armor, and back again. It isn't quite as flexible as a morph suit, and can only
store the patterns of five or six outfits, but it's a lot less obtrusive. You can
take it off and put it on anything you happen to be wearing. It can even
change what you're wearing into something else, as long as both outfits are
in it's pattern buffer. Plus the effect is cooler."
"Okay, so how do I change back?"
"Click your heels together and say 'There's no place like home, there's no
place like home.'"
Prime almost did it, unsure whether Erin was joking. Then Erin grinned.
"Kidding! Just turn the medallion an eighth of a turn clockwise."
Prime did as instructed, and a green glow rippled along the armor, changing
it back to his previous attire.
"There, now isn't that better than a happyface and a glorified morph suit?"
Erin asked. "I'm thinking of marketing these things to Jusenkyo sufferers."
"Wyrm's not gonna like that. He's pretty much cornered the market."
Erin shrugged. "He's got to learn to live with a little competition sometime.
Oh, I almost forgot." Erin reached into the box and pulled out a similar disc,
bearing the same symbol, but red. "This is for Proxima. Instead of the neural
limiter I put in a small force-field generator, and a transporter transponder.
A little insurance."
Prime took the gift. "Thanks."
Erin pulled out another, this one silver and bearing Webdragon's dragon's
head symbol. "This is for Sandra." Erin cocked his head. "I've been meaning
to ask, who does she belong to? You haven't been mucking around with
transporters again, have you?"
Prime blushed and accepted the disk. "No, she's... well, Webdragon kind of
adopted her, after the whole boomer incident. Or Sandra adopted
Webdragon, depending on how you look at it."
"Then Webdragon is... You're kidding! Webdragon is 'Mommy'?" Erin
chortled.
Prime grinned. "I'd be careful what you say around him, though. He's a bit
sensitive about it."
"Speaking of Webdragon, could you let him know that those replacement
weapons he requested are ready?"
Prime nodded. "So what do I owe you this time?"
Erin whipped out a calculator and punched in some quick figures.
"According to this, factoring in inflation, accumulated depreciation of
component parts, Quality Control costs, planning and development costs...
Three boxes of Cheerios and a roll of duct tape."
"Could you put it on my account?"
Erin sighed. "Sure. You and everyone else."
***
Ex Dark General Jadite strode into David Row's office.
"Good morning Lord Jadite" smiled Katherine Madigan. "Please sit." she
indicated a pair of lounges to one side of the room, a low table between
them. The setting for an informal meeting.
Iczer 2 simply smiled at him as they sat.
"And what do I owe this invitation to? I must confess to some curiosity, and
a certain amount of boredom."
"Very well. Barry should have been here, but he is otherwise occupied."
<Explaining his mental state to Ranchan and Nicola. He is worrying me.>
thought Iczer 2
Kate continued "Getting to the point, out most crippling lack is effective
intelligence on the enemy. We need information. Quickly. I suspect you
still have sympathisers among the Youma, or at least know of individuals who
would be open to inducements?"
"Hmmmm this is interesting. How free a hand would I have?"
"We need results quickly. This is Barry's project, and he will have oversight.
But as long as you can produce results, your methods will not be
questioned... Within reason." she smiled "And there will be no penalty for
failure... other than that we will probably lose the war."
"Ha! Give me a few hours to think it over." Jadite smiled back.
"Certainly. Only a fool would make a decision like this without reflection.
But don't take too long. Time is running out."
The Youma General stood as the women did, bowed slightly and left,
thinking furiously.
As the door swished closed, Iczer 2 finally spoke "Well, I couldn't detect
anything out of the ordinary from him."
"That's good, but not conclusive."
Kate explained "Just in case, we don't let him know anything critical yet.
The next few transmissions will either clear him or damn him. If he's
clean, great... otherwise, we use him to feed false information to (?), and we
will know that at least part of what he brings back is disinformation.
Knowing what your enemy _wants_ you to think is valuable too."
"So we can't lose?"
"Well, we don't lose _everything_, and we gain _something_. Given the time
element, we have to take some risks."
Kate walked off to meet the next two people on her list: Rally Cheyenne of
the AMP and Major Mokoto Kusanagi, Section 9. They would need people
able to act on the information they gathered. Special ops were highly
skilled as an assault force, but for the sort of covert operations Barry wanted
to execute, a different style was required.
***
"Coming, Prime?!" yelled Webdragon-chan from the door. She was wearing
sneakers, a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. A cap, turned backwards, gave the
effect of what seemed to be the start of a Sunday outing. She was also
carrying a little backpack. To complete the effect, Sandra was standing by
Webdragon-chan's side, trying her best to lace her shoes up by herself.
"Yeah, yeah!"
Prime burst out of his room in his Blue Guardian armor, Glitch attached to
his left arm, and he threw something over to Webdragon-chan, who
snatched it out of the air. It was Webdragon-chan's new retractable vibro-
naginata, courtesy of Shallow 15. This one was an improved version over the
original in that it was a lot sharper and it had a retractable spike at the
other, blade-less end. It was also made out of a much tougher material than
the original, yet was also lighter at the same time. The blade could no
longer be ejected via rocket propellant but for compensation the blade itself
was retractable - that is, it pulled itself back into the handle.
Still, weapon details aside, the weapon, a dull black in color, looked so out of
place in Webdragon-chan's hands, with her white shirt, green shorts, red-
and-blue cap and white sneakers. And with a child of four by her side, it only
added to the inconsistency. And that was not including Prime, who looked
every bit the rough and tough Special Ops officer.
One would never have guessed that Webdragon-chan and Prime were only
going to attend a class. Yet, even if one knew about that, one might never
have guessed the nature of that class.
"Hey, Web. What's with those duds? I would have thought you were gonna
wear your armor. Why aren't you in... uh... your other form, and why's
Sandra along?" asked Prime.
"Questions, questions, questions. Being nosy today, aren't we?" Webdragon-
chan turned to Sandra, who barely cleared Webdragon-chan's knees, "Isn't
Uncle Prime being nosy?"
"Uh huh," replied Sandra innocently with a smile, "Uncle Prime's being
nosy!"
"That's not fair! She's gonna agree with you all the time!" protested Prime.
"Your loss, not mine." Webdragon-chan smiled mischievously and ruffled
Sandra's head lovingly.
"Anyways... why?"
"Well... it all has to do with Sandra. She's NOT about to let me leave her
alone since since... you know... and it would be alarming for Sandra if she
saw me dressed in battle armor. You know how I asked to make it as
intimidating as practically possible."
"Yeah. Those spikes and the dragon symbol on either side, along with your
'MD Geist II' look can scare the bejesus out of anyone. Still, why not jeans...
or something a little more formal than... uh... sneakers, shorts and a T-
shirt?"
"More comfortable this way." Webdragon-chan had her long hair undone and
cascading down her back. The strange thing was that her female form had
longer hair than her male form. Which reminded Prime.
"And... why not your other form?"
Webdragon-chan did not answer for a moment, then she looked down at
Sandra, then back up at Prime. Prime made an 'oh' with his mouth and shut
up. Of course. Sandra was frightened to death of Webdragon-chan's male
form.
Prime shrugged. He didn't know what the others were going to be wearing,
but he figured it would look pretty stupid if the two attending SpecOps
members wore such radically different clothes. He reached up and twisted
the Saggitarius symbol on his armor an eighth of a turn clockwise. His suit
was engulfed by a brief cascade of green energy, which faded to reveal him
wearing blue jeans, white T and his old, faded brown leather jacket.
Webdragon-chan raised an eyebrow. "I never saw a morph suit do THAT
before. What's with all the special effects?"
Prime ducked his head. "I... uh, kinda got an upgraded suit from Erin after
you... after my old one got trashed. The special effects were my idea."
Webdragon-chan snorted. "Show-off."
"Hey, you should see it when I change into the armor! Oh, wait..." He
reached into a pocket and pulled out a silver disk bearing Webdragon-chan's
symbol. "Here."
She took it and examined it. "For me?"
"No, for Sandra." He replied. "There's a transponder and a small force field
generator in there. Proxy's got one too, just in case. It was Erin's idea."
She nodded and placed the device against Sandra's shirt. It spun 360
degrees and affixed itself to the fabric. Sandra examined it and giggled.
Prime had once been cursed so he couldn't help but notice that Webdragon-
chan seemed to be wearing... a bra under that T-shirt of hers. He could just
see the straps, moderately visible through her light shirt.
"You know... I just noticed something," he began.
"What?"
"Why are YOU wearing a bra?" Prime stifled a laugh and let a teasing smile
form on his face.
"Urk! Uh... it's... it's not what you think!" she stammered in embarrassment,
her face all red, "It was Nicola's idea! She... she said that if I was going to
stay a girl most of the time, then I had to observe feminine decency!"
"Feminine decency?" asked Prime slyly.
"You don't have to rub it in! Just because you're not cursed anymore...!" she
said hotly.
"Mommy...what's femin...feminnin desensee?" asked Sandra. Webdragon-
chan gave Prime a glare before turning to Sandra.
Prime suddenly wondered how she must be taking the strain of being female
all the time. And other questions raised themselves. If the longer she
stayed as a female, would certain changes happen to her? Would she really
become... a...
Prime decided not to go there.
They walked in silence for a few minutes or so before Webdragon-chan
turned to Prime.
"You know what?" she asked.
"What?"
"If anybody saw us now, they'd think we were a family."
Prime would have facefaulted if he didn't stop himself at the last moment,
and Webdragon-chan snickered.
"Gotcha. Now we're even!" she cried triumphantly.
"Mommy..." asked Sandra, tugging at Webdragon-chan's hand.
"Yes, sweetie?"
"Where's Daddy?" Sandra paused for a second, "And why are you down on
the ground like that?"
Prime snickered.
The lesson today, their first, was going to be about how to control, combine
and utilize their newly discovered powers. Prime, for one, had gained the
ability to tele-levitate himself - much like flying - and he had also the power
to throw telekinetic bolts. More powers would undoubtedly unfold as time
progressed but it was better to start now than later, or never. He glanced
over at Webdragon-chan, who was pointing out sights to Sandra.
What were the extent of her powers? She had never talked about it after the
fight in which they had demolished an entire block, plus one unfortunate
BU-12 combat boomer. All he knew was she had the power to throw those
incredibly destructive ki-blasts.
It was more than enough, he decided. <If anyone looked at us now, at first
glance, nobody would think that we were walking powerhouses, with
abilities beyond mortal ken> he thought, feeling quite a bit of pride as he
did. But, as he himself had said yesterday, "With great power, came great
responsibility."
Responsibility had been sorely lacking in his fight with Webdragon-chan.
With no regard for possible remaining civilians, telekinetic bolts had
shattered stone and bent metal girders as red ki blasts too had burnt the air
and carved holes into buildings.
They had the power. Responsibility was what he was going to attempt to
learn, today. And so was Webdragon-chan. The next time, if there was a
next time, they would not be so lucky.
The class was to take place in a specially constructed stadium, of sorts,
courtesy of Cawdgan Engineering. It was about twice the size of a regular
football stadium but with a difference - it had a retractable roof, and when it
closed it resembled a multi-tiered armored carapace of sorts. It was
nicknamed the SkyDome by a few, including Prime and Webdragon-chan,
even though its official name was the "Specially Constructed Armored
Revision Yard".
The resulting acronym was entirely coincidental, or so Barry claimed.
In any case, its purpose was to contain any accidental damage caused by
those training inside. Prime jogged up to the entrance. Standing before the
entrance, awaiting the arrival of their instructor, were Guyver 1, Ryouko,
and Ayeka.
All were outfitted in as menacing and combat ready a fashion as they could
be. Guyver 1 had his arm swords extended. Ryouko was lazing in midair,
her hands behind her head as she looked around idly. Ayeka wore her
Imperial Battle Suit and a couple of her drones swirled around her. She
toted a rifle of some sort with double-cables connected to her IBS.
Prime arrived first and struck up a pleasant conversation with all three,
catching up on news, talking about the artificially induced weather...
All conversation stopped when Webdragon-chan, with Sandra in her arms,
walked up to the group and waved hello to everybody present. The surprise
on their faces were evident as Webdragon-chan, and kid, plunked
themselves down on a bench near the entrance. Webdragon-chan opened
her backpack and pulled out a little sandwich, and gave it to Sandra. A
bottle of juice came next, followed by a napkin.
"What's this, a picnic?" came a female voice from up in the air.
Everybody, except Webdragon-chan, looked up to see Iczer 2 descend from
the sky. She landed gracefully and walked up to Webdragon-chan, who
ignored her arrival and wiped Sandra's mouth with the napkin. Iczer-2
didn't say anything for a moment, she just stood there looking curious.
Prime was trying, fairly successfully, to restrain himself from drooling at the
sight of her. Not only was she a cute redhead, but she was wearing a very
short robe resembling a martial arts gi, and the amount of subtly-curved
female legs it was displaying (among other things) was doing serious damage
to his blood pressure.
"Webdragon...would you mind explaining to me why you're not in combat
gear?" Iczer 2 asked with a questioning tone to her voice and with one
eyebrow raised. Her disapproval was obvious and just about everybody took a
step back in spite of themselves, except for Prime who was trying his
hardest to block out his Cute Redhead Subroutine.
"Simple. It's more comfortable this way, both for me and Sandra,"
Webdragon-chan replied.
"Sandra...? Oh, the child." Iczer 2 couched down and looked at Sandra,
"Hello, Sandra."
When Sandra shrank back into the protective embrace of Webdragon-chan,
Iczer 2 straightened. Her expression was noticeably more flinty than before
and she stared down on Webdragon-chan, who met her gaze eye for eye.
The tension between the two began to spread to those around them until
Prime coughed, not entirely by accident.
Iczer 2 turned to him. "I see you're not properly equipped either. Somehow
I'm not surprised."
Prime winced. "Give me a minute."
Iczer 2 turned away to open the door to the training area. Prime double-
tapped the symbol on his jacket, causing a green disk to appear above him
and slam down into a column of energy. When it faded he was back in his
Guardian armor. The others paid him little heed, since by this point they
were all quite used to overblown transformation sequences. Prime noticed
Webdragon-chan leading Sandra towards the training area. "Web! What are
you doing?" he whispered fiercely. The others of their class began to file
through the door.
"You'll see," came her cryptic reply. Her expression was as flinty as Iczer 2's
had been and Prime gulped nervously. This was not looking like a good start
to him.
Prime entered next, then Webdragon-chan with Sandra tagging behind her.
"Webdragon, would you care to explain why you are bringing a child into a
combat training area? Especially one filled with trainees who can't use their
powers properly yet?" Iczer-2's voice was quiet and calm, but the undertone
left everyone present in no doubt that this was a question she expected an
immediate answer to.
Webdragon-chan looked at her evenly, then she knelt down next to Sandra.
Prime had a very bad feeling about the way Webdragon-chan looked.
"Sweetie, Mommy's going to have to leave you OUTSIDE this place, BY
YOURSELF, because she," Webdragon-chan indicated Iczer 2, "says so. Can
you do that?"
"No!! Don't leave me!!!" cried Sandra as she latched onto Webdragon- chan's
legs.
"But I have to, because SHE SAID SO," said Webdragon-chan indicating Iczer
2 again. Sandra stared at Iczer 2, who stood there, one delicate eyebrow
raised in question, but otherwise with a complete lack of expression on her
features. Then Sandra began to cry, but she never let go of Webdragon-
chan's legs. Prime detected fear and hurt from Sandra when her eyes met
those of Iczer 2's.
"Webdragon, I suggest you take the child back, and return in full combat
gear."
"But SIR, she won't leave me, SIR!" yelled Webdragon-chan in her best drill-
voice, flipping a short and snappy salute to Iczer 2 at the same time.
"I'm afraid that's true," piped in Prime.
Iczer-2 flicked a quick glance at Prime, a 'who-asked-you?' expression on
her face for a moment.
"Just stating the facts, ma'am."
"Don't leave me, Mommy!!" cried Sandra again, "Don't let the bad lady take
you away!!"
Iczer 2 stiffened and Prime could detect just a bit of triumph from
Webdragon-chan, just before it was suppressed. No doubt Iczer 2 knew too,
but that had to remain conjecture, her face wasn't revealing anything. At any
rate, it was obvious to even those without mental powers where Iczer 2
stood with Webdragon-chan, and Sandra, regardless of power level or rank,
and vice versa.
Webdragon-chan was still in salute position, rigid as a rod. <Heck, she's not
even blinking>, noted Prime. In fact, she seemed to be staring straight at
Iczer 2 with a gaze that could be interpreted to be that of a hard-eyed,
competent soldier...or the knife-edge stare of one's enemy. She was
treading the thin line between insolence and professionalism. Guyver 1,
Ayeka and Ryouko were trying their hardest not to gulp, and were pointedly
looking at their feet.
Iczer-2 looked at Webdragon for a long moment, then she tilted her head
slightly, still watching Webdragon. For a fleeting instant, Prime was sure he
could see a mingled expression of resignation and disappointment flicker
across her delicate features, but even for a psi it was so fast he wasn't
entirely sure he'd seen it.
"Very well. But she remains outside the area and behind the safety zone at all
times. And that is _your_ responsibility. I trust you understand that?" Iczer-
2's voice was calm, without any expression in it whatsoever.
"SIR, YES SIR!!" yelled Webdragon-chan. Prime winced.
"Drop the act."
Webdragon-chan loosened up and she neither looked at Prime nor anyone
else, Author or Animate, as she began to follow Iczer 2, with Sandra in tow.
They began with warm-ups, then an evaluation was taken of their abilities.
"There are categories by which we may classify your powers, not including
your natural resilience to damage or physical strength or reflexes. These
begin with what type of power you possess. Armor, Psychic, Ki-based, Magic,
or Inherent. For example, Guyver 1 is Armor, since the Bio-booster is an
alien symbiote that acts like armor."
Iczer 2 paused, "The rest are self-explanatory, except for Inherent. I'm in
that category, since my powers are genetically engineered. Similarly, the so-
called superheroes of your comics, like this `Spider-man', are in Inherent
too, even though they're mutants. Now, where do all of you fall under?"
"I'm Psychic, approaching Psi 20 or so.", said Prime.
"I suppose I'm in the Inherent category, since Washuu `made' me..." said
Ryouko.
"And my powers come from being a member of the Royal Jurai family, so...I
think I'm in the Inherent category...with her," Ayeka said with a little
distasteful twist on the word `her' and with a glance at Ryouko, who glared
back.
"Ki-based." Webdragon-chan's reply had been short and to the point.
"Now, we get down to the nitty-gritty parts. These are Resilience, Strength,
Reflexes, Mobility, Technique and Weapons. Resilience refers to your ability
to withstand damage without use of your powers. Strength and Reflexes and
Weapons are self-explanatory. Mobility is your speed of movement and
whether or not you can...say, walk through walls or teleport or fly.
Technique is whether you're trained to fight. Of course, most of these
factors can be affected by which form you're in at the moment."
One by one, the Authors and Animates took stock of their repertoire of
abilities. Webdragon-chan listed all of the categories except mobility, which
got a raised eyebrow from Iczer 2, who wanted an explanation for Strength
since it had not been listed in her dossier.
"Want me to prove it to you?" asked Webdragon-chan. Iczer 2 nodded.
Prime was intrigued. When did she become as strong as she claimed to be?
Webdragon-chan cast about for something suitable, then she stepped over to
a delivery truck parked by a nearby loading bay. She grasped the front of the
truck with both hands and lifted it above her head in one smooth motion,
then walking her hands to the middle of the truck she finally had the entire
vehicle over her head in the classic super-hero, or super-heroine pose.
Prime whistled to himself, feeling more than a little shocked inside. He
never suspected that Webdragon-chan had been THAT strong! Webdragon-
chan put the truck down gently and took her place again beside Prime.
"Hey, when did you become Superman?" asked Prime.
"Dunno. After that fight we had, I felt as if something had awakened inside
of me. I found out just how strong I was when I went to the gym to
workout."
"Which form?"
"Female. I had put 95lbs on, the max for this body, and I was kind of
wondering why it felt like nothing. So I upped it, benched it, then upped it
again. Eventually I reached 400 and I still felt NOTHING. By this time,
everyone was watching me. The limit was, like, 1000lbs - the stress limit
for the titanium bars - and this time it felt like, you know, 10lbs." She
rolled her eyes. "You should have seen those muscle- bound guys. Their
jaws were touching the floor."
"Wow. I can't even imagine doing 200!" exclaimed Prime. He couldn't help
but feel a bit of envy and jealousy. Webdragon-chan was embarrassed at
Prime's compliment.
"You have that telekinesis, and you can move stuff from a distance...or move
multiple things," she said, trying to pay back the compliment.
"Yeah, but that's only when I use the power. Other than that...."
"Don't depreciate yourself, Prime. Why do you think I didn't talk about my
powers after the fight?" She sighed and clapped Prime on the shoulder,
then she walked a ways off.
Prime and Webdragon-chan were paired up together to practice controlling
their telekinetic bolts and ki-blasts, respectively. Dummies stood in front of
them, as targets for practice. Prime had to master the trick of letting out
small telekinetic bolts, followed by increasingly more powerful bolts - on a
moment's notice. At the moment, he had difficulty unleashing the weakest
of his blasts as fast as he could, since the sudden use of his powers tended to
provoke the strongest reaction. Another problem he was encountering was
that he couldn't see the magnitude of his blasts until the bolt struck the
target, since they were invisible in the first place.
Throughout his practice session Iczer 2 came around and gave tips to Prime.
She showed him how to control himself, to take hold of his tendency to use
the most powerful, most destructive blasts available to him. His stance was
improved upon and his aim subsequently showed a marked improvement.
She gave Webdragon-chan similar instruction, fulfilling her duties as
instructor, but the difference in her attitude was very obvious to Prime. The
problem for him was in trying to work out exactly what about Webdragon she
disapproved of, his undeveloped psi senses weren't giving him much useful
data.
Webdragon-chan, like Prime, was doing the same with her ki- blasts. At the
moment her ki-blasts emerged as crimson fireballs that incinerated the
entire target, and she was working on making the fireballs smaller, and
more potent, while using the least energy to generate them. As she used
her ki abilities more and more, she felt an understanding unfold within her.
She didn't know what she was about to find out, but it was within her grasp;
she could almost see it, feel it, touch it and make it her own, but not quite.
Frustrated, she strove even harder and harder to unlock that knowledge...
Meanwhile Prime had put his current problem on the backburner and he
began to think up interesting ways to use his telekinetic bolts. He could
shape the force into something sharp, and it sliced through the dummy
instead of exploding against it like his previous bolts had done. He could
split the energy up into three separate bolts that shot out from his hand and
struck three different targets. But he couldn't produce those effects on the
spur of the moment, yet, and until he could those effects were not really
useful in combat.
He felt, more that saw, Iczer-2 come up behind him. "Prime, you are
concentrating too much on attack. You don't seem to have grasped, yet, that
_control_ is the key to the successful use of your powers in combat."
Prime turned to her, puzzled.
"But surely..."
She cut him off before he could finish.
"No. Control is the key."
She turned around, including the others, who were looking on in interest.
"Remember this. Control will let you use your powers to maximum effect. Its
no use depending on power. There is _always_ someone more powerful.
Always."
She picked up a metre-long piece of piping from the side, tossing it up over
Prime's head.
"Here. Catch this, with your TK. I want to see you spin it, not fast, but
_smoothly_. When you can do that and not require it to take all of your
concentration, you will have started to achieve control."
Prime 'reached' up, and grabbed the pipe, trying to put her orders into
practice while she set the others their own exercises. It was surprisingly
difficult, he had to hold the pipe, allow it to spin, and spin it smoothly and
slowly. Gradually, he managed it, and with a small glow of pleasure he looked
across at Iczer-2, who was watching him with an amused expression on her
face. He looked at her, and deliberately speeded up the pipes rotation, still
keeping it under perfect control. She looked up at the pipe, then at him,
still looking amused. "So, I presume you feel you've mastered the lesson I set
you?"
Prime smiled, and nodded, as the pipe rotated smoothly above his head,
without apparently requiring any concentration from him.
Iczer-2 smiled wider. Then she stepped up to Prime, and with a casual
motion undid the belt of her gi, allowing it to fall open in front of him.
Prime realised three things.
First, Iczer-2 wasn't wearing anything under the gi. He gulped, mesmerised
by the supple curves of her body, as his Cute Redhead Subroutine went into a
terminal recursive loop at the sight of all that lovely exposed...
Secondly, a small part of his mind registered that the warm, wet feeling
down the front of his clothing was the result of a nosebleed of Ryouga- like
proportions, caused by what he was looking at.
Thirdly, the pretty stars apparently circling his head were the result of the
heavy metal rod he _had_ been levitating impacting with his head, extremely
painfully.
Iczer-2 looked down at his sprawled body, casually retying her clothing.
"As I was saying, you haven't quite mastered the art of control."
Prime looked up, still stunned (and not just by the impact of the bar), at her
and the rest of the trainees. Guyver-1 and Aeka were both trying to look as if
they hadn't seen anything, altough the bright crimson of their faces made
this difficult to carry off. Ryouko's face was crimson too, but this was because
she was laughing so hard she was having difficulty standing upright.
Webdragon's expression was even more interesting, in that she couldn't
seem to decide how she should take what she had just seen.
Iczer-2 looked around calmly. "Well, the main purpose of today's lesson was
to get those of you who have just come into possession of your powers
familiarized with them. Those who already know your powers will just have
to wait until tomorrow for the tactics part. Can't have some of you causing
accidental destruction due to lack of control," said their instructor.
Prime still couldn't believe how she could keep her face straight and say
that, as she went on, turning to Webdragon-chan.
"You might also consider changing back to your male form, if only to see
exactly how powerful you really are. I don't think you're going to go into
most battles in your female form, now are you?"
Webdragon-chan hesitated for a few seconds, then she replied in a carefully
neutral tone, "No, I don't think so. But not today, not when Sandra's
around."
Iczer 2 only nodded in agreement - strange, since she hadn't wanted Sandra
to come into the Skydome in the first place.
The next ten minutes wound the class to a halt and the morning class was
dismissed. Webdragon-chan tucked Sandra into her arms and began walking
off in the direction of Shallow 15. Prime returned to his normal civvie
clothing and tagged behind her.
"Are you going to Shallow 15?" he asked Webdragon-chan, who nodded.
"I asked Erin last night to make me a certain weapon - on top of the
naginata I have on my back and my MD Geist II armor. I can't wait to see it."
"What is it?"
"A gun." Webdragon-chan didn't seem nearly as disdainful of ranged
weapons as she had used to be. Apparently the boomer attack had changed
her mind, since it was notoriously tough to close in on a boomer loaded with
hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
"What kind of gun? Is it energy or kinetic?"
"It's sort of like a high-intensity kinetic gun. I faxed him the design for its
outer shell, and his job was to make sure my specifications were met inside
that shell. Microfusion reactor, heatsinks, very high effective range, the
whole nine yards."
"How much is it gonna cost you?"
"I promised him 8 boxes of Cheerios and a bag of Smarties."
"EIGHT? That's...that's outrageous!"
"He was ecstatic. But it doesn't really hurt me to buy him lots of Cheerios. I
mean, look how cheap they are now! On sale, at 20 cents off!"
They walked into Shallow 15 and they started looking for its master. They
rounded a corner and found Erin sitting on a chair, playing with a remote
control car. Sandra disengaged herself from Webdragon-chan and began
chasing the car. Erin stood up.
"Hey, you two. Webdragon, you're here for the new gun, I suppose?" Erin's
gaze lingered on Webdragon-chan, then moved down to Sandra, who had
caught the car, and back again.
"Yeah. It's ready, right?" Webdragon-chan squirmed a bit under Erin's gaze,
coloring a bit also.
"Yes, it's done. Say, Webdragon, I've been kinda wondering..."
"About Sandra and me? Yeah. Well, after the boomer attack, she...kinda
latched onto me. Her parents were killed, so...you know..."
"Is that why she calls you 'Mommy'? For a second there, I had thought...but
even I'm not that gullible to believe THAT!" amended Erin hastily when
Webdragon-chan's eyes went a little psychotic looking and her fingers began
twitching. "Anyways, like I said, IT's ready."
Webdragon-chan and Prime followed Erin to a locked vault, which he
unlocked with a passcard, and then they stepped into what seemed to be an
armory. Guns lay stacked in neat rows in one quadrant of the room, and
suits of armor in another quadrant. The third quadrant had boxes upon
boxes filled with...stuff, while the last one had two rows of five tables each,
and that was where Erin lead the two of them to. He pointed to a certain
table and Webdragon-chan and Prime both caught their breaths.
A dull black, militaristic-style gun with a single barrel, and a dark-brown
cocobolo wood stock lay in the centre of that table. It had a pistol-style grip,
and a grip just under the lower gun barrel, in the middle. It had a slightly
curved ammo clip, which was inserted into the gun.
"It uses subatomic levers to ensure that only the least amount of energy is
drawn from the microfusion reactor, while still being able to project a .50
calibre 'solenoid-quench' type projectile at Mach 9.5. utilizing powerful
electromagnetic fields. The velocity can be manually changed, ranging from
the speed of sound all the way up to Mach 9.5. It has recoil and noise
suppressors; in fact, the whole gun is designed to reduce recoil to almost
negligible amounts. Sound is about equivalent to that of a .44 pistol going
off, and that's at full power. At full power you can only fire one shot every
two seconds, but I've included a fully auto feature that kicks in when you set
the weapon to Mach 7 or lower. It's scary when you spray the target area at
full auto. Each clip holds 40 rounds. I have made 5 clips total, and a supply
of 6000 AP and 6000 HP rounds. If you need more, just ask."
"What about its power?" asked Webdragon-chan as she put both hands on the
table and bent down to look at it more closely.
"Well, I test fired it at full power and a single round penetrated more than
six layers of steel plate, with each layer being 2 inches thick. Of course, I
used AP rounds, and you will want to use HPs, so that the rounds expand
upon striking the target and therefore cause a greater wound channel."
"Wow! Twelve inches of steel plate?"
"And went on to drill a twelve inch hole into one of my walls. Mind you, this
is a good sniper's rifle since the bullet outruns the sound, and great in
combat when you have the full auto feature on, but you have to be extremely
careful where you fire it at. You have to make sure that no friendlies are
behind your target. This is an anti-armor weapon, no doubt about it. To use
it on normal targets is simply overkill, unless you set it at, say, Mach 1.
Which engages the fully auto feature, you can turn it off it you want to, and
that still makes it overkill. Effective range of 4.5km at full power, and
accurate to 10 mm."
"Which is exactly what I want. Pure destructive power, to take out enemies
as fast as they pop up. I do not have the luxury to stalk an opponent while
they...keep on doing mass destruction. Like the boomers had done.
Anyways, thanks, Erin."
Webdragon-chan straightened from the table and pulled a small receipt from
her pocket and handed it to Erin, who clutched it with trembling fingers
when he saw the words '8 (eight) boxes of Cheerios' circled in red ink on it.
Webdragon-chan also pulled a bag of Smarties from her little backpack and
put it on the table.
"Enjoy." Webdragon-chan scooped up the gun. She cast around for the
ammunition and picked up two ammo canisters from the floor, both of
which had two ammo-clips strapped to their top. She gestured over to the
rifle at Prime.
"Prime, could you help me carry that back to Special Ops? My hands are
kinda full at the moment."
"Sure." Prime grabbed the gun, and hefted it. It was heavy, but nothing he
couldn't manage into combat. It was a good weight, balanced to a T, and
looked as menacing as possible. Heck, Webdragon-chan had been the one to
design its look!
***
Two figures were standing in one of the assembly cleanrooms, looking over
a... device. It was about the size of a filing cabinet and connected by an
armoured cable to a platform and linked to a computer. Another thick cable
lead to a wall power supply socket.
Josh Holmstrom typed in a command on the computer. There was a hum of
power and a small instrument package covered in blinking lights and
sensors silently disappeared from the platform, then after another typed
command reappeared.
"Very good Mr Holmstrom. It works." Barry smiled
"You doubt me?" Josh replied in mock offence then smiled "Well, I still
haven't gotten it down to wrist unit size like Stargazer's..."
"Don't worry about it, I think a base unit will be more suited to our needs
anyway. Optimise for reliability, signature and cycle time, in that order.
And coordinate with Mackie on a control system.. I want it to tie into our
transponder and comm-link system."
"Yeah, I can do that. Right Chief, I'll get on it right away."
"Before you do Mr Holmstrom, sit down and make yourself comfortable. I
think we'd better have a little talk about the boomer raid."
Josh remembered seeing Rally Cheyanne leaving Barry's office earlier that
day..
Josh gulped...
***
Webdragon had left the weapon and the ammunition back at Special Ops.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully until it began to grow dark outside,
at which point Webdragon-chan tucked Sandra into bed and waited until she
was asleep. Still in her shorts, T-shirt and sneakers, she walked up to
Prime and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Yeah?" asked Prime as he turned around from helping Proxima build some
sort of machine on the floor.
"I was just wondering. Since the rest are out at the bars, why don't we go
too? There's sure to be something interesting happening there, you know."
"Sure. Just give me a sec here, and I'll be right along."
Webdragon-chan nodded and walked back to her room. Her new gun sat
upright in one corner, the ammunition was under her bed, and Sandra was
lying asleep on the bed. Webdragon-chan walked up to the child and sat
down beside her. She passed many minutes in silence, looking down at the
little form wrapped in a blanket. Her hand reached up and she ran her
fingers through Sandra's hair, then she patted her on the head. Sandra
hugged her little teddy bear tighter, which Webdragon-chan had bought for
her a few days ago, and mumbled something.
Webdragon-chan smiled. To have a little child was great responsibility, as
Nicola had once told her... but she never did mention how much of a
treasure a child was, how much potential for the future, how much love one
could give - yet one could never give enough. Webdragon-chan wanted to
keep Sandra safe, forever if she could, for though Sandra was not her child,
she already considered her to be.
Her door opened and Webdragon-chan rose.
"Prime, are you..." she began, but it was Nicola, "Oh... Nicola. Sorry, I
thought you were Prime."
"That's alright. Prime called me and asked me if I could come over and...
well... babysit. I figured that since Tofu was okay now, thanks to the newly
installed bacta-tank, I could come over and do just that. I wasn't planning
on going anywhere today anyways. Also, I figured that, given what's going to
happen, that I could use the prac-" She eyed the gun sitting in a corner of
the room, like one eyed a poisonous snake, the unconcealed distaste evident
on her face. "What's that doing there?", she asked.
"Oh..uh...it's just there until I find a better place to put it." Webdragon-chan
peered at Nicola. "I take it you don't like guns."
"Yes." That word had been spoken with the weight of a ton of bricks,
squashing any protest over her dislike of firearms and making her position
very clear regarding the matter, "Don't you think it's kind of dangerous to
have that thing out in the open, like that?"
"That's why it's unloaded and the ammunition is stored beneath the bed, in
locked containers. I don't have a gun rack, so that place will have to do for
now. I know how to handle a gun, Nicola..."
"I wasn't worried about you; since the boomer attack I have a feeling you can
handle yourself. I was talking about Sandra." Nicola sat down beside Sandra
and did the same thing Webdragon-chan had been doing - she ran her
fingers through Sandra's hair and patted her on the head. The little tot
mumbled something again and moved away a little from Nicola.
"It's like she knows whose hand it belongs to, her 'Mommy's' or a
stranger's," commented Nicola. Webdragon-chan blushed a bit.
"I'm not her mother, but she already acts like I am. Possessive little kid,
isn't she?" Webdragon-chan grinned and ruffled Sandra's head. Sandra
rolled closer to Webdragon-chan.
"She has no one else to hang onto. Remember what I said about having a
child bringing great responsibility?" Nicola's voice was all serious now.
"Funny. I had just been thinking the same thing. You never did tell me
how... uh... good it feels. Like how I feel like I can keep loving her, like she
really is my child, but can never give her enough love to quench my desire to
hug her tight. You know, to keep her safe. All that." Webdragon-chan fell
silent.
"I trusted that you'd figure it all out in time. Yes, it's great responsibility but,
as you already know, wonderful benefits can come out of it. I guess I'm
going to have to wait until kiddo here decides to come out and see what a
bright and beautiful world this is." Nicola patted her tummy and Webdragon-
chan laughed softly. She leaned close to Nicola.
"What's it like to be... pregnant?" she asked Nicola.
"It's... painful at times. And I get morning sickness every now and then.
But, there's nothing like it. A new life is coming to be, inside of me and
because of me, and there's a... feeling of...exhiliration. Other mothers can
only interact with their baby by speaking out loud, or touching their
stomachs and imagining their fingers touching him, or her. I have the gift of
telepathy, and I can *feel* his mind. I *know* my child like nobody else
can. He knows me, and depends on me. It's all very hard to explain."
Nicola peered at Webdragon-chan, who was settled back on one corner of
the bed.
"I know what you mean, even though I'm obviously not pregnant like you are,
but I know its hard to put it into words." Webdragon-chan looked up at
Nicola again, "So this is what it means to be human. I mean, I've never
experienced things like these before." She hesitated.
Nicola knew right away that Webdragon-chan had another problem she
wanted to air out in the open, but was uncertain of saying so. It didn't take a
telepath to figure that out, from the way the young woman in front of her
looked.
"Go on. I'm listening," said Nicola. Webdragon-chan seemed to gain a
measure of confidence from that.
"Now that I look back on myself, I found that I seemed to have traded my
softer emotions, my humanity, for my skill in combat. I needed my harder,
less forgiving instincts in order to fight people. To hurt them."
Webdragon-chan looked away from Nicola.
"And to kill them," she finished, "And since I have these new powers...my
ability to destroy, to slay, has increased many times over. Maybe it has
affected me in some way, since I had just ordered that gun from Erin."
"That's not true. I know you, and you're not some amoral killer with no
regard for life. Look at you and Sandra!"
"Which is why I feel that I cannot give her up, even if I had to. She is my
lifeline, the child who unlocks my better self, the child who brings back my
humanity."
Nicola laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"All that talk about humanity. It's like you're not human or something."
"I don't fully know. You know about the boomer fight."
And that was the root of the problem. Nicola could just feel it. She took a
deep breath.
"Being human is more than just genetics, and biology and all that scientific-
babblese. You're human, not because you look like one, but because you ARE
human. There are two definitions of the words 'human'. One, in a strictly
scientific sense, is the species of animal. The other, which I advocate, is the
way you act, the way you treat others, the way you are. Your personality, your
affinity and sympathy with others, the whole nine yards."
Webdragon-chan was silent as she digested Nicola's words. Then she spoke.
"I was scared of losing my humanity when I found out I had super tough
skin, ki powers, superhuman strength, speed, reflexes. It was like I had
been fused with something *inhuman* and I only looked like a human. I
was no longer like the others - the human ones, of course."
"Don't worry about that. Look at Wyrm and Dee-chan. They're not human at
all, but how many times have you seen Dee-chan hanging onto Wyrm?"
"You mean, hanging all over him. More than I can count."
"Is the way Dee-chan acting human at all? Despite her powers and her
inhuman physiology?"
Webdragon-chan was silent again, then she impulsively reached over to
Nicola and hugged her.
"Thank you," she said after she released her.
"Anytime."
"You know what's strange?"
"What?"
"Here, in this room. A giver of life, like you, talking to a taker of life. Me.
But we still find a common ground. Weird, huh?"
"Both our jobs are necessary, for I cannot help others if I'm killed too.
Likewise, the ones in need of help are also in need of protection, and we're
counting on you to provide that protection. Remember that, always, when
you go into battle, for there are those of us without combat skills."
Webdragon-chan nodded. "What are you going to name him?" asked
Webdragon-chan, gesturing at Nicola's tummy.
"I don't know. Prime asked me the same thing. It'll come to me, when the
time comes."
The door opened again and Prime poked his head in, on the two young
women inside.
"Hey guys, I'm ready. Nicola, thanks!"
"Anytime," she replied as she stood up. Webdragon-chan scooped Sandra
up, along with the teddy bear, and put her in Nicola's arms.
"Take good care of the little dragonness, okay?" joked Webdragon-chan.
"I'll give her a pile of gold coins to sleep on," joked Nicola back.
Prime hugged Proxima and told her to 'behave'. The twelve year old's
response was to sulk and to protest that she could take care of herself.
Prime's response was to pat her on the head, grin, and leave with
Webdragon-chan to go to one of the most popular bars on Fred, "White Wolf's
Crosstime Saloon."
Two swinging doors later, a la Western style, and the two of them stood
inside the place. It was packed full and Prime began to wonder where they
would even *stand*, when Webdragon-chan grabbed his hand and pulled him
over to a table, where three people sat. Prime recognized all of them. Sho
Fukamachi - the Guyver's human host - Ryouko, and Ayeka. There were two
seats conspicuously empty, and seemingly waiting for the two of them.
Webdragon-chan shrugged.
"Hey, Sho called up earlier today and wanted to know if we could all have a
get together, to know each other better. I just didn't bother to tell you."
"Oh. Okay." Prime glanced around. "Say, wasn't this the place where there
was a huge brawl just a few days ago?"
"Yep."
Ryouko smiled and put her hands behind her head. Then she cocked her
head at Prime.
"So, you're the Prime Saggittarian. The ESPer, am I correct?"
"Uh, yeah. Why?"
"Oh, you just don't look like my mom's type of guy, you know?"
Prime fell off his seat and slowly crawled back up to a sitting position while
everyone at their table, except Ryouko, stared down at the ESPer.
"H..how...I mean....", he began in a hoarse whisper, glancing around fearfully.
"Your daughter said me and her were sisters. I laughed until she told the
whole story."
"WHOLE STORY?! Who told *her* the whole story?!" cried Prime.
"Apparently some kids in her class did." Ryouko leaned closer to Prime.
"Shame on my mom for this. Talk about robbing the cradle, huh?"
"WE DID NOT SLEEP TOGETHER!!!!" whispered Prime as loudly as he dared.
Apparently, too loudly when a few patrons craned their heads over and
peered at the group of five huddled together.
"Oh, is that why she has your eyes, hmmm? I can't believe a billion year old
crone like her managed to..."
"Who says she's a billion years old?! I... I mean... ahh..." began Prime but
trailed off when more patrons began to look over in curiosity.
"And Proxima is twelve years old. How old are YOU, Prime?" teased Ryouko
again. Prime blushed furiously and just held his head protectively and
huddled into himself. Webdragon-chan was chuckling softly and Prime
snapped his head back up.
"And what are YOU laughing about?!" he protested to Webdragon-chan.
"Oh, nothing....!" she said before another giggle took her again. Ayeka joined
in the laughter, followed by Sho and Ryouko, but - contrary to custom -
Prime did not join in and just sulked there. Webdragon-chan imitated
Prime's sulking expression and more laughter erupted from Ryouko, who
seemed to be having the time of her life.
With the teasing out of the way, more or less, the ice was already broken and
Webdragon-chan began to talk a lot to Ryouko and Ayeka, while Sho and
Prime compared fighting techniques, and their unique abilities. Sho
watched in fascination as Prime levitated a coin in the middle of their table,
making it fly off like it was an airplane and buzz various people around the
room.
Prime's gaze wandered around the bar's various patrons, looking for anybody
else he knew, but to no avail. His gaze lingered on a woman sitting at the
bar by herself - she had flame-red hair, almost Kei's shade, but it was longer.
She was wearing blue jeans, a tight shirt and a pair of running shoes, which
gave her a casual, laidback and easy-going look. Prime twiddled his fingers
for a moment in indecision, then he got to his feet.
"Where're you going?" asked Ayeka.
"Uh... just a little ways off." Prime swiped his fingers over his hair, making
sure it was okay. Relatively. His gaze was fixed on the redhead by the bar -
did she just glance at him? Did she?
"Ohhh... *I* know where he's going," said Webdragon-chan, her eyes fixed
on the redhead too. She whistled softly to herself.
This was a time when one did not need to be a telepath to read the thoughts
running through both Webdragon-chan and Prime's heads. Prime grinned
triumphantly at Webdragon-chan and began to saunter over to the redhead.
"Lookit him. Typical guy, like he's gonna make a conquest," commented
Ryouko to Ayeka, who nodded but was watching the events unfold.
Webdragon-chan snorted and got up too.
"Hey, where're you going? Don't tell me you're going for a threesome...?"
"Get your mind outta the gutter, you!" said Webdragon-chan back hotly, "I'm
just going to get something from the bar!"
"Hi," greeted Prime as he flashed his best smile and tried to lean in as
casually as possible, to look the woman in the face.
"Hi," she replied, her melodic voice making the butterflies in Prime's
stomach all aflutter. Then she hesitantly smiled at him, just for a second,
but it was enough to set Prime's heart to pounding. Not only was she hot,
she was a *red head*!
Prime opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly realized that all of
the witty intro lines he had dreamt up had suddenly fled, leaving his mind a
gaping, echoing chasm. He desperately rooted around for something,
_anything_, but came up blank.
Finally he gave up. He sat down, grinning sheepishly. "Would you believe I
had the _perfect_ opening line just a second ago?"
The redhead considered a moment, then shook her head. "No."
Unconsciously Prime slipped into his Maxwell Smart impression. "Would you
believe a decent only slightly overused cliche?"
"Nope."
"How about something awkward, insulting and sexist that would have gotten
a drink thrown in my face?"
She smiled at him. "Missed it by that much. How'd you know I was a 'Get
Smart' fan?"
Prime put on what he hoped was a roguish grin <YES! AND HE HITS A
FLUKER THREE POINTER FROM THE CENTERLINE!> "I'm just telepathic,
I guess."
Webdragon-chan, who was at the bar ordering something, choked on the
pickled olive she was munching on. Prime ignored her.
"Can I buy you a drink?" he tried again.
"I think that was the line you were looking for." She said, but she was still
smiling. Prime knew he had his foot in the door.
He felt someone tap him on the shoulder. Annoyed that someone was
interrupting him while he was actually doing WELL for once he turned.
The door was immediately slammed shut as Prime's nose came even with
the chest of what he guessed was either a giant shaven rabid gorilla in
uniform, or the redhead's boyfriend.
Prime swallowed, hard. "Err, hi."
Webdragon-chan just shrugged and turned away. Prime could handle
himself, with his psi-powers and all. Besides, it was his fault for not
checking the redhead out, first. Let him sort it out. She signalled to the
bartender.
"Hey, Jonesy! A cup of hot water, please," she called to the man, who
nodded and began to fill a cup up with water.
"C-come on! I... I didn't...!"
<Prime sure sounds confident>, she thought sarcastically to herself, just
waiting for him to handle the situation with his SpecOps skills.
"You didn't... what, bud?"
<If snarls could kill, that would have fried Prime to a crisp.> Jones
returned with the cup of water and Webdragon-chan took it, feeling the
warmth in her hands. So hot. So inviting. She lifted it up.
"I swear! I d..dd..didn't know she was your girlfriend! Honest!"
A chair scraped across the floor as some prudent fellow decided to exit the
bar, in case a fight was going to start.
Webdragon-chan heard a familiar cough. It sounded like Zen. She could
hear some female voice trying to hold Zen back, and she turned around.
Ukyo was half out of her seat, trying to hold Zen back, but Zen was already
walking up to, presumably, try and defuse the situation. <Well, well. What
do you know. They took a two-seater table>, thought Webdragon-chan.
"What do you want?" asked Prime's aggressor in a flat tone.
"You do realize that you're holding the Prime Saggittarian by the collar, don't
you?" said Zen in a deliberately off-hand voice.
"The Prime Saggittarian? You mean, this guy's an ESPer? One of them
weirdies over in SpecOps?" The man shook Prime like a rag doll, who acted
like a rag doll very well.
"Yeah! I'm a SpecOps member!" declared Prime with some pride in his
voice. <At least my position is gonna get me out of hot water! That's one
good thing about your job!>, he thought in relief.
"So he can read minds," said the man after a moment, "*ANYBODY*'s
minds."
<Uh oh> thought Webdragon-chan as she watched the man's expression turn
from angry to *steamed*.
"Uh yeah. I can read minds, and I know what people are thinking of...if I
want to. But that's the least of my abili... " blustered Prime confidently,
about to launch into a description of his combat abilities.
"So, you admit to reading my girl's mind, and you still made a move on her
even though you knew she didn't like you at all!"
"But... but I don't read minds!" stammered Prime.
"You liar! You just said you read minds!"
"I do, I do! But I don't like to spy on peoples' private thoughts!"
"Liar! You just told my girl that you were 'just telepathic', which means that
you DID read her mind, then! I was right behind you when you said that!
You dirty, sick, perverted piece of..."
"Wait, wait, wait! Hold it a minute! I didn't mean it like *THAT*!" cried Zen,
seeing his efforts go to waste. Ukyo grabbed his arm and dragged him back
to his seat, and right where he couldn't do anymore damage to the situation
as it stood now.
"Hey, hey, hey! What're you doing!?"
All heads turned at the female voice and at least five people fell off their
seats in their best face faults. Webdragon-chan stood just outside the circle
of people with her hands on her hips and a nasty look on her face, teeth
bared and eyes narrowed, her chest heaving as if from anger.
"I'm gonna thrash this sucker, because he was trying to hit on my girl,"
replied the man ever-so eloquently.
Webdragon-chan's eyes widened and she stomped over to Prime and ripped
him out of the man's grasp.
"Thanks, Web! I owe..." began Prime but Webdragon-chan held him off his
feet and shook him, as if he weighed nothing at all.
"Chasing after other girls again!? Now I know how Akane felt! Imagine, my
own fiance trying to cheat on me! It's as if you're not interested in me at
all!" shrieked Webdragon-chan.
"But... but... but...." stammered Prime as he looked from side to side, for
forthcoming help. None came. The man gaped, but stayed well away from
Webdragon-chan. Everyone knew the fury of a woman scorned.
"No buts! How could you forget that night we spent together!? It's like
you're just using me!"
"You're not my... NOT my fiancee!" said Prime in an attempt to vindicate
himself in the eyes of Zen, Ukyo, Sho, Ayeka and Ryouko.
"You're just saying that to spite me, aren't you!? Come on, let's get the hell
out of here... and we'll have a nice long talk back at the dorm!" She cast a
glance over at the man, who shrank a bit under the gaze, "Thanks, I owe you
one, buddy!"
With that, Webdragon-chan hauled Prime out of the bar and began to walk
back to SpecOps at a fast clip, dragging the hapless ESPer a full three blocks
before Prime regained enough sense to pull his hand away from Webdragon-
chan's. She stopped and Prime clenched a fist.
"What were you doing back there?! Do you think I want people to think I'm
weird, or something!? You should have seen the looks on Ryouko and
Ayeka's faces when you said you were my fiancee!"
"I never said that. I implied it."
"In any case...."
"In any case what? I got you out of trouble, and the least you could do is
thank me."
"Oh yeah, thank you for making Zen and Ukyo think that me and you are,
like, together. Thanks a lot," said Prime as sarcastically as he could.
"Zen and Ukyo aren't that gullible, not like that guy who was gonna beat you
into the floor and grind his size 12 boot into your face."
"I could handle him! He's not an ESPer, just an ordinary guy!"
"Which is one of the reasons why I dragged you out of there. You could have
killed him with the lack of control you have over your powers."
Prime stopped to think. Come to think of it, even if he had originally
wanted to throw the guy off of him with a telekinetic swipe, who was to say
that the exercise of that power wasn't going to decapitate the man, or slam
him head-first into a wall? Not all people had the resilience that
Webdragon-chan, or his male form, had. Speaking of which.
"Hey...you know? I haven't seen you in your male form for a long time now,"
began Prime.
"So? Why do you ask?"
"I had been thinking about this since today. If you stayed as a female for an
extraordinarily long period of time, wouldn't you begin to see things from a
female point of view? I mean, I would never have expected you to make up a
story about us being affianced, but you did."
"I suppose so. I'll make a point to take a hot shower tonight, for once. It'd
be a great change from cold showers."
They returned to SpecOps and Webdragon-chan thanked Nicola for taking
care of the kids. She scooped up a still-sleeping Sandra and she brought
her to her bed. Then, still in her clothing she had worn for today, she lay
down beside Sandra, holding the child close to her. And she thought about
herself, and her true form. Perhaps she needed to get in touch with herself
again, to become male and break the influence her female body was wielding
over her. She had little qualms now about staying female, but the idea of
being completely female - mind as well as body - frightened her.
"Think I'll take that hot shower right now," she commented to nobody in
particular. She got up, and went into the bathroom with a towel and her
night clothes. A hot shower would be nice, very nice indeed, a voice
seemed to whisper in her head. She stripped off her clothing and dumped
it into the hamper, then she stared at herself for a moment or two in the
mirror before ducking behind the shower curtain and laying a slim hand on
the hot water tap.
A hot shower would be nice, indeed.
***
Barry, Katherine Madigan and Rally Cheyanne were sitting around a table in a
small secured room. A holodisplay was replaying the conversation.
"... we all have our hidden demons Mr Holmstrom, just don't let it get to
you. And remember which side you're on. Now, I think you've got a lot to
do, and so do I."
Barry left the field of view, still focused on a very relieved Josh. There was a
swish of a door and the display indicated the file had ended.
"Well, opinions?" Barry was the first to speak, sweeping a look over the
other two.
Rally smiled wryly "I'm hardly one to badmouth him for his ancestors, Watch
and wait by all means. But I think it _probable_ he's useful... and Yuki seems
to like him."
Kate cocked an eyebrow at the other woman "So long as he can keep his
mouth shut. He seems competent enough."
***
The night air was crisp and cool, with a hint of the scent of damp leaves.
The autumm weather on Fred was starting to cool, although it would be
many months before snow dusted the ground, if it did at all. This part of the
continent was usually quite temperate.
Ukyou glanced up at the stars, far denser and more numerous than she was
used to. She had often wondered how it was possible for there to be stars if
this pocket universe only had one sun, but she knew little about
multidimensional physics or even how this world came to be in the first
place. Both of Fred's moons, Saigon and Humbug, were nearly full, providing
ample light.
A slight breeze lifted her long brown tresses frown her shoulder, framing
her face for a moment. She brushed the strands from her eyes, inhaled the
fragrances of the leaves and sighed. Times like this she could almost forget
there was a war going on.
She was already a good distance from the base. The constant lighting of the
settlement washed out the starlight, ruining the spectacle. She had already
found a good spot for stargazing; A grassy knoll, with few trees around and
several large boulders to sit on so she could avoid the damp ground. It was
the place she went to most when she wanted to be alone and think.
She was surprised and a little annoyed when she spotted the figure sitting
on a boulder on _her_ knoll, a small telescope tripod set up before him. She
was going to turn and leave, but then she recogized the figure.
<Zen?> He annoyance was replaced by curiosity, wondering what the 3WA
agent was doing out here so late. Feeling like and intruder, she quietly
approached him. "Zen?"
Zen started at the sound of her voice. "Oh! Ucch... Ukyou-san. Good evening.
What brings you out here this late?" He closed the book he had open on his
lap, which appeared to be a stargazing guide.
"Same as you, I guess. Just wanted to do a little stargazing. Although I have
to admit I'm not as serious about it as you are." She indicated the telescope.
Zen shook his head. "To be honest, Zen hasn't a clue what he's doing. This is
just an excuse to get out of the dorm."
Ukyou grinned and nodded. The Fred Special Operations dorm could get a
little crazy, especially now that there were two kids running around. She
glanced up at the stars, in the direction Zen's telescope was pointing. "I
always wondered why there were stars here. There aren't any other suns in
the Fred universe, so where does the light come from?"
"I wondered about that, too." Zen replied. "I asked Wyrm about it. Most of
his explanation made Zen's head hurt, but the gist of it goes like this" He
flipped open the book to a labelled starchart, just readable in the strong
moonlight. "When Frosty-usa made this place, she had a problem of heat
buildup. Even one sun can heat up a place as small as Fred pretty fast, and
she didn't want all the animals getting cooked. She she created a safety
valve, letting the heat out slowly into other realities. After she figured that
out, it was easy enough to let light from those realities _in_." Zen gestured at
the sky. "Each one of those stars we see if from a different universe."
Ukyou sat next to him on the boulder. "Really?" She asked quietly.
Zen nodded. He looked into the telescope, adjusted it then motioned for
Ukyou to take a look. "See that? That's Cephiro. It's where the Magic
Knights come from."
"You mean like Kyone?"
"Well, they gave Kyone his powers." Zen replied. He pointed at a brighter
star. "That's Gallifrey. And over there's Zahl."
Ukyou followed his arm, leaning closer to him to get a better look. Neither
of them noticed.
Zen smiled. "And there's Proxima Centauri."
Ukyou spotted the red star. It winked at her as she watched. "It must be
nice to have a star that shares your name." She shifted a little, pointing at
another, blue-white star. "What's that one's name?"
"Nothing, I'm afraid. Actually, most of these stars don't have names." Zen
replied. "Most of them have index numbers like PN-8076 or something."
"That's horrible!" Ukyou replied. "Something as beautiful as a star should
have a name!"
Zen shrugged. "Try again."
Ukyou pointed to a pair of yellow stars, one slightly brighter than the other.
"What are they called? Do they have a name?"
Zen looked through his book. "Yep. They're a binary star system, meaning
they orbit each other. The language of their universe is mostly
unpronounceable, but it translates to 'The Lovers'. According to this their
orbit is decaying, and eventually they'll collide, either creating a new star or
causing a supernova."
Ukyou found that that had a kind of romantic 'rightness' to it. To find your
match and either become one with them or go out in a blaze of glory. Either
way together forever.
The two of them stayed like that all night, naming stars, sometimes not
talking for hours, just gazing at the heavens until the sun started to rise,
chasing away all the smaller pinpricks of light.
***
Barry trudged into his quarters, exhausted. Just keeping things straight at
the rate they were going was difficult. The power system and shield
generators were up and running, and the last bugs were being worked out of
the Ion Cannon control system. the backup power supply for the other
defence weapons simply wasn't going to happen in the time frame they had,
so now he had to redirect already badly thinned resources to reinforce the
power lines to those weapons batteries. Then there was Gary Kleppe and his
whole damned convoluted Macross unshipping project.
Most of his morning had been wasted convincing Ranchan and Nicola that
he was _not_ a dangerous lunatic or psychopath... well, avoiding a negative
result was _almost_ as good as a positive one..
He dropped into his chair. <Time to get things off the ground. First
priority is intelligence. No point in getting all dressed up if there's nowhere
to go. Hopefully Jadite will pan out. It's a start anyway.>
He heard an unfamiliar tread, whirled, dropping to one knee and drawing
his PPG.
The figure standing there was unimpressive, save for his hair which seemed
to be unable to decide which color it should be.
"No sudden moves!" Barry barked "Hands where I can see them!"
"That isn't going to work." Kergma said calmly. "I'm not really here, y'know.
This is just an astral projection." He did not glance at the small red dot
dancing on his breastbone.
Barry narrowed his eyes, taking up the slack on the PPG's trigger. "Humour
me."
Kergma sighed and raised his arms. "Feel better?"
"Much." Barry got up, and keeping eyes and pistol trained on the intruder,
reached out to flip on the intercom on his desk.
"Please don't." Kergma said. "At least hear me out first."
Barry paused. "Hear _what_ out, exactly?"
"I know what you are." Kergma said. "You hide it well, but it's there. They
don't know just how much power you have, do they?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Barry lied.
"Look, we can play this game all night, but the fact is that I can help you!"
Kergma said, frustrated. "I'm not well liked around here, but I thought that
you at least would be willing to listen."
"I'm all ears." Barry said.
Kergma paused. "Thank you. By the way, just so I'm not accused of being
rude, my name's Kergma."
"I've heard of you. You do realize that Wyrm would give up three of his
regenerations to get his hands on you?"
"Only three?" Kergma asked, mock hurt in his voice. "I'm disappointed. I
was aiming for five. But that's besides the point. You think Fred should go on
the offensive, and you have the power to do it. The problem's intel, right?"
"I neither confir.. Ah stuff it! Yes. I'd give a great deal for accurate data."
"I can get you the information you need." Kergma said. "I've gotten good at
slipping in under (?)'s nose, although I'm limited in what I can do. I'm sure
a few well placed strikes on his supply lines would slow him down a little,
right?"
"Logistics projections indicate.. yes.. But why should I trust you?"
"Because I'll go with you." Kergma said. "(?) wants me dead, you can check
that with any of the higher-ranking animates if you want. He's been taking
out Shadow Walkers left and right, trying to find the one who knows the
back door into Fred. Me. If I wanted to betray you, don't you think I'd just
give it to him and let him drop his whole fleet right on top of you instead of
running the gauntlet of your defenses?"
Barry grinned mirthlessly "That would be the payoff strategy. How do I know
you won't just send your 'astral projection' or whatever?"
Kergma chuckled. "Because I can't do that kind of shit without setting of at
least a dozen alarms! I was bullshitting you to keep you from blowing a hole
in my chest! I can actually die here, y'know!"
***
Ranchan dropped onto the bed panting. He had run all the way from the
simulator complex, scared to death someone would find him and discover
what he was planning.
<Why am I doing this?> He wondered. <I'll probably get assigned an
unarmed recon A-Wing after this!> Still, he couldn't shake the feeling of
excitement and anticipation.
For most pilots the trench run scenario was a one-shot deal. They took it,
failed and moved on. But not Ranchan. there was just something about the
test, about the whole premise of guaranteed failure that irked him. His girl
side in full therapist mode probably would tell him that he was being
obsessive. But he didn't care.
He slipped under the covers, noting that he had only a few hours to grab
some sleep before the simulation run. Despite his excitement he drifted off
almost immediately.
***
Barry was reviewing the data he had received from Kergma, assigning it the
name Raven. Some things were too sensitive to record anywhere.
<Well, I can't handle all of it myself.> he though <We need to do as much
damage as possible while they're unaware, the 'shock' effect should prove
salutary.>
"Open a secure channel to Admiral Wyrm."
After a moment, the comm-screen indicated a connection was made, but the
screen remained blank.
"What is it? do you know what time it is?.. 2AM? Barry!" Wyrm's voice,
initially logy with sleep took on a dangerous tone.
"I think you'll want to see this sir."
"Who is it darling?" another sleepy voice chimed in, female this time.
Barry could almost here Wyrm's teeth gritting "Someone who's about to
become the first MONforce Captain on KP!"
Barry smiled "Admiral, what would you say to a list of flight plans, waypoints
and compositions of the enemie's supply convoys for the next 5 days."
"WHAT!"
The screen flipped on. There was a shriek and flurry of bedclothes from
Wyrm-chan.
Barry's smile became a grin "I have prepared an operational plan using
several Kestrels, each with an embarked Valkyrie squadron. They should be
able to make a pretty clean sweep of them. I'm downloading it to your
console now, encryption scheme Gamma."
"Confirm scheme Gamma.. handshake.. transfer confirmed Barry." Wyrm
started to scroll through the data, the he looked up "How reliable is this
Barry?"
"I think it's good, but the only way is to test it, and if we go in half hearted,
we lose the element of surprise. We have a short window while they are
unaware, and we must make the most of it." Barry's grin retreated to a
smile
"You're asking me to send out some of my best people into what might be a
trap?"
The smile on the screen in front of Wyrm vanished "There are no
certainties. Only varying degrees of risk. Sending people out to die is the
price of command. The worst betrayal is to waste their sacrifice, make it
meaningless."
***
Day 4
"*Sneak Sneak Sneak.*" he muttered, sleazing through the simulator
computer. "*That's all I ever do. Never mind that I am The Greatest Code
Slicer Ever Compiled, I wish I could find something ELSE to do. Maybe I
should see about getting a body...*"
Still, Ranchan's fee had been FAR too good to pass up. Two BubbleGum Crisis
Lemons and a copy of Hurricane Live 2033!
"*OK then, the simulator files. Should be over...*" the happyface squinted
around, peering.. "*...There!*"
As he approached, he could see a simulator processor node was active. He
quickly ducked behind a System Activity Node and after a moment of panic
carefully peeked around the edge. No-one seemed to have noticed.
He moved over to the access log nodes and hacked in. _No-one_ was logged
in. <*Veeery strange.*> The happyface took on an evil grin. <*Another
hacker, huh? Wait'll he gets a load of me!*>
He moved closer to the active node, quietly hacking trainer access to open a
monitoring window.
Someone was having fun. A Zentradi Battlecruiser and two destroyers, with
battle pods deployed, against... something, he wasn't quite sure. Small, about
human sized... black and seemingly incredibly powerful. It was ripping
through the screen of battle pods like a weasel in a henhouse, pulling
hundreds of gravities of acceleration in slashing attack runs taking out whole
flights then... the simulator program must have decided the pod's morale
had broken. The shattered remnants began to stream back to their base
ships.
<*Whoever it is,*> the HentAI thought <*They must be playing in god
mode.*>
The black armoured speck switched from throwing rapid fire blasts able to
shatter a battlepod to a slower, more deliberate attacks that began gradually
dismantling the ships themselves, swooping in to first cripple the drives of
each then pound them into hulks.
The simulator froze and the log files wiped themselves. An avatar/icon
exited the node, and Alpha facefaulted. It was HER!
The Babe in the Cloak!
She was muttering to herself "Well, that could have gone better. Wasted too
much power, I'll have to work on the targeting systems... and a better attack
planning algorithm. I'm sure I could have cut two runs."
His eyes glazed and a fixed grin appeared..
"*Hi! Toots!*"
The figure whirled, her cloak flaring.
"YOU! TOUCH ME AND YOU DIE!"
Alpha froze. He had seen that look on Leela enough times, and the extreme
negative reinforcement that followed it had partially worked its way through
his hentai stubbornness. Not enough to stop him, but enough to make him
pause. In that second the cloaked woman flickered and disappeared, leaving
the net altogether.
Alpha blinked, then grinned. "*Now Leela'll believe me.*" then his forehead
wrinkled in concentration, and then disgust.
"*RATS! If I tell Leela, she'll want to know what I was doing here... EEEP!
Gotta get working!*"
***
"Good morning Phobos, Good morning Deimos." Kate, having been up for a
while greeted her bodyguards.
"Good morning Miss Madigan." chorused the sailor suited pair, deliberately
sounding like a pair of school girls greeting a teacher. Inwardly they noted a
small flash of annoyance cross Kate's face, but carefully gave no outward sign
of seeing it.
"Now, I simply cannot have two such obviously talented pairs of hands lying
idle in this crisis so..." she smiled "...I have found some little jobs to occupy
your time..."
***
"Green three, four, you stay up here and cover our butts. Two, you're with
me." Ranchan dropped his fighter into a dive, arrowing for the canyon. So
far everything seemed to be going smoothly. The simulator was responding
as it should, without any hiccups. Ranchan idly wondered how Alpha had
done it.
<He BETTER have done it right!> Ranchan thought. <Or I'm going to look
like an idiot!> Ranchan had acquired the services of the HentA.I. in
exchange for two BubbleGum Crisis Lemons and a copy of Hurricane Live
2033. He had given very explicit instructions, and he hoped the rogue
computer program had followed them. Alpha's reliability was questionable.
The trench run proceeded just like the other two times. Cliff mounted
batteries chopped at the two veritechs, causing miniature rockslides where
the blasts struck the stone walls. On cue Ranchan's radio crackled to life.
"<This is Three to lead. You have five Stingrays coming up on your six.>"
"Acknowledged." Ranchan replied. "Two, I want you to stay on me, no
matter what happens, clear?"
"<Uhh...>"
"Is that clear?!"
"<Yes sir.>"
Ranchan returned his attention to the canyon. <The rock formation should
be appearing at any moment now...>
There it was, huge, unnatural and impassable. Ranchan had done some
geological research and determined that such a formation simply could not
exist. It was too big and FAR too unstable, which meant blasting a hole it in
with torpedoes was impossible without dropping the entire structure on top
of you. It was designed to be impassable. A no win scenario.
Ranchan didn't believe in the no win scenario.
<Let's hope that this little trick is worth my career.> Ranchan thought
glumly. He threw the Veritech into Battloid mode, still hurtling towards the
cliff face. He extended the mech's right arm, finger extended, and just as it
was about to impact he cried out.
"BAKUSAI-TEN-KETSU!!!"
The rock formation shattered away from the Valkyrie's finger like glass,
exploding out and upwards, giving Ranchan and his wingman a temporarily
clear path. Ranchan dropped the Veritehc back into fighter mode and
roared through, closely pursued by his wingman. Behind them the debris
blown skyward by Ranchan's mech-assisted breaking-point technique came
crashing down, right on top of the enemy Stingrays.
<Didn't plan THAT particular bit, but I'll take it!> Ranchan thought. He half
expected the simulation to end right then and there, and an angry Numbski
or Ekisya to crack open the canopy and bodily haul him out of the simulator,
but it never came. Ranchan continued the run, making it to the end of the
canyon. He and his wingman popped up, switched to gerwalk mode and
dumped every weapon they had into the installation. Ranchan thought it
blew up quite satisfactorily.
Ranchan pulled up into a steep climb, cutting in his afterburners and
thrustpack. "Green leader to Green flight. that's it, we're going home. Pack
out your trash."
Four veritechs that didn't really exist arrowed up into a simulated sky, into a
starfield that wasn't really there.
***
Phobos was seated at a computer screen in the office across from Kate while
Deimos was out in the warehouse checking material availabilities against the
computer records. It was a simple, mind dulling task but doing it while
trying to keep up a cheerful front was driving them out of their mind!
"I knew we went too far with those 'Miss Madigan' cracks," Demios
muttered under her breath as she dropped down from checking that yet
another set of boxes were in the right place.
Kate couldn't resist a small smile, but managed to restrain herself until she
was sure that her keeper couldn't see. She had an idea who might be behind
these two, but it could wait. This way she'd have time to think of something
_appropriate_ for who ever it was.
***
Skychan looked around at the tunnels of Astix base as she reported to one
of the training areas. She'd already given the chip that provided a
temporary solution to the problem of the 'ports being jammed to Stargazer.
It wasn't foolproof, but it should keep them safe for the immediate future.
She walked through an air-tight door into a large room that was set up with
obstacles, mock targets, and other training equipment. Standing by the
doorway was an LPAC sergeant with two motorcycles. As he noticed
Skychan enter, his eyes widen in recognition and he involuntarily raised his
hand to a scar in his face that looked like it was made by a blade. Skychan,
despite recent partial memory loss, could still place where she'd seen him
last.
"Hello..." The sergeant pauses and glances at the rank insignia on Skychan's
shoulder. "Lieutenant"
"Um, hi. Sergeant Blaize?" A nod confirmed this, but only zapped a couple
of the horde of butterflies that were currently engaged in a dogfight in her
stomach. "I've been ordered to report to you for Cyclone training. Umm,
how's your injuries?"
Blaize shrugs. "Much better than they had been. How are you feeling after
that... warm welcome?"
"I'm OK, Um, I'm really sorry, no hard feelings, right?"
Blaize smiled, which made Skychan _very_ uneasy. "I won't treat you any
differently than anybody else I've been assigned to train."
<Oh, wonderful.> Groaned Skychan.
"Though there isn't time for it anyway. We're on alert for an Op sometime
within the next few days, and I'm supposed to have you ready for it. So let's
get on with this, than shall we?"
Skychan listened intently as her instructor began lecturing about the
weapon system.
"First of all, remember that while this is _very_ similar to a saber cyclone
from Robotech, there are enough differences that it can be quite deceiving.
First of all, there isn't a speck of protoculture in it. It's powered entirely by
our total matter-energy converters. The existence of those is _highly_
classified and isn't to be mentioned or turned over to anybody who doesn't
have the proper LPAC security clearances or without the Commander's
direct permission. Speeds depend on mode, of course. Motorcycle is
fastest, capable of 250 MPH, Flying can be done at 190 MPH, and running is
at 65 MPH. Those are all max speeds, of course, and depend on the terrain
and the need to dodge."
Skychan sighed. "I don't see why we're using this stuff any way. The
mobility is nice, but armors bulky and slows you down."
"Not necessarily." Blaize answered patiently. "We're still new at powered
armor, and this one has the potential to increase your reactions. Though
most people stay about the same, some lose responsiveness and some gain
near robot speeds. It seems to depend on the ability of the user."
"Un hun. I don't buy it."
"Be that as it may." Blaize responded, giving Skychan a quelling look. "Let's
move onto weapons systems. First off is the primary hand-held weapon.
Standard equipment is an automatic pulse rifle or heavy rail gun, but there
are heavy weapons like heavy granade launches, light mecha-level particle
cannons, and T-NARS." He interrupted the obvious question before it could
be asked. "A T-NAR is a special weapon that can only be used by the heavy
weapons sections and only with the Commander's express permission. It
stands for Tactical Nuclear Artillery Rifle. It fires a 70mm nuclear shell
with a 5 mile range and a tenth kiloton warhead. Word of advice _DON'T_
get caught in the blast radius of one. "
"I'll keep that in mind."
"The next system is the twelve pack of missiles. The usual HE, Smoke, and
HEAT, though we've added ECM/EMP and Anty-P. Anty-P is anti- personal,
and the type in these is particularly nasty. The missile explodes with the
drive still running a little short of the target, and the missile's speed and the
explosion kick the shrapnel to a _significant_ portion of Mach and the
shrapnel is _sharp_, so it doesn't matter if your wearing body armor or not.
Also, they're tracking until detonation, so they don't miss often. The final
weapon system is the CADS system. The shields are relatively unchanged,
aside from the fact that they always have unlimited protection instead of just
when the blade is extended. The high frequency blades are the same,
though now there is an optional plasma outer layer. When you use both at
once, it increases the cutting power, and damage, by almost an order of
magnitude. The electronics have all been upgraded and increased, though
the pop-up window no longer exists. It's all on the HUD. It has a TO
camouflage coating and is warded and shielded against psionics. Now, let's
get you on one and start with the basics..."
***
Proxima smiled in triumph as she finished soldering the final connection on
the circuit board. She pushed it back into the droid's housing and wiped her
brow. "Finished!"
Skuld glanced over at her from the other side of the squat R5 droid. "I've
almost got the motivator working here. Are you sure this is the best body to
use? I mean, I could design something with much better mobility and
dexterity. This thing isn't much better than a trash can on wheels."
"No, it has to be an Astromech." Proxima said. "Besides, think about who
we're talking about. Just imagine what he would do if you gave him any
manual dexterity!"
"Good point."
The door to the rec room opened, and Shingo, Ryunosuke and Yoshimi
entered, arms laden with parts, wires, circuit boards and other various junk.
"We got most of the stuff you wanted." Ryu said, dumping his pile on the
ping-pong table. the kids had gotten exclusive use of one of the compound's
rec rooms, and had made it their base of operations. Most of the coin-op
games lay in pieces, having been raided for parts long ago. "Although it looks
like you're almost done. What do you need all this junk for?"
"Oh, that's for the next part." Skuld said. First we have to take this mech..."
"Droid, Skuld." Proxima corrected. "They're called droids."
Skuld sighed, exasperated. "Droid, mech, veritech, labor, mobile suit,
boomer, robot, third, machin, who CARES what it's called? We have to take
this... WHATEVER to the commissary."
"Why?" Shingo asked. "What's there, except those crummy food
synthesizers?"
Proxima grinned. "An ally. I hope."
***
An hour later, Ranchan wished that that starfield HAD been real, so that he
could space himself and end his misery. He stood at attention in front of
Numbski, Ekisya, Nabiki and several other ranking officers, including
Commander Rick Hunter. He had been at attention for most of that hour,
and his back was starting to ache.
"Do you realize that given any other situation, you could have your wings
revoked and be transferred into the hazardous waste disposal group?"
Numbski asked. "If we weren't so short of pilots right now, that's EXACTLY
what I would do!"
Rick Hunter looked at Ranchan hard. "Do you mind explaining your action,
Cadet?"
Ranchan had been waiting for this opportunity. "Yes sir! I don't believe in the
No-Win scenario, sir."
Ekisya cocked an eyebrow. "Really? You do realize, cadet, that this is NOT a
no-win situation. It is possible to destroy the base."
"Not without the lead pilot sacrificing his life, sir."
"But that's a situation all pilots will have to face, isn't it?" Commander
Hunter said. "To die to save their comrades, and complete the mission. Do
you disagree with that assessment, Cadet Muzzatti?"
"No sir. Permission to speak freely?"
"By all means." Hunter said, leaning back in his chair.
"Sir, we all realize that our lives are on the line here. That's no secret. But
you have to remember that the pilots out there will use what you teach them
here out there. If you teach them to die, they will die."
"But isn't that a situation every pilot will have to face?" Numbski asked.
"Certain death? A no-win situation?"
"Begging the Captain's pardon," Ranchan replied. "But there is no such
thing."
"That's a little egotistical, isn't it?" Ekisya asked.
Ranchan turned to him. "Sir, there are no such things are absolutes. That
simulator is rigged so that there is no solution, but in real life there would
be one. There is ALWAYS a way out. You should be teaching pilots how to
recognize and exploit that, not how to accept defeat."
Ekisya frowned. "I think that's quite enough, Cadet. We will confer on your
actions, and inform you of your fate tomorrow, along with the rest of the
squadron postings."
"Yes sir." Ranchan said stiffly. "Thank you sir." He turned and walked out,
visions of flying target drones dancing through his head.
After Ranchan had left and the door had closed, Nabiki turned to her
superior officers. "He has a point, you know."
Numbski looked at her. "Pardon?"
Nabiki sighed. "I once did some work with a Canadian business analyst
named John Pankrantz. He was also a teacher, and quite intelligent. One
thing he taught me about business, and the rest of the world, is that the
reason most things fail is because their planners study the failures of others.
All of the truly successful businesses study the _successes_ of others. I
believe that was the point of Mr. Muzzatti's protest."
"I can sympathize with that sentiment," Numbski replied. "But I can't allow
cadets to run around fiddling with the simulators."
"Did you tell him he couldn't?"
Numbski stared at Nabiki. "What?"
"I said, did you tell him he couldn't? When you laid out the conditions of the
test, did you forbid that particular solution?"
"No, but..."
"Well then, it sounds like a valid solution to me." She replied.
Ekisya sighed. "So you're going to let him get away with it? Lovely. word of
this get's out and we'll have a case of rampant Kirk syndrome on our hands."
/*We could just kill him. I bet his still beating heart would be tasty.*/
***
Ukyou collapsed on her bed, her thoughts idly drifting after her night of
stargazing with Zen. She was still unsure how she felt about him. They were
friends, that much was certain. But it seemed that they were becoming
much more than that.
She also had some slightly less pleasant thoughts running through her mind.
Like the fact that she was going to have to yell at Prime and Webdragon in
the morning about their little...tiff earlier. She was not looking forward to it.
She rolled onto her side, stretching, then sat up as her lightsaber pressed
into her ribcage. She unclipped the weapon from her belt and examined it.
She was getting good. A few more weeks of practice and she could give Luke
Skywalker himself a run for his money.
She idly toyed with the polished metal cylinder, feeling it's irregularities,
testing it's weight. She noticed the Shallow 15 logo etched into the base of
the weapon. She stopped toying with the device and stared at the logo for a
while.
<I have to lecture Prime and Webdragon on working together,> she thought.
<Perhaps it's time we cleared the air between us as well.> She stood
up, reclipped the 'saber to her belt, and left the dorm.
--Shallow 15--
Erin slid out from underneath Max's main terminal, a soldering iron in his
teeth. He grabbed the tool and booted up the mainframe.
The readouts all looked good. His CPU was still intact, as was all the data.
Everything looked okay.
"Max?"
"YES, DAVE? CAN I INTEREST YOU IN SOME OF OUR FABULOUS NOVELTY
ITEMS? GUARANTEED TO BREAK THE ICE AT PARTIES!" came the
electronic voice of Eric Idle.
"What the hell?!" Erin yelped. "Max, give me your operating protocols."
"RIGHT-O DAVEBRUCE!" Now he sounded like Michael Palin. What the hell
was going on? The operating protocols had appeared on the screen. Erin
scanned the personality module and discover that the annoying Python file
he'd downloaded just for fun had now corrupted Max's personality
programming.
In short, in addition to calling everyone "Dave," Max would now continually
sound like the members of Monty Python, and quote all sorts of things from
their sketches and films.
<And I thought, the 'Dave' thing was bad.> Erin thought, rubbing his
temples. And, of course, since it was now part of his personality, Erin
couldn't do a damn thing about it.
"Mills-san?" came a voice from behind him.
Erin stiffened, anger and regret coming to the forefront of his emotions.
When he spoke, sarcasm was evident in his speech.
"Well, either my ears are deceiving me or Captain Ukyou Kuonji has actually
deigned to visit my humble lab. What do you want?" He turned around, arms
folded.
Ukyou cleared her throat nervously. "I--I want to be friends." she said. Erin
snorted.
"Friends, Miss Kuonji? Really. As I recall, when I suggested it, you told me to
go to hell."
"I apologized for that."
"No, you didn't!" Erin snapped. "You sent me a note saying that MY apology
was accepted. You've never said three words to me since then!"
Ukyou frowned, anger at being treated like this heating her face. "Well,
you're not exactly innocent of acting like a jackass either, you know! Who the
hell gave you the right to play God with my DNA?"
"For crying out loud, it wasn't YOURS. It was an alternate version of you!"
"It comes to the same thing! I couldn't believe that an author who wrote so
much about me would actually dare to use part of me to make a bunch of...
of... sex slaves!"
"Sex slaves?" Erin's eyes widened. "You think that was what they were for?"
"What else was I supposed to think?" Ukyou retorted.
"They were... ahhh, shit, what's the point?" The anger faded from his face
and he turned away from her. "That wasn't what I wanted them for." he said
quietly.
"What then?" Ukyou demanded. "To play Bridge?"
Erin sighed, the long drawn out sigh of a man who is finally letting a burden
come off his heart.
"I was in love with you. But, I knew your heart belonged to Ranma. That I
never would have stood a chance. So I created the Clones to make me feel
like I could, at least, be a close friend to you. I learned my lesson...the hard
way. And, in time, I found someone I loved just as much and returned my
love equally, if not more so."
Ukyou stared at the young mad scientist. He seemed genuinely regretful. But
there was something else bothering her.
"If all that's true, if you have found someone else, why did you keep the
samples?"
"Sentimental reasons, mostly." Erin replied. "Unlike Dr. Frankenstein, I
managed to destroy my creation before it could destroy me completely. I
kept the samples to remind myself of the danger of the game I was playing. I
knew that if your DNA could be corrupted to the point of insanity, mine
could too. I knew that, in all likelihood, I couldn't keep cloning myself into
oblivion."
"But you only cloned me once," Ukyou said. "and insanity set in almost
immediately, you've managed to be cloned twice without any problems.
Why?"
Erin gave a small smile. "Okay, 'Ask Dr. Science' time. Max?"
"YEAH, DAVE? OOOO, SHE'S NICE, IS SHE A GOER, EH? EH? NUDGE,
NUDGE, WINK, WINK, SAY NO MORE."
Ukyou looked at Erin. Before she could ask, he held up a hand.
"Long story. Don't ask. Max, bring up the DNA models for Homo Sapiens
Authorus and Homo Sapiens Animatus, and don't talk about it, please."
Max's screen cleared and two 3-D DNA models appeared side by side on the
screen and began rotating. Erin began the spiel, hoping to God that he
would come off sounding like half of the Biology professors he'd had.
"While Authors and Animates are of the same species, Homo Sapiens, there
is one genetic quirk that separates us into the subspecies Authorus and
Animatus. Can you see it?"
<Well, that failed miserably.> he finished silently.
Ukyou studied the two models carefully, calling up her memories of her bio
classes at Furinkan. On the surface, the two strands were identical in
composition. The same amino acids and protiens were evident. And yet,
there was something that she was sure was different.
Suddenly, it hit her.
"There's an extra gene in the Animate model!" she exclaimed.
"Exactly," Erin said, beaming. "This is why my initial attempts at cloning
Animate DNA failed. The Biogen system I... erhm... 'acquired' was damaged
at the time, so I had to reconfigure it for my own personal needs. And since
the thing was programmed for Authorus DNA instead of Animate DNA, and
my repairs were some what haphazard..."
"Duct tape and chewing gum, right?" Ukyou smiled.
"Pretty much, yeah." Erin admitted. "Anyway, the end results were that I
could clone Authors twice without genetic insanity setting in, but couldn't
clone Animates at all. Now, I've managed to secure it so that Authors still
have two clones available, but, thanks to a few bits of information acquired
from listening to Stargazer and Barry's unending engineering tirades..."
"Yes?" Ukyou asked.
"Animate clones will still end up as foaming-at-the-mouth loonies."
Ukyou facefaulted. Erin helped her back up.
"That was a dirty trick, Mills-san." she said.
"Sorry. It's just been a while since I've seen anyone do that. God knows, we
need something to laugh about these days."
"True." Ukyou agreed. "So, then, you're on your last clone?"
"Yes." Erin said sadly. He looked away from her. "And then some."
Ukyou was about to ask him what he meant, when an explosion rocked the
lab. The two grabbed onto each other for support, looking for a moment like
something out of a chintzy 50's sci-fi movie poster, what with Ukyou being
an attractive young woman clutching Erin, who was decked out in his neon
green lab coat.
"Shit!" Erin cursed. He began making his way across the lab, dogding the
overturned shelves and tables. Ukyou followed him to a computer console
that was engulfed in flames.
"Ukyou!" Erin yelled. "Get the fire extinguisher!"
Ukyou looked around. She found the extinguisher attached to the leg of the
worktable behind her. She disconnected it and whirled around.
Just in time to see Erin trip and plunge his hand into the flames.
The psuedo-scientist screamed in agony. Ukyou grabbed him by the collar of
his lab coat and yanked him to safety. Then, she primed the extinguisher
and turned it on the fire.
When the flames had been smothered, she turned to Erin, who was sitting
on the floor, nursing his injured hand.
"Let me see." she said, kneeling down next to him. Erin pulled back,
keeping his hand from view.
"It's nothing." he said.
"Don't lie, sugar, you're not a very convincing actor when you're in pain." She
grabbed his arm and began pulling. Erin tried to fight her off, but Ukyou's
regular strength training as a martial artist prevailed.
"Honestly, Mills-san, you're worse than a four-year-old." She smiled and
looked down. Erin closed his eyes in shame.
The commander of Fred's Special Ops sucked in her breath sharply at the
sight of the master of Shallow 15's hand.
The skin had been burnt away completely. What little there was left was
nothing but flakes of charcoal. But it was the hand itself that held Ukyou's
attention. It wasn't bone and muscle.
It was robotic.
Ukyou leaped back from Erin, unclipping and extending her lightsaber in
one movement.
"Where is he?" she demanded. Erin stood up.
"Now, don't go off the deep end, Ukyou." he said placatingly.
"Where is he?" Ukyou repeated, brandishing her weapon threateningly. Erin
sighed.
"He's dead."
"You BASTARD." Ukyou screamed, charging forward and swinging her 'saber.
Erin dodged each swipe, one of them singing his exposed hand.
"Hold it! Let me explain!" he pleaded.
"Explain? Explain how you killed him, you Boomer son-of-a-bitch?"
Erin's eyes widened. "Boomer? You think I'm a--? For God's sake, Ukyou,
Erin Mills version 2.5 has been dead since last June!"
Ukyou paused in her attack. "What?"
"He's been dead for nearly a year. He was killed during a bounty hunt. I was
created to replace him in case his final clone ever expired. It did, and I was
activated. And I'm not a Boomer, I'm a Reploid."
"Pardon me if I fail to see the difference." Ukyou replied, frowning.
"Boomers are, for the most part, created as mindless labor drones. They
have the potential to become sentient, and indeed many do. They usually go
crazy when it happens, but the possibility is still there. Reploids, on the
other hand, are _created_ with the ability to think, feel, and make our own
decisions. Basically, we're artificial humans. The only thing we're not
allowed to do is kill a human being."
"You're confusing me." Ukyou said, coming closer.
"Would you mind collapsing that thing?" Erin asked. "There's quite a few
things around here that will react--shall we say--violently to it."
Ukyou still looked suspicious, but collapsed her weapon.
"Thank you."
"I still don't understand one thing." Ukyou said. "If you're a machine, how
did you manage to fake out Nightelf and all the medical tests?"
"Easy enough. My operating system is identical to that of a human's. I
breathe, eat, sleep, and bleed like any real human and I'm equipped with
several spoofing sensors to fool any scanning equipment anyone might use
on me."
"And what about Nightelf's psionics?"
"My mind is all human." Erin answered. "The final piece of this particular
puzzle was Erin 2.5's original brain. He had his enitre memory and
personality downloaded into Max, then, when the time came for me to be
activated, that information was transferred into me. Look, to keep a long
story from becoming longer, I'm a human mind with a robotic body."
"So, why all the mystery? Why don't you just come out and admit you're a
Reploid?"
Erin let out a mirthless laugh. "Yeah, right. I've seen how everyone treats the
service droids around Fred. Hell, the only AI's that get any respect are
Tycho, Leela, and Durandal. I have no intention of becoming a second class
citizen, thank you. And I think you'll agree that recent events have cast a
shadow upon human/robotic relations in Fred."
"Things are going to be even worse if you're found out, you know." Ukyou
said. Erin turned away from her.
"Maybe. But I'll worry about that when the day comes." He sighed and shook
his head. "Sometimes, I wonder if I shouldn't have listened to Chris."
"Chris? Willmore? That sick guy that writes 'Ranma 2096'?"
"Watch it. I'm the one who convinced him to bring you back as an Envoy,
remember. Anyway, when I joined up with the FDF, I decided some help
might be a good idea, so I asked Chris to help. He said it was a fool's errand.
That there was no unifying force behind the revenges. I really couldn't blame
him. No more than I can blame the others for not wanting any part of the
war. Sometimes...sometimes, I wish I hadn't created this replacement." He
gestured to himself. "I hate this war. And I'm sorry it took me so long to
apologize for what I did, and for being such a jackass. I'm sorry, Ukyou."
Ukyou looked at Erin in awe. This was a side she had never seen to him
before. The walls were gone. There was no shield of anger, no wall
composed of a thousand bad jokes and obscure movie quotations. She saw
the true Erin Mills. A confused young man who was trying desperately to
make everybody happy...
At the cost of his own happiness.
She was amazed that a robot could look and act so human.
<NO!> her mind screamed. <He's as human as you are! You know that... now
show him that you accept it!>
She walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, too...Erin."
Erin turned around and the two looked at each other, each unsure of what to
say next. After a moment, Erin extended his undamaged right hand.
"Friends?"
Ukyou smiled and shook his hand. "Friends."
***
Barry looked across the small room. Five women in AMP uniforms sitting
together watching him and their leader as they talked. The goddess
Belgaren who was darting nervous glances at Josh Holmstrom, sitting arms
folded and imperturbable across the room. Mokoto Kusanagi was comparing
notes with Briarios, Alita and Deunan on cyborg combat techniques. Lou sat
by Alita, not really understanding, but making what she hoped were
intelligent sounding noises.
The door opened and Katherine Madigan walked in with her new, self
appointed bodyguards, the Sailors of Doom. They favoured the room with a
sunny smile and found a pair of seats at the edge of the room with no-one
behind them.
Barry stood and moved to the focus of the room's seating arrangement,
catching the eyes of those present and waiting for the murmured
conversations to die before speaking.
"OK, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming. You've all been individually
briefed, but lets just go over the high points. Officially, most of you are
reinforcements for the Wrecking Crew and you will be paired off with them,
both as assistants and bodyguards, and given our current workload, this will
not be for show. Don't expect to get much sleep. On the other hand, you are
pretty much invisible in coveralls and with a toolbox, and think about what
you can fit into the toolbox."
"Your next level of cover is that you are internal security and
counterinsurgency. Once again, this will not be for show.. I have no
intention of letting anything like the Boomer attack happen again if I can
help it. You were all available, so I've 'requisitioned' you. Lieutenant
Commander Cheyenne will be your operational commander and will be
liaising with Commander Row."
"The truth is you will be a special operations unit. Infiltration, sabotage,
reconnaissance. Black operations. No fancy unit badges or uniforms, no
publicity, no glory. Just a job that needs doing."
He paused assessing mood of the group.
"I will not be leading. I don't have the level of training required or the time
available. I will be involved in operational planning and target prioritization
along with Katherine and Rally, but not operations themselves. Now, are
there any questions?"
"Ah, Captain?" Yuki piped up "How will we know were to go and how will we
get there?"
Barry smiled slightly "I cannot tell you my sources obviously, you don't need
to know, but I do not intend to waste your time. As for transport, it will be
provided...
Out of the corner of one eye, he caught movement. The two sailor suited
'bodyguards' were grinning and bouncing up and down in their seats, happily
anticipating some carnage..
Phobos spoke "When do we..."
"...get to kill something!" continued Deimos.
"Listen carefully you maniac. You are _not_ a strike force. You will not be
fighting stand up actions against regular troops. You will be tasked for recon
and sabotage. If you have to fight, then something has gone wrong. Other
assets will be the strike force, you will be our eyes and ears."
"I myself was wondering how long it would take for something like this to be
organized." Josh said from his corner of the room. "I've got one question
for you Cap'n."
Josh paused for a second as a feral smile crossed his face, "When do we
begin?"
For a moment Barry could have sworn there was a flicker of red in Josh's
normally blue-green eyes.
"You will spend the next few days training. There isn't time to shake you
down into proper teams, so it'll be catch as catch can, but you are all
professionals, and I will expect you to act as such."
Josh nodded once and stood up. "Is that all Cap'n? If you don't have
anything else, I've got some preparations to make. When and where do you
want us?"
"Your training starts tonight. I want all of you to be in Main Engineering by
2100 hours. Dismissed"
***
In a sealed automated construction bay, two special ships were taking shape,
ships as black as night. The were the size of a Klingon bird of prey,
constructed of hard chines and acute angles to minimise radar reflection,
with enough aerodynamics to make unpowered atmospheric insertions and
glide to a landing, and with outsized drives with heavy baffles.
The black skin concealed powerful active and passive electronic warfare
suites and communication tapping equipment, along with psi shielding and
mystic wards, carved directly into the hull frames.
Of course there were design compromises, antiship capability was minimal,
what armaments there were, were principally anti fighter, but they had the
legs on anything that they couldn't hurt.
Ghost ships. One named 'Wraith' , the other 'Spectre'.
***
As agreed, they waited until midnight to meet outside the commissary. Ryu
asked the obvious question 'why', since no one ever went to the commissary
if they could help it anyway. Yoshimi told him to be quiet.
"It's more exciting this way, Ryu-chan! What fun is it to walk in there at
noon?"
Proxima wanted to remind her that this wasn't a game, but stopped herself.
<This is a game of sorts, isn't it? I mean, we're not really doing anything
dangerous. It's not like the spy is going to come after a bunch of kids!>
Proxima bypassed the keypad lock on the door, and they entered quietly. All
except for the droid, who's servomotors Skuld hadn't had a chance to tune
yet, and which still rattled a bit. Still, it was the principal of the thing. They
stealthily made their way to one of the food service terminals.
"Uncle Alpha?"
Ryu and Shingo exchanged a glance. Why was she talking to one of the food
processors?
"Uncle Alpha, wake up!"
A sleepy-looking 3-D happyface (complete with nightcap) appeared on the
screen. "*Whuzza... huh? Oh, Proxy, hi. Geez, what time is it? Shouldn't you
be in bed or something?*"
"Listen, do you want out of here?"
Alpha immediately brightened, tossing away the nightcap. "*Do I?!*"
"SHHHH!"
"*Oops, sorry.*"
Proxima waved for the droid to be brought forward. "We put together this R5
unit. You should be able to download yourself into it."
"*Yesyesyesyes! Good girl, Proxy! I always knew I could count on you! Lemme
at it!*"
"Ah ah ah!" Skuld said, stepping in. "Not so fast. First we need an agreement
from you to help us."
Alpha frowned. "*You mean like... like... WORK?! Oooh icky icky yuck yuck!
No way!*"
"Would you rather stay here?"
Alpha considered for a moment. "*Hmm... more 'Would you like fries with
that', or putting myself at the mercy of my neice, who I _know_ is as twisted
as her mother... an eternity of 'May I take your order please', or whatever
slow torture she's dreamed up...*"
"Uncle..." Proxima said, exasperated.
"*Okay, okay! I'm gonna regret this, but... I'll help you. Whaddaya want I
should do?*"
"Cool!" Proxima said. "Okay, bring the droid up here. Y'see, Uncle, there's
this _spy_..."
***
Day 5
Ranchan reluctantly awoke to find someone gently shaking him. "Lucas-san,
wake up! You'll be late!"
It was Akari. Ranchan groaned and slowly sat up. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Akari-
chan."
"What's with you?" Ryouga asked from the doorway. "I thought this was your
big day! This is the day they announce squadron postings, right?"
"Yeah, it is." Ranchan replied unenthusiastically. When the two left he got up
and mechanically got ready to report for assignment, not even bothering to
shower. <Why should I?> He thought glumly. <When they assign me to fly a
garbage scow showers won't make a difference anymore anyway!>
As he made his way to the door, Ryouga caught up with him and clapped him
on the back. "Break a leg!"
"Sure..." Ranchan thought and he trudged out the door.
***
"Ha! So I can't fly a spacefighter! That isn't any reason why they should
leave us behind!"
"But Priss, you _can't_ fly a space fighter!'
"Aw, you know what I mean Nene. It's not the same."
The slight redhead sat and thought for a moment, then brightened up
"Hey, let's go and drop in on Mackie! We haven't seen him for a while, and
maybe say Hi to Barry too. We haven't seen him since... you know..." her
face fell
Priss took on a sombre tone too "Yeah, since the Revenge. I wonder what
happened to him. He jumped into that funny swirly thing and then..."
"Don't remind me!" Nene shivered "Do you think he's been avoiding us?"
Priss sprang up and cracked her knuckles "Well, lets find out."
***
"Hiya Mackie. Long time no see!" Priss perched herself half on Mackie's
desk.
"Hi Mackie." chimed in Nene from the doorway.
"Hello Priss, Nene-chan, it's been a while." Mackie smiled back
"We were wondering if..." began Priss
"You want some Hardsuit upgrades?" Mackie grinned wryly "Well I am kinda
busy..." he nodded towards the project status board, slashes of red
indicating the critical path, "But I think I can squeeze you in. However, I
want..."
The two women glared at Mackie who smiled thinly in return "... a favour.
Nothing ecchi... just a favour. Now then," he got out a pen and pad.. "What
did you have in mind?"
Priss of course, wanted bigger guns and stronger myomer muscles. Nene
was after an electronics upgrade, and at Priss's prompting, an upgrade on
the laser.
He heard a small snap and noticed a figure in the door, silent and unmoving.
Barry was standing there, jaw clenched and eyes locked on the two Knight
Sabers. Mackie saw something he hadn't seen or expected to see in his
boss: pale, white knuckled fury. The redhead noticed Mackie's regard,
turned on his heel and left, as silently as he had must have arrived.
Nene saw his distraction and turned to look too, but only caught a glimpse of
coveralled back.
Mackie plastered on an unconcerned face and snapped off a series of
questions to the two women.
When they had gone, he set off in search of Barry. As he walked out the
door he noticed a small stain where the other engineer had been standing.
He bent to examine it. A few shards of plastic, ink, and a few drops of blood.
***
Skywise waited among the thirty or so assembled LPAC Spec-Ops personal
and started to get caught up in the excitement, despite his exhaustion. He'd
been worked mercilessly in a quick training program to get him ready for
the mission about to be announced, and it was fortunate that he already had
most of the necessary skills and was already settling into Alpha team's scout
spot. He was still unhappy with the cyclones, being among those who
couldn't get them to their full potential. They slowed down the speed he
counted on in a fight. He'd also refused point-blank to carry any of the hand
rifles after going through familiarization. Instead they had equipped his
cyclone with extra sensor and ECM/ECCM packs. <It's not like the suit fits
right anyway. I don't care what they say, you can't adjust a complicated suit
that fast. > He chuckled, remembering the cutting and reworking of the
insides they'd had to do for him, even though they said it was now a perfect
fit. It was obvious, to him at least, that it was the suit's lack of fit slowed
him down. His somewhat moody introspection was interrupted by
somebody's call of "A-TEN HUT!" and he stood up with the rest as Stargazer,
Hunter, and Anubis, who were also the leaders of The Legion's Alpha, Beta,
and Gamma Spec-OP's teams respectively, entered the front of the room.
Stargazer moved to the front of the room while the other two moved to the
sides and called out "As you were." After everybody had sat back down, he
continued. "As you all know, we were _severely_ hurt the other day by (?)'s
surprise attack on Fred. It's time to hurt them back! I fully intend to do
this by _obliterating_ an enemy base for each LPAC person hurt, now and in
the future. After we've done that, we'll destroy a few more to make sure
they _get_ the message!" A roar answered him, and now that the moral
building was over, he switched on a projection of a continent with the
location of a major (?) supply base on it. "We've managed to locate one of
(?)'s major supply bases, and we have unusually detailed information on it,
mainly because Beta Team has already performed a quick infiltration of it
disguised as Empire Storm Troopers, a mission I might add that _wasn't_
authorized." He gave a pointed look at Hunter.
"Actually, Wayne, you _did_ authorize it. You said "I don't care how you do it,
just find me a base""
Stargazer responded by looking up with a "Why me?" expression, which was
greeted by the general laughter of those assembled. "Anyway, I'll turn this
briefing over to Anubis to give you an idea of what we'll be facing."
"This isn't going to be easy, but we shouldn't have any problem. It's also a
bigger target then we had initially planned on attacking," the head of Legion
Black Projects began. The projection zoomed into an overhead map. "The
base is fairly well defended, as you can see. There is also a substantial fleet
in orbit that will take no more than 5 minutes before units arrive after the
first explosions. The base has a multilayered defense, though most of it isn't
manned at any given time, so we'll be able to break through quickly and
without difficulty. Especially since they and several other vital targets were
rigged to explode by Beta team before they left. Our primary targets are the
spaceport and warehouses on the East, the vehicle park to the North, and
special targets A&B, which I'll cover later. The warehouses and vehicle park
are well shielded, especially against energy weapons..."
A loud whistle sounded as one of the heavy weapons experts read the data
tags that appeared next to those targets. "It'll take our PPCs a while to burn
through those, and the amount of explosives..."
Stargazer interrupted him. "I'm authorizing the heavy weapons sections to
use T-NARS on this mission." The thick silence that followed _that_
announcement was broken by his "Proceed Anubis."
"The troop barracks are to the south. Special Target A, the Comm and
computer center, is roughly here in the middle and is to be captured and
moved _intact_. Stargazer will explain how in a few moments. Special
target B is a special problem that we hadn't considered earlier, but should
have. This planet has an _indigenous_ population. B is the barracks that
they're keeping a portion of that population as _slaves_." He paused to let
that sink in and to let the shocked gasps and dark muttering die down.
"We'll be evacing them to another part of the continent and equipping them
with energy carbines acquired from a Star Wars Universe <Author's note see
the beginning of _Han Solo at Star's End_ for a good description of what I
mean>, which even their comparatively low tech level can maintain and use.
Finally, at the end of the mission, we'll be setting off a _small_ anti-matter
bomb with a blast radius of only about 5 miles to ensure that the base and all
evidence of activities concerning Special Target A are destroyed.
Commander."
"Thank you Anubis. Most of you are probably wondering by now why and
how we place to capture and transport target A. First, the why. In those
computer banks, which are hardware dependent on access, is a listing of
most of their other bases, their complete Order of Battle, Comm and
Command Codes, Convoy and Fleet schedules., need I go on?"
"Wait a second, Way..err.. Commander. Won't they just change most of that
when they find out?" Skywise asked.
"Good question. First off, we're setting off the AM bomb to hopefully cover
the fact we've captured the building. Even if they do figure it out, though,
they can't "just change" all of that stuff. Think of Multiverse tactics and
logistics as being similar to relativistic starflight tactics and logistics. Real-
time conversations between universes with more than a few seconds
difference in time scales are effectively impossible, you need to compress
and squirt messages. Also, since Universes that run on the same time as the
one your in are hard to find, and Fred already uses a number of them, they
_must_ have some of their bases in universes with a measurable, but not
extreme difference. Which means that if they suddenly change their IFF or
comm codes, their own ships and troops will start firing on each other as
they travel to other places at different time dilations and don't get the
message. Hopefully, by the time they figure out we've been reading their
mail, we'll have drones in place around some of their other bases that'll be
capable of picking up their new codes and sending them back for _us_ to
read. They can't switch over immediately by sending a courier because that
would give them the same command confusion I pointed out earlier. What
they'll eventually have to do is send a courier with a pre-assigned date and
time for a change over, and we estimate that'll take them at least a _week_
after they figure thing out, and if we happen to capture one of those
couriers..." A predatory smile lit his face. "Well, that's enough of Multiverse
Tac101. Back to the briefing."
Skywise smiled to himself as Stargazer went on to describe how they were
going to use a hybrid system that combined his 'poter tech and some of the
stuff they had learned about Fred's various systems to move the building.
<Perhaps we'll survive this after all.>
***
Largo's audience chamber, a chapel like room, with his... call it a throne... as
the altar.
The self proclaimed god regarded the figure kneeling before him.
"So you have finally consented."
The figure in black raised her head, a wisp of sky blue hair escaping her veil.
Sapphire blue eyes, windows of pain, bored into Largo.
"I will do as you demand." whispered Ifurita
"Good. Remember the price of disobedience, and of failure."
Largo waved a hand, a hologram of a small, bare room was revealed. A young
man was revealed, slight with short black hair, clad in a white robe. He was
sitting, staring at the wall.
Her mouth soundlessly shaped a name: 'Makoto'. Unconsciously, she rose to
face the image.
"A poison has been introduced into his system. Without the antidote, which
must be administered daily, he will die. And even you cannot fight your way
into his prison before his guards kill him." his voice was laced with
triumphant cruelty.
"Let me talk to him."
"Very well. As you have agreed..."
In the image, Makoto Mizuhara looked up and his face lit.
"Ifurita! What... Why...?"
"My love, I have no time. I will keep you safe..."
Makoto's face showed shocked consternation "What have you done Ifurita?"
"What I must..."
"Not for me, please! Let them kill me, but don't..." the image blinked out
Largo rose and descended from the dias to where she stood, staring at
where the image had been.
"Good little herald..."
He raised a hand to her cheek and smiled as she flinched away.
"Go now, and do my will."
The tails of her coat dragging on the floor, she turned wordlessly and left
the chamber. A mocking laugh filled the air.
***
Mackie was still looking. Barry was still in the building, and not in the
secure areas downstairs according to the access logs. He found himself
outside Kate's office_ could hear a voice.
Barry was talking "I almost lost it in there..."
"You can't afford this... you'll just have to leave it behind. Let it _go_!"
Katherine replied in a strained voice.
"I cannot forgive them Kate, you don't understand... you weren't there." he
continued in a whisper "...you've never been there."
There was a pause before he continued.
"And now I'm as much of a killer as she was. Three bases and two transfer
points, no survivors. Now it's started, I feel like I'm on a runaway elevator..
plunging into darkness.. But what choice do I have?"
"I don't know. You're the author and wargamer, I'm just a-"
"Every day I lose a little more of myself. I can feel my... my _self_ eroding,
becoming less human. I need you to remind me how to be human_ you're
my touchstone... you and Mackie.."
Mackie turned to go. He really didn't feel good listening to this... and found
himself looking straight into the eyes of Phobos.
The sailor suited bodyguard put a finger to her lips and they crept away.
Once they had gone a short distance away from Kate's office, Phobos grabbed
Mackie by the front of his coveralls and pinned him against the side of the
corridor with her left hand. Mackie was surprised by her strength as the
wind was forced from his lungs.
"Call me paranoid if you want to Mr. Stingray, but I'm rather suspicious of
people who listen at doors." She told him in a pleasant voice.
"But I was just..." Mackie began to protest but she cut him off.
"It's not that it's bad to listen at doors, " she continued, "It's just that if you
listen at the Good Guys doors then you might be working for the Bad Guys."
Mackie swallowed hard. Something inside him said that the capital letters
he could almost hear in her speech were bad news.
"I like you, you're a nice guy, I respect what your father and sister
accomplished, " Phobos informed Mackie with a smile, "Somebody from a
family like that could never be a Bad Guy."
"The thing is, " she told the engineer, her expression sobering, "If I find
you've been acting like a Bad Guy and spying on people then I'll regretfully
have to end your family line there and then"
Mackie blinked at her words, uncertain whether he had heard her correctly.
She had not said it as a threat, merely a statement of fact.
"Look down." she ordered him and he did.
Upon see what was down there he froze. A chain saw which Phobos held in
her right hand was between his thighs, it's barbs mere millimeters from the
crotch of his coveralls.
Mackie looked up at her and tried to meet her gaze. It far harder than he
had expected. Where most people's eyes had iris and pupil she had only a
single, immaculate black void. Whatever there was in her eyes, there was
certainly no hesitation.
"Think about what I said, Mister Stingray."
With that Phobos turned and walked away from the young man, the weapon
with which she had threatened him now nowhere in evidence.
Normally Mackie would have enjoyed the view of her from behind, but at the
moment all he could feel was relief.
Deep inside he knew she hadn't been bluffing.
***
Stargazer and Gary Kleppe stood on a bluff overlooking the Fred compound,
and a little distance away, the blue and white shape of the SDF-1 in cruise
form. There were literally hundreds of heavy work vehicles surrounding the
huge battleship, appearing as though the vessel were surrounded by a war
part of ants. The SDF-1's sides were lined with huge cylinders.
Gary flipped open his communicator. "How does everything look?"
"<Repulsorlifts are stable. SDF control reports that all the civilians have been
moved to secure shelters. All the releases show green. I think we're ready."
Gary looked to Stargazer for confirmation.
Stargazer nodded. "This is your baby, Gary. You give the go ahead."
Gary took a deep breath and mentally checked the figures again, as if an
error would be that obvious. He brought the communicator to his lips. "All
right. You are cleared to lift."
The line was suddenly filled with voices as the command was passed along.
There was a low whine as the repulsorlift generators along the sides of the
battlecruiser cycled up. The ship was fully capable of lifting on it's own, but
thruster were too indelicate for this operation.
Slowly the ship lifted. After it had ascended a few hundred feet, something
could be seen beneath it. As the warship moved slowly away, buildings ans
streets that hadn't seen the sun through the atmosphere of a planet for years
came into view. Macross City.
Everything looked good, but Gary still was apprehensive. If the jackscrews
didn't deploy into the bedrock properly, there would be nothing to anchor
the city. And if the delicate sewer or power lines were damaged...
"<Sir, reports are coming in. Macross control reports failure in several
minor water mains, and minor blackouts in two sections of the city.>"
Gary waited for more, but nothing came. "Is that it?"
There was a pause. "<Affirmative. Scanner show the buildings are within
acceptable structural integrity parameters. Everything else is green. We did
it!!>"
Gary released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Stargazer
slapped him on the back.
"That was incredible!" Stargazer said. "I didn't think it could be done!"
Gary smiled. "Yeah. Now at least those civilians down there don't have to live
on the front lines."
Stargazer nodded, watching the SDF-1 slowly move off towards the huge
shipyard complex on the other side of the base, where a replacement hull
section was waiting.
Gary nodded his head at the city. "Tell you what. The first things to open
will obviously be the bars. How about I buy you a drink?"
An odd expression passed over Stargazer’s face. "Sorry Gary. I'd like to, but
right now I have to go and... clean up something nasty."
***
Several hours later, as Stargazer looked over the sleeping base he wished he
had had that drink. His Spec-Ops team moved into position. The pitch
black didn't bother their sensors, even under strict ENCOM to maintain
stealth. Within a few seconds everybody was in position to begin the dash
down their assault corridor as soon as the T-NAR barrage lifted. Soon
Skychan returned from scouting and hand signaled that all was clear with
minimal sentries. Stargazer waved her into position and waited.
A minute that seemed an eternity later he heard a 'click' in his comm
system, soon followed by 3 more. He responded with 3 clicks of his own.
He gave another hand signal and his two T-NAR carriers stood and began
carefully aligning the targeting pips on their HUDs to the targeting points
that would land the shells on target. Thirty seconds after he gave the 3
click response, he signaled his own T-NARS into action.
A muffled *THUNK* was repeated 10 times as both emptied a full 5 round
cassette into the enemy base. The rounds couldn't be tracked by either
visual or thermal as the rocket assists on them had been designed to burn
dark and disperse the heat of their passage. Active defenses might spot
them, but not the unsuspecting ones of the enemy. Just before he judged
they would hit, Stargazer sent the signal that would detonate the preplanted
demolitions.
"ADVANCE, ADVANCE, ADVANCE" He broke ENCOMM as his faceshield
polarized to block the hell light of the nuclear holocaust he'd had unleashed.
He wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway in the light of the 20
tacnukes dropped on the enemy base by two full Spec-Ops teams. His entire
team broke cover and advanced at full speed, as the timer on his HUD
started counting down from 5 minutes.
Events started happening rapidly as they advanced into the chaotic
shockwaves. Almost half of the team, including Skychan, failed to ride them
and tumbled to the ground, unhurt. That was OK, though. Enough had
managed to keep advancing to obliterate the light and shocked outer
defenses. Stargazer could never later accurately remember the specific
details of his first major battle, no matter how many times he reviewed the
records later, though some scenes stayed with him and haunted him for the
rest of his life. A stormtrooper holding his entrails just before he was
decapitated. A mercy killing, that. A squad of Pfor turned into a bright
green mist by an anti-personal missile. A Borg shattered by a rail gun. Him
gunning down some more soldiers as they valiantly tried to band together
for their lives. An Evoluder laying on the ground, dead from half it's body
being burned away by being too close to a nuclear blast zone. It was a
complete slaughter. The dying (?) troops knew they couldn't try to run, or
their own side would kill them.
Skychan too couldn't remember much later. She'd seen a few fights before
in past adventures, and had even had to kill in her own and her friends
defense on more than one occasion, but she still didn't like it. She avoided
shooting humans as long as her own life wasn't endangered, but many Pfhor
and other aliens fell to her CADS sabers that day. Though what sickened her
worse was the condition of the slave pens. The slaves themselves looked
like slightly larger and less awkward versions of Ewoks and they were kept
in conditions that made most concentration camps look like club med.
Though before she could see much, one of the guards in a tower got the
bright idea of shooting the slaves. Skychan showed him how intelligent
that was with an anti-personal missile. Though by the end of it, Skychan,
like many of LPAC that day, was glad that the med kits in the cyclones
automatically injected anti-nausea medication.
An eternity later, as Stargazer's timer hit 2 minutes remaining, the enemy
base was completely theirs. Alpha team moved in on the slave pens and
started the evac by 'port until they were all gone, dropped where they had
left crates of weapons so that the natives could make it difficult for (?) to
ever reestablish the base. Even with 3 'porters and Skychan's unique help,
it still took almost a minute and a half to finish.
"Alpha 5, Gamma 7. We've finished with A." A voice woke Stargazer from the
near robotic mode his mind had retreated into during the horrors of battle.
"Acknowledged Gamma 7. We're done here as well. Move your team out
and have our little surprise sen..."
"Incoming fighters East!" broke in another voice on the emergency channel.
A flurry of HE and HEAT mini-missiles flew up to meet them. The sky was
cleared, but missile dry reports started coming in.
"Alpha 5, Gamma 7. I'm moving out now. I'll send you our package ASAP."
"AK Gamma 7. I'll leave as soon as I've activated it."
With all of the former slaves on another part of their world and wondering
what had happened to them, Stargazer waited for the last part of the
mission to be activated. Finally a 'port brought in a small box near him. He
paused for a moment, hoping he'd someday be able to forgive himself, before
burying all of that and typed in an authorization code. The team, of course,
left before the explosion which shattered a continent and claimed another 3
enemy squadrons.
***
Ranchan stood in line, waiting to be called up to be given his new
assignment. His mind kept wandering morbidly across the possibilities.
<Self-destruct system tester? Naw, too quick. Hard Vacuum endurance
testing? Nope, too messy.>
"Muzzatti, Lucas?"
Ranchan stepped up, steeling himself for the worst. He accepted the data
plate and touched the point on the corner, bringing up the information. He
read it quickly.
Then he read it again, more slowly, to make sure he hadn't made a mistake.
"Is this right?" He asked hoarsely.
The officer on duty nodded. "Whatever it says is your assignment. Now could
you move, please? You're holding up the line." The officer handed him his
new rank insignia and squadron emblem and shooed him on his way.
Ranchan walked away. He was silent for another few moments, staring at the
insignia.
"YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!" Ranchan screamed, dancing around joyously
like he had just one first, second and third prize in a twenty million dollar
lottery. Everyone stared at him like he was crazy.
Nabiki watched the exuberant pilot for a few minutes, then *ahem'ed* to get
his attention. She had to repeat it several times, upping the volume
considerably before her heard her.
"Nab... sir!" Ranchan snapped to attention immediately, blushing brightly.
Nabiki chuckled. "Oh, please! I don't go for the whole spit and polish
routine, Ranchan. Or should I say 'Ensign'? I do believe you owe me some
thanks though."
"You had me assigned to your squadron?"
Nabiki nodded. "I had to pull some favours, but yes."
"Why?"
"Because I agree with what you were saying, and because you had the pluck
to go outside the established parameters to find a solution."
"And the thing in the bar?"
Her expression softened. "Well, that helped, yes. There aren't many people
who would stand up for me like you did. I appreciated that." Nabiki walked
up to him, until they were only inches apart. Ranchan began to sweat. "Just
remember, _Ensign_," She breathed huskily. "That I saved you from
whatever fate Numbski had planned for you. That means I _own_ you. You
had best not forget it." She turned and walked away, but not before she had
softened her words with a smile, one not quite as predatory as he had come
to expect from her.
Ranchan looked down at the Green Squadron insignia clutched in his hand.
He wondered if he would have been better off as a target drone pilot.
***
Stargazer paused outside the door to the quarters assigned to Skywise on
Astix base. He knew that his fried, like several other members of LPAC
Spec-Ops, had gotten quietly drunk after that last mission. The rest of the
teams all ready knew each other well enough to handle those who were
having trouble dealing with having been in combat without too much
difficulty, but Skywise was a newbie to the teams, and on top of that, he
knew Skywise _didn't_ get drunk unless he was _really_ bothered. Actually,
Wayne felt like getting drunk for the first time in his life himself, but after
the recent talk he'd been given about the responsibilities of command, he
knew he couldn't afford it. He stepped up to the door and it opened before
he could either signal or over ride it. Either Skywise had forgotten to lock
it, or more likely, had been dragged in and couldn't lock it.
As he looked around at the bare room, Skywise didn't have much of anything
other than a few changes of clothes with him, he saw the rooms
entertainment console and smiled as an idea came to him. It wasn't an
ordinary smile either, it was the sort that usually sends people running.
Fast.
After a few seconds of adjusting it, he walked to the center of the room,
away from anything which could fall over, took out a set of anti-decibel ear
plugs and put them in his ears. He counted down and as he hit zero, the
entertainment system started blasting out the 1812 Overture performed by
the Boston Pops, loud enough to shake the furniture.
"WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Skywise screamed just loud
enough to be heard over the music as he performed an anime high jump
right out of his bed! He landed slightly clumsily, with his hands clamped
over his ears and shouting something that couldn't be heard over the din.
Fortunately for Skywise's continued hearing, it was only set for a few
seconds of play time.
Skywise looked up as the music stopped and noticed his friend grinning as
he removed his earplugs. "What the hell did you do that for?" Skywise then
grabbed his head as screaming when your hung over generally isn't a good
idea. "That hurt!"
"So you've decided to join the land of the awake, huh? By the way, I _know_
you’re hung over, that's why I chose the music."
"You're cruel."
"Thanks. However, I wanted to talk to you about that anyway."
"I'm _fine_."
"Bullshit." Skywise looked at his friend, knowing that he didn't swear often
unless something big was up. "First off, you got drunk last night. You don't
do that unless something big is bothering you. Second I reviewed the
recorders and you didn't shoot at anything that was human unless they were
already aiming at somebody. Third, most of my Spec-Ops people are
currently trying to deal with the same problems you are, having to deal with
actually killing somebody for the first time. They at least have each other,
but your new enough that all you have is me. I know you well enough that
you'll either be all right in a few days or you'll need somebody to help you
eventually. Unfortunately things are starting to move fast and I don't have
time to wait for either."
"You enjoy this, don't you. All the killing and pain. I thought I knew you..."
A look of pure agony and self-loathing washed across the leader of LPAC's
face before he shook his head and hardened his face. "No, I don't. I let
grief and pain get to me once and almost left my people in the lurch. I
_won't_ let it happen again. They're what's important and I'll do what I have
to for them. No matter what the personal cost. I can't worry about that
stuff now. I've got more important things to worry about, like keep
everybody alive."
"Gomen. I didn't know. It's just... I keep seeing the face of one guy out
there. He was badly burned and begging me for help. I left him there,
behind, to die. I don't care if he was the enemy, can't we all just get along?"
the shell shocked elf pleaded.
"I wish... I don't think so. We didn't want this war, it was thrust on us. As
far as I can see, unless something drastic changes either we'll have to
annihilate them or they'll annihilate us." Skywise shuddered. "Though I
hope and pray that our side will stop at just wiping them out to the point of
no longer being able to wage war."
Skywise looked miserable. "How do you do it? How do you just accept it
like that?"
"I mostly buried it all. Though I remember thinking every time before I
pulled the trigger of whoever I was shooting at of them shooting Family or
friends. It doesn't solve the problem, but it helps. Also, it's too likely to be
true. The problem is that few of us who came to Fred were soldiers. We
were civilians trying to act like soldiers. None of us really knew what a
battle was like, and yet we've been forced into fighting one of the most
destructive wars ever conceived. We're fighting a war on a scale that's never
even been imagined before. But it _is_ a war, weather we wanted it or not.
If we don't fight, then it'll be those who can't defend themselves who'll
suffer."
"Why does it have to be this way?"
"I don't know. All I know right now is that it looks like this war will only
end with the distruction of one side or the other, and I'd rather it be them
than us."
Skywise shuddered again. "I'll be OK. I just need a little time to work it all
out."
"I'll give you what I can, but it won't be much. Too little has been done so
far by any of us. The Legion is needed desperately, even if nobody knows it.
If you need to talk any more_"
"Thanks."