Subject: Galaxy Police Mihoshi's ACADEMY DAYS - Conclusion
From: "Ryan Mathews" <mathews1@ix.netcom.com>
Date: 10/27/1996, 9:10 PM
To: fanfic@fanfic.com

Yes!  Finally completed!  Let me know what you think, and email me if 
you need other parts.  One thing: I've made slight modifications to a 
couple previous chapters.  Should I repost them?  Most people 
wouldn't even be able to find the changes...

------RM

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Galaxy Police Mihoshi's ACADEMY DAYS
by Ryan Mathews

CHAPTER SIX

        Five men stepped into the light behind Lieutenant Tugh, who continued 
to hold Kiyone and Mihoshi at gunpoint.  Two walked in front, the seeming
leaders, while the others remained behind.  Kiyone recognized one of them as the
man who had attacked them in the barracks.
        "Ah, Tugh," said one of the leaders.  "It seems you've solved our
little problem."
        "There wouldn't have been a problem if you'd kept your goons on a
leash," Tugh angrily replied.  "The only reason these two cadets are here is
because you chased them out of their confinement."
        "It was a mistake, but one that's easily remedied."  The man snapped his
fingers.  One of the goons drew a pistol and advanced.
        "What do you think you're doing?"
        "We can't let them live."
        "I'll deal with this!" Tugh shouted.  "In my own way, on my own time! If
you can't handle it, Shi, that's too bad!  You can shove these guns up your ass
for all I care.  You're lucky I'm even buying them, after what happened with
your little demonstration."
        The man gave Tugh a long stare, as if trying to determine whether or not
he was serious.  Finally he said, "Okay.  You handle this in your own way. Just
make sure that you do, or we *will* handle it for you."
        "Did he call you `Shi'?" Mihoshi asked.
        The man smiled.  "Exjin Shi, arms dealer to the stars, at your
service.  The boy you know is my nephew.  He wasn't worth much until he
enrolled in your Police Academy.  Then he became the most valuable member of the
family."
        Kiyone looked at Tugh, tears welling up in her eyes.  "Sir, I can't
believe you'd do something like this!"
        "I'm broke, Kiyone.  I used to have a bit of a gambling problem.  I
managed to kick the habit a few years back, but I've never been able to pay off
my debts.  I can resell these guns and get back even."
        "It's a wonderful system," said the arms dealer.  "I ship the guns to
the academy through the port, and Tugh uses contacts inside the GP to ship
them."
        "But that's illegal, isn't it?" asked Mihoshi.
        The arms dealer blinked.  "Did you really pass the entrance exam?"
        "With flying colors!" beamed Mihoshi.
        "Let's get this over with," said Tugh.  "Dramm!"
        Dramm appeared from behind the towering stacks of crates, carrying a
briefcase.
        Kiyone was heartbroken.  "Dramm.  Not you too."
        "I'm sorry, Kiyone.  I tried so hard to keep you out of this.  I
warned you, and I thought you'd listened, but here you are anyway.  I guess it's
just one of those things."
        Tugh motioned to Dramm.  "Show him the money."
        Dramm open the briefcase.  The dealer leafed through the contents.
        Behind Kiyone, Mihoshi glanced around.  "Wow, that stack of crates is
even taller than the one I climbed before!"
        Kiyone turned around to tell her to shut up and saw that Mihoshi had
begun to climb the stack.  Her blood turned to ice.  She opened her mouth to
shout at her to get down, then closed it for fear that Mihoshi would be shot.
She glanced nervously from one of the armed guards to the next, waiting for the
moment when one of them would notice Mihoshi climbing and open fire.  She
readied herself to pounce as soon as that happened.  Maybe in the confusion she
or Mihoshi could escape.
        But the strangest thing happened.  As Mihoshi climbed higher and
higher, no one noticed.  She was in plain view, but nobody looked in the right
direction.  Kiyone couldn't believe it.  She glanced one last time at Mihoshi,
who had nearly reached the summit, then stopped looking, not wanting to attract
attention herself.
        Finally, Tugh noticed Mihoshi, and did something Kiyone found odd.
He glanced up at Mihoshi, stared for a moment, then turned around and went back
to arguing with the arms dealer about the amount of Juraian currency in the
payment.  Confused, she stole one more glance at Mihoshi.  She was bent over,
apparently whispering to someone behind the stack.  Kiyone looked at Dramm.  He
winked at her.
        Kiyone's heart soared.  She had been wrong.  *Now* she understood
everything.  She quietly moved closer to the nearest guard.
        "Then we have a deal?" Tugh asked.
        "We have a deal," replied the arms dealer.  "The guns are all yours."
        "Wonderful.  Then I have all I need.  NOW!!" Armed Galaxy Police
        officers streamed out from behind every stack of
crates.  Kiyone drove her elbow into the stomach of the guard behind her,
grabbed his arm, flipped him painfully onto his back, and took his gun.
        "Don't move, Shi!" Tugh yelled.  "After all you put me through, I'm not
that intent on taking you alive."
        The arms dealer cursed.  "I should have known better then to do 
business with a police officer."  Several officers moved forward to take him
into custody.
        The dealer whipped out a gun and fired a shot into a crate.  Before the
officer could react, the crate exploded.  Two others quickly detonated as well,
in a chain reaction.  Debris flew through the air, cutting down officers and
mobsters alike.  In the chaos, the dealer turned and ran toward the warehouse
entrance.
        Mihoshi had been at the top of the stack.  When the crates at the
bottom exploded, the stack was thrown upward and collapsed.  Kiyone watched
helplessly as Mihoshi fell.
        As Mihoshi plummeted, guns and ammunition, thrown upward by the 
explosion, flew past her.  Mihoshi grabbed a pistol out of the air.  She
grabbed a power cell as it flew by and slapped it in.  She took aim and
fired two perfect shots into the dealer's legs.  He fell, sprawling.
        Mihoshi completed her fall, making a perfect landing, at least at
first.  "Owwie, my butt," she whined, then added, "Did I get him?"

        Kiyone and Mihoshi remained to help clean up.  They'd been lucky.  The
shrapnel hadn't killed anyone, and although some of the injuries had been
serious, all the officers were conscious and talking as they were carried off.
Dramm himself had received a nasty laceration on his forehead, but insisted that
it just be bandaged for the moment.  Mihoshi, of course, had come through
without a scratch.
        "That was an incredible shot, Mihoshi!" Kiyone said.
        "Really?  Thanks!"
        "I'll say that was incredible," Dramm agreed.  "`Unbelievable' is more
like it.  Maybe you could give me lessons sometime."
        Mihoshi laughed and blushed.
        "We're nearly done here," said Tugh.  "Why don't you cadets head back to
the barracks?"
        "Yes sir," said Kiyone.  "But before we go, could you just answer one
question?  How did this all start?"
        Tugh laughed nervously.  "I wonder that myself sometimes.  Shi had
arrived on campus early, just after the last term ended.  He wanted to see me.
He confided in me about his criminal relations.  They had been pressuring him to
help get them into the GP's organization.  They wanted to set up a smuggling
operation.  He didn't want to do it, but he was afraid they might start to
threaten him, and he wondered if I could help him.
        "Well, when he told me exactly who his relations were, I could hardly
contain myself.  The GP had been after Exjin Shi and his operation for years. I
saw this as a great opportunity.  So, with the help of Dramm and the other
officers, we set up a sting operation.
        "To make a long story short, I'm a lot better at running an academy than
at running a sting operation.  Once we let these people onto the base, I had
trouble controlling them.  If they'd have killed you, I never would have
forgiven myself."
        Kiyone smiled.  "I forgive you, sir.  I'm just glad you hadn't really
gone bad.  I, um... I really look up to you, sir."
        "I know, Kiyone.  That's why I've never made you call me `sir' when
you're not in uniform."
        Kiyone looked down at herself.  She was a mess.  Her clothes were
torn, she was all covered in dust, and her poor bare feet were aching from all
the splinters she'd stepped on.  "Oh, man.  I need a shower bad.  I'd better get
back to the barracks.  Come on, Mihoshi."
        "Coming!" shouted Mihoshi.
        "I'd better get back myself," said Dramm. "The nurses are going to
have a fit if I don't get this cut sealed.  So, Kiyone, can I pick you up in
front of the barracks at 2000 hours?"
        "What for?" Kiyone asked.
        "Our date, of course."
        "Oh!  I, uh, sure!"
        "Great!  See you then!"

              *                       *                       *

        Kiyone smiled as she remembered.  Getting closer to Dramm had been one
of the nicest things about that case.  As with most first romances, it didn't
work out, but they had some great times, and when they broke up, they remained
friends.  Kiyone hadn't talked to Dramm in almost a year.  She resolved to get
in touch with him if she and Mihoshi survived the mess they were in.
        She mentally kicked herself.  She was supposed to be figuring out a
solution to their problem, not thinking about old boyfriends.
        She'd made virtually no progress.  There were only two possible
solutions: escape or signal for help.  Escape seemed the more unlikely of the
two.  Climbing up or down the bridge was even more infeasible now than it had
been when Kiyone had tried it.  That left signaling as the only means of rescue.
        It was impossible to signal via radio.  Both the onboard radio and
Mihoshi's wristcorder were melted beyond repair.  That left some kind of
visual signal, which was made nearly impossible by how neatly their aircar was
tucked underneath the bridge.  Kiyone was pretty sure there were flares in the
trunk, but there was no way to get to them, save maybe using their guns to cut
through from the cabin.  Even then, one of them would have to crawl back to get
them, which meant the other would have to climb out onto the hood to balance the
car.  Assuming the flares were there, shooting them into the air was impossible
with the bridge overhead.  That meant shooting them downward, and Kiyone doubted
they were waterproof enough to burn floating in water for very long.
        "Here comes a car," said Mihoshi.
        Kiyone didn't feel anything.  "How can you tell?"
        Mihoshi smiled and pointed to her pointed, elflike ears.  She was
pale.  Kiyone could tell the poor girl was terrified.
        "Must be a service vehicle," said Kiyone.  "They shouldn't be opening
the bridge for another hour."  Kiyone heard the car herself now.
        The car approached, the rumble getting louder and louder.  The bridge
began to vibrate.  Finally, the car passed overhead.  The bridge shook gently.
Kiyone's and Mihoshi's car began to sway as the support beams vibrated
underneath them.  Then the rumble went away, and everything was calm once more. 
They'd survived the passing of a single car.  They wouldn't be as lucky when the
traffic passed overhead en masse.
        Kiyone pounded the dashboard in frustration.  There had to be a way out
of this mess.  There always had been one in the past, no matter how hopeless the
situation had been.  Working with Mihoshi was like riding a roller coaster.  Up,
then down, then up again, then down again.  Mihoshi had a way of getting Kiyone
into trouble, but she also had a way of getting her out of trouble as well.  In
their first adventure, Mihoshi had stumbled upon information that had nearly
gotten them killed, but in the end, she had saved the entire operation.  The two
of them had received commendations.  That was the pattern life with Mihoshi
followed.  Things got worse and worse, then, just when it seemed hopeless, they
rebounded.
        Rebound.  There was that word again.  Kiyone pounded her forehead.
The word must have some significance, she thought, or her brain wouldn't keep
bringing it to her attention.
        "Kiyone, didn't you say the bridge wasn't going to open for another
hour?"
        Kiyone nodded.  With both her and Mihoshi's wristcorder out of
service, and no power to the car's systems, they had no way of telling time, but
her own internal clock, in addition to the light outside, made her guess the
time at about 500 hours local.
        "Well," Mihoshi continued, "I think your estimate might be a little off,
'cause I hear *lots* of cars."
        Kiyone paled.  She must have misjudged the time, or else been wrong
about at what time they opened the bridge.  Whatever the case, the minutes
they'd had remaining had now become seconds.
        Kiyone's mind worked feverishly.  She tried to think of anything they
could try, no matter how desperate.  She couldn't keep her mind on track,
though.  She drifted, thinking about all the people to whom she wanted to say
good-bye: her mother, her father, Commander Tugh, Dramm.
        Dramm!  Rebound!  Her mind made the connection.  Dramm had once shown
her something she didn't know about her own gun.  If a power cell was drained in
a firefight, Dramm had advised, she shouldn't throw it away.  In an emergency,
it was often possible to get one last shot out of it, even if the cell had
seemed to be completely drained.  The phenomenon was known as "rebound", where a
fresh battery can partially recharge itself.
        The battery in the aircar was fairly new, as far as Kiyone knew.  It was
possible that it had rebounded.  There wouldn't be enough power to fly it back
to the base, but they could get out from under the bridge and fly to the shore,
or at least make a safe splash landing.
        But... If the batteries had rebounded, why hadn't the radio worked?
Kiyone thought about it.  It was possible that a shot from Garret's gun had
damaged the system feeding power to the dashboard systems, but not to the
engine.  It was possible.  No, thought Kiyone.  It was ridiculous.  There was no
way she could possibly be that lucky.
        But Mihoshi could.
        Was that the solution?  To just say "damn it all" and put everything in
the hands of Mihoshi's maddeningly stupid luck?  Mihoshi had an annoying way of
"lucking" herself both into and out of trouble.  Could her luck really save
them?
        As Kiyone heard the cars approach, she figured they didn't really have
any other options.
        "Mihoshi," she said, "start the car."
        "W-what?"
        "You heard me."
        "B-but, there's no power!  I can't--!"
        Kiyone yelled at her.  "Dammit, Mihoshi!!  We have thirty seconds to
live!  We're going to die unless you do something!  Now, START THE DAMNED CAR!!"
        "WAAAH!" Mihoshi yelled, and hit the ignition switch.
        The dashboard remained dark, but the engines roared to life.  Both
women were pushed into their seats as the car thrust itself free and flew out
from underneath the bridge.
        Then the engines cut out again and the car dropped like a rock.
        Kiyone braced herself for the impact, knowing it wouldn't do any good.
Mihoshi hit the ignition switch again and again.  At the last moment, the car
came to life once more.  Straining with the controls, Mihoshi leveled the car as
it hit the water, painfully, but non-fatally.  It skipped once, twice, then
began to sink.
        Kiyone laughed with joy, and was rewarded with excruciating pain.
"Come on," she said, "we have to get out of here!"  She looked out the window.
The car was already underwater.  She looked down in horror to see water rapidly
filling the cabin.  Of course, she thought.  The whole car had been shot full of
holes.  Her crazed laughter turned to gurgles as the water rose past her face.

        She awoke in a hospital to see Kiyone hovering over her.  "I'm alive."
        "Yup!" confirmed Mihoshi.  "Glad to see you're finally awake." "What
        happened?" "You'll never believe it.  This cruise ship saw us go into
        the water,
and the captain dove right in and pulled us out."
        Kiyone could believe it.  She tried to sit up, and winced in pain.
        "Hey!  Don't move," Mihoshi said.  "You broke some ribs."
        "I see.  As usual, you weren't even scratched."
        "Not true!"  Mihoshi displayed her left hand.  "See!  Broken pinky
finger."
        "Well, I guess that's something."
        "Let's see, what else."  Mihoshi looked at a list.  "Oh, yeah!
Garrett survived the fall.  He's in Galaxy Police custody.  And these are for
you."  She handed Kiyone a bouquet of flowers.
        "Mihoshi.  You shouldn't have."
        "Oh, they're not from me.  They're from the cruise ship captain.  And
here's his picture, and here's his telecom number.  He's cute, and he really
likes you!"
        Kiyone looked at the picture.  He *was* gorgeous.  Kiyone thought
about calling him, but with Mihoshi's luck, he'd probably turn out to be a
serial killer.
        "Oh, and, um, this is for you."  Mihoshi handed her a sheet of paper.
        Kiyone read it over.  It was a request for partner reassignment.
Mihoshi had filled it out completely.  All that was required was Kiyone's
signature.
        "I know you don't like to talk about it, so I figured I'd save you the
trouble."
        Kiyone looked at the form, then tore it into several neat pieces and set
them on the table next to her bed.  "Mihoshi, when I'm ready for a new partner,
I'll ask for one.  I'm not ready yet.  Okay?"
        "Okay."
        "Unless you'd rather work with someone else?"
        "Oh, no!" exclaimed Mihoshi.  "I like having you as my partner.  I
think you're cool!"
        Kiyone stared at Mihoshi, trying desperately not to laugh.  She lost the
battle, alternating laughs with yelps of pain.  "Damn you, Mihoshi!" she said,
between giggles.

              *                       *                       *

        Kiyone finished her shower, put on her robe and headed back to her
room.  She had lingered longer than usual under the hot water, feeling she
deserved it.  As semesters at the Academy went, this was already one for the
books, and it wasn't even three days old.
        On the way back, she ran into Shi.  "Kiyone!  I've been looking for
you," he said, then blushed as he saw how she was dressed.
        "It's okay," said Kiyone.  "With the men's and women's barracks in the
same building, you'd better get used to seeing the occasional bathrobe."
        Shi laughed.  "I guess so.  I really shouldn't be over here.  I just
wanted to see if I could catch you before you went to bed.  I wanted to thank
you and apologize for what my relatives put you through."
        "No problem.  I wouldn't want academy life to get too boring."
        "Thanks again.  I'd better get to bed myself."
        Kiyone remembered something.  "Hey, Shi!"
        "Yes?"
        "I've just been thinking.  We're probably going to hang around a lot,
you, me, and Mihoshi, and I was wondering if there was something else I could
call you.  No offense, but your name sounds like a pronoun.  It gets confusing."
        Shi smiled.  "I understand.  Most of my friends call me by my first
name."
        "Which is?"
        "Doujin."
        It figures, thought Kiyone.

        She went back to her room.  Mihoshi was already asleep, having passed
out on the bed in her clothes.  Kiyone pulled off Mihoshi's shoes and tucked her
in under a blanket.  "Do me a favor," she said, softly.  "Don't wake up for a
few days."
                              T H E  E N D

CHAPTER TWO (CONTINUED)

        Tugh explained how, thousands of years ago, a scientist had made a
prediction.  She had predicted that one day a child would be born with the
ability to alter the laws of probability.  This child, when born, would play an
important role in the fate of the universe.
        "And you're saying Mihoshi is that child?" asked Kiyone.
        "We have no idea," said Tugh.  "But she was born at about the time
predicted, in about the location predicted.  And you've seen the sort of
things that happen around her."
        Kiyone had to admit that Mihoshi's luck seemed supernatural.  "What do
want me to do?"
        "Look after her.  Be there for her.  If she is the child in question,
this will be a very difficult time for her."
        "Very well," sighed Kiyone.
        "It's not that bad," said Tugh.  "If you give her a chance, you might
even become friends."
        "I doubt it, sir.  But I will give her a chance."
        The scientist had disappeared two thousand years ago, but she was
essentially immortal, and there was every chance she was still alive.  Kiyone
very much hoped that was the case.  Because if she ever met this "Washu", there
some questions she wanted to ask her.