Well it's been a bit.  Village Tale #4 is on hold till I finish
figuring out how I want to handle certain scenes.  Till then I 
picked up an old idea I had that didn't work out as well as I wanted at 
the time and reworked it a bit.  All C&C welcomed as it helps improve my 
writing.  Tenchi Muyo and Armor owned by their respective Creator and 
Author and used without permission.  I have no money to give so please 
don't sue me.
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prelude:
     Time moved forward for mankind.  many discoverys were made, such as 
the FTL drive.  Man then reached out for the stars and discovered what 
many had known.  That they were not the only living beings in the 
cosmos.  There were the Juraian and the Oni empires along with the 
Silver Millinum empire.  What Some found shocking and others found quite 
amusing was that most of the current rulers had at one point or another 
lived on earth and that they seemed to almost be ageless.  They were 
called the God emperors by some.     
     
     With these discoverys brought more advances for humanity.  Cultures 
that had been stiffed on Terra left to find homeworlds of thier own.  
They too expanded earths knowlege of the universe by expaning their 
knowlege of what lay beyond the rim.  But some things should be left 
undiscovered. 
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	Tenchi sat at the bar looking at everyone else.  Normally he
liked to think of himself as a socialble guy, if a bit shy at first, 
but he just couldn't bring himself to go over and talk to anyone.
He could not figure out why this was though.  Of course Tenchi knew 
he was lying to himself, he knew perfectly well why he was acting 
this way.  Tommorow they were all going to die.
	
     Tenchi payed the the extra credits to get a whole bottle and
another extra few to take it out of the bar area.  Normally ships
regs said that no alchohal was to leave the bar area of the ship, 
but on the eve of a drop many of the rules were permitted to be 
bent.  As he walked out Tenchi noticed that several other people had 
gotten the same idea, leaving singly or in pairs.  As Tenchi walked 
down the corodor of the great space carrier he walked past several 
couples, some were engaged in very interesting activites.  He was
even approached several times on his trek, but each time he politely
refused  and no offence was taken, after all everyone handles
pre-combat jitters in thier own way.
	
     Tenchi finally reached his destination, Drop Hanger 1, the
largest room in the great ship Miyazaki.  One of the first things
he saw, or rather heard, were that there were several other people
aready here, and by the occational moan or grunt that reached his
ears, were making the most of the twilight gloom that permiated the 
hanger.  After all who cared what your partener looked like when 
the next day you may gasp your last.  All that matters is the comfort
that a warm body next to you offers and let what ever else come what
may.  Tenchi looked around and finally settled on a location that
no-one had seemed to occupy, the main strut in the middle of the bay.
	
     After climbing up the ladder and finding a suitable crossbeam
Tenchi sat back and tried to relax.  He fished out one of the last of
his cigerettes, popped the top off the bottle and pondered as he 
leaned back.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the slip of
paper that had his combat assignment on it.  He snorted in disgust as 
he once again read over the text printed on it.  A lousy scout.  How
in the world did he get a scout position.  Scouts were a mostly 
volenteer position, since it came with the rank of warrent officer.
Many did it to get the perks, but to the best of his recolection 
Tenchi did not remember asking or even thinking of this assignment.
He also thought about where this burst of cynicisam came from.  He 
remenised back to basic training.  His superiors had seen that he
had natural ability with combat armor.  While most people had trouble
adjusting to wearing and using the power armor, he had taken to it 
like a fish to water.  Tenchi had heard them mutter things like 
natural leadership ability, and highly skilled and co-ordinated.  He
pretty much ignored these things till one day he was pulled out of
a training exersise and called into the comandants office.  They
offered him cigerettes.  They offered him booze.  They offered him a
officers commision.  Tenchi took the cigerettes and booze, but 
rejected everything else.  They tried to cajole him by extolling the
the virtues of being an officer.  When that didn't work they tried
to plead to his sense of duty by giving examples of what good 
leadership could do for a fighting force.  Seeing that this hadn't
moved him they ranted and raved at him that if he was smart he would
take the commision and like it.  After their spiel blew right passed 
Tenchi they sighed and sent him back out.  Now it seems they had had
their revenge on him.  Tenchi lit his smoke and took a swig from his
bottle.  They had trained for 26 weeks, but to Tenchi it wasn't enough
, it would never be enough. 96 percent of the ships combat troops were
rookies.  "We are defenitely doomed" he muttered into the darkness.
    
      The line to the mess hall was very short the next morning while
the line to the clinic was out the door and down the hall quite a 
distance.  It seems that anyone who was not on duty last night had
gotten rip roaring drunk.  Tenchi watched as the smell of food reached 
more and more people in line dropped out.  A girl with pink hair in 
front him actully made it up to the counter before she blew chunks.  
Looking around to appologise to everyone she saw that the only person 
left in line was Tenchi.  It seemed that when her stomach evacuated its 
contents it also evacuated the last of the holdouts.  Tenchi had been 
fortunate enough to have been awoken from where he had been sleeping on 
the strut by the drop bay sergent several hours before reveley was to 
sound.  He had gone over to the clinic to get a shot for his stomach and 
head.  After a few minutes he was feeling no ill effects from his 
previous nights activites, so it was to the cooks imense suprise that he 
ordered a double helping of what was being served.  "What can I say, 
I've got the munchies." was the only response Tenchi could think of 
giving the startled cook.
	
     Midway through his meal Tenchi saw that there were more and more 
people entering the cafetira.  "medics must of finally caught up to 
themeselves" he muttered to himself.  Tenchi then noticed out of the 
corner of his eye someone heading towards him.  "Mind if I sit here?" a 
male voice asked.  Tenchi kept right on eating.  Taking his silence as 
aqueasance the fellow set his tray down and sat.  "My name is Otaru 
whats yours?" the male said.  "Tenchi." he said, though he wasn't sure 
he had said it out loud or not.  Silence reigned for a few moments 
before Otaru said "you know you shouldn't eat so much.  Gut wounds are a 
whole lot worse if you have a full stomach".  Tenchi merely grunted at 
this.  Plasteel was one of the most resiliant materials known.  anything 
that could get through it was going to make a wound of the type that you 
wouldn't have to worry about a full stomach or not.  A few more moments 
of silence passed before the young man got up. "I'll see you around" 
Otaru said quietly as he left.  Tenchi finished up his meal a short time 
later.  Tenchi knew that Otaru had just been looking for some 
comanionship to help calm his pre-combat jitters but Tenchi knew he had 
come off as cold and unfeeling.  He knew he used to be very open and 
wondered why he hadn't been more friendly. Once more the answer popped 
into his head.  They were all going to die.
	
     Tenchi stood before the armor locker that matched the code he 
had been given.  He entered the code on the keypad and watched as the
door swung open revealing the scout class power armor unit within.
Unlike warrior class armor, scouts carried no built in armaments.
Scouts were made for speed, get in look around and get out.  While the
warrior had 4 particle stream projectors, two in each wrist, and 24
wave motion bombs, launched from a rack mounted on the back,  the
scout only had in the way of firepower was a old style particle stream 
rifle, of the type used by open air troops, and 6 wave motion bombs, 
which had to be launched manually.  Tenchi looked at the suit and a 
involintary shudder ran down his spine.  While warrior suits were color 
coded by unit and rank, scout suits were only one color, black.  Scouts 
while in theroy warrent officers, had no place in the actual chain of 
command.  Theoreticly this was done to make the scouts job easier by not 
having to worry about having to go up the chain of command to report his 
findings, but realisticly it wound up happening anyway because everyone 
wanted to know what was going on.  
	

     Tenchi stepped into the open armor and felt a momentary sense
of panic as the armor sealed itself, as if it were trying to eat him 
alive.  his rapid breathing and heatrate subsided after a few moments
when the suit finished sealing itself and it's internal systems came 
online.  The holographic displays popped up and showed him all the
information he would ever want to know.  This reasured Tenchi some 
more.  The monster was not going to eat him but was under his command.
He made some exagerated motions with his arms and legs to get the feel
of things.  A buletin appeared on one of his screens reminding him not
to wear jewelry of any sort inside the armor.  Tenchi almost burst out
laughing when he saw this.  by the time you saw the message you 
probobly would be dead.  Combat armor fits skin tight on the body, the
only place you could wear such affections would be on your head, which
was the only place that had any space.  Many people indeed do that, 
but Tenchi really didn't care for the look.  He then remembered the
the training film on why you didn't do this type of thing.  A young
man had worn a religous medal into his suit.  The medics wound up 
having to pry it from his chest. The cronometer chimed let him know
that it was time to make his way to the briefing room.
	
     Right inside the enteranceway to the breifing room was a large
mirror.  You couldn't help but to see your reflection when you walked
in.  Some of the the head shrinkers on board worried that this might
have a detrimental affect on the troops.  The brass pshawed at this,
after all, all killers liked to look the part.  Tenchi took a look at
himself in that mirror and felt a morass of gloom wash over him.
	
     The briefing didn't start immeditely.  The first thing that
happened was that the commander started to give a pep talk.  Tenchi
took one look in his eyes and knew.  <he doesn't believe this is going
to work.> he thought to himself. <Since he doesn't believe, he's 
trying to make us believe in it for him.>  This last bit of ugly truth
just hammered home to Tenchi what he had thought all the time,<We are
all dead.>  Then he felt it start to happen to him,  the strange 
sensation that he was seperating from himself and some other part took
over.  He called this other self the Engine, because it was like a
machine, no emotions and one prime directive, to survive.  It would do
what Tenchi couldn't.  The first time he remembered it happening was
in Basic training and had been quite a painful experience.  But each
time after that it had gotten less and less painful.  The Engine knew
when it was needed, so Tenchi started psyching himself as the pep talk
ended and the briefing began.  A few moments later The Engine sat and
listened while Tenchi huddled in a far corner of his mind.
	
     The planet they were about to assault had the code designation
of J-9, but one of the Amazonians from Juzendo had named it after a
place from thier folklore on old Terra.  They had named the place
Jusyenko and the name had stuck.  To Tenchi when he had first heard 
what the place had been named thought it appropriate. He had heard
the legend and compared it to the planet and thought it appropriate
indeed.  The surface was indeed covered in pools.  But there were 
chemicals in those pools that would warp and distort a body so badly
that death would be a blessing from the agony.  That is if you 
survived breathing the air for more than a few seconds, as it seems 
that most of the atmosphere had a compsition similar to nitric acid.
Living through that you then had to avoid having the flesh scoured
from your bones by the 250+ mph sandstorms that happened popped up
quite regularly due to the planet going from 200 degrees durring the
day to -120 at night.  Finally there were the enemy.  10 feet tall
with alot of tenticles, horns, and large insect like eyes.  They had
enough strength to rip a suited man in half.  The scientists had their
own long complicated name for them, but once again the Amazonians from
Juzendo had come up with a name that fit just right,  They called them
Taro.  Tenchi had once asked about it and had been shown a old 
holoimage.  The outlime was very similar but that was it.
	
     The briefing got to the point of troop assignments.  The Engine saw 
that it was assigned as forward scout to A team, the smallest of the 
three teams that would be making planet fall.  With no emotion at all 
The Engine made the appropriate notations in its comp unit.  " Before 
any of you in A team get all worked up," the commander said, "Intel 
scans show that the only thing that is in your area is a small structure 
that we belive is just a supply depot.  At most you will be spending a 
few boring hours sightseeing until B and C teams get done with their 
long range sweeps.  Since you have the shortest area to cover you won't 
need that many men."  The commander paused for a moment before 
continuing. "Drop will be in 15 minutes.  Everyone go to your assigned 
drop squares and good luck."  With that everyone stood and saluted.
	
     The Engine made it's way to it's assigned drop square.  It saw
that there was one other scout assigned to it's group.  The other 2
teams had 4 scouts.  This of course made no differance to The Engine.
It had a mission to acomplish and that was it.  The way the drop pads
functioned was quite interesting.  In front of them all was a giant
holosqare that strobed like a kalidescope.  The patern that had been 
programed in was in theroy suposed to relax the troops as to prepare
them for drop, but what it wound up doing was alot of the time was
make some of the troops dizzy.  The cube would at the appropriate time
show one of three colors, Red for wait, Amber for ready, and Green for
go.  When it hit green everyone was to charge forward and try to tag
that green holosquare, but of course they would be transported before
they even got 2 steps out of their start square.  The Engine noticed
that the drop square had switched from Red to Amber.  Someone in drop
control came over the com and said "Go get em!"  A female responded
"It's gonna be a cake walk!"  The mission commander put a end to
any further conversation by say "OK everyone cut the chatter!"  15 
seconds before drop, The Engine unslung it's rifle and armed it. 
Someone, possibly the commander was about to say something, possibly
to reprimand him when the drop square switched green.  The techs 
watched in awe as the troops surged forward, ang gaped even more so
when a scout in A team almost made it to the wall.  The Engine noticed
none of this as the transit beam took them planet side, and right into
the open jaws of hell. 

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Authors notes:

     Well hope you like what I have so far.  As I have stated any 
constructive critisism will be welcomed.  Hope to have the next chapter 
out soon.

 Rabbit
Reality is based solely on what the viewer percives it to be

Q:how can you stand to eat one of gods creatures?!
A:then why did he make them taste so damn good?

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