This is still kind of rough draft.  Tenchi Muyo and Armor owned by thier 
respective creators.  Used without permission.  Please don't sue me, I 
have no money and all C&C welcome

**********************************************************************

	Taros swarmed everywhere.  Any semblence of order was lost 
immedetly.  The Engine layed waste to it's immedite opponents, but 
more kept coming.  Somebody on the wide band channel yelled "FIRE
IN THE HOLE!"  Instincts kicked in as The Engine ducked and rolled.
Fortunately it was far enough away from ground zero that the shock 
wave merely scooped him up and threw him like a rag doll aver the 
landscape.  Most others were not so fortunate.  The wave motion 
bomb cut through the Taros like a hot knife through butter.  
Unfortunately quite a few warriors had been on thier feet still
, and the energy pulse had ripped through them as well.  And those
suits that did remain intact had the warm soft beings inside turned to 
mush.  The Engine  saw the ground heading towards it at a high rate
of speed.  It did the only thing it could do.  It curled up into a 
ball and tried to roll with the impact.  This met with partial success
.  While it did not wind up killing itself from the fall, it did wind
up knocking itself unconcious.

	Tenchi came to, the world coming into blurry focus.  Keying a
pain killer to stop the ringing in his head.  He got to his feet and
took stock of his situation.  His cronometer showed that it had been
2 hours since touch down.  His power source was down to 40 percent.
His rifle was nowhere to be found.  The good news was that he still
had his full compliment of wave motion bombs, so he was not completely 
defeseless.  Tenchi looked about and saw no signs of his compatriarts  
anywhere nearby.  Looking at the skid mark that he had made when he hit 
and started to truge in that direction.

	A little while later Tenchi came upon what was left of A team.
The battle must have raged on for quite a while after he had been 
thrown out of the area.  But as the proof layed out in front of him
showed.   They had not stood a chance, caught by suprise as they were.
Tenchi looked at the carnage again and puked.  After the heaves had
subsided and the internals had cleaned everything back up, he wen't 
down to look for intact suits and possible survivors.  Tenchi looked
at his energy meter and prayed that there would be a few intact suits.
If a suit is still intact, even if it's owner isn't, it will still
have an active power core.  This was designed so that a soldier could
connect up to a deseaced comrade and siphin off whatever energy was
left so he would have a better chance of survival.  For if a suit
losses all it's energy and the laser induced photosynthis of the
MoshiMoshi fern would cease.  but before that when the suit hits
10 percent it goes into conservation mode and shutting down all 
systems with the exeption of lifesupport because there was not enough
power to supply anything else.  This pretty much had the effect of
turning the trooper into a sitting target.  Tenchi kept these things
in mind as he wandered amongst the corpses of the Taros.  It looked 
like they had just kept coming and coming.  He spotted a black suit
nearby and saw that it was still intact.  Moreso the fact that the 
scout still had his rifle.  After checking the rifle, and seeing that
it still had a half charge left to it, he clipped it into it's holster
and made connection.  The transfer was very short, a mere 3 percent.
Tenchi sighed and disconnected the feed.  He hoped that the fellow
had dided quicky, as he moved on to keep looking never knowing that
the corpse he had just left had been Otaru,  the fellow who had tried
to talk to him that very morning.

	Tenchi walked around checking suits.  Most of them had been 
either ripped apart by the Taros or benn blasted apart by that ill
fated wave motion bomb.  The sight of dismembered bodies was starting
to make Tenchi queasy again, but he had been able to find some intact
suits.  The command suit that had raised his power level up to 80
precent had given him the impression that whoever had been in it was
now sloshing around in it like some morbid drink in a can.  The last
suit bore the markings of one of the Jozendu battalion.  He had known
that there were some on board but had no clue that any had dropped 
with them.  Sighing at the loss he leaned forward and started to make
connection.  She screamed.  He blew chunks right then and there as
well as coming real close to having an involentary bowel movement.
Tenchi looked in the face plate of the other suit and saw that the
occupant was very much alive.  After a few moments of making shushing
noises, Tenchi had calmed the girl down a bit.  "Who are you?" she 
asked in a lilting tone of voice, with just a hint of an accent that
Tenchi couldn't place.  "Tenchi, scout for A Team" he responded. "and
yourself?"  He asked.  "Xian Pu.  23rd bearer of that name, Warrior 
of  Jozendeu, A Team" .  "Now that we got the formalities out of the
way, lets see about getting out of here, and trying to meet up with B
and C teams." Tenchi said with a grin.  Xian Pu couldn't help but
give a small girlish giggle,  which sounded quite odd to Tenchi
considering the Jozendeu were supposed to some of the most feared
warriors in the galaxy.  "can you walk?" Tenchi asked as he started 
doing a visual to check for any potential leaks.  "No, I don't thik so
" she said, "I can't feel my legs."  Tenchi looked down and saw that
her legs, at the knee, and her ankles were bent in ways that they 
shouldn't be.  "Looks like your legs and ankles are broken.  Looks
like I'm gonna have to carry you.  By the way what's your enery level
at?"  Xian Pu responded "I am at 36 percent.  You have enough to carry
a suit?"  Tenchi did some mental calculations.  At what he was 
currently at, barring any combat, he could carry the load for about
3 days.  "Yeah I should have enough" Tenchi responded after a moment.
After all he couldn't just leave her there.

	Tenchi slogged across the surface the planet Xain Pu carried
piggy-back.  To pass the time a bit till they got to the debarkation 
point, Tenchi decided to try to make small talk.  "So back there" 
Tenchi said, "when you said you were 23rd to bear that name what did
you mean? are you the 23rd person in your family to be named that?"
Xian Pu thought for a moment before answering.  "On Jozendeu it is our
custom to name our warriors, who leave the planet to do battle after
our ancestors who did great things.  I am not related to the original
Xian Pu, who oversaw the plans to take our clan to the stars and a
new homeworld, but I have been given the honor of having her name."
"And yourself?" she asked, "do you have a family name?"  Tenchi 
visibly winced at that.  He had not been expecting anything else but
that.  It was someplace he didn't want to go.  "I did once a long time
ago, but I gave it up.  So now it's just Tenchi."  He prayed she would
not push the subject.  She didn't.  

     They were 3/4ths of the way to the waypoint when thier luck 
finally ran out.  Tenchi had just finished crossing over what had
been labeled by intel as a supply depot when he felt the ground start
to shake.  "whats that?" Xian Pu demanded over his shoulder. "I don't
know, and I don't want to know!" he replyed as he took off running. 
As he ran he felt himself slipping away and The Engine taking control.
As they cleared the edge of the depot, it seem to blossom holes all
over it and disgorge Taros at a phenominal rate.  Xian Pu screamed as
she saw the giant horde start to flow towards them.  The Engine moved
as fast as it could but was being hampered by the baggage it was
carrying.  It suddenly had a bit of insperation.  Xain Pu was suddenly
jolted as The Engine made a huge leap onto a nearby hillock.  She
felt The Engine disconnect her from the straps that had been holding
her on.  She thumped to the ground with a bit of a squawk.  "Tenchi
what are you doing?" she asked but no answer was forth coming.  A few
moments later she found out.  The Engine had taken one of it's wave
motion bombs and set the delay.  It then turned on the neo-magnetic
clanp and stuck it on her.  "no......." she whispered as The Engine
picked her up. "NONONONO!" she started to scream as she tried to free 
herself, legs flopping uselessly.  In far recesses of his mind Tenchi
screamed in horror as The Engine, with a mighty heave tossed Xian Pu
out into the middle of the oncoming horde.  The sound of a warrior 
suit losing integrity reached his external sensors.  The Engine had 
just cleared the other side of the hillock when the wave motion bomb 
blew. It collapsed the side of the depot and also the hillock it had
just cleared.  The Engine looked up in time to see a prodigus amount 
of sandy material fall on it before all went dark.

	A short time later Tenchi scrabbled out of the mound of soil.
Tears streaked down his face.  Why oh why did this have to happen?
but he knew the answer.  The Engine was a thing of pure survival.  It
had no morals to guide it and only one mission, survive no matter what
it takes.  The Engine would do things Tenchi had no stomach for. 
Tenchi looked at his power level.  It read 39 percent.  Mourning the
loss of his only friend on this dustball Tenchi wandered towards the
waypoint.

	Tenchi reached the waypoint, but all that greeted him were
several Taro bodies and what was left of the detachment sent down to
hold the extraction point.  Tenchi found a few usable suits, and soon
his power level was back up to 75 percent.  It was the best it could 
be but it was better than nothing.  Tenchi started to wonder what he
was going to do now, when he picked up a new signal on the command 
chanel it was marking a place almost on the other side of the 
contenant.  Sighing Tenchi locked in the coordinates and started to
make his way in that direction.  His cronometer showed that it had 
been one day since he set down, but to his weary bones it felt like
an eternity.
**********************************************************************
Authors notes:

Well hello again, and thanks for reading.  I kinda like the way this 
chapter came out (sides the spelling).  It has been buzzing in my head 
for quite a bit and now I can finallyy relax.  As I said all C&C of any 
sort welcome though flames are taken with a spoonful of sugar to help 
them go down and prevent heartburn.  Still reworking Village Tale 4 to 
suit my fancy.  A big bow to all the fanfic authors who have made me 
laugh, cry, or want to pull my eyes out.  Hope to have ch 3 out soon, 
and if anyone can think of a title please, please let me know.

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?

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com