[Drivel in next email.]

	He looked up into the sun, his face burned and scarred. A dry, hot
breeze was blowing across the plain, tossing small pieces of sand and
debris into the air around his head. He pulled his cloak tight around
him, warding off the heat and memory. Nothing was left behind him
besides rubble, a testament of the struggles that he had left in the
past. No more army, no more fighting. No more believing in a cause that
had been a lie since before he was born.
	His old clothes lay in a pile below a couple of blocks of concrete that
had been the wall of a building once. In their place was a worn
traveling cloak, threadbare in places and covered in stains. The pressed
khaki pants that had marked him as an officer were replaced by simple
jeans, grease stained from the honest work of their previous owner, a
man dead for years. The pins and medals that marked his rank as one of
the elite had been the hardest to leave behind, markers of a man who had
believed, with all his heart in the cause. To replace them he had only
her locket. 
	He held the locket in a tightly pressed fist, not sure of what it all
meant. The life he had lived for so long, held so dear to him, had
betrayed him in the end. The picture inside was a happy scene, complete
with his wife and daughter in a scene straight out of an old 2D romance.
A green field, blue sky, everyone smiling serenely in security and
peace.
	Now there was no peace. His old identity and name behind him, Jessie
Smith ventured out into the Wastelands, a grin crossing his face.
Somewhere in the pile of rubble that had been Boston some tired crickets
began chirping tonelessly, in a vain hope that another cricket would
hear.
	"Like breathing in a vacuum," Smith said bitterly, the grin on his face
dying.


Breathing in a Vacuum

A Robotech fanfic

	A Year Before:

"Yeah hoo!" Daniel screamed as the gees pressed him back in his seat. In
response the simulated Zentradi battlepod dove 'down' to get out of the
arc of his weapons. Grinning maniacally, Daniel slammed down on the
control stick, his fingers white with adrenaline as the Valkyrie beneath
him bucked and swiveled around. The motion control system of the
simulator responded better than could be expected and Daniel was thrown
'up' in a realistic manner as his momentum radically shifted. 
	Two red lines were drawn on his HUD, linking his target to the
representations of the main chaingun housed in the fuselage of his
craft. His thumb twitched on the HOTAS, sending a stream of tracers
across the black vacuum and directly into the 'pod. The depleted uranium
rounds drilled into the hull, splitting the ovoid central volume down
the middle. 
	"Got one, Sakura-san," Dan reported to his wing- person. "Three
scratched here, how about you?"
	"Still watching your ass, Dan-chan," Sakura reported from her pod next
to his. "They've really improved the feedback on these things, haven't
they?"
	"A battle armor flight is approaching Volume 121. Tiger Flight, you're
up," came the throaty voice of Patricia across the Tac Com channel.
"Quit flirting and intercept. Bearing 131 mark 32, Earth-relative."
	"Roger," changing his direction until he was matching the red vector
bar in the middle of his HUD. "Sakura-san, you with me?"
	"Boosting," she reported.

	Dan stepped out of the shower, exhausted from the day's exercises. The
daily simulator runs, physical exercise and tactical seminars were all
taking a gradual toll on the young pilot's reserves, which had seemed
inexhaustible only a few month before.
	When I was on the front, Dan thought as he grabbed a clean Lieutenant's
uniform from his locker. Onboard the Vendetta there was little in the
way of real fighting. After a six week tour of duty in the belt,
cleaning out Zendtradi hardliners, Vendetta was a pleasant way to pass
the rest of his active tour. The great training ship floated around
Earth, consuming rank pilots and spitting out command personnel at a
prodigious rate. 
	Daniel Fisher was having none of that. He briskly stepped into his
pressed pants and pulled the dress shirt over his lanky frame while
musing his goals in attending classes onboard the Vendetta. He didn't
want to be command staff at all, he'd seen the weight of decisions that
had fallen on Lt. Genova's shoulders, and wanted none of it. He just
wanted to fly.
	Dan shrugged off his thoughts and straightened his shirt. He had a date
with Sakura-san tonight, and he wanted to think about something more,
romantic perhaps. Dan pulled his antique pocket watch from his shirt,
checking the time carefully. He had a few minutes before the shuttle
pulled in to bring him to the new Orbital Ring for dinner.
	"Computer," Dan asked his room. "Ring Sakura for me?"
	"Calling Sakura Misaki," the computer reported dourly.
	"Hello?" Sakura answered after a ring. 
	"Its Dan," Dan said. "All most ready?"
	"Yeah. I'm leaving now. Meet you at lock four."
	"Right. See you there."

	Sakura tapped her foot against the paneling along the curving path that
made the peripheral deck of the Vendetta. Daniel was six minutes late,
she thought, and the shuttle pilot is getting ready to go without us.
She doubled the beat of her foot in frustration. He always does
something like this, she added silently, perking up slightly every time
someone came around the corner of the hall.
	"Look, I don't care what you say! The boosters increase the Valkyrie's
size way too much, even if the acceleration boost is as impressive as
the spec sheet. And we know how often that happens."
	"Damn it Fisher, why do you always stand against progress. You were the
same way when the SHARK-2 fire control computer was being installed."
	"And look at the failure rate for that overpriced piece of shit. The
R&D staff must've been sleeping to let that through prelim testing."
	Sakura laughed to herself. Dan was a traditionalist when it came to his
Valkyrie. Only battle tested equipment made it onboard, and even then
only with Dan himself observing the tech who installed it. Tiger 2 was
one of the best maintained Valkyrie's in the entire EDF, thanks in most
part to Dan's constant bitching about getting everything 'just right.'
	"About time," she chided as Dan finally rounded the corner. She nodded
to Stevens as Dan shook hands and took his leave.
	"You look marvelous," he said as the two ducked through the airlock.
Sakura kept her smile out of his sight. I should hope so, she thought to
herself, since I dressed up for you.
	Indeed, she had left her own dress uniform hanging in her quarters and
bought an expensive black dress and shoes to match. It had felt good to
actually go and be feminine for once, instead of sharing in the
predominantly masculine environment of fighter jocks. In the years since
the Gulf war, the limitations on women in the military had been slowly
pushed back, but it was still rare for a woman to be piloting any front
line combat vessel. And Sakura had been flying for ten years, since her
dad had gotten her pilot training when she was young.
	"And you almost missed the shuttle. I'd have left for the Orbital Ring
by myself and found some eligible guy to take me to Paradesio."
	"Good luck finding a guy, Sakura-san."
	She stuck her tongue out at him as she slid into her seat, fastening
the four point restraints into place.
	Dan smiled at her as he took his own seat. She did look beautiful all
dressed up, but so different from her everyday wear. Sakura wasn't
beautiful in any traditional sense, not as skinny as Patricia and
lacking in her refined femininity. Where a model would be skinny, Sakura
was toned. 
	But all dolled up, Sakura easily beat any other girl Daniel had ever
seen. Except possibly one, and she was long departed.
	"Dan-chan?" Sakura asked, "you okay? You were spacing out on me."
	"Fine, Sakura-san. We there yet? I can't stand how slow these junkers
are."
	"Don't worry. Our reservation isn't for twenty minutes, and we'll be
docking in three."
	Dan glanced out the window at the newly constructed Orbital Ring. A
rock toroid almost three kilometers in diameter, put together with
technology derived from the massive space platform captured by the RDF
in the aftermath of the First Robotech War. Twenty thousand permanent
residents with twice that during peak hours. OTVs, shuttles and space
planes flittered around the big ring, along with a pair of medium
cruisers and a flight of Valkyries. 
	"Dagger Squadron," Sakura pointed out as Dan craned his head across her
seat trying to pick out the insignia. "Operating off the Destiny and
Enigma."
	"Good eyes," Dan commented as the view was eclipsed by the habitat
itself. A large docking arm extended out from the rocky exterior of the
habitat's secondary docking bay, holding twenty meters from the
shuttle's nose. The pilot finalized his approach, allowing a tiny
component of velocity to bring him with in reach of the arm before
allowing it to drag the shuttle in. 
	"All from memory. Shall we?" she motioned to the airlock, cute smile on
her face.
	"Certainly," Dan replied as he offered her his arm. "Where are we
eating?"
	
	The Paradesio was a beautiful restaurant, nestled in the internal ring
of the station in the high class commercial region of the civilian
section. The curving sides of the ring were covered with buildings and
construction sites, liberally sprinkled with small green parks or open
areas to break up the pattern. The builders had learned the lessons from
Macross City and paid great attention to the details typically left out
of habitat building. 
	Neither Dan nor Sakura had seen the inside of Macross City, the SDF-1
long dead by the time they had grown into adults. The SDF-3 had left
shortly after Dan's graduation from the Academy, and his knowledge of it
was mostly second hand. But they had both seen the inside of military
vessels where people were packed in so tightly that the small streets
and modest landscape of the Orbital Ring were entirely suitable
alternatives.
	Dan followed Sakura to their table, right along the front window of the
first floor. As the two of them ordered drinks, Dan glanced out the
window, nervously watching as people glanced at the couple eating.
	"I feel like I'm on display," he muttered as Sakura selected the wine.
	"You are. And if you're lucky they'll start a bidding war so we can
make our money back on this meal."
	"But the military pays us a top notch salary." Daniel said, on queue.
"I thought we could eat out like this every night?"
	The two of them shared a grin, especially since the joke had been
fleshed out so many times in the locker room, launch pad or cockpit.
Sakura glanced down at the menu as Dan turned to look at her. 
	"What are we going to do after our tour of duty?" he asked her, almost
timidly. 
	"I was thinking-"
	Her response was lost in the sudden loud clang that filled the entire
habitat. Everyone stopped and looked around for the source of the noise.
Everyone but Dan and Sakura. They had both heard the sound before,
during the scariest fight in the belt. It was sound of a ship killer
missile hitting the hull of the habitat. 
	"Let's go!" Dan yelled as he got out of his seat. [end of part 1]
	"Go where?" Sakura wondered as she followed Dan as he ran out of the
restaurant. Damn it, Sakura thought, there goes Daniel again, thinking
with his gonads. "Where exactly are you planning on going," she yelled
as the two of them began sprinting through the strangely quiet streets.
	"We've got to make it to the Base in the outer ring," he replied,
dodging one of the stands that dotted the more commercial region they
were passing through. "They'll have something for us to do."
	We could've finished dinner, at least, Sakura complained silently.
"Fine. You know where you're going?"
	Dan stopped short, almost causing Sakura to collide with his back. He
turned and looked around at her, and said "Umm, not really."
	"Sometimes you're such a guy," Sakura told him as she lead the way,
taking a turn off the main road, towards one of the walls of the inner
ring.
	Dan grinned, and followed her, cringing when another of the hard clangs
reverberated through the station. The two of them were in the inner
ring, shielded from hard vacuum by the entire outer ring, plus the
baffles between the two rings, so neither was intellectually frightened
by the sound of something large and explosive hitting the outer hull.
But between the two they had spent ten years in space, and the sound was
somehow wrong in their ears.
	"The connective passages should be around here," Sakura told Dan as she
skidded to halt to glance around.
	"Who do you think is attacking?" Dan asked as he checked for one of the
bright yellow buildings that marked inter-ring transport. 
	"Zentradi rebels?"
	"You know that's not likely. We've got them beaten down to the
Wastelands and the Belt. How would they attack us here?"
	"I don't know, genius, you tell me," Sakura replied testily, upset that
dinner had been ruined. And that she had to run in these damn shoes.
Maybe my dress uniform wouldn't have been a bad idea, she thought.
	"Look, Sakura, I understand you're annoyed that dinner was ruined. But
don't you think that this is more, I don't know, fun?"
	"You'd better hope so," she said threateningly. "Come on, there's one,"
she said, pointing to the small yellow pagoda several blocks behind. 

	"You guys from the Vendetta?" the deck officer asked them when they
finally reached the military base's fighter bay.
	"Yes," Sakura answered for what seemed like the thousandth time that
day. "I'm 2nd Lt. Sakura Misaki and this is 2nd Lt. Daniel Fisher. We
were on station when we heard the attack start and we wanted to know if
we could help out."
	"Pilots? We are a few short�" the deck officer took a good look at the
two. Dressed in formal wear, probably on a date, he thought. But they
did make it on the Vendetta. "I'll check with the CO. We've got a couple
of Valkyrie's kicking around for field testing. 
	Sakura heard Dan groan and kicked him in the shin. "Thank you very
much," she said sweetly to the squat little man. 
	"We've also got some flight suits in the locker room, in case you
wanted to save that dress," the deck officer told her with a grin.

	"Crap. This thing's pure crap," Dan bitched to Sakura over the private
channel. "Plastic HOTAS handles! Not even the high density kind. I feel
like I'm driving a Yugo."
	"Would you please quit bitching for once? We're flying borrowed
Valkyries, so we should at least appreciate the fact we get to fly at
all." When we could be eating dinner, she added silently. 
	"I've gotten the threat report. It is Zentradi rebels. Almost two full
divisions of battle pods. And a pair of battle armor units. It's the
biggest Zendtradi force since Khyron's rebellion."
	"Enough talking. Lets launch."
	"Shrike Team, ready for launch?" the Tac Con channel asked.
	"Ready."
	"Ready."
	"Go!"

	The Shrikes handled well, Dan admitted grudgingly as he pulled the
revamped Valkyrie into a six and a half gee turn, cutting into the
formation of battle pods. His left hand worked the HOTAS'
countermeasures controls, spitting flares and chaff into area directly
behind him. His right shifted him into Guardian mode while he spun on an
axis, spewing chain gun fire at his opponents. He was through the slow
moving formation in less than a second, his flares still burning bright
in their midst.
	Directly behind him by half a second was Sakura, taking full advantage
of the confusion Dan's first pass had created. She loosed missiles into
the battle pods, crippling or destroying almost a dozen pods. A dozen
out of three hundred.
	"Where the hell did they find all these pods?" Dan asked as he flew a
few meters over the hull of the Orbital Ring. 
	"Who knows," Sakura grunted as she flipped her Shrike over. "I like
these Shrikes," she commented as she boosted up along side Dan.
	"Not everything new is bad," Dan said grudgingly. 
	"Wow. I'll have to write the date and time of that quote down."
	"Shrike Flight, vector to 121 and support the Destiny."
	"Roger," the two said in unison, all ready aligning with the course
correction offered by the HUD. They pushed six gees, dodging the volleys
of particle weapons that streamed from the formation of 'pods that were
swarming around the edge of the Ring. 
	"Destiny, this is Shrike flight, ready for deployment," Dan said as he
glanced down at his missile stores. He had less than half his full load
out remaining, and a quarter of his chain gun rounds were gone as well. 
	"Shrike flight, happy to hear from you. This is Captain Jonah Fitzroy,
I've taken over Tac Com as we lost the first shift Controller a couple
of minutes ago. We could use some support to the rear of us. Our sensors
read three flight elements of Battle Armor, and their going after our
engines pretty hard."
	"Got you covered, Sir," Sakura said, designating targets for her
standoff missiles. "Missiles away."
	"Going close for this one. Keep me covered," Dan asked as he shifted to
battloid mode, spraying fire from his chain gun. The blocky Battle Armor
scattered under the combined attack, but reformed quickly. Dan twisted
his mecha to dodge the stream of counter fire, a couple of low strength
hits stripping armor off his Shrike's arm and chest.
	"Getting hot out here. Anyone from Dagger flight around?"
	"Dagger flight's supporting the Enigma. They've been hit harder then we
have," Jonah reported on the Tac Com channel.
	Sounds reassuring, Dan thought as he did a quick calculation of the
odds. At least ten to one, he decided as he rammed one of the Battle
Armors that got too close to the Destiny. Pinning its arms to its side
he drove his mecha's knee into the thing's chest a few times, cracking
the main armor plate and spewing coolant into the vacuum. He pushed off
its chest as one of the other Armors changed course to support its
comrade.
	"Shit, shit, shit," he grunted as the Armor send beam after beam at
him. Then it exploded as Sakura blew past. "Owe you one, Sakura-san," he
said, seizing the momentary respite.
	"Good work, Shrike flight. The Armors are withdrawing."
	"So are the rest of the enemy," Sakura added as she studied the Tac
Display. 
	"Well, that makes it easier for me," Dan muttered. 
	"Shrike Flight, this is Orbital Ring Control. Stand down and return to
the bay."
	"Roger," Sakura said, wiping the swat from her face, only to have it
drift away in the low gee. She followed the green vector into a holding
pattern, spotting the beaten Valkyries of Dagger Squadron limping back
towards the Destiny. 
	"Looks like I owe you dinner, Sakura-san," Dan said as he pulled along
side. 
	"Damn straight."

	The two tired pilots returned to the Vendetta, Sakura still carrying a
box of sushi from the restaurant that Dan had taken her to. Sakura and
Dan passed through the final airlock, only to be greeted by the majority
of the Vendetta's Flight Staff.
	"Look at the heroes!" someone yelled.
	"I heard you flew a Shrike," someone else asked. "I thought you didn't
like the new stuff?"
	"Shut up, Stevens," Dan retorted as he passed through crowd, leaving
Sakura behind.
	"Thanks Dan," Sakura muttered as briefly as she put on a smile to
receive the taunts and congratulations of her shipmates. 

	Dan stared at the message that had just appeared on his computer
terminal. He couldn't believe it, no matter how many times he read it.
	"As of ten hundred hours tomorrow you have been attached to Shrike
Flight, aboard the Carrier Damocles. You will be briefed further once
you are aboard. Signed, Admiral Donovan Marks, CinC Space Control," he
read listlessly for the third time.
	He looked up as the door chime rang. Grunting and pulling on a pair of
sweatpants he told the door to open. Sakura was looking at him, a sad
expression on her face. 
	"I just heard," she said simply.
	"Back on tour. Damn it, I was only two weeks away from a break."
	"Don't worry about it."
	"What about you."
	Sakura sighed guiltily. "Six months leave on Earth."
	"I guess I'll have to take a rain check on meeting your folks," he said
in mock sadness.
	"It's alright, they wouldn't have liked a gaijin like you anyway. I
just wanted to say," she paused for a moment. "Good luck. And come back
in no more than two pieces, preferably the ones that can be reattached."
	"They can attach almost anything these days," he said with a weak grin.
"Have fun, will you."
	Sakura nodded, almost like she had something else to say. Then she
turned and walked back to her room. Dan, I hope you're happy with
yourself, she thought. If you hadn't run out to fight then this probably
wouldn't have happened. 
	She came to her door, mad at herself for getting leave. Who else would
save that idiot? She wondered as she went back to packing.
	Back in his room, Dan glanced out at the stars, seeing Earth hanging in
front of them. The Orbital Ring was there, as were the two ships he had
fought alongside not more than a month before. Then he glanced 'up' from
Earth, right where the Damocles was supposed to be. Beyond that there
was nothing but the Asteroid belt and the outer solar system. 

	In a very different setting, a tall man stood on the bridge of a
massive warship, a deep purple cloak hiding his figure. At his side
stood a pair of men, wearing the old uniform of the Zentradi. Each was
glancing down at the readouts that littered the bridge, glancing at the
data they had recovered a month before.
	"Its just as you suspected," one said, "the Earthers have never stopped
developing the technology."
	"The newest versions are almost ready for field testing," the other
added.
	"And her?" the tall man said quietly, gesturing to a picture of a
skinny blonde scientist that was above the readouts they had been
staring at.
	"She has already begun to cooperate."
	"Keep her under close guard. She did develop the technology to begin
with. And she hates us more than we hate her kind."
	"Understood."
	The two aliens left, leaving the man alone. Both were secretly happy to
away from him, since he scared them in a manner much like Khyron had
their predecessors. He was not crazy, but much too, for lack of a better
term, scary to associate with for too long.
	By himself, on the bridge of his ship, the man face slowly formed a
large smile. His long wait was now over, and the revenge he had been
holding close to his heart was finally allowed to emerge.[Pt. 2 End]

	Daniel stuffed the rest of his clothes into his duffel, zipping the bag
up tightly as he finished. It was nearly nine thirty and his shuttle was
leaving shortly. He had a couple of things to do before he left. First,
he headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. Dan's mom had been a firm
believer in the principal of Traveling with a Full Stomach, and Dan
agreed. 
	After a quick meal, Dan returned to his room to get his bags. He found
a note, handwritten, from Sakura, sitting on his bag.
	"Sorry I couldn't see you off, but I've got duty in a few minutes and
you aren't here." He grinned, knowing full well how much Sakura hated
morning duty. "I'll be leaving tomorrow for Earth, you know the address.
Drop me a line if you can. Kick a little ass for me, 'kay? And keep your
eyes open. Sakura." He stuffed the letter into his backpack, glancing at
his clock. 
	He left in a hurry, his final duty before leaving waiting for him in
the fighter bay. When he burst through the door, he glanced at his
plane, Tiger 3. One of the techs stood along side the cockpit, scraping
off the decals that reported his kills. His name was already removed,
leaving the pilot unknown for the first time in a year and a half.
	"Good bye girl," Dan said, still convinced that it was indeed a female
plane. Then he left for lock 4, begging lateness as an excuse to brush
off the few people who came to see him off. The one person he really
wanted to see wasn't there. He boarded the shuttle, nestled himself into
his seat and opened his back pack. While he was digging his MD player
out of it, he missed a lone Valkyrie fly by the shuttle, barrel rolling
as it passed by.
	And then he was pressed gently into his seat by the half gee
acceleration that would last for at least an hour. Daniel passed slowly
into sleep as the low rumbling of the rocket engine resounded in the
empty cabin.
	He woke up an hour later, weightlessness gripping his stomach. His
heavy breakfast tumbled in his stomach and he began to disagree with his
mother's advice. The shuttle was in the midst of turnaround, bringing
the big fusion drives into alignment for slowdown with the Damocles. The
engine roared back to life, delivering more than twice its original
acceleration.
	He seems to be in a hurry, Dan thought, switching mini discs. It suited
Dan just fine. Despite his disappointment, he was enjoying the prospect
of another tour of duty as a pilot. Despite his opposition to the idea
of command, he felt a pressure onboard the Vendetta to turn everyone
over to command staff. He was glad to get back to the simple routine of
fighting.
	"As a note of interest," the pilot said over the intercom, "the
Damocles is off the port side of the vessel. We'll have a good view of
it all the way in to docking."
	Dan looked out his window, curious about the vessel he was joining. The
limited time he had between assignments prevented him from checking up
on the Damocles so he knew nothing about the ship he was about to see.
	His first glimpse was unimpressive, as the Damocles looked more like a
large bulk carrier than anything else. The hull was dull gray, riddled
by micro-meteorite scars and seemed to be held together with duct tape
and glue. 
	"That's the Damocles?" Dan asked, amazed by the state of disrepair the
vessel appeared to be in. He could detect no fighter bays nestled in the
numerous structures that dotted the hull but served no visible purpose.
As the distance separating them closed, he picked out more and more
details about the ship. What he thought were reaction mass tanks were
actually fighter bays, one each along the dorsal and ventral stretches
of the vessels. The useless looking structures that dotted the ship were
a mix of baffles to protect the main hull and house point defense
arrays.
	"A Q-ship?" Dan exclaimed as the docking umbilical extended out towards
the ship. He picked out the small flashes that marked the vernier
thrusters firing. The two objects met with a soft thud that went no
further than the cabin. 
	"All set sir?" the copilot asked, poking his head out of the cockpit.
"We need to get you off as quickly as possible, since the Damocles is
burning out system in a couple of minutes."
	"Sure," Dan replied. 
	"All right then. Right this way," the copilot said, pointing out the
rear exit. Dan walked quickly off the cabin grabbing his bags from the
storage rack and crossed into the umbilical. A second after he exited
the umbilical it retracted and he saw the flame through the airlock
window. 
	His first sight was a man dressed in a captain's uniform, complete with
commendations for valor and injury in the line of fire. He stuck his
hand out and greeted Dan in a familiar voice.
	"Daniel Fisher, 1st Lt. I'm Captain Jonah Fitzroy newly of the
Damocles. I think you deserve a thank you from me for your actions at
Orbital Ring Engagement."
	"1st Lt.?" Dan wondered as he contemplated his new rank.
	"Sure, you'll be in command of Shrike Flight. Can I take you to your
cabin?"
	"No thanks. I'd actually like to see the flight deck if I could. I was
under the impression that the Damocles was a carrier, not a Q-ship." Dan
ignored the question of his new rank for the moment, more interested in
the ship.
	"You know as much as I do that the brass doesn't like to name its
really expensive toys the right way. Follow me?"
	Dan shouldered his duffel bag and followed the man down the narrow,
walls slightly rusted. The passages followed no understandable pattern,
and Dan soon found himself thoroughly lost. The Captain opened a door,
apparently at random, which widened into a full sized fighter bay,
filled with six matte black Shrikes.
	"How did you fit all this stuff in here? Shouldn't you need more
reaction mass?"
	"Not with reflex drives. You'd be surprised about all the stuff they
managed to fit in here. I'll have the full tech readouts for both the
Shrikes and the Damocles on you desk by the end of the third shift."
	"Those are Shrikes?" Dan asked, staring at the new Shrike Mark II. It
was bulkier than the old Shrike, and colored flat black with gunmetal
gray trim. A vicious looking beam cannon sat under the ship's chin, and
the outboard hard-points were no where to be seen.
	"I'll have to check those readouts out," Dan said, strangely interested
in the new fighter. "Could I find my room now?"
	"Sure," Fitzroy said. "I have to apologize for the size though. We'll
try and clean out one of the officer's rooms, but some of the space is
taken over with the lab."

 	The man's breath quickened as he recognized the image before him. It
was his father, hovering threateningly over him. He couldn't understand
the screams of his father, but they were all loud, immediate. His lungs
heaved as his breath came in ragged gasps, a purely irrational fear
filling his soul.
He jerked up just before his father's hand connected with his face, eyes
opening and stinging from the sweat that dripped into them. 
	"I killed you," he whispered hoarsely. "I killed you both."
	"Mr. Alpha!" a voice called from outside his room. "We've gotten a
report from our mole. He couldn't tell us too much, but he managed to
get onboard the investigation vessel."
	"Fine," Alpha said, hating the sound of his name. It was his father's
only gift to him, picked for its superficial similarity to a Zentradi
word meaning strength. "Leave me!" he belted.
	As the man left, Alpha walked to a cold locker on the floor of his
room. He opened it, reveling in the white light released. He reached
into the locker and pulled out a vial, clutching it tightly. 
	"Half of my revenge is at hand. Only a little more time until its all
there."

	Sakura put her bags down on the front stoop of her parent's house. She
knocked politely, vaguely surprised at the lack of a call button. Her
mother had always been traditionalist, and the front of her house was
done in traditional Japanese style.
	Sakura's mother opened the door, dressed in full kimono with her face
painted pale white. She bowed to her daughter, greeting her formally in
Nipponese.
	"Hello Daughter. We have some things to discuss."
	"Certainly. Is father home?" Sakura asked, wondering how her father and
mother managed to stay together all these years.
	"He's out right now, getting the final prints of the last issue of his
manga in to the publisher. I need to introduce you to someone."
	"Oh? Who?" Sakura wondered, her mental alarms going off.
	Her mother gestured inside the house. A man, rather well dressed
compared to what she was used to, stood inside, nervously waiting.
"Sakura-chan, this is your fiance, Mokoto Mizuhara."[end part 3]

	Under different circumstances I might enjoy this experience, Nina
William thought as she brought the samples under UV light to kill off
any contaminants. She glanced up at her guard, standing attentively in
the lab's corner. She continued to slave away over the equipment, sorely
missing her research assistant's aid. Unfortunately, John was dead back
in her lab, gunned down by her kidnappers. 
	Dirty aliens, she thought savagely as she sat down to check the results
of the latest batch of samples. They wouldn't let her touch the original
samples from her lab, or allow her any replication equipment to generate
a new batch of her life's work. Instead they forced her to pervert it.
And she had no choice if she wanted to live.
	She was not as na�ve as they believed. Nina had no illusions of her
survival past the project's completion, but she was a pragmatist. The
more time she had, the more chances at escape, or at least some form of
revenge. Besides, survival after her work was finished would be an
exercise in futility anyway.
	And there was Alpha. That man, no, beast, frightened her more than she
could express. He was colder that she had thought possible for a human.
And his visits�she shivered as the thought passed through her mind. He
would have no compunctions against her death, in a suitably horrible
manner.
	So Nina Williams worked on the project all day and tried to fall asleep
despite the fear at night. Her dreams were simple. Revenge and escape
were the good nights, while Alpha visiting her in her sleep made up the
nightmares. 
	She glanced at her reflection in a beaker. Her blonde hair was pulled
back behind her head, and the lab coat she wore had been with her in
various incarnations since grad school. Nina's appearance had always
been a source of pride for her, or at the very least a tool to get what
she needed. But now it was a liability. 
	She sighed heavily as her hands began to shake again. Not in fear, but
anger. I'll get them for this, she thought, if it ends up with us all
dead. Inside her lab coat pocket she clutched her locket, the picture of
her family burning in her mind.

	Dan took two steps across his room and stopped. Not because he wanted
to, just because his room ended. And he had a single. He flopped back on
his bunk clanging his head against the bunk wall. He winced and held his
head for a second. Dan went back to unpacking his duffel, stuffing his
clothes into the little dresser at the head of his bed. He set up his
posters on the metal walls, a simple wilderness scene gracing the space
above his bed. 
	"What did I do to deserve this?" Dan asked himself, glancing down at
the tiny computer terminal that occupied most of his desk. He checked
his email. He had three messages, one from the Captain, one from the
Engineer and one from Sakura. He didn't have the heart to read Sakura's
message just yet so he glanced through the first. It was the mission
statement, in detail. Twenty pages of travel notes, previous intel and
projected timetables. It was also too much work for him to go through
right now.
	So he glanced through the tech readouts provided at the Captain's
request. They were informative, but not especially detailed. He needed
to get out of his room and explore the Damocles. He stood up, slowly as
not to bang his head on the ceiling and left his room.
	He wandered the halls for a few moments, still not quite at home with
the layout of the ship. He nodded to the crewmates that passed by,
trying to act like he belonged there. He finally passed by the small
door that led to the fighter bay.
	"What the hell," he muttered and entered the flight deck. The door slid
open, revealing a much calmer state of affairs than the last time he'd
seen it. There were only a few technicians around and few of them were
working on anything in particular. 
	"Can I help you sir?" asked a young technician as Daniel stepped in.
	"Lt. Daniel. I've just been attached to the Damocles and I've been
informed that I'm leading the flight group."
	"Yeoman Richards. Naomi Richards," the tech said, looking up from her
work to reveal a cute young woman. "Pleasure to have you aboard."
	"Thanks. Might I take a peek around?"
	"I'd be happy to give you a tour. Where would you like to start?"
	After fifteen minutes of trading jokes and stories with the
surprisingly well traveled young woman, they reached Shrike 1. Dan took
a good hard look at it, starting a walk around almost unconsciously.
Naomi smiled and went back to her magazine, having seen many pilots fall
into the same trap in the past couple of days. 
	Dan checked under the long swept back wings, checking for hard-points.
There were no heavy missile mounts under the wings, nor fittings for gun
pods, high intensity lasers or spook modules. He shrugged it off, not
really being too fond of any of the additional junk outside his fighter.
He found the ventral missile battery, hidden behind a heavy blast door.
There wasn't much in the way of lettering on the hull, and no warning
labels to be found. 
	"Must be trouble to work on," Daniel muttered as he moved back towards
the engines. The exhaust ports were nestled in with countless thermal
camouflage bricks. They were angled to release as little heat as
possible. Then he saw the booster assembly. 
	"Oh man." The exhaust ports alone were as big as his torso. More than
three times bigger than the booster ports on Tiger 1. Dan quickly tried
to remember the equations relating port area to thrust, and settled on a
value somewhere around twice what Tiger 1 had. 
	He headed up to the cockpit, stopping to whistle at the beam cannon
turret. The lead edge of the wing was the perfect stepping stone for
getting into the cockpit, which had more than twice the volume of the
older Valkyrie models, thick padding on the seat and a spacious control
setup. He rested his hands on the HOTAS paddles, letting out a big sigh
at the mass he felt there. 
	"This might not be so bad after all," he said.
	Sitting on a hot response cart across the bay, Naomi fought back
laughter at seeing the same series of events play out for the twelfth
time that week. 
On the bridge of the Damocles Jonah Fitzroy sat in his command chair,
glancing at the readouts on the armrests from time to time as his new
ship glided into the depths of solar system. Under Reflex power it would
take little more than a week to reach the first patrol zone, the moons
of Jupiter. 
"Coffee?" a voice asked behind him.
"If you don't mind Joshua." Jonah turned to his ship's physician. "How's
the new ship treating you?"
"Finally settled into sickbay. Its strange, but this ship seems to grow
on you."
"It grew on me as soon as I got to drive," Jonah joked. "And the new job
of ship's Chaplain?"
"Services are never full. But never empty either. There are a surprising
number of believers onboard. None of them believes in the same thing.
How is your family?"
"Amanda's fine, but Zoe runs her ragged. My brother's looking after them
until I get back. Your mother?"
"Still fine. Here's your coffee."

Alpha appeared on the bridge with no fanfare or celebration. One moment
everything was normal on the bridge, and then next it was deathly silent
as the ship commander belted orders to waiting subordinates. 
"There is a vessel departing for the Jovian moons. We will be else where
before it arrives."
"Yes sir!" the young Zentradi helmsman reported. "What destination?"
"I don't care," Alpha told him. "Zelk! I wish to leave the intrepid
Earthers a surprise. Take only what you will need."
One of the men who had been sitting down saluted and left. Alpha sat in
his command chair, which had been left vacant since his last appearance
on the bridge. The men sat silent and rigid, the rumors running through
their minds. They remembered their elders telling of Alpha's coup to
gain power from the last leader. Even the veteran Zentradi had shivered
when they found the body. Or the first man to call Alpha a half breed.
That story was told in hushed tones even when on leave, as if its
telling could still bring down harm.
Above it all, Alpha sat alone at his chair, hands mashed into fists from
the effort of suppressing his rage. To all those who saw him, he looked
deathly calm. [end part 4] 

"The flight deck of the Damocles is a little unorthodox," the Captain
informed the assembled pilots evenly. "The design team wanted to find a
way to increase launch speed while maintaining safety and structural
integrity. To do this they came up with what you see now:" he gestured
back towards the numerous platforms that were lifting off the floor on
long metal arms that had been hidden below the deck paneling. 
"From there the plane is loaded into one of the launcher modules,
allowing three launches at once. The whole compliment of fighters can be
space borne in less than a minute from Combat Alert. The down side is
this: Once we start launching fighters we can't stop until all of them
are out and the capture equipment is prepared."
Jonah turned around to motion for one of the technicians to bring him
something. Naomi ran over and handed him a stack of papers, pausing to
wave to Dan before she left. It earned Dan a couple of slaps on the
back.
"These are your flight assignments. Today is going to be FUCT day. As in
Familiarize Yourselves Concerning the Technology. Until Lt. Fisher here
gets his section in order you gentlemen are going to be hitting some
simulator time. Dan will watch your runs to get an idea of how to put
you guys into some semblance of a fighting unit." He laughed, unused to
having to address his pilots so closely. It's what happens when I get a
green Fighter Section chief, he reflected.
As Dan started splitting the group up into smaller flight elements,
Jonah took a moment to relax against the bulkhead. He'd never been a
fighter jock, but he'd always been aboard ships that had plenty to
spare. He was just an Ensign when he pulled a lucky assignment onboard
the SDF-1. He remembered a hotshot young pilot by the name of Rick
Hunter, who had turned out quite all right. Dan had something akin to
Hunter, though no where as flamboyant or na�ve as Rick had been.
Dan wasn't quite as instinctual a leader as Rick had been, and was going
to need some encouraging before he accepted the role of command. Jonah
watched him from his resting place, Dan flitting around the bay as fast
as he could, getting pilots into groups, talking to technicians and
command staff. Out of the corner of Jonah's eye he saw his first shift
Tactical Communication officer.
"Lt. Fisher, I'd like to introduce you to someone," he called after
greeting his officer.
"Sure," Fisher said as soon as he had disentangled himself his last
task. A thin layer of sweat covered his face, mostly from nervousness.
Dan had already convinced himself it was impossible to get out of
command during this tour, there simply weren't enough qualified staff in
his section for him to pawn it off on someone else. But after this tour,
it was back to 'my plane, my wingmate.' And since Sakura would be around
then, he had a partner for his next tour of duty.
"Lt. Fisher, this is Lt. Wesley C. Winters. He's the Tac Com first shift
officer."
Wesley Winters stuck a hand out to greet Dan, dressed in a cleaned and
pressed uniform that screamed out "Cleaned exactly to Specifications,
Sir!" Dan felt slightly underdressed in his green t-shirt and cargo
pants, but the rest of his uniform had left him just as it got hot. He
reached out and took the Tac Com officer's hand.
"Pleasure," Wesley said crisply. "How is Shrike Flight coming along?" he
asked, tone warming.
"Excellent bunch of pilots and planes," Dan reported, realizing that in
seniority at least, this man outranked him. "I hope I'll be able to
handle them."
"Don't worry," Jonah chimed in. "Wesley is one of the best Tac Com
officers in the fleet. He'll be giving you a hand. If you'll excuse me,
I have a meeting with the rest of the command staff."
The two Lt.'s saluted and relaxed a bit as the Captain left the bay. The
rest of the crew followed suit, except for Chief Engineer Zhi Gang who
worked like a maniac no matter what the conditions were.
"First command?" Winters asked after taking a moment to look at the
Shrikes.
"Yes. Hopefully my last, too. I'm not really cut out for it."
"Neither was I. I'm going to talk to the other pilots for a bit. I'll
let you know if I have any suggestions."
"Um, sure. Thanks, sir." Winters turned and began walking towards the
mess of pilots, a distinct limp marring his mil-spec walk. "Strange
guy," he muttered, finally noticing the bronze wings on Winters' lapel.
He used to be a pilot? Dan asked himself.

	Sakura looked at Makoto Mizuhara for the thousandth time that day. As
always he noticed the glance and blushed slightly, managing to convey
his embarrassment over the situation. On the first day the two had sat
down and discussed exactly how silly their parents were for arranging
this whole thing. In the end, they decided to go on a date to satisfy
both their parents before calling this whole thing off. 
	So here they were, eating fine sashimi at a traditional restaurant in a
suburb of the rebuilt city of Tokyo. Sakura was picking through her
food, not really hungry. Instead she found herself strangely interested
in the conversation.
	"So you run an inport/export business? That sounds so clich�," she
giggled a little, surprised at how much being home changed a person. A
few weeks ago she would have brushed this man off and talked about gee
loads or weapons load outs. 
	"I actually run a translation house for manga and anime. My dad started
the business a long time ago, and met your father. I guess that's where
this whole arranged marriage thing came up."
	"Probably something my mother thought up. She's still rather
traditional at heart."
	"That's how my dad is, too"
	Sakura laughed again, relaxing for the first time since Dan departed
for the Damocles. There was still no answer to her email and it had been
sent almost three days before. Dan was usually better at keeping up his
end of the correspondence. Why am I thinking about him? She thought,
irritated that Dan could still managed to complicate a dinner when he
was close to a light minute away.
	"So what's next for this date?" Sakura asked as she finished her
sashimi. 

	1st Lt. Daniel Fisher, Flight Group Commander, Shrike Flight, groaned
and rested his head between his hands. A small trickle of blood dripped
from his scalp combining with the sweat, grease and undetermined goop to
form some ungodly conglomerate that covered his face.
	Beside him, Yeoman Naomi Richards held a towel and a pair of moist
towelettes out to the beleaguered young man. She seemed apologetic, and
stood nervously waiting for the Lt. 
	"I'm really sorry," she said, visibly nervous.
	"It was my fault," Dan said, wincing in pain as his jaw creaked once. A
large foot sized imprint graced his right cheek. "I shouldn't have stuck
my head in there without telling you. Why exactly did you scream and
kick me, anyway?" 
	"You reminded me of this guy I used to work with a long time ago. Just
the look on your face like you wanted to see�I'm sorry, never mind."
	"I was just trying to get a look at the feedback assembly," Dan said
defensively. First time I've been kicked in the head for being too
possessive of my plane he thought.
	"I know. I just over reacted a little."
	Naomi ran off as her name was called by one of the other pilots, Zed
Williams. Dan's day was going downhill at an amazing rate. Today was the
first flight of Shrike flight's Able group. The six planes in the
ventral bay were all being prepared for launch, with numerous onlookers.
The captain, Lieutenant Winters, the six other pilots and some people
that Dan hadn't met first. Probably the intel staff, he thought as he
went back to Shrike 1. 
	"Lt. Fisher!" Winters said as he marched over to Shrike 1. "First day
jitters?" he said calmly.
	"We'll be fine. I just need to get a bit more practice with this bay."
	"So do the techs and Tac Com boys. That's why I'm down here and Emily
and Descartes are running the show. We've got another day of travel
before we hit the asteroid belt. Anything coming at us now will be seen
so far off we'll have a good portion of the Fleet here to meet them."
	Dan wondered about that. No one knew how the majority of the battle
pod's came from during the Orbital Ring Engagement. One moment there
were no hostile targets on the screens and the next�
	"Thanks for the pep talk."
	"I'm just trying to tell you to get the bugs out now. Bravo group will
need work too, so don't forget about them."
	Dan grinned. He wasn't planning on forgetting about anything.
	"Hey Dan!" Naomi called from across "Did you forget this?" she said,
holding up one of Dan's checklists.

	"Do you think they'll be ready?" Joshua asked his captain quietly, gaze
fixed on the apparent bedlam that was taking place around him.
	"Certainly. Wesley really is one of the best Tac Com Officers I've ever
worked with."
	"He was a better pilot," Joshua said. "And he'll never fly again."
	"Of course. He's lucky to be walking. I have faith in both the young
Lieutenants." 
	Joshua took a moment to glance at his old friend. "This command suits
you."
	"I like the challenge. Besides, I never was cut out to be a fleet
captain. They try to teach you war by numbers."
	"You always did like to improvise. I remember when it got you into a
great deal of trouble once, at a bar in Rock City."
	"That was a long time ago. You weren't really supposed to be inside as
I recall." The two friends shared a smile. "Things were different back
then."
	"The earth hadn't been bombed from orbit, for one. Our crazed
rebuilding attempts hadn't scarred more and more land each year. Of
course, we were in the middle of a global Civil War. And we were trying
to get laid. You were, at least."
	"Those were the days," the captain said, eyes lost in the mist of
memory. 
	Joshua remained silent, memory of those days slightly different. While
Jonah remembered the camaraderie of his men, Joshua remembered the
destruction. "Always the doom and gloom with you. It wasn't all that
bad," the captain said, eyes lost in the mist of memory. In those
travels he found
his wife, and nothing could ruin that experience.
"Joshua, we've traveled a long way since then."
    	"We have put quite a few miles on our souls," Joshua said. "I doubt
we'll lose them now."
        	"I take it that this mission carries your official blessing?"
Jonah asked with a grin.
        	"Indeed. Eye for an Eye and all that nonsense," Joshua replied,
matching his friends expression. 
[end pt 5]

	"I'll never get these guys ready," Dan whined to his room. He was
tired, incredibly tired, tired down to his bones. Over the course of the
last two days he managed to get six hours of sleep, set up so that no
more than thirty minutes at a time was spent sleeping. Drilling,
simulating, practicing. Each one had a specific 24 hour period for Able
and Bravo groups alike. Unfortunately, Dan had to watch both groups.
	The first day so many things went wrong it was almost laughable. The
launch system had screwed up, tangling the massive support beams and
nearly spilling Shrike 1 and 3 onto the rest of the flight group. Shrike
4 spent the first half of the training flight at half power due to
equipment failure. The wing-mate groupings were scrapped and new ones
put together every hour.
	The second day had been the worst. After the debacle on the flight deck
Dan sent Able back to the simulators to train, while working on Bravo.
Bravo's first attempt at launch had been comical. The new equipment,
though field-tested, had never been used all at once. A faulty insulator
fried Shrike 8's navigation computer, resulting in a state of the art
star fighter that tumbled uselessly for half an hour. 
	The third day, Dan managed to get both Able and Bravo into space, in
one piece. The machines worked perfectly and the wing-mate situation had
stabilized. To Dan's relief, the skirmishes he had planned on scrapping
went off without a hitch. And so after six hours of dog-fighting and
training, Dan was finally about to go to sleep.
	Dan sat down idly at his keyboard, deciding if he wanted to write
Sakura or not. A power surge had wiped his computer at some point during
the Three Days of Hell and now had no idea what Sakura's message had
contained. 
	More than anything Dan wanted to talk to her. Email really didn't cut
it for this kind of conversation, one that required vocal contact at
least. He remembered Sakura helping him during the first couple of weeks
of Command School, when he had felt the worse about being railroaded
into command.
	Now he was a commander of sorts. It felt good, he admitted, shutting
down his computer and turning off the light. His habit of changing in
the dark stemmed from the time he and his mother spent in other's houses
after his father had died and the bank closed. They stayed at friends'
houses for almost a year until his mother found work. 
	Now it was old habit for him to strip in the dark and walk to his bed
without trouble. As he laid down in bed he felt the deep fatigue that
gripped him slip away. Not the physical fatigue; his body would need ten
or more hours of sleep before he would be back to normal. But his mind
wasn't tired.
	Dan forced his eyes shut, and tried to soothe his mind. It didn't work
too well, but he eventually fell into a shallow, restless slumber. His
dreams drifted disjointedly from place to place. They settled on a scene
he wouldn't forget for a long time. 
	The Orbital Ring was burning under heavy fire from the battle pods.
>From Dan's vantage point, floating in space some distance from the Ring,
he saw a single Valkyrie tumble through the vacuum, portions of its hull
burning as laser fire bombarded it. A pair of pods swept in low, their
weapon mounts blazing, but the Valkyrie managed to dodge any more
serious harm. In a feat of piloting that Dan was vaguely envious of, the
crippled ship managed to destroy the two 'pods with burst from the chain
gun. Amidst the wreckage, the Valkyrie finally died, the pilot barely
managing to eject.
	The pilot's body, limp in its spacesuit, tumbled towards Dan. Please
don't be Sakura, Dan thought, filled by an irrational fear of seeing her
body limp and dead before him. He could barely make out the lettering on
the suit's front. Wesley C. Winters.
	Dan woke with a start. A glance at his chronometer told him he'd been
asleep for almost 8 hours. He felt strangely good. He glanced over at
the computer, the dream still vivid in his mind. Dan stood and turned
the terminal on, a familiar feeling filling him as he followed the hunch
in his dream.
	Other dreams had helped him solve some of the mysteries in his life.
They were never psychic, but rather his subconscious mind puzzling
problems that the conscious couldn't. Sometime Dan never realized the
problem faced him until a disturbing dream brought the answer out. He
dug up the personnel files on Lieutenant Winters, searching for the
description of the Orbital Ring Engagement.
	He read the debriefing of one Lieutenant Winters, fascinated at the
differences between his dream and reality. Winters hadn't been alone;
he'd been flying with his wing-mate, Sarah Anderson. Anderson never made
it back. Winters' injuries had been so severe he'd been shipped in
stasis to the Medical platform orbiting the moon. Dan tried to imagine
what it would be like to lose Sakura, but couldn't wrap his mind around
the concept.

	 Deep among the rocks tumbling chaotically in orbit around Jupiter, the
Zentradi force moved into place. A pair of light warships nestled behind
one of Jupiter's pseudo-moons while two dozen battle pods used the
streaming magnetic field between the gas giant and it's moon Io to cover
their presence. Two commander's pods took up station in the vestigial
ring that idled peacefully with a single custom suit of battle armor
overlooking the whole operation.
	Less than a half light second away was their target, which showed up on
their sensors as a modified Bulk Freighter registered as the Damocles. A
target that until shortly had been surrounded by up to a dozen smaller,
much stealthier craft. The Zentradi fleet had no idea what was aboard
the isolated ship, only that it was a scouting force for their hated
oppressor, Earth. 

	In the upper atmosphere of Uranus something moved. It was a large
vessel, unlike anything in the solar system. In fact, ships of this sort
had never reached into this portion of the galaxy before. Among the
ammonia vapors and trace pockets of carbon, the vessel leached the
necessary elements to repair and refurbish itself from its long trek
through space. 
	The ship extended a network of hair thin fibers, more than a hundred
kilometers on a side as it spun around Uranus, using the sensitive
material to locate the prize it had been searching for since its
creation. It would be years before the Invid scout ship would locate the
dense concentration of Protoculture that marked the location of the
Matrix, but in the first week of its operation it located a much smaller
reading, with the characteristics it associated with the enemy. 
	The scout ship continued to leach raw materials from the gas giant,
with a new purpose. It would synthesize enough forces to deal with this
concentration of Zentradi Protoculture. In the mean time it would
continue taking its readings. If the ship's brain found any traces of
the Matrix then it would send word to its mother. 

	"We've got hostile targets, vectoring in from Io's magnetosphere!"
reported the sensor tech as Jonah swiveled his chair to face him. "Look
like battle pods, maybe a dozen and a half."
	"Shrike 2 and 7 are in revolver," Lt. Winters reported, using the slang
term for the ready launch position. "Shall I launch them?"
	Jonah turned to face the main tactical screen, considering a moment.
Small groups of battle pods did still roam the space lanes, using piracy
to support themselves. And the Damocles was, for their purposes, a bulk
freighter.
	"Hold off on launching the fighters. Get the rest of the group ready to
go, though. Ensign Lewis?"
	"Sir?" the communications officer asked. 
	"Contact the attacking pods. Do your best 'I'm just a freighter'
impersonation."
	"Yes sir."
	"Gunnery!" the captain called out, forgetting the young woman's name
for the moment. "Get ready to deploy the defense turrets, but don't let
them pick up any weapons emissions."
	"Roger." The woman began furiously working on her controls. By the time
she hit her last button, the Damocles would be a warship in a
freighter's clothing, ready to deploy her hidden weapons turrets at the
command of her crew.
	In the fighter bay there was no chaos. Six days of preparation had paid
off in spades, Dan thought as he watched his men climb into their
Shrikes. Nothing went wrong as the techs checked measurements and fine
tuned occasional pieces of equipment.
	"Gentlemen," Dan said over the Able and Beta channels, "lets keep it
tight and make no mistakes. Everyone okay with that?"
	"Yes, sir!" came the various replies.
	"Okay. There's around two of them for each of us, so I expect some kill
markers next to your names when we come back." [end part 6]