while i think the experiment was largely a success, the
"Choose Your Fanfic" feedback system is on hold until i get
this monster more under control.
THIRD LABOR: chapter two (prologue) Silver tidings/Golden
dreams
various universes/characters by other people.
other stuff the fault of gregg sharp
Silver light glowed into being, resolving as four bodies
briefly appeared, then the darkness was held back by the
glowing flames that marked the tail of one of the four.
"Hang on, we'll switch the reactor back on and be set to go
in a half hour or so." Grey turned on a lantern, which made
a bit more light than Akane's tail.
"Aka ne ne." Akane voiced her disapproval. All she could
smell was metal and plastic, and that damn Irish Spring that
Grey had been using lately. Oh, and some lavender stuff that
Sasami and Ami had started using, but it wasn't as VILE as
the soap Grey was using. Ick.
"Where exactly are we?" Ami looked around at the metal room,
noting the patches and discolored sections of metal, the
tubes and hoses lining the corners, the odd boxes with their
yellow and black markings.
"Repair Bay One. It's used for speeders, hovercraft, just
about any kind of personal vehicle. Or did you mean the
ship. It's the last one i had when i visited this timeline,
the 'Dewclaw' - a Lu class repairship that goes out to
various ships in space and repairs them, does a bit of
salvage, occasionally ferries passengers."
"It's a spaceship?" Sasami looked around. "It's kinda..."
"You're used to Juraian treeships and a higher class of
living, Princess Sasami. This is a working vessel used in an
entirely different timeline using technology that's a bit
grittier than you're used to." Grey patted a wall
affectionately before leading them out into the corridor.
"That's actually, uhm, what I meant," Ami spoke quietly,
noting the oppressive stillness was making her a bit
nervous. It reminded her of *way* too many SF Horror movies.
Not that she watched them.
Grey shone his lantern about, peering into the
darkness."Since i've been here before, i'm using my old
identity. i'm Grey, owner/operator of the 'Dewclaw' - like i
said, this is essentially a mobile drydock/repair bay. The
Death Star was destroyed six months ago and the Emperor is
dead."
"So this goes after 'Return of the Jedi'," remarked Ami,
briefly surprising Grey. "I *do* get away from my studies
occasionally."
"Right," Grey nodded and smiled an apology. "So the Empire
is without a single head right now, more a lot of little
governors each of whom claim to be the 'rightful successor'
to the throne and each is trying to claim as much space as
they can. Tensions are actually higher, and pirates and the
like are taking advantage of the confusion. Many of the
Rebellion have bailed, as the Emperor is dead, though the
Empire's bureaucracy is still trying to run."
"Something like Japan's 'Warring States' period then,"
commented Ami, still nervously trying to look in all
directions. She couldn't even see her companions clearly
still.
"You got it," Grey jerked his thumb towards a side corridor
in which large plastic barrels could be seen. "Technology's
a polyglot. Ancient vanished civilizations, the Makers for
one, have some really advanced tech contributed. There's
also a number of civilizations which developed their own
tech, so not everything's compatible. And then there's the
Force. My record here indicates i'm a minor league
force-sensitive though a heckuva long way from being a Jedi.
Sasami's chi levels will have her recognized as a *major*
force sensitive. Though neither of you have any records as
of yet. When we get to a starport, i've got a databurster
guaranteed by Celeste that'll register you two with whatever
identities you want."
Ami continued to get progressively more nervous as shadows
shifted with each movement of Akane's tail.
Akane glanced up at the girl. "Ne Ne. Aka NE." (You're
making *me* nervous NOW!)
Grey tapped a touchplate, putting in a long series of
numbers. A door opened with a loud crunk.
"AAAHHHH!" Ami jumped at the sudden noise, her hair sticking
up.
"AAAHHHH!" Akane sent a burst of flame at what had startled
her. Unfortunately this was Ami. Sasami jumped, ending up 12
feet up and clinging to the ceiling. Grey, ready for the
door but not a pair of screams, had turned and was looking
for whatever was attacking.
Grey holstered his blaster, grumbled, and went into the
room. A moment later lights began flickering on in the
hallway.
"What a piece of junk," summed up Sasami, being unusually
blunt as she landed on the floor.
"It's supposed to be," answered Grey from inside the room.
"This vehicle is for anyone out of the RRO or similar
Celestial agencies. If it looked *nice* it would be
targetted by thieves."
An odd vibration started going through the deck, and Ami
noted with relief that the air began moving.
"Okay, life support and power are back on. Systems will come
fully online in another fifteen or twenty. If you'll come
this way... Something wrong?" Grey stopped when it was
obvious that the three others were stuck staring at each
other.
"AMI-CHAN?!" Sasami squeaked.
"Welcome to a non-anime universe," said Grey. "Both of you
look like humans of Asian ancestry. Perfectly normal."
"B-bu-but..." Ami dove for a compact and squeaked on seeing
the difference in herself.
"Don't worry about it, you look fine. Quite cute, in fact."
Grey was being quite honest, walking along the corridor so
that the two had to follow. "Black hair and dark brown eyes
are normal for a Japanese girl, though you're still a bit
pale."
"But my eyes are so..." Ami tried to quantify the overall
changes. She looked so *alien* but still like herself
somehow. Her eyes weren't round, they didn't quite sparkle
the same way, and they weren't blue. These were brown eyes,
almost almond shaped, and not nearly as big as she was used
to.
"They're perfectly normal Japanese eyes. Hmmm. Actually this
might make good training before we get to the mission in
that regard. That *also* is not an anime universe."
"Hmmm," Sasami said, examining herself. "My hair's shorter
and I'm thinner, but I don't feel any different."
"You look like a young Asian girl. Though here in Empire
space, that means you come from Cathin, Wu, or Setooine. i'd
recommend Wu for both of you. Wu is a bit isolationist,
mainly composed of farms and very provincial villages. It's
a rough and tumble world, known for all sorts of nasty
carnivorous beasties which tend to rip the weak and unwary
apart at an early age. Particularly as the local leaders
only allow their own servitors to own weapons more advanced
than simple knives. Not a planet anyone will regard as a
threat, but anyone who survived living on that world and
that managed to escape is going to be thought of as either
having connections or being fairly dangerous themselves."
"Oh my," Sasami commented, catching a look at herself in a
mirrored panel as they passed it.
"These ladders lead to the gun blisters, standard on a lot
of vessels that had to run blockades or operate in dangerous
areas." Grey pointed at the two ladders, the righthand one
leading up, the left leading down. "Top hardpoint is a pulse
laser. i'd really like you two to use a simulator program
and make yourselves familiar with its operation. This ship
isn't terribly fast as things go and so we may end up in a
running battle. Bottom hardpoint is a high energy blaster.
Don't use the blaster if we're being observed by any
authorities, it's something i cobbled together and packs a
bit more punch than is strictly legal."
Ami and Sasami looked down the tube to the bottom hardpoint
before realizing that Grey was continuing on.
"This corridor has five bunkrooms. Choose the one you want,
they're all the same. Over here is the galley and kitchen.
This corridor leads to the main hatch and docking controls.
An extensible web forms a sort of drydock partition that can
be used to moor and protect a ship while repairs commence."
Grey continued on. "Bridge is this way. Lifepods are down
these chutes. You'll notice there are five. Each pod can
take three people. Normally, though, the ship has a crew of
five. One can run it, but not as well as five."
"I see." Ami wondered if there was some point to all this.
"We're just going in after Minako and then back out again,
right? So we won't need any of this, right?"
"Ami, when has anything in my life gone as planned?"
-----------
A week later, Ami had reason to regret her earlier
statement. "I picked up some protein-wafers at the..." Her
voice trailed off as Sasami made a shushing gesture.
Holding his hands over a deck of cards, Grey was casting
'Augury' again as he had once a day since entering this
universe.
"Spirits of light and servants of good,
Spirits of metal and plastic and wood,
Advise me now on my simple task,
Truth that lies 'neath confusion's mask,
In this starport controlled by Hutt,
Is there where Minako's shut?"
Ami blinked as the display on the palm computer altered to
green. "We found her?!"
Grey continued concentrating. In *this* universe, he'd
learned he could ask up to four questions. And as it had to
be a yes/no question, he had to be careful of the wording.
"So that we may our friend soon see,
I ask the second: is she free?"
Ami suppressed a groan as the palm computer's display went
to red.
"My third question, i seek to know,
Is fourth level where i must go?"
Sasami gasped as the display turned green again. The fourth
level was a rather unsavory marketplace, overseen by the
Hutt. As the Hutt were a race of interstellar gangsters
whose culture emphasized ruthlessness and profit over all,
this was not a good thing.
Ami clicked on a display of the fourth level, noting aloud
that there was one major place to purchase slaves, and four
which served a lesser clientele.
"Fourth question is now the thing,
Minako's jailers, on outer ring?"
The display remained green. Ami noted that the outer ring,
cheaper because the traffic wasn't as great, had two of the
shops. 'Luftwig's Exotica' carried darn near anything.
'Dzz'kk's Sundries' was cheap and disreputable. "Should I
carry the lightsaber?"
"No, just blasters." Grey took a deep breath. "Sasami, do
you want to stay here? It's not exactly a nice
neighborhood."
Sasami smirked and formed a ball of chi over her hand. "I
can take care of myself, and you still have that weapon
restriction, remember?"
Ami frowned, not liking having to have a gun, but here it
was a required item of dress.
"Why don't you stay here, Ami?" Grey offered. She'd gotten
ill during their first check of the station's less savory
levels. The first level was relatively tame. Further in, the
influence of the Hutts became more obvious. At least with
the first level there was a veneer of civilization. "That
way if we need to launch immediately, you can have the
engines primed."
Ami nodded, grateful she wouldn't have to go down there
again, though it shamed her a bit that Sasami could handle
the atmosphere down there better than she could. Of course,
since Sasami had made that wish that gave her a power level
equivelant to a Sailorjin, Sasami wasn't exactly a helpless
kid either.
-------
"Yes, we have just such thing," said the odd lumpy being
behind the counter. "We get shipment in just few day ago."
It flicked a switch.
Sasami gave an involuntary gasp.
Grey winced. "I see. Not much meat on them. Any useful
skills?"
The lump considered what little he knew of human facial
expressions, also human aesthetics. Not much in either case,
though some things were nearly universal. The little one (a
larva?) was showing distress. The big human was sneering,
which was an expression shared by 127 different races. "They
hotwire spacecraft. Big bad. Now on auction block. You buy,
I sell? Or you want different group, more skill? I got that
too!"
"Well, they're..." Grey checked out the proprietor, realized
that it was one of those species that gave birth to hundreds
of young and then had a feeding frenzy. Children were not
considered valuable. "They're just kids, but I might be able
to train them to something useful. How much?"
"How much you got?" The lump twitched, sensing a sale.
Sasami frowned as the dickering got underway. Grey making a
vast number of statements showing his contempt for the six
figures, as well as how much money he'd spend clothing,
feeding, and training the "raw material". The odd collection
of lumps and hairy warts was arguing back that they were
worth more than that as meat animals, that they didn't take
that much room, and they were thin - so how much food could
they intake? Besides, he had an interested buyer from
another spaceport that could use waitresses.
Finally the deal was concluded, though both sides argued
about how the other was robbing them blind, and Grey waited
for the girls to be brought in.
"Do we have enough money for this?" Sasami whispered.
"Barely," confided Grey. "We'll have to sell the speeder to
make the docking fees, and we'll be eating nutripaste for
the foreseeable future."
"Yechhhh," summed up Sasami.
"Here is, we do deal?" The warty being brought the girls,
hustling them forward.
"What are those collars?" Sasami asked innocently, trying
not to look at a number of otherwise naked teenagers. This
was embarassing.
"Slave collars," said Grey absently, trying not to react in
any obvious way to the girls, "if they go too far from the
control it zaps 'em. If a button on the controller is
pressed, it zaps 'em, if a wearer moves too fast, it zaps
'em. Painful electrical jolt. Unfortunately fairly common."
"You look? These meet standards?" The slaver indicated the
girls.
Grey didn't want to create any ripples, so inspected the
girls' teeth and eyes, checked under the collars and tsked
about the amount of burns, and finally went back to
(apparently) grudgingly admit that these were suitable.
One of them stared at him briefly, then finally spoke.
"You... I know you.".
The slaver held a hand out, stopping the transfer of
credits. "Is relative yours human?"
"Is this some kind of trick to up the price!" Grey growled
at the lumpy being. "Are the credits good or NOT!"
"Hi, I'm Sasami!" Sasami immediately tried to distract the
blonde. The rest was spoken much quieter. "You really don't
want to do this now."
"...but...I know HIM...." Life began flooding into the
girl's face.
The lump looked back and forth momentarily, then pressed a
button which summoned several wardroids from their alcoves.
"Oh, I forget to add extra amount for..."
Grey snarled, this time for real. He pointed at the nearest
wardroid.
"Metal born in fiery burn,
Now to that state return!"
Glowing hot, the wardroid came apart as internal circuits
fried and then the batteries exploded.
"You... you're not a Jedi..." the lump attempted to move
away from this crazy fellow. After all, if the wardroids
opened fire now he'd be hit himself. "A Jedi would never buy
slaves and they'd never use the Force to destroy things like
that..."
"i never said i was," agreed Grey, letting the other fill
the blanks.
The lump flattened slightly. "A Sith?!"
Grey never agreed. He didn't disagree either. "Sasami, the
droid that's aiming on me from the right. Do it."
"Okay!" Sasami chirped, drew chi, and reduced the wardroid
to metal shards. Also putting a basketball sized hole
through the wall.
"i've heard, that with the Sith, there are always two,"
darkly hinted Grey. "And if a Sith Lord found out about
certain individuals spreading news of his identity..."
"No, My Lord. Your credits are *quite* good here!" The lump
was quick to restart the transaction, and he actually turned
a pitying gaze towards the females. Fully aware of how much
damage a Sith Lord and his apprentice could do to him
personally, and his shop, the slaver immediately made the
wardroids stand down and finished the transaction without
further delay.
The lump waited until the Sith and his apprentice were gone
before sending a report off about the new powers in town.
---------
Akane sat on the ramp to the 'Dewclaw' and watched the
worlds go by. There was a boskun, and there a protocol
droid, and there a kaolinite, and there a (sniff sniff)
kaibur who'd had too much to drink.
This was fascinating to her, someone who had once thought of
Nerima Japan as an odd place and for whom that had pretty
much been her world. Now her ears flicked about as she
listened to the buzz of alien conversations, her nostrils
flared as strange otherworldly scents were brought to her on
the errant breezes generated by foot and vehicular traffic.
Her eyes, less color sensitive but better at seeing things
in low light levels, were particularly good at picking up
movement.
So the ebb and flow of traffic on Loading Bay 5, Outer Ring,
was endlessly fascinating to the former girl. Her senses
gave her information a human would have overlooked. So she
knew full well that it was Ami coming up behind her.
"Aka neeee."
Ami checked her palm-sized computer and read the display.
"Explosions? Are you sure?"
"Aka ne ne A." (That and blaster fire and, if I don't miss
my guess, ki blasts.)
"Oh dear, I'd better start the engines up then." Ami looked
out across the docking area. "I thought they were going to
stay out of trouble."
"Akane ne. NE." (The operative term, my dear Ami, was TRY.)
Ami looked up from her translator. "Oh, I suppose you're
right."
Akane looked back at the girl as she re-entered the ship.
~Nice girl, though she tends to overthink situations.~
Akane's ears flickered at a closer set of explosions. ~Dang!
Sounds like a major battle going on!~
Grey was the first to round the corner, running as if his
life depended on it. With him came six naked young girls.
~Pervert~ Akane started, then realized she recognized the
crew. ~Hmmmph. I'll bet THIS is an interesting story.~
Sasami became obvious a moment later, flying literally
around the corner, then stopping in midair to begin building
a chi blast in between her hands.
Then one of the warehouses came apart as a huge Mobile Suit
kind of thing crashed through and started reaching for
Sasami who darted and dodged and threw the chi blast at the
Suit. Unfortunately she missed, the blast shot through the
remains of the warehouse, and a bunch of approaching sirens
abruptly stopped blaring.
"Pfeh," said Akane, knowing full well that the cops here
were literally owned by the gangsters.
As Grey approached he managed to gasp out a request and
motion the girls forward. "Akane, please help Sasami.
Burning torpedo."
Akane grinned and moved from lying down to a full run in a
single sinuous movement, flames forming an aura around her
as she ran. The flames increased in intensity as she leapt
and Akane briefly formed a comet that flew over startled
aliens and exploded against the hard armored plates of the
robot vehicle.
Grey continued into the ship. "All of you, over there." He
gestured towards the dining area with one hand, touching a
comm-panel with the other. "Ami, why aren't the engines up?"
Sasami flitted into the airlock, followed by a bruised
looking (but satisfied) Akane. Sasami keyed the door closure
as energy blasts could be heard taking apart pieces of the
'Dewclaw'.
Another shudder indicated the engines at last coming on-line
and the ship lurched as someone threw it into first gear.
Another series of explosions on the outside of the ship was
followed by what sounded like pieces of ship falling off and
breaking glass.
In the cockpit, Grey was doing something he frequently did.
Panicking. "What do you mean you didn't read the manuals!
You're always reading!"
"Well...." Ami managed to look embarassed. "The physics in
these things are completely wrong, there's no way they could
work! I just..."
Grey gear-shifted to second, putting the autopilot to the
setting of 'get the heck out of here' that he'd programmed
for just such an emergency. Since the 'Dewclaw' handled like
a heavily loaded eighteen-wheeler under the best of
circumstances, they wallowed but were slowly picking up
speed. "Never mind, get up to the top turret and start
firing. That Mobile Suit is coming after us and it's a *lot*
faster than we are."
Ami winced. "Well, I..."
Grey's face went flat. "You never ran any of the simulators,
did you?"
"...no..."
Grey sighed. "We're doomed. Okay, *try* to use the top
turret, *please* Ami. And don't let your duplicate come into
physical contact with you."
"Duplicate?"
"Duplicate, Doppelganger, native Analogue," Grey pointed a
thumb back to the rest of the ship. "We picked up the native
versions of not only Minako, but you, Makoto, Rei, Usagi and
Hotaru. I'll explain later as we need to..." A light began
blinking on the console. "Who's using the *rear* turret?!"
----------
Minako/Vena rotated the turret with its odd weapon towards
the pursuing ship and small cloud of snubfighters just
beginning to launch. Fingers danced over the control
surface, bringing power up and noting that she only had six
shots with this thing. It showed an external capacitor that
was fed by the main reactor and recharged slowly. How odd.
Minako drew upon her native self's skills and targetted the
looming giant robot vehicle, pulling the trigger.
The blast slammed into armor plate that had been weakened by
Sasami's earlier fight and shattered. The 'chest' of the
robot was neatly holed, and the blast continued onwards,
striking the spaceport behind it. A fairly sizable explosion
resulted. The Vena part of Minako deduced that someone had
figured out a way to put a planetary defense blast cannon on
a starship, and that the capacitor was to keep firing the
gun from burning out the engines or stalling the vehicle as
all its energy was transferred to a single weapon system.
Minako sent three more discharges towards the cloud of
snubfighters, taking out three vehicles that had probably
seen service in the Clone Wars. The remainder continued
forward, scattering around the ungainly repairship and
raking it with lasers.
----------
"Ami..." Grey bit his lip, trying not to say anything that
would further upset the girl who was wincing at explosions
and fire alarms.
"I... can't." Ami stared at the console. "There are people
in those things... I..."
"We can't take the whole group with us," Grey felt obliged
to point out. "You didn't have this problem in China, did
you?"
"But they could have gotten away," Ami said in a low voice,
"these people are in space. Some may be slaves themselves."
The ship shuddered again. Grey reminded himself that Ami was
just a sixteen year old girl. Maybe she'd been through a lot
during the China campaign, and maybe she was a genius juku
student, but she was only sixteen. "Okay, just pilot. It's
on autopilot, but when THIS light turns green, you flick
THIS switch. Okay?" Grey pointed out the hyperdrive enable
light and activation switch. "The computer's running through
the necessary data and will signal when we're ready."
Ami nodded, hating the feeling of helplessness. "What are
you going to do?"
Grey shrugged. "i'm a cleric. i'm going to pray, i'm also
going to try to keep the ship together long enough for the
jump."
----------
In another world, she might have been known as Makoto or
Lita. In another world she would have grown up to become
Sailor Jupiter. She didn't know this, she didn't care. She
was simply Julie, an asteroid miner's unwanted child. She
and her childhood friends had decided (at Uria's suggestion)
that they were going to get OFF that rock and never come
back. So they'd stolen the fastest ship that had been
available, the boss's jump-shuttle and tried to run. They
hadn't gotten far.
She and her childhood friends had been caught. Uria, the
tough tomboy, had been carried off and they'd never seen her
again. Nessa still broke into tears about it. The slaver
might have been lying when he told them she'd been fed to
the Hutt.
Slave collars had been put on them and they'd been slowly
but surely broken under the neuro-lash. Then, when
everything had been as bleak as it could get, they'd been
summoned to be sold off to some guy. How Vena recognized
this guy was a weirdness - she was pretty sure she'd never
seen the little girl OR the guy on the Asteroid and all
their tormentors and slave handlers hadn't been human since
they left home.
Julie brought the weapons systems up in the turret and sent
pulsing laser blasts towards a few of the snubships. It was
payback time. Their current 'Master' was, according to Vena,
a friend who had just rescued them. Julie wasn't too sure
about that, but being here was certainly better than being
back THERE. And since the little one-man fighters were
definitely the bad guys, she had no trouble centering the
crosshairs on one fighter after another and blasting away
with glee.
--------
The bottom turret gave a series of booms before going
silent. The top turret was being used enthusiastically if
not very accurately.
Ami fretted over moral issues, the impossibility of hearing
laser blasts going past the ship, and the general weirdness
quotient of what she was surrounded by. (ie: she was having
an anxiety attack and getting cold feet about a relationship
with this Grey fellow, especially as he had frustratingly
been a perfect gentleman since coming to this timeline.)
Several girls recently rescued from becoming an Unhappy Meal
were being nervous wrecks and had not found anything to wear
(though this last was less a consideration for them than for
the guy who had bought them and was still trying to avoid
looking at them.)
A certain individual known as Grey (silver dragon male, C5?)
was praying and trying not to look at the young girls
shivering in the corner while running around with a fire
extinguisher putting out fires.
At a point where large pieces of the ship were about to
become free-floating debris, a light came on and Ami flicked
a switch. The 'Dewclaw' sped into hyperspace, trailing a
little cloud of smoke and debris in the best tradition of
'Star Blazers' and other space series. Which got further
complaints from Ami, predictably.
---------
Ami eventually got over her snit, her ability to fit
everything in a rational world having only been temporarily
overwhelmed by a dragon-cleric in human form piloting a ship
through hyperspace to rescue a merged dimensional analogue
of her friend Minako due to Usagi trying to spend quality
time with her husband who was actually Ami's husband too
even if they'd never...
Ami shied away from the realization that THAT was the reason
she was feeling both defensive and irritated at the whole
situation.
"That was all i had for clothing," apologized Grey,
"leftovers from other adventures and companions, as well as
other operatives who also used the 'Dewclaw'."
Vena/Minako shrugged inside her too-large flight suit and
remarked that it was warmer than not wearing anything at
all.
Meria, the native Ami, kept staring at the twin she'd never
had before and didn't comment on her own skintight latex
spacesuit. It hadn't even been made for humans, and it
literally hugged every square inch as if it had been
spray-painted on everything from the neck down. If she *had*
commented, she would only have noted that it was rather
toasty.
Mareya, a shorthaired version of Rei whose left arm ended at
the elbow, had gotten the worst of the lot. A tanktop two
sizes too big and a pair of Dragonball Z boxer shorts. (Grey
had been rather surprised to find those as he hadn't even
known that those existed.)
Julie had followed Grey to his cabin, found a man's
workshirt, pair of jeans, and old tennis shoes, and had the
best fitting set of clothing among all of them. Grey had
stated he could heal the scar marring her face, but Julie
had brushed it off stating that she had had it since
childhood and it was of little concern.
Moom was the near-Usagi, though with less than a 1/4 inch of
hair on her scalp. She had found a Chinese dress that was
merely a size too small and had eagerly put that on. She
otherwise seemed largely to be in shock.
The Hotaru-clone was Sally. A young looking girl, related to
Mareya apparently. Sasami's clothing was too small, and so
she was wearing a set of pajamas that Ami had gotten for
wearing during the Labor.
"So, what do we do now?" Sasami asked, looking over the
crowd. "I mean we were just supposed to get Minako, weren't
we?"
"Well..." Grey said with a wince, "it's not like i could
just leave them..."
"So what happens to the me that *was* here when *I* leave?"
Vena/Minako wondered, still trying to adjust a flight suit
that would fit Chewbacca so that it didn't look quite so...
overwhelming.
"Unless we use *this*," Grey held up what looked like a
solid soap bubble, "this universe will be minus 'Vena' - you
two will remain merged. If it's worded right, we can use
this Limited Wish to seperate the two of you when we leave
this plane of existance."
"What about the rest of us?" Julie asked, looking about. "I
mean, we literally have nowhere to go. Uria was the one to
come up with all the plans, well her and Nessa."
Sally moaned, the two had been almost like her parents.
"Well, what happened to them?" Ami asked, realizing that
this were the Michiru and Haruka locals.
"Nessa got sold last week. Uria was taken away fairly
early," Julie responded. "All we really know is asteroid
mining and that's no future at all."
"The 'Dewclaw' is a repairship operating in this timeline,
and you can continue to stay on board, though there will
come other Captains. You're going to have to learn ship
repair and the operating budget was skunked by purchasing
you. Though we'll have to drop back into normal space for me
to see if the purchase went through." Grey sighed. "i should
have realized this wouldn't be easy. The laws of this
universe tend to produce epic adventures regularly and this
looks like the beginning of one."
"Huh?!" The number of girls asked in unison, except for Moom
who was still lost in her own private daze.
"Look at the elements present," Grey explained, "an old beat
up ship on the run from gangsters, though if you get out of
the fringes you can avoid most of THAT. Crewed by young and
attractive girls who are escaping their past. It is *so* in
genre that i expect you to run into a fuzzy mascot at nearly
any point (just so long as it isn't an Ewok- i've heard
they're a lot like kender) and romantic lead. Probably
Usa... Moom's."
"But we don't know HOW to fix spaceships or any of that
stuff," Julie pointed out, wondering if there was a way that
they could get this guy to stay.
Meria frowned and considered her other self. *She* got to
leave, so maybe if she arranged to take her double's
place...
"Well, THAT i can't do much about," Grey admitted. "We'll
exit hyperspace in an out-of-the-way system called
Dantooine. The Rebellion had a base there, then they
abandoned it, then the Empire converted it to support for
their Death Star, then THEY abandoned it. It should still
have a lot of supplies that the Empire left there. Then on
to Tatooine. There's still a power vaccuum there with the
death of Jabba the Hutt, and there's a hermit who knows a
bit about the Force hanging around over there. Don't know
what he's calling himself nowadays, but he used to go by the
name of Luke...
"i've programmed both sets of coordinates into the navcomp.
As for me, Sasami, Ami, and Akane, we've got to get going."
Grey held up the soap bubble. "i wish that Minako, Ami,
Akane, Sasami and myself were now before the archways of
Mimir's Well, and that Minako and Vena were seperated with
Vena remaining in her native timeline."
---------
"You took quite awhile," said Celeste, checking an enormous
pocketwatch.
"Extenuating circumstances," replied Grey as he and the
others appeared. "Was the split successful?"
"Yes, you managed to abandon a bunch of untrained panicked
girls on a falling-apart spaceship heading for a former
Imperial base off in the fringes, without any clue as to how
to operate that starship." Celeste was annoyed.
"Like i had a choice?! What was i supposed to do, MARRY
them?" Grey was grateful that Celeste didn't answer that
question. "i did the best i could! Dantooine doesn't have
any native life that is particularly threatening, sort of
like pre-colonial Georgia without the bears. i *did* do some
research you know!"
"Not to mention the damage done to the 'Dewclaw'," Celeste
continued. "The drydock webbing is spread through five
systems. The blast shielding is gone in six places, the
cargo bay is open to hard vaccuum, the fire control will
break down at any moment, and the tractor beam is at less
than 50% power..."
"The 'Dewclaw' isn't in a combat zone, the girls don't know
how to use the drydock anyway, i couldn't do a dang thing
about the shielding or tractor beam without replacement
parts, and the computer's locked access to that bay. Fire
control *might* be a problem, but can you come up with one
thing that would have worked better at this?"
Ami actually spoke. "Yes, actually. You could have headed
instead for the nearest colony and dropped them off at a
spaceport. It was their own universe, their own time. They
could have handled it."
Minako considered her dear friend for a moment. "Sorry, Ami,
but you're wrong. I was part of Vena for awhile. Think 'Coal
Miner's Daughter' or something like that. They've darn
little in the way of education, were looking at a bleak
existence on a barren rock, working twelve hour days digging
ore without even a blade of grass for them to look at that
wasn't a hologram. They wanted OUT of that life and I can't
blame them. The reason they made a break for it was that
Uria's arranged marriage was coming up, at which point she'd
have been stuck as a baby factory and her dreams of being a
pod racer would have been over."
Ami wasn't the only one taken aback by the bitterness in
Minako's voice. "But... I..."
"No buts, Ami-chan," Minako tried smiling to take the sting
out. "Grey-chan didn't do that badly."
"Well, just to be safe, maybe i should go into the next
world alone, is the portal set, Celeste?"
Celeste finished glaring. She'd have to arrange a suitable
hero to run across the girls on that ship, though
fortunately heroes weren't that uncommon in a Star Wars
universe. "Arch four. It should use your connection to
Makoto to take you directly to her."
--------
Grey stepped through, feeling the automatic adaptations take
place. In a universe where there were dragons, he would be a
dragon - so any world like Oerth or Toril or RIFTS Earth -
he'd become a silver dragon or the local equivelant. That
was now his primary form. In a world where there were no
dragons but the gods or goddesses of Yggdrasil or a similar
system normally held sway, he became the 'sexangel' form
with or without wings -which had been the case in the Star
Wars universe. Without either of those influences, or if the
environment was deemed hostile enough by what was left of
the Binding, he ended up in cyborg form - that modified
Triax VX-500 housing. Lastly was a purely human form, though
he'd gotten a magic tattoo and some esper talent that was
supposed to be useful if he ever figured out how to access
it.
This world, for all its appearances, had no dragons or
angels roaming its streets in disguise. The technology might
have allowed for cyborgs, but clearly nothing near the full
conversion type. That meant... human.
It felt diminished. Crippled. Small. He could fly (though
the angelform was the only one where landing didn't end up
in a crash) in all his other forms, but the human form
was... weak. Defenseless. Soft. Grey was amazed how easy it
was to get used to being big and powerful. Being a
psuedo-angel had been glorious, being a silver dragon-
bordered on joyful, being a hulking cyborg had been
inconvenient and a large set of its own problems - but it
had been comfortable in a way.
Stepping out into a rainshower and feeling the sudden ache
of old tired joints, Grey realized that something was even
more wrong with this. There was a burning sharp pain in his
chest, and he felt the wet cold penetrating him far more
than he remembered it.
Looking at his arm confirmed the worst. Wrinkled pale skin
spotted with age and old scars. Not only human again. But
his old human body. He'd been close to forty when he'd been
remade into a demon. He hadn't kept track of time since
then, time travel and dimensional jaunts had invented terms
like 'subjective time vs objective time', but at least
another forty years had passed on various jobs and missions.
Judging from this pain-wracked, trembling, withered shell -
another twenty years or more had been tacked on. This body
was literally crumbling inside, and Grey could feel it.
Struggling for every step, Grey tried to make it towards the
odd barely-seen buildings surrounding him. The Binding was
still weakened or confused. Celeste hadn't immediately
recalled him, which meant he was out of touch with them too.
He was glad of one thing at least. That he had to go through
this indignity and have his Final Death be of old age out in
the rain of some alien timeline, at least Ami and Minako and
the others weren't here to see this...
And somehow he'd always known, that even though he'd always
done the best he could, and he'd always cared, that he would
die cold and alone and unloved. It was just that sort of
life...
So cold, so dark...
So alone...
------------
heh heh. cliffhanger, eh?
FBT continues, though it was requested i move the "Genma
Meets Mr. Consequence" earlier than i had originally
planned. (Genma? Actually suffer himself for the
consequences of his choices instead of foisting it off on
Ranma? How terribly un-canon.)
gregg
-------------------------------
"Don't forget that for the acorn to
become the mighty oak, it starts with a
little nut that decides to stand its ground."
-Anonymous
metroanime@mindspring.com
http://metroanime.home.mindspring.com/