Well, I've been wanting to do this for a while. I don't think there's too 
many Moldiver fics out there, probably because it's difficult to come up with 
a challenge for her to face. I had to pick the brains of my friends before I 
could build a story. This fic is a crossover, though I didn't label this 
chapter as such because the crossing over doesn't really take off until 
chapter 2. 

Please send C&C. I need something besides jam to put on my toast.

Lesee, Moldiver belongs to Pioneer and whoever they got the rights from. I 
know it aint me. The basis is the dubbed anime. Television should be watched 
from a reasonble distance in a non-dark room.

-Steve T.

16. Maintain and monitor Gateway Country Store 
customer satisfaction measurement tools
-Gateway Country Store Associate Responsibilities
**************
There is a saying; "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Nowhere was this more true then in the year 2047. They were called 
Technologists these days, but engineers still loved to tinker. Perhaps love 
is the wrong word. It has something to do with their mindset. They need to 
tinker the way you need to breathe.

That need had led Technologist Ted Kasakwa to attempt to create a paint that 
would be as impervious as the heaviest military armor.

The resulting explosion sent a storm of debris out over Tokyo and given their 
size, the pieces could have killed hundreds of people had not Tokyo's 
guardian angel intervened.

"Thanks again for your help, Moldiver," the police officer said as the young 
woman set the last piece in place and held it while crews nano-welded it in.

"Not a problem, officer," she replied. "Its a good thing I was passing by 
when it happened." Moldiver was a tall, athletic woman, with curves in all 
the right places. Her waist length brown hair was tied back with a ribbon and 
a helmet with a blue visor covered the upper half of her face. She wore a 
long sleeved white and red sailor blouse with shoulder armor over a black 
spandex turtleneck. Her pants were pink with red high-heeled boots that came 
just up to above her knees. With a grin, she saluted him. He returned the 
salute and then watched in amazement as she rose into the air, glowed, and 
then vanished into the distance.

********
One of the advantages to being able to move at near light speeds is that its 
difficult to be seen and nobody noticed her as she landed behind a building 
at the Kamiru shrine. Taking a precautionary glance around, she reached 
behind her back and then through her shirt and pulled out a small, circuit 
covered rectangle. For a moment, she glowed and then she was gone to be 
replaced by a very naked Mirai Ozora.

Sighing, she opened her satchel and pulled out her clothes.

"So how did it go?" came her brother's voice over her ear piece.

"Fine, I guess, and the pants and boots aren't all that bad," Mirai replied 
as she fastened her bra. "And the lack of a time limit is nice, but I hate 
having to take my clothes off to use the mol unit."

"I keep telling you, Mirai, its part of the dimensional formation. It starts 
on your skin and forms outward. Nothing can be in the way."

"Well you created it," Mirai shot back. "Can't you find a way around it?"

"I've been trying for the past two years," Hiroshi protested.

Mirai hmphed at that and removed the ear piece, her thumb flicking it off. 
With practiced motions, she pulled on her shirt and pants and slid her feet 
into her shoes. After two years, she had refined speed dressing to an art 
form, and could put on the most complicated outfit in under two minutes. It 
was kind of cool, but cool didn't pay the bills, especially when you were as 
addicted to the shopping mall as Mirai was. Everyone needed a vice or two.

Fortunately for her, her slim figure and natural poise made her an ideal 
model and pageant contestant. Taking the crown was good for a few months of 
keeping the creditors away.

For a moment, just a moment, the temptation to become Moldiver and just take 
what she wanted reared its head. Her hands began shaking and moved to her 
pocket when she had another vision, this one of a little girl whom she had 
saved from being crushed from debris earlier that day. The kids face was one 
of wide-eyed adoration and it gave Mirai the strength to push the temptation 
away. 'I'm Moldiver to help people,' she thought to herself. 'That's why I 
have the unit. To help people.' Her hands steady once more, she slung the 
satchel over her shoulder and headed for the shrine to pray as she had every 
day for the past two years, for the safe return of Kenchi Misaki, the first 
human to go beyond the confines of Sol, and more importantly, her soulmate.

********
Six months later...

"Moldiver Mark Three?" Mirai asked skeptically as she examined the slim 
rectangle in her hand. It was metallic black and silver, with a stylized 
three on it in stark white. Unlike the others, there were no visible 
circuits, just the green orb of the mol crystal.

"Yep," Hiroshi said with a smile. "After Machinegal nearly found out who you 
really were, I decided you should probably have some other way to evade 
detection. So I added a field that bends light around it, making you 
invisible."

"Well that's fine," Mirai said. "Until someone points an infrared or 
ultraviolet camera at me." She rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically. 
"Don't you watch any TV?"

"Mirai...if infrared or ultraviolet was a threat, you would have been found 
out a long time ago. Hello, full spectrum security cameras at the ropeway and 
shooter gates? The suit is a transdimensional manifestation that only 
registers on the visible portion of the light spectrum."

"Oh."

"However. You can only use the field for eleven minutes. After that, the unit 
automatically shuts off for one hour to prevent overheating and fused 
circuits." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "I finally figured out how that 
other Moldiver generated that molecular wave beam of his and you now have 
one. But be careful. Again, prolonged use, say, five minutes,  will cause the 
unit to shut down to prevent overheating. But it should come in handy if you 
ever meet him again."

"Yeah, its weird how he just disappeared last year," Mirai said.

"That reminds me," Hiroshi said. "Nozumu wrote us from M.I.T."

"Oh?" Mirai asked. A year ago, the youngest Oroza sibling had been discovered 
building his very own mecha. Proud as could be, their mother had packed the 
young genius off to M.I.T. Nozumu hadn't been very happy about it, but she 
wouldn't have any of it. "No son of mine with this sort of potential is going 
to squander his gift by sitting around this house," she had said.

"How is he?" Mirai asked. 

"Hard to say," Hiroshi said. "It was a short note. Sounds like they're 
keeping him pretty busy."

"Well that's good," Mirai said as she set the Mark Two mol unit on Hiroshi's 
desk and pocketed the Mark Three. Then she glanced at her watch. "Eeep! I'm 
late for auditions!"


Six more months pass...

The slamming of her bedroom door woke Mirai up, offering the view of Hiroshi, 
standing in the doorway, lit by the hall light.

"Come on! It's all over the news!"

"What is?"

"Hurry!" With that, he ran off and she could hear him banging on the door to 
their parents room.

Yawning, Mirai pulled on her robe and walked down the hallway to the living 
room. Hiroshi was already sitting in front of the TV, staring at it as though 
the fate of the universe depended on how much attention he was paying.

"Once again," the newscaster was saying. "the S.E.T.I. project in Silicon 
Valley has confirmed that the S.O.R.T.A., or Sol Orbiter Radio Telescope 
Array, which orbits Pluto, has received a signal from somewhere in the 
Constellation of Draco. All we know at this point is that message contains 
audio and video elements and is on the same hyper-wavelength radio frequency 
used to communicate with the Sakigake during the launch sequence." At that, 
the fog of sleep vanished from Mirai's mind. "A ZIC Aerospace spokesperson 
would only say that ZIC is working closely with S.E.T.I. to decode the 
transmission, which is apparently garbled and will reveal new information as 
it-wait." The newscaster paused and pressed a finger to her ear piece. 
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I've just been informed that they've cleaned up the 
audio portion of the transmission as best they could. We go now to the 
satellite feed."

The newscaster vanished to be replaced by the image of a man. He was tall and 
broad-shouldered. His black hair was cut in a military style. The picture was 
a good two years out of date, Mirai knew, but she drank it in anyways.

"This is Pilot Kenchi Misaki of the Dimension Jump Project >SZZZZZKK< 
Contact, repeat, First Contact >FSHHHHKKKK< Heavy Damage. I-" There was the 
sound of explosion and a tortured, animalistic howl. ">PSHHHHNNNKT< completly 
destroyed >RRRSKKKK< requesting assistance. >FSHHHHKKKK< Moldiver 

SKZZZZNIKT< " There was another explosion and the sound of someone shouting 

in a strange language. The picture vanished to be replaced by the newscaster, 
her face completly pale. "I'm...I'm told that the message repeats after 
that...second explosion. More after this."

Hiroshi bolted from the room.

********
The next few days passed in a blur for Mirai. When not working or sleeping 
she was camped in front of the TV, her portable computer on her lap. Hiroshi 
had locked himself in his room, emerging only to eat or use the facilities.

All over the world, most people were in a state of shock, prompting one 
journalist to note the similarity to the state of things nearly fifty years 
ago when terrorists had flown two jetliners into the World Trade Center in 
New York, and a third into the Pentagon, killing thousands of people. For 
several days afterwards, people had only gone through the motions of their 
daily business as they tried to cope with the tragedy.

On the net, it was a whole different story. Misaki's message had not only 
flat out said, "First Contact" but had someone yelling in a strange language. 
Newsgroups posts blazed like wildfire across the digital landscape, flooding 
bandwidth with everything from shouts of joy that humanity was not alone in 
the universe, to conspiracy theories that Misaki had never made it and the 
message was a stunt by ZIC to garner more funding to everything in between. 
Threats, arguments, flames and worse zipped back and forth. While no riots 
started, most cities were on tactical alert and ready for anything.

And then, one week later, ZIC and S.E.T.I. made two announcements. Firstly, 
they said that the S.O.R.T.A. had confirmed that the transmission came from 
the star Altais, a star of medium brightness a hundred point twenty-three 
light years from Earth and part of the constellation of Draco. Secondly, 
whether due to some cosmic interference, or simply the distance traveled, the 
video portion of the message was all but irretrievable. However, they had 
discovered a series of mathematical symbols encoded directly into the 
transmission itself. When decoded, the symbols spelled out a date, time and 
the coordinates for the crossover point where Pluto crossed Neptune's orbit 
to once more become the outermost planet. The date was for two months after 
the arrival of the transmission.

Within hours, the United Nations directed that the Robert Goddard, a large 
scale cargo vessel that traveled between Earth and the very small colony on 
the Jovian moon Gaymede, was hereby drafted into service and recommissioned 
as the Sol Alliance Ship Saint Christopher. A move some found hilarious since 
the Sol Alliance didn't exist except as a set of initals painted onto the 
Christopher's hull.

At the Martian shipyards, which normally built the mining ships that plied 
the asteroid belt, all production ceased and the yard's resources were 
instead directed towards, arming, armoring and stocking the Saint Christopher 
for an extended search and rescue operation in uncharted, possibly hostile 
territory.

Meanwhile, on Earth, a call for volunteers went out. More then five thousand 
men and women in the planet's various armed forces responded and out of 
those, three hundred were selected.

Those three hundred people would be taken to the Martian deserts and 
subjected to the most grueling and demanding training the United American 
Continents Marine Corps could dream up to turn out the hundred seventy-five 
men and women who would crew the Saint Christopher. And yet, in the back of 
everyone's mind, was the question; would it be enough? In all likelihood, a 
roundevouz meant that the Christopher would be meeting up with an 
interstellar capable craft that would take them to where, if the background 
noise in the transmission was any indication, a war was being fought. Was 
humanity really ready to get caught up in an interstellar war?

The answer was simple. If Misaki was, then ready or not, so was humanity.

Meanwhile, after nearly six weeks, Hiroshi emerged from his isolation, only 
to drag Mirai away from the TV and into his sanctum.

"I don't have time for this, Hiroshi," Mirai complained as he shut the door 
behind her. "Mr. Misaki is-"

"Hundreds of Light Years away at the moment," Hiroshi replied. "And there's 
nothing you, or Moldiver can do for him." He grinned. "At least not until you 
have this." He handed her a mol-unit. This one was slightly larger then it's 
predecessors with a crystal that was a good four times bigger then the 
others. "I admit, its the equivalent of taking a pocket knife when you're 
going to be hunting dinosaurs, but its the best I could do." Mirai stared at 
him blankly. "Think, Mirai," Hiroshi said. "You gave Misaki a mol-unit. An 
extremely powerful mol-unit and he encountered something that made him call 
home for help."

"Oh," Mirai said, her eyes widening. Hiroshi sighed. Despite her high marks 
in school, Mirai could be remarkably dense sometimes. "Now look at this, I've 
added a few things to the Mark Four and made some other changes." A schematic 
of the suit appeared on his screen.

"Ewwww!" Mirai said. "What did you do? It looks so...weird." Indeed, the suit 
had lost its neat colors and fashionable appearance. Colored black and dark 
blue, it was now less fashionable and more functional in an alien sort of way.

"Gave you a fighting chance, I hope. Look, Mirai, I know you, you're going to 
try everything you can to be on the Saint Christopher  when it sets out for 
the Pluto-Neptune Junction even if it means abandoning everyone and 
everything you know and love forever." Mirai flinched guiltily. "You've saved 
the world a hundred times," Hiroshi continued in a gentler. "But in my eyes, 
you're still my baby sister and..." he trailed off.

Mirai, her eyes brimming with tears, hugged him.

"Mirai," Hiroshi said after a few moments. "We have to tell Mom and Dad. If 
you're...leaving, they deserve to know why. And about Moldiver."

********
In the end, Mr. and Ms Oroza took the relavation of Mirai's secret life well. 
If you could call Mrs. Oroza hysterically screaming, calling Mirai a freak, 
and running from the room "taking it well."

It wasn't a totally unexpected reaction. After all,  Mirai and her mother had 
never gotten along well. A first class Technologist like her husband, Jun 
Oroza fully expected her children to follow in their footsteps, not to make 
waves, and become pillars of society. Mirai's decision to chase a modeling 
career had derailed that. Though the two had eventually agreed to disagree, 
their relationship had been strained.

Mirai sighed as she sat on her bed packing what few possessions she couldn't 
bear to leave behind. If only her mother had been more understanding, if only 
there had been another way, if only-she looked up at the sound of a knock on 
the door.

"Come in," she said. The door entered and her father entered the room, 
shutting the door behind him. "How's Mom?"

"Sleeping, at the moment," her father replied as he sat on the bed. "Mirai, 
why did you tell us you were Moldiver?"

Over the next hour, Mirai told her father the whole story. How Hiroshi had 
developed the mol-unit to make himself a superhero and how she had used his 
equipment to try and make it a little more fashionable, but instead had 
completly reversed the gender of the suit. From there, she told him of her 
first battles with Machinegal and his Superdolls, and finished up with the 
battle to save the Sakigake. "...and in his message, he said Moldiver," she sa
id, winding up her tale. "I think he was asking for me and Hiroshi said he 
must have encountered something he couldn't handle, even with a mol-unit."

"So what makes you think you can do anything?"

"I can't sit here and do nothing!" Mirai exclaimed. "I have to try and make 
it to him! I love him, Dad!"

"Now calm down, Mirai," her father said. "I'm not saying you shouldn't do 
anything, but what about the people in Tokyo? The ones you've spent the last 
three years protecting? Are you really going to just abandon them?"

Mirai whimpered. She hadn't even thought about her fellow citizens and 
Moldiver was the only one who could stand up to Machinegal's Superdolls. Her 
love for Kenchi warred with the promise she had made at the race track three 
years ago to stand against evil.

"I...I..." Mirai started to hyperventilate.

"Easy," her father said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "All I'm saying is 
that you need to choose carefully. The consequences of our actions stay with 
us for the rest of our lives." He patted her shoulder and stood. "You do what 
you believe is the right thing to do."

"Oh hell..." Mirai said when he was gone.

********
"So you're gonna go, huh?" Hiroshi asked a few days later. He and Mirai were 
taking a stroll through the Botanical Gardens just enjoying each other's 
company. While they had never been close, working together as Moldiver had 
eliminated much of the sibling rivalry between them. The Saint Christopher 
was due to depart the next day and they were taking the chance to say 
good-bye.

"Yeah," Mirai said. "If nothing else, I have to keep whatever's going on out 
there away from Earth and-"

"Hiroshi, my boy," a man's voice said.

"Oh, hello, Professor Amagi," Hiroshi said, turning to bow to the white 
haired man sitting on a bench. "How are you?

"Quite well, quite well indeed." The old man chuckled. "Who's your friend?"

"You remember my sister Mirai, don't you?"

"Mirai? Oh yes. How are you?"

"I am well, thank you, Mirai said, suppressing a shudder as she bowed. She 
had never liked the professor. It was the eyebrows. They looked like a pair 
of slugs hanging from his forehead and he always seemed to be undressing her 
with his eyes.

"Your soda, Professor," said a blond haired woman as she joined them, handing 
Amagi a cup.

"Thank you, Isabelle. You remember my young friend Hiroshi, don't you?"

Of course," Isabelle said as she turned to face them. Mirai bit back a gasp. 
She knew those eyes. The last time she had seen them, they had been staring 
at her through the visor of a Superdoll helmet as they hovered in space near 
the sun, with the fate of the Sakigake at stake.

"And this is his sister Mirai," Amagi continued. Mirai schooled her face into 
an expression of calm and bowed.

"Hello," she said, her voice squeaking slightly. A great many realizations 
were clamoring for attention inside her head and none of them were very 
pretty. "If you would excuse me, I'm not feeling very well all of a sudden."

"Yes, you are a bit pale," Amagi said, peering at her. "Here." he fumbled in 
his pocket and came up with a small package. "Take these."

"Thank you," Mirai said. "I should go get some water." and she ran off.

********
Mirai sat on the bench as the ropeway made its way between the towers, paying 
very little attention to the world around her.

Amagi was Machinegal, Moldiver's mortal enemy. It all made sense now. Things 
like Amagi's insistence that his "specially trained team" should be the only 
one to attempt retrieval of the Yamato and how the Superdolls showed up so 
conveniently with no signs of resistance from the "team." Everything was 
falling into place.

'What am I going to do?' she wondered. 'Hiroshi practically worships Amagi. 
How can I tell him that his mentor is one of the most evil men on the face of 
the Earth? Oh, Kami-sama, tell me what to do.'

********
All to soon, the time came and Mirai, dressed in her robe and carrying her 
duffel, exited the house and stood there, the dew dampened grass squishing 
comfortably between her toes. Sighing, she dropped the duffel to the ground 
and turned to face her family. Her father and Hiroshi stood on the porch, 
hands in their pockets. Her mother was nowhere to be seen.

"Well, I guess this is good-bye," Hiroshi said. "You be careful out there, 
Mirai." Mirai ran forward and hugged him tightly.

"I will, Big Brother."

"Mirai," her father said. "I know you and your mother have never-"

"I can speak for myself, Ken," said a new voice. They turned to look at Jun 
Oroza. The matriarch of the household stood in the doorway, her face tear 
streaked. "Mirai, do you really intend to go through with this insanity?"

"It's not insanity, Mother," Mirai said, her tone more confrontational then 
she intended. "You heard the audio track. I have to keep whatever's happening 
out there away from Earth. I have a responsibility to-"

"To throw away your life?"

"If it means saving my fellow human beings, then yes, and gladly! Unlike you, 
I'm not selfish and uncaring!" The words were out before she could stop them. 
Jun stared at her a moment and then the sound of flesh against flesh was 
heard.

"You stupid girl," Jun said softly, her eyes ablaze with anger. "After all 
I've done for you."

Mirai stared at her, hand on her cheek where her mother had slapped her. Half 
a dozen responses flashing through her mind, half a dozen things to say.  But 
instead, she untied her robe and let it fall before holding up the mol-unit. 
"METAMORFORCE!"

The crystal flared to life and for Mirai, a bright white light obscured the 
world.

Like pair of giant hands, she felt as though she was being held and then a 
warm feeling washed over her and she felt as though she was being detached 
from her body. Then the HUD of the suit appeared before her eyes and the 
feeling of weightlessness vanished. For a moment longer, she stared at them 
and turned on her heel and walked back to her duffel and slinging it over one 
shoulder, she launched herself into the air and flew off at three times the 
speed of sound. 

As she left the moon behind, Hiroshi's voice crackled in her ear piece and 
Mirai blinked in surprise before realizing she must have automatically turned 
it on and put it in when she left her room.

"Mirai, I didn't get the chance to tell you. I reformatted the mark three for 
Captain Tokyo."

"You're kidding."

"Nah. I thought I'd give it another go."

"Well be careful, Ama-" Moldiver sighed. She couldn't tell him. She just 
couldn't. "Machinegal is dangerous."

"I will. You too." Then he was gone.

Sighing, Mirai increased her speed as ahead, the red disc that was Mars 
loomed.

********
In the city of New Plymouth on Mars, the launching of the Saint Christopher 
was well underway. At the spaceport, standing before the shuttles that would 
ferry them up to the waiting ship, the hundred and seventy-five men and women 
stood at parade rest as Dale McHorry, the secretary general of the U.N. 
addressed them. McHorry was a stout man, with a weak chin and beady eyes.

"And so, it is upon you brave souls that we place the trust of representing 
the people of Earth. We know not what Misaki found out there, but we do know 
that you hundred and seventy-five will-"

"Hundred and seventy-six," interrupted a voice. Everyone turned to see a 
bright red ball of light descend through the dome and settle to the ground. 
When it faded away, a woman stood there. She was tall and athletic. Her face 
was cover by a black helmet with a blue visor. Metal horns like the ears of a 
bat rose up from her brown hair. The black cheek plates came down to just 
below her jawline where they sprouted antlike mandibles. Her clothing 
consisted of a high necked spandex top that covered her neck completly under 
a military style black tunic who's collar came only halfway up her neck. Over 
that was a dark blue coat that came down to just past her hips and was belted 
with a black belt at the waist. The sleeves were tucked into three fingered 
metal gloves who's tips came to clawlike points and three backwards pointing 
curved spikes ran along the outside. 

On her shoulders, twin metal shoulder guards jutted outwards and were from 
under them, two more curved metal plates held the dark blue cape that came 
down to mid-calf against her arms without restricting their movements. Her 
pants were black and tucked into blue metallic boots with shingaurds and 
tipped with a pair of metal clawlike bladed that curved towards each other. 
She held a duffel bag in one hand and gray metal batlike wings sprouted from 
her back. "I'm going too."

"Who are you?" a reporter demanded.

"Moldiver."

"Moldiver?!" Professor Amagi sputtered as he leapt to his feet from where he 
had been seated in the mass of officials on the stage. "But you're Tokyo's 
protector!"

"Which is exactly why I have to go," Moldiver replied.

"Well that's all well and good," McHorry said. "But you simply can't come in 
and announce you're-" he broke off as she suddenly appeared before him, 
accompanied by the howling of a sudden gust of wind.

"I'm going," she said flatly. "One way or another."

"Well really," McHorry protested.

"A moment, Mr. Secretary," Amagi said, clomping forward. "Moldiver is a 
metahuman, after all. Living in Tokyo as I have, I have witnessed firsthand 
her feats. The Saint Christopher could use her."

"Hm, well, yes. This is highly irregular, you know."

"Of course it is," Amagi said, patting the other man on the shoulder. "Tell 
you what. You finish the speech while I check Moldiver out on certain 
emergency procedures." He turned to Moldiver. "If you'll come with me?" He 
turned and walked off the stage with Moldiver as Isabelle fell into step 
behind them.

********
As they passed a support beam for the rooftop, Moldiver dropped her bag and 
grabbing Amagi by his lapels, pinned him against the beam.

"If I even think that someone is trying transport in, I use these," she said 
to Isabelle, holding up her claws. She turned back to Amagi. "A word of 
advice, Machinegal." She smiled as his face paled at her use of his alias. "I 
am coming back. And when I do, we're going to settle matters. Unless of 
course, Captain Tokyo gets you first." She let him fall. "You might want to 
start building some body armor, Professor, you're going to need it." Scooping 
up her bag, she walked back across the field to where the crew was preparing 
to board the shuttles.

"Are you okay, sir?" Isabelle asked as she helped him to his feet.

"I am unharmed, Isabelle," Amagi replied as he took a communicator from his 
pocket. "Brooke. Moldiver knows who I am and says she'll return. Make a liar 
out of her."

On the boarding ramp, a young woman in the uniform of security smiled. It was 
a smile that was...hungry.

********
Bridge of the S.A.S. Saint Christopher
Three days later, Pluto/Neptune Crossover.

Captain Edward Jeffords of the Eurasian Defense Force had spent the past 
forty years at sea in one fashion or another. Sea of water or sea of space, 
it made little difference to him. 

"She's coming back, sir," the scanning technician said. "Approaching at high 
velocity." Jeffords nodded. Moldiver's abilities made her a perfect scout and 
when he had approached her with the idea, she had agreed, more out of boredom 
then anything else, he suspected. And so, every six hours, she had phased 
through the hull of the Christopher and gone in search of their appointment. 
So far, she had found nothing. The technican suddenly stood, voice rising in 
panic. "And she's not alone!"

"What?" Jeffords bellowed, his cup of coffee clattering to the deck.

"Large ship, sir! Radar says its at least three times bigger then us and its 
closing on an intercept course.!"

"Don't just stand there! Sound Red Alert!" Jeffords barked. As the klaxon 
wailed, Jeffords ran to his bridge locker and pulled his suit out and on, 
completing the plumbing connections with almost painful haste and returned to 
his station, helmet in hand as Moldiver phased through the front wall 
accompanied by clanging noises as the armored plates slammed down over the 
bridge portholes. "Time to intercept."

"Five seconds and counting!"

The ship shook as something rumbled by. 

"Target has passed us and-Good Lord!"

"What?"

"It's turning like a damn fighter jet! It shouldn't be able to, not at that 
size, but it is!"

"Sir! Defense grid and engines just went off line." The ship shook again, and 
the sound of metal clanking against metal from somewhere overhead was heard.

A security officer handed Jeffords a rifle. He accepted it and glanced over 
at Moldiver. She too was staring at the ceiling, but with a look of calm 
detachment on her face. And then the portside wall began to glow a green 
color. Without a word, the bridge crew took up defensive positions all save 
Moldiver who stepped forward, blue white incandescent fire forming in the 
palm of her hand, the glow intensified and then a large green glowing orb 
phased through the wall and vanished, revealing two women, one of whom drew 
some sort of gun and pointed it at Moldiver. She was tall and slender, 
dark-skinned and blonde haired. An eye patch covered her right eye and her 
face was expressionless. The other was seated in some sort of chair, her 
teal-green hair braided and falling over one shoulder.

"No wonder I was so glad to leave Earth," the teal-haired one said softly. 
"You can stand down your men, Captain..."

"Jeffords. Edward Jeffords."

"Kiyone Mabiki."
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