And moving on:

    Blinking, he quickly examined his surroundings, his hands finding
their way to the emergency controls he had read about in his Galaxy
Police training. Punching a quick sequence of numbers, he was rewarded
with the corridor -- reaver still within -- disengaging from the
station, and spinning into space. "That worked," he allowed, turning his
back to the missing corridor, and marching along an alternate route. If
he could remove the reavers that easily, then maybe there was no reason
to panic at all....

But of course, it won't be that easy.

    That thought was shaken from his mind as the same reaver he had just
thought vanished leapt through the forcefield, reentering the station
from the vacuum. "That didn't work," Kintaro whimpered, spinning, and
running full bore away from the monster,

Oops.

    "Cadet," the woman warned, "I will do as I see fit. I will not
abandon my Ouke-no-ki -- not now."

    "Then we'll take it with us," Kintaro offered. "The station's
modular, so we can disengage your tree's section, and then grapple it
with Mihoshi's ship -- but we're really going to have to hurry!"

Heh. Cute. He has an out for her already

    Currently, she was watching the platform that had been put into the
space between the Moon and the Earth, all too aware of the reavers that
had leapt -- somehow -- all the way from Earth, and latched onto the
structure. She was also aware of the reavers that had surrounded what
amounted to the majority of their defensive forces. She had the uncanny
and dismal feeling that she was watching humanity's last defiant
struggle, but quashed that down.

It does seem that way.

    "Ami-chan? We need you to fire the Halcyon array at the orbital
platform -- the reavers have found a way to get up there, and it's
swarming with them," the scientist explained.

Can take out a lot that way, so long as the platform has a minimum of
people.

    "They have a way to attract one another at incredible velocity while
phasing through everything that's not alive," Ami surmised. "I used the
Ethos array's tracking equipment to monitor it."

So someone made a homing beacon to draw them on, eh?

    "Anything?" Oe asked quietly.

    "I-- Yes." Dropping her voice to a whisper, though Mihoshi wasn't in
hearing range, Shiname pleaded, "If you can rescue her, I'll sleep with
you,

Heh. How was it she knew that was what he was getting at?

    Kintaro jerked his attention back to the screen, barking out, "Strap
yourselves in, everyone brace for collision!" Orienting the ship with
the drifting tree pod, he deployed the grappling apparatus from the
ship's booster section, fingers flying across the control panel with
practiced ease. His other hand gripped the throttle, and carefully
increased it, lining up the grasping claws, and activating some of the
external monitors to align the ship correctly with the pod.

Piece of cake for him.

    "Cadet, shielding is down to less than thirty percent. We have eight
seconds before the dome above us is obliterated. It was a pleasure
working with you," Yukinojo noted sadly.

Mihoshi: What about me?

Yukinojo: Don't make me go there.

    "It's not going very well," Makoto said quietly. "I'm sorry."

    "Aw, we'll pull through,"

Terry Bogard: Just like I did.

    Ryu smiled, laughing softly. "See?" he asked. "I told you so."

    "Hush, Ryu," Makoto chastised, tears welling up in her eyes. "You
need to save your strength."

    "Just a scratch," Ryu said. "The reaver... didn't get me."

Ryu: But, could... you remove your knee... from my groin.

    Ran-oh-ki rolled over, reorienting on Earth, and began to accelerate
towards it, as Washuu made a thoughtful noise. "I'm checking that now,"
she said, frowning. "We weren't in an ideal spot to gather data on the
subject, but it looks like that got about fifteen of them from the
platform, and another ten from the battlegrounds below -- the rest used
phase-shifting to slide out of the way."

My. They are fast.

    "Not bad," Ranma allowed. "How many are left, then?"

    "Hmm. There should only be two-hundred and three," she answered,
glancing side-long at Ranma. "Why?"

    "Something doesn't feel right," he muttered.

They're multiplying. They need to evac before it's too late.

    "We lost the orbital observation platform," Washuu explained,
pointing to the kilometers distant pillar of smoke rising in the
distance. "That's where Ami-chan fired the Halcyon array. We got some of
the reavers, but I don't know if the tradeoff was worth it."

Not really.

    "So we only need to survive for two days?" Cologne asked, furrowing
her brow in concern. "That doesn't sound terribly difficult."

    "When we do fight, it's going to be a losing battle," Yosho warned.
"I don't believe they can know how much time we need, so we've got that
going for us."

    "Washuu," Ranma warned, drawing near. "Herb wants to go pick up a
friend of his,

Heh. Ranma has a way of making things sound a lot easier than they are.

    While Ranma was distracted upon arrival, Tsunami found herself
unable to ignore the healers, hard at work. Two young girls, though
admittedly, one

Not sure about that comma either.

    "He'll live?" the brunette asked, pleading. "He won't die?"

Tsunami: Well, he will someday. Just not from the wounds he received today.

    "Ranma-san is my boyfriend," Hotaru proclaimed, turning her
attention back to Tsunami. "Who are you?"

Tsunami smiled pleasently. "Your death if you ever touch Ranma again."

    "Um," Hotaru mumbled, staring at her feet. "Ranma-san, you don't
have to be my boyfriend if you don't want to be."

How generous of her. :)

    Nominally, Herb would have been there, but claimed he had some
business to attend to. Cologne wasn't about to press the issue, since it
wasn't likely too important. "Sun Tzu," Norris allowed, nodding. "If you
can choose the time and place of the battle, the advantage is yours."

Doesn't mean it'll be enough to win.

    "Tomorrow," Yakumo said, shrugging. "Maybe the day after. I can feel
them -- lots more of them, but not as strong. They're scared, now. Very
scared of what happened at the battle today. I suspect that they think
they should have won, and instead they lost dozens, while we lost only a
handful."

Not good.

    "It's not an acceptable loss," Washuu countered. "We can't generate
more allies, they can."

    Yakumo bowed his head, sighing. "That's true," he acquiesced. "For
what it's worth, I don't think they'll attack us seriously tomorrow."

    "So they won't attack us at all?" Norris asked, furrowing his brow.

He did say seriously. Nothing about it being 'not at all'

    "Okay, so they won't attack us today, they might attack us tomorrow,
and they will attack us the day after," Norris grumbled. "We need to
pick a battleground that gives us the advantage, if we can find one. The
way they move, I have a hard time imagining a good one."

    "Jusenkyou," Cologne hazarded. "The cursed springs will be dangerous
to us, but any reaver that falls into them should suffer the same
consequences."

True

    "That's not a good idea," another of the elders complained.
"Jusenkyou is dangerous for a reason."

    "It's not hopeless," Cologne countered. "If we use waterproof soap,

Yeah, but how much will they have on hand.

the danger should be minimal, and it gives us the advantage of having at
least one direction that the reavers cannot attack us from."

    "Waterproof soap?" Washuu asked skeptically. "If you need something
to keep you from getting wet, I might be able to make something for you.
They'd be small, and they wouldn't last long before they burnt out their
own charges, but it would do the trick for a minute or so."

Heh. That could work

    Washuu bit her lip, unsure. "I don't know," she admitted. "Before
Ranma found the Musk, I would have said we had no chance. Now, I would
guess our chances are slim, at best. We lost six of the Musk, according
to Yosho, and then three of our existing forces were rendered
unconscious in the battle. While there will be more of us at the next
battle, Norris, there will be proportionately more of them, and we've
used the one shot that the Halcyon array has left already."

Yeah. That does stink. That could have been real useful.

    "No chance at all, then?" Norris asked, unfolding his arm and
rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. "Well, the only cause worth fighting
is a lost cause.

Cologne: HArdly. That's the rationale of losers to convince them losing
doesn't matter.

    >     She disengaged her hand from Kura-Wan's shirt, and said, "My

father

is the Jusenkyou guide. He sent me to look for Ranma, because Ranma
knows about the springs from the pantyhose monster." She nodded
knowingly, then added, "The springs of Jusenkyou dried up, and father
said that he would investigate, but I needed to get Ranma, because
someone stole his secret map."

Uh oh. This is very bad.

    Paling, Cologne managed to whisper, "Kura-Wan, see that she's fed
and given a place to rest, then ask Norris's men to ask someone to fetch
her away from here -- this is no place for a child." She trudged back to
the table, the other members of the meeting staring at her with frank
curiosity.

    "What was that about?" Norris asked in his accented Japanese,
frowning curiously. "Bad news?"

It can only be more bad new. There is no worse news than the reavers.

    She was seated on the floor, her staff across her knees, and stared
intently at a pair of cats. One bluish black, the other white, each with
faintly golden crescents on their foreheads. "What seems to be the
problem?" the black cat asked, her tail lashing with repressed worry.

    "Well, things have changed since Shanghai," Setsuna said,

About time she popped up again.

shaking

her head, and resting one hand atop the staff in her lap. "I am...
concerned, and wanted to know what insight you two might have."

    "Us?" Artemis asked, surprised. "Why are you asking us, when you
could just check the Time Gate?"

    "Well, that would be a small problem," Setsuna muttered, grimacing.
"The Time Gate isn't there anymore."

Yes. That would be a problem.

    Both of the moon-cats stared at her, surprised, then exchanged a
confused glance, before eyeing her with worry. "How can it be gone?"

It ran out of time. :)

    Kintaro glanced at one of the information screens as Yukinojo
activated it, and frowned. "Oh, you don't need to do anything for me,"
he replied, staring at the readout. "It's just my job, after all."

    "Ah," Shiname said, relaxing instantly. "You are too gracious,

Oe-san."

Heh. I can see she was really looking forward to it.

    "Of course," Ami said raising her finger to her lower lip and
staring at the man curiously. "Is something wrong?"

    The man nodded unhappily, and glanced at something out of her view.
"According to some of the other ships in orbit, three reavers just
launched themselves from Earth towards the Moon," he explained.

That's very bad.

    "The Halcyon array is too old to stand being fired," Ami said,
shaking her head. "I can try using the Ethos array." She tapped a few
keys, and frowned. "Yes, Washuu-sensei said that the Ethos array was
designed to work on things like the reavers. I will take care of them
for you." She offered the man a hopeful smile. "I don't suppose that you
know of, um, someone named Tatsuki Kohito?"

She seems awfully attached to him all of a sudden

    He was not seated, as she had thought, but standing in his
resplendent robes, hands clasped behind his back, beneath his wings. "It
is of little concern to us," he said, still looking away, gazing out a
distant window. "There are things that we must deal with that are much
more important than foolish mortals with time to waste. They will perish
in the climb, and if they do not, then I will deal with the matter
personally once they get here."

    Kiima blinked, and bowed her head again. "As you wish," she replied
quietly.

Heh. He has no idea of what's awaiting him. Should be fun to see him learn,
though.

Nice build  up to the end. Down to 48 hours or so and all will be decided in
that amount of time.

D.B. Sommer

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