Ranma 1/2 Independence Day: Chapter 2 They signal
Set during the middle of Ranma 1/2 before Ranma's mom finds out about the
truth of his curse.

Based on the film "Independence Day" By Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich and
Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi
By Bill Heineman

I don't own these characters. Please don't sue me, kill me or make me eat
live worms.


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July 1st, Late morning.


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Taki Fujiyama was examining the latest set of plates of the planet Jupiter.
He was looking for any new moons to add to the growing list of discoveries
that astronomers worldwide were making recently on the largest planet of the
solar system. He checked the first plate and found nothing unusual. He
checked the second plate, the third plate and then broke for lunch.

He sat in his chair downing his sandwich contemplating his existence. He had
been working at the Tokyo Bay Observatory for several years and had only
discovered a single asteroid and confirmed the sighting of a comet. He hoped
that someday he would find something in the heavens that he could name after
his cat that wouldn't be forgotten over the annuals of time.

"Four years of college so I can sit looking at the stars." He said to
himself.  He smiled since he wouldn't have it any other way. "I like it!" He
rolled his chair back to the lit table with the photographic plates.

He picked up his magnifying glass and held it onto plate number four to
examine Jupiter. He silently wished the funding board would approve of his
request to get digital recording equipment so he wouldn't need to spend his
scant funds on film and developing solutions. He could increase his output,
save money and maybe even hurry up and discover something.

Taki squinted at the circle that was Jupiter. The normally perfect sphere
had a chunk taken out of it and looked like a crescent moon. He pulled up
plate number three and saw that Jupiter had a tiny fragment missing. It was
something that he missed when he looked at it the first time.

He grew concerned and went to plate number five. Jupiter was partially
eclipsed by some large object. He made some calculations on where the object
would be now and cursed that it was only visible at this moment on the far
side of the earth. He pulled out the sixth and final plate and noticed the
object was already past Jupiter with only a tiny fragment obscuring the
distant world.

He double-checked his calculations based on the observations. The object
wasn't moving laterally. It was Jupiter that moved aside but the object
appeared stationary. There were only two conclusions that could be made. The
object was either moving directly away from Earth or it was moving directly
toward it. Earth didn't launch anything that could be this object so the
only remaining option was something unthinkable. A large bead of sweat crept
down the back of his head as he grabbed his telephone. He needed
confirmation of his findings.


========================================


Ranma stormed into his classroom dressed in his traditional Chinese shirt
and black pants. He had a look of anger on his face and growled at Akane as
he sat down. Akane snickered back in response. Ranma had to sneak into the
men's locker room to obtain a jock strap since Akane had conveniently
forgotten to pack a pair of boxer shorts in the grocery bag of clothes.
Ranma was never going to be caught wearing women's underwear in male form by
choice.

A dark cloud hovered over Ranma as he simmered in anger. Anger directed at
his close call at coming to school as a girl. Anger at his father to pretend
to be someone he's not. He felt even more anger for not being able to be who
he truly was in front of his mother.

Hiroshi walked up to Ranma to cheer him up. "Hey there! What's up?"

Ranma huffed. "The usual stuff."

Daisuke nudged Ranma to get him to lighten up. "What? Got another fiance you
lady killer?"

"As if I need another one, I've already got enough problems with the ones
I've got."

"Well Ranma, I've got something that might cheer you up. Check this out."
Hiroshi pulled out of his book bag a schematic diagram of a complicated
electrical circuit.

"What's this? Your art project?"

Hiroshi's eyes glazed over. "Twenty fours of the Playboy channel right at
your fingertips."

Ranma kept his head pointed at the diagram then raised just his eyes to look
at Hiroshi's spaced out features. "The Playboy channel? What's that?"

Daisuke's slapped his own head in shock. "You don't know what the Playboy
channel is? Have you been living under a rock?"

"No. I've been living on the road for ten years until I got tied down with
that uncute tomboy sitting over there. So what's this channel all about?"

The two perverts whispered together in a ritual of male bonding. "Girls!
Lot's of girls and little clothes."

"Why would I care about girls? They're nothin' but trouble!"

Hiroshi gave a smirk. "Don't tell me that you're not interested in girls
Ranma. Just think about it, girls on TV showing you everything."

Daisuke piped in. "Hiroshi, why would he care? If he wants a girl he can
just look in the mirror. Besides your box doesn't work anyways."

"It does too!"

"Does not!"

"Does too! I just need to get the bugs worked out of it that's all."

Ranma separated his friends from their pointless argument. "Hey! Hey! Hey!
You mean to tell me you actually got this piece of paper to work?"

Hiroshi snatched the paper from Ranma's desk and neatly folded it away. "I
put it together last night and got it working this morning."

Diasuke wanted to rub it in. "Working? Yeah right. The picture had all that
distortion and the sound didn't work."

"There was a carrier wave imbedded in the H-Blank signal. I just have to
filter it out. It's probably some new anti-piracy scheme."

Ranma was confused. "Whoa! H-Blank? Speak Japanese will ya?"

"H-Blank, Horizonal Blank, did you sleep in electronics class again?"

The tardy chime rang and the other students sat down at their desks. Ukyou
came in and waved at Ranma then sat in her seat. Hiroshi slipped his
schematic into his book bag. "I'll fix it tonight. Stop by my place if you
want to check out some real cute girls."

Ukyou's eyes twitched. She quietly thought. "If he wanted to see a cute
girl, all he has to do is turn around."

Akane snubbed Ranma. "See if I care."

Miss Hinako entered the class and sat on a stool. "Now is everyone ready to
learn?"

The class answered. "Yes teacher."

"Good. Now here's a book of my favorite ponies. Look at the nice little pink
one."


========================================


The phone rang in a tiny observatory in the middle of a Kansas field. Mark
Stratton was a retired machinist who was spending the rest of his days
looking at the stars. The building that housed his telescope looked like it
should fall apart if the wind achieved over ten kilometers per hour, but the
look was intentional to ward off thieves. Inside, was a set of some of the
most advanced amateur astronomy equipment money can buy without government
intervention. It was one of the perks of winning the New York state lottery
five years ago.

"Hello. Mark here." Mr. Stratton was in his early thirties, dressed casually
and enjoyed the good life. He had already discovered dozens of comets,
asteroids and even a tiny new moon of Saturn. He was known the world over in
the field of astronomy. "Yeah." He pulled out his keyboard while he placed
his feet on his desk. "Gimme the coordinates." He typed in the settings to
redirect his telescope to the current location of Jupiter. "Doomsday
asteroid? Yeah right, you've been watching too many movies. Gimme a minute."

Mark set the computer to take a high-resolution digital picture of the night
sky. In moments, the image was on his twenty-two inch flat panel display.
"Ok. Now what am I looking for? Uh huh." He blew up a section of the image.
He magnified it again. "I think I have something but it's reflective
properties suck. Might be an asteroid." He took another picture but with the
infrared and the ultraviolet spectrums being emphasized.

"Woah!" A large dot appeared near Jupiter. "Ok. Looks like we got a live
one. Let's see where you're going." He blew up the image to get a good look
at the object. It was a perfect circle, too perfect in his mind. He
programmed the telescope to take a picture of just the object itself and
determine its location.

He worked for twenty minutes solid. Taki didn't care if the phone call was
costing him a fortune. Every passing moment made him more excited about the
find. The asteroid was over five hundred kilometers across and was going to
pass Earth very closely. Taki wasn't prepared for the news he was going to
get.

Mark checked his findings refusing to believe they were correct. "Uh...
Taki, we've got big trouble here."

Taki untied his hand from the phone cord that he tangled himself with as he
played with it while waiting for confirmation of his find. "What? Don't tell
me it's going to hit the Earth."

Mark let out his breath when he accepted the truth. "I've clocked our friend
here. It's slowing down."

"Say what?"

"I'm forwarding this to NASA as soon as I hang up. This thing is traveling
far faster than anything I've ever seen and it's slowing down at an
incredible rate. At this rate of speed it will be within Lunar orbit in less
than twenty-four hours.

"Twenty four hours? From Jupiter's orbit?"

"Yep. If I were you, I'd think of a name for this thing. Something biblical
would be nice. Gotta go, I've got people to call and emails to make." Mark
hung up the phone as Taki asked more questions. Mark checked his Rolodex and
pulled out a card. He dialed the number on it. "Hello, NASA? This is Mark
Stratton. Get me Dr. Rothman. Yeah, tell him it's a possible extinction
level event. No, I'm not kidding and this isn't candid camera. Get him on
the phone NOW!"


========================================


Shampoo was resting at the Cat Cafe after her morning workout with her great
grandmother. She dreamed of Ranma as she watched her favorite Japanese soap
opera on her tiny TV in her bedroom.

"Oh Fuko. Why didn't you come back when I bzzzz...."

Shampoo fell out of her dream state then flung a bonbori at the TV. "Stupid
Japanese TV. Shampoo should buy one from Taiwan." She got up and wiggled the
antenna to get a better picture. The picture stabilized and became clear as
she held the coat hangar but fizzed out when she released it. "Mousse!"

Mousse entered the sacred domain of his beloved. "Yes Shampoo? What can I do
for you?"

"Hold TV wire." 

"You mean like this?" Mousse touched the coat hangar that doubled as an
antenna and the picture became crystal clear.

"Good Mousse. Mousse stay while Shampoo watch." Shampoo curled up to watch
the conclusion of the episode imagining the girl in the picture was her with
the hero being Ranma.

An hour later, Mousse gladly changed into his duck form to rest his wings in
his pen. He was happy to be of service to his beloved Shampoo.


========================================


Nabiki sat during lunchtime reading Forbes Japan and listening through
headphones to the financial report from the evening news in the United
States on a pocket radio. Tatewaki Kuno approached with an expectant look on
his face. "Miss Tendo, I have come to ask a favor of you."

Nabiki gave a sultry purr. "Oh Kuno baby, favors are my specialty. What ever
do you desired?"

"I desire the location of the pig tailed one. I happened upon her this
morning and she was wearing a Furinkan High School uniform."

Nabiki chuckled then held her laughter.

"I see no humor in this Nabiki."

"Sorry, I got something in my throat, please continue."

Kuno straightened himself. "As I was saying, the pig tailed one must be a
student here. I would like to know where she is being educated since I had
not seen her on the school grounds today."

"That's a little difficult. You see, she's a special case and... Well...
They make exceptions for people like her."

"The exception? What is it?"

Nabiki knew she had him hooked. She held out her open palm in anticipation
for her reward for a job well done. "Three thousand yen please."

Kuno slipped her three one thousand yen notes. She quickly made the money
vanish in a way that most professional magicians would have envied. "She's
in Ranma's class. Wherever Ranma goes, she goes."

"Ranma? Ranma Saotome? The enslaver of women." He produced a bouquet of
flowers from nowhere. "Now I will meet with Akane and the pig tailed one."
He ran off. "I will allow them to date with me."

Nabiki shook her head smiling at the easy three thousand yen she got.
"Should have asked for five thousand." She put her headphones back on and
got a weird annoying carrier tone. She could still hear the broadcast, but
the noise made listening painful. She adjusted the tuning knob to get a
better signal but it was to no avail. "Oh well, it was boring anyways."


========================================


The hive was getting restless. The countdown had begun and the stasis
chambers were being deactivated. Countless millions of the travelers were
awakened to begin preparation to disembark the mother ship to take residence
on their new home.

The pilots shut down the hyper drive, enabled the inertial dampers and
activated the energy to motion drive to gradually slow down the massive
craft. The lead pilot fed his thoughts into his console to command it to
display the projected course though the Terran solar system. He double
checked for space debris and waved in approval. The course plot appeared on
consoles all over the ship. Two dots flashed to show the location of their
craft and their new home with the distance between them rapidly getting
narrower. A series of vertical bar patterns appeared on the side of the
image to denote the countdown stages for Earth orbit and the other phases of
the great plan.

The pilot requested the computer to pull up images of their destination.
Realistic photos channeled directly into his mind showed a scene of a
massive redwood forest. He imagined that he was standing among the trees
breathing in the fresh clean air. The smell of the crisp air was a sensation
that was for most of the ship's occupants, only a distant memory. He
rejoiced that the memory would be transferred into reality in only one
hundred hours.


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Author's Notes: Please review my story. It makes me feel oh so happy and
prevents me from covering your home in toilet paper.

Bill Heineman
February 18th, 2003
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burger@contrabandent.com
http://www.contrabandent.com/burgerbill
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