Disclaimer: All characters are copyrighted by their respective creators.

Saotome sighed as he stared at the darkened lounge. Before him, a plate 
of food, barely touched.

"Can't sleep?" Saotome looked up to see Ryoko standing in the lounge 
doorway.

"Jus thinkin," Saotome replied.

"Ah," Ryoko pulled a drink from one of the cupboards and sat down on the 
other side of the lounge table. "What's her name?"

Saotome stared at her. "How?" Ryoko said nothing, but simply stared at 
him. "Kodachi," Saotome replied. "Her name is Kodachi."

"Miss her, huh?"

"Sort of...I dunno. We never got along as kids, but once we left 
Mandatory--I mean, had the education the law says we hafta have, she 
seemed to change. We went ta different schools, but her older brother 
and I had a blood fued goin since we was in Primer--uh, kid's school."

"I take it you won?"

Saotome shrugged. "He's such a deranged git that I can't bring myself to 
kill him. So I just knock him out with a kick to the head. You would 
think that he would get the idea after a while, but he just keeps 
coming."

"Are you sure that's the only reason?"

"What do you mean?"

Ryoko laughed. "You're a lot like he was." She stood up. "You have his 
eyes," she said sadly and left the lounge.

"What the hell?" Saotome asked.

No one answered.

****
The Devo Bazaar was a huge asteroid two Sol units from a double star. 
The only planet was a gas giant with several moons, none of which were 
habitable. At some point, the asteroid had been gutted and filled with 
huge decks which in turn were packed with vendor stands. It never 
closed, it never stopped. Merchants came from all over the TerJurai 
Empire and beyond to sell and buy.

Wrapped in plain cloaks that concealed lightweight body armor, Ryoko, 
Saotome, Shidou and Utena exited the hanger, Ryo-Oki perched on Shidou's 
shoulder and looked weary. The freighter had been left at the very edge 
of the system, concealed admist the ice comets and dust that made up the 
Devo system's oort cloud.

"Stay alert," Ryoko cautioned them. "You have the list?"

"Yeah, yeah. Relax. We've done this before." Shidou said and she and 
Utena vanished into the crowd.

"Come on," Ryoko said to Saotome and led him in another direction. 
"Nabiki is a cyber hive mind," she said. "Its made up of several hundred 
plus individuals connected by subspace. Their personalities are 
submerged into the group mind and every one of them knows what the 
others know and they all have access to one of the most extensive 
libraries in the Local Cluster."

"Prometheus?" Even on Japan, Saotome had heard of Prometheus, the 
legendary computer that supposedly contained the sum of all knowledge in 
the known universe. But only a select few were ever able to access it in 
all of the TerJurai Empire's  nearly forty thousand year history. 
However, Prometheus had disappeared several thousand years ago. How and 
why was a mystery.

Ryoko shook her head. "No, it's something it came up with. Anyways, 
about seven thousand years ago or so, the Church decided that Nabiki was 
an offense and directed that it be eliminated. That war is what sparked 
the Accords of Separation which protects the merchant class from direct 
interference by the Church. But there's always fanatics and the Church 
never withdrew its directive, just quit talking about it. So Nabiki went 
underground and conceals its activities in places like this." Ryoko 
stopped before one aisle.

"The food quarter?"

Ryoko shrugged. "It does have a sense of humor, you know."

"But food?"

Ryoko shrugged again. "Every species uses food for money at some point 
in their history and Nabiki is very interested in money. So in a place 
like Devo, finding it in the food quarter makes sense."

"Weird," Saotome muttered and then had to pull himself up short as Ryoko 
stopped. "What's wrong?"

"What do you see?" Ryoko asked, pointing ahead of them. Saotome looked 
where she was pointing, but only saw several closed stands, one with 
empty display racks still out.

"Nothin, just..." then it hit him. "The display racks." Under his cloak, 
his hand found Nerima's hilt. "The Nabiki?"

"Yeah." She grabbed his shoulder. "Stay alert."

What happened next Saotome couldn't quite say. One moment, they were 
standing on the street, there was a sensation of being everywhere yet 
nowhere and then he was in a darkened room. Shelves were cleared, debris 
on the floor. From behind him, he could hear the sounds of the bazaar. 
In front of him was a dim light shining through heavy curtains and his 
nose wrinkled at the smell of death.

Without saying a word, Ryoko shed her cloak and ignited her sword, 
gesturing for him to do the same. Then she grasped the curtain and 
jerked her head to the right as she pointed her sword at him. Saotome 
nodded and set himself, Nerima humming to life.

Ryoko tore aside the curtain and Saotome lunged in, sweeping his sword 
up, aware of Ryoko doing the same to his left.

"Most impressive," croaked a voice. Seated on a cushion was a 
wrinkled...something. It took Saotome a minute to realize that it was 
TerJurai. It wore a voluminous blue colored robe, a red cap sat upon 
long bluish-white hair and a thick cable ran out of the side of its 
neck, down the side of its body and into a black box. Two dead Dernans 
in the robes of Church Acolytes lay on the floor in pools of purple 
blood. The Nabiki itself had one hand pressed to its side and Saotome 
could see blood pooling on the floor. He heard Ryoko gasp.

Ryoko gurgled some name and then took a deep breath. "Hello, Nabiki," 
she said again, her voice far too level.

"Do not concern yourself with this Node, her time was drawing near 
already," Nabiki said. Red eyes, bereft of warmth and emotion, shifted 
to look at Saotome. "Satisfactory," it said and looked back at Ryoko. 
"Why did you seek me out?"

"Kagato's asking questions about something called Helios." Ryoko handed 
the data link to Nabiki. Smoothly, Nabiki pulled a cord from the black 
box and connected to the link and after a moment, almost seemed to smile.

"Your memory is slipping, Ryoko. Surely you remember that known as 
Washu's folly."

"Folly? Of course!" Ryoko looked jublient for a moment and then her jaw 
dropped. "Aw hell. Already?"

"Yes. And I suggest you hurry, for some reason, some Church Soldiers 
seemed to have decided to investigate one of the disposal chutes 
personally."

"Aw cripes."

"You must go to Chas to find the one who holds the map, Demon Caller. 
Seek out the Builder. Goodbye." The black box exploded in a shower of 
sparks and the Nabkiki's eyes suddenly gained warmth. "Ryoko?"

"Yeah, its me, kiddo."

"Its good to see you again, Ryoko. It's been a while."

"Yeah..." Ryoko trailed off, staring at the floor and then she went to 
her hands and knees. "I'm sorry, I-I couldn't--I never meant..." Tears 
flowed down her cheeks.

"I know, Ryoko, and I was wrong to blame you for her death...I forgive 
you...I think she does too. Don't blame yourself for what happened to 
us. You had a choice to make is all. We all make choices." A hand, 
wrinkled with age, stroked the ruined black box. "I made mine a long 
time ago. Go, Ryoko, give us back the moonlight. I will stay here 
and...rest for a while." She looked at Saotome. "He has his eyes," she 
said, as though awed. "Goodnight, Ryoko."

"Goodnight, Sasami," Ryoko said, voice thick with emotion. Sasami's eyes 
closed and then she faded from sight in a stream of golden and blue 
sparkles. Ryoko took a deep breath through clenched teeth and dashed her 
tears away with one swipe of her hand. "Grab the cloaks."

****
"Miya!" Ryo-oki cried as it flew out of Devo and steamed towards the 
Oort cloud.

Inside, Saotome slowly uncovered his ears, only to cover them as Ryoko 
blasted Utena and Shidou with another stream of profanity. Finally, the 
cyan haired woman seemed to run out of obscenities, or at least needed 
to pause for breath.

"At least we disposed of the bodies," Shidou ventured and then cringed 
as Ryoko cut loose again.

"That's not the point, Breaker take you both!" Ryoko shouted when she 
was done screaming. "I said it repeatedly! Stealth! Unobtrusiveness! 
Stay away from the farkin Church! Buy the damn supplies and get back to 
the damn rendezvous point. Not go find a squad and amuse yourselves!"

"The disposal chute needed testing," Utena said in a flat voice and then 
she drew back as Ryoko turned the full force of her anger on her.

"YOU'RE NOT MAITENENCE! EITHER ONE OF YOU!" Ryoko screamed and then 
shouted obscenities for several minutes before falling silent, breathing 
heavily. "At least, at the very least. Please, please, please, tell me 
that nobody saw you two morons." Both women shook their heads. "At least 
that's something."

"And we got the supplies." Shidou chirped.

"Shut up," Ryoko growled.

****
"Chas?" Shidou asked as the freighter leapt into hyperspace. "What the 
hell is on Chas? Where is Chas?"

"A few Galaxies over," Ryoko said absently, and turned to the console to 
the left of the controls, fingers dancing over the keys. "At the edge of 
the cluster. There's something there we need."

"And that would be?"

"A map."

"A treasure map?"

"A weapon. Its almost as old as the empire itself, but it should be able 
to take on Churchworld. It was a silly idea to begin with but its not 
like anyone actually stopped to think back then. Lady Mercury was the 
only one who advised against it, but the rest were all mad with grief 
and she got swept along."

"I hate it when you do that," Shidou grumbled.

"Do what?"

"Talk about ancient history like you were actually there. Gives me the 
creeps."

Ryoko stopped typing and turned to look at Shidou, her expression one of 
amusement. "What if I was?"

"Ha!" Shidou barked. "Funny, Ryoko. Reeeeallll funny. Why don't you just 
admit you're a history buff?"

"I'm not a history buff," Ryoko chuckled and assumed an expression of 
mock superiority. "I just paid attention in school."

Shidou roared with laughter.

*****
That night, Saotome was appointed cook and using the supplies Shidou and 
Utena had picked up on Devo, cooked up some stew.

"Stew?" Shidou asked as Saotome set the pan on the lounge table but 
nevertheless took a large helping. "Damn! This is delicious!"

"Pops and I spent a lot of time on the road training," Saotome said as 
he took his own place. "Stew's the easiest thing to make so we ate it a 
lot."

"Training?" Utena asked.

Saotome nodded. "Pop's side of the family practices something called 
"Anything goes. Strictly unarmed hand to hand but there's a technique 
for everything. Every summer, Pops and I walked all over Japan and once 
even we went over to China."

"How'd you do that?" Shidou asked. "Swim?"

"Don't be silly. China's fifteen light years from Japan. We took a ship, 
like normal people."

"Fifteen light-years is a bit of a long swim," Utena noted dryly, her 
wit earning her an elbow in the ribs from Shidou which caused her to 
knock over a water glass and Saotome's world jerked as he lost a few 
inches in height. "Sorry," Utena said as Saotome loosened his tunic so 
it didn't constrict his chest and his pants so they would stop cutting 
into his hips. "I forgot about the curse."

"Its not a curse, its a virus," Saotome said. "I'll deal with it."

"Its like looking into a damn mirror," Shidou grumbled.

"So you picked up the virus on China?" Ryoko asked.

Saotome nodded. "China has about a dozen moons and they're all 
habitable. We were on Jusenkyo looking at some old scrolls and this 
Jusenkyoin just steps out of nowhere and dumps it on me. Both Mom and 
dad thought it was hilarious. All my schoolmates just stared and one of 
'em convinced himself that the female me was somehow my prisoner. That I 
held her soul in bondage or somethin. Almost every day he attacked me, 
proclaiming that he would free her. Bad enough we already had a blood 
feud going, but now this?"

"So when did you kill him?" Shidou asked. Saotome shrugged. "You haven't 
killed him yet? Well why the hell not? Enemies are for killing. That's 
why we have them."

"He's so deranged, I can't bring myself to do it." Saotome admitted.

"Stretching out a blood feud because of pity," Utena noted. "Worthy on 
some level I suppose."

"Pity, shmitty," Shidou said and pointed her spoon at Saotome. "If he's 
that nuts, killing him will be doing him a favor. Do it, Saotome. Take 
that sword of yours and jab it into his brain. You'll be better off for 
it."


Later, when the table had been cleared, Saotome sat and watched as Utena 
and Ryoko played some bizzare board game called chess. Shidou sat on the 
far side of the lounge, bottle in hand. She had done that on Japan too. 
She always seemed to prefer to drink alone and by now, Saotome's 
curiosity was getting the better of him.

"Why's she always drinking by herself?" Saotome asked Utena.

Utena picked up a piece shaped like some kind of building and moved it 
four spaces. "Hikaru takes her drinking very seriously," she said.

Saotome considered this and then got it up and crossed the lounge and 
sat opposite Shidou, who stared at him.

"You cook pretty damn good," the redhead said, her voice rusty and 
coarse. "I wonder how well you can drink?" She tossed a fresh bottle at 
him which Saotome caught and opened. "We should drink to something I 
suppose. What should we drink to?"

"How about dreams?" Saotome suggested.

"Dreams," Shidou said sardonically, staring at something only she could 
see. "I'll tell you about dreams, Saotome. I knew a young lady once, a 
Cephiroan Pillar." Saotome blinked. His mother had told him that some 
Cepheroians had the power to link to planets, and could command them 
completely. Even terraforming them by strength of pure will. They were 
known as Pillars, for it was upon them that the world rested and many 
were worshiped as Higher Beings. "This Pillar had one dream. To find 
love. She did."

"That's good, right?"

"Not really." Shidou's lips twisted in a bizzare, bitter smile. "The 
bastard betrayed her. Started banging her best friend. The Pillar lost 
all faith and abandoned the planet, which self-destructed without her. 
Four billion people. Dead. All because the idiot trusted somebody. She 
vanished into the depths of the empire to wait to die."

"Checkmate!" Ryoko exclaimed.

****
Chas was a moon orbiting a medium size planet. At one point, something 
had left behind a deep crater one quarter the size of the planet, giving 
it the appearance of a crescent moon, or maybe a  wide open mouth. The 
red sun blazed merrily in the distance and few stars were visible. They 
were in the halo of a galaxy, high above the disk where the only stars 
were the either the ones dying or already dead.

"Dead planet, one barely livable moon, no usable minerals or strategic 
value," Shidou said. "In fact, the only thing keeping this rathole alive 
is that it sits on the inbound vectors from Cirrus, and with Gateways 
coming online more and more, hyperdrive is a dying technology."

"I didn't know you paid attention to socioecnomical politics," Utena 
said.

"I don't," Shidou replied. "But whoever wrote the last census for this 
place did. Its in the navcomp."

"Naturally," Utena responded with subtle sarcasm, earning her a glare 
from Shidou.

Saotome leaned on the back of Ryoko's chair, watching as she manipulated 
the freighter's controls with the grace of a musician. "We're not gonna 
take Ryo-Oki in?" He asked as Ryoko kicked in the asmotspheric controls.

"Nope. No need." The thrum of the main engine died away to be replaced 
by the howl of gravitic scramjets. "Besides, no place in the system to 
hide in. "This is a vector station, all the places to hide have been 
cleared out to fight smugglers."

"Not that there's anything around here to smuggle to," Shidou added as 
Ryoko landed at the edge of the settlement.

"Saotome's with me," Ryoko said. "You two stay here and com us if 
anything arrives."

"We know the drill," Shidou said in a bored tone.

"You said that on Devo too," Saotome said before he could stop himself. 
To his surprise, all three Senshi laughed.

"You're learning," Ryoko said. "Good." And she led the way off the 
bridge.


The Chas settlement was a small collection of stone houses built with 
local stone and pseudo wood. It was night time and a torch burned 
fitfully at the few cross streets. Not many people were about and the 
few that were regarded them incuriously.

Side by side, Ryoko and Saotome made their way down the street. Both 
wore long cloaks, and the gravel crunched under their heavy boots. Their 
breath steamed in the empty air and he could almost feel ice forming in 
his hair.

"Where are we going?"

"There." Ryoko pointed at a rude artisian's lean-to at the end of the 
street. "Nabiki said to find the Builder. Artists create, but its close 
enough."

"But wouldn't the port engineer be a better choice? I mean, they build 
stuff."

"Too obvious."

Saotome suddenly began to understand. "Its like riddles, isn't it? 
Nabiki's into money, so it hid the node in the food quarter of Devo 
which lives on money, and food has been used as money, which helps to 
move goods, services, and messages."

"A little convoluted," Ryoko said. "But close enough. The answers aren't 
in the words, but who they refer to. If you know who they refer to, then 
solving the riddles is easy. We're following a trail laid down thousands 
of years ago on the off chance that we might need Helios someday."

"But how do we know who they refer too?" Saotome had the feeling he 
wasn't being told everything.

"The Church doesn't write all the history books, Saotome," Ryoko said as 
they approached the lean-to. "Some still remember the truth."

The owner of the lean-to sold pottery, but there was something odd about 
them and it took him a minute to pin it down. The pottery was good 
enough, but there was no heart in them, as though the sculptor didn't 
quite understand the nature of art. The sculptor herself was an older 
woman with green eyes that blazed with harsh bitterness and they glared 
at Ryoko with undisguised hatred. She probably had been beautiful at one 
point, but time and harsh conditions had marred her skin. Dirty gray 
hair hung limply down her back and her clothing showed signs of .

"Come to gloat some more, Ryoko?" the woman asked from between clenched 
teeth.

"Hardly. You have something of mine. I want it back."

"Oh. That. I sold it."

"You what?" In a flash, Ryoko had the sculptor by the front of her robe. 
"I'm not in the mood for games, Mother." The Senshi's eyes seem to blaze 
with an inner light as she hoisted the sculptor from the ground. "I 
didn't wait all this time to be thwarted because you've decided that us 
lesser beings need to be reminded of your 'great intellect'. You killed 
a lot of people because of your damn ego, Washu. You're just lucky 
Tenchi had a soft spot for you and wouldn't let me wring your scrawny 
neck."

"I paid for my sins ten times over, Ryoko," Washu shot back. "Look at 
me. Stuck in the backwater, most of my power gone, my lovely machines 
destroyed--"

"Lovely machines?" Ryoko repeated and tightened her grip, causing Washu 
to gasp. "Can your lovely machines bring them back? Bring anyone back? 
Tenchi almost died because of you!"

"Careful, Ryoko, he'll learn before he's ready."

"Shut up," Ryoko snarled. "And give me the damn segment."

Washu held up a onyx black piece some kind of material and Ryoko 
snatched it from her, letting her drop. "Burn in the Breaker's Furnace," 
she said and stalked out of the lean-to.

"Goodbye," Saotome said and hurried after Ryoko.

Green eyes watched them go and then Washu's lips curved upwards in a 
smile that could only be described as insane. "For now, anyway."

Then the greatest scientific genius in the universe began to laugh.

****
"Hand," Ryoko said shortly when they reached the spaceport. Off to the 
left, the freighter sat, steam issuing from the exhaust vents. Ahead of 
them, the planet cleared the horizon of Chas, the great crater seeming 
to almost frame the stars.

Saotome held out his left hand and Ryoko slapped the onyx piece onto his 
hand right below his index finger. Swirling lights appeared in its 
depths as Ryoko grabbed his arm by the wrist and held it up to the 
planet, twisting so his thumb and forefinger were aligned with the lower 
curve. A thin, silvery line appeared to run from the tip of his 
forefinger to the tip of his thumb and then from the center of that 
line, a second one ran down diagonally to the segment...the two lines 
met over one of the dimmer stars visible through the crater and then 
some holographic numbers appeared in the shapes that the lines formed.

"Shidou," Ryoko said into the com. "Fire up the nav comp and enter these 
cords. " She read off the numbers.

"It comes up as some system named Great Wave. One planet, mostly ocean. 
No native sentient life. Heavy on the tourists though, apparently the 
storms are something to behold. Massively huge waves."

"Too obvious," Ryoko said her tone that of someone talking to themself. 
"Try different charts."

"Hang on...huh. Feed me to the Furnace. Something popped on a set of 
charts from some race called Gee Pee or something. It's another ocean 
world listed as New Atlantis in the Curry system. Not much of anything 
to speak of, generally considered useless."

"Doesn't matter. That's where we're headed. Get ready for takeoff," 
Ryoko said and walked towards the ship.

Saotome followed her, his mind whirling. It was now very apparenent that 
Ryoko knew more then she was telling and whatever was going on was 
centered directly on him. When they got back on board he was going to 
sit down with the library console and find some things out.

'What's the point?' whispered a woman's voice at the edge of his hearing.

Well, the point was...was...

'You're just being paranoid.'

Now that he thought about it, it did seem kind of egotistical to assume 
that this was all about him.

'Just forget about it.'

And he did.

-Steve "Komodo" T.
http://livejournal.com/users/pandoras_closet
http://livejournal.com/community/aberdawnknights



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